At the Big Red Rooster Read online

  She was not the only one!

  Next morning? A bright midwinter sun showed a ragged garden washed clean of any haunting, of any blood.

  ‘Thought I told you, Mickey Mouse, I like the chocolate ones best. Us front-row guys need the energy buzz,’ said Staunch, over afternoon tea. ‘Good storm, eh? Anything er… unusual happen round here?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Why should it? Was just a storm.’ I was not going to let on to him.

  ‘No er..?’ Staunch stood up. ‘Let’s take a look over at what you reckon is just a dog piss-patch and I know isn’t. Was full moon last night and I bet she came, storm’n all.’ And he dragged me up and over to the patch. ‘Bet we can spot where the old witch’s been.’

  We looked down upon the sterile ground. ‘Nothing there,’ I said. I was eager to get away from the place.

  ‘Oh, I dunno, ‘said Staunch, and he seemed to sound slightly disappointed. ‘Reckon I can spot a few gobs of blood. Yep. Bet she’s been here. She came in the night, alright.’

  I shivered. ‘Slept right through that storm,’ I lied.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Staunch smiled sweetly. ‘Wanna know what they did with old Ma’s body after they done ’er in?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No!’ more definitely.

  ‘Okay by me,’ Staunch shrugged. ‘You will, though. Bet you’ll be beggin’ me to tell you soon enough.’

  I knew I would, too. Like that pool of blood had drawn me, magnet-like, so too did Staunch’s telling of the ghastly happenings of this old place. I was being drawn deeper, deeper into a web of terror, a net of horror.

  By Saturday grey winter was back, misty, cold, bleak. Mum and me sorted out two more rooms and unpacked another load of stuff. ‘Are you sure you’re feeling all right, Mick?’ she asked me. ‘You’re looking rather pale and peaky these days.’

  ‘Fine, Mum,’ I said. Being the man of this haunted house was clearly taking a toll on me.

  ‘Probably just the change and all this foul weather. They tell me it’s the worst winter they’ve ever known around these parts.’ She brushed back a wisp of hair from her forehead. ‘I pray to God they’re right,’ she said, and I thought she sounded just a little sad. ‘Make us a cup of coffee, love. Any biscuits left?’

  Mum stood at the kitchen window, staring into the foggy gloom. I was at the fridge getting out the milk as she said, ‘Oh good Lord! Here’s the old lady, old Mrs Wichell. She’s coming up the path. I had quite…’

  I am pretty sure I knocked myself out when I slipped in the milk I dropped on the floor and I hit my head on a corner of the stove. I think that’s what happened.

  The first thing I saw when I came round was a little thin and very old face, sharp eyes, pointy nose and a nice kindly smile looking down at me. ‘Goodness gracious me, what a way to welcome me back to my old home. My word! There’s blood everywhere.’

  ‘I think he’ll survive,’ said Mum, plastering me up.

  ‘All right if I let Rover out of the car, dear?’ asked Mrs Wichell. ‘Poor old boy’s dying to water his horse.’

  ‘You’re… you’re… ’ I gurgled.

  ‘Goodness gracious, lovey. You are in a state,’ said Mrs Wichell. ‘You just have a nice rest for a few minutes. And I must ring Georgie-Porgie-down-the-road. I suppose he’s already told you he was my afternoon tea boy almost every day from when he turned five years old. I’d be leaving a fortune in my will if it hadn’t been for keeping Georgie O’Riley in biscuits for over ten years.’

  Mrs Wichell made a great fuss of me.

  Mum made a small fuss of me.

  ‘What you reckon, Mickey Mouse? Told you she’d come back to haunt the place,’ said Staunch, when he came up to see his last afternoon tea mate. ‘Believe me now, Mickey Mouse?’ he winked.

  ‘Yes, Georgie-Porgie,’ I said. Would he hit me lying down?

  ‘Goodness gracious,’ said Mrs Wichell, looking out the window. ‘What on earth is old Rover doing in his wee-wee patch? I don’t think he’s ever dug it up before.’

  There was Rover, all right, digging for all he was worth. ‘I think he can smell something, Mrs Wichell,’ I said, and I knew what it was and where it had come from. ‘What do you reckon, Georgie?’

  ‘Yeah. Well,’ said Staunch. ‘Could be. Me’n Mick’ll go and have a look and bring him in.’

  ‘Oh, and Mr Tom Cat sends his love, Georgie. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Never did get the skin off him for your coonskin cap, did you? Now, dear,’ she turned to Mum. ‘Tell me all about your plans for this old barn.’ ‘Come on, Georgie,’ I said. ‘Let’s go and get Mrs Wichell’s dog.’

  Three Women

  ‘THE BUDDLEIAS were along there. Along the fence line. Daddy planted them. Janie, you’d remember? Janie?’

  ‘Mummy, I’m cold. I want to go home. Where’s Daddy?’

  ‘Quiet, dear. Yes, Mother. I remember.’ Absently.

  ‘I remember when we got them. You’d be tiny then. Three? Four? No, I lie. It was soon after Uncle Bert went and Daddy thought we could all do with a day out. A picnic it was, we went right out the back of the old Jackson property. You know the place, where they’ve built all those new houses. Daddy found them growing wild among the river rocks. How on earth they ever found enough to keep them alive. I remember we had nothing with us to dig them out and the roots went right under the rocks for miles. You must have been five then. At school, surely. Yes. Yes, of course you were. You barked your hand that day and we had you off school for a week. It festered.’

  ‘Mummy when’s Daddy coming? Why are we here, Mummy? I’m cold.’

  ‘Hush dear. Grandma wanted to come.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘And he insisted on planting them and I said they’d never grow. They did, though. Ten feet tall, wouldn’t you say, Janie?’

  ‘Yes, Mother. All of that.’

  ‘I wish they hadn’t taken them out. I didn’t want to see them out. Why couldn’t they have left them?’ The old woman drew the thin fabric of her coat more closely to her spare frame.

  ‘Mother, really. What on earth did you expect?’ An impatient clicking, clucking. A softening. ‘Dear, really, they had to go. All of it has to go. The road.’ More gentle.

  ‘Seems so unfair somehow.’

  ‘Mummy, the wind’s eating me.’

  ‘They grew there for thirty years. And now they’ve gone. Do you remember the Robertsons, Janie?’

  ‘Of course I do, Mother.’ What in God’s name was keeping him? Why hadn’t he come back to pick them up?

  ‘Mummy…’ Half plaintive wail, half demand.

  ‘Oh, Sherryn, be quiet. Daddy’ll be back shortly. And you wouldn’t bring your jersey from the car. It’s entirely your own fault if you’re cold.’

  ‘Don’t rail at her so, Janie.’

  All she needed. What had possessed her to be this stupid? What was there for any of them in seeing the old place hammered down? Why hadn’t he come back? ‘I’m sorry Mother. It’s just I find it a bit much.’ Vague. ‘All this. …Sherryn, dear, go over by the big pine and shelter out of the wind.’

  ‘The big pine? You used to call it Castle. Your castle it was when you were little. Not much older than your er.., Sherryn, is now. Oh dear me. If anyone came within twenty feet, goodness…’

  ‘Yes, well.’ Lame.

  ‘Mrs Hodson, you know her. She’s in the room next to mine. She was telling me her little boy, well, he won’t be little now of course. Older than you I wouldn’t be surprised. He had a place just the same and he used…’

  ‘Yes Mother.’ Brusque. Finishing. And why had they chosen this bank as a grandstand? What had her mother said? ‘A good view from up there.’

  ‘Mummy, Mummy I want…’

  She grasped the child’s arm and turned so that her mother could not see. Spoke softly, tensely. ‘Sherryn, now listen to me. You’re a big girl. You wanted to come. You’ve told everyone you’re going to school next month, haven’t you? You’re big now. So, for heaven’s sake shut up. I know
it’s cold. I know it’s windy and I know there’s nothing for you to do and I don’t know when Daddy will be back.’ Breathed deeply. ‘So, be quiet, go down by the old tree and find a place out of the wind.’

  ‘I want to go wets.’

  Slowly. ‘Well, then, go behind the tree. Anywhere.’ She pushed the reluctant child from her.

  ‘It’s sort of blind, isn’t it, without all the windows? Like big black holes, staring.’ She shook her head. ‘Silly, aren’t I? Fancy me imagining things at my age.’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’ No warrant of fitness could take this long. Not for new, well, near-new cars.

  Her mother paralleled the thought. ‘Do you think Lesley’s found something wrong with his car, dear?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Mother. I hope not.’ Not while we’re still paying it off. ‘Anyway, it wouldn’t be Lesley finding anything wrong. He couldn’t tell the big-end from the ballbearings.’

  The child had wandered off. She stood, forlorn and unsure, on the dry and sterile earth beneath the big tree. This wasn’t her castle.

  The greyness of the day clung to them and its cold clawed through clothing and bit sharp on hands and face. Of the three the old lady appeared least affected. A grim, silent and close scrutiny of proceedings at the scene below. An occasional short, sharp burst of words, almost without volition, as some detail, observed, pulled at the strings of her memory. ‘Daddy once grew a sweet orange in behind the buddleias.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘They said it could never grow this far south. He proved them wrong.’ A trace of pleasure at the thought. ‘I wonder why they bothered with the windows? I thought Lesley told me they’d just pull it down. All of it at once, Lesley said.’ She held the remark close to her. A moment or two of reflection and then she spoke again. ‘Go and ask them, Janie.’

  ‘What?’ Her eyes were on her daughter, small, lost almost against the grey-black of the old tree trunk.

  ‘Ask them. Go and ask them.’

  She turned. Impatience sifted through. ‘Ask them what?’

  A small sigh, ‘Ask them about the windows.’

  ‘What about them?’ She shivered.

  ‘Janie, you never did listen to anyone. Go down and ask them. Ask that man with the red hair, he seems to be their leader.’

  ‘Yes? Well?’

  ‘Why they are taking the windows out. Lesley said they’d just pull the whole house down.’ Querulous. ‘And now they’re taking out all the windows.’

  ‘Mother, let’s go down by the old tree. Down by Sherryn.’

  ‘I’m all right here, thank you. You go if you want.’

  ‘They have to take the windows out before they knock the walls down or else there’d be glass everywhere. Lesley’s not always right.’ Quite fallible usually.

  ‘You go and ask them.’

  ‘There’s no point.’ It would embarrass her.

  ‘I’ll go myself then.’ A couple of testing steps.

  ‘All right. All right, I’ll go. For heaven’s sake stay here.’ Elaborate sighing, a quiet mutter.

  The old woman, alone now, smiled to herself.

  Forty years.

  Forty-one years. They had built the place. Had it built. She and Harold. Daddy. Funny, she’d not started calling him that from the beginning. Still, then, surely no one ever did. When the children came. Janie, Jane first. Reg and Bobby. Daddy? How silly.

  Well, old fellow, wherever you are after these five years, it’s really all over now. All over. Buddleias gone. Sweet orange. The old garden shed. Only thing you ever built with your own hands, that old shed. Bit rickety then. Downright unsafe by the time council and family had managed to prise her from the place. Still, it had stood the test and she had not suffered their offers to build her another after he had gone, before they knew the house would have to go. If any monument, memorial is required by any of us, then Daddy’s shed stood for him. And for all the years it had stood there, bare and unadorned, never painted, slowly subsiding, capsizing almost. A catalogue of their years. Rusting iron roof and a door that needed wedging shut, levering open. Door never did fit.

  Unlined interior, its timbers a mute testimony, history. ‘Spuds planted 6/9/41.’ ‘Janie’s bike 7/4/44.’ Her birthday. A brittle, laconic summarizing of family progress. A summing of the years. Potatoes, carrots, onions, bicycles. Pencilled.

  She had attempted providing the full-stop. One warm summer day. A fit of whimsy. She had been alone. Often alone the length of those last years. Sunday afternoon and she had cooked her dinner. Full roast. Never anything less.

  Something took her to the shed. She seldom used it, preferring the convenience of one of the unused bedrooms as repository for cardboard boxes, bottles, the gradually decreasing detritus of a lone existence.

  She had sat an hour in the sun. Had waited, hopefully, doubtfully, that some of her family might call. They hadn’t come. She found herself in the shed. She had read for a while, recollecting, visualizing from the scribbled promptings.

  An epitaph. The place needed it. And there was an inch or two of space between the Pukekohe Longkeepers of ’47 and the entry for 1951; new rear tyres for the old Ford. The pencil, his pencil, was still there, niched, as it always had been, out of reach of the children, on the ledge above the rusting coat-peg which still held his old garden jacket. She took up the pencil. What would she put? It wasn’t easy this stepping into other shoes. What should she put? It wasn’t a harvesting. Or was it? Reaping? Certainly not tyres or bicycles. Her eye caught at what must have been his last entry. ‘Paid rates 17/8/66. Got rebate.’ Paid the rates. Fully paid up. Hadn’t that always been his way? Cash on the knocker. Not even when television came and they had been unable to manage the price of a set, had he permitted them the luxury of credit. They had saved then as had always been their way. Had taken four years of pinching pennies off the pension. Then he had died before the thing had sat a year in their front room.

  What would she put? She thought, she smiled to herself and she started to write. The lead broke and for a moment she stared in mild surprise at the jagged, raw wood where the point of the pencil had been. She had shrugged, returned the pencil to its corner and walked out into the sun. It didn’t matter. Her inscribing wasn’t really needed. It was all there already. ‘Paid rates 17/8/66. Got rebate.’ True. She never went into his shed again.

  She shivered against the cold and wondered why she had allowed her daughter to bring her here. Janie was down there now, at the bottom, talking with Red Hair. What was she saying? They were standing on the dirt where the shed had been. Poor old shed. First on the list. Easiest.

  The child had edged back. ‘Grandma?’

  ‘Yes dear?’ She seldom called her grandchildren by name. Seven of them. They all looked alike. Girls with short hair, boys with long. Or so it seemed. Didn’t see much of them. Much the same age. Never could get their names right. Didn’t really know them. This one? Silly, Sherryn? Not a good, right name. Poor Janie, too old, at whatever it was she had been, to start a family. Seemed she got no enjoyment from them. Snapped at them for nothing. Snapped and slapped. Had she done the same? Surely not. Funny, having children growing into middle age, nearing her age it seemed.

  ‘You lived down there?’ The child moved closer, pointed.

  ‘Yes dear.’

  ‘Is it your house?’

  ‘Yes dear.’

  ‘Mummy lived there. She told me.’ Flat statement.

  ‘Yes dear. And Uncle Reggie and Uncle Bob.’

  ‘Uncle Bob lived there?’ Unbelievable.

  ‘Yes. That surprises you?’

  ‘Did Daddy live there?’

  ‘No dear.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Your Daddy lived in town.’

  ‘Why didn’t he live there?’ Insistent.

  How to answer? ‘Because Mummy lived there.’ How ridiculous.

  It satisfied. ‘Where’s Mummy gone?’

  ‘You know where Mummy’s gone. You watched her go
. There, down there. Talking to that big man.’

  ‘He doesn’t look big. Why are they pulling your house down, Grandma?’

  Take the time, the trouble. Explain. ‘See the road? See it just beyond those trees?’

  ‘Yes. It looks like a snake.’

  ‘Yes. Yes it does. And that’s part of the reason.’ No, no, too involved. ‘Well, you see, it has to come right across here. They’re going to join it up over there. You can’t quite see where. It’s going to save half a mile and cut out that nasty corner where they always had the accidents. See over there…’

  The child’s interest had drifted. ‘You haven’t got a house, have you?’

  ‘No dear. Not now.’

  ‘My Mummy says it’s much nicer to have you in that hospital.’ Serious. Correct.

  ‘It’s a home, dear, not a hospital.’

  ‘But you said you hadn’t got a home.’ And all big buildings were hospitals. ‘It’s a hospital.’

  ‘No dear, a home. A home for old people.’

  ‘My Mummy says not to say “old”. It’s “elderly”. “Old” isn’t nice. We’re not allowed to say “old people”.

  Poor little mite. She looked down on the child, absently fondled the fair head. ‘I’m sorry, Sherryn.’

  ‘Are you elderly, Grandma?’

  A smile. ‘I suppose so.’ Was she? State of mind? Accidental weathering?

  ‘I’m going to school soon.’

  ‘Yes.’ And feeling more was needed. ‘That’ll be nice, won’t it?’

  ‘Jody Black goes to school.’

  ‘Does she dear?’ Lost again.

  ‘She’s six and she’s my friend.’

  ‘Goodness.’ Why, why had they taken those windows out? What had happened to them? Why was Janie taking so long down there? Just like her, always took her time. Her eye grasped at a new feature in the dismantling. Lack of feature rather. No wonder the old place looked so undressed. The ornamenting of the verandah, the fretwork, the beading had all been stripped, gone. No sign of it. To think, ten years back she had resisted the impulse to have the lot cut out. Everyone had been getting rid of it then. ‘So ugly, dear. Old fashioned and a haven for the spiders. Really dates the place.’ Fashion. Trim down to bare bones and paint white. Instead she had got the painter to repoint the lot in a good serviceable brown, with a nice cream for the weatherboards and a good coat of red on the roof to cover the rusting iron. Daddy had said that all the roof needed was a coat of paint. Another decade of life he had reckoned.