Shrine Read online

  Lights ahead. What town was that? Must be Banfield. He’d passed it on the way out. Not a bad little place. Two pubs on the High Street. What more could anyone ask? If the weather was nice on Sunday he might bring Sue out for a drink. She liked country pubs. More atmosphere. Real ale. Usually a fair selection of gumboots, polonecks, and tweeds. With the odd diddicoi thrown in to lower the tone.

  He squinted his eyes. Bend ahead. So bloody dark. Whoops. Brake. Downhill.

  The van levelled out at the bottom of the hill and Fenn eased his foot off the pedal. Sure these brakes are going, he told himself. Sometimes he suspected the delivery men sabotaged the vehicle as a mild protest against it being used by journalists. One day, someone was – Christ, what was that?

  He jammed his foot down and pulled the wheel to the left. The van skidded, turning almost a full circle, front end coming to rest on the grass verge by the side of the road.

  Fenn pushed the gear into neutral and briefly rested against the steering wheel. A sharp, quavering sigh later, his head jerked up and he swiftly wound down the window. He poked his head out into the cold night air.

  ‘What the bloody hell was it?’ he asked himself aloud.

  Something had run out from the darkness straight across his path. Something white. Small, but too big to be an animal. He’d almost hit it. Missed by a couple of inches. His hands were trembling.

  He saw movement, a greyish blur.

  ‘Hey!’ he shouted.

  The blur dissolved.

  Fenn pushed the car door open and stepped out onto the damp grass. ‘Hold up!’ he called out.

  Scuffling sounds came his way. Feet on gravel.

  He ran across the road and was confronted by a low gate, one side open wide. His eyes were swiftly adapting to the poor light, and the half-moon emerging from slow-moving clouds helped his vision even more. He saw the tiny figure again.

  It was running away from him along a path that was lined with trees. He could just make out some kind of building at the end of the path. He shivered. The whole thing was spooky.

  It had to be a kid. Or a midget. Fenn tried not to think of Du Maurier’s dwarf in Don’t Look Now. He wanted to get back into the van. His jiggling sphincter muscle could lead to an embarrassment. But if it was a kid, what was it doing out at this hour? It would freeze to death in this weather.

  ‘Hey, come on, stop! I want to talk to you!’

  No reply, just slapping feet.

  Fenn stepped inside the gate, called out once more, then began to run after the diminishing shape. As he pounded down the path and the building ahead grew larger and more visible, he realized he was in the grounds of a church. What was a kid running into a church for at this time of night?

  But the figure, still just in sight, wasn’t going to the church. It veered off to the left just as it reached the big cavern doors and disappeared around the corner of the building. Fenn followed, his breath becoming laboured. He almost slipped, for the path was muddy now, and narrower. He recovered and kept going until he reached the back of the church. There he came to an abrupt halt and wished he’d stayed in the van.

  A dark playground of silent, still, greyish shapes spread out before him. Oh, Jesus, a graveyard!

  The blur was skipping among them, the only moving thing.

  The moon decided it had had enough. It pulled a cloud over its eyes like a blanket.

  Fenn leaned against the side of the church, its flint brickwork rough against his moist hands. He was following a bloody ghost. It would roll into a grave at any moment. His instinct was to tiptoe quietly back to the van and go on his uninquisitive way, but his nose which, after all, was a newspaperman’s nose, persuaded otherwise. There are no such things as ghosts, only good ghost stories. Walk away from this and you’ll always wonder what you missed. Tell your friends (not to mention your pal the editor) you flunked out and they’ll never buy you another drink. Go to it, Ace. His nose told him, not his brain, nor his heart.

  ‘Hey!’ The shout cracked in the middle and the H was over-pronounced.

  He pushed himself away from the wall and strode boldly in among the grey sentinels. He blinked hard when he saw the conical-shaped mounds of dark earth at his feet. They’re making a break for it!

  He forced the explanation from himself. They’re molehills, you silly bastard. His weak smile of self-contempt was perfunctory. Fenn caught sight of the wispy figure flitting through the gravestones once more. It appeared to be making its way towards the back of the churchyard where large squarish shapes seemed to be lurking. Oh my God, they’re tombs! It’s a vampire, a midget vampire, going home to bed! Fenn didn’t find himself too amusing.

  He crouched, suddenly afraid to be seen. The moon was no friend; it came out for another peep.

  Fenn ducked behind a tilting headstone and cautiously peered over the top. The figure was clambering over a low wall. Then it was gone.

  Cold night air touched his face and he imagined lonely souls were trying to gain his attention. He didn’t want to move, and he didn’t want to stay. He didn’t want to look over that wall either. But he knew he was going to.

  The reporter crept forward, his knee joints already stiff from the cold. Dodging around the graves, doing his best not to disturb the ‘not-dead-but-resting’, he made for the back of the churchyard, towards the tombs standing like ancient, cracked supermarket freezers, their contents allowed to putrefy. He noticed the lid of one was askew and tried not to see the imaginary hand clawing its way out, skin green with age, nails scraped away, bones glistening through corrupt flesh. Cut it out, Fenn!

  He reached the wall and knelt there, not overly-anxious to see what lay beyond. He was shivering, out of breath (kept forgetting to breathe in) and scared stiff. But he was also curious. Fenn raised himself so that his shoulders were level with the top of the wall, head projecting like a coconut waiting to be shied.

  There was a field, slate grey and flat in the timid moonlight, and near the middle, some distance away, stood a contorted black spectre. Its multitudinous twisted arms reached skywards while the thicker lower limbs were bent in an effort to reach the ground from which it had sprung. The isolated tree provided a demonic relief in an otherwise dull landscape. Fenn’s eyes narrowed as he searched for the little figure. Something was moving. Yes, there it was. Walking directly towards the tree. It stopped. Then walked on. Then – oh Christ, it was sinking into the ground! No, it was on its knees. It didn’t move. Nor did the tree.

  Fenn waited and grew impatient. The beer he had consumed pressed against his bladder. He continued to wait.

  At last he decided if he didn’t make something happen, nothing would happen. He climbed over the wall and waited.

  Nothing happened.

  He walked towards the figure.

  As he drew near, he saw that it wasn’t a midget.

  It was a girl.

  A little girl.

  And she was staring at the tree.

  And she was smiling.

  And when he touched her shoulder, she said, ‘She’s so beautiful.’

  Then her eyes rolled upwards and she toppled forward.

  And didn’t move again.

  3

  ‘Who are you?’ he said at last in a half-hearted whisper. ‘Are you a ghost?’

  ‘No, I am not,’ Mary answered, her own whisper half-frightened. ‘Are you one?’

  Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

  Father Hagan lay there in the darkness, forcing his senses to break away from sleep’s gooey embrace. His eyes flickered, then snapped open. He could just make out the thin glimmer of night through the almost closed curtains. What had disturbed him?

  The priest reached for the lamp on the bedside table and fumbled for the switch. His pupils stung with the sudden light, and it was several seconds before he could open his lids again. He looked at the small clock, his eyes narrowing to a short-sighted squint, and saw it was past midnight. Had he heard something outside? Or inside the house? Or had
his own dream disturbed him? He lay back and stared at the ceiling.

  Father Andrew Hagan was forty-six years old and had been part of the Church for nearly nineteen of those years. The turning point for him had been two days after his twenty- seventh birthday when a mild heart attack had left him dazed, frightened and exhausted. He had been losing God, allowing the materialism of a chaotic world to confine his spiritual self, to subdue it to a point where only he was aware that it existed. Four years teaching History and Divinity in a Catholic grammar school in London, then three years in a madhouse comprehensive in the suburbs had slowly corroded the outer core of his faith and was chewing on the innermost part, the very centre of his belief which had no answers but merely KNEW. He had to retrieve himself. The closeness of death was like a prodding mother who would not allow her offspring to stay under the bedclothes for one moment longer.

  He no longer taught Divinity in the comprehensive school, just History, and occasionally he took an English class; religion in that particular school was almost defunct. Humanity had replaced the subject and the young teacher of Humanity had been sacked in his second term for blacking the headmaster’s eye. English had soon become Hagan’s second subject. No longer able to discuss his faith every day with curious, albeit often bored, young minds, his thoughts of God had become more and more introverted, restrained by shackles of self-consciousness. The heart attack, mild though it was, had halted the gradual but seemingly irrevocable slide. Suddenly he was aware of what he had been losing. He wanted to be among others who believed as he, for their belief would strengthen his, their faith would enhance his own. Within a year he was in Rome studying for the priesthood. And now he wondered if the earlier corrosion had not left a seeping residue.

  A noise. Outside. Movement. Father Hagan sat upright.

  He jumped when someone pounded on the door below.

  The priest reached for his spectacles lying on the bedside table and leapt from the bed; he went to the window. He drew the curtains apart, but hesitated before opening the window. More banging encouraged him to do so.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Cold air settled around his shoulders and made him shudder.

  ‘Just us spooks!’ came the reply. ‘Will you get down here and open up!’

  Hagan leaned out the window and tried to see into the porch below. A figure stepped into view, but was indistinct.

  ‘I’ve got a problem – you’ve got a problem – here!’ the voice said. The man appeared to be carrying something in his arms.

  The priest withdrew and quickly pulled on a dressing gown over his pyjamas. He forgot about slippers and padded downstairs in cold, bare feet. Switching on the hall light, he stood behind the front door for a few moments, reluctant to open it. Although the village was close, his church and presbytery were isolated. Fields and woods surrounded him on three sides, the main road at the front being the link with his parishioners. Father Hagan was not a timorous man, but living over a graveyard had to have some effect. A fist thumping against wood aroused him once more.

  He switched on the outside porch light before opening the door.

  The man who stood there looked frightened, although he was making an attempt to grin. His face was drawn, white. ‘Found this wandering around outside,’ the man explained.

  He moved the bundle in his arms towards the priest, indicating with a nod of his head at the same time. Hagan recognized the frail little body in the nightdress without seeing her face.

  ‘Bring her in quickly,’ he said, making way.

  He closed the front door and told the man to follow him. He turned on the sitting-room light and made for the electric fire, switching it on.

  ‘Put her on the settee,’ he said. ‘I’ll fetch a blanket. She must be frozen.’

  The man grunted as he placed the girl on the soft cushions. He knelt beside her and brushed her long yellow hair away from her face. The priest returned and carefully wrapped a blanket around the still form. Father Hagan studied the girl’s peaceful face for several moments before turning back to the man who had brought her to his house.

  ‘Tell me what happened,’ he said.

  The man shrugged. He was in his late twenties or early thirties, needed a shave, and wore a heavy thigh-length corduroy jacket, its collar turned up against the cold, over dark blue trousers or jeans. His light brown hair was a tangled mess, but not too long. ‘She ran across my path – I just braked in time. Thought I was going to hit her.’ He paused to look down at the girl. ‘Is she asleep?’

  The priest lifted one of her eyelids. The pupil gazed back at him without flinching. ‘I don’t think so. She seems to be . . .’ He left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘She didn’t stop when I called out to her, so I followed her,’ the man went on. ‘She ran straight up to the church, then round the back. Into the graveyard out there. It scared the bloody hell out of me.’ He shook his head and shrugged again as if to relieve tension. ‘Any idea who she is?’

  ‘Her name is Alice,’ the priest said quietly.

  ‘Why did she run in here? Where’s she from?’

  Father Hagan ignored his questions. ‘Did she . . . did she climb over the wall at the back of the churchyard?’

  The man nodded. ‘Uh huh. She ran into the field. How did you know?’

  ‘Tell me exactly what happened.’

  The man looked around. ‘D’you mind if I sit down for a minute – my legs are kind of shaky.’

  ‘I’m sorry. You must have had a nasty shock, her running out at you like that.’

  ‘It was the bloody graveyard that shook me up.’ He sank gratefully into an armchair and let out a long sigh. Then his face became alert again. ‘Look, hadn’t you better get a doctor? The kid looks done in.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll call one soon. First tell me what happened when she went into the field.’

  The man looked puzzled. ‘Are you her father?’ he asked, keen blue eyes looking directly into the priest’s.

  ‘I’m a father, but not hers. The church is Catholic, I’m its priest, Father Hagan.’

  The man opened his mouth, then nodded in understanding. ‘Of course,’ he said, managing a brief grin. ‘I should’ve known.’

  ‘And you’re Mister . . .?’

  ‘Gerry Fenn.’ He decided not to tell the priest that he was from the Courier for the moment. ‘You live here alone?’

  ‘I have a housekeeper who comes in during the day. Otherwise, yes, I live here alone.’

  ‘Creepy.’

  ‘You were going to tell me . . .’

  ‘Oh yeah. The field. Well, that was weird. I followed her in and found her just kneeling in the grass. She wasn’t even shivering, just staring ahead, smiling.’

  ‘Smiling?’

  ‘Yeah, she had a big beam on her face. Like she was watching something, you know? Something that was pleasing her. But all she was looking at was a big old tree.’

  ‘The oak.’

  ‘Hmn? Yeah, I think so. It was too dark to see.’

  ‘The oak is the only tree in that field.’

  ‘Then I guess it was the oak.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Then came the strange part. Well, it was all bloody – sorry, Father – it was all strange, but this was the ringer. I thought she might have been sleep-walking – or sleep-running to be more precise – so I touched her shoulder. Just gentle, you know? I didn’t want to frighten her. She just went on smiling and said, “She’s so beautiful,” like she could see something there by the tree.’

  The priest had stiffened and was looking at Fenn so intently that the reporter stopped speaking. He raised his eyebrows. ‘Something I said?’ he asked.

  ‘You said the girl spoke. Alice spoke to you?’

  Fenn was puzzled by the priest’s attitude. He shuffled uncomfortably in the seat. ‘She didn’t actually speak to me. More like to herself. Is there something wrong, Father?’

  The priest looked down at the girl and gently brushed her cheek with the palm of his h
and. ‘Alice is a deaf mute, Mr Fenn. She cannot speak, and she cannot hear.’

  Fenn’s gaze turned from the priest’s face to the girl’s. She lay there pale, unmoving, a rumpled frail figure, small and so very vulnerable.

  4

  ‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.

  ‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘We’re all mad here.

  I’m mad. You’re mad.’

  Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

  A hand lightly cuffed Fenn’s shoulder.

  ‘Hi, Gerry. Thought you had the graveyard shift this week.’

  He glanced up to see Morris, one of the Courier’s thirteen sub-editors, moving past him, his body half-turned in Fenn’s direction but his stride hardly broken as he made for his desk.

  ‘What? Yeah, you don’t know the truth of it,’ Fenn answered without elaborating. He turned his attention back to the typewriter, quickly reading through the last line he had just two-finger typed. He grunted in satisfaction and his index fingers rapidly stabbed at the machine once more. He ignored the apparent chaos around him: the clatter of other overused and badly-kept typewriters, the occasional curse or even less occasional burst of raucous laughter, the hum of voices, machines and odours. The hubbub would grow steadily through the day, building to a restrained frenzy which broke without fuss when the evening edition was finally put to bed at 3.45 p.m. Every trainee reporter soon learned the art of closing out the din, their thoughts, hands and black type on paper spinning their own frail cocoon of insularity.

  Fenn’s right index finger punched a last full-point and he ripped the paper with its three blacks from the machine. He read through it quickly, his smile turning into a broad grin. Shit-hot. Figure appearing like a white banshee in the night. Running out in front of the van. Chasing the apparition. Through the graveyard (could be a little bit more creepy, but let’s not overkill). The girl kneeling in the field, staring at the tree. She’s small, dressed in white nightgown. Alone. She speaks. Our intrepid reporter later finds out that she is – or was – a deaf mute. Terrific!