After Jake goes, Ben and I are sitting out in the colourful little garden and sharing a glass of coke when Sid comes out, looking all serious.
‘There’s something else,’ he says. ‘Something I should tell you, so that it all makes more sense.’
My insides contract. I kind of don’t want to know any more about the manor. I don’t think I can take it, but Sid’s been so kind that I nod and try to look open and
interested.
‘The little baby I mentioned,’ he says. ‘The one born to the servant girl. Lady Eleanor adopted him,’ he says. ‘She adored him. Treated him as her own
son.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘That’s kind.’ I’m wondering why Sid looks so worried.
‘He died,’ says Sid. ‘Little Albert. Got rheumatic fever and died just after his fifth birthday.’
I’ve gone cold from head to foot.
‘The grave,’ I manage through dry lips. ‘I saw the grave.’
Sid looks at me. ‘Lady Eleanor never got over it,’ he says. ‘Ever since then she roams about the manor, although we’d seen hardly anything until your family moved in.
Some say she’s looking for her lost child.’
The hair on my arms stands to attention. I put my fork down on the plate of uneaten cake in front of me. For one second I feel that buzz in my ears again and smell the rosemary and lavender from
the manor walled garden.
‘But why’s she after me, then?’ I say. ‘I don’t understand.’
And it’s true – at that moment, my head is muddled and nothing makes sense.
Sid leans fowards and rests his elbows on his knees so that he can gaze straight into my eyes. ‘Now, Tabs,’ he says. ‘You know why, lass. Yes. You know.’
And I shiver, but after a moment I get it and I nod.
The next day Dad turns up at the door to take me home.
There’s somebody else standing right behind him. Somebody smiling at me with her arms held out.
‘Mum!’
She folds her arms around me and buries her chin in the top of my head. It feels so good that I never want to let go. Ben joins in the hug and we stand there on Sid’s doorstep hugging in a
little world of our own while Dad hovers all awkward to one side, making apologetic grimaces.
Sid gives Dad one of his wise looks, but says nothing.
We’ve already agreed that there’s not much point me telling my parents about everything I’ve experienced at the manor.
‘People that don’t believe will just tell you you’re mad,’ says Sid. ‘Trust me, I know! That’s why over the years I’ve kept quiet about it. But you know
it well now, lass, don’t you?’
We exchange smiles.
‘Are you sure I can’t persuade you to come back to work?’ Dad is asking Sid.
Sid catches my eye.
‘You know,’ he says, ‘I’ve been meaning to take early retirement and treat my missus to one or two of them foreign holidays that everybody takes. So – no. I
don’t think I will.’
Dad nods, even though he looks sad. I feel sad too. I’m going to miss seeing Sid.
And now Mum and Dad are bundling me into the car to take me home and they are thanking Sid and Mrs Sid. She’s kissing me and she holds my hand firmly, just for a fraction longer than
necessary, and our eyes meet as I sit in the back of the car and I get a lump in my throat because Sid and his wife have helped me feel sane again.
Well – almost.
We drive back to the manor and Mum and Dad make a real effort to talk to one another in kind voices and I know it’s all for my sake, so I smile and try to chat about school and Jake and
normal things even though it’s hard. When I see the squareness of the manor loom up in front of us a shadow falls across my heart but I keep the smiling up so that they don’t
notice.
‘Are you home for good, Mum?’ I say as we enter the flat.
Mum strokes my hair out of my face. ‘I’m home for you at the moment,’ she says. ‘That’s what matters. Me and Dad will sort out the other stuff later.’
Dad flushes when she says this but he goes out for takeaway and we try to have a normal family evening in front of the television, and all the time I’m aware of the manor just sitting
there outside our door and waiting for me to do goodness knows what. I wonder if maybe the talk with Sid has somehow exorcised the spirits and that they might get bored with trying to frighten me
now.
Then Ben starts playing up and kicking my legs so I pull a face and shout, ‘OW!’ and then he does it again, only harder and this time I feel teeth biting at my foot, so I yell even
louder and try to toss him off my leg. But he carries on messing about so I have to keep shouting even though Mum and Dad are trying to watch television and in the end I just really lose my temper
and I shout, ‘Ben! Will you STOP that, please?’ And then I realise that the television has gone quiet because Mum has switched it off at the remote and, even though Ben has stopped
biting me, I’m aware that the sofa is kind of wobbling under where I’m sitting – and then I see.
It’s Mum.
She’s crying.
Great silent shaking sobs into her hands. They’re pressed right over her face and her shoulders are going up and down.
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ says Dad. ‘Well done, Tabitha. We’ve been back five minutes. And now this.’
‘It’s not my fault if Ben’s biting me!’ I say.
Mum cries harder but she’s looking up at Dad through wet eyes full of hatred.
‘Don’t you DARE blame Tabitha for everything!’ she says. ‘We’re hardly in a position to blame HER, are we?’
Dad makes a groaning noise and goes over to stand by the window. Mum’s crying so hard now that I’m frightened. Ben gets off my leg and goes to hide under the kitchen table.
When Dad turns round he looks furious. He glares at me and I sink against Mum for comfort.
I know what’s coming.
Nobody’s dared say it to me for well over a year. They’ve been hoping I’ll grow out of it, I suppose.
But I haven’t.
‘Tabitha,’ says Dad. He looks more like himself again now, less angry and just tired.
He comes over and crouches at my feet in a most un-Dad-like way. I’m not used to him being smaller than me.
He takes my hands in his big warm ones and then he says it.
‘This has got to stop.’
I
t’s a hot summer’s day just one year ago and I’m playing out in the Pavilion Gardens with Ben.
The Pavilion is right in the centre of town. It’s always looked quite weird having such a grand palace surrounded by parks and shops and traffic and normal life. The carved gothic towers
stretch up over the surrounding buildings so that wherever you are, you can always see how to get back there.
We have a private bit of garden because Dad’s the Keeper so it comes with our large flat. There’s a gate, which leads out of the walled garden and on to the main road, but Mum and
Dad always keep it locked to stop the public from snooping around and trying to peer into our home.
It’s worked, or at least, up until now.
I’m supposed to be looking after Ben.
‘You’re thirteen now,’ Mum says. ‘Old enough to have some responsibility.’
Mum loves living at the Pavilion. Sometimes she sneaks out of our flat at night and goes downstairs to the Great Ballroom to dance. I followed her once and watched her twirl and stretch around
the red carpet under the high domed roof.
I don’t love the house so much.
My mates reckon it’s the coolest thing ever when they come over after school and I show them around a palace with Dad’s bunch of keys jangling like skeleton bones on my hip, but
I’ve kind of got used to it now.
Sometimes it stinks.
I told Mum once after a really bad night when I hadn’t had any sleep and she sighed.
‘Big houses have very old and complicated plumbing systems, Tabs,’ she said. ‘It can sound a lot like other things. But it’s just pipes and water.’
Pipes and water.
Er, right.
Sometimes I think Mum must see me as a bit of an idiot or something.
I mean – there’s no way that what I hear in the night is ‘pipes and water’.
So on this hot summers day, Mum and Dad go off to the Palace Theatre down the road and they leave me in charge of my four-year-old brother and we play on the swings that Dad
has put up for us and we eat a picnic supper of scotch eggs and ham sandwiches. Ben goes to sleep on the picnic rug so I wander into the flat and get some ice cream out of the freezer and then
decide that I want the chocolate sauce that hardens into a crispy shell, so I hunt through all Mum’s cupboards and when I go back outside with a bowl for myself and another for Ben I see that
the rug is empty.
I don’t panic.
Not at first.
Ben is always off hiding and then springing out to surprise you, so I look behind all the big trees and shout, ‘Coming, ready or not!’ And then after a while it does seem very quiet
in the walled garden so I go into the flat and look around just in case he’s slipped back in and then my heart starts to thud a bit harder and another five minutes pass so I start to yell his
name out quite loud around the garden and there’s no reply.
I ring Mum’s mobile but it’s switched off for the theatre.
She said that if there was an emergency I should call the Pavilion security guard, so I ring his number and he turns up a few minutes later in his dark uniform and hunts about with me a bit.
Then says he reckons he should ring the police and that’s when I notice that the gate in the brick wall is open. I run out on to the main road in a panic and start shouting Ben’s name
really loudly and there’s loads of cars jammed up in a queue outside and groups of people standing about in the middle of the road and when I go back into the garden and into the flat, the
security guard is standing in our lounge talking to a load of other people in uniform. At first, I think they’re his friends from the Pavilion and then I realise that they’re all
looking at me in a particular way and that they’re actually policemen. After that my head goes dark and swimmy and somebody tells me to put it between my legs. Then Mum and Dad are back and
Mum is screaming, ‘NO! NO! NO!’ over and over and Dad is trying to comfort her and neither of them look at me.
They don’t look at me for days after that.
It was my fault, you see. Somebody else might have left the gate unlocked but I was supposed to be looking after Ben.
And I didn’t.
Which is why he came back to haunt me and . . .
I’ve been looking after him ever since.
M
um, Dad and I leave Weston Manor two weeks later.
We have to.
I’ve had two sessions with a new counsellor. I have to talk about Ben and my feelings about his death and so far it seems to be going kind of OK.
But Dad says we need to start a new life and that he can’t be a Keeper in a grand house any longer. He’s going to look for a day job at a museum and we’re to live with Gran
until he can afford to buy us a new house of our own. I’m going to stay at the same school though, which is kind of cool. I’ve had a chat with Jake and tried to convince him that
I’m not raving mad and I think he understands. We’re going to meet up in few weeks, although I don’t know if he will turn up and, in a way, I’d understand if he
didn’t. I hope he does, but he’s seen all my weirdness now and let’s face it, Tabitha Grey is never going to be ‘normal’.
‘We need to put you first,’ Dad says to me. ‘Get you sorted out.’
Thing have changed at the manor anyway.
Dawn has left.
Dad never mentions her. Neither does Mum. It’s like it never happened, except that Mum and Dad are also going to counselling now to try to save their marriage.
We move out of Weston on a rainy July day.
Dad’s car is pulled up outside ready. For a moment the four of us stand in a line looking up at the manor.
It looks back from its dark green shuttered eyes and white face.
Mum’s hair blows around her face. She’s struggling not to cry.
Dad stares at the manor and I can tell he’s missing his job as Keeper already.
I look up at the building and I don’t feel an awful lot. Not any more.
Empty, on the whole.
I’ve used up all my emotion. Nosebleeds have stopped too.
There’s a tug on my hand.
Ben.
He looks fainter now, less real. I can see through his stomach to the grass on the front lawn behind. I look down at his dark head and I let go of his hand.
‘Go on,’ I say. ‘I can’t look after you any more.’
I push him in the direction of the manor. He takes a few trembling steps away from us. His family.
I get into the car quick. Mum and Dad are already in and Dad starts up the engine.
‘Bye, Weston,’ Dad says. He puts the car into gear and we start to move.
‘Bye,’ I echo.
Ben stands on the top step staring after us. He looks so small and alone that my heart contracts.
‘Look at him,’ Mum whispers. ‘He never smiles any more.’
I grip her shoulder.
‘You mean,’ I start. ‘You mean – you can
see
him?’
Mum nods. There are tears running down her cheeks.
‘Always have, Tabs,’ she says. ‘And it was my fault as much as yours. You see – it was me who forgot to lock that gate.’
The car swings out of the drive, crunching over the gravel.
I don’t want to, but something makes me turn round for a last look.
Ben’s still standing by the big entrance door to the manor.
He’s not alone.
There’s a woman wearing a long black dress. She takes his hand.
They go inside and shut the door.
Weston Manor is based on Preston Manor in Brighton, Sussex. I’d like to thank the staff for their help in promoting and researching this book, in particular Paula
Wrightson whose tremendous enthusiasm for the project has shone throughout. Thanks also to Margaret Muskett for introducing me to Preston Manor in the first place, to Tim Brown of the Paranormal
Investigation Group Sussex for his early advice when I was researching the book, to Imelda Joanne Thomas for sharing my love of all things unexplained and to Leah, Philippa and the team at Egmont
for all their hard work and encouragement.