The Haunting of Tabitha Grey (8 page)

‘Let’s do upstairs,’ Gemma says. ‘I like those grand bedrooms.’

It’s a bit like the sun goes in when she says this but I’ve got a job to do for Dad and I’ve got Gemma right here next to me, so I smile and we head up the brown staircase
without me pausing to think about the footsteps I heard. I take a series of shots of Lady Eleanor’s bed with the floral bedspread and her dressing table with the silver-backed brushes and
I’m really getting into this now so I carry on, going from room to room and clicking away on my new gadget. When we’ve done all the first-floor rooms we head downstairs and then Gemma
stops at the bottom of the stairs and says, ‘Take a picture of the staircase, Tabs – your dad will want a record of all these paintings.’ She’s right, so we stand at the
bottom of the staircase and I take a couple of quick photographs before Gemma gets really hungry and we head back to the flat to see if Mum has got lunch.

I kind of remember this morning for a long time afterwards.

For three hours, I wasn’t scared.

For three hours, I had fun.

For three hours, I managed to stop being Tabitha Grey the weirdo and just be ‘Tabs’ the teenage girl, on half term and having a good time with her best mate.

Three hours is not very long, really.

Mum cooks us up a pasta thing with bits of bacon in it and Gem devours the whole plateful like it’s the last meal she’s ever going to eat or something, and I pick
at mine and try to look like I’m enjoying it.

‘Are you still feeling off-colour?’ asks Mum, placing her hand on my forehead. ‘You do look a bit peaky. You’re not hot, though – cold, if anything.’

I sigh.

‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘I’m OK. I’ve probably just got a summer cold or something.’

Mum looks doubtful but pulls a tub of chocolate-chip ice cream out of the freezer, gives me and Gem a spoon each and leaves us to it.

Then I try to link up my new iPhone to my laptop and Gemma helps me. It doesn’t actually take very long at all and there are all my colour photographs downloading on to the screen so that
I can look at them blown up in size and decide which ones I’m going to email to Dad for his inventory.

‘They’re good,’ says Gem. She’s curled up in the corner of the sofa next to Ben and he’s got his head on her shoulder. Ben always did like Gem. She’s fun and
soft-hearted, just the sort of person he likes. He stares up at her with his thumb stuck in his mouth and she fiddles with her jewellery and her phone and asks me embarrassing questions about Jake,
and then her phone rings and it’s her mum asking her to come home and pick up some food shopping on the way. So she goes at three o’clock. Mum has gone for a lie-down so it’s just
me and Ben and the photographs.

I page through the photos and admire my handiwork.

‘I could make a career out of this!’ I say to Ben, but he’s not very interested in my mad plans for the future and sits on the floor instead, so I page through on my own.

‘That’s good,’ I say, when the picture of the Chinese lions comes up. ‘Dad could use that.’

I run through all the photographs until I reach the very last one.

‘Oh,’ I say. It’s the one I took on the staircase and there’s a dark smudge right in the middle of the photo which I stupidly rub on the screen.

I hit the zoom button and the photo on the staircase is blown up to about five times the original size.

For a moment I can’t think what I am looking at. And then I look a little closer, and as I stare I feel my skin going clammy and my hands turning ice-cold.

It’s not a smudge.

The more I stare at it, the more I see.

There’s the outline of a black dress. Long, with a nipped-in waist and a corset top.

No head.

There’s an arm, though.

A white arm, reaching out to touch the carved oak banisters of the manor staircase.

And at the very bottom of the black smudge, a smaller shape with fuzzy edges so that I have to stare and stare even though I really don’t want to and my ears are buzzing like a faulty
fridge.

I know what it is even before I work out the shape.

It’s tiny, black and with pointy ears.

One of Lady Eleanor’s dogs.

On the floor next to me, Ben starts to cry.

When Dad comes back into our flat I’m huddled in the corner of the sofa with my laptop still on.

I’ve got to show Dad and he’s got to see it. He’s got to start believing me. He’s got to. Otherwise I might go mad soon. Either that or I will just drop dead of being
scared.

‘Good day?’ says Dad, filling the kettle behind me and then coming to see what I’m doing.

Honestly. He must be one of the most unobservant people on the planet. I mean – you’d only have to look at my pale face and runny eyeliner to know that I’d been crying. But Dad
seems never to see things like that. He doesn’t see it in Mum, either. Sometimes he thinks she’s been having a great time when really she’s been crying herself to sleep and
refusing to eat.

Dad flings himself down next to me and loosens his top shirt button.

‘Hey, you’ve done the photos!’ he says. ‘Mind if I have a look?’

He pages through the pictures making the odd comment and then he gets to the last one.

‘Oh, shame about the blurry bit,’ he says. ‘Never mind. You can do it again another time for me.’

I don’t say anything. I lean forwards and click the magnify button so that Dad is looking at exactly the same thing I’ve just had to see.

He peers a bit more closely. Then he gets his glasses out and puts them on the end of his nose and peers again.

I watch his face.

It goes from being puzzled to being something else. Just for a split second. For an instant my dad looks unsettled. Like somebody took the wind out of his sails. Then a great big smile breaks
over his face.

‘Nice one, Tabs!’ he says. ‘You nearly had me going there! I didn’t realise that Kevin had put that app on for you. Well, it obviously works!’

I feel my heart sinking towards my feet.

‘What app?’ I say.

‘The Photoshop app!’ says Dad. ‘You’ve worked out how to use it already. I’m impressed!’

I shake my head so hard that I give myself a headache.

‘No, I don’t know what you mean, Dad,’ I say. ‘I haven’t got a Photoshop app. I don’t even know what it is.’

Dad laughs and goes over to make himself a cup of tea.

‘Kevin must have thought you’d enjoy it,’ he says. ‘Downloaded it on to your phone as a surprise. Probably thought you could have some fun messing about with it. I mean
– the manor’s a brilliant place for doing fake photos, isn’t it?

This is some kind of joke. Doesn’t Dad realise that this sort of stuff isn’t exactly my idea of fun?

‘I don’t even know how to find the app,’ I whisper but Dad has already got tired of me and my photos and has gone off to have a shower, so I just put my arm around Ben and we
sit there in silence for ages until Mum wakes up and comes out to make dinner.

She’s in a good mood and I so want to tell her everything, but Mum’s funny about hearing anything to do with ghosts and so I can’t.

There’s nobody I can turn to for help and nobody believes me.

Except Ben.

But he’s too little to do anything about it.

I watch television with Mum while we’re eating supper but I can’t remember a thing about what we watched.

We have to carry on living here. And I’m more frightened than I’ve ever been in my life.

I
t’s like this huge relief to get back to school for the rest of the term.

Never thought I’d hear myself think that, but it’s true.

I even want to see Jake now. We never got to meet up in the end what with me being ill or him playing football and now I want to see somebody ordinary and do normal boyfriend/girlfriend stuff
like going shopping and seeing films.

After a really bad night’s sleep I can hardly wait to run down the corridor to the front door of Weston Manor and burst out into the fresh air.

Not sure I ever want to come back.

I leave Mum and Dad arguing in the kitchen. I can’t quite make out what it’s about because they’re conducting the entire row in muttered voices under their breath so that I
can’t hear, but I catch Ben’s name and my own and Mum is pale with black circles under her eyes, which means that the migraines have come back.

As I leave the flat I swear I hear Mum mention Dawn, but I’m not sure.

She hasn’t arrived yet. It’s too early for her to be setting up her desk. There’s a cleaner polishing windows in the entrance hall and a man up a ladder fixing a light bulb but
other than that the manor feels kind of empty and calm.

Not like it did the other day when I heard the steps on the stairs.

‘Weird old house,’ I mutter as I heave open the enormous front door. The cleaner hears me and thinks I’m speaking to her so I have to spend another five minutes making polite
conversation with the old lady in an apron holding a plastic bucket.

‘Expect you’ll be looking forward to this evening,’ she says.

I’m halfway out of the door but I turn around, sneaking a quick look at my watch. The bus will be outside the manor in one and a half minutes and I’m going to have to run like stink
to make it.

‘This evening?’ I say. ‘Why? What’s happening?’

The woman laughs, snapping off her rubber gloves and rolling them into a ball.

‘Can’t believe that your father hasn’t told you,’ she says. ‘We have a ghost hunt on the second Monday evening of every month. People pay a lot of money to get a
look around this house at night-time.’

I fight an urge to burst out in uncontrollable fits of giggles.

There’s not much point me telling her that all the action I’ve witnessed so far has taken place in the DAY.

But then it’s like she reads my mind and she says: ‘Most people don’t see anything. Mind, there’s been one or two who can.’

That’s got my interest. I can hear in the distance the sound of the bus engine whining by but I don’t care.

‘Who?’ I say. ‘Sid?’

The cleaner laughs again.

‘He wouldn’t let on if he had,’ she says. ‘But some of the volunteers and guides who work here have had something happen to them. Doors slamming, voices. That kind of
thing.’

I laugh in what’s supposed to be a scornful way.

‘But those things could be caused by real-life people,’ I say. ‘How do you know it’s anything to do with ghosts?’

The woman leans her mop against the reception desk and gives me a considered look.

‘I don’t believe in it, myself,’ she says. ‘Nothing’s ever happened to me.’

I notice she’s wearing a tiny gold cross around her neck. When she says this, it glints and sparkles in the sunlight coming through the windows.

Then she turns away, shaking her head and smiling an annoying little smirk so I pelt down the steps and out across the gravel drive towards the entrance gates with their carved pineapples on
top. I wait for the next bus and spend the rest of the morning explaining to teachers why I was too late to make assembly.

Jake comes up to me during break-time. Tie too short. Shirt un-tucked and crinkled. Trousers baggy and falling down around his skinny hips.

Not fair. If I even so much as wear an ear hoop the teachers are down on me like a ton of bricks and all of the girls have to wear their hair in ponytails or hair-bands during the day. My
hair’s too fine to be worn in either of those ways but there’s no point arguing with the teachers or you just get shoved into detention after school.

So I’m just sitting on a wall banging my heels against the brick and watching a couple of girls try to scratch each other’s eyes out when Jake comes up to me all casual and says,
‘Awight?’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘At least, I think so. There’s some weird stuff going on at home but apart from that.’

‘Yeah?’ says Jake, but I can tell that he’s not interested in what’s going on at the manor. He’s looking me up and down and hopping from leg to leg.

‘So,’ I say, trying to get his attention back. ‘Good half term?’

Jake lets his dark blue eyes rest on me for a moment.

‘It was OK,’ he says. ‘Sorry we never got to meet up in the end though. I kind of, erm, like, missed you.’

Then he goes all red and turns away to fake interest in what’s going on in the football field.

I smile. I’ve decided to be nicer to Jake. It’s good to hear that somebody likes me.

The bell rings for afternoon double maths. I groan and get up.

‘Don’t s’pose you fancy doing something later?’ says Jake, staring at the ground and kicking the gravel into dust. ‘Film or something?’

‘OK,’ I say. ‘I’ll have to ring Mum but say I’ll see you outside school at four?’

Jake nods and slopes off for an afternoon of chemistry.

I head into maths feeling like it’s my birthday and Valentine’s Day all rolled into one.

A night off from the manor! I can’t wait.

Mum’s a bit edgy when I call her just before four and explain that I’m going out for a couple of hours with Jake.

‘It’s not that I don’t trust you,’ she says. ‘Or Jake. It’s just – well, you know what it is.’

I do know, but I don’t want to bring the subject up on the phone so I just say, ‘I know, yes, but I’m nearly fifteen and we’ve been going out over five months and
I’ll be fine and I’ll see you just after supper. OK?’

Mum agrees. I can hear the anxiety in her voice. She’s been given new pills by the doctors, which are supposed to stop the worry, but some days it seems as if they’re not really
working.

I hang up and shake my fair hair out of the horrid ponytail just in time for Jake to come strolling out of the school and in my direction.

We go to the precinct and Jake pays for us to see a film in 3D which is kind of cool and although it’s a stupid film I really enjoy having one night where I don’t have to worry about
weird atmospheres and strange noises.

I let Jake put his arm round me in the film.

I feel kind of safe and warm.

Afterwards we go to Pizza Express and I wolf down a Four Seasons. When I eventually look at my watch and realise I ought to be getting back to Mum and Dad, it’s like somebody has poured a
bucket of cold black water over my head and all the happy feelings start to snake their way out of the building to be replaced by little thrills of fear and nerves.