Mulled Vine

“It just happened!” I cried, tears of frustration welling up inside me.
She looked at me with longsuffering bemusement. “You mean to say that heap of dirty clothing at the bottom of your cupboard just appeared, from nowhere?”
I nodded vigorously.
“Nothing to do with you?” she continued, peering intently into my eyes.
I met her gaze unflinchingly. “Nope.”
“Are you sure you are telling me the truth, Robbie?” I could hear the growing sternness in her voice but nodded again.
She sighed and took my hand gently, leading me to the window from which could see across the valley to the blue mountains shimmering in the distance.
“Those mountains,” she said, pointing. “How do you think they came about?”
I looked at her earnestly, years of Sunday School training clamouring for attention, and replied, “By accident.”
She looked at me aghast, but then regained her composure. “That’s just silly and you know it. Now tidy up those clothes and stop talking nonsense! I’ll wash your mouth out with soap if you lie to me again.”
“But, Mum!” I protested.
“Now!”

As a child I believed there was a bogeyman under my bed, and so on going to bed at night would turn out the light and sprint for the bed, jumping the last yard so that he would not grab my ankles. My parents laughed at my silliness, and my elder brothers teased me mercilessly, but I knew – he lay there waiting for me.

Then on my 12th birthday I decided that it was high time I stopped this childish silliness. Bedtime came and I turned the light out, walking slowly towards the bed, pausing before taking that final step, waiting, listening to the creaky dark that surrounded me, while a thin shaft of light from the hallway illuminated my way.

Then, bravely, closing my eyes, I stepped forward.

I still believe there is a bogeyman under my bed, and though he doesn’t think I’m as tender and juicy as I might have been, he says I will do.

“What a cool house, Joe!” cried Tom.

I smiled, not really knowing what to say. I’d lived in the old manor house for so long that I guess I took its size and lavish gardens for granted. My father is the warden of Farley Manor and I am his only son. I don’t know my mother – she died when I was very little, my father says of cancer. I have a picture of her: a beautiful, slender young woman with sad eyes and I imagine those eyes knowing that she wouldn’t see me grow up and being sad because of it, but that’s silly, I know. My father is an earnest man of few words, and has been as long as I can remember. He is tall, lean, with cold grey eyes that leave one with no doubt as to who is in charge. I suppose I love my father, but it is a strange sort of love; kind of a mixture between awe, respect and fear. He never hugs me and I sometimes feel he thinks I’m a nuisance, a left over part of my mother.

Tom is my only friend from school, Pembury Grammar School for boys – a “serious establishment” our headmaster always tells us – and his being here at my house is a rare treat indeed because father is not keen on people visiting. He says its because he has to look after the place and doesn’t want any of my hooligan friends damaging anything – it took me weeks of nagging to get permission.

I like Tom. He is serious like me, but like me has a wickedly fun streak and the two of us get along famously. Father had allowed use to roam around the whole gardens, so we were engaged in a very splendid game of hide and seek, too young for our teenage years, but who cares? I had just found him hiding in the maze and we were sitting resting on the edge of the fountain, looking back at the house.

“Really cool, Joe. You are so lucky.”
“I suppose, Tom, but it gets a bit lonely sometimes without anyone to hang out with.”
“You have me.”
“Yes, but that’s hardly ever. I wish father would let you visit more.”
Tom nodded, staring vacantly into the distance.

“Hey, what’s that?” he shouted suddenly, pointing towards the house.
I looked to see what he was pointing at. “What?”
“There! The attic window. A face!”
I looked but couldn’t see anything. “There’s nobody up there.”
“I tell you, there was someone, a girl with black hair. Very pale.”
“Woooooo… a ghooost…” I teased.
“Stop it!” he said, getting annoyed, “I saw someone!”
“Sorry.” I replied. “We do actually have a ghost, you know?”
“No way!”
“Yes. Father says it is a young woman who was murdered here long ago. She was locked up in the attic by her father and left to die.”
“Ugh. That’s horrible.”
“Definitely. Do you believe in ghosts?”
“No.”
“Me neither.”
“So shall we go have a look then?”
“What? No!”
“Oh come one. Be a sport!”
“I would but my father doesn’t allow me to go up there.”
“Why not?”
“He says there are precious vases up there and I’m not to go there.”
“Oh, OK…”

I could sense the disappointment and really did want to be a good sport. “Listen … well … my father is doing his rounds of the estate so we could take a quick look.”
Tom’s face brightened immediately. “Cool let’s go” and ran off towards the house with me in hot pursuit.

We reached the house at the same time and stopped, listening. Its weird how something can be a home one minute and a source of thrilling terror the next. I did actually believe in ghosts, despite what I’d told Tom. From earliest childhood the house had been full of creaks and distant noises, and sometimes when I lay in my bed trying to fall asleep I imagined I heard crying coming from the attic two floors above me. I’d asked my father about it and that is when he told me about the ghost, the girl called Isabelle who didn’t listen to her father and was horribly punished for it. It was a cruel story to tell a little boy, but he was like that, my father: very tough, and he expected the same from me I guess.

We climbed the flights of stairs quietly, listening both to the house and for my father, who I knew would skin me alive if he caught us. We soon reached the top floor and crossed the landing towards the final set of stairs that led up to the attic. I looked over towards Tom and could see that he was not looking as brave as he’d done before. “You OK?” I asked. He looked at me and nodded grimly. This was serious business.

We were about to start our ascent when I remembered that we would need a key to get into the attic. I once before had “explored” this area and found the way into the attic barred by a very solid, locked door. My courage had left me then and I had not returned, at least not until today. I did however look for the key and found it finally in a box at the back of my father’s cupboard. I told Tom to wait for me while I retrieved it and returned within a few minutes.

We paused before the final leg of our adventure, listening for the ghost, and for my father. I’m not sure who I was more terrified of, but I lead the way, quickly climbing the stairs. We stood at the door, ears pressed to its ancient panels, listening. Nothing. Just the wind sighing sadly as it drew its breath through the cracks.

I put the key into the keyhole and turned it slowly. I was surprised to find that it actually turned very easily. I thought nobody, including my father, ever went into the attic. My heart pounded in my throat as the door creaked open slowly, revealing a vast dimly lit space littered with clutter from yesteryear. Cobwebs hung everywhere between the clouds of ancient dust. In the middle of the attic was an old four poster bed bedecked with a thick veil. Tom nudged me and nodded towards the bed. I’d seen it too: the outline of a person, sleeping or perhaps worse, dead. It took all my courage to take a step forward rather than run for my life. Here at last was the answer to the question that had been burning in my subconscious for most of my life, the source of that presence I had always sensed and sometimes heard.

We reached the bed and with trembling hands slowly drew the veil back.

Before us lay, not a child, not a ghost, but a dead woman dressed in a long, faded red dress. She must have been dead a long time because the skin hung tautly on gaunt bones and her fingernails extended grotesquely beyond their usual boundaries.

“Ugh!” hissed Tom. “Who do you think she is?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, “but she’s got something in her hand.”

We leaned forward, expecting her to leap at any minute, and inspected the item in her hand, a gold locket. I reached and took it from the wizened fingers, then opened it to find two pictures, one of a woman, the other of a little child. The child was I, and the eyes of the woman were sadly familiar; this was my mother.

I stood staring at the photographs, unable to move, struggling to comprehend the awful horror of what lay before me. Tom hissed impatiently “What is it?”

Suddenly behind us the floorboards creaked and we turned to find my father standing, cold fury in his eyes. “So you found her.”
We looked at him fearfully.
“I told you not to come up her, Joseph. You should have listened to me.”
“Sorry Father” I mumbled.
“Yes, very, very sorry Mr Brands,” offered Tom hopefully.
“Sorry, doesn’t cut it. Joseph I’ve told you so many times what happens to the disobedient, haven’t I?”
I nodded mutely.
He lunged forward angrily. “Give me that key!”
I managed to step to one side, causing my father to fall forward on his face. Tom shouted, “Let’s get out of here!”

We ran for our lives, fleeing from the attic, pausing a moment to lock the attic door, sprinting down the flights of stairs out into the glorious sunshine and freedom from the nightmare. We kept on running, even though I knew my father would not be in pursuit – the attic was used to confining its occupants.

We reached the front gate and I turned to look at the house one final time, and saw my father at the barred attic window, shouting noiselessly, pointlessly, while behind him I saw the sad familiar eyes fade into oblivion with a gentle smile.

Three kids come down to the kitchen and sit around the breakfast table.
The mother asks the oldest boy what he’d like to eat. “I’ll have some f*ckin’ French toast,” he says.
The mother is outraged at his language, hits him, and sends him upstairs.
She asks the middle child what he wants. “Well, I guess that leaves more f*ckin’ French toast for me,” he says. She is livid, smacks him, and sends him away.
Finally she asks the youngest son what he wants for breakfast. “I don’t know,” he says meekly, “but I definitely don’t want the f*ckin’ French toast.”

“What a cool house, Joe!” cried Tom.

I smiled, not really knowing what to say. I’d lived in the old manor house for so long that I guess I took its size and lavish gardens for granted. My father is the warden of Farley Manor and I am his only son. I don’t know my mother – she died when I was very little, my father says of cancer. I have a picture of her: a beautiful, slender young woman with sad eyes and I imagine those eyes knowing that she wouldn’t see me grow up and being sad because of it, but that’s silly, I know. My father is an earnest man of few words, and has been as long as I can remember. He is tall, lean, with cold grey eyes that leave one with no doubt as to who is in charge. I suppose I love my father, but it is a strange sort of love; kind of a mixture between awe, respect and fear. He never hugs me and I sometimes feel he thinks I’m a nuisance, a left over part of my mother.

Tom is my only friend from school, Pembury Grammar School for boys – a “serious establishment” our headmaster always tells us – and his being here at my house is a rare treat indeed because father is not keen on people visiting. He says its because he has to look after the place and doesn’t want any of my hooligan friends damaging anything – it took me weeks of nagging to get permission.

I like Tom. He is serious like me, but like me has a wickedly fun streak and the two of us get along famously. Father had allowed use to roam around the whole gardens, so we were engaged in a very splendid game of hide and seek, too young for our teenage years, but who cares? I had just found him hiding in the maze and we were sitting resting on the edge of the fountain, looking back at the house.

“Really cool, Joe. You are so lucky.”
“I suppose, Tom, but it gets a bit lonely sometimes without anyone to hang out with.”
“You have me.”
“Yes, but that’s hardly ever. I wish father would let you visit more.”
Tom nodded, staring vacantly into the distance.

“Hey, what’s that?” he shouted suddenly, pointing towards the house.
I looked to see what he was pointing at. “What?”
“There! The attic window. A face!”
I looked but couldn’t see anything. “There’s nobody up there.”
“I tell you, there was someone, a girl with black hair. Very pale.”
“Woooooo… a ghooost…” I teased.
“Stop it!” he said, getting annoyed, “I saw someone!”
“Sorry.” I replied. “We do actually have a ghost, you know?”
“No way!”
“Yes. Father says it is a young woman who was murdered here long ago. She was locked up in the attic by her father and left to die.”
“Ugh. That’s horrible.”
“Definitely. Do you believe in ghosts?”
“No.”
“Me neither.”
“So shall we go have a look then?”
“What? No!”
“Oh come one. Be a sport!”
“I would but my father doesn’t allow me to go up there.”
“Why not?”
“He says there are precious vases up there and I’m not to go there.”
“Oh, OK…”

I could sense the disappointment and really did want to be a good sport. “Listen … well … my father is doing his rounds of the estate so we could take a quick look.”
Tom’s face brightened immediately. “Cool let’s go” and ran off towards the house with me in hot pursuit.

We reached the house at the same time and stopped, listening. Its weird how something can be a home one minute and a source of thrilling terror the next. I did actually believe in ghosts, despite what I’d told Tom. From earliest childhood the house had been full of creaks and distant noises, and sometimes when I lay in my bed trying to fall asleep I imagined I heard crying coming from the attic two floors above me. I’d asked my father about it and that is when he told me about the ghost, the girl called Isabelle who didn’t listen to her father and was horribly punished for it. It was a cruel story to tell a little boy, but he was like that, my father: very tough, and he expected the same from me I guess.

We climbed the flights of stairs quietly, listening both to the house and for my father, who I knew would skin me alive if he caught us. We soon reached the top floor and crossed the landing towards the final set of stairs that led up to the attic. I looked over towards Tom and could see that he was not looking as brave as he’d done before. “You OK?” I asked. He looked at me and nodded grimly. This was serious business.

We were about to start our ascent when I remembered that we would need a key to get into the attic. I once before had “explored” this area and found the way into the attic barred by a very solid, locked door. My courage had left me then and I had not returned, at least not until today. I did however look for the key and found it finally in a box at the back of my father’s cupboard. I told Tom to wait for me while I retrieved it and returned within a few minutes.

We paused before the final leg of our adventure, listening for the ghost, and for my father. I’m not sure who I was more terrified of, but I lead the way, quickly climbing the stairs. We stood at the door, ears pressed to its ancient panels, listening. Nothing. Just the wind sighing sadly as it drew its breath through the cracks.

I put the key into the keyhole and turned it slowly. I was surprised to find that it actually turned very easily. I thought nobody, including my father, ever went into the attic. My heart pounded in my throat as the door creaked open slowly, revealing a vast dimly lit space littered with clutter from yesteryear. Cobwebs hung everywhere between the clouds of ancient dust. In the middle of the attic was an old four poster bed bedecked with a thick veil. Tom nudged me and nodded towards the bed. I’d seen it too: the outline of a person, sleeping or perhaps worse, dead. It took all my courage to take a step forward rather than run for my life. Here at last was the answer to the question that had been burning in my subconscious for most of my life, the source of that presence I had always sensed and sometimes heard.

We reached the bed and with trembling hands slowly drew the veil back.

Before us lay, not a child, not a ghost, but a dead woman dressed in a long, faded red dress. She must have been dead a long time because the skin hung tautly on gaunt bones and her fingernails extended grotesquely beyond their usual boundaries.

“Ugh!” hissed Tom. “Who do you think she is?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, “but she’s got something in her hand.”

We leaned forward, expecting her to leap at any minute, and inspected the item in her hand, a gold locket. I reached and took it from the wizened fingers, then opened it to find two pictures, one of a woman, the other of a little child. The child was I, and the eyes of the woman were sadly familiar; this was my mother.

I stood staring at the photographs, unable to move, struggling to comprehend the awful horror of what lay before me. Tom hissed impatiently “What is it?”

Suddenly behind us the floorboards creaked and we turned to find my father standing, cold fury in his eyes. “So you found her.”
We looked at him fearfully.
“I told you not to come up her, Joseph. You should have listened to me.”
“Sorry Father” I mumbled.
“Yes, very, very sorry Mr Brands,” offered Tom hopefully.
“Sorry, doesn’t cut it. Joseph I’ve told you so many times what happens to the disobedient, haven’t I?”
I nodded mutely.
He lunged forward angrily. “Give me that key!”
I managed to step to one side, causing my father to fall forward on his face. Tom shouted, “Let’s get out of here!”

We ran for our lives, fleeing from the attic, pausing a moment to lock the attic door, sprinting down the flights of stairs out into the glorious sunshine and freedom from the nightmare. We kept on running, even though I knew my father would not be in pursuit – the attic was used to confining its occupants.

We reached the front gate and I turned to look at the house one final time, and saw my father at the barred attic window, shouting noiselessly, pointlessly, while behind him I saw the sad familiar eyes fade into oblivion with a gentle smile.

I am a firm believer that the family who prays together stays together. I know its a corny saying, but it is true, so I encourage my children to pray before they go to bed, at mealtimes, and whenever there is a need.

Angelica however does not want to pray; I don’t what it is, but try as we will she refuses point blank to pray. My wife thought she might be possessed but I told her not to be silly, that this house was under the protection of the Almighty.

Then today, at Thanksgiving, with all the extended family gathered around, she astonishingly began to say grace: “Dear Lord, thank you for the food you give us, and the nice things you give us, and Lord, please provide clothes for the children in Africa, and all those naked ladies on Daddy’s computer.”

We love the rain, my daughter and I, particularly when the heavens really let loose and the resulting deluge causes lots of puddles to be formed.

Yes, we are puddle jumpers, and the minute the rain clears a little, sometimes not even then, we will be out there with our Wellington boots and coats, racing like like the little children we are from puddle to puddle and jumping into them; the aim? to SPLASH!!

It is great fun and I would say you should try it, but I don’t puddle jump any more.

I remember it vividly like a recurring nightmare, that fateful day when we were happily puddle jumping, my dearest daughter and I, and we found a most splendid puddle just down the road from us, where the storm drains had apparently blocked.

My little girl ran on ahead and jumped with glee into the middle of the puddle, and disappeared, never to be seen again.

Oh I ran after her and dove into the puddle, only to find it was no more than 20 inches deep, the perfect puddle for jumping, except that it is no fun jumping alone.

One learns early in life that things are not fair, that we enter this world under different circumstances, with varying degrees of talent or handicap. Yet despite this we have this innate sense of justice that requires us to view all men as created equal. We raise our children to be kind, gentle and fair, contrary to their basic instincts of self-preservation which, unrestrained, would yield selfish brutes that take advantage of every competitive edge over each other. The irony is that we prepare them inadequately for a world where fairness does not exist, where it is the strong, the loud, the networked who get somewhere, while the kind and the gentle wait for justice … a very long time.

He sat, high above the beach, preening in the sun, aware of his idol status, the local life guard, his tiny red speedo full of yearning promise. Below him, his empire, sweaty red lobsters roasting, smothered in sickening coconut essences full of false promises of longevity. The sea lapped lazily at the feet of over excited children while careful responsible parents watched from the safety of umbrella’d enclosures. Nearby a topless beauty lay unashamed, ogled by lustful married men with disinterested wives.

He noticed her swimming across the bay, beauty in motion, strokes cleaving the water neatly as she glided towards the buoy. Nearby a fin broke the surface and he had a strange sense of deja vu as a scream shattered the peaceful paradise.