21. Chapter 21
Chapter 21
R hys decided that we needed a proper rest to determine what we were going to do next. After retrieving our bags from the museum, he let us into the keeper’s cottage, the only one preserved as it had been when keepers and their families lived in them. A simple affair, with a joint kitchen and living room, a bedroom, and a tiny washroom with a basin.
“Can you imagine raising a family in here?” Rhys unfurled his sleeping bag. His breath misted when he talked. The cottage took the full brunt of the cold air coming from the sea.
“I grew up in a little council flat in Sheffield, so kind of.” I laid out my bag next to his. There wasn’t much room on the floor. “Can we use the bed? If we need to, I mean. For sleep.”
“It’s only for show. It’s not a real mattress.”
I grumbled as I plonked onto my sleeping bag. “This isn’t going to do my back any good.”
Rhys laughed. It wasn’t very polite of him, I thought. “Aren’t you used to roughing it? I should have brought an air bed, but I didn’t think we’d be staying the whole night.”
“You think we’ll be here that long?” I took out a bottle of water from my bag and unscrewed the lid.
He blew out his lips. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what we’re going to do yet.”
The sitting room floor was harder and colder than I would have liked. The room itself was painted in dark colours, with thick-legged, dusty furniture. I eyed the couch and wondered if I could spend the night on it. The low ceiling added to the heavy atmosphere of the place.
We lay down, face to face. I rested my head on my hands, Rhys on a little travel pillow, the kind they sell in airports.
I tried to ignore the gnawing sensation in my stomach. I was going to have to tell him soon. I just didn’t know how. “What are we going to do?” I asked him. “About Baines?”
“I'm not sure but I have a feeling whatever we do, it’ll have to be soon. Whatever it was about Dawn that got Baines all hot and bothered is bound to wear off sooner or later.”
“She’d make a hell of a ghosthunter if she kept her nerve.”
Rhys frowned and told me what she’d said about getting information from the other side. How it just appeared in her mind. It sounded frightening to me. How could you be sure your thoughts were your own? “It can’t be easy for her,” Rhys said. “I wonder if she could learn to control it, somehow. Meditation or something.”
“Do you meditate?”
“Oh yes,” he said. “Every night before I go to sleep. I picture myself lying in a forest, with rustling leaves and soft grass under a starry sky.”
“And that’s all there is to it?”
“That’s all. It helps me relax and drift off to sleep. And it helps me remember my dreams more clearly. Haven’t you ever tried it?”
I made a face. “It always struck me a bit New Age. It’s a short leap from there to burning incense, and then before you know it you’re wearing robes made of hemp, giving blessings at stone circles, and living in the bushes on a roundabout.”
Rhys chuckled again. He really did have the warmest laugh.
“Can it help with… with a bad temper?” I asked.
He cocked his head. “Is that something you struggle with?”
I rubbed my eyes. I didn’t want to talk about it, but I did anyway. Another victory for my mouth. “It’s always been a bit of an issue with me, since I was a lad. I’m not violent, never have been, but I’ve got a short fuse. I was not a pleasant child to be around. I’m sorry to say it but I was probably a bully at school.”
“You didn’t go to school in Carmarthen, did you? Because that would be one hell of a coincidence.”
I shook my head. “But if I had, I might have picked on you. I lashed out at everyone. I didn’t like being a child — It didn’t suit me. I hated being told what to do with a passion. I was always getting detention or skipping class. It’s probably why I’ve had so many jobs. So, when I lash out, when I get all red-faced and shouty, please don’t take it personally. I don’t mean it.”
“Don’t.” He closed his eyes.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t smile at me like that. Not when we’re lying so close to each another.” Rhys opened his eyes again. I was still smiling. “I’m trying to be a professional ghost tour guide here.”
“I’m sorry, I’ll stop.” I lay on my back and put on my very sternest expression, which made him laugh.
“You’re very good-looking, you know.”
“Stop it.” My ears started to burn.
“It’s true.”
“I’m a bull-necked, puffy-eyed, baldy bastard, and we both know it.”
“That’s exactly my type.” He chuckled a bit. “Tell me you’ve got a hairy chest and I’ll propose here and now.”
I laughed this time and told him I did. “I’m surprised you don’t have a man at home.”
He lay on his back too, and pulled his sleeping bag up to his throat. “You’ll never believe it, but there’s not a huge market for chubby, ghost-hunting weirdos.”
“I’ve seen the darker side of social media. I know that’s not true.”
“Well, maybe I just haven’t really been looking. It’s scary out there.”
I made a face. “Some would say it’s scarier in here. In places like this.”
“These are the only places I feel comfortable. Better a spooky old mansion with mysterious groaning in the attic than a bar filled with people who figured out how to have a good time on a night out. I never did get the knack.”
“Me neither. I can’t be doing with shouting to be heard over music. Or queuing for twenty minutes at the bar for a pint. It was fine when I was younger but nowadays I’d rather have a night on the couch, a curry, and a film.”
“That sounds perfect to me.” He turned his head towards me. I did the same towards him. “It’s cold in here, don’t you think?”
It had turned decidedly chilly. I scooched a bit closer to him. For warmth, I told him. He unzipped his sleeping bag. I did likewise. We slid closer together, he slipped his arm around my waist, and our lips met. Once, twice, more, and still more, harder each time, tongues darting, hands groping. He undid the flies on my jeans and slipped his cold hand inside. I winced and giggled but his hand soon warmed up. I opened the buttons of his checked shirt, one by one, rubbing his hairy belly and chest. I kissed and nibbled his brown nipples, making him groan.
“Harder.” He ran a hand under my polo shirt, up my back, then down to the waistband of my jeans.
I started to undo my belt but stopped. “Wait.” I lifted my head. Rhys kissed my neck, sending electric darts through my body. I purred. “No, hang on, wait, wait. Listen.”
A tune, faint as can be, pricked our ears. A refrain whistled in a high-pitch, muffled but undeniable. Above us, the ceiling creaked as though someone, or something, were walking across it.
Rhys turned up his lantern and we stared at the low ceiling, following the footsteps as they came down, down, down the roof and to the front door. We held our breath. The door banged, rattling the bolt. Rhys froze but I was on my feet in seconds. I flung over the bolt and threw open the door to the cold, foggy night. And to Dawn.
She stood hugging herself. “Hiya. Is your zipper open? Can I come in?”
I hopped about, trying to do up my flies and glad that the creaking in the roof had ruined the mood enough that I was no longer poking out of them. I ran out to the courtyard and searched the roof for any sign of what could have made the noise.
“Nikesh is waiting in the van. I’m sorry for storming out. I panicked." She kicked at a piece of gravel. “When I got to the car park, it felt like that stone — What did you call it? The Stag’s Eye? — it felt like it was calling me. I got Nikesh to lift me up so I could look through the hole in it. Did you know it lines up with the lighthouse? I looked through and the fog had gone. I couldn’t see you two but I could see a man standing up there.” She pointed upwards. “At the top of the tower. And I kept thinking about that scream. In the bedroom? It was so...sad. I don't know if what's trapped in there is Baines, or a piece of his soul, or just a memory of him, but it is definitely trapped and it is definitely in pain. That shape, Mr Squirrel, it’s tormenting him, I’m sure of it. And I can't leave things the way they are. Is it okay if I stay?”
Rhys sat up buttoning his shirt and warmly welcomed her in.
“I suppose you weren’t whistling as you climbed over the roof?” I shut the door and bolted it again.
Rhys told her about the noises we’d heard. She said she couldn’t whistle, and she obviously didn’t crawl across the thatched roof, but something did.
“Or it was an optical illusion,” Dawn said. “No, no optical. The other one.”
“Aural?” I said.
“No, that’s talking, innit?”
“That’s oral.” Rhys looked right at me when he said it and made my knob jump a bit. For a split second, I lamented Dawn’s return. But it passed.
“Maybe the fog caused the noise of my footsteps on the gravel to bounce up to the roof, somehow?”
“Thank you, Professor Chorus.” That came out meaner than I meant it to and I apologised immediately.
“Are you going to bed? It’s a bit early, isn’t it?”
She knelt on my sleeping bag and took a Thermos flask from her backpack. “Or…? Oh!” She tucked her chin into her chest and fluttered her long, fake eyelashes. “Were you two boys about to have a little shag?” Her sing-song tone made me laugh.
“Shut up, ye daft cow.” She took it as I meant it — a tease — and giggled.
“I knew there was something between you two,” she said. “It’s just as well Michael left, isn’t it? I didn’t like him. Flash git. He must have taken off at some speed. He left skid marks on the car park. I bet he drives something fancy.”
“It’s a Jaguar. I saw it last night.” Rhys moved his legs to make some room. “We were just taking a break. It’s cold in here. We were trying to stay warm and figure out what we can do to help Baines. I take it Nikesh isn’t coming back?”
She shook her head and poured out a steaming hot cup of tea for Rhys. “He only came here to find out if this was all real, if there was more to life than what see around us every day. Now he has his answer and it’s a bit scarier than he thought it would be. He doesn’t want any more to do with it tonight. He says he needs time to process it? It’s fair enough, really.”
I gave her the cup from my own flask and she poured some tea into it. I sat with my back against the couch and sipped and felt all the better for it.
“What do we know about him? Mr Baines?” Dawn blew on her tea. “Was he married? Any kids? Something must be keeping him here. I was thinking that maybe his wife or daughter or whatever might have been on that ship that sank? And that’s why he keeps coming back? He’s looking out across the water, waiting for her to sail home.”
Rhys’ eyebrows popped. “You could be onto something there.” He took his phone out and powered it up, complaining about the battery level. “I wish they had Wi-Fi…” After a minute or so of searching online he shook his head. “No, there’s nothing online about his personal life. Hardly any mention of him at all actually, outside of that article about his death. It’s like he’s just been forgotten. Poor thing.”
I gulped down my tea. “Well, lucky for us we’re in the one place that still remembers him.”