An English Ghost Story Read Online Free PDF Page A

in their new home.
    Steven opened the gate and let it swing inwards on its new hinges, then crossed the bridge. He found himself striding proudly up the drive, until he stood between the shadows of the towers. He got on his mobile and told Kirsty they owned the Hollow. She said the movers had called and were on their way from London.
    After ringing off, he wandered beyond the house and stood alone in his orchard, looking at his trees and his house, feeling the spring of his grass under his soles. At last, he could relax. For the first time in what must have been years, he was completely calm, secure, safe.
    His wife and kids were back in Sutton Mallet, at the B&B where they’d spent the night. The family’s belongings were in a removal van on a motorway. Steven’s business was out in the aether: telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, websites, domain names and bank accounts in the process of transfer from one physical address to another. This moment of possession was his alone.
    On behalf of the family, but his.
    There had been a bad moment when the survey came back with a list of needed repairs, but the Teazle estate had dropped the asking price. In his profession, Bowker could almost pass for human. He’d gone out of his way to fix the deal, arranging for the urgent work to be done before exchange of contracts. Steven’s ambition, however, was still never to be in a kitchen with an estate agent again.
    Since that first visit to the Hollow, he’d been back several times, frustratingly chaperoned, suffering agonies of doubt. What had been obvious that first time was hard to recapture. He should not have worried. He knew that now.
    Experience led him to expect disappointment, to suspect a fast one being pulled. The hardest part was overcoming his instinct to distrust. He had to concede the possibility something good was being gifted.
    It was still here. What they had all felt.
    He looked up at the West Tower, at the window of the room he would share with Kirsty. In the flat – in the
old
flat – their double bed had to be jammed into a corner, leaving only a thin L of path around it. To get dressed or undressed without banging elbows or knees, they’d had to go into the bathroom. The master bedroom at the Hollow had space for a king-size bed, a dressing table, a full-length mirror and matching his-and-hers chests of drawers with room left over. Should they ever want to, they could fit in a hip-bath, a spinning wheel, a Nautilus machine and a pinball table. The walk-in wardrobe was the size of Tim’s old room.
    The window caught the sun and flashed like a mirror held by a partisan signalling an all-clear to comrades.
    Because he could, because no one could stop him, Steven let his body go limp and fell to his knees, feeling the cool of the grass through his jeans, then pitched forward onto his face and rolled over to look up at the sky.
    He lay on the land he owned. Tree branches crowded his vision. Green and gold fruit hung, waiting to be plucked and eaten. They must all have apples. It would be a ceremony. Eating the fruit would seal the pact.
    His mobile trilled. He let it ring for long seconds.
    Overarching branches shielded him from the sun. He did not have to squint or blink. He could focus on the gentle movements of the trees. They had been beckoning; now they were welcoming.
    Steven felt as if he were being hugged.
    * * *
    J ordan kept an eye on the road ahead. It wasn’t a winding country lane but an arrow-straight Roman causeway across a moor. It would be all too easy to drive into a ditch if the road took a sharp, unexpected kink. Mum, car phone wedged between shoulder and jaw, ran over her things-to-do-list, talking equally to Dad over the phone and Jordan and Tim in the car.
    Mum was sensitive about her driving – she’d been in two accidents, and once lost her licence for a year – so Jordan didn’t mention any minor veering or the incident of the startled cyclists. She would only speak up if a