Tollesbury Time Forever (8 page)

“We pull the strings around here,” replied the tall one.

 
“We pull all the strings,” added the other.

“Best you come with us,” they stated, in unison.

The two men walked away from Zachariah Leonard’s shack and I followed them as they requested. The time to see what that padlock was guarding would come in future days - and when it did I knew it would be more appalling than anything I had experienced up until now.

I sat at a wooden dining table in a house just at the junction of East Street, Mell Road and Woodrolfe Road. I guessed the house stood roughly where Leavett’s Butcher’s stands today. The tall man and the short man had walked in front and I had followed them without question.

The two men sat down opposite me and thus it was in that small candle-lit room that I first saw their faces. The shorter of the two had a balding head and a grey beard that hung down way past his chin, almost touching his chest. He had blue eyes and a flat nose that may have been pressed one too many times by errant children. And between the strands of his beard was a permanent smile. It was as if the beard itself had been formed purely to stop this squat little man’s face from literally falling apart with laughter.

“I am Weepy,” he said.

The other, taller man also had little hair upon his head. It seemed all to have gathered above his top lip in a wonderful moustache. He had deep brown eyes set in the greyest of sockets. His forehead was lined like the bark of an ancient tree and his mouth was stern and rigid. All these features contributed to a rueful expression that indicated he had seen more or less everything there was to see and had not been impressed by any of it.

“I am Nardy,” he said.

Weepy and Nardy. I was at that stage less inclined to believe they ‘pulled all the strings’ than when they had been silhouettes looming before me.

“Hello Weepy. Hello Nardy,” I ventured. “I am Simon Anthony.”

My voice sounded more and more vacuous with every syllable. Even hearing it, I doubted myself. When you spend so much of your time alone, it is always difficult to predict how you will be received by total strangers.

Weepy smiled and Nardy stared. They looked at each other momentarily and then back at me. Weepy leaned forward and rested his surprisingly large hands upon the table. Nardy arched back in his chair in a way that would have made any infant school teacher shudder. He ran a hand slowly down each side of his smooth cheeks, bringing his palms together as they slipped off the end of his chin. Three times he did this before interlocking his fingers and resting his hands in his lap, rocking gently back and forth in his chair.

The only sound was the pop, fizz and sizzle of candle wax and the tiny creaking of Nardy’s chair.

“So, Mr Anthony, how have you been?” asked Weepy.

“I’m not sure, to be honest. Things have all been a bit of a whirl lately.”

“Well, Nardy and I are here to help you.”

Nardy nodded. I glanced at him but was not reassured. He continued to nod regardless.

I made an involuntary sound that was intended to express a combination of relief and tiredness. Whether my inquisitors understood me, I knew not.

Weepy and Nardy just continued to look at me. I assumed they thought that was helpful. In truth, I felt they were analysing me, trying to see through me, assessing me for who knows what. I began to wish I had sat closer to the door. It was different from the feeling I had experienced when I was in the presence of Zachariah Leonard, but no less powerful.

“What makes you think I need help?” I asked eventually.

Weepy paused before answering.

“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t need some kind of help, now would you, Mr Anthony? You have no need to be afraid. We are very experienced, Nardy and I. You are in good hands.”

“What do you know about me?” I asked, suspicion creeping into my soul. I wasn’t sure who to trust. I didn’t even know if I could have faith in my own senses. And that concerned me greatly.

Weepy continued.

“We know you have been here for three days. We have reports that you spent one night asleep on the grass and one night asleep on the floor in that shack by the marshes. We know you have had some ale and we know that you have met Penny Shoraton and the young boy. Those are the facts. That is what we know.”

“We deal in facts, here, Mr Anthony,” added Nardy. “Facts are what we deal in. Isn’t that right Weepy?”

“It is indeed, Nardy. It is indeed, Facts,” concurred the diminutive Weepy.

Neither had made mention of Zachariah Leonard. I decided then not to bring him into the conversation; if they didn’t mention him then neither would I. I felt a rush of embarrassment at the mention of Penny Shoraton and bowed my head though I had nothing to feel guilty about, nothing at all. They couldn’t see into my dreams. They were mine and mine alone. Whatever dreams meant to me, I didn’t believe they would constitute facts to them.

“What we don’t know,” began Nardy, now taking the lead, “is what is on your mind, what is inside you. That is what we don’t know. And that is precisely what we would like to know.”

I resolved at that moment to conceal as much of what was ‘on my mind’ as I could. It was clear I had been watched, for they knew all my movements. Had Zachariah been spying on me too? Was he in league with them?

“We are going to ask you some questions, Mr Anthony. Please answer them as best you can. We know this is a difficult time for you but please do be honest with us. In that way, we can help you,” said Weepy, trying to sound as soothing as he could. “Now, do you know where you are Mr Anthony?”

“In a house in Tollesbury,” I replied with as much confidence as I could.

“And what year are we in?”

“I have been told it’s 1836.”

“I see,” said Nardy. “And who told you that?”

I shrugged my shoulders. For two people that purported to know so much, they were asking me a lot of questions. It
was I who was lacking information, I who wanted to try and understand what was happening to me.

“What did you mean when you said you had reports, you know, earlier? Who were the reports from? Why are you spying on me?” I asked all these questions whilst trying to sound as casual as I was able.

“Reports is all,” replied Weepy crisply. “Just reports.”

Nardy leaned across to his companion and whispered something into his ear. Weepy nodded before continuing.

“What do you think of our ale?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You have had some of the local ale. What did you make of it? Did it agree with you?”

“It wasn’t bad,” I replied hesitantly. “Not what I’m used to, but I could get used to it I suppose. I didn’t feel as bad after I’d had it as I thought I would.”

“Good, good,” said Weepy, glancing furtively at Nardy, before returning his gaze to me. “Very good indeed, Mr Anthony. That’s the spirit! And you got a little jab from Penny’s young boy I understand. What was that all about do you think?”

I had almost forgotten about that. “It was a bit of a shock I suppose. Didn’t hurt too much. He just did it and ran off down towards the harbour.”

“Any lasting effects?”

“Not that I know of. Why?”

“No matter, Mr Anthony, no matter.”

Weepy and Nardy conferred once more. This time it was Nardy who spoke.

“Do you have any further questions for us, Mr Anthony, anything more before we bid you good day?”

My mind was hazy. I was now even more confused than I was before I had met these two. And still no mention of Zachariah Leonard. Not for the first time, I was feeling drained and weary.

“I just need to lie down, I think, and hopefully clear my head. I’m feeling tired most of the time even though I’m not really doing anything.”

“Understandable, Mr Anthony, eminently understandably,” said Weepy, nodding vigorously.

There was a silence that lasted some moments during which Weepy and Nardy just sat there with their eyes closed. It seemed as if they were making a concerted effort to inspect my thoughts, to enter my mind. I in turn stared back at them in an attempt to repel their unwanted intrusion into the last part of my being that I could truly call my own. I thought of getting up and leaving but I felt compelled to stay.

I peered into the dark corners of the room, trying to discern what may lie there as yet unseen, watching me, listening to this whole bizarre conversation. For a moment, I felt I sensed movement but as soon as the feeling caught me, so it subsided. I wanted so much to have my back flat against one of the walls so that I might at least know I was not at risk of being leapt upon from behind. My throat was dry and my breathing audible amidst the quiet of it all.

Weepy and Nardy stood up and I guessed I was to do the same. They took it in turns to shake my hand. Their palms were soft and sweaty, like dough that had been kneaded too much. It was as I stood that I noticed two faces pressed against the glass of the window that faced out onto East Street. It was Penny Shoraton and the boy with the cracked teeth, Adam. Their noses were distorted flat against the grimy glass and they were both smiling and waving at me. It was a grotesque scene and I began to feel very ill. The moist hands of Weepy and Nardy, the incessant grinning of the boy alongside the absolute beauty of Penny Shoraton; it was all too much for me. I lurched for the door and staggered a little as I passed the two figures that were still leaning against the window, smiling and waving, even though I was no longer in the room.

The sky was a bruise. The earth was cracked. And a wind began to howl.

When I was some thirty yards away from the house, having crossed the corner of Woodrolfe Road and Mell Road, I stopped to regain my balance for I was truly reeling. I felt simultaneously sick and scared. Darkness was falling in the
Tollesbury sky yet it felt like only a couple of hours had passed since dawn had splashed across the horizon.

Then I heard a clapping beat coming from outside the house from across the road. It began faintly but was then joined by the tapping of another. It was a wonderfully syncopated beat that I recognised at once. It caught me just as it had so long ago when I was but a lonely, worn out boy trying to understand life. The irony was not lost on me, I can tell you.

I looked over and there was Nardy leaning against the wall outside the house that is now the Butcher’s, slapping his hands rhythmically against his thighs. The boy, Adam, was joining in with his stick, tapping it against the top of the wall. Penny Shoraton was swaying back and forth, moving only from her waist upwards, her feet remaining planted and hidden beneath her long skirt, like the most beautiful of Jack-in-a-boxes, just swaying and bobbing her head up and down, swaying and bobbing.

Then Weepy began to sing.

“Lover, love me too. You know we love you. So plee-ea-ese, love me to-o.”

And as he sang, he walked towards me, slowly, ever so slowly, his back a little hunched, his feet shuffling in the dirt, his arms moving and striking out violently in time with the beat.

Closer and closer he got. I could do nothing but stare.

“Lover, love me too. You know we love you. So plee-ea-ese, love me to-o.”

His singing was almost child-like, enunciating every syllable with joy. But when he was just a few feet from me, I could see the anger in his small, blazing black eyes. He glared up at me, a frown cracking his forehead. And this time, he didn’t sing, he screamed.

“Love, love me too! You know we love you! So plee-ea-ese, love me to-o! Oh, love me to-oh!”

I was breathing so fast I thought I would pass out. Weepy stood before me, literally shaking, his fists clenched so hard I could see the bones of his knuckles almost breaking
through his skin. Penny Shoraton was still. Nardy and the boy had ceased their percussion.

Without thought, I did what I always did. I ran. Down Woodrolfe Road I pounded, turning left just before the harbour and across the marshes towards Zachariah Leonard’s shack. My ears were aching and my chest was breaking. My whole being was a-rocking and a-rolling. I was panicking and I was running for my life. The wind blew harsh around me, buffeting me as it would a battered, hollow wreck upon the shore.

At last, I burst into the shack and threw myself to the floor, face down. And I lay like that until my breathing slowed and the fear left me. I could smell the dirt beneath me and was glad of it. A splinter of wood ripped my palm and I couldn’t have been more relieved. I did not move, merely seeking comfort in the solidity of my surroundings. I could have lain like that forever, so safe did I feel. This was a broken place and I was broken too. I was a cracked cup, a shattered dream.

But precarious safety does not last. It can not possibly last. I knew that better than anyone.

Then a deep and thunderous voice bellowed from the shadows, resonating through the dark and the wood, a voice that humbled the wind that had been beating upon the door, humbled it until it became a mere breeze that skulked away into the trees.

“What you been up to boy? What have you done?”

There was no further sound but that of my world falling apart.