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Never Thought He’d Go

by Francoise Harvey

‘Fell off the church spire,’ said Davy.

‘Gravestone landed on him,’ said Davytoo.

‘Trampled t’death by cows when he cut through the wrong field home,’ said Saz.

‘Not to death,’ said Davy. ‘To death means actually dead. He’s just a bit bashed up, like.’

Broken arm, three broken ribs, black eye, bust collarbone, top of his foot smashed and plenty of bruises elsewhere, said everyone, though no one could agree how he got it all. Normsmum had her own ideas. She ambushed us outside Missus Lambert’s bitshop while we were arguing over how to spend a fiver we’d found. She was fresh off visiting Norm at the hospital. Her eyes were red and puffy like she’d had bees at them, and her make-up was all smeared so her face was difficult to set straight to the eye. We felt bad for her. Felt double-bad because she wasn’t far wrong with the direction of her anger, either.

‘You all! You there, you bleedin lot! I know you had something to do with it. He wouldn’t go gallivanting about without you pushing him into it. He could’ve died. I’ll pin the lot of you, you mark my words.’

‘We didn’t do anything, Missus Eames,’ said Davy, perfect mix of irritated and innocent. ‘We were all home, we all didn’t lay a finger on him.’

The rest of us nodded and humha-ed.

Normsmum jerked her head back so she was looking at us through slit eyes, down the line of her nose. We must’ve looked smaller that way – the whole gang’d shot tall over the summer and carried it well, too. She sniffed like she smelt something bad off us. ‘Youse all are lying little rats. Norm’ll say what happened when he’s up, and then I’ll come knocking on every one of your doors. Every. Last. One. And I’ll have the hats with me.’ She jabbed a finger at each of us, long sharp nail tasting blood and handbag swinging from her fist like she wanted to skip the police and just get stuck in. ‘Delinquents, the lot of you.’

We waited a solemn few minutes after she was gone before anyone said anything. It made us uncomfortable to see an adult so close to tears and so close to walloping us in one breath.

‘Wonder what did happen to him,’ said Saz.

‘Place is haunted, like we said. Warned him, didn’t we?’ said Davy.

‘I thought that was a joke,’ said Davytoo. ‘Like, that was the point of the dare. It was a joke.’

‘Never thought he’d do it,’ I said.

None of us thought he’d do it. We’d known Norm Eames since we were all little kids and he wasn’t up to much. Two things you could rely on Norm for: tall tales and bravado like a balloon – puffed round, him, and one push a bit too hard and he’d burst or be away. Or both. We would’ve liked him more, probably, if he’d admitted to being scared of everything, or when he was hurt or summat. But he never did. Like, Norm fell off his bike, and told us he wasn’t crying, no. He’d hit his head and his eyes were bleeding so he needed to go home.

‘You got water for blood?’ Davy had said scornfully, and Norm had shouted that Davy didn’t know what he was talking about, and he’d kicked his bike and then run for his house.

That sort of thing.

But he kept hanging around us – he was dogged. Always at heel, always eager, and then yapping and running away at the last minute. So you get why we didn’t think he’d try for an overnight in the church.

‘Not our fault if the gump went through with it,’ I said.

‘But is it haunted, though? Were we joking about that or not?’ said Davytoo, half his fist in his mouth, like he does when he’s getting agitated.

‘I was joking,’ said Saz.

‘I wasn’t,’ said Davy, and he grinned at us all with his teeth only, lips stretched thin, eyes blank. ‘Everyone knows it’s haunted. There’s a graveyard. It’s about 500 years old. Fella died in the clock tower, like I said. Haunted.’

We turned and considered the roof of the church, poking up over the top of the bitshop. You could see the whole village from the top of the spire – we knew ‘cause we’d seen photos taken by someone who’d gone up there in a hard-hat and hi-viz jacket and not peeped a word about a ghost. She’d gone up in daylight, though, with a guide and a torch, probably. We’d sent Norm up in the dark. But we never thought he’d go, that was the thing. Norm wouldn’t sneak out on his mum, not a chance, not without someone pulling him from his room. And none of us had.

---

‘I’ve had Missus Eames on the phone,’ said Mam, as she clattered dishes around fast for dinner. Ran a restaurant, my mam, so she doesn’t do food slowly and it’s embarrassing having friends over. No such thing as beans on toast round our place. ‘In a right state. It’s the hypothermia that’s made him proper ill, she says, and he was always easily bruised. She says he’s in shock and if whoever was with him had taken him to the doctor he wouldn’t be in such bad shape.’ Mam paused drizzling something sticky over the salad and looked at me sideways from under her lashes – barely a look at all, but you know she’s watching. ‘She’s sure someone must’ve been with him.’

There wasn’t a question mark, quite, but she let the silence hang ‘til one grew, and it fair hung off the spire of the church, mocking me through the window. The downside to being able to see the whole village from the church spire was that you could see the church spire from most anywhere in the village. I could see it from my bedroom window, too.

‘Weren’t nothing with us, Mam,’ I said, and chewed more lettuce than I could swallow.

‘Kids’ games,’ she said. ‘I’m sure. But if I find out otherwise…’

She let that hang, too, and it was worse than the question.

I called Saz. Normsmum had been on at her dad, too, and Saz was spitting fire, locked in her room ‘til she told the truth or her dad gave up on it.

‘Not even s’posed to have the phone,’ she whispered. ‘It weren’t even us. Davy, wasn’t it?’

‘You think Davy went out there with him?’

‘No,’ said Saz. ‘I just mean it’s always him, pressing the buttons. He always the mouth, don’t you notice? But I bet he wouldn’t’ve gone either. Too wimpy. Never thought there’d be anything up there to knock anyone around, mind, let alone Norm. You know. Norm.’ There was admiration in her voice, though, and I thought of the way Norm had looked sideways at Saz when we’d dared him to go to the church, and the red on his face and the sneer on hers. Wondered if it’d all be worth it if he could hear that grudging note.

‘Do you think he fell?’ I said.

‘Cows,’ she said. ‘He was found on the edge of the graveyard, and that’s the cow field. Killer cows. We all know it.’

‘Like we know about the ghost,’ I said, sharp.

‘Sure,’ said Saz. She hung up on me.

I went to bed wondering if I could sneak into the hospital and visit Norm without the others spotting me. Or Normsmum, for that matter. Either one would end in a bollocking. I just wanted to check on him, let him know we felt bad for him. Even Mam, who didn’t really have much patience for Norm or his mum, figured it was serious. So it was.

I tried to sleep, but it was a bright-moon night and my curtains didn’t fall properly shut, so the light slipped through the gap and greyed up my room like an unhappy sun. Eventually I gave up, got up and looked for an old badge or something to pin it shut with. I was pulling the material tight to itself when I looked out into the dark and caught a wink of light over at the church, from the bell tower. Flash and gone. Flash and gone. Flash and hold…. Like it’d spotted me at the glass and was watching. I fumbled the pin into the curtain and flung myself back under the covers.

In the morning, Mam came into my room looking tired and gaunt and told me that Norm had died in the night. She held me while I shook and cried. Then she fed me a bit of dry toast and warned me that the hats would be knocking, because now it wasn’t just a bashing, was it?

---

‘Trampled to death,’ said Saz. She tried to put a bit of ‘I told you so’ into it, but she was sunk as the rest of us. Her lips were dry. Davytoo looked like he would cry any second.

‘He were younger than me,’ he said, like this was new information.

‘Younger than all of us,’ said Davy. ‘The ghost doesn’t care about age.’

‘Shut up about that ghost,’ said Saz. ‘It’s not funny now.’

‘It was never a joke,’ said Davy.

‘My mam said it was hypothermia that did for him,’ I said, wanting to get the conversation away from ages and ghosts. ‘If he’d been left somewhere warm, he would’ve been ok.’

‘Like he would’ve landed in a warm bath after he fell from that height?’ scoffed Davy.

‘Fuck you,’ said Davytoo, shocking us all to silence. ‘He was younger than us, and we sent him up that there, in the dark, on his own. Don’t none of you feel bad at all?’ He glared at us, and then the glare crumpled, and he turned away, shoulders hunched. Dropped his crisp wrapper in the bin and walked off without looking back.

‘Touchy,’ said Davy.

‘He’s right,’ said Saz. I nodded.

We fell silent again as Normsmum hobbled past. She had a couple of other women with her, holding her up it looked like. Couldn’t even tell you where she’d been or where she was going, but as they drew level with us she stopped, and her entourage stopped with her, and they all stood, swaying slightly. We shrank back into the shadow of the bitshop, waiting for the blows to land, or the words.

She raised her head with effort and looked at us. Her face had collapsed in on itself with grief, like she’d been crying so hard she’d swallowed her teeth and her eyes had fallen back in her face. Her stare was unfocussed, but it held us all the same. After a long while, one of the women gently squeezed her shoulders, murmured something in her ear. The group of them shuddered back into motion, shuffled off down the street. Normal time and normal sounds returned.

‘I’m away home, lads,’ said Davy, blinking like he’d just woken up. He dropped his crisps and fair ran off down the alley.

Saz sighed and crumpled what was left of her crisps in her hand.

‘There was a light,’ I said.

‘Yeah, I saw,’ she said.

‘I was going to visit him today.’

‘Me too,’ she said.

‘What do you think really happened?’ I asked.

‘Killer cows,’ she said, firmly. And then she took a deep breath like the next words would cost her. ‘Or that freak Davy, playing ghost.’

‘We wouldn’t do anything like that,’ I said, sure of it.

‘Sure we wouldn’t,’ she said.

She went home and I threw up, suddenly, on the side of the bin, and Missus Lambert came out of the shop and shouted at me.

---

I couldn’t sleep for watching out for that light, and watching out for the hats, and wondering what the payback is for the person who didn’t do anything, really, but didn’t do the right thing, either. Like, probably hundreds of times.

---

The funeral was a Friday and it was the last week of the holiday. The overriding feeling at the crematorium was resentment that Norm hadn’t had the decency to wait another few days. The whole class turned up, of course, and even though Davytoo was still not talking to us, and even though Saz couldn’t look at Davy without flinching, we flocked at the back of the crowd out of habit, carefully out of the way of Normsmum’s roving, vacant stare. The Eames’ were regular church-goers, they had a family spot and everything, but it would’ve been bad taste, we supposed, to bury Norm in the graveyard where he’d been found.

‘Vicar’s proper upset,’ whispered Saz to me, as we waited for the service to start. Nerves had her running her mouth off. ‘Says it’s hard enough getting people through the door as it is.’

‘Shut up,’ said Davytoo. ‘They’re starting.’

It was excruciating, the whole thing. Who knew that so many people had nice things to say about Norm Eames? Davytoo cried during the singing, and Davy looked like he wanted to smack him upside the head for it. Saz whispered to herself the whole time, so quiet that I’d no clue what she was saying. I counted every freckle on the back of my own hands. When we filed outside, nearly the first ones out, we stood awkwardly for a second, trying not to look in the direction of the church.

‘It’s done, then,’ said Davy.

‘What is?’ snapped Saz, and if her voice had teeth there would’ve been blood.

Davy looked at her like it was a stupid question. ‘Well, that’s it, isn’t it? He’s gone. Hats have been and gone. End of the matter.’

‘Have you not seen the light?’ said Davytoo, sounding faintly ridiculous, like an old-time preacher.

‘What light?’ said Davy, and he said it so viciously that we knew he had. His eyes were nearly as red with anger as Davytoo’s were with sorrow. ‘The ghost light? I told you.’

‘It’s not. A damn. Ghost.’ Saz got right up in his face. And then more people poured out the crematorium, so we all took a breath and a step away.

‘Prove it,’ said Davy, and Davytoo groaned. He kicked the dirt and walked away without looking at anyone of us. And then we were three and, just like last time, we agreed we were meeting Saturday midnight, at the edge of the graveyard.

---

Just like last time, I lay in bed and twitched the minutes away. I tried not to think what would happen if there was a ghost, or if Mam woke up and saw my bed empty, or if Mam didn’t wake up and there wasn’t a ghost and how stupid would we feel. This time, though, I couldn’t shake that maybe there hadn’t been a ghost before, but there would be one now, and it’d be Norm and by Christ would he have it in for us.

Just like last time, come 11.15, I could hear Mam’s whistling snore starting up at the other end of the house. Come 11.30 my feet and hands had gone numb and cold with fear and I didn’t fancy I could pull myself out of bed even if I wanted to. Come 11.45, I should’ve been dressed and gone. I sat on the edge of the bed with one sock on and my jumper over my head and shivered. Norm’s ghost, in the bell tower. Norm’s ghost, drifting through the graveyard. Norm’s ghost, crying tears of blood and wielding all the power that ghosts get when they’ve come to avenge their deaths.

Come midnight, I sat at my bedroom window, not daring to touch the curtains, but staring through the gap. The moon had thinned, so the village was less lit than the night before and the church was a shadow – but I watched just the same for Saz and Davy and the light, which came again. Flash and gone. Flash and gone. Flash and on on on. I fancied I saw a face behind it. I fancied I saw them through the church walls, climbing up what were surely rickety and dusty steps. I fancied a scream cutting the air, but it was the owl in the oak two doors over, and the wind besides.

None of this was like last time. Last time I’d slept the night through with the relief of a coward in a good hiding place.

---

Mam answered the door to the hats while I was brushing my teeth through my yawns. She called me down and I came, stupid, in my idiot childish pyjamas and my purple toothbrush still in one hand, and I knew straight off, or thought I did. There were two of them, both women, and both of them looking too sympathetic for it to be good news or suspicion.

‘There’s been an accident, love,’ said Mam, just like she had when she’d got the call about Norm. ‘They’ve got some questions.’

Not Saz, not Davy. Or maybe Davy, but please, god, not Saz.

‘Were you out with David Tunnall last night?’ said one of the hats – I couldn’t tell them apart through their uniforms.

And then I don’t know how I answered, because I tried to tell them there was no way, no way Davytoo would’ve been out last night. He wasn’t speaking to any of us, I think I said. He walked away, I think I said. And we said we’d go, but I didn’t go, and none of us did that time or likely this time, and I didn’t go anyway and and and. Panic took my words and rushed them through without any of my mind taking part. I know I asked if he was ok. And they said, I think they said, they said: ‘He’s very ill. He’s in hospital. We’re trying to find what happened.’

I asked if I could see him.

They said family only.

And then Mam held me while I shook and cried. I didn’t go out to our place at Missus Lambert’s bitshop where the others would be. We’d be pitied, I knew. And we’d be looking at each other like Normsmum had looked at us. The loss of us, with Davytoo lying up in the hospital, was more than I could face. But I knew; everyone knew: broken wrist, broken jaw, two broken ribs, black eye, broken nose, punctured lung, ankle smashed and plenty of bruises elsewhere. Left cracked and freezing at the edge of the graveyard and no one could agree on how.

I sat in the garden, my back to the church, and stared at the clear horizon down the hill. No ghosts, that way. No spire, no bell tower, no Norm. Just hills down to fields and the river rolling by. I heard the doorbell jangle and Mam murmur low and send away whoever it was. We passed a quiet weekend. Mam made beans on toast for Sunday, and let me watch shite TV. And on Monday morning, she grit her teeth at me in sympathy and packed me back to school with the rest, all the same.

We ran into each just outside the school gate, like we’d planned it for a stage show. I sort of wish we had, just for the sake of the rubbernecks and stickybeaks who fell quiet when they saw us. We could’ve put something good together. A showdown. The grand finale. But instead we slowed and fell quiet as well and the space between us and the gap where Davytoo should be pulsed and pained ‘til Saz spoke.

‘I didn’t go,’ she said. ‘My Da locked me in.’ I hugged my relief to myself.

‘I didn’t go,’ said Davy, with twist to his lips. ‘Of course I didn’t. It’s haunted, like we said.’ Saz looked like she’d lamp him and took half a step, but he stared her down. ‘Killer cows?’ he spat on the ground between them. ‘I told you.’ He didn’t even smile this time. He’d got skinnier, toothier in the past week. His eyes had gone dark. ‘I told you all it was up there.’

We left him outside the gates and went to face the whispering mob.

That night the light at the church went flash and gone. Flash and gone. Flash and gone. Flash and on. And on.