[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.The salty smell of boiling ham and cooking lentils filled the room.Iffy told her about the frogs.“The trouble with you, Iffy, is you’re a bloody Tom Pepper.”Iffy stood by the sink dripping with indignation.Nan lifted a saucepan lid and poked boiled potatoes with a wonky fork without looking at her once.“Honest to God, Nan, it rained frogs!”“Don’t tell lies, Iffy.”“I’m not! I’m not! Cross my heart and swear to die, stick a needle in my eye.Honest to God, Nan, it rained frogs.”“Frogs my arse!”“There was lightning and a bloody big crack of thunder and – ”“Watch your tongue, my girl, or I’ll give you a bloody crack round the ear if you carry on.”“On my life, Nan, hundreds of them.”“Ay, and I’m a monkey’s uncle.Pass me that salt.”Iffy passed the salt.A blue tub of salt, sweaty with steam.“Green ones, thousands, millions, hopping all over the place.Laughing they were…It’s a plague from God.Just like Bridgie Thomas said, to punish us for all the bad things we’ve done.”“Bad things! Bridgie Thomas! Bridgie Thomas is soft in the head.Rained frogs be buggered! Get them wet clothes off and put them to air on the fender.”Iffy stood by the fire steaming in her vest and pants.It was boiling in the kitchen.There was always a fire even on scorching hot days.The fire was the only way to cook and boil water for tea.“Fatty’ll tell you.”“Fatty? Fatty’ll say anything bar his prayers.”“It’s true! And Bessie and Billy seen them.They was swimming in the puddles and then they all hopped away down to the river.Nan, Nan honest…”“Raining frogs! Laughing frogs!”“But Nan…Bridgie Thomas said it would happen.That the graves would crack open and dead people would be walking about all over the place!”“Dead people walking! How the hell can dead people walk! I have enough trouble and I’m alive!”“That’s what she said! What if it happens, Nan? What if my mam and dad come alive and come after me!”“Don’t be so dopey, Iffy.Your dad is up in heaven.”“And my mam?”Mrs Meredith poked the bubbling potatoes and didn’t say anything.“And my mam, Nan?”She coughed, lifted a lid, and poked the ham with a vengeance.“Ay, and your mam, God forgive – ”“But what if dead people do come after me when I’m in bed?”“Iffy! Dead people can’t hurt you! It’s the living you want to be afraid of.”“Why do I have to be afraid of the living?”“You don’t.”“You just said I did.”“Well, you don’t! There’s nobody you have to be afraid of.”“What about Georgie Fingers and Dai Full Pelt and old Mrs Medlicott?”“You keep well away from that lot.”“Why, if they’re not going to hurt me?”“Just keep well away and don’t even speak to them if you can help it.”“But you said they wouldn’t hurt me.”“Go anywhere near them and I’ll bloody hurt you!”“Dai Full Pelt called me Sambo.”“What were you doing talking to him?”“I didn’t.”“Ay, well, Dai Full Pelt doesn’t know what he’s talking about.Tell him to go and scratch.”“How can I if I’m not allowed to talk to him, Nan? How can I, Nan?”“Oh Iffy, Nan’s arse for a bloody raffle! Don’t Nan me…go and get some dry clothes on before you catch your death – and mind out the way or you’ll have that pan over…Rained frogs, be buggered!”Iffy thought grown-ups believed in lots of things but they never wanted to believe in miracles.But it was true.Bridgie Thomas was right! There were secrets in the valley that they were being paid back for.She and Fatty had drunk the holy water.Fatty had peed in the bottle! A skull had sailed away down the river.And God had made it rain frogs.She knew without a doubt that anything might happen now.Iffy was afraid.Nan had been to tuck her in and now she lay looking up at the hook in the ceiling that had been used in ancient times to hang meat on.Grancha had told her that in the olden days the houses had been shared by two families.The poorer family had the back of the house, the kitchen and a loft above it for sleeping.The posh family had the front, the parlour, this room of hers as a kitchen, bedrooms upstairs and they came in and out through the front garden.Iffy hated that hook.It reminded her of the hooks that pirates had in the ends of their arms in story books.She was terrified of pirates even though she’d never seen one or even been to the seaside.One night when she was little the hook had started turning round and round and she had screamed until she was sick.She sniffed the air.Sometimes she thought she could smell the perfume from her nightmare.No smells tonight.She prayed not to have the nightmare when the smell of the strange perfume crept out from the cracks in the walls.And she heard the cry of a ghost baby in a creaking crib.Or, worst of all, when a dark face grew out of the writhing shadows and got close to hers, whispering frantic words she couldn’t understand.Every time she had the dream she peed the bed leaking.On windy nights when the branches of the bushes tapped against the window she thought it was the tap tap tapping of Blind Pugh escaped from the pages of Treasure Island and come to get her.Tap tap tapping with his stick along the hillside gwlis, his blind eyes glowing in the moonlight.She thought of all the lunatics who lived in the town, they could be outside the window now, prowling around in the dark.She counted them up.Three harmless ones: Auntie Mary Meredith who was family, mad but not dangerous, three splashes short of a birdbath; Lally Tudge, no lights on upstairs; Jack Look Up, daft as arseholes but nice.Then Dulcie Davies who lived down Iron Row and ate live fish made four.Mrs Dwyer who slept with pigs in her bed made five.Dangerous lunatics were the worst sort.Two of them for definite: Dai Full Pelt for a start, and Georgie Fingers, then old Mrs Medlicott according to Nan.The candle on the tallboy flickered, then hissed and the light in the bedroom grew dim then bright again.Long-legged shadows ran over the bed and scurried away into dark corners.The tapping started on the window pane.Iffy closed her eyes tightly, held her breath and pulled the patchwork quilt up over her head, tight against her face until she could hardly breathe.Her heart beat like a Sally Army tambourine.The tapping got quicker, and quicker.Tap tap tap.A hard insistent tapping on the window pane.Blind Pugh!Bugger!Tap tap tap!Ghosts from the cracked open graves.Just like Bridgie Thomas had said.It could be her mam.Got up from her grave.Or her dad risen from the bottom of the sea [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]