Familiar and Haunting Read online

He must have taken very little money with him; they found the sooty sock, still nearly full, by the rent book on the mantelpiece. There was plenty to pay the rent due and to pay for cleaning up the house and the garden for the next tenant. He must have been fed up with being a householder, Dad said—and with having neighbors. He just wanted to turn tramp, and he did.

  It was soon after he’d gone that I said to Mum that I envied him, and she blew me up and went on and on about soap and water and fecklessness. All the same, I did envy him. I didn’t even have the fun with his tricycle that he’d had. I never rode it, although I wanted to, because I was afraid that people I knew would laugh at me.

  Black Eyes

  Cousin Lucinda was coming to stay with Jane, just for the weekend.

  Jane had never met Lucinda, but Jane’s mother said she was a year younger than Jane, and they must all be very kind to her. Jane imagined the rest. She imagined a shy little girl with blue eyes and golden curls that bobbed about a round, rosy face. She would be rather cuddly, and they would play with their teddy bears together.

  But Lucinda was not at all like that. She was thin, and her hair was black without any curl to it, and her eyes were black in a white face—eyes as black as the Pontefract cakes you find in a licorice assortment. Jane didn’t like licorice.

  And Lucinda ’s teddy bear had black eyes, too.

  “He was exactly like your teddy bear, to begin with,” said Lucinda, “with eyes exactly like yours. But then one day my teddy bear saw something so horrid—so horrible—that his eyes dropped out. Then my mother made black eyes for him, with black wool.” She paused for a quick breath. “But his eyes aren’t made of ordinary black wool, and they’re not stitched in an ordinary way. The black wool is magic, and my mother is a witch.”

  Jane said feebly, “My mother says your mother is her sister, so she can’t be a witch.”

  “That’s what your mother would like to believe,” said Lucinda.

  The two little girls were in their nightdresses, in Jane’s room, which Lucinda was sharing for two nights. They had been playing and talking before going to bed.

  Jane’s father came in to say good night. He caught sight of the two teddies lying side by side. Lucinda’s teddy never wore any clothes, she said, and Jane had just undressed her teddy for the night, taking off the trousers and jersey and balaclava helmet, with holes for the ears, that her mother had once knitted for him. So the two teddies lay side by side, with nothing on, and Jane’s father cried: “Twins! Twin teddy bears—as like as two apples in a bowl!”

  (He did not notice the difference in their eyes; that was the kind of thing he would never notice.)

  He darted forward, snatched up each teddy bear by a leg, and began juggling with them—throwing them up, one after the other, very quickly, and catching them as quickly, so that there were always two teddy bears whirling round in the air. He sometimes juggled with apples like this, until Jane’s mother told him to stop before he dropped one and bruised it.

  Both the little girls were jumping about and shouting to him to stop, as he meant them to. But Lucinda’s shouts turned into screams and then into long, screeching sobs. Jane’s father stopped at once and thrust both teddy bears into her arms and tried to hug her and kiss her and talk to her gently, saying over and over again that he hadn’t hurt the teddies one bit—they’d liked it—and he was very, very sorry. But Lucinda wriggled away from him and threw Jane’s teddy bear away, hard, so that it hit the bedroom wall with a smack, and she went on sobbing.

  In the end Jane’s father left them. You could see that he was really upset.

  Lucinda stopped crying. She said, “Sorry! He’ll be sorry!”

  “What do you mean?” asked Jane.

  “Didn’t you see the look my teddy gave your father out of his magic black eyes?”

  “No,” said Jane. “My teddy bear likes my father, even when he throws him up into the air. And my teddy can look at him better than your teddy, because my teddy has real teddy eyes. I don’t believe your teddy can look at all with woolwork eyes. Not as well as my teddy, anyway.”

  “Your teddy has silly eyes,” said Lucinda. “Yours is a silly teddy. Silly Teddy, Silly Teddy—that’s your teddy’s name now.”

  “No, it isn’t,” said Jane.

  “Yes, it is,” said Lucinda. “And my teddy is called Black Teddy. And your father will be sorry that he threw Black Teddy up into the air, so that Black Teddy had to look at him with his magic eyes.”

  Jane wanted to say something back, but her mother came in, rather anxiously, having heard about the juggling. She made the little girls get into their beds at once, and then she tucked them in, and kissed them good night, and went out, turning out the light.

  They did not speak again. Perhaps Lucinda went quickly to sleep; Jane did not know. Jane herself burrowed under the bedclothes and then whispered in her teddy’s ear, “I don’t like Black Teddy, do you? But he’s not staying long. …”

  The next morning, after breakfast, Jane’s father was washing up when he broke a cup.

  “Oh, really!” said his wife.

  “It’s only one of the cheap ones,” he said.

  “There isn’t such a thing as a cheap cup,” she retorted. “If you go on breaking cups, I can’t let you wash up.”

  “I’m planning to break the whole set,” said Jane’s father.

  And no more was said, but Lucinda whispered to Jane, “Black Teddy did that.”

  “Did what?”

  “Made him break that cup. Black Teddy ill-wished him to do it, with a look from his magic eyes.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Oh, Black Teddy can easily do that. He’s ill-wished my father so that he’s broken something, and my mother’s got angry, and then my father’s got angry, and then they’ve both screamed and screamed at each other and broken more things, and Black Teddy ill-wished it all with his magic eyes. Just as he ill-wished your father.”

  Jane wanted to shout, “I don’t believe it!” But she was afraid of what Lucinda might say back. She was afraid of Lucinda or of Black Teddy. So she just turned away.

  That Saturday morning Jane’s mother took the little girls out with her when she went shopping. Jane said it would be better if they left their teddy bears at home, each on a separate bed. So they did.

  When they got home, Jane went to her room to make sure that her teddy bear was all right. He sat exactly as she had left him, she thought, fully dressed, but then she saw that his balaclava helmet was on back to front. She trembled with anger as she put it right.

  Lucinda had come into the room just behind her. “You did that!” said Jane. “You turned his balaclava round so that he couldn’t see.”

  “He can’t see, anyway, with those silly eyes,” said Lucinda. “And I didn’t touch him. Black Teddy just ill-wished it to happen to him, and it did.”

  “It wasn’t Black Teddy; it was you!” said Jane. “And my teddy can see, except when his balaclava’s on back to front.”

  “Your silly teddy can’t see, ever. But Black Teddy, if he wanted to—Black Teddy could see through the back of a balaclava helmet, and through doors, and through walls; he can see through everything when he wants to ill-wish with his magic eyes.”

  Jane stamped her foot and shouted, “Go away!”

  Lucinda said, “I’m going away tomorrow morning, and I’m never coming back. You hate me.”

  Jane said, “Yes, I hate you!”

  At that moment Jane’s mother came to call them to dinner, and she overheard what Jane had said. She was very angry with her, and she petted Lucinda, who allowed herself to be petted. Jane saw Lucinda staring at her with her Pontefract eyes from under Jane’s mother’s chin.

  They sat down to dinner, but Jane’s father was not in his place. “We’ve run out of orange squash,” said Jane’s mother. “He’s just gone to the corner shop to get some.”

  “Is it far?” asked Lucinda.

  “Just along our street and across
the road,” said Jane’s mother. “You can start eating, Lucinda.”

  “Does he have to cross a busy road?” asked Lucinda.

  “What?” said Jane’s mother. “Oh, yes, busy on a Saturday. But that won’t delay him. He’s only to wait to cross the road.”

  Five minutes later Lucinda asked if she could have a drink of water, as there still wasn’t any orange squash. Jane’s mother got some from the tap and looked at the clock. “Where can he have got to?”

  “I hope he’s all right,” said Lucinda.

  “What do you mean, child?”

  “I hope he’s not been run over,” said Lucinda, looking at Jane as she spoke.

  “What rubbish!” said Jane’s mother, and sat down suddenly with her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

  At that moment Jane’s father walked in with the orange squash. He was surprised that his wife was angry with him for having been so long. He explained that he’d met a friend in the corner shop, and they’d got talking. The friend wanted him to go to a darts match that evening, and he’d said yes.

  “Leaving me to baby-sit?” said Jane’s mother.

  Jane’s father said he hadn’t thought of that, but he offered to take Jane and Lucinda to the playground in the park that afternoon. So it was agreed.

  Again, the teddy bears were left at home. Just before they set out for the park, Lucinda said she wanted to wear her knitted hat, after all, and ran back into Jane’s room to get it. Jane wondered, but her father was holding her fast by the hand, so she couldn’t follow Lucinda.

  When they came back from the park, Jane went straight into her bedroom, and—sure enough—there was her teddy with his balaclava on back to front. She put it right. Lucinda, smiling in the doorway, said, “How naughty of Black Teddy!” Jane glared at her.

  That evening, after Jane’s father had gone off to his darts match, they watched television. At bedtime there was Jane’s teddy with his balaclava on back to front again, but this time Jane didn’t bother to put it right, until she was in bed and her mother was just going to turn out the light. Then she took off the balaclava and the other clothes, and she took her teddy bear right down under the bedclothes and whispered: “Black Teddy is only staying until tomorrow morning. Then he’s going home with Lucinda on the coach.” She fell asleep with her teddy bear in her arms.

  She woke because Lucinda was shaking her. Lucinda had drawn back the curtains so that moonlight streamed into the room. She stood by Jane’s bed, and in the moonlight Lucinda’s face looked whiter and her eyes looked blacker than by daylight. She was holding Black Teddy right up to the side of her face.

  She said softly to Jane, “Don’t make a noise, but listen! Can you hear someone crying?”

  “Crying?”

  “Sobbing and sobbing. It must be your mother sobbing.”

  Jane was frightened. “I don’t think I can hear her. Why should she be sobbing?”

  “Because Black Teddy ill-wished your father with his magic eyes.”

  “She wouldn’t cry because of that,” said Jane firmly. And she was certain now that she couldn’t hear anything.

  “Ah, but she would cry, when she heard what happened to your father on his way home from the darts match, after dark.”

  “What happened to him?” asked Jane. She hadn’t meant to ask; she didn’t want to ask; she didn’t believe what Lucinda was going to say.

  Lucinda turned Black Teddy so that he was facing Jane. She brought him forward so that his black eyes were looking into Jane’s eyes. “Listen to what Black Teddy ill-wished,” said Lucinda. “You remember that corner of the park where we took a shortcut? You remember that slimy pond that your father said was very deep? You remember that thick bush that grows just beside that pond? You remember?”

  “Yes,” said Jane faintly.

  “Your father decided to take a shortcut home in the dark, after the darts match. He was crossing that corner of the park by the pond and the bush. It was very dark; it was very lonely. There was someone hiding behind the bush, waiting for your father.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “He jumped out at your father from behind and hit him on the head, hard, and then he dragged him toward the pond—”

  “No, no, no!” With what seemed one movement Jane was out of bed and into the sitting room, and there was her mother dozing in front of the television set. She woke up when Jane rushed in, and Jane rushed into her arms. What Jane said was such a muddle and so frantic that her mother thought she had been having nightmares. While she was trying to calm her, Jane’s father walked in, very pleased with his darts evening and perfectly safe and sound.

  They tried to understand what Jane tried to tell them. They looked into Jane’s bedroom, but there was Lucinda in bed, apparently sound asleep, with Black Teddy clasped in her arms. Even the curtains were drawn close.

  They were cross with Jane when she said she wasn’t going to sleep in the same room as Lucinda’s Black Teddy, but in the end, they gave way. They wrapped her in rugs, and she slept on the couch in the sitting room, and Lucinda and Black Teddy had Jane’s room to themselves.

  “And I don’t want to play with her tomorrow morning, and I don’t want to see her off at the coach station, or be with her and her Black Teddy at all” said Jane, when they said a last good night to her.

  On Sunday morning they all had breakfast together, but the little girls spoke not a word to each other. After breakfast Jane’s mother said that she would help Lucinda get ready to go home, and Jane’s father said he would take Jane to the playground while she was doing that. In the playground Jane’s father often looked at his watch, and they didn’t stay there very long. When they got back, Jane’s mother and Lucinda had gone. Probably only just gone—Jane’s father had timed their return very carefully.

  He said, “Well, that’s that! Poor little girl!”

  Jane said, “She was horrible, and she had a horrible Black Teddy.”

  “She’s very unhappy at home,” said her father. “We must make allowances. Her mother and father fight like cat and dog. She suffers. That’s why your mother asked her for a weekend, but it didn’t work.”

  “Oh,” said Jane, but she didn’t feel sorry for Lucinda at all. She went off to her bedroom, her own bedroom that she wouldn’t have to share with Lucinda and Black Teddy anymore. And there sat her own dear teddy bear on her bed, waiting for her. He had his balaclava helmet on back to front, as Lucinda must have arranged it before she left, but that was for the very last time. No more of Black Teddy and his ill-wishing, ever again …

  She gazed happily at her teddy bear, but as she gazed, her happiness seemed to falter, to die in her. She gazed and thought that her teddy bear seemed somehow not his usual self. There was something odd about the way he sat, something odd about his paws, something odd about his ears.

  She snatched him up and pulled off the balaclava helmet: a pair of black woolen eyes stared at her.

  She rushed back to her father, crying, “She’s taken the wrong teddy! Lucinda’s stolen my teddy bear!” She gabbled and wept together.

  Her father acted instantly. “Come on!” he said. “Bring him with you, and we’re off. They’ve got ten minutes’ start on us to the coach station, but we might be in time. We must catch them before the coach leaves with Lucinda and Lucinda’s suitcase with your teddy in it. Come on—run!”

  They tore out of the house, Jane’s father gripping Jane’s hand and Jane gripping Black Teddy. They ran and ran; they had to wait at the main road for a gap in the traffic, and then across, and past the corner shop, and by the shortcut across the park—there was that dreadful bush beside that dreadful pond, only it was all bright and busy this Sunday morning—and on, down another street, and then another, and Jane was quite breathless, and there was the coach station! They went rushing in, and Jane’s father seemed to know where Lucinda’s coach would be, and there it was! There it was, with Jane’s mother talking to the driver, no doubt about putting Lucinda off at the right place, where
she would be met. And there was Lucinda herself, already sitting in the coach, with her suitcase in the rack above her head.

  “Stay there!” said her father to Jane, and he took Black Teddy from her and climbed into the coach. He hadn’t time to say anything to Jane’s mother, who stared in amazement, so Jane explained to her mother—and to the coach driver—while she watched what her father was doing.

  Once he was in the coach, Jane’s father stopped being in a hurry and being excited. He walked to the empty seat next to Lucinda and sat down in it and spoke to her, showing her Black Teddy. (Jane could see all this very clearly through the window of the coach.) He talked to her, and while he talked, he took the trousers and jersey off Black Teddy and stuffed them into his pocket. Then he put Black Teddy into Lucinda’s arms, but she just let him fall into her lap. Jane’s father went on talking, and still he didn’t take the suitcase from the rack and snatch Jane’s teddy from it, as Jane expected every minute.

  At last Jane’s father took a handkerchief from his pocket and began dabbing Lucinda’s cheeks with it. So Lucinda was crying.

  And at last Lucinda stood up on her seat and reached for her suitcase in the rack and brought it down and opened it and took Jane’s teddy from it and gave it to Jane’s father. Then he put the suitcase back for her and tried to put his arm around her and kiss her good-bye, but she wouldn’t let him. Then he got off the coach with Jane’s teddy bear.

  Jane’s father thanked the coach driver for delaying those few minutes, and he handed Jane her teddy bear, and she hugged him.

  Then the coach was off. It moved out of the station toward the Great London Road. They were all waving good-bye to Lucinda, even Jane, but she never waved, never looked back.

  The coach stopped at the lights before the Great Road. They couldn’t see Lucinda anymore, because of the sun’s dazzling on the glass of her window. But they could see the window beginning to crawl down; Lucinda must be winding it down from the inside. And Black Teddy appeared at the gap at the top of the window.

  The lights changed, and the coach moved on again, into the traffic on the Great Road, gathered speed with the rest of the traffic. …