Dancing Jax

“Young Wombles take your partners!” Miller sang as he and Tommo came waltzing in. “If you Minuetto Allegretto, you will live to be old.”

“You two won’t if you don’t stop dicking about,” Jezza warned them.

The men ceased and Tommo pointed to the mouldy chair.

“That’s what your fetid innards look like,” he muttered at Miller.

“You’re obsessed by my bowels,” the man answered with a bemused shake of the head.

“That’s because I can’t escape them! You keep making me breathe them in all the time!”

“You love it!”

Any further bickering was quelled by a fierce glance from Jezza. Then his eyes darted back to the girl. She was kneeling and rustling paper.

“What you got there?” he demanded.

“Kids’ magazine,” she answered, not looking up. “All yellow now and crinkly – look at those flares and the dodgy hair! There’s some old cans and sweet wrappers here too, Fresca and Aztec bars. Been a long time since this break-in.”

“Is it a girly mag?” Tommo asked brightly.

“For kids?” she snorted. “It looks like it’s all about the telly, besides – you’ve got enough of them mags already, Tommo.”

“He could open a library,” Miller agreed.

The girl looked at the magazine’s faded cover. Bold chunky type declared it was called Look–in, but there was also a name written on the corner in biro by a long retired newsagent:

Runecliffe.

She let the magazine fall to the floor.

Jezza stared about the room, his face twitching. “I don’t get it,” he said. “How come no one comes here? How come this place hasn’t been knocked down or tarted up by some rich knob with three cars and a split-level wife and an illegal immigrant nanny for their spoilt Siobhans and Zacharys? Prime, this place is, prime and begging for the developers.”

“The location, location, location’s no good,” Miller said, “We’re in the middle of nowhere here, and it was a long drive down that track full of potholes. We wouldn’t have guessed this place was here if we didn’t know about it and were looking.”

“Dirty big places like this don’t vanish off maps or land registries,” Jezza answered. “It don’t make sense. It must belong to someone.”

“If it does, they can’t care about it,” Tommo said. “Look at the state of it. Mr Muscle, where are you now?”

“We could squat in it,” Miller announced. “Get everyone over and fix it up a bit. Be a palace this would.”

“No!” the girl interrupted, rubbing her arms. “This is a sad house. It’s sad and depressing and I don’t like it.”

“All the more reason to pull it to pieces,” Jezza stated. “Nice, sellable, chopped-up pieces, and who’s going to complain? Perfect job this one, couldn’t be tastier!”

“I’ll start unloading the van,” Tommo said. “Come with me, Gasguts.”

“There you go again!” Miller cried. “You’re obsessed!”

“Wait!” Jezza barked suddenly. “Leave the tools for now.”

He was looking at the girl. She had risen and was staring into space, the expression drained from her features.

“Shee,” he said. “Shee!”

The girl started.

“How did you know about this place?” he asked.

The question nettled her and she moved towards the door.

“I just did,” she answered evasively. “I need a smoke and my lighter’s in the van.”

She hurried from the room, through the hall and out into the bright sunlight. The large, forbidding bulk of the house reared high behind her and she shivered as she fled back to the shabby camper van, parked up the overgrown drive. It was a horrible house. She hated it. She couldn’t wait to get out of it.

The VW’s familiar orange and cream colours reassured her and she let out a great breath of relief as she leaned against the dented passenger door.

“Stupid beggar,” she rebuked herself, pulling a cigarette out of her pocket and letting it hang in her lips as she lifted her eyes to gaze back at the imposing building.

It was a drab, ugly edifice, built of dull, grey stone in the heavy-handed, Victorian Gothic style, with a corner tower and too many gables. Planks and boards obscured the ground-floor windows, but higher up they were mostly uncovered and shaped like they belonged in a church.

Shiela hissed through her teeth at it. “Don’t you look at me like that,” she whispered.

Tall, misshapen trees crowded around it; there was even a tree growing in the middle of the drive, which was why they had to park the van so far away.

A rook or a crow cawed somewhere above and the lonely, unpleasant croaking made her shiver.

“Like a graveyard,” she murmured. “A graveyard for dead houses. There’s no life in that place, no life and never no love.”

Then a jangling rattle dragged her attention back to the front porch, where Jezza was standing, shaking the van keys.

“What freaked you out in there?” he asked as he sauntered over.

“I wasn’t freaked out. The air was bad. Stuffy and stale.”

“You put up with worse, with Miller in the back seat.”

“OK, I just don’t like that place. Give me them keys, I’m gasping.”

He snatched his hand away from her, dangling them just out of reach.

“That’s two questions you’ve avoided now,” he said, beginning to sound irritated. “Do you want me to force the answers out of you?”

“No, Jezza!” she said. “Just let me light up – for God’s sake!”

He threw the keys at her and a minute later she was dragging on the cigarette. Her fingers were trembling.

“It’s just a place I’ve heard about,” she explained, blowing out a stream of pale blue smoke. “Every town has one – the deserted old house. A place other kids dare you to go to, knock on the door, break in and spend the night.”