“Hello, home, I’m honey!” he announced, throwing his arms wide.
The other gagged as he pushed him inside. “Have you blown off again?”
“I’m a fart starter – a twisted fart starter!” sang the laughing reply.
“Your backside makes my eyes bleed, man.”
“Mmm… Bisto. You can dip your bread in that one, Tommo.”
The man called Tommo dodged around him and fled deeper into the hall. He wore grubby denim and his brown hair was loose and curly. “There’s got to be a rotting alien in your guts, Miller,” he spluttered. “Them guffs aren’t human.”
“Grow up, for God’s sake,” the girl told them irritably. “We should’ve brought Howie and Dave instead.”
“Howie and Dave don’t have our power tools,” Tommo answered, raising his hand and pressing an invisible trigger as he made a drill sound behind his teeth.
Miller lumbered further in and flexed his arms, sucking in his stomach at the same time. “And we is the muscle,” he declared. “Jezza needs he-men to rip this place to bits.”
“By the power of Greyskull!” Tommo called out, holding an imaginary sword aloft.
“The power of the Chuckle Brothers,” she observed dryly. Before the girl could stop them, he and Tommo seized her hands and started pulling her from side to side.
“To me, to you, to me, to you!” they chanted in unison.
“Get off!” she yelled, which only encouraged them to do it more.
“You lot!” Jezza’s voice called out to them sharply. “In here – now.”
The game stopped immediately. The girl threw them filthy looks. “Saddo losers,” she snapped, but there was a smirk on her face when she turned her back and followed Jezza into the nearest room.
“She meant you,” Miller told Tommo.
Tommo pressed his forefingers against the other man’s temple and made the drill noise again.
The girl’s grey eyes flicked about the spacious reception room. At first she could not see Jezza. The rags of light that poked through the imperfectly boarded windows contrasted with the deep wells of gloom around them. Apart from a card table and a red leather armchair, blackened with mildew, the room seemed empty. Then, as her vision adjusted, she found him. He was standing before a grand fireplace, leaning on the mantel as if he was already master of the house.
There was a sneer on his face.
“No one ever goes there, Jezza,” he said, repeating her words of the previous night and nodding at the opposite wall.
The girl turned and looked at the rotten panelling. It was covered in painted scrawl.
“Only kids,” she said with a shrug.
“Kids have sticky mitts,” he spat in reply before returning his attention to the fireplace and running his hands over it.
“Marble,” he announced, trailing his fingers through the mantel’s grime. “You have to tease these out dead gentle. Should fetch in plenty, and if there’s more, we’ll be laughing.”
The young woman touched the graffiti-covered wall, quietly reading the peeling words.
“Marc Bolan, The Sweet, Remember you’re a Womble, Mungo Jerry… this was a kid from a long time ago,” she said with a faint smile. “They’d be old as my mum now.”
“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