‘Why should it go cheap?’ I asked curiously. ‘It’s a fine site.’
She wouldn’t answer that.
‘Supposing a builder buys it cheap, what will he do with it?’
She chuckled to herself. It was malicious, unpleasant laughter.
‘Pull down the old ruined house and build, of course. Twenty – thirty houses, maybe – and all with a curse on them.’ I ignored the last part of the sentence. I said, speaking before I could stop myself:
‘That would be a shame. А great shame.’
‘Ah, you needn’t worry. They’ll get no joy of it, not those who buys and not those who lays the bricks and mortar. There’ll be a foot that slips on the ladder, and there’ll be the lorry that crashes with a load, and the slate that falls from the roof of a house and finds its mark. And the trees too. Crashing, maybe, in a sudden gale. Ah, you’ll see! There’s none that’ll get any good out of Gipsy’s Acre. They’d do best to leave it alone. You’ll see. You’ll see.’ She nodded vigorously and then she repeated softly to herself, ‘There’s no luck for them as meddles with Gipsy’s Acre. There never has been.’
I laughed. She spoke sharply.
‘Don’t laugh, young man. It comes to me as maybe one of these days you’ll laugh on the wrong side of your mouth. There’s never been no luck there, not in the house nor yet in the land.’
‘What happened in the house?’ I asked. ‘Why has it been empty so long? Why was it left to fall down?’
‘The last people that lived there died, all of them.’
‘How did they die?’ I asked out of curiosity.
‘Best not to speak of it again. But no one cared to come and live in it afterwards. It was left to moulder and decay. It’s forgot by now and best that it should be.’
‘But you could tell me the story,’ I said, wheedlingly. ‘You know all about it.’
‘I don’t gossip about Gipsy’s Acre.’ Then she let her voice drop to a kind of phoney beggar’s whine. ‘I’ll tell your fortune now, my pretty lad, if you like. Cross my palm with silver and I’ll tell your fortune. You’re one of those that’ll go far one of these days.’
‘I don’t believe nonsense about fortune-telling,’ I said, ‘and I haven’t any silver. Not to spare, anyway.’
She came nearer to me and went on in a wheedling voice. ‘Sixpence now. Sixpence now. I’ll do it for sixpence. What’s that? Nothing at all. I’ll do it for sixpence because you’re a handsome lad with a ready tongue and a way with you. It could be that you’ll go far.’
I fished a sixpence out of my pocket, not because I believed in any of her foolish superstitions but because for some reason I liked the old fraud even if I did see through her. She grabbed the coin from me, and said:
‘Give me your hand then. Both hands.’
She took my hands in her withered claw and stared down at the open palms. She was silent for a minute or two, staring. Then she dropped my hands abruptly, almost pushing them away from her. She retreated a step and spoke harshly.
‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out of Gipsy’s Acre here and now and you won’t come back! That’s the best advice I can give you. Don’t come back.’
‘Why not? Why shouldn’t I come back?’
‘Because if you do you’ll come back to sorrow and loss and danger maybe. There’s trouble, black trouble waiting for you. Forget you ever saw this place. I’m warning you.’
‘Well of all the —’
But she had turned away and was retreating to the cottage. She went in and slammed the door. I’m not superstitious. I believe in luck, of course, who doesn’t? But not a lot of superstitious nonsense about ruined houses with curses on them. And yet I had an uneasy feeling that the sinister old creature had seen something in my hands. I looked down at my two palms spread out in front of me. What could anyone see in the palms of anyone’s hands? Fortune-telling was arrant nonsense – just a trick to get money out of you – money out of your silly credulity. I looked up at the sky. The sun had gone in, the day seemed different now. А sort of shadow, a kind of menace. Just an approaching storm, I thought. The wind was beginning to blow, the backs of the leaves were showing on the trees. I whistled to keep my spirits up and walked along the road through the village.
I looked again at the pasted-up bill advertising the auction of The Towers. I even made a note of the date. I had never attended a property sale in my life but I thought to myself that I’d come and attend this one. It would be interesting to see who bought The Towers. That is to say interesting to see who became the owner of Gipsy’s Acre. Yes, I think that’s really where it all began… А fantastic notion occurred to me. I’d come and pretend to myself that I was the man who was going to bid for Gipsy’s Acre! I’d bid against the local builders! They’d drop out, disappointed in their hopes of buying it cheap. I’d buy it and I’d go to Rudolf Santonix and say, ‘Build me a house. I’ve bought the site for you.’ And I’d find a girl, a wonderful girl, and we’d live in it together happy ever after.
I often had dreams of that kind. Naturally they never came to anything but they were fun. That’s what I thought then. Fun! Fun, my God! If I’d only known!
Chapter 2
It was pure chance that had brought me to the neighbourhood of Gipsy’s Acre that day. I was driving a hired car, taking some people down from London to attend a sale, a sale not of a house but its contents. It was a big house just at the outskirts of the town, a particularly ugly one. I drove an elderly couple there who were interested, from what I could overhear of their conversation, in a collection of papier mâché, whatever papier mâché was. The only time I ever heard it mentioned before was by my mother in connection with washing-up bowls. She’d said that a papier mâché washing-up bowl was far better than a plastic one any day! It seemed an odd thing for rich people to want to come down and buy a collection of the stuff.
However I stored the fact away in my mind and I thought I would look in a dictionary or read up somewhere what papier mâché really was. Something that people thought worthwhile to hire a car for, and go down to a country sale and bid for. I liked to know about things. I was twenty-two years of age at that time and I had picked up a fair amount of knowledge one way and another. I knew a good deal about cars, was a fair mechanic and a careful driver. Once I’d worked with horses in Ireland. I nearly got entangled with a dope gang but I got wise and quit in time. А job as a chauffeur to a classy car hire firm isn’t bad at all. Good money to be made with tips. And not usually too strenuous. But the work itself was boring.
Once I’d gone fruit picking in summer time. That didn’t pay much, but I enjoyed myself. I’d tried a lot of things. I’d been a waiter in a third-class hotel, life guard on a summer beach, I’d sold encyclopaedias and vacuum cleaners and a few other things. I’d once done horticultural work in a botanical garden and had learnt a little about flowers.
I never stuck to anything. Why should I? I’d found nearly everything I did interesting. Some things were harder work than others but I didn’t really mind that. I’m not really lazy. I suppose what I really am is restless. I want to go everywhere, see everything, do everything. I want to find something. Yes, that’s it. I want to find something.
From the time I left school I wanted to find something, but I didn’t yet know what that something was going to be. It was just something I was looking for in a vague, unsatisfied sort of way. It was somewhere. Sooner or later I’d know all about it. It might perhaps be a girl… I like girls, but no girl I’d met so far had been important… You liked them all right but then you went to the next one quite gladly. They were like the jobs I took. All right for a bit and then you got fed up with them and you wanted to move on to the next one. I’d gone from one thing to another ever since I’d left