‘See … There it is in the top room,’ I said.
‘Yeaahhh,’ said Dad. ‘Flickering … must be a candle …’
‘Right. I’m going to phone the police,’ said Mum.
‘No hang on …’ said Dad. He extricated himself from the curtains. ‘Let’s think about this for a moment.’
‘What’s there to think about?’
‘Well … How long has that house stood empty?’
‘Two years … could be three.’
‘So that’s two or three years when the house could have provided a roof over someone’s head. Some poor individual who’s been sleeping rough in a doorway or something.’
I loved the way Dad was like this — always surprising me — always ready to see the other side of the question. I slipped an arm through his.
‘Dad’s right. Mum. There could be some poor homeless person in there, trying to shelter.’
‘Poor homeless person! Next thing we know there’ll rubbish all the way up the street, rats, needles — God knows what else …’
‘It’s a situation this country’s brought upon itself,’ said Dad.
‘This is a respectable street. Families, children … the last thing we need is squatters.’
At that point Jamie upset my entire carefully-stacked collection of CDs. This mini-landslide brought Mum’s attention back to him and she remembered the initial reason for coming into my room.
‘Bed for you Jamie. Goodness, look at the time!’
She went off with him, still grumbling over her shoulder at my father.
‘You and your oh-so-liberal views.’
‘You may or may not have forgotten … I lived in a squat myself once,’ Dad called after her.
‘You? You were a squatter?’ I exclaimed.
‘Not for long. When I was a student. We were so hard up we had no choice. But we got the place running like clockwork. I reckon we did the people who owned it a favour. Damp old house it was before we cleaned it up. Mended the roof too — all the ceilings would have been down in another few months.’
‘So what do you think we should do?’
‘I reckon I ought to pay our new neighbours a visit. See if they’ve got forked tongues and fangs …’
‘What if they have?’
‘You willing to stand watch?’
‘Sure …’
‘Bring the portable in here and if you see someone coming at me with a meat cleaver — ring 999 straight away. Oh … and … Don’t tell Mum, OK?’
I stood at the window grasping the portable really tightly. I had a sick feeling in my throat. What if there were violent people in there — criminals — thugs?
I watched Dad cross the road and make his way up the overgrown front path. He hammered on the front door. The sound echoed down the road. I wondered if Mum would hear, but by the sound of bathwater running, I could tell she was busy bathing Jamie.
Nothing happened for a while. Then Dad hammered again, harder this time. Number twenty-five seemed absolutely silent — uninhabited. And then, I tightened my hold on the portable. The light on the first floor was on the move again, floating and glimmering through chinks in the boarding. It was descending through the house.
I waited tensely, expecting the front door to be split asunder any minute and some equivalent of the Incredible Hulk to come bursting through. But it didn’t. Dad just stood there. He seemed to be talking animatedly through the door, waving his arms around. I could tell by his back that he was speaking but I couldn’t catch what he said because Mum was letting the bathwater out. Then Dad seemed to give up — he shook his head and came back across the road.
I heard our front door slam.
I headed down the stairs.
‘What happened? What did they say?’
Dad cleared his throat. ‘Bloody confident little bastard, whoever he is. Said he had every right to be there. Told me I was an interfering old busy-body. And suggested that I … Piss off.’
I could tell by Dad’s tone that he felt put-down. Guess it was a male pride thing — he’d gone over that road in the spirit of a well-wisher, a comrade-in-arms, and he’d been told to get lost. I managed to stifle the impulse to giggle. He went to the fridge and took out a can of lager, snapped it open and sat down, thoughtfully sipping it.
‘What did he sound like — this bloke? A great big bruiser?’
‘No … not at all. Quite young …’
‘How young?’
‘Hard to tell but couldn’t be more than, say seventeen … eighteen?’
‘Who?’ Gemma had left off watching the TV and was helping herself to juice from the fridge.
‘Someone who seems to have moved in over the road, number twenty-five.’
‘What, in the spook house?’
‘It’s not a spook house, remember. No such things as spooks. Gemma,’ said Dad, taking the juice container out of her hand and returning it to the fridge before she drank the lot.
‘Seventeen or eighteen. What does he look like?’ asked Gemma. Already I could see she was assessing his romantic potential. Gemma was positively addicted to romances. Love Stories, Sweet Valley High, Mills & Boon — Gemma consumed all this stuff at the rate of three books a week.
‘I haven’t actually seen him yet. We talked through the door.’
‘Oh … but you must be able to tell. You can from voices, you know. I read this book about these two people who fell in love over the telephone. They’d never even met and it was the real thing …’
‘Gemma listen,’ I said. This is like some tramp or something. Wild-eyed, unshaven, overweight maybe. He probably smells … Really rough.’
‘He didn’t sound rough. Just annoyed,’ said Dad. ‘Funny business.’
We could hear Mum coming downstairs. Dad obviously wanted to bring the discussion to a close.
‘Hey Gem. Your bedtime. Off you go.’
‘Must I?’
Mum appeared at the kitchen door. ‘Yes, you must. Term starts tomorrow, remember?’
Later that night, when I went up to bed, I opened my window as usual. Dad has this real thing about fresh air. Unless its about ten degrees below, he absolutely insists we sleep with the windows open. He says we can pile on as many duvets as we like but young lungs need fresh air and the air is freshest at night when there’s not so much traffic around. He’s got this big thing about traffic too, but I won’t bore you with all that right now. I stared out of the window. The light was still there, flickering in the top room now. With the curtains drawn around behind me, I settled down to watch. Nothing much was happening — only the light was moving around a bit. And it was pretty chilly too.
‘What’s going on?’ Gemma’s small warm body thrust itself against mine.
‘Ssssh!’ I said unnecessarily, as he could hardly have heard us from across the street. ‘Nothing.’
‘I reckon he looks like Liam Gallagher. Unshaven, you know, and kind of hungry-looking. Dead sexy.’
‘What would you know about it?’ Gemma