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He fancied the creature was screaming, calling up at him to stop, please,
leave me alone, I'm only little, and cursed his own
overcharged imagination.
He paused from the pounding to turn the taps full on, intent on drowning the
bloody thing if it wasn't already crushed to death, poking with the brush
again and again
until the soft, pulpy mess suddenly disappeared from view into the pipe, one
of its black legs remaining stuck (or clinging?) like a pubic hair to the
metal ring around the hole. To his relief, the stubborn limb soon followed the
mashed body and Thom quickly hung the plug above the swirling water, then let
it drop home lest the crushed spider minus one leg miraculously rise up again
against the deluge.
'Bloody hell...' he whispered to himself as he leaned back against the
bathroom wall, shaken by and ashamed of his panic. It was only a defenceless
spider whose long skinny legs made it appear larger than it really was. What
the hell was wrong with him? He was supposed to be a grown-up now, not some
snivelling kid afraid of creepy-crawlies. No other such creatures, insects or
beasts, had unduly disturbed him as a child - not even the occasional rat that
might find its way into the house - but there had always been something about
spiders that had turned his legs to jelly and sent his heart racing. His
mother had often patiently explained that every creature had its part to play
in nature, none of less value than the next, but the young Thom had never been
truly convinced. Spiders had always remained abhorrent to him. He shuddered as
he peeped over the edge of the bath, half-expecting to find the rubber plug
wobbling in its metal setting as thin spider's legs pushed through from
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underneath ... Jesus, cut it out!
Over-tired and over-wrought, he told himself. Get a grip.
Replacing the makeshift plastic bully-stick, he backed out of the bathroom,
still eyeing the puddle of brownish water at the bottom of the tub, heart
skipping a beat when a single air bubble escaped the side of the plug. The
plug remained firmly in place though.
At another time he might have smiled at his own nervousness, but today wasn't
the day: he was too vulnerable, his homecoming was too emotional. He closed
the bathroom door and began to climb the creaky wooden stairs, his left hand
brushing over the newel post, the thick trunk around
which the staircase spiralled. More memories came with the touch and in his
mind he was a child again, in a time when his knees rose high to mount the
steps that were thin at one end, broad at the other, his small hand pressed
against the circular newel for balance, his head tilted upwards to look into
the shadows above: on the first floor landing, the door leading off to the
bedroom he had shared with his mother, as big and sturdy as the two below, as
if they all had come as a job lot; the leaded window set high in the curved
wall, too high for him to look through unless he was on the stairs just past
it, always a pot of bright seasonal flowers or a plant sitting on its oak
sill...
There were no flowers and no plant there now, just an empty vase, one that was
unfamiliar to him. He could see through the window as soon as he reached the
first step beneath it.
The bedroom door was already open and he peered in without entering, noting
that this, too, had hardly changed: the same oak four-poster bed, large enough
to accommodate himself and his mother, the dark brown sideboard with separate
mirror on top that served as a dressing-table for Bethan, the stone fireplace
with its heavy duty wooden lintel, the six-panelled windows on three of the
angled walls, these too, leaded, their number ensuring the room was always
bright, even on the dullest of days. He didn't
linger too long, for it was the rooftop with its panoramic views over the
surrounding woodland that he wished to revisit most of all.
There were even more cracks and holes in the stair-boards than he remembered,
some of those holes as large as old penny pieces, and he recalled shining
torchlight down them all those years ago. Somehow the beams had never been
able to penetrate the seemingly endless darkness, even though the backing
board could not have been more than a foot away. It was eerie then, the
thought of it eerie now.
Yet that kind of thing had been part of Little Bracken's fascination: its [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]