Bradbury - Ghost Stories: The best of The Daily Telegraphs ghost story competition

The best of the Daily Telegraphs
Ghost Story Competition

First published as an eBook in Great Britain in 2010 by
PROFILE BOOKS LTD
3A Exmouth House
Pine Street
London EC1R 0JH
www.profilebooks.com

in association with the Daily Telegraph Books

Selection copyright Profile Books Ltd, 2010
Grace Gill Baconnier, 2010
Daniels Caul Ceri Hughes, 2010
A Hollow Cause Craig Drew, 2010
The Rites of Zhou Justin Crozier, 2010
Gimme Shelter Pat Black, 2010
Friends Richard Crompton, 2010
The Small Hand extract Susan hill, 2010

The moral right of the authors has been asserted.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

eISBN 978-1-84765-771-8

~ Gill Baconnier

~ Ceri Hughes

~ Craig Drew

~ Justin Crozier

~ Pat Black

~ Richard Crompton

Gill Baconnier

The painting slides out from between the folded yellowing sheets in my mothers linen chest. I recognise it immediately the house, I mean, not my fathers painting, which isnt very good. Hes written the name and address on the back: Le Mas Fontblanche. Ventabren. Near Aix. But I would have known it anywhere.

Strange how I havent thought about it in all these years. Tracing the outline of the water-coloured stones, I try to remember. My finger comes to rest on a shutter, half open and bleached to the colour of sun-dried lavender. My throat constricts with a long-forgotten panic. Whats this? A figure peering from the window: a pale wisp of a creature, hardly more than a smudge really.

Its her I know its her

We went to France the summer I was twelve. My mother was French and the house belonged to her cousin, Ren. He was going to meet us at the station.

I stepped off the train in Aix-en-Provence, gasping at the heat. I remember the smell of dust and burnt earth and a sound like sandpaper rubbing together. Cigales, Mum said, smiling. Cicadas. My mother was happy I think she had missed coming home. Dad picked up the cases and we walked through the brief coolness of the station building and I could tell he was happy for her too.

The car wound its way through narrow streets and out into the country. A stark, white mountain was etched into the brilliant sky. Look Angela, Sainte Victoire, said my mother. Id seen it in a painting by Czanne maybe Dad would try to paint it.

The car window was open and the air was thick with the smell of rosemary and thyme and so heavy with heat it was like breathing honey. My bare legs stuck to the leather seat and my hair was damp around my shoulders. It seemed to take an age to get there.

When my father died I came home, and then my mother fell ill, so I stayed to look after her. They have a new word for it now: carer. I didnt mind. Caring is what I do best after all, I used to be a nurse. Anyway, I always felt safer at home.

But in this empty, silent house, I feel bereft. Not lonely exactly: I have enough memories to keep me company and no great need for friends. I simply feel, as I have often felt, that life has eluded me.

I close the lid of the chest and take the painting downstairs, hugging it close. I know exactly what Im going to do.

There was a hand-painted sign pinned to a tree. It said: Le Mas Fontblanche and we turned up a rough, dry track through dusty fields. The House of the White Fountain, said my father, pleased to have understood something at last. Mum laughed and said there had been a spring there, years ago, but it had long since dried up. Looking around at the arid landscape it seemed to me that everything had dried up.

Then the Mas was there in front of us, a huge, L-shaped farmhouse of pale grey stone. We climbed out of the car and followed Ren into the dark, cool house. My bedroom was at the top of the stone staircase and down a small corridor. I could see the Sainte Victoire from the window, beyond the dry, rock-strewn fields.

I saw another door, in the far wall of the room. Ren said it led to a part of the house that wasnt used anymore and that it had been locked for as long as he could remember. The short stroke of the L, I thought.

I hadnt realised plane tickets were so cheap. The young man in the travel agency even found me this hotel right in the centre of Aix at a reasonable price. I managed to get here without mishap and I feel quite daring. Who would have thought it?

The Tourist Office is just around the corner so I get myself a guidebook, then I sit at a caf on the Cours Mirabeau, sipping Perrier-menthe and thinking about the painting. Ive come to the conclusion that my father was merely recording a memory: a sort of morbid holiday souvenir. After all and this much I do remember the incident was responsible for the panic attacks that blighted the rest of my childhood.

My father could not possibly have seen her, could he?

One day, I opened the door. My parents had gone down to the village and I was alone. I dont know what made me try, as I knew it was locked. Only it wasnt: I turned the handle and it opened easily. I went in, and found myself in a bedroom. From somewhere came the sound of piano music, melancholy notes drifting through the house like strands of gossamer. The shutters were open, which puzzled me. Didnt Ren tell us this part of the house wasnt used anymore? The window was on the same side of the house as my own yet, moving towards it, I realised that the view was different. I could see rooftops where there should have been only fields. It was raining hard outside and the sky was the shade of a swollen bruise, but I knew that here, thunderstorms could take you by surprise.

I turned from the window, just as she came into the room.

I had a bad night. It may have been the heat or the noisy air-conditioning but I couldnt sleep. And now I stand at the window looking up at the blue, blue sky and wondering why on earth I came. On a whim? That would be a first.

I dont want to go to Ventabren. I dont have to. Im on holiday. I could go anywhere: Avignon, Marseille, Manosque Besides, what could I hope to achieve by going back? The house might not even be standing and certainly, I have no idea where it is. I was only twelve.

The bus to Ventabren leaves at 9.45. As it winds towards the village I find myself scanning the countryside, just in case. The driver drops me outside a supermarket and, swinging my rucksack on to my back, I start to walk towards the village.

No. Not this way.

I turn around and head into the hills.

She was a girl of about my own age, tall and thin with long, black hair. It was her eyes that startled me: the palest of grey, like an icy lake in winter. She closed the door and leant against it, staring straight ahead.

Hello, I said.