I remember the print-out we had been given the first time we came to view:
Some structural work needed. Good opportunity for renovation. Interiors need updating. An ideal chance to buy a detached country property at a realistic price.
It was a hole. We had been told that the previous owners, the Thornbers, had lived there all their lives. They owned the land around the house and it had been a working farm. For the last fifteen years though Mr and Mrs Thornber had just lived in the house and rented the land. They refused help from the council and refused to move, even when they found it hard to get about. I thought about how grim it must have been stuck on top of a hill, unable to move, hanging onto each other and seeing out their last days. Waiting to die. From the state of the house it looked like they spent the last few years living in one room and I found out later that they were the couple who died together in bed when Duerdale was cut off. It didn’t bother me much to be honest. I don’t believe in ghosts. I quite liked Mr and Mrs Thornber. If you are going to die, die in old age in your own bed with your lifelong partner. Good for them, the stubborn old sods. Their house stank though – it really did.
Nobody had bothered to clear out any junk. The estate agent probably assumed whoever bought the house would knock it down and start again. So we were left with the Thornbers’ heavy, dark furniture and collected junk. I should have been grateful; we didn’t have any junk of our own. It didn’t feel like a home. Most of the floors were just wooden boards, but not like the floorboards a lot of my friends had in their houses. These were dirty and rough and uneven; you couldn’t walk barefoot. The walls were painted a dismal grey and the curtains were thin and stained and none of them fitted properly. In some rooms they were pinned to the window frame so you couldn’t even open them. There were odd chairs and pieces of furniture scattered around. Everything mismatched.
I lay in bed on the first night. The rain battered the walls and the wind chased itself through the holes and into and around the house. The windows rattled and shook as the wind rushed them. I was worried I would wake up on a pile of rubble looking up at the stars. I hadn’t thought of the boy in the road since we got to the house; we had been too busy. But as sleep started to come, I saw him again. Standing in front of the headlights, straight-armed and open-mouthed in the pouring rain. I tried to work out why he looked so unusual. In the last seconds, before tiredness finally covered and carried me away, I realised – he was dressed like my granddad in his old school photos. My sleepy mind tried to claw itself back to the surface, to think some more, but it was too late. I had already surrendered. I was asleep dreaming of storms, strange-looking boys and car crashes.