THE BOATHOUSE WORDS Part 1 of 2

 THE BOATHOUSE WORDS  Part 1 of 2                      

By Richard Banks                         

“Why don’t we go down to that shack by the river,” says Jack. He looks across at Danny who’s beating out a rhythm on the steering wheel.

         “What, the old boathouse?”

         “Yeah, that’s the one. The place where they found the body of that old man with no name.”

         “Of course he had a name. Everyone has a name.” Sara’s spitting venom and it’s only 9.40.  Most people get happy after a few drinks, with Sara it just makes her angry, angry at Jack, at her stepdad and most of the human race. Judging by the cuts on her arms she’s also angry with herself. She’s Jack’s girlfriend although you wouldn’t think it to see them together. Jack tells his friends that he puts up with her because she’s a good shag. She’s also good for the ready cash that has bought us the JD we’re drinking.

         For once Jack resists the temptation to snap back. There’s no need. We all know what he means. The Herald was full of it; front page news for two weeks. Then the Coroner at the Inquest decided he was just an old vagrant who died of natural causes. No one knew his name or anything else about him. End of story.

         Danny looks at my reflection in the rearview window. “Dee, what do you want to do?”

         Evidently, he’s none too keen on the boathouse idea. Who can blame him? It’s Halloween, we should be on our way to a party but since the rumpus, at Kylie’s seventeenth, we’re not invited.

         “Yeah, let’s do it!” says Jack warming to his own idea. “It’s the spookist place in town.” For once he’s right. Fairmeadow is a new town, no church, no cemetery, not a building older than thirty years. Take my word for it, no place this boring can be spooky. 

         “Why not?” I say. “Anything’s better than sitting here doing nothing.”

         Surprisingly Sara agrees. She says she once went there with her real Dad. If anyone rises from the grave, it might be him. There’s an awkward silence, no one knows what to say. Danny starts up the engine and we’re off.

         The boathouse is two miles along a narrow unlit road that runs through woodland. There’s a track somewhere on the right that goes down to the river where the boathouse is, but in the dark, we can’t find it.  Danny parks the car in a passing bay and says we will have to walk the rest of the way.

         “Which way is that?” asks Jack. He’s not so cocksure now. He wants to be the leader but he doesn’t have a clue what to do. Fortunately, Danny does. He takes a searchlight out of the boot and locks the car. It’s a single ray of light in what would otherwise be total darkness. He points it down at the ground in front of him and tells us to follow on. He can hear the river he says; once we’re there the boathouse won’t be far away. So we start walking in single file through the trees stumbling over every bump and dip in our way. As the sound of the river becomes louder the ground beneath our feet turns to mud.

         “Stop!” shrieks Sara. She’s lost a shoe. She stoops down and fingers the mud until she finds it. She’s sounding off with every swear word she knows. Who wouldn’t, the shoes cost nearly as much as Danny’s old car. She pulls off her other shoe and continues on in her stocking feet. At last, we come out of the wood onto scrubland by the river.

         Jack’s trying to be the alpha male again and says we should go to the left. Sara says that if he’s going left that can only mean it’s the wrong way. She rolls her eyes. “When the fuck did you get anything right?” He moves angrily towards her but she holds her ground and threatens to hit him with the heel end of her shoe. Jack looks at the thin stiletto pointed towards him and thinks better of it.

         Danny shines the searchlight up and down the river. There are some wooden stumps in the water he thinks might have been part of a jetty. We turn right towards them and a few minutes later we’re there. He’s right, on top of two of the stumps are the remains of a wooden platform. Danny shines the light away from the river and, hey presto, we see the boathouse, or at least what’s left of it. The doors are open, nearly off their hinges and every window is broken. We go inside and find the walls blackened by fires that have been lit in the centre of the concrete floor.

         “What do we do now?” Says Sara. She’s in a mega strop and for once I don’t blame her, we’re cold, our feet are soaking wet and it’s only 10.30.

         “Why don’t we sit down and tell a few ghost stories,” says Danny.

         “Sit on what?” I reply, more sharply than I meant.

         The boys go outside and find a tree log that they drag inside. We sit down. At least we still got a bottle of JD to drink. Once that’s finished we’re going home, bewitching hour or not. Jack tells the first story. He says he heard it on the radio. I only hope the guy reading it was a better storyteller than Jack. If not he should be banned from the airwaves and everywhere else he might be heard.

         Jack finishes and Sara claps sarcastically. “It doesn’t make sense,” she tells him. “And who’s the guy at the end called Stan? Where did he come from?”

         It turns out that Stan started the story as Steve and that Jack’s mixed up the names.

         “Give me strength,” wails Sara.

         It’s funny and I can’t stop laughing. Danny passes me the bottle and I take another swig. Things are looking up; it’s less than an hour to midnight and tomorrow’s Saturday so I don’t have to go to college. Danny tells a story about a ghost rider without a head. It’s like that Johnny Depp film they keep showing on Freeview but Danny changes the ending so that the ghost rides off with the girl. He tells it well like I thought he would. Even Sara says it was good. Then it’s my turn and I tell them the story about a man finding a ghostly whistle that’s on my reading list at college. It’s seven minutes to twelve, time enough for Sara to tell her story but she’s too drunk to make any sense.

         Danny shines the light on his watch and we count down to midnight. The second hand passes twelve and nothing happens except that Jack shouts boo which is no big surprise. Then he does something we’re not expecting, he starts shaking like he’s having a fit. He’s trying to tell us something but the words aren’t getting past his throat. He opens his mouth and is sick, then the words come tumbling out, except that it’s not him who’s saying them. The voice is that of an old man and the words being spoken are like nothing we’ve ever heard. Slow speaking to begin with, then quicker and quicker until they become a swirling wind that sends bottles and searchlight spinning across the floor. The words join up and become a high pitched whine that blots out every other sound. Sara is screaming, her mouth open, her face contorted with fear but I hear only the rush of the words. Jack is standing up in front of her. He’s spinning round like he’s no longer connected to the ground. Then he collapses onto her and they writhe together on the floor, he on top pressing down, then up and down until he’s done and with that, the words stop and all is still. I snatch up the searchlight, point it in their direction and see Jack’s bare arse. Sara shouts, “no!” She’s telling me to shine the light away from her while she struggles free of Jack. She pulls up her tights and runs out of the boathouse with me chasing after her. She’s heading towards the river and I have to grab her to stop her plunging in. We hug like the best friends we are not and never will be.

          A minute or two later the boys come out. Danny’s got the searchlight in one hand and is holding up Jack with the other. The poor mutt is even more brain dead than usual; he hasn’t even zipped up his jeans. We make our way back to the car in single file like we were before. Nobody’s talking, that’s a conversation for another day, for some of us, it’s a conversation that will never take place. Danny starts up the car and we head back to Fairmeadow but he can hardly keep it on the road – like the rest of us, he’s drunk and shit scared. I make him stop in a lay-by on the edge of town and we walk home from there, Danny and Jack to the hostel where they have rooms, Sara and me to the posh end of town where our parents are waiting to give us the third degree.

  Copyright Richard Banks