The Beasts of Clawstone Castle

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Sir George had not been in London for some time and he didn’t realize how much it had changed.

He used to stay at his club, which was very quiet and full of other old people reading the paper who said ‘shush’ if anyone talked — but it had all been modernized with piped music in the rooms and instead of waiters whom you could ask for the things you wanted, there were vending machines with instructions which Sir George couldn’t read because the print was too small.

And when he arrived at the Ministry of Animal Health, his troubles really began. He went into the outer office and told one of the secretaries that he wanted to see someone about Klappert’s Disease and the secretary said that before he could even ask to see anyone he had to have proof of identity, preferably a passport or driving licence.

So Sir George went back to his club and fetched his driving licence and went back to the ministry and then another secretary told him he had to go to the police station and get a certificate to say he hadn’t been involved in any criminal offence. And when he had done that they told him he would have to get his fingerprints taken and have a blood test. And so it went on. By the end of the first afternoon Sir George had got as far as being allowed into the waiting room where one could see the secretary who made the actual appointments with the minister, and she told him that the minister was in a meeting and Sir George should come back tomorrow and try again.

Up to now Sir George had kept his temper, but now he went purple in the face and raised his stick and there would have been one secretary the less at the ministry, but just at that moment a porter came in and said there was an urgent message for Sir George at his club and would he telephone his sister immediately.

And when Sir George picked up the telephone he forgot all about the idiots at the ministry and about Klappert’s Disease and his cattle, because what Emily had to tell him was that the children had disappeared. At about the time that Sir George was packing to go back to Clawstone, the eldest of the banshees woke up from her afternoon nap in a very excited state.

‘I’ve had such an exciting dream,’ she said, clutching her sister. ‘In fact, it was so exciting I’m not sure that it was a dream. It may have been a vision.’

The middle banshee, who had been dozing on the other sofa, sat bolt upright. ‘But that’s extraordinary. I’ve had an amazing dream too. It was so vivid I thought it must be telling me something important.’

And now the youngest sister, who preferred to take her afternoon nap in an armchair, said, ‘You may or may not believe it, but I too have had a most powerful and important dream.’

The eldest banshee sat up. ‘Was it… by any chance… a dream…’ she hesitated, ‘a dream about a funeral?’

‘Yes, it was! It was!’ cried the other two. ‘That’s exactly what it was! It was a dream about a funeral!’

‘And was it in the north… very far north, this funeral?’

‘It was indeed,’ said the middle banshee. ‘It was further north than you can get and still stay in England.’

The youngest banshee nodded. ‘In fact it wasn’t in England at all,’ she said. ‘When I think about it carefully, I see that it was in Scotland. In a small church by the sea.’

‘Such a bleak place,’ said the eldest banshee.

‘So windy.’

‘But beautiful. Unspoilt. Remote.’

‘Yes.’

For a few minutes the three sisters sat in silence, awed and humbled by their amazing experience. Of course, sisters who live together do often catch each other’s thoughts and even each other’s dreams, but this seemed to be more than that. It was as though they were being given a message from above.

It was not till they were drinking their second cup of tea from the blue teapot that the eldest banshee dared to ask another question.

‘Did this funeral… did it go well?’

Her sisters put down their cups.

‘Oh, no,’ said the middle sister.

‘No, no,’ said the youngest one. ‘It didn’t go well at all. It was a disaster. An absolutely shocking mess. No wonder they were so upset. The undertaker should have been sacked.’

‘All in all, it’s a wonder how the poor things managed to go on with their lives at all.’

‘Though of course it wasn’t exactly their lives they went on with.’

There was a long pause. A very long pause indeed. Because by the time they got to their third cup of tea and the mists of sleep had left them, the banshees were realizing that their dream had not come to them out of the blue. It was only partly a dream. It was a dream about something they had once experienced. It was a buried memory which had come up while they slept. When they were young they had been to just such a funeral and seen the disaster that had happened there.

‘I knew we’d seen the poor things before,’ said the eldest banshee.

‘Me too. As soon as we met them at the gravel pit, I felt as though I knew them.’

All three sisters nodded their heads.

‘But the question is,’ said the oldest banshee, ‘what do we do now? Do we leave well alone? Or do we see what we can do?’

Her sisters sighed. ‘We’d better see how we feel in the morning,’ they said.

But they knew really. When a great wrong has been done to someone, it has to be put right. There isn’t really any doubt about that.