Much later, after supper, we drink wine and tell Ghost Stories .
Abigail and Ellie feed gin to sloes and sugar.
Zac is eating cheese and pickled onions with a knife.
Johnny holds his glass up to Arabella in the candlelight.
'I drink to you
in smoke-mirled, blue-
black sloes, bitter
and dependable.'
he says.
'Gosh.' says Arabella 'I think I'll put Hepzibah to bed.'
'Come back for Ghost Stories.' says Digory.
John tells of a Phantom Motorcyclist who always appears at just this time of year outside a Small Norfolk Village where he had died in a Terrible Accident some years before..
' The bike roars up behind Lone Drivers. A Ghostly Headlight flashes in the rear view mirror and the Driver sees the bike spin out of control behind him and flip over and over sending sparks cascading into the gathering gloom . Of course,' says John 'the Driver pulls over and runs back to offer assistance, only to find the road completely deserted apart from a smell of engine oil and black skid marks across the tarmac.'
'Oooh.' says Ellis's Youngest. 'Can we play Murder in the Dark?'
'It's not the very best house for that.' I tell him.
'Why?' says Digory 'It's enormous.'
'It's scary.' says Maisie.
'Well' I say 'Once a very good friend of the family was staying here alone. He'd come to the last few pages of his novel and needed peace and quiet to get those pages just right.
A few days passed without incident and the novel was going well when the young man, whose name was Joe, was working at this very kitchen table late one dark and stormy evening, when he noticed a light approaching the house from the field, as if someone was walking across the field carrying a flaming torch. He was just thinking to himself how strange it was that anyone should be out on such a night when he heard distant music, coming from the sitting room and distinctly, just in the passageway above us, a child's laughter and the sound of light childish footsteps running overhead.
Joe hardly knew what to do.
He felt his heart jumping in his chest and found he was bathed in sweat although the kitchen, this very room, had become suddenly, icily cold.
'What happened ? What did he do?' asks Hetty.
'Joe says that something drew him towards the sound of the music and he walked through the hall to the other wing of the house and opened the sitting room door and do you know what he found there?'
'What?' says Johnny lighting a cigarette and leaning back on his chair.
'Well, you know the rocking chair with the tapestry cover that sits to the right of the fire place?
Ellis's Youngest nods.
'Well, as Joe entered the room the music was cut off sharply and he clearly saw a man in eighteenth century costume sitting in that chair, only for a second, mind you, but he saw him as clearly as I can see you all sitting here now.
Then all of a sudden the room was filled with bats whirling round and round Joe's head beating him with their wings, and Joe became insensible.
'This isn't true.' says Hetty.
'It is.' says Zac helping himself to some more cheese. 'Yesterday I went in the sitting room and there was Bats and a Man and Everything.'
Abigail holds up her bottle of Sloe Gin. 'Look,' she says 'Won't that be nice at Christmas?'
'Waste of Gin if you ask me.' says Johnny.
'What happened to Joe?' asks Digory.
'He fled.' I say 'When he came round, he found himself lying on the sitting room floor. A Grey Autumn Dawn was breaking and the birds were beginning to sing in the garden outside. Joe got up, gathered his things together and drove straight back to London. He never came here again.' I tell them 'And he never finished his novel either.'
I pour myself another glass of wine.
'So you see, I say to Ellis's Youngest, 'Murder in the Dark is a very bad idea. I think, on balance, that this is a house where it's really better not to be Alone.'
'Shall I put them to bed or will you?' asks Ellis.
'I'm not going to bed.' says Ellis's Youngest.
'Me neither.' says Digory.
'Who was the laughing child.?' says Hetty.
'I'm scared.' says Maisie.
'Bloody terrifying.' says Johnny. 'I hate bats. Shall we have a tot of whiskey for a night cap?'
