Free Tollesbury Time Forever by Stuart Ayris, Kath Middleton, Rebecca Ayris Page A

teeth, Adam. Their noses were distorted flat against the grimy glass and they were both smiling and waving at me. It was a grotesque scene and I began to feel very ill. The moist hands of Weepy and Nardy, the incessant grinning of the boy alongside the absolute beauty of Penny Shoraton; it was all too much for me. I lurched for the door and staggered a little as I passed the two figures that were still leaning against the window, smiling and waving, even though I was no longer in the room.
    The sky was a bruise. The earth was cracked. And a wind began to howl.
    When I was some thirty yards away from the house, having crossed the corner of Woodrolfe Road and Mell Road, I stopped to regain my balance for I was truly reeling. I felt simultaneously sick and scared. Darkness was falling in the Tollesbury sky yet it felt like only a couple of hours had passed since dawn had splashed across the horizon.
    Then I heard a clapping beat coming from outside the house from across the road. It began faintly but was then joined by the tapping of another. It was a wonderfully syncopated beat that I recognised at once. It caught me just as it had so long ago when I was but a lonely, worn out boy trying to understand life. The irony was not lost on me, I can tell you.
    I looked over and there was Nardy leaning against the wall outside the house that is now the Butcher’s, slapping his hands rhythmically against his thighs. The boy, Adam, was joining in with his stick, tapping it against the top of the wall. Penny Shoraton was swaying back and forth, moving only from her waist upwards, her feet remaining planted and hidden beneath her long skirt, like the most beautiful of Jack-in-a-boxes, just swaying and bobbing her head up and down, swaying and bobbing.
    Then Weepy began to sing.
    “Lover, love me too. You know we love you. So plee-ea-ese, love me to-o.”
    And as he sang, he walked towards me, slowly, ever so slowly, his back a little hunched, his feet shuffling in the dirt, his arms moving and striking out violently in time with the beat.
    Closer and closer he got. I could do nothing but stare.
    “Lover, love me too. You know we love you. So plee-ea-ese, love me to-o.”
    His singing was almost child-like, enunciating every syllable with joy. But when he was just a few feet from me, I could see the anger in his small, blazing black eyes. He glared up at me, a frown cracking his forehead. And this time, he didn’t sing, he screamed.
    “Love, love me too! You know we love you! So plee-ea-ese, love me to-o! Oh, love me to-oh!”
    I was breathing so fast I thought I would pass out. Weepy stood before me, literally shaking, his fists clenched so hard I could see the bones of his knuckles almost breaking through his skin. Penny Shoraton was still. Nardy and the boy had ceased their percussion.
    Without thought, I did what I always did. I ran. Down Woodrolfe Road I pounded, turning left just before the harbour and across the marshes towards Zachariah Leonard’s shack. My ears were aching and my chest was breaking. My whole being was a-rocking and a-rolling. I was panicking and I was running for my life. The wind blew harsh around me, buffeting me as it would a battered, hollow wreck upon the shore.
    At last, I burst into the shack and threw myself to the floor, face down. And I lay like that until my breathing slowed and the fear left me. I could smell the dirt beneath me and was glad of it. A splinter of wood ripped my palm and I couldn’t have been more relieved. I did not move, merely seeking comfort in the solidity of my surroundings. I could have lain like that forever, so safe did I feel. This was a broken place and I was broken too. I was a cracked cup, a shattered dream.
    But precarious safety does not last. It can not possibly last. I knew that better than anyone.
    Then a deep and thunderous voice bellowed from the shadows, resonating through the dark and the wood, a voice that humbled the wind that had been beating upon the door,