Sarah England - Baba Lenka - Pure Occult Horror

As she spoke, Nicky Dixon looked up and saw me. I suppose she must have spotted the ghost girl in the landing window a few times and wondered who she was. I thought she’d glare angrily or hurry away… But she didn’t. The little girl with the ripped blazer and the cut lip raised her hand and waved. And, like a sunbeam striking with iridescence the spray above a waterfall, smiled.

That smile brought with it an explosion of complex emotion – feelings without words, a timeless moment.

We know each other.

I lifted my hand, and her smile widened to one of joy.

“Can I go out and say hello?”

“Aye, go on, then, but mind you don’t go further than Mrs Dixon’s. I want you back here at five sharp for tea! It’s oxtail tonight.”

Nicky stood waiting on the street corner. “Don’t you go to school, then?” she asked as I approached.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, it’s not for long.”

“I’m Nicky. Do you want to come and play at our house?”

“Yes, please. I’m Eva Hart.”

“Aye, I know. You’re the one that stabbed Maxine Street, aren’t you? They say you’re a Nazi and possessed by the devil.”

“I’m not a Nazi; I were born ’ere like you. Anyhow, what happened to you? Your lip’s bleeding.”

She swiped away the blood. “It happens all t’ time. You get used to it.”

“Well, you shouldn’t get used to it.”

“I’ll tell you what,” she said as we walked to her house. “If I say I’m with Earl Hart’s granddaughter, they won’t dare touch me.”

I wasn’t sure if it was a compliment to have a grandad known as the local hard case or to be thought of as possessed by the devil; all I knew was that I loved her instantly.

“What shall we play?”

Nicky had another go at licking her fingers and wiping away traces of blood before she opened the back door and we went inside her house. “Me mum’s gonna kill me with this ripped blazer.”

“It weren’t your fault.”

“Aye, I know, but you don’t know me mum.”

Her mother’s anger was all show, though. She had a laugh inside her that was always bursting to come out, even as she shrieked at the sight of another ruined school blazer. She’d had her back to us when we walked into the kitchen, busy cooking. The whole house was filled with the aroma of exotic spices, several pans bubbling on the hob with chicken and sauces and what looked like green bananas.

She caught me staring.

“Mum, this is my new friend. She’s the one that stabbed Maxine Street!”

Mrs Dixon threw back her head and laughed a great belly laugh. “Well, what an introduction. Are you staying for tea, love?”

God, how I wanted to. “What is it?”

Mrs Dixon laughed again. “Oh, so it all depends on what’s cooking, does it?” She looked me up and down. “Who’s your little friend, Nicky? She’s got no meat on ’er.”

“Eva. She’s Earl Hart’s granddaughter, the one that—”

“That’s enough talk, Nicky.” She bent down so her warm brown eyes were level with mine. “What’s your name, sweet thing?”

“Eva Hart.”

“And you don’t go to school, that right?”

I nodded. “I’ve been poorly.”

“Well, Eva, we’re having chicken and plantain in Cajun sauce. I’ll ask Maud if you can stay and eat with us. It’s nice for you two girls to have a friend each, Lord knows.”

Grandma Hart made a bit of a fuss. We watched the two women through Nicky’s bedroom window, their arms folded in the street, both still in aprons and slippers.

“Bet you she says yes, though,” said Nicky.

“She won’t. I’ll be forced to eat rats’ tails, you’ll see.”

“Rats’ tails?”

“Dark brown soup with rubbery bits in it.”

She screwed up her face for a minute, then the sunshine broke through the clouds and she, like her mother, threw back her head to laugh. “Oh, you mean oxtail soup?”

“Aye, that’s it.”

Turned out my gran did agree. I knew why, too – because I hadn’t eaten a thing save a couple of toast fingers with black treacle on them for nearly a week. Two-day-old kidneys were never going to go down my throat in a month of Sundays, and nor was warmed-up tapioca or sliced tongue. The sound of their eating had become increasingly disgusting with every meal. From the never-ending tinkle of tea stirring, the monotonous ticking of the clock, and the succession of slurps and gulps and swallows, it was going to send me stark staring mad. One day I’d run round the room smashing everything in sight, and then it would be the funny farm for sure – from where there was no release. Everyone knew that. The doctors wore white coats and stuck a needle in you, and that was you done.

Instead, Nicky saved my sanity. And Mrs Dixon put meat on my noodle bones.

It was so different at their house – with constant music and chitchat – and the food was a delight. That first evening, it was white chicken breast pieces in a spicy tomato sauce. We had the strange banana thing, and then Mrs Dixon put records on. Up to then I’d only heard what was on the radio at Mum and Dad’s – The Carpenters, Gilbert O’Sullivan, Cat Stevens – and Grandad Hart only played military band music. But after tea at Nicky’s, her mother got up and danced. She was a big woman, but her hips swivelled, and the beat was infectious. Initially I sat there, flummoxed and red-faced, stomach swollen with chicken and rice and bananas… but then, well, once you’ve discovered Tamla Motown, ‘Needle in a Haystack’, ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’, ‘Can I Get a Witness’, and the rest, you find what Lenka called Lebensfreude – the joy of life. And I never wanted to go back to my grandparents’ house ever again. If only it were possible to just move in and stay with the Dixons forever.

Very quickly we became just as close as little girls are wont to be. It still took months, though, before I confessed to anything more serious. Nicky had a way of pressing for information, a real truth-seeker if ever there was one. And she needled away about my illness, what had happened with Maxine, and where my parents were. So I told her a little. Mostly, I related the nightmares. I never told a living soul about the funeral in Bavaria, but the dreams I was having every single night, well, I told her about those. I told her about the haunted house in Leeds and the wardrobe door creaking open. And then I told her about Lenka – that the ghost that had crept out of the wardrobe was slowly revealing her story in dreams.

“It’s schizophrenia,” she said decisively. “There’s them in our family who’ve got it.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it’s where you hear voices and see things other people can’t.”

I shook my head. “It’s not that.”

“Well, what is it, then? You said this lady speaks to you at night and you can see her but no one else can.”

“Aye, but it’s not like hallucinations. That’s what the doctors said, and they gave me pills to stop it happening, but they just knocked me out so I couldn’t even move! And it made it worse. It’s real, Nicky. I don’t expect you to understand, like. But it’s real. She’s real. It’s not madness. I’m not mad, honest.”

“Well, what about a split personality, then? I think we’ve got that in t’ family an’ all.”

“No, it i’n’t that. Because I only see her when I’m asleep. It’s only when I go to sleep that she appears, right? I mean, like down to every detail. And not only that, but there’s a story, a whole life story, and it isn’t like a dream where you don’t remember much when you wake up – with this, every single bit of it stays with me. It’s like it actually happened to me personally and it’s a memory not a dream.”