Simon Clark - The Fall

Upstairs the piano-player finished the Christmas carol with a flourish.

He could smell sausage cooking. The old man had a huge fondness for sausage, and he guessed Mrs Gainsbrough had asked cook to roast a couple of fat pork sausages to go with the claret.

Ryan hummed to himself as he filled a wooden crate with bottles. Normally it carried a dozen, but he rested two bottles of Madeira across the necks of the others.

Then he returned to the steps, humming to himself. When he reached the top he started to push open the door with his foot while cheerfully calling out, ‘Look out behind! Cellar man coming through!’

Then the inexplicable happened.

There was a shout.

And was that Mrs Gainsbrough crying out in surprise? ‘My gracious… who are you? What do you want? ’ That was followed by a shriek.

Shaking his heavy head, puzzled, he tried again to push open the door to the kitchen.

Suddenly it was thrust back with a crash. The crate of wine, knocked from his hands, smashed at his feet.

He rocked back, nearly toppling down the cellar steps.

With an effort he grabbed the stair rail before swinging himself round.

This time he shoved at the door with both hands. ‘Hey! What’s going on!’

The door wouldn’t budge.

Now there was a whole series of crashes. Plates being broken. The clang of a pan on the stone floor. ‘Hey!’ He pounded on the door. ‘Let me out!’

Now he heard screams and shrieks.

And there were guttural voices too, low, animal-like, with bursts of brutish laughter.

‘Let me out!’

He shoved at the door.

No luck.

It wouldn’t budge.

Not one flaming inch.

He stared at the door with strips of light running from top to bottom where the kitchen lamplight leaked through the cracks.

Skin turning cold, he lurched forward to wedge his face up against the door so he could see through the gaps in the planks.

A horrible sour feeling swam around his stomach. Dear God… He knew something awful was happening. This was all wrong. The screams were terrible, like, like—

—like the people he loved were having their throats worked open with a knife.

‘Let me out!’ He thumped on the door.

Through the gaps in the door he could see movement. He merely caught glimpses because of his narrow field of vision. The gaps were only just wide enough to slip a sheet of card in anyway…

A credit card! His mind whirled, disorientated. A credit card and nothing more!

You could slip that right in there.

But… but…

Dear God… what were they doing to them in there?

He saw the cook running this way and that as if she was bouncing from rubber walls. This was crazy.

Then she stopped still in the middle of the kitchen, covered her face with her hands and yelled.

Then he saw his mother-in-law run into the kitchen. She carried a carving knife as if to stab someone.

The next second Enid ran in. He gaped.

Her blouse was torn. One sleeve had gone entirely. Her hair hung down.

She disappeared, then reappeared as she crossed the kitchen, calling his name.

He shouted back. ‘Enid! Enid!’

The next moment the kitchen was full of dark shapes. They were burly, almost bear-like.

The shrieks grew louder.

Why can’t I get out!

He pounded on the door. But no-one noticed him.

The racket from inside the house was deafening.

He crouched down to look through the gaps in the door-planking once more.

A dark oblong shape lay at the foot of the door on the other side. It must be the dresser that had been toppled in front of the door, stopping it from opening.

He stood up again, forced his eye to the gap with such force it was as if he tried to push his whole body between the planks and out into the kitchen on the other side.

He had to help his wife; that was all that mattered to him now.

What were they doing to her?

Just what, Ryan? Already his imagination was supplying answers. Terrible images welled up into his brain.

‘Let me out!’ he yelled.

Through the gap he saw a man drag Enid away.

She was screaming Ryan’s name.

Mrs Gainsbrough lunged with her knife at the man. But another was waiting for her.

With a guttural laugh the man caught her by the arms and threw her across the kitchen table as if she was nothing more than a piece of meat. Then he went to work with a carving knife.

Ryan sat on the top step in the cellar, held his head in his hands and sobbed. He was still sitting there when he saw a crimson liquid trickle under the door to join the pool of spilt wine.

He closed his eyes, put his hands over his ears and began to rock slowly backwards and forwards.

What’s that damn animal doing on stage?

At that moment Lee Burton didn’t think anything was amiss. In fact, it was all going pretty damn fine. There he was, in his diamond-pattern harlequin costume, standing in the brilliant limelight, stage centre, reciting the funny poem.

The audience weren’t just laughing.

They were screaming with laughter. He couldn’t see the audience, true enough, those footlights were dazzling, but he could hear them screaming louder and louder. They were loving it. He could imagine them holding their stomachs, rocking backwards and forwards in their seats, their faces purple they were laughing so long and so loud. In fact, their voices were getting shriller and shriller by the moment.

There was only one problem. The stupid pantomime horse had come galloping across the stage right in the middle of his solo act.

It was Harry and Albert playing the fool again. They were probably paying him back for smearing the inside of the horse with blue cheese. It had stunk so much that they’d come out of the horse costume gagging for air.

But Lee wouldn’t let that faze him. He was a pro now. He ploughed on, delivering the funny lines that were so rich in innuendo they’d make a ship’s stoker blush.

He made his hammy gestures even more extravagant.

And the audience screamed.

The brown and white panto horse lumbered back in front of him, knocking him back a step.

Hell, those two would pay for trying to screw up his act. He’d pour glue into the horse’s legs next time and the two would have to be peeled out of the damn costume.

And the audience screamed louder.

Figures ran along the space between the front row of seats and the orchestra pit. He heard a clash of cymbals, as if someone had blundered against the percussion kit.

Lee continued grimly.

It was as if the idiot behaviour of the pantomime horse had spread to the audience.

But still they yelled. Maybe they’d all got stinking drunk before they’d come into the show. He’d never seen them like this before – Hey!

Someone pushed by behind him. He staggered, recovered and continued reciting the poem – and he would continue to the end of the damn thing, come hell or high water. Music hall acts didn’t quit the stage, no matter what. He’d learned that. Like a captain going down with his sinking ship, you continued to the end.

Now more people seemed to be milling around the orchestra pit.

But the lights were too dazzling to see anything more than indistinct shapes. Maybe some lads were getting into a fight over a girl.

Well, let them slug it out down there , Lee thought resolutely. I’m not going to let them throw me.

The pantomime horse lumbered by again, but this time Lee noticed with surprise that the back legs were being dragged by the front ones as if Albert in the back half had dropped down in a dead faint (or dead drunk). And now Harry was doing all the work, the pantomime horse head twisting this way and that with the effort. The horse’s bottom jaw flapped and its eyes rolled in the stuffed head.