because Kenneth had worked out what the two little rooms at the top of the second set of stairs were; they were toilets, and that was why the chimneys led down and went out of the castle; it was so all the number one and numbers twos could fall down there. Fergus had hidden down a latrine! And him worried about getting his clothes dirty, too! Fergus denied they were toilets; they were completely clean and didn’t smell at all and they must be chimneys.
‘Chimneys, ma arse!’ Lachy laughed. ‘They’re shite-holes!’
(Emma tutted, but couldn’t help smiling.)
‘Chimneys!’ Fergus insisted desperately, blinking hard. He looked at Kenneth as though expecting him to agree. Kenneth looked down at the tramped-down earth under his feet.
‘They’re shite-holes, so they are,’ laughed Lachy. ‘And you’re just a big jobbie!’
‘Chimneys,’ Fergus protested, his voice rising, his face going red.
‘Big jobbie, big jobbie; big smelly jobbie!’ Lachy chanted.
Kenneth watched Fergus shake with anger while Lachy danced round the interior of the keep, singing out, ‘Big jobbie, big jobbie; big smelly jobbie!’
Fergus stared angrily at his sister and at Kenneth, as though betrayed, then just stood and waited for Lachy to get bored with his taunting, and as Kenneth watched, a blank, emotionless expression gradually replaced the anger on Fergus’s face.
Kenneth had the fleeting, extraordinary impression of seeing something buried alive, and felt himself shake suddenly, almost spastically, shivering.
‘... jobbie, jobbie; big smelly jobbie!’
In the last game, Kenneth hid with Emma Urvill in one of the dungeons, showing her how to turn her back to the light and put the hood of her coat up to hide her face, and sure enough when Ilsa came to the door of the dungeon - and he felt that quivering, scary, glorious feeling in his tummy again - she didn’t see them, and they hugged each other once she had gone, and the hug was warm and tight and he liked it and she didn’t let go, and after a while they put their mouths together and kissed. He felt a strange echo of that terrifyingly wonderful sensation in his belly and his heart, and he and Emma Urvill held onto each other for ages, until all the others were caught.
Later, they played in the tangling undergrowth of the walled garden, and found an old over-grown fountain with the stone statue of a naked lady in it, and an old shed at one corner where there were ancient tins and jars and bottles with Victorian-looking writing on them. The rain came on for a while and they all stayed in there, Fergus complaining about his bike rusting, his sister and Kenneth exchanging the occasional sly look, Ilsa staring out at the rain and saying there were places in South America where it hadn’t stopped raining for hundreds of years, and Lachy mixing various sticky, treacley subtances together from the shelves of old bottles and tins, trying to find a combination that would explode, or at least burn, while the rain hammered then whispered then dripped on the tarred roof overhead, and plopped through holes onto the springy wooden floor of the shed.
‘Of course, we haven’t moved all the bottles yet,’ Fergus said, pointing with his pipe at the still unfilled racks that covered the wall of the cellar. The cellar was painted white, and lit by naked bulbs; wires hung and there were un-plastered holes for cables and plumbing leading through the walls and up to other floors. The wood and metal wine racks gleamed, as did the two hundred or so bottles that had already been stored.
‘Should keep you going for a bit, eh, Fergus?’ he grinned. ‘Once you’ve filled this lot up.’
‘Mmm. We were thinking of touring a few vineyards next summer,’ Urvill said, scratching his thick chin with his pipe. ‘Bordeaux; the Loire, that sort of thing. Don’t know if you and Mary fancy making a foursome or not, hmm?’
Fergus blinked. Kenneth nodded. ‘Well, perhaps. Depends on holidays and that sort of thing. And the kids, of course.’
‘Oh,’ Fergus said, frowning as he picked a little sliver of tobacco off his Pringle sweater. ‘We weren’t thinking of taking the children.’
‘Ah, well, no; of course not,’ Kenneth said, as they went to the door. Fergus switched the lights out in the various cellars and they went up the stone-flagged steps towards the utility room and kitchen.
It was that cellar, he thought to himself as he followed Fergus’s Hush Puppies up the steps. That was where I hid with Emma Urvill,