Baba Lenka Read online

  “And the books?”

  His face darkened. “What do you want to know about them for? Burned the bloody things, didn’t I?”

  “Oh.”

  “I did have a quick glance before they hit the incinerator. It looked like they were full of curses and spells, mostly in Latin and Russian and another language, too – maybe Arabic or Egyptian, but I’m no expert, and, to be honest, the whole thing gave me a really bad feeling. Those books were evil. And not only had your mother been reading them, she’d been actively learning from them, too – underlining certain words and circling these diabolical pictures, things you wouldn’t want to see.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “What? Why? No, Eva.”

  “Were there inverted pentagrams filled with symbols, and lists of demonic names attached to distorted half-human figures with lizard tails and animal heads?”

  He nodded.

  “Dad, you asked if I remembered the old woman who gave me bad dreams? I’ve not just had vivid nightmares ever since that trip to Bavaria, I’ve had a whole eight years of nightly visits – of living Baba Lenka’s life. But you wouldn’t know what I’ve been through because I’ve had to go through it alone, to believe I was insane. So what I’d like to know, and deserve to know, is if this book contains what I’ve seen in these nightmares, because that would make it more real. And don’t water it down, because what I’ve seen so far would make grown men wet themselves. So tell me – what else?”

  He stared at me for several long seconds. “Castration! Men having their genitals hacked off. That was one of them.”

  “Okay, yes - that matches. See? You should have known I was affected like this – I told you when I was eight, and I wasn’t making it up.” I tried to keep my voice level, realising he couldn’t possibly understand. He was a Mundane, as Lenka’s mother had explained.

  The fire suddenly went out of me. At least he’d tried to help my mother.

  “I’m sorry for shouting, Dad. Sorry. But if only we could have confided in each other, it would have been so much easier.”

  “No, you’ve nowt to be sorry for. I’m the one who’s sorry – and there are no excuses except every waking moment has been about your mother’s treatments, therapies and private clinics. I even took her to the Vatican!”

  It could have been my imagination, but I’m sure someone snickered when he mentioned the Vatican. A laugh, quickly smothered, had come from out of the ether.

  “Why did she read those books, I wonder? I mean, she always seemed terrified of the supernatural.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she was curious and it got the better of her.”

  “Or she was looking for a spell to attract luck and money?”

  He nodded. “Possibly.”

  “Dad, I understand, or at least I’m trying to. But why did you make up that stuff about a new family and moving on?”

  “I couldn’t have you with me and continue going to see your mother every day, could I? I had to work full time, and on top of that you would have pestered to come with me. I didn’t want you asking about her. Full stop. It was easier to just say, look, I’ve moved on—”

  “Throw away the key, good riddance? Then make yourself scarce?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And my grandparents were in on this?”

  “No. Kind of. Well, Mum knew Alex was very ill and I’d all on dealing with that, so she agreed it’d be best to make something up to keep you at arm’s length. We thought that, in the end, it would be for the best. Like me, she just wanted you to have as normal an upbringing as possible. She said she’d keep you out of Earl’s way and encourage him to join the union and the darts team and get an allotment – anything just so we could get you through.”

  Inwardly I cringed at how often I’d raged at Maud, how ungrateful I’d been and, most of all…the look on her face when I’d told her what her husband had done.

  “Eva, I lied and lied, tying myself into knots. Maybe it was the wrong thing to do, but anything was better than you seeing your mother like that, like she still is. Or worse…”

  He fell silent abruptly, caught himself from saying something he’d regret.

  “Dad?”

  “I loved her, you know that? Still do.”

  “You should have told me. I think we’d have been all right. Better than you leaving me with him, anyway. And those nightmares, the terrors, they never went away. I had no one to talk to, no one to help me. No one.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’ve handled the whole thing badly. But—”

  “I could have coped. You have no idea what I already cope with, what visions I have and have had ever since that funeral. Lenka comes into my dreams and relates her life in explicit detail.”

  Now I had his full attention.

  “Notice I didn’t even flinch when you mentioned castration? That I knew all about satanic rituals and demon summoning? How do you think I know all this? The only way I could possibly know is because I’ve been drip-fed a legacy of occult information for the last eight years. It’s in the family, and there’s no escaping it.”

  He frowned. “It’s all mind-bending rubbish, Eva. I can only think that somehow you saw those books and that’s how you know all this stuff. Listen, you were a highly disturbed little girl. I had to separate you from your mother, who was absolutely out of her tree, and I don’t want you going the same way. It stops here and now, do you hear me? It stops.”

  “No. I never saw those books. Anyway, I’m sixteen now and I need to see her, to talk—”

  “No!”

  “Nothing will frighten me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “This will,” he said quietly.

  “No, it won’t. I can probably even take her madness from her. I can tell her what I know and that it is real not crazy. I can make her better, I know I can – explain the whole thing. At least let me try.”

  “Eva, no. I’ve said no, and I meant it. Your mother’s in a very bad way. She has lucid moments, but you really cannot see her.”

  I jumped up and yelled, “You’re blocking me. I need to see her – she’s my mother, for God’s sake!”

  He grabbed my wrist and held it fast. “Eva, I know what my dad’s done is bad, really bad. It makes me want to go and kill him. I’d give my right arm not to have left you longer than the few weeks we planned, but you have to believe me now, on this one thing, there really are worse things—”

  “Worse than rape, incest, abuse—?”

  “Yes, far, far worse.”

  I shook my head, pulling free of his grip. “You have no idea who I am or what I come from—”

  “Eva …” He wiped his hand up and down his face as if washing himself of the filth. “There are no words. You must never know what her family, your family, did. No one can. Believe me, the knowledge would send you insane. You’d never be the same again.”

  ***

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  In the end, we struck a deal, and I stayed over for a couple of nights while he found me alternative accommodation. Dad was convinced Earl would be on the rampage, and it wouldn’t be a great idea if he found me. And like he said, he couldn’t be there all the time to act as a bodyguard; he had to go to work. I could hardly tell him there wasn’t much chance of Earl Hart even being able to walk let alone throw his weight around, so I sat back and let him make the calls.

  Through a friend of a friend, it wasn’t long before he got wind of a room in a house with a family who needed extra income, so off we went to look. It was a bedroom on the top floor of a large Victorian house in north Leeds. Most of those large stone-built mansions with long, shrub-lined driveways had been converted into flats and offices long ago, many acquired by the National Health Service for nurses’ homes or outpatient facilities. But one or two were private.

  The couple was professional, he a dentist and she a social worker, but clearly they were working all hours and the house needed renovating. She looked harassed, kept
pushing her hair back off her face – bit of a drama queen, I thought, but nice. A good person. Dad settled on a monthly rent and paid the deposit, unaware I had a hell of a lot more cash than he did. I could hardly tell him that one either, but every time I thought about it, a smile twitched into a grin – Earl had to have discovered his missing stash!

  “She’s looking for a job,” he told the woman, Helen, “so if you hear of anything?”

  She nodded straight away. They were desperate for care assistants at one of the nursing homes she frequented. I started work there less than a week later. Lying came easily to me, and I now realised where that came from.

  “Aye, she’s eighteen,” Dad told Helen, without even pausing for breath. If you looked carefully, you could see the heightened defensiveness in the tightening of his facial muscles, but you’d have to know to see them. Anyway, what was so wrong with a white lie that helped people? Helen was glad of both the rent money and the young female lodger who would double up as a babysitter, and the nursing home sister practically dragged me inside. Nothing was checked in the way of references. All she did was ask a few questions and take my dad’s word on date of birth. That was it.

  After he’d helped me settle into the flat – which was, thankfully, fully furnished – we went out for a bite to eat. He seemed pleased, the downtrodden air about him lifting a little.

  “Love, can you not let this drop about visiting your mother? You need to have a life, forget about all this, it will only upset you and—”

  “I’m not kidding, Dad. I’ve told you what I’ll do if you won’t let me see her!”

  He sighed, gazing out of the café at passersby. The afternoon was bright with sunshine. It was days like those when it was hard to believe in darkness, cruelty, violence and madness. Radios blared out of open-top cars, and cherry blossom fluttered in warm confetti breezes.

  He was weighing up the options, you could see. Was it worth the risk? Would his daughter really report his father to the police? What about the repercussions and, of course, his own part in this? What would come out about his wife? The whole hideous family secret would spread across the estate in a sweep of rapacious gossip. It had happened to others – houses daubed in paint, bricks through windows, catcalls of ‘Sickos!’ and ‘Perverts!’ He had a part-time job as a security guard with a small family firm that wouldn’t want trouble. It wasn’t much, but it paid the bills and meant he could see Mum every day.

  “If I take you, you’ve got to promise you won’t try to go again on your own. You only visit her with me, okay?”

  I could see her; the rest was detail! “I promise.”

  So he took me. Not that day, he had to work a night shift, but he’d come back the following week.

  “If you don’t, I’ll track her down myself. Now I’m here in Leeds, I can go through the care homes one by one.”

  “Don’t do that, Eva. Tell you what, I’ll ring them tonight to let them know we’re coming together, that you’re only sixteen and I’m bringing you for the first time next week.”

  He was going to make sure Mum was sedated, wasn’t he? Tip them off so she wouldn’t make a scene or say anything. But it was a start.

  I’m going to see my mum!

  “But don’t think you’re going to grill her and find out what Baba Lenka did. You won’t find that out, Eva. Not over my dead body. That dies with me and your mother.”

  I stared deep into his eyes. Like fuck it did…

  ***

  I was so excited. At long last the mystery would unravel. And that first night, opening up the rucksack to pull out all those things packed in fear and haste just two days before was a joy. Smiling, I took out the crow poppet, holding for a moment the only connection to those who had travelled this path before me. The tiny amethyst on its chest glinted, the ebony feathers lustrous. As ever, it felt comforting, protective, and part of who I was.

  In addition to being able to see Mum, I would have a job, had money, and was no longer forced to sit watching Earl Hart chew the cud and pick his nose night after night. Free…free…and so very, very happy. For two whole days I was on a high, playing the radio and dancing round my room. Two blissful days of hope and light, plans and dreams.

  But on day three that all came to an end. I woke up to the sting of a hungry mosquito, and there on my upper arm was a single sore as bright and shiny as a red jelly bean.

  Give us work…more work…more work…

  Already? I sat up in bed staring at it. And tears filled my eyes.

  The previous night I’d rung Nicky from the call box on the corner, to tell her I’d found Dad, and also had a job and a nice place to live – better than overlooking the pit wheel, anyway - this one faced a huge green park.

  “I miss you,” she said.

  “I miss you, too.”

  “I ’eard Mark Curry were looking for you an’ all.”

  My heart had skipped. Mark’s dimpled smile and mischievous brown eyes twinkled before me. “Was he?”

  “Yeah, he said he liked you. He came right up to me and asked where you went after the party.”

  That night seemed so long ago, a tiny starlit moment in time.

  “Why did you disappear, anyway? Mum said you could stay with us, and I were dead excited. You could’ve gone out wi’ Mark, and we could’ve both got jobs together. I’m gutted, Eva. I don’t mind saying.”

  “I’m sorry, Nicky. Please, will you tell your mum I’m sorry as well? But I had to run like hell. It were me grandad… Something bad happened, and—”

  “Oh yeah, that reminds me – Mum said there were an ambulance outside your grandparents’ house yesterday. They took Mr Hart out on a stretcher.”

  Fuck – it had worked! I slammed a hand to my mouth. “Oh?”

  “We didn’t know how to contact you. I’m right glad you rang. I think they took him to Wakefield General if you want to go and visit?”

  “Oh, right, thanks.”

  “It might be a heart attack or summat. I can meet you there if you want?”

  “No, you’re all right. Nicky, listen, the pips are going to go in a minute, and I haven’t got any more ten-pence pieces. I’ll ring back soon, okay? We could go out? We’ll easily pass for eighteen!”

  “Oh, that’d be brill—”

  There were ten pips, and the call was over. I missed her badly and Mark, too, but hopefully Nicky and I would have our night out. That would be exciting, the first time in a pub, and here in this upmarket part of Leeds the pubs had outdoor areas with patios and parasols. It buzzed with promise, the smell of beer and cigarette smoke intoxicating on the sultry, warm air. I had the feeling I might meet someone, too…In fact, I was convinced of it.

  Looking back now, it breaks my heart, that my young spirit had soared with such hope even then, even after all that had happened and all I knew. Yet still I’d hoped, like any other normal young girl.

  Helen was cooking for her three kids when I got back from phoning Nicky. Already I felt part of their life, of life in general with all its possibilities. And smiling, I sprinted up the three flights of stairs to my room on the top floor. Mark Curry was pining for me, and Nicky and I were going to go out to a pub…

  But that night, as I drifted into sleep, a cool wind blew against my face, and quite unexpectedly the dreams with Baba Lenka resumed. The darkness was back. I should have known I’d wake up ill again.

  However, these dreams were nothing like the ones before. They were not coming from an emotional, vibrant young girl. Rather, they were a series of images shot in black and white, like a scratchy old film. Instead of being in her skin and living her life as if it were my own, this was more akin to watching an impartial documentary through a long lens, as if the person presenting was simply projecting tape reels from an archive. I was inside her head but disconnected from feelings. Whoever this was, looked and talked like Lenka, but it wasn’t her…I can’t explain it…except it wasn’t her anymore.

  The first dream sequence showed a middle-age
d man who was vaguely recognisable. The most distinguishable characteristic was a huge upturned moustache in the shape of a joker smile. The second notable aspect was a Nehru-collared uniform ablaze with medals. He wore long boots and was stomping around a palatial room, behind him full-length windows that opened onto expansive lawns that glistened with snow.

  He wore an expression of enormous petulance, pale blue eyes darting with madness. He would make a speech to the nation and damn this or that adviser! I had the impression of lying on a bed, watching him with the kind of disdain reserved for fools. Reflected in a long, gilt-edged mirror opposite, a woman turned to stare directly at me and our eyes locked. Yes, it was Lenka, definitely… Smoking from a slim cigarette holder, she was wearing a long silk chemise, her red hair wavy and bobbed. A ripple of pleasure at her appearance flickered inside of me, and for a moment we regarded each other with interest. Unable to stop myself, I felt drawn, looking deep into eyes that were my own. Yet at the same time, they weren’t mine at all, but solid black.

  Solid black?

  My heart lurched. And at the very moment that hit me, her image zoomed with lightning speed towards my third eye.

  Wake up…wake up…wake yourself up!

  Still half awake, half asleep, my heart was kicking so hard in my chest it set the pulse points burning to a deep ache. Those eyes had reflected my face. My face as it is now, in the mirror, in photographs. And that reflection had been upside down.

  Wake up, wake up…

  Oh, I wanted to wake, to come out of the nightmare, but could not. The scene pulled me back in and resumed, weighting me down and forcing me to watch. I think a fragment of the real Lenka remained. She needed me to see this, to witness as much as possible, and as such she turned her focus back to the wildly gesticulating, ranting man with the moustache. A channel of energy was being sent into his brain, which required a magnitude of concentration. He was being shown a picture of himself on a balcony, beneath which thousands of people were waving flags, chanting his name and cheering. The rush of power was so great it elevated him to the status of a god. No one was above him. The gratitude of the peasants was overwhelming, how they loved him for his immense greatness, leadership and wisdom. Yes, he would and could stamp all over opposition.