The Red Slayer

Chapter Twenty-One – Ashingdon Abbey

The first day of the summer holidays is always the same. At seven in the morning, our bags are packed and the pool is drained. Luke and I sit on the living room sofa with his iPad, having the usual debate.

‘You can’t be serious,’ I’ll say.

‘Hey, it’s tradition,’ he’ll say.

‘Yeah, but first thing in the morning?’

‘Your dad won’t mind. Mum’s not coming up until Monday.’

‘But it’s different now,’ I assert. ’Olga and Dante are with us, and they don’t know the words to The Internet is for Porn.’

’But it’s our song!’

‘Maybe we can start the playlist off with something else?’

’Okay…how about Bitch of Living from Spring Awakening?’

I sigh. ‘What is it with you and musicals with sex and swearing?’

‘Well, what would you suggest?’

’Hakuna Matata, it’s a classic.’

’Are you kidding me? Hakuna Matata means “no worries”. We will always have worries from now on.’

I shrug. ‘Sod it, Olga and Dante can decide.’

‘Decide what?’ asks Dante, trudging into the living room with a giant backpack and duffle-bag, eyes heavy.

‘It’s our playlist,’ Luke explains. ‘Whenever we go up north, we make and all-showtune playlist. But we can never decide what to choose first.’

Dante shrugs lazily. 'Why not something from Phantom of the Opera?’

I grin but Luke literally puts his foot down. 'We have a rule. One Phantom song for every five non-Phantom songs. That includes Love Never Dies.’

I gag. ‘Not that I would listen to that abomination.’

The choice is up to Olga. Dad always abstains for some reason. She arrives as we’re loading our bags into the back of the Honda, drinking from her travel mug to stay awake. She scrolls through the music library and points at a random song.

'There, Muppet Treasure Island, happy?’

I nod and quietly get in the car.

***

In the two months since we accepted Sophia McIntyre’s offer, we’ve become adults without realising. Luke, Olga and Dante have been over at my house every weekend where Dad teaches us about vampires: their strengths, their weaknesses, common misconceptions and eerie truths. Human blood is like Adderall to them, which is why they harvest us. Garlic is to them what cyanide is to us. Religious icons don’t actually hurt them unless it’s a silver cross or garlic salt is in the holy water.

My shoulder was back to normal at half-term. With that, physical training could start. Between our 5k runs in Hampstead Heath and daily swims, Dad taught us about human anatomy, especially the weak-spots. I didn’t realise how vulnerable we really were. The heels, yes, the crown of the head, obviously, but the aorta? Why not paint a long target on our backs for instant kills?

With the summer holidays coming up, Dad and I always go up to the countryside with Luke and Elisa. We’d have plenty of time to train with no school to get in the way, so I invited Olga and Dante to come with us.

It was easier than I thought to convince their families. With Olga taking up GCSE and A Level early, her parents agreed to let Dad tutor her. Dante meanwhile will be meeting a coach from a top London sports’ college in the autumn, and he wants to be in perfect shape by then. His parents, being told he was talent spotted during his school sports day, finally decided they’d be wrong to stop him.

Once we get back to London, MI5 will supervise our training. There will be weapons and simulations. I’ll hold a gun for the first time. This summer is our last chance to be children.

***

It’s a four-hour drive to Cheshire. We strive to get there before midday and make minimal stops so we can get to the cream teas sooner. I sit up front with Dad while the other three bundle in the back. Elisa’s not off work until Monday, which is when she’ll come up with Ariel.

We’ve done this journey so many times, I can tell how far we’ve gone by the service stations we pass, the shape of the hills and the castles on the horizon. The last leg of the journey takes us across a flat expanse of land, headed towards the hills ahead.

‘Almost there,’ I tell Dante and Olga.

The road gently starts sloping upwards towards a narrow gap between the hills. On the other side of them, a beautiful, wide valley spreads out before us where a town sits in the centre. Looming over it, on top of the highest hill, is an Elizabethan manor with four storeys, four turrets and a tower in the centre.

The road descends into the town. Olga and Dante gawp at the numerous shops and cafés built into the Grade 2 Listed buildings. It’s much less crowded and cramped than London. Is there such thing as a city bumpkin?

‘Oh, my god,’ says Olga, ‘Is this where they filmed that Brontë movie?’

‘They film a lot of period pieces here,’ says Dad. ‘Brontë, Austen, Dickens. Georgette Heyer’s no stranger here either.’

As soon as we’ve entered the town, we’re leaving it again, uphill, towards the manor. The road leads toward a granite gatehouse with a National Trust sign posted next to it: Welcome to Ashingdon Abbey.

Dad casually waves an ID card to the man posted there who waves us across the threshold. Instead of taking the dirt road towards the car park, we take the paved one towards a locked gate marked Private that opens when the same ID card gets scanned against a nearby post. Another hundred metres and we reach a car park for volunteers’ cars and gold carts.

‘Right,’ says Dad, unlocking the boot, ‘We walk from here.’ He leads the way down the fern-lined path with Luke and Olga following, me and Dante in the rear. I notice him looking around, bewildered.

At the end of the path and through a narrow wooden gate, we find ourselves in a rose garden. It’s one of many at Ashingdon Abbey. We ignore the visitors with their prams and guidebooks, following a path towards the cedars which cover a green lawn in total shadow. A good spot for hot days. To our right is a pair of old stone steps which we ascend to another lawn with statues, and a fountain at its centre. The house’s back entrance is on the other side with the door wide open.

‘Let’s go in through there,’ says Dad. ‘I’d rather not deal with the garden gate.’

‘Good idea,’ I reply.

While people are leaving the house, we make our way past them and reach a door blocked off by velvet rope. It doesn’t apply to us. Dad opens the door and into a modern living room with a kitchen attached. I drop my stuff where I’m standing and stretch myself across the plush suede sofa. Luke nonchalantly scoots my ankles off so he can sit down too.

Dante’s jaw drops with disbelief. ‘We’re staying in the manor?’

I nod. ‘Surprise!’

‘This is where MI5 wants us to train?’

Dad laughs, pulling screens off of windows to let light in. ‘I own this house. Not MI5. Well, technically it’s co-owned between me and the National Trust. But we get our own chunk of the property to do with as we want. Didn’t Iorwen tell you?’

I shake my head. ‘I don’t like to brag about it.’

‘You don’t have to be ashamed you know.’

‘About what?’ asks Dante.

‘Dad is the Earl of Ashingdon,’ I explain. 'I’m next in line for the title. Lady Iorwen Davis.’

‘I thought you hated aristocrats.’

‘I’m self-hating.’

‘We just don’t want to be mistaken for Tories,’ Dad explains. ‘I prefer being called Doctor because I didn’t inherit my PHDs.’

Olga, perching on the arm of the sofa, looks up at Dante and shrugs. ‘I was surprised too when I found out. But this place is pretty amazing.’

Before we lay claim to a cream tea, we head upstairs to unpack. Before we hit puberty, Luke and I used to share a room and slept in bunkbeds. Now, Olga and I share that room while boys are across the hall. Dad gives us some lanyards on our way down to the stable yard café so we can go behind the ropes and not get hassled by visitors and volunteers.

Our cream teas are the first of many that summer. We don’t have to spar in front of strangers, seeing as we have a patch of our own garden where no one will see us. We tend to use the gate there to come and go, though occasionally we get tailgaters.

Olga and Dante don’t believe me when I tell them, but they see for themselves on Monday when Elisa arrives. The four of us are barefoot on the lawn of the private garden, doing Tai-Chi. Dad unlocks the gate to let Elisa through, along with Ariel, who nearly knocks me over with enthusiasm. Before Dad can close it, however, an inquisitive middle-aged man pokes his head through and tries to come in. Dad assertively points to the ‘Private’ notice on the gate and she slinks away, embarrassed.

‘They’re not usually so compliant,’ he tells us.

***

From then on, every day is pretty much the same. Wake up at seven, breakfast, two-mile run in the grounds (which soon develops into three miles, then four), second breakfast, sparring, lunch, hit the books (not literally), tea, workout, dinner, movie, bed. We sometimes take evening walks when everyone has left, climbing the trees and dipping our feet in the lake. No swimming though. The water looks peaceful, but get deep enough and the weeds will drag you under. Plus, pikes lurk in the depths with hooked teeth.

We relax on Sundays, where we walk into town. Luke burns through two sketchbooks and becomes a frequent visitor at the art shop. Olga buys a teapot shaped like a thatched cottage to bring home to her mum while Dante enjoys looking at the second-hand books in the marketplace.

I don’t realise we’re in our final week until we’re settling down on the sofa one evening to watch The Dirty Dozen. Dad’s phone starts ringing and after a few seconds he hands it over to me. ‘It’s your Drama teacher.’

I take it from him and go into the garden. ‘Irene,’ says Ms. Elliott, I roll my eyes. ‘You’ll never guess what. An audition has opened up for you.’

‘Really?’

'It’s for a television series about young people. It’s called Beautiful Sins. The producers saw your Hamlet and wanted to know if you’d be interested.’

‘Yeah, I’m interested. When is it?’

‘During the first week of term. I’ll let them know you’re on board.’

I cartwheel with joy and Ariel comes out to offer her congratulations by jumping up and slathering her tongue across my face. Everyone else is happy to hear the news when I go back in and tell them, but they don’t follow Ariel’s example.

© Alice of Sherwood, March 2020