Diana Townsend’s life is never
boring. Her mother is a writer,
her father is and artist and
her grandmother is insane.
BOOK ONE - HOW IT ALL BEGAN
My daughter Lucy was visiting with her partner when she asked the question.
“Mum, can you tell Dave about the White Lady?”
“Me?” I stared at her. “Why me? You were the one who spoke to her.”
“Mum!” Lucy retorted indignantly. “I was four when we left Silverlands. I hardly remember anything about it.”
“Seriously?”
I felt a strange mixture of surprise and sadness. Silly, really. I should have realised that, to a young woman, something that happened twenty years ago might as well have taken place in the Middle Ages. To her, it was a lifetime ago, but to me, those days still seemed as clear as yesterday.
And if Lucy had forgotten, perhaps Claire and Michael had forgotten too.
It was then that I decided to write an account of what had occurred as a permanent record for my daughters, Claire and Lucy, and for my nephew Michael.
After all, it is not every family that gets to share their home with a poltergeist.
CHAPTER 1
As a teenager, I didn’t believe in ghosts.
I loved reading ghost stories, of course, and watching horror films, but if anyone had tried to tell me that ghosts, ghouls and things-that-go-bump-in-the-night really existed, I would have laughed at them.
Everyone knew that ghosts were nothing more than superstitious nonsense, didn’t they?
Back then it had all seemed so simple.
But first, I had better explain about myself and my family.
As a child, I always knew that my parents were different. Not different in a bad way, but different. A little eccentric, perhaps. A little bit more creative than most. It didn’t bother me, though, because I loved them and I was proud of them.
Mum and Dad were older than any of my friends’ parents, as they had both been in their forties when I was born and had led full and unusual lives before coming to settle in England.
My father had been born in Sydney, a fourth-generation Australian, and had trained in the family business to become a tent-maker. Later, he and his brother had built a circus tent of their own and had taken to the road with their show, Silvers Circus.
Mum, on the other hand, had been born in London. Her family emigrated to Australia when she was eleven, so she grew up in Perth but returned to England, aged sixteen, determined to become a writer. She worked in Fleet Street during the Blitz. Then, when she was in her thirties, she went back to Australia to find material to use in her books.
While travelling through the Nullarbor Plain, her car had broken down and she had been rescued by my father who was crossing the country with his circus.
After a whirlwind romance, they married and, a year later, my brother, David, was born.
Mum told me once that the months after David’s birth were the happiest she ever knew. She had found the love of her life and a bright future lay ahead of them.
Sadly, her idyll was short-lived.
Out of the blue, Dad was struck down by a mystery illness. The doctors could not agree what the problem was, only that he had contracted a viral infection of the brain, probably a form of meningitis.
At first, it seemed he would not survive but when, with customary stubbornness, he refused to die, my mother was warned that he would be left with brain damage and would never be able to work again.
With a baby and an invalid husband to care for, Mum decided to return home to England. As a child, she had lived in the East End of London but, rather than return to the bustle of the capital, she felt the slower pace of life in Devon might help Dad’s recovery and so the family settled in Exeter.
Against all the doctors’ predictions, Dad’s health slowly returned and, as he grew stronger, he began to think of ways to earn a living.
There were few opportunities for circus owners in Devon at that time, so he decided instead to set up a business as a silk-screen printer. Neither he nor Mum knew much about printing, but Dad got a book from the local library and built the printing tables, screens and drying racks himself.
A couple of years later I was born and for the next twenty years the printing business supported our family.
Although he always worked long hours, Dad never fully recovered from the effects of his illness. He suffered from headaches, sometimes lasting for days, which were so severe they left him partially paralysed and unable to speak. On more than one occasion, he collapsed over the printing table. Despite these setbacks, Dad would never give in and, as soon as his head cleared, and usually sooner than my mother wanted, he would return to work.
My father could never, in any way, be described as average. He was a big bear of a man with a warm heart and an infectious laugh who could find the humour in even the most difficult situations. Naturally quiet, he was one of life’s observers, which meant that few people realised he had an unusual ambition.
As a teenager he had spent his days training in his father’s tent-making factory, designing and making tents for the biggest circuses in Australia, but, in his spare time, he had built a tent of his own. It was a scale model, perfect in every detail, a miniature replica of a circus big top, and he brought it with him to England, locked away in a trunk, in the hope that one day he would be able to finish it.