Chapter 1
Changing Nappies and Never Biting Your Finger Nails.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA A WA WA WA WA WA WA WA
(Short sobs, probably to re-fill those tiny little lungs)
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Does this child ever sleep and why does she wake up as if the world is ending, thought Ben as he lifted his daughter out of her little crib and into his arms? His sleep pattern was successfully broken yet again at 4:30 am while the rest of Amazing and Graceful was deep in La La Land.
Actually the truth be told, the rest of the known world was in La La Land, rescuing damsels in distress, fighting lions, tigers and dragons, balancing budgets, growing extra legs then winning running marathons and chasing Aubrey over the Scottish countryside in a white rabbit suit (that seemed to be a favourite with Ben). This little tiny pooping alarm clock was hungry and needed changing. Ben lifted her out of the crib and almost at once the crying and screaming was replaced with soft accented vowel sounds. Examples as follows......
AAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOO EEEEEEEEEUUUUUUUOOO IIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEUUUUU
All of these sounds were anywhere to 100 to 120 DB lower in volume than the previous screaming and much easier to cope with on Ben’s ears. He lay Zara down onto the change table and gazed into her eyes. His sleep deprived mind enabled his hands to search for the child proof buttons on her little pink jumpsuit and release the flannel coverings so Ben could get to the offending nappy that was obviously causing Zara so much discomfort. Ben lifted her little backside off the change table by holding both of her feet in between three fingers of his right hand and slid the nappy off her and marvelled at the weight of it.
How could so much fluid come out of one small child?
Ben heard the nappy thunder into the empty baby bucket beside the change table and at once his daughter began to move and become active on the change table. Ben retrieved his squirming daughter and used wet-wipes then moisturisers on her delicate areas and then he tried to put a new nappy on her.
“Zara Maitland,” whispered Ben, “4:30am is no time to start to play up on this table given that your father and mother are sleep deprived and need to be asleep to be able to cope.”
Ben put his huge hand under her backside and refitted a fresh nappy with the plastic clasps in place on her hips. Getting her little legs back into the pink flannel jumpsuit was a little harder. Zara had sensitive feet and Ben could not help but play, just a little with her. He blew zerbets on the souls of her feet before he handed her to Aubrey for a quick top up from Mum.
Then Ben would walk the floor and burp her, returning her to the crib for two hours restless sleep before she wakes the entire Amazing and Graceful with her cries for attention at dawn. There were embers in the fireplace that came to life when Ben put some more timber on it and the room began to glow deep red and crackle. This was to work against Ben because Zara heard this while she was suckling and her eyes travelled to her dad sitting in front of the fire and she rolled away from her mother who was feeding her.
“She is done Ben, she is not going to feed now she has seen you in front of the fire,” said Aubrey resting her hand on the fidgeting baby child next to her.
Actually I think it was the fact that Hambone was sitting next to Ben looking at Zara that caught her attention more. Baby Zara could see Hambone even with her limited vision as a baby and he could see her. Hambone became very protective of little Zara from the moment she came back from Castle Bannock to Amazing and Graceful. Ben and Aubrey were still coming to terms with the fact that a ghost family had taken up residence with their ghost Irish Wolfhound in their home but it was getting easier all the time.
Ben got up to nurse and burp Zara back to sleep and Zara began making more sounds in excitement that made Hambone raise his ears and tilt his head sideways as he tried to understand what she was saying. All signs of Zara going back to sleep were now non- existent. She was comfortable on this person’s snuggly dressing gown and there was this white-ish thing that made funny sounds next to her when she was upset sitting in front of the fire. Ben settled himself back into the chair with Zara and put her into burp position over his left shoulder. He began to tap her back ever so gently singing some old Japanese song from the sixties to her that would hopefully calm her down.
Aubrey looked at her daughter and her big brown eyes looking out from Ben’s dressing gowned shoulder and marvelled at how big Zara had grown since she was born some 4 weeks earlier. Aubrey loved being a mother and loved how quickly Ben took to being a Dad.
Zara was just taking all the new sights and sounds in and letting in these two people who seemed to be in her face a lot now when she was wet or soiled or she needed something to drink. The sleep thing just happened when she over indulged in the drink sequence of events. Sometimes Zara would fill herself so fast she would fall asleep on the job of drinking and fall back with a red faced contented glow about her and sleep for nine hours without a break.
Sometimes if Hambone was in close proximity to Zara when she woke up in her crib he would bark, only once, and everyone in Amazing and Graceful would hear the bark and wonder where the dog was. People on the lake in the great little row boats heard it and would look around to see where the dog was.
Aubrey or Ben would hear this sound and know it was time for a feed, change and a walk before anything else happened that day. Hambone was a great baby sitter. He didn’t require food or drink and was always reliable and his bark could be heard for miles around. It was a bark that wasn’t very loud but rather it was consistent and deep. I think that is what got everybody’s attention, the deepness with which it resounded around the hotel and Loch; it seemed to rattle everyone’s spinal cords with its low frequency.
Authors note: The only way I can describe the growl and bark is if you find a really old record player, place the needle on the record and your finger in the centre of the record and try turning the record to make a sound. It’s low and slow and a funny kind of sound. That’s the only way I can describe his growl and bark. His bark is like short sharp jerks of your finger on the record but still deep and a low sounding bark. Don’t spin the record really fast because then it sounds like animated characters I can’t mention in this book because I will be sued from here to Kingdom Come and back again, then after I am dead they will dig me up and re-sue me again, cremate me, bury the ashes and sue me one more time just for good measure to make sure I aware of copyright plagiarism.
Ben felt a burp surrender from the depths of Zara’s little tummy on his shoulder and it must have been what was keeping her alert and unsettled because as soon as the foghorn burp echoed around the room her head went sideways and she settled into Ben’s shoulder. Hambone sat back down in front of the fire lying on his back with his legs in the air and his tongue hanging out of his mouth.
Every so often his legs would move like he was running in his sleep and Ben would chuckle to himself imagining what a ghost dog would be dreaming of in his sleep. Ben felt Zara’s breath deepen and he knew that she had drifted off into sleep again on his shoulder. Hambone was actually chasing a huge white rabbit not too successfully across the hills surrounding Dunmour Cottage. For some reason this rabbit was calling him on by his name and while he wanted to tear the rabbit limb from limb he didn’t because it was too much fun running after this huge white friend.
Ben rose from the chair with little sleeping Zara on his shoulder and a sleeping ghost dog at his feet and placed Zara down into her crib as gently as you would a land mine, only just as her head touched the crib sheets, her eyes flew open and she squawked at the recognition of her new old surroundings. This was not Ben’s comfy warm shoulder, it was her old bed and it was cold and unfriendly. Ben raised her up again and lifted her into his arms and back into the old leather chair in front of the fire to settle her again.
Hambone had not moved at all even after Zara had woken up again. Zara just settled back in this person’s arms and drifted off to sleep again once he was settled.
Aubrey pulled the sheets up around her nose and went to sleep dreaming of a huge white rabbit knocking on her room door. These made her wake up and look at Ben and Zara and she got out of bed and put her daughter into her crib and then got back into bed and dozed until her daughter woke up two hours later. Ben was still asleep in the chair with Hambone at his feet and that was where Ben would stay for one more extra hour of sleep. Hambone on the other hand was up and out the door with Aubrey and Zara once there was too much movement in the bedroom.
Things were more interesting in the reception area with Aubrey and bubs rather than listen to Ben snore his head off. The daily comings and goings in Amazing and Graceful were interesting and so much better than the years the old hospital was empty and bereft of life and colour. Now there was a sense of vibrancy that replaced the sombre outlook of the old battered walls and mouldy interiors far below the water line in the cellar.
Ben had only really had time to be a Dad now and get used to being a father with all it had in store for him for the next 60 + years. Cleaning the cellar was a job that would happen but not until he had some spare time. If Aubrey had her way it would never happen, she didn’t like being down under the reception area in the dark in the place where Zara and Hambone had died so tragically.
It gave her the creeps.
There was that one room and all its contents that had to be sorted and some of the furniture brought to the surface to see the light of day again after so many years in the dark. Ben could do this if he was up to date with all his chores, as he loved ferreting around in all that old stuff. Aubrey often found him playing snooker with Peebles down there when he was nowhere to be found above ground and all avenues of communication had been exhausted, such as telephoning the police, the Castle Bannock and combing the Loch to see if there was an up turned boat near the hotel.
Ben could disappear rather quickly and suddenly develop a selective hearing disorder as soon as he was out of sight and vocal shouting range. He was never really far away but it infuriated Aubrey when he didn’t answer her the first time, so much so there were several calls to the police station that were false alarms because Ben had forgotten to tell anyone where he was. Aubrey would give Ben a roasting after he showed up and then it was his turn to tend too little Zara and any odd job she could think of.
Ben loved being in the cellar full of vintage smelly old stuff, old furniture, toys, tables, pool tables and loads of vintage wine, what more could a man hope for? Being down there was like a treasure hunt every time he went down there. Some of the old toys were bought to the surface and repainted and now adorned the bedroom ready for Zara to play with once she was old enough.
Sometimes Ben would be discovering something wonderful and big ghost Zara would pop out of a wall and tell him all about what he was looking at. This would frighten Ben some days and the questions would flow fast and thick as a result back to Zara to get her to tell him about what was on the other side.
Where did she go at night?
And why Hambone’s bark could be heard.....everywhere?
Were there any other spirits that wanted to come back and make their presence felt at Amazing and Graceful as well?
There were several conversations that were always managed to be cut short by the crying of a small baby girl and Hambone’s alarm bark and growl.
Zara told Ben that she had seen the souls from the hospital and they were more than happy to be away from the place. The old hospital was a place of unspeakable sorrow and just being dead and gone was joy in itself after all the suffering they endured while they were alive before leaving this mortal coil.
Zara told Ben also that there were some very angry souls that wanted to destroy the place because at one time it was a prison before it was a hospital and the souls of those falsely accused of wrongful deeds and promptly executed were all up for some retribution against the old place and its new owners.
This filled Ben with dread that he may have a ghost war on his shoulders to contend with and try to keep his family safe from these new intruders. Most of the spirits could care less what happened there but there were a couple who really meant to seem harm befall on Amazing and Graceful.
Ben’s eyes went wide on hearing this and then he heard his daughter cry and was snapped back out of his attention with Zara and all too soon was walking back up into the light of the reception area to his daughter in her pram. Still, the thought of a couple of rogue spirits loose in his home amongst his family and guests filled his mind with so many variables it didn’t pay to dwell on it.
Who could he call on to help defend him against that kind of insurgence?
Victor could do it with his Ghost Juice but getting that liquid through customs was going to be tricky.
More questions needed to be answered by Zara and her family and Ben would bring this up the next time he was down in the cellar sorting through the history under the water line. For now it was enough to be snuggled up next to a fire with his brand new baby daughter, humming to her and saying good evening to all the passing guests in Amazing and Graceful. Ben was dunking his zillionth shortbread when he heard Hambone growl, as did everyone else in the foyer.
“Plumbing,” said Ben to one of the guests closest to him, in a voice that assured the guest there was nothing to be concerned about. Then he stood up to put Zara into her pram and explore the reason for Hambone’s discontent, shuffling off quickly towards the office and away from his comfy chair, fire and coffee. Ben pushed the break on the pram into forward and locking position, then he turned into the office and then down the stairs leading to the cellar.
Something was wrong, Hambone started to bark repeatedly.
The whole cellar was ringing with the dog’s bark and Ben almost had to cover his ears it was so loud. Walking past the vintage wine racks and red waxed bottles Ben got closer to the deeply distressed Hambone. By now most of Scotland would be asking...
“Where the hell is that sound coming from?”
Ben came into the dimly lit room that was where Zara and Hambone crossed over. He could now see what was making the dog so edgy and bark incessantly.
Amazing and Graceful had a small leak and salt water was flowing into the cellar in one corner of the cellar-mans quarters.
