Brian Clough sat bolt upright and blinked the blurriness from stringy eyes. After a side-mouth suppressed yawn and a flex of the back, he gazed gratefully at shafts of sunlight streaming in through the hall windows, uprating the trails of dusted cobwebs from a battleship grey to a pearly off-white. Timber panelling glowed amber warmth, while the colours in the period artwork along the walls lifted to vivid life. Looking around, Clough assumed each framed composition would make a couple of bob in an auction.
He unwrapped himself from the dirty curtain that was acting as both thin mattress and bedding, and turned to see whether anyone else from the bizarre menagerie of stage, screen and sport was awake. Then, like a hammer striking his eyeballs, Clough caught the fiercely intense stare of Geoff Boycott, who was sitting with his back against a wall.
“A felicitous morning to you, Brian,” Boycott calmly spoke.
“A what?” Clough replied.
“Did you sleep well?” Boycott enquired.
“Aye, I did,” said Clough in astonishment. “Considering all that carry on last night.”
“We’re still duckin’ and divin’,” Boycott commented. “Winners, me and you. Winners.”
Clough checked his watch. The crystal was cracked, obscuring the face. He lifted his wrist to his ear: nothing. He waved it, as one ridiculously does when a watch isn’t ticking. Still nothing.
“It’s after two,” Boycott confirmed. “Imagine that!”
“Two?” cried Clough. “Christ, we need to get a shift on! I’ve got to get home!”
“And we will, Brian,” Boycott said. “But this lot’ll not thank you for wakin’ them up. They’re lazy as a bunch of teenagers at a polytechnic in London. As for that ’un laid over there, Mark E Smith, ’e wants ’is brain feelin’.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Clough said rising to his feet, suddenly red-faced and agitated. “I’ll have them ready to trot in five minutes flat.”
“Oh let them rest,” Boycott smiled. “They’ve been through ordeal. People like you and me, we’ve adapted to stress through experience, so none of this makes much difference. In fact, I wouldn’t mind another night ’ere.”
Clough couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Place appears to be haunted, we’re not staying here again. And I’m parched to piss. I need drinking water. All that Italian dandelion-and-burdock glug is fine enough but in the morning you need a good glass of water just to get your mouth opening and closing, then some orange juice for the vitamin hit, then three cups of PG Tips.”
“What about them monkeys they have!” Boycott said.
“The tea ones?” Clough smiled. “Bloody brilliant adverts. They make me and Barbara laugh. Kids love it, too. ‘Do you know the piano’s on my foot?’ ‘You hum it and I’ll play it.’”
“I’ve found somethin’ in my bag that might appeal to you,” Boycott divulged. “I’d forgotten it were in there to be ’onest. It must’ve fell behind box of Shredded Wheat.”
Boycott rummaged in his holdall and pulled out a bottle of unopened Lucozade, its orange liquid content glowing like a crock of gold at the end of a rainbow. The cricketer’s uncharacteristic ta-daa! face made Clough feel momentarily uneasy.
“What else is in that bag of tricks, a bloody Land Rover?” Clough asked. “Go on, giz a swig.”
“It’s been marketed narr to sportsmen as well as infirm,” Boycott remarked and walked slowly towards Clough, unscrewing the bottle top.
Clough took a deep fizzy mouthful and felt joyfully refreshed. Boycott then grasped the bottle and luxuriated in a long draught.
“Leave some for these buggers,” Clough spoke, waving his finger towards the floor. “We’ll make it onto their Christmas card list if we do. And it’s the right thing after all that’s happened. O’Toole’s on death’s door as it is.”
Boycott glanced sideways at Clough and ceased swallowing. “I owe you an apology, my friend,” Boycott said, wiping the side of his mouth with his sleeve. “I were scared silly by what I witnessed last night but guess what? You were right.”
Clough was confused. “Right about what?”
“The spooks, the ghouls, them words miraculously appearin’ on the wall,” Boycott replied. “It were all a load of cobblers. A revealing nonsense.”
“How do you know all this?” Clough questioned.
“I’ve been up a few hours and I went rootin’,’ Boycott said. “Let me show you somethin’.”
Up the wide, carpeted staircase and along the dark corridor Clough and Boycott hurried, retracing their steps from the previous night’s daunting episode like journalists on a scoop.
“Yesterday I were weak, Brian, and not only did I let you down, I let meself down,” Boycott stated, leading the way. “I wavered, like a confused budgie that’d escaped through an open window. I was preposterous and, worse, a jessie.”
“But you had the guts to hare up here on your tod when I was still sock-on,” Clough said. “Even I’d have had second thoughts traipsing this way to have another encounter with that big bloody illuminated bison!”
The fleet-footed pair rapidly arrived at the door to the children’s bedroom, which, in the welcoming daylight, lacked the forbidding quality that it so strongly held just hours previously. Despite this, Clough’s stomach was aflutter and he had to take firm control of his emotions. The door creaked open wwwwwrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaahhhhhh. At that instant, he wished he had some chewing gum. A stick always gave him an additional jolt of clarity in tricky situations, especially during matchdays. To Clough’s surprise, Boycott lifted a fresh pack of Freedent from his jacket’s inside pocket and offered one to Clough.
“Sometimes I think you’re a mind-reader, Geoffrey,” Clough said. “But that’s why you’re top of your game. You can scan a situation decisively and come up with quick answers. I wish I had someone like you in my midfield at Forest right now. We’d be winning European Cups whenever we fancied it.”
Clough folded a minty grey sheet into his mouth.
“Follow me,” Boycott instructed.
Clough tentatively walked through the door and found the curtains had been dragged apart and glorious spring-like sunshine was washing into the room. Even the windows had been opened to let in some fresh country air. The dusty room was much as they’d left it. The train set, the odd-looking ventriloquist’s dummy on a wicker chair, the grisly doll’s house with its gruesome scenario, the board games and the beds were all present. Rather than feel threatening, it all seemed so pitifully sad.
“What do you see, Brian?” Boycott said.
“Well, for a start, someone’s scrubbed the words off the wall.”
“That’s right,” Boycott nodded, “and do you know why?”
Boycott walked to the wall and looked down towards his feet. Bending, he took hold of a black cable, lifted it and held it as if in a tug-of-war competition.
“What have you found there?” Clough asked.
“The answer,” Boycott replied.
He yanked the lead and clomp was heard from across the room. Clough stepped beyond the train set and held an adaptor in his hand. Glancing up he noticed a lens poking through a collection of dolls that was pointing towards the far wall.
“It’s a projector,” Clough said sternly. “A bloody projector.”
“You understand we saw what we wanted to see,” explained Boycott.
“Aye, I know that now,” Clough said. “What a bunch of ninnies we’ve been. And what about that huge growling yak from the depths of hell?”
Boycott briskly opened the closet door and ushered Clough through. “Be my guest,” he motioned with his hand. “And mind you don’t trip and break your neck on jumble of flexes. Must ’ave some whoppin’ power bills, this place.”
Clough disappeared into the closet and flicked the light switch. It came on instantly. To his untrained eye, the bulb seemed modern. On the ground, angled upwards, he discovered another projector, and, on top of a cupboard, a flashy Sony hi-fi and some large, powerful speakers. Clough looked over his shoulder and recognised the faint outline of the glowing beast but seen from behind. They’d obviously tripped a sensor as they’d walked in. The terrifying otherworldly creature moved forwards using its bat-like arms, whereupon another projector flicked into life in the children’s bedroom.
“But it were making a right racket when we saw it last night,” Clough recalled.
Boycott stepped over to the hi-fi and notched the sound up. It was a recording of a lion roaring.
“I turned it down when I come in this mornin’,’ Boycott said. “I reckon it’s a tape from start of a Metro Goldwyn Mayer film and looped. Still, an expensive bit of kit I’d imagine. It’s all a ruse. Obviously owner is abroad, maybe can’t get back and has set up this elaborate security system. It worked on us! What a waste of a nice house, though.”
“Bloody Poirot’s got nowt on you,” Clough grinned widely, patting his friend on the back.
“There’s more,” Boycott spoke. “You’ll like this.”
Out into the sunshine Clough and Boycott wandered, shielding their eyes until they became accustomed to the brightness. For winter, it felt ridiculously mild, and rather than claggy fog, today you could see to the horizon, with its purple peaks and faraway church towers. It was breathtaking. They skirted the perimeter of Hangingbrow Hall, taking long strides to step over wild clumps of grass. Another turn and there stood the twisted tree that had unnerved them all as their long trek had reached its troublesome conclusion. Underneath its outstretched wooden arms, Clough pondered to take in its size and squat pose. Soon, Clough and Boycott were in a meadow, fruit trees bare save for the odd hanging apple that had refused to abide by autumn’s rules. Camouflaged by a thick coating of ivy stood a large box-like building. There was a side entrance but the main feature of the structure was a set of double doors painted in a luscious forest green.
“You came down here earlier, on your own?” Clough asked.
Boycott pulled a handle on one of the large doors and it opened easily. “Oh aye, I ’ad a real good neb,” he replied.
It was dark inside, but glass panels on the main doors brought in enough light to see that this was a groundsman’s domain. The smell of oil reminded Clough of his own lock-up at home in Derby where he kept his forks, spades, canes, seeds and string. He was astounded by the neatness of the interior. On the walls were various implements for keeping foliage and lawns trim. Clough could even smell the cut grass from summers long gone.
“What a smashing place this is,” Clough spoke. “I can imagine the fella who looks after these grounds, in shirt and tie no doubt, smart like they used to be, but wearing a pair of old black wellies. See how everything has its place. There’s a lot of discipline here.”
Clough pulled back a drawer from a wooden chest, possibly Victorian, and ran his fingers through nails and screws, some rusty, some silver and shiny. He pulled out another drawer, which he thought would once have housed fine cutlery before the chest’s declassification from the dining room, and found a treasure trove of pliers, screwdrivers and spanners, all pre-war, all built to last beyond a lifetime. He turned to see Boycott lifting a heavy grey sheet from a contraption that didn’t look all that different to the moon buggies from the Apollo missions 12 or 13 years ago.
“Now this is something interesting,” Boycott smiled. “I’m ’oping if I turn this key and push this button…”
The machine roared into chattering life, a cloud of exhaust fumes rising from a high-perched pipe. Clough noticed the leather seating arrangement had enough space for two.
“What is it, a mower?” Clough asked. “Looks bloody top-end if it is!”
“Must be,” Boycott replied. “Probably not seen use for 40 year and started first time!”
Boycott pointed forward and mouthed, “Doors.” The cricketer and football manager pushed a handle each, and despite the knotted straitjacket of ivy on the exterior, they managed to force open just enough room to fit a two-seat sit-on lawnmower.
“We’d ’ave been asphyxiated if we’d stayed in ’ere much longer!” Boycott smiled. “Now, do you want to drive?”
Clough slipped in behind the wheel and Boycott arranged himself like Mother Hen in the passenger position.
“It’s a funny-looking thing this,” Clough commented. “It’s like nowt I’ve ever seen before.”
“My guess is it’s either a prototype or a specially made model,” Boycott shouted above the din. “Chief ’ere were obviously not short of a quid or two.”
Carefully Clough released the brake and edged forward, the engine hammering as he pushed the foot pedal. He turned and grinned at Boycott.
“Well gooh on then, what’re you waitin’ for?” Boycott gestured.
Easing through the aperture, Clough steered a course towards the meadow’s overgrown grass and pushed a lever to lower its rotary blade. There came a series of jolts and then the whir of the spinning sharp edges was heard. Boycott adopted his lower-case b pushed through 90 degrees smile as Clough cut swathes of undergrowth, the engine happily clattering to human control.
“Like a knife through butter,” Clough remarked. “Lovely petrol smell.”
“It’s obviously Rolls-Royce of lawn cutters,” Boycott added. “A real pleasure to ride.”
“Just don’t forget we’ve to be off, though,” Clough reminded his companion. “We can’t stay here all day. As it is, Barbara will be worried sick I didn’t make it back last night. I expect Carole rang her to say I’d been looking for a place to sleep. At least I hope she did. She’s very good, you know.”
“Bloody mitherin’ bitches,” Boycott angrily expressed.
Clough wasn’t sure how to respond to this clumsy attack from his fellow Yorkshireman. He then felt the pick-axe ice-chill of a hand touching the top of his thigh but with the concentration required to maintain his cutting technique, he was unable to physically remove the offending item. Had Geoffrey lost his marbles?
“I’ve been meanin’ to have a word with you, Brian.”
“Aye, well get that bloody hand shifted for a start,” Clough warned.
Boycott slowly and reluctantly removed his errant extremity, as Clough span the sit-on lawnmower for another long line, engine enthusiastically spluttering.
“We’ve been good friends for a long time now Brian, me and you,” Boycott continued. “I just wondered if you were ready to take things a step further.”
Clough rolled his tongue around his mouth, feeling like he’d been the victim of a particularly smooth-toned con artist. “Take what one step further?” he spat.
“Us, Brian. We get on well…”
“Now listen, I don’t know what you’re getting at…”
“Oh, I think you do.”
“For a start I’m married to Barbara – happily! – and I’ve got three kids!” Clough said, voice raised. “You think I’d jack all that in to shack up wi’ you?”
“We’d live up ’ere in Cumbria,” Boycott stated, laying out his vision. “It’s a very progressive part of the world, this. They’re very welcomin’ to ’omosexuals, vegetarians, the Irish. It’s probably cos it’s underpopulated and it’d help economy, but regardless, there’s some lovely cottages around.” And he pulled some brochures out of his jacket pocket.
Clough dismissed the sheets of glossy A4 paper without even looking at the picturesque properties and floor plans. “You can put them away,” he seethed.
“We’d be bum-chums,” Boycott stressed. “We’ll ’ave a one-bedroom place somewhere in ’ills, away from pryin’ eyes. Maybe run a tea shop together when dust has settled, and at night get to bed like Morecambe & Wise do.”
“No, no, no,” Clough shook his head. “Are you pissed?”
“On love, yes!” Boycott admitted.
“We’re taking this mower back where it belongs right now, and we’re getting away from this bloody lunatic’s nuthouse once and for all,” Clough decided, bumping and jouncing, steering towards the garage.
Boycott, voice lowered, declared, “Don’t make me angry, Brian. You won’t like me when I’m angry.”
Clough let out a smile, but with little warmth. He pulled the lever to lift up the thrashing blade and deftly manoeuvred the mower towards the green double doors. “Listen to you,” he dismissed. “Quoting crap from kids’ TV shows. The Incredible Hulk says that when he’s about to go barmy!”
“He can’t be that incredible,” Boycott grimaced. “I’ve never ’eard of ’im!”
Clough walk-trotted from the garage, up through the freshly mown meadow, eager to build some distance between himself and his now former friend and ally. The betrayal bit deep. All those great conversations they had enjoyed down the years had amounted to little but pillow talk! He dashed underneath the arm-like branches of the twisted tree and made towards the front entrance of Hangingbrow Hall and its obscured Ministry of Defence warning sign.
The thick wooden door was slighty ajar. Nothing unusual about that, he assumed, because the others, Peter O’Toole, Tony Wilson, Tim Healy and Mark E Smith, would surely have been awake by now and readying themselves for a trek to civilisation – only this time, with no fog, they’d be able to see where they were going.
“Shop!” Clough called out as he ducked beneath the low-slung archway, through the entrance and into the main area. Although there was no reply, Clough felt a sense of relief once he’d smelt the fire. However, rushing into the hall, there was no one to be seen except Boycott, who was crouching by the hearth, placing logs onto crackling flames.
“Eh, shithouse, how d’you get here before me?” Clough hollered.
“Side entrance,” Boycott replied. “I thought you must ’ave gone to lavatory or taken in some scenery, you were so long.”
“No, there’s no side entrance, so that won’t wash with me,” Clough insisted, striding forward. “You’d better start talking sense. Where’s others?”
“Gone,” Boycott said.
“Gone? Gone where?”
“Puffer-trottin’ on a donkey,” Boycott added. “Now forget dartin’ off and come and ’ave a warm by fire next to me.”
“Where’s all the wood from?” Clough asked.
“I did a bit of splittin’ earlier,” Boycott said, and revealed an axe in his right hand. Its sharp edge practically made a “ping” sound as light shifted across its surface. “Like a crickeeet bat, you grip an axe wi’ two ’ands, Brian, which is instinctive enough. If you’re right-handed, skill with an axe comes from left hand. The right gives power and some control, but that’s all.”
Clough took hold of the previous night’s Jägermeister and drank directly from the spout.
“You’re not ’aving any more of my Lucozade, if that’s what you’re thinkin’,” Boycott childishly clarified.
Clough noticed traces of red light appearing on the hall’s small windowpanes. Sunset was approaching and he needed to be on his way. And yet, despite everything that had happened, he felt a pang of doubt over his old chum. After all, some of the motivational talks Boycott had given to Clough during runs of poor results had genuinely given him inspiration when he’d needed it most. Did it matter that Boycott had admitted his true feelings? Could they move on from this setback and remain friends, albeit with a new understanding? I mean, Clough thought, I’m a good-looking fella. Perhaps not in the same category as Peter Shilton, but not bad considering the age and miles.
“Come with me now, stop buggering about with the fire, leave the axe where it is, and we might get out of this in one piece,” Clough suggested. “I shan’t ask you twice.”
Boycott said nothing and looked forlornly into the fire.
“Well, I’m going,” Clough spoke, his voice echoing in the expanse of the cold hall. “I wish you luck. You be careful, do you hear me? And have you considered, you might not be a fairy, you just need a holiday or a break.”
At this point, events took an unusual turn. To Clough’s considerable surprise, Boycott’s head began rotating, round and round, round and round, while his guttural Yorkshire accent became something akin to a dog growl, as if his body had been overtaken by an alien spirit. “Lucozade aids recovery, Lucozade aids recovery, Lucozade aids recovery, LUCOZADE AIDS RECOVERY, LUCOZADE AIDS RECOVERY…”
Boycott’s spinning head then abruptly stopped and he looked at Clough through wide, soulless, demonic eyes. “Brian Clough!” he squawked, “In three minutes, you will be dead!”
Boycott raised himself using the axe as a crutch and began walking leisurely towards Clough, swinging the blade like a contented woodcutter returning from a successful forest chop.
Clough turned and legged it, shoes clocking on the parquet. He rapidly reached the entrance’s old wooden door and seized hold of the handle. To his consternation, he found it to be locked. Locked? How? He began shaking the handle – rattle, rattle, rattle – hoping it had merely jammed, yet it refused to yield. Clough needed Plan B, fast. He dashed back into the hall and glanced at the window they had broken the night before. Clough dodged a lazy axe swipe from Boycott and ran to the window, where he began tearing away at Boycott’s supremely tidy Shredded Wheat box and masking-tape repair job. The locking handle refused to budge. Placing a foot on the windowsill, Clough grabbed an overhanging curtain rail to propel himself upwards in order to give the glass a kick but, unable to endure the additional weight, the pole snapped with an explosive crack and Clough found himself spreadeagled on the floor underneath a 1940s velvet curtain. He struggled to free himself from the darkness of the material, all the while Boycott’s footsteps nearing and the swoooosh of the keen blade becoming louder. I’m running out of options here, Clough thought.
“Two minutes!” barked Boycott, and let out a laugh.
Panic rising, Clough fought free of the velvet, rose to his feet and darted across the parquet quick as a whippet to the carpeted staircase. He hurled himself up to the first floor and sprinted with determination along the darkening corridor towards the children’s bedroom. But rather than reach the door, it seemed to be disappearing further into the distance. It was like he was running backwards!
There was a door to Clough’s side. He grabbed the handle, pushed with his shoulder and squeezed inside, slamming the door shut and turning the key. The late-afternoon orange-red winter sunset was just enough for Clough to recognise a toilet, sink and bath. He attempted to open a small window but the frame had been painted in and no amount of arm work could force the issue.
As Clough weighed up his diminishing options, a great thud came from the corridor side of the bathroom door. He pulled a this-is-not-good scowl. By far, it was the biggest quandary he’d ever found himself in.
“Brian, are you going to be long in there?” the voice thundered. “I’m releasin’ chocolate ’ostage ’ere.”
It took Clough a while to understand what Boycott was talking about.
“I’m having a problem with the lock, Geoffrey,” Clough called back. “There’s a toilet downstairs, remember, if you’re desperate.”
“One minute to go!” Boycott raged. “Your time’s almost up! I’m going to savour every moment of this!”
There came a crack and the sharp edge of Boycott’s axe blade appeared through the wood.
Thud!
Thud! Crack!
Thud! Crack! Snap!
Thud! Crack! Snap! Splinter!
Boycott’s strength from years of top-level batting with county and country made light work of the timber. Clough, meanwhile, manoeuvred his body so that he was almost crab-like on the edge of the bath and attempted to destroy the window and frame using quick blasts with his heel. The glass tinkled and fell but the criss-cross black-painted metalwork remained doggedly in place.
“Come on!” Clough sweated but the strain on maintaining his awkward position soon tired him out.
Behind Clough, a whole panel in the door was obliterated by the power of Boycott’s latest axe strike. He pushed his head through the gap and with a fierce grin said, “Heeeeere’s Geoffrey!”
Calmly, Boycott reached through the broken panel and twisted the key in the lock.
“When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go!” Boycott japed.
He entered the cramped bathroom as if arriving at a party. “You’re finished,” he said to Clough. “Aye, I’d say you’re all done. Have you a last thing you’d like to tell me, before I make mincemeat out of you?”
“Yes,” said Clough in defiance. “I blame your mother.”
The axe swung and Clough juddered violently. Then there was stillness and peace.
Clough opened his eyes slowly. Was he in heaven? Was he just no more? He could smell mustiness, dirt and a hint of smoke from burnt wood. Next to him lay Mark E Smith, cracked lips and a cold sore, breathing heavily through his nose. Near his feet, head on the edge of the carpet was Peter O’Toole, appearing more like he was in his seventies than his fifties, mouth open and snoring like a bear. By the actor’s side was Tony Wilson, eyes fluttering as he engaged in a heated discussion with members of A Certain Ratio about their on-going dedication to jazz fusion. Tim Healy appeared the most content, barely making a sound, glad of the sleep, looking forward to getting home and catching up with the snooker. And there, slumped up against the wall on the other side of the hearth, head bowed, was Geoff Boycott. The main hall was grey and silent, but Clough was alive at the very least. He glanced as his watch. It was working. Eight-thirty am.
Boycott stirred and Clough waited to see if he would fully awaken. The cricketer groggily opened his eyes, noticed that his footballing friend was also conscious and said quietly, “Christ, what a dream! I were just a nipper and Sunil Gavaskar was ’eadmaster at my school. I’d been playin’ up a bit. I’d stolen a lass’s egg and salad-cream butty and I was going to get a canin’ for it. Fair enough, but when I got to Sunil’s office, I told him ’e were maybe guilty of overreactin’ and I promised to recompense the now-famished schoolgirl. I said she could ’ave my corned beef and mustard sandwich instead. Sunil went bonkers and I realised ’e weren’t going to ’it me across ’and wi’ a stick, no. It were a crickeeet bat, and one of me own, too! All while this were ’appenin’, I didn’t ’ave any trousers on, and I can’t recall if I had any undercrackers on either. I’ve no idea what was going on there. Then me teeth started droppin’ out.”
“Howay, man, keep it down!” Healy grunted. “Can’t a man get a bit of kip when he’s staying over at a haunted house?”
Clough smiled brightly and then said to Boycott, “Eh, time we got on our way.”
Boycott nodded. “I’ll order us a taxi.”