Storming the Castleby Sarah Hilary © 2008
They arrived by river, after dark.
Roger from accounts was already drunk, swaggering ashore. Julie wondered where on earth he'd hired the costume that he called ‘Davy Jones sans locker' but which more closely resembled a seaweed-strewn Rastafarian. He kept making lewd gestures at Sonia from admin, who was Poison Ivy in a latex cat-suit. ‘It took a tin of talc to get me into this!' she confided. Roger winked and nudged: ‘And it'll take half a bottle of baby lotion to get her back out!'
Martin from PR was a maniac in a hockey-mask, while Sally from the library made an unlikely vamp. Part-time Bob was sheepish in a sheet. ‘You look like a very friendly ghost,' Julie told him. ‘I'm a ghoul,' he corrected with a pained expression. ‘I thought with it being Hallowe'en…'
Roger dug him in the ribs with the plastic crayfish he was carrying under one arm: ‘You just need to get into the spirit of things!' He giggled wetly. ‘Spirit – ghost… Geddit?'
Above them, the castle was eerie and impressive, lit by lanterns. It had cost a small fortune to hire the venue. ‘Money's no object,' Mr Pym had insisted. ‘What matters is that people have fun!'
Julie had made the necessary arrangements. Health and safety very nearly had a conniption at the idea of holding the office party in the ruins of a medieval fortress: ‘For Pete's sake, keep them off the ramparts!'
‘I'll do my best,' Julie had promised.
She watched as Roger lifted the tails of his ludicrous costume and sashayed up the beach, pointing at the castle walls and shouting, ‘Ramparts, people!'
Sonia wriggled after him, giggling.
Julie adjusted the mob-cap on her curls. She was dressed as Nell Gwynne. The oranges in her apron bounced as she followed the others into the sprawling shadow cast by the battlements, the tops of which resembled the uneven crust on a giant pork-pie, glazed by the lanterns and bristling with outcrops of grass, even the odd flower or two.
Julie knew the castle well; she'd been here many times as a child. In the Summer, buttercups and sunflowers grew in the cracks between the slate slabs, poking through the walls like fingers and faces. Moss grew everywhere and ivy, holding the place together as much as the careful work by the heritage conservation teams. She remembered pressing her hands to the walls, one palm springing back from a bed of moss, the other imprinting with the dents and dips of stone which held the warmth of the sun long after it had set.
Roger was chasing Sonia, shrieking, up a worn staircase.
‘Be careful,' Julie called after them. She looked around for Mr Pym. He'd hired an unbelievable jester's costume and was carrying a stick strung with ribbons and bells.
He was chatting to the boat's captain. She could see the plump satin horns of his headdress through the cabin window, bobbing like a rainbow-coloured ram's. The others had crossed the harbour and were exploring the venue. She caught a pale glimpse of Bob's ghoul, a black flash of Sally's vamp.
At the edge of the shingle, the upturned hulls of boats were bleached to bone by the leery light of the lanterns. She heard the slow slop of water at the shore. The river had the brackish smell she remembered from her childhood. Overhead, the moon was ripe in a sky the same slate-purple as the castle walls.
With a jingle of his jester's bells, Mr Pym came up the jetty: ‘Let's get this show on the road, people!'