Paul moved out of ‘Barnacles’ at Halloween, and into the wagon with the other lads. This must have made things extra cosy in there, but I suppose at least it would warm the place up, with all that body heat compressed into such a small area! Me and Misty had the interior of ‘Barnacles’ to ourselves again, and we could celebrate Halloween in style. We locked the front door, and took the batteries out of the door-bell, so that any pesky little Trick or Treaters could go and get shafted. (One bloke on the Internet suggested leaving a man-trap outside, which made me laugh out loud, even if it wasn’t terribly practical!).
In full glorious privacy we danced naked round a big candle, watched umpteen horror films, and got seriously plastered. During the night, after we had collapsed into bed, I was disturbed by some distant screaming, but I honestly couldn’t tell whether I was awake or asleep when I heard this so I didn’t take too much notice of it. In the morning there was the usual morning-after-the-night-before mayhem in the local news, with tales of kids trying to set fire to people (and the occasional policeman) with fireworks, and even the edge of a cliff being incinerated by the little varmints! I reasoned with myself that if I had actually heard screaming in the night, then it was probably one of the little buggers up to no good.
I went outside to try and put the batteries back in the door-bell, and got increasingly hot and bothered by it. Not helped by a German woman talking to Mrs Jackson out in the lane, who remarked that it was obvious the British didn’t really like children, as we don‘t humour them in their fun. Maybe not, I thought, but then again we don’t tend to go putting them in gas-chambers either! In the end I said “oh bollocks to it” and decided I could live quite happily without the door-bell working, and went back inside.
A few minutes later Xanthe burst in, saying that I must come and look at ‘The Hedges’ IMMEDIATELY, as all the lights were on in it, and all the windows and the front door were standing WIDE OPEN! I can well do without somebody getting so excitable when I’m nursing a hangover, and I told her to calm down whilst I put some proper clothes on. She hopped around impatiently whilst I got dressed, and then looked for the keys Jeannette had left with me. By the time I got to the front gate I had collected a little convoy of her, Misty, Al, Magda and Jason, and I led them like a sort of grown-up version of The Pied Piper down Beach Lane. Xanthe insisted on bringing her camera with her, and I didn’t have the strength to ask her what she thought she was going to be photographing.
Because the garden at ‘The Hedges’ is almost completely overshadowed by the hedge and the fence, the overnight frost was still on the lawn, even though the sun had burnt it away everywhere else. Inside the house was bitterly cold, not just because of the overnight temperatures and the open windows, but because it had had no real heating to speak of for several weeks now. I wondered how the hell Jeannette had managed to put up with it for as long as she did.
We all wandered through the few rooms in an uneasy way, as though we were prowling round an open grave. In the living-room the plaster which had been used to cover up the old fireplace had been pushed out, and was laying scattered on the hearth-rug. I had a feeling as if something had knocked it out from the other side. Two monstrous thick cracks had appeared in the wall directly opposite us as we walked in, and I heard Magda give a gasp behind me. No doubt she was remembering the revolting cracks that had appeared in the apartment she had wanted to buy.
I went through to the dark, dreary little dining-room, where I had seen Henry and Jeannette eating that dismal meal of sardines on toast back in the Spring. The tablecloth was crumpled and covered with breadcrumbs. The seat had completely collapsed on one of the chairs. There was a patch on the wall where the radiator had been removed. The telephone rang in the hall, and everybody instantly looked at me, which irritated me no end.
“Oh I’ll answer it shall I?” I said, sarcastically.
I traipsed back through into the hall and picked up the receiver. Nothing on the other end of the line. Just dead noise. I said “hello?” several times, and then, getting no response, told whoever it was to “fuck off“. Yes, I did 1471, but I need hardly tell you that the arsehole caller had with-held their number.
There was nothing else to see in the house. It was simply a cold, thoroughly cheerless and colourless place. The bathroom has to be one of the most depressing I’ve seen outside of an institution. Done out in bottle-green with stark white tiles. It was impossible to imagine anybody enjoying a really relaxing soak in that nasty coffin-like little bath-tub, and there were burn-marks on the bath-mat.
“There’s nothing to see here”, I said, after checking the hall table to see if there was any post which would give some clue as to who the landlord of this horrible place was. I had recently asked Mrs Jackson, but she said she had no idea, she had never seen the owner of this place, and she had never been asked to clean it. There was nothing, not even a crummy circular or junk-mail.
“Somebody should send round a JCB and bulldoze this place”, said Al, as we closed the windows, and then I locked the front door.
We all trooped despondently back into the lane, and were greeted by the sight of a male pensioner, completely stark butt-naked, coming towards us. As soon as he saw us, he apologised and wrapped a skimpy towel around his waist, which he fastened with Velcro.
“I customised it”, he said “Just for emergencies like this. We naturists have to think of everything you know!”
“Swimming nude in these temperatures?” said Magda, when he was out of earshot “Is he crazy?”
“Very likely!” I said.
Oh the glorious wonders of getting back in touch with my old decadent self! Of being able to walk about naked whenever I wanted, of being able to eat a pear in the bath at one-thirty in the afternoon without having somebody wanting to come in and use the loo, of simply being able to enjoy life again without Henry’s dismal shade haunting the place. I could have a poetic conversation with Mrs Jackson about the beauty of a sunny, frosty, Winter’s day without Henry blithering on about how cold it was and how dark the evenings were.
On Bonfire Night we had the most spectacular sunset I had ever seen over Shinglesea, and I’ve seen plenty in my time. The sky was absolutely blood-red all over. It was like an illustration for the Day of Judgement. Everybody was running outside with their digital cameras to take pictures of it. Misty and me went out into the lane to have a look, and I found Xanthe standing on the verge with her own camera, but she was practically in tears. Her little wizened face was puckering up, and I felt quite sorry for her.
“It’s a portent”, she sobbed “A terrible portent”.
“Nonsense”, I said “Come into the house and have a JD, you’ll soon feel better”.
She hung onto me like a little hedgehog all the way back into the house.
“Now listen”, I said, firmly “You’ve been listening too much to Jason with all his bloody tales of portals to Hell and conspiracy theories”.
“All this stuff about Saddam gong to be hanged will set him off too”, said Misty.
“Exactly!” I said “This is nothing to worry about, it’s just a spectacular sunset that’s all”.
“My camera wouldn’t work”, she sniffed, despondently.
“Well don’t worry”, I said “Somebody’s bound to post some pictures of it on the Web very shortly, I’ll print some out for you”.
We all of us had a JD, and sat on the sofa singing ’Let It Be’, whilst, with the fireworks going off all around us outside, it sounded the Battle of the Somme was raging!
The next day we had a thick peasouper-fog all over the area. It gradually built up during the afternoon, until by twilight it was so dense that I couldn’t see the other side of Beach Lane. Misty had gone out to pay a social call on Mrs Jackson’s dog, and I was worried about him coming home in this murk. I hate coming across as a fussy, over-protective partner, but so much weird shit had been going on in this area lately that it had made me more nervous than I had realised.
I went out into the lane, telling myself I was seeking artistic inspiration, but really to keep a watch out for him. He was late coming home, and I was terse. He said he had tried to ring me on his mobile, but the signal had been knocked out. We became friends again, but I was feeling exhausted by now. I had hit that wall that you sometimes do when you’ve been running on all full throttle for a while. I had too much to drink that evening, to try and relax myself, and naturally enough woke up feeling even more ropey the next morning!
I tried to be sick, and couldn’t manage it. The radio was playing up, it kept leaping in and out of a French station, like it had done back in the Summer. I said to Misty that I needed a hair of the dog, and he suggested we go and see if ’The Ship’ was open. We walked up to the Main Street, where a bulldozer had demolished what was left of the old bowling-alley, and was now digging out the ground.
“I wonder what’s going to be there”, said Misty.
“Something we can put on the website I hope”, I said “Another stunning attraction in Shinglesea Beach!”
‘The Ship’ was open, and was occupied by a thin scattering of men, all giving the place the atmosphere of a morticians’ convention! Two suits sat near the door were having a conversation about a colleague, and one said: “He’s not a bad bloke really, considering he’s gay”. (No well I suppose you get used to the two heads after a while!).
We had a peaceful drink anyway, and were just getting up to leave when bloody Henry Temple and his fwend Rowland came in. I was still sticking to my resolution that I wasn’t going to share the same oxygen space as Henry Temple if I could possibly help it. But at the same time Misty was surreptitiously squeezing my hand, as a warning not to cause A Scene. Well I would try my best to be fleetingly civil.
“How’s Kristy?” Henry asked me, which completely surprised me, as Henry had never shown any interest in Kristy whatsoever when he was living at ’Barnacles’. In fact, like Rowland, he had always given me the impression that he was scared stiff of her!
“Fine, as far as I know”, I said “I haven’t seen much of her lately, she’s been very busy helping to organise the local panto”.
“I see”, said Henry “Well she did used to be a dancer didn’t she?”
(What are you playing at now, Henry?!).
Rowland gave an irritating guffaw, which usually served as a warning that one of his miserably unfunny “jokes” was about to spew out.
“From Cinderella to Mother Goose in the space of a few years!” he chortled.
“You’re a twat, Rowland!” I said, and swept out of the building.
Outside in the car-park, Misty gave me a longsuffering look. But I said I had been remarkably restrained all things considering. After all, I could have REALLY told Rowland what I felt about him, like for instance that his pompous trainspotter’s voice made me feel physically ill, but I hadn’t. Some little kids walked past on their way home from school, all excitedly shouting about some film they had recently seen, and which they were clearly going to re-enact large chunks of when they got home. I looked at them. They were delightful, and I found it hard to believe that they could be capable of tearing the guts out of a pregnant dog. But then again, it depends by what age you mean by ’children’ doesn’t it? I’ve heard some people these days calling people of 19 “children“, and that’s certainly not how I was referred to (or how I felt come to that!) at that age! Kids these days grow up faster than ever, childhood innocence is left behind at an increasingly early age, and yet people of 19 (who let’s face it are old enough to vote, get married, have kids of their own, die for their country) are referred to by the lame-brained and disgustingly sentimental as “children”.
We live in an absurd age.
Rowland Richards was in a right state after our little confrontation in ’The Ship’ apparently. He said that he had never been so humiliated in all his life (can only deduce from that that he’s led an exceptionally quiet life), that I was the rudest person he had ever met (I stand by my comment just now about the exceptionally quiet life), that it was doubtful if he would ever be able to show his face in ’The Ship’ again (HURRAY!!!). Considering I felt that I had been remarkably restrained, I found all this completely absurd, and if Rowland Richards was waiting for an apology, then I could only suggest (as Jane Russell once put it in ’Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’) that he hold his breath until I did.
I had other concerns on my mind than Rowland’s delicate feelings though. Magda was still persisting in her (to my mind) bonkers plan of buying the bungalow near Rattlebone Farm. She put in an offer for it, which was duly accepted, and now cock-a-hoop about all this, wanted me to go out with her to have another look at it.
“It’s simply a perfectly nice little bungalow, Gray”, she said “It’s not The Amityville Horror!”
I would need a lot more persuading on this one, but Misty and me drove out with her anyway. Little Aleck came with us. It was becoming clearer all the time that my original conclusion that Aleck’s pretty looks wouldn’t last much beyond his teens was correct. He had filled out a lot in the face in the past few months, which gave him a coarse look, indicating that he would be a very ordinary-looking chap in a few years time. He was also attempting to grow a beard, but this never seemed to develop beyond the kind of 5 o’clock shadow that Fred Flintstone would have been proud of!
On our way out to the bungalow Magda congratulated me on standing up to whining Rowland.
“I bet Kristy would be dead chuffed that you took him to task like that”, she laughed “Who said that the age of gallantry was dead!”
“I’d rather Kristy never found out about it”, I said “Very few women would want to be compared to an old goose!”
“I’ve heard you make jokes about her before”, said Aleck, the sulky little bastard. “Usually out of exasperation because I care about her!” I said “I think she takes too many risks in her private life”.
“She’s old enough to take care of herself, Gray”, said Magda “She’s a grandmother for goodness sake!”
“I know”, I said “But after what happened to Anna Turnball back in the Spring I just don’t trust this area anymore. There’s too many dark things happening here”.
“Talking of which Paul had a horrible confrontation with your friend Tara Mitchell the other day”, said Magda.
“Once and for all she is not my friend!” I said “I get sick and tired of people keep saying ‘your friend Tara Mitchell’, it really bugs me!”
“Just a figure of speak”, said Magda.
“What happened?” said Misty.
“He bumped into her in Fobbington”, said Magda “She started yelling at him, calling him ’a fucking in-bred’, he was quite shaken by it all”.
“She was probably drunk from the sound of things”, I said “Or out of her head on something anyway. It wouldn’t exactly be the first time!”
“And she called you a cock-sucker!” said dear little Aleck.
“That sounds like jealousy to me!” I replied, which made Magda roar with laughter.
We turned off into the narrow lanes which ran up towards Rattlebone Farm. We had to pull over onto the side at one point to let a tractor go past. As he drove past the driver stared at us, and I noticed that he had deep scars on his face.
The bungalow was no more cheery than when we had last seen it on August Bank Holiday Monday. Although naturally it was a lot colder. It was also too quiet for my liking, and I normally like peaceful places. All we could hear was the sea and the drone of a small light aircraft which was circling around in the area. I think even Magda quailed at the enormity of what she had taken on, but was certainly not going to admit to such. In the corridor that led to the bedrooms at the back of the building I came across a coat rack that I couldn’t remember seeing there before, and which was festooned with various different jackets and hats. I tried on a panama, and fancied that I almost looked cool in it. Suddenly a large thump hit the window at the bottom of the corridor. It was like the sound you get when a bird dive-bombs into a window by mistake.
I went outside and walked round the building, expecting to find the corpse of a kamikazee gull lying there. But there was no such thing. What I did find instead was a pair of old jeans lying to one side on the path. They were sodden (I assume from the overnight frosts, as we’ve had no rain for several days now). I didn’t have any intention of picking them up, so I just nudged them slightly with my foot. I had a silly image in my head of a pair of jeans flying by themselves at the window!
We all drove home from the bungalow a short while later in a very subdued frame of mind.
To my intense annoyance I went down with flu almost the moment I got home. I haven’t had flu (not proper flu) for nearly 6 years now, and this couldn’t have come at a worse time, considering the amount of work I had on. I managed to scratch the odd few minutes of work here and there, but it was frustrating stuff. I was riddled with extreme lethargy, hot flushes, and a general wooziness in the head. Strangely, it didn’t affect my appetite. I seemed to be constantly hungry, although the smell of some foods did make me feel nauseous.
I tried to keep up-to-date with the website, as that was also busy, with people organising events and making plans for the festive season. I had a series of eccentric e-mails from Julie Sparrow, who, because I had politely remarked that her website was fascinating, decided to tell me about her entire lifetime’s experiences of paranormal events. This even included her being carted off for a ride in a spaceship when she was 12-years-old, which was even being driven by a reptilian pilot.
The thought kept buzzing through my head “Does she really believe all this?” Do all the people who claim to have had these experiences really believe all this? Yes, I had experienced a lot of strange things myself in the past year, but my sceptical side still baulked at believing in aliens and spaceships. And if, as was most likely, it was all delusions, then why were people inventing this stuff? It can’t just be for attention. There are easier ways to get people’s attention these days, hence why programmes like ’Big Brother’ are so popular. You don’t have to make up fantastical tales of being whizzed around the Solar System by E.T!
Personally, I think the human imagination is an extraordinary thing. Anybody who is creative will tell you that. There really are no limits to it. And anyone who has ever drunk to excess, taken drugs, masturbated intensely, had vivid dreams, will tell you of the awesome images they may have encountered. The human brain is wholly capable of making you believe the extraordinary is real. And I suppose that is what I believed was happening with many of these people. In many cases they really were seeing only tricks of the light. Even that strange creature I had seen hanging out of Kristy’s window on the morning of that great thunderstorm last month was probably just a trick of the light, exacerbated by the intense electrical atmosphere that the storm had generated. Like the way so many photographs of ghosts can often be found to be only simulacra, patterns in the trees or on stonework, that kind of thing.
Mrs Jackson had told me once of a man who had run out of her house, because he had seen her cat’s eyes glow red in the living-room. He had run out screaming that “that cat’s got demon eyes!” I simply assumed he had once taken drugs, and this was some kind of throwback reaction.
It is a perfectly human reaction to put a face on what we see, it’s our way of normalising things. (So much of the furore recently about the Muslim women covering their faces may in large part be due to the human distrust of someone whose face they cannot see. It‘s also why young people in hoods can seem so intimidating). So these people who see odd shapes in their bedrooms at night, will turn them into aliens, ghost and demons. They would rather deal with that, than just a shape.
I decided I needed a quick dose of fresh air (kill or cure I suppose. My psychic advisor had recommended I try alternative medicines, well I wonder if alternating large shots of a multi-vitamin tonic and Jack Daniels, and occasionally a couple of aspirins, counts as alternative? Probably not), and Misty dragged me back to ‘The Ship’. He seemed to have some insane idea in his head that I might become a recluse after my brief showdown with Rowland Richards in there. This was crazy. If there is one thing I am pretty certain about it is that I won’t be cowed by a pompous, self-satisfied little jerk like Rowland!
‘The Ship’ may have been free of Rowland’s company today, but instead it was infested with a bunch of Countryside Alliance hillbillies, all stopping in for lunch during a brief respite in slaughtering birds in the countryside. Looking at their brick-red faces, wild hair and green wellies, I was reminded of the Morlochs in ’The Time Machine’! They filled the place with fag smoke, brayed at top volume on their mobile phones, and finally sat down to attack some massive over-cooked joints of meat, like a bunch of vultures falling on a fly-infested carcass. Looking at them, I don’t know how this lot ever got a reputation for being highly-sexed, as I couldn’t imagine anyone in their wildest dreams finding them fanciable! They had one token girl in their midst. A pretty, buxom wench with fair hair, who looked as fed up with them as we were.
“She’ll be on the old vodka later”, said one of the Morlochs, teasing her “You can be sure of that!”
I couldn’t help but feel that in her position I would have been on the old vodka too!
Halfway through this macabre but fascinating episode another young girl came into the pub, and started berating one of the older ones that she needed him to come home and help her light the fire in her living-room.
“Damn it, girl”, he said, (who I hoped for her sake was her father and not her husband) “You should know how to light a fire by now!”
“I need you to hold the door open whilst I let it draw”, she snapped back “Otherwise the whole bloody living-room fills with smoke, you know that!”
“Funny”, I whispered to Misty “You don’t get it quite like this in Jilly Cooper novels!”
“Why doesn’t she just prop the door open with something?” said Misty “Even I know that!”
“It’s life, Misty”, I said “But not as we know it”.
I’ve always wanted to say that!
We left after one drink, and I couldn’t help reflecting that our visits to ‘The Ship’ hadn’t been very relaxing for some time now. Main Street was quiet (the middle of the afternoon), and as the whole village seemed to be relatively deserted I suggested to Misty that we take advantage of it and go and have a sit up on the sea wall.
Up by the old bowling-alley they had put a security fence around where they were digging up, and the digger was abandoned behind it, as though it was some wild beast left incarcerated on its own for the afternoon. There was a figure standing to one side of the site and it appeared to be watching us. The light was quite dim this afternoon (we were expecting rain later), and I couldn’t make out clearly who this person was. They seemed to be wearing like a long trench-coat. Suddenly the person turned and ran towards the mashes at the back of the site. They seemed to be using their long arms to propel themselves along. It was all very peculiar.
“Reminds me of that weird person we saw walking along the road from Fobbington back in the Spring”, I said, casually.
“Who does?” said Misty.
I looked at him, and I felt a shiver run down my spine. Misty hadn’t seen the figure, even though I had noticed that he had been looking in the same direction as me.
“The figure by the old bowling-alley”, I said.
“There’s nobody there”, he said “They’ve knocked off early”.
“There isn’t now!” I said, in exasperation “But there was!”
“Where’s it gone then?” said Misty “It’s really quiet this afternoon. We seem to be the only ones about”.
“I know”, I said, quietly.
“I think we should go home”, said Misty, taking my arm as though he was a nurse helping the poor,, feeble old crock along “You’re still not fully recovered you know”.
Worn out, I took to my bed (as the Scots would say) when I got home. The next couple of days were little more than a blur. I watched a bit of the Lord Mayor’s parade on television, read a bit, and had a strange dream about a woman running through a garden screaming. She came to a bench, sat down, and continued to scream. All this while she had some kind of terracotta helmet on her head, which almost completely obscured her face. Two men dressed in black approached her. One tried to restrain her by sitting on her legs, and the other clouted him across the face. And all this time the woman kept screaming. It was one of the oddest dreams I have ever had. That girl in her weird headgear unsettled me.
When I was feeling reasonably ‘compos mentis’ Jason said he would like to show me some pages from a UFO database that he had printed out from the Internet. I asked him to limit them to actual humanoid/creature sightings, as wading through pages of bright lights in the sky was too boring to be tolerated. I then knocked him down even further to just sightings from the past year, as knowing Jason, I would get clobbered with stuff going back to Roman times!
Even with restricting him to just the past 12 months though, I was amazed at how much he gave me. I lay in bed, and spent over a couple of hours going through cases from all over the world. By the end of it I wouldn’t say I had had an On The Road To Damascus-style conversion, but I was far less sceptical. I still didn’t believe we were being visited by E.T’s cousins, it was more a case of multiple dimensions, as when the students had played the ouija board in Rufus Franklin’s cottage, and had unwittingly ripped a hole in the fabric of this area, making us into some kind of portal.
If though, as the sceptics would have us believe, that it was all psychological, then I found it very sad. I had previously read cases from decades ago, when people had seen beautiful, willowy, Nordic-looking aliens, whose eyes shone with sadness and compassion, and who all wanted to put us on the path of Peace and Light, and the Age of Aquarius, and all that jazz. These sightings had been somewhat akin to old Medieval religious experiences for a lot of witnesses.
Now though the aliens were grotesque, malevolent goblins, terrorising people in the night, sexually violating them, subjecting their houses to demonic poltergeist outbreaks, and mutilating animals. If it is all psychological, then it only confirms what a sad, traumatised place our world has become. A place without hope.
I lay dozing in the early Winter twilight, and woke up with a start when Misty came into the room.
“Who did you think I was?” he said.
“At the moment, just about anybody!” I said.
I sat up, and a tonne of paper fell to the floor. Misty stooped down to collect them up.
“Are there any common themes?” he asked.
“Yes, loads”, I said “The sound vacuum crops up a lot, like the one Xanthe experienced back in the Summer when the strange men visited. A woman in Spain reported it blocking out all noise. She couldn’t even hear the cicadas. And she said that the field where she had had her sighting had a long reputation for being a portal area”.
“Jason thinks this area is a portal area”, said Misty.
“Jason’s right”, I said, simply “And I never thought I’d say that!”
We had a couple of days of wild, squally weather. Car and burglar alarms were going off all over the neighbourhood, and I often heard sirens going past up on Main Street. Xanthe was unsettled by the high winds. She said they made her nervous. I couldn’t help feeling that if strong winds frightened her, she had certainly moved to the wrong area! You’ve only got to look at the trees up near the village green, which are permanently bent out of shape from the wind, to see that!
I had long suspected that Jason would see paranormal significance in just about anything, and I was right. Even my flu was suspect.
“I find it very curious”, he said “That you went down with this almost the minute you got back from looking at Magda’s new bungalow”.
“There’s a bug going round!” I protested “Mrs Jackson said so”.
“Why have you been the only one to catch it then?” said Jason.
“I don’t know”, I said “Perhaps I’m The Chosen One!”
“Did you experience any Missing Time at the bungalow?” Xanthe asked, which was a daft question, even by her standards!
“If I had don’t you think the others would have noticed!” I said.
“Weird things are happening everywhere”, said Jason “You’ve said that yourself, Gray. Look at that story in the news today. That couple who have disappeared on the cross-Channel ferry”.
“We don’t know what’s happened to them yet”, I said “It’s too early to tell. I strongly suspect it’s most likely to be a tragic accident. They were swept overboard. We’ve had some massive waves lately. One capsized that fishing-boat only the other day”.
“One of the team looking for the couple said he thought it was unlikely they were in the water”, said Jason, triumphantly.
“Where are they then?” said Misty.
In Belgium as it turned out.
It was a strange story, one that disappeared almost as soon as it made the headlines. We were given some throwaway line that they had turned up in Belgium, and had been contacted by phone, and that was it. Even Jason didn’t know what to make of this one! I said that more was likely to come out later, but I didn’t have that much hope it would really.
Sat up late, after Misty had gone to bed, trying to catch up on some work, and caught a gormless late night “chat show” (for want of a better way of describing it), which was supposed to be a light-hearted debate about the paranormal but … well wasn’t really anything. The all-too-bloody-ubiquitous Vanessa Feltz turned up and put her four-pen north in, which was that (a) Pagans and their beliefs were a load of old cobblers (can just imagine the hysterical furore if she had said that about Muslims!), and (b) anyone who shows an interest in the paranormal is “dumb, dim-witted, decadent and deviant“. (After which I presume she ran out of D-words).
All of this may very well be true of course, but we can at least console ourselves with the thought that ……… [follow the dots] …… we are not and are never likely to be Vanessa Feltz (the human super-tanker).
A comforting thought.
I went up to the mini-mart to get some much-needed supplies. When I came out somebody was reversing onto the forecourt at the front of the building. I stood and waited whilst they parked, and was about to move off when the driver must have let go of the hand-brake and free-wheeled right up to me. I managed to jump out of the way, but it was by the narrowest of whiskers. I was shaking with fury. If I had been a small child or somebody who couldn’t move very fast I would have been done for, either ending up under the car or flattened against the wall of the mini-mart. Another bloody pensioner who’s crap at driving, I thought, somebody too bloody old to be driving! We have far too many of them in this neighbourhood!
I had shouted at the top of my voice, which at least had stopped them in their tracks, and then I stormed round to the driver’s side to let rip at them again. The car had tinted windows, so I couldn’t see in very well, I could just about make out a large shape in the driver’s seat. “YOU STUPID, STUPID PRAT!” I was shouting, my eyes popping out of my head with anger. I had put Misty in my position. Misty wanders around in a daze half the time. He probably wouldn’t have noticed the car reversing back onto him. I was furious. The driver’s door opened slightly, but not enough for me to see in properly, and a man drawled in a posh accent “I’m terribly sorry, dear boy”. He then slammed the door shut again, re-started the car and drove off!
I was seething with rage with the whole incident, I see enough bad driving around here, and yes it must be said, a lot of it is pensioners who have big powerful cars they can’t handle. Rant over.
Of course I might have known that Jason wouldn’t regard the incident simply as a case of an inept old driver. Oh no. It had been an assassination attempt. I was left rather nonplussed by this. I mean, look I know I can be annoying sometimes (who can’t?!), and I rub people up the wrong way because I have strong opinions on things, but that somebody would actively set out to kill me I felt was going a trifle too far!
“I’m getting a little tired of your scepticism all the time, Gray”, said Jason “I thought you had been improving lately”.
“I agree with you that there are sinister undercurrents in this neighbourhood”, I said “I’ve known that for a long time now, long before you came here in fact! But that somebody wanted to deliberately bump me off I find bizarre! I mean, WHY? I’m not powerful, I don’t have inside knowledge, I haven’t made any remarkable discoveries, I’m as baffled by it all as everybody else is! And don’t go on about assassination attempts when Misty comes in, it’ll upset him!”
Some thugs vandalised a few of the graves in Fobbington churchyard. This was horrible news. I’m not a Christian, but I do have respect for such places, and I like Fobbington churchyard. I’ve often gone and sat for a few peaceful moments there. That somebody could be so sick of mind that they want to desecrate a grave and, to add insult to injury, spray swastikas over the headstones, was just plain revolting. It had been bad enough when some evil bastard had ripped up a headstone to weigh down Anna Turnball’s body in the harbour back in the Spring, but now this.
“It’s a disgrace”, said Mrs Jackson, calling round with our eggs on a very dark and wet afternoon “Some of the people buried there are war veterans. One of them was a trumpet boy - or something like that - at the Battle of Waterloo. Imagine how he would feel having his gravestone daubed with swastika’s!”
“I don’t think he would have fought the Nazi’s at the Battle of Waterloo, Mrs J!” I laughed “Although it’s an interesting bit of alternative history!”
“You know what I mean”, said Mrs Jackson “It’s the principle of the thing”.
“Yeah, we’re always fighting bloody evil!” said Al “Jason told me this morning that some ex-civil servant has said that we could be attacked by extraterrestrials at any time. Haven’t we got enough bloody problems with our own kind!”
“The way things are going on this planet”, I said “The aliens are going to have their work cut out getting noticed!”
It was an exasperating time. Light-bulbs were exploding in the house, the server went down on our website, and the washing-machine was jumping about in the middle of the kitchen. It reminded me a bit of when Jeannette Temple had tried (somewhat ineffectually) to hex us back in the Spring. It’s the sort of time when you want to run out into the rain-soaked garden and bash yourself several times over the head with a tea-tray, just for the sheer bloody hell of it! (Talking of rain-soaked gardens, in the midst of this torrential downpour, we got a letter from the local Water Board, with “HELP US TO BEAT THE DROUGHT” emblazoned all across the envelope!).
I locked both the outside doors, and took Misty to bed for a marathon session. (And quite frankly, if you can think of a better way to spend dreary November days, I would be amazed to hear it!). As always, you get a touch of cold turkey after a high like that, and this time was no exception. When I emerged to face the world again, I heard two disturbing pieces of news. One was that Jeannette (who I had sincerely hoped was lying on a tropical beach with a cocktail in her hand) had been seen getting out of a car and going into Rowland Richards’ house. The other piece of news wasn’t so much disturbing I suppose, as downright grotesque.
Mrs Jackson sent me an e-mail headed “POOR WOMAN”. When I opened it I found she had posted a link to an eBay listing page, in which Tara Mitchell was auctioning photographs of her private parts for the public’s delectation. She had put an insane starting price of £20, and I can’t say I was very surprised that so far there had been no takers! Mrs Jackson wrote indignantly “If this doesn’t get pulled I’ll be disgusted. Especially after all the fuss they made about me selling pebbles from the beach as well! Still, I do feel sorry for her. She’s clearly not right in the head“. By all accounts they did pull it from view very soon after.
When the sun came out it seemed even more beautiful than ever. I decided to take advantage of a rare fine day, and go into Fobbington to do some Christmas shopping. Trying to go by myself of course was no easy task, as Misty tried every excuse he could think of to come along as well. In the end I persuaded him that he’d much rather go and play golf on the village green (he hadn’t enjoyed going across to the scrubland since the discovery of the dead dog in the bushes there). Whilst I was mooching along the High Street in town, I caught sight of Al and Xanthe going into ‘The Crab’ in the distance. Xanthe was wearing a huge pair of sunglasses (those fashionable ones that make you look like a bug-eyed alien) which seemed to dwarf her, and she was clutching her socking great handbag in front of her. She looked like a bizarre mix of Victoria Beckham and Miss Marple! Al had a very protective attitude towards Xanthe, after all he had tried to get her a job and a place to live. But it had never occurred to me that it could lead to anything more. Now the thought was in my head though it seemed like an excellent idea. Xanthe needed somebody to look after her, and it would do Al good, stop him going back into himself, as he had done by all accounts after the disastrous trip to Clag Heath last year.
“And how’s married life then?” came a cloying little voice in my ear.
I jumped out of my reverie to find Julie Sparrow standing there, wearing a horrible luridly-patterned jumper that looked as though she had been in a food fight with somebody, involving copious amounts of squashed tomatoes, fried egg and whipped cream.
“Pretty much the same as it was before”, I said.
“I think the world needs more gay men in it”, she said “We need more gentler men around”.
“I think you’re sadly deluding yourself if you think all gay men are gentle!” I said, shirtily I rather resented the notion that I was some sweet old thing who sat quietly at home with his knitting, completely devoid of testosterone, and who hadn’t cottoned on yet to what the thing between his legs was for!
“I’ve created a page on my website which lays out my philosophy of life”, she said [that whooshing sound you can hear is my heart sinking] “I’d like it if you’d read it sometime, and let me know what you think”.
“How’s Babes these days?” I said, feeling that it was rather unnerving the way Babes seemed to have completely evaporated lately.
“Oh he’s not here at the moment”, she said “He’s got a new job … in Dakota”.
“That’s nice for him”, I said “You must miss him”.
“Well I do of course”, she said, airily “But I’m not very good at close relationships. I find it very hard to trust somebody that much. It’s difficult to form close relationships when you’re special”.
“And you’re special?” I said.
“Yes”, she said, completely straight-faced “I’ve been very much aware of that ever since I was declared dead back in 1999”.
“You what?” I exclaimed.
“On the operating-table”, she said “I had been in a car accident, and I was officially dead for several minutes. It’s the sort of experience which changes your life completely”.
(Well yes, I thought on the way home, along with being abducted by reptilian aliens at the age of 12! Was there no limit to this woman’s remarkable imagination?!).
I had barely had time to hide my Christmas shopping behind a stack of old videos at the bottom of our wardrobe, when Misty burst into the house, in a state. It took me several minutes to get a coherent story out of him.
“I had had the green to myself for ages”, he said “But then I noticed that there was a strange man sitting on one of the swings in the kids’ play area”.
“Sounds like the sort of strange man that should be kept a close eye on!” I said.
“S’alright, there was no children there”, Misty babbled “I didn’t notice him turn up at all. He was staring at me. I didn’t recognise him. He was wearing a black t-shirt and black trousers, and had some kind of chain thing hanging round his neck”.
“How old was he?” I asked.
“I’m not sure”, said Misty “Not old. About my sort of age I think. Anyway he stood up, and he was really tall and …”
“Let’s go and see if he’s there now shall we”, I said.
“You haven’t heard the creepiest bit of the lot”, said Misty, grabbing my arm anxiously.
“What?” I said.
“He called out to me”, said Misty “But he called out my name … my REAL name - Aiden. Nobody in this village knows my real name, except you of course. Even Mrs Jackson doesn’t know it! And you never call me by it, so it’s not as if he could have overheard us or something. HOW does he know it?”
I must admit this did put rather a different complexion on things. It spooked the hell out of me. He was right. I never call him Aiden, it’s always Misty. And he’s Misty to everybody else as well.
“Alright let’s calm down a bit”, I said “There’s a chance he could have found it out when we got married last month”.
“How?” Misty barked “We didn’t get put in the papers”.
“I don’t know”, I said “But he could have found out from somebody who works at the registry office for example. HE might work there come to that! He’s not somebody you might have known years ago in London?”
“No he’s not!” he bellowed, in a right little strop by now “I would have recognised him if he was somebody I had known. I’m not THAT stupid!”
“Alright, calm down!” I said.
“I suppose you think I’m keeping some dark secret from you …” he went on, now well and truly wound up.
“MISTY!” I shouted “Anymore of this and I’LL call you Aiden!”
“I’ve never seen him before in my life …” and he STILL went on!!!
“I’m going to lock you in the van in a minute!” I said.
“I never keep anything from you ...”
I grabbed his elbows and shook him, gently but firmly, as the saying goes. He pouted, but at least it shut him up for a moment.
“Right”, I said, when he had been silent for all of about two seconds “Now everybody who was at our wedding knows your real name now, and come to think of it, that does include Mrs Jackson. You know what an incorrigible gossip she is. She could have mentioned it to anybody in this neighbourhood. For all we know, this strange man might be a relation of hers. Now let’s go and see if he’s still there”.
He followed me sulkily back up Beach Lane towards the village green. When we got there it was completely deserted. No sign of any mystery man in black … BUT we did find that the swing Misty said he had been sitting on was broken, and a neck-chain was lying abandoned below it.
“Why would he have taken that off and left it there?” said Misty.
“Who knows?” I picked it up “It’s not exactly expensive, so perhaps he didn’t care. More to the point, why did he wreck the swing?”
“Some people just do”, said Misty “Just for the hell of it I suppose. Then again perhaps it was ME who scared HIM”.
“How?” I said.
“I don’t know”, said Misty “But I was so spooked by him that I might have over-reacted, and I’m just not used to people calling me Aiden anymore. And anyway, even if he did know my real name, surely he must realise that everybody calls me Misty? I do wonder if I scared him though, perhaps he panicked and ran away”.
“Alright, I think it’s pointless speculating”, I said, putting the abandoned chain in my pocket “I’ll put a note about this on the website, saying where we found it. You never know, that might smoke him out”.
“Then again it might not”, said Misty “Remember those reading-glasses we found on the beach back in the Summer? We put those on the website, and nobody’s ever come forward to claim them”.
“Sometimes I think we should open a lost-property office at ‘Barnacles’!” I said.
Misty was totally obsessed with this strange guy. And to make matters worse, some very unhelpful suggestions were being forward by that bunch of lunatics camping in my front garden as to who or what he was. It scarcely needs saying that Jason thought he was from another dimension (I often think that Jason is from another dimension!), and to really put the tin lid on things, Xanthe thought he was an angel.
“Perhaps he was trying to warn Misty about something”, she said.
“What? Not to play on the swings?!” I said, sarcastically.
“Perhaps he was a fairy”, she went on.
(I decided not to comment on this one, as that thought had crossed my mind as well, but not in the way that she meant!).
“But Misty was really spooked by seeing him”, said Jason, earnestly “Why would he be really spooked by a fairy?”
“Fairies aren’t necessarily nice”, said Xanthe “They are heartless and unfeeling, and they can play spiteful tricks just for the hell of it!”
“Yes, I’ve often found that’s the case!” I said, wanting like mad to roll around on the floor, laughing hysterically. This conversation was getting worse with every minute that passed! For the sake of my own sanity I went into the bedroom to collect some dirty laundry. Jason followed me to the doorway.
“Why can’t you accept that this is a portal area, Gray?” he said “Just like the Skinwalker Ranch in America”.
“Because it takes me a while to grasp that my neighbourhood is a meeting-place of aliens, vampires, ghosts, werewolves, demons, witches, and God knows what else!” I said “But for your information, I do accept that it is what you call a portal area. Too much has happened here for me to think otherwise. BUT, at the same time, I don’t want everybody going off on a tangent at the slightest thing. I don’t see as to how that’s helpful in any way. What made you get into all this paranormal stuff, Jason?”
“I’ve always been interested in it”, he said “I remember watching ’The Legend Of Hell House’ when I was a kid, and wishing I could be like Clive Revill’s character in it, leading a team of investigators into looking at a haunted house”.
“Yes, but he gets killed in that!” I said.
“I know, but even so”, he shrugged “Ever since I can remember I’ve longed to find an area like this, one bursting with paranormal activity”.
“Something like the Skinwalker Ranch again?” I said “You know, I’ve been reading up on that place, and I’m not wholly convinced. I find it a curious thing that for all the massive paranormal activity that’s been said to have happened there, there isn’t one piece of photographic evidence! Even when the scientists were investigating the place! They mention that at one point some cattle got mysteriously moved to the back of a truck, which they wouldn’t normally have been able to fit into. I mean, this sounds so extraordinary that you’d think that SOMEBODY would have had the presence of mind to film it or take a picture of it, but no, not a single one! Even Xanthe could have managed that! And don’t give me all that cobblers some people come out with, that the Cosmic Forces wouldn’t let them. That’s all pure garbage and you know it! COP-OUT!”
“But our investigation will be different”, he said, with disturbing evangelical zeal “I can’t wait to get my hands on Magda’s new house!”
“I hope Magda feels the same!” I said.
I was plagued with a feeling of panic inside me which didn’t go away. It was there all the time, knotting my stomach and often making me feel nauseous. I tried to resist the lure of the Jack Daniels bottle as I had a lot of work to do (on top of everything else, Mr Beresford wanted to do an exhibition called ‘SHIVER ME TIMBERS’, all about the old smuggling legends in the area), but it was hard, particularly when I could feel it welling up inside me.
It didn’t help that the paranormal fruitcakes were placing far too much importance on Misty’s sighting of the man on the swing. They were constantly pestering him with questions, wanting to know exactly how he felt when he saw the bloke, and did he notice anything of any great Significance about the area at the time the sighting was made? Misty tried to answer them as best he could, but he was more cross that he was running out of places he could play golf. The scrubland still held memories of the dead dog, and he no longer felt comfortable on the village green. When I suggested the back yard (particularly now that the jar is gone) he made some withering comments about the broken fence between us and Kristy’s, which hadn’t been fixed yet.
All in all, I felt thoroughly miserable. One twilight, at the end of the month, I went for a walk along the sea-wall by myself. It had been a very blustery day. A village in Hampshire had had a tornado which had uprooted trees, demolished sheds, torn the roof off a mobile home, and lifted three ponies into the air (“the ground was very muddy, so when they landed they just sort of whooshed along really“, said one eye-witness). We ourselves had had some strange weather, including yet more thunderstorms in the early hours of the morning, which had had Xanthe wittering on about it being the end of the world again, to which Al had replied that the world had really ended in 2001, but she obviously hadn’t noticed.
It was the kind of Winter twilight that I love. There is a brooding atmosphere to it, and the light (particularly by the sea as we are) can be beautifully ethereal. Lights were beginning to come on in the cottages and caravans near to the sea-wall. I paused and looked down at one wooden bungalow, set in its own little patch of marshland. The light was getting very dim and I could just make out somebody walking up the path to the back door. What struck me most about this person was how very tall they were. They stood level with the roof on the one-storey building. When they got to the back door they had to duck to go in. Then I noticed that there was something far more odd about them. They seemed to be wet, soaking wet. I shivered and told myself it was nothing. They had probably just been for a dip and decided to go home before drying off. Sheer insanity of course, in these temperatures, but hardly unusual for people to act as complete morons where the weather’s concerned!
I sat down on a nearby bench and put my head in my hands. There seemed to be insanity everywhere you turn. I no longer trusted an area that I had known and loved all my life. I remembered that time in Fobbington, when the angle of the bright sunlight had made a girl sitting outside the bank look as though she had no face. I seemed to be getting this sort of thing all the time now. Reality off-kilter as it were. Would we all get used to the craziness in the end?
Misty ran up to me and threw himself down next to me, grabbing me in his arms.
“I’m alright, Misty”, I said, mopping myself with an old handkerchief.
“You looked upset”, he said.
“I’ll be fine”, I said “I’m just more tired than I thought, that’s all”.
“Jason’s been on at me that Julie Sparrow wants me to talk about the man on the swing at her next paranormal get-together”, said Misty “But I refused”.
“Don’t let them badger you into doing anything you don’t want to do”, I said.
“I shan’t”, said Misty “I can just see how this will get all distorted if it leaks out. I’ll have people pointing at me in the street and saying things like ‘there’s the dude that sees fairies on the village green’! I can do without that!”
I had to laugh at that.
“Anyway I came to find you”, he said “Because I’ve just heard that they’ve issued tornado warnings all over the south coast. They had one in Wales earlier”.
“Tornado warnings”, I said “In this country? It’s bizarre isn’t it!”
“It’s global warming”, said Misty, pragmatically “And some people STILL refuse to believe in it!”
“Yes, mainly Americans and Chinese!” I said.
“I hope if we get one it doesn’t blow the house down!” said Misty.
The tornado belt missed Shinglesea, but we were given some sandbags from the Council, as just everywhere seemed to be getting flooded out. The fields and marshes around us were all largely underwater. By the last day of the month I knew I would be glad to see the back of November. It’s not the easiest of months anyway, and this year it seemed to have weighed particularly heavy. I desperately wanted to get into a Christmassy mood, and so did everyone else, but circumstances always seemed to be against us. The Christmas lights were turned on in town, but this happy little ceremony was marred by gales and driving rain. I looked forward to December, and hoped it would have a more party-ish atmosphere.
I heard disturbing gossip though that Henry and Jeannette (who was definitely living at Rowland’s house) were looking to renew their lease on ’The Hedges’. I couldn’t believe my ears. After everything that had happened this past few months, after their lengthy separation, and after Jeannette seemed to have finally made a bid for freedom, we were going backwards!!!! If this came to pass, we would be back to where we were in the Spring. At this rate I would be seeing Rufus Franklin striding down the old runways in Darklight Cove in his long black coat!!!
“But why?” I whinged at Mrs Jackson when she came round with the eggs “Jeannette got away!”
“She went to Spain, intending to start a new life”, said Mrs J “But it was a disaster. She spent several days n a 4-star hotel, with nobody talking to her. She does love to dramatize things that one. She said to me ’I spent an entire weekend in solitary confinement’. I wouldn’t mind that kind of solitary confinement I can tell you! Anyway, she came back here, and moved into Rowland’s pad, because she didn’t want to go back to ’The Hedges’ on her own. From what I can gather, she’s spent all her time since moaning about the cost of a milkshake in a Spanish café!”
“So she’ll go back to Henry adoring her”, I said, picturing Jeannette once more on the sofa in that grim living-room at ’The Hedges’, hunched up and scowling, whilst Henry bleated on about Poor Jeannette. It was more than a human body could stand.
“And Rowland will probably be adoring her too”, said Mrs J “He’s very kissy-wissy with her, treats her like a father spoiling a little girl. Buys everything for her, and makes a point of pecking her on the cheek whenever he goes in and out the room. It’s all to keep on the right side of Henry I think”.
I felt like I had been given a knockout punch by Mohammed Ali!
“You know”, I said, trying to rally myself “In a book or a film this wouldn’t happen, Mrs J. Jeannette would go to Spain, and become an empowered, strong, independent woman, and Rowland and Henry would become a couple of old dears, constantly bitching at each other, and making cups of tea!”
“Life’s a funny old thing sometimes isn’t it!” said Mrs Jackson.