Two collaborations with Gordon Lewis
MATILDA
There was a derelict church, quite close, round the corner, beyond the park gates; Matilda often felt that she should enter and see what it was like first hand — having received several reports from her friendly newsagent. He told her that where he came from (India), there were plenty of places where spirituality literally hung in the air, almost tangible, with an aura which made the palms of the hand to sweat and the hackles to stir. Even today, she prickled at the thought of the church. As a child she had been taught that dockleaves pressed to nettle stings would bring some relief. There was very little difference between Old Wives Tales, Superstition and such well found beliefs in Reincarnation or an After-life. Her mother was ever full of such imponderables.
"Don't fret dear," she'd say, as Matilda squealed in pain at the thought of school next day (Matilda never liked the Crossbrow of a teacher who would ever remain her first teacher) — "Just tie a piece of string round your ring finger, and God will never be far."
Matilda, the child, smiled, humouring her mother's little ways. Perhaps Matilda, the adult had forgotten the exact details. Perhaps it wasn't even a piece of string, but a blade of grass. Who could now check, with her mother long departed to that imputed After-life into which she had put so much store? In any event, the church was closed to prying visitors, barred and bolted, now, for several years. The newsagent must have dreamed of the interior's atmosphere. Or had he actually found means of unofficial access.
Apertures that once held stained-glass windows were now covered with panels of wood securely screwed into place, So high off the ground were they, one would need not just a long period of time to dismantle, but a ladder too. Gaining access through the open eye of a window was therefore impossible.
The iron studded main door was out of the question. Not only was there an old-fashioned plate lock that needed a giant key, but for extra protection, a huge padlock hung from a safety hasp and staple. A battering-ram was the only answer, without the appropriate keys.
Matilda was quite taken by the flintstone walls of the church, the like of which she had never seen before. As she walked slowly round the church by means of a weed covered pathway circumventing the ancient edifice, she could only marvel at the workmanship of the men that built the place centuries before. As she passed the graves of the long-dead she wondered if they had become a part of another world. It also occurred to her some of those that lay in that God's Acre could well have helped in the building the church that cast a shadow on their last resting place.
Matilda had become something of a non-believer, an agnostic willing to believe if only there was actual proof that one could touch or see. As a child she had 'believed', being brought up under pious parentage, but her experience in adulthood had changed all that. She had taken part in university lectures and debates that had ended in uproar because of the strange notions of those taking part.
* * *
There had to be another way in and Matilda was determined to find it. There was no self-questioning of her motive… she really wanted to examine the inside of the church; something was driving her on. At the rear of the church she came upon what had to be the door to the vestry, an entrance not so formidable as the front doors. The ground seemed to be less weed covered; obviously it had been in regular use by the workmen who sealed the church until the work was complete.
Standing back from the door Matilda leant against the trunk of a tree... a tree whose canopy of leafy branches sheltered the vestry entrance. She wondered about the last Vicar of the Parish. Where would he hide a spare key to the vestry door? A key hidden for use in an emergency; perhap just waiting for someone like her to find.
Her eyes scanned the area surrounding the door porch — obviously the key would not be found in the usual places... under a brick or on a string behind the letter-box. Her eyes came to rest on a bird's nesting-box, a box for the Blue-Tits perhaps. In spite of the general decay the box was in good condition sheltered as it was by the eaves above... But no, after examining the nesting box she found there was no key hidden behind it.
Matilda questioned her motives… coming to the conclusion she would be wasting her time even if she gained access; she was not afraid of being alone in the building, after all it was now just an empty shell, just a universe for creepy crawly things. As she passed the vestry door, she petulantly hit the old thumb latch and pressed her shoulder against the door. She wasn't prepared for the door opening, but open it did; with a squeal of rusty hinges she literally fell into the musty old vestry. Regaining her composure she was elated to think she was inside the church, until she thought there could be someone or something waiting for her. With a shudder she shook off her fear and prepared to examine the interior with the help of the electric torch she carried for such a contingency.
There would, of course, be nobody or nothing inside; only fools such as her came round this way once in a blue moon and actually tried the thumb- latch of the vestry door. So she was inevitably alone in utter darkness. She had extinguished the torch, having soon realised that it served no purpose at all, as it seemed merely to accentuate the darkness rather than relieving it... creating, as it did, blinding shadows to criss-cross before her (like the floaters she made appear during her more dozey moments at home by squeezing her eyes tight). Indeed such effects were more off-putting than complete sightlessness. She felt her way, pew by pew, kicking hassocks aside with her feet. This could not be a dream; it didn't feel like a dream. But what else, in any logic, could it be?
She soon arrived back at the vestry door which tiny cuts of relative light served to reveal. With a sigh of relief, she emerged out into the waking world. The hulk of the church was now limned by a particular cruel horn of moon scarring the now strangely starless sky. The park gates — by which she passed en route to her home — were uncharacteristically swinging open in a fitful reinvigoration of breeze. She thought she spotted low loping shapes moving around inside. Probably courting couples. She shrugged and, later, made her way past the Newsagent shop, imagining the Indian proprietor and his lady wife peacefully snoring side by side in their upstairs room. She failed to appreciate the culture which created the decor of their living quarters but her mind's eye view of it was one she had often dwelt on.
She eventually reached her own back gate, having negotiated the familiar cobbled ginnel with uncustomary clumsiness; this gate boasted a similar thumb-latch as the vestry door, she realised. The rusty lock of the back door to the house made an ugly noise to portend the squealing hinges as she passed through into the old-fashioned kitchen. Quickly putting a saucepan of milk on, she made herself comfortable in her carpet slippers. Her mother's photograph — various versions of which Matilda had populated every room of the house — beamed at her. She untied the string from her finger. No need for it now. Indeed, she had quite forgotten she had tied it there before going out to visit the old church. She'd now scale the steep staircase with a mug of hot Horlicks and hope to continue dreaming... but this time in the safety of her own bed.
* * *
By morning, dreams are usually forgotten. 'In the safety of her own bed.' Had this been her last thought before drifting off? Or was it 'in the safety of her own head'? In any event, shaking off any such untoward thoughts, she rose early to get her morning newspaper. She did not have it delivered, since the regular constitutional to fetch the first edition was her own way to keep healthy.
As Matilda pulled on her track-suit, she recalled stirring in the small hours to reach over to the pillow upon which her husband Clive Saunders' head would be when he was home from his army duties. He was now thousands of miles away, somewhere in the Balkan states. Her body ached for her husband who had been away from home for months. His next furlough would be in just four weeks time. With this thought in mind, she wrapped her arms around his pillow only to fall into a fitful sleep until the first light of the new day wakened her.
Kitted out in her running gear she jogged to the park where she completed a couple of laps round its perimeter before making her way to call at the shop of Mr Patel, her friendly Indian newsagent's business. As she entered, Mr Patel stood behind his counter with Matilda's newspaper ready and waiting for her.
After the usual pleasantries were over, against her better judgement, she told Mr Patel she had been in the old church...
"I suppose you found your way in through the vestry door at the rear of the building," said the newsagent in his sing-song voice.
"Yes indeed I did, but of course it was too dark to see properly", she replied. "My torch was useless, perhaps I should have had an electric lantern, but there, I'll probably forget about searching the place. I was surprised to find the pews still in there, one would think the wood very valuable. I can t see why the internal furniture and fitments have been left to deteriorate."
Mr Patel interjected at this point by saying:
"I have heard that everything is to be cleared soon and that there is to be a complex of luxury apartments to be built on the site when the demolishers have finished knocking the old place down. I pray that it's not just a rumour, I could do with some influential customers."
"I hope that the rumour does become true" said Matilda, "I would like a new apartment on that spot, it'll be so handy when my husband leaves the services in a year's time... Can't wait for that to happen, still, at least he will home on leave next month... Ah well, must be off now, see you tomorrow at the usual time."
As she gently jogged back to her flat her mind still dwelt on the site of the church. She had heard it said in the neighbourhood that blood had been spilt there during an uprising in the sixteenth century, before the church was built. Many people had professed to have seen the ghosts of those that died there, still haunting the site and the church built there at the end of the same century. Of course she was still sceptical, still wanting to see some apparition, evidence to prove that there could be ghosts.
* * *
Matilda did return to the church, before it was demolished — but not unaccompanied.
Whatever the case, it was not so much for the purpose of stoking up her belief in ghosts (so comforting to some people), but more to seek a sacred spot where to mourn her dead husband. Clive Saunders failed to return from the Balkans; she never really found out the circumstances of his end. The 'fog of war', she supposed... and it was, indeed, a foggy night, when she decided to return (with a certain Pauline Urwin) to the still (as far as she knew) vulnerable vestry—door. She recalled the last words she had heard spoken by the Indian newsagent (before he left under a cloud of confusing rumours): 'Never make an assumption'. His philosophy, in short, was to base life on the shifting evidence of possibility. 'Never be hidebound by reality', he often joked on passing over to her the huge package of Sunday papers in which Matilda regularly indulged.
Before this final visit (with Pauline Urwin), Matilda had undergone a series of recurring dreams about the church. Each time the vestry door had yielded.., followed by a quick dousing of her torch. When a child, she often recalled needing to negotiate even ordinary suburban streets with an electric torch. Street-lighting was only good enough on its own for her nightly constitutionals when the sixties became the seventies. And her dreams actually retained this erstwhile reality for themselves; she knew that the church's spatial logistics would not be conducive to the unnatural light of a single battery torch. But each time that — in dreams — she revisited the place, she saw more and more with her own naked eyes, as if sight were gradually accustoming itself to darkness. The low loping shapes she had once seen amid the shrubs of the near-by park seemed to be roaming between the pews. And, dream visit by dream visit, such shapes were sharpening their edges... until she saw what they actually were: soldiers crawling on their stomachs between trench-walls...
She woke with a start. Tonight, yes, tonight, she vowed to revisit the church — whilst awake — rather that asleep. Meanwhile, she had a day's duty to perform. The newsagent shop had been taken over by a pet shop. A sharp—-dressed, but quaintly old-fashioned, lady proprietor — one who had evidently seen better times vis a vis the ability to attract the men she needed for life's fulfilment -- was called Mrs Pauline Urwin. Coincidentally — and Matilda had forgot how she discovered this fact — Mrs Urwin was a distant relation of the late Clive Saunders. A small world. One could only shrug and, then, accept the coincidence… and Matilda didn't give it a second thought.
In any event, the two women became on first name terms and mutual props in the Autumn of their lives. The pet shop thrived. The area was after all, full of widows, following the war. And widows needed company, even of the non-human sort. The nesting-box near the derelict church had been removed, and renovated — becoming a model for several others in the park, nicely ornamented with feathery abstract carvings. And, yes, Pauline did say (didn't she?) that she would accompany Matilda on her next and final foggy visit to the old church… because, next week, it would be demolished to make way for a much needed protected complex of apartments with a house-manager to see to the everyday business of such an undertaking.
Matilda dressed in her track-suit; not for a jogging session around the park, but suitable attire for her visit to the church with Pauline Urwin. Matilda had forewarned her friend about wearing something sensible for their foray into the derelict building. When Matilda arrived at the Pet shop, she found Pauline ready and waiting for her, wearing a jacket and slacks. The late evening was still foggy as the two women walked the half mile or so to the back door of the ill-fated building due for a violent ending at the the hands of the demolition squad in a few days time.
Matilda operated the thumb latch of the vestry door, but was surprised to find the door remained firmly locked when it didn't respond to the pressure of her shoulder. It seemed that the inspection of the interior of the church would have to aborted. But the two women determined to have another try at opening the door. The thumb-latch was depressed once more and the ladies leaned their considerable weight in a joint effort. There was a rending noise of screws pulling out of the lock staple and they fell into the vestry in a jumble of arms and legs. Unhurt, they both staggered to their feet, highly amused at their audacious forced entry into the church.
With Pauline to the rear, Matilda led her friend into the body of the building, this time with the help of an electric lantern which cast a circle of light before them.
Matilda wasn't surprised to see that the pews had been removed and that there were no hassocks to trip over. But they had to tread carefully to avoid the debris covering the floor as they made their way slowly across it.
"What are we doing here?" said Pauline in exasperation. "I must have been all kinds of a fool to listen to you Matilda. What do you hope to find in this God-forsaken shell of a building?"
"I don't really know," came Matilda's reply. "Of course I want to prove there is nothing here, in spite of the stories of things going bump in the night."
Sitting upon a box, Matilda shuffled her feet in the dusty debris of the floor and in so doing she revealed a metal ring flush with the boards around it. Using a rusty old nail, she scraped away the collection of grit within the setting of the ring until she managed to free it sufficiently to enable her to get her fingers within the circlet of iron, on trying to lift what was obviously a trap-door, she failed to budge it. Once again Pauline came to Matilda's aid. Together they strained to lift the trap door with the aid of a leather belt Pauline had taken from around her waist. After several attempts they saw the square of wood move a little from its surrounding frame. But then it lodged again, tantalisingly free at the same time as being held by some unseen force… a force, Matilda wondered, which wanted to safeguard the two widows from whatever lurked beneath.
"My husband," suddenly announced Pauline, "always used to say 'Never delve further than you dare.'"
A strange saying, that.
Matilda hadn't been told anything about Pauline's late husband called Steve Urwin — but there was something about these words which she couldn't put her finger on. Matilda seemed, somehow, to recall a war-time novel she once read telling of legends where some soldiers had dug their trenches so inadvertently deep (in moments of panic to escape the oncoming Hun) they had stumbled down into tunnels where soldiers with a 'higher' level of secrecy crawled bearing grenades and other newly invented devices of destruction — underground manoeuvres which none of the common ground soldiers were supposed to know about...
Matilda was dreaming , surely. Yet, instinctively, she knew that these underground forces had non-standard pacts with the enemy to which the regular troops were not party. These thoughts passed through her mind, as she and the pet-shop owner continued to struggle with the so called trap-door. Neither could actually fathom how they could have reached such a pass: in a derelict church, on the point of demolishment, smothered in dust and cobwebs, tussling, in such an unladylike way, with an ancient priest-hole or whatever,
"So, according to your husband," said Matilda, cutting through her own thoughts as if she had never thought them in the first place. "We should leave it at this, then?"
"Well, what's going on under here cannot be very salubrious, can it? Or, at best, simply dusty, Or, yes, maybe a secret tunnel that the heroes and heroines of an Enid Blyton tale would no doubt draw suspicions of smuggling..."
Both women laughed, deciding to let sleeping dogs lie… when, almost as if sensing they had abandoned their endeavour, the trap-door slipped its traces...
Matilda and Pauline felt they, too, were harnessed — not that they had fetched here anything unwieldy to weigh them down so unduly. Yet, whatever it was, forced them down the crumbly steps... steps which their keen sight revealed despite the lantern's demise — and like prissy maidens, they tentatively picked a way downwards amid high pitched mews and plaints that neither would later remember or countenance uttering. Matilda, for one, imagined dusky faces mapping, with an archipelago of expressions, the surrounding walls. Most such visions were of an Indian caste and Matilda blamed this phenomenom (although not the exact words she used) to a latent miscegenation of dreams and reality. One wall face even looked like the late Clive Saunders... but, then Pauline, after much fumbling and cursing, managed to revive the lantern, a feat that served to disperse any further untowards imaginings.
"Come on, Pauline, like the Famous Five, let's delve deeper," called the intrepid Matilda.
By the light of the lantern, the two women moved away from the stone steps with some relief — relief that was short lived as the lantern flickered, only to die once more, leaving them in total darkness. There was at last a chink of light in places in the church above, but here, it was as dark as the hobs of Hell.
Pauline spoke in a whisper: "I think we ought to leave well alone, let's call it a day — there is nothing here for us."
"What are you whispering for?" said Matilda in a normal voice. "If what you say is true, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Pull yourself together, we have come this far, we can at least prove that we are on a wild goose chase."
As she uttered these last words, her voice dropped to a whisper:- "Did you hear that? Or was the heavy breathing coming from you?
"I've had enough of this," came Pauline's reply... I'm out of here, you can continue with your ghost hunt on your own!"
With that Pauline inched her way back to the flight of steps, closely followed by Matilda pleading with Pauline to at least wait while she looked around the area.
"I really believe there can't be anything frightening down here, that trap-door hasn't been used in years."
But Pauline was already moving up the steps as a child would, using both arms and legs to clamber up to the church floor. As she neared the opening, the door-flap seemed to close of its own volition with a terrific thud that shook the building. Surprised and shocked by this Pauline turned in alarm, missed her footing to go tumbling back down the steps to cannon into Matilda. Once again they were in a tangle of bodies; but this time there was no laughing. Pauline was knocked unconscious and Matilda was retching to fill her lungs with life-giving air.
Eventually, regaining some semblance of composure, Matilda reached Pauline's body to cradle her head in her lap. There was a sticky warm feeling of blood on her hands, and a sense of panic took over. Matilda shed her track-suit top to pillow Pauline's head. Deciding she would have to run to get assistance, she reached the foot of the steps to see if she could prise up the trap-door… then she froze...!
Something moved behind her — was it a rat? Then she distinctly heard the rasping noise of a match being struck. Turning in alarm, she saw, within the light of a guttering candle, the ugly head of a man with long hair and a beard to match. A voice to match too, as the ugly brute spoke with a gutteral foreign accent.
Gutteral, yes. Foreign, yes. The language the brute used was indeed essentially in an unknown tongue, yet understandable at a level beyond normal listening. There resided an element of kindness in the meaning — contrasting with the ugly tones which acted as this meaning's vehicle. Ideas and images, some more, some less comprehensible, fled through Matilda's mind without even touching the sides… as if nettle-stings were audible. And — suddenly stirring in Matilda s arms — Pauline Urwin's body prickled into life and its erstwhile dead weight lurched into motion, crawling on its belly like a snake, then on all fours… towards the brute's beckoning finger.
The last that Matilda saw were their slouching shapes merge with the other shadows at the far end of the tunnel. Instinctively, she prevented herself from following — knowing somehow that Pauline Urwin was beyond help. Matilda shook her head. There was no romance here. No gothic frisson for her to relish and retrieve on calmer, more ordinary days. These were not the 16th century ghosts she had once imagined. Whether they were even ghosts at all, the entities, if that was the right word, derived from different eras, different cultures. She spotted an oriental section melting and becoming slavic or innuit or indian (red or brown). The babel of imputed voices were in her head… in her bed.
She woke with only a fighting chance of belief in the new reality of her bedroom. Never be hidebound by reality. Who had said that? She recalled a vague vision in the tunnel, a vision of a huge twig-twined nest (not a box-pew, as such, more a deep sided bird-table) where many faces chirped, worrying and teasing at each other. Matilda's own mother was among them. Clive Saunders, too, his face close to Pauline Urwin's. Such entities needed to employ their Christian names to tie their family ones closer, to sharpen up the distinctness… to differentiate the ethic groupings… to keep the avenues between them cleansed. Matilda was amazed at how kind and loving every face looked, despite the ugliness among them. She knew that some didn't call their first names Christian, but they all served the same purpose...
Spirituality had hung in the air.., simply waiting for the bricks to be toted in hods for builders to erect one more consecrated space. Matilda smiled. Whether she was in her head or in her bed, little did it matter. Never make assumptions. Never delve deeper than you need. She suddenly recalled Pauline Urwin's beckoning finger… the last message that Matilda had ignored. That finger had Matilda's string safely tied round it. Matilda felt her own naked finger, smiled again and finally fell into a peaceful sleep that she hoped would be endless. Still, it would soon be time to get up and go out for a new newspaper.
===============.
A SOUL'S INSURANCE
She pushed the C.D tray back into the body of the equipment… and paused, before prodding the raised 'play' tab on the complex fascia. Did she really want to hear that music again? It always (always?) reminded her of people she had known, most were now dead, except one. That one was David Wilkins Ruth and he was someone of whom she did not need reminding in any shape or form. In many ways, he was responsible, if indirectly, for the death of other people.
Without further preamble, she plunged her nail-painted finger upon the skip tab and thus leap-frogged the particular track which worried… haunted her. The initial surge of stereophony always (always?) surprised her. The equipment had a deep bass as well as a width of sound accentuated by the concert hall effect that she always picked. Or rather, left on that setting. The treble notes were not drowned by the fulsome bass, but they stood out like bright shilling coins in a pile of coppers.
She decided upon the 'randomiser' — a device which played the tracks in unpredictable order (but how random was random and how often was 'always' an exaggeration?) — and now the poignant piece of music which somehow she secretly wanted to suffer hearing would always be on the brink of being heard...
Only a few people used the press-button of the doorbell. It was of the old-fashioned type fitted on a round wooden plinth set into the red-bricked wall of the house. Once prominent, it was completely covered by the reddening ivy of Autumn — apart from that, it needed to be pressed in a certain way to operate the distant bell. The heavy brass ring suspended from the mouth of a brass lion's head was what most callers used to thunderous effect.
Close friends identified themselves with three rings of the bell. This would have included David Wilkins Ruth, but he was now the reason for the three distinct rings Miss Roberts had asked her friends in the know to use as a signal. The one long ring that prompted her to switch off her Hi-f i was unwelcome, and she fervently wished that the person responsible had not heard the music.
There was only one vantage point to observe the entrance to the house without being seen, and it was to the oriel-windowed recess on the first stair-landing she hurried to see who knew of that hidden bell-push. It had to be someone from the past, and that someone could well be David Ruth.
The bell rang out again with a long insistant clamour, followed by the rat-tat-tat of the heavy knocker as Miss Roberts reached the peep-hole in the stained-glass of the little window overlooking the driveway. Then a tinkling she couldn't recognise.
She could see only the back of the man standing outside the porchway, but the set of his shoulders and square-shaped head were unmistakable... It was David Ruth!
He turned to look up at the oriel window, seeming to know she was there. She shrank back, even though knowing it was not possible to see anyone behind it from that side main entrance to the house. Hearing the crunch of heavy feet upon the gravel of the drive, she took courage, hoping to see him walk away towards the roadway, but was dismayed to see him turn right, evidently intending to walk around the property, intent on gaining access.
'Oh God' she gasped aloud as she tried to remember definitely locking all the windows and doors — knowing full well she had done so more than once.
But what if she had missed something she thought, as she flitted down the stairs, her heart fluttering within her breast — to check yet again...
It was as if the house's own random factor had been activated… a burglar alarm in reverse… she laughed, then almost cried. She imagined she saw that the sash-windows were unlatched, casement-windows cocked at angles, the entrances slightly ajar… everywhere that her frantic eyes set upon as she careered from room to room showed doors on chains, fireplaces with nothing between grate and sky except a chimney flue. Which one would be the actual means of ingress… another randomness...
David Ruth would not be stopped. Nothing could stop him. Nothing ever did. Nothing ever would. Not even haphazard fate.
She finally settled back in front of the cd-player, midway between the two speakers. She had assured she had done everything possible to prevent any incursion of her privacy… even from the likes of David Ruth. He was Stalker Supreme. He had terrorised many of her friends long before he had latched on to Miss Roberts and targetted her with his ceaseless wiles. Whether she had always (always?) been the optimum victim of his pursuing attentions, she never (never?) really queried. All seemed to point to the fact that the others had been merely rehearsals for the ultimate conquest… running a prize fox to earth — herself.
She shuddered. Surely she had not imagined things. Hadn't her own series of best friends — girls who had dreamt of being her bridesmaid one day and bosom confidantes — had succumbed to Master Ruth's oppressive waywardness of appearing just when you least expected. Irrepressible stalking. The feeling of eyes staring icily into your back. Call it what you will. Some of these girls had suffered extrapolated accidents or presumptive illnesses. But Miss Roberts was sure they had vanished to escape David Ruth's unshakeable loping pursuit. Some had even died, in their eagerness to escape, but she thought she was made of sterner stuff, even going to court for a restraining order, forbidding David to continue with his harassment; she was not going to suffer the same fate as those dear departed friends, But deep down she knew that someday, sooner or later, he would turn up — and he was there, somewhere in the near vicinity...
She pressed the play button again… and prayed the 'randomizer' would not plump for the one tune she feared hearing: hers and David's own special tune.
The stereophony kicked in.
She couldn't believe her ears. It simply wasn't possible — but nevertheless, the unmistakable first notes were of that 'special' piece of music, the one she both feared and loved filled the room with sound, the same recording of Intermezzo from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana she shared with David that first time they met so long ago, yet now seeming a nightmarish dream of recent times. For a short while she let the music envelop her before she thought of David lurking outside the house. She pressed the mute button of the remote control she held in her hand, a hand still clammy with the sweat from her feverish rush around the house, accentuated by the emotion of the moment.
The resultant stillness of the house was frightening and though it was still mid-afternoon, light from the lace-curtained windows had faded in the gathering gloom of a sky that threatened rain. She hesitated about turning on the drawing-room lights. Perhaps the table-lamp at her side would be comforting with its warm diffused pool of light — surely not visible from outside the house. She sank back into her lounge chair, breathing deeply to the pit of her stomach whilst stretching out her arms, fingers splayed, then relaxing slowly as she breathed out. This repeated over and over was an exercise prescribed by the therapist she was visiting to ease the onset of a panic attack she knew was imminent… being poised on a knife-edge of apprehension.
She eventually reached for her head-phones, calmer now, knowing the Intermezzo had played itself out... Then she froze in terror... Was that someone moving about in the basement? The terror turned to blind panic, cancelling out the deep-breathing therapy as she realised she had not checked the most vulnerable part of the house; a trap-door arrangement to the basement area that could be opened from outside with a key. The pair of doors swung outwards to reveal a delivery chute that was once used for the delivery of coal and logs before the house was equipped with oil-fuelled central heating. Steps had been fitted so a gardener-handyman could gain access to the cellars with his own key when he attended to odd jobs she had authorised. What if someone else had picked the lock? Knowing full well that someone could be David...! Then with momentary relief she realised it could only be the handyman, he always called on Tuesdays to check on the central heating... but the relief was but fleeting... Her befuddled brain reminded her that Tuesday was the next day...
But did he always call on Tuesdays?
It was only at that moment there remarkably dawned on her common factors between Graves the handyman (whose first name she could never remember) and David Ruth. They were both roughly the same age, wearing scruffy beards and possessing sparkling blue eyes. She shook her head to clear it of the wild idea around which her mind was skirting... only to find another idea infiltrating… that she had earlier fallen asleep when thinking (dreaming?) of her best friends that had fallen victim to... what had she called it?... it had been a strong expression for her to use… yes, fallen victim to "Master Ruth's oppressive waywardness" but if she had fallen asleep (which she now suspected to be the case) that would have also entailed someone else switching on the cd player and purposely picking the Mascagni track… which had then woken her up with its redolent, resonant tones...
So, she dreamt she pressed the play button.
She could have easily used the remote control instead.
So, she must have dreamt getting up, walking over to the equipment and, yes, pressing the play button and randomiser.
She always (always?) used the cd player's remote control. It was far easier.
So, who — who on earth! — had switched it on whilst she slept?
At that moment the phone rang.
But was it her mobile or the fixed BT one? They usually had quite dissimilar rings. This sounded like neither! A sluggish burr-burr, not the sharp trill of the main phone nor the stupid twee tinkling of the outlandish mobile, a contraption which irritated her mainly because they were so often used in public places.
This must be someone else's mobile!
Its sound was soon stifled and she pricked up her ears to catch any whisper the owner might be making into the voice piece.
Then, she saw — by moving her head slightly — that the TV was on. The picture flickering and people softly talking. One had a mobile planted on the ear — as if it actually was an organic fixture there. She laughed. But then she cried.
She couldn't recall switching on the TV. And its remote control was on the sideboard.
'This is madness!' She mouthed her thoughts aloud. But still in possession of her wits… if only just. She knew deep down in her psyche it was not she who was mad... There was madness all around — but outside her own aura as people who thought they were going round the bend seldom wandered off the straight course of sanity. She remembered this from the time she had aspirations of becoming involved with the care of people with the dread condition of Alzheimer's disease. Something she had to abandon when her own father became so afflicted, needing her more than those she aimed to nurse as a profession. It was the reason she was now rattling around in the great house that she had inherited along with the sizeable fortune her father had left her, his only close relative. She didn't need a phone for her prayers to reach him.
Was the fact that she was now considerably richer than her circle of friends the spur for David Ruth's renewed attention, in whatever guise he had now adopted? She puzzled about how he thought he could profit, unless he had some idea he would end up with his feet under her table… further than that… in the marital bed! She was now way past 30 years old; still an eligible spinster. Six years had past since that day she devoted her life to her father, the care ending only when he succumbed to the dreadful disease.
She scattered these stupid thoughts away from her mind. There was no way David Ruth was getting into her bed or anywhere else… unless he thought his insidious plotting would unhinge her mind by all this meddling with her electronic gadgetry. Something she knew his devious mind was capable of to end this whirling carousel of his intrusive, if not positively dangerous, behaviour; willing her to accept the inevitable.
There would be an end to it — but not the end 'Ruthless' David was seeking. She would have the law on him… the law he was breaking just by being in the vicinity of the house. He would find that she was truly a match for his trickery... She reached for the telephone on the occasional table beside her.
Lifting the hand-set to her ear she was greeted by nothing. No sound emanated from instrument. Her phone was dead… and she wished she was dead too — suspecting that someone had tampered with the line.
She made to rush through the house to the downstairs hall, desperately needing to reach her mobile phone she knew was in her handbag on the hall table. She only got as far as the door… it was firmly locked, she herself had turned the key… but the key was no longer there! She was a prisoner in her own home! She turned and ran to the windows, even though she knew there was no escape from there. The back of the house rose high above the ground sloping away to the gardens.... She struggled to raise the bottom sash, until she realised it was useless. One of the jobs she had intended to leave instructions for, was to ask Graves the jobber to free the windows, stuck fast after a recent coat of paint before the onset of winter. She grabbed a bronze statuette from the window sill to break the window pane, wanting desperately to scream for help... But she stayed her hand… if her equipment had been meddled with, and the key taken from the door, whomsoever had done these things was still in the room… or perhaps there was some other means of access to the room she knew nothing about. She turned quickly to face the room, the statuette raised aloft, ready to defend herself...
And there stood 'Digger' Graves — something she had learnt to call her handyman with some amusement. He had told her it had been a nickname from his days in the Army — this she had picked up during snatched conversations as she watched him at some of the tasks she had authorised. There had been many… but none would he do 'off his own bat'… mainly the reason for the stuck windows, which she had mentioned, might be a job for the future.
"What are you doing here Graves?" she stammered out.
"Well Miss Roberts, someone 'phoned me, telling me you were in some sort of bother… sounded like a man with a foreign accent — said you needed me urgent like… so I hurried as fast as I could."
"Someone rang you about me?"
"Yes Miss — the voice said you had got stuck and needed me to sort of... I dunno... I forgets so easy... he said something about you had fallen foul..."
"Fallen foul?"
"Yes Miss, I thought it peculiar like, when the voice — whatever-it-was — said you didn't want me to call an ambulance or anything like that, so I said I would come."
She was shaking with shock, as well as overwhelming relief that it was Graves that stood there, and not the unwelcome intrusion of that Ruth creature whom she so feared and loathed — was relief indeed.
A small woman appeared as if by magic, small enough to stand beneath Graves' armpit... seeming to be a part of him, dislodged, sort of.
"This is my other-half," said Graves. "Ada, this be Miss Roberts." As the quaint little woman seemed to dance from one foot to the other without moving from his side, looking like a marionette controlled from Graves outstretched arm as he leaned against the door frame. She wore a peculiar floppy felt thing upon her head, a 'fascinator', held in place with a large hat-pin with a sword-like silver hilt as decoration.
"I brought her… in case… you know… you needed someone for... er, women's things. Things a man like me might not understand."
The woman, at this — amazingly — performed an elaborate curtsey, without uttering a sound.
It was at this point things seemed amiss. Miss Roberts was only half awake, yet she feverishly grabbed the TV remote control and pointing it at the two figures within the open door (one short, the other tall) she pressed the off switch. They failed to vanish though, simply stood there, vacant like, staring at her, the woman constantly curtseying, bobbing up and down as if the signal was stuck.
Stuck like the window sash.
This was all too much... She flipped… flopped back into her chair seeming oblivious to everything around her… her unseeing eyes staring...
* * *
The Insurance man stood on the newly donkey-stoned steps of the porch. He reached under the ivy, finding the bell; he pressed the requisite three times, having been a caller, and a friend for a number of years, helping Miss Roberts a great deal, especially during her father's illness and the settlement of insurance business after his decease. He stepped back a few paces to scan over the imposing facade, looking immense, particularly with the towering deep blue-black clouds that crowned it — threatening — if he didn't know better — the awesome power of tornadoes.
Miss Roberts, now the lady of the house — quietly unobstrusive — not without a certain quiet charm, was usually prompt in answering the summons of the bell, ready with her cheque book for the next premium towards her large endowment policy. Perhaps she was away.
He was later than usual for calling. Afternoon naps in this quarter of the town were quite rife, he knew. Forsaking the hidden bell-push, he thundered upon the door with the heavy brass knocker, then held open the large letter-box flap to call out...
At that point, the sky collapsed. Rain was not the right word. More a vertical sea. He cowered in the porch, frightened that the onslaught of wind and water would sweep it away as he pressed his back against the solid oak of the door, protected at least by the arch above it, hoping the storm would soon pass. He did not hear the door click, and he fell back into the hallway.
The noise of the thunderstorm (combined with the clatter of the hall-stand leaving the wall and falling over the prostrate body of Carl) was enough to wake the dead. Fortunately for the insurance man, the full weight of the heavy stand was taken by a low telephone-table on the opposite wall. This enabled the still conscious, but bewildered man to crawl out from under the stand and a collection of outdoor clothes, umbrellas etc.
Getting to his feet shakily, Carl collected his wits, his brief case, and, after tidying the hall as best he could, he approached the short flight of steps leading up into the main reception area of the house, calling out loudly as he ascended...
"Miss Roberts... Miss Roberts..." repeatedly, louder with each call.
Having known her in particular, for a number of years, Carl felt justified in checking up, for there was something distinctly odd about the stillness within the house, when one discounted the noise of the passing storm. The front door being unlocked was his main reason for concern, knowing something of how terrified Miss Roberts was about that nut-case, Ruth the persistent stalker. Aware that it was in the drawing-room she spent most of her time, his first impulse was to see if she was there, perhaps too ill to answer his calls.
Reaching the drawing-room door he was surprised that it was not only closed, but locked from the outside, with the key there, within the brass escutcheon plate.
Boldly taking more intrusive action than was normal for him, he tapped upon the door, calling out yet again , but gently.
"Miss Roberts... are you OK. It's Carl here, Carl from the Royal..."
Within the room, she stirred with a low moan. Hearing a man's voice, but not what was said, she felt panic welling up within herself. She once again picked up the statuette, edged towards the blind side of the door, ready, if not entirely able, to crown who came through the doorway.
Carl, having heard the moan, turned the key in the lock and just pushed the door open before entering the room — force of habit from his days in the army. There was a clatter as the bronze figure of Mercury fell to the floor, followed by the crumpled form of Miss Roberts.
He carried her still form to the chaise-longue, relieved to find she was already beginning to regain consciousness… startled to wide eyed amazement, then relief to see Carl Tomkins bending over her.
"What...? Where...? What's happening to me...? Where's Graves and his wife...? Running out of steam she gave chance for him to try and quieten her outburst… explaining why he was there holding her hand… something he had wanted to do for many a long day.
Surprisingly, he was having a calming effect on her; she made no effort to withdraw her hand from the comforting warmth of Carl's.
Explaining as best he could, he was puzzled by the repeated questions, especially about 'Graves and his wife' as Miss Roberts kept looking over his shoulder expecting them to re-appear. Perhaps, he surmised, someone had been there, leaving by the back stairs before he crashed into the house. But why would they lock her in the room...? No one else did he find as he progressed from the hall to this room.
"Graves? You mean 'Digger' Graves from Upper Longford? Knew him during my army days... Haven't seen him for years... thought he was dead!"
Pausing reflectively, he said:
"As for his missus... Who'd marry him? Getting a bit old in the tooth now, much older than you and me... You sure it was 'Digger'?
With her hand still held by the intruder, there was no hope in reaching the remote control — which had fallen with a chunky clatter to the parquet. A sound that had fully awoken her.
Indeed, the hand itself felt as if it were beyond her control. Her limbs were immobile. Her brain thinking thoughts that were not her own thoughts.
One of these thoughts was that someone had actually unstuck the sash window to her soul. Dug beyond the top-soil of her heart. Towards a core that was untouched, even by the approach of death's endowment...
Miss Roberts heard nothing. The TV screen was blank. And life's random destiny had ground to a halt between tracks. No amount of calling out — across the deep width of soundlessness — "Miss Roberts... Miss Roberts..." — nothing could retrieve the mind that once answered to this name amid the complex fascia of surface existence. And a small bobbing figure crossed the room, then left via the chimney... towards a sooty Hell.
Or towards a wide screen Heaven, where bright new shillings made tinkling music amid copper pennies.
Or, more likely, towards the Land of Never Never where it was Always Tuesday.
"Our Father Which Art in Heaven," a voice prayed in operatic tones.
And Ruth Roberts was finally in perfect peace with her own.