A Twist of Lyme

by David Ruffle

  Neither Michael or Judy, caught up in the emotion of the situation, saw the conspiratorial wink that passed between their daughter and Captain Edward de Vere Fox. A wink can be just a wink after all, but you may consider that proof positive of collusion between the Captain and Katy, you may not. You may consider the ends justify the means. You may not.

  Katy, being the resilient type of child, bounced back from her possibly accidental, possibly not, immersion in the stream and was as right as rain the next morning. Unlike her father, this was the first stream she had fallen into and as chance would have it, it was to be the last. At breakfast she was the wearer of an enigmatic smile that Michael and Judy could not quite fathom out.

  The gallant Captain materialised later that day to inform Michael and Judy that he had spoken at length to his men...

  “And woman...” said a distant voice. I know not who, but a guess could be hazarded.

  ...who had agreed that there would be no attempts at scaring the family away as long as the garden remained pretty much how it was. They further agreed not to alarm any visitors or come into the house uninvited. They were also adamant that the news of their presence should remain a secret. They were keen that they should not appear on television’s Phantom Hunters where they would be expected to perform like...well...performing seals and tap, knock and moan on cue. “We’re a cut above that, old boy.” As the Captain said to Michael.

  One evening, not all that long afterwards, Michael and Judy were sharing the now almost obligatory bottle of wine. Katy and Annabelle were tucked up in bed and who knows, maybe even asleep. Michael had read to them that evening, from The Wind in the Willows, undoubtedly a classic, but one which always sent the girls nose diving into torpor. Relaxing on the sofa, Michael had been considering the events of the last few days. His verdict was one which Judy concurred with completely.

  “This whole thing is weird, I mean, it’s really weird.”

  “No arguments here, Mike. Weird, definitely weird.”

  “Yep, weird.”

  “Very weird.”

  “We have dead people in our garden and do you know what, Jude? I love it!”

  “You do?”

  “Yes! I love Lyme, I love our ghosts, I love Katy and Annie and I love you.”

  Judy considered her response to Michael’s outpouring. Her response when it came was simple; she kissed him. It was...well...the appropriate response

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Timeline:

  1973: Michael Arkle Hamilton born.

  1975: Judith Anne Kennedy born.

  1984: Michael creates his alter-egos: Johnny Norfolk and Johnny Stevens.

  1987: Judy begins to take an interest in boy bands.

  1989: Michael begins to take an interest in Sarah Higginson and vice versa resulting in the summer of frolicking.

  1990: Michael begins work for the Cheltenham Post

  1991: Judy begins to take an interest in boys.

  1992: Michael finds new employment with Oxon Folk.

  1992: Judy learns Klingon from Christopher Drummond and learns much more besides from Jason Wilkins.

  1993:Michael encounters Mrs(?) Sheila Barry and begins a new job as chief reviewer for ‘The Big Brash Guide To London’ He purchases his Canford Road flat in Clapham.

  1993: Judy delves into the world of insurance and encounters Mrs Danvers. She then enters the world of education and encounters Miss Roseberry, Mrs Danvers’s evil twin.

  1993-2003 Not much happens. Michael remains at ‘The Big Brash Guide To London’ and Judy remains at St Botolph’s School, Chessington where she spends some of her time sticking pins into a wax effigy of Miss Amanda Roseberry.

  1995: Something did happen after all. Judy joined the Sealed Knot.[44]

  2000: Judy moves into her Manchuria Road flat in Clapham.

  2003: Spring: Michael and Judy meet at Clapham Junction station.

  2003: Autumn: Michael proposes. Has to replace coffee table. Judy accepts.

  2004: Spring: Michael and Judy marry. They honeymoon in Venice.

  2005: Tom Kennedy is under suspicion in the city and viewed with suspicion in East Molesey.

  2006: Katy Louise Hamilton is born.

  2007: The family move to Earlsfield. Michael becomes editor of ‘The Big Brash Guide To London’. Judy leaves St Botolph’s for good.

  2008: Annabelle Emma Hamilton is born.

  2013: Margaret Hamilton dies after a short illness. The family pay a visit to Lyme Regis. They move to Lyme Regis. Judy goes back to work as a teaching assistant. They meet their ‘garden guests.’

  2013 onwards: Please see following chapter...

  44 I’ll explain later.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Future Days

  What of the future? Old Mr. Williams and old man Willoughby died without ever finding out the house was actually blessed not cursed. Michael and Judy remained there in the old house. For them it was the perfect family home, even when it was no longer strictly speaking a family home save for the occasional visits by daughters, grandsons and granddaughters. Oh yes, I was coming to that.

  Katy and Annabelle never did become Olympic gold-medallists at racing down stairs although they both were to prosper in their own fields. Katy persevered through school battling both dyslexia and inherited dodgy knees to go on to university and there she obtained a degree in performing arts. She never became a big star admittedly, the invitations to various reality TV shows never materialised, and her cardinal sin as far as that type of show was concerned was that of never being a real celebrity anyway. Not that she cared. She had her children, Jason (his grandmother shuddered every time she heard the name), Chloe and a husband, Jake who she met when they were both in a touring production of ‘Ophelia Get Your Gun’[45] a not wholly successful mix of Shakespeare and the Wild West. Home was in north Cornwall, a converted barn which wore its agricultural past on its sleeve or more literally on its drive where a bright yellow combine harvester greeted visitors along with various implements whose usage was to remain unknown.

  Annabelle, who not blighted by either dyslexia or dodgy knees, proved academically the stronger sister. Shades of her mother and Aunty Fay. There were months if not years of indecision in her teens. Should she become a vet or a doctor? A nurse? A physiotherapist? The choices narrowed; a vet or a doctor? Tricky. Annabelle herself was probably the most surprised out of anybody when she joined the police force; walking the beat though was not for her. Her degrees enabled her to go straight into ‘middle-management’ (an Inspector to you and me). She would rise through the ranks to become one of the youngest ever superintendents since, well, forever. Along the way she too collected children, Rosie and Daniel plus a husband, Stefan. If you need proof that theatre brings people together, look no further for Annabelle met Stefan (as she ran for the toilet; very much her mother’s daughter) as she watched Katy in ‘Ophelia Get Your Gun’[46]. Stefan, in fact had already seen it three times proving that theatres can attract the strangest of people.

  Geoffrey Hamilton never really got over the loss of his wife. His decline was evident even before Alzheimer’s took a hold of him. From that point on he became like a ship on the horizon, drifting further and further away from his loved ones until he disappeared into the distant fog. He was buried next to Margaret in the churchyard at Great Rollright. His final request, to be buried alongside his favourite horse was politely ignored by his family and the ecclesiastical authorities.

  Tom and Elspeth Kennedy retired to Sidmouth as everyone does. Elspeth set about instilling some vigour into the local branch of the Women’s Institute, threatened momentarily when she mistook ‘A Basque Night’ (a look at the cuisine of that region) for something else entirely, although everyone agreed that her costume was rather fetching, but she would really have to be careful s
he did not catch her death of cold. Whilst Tom became something big in the bowling club and something less big in the croquet club. They were regular visitors to Lyme Regis, they had both warmed to Michael over the years and they were extraordinary grandparents, devoted to Katy and Annabelle in a way that surprised everybody. Fay went on to be the CEO of a multinational company and made a huge success of it, but there was to be no marriage or children. For all her achievements that her parents were immeasurably proud of, she felt she had somehow disappointed them, no longer the golden girl.

  Michael never did write the novel he promised himself he would. But Judy did. Several in fact. The last three made the best-seller lists, proving that people had quite an appetite for thrillers set in the world of professional tennis.[47]Michael was extraordinarily proud of her. He, himself returned to the world of reviews and journalism, submitting pieces to journals throughout the south-west for many years. It was his niche, his world.

  Katy and Annabelle’s busy schedules meant fewer and fewer family get-togethers, but they came as often as they could. They could both be found sometimes standing in the garden exchanging knowing glances, smiling to themselves. Katy’s tumble into the stream, real or manufactured, was long forgotten. Their own children were inducted into the secrets of the garden and decided to find it charming, if a little weird. The Captain and his band of men (and woman) were less frequently seen as the years went by. Some dark nights in the dead of winter when all around was quiet they could still be heard by those with an attuned ear.

  So, Michael and Judy lived on into ripening old age, content, satisfied and when time no longer had any meaning or use for them, they slipped quietly away from the world.

  The old house became Jason’s new house and when his children announced one summer evening that they had seen Great-Granddad and Great-Grandma in the garden he was not in the least surprised. Their imprint and spirit filled the house. Everyone said so.

  But all that lay in the future.

  “The best thing we ever did,” said Judy one evening, as they sipped the obligatory (still) wine in the garden, “was to move to Lyme Regis.”

  Michael smiled.

  “The best thing I ever did of course,” added Judy, “was to meet and marry you.

  “I was going to say exactly that.”

  “What? That the best thing I ever did was to marry you?”

  He kissed her. After all these years, it was still the appropriate response. It had never been anything, but the appropriate response to tell the truth.

  He was happy. Judy was happy. Katy and Annabelle were happy. Everyone said so or at least everyone who cared said so.

  In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, he was deliriously happy. It was not the first time he had felt deliriously happy, but it was the first time he really, really knew what it meant.

  Even with his dodgy knees.

  45 An excerpt coming up soon, you may judge for yourselves.

  46 Excerpt still coming up very soon.

  47 Game On, Game Set and Match, The Games Afoot, The Wimbledon Enigma, Death at Forest Hills, They Also Serve to name a few.

  Ophelia Get Your Gun

  (Aka There Is Something Rotten In The State Of Arizona.)

  ACT THREE. SCENE FOUR. THE SALOON BAR IN TOMBSTONE

  SHERIFF BILL HAMLET ENTERS STAGE LEFT

  BH: Alack, I am distll’d almost to jelly with the act of fear. The James gang are without.

  ROSE ENCRANTZ (The Mayoress): Without what?

  BH: The villains are once more abroad. O foul knaves. They seek their bloody revenge upon us.

  RE: How so, sweet Sheriff? If they are abroad, how can they thus seek to harm us? Have thou been drinking moonshine again, brave protector of our town?

  BH: They are here, their very flesh pollutes the OK Corral. And yet you speak as though you are unsifted in such perilous circumstances. Old man James of evil memory smiles and smiles, the smiling damned villain. That one may smile and smile and still be a villain, what calumny, what falseness and yet I fear it is so in Tombstone. Sweet Ophelia, wouldst thou save us from the very crack of doom which has opened up this very day, this cursed day?

  OPHELIA (A gunslinger): This cursed day, my lord Sheriff? The James gang are even now bedecked in chains of untold strength in the deepest foulest dungeons of the State penitentiary. Methinks your imaginations are as foul as Vulcan’s stithy.

  BH: Perhaps I am mad north-northwest, but I have seen what I have seen. Who will grant us deliverance from these men who wouldst treat us most cruelly? Sweet Ophelia, I beseech you once more.

  OPHELIA: You, who have played me false these ten years past yet now thou durst seek my benevolence in taking arms against your sea of troubles? My brave Sheriff you must perforce look into your own soul for the deliverance you seek. I will have no part in’t.

  BH: Methinks the lady doth protest too much. I have a purse here which may yet turn your advantage to our own. Our own fair Rose, Mayoress of our beloved city has given me leave to rouse your spirits with the princely sum of twenty dollars.

  RE: I have?

  BH: Indeed, sweet lady. What sayest thou, Ophelia?

  OPHELIA: Yeomen, bring me my Winchester73 that it may do honourable and bloody business this day.

  THEY ALL EXIT STAGE LEFT. THERE ARE SOUNDS OF GUN PLAY AND A CRY OF: ‘A HIT, A PALPBALE HIT’.

  BOOT HILL CEMETERY LATER THAT DAY

  BH: Lay her i’ the earth and from her fair and unpolluted flesh may saguaro spring. Yes sirree.

  THE REST IS SILENCE.

  Notes and Acknowledgements

  First, none of the characters bear any resemblance to anyone I know. Honestly! Although there may be echoes of certain people in some lines etc. and idiosyncrasies. They will know.

  Now, let me stress, there is nothing remotely autobiographical about this tale. I have never fallen off a horse in the Cotswolds or anywhere else for that matter, then again I have never ridden a horse which would certainly account for the non-falling off. If...if...I had invented such heroes for myself as Johnny Norfolk of the demon right foot and unerring accuracy for finding the back of the net while propelling Barton United to five consecutive league titles or Johnny Stevens of the demon right fist and an unerring accuracy for single-handedly keeping Britain safe from all kinds of would be world dominating baddies then I would hardly admit to such in a work of fiction. *Coughs*.

  Most of the locations however are very real indeed. Even Chipping Norton. There is no St Botolph’s school in Chessington however, nor is there a ‘Big Brash Guide to London’ or indeed a Lemon Tree Guest House in Uplyme. The Bread and Roses thrives in Clapham as does The Albion in East Molesey and The Harbour Inn in Lyme Regis. Any other licensed premises that get a mention you can be assured are inventions. Molesey boat club, Molesey cricket club, Molesey WI and Rylston Manor are all still doing their thing in the depths of Surrey. The Surrey Seven are a fictitious band, hopefully.

  You may think the episode of the wallaby hopping and bounding its way around Lyme Regis to be an invention. It isn’t. The battlefields and skirmish-fields of the English Civil War are real enough although I have never expressed a wish to join the Sealed Knot[48] who I am sure do a very fine job indeed. As I write this, I have yet to come across a production of ‘Ophelia Get Your Gun’ probably for a very good reason[49].

  Lyme Regis was besieged during the Civil War for nine long weeks in 1644 and whilst it is true that many of the dead were buried in a field off Colway Lane (precise location unknown), I am not aware that three of their number were Captain Edward de Vere Fox, Irish Meg and a crooked lawyer called Silas. Although that could have been the case, doubtful as it may be.

  My thanks, as always to Gill for her input and help. Her suggestions were invaluable and appear scattered throughout. As in previous offe
rings of mine, some sentences and paragraphs more properly belong to her and the debt is properly acknowledged here.

  Thank you also to Steve Emecz at MX Publishing who continues to make life easy for me and to Bob Gibson at Staunch for the latest in a long line of brilliant book covers.

  David Ruffle January 2014.

  48 I’ll explain later.

  49 Having read the excerpt, you now know precisely why.

  Also From MX Publishing

  MX Publishing are proud to support the Save Undershaw campaign - the campaign to save and restore Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s former home. Undershaw is where he brought Sherlock Holmes back to life, and should be preserved for future generations of Holmes fans.

  Save Undershaw www.saveundershaw.com

  Sherlockology www.sherlockology.com

  MX Publishing www.mxpublishing.com

  You can read more about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Undershaw in Alistair Duncan’s book (share of royalties to the Undershaw Preservation Trust) - An Entirely New Country and in the amazing compilation Sherlock’s Home - The Empty House (all royalties to the Trust).

  Also Available