Variations on a Haunting Theme

by Alan Millard

  Not far past the layby a fivebar gate on the right blocked the access to a path leading down to the reservoir. Beyond that on the opposite side of the road was a large, imposing, L-shaped house with stone steps leading up to its porch and gothic church-style windows on the upper floor. The house was surrounded by sloping lawns and exotic shrubs.

  Later I passed a couple of derelict sheds with corrugated roofs and, after that, a clearing where trees had been sawn down and left to be collected or else to rot. I came across a meadow with clear views across the lake. I walked past an empty bus stop and eventually paused on a little stone bridge to look at the stream dancing over the rocks amongst the ferns. Soon after the bridge the road turned to the right and, although I could see no water, I guessed I’d reached the far end of the reservoir and was about to begin the long walk back to the dam.

  The second stage of the walk on the opposite side of the reservoir seemed as though it would never end. Clear views of the water soon disappeared behind the trees. The road twisted and turned. There were low walls covered with lichen. Here and there the woodland thinned. Meadows appeared and disappeared as I walked on and on beginning to think I would never reach the dam. But at last a sharp right bend promised to lead in the right direction towards my journey’s end. A few more steps and I thought I’d be back where I started. I rounded another corner and looked ahead expecting to see the dam but all I could see was another stretch of road.

  There were trees to my right and left with fleeting glimpses of water. The next thing I saw was a small, stone-blasted, flat-roofed hut on the water’s edge with a plain, wooden door and two, whitewashed windows, one at each end, identical to the hut I’d seen before. I carried on to the crude stone seat, the fivebar gate, the L-shaped house, the clearings, the bus stop and bridge - all that I’d passed before and would again and again. I walked through dusk and the first night and, after that, on through an endless succession of days and nights, always passing the same, familiar landmarks but never reaching the dam. And right to this day I am still walking. I feel no need for rest or food and drink and I have no choice but to carry on in endless circles, getting nowhere, stepping into a nightmare from which I cannot wake. My only hope is that someone will find this note and, somehow, save me.

  ‘Is that it?’ I asked as Howard stopped reading and tucked the letter back in his pocket.

  ‘That’s all I can tell you. The letter reached Anne some months after Paul’s disappearance. She made two copies, one for herself and one for me. The original letter she gave to the police for their files. The case remains open though no further action was taken. As far as the police are concerned the letter was probably written by Paul as a hoax on the day of his disappearance. In their view he’s still alive and has covered his tracks not wanting to be discovered for whatever reasons.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘I think we should make a move. We still have a way to walk and I want to be home before dark.’

  That night after dinner we sat by the fire and talked of how strange it was that Howards’s colleagues had all been victims of weird events. ‘Who in their right minds would work for a firm like Hoskins, Dyer and Blake?’ I said.

  ‘I did,’ answered Howard.

  ‘True, but you’re still here.’

  ‘Here for the time being. Who knows what lies ahead?’

  I took it as a rhetorical question. ‘You mentioned one other story,’ I said, ‘When shall I hear that?’

  ‘Ah yes, the woman, the strange woman, my main reason for asking you here. But that can wait till tomorrow. You must be tired after all that walking. I think we should take to our beds and after a good night’s rest I’ll tell you all about her.’

  I was ready for bed and as soon as I closed my eyes I found myself walking along the road that Paul had walked or was still walking. I saw the hut, the stone seat, the L-shaped house and the fivebar gate. But before I reached the bridge and the brook I was sound asleep.

  I woke at ten in the morning convinced that I’d needed the extra sleep. It was New Year’s Eve, my last day here. One more night with Howard and, tomorrow, I’d be sleeping in my own bed. Although I’d enjoyed my time with him I was looking forward to getting back to my old routine and having a rest from these worrying tales. We were drinking coffee after breakfast when I noticed Howard seemed nervous and tense. He was drumming his fingers and gazing abstractly into space. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked.

  ‘Just a little restless, nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘No, having you here is help enough.’ I asked again when I would hear the woman’s story.

  ‘Later,’ he promised. ‘I thought I would take you out for lunch and afterwards to the place where it happened.’

  I was fascinated. To hear the story on location would certainly bring it to life. ‘Where is this place?’ I asked.

  ‘That you shall see but not until after we’ve eaten at the Mermaid. It’s only a short distance from there. I’m afraid it’s outside but after a warming meal we shouldn’t be too cold.’

  ‘The Mermaid Hotel! Isn’t that where Trevor and Liz had their lunch?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘And this woman’s tale occurred nearby, out in the open?’

  ‘It did.’

  ‘Then you’d better play me the Variation that fits the story before we leave.’

  ‘You shall hear it at once, Variation 7,’ he said.

  The piece was beautiful but all too short. I was definitely beginning to appreciate this music.

  ‘Well?’ said Howard, lifting his hands from the keyboard.

  ‘Beautiful,’ I said, ‘gentle and lilting, just like a lullaby. I could almost imagine a cradle being rocked backwards and forwards.’ Howard’s reaction was strangely sombre. ‘Have I said the wrong thing?’ I asked.

  ‘No, you were disturbingly accurate. I’ll say no more but you’ll see what I mean when I tell you the story.’

  The Mermaid was quieter than we expected. I looked around at the others and wondered where Trevor and Liz had been sitting. Perhaps they’d been sitting at our table. After our meal we departed. Remembering Trevor I half expected a raging storm and was almost surprised by the winter sun.

  We walked to the church and sat on a seat outside. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is the very bench where a man was sitting alone when a woman he’d never met came and sat beside him. The man’s real name I’ve sworn to keep secret for reasons I cannot reveal. We’ll call him John - John Smith, it’s a suitably nondescript name for a man considered by most to be equally dull.’

  8: Variation 7 - John

  Dr. John Smith was a tall, gaunt man who’d worked at Hoskins, Dyer and Blake for as long as anyone could remember. Being one of the most senior employees he was the only person other than the directors to have his own separate office. He was highly qualified with a string of letters after his name including a PhD from Cambridge. The exact nature of his work was not generally known but he rarely left his desk and never took time off for lunch breaks except on warm, sunny days in summer when he would disappear on his own for an hour at the most. Always first to arrive and last to leave he kept himself to himself and only engaged with others on purely profession matters. Opinions about him varied. By some he was thought to be shy and by others as downright rude. But everyone agreed he was remote and unapproachable.

  No one knew anything of his background or private life except that he was single and lived alone in an isolated house a few miles from town. There were countless speculations and rumours about him ranging from his being a divorcee to a closet homosexual. He never mentioned his family and as far as anyone knew he had none. He was always an enigma whose secrets would never be revealed.

  What nobody guessed was that John’s life was a mystery to himself. His earliest memories wer
e of growing up as an orphan in a children’s home overlooking a park containing a large pond. He remembered going there to fish for tadpoles which he kept in a jam jar hidden inside his locker. His aim was to see the tadpoles magically turn into frogs but they never did. They invariably died after one or two days and were secretly flushed down the loo. Everything he did was done in secret.

  Apart from Mrs. Flowers, the matron, the adults in charge were generally hostile and eager to dish out punishments for the slightest offence.

  John clearly remembered his first days at school. Anyone from the home was shunned by the children who lived in conventional families. Even the teachers seemed wary of them expecting them all to be disruptive as some of them were. John saw himself as being separate from the others. He didn’t belonging to any group. During break times he stood in the playground alone away from everyone. In class he worked hard and stayed out of trouble. His carers and teachers were surprised when he passed his eleven plus and became the only child from the home to win a place at the local grammar school.

  Mrs. Flowers took him aside and told him how proud his mother would have been. His mother had never been mentioned before and it came as a shock to hear her named. He wanted to know more about her but felt too frightened at first to enquire further till plucking up courage he raised the question he’d always wanted to ask and said. ‘Is my mother alive?’

  Putting an arm around him Mrs. Flowers gave him the answer he half-expected. ‘No,’ she said, ‘sadly your mother died but I’ve kept this.’ She took from her apron pocket a small, battered tin and opening the lid removed a faded photograph. ‘It’s all we have. We were going to keep it until you left us but you can have it now if you like.’

  John stared at the sepia image which showed a woman standing with a man on a seaside promenade. He wanted to cry but held back the tears. ‘Is that my mother and father?’

  ‘Yes but we think your father left your mother before you were born.’

  John asked if he could keep the photo and having been told he could he put it into the tin and closed the lid. In his room he placed it beneath some clothes in the bottom of his bedside locker and there it stayed untouched till the day he left.

  Leaving the children’s home and starting grammar school happened almost simultaneously. For some time it had been Government policy to move children out of institutional care into foster homes where they could form closer attachments. It may have been John’s success at school that persuaded the Bidgoods to foster him. Without knowing why he’d been chosen John came home at the end of his first week at the grammar school to find Mrs. Flowers and a middle-aged couple waiting to greet him. Matron ushered them into her office. John was made to stand wondering what was happening. He wasn’t sure what to make of the couple who’d taken their seats and were gazing up at him. The man was about forty, short and portly with a moon-like face, ruddy cheeks and thin sandy-coloured hair parted in the middle. He was sitting with the jacket of his three-piece tweed suit open. The matching waistcoat stretched over his paunch had three of its bottom buttons left undone. The woman was about the same age as the man but slightly taller and extremely thin. Her bony face and pointed nose reminded John of a raptor.

  ‘This,’ said Mrs. Flowers, ‘is John, and this John is Mr. and Mrs. Bidgood who’ve kindly agreed to look after you. What do you think of that?’

  John had no idea what to think but knowing that other children from time to time had been sent into foster care he assumed his turn had come. ‘Good evening Mr. and Mrs. Bidgood,’ he said. He shook hands in a formal manner.

  ‘Well, what do you say?’

  ‘Oh, thank you. When will I be going?’

  ‘You’ll be leaving next Friday but Mr. and Mrs. Bidgood have offered to take you to their house tonight for an hour or two so that you can meet their daughter and see your room. Would you like that?’

  ‘Yes, very much. Thank you.’

  ‘Excellent. Well, go and change out of your uniform. Mr. and Mrs. Bidgood will wait for you here. Don’t be long.’ John thanked them again, ran upstairs to his room and in no time at all was back and ready to go.

  The Bidgood’s car, a beautifully polished Ford Anglia, was waiting outside on the forecourt. After saying goodbye to Mrs. Flowers John followed his new foster parents out of the door and climbed into the back seat of the car. Never having been in a car he felt like a lord as they pulled away and began the short ride to the Bidgood’s home, a pebble-dashed semi-detached house in a road not far from the grammar school.

  On entering the first thing he heard was the sound of someone playing the piano. ‘That’s Henrietta,’ said Mrs. Bidgood. ‘She’s practicing for her Grade 1 exam in a fortnight’s time.’ She raised her voice. ‘Henrietta, come and meet John.’

  The music abruptly stopped and a sandy-haired girl with green eyes appeared in the hallway. She had an appealing face and a friendly smile. ‘Hello,’ she said, ‘I’m Henrietta.’

  John guessed she was a year or so younger than him. ‘Hello,’ he replied before adding shyly, ‘I liked the music.’ The compliment pleased her.

  A tour of the house followed. He liked his room as soon as he saw it. It was light and airy with posh, gold-striped wallpaper. A bedside cabinet with a lamp on top stood at the side of a single bed with a blue candlewick bedspread covering it and a soft, plump pillow nestled against the headboard. Facing the bed was a wood-veneered wardrobe and small chest of drawers emptied ready for his clothes and belongings. Red, velvet curtains hung at window which overlooked the back garden and the town’s playing fields. It was cosy and inviting, nothing like his sparsely-furnished bedroom back at the home with its off-white walls.

  When the tour of the house was over it was time for tea, an ordeal John was not looking forward to. He would rather have stayed in his new bedroom alone with his thoughts. Tea at the children’s home consisted of sitting on benches at trestle tables covered with oilskin cloths where nobody talked and it didn’t matter if you spilled your drink. Here there were ringed napkins, items of cutlery he’d never seen, a dainty china dish containing sugar cubes and tongs, fancy cakes on a tiered stand and sandwiches with their crusts removed on a plate covered with a doily. Everything was neatly arranged on a spotlessly white, embroidered tablecloth. At meal times there’d be no escape from having to make polite conversation.

  ‘Tea or squash?’ Mrs. Bidgood asked when he’d seated himself. Copying the others John placed his napkin precariously on his lap.

  ‘Squash please.’

  When the drinks were poured and the sandwiches distributed it was Mr. Bidgood’s turn to talk. ‘Well John, what would like to tell us about yourself?’ John had just taken a bite of cucumber sandwich and wasn’t sure what to say. He knew it was bad manners to speak with food in his mouth so he swallowed it down hurriedly and tried to think of something to tell them but nothing would come. ‘Do you have any hobbies?’ asked Mr. Bidgood.

  ‘I’m interested in tadpoles,’ he said, ‘and I like reading.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mr. Bidgood raising his eyebrows. At this point John noticed Mrs. Bidgood staring down at his hands. He’d forgotten to clean his fingernails and feeling embarrassed he clenched his fists and concealed his hands under the table. Thankfully Henrietta took his mention of reading as her cue to speak.

  ‘I like reading too,’ she said. ‘I’ve nearly finished reading Black Beauty. Have you ever read it?’

  When John confessed he hadn’t she gave him a detailed account of the plot which lasted for several minutes and saved him from having to answer any more questions.

  Little more was said. As soon as they’d eaten Mr. Bidgood looked at his watch. ‘Well my boy we’d better be on our way or Matron will be wondering where you are.’

  ‘Did you have nice time?’ Mrs. Flowers asked when he returned.

  ‘Very nice thank you.’


  ‘And you think you’ll be happy living with Mr. and Mrs. Bidgood?’

  ‘Yes.’

  In bed that night John lay wide awake worrying about his new school and living with the Bidgoods. Too much was happening all at once. He needn’t have worried about school. His second week was better than the first. He impressed his teachers with his attitude to work, his politeness and quick grasp of the subject matter. Apart from the games master who saw him as a bit of wimp the others were more than pleased with his performance especially Mr. Clinic, the maths master who kept him back after one of the lessons and quizzed him about his ambitions.

  ‘Have you any idea what you’d like to do when you leave school laddie?’

  ‘Not really sir.’

  ‘Well, perhaps you should consider something involving maths.’

  It was much the same with the other teachers. Everyone seemed pleased with the way he worked. Music was no exception. The only female teacher on the staff was Miss Carter, the music mistress. Music was generally regarded as a laugh by other boys especially when they had to learn Nymphs and Shepherds in the first lesson. Miss Carter played the piano with her face to the blackboard and missed seeing all that went on behind her back. After the singing there was a short period of musical appreciation which consisted of a brief talk about a particular composer followed by a recording of his music. Purcell was the composer selected for that first week and the piece chosen for appreciation was Dido’s lament from Dido and Aeneas.

  Ignoring the low-level murmuring and general disruption around him John was transported by the sound of the woman’s voice singing about her forthcoming death and burial against the mournful background of stringed instruments playing a repetitive tune which differed from the main melody but blended beautifully with it. When the bell rang for the end of the lesson John stayed in his seat with the music still ringing in his ears while the others made a hasty retreat. The words of the song had brought his mother to mind. He wondered where she’d been laid when she died.