by Pat Herbert
Yours faithfully,
Ronald Campbell Miles
Managing Director
Miles & Crosby Contractors Ltd
20
Mary and Bert Allardyce moved into 57 Bockhampton Road with their three young sons in February 1966. They had been married for five years when they moved from their Hertfordshire home to South London following Bert’s promotion to Site Supervisor for a big building project his firm had undertaken. Miles & Crosby had been more than generous to him and his family, finding them a place to live and paying the first three months’ rent. He had also received a large increase in salary and the offer of a company car. Bert had to turn this down, however, as he couldn’t drive.
“Why don’t you learn?” Mary had asked him, but Bert had come up with various unconvincing excuses for not doing so. It finally transpired that he wasn’t confident behind the wheel, having crashed his father’s car when he was sixteen. Having a car didn’t matter anyway, they both agreed, as the site he had been put in charge of was within easy reach by public transport.
They had been content up until the move, living in a small, but adequate, cottage in Hertfordshire, but their burgeoning family soon made it necessary to find somewhere larger. So, Bert’s promotion came at just the right time.
Mary was disappointed, however, when she first saw the house chosen for them by Bert’s company. It was one of a mundane-looking terrace in a similarly mundane-looking street. There were no trees to be seen and, what greenery there was, was provided by the privet hedges uniformly allocated in the front gardens of each house. But at least their new house was a lot bigger than their little Hertfordshire cottage, even if 57 Bockhampton Road wasn’t exactly her ideal home. It was nothing like the ones she coveted in her House and Garden magazine, but she supposed that was expecting too much.
The first thing that impressed itself on her the day they moved in, was the ornamental fireplace in the front room. Even though the whole place was filthy and needed cleaning out from top to bottom, there wasn’t a speck of dirt on it anywhere. It seemed to give off an almost artificial glow, as if it was backlit somehow. But she didn’t much like it, being far too ornate for her taste. She suggested to Bert they got rid of it and replace it with a plain stone or tiled hearth. Just like the ones in House and Garden. They were all the rage. But, as Bert pointed out, they were only renting the place, so they probably wouldn’t be able to remove it.
That was another thing about the house she didn’t like. The place was theirs, yet it wasn’t. All her life she’d lived in rented accommodation. Wasn’t it time they had a place of their own? she asked Bert. “We could afford a mortgage on the money you’re earning now,” she pointed out.
“Maybe one day, love,” he had said. “When we’ve got a bit of capital behind us. Be patient for a few more years, eh? This’ll do us, for now.”
Bert Allardyce had been thrilled to get the promotion he knew he richly deserved. He had joined Miles & Crosby when they were just starting up, and it was mainly through his diligence and strong work ethic that the building company had thrived.
However, the new job had its drawbacks, the main one being the longer hours. The extra money and the new house were godsends, but Bert sometimes wondered if he had bitten off more than he could chew. He was so tired when he returned from the building site in the evenings, it was all he could do to keep a civil tongue in his head. Wasn’t it enough that he slaved his guts out all day without having to come home to the kids screaming around the place, and his wife nagging the socks of him? He loved them all, of course he did, but didn’t they realise that, when he got home, he deserved a bit of peace?
They had only been in the house a matter of weeks, but Mary was gradually warming to her new surroundings, even to the weird fireplace. It wasn’t so bad, she decided, when you came to think about it. A fresh coat of paint here and there and a thorough clean out, that was all that was really needed. And it was roomy enough for the boys to run about in without getting under her feet. All in all, it wasn’t such a bad bargain.
However, Bert’s irritation with the kids surprised her. In their old home, they had crawled all over their doting father when he got home from work and he’d loved it. Since moving to Wandsworth, he was a changed man. Always biting her head off and telling the boys to be quiet. Maybe he’d taken on too much with this new job, she reasoned, but he’d soon get used to it and be back to his old self.
In the meantime, he was earning enough money for them to afford a few little luxuries, as well as being able to put a bit by for the mortgage. Maybe they could actually buy 57 Bockhampton Road eventually! She found she rather liked the idea. There were worse places.
The twins were already settled into the local infants’ school and Terry, who was still too young for proper school, was taken off her hands by a nearby day nursery for a couple of hours, three times a week. That gave her plenty of time to fuss about the home, although sometimes she wondered if it was enough. She mentioned to her husband that she might take on some sort of part-time work when the boys were old enough, but he was dead set against it. Even the extra money didn’t sway him.
In fact, it made him very angry. His moods seemed to be getting worse and Mary, who had always looked forward to Bert’s return home from work each evening, began to dread hearing his key in the lock. Nothing seemed to please him. Either the potatoes weren’t cooked properly, or the meat was too tough, or he’d tripped over one of the boys’ toys in the hall. She began to worry that there was something seriously wrong with him but banished the idea as quickly as it came. He was just tired, that was all.
Then, one evening, as she was dishing up the evening meal, she noticed a strange look on his face. She had got used to seeing him frown at her over his evening paper, but this was something different. Something much more worrying. A dark shadow seemed to spread across his features and his eyes took on a flint-like hardness.
Her hand shook as she poured out the gravy.
“Careful, you silly cow,” he muttered. “You’re spilling it.”
“Sorry, Bert,” she said.
“Don’t I have enough to contend with without you throwing my supper at me?”
Mary, smarting from the injustice of this remark, was about to point out to him that spilling a drop of gravy was hardly akin to throwing the whole meal at him, when she realised he was gripping the table cloth and twisting it in his hands. It was like he was imagining throttling her.
She was suddenly very afraid.
Mary Allardyce’s body lay in a crumpled heap by the fireplace. Bert, still holding the blood-stained poker, stared down at her. “Who is that woman lying there?” he wondered. He rested his free hand on the mantelpiece and tried to regain his breath. There was a mutilated corpse where his wife had just been standing. He couldn’t understand what had happened.
He tottered over to the table and collapsed onto a chair. He threw the poker down and covered his face with his shaking hands. Tentatively, he looked through his fingers. Then he rubbed his eyes and looked again.
His wife was calling from the kitchen. “Do you want custard on your crumble, Bert?”
21
Mary put the crumble down in front of her husband. She had the sauce boat in her hand, and it was shaking. Would he accuse her of throwing the custard in his face? she wondered. But then she stopped. He was looking even more scared than she felt at that moment.
“Hey, Bert, what’s wrong?” she said, carefully putting the sauce boat down on the table. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
He turned his gaze towards her. “Mary, I’ve just had the weirdest experience.”
“Are you all right? Shall I call the doctor?” She felt his brow. He didn’t seem feverish.
“No, not that sort of experience. I’m not ill. I – I don’t really know how to tell you this, but I just saw your dead body over by the fireplace. And I was standing over you with t
he murder weapon in my hand – that poker.”
“Oh, Bert, how horrible!” she cried. Wish fulfilment, no doubt. Things were worse than she thought. However, she tried a reassuring smile. “You must have dozed off for a minute,” she said. “You know how tired you are when you get home from work these days. Not a nice dream – but only a dream, for God’s sake.”
“No, you don’t understand. It was real. You really were dead. I’d clobbered the life out of you with that poker. There was blood all over your face and head.”
“Don’t be silly, how is that possible? I’ve been in the kitchen clearing away the supper things and taking the crumble out of the oven. Look, it’s done to a turn. I would have noticed if you’d hit me with the poker.” She tried to make a joke of it but didn’t really feel like laughing.
Bert took her hand. “Oh Mary, I must be going mad. Perhaps I need to see a doctor or something.”
“Don’t worry, love. You just had a particularly vivid nightmare, that’s all.” The sort of doctor he needed, she began to think, wasn’t a bog standard GP. The sort he needed, he wouldn’t go near if you paid him. She knew her Bert. She stroked his hair and kissed his bald spot. “Don’t worry anymore. Eat your crumble.”
Bert’s appetite seemed to have completely deserted him. He poured the custard over the crumble and moved the food around with his spoon. His wife could certainly cook a good crumble, but he couldn’t touch it now. What had happened was not easily explained away. He knew what he had seen. It was real. Could it have been some sort of premonition?
She annoyed the life out of him when he came home each evening, which he couldn’t understand, because, all day long, he thought about her and couldn’t wait to see her again. He loved her so much. And the boys. They were his pride and joy. He bored them silly on the building site with his family snaps. So why did he feel such animosity when he came home to them? He really must be going mad.
And now this latest incident, or whatever it was. He’d definitely hit his wife. He had heard her skull crack as he smashed the poker down on her head, not once, not even twice, but three times. The relief he’d felt when he realised she was still alive, had been tempered with the knowledge that something almost outside of his natural experience had happened to him. And was still happening to him.
Mary didn’t know what to do to reassure him. There seemed to be only one thing to do. “Okay, Mr Allardyce. It’s the doctors for you. Get your coat.”
It was a rainy Friday morning and they were sitting at breakfast. “But I’ve got to get to the site before lunch. There’s some scaffolding problems apparently.”
“They’re nothing to the problems inside your head, Bert. You’re going to the doctor’s first, I want no arguments or excuses. I’ve got Mrs Franklin to take the twins to school and look after Terry, so we can go right now as soon as you’ve finished your cornflakes.”
“But what’s supposed to be wrong with me?”
“I don’t know, but something certainly is. You’ve not been yourself for ages, Bert, you know you haven’t.”
“But what can the doctor do? I haven’t got a pain. No pill can get rid of what I’m feeling.”
“I know, dear. But maybe he can refer you to someone who knows about these things.” Mary began clearing the breakfast things from the table, all the while watching his reaction. What she had just said, she knew, would set him off at once.
“You mean a trick cyclist,” he muttered. “Why don’t you just come right out and say it? You think I’m going mad.”
“No, Bert, of course I don’t. But something’s wrong and maybe a psychiatrist can get to the bottom of what’s worrying you.”
“I won’t see one of them quacks,” he stated. “I’ll go and see MacTavish, if you like. But there’s an end of it.”
Well, she thought, that’s a start. Perhaps their local GP, Robert MacTavish, could persuade him to see a psychiatrist. “All right. Have it your own way. We need to get going if we’re going to be seen this side of Christmas as it is. You know how full his surgery gets.”
“Okay,” said Bert, chasing an obstinate cornflake around his dish. “I’d better call the site to let them know I’ll be late.”
They left the house ten minutes later and set off to the surgery two streets away. The rain was beating down heavily on their umbrella, and the grey skies seemed to match their mood. But, despite the weather, almost immediately Bert cheered up. He turned to his wife and smiled.
“Look, Mary, there’s really nothing wrong with me. I was just tired and fell asleep for a minute and had that awful nightmare. We don’t need to trouble the doctor.”
“But that’s the whole point,” Mary said in exasperation. “You keep telling me you feel okay at work, it’s only when you’re at home you get moody and irritable. With us. Yet when we all went out last weekend to the pictures you were fine. Bought the boys ice creams and everything. You enjoyed the film, remember?”
“Of course, I remember. But I wasn’t tired then. It was Saturday.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “But then you got into a bad mood the minute we all got home. I think it’s something to do with the house that sets you off.”
“The house? How can it be the house? It’s just bricks and mortar.”
“Is it though? I think maybe we need an exorcist, not a medical opinion.”
Bert stopped in his tracks. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m just saying that, it’s very queer that you feel all right away from the house. You just get in a mood when you’re indoors with me and the kids. It’s either the idea of living with us is depressing you or you feel some kind of negative force in there. That’s what I think.”
“For goodness sake, Mary,” he grumbled, as the rain started to seep down the back of his neck. His wife was hogging the umbrella as usual. “You’ve been watching too many late night horror films.”
Mary shrugged. “I don’t know about that. All I know is something’s not quite right about that house. I felt it almost from the beginning, although now I really like it. But, what’s more to the point, I don’t think you do.”
“What you’re really getting round to saying, in your usual long-winded way, is that you think our house is haunted or I’m possessed or something.”
“Well, I’m not quite saying that, but there doesn’t appear to be an easy rational explanation for the way you feel. You’ve also told me you keep feeling cold, when the central heating is on full blast, and I’ve usually stripped down to my vest and knickers! I tell you, Bert, the temperature’s much too high for me and the boys. Either you’re ill or there’s another reason. Anyway, we’re here now, so at least we can see if you’re really ill or not.”
They entered the surgery, glad to get out of the rain. Their relief from the weather was dampened when they saw the room was depressingly full of patients. Many were old and obviously unwell, if the constant coughing and phlegm-clearing were anything to go by. MacTavish certainly had his work cut out that morning.
“We’ll be here forever, Mary,” said Bert in despair. “These people look much more in need than me. Let’s leave it for now.”
But Mary was adamant. “We’re staying. I’m not leaving here without something being sorted out for you. I can’t stand another evening of you sitting there brooding and taking it out on me and the kids. And now you’re having hallucinations – that’s got to be the last straw!”
“I’m sorry, Mary. But just look at all these people. We’ll be here forever. I really can’t wait now. Let’s come back this evening.”
Mary sighed. “Oh, well, I suppose you’re right. It doesn’t look as if we’ll be seen for ages yet. There ought to be an appointment system. But you’d better be home early. We need to get here before the crowd builds up again tonight.”
As they huddled under the umbrella once more, Bert assured his wife that he would get away from work as soon as he could. “Now I must get
to the building site before the scaffolding collapses,” he told her, relinquishing the brolly to her as they parted company at the traffic lights. “See you later,” he said as he pecked her on the cheek.
Mary watched her husband dash across the road after the disappearing bus. She just couldn’t understand it. He was behaving quite normally now, but at least he was acknowledging something was wrong, which was a start. What was bothering now, however, was the nagging conviction that a doctor wasn’t the answer to Bert’s problem.
Then she had an idea. She would pay a visit to that nice vicar, the one who preached at St Stephen’s Church, and ask him what he thought was the matter with Bert. There was something very unhealthy in her home, and it might be worth asking a man of the cloth what he thought could be done about it. In her mind, she had a picture of a fiery priest yelling at the unseen presence in her house, probably in Latin.
Maybe she had been reading too many horror stories and watching too many late night movies. But it wouldn’t hurt to confide in someone whose job it was to listen, offer advice and, above all, wouldn’t pour scorn on her theory. After all, if a religion based on a Virgin birth could be believed in, then surely a vicar would be open to other spiritual ideas.
She wasn’t a regular churchgoer – just Christmas and Easter as a general rule. She had never been to one of Reverend Paltoquet’s services, although they had all planned to go to the Easter Sunday service in a week’s time. After all, they had only moved to Wandsworth a few weeks ago. Anyway, she would introduce herself to him now. Thinking this, she retraced her steps in the direction of the St Stephen’s vicarage.