by Clive Harold
'Clinton, run next door and see if Carol's all right,' she told him, the panic registering in her voice. My God, she thought, as he left hurriedly out of the back door, if she had talked to the 'man' she'd have been the only person yet who had actually communicated, face to face, with one of them.
It seemed like an eternity before Clinton came back, Carol following him.
Pauline gasped in relief. She was all right. In fact, she had rarely looked better, positively beaming. She and Billy liked Carol from the moment they had first met her. Demure and shy, she had a natural warmth and sweetness when you got to know her and was easy to talk to and get along with. 'Hello, love, how are you then?' she said, the moment saw Pauline, 'sorry I've not dropped in for a bit, but at with work and everything, well, you know what I mean...'
Pauline cut her short. 'Never mind that, love. Listen, what's all this about these men who came calling just now?' Carol had a bewildered expression on her face and was shaking her head. 'Don't ask me, Pauline. I'm still trying to work it out. It was really strange. I saw this fabulous-looking car in the first of all, and wondered who on earth you knew owned a car like that. I'd never seen anything like before. That's the first thing that I thought looked a bit strange - and also that although I'd been standing right the window, I didn't hear it crunch on the gravel, like I normally would have done. It was just there all of a sudden. Anyhow, I glanced out of the window and saw this strange -looking man walking up the garden path to your front door and after a little time, come back down again and go round the side of the house, presumably to the back-door. I remember wondering why Clint wasn't answering the door, as I felt sure he was in. Anyway, after a little while - in fact, in an impossibly quick time, he was back in front of the house again, looking up at it. At that point I left the cottage for a moment by the back door in my kitchen, to put some garbage out in the bin. That's when I got frightened. No sooner was I outside and putting it in the dustbin, when suddenly, there he was, at my shoulder, standing right next to me. Now, Pauline, as you well know, there is absolutely no way anybody could get round the house and into that back yard in less than about three or four minutes
- yet within about twenty seconds of seeing him in front of the house, there he was, suddenly appearing next to me. I can't tell you how startled I was, I didn't know what to think. Anyway, then he said to me - in this very flat, expressionless voice, "Where is Pauline Coombs? When will she be back?" I told him I didn't know, because I didn't trust him. I mean, as far as I knew, you didn't know anyone who looked like him or drove a car like that, so how did he know I wasn't Pauline Coombs? He really frightened me. I'll never forget his face - that strange looking hair, drawn back off this really high forehead, those glazed, unblinking eyes and his skin that was the strangest thing of all... it was just like wax or plastic, absolutely smooth, shiny looking. Anyway, when I'd told him you weren't at home and I didn't know what time you'd be back, I turned to go into the cottage and when I glanced over my shoulder as I closed the door, he was gone. Just like that. Gone. Next thing I know, he and the other man are back in the car outside the front of the cottage and it's leaving up the drive. Then, within a matter of seconds, your car arrived from the direction in which they had left, so I figured, well, you must have passed them and I wondered why you hadn't stopped to speak to them...
She smiled, momentarily. Then became serious. By the way Pauline and Clinton were looking at one another, she knew instantly that there was something more sinister about her mysterious experience than she might at first have thought. 'Pauline, who were they? Who were those two people?' Pauline remained silent. What could she say? She didn't want to tell Carol what she thought, for fear of being laughed at or even, possibly, frightening Carol as much as she, herself, was frightened.
'Pauline?' She had no alternative. "Carol, it's difficult to explain, but we don't think those couple" were human. I know, I know it sounds incredible, both Billy and I saw that figure at the window, as you know, and since then, I've seen another figure out of the same window and the twins have seen one in the lower field. Not only that, but Mark, our nephew, has been approached by one and so has another boy near here. There's definitely something going on, Carol, there honestly is. Lily and I have both been wondering what it all means, what it's leading up to. Perhaps it was an actual confrontation and today was' supposed to...'
She bit her lip, fighting to keep the sobs back. '...perhaps today they were going to make some sort or, well, I don't know...' Clinton comforted her as she wept. Carol came over and held her hand.
Look, love,' she said, in that comforting voice that only nurses have, 'don't upset yourself. With all that you've been through and all, that's supposed to have been happening in the area, we're all probably letting our imaginations away with us. What happened today was probably nothing at all...'
Pauline looked up at her angrily. 'No, Carol, no. You know that's not true. There's no normal explanation for what happened today. It's virtually impossible for a car arrive in the drive without being heard - and it's certainly impossible for one to leave at the same time as I arrived, without passing me. And what about those men? Why were both you and Clinton so automatically frightened of them? Why did they both look the same, with high foreheads, strange unblinking eyes and complexions like wax? How do you explain how one of them was at the front of the house one minute, and right at your side a few seconds later at the back of the house?'
Carol pulled a face and shrugged. 'All right, I know it sounds impossible, but what are you suggesting? What are you suggesting they were?
You're not trying to tell me they were
The words hung in the air. She looked quickly across at Clinton. He avoided her gaze. 'My God...' she released Pauline's hand and went and sat down in the chair opposite. 'It seems impossible... I mean, how could they have been... you mean they looked strange because it was all an illusion, a sort of disguise they adopted to be more readily acceptable? But what did they want here? Why did they come...?'
Pauline shook her head and sighed: 'Carol, we just don't know, love. We don't know what any of it means. You don't know the half of it. They - whoever or whatever they are - just keep coming back, and when they do, all sorts of things keep happening to us. Ever since it first started happening, four months ago, nothing's been the same. We've lost count of the number of television sets that have overloaded and burned out their wiring and four cars have gone the same way; there's an impossible drain on our electricity supply as the whole house seems to be in the grip of some sort of electrical force field; the kids have had inexplicable rashes on their feet and legs and feverish headaches and I've suffered some sort of ultraviolet irritation in my eyes, and my arm swelled up painfully for weeks; we've even had to have Blackie put to sleep because the effect of seeing one of these figures drove him insane...
Carol sat forward in her chair and looked intently at her: 'Look, Pauline, you've got to do something about all this. You can't just let things' drag on. Have you got anyone helping you? Who have you told about this?'
'We're trying to keep it as much to ourselves as possible. Who would believe us?' asked Pauline.
'But you can't keep it to yourself,' came Carol's angry retort, 'it sounds to me as if all this is leading up to something. You could be in very real danger - all of you...'
Pauline said nothing. She knew her friend was right.
SIX
It was a beautiful view, thought Pauline to herself as she stood in her customary position at the kitchen window, surveying the country scene behind the farmhouse. On June evenings like this, it was difficult to believe that such tranquillity was being undermined by all that was happening to them.
Carol was right, of course. They had to do something before something happened to them. But what? She loved the farm and would hate to leave it, as picnic had made her feel inclined to on those two occasions, but it certainly did feel as though these creatures, aliens, or whatever they were, seemed intent on driving them out.
She sighed to herself and got on with preparing the potatoes for that night's supper. The children were already back from school and Clinton had just got in from work at the farm next door. It was seven o'clock. Billy would be up from the sheds in a minute, ravenous as usual.
Damn. The telephone. Trust somebody to phone right in the middle of her preparing supper. 'Clinton,' she shouted out of the kitchen and across the hall to the front room where he'd be watching television, 'get that will you, and tell whoever it is that I'll call back...
She heard him answer' the phone. Then silence for a minute. 'Mum... it's Rosa, she says it's important...' Clinton was looking around the door, a frown on his face. 'She sounds in a real state, Mum...'
Pauline felt herself tense up. What now? She picked up the phone apprehensively.
'Rosa? How are you, love?' She felt nervous about asking such a leading question these days.
'Oh, Pauline. Thank God you're there. I've got to talk to you... Clinton was right. She did sound in a bit of a state: excitable and nervous.
'Look, Pauline, I don't want to frighten you any more than you and the family already have been, but I had to talk to someone about what's just happened to us and I thought you would be the best person. I can't understand it, I really can't... She was gabbling now. Pauline tried to calm her. 'Slowly, Rosa... Take it slowly. What happened?'
'It's like this,' she began, slower and clearer now, 'while I was out for a minute this afternoon, down in the town to do some shopping with Frank, I left my daughter, Anna, here - you know, the one who is at university in Madrid and is over here on holiday at the moment? Anyway, when we got back, Anna was in a terrible state. Trembling she was. Apparently she'd looked out of the window at the front of the hotel and seen this enormous silver car standing there. It was like no car she'd ever seen before and what she couldn't understand was why she didn't hear it arrive. Our gravel drive is dreadfully noisy as you know and she had been standing so close to the window, she should have heard it quite clearly...
Pauline felt a tightening in her stomach and began to tremble slightly. She knew what Rosa was going to say next. .... Anyway, it wasn't that that frightened her, it was what the men in the car looked like. I say "men", but she swore to me that they just didn't look normal, didn't look human. One of them apparently stayed in the car, the other one came to the door. She said the one at the door wore some sort of darkcoloured suit and walked in this strange, static way. It was his face that she says frightened her the most. She says the forehead was much larger than it should have been, the eyes were really piercing and the skin looked like it was made of wax. Another funny thing was that he asked for me by name and asked where I was, although I know I've never met him. How did he know that Anna wasn't me? How did he know what I looked like, when he'd never met me? That's what anybody would do, normally, isn't it - ask the person who answers the door if they are the person they are looking for. Anna was dreadfully frightened - and so am I. Pauline, I got back to the hotel in the car with Frank only a minute or two after these "men" left, but although Anna insisted that we must have passed them on the way up our long drive, we passed nobody. That damn car just vanished into thin air. I tell you, Pauline, it's really shaken us up. Anna in particular. She doesn't know anything about what's been going on around here, or what's happened to Frank or me, so you can imagine the shock it gave her...
Rosa waited for a response. There was none.
'Pauline?'
There was a long pause, while Pauline steadied herself on the other end of the phone, breathing deeply to calm her voice. 'None of what you've told me surprises me,' she said softly, 'exactly the same thing happened here, to Clinton, only two days ago...
'Pauline, no... What’s going on?'
'I don't know, Rosa, I really don't know. Carol - you know Carol, our neighbour - saw them, too. She reckons we must all get somebody to help us. The authorities, or somebody...
Rosa interrupted her. 'That's the other reason I phoned you, Pauline...' she began, slowly and earnestly. 'Remember I told you that I was going to do just that, after I saw those creatures in the field behind the hotel? Remember I said I was going to get in touch with Nicholas Edwards, our MP, and get him to find out if the RAF or Ministry of Defence knew what was going on? Well, I did just that.'
There was a long pause. 'Pauline, I can't believe what's happened since I wrote that letter. First this important RAF type - an officer he was, from Broad Haven - comes down to the hotel and gives me a whole book of questions to answer about what I've seen and asks me not to talk about what happened, then I got these strange letters, one from Nicholas Edwards and one from the Ministry of Defence. They both came in the same envelope. The one from Nicholas Edwards on House of Commons notepaper, dated June 17th - reads like this:
Dear Mrs Grenville,
I enclose a copy of a letter I have received from the Ministry of Defence following the representations I made on your behalf b ut I am afraid this seems to throw no light on your encounter. Yours sincerely, Nicholas Edwards, MP.
'The letter he enclosed - from the Ministry of Defence, dated June 15th, (suppose (suppose rø-rem.) on Ministry of Defence notepaper - reads like this:
Dear Nicholas,
My department have investigated the report about an Unidentified Flying
Object which you referred to me on behalf of Mrs Rose Grenville of the
Haven Fort Hotel. I regret to say, however, that although an RAF officer has visited Mrs Grenville, we are unable to offer any further information It is true that the Royal Observer Corps have a post in the adjoining field, but there is no evidence that their activities could have seemed unusual in any way and we have no record of any other unusual activity in the area. I am sorry I cannot be more helpful.
'It's signed by James Welibeloved, Parliamentary under
Secretary Of State for Defence. What do you make of that,
Pauline?' Pauline could tell by the tone of Rosa's voice that she was as baffled as she was.
Pauline, I tell you, there's something damn funny going Rosa continued, her voice now sounding agitated. 'Do they take us for fools? I mean to say, first the Secretary Of State for Defence says that the RAF --unable to offer any further information" about what's going on - in other words they can't explain what the spaceship was or what the aliens were - and then he says 'we have no record of any unusual activity in the area.' Pauline, that's ridiculous. He does have records of unusual activity in the area. Apart from what I told him myself, he must have records of the dozens of stories that have been appearing in our local papers and the national papers about what's been happening around one of his top secret RAF bases. No records? It's a well-known fact that over a hundred people have reported seeing Unidentified Flying Objects and over a dozen people have seen spaceman like figures in this area over the past few months. How can he tell the Member of Parliament for this area that he "has no records of unusual activity"? It's simply not true!'
Rosa fell silent again for a minute. Pauline could hear the rustling of newspaper in the background. Then she started to speak again. 'And Pauline, here's another thing. How can the Under Secretary Of State for Defence tell our MP that he "has no record of any unusual activity" in the area, when a spokesman for the Ministry Of Defence told The Sun newspaper, only last month: "We have heard of unexplained objects in the West Wales area. The people who report these sightings are not nut cases, they are genuinely sincere people, genuinely concerned. We investigate every report on this assumption. We do not discount the possibility of intelligent life in outer space. There have been a flood of reports from West Wales. The ground sightings do not, in time or place, fit in with any of our operations...
Another silence. She could hear Rosa sighing.
'Pauline, say something. What the hell do you make of all this? First an RAF man asks me lots of questions and asks me to keep quiet about what I've seen, then the Ministry of Defence publicly state that they've had dozens of similar reports
they can't explain and that they don't discount the possibility of there being intelligent life in outer space - and now this, the Under Secretary Of State For Defence, telling our MP that he hasn't, in fact, heard about any unusual things happening in the area and that he can't help us. Why are they turning their backs on us, pretending that none of this is happening to us? They know what's happening and they must know how threatening it's all becoming. Why don't they want to help us?'
Rosa was now sounding very upset. Pauline knew she should try to calm her down, console her, but she would find it difficult. For heaven's sake, she was feeling as panicky as Rosa. Everything she had said was true. It was obvious that the authorities - the police and the Ministry of Defence knew exactly what was happening to them, but it was equally obvious that they could be of no help at all, if the worst ever came to the worst. They had as good as admitted as much. Basically, then, she and Rosa and their families and the rest of the neighbourhood had been left to fend for themselves...
She tried to sound calm. 'Rosa, I know exactly what you mean. I understand perfectly. It is obvious that these Ministry of Defence people know exactly what's going on - just like our local police have already admitted that they do - but I suppose they think that it's now better to investigate what's going on in secrecy. The moment that they tell us – or anyone in the area that there's something extra-terrestrial going on that they can't explain and have no control over, everybody's going to panic, aren't they? It's obvious...' She was pleased at the note of calm she had managed to bring to her voice. She was grateful Rosa couldn't see her shaking hands, though.
There was another long pause after she'd spoken, then Rosa said, 'I suppose you're right, love, but what do you think they're doing about it?'
'Rosa, I don't know. I just don't know. Perhaps nobody ever will. All we can do is assume - and hope – they are doing something...' She fell silent. She could console Rosa only up to a point, feeling as shaken as she was herself. She promised she'd speak to her again soon, made her goodbyes and hung up.
