by Paul Finch
The wives in our small social group were particularly fascinated by him. He was the only one of us who was single, though he’d been married at least twice in the past. He drove a classic Daimler and lived in a large detached villa on the outskirts of Gerrards Cross, furnished with the utmost taste and style.
“Do tell us, Roy,” Kirsty insisted, batting her spider-leg lashes at him. It was Halloween, and, with the exception of Pendleton, who always attended every function just as he was now, we’d dressed for dinner in accordance with the season. Kirsty was in ‘Goth’ persona: a high Pompadour wig dyed black, black eyeliner, black lipstick and a wraparound black silk dress. Her husband, Kevin, was more grotesquely clad in the bloodstained scrubs of a demented surgeon (somewhat disturbing, given that he was a surgeon by trade). I had come as Dracula in a black evening suit, a red-lined cape and white face make-up that was drying and cracking as the evening wore on. My actress wife, Liz, was decked as a sexy witch (I still can’t work out when it was that Halloween witch-wear moved from stick-on warts and crooked carrot-noses to thigh-boots, fishnet stockings and exposed décolletage). It was a similar story for the other two couples present: thoughtful combinations of horror chic and middle-age sensuality. Of course, despite the time we’d taken attiring ourselves, as the evening had worn on much splendid food had gone down, good wine had flowed and we’d all become a little sated. Rounding things off by nibbling cheese, sipping cognac and airing a few ghost stories had seemed an excellent if somewhat traditional notion, though up until now Pendleton hadn’t participated.
“Please do, Roy,” Kirsty beseeched him, placing a hand complete with long, black-lacquered fingernails on his arm. She wasn’t flirting as such. Kirsty was a famous party-giver in our Buckinghamshire village, and treated all her guests with great attentiveness. “If this is something that’s really happened, I’m sure we’d all be interested to hear it.”
“Well …” Pendleton shifted position in his chair. “I need you all to understand that I can’t explain this event. It’s just something that happened. It may have a rational explanation, but if so, I never discovered one. It concerns Sir James Ravenstock.”
“The famous Welsh painter?” I said.
“The very same,” Pendleton replied. He didn’t seem surprised that I knew of the man, but then I was a lecturer in social and economic history. Deciding that his audience was sufficiently rapt, Pendleton leaned forward, hands on the table, his long, slender fingers laced together. “Sir James was a close acquaintance of mine for several years, and is integral to this tale. Allow me to elaborate …”
*
It was back in 1960. I was just seventeen years old, and on the Fine Arts course at the Wigan Art School, in Lancashire. It was a very well thought-of establishment even in that rather depressed and industrialised part of England. Over the years we’d had some fairly illustrious names on the teaching staff – Lowry, Isherwood, Major. But the one in charge when I was a student there was Sir James Ravenstock.
It amazes me now, but at the time so many people took his presence on the faculty for granted, and yet he was a hugely successful artist, who had already produced an extensive and exquisite body of work. To this day, fifteen of his paintings are in the permanent collection at the Tate. He’d only come north because he found the industrial landscapes an inspiration, much as he had done during his youth in his native South Wales. He was an excellent tutor, not just a good communicator but very thoughtful of his students. He was also a little set in his ways. He lived in a rural bungalow at the end of a rutted farm track, which you’d have been lucky to get a car along. This didn’t trouble him as he didn’t drive. He preferred to cycle everywhere, though this was less to do with physical fitness and more to do with his being a technophobe. He had no television or radio, though back in 1960 that wouldn’t have been quite as startling as it would now.
His wife was significantly younger than he was, fair-haired and very pretty. Her name was Prunella. I understood that he’d first met her when she was modelling for him. We often used to nudge each other and express hope that she might someday come in and pose for us, but no such luck I’m afraid. Anyway, it was the end of the summer term that year, and at his own expense, Sir James had arranged for our class – seven of us in total – to travel down to the Gower Peninsula in South Wales, room in a comfortable boarding house at Rhossili Bay and take advantage of the wonderful summer light they get in that part of the world. Cornwall is very popular with painters because it boasts this incredible natural light, not to mention its epic seascapes and stunning coastal scenery. But the Gower boasts similar if not better, and is far less expensive.
Of course, back in those days South Wales was a long way from Lancashire. To get there we had to catch a train to Manchester, change at Cardiff, change to a bus at Swansea, by which time an entire day would have passed, and even then it was another hour’s journey to Rhossili. As I recall, on the morning in question we were all required to meet at Wigan Wallgate Station at some ungodly hour like six o’clock. Sir James had the furthest to travel to reach the railway station – he lived far out of town, and wasn’t even close to a bus route. So I volunteered to assist. I was still living with my parents, and my father was a colliery deputy. He used to work what we in the north called ‘the back-shift’, which meant that he finished around five o’clock in the morning. As such, it wasn’t too inconvenient for him to give me a lift to the station at that early hour, and he agreed that en route we would divert out of town and collect Sir James from his house.
It was a glorious July morning, the sun already high and the birds twittering. But it was quite a surprise when we arrived at Sir James’s bungalow, and found the front door closed and no sign of activity. I’d never been there before, and if I’m honest, the whole place was a little bit rundown. Sir James was not a bohemian type; he was quite dapper in public, so I was taken aback to see an untidy and overgrown front garden, with elms and sycamores clumped tightly around the house, their branches literally lying across its roof. My father was more concerned about the state of his undercarriage after negotiating the tricky country lane; he now wondered gruffly why “the old dear” wasn’t ready and waiting. He had no natural liking for the educational course I was pursuing, though thank God he never objected sufficiently to stop it. We waited, the Morris Minor chugging away, and still there was no sign of Sir James. It was very perplexing. My packed rucksack was stowed in the boot, along with my easel, my canvases, my brushes and boxes of paints. At the very least, I’d been expecting Sir James to be waiting at the front of his house with similar accoutrements. At length, my father advised that I’d better go and “wake him up”.
I climbed out, wandered up the path and knocked on the front door. There was no response; not even a sound from within. I walked around to the rear, which was also badly kept. The lawn had not been mown in some considerable time. There was such heavy underbrush down either side of it that it was difficult to see where the flowerbeds ended and the encroaching hedgerows began. The garden’s far end was a mass of rank, interwoven weeds, which must have come to chest height, and this was where I finally spotted Sir James; he was emerging from these with hoe in hand – as if he’d been doing a spot of early-morning gardening. On seeing me, he approached along the lawn with a puzzled frown on his red, sweaty face. He was fully dressed, but his shirt and trousers were stained with leaf matter. His hair, normally neatly combed, hung in a mop of limp strands.
“My goodness, is it today?” he said, when I reminded him of our impending departure. “My goodness! I suppose I’d better get a move on.”
“Is everything alright, Sir James?” I asked.
He nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes, absolutely. Do forgive me, erm … Mr Pendleton. I knew we were going to Wales this week, but I must have lost track of the time.”
It was a little bit worrying, I suppose – that a man should lose track of time to such an extent. But I was young. It never occurred to me that he might have some kind
of problem. I doubt I’d even heard of words like ‘dementia’ or ‘senility’, and even if I had, I was so excited about going on holiday somewhere other than Blackpool that I gave it no real thought. Anyway, everything was soon resolved. Not five minutes later, Sir James appeared at the front of the house, valise and silver-headed cane in hand, wearing a shoulder-caped greatcoat and hat (he always wore this rather flamboyant fedora, which, he being such a short man, looked ridiculous on him, though we never dared to say anything). He thanked us profusely as I opened the rear passenger door for him. My father nodded and smiled tolerantly. Just before I climbed in, I glanced up and saw Sir James’s wife watching us from an upper window. She was half-concealed by the curtain, which was a good thing as she only appeared to be wearing a wrap of some sort, but she cut a lonely, rather forlorn figure. It struck me, and not for the first time, that marriage to someone significantly older than oneself was always likely to be fraught with problems.
Not that this lingered in my mind for very long. After all, we were now embarked on our much anticipated holiday, though of course we still had a monumentally long and boring train journey ahead of us. The early stages of this were enlivened by one of the other chaps, by the name of Gibbon, who’d picked up a paperback from a newspaper stand on the station platform. It was the now-famous Pan Book of Horror Stories, which at the time had just been published, and he entertained us all by reading from it aloud, though eventually his throat became sore and he insisted on taking a break. We’d been travelling for what seemed hours by now, and were crossing the rolling summits of central Wales, stopping at mountain halts so remote that I’m sure only shepherds ever used them. Even though the Pan book was closed, we continued to discuss the odd and ghostly. A rather delicate young fellow – his name was Flickwood, he spoke with a lisp and had the most ludicrous ‘basin’ haircut you’ve ever seen – mentioned a legend we were all reasonably familiar with, about a spectre that roamed the warren of underground galleries linking our home town’s coal mines. His father and grandfather, both colliers, supposedly knew men who had seen and heard it. We presumed there would be similar ghosts in the Welsh coal mining areas. And that was when Sir James, who had slept most of the way and paid scant attention to Gibbon’s recitations, suddenly interjected with: “Gentlemen, I assure you there is no ghost quite like the one in the old Rectory at Rhossili Bay.”
Obviously we wanted to know more.
“There have been shipwrecks on that coast throughout history,” he said in his melodious Welsh voice. “And it’s entirely possible the injured and dying were brought ashore at Rhossili Bay and perhaps spent their final minutes in Rhossili Rectory, a remote structure at the foot of Rhossili Down, and at one time the only habitation in the vicinity. There were also stories that this Rectory was built on the site of a Dark Age monastery, sacked by the Danes and later buried in sand during a tempest.”
I remember that he watched us all closely as he spoke, smiling like a cat. He had a thick, red/grey brush of a beard and moustache, and round spectacles. His eyes, which were very green, twinkled like jewels beneath the rim of his fedora.
“However,” he added ominously, “none of these potentially dramatic events can really explain the true depths of fear and despair this unholy presence has caused. You see, gentlemen … you must never turn and look. That is what they say.” We exchanged baffled glances, and he chuckled in that hearty way of his. “Rhossili Rectory is now ruined and empty, and according to the story, an evil spirit haunts it. One can only surmise that it may be connected to the historical events I have mentioned. But whatever its origins, the locals don’t take this as a joke. You’ll notice that when we arrive. The Rectory is far along the beach from Rhossili village and the boarding house where we’ll be staying. It’s very isolated – people do not go there.”
“What form does this spirit take?” Flickwood asked, sounding nervous.
“Oh, Mr Flickwood … you walk through that ruined building on your own, day or night, and you will find out. I guarantee it.”
I recall my hair creeping at the base of my neck as Sir James said this. Admittedly he was an artist, he was the sort of person given to flights of fancy, but he told us with such intensity, his cat-green eyes fixed on us through the lenses of his spectacles, that I really got the impression he was telling us something he believed to be true.
“You won’t see it,” he added. “But you will hear it. For it will whisper in your ear … What’s behind you?” He sang that last sentence in a musical baritone. “What’s … behind … you?”
We were riveted. The only other sound was the dull, regular thud of the sleepers as the train trundled through the Welsh high country. Beyond the windows, low cloud spilled through a range of craggy, tooth-like peaks.
“What’s behind you?” Sir James said again. “And whatever you do, boyo … on no account turn and look.”
“But if you do, what will you see?” Flickwood asked in a near-whisper.
Sir James smiled. “That’s the point … it’s something supposedly so dreadful that it will affect you for the rest of your days.”
“Has anyone ever looked?” I enquired.
He mused. “The story goes that one or two have been bold enough, but that whatever they saw left its mark upon them. They were quiet men from that point, who rarely spoke. All the joy of life had gone out of them. They refused ever to say what it was they had seen, though one did give the warning: ‘Never look back. Not if you value your sanity.’”
For the most part – and remember, this was a less sophisticated era – we’d been raised as children on a diet of simplistic ghost stories featuring sheet-covered figures with rattling chains. This was so different from anything of that sort that it genuinely unnerved us. When we finally reached Rhossili Bay late in the evening, one of the first things we looked out for, despite our excitement at having arrived, was the Rectory.
*
Pendleton paused to take a sip of cognac.
“That old Rectory has now been refurbished and is a holiday let, I’m led to believe,” he said. “I wouldn’t know whether it’s still supposed to be haunted. I’ve never been near the place since these events occurred, and I’ll never go there again in the future.”
“Something happened then?” Kirsty asked eagerly.
“Oh yes.” He nodded solemnly. “Something happened.”
*
Rhossili Bay is one of the loveliest places you are ever likely to visit on the British coast. The beach is white as talcum powder, and curves inward along the shoreline in a slow, graceful, three-mile crescent. Back in 1960 it was completely unspoiled, strewn only with shells and dried seaweed, broken here and there by the wizened timbers of wrecks jutting up from the pristine sand like the ribs of ancient saurians. It is hemmed to the sea – that blue, foaming, ever-roaring Atlantic – by high Rhossili Down, a rolling green cliff-top crowned with gorse, and the site of both Bronze Age and Viking burial mounds. Worm’s Head islet, the bay’s snaking, rocky headland, is famous for the seals that brazenly sun themselves there.
We were staying in a boarding house in Rhossili village at the south end of the bay. This was run by a friendly dragon called Mrs Devereux, who, while she was hugely demanding in terms of the condition we left our rooms in each morning – two bunks to each one as I recollect, so we had to work to stay on top of the mess – she also provided hearty breakfasts of bacon, eggs and sausage on toast, basic but satisfying dinners in the evening, pie, chips, beans and so forth, and if we were prepared to pay extra, packed lunches for during the day. We didn’t always take the latter option. Sometimes we ate fish and chips at lunchtime, or were able to buy sandwiches from one of several coastal hostelries, rather marvellous places actually, their exteriors weather-boarded and crusted with salt, their interiors decked with nautical memorabilia: nets, anchors, harpoons, oilskins. Several times in the evening we repaired to one of these welcoming establishments and, even at that tender age, managed to work our way through a f
ew pints of good crisp ale. I’m mainly a wine drinker these days, but there was something thoroughly heartwarming about settling down in the nook of a pub after an invigorating day in the fresh air, and treating yourself to a measure of rich red beer with a cap of white froth – especially when you’d only forked out tuppence for it.
But of course this wasn’t the purpose of our visit. We were there to paint, which an entire week of benign weather only encouraged. Some of us set up our easels on the cliff-tops, from where the vista was astounding. Others preferred the beach, where they could get close to the water’s edge. There were various items of interest down there: as I say, the bones of desiccated wrecks and the seals lolling on Worm’s Head; but also Portuguese man o’ war, a large species of jellyfish, lying marooned all over the sand like great puddles of translucent slime. And then of course, Rhossili Rectory.
This was located on a low but natural plateau far back from the beach itself and tucked into the foot of the Down, about halfway between Rhossili and the next village along, Llangennith. I mentioned that we’d all been fascinated to note it on our first day, but as the business of the holiday had got underway we’d put it to the backs of our minds. It was still there, however, lowering on the edge of our awareness. I find it difficult to describe the place now. From a distance it didn’t look particularly dilapidated. It was just a large, four-sided house, but there was no glass in any of its windows and all that remained of its doorways were frames. If there’d ever been a garden around it, it was now deeply overrun with briars, thistles and other thorny scrub. At one point during the week, we passed it closely while looking for a path leading up to the Down, and were assailed by that unpleasant damp smell you often get around derelict houses – like stale urine. We saw bare joists showing where slates were missing from its roof. The sea breeze groaned through it. I remember a loose piece of guttering tapping relentlessly against the eaves – as if some invisible hand were manipulating it. One evening, possibly the Wednesday, when we passed by above it walking along the cliff-top path, we dared each other to venture down there. Sir James, who’d been more jovial that week than I could ever remember – moving each day from one work-in-progress to the next, offering suggestions and solutions, teaching “on the hoof” as he called it, but in easy, affable fashion – suddenly looked stern and overruled any such foolishness, pointing out that someone attempting to find his way down there at night would likely break a leg, or maybe worse.
