Supernatural Tales 15

by Walter, Adam

  Over the next couple of days I tried to find out more about Tassenmere. That I could be transported away from the town in the middle of the night with absolutely no recollection of how it was done baffled me. I searched my mind for fragments of information; snippets and snapshots that would fill in the gaps that made the events of the previous evening such a mystery.

  In my lunch-hour I called South-West Trains. I asked for the train times after 6pm from London Waterloo to Tassenmere. The man asked me where Tassenmere was, and I told him I had no idea, other than the fact that it was at the end of the line, by the sea. The gentleman asked me to spell Tassenmere, and I told him it was like it sounded, but spelled it for him anyway. He typed it into a computer and, after a moment, told me that he was unable to locate the station on his system. I wanted to tell him that his system was malfunctioning, but instead I found myself thanking him for his help and hanging up.

  That evening, having nothing better to do I got on a train to Farnham. It was a ridiculous journey; all that happened was that I ended up in Farnham. I went home and cooked myself some dinner, which I ate at the table whilst trawling through my AA Road Map of the British Isles looking for Tassenmere.

  I couldn’t find it.

  Later on I put on my coat and braved the cold and dark once more. I went to Surbiton station, took a train to Waterloo, and waited for the 00:19 to Farnham. I was determined to get back to Tassenmere again. The concept of being stuck there once again was not at the forefront of my thoughts. My main intention was simply to prove that I hadn’t imagined the whole thing.

  The 00:19 to Farnham left Waterloo on time, with me on it, and again filled with the same happy drunken people as before, and with every passing moment I felt more and more foolish for indulging myself in this act. The train did not split into two sets of four carriages.

  Half an hour later I found myself in Farnham once again; stuck, because I had taken the last train (all eight carriages of it). This time however I was able to find a minicab office, and it cost me thirty pounds to get home. Tassenmere had eluded me once again, and it was truly frustrating.

  The second time I went to Tassenmere I figured out how it was done. Three days after my first visit I received a phone call from a friend who I used to work with. He was made redundant from our company and has since gone on to greater things. It was his birthday, and he wanted to know if I would join him and some friends for drinks at a bar in Blackfriars. I told him I would love to, and met them after work.

  It was a Thursday, but the events of the evening were not important. What mattered was that I caught the 00:19 to Farnham. I was drunk, and I fell asleep.

  Arriving back in Tassenmere on an empty train filled me with fear this time. The doors hissed open and the driver flashed the lights and I stepped off the train. Again there was not another living soul to lay my eyes upon.

  Looking up at the night sky and the fast clouds, my face felt the first droplets of rain. I made my way to the overhang and down the steps to the art-deco ticket hall.

  A telephone outside started to ring, but this time I ignored it, instead deciding to make my way towards the crashing sea. Cutting through a thin alleyway that led between a newsagent and a greasy-spoon cafe I navigated my way around a pile of bin bags and came out at the other end in a residential street lined with single storey bungalows. The lights in every single one were off, which was hardly surprising at this late hour.

  From where I stood the road to my left bent away to the right and terminated at a T-junction which looked like it was right on the sea-front. From the sound at least I could tell those crashing waves were near. I followed the road to the junction and crossed the road to approach the blue rusty painted railings that separated the road from the beach. The fresh salty wind that blew inland from the dark angry sea buffeted my face causing me take one of those sharp, fearful, highly oxygenated inhalations that dizzy the head.

  I gripped my hands on the railing and looked out into the darkness before me. All I could see were horizontal lines of white foam that dissolved as they exploded on the shingle. I looked up and down the seafront road at the line of bungalows and question-mark streetlamps that seemed to stretch away into infinity to my left, but to my right came to a stop fairly abruptly at a large gate, above which I could barely make-out a brightly painted (but not illuminated) sign that bore the words TASSENMERE PLEASURE GROUNDS. The S's in Tassenmere had been tackily replaced with jagged S-shaped bolts of lightning.

  I approached the gates. A huge padlock and chain held them closed, and the through the chain-link I could see the dead rides and sleeping enjoyment that was stored up in the colourful paintings that adorned the side of the Ghost-Train, the Waltzer and the Hall of Mirrors.

  At that very moment I started to feel quite silly. No, not silly. Paranoid. What was I doing wandering around this strange deserted town at night? It wasn’t that I felt in danger from thugs or gangs, but I did feel a sense of foreboding; a dark looming sensation of intrinsic wrongness that seemed infuse the salty wind and even seemed to change the timbre of the crashing waves on the beach behind me. The waves, as they tumbled in upon themselves, were whispering my name; the foaming water rushing on the pebbles were prolonging the last letter into a hiss. Alex.

  Looking up and down the sea-front road at the lifeless town that had become a part of me, I resolved to put an end to this weirdness and trek back to the Three Pistons. Digging my hands into my pockets to provide what little respite I could from the chill of this place, I made my way back along the roads that had brought me to the sea, and back up the alleyway that led to the main road by the station.

  Arriving back at the door of the Three Pistons caused a sense of foolishness to rise in me, as my excuses surely would not wash with the proprietor a second time. However, my fear about a potential confrontation or even just a telling-off was replaced by confusion when, as I knocked on the huge door, I found that it swung inward on it’s creaking hinges to reveal the empty, ill lit hallway that I recognised from my previous visit. On a table just inside the door was a small candle, next to which there was a piece of paper, upon which lay a key.

  No sign of the proprietor.

  I tentatively stepped across the threshold and shuffled the piece of paper out from under the key. The paper said: Alex. Here is the key to your room. Number three of course. Just remember that payment is always in advance. Twenty pounds as ever. Thank you, The Proprietor.

  Another sentence on the paper had been scribbled over, as though the Proprietor had not intended to write it, or had perhaps been reprimanded for writing it and subsequently needed to scribble it out. Holding the paper close to the candle I strained to read the words he had not intended me to see. The sentence read: Please do not disturb any of the other guests, as the newer and older cases are just as delicate as your own.

  For a moment I was convinced that someone was standing behind me in the open doorway of the pub. I turned quickly, but saw there was no one. With the exception of the Proprietor, there was never anyone in Tassenmere. I pushed the door closed, and the sound of the wind was replaced by the silence of the old building.

  Folding the paper and slipping it into my pocket, I retrieved my wallet from the opposite pocket and fished out a twenty pound note, which I lay in place of the key, which seemed to then carry me up the stairs like a magnet seeking its opposite pole; the lock in the door to the room I had been allocated.

  Walking quietly past the other doors I wondered what the Proprietor had meant by them being older and newer cases, but it was something I could not rationalise.

  Once in the room, I locked myself in, and, in a carbon copy of my previous stay here, I started to get ready for bed. I was not surprised in the least to be woken by the sound of my own alarm clock. After all, was that not the reason that the Proprietor always asked for payment in advance? His guests never seemed to be able to check out in the morning. Perhaps next time I paid a visit to the Three Pistons I would interrogate him a little, as
there was no doubt information that he harboured and had chosen not to disclose.

  The surprises of Tassenmere no longer had the ability to surprise me, so the first thing I did when I swung my legs out of my bed was reach for my trousers to check the status of my keys. Delving my hand into the pocket I pulled out the key ring. As I suspected it was missing another key. This time it was the latch key for my front door. The only remaining key that remained on the ring was the key for my filing cabinet at work. Also, curiously, Carla’s leather piece bearing my name had been transformed. Turning it over in my palm I could see that it now no longer bore my name. A shiver traversed my spine as I realised that “Alex” had been replaced with two tacky S-shaped lightning bolts; the familiar icon of Tassenmere Pleasure Grounds.

  I took myself to work, locking the door behind me, but leaving a window open in the kitchen at the back so that I could get in again later. The first thing I did when I got to my office was make my way to the filing cabinet. I was labouring under the assumption that there was a reason why the key that fit its lock was the only one that remained on the ring. Plunging it into the lock, I turned it and released the top drawer, rolling it out on its runners.

  All my work papers were present and correct, but sticking out of the hanging file labelled CONTRACTS was a faded brown newspaper. It was a soiled copy of the Tassenmere Gazette from 1971. The main headline read LOCAL HERO TIES THE KNOT, and the picture below was a beautifully framed image of Carla’s mother and father standing outside a church, wearing the happiest of faces, smiling at the lens as they shared the most memorable day of their lives. The large picture took up most of the page, and at the bottom it said “Full story on page 3”.

  I opened the newspaper, but every page inside was blank.

  At that moment I felt very sick, and capable of nothing; especially comprehension. For a moment I toyed with the idea of telephoning Carla in Cornwall. My hand hovered over the receiver for a few seconds while I balanced my desire to speak to her against my resolve to let her be away from me and continue to make the bold statement she had chosen to make by her absence.

  Closing the paper again I saw that the headline had changed to

  FEAR OF COMMITMENT CAUSES RIPPLES IN RELATIONSHIP.

  That scared me. It scared me more than anything had so far. I placed the newspaper back in the filing cabinet and slid it closed.

  That night I went back to Tassenmere. Stepping off the train I retraced my steps along the platform, down the stairs once more into the ticket hall and out past the ringing telephone. I stepped between the greasy-spoon and the newsagent and let my feet carry me to the angry sea. Turning right along the front I walked the short distance to the familiar gate and looked through the chain-link fence at the dark rides.

  With the malevolent sea behind me I withdrew the filing cabinet key from my pocket and turned the leather piece it was attached to over in my hands, with its two S-shaped lightning bolts.

  I slid the key into the padlock on the gate and turned it. With a satisfying click the lock popped open. Behind me someone spoke. A man’s voice.

  “Not many people get this far,” he said.

  I turned and saw a man that looked a little like my father, but about thirty years older. I told him that I was struggling to understand what was going on here. Why did I hold the key to the Tassenmere Pleasure Grounds?

  The man approached me and pushed the gate open wide, and it swung back on rusty hinges to allow access beyond.

  “Come with me. I may need some help starting up these rides. It’s been three years since anyone used them,” the man said.

  I asked him; “Why is everything done in threes?”

  He looked at me and smiled with his old, worn face, and told me that I should know better than to ask a question like that.

  “This pleasure ground,” he went on, “brought a lot of enjoyment in the past. It has been running down over the last few years, due to a conflict between its owners.”

  He said it needed a new lease of life; a new coat of paint; some new rides. Sometimes that was all that was needed to make things good again.

  Sometimes it was as simple as that.

  We walked to the ghost train and the old man pointed to the control booth that was off to the right of the thin-gauge tracks.

  “You know what to do.”

  Stepping forward I looked at the dashboard adorned with several different coloured buttons and a keyhole. I looked at the man and he nodded. I slid the filing cabinet key into the hole and turned it.

  The shocking sound of a ghostly laugh ruptured the rainy night and made my heart leap with surprise. The old man laughed too and I soon joined him, though my laugh was nervous and fearful. The ghostly laugh continued as the rides’ ultra-violet lights began to illuminate the white and fluorescent paintwork that depicted demonic skulls and horrific faces.

  The old man then asked, would I like to have a go on the ride?

  I replied that I didn’t really like ghost-trains. I refrained from telling him that I thought I had taken one already this evening.

  We moved on to the next ride, the Waltzer, with its undulating circular track, and round carriages that spun this way and that. The old man said that the rides are never perfect. He told me there's always a rusty bolt just waiting to come loose.

  “That's what keeps it real; stops it from becoming too much like a fairytale. What keeps it going is the investment, and the investment comes from the enjoyment. Kids love these rides. They want to love them, and for as long as they pay the money they will continue to enjoy them. It's all about wanting something enough, despite its flaws.”

  The old man asked me if I ever wanted something, despite its flaws. Looking up at the sky, at the icy rain that tumbled out of the racing grey-orange clouds, I replied Yes.

  “But like this Waltzer,” I added, “I sometimes feel as though I’m going round in circles, spinning out of control on an undulating track that was going nowhere but back to the beginning.”

  “Why don’t you start it up?” asked the old man, and I did so.

  Turning the key in the slot on the control panel I thought about Carla. Her face seemed to be very easy to visualize right then. Her beauty seemed to radiate inside my head and I smiled as I let myself be contaminated by it.

  The ride sprang into life and the circular cars started their circular motion on their circular rails. The music that blared over the speakers to accompany the flashing coloured bulbs, was Block Rockin’ Beats by the Chemical Brothers; a particular favourite of Carla’s.

  The old man then asked me another question over the resonant drumming: Would I like to see the Hall of Mirrors?

  “No thank you,” I replied to his darkness-obscured form. He stood away from the ride as though being captured by the light of it would cause him to stop existing. “No,” I said; “I think I’ve seen enough of myself for one day.”

  “Don’t forget to lock up when you leave,” the old man said. Don’t forget, because others would be coming.

  I nodded, and he turned his back to me and headed slowly off towards the rear of the pleasure grounds, disappearing between the coconut shy and the penny arcades. Looking down at the key that I used to start the ride, I could see that all three had been returned to the ring, and the leather piece no longer bore the two S-shaped lightning bolts.

  Alex, it seemed, had returned.

  I had always wondered what it might take to stop my life running away from me. Like a train with damaged brakes, I would clatter desperately down the track to a certain inevitable doom because all lines had to end somewhere. There was always a buffer to terminate every track; a buffer to signify the end of the journey, which meant the beginning of another.

  What I discovered in Tassenmere taught me a lot about things I really should have been able to teach myself. Perhaps that’s why Tassenmere was shown to me in the first place. Something or someone had drawn back the curtain to reveal a place where I shouldn’t have needed to go, had I just be
en a little better at being the person I was meant to be.

  I still have no idea where Tassenmere is. I know it is somewhere in England on the coast, but I have never found it on any map, and no person that I have spoken of it to has ever known the place themselves. Tassenmere remains an enigma; a place of strangeness and a place of wonder. A place of round holes waiting to be filled with square pegs. A place where the sound of the sea disturbs the dark folds of the perpetual night. I am always scared when I walk its streets and uncover its secrets, but now it has become the Devil I know, and I’m all the better for achieving at least some level of understanding about it.

  Tassenmere has been a part of my life for two weeks now, and now that I understand its purpose, the finer points of why, where and how it came into my life have become somehow irrelevant. My ruminations on the matter have led me to believe that everyone has a Tassenmere, but not everyone knows how to get to it.

  Stepping out of Tiffany’s on Bond Street with a little green bag in my hands, I lifted my collar around my neck to keep out the cold and made my way to the tube station. I arrived at Carla’s at 8pm as arranged and took her to a Thai restaurant in Hampstead; a particular favourite of hers. We had a beautiful meal and just after the dessert plates had been cleared away, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot was brought to the table, as arranged.

  It was at this point that my nervousness peaked, although Carla later told me that she never saw it coming; that I hid it well. Perhaps she was just saying that.

  After I had paid the bill we walked through the December chill back to Carla’s place, where we drank Amaretto and made love by candlelight. Then we talked for hours about our future together. It had been an expensive day, but I had traded money for emotional riches.

  The following morning I filled a cafetiére with fresh coffee while Carla took a long shower before work. I could hear her singing over the hissing and splashing of the water and it made me smile. My smile became wider and I found myself looking around at Carla’s world. The way she kept her kitchen would one day soon be the way I kept mine. She had a mug tree. She had a corkboard, with photos and telephone bills and…