Binscombe Tales - The Complete Series

by John Whitbourn

  * * *

  After that evening I looked out for Mr Disvan with some considerable animation, for I keenly wished to hear the story with which I’d been tantalised. Therefore, after a week of his non-appearance at the Argyll (or anywhere else for that matter) I turned again to questioning tradesmen and other local ‘in the know’ people as to his whereabouts. However, just as before, I was told that he was ‘around’ as normal and had been seen, spoken to even, only yesterday. But today? No, they didn’t know.

  It was a very annoying process but my curiosity was such that I only desisted from enquiries when I realised that I was making myself appear an obsessive in front of the people with whom I had to live. Paradoxically enough, therefore, the day after I resolved to put the matter out of my mind, I managed to run the elusive Mr Disvan to ground again. I was going about my customary evening stroll which would presumably end in the Argyll, when I thought I recognised the old man’s distinctive Panama hat atop a figure sitting in the recreation ground.

  Without needing to consider the matter, I hurried over to the spot and saw that it was indeed the person I’d been looking for. He was resting on a bench that stood in a corner which, lacking proper nets, the local cricket team employed as a practise area. He appeared to be watching the half dozen men who were currently using it for this purpose. I came up and sat beside him and although he did not turn around he seemed to know who had arrived.

  ‘Hello again, Mr Oakley.’

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘You have the air of being on a mission.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Indeed. Very much a man with a purpose.’

  ‘Well, now you come to mention it, I was rather hoping you’d very belatedly finish telling the story about Mr Bolding’s drink.’

  ‘Oh, that old tale. That’s your local roots coming through you know—curiosity about such trifles!’ His tone was jocular rather than admonitory.

  ‘I can’t answer as to that but I’d certainly like to have the mystery cleared up.’

  Disvan turned to observe me, his face and voice suddenly very serious. ‘Oh no, that I can’t do. I doubt anybody could. But I can tell you the story if you really want.’

  He looked round at two young men who’d come and sat down on the grass not far off in order to adjust pads and rebind a bat handle.

  ‘This is not for your ears,’ he said to them, and to my surprise they instantly got up and moved out of earshot without so much as a word of protest. Thereafter we were left to ourselves.

  ‘Is it that bad?’ I asked.

  ‘No, not bad or wrong as I said to you before but,’ he added wistfully, ‘it’s something you should be selective about who you tell.’

  These pseudo-warnings, such as preceded horror films or shocking newsreels on the television, only ever served to whet my appetite for what was to come and I was accordingly now all agog.

  ‘Where did Mr Bolding live before he went away?’ I asked.

  ‘Binscombe Crescent.’

  ‘Just as I suspected. What number?’

  ‘That needn’t concern you; rest assured it wasn’t where you now live.’

  ‘If he had lived in my house why should that concern me?’

  ‘Because of the thought you might follow him.’

  ‘To the other Binscombe?’

  ‘Perhaps, or even to somewhere else.’

  ‘So what is the full story, Mr Disvan?’

  ‘Like I’ve said, I don’t think anyone, with the possible exception of Bolding himself, knows what you call the full story. I only know the beginning.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Which is that one day Bolding vanished for a full forty-eight hours. Now, he was a locksmith and clock repairer by trade and he had a little shop in the main street. It’s a toy shop now; doubtless you’ll have seen it. Anyway, what with the shop not opening and people wanting keys cut and the like, it was soon noticed that he wasn’t about. Mrs Bolding—she was seen out shopping and so on but she never mentioned anything so folks didn’t enquire.

  It was all very strange though, because every night of his life, from the day he left school at fourteen, he always popped into the Argyll of an evening. The licensing laws were easier in those days and the policeman was a local boy. Suddenly, two nights running, he didn’t show up and people began to think he’d run away or Mrs Bolding had done him in (for there was no love lost between the two) or something like that.’

  ‘And…’

  ‘And it got to the point where we considered getting Stan the constable to look into it even though we were reluctant to interfere. Then, sure enough, Bolding turned up at the Argyll the very next evening and the mystery was solved. Or so we thought then.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Well, he was pale and sickly looking and unshaven. It seemed obvious he’d been unwell.’

  ‘And hadn’t he been?’

  ‘No, he’d been as fit as a fiddle, so he told us. The point was, you see, that Mr Bolding was one of the old sort—a very upright, truthful sort of man. He was an elder of the Methodist lot and whatever you may think of them it still does count for something. If anyone asked him a question he’d always give the straight honest truth without deception. That was the way he was; he didn’t think he had any choice in the matter you understand. It was how he’d built up a nice little business. People took their custom to him because they knew they could trust him.’

  ‘What did he say, then?’

  ‘Well, old man Yarum went up to him and says, “Ho Jack, where’ve you been? Sick? You look like death warmed up!” And blow me if he didn’t. “No,” he says, “I’ve not been ill, I’ve been away.” “Away where?” we asked, and he answered, “I’m not sure.”

  ‘As you might imagine, we didn’t quite know what to make of that for he wasn’t what you would call a heavy drinking man. Accordingly we asked what he was on about but he wouldn’t give an explanation. He had his usual couple of drinks without another word and then went home—still looking like a ghost.’

  ‘Did he ever say where he’d been?’

  ‘At that point he wasn’t able to, for he wasn’t sure himself. As I’ve said, Jack Bolding was a painfully honest man, if nothing else, and if he said that he didn’t know where he’d been then he really didn’t.’

  ‘But he found out later, did he?’

  ‘Well, let’s just say he had his suspicions confirmed and his remaining hopes torn away—and by that time he was a very troubled as well as a very honest man.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because that was only the first time he disappeared. It happened again only a month and a bit later and then once again a couple of weeks after that. His shop was closed up for days on each occasion and his absence was very noticeable, he being such a regular chap in his habits. Each time he’d come back looking worse than ever and he’d refuse to talk about it to anyone. In fact he got quite short with people who enquired after him even though he was normally a civil type.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Well, things were plainly going badly with him. His skin was pallid and he’d lost so much weight that his clothes hung on him like sheets. Mrs Bolding wasn’t the sort of person he could take his problems to so the lads said to me: “Mr Disvan, you have a word with poor old Jack.” So I did.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Not much at first. I went up to him at a cricket match—versus Brightstone as I recall—and I said, “Come on Jack, out with it. What’s haunting you these days?” Well, he turned round and replied, “Why don’t you all mind your own b---- business?” Which wasn’t like him at all. Anyway, he must have thought about it and realised that sort of language wasn’t called for and how we all meant well, for he came back to me soon after and apologised. Not that I minded of course, for I’d known Bolding a long time and I could see from his weary eyes that he was bearing a mighty burden.’

  ‘So did he confide in you?’

  ‘Not on that occasion but
a week after, when he’d vanished once more and then reappeared three days later, I approached him again and found that he was now keen to talk. “Disvan,” he said, “I’ve got to speak to someone or I think I’m going to lose my wits.” “Talk away as much as you like,” I said and took him to my house for a cup of tea.’

  ‘Did he manage to explain what was happening?’

  ‘He tried. “I’ve been away,” he says. “I don’t know why, I don’t know how and I don’t know where to.” This naturally puzzled me, although I had to accept his statement, and when I asked him what he meant he gave the same answer—“for I can’t give any better,” were his words. I kept on probing, though, for I felt sorry for him and bit by bit he told the story.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Which was that one day, just like any other day, he shut up his shop and went home for his midday meal. He ate it, said goodbye to his wife and went out of his front door—into another place.’

  ‘Did he explain that?’

  ‘Oh yes, in great detail.’

  ‘What sort of other place was it he’d walked into then?’

  ‘He said he was still in Binscombe, yet at the same time he wasn’t because it was no Binscombe he’d ever seen.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Neither did he, poor fellow. Neither does anyone, but there it still is. Like I keep on saying, Bolding was an honest man and if he said that he’d stumbled into another world then you’re safe in accepting he did.’

  ‘What was it like?’

  ‘Empty. It was the Binscombe he’d known all his life but deserted and ruined. He mentioned that quite specifically. All the houses and shops had been wrecked or fallen down of their own accord. Apparently the recreation ground in that other Binscombe was chest high in grass and there were bushes and weeds in the roadways.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Just what you’d expect. He stepped back inside sharpish!’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And for an instant he said he could still hear the sounds of his wife clearing up in the kitchen but then that faded and died and he found himself in a ruined house. It was his house right enough, but the roof was half gone and there was ivy and moss on the inside walls.’

  ‘And he panicked?’

  ‘No. Bolding wasn’t like that. Not a man of strong passions at all. Apparently he checked what was left of the place just to see if Mrs Bolding was there but she wasn’t. He said that all through the house he saw things that were his, all scattered about and broken, so there couldn’t be any doubt left as to whose dwelling he was in.’

  ‘And there was no one around at all?’

  ‘No, no one. He went to the neighbour’s houses and knocked on their doors, save one that no longer had a door, and got no answer. Judging by appearances he said that it didn’t look as if there’d been anyone living in them for many a year.

  ‘So anyway, off he went to his shop—a natural enough reaction for a small trader—and all along the way there was the same story: ruin and desolation, jungle and neglect. He couldn’t believe his eyes, poor man. He thought it must be some horrible dream he was trapped in.’

  ‘But I presume it wasn’t.’

  ‘I don’t see how it could have been. A man can’t disappear into a dream for days on end, can he?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘No. So there he is, in Binscombe High Street, surveying the clumps of grass sprouting up through the middle of the road, half the buildings tumbled down and not so much as a sign of a human being anywhere. Soon enough he went to look at his shop and found that there was a young sapling growing out of the front window. Well, you can imagine how he felt on seeing that.

  ‘His sign was still there over the front and some stock remained on display but otherwise the place was a shambles. That little shop was his life really and seeing it in such a state affected him more than anything else he’d seen so far, or so he told me. It was then you could be uncharitable enough to say that he panicked, insofar as Jack knew how to.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He went straight back home, trying to ignore the unearthly hush, found a dry spot and went to sleep for twelve hours solid. A nervous reaction I suppose.’

  ‘And when he woke?’

  ‘He opened his eyes, cautiously hoping it had all been a dream after all but he soon saw that wasn’t so. The roof was still full of holes and he could see the stars as he lay there. When he looked out of the front door again there was the village, albeit in darkness, but not a single light visible from horizon to horizon. The whole countryside was as black as pitch.

  Anyway, to keep himself occupied he had a scout around the house (the roof let in a lot of moonlight) and in his travels he found a calendar—one of those tear-off, day by day types.’

  ‘Which said?’

  ‘March twenty-three 1965. So at least five years must have elapsed between anyone paying any attention to it and Bolding’s arrival. He said that sort of time gap seemed to tie in with the decay he’d seen all about. Next he looked for a newspaper or such like to see if any further light could be shed on the mystery, but time and wind and rain must have dealt with them all for he never did find one even later on, when he ventured further afield.’

  ‘So he went exploring, did he?’

  ‘What else could he do? Hour after hour passed and he got fed up sifting through the junk in his house, so when the sun came up he went for a walk.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘All over. He cut a path across the recreation ground to the edge of the Lake—full of fish he said, now that there was no one to catch them. And then he worked his way round the edge to the Old Manor House. By the looks of it someone had shot that up and then burnt it, and seeing that made him feel wary and suspicious. In due course he walked all the way to Goldenford and took a shotgun and ammunition from the storeroom at Jeffrey Brothers. With that by him he felt a bit safer.

  ‘All the same it must have been a disquieting journey. He said that even the main roads were overgrown and that the town bridge was fallen down so he had to chance the old ford to get into the High Street. Standing at the top of the town, he could see the whole place was in just as bad a state as Binscombe—weeds growing up between the setts, shop windows caved in, roofs collapsed. Just total ruin, in fact, and over everything was that great silence.’

  ‘And no people there either?’

  ‘No people, no cats, no dogs. Apart from the birds flying overhead and a few cows on a hill in the distance, there was nothing moving at all.’

  ‘Did he ever find out where everyone had gone?’

  ‘Ah, now you’re jumping ahead of the story.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Anyway, back he walks to Binscombe, jumping at shadows and clutching his gun, but once again he sees not a soul. By now he was really upset and once he was home he barricaded himself in and curled up to sleep in the same corner as before.’

  ‘And..?’

  ‘And that’s where his wife found him the next morning. “What the devil are you doing sleeping on the hallway floor in all your clothes?” she said. “And where did you get that gun?”‘

  ‘He was back.’

  ‘Precisely. Well, up he gets and dashes outside. When he saw that there were cars and passers-by and that the roads and houses were well kept up and lived in, he could have wept for joy, so he told me. He turned round to look at his own house and saw that the roof was whole and the chimney in an upright position once more and only then, I think, was he fully convinced that he’d returned to the world he knew. Following on from that he realised what a state he was in and what a picture he looked standing gawping in the front garden with a shotgun in his hands. People were beginning to stare so he quickly nipped back inside.’

  ‘What did he tell his wife?’

  ‘Nothing, I don’t think. As I’ve said, whatever love they might once have had was long since dead and buried and they didn’t even talk much anymore. Apparently s
he assumed he’d been off with a fancy woman whilst he was away, not that she cared overmuch, and it was easier for him not to correct her. Anyhow, he got her to make him a meal and directly after he came to the Argyll for something to steady his nerves—which was when we all saw him as I described to you before.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Well, at first he could hardly bring himself to accept what had occurred as reality but there was the small matter of the shotgun which he now had and hadn’t owned before. He couldn’t discount that as imagination. Understandably, he put the whole business out of his mind and tried to get on with life as best he could. Not being an unduly reflective sort of man helped him with that and he said that he eventually felt safe and normal again when…’

  ‘He went back.’

  ‘That’s right. He was alone in his shop in the middle of the morning and bent down to get something out of a box below the counter. When he straightened up again and looked out of the window, everything had changed. The bank and the chemist’s shop opposite were all tumble-down, the pedestrians and shoppers had vanished and there was just that almighty quiet left. His shop looked like a whirlwind had been through it and the sapling was back growing out of the floor and through the broken shop front.’

  ‘How did he react?’

  ‘He went straight to the Argyll, broke in and drank a bottle of brandy he found there. After he’d slept that off, he cleaned the bar billiards table up and played game after game into the night—anything to keep his mind off his location I suppose. Eventually he went back to the shop, the next morning presumably, and fell asleep again through sheer nervous exhaustion. When he woke up he found he was back in our Binscombe. Apparently his wife had come along the previous day, found him missing and locked the place up herself.’

  ‘What did he do this time?’

  ‘All sorts of things, since he had to take it seriously now. He went to see his priest or pastor or whatever it is the Methodists call their top people but the man turned out to be of a modernistic frame of mind. He asked whether he had problems with his sex life and referred him to a psychiatrist friend. Naturally Bolding wouldn’t hold with that sort of business so he went and tried to get the local C of E man to exorcise him but they don’t believe in such things anymore, or so the vicar said. Eventually, in his desperation, he ended up going to see one of the gypsy (well, Diddecoi really) wise-women at Epsom but she refused to take his money.’