Binscombe Tales - The Complete Series

by John Whitbourn

  A great variety of trees and shrubs had found a foothold (or roothold) in the soil on the sides of the cutting and, by and large left alone by British Rail, they flourished to provide a green sward on either side of the station. In summer and autumn, passengers on this small part of the line could be forgiven for thinking that they were travelling through the centre of a wood instead of a busy part of an increasingly busy world.

  Because of these qualities, Mr Peter Pelling had a great fondness for Binscombe Station and he did not begrudge the time he spent there each and every week-day. Some days he would even arrive earlier than necessary so as spend a few extra minutes in enjoying its atmosphere before being conveyed off to his daily combat in London. Mr Pelling’s glare at the train driver each morning, although he was quite unaware of making it, was one of the fiercest the man had to receive.

  Pelling had lived in Binscombe for nearly ten years at the time of this tale, subsequent to his tiring of the burglaries and noise in his previous home in London. He had never regretted the change, although the commuting was somewhat irksome. What he did notice after the move, however, was a slowly growing reluctance to spend his days as he did. He had first ignored the emotion and, when this policy failed to still its voice, had analysed it ad nauseam without satisfactory result.

  Within it there was a dislike of the metropolis and its people, certainly. There was also an element of boredom with his work and colleagues, but even together they did not nearly add up to the spirit of anger he felt. Mr Pelling resented the time he had to spend working to pay his mortgage and, although he had no other great projects or interests in mind, he felt a burgeoning sense of loss or waste with each hour spent in gainful employment. In this frame of mind he saw, or thought he saw, through the facade of purpose to glimpse the utter futility of the company in whose service he had spent his life. Feeling something of a hypocrite (for he still drew his salary) he went on a one man go-slow but found it went unnoticed. In rash moments he even threw one or two minor and untraceable spanners into the company’s smooth operations, but no one cared overmuch. At the age of forty-five, with an impeccable name and not unsuccessful career record behind him, Mr Pelling had become as rebellious as any mohicanned punk or class war activist. Since he did not feel at home with either group he searched around in books until he came up with the title ‘Nihilist’ to describe himself. This seemed to fit rather well, although it brought him no pleasure.

  On this particular morning, Mr Pelling felt especially discontented, and the fact that he was resigned to his fate only intensified his fractiousness. At 10:00 am he was due for a meeting with an important client famed for his aggressive and patronising behaviour. Mr Pelling would have to grit his teeth and feign interest in the man’s torrent of drivel as he had done many times in the past, while the client satisfied whatever curious itch made him behave in this way. Though he despised himself for it, Mr Pelling knew he would act as a company man should. There was too much at stake for him not to.

  Pelling always stood at the same spot on the platform. A short period of experimentation had led him to believe that from there could be had the most pleasant view while he waited, and the greatest chance of a seat on the train when it arrived. None of the more chatty commuters or notorious nose-pickers or coughers waited near the spot in question, and therefore Mr Pelling felt that boarding the train from that point made the best of a bad job.

  A dense and wild thicket grew right down to the platform’s edge, and quite often Mr Pelling chose to turn about and study the abundant life therein rather than look at the opposite side of the cutting. There was generally something interesting to see there, be it animal, plant or an unusual piece of litter deposited by man or wind. Mr Pelling liked to watch the bees or butterflies that visited the thicket or the wild flowers and tall weeds that made it their home. Because he didn’t ponder the matter too deeply, he envied the birds, insects and flowers (and even the occasional cat) their liberty and freedom from stress, and he wished that somehow society could be changed, preferably right now, so that man could live that way too. Just then the train would generally arrive, and Mr Pelling would dutifully board it and take his cosmic discontent to London.

  Today, as has been said, Mr Pelling was particularly dispirited, and so turned naturally to the thicket for an all too brief look at what real life was up to. He was shocked, to say the least, to see that a far from natural pair of eyes were regarding him from the very depths of the greenery.

  Pelling looked quickly around to check that he had not been spirited away to some other place, but found that he was still in the reasonably reassuring normality of Binscombe Station. Other commuters were beginning to arrive, cars were pulling up in the car park, and all was as it nominally should be. He turned again and found that the eyes were still fixed unblinkingly upon him. He had half hoped that they would have disappeared so that he could dismiss the incident as mere fancy, but that was hardly possible now.

  They were of a slightly luminous yellow colour, almond shaped, and had no pupils that he could detect. It was difficult to discern their owner’s form through the dense vegetation but Mr Pelling thought—though how could it be?—that he could just see a slim, humanoid figure crouching there.

  ‘Er... hello,’ he said uncertainly.

  There was no immediate reply but, perhaps half a minute later, a slim white hand snaked elegantly out of the bushes and, with the motion of one gold be-ringed finger, beckoned Mr Pelling forward.

  Pelling now noticed that there were perhaps a dozen or so pairs of eyes, identical to the first he’d seen, in a semicircle in front of him.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked with commendable, if counterfeit, calmness.

  The voice that replied sounded very, very old and yet still at the height of its powers. In tone it was like the most beautiful—but heartless—music; like a requiem composed by a high demon.

  ‘Mr Pelling,’ it said, ‘we’ve watched you for a long time. Now we’d like to put a proposition to you.’

  * * *

  ‘What’s up with that bloke?’ said Mr Oakley. ‘He’s talking to the hedge.’

  Mr Disvan looked along the platform at Mr Pelling but did not reply.

  The two men were travelling to London together by arrangement, for reasons of company. Mr Disvan intended to visit his stockbroker and then make use of the facilities of the British Museum library, to which he had some power of access. Mr Oakley was journeying on a peace mission, one judged sufficiently important to take time off work, to his mistress-cum-fiancée of the moment. To make a full day of it, they had agreed to travel early on one of the commuter trains.

  ‘Look,’ Mr Oakley continued. ‘He’s thrown his tie away—and his briefcase!’

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Mr Disvan, ‘I haven’t seen that for donkey’s years. So they’re still around, are they?’

  Mr Oakley was about to ask just who ‘they’ were but was prevented by the spectacle of Mr Pelling’s sudden dash into the thicket, heedless of thorn and briar, and his eventual disappearance from sight. For a little while the crash and clump of his progress up the side of the cutting could be heard but then this too faded. Mr Oakley thought he could just detect, at the very limit of hearing, a shrill and triumphant keening (if that is not a contradiction in terms) but this also soon passed away—if it had ever existed.

  ‘What on earth’s going on?’ he asked

  ‘Nothing to worry about’ said Mr Disvan cheerfully. ‘Just another one away with the faeries.’

  A VIDEO NASTY

  ‘Would you like to see a video, Mr Disvan?’ asked Esther Constantine.

  ‘That rather depends,’ he replied. ‘What’s it about and where’s it being shown?’

  ‘It’s a mystery sort of video,’ said Esther’s sister Dorothy, ‘and it’s being shown at our house not two hundred yards from here.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had a video machine,’ said Mr Disvan with a note of surprise in his voice. ‘I wouldn’t have
thought it was your sort of thing.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Esther Constantine, ‘we couldn’t be without it nowadays, could we, Dorothy? The television companies seem to put on all the best films at an hour way past our bedtime, so we record them and watch when it suits us.’

  ‘And it’s a film you want me to see is it?’ asked Disvan.

  ‘Not exactly,’ Esther answered hesitantly, as if choosing her words with great care, ‘but we’re sure you’ll find it interesting nevertheless...’

  ‘Well, you’ve intrigued me sufficiently, ladies, in which case I’ll accept your offer. Do you want me to come now?’

  ‘Yes please,’ the sisters said in unison.

  ‘Very well, I’ll just finish this drink and then we’ll go. Can Mr Oakley come too?’

  ‘Oh yes, he’d be more than welcome,’ said Esther Constantine.

  ‘Good. How about it, Mr Oakley? Or are you meeting one of your lady friends tonight?’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ I replied, ‘I’m in between “lady friends” at the moment.’

  ‘Is that right?’ said Disvan, surprised for the second time that evening, ‘It’s the first occasion I’ve known that to be so.’

  ‘Well, I’m working on the problem. A small rest is probably no bad thing.’

  Mr Disvan considered my throwaway comment for a brief moment and then nodded his agreement.

  ‘You could be right. You’re not getting any younger, and reckless promiscuity is quite draining, I should imagine.’

  If spoken by anybody else, I would have taken exception to this, but it did not seem worth crossing swords with Disvan on his unfortunate choice of vocabulary. The Constantine sisters, stereotypical elderly maiden ladies to a T, whom I might have expected to be shocked by Disvan’s description of my alleged lifestyle, had either not heard what was said or ignored it. Accordingly, in the interests of peace, I let the incident pass.

  ‘Thank you, ladies,’ I replied, ‘I will come and see your video. What is it about—a horror film?’

  ‘That’s how we’d describe it, but your judgement on the matter would be much appreciated.’

  ‘All of a sudden I don’t like the sound of this,’ I said to Mr Disvan, sotto voce.

  ‘Oh, come on, Mr Oakley,’ he replied at normal volume, despite my attempt at discretion, ‘where’s the danger in being a film critic and, more to the point, where’s your sense of adventure?’

  ‘In common with my love life, it’s enjoying the benefits of a short rest.’

  Mr Disvan smiled but otherwise ignored my half-hearted protest.

  ‘Well, if that’s the situation, say no more, ladies, but lead on,’ he said with mock gallantry.

  This they duly did and we trailed behind them, leaving the warmth and comfort of the Argyll, out into a wintry Binscombe where a mist had arisen and each street light illuminated only its immediate area, leaving pools of darkness in between. As the sisters had said, their house was mere few minutes away, but I was already chilled to the bone by the time we arrived and therefore very glad to enter in. My relief was short lived for, as in many of the older Binscombe households, only one room, the ‘living’ room as it was aptly called, was heated. The temperature difference elsewhere between inside and outside was minimal—or so it always seemed to me, child of a centrally heated upbringing.

  Even so, in deference to good manners and defiance of good sense, I removed my coat as soon as I passed through the door and waited politely in the chill hallway for permission to move on to the relative comfort of the inner sanctum. I noticed that Mr Disvan, presumably the product of just such a home, did not share my urgent desire to adjourn to warmer climes.

  At last we were ushered into the living room and various refreshments were procured for us. The Constantines then sat down and exchanged glances as if each was prompting the other to speak. A long silence ensued, since neither was apparently willing to take the lead, and Mr Disvan eventually had to kick-start the conversation.

  ‘Right then, ladies, what about this video you want our opinion on?’

  Esther Constantine drained her glass of sherry and took the role of spokesperson while her sister looked on, ready to add anything she thought relevant.

  ‘The video,’ she said, ‘is in the machine ready to play. But first a word of explanation so that you’ll understand what we’re on about.’

  ‘Otherwise it won’t be clear at all,’ interposed Dorothy.

  ‘Quite,’ Esther continued. ‘Well, the gist of the matter is that several nights ago we wanted to see a film that was on till rather lat,e and that being so we decided to record it and watch it the next day. Nothing unusual about that you may say, and quite rightly. However, since we’re not too clever with machinery, we’ve never bothered with learning to use the timer and we just let the recording go till it runs out of tape, do you see?’

  Disvan and I nodded solemnly while I wondered why we were being told all this domestic piffle.

  ‘Well, in that way we came not only to record the film we wanted but also the final weather forecast, the epilogue and nearly an hour of nothing after the station had closed down for the night.’

  ‘Or so we thought at the time,’ said Dorothy.

  Esther Constantine looked at us for some reaction to her sister’s mysterious comment, but we maintained poker faces and she was thus obliged to press on.

  ‘Exactly. As it turned out, though, when we came to watch the film the following evening, we found that we’d recorded something else as well.’

  ‘Something horrible,’ Dorothy explained.

  ‘I presume you don’t mean the epilogue,’ said Mr Disvan.

  ‘No, we don’t,’ said Esther, ‘although that slice of religious mumbo-jumbo could well be described as horrible. It’s something else we’re talking about.’

  ‘What precisely did you record, then?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s what we’re hoping one of you might be able to shed some light on. What happened, you see, was that my sister and I watched the film and then started to get ready for bed—locking the house up, laying the breakfast table and that sort of thing. The television had been left on whilst we were doing all this and when we came back into the living room together we saw that... Well, something else had come onto the screen.’

  ‘And there shouldn’t have been anything there, because I’d heard the announcer say goodnight and the national anthem playing long beforehand,’ said Dorothy.

  ‘And what was it?’ asked Disvan.

  ‘See for yourself,’ Esther Constantine answered and, taking up the bulky TV remote control device, she simultaneously turned the television on and set the tape playing.

  We caught a few brief seconds of a clergyman reading a poem by D. H. Lawrence, this presumably being the end of the much discussed epilogue, before the calming tones of a young man wished us a goodnight and urged us not to forget to switch off our sets. The swirling sounds of ‘God Save the Queen’ (impermissibly accompanied by bagpipes) followed for a mercifully brief period. The transmitter then shut down and the screen was given up to random static.

  ‘Now you have to wait a while,’ said Esther.

  This we did, as patiently as possible, while boredom quickly set in. I pondered if I should ask for a replenishment of my glass by way of reward for this unexciting task, but it seemed inappropriate to break the silence and sense of anticipation in the room. Looking to Mr Disvan for some guidance on whether to take this whole situation at all seriously (for his acquaintance with the Constantines was of long standing), I saw that he was paying keen attention to the twitching lines on the screen. Accordingly I went along with the game and pretended to study the interference for ‘horrible’ apparitions.

  At some point, after the elapse of what seemed like a very long time indeed but was probably only a quarter of an hour or so, I must have looked away for a second. A sharp intake of breath from the Constantine sisters caused my gaze to snap back to the television and I saw that something had come on to the
screen.

  It was a person’s head and shoulders, that much was certain, although the face was very indistinct, ‘as if only half finished’ as Mr Disvan later put it. In my more prosaic way, it looked to me very much like a man with a stocking mask over his head, filmed through a cloud of oily smoke on a camera that periodically slipped in and out of focus.

  Whatever it was seemed angry, and mouthed violent words that were only occasionally audible, and then only as an incomprehensible muffled noise. For a few seconds the face or whatever it was suddenly came very close to the screen, shouting with extra vigour, and we all involuntarily shifted back in our seats. Then, just as abruptly, the vision retreated at great speed, as though propelled backwards, and receded into a dot and then invisibility. The normal empty picture, occupied by static, returned.

  Esther Constantine turned the tape off with the remote control. ‘That’s it,’ she said.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ asked Dorothy.

  Mr Disvan considered for a while, sipping the glass of vodka he had been given.

  ‘Yes,’ he said at length. ‘It is rather horrible, wouldn’t you agree, Mr Oakley?’

  ‘Yes, I’d broadly go along with that,’ I replied.

  ‘Of course, we’re both obliged for your critical opinion,’ said Esther, with just the hint of irritation in her voice, ‘but we were somewhat hopeful that you might suggest some form of explanation as well.’

  ‘Oh, I see...’ said Mr Disvan, genuinely surprised, as far as I could tell, at this extra demand on him. ‘Well, I presume that you both discount any supernatural interpretation to what we’ve just seen...’

  ‘Naturally,’ said Esther, in a firm voice.

  ‘No, that’s not true,’ Dorothy interrupted boldly, plainly having to steel up her courage to contradict her sister. ‘For once there’s no answer to be found up there.’