The Old Knowledge and Other Strange Tales Read online

  It had happened, she thought, when she was about twelve or thirteen when something, some forgotten incident, had sparked off a series of bad dreams. These had been disruptive enough to provoke even her mother into threatening Geraldine half-heartedly with the doctor, at which point they had ceased. Geraldine was unable to recall much of their content, she thought she had had to endure them almost every night for two or three weeks. It had been something to do with a woman’s face, a woman’s eyes staring at her as if she was mad. And there had been a man there too, somewhere, and later others … but the details shaded back into unknowingness.

  Geraldine drew back the curtains. It seemed to be raining more heavily than ever and the surrounding landscape had now completely disappeared, obscured from her view by a mass of heavy cloud. Down on the road below the bedroom, dark rivulets of water washed fallen leaves and other debris along the gutters. A dog was barking somewhere in hoarse rasps. Geraldine shivered again. Even the cottage’s hyper-effective central heating seemed less efficient this morning; perhaps the weather had turned colder still. Didn’t the arrival of colder air mean that high pressure was on the way? Perhaps later in the day the clouds would thin enough to reveal a glimpse of the sun. Perhaps even the rain would cease.

  It was high time she pulled herself together, Geraldine thought, and to this end she made herself consider the practicalities of the day. Although she could continue to eat in the pub, she would have to do something about buying some more bread and milk. If Roger had not managed to repair her car, then perhaps she could track down a local taxi firm. They might be able to provide a car to drive her into the nearby market town. She was supposed to be returning to London tomorrow, so her car would have to be mended by then. That decided it. The first thing to do would be to find Roger at the garage.

  **

  When in unfamiliar surroundings it is perhaps not always easy to spot how small things have changed; how some minor alteration has been affected, ruffling the calm ordinariness of objects in their expected places. On entering the kitchen Geraldine had become only gradually aware that all was not as it had been.

  Returning from the pub the previous evening, early and sober this time, she had made herself a cup of coffee to take up to bed, leaving the day’s small amount of dirty crockery, including the breakfast things, to be washed up in the morning. But there were the plates and cups, clean and dry and neatly stacked on the pine shelves, the sink also cleaned and the tea towel folded over the exact centre of the radiator.

  Geraldine’s initial feelings of puzzlement turned rapidly to annoyance. How dare she? For surely it could only have been Mrs Williams, with nothing else to do other than poke her nose into other people’s affairs, giving help where help was not wanted. And done, no doubt, in the guise of her own particular brand of sanctimonious friendliness.

  What made it worse was that she did not even know how to contact the woman in order to ask her not to do it again! Geraldine found herself striding round and round the small room. When she did manage to reach civilisation again, she would certainly telephone the holiday cottage company, although even in her rage she had to acknowledge that it was hard to see how she could fulminate with any justification against unsolicited domestic help. Geraldine knew that she would soon calm down and care about it less. She sat down on the stairs. For the first time in a while she thought with longing of her London flat, the sound of the traffic pounding far below, her friends at work, Michael, if she could prise him away from his wife.

  It came to her that, providing she could collect her car, there was no good reason why she shouldn’t leave at once …

  **

  Geraldine marched briskly up the shallow incline through the rain to the garage. As on her previous excursion to the top of the village, she met no one on the way and when she arrived, even hammering as hard as she could on the garage door failed to elicit a response. It was difficult to see how Roger managed to attract any business if he refused to acknowledge callers.

  She must have hit the door harder than she had meant to because as she stepped back a flake of the dull green paint dislodged itself and fluttered unhurriedly to the ground. Geraldine watched it settle on the wet concrete. Looking up at the building more closely, it seemed that the whole structure was shabbier and more neglected than she remembered. The paint had become scarred and flecked with dirt and the edges of the corrugated iron were rusty and frayed.

  Geraldine strode purposefully once more around the side of the building, but this time there was no sign of Roger or her car, only the twisted heap of metal lying as before on the rough ground.

  The place was beginning to give her the creeps, and she would have to make an effort to think about everything rationally. If her car was not fixed then she would just have to walk to the next village, however far it was. There, hopefully, she would find a telephone box; unless she managed to find one here first. She didn’t remember seeing one. If she went back to the cottage and packed her bag, she could leave at once and arrange some way of having her car collected at a later date.

  Walking back down the hill took longer this time because the cobbles hurt her feet. The heavy rainfall of the last few days must have washed away the modern veneer of tarmac. Above the village the jagged moorland edges appeared and disappeared behind the clouds. Geraldine hobbled on. The crows had moved closer in, huddling together in rows on the roofs of the village houses. Cold rain dripped inside Geraldine’s collar and trickled through her hair onto her scalp.

  As she struggled down the hill, it seemed to her that the rain had washed the gloss from the village. It was difficult to be sure, but the houses looked dirtier, shabbier somehow, altogether less manicured. In her heart she knew that she preferred it that way. The rain was blackened by coal dust, heavy with exhaust fumes, polluted with city filth. It was never going to stop.

  The crows were spying on her. Along the road-edges the rainwater raced faster than ever, and borne on its turbulence were the bodies of small animals; shrews, mice, birds. Their mangled remains were beginning to choke the drains. Soon the water would rise up and ruin the gardens, surge under the doors and over the thresholds of the houses, sullying the mock-holy cleanliness of their interiors. Geraldine laughed with glee at the thought of it.

  There was a man outside The Woodsman’s Arms, a dark, middle-aged man leaning against the wooden frame from which the inn sign hung. Close-to he seemed to be the nameless gamekeeper she had met in the pub, only this time he loomed larger and more muscular, better-looking in a craggy sort of way. His clothes were torn and besmirched here and there with still-wet mud, and he was holding a coil of rough orange bailer-twine. As Geraldine drew level, his handsome face split into a grin. He called out to her:

  ‘You look a bit fed up. Can I cheer you up?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she found herself replying, ‘can you?’

  ‘Oh, I expect so. If you’d let me.’

  He grinned at her again. Geraldine felt her face flush as she smiled back. He really was very good-looking, with curly black hair. He looked a bit like a darker, dirtier Michael. She’d almost forgotten how good-looking Michael was.

  ‘I’ll meet you in the pub in half an hour.’

  ‘All right,’ she agreed, ‘I’ll look forward to it.’

  Close to the cottage, on the opposite side of the road, was a small, one-storey village hall, and it was here that Geraldine encountered the women. They stood in a group beside the entrance, utterly silent, angled towards her. Geraldine decided that it was best not to wait around to discover what they intended to do. As she limped back to the cottage, her coat slipped from her shoulders and fell into a puddle. She couldn’t be sure but she thought that they had not followed her. As she drew closer to the cottage she could see that there was already a light on inside.

  It was Roger, slightly shame-faced of course, who opened the door. He smelt as if he had been drinking. Mrs Williams was sitting on the brightly-coloured sofa smiling her hypocritical smile. Thi
s time she had taken off the dull coat and let down her hair. It fanned out beautifully over the soft, pale-blue wool of her cardigan. Mrs Williams rose as Geraldine came closer.

  ‘You are soaked …’ she began, but Geraldine was ready for her: she lunged forward, the words coming out in a more screeching kind of fury than she had intended.

  ‘You creepy old hag. Scared of the competition are you? Well sod you, I’m going home now. And you can’t stop me!’

  Roger pulled Geraldine off before she could do any real damage. With some difficulty they pushed her into the cupboard under the narrow stairs and bolted the door while they discussed what they were going to do to help her.

  Spirit Solutions

  January 23rd

  It has been snowing all day—the trees in the garden are hung with icicles, and Graham and Simon had to shovel off some of the thick white blanket that coated the drive so that Clive Mason could inch his car up to the house. I could see him peering over the steering wheel from the hall window, his glasses perched on the end of his nose. I always had the impression that father enjoyed Mason’s somewhat obsequious professional manner—I suppose that is why, after the rumours began circulating, he allowed him to continue handling his affairs.

  Mason looked us over one by one as if we were still small children arranged for his approval (we had gathered in the hall when we heard his car turn into the drive). Fay took his coat and Graham, snapping out of a reverie, led the way into the music room. It was as cold as the grave. You could see your breath in front of your face. I felt like fetching my duvet.

  There were no surprises. At least I think we all knew what father would do. Mason droned through the preliminaries. The money went into mother’s years of care. All there is left is the house, and that father has bequeathed jointly to the four of us. Fay snivelled discretely into her handkerchief. Simon tapped his foot against the table-leg. Graham cleared his throat as if about to speak, then thought better of it.

  I wondered how long it would take him, but at least he waited until Mason had left. The kitchen is still the only warm room in the house and, as Mason pootled his way back up the drive, we re-grouped around the Rayburn. Graham gathered himself up and began.

  ‘Well, I believe you all know what I think we should do, and I’m sure it’s what father would have wanted. This place has got to be worth a tidy sum, even in this condition. We’ll do well enough out of it. I’ll ring Ratcher and Flimcock in the morning, shall I?’

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Simon frowned.

  ‘Hold on Graham, don’t you think you’re being a bit hasty, even if we decide that’s what we want to do in the end. Anyway, the will has to go through probate first.’

  ‘And,’ put in Fay, ‘how can you be sure that’s what Daddy wanted? He carried on living here right up to the end, didn’t he? Don’t you think he wanted one of us to live in the house? Otherwise he could have sold it and bought somewhere more convenient.’

  ‘He knew and you know that no one of us can afford to buy the others out. We have to sell.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ I said. ‘One of us could rent it off the others.’

  No one except Graham felt like talking about it any more after that, although I suppose we’ll have to sooner or later. Simon offered to buy us a take-away curry for supper, but in the end we decided to make do with tinned meatballs and rice from father’s larder.

  We are sleeping in our old bedrooms. I am sorely missing my central heating. I’d forgotten how cold the house is, even in bed under the duvet with a hot water bottle. I hope it has stopped snowing by tomorrow.

  January 24th

  It snowed through the night and was still snowing this morning. I got up early and found Graham in the kitchen shivering over a cup of coffee. The Rayburn had gone out.

  ‘When are you going home, Graham?’ I asked.

  ‘Going anywhere may not be easy if it carries on snowing. And I think we need to sort out what we’re doing with the house first. I’m going to call a family meeting.’

  He was looking uncomfortable.

  ‘What’s up, bro?’

  ‘Oh, you’ll find out soon enough anyway. It’s started again’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know. The noises. The music. I heard them last night.’

  It seems that he heard the full range—the clumping footsteps along the landing, the whispering, the piano-playing in the music room—everything we used to hear when we were children. I’ve never been able to properly explain what happens in this house, although I’ve tried often enough, usually when I’ve drunk too much at dinner parties. When we were children it didn’t seem threatening, we just accepted it as part of the way things were. And there has never been anything to see. Just the sounds—of faint, far-off music, indistinct voices and the occasional heavy treading upstairs. A poltergeist, although it was a long time before we learnt to call it that.

  Fay and Simon didn’t hear anything either.

  ‘Perhaps it’s never gone away,’ said Fay.

  ‘But father didn’t mention it,’ put in Simon.

  ‘He wouldn’t, would he,’ said Graham.

  Graham’s family meeting began over breakfast, and continued, on and off, all day. Early on, I wondered aloud whether the presence of the poltergeist would enhance or detract from the desirability of the house to prospective buyers. Fay wants to live here, but even if the rest of us agree, she couldn’t afford to rent it at the going rate. Simon will follow whatever Graham wants, although he likes to play Mr Reasonable while he pretends to make up his mind.

  And me? Oh, well, I’m an undecided. A definite don’t know.

  We’ll have to do some shopping tomorrow—we’ve eaten our way through most of father’s meagre store cupboard. And at least it has stopped snowing, although the stuff has covered over the drive again and is weighing down the branches of the shrubs in the garden. If we have to stay here much longer, we’ll run out of logs for the Rayburn. And it’s so cold. I’m going to wear my cardigan and socks in bed.

  January 25th

  It took a good hour to clear up the mess this morning. Fay thought we’d had burglars, but when she woke Graham he checked all the doors and windows (which he’s locked and bolted each night since we’ve been here) and there was no sign of a forced entry. And nothing is missing, only broken. None of us heard anything—although you’d think that that amount of crockery smashing on the stone flag floor would have made enough noise to wake the dead. But I suppose the ceilings are high and the walls thick in this old house.

  As far as I know, this is the first time we’ve experienced any activity in the kitchen. Fay was weepy again—‘But what does it mean? Is it angry with us?’

  We were hungry after all the dusting, sweeping and vacuuming. Simon lit the Rayburn and I ventured out into the cold for some food. The snow is about six inches deep in the drive.

  The supplies I found in the Spar cheered everyone up a bit, especially the bottle of Famous Grouse. After baked beans on toast and a couple of glasses of the whisky, Graham recovered the power of speech.

  ‘If there weren’t enough reasons already, this has surely convinced even you, Fay, that we have to sell up.’

  ‘Not necessarily. Maybe it’s angry because we’re thinking of selling.’

  ‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’

  ‘We could always get the estate agent to give us a valuation and take it from there,’ said Simon. ‘It would give us some accurate information on which to base a decision.’

  ‘But I already have decided,’ said Fay, ‘and any amount of money isn’t going to make me change my mind.’

  Do we all have to agree, I wonder, or would a majority decision suffice?

  Fay and I cleaned the kitchen this afternoon. This evening we stayed close to the Rayburn: the log supply is dwindling fast. Graham is sulking and drank most of the whisky without offering it to anyone else.

  It has just started snowing again—our cars in the drive look abandoned,
their roofs topped with snowy white crew-cuts. We’re all going to bed early because we don’t want to talk to each other any more.

  January 26th

  Simon made the discovery when he went into father’s study to open the curtains, which had stayed closed since the ambulance left. There is ink everywhere, in swirling flicks all over the wallpaper, on the carpet and the door. Nothing in the room has been moved except, presumably, the empty inkbottle on father’s desk. We all had a long look and then closed the door—no one could face the idea of trying to clean up the mess. Graham says we may have to get in a professional cleaning firm.

  Back in the kitchen, we couldn’t look at each other. Finally, Graham broke the silence.

  ‘This is getting beyond a joke. It has never been this … destructive before. What are we going to do?

  Fay said, ‘Maybe we should just close up the house and leave it alone. Then it might stop being so angry.’

  ‘Father would’ve called that giving up,’ I said.

  Simon left the room and came back a few minutes later with his laptop.

  ‘What are you going to do with that?’ asked Graham.

  ‘I think we need some advice. This can’t be the only house in the world that has this … problem. Let’s see if we can find someone who can help.

  ‘How are you going to find anything useful on that thing?’ said Graham. ‘Exorcism On-line? Virtual Vicars? Ghouls R Us?’

  The upshot is that, after some searching and several false leads, and as unlikely as it sounds, Simon has found a ‘remote viewing’ detective agency on the internet. They are called Spirit Solutions (mission statement ‘exploring the inexplicable’) and ‘remote viewing’ means, apparently, that they don’t have to come to you. They just sit in Oregon or Winnipeg or wherever they are (their website didn’t list an address, but we think from their writing style that they are North American) and come up with the answer to your problem. They claim to have assisted in successful outcomes for dozens of clients, and several case histories are outlined, somewhat opaquely, on the site. All sorts of dilemmas are represented, from hauntings to missing persons; love affairs gone wrong to burglaries.