Binscombe Tales - The Complete Series (2 page)

‘Tell me, Mr Disvan,’ (this in a lowered voice), ‘why has that pint of beer been left standing on the bar?  Why doesn’t the landlord clear it away if it’s been abandoned?’

‘It’s not abandoned. It’s Mr Bolding’s drink. It won’t be tipped away until closing time.’

‘Won’t Mr Bolding drink it?’

Disvan smiled warmly, ‘I very much doubt it. Not where he is.’

‘I don’t understand. Where is Mr Bolding then?’

‘He’s in the other Binscombe.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The other Binscombe.’

‘Where’s that?’

The old man smiled again. ‘That’s a very good question. All I can say with any degree of sureness is that, on the anniversary of Mr Bolding going there, we place a commemorative drink where he always used to stand at the bar.’

‘Commemorative?  Is he dead?’

‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so. It was only ten years ago he went and he was in his middle forties then.’

I must have appeared a picture of puzzlement. ‘I’m sorry but I still don’t understand,’ I said.

Mr Disvan disregarded that and changed the tack of the conversation without warning. ‘Did your grandfather ever say much to you about Binscombe, Mr Oakley?’

‘He died when I was very small.’

‘Ah. I see.’

‘But you haven’t explained about Mr Bolding.’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘Well, aren’t you going to?’

‘If you wish.’

‘Yes please.’

Disvan looked at the bar and then at me.

‘The explanation isn’t very instructive or edifying.’

‘Even so.’

‘Very well then, I will tell you. Only not now, for I have to go, and it’s a long story.’

‘Is there something wrong about it?’ I said hurriedly, for Disvan was drinking up and preparing to put his coat on.

‘Wrong? No, not wrong as such but, as I’ve said, it’s a long story. The next time we meet up I’ll recount it to you.’

‘Okay.’

And with that, Disvan tucked the Koran under his arm and left.

I stayed a little longer to ponder the lessons of the day and the portents for the morrow whilst enjoying another drink. Nevertheless, no matter how hard I thought of work and love and plans I found my gaze turning, time and time again, to the solitary glass and the empty space at the bar.

*  *  *

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.’