Binscombe Tales - The Complete Series (3 page)

‘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 she 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.’

‘Why?’

‘He was being hunted, she said. Another place had claimed him and was drawing closer all the time and there was nothing he could do to change or even delay the matter. She told him to accept gracefully the place that fate had prepared for him and, if he could, to be thankful lest his opposition should bring further misfortune.’

‘And did he accept it? Was he thankful?’

‘Would you? Would you be? Women like her perhaps know things that we don’t, unless they’re all just clever fakes as many say, and maybe they see things differently as a result. However that may be, Jack Bolding was stuck as he was and resignation to fate and all that stuff wasn’t really his way. So no, he didn’t accept or give thanks. In the event, though, he might just as well have done because, whether he accepted it or not, there was precious little he could do about it other than to try and stay in company at all times.’

‘But that didn’t work?’

‘Possibly it did. Leastways he never crossed over when he was with a crowd of people or when someone was looking at him. Even so his travels continued.’

‘Just as before?’

‘Exactly as before because, try as you might, you can’t spend every minute of the day in company—well, not and live a normal, bearable life at the same time. So, to give you some examples: once he woke up and found himself in the other Binscombe. Another time he came out of the garden privy and discovered he’d crossed over. If he was gardening or taking a stroll he couldn’t be sure that his very next step wouldn’t be into the other place. By this stage he’d gone over maybe a dozen times for around one to three days apiece. His wife was quite convinced he was seeing another woman.’

‘How did he deal with that?’

‘He said, “I only wish I were—or a man or boy or donkey!” and she took that funny as you might expect. Mind you, Bolding had been dining on nothing but tongue-pie and cold shoulder from her since she found the shop unattended so it didn’t make much of a difference to the situation between them.’

‘What did he do during these trips?’

‘Explore or drink or weep or despair according to his mood. On one occasion he said that he went as far as London on a bicycle he’d found. Well, that’s over thirty miles or more!’

‘How was London?’

‘The same as everywhere else.’