THE ALMOST GHOST
(Or how not to get up the drive at midnight.)
I
had been out of bounds. Another of my increasing bad habits. Well in truth
the girl had become the
habit, the late night trips had become a necessity and
testosterone an as yet unknown by-product.
Do
any of you remember the drive? Which way? I hear you ask, from the top down? Or
vice versa? Either, I don't care. There was
a time when I could remember every inch, every stone, every grease stained yard.
The bad macadam patching, the crumbling verges and those strange and peculiar
lamps.
At every
thirty yards or so and on alternate sides of the drive stood those lonely lamps.
Each topped with an art deco double vault of small mirrored tiles. The
thinking , I presume, was to throw out some extra vestige of illumination
from the one ten watt bulb that had originally been placed there during the
Norman conquest or some time shortly after. The glow, thus magnified by
the afore said mirrors was cast out and onto the sinister evening
darkness to reassure any foolish pedestrian whose nocturnal visit to camp
Quantock was deemed necessary.
By the
early seventies these lamps had all but lost either their glass bulbs, the
mirrors or both. ( I must confess to at least two or possibly three by my hand..
sorry.)
I may
digress here and ponder if these lamps ever held a gas mantle. Fine Victorian
technology. The scene then; little changed from then till now, Imagine if you
would reader, the year 1888 the horror of Jack the ripper. Did he end up in
Quantock? Locked up in the bell tower? His family knowing of his madness,
dispatching a well healed retainer to the east end to bring young Jack
home. To save the family name, to save embarrassment?? keeping him secure
until his syphilitic mind had broken and his life force drawn from him? ( never
thought of old Jack and Quantock at the same eh. well who knows?)
Did some
janitor from the old building care for these lamps? Or possibly some
local lamp lighter from Ely tended their nightly needs, leaping 'spring healed
jack' like to ignite the once soft mantles into life?
Those of
you far too young to remember gas light or even 'Fanny by gas light' have missed
a very old and not too funny bad joke, see wikipedia or take 500 lines
Jones Minor!.. right I continue.
I mention
old jack the saucy one because I want you to be chilled, as I was on that night,
slightly drunk, tired from the uneducated fumblings of a teenage tryst and the
poor diet of an English boarding school and too much low quality booze. It
was dark, an overcast miserable night in winter. Low cloud cover and yes, the
Head had been known to patrol the grounds, even as far as the drive gates with
those two bloody big dogs, all three moving without sound as if they were all on
graphite wheels mounted on foam rubber. Rumour had it that he was infact the
undead. Rumour abounded. It still does
I think,
I am a clever fellow, while some , many even, would disagree. I however, say I
am a clever fellow. On reflection I may have been cleverer then than now. Now I
can use a computer, carry, if not use, a mobile phone, drive, if I could afford
the petrol, a car. Then I was just clever.
A clever
sod. A clever sod who in the pitch black with all those fucking scary big trees
that loomed out of the gloom on each side of the drive could navigate his clever
arse up the drive, into the school and back into his unwashed bedding before, he
hoped, anyone would miss him. (what the fuck was I thinking? Missed? If I
had been born with half a brain cell I would have cottoned onto the fact that
just about the entire county, let alone Mr and Mrs P knew exactly where I was
morning, noon and night.... Idiot) I digress again...
So here I
am, or rather, there I was... Having sailed to the school gates on a vapour of
cheap scrumpy and pheromones, guided by the dull glow from the few lights of
Ely, that tiny 'locals only' hamlet between nowhere and who cares. I now pass
the portal of no return and again and slip into the utter darkness of the
drive. Damn ,a mist is now forming at ground level and my feet begin to freeze,
is any experience in this poxy county worth the risk? Hmmm the mist swirls in
small eddies around my stupidly thin legs, shades of every Hammer horror
film you have ever seen.
Now then.
No matter how dark you think it is, it isn't. get that? It isn't, plain and
simple, it isn't dark. it may look dark, smell dark and if you could feel it,
feel dark, but that is only an illusion. Look left, look right... look behind
you and look ahead. Looks pretty dark don't it? Now look up.. Ahhhh not so dark
eh? well this is how Mr Clever sod used to navigated the drive on his nocturnal
returns. Those nasty dark trees boarded a lighter river of light that was the
night sky. Try it next time you happen to be on the run from the authorities and
you fancy a tip from an old fool. look up and you'll see the light!.
Anyway,
that's how I did it, it worked for me and I guess it worked for
others.
The
second that an individual passed those gates, which should have had the motto...
'Kiss your arse goodbye etc' over them in burning neon, a deep feeling of dread
always descended upon them, don't deny it, I made a study, read my paper on
the subject in the Lancet. Strewth I digress yet again. Back to the
plot.
With each
ten steps or so, I had to pause, one; to stop the nausea from making me chuck
up, and two; because for safety's sake and the fear of meeting the grim reaper
et al. Aka Mr P and his two dogs. Thus posed like a demented statue I would
peer up the drive, into the inky blackness using my commando like skills to keep
myself from being discovered. The bright yellow loon pants and platform boots
did somewhat impede any camouflage attempt on my behalf should I have to go to
ground but as far ss the height of fashion went , well... 'burn baby' I
was hot!. What do you mean, what are loon pants? No, I refuse, ask me
later...
After
about four or five stops I could swear I heard breathing coming from the
direction of the top of the drive. The 'T' junction bit where the drives breaks
away to the school on the left or away to Mr Phill's and the old stables on the
right.
Yes, I
can hear breathing. It's too late now to go back, I am so near the top of the
drive that it hurts. I can hear the breathing now, Oh my God, I can hear deep
low breathing, a wheezing deep breathing that is not of this World. Instantly
sober I inch towards the sound. By now I was in a cold sweat, I
mean, I was in a cold sweat...ok!
I could
make out a shape, greyish white. I slip closer, its white, a
ghost! Jesus H Christ with a hat on... I am looking at a ghost.
My God, it's true the old dump is haunted! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it...
Closer
you tosser, get closer... Yes, it has eyes, two red eyes, legs and a huge
body.... Head, eyes, legs, breathing, not moving.
I
am ten yards away now, that ghost looking at me, me about to pass a motion.
The mist clearing. I take one more step towards the ghost. The ghost moves! The
Ghost turns sideways and walks off! The relief falls from me like a warm pool of
urine. A Horse, a fucking bloody white horse!, One of the Hill ponies . It had
been standing head onto me... facing me! Stupid bloody horse! I let out the
breath from my tortured lungs that I had been holding for the past two minutes
and slink the next thirty yards to the door by the clock tower, it's still
open!. I slip in, climb the back stairs and I'm into my stinky pit in a flash,
Loons still on, boots off, I'll suffer in the morning but who cares? The
cider is taking hold again. I start to drift off when a torch
is rudely shone into my face and a voice, a familiar voice
says...
' I bet
that horse scared you!'
Followed by,
' I think
a detention or two is in order don't you? Good
night!'
Damn that bloody horse.
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