Binscombe Tales - The Complete Series (23 page)

‘And how do we go about that, may I ask?’ said Esther.

‘I’ve no idea at present, but I suggest that you start by leaving the television disconnected and not answering the telephone.’

‘How about,’ I hazarded, ‘finding the baby’s remains and giving them a proper burial, with a priest and everything, so that the spirit will rest?’

‘Hmmm,’ said Disvan, ‘it’s a thought I suppose, although I think that the significant difference in this case is that the spirit doesn’t want to rest—quite the opposite in fact. We could have a look for any obvious place of concealment tomorrow. As for a priest, well, the Reverend Jagger won’t help—not after that business with Trevor Jones’s car. Do you know of a priest who’d help you, ladies?’

At that very moment the telephone rang. Esther Constantine looked at the hallway door in terror. Her gaze travelled in turn to Mr Disvan, to the silent television and to the bookcases along the wall. Then, with the profoundest of sighs, she buried her head in her hands.

*  *  *

‘I’ve no sympathy with you,’ said Mr Disvan. ‘You should have followed my advice, at least for the time being, until we can think of something positive to do.’

‘That’s all very well for you to say,’ replied Esther Constantine, ‘but we particularly wanted to see that programme. We’ve watched the series right from the beginning and we couldn’t bear to miss the final episode.’

‘And did you get to see it?’ said Disvan, in a manner that signified he knew full well the answer to his question.

‘Thanks to that dreadful thing, no.’

‘As I thought. So why bother, then?’

Dorothy Constantine shook her head. ‘It’s been a couple of days since anything happened. We thought that perhaps... Well, hope springs eternal. You know how it is.’

Mr Disvan’s expression suggested that he did not.

The arrival of the landlord disrupted the tense atmosphere of our little gathering.

‘Would the ladies care to partake of liquid refreshment,’ he said, ‘or are they making use of my licensed premises, reckless of the crippling overheads it costs me to run it, as a free meeting house yet again?’

‘ “The ladies” will have two pink gins and none of your damn sarcasm, you mental pygmy,’ said Esther Constantine in a machine gun onslaught of words that even bystanders such as myself, out of the line of fire, found intimidating.

The landlord flinched, faltered for a mere second and then bravely returned to the fray. ‘If that’s the way you feel, why don’t you go and—‘

‘Enough!’ said Mr Disvan, waving them to silence with a sweep of his hand. ‘You can continue your old feud, if you so wish, in more normal times. Meanwhile, you two,’ he indicated the sisters, ‘can behave civilly to your host, and you,’ (turning to the landlord), ‘can show a bit of sympathy to people in trouble.’

This seemed to settle things, albeit not amicably, for the time being, and the landlord went off to fetch the requested drinks muttering, just loud enough so that he could be heard, that he’d ‘call his dog what he bloody well wanted’.

‘It was ghastly, Mr Disvan,’ said Dorothy, continuing as if the interruption had never happened. ‘This time the thing didn’t say much...’

‘Other than to growl and mumble under its breath,’ interposed Esther.

‘...other than to growl at us, yes. But the worst bit about it was that the thing’s face seemed to be following our actions—studying us, as it were—when we moved around the room.’

‘Oh yes, it could see us all right, even if we can’t see its eyes.’

‘And as though that wasn’t enough, the telephone started ringing.’

‘And I suppose,’ said Mr Disvan, ‘that you answered it just like I asked you not to.’

‘Not at first,’ replied Esther staunchly, ‘but it kept on and on, so in the end we did pick up the receiver.’

‘We didn’t think it could be any worse than what was on the television, you see,’ said Esther in defence of their actions.

‘Was it the creature on the end of the phone?’ I asked.

‘Yes, it most certainly was, and it said some really dreadful things.’

‘Such as?’

‘I’d rather not say,’ said Dorothy primly.

‘Suffice it to say, Mr Oakley,’ said Esther, leaning confidingly towards me, ‘that the voice expressed its hatred of us in no uncertain terms.’

‘It’s so unfair,’ wailed Dorothy. ‘We’ve never done anything to it.’

‘Well, as you can imagine, by that time we’d had enough,’ said Esther. ‘I strode over to the wall to pull the plug on the damn thing.’

‘Your first sensible move of the evening,’ commented Disvan.

‘Oh yes? Look what it did to me!’

Esther held up her right hand for our inspection and we saw that the tips of her fingers were covered in angry, red burns.

‘Somehow, that vile thing had made the plug and cable live,’ she continued, ‘and it very nearly did for me.’

‘Esther’s hair had blue sparks in it and she had the shakes for hours after,’ said Dorothy solicitously.

‘Did you get it unplugged though?’ I enquired.

‘Not that time. Dorothy eventually went and got the rubber gloves from the kitchen for insulation and then used my walking stick to hook the plug out. You should have seen the shower of sparks from the wall and heard what the thing said whilst we did it!’

‘So what should we do now, Mr Disvan?’ asked Dorothy.

‘Follow my previous instructions,’ he said.

‘No, apart from that, I mean.’

Disvan leaned back in his seat and pondered the matter for a moment in silence. The Constantines’ drinks arrived and were downed in one.

My attention wandered lightly around the company gathered in the Argyll that evening and I sought, as before, to reconcile the strangeness of what I was hearing with the plain as-it should-be-ness all about. Just as before, I could not. These two streams of Binscombe life seemed to be separate and yet in close parallel. They were interconnected in ways that I could not fathom. There were bridges across the great void between them, but I was not privy to their whereabouts. However, many native Binscomites seemed to take these bridges’ existence for granted and were able to cross them at will. No conflict or puzzlement was caused in the Binscombe world view (apparently bred in the blood) by the natural and supernatural lying down, like lion and lamb, and abiding together. I wondered whether I would one day aspire (or descend, depending on your point of view) to real Binscombe citizenship and share this frame of mind.

Mr Disvan then disturbed my idle reverie.

‘Let’s consider the possibilities,’ he said. ‘Our search of your house didn’t turn up anywhere that might conceal a burial, and we can hardly dig up the entire garden. Consequently, the idea of putting the creature’s remains to proper rest seems to be a non-starter.’

‘Agreed,’ said Esther.

Dorothy nodded her head.

‘And I presume your objections to having a priest perform an exorcism remain as resolute as ever...’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Quite unthinkable.’

Once again I must have appeared bewildered by this, for the Constantines thought their stance required expanding upon.

‘Yes, Mr Oakley,’ said Esther, ‘I know the situation we’re in is hardly one covered by the thoughts of Marx and Engels but even so... I mean, if we’re to go running, cap in hand, to some God-botherer at the first sign of something outside our philosophy, well, I ask you—what does that make of our lifelong convictions?’

I nodded my understanding.

‘In that case,’ said Mr Disvan, ‘there’s only one thing I can think of to do.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Reason with it.’

*  *  *

On our way to the Constantine household, we all discussed Mr Disvan’s proposed strategy, and he was able to overcome some of our early objections.

His simple argument was that there was no practical alternative to what he suggested—a point we found impossible to refute.

‘If, as you say, you had nothing to do with his original death,’ Disvan explained, ‘and if, as seems likely, the creature is aware of what we do in this world, then perhaps the truth of the matter can be brought to his attention. Then, and this is introducing yet another “if”,
if
the spirit or whatever is convinced that its attempts at revenge are misplaced, it may leave you alone.’

‘I wish we could think of something better. Something a little less conditional,’ said Dorothy.

‘Something a bit more harmful to that disgusting entity occupying our house is what’s really required,’ agreed Esther. ‘It goes against the grain to negotiate with an enemy such as that. We should be pressing for unconditional surrender!’

‘That’s the next stage if peace negotiations fail,’ said Disvan. ‘However, I strongly suspect that all out war would involve casualties before (and if) victory was achieved. Presumably you want to avoid that. After all, this isn’t the revolution, and ghosts aren’t part of the class enemy.’

He turned around and saw that his intended jest had fallen just about as flat as any piece of humour could. The Constantine sisters looked at him with expressions entirely free of amusement.

‘Sorry,’ he said and continued walking.

The evening was merely brisk rather than cold, and an absence of cloud cover allowed the moon and stars to illuminate the scene to a considerable extent. Looking ahead we saw that in the side street where the Constantines lived there were a number of vehicles parked: a police car and an ambulance both with their lights revolving, periodically bathing the nearby houses in an unnatural red glow.

‘I should imagine it’s old Mr Waddy, fallen down his cellar steps again,’ said Esther, sounding far from certain.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Disvan, peering ahead. ‘I can see movement outside your door.’

Mr Disvan was right, except on the point of detail that the Constantines’ door no longer existed as such. Torn from its hinges, it lay useless and unregarded on the front lawn. Police and ambulance men milled about in the entrance to the house looking puzzled.

‘What have you done to our house, you bastards!’ shouted Esther Constantine as we hurried near.

Despite this, the long-haired leading ambulance man seemed pleased to see us. ‘Here they are,’ he said. ‘Emergency over, lads.’

Needless to say, Mr Disvan seemed to know him well and, shielding the man from the outraged Constantines, he asked what was going on.

‘We thought something had happened to the ladies,’ he replied, addressing us in general. ‘We had a report of a possible distress signal coming from the house. It was still going when we got here and, failing to get a reply, we had to take the door off to get in. Mighty stubborn door you had there, ladies, nigh two inches of teak—real old fashioned bit of workmanship. Shame it had to go.’

‘What sort of a distress signal, Phil?’ asked Disvan.

‘Flashing lights. The house lights were being turned on and off in a regular pattern. As chance would have it, the old gent from across the way who reported it to us happened to be an ex-navy man and he said that the lights were spelling something out in Morse code, over and over again.’

‘What?’