Old Bill
It’s that
time of year when things go bump in the night…well, they don’t really, but even
those of us who are logical play along for the fun of it. I have a tendency to
ignore Halloween in favour of Guy Fawkes on the 5th: purely for selfish
reasons as my birthday is on the 4th and I love fireworks! But I do have a tale to tell.
A number of
years ago, my husband and I bought a house that had not been lived in for two
years. It had terrible dry rot and damp along with so much heavily embossed anaglypta,
some hung upside down, that it was a definite restoration project. It was a 30’s
build semi of good size, built in a relatively rural location. It had its own
well water system-long since turned into a decoration and a beautiful
established garden. The kitchen was the mother of all disaster zones with water
dripping from the electric box in the corner. Melamine cabinets and dark wood
panels along the main wall which, when ripped off, revealed a passage from the
bible scribbled across the wall in pencil. I struggle to remember what it was,
it wasn’t a familiar quote and didn’t seem to make any sense to either of us. But
once ripped off, there was the strangest smell in the air; old: musty: stale.
The lounge
still had some furniture in it; when we viewed the house, it was like the guy
who lived there had popped down to the shop. A mug on the table by the side of
a chair, a pen and pools coupon nearby and the tv remote. A scuffed path marked
the passage of his slippered feet from chair to kitchen and stairs and a dark
stain remained in front of the fire. On ripping the carpet up, the same smell
emitted from the disturbed threads.
The bedrooms
were also an oasis of anaglypta and 60’s pink Vymura , a piece of which I still
have; pristine in a frame. The bathroom an oasis of yellow and white ‘thread
vein’ tiles that were so popular in the 70’s with a yellow mismatched bathroom
suite. Well, it would all be done in time but the basics needed doing first..
the dry rot, damp, electrics oh and the
matter of a new roof and damp proof course. The dry rot was worse than feared
but we were lucky to save the staircase, but the floor timbers in bedroom three
were not so fortunate and needed ripping out. The day we moved in the builders
were still beavering away. The only room we could use as storage was the
lounge. The kitchen was just a brick hole; no ceiling, no floor joists, no
floor and no ceiling above that either; right the way up to the roof tiles!
Once we had
crammed the lounge full we had to fill the old garage in the garden. What went
in here was prey to the mice we soon found out but as we couldn’t get to the
bedrooms due to the slight technical hitch of gaping holes, we had little
choice. A bed was hastily made up in the lounge for a few nights when
thankfully a friend offered us his house whilst we were having the works done.
We worked
around the building site of a house at weekends, [Paul was working away in the
week] ripping out rotten wood and stripping the worst of the walls. A layer of
brick and mortar dust settle on everything we owned leaving our skin dry and
cracked. I gave up trying to clean the place unless it was necessary! Every time
we stripped anything, that same stale musty smell was evident. We couldn’t work
it out. It began to appear in the bedroom, then bizarrely when I was having a
shower, but never when Paul was in there.
In fact, I can
smell it now. My nose is wrinking at its sourness, it’s like …oh never mind: I digress.
We continued
to make the house into a home and eventually moved in properly. Rescued what we
could of the stuff in the garage that hadn’t been used for bedding by the mice,
and cleaned everything and restored it in the newly plastered bedrooms. 33m of
plaster…now that overcame the musty smell for a while. We had no carpet as yet
but as it was work in progress, they would have only been ruined anyway. The hole
was blocked in the chimney where the mice lived and came out to play [no joke]
and the season passed where the spiders thudded down onto the floorboards from
the curtain rail. Our oasis of calm and cleanliness was our bedroom. Dusty
working clothes left at the door before stepping into tranquillity. At least
now I was only juggling the business and the house not the move of a business,
house and project managing the build! The barn owls calling from the roof to
the tree and the foxes and hedgehogs snuffling in the garden were a pleasure to
see at night fall.
We had a
bonfire party for my birthday. A friend pulled me to one side, ‘who’s the old
man just gone up the garden?’ I looked around puzzled. All our friends were in
sight and the neighbours too. ‘there is
no old man?’
She put her
hands on hips, ‘I don’t mean for real,’ she said. She leaned in.. ’you have a
ghost, I saw him the other week go past the patio doors and earlier he followed
Claire upstairs.’
Now, I had
been wondering about this as the smell did appear around women more than men
but being a non believer, I dismissed it.
The next
morning I got in the shower and the smell was there with me, ‘Go away!’ and it
did! Hmm. But the smell kept appearing.
Of a weekend
when Paul came to bed.
When I went
into the shower.
When new
friends came around: it was a nosey bugger whatever it was.
Things started
to click into place in my mind so I popped around to speak to the neighbour and
mentioned the smell. She smiled.
‘The houses
were built in the 30’s and Bill who lived in yours, owned both of our houses
with his brother. When they were finished he moved his young family in and they
had a happy home. Every year they bought a rooted Christmas Tree and after
Christmas, planted it in the garden to see if it would grow. Most didn’t but
the two you have at 40foot high did, that’s how they come to form the archway. As
his family grew up, his children married and his wife died, leaving Bill to
cope alone and wander around the empty house. When he died, it pained the
children to come to the house of happy memories so it mummified until you
brought new life into it.’
I felt there
was more. ‘And?’
Sheila took
a deep breath, ‘ do you want to know how he died?’ she waited.
‘can I guess?’
‘Yes.’
‘He had a
heart attack as he walked back into the lounge and fell in front of the fire
which is where he was found?’
‘Yes. I found
him. I came around to bring his tea and he was where you said. Sadly life had
left him but I believe he never left the house.’
My husband
and I divorced a few years later, but when he was on holiday, he asked me to
check the post etc. the smell had evidently gone at this point. I unlocked the
door, punched in the alarm code and entered my old house. All was quiet and I collected
the mail and placed it on the side in the kitchen. I pottered upstairs and
having the need to use the bathroom stepped into the new white and blue
sparkling room. It hit me as I did so. That musty old dank nose wrinkling smell.
As I write
this now, my nose is wrinkling, you see, Bill has followed me. He’s left the
house. Whenever I speak about it and now for the first time as I write about
it, he’s here. Hovering behind me, checking every word as I write.
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