Home life
Tale of the unexpected
Alice Thomas Ellis
was wakened quite late the other morn- ing, or rather afternoon, by an awful little bird sitting on a topmost bough making a noise like an unoiled hinge. Musical it wasn't. He was very small and a bit yellow and I must ask Janet (who knows about these things) what the little horror is called so I can put his name in a drawer.
We were staying in the country for a few days because I had just heard from an editor asking if I had finished the project on which I am engaged. There is nothing like those words for reminding one that one had better make a start, so we shot off to meet Gladys Mary who is helping me with the said project.
We arrived in a blizzard and didn't take our coats off for the first two days while the house gradually warmed up. Then one evening we were just relaxing and thinking about going to bed when the third son and Neil had the sort of experience we could all do without. They were in the barn enjoying an innocent and bracing game of ping-pong when suddenly upon their ears fell the fearful words 'Evenin' all', followed by the sound of size twelves on the barn steps. The ping-pong ball froze in mid-flight, the words 'I never dunnit' hung unuttered on the air and the two of them stared wildly around wondering if there was any evi- dence they should fling a hasty tarpaulin over. I ask myself if policemen have this effect on families other than our own.
The boys led the officers of the law across to the house where I, in my turn, nearly suffered cardiac arrest, since I al- ways first expect them to tell me that somebody has died. It must be very thank- less being a policeman. After the initial shock I found myself pondering shiftily whether I should hide the Scotch behind a chair leg, and whether smoking was illegal in one's own sitting-room. It was reassur- ing to see one of them accepting a fag from the son, but I restrained myself from asking ingratiatingly whether they were permitted to drink on duty.
The reason for their unexpected pre- sence was that four teenagers on a Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme or something had failed to return to base at the correct time and were wandering around some- where up on the moors. We left all the lights blazing to guide them down, should they drift our way, and crawled off to bed, where I found I couldn't sleep. Then the ghosts started talking downstairs. Last time I heard them they were all men, but this time I could hear a woman's voice too. I strained my ears to try and distinguish words, but this isn't possible, and anyway they indubitably speak in old Welsh.
Next day Gladys Mary said she had heard them too. Gladys Mary is quite amazing. She had worked solidly all day on 'my' project while I had spent half the afternoon in exhausted slumber. She had written an article in bed until about 3 a.m. with the ghosts all gassing away down- stairs; then she got up at the crack of dawn, hit the ground running and I wouldn't be at all surprised if she'd written a poem before breakfast. What's more, she'd driven miles to get to us, traversing the Berwyns in the snow. I wish I knew where she got her energy.
We heard the helicopter plying to and fro in search of the lost teenagers, but then came the cheerful news that they'd teamed up in the pub over on the other side, so I had another nap to celebrate, wondering how many of the ghosts got that way by finding themselves benighted up on the mountain. I was once told by the oldest inhabitant, of a previous owner-occupier who rode into the village on his horse and never returned. The horse came back but he was found floating face down in the stream. From the tone of tile account I gathered that this had happened yesterday, but it transpired that the granny of the granny of the granny of the oldest inhabi- tant had told him about it. Time, while not precisely standing still, does tend to lounge around a bit here. There had been a suspicion that the drowned man had not died an accidental death — some talk of sheep rustling and bad feeling — and I wondered who had had the task of enfor- cing the law in those far off days and whether they had said 'Evenin' all'.
Perhaps if I bone up on my Welsh, burnish up my courage and come down one night to join the talking ghosts I shall find out. I am pretty sure that, in view of the impres- sion they made, the shades of our two policemen will continue to alarm genera- tions to come should they chance to be playing ping-pong in the barn as night thickens.
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