3. Articles & Stories
The Joy of Haunting {teen to adult readers}
The Joy of Haunting by A. Roz Mar
Neil detested the countryside. It only served to waste time away from London and the business of making money. “I’ll sell the damn thing,” he told the estate attorney. There was nothing he could do but follow his dead uncle’s directive in the will that he must spend three days in the cottage before any action could be taken in either selling or keeping it.
“Bloody mess,” he grunted, wiping his muddied dress loafers on the footbrush beside an old front door. The house was surrounded by a dense profusion of ivy gone mad covering nearly the entire façade. He was startled when a chough landed on the roof’s edge and mocked him, its red bill opening and closing again and again taunting him with its harsh annoying cry. “Shoo, go on, shoo,” he cried, waving his arms seeing the bird off then saw the white splatter of bird droppings on his car. “I just had it waxed!” he whined. “Tch, why did I bother.”
He turned the key and stepped inside. Immediately the stale stench of cigar smoke and whiskey, ale and ash hit him like a cursed thud. Tossing his head back he barked, “Must I have to do this?!” hoping his uncle could hear him somewhere up there in the afterlife. “This isn’t a house it’s a poor sot’s pub.” He threw down his leather travel bag and slammed the door shut behind him.
His mind reeled...I have clients to see, not this mess! There’s the meeting with Roger to arrange...Ned and Sophie must be at Heathrow on Friday...there’ll be hordes of traffic no doubt. The list went on and on in his head. “But I have to be here instead!” He had put it off and put it off until forced to by his solicitor who repeatedly reminded him of the deadline.
He took a deep breath. “Now, let us start again. Over there,” he said pointing and marched down the hallway that led straight into the wide space of a living room.
First he noted the two leather sofas mumbling sarcastically, “Not just one, eh?” He took it all in surveying each thing.
There were side tables, leather chairs, and a chess board with pieces poised on black and red squares in the middle of battle; a backgammon board arranged on a low table between raj chairs; shelves filled with sloppily arranged books covered in cobwebs and a stone fireplace with a poker sticking out of musty blackened wood and ash that had spilled out onto the hearth. He pinched his nose and bent to try and look up the chimney, “hmm, wind perhaps.” A large desk to the right was pushed up against a wall piled with papers. A mouse appeared, saw him, and quickly scampered off on its pink little feet.
“Agggh,” he gasped, a blast of adrenalin tinkling his skin.
Scattered in spots were drinking glasses and dirty ashtrays over flowing with stale half smoked cigars that insulted his sense of tidiness and made him cringe with disgust. On the floor were stacks of Sporting Life, Financial Times, and other periodicals that shared the same layer of dust and filth that covered the silk and wool Qom rug in the middle of the room, he closed his eyes to pretend he did not see, though grateful the tapestry was tough enough to withstand such abuse. Even with eyes closed his imagination envisioned the other rooms of the cottage in the same condition.
Through windows and double French doors he could see a neatly trimmed hedge. “Aha! Now there, there is where I need to be,” he hoped for a moment of respite from the hellish hodgepodge inside and to get some fresh air. He maneuvered through the maze of furniture then accidentally knocked over a standing ashtray that spread ash and cigarette butts on the rug. It rattled his nerves that were already as tight as a coil ready to spring.
The French doors were locked. “Damn!” he said and fumbled for the keys in his pants pocket and then fumbled again trying to find the right one to fit. On the third try a key slipped right in and easily turned the lock. “Well done,” he said and pushed against the doors with needless force falling hard onto the ground. He laid still for awhile then raised himself heavily.
Banged my elbows is all, he thought and managed to stand. Embarrassed he wiped away dirt from his trousers and rubbed his bruised elbows coming away with smears of blood. He felt like a boy tripped up on a playfield.
Looking about he was surprised to find a well kept garden. Tucked within the hedge were roses, hollyhocks, black eyed daisies, and lavender crowded around a stone paved yard. Past this was the tall hedge which met a newly mowed lawn that extended to a woodland forest where a narrow greenway divided it.
“What the....” Beyond the hedge between the stone yard and the woods were masses and masses of bluebells in clumps and bunches that spanned to the forest and into the trees. The long narrow greenway that cut a path through the woods reached a mile or more, he thought. He’d been shown the boundary of the property on a map but to actually see it made him pause, realizing what he would inherit. Unprepared for this he blankly stared in the distance and wondered if he was seeing things.
He started walking up the greenway when he heard a loud crack. He halted then upped his pace moving faster toward the sound until he reached the far end of the woods where he found a small wooden sign staked into the ground which read: Malcolm’s Rest. “Why, Uncle M.,” he said surprised, joyful to see his namesake. Beyond the sign was a grassy field with wickets set up and ready for play. Though wedded to his work the only other thing able to divorce his attention away from it had been the love of cricket. He remembered his uncle as a stodgy academic, his father once telling him that Uncle M. despised the game, “he prefers horses on turf to willow bats,” he once told his nephew. “Malcolm’s Rest, why you old liar,” Neil said, amused.
A smirky grin crossed his lips and he scratched his head on a spot of soreness, “humph, must’ve banged it too” then a thought pierced his mind. Time plays tricks. He moved to the edge of the pitch. Onlookers and players decked-out in white wandered about the lawn waiting to start the game. Lounge chairs were placed here and there in front of the scoring hut and verandah of the clubhouse.
Singing and laughter like tinkling bells came to his ear from out of the woods to his left where a gathering mist blotted out the tree trunks. The gray light turned the bluebells dark like globs of blood. Will o’ the wisp, he thought then saw a girl holding a spray of bluebells in her cupped hands. “`Tis jolly, jolly, jolly, little horses and a trolley...,” she sang. The sound of her voice and the little tune echoed then collapsed to silence just as vapor melds into the haze of an evening. He heard another crack of the bat and made his way onto the playing field.
THE END
Copyright: A. Roz Mar, 2018 The Joy of Haunting
