Thursday 01 October
I left school today pretty drained. In a sort of numb head fug. It got to a stage where I was just staring at the laptop screen and I couldn’t make any decisions. As I walked out to the car I noticed four elderly folk, wearing face coverings, playing on the outside table tennis table.
I carried on and saw half a dozen other grey haired friends on the outdoor gym and a couple of gents playing tennis on the multi-sports court. I found out that we open our school facilities to the local community in the evenings and at weekends. Every Thursday a local group of elderly neighbours come down be active and the smiles on their faces said it all. It also made me appreciate who I work for.
On the way home I listened to another ghost story. Another M R James’ short, ‘The Wailing Well’. The evening light was fading as I arrived home but I was keen to take Mabel for a swift walk around the polytunnels and apple orchards. I needed some air.
It was a beautiful dusk sky. The sun had long since dipped below the horizon and the cool, fragranced air brushed my cheeks and forehead. I took big, deep breaths every four or five strides. The ripened raspberries and apples were hanging on to the bushes and trees, but only just.
It was almost dark when I chose to duck down a craggy alleyway, walled by two long rows of apple trees. My trainers squeeked ever so timidly on the clumpy, damp grass. It’s almost as if they didn’t want to make too much noise in case someone, or something, heard us.
I felt a need to walk quicker the further I walked down. I got about halfway. The end seeming to be impossibly far ahead, the back of my neck felt vulnerable. I looked behind me, it was too far to go back. I couldn’t see the end, in fact it looked like the darkness at the end, lacking any detail, was following me. Getting closer.
At least twice I thought I saw a movement in the apple alleys two or three to my left or right. Shoulders or a head profile, the same shady, autumn colours as the trees themselves. I had Mabel with me so felt a little safer, she snuffled below me dipping, without warning, into the adjacent lanes only for me to pull her back closer. I was wary of her wrapping the extendable lead around a tree by coming back to me a gap after of the one she initially ducked through. That would be bad, we would have to stop and untangle it. She was sniffing madly, head down to the ground. What scent had she latched on to? Surely she would bark at something she was threatened by?
We came to the end of the lane. I walked even quicker to the gate and cllimbed over. Mabel through the gap between gate and fence, and back home to the reassuring crunch underfoot of the gravel on our drive. I’ll listen to some music on my way home tomorrow.
The Bald Birder 