The Right Kind of Haunting | Short Story

‘Would you mind waiting in  the back sitting room? Graham, was it? I’m afraid we’re running rather behind.’

               ‘That’s no problem,’ I replied.

And it wasn’t, not really. I had nothing apart from that house viewing to occupy my time on that cold, bleak Saturday afternoon. Slightly more irritating was the houseowner Madeleine’s demeanour. Upon answering the door, she had seemed surprised, irritated even, as though not expecting me. She struck me as an ethereal presence as she led me inside, gauzy material fluttering underneath her arms, her dress bustling against door frames and chair legs.

               I was the model of politeness as I sat down on a rather dowdy sofa. Madeleine hurried to leave before turning around at the door as though about to say something. I looked at her properly for the first time and saw a woman in her mid-sixties, with dark circles around her eyes and crows’ feet etched deeply into her skin. Seeming to change her mind, she shut the door behind her, and I heard her footsteps recede into the house.

               Settling down to wait, I looked at the room around me. It did not look as though Madeleine had made much effort to tidy up – a fact that I found odd given that the house – a turn of the century Cotswolds cottage – was open for viewing for only one day a week. Walking boots were stacked untidily in a corner, whilst dust clung to the television screen. Pot plants in various stages of decomposition cluttered the sideboards. A grubby window looked out onto the driveway I had just walked down and upon which frost would shortly be forming. I thought about taking my mobile phone out to pass the time but remembered that it was switched off. The battery had taken to emptying remarkably fast over the past few days and I would need satnav to get home in the early winter dark.

               Floorboards creaked above me. There was the sound of Madeleine’s burbling conversation interspersed with laughter. Any irritation I felt at being asked to wait was dampened by the realisation – one that had struck me as soon as I saw the house really – that the property was too big for me. As an author I had no aversion to a certain amount of writerly, early century sprawl, but those rambling outhouses and the vast expanse of garden had transformed me into more of a tyre kicker than an interested party.

               The cadence of the conversation above me had changed ever so slightly. It was not aggressive or even indignant, but there was a staccato, edgy quality that had not been there before. Although I could not pick out words, it sounded as though the viewer had asked for something and been disappointed upon not receiving it. Eventually the tone became more cordial and the conversation travelled down the stairs towards me. I heard Madeleine showing her guest out with the usual fripperies and saw the back of a Mackintosh jacket moving up the long drive before I was interrupted.

               ‘I’m so sorry,’ Madeleine said, coming back into the room with a warmer smile and a rush of cold winter air. ‘Saturday is the only day I let people view the property and I do get rather backed up by the afternoon.’

               ‘It’s really no problem. Am I your last today?’

               ‘Last but one,’ she replied, shaking my hand and motioning for me to follow her. ‘Right, shall we? I’ve got the grand tour down to a slick fifteen minutes.’

               ‘Lead the way,’ I replied, knocked slightly off-kilter by her changing manner. Most of the property owners who I had spoken to so far had cultivated a mise-en-scene of just-baked bread and cinnamon candles and letting the viewer see if the house is right for them. Madeleine seemed to approach the viewing in the manner of a mother espying a grubby plaster on her child’s knee and deciding that it would have to come off.

               Sure enough, the tour continued in this vein. Barely had I entered a room than I was being whisked out of it. I paid fleeting homage to a ‘main’ sitting room that barely deserved distinction from the counterpart in which I had sat, a bathroom festooned with old loofahs and a set of denture holders, and a kitchen with dust on top of the microwaves and breakfast dishes stacked in the Belfast sink. Whether my murmurations had been insufficiently effusive I’m not sure, but by the time Madeleine had got around to showing me the frigid outhouses she was obviously embarrassed, ushering me quickly past a rusting bicycle and a damp woodpile. Whether by way of an apology or because she could see that I was shivering, Madeleine insisted that I stayed for a cup of tea before getting back on the road.

               Back in the kitchen, I was sat down at the rough wooden table, my cold hands cradling a warm mug as Madeleine turned the central heating on. Tortured groans from an ageing boiler suggested that I might not be warm anytime soon. After making herself a cup of fruit tea, Madeleine sat across from me, a small smile on her lips as she stared out of the window.

               ‘I’ll not be long,’ I said, breaking the silence. ‘I’ll warm up and then be on my way.’

               ‘You haven’t said much about the house.’

Forced to choose between stringing her along and being honest, I chose the coward’s route somewhere in between.

               ‘I think I’m looking for somewhere with a little less upkeep. I’m a writer…writer-researcher, really. The garden alone looks rather challenging for me!’

Madeleine smiled that smile of hers and sipped her tea,

               ‘A writer, you say?’

               ‘That’s right.’

               ‘Would I have heard of anything you’ve written?’

               ‘Perhaps,’ I said, knowing that she would not have. ‘I translate Anglo-Saxon texts into modern English.’

               ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Is there a market for that? For bringing the past to life?’

               ‘I suppose there must be.’

Madeleine floated over to the kettle to top up her cup. She spent a long time stirring before returning to the table.

               ‘I suppose you’re wondering why the house I’m trying to sell is in such a mess.’

This was direct from Madeleine – not at all like her earlier floating conversation.

               ‘As I said,’ I blustered. ‘I’m looking for something with a little less…’

               ‘The truth is I’m not looking to sell at all.’

For a moment there was no sound in the kitchen save from the boiler’s gurglings. I thought of the long drive out here and the return journey still to come.

               ‘Then why advertise?’

Madeleine weighed the teabag in her cup with a spoon before letting it sink.

               ‘I can remember being taken to Sutton Hoo as a girl,’ she said. ‘Brooches, combs, armour, even horses in people’s graves with them. We all want to take memories with us, don’t we? Things that we think tell a story about the person we aspire to be.’

               ‘I suppose,’ I replied, feeling as though we were approaching her point.

               ‘Soon after I moved in here…’she began before tailing off. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve told very few people about this…Soon after I moved in, I began experiencing things…phenomena I suppose you’d call them. I would wake at night to the sound of a woman crying – crying that would stop as soon as I got up to investigate. Plates would fall from the Welsh dresser. Doors would slam with such violence you’d barely credit it. So far, so ‘Haunting of Hill House, yes?’

I smiled uneasily at her.

               ‘I might have been able to stand all of these things – it is an old house, after all. I couldn’t stand what I saw on New Year’s Eve 1998 though. No-one could stand that.’

Madeleine looked out of the window and then down at her watch. I was caught between doing the same and wanting her to continue.

               ‘I woke up – God knows what time it was, but I know the fireworks from the village had long since stopped. I woke up not because of any noise this time, but because of the cold. It didn’t feel like it does in the old ghost stories – that bone deep cold. It was more like I’d left a window open somewhere or perhaps hadn’t closed the back door properly.’

Although Madeleine’s voice didn’t crack, there was a definite tightening in her throat.

               ‘You know when you can’t quite understand what you’re seeing? Perhaps it was no surprise – I was still half asleep, dressed only in my nightie and dressing gown. Still, who expects to see a pair of feet hovering in front of their nose upon leaving their bedroom? There they were – dainty as you like, stock-still, and mid-air on the landing. I looked up and understood alright then. She seemed to be looking at me, framed by the open loft hatch, her eyes all bloodshot and her tongue swollen and black. The rope was cutting so deep into her neck that you could hardly see it. That was enough for me. I spent the rest of the night in my car and put the house up for sale the next morning.’

I was silent for a minute. What can a person say to a tale like that?

               ‘I’m so sorry. If this is upsetting you…’

               ‘No, I’m sorry,’ she replied, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve. ‘It’s not often I tell the story, but I thought with your interest in history and superstition and all that…Don’t worry – not all ghost stories have a bad end. Some don’t have an end at all.’

My cup of tea was almost finished, but even with the fading light outside, there suddenly didn’t seem enough left.

               ‘I had prospective buyers of course, plenty,’ went on Madeleine. ‘All of them were put off by the things you’ve been too polite to mention – the antiquated central heating, the overgrown grounds, the catastrophic home report. And then she came, one bright winter’s morning. I nearly passed away when I opened the door and saw her. There were no bloodshot eyes, no bulging tongue, but it was her alright. She was cheerful, excited even, and although she looked as though she was dressed like someone from the 1960s, it wasn’t so a person would notice.

               ‘Well, what could I do but show her around? It amazes me even now to think how I just…did it. Perhaps I’d done the tour so often over the previous fortnight that it was second nature. You know how it is – making the same jokes in the same rooms. Before long I was even managing to make conversation with her. She was recently widowed you see, and had gone through what sounded like a really rough time. Truth be told, she didn’t look as though she was keeping particularly well; she was rake-thin and her eyes were sunken in her face. The only thing I wouldn’t…couldn’t do was show her the loft. That just felt so wrong.

               ‘Afterwards, I half thought that I had imagined the entire episode, that the stress of selling the house was getting to me. I ran myself a hot bath and tried to forget about it. Then, the next morning, the doorbell went and there she was again. Same dress, same smile, but with seemingly no memory of ever having been to the house before. In somewhat of a daze, I gave her the same tour and made the same jokes to the same effect. That evening? Back again, this time revealing that she was looking for a fresh start after losing her husband in a terrible accident – she didn’t elaborate further.’

               ‘My god, Madeleine,’ I said finally, my voice croaking from lack of use. ‘Why…why are you still here? After everything that’s happened?’

Madeleine smiled, this time a full, tired, happy smile.

               ‘Remember when I said that not all ghost stories have a bad end? Well, the poor woman may have been coming to the house by appointment, but she was no longer visiting in the night. No crying, no smashing of chinaware and, thank heavens, no hanging from the loft hatch.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I don’t like to rush you but as I said, I’ve got another visitor today.’

               ‘But…’ I scrambled for words. ‘How have you coped?’

               ‘Oh, you know,’ Madeleine replied, taking my mug and putting it in the sink with the rest of the dirty dishes. ‘We find little ways, don’t we? I only allow viewings on Saturdays and – apart from you – my estate agent, a family friend, usually manages to cancel any…normal viewings. Do you not have a mobile phone?’

               ‘I…it’s not working at the moment.’

               ‘Ah, I see. It’s really not so much trouble. I often think we forget that we decide which moments are important in our lives – moments of despair, that feeling of hope and starting over…I think, given the chance, the poor woman wanted to relive a moment where she still dared to hope, where she thought there was something better ahead in her life. Wouldn’t you be the same?’               

I didn’t stay long after Madeleine had finished her story. Gathering my coat, I let her shepherd me out of the back door and direct me back to the road via that jungle of a back garden. As I picked my way over the frosted, uneven paving stones and thought about the competing visions we have of ourselves, I heard through the cold evening air the ring of a doorbell, followed by a low, muffled conversation.

Thanks for reading, folks. My recent short stories include ‘Sunset Hours‘ and ‘November Cold‘.

---

Matthew Richardson is a writer of short stories. His work has featured in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Close to the Bone, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Flashback Fiction, Cafelit, Best MicroFiction 2021, Writer’s Egg, Idle Ink, The Wild Word, and Shooter magazine. He has a Professional Doctorate in Education. Matthew blogs at www.matthewjrichardson.com.