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Hopeless Tales, Tales from the Squid and Teapot

The Strange Visitor

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Story by Martin Pearson, ghost of Lady Margaret D’Avening by Cliff Cumber

The snuggery of The Squid and Teapot glowed in the cosy warmth of a blazing log fire. It was the end of a long and tiring day, and the landlord, Bartholomew Middlestreet, was glad to take the weight off his feet. He was sitting with his wife, Ariadne, and their friends, Philomena Bucket and Reggie Upton, who both lived at the inn. Drury, the skeletal hound, had invited himself in, and was snuffling and snoring on the fireside rug. Bartholomew could not have felt happier. In such cordial company, generously lubricated by a few tankards of ‘Old Colonel’, even the miserable climate of the island and its attendant horrors could be forgotten for a few hours.

“Gosh!” exclaimed Reggie Upton, “it is the end of October already. Do the islanders usually celebrate Halloween?”

Ariadne laughed derisively.

“What would be the point?” she asked. “It’s Halloween every day on Hopeless.”

“Yes, but you know what I mean,” said Reggie. “People have always liked to sit around a roaring fire and tell scary stories at this time of year.”

“I saw the makings of a good scary story yesterday,” broke in Philomena. Her voice was a little slurred. “Father Stamage climbed out of his hat, yawned, scratched his arse, then went back to bed.”

It was not particularly funny, but everyone laughed. Even Drury managed to emerge from his slumbers sufficiently to wag his bony old tail.

“Steady on,” said a voice. “I might be dead but I am certainly not deaf.”

An annoyed Father Stamage had thrust his ghostly head through the wall.

“And for your information,” he added, crossly, “I have never knowingly scratched my… scratched myself in front of a lady.”

“Ah, go on with you, Father,” said Philomena, ignoring the priest’s displeasure. “Aren’t you ghosts supposed to be celebrating, or something, this evening?”

“The only celebrating I will be doing,” said Stamage, imperiously, “is Mass, with Lady Margaret.  It’s All Hallows Day tomorrow and it’s only a pity that we have to mark the occasion in the privy.”

Lady Margaret D’Avening, also known as the Headless White Lady, famously haunted the stones that had been used to build the inn’s flushing privy, and was not able to venture very far from them.

“I could prise out a block for her to haunt, and put it somewhere more appropriate,” offered Bartholomew.

“It is not worth your trouble,” said the ghostly Jesuit, the landlord’s generosity driving all annoyance from his voice. “Besides, I think Lady Margaret feels at home in the privy. She doesn’t enjoy travel very much.”

With that Father Stamage disappeared, probably to return to the comfort of his hat – his beloved Capello Romano – and once more wander the hallowed corridors of his old alma mater, Campion Hall, in Oxford.

“Well, as far as I am concerned Halloween wouldn’t be the same without a ghostly story or two. Does anyone know any? – and I mean real stories this time,” said Reggie markedly, eyeing Philomena.

The barmaid smiled mischievously and said,

“Well, I do… but it’s more of a poem really, I suppose, called The Strange Visitor. Granny Bucket taught it to me years ago.”

“Let’s hear it, then” urged Ariadne.

Philomena settled herself into her seat, and began, her Irish lilt becoming broader and more pronounced with each word. She spoke slowly, and as the verse progressed, the fire seemed to die down a little, and shadows gathered around her.

“A woman was sitting at her reel one night;
And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.

In came a pair of broad, broad feet, and sat down at the fireside;
And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.

In came a pair of small, small legs, and sat down on the broad, broad feet;
And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.

In came a pair of thick, thick knees, and sat down on the small, small legs;
And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.

In came a pair of thin, thin thighs, and sat down on the thick, thick knees;
And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.

In came a pair of huge, huge hips, and sat down on the thin, thin thighs;
And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.

In came a wee, wee waist, and sat down on the huge, huge hips;
And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.

In came a pair of broad, broad shoulders, and sat down on the wee, wee waist;
And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.

In came a pair of small, small arms, and sat down on the broad, broad shoulders;
And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.

In came a pair of huge, huge hands, and sat down on the small, small arms;
And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.

In came a small, small neck, and sat down on the broad, broad shoulders;
And still she sat, and still she reeled, and still she wished for company.

In came a huge, huge head, and sat down on the small, small neck.

‘How did you get such broad, broad feet?’ quoth the woman.
‘Much tramping, much tramping’.

‘How did you get such small,  small legs?’
‘Aih-h-h!–late–and wee-e-e—moul’.

‘How did you get such thick, thick knees?’
‘Much praying, much praying’.

‘How did you get such thin, thin thighs?’
‘Aih-h-h!–late–and wee-e-e–moul’.

‘How did you get such big, big hips?’
‘Much sitting, much sitting’.

‘How did you get such a wee, wee waist?’
‘Aih-h-h!–late–and wee-e-e–moul’.

‘How did you get such broad, broad shoulders?’
‘With carrying broom, with carrying broom’.

‘How did you get such small, small arms?’
‘Aih-h-h!–late–and we-e-e–moul’.

‘How did you get such huge, huge hands?’
‘Threshing with an iron flail, threshing with an iron flail’.

‘How did you get such a small, small neck?’
‘Aih-h-h!–late–wee-e-e–moul’.

‘How did you get such a huge, huge head?’
‘Much knowledge, much knowledge’.

‘What do you come for?’

Before Philomena was able to deliver the last line, a wailing banshee emerged from the chimney, burst into the snuggery and screamed at the top of her voice,

“I HAVE COME FOR YOU!”

Everyone quailed visibly and drew back; even Drury yelped in alarm and slunk into the corner.

“For goodness sake Granny,” shouted Philomena, “that is not funny.”

“Oh, I think it is” cackled the ghost of Granny Bucket. “You should see your faces.”

“My dear Mistress Bucket,” said Reggie, regaining his composure and straightening his regimental tie. “Another shock like that and I’ll be a ghost myself.”

“Then I think you all need another drink,” laughed Granny. “I only wish that I could have one meself. Happy Halloween, everybody.”

Hopeless Tales, Tales from the Squid and Teapot

The Deal

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“I used to be somebody, once.”
Geoffrey Stancombe stared miserably into the dregs of beer pooling in the bottom of his tankard.
Philomena Bucket patted his shoulder consolingly,
“You still are somebody, you daft thing. Sure, if you weren’t, I couldn’t be seeing you sat sitting there, now could I?”
“No, I mean really somebody. I used to have it all. Money, power, a girl on each arm. It’s all gone… all gone.”
The other drinkers in the bar of the Squid and Teapot said nothing. They had heard it all before. This had been a regular lament of Geoffrey’s ever since he had washed up on the island a few days earlier, boasting of his luxury yacht and expensive clothes. All his rescuers could see was a slightly built, wild-eyed man of middle-age, who had arrived bedraggled, half-dead and clinging to a rectangular piece of wood that had once been a door. In fairness, Geoffrey was not that unusual. Newcomers frequently made improbable claims, citing wealth and position but – even if these were true – such things cut no ice on Hopeless. Anyone who managed to survive more than a few weeks would be simply judged by their ability to fit in, and the ways in which they might contribute to the benefit of all. So far it looked as though Geoffrey was doomed to fail on both counts.

It was half a lifetime ago that he had met the stranger who had turned his destiny upon its head. He had been sitting in a dockside pub in Liverpool, drowning his sorrows in a smoke-filled bar, when she sidled up and offered to buy him a drink. Geoffrey was well aware that he was being set-up for some scam or other, but he was slightly drunk, down to his last few pounds and she was young and attractive; what was there to lose? Several more drinks were taken before she made her play. He could recall their conversation as if it was yesterday.
“I’ll give you twenty-four.”
“Oh, come on! I was hoping for at least forty.”
“Sorry, twenty-four or the deal’s off.”
“But why? I’ve heard that you’ve offered hundreds in the past.”
“That, as you rightly say, was in the past. I cannot afford to be so generous these days. Times have changed.”

Geoffrey remembers himself hesitating, until the stranger purred softly in his ear,
“Look… it is an excellent bargain. You’d be a fool to walk away from it.”
He felt himself weakening.
“And you would meet all of my demands?” he asked
“Oh yes. I am not out to swindle you.”
“And I get twenty-four years.”
“Twenty-four years and not a minute less,” she smiled. “It’s a small price to pay.”

When you, yourself, are only twenty-four years old and are offered the same span again, pain-free, trouble-free, debt-free and guilt-free, it feels like a no-brainer. You are standing in the very centre of a story, your own story. Your life, so far, feels long and endless. Much of it is a blur, or something viewed through the wrong end of a telescope. Time has been slow and kind, a sluggish stream that never reached birthdays, Christmas and school holidays quite soon enough. So you reason that future time will equally languid. Forty years would have been good but, hell, in forty years you would be really, really ancient and probably in no fit state to enjoy the extra time afforded to you anyway. No, twenty-four years of luxury would be good enough.

“What a fool I was,” Geoffrey thought bitterly, not realising that he had said the words out loud.
“And why a fool?” asked Philomena, sitting down opposite him.
Geoffrey said nothing for a moment. The easy way in which Philomena’s voice had sidled into his head, shattering his reverie, reminded him of the young woman in the pub in Liverpool. But there the resemblance ended.
“Can you come and walk with me a while?” he asked her, almost shyly. “It’s nothing that I want to speak of in here.”
“Give me a moment,” said Philomena, “I’ve a couple of things to finish off, than I’ll be with you.”

They walked in silence for a while, making their way in the direction of Chapel Rock.
Philomena slipped her arm into the crook of his. It felt the right thing to do.
Geoffrey told her about the conversation in the pub and the bargain that he had struck. He told her how his life had changed, almost immediately. Everything he wanted was suddenly available. Nothing was beyond his grasp. For years this hedonistic lifestyle seemed wonderful then one day, not so long ago, he woke up and realised that his existence was a totally empty sham. He had no friends or lovers, just a great many people who were attracted only to his wealth and power. Everything had gone sour and all that was left were his possessions, each one no more than a lifeless trinket, a symbol of his squandered years. To make matters worse, time itself had somehow forgotten how to dawdle. He had failed to notice how the lazy stream of his remembered youth had become a raging torrent that cruelly and casually swept away twenty-three years and eleven months in the blinking of an eye. The bargain he had made granted him twenty-four years and not a minute less. Now all that was left was one month and not a minute more. He was terrified.
Geoffrey fell silent. Minutes that felt like hours slipped by. Unable to bear it any longer, Philomena asked,
“So what did you do?”
“I ran away. Leastways, I sailed away. I had a yacht and a crew of three to sail her. But there was a storm. That’s all I remember until I found myself on this island. I suppose the crew must all be dead by now.”
“But you escaped… whatever it was you were running from.”
“Do you think so?” he said, brightening up.
“I guess it depends on how long you were at sea,” Philomena said, then added, “I’ve got to get back to The Squid now. I’ll catch up with you later. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

When Philomena arrived back at The Squid and Teapot she found Bartholomew Middlestreet sitting at a table, in the now empty bar, playing solitaire.
“What was that all about with Geoffrey?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said Philomena pensively. “What he told me was difficult to believe, yet there was something…”
“Well, those things he said in here about being rich and powerful, not a word of it is true.” Bartholomew interrupted. “But I’m not calling him a liar – I think he’s genuinely deluded.”
“Well, that’s a relief, anyway” said Philomena, thinking of the story Geoffrey had told her. “But how can you be so sure?”
“When we found him I could have sworn he was dead,” sad Bartholomew. “There was no pulse that I could feel, then suddenly he sits bolt upright, throws up a great stream of water and asks where he is. They say that drinking sea-water drives people mad and I guess that’s what happened to Geoffrey. Besides, the girl who turned up the following day says that they were part of the crew of the yacht that floundered on the rocks off Scilly Point. They were the only survivors.”
“At least the bit about the yacht was true, even if it didn’t belong to him,” said Philomena. “I didn’t know about the girl, though. Where is she now?”
“I haven’t seen her since then,” said Philomena replied Bartholomew. “Odd that. Most newcomers stay here in the Squid.”

Geoffrey didn’t return to the Squid that evening, or ever again. He seemed to have vanished completely. The general feeling was that, in the state of mind that he was in, anything could have happened. Philomnena was sad but not surprised. Such things occurred on Hopeless with monotonous regularity and all thoughts of Geoffrey and his talk of a mysterious deal eventually faded from her mind.

It was a some months later, while rummaging in the attics of The Squid, looking for something to read, that Philomena found the following passage in a slim book of short stories. For reasons she could not fathom, it made her blood run cold:

A rich man, living in Baghdad, sent his servant to market, as he did most weeks. When the servant came back, his face was pale and his hands trembled. His kindly master could not help but be concerned and asked the cause of his distress.
“When I was in the marketplace,” the servant replied with a shaking voice, “I spotted a woman in the crowd. I recognised her at once – she was Death. She looked at me with surprise and it seemed as though she was threatening me. My heart missed a beat. I was certain that it was I whom she sought. Oh, beloved master, I must flee from this city if I am to avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra where Death will not find me.”
“Take my fastest horse,” said the rich man “and ride like the wind.”
The next day the rich man went down to the marketplace himself, and who should he see but Death, mingling in the crowd.
“Why were you so surprised to see my servant when you saw him yesterday? He seemed to think that you were threatening him” said the rich man to Death.
“It is true, I was surprised, but there was no threat intended,” agreed Death. “You see, I did not expect to see him in Baghdad yesterday, for I had an appointment with him last night in Samarra.”