Tollesbury Time Forever Read online

  Tollesbury Time Forever

  (FRUGALITY – Book 1)

  by

  Stuart Ayris

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright 2012 by Stuart Ayris

  Cover art copyright by Rebecca Ayris

  Edited by Kath Middleton

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.

  PART ONE

  Most of what I say is meaningless….

  Prologue

  In September 2008 I accompanied the police as they entered a house in Tollesbury. I was a psychiatric nurse at the time. The owner of the house was one of my patients. He had not been seen for two weeks - neither had his son nor his wife.

  What I saw that evening will stay with me forever. On the walls of the lounge, in tiny, neat black writing were thousands and thousands of words. The torch beams picked them out as if they were groups of well-ordered flies. The words continued up the stairway, onto the landing walls and into the main bedroom. I had been in the house before and had seen some of the writing upstairs. Still I was mesmerised.

  What you are about to read are the words that I saw on those walls. I have ordered them into chapters and taken the liberty of providing chapter headings. I have inserted two documents midway through which I trust will make sense when you come to them.

  I have since resigned my post as a community mental health nurse and no longer work in psychiatry. The patient of whom I speak is called Simon Anthony. I have met him just once - yet he is, and will always remain, my hero.

  1. Whiskydrunk

  My name is Simon Anthony. I like the simple things in life: a good meal, a winter sun and the sound of the waves upon the shore.

  I pursue a peaceful existence in a little cottage in Tollesbury, Essex. I have lived here for most of my adult life. Although I was not born in Tollesbury, I feel I am meant to be here, a seed sown perhaps by a careless hand in a wayward moment. There is a main road into the village, and a back road out. The booming dual carriageway that carries people from London to the coast is but a few miles to the north. In Tollesbury it has no meaning. For my village is entirely of its own time.

  As you approach Tollesbury on the long and winding road from the neighbouring village of Tolleshunt D’arcy, you can feel the change in the air. The sky seems that bit bolder and everything opens out before you. A small wooden boat on the side of the road sprouting beautiful purple and white flowers merely confirms that you are indeed entering no ordinary place. One day, I will find out what kind of flowers they are and where that boat came from. There is still so much I long to know, so much I long to do.

  My house is a small semi-detached property a third of the way down East Street complete with wooden floors, black beams and an open fire. It is old and it is dusty. The doors creak when I open and close them. They are the only voices that my house hears other than my own. I rely upon lamps and candles for lighting and upon the radio for company. The young girl next door shouts at her boyfriend most evenings and I am perpetually startled by the slamming of their front door when one or the other has had enough. They make me feel old, which I am beginning to think is no bad thing. I have an armchair in which I sit most days. The large window at the end of my front room serves as a giant TV screen, ever tuned to channel Tollesbury. It is a view of which I cannot imagine I will ever tire.

  I awoke on Saturday 5th July 2008 to the gentle popping of summer rain upon my bedroom window. I am a light sleeper, perhaps largely due to the fact that I often have difficulty breathing when I lie down. I don’t like to use a pillow so will often awake with a stiffness in my neck that takes time to subside. I stretched and rolled out of bed, clicking my elbows as I did so (a rare talent!) and stepped out onto my very own magic carpet of half read books and yesterday’s clothes.

  I pulled on my old blue jeans and my favourite baggy jumper before going downstairs. I made myself a black coffee and sat at the dining room table. It was about 5am and the sky was white with cloud. The weather had been fine in recent days, too fine perhaps for my delicate disposition. I am six feet tall and fourteen stone with a straggly beard and a knitted woollen hat constantly upon my head. I like my hat and never leave the house unless I am wearing it. It somehow completes me. I should have known then, as I studied the heat rings on my wooden table, that I wasn’t really meant for this world at all.

  I needed a walk to re-acquaint myself with life outside my own mind, to feel at least vaguely normal at the start of this fine summer morning. So lacing up my battered old boots, I headed out into the day.

  The early Tollesbury air filled my being as I breathed deeply. The light rain continued to drift down from the baptismal summer sky and I felt each drop upon me with a sense of growing delight.

  I walked slowly and deliberately as ever I have done. I have always detested haste – another reason why I love this village. As I ambled up East Street, towards the village square, I noticed nothing new, nothing surprising. All was serenity and peace. I stopped at The King’s Head Pub on the corner and then crossed the narrow High Street and thereby entered Station Road. I continued on. I acknowledged the sweet sound of a milk float in the background, wobbling and clinking its way down towards the harbour but I paid it little heed; for it was the salt marshes that were calling me on.

  I soon left the houses behind and my boots touched the sodden earth. The trees that lined the track upon which I walked gave way to neat fields on the left but held up on the right. My pace slowed further as I sought the patterns between the branches and listened for the voices of the birds. I studied the spaces between all things for I have come to believe that is where the truth lies.

  In time, the salt marshes were there before me in all their timeless splendour.

  The tide was halfway to going out so I was treated to my favourite view. Despite all the years of living in Tollesbury, I had still not fully understood the movements of the sea. Some days I would go to the salt marshes and all you could see was water – other days, it was like one vast desert of mud. But on that day, back in July 2008, it was a perfect melding of the two. The sun lit the mist-filled sky and the rain eased off a little. And I sat on the bank of the sea wall to behold my heaven.

  Dark water shone beneath the cracked trees that broke through it, trees bereft of foliage, pale and brittle and stark as if each and every one had been blown apart by lightning. Clumps of bright green shoots floated island-like upon the dank surface, connected beneath by myriad paths of silt and sand. It was a truly nebulous environment, moving and growing with the flow of the tide. There was a grimy, sparse majesty to it all that left me breathless. I sat there and allowed myself to drift away from the world of fallen man. Time meandered on directionless, dragging me with it. Tollesbury Time.

  My musings were disturbed as a bouncy golden retriever barked a welcome and its striding owner nodded a greeting. It was Old Jed and his dog, Jake. They followed the line of the sea wall as if it was a railway track and they were but carriages of the same train. And I watched, enthralled, as man and dog merged into the indeterminate horizon, slipping over the edge of this earth - just slip sliding away on
ly ever to remain, like all things, in my consciousness.

  Having done my time, I returned home and sat in my armchair waiting for the finest pub in the land to open up its doors to me.

  The King’s Head spans the corner of Church Street and High Street, its front entrance facing onto the village square. I have an old sepia photograph at home that shows it used to have two adjacent doors; one leading into the public bar and one to the saloon bar. If you look closely you can still see the recess where the left-hand door once was. It has since been filled in with bricks and a window. The building itself is old and white, held together with sprawling ashen beams. A garish sign depicting the bust of Henry the Eighth hangs from a pole outside and the roof is slated and uneven. Lorries heading to and from the industrial area by the harbour occasionally nudge into the jutting wall from which Henry’s face glowers. The landlord bears these mishaps stoically and can regularly be seen out back fashioning himself a roll-up whilst considering the fate of us all, and perhaps lorry drivers in particular.

  On the opposite side of the square, nestled into the corner of the wall that surrounds St Mary’s Church, is a six foot by three foot wooden box - a real perpendicular coffin of sorrow. It was the place where years ago, so it is said, the drunkard of the village was left to sleep off his or her excesses. There is a small aperture towards the top with bars across it. It is known as the village ‘lock-up’ and has been there for as long as anyone can remember.

  Tollesbury is so much more than a village and The King’s Head is so much more than just a place where people get drunk - which they do fairly often. I feel proud to be living within the bounds of its pulsating penumbra.

  As I entered the pub, at just after midday, I felt the pang of belonging, the comfort of familiarity. There was no particular smell, not since the smoking ban, and there was no music playing. But there was the upright piano that remained forever unused and the candles and the prints of yachts upon the wall. There was the small bookcase and the faded curtains and the huge Basset Hound that drooled and sprawled just wherever you put your weary feet. There were the mirrors behind the bar and there was the dull carpet embroidered with all our desperate drunken dreams. You can keep your Albert Hall and your Windsor Castle and your Harrods. Give me this place any time. Any time at all. All you got to do is call and I’ll be there.

  There are two reading lamps at the bar of a beautiful emerald green giving light to the wonderfully curious names of the various ales: Oscar Wilde Mild, Old Growler, Puck’s Folly and A Drop of Nelson’s Blood, to name but a few. Or imagine asking the Landlord for a pint of Mad Old John. Does it get any better than that? There are pubs you walk into carrying a knife. There are bars you drink at with a gun in your jacket. In the King’s Head, you bring a book, a grin, or the world on your shoulders. Just have a drink and get away from your life for a while.

  I sat at the bar and sipped my Aspall cider. My financial situation had led me to the point where my choice of drink was dependant upon the result of that old drunkard’s equation – money in pocket multiplied by percentage of alcohol per pint - with taste being the deciding factor if things were close. For me, Aspall won every time. It’s about clearing the mind, obscuring the present and negating the future - not about getting drunk. Inebriation is just a side-effect of the whole process.

  The barmaid turned on one of the reading lamps and I sat at the bar reading my Jack Kerouac. As I fell in love with Tristessa all over again, the Tollesbury locals added colour to my paltry pencil sketch, ensuring I remained in the physical realm only just as much as I needed to. People drifted about like ghosts, entering and leaving as if rehearsing a forlorn play that nobody will ever see. The hushed smattering of conversations rose and fell upon a tide of weariness and resignation; yet there is a hope in such places, an intangible feeling that some good will one day come of all this melancholy. There will come a time when the audience will grant a standing ovation to such courageous persistence.

  And in walks Ray. He has a paper bag face that is just one breath away from being fully inflated. It crumples when he mumbles into his beer. There is nothing fey about Ray; but if you think he is strong, you are King Kong wrong. He sits at a corner table and listens to all the talk, though for most of the time he hears nothing. I have long wanted to tear his face to make him smile, just to make him do something. Jesus. A puffing painted woman blows into his ears and the frown leaves his face as it expands. Putting a hand to either side of his head, he squeezes...

  Bang!

  So long Ray…

  “Ray’s gone again,” came a voice from behind me.

  Two men were sitting at one of the tables by the window, shrouded from the sun by a yellowed net curtain.

  “Lasted well today,” said the other man. “Almost made it ‘til three.”

  “How are the kids, Jim?” asked the balder of the two. He wore a sleeveless black t-shirt and blue jeans that were just a little too tight. The few remaining hairs that he had were falling off the back of his head; and his eyes twinkled with mischief...

  “They’re fine, Bill. Younger boy is a bit of a bugger, but the wife keeps him in check. Up to all sorts I don‘t doubt when we can‘t see him, over by the bus stop and round the Rec. My young ‘uns can do what they like, but when they‘re with me I have their language clean and their hands where I can see ‘em! I‘ve always said that, Bill, haven‘t I? ”

  “True enough mate,” replied Bill. “You have always said that. More or less every time I see you.”

  It was early afternoon and not time yet for Jim to bite on the maggots of sarcasm that Bill dangled for him.

  “You know what you need to do with your boy?” tried Bill again, sipping his pint, looking up at his old friend as he did so, knowing that Jim would not be able to resist answering the question that had been thrown up so expertly. It was like an itch that just had to be scratched.

  “Go on.”

  “Child-kill him,” said Bill plainly. “Simple as that. Child-kill him.”

  Jim was savouring his pint when he received this advice from his friend. He didn’t spit it out like some may have. He merely used the dusky ale to delay his response, to enable him to gather his thoughts before answering. And when he did so, he asked the questions that surely anyone would have asked.

  “What do you mean, you old bastard? Are you mad?”

  Bill leaned back on his chair and drained a good half a pint of his Guinness.

  “Jim, Jim, my boy. You can‘t be talking like that. Think of the ladies.”

  At this point I was tempted to peer over my shoulder. Blind Lemon Jefferson wailed from the jukebox that sat regal and unforgiving from the other side of the pub. A pool cue that was leaning against the side of the immaculate pool table slid to the floor with a clack as the brutal blues beat took hold. The bells of St Mary’s church chimed thrice and a man I had never seen before put his money in the payphone by the bar and began explaining to a woman at the other end of the line that he was stuck in traffic and may be some time.

  “So, what do you mean, Bill? Bloody child-killing.” Jim tutted. “This had better be good.”

  Bill waited for a moment for dramatic effect, surely aware that I was listening in on the conversation. The barmaid too was leaning over now, slowly drying a glass. The clock behind the bar ticked onto three o’clock. It was always a little slow. Or maybe it was just the way time worked in The King’s Head, following its own unique course, letting things happen as they may. Some people say the whole of Tollesbury is like that - dragging behind; entirely of its own order; entirely of its own time.

  “You mean you haven’t heard of the Child-killer? Without him, my lads would have been well out of hand. Look at them now. Good honest boys. All at work. Not a conviction between them. Two married and one at university. You can’t ask for more than that. And all straight, mind, straight as you like.”

  Jim sat back and waited for Bill to continue his story, relaxing a little. The sun was in the sky, the beer was
in the keg and the day yawned ahead like the best of half-terms. I could sense Jim’s feeling of well-being even from where I sat, hunched alone at the bar. And I envied him, murderously.

  “About a hundred and fifty years ago, give or take,” began Bill, “Tollesbury was much the same as it is now. A few less houses, a few more farms and obviously not so many people. And those people that were there all knew each other. None of this coming down from London business to live in the country. In them days you were born in Tollesbury, you lived in Tollesbury and you were buried in Tollesbury. Just the way it was. You didn’t get too many strangers round here in them times.”

  Bill glanced over at the payphone before continuing, but the man had gone.

  “Well, the story goes that the children in the village started to rebel against their parents; they became badly behaved and disrespectful. Some even talked of leaving Tollesbury when they grew up, to go to Tiptree or even Colchester. Not D’arcy though - never D‘arcy. At that time, the whole village depended upon manpower to make sure the crops were harvested and the fleets were able to bring in the fish and oysters from up the river. The elders of the village began to foresee a time when perhaps the whole fabric of their economy would fall apart. The Lord only knows what they would have made of the old Crab and Winkle railway line! These were frightening times, my old friend, frightening times for sure. But they were about to get just a bit more frightening.”

  “Another two beers here please, Carrie; Bill‘s paying,” called Jim to the barmaid who was by now unashamedly taking in Bill’s every word. Interesting stuff, thought Jim, but a man can’t sit with an empty pint - not in The King’s Head.

  “So then, one night, so they say,” continued Bill, “a stranger came into the village. No-one knew where he came from, he just appeared. And then, ten days later, one of the Tollesbury boys was found dead in his bed. He was only about a year old. Battered to death with a piece of wood. Poor lad. And the stranger was never seen again. Some say he was found hanging down by the marshes, others that he made his way to London and carried on killing. One thing is for sure, those children started to behave right there and then, no more tantrums and no more fancy thoughts of working up in bloody Colchester and the like. The crops were harvested and the oysters were landed. And everything went back to normal.”