"Bethink the cost, for those who're lost,
To lay beneath the waves.
For theirs is no rest,
In loam so bless'd,
With tides they roam, In search of home,
And cry for warmer graves.
They cry for warmer graves."
Rev. A.Weiss.
The Liberduteus,
1871.
Because of its storied - often bloodied - past, Britain is reputed to be one of the most haunted nations in the world. It seaside towns, with their histories of invasion, smuggling and accidental drownings, even more so. But not all ghosts go bump in the night, and this last was a thought not far from the front of Jean's mind as she sat gazing out of the third floor bedroom window of a once-plush hotel, almost central in the sprawling promenade of a formerly opulent town on England's northern coastline.
Not yet as down-at-heel as the rest of its postcode, the wear was beginning to show nonetheless. It had been a good century for tourism, but things change, times move on, and some aspects of the past turn out to be irretrievable. And this was something that Jean would not let herself dwell upon as the flat sands of the beach below met the slate-grey September sea, expanding calmly back until it became a white, near featureless sky.
It hadn't always been this way, of course. Despite living in the same mining village, Jean had met her husband Peter on a shared coach trip to Ebbscar, and their courtship and marriage had been celebrated annually with excursions to this same town. After their only son Colin had died in a pit collapse before he'd even left his teens, the collective jollity of the group outing had seemed somehow inappropriate. But the couple had continued their holidays here alone, booking what became their favourite room in The Royal Grand, and damn the expense; you only live once.
What at first seemed like a late Summer indulgence soon revealed itself to be an essential release-valve; an escape from the stifling smog and yes, insularity, of the village. Why they couldn't move away - move here - Peter and Jean hadn't decided. But as long as they had their week by the sea then they wouldn't really need to, surely?
And now Peter was gone. His first fall had been seen as an accident, part of getting older. But the second, then the diagnosis, then the massive seizure and then the funeral had happened in a blur. Less than two months, all told. But they'd booked their room at the Royal Grand on the morning they'd checked-out last year - an ongoing game they liked to play with the knowing staff - and Jean had decided there was no better way to honour his - their - memory, than to make what was now a pilgrimage. Jean's neighbours had worried in poorly disguised whispers that the trip might be morbid, but she was determined not to let the photographs in her mind lose their colour like the ones that still adorned the sideboard.
Now she was here, and there was no colour after all. This wasn't right, surely? The amusement arcades which lined the seafront were always an explosion of light, they just couldn't be seen from this height and on the same side of the road. Jean thought she might take a stroll past them later. Not now, it looked like it might rain. Or was that fog coming in? And although there was no visible wind on the sea, it didn't look warm out there. A bracing walk would be better in the early evening when the sound of the arcades and young couples exhausted by a day's fun would serve as a distraction from thoughts upon which she didn't want to dwell. To see a bit of life.
Some of those couples ambled across the beach now. Mostly silhouettes, indistinct shapes at this distance. Families walking with excitable children, their charges impatient to get back to the blaring slot machines, and an older couple repeatedly throwing a ball for their retriever-sized dog, petting it, and then pretending not to notice its left-behind mess in the wet sand. Charming.
Almost directly opposite Jean's window stood a figure alone on the shoreline. With hands either by their side or flatly in pockets, it was hard to make out any more detail, and there wasn't enough of a breeze to ruffle either clothes nor hair. But the stillness suddenly struck Jean as odd, even against the sedentary foot-traffic surrounding it. In the time she'd been looking out on this scene, the tide had turned and the person's ankles were in the water now.
The tidal flow around this part of the coastline was notorious for swiftly cutting off holidaymakers, sea fishers and cockle-pickers from the land, and the signs up and down the promenade warning about this were almost as numerous as the local newspaper reports about those who didn't heed them. The local topography meant that when the high tide came in at Ebbscar, it did so rapidly and without warning.
Everyone on this wide stretch of beach had noted the flow and altered their trajectories inland appropriately. Everyone except this lone figure who was now stood almost up to their knees in lapping seawater. Jean wondered if this was one of those life-sized sculptures they sometimes install in towns to get articles about culture written in the Sunday supplements. But she was sure she could see the figure's trousers swaying with the incoming wavelets.
Transfixed by this dearth of activity, Jean was overcome with a feeling of responsibility. Was no-one else on the beach concerned by this? There were still a few souls walking relatively close to the unmoving, unflinching sentinel. What was this one trying to prove? There must be somebody down there who could help, and Jean creaked out of the window-side faux leather tub armchair to the bed, and the telephone beside it on the nightstand. Reception would know what to do.
There was no dial tone. Keeping the receiver in her hand, Jean clicked the connection-lever, like someone in a bad TV show. But nothing. Perhaps they hadn't paid the bill, she thought, although it was more likely that these telephones that had been in place as long as she'd been coming here were finally giving up, one by one.
Jean hung up the phone - for some reason - and skittered back to the window. Only minutes later and the water was at the figure's waist now, and still they hadn't moved. The room was suddenly very hot and Jean needed to gulp the air to breathe properly. This gave her a better idea. If she could open the window, Jean could shout down and across the beach. Not to the one standing in the sea, but to someone - anyone - else who might be able to help. What if this was someone having a stroke or a fit, and who couldn't call out? Yes they were still upright, but what if?
She managed to pry open the thin, hinged strip of glazing above her head. Apparently, health and safety dictated that on this floor, the Royal Grand didn't want anyone leaning and falling out of their windows, so these were for 'ventilation only'. The building's high Victorian ceilings meant that Jean would need to drag the tub chair undeaneath the strip and stand on its worn cushion to get her face close enough to the opening to allow her voice to travel.
And so Jean hollered. She shouted to the few remaining figures on the beach and the promenade below who all roundly ignored her. Helps, hellos and you-theres all fell on deaf ears. Fine, she'd do this herself, then.
Quickly slipping on the flat, practical shoes that Peter had bought her on their last visit to Denham market, Jean made sure she had her room key and raced - as best she could - for the door. Already out of breath from the sudden exertion, she clattered down the long corridor to the lift, startling the young man she barged past with a grunt.
Impatiently pressing the lift's call-button, Jean couldn't hear the tell-tale clunk of mechanical response, and decided to take the stairs instead. There was, after all, no time to waste. Six spiralling flights and two burning lungs later, she crashed into the hotel reception to find no-one at the desk, although a handful of guests were scattered around the large entrance lobby.
"In the sea!", Jean rasped. "Who's that in the sea??" as she gestured wildly through the revolving door at the beach beyond. This was met with blank stares or faint alarm from the onlookers, although not one of them animated themselves enough to either follow her pointing or ask for more detail.
Furious now, Jean crashed through the revolving door and onto the road outside. Crossing the carriageway and tramlines then grasping the railing which separated the path from the sands, Jean was stunned to see that the beach was deserted. No walkers and no figure in the sea. Unless they'd finally been pulled out to safety? But there'd be a kerfuffle here on the promenade, surely? Or perhaps the waves had completed their task and that person had drowned? But "no, let's not assume the worst" she mumbled to herself. But where was everybody?
The entire seafront was empty. No cars, trams nor a person to be seen. The arcades were closed, their lights switched off. The air was hot again, the absence of breeze conspiring with panic to make breathing more of a challenge. Slowly turning toward the hotel and then giving the shoreline one more theatrical glance, Jean let her angst subside and shuffled back indoors.
The reception area was entirely deserted now. Still no-one at the desk, but no guests milling around either. The cavernous silence deafened Jean as she cast her gaze over the lobby, each footfall of hers ringing like a giveaway on the polished floor as she padded to the staircase. Trundling step-by-step past the flock wallpaper, she had a moment of clarity as a voice in her head - not quite like her own - asked what she was doing. "Trying to bloody help", Jean muttered, unconvinced of the veracity of either the question or the answer.
On the first floor, Jean instinctively left the stairwell and headed out into the main corridor, structurally identical to the higher one she had come from only minutes earlier. At the end of the long, strip-lit internal passage, daylight poured in from a floor-to-ceiling window around the corner. Following the glow, and edging past the room-servicing trolley, the window looked out onto the prom as Jean knew it would. Before she reached the glass, she instinctively knew what she'd see.
While a bar of wet sand was still visible beyond the promenade wall, the tide must almost be in at its fullest now. And out there, appearing to bob gently with the waves although in fact it wasn't moving at all, was the figure's head. Except now it had turned and was facing the hotel. And while Jean could just make out its ghastly expression, she'd swear blind it was looking up and making eye-contact with this very window. Thin, dark hair was plastered down by the sea, framing an unnaturally white face against the waves. The brows punched together and upward in anguish as the face mouthed something. She couldn't make out what the words were, but there was the short, rhythmic sense of a message being repeated. A warning, perhaps.
Enough of this. Jean was only on the first floor. With renewed vigour, she stamped back down to reception and hammered the bell on the abandoned desk. There was no response or reply in the empty lobby, but Jean could swear she saw furtive movement behind the mirror-stripped 'Staff Only' door. Manners be damned she thought, and charged over to find it locked. Thumping on the door brought no answer, and although the movement was no longer to be seen between the reflective slits, Jean knew someone was breathing on the other side.
Vision now blurred by tears, she stalked - less forcefully - out onto the promenade once more. It was completely deserted and felt even more desaturated, as if colour had given up trying to fight the tide. Crestfallen yet oddly resigned, she cast her eyes over the lapping sea once more. Nothing. No figure, no head, not even a boat to be seen. Just a faint, calm line where it met the sky, which stared back in pensive silence.
Well that was that. Jean headed back inside. She doubted she'd go for that walk now. Creaking in through the revolving door, she made eye contact with the young man sitting at the reception desk. Of all the nerve. She said nothing - it was too late for that - and he responded in kind, although Jean's expression of tired and vicious resentment was met with one of embarrassed panic. Good.
Momentarily forgetting what had occurred, Jean tramped to the lift and pressed the call-button. Nothing happened. She remembered this smaller inconvenience and made her way to the stairwell. With no rush now she trudged up the six flights, stopping to regain her breath at the fourth. Finally reaching her floor, Jean stared down the corridor toward her room at the other end. It was only two doors away from the window by the service-bay, where the light of the late afternoon shone in just as it did two floors below.
Wincing slightly as she crept past her own room, Jean turned the corner, squeezed past the floor's housekeeping trolley and stood framed in the window overlooking the sea. Her heart started hammering. The water was not as featureless as it should have been by now. Jean saw the hand.
Even at this distance it was definitely a hand, there was no mistaking it. Waving. Waving at Jean, languidly. Tension erupted as she screamed and pounded on the window. No words, just a long, guttural shriek as her right hand beat out a slow irregular pattern in a grotesque mirroring of the figure's gesture below. Before strength failed her completely, she turned and raced back to her room, the blood roaring in her ears. It took Jean three attempts to unlock the door, but inside - silence.
Although she didn't want to, Jean could not help going straight to the window. But even if she'd just intended to draw the curtains and blot out the events of this damned afternoon, that would still have been a necessity.
"What are you doing, Jean?". It was Peter's voice. In the room. Their room. "What are you doing?". No. She didn't dare look round. Peter couldn't be here, but the voice was louder and sharper than a memory. It didn't ask again.
It was then that she finally buckled to her knees and sobbed, the face in the sea once again exposed by the tide and still silently mouthing as it stared into this room... and the raised arm continued to wave.
Jean's own was the only sound she could hear as she racked, wretched and pounded on the window, the wall and finally the floor. And then silence again. A much deeper silence now, unlike any she'd ever known, despite a huge clutching motion like her whole body was being drawn into a fist-sized ball in the middle of her chest. Jean could no longer hear the roar of blood in her ears. Or feel it anywhere else. And it dawned on her that the background rhythm she'd known all her life - that of her heart pumping blood around her body - had disappeared. The silence was solemn and finalising, not allowing the luxury of panic. And as the final tears rolled from Jean's eyes, she could just make out the small, travel-framed photograph on the nightstand, of Peter and her, smiling on Ebbscar beach.
~
The next day, pale afternoon clouds slowly gathered as the sun seemed to give up on lending the Victorian architecture its warmth, Jean pondered the greying scene as she looked out of the third floor window of her hotel room. She might go out for a walk later. To see a bit of life.
~ ~ ~
Every year, there is a week in September when the Royal Grand Hotel in Ebbscar does not let out rooms on its third floor. Complaints from residents have seen to that. This does not prevent the disturbances, the disruption, the building-wide feeling of unnameable dread. But it minimises them.
Because of its storied, - often bloodied - past, Britain is reputed to be one of the most haunted nations in the world. Its seaside towns, with their memories of life, love and loss even more so.
But not all ghosts need the night to go bump.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• Short stories © WorldOfBlackout.co.uk, all entries are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Y'know, mostly.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
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