The first meeting.

I suppose I had better tell you how I got into this position. I am, at present, typing this on my computer keyboard and thinking that it was a good job I am able to touch-type. She is watching the television, yet another of the weepy chick movies she loves, along with game shows. I hate chick movies and game shows but she has to get her fill every day.

My name is Martin Johnson and I am a civil engineer, or was a civil engineer in what seems like a previous life. I grew up in Canterbury, the home of the Church of England, although I was never very religious. I was not good at school, always off trying to find out things that school didn’t teach you, and so did not qualify for university. I was born in 1961, and am now thirty nine years old. She is sixteen, or was sixteen.

I married young, too young as it turned out. I had been apprenticed as a machinist in the shipyards at Chatham and was earning a good wage when I met Julia. It was lust at first sight and quickly cooled after we married. I had caught the bug of higher learning, a bit late but it is never too late. I was working in the day and doing night school four nights a week to get my civil engineering degree. It took seven years but, at the end, I was qualified and single again. Julia had found someone ‘more stable’ to spend her time with.

I now lived in a small farmhouse just outside of Margate and earned a good living as a consultant. I helped people build their own houses and even did some business with a couple of developers. I also did structural surveying work and this is where my life changed.

I had taken on a small job to find the cause of structural creaks and rattles that were making it difficult to sell and old pub the western side of Ashford. I knew that if it was in Pluckley or Smarden I would not have to even leave my desk as I could write ‘supernatural causes’ and no-one would question me. This pub was close, though, in the village of High Halden, so I did have to go and check it out. My paperwork on the pub showed that one half was from the sixteenth century while the other half was built in the early fifties. Strangely, it was from the later addition that the noises emanated so old highwaymen or victims of a duel could be safely discounted.

When I arrived at the pub, after picking up the keys from the agents in Ashford, it was easy to see the two halves were distinctly different eras. The new bit was a lounge and meeting room while the old contained the bar and kitchen areas, plus the accommodation upstairs. I had a good look through the entire building and thoroughly checked the outside but could find nothing that would cause any extraneous noises. The only other thing I could think of was night noises from uneven cooling of the two building materials. This would mean a night spent here, good job I always get paid from home to home as this would be a good earner.

I went into Tenterden to get my dinner and then drove back to the pub to sit up with my ears ready for strange sounds. While I waited for nightfall I looked at the paperwork again and read that the new part had been built over the site of the old vegetable garden and that the repairs to this side of the pub had been done when the extension had been built. It had stood empty between 1942 and 1951 as there had been a stray bomb that landed in the vegetable garden that knocked down the side wall and scullery area. It was an odd place to target but I assumed that it was an unfortunate outcome of German bombers losing their remaining bombs on the way home from the blitz.

I settled in one of the big armchairs in the lounge and shut my eyes, listening to the music of the house as the sun set. There were the usual creaks and groans as the wood and brick cooled, nothing I had not heard before. About eleven I think I dozed off, only to be woken by a sound. Well it must have been a sound as it was silent when I opened my eyes, looked at my watch and saw it was just on three in the morning. As my eyes got used to the dark again, I could see the starlight coming in through the window and then noticed that there was a light from the door to the meeting room.

I stood up and went to the door and opened it and that is when I saw her. She looked like a teenager, wearing a dress that had to be from the era between the wars and looked so sad that my heart went out to her. At that point she lifted her head and looked straight at me and smiled. It was at this point that I noticed that I could see the detail on the far wall the other side of her, through her body. For some reason, I smiled at her and then just turned around and went back to my armchair, sat down and went straight off to sleep again.

I woke in the early morning and the only difference that I could see from the night before was that the door to the meeting room stood open. I thought it must have blown open during the night and then remembered a dream where I had seen a genuine ghost. I shook my head, stood and stretched and gathered up my paperwork, deciding that there was nothing structural that caused any odd sounds.

Before leaving I had the compulsion to have a good look through the whole building again. As I walked through the bar I had the feeling that it was not right but couldn’t put my finger on it. Upstairs, in the main bedroom, I felt strangely angry and, in the boxroom in the attic, I had a sudden pang of sadness.

I went to the front door, opened it and went outside to go to my car. I stopped and looked around me and thought that it would not be a good day, as the overcast clouds were sure to bring rain.

At that thought, a voice beside me said “It is a lovely day, I have not seen a morning for a long time and it is wonderful.”

I quickly turned around and saw no-one anywhere near me and said, out loud, “Come out, wherever you are, this is not a joke!” The voice answered me by saying “It is no joke Martin; you released me with your care and acceptance. I am inside your head now, there is no way you can be rid of me, unless you die as well, and then you will see me again in the afterlife.”

The movie is finished and the credits are running, I will need to put the keyboard away now. I’ll try to write some more of this tomorrow evening, as long as there is another movie to watch.

Marianne G 2020