Under The Lamplight - another haunting tale

I shall call him Old Bill. To all the children who lived in our long street he was the "Bogey Man".  You know how cruel children can be and how spiteful.  You see Bill was not like other men.  For a start he lived totally alone after the death of his parents. Secondly he had been very badly scarred during the war and was disfigured. He rarely spoke, never ventured out after dark and always wore the same clothes.  A heavy tweed coat that went down to his ankles, his army boots which he still kept polished to a high shine.  He shuffled along with his head down most of the time.  Adults would sometimes greet him and he would mumble a reply but none of those adults explained to us children about him or why he was the way he was.  So he became the figure of our taunts when we saw him and we would terrorise each other with stories about him. 

Well, we all grew to adulthood and as I hardly ever saw Old Bill I never gave him much thought.

I was coming home from the cinema where I had gone straight from my employment in London.  I would have been about nineteen at the time. I was humming to myself as my stiletto shoes tip-tapped up the long road that led to my home thinking about the movie I had just seen, looking forward to the weekend.  My house was about three quarters down the road and we had a street lamp very close by.  Not one of the orangey ones we have today but cold white light.  Still some distance from my home I happened to glance up.  Fear clutched at my stomach. Standing underneath the light, totally still, was Old Bill!!!!.  Thoughts raced through my mind.  What was he doing there? Why was he out after dark?  Although an adult (or nearly so in those days when the majority was 21) I had still retained my fear of old Bill.  When there is a gang of you........well safety in numbers -  but when you are alone......  Then it struck me that to get to my house I would have to pass him.  I could not bear the thought of it,  I just could not do it.  So, I slowed down. Maybe if I walked very slowly he would be gone by the time I got there.  So I lingered around as long as I could.  Bill stayed where he was.  By now all sorts of horrible thoughts were racing around my head, maybe he was waiting for me!!!!!!!

I decided the only thing I could do was to cross to the other side of the road and pretend I lived in another house.  So that is what I did, I crossed the road, walked a few steps along the road and walked into someone else's garden.  I stood there, hiding behind the front hedge.  I waited and then I looked.  Old Bill was still there although he had seemed to turn his head and was looking in my direction as though he knew what I had done and exactly where I was.  You can imagine that now my heart was racing and thumping in my ears, my hands were sweating, my mouth dry.  What the hell was I going to do?!!!!!!!  It was getting later and later and I knew my parents would be worried and yet nothing on this earth would induce me to walk directly by him.

I was also worried that someone might come out of the house or come home from somewhere and I would have to explain what I was doing in their garden.  I was also desperate for the toilet by now.

I tried rationally to work out my options.  I decided there was nothing for it but to try another ploy.  If I took off my shoes I could run as far up the road as possible, past my own home but on the opposite side and then I could come back from the other direction and get safely indoors.  That is what I did.  I slipped off my shoes and set off like a Greyhound as fast as my feet would carry me.  Out of the corner of my eye I could still see him although I tried not to look.  As I came level with him I could not help myself.  Yes, the familiar old coat, the shine on his boots, even the gleam of his sparse hair from the hair dressing he used. I could almost smell him. I thought my heart would burst as I sprinted past.  When I thought I had gone far enough, I looked around. Gone.  There was nobody and nothing under the lamp.  Now, breathless and scared as I was, the logical part of my brain was still working.  I was very puzzled.  He lived about eight doors down from me in the other direction, the direction I had just come from.  How could he with his shambling gait have made it to his own house in the short space of time it had taken me to run to where I was????  Oh God, perhaps he had ducked into a garden, maybe even my own and was waiting there for me having worked out what I had done!!!!!!! I waitedand waited - nothing.  In the end I had to decide to try and get home.  So still shoeless I re-crossed the road and keeping as close to the walls and hedges as I could I made it to my front gate.  I could see there was nothing in my garden to alarm me.  As I was fumbling for my key my Mother opened the front door - obviously worried about the my lateness.  What a sight must have greeted her- panting, breathless, white, shoes in hand, the feet of my stockings in tatters.  Anyway I dashed by her, took the stairs two at a time and went into the toilet to relieve myself.  I had a shock when I looked in the mirror at how panic-stricken I appeared.  I splashed my face with cold water and after a few minutes to compose myself I went back downstairs.

My Mother, of course, asked me what was the matter.  I sat down with her and very ashamed explained.  I told her about my childhood fears of Old Bill and how although I had never given it much thought I had obviously not lost them.  I told her I felt such a fool for being afraid of him.  It was my Mother that then went white.  She told me I could not have seen him, I argued I had .  She told me very quietly that when she went to the shops that morning she had bumped into a neighbour and during the course of the conversation the neighbour mentioned that Old Bill had died ten days previously from pneumonia!!!!!!  Then I really started to shake...........

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This story is absolutely true and happened in just the way I have described.  Why Old Bill appeared to me I shall never know.  Did he just want someone to know that he was no threat?  Did he just want to say goodbye to someone, anyone?  I shall never know the answers.  All I know is that he was real and solid as he had always been in life.  Just writing this story I have relived it all again as clear and and strong as all those years ago.  Bill, wherever you are, I hope you found the peace you never found in life and for all those children who taunted you, including myself, I apologise.