The Year is Almost Over

Skaadhu

"In that quick flash of light the creature sitting on the top of the cupboard was revealed..."

After three and a half years of travelling, I decided that it was time for me to go home. I had come through a time of sadness, and in a way I had said goodbye. I had lived a fascinating adventure, as marvellous as any man could want. But I had also changed, I had learnt, even at such a late time of life. For most of my life I had lived a sort of unconscious contentment, never needing to think about what makes a life worthwhile. But it was my retirement, then the loss of Genevieve, that forced me to realise that happiness can never be taken for granted. Then, as was part of my intention, facing the adversities of travel earned me the self respect to feel that I had deserved the happiness I had found for most of my life, and this brought a happiness of its own.

I boarded the Maid of Kent at Calais, with as much of the luggage and accumulated mementos as could be taken with me, having left quite a large collection of effects to be sent later, from cities all across the continent. As I wandered about the ferry, I was continually heartened at hearing the voices of Englishmen again, and I realised that although I was not yet on English soil, I had still come home. It seemed that the wind, the sky, the smell of the air, even the sound of the seagulls, all was English, as it had been always, and I was where I belonged.

From Dover I took the train to London, then the train to Cambridge, and so to home in Madingley. From leaving my hotel in Calais to finally walking to my front door, my final trip had taken twenty-two hours. I closed the door behind me, dragged a dust sheet off the bed, then collapsed, and slept for another fourteen.

Upon waking, I lay there, in the late afternoon, listening to the birds chirping in the quiet street, and all I could think of was how I missed Genevieve, and how I wished I could sit down with her, if only for ten minutes, and tell her of all I had seen and done.

Over the next few weeks, artifacts and souvenirs of all kinds were delivered, or had to be collected from various agencies. As they arrived, I would unpack them and throw all the rubbish used to pack them into the nearest corner. Within a short space of time there was rubbish throughout the house.

Three weeks after I had come home, a beautiful teak cupboard which I had purchased two years ago in Marrakesh was delivered, and I instructed the men to bring it into the bedroom. The cupboard was the type that had one door fastened from the inside, by a sliding latch up into the frame. As I looked upward to negotiate the latch, something leapt from the bottom of the cupboard, landed on the parquetry flooring, and, with a clattering of little feet, disappeared into the pile of rubbish accumulated in the corner. It gave me a terrible scare, as it was larger than a cockroach, or even a mouse... I had only seen the thing out of the corner of my eye - it was grey, and moved quickly, but beyond that I had discerned nothing. I watched the pile of rubbish and listened, but could not summon the nerve to start looking for it. I tried to decide what I should do, then convinced myself that if I left the window open, the creature would leave of its own volition. I opened the window, backed out of the bedroom, and went to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea.

As I spent the rest of the day unpacking, I saw or heard no further sign of the creature, so I convinced myself that it had gone.

It was two nights after the mysterious creature had fled from the cupboard that I was woken by the sound of something in the roof. There was just enough gap underneath the eaves for itinerant creatures such as birds or cats to enter, but this had only ever been a rare occurrence, and always temporary. The noise I heard was something moving casually about, from one end of the house to the other - whatever was in the roof space seemed to be making itself comfortable.

In the morning I found some rat traps. I placed three of them in the roof space, two of them baited with bacon fat and the other with cheese.

The next day I found the traps with the bacon fat had been sprung and the bait had disappeared, but there was no trace left of any creature, not even a hair. The trap baited with cheese had not been touched. I left the traps again the next night, with similar results.