living south magazine

[Ted Max]

And so we lived our lives. We were happy, despite the absence of our father who was abroad at this time helping the Queen run India. But, young one, water cannot be held in a cupped palm for ever, and the time came when my brother and sister decided that they wanted to roam on the Green free from nanny?s watchful eye at the window.

So one evening, after we had drunk our milk and honey, and nanny had retired, my older brother and sister crept out of the front door, back onto the Green. It was dark, and I begged to go with them, but they told me that I was too young to be out in the cold night. So I crept back into the nursery and positioned myself by the window. Aided by the clear sky, a bright moon and the electric light from the few street lamps by the Green, I could see my brother and sister playing a chasing game upon the grass. And then, as I watched further, I felt that I was watching not two, but three bodies. It was hard in the half-light to see clearly, but as the forms of my siblings flitted from tree to tree I imagined them to be followed, at a short distance, by a much larger shape, moving more slowly. It seemed to me to limp, and hold out its arms in a pleading manner.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Gulp!

[Ted Max]

For what seemed like hours I watched, as the two small shapes were traced round the Green by this phantom, who never seemed to approach, but always maintained a true distance. For how long I watched I do not know, but eventually, and please forgive me because I was only a few years old, I could watch no more.

In the morning, when nanny came into the nursery to wake us, her shrieks were so loud they brought the vicar running from his morning prayers in the church. I was still at the window, eyes not shut in sleep, but wide open, my pupils wild and my expression drawn back in horror. My brother and sister?s beds were cold and empty. And in the frost on the outside of that high attic window, someone had written the word ?daddy?.

[Moos]

*shivers*

[Ted Max]

We moved house shortly after that, although nanny did not come with us. Mother and I lived in dumb comfort in a small house by the sea, and were never parted until the time came for me to go away to school. We never spoke again of that night on the Green.

Yet even though I was a good student, and went up to Cambridge, and from there to France to fight another man?s War, at night my dreams remained those of the small child at that high window, watching his brother and sister play their last game of tag upon the Green, tracked by that slow-moving, but limping figure.

Driven by my dreams I returned to this spot, limping myself now, clad in a heavy coat and a dark suit, with eyes tired from War, and climbed up those few short steps to the house. When I rang the bell, the maid that answered let out a fearful scream, and ran into the house. On the wall by the front door I saw an old, creased photograph. And in the photograph I saw ? a version of myself.

[Ted Max]

Accompanying the photograph there was a short newspaper article, dated 1895:

?The London Coroner has confirmed the death by misadventure of Mr Robert Stanaway, in Delhi, India. Mr Stanaway, once of East Dulwich Road, in the Parish of Camberwell, London, is thought to have died while out hunting at night for tiger three years ago. His body was never recovered.?

Then, as I stood in my confusion by the door, an old woman appeared from inside the house, her step like a shadow of something once so familiar. It was my old nanny, who held me to her shoulder and shushed the sobs that had been pouring from my chest.

[Ted Max]

Later, over tea, my old nanny poured out her story. ?It is my belief that your father never died,? she said. ?Instead, he went mad in India, and escaped to come home, determined to abduct his children as a punishment for your Mother, who I am afraid never loved him as she should, and encouraged his posting in India. I used to watch over you and could swear that I could see him, stalking from tree to tree on the Green - his size and limp were so distinctive. I begged your mother not to allow you to play alone, but she would not hear of it, convinced I was hysterical. I only wish she had listened to me. After you left I found a position with the new family who came here, and I have kept his picture from that old newspaper report ever since by the front door, in case he should return. The maid, in her fear, thought that you were he.?

What, I ask myself, did I see that night, all those years ago? It could not have been a ghost. Believe me, I have seen much death, and nobody who has seen it as I have could believe in anything coming after. Could it, possibly, have been my poor, mad, father? If so, how can we explain the writing in the frost on the outside of that high window? But there was something there, something that took my brother and sister away.

I am old now, and wish only the consolations of a quiet grave. And so I sit by this path every day, waiting for my ? for that distant memory to come and collect me. And to take me to where it took my brother and sister, so that we can once again play together our games upon the echoing Green.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

http://www.lovefilm.com/lovefilm/images/products/4/92634-large.jpg

[bigbadwolf]

That was astonishingly good Ted. Well done.

[bigbadwolf]

My turn to ask. Can we have an east Dulwich version of The Railway Children or Swallows and Amazons next please Ted. Can your next installment, regardless of the title, have just a little bit of sex in it please.

[GSJ57]

Ted Max - you really need to publish a book of short stories! Great stuff.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Well BBW, that's taking Titty too far!

[Ted Max]

Cheers, Wolf. Your requests are being considered by our committee.

GSJ57 - really appreciate your post but I'm under no illusions. My pastiches are only of the "fannying about on the internet" kind - and that's all I really want them to be.

[Miss Community]

hi, i live in nunhead on ansdell rd and get it every month, this months is decent with good stuff about schools in the area and some mad story about brixton currency. most of my friends do get it though some months dont.

to be honest we shoudl support local magazines as they are free and for a free Living South's a great magazine, those moaning need to get a life and get behind local things.

anyone been to the bar on top of the peckham car park, thinking about going but hear its pretty expensive, any reviews welcome.

[SimonM]

Interestingly, we had one through our letter box today for the first time in months. Someone at "Living South" following this forum perhaps??:)

[EDKiwi]

We had the same thing, one arrived today, the first I have ever seen. Pity it was only one copy and there are 2 flats in our place.

[emc]

I haven't had it for about a year but got one on Sat...we live in Nunhead, just off the Rye

[bigbadwolf]

Yeah I got a copy yesterday. I haven't read it yet but there's something about Brixton having it's own currency.

[Sue]

Miss Community Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>> >

> anyone been to the bar on top of the peckham car

> park, thinking about going but hear its pretty

> expensive, any reviews welcome.

xxxxxxxx

It was a pop-up bar, hasn't it closed now?

Summer is over .....