The House Remembers: Day 1
It was the mid-morning of a particularly grey and clinging November day that Todd Ravenhurst crunched across the damp gravel of the drive that led to the house. He paused for a moment, a laptop under one arm, as he contemplated the storm-battered, squat Victorian edifice that he'd purchased on a whim some six months earlier.
"Fuck!" he muttered under his breath in satisfaction, "you're ugly."
Yes, he thought to himself, two storeys of what must be one of the most depressingly hideous failures of the architectural imagination to be found anywhere in the world, set in bleak and despairing moorlands. Perfect!
He'd read about the house in some throwaway magazine - an article entitled Houses Of Doom, or something equally uninspired - and although the article was clearly unadulterated piffle, he'd been sufficiently intrigued by the account of the suicide of the previous three owners, and the gloom that seemed to emanate from the photograph which accompanied the article, to set his personal assistant to work on finding out more. They had, it transpired, all chosen a remarkably similar and messy end - slashing their own wrists (in some final protest against the ugliness of their environment, he guessed) - and the house had acquired such an unsavoury reputation as a result that it had become unsaleable. He'd bought the thing, complete with furniture and fittings, for no better reason than that he was rich enough to indulge himself, and having bought it had allowed himself to forget it. But now it might serve some purpose after all.
For longer than he cared to contemplate he and his band, Darkseid, had been a solidly successful musical entity - "straddling with intelligence and elegance the divide between Gothrock and Metal" to quote one of the many glowing reviews of their first album - but his subsequent solo career had been somewhat less remarkable. In fact it had sucked. Two albums had sold barely well enough to cover the production costs, and such praise that had come their way had been distinctly faint. One of the songs on the most recent had even been described by a critic as "almost cheerful". Todd had heard tolling bells in that phrase.
What the critics didn't know was that all of the songs had been juvenile efforts, written long before the years of success. In truth, he'd been struggling with incipient alcoholism and a massive writer's block, and he could see the inexorable dwindling away of his career unless something was done to halt the process. It wasn't that he needed money - he'd accumulated sufficient wealth over the years to glide into an obscenely comfortable old age even if he never produced another piece of work - but the one thought that nagged at him constantly, filling him with fear, was that he might be forgotten, becoming some ageing old has-been, propped up by chat shows and gossip columns until even they had forgotten him. He couldn't bear the thought of no longer being recognised in the street, of no longer being famous.
Hence the house.
"What you need, Davey-boy," his manager had said (David was the name his parents had cursed him with. He hated it as much as he hated them), "is to get away for a while. Recharge the creative batteries. Go sun yourself on a beach somewhere."
Todd had regarded his manager's advice with the usual contempt that he reserved for any pronouncement made by the man on any subject other than the purely financial - 'Big Al' (I'm Your Pal) Baker had not amassed a fortune larger even than Todd's by being anything less than shrewd where money was concerned - but the idea of taking himself away from all the pressures nevertheless lodged somewhere at the back of his mind and resurfaced from time to time. Of course he wasn't about to risk his carefully cultivated pallor by lounging around on a beach (and in truth the drinking had bloated him more than a little - he was starting to resemble a Michelin Man version of Brandon Lee in 'The Crow'. Wouldn't look at all good if some passing paparazzi happened to capture his acres of pallid flab on film), but there was some merit in the idea nevertheless. What he needed was solitude and a fresh injection of the gloom that had always characterised his finest work, to sink himself into the atmosphere of somewhere bleak and dispiriting, and where better to achieve that than this drab and undistinguished Gothic horror miles from anywhere, in the midst of what had to be some of the most severely unattractive scenery to be found in the British Isles?
Todd marvelled once more at the brutal, philistine insensitivity of the mind that had conceived this house, its total lack of any instinct for lightness or levity, and he breathed a sigh of pleasure. Utterly perfect! He fumbled in his pocket for the keys and let himself in.
He was totally unprepared for the interior. In his mind he had pictured ugliness to match the outside of the place: dark oak panelling, monstrous Victorian furniture, the smell of damp and decay. Instead the entrance hall was bright and airy, painted pale pink, and smelled of furniture polish and disinfectant. Of course, the estate agent had arranged for the place to be cleaned in preparation for his arrival, but he had a terrible feeling that the décor reflected the taste of the house's last owner - Edith Henderson - a successful illustrator of children's books and painter of moorland wildlife. He was right.
Dumping his keyboard on a fragile-looking hall table he commenced a tour of the house. Every room - living room, study (both huge) and all four bedrooms - was painted the same pale pink, and the furniture was modern and tasteful in an old-ladyish kind of way. There was an abundance of lace and frills. The kitchen was of fitted pine units, the cooker modern, the large fridge-freezer (stocked at his request with convenience foods) clean and purring. The bathroom was of pink tile and boasted a shower stall in addition to the large bath. Todd's spirits sunk with every step he took until, finding himself once more back in the hall, he screamed "SHIT!" at the top of his voice.
"Why didn't I have this fucking place checked out before I came? Why didn't somebody tell me it was like this?"
The answer, of course, was that he'd never asked, never visited his acquisition, and no-one had had any reason to tell him.
He decided to sulk for a while and then, realising that there was no-one around to pay any heed to his sulking, contemplated his next move. There was still the attic and cellar to investigate, but they were probably every bit as unatmospheric as the rest of the place and he was feeling too down-hearted to face them right now. He could simply climb back into the van and drive back to London, but it was a long way to travel and he would have to face a sneering Big Al if he spent any less than a week in the place. On balance he decided to collect his gear from the van and make the best of it: doubtless the isolation would be good for him, there was still some wonderfully depressing scenery and, judging from what he'd seen of it from the living room windows, the garden could've been transplanted wholesale from a Hammer film set. If he worked in the evenings by candle-light the living room might be persuaded to look a little less like a room from the doll-house of a giant pre-pubescent girl with a taste for mimsy.
By the time he'd emptied the van of musical equipment, clothing and toiletries, dumped the clothing in an untidy heap in the wardrobe of the master bedroom, dumped the toiletries in the bathroom, and left everything else in an untidy heap in the study, it was early evening, the light was not so much fading outside but apparently being sucked up by the trees and bushes, the central heating system had sprung into gurgling life and he was famished.
Hunger was quickly taken care of courtesy of the microwave he´d brought with him - thank God for convenience foods! - and after eating a rather glutinous chicken biryani he was left feeling exhausted. Slightly sick, too, but mostly just very, very tired.
"What the fuck." he thought, staring from the depths of an immense armchair at the candle flickering on the coffee table in the living room, "S'been a long day. Go to bed."
Doing his best to ignore the cheery glow from the pink lamp-shades that glowed at intervals from the lights that lined the walls in the hall, and climbed up beside the staircase to light his way up to the master bedroom, he shrugged out of most of his clothes and collapsed face-downwards on the pillow. Ten seconds later he was asleep.
"Fuck!" he muttered under his breath in satisfaction, "you're ugly."
Yes, he thought to himself, two storeys of what must be one of the most depressingly hideous failures of the architectural imagination to be found anywhere in the world, set in bleak and despairing moorlands. Perfect!
He'd read about the house in some throwaway magazine - an article entitled Houses Of Doom, or something equally uninspired - and although the article was clearly unadulterated piffle, he'd been sufficiently intrigued by the account of the suicide of the previous three owners, and the gloom that seemed to emanate from the photograph which accompanied the article, to set his personal assistant to work on finding out more. They had, it transpired, all chosen a remarkably similar and messy end - slashing their own wrists (in some final protest against the ugliness of their environment, he guessed) - and the house had acquired such an unsavoury reputation as a result that it had become unsaleable. He'd bought the thing, complete with furniture and fittings, for no better reason than that he was rich enough to indulge himself, and having bought it had allowed himself to forget it. But now it might serve some purpose after all.
For longer than he cared to contemplate he and his band, Darkseid, had been a solidly successful musical entity - "straddling with intelligence and elegance the divide between Gothrock and Metal" to quote one of the many glowing reviews of their first album - but his subsequent solo career had been somewhat less remarkable. In fact it had sucked. Two albums had sold barely well enough to cover the production costs, and such praise that had come their way had been distinctly faint. One of the songs on the most recent had even been described by a critic as "almost cheerful". Todd had heard tolling bells in that phrase.
What the critics didn't know was that all of the songs had been juvenile efforts, written long before the years of success. In truth, he'd been struggling with incipient alcoholism and a massive writer's block, and he could see the inexorable dwindling away of his career unless something was done to halt the process. It wasn't that he needed money - he'd accumulated sufficient wealth over the years to glide into an obscenely comfortable old age even if he never produced another piece of work - but the one thought that nagged at him constantly, filling him with fear, was that he might be forgotten, becoming some ageing old has-been, propped up by chat shows and gossip columns until even they had forgotten him. He couldn't bear the thought of no longer being recognised in the street, of no longer being famous.
Hence the house.
"What you need, Davey-boy," his manager had said (David was the name his parents had cursed him with. He hated it as much as he hated them), "is to get away for a while. Recharge the creative batteries. Go sun yourself on a beach somewhere."
Todd had regarded his manager's advice with the usual contempt that he reserved for any pronouncement made by the man on any subject other than the purely financial - 'Big Al' (I'm Your Pal) Baker had not amassed a fortune larger even than Todd's by being anything less than shrewd where money was concerned - but the idea of taking himself away from all the pressures nevertheless lodged somewhere at the back of his mind and resurfaced from time to time. Of course he wasn't about to risk his carefully cultivated pallor by lounging around on a beach (and in truth the drinking had bloated him more than a little - he was starting to resemble a Michelin Man version of Brandon Lee in 'The Crow'. Wouldn't look at all good if some passing paparazzi happened to capture his acres of pallid flab on film), but there was some merit in the idea nevertheless. What he needed was solitude and a fresh injection of the gloom that had always characterised his finest work, to sink himself into the atmosphere of somewhere bleak and dispiriting, and where better to achieve that than this drab and undistinguished Gothic horror miles from anywhere, in the midst of what had to be some of the most severely unattractive scenery to be found in the British Isles?
Todd marvelled once more at the brutal, philistine insensitivity of the mind that had conceived this house, its total lack of any instinct for lightness or levity, and he breathed a sigh of pleasure. Utterly perfect! He fumbled in his pocket for the keys and let himself in.
He was totally unprepared for the interior. In his mind he had pictured ugliness to match the outside of the place: dark oak panelling, monstrous Victorian furniture, the smell of damp and decay. Instead the entrance hall was bright and airy, painted pale pink, and smelled of furniture polish and disinfectant. Of course, the estate agent had arranged for the place to be cleaned in preparation for his arrival, but he had a terrible feeling that the décor reflected the taste of the house's last owner - Edith Henderson - a successful illustrator of children's books and painter of moorland wildlife. He was right.
Dumping his keyboard on a fragile-looking hall table he commenced a tour of the house. Every room - living room, study (both huge) and all four bedrooms - was painted the same pale pink, and the furniture was modern and tasteful in an old-ladyish kind of way. There was an abundance of lace and frills. The kitchen was of fitted pine units, the cooker modern, the large fridge-freezer (stocked at his request with convenience foods) clean and purring. The bathroom was of pink tile and boasted a shower stall in addition to the large bath. Todd's spirits sunk with every step he took until, finding himself once more back in the hall, he screamed "SHIT!" at the top of his voice.
"Why didn't I have this fucking place checked out before I came? Why didn't somebody tell me it was like this?"
The answer, of course, was that he'd never asked, never visited his acquisition, and no-one had had any reason to tell him.
He decided to sulk for a while and then, realising that there was no-one around to pay any heed to his sulking, contemplated his next move. There was still the attic and cellar to investigate, but they were probably every bit as unatmospheric as the rest of the place and he was feeling too down-hearted to face them right now. He could simply climb back into the van and drive back to London, but it was a long way to travel and he would have to face a sneering Big Al if he spent any less than a week in the place. On balance he decided to collect his gear from the van and make the best of it: doubtless the isolation would be good for him, there was still some wonderfully depressing scenery and, judging from what he'd seen of it from the living room windows, the garden could've been transplanted wholesale from a Hammer film set. If he worked in the evenings by candle-light the living room might be persuaded to look a little less like a room from the doll-house of a giant pre-pubescent girl with a taste for mimsy.
By the time he'd emptied the van of musical equipment, clothing and toiletries, dumped the clothing in an untidy heap in the wardrobe of the master bedroom, dumped the toiletries in the bathroom, and left everything else in an untidy heap in the study, it was early evening, the light was not so much fading outside but apparently being sucked up by the trees and bushes, the central heating system had sprung into gurgling life and he was famished.
Hunger was quickly taken care of courtesy of the microwave he´d brought with him - thank God for convenience foods! - and after eating a rather glutinous chicken biryani he was left feeling exhausted. Slightly sick, too, but mostly just very, very tired.
"What the fuck." he thought, staring from the depths of an immense armchair at the candle flickering on the coffee table in the living room, "S'been a long day. Go to bed."
Doing his best to ignore the cheery glow from the pink lamp-shades that glowed at intervals from the lights that lined the walls in the hall, and climbed up beside the staircase to light his way up to the master bedroom, he shrugged out of most of his clothes and collapsed face-downwards on the pillow. Ten seconds later he was asleep.
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