Binscombe Tales - The Complete Series Read Free Page B

minded of course, for I’d known Bolding a long time and I could see from his weary eyes that he was bearing a mighty burden.’
    ‘So did he confide in you?’
    ‘Not on that occasion but a week after, when he’d vanished once more and then reappeared three days later, I approached him again and found that he was now keen to talk. “Disvan,” he said, “I’ve got to speak to someone or I think I’m going to lose my wits.” “Talk away as much as you like,” I said and took him to my house for a cup of tea.’
    ‘Did he manage to explain what was happening?’
    ‘He tried. “I’ve been away,” he says. “I don’t know why, I don’t know how and I don’t know where to.” This naturally puzzled me, although I had to accept his statement, and when I asked him what he meant he gave the same answer—“for I can’t give any better,” were his words. I kept on probing, though, for I felt sorry for him and bit by bit he told the story.’
    ‘Which was?’
    ‘Which was that one day, just like any other day, he shut up his shop and went home for his midday meal. He ate it, said goodbye to his wife and went out of his front door—into another place.’
    ‘Did he explain that?’
    ‘Oh yes, in great detail.’
    ‘What sort of other place was it he’d walked into then?’
    ‘He said he was still in Binscombe, yet at the same time he wasn’t because it was no Binscombe he’d ever seen.’
    ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘Neither did he, poor fellow. Neither does anyone, but there it still is. Like I keep on saying, Bolding was an honest man and if he said that he’d stumbled into another world then you’re safe in accepting he did.’
    ‘What was it like?’
    ‘Empty. It was the Binscombe he’d known all his life but deserted and ruined. He mentioned that quite specifically. All the houses and shops had been wrecked or fallen down of their own accord. Apparently the recreation ground in that other Binscombe was chest high in grass and there were bushes and weeds in the roadways.’
    ‘What did he do?’
    ‘Just what you’d expect. He stepped back inside sharpish!’
    ‘And?’
    ‘And for an instant he said he could still hear the sounds of his wife clearing up in the kitchen but then that faded and died and he found himself in a ruined house. It was his house right enough, but the roof was half gone and there was ivy and moss on the inside walls.’
    ‘And he panicked?’
    ‘No. Bolding wasn’t like that. Not a man of strong passions at all. Apparently he checked what was left of the place just to see if Mrs Bolding was there but she wasn’t. He said that all through the house he saw things that were his, all scattered about and broken, so there couldn’t be any doubt left as to whose dwelling he was in.’
    ‘And there was no one around at all?’
    ‘No, no one. He went to the neighbour’s houses and knocked on their doors, save one that no longer had a door, and got no answer. Judging by appearances he said that it didn’t look as if there’d been anyone living in them for many a year.
    ‘So anyway, off he went to his shop—a natural enough reaction for a small trader—and all along the way there was the same story: ruin and desolation, jungle and neglect. He couldn’t believe his eyes, poor man. He thought it must be some horrible dream he was trapped in.’
    ‘But I presume it wasn’t.’
    ‘I don’t see how it could have been. A man can’t disappear into a dream for days on end, can he?’
    ‘I suppose not.’
    ‘No. So there he is, in Binscombe High Street, surveying the clumps of grass sprouting up through the middle of the road, half the buildings tumbled down and not so much as a sign of a human being anywhere. Soon enough he went to look at his shop and found that there was a young sapling growing out of the front window. Well, you can imagine how he felt on seeing that.
    ‘His sign was still there over the front and some stock remained on display but otherwise