The House on Station Road

Dr Mather’s husband retrieved the photographs from the attic sometime one Saturday afternoon in late summer. They came to him by chance when, stooping beneath the rafters, he spotted a tear in an insulation roll tucked into one corner of the loft floor. His curious hand had burrowed deep into the woollen pile and pulled out one of those photo wallets used for returning printed photographs. It had lost the glossiness of its heyday, but was dry and the logo of the now-defunct camera company was visible beneath a stock photo of a family picnic in a field of brilliant green. The dated lettering on the logo and the family’s attire suggested the 1990s, more than a decade before Dr Mather and her husband had moved into these premises. He could feel from its weight and the rectangular impression on his finger tips that there were still photos inside, but the flap was secured with Sellotape. He clambered through the hatch down into the afternoon light of the upstairs hallway and handed the still-closed wallet to his wife who stood peering upwards from the foot of the ladder.

“Definitely not ours,” he said. “Hidden away by the old fellow I’d say.”

“The one who lived here before us?” Dr Mather replied. “What could they be?”

“Who knows? After his parents died, they say he kept himself to himself.”

His back still turned to his wife, he stepped off the bottom rung and his slippers sank into the soft carpet. A smirk appeared across his lips as he added:

“Who knows what kind of photos a man like that keeps hidden…?”

“I've got no idea what you mean.”

“Oh, I'm sure you do!” he laughed.

"You've got funny ideas!” she retorted. “Tidy yourself up and let's have a look.”

Dr Mather carefully unpicked the Sellotape, released the flap, and neatly laid out the photos on the dining room table. There were 24 in total and each depicted a street scene apparently taken in the Mathers’ local town centre, just a mile from their present location. There was the town hall, the old swimming baths they tore down, the market hall, the entrance to the arcade from Main Street, part of the old bus station, the parish church, and several rows of shops, most of which still stood to this day. Passers-by could be seen in many of the photographs, wives peering through shop windows, husbands lugging plastic bags, mums with pushchairs, and a pair of elderly ladies in rain bonnets. The younger people were dressed mostly in denim or casual sportswear while the older folks somehow looked more respectable than they do today, grey trousers and button-up shirts, long pleated dresses, and those large thick-rimmed spectacles you used to see. Dr Mather guessed they were taken during the early ‘90s, shortly before she left to study medicine.

Her husband had tired of the pictures after a few minutes, but Dr Mather must have spent an hour with the collection. One curiosity was picture of a row of shops in a three-storey red-brick terrace, the type built to house workers during the industrial revolution. The middle shop was a charity of some kind with one of those plastic donation dogs out front. Above the shop's green sign there were two higher floors with several windows on both, and through a top floor window Dr Mather could make out a figure. It was of small stature, probably a child, and only its head and shoulders were visible through the bottom-most pane of the window. Its features were indistinct owing to the grey sky reflected in the glass. Curiously however, when she inspected the picture again a few moments later, the reflection had faded and the child's features could be made out quite clearly. Perhaps she simply hadn't focused her eyes properly, she thought. She identified it as a boy aged around 7 years with a gaunt face and pale complexion, and with hair combed to one side, not really in the '90's style. He wore a sullen expression and his uncertain eyes hinted there was trouble. Dr Mather scrutinised those eyes for a moment or two more, then gradually became aware of something which provoked a sharp intake of breath. The boy with trouble in his eyes was peering right back at her. Unnerved, she broke her gaze and returned the photo to the wallet before gathering the rest up with it. She placed the wallet on one arm of the dining room settee for later. He must have spotted our cameraman, she thought, smiling to herself uneasily.

“Do you suppose there are any more up there?” she asked her husband as he re-entered the dining room.

“I had a look while you were pouring over those,” he replied. “Not a thing.”

“Why take photos like that then hide them away?”

Her husband shrugged and then replied, “Just his hobby, I guess. Didn’t want others to see. Or maybe they just got lost up there.”   

The images remained on Dr Mather's mind during that evening and much of the following day, and those impressions mingled with memories of her own. Playfully modelling clothes in the boutique in the arcade with schoolgirl friends, the reek of chlorine and the delighted screams of local children reverberating around the old baths, and the rain bonnet she’d once tried for size as a little girl, much to her grandmother's amusement. There were less happy memories too. Peering from her own bedroom window at the street and passers-by below. Shrieks from the kitchen, her father's rage, banishment to her room, and indignation which finally gave way to guilt. Only those memories seemed not quite her own, like fragments of a dream.

That evening, having updated some medical records, she closed her laptop and reclined on the settee with a cup of tea her husband had prepared, grabbing the photo wallet from the arm rest as she did so. She examined each picture again for a minute or so. The passers-by, frozen in a moment of time, fascinated her. Should they still be alive today, they'd be 30 years older now at least. She might well have passed them in the street at one time or another.

Her husband, having grown up in a town on the opposite side of Manchester, had been less taken by the pictures. He was busying himself in the kitchen when suddenly he heard a cry from his wife in the adjoining room:

“Look at this! Come and look at this!”

He passed into the dining room to the sight of his wife, now perched on the edge of the settee, gazing at a photograph she clasped with both hands.

“It's the child in the window,” she cried. “It's gone!”

She thrust the picture into her husband's hands and prodded the now empty top-floor window with her finger.

“There was a child there. A boy. He was looking through the window. I'm sure of it. Now he's gone! Just like that.”

“Are you sure?” he replied. “I mean, those windows are tricky to see through with the reflection and all. Was it another photo perhaps? Or maybe you just imagin...”

His wife glared at him and he spoke no more. The windows did indeed reflect the sky and nothing except a few drawn back curtains were visible through them. But the donation dog was there and the green sign too - it was the correct photo all right. And there was no question of her having imagined it. Dr Mather was in full possession of her senses and was certain of what she had seen.

She pondered the problem for some time and within the hour had formed a satisfactory enough conclusion. The photos had been exposed to light after 30 years of darkness and a chemical reaction had caused the figure to dissolve into the background. Granted, nothing else had faded in the other photographs, but perhaps the figure of the child was susceptible somehow - a certain combination of colours. Dr Mather knew this explanation may not be exactly right, but it was close enough. Everything could be explained.

The Mathers thought little of the photographs for the next week and spoke of them to nobody outside the house. The following Saturday her husband's mother paid her fortnightly visit. She had been left alone in the dining room for perhaps half an hour when Dr Mather, having been on the phone to a hospital registrar, drew open the dining room door to reveal her mother-in-law, seated at the table, with a stricken expression across a face now drained of colour. The wallet had been opened and the photos were strewn across the table before the elderly lady.

“Oh, it's horrible!” she exclaimed, a quiver in her voice. “Its eyes, the way it looks right at you. Right inside you.”

She hastily pushed a photo face-down across the surface of the table towards her daughter-in-law who flipped it over. It was, of course the three-storey red-brick terrace and that upstairs window. The reflection on the glass had faded once more and there was a figure again, but not the child this time. It was not quite a human figure, but it stood tall and upright, unlike an animal. Dr Mather fixed her gaze on the creature's face which had an indefinite appearance at first, but gradually took form. It had a shallow jaw and glistening teeth which it bared between curled up grey lips. There was no nose, but its eyes were fiery yellow, the pupils intense black. A few straggling black hairs on its head hung down over its bony face. Dr Mather broke her gaze and slapped the photo face-down on the table.

“It’s just a practical joke,” she explained, her voice now quivering too. “A sick practical joke. I’m sorry you had to see that.”

Dr Mather filed the photos away and placed the wallet into a kitchen drawer beneath a pile of tea towels. She chose not to confide in her mother-in-law about the earlier sightings nor about the source of the photographs and nothing more was spoken about the matter that evening. Her husband later took a peek at the photo and confirmed to his wife that he too could see the creature, though could only bear to lay his eyes on it for a few seconds at a time.

Before retiring to bed, Dr Mather returned to the kitchen to switch off the under-cabinet lighting and detected the faint odour of burning. She inspected the cooker and boiler and, confident nothing was amiss, turned out the lights and headed upstairs. She lay her head on the pillow and felt the movement of her husband’s body turn toward her.

“That boy you saw in the window,” he whispered into his wife’s ear. “Do you think he’s all right?”

She kept her silence, but lay awake for some time after, her wide-open eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Dr Mather left the kitchen drawer undisturbed for the whole of the following morning, but after lunch she roused herself to take another look. She removed the photo from the wallet and instantly let out a cry. The photo and wallet hit the floor and her husband rushed in from the dining room.

“Look at it! Look at what’s happened!”

He discerned a terror in his wife’s voice he hadn’t known before that instantly disturbed him. He picked up the photo and let out a gasp of his own. The window had completely gone. The red brick around and above where the window frame had been was charred black and a gaping hole had appeared where the glass had been. Through the hole the interior of the room was perceptible, the outline of furniture, perhaps the ruins of a wardrobe were visible through the haze. A chink of light from ceiling bathed the room, exposing the whiteness of the ash that lay on top of the wardrobe remains. The source of the light was another gaping hole, this one in the roof of the building which had partly caved in, exposing the blackened rafters and the chewed up remains of the fabrics used as insulation.

During the following days no further changes were perceived in the photograph, except that the ravaged upper floor seemed to take on a less horrifying aspect, though neither Dr Mather or her husband could say exactly why. Enquiries were made and it was established that the address of the three-storey terrace was a number 23 Station Road, just off Main Street. Unfortunately, those properties had been pulled down during the early 2000s to make way for the new shopping complex. Further enquiries at the local history shop promised little at first since only details pertaining to buildings of note were normally indexed. However, the researcher on duty, apparently a crime fiction enthusiast, had with great excitement located a crime and execution broadside from one of the archives which made reference to the exact address. The history shop’s yellowing Inkjet printer cranked out an A4 miniature of the broadside which was handed to a still sceptical Dr Mather in exchange for 50p in cash.

The broadside, examined by Dr Mather with a rented magnifying glass at a nearby reading table, contained the “particulars of the crime and execution of Edward Wignall of Station Road, for arson and murder” and was dated November 16^th 1864. The account read that Wignall had been “convicted for wilfully and maliciously setting fire to the property of a Mr Townley”. Wignall had rented top-floor rooms in the property from Mr Townley and resided there with his wife and 7-year-old son, William. The attack was carried out “in a fit of jealous rage”, though no elaboration on this was provided. The fire had been started by “setting alight floorcloths on the staircase leading to the rooms”. Mrs Wignall, who had been running errands, was absent from the property, but young William still occupied one of the rooms. Witnesses at street level recalled the sight of “a youth peering down from an upstairs window”. Horrified onlookers had attempted to “coax the lad down”, but the boy had remained “impassive and uncomprehending as the flames licked at his door”. Nothing could be done and the boy was “caught up in the conflagration and perished”. The judge concluded that “such a heinous and dreadful crime as this makes the heart sicken at the depravity of human nature”. Wignall was hanged at the New Bailey Prison in Salford on the morning of the publication.

Sometime later the researcher passed by the reading table and, somewhat crestfallen, noticed that the broadside had been left face up on the table with the magnifying glass placed on top. The professional lady who had requested it was nowhere to be seen.

Dr Mather elected not to confide in her husband and the significance of her visit to the history shop was downplayed. She did, however, instruct her husband to return the photo wallet, now resealed with Sellotape, to its place of discovery deep within the insulation pile. They spoke no more of the incident and Dr Mather attempted to returned to her usual routines and immersed herself in her work at the medical practice. Over the coming weeks, however, her husband noticed in his wife an increasingly irritable disposition. She had stopped reading, struggled to focus even on television shows and snapped at him frequently. She often lay awake at night, her wide-open eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Two months passed after which her husband noticed an improvement. It seems Dr Mather had made further enquires and had started taking short trips into town at the weekend which seemed to cheer her up. Her husband knew his wife well enough not to inquire about her whereabouts, especially since she seemed to be on the mend. Not long after, Dr Mather’s usual self-assurance had returned and her husband even noticed a spring in her step.

***

There was a large cemetery adjacent to the parish church at the town centre’s edge. The sexton and an elderly gravedigger stood next to the pile of autumn leaves which was their afternoon’s work.

“The plot over in the far corner is looking spruce,” observed the sexton.

“Huh?” shrugged the gravedigger.

“In the far corner beside the yew tree,” he explained, adjusting his thick-rimmed spectacles. “The little grave especially. I haven’t seen anyone touch that in my lifetime. That’s the third bouquet in three weeks.”

“Aye,” replied the gravedigger thoughtfully. “Them’s over there is 19^th century. The little one’s a kiddie if I remember reet. Come to think of it, I ‘ave seen someone over there. A woman.”

“Anyone we know?”

“Never seen ‘er before in me life. She were a professional woman though. Doctor or lawyer I’d say.”

“I wonder what she’d want with a 19^th century grave. Some people have funny ideas I suppose.”

“Aye,” replied the gravedigger. “Very funny ideas.”