As I looked into the eyes of the old man with the big white moustache, I felt a wave of love and kindness emanating from him and experienced a strange sensation of comfort and joy.
And also, a gut-churning shiver of unadulterated fear.
Yet I’d never met him before and had no idea who he was!
The moment soon passed, and I quickly purchased the rest of the groceries from Waitrose and took them back to my car in the Coulsdon car park in Lion Green Road.
It was the most recent of so many peculiar things that had happened in the last few days. Was I ill?
Perhaps I was.
However, the most likely explanation was because I was absolutely exhausted all the time, often fighting just to stay awake. You see my wife had given birth to our second child just weeks ago, and I was doing all the overtime hours on offer at work.
Added to that we were desperately searching for somewhere a bit bigger than our tiny flat to live, and although we’d booked a viewing of this house in Coulsdon tomorrow, since I had to visit a client near here I’d decided to come and check out the area.
Across the road from the car park I could see the For Sale board outside one of the tiny terrace houses opposite me. It looked pleasant enough, and it was close to shops and a station. Yes, I could definitely envisage living here with my family. We had seen the estate agent’s video and the paperwork, the area seemed okay, so on impulse I decided to put in an offer to the estate agent anyway before even seeing inside – I didn’t want to risk losing this house, as I’d missed so many in the last months.
After getting back into the car I phoned my wife Carol and she agreed, then I called the agent.
“Great,” said enthusiastic estate agent Roger. “I’ll call the vendors right away with your offer and I’ll call you right back.”
Afterwards, sitting in the driver’s seat, I wondered if I’d made a mistake. I leaned back and immediately fell into a deep deep sleep, the sleep of sheer mind-numbing utter exhaustion.
Which was when I had the crazy dream.
I was sitting in some kind of cart drawn by a horse, through noisy crowds of people, the road bumpy and crunching on gravel or cobbles, almost shaking me off the hard bench seat. My hands were tied together behind my back.
And all around there was so much noise, as if I was in the middle of some kind of market. Shouting, singing, yelling, of the people all around, a kind of excited carnival atmosphere, everyone seemed to be eating and drinking and smiling and happy, and they were all dressed in cloaks or breeches, the women in long dresses, drab colours mostly, and all looked to be in the costumes of the late 1700s, as if I was on a film set for a period movie.
Sitting either side of me in the cart was a man in a long dark uniform jacket and trousers, with black top hats. The man on my right seemed familiar. And suddenly I recognised the face of the white moustache-man I’d met in the supermarket just now. His hand was resting on my arm, his gaze kindly, his smile fatherly.
I remember feeling absolute terror and dread and utter and complete misery, but above all else, abject terror. My stomach was churning and I felt the sickness of a terrible loathsome creeping dread.
“Have a sip of this, mate,” moustache-man beside me said, passing across a brown earthenware mug. I drank the fiery liquid, which burned and warmed my throat as it went down. For a second I felt a bit better.
“Drink all that you can, go on son, drink it up, it’ll help, you’ll see.”
So I did. My vision blurred slightly, and the crowd outside seemed to multiply, a panoply of bodies seemingly swimming and mingling like a tidal wave of people from hell itself. A man yelled some obscenity at my face as we passed, so close and terrifying I felt the wetness of his spittle on my cheek. I felt a soggy splatter of some rotten fruit hitting my forehead, and my other friend wiped my brow with a large handkerchief that smelt of fresh linen.
“I never hurt anyone,” I told them both wretchedly, feeling tearful, utterly bereft and broken.
“We know you didn’t! It’s just because the bastards who rape and kill keep getting away that the gentry are so keen to make an example of a poor bugger like you! It’s not right. It ain’t right at all.”
“What about my family?” I asked the older man.
“We had a whip-round at the station, so did your friends and neighbours,” he explained. “Don’t you worry, James, they’ll want for nothing. And Lord Rogers is taking on your oldest boy as a trainee gardener on his estate, so there’ll be regular money for your wife and children, I promise you, they’ll not starve, he’s a good master is the Lord, he tried to speak up for you but them bloody magistrates wouldn’t listen.”
I drank more of the fiery liquid. The more I drank the better I felt.
Then the coach drew to a halt. My guards – for that seemed to be what they were – helped me climb down onto the road, where I stumbled, unable to use my arms for balance. They were ushering me through the yelling jeering crowds of people. I smelt all kinds of odours: roasting meat, body odour, fresh flowers, urine, horse dung, and I stumbled along until we came to the crude wooden staircase. I knew I had to climb, but I stumbled and fell on the steps a couple of times, as my legs gave way, and my men helped me, with kind words of encouragement.
“Don’t worry, mate, you’ve done the worst bit now, be all over in a jiffy,” said my friend as we stood on the precarious boards at the top, the entire structure moving gently as a fresh gust of wind took hold.
I looked out onto the crowd and it was the biggest sea of people I’d ever seen, It was some kind of market day, or a carnival, and I could see street vendors, market stalls, roasting chickens on a spit, fruits and cabbages, all kinds of food and barrels of ale, with a bald red-faced jolly man who was busy filling mugs with a foaming brown liquid. Someone was playing a fiddle, a few folks were dancing a jig.
Then I saw the rope up close. Close as a pretty maiden’s kiss. Felt the rough hairy jagged scratching as the hemp was pushed around my neck, the horrid itching jerk as it was tightened. Everything went dark as a canvas bag was put over my head.
BING BONG BING BONG BING. . .
Never was I more grateful to be jerked awake as my mobile phone rang.
“Good news and bad,” announced estate agent Roger. “The vendors haven’t agreed to that price. Is that your final offer? Can you dig a bit deeper?”
“Oh – er – right,” I answered, stunned, unable to think clearly. Scared. Unsure what to say. “Trouble is – er. . .”
“What?”
“Can I call you back, Roger?”
“Sure. Is there a problem?”
“Yes. Sorry, Roger, but I’m feeling a bit sick.”
I cut the call, stretched and opened the door and got out of the car, just wanting to walk around and get some fresh air, clear my mind of the horrible ghastly dream, to try to get back to reality. Then, as I walked out of the car park and turned left, I noticed a huge rock that was installed on the pavement outside the big post office building. Curious, I walked closer and saw that there was a rectangular panel stuck onto a flattened part of it with a long inscription on it, saying:
This stone is one of three stones marking the perimeter of what used to be called Lion Green, where the houses in Lion Green Road now stand. This triangular land was used for sports events, celebrations on public holidays, so called because it was adjacent to the Red Lion public house and inn.
And then my heart froze as I read the final part:
Lion Green was also used for public hangings. The last man to be hanged here was in 1749. Highwayman James Cracknell headed up a gang who operated along the local Brighton Road. . . . . .