The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

Companions (1929), a picaresque novel about English life and then broadened his output to include fantasy, science fiction and the supernatural. Two of his major plays, Dangerous Corner (1932) and Time and the Conways (1937) utilized Dunne’s theories with “timelines” opening up destructive events. He took the idea further in The Other Place (1953) and a non-fiction discussion, Man and Time (1964). Priestley’s novel, Benighted (1929) about a young couple forced to seek refuge in a haunted mansion, was made into a classic movie, The Old Dark House, in 1932, starring Boris Karloff and directed by James Whale of Frankenstein fame. It, in turn, inspired a whole series of “old dark house” films set in isolated rural properties plagued by ghosts. Priestley wrote several short stories with supernatural themes, including “Mr Strenberry’s Tale” (1930), “The Grey Ones” (1953) and, perhaps most unnerving of all, this next story written in 1974 about a ride on the underground that turns, inexorably, into a living nightmare.

Ray Aggarstone took the Northern Line from Leicester Square. It was some time since he had gone anywhere by Underground. Either he had used his car or had taken taxis for shorter journeys. But now that he was almost ready for what he liked to call, to himself but not to anybody else, the Big Getaway, he had sold his car for just over four hundred quid. Just showed you how useful it could be to chat somebody up, in this case that stupid sod who was always in the Saloon bar of the King’s Arms. While waiting on the crowded platform at Leicester Square, Ray told himself once again that he was careful as well as very clever. For instance, after that car deal and with a few drinks inside them, some fellows would have boasted about the Brazilian setup and the flight to Rio, but not Ray – not on your life! He had told this stupid sod exactly the same story he had told his mother and his wife, Cherry, now waiting for him somewhere near the end of this Northern Line. “Going to France, old man – Nice actually – where I’ve bought into a very promising property deal. Smart work, if I may say so.”

But of course he hadn’t shown him the letters he’d concocted to show his Mum and Cherry, now ready to part with eight thousand between them, about all they had. They were both so excited about his plan for them to join him at Nice within the next two or three weeks, like a pair of idiotic kids, they left business entirely to him, Mum’s clever handsome son, Cherry’s dominating, fascinating if occasionally unfaithful husband. Serve them right when he vanished with the two cheques he was going to collect – the silly cows!

No train yet but more people arriving on the platform. He changed his place, bumping and shoving a bit, if only to show these types what he thought about them. A run-down lot in a running-down country! He could never come back of course, not after those two women finally decided he’d robbed them blind, but he didn’t want to anyhow. He’d had it here all right – finish! He couldn’t blame Rita and Karl for sneering and jeering, even though now and again they got his goat, specially Karl. But that was early on, before they began to talk business.

The train came along, already more than half full. And because he hadn’t stood near the platform edge, though he pushed and shoved as hard as anybody, perhaps a bit harder than most, of course he didn’t get a seat – not a hope! So there he was, standing and swaying, wedged in with a lot of fat arses, smelly underclothes and bad breath. Looking around, disgusted, he couldn’t imagine now what had made him come down here when he might have hired a car, travelled in comfort and also impressed Mum and Cherry. So, to stop cursing himself, he began thinking about Rita and Karl again. After all he’d be meeting them in Rio in two or three days, and he began to wonder how things would work over there. Every time Karl, who was her husband all right, had gone to Manchester or Leeds and had stayed the night, he’d had Rita, a hot brunette if there ever was one, who’d start moaning if a finger touched a tit. Did Karl know, just guess, not care – or what? Anyhow, what Karl, a real businessman in the German-Swedish style, did know was that his friend, smart Ray Aggarstone, would be shortly financing most of the deal they’d worked out. Moreover, there must be plenty of hot moaning brunettes in Brazil.

Tottenham Court Road and people, dreary bloody people, pushing their way out and pushing their way in. And off again – sway, rattle, bang, bang, rattle, sway. A long thin woman, loaded with parcels, dug an elbow into his ribs, and he used his own elbow, with some force, to knock it away. She glared at him over her parcels, but all he did was to raise his eyebrows at her. After a moment or two she was able to move away a few inches. It was then that a curious thing happened. Through the gap she had left between them he saw for the first time a small figure sitting down. It had the face of an old-looking boy or a rather young-looking dwarf. He stared at this creature, who then met his stare with a widening of the eyes, odd eyes, yellowish. Next, the little oddity closed his eyes and moved his head slowly from side to side, almost as if he was giving a “No-no-no” signal. As soon as the eyes opened again, Ray gave them a hard scowling look. But now there was no sign of recognition in them. It was just as if Ray was no longer there at all. The boy-or-dwarf might have been looking through him. A silly idea. Ray began to think how he would deal with Mum and Cherry.

At Euston there was a lot more pushing out and shoving in, twerps on the move. The little monster had gone, and in his place was a fat suet-faced woman who stared angrily at anything or nothing, just to prove she had a right to a seat. Rattling and swaying on again, Ray told himself how he ought to deal with Mum and Cherry this time. Very different, he decided, from last time when he’d been all solemn, very much the business man, explaining again why Cherry had to stay with Mum, now that he’d got rid of their flat, and why he was staying in an hotel to be near the two Frenchmen who’d agreed to let him buy into the big property development just outside Nice. This time, everything being settled now they were giving him their cheques, there’d be no point in going on with the solemn business thing. It would have to be all merry chit-chat about Nice and the Riviera, how they’d be joining him down there quite soon, how he’d be arranging their flights, booking a posh double-bedded room with bath for Cherry and him, with a good single nearby for Mum, and at least one balcony the three could use for breakfast – all that bullshit. Yes, there he’d be, egging them on, the stupid cows, maybe taking them out to a pub if Mum hadn’t got anything in to drink.

Somebody touched his arm. This was deliberate. A woman was smiling at him. She was an oldish woman, white-haired but with a plump red-cheeked face and bright blue eyes; and he’d seen her before somewhere. “You’re Ray Aggarstone, aren’t you?” she said, smiling away.

It seemed as if he hadn’t time to think before he heard himself saying, “No, I’m not.” He said it sharply too, as if really telling her to mind her own dam’ business.

It wiped the smile off her face and narrowed and darkened her eyes, almost turning her into another person. “I think you are Ray Aggarstone, y’know,” she said; and though the train was making a lot of noise, somehow she managed to say it quietly. “And you must remember me. I’m an old friend of your mother’s.”

She must have been too, he realized now. But he hadn’t to be bothered with her, when he was busy with his own thoughts and plans. He shook his head at her. “Got this all wrong.” And he had to shout because the train might have been grinding its way through rocks, the noise it was making. “I don’t know you. And you don’t know me.”

“Yes, I do. Or I did do, once,” she went on steadily. “She thought the world of you, Ray. Her only son – so good-looking, so clever!”

He found a snarl coming out of him this time. “Do you mind! Just turn it up!” And he looked away, to get rid of her. But when he turned his head again, she was still there, though not quite so close, having managed to back away from him a little. And now she seemed a lot older and was giving him a long sad look. He couldn’t return it – he suddenly felt he had nothing to return it with, not even a scowl – so he looked away again and was relieved to find the train was stopping at Camden Town. This time not many got in, but then not many got out, so he was still forced to stand, even though he’d a bit more space round him. And this suited him all right because if there was one thing he didn’t like it was being jammed among all these idiotic, bloody disgusting people, staring old cows, smelly bitches and stupid buggers of all ages and sizes. When he got to Brazil and the money was rolling in, as Karl swore it would, he’d work it so that there was no more of this horrible caper. The only people allowed near him would be the ones he could enjoy seeing, hearing, smelling and touching.

As the train started rattling and banging off again, he started thinking again. Working out how he’d deal with Cherry and his mother, chatting them up about life on the Riviera, breakfasts on balconies, drinks to welcome the wonderful new life, laughs and hugs and kisses and all that female crap, he realised he’d overdone it, not for them but for himself. For what he’d gone and done, if only for a minute or two, was to go soft and feel a bit sorry for both of them, considering that he was about to skin them down to their last fifty quid each. No time for that tonight! He’d got to be as sensible and hard as he’d been when he worked out the plan. Serve ’em right for not having more sense! He’d to look after himself, so they could look after themselves – and women always managed somehow. And