The Hole in the Hedge

A story in two parts

Part I

When I was four years old we lived for a while in a house on a country road. The only other house around was nearby, behind a hedge. Both houses were set well off the road, down a long slope.

In the other house lived Waltermar William and his wife. That was not his real name, but it was what his wife called him, and he liked me to call him that too. I adored him. He was so happy and jolly. He would pick me up, toss me in the air and set me on his shoulders. Then he would jump about so that I had to cling to his hair with both my hands. He seemed to me to be very tall, and he must have been, because I also rode on my father's shoulders and he was over six feet.

When Dad and Waltermar William had gone to work, and my mother was doing her housework I would slip through a hole in the hedge to visit Mrs Waltermar William. She seemed to be always in bed, sitting up reading a magazine, with sunshine streaming in the window. Mrs Waltermar William was beautiful. She had long black hair, and she wore pretty nighties with lace and ribbons.

I would climb into bed with her. She cuddled me and talked to me, and let me play with her dolls that she still had from when she was a child. One doll was almost as tall as I was.

One day I was disturbed to find that my parents were unhappy. They had learned that our neighbours were leaving the district. I really didn't understand what leaving meant, until the day they left and I was told that I might never see them again. That made me cry. Waltermar William picked me up and tossed me. Mrs Waltermar William hugged and kissed me, and she gave me her beautiful big doll to keep. Getting that doll certainly dulled the pain of their going.

After they had gone I sometimes crept through the hole in the hedge to look for them. But the house was shut up and dark.

Then one day something happened that made my father very upset and angry. It was the day that the new neighbour moved into the house next door. Dad shouted at me to go into our house and stay there. I thought I'd done something bad, but what? Next day the hole in the hedge had been blocked up with an old gate. I was told to keep away from it with such vehemence that I was filled with dread.

Not long afterwards we also moved away, but the unknown dread haunted my childhood. My parents would never speak of it.

More tomorrow