| Lousia
by Jennifer-Anne Taylor
The block of flats looked sombre in the afternoon sun; it was a
1960s building, an era not renowned for architectural brilliance. The
façade had been updated and the surrounding area planted with trees
and bushes but it was still a gloomy looking building.
Jim was visiting his Uncle Stan who lived on the second floor of the block.
Entrance to the flats was reached by a lift or an external staircase and
walkways. The front doors of the flats opened out onto the walkways, which
were enclosed by an elbow height wall with a two-foot high metal railing
on top; the railing was not quite in keeping with the rest of the building
and looked as if it had been added at a later date, presumably to make
the walkway safer.
Jim usually visited his uncle on a Monday but Stan had asked him to come
on Tuesday this week, in time for a cup of tea at 4 pm. He decided to
walk up the two flights of stairs to the flat as the lifts were not very
inviting and quite often didn’t work anyway. As Jim turned the corner
into the walkway from the stairwell he heard a child running along laughing,
he looked down the walkway and saw the child, who must be about two years
old. Suddenly, as she reached the flat next door to Stan’s, the
laughter turned to a scream and the child seemed to ascend into the air,
disappear through the metal railing and fall over the walkway wall. Jim
screamed himself, rushed to edge of the wall and peered over the railings,
his eyes scanning the ground for the child but he couldn’t see her.
She wasn’t down there. He had expected a crowd to be milling around
the broken body of a small child, but there was no child lying on the
ground, it was as if it hadn’t happened at all. In the area below
the flats, life was carrying on as normal.
Jim felt a great wave of sadness sweep over him and very upset and puzzled
he walked along to Stan’s flat. What had just happened? Did I really
see that, he thought? It looked real enough to me, but now I come to think
about it, the woman going into the end flat didn’t even look round
when the child screamed. What on earth is going on?
Stan opened his front door at the first ring of the bell; it was as if
he had been waiting right behind the door. He took one look at Jim and
said: ‘You saw her then?’
Jim stood and stared at Stan. Dazed and confused he stammered: ‘What
do you mean? It was real then? But I couldn’t see her on the ground,
there was no one lying there, she couldn’t be anywhere but on the
ground below.’ Jim stopped speaking and looked at Stan. ‘No-one
was taking any notice, it was if they hadn’t heard her scream, as
if it hadn’t happened at all,’ he said, very distressed now.
Stan pulled him into the flat and sat him down. ‘You sit quiet while
I make you a nice strong cup of tea, don’t worry about the lass,
she isn’t there now,’ he said.
Feeling much calmer after several cups of tea, Jim looked at Stan and
said: ‘Now tell me what exactly is going on. That was why you asked
me come today, wasn’t it? You expected me to see her fall didn’t
you?’ He sat for a while thinking over what had happened. ‘It
was the fact that she went through the railings and not over them that
made me doubt that what I saw was real.’
‘Oh, I think it was real all right, but as to when it happened,
I don’t know,’ Stan replied. ‘I started seeing her a
few months ago, not every day but two or three times a week, always happy
except for at 4 p.m. on a Tuesday, then she seems to be clambering up
something and vanishes through the railings. I thought she was real until
she disappeared, and like you, I was distraught the first time I saw it
happen.’
‘Has anyone else seen her?’ Jim asked.
‘A few, but no one knows what the story is. She has been seen on
and off for a number of years.’
‘Well, I shall make it my mission to find out about her, starting
with Mrs Mather next door, she has been here virtually since the block
was built hasn’t she?’
‘She has, but she is very ill now and not expected to last much
longer,’ Stan replied sadly. ‘I will really miss her. We have
been friends for a long time now. You could try numbers one and forty-one;
they are virtually the only people left now who have lived here for a
long time. The people at forty-one clammed up a bit when I tried to talk
to them about her though, so they may be a good place to start.’
Jim left an hour or so later and told his Uncle he would phone him during
the week to let him know anything he had found out, and that he would
visit again next Tuesday at 4 in the afternoon. He was half hoping to
see the little girl again the following week, not that he wanted to see
her fall, that was much too distressing, but he needed to check that he
really had seen her today. He decided to start his investigations at numbers
one and forty-one straightaway.
The couple at number one said they had never seen the little girl running
along the walkway, but they had heard stories of others seeing her over
the years. They did remember that when they had first moved in, about
thirty years ago, they were told that a little girl had fallen from one
of the walkways about five years previously and that was why the railings
were added to the wall.
Unfortunately, for Jim, the tenant at number forty-one, where he thought
he might learn the true facts about what he had ‘seen’ that
morning, had moved a few weeks ago so he got no further that day.
The following day Jim decided to check the local newspapers and see if
there was a story about the little girl. After several hours in the library
scanning the newspapers from thirty-five years ago, he finally found what
he was looking for, the article was on the front page of a May newspaper.
The article recorded the tragic accident to Louisa Calcott, aged two years
and six months. Louisa was returning home from shopping with her mother,
as she reached the walkway leading to their flat she left her mother’s
side and laughing happily she ran towards their front door. As she got
near to the door, she spotted some boxes stacked against the wall of the
walkway outside Mrs Mather’s flat. Louisa ran over to the boxes
and started to clamber up onto them, suddenly they slipped throwing her
backwards and she fell over the wall plummeting to the ground below. Her
parents were distraught and couldn’t bear to live at the flat any
longer, her mother in particular could not walk past the spot where her
daughter had fallen. They moved out a few weeks later. Mrs Mather, who
had stacked the boxes there for her husband to take down to the bins when
he came in from work, suffered a mental breakdown. The accident had happened
on a Tuesday at 4 p.m.
Jim sat back, tears in his eyes; poor little girl he thought. But why
is she haunting the walkway now? Why can’t she rest? He ordered
a copy of the newspaper article from the librarian and then phoned Stan.
He told him what he had found out, and that he would visit again on Tuesday.
The following Tuesday Jim arrived at the block of flats at five minutes
to four. He walked slowly up the stairs and round the corner onto the
walkway. He went up to Stan’s front door and feeling slightly queasy,
he stood there waiting for four o’clock to pass. Suddenly he decided
that he didn’t want to witness that awful scene again and turned
towards Stan’s door to ring the bell. Then, he heard the little
girl laughing and, as he looked round, he saw her running down the walkway
towards him. Jim started forward, he wanted to stop her falling over the
wall, but of course he couldn’t. He shouted for her to stop, then
he jumped back as the door of Mrs Mather’s flat burst open. Mrs
Mather raced out through the door and caught the child just as she started
to climb the boxes. She set Louisa down, took hold of her hand, and side
by side they walked back along the walkway towards the stairwell. Jim
stood transfixed, staring at them until they disappeared down the stairs.
He turned and rang Stan’s doorbell.
‘You’ve seen her again then,?’ was the first thing Stan
said.
‘Yes, I have, but this time she didn’t fall over the wall.
Mrs Mather ran out of her flat and stopped her climbing the boxes, then
she took hold of her hand and together they walked back along the walkway
and down the stairs.’
‘Don’t be daft lad,’ Stan replied. ‘Mrs Mather
died two days ago.’
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