Day one

People were still arriving, shaking themselves to throw off the early morning cold, pushing through the rows of chairs to positions chosen apparently at random. Old Jack stood on the stage peering at them with the wry look life had carved into his features. He looked over to a man who stood nearby, the man nodded his head. Jack started off the proceedings in the only way he knew how... with a story.

-As you all know, I live just down the road from here. You can see my house, if you stretch your necks a bit, from the steps outside this hall. I’m not particularly proud of the place so don’t start rushing out for a look. It’s no palace...but that house is dear to my heart. We moved in not long after the war. I’ve lived in that little hutch for going on forty years. You get fond of a place after all that time. I reckon it’ll be strange to leave the place and I’m not happy at the prospect. The missus now, she’d like to go in one of those homes where everything is done for you. I don’t like the idea at all. It’d be just like going back to school from what I hear. Hell, I had some good times at school but they had nothing to do with set up of the place. It’s down on Cuthbert street, round the corner from the factory most of us has worked at... I worked there something like forty years. That’s a place I’m not sorry to see the back of and I’m not kidding any of you there.

Anyhow, I was talking about that home, wasn’t I? No, no...school...the only good thing about school was taking off for the day and running down to the marshes but I’m a little too old for gallivanting around down there these days. My heart wouldn’t be in a game of cops and robbers, which puts me in mind of our favourite game, Jack the Ripper.

We’d get one of the girls to come with us. We’d tell her she could play doctors and nurses or something. Once she was there, deep into the marshes, we’d set about scaring her with tales of the mad and terrible man that wandered lost in the marshes. Next we’d run off in all directions and leave the poor thing standing there peeing herself. Ha. Ha. It was a good jape.

We’d watch her from our hiding places then one of us, usually it’d be old Henry because he was the tallest and he had a very deep voice for his age, would suddenly come loping out into the open. He’d be dressed up in his dad’s old work clothes, sometimes we’d give him a hump or he3d wave an old carving knife in the air, just for the effect. The girl would see him and he’d let out a bellow like some stupid monster in one of those kids’ tales. The girl’d take a few seconds to start screaming and all the crazy antics women go through when they’ve got the wind up. Then the daft little things would run all the way home to their mothers crying and carrying on about the terrible man in the marshes that they’d seen. You see, they weren’t exactly sharp, the girls. I don’t need reminding what with the wife. Anyway, their mothers’d immediately start at them wanting to know what they were doing down in the marshes in the first place and they’d be in a whole lot of trouble. We, meanwhile, would be rolling around in the marshes splitting our sides so hard it was painful:

It wasn’t long before the tales of the wretched creature of the marshes took on a legendary status in the town. We were never caught. What with the girls always running off as fast as their legs would carry them.

There was another strange thing we learnt and that was the fear in our parents. They being too frightened to go out and catch the evil monster. The police sent a bloke a couple of times to see if there was anyone down there but he never stayed long. The five of us followed him round but he never cottoned on to us. He’d go down to the edge of the marshes, stamp his feet a bit, stretch his neck, take a few paces into the marshes, rub his hands together. Reckon he was a comic the way he had of twisting round on the spot down there. That lot took him round about thirty seconds and he’d be off back to the safety of the station. God knows what he put in his reports.

Mrs Sullivan is moving around in her seat and can’t contain herself a moment longer.

-That’s my husband you’re slandering. He went right into those awful marshes. He told me so himself and he never lied to me. Never.

Jack hunched forward to see who was speaking.

-Goodness...are you still alive, Mrs Sullivan?

-Yes, I am! So you’ll have to keep to the truth, won’t you. I’m sure that’ll prove nigh impossible for you.

Jack let it go he had little choice, the chairman had arrived on the stage and was looking at him. This was Bodey, the landlord of the local round the corner. He had been chosen as chairman for his undoubted abilities to keep the peace on fiery evenings. He was looking at him in a way Jack knew only too well from nights down the pub after one drink too many and a tale too fanciful. Bodey came to the centre of the stage, a large and imposing presence, looked down at Mrs Sullivan and around at others, next glanced sideways at Jack, everybody following the path of his gaze, everyone understanding what he was about to say before he had even opened his mouth. He wasn’t about to have any bickering going on. Everyone, and he meant everyone, had better keep themselves in check. Bodey took his seat.

Jack continued.

-Whatever you say Bodey. Yeh.. The police said that it was possibly a tramp that had been passing through. In the end it was impossible to argue any of the girls into coming with us because they were all terrified: We ran out of victims. It must have stuck to Henry somehow because he changes after we stopped. He became silent and was always keeping to himself. His parents moved south not long after and we never really heard much of him until it was spread out all over the Sundays. It was a terrible scandal. The women queuing up to kill him or at least tear at him with their claws. They were like animals. Hell! I’m not defending what he did to those other women. It was awful, disgusting... I suppose we all felt a little guilty about it. We were trying to remember whose idea the game had been, but the only person we all agreed didn’t think of it was him. He never had any ideas for games. He was the type who just hung around, hanging on to the rest of us.

I guess it all just stayed with him somehow. He must have grown to like it so much; he couldn’t give it up. At any rate, I know we all felt in part like we should have been up there with him on that stand or, at least, to have explained it was all just a jolly jape. But those women’s bodies lay mutilated between us and him. That had never been part of the game. Where did he.. how did he come up with that? Jesus! Mutilating the bodies! Jesus Christ!!

He’s dead now so you ladies can feel quite safe. Yes. He’s long gone.

Though I have heard stories of a more recent nature and apparently a couple who were down there, down in the marshes, god knows for what purpose I’m sure, but they came running into town, gasping for breath as they entered the pub, and told young Bodey here that they’d seen some young fellow down there. He was wearing clothes that didn’t fit too well and waving an old and rusty carving knife. He certainly put the wind up them. That’s right, isn’t it, Bodey?

-Certainly is. Certainly is. Bodey agreed.

-So...you’d all better be careful when you go down that way cos old Henry’s come back to haunt them old marshes. You’d best keep your young ones away and your women folk, too. His taste, so they say, is for an older type of victim these days. He likes them ripe for the plucking, though some of you are so over ripe you’d stick in his gullet. Ha. Ha.