We sailed from Plymouth, in the wake of those great adventurers Charles
Darwin, Francis Drake and the Pilgrim Fathers, to begin our new life in
Spain. Disembarking from the ferry in the grey gloom of a late November
morning, we drove through France and spent the night near the Spanish border
before continuing our journey the following day. Despite the torrential rain
and sleety showers which accompanied us for most of the way, our drive from
one end of the country to the other was uneventful and as we descended
through the sierras of Granada, towards our destination on the Costa
Tropical, we saw the sea, below a cloudless blue sky, sparkling in the
distance. We had made it! Everything had gone remarkably well and we
congratulated ourselves accordingly. Furthermore, the house which we had
rented in the resort town of Salobreña while waiting for our own to be built
seemed to be perfect. We had a celebratory meal that night in a restaurant
in the town and went to bed.
Not long after we’d settled ourselves down to sleep, I became aware of a
noise. It was as though the wind were rattling a door or a window which
hadn’t been properly closed; strange, because there was no wind that night.
The sound persisted and I made Digby, my husband, get out of bed and go to
investigate. Complaining, he groped around for the light switch, couldn’t
find it, so stumbled out of the bedroom into the darkness. The next moment,
there was a loud thud followed by a bellow of pain; he had fallen down the
short flight of marble stairs leading from the bedrooms into the living
room. He calimed that something had propelled him down.
Digby spent a night of extreme discomfort and was in so much pain the next day
that he had to consult a doctor who took an X-ray and confirmed that he’d
broken two ribs. It was not a good start to our Spanish adventure. Then, a
few days later while I was walking down the same marble stairs, carrying an
armful of washing, I experienced a curious sensation: it was though I were
on board a ship which had made a sudden, almost imperceptible roll.
Disconcerted, I clutched the wall and cautiously continued my descent; two
days later, the same thing happened again. Digby had been right after all:
there was something very funny about those stairs.
Despite suffering a not inconsiderable amount of pain, Digby went to work
every day at the family-owned estate agency, dealing with English clients.
Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to explore the area, walking for miles
every day with the dogs. It was a relief to get out of that house and I was
always reluctant to return to it due to a feeling of unease, which I
couldn’t explain. By now, we were well into December and the days were
becoming shorter.
One evening, just as it had begun to grow dark, the lights went out. Thinking
it might be a power cut, I peered outside and saw that all the other houses
on the mountain were lit up. I flicked the trip switch up and down but to no
avail; I tried all the switches in the fuse box, but still nothing happened.
Finally, I decided to drive myself down to Salobreña and ask Digby to call
the electricity company. Someone called later that evening; he opened the
fuse box, flicked the trip and immediately the lights came on. I felt very
foolish. A few days later, the same thing happened again. As I groped my way
into the kitchen, feeling around in the darkness for a candle, I sensed a
cold rush of fear. By now, we’d had a telephone installed so I was able to
call Digby; he summoned a friend, an electrician, who came round immediately
and, just as before, restored the lights by operating the trip. Again, I
felt very foolish.
One day, I returned from a shopping trip to find that my little Jack Russell,
Charlie, had disappeared. While searching for him in the garden, I heard him
barking in the distance and discovered that, somehow, he’d found his way
into the walled garden of the unoccupied house next door, further up the
road. There was no way I could get him out; I had to phone Digby who, in
turn, called a couple of builder friends who came round at once with a
ladder, the only way by which the dog could be retrieved. How he’d got into
the neighbour’s garden was a complete mystery. Again and again I walked
around the boundaries of our rented house, looking for a gap in the fence
through which Charlie might have wriggled through, but found nothing.
Anyway, even if he had managed to get out, how did he find his way into the
other garden? It was completely surrounded by a high wall and the only
access was by means of an iron gate which even a small cat couldn’t have
squeezed through. It was an upsetting incident, not least because of the
unpleasant and overpowering sensation that, when I’d first discovered
Charlie in that garden and had tried to find a way of getting him out, I’d
had the distinct impression that there was something close by, revelling in
my distress.
Curious things continued to happen in the house. Objects would disappear
unaccountably then turn up somewhere else; often, there was that same vague,
yet disconcerting, sensation that something was there, resenting our
presence.
One day, Digby came home after a meeting with a colleague in the business of
property rental. She’d asked him where we were staying and when he told her,
she said that her husband had done some work on the same property and hated
going there because of the feeling of unease he always experienced while he
was there. She knew the history of the house and told Digby that the family
who owned it had realised their dream of living in that location but,
shortly afterwards, the husband became depressed and committed suicide by
throwing himself from an apartment block. His widow and two little girls
didn’t want to remain in the house and so it was let. When I heard this, I
felt a cold thrill of horror run up my spine and the hairs on the back of my
neck bristled. It appeared that our imaginations hadn’t run away with us:
there really was something very peculiar about that house. Nevertheless,
neither of us was prepared to admit that we were victims of supernatural
happenings.
Christmas had come and gone and with the emergence of spring, the days grew
warmer and the birds began to sing. It was then that I realised no birds
ever came into our garden, despite the fact that it was well stocked with
mature shrubs and trees. At least the lengthening days meant that we were
able to spend more time outdoors. This was a great relief, since the
atmosphere inside the house continued to oppress us. I had begun to have
unpleasant dreams and the feeling that our presence was resented
intensified. I was convinced that something was intent on doing us harm,
especially after an electrician was summoned in order to investigate a
problem with the cooker. He discovered a bare, loose wire in the dark
recesses of a cupboard and informed me, cheerfully, that if I’d touched it
with damp hands, it would have been curtains for me. From then onwards, I
took extra care with all electrical appliances. When the first three months
of our tenancy were nearly over, we decided that we’d cut our losses and
find somewhere else. The stress of living under the perpetual cloud of
anxiety induced by the atmosphere in that house was intolerable.
In the event, it all turned out very well. There was a house available to let
just a stone’s throw from the boundary of the land on which our own house
was being built and even though it was very small, we seized the opportunity
to rent it. A few days prior to leaving the other house, the plumbing under
the kitchen sink had begun to leak slightly. Before we left, we searched
everywhere but could find no way of turning off the water supply and as we
took our departure, the leak suddenly grew worse and my last sight of the
interior, as I closed the front door, was of a spreading pool of water
moving slowly towards me as though it were driving me away in a final
gesture of deep resentment. We settled into the little house and were very
content for the next three months after which, at last, we moved into our
new home.
Three years ago we moved from the coast up into the mountains. Our house,
above the little village of Guájar Alto, is in an idyllic setting with
sublime views of the sierras, in all their lovely shades of blue and violet,
fading into the distance. We are presided over by an imposing, flat-topped
mountain which, although it appears serene and beautiful, was once witness
to a horrible and bloody battle between Moorish and Christian armies in
1569. After a day’s combat, with no victory for either side, the Moorish
soldiers retreated to the summit to join the women, children and elderly
people who had taken refuge there. Deciding that it would be futile to
continue the battle, the men left under cover of darkness to a village in
the next valley and entrusted those who were unable to follow to the
clemency of the Christians. There was to be no mercy, however: the Christian
soldiers put to death all the adults and threw the children over the
steepest side of the mountain into a ravine which is still called today the
Ravine of the Dead. If ever a place deserved to be haunted, it would,
surely, be this. Yet, I have walked all over the mountains around my home
and not once have I encountered even a hint of a ‘bad vibe’. There are no
ghosts here: only peace and serenity
