Whistling in the dark

It started at the bus stop, at the end of what had been an incredibly long day. As the lowest of the low, with just one foot on the publishing ladder, I got all the 'special' jobs. Meaning, the ones that no-one else wanted to do. And they often seemed to be the ones that involved getting home to your tiny and faintly cabbage-smelling studio 'flat' at obscure times of night. "You'll be all right, Jen, won't you," they'd say cheerfully as they headed off home to 2.4 children or dates in overpriced bars, with the implication that you should be grateful for every single one of the exciting opportunities that the job offered.

As it slid towards midnight, I hit send on the final email and locked up with a sigh of relief. I was ready for a break, a week off for rest and relaxation. Nothing planned, just chilling.

I saw the night bus coming and I ran across the road, a tightly timed dash through the traffic. The bus pulled up short with a screech of brakes, juddering to a halt halfway on the pavement, and so did the car coming in the opposite direction.

It was then that the whistling started; a low musical whistle in the dark that made my scalp prickle. I saw a man walking along the opposite pavement, lit by the sodium lights and muffled against the night. The whistling faded as he walked past, and it was only then I realised that I had been holding my breath.

I put my key in the door, grateful to be home at last, and I heard the whistling again. Low and quiet, carrying a tune that tickled the edges of familiarity, but that I just couldn't place. I leapt inside and slammed the door, wedging it shut with a sculpture left there by the previous tenant. The whistling stopped, and I threw myself down on the single bed that, piled up with cushions, doubled as a sofa by day. Half an hour later, I gave myself a stern talking to about how sound travels in an old house, especially one divided into as many microscopic flats as humanly possible. I finally slept, but with unsettled dreams that I couldn't remember in the morning, other than the tiny snatches of almost familiar tunes.

The next day I pottered around the flat or wandered along the river. I'd almost forgotten about the whistling until that night. As I started to drift away into that place between awake and asleep, I heard the whistling in the dark for a third time. I felt cold all over and hid under the covers.

Over the next few nights it came back every time I found myself alone in the dark, the tunes getting clearer and more distinct.

I was convinced I was losing my mind. I thought about seeing a doctor, but I knew all he would say was tinnitus or stress or mild depression, and had I thought about losing weight and exercising more. Instead I just longed for the long, light days of summer and left the radio on low. The next two nights the muted voices of Radio 4 and the World Service were there as I woke in the morning and fell asleep at night. But the whistling in the dark started to leach through, like damp through plaster after a storm. There was no-one I could tell, and I really wasn't sure how much more I could take.

For no conscious reason, on a walk around the quiet daytime streets I stepped inside a church. I'm not sure what I wanted, or even what I expected, but perhaps I was subconsciously looking for peace. As the darkness of the building enclosed me, I flinched. I was alone; it was dark. But there was no whistling, just a sense of peace. I must have spent hours there, perhaps even dozed in the silence, because when I stirred myself I was stiff from sitting, and the windows were dark. The main door was shut but I slipped out of a small, unlocked door at the foot of the tower. The whistling followed me home, but I felt calmer, and slept well for the first time in a week. I sent an 'I'm off sick' email into work to give myself an extra few days, and spent the next day in the gloom and silence of the church.

That evening I heard a younger and an older voice speaking quietly together in the pews in front of me. I slipped further into the darkness, not wanting to disturb the intense conversation, and a few words and sentences carried across to me.

"Father, I don't know what to do. I don't know how much more I can take. I see shadows in the corner of the flat. Sometimes I hear a radio playing quietly. It's as if they took her stuff but left her behind. The other day as I opened the front door to go in, it slammed and a sculpture, one I’d found in a cupboard, fell behind it, holding it shut. It was all I could do to open the door. Whistling helps – maybe it just keeps my spirits up. A bit of old-fashioned bravado."

He laughed, but it was strained.

"Would you like to pray, my son?" the priest said.

They bowed their heads and I felt sick, dizzy, and faint. The whistling started up again. I ran out of the church, and no-one stirred. No-one except the younger man.

That night, I sat on the floor in the darkest corner of the flat, my arms wrapped around my knees, and the darkness pressing. The radio on low. I heard whistling and quiet footsteps. And I knew that the haunting would continue.
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For as long as I stayed there.