It’s that time of year again
For the first time since I moved to my Leith property, I have been home alone overnight.
My other half bogged off to visit his family for four days, and abandoned poor little me to fend for myself.
Anyway, I’m generally quite a solitary person. However, this time, my temporary solo life has aged me about three years.
I blame the spooky time of year for the fact that I have been so incredibly jumpy.
The daytime working-from-home bit of my schedule has been absolutely fine. I tip-tap away quite happily, but, as soon as dusk falls, my nerves start loudly jangling, like Evelyn Glennie playing Firestarter on the xylophone. I have to brace myself before moving from the relatively hygge living room to the kitchen, via the gloomy cavernous hallway. If anywhere is haunted, it’s here. Perhaps someone came to an untimely end, after slipping on one of those letterbox charity bags and cracking their head off a coat stand. It wouldn’t surprise me, as this house makes a lot of strange noises. As soon as it gets dark, it’s like the building exhales. The clanks and creaks start clunking through the house like the marbles in Ker-Plunk.
The floorboards occasionally make a riding crop crack, and there are strange scuffling sounds, which either come from our resident mouse or the next door neighbours’ cat having the zoomies. I hope for the latter.
Usually, I zone out these noises, but when I’m alone I become hyperalert. Not really to potential ghosts, because I have stated that I’m a resolute non-believer.
I’m trying to remember that fact, because I do feel that I could be convinced by these spooky sensations. If I was susceptible right now, I’d agree that October is indeed the time when there’s a ‘thinning veil’ between the living and the dead. Gulp. Stuff and nonsense. Poppycock, total tripe, pull yourself together woman etc.
Anyway, I keep seeing shadows flickering behind me, whenever I’m standing at the bathroom mirror, and when I was looking out of the window last night, it felt like someone nudged me.
And, there’s no way I’m leaving my feet sticking out of the duvet at night.
Even the noise of the plates bumping in the washing up bowl made me jump.
I don’t think it helped that, on night one of my solo confinement, I thought it’d be an excellent idea to watch a horror film. After all, he’s not a fan, so it’s the perfect cat’s away activity.
It was still light at that point, so I was resolute. After a quick scroll, I went for Possum (2018) on Amazon Prime, and it didn’t feature a single gore spatter. However, it was thoroughly bleak, creepy and absolutely terrible medicine for the rest of the evening. I watch a lot of horror, and I’m hardened to it, but this one got me. It stuck like a burr. The noises. The creeping. The shadows. In fact, I felt that the only antidote was to stream the last episode of Strictly Come Dancing, though even the sequins, not to mention the surreal silliness of Anton Du Beke dressed as Noel Gallagher, couldn’t quite draw me out of my spooky fug.
Anyway, ghosts DO NOT EXIST, I tell myself.
The reality is that I’m scared of people breaking in.
I wouldn’t want to be like my friend, who once came home to find a man standing in the corner of his bedroom. The intruder ran at him, and they had a grapple on the stairs before the man escaped. It gave my pal PTSD, as it would. An acquaintance was also recently broken into, while she was away on holiday. They stole the car but abandoned it, and were told by the police that there was a spate of these incidents in the area, by young folk who were filming it for TikTok.
THAT kind of thing freaks me out. Living people are WAY scarier than the inert dead ones who are just trying to mind their own business.
At night, while alone, I stuffed my earplugs in so deeply that they were touching my brain. If my stomach rumbled or my heart thumped, I’d wrench one out, and think, “What’s that?”, with my adrenaline pumping. Then it’ll take me about an hour to get back to sleep. Even my body is playing tricks.
I think I’ve always been like this. Back when I was a teenager, if my parents went away, I’d always put the burglar alarm on at night.
I was careful as we had been robbed once before, by someone who snuck in and took the VHS video recorder, and nothing else. I do wonder if it’s held its value.
Then me and our black moggy, Guinness, would snuggle together like babes in the wood, with his head tucked into the crook of my neck - really, he was a ridiculous rescue sook, who slept sandwiched in between my mum and dad when they were at home.
The loud purring directly into my earhole definitely helped a bit with the nerves. However, he wasn’t much of a guard cat. At about 3am, he’d pester and ask to go out, I’d open a window, then BOOM, the alarm would go off and my nerves - and probably the neighbours’ too - would be completely frayed. It happened more than once.
So, yes, I am not good at being home alone, at night.
I shall tell my beloved’s family that the next time he comes to visit, I’ll be tagging along.