Monday, November 25

One of our neighbours is a woman about our age who lives alone.  In casual conversation, we discover that her husband is in Toosey, the local nursing home.  Apparently, she moved here to be closer to her husband when he was admitted.  Her name is Bertine and yesterday she knocked on the door to tell us that the nursing home had rung to say that he had died. She asked whether Marillyn might go with her to the home, to give her some support.

I drove them both there (it's just a few streets away) and it only took half an hour or so to go through the formalities.  Bertine will need some support over the next few weeks and we're pleased that she felt comfortable in coming to talk to us.

Life's a bugger, isn't it?

Today's story goes back to 2020.

THE BLUE ROOM                                                                                              4 SEPTEMBER 2020

We looked at dozens of houses in our search for a place to call home, a place where we would be comfortable in our declining years, a place big enough to show off our memorabilia but small enough not to demand too much attention.  It wasn’t easy.  We didn’t want a mass-produced, ho-hum, seen-it-all-before, unit with a bare minimum of space and just a couple of flashy features to catch attention, like a remote-control garage door or a humidifier in the air conditioning.

We wanted something with a bit of character, something we could point to with pride and which would give us a sense of satisfaction that we were a cut above the common herd who were content to be told that the developers knew what the customers needed and they should be grateful that the decision-making had been done for them and be thankful to take what was on offer.

Our estate agent, poor man, was showing signs of stress as we rejected property after property.  It got to the point that we no longer even bothered to think of a reason for our dismissal of his suggestions. We would just say, “Nah! What’s next?’

Eventually, we suspected, he was attempting to off-load one of his ‘hard-to-sell’ collection on us.  “I have a lovely property for you to look at,” he said, tongue-in-cheek.  “It’s been on the market for a while and it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but you’re such discerning buyers that I’m sure you’ll see the potential.”

On the face of it, it was a rather unprepossessing property, insipid on the outside and bland in the interior.  Every room was painted in a stultifying shade of beige, apart from one out-of-the-way bedroom which was decorated in vivid blue - a blue which caught the eye, which made a statement, which demanded you sit up and pay attention.  Strangely, we found ourselves expressing a positive attitude to the property. There was nothing about this house which should have sparked our interest and, yet, we found ourselves making an offer.

The estate agent was beside himself with glee.  No doubt he had visions of being ‘agent of the year’, of being congratulated by the Managing Director and of being slipped an unexpected bonus at Christmas. We know that estate agents routinely thank their clients for their custom with a bottle of not-too-expensive sparkling wine and, maybe, a coffee-table book, so perhaps the case of Veuve Cliquot we received from them was a bit over-the-top.  However, we knew we had been hard to satisfy and the agent must have been relieved to say goodbye to us.

We had been settled in for several weeks before we became aware that the locals were treating us with some reserve.  Many seemed surprised that we had moved into what they called the ‘old Jamieson place’.  Eventually, we demanded that someone tell us what was going on.  It seemed that the previous owner of the house, whose name was Jamieson, of course, had enticed young women to the house, kept them locked up in the blue room, eventually murdering them and burying their bodies in the back yard.  Jamieson was eventually charged with a total of seven murders although the police believed there were many more who had never been reported missing.

The tabloid newspapers dubbed it ‘The Blue Room Murders’ and it was quite a sensation for a time, but somehow the story had passed us by.  I suppose the locals thought that we would be appalled by the revelation and regret that we had bought this ‘house of horrors’.  Funnily enough, though, we had always imagined we would be happiest in a house that was unique, that had a tale to tell and, by good luck, we had found just that - so we’re here to stay. And the blue room will always stay that colour.