17: THE WINDOWLESS HOUSE

What had occurred in Brabazon Lodge remained with Glen Mower like the after effects of a big meal. He felt uncomfortable to such a degree that he failed to notice that instead of heading towards the south of Bristol, where his colleague had informed him was their ultimate destination, they joined the Motorway and headed over the original Severn Bridge to Chepstow. It wasn’t until Diamonde, showing total disregard for any speed limits that Mower now knew was a classic sign of being De-Peeled, informed him they were going to observe another strange phenomenon first, that he realised.

‘Now Matey, No mention to the homeowner about anything I’ve told you. We are reporters for Strange Phenomena UK, right? Just let me do the talking.’

They soon arrived outside a peculiar looking Victorian building that unlike it’s contemporary at Brabazon Lodge was lacking one vital ingredient that would class it as a house. For its architect appeared to have an aversion to windows.

‘Ah!’ exclaimed Mower, ‘It’s to do with the window tax from years ago. Householders blocked them up so they would pay less tax.’

‘That was imposed much earlier than when this house was built, Matey.’

‘Of course this house recently had windows!’ exclaimed Mr Nyron Truss under the illumiation of artificial light once the two ‘reporters’ had entered. ‘I bought this place to live in it, not to grow bloody mushrooms!’

They nodded in compliance as Diamonde took photos on his phone.

‘All I know,’ continued the perplexed householder, ‘is that one day we were looking out through our windows at The River Wye, then the next we were staring at stone walls and asking why?’

‘It looks like the brickwork of the original eighteen-ninety construction is continuous,’ Kai observed running his fingers over the cold, grey stones. ‘It’s hard to see where any windows ever existed.’

‘Well, they frigging did,’ the embattled homeowner countered feeling that the veracity of his story was under question prompting him to reach for some photographs to prove that it did indeed once contain windows.

‘Are you planning on getting windows reinstalled?’ Kai asked while scribbling notes in his pad.

‘Yes, of course I am,’ came the embattled reply. ‘Christ, if this continues much longer I will be taking up frigging cave painting!’

The bogus reporter for Strange Phenomena UK then did his deal, buying Truss’ silence with the offer of five times what he was expecting. As the disgruntled host pithily observed, he was being kept in the dark so had no qualms about the British public also being so.

‘If you are wondering, Matey, what that all means and what happens next, your questions will be answered very shortly.’