The Body of the House

The Body of The House

As Summer gave way to Autumn and the evenings gradually darkened, I would make my way back to the flat after an evening in the pub, my head swimming a sea of alcoholic angst.
My thoughts, usually mundane musings about work, middle age and the like, had lately been replaced by a burgeoning obsession with the works of horror fiction writer, Adam Maxwell-Farquhar..
I discovered a couple of dog-eared anthologies of Maxwell -Farquhar's short stories in a charity shop and managed to read them both by the following evening.
I was absolutely staggered by this author's imagination and power to convey total and utter fear -- nothing at all like anything I had ever read before in my life.
I scoured the Internet for any information about him, truly believing that I had unearthed a Scottish master of the macabre, an author so enshrouded in mystery that even the most astute anthologist had failed to include him in the multitude of "Dark Terrors" style collections that grace the horror and fantasy shelves in high street shops.
What I found was somewhat vague and skeletal, I include a short extract from a site specialising in the Macabre tradition: (www.macabretrad.co.uk)
"Maxwell”Farquhar, whose work was influenced by the cosmic horrors of H.P.Lovecraft and the macabre gothic of Poe, was born in Aberdeen in the 1890s, and lived in the fishing community of Torry, Aberdeen in the early Part of the 20th century.
It was here he found his inspiration for such stories as "The Ghost of William Tawse," a tale of a sea captain returned to haunt his remaining crew - inspired by his solitary childhood and his watching the trawlers entering the harbour through a miasma of fog.
"The Haunting of Lady Mhairi"”a tale of a lady laird haunted by ghosts, was evidently inspired by an unrequited love of Maxwell - Farquhar.
He is said to have lived the life of an outsider, keeping himself to himself and turning out multitudes of stories in the macabre tradition.
Few photographs survive of him, and he is believed to have been the last in his family line.
His death is shrouded in mystery. According to "The Press and Journal," a local newspaper, a man answering his description was found frozen to death on the city's Castlegate in the 1950s and was buried as "Adam Maxwell-Farquhar".
This report also recorded that his funeral and gravestone were paid for by an anonymous benefactor. The gravestone is still in the kirkyard in the centre of the city and serves as the starting place for the "Macabre Aberdeen" tours.
However, works purportedly written by him keep turning up at book fairs as 1st Editions, with publishing dates after the 1950s.
Did he die in the 1950s?.
If not, whose body was buried as "Adam Maxwell-Farquhar"?.

Not really much to go on, but an intriguing starting point for the curious nonetheless.
I had been a fan of Horror and the Supernatural since the early '70s, ever since a car accident rendered me bedridden for several months.
It was then I discovered the books of Stephen King, James Herbert and various volumes of "The Pan Book of Horror" through classmates who came to visit.
Despite my parents' discouragement, I devoured these books, discarding anything 'educational' they would foist upon me.
As I grew older, I began to analyse these stories for myself with a view to writing my own ones. I liked how King and Herbert based their tales in an urban setting, with normal folk”living normal lives”in normal places until the intervention of the supernatural/ horror element.
That may sound a bit pretentious in a short story, but this is my honest view.

Maxwell-Farquhar's tales resonated a long time after I had read them and for a time, became mine as I lived them out in my head. Although his Aberdeen and mine were separated by the best part of a century, and the city has changed vastly, its dark underbelly is still there, alive with crawling vermin. I would stagger upstairs to my attic flat and marvel as the floorboards creaked as I imagined they would in one of his tales. What evil presence caused these creaks, the ghost of Captain Tawse or one of Lady Mhairi's haunters¦¦¦ perhaps something worse?. My powers of rational thought did not have a look in during these times.
Further, I felt that I could identify with Maxwell -Farquhar's life, his loneliness and detachment from the world, and the grinding poverty he endured in his early life.
My late grandfather had been born at the same time, and in the same area as Maxwell Farquhar ”I fancied that maybe they had grown up alongside one another, perhaps known one another at school as passing acquaintances. Maybe they had rubbed shoulders in one of the busy taverns or passed each other in the street, or in one of the wynds and backyards of the old fishing community. Whatever the case, they came from the same background, and that is perhaps what had drawn me to his works.

I lay awake for many an hour thinking about his story 'The Body of the House,' in which a young man inherits a house from a distant relative, only to find that the house is a living thing- a living entity- with a heart. Home is where the heart is, after all¦
Like the protagonist of "The Body¦," I was somewhat isolated from the world outside. Life had passed me by and I lay in bed listening to the vehicles passing by outside as I too thought up my gothic horror stories. My stories were always good at the time”I wrote them when I was drunk and they always seemed to be what I believed to be as good as Lovecraft, Poe or M.R. James.
In the cold light of day however, they revealed themselves for what they were: drunken imaginings of a social outcast whose grip on reality was slipping.
One evening, worse for wear, I sat in the silent solitude of my garret room and listened to the peace, the quietude of the four walls and imagined that "The Body of the House," was taking place within my own surroundings.
I heard the noise, an insistent tattoo, which I first took to be the sound of dance-music coming through the floorboards from the flat below. Owned by a girl of maybe half my age, it always had a party going on, these young people barely needed to sleep these days, perhaps it was the drugs!. On closer listening, I discerned that it was more like the sound of a heartbeat, a pulse, emanating from the floorboards. I put my ear to the floor and listened attentively. In addition to this, there was also a rasping, asthmatic breathing.
My imaginings were becoming reality -- was this what alcoholics suffered?.
As the months passed, I became convinced that I was perhaps losing my mind. Each night at the same hour, I would hear the same sounds; the heartbeat getting gradually faster, followed by the asthmatic wheeze. I noticed that a patch on the wall had become stained”a blood red colour, just a thin stripe, but nevertheless blood red. I wiped at it with my finger and licked it.
It was blood -- that sickening coppery taste, but coming from a wall in my flat?.
I had not cut myself recently, had I?.
Had I?
HAD I?

The stained patch had become a huge blister, like an air pocket in the wallpaper, albeit an air pocket that was expanding by the minute -- a swollen belly, ready to deliver.

I didn't remember anything like this in the story, though.

Dumbfounded, I rose from the chair and staggered towards the bookcase. As I picked the 'Lady Mhairi' volume up, something fell from it, a slip of paper or something like that?
It was a photograph, which at first glance, appeared to be of me.
Balding head, rimless spectacles, beard bearing traces of grey.
The photo visibly transformed in my hands, changing colour and morphing into a sepia washed image -- the person was not someone of these times -- this was Maxwell-Farquhar himself -- the enigmatic writer -- my doppelganger?.
These thoughts and many others raged in torrents inside my head, as the blister on the wall burst, sending spouts of thin blood splashing all over the place.
Sodden layers of wallpaper fell away to reveal the body of the house- fleshy and pulsating.
That rasping asthmatic wheezing, closer and closer, closer and closer.
It was then that the "walls" began to close in on me as the pounding of the house's heart became deafening and all else was blotted out.

(Manuscript of story found in flat occupied by Iain Carvell)

(Extract from the "Evening Echo" dated 6th August 2005)
"A fatal accident enquiry at the Sheriff Court heard yesterday about the bizarre incident which led to the death of Iain Carvell, a 41 year old man.
Fiscal Depute Gwen Friel told the court that Mr Carvell, a loner and would be horror novelist had become obsessed with the noises inside his flat and had evidently written a highly original short story chronicling the events that took place and which led ultimately to his death.
The alarm was raised when a neighbour, hearing loud cries from the flat above, had contacted the police. Mr Carvell, who was believed to have problems with alcohol, was found dead, his corpse enveloped in layers of wallpaper, which on closer inspection resembled flesh.
A number of manuscripts were found in the detritus of the flat, including one entitled "The Body of The House," which described incidents that mirrored what later happened.
Police at the scene commented on the noise, a heartbeat-like drumming sound coming from the place as they entered it. A smell of sweat emanated from the walls that looked to be perspiring, like human skin after exercise.
One of the officers also indicated that he had heard a wheezing sound "like someone gasping for breath".
There were gasps from the courtroom as photographs were shown to the court of Mr Carvell's corpse and the remains of the room he died in.
The Sheriff, commented that 'this was the most bizarre case he had dealt with in 40 years of shrieval practice' and that he would issue a written judgment at a later date."

(Extract from 'Fortian Times- The Journal of Strange Phenomena' dated 11th August 2005)
"The Walls Made Flesh" was what came to mind when hearing of the mysterious death of wannabe writer, Iain Carvell.
Earlier this month, the city of Aberdeen was shocked by the bizarre occurrence which Mr Carvell apparently documented in his unpublished horror tale, "The Body of the House."
Seemingly the flat was described as a living organism, with skin for walls and a heart that beat and kept its occupant awake night after night.
An alcoholic loner who was prone to delusions, had, according to medical records, recently sought psychiatric treatment
The photographs that the Fatal Accident Enquiry showed indeed what the fictional(?) tale mentioned. The walls were flesh and what Carvell was wrapped in appeared to be layers of skin.
Maybe the photos had been tampered with by some office computer buff, but the impression we at the 'Times are left with is that this is one of the most bizarre cases we have seen in our time in circulation!!!.

©Markp 2005