The Pool Beneath Hunter Street

There was always something odd about the Hunter Street Mall. A ghost town. Shops boarded up. Shutters permanently closed. Graffiti tags spritzing the walls. And yet, every weekend, at night it was full of people. Coming and going. Marching and staggering. Traipsing from the pubs and nightclubs at either end of it. Lights shone through the upstairs windows, even though there was no visible doors to enter the buildings. The escalator to the food court had rusted solid. The sea salt air and the tables concreted into the floor with no chairs. Multicultural cuisine, hidden behind shutters that never opened. Frank liked it best at night. Sitting in on the edge of a garden bed full of weeds, he’d watch the crowds teetering and tottering as their made their nightly migrations. During the day the mall was empty, aside from a few cars parked as people would hurry to appointments in the offices at the eastern end. But at night it had colour. It had purpose. Even if it was only as a conduit. He rose from his perch, walking the length of the mall slowly. Hands in his jacket pockets. Wrapped up to ward off the cold winter’s night breeze. Footsteps and echos of laughter making it sound like there was life in the place. But it was only an illusion. The air smelled faintly of salt, rust, disinfectant and pungent aromas of exotic and strange foods. The streetlamps flickered but they never went out.

Frank had lived in Newcastle long enough to know that the city was hollow. Layered. You could feel it in the ground sometimes. Every now and then a soft spot, a faint echo. Storm drains that didn’t conform to any modern plan, but never adjusted. They worked, no need to investigate further. Even when the harbour had a King Tide, the mall stayed dry underfoot. Perhaps it was the mines. There were exhausted coal seams that ran under everything. Old tunnels. Shored up by ancient timbers that were wedged in place hundreds of years ago. During the earthquake the cathedral on the hill dropped a few metres into the hill as those ancient beams gave way under the massive structure. So they jacked it up and poured tonnes of concrete into the bowels of the earth. Filling it in. That was one. But the whole of the inner city stood on top of them. And as they developed and rebuilt, often they’d swallow up ancient buildings. Easier to build on top of them, around them and lift the road. Gains height. Buries the past. Frank climbed the immobile escalator, shining his torch around the long abandoned food court. He yanked on a door, rattling the chains that held it shut. Pulling it open just enough to slip through the gap. Wandering through the maze of old service corridors, Frank stopped near a service grate set into the concrete floor. Staring down into the darkness. A deep well. Nothing moved. Nothing could be heard. Still, despite being thoroughly buried in the dark twisting corridors, he had the brief irrational sense that someone was watching.

It started a few months earlier. Sitting in the chair of his favourite barbers shop. Gossiping. Swapping stories. Usually the conversation was all about football. Who was winning, who was losing. Who should be dropped, who is going to win the comp this year. But there was a strange man sitting in the other chair. Old. Wizened features. Thinning hair. And all he could talk about was a swimming pool.

“They boarded the place up when I was a boy” said the man.

“What place?” asked the barber.

“The baths in the Mall. Used to be quite the spot it did,” said the man.

“So why did they close it?” asked the barber.

“A woman drowned. Apparently. That’s what I was told anyway. Suddenly in the middle of summer they chained the doors. Then a few weeks later they boarded it up.” said the man.

“And they never reopened it?” asked Frank.

“Never. I don’t know where it is exactly. The Mall looked very different back then. But it’s about halfway down, on the right hand side when you’re walking from the Crown and Anchor to the beach,” said the man.

“That’d put it somewhere near the old food court,” said the barber.

“I heard some woman lives down that way,” said the apprentice barber.

“In that place? Hardly likely,” said Frank.

“Probably just a ghost story. But yeah, I remember hearing about it back in school. Some say she drowned. Some say she’s homeless and lives in the backrooms and corridors of the food court. Story goes you can see her sometimes. Sometimes near there. Sometimes where the caves come out near the cliffs,” said the apprentice.

“You know, it’s strange. But I don’t ever remember hearing about them tearing it down. I wager it might still be there. Somewhere in that rat’s nest. This woman of yours might even be living down there. It was a very fancy place,” said the old man.

That was how it started. A random conversation. A ghost story. A rumour. Talk of a hidden bath-house. Lost to redevelopment. Frank left shortly after. He didn’t ask any more questions, he didn’t need to. He knew just the place they were talking about, and all they’d know was rumours. The more he thought about it, the more the story got under his skin. It became all he could think about. The long lost baths. The ghost woman. As he wandered through the streets at night, traversing from pub to pub, he began to notice something. A switch flicked on in his mind. He noticed how often Newcastle pointed downward. Basement car parks. Steps leading to nowhere. Or to doors that were rusted shut. He told himself it was coincidence, that he was being silly. Cities were full of vertical movement. But once he realised just how many dead ends and deep depths that were closed off, the more he started to notice them. It was hard to stop.

He saw her for the first time in the Mall not long after that. Close to the food court. It was nearly midnight and all the pretty creatures were out in full force. Tinkling laughter and high heels. Their beau’s with jeans and big belt buckles. But she was different. Wearing a light slip of a dress. Old fashioned. Lace decorations. Darkened at the hem. Almost shapeless. A stark contrast to the flesh on display everywhere else. She stood at the top of the escalator. The edge of the light, half in shadow, as if waiting for something to be decided. Bare feet. Bare wet feet. Frank slowed, then stopped. Looking directly at her. He didn’t call out. She looked at him, a strange smile on her lips. Then she turned slightly, just enough for him to be sure she wasn’t a reflection. Then she stepped out of sight, walking, gliding over to a service corridor. Frank followed her. If you asked him, he couldn’t tell you why. Something drew him. Forward. Then he rounded a corner. A locked and chained door in his way. Astonished, he stood there. Listening to his heartbeat. He pressed his ear to the door, but there was no sound on the other side. Just darkness.

Next morning Frank bought himself a torch from the army surplus store. He broke the lock on the door, pulling at the chains just enough to open the door for him to slip through. He explored every part of that corridor. Every door that led off from it. Every back room. Every twist and turn. But it was a total dead end. Every room was either a storeroom with a tiny barred window to the streets behind the Mall. Or they opened out into the kitchens of the food stands long abandoned. Dust thickly coating the floors. Boxes and cans untouched for years. It was clear nobody had been in these places for years. And yet, that strange woman had disappeared down this corridor. Through a locked and chained door. There was nowhere else for her to go. No other room. It was on his third or fourth visit to the corridor that Frank noticed the service grate. Tiny, tight, dark. He shone his torch down it, but could see nothing. He dropped a coin down the grate, but it was like dropping it into the abyss. For a while he contemplated returning with a few tools, some rope. Breaking through the grate. Lowering himself down the hole. But then he came to his senses. He might, just might be able to squeeze through the tiny grate. If he was lucky. That meant for a fraught return upwards. Might make it too tough to climb back out. So sat on the edge of the garden bed full of weeds and thought about it. And decided the adventure was over. He would chalk it up to experience and not bother to search for the baths anymore.

Spring arrived, and with it a heatwave. Unusually hot, Newcastle baked in 40+ degree heat. Even at night there was no relief. So late one night Frank made the executive decision to head on down to the Bogey Hole. A perilous descent down the permanently wet and slimy rock steps, and soon Frank piled his clothes into cranny on the rock wall and dived into the cool, clear water. The spray of the waves crashing into the rocks dropped the temperature several degrees. For the first time in days Frank finally felt refreshed. Ducking and diving, he swam lengths of the pool. Clinging onto the rusty chain, he let the waves crash into him. Cooled down, he towelled himself down and got dressed. As he placed his foot onto the first step, he saw her again. Same woman. Same slip of a dress. Bare feet. Silent. Staring at him. He paused, not knowing what to do. She beckoned to him, turned and began walking around the cliff’s edge. He abandoned the stairs and followed her, taking great care not to be swept off the rock ledge. She rounded a corner in front of him and disappeared. He followed, and found a tiny entrance to a cave behind some shrubbery. Shrugging, he stepped through, turning on his torch to light his way.

The cave wasn’t a cave. It was an old ventilation shaft. Just big enough for a man to walk through, it’d been carved out of the rock by some poor convict a century or two ago. Frank walked deeper into the mine, every now and then he’d catch a glimpse of the woman in front of him. She walked, bare foot, no torch. But somehow she was certain of every footfall. She didn’t bump into the low ceiling. Or the wooden beams that held up the passageway when the walls were softer. The tunnel wasn’t uniform. Sometimes it was braced by timber blackened with age. Other beams were raw, still somehow fresh. He’d pass through pockets where the passageway opened up. Each time a gallery of graffiti on the walls. A little refuse, indications of somewhat recent human habitation. Every now and then she’d stop and turn. Looking at him. Smiling. Beckoning. If you asked him why, Frank wouldn’t be able to tell you. He didn’t think. Just followed. Followed her deeper and deeper into the earth. Further underground. Always going deeper. Further from the surface. She disappeared and reappeared him front of him several times. Each time he’d round a corner in the narrow, twisting passageway she’d disappear. He’d look around, shining his torch all over the walls. Then she’d reappear just within sight. Smiling. Beckoning. Frank followed. A long, twisting path. Heading downhill. Heading uphill. He stopped checking his sense of direction. It was always down. He reasoned that he could always escape. There were no branches off, no passageways going anywhere else. If it got too much he could simply turn around and walk back the way he came. The sounds of the ocean were long gone. He couldn’t hear the crashing of the waves, nor smell the salty air. Down here the air tasted old. Dusty. Thick. He thought about turning around, about leaving. He told himself he’d turn back soon. But his curiosity drew him on. The smiling, beckoning face drew him on.

The collapse came without warning. One step, then no step at all. He slid. Scraped. Bounced. The torch light spun wildly as it fell with him. Lighting stone and darkness. He couldn’t stop himself from sliding down. He didn’t even try. Eventually he fell down a drop of a few metres, landing awkwardly. Tiled floor. Mosaic inlays. When he finally came to rest he lay still. Everything hurt, the wind knocked out from him. He gingerly moved his arms, his legs, his fingers, his toes. Nothing was broken. He lay for several minutes, the torch shining a steady beam near his fingers. Eventually he pulled himself back up to his feet. Picked up the torch. And began showing it around the room. The bathhouse revealed itself slowly. As if embarrassed. Shy. Tiles emerging from the shadows. Railings rusted into lace. Gorgeous ornamentation on the ceiling. Dust so very thick on every flat surface. Frank shone his torch at the floor. Not a single footprint. Besides the spot where he landed. In the middle of the room was a large pool. At least the size of an olympic swimming pool. The water greenish black. Unmoving. Not even a ripple. Reflecting the ceiling like a dark mirror.

The Hunter Street Baths. Frank knew it, even before he read the signs on the wall. The plaque announcing the laying of the first stone some 150 years before. Frank looked back at the hole he’d slid in through. Several metres from the floor, he’d need to find something to help him reach it. If he was to be climbing back out that way. He started to explore. Walking slowly and carefully through the offices, trying hard not to touch anything. Not to disturb anything in this giant, forgotten tomb. The only chair looked like it would snap if he breathed on it. The desk was huge, heavy. Like it was carved from a single piece of wood. He decided to keep looking. Frank searched methodically. Checking through each room in turn. Searching for something that could help him reach the hole in the ceiling. He checked the men’s changing rooms. Long benches bolted to the floor. So long ago their bolts were fused little mountains of rust. The lockers were mostly empty. Most were missing their doors, and there was nothing but ancient rubbish in each of them. A bust, he decided to look through the women’s changing room. They were worse. The benches had disintegrated completely, the lockers stripped bare. Then, in one corner of the large communal shower, he found a pair of skeletons. Sitting slumped against the wall. Legs stretched out. Arms loosely by it’s side. As if they were resting. The clothes, rotted away to nothing.

Frank stared at them for a long time. There was nothing to explain it. No plaque, no warning, no scrawled message. Just bones and silence. Decayed, leathery flesh. He wondered briefly who they were. Was that the woman he followed? Some other intrepid explorer who had followed her? Or if that distinction even mattered. The woman was in the pool when he turned back. Waist deep. Smiling. Beckoning. The water didn’t ripple around her. He looked carefully at her face, watching as it shifted. Sometimes young, sometimes incredibly ancient. Always with that same, enigmatic smile. He looked back at the changing rooms, but she didn’t react. Didn’t acknowledge it. She watched as he continued to search through the bathhouse. Searching for a way out. A way to help him climb back up to that hole and escape. The slope he’d fallen down was smooth, steep. The rock worn into something deliberate. Even if he could reach the hole it would be very challenging to climb it. Near impossible. His torch beam felt smaller now. Less authoritative. He turned again to her, she was still smiling. Beckoning. Without another thought, he walked down the steps into the bath. Into the greenish black water. Waist deep. The water wasn’t rippling around him. He approached her, and she melted into his arms.