Great Grandma’s house. I still think of it as hers, even
though she’s been dead over forty years. My home now.
Down the stone steps and into the front cellar, door
slamming behind me. Screwdriver needed from the toolbox for a minor bit of DIY.
Poking about in the dim light of a 40 watt bulb. Sudden darkness.
We’ve had power cuts before. We’re told there’s a problem
at the switching station – whatever that is. They don’t generally last long.
Pitch black is a good description. No phone to light my
way – it’s on the bedside table – not even the illuminated dial of my
wristwatch. As for a torch or a match – forget it.
Inch over to the doorway, arms outstretched to give
forewarning of hidden obstacles. An unnecessary precaution as the cellar is
empty apart from the tool box and two packing crates which I know I’m walking
away from.
I try the handle, but the door won’t budge. There is a
knack to it but after several increasingly panicked attempts I realise it’s not
the handle that’s the problem. It’s the bolt on the other side. But how…..
The creak of floorboards from the living room above. It’s
just their age. That’s what they do.
Another creak. That’s not age, that’s footsteps –
pretending not to be footsteps. Breath held.
Mind racing. Someone’s up there. Maybe it’s not a power
cut. Maybe that someone has thrown a switch and silently slid the bolt into
position. And now they’re up there, car keys, house keys, wallet, phone, tablet
all for the taking. Shouting for help? No point! It’s an end terrace and beyond
the single party wall is hard-of-hearing Mrs Jackson. The only person who’d
hear me hollering is him upstairs. At least I assume it’s a him. I’ve a sudden
distracting vision of a lady burglar in a black catsuit and mask. No, sweep
that away! I can picture him, all my prejudices to the fore, trousers tucked
into socks, retro trainers, baseball cap on backwards, hoodie up, sniggering.
The coal shute! In my head, the dull rumble as each bag is
emptied, the smell of the dust, the whistle of the coalman. A way out? Back to the tool box, fingers
searching for hammer and chisel. Striking one against the other in the
darkness, left thumb vulnerable. An almighty racket as I remove the panel from
the boarded-up shute. He must have heard it. Relief as light trickles in. As a boy
I’d ignore dire parental warnings, remove the grid above and climb down the
shute. But going up is a different story and I’m somewhat larger than I was. Trying
to grip the rough brick sides and haul myself upwards, worrying that ‘he’ will
appear above me at any moment, sneering. Almost in reach of the underside of
the grid, my hand hold slips, I slither back down, falling in a heap onto the
flagged floor of the cellar.
Winded, sore, grazed, angry. Slowly pulling myself to my
feet and hobbling across to the door, I’m disbelieving when the 40 watt
flickers back into life, incredulous when the handle behaves perfectly. Climbing
the stone steps is agony. I peer around the cellar-head door cautiously.
‘The
burglar… with a piece of lead piping … in the hallway?’
But the hall is empty, as is the rest of the house, I
find, when I finally manage to cart my bruised limbs around the place. All my
precious belongings are where I left them. Imagination can be a wonderful thing
– or a curse.
A cup of tea, a string quartet on the radio, a bag of
frozen peas on my left knee, a cigarette smouldering on a saucer. Contentment.
Instant darkness descends again, the strings are
silenced, floorboards creak in the bedroom above. Fear swoops back onto my
shoulder. He’s playing games with me. But what if he’s just my creation? What
if Great Grandma was right all along about what she saw, what she felt? She
never stopped talking about it, but nobody listened, nobody believed her.
She was never the same again.
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