Black Power continued

‘To whom it may concern. This house has a secret which I have kept hidden for a long time – it’s not a bad secret….anymore….but it is a secret.’

Valerie had written the note in the early 1990’s when she realised for certain that she would die in the house at some stage; she’d been diagnosed with what turned out to be her first malignant tumour – she would subsequently have six of them successfully removed from all parts of her body before her death of lung cancer in 2006. She was a strong woman who wasn’t going to let something like cancer get her down and so continued to attend St Pauls Catholic Church as a Churchwarden for every service of the week until two weeks before she died. There was one sin, however, that she never disclosed to Father – in fact, none of them that had served the parish since Patrick, her brother had died in the car accident with her mother in 1962.

“I think we should get this horrible lino off the floor,” said Tina when the two of them had finally completed the decorating of the upstairs – Andrew always said that their bedroom should be first and that they should work away from it. Sleep to him was very important and this meant that the yellow ceiling just had to go as soon as possible.
“Not sure yet, love. I don’t want to uncover the boards until we have to – there will be a certain amount of insulation from the lino from the gaps between the boards – winter is just starting and whilst I have put the radiators and pipes in upstairs we haven’t got the central heating boiler in yet.”
“I know, I know, but I just want it all to be ready for Christmas.”
“I do too, lovely, but I’m not sure if we have the money or the time to get everything done by then.”
“Oh.” Tina put on her mock sullen face before turning to Andrew. “Please don’t think I just trying to badger you into doing things too quickly darling,” she said meekly, knowing that that was exactly what she always did and Andrew in his love for her and certain softness would never rebuke her for.
“It’s OK love, I want it as well. It’ll be great to have our parents round to our house for Christmas.”

‘The reason it’s there is because we thought we were going to need it. He only took a little bit every day – he brought it home in his bag – and I think it sort of became a habit. He was scared that mother would die of the cold which she felt so badly in the winter. Patrick was very strong – he was like our father. Sometimes the bag felt so heavy I would never have been able to carry it back from the station. But somehow Patrick made it look as if his bag was empty. He didn’t let on to anyone what he was doing. Not a soul.’

The gas boiler unit duly arrived in late November and Andrew said that he would try to get it all installed by Christmas. The lino was still on the floor – covered with in parts by an assortment of their rugs. The nicotine smell was now apparently gone from the upstairs – much to Tina’s relief.
“See, Byron was right – I’ve just left the windows slightly ajar when we’ve gone to work every day and, look, it’s all gone!” Andrew didn’t reply; the smell of the new paint didn’t seem to be enough to convince Tina what had really done the job. He was still aware, though of the other smell when he came home in the evening. It worried him slightly.

‘Patrick started on the railway in the Spring of 1942. he was only 16. Our Father had worked for the railway since he was young as well so it seemed the obvious thing for him to do. It was about that time that the rationing started. It just didn’t seem to Patrick that we’d be able to manage on 50cwt a year – that was half what we usually used.!’

The lino was everywhere. Every square inch of the ground floor was covered in the bark brown sheet – heavily glued at the edges by the thickest, blackest bitumen-like adhesive. Sanding the boards was going to be a no-no but then Tina had said that she wanted a new, modern hard-wood floor like their friends Angela and Michael had in their new flat. Still the lino had to come up. Andrew has started in the hallway near the front door and had been working his way back towards the kitchen when he noticed that the skirting board had a section which had been inserted – the board wasn’t continuous. It perplexed him for a while because there was no reason why it should have had a metre-long section inserted. Kneeling down and scraping at the dark glue which had soaked into the floorboards was when he noticed that the wall above the replaced piece of boarding was somehow not as flat as it should be. Looking towards the light from the glass in the front door he could then see the outline of what looked like a doorway which had been filled in. Looking around and into the adjacent lounge it was clear that there was either a cupboard that had been blocked up or something else. He tapped the filled in bit and it sounded hollow. He was getting excited and looked to see if he could prise up the wallpaper at the bottom of the wall to see what was underneath. It was plasterboard. It was quite new.

Within an hour, Andrew was sitting in a pile of rubble and staring at a short flight of steps which led down to a small door which led under the house. A cellar. At that moment, he heard the front door being opened as Tina came back from her gym session.