UNCLE GEORGE       [Part 6 f 10] 

By Richard Banks

All this is very dramatic and exciting but at the same time very much yesterday’s news. I need to focus on the here and now and after making yet another journey to the tip I phone Ally and ask her to join me for the weekend. I need her to see the house and give her approval to it and all the things that will be needed to improve it. I also want to show her the local branch of the insurance company she works for. Even if she can’t get a transfer there there’s other firms nearby that might have vacancies she could apply for, or failing that she could commute into London like I might be doing. The future, uncertain as it is, is exciting and I can’t wait for it to get started. The past is over and done with and although tales of Uncle George may become a cherished part of family folk law they are not going to distract me from what is more important.

          Three days later I pick-up Ally from the station and take her back to the house. While she unpacks I order a take-away. When she comes back downstairs I can see she’s less than impressed, but then I tell her about all the improvements I have in mind: double glazing, central heating, a new kitchen, new everything I tell her, furniture, carpets, the lot. What we can’t afford from the sale of my flat we will pay for by taking out a loan; another forty to fifty pounds might be needed but what’s that compared to the average mortgage. She agrees on the condition that she gets to choose the décor and the kitchen, plus she must have the two piece suite she saw in Debenham’s. Ten minutes later she’s added a new bed to her list and we spend Saturday morning buying it and disposing of the old one. By tea time we have booked-in visits from two double glazing companies for the following Saturday and spoken to the wife of a heating engineer who says he will phone me back. Suddenly it’s too late to do anything else, tomorrow’s Sunday and, unlike London, there’s nothing much open.

         “Good,” says Ally who’s now determined to see the positive in everything. “You can show me the countryside and the stretch of beach where you say that storehouse is. Fancy your uncle being mixed-up in a big money smuggling operation. Do you think that some of what went missing might still be there?”

         “No chance of that after twenty years. Anyway,” I say, “I have next to no idea where this storeroom is.”

         “But you do,” she says, “it’s close to Gratham Wood. That’s what that reporter chap said. We’ll soon find it on Google.”

         We do, and an hour later we’re stood on the beach outside a large derelict building, sprayed with graffiti and minus a front door. We venture in but there are no windows and, away from the door, its soon becomes too dark to see. There’s a torch in the car, which I wasn’t going to mention, but Ally does and, despite my protests, she insists we retrieve it and continue our search.

         “For what,” I say, “anything valuable will have disappeared long ago,” but she tells me not to be a wuss, so we venture in a second time and pick our way across a floor strewn with broken glass and other debris. Something scuttles by which I’m guessing is a rat, but my intrepid companion continues on undeterred, shining the torch in a wide arc in front of her.

         “Any chance you’re going to tell me what exactly you’re up to?” I ask.

         “Keys,” she says, “hasn’t it crossed your mind that the keys you found in the kitchen might be for here.”

         “Hardly,” I say. “I didn’t know anything about this place until a few days ago. Anyway, as you may have noticed, the front door is missing so there’s no way we can test your theory.”

         “But there are two keys,” says she, “and one rather larger than the other. If your Uncle was keeping a watch on the storeroom it’s more than likely he had keys, and the one’s you’ve found don’t fit any locks in the house. So what if one key was for the front door and the smaller one for a room within?”

         “Which I’m seeing no sign off. Look there’s the back wall. This is just one empty space.”

         “What about over there?” She’s shining the torch to her right where the side and back walls should be meeting but don’t, at least not at ground level.  “That’s our room,” she shrieks. “What did I tell you.”

         While I’m touched that she wants to make this room mine as well as hers I’m struggling to match her enthusiasm for a shadowy shape that looks not much bigger than my father’s garden shed. When we get over to it the ‘room’ turns-out to be a large metal cupboard, solidly attached to the ground and outer wall. There’s a handle on the front which when turned to the right frees two doors that part and swing open towards us. We peer in at four shelves piled high with an assortment of rubbish spilling out of decomposing cardboard boxes. It’s no Aladdin’s cave but Ally isn’t giving-up yet. She means to see every square inch of this cupboard and nothing’s going to get in her way. Having dragged everything out onto the floor, including the shelves, she begins a forensic examination of the cupboard that at one point requires me lifting her up so she can peer into the top shelf.

         “It’s not here,” she mutters disconsolately.

         “Absolutely,” I say. “You’ve tipped everything out. When there’s nothing left, there’s nothing  to find.”

         “Not even a keyhole?” she agrees. “A keyhole for the key that might have got us into the space behind it.”

         She’s got a point. What’s in the seven or eight feet behind the cupboard? Probably something mechanical like an air conditioner or generator, but a something that someone occasionally needs to get to, but how? There’s no moving parts to make this happen except the handle that’s already been turned once to the right, but what if we give the handle a further turn to the right? What would happen then? The answer is probably nothing but if I suggest we give it a try I’ll at least get a few Brownie points from Ally for trying to prove her right. What I haven’t taken into account is that for Ally one more turn is never going to be enough.

         “What about two to the right,” she says when one fails to make anything happen. Then we’re into two turns right and one left and then one left and two right. The number of combinations seem endless, especially when, after awhile, you’re unsure what you have already tried. We’re becoming combination junkies when after thirty minutes our efforts are unexpectedly greeted with a loud hum that’s not coming from either of us. Was it two right, two left and three back I’m thinking, but it doesn’t matter now, there’s a click followed by more humming and the back panel of the cupboard starts to slide down to the floor. This is our eureka moment when we should be shouting ‘wow’ but the concrete staircase on the other side is only worth the “oh” we give it. There are eight steps down to a landing where a left turn takes us down another eight steps to a handle-less door that successfully resists Ally’s vigorous attempts to push it open - but she’s not seeing the thing she most wants to.

         “It’s there,” I tell her, grabbing the torch and pointing it at the keyhole in the door. “Have you got the key?”           

         Her hands are shaking so much she can hardly pick it out from the loose change in her purse, and when she puts it in the lock it doesn’t fit because she’s got it in the wrong way up. She takes a deep breath, says a word I’ve never heard her use before, and tries again. This time all that’s needed is a single turn to the right and the door swings inwards to reveal an intense blackness that the torch does little to pierce. We are about to venture in, regardless, when it occurs to the both of us that anyone spending time down here must have had more than a torch to light the way. Surely there must be lights overhead, and, to our relief, the switches that turn them on are found where light switches are usually to be found, at the side of the door. A dozen florescent tubes splutter into life and we find ourselves looking across a large space of similar dimensions to the one above. It’s empty except for a heap of cardboard boxes in the far corner to our left and, in mid floor, a table and chair. We examine the boxes first. There’s thirty of them and after finding nothing beyond the paper dividers that once fitted around the bottles, we make our way over to the table, which on closer scrutiny turns out to be a desk.  

         Ally sits down on the chair ready to pull open the several drawers on either side but she doesn’t get that far. On top of the desk is an envelope. It has my name on it and a message that reads: ‘The cupboard door closes automatically after ten minutes. If you don’t remember the combination grab this envelope and get out now!’

         We’re out in one of the longest, most traumatic minutes it still pains me to remember. Back above ground the sight of sunlight through the missing door has never been more welcome and, as we walk towards it, we hear a click followed by a hum, along with the heavy beating of our hearts.

          

Copyright Richard Banks