Rottenhouse (23 page)

Study (SPARE)

But with any locked door, with any
secret, comes the trepidation before the leap. Do I tell? Do I
investigate? What if I’m caught? What if I don’t like what I find?
What if the holder finds out of my betrayal? These questions kept
going round and around in his head like words from an annoying song
you heard on the radio.

In preparation Simon had sent an
investigative text to Lucy

When you due home? Do you want me to
wait up? Xxx

but as of yet he’d had no reply. He
guessed that he had probably 30 minutes tops before she and Mr
Rowling got back. Plenty of time for a snoop. There would be plenty
of warning from the roar of the car’s engine.

‘
Plenty of time.’
Simon whispered to the door. It didn’t reply.

2

Simon’s father had a locked door. It
was a room that neither his mother nor sister were welcome in. To
Simons knowledge no one, apart from his father and maybe one other
(a guy his father called The Juicer), had been in that room since
the day they moved in up through to the day the house burnt to the
ground, taking his father and the secrets it and he held with
it.

One day however, when Simon had just
turned thirteen and those adolescent hormones had been in full
flow, he had sneaked in there, braking one of the seemingly endless
rules his father ordained upon the household. Maybe it was just
teenage rebellion that encouraged Simon to venture into that
forbidden world, he remembered that he had been curious much like
he was now, had been for a few months, but never had the
opportunity, or the guts to go for it. Simon could remember how his
little hands had shaken when putting the key in the lock, and the
heart stopping silence that filled the house broken like a rumble
of thunder rolling on a silent plain when the key turned and the
lock clicked open. The door had been hard to open as it scraped on
the rough carpet, resisting the weight that Simon had thrown
against it. He had thought to close it again, that whatever had
been in there was best left unknown, but curiosity got the better
of him and when there was enough of a gap he squeezed through,
scrapping his belly on the door latch for good measure.

His father’s secret room was dark and
heavy. It stunk of stale cigarette smoke, his father being a 40 a
day man and proud of it, and beneath that there was a sweet, sickly
stink that Simon, at that point in his life, didn’t know was the
tell-tale sign of a heroin addict.

3

Simon scratched at his belly where the
latch had grazed his skin all those years ago. The stairs creaked
making him jump a little but at this point Simon was well versed in
things that went bump in the night. He gave the front door one last
cursory glance and then twisted the handle. The door opened inwards
and the light from the hallway spilled in. Simons shadow was long
and thin across the crimson carpet. He stood in the doorway,
waiting for the door to finish opening like a cowboy in an old
spaghetti western, batwing doors swinging and the dust encircling.
His heart was beating a little faster, though he wasn’t scared of
what he was doing. He had that nervous sensation that told you that
you needed a shit but apart from that his curiosity had taken
over.

The tick-tock of the clock in the
hallway reminded him that time was not on his side.

He felt along the left wall, found what
he was looking for and flicked the switch. The main study light
came on. It wasn’t too bright and the soft light drifted over the
study like a shroud. The room was what estate agents back home
called a box room and though slightly larger, it looked to Simon as
if the adjacent living room had been walled off at some point to
make space for this study. There was an old wooden desk on the far
side of the room below a window, to the left and right of the desk
were two large shelving units all made of dark wood. There was a
single chair under the desk and in the far corner an odd five
legged chair made itself useful as a coat hanger. The carpet was
crimson, but there were golden flowers sown into it in random
places. The study walls weren’t wallpapered like the majority of
the house was, there was no real need as the walls were covered
with pictures, paintings and what looked like old pieces of
parchment from ceiling to the rail that was half way up. One man’s
life in many wooden frames.

Simon started to feel a little uneasy
about what he was about to do. Rooms are locked for a reason.
Secrets are kept for a reason. He was now trespassing on those
secrets He was disregarding a common courtesy shown when things are
locked away. But what harm could a little peeking and poking
do?

‘
Not a jot.’ And with
that he left the hallway and walked into the study.

4

It smelt old in there. Used. Not dusty
or musty or damp. It was the smell of old books and trinkets and
aftershave. It wasn’t harsh; in fact it was a smell that Simon
quite liked. His own study (if he could call a box room full of
crap a study, but it sounded posh didn’t it?) had the same kind of
smell. The study had its own atmosphere that was different from the
rest of the house. The room felt heavy, intense, like great things
had happened in here and greater things were yet to come. It was a
hidden den, a secret place, one that saw not a drop of cleaning
fluid or polish or air freshener. It cleaned itself, Simon thought,
and as insane as that sounded, Simon believed that this room had
the ability to keep the dust and the filth at bay. His body was
toxic to this room, his scent fouling the pictures and the books
and the paintings. But it was too late. He was in, and he couldn’t
turn back even if he wanted too.

There were papers and an open book on
the desk but the pictures on the walls were what enticed him at
first. There were a lot of pictures of the valley, some very old
with dates going back to the 1850’s. Others were newer and dated as
just after WWII. The newest was dated as 1979 and it showed the
town square decorated with banners and flags and people surrounding
tables of food. It reminded Simon of the Queens Jubilee back in ‘77
but this was dated two years after. In the back of the photo was
the Working Man’s Club and it too had banners and flags adorning
its red brick work.

‘
I bet you didn’t like
that.’ Simon said to the club.

Halfway along the wall the photos
became paintings. All except one, The Fighting Temeraire, Simon
didn’t recognise and he glanced over them noting that most were of
fighting ships, some sail, some steam and some more modern like HMS
Hermes returning from the Falklands; all rusty and damaged. Scars
of battle

On the opposite wall, in the centre,
there hung a giant painting of the quarry that, Simon guessed, Mr
Rowling worked in. It was a grand oil painting, mostly blues and
greys though there were some specks of yellow and black that
denoted machinery or the odd working man and Simon admired the
detail and skill as he neared it. The frame was thick and simple
and again oiled to a dark sheen. An image of the painting in his
nightmare flashed before his eyes and Simon knew the two frames
were the same. But what did that matter? Such fames can be found
anywhere and he had no doubt seen a million of these in his
travels. Much like the painting in his dream, this one also had a
brass plate screwed into the bottom piece of wood:

Rottenhouse Quarry
1988

Sirrell Grove

Either side of the grand oil painting
were two others. They weren’t as large but they were each
individually lit by their own little lamp that hung on the wall
above them. The lamps had little green glass lampshades which
directed the light straight down highlighting the two paintings
like two old masters hanging in the Louvre. The smaller painting
depicted a cricket scene, the batsman raising his willow to the
crowd whilst the bowlers and fellow batsman were clapping in awe.
Not your average village pitch though; it was on a much bigger
stage, perhaps Lords or Edgbaston. Leaning in he read aloud the
brass plate,

‘
Mighty Boycott at the
Helm, 1980, Lords Cricket Ground, Versus Australia.’

The painting wasn’t great but it was
effective and Simon could almost hear the idyllic sound of leather
against willow. Sounds of the summer.

The other painting, to the right of the
grand quarry depiction, was of a football ground. Again, not a
village scene, this was a stadium. Players in white with blue
collars celebrated a goal whilst the players in red and white
strips were crest fallen. The picture wasn’t named but by the kits
Simon believed one team, the team in white, to be Leeds United and
the other, Sunderland.

Simon took a quick look at the clock
that was on the bookshelf and saw that 10 minutes had passed
already. He quickly scanned the books on the shelf to the right of
the desk and saw nothing of merit though he noted many
autobiographies; Boycott, Botham, Churchill, Peel, Parkinson and
Truman to name but a few. There were a couple of smaller pictures
along a couple of the shelves, friends and family Simon thought,
but none were named so he hadn’t a clue who they were. One of the
pictures, slightly bigger than all the others, was of Geoff Boycott
and next to him someone that looked like Mr Rowling only
considerably younger. There was something scrawled on the photo but
Simon couldn’t make it out.

There were books on gardening, more on
WW2 aircraft and tanks and one on American Civil War ships. Two
books stood out from the crowd and were on a shelf all of their own
next to some shiny trinkets. Simon pulled one of them out and
looked at the cover, his eyebrow raised.

‘
I knew you were a bit
out there Mr Rowling, but Mein Kampf, really?’

He flicked through a couple of pages
and was just about to close it and jam it back onto the shelf when
what looked like a handwritten message caught his eye. He opened
the book up on that page and to Simon it felt as if the page liked
being opened there, as if it had been opened there a great many
times:

Bob. We joked and here it is.

Your friend, Chairman.

‘
Jesuskrist.’ And with
that Simon closed the book with a dull thud and put it back into
its place. He had a sudden urge to bleach his hands clean, but for
the time being made do with his jeans. He turned his attention to
the second book which now seemed absurdly comical to the one he had
just seen. This one wouldn’t need a bleaching of the hands after
handling it. The second book was thick and heavy and he had to hold
it in both hands.

‘
Stan Thrumpers
Cookbook for Widowers.

‘
Catchy title there,
Stan.’

He flicked the book over to its back
and was greeted with a black and white image of a man smiling from
ear to ear like a lunatic before he tells you that he is the second
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ‘And quite the looker, too.’ Simon
chuckled and continued to chuckle as he placed the book back in its
place next to Mein Kampf.

‘
What a whimsical
collection you have here, Mr Rowling.’

He perused the papers on the desk,
‘Watch some cricket, play a little footie, then over lunch have
yourself some deluded ranting’s from the world’s greatest looney,
and then, for treats, enjoy a well cooked meal by your old pal Stan
the Man Thrumper. Oh, and if you’ve got time, hack apart some guy
and dump his remains outside of his mums house just for good
measure.’

There was nothing of note on the desk,
though some of the letters he didn’t touch or turn over for fear of
leaving a trace of his being in this room.

‘
Can see why you keep
this place locked up, Mr Rowling. An Aladdin’s cave if I’ve ever
seen one. He turned around and faced the back wall.

There was another grand painting on the
wall. There was also an ornament.

5

Simon leant back on the desk almost
pulling a bunch of papers onto the floor. The chair squeaked as its
wheels turned whilst Simon steadied himself.

‘
The dream.’ Simon
whispered. And he was right. The painting matched the one he had
seen in his dream. It was set in a forest; the sky blue, washed
white in some places. The tress were full of lush green leaves, the
grass a seeming endless expanse of carpet where here and there
daisies and buttercups sprouted as to mock the painter’s hand. In
the far left hand corner of the painting there was a stream, much
like the one not a 100 meters from where he stood and it flowed
diagonally across the painting disappearing off of the edge. There
wasn’t a body in this stream, though a quick set of brush strokes
could change that.

Simon moved in a little closer. He knew
what was there, in the centre of the painting being engulfed in
flickering Halloween orange flames; he had seen it all before.

Two men were being set a flame, their
bodies strung up on crucifixes made of dark wood and their hands
and feet lashed together with rope.

‘
Fuck me. It’s the
same. IT’S THE FUCKING SAME!
’

The two men, upon their crosses of
death, shared the same dead, black eyes as Billie had in his
unconscious blackness, though there was no gore coming from between
their legs. Their mouths were wide; deep circles of blackness.
Simon was sure he could hear their screams through some weird
Voodoo power direct into his skull.

There were two men stood next to the
crosses. Both men wore long black shawls that covered them from
head to foot. The material flowed over the grass beneath their feet
like a black tide of filth. In their hands they each held an axe
and a truncheon.