28-6-09: The Attic. Circa 1950 By Missus. Rain slanting, driving eastwards against the window. Wind howling loudly, then at times disappearing altogether. The sound of cars whooshing past through the rain, water pooling on the road and footpaths. The trees are swaying in a whirlwind, waving madly like a Spanish dancer in full flight. The plastic cover over the wheelbarrow of logs is blown askew. The rain-water tank is overflowing; plants are avidly drinking up the pouring rain. Indoors, the grandfather clock ticks with soothing monotony. The curtain moves gently with the draught blowing through the crack in the wall. The bright red glow of the fire sends warmth radiating out to touch all corners of the room. In the kitchen the lid on the pot of soup jiggles up and down, the appetising smell wafting through to me; nudging to the surface of my awareness, the knowledge that it's been awhile since lunch. I'm sitting cosily in the old chair, man's companion snoozing at my feet, an intermittent little squeak escaping from him as he dreams his doggie dreams. The novel rests on my lap, momentarily discarded, as my mind wanders off to a rainy day in my childhood.                             The attic was a one-window room at the top of the house; the house one of many in a row of                              terraced houses in the windswept, seaside town in England. I was nine or ten years old, my                              sister two years younger and my brother a little younger than her. The day was wet and cold;                              too cold to play outside, and Mum told us to go upstairs and play in the attic.                             The attic was very large and we spent many an hour there in our childhood playing our                             games. We had all sorts of goodies in that room. There were boxes of dressing-up clothes                             and long wigs made out of wool that Mum had fashioned into plaits; these we pinned to our                             hair and immediately became any one of the many damsels from our story books. We also                             played 'shops' using buttons for money and pieces of paper for notes; with the addition of                             empty containers of all shapes and sizes supplied by Mum from her kitchen, we were the                             shrewdest of entrepreneurs.                             We climbed the wide staircase to the first landing and once there, approached the heavy,                             dark brown wooden door which opened onto gloomy enclosed stairs. These stairs led up to                             another enclosed landing on which a door opened into our playroom.                             Opening the door on the first landing, I deliberately left it open, as the only light source to                             these stairs, was from the light on the landing. I hated the dark. As always, my sister and I                             readied ourselves for the dash up the stairs. Our young brother, as he had done before, took                             great delight in closing the bottom door as my sister and I were ascending, and we were                             plunged into near darkness as the attic door at the top was also closed, shutting out the only                             other source of light from it's window. I reached the top landing, my feet hardly touching the                             steps, my imagination running riot, the hairs standing up on the back of my neck, my heart                             beating like that of a frightened rabbit and my hands so clammy that they slithered                             impotently around the brass knob of the playroom door. The door succumbed to the frantic                             scrabbling and opened sufficiently for me to switch on the light, and miraculously, the                             comforting familiarity of our playroom appeared. I shouted angrily at my brother, when he                             dared to appear, - and then it was time to be off to the land of make-believe. Early darkness in the late afternoon, the birds are quiet, the dog still sleeps. Dark shadows now press into the room; reluctantly I turn on the lamp and the last wisps of childhood memories slip away. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back to: HOME             Back to:  Short Stories