Unforgettable (Gloria Cook) - By Gloria Cook Page 0,67
‘Can’t see there would be anything of the romantic kind in this rather dour place,’ Finn said to the dreamer, then whispering to her disappointed expression, ‘But I’ll let you know if there is.’
‘Wizard,’ Tilly trilled, obviously from something she had read in a storybook about posh children in a boarding school. ‘I’ll be bringing your crib and lunch from tomorrow.’
Every time he had scanned his gritty eyes over the piles of stuff he was to sort out he thought how Denny Vercoe would find this a treasure trove. No doubt, if Mrs Mitchelmore should find need of his services she would send word to him via Tilly. After clearing the recess Finn unearthed a badly marked hunt table and dragged it into the space he had made. There were a variety of unwanted stools and armless chairs and he placed these at either end of the hunt table. Now he had somewhere to push smaller items tidily underneath this irregular platform and he could stack larger items on top of it. He kept one sturdy stool to stand on. There were some hooks and nails along the stair rails and Finn planned to hang pictures from them. There were clearly a lot of paintings, all dreary and faded. On a long high shelf running along the length of the cellar he would replace the dust-laden odds and ends on it, all clearly rubbish, with anything ornamental he found.
Finn had brought his bicycle torch in with him so he could scrutinize items up close. He scratched at his grimy hair. Where to start? His skin leapt to find himself looking into the fearsome eyes of the dappled painted rocking horse that was peering out of stuff piled on and packed around it. He would get the wooden horse out of the cellar but first he had to remove the items blocking access to it. He loaded these on the hunt table, heavy dusty curtains, an Art Deco radio cabinet, a box of men’s grooming items, a dressing-table mirror, heavy pedestals. He put an empty broken suitcase on the stairs and filled it with mouse-eaten stuff for the rubbish heap – mouldy cloth, a battered squeeze-box and much more. With these out of the way he carefully lifted up and hefted away a wheelchair, a basic contraption probably used on outings for decrepit Mitchelmores. With the cellars full of redundant stuff Finn wondered what the attics were like. He was enjoying himself; even the most inconsequential thing he pulled out of the melee was of interest. Who had owned this? Why had it been consigned to dark seclusion? Some items were broken from being thrown in here, by laziness or perhaps bad temper, the culprits perhaps being scared of the dark or spiders and making a hasty retreat.
Finally he was able to drag the rocking horse – he had named it Old Beady Eyes – away from the huddle and haul it towards the stairs. It was as heavy as it was ugly, a job for two men, but Finn did not want to ask Ellery, an old grumpy man, for help on his first morning. Ducking down he put his shoulder under the horse’s belly and reached up and gripped the bridle with his hand. This was going to be dicey. If he fell or the weight of the horse was too much for him it would drag them both down, or the horse might get stuck on a stair, he could take a terrible tumble and be badly injured, but he was too stubborn to be sensible. It was a matter of honour to him to get the rocking horse, a goal mentioned by his employer, up top and on display. It would be a good time to take a break and a breather outside and have a smoke.
It was slower going than he anticipated. After the third step Old Beady Eyes was denting his shoulder and pressing down heavily on his neck. Finn was in pain, the strain was making his head throb and he imagined a blood vessel inside his skull might break. But he was not going to give up. Taking a deep breath, he charged upwards taking the next four steps in one mighty effort. If he fell now he was going to be horrendously hurt. He gasped in another breath and repeated the foolhardy risk on just one step. He was feeling light headed and sick. But he had given himself no choice but