by David Thorne
“Yes, we came up the main highway, turned at the Mobil.”
“Ah. It’s about five minutes quicker if you turn at the Shell before that.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Less traffic.”
“I’d remember that for next time but as you’re moving, there’s not much point.”
“No, I suppose not.”
He had a present for Seb, which was a nice gesture. The yellow, red and blue plastic cricket set was a little young for him but it’s the thought that counts. Seb was old enough to know to act pleased. He ran about the house exploring while I helped my father load boxes and furniture. There wasn’t a lot of it. We didn’t talk about anything that had happened over the last twenty-odd years. Which is a good thing I suppose. It was like two strangers chatting in a pub; polite ‘sitting at the bar’ conversation. There were awkward silences but carrying out boxes gave us an alternative to staring and nodding. He talked about football and cricket but I’ve never followed either. We talked about cars and the weather instead, and where he was moving to. It was meant to be a short visit. A test visit to see if there would be further visits. I don’t know why I offered to help him move into his new house.
The new house didn’t have a tennis court or swimming pool. It was old and musty. The previous occupants must have smoked inside for many years, the walls tinged yellow except where frames had once hung. Floral patterned carpet, which may once have been vibrant reds and greens, was grey and threadbare.
“It certainly has character,” I commented, placing a box marked ‘pots & pans’ on a chipped tile kitchen countertop, “when was it built?”
“1904 according to the real estate agent. Thebarton is an old area. It’s not much, I know.”
“With a slap of paint it won’t be bad, you might even have hardwood floors under the carpet if it’s that old.”
The carpet was at its worst by the open fireplace. Sparks and a rolling log or two had left burns, some as large as my hand. It was loose where the frayed edge met the stone hearth and we peeled it back to have a look. Beneath the carpet, the foam underlay had crumpled to yellow dust. Beneath that, the dark polished floorboards were lined with overlapping newspaper pages dating back to 1952.
“Jesus, they’re actually really nice. You wouldn’t even need to sand them. Do you want to rip the carpet out now before we bring in any furniture?”
“You’d help me do that?”
“Of course. It shouldn’t take long and Seb and I didn’t have anything planned for the rest of the day.”
“I could order pizza delivery later...”
“That works.”
“What if the floors are not all as nice as this?”
“They can’t be worse than the carpet but we can peel up a few more areas to check if you like. Even if you do need to replace and stain-match a few boards, it’ll be cheaper than replacing the carpet and will probably look amazing.”
“Alright. I don’t have a lot of money after, you know.”
“Yes, I’m sure its been an interesting few months.”
“A security guard. Can you believe that?”
“Where at?”
“I don’t know, she wouldn’t tell me. Which corner do you want to start at?”
The trapdoor was in the middle of the living room. It was large, almost five feet across, with heavy cast iron hinges and a round recessed handle. We’d discovered it when we removed the last of the carpet and swept the underlay and newspapers aside. All three of us gripped the heavy round handle and pulled.
“Can I go down?” asked Seb.
“Are you fucking kidding?” I asked, peering below. Wooden steps disappeared into the darkness.
“It must be some kind of cellar,” said my father, “I’ll grab a flashlight. There’s one in the back of the car.”
Seb knelt at the edge while we waited for him to return. “What do you reckon’s down there?”
“Spiders.”
“There’s a switch on the wall a few steps down. I can just see it...” He lay flat and reached down.
“I wouldn’t. Something will grab your arm.”
Seb pulled his arm up quickly, “like what?”
“I don’t know, some kind of demon or something.”
“Some kind of demon?”
“Or something. Just wait for him to get back with the flashlight.”
Seb reached down and flicked the switch.
A light came on downstairs, illuminating a bare concrete floor and pastel green walls. There were no spiders or demons. I tested the top step, it appeared solid. I did the same with the next. Seb bolted down past me. The room was large and empty but for a large metal door at one end.
Seb rattled the handle, “It’s locked.”
I’ve watched enough movies to know that when you come across a hidden cellar and it contains a locked metal door, it’s probably locked for a reason and your best bet is to fuck off back up the stairs, close the trapdoor, and nail it down. That wouldn’t make for a very interesting story though so the people in the movies always discover a key or amulet that opens the door and then a demon or something tears them to pieces. Sometimes they will mix it up a bit and it’s a verse read from an old book or a tune on a music box that opens the door but the end result is always the same. If there had been a child’s doll in the cellar I would have left right there and then.
“The hinges are on this side,” said my father, “if we pry the pins out, we’ll be able to take it straight off.”
“Yes, but should we?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Never mind. ”
“Dad thinks there’s a demon behind it.”
“No I don’t Seb, stop being stupid.”
“Well if there is a demon, it’s trespassing on my property. I’ll grab a flathead screwdriver.”
As my father made his way back up the stairs, Seb leaned towards me and whispered, “Do I call him Philip or Grandpa?”
“Whichever you prefer.”
“Maybe Grandpa then. I’ll see how it goes.”
“You’ll see how it goes?”
“Yes, I can always swap if it’s strange. What do you really reckon is behind the door?”
“Another empty room probably.”
“If it’s empty, why would the door need to be locked?”
“Shut up Seb.”
Philip returned with a screwdriver and pried the pins up and out of the hinges. The heavy door shifted a bit and Seb and I stepped back. I almost asked, “Shouldn’t we all have some kind of weapon?” but censored myself in time. Wedging the screwdriver between the door and frame, Philip jimmied them apart a few inches. He shone the flashlight through the gap and then pulled the door fully open. Beyond the doorway, lay a corridor. A long dark corridor.
The beam from the flashlight barely reached the opposite end, two hundred feet or so away, where a metal ladder led up. Philip stepped through the doorway, shining the flashlight over the walls nearby and located a switch. Of the dozen or so lights strung along the corridor, three of them worked and it was more than enough light to make our way. We were silent as we approached the ladder and shone the flashlight up. Above us, was a trapdoor identical to the one in Philips living room.
“We can’t just open it,” I whispered, “we don’t know what’s on the other side.”
“We didn’t know what was on the other side of the metal door either,” Philip replied, also whispering.
“Yes, but we’re well past the property line of your place now. This is someone else’s place. It might be someone else’s living room. If I were sitting at home watching television and a trapdoor in the floor suddenly flew open, I’d have a heart attack.”
“I could climb up and stick my ear against the trapdoor,” suggested Seb, “if I hear a television we can just go back.”
“Alright,” I agreed, “just be careful.”
Seb climbed the ladder until his head was bent against the trapdoor. I held my breath
, I could hear Philip breathing deeply through his nose in the silence. Seb knocked loudly on the wood. “Hello?” he yelled.
“What the fuck, Seb?”
“I couldn’t hear anything.”
“Did I miss the bit of the plan where we all agreed you would bang and yell if you couldn’t hear anything?”
“Should I try to lift it?”
“No.”
Seb lifted the trapdoor. It was heavy and only moved a few inches before slamming back down.
“Oh my god Seb, climb back down or I’ll sell you to the Gypsies. ”
“No, climb up here and help me. We can’t just go back now without knowing what’s up here.”
“I can.”
“Here, hold this,” said Philip, handing me the flashlight and pulling himself up the rungs.
“Thanks Grandpa,” Seb said, moving to the side to allow Philip room.
“No problem. On three.”
On three, the trapdoor flew up, held at its apex for a brief moment, and slammed open with a resounding thud. Dust particles flooded the flashlight beam, diffusing its reach to a few feet beyond the hole.
“What’s up there?”
“I don’t know,” replied Seb, “ it’s pretty dark. Pass me the flashlight.”
I reached up and handed it to his outstretched hand, he swung back up and held the light above his head, flicking it back and forth.
“Oh my god,” he said.
“You have to see this,” said Philip.
It’s annoying when you are watching a program and just at the exciting bit they cut to an advertisement. Unless it’s that commercial for the Toyota 4x4 with explosions and motor bikes doing jumps to the guy humming The Ride of the Valkyries. Everything is better with The Ride of the Valkyries. If you are not familiar with The Ride of the Valkyries, it’s the tune they play in the movie Apocalypse Now when the helicopters fly in to fuck things up. If at all possible, try to imagine The Ride of the Valkyries playing through the next few paragraphs as it will make them seem a lot more exciting and might even make up for the disappointing reveal after several pages of buildup.
I climbed the ladder and lifted myself over the edge, standing between Seb and Philip. The warehouse was huge, almost the size of a football field, dark but for a few slivers of light making their way through boarded up windows. Seb panned the light slowly across the wall to our right. A large mural had been painted, badly, of what appeared to be the dance floor from Saturday Night Fever fading into a city skyline at night. The city bit was a lot better than the dance floor bit but that’s only because it’s pretty hard to fuck up black rectangles and yellow dots. Really, they should have just done the whole thing as that. Or maybe just get someone in who knew what they were doing.
Seb shone the light to our left and up, following carpeted stairs to a glassed-in mezzanine. The words ‘Snack Bar’ were written in Bauhaus Bold behind a wood paneled counter, a poster above a vinyl booth advertised a coke and hotdog combo deal for 99 cents.
“99 cents for a coke and hotdog is pretty good,” said Seb.
“Yes, but what is this place?” I asked.
He swung the flashlight to illuminate a carpeted area behind us. Behind a long dusty counter, rows of wooden shelves marked with numbers lay empty. A sign hanging above the shelves, also written in Bauhaus Bold, read ‘Skate Hire’.
“It’s a roller-skating rink,” said Philip.
I did give a heads-up that it wasn’t going to be a secret military base with a spaceship hidden under a tarpaulin. I told this story to my friend Geoffrey a few years back and just as I revealed that it was a warehouse, before getting to the roller-skating bit, he asked, “Was it full of porn?”
“What?”
“Was the warehouse full of boxes of porn?”
“No. It was a roller-skating rink.”
“A what?”
“A roller-skating rink.”
“Are you kidding? That’s pretty lame. Were there people roller-skating?”
“What? No, it was old abandoned rink. Why would people be roller-skating in the dark?”
“How would I know? I don’t roller-skate. Nobody does.
I thought it was going to be something exciting.”
“And the most exciting thing you could imagine a warehouse containing is boxes of porn?”
“No, but I knew it wasn’t going to be a spaceship.”
Seb and I spent a lot of time at Philip’s new house over the next few months. I think he looked forward to our visits. We helped paint the walls and arrange furniture but mainly we went there to skate.
We’d discovered an electrical mains box in an alcove off the skate hire area. Many of the colored spotlights above the skating rink had blown but there were enough to see by. Three or four faced a large center mirrorball which splashed the area below with blue and green points of light. The fluorescent lights in the snack bar, bathrooms, and a DJ booth that overlooked the skating rink all worked.
Most of the sound equipment in the DJ booth was still there and operational. Seb tested a microphone and his voice flooded the skating floor. There were no records to play on the turntables but there was an old double-cassette player and a rack of cassettes with handwritten labels like Sizzlin’ Summer Hits 82 and Sizzlin’ Summer Hits 82 tape 2.
A Coca-Cola branded glass door refrigerator in the snack bar hummed and lit up when we plugged it in. Seb found an apron with the words ‘Thebarton Skate Arena’ emblazoned across the front. He pretended to serve us from behind the counter when we later ordered pizza to the house and carried it through the corridor to eat in a vinyl booth. Philip pried open an old electronic cash register while we watched in anticipation but there was nothing in it.
There was a small kitchen off the snack bar with a chip-fryer and microwave. A box in one corner was full of skates and Seb and I searched through it for a pair that fit. They were stiff beige leather boots with thin orange plastic wheels that squeaked horribly as we rolled awkwardly across the rink to Rod Stewart’s Young Turks and the theme from Chariots of Fire.
Later, we bought rollerblades and became fairly proficient on them - not enough to claim gold if rolling in a circle was an Olympic event, but we could keep our balance and manage to stop. Eventually we were able to skate backwards for a bit and do small jumps. Another box we discovered in a bathroom cubicle was full of skating trophies and we presented them to each other whenever a particularly ‘speccy’ trick was performed. Philip didn’t skate but he seemed to enjoy spending time in the DJ booth.
“And that was the Go-Go’s again with their smash hit, We Got The Beat. Apparently it’s every third song on this cassette. Coming up next, we have a little ditty ‘bout two American kids named Jack and Diane...”
We didn’t just use the warehouse to skate and listen to bad eighties music. We marked out tennis court lines using duct tape, raced remote-control cars, and played indoor cricket. Tennis and cricket proved difficult under rotating green and blue points of light so mostly we did just skate and listen to bad eighties music.
Back then, Seb was only with me every second weekend and a few nights between but we spent almost every hour of that time together at the warehouse. For nearly three months the Playstation was left off and toys ignored, our small concrete box in the city became just a place to sleep after getting back from ‘Grandpa’s House’. We became experts on which brand of oil was best for wheel bearings, which socks were least sweaty. Eighties mix tapes made their way into the car and Seb knew all of the lyrics by heart.
“What does ‘never been to me’ even mean?”
“I’ve no idea. It just sounds like she’s having a bit of a brag.
‘Poor me, I’ve been undressed by kings and seen some things, mainly in the Mediterranean apparently, but I’m not sure who I really am. Please shower me with sympathy while I sip champagne on a boat.’”
“Maybe she has amnesia.”
“Maybe. Or maybe she’s just a self-absorbed old cow. I mean, if I
complained that I’ve jetted all over the world and rooted queens on boats but I’m not sure who the real David is, I’d be told to get over myself and stop being a prat.”
“What do you reckon she saw?”
“Sorry?”
“The bit where she says she’s seen some things that a woman ain’t meant to see. What do you reckon it was?”
“Secret blueprints or something I suppose. She doesn’t specifically say.”
“Blueprints to what?”
“A tank or something.”
“I think she’s talking about a penis.”
“Could be. It’s a dreadful song regardless, fast forward it or put on Tainted Love.”
“Where is it?”
“Sizzlin’ Summer Hits 82 tape 5. Song four, side two.”
We thought of the roller-skating rink as ours. That it always would be. We had no idea what the warehouse had been used for prior to it being a skate rink, or why it was connected to Philip’s house by an underground corridor, but it didn’t matter. It had been boarded up and forgotten, and we had discovered it. It was ours to use however and whenever we wanted. Then it wasn’t.
There was no reason for the trapdoor not to open. We had used it just the previous day. It never stuck and there was no lock. Philip and I climbed the ladder and put our shoulders into it together. It wouldn’t move. We tried to jimmy it open with a tire lever and hammer, even walked around the block looking for the boarded-over front entrance. Where we thought it should be were rows of townhouses. They didn’t look all that old. Perhaps at the back of one of those townhouses was a courtyard with an old metal door the occupants had never opened. Perhaps it was covered by vines and forgotten. Perhaps we were just looking in the wrong place.