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RETURN TO THE HOUSE OF DARK SECRETS.

The house seemed the same. The trees surrounding were larger, spread more

wildly. Sophia stood and gazed at the door that had been painted black; it

seemed like a gate to some hell of her childhood. This was her Uncle Williams

house, she remembered staying here during the war when her father was in

Egypt and her mother away in hospital, just one of her frequent visits there for

nerves. Now her cousin Godfrey owned this place and was beginning to put it

own mark on it; it showed by the dark door that greeted her. The taxi that

brought her from the station drove off. She was alone. Once more, she mused.

She pulled the bell rope that hung beside the door and waited. A pale-facedwoman opened and gestured for Sophia to enter and showed her into the cold

morning room has it had once been called. The woman spoke. Mr Godfrey

would be down soon, his wife was in the garden, would she mind waiting or

would she rather go to the room set aside for her, the woman asked, looking at

Sophia, her dark eyes scrutinizing her, her hands held across her stomach.

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Sophia decided to go to the room; the woman gestured for Sophia to follow

her without bothering to take her overnight bag and climbed the stairs like one

walking to Calvary. Sophia remembered the room. Here she had stayed as a

girl. Things had changed; the wallpaper had gone, the curtains were dull

yellow, the floor had been carpeted covering the stained wood sheremembered. She sat down on the chair by the window and stared out at the

garden quite expecting to see Uncle William in his bed of dahlias. A woman

was there weeding where the dahlias had once been. Now roses grew.

Godfreys wife Nina, Sophia suspected. The room seemed warmer now, not

cold, as it was in the years she was here before. She recalled coming here after

Uncle William had smacked her bottom for pulling off his dahlia heads and

sobbed for what seemed for hours wanting her father and mother, but they

never came; no one spoke of that or hinted at it days afterward. None knew,

except Uncle and her. A secret that was kept, a darkness over the room where

he kept his books, gramophone and the 78s he played seemingly day in and

out. She sighed. Godfrey had been at boarding school then, a spoilt boy who

hated his father and smothered his mother with kisses and cuddles. He came

home for holidays, but didnt say much to her she being a girl and pinched her

slyly on the arm and told tales on her and told on her and the dahlia heads. She

unpacked and then walked along the corridor to the room that had been her

Uncles study. Silence. No one was about. She knocked the door stiffly. She

expected her Uncles voice to bellow out, but none came. She turned the

doorknob and entered the room. All the books had gone. The gramophone and

78s were no more. The room had been gutted. Nothing of those years

remained. It was now a bedroom. Cosy. Adorned with modern furniture and

the best of that too. She stood looking, trying to remember where things had

been. It was here that Uncle had taken her, here that he and she had touched

on hell, he did the things he did, she was sworn to secrecy. Gone now. Except

in her mind where it festered like a foul wound. Godfreys voice was behind

her now. Sophia turned and he was there. He was all apologies , all kindness, all

soft words. He closed the door of the room, spoke of her journey, and asked

how she was and how things were with her mother. Sophia replied, all the time

taking in his changed manner, his grey hair, his wrinkled brow. In the garden,

she met Nina his wife. Nina was tall like Aunt Gwen, thin like one starved. Her

thin hands were brown with earth, green from weed. The dahlia bed was gone.

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The roses she tendered were her pride and joy. The heads proud like children

in fancy dress. They spoke; Sophia answered. They showed her the garden; she

tried to remember where time had gone. They walked ahead, turning

occasionally, their hands were joined, their voices like excited children at play.

Aunt Gwen had stood here once and spoke of Sophias mothers illness thatshe would not be back for a while. There was the garden shed that her uncle

kept his tools, where he took her for secret things. She stopped and looked

away and tried to think of better things, better times. Godfrey spoke of his

mothers death. Cancer took her. Died here, he said, amongst the things she

loved. He said nothing of his father until Sophia asked. Fell downstairs, he had

said, disinterestedly. Sophia nodded. Relieved, yet angered, she was silent

now; she moved behind them to the house on the hill. However, she thought

she saw her uncle by the shed door, standing and waving, his ginger hair and

glittery eyes ablaze with fond desire and long kept secrets, his droning voice

carried on the wind of long ago from this garden evil and the dark house on the

hill.