on the ocean side of the road have something to do with that. Perhaps it's just that today's residents are less class conscious and maybe just that bit less able, in the current financial climate, to lavish thousands and thousands of pounds on maintaining the exteriors of their homes in the manner of their forerunners.
The late summer sun was at its Zenith as Michael reached the door to number fourteen. The day had grown warmer and warmer as he'd walked the two miles from his flat. He wasn't one to waste money on taxis when the weather was fine, though he did wish he'd taken one by the time he reached the top of the hill and walked those last few yards to the house. Sweat dripped from his brow and his shirt felt as though it was plastered to his back. Even his hair felt as wet as if he'd just stepped from a shower.
Michael reached into the pocket of his denim jacket, (wearing that had been a mistake in this weather too), and extracted a bunch of keys. Selecting the correct one, he inserted it into the lock of the heavy oak front door to the house, turned it and entered number fourteen as confidently as if he owned the place. He closed the door behind him as he entered, and walked slowly but confidently across the marble floored hall until he reached the door to what at one time would have been designated 'the drawing room', or perhaps, 'the sitting room'. He paused for a second, listening at the door, and then knocked quietly and waited until he heard the single word, "Come" quietly spoken from within.
"Welcome, dear boy," said the man who sat reposing in an old fashioned floral cloth upholstered armchair that was positioned beside the currently unused fireplace at the far side of the room from where Michael entered through the heavy brass handled door. "Do come and sit down."
Michael walked across the room and seated himself opposite the man in an identical chair to that occupied by his host.
"How are you?" asked the man, who Michael thought to be at least sixty years old but who was in fact just past his fiftieth birthday. His hair was greying at the temples, and his moustache had also lost much of its natural brown colour. About five feet ten tall when standing, he reminded Michael of a Victorian gentleman, sitting there in his plush red carpet slippers, a brown paisley patterned silk smoking jacket and black trousers that sported knife-edge creases down the front. The room in which the two men sat mirrored the look of fading elegance that the exterior of the property exuded. The oak panelled walls gave the place a dreary, overpowering air, and the three paintings that hung in heavy wooden frames all depicted historic sailing ships, one an un-named tea clipper in full rig, another the famed 'Cutty Sark', and the third an eighteenth century fully armed Royal Navy fifty gun ship of the line, its battle ensigns billowing from the rigging as it sailed to war against some unseen enemy.
Books of ancient origins lined the bookshelf that took up the wall adjacent to Michael's chair, and a heavy solid oak table stood at centre stage of the room, it surface covered with maps, an antique sailing compass and a host of very old seafarers navigation instruments.
To the casual visitor, though there were none at number fourteen, it would have appeared that they were in the home of some decrepit ancient mariner. They would have been wrong.
Everything in that room gave Michael the creeps. Something about the man and his house seemed steeped in the past. An almost ghostly air pervaded every wall, every inch of the slightly threadbare Axminster carpets. It was as if the house itself had been frozen in time, and that time was long, long ago. Michael knew it was stupid, it couldn't possibly be, but nevertheless the thought that the man he sat facing at that moment belonged to another time and place always leaped into his mind whenever he was called upon to make one of his visits to number fourteen.
"I'm ok," said Michael in reply to his
The late summer sun was at its Zenith as Michael reached the door to number fourteen. The day had grown warmer and warmer as he'd walked the two miles from his flat. He wasn't one to waste money on taxis when the weather was fine, though he did wish he'd taken one by the time he reached the top of the hill and walked those last few yards to the house. Sweat dripped from his brow and his shirt felt as though it was plastered to his back. Even his hair felt as wet as if he'd just stepped from a shower.
Michael reached into the pocket of his denim jacket, (wearing that had been a mistake in this weather too), and extracted a bunch of keys. Selecting the correct one, he inserted it into the lock of the heavy oak front door to the house, turned it and entered number fourteen as confidently as if he owned the place. He closed the door behind him as he entered, and walked slowly but confidently across the marble floored hall until he reached the door to what at one time would have been designated 'the drawing room', or perhaps, 'the sitting room'. He paused for a second, listening at the door, and then knocked quietly and waited until he heard the single word, "Come" quietly spoken from within.
"Welcome, dear boy," said the man who sat reposing in an old fashioned floral cloth upholstered armchair that was positioned beside the currently unused fireplace at the far side of the room from where Michael entered through the heavy brass handled door. "Do come and sit down."
Michael walked across the room and seated himself opposite the man in an identical chair to that occupied by his host.
"How are you?" asked the man, who Michael thought to be at least sixty years old but who was in fact just past his fiftieth birthday. His hair was greying at the temples, and his moustache had also lost much of its natural brown colour. About five feet ten tall when standing, he reminded Michael of a Victorian gentleman, sitting there in his plush red carpet slippers, a brown paisley patterned silk smoking jacket and black trousers that sported knife-edge creases down the front. The room in which the two men sat mirrored the look of fading elegance that the exterior of the property exuded. The oak panelled walls gave the place a dreary, overpowering air, and the three paintings that hung in heavy wooden frames all depicted historic sailing ships, one an un-named tea clipper in full rig, another the famed 'Cutty Sark', and the third an eighteenth century fully armed Royal Navy fifty gun ship of the line, its battle ensigns billowing from the rigging as it sailed to war against some unseen enemy.
Books of ancient origins lined the bookshelf that took up the wall adjacent to Michael's chair, and a heavy solid oak table stood at centre stage of the room, it surface covered with maps, an antique sailing compass and a host of very old seafarers navigation instruments.
To the casual visitor, though there were none at number fourteen, it would have appeared that they were in the home of some decrepit ancient mariner. They would have been wrong.
Everything in that room gave Michael the creeps. Something about the man and his house seemed steeped in the past. An almost ghostly air pervaded every wall, every inch of the slightly threadbare Axminster carpets. It was as if the house itself had been frozen in time, and that time was long, long ago. Michael knew it was stupid, it couldn't possibly be, but nevertheless the thought that the man he sat facing at that moment belonged to another time and place always leaped into his mind whenever he was called upon to make one of his visits to number fourteen.
"I'm ok," said Michael in reply to his
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