A Day to Remember

… I arrived at the door having heard that the house was for sale. It was rundown, ramshackle, just what I wanted. A full reverb. I peeked through the letterbox and was hit by warm wall or pungent unpleasantness. I knocked. I knocked again….and again. I heard shuffling so closed the letterbox. And then a voice
“What da ya want?”. A very broad Scottish accent.
“Good afternoon. I understand you want to sell the house”
“Another one of you bastards. Feck off”
“Sorry.should I come back another day?”
“Dinna ye ken. FECK OFF”
“Dear God. Sorry Captain….no need for the language ….we’re not at sea”
“That’s the fecking pity. Now feck off”
“We’re you a sailor. I was at sea”
He came to the door and spoke through the letterbox, curious to know if I was a sailor. Within minutes after he had confirmed my bone fides…not a true sailor but an oil rigger…good enough ….my grand dad was a merchant sea captain …. I sat on his lap as a toddler sometimes holding his whisky for him as he sorted his old pipe ….. I was in.

He beckoned me into his bedroom, one dark room in this vast house, with thick air shot through with shards of light that penetrated the gloom