by Grace Sim

The house is bare. The skip on the pavement is full to overflowing. No doubt, it will be half-empty by morning. Human vultures will see to that; Dad wouldn't mind; he hated waste. Poetic justice really. I'm sure he often helped himself to other people's rubbish.

A stubborn character, my dad died suddenly; a clock in bits on the table and a lawnmower in pieces on the kitchen floor.

Still clinging tenaciously to his independence at the age of eighty-three, he hated the restrictions age had forced upon him. I would arrive unexpectedly to find him head first under the bonnet of his car, or even worse-underneath it A week before he died I discovered him up a ladder painting his garage. His face reminded me of a child caught with his hand in the biscuit tin.

Dad's war cry - 'Someday I might need that,' meant he discarded nothing. This habit made emptying his hut into a niarathon task. His life's history could be found there. Here he kept everything he treasured over the years. Several times, when he wasn't looking, I smuggled some of them into the dustbin. I gave up eventually, when they kept magically reappearing in the hut.

I open the door and feel comforted by the familiar odour of petrol, paraffin, oil and turps. I look round at the mixture of antique shop, scrap yard, joiner's workshop, and mechanic's garage. Only an expert hoarder could accumulate so much in one lifetime.

Brass jelly-pans jostle with jam-jars, their sparkle competing with the shine from hubcaps, carefully arranged on one wall Dad collected them from the grass verges of the A74. A bird's cage with a plastic bird still inside hits my head. The cage swings back and forth, the bird bobbing up and down forlornly. Lawnmowers, an old rusted fridge, a treadle sewing machine, a wind-up gramophone, screws of every size, bolts, washers, spanners, a large bunch of keys - who knows what locks they once opened?

Cupboards line the walls, hinges straining to hold doors shut. Large, metal hooks screwed into the roof allowed him to hang even more - dare I whisper 'rubbish' - within his reach. All this confined in an 8ft. x 6ft. hut.

I discover an old miner's lamp and kneepads, relics of his days as a miner long ago. They still smell of coal-dust and carbide. A milk-can he used as a seat brings memories rushing back of his days as a lorry driver, taking milk from the farms into the creamery in Glasgow. I remember my special treat, as a child, was to go in his Albion lorry. Dad had to lift me up to the metal stirrup-shaped step as it was too high for me to reach. I would scramble in bubbling with pride, hoping some of my pals would see me driving past.

Uncovering the old tent, smelling strongly of mildew, takes me back to years of sunny, carefree holidays. 'Did it never rain?'

Although the tent was forty years old, dad didn't think of it as his old tent. It was his second best one. That was his attitude to life. Nothing in his hut was old or useless - including himself.

Finally, exhausted, grubby, depressed, I reach into the last cupboard and find four boxes neatly stacked. The names, although faded, still legible on the lids: Marion, Greta, Mary and William Wilson. Opening one, I smell mouldy rubber and draw out a gas mask. I wonder, as I pack the four gas masks away along with an A.R.P. metal hat, if dad thought he would ever have a use for them.

The hut is finally empty. The moment I dread can no longer be delayed. I close the door behind me for the last time - but the memories cling to me like burs on a horse's tail. As I struggle to the skip with the last load, I realise the ironic legacy I have inherited.

Much later I smile ruefully as I drive away - the car overloaded to groaning point.

c You win dad. Your precious keepsakes will still be safe. Safe in my hut. I don't know where I'll put them all. Perhaps I could screw some hooks into the roof? Then I could hang up the gas masks, the miner's lamp, the bird cage, and... I mustn't forget the milk-can, the padlock and the bunch of keys. Who knows? Someday I might need them.

If not, I'll leave them to the next generation. With love.'

© Grace Sim

Grace Sim is a member of Lanark Writers.