5. A STRANGERS PHOTOGRAPHS

It takes me about a week before I start clearing the attic.

I spent most of the last week planning to make a room more homely. Bringing in my own taste in decorative things. I would look through home improvement sites and find things I think would suit my own style and then order it online. Before too long the deliveries started coming in.

I ordered grey, yellow and white things for the kitchen. Initially I wanted to decorate the kitchen with a sunflower theme but ended up going with lemons. I got the most adorable table cloth with a grey background with white stripes on it. Here and there would be lemons and lemon leaves randomly placed on the tablecloth. It then set the tone for the rest of the kitchen.

The living room already had old wooden framed chairs and couches that I grew to like the last few days. These were all recently upholstered with a luxurious thick cream material. I only had to order a few scatter cushions, a nice carpet and two or three lamps. It changed the whole feel of the room.

Most of the ground floor is open plan. It made me feel that the lounge area and the dining area should tie together. I ordered a thick cream tablecloth for the dining table and a large see-through smoked glass vase to put in the centre of the table.

I also changed all the curtains in the room to a deep chocolate brown. The curtains are almost always open and the natural light that floods the rooms make everything look so peaceful.

When you walk in through the front door it doesn't even look like the old lady's house anymore. It is open and cleared and it looks inviting.

I suspect that the old lady had a lot of trouble climbing stairs. The attic is not filled to the brim like the ground floor of the house was. If movies didn't make attics seem so scary, I am sure this would have been the most amazing space in the house to turn into a bedroom. There is a very large round window with a stained-glass picture of a tree to the one side of the room. The window cannot open and the stained-glass is frosted which makes it so that you cannot see out the window. There is still natural light flooding the attic though. The natural light that comes in has a somewhat soft green glow as most of the window has small green leaves of different shades.

I didn't notice the window from the outside of the house. It does look beautiful from the inside though.

There is really not a lot of things up here. A few boxes covered with sheets and a few very old suitcases. I sit on the floor in front of one of the suitcases to open it. There is a lot of dust up here.

The suitcase is filled with old photographs. Square black and white pictures. Some of them looks a bit faded. Others look like they are a little cracked. I look through the pictures. They are all of the same woman. Some pictures are of buildings. The woman in the picture is slender and very young. She looks about twenty years old. One picture in particular draws my attention. The young girl is standing in front of Big Ben. She is holding a bunch of flowers and smiling broadly at the camera. She is wearing a thick mid-calf jacket and a small round shaped hat. She looks very happy.

As I go through the suitcase, I place the pictures on the floor next to me. I pick up a picture of a man. The man is a lot older than the woman. He looks to be at least twenty years older than she does. He appears alone in some pictures but then he is next to the young woman in some other pictures.

I pick up a picture of the couple in front of Big Ben. I look for the other picture of the woman in front of Big Ben next to me. I hold the two pictures next to each other. In the first picture the woman seems at least ten years younger than she does in the second picture.

In the background there is a flower cart on both pictures. The flowers in the pictures are exactly the same and on both carts the price of the flowers are the same.

Same background but the people in the pictures are at least ten years older.

I stare at the pictures for a while. I am not sure if they had background props back in the day but right now it is the only thing that makes sense to me. As I go through the suitcase, I find at least three more pictures of the couple in front of Big Ben. The background stays the same with the flower cart and the price on the cart not changing at all. But the couple in the picture are most certainly aging at least ten to twenty years every time. I go through the suitcase especially looking for pictures in front of Big Ben. I only find two more.

The first of the last two I find I can see that the old man is very sick. He leans heavily on his can and the old woman at his side holds his arm. She has a sadness in her eyes that was not in one of the other pictures. The last picture I found is of the old woman standing alone in front of the tower.

She is holding a bunch of flowers. I could almost look exactly like the first picture I found of her except that she is almost seventy years older than in the first picture. The sadness in her eyes is almost unbearable to look at.

I put all the other pictures back in the suitcase and take all the Big Ben pictures to the study. I leave the pictures on the desk and go to get cleaning supplies for the attic.

In the attic I find other windows that can open and open all the windows I can. I sweep and mop and dust and wash everything I can find. It somehow feels too personal to get rid of the things in the attic. I clean off the suitcases and move them to a corner where I already cleaned.

After cleaning the attic, it looks almost as cleared as the ground floor of the house. Except for the few suitcases and three boxes in the one corner of the attic. I brought a clean sheet, I washed a few weeks ago when I took it off the furniture in the lounge. I cover the boxes and the suitcases with the sheet. I take all the cleaning supplies to the wash room and clean them before packing them away.

I take a long hot bath to get rid of the dusty feel I have clinging to me.

After my bath I go to eat and then I go to the study where I left the pictures.

I start doing research of old pictures of Big Ben. As I go through everything, I can find on the internet I gather that the first picture of the woman with the bunch of flowers where she is standing alone in front of the tower must have been taken in the early 1940's. The last picture of her also seems to be taken in 1940.

I rub my eyes. This is too confusing for my brain to think about. I leave the pictures on the table and walk back to the kitchen. As I put the kettle on, I notice movement outside the kitchen door. Frank is coming closer to the door. I walk to the door to greet him there.

"Good day, Miss Loubelle" Frank greets in his shy way with his hat in his hand against his chest.

"Good day, Frank" I greet him back.

"I am going to town for supplies before the storm hits, would you like me to bring you anything?" Frank always looks as if he is apologizing for talking while he is talking.

I look up at the skies. It is clear and the sun is shining brightly. I step out of the house onto the first step just outside the kitchen door. I look at the skies as far as I can see to the right. Then to the left. There is not a cloud in the sky. The sun is shining in all its glory. I give Frank a puzzled look.

"Oh, don't be fooled." He says as he shifts from one leg to the other. "There is a storm coming."

"Thank you for the warning" I smile at Frank. "I do not need anything though. I'm okay"

"Very well. Have a good day" Frank turns to leave.

"Frank! How old was the lady who lived in this house before I did?"

"Oh, Mrs Grindle, she lived here all her life. She was ninety when she died about a year ago." Frank smiles and leaves.