Benny Nutters: Secrets Under London

By Ann Michaels

One cold, sleeting day in the middle of winter, Benny, stumbles upon a secret door, to a secret room, in the basement of his Great Uncle Crispin’s house, in Bayswater, London. But this is just the beginning.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ann Michaels
• Release date: Oct 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311495969

Ann Michaels

“Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it’s the answer to everything. ... It’s the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it’s a cactus.” —Enid Bagnold “It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style.” —PD James Samuel Beckett was the poet laureate of the comma splice. He closed his novel “The Unnamable” with a long sentence that ends: ... perhaps it’s done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on. Which goes to show, I suppose, that rules are made to be broken.

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Benny Nutters: Secrets Under London

Ann Michaels

Smashwords Edition

copyright 2015, Ann Michaels

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Contents

Chapter 1. Ghost, Brooms and Secret Rooms

Chapter 2. Museums and Spice and All Things Nice

Chapter 3. Esmeralda down the Hole

Chapter 4. Deeper and Down

Chapter 5. Dog Soap and Unicorns

Chapter 6. Beastly Things and Wartime Secrets

Chapter 7. What Lies Beneath

Chapter 8. Seeking and Finding

Chapter 9. The Man Lion

Chapter 10. A Fan of Nelson’s Words

Chapter 1.

Ghost, Brooms and Secret Rooms.

January, 15, 2002

I stumbled upon the secret room, one cold, sleeting day in the middle of winter. At this time, I had been living with my Great Uncle Crispin, in London, for ten years. Though, Uncle Crispy is not really my uncle at all; he is my grandad’s twin brother, and my legal guardian.

My grandad, Phineas, who had become an anthropologist, because he believed that he would be involved in something rather ground breaking (ha, ha), actually disappeared during an anthropology expedition, out in Africa, in 1989.

At the time, he was following in the footsteps of the great archaeologists’, Mary and Louis Leakey, who had discovered the skull of some ancient, human-like creature, that they called ‘Dear Boy’; even though most other people called him, ‘Nutcracker man’. What really blew my mind, when I eventually heard about this nut-eating gent, was that, he had last breathed a few million years back!

I was a mere rug rat when my grandfather disappeared, being only one year old at the time. So I don’t remember him at all. But there is a large photo in the album of him, standing next to his brother, Crispin. They are aged about seventeen in the photo, with a couple of horsey looking heads, on top of their gangling bodies. Both are attired in matching safari suits. Not a good look, even back then. Crispin is holding a butterfly net, whilst looking at something beyond the frame, and Phineas, has a lopsided smile on his face, like he didn’t agree with having his picture taken, but he is putting up with it. They were an off-beat looking pair. That is for sure.

The only thing that I really have belonging to my grandfather, is, a gold necklace, which was put around my neck at my birth, with the instruction that I must always wear it. And I do, but I keep it hidden under my clothes, as it is a bit corny looking; with its roaring lion’s head stuck on a cross. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone about it, but I might someday.

The Georgian terrace, in which I now live with Uncle Crispy, is located in an unexceptional part of London called, Bayswater. There are various stories which tell how this area came by its mellifluous name; but the one I like the most, tells how a man, by the name of Mr Bays, used to own a public-house around here. Supposedly, members of the public would breeze in to Mr Bays’ establishment, to water their horses. This may or may not be true.

We happen to live a very short hop, skip and a jump from Hyde Park, and so, I often ramble about that pasture after my tutor has left for the day. Yes! I spilled this bit of biography rather early that, I don’t go to an actual school at all. My schooling takes place every weekday until 2 p.m., in the small library (as we sometimes call it), which can be found in the basement of the terrace. The main library belongs to Uncle Crispy and it occupies part of the third floor, at the back of the building. It is a wonderful, gruesome, yet interesting place; but more about that later.

Mr Osborne my tutor is a potty old fellow, and as ancient as dirt. If you look hard enough, you can even see the grey dust in the creases of his carrot-shaped, craggy face.

In my studies, this esteemed pedagogue insists that, I learn Latin and Greek, and that I study what he calls ‘natural philosophy’ (what I understand to be science). We also cover: mathematics, philosophy (ordinary), literature, poetry and history. But what I will be equipped to do in this modern world is anyone’s guess.

It was late afternoon on this cold, dark day, and I toiling away like miner at the coalface, on my homework, in the small library. There I was, busily writing an essay, titled: ‘Is an Honest Politician Possible?’ when I vaulted up from the chair to search for a particular learned tome about the Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, who had lived in the times of ancient Rome, as I had noticed a book about this philosopher politician, on the shelf a few weeks ago. But now, I couldn’t find it.

I started to puck out books, one by one. Soon, a whole row of leather volumes was lying topsy-turvy, on the walnut table. There was, however, to my surprise, another row of books behind the first one, and some of these books looked very interesting indeed. One book was called, Memoirs of an Old Wig. Another, The History of a Dog. Written by Himself, and Published by a Gentleman of His Acquaintance. Translated From The French. I put those aside, with the intention of reading them later. Then, I noticed a small, round, ball-like shape, attached to the bookcase, which I decided to pull. This caused a small section of the bookcase to swing open, as though released, and I could dimly see some squalid looking stairs, leading downwards into darkness.

All thoughts of my essay were forgotten, as I ran about like a demented mammal. I was heading toward my bedroom, in the attic, to get my torch, when I remembered having recently clapped my eyes on one of those gigantic, silly looking torches, in the laundry, which was located in another part of the basement. Strangely, this laundry, although underground, also has access to the back garden. I think this is because we are sitting on a bit of slopping land.

I galloped into the damp smelling, laundry room, pulled the cord of the lion’s head wall sconce, grabbed the ridiculously enormous torch from the haunted cupboard, and scrambled back to gawp at that mysterious staircase. Luckily, I didn’t disturb the ill-tempered ghost, who has lived in that laundry for over a hundred years.

The laundry ghost’s name is Edgar and according to Uncle Crispy, Edgar, also used to live in this very house, back in the 1800’s, while he was still in the land of the living. But Edgar, it seems, fell terribly in love with the laundry maid named Bessie, whilst still a young chap. Edgar’s parent’s, a pallid pair of social climbers, were completely scandalized and driven bonkers by the idea, of their son, romancing a washer woman. So, Edgar was shipped off to Australia, where an adventurous relative, lording over a gold mine, stood ready to take the errant young Edgar in hand. It was some weeks after Edgar had been despatched to the antipodes, to learn his place, and his lesson, that the ship he was on, sunk in the Southern Ocean. And so, the love-sick Edgar was lost at sea. Edgar’s ghost, however, managed to make it back to the laundry room, of Inverness Terrace, Bayswater, London, where happily, he was able to haunt the object of his affection, for some years. He still resides here.

I directed the beam