Free House of Memories by Alice; Taylor

such an environment, and that was good money going down the drain.
    At right angles to these stalls were the stables, which he decided were not fit to house any kind of horse. Next was thehay barn with its rusty sagging roof in which well-saved hay was bound to rot. He was now back to the gate, having gone all around the square yard. Then he retraced his footsteps to a hidden archway that stood between the barn and the stables. This archway told the story of how things used to be in Furze Hill. Through this archway, the Barrys had come into their farmyard from the walled garden that surrounded their old family home. Now the whole archway was overgrown with bushes and briars, and there was no sight of the house that must be buried inside. He remembered hearing that old Conway had fenced the entire place in with thorny wire to keep his own family and everyone else out. Few could understand his reasoning. He had proclaimed that he wanted to avoid paying the high rates on the big house, but most of the neighbours felt that he wanted to get back at Molly for a marriage gone sour.
    Having calculated that he could not get in through the archway, Jack walked out the yard gate and a little way along the road by the high stone wall to what used to be the entrance to the old house. The rusted gates were smothered in briars blinding any sighting of what might be inside. He stood there trying to imagine the way it used to be. Then slowly, in the deep recesses of his mind, a buried memory began to stir. He was a little boy holding his mother’s hand and staring across a flower garden at a blue door of a big house clothed in ivy. The picture must have imprinted itself on the back pages of his mind. But now all was changed, buried in a scene of choked abandonment.
    He returned to the yard and found a slasher, a hatchet and saw, and bringing them back he reached up and put them on top of the high wall. Having levered himself up by digging histoe caps between the stones, he sat astride the wall and began to slash a hole in the thick undergrowth beside the stone pillar. When he had finally made an opening, he eased himself down inside the wall and arched his back low to get between the strands of thorny wire. It seemed like an impenetrable jungle, but he began to cut his way through. Briars tore his face as he wielded the slasher to create an opening through them. He used his saw and hatchet to remove the many interwoven branches that barred his way like a hedge. At times he wondered if he was ever going to get anywhere and occasionally had to sit down on a sawn-off branch to get his breath. His shirt clung to his back with perspiration, and the thought crossed his mind that if his dodgy heart decided to give up that he would never be found in here. But he kept on determinedly and finally, when he was beginning to think that his energy was not going to see him through, he reached what he judged to be the wall of the house. He leant against it in relief. Guided more by touch than direction, he inspected the wall and reached what could be a window, but he was not sure because it was sheeted over. By God, he thought to himself, this place was left well protected by old man Phelan. He kept walking in what he hoped was the general direction of the front door and was proved right when the wall suddenly disappeared and he stepped back into a alcoves. The front door was recessed back under an archway that had saved it from the worst of the elements. The thought that had come to him earlier kept floating into his mind, and although he would not allow himself to entertain it, it kept coming back.
    He realised that he was exhausted and decided that it was time to go home. He needed to sit down and with the calm lightof reason slowly think the whole thing through. He retraced his way back through his burrowed pathway and replaced the tools in the barn and cycled home. As he passed by the village, he heard cheering from the pitch and wondered how the boys