Free The Man in Black: A Ghost Story by Jordan Mason Page A

came down with it. Nineteen when he passed.
    My mam left with the money; somewhere far down south, apparently. Despite an education and a fair understanding of what money meant, I was left to fend for myself. Everything I’d studied, everything I was entitled, gone. I found my place on the Rotten Row shortly after the abandonment, and that was where I learned how to live proper.
    As expected, the closure hit local amenities hard. Shopkeepers sold off their family names and families lived poorer than they ever had; men unable to find decent work, women unable to cook honest meals, children unable to eat. Although I’d been raised among generous wealth, the transition into the seventies was a hard one for homes like these. Even I knew it, growing up. But you never truly understand it until you’re living in the middle of it. Shops on the front of Stone Row were no longer owned locally, but by businessmen ten miles out in Durham. Though they still remained convenient, the aura of a genuine working village had been lost and a depression loomed in dire anticipation of the future. I had been lucky enough, however, to secure a weekday job down at the butchers a couple days after the move, handling change and wiping down worktops. The pay was bad and the work was lonesome, but it covered some of my rent and spared a little over each Friday for some of the essentials. The owner, William Roy, kept back some rashes of bacon at the end of each week and would slip me them after my day. Anything else went on the dogs out back or were otherwise minced together. I’d spend a little of my pay on milk and malt loaf at the shop on the corner, but even that had lost its locality. It was black owned. That was the thing: even the seventies weren’t safe from foreign influence. If anything it was a head start, communities being taken advantage of. Everyone thought it.
    I didn’t have many possessions. There was nothing in my flat that anyone would ever want. My bed was a mattress from my old room with a couple of thick blankets thrown over it; the thing doubled as a couch, but I’d usually just sit down at the dining table. The table and chairs were left behind in the rush of it all. I managed to keep some little mementos from my dad’s desk, some papers, photographs, things like that. He kept the old collar from our dog Red in the top drawer, and so I took that. Red was a Jack Russell cross. He died at the age of nine, shot down by a farmer whilst out on a run.
    My dad never forgot it. The farmer was shot down three weeks later.
    My kitchen housed the bare necessities. The pots and pans came with the place, as did most of the furniture. The walls were wallpapered green, though they were hued more yellow, and most of the paintwork had blackened with damp. The front door came straight off the street and into the sitting room, and through an archway to the right of the fireplace was the kitchen, the back window, and the back door. There was a stove in the kitchen, and next to that was my mattress and the dining table. The toilet was out through the back door and along a narrow alleyway. It was an outdoor loo, but I was the only one who ever used it.
    The bathtub was under the stairs; the ones leading to the above flat from the yard. The water was always warm, but usually I’d just boil some in a bucket and wash in the kitchen. On weekdays, after my shift, I’d follow a ritual of sorts. Boots off. Socks off. Water boiled and feet steeped. It kept me on my toes. Shoes back then were cheap; they’d smell bad after a few days of wear, of damp and faux leather. My feet were always sore with the weather. Bad genes, my mam had said.
    I never did find any trace of the previous tenant. Not that I’d really want to; whoever they were made no difference to me. I thought they’d perhaps have gotten out and moved somewhere nice, somewhere colourful and prosperous. The furniture left behind had no real character about it. There was nothing you’d want