Corrie Street Sept. 21/14

Fly-Tipping

Fly-tipping: dumping garbage where you’re not supposed to. A lamp thrown in a dumpster was cause for a funny small mystery in the larger story of the dodgy flooring and subsequent dodgy efforts to rectify that mistake.

Jason put the dumpster in front of Tyrone and Fiz’s house while doing the rebuilding. Owen is looking to see what is usable. He and Tyrone wonder about the lamp on top. Neither have seen it before. Steve comes along, looks at the lamp and says it’s not his but it looks familiar. 

Tyrone goes to see Jason at the yard to discuss compensation. Jason says that Roy said that he’d seen the lamp before.

Later that day, the Platts prepare for Max’s birthday party. The lamp is in the kitchen. Gail says Michael pulled it out of the skip at Tyrone’s, thought Audrey might like it. David looks at it, puzzled, and says it looks familiar.

Whose lamp?

Everyone on the street has seen the lamp. Nobody knows how it ended up on the skip but it looks familiar to Steve, Roy and David. What, or who, is a connection between those three? I ran through my mental store of Street history but I could not figure it out.

Then nearly at the end, Tracy looks out the window of Barlow’s Buys. She says to Rob, “Somebody took that old lamp! You know, from my bedroom.” Of course! The connection is that all three men have been in Tracy’s bedroom, willingly or unwillingly.

Years ago, David and Tracy had a little fling. Poor Roy ended up spending the night in Tracy’s bedroom due to a bet she had made. That led to her claiming that he had fathered Amy. Of the three, Steve spent the most time in Tracy’s bedroom. I guess the decor of her room is something, like their marriage, that he would rather forget.

Tracy’s words about the lamp, that “people will take any old tat,” is a lovely summary of much about her. The lamp ended up back in the dumpster, and the other mystery – of why their floor collapsed – was solved for Tyrone and Fiz. Owen was back at the skip, scavenging for usable scraps. No, not for a floor, he told them about the wood, too thin for that, against regulations even.