Submersion (4 page)

‘I’m done,’ I told him after several minutes, wiping my face, shaking my head, as if the issue was a flea in my ear I needed to rattle out. I went to stand, but Papa H sensed the move was coming and made one of his own: a hand reached out across the table and clamped one of mine in place.

‘You think it’s started again, don’t you?’ he asked. ‘The taking?’

I couldn’t look up, but I reluctantly nodded my head, confirming his assumption. He rushed a sigh out between his teeth, creating a hiss in the room. It made me think of gas being released, of poisonous gas and my eyes darted instantly to my protective mask which I had left in the corner of his room, near the door.

‘You must have hope,’ he said, as I stood and made my way to retrieve the mask and the other gear I must put on before I ventured outside again. ‘If the taking has started again –
if
– it’s not the end. You of all people know that, Tristan.’

I looked up at him briefly, coldly. He nodded in receipt of this: this was not a subject of which we usually talked.

‘Just have hope,’ he paraphrased his own words and I finally left.

Back to Agnes and what remained of her family.

They stayed three more days – Jimmy, Penny, Esther, Billy and Ronan – somehow squeezing themselves into Agnes’ relatively small house, relegating me to the sofa in the process. I was happy to be demoted in status; it helped with my guilt. I was as certain as Jessie that the speedboat platform had been sabotaged in some way, but I was still responsible for its existence in the first place, still responsible for taking her there. During those three days, Jessie and I went out regularly searching for Elinor; Ronan and Uncle Jimmy conducted their own separate searches too. We took Jessie’s speedboat and searched for miles, regularly checking the route to school and beyond, going over the scene of the alleged accident several times, looking for clues.

Yet, it would get us nowhere. The authorities would be reluctant to listen to us. They wouldn’t welcome our challenge. And, when they ignored us, who could we take our questions or findings to? Beyond any first line contacts within the authorities, the system was a blur. A faceless blur.

A man hiding behind a man, hiding behind another man.

At the end of the third day, Agnes’ nephew Billy made a discovery. Not the grand discovery we were all hoping for, but a smaller, disturbing one.

He had been spending his days further down the road, in the company of Old Man Merlin, sole occupant of the Cadley resident. Old Man Merlin was a local eccentric and old fool, but he was harmless enough and Esther was content for the old man to fill Billy’s head with silly tales and dreams.

Better than your macabre stories of the past,
she had said to me once, a warning not to tell him the same bedtime tales I shared with Elinor. A warning I had ignored on several occasions, I have to admit.

My stories are my connection with the past; they are everyone’s connection with the past and, in these impoverished, decaying times, our only media for recording and passing it on. Our only way of not forgetting, and we must not forget. So, when I’m asked – begged, in Elinor and Billy’s case – to recall tales of the past, I will do so, with or without parental permission, even if the children think of it as story-time, rather than a lesson in history.

Billy and Elinor’s relationship with Old Man Merlin and the Cadley residence had been long-standing. Given an adventurous nature on Elinor’s part and Billy’s pliable resistance to anything his cousin demanded, I’m certain they would have disappeared off to his towering house, with or without Esther’s permission. So, it was no surprise that the young boy took himself off there in the days that followed Elinor’s disappearance.

Yet, what he returned with on that third day was a surprise – an unwelcome one, at that.

He brought it home in an old plastic container Old Man Merlin had provided. Inside, gently wrapped in what appeared to be a clean, white napkin, was the tiny corpse of a rat.

The small act triggered two key reactions. Firstly, Agnes snapped: she’d had enough, wanted them gone, could do without bloody dead bodies being brought into her house; bring back her daughter, alive, if you were going to bring anything back! Secondly, she demanded that the house was cleared, asking us all to leave. Within an hour, all were gone. Me too – I had to go, just for a bit, give her some space. I left a small brotherly kiss on her forehead, and did exactly as she asked: I left and took the small corpse with me.

Ignoring the laws of caution instructed by our authorities, I left the house without my protective gear in place and hopped over to Papa H’s house. Whatever was out there – in the stagnant water, in the atmosphere – a few seconds’ of exposure wasn’t going to infect me. And, if it did, I wasn’t of the mind to care.

Once inside Papa H’s, I placed the box on his kitchen table, lifted the lid and we both inspected the contents in silence.

‘What did the others think?’ he asked after a while.

‘They didn’t,’ I told him. ‘They just saw a dead rat, brought in from outside by a silly, thoughtless boy.’

Papa H returned to his ponderous silence for a few more minutes before he spoke again.

‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’ he eventually uttered and I nodded. ‘So, what do you suggest we do?’

A night of talk began, taking us into the early hours, allowing Agnes a lot more time and space than she ever asked for…

PLAY

‘T
he day they came was an ordinary day. A day before the flood. Before the water washed through every part of the land. The days when milk floats hummed along the roads, delivering bottles of milk each morning to doorsteps, when daily newspapers and magazines were delivered by bicycle or moped.

‘
Door-to-door salesmen were still in high supply and medium demand. Cars were a familiar sight on the road: being driven, parked, washed or some abandoned – just not
all
abandoned. Children could play in the street, too – kicking balls, skipping with ropes, throwing off their coats and jumpers when they got too warm. It wasn’t the better days; the money times were over and the riches were with the few, the remaining scraps with the many. But the floods were yet to come; a river was still an isolated, controlled area and small rowing boats were not common place. Indeed, it was rare or considered quite unnecessary to own one.’

A pause.

‘Why have you stopped?’

‘Thought I heard something. A noise. A whirring sound. You not hear it?’

‘No.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay. I’ll continue. Now where was I? Oh yes. But the floods were yet to come. A river was still a river, and a road was still a road…’

PAUSE

2. Billy

The old man’s house – Old Man Merlin, as my mother, aunt and everyone else I knew referred to him as – was a treasure trove of things lost, forgotten and forbidden. A museum of broken artefacts, unwanted plunder from the past that he and I saw for the silver and gold it was. We were junk pirates, he said. That’s how we came together, how we built our special bond. That, and the fact my cousin Elinor disappeared.

His name wasn’t Old Man Merlin at all, he told me. I think everyone knew that really, it’s just he had that crazy old man wizard look about him, plus his house soared up like a tower, giving it a castle-like majesty. So,
Merlin
rather fitted. But, as he lived in the Cadley residence, I’d guessed he was really Mr Cadley.

‘Wrong,’ he informed me one time, with a certain relish. ‘It’s not my name at all. Just the name of the man who had this place built. I will tell you what it is, young Billy. But it is a secret. And it will be your first test.’

‘Test?’

‘Yes, indeed. Your first test. If you can keep this secret, then maybe I will tell you others.’

‘Do you have many?’ I asked him and he simply grinned, revealing a line of chipped yellowing teeth.

Shall I begin with Elinor? Tell you a bit about what happened? Not that we know much, not so far.

It has been over a month now since Elinor disappeared. She’s dead. She drowned in an accident on the way to school.
You are not to say this in front of your aunt,
Mother told me, after she had broken the news, saying it very quickly, before my tears started, as if somehow these hurried words would halt the crying. My mother doesn’t like crying. She hasn’t time for it. Not anymore. She prefers to occupy herself with being busy and advises others to do the same. Being busy nearly always translates as
cleaning
. When my father left, crying took up too much of her time, so she will waste no more on it, preferring to fill a bucket with hot soapy water and scrub.
You are not to say she is dead in front of your aunt,
she instructed and it worked: my tears were at bay.
She will not accept the facts. So, we’ll just say that Elinor is missing, until your aunt accepts the truth. Okay?
I agreed, nodding, before taking myself off to cry and waste time out from under her stern gaze.

Elinor’s death meant we frequented my Aunt Agnes’ house more often. Mother insisted there was a lot more to do, now that Agnes had gone, but that seemed strange to me. There had been three in their house – Agnes, Elinor and Tristan, Aunt Agnes’ boyfriend, although I’m not allowed to say that in front of Aunt Agnes, either. With Elinor gone and only two residents, surely there would be less to do? But I didn’t question Mother; it’s not something she rewarded. So, we started to go round to my aunt’s more frequently. Initially, we stayed for three days - me sleeping in my cousin’s room, which was creepy knowing she had gone so suddenly. But something I did caused an argument and my aunt sent us packing.

Something Old Man Merlin and I found.

The old man wasn’t a stranger before Elinor died. She and I would often go down to his house when I visited my Cedar Street relatives.

Are you two going to visit that old hoarder again?
my aunt would ask, tutting and smiling together, whenever Elinor and I said we were off to the Cadley residence.

In my day, we didn’t let young children mix with strange men,
my Great-Aunt Penny would offer.
It wasn’t considered healthy.

That was in your day, I wanted to say to her, and your day has gone. But I didn’t. It was the kind of thing Elinor might have said and been scolded for, but I wasn’t one to speak out-of-turn to elders.

Aunt Agnes was right though, about Old Man Merlin; he was a hoarder.

His house was at the very end of the street. A
new build
, Grandad Ronan called it. Although, it didn’t look very new to me; its bricks crawling with dirt, moss and algae, its window frames a little rusty, their glass frosted with condensation between the panes. Just like all the other houses down that street. But it was different in other ways.

It was above the water, to start with; a house built on steel stilts that elevated it, meaning the river road flowed beneath it, rather than through it. Also meaning it was
flood-fit
, another phrase from Grandad Ronan - unlike our homes, whose foundations sank deep into the water and constantly needed attention and fixing to survive the creep of the wet.

There were five separate storeys to the old man’s place, with each floor getting smaller as you went up, so the space at the apex was a single room in the eaves of the roof. The five levels lent the old man plenty of space in which to keep his store of treasures.

Junk,
Elinor had commented when she first saw it all, unkindly I felt, yet she was fascinated all the same. And it was this trove of
trash
that drew us back again and again.

Grandad Ronan told me that the Cadley residence was
purpose-built; built to keep the dogs out,
he said. That’s why it was constructed on top of the steel stilts. When the floods came, it served to keep the water out too and Old Man Merlin had a platform attached to the very front, like a small jetty. Here, he moored his small boat; it also served as a ledge between the river road and the entrance to his house.

The ground floor of the Cadley home was packed with what old Merlin called
white goods
, yet it didn’t seem a valid description to me, as they were brown with dust, grime and rust.

‘They were all white once,’ Old Merlin offered, on my first visit, as if that explained the labelling, before talking me through his vintage collection. The way he spoke, the sparkle that moistened his eyes; you’d think they were expensive cars he had collected and preserved, not the corroded casings of defunct domestic goods.

His collection served every kind of household need you could ever imagine. As he walked us through them on our first visit, he passionately reeled off their type, make and model like he was reciting poems. The front two rooms were packed with big items: washing machines, tumble-driers, dishwashers, refrigerators, freezers, fridge-freezers. The machines were stacked at least two high, where he had run out of floor space to store them.

‘This is a rarity,’ he told us, stopping by one item, covered in an old, worn, velvety throw. He pulled this off, like a magician revealing a trick, and gave it an affectionate rub. ‘Known as a twin-tub,’ he gleamed, clearly proud of the item.

Elinor had raised her eyebrows at me: he’s clearly mad, she signaled.

I shrugged, unsure. Maybe he had a point; maybe we just didn’t understand it, that’s all.

As well as the bulky
white goods,
as Old Man Merlin continued to refer to them, there were smaller items: microwaves, electric kettles and toasters, various food preparation devices and one devise called a
teasmade
that made him chuckle to himself. Further, various species of tubing and electrical leads snaked their way throughout both rooms, some coiled up in piles, others weaving in and out of the hoard. We had to be careful not to trip.

‘Would you like to see more?’ he had asked us, as we came out of these rooms and into his hallway. Not waiting for an answer, he strode towards the rear of his house, expecting us to follow. ‘If you liked it there, you’ll love it in here.’

Doubt it,
Elinor mouthed, but he was right: we did love it.

‘Televisions!’ I exclaimed, coming into the room first. Televisions were everywhere. About fifteen different screens. Some oblong and flat; others a bulky box shape, more like the microwaves I had seen in a previous room. Some had plastic black casings, others were colourful: one was orange; two had fake wood-effect shells.

I had seen one before – Papa H had showed me one he kept in a cupboard – a small, clumsy one, with a circle of wire attached to the top as an aerial – but it hadn’t worked. 
Doesn’t even spark up,
Papa H had explained,
not that we get any transmissions or signals anymore.
I had asked to see it again, about a month later, but he said he had thrown it out.
No use in keeping old rubbish,
he’d said, but Old Man Merlin obviously had a different view.

As I watched in awe, the old man flitted around and switched on each and every machine. Within a minute, all the televisions were lit up – most in colour, some in monochrome. Every other screen was showing a movie – people on a space ship, fighting with laser guns; the remaining ones displayed a snowy scene of white dots against a blue or black background.

‘I’ve some work to do on the others,’ the old man explained, apologising for those not exhibiting the film, but there was no need for an apology.

‘He’s never let me out here before,’ Elinor mouthed to me, just to make it clear she hadn’t been keeping this wonder a secret. ‘Didn’t have a clue about it.’

I was so transfixed by the screens and their digital spectacle that it was of little concern.

Then she turned back to Old Merlin. ‘Can you turn up the sound?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ Old Merlin said and he handed Elinor a black plastic bar with colourful buttons on it. ‘It’s a remote control, for one of the televisions. Point it at a screen, press a button and see what happens.’

Elinor glanced at me and grinned: it was like he had passed her a bar of precious metal.

‘Go on!’ I urged, excited to know what would happen.

She pointed, pressed and the screens went dead.

A chuckle in the sudden, shadowy darkness revealed Merlin had planned this trick all along.

‘What did I do?’ Elinor asked, a little afraid she’d broken something, despite the old man’s signal of humour.

‘Press it again,’ he urged. She did and, one by one, the screens flickered back to life. ‘I’ve got them all hooked up to the one control,’ he explained, as a relieved Elinor readily handed back the hand-held mechanism. ‘Right, you asked for sound, didn’t you?’

That first visit, I ventured no further. The old man got us both a stool each and we sat in front of those screens, transfixed, eyes glazed over in awe of the colourful spectacle, unable to believe the magic conjured before us; frightened to leave it in case the blink of an eye cut it out, like Elinor pressing the button.

‘What did he say that film was called again?’ I asked Elinor, as we rowed our small boat the few metres back to her house. My voice was muffled through my facemask, but she understood me clearly enough.

‘
Return of the Something,
I think,’ she replied, shrugging and adding: ‘
Special Edition,
whatever that means.’

‘It was special though, wasn’t it?’ I said, the sparkle clear in my tone and features, despite the rubber visor.

‘Yes,’ she smiled, her own joy effused through that single word.

We both rowed on in pleasant silence; a silence that was only interrupted by the ripple of the road river and a single word that Elinor expelled when it finally came to her, inches from her house: ‘Jedi!’