The Father's House (11 page)

The man then opened the right-hand rear door and started pulling at something heavy. Lucy saw a shoe dangling off one foot, a rucked up trouser leg, and then two legs. Out came the body of a woman. The man threw her over his shoulder, her head and arms dangling. Her thick auburn hair fell loosely down his back. Aunt Sarah appeared at the lobby door and the father spoke to her briefly. The big man disappeared into the lobby with his burden, and the father and Aunt Sarah followed. A minute later a light shone out from a small side window up in the second-floor flat.

What Dorothy had said about her mother flashed cross Lucy's mind, and a shiver ran down her spine as she thought she might be witnessing an abduction. She pushed the idea aside. Aunt Sarah was there, and she would never be involved in something like that. It must have been a new tenant arriving. Perhaps she'd been taken ill. Even so, the possibility of Dorothy's disposal and her own suddenly seemed more real.

The driver of the car was leaning against the bonnet and rolling a cigarette. He wore a chauffeur's livery with a peaked cap which hid his face as he bent forward to light the straggling bits of tobacco. The way he used his hands reminded her of Thomas, and she smiled as she tried to imagine him in a chauffeur's outfit. He'd be chuffed to have the chance to drive a car like that. Shaking out the match the man looked at his watch, and Lucy suddenly remembered that she was supposed to be in the cellar. She had to make a quick decision – whether to go back, or run away.

Her head buzzed rapidly with pros and cons and she realised that a hasty escape without preparation could be disastrous. She needed to find her birth record first. Also, Thomas had once told her that the police were infiltrated with the Magnifico's agents. If they picked her up they would bring her straight back, and her punishment would be far worse than three nights in the cellar, especially if what Dorothy had said about disposals was true.

Once in her own bed she'd have time to think about what she had just seen. There may have been some reasonable explanation. It would be wrong to jump to conclusions. At least she would have a roof over her head while she made her plans. Now that she knew how to get through the coal hole she would always have an escape route via the cellar if she needed it.

Running low along the pavement past the privet hedge that hid the front garden, she reached the path and slipped down into the coal hole. The cover was heavy but not too difficult to pull over, and it settled into place as though it had never been lifted. Back in the pitch darkness she slid down the underlay on the concrete slope, groped to her left for the candle and matches and, in the flickering light, made her way back to the wooden stairs. She snuffed the candle and put it and the matches back in the plastic bag, and hid them under the bottom step. If she ever needed them again the plastic bag would keep them from getting damp.

She was only just in time. Footsteps approached and the key turned. Lucy stood up blinking and stepped out into the hall. As she emerged Aunt Sarah was on her way to the bathroom with the towels. She looked at Lucy's inscrutable face, and was proud of the child's dignity. When she took the dirty clothes away and shook them out, she wondered why there was grass on the back of the jumper.

Lucy was on tenterhooks and burning with curiosity. She wondered if Aunt Sarah would say anything about the new arrival. When she was clean and sitting in the kitchen in her pyjamas, Aunt Sarah handed her a mug of hot chocolate.

“Tomorrow, make sure you and Paul play quietly if you go in the garden after school,” she said. “We've got a new tenant on the top floor, and she's not at all well.”

Later, as she lay in bed, Lucy heard the opening creak of the big double gates on the further side of the house. The car crunched down the gravel drive and out into the road, and the gates slowly shut. Who was the woman with the lovely auburn hair? Lucy wondered. More importantly however, she started making, discarding, and remaking plans, for getting hold of those records.

Father Copse checked the girl on the bed in the second-floor flat. Her breathing was even and her colour was good. Her wonderful red hair was a mess and there was mud on her clothes. She had been chosen for her looks alright! Drax would be green with envy if he ever found out. He had a penchant for redheads. Part of her sleeve had been torn away, and her arm was bruising rapidly. She had obviously put up a struggle, so she had spirit. Copse liked strong women. It was such a triumph to master them.

His wife, one of many, stood in the doorway watching him with sorrowful green eyes.

“At least she'll be company for you,” he said

She sighed. “Poor thing,” she said sadly, and turned away.

Back in his study he sat at his desk with the Wives' file in front of him. He recorded the date, and the name ‘as yet unknown'. He wrote a brief description of the girl's colouring and approximate height. Tomorrow he would find out her name. Certainly she was a beauty, and whoever had tracked her down would have ensured she had brains. But he didn't really want another wife. He wanted fewer, not more. He had had enough of wives. And he didn't want more children either. Now he'd have two women upstairs living in the lap of luxury and costing him a fortune. If she proved amenable to conversion to the Holy Cause, he'd send her over to the commune. It'd be cheaper.

All his hopes now lay with the post of deputy to the Holy Envoy. If he were to be appointed he would be able to hand over his domestic responsibilities to another father. He would just keep the woman upstairs, and, of course, the two children in the flat below. He had plans for them. The boy was the most handsome of all his sons, and he intended grooming him to become a father. As for the girl, well, she didn't look up to much at the moment but, judging from her colouring and bone structure, she was going to be strikingly beautiful one day in an exotic sort of way. If he proved right about that he'd be able to use her for negotiating purposes with other fathers. He cursed when he remembered Lucy had brought dishonour on the household. It was just the sort of thing that could hamper his chance of promotion to the Deputy Envoy post, and would greatly please his fellow candidates, especially Father Drax.

He sighed and rose to put the file away. The prospect of another wife and yet more children was an indication of the Magnifico's trust in him as a true and valued follower, and he must bear his burden with gratitude. But he was so tired! A hot circle of pressure was squeezing his head. It came more frequently these days – his ring of fire, his crown of pain. The Magnifico was trying to tell him something, He picked up the intercom and phoned down to the kitchen for some coffee and a piece of chocolate cake.

Sarah had just finished hand-washing Lucy's clothes for the third night running. They were now dripping on the wooden airer over the bath, and she was about to go to bed. She pushed away the thought that the father had two hands and could have made his own coffee, and that he had two legs and could have come down to get his own cake.

Lucy's incarceration had upset her deeply, though of course it was not for her to question the Magnifico's instructions. Bitterness raised its ugly head for a moment, but she managed to slap it down. She pushed some loose wisps of hair into the bun at the back of her head, washed her hands, and prepared the tray for its upward journey. Her reward was yet to come in the next world, and she looked forward to that.

The woman upstairs peeped in on her new companion. She'd sleep for a while yet, the father had said when he left. Sleep? A charming euphemism for drugged up to the eyeballs.

Wives had come and gone before, and Maria intended do all she could to persuade this latest one to pretend to take up the Holy Cause. If she could act convincingly enough she might be transferred to the commune where there was more chance of escape, perhaps even with her own child.

With a sinking heart she realised this new arrival meant that the Holy Leaders would come, and the brainwashing would begin all over again. The videos and the recordings would tell the stories of the discovery of the first Holy Envoy as a baby in an empty fruit crate. He, an abandoned child of destitution, was destined to lead his followers to a life of strict morality and, through his martyrdom, to Paradise. In the name of the Magnifico, he and his successors would rule the world and cleanse it of sin. The only music would be hymns of praise. There would be one race, one language, one religion and one ruler.

She sat down by the bed and held the girl's hand. It was the hand of a very young woman, perhaps nineteen or twenty, on the threshold of adulthood and full of hopes and plans – just as Maria had been when they brought her in fifteen years ago. Now all hopes and plans would come to nothing unless there was some means of escape. Her only joy would be to nurse her child for a week or two, if she had one. Maria studied the porcelain skin and delicate features, and smoothed the glorious hair. Somewhere, someone would be desperately searching for a daughter or sister or lover. She thought sadly of her own beloved parents, far away in the west of Wales. Their hearts must have broken long ago.

She rose from the chair and went to the window. It looked out over the back garden, but was too high and too small to give much of a view. Looking down into the branches of the big lime tree, she longed to see its leaves burst forth again, a fresh green reminder of the seasons of the outside world. The window sash pushed up easily, and she breathed in the night air. She studied the steel bars minutely and gave them a tug or two as she had done many times before. They were criss-crossed and set into the surrounding concrete. There was no way she could remove them.

There was a rustling sound and she looked towards the bed. The girl's hands were fluttering slightly and her lips moved. Maria approached and took her hand, and her eyes opened dimly.

“Where am I?”

“I'll explain later,” she said gently. “What's your name?”

“Claudia.” The girl's eyes closed. “What's yours?”

“He took my name away long ago. I used to be called Maria.”

She stroked the smooth hand as her mind travelled its never-ending journey searching for ways to get out of here. Once she had tried to climb into the dumb waiter but the space was too shallow, and that woman, Martha, who came to clean once a week, was always accompanied by a minder, so there was no chance of overcoming her. Martha would never have helped her even if the minder hadn't been there. She was rigid with religion and devoted to the service of the Magnifico.

Claudia opened her eyes again.

“I'll fetch you some water.” Maria's soft lilting voice was soothing. “When you've woken up properly I'll explain where you are.”

By the time spring came Paul had grown into a quiet and solemn child. He followed Lucy round like a little dog, and when the school holidays began at the end of April she was put in charge of him.

“I've got enough to do without running around after a little busybody all day,” said Sarah. “You can look after him. It'll be good practice for you for when you're an aunt.”

If it was raining they would sit at the kitchen table drawing, or would squash together in Aunt Sarah's sagging chair and Lucy would read to him from her old book of fairy stories. Sometimes she would teach him his ABC and how to count on his fingers. When it was fine they went over the road to the common and played by the pond, or they would kick a ball in the garden or dig their flowerbeds.

Lucy had her own plot where she grew the seeds that Thomas brought her from his job with the corporation gardens. Paul was given a plot too, and together they marked it out with little white pebbles gathered from the drive in front of the garage. Thomas offered to make them a swing. With Aunt Sarah's permission, he screwed rings into a fine strong branch of the big lime tree, pulled ropes through and secured them tightly. He made a seat like a box that Paul could sit in safely and yet was big enough for Lucy, with holes for their legs to stick out. Paul loved the swing. Lucy would push him back and forth, higher and higher, and he was happy.