The Father's House (9 page)

The next morning it was cold. Lucy put on school trousers instead of her tunic. They rubbed against her sore legs. She was stiff all over and had bruises on her arm and shoulder where she had fallen down the cellar steps. The walk to school was more difficult than usual.

The lollipop lady smiled. Lucy managed a sort of smile back, and went miserably on down to the lights. She was a pariah to be despised, not worthy of kindness – she who had mocked the Magnifico. Looking neither left nor right she climbed the school steps, her head bowed.

“Welcome to the guidance club,” called a cheerful voice behind her.

Dorothy caught up with her and smiled.

“What do your legs feel like?”

“Sore,” said Lucy.

“You'll get over it. I did. Stop shrinking in to yourself like that. Stand upright and show you don't care. Be proud. That's what I do.” She demonstrated by tossing back her dark curls, straightening her shoulders, and giving a cheeky wink. “What set you off?”

“David.”

Dorothy stopped in her tracks and stared. “What?”

“It wasn't his fault. My reminder didn't work. I didn't use it in time.”

In the playground other children looked at Lucy furtively, too embarrassed for her to say anything. She sat on her own behind the bike shed during the break. The pain inside her was worse than the pain on her legs, and she wished Dorothy would come so that she could ask her how long it would take to stop hurting.

Dorothy didn't come. Lucy could see her in the distance looking bored and fidgety as she joined in the eternal game of rounders. When Aunt Mavis clapped her hands Lucy crept out from behind the shed, and joined the queue to go in. The other children shuffled away from her, as though they might catch some of her pariah disease. She'd been like them once. Now she knew what it felt like. David surreptitiously passed her a note in class saying, ‘Sorry'. She nodded, but the threat of the cellar hung over her, and by this time she couldn't smile at all even though she tried.

George was in his front room looking out into the road. He waved at Lucy but she didn't wave back. A few moments later he came running up behind her, shoelaces undone and one arm through a sleeve of his anorak.

“Wait!” he shouted. “I want to talk to you.”

Lucy pretended not to hear him. If she were seen talking to a non-follower in the street the three nights in the cellar might be increased to four.

“Why are you so snooty?” he panted, pulling on the other sleeve.

Lucy stopped and stared at him. How could a pariah be snooty?

“Why should I be snooty?”

“Because you won't cross with us with the lollipop lady. Because you go to private school.”

“What's private school?”

“It's where you go. Anyone can go to our school, but not to yours. So it's private.”

“Oh, I didn't know that.” She started walking on. George followed her.

“I mustn't talk to you,” she said, not looking at him.

“See! That's what I mean. You're snooty.” George nodded his ginger curls in vigorous emphasis.

Lucy stopped again.

“I'm not snooty,” she said crossly, “It's just that I'm not allowed to talk to strangers in the street.” She carried on walking, and George tagged along beside her.

“Why are you bothering me?”

“It's because you belong to that sect,” he said. “I wanted to see what a person from a sect talks like.”

“What's a sect?”

“My dad says it's a bunch of nutters who don't let girls have jobs and shut them up to have babies and pray for the rest of their lives. And he knows everything.”

“Go away,” said Lucy. “I don't like you.”

“I'm just curious, that's all. Curiosity is a sign of intelligence.” He didn't sound at all offended, but to Lucy's relief he turned back.

She hurried as fast as her sore legs would let her, up the hill then left through the little lane, and over the common towards the father's house – supposedly her home. It was not her home. A home was a haven. This was simply the place where she lived. Turning to look at the cheerfully painted backs of the houses on South Hill, Lucy stood and counted three down from the lane. That was where George lived. He had a mother and father and little sister in a pushchair. His house was a home.

There was no light on in the hall as she approached the father's house. Aunt Sarah and Paul would be in the kitchen. The father wouldn't be home yet. Perhaps a miracle would happen and he'd never come home, and they'd have the house to themselves. There'd still be the tenant on the top floor, but that wouldn't bother them. She wondered briefly what he (or she) did all day, but she didn't really care.

She walked reluctantly up the front path, pausing only to look at the coal hole cover with an interest she'd never felt before. Her indignation at George's remarks was banished by the dread of the evening to come.

Aunt Sarah had made a cake for tea, and Paul was already picking crumbs off his plate and asking for more. Cake was normally something special for birthdays and holy days, but today Lucy couldn't eat it.

“Eat up,” said Aunt Sarah. “I made it especially for you.”

“Thank you, Aunt Sarah,” Lucy whispered, but the crumbs caught in her throat.

Her homework stared up at her from the page but refused to jump into her head, and her ears strained for the sound of the father's arrival. At seven o'clock he passed the kitchen window and entered the lobby, and Lucy heard the stairs creak as he went up to his flat. A few minutes later the footsteps creaked downwards and she cowered over her school books. The key turned in the lock, and his huge frame appeared in the kitchen doorway.

“Get up.”

Aunt Sarah turned away towards the kitchen sink, and started to run the tap over the children's teatime crockery. Lucy stood up and meekly made her way towards the cellar door. She did not wait to be thrown down, and clutched on to the wooden rail as the door closed behind her. Sitting on the steps she listened as the father's footsteps returned to the kitchen. He said something to Aunt Sarah, and then the door to the lobby slammed shut.

Lucy closed her eyes and when she opened them the darkness gradually softened and she could see the ring of light at the far end of the cellar. Clinging to the rail and feeling each step carefully with her foot before treading firmly, she reached the bottom of the stairs. The smell of mould and damp and coal dust was as oppressive as ever. She fixed her eyes on the ring of light and stumbled forward, her hand outstretched to the wall on the right. Her fingers scraped through cobwebs and her legs knocked against unseen objects.

As her eyes grew used to the darkness the ring of light gave shape to the concrete slope below it. Sinking to her hands and knees she felt around for the wooden crate, and dragged it to the base of the slope. She pushed herself up with one knee as her hands scrabbled to get a grip on the concrete. Pausing to gather all her strength, she pushed with her toes and then the other knee, and up. As she stretched out one arm to touch the ring of light, she slid back onto the wooden crate.

She sat down on it to think. What she needed was something to give her a grip. She looked around at the faintly visible shapes around her. Her hands were numb with wet and cold as she groped past rotting cardboard and musty clothes and touched the rubber underlay of a piece of old rug. She laid the underlay flat up the slope and wedged the crate against the bottom end to hold it in place. She put a smaller wooden box on top, and climbed up. At that moment the father's booming voice and Aunt Sarah's faint response floated through from the kitchen.

Lucy jumped down from the box and hastily scrabbled her way back into the darkness. When the door opened she was sitting on the bottom step. She emerged as filthy as the night before, her eyes screwed up against the blinding light. The bath water was running, and she made her way to her room to fetch her night clothes.

When the father had departed Aunt Sarah fetched a kettle of boiling water and poured it into the bath. Lucy was surprised and silently grateful. Aunt Sarah took away the dirty clothes. There was no washing machine and no dryer, but the extra work would be nothing if she could only ease the child's misery without displeasing the Magnifico.

Later, Lucy lay in bed and thought of George's mother who'd made him apologise. His father thought Lucy was a nutter, but he was called Dad. No way was Father Copse a dad. She couldn't even call him her father. He was
the
father, not hers, just the Magnifico's agent and nothing more.

She waited until long after Aunt Sarah had gone to bed, then crept out to the kitchen and found the torch. Its light moved over the table and chairs and cupboards and worktops, but there was nothing that could help her climb the concrete slope in the cellar. She tried the back door and the door to the lobby but they were both locked and the keys were hidden in Aunt Sarah's secret hiding place. Lucy switched off the torch and put it back on the shelf by the door. She sat down at the table and laid her head on her arms.

For a moment she slept. She was woken by a dragging sound outside near the bins, and sat bolt upright. The window looked out onto the side path. She stepped over and peeped cautiously through. To the left she could see the side and back of the garage. A hooded figure was shifting the ladder slightly and steadying it at the bottom. It climbed the ladder and stepped over a small turret. Crossing over to the further side of the flat roof of the garage, it dropped down on all fours, disappeared briefly, and then reappeared crawling very gingerly along the high garden wall towards the lime tree to the right. It clambered onto a bough that stretched over the wall towards the next-door garden, and then vanished into the darkness of the branches that faced the windows at the side of the wing.

Lucy watched and waited for what seemed like an eternity. She knew she should go and tell Aunt Sarah, but couldn't move. Suddenly the figure reappeared along the bough. Lucy could see it clearly in the moonlight. Instead of returning along the wall it swung down from the branch's lowest point, landed with a faint thump on the lawn, and disappeared behind the wing. Lucy ran to the back door and looked through the glass panes. She caught a quick glimpse of it before it vanished through the back gate into the alley that ran along behind the houses.

Her mind was suddenly alive and clear as a bell. She remembered the candles that Aunt Sarah kept in the dresser drawer. Taking one candle and a box of matches, she put them in an old plastic bag retrieved from the kitchen rubbish bin. She picked up the torch and made her way quietly to the cellar door. Silently she turned the handle and switched on the torch. She went down the wooden stairs and put the plastic bag with its contents under the bottom step. Shutting the door carefully behind her she crept back to the kitchen, put the torch in its place, and tiptoed down the hall to her room. She switched on the light and checked her clothes for coal dust. There seemed to be no visible signs of the cellar. Giving the clothes a good sniff she decided they didn't smell of the cellar either. She was almost looking forward to tomorrow. Despite the strange behaviour of the hooded figure she slept well.

Lucy tapped at the shell of her boiled egg. “Aunt Sarah,” she said. “What's a nutter?”

Sarah's stern brow wrinkled for a moment, and she looked perplexed.

“I don't know. It's not a word I've heard. Is it someone who gathers nuts?”

“I think it's supposed to be an insult,” said Lucy. “Yesterday in the street a boy called someone a nutter, and it sounded rude.”

“Well, I wouldn't know about that then. Was the boy from your school?”

“No.”

“I hope you didn't talk to him.”

“No. I was just walking past and I heard it.”

“Good. Now eat up and get a move on.”

In the lunch break Lucy found Dorothy sitting behind a pile of rubble at the rear of the bicycle shed. Her heart lifted as soon as she saw her. Dorothy, with her rosy cheeks and laughing eyes, always made her feel better, even if she didn't have faith in the Magnifico's purpose. But something was wrong. Those cheeks were pale and the eyes were dull.

Dorothy looked up as Lucy approached. “Ah, there you are,” she said.

“Why are you sitting here?” asked Lucy. “Are you feeling sad?”

“It's only so they can't see me,” Dorothy explained. “I've got something to tell you – to warn you about.”

Lucy felt a stab of fear. Dorothy shifted up a bit to make room for her and gave her a little push. “Come on. Get further back out of sight. If we're seen they'll think we're plotting. That's why I didn't come yesterday.”

“What would we be plotting?” asked Lucy, squeezing herself further along. She sat down gingerly, carefully adjusting her legs to avoid the sore bits.

“I don't know, but they'll think we are. Running away perhaps.”