The If Game (12 page)

She stared at him. ‘Why? Because of the disgrace, of course. Now, that's enough,' she said, getting up from the table. She called out, ‘Chris! You can come back now if you want.' She was bustling about, fetching mugs and plates, preparing for a meal.

Stephen said, ‘I wish you'd tell me some more.' But the boy Chris was in the room with them now, and Rose shook her head.

‘You'll stay and have some tea?' she asked, but Stephen said, ‘No, thanks. I ought to be getting back.' He hoped she wouldn't ask where he was going, as he couldn't have told her anything she would believe. To his relief she allowed him to leave. Probably she was as pleased as he was to end the conversation.

Outside the door he was lost. He hadn't taken notice of the roads along which she had driven him. He walked in what he hoped was the right direction, and finally, despairing, asked a passer-by to direct him to the tennis courts in the park, hoping that there was only one anywhere near. It was a long hot walk, and he was immensely relieved when he saw trees and grass and heard the sound of tennis players hitting balls and calling to each other. Beyond the courts he saw the door he had come through. Gratefully, he turned the key in the lock and escaped. Back to his own world. As he stepped through the door into the little street in his own town, he wondered what would happen if on one of these occasions his key wouldn't open the door and he found himself stuck in that other strange world.

The next key that Stephen used was not one from his collection. It did not lead him into another life, it did not provide him with an adventure.

He had been considering how to find out more about his mum. Should he confront his dad by saying, ‘I know that my mum's name was Margaret, and I know her family are all living in Australia. Now I want you to tell me why they went out there and what the disgrace was.'? He didn't think his dad would tell him anything. He would simply put on that closed up look and say, ‘Stephen, I've told you, I don't want to talk about her.' And that would be that.

If he was ever to find out what had really happened, he would have to find another way. He didn't expect there would be any chance of doing this, but a week or two after his last adventure, Fortune played into his hands. It was a Saturday, so he was at home when his dad rang from the garage to say he hadn't got his keys. Would Stephen look around for them, and would he be there to let him in when he got back that evening?

Stephen found the keys at once. Dad had left them in his room. Something he never usually did, but this morning he wasn't going to work at the garage but was being taken off by George, his friend, to look at another garage which was for sale outside the town. The two of them were going to work out whether they could afford to buy it if they decided it would be a good investment. Stephen hadn't understood whether they wanted to run it
instead of the one they already had in town or if it would be an extra. So his dad hadn't needed his car keys and he'd forgotten the lot.

Stephen rang the garage to leave a message for Dad that the keys were safe and that he'd be there to let him in. After which he'd sat down again to go on reading, when it occurred to him to have a look at Dad's keys. There were several in the bunch. The Yale front door key, of course. The two car keys, doors and ignition. Four or five keys to all the garage gates and doors and cupboards and drawers that had to be kept locked when the place was empty. There was the key of the padlock which fastened Dad's one solid piece of luggage, an old brown suitcase, which he never used. There was the key of his desk in the flat. But he never locked it. And there was another key which Stephen didn't recognize. An ordinary key with a rounded top, a long neck and quite a simple pattern of wards.

Like the key of a cupboard or a box or a chest. Or a drawer.

He'd been looking at it for half a minute before he suddenly realized what it was. It was the key to the locked drawer of Dad's little chest.

He looked at it for a much longer time after he'd identified it before he decided to use it. Then, feeling guilty and excited and defiant, he went into Dad's bedroom. Why shouldn't he look inside the drawer? It probably contained nothing he hadn't seen dozens of times before. Dad had never told him not to. If Dad had any guilty secrets, he shouldn't have left his keys lying around where anyone could take them.

He inserted the ordinary key in the lock and opened the drawer. It didn't look promising. There was a bundle of letters, there was an out-of-date diary. Besides these were some yellowing clippings from newspapers, held
together by an elastic band. There was a photograph album, much the worse for wear, a tin box labelled ‘Capstan Tobacco' and several biros which probably didn't work, judging by their age.

He picked up the tin box, which rattled in a promising way, but when opened showed him only some old coins, dating before decimalization. Large dark pennies, worn thin with use, two sixpences, what he recognized as a half crown, and a folded brown note, which disappointingly turned out to be worth not ten pounds, but ten shillings. Fifty pence. Not exactly treasure trove.

Next he investigated the newspaper clippings. They all dealt with the same subject. A murder. He didn't bother to read the text, just glanced at the headlines and the pictures. WOMAN KILLS ABUSING STEPFATHER, the big type screamed, and MURDER OR MANSLAUGHTER? Stephen wasn't much interested. He wondered why his dad had wanted to keep these cuttings, he had never seemed to want to read this sort of story as long as Stephen could remember. He looked briefly at the pictures. The stepfather was an ordinary sort of bloke, rather good looking in a foxy sort of way. The girl had curly dark hair and, without being beautiful or even pretty, had a face that made you want to look at it again. She looked lively, as if she could have been fun to be with. The pictures, Stephen supposed, had been taken before she was accused of murder, because in most of them she was smiling, or looking serious but as if she might smile at any minute. Someone had blacked out her name all through the article.

He looked at the last cutting to see what had happened to her. She had been found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to prison for twelve years. He wondered what she looked like now.

He looked at the bundle of letters. But although he was
already looking at what his dad hadn't meant him to see, he baulked at reading his dad's private correspondence. He'd hate it if anyone read what he wrote privately, though that wasn't much. He had once tried to keep a diary, but either it was dead boring or embarrassing, and he'd quickly given it up. The thought of anyone reading what he had written had made him sweat with shame. He pulled the photograph album towards him and looked at the first pages. There was a picture of a house, and underneath it was written ‘14 Acanthus Grove' and a date seventeen years back. He had an idea that this was where his dad had lived with Gran when he was a young man. There was a figure standing at the open door of the house, but it was too small and indistinct for him to see who it was. Then there were photographs of groups, all of young men. Some of them wore sports gear, so he supposed this was a team his dad had belonged to. Indeed, by looking very closely, he thought he could see Dad in the middle row, looking seriously at the camera. He had had more hair in those days and was larger all round, not fat, but quite well covered. Another group was of school children. Stephen couldn't be sure that he had recognized his dad among those rows of boys, with the meaningless grins children display when the photographer says, ‘Smile, please!'

He turned two pages, from which looked people he'd never seen, with his dad's neat writing below the faces of young men with cowlicks, young men with surprisingly long hair, young men and boys looking embarrassed, pleased with themselves, but one or two looked as if they'd been caught unawares and were at ease, natural, not putting on any sort of act.

He came to the next page which was entirely taken up with one large picture of a girl. A girl with dark curling hair, looking at the camera as if she was just about to ask
a question. Not a beautiful girl, not even a very pretty girl, but a girl who was immensely alive. In her hand she was holding a flower. A white flower, a very neatly arranged flower, with all its petals in order round the centre, so perfect that it almost might not have been real.

Underneath the portrait his dad had written ‘Margaret' and a date.

He put out his hand for the newspaper cuttings. He compared the picture of the murderess with the Margaret in the album. There could be no doubt that they were the same.

He couldn't believe it. He did not want to believe it.

He turned the next page of the album. There was the girl again, with her hair done differently and wearing another outfit, but recognizably the same. She wasn't looking at the camera, this time, but down at the baby in her arms. Underneath this picture his dad's writing read, ‘Margaret and Stephen'.

Stephen?

It couldn't be him. He couldn't have a murderess as a mother.

He looked at the date. It was a little after his own birthday. The same year. It was not a stranger that the Margaret was holding.

It was him.

He felt cold. He felt sick.

He put the album back in the drawer together with the bits of old newspaper. He couldn't remember how everything had been placed when he'd first opened the drawer. He just had to hope that his dad wouldn't remember either. He shut and locked the drawer, feeling all the time as if none of this was real. He hadn't opened the drawer, he hadn't read those paragraphs in the newspaper, he hadn't looked in the photograph album. He went to his room and lay on the bed.

He couldn't think straight. What he had seen must add up to some story, but it was a story he didn't want to know. He found that he was saying to himself, ‘No! No! It can't be that!' The pictures of the not quite pretty girl kept on coming before his eyes. The posed photographs with his dad's neat writing below. That unforgiving date. The headlines from the newspapers. He tried to push them away, but they always came back. Presently he stood up and walked about his room. It wasn't large enough. He went out into the passage and walked to the kitchen, back to his room, along the passage again, the kitchen again, the passage, his room. He picked up the keys and opened the drawer. Perhaps the whole thing had been a nightmare, none of it was true. But there were the yellowed cuttings, there was the album. He didn't need to examine them again to know what they told him.

He locked the drawer. He felt now that he couldn't care whether or not Dad found out what he had done. He didn't care about anything. He wished that he was dead.

He was still sitting in the kitchen when his dad rang the front door bell. He followed Stephen back into the kitchen.

‘Done anything about supper?' he asked.

‘No.'

‘Put the potatoes on like I told you?'

‘No. Sorry.'

‘Forgot, did you?'

‘Suppose so.' He couldn't stand this. He left the kitchen and shut himself into his own room. He heard the telly spouting the evening news. He heard the door of the fridge shut several times. He lay on his bed and tried not to think. He felt shrunk in misery.

After a long time he heard his dad calling. When he didn't answer, Dad came and looked in at his door.

‘Stephen? What's wrong? Not feeling so good?'

‘I'm all right,' he made himself say.

‘Supper's ready.'

‘I don't want any.'

Dad came over and felt his forehead. ‘What's wrong, then?'

‘I told you. Nothing.'

‘If there's nothing, you can come and have something to eat.'

‘No.' If he tried to eat, he'd vomit. He knew.

‘Gut trouble?'

‘I'm not hungry.'

One good thing about Dad was that he didn't waste time on words. Now he said, ‘Well, I am. I'll see to you later,' and left.

He was back nearly an hour later. He said, ‘I've put your supper in the fridge. It'll be there when you want it.'

He didn't feel as if he would ever want to eat again. He was grateful when Dad left. He went to the bathroom, drank a glassful of cold water and washed his face. Back in his room he lay on the bed again and wondered if he would ever be able to sleep. Then it was dark and he heard his dad opening and shutting doors. He was cold. He pulled a blanket over himself. The next thing he knew, it was morning. He woke as if it was to be another ordinary day, not for a moment recalling what he had learned the day before. Then, like a blow from a great hammer, he remembered. His whole life had been shattered. He did not know how he could live out the rest of it.

He did not know what he was going to say to his dad. He knew that somehow he had got to get the answers to the questions he had to ask.

He spent the day rehearsing how to begin. But everything he thought of sounded stupid, and everything struck him as being exactly the sort of thing that his dad would hate. By the time Dad got back from work that evening, Stephen was too anxious and too frightened to know well what he was doing.

Which was perhaps why, as soon as they were sitting over supper, he said, ‘Dad! Can I ask you something?'

‘What?'

His mouth was dry and he found breathing difficult. ‘Was my mum called Margaret?'

Dad looked at him. Stephen saw that he had guessed right. There was a long silence. Then his dad said, ‘Why?'

‘I wanted to know.'

‘You've seen something?'

‘I saw the photos.'

‘Where? Your aunt?'

He had to confess. ‘I looked in that drawer.'

‘It's locked.'

‘You left your keys here.'

He didn't know what he had expected. Anger? Fury? Punishment? But after another silence, his dad said, ‘I suppose you couldn't not.'