The Skull (11 page)

His bedroom door was only three paces away and it was wide open. He leapt towards it, landing in the middle of the hallway. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his parents' door handle turning. Skidding across the polished floor, he raced through his own door. He almost closed it behind him, then spun around to grab the handle and twist, pushing the door silently into place and releasing the handle carefully so that the latch let out only the tiniest click.

In the moment before the door shut, Henry saw his father framed in the doorway at the far end of the corridor. But he was looking back into his own room, not out into the hall. Henry had made it.

Henry was dressed for school and at the breakfast table exactly on time. In fact, he had been awake and
watching the clock ever since getting home. His father slowly buttered his toast, scraping the knife back and forth until the butter vanished into the bread. A plate of cold meat sat at the centre of the table on a decorated china plate. Henry and his mother were careful to refrain from taking any until Father had selected his slices of choice.

Henry just wanted the meal to end so that he could leave for school. His father paused and looked at him. Perhaps he sensed that something was wrong. Henry did his best to hold his father's gaze, but in the end he looked away. He was still afraid of him. Yet something
had
changed. Yesterday, he had believed everything his father said because he knew more than Henry about the nature of the world.

Today, Henry knew more. Nothing his father said could be taken as the only interpretation of truth again.

‘The more I hear,' his father's voice floated across the table towards him, ‘about that school of yours, the less I like it.' Henry felt an accusation in his tone, as if he were solely responsible for the school, its teaching methods and its attitude towards discipline. ‘The government has done children no good with its meddling,' his father went on. ‘You should know I am considering other options.'

Henry knew what that meant. It meant being sent away to St Mary's. The mere thought made him shiver. St Mary's was more terrifying than any dinosaur. His own school was strict enough, but he knew it was nothing compared to St Mary's. His friends' parents used St Mary's as a threat. One whisper of the name was enough to make a naughty child behave.

The children of St Mary's were silent, humourless and blank. He'd seen them in town, walking in rows, heads bowed. Every spark of character erased from them. It was said that on their way between lessons they marched in time, and even at meals, they sat in silence. St Mary's had only one purpose for its students. Every graduate, or at least every graduate that anyone talked about, had a single calling. Every pupil that served his full term joined the church.

Henry felt a strange fury rising in his stomach. He knew it would be pointless, but he had to speak. He opened his mouth with no idea what he was going to say, but something stopped him.

His father was looking straight past him, his expression changing. His eyes widened, and his mouth was agape in horror or anger. He slowly rose to his feet.

Henry turned and followed his father's gaze. He
was staring out into the back hallway, and there, clearly outlined on the polished wooden floor, were muddy prints of Henry's bare feet. Between them, fallen leaves and sticks were scattered.

‘What is this?' Henry's father leapt up from the table, and strode over to the offending marks. Henry stammered, unable to speak.

His father's eyes traced the footprints on to the stairs and upwards. He threw an accusing glance back at Henry and then followed the trail up the stairs, meticulously picking up leaves and sticks as he went. He said nothing, but Henry felt as though his throat was being squeezed hard. He swallowed.

Behind him, he could hear the slosh of water. His mother was already silently scrubbing the floor.

Henry watched his father follow his footprints to the top of the stairs and across the hall into his bedroom. By the time Henry got to the door, his father was already bending over the bed. He cursed himself for leaving the muddy trail on his way in. With all the curtains closed and the house in darkness, he hadn't noticed the trail of muck behind him. But at least he knew the bed itself was clean. He hadn't got into it since he returned from the forest. He had the worst of it now.

Suddenly, his father bent forward, reaching down and into the bed. Henry's heart sank as his father took two objects from under the pillow and stood up, staring at them, his face reddening. Henry had been wrong: things were now a lot worse.

His father's hand shook as he held out the printed pamphlet and the tiny fossilised shell in front of Henry's face. He said nothing.

‘I…' started Henry, but his father grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the room. His wrist hurt as he was hauled down the stairs and out through the kitchen into the garden. It was an effort to stop himself falling over as he stumbled across the garden to the woodshed.

Henry's father stopped abruptly at the door to the shed. Outside, logs for the fire were piled in neat stacks. In front of them, a wide flat stone lay on the ground. Henry used it to hold logs while he chopped them for the fire. Sometimes his father made him chop wood as a punishment, but not today. This was far more serious. His father released his arm, leaving him standing bewildered in front of the stone block, and stepped into the shed. He didn't dare move.

When his father emerged, he was holding a large, heavy hammer. Its handle was as long as Henry's arm.
He stood in front of him for a long time, hefting the iron head in both hands. Henry waited, shaking.

After a long pause, his father held the sledgehammer out to him. Henry took it. It was so heavy he nearly dropped it on his foot. It was an effort to stand up straight, but he did, looking his father directly in the eye for the first time. He was as furious as Henry had ever seen him, but still he said nothing.

Henry's forearm ached under the weight of the hammer, but he refused to let his arm drop. The muscles began to burn with the strain. Eventually, his father bent down and placed something on the flat stone, then stood up again, holding Henry's eye with his own.

Slowly, Henry looked down. There, on the flat stone, lay the fossil shell. Its coiled ridges stood out in creamy white against the slate surrounding it. Henry lifted his eyes back to his father's. Again, he said nothing, instead nodding from the hammer to the fossil, and back to Henry. Then he stepped back, expectantly.

His meaning was clear enough and Henry knew there was nothing he could do but obey. He looked down at the delicate shape, took a deep breath and raised the hammer above his head. It was all he could do to lift it.

He paused, his arms shaking, swallowing back tears, then brought the hammer down hard. The fossil jumped on the stone slab, but it didn't break. He hauled the hammer up again and smashed it down.

This time, the stone cracked from end to end and the slate fell away in pieces. The tiny shell lay completely exposed for the first time in three hundred million years. A perfect geometric spiral. So detailed and beautiful it could have been alive. Henry almost expected to see the hair-thin tentacles of the ammonite within, curling out of the shell to haul it away.

He lifted the sledgehammer and put his full weight behind it. The shell splintered into a powder of glittering crystals.

Henry dropped the hammer and stood up, staring defiantly at his father through his tears. Still, his father said nothing. With a look of disdain he turned away, and headed back towards the house.

Henry spent the day at school barely listening to his teachers' droning repetitions. He thought about the shell and his dream and about the skull in the old tomb. Most of all, he thought about his father.
Something told him that his punishment was not over. Something had changed between them. Whatever he now did with his life, he would have to do it alone.

When he got home, his father was at the church and his mother was busy in the kitchen. But as soon as he entered the dining room, he noticed it. The writing desk was always scrupulously tidy, just as everything his father touched was scrupulously tidy. Every object had a proper place and nothing was ever moved unless it was being used. Even the blotting paper was cut into equally sized pieces and arranged in a neat pile, held down by a carved wooden paperweight inlaid with brass leaves.

Anything out of place immediately caught the eye, and today, a long, white envelope sat at an angle in the middle of the desk. It was addressed, in his father's writing, to the headmaster of St Mary's.

The letter was sealed, but Henry didn't need to read it. There was only one reason for his father to write to St Mary's. Henry was to be sent there. He turned, ran upstairs to his room and threw himself down on his bed, sobbing. This was it. Quite simply, it was the end of his life.

He cried until the sun started to fade, sliding in a golden-red ball towards the treetops. His mind took
him out into the woods where his secret lay hidden in the old tomb. He thought of the savage world the dinosaur must have grown up in and wished he could have its nature. Its strength. What, he wondered, could a boy achieve if he had the courage of a dinosaur in this polite, slow-moving world? He would not achieve anything at St Mary's, that much was certain.

By the time he came down to dinner, his eyes were dry and his face was set in an emotionless mask. His father was still not home and would not be until late. His mother tried to make conversation about the day at school, but Henry responded as little as he could. She smiled at him once or twice. A calm, sympathetic sort of smile that worked for a bruised knee, but would do no good now. His mind was fixed and nothing could be allowed to change it.

When dinner was finished and cleared away, it was time for bed. Before going upstairs, Henry watched his mother gather up a handful of his clothes from the washing basket and pile them in the dining room. With his father out, she could settle to mending and altering them.

As she sat there, darning with an oil lamp beside her, he wanted to go to her. To tell her he wouldn't be needing his school clothes any more. But he
didn't. Instead, he stood at the door, and said softly, ‘Goodnight.' Then he turned, closed the dining room door and walked up the stairs.

When he reached the top, he opened his bedroom door, picked up the large leather bag he had already packed with a few of his toughest clothes and most precious belongings, and crept back down the stairs and out of the back door.

He crossed the garden and the road at a run, and then he was into the woods. A little further on, he met the path that led away from the village.

It was that easy.

As he walked, he thought to himself,
It was the right decision. I had no choice
. At any rate, it was his decision, and his alone. He knew that children younger than him had made their way in England. Besides, he was educated and willing to learn more. And London was just a week's walk away.

He shifted the weight of his bag to his other shoulder and walked on. He wouldn't be missed until morning and by then he would be miles away.

He followed the curve of the path up and over the hill. When he reached the top, he could see out over
the downs in the blue moonlight. He turned to look back down into the closed valley that had been his life, and for the first time, he felt free.

‘That's extraordinary!'

Stanley Marchant's geography teacher, Mr Grantham, was standing in their dining room, sloshing whiskey around his glass. Smoke was drifting up from a thin black cigarette dangling from his lip and Stanley didn't like it one bit.

Ever since Stanley had mentioned the picture to Herbert, Mr Grantham's son, his teacher had become uncomfortably chummy. Now he had brought Herbert over, using their friendship as a pretext to find out more about his father. Stanley knew this because the friendship between himself and Herbert was weak at best. They shared a desk, that was all.

Herbert was interested in nothing. Right now,
he was taking the carefully arranged bolts out of Stanley's Meccano set one by one and flicking them idly around the room.

Stanley turned his attention back to his father and Mr Grantham.

‘And you say you've never been back in all these years, Henry?'

Henry Marchant took a sip from his drink and then stared deep into it. His son thought he looked sad.

‘Never quite had the nerve.' He looked at the picture, then gestured at Stanley. ‘I was barely more than his age when I left home that night.' He paused. ‘My father had the best intentions for me, of that I have no doubt. But intentions are not always enough.'

‘But you know exactly where it is?' Mr Grantham's voice was casual, but his eyes were gleaming.

‘Oh, yes, I should say. I did live there my whole childhood, you know.' Henry reeled off the address of the vicarage where he had lived as a child. ‘The tomb is well enough known in the village – although its contents are not.'

‘And this picture? It's exactly what you saw?'

‘On the morning after I ran away, I sketched it. It's not the world's greatest work of art, but I fancy I've an eye for detail. And it made quite an impression
on me.' Henry laughed a little, but he looked slightly uncomfortable.

The picture had been on the wall in Stanley's house for as long as he could remember. It was a pencil drawing, outlined in ink, washed over with faded watercolours. The paper had been rolled, creased and torn. It had been with his father through a difficult time in his life, and contained the stains of the mud of four counties, and the dirt, soot and oil of a dozen dirty jobs. Now, it was framed and safe, and his father was standing beside it in a pressed suit.

At the top of the picture was a rough drawing of an old, ruined tomb. It was overgrown with ivy and blocking its doorway was a slab of stone, carved with shapes that Stanley could not make out. Below this image was another drawing. A detailed sketch of the skull of a dinosaur with a huge, empty eye-socket and a blunt mouth filled with curved, serrated teeth. The label underneath read simply: ‘Megalosaurus'.