The Thief of Broken Toys (2 page)

“Toby,” she says, glancing up. A seagull cries
out as it passes over the pub. Her heart misses
a beat, and sometimes she hopes one of those
missed beats will stretch and stretch until the
next one is left waiting forever.

She closes her eyes, but does not see because
we are not really here. She turns and goes back
inside the pub — it's almost lunchtime, and
soon she'll be cooking — and we are alone for
a while at the top of the village, looking down
the valley toward the blur of the sea.

Drifting back that way, something pulls us
in. We feel the tug, though there is no urgency,
and the air up here just feels so good and
fresh. We're not part of the village or the air,
but apart from them both.

Down in the street, the lost toy has
vanished. Washed away by the rain, perhaps,
like all those poor people three decades ago.
But it has not rained for days.

And now there you are, sitting in your
garden above the harbour looking down at the
hypnotically shifting sea beyond the harbour
wall. It sways and shifts, bulges and ebbs like
the grey skin of a giant beast, a sleeping thing
that has no concept of the humans who have
come and built themselves around and over
it. Sometimes there's a distant splash as a
wave impacts the stone wall, and the sound
serenades the gulls to provide a melody for
the village.

You're motionless, because to move might
allow in those memories you try so hard to
keep at bay. You stare out and away from the
garden where he played and laughed and ran,
building sandcastles in his small sandpit,
collecting bugs, pulling the petals from flowers
to press, and sitting for long periods reading
the books about pirates and smugglers he
loved so much. And you keep your attention
away from the house as well, though its stark
south-facing wall reflects sunlight across you
and provides a splash of warmth. In there he
slept and cried and played, laughed and loved,
and eventually died. In there you cannot bear
to be, but the idea of leaving is even worse.
Some of the villagers still ignore you because
they don't know what to say.

But sometimes, walking through the village
is the closest thing there is to an escape.

We can help. And then you, comforted and
calm, may return the favour.

Though Ray had not spoken to his estranged
wife for several months, somehow they had
developed a routine. They had seen each other
maybe half a dozen times, but even those
brief sightings were at a distance, never close
enough so they had to talk. They set Ray's
heart skipping and his blood pulsing. Not
because she was the woman he'd once loved —
and who perhaps he still loved, if he could find
the courage to look deep enough — but because
from a distance, she reminded him so much
of Toby.

Elizabeth had never told him why their life
together had ended. Toby's death was not a
reason, nor a cause. It had been a catalyst for
something more, a distancing, a stretching
of the love between them that had been
fractured by their son's death, and eventually
snapped. He often wondered whether it was
because he reminded her of Toby as well.
He
has your piercing blue eyes
, she used to say, Toby
sleeping on his chest and her hair tickling his
shoulder where she lay beside him. It's what
had attracted her to Ray. The second thing
she'd ever said to him was,
I always fancied
Steve McQueen
. Neither could remember the
first.

Skentipple was a small fishing village on
Cornwall's south coast, and a place that lived
two lives. One was an echo of every life lived
there for hundreds of years — the trawlers
went out with the tide, returned several hours
later, and their catch was sold or auctioned off
to provide a living for families whose ancestors
had done the same. Fishermen were welcomed
in by the pubs during the evenings, drinking
local ale, singing, and telling stories of the sea
whose origins were lost to the dark depths
of time. Residents carried family names and
traditions that were meaningless to outsiders,
but which bore the substance of history to
those who knew. Every building with its low
doorways, every basement with a bricked-off
section, every path that led up onto the cliffs
or down to the rocky shore and then faded
away . . . they all carried stories, and some
were lost even to the memory of the village.

And the other life was more recent —
the tourist's haven, catered for by the same
pubs that entertained the fishermen. New
restaurants, tea shops, and cafés that boasted
local produce in their fresh cream cakes
and crabmeat sandwiches. An element of
the village's past had been eroded as surely
as the cliffs it clung to, the abrasive rich
families from London or the south-east who
bought cottages to refurbish and rent to other
strangers. They brought money and wonder
to Skentipple, and when they wandered the
narrow streets, alleys, and paths, some of
them noticed the other people there: the
villagers, breezing through ranks of tourists
without a second glance as they went about
their daily business. Two worlds in one, both
of them overseen by the steep valley sides
where people had deemed it necessary to build
the most precarious dwellings.

Living in this place, avoiding someone
was not easy. Though down at the harbour
there was a network of alleys and paths, once
away from the sea, there was only one road
that led up out of the village, away from the
restaurants, past the Smugglers' Inn, curving
around old mad Wendy's house until it vented
into the wild Cornish countryside. But Ray and
Elizabeth managed. She lived in a room above
the Smugglers' Inn, and since she worked there
as well, her visits to the harbour side were
usually limited to evenings. Ray lived on the
hillside above the harbour — he'd kept their
family home because she couldn't, co-existing
with memories she could not bear — and he
usually visited the harbour during the day.

Evenings, he walked the cliffs.

Sometimes he wondered whether he should
purposely try to bump into her. Talk, maybe
even hold hands, and broach the subject of
their loss as they should have a year before.
Though he didn't think they had fallen out
of love, he felt little for her anymore. Perhaps
grief over Toby had eroded all capacity for
other emotions, even love. But every time Ray
thought of doing this, he considered the fact
that
she
was not seeking
him
out, and illogical
though it seemed, he took this as reason
enough to maintain his routine.

Really, he was afraid.

But today was different. Today, he had
been sitting in the garden for hours, sleeping
and waking, never quite sure whether he was
dreaming of the village or seeing and hearing
it for real. His hands and feet were cold from
his long exposure to the autumn, and though
he wore two woollen sweaters and a heavy
coat, his sweat still managed to chill him. His
limbs felt heavy and dead. The idea of a beer in
one of the village pubs was attractive for once,
and he left the house without checking the
time. He had stopped wearing a watch months
ago, tired of watching his life tick away.

Walking down the curving, steep path from
his house toward the harbour, he passed an old
woman on her way up. He'd never discovered
her name, but they always exchanged a nod
and a smile. Today she spoke, and Ray thought
perhaps it was the first time.

“Love autumn,” she said, panting. She was
maybe eighty years old, and the steps and steep
path up from the harbour were a challenge for
Ray, someone half her age.

He was so surprised that he could not find
an answer.

“So how're you?” she asked.

“I'm . . .”
Terrible
, he thought.
I'm stuck a
year ago
. “I'm not too bad,” he said, and found
a smile creeping across his face.

“Good to hear it,” the woman said. She
puffed a little, rubbing at her knees. “I'm
always here. Well, nearly always. If you need
me for anything.”

“Thank you,” Ray said. He knew her house,
an old fisherman's cottage with its rough
plaster walls inlaid with a beautiful array of
shells. Toby had called it the shell house, and
Ray remembered her talking to him once when
he'd run on ahead. Ray and Elizabeth had
climbed the hill to find their son accepting
a slice of cake from the woman's withered
hands. For them she'd only had a smile, but
that had been enough to make them feel good.

She nodded and started past him, and Ray
half turned on the narrow path.

“Really. Thank you.”

“No need,” she said, but her breath was
harsh now she was walking again. He watched
her go, then turned and trotted down the steps
to the wider path that led to the harbour.

This was the back end of Skentipple, the
part where only the most adventurous tourists
explored. There were no shops or cafés here,
no pasty bakers or souvenir sellers, and it
was rare that he saw anyone he didn't know
walking this route. The path curved across
the base of the hillside and opened up into the
wide area around the harbour, and then he
was among people.

As he walked, Ray had to force himself to
look up from his shoes. He'd never understood
where the shame of grief came from. At first
it had been nervousness about people talking
to him, and how they would deal with what
had happened: some tried to act as if nothing
had changed, and he hated that; others
approached with sadness and uncertainty,
and he hated that more. He'd soon come to
realize that he preferred being left alone, and
somehow and somewhere he'd managed to
exude that desire. Occasionally he wondered
what they thought of him now, but usually he
didn't care. It was all part of blaming himself.

He walked around the harbour front, shops
and pubs and cafés on his right, the harbour
to his left. The tide was out with the boats,
and the few crafts left were tilted over like
one-legged men waiting to be lifted again.
Dead fish silvered the silty bed, and seagulls
strutted their stuff, taking their fill of the free
meat. In one area, hundreds of crabs' claws
lay half-buried where a crab fisherman tied
his boat. The stream cut a path through the
muddy bed, eventually joining the sea where
it lapped at the harbour entrance.

Ray saw several people he knew. Max, the
Weird Fish clothing shop owner, was taking in
the jackets and sweaters he always hung across
the outside of the shop's hoarding. He nodded
once; Ray nodded and turned away. Next to
Max's shop was the Seaview Café, and Muriel
the owner sat outside, smoking. A huge mug
of tea was on the table beside her, and from
inside he heard some unidentifiable music
rustling through the radio. Tourist season
almost over, Muriel would adjust her opening
times now to cater for the fishermen when
they went out and came back in. She caught
his eye and breathed out smoke, hiding behind
it.
She's Elizabeth's
, Ray thought. He hated how
what had happened to him and Elizabeth had
polarized their friends.

“Afternoon, Muriel,” he said as he passed
by, not expecting or receiving an answer.

Jeff the seafood seller, his stall down on
the harbour front where it had been for years.
Franz the beachcomber, an old guy who lived a
few miles inland, but who spent every Tuesday
on Skentipple's small beach with his metal
detector and rucksack. Where he spent the
other days, Ray had never asked. Susan the
barmaid. Philip, Pete, and other people, he
knew them all but had stopped knowing them
so well after Toby died. A few acknowledged
him, and Franz tried briefly to engage him
in conversation, but he always wanted to be
somewhere else. Somewhere quieter. After
staring at the sea for a few minutes — Toby
haunting him with sandcastles and orange
crab-fishing lines, calls for ice cream and
startled giggles when the waves splashed
him — he turned and started walking inland.

A few minutes later he saw Elizabeth. Just a
flash of her hair to begin with, moving behind
a window and lurking in the shadows beyond.
He stood outside the Flag & Fisherman, a pub
they had rarely frequented together because
it was favoured by the younger generation
from the village. Like every pub in Skentipple
it possessed an undeniable aged charm, but
went out of its way to advertise its large screen
for viewing sporting events, and its three-pints-for-the-price-of-two happy hours. He
frowned and tried to peer in the window. It
had
been her, he knew from the way his heart
was thumping and a flush slowly faded across
his face.

Pressing his face to the glass and shading
his eyes, he scanned the pub's front bar. As
he saw a youngster gesture to him and say
something to his laughing friend, Elizabeth's
face became clear to him. She was sitting by
the old fireplace, slouched back on a bench
with a large glass of wine on the table on front
of her. Beside her sat Jason, the fisherman,
his old friend. His large weathered hand
rested on her leg, and she was leaning into his
shoulder, laughing at something he was still
saying. His lips moved soundlessly, Ray's ex-wife's shoulders shook, and she found humour
in Jason's company.

Ray wondered how many glasses of wine
she'd had before this one. He'd tried turning
to drink, but found that it only brought Toby's
memories closer to him, and changed his
dreams into nightmares that lingered through
the following day's hangover. He had no idea
whether Elizabeth had resorted to alcohol.
She'd never been a big drinker before, but
losing Toby had made new people of them
both.