Tyme's End (15 page)

Was
me
.

No. I laughed aloud, although it sounded strange, as if I was out of practice. Of course not me.

It was Granddad. Granddad sixty years ago, a few years older than I was now. He was leaning towards Martin, and beaming – his familiar wide, unfakeable smile – at the camera. He was wearing a tweed jacket and tie, but his top button was undone and the tie-knot was sloppy and crooked. It gave me a pang to see him like that, not just because he'd hidden Dad's letters and I was furious with him, but for some other reason. He looked so happy.

I picked the frame up and tilted it this way and that, watching the reflected sunlight blank them out. The way they were smiling; that easy, paternal arm draped over Granddad's shoulders . . .

He really
had
lied to me. Not an exaggeration or a little white lie, but proper, deliberate lies. Granddad, who wouldn't even say it was all right, the injection wouldn't hurt a bit. About Dad, yes, but about this too – and why, why would he lie about
this
? It was so pointless. As if I'd care about H. J. Martin. Somehow it made me even angrier than the other lies.

But I was here now. He'd lost. Whatever he was trying to do, he'd failed.

I dragged the last corner of the dust sheet off the desk, then put the picture back. I narrowed my eyes at it, imagining that it
was
me. I could almost remember being there, in an archway in Cambridge on a summer's day, Martin's arm over my shoulder, making jokes at the person behind the camera. Martin would have liked me, I knew that.

I took all the dust sheets off so the room looked lived-in again, ready for the owner to come back.

Then I made my way through the rest of the house, taking all the sheets off the furniture, until it was as if I'd gone back in time, right back to the moment sixty years ago when Martin closed the door behind him and started up his motorbike. There were musty, moth-eaten clothes in the bedrooms, beds still made up and stinking of mildew, enamel baths centimetres deep in crumbly, gritty dust; but even so, Tyme's End was awake. I felt reckless. I whistled as I worked through the rooms one by one, half dancing in the sunlight that streamed in. None of the windows were broken, the water from the taps ran clear after an initial spurt of red, and some of the lights worked. Nothing was quite as bad as you'd expect, after sixty years of neglect. It was as if someone
had
been here, quietly fighting the worst of the decay, keeping everything going, just in case.

But all the same, every room in the house was fiercely, hungrily happy to be uncovered again. Tyme's End had been starving to death, only just clinging to life as it stifled under dust sheets. And now I was here. And I thought of Granddad, oblivious across the Atlantic, and that made me feel even better.

At last I came down the back staircase and into the drawing room. I'd left my rucksack there beside the pile of dust sheets, and I sat down, dug out an apple and started to eat it.

Then I stretched out, put my hands behind my head and shut my eyes. I could feel the sunlight on my face, and smell the breeze and the scent of smoke that must have been clinging to the furniture. I remembered the first time I'd walked into the room, as if it was a long time ago. I'd been
scared
. But I couldn't remember what that felt like. I didn't believe in it, somehow. There was nothing to be frightened of here. I was welcome; I
belonged
.

I heard myself say drowsily, ‘Thanks for inviting me.'

But if there was an answer, I was asleep before I heard it.

.

.

V

.

.

When I woke up it was dark. Something jolted me out of sleep so suddenly that it felt as if my brain hit the front of my skull. For a while I looked blankly at the darkness in front of my face, bewildered. I didn't know where I was, or my name, or the year.

Then I felt the sticky leather of the sofa against my face and remembered. My arm was trapped underneath me and I had pins and needles down the side of my body. I was cold, too. There was a draught playing round my neck, making my scalp prickle. And it was so dark – darker than London, where there was always light coming through my curtains – and so still.

Then I knew what had woken me.

Quietly but clearly, I could hear something: a soft, regular sound coming from the other side of the room. It was so faint I could only just make it out. But I wasn't afraid. It was something I'd heard before, something familiar, but I couldn't place it.

I stared up at the shadowy ceiling, not moving. I felt disorientated, heavy-eyed, as though I had been dreaming. That intriguing, gentle sound went on and on, tantalising me. What was it? I strained my ears in the silence, wishing my heartbeat would quieten down. It wasn't the breeze: it was too rhythmic, too repetitive. I closed my eyes again, puzzled. I held my breath until I ran out of oxygen and had to inhale; then, suddenly, I realised.

It was someone breathing.

There was someone there, standing by the window. I knew that if I rolled over to look I'd see him, outlined dimly against the glass. But I didn't move; I listened to the soft sigh of air: in, out, in . . . Perhaps I was wrong – perhaps it was the wind, or an animal outside the window, or cars going past on the road – but I didn't believe it. There was someone else in the room. I gazed at the smooth leather blackness in front of my face and wondered how he'd got there, and who he was. What was going on? I eased my arm out from underneath me, ready to roll over as quietly as I could.

Then there was a kind of rustling, a brief papery noise and a clink.

I recognised that sound too; I knew what it was. My mind fumbled, moving too slowly for me to put a name to it. Something I'd heard hundreds, thousands of times at home. Then I heard the breathing resume more deeply, and a creak, a half-footstep, as he shifted his weight.

He'd lit a cigarette.

I could smell the smoke instantly; the same scent that had been in the air when I first came into the room. I'd thought it was on my clothes, from Granddad – but how could it have been when Granddad hadn't been at home for weeks? No, it was here, in the room. Maybe there really
was
someone there – a real person, a burglar. Maybe someone sneaked in every night to stand there and smoke. Maybe it was the caretaker, who got a kick out of breaking the rules.

But there should have been a spark.

I'd have seen it. If there'd been a light, I'd have seen it – a flicker reflected in the leather in front of my eyes, or just a golden tinge to the darkness. There'd been the clink of a cigarette lighter. He'd lit his cigarette; I could hear him smoking it. But there hadn't been a flame.

I took a deep breath, thinking how strange it was; very strange. But I still wasn't scared. There was nothing threatening about it: I knew nothing could hurt me. It was like a dream, like it was happening to someone else.

The breathing paused, and resumed. There was a footstep: someone turning to look over his shoulder at the sofa, where I was lying.

And a voice said, ‘Oliver?'

The voice was . . . old. It was a skeleton of a voice, dusty, brittle, but it had a kind of friendliness to it. It didn't sound quite
right
; but it wasn't frightening.

I didn't answer, because I didn't know what to say.

It coughed. ‘Oliver,' it said. ‘I knew you'd come back.'

The floorboards creaked. I heard the tap of shoes on the wood, moving in my direction. The voice – whoever that voice belonged to – was coming towards me.

I thought,
I don't understand. What's going on?

I sat up. There was no one there.

There was no one in the room except me. There was silence and dim blue light from the windows, and the only thing I could smell was damp leather and my own sweat. There was a gentle, fragrant gust of wind, and the rattle of ivy against the window.

Had I dreamt it? Maybe I had. If it had been real I would have been terrified, surely? And I wasn't; I wasn't even uneasy.

A wave of tiredness hit me. I shifted slowly until I was lying down. The leather sucked at my skin, making a farting noise, and I felt myself smiling. I was safe here – safer here than in London, probably. There was nothing to be afraid of.

I shut my eyes, and the darkness and silence were comforting, luxurious. They rose round me like a sea until I was asleep again.

.

I woke up in a haze of orange, half blinded by the sun shining through my eyelids. My T-shirt had got rucked up around my shoulders, and the skin of my lower back was stuck to the leather of the sofa. It made a ripping noise as I pulled away and sat up, rubbing my eyes. The light from the window was green-tinged, flooding flatly through the ivy. It showed up the dust on everything, but it made the room look beautiful, like something from a museum, all leather and books and old wood. I thought,
I'm staying here
, and smiled. My night's sleep left me with a clean, serene feeling, as though I'd recovered from an illness. And it was the first day of the summer holidays.

I laughed aloud. I couldn't think of anywhere else I wanted to be. Far better to be here than in London, or in LA with Granddad, or even Casablanca or Paris or Sydney . . . I glanced at my rucksack, remembering my letters from Dad, but now the pain was dulled, as if Tyme's End was an anaesthetic, surrounding me with warmth and welcome-ness. I thought, deliberately, about the other papers – Granddad's letters and photos and exercise book – but all I felt was curiosity and anticipation. On an impulse I bent forward and pulled them out of my backpack, and put them in a precarious, yellowing pile on the nearest table. They fitted in; I'd enjoy going through them later, discovering all Granddad's secrets.

But first things first. I needed breakfast and a shower. Well, maybe a wash would have to do if there wasn't hot water, but breakfast was important. There was food in my rucksack – but there was Granddad's emergency stash of money too, and I was ravenous. I stood up, stretched, and shoved my wallet into the back pocket of my jeans. I'd get breakfast in the village – and anything else I felt like, because Granddad's idea of an emergency was something that cost five hundred quid.

The drawing-room door groaned when I opened it, scraping along the floor as if it had swollen in the night, and the front door was worse, refusing to open. I braced myself to pull at it, laughing. The sun was throwing a thin grating of shadow on to the floor. Something rustled outside the window.

I said, ‘Oh, come on. For God's sake.' The floorboards creaked again, as if there was someone watching me, listening. ‘I'm coming back – I only want to get breakfast – I'm
coming b
—'

The door burst open, almost knocking me off my feet. I hung on to the edge of it, still laughing. Bloody hell. It hadn't even rained in the night. Nothing had changed, to make the door stick, but it had stuck.

Not that it mattered now it was open. I took a great breath of early-summer-morning air and puffed it out. My lungs felt double their normal size. I thought,
I have never been this happy
.

Then I took off towards the break in the wall, running for the sheer hell of it.

.

I went to the bakery first, then wandered down Falconhurst High Street, eating a bun out of a paper napkin. It was still early, and there weren't any people around. Once I'd had something to eat I felt more solid, as if someone had turned the volume knob back up.

I finished the bun, chucked the rubbish in a bin and paused, wondering whether to go straight back to Tyme's End. I could feel it tugging at me like an anchor, wanting me back. It was telling me there wasn't anything else worth looking at here – nothing that compared to Tyme's End. There were Granddad's letters to look through, and the rest of the house to explore, the gardens, the woods . . .

Granddad . . .

For a moment, standing there in the sunlight, I just wanted him to be here. If only he'd been at home when I found those letters. I could imagine how he'd have sat me down, and it would have been too serious for champagne – serious enough for brandy, or a tiny glass of absinthe. He'd have looked at me like I was the same age as him and explained why, exactly, he'd hidden all the stuff from my father.

I was staring absently into the window of a bookshop. There was a display of hardbacks.
The Owl of the Desert
,
Walks in East Sussex
,
H. J. Martin: A Biography
.

I swallowed. It was the same book that Dad had bought me, that Granddad had stolen.

I looked over my shoulder, down the High Street, towards the station. I could go back to London. Or – I checked my pocket – or I could just phone Granddad right now, wherever he was. I imagined his voice, saying my name:
Olly, old chap, how delightful to hear from you
.

No. For a moment I was there, in his study again, staring down at Dad's letters, frozen.
No
. Whatever he said, however he said it,
nothing
could make me forgive him that.

I said to him, in my head,
I don't owe you anything
.
Screw you.

Watch
.

I walked into the bookshop, leant my elbows on the counter, and said, ‘Could you give me a copy of every book you've got about H. J. Martin?'

The bloke glanced up from his newspaper and took a swig of his tea. He didn't smile until after he'd swallowed. Then he said, ‘You sure? All eight biographies? That'll be about hundred and sixty quid, boyo.'

‘Oh,' I said. ‘OK. Just two or three, then.'

In the end I left with a hefty plastic bag of books. I went into a little grocery shop and bought a couple of bottles of water and some other stuff, and then I made my way back to Tyme's End, loaded down with bags. I'd only been away an hour or so, but I felt like I was coming home after a long journey. The front door opened almost smoothly, giving at my touch as if it was trying to make up for sticking before.

I went back into the drawing room, dumped everything beside the sofa and stretched out on it, putting my feet up on the arm. I rummaged in the bag of books for my new copy of
H. J. Martin: A Biography
. It felt strange to be holding it in my hands again, knowing that the face on the cover was the man who had lived here, the man that Granddad knew. He'd probably sat here, sixty years ago; everything that was in front of me had been in front of him. It made me feel giddy for a moment, as if I was as close to him in time as I was in space.

Then I reached for one of the eclairs I'd bought from the bakery, and started to read.

.

I read for hours, eating my way through an eclair and an apple turnover and another eclair, until when I looked up it was hot in the room and the light had narrowed and brightened as the sun went overhead. I felt like I'd been miles away, and I stretched, surfacing slowly. I couldn't believe I'd never got further than the first few pages. How could I have thought it was boring? Right now it felt like – it was amazing. H. J. Martin was . . . I grinned up at the ceiling. He was . . . great. I felt as if he was in the room with me, making jokes, talking me through his adventures, making me hang on his every word. I was hardly even
reading
; it was going straight into my ears, as if I was there, living it, falling in love with the desert and the war and – I could almost hear his voice: clipped and upper-class, like Granddad's, but warmer, deeper, nearly-but-not-quite familiar, as if I'd heard it before.

I let the book fall gently on to the floor and lay down. The back of my neck stuck to the leather of the sofa. I shut my eyes and imagined that Martin was here, smoking at the open window, tapping the ash absent-mindedly into the ivy. God, I wished he
was
here. When I'd been reading it was like I knew him already, as if the book was just reminding me. I
knew
him, as well as I knew Granddad – better than I knew my father. And Martin wasn't like them – he was . . . special. My stomach twisted and my throat tightened. Why had I got stuck with Dad and Granddad? Why hadn't I been born sixty years ago? If only . . .

I wanted to stay here for ever.

Well,
I thought,
that's tough, because I can't
. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. I grabbed an apple and reached for the book again.

When I turned the next page, I was looking at Tyme's End.