Chapter 34
Jake was about to head back, but he turned on his heel and crossed the lawn to the house before he could change his mind. He was not all that eager to go inside, but finding the kitchen door open the previous night had given him cause for concern; had the house been broken into while he’d been away? A big house standing empty was easy prey for opportunists. Jake had heard of instances where thieves had been blasé enough to turn up in vans and empty a house of its entire contents while the owners were away.
There were no valuable antiques, cash or jewellery there. In fact, there was nothing of great value in the house; only the sentimental value it held for Jake. If somebody had been in the house, Jake thought it more likely that it was just local kids daring each other to stay the night in an empty house, complete with memorial garden and possibly ghosts. Of course, Jake didn’t believe in any of that mumbo-jumbo; the place wasn’t haunted, and there was no such thing as ghosts. But it was the sort of thing kids would do – he should know.
There was another reason for Jake to linger; it was time to say his final goodbyes. He was seriously thinking of selling the place, letting it go.
Jake tried the front door first. It was locked. No sign of forced entry. He still had the keys somewhere, but he had left them back home in London, not intending to stick around long enough to see the house.
Jake returned to the back garden, stopping at the back door. He knelt down and lifted the mat by the French doors, expecting to find the old spare door key under the mat.
There was no key.
Jake stood. That key had been under the mat, unused for years. If it had still been there, it would probably have been full of rust. It was just as well the door was already unlocked. He wasn’t surprised after what had happened at Christmas that they’d probably overlooked locking up a door when they’d left. There were no broken panes of glass, and the door didn’t look as though someone had forced entry to the house. His only concern was whether anyone else had discovered the unlocked door, which would allow them to gain entry to the house quite easily.
Leaves crunched underfoot as Jake stepped through the door into the kitchen. Shafts of sunlight filtered through the leaded windowpanes, throwing small squares of white light onto the cream linoleum and lime green kitchen units.
Jake walked straight through the kitchen, skirting the large wooden table in the centre of the room, and opened the door to the hall. He stopped abruptly; something had caught his attention. He slowly turned back, his eyes settling on the kitchen table. Jake let go of the door. He walked back to the table and picked up a china mug. A dried black substance lined the bottom. Jake held it up to his nose and sniffed – coffee. The red-headed lad with the shears and ladders came to mind. Jake had nothing against him stopping in the house to make a cup of coffee. Jake put the dirty mug back on the table. But what if it wasn’t the gardener discovering the back door was open and making himself a cuppa?
This was not good news. He had thought it could be kids larking about, but he hadn’t bargained for squatters. The state of the house had advertised its emptiness, advertised a vacancy. Jake cursed at the thought.
He went over to the kitchen cupboards and opened doors and drawers at random to see if there were any tell-tale signs of people living there, but all the cupboards were empty, apart from some condiments that were always left in the kitchen. Jake opened the pantry door and poked his head inside; it was cold and dark. He breathed in the pungent, yet not unpleasant, odour of food. Jake moved his hand around in the air until he felt the plastic flex of the light switch. He pulled. Nothing – the electricity was still out. Either someone had turned the electricity off before they all left after Christmas or there had been a power cut. Either way, it probably meant a trip down to the fuse box in the cellar to turn it back on. Jake didn’t bother. There was light enough from the kitchen to see that most of the shelves were empty, apart from a large jar of instant coffee, along with some sugar, teabags, and long-life milk. Like the condiments in the kitchen cupboards, they were the basics always left for when they arrived there on holiday before the supermarket delivery arrived.
Jake closed the door to the pantry and looked at his watch. It was a little after eight in the morning. If anyone was still there, they were about to get a rude awakening. With that thought in mind, Jake decided to start his search in the bedrooms at the top of the house and work his way down.
A few minutes later, Jake was back where he had started in the back passage outside the kitchen – alone.
There was nothing but dustsheets covering every object in the house. Room after room, Jake had flung open each door, not stopping to enter, not stopping to reflect. There were memories in the house; memories no amount of dustsheets could contain.
Jake opened the door to the last room in the house – the cellar. He couldn’t imagine anyone would be down there with the other comfortably furnished floors on offer. Still, he liked to be thorough.
He took the steep wooden steps slowly. The only light came from a small window on the far side of the cellar, which left the top half of the staircase in complete darkness. A third of the way down Jake knocked his forehead on the ceiling. He stopped and rubbed his head with one hand while running his fingertips along a piece of cold metal plate fixed to the wall where he had just hit his head. Jake didn’t need a light to know what it was.
In metal class at school one year, they’d had to make something useful. Jake couldn’t remember what he had made, but Marcus’s little creation had been much more memorable. Jake was in his mid-teens and had grown several inches that year, so Marcus had used his metal class to make a sign that hung in that exact spot to remind Jake to watch his head. Marcus’s teacher was not too enamoured with his choice of words, but they’d had the desired effect: Duck, dipshit. Jake smiled at the memory.
At the bottom of the stairs, nursing his forehead, Jake’s smile vanished. In the centre of the room was another dustsheet, filthy with years of accumulated dust.
Jake stood motionless; his hand stuck to his forehead. There was no one down there. He knew he should go. But he was riveted to the spot, his eyes fixed on that dustsheet.
Jake dropped his hand from his forehead and moved towards the workbench. He circled it slowly without touching it, just simply taking in the peaks and troughs, the flow of the material.
Jake fought the memory – unsuccessfully …
‘I got a letter from Santa!’ Eleanor shouted excitedly, her pigtails bouncing in wide arcs as she jumped up and down, waving her letter from Santa in front of two uninterested little boys.
Jake glanced at Marcus. They had both been interrupted from their frantic snatch and tear at the presents under the tree by Eleanor waving her stupid letter at them. They exchanged a glance, knowing exactly what the other was thinking.
‘I got a letter from Santa and he said he used my drawing I sent him!’ Eleanor repeated excitedly.
‘Oh yeah? How do you know? Maybe it’s a lie …’ Marcus said, drawing out the last word; his intention was to hurt.
Jake looked at Eleanor. She stopped jumping excitedly. Her face fell. Jake saw her top lip covering her bottom lip, the way it always did when she was thinking.
‘Santa doesn’t lie, does he, Jake?’
Jake turned to Marcus, who was looking at him with his eyes crossed, which made Jake laugh. They both knew something this Christmas that she didn’t know. It was their secret. Well, it was theirs and everyone else’s who wasn’t a baby like she was. Neither of them knew what she was on about when she’d said that Santa had used her drawing, but what they did know was that Santa was a lie. Jake knew that Marcus couldn’t wait to tell her, and he didn’t care if he got into heaps of trouble because it would be worth it for Marcus just to see his sister cry.
‘Let me see,’ said Marcus reaching for the letter in Eleanor’s hand.
Jake shook his head, no .
‘It’s my letter,’ she said. ‘See – it says Dear Ellie . That’s me,’ she said proudly, holding it in front of Marcus’s face.
He snatched it.
The letter tore.
Eleanor stood very still with her hand still outstretched, holding her piece of the torn letter. Then her bottom lip started to quiver, but she did not cry. She pointed at the torn piece of paper in Marcus’s hand. ‘Give me that.’
Marcus shook his head and grinned.
Then Eleanor bit her bottom lip and launched herself at her brother.
Marcus’s hand shot up in the air, holding the letter out of reach, frustrating his little sister’s attempts to make a grab for it. On the fourth try, amid Marcus’s hysterical whoops of laughter, Eleanor lost her balance and fell hard. There was an almighty crunch.
Marcus stopped laughing instantly.
Jake helped Eleanor to her feet and they both looked down at the crumpled box. She had fallen on a large Christmas present that was still unwrapped.
‘Hey, that’s my present!’ Marcus rushed forward and fell to his knees, tearing off the wrapping to reveal a broken toy. He looked up. ‘Look what you’ve done to my present, you stupid …’ He got off his knees and started to move towards his sister, his plump fingers curling into fists.
Eleanor backed away, clutching her torn letter, her eyes wide.
Jake stepped in front of Marcus, blocking his way to his sister.
Grace must have heard the commotion from the lounge across the hall. She appeared in the doorway of the children’s den.
‘Look what she’s done to my present,’ Marcus wailed at his mother as she came into the room behind Eleanor, halting her retreat.
‘What have you done?’ Grace grasped Eleanor’s shoulders and turned her around to look at her. ‘Just because you haven’t got a big present like your brother,’ she shook her shoulders, ‘you think you can go and ruin it for everybody else?’
Now Eleanor did start to cry.
Jake turned around at the sound of Grace’s voice and saw Eleanor’s tear-streaked face. He was just about to turn on Marcus and thrash him for getting Eleanor into trouble and making her cry when he saw William approaching from the hall, carrying a tray with three tall glasses of squash. His round, red face made him look like Father Christmas without the beard. His big smiling face said he had no idea what he was about to walk in on.
As he entered the room, everyone fell silent.
Eleanor rushed forward and wrapped her arms around William’s legs. Suddenly, everybody was talking at once. All except Jake.
Depositing the tray on the sideboard, William knelt in front of Eleanor.
‘I didn’t do it on purpose, Daddy. I fell.’ Eleanor wiped her runny nose with her forearm.
‘What’s this?’ said her father, lifting her hand with the torn letter.
The words tumbled out. ‘Marcus said Santa lied about using my drawing!’ She sniffed. ‘Then he tore it.’
‘Did not!’ Marcus shouted across the room.
‘Did too.’
‘Did not.’
William sighed. ‘Alright, alright.’ He held up both hands and glanced in Jake’s direction. ‘Jake.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Can you tell me what happened?’
Jake knew what he was being asked to do; take sides. He looked from Eleanor to Marcus. One of them was going to get into big trouble. Jake opened his mouth, aware that he could no more choose between them than he could choose to cut off his left hand or his right hand. The result would be the same; the loss would be the same. But the choice was made easy because Jake realised that he didn’t have to choose after all if he simply told the truth: Marcus had torn the letter and wouldn’t give it back. So, he did. They had been warned not to spoil it for Eleanor just because she was the youngest and still believed. Marcus had hurt Eleanor, and Jake wasn’t going to let him get away with that.
William turned to Marcus. ‘Well, young man, do you think an apology is in order?’
‘But she broke my present. She’s the one who should be sorry.’
‘No, I shouldn’t,’ Eleanor threw back, ‘you tore my letter!’
William scooped Eleanor up in his arms. ‘You’re coming with me, young lady.’ He walked to the door and turned around. ‘And you …’ he playfully pointed Eleanor’s left leg at Marcus, ‘you are going to think up a very good apology to give to your sister when she comes back. As for you,’ he then pointed her leg at Jake. Eleanor giggled. ‘You are coming with us.’
Jake jumped up and left Marcus sitting on the floor, staring at the piece of paper in his hand with a very cross look on his face.
Grace left the room too, retreating to the lounge, where no toys were allowed. Jake could hear the television in the lounge as he followed William out of the room.
‘Where are we going?’ Jake said to William’s back as he followed him down the hallway, being careful not to get too close to one of Eleanor’s feet, which was swinging back and forth.
‘Patience, Jake.’
In the back passage by the kitchen door, William unexpectedly opened the door to the cellar. Over William’s shoulder, Eleanor stared at Jake with huge saucer eyes. They were never allowed down there in case they had an accident on the stairs, so this was the biggest adventure ever.
William switched the cellar light on. The stairs were wooden, dusty and very steep.
William turned to Jake. ‘Hold on to the banister, and take one stair at a time.’
Jake watched from the top step as William carried Eleanor down the stairs, placing his hand protectively on the top of her head as he ducked under the ceiling. They both disappeared deep into the bowels of the house.
Jake shivered. He felt scared; scared he might fall down the steep stairs and scared of what might be lurking down there.
Eleanor reappeared, putting one foot on the bottom stair and resting both hands on her knee. She peered up at him. ‘Aren’t you coming down, Jake?’
William appeared next to Eleanor. ‘Shall I come and get you?’
‘No.’ Jake said quickly taking a step forward, feeling mortified at the thought of being carried down the stairs like a baby. He wanted to be brave in front of Eleanor.
Jake hesitated on the second step and looked back at the open door into the hallway.
‘What is it?’ William called up.
‘It’s just …’ Jake looked back at William. ‘Can I go and get Marcus?’
‘No,’ William said firmly.
Jake took one step at a time, holding tightly onto the banister rail, never taking his eyes off Eleanor. She stayed where she was at the bottom of the stairs, swaying her leg and cocking her head from left to right, watching his slow descent. When he got to the last step, she lifted her hand from her knee and held it out. Jake took it and stepped off the stairs. She smiled at him sweetly. They walked hand in hand to the workbench where William was standing with both hands holding the bottom of a brilliant white sheet that covered some strange object.