33. Surrounded by Crumbs
Chapter 33
Surrounded by Crumbs
A my stared at the scene of devastation. When she had gone to bed last night the kitchen had been tidy, she was sure of it, but now there were crumbs everywhere and an empty cake tin stood in the centre of the table. One of the kitchen chairs had clearly been used to climb up to the cupboard where the cake was kept, the cupboard door had swung wide open and a half-empty bottle of milk had been left on the table. When she picked it up to put it away it was almost room temperature. If the boys had been down here for a midnight feast it must’ve been a little while ago. What time was it anyway? She looked around the corner to the grandfather clock in the hall. Nearly ten o’clock already. How had they all slept so long?
There was a thump outside the kitchen window as snow slumped off the roof above her; it was melting. Water dripped from the icicles on the eaves and the top of the old stone wall beyond the kitchen window steamed in the sunlight. Outside the antique, wavy glass of the kitchen window her eyes were drawn up the scree to where they’d found Mr Thompson. The hillside was empty. She pulled the heavy back door open. It scraped over the worn, slate flagstones where it had left its mark over the years. It seemed that nobody had locked it last night, but up here it wasn’t necessary. The cars were parked at the side of the building in the full sunlight. The previous day the roofs of the cars had been several inches thick with snow but most had already slid off Diane’s car, and there was less than an inch on top of Matt’s.
Perhaps Diane would be able to go home today.
The warmth of the sun on the backs of her hands and her upturned face was welcome. If Diane went, then the problem of what to say to her and when to say it would go away, at least for now, then they could have least one night of the holiday they’d wanted.
Back indoors the house was still strangely quiet. Years of living with Harry had taught her silence was quite often NOT golden. In fact, silence usually meant Harry was up to something . Perhaps she should go and check on them. She tiptoed back up the stairs trying not to disturb Diane, although there was probably very little point if she was going to wake the boys.
Their bedroom door was firmly closed, and she opened it, preparing herself for the inevitable smell of soggy socks, hidden crisp packets, and the occasional fart. The room was in darkness with the curtains still drawn, and there was no movement from either of the beds. She went over to wake Harry up first, only to discover his bed was empty. With a growing sense of alarm, she drew back the curtain. Oliver’s bed was also empty.
She went out onto the landing. The bathroom door was wide open, and they weren’t in there either, but there were signs that they had been. One of their toothbrushes was upside-down in the pot and the other was in the sink. A towel was on the floor, and the cold tap dripped. She wasn’t going to panic yet. Perhaps Matt had got up early and taken them outside to make the best of the melting snow – though surely she’d’ve heard them?
She went back down the stairs and opened the living room door, expecting Matt would have tidied everything away and gone out with the boys, but the living room curtains were still drawn. He was still in his sleeping bag on the sofa snoring gently.
‘Matt! Wake up Matt.’ She shook him awake and he was alert very quickly. He sat and shook the sleep from his head.
‘What is it? Is it the boys?’
‘They’re not here. I thought you’d taken them out then I realised you were still asleep. I think they’ve gone off somewhere on their own. It must be serious, ‘cos they’ve even brushed their teeth.’
‘Oh God!’ Matt scrambled out of his sleeping bag and pulled on his clothes, stumbling in the half-light coming round the edges of the shutters. ‘They’ve probably gone sledging.’
‘I couldn’t hear them. If they were sledging down the hill from the barn, then we’d be able to hear them from here. I’ll see if their outside things have gone.’
In the utility room chaos reigned. The boys’ coats and boots were gone, but they’d left a trail – Harry’s dressing gown was on the floor, and most of the other shoes had been knocked off the shoe rack. The lights had been left on.
‘They’ve definitely gone out.’ She came back into the living room where Matt was now fully dressed, except for his socks which he was pulling on as quickly as he could.
‘Then where are they? And how did they manage to get out without waking us?’
‘The back door was open. They must have gone out through the kitchen. And they’ve been eating cake.’
‘At least they’ve had some breakfast.’
‘All very Winter Holiday raiding our supplies and then heading out on an icy adventure.’ She faltered. ‘Oh God. Matt, you don’t think they’ve gone to the tarn like they did in the summer?’
‘They did ask yesterday about whether they could skate on it.’
‘That’s what the kids do in Winter Holiday . They skate on the frozen lake.’ They stared at each other in growing horror.
‘But the ice was never thick enough.’
‘And it’s melting quickly now. We’ve got to get up there.’ She was back in the utility room before she’d finished speaking. She raked through the pile of miscellaneous footwear the boys had left on the floor until she found her own and Matt’s walking boots. ‘Should we wake Diane?’
‘There isn’t time now.’ He laced up his boots. ‘Leave her a note.’
Amy spotted the note Diane had left them yesterday on the kitchen table surrounded by crumbs. She turned it over and wrote on the back of it:
Boys gone off somewhere, gone to find them. Amy and Matt.
‘Let’s go,’ Amy said, and Matt followed her out of the front door, pulling his coat on as they went.
Signs of the thaw were all around them as they followed the footpath up the valley to Loverswater. The tops of the longer meadow grasses were visible from under the snow, and where yesterday the sheep had huddled around their food in the upper fields they’d worn away the snow in a ring of mud.
‘They wouldn’t have been stupid enough to try and go out in the ice.’ Amy tried to convince herself.
‘I told them yesterday. I told them it wasn’t safe,’ Matt replied.
‘Can you see their footprints?’
‘There are too many other tracks. Ours from yesterday, and all the mountain rescue people and their Land Rovers.’
‘They wouldn’t come all this way on their own. The would’ve asked us first.’
‘I would’ve thought so, but they didn’t last summer, remember?’
‘That was a misunderstanding, and they had the dog with them too. They learnt a lesson from that and it’s not like them to sneak out and do something dangerous. You told them yesterday it wasn’t safe.’
‘It’s exactly the kind of thing the kids do in that book though.’
‘You’re right, it is. Not far now, we’re nearly there.’
Though she wanted to remain calm and logical, images came unbidden into her mind of the horror that might await them at the tarn, and the horror of her mother’s death on the cold riverbank. Past and present fears pressed together and rolled themselves into one tight ball of terror, a suffocating knot inside her chest. She had to get there. The air was still and the valley peaceful. There were no sounds of the boys, neither excited sounds of them playing nor panic and distress. Nothing except for the sound of streams flowing with the snowmelt. Did that mean they were already too late?
They rounded the corner. The tarn lay still and shadowy, its darkness enhanced by the contrast with the whiteness of the snow, like a black hole which threatened to draw her in. The ice was still thick on the surface of the water and every now and then it creaked and cracked as it melted, but it was unbroken. Nobody had gone into the tarn since the frost had begun, and the snow around the edge of the water was still untouched. Amy could see the prints of the mountain rescue team on the track but there were no footprints which could have been made by two small boys. The tension rushed out of her, and she breathed again.
‘They’re not here,’ she said, as the panic and fear started to dissipate. ‘They haven’t even been here.’
‘Thank God.’ Matt let out a heavy, shuddering breath. He’d been as scared as she was, even though he’d never seemed anything other than calm and professional. ‘Oh, Amy, I thought …’
‘I know.’ Tears of relief gathered in her eyes. He swept her up into a hug, warm and safe and secure. ‘They’ll be fine. They’re probably up to mischief somewhere, but they’re okay.’
‘And wherever they are we’ll find them.’
‘We will,’ she assured him, even as the tears started to trickle down her face. He wiped them away with his thumb.
‘Please don’t cry. Amy, they’ll be fine.’
‘I was so frightened.’
‘It puts everything else into perspective, doesn’t it?’ he said. ‘I’ll find another job, one way or another, and we’ll manage, even if I do have to sell the house, and I’ll find a way to talk to Diane about you and me, even if it does upset her. You were right, we should never have tried to pretend. But all that’s nothing, as long as Oliver and Harry are safe, that’s all that matters.’
She nodded and blew her nose vigorously.
‘But before we can tell Diane I’ve got to do one important thing,’ said Matt. ‘First I have to tell Oliver the truth about how things were with his mum. I want him to hear it from me, not from her.’
‘Of course.’ Amy nodded. A gust of wind blew her hair across her face, a softer, warmer wind from the south, unlike the bitter north-easterly of yesterday and the day before. Gently, Matt brushed the hair away from her mouth and kissed her. The sun was warm on her hair, as warm as his lips on hers and the sky was bright and high above them.
‘I love you,’ she whispered, almost as if she was afraid to say it, but she wasn’t going to be afraid any more. ‘I love you,’ she said, more loudly. ‘I love you, Matt!’ she called out, and the sound echoed back from the rocks around them.
‘I love you, Amy Harris!’ he shouted, and her name echoed around the mountains. She smiled, and he smiled back, the sun in their eyes.
‘We can do this together. If we’ve got each other, then there’s nothing we can’t do – even tell Diane the truth,’ Matt said. ‘Christmas is over, and I’m not putting it off any longer. I’m going to tell Oliver.’
‘But first we have to find him!’