The Key to Flambards

by Linda Newbery

He was staring at the ground as he walked. Grace felt out of her depth, not knowing what to say. She thought briefly of telling Marcus how his father had stared at her in the yard with that odd recognition, but said nothing.

  Marcus shot her a glance. ‘Like I said, this was one of his better days. I’m surprised he came, to be honest. Mum must have made him.’

  ‘What about work? Does he like that?’

  ‘Yes, it seems to help. Only Mum thinks he shouldn’t be on his own so much. That’s why I help out when he wants me to. Try to help. It’s not every day. He pays me, in the holidays. But some days I just can’t get anything right.’

  Grace thought of her own freedom to spend her time here as she liked. It couldn’t be much fun for Marcus, cooped up in a workshop with a moody, fault-finding father.

  They were heading that way now, towards the farmyard where Adrian had his workshop. Sheep grazed on either side of the track, and Marcus called Flash sharply to heel.

  ‘I have to watch him. Ought to have him on the lead, really.’

  ‘He wouldn’t hurt a sheep, would he?’

  ‘No, but it’s his instinct to chase and herd them. They can panic and run into fences, that sort of thing. Or pregnant ewes can abort if they’re badly frightened. Heel, Flash, that’s it. Good boy.’

  ‘Who does the farm belong to?’

  ‘It belongs to a consortium now. There’s a tenant in the house and all the ploughing and fencing and stuff’s done by contractors. It used to be part of Flambards, years and years ago. My grandad remembers that. His grandad used to work here.’

  Grace remembered the dinner-table conversation – of course Marcus’s family had history here, as well as the Russells. She remembered Granny Izz saying that when she’d lived here it had been a thriving arable farm, employing several men and boys and with its own stables for the heavy horses used for ploughing and harvesting. Her long-ago family and Marcus’s might have known each other.

  The farmyard felt deserted. A security light flashed on as they approached, but the sprawling brick farmhouse was in darkness, and Marcus said that the tenants were away.

  ‘That’s Dad’s workshop over there.’

  He nodded at an outbuilding with double doors chained and padlocked. There was no sign that anyone ever came here – no animals in sheds, no farm machinery on view. Beyond the farmhouse was a gate leading to another track that looped round through a stubble field towards the woods. They were heading in that direction when Flash stopped, pricked his ears sharply and gave a low whuff before racing ahead.

  ‘Jamie,’ Marcus said, and Grace heard gladness in his voice. She saw Jamie coming along the track that led round the edge of the wood from the direction of Marsh House.

  Had they arranged to meet? Marcus didn’t seem surprised, but then Jamie often walked around the woods and meadows on his own. With Flash bounding around him, Jamie waited by the gate at the corner of the field, where three tracks converged.

  ‘Hi,’ he called. ‘You’ve been let out, then? I’m looking for bats.’

  ‘Bats?’

  ‘Pipistrelles. I often see them between the wood and the farm. There’s a roost somewhere near.’

  They all stood still, gazing into the fading sky. The first stars were beginning to prick through – Grace saw more and more as she looked, and the thinnest sliver of a new moon in the east, like an edge of fingernail. It was odd how your eyes adjusted as the light faded, seeing more than you’d think possible. She scanned the sky, expecting black bat silhouettes like Hallowe’en decorations.

  ‘Perhaps not tonight.’ Jamie crouched to make a fuss of Flash, who had settled in resignation by their feet. ‘But did you hear the little owl just now? That wheuw – wheuw?’

  ‘Don’t owls go tu-whit-tu-woo?’ Grace asked.

  ‘That’d be a tawny. You might hear those as well. They’re around.’

  Marcus said suddenly, ‘Remember those ghost soldiers, Jame?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jamie looked up at him with a quick smile. ‘Course.’

  ‘Your uncle Roger was talking about his First World War stuff. It made me think about them.’

  ‘What ghost soldiers?’ Grace asked, her thoughts still on Hallowe’en.

  ‘We saw them in London,’ Jamie told her. ‘Did you see any of it on TV? It was a sort of stunt. Part of all the First World War things going on, like those poppies at the Tower of London and all that. Me and Marc were on a school trip that day, to the Science Museum. And when we got to Liverpool Street, there were these soldiers. About fifteen of them, in uniform, just standing about, waiting. At first we thought they were real soldiers, but they were in old-fashioned uniforms – you know, khaki and kitbags and stuff. And our teacher realized and we all stopped to look, and so did loads of other people.’

  ‘And then they started singing,’ Marcus said. ‘We’re here because we’re here …’

  ‘Because we’re here because we’re here.’ Jamie joined in, singing to the tune of ‘Auld Lang Syne’. ‘It’s a song the soldiers used to sing. Like, they didn’t even see the point of it, the war.’

  ‘Where were they going?’

  ‘It was like they were heading off to war,’ Jamie said. ‘It was the first of July. A hundred years since the Battle of the Somme. You know? This massive attack where thousands of people got killed in the first few hours. These guys were there as a kind of living memorial. Mr Hobbs – he’s our science teacher – went up to one of the soldiers and asked him about it, but the guy didn’t answer, just gave him a card. Then some of us did the same, and got cards too. I’ve still got mine. Have you, Marc?’

  Marcus nodded, and Grace asked, ‘What were the cards for?’

  ‘Just little printed cards.’ Jamie indicated the size. ‘With the name of a soldier, and his regiment, and the date he died. And the date was always the same. First of July, 1916. That’s how they were like walking ghosts. All those guys – I don’t know if they were actors, or what – each one was pretending to be a soldier who’d died that day and it’s like we were there, seeing them go.’

  ‘It was – cool. Really special,’ Marcus said.

  Jamie nodded. ‘We’d done the Battle of the Somme in history. But this made it feel real, like it was happening now.’

  Marcus looked up at the sky. ‘Those young guys, they could have been us two. We both said. We’d have been them, if we’d lived back in those days, a hundred years ago. Just boys doing what they thought was right. They had no idea what was waiting.’

  There was a silence. Grace thought of Marcus’s father sitting at the table – a ghost soldier too, a man who’d lost himself somewhere in the past.

  ‘Would you fight?’

  She was asking both of them, but looking at Marcus. Jamie was about to speak when Marcus said, ‘Back then, I would have. Like all the others. Because no one knew.’

  Jamie nodded, and Marcus went on, ‘D’you remember in English, Jame? We read about one of those war poets – I forget his name, but I do remember he got killed. Someone asked what he was fighting for, and he bent down and picked up a handful of soil and said something like for this. For the earth itself.’

  ‘Makes sense to me,’ Jamie said. ‘I’d fight for this land here. For the fields and woods.’

  Grace couldn’t stop herself from saying, ‘You might have to.’

  ‘Yeah, I will. Not fight exactly. Protest. Lie down in front of the bulldozers, if they get that far, only I hope they won’t. Refuse to move.’

  ‘Me too, then,’ Marcus said quietly. ‘I’ll be right there.’

  ‘And me.’ Grace wasn’t going to be left out, liking the idea of the three of them united in protest. ‘We couldn’t just stand by and watch.’ She imagined them being dragged away shouting, outnumbered. Only if it got to that stage they’d already have lost, wouldn’t they?

  ‘Bat!’ Jamie grabbed her arm and pointed. ‘See?’

  Seeing nothing at first Grace scanned the sky, then saw the flickering, wavering flight of s
omething as light and airy as a piece of torn paper. Another, and another. They all three watched in silence for a few moments; then Grace whispered, ‘How fantastic! I’ve never seen real bats before.’

  ‘At least you’re not daft about them like some girls,’ Jamie said, and she saw the gleam of his teeth in the dim light as he smiled.

  ‘Like some people.’ She wasn’t having that. ‘It’s all that Hallowe’en stuff, I suppose. Dracula and witches.’

  ‘Some girls – OK, OK, some people – think they’ll get tangled up in their hair. That’s just stupid. Why would they? Bats use echolocation. Fact. They’re incredibly accurate fliers. They don’t go blundering about like people seem to think.’

  Grace stood with head tilted back, gazing. The bats danced in flickering flight, sometimes high, sometimes skimming the grass – now flying fast and direct, now seeming to twist and tumble in the air. She was caught, held in the moment: the air turning cool, the distant stars, the silent presence of the two boys, all of them watching. Even the ghost soldiers they’d been talking about were part of it. She had the sense that she would remember this for ever, as if her own future self was looking back.

  When she went back indoors Sally and Adrian had left, and Mum and Roger were drinking wine together: Mum in an armchair, sandals discarded, legs curled up; Roger on the sofa, with Cat Siggy on his lap. The room was softly shadowed, lit by a single lamp.

  ‘Mum! I thought you said Siggy wasn’t allowed up here?’

  Mum smiled, caught out. ‘Well, Roger’s here, so I can make an exception. You were out late!’

  Grace told them about meeting Jamie, and watching the bats.

  ‘I’d better go.’ Roger placed the protesting cat on the floor, stood up and stretched.

  Mum got up slowly too. Grace sensed that they could happily have sat talking for a while longer.

  ‘Thanks for a lovely evening, Polly.’ At the door Roger paused to kiss Grace’s mother on one cheek and then the other. ‘Bye, Grace. See you tomorrow.’ For a moment it seemed he was going to turn back and kiss her too; then he thought better of it, instead raising a hand in farewell.

  Hmm.

  Adults did that all the time, didn’t they? Kissy kissy. Mwah mwah. Lovely to see you. It didn’t mean anything. Sally had kissed Mum when she arrived, but Grace couldn’t imagine Marcus’s dad doing any social kissing. Mum would have been lucky to get a thank you from him.

  The cat had jumped back to the warm place on the sofa where Roger had sat.

  ‘Out, Siggy,’ Mum said, and gave him a shove towards the door.

  On the point of asking about Adrian, Grace decided not to risk spoiling her mother’s mood, or her own. They finished clearing up, Mum humming to herself, Grace thinking about the two boys, and how they’d included her this time, not like the night of the barbecue. Things were different, now that she’d got to know Marcus a little. While Jamie – she thought – hid nothing, she had the sense that Marcus was more complicated, more intriguing. She remembered their secret smile across the table, hugging it to herself.

  ‘What are you grinning about?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Oh … it was a really good evening, that’s all.’

  No, Grace told herself, as if talking to Marie-Louise. It’s not what you think. Not like that. I’m not going to be stupid about Marcus. It’d ruin everything.

  But could she stop? Had she noticed, before, this particular feeling of warmth that rushed through her whenever she thought about him? She wanted to be on her own, in bed, to lie there thinking, remembering every detail: how he’d asked if she wanted to go with him and Flash when he could easily have gone on his own; how he’d talked so seriously.

  When she woke, in the earliest light of dawn when the birds had just begun singing, a new thought crept into her mind and lodged itself there.

  Marcus. Jamie.

  Marcus and Jamie.

  Marie-Louise had lent her the latest Patrick Ness book, and she’d been reading it in bed and at odd times during the day – keeping it out of her mother’s view, because Mum liked to take an interest in what Grace was reading, and Grace felt that she might need protecting from this one. ‘It’s really …’ Marie-Louise had said, with a giggle, and when Grace asked ‘Really what?’ she would only say, ‘You’ll have to wait and see.’ And yes, it was.

  You were right, Grace had texted. It’s REALLY really.

  Really touching, she meant. Really startling. Really … open. Although she’d reached the end, Grace couldn’t let it go, though she had other books waiting; she had to keep flicking back, re-reading. She was in love with Adam, and with Linus too, with both of them. She wanted them to be together, and happy.

  Jamie and Marcus. How had she not realized?

  She recalled the evening of the barbecue, the boys walking away together, Jamie’s head turned towards Marcus, listening, always attuned to his mood. She thought of Marcus’s gladness this evening when Jamie walked towards them in the dusk; and how, when she’d come indoors after the bat-watching, Marcus had said he’d walk part of the way back with Jamie, to give Flash a longer run.

  They’re great friends, Roger had said.

  Yes, she could see. And when they were together, no one else mattered.

  Perhaps not like Adam and Linus in the novel – her imagination wouldn’t stretch that far – but then they weren’t as old or experienced as those two.

  So … that made things easier, in a way. Marcus wouldn’t notice whether she was soppy about him or not. And that meant she didn’t have to give way to the thoughts that had begun to niggle: Don’t be stupid. He’s older than you and much better looking. And he’s got two legs and two feet. Face it, he’d never fancy you in a million years.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Marie-Louise

  ‘Why does it always rain on art class days? I wanted to paint outside.’

  In the echoey space of the barn, Sushila had set up her easel next to Grace’s, as before. Everyone worked quietly during the session, but in the break Sushila asked to look at Grace’s sketchbook. Today Grace was trying to draw the otters; their fluid, graceful shapes were so enticing. But how to draw water? Her otters might have been floating in air. When Ian came by, he suggested drawing them underwater – that would avoid the tricky problem of showing a broken surface. That seemed to work better.

  ‘You’ve seen otters? Here?’ Sushila asked, and Grace told her about the lake and the bats, and Jamie. ‘I’d never seen bats or otters before. It’s fantastic here. There’s so much to see, when you know, like Jamie does. When you look. Some of the course people go down to the lake, but not many.’

  ‘We ought to make more of it,’ Sushila said. ‘By we, I mean Flambards. Did you know I’m going to be a Trustee? My first meeting’s next week.’

  ‘Oh! Mum told me about those meetings,’ Grace said, not adding that her mother dreaded this next one. ‘You’re going to be one of the people who decide things? How to keep going?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a struggle, I know,’ Sushila said. ‘That’s why I wanted to help, if I can. Is your mum one of the Trustees, then?’

  ‘No – she works here on marketing and publicity.’

  ‘Oh, you’re Polly’s daughter! Roger introduced us the other day. I should have realized – you’re so alike.’

  ‘Are we?’ Grace could never see that herself.

  Although she knew little about Sushila, she was heartened to know that she’d be involved. The other Trustees – apart from Roger – were just faceless business people, and there was the Mr Naylor her mother had talked about, looming ominously with his calculator and accounts sheets and his housing developments. Grace felt an ache of loss when she thought of the meadow and woods in the stillness of dusk, and the silent, thrilling flight of the bats. She felt it badly enough, but Jamie would be heartbroken if the land was churned up, the habitat destroyed.

  The class over, Grace went up to the office to help Mum with printing and folding leaflets. Roger was there at the com
puter, with a table of figures on the screen. Grace was learning to be wary of tables of figures. Usually, it seemed, they meant bad news. But Roger, instead of looking at them, was telling her mother about a box he’d brought down from the attic, a box that had belonged to his great-grandfather.

  ‘Oh!’ Mum was only half-listening, checking her emails while she waited for the photocopier to warm up. ‘A reply from BBC Essex. They want to do an interview with you on the Stewart Green show. Let’s get a date booked, then I’ll put it on Twitter and Facebook.’

  ‘Good work! Thanks. I’ll use it to publicize the Armistice weekend.’

  ‘No – it’s too soon for that. Better to keep it focused on Flambards generally, and the courses we offer. Then we’ll get you invited back in October or November to talk about the First World War stuff.’

  Roger threw up both hands in surrender. ‘Whatever you say. Anyway, I was telling you about Fergus’s box. There’s an intriguing thing – an old tape, you know, for a reel-to-reel tape recorder? It’s in an envelope that says Interview with Grandad in my dad’s handwriting, and a date: 11th November, 1970.’

  ‘Armistice Day!’ said Mum. ‘So Grandad – that would be Fergus?’

  ‘Yes. Dad’s grandad. And because of the date I think it must be about his wartime experiences. You know how people say we should interview our parents and grandparents before it’s too late? Looks like my dad thought of that. He’d have been in his early twenties – Dad, I mean – and it was five years later that Fergus died. To think of actually hearing Fergus’s voice! Problem is, I’ve got no way of playing the tape.’

  ‘Someone must have an old-fashioned reel-to-reel recorder,’ Mum said. ‘There are people who collect things like that.’

  ‘Mm. I’ve got a friend who likes poking around junkyards and recycling places. He might know where to get hold of one. I’ll see what I can do on my day off.’

  Sometimes Grace wondered how much work they actually did; they spent so much time chatting.

  ‘Aren’t we going to do those leaflets?’