by Tara Simon
“Luther,” Martin says, “we don’t exactly have all night.”
“Right,” Luther says, face hardening. He clicks open a folder. “What is this now?”
“It looks like his tax returns for last year,” Martin says, wishing Luther would close the file. He doesn’t really want to know how rich Uther is. “Nothing for us there.”
“No actually,” Luther says, tapping at the screen with his index. “There is.”
“I don’t get it,” Martin says, brow creasing. “What does your dad’s self assessment have to do with the key?”
“Well,” Luther says, “last year he got some revenue from a flat he rented.” He opens another file they had sighted before. “A flat he’s paying council taxes for. A London flat I know nothing about.”
“So you think the key opens this flat?”
“Yeah,” says Luther, shutting down the computer. “Yeah.”
“Well, one mystery solved.”
“Not really,” Luther says, catching Martin’s eyes. “We’ve got to go to London to find out.”
* * *
The twinkling lights of the Christmas tree shine white and amber in turn. A few presents are already piled underneath it. There’s not very many but those that are there have been neatly wrapped and decorated with bright paper and red and green bows. The fire crackles and pops as embers jump from the logs, while the light from the telly plays across the room, brightening it in snatches.
Luther yawns, places a hand over his mouth.
“Bit belated the covering up,” Martin says.
Luther nudges his foot with his. “It’s late, you know. And you’ve put me through the grinder today.”
Martin switches the TV off. “Oh poor Luther, decorating did him in. And here I was thinking you were super fit.”
“I’ll have you know I am,” Luther says, taking his feet off the coffee table. “Very much so.” He wriggles his eyebrows. “I go to the gym twice weekly and weight lift.”
“Of course,” Martin says. They’re face to face and with the telly off, there’s no sound other than that of the fire and nowhere to look at but Luther’s sleep smudged features. And Martin finds he’s forgotten the rest of what he wanted to say, a wave of fondness sweeping through him. “I…”
“You’re losing your touch,” Luther says, sounding more awake now. “I gave you such an in.”
“Oh, shut up, you twat,” Martin says, yanking himself to his feet, his heartbeat loud in his ears. “I’m tired. I’ll come up with something better in the morning.”
“Nu-uh,” Luther says, getting to his feet too. “Time’s run out. Repartee only counts if it’s immediate.”
Luther helps Martin douse the fire. It extinguishes itself with a hiss and sigh, a dislodging of logs, casting the room in darkness but for the fairy lights.
They both climb upstairs for the night. The treads creak under their combined weight. Martin can only see Luther’s shadow as he goes up the last flight, his tread a counterpoint to Martin’s.
When this house was a B&B, it was never this silent, noise carried in a completely different way, by amplification, by reverberation. But Martin doesn’t feel like anything’s missing. He enjoys the vibrations in the air, the hum there is to it, the contained noiselessness.
Once Luther gets to the landing, Martin turns on the light. He roots in the hallway cupboard for a linen change. But by the time he’s found the supplies he needs, Luther’s no longer there.
A pile of towels in his arms, Martin whirls around. The door to the bathroom is open and the mirror lights are on, bathing the room in their glow.
Luther is standing by the basin, shirt off, bag of toiletries in hand. Even though the lighting is harsh, Luther looks fine. Well built, strong, with rounded biceps and hefty shoulders. His abs aren’t as well defined as the rest of him, but Martin thinks that makes Luther better looking than any perfect model gracing the covers of a magazine. There is an earthiness to Luther – there has always been – even with his golden boy good looks – that has always made him appear quintessentially real to Martin. “I, um, have got towels for you.”
Luther takes the handful from him, and their arms brush. “Doesn’t this remind you a bit of when we were kids?”
“Yeah,” Martin says, “though I don’t think we’re getting up to any mischief this time, are we?”
“You never know,” Luther says, holding his breath, before opening the tap. “You just never know.”
Chapter 5
2002
As the train starts to move, they sink into their seats. A second later Luther is on his feet again, rooting into his back pocket. He splays the map on the seat tray and says, “So, Martin, let’s review our strategy.”
Martin palms his forehead. “Yes, right, the strategy, right.”
“Martin,” Luther says, looking up from the map, “are you really still worrying about my father finding out?”
“No,” Martin says and bites his lip.
“He thinks we’re just going shopping for sports outfits.”
“I know.”
“Look,” Luther says, placing his hand on Martin’s shoulder, “we’ll just check this place, use the key, and then go crash at Aunt Morgause’s with nobody the wiser as to our little detour.”
“What about the shopping we’re not doing?”
“We’ll say there was nothing we liked.”
“In the whole of London?”
“Father won’t be fussed,” Luther says. “It’s not as if he’s going to think the world’s about to end because I didn’t find a brand new sports kit.”
Martin raises an eyebrow, gnaws on the fat of his lip, but then says, “Okay, all right. So where’s the flat?”
Luther points his finger at a spot on the map. “Exmouth Market.” He flips the tube map open. “So I guess once we get to London we should…” He hums a little under his breath. “…take the Bakerloo line to Baker Street and then change at King’s Cross. We can walk the rest of the distance.”
Martin doesn’t say it’s not the walking part that worries him.
* * *
Luther surfaces from his bedroom at ten o’ clock. Martin places a portion of reheated leftover eggs in front of him. “Good morning, lazy daisy.”
Luther blinks blearily at him. “I wake early every day of the week, Martin.” “But not today,” Martin says with a grin.
“I’m on holiday,” Luther says, knuckling his eyes and picking up the fork. “Crashing at my mate’s. I’m allowed to be lazy.”
“When aren’t you?” Martin asks, sitting across from Luther.
“Never,I told you,” Luther says, stuffing his mouth with eggs. “There’s only a lone, tiny mushroom here.”
“Sorry. I ate them all when I realised you weren’t about to wake up.” “You’re such a bad host,” Luther says, kicking his shin with his bare foot. “Said the guest complaining about his breakfast.”
When they’re done with their morning meal, they go into the garage. It’s full of odds and ends in the shape of spare parts, old musty furniture and boxes full of things Martin ought to give away to charity. It smells like lawn treatment, old cardboard and motor oil, with a dash of mould. The light is dim, provided only by a sliver of horizontal window placed high under the roof. It’s more than enough to steer by, but still not much in the way of illumination.
As a child Martin was scared sick of this place. He believed a monster, some kind of dragon hid in there. It took years and Luther daring him to spend the night in the place before Martin realised that nothing was lurking in the shadows. Well, nothing aside from Luther, who’d decided to surprise Martin with his presence. At the stroke of midnight. Martin nearly had a heart attack that time, but Luther stayed over and nothing supernatural poked its head in. So in a way Martin did get proof there was nothing in his garage.
Martin takes the bikes down from their walls stands. They’re old and a bit rusty. But after some oiling and greasing and tyre inflating, they
’re viable. Luther says they look like those old grandfather bikes postmen used to parade around the countryside in the Edwardian Age. Martin tells him it’s the same bike he had when they were kids and Luther’s eyes go large and slit at the corners. “So it is!” he says, nearly at screech pitch. “So, it is, Martin.”
Martin smiles as Luther climbs onto the saddle, feet down, and tries the brakes. “We should go to the lake,” he says, gleefully sounding the bell. “Like we used to.”
“It’s December, Luther.”
“Come on, what’s a little cold!”
Luther’s smiling so hard, so crazily, that Martin can’t bring himself to say no. It’s probably freezing
out there. Martin can’t be sure because he went directly from house to garage but the sky is definitely charcoal. A look out of the window earlier told him that the asphalt is covered in frost patches. It means nothing though, not when Luther seems so wide eyed and happy at the prospect of going to the lake.
So Martin pulls a woollen hat over his brow, loops a scarf around his neck, and mounts on his bicycle. “Okay, all right, let’s go.”
Martin wasn’t wrong. The air has a cold, vicious bite to it and Martin’s breath crackles with every exhalation. His fingers, though encased in thick gloves, smart and cramp around the handle bars, and his muscles react slowly, sluggishly. The wind tastes of snow and numbs the lips, but all the same, Martin makes himself yell, “Up the hill. Let’s see who gets there first.”
Hunching over the front wheel, Martin stands on the pedals and pumps his old bicycle up the road.
Luther lags ten feet behind and is just now starting to seriously climb his way up.
That’s the catalyst for Martin to try even harder. He grinds his way up the harsh path, wheels whirling more slowly as the track gets steeper. He isn’t tired though. His legs do burn but his mind’s not on it. He’s not focusing on his body so much as on what he’s feeling. There’s a lightness to it, a thoughtlessness, a living in the moment vibrancy blooming in Martin and it makes him experience a simple wash of joy. His heart’s beating fast in his chest, his face hot with exertion, and his body’s warming in spite of the frost hanging in the air.
Mountain peaks come into view in the far distance, crags hinting at ranges extending far beyond, rock covered in snow under the washed out midday sun. The trail meanders around heather-crested hillocks, encrusted with hoar and yellowed with cold.
The lake waters are heavy and dull with it too, laced with grey, reflecting the scuttling of the clouds.
Martin and Luther lean their bikes against a tree. They haven’t brought blankets and the ground is too chilly for them to lie down on as they used to when they came here during summer.
So instead they sit on a boulder, play skimming stones. Martin wins. He’s had a lot of practice. They stare out at the lake, inhaling the fresh mountain air, even laden with snow as it is. “I’ve missed this place,” Luther says, drawing back his arm to throw the pebble he’s been holding on to. “You don’t know how much.”
Martin drinks in the landscape, feels it deep in his bones. “I can imagine missing this place.”
“Well, recently I’ve grown particularly sentimental about it.”
Martin inhales the smell of moss, impresses it upon his memory. “In what way exactly?”
Luther chuckles, weighs another stone in his palm. He doesn’t look at Martin but stares ahead. “I pitched a project. It’s a drama set here, just—” Luther lobs the stone at the water. It skips only twice. “In the past. Edwardian age I was thinking.”
“Cool,” Martin says. Knowing Luther, it’ll be something thoughtful, it will be showing insight, and have some clever twist. Luther’s stuff is always like that. New and interesting. “Is it a done deal?”
“They’ve bought it,” Luther says. “ITV will be making it into a four part drama.” “Am I talking to the next Fellowes?” Martin asks, pinching Luther in the side.
“No, you idiot. I’m not quite so enamoured with the aristocracy.” “Oh so we won’t have lords and ladies?”
“No,” Luther says, lips in a pout. “It’s going to be a gritty, realistic drama. About miners and socialism and…” Luther rakes up a stone, clutches it in his fist. “I thought of you when I wrote it. I thought… This is something Martin would like.”
“I’m flattered,” Martin says, and somehow he must be because his body warms from the neck up and his heart takes to beating with such persistence it might blow a hole through his chest. “I’ll try and catch it.”
“Oh no, no. I won’t hear such talk,” Luther says, throwing his stone, but turning his head so he can’t see what’s happened to it. “You must watch.”
By the time they make their way back home, their limbs have nearly frozen solid, the skin of Martin’s nose is reddened past redemption, feeling brittle and as if it’s about to fall off, and he can’t uncurl his hands from their grip on the handlebar.
When they get to Martin’s drive, they sight a car. It’s large and grey, of German make. Despite the weather, both the windscreen and the paintwork are spotless. The doors open and out of them spill Leon and Gwen, Tristan and his girlfriend.
“Martin!” Gwen calls out, waving, screeching a tad. “Martin, we’re here!” Martin hops of the still moving bicycle and says, “Gwen!”
Chapter 6
2002
They come up Farringdon Lane and before they can mentally brace themselves, they are in Exmouth Market. It is a cobbled pedestrian street, with lower buildings and heaps of stalls and bars and restaurants selling aromatic food. It looks like a village street plonked in the heart of London.
The flat they’re looking for sits in a brick construction with a flat roof. They don’t have keys for the street door, but a girl’s coming out of the building anyway and Martin and Luther sneak in with no problem.
They climb the stairs to the first floor.
“Which flat is it?” Martin asks. All doors look alike, white lacquer, a brass round handle.
“Flat six,” Luther says, starting up a second flight of stairs.
The key turns in the lock like a charm, like the door’s last been opened yesterday.
Martin must admit to having held his breath till this very moment, a conviction this would go tits up having lodged in his brain. But when he steps into the flat, he sighs in relief, giddy with the notion of having been proven wrong.
The flat is square, white washed. Two large windows invite in a flood of bright light. There’s no furniture to speak of barring a few pictures on the wall and some empty shelves in the corner.
“Let’s try the other room,” Luther says.
They enter a rectangular room that is all wall on one side. On the other stands a glass fronted cabinet. Boxes are inside. Under the window to the side, there’s a slim table on which a projector stands.
“So,” Martin says, watching Luther as he in turn studies the room, “what do we do now?” “I want to see if there’s anything of hers left.”
“But Uther rented the house at one point,” Martin says, and he doesn’t want to. The last thing he wants is to cause Luther sadness, but that’s something they do have to consider. “What are the odds he’s kept her stuff?”
Luther, spine rigid, moves towards the cupboard. “He kept the flat, didn’t he?” Martin can see the logic in that. “Yeah.”
Luther moves over to the cupboard and starts rooting in the boxes. “These look like film reels,” Luther says, eyes wide with curiosity. “Martin, turn on the projector will you?”
