by Nick Gifford
That evening, after they had eaten, Gramps said, “Air.” He waved a hand in front of his face. “I need air.”
Carol rose to her feet instantly. She put a hand on her father’s arm and said, “I’ll take you for your walk.” Every evening someone would take Gramps for a slow walk around the garden.
But tonight he shook off her hand. He looked at Matt and said, “Matthew, my boy. Join me?”
Surprised, Matt nodded.
It was quite cool outside now, a breeze coming in off the sea. As Matt waited on the patio, holding the door for his grandfather, a pair of small bats flitted about the eaves of the house.
“The moths come for the honeysuckle, the bats come for the moths,” said Gramps. He waved in the direction of the honeysuckle that scrambled over a trellis on the back wall. Matt was surprised that his eyes were still sharp enough to see in this murky twilight.
They walked slowly along the patio, Matt unsure whether he should offer his grandfather support or not. He chose not to, and just walked close to him.
“Like Bathside, do you?” asked Gramps. “The sea? The beach?”
“It’s okay,” said Matt.
Gramps nodded. “Your mother doesn’t,” he said. “She’s not happy, although she tries to hide it. Never liked this place. Couldn’t wait to get away from here when she was a girl – took the first chance she could. Never liked to come back, even to visit. We make her uneasy.” He smiled sadly at this.
Matt was surprised. He had been sure it was his father who was the reason for their infrequent visits, not his mother.
At the bottom of the garden there was a stone bench, its surface weather-stained and mottled with lichen. Gramps lowered himself onto the seat and, after a moment’s hesitation, Matt joined him.
“You found my books, all right, then.”
Matt was surprised to remember that it was only this morning that he had gone out to Crooked Elms with Vince. It all seemed so long ago, somehow. He nodded. “In the basement,” he said. “Just like it said on the list.”
His grandfather was peering at him, his pale blue eyes picking up the lights from the house so that they shone eerily in the dusk shadows. “You... you didn’t have any trouble?”
Matt started to shake his head, then stopped, unsure. “I fell over,” he said. “Hit my head, I think. But it’s okay – I didn’t break anything.”
“You came to stay with us when you were five months old,” said Gramps, abruptly. “Screamed the place down for most of two days. I said then that you were a sensitive one. Dizzy, were you? Did you feel the heat? Did you see anything?”
Matt shuddered, unnerved by his grandfather’s words. He remembered Vince talking about dark powers, special places, the family madness. “I just fell,” he said. “Tripped over something, I suppose. I blacked out for a short time and then Vince came and helped me.”
Gramps gasped. “Vincent?” he hissed. “He was there with you?”
“He drove me there,” said Matt patiently. “He has the keys.”
“What happened? What did he do?”
Matt glanced up towards the house, worried by his grandfather’s sudden agitation. “Nothing,” he said, remembering Vince’s mad stare as he had so carefully slashed his own arm. “He sat in the car most of the time, then he helped me with the box. That’s all.”
Gramps gripped his arm tightly. “You should be careful of that one,” he said. “He doesn’t know how dangerous he is, dabbling in things he doesn’t understand. He’s not a Wareden, you know – not really one of us at all. Doesn’t have the Wareden insight... doesn’t have the sensitivity... doesn’t appreciate the family way. Do you understand me, boy? Do you?”
Gramps was panting rapidly, hyperventilating.
Matt stood. “I’ll just go and get Mum,” he said, backing away.
Gramps half-stood, then slumped back onto the bench. “No,” he said. “No, Matthew! I need to talk to you. I need to warn you, don’t you understand?”
“Calm down, Gramps,” said Matt, scared by the sudden intensity of the old man. “Later, okay? We’ll talk later. You just need to calm down now, okay?”
But his grandfather pushed himself up again, and this time he managed to stand. “No,” he said. “Now... now’s the time to...”
Matt turned and ran.
A moment later, he burst in through the back door. Carol took one look at him and then rushed out past him into the growing darkness.
His mother was slower to react. She stared at him. “What is it?” she asked.
“Gramps,” said Matt. “He started ranting, started to shout... to get over-excited.” He thought then of Vince’s words. “I think he’s gone mad,” he said. “I think he’s finally flipped.”
Gramps had fallen over onto the lawn.
When Matt saw Carol crouching by him, he feared the very worst.
Then he heard his grandfather’s voice, mumbling away, the words completely unintelligible by now.
Carol turned the old man onto his side, and when Matt’s mother joined her the two of them were able to raise Gramps to a sitting position.
Matt stood back, wishing he could disappear completely in the shadows, as they helped Gramps back into the house. Uncle Mike was standing in the doorway, watching it all with a drunken smile on his face.
As they took Gramps to his room, Mike burped softly into the back of his hand.
“Good one,” he said, turning to Matt. “Got him well worked up, didn’t you? How did you do it? Maybe I’ll have a go myself, next time.”
6 Everything Changes
Matt spent most of the next morning in Mrs Eldridge’s conservatory, reading another second rate thriller. They went to Aunt Carol’s for lunch, as usual.
Gramps had been in bed all morning. “It’s okay,” said Carol sympathetically, when Matt had clearly looked concerned. “He’s just a bit low. A bit tired... You know how it is.”
He nodded. He remembered Gramps’ rantings from the previous evening. Gramps had wanted to tell him something. “Can I go up and see him?” he asked now.
Carol shook her head emphatically. “Like I said: he’s tired. Let him rest today. See how he is in the morning. All right, darling?”
He shrugged. It wasn’t all that important, he supposed.
~
That afternoon, his mother was called away to the telephone.
Matt was sitting outside, reading. The first he knew about it was when Tina found him.
She was smiling. He looked up at her, resenting her intrusion on his peace. He never liked it when the girl smiled, it nearly always meant something bad.
“What is it?” he grunted, when she refused to vanish in a puff of smoke as he had been hoping.
“Aunty Jill had a telephone call,” she said.
“So?”
“I think it was probably bad news. She put the phone down so hard I was sure she was going to break it. She really should know better.”
She stood there, still smiling, still refusing to vanish. Matt returned his gaze to the pages of his book, but he couldn’t concentrate while his ghoulish cousin stood over him like that.
“She was crying,” Tina said eventually. “Then she rushed out of the room. I didn’t know Aunty Jill was so unstable.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” asked Matt, although he had a pretty good idea.
Her smile grew even broader. “Because Mum brought me up to be helpful and considerate,” she said. “And because I hate you.”
He went into the house.
Carol was in the kitchen, rolling pastry. The pastry formed a near-perfect circle, as if it didn’t dare go against his aunt’s wishes.
“Where’s Mum?”
She looked up, then looked away again quickly. That wasn’t like her, at all.
“She had to go back to Bagshaw Terrace,” she said. “She’ll be back soon – perhaps you should wait.” She added this as Matt turned instantly and headed along the hall to the front door. He ignored he
r and went outside.
~
He found his mother in her room struggling to stuff their belongings into the bags they had brought on the train from Norwich. For a moment, his heart leapt as he thought Tina was going to get her wish and they were finally going home. Then he saw the look on his mother’s face and immediately he knew it was far worse than that.
“I’m sorry, Matt,” she said, as he stopped in the doorway. She forced the zipper closed on her bag and rubbed vigorously at her eyes. “We can’t live here with Mrs Eldridge any more. We’re going to have to stay with Aunt Carol for a few days, until we sort something else out.”
For an insane moment, Matt wondered what Tina had done now to get them kicked out of their lodgings. Then he dismissed the thought.
“What is it?” he demanded. “What’s going on?”
“It’s your father,” she said hesitantly, refusing to meet his demanding stare. “He hasn’t been paying. Mrs Eldridge won’t put us up without any money.”
“Call him, then. Ask him for the money.” He didn’t see the problem. He refused to see the problem.
She just looked at him. Then she reached up and swept the hair back out of her eyes. “No, Matt. It’s no good. He says he won’t pay anything until he’s made to.”
It started to sink in, at last: the meaning of her words. Confirming his darkest fears.
His parents had split up.
~
The only thing that broke through his initial sense of shock was the look of dismay on Tina’s face when Matt and his mother turned up at Aunt Carol’s house with their bags. Her mouth fell open, her eyes bulged as if they would pop out of their sockets at any moment, and she stared – how she stared!
“Come on,” said Carol, taking the bag from his mother and turning towards the stairs. “We’ll put your things in your room. It’s all ready for you. Okay?”
Matt followed the two of them up the stairs. He remembered that this had been a guest-house at one time, so there were plenty of rooms. They went up to the second floor, just as if they were still at Mrs Eldridge’s. “You can have this one,” said Carol brightly to her sister, stepping through a doorway. She looked back at Matt, and added, “The door behind you, Matthew. It’s small, I’m afraid, but I’m sure it will do for now.”
He turned and pushed at the white, panelled door before him. It opened onto a square box room, clearly used for storage: it was full of packing cases, cardboard boxes, old suitcases and bags, all stuffed full of things. Piled onto the boxes and bags were several years’ worth of assorted junk: ornamental lamps, a full length mirror, an old kettle, shoes, books, string-bound bundles of magazines, stacked dining chairs, bundled sleeping bags, a guitar without strings, what looked like a deflated paddling pool, a box marked xmas decs.
He took it all in. This was it, he realised. Everything had changed.
The junk had been cleared away from one side of the room so that a camp bed could be fitted in – the room was barely long enough to allow the bed to be fully opened out. Matt dumped his bag on the floor and leaned over to prod suspiciously at the bed. He went across to the small window. The room was at the back of the house and he found he was looking out over the garden and across to the next row of terraced houses.
He remembered sitting out there on the stone bench only the previous evening, listening to Gramps getting steadily more worked up until he had his fit, or whatever it was.
Carol’s voice drifted across the landing, like the incessant twittering of a caged bird. He walked across – four paces – and shut the door softly. He sat on the bed, and unzipped his bag. He found his books and his signed photograph of Michael Owen and arranged them along the mantelpiece of a boarded up fireplace, and then he lay back on his bed, folded his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling.
So this is it.
It made his moods of the last few days seem so petty: sulking because the first couple of weeks of his summer holidays had been messed up. Everything was different now, all the certainty had been removed from his life. All the things he had taken for granted – home, friends, school, the relentless course of the next few years as he approached adulthood – had been cast into doubt.
And it hurt. There was a tight knot of pain buried deep in his chest, in his gut. He thought he might be sick, but he fought the feeling. He wasn’t going to let them do that to him. No tears, either.
Just the pain.
Had they actually moved to Bathside, he wondered? Was this to be his home, his future? Was he to have no say in it?
He tried to stop thinking, tried to ignore how much it hurt.
~
She came in to see him some time later. He didn’t know how long he had been lying there alone, staring at the ceiling, running the same thoughts round and round in his head as if somehow that would change anything.
She tapped at the door first. Then, when he said nothing, she pushed it open tentatively. “Hi,” she said, an uneasy smile breaking briefly across her face. “Comfortable?”
Sure, he was comfortable. Never better. He said nothing.
She looked around. Matt guessed she wanted to sit down so that she wasn’t looming over him like that, but there were no usable chairs and the bed was too flimsy for the two of them. She leaned on the wall, then straightened, then finally settled for squatting on her haunches with a shoulder against the wall. Getting down to the same level – as if she was talking to a toddler, or a dog, Matt thought.
“You won’t have to put up with all this for long, love,” she told him. “I’ll sort something out.”
“What will you sort out?” demanded Matt. “Are we going back to Norwich? What about Dad?”
She brushed at her hair with a clawed hand. “I don’t know,” she said. Then she shook her head, decisively. “No,” she corrected herself. “I do know. I’m not going back. I told Carol I’m going to find work down here, then find somewhere to live.”
“And me?” It sounded so selfish, as soon as he heard his own words. He wasn’t the only one whose life had been ripped apart. “What about me?”
“We thought it best you stay here, for the time being. Your father is travelling a lot over the next couple of weeks.” She swept her hair back again, in a sudden, jerky movement that made Matt jump. Then she went on, “You’re old enough to decide what’s best for you. You need to do what you think is right. But, Matt, I love you... I want you to stay with me.”
“You knew all along, didn’t you?” said Matt. “When we came down here – you knew you were leaving Dad. You knew you were breaking up.”
His words hurt her, he could see, and he felt a small thrill of satisfaction.
She shook her head. “I didn’t know that that was it,” she said, in an unsteady voice. “But it had been on the cards for a long time, Matt – you must have been aware. Suddenly, coming here... it made me think... And then it just happened.” She gathered herself, then continued, “I spoke to your father on the phone this afternoon and it was only then that I actually realised we’d split up. It just happened, Matt. It wasn’t planned, it wasn’t deliberate. It just happened.”
He rolled over onto his side, so that his back was to his mother. He had stared at the ceiling for long enough. Now he would stare at the wall.
~
That night, everything changed again.
Matt had never endured a more strained evening. He refused to acknowledge his mother’s presence, even though she was continually on the verge of tears. Uncle Mike glowered at everyone, making it quite clear that this arrangement wasn’t going to last for long if he had anything to do with it.
Matt couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t get his mind straight. He pushed his chair away from the table, aware of all the eyes turning towards him.
Away from the dining room, he felt some of the pressure lifting. He decided to go up for his book, although he knew he wouldn’t be able to concentrate.
On the first floor, he hesitated.
Gramps had b
een up here all day. His door was open now and Matt could see him, sitting in an armchair in his pyjamas and dressing gown, poring over one of his old photograph albums.
Matt was surprised to see his grandfather looking so calm. So normal. He approached the door and then, when Gramps looked up, he went in and sat on the edge of the bed. The room smelt of scotch – a near-empty bottle stood on top of a chest of drawers nearby.
No wonder Gramps seemed so placid, Matt thought. He’d been up here all day drinking himself senseless.
“You wanted to tell me something,” said Matt. “Yesterday, when we were in the garden. There was something you wanted to say.”
Gramps looked puzzled for a moment, his pale blue eyes glazing over. “Oh,” he said. Then he seemed to understand. “Oh yes,” he said. He waved a hand dismissively. “Later,” he continued. “You’ll understand it all later.” He smiled. He didn’t seem able to talk in more than a short sentence at a time this evening.
“I’ve written it all down.” He waved at a pile of letters on a chair at the foot of the bed. “Can’t seem to concentrate. It’s better written down. Says everything.” He gestured at the letters again. “One of them’s for you, boy. Go on: take it. You can read it later.”
Matt leaned across and picked up the stack of letters. Each was in its own envelope, with a name scrawled in shaky handwriting. Carol, Jill, Kirsty, Tina. And there, at the bottom of the pile, Matthew.
He took the letter and replaced the others on the chair. Gramps must have been working all day at these letters. Whatever he had to say, it must be important.
“Ever wanted to do something you’re almost too scared to do?” asked Gramps, a strange intensity in his eyes. “But it’s your only real choice?”
Matt didn’t understand. He watched his grandfather cautiously, saw that his eyes were glazed again. Too much drink, he thought.
And then he did start to understand: Gramps’ strange calmness, his inability to string together more than a few words at a time. The letters – there was something horribly final about those letters.
Matt looked across at the chest of drawers... the nearly empty scotch bottle. There was something else lying there, something he had seen earlier, although he had not fully appreciated its significance.
