The Mystery of the Cupboard

by Lynne Reid Banks

  “Wasn’t she terrific, though — your Jessica Charlotte,” said Patrick.

  “Yes,” said Omri.

  “You’d never think she was a thief.”

  “You shouldn’t judge, if you’ve ever done anything mad yourself,” said Omri. “And you have and so have I.”

  Patrick looked round at him. “Did you think of that?”

  “No. It’s in the Account.”

  “I think I’ll read that after all,” Patrick said. “Now I’ve met her. She seemed like… quite a woman. Pity we can’t bring her back for an encore!”

  “Or just to talk to her.”

  “Yeah.” He straightened up. “Hey, I could murder an ice cream. I’m going back to the shop. D’you want me to bring you one?”

  “Yes. No. I dunno. No, don’t bother. See you later.”

  Patrick dashed off, and Omri went the other way. The jewel case… it all hung on that. If only he knew…! Something about the jewel case was tickling the back of his mind, something reassuring, if only he could think of it… but it eluded him. He felt a shadow hanging over him that he couldn’t get out from under.

  He thought that no one in the world before him had had to worry that at any time he could not just disappear but never have been. No. Surely that couldn’t happen. Could it? Time was so weird, so — ungraspable. Clocks and watches made it seem simple but it was just like with these animals. You put fences round them and thought you had them tamed but there was so much more to them than that. You couldn’t tame time.

  He saw his mother at a distance and swerved to walk towards her. She was standing close to a high mesh fence.

  “I hate monkeys,” she said, gazing intently at a group of baboons. Most of them were picking fleas out of each other’s fur, but two big males suddenly began jumping up and down, snarling and screeching. The mother baboons snatched up their babies and scattered.

  “So why aren’t you looking at some other animal, like the giraffes? You like giraffes.”

  “Only because of their crazy-paving coats,” she said obscurely. “Look at those urky beasts, how disgustingly like us they are! I wish they were all in Africa.”

  “I wish we were too!” said Omri fervently. Although it wouldn’t make any difference to his anxiety. If it turned out he’d never been born, he could just as easily disappear in Africa as here.

  “Have you seen the bison?” his mother asked.

  “Are there bison? I’d like to see those,” said Omri. He always liked anything that reminded him of American Indians, although Little Bull’s tribe was not from the plains and didn’t hunt buffalo.

  They wandered off to another part of the park. It was a lovely afternoon. The English countryside stretched away on all sides, with the strangeness of wild animals from faraway countries dotted about in it. A herd of zebra grazed on a green hill, and you could hear the screech of peacocks from near the big house.

  Omri had a strong urge to put his hand into his mother’s, but he thought it would look babyish. He just needed to hang onto her, suddenly. There was so much fear inside him.

  “Mum.”

  “Mm?”

  “Are you sure you grew up in the East End? Are you sure your gran was poor?”

  She looked at him, puzzled. “What a funny question! Did you think I was making it up?”

  Bert hadn’t done it yet. Well, it was only a few hours since he’d sent them back. If only the little burglar decided to break his solemn vow! If only he just kept the swag, like a good thief!

  But then he might be afraid Omri would bring him back. Of course he could do that. But somehow Omri felt a deep reluctance to bring any of the three of them back again. It was as if he’d burnt his fingers last time he’d touched them and now he was afraid, in a very deep place inside, to touch them again. Of course Bert couldn’t know that, so he might do what he’d promised just in case. Or because he was afraid of Elsie turning him in…

  “Mum,” Omri said. “You know the red leather jewel case that my key belonged to.”

  “Yes.”

  “Funny that when that was stolen, the burglar left the key behind.”

  “But he didn’t. The key was in the lock that night. Nice work, eh? Meant he didn’t even have to break the box to get at the jewels.”

  “But - but - but you said Maria left you the key - for - for your legacy! The one you gave me—”

  “No, no, that wasn’t that one! That was a spare.”

  “Is that what she told you? That she’d had a spare key?”

  His mother had a funny look. Her eyes had gone narrow, as if she were watching something.

  “Come to think of it…”

  “What?”

  “When she was dying… she called it ‘Jessie’s key’. She said…” She stopped. She stopped walking too, as if to help her concentrate.

  “What, Mum?” Omri almost shouted.

  “Omri, don’t… Don’t yell at me now… I’m trying to remember. She was so pitiful…” Suddenly she began to cry.

  “Mum!” Omri burst out, shocked.

  “I’m sorry.” She tried to pull herself together, blowing her nose. “You see, I never knew my mother. I was only a baby when she was killed by the bomb. And Daddy was killed in the Navy, at the battle of St Nazaire. Granny Marie was the only real family I had. I loved her so very much, and she loved me. I was all she had left too.”

  Omri said nothing. Slowly his mother began to walk again, and he kept beside her. Something was coming out of her deepest memory, something very, very important to him.

  “She was quite well, till near the end, and then she suddenly had a heart attack. She was taken into hospital. Adiel was only about a month old at the time. I was running to and fro like mad, to visit her. I felt frantic. I knew she was going to die — she was in her eighties — and I couldn’t bear it somehow. I wanted her to live for ever… And she was so distressed, so upset, and I couldn’t find out what was bothering her. I wanted her at least to die in peace. And then at last, she came out with it.”

  “What?”

  She walked for a long time in silence. His impatience was almost too much to bear, but he did bear it.

  “Simply that she had nothing to leave me. I couldn’t believe it! As if I cared! And that was when she started going on about all the things that had been stolen. The silver tea service, the emerald bracelet, the diamond brooch… Of course it was absurd. They’d all have been sold long ago, but it was as if she’d forgotten the years between and all she could think of was that I should have had them, that she should have been able to hand them on to me.

  “It’s so clear in my memory… Her lying there, so — frail, the life in her petering out… desperately longing to give me a treasure, an heirloom. And giving me this little old grey key! ‘It’s worthless,’ she said. ‘It’s not even the proper one… it’s Jessie’s key, the one Jessie sent, that happened to fit… It’s a skeleton key, it opens any lock…’ And she pressed it into my hand and whispered, ‘My sweet girl, may it open doors for you, all your life…’”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘Does it open the jewel case?’ and she said it did. So I said that the key and the jewel case were all the inheritance anyone could want.”

  Omri stopped dead in his tracks.

  “What did you say?”

  “I told her she could give me the jewel case. What was left of it… The red leather was beginning to rot, the sides had come unglued, and the lid and the little trays were hanging off, but it was still a box, and it still had its key. And Granny Marie said, what was the use of an old empty box, and I said, but it’s much more than that! It was given to her by Matthew on their honeymoon.”

  Omri could scarcely speak. He clutched her arm.

  “But it was stolen,” he managed to scrape out of a dry throat. “The burglar - stole it.”

  “Oh, yes, but didn’t I tell you? The case was found afterwards, thrown away in the garden. Of course, empty, but you know, she was s
o glad at least to have that back. She’d often told me the story of how an old Cockney lady who happened to be passing, and saw it under the front hedge, brought it in to her a couple of days after the burglary, all muddy and bedraggled, and she hugged it and cried over it, and forgot for the moment that everything valuable had gone. It was a bit of Matt for her to treasure.”

  Omri felt the sweet fresh air going down into his lungs as he breathed deeply. Of course. Of course. That was it - that was what he’d been trying to remember! His mother had told him - long ago, when he’d first had the key — that the jewel case had fallen to pieces! If she knew that, she must have kept it until then. It must have been returned!

  He was alive. He wasn’t going to disappear, even though Bert had kept his oath — to the letter. “I will return the jewel case…” And that was just what he had done! The crafty little crook… And who was the “old Cockney lady who happened to be passing?” Could that have been Elsie? What would she have done to Bert afterwards? Poor old Bert! Omri suddenly began to laugh and cry at once.

  “Omri! Darling, what is it?”

  “Oh, Mum! It’s okay, nothing, I’m okay, don’t mind me…”

  She was holding him tight. Gradually he calmed down. He pulled away and wiped his nose on the back of his hand.

  “I don’t fancy seeing the bison just now,” he said. “Can we have an ice cream?”

  They walked back to the big house with their arms around each other. Omri didn’t feel there was anything childish about that at all. In fact, he felt extremely grown-up.

  Epilogue

  A Funeral — and After

  None of the family felt called on to go to Tom Towsler’s funeral with Omri a week later.

  Patrick and Tony, of course, had gone home, and Omri and Gillon were back at school. Omri’s mother had never met Tom, and his father - who might have gone simply out of respect - was being intensely busy doing-it-himself around the house and at the last minute said, “Could you do the honours by yourself, Omri? I’m just getting into this now, and it would mean putting on a suit.” Omri’s dad owned only one suit that had been going for ten years as he only wore it for weddings and funerals, which he grandly called “state functions”.

  So Omri took the morning off from school and put on a suit himself (well, a pair of school trousers and a jacket and tie anyway), and cycled carefully to the village church. He purposely got there half an hour early.

  He wasn’t so eager for the funeral — who is? — but there was something he did want to do, and that was to find Jenny’s grave.

  Wandering around the churchyard, he tried to imagine where he would have put it if he’d been Tom, and he guessed somewhere quiet and private, and headed into the corners. Two yielded nothing, but in the angle of the third, protected by a straggly hedge, he found it.

  It was beautiful and perfect, a work of love. The grave was six inches long, a neat oval mound covered, not with grass, but with a sweet-scented plant with tiny bright green leaves that Omri later found out was called camomile.

  There was a border of small, flat, white stones all round it to discourage the grass from overgrowing it too soon. The grass around it had been cut very short, perhaps with scissors, though it was growing out now. The cross was small to match the grave, but beautifully made of polished wood. It had a tiny plaque, about an inch square, made of a piece of brass, simply engraved:

  JENNY

  R.I.P.

  Omri had no views about the hereafter. He didn’t really think there was one. But a strange hope came to him as he crouched by the grave. He hoped that Tom had believed in one, one where time and size didn’t matter, and people who had loved each other would come together.

  “On my way, Jen…” Yes, Omri thought as he stood up and walked back to the front of the church. Tom had believed that he was going to find her.

  After that, Omri didn’t feel too sad at the funeral itself. But Peggy was in a bad way. She was sitting in the pew just in front of him (there were a lot of people in the church, including two of their own thatchers who nodded solemnly to Omri when they saw him) wearing dark clothes and a navy blue headscarf over her hair. She was crying all the way through the service. Omri felt really sorry for her, and after it was all over, he steeled himself to go up to her in the church porch, where she was standing near the vicar, accepting people’s condolences.

  When she saw him she grabbed him and gave him something like a hug.

  “Thanks for comin’,” she whispered in his ear. “I got somethin’ he’d’ve wanted you to have. All them little plastic toys he kept so nice, his collection… You was the last one he talked to… Never woke up again after that.” The memory seemed to affect her unbearably, and she burst into tears again and clutched Omri to her.

  Feeling himself clasped in her arms, Omri moved a bit to free himself politely. By accident he brushed against the side of her head. The navy headscarf slipped, and he found himself staring at an aquamarine drop earring.

  He cycled home in an unusual mood of philosophical acceptance.

  Since he’d failed to find the earrings in the cashbox, he’d assumed Jessica Charlotte had sold them or hidden them somewhere. It never occurred to him that she had given them to Tom, as thanks for what he did for her at the end.

  Well. So much for his hopes of handing them to his mother. He wondered if Peggy knew how valuable they were. Almost certainly not. Tom had called them ‘a trifle’… Omri felt sad, a bit frustrated, but… well. There it was.

  He asked himself if he would have traded the earrings for the sight of Jessica Charlotte singing. The chance of actually meeting her. The relief of knowing that he had not interfered — or rather, that the interference he’d intended hadn’t changed anything. His gratitude to Patrick for being so unexpectedly sensible.

  He decided he wouldn’t. Those things were more important than earrings. He felt sorry his mother wouldn’t have them, though. But then, when he thought about it, he decided she’d have looked funny in them. She only wore silver and fun stuff. Glittery real jewels weren’t her style.

  Well, that wrapped it all up. And speaking of wrapping up, he made up his mind that as soon as he got home, he’d wrap up the cupboard and get his dad to take it back to the bank. For good, this time. At least he’d resisted the temptation (reinforced by Patrick, who hadn’t been too sensible to beg for just a brief chat with Boone) to bring their old friends to life.

  Because there was no such thing, with this business, as a “brief chat”. Bringing them back always led to something. Patrick had reluctantly seen the point in the end. He hadn’t had the scare Omri had had, but he got the point just the same, and had taken Boone away with him, sadly but resignedly.

  Omri leant his bike against the front of the house.

  Kitsa was playing with her kittens on the lawn. She’d brought them to show them off about three days ago, leading them in a line, tiny pointed tails erect, across the lane and up the path. The fuss that had been made of her mollified her (or possibly she just couldn’t face lugging them all up that ladder again) and she had now taken up residence with her kittens in the bottom of a cupboard in one of the living rooms. As a direct result, the ground floor had become infested with fleas, the whole family was eaten alive, but nobody even thought of kicking her out or speaking a single cross word to her. She was queen of the house once again. The pest man was coming today.

  Kitsa graciously allowed Omri to give her an admiring caress and even, briefly, to pick up one of their kittens to stroke. Then she put her front paws against his leg and administered a Kitsa-hint by sticking all ten claws into him. He laughed, put the kitten down, and went into the house.

  “How was the funeral?” his mother called from the kitchen.

  “Okay,” said Omri.

  “Surprise for you,” she said. “Go and look in your bedroom and see what Dad’s been doing!”

  The first thing he noticed was that there were bolts on the insides of both the doors in his room.
>
  “Oh, great, Dad, thanks!” he yelled, though there was no sign of his father now. Then he looked around again, and his blood congealed in his veins.

  There was a series of properly fitted shelves at shoulder height on the wall. Prominently placed on one of them stood the cupboard, with the key in its lock.

  Omri’s arrangement of bricks and planks had gone.

  He felt his legs buckle, and his face turn icy cold. He turned and stumbled out of the room and downstairs. He stood there at the bottom. He was afraid to his marrow, afraid to confront his father - afraid to ask.

  His mother came past, and paused, seeing him so still:

  “Anything wrong, love? Don’t you like the shelves?”

  He had to cough before he could speak. “Where — where did Dad put the — bricks and stuff that were up there?”

  “He was going to bash them up to make hardcore for a patio—”

  Omri didn’t listen to any more. He couldn’t run, he felt too unsteady, so he walked, slowly and deliberately, down the path, through the gate, across the lane… He found his father sitting in his studio. He wasn’t working or painting. He wasn’t doing anything, just sitting and staring out of the window.

  “Dad.”

  He expected his father to turn to him the face people show when they expect to be thanked for something nice they’ve done. But he didn’t look like that at all. He too looked as if he had had a shock. Omri knew at once that something fundamental had happened. A quantum leap.

  “Dad? Where are they?” It seemed to take all his courage to frame the question.

  “I put them where I thought they belonged,” said his father in an odd voice.

  They stared at each other for what seemed like a long time.

  “Where?”

  “In the cupboard, of course,” his father said. “Isn’t that where you put them?”

  Another long silence. Then Omri forced himself again.

  “Did you — you didn’t lock them in?”