Dead Branches

by Benjamin Langley

  Adults didn’t help. “I’m sure the police are working their hardest on it.” But when did the police ever solve anything like this? This kind of thing normally only happened on TV and was left to the likes of Captain Caveman and Scooby Doo to sort out. The only time the police showed up was at the end once the mystery was solved. If it was a regular crime then it was up to them, but there was no way that had had happened to John was any kind of regular crime.

  Mum came to pick us up from school. She had to go to the Post Office though, so we had to walk along with her.

  “Have the police been back again today?” asked Will.

  “Yes, I think there were a couple of cars today, but they’re gone now.”

  “Did they find anything?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Will, they don’t come and tell us about every little development. How was school?”

  Will muttered something about his teacher, and I wanted to say that school was a mess because no one knows what’s going on and we get distracted and can’t concentrate on a single thing, but Mum wouldn’t have wanted to hear about all of that, so I kept walking behind her. Liam and Andy were with us too. Liam was walking beside me, and I think he could see how wound up I was, but he didn’t say anything. Andy had run on a little ahead, but after being warned by Mum not to get out of sight he had stopped and was waiting further up the path for us. We’d reached Downham Close. The Post Office was a couple of houses further along Main Street. Andy was standing on the path pointing across the road. We looked over and there was a police car parked outside Shaky Jake’s house.

  “Stay here,” I said to Liam and then I ran across the road (after checking it was clear).

  “Thomas!” shouted Mum, but I blocked her out.

  There were no policemen in the car. I tiptoed across his lawn and peered into his front room, but there was no one in there, even though the TV was on. He had a lacy white tablecloth, like an old lady would have, on his coffee table. He’d tidied his magazines away.

  “Tom, what are you doing here?”

  I turned around and Laura was on the pavement in front of me with her mum and her little brother.

  My face felt hot. “Nothing,” I said.

  “Thomas you get back over here right now,” shouted Mum and I wanted to hide away.

  “Well, I better go,” said Laura, and she crossed Downham Close and went into her house.

  I went back across Main Street and Mum cuffed me on top of the head.

  “Don’t run away like that. That’s the kind of behaviour I’d expect from a toddler, Thomas, not you.”

  Liam jabbed me in the ribs and made a face at me, so I didn’t talk to him until we got inside the Post Office.

  “Can I have a Calippo, Mum?” Will said. Mum was at the counter talking to Sheila who runs the post office.

  She was old. She had white hair and glasses with a blue rim, and her arms really wobbled when she got something down from the top shelf. I know this because John and I once made her get down loads of different sweets from the top shelf so we could see just how much they wobbled. I ate so many Cola Cubes that day that my whole jaw ached.

  Will asked Mum for a Calippo, so I said I wanted one too. In the end we all had one. I took mine to the counter where I spotted a box of Fisherman’s Friends.

  “Excuse me,” I said, and looked up at Sheila, “Who buys these?”

  “Lots of people.”

  “Could you give me a list?”

  “I’m sorry,” Mum said, and pushed me away from the counter, “Ignore him, he’s just being a bit daft today.”

  I leant round the other side of Mum, “No, really, a list of all the people that buy them would be fantastic.”

  “I couldn’t do that anyway, love,” said Sheila. “My customers don’t want me keeping tabs on them.”

  “I’ll take a pack,” Mum said, then she looked down at me, “Your dad likes them. Now stop being so silly.”

  Embarrassed, I shuffled towards the door where Liam was staring up at the top magazine shelf. He pointed at Fiesta. “Look,” he said. “They sell it here.”

  Mum caught up with us. “Liam Carter, what are you gawping at?”

  And Liam went redder than I was.

  As we were walking back towards our house, we could see police cars were back outside again.

  “How would you boys like to visit your Granddad?” asked Mum and stopped us from heading home.

  Andy sprinted off along the path, and Will joined in, calling out, “Race you to the telegraph pole.”

  Liam and I watched as Will overtook Andy, but then slowed at the last second to let Andy win.

  Andy jumped up and down excitedly. “I’m the fastest!”

  Liam laughed. “I can’t believe you got beat by a year three.”

  Will smiled, and ruffled Andy’s hair.

  Andy was so excited when we reached Granddad’s cottage that he blurted out about his victory as he pushed the door open.

  Granddad peered round the doorway from the kitchen. “Well done, little man,” he said before looking up at the rest of us. “I wasn’t expecting you lot to call in on me today. Is it my birthday or something?”

  “Sorry to turn up unannounced, Norman,” Mum said. It sounded weird to hear his name.

  “Always a pleasure to see you,” Granddad said. “Got… company at yours?”

  “It looked busy, yes,” Mum said.

  “You boys don’t want to sit and listen to us blather on,” Granddad said. “Why don’t you have a look in the garage, see if you can find those old photographs I was talking to Tom about the other day?”

  I let Will, Andy and Liam head out the back door first and hung back a little.

  “Found out?” I heard Granddad say.

  “They might have done, but they’ve not told us anything. By the looks on their faces they don’t seem to be getting anywhere fast.” Mum looked up and saw me by the door. She nodded in my direction.

  Granddad spun round, quicker than I thought he was able, and tiled his head so that he was looking at me with his good eye (he had the green glass-eye in today, which was one of the least scary ones). “Try looking in the cabinet right in the back corner – the one I keep my tackle box on top of.”

  I left and caught up with Liam, Andy and Will who were looking in a box in the opposite corner to where Granddad had suggested.

  “Found anything?” I asked, knowing they wouldn’t have.

  “Just a load of rusty nails and screws,” Will said. “Oh, your friends are still here.” He pointed behind me.

  I turned, and I knew what it was from the foul smell. Two of the three pheasants that had been there when we went fishing still hung from hooks through their beaks. They had lost most of their colour and the feathers looked greasy. The necks also seemed longer, as if the weight of the body was stretching them out of shape. I quickly turned away from it and covered my nose with the sleeve of my jumper. “We should look over here,” I said, my voice muffled by my clothes. With my other hand I pointed to the cabinet in the corner.

  Liam was first over there. He looked inside the tackle box and pulled out the pot Granddad had got from Teddy Barnham. “Hey Andy, wanna play with the maggots?” As he held it in the air, he must have heard something, as he said, “Shush,” and then held the tub to his ear. He looked at us, his eyes wide and his mouth open. “It’s buzzing!”

  “Open it,” Will said.

  “No, Liam. Don’t,” Andy said, shaking his head and backing out of the garage.

  “Go on!” Will said. “Don’t be chicken.”

  I wanted to see what was inside, but I didn’t want to get on Liam’s bad side. “You don’t have to if you don’t want,” I said.

  “Why, are you scared?” asked Liam, and he placed the tub down on the cabinet, and gripped the lid. He looked up at each of us. Will was smiling, eager to see what was inside. I was apprehensive, fearing the worst, but knowing it couldn’t be anything too bad in so small a box, and Andy was prac
tically outside.

  When Liam tore the lid off two plump flies buzzed out and flew in opposite directions. One hit the dusty window and crashed to the floor, and the other headed for one of the pheasants and came to rest on its greasy feathers.

  “Tom, catch!” shouted Liam, and tossed the pot towards me.

  Instead, I moved away and let it hit the floor. It turned on its side, and the crispy carcasses of the remaining maggots fell to the floor.

  “Out of the way,” I said to Liam, and brushed him aside.

  He huffed, and then went to join Andy by the door.

  I opened the cabinet, and inside were a couple of battered boxes. As I pulled the first out it tore along an edge, and I could clearly see that there were no photographs in there. I pulled it out anyway, but it was full of boring bits of material. The second box was much heavier. Carefully I placed a hand underneath it to help guide it out as the box felt a little damp in my hands, and I didn’t want it to tear. It was full of old photographs, but it was near impossible to see them in the dim light of the garage. Will helped me to shuffle the box out into the daylight. We picked up the first photograph. With his slender figure, huge hands, and wild hair it was clearly a picture of Uncle Rodney. Even though he was just a child in the picture he looked almost the same, only bigger now, with a few wrinkles and redder cheeks.

  Andy and Liam dashed over to the box and plucked out the picture underneath. In it, were a young boy and a girl. “Look,” Andy said. “It’s your dad.”

  I didn’t believe it at first, but the shape of the eyes and the nose gave it away.

  “He looks just like Will!” Liam said.

  Will glanced at it. “Shut up,” he said. “My hair’s nothing like that.”

  But the rest of the face was similar.

  “Who’s that beside him?” asked Liam.

  “Is it my mum?” asked Andy.

  The gap-toothed girl with the pudding-bowl haircut was barely recognisable as Aunt Anne, but it had to be.

  “Found ‘em then,” Granddad said, emerging from his cottage.

  “You’ve still got pheasants in there,” Will said.

  “Oh, I’d darn well near forgot about them. They’ll be jus’ right for my dinner.”

  “Can I take them home?” I asked.

  “The pheasants?” Granddad said.

  “Urgh! No! the pictures.”

  Mum had also emerged from the house after Granddad. “They look a bit heavy to carry,” she said.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Granddad said. “Help me get them onto my kitchen table, and I’ll bring them over to you another time. How’s that sound?”

  I picked the box up, on my own this time, and struggled into the cottage and through into the kitchen. As I popped the box down, I noticed that there was a piece of paper stuck to the bottom of it. I tilted the box forward and picked it off. Half of the page was still stuck to the bottom of the box, but I could see that it was an old newspaper. The headline read ‘MISSING BOY FOUND BY LOCAL TEEN’, and the picture beside it, though almost faded completely, looked much like the picture of Uncle Rodney that we’d just seen.

  I heard people moving back into the house and quickly jammed the paper back into the box to look at once it all arrived back home.

  NOW

  Iwalk in through the back door without knocking and am immediately met by a blast of hot air. I breathe it in, but it’s utterly devoid of oxygen. I can’t breathe. I gasp at the thick air, my lungs working overtime to try to extract something worthwhile from it. Charlie’s behind me, and I go into a momentary panic thinking that he won’t be able to breathe either. I see myself on a plane, the pressure dropping when oxygen masks fall in front of my face. I desperately want to pull one over Charlie’s face to save him, but there are no masks, and I’m struggling to grasp at the air before me.

  Charlie tugs at my arm. I look round, expecting to see him suffocating, but, other than the look of concern on his face, he’s fine.

  Knowing that he’s okay allows me to breathe more easily. Yes, it’s warm, the aga is still firing away in full, but it’s more the shock of being back here that I’m struggling with.

  I look down at where we used to keep Chappie’s bed and a smile forms on my face, and then I take in the rest of the furniture, which hasn’t changed.

  The one thing that’s new is an armchair in the corner - though the armchair itself looks ancient, and the person sitting in the armchair looks older than time.

  He’s asleep, so he hasn’t seen me come in. Somehow, his white hair is thicker than ever. The skin on his face is so heavily wrinkled that it looks like the earth on the droves after a particularly long dry spell. Somehow, it seems, Granddad Norman is going to outlive all of his children and I’m glad that he’s still alive.

  Charlie is looking up at his face in fascination.

  “That’s your great grandfather,” I say.

  “What’s wrong with his eye?” Asks Charlie.

  Grandad Norman doesn’t have a glass in, leaving a gap where an eye should be, and I realise that I never told Charlie the story.

  Our words make him stir in the chair, and his eye ebbs open.

  “Will?” he says, his voice rattling through thick phlegm.

  I can’t help but sigh.

  Granddad’s eye opens a little further. The colour of the pupil has faded behind thick cataracts, and I wonder if he can see at all.

  “Thomas!” he says, his voice raising in pitch a little.

  There is a flutter inside. A brief feeling of elation that I chase back down. I’m not here to rebuild the bridges I burned down; I’m here to make sure nothing can possibly rise from the ashes.

  Granddad reaches for his cane and grabs it on the second attempt. He leans forward on it, closer to Charlie who is captured in the cyclops glare. “This your boy, then?” he asks.

  “I’m Charlie.” Charlie holds out a hand which Granddad swallows with his own.

  “Well, aren’t you a polite young man.”

  Where is everyone?” I ask.

  “Your mum’s just taken some food up to your dad. He won’t eat it.”

  “It’s happening again,” I say, thinking of that photograph of the girl, and picturing the wounds around John’s neck around hers.

  “What is?”

  “A kid’s gone missing.”

  “Won’t be the same.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Can’t be, can it, Tom?”

  I pull a chair from under the table and sink into it. “I don’t know,” I say rubbing at my temples. “I really don’t know.”

  Thursday 28th June 1990

  Chappie hadn’t eaten his food again. His bowl was still full, though his water bowl was empty. I filled a glass at the kitchen sink and topped up his bowl. He didn’t even notice. He was lying on his side, fast asleep. He was whimpering, and I thought he might be having a nightmare. I stroked him. His fur felt thinner, and his ribs were prominent.

  “Don’t wake him up, love.”

  I looked up and Mum was standing over me.

  “He’s not eaten, Mum.”

  “He’s probably not hungry. It has been hot.”

  “He’s ever so thin.”

  “I could make an appointment to see the vet, but you know, Thomas, he is getting old…” Mum looked away, and then she made a show of looking at the clock. “Oh, is that the time? You’d better get your shoes on, and I’ll walk with you and Will to school. Go make sure he’s ready.”

  As I was one of John’s best friends, Mrs Palmer wanted me to dig the hole to put John’s memorial tree in. I was taken out of class in the morning by Mr Inglehart and he walked me onto the school field, past the infants’ play garden to the spot where the tree was going to be. It was a good spot, in view of the swimming pool and the football pitch, the kind of place that I could imagine me and John sitting under on a hot day.

  “We’ve already dug up the spot,” said Mr Inglehart. “So, all that we’ll need you to do
is to dig the spade in and lift the top layer of turf out of the hole.”

  “What, just the grass?” I said.

  “Yes, take a look and you can see where it needs to come out of.”

  “But that won’t be deep enough for a whole tree.”

  “No, once you’ve taken the top layer off Mr Jenkins will remove a little more of the soil.”

  Mr Jenkins was standing nearby leaning on a shovel. He gave me the slightest nod of his head.

  “Would you like to see the tree?” asked Mr Inglehart.

  I nodded and the headmaster led me around to the side of the swimming pool where this puny looking thing was leant against the fence. It was shorter than me.

  “What do you think?”

  He must have seen the disappointment on my face.

  “It’s a Monkey Puzzle Tree.”

  I smiled.

  “Yes, I thought you’d like that. They have to be planted while still quite young, but they’re fast growers.

  “John would have liked that.” I said.

  “That’s one of the reasons why we chose it.”

  “What happened to John?” I said.

  The headmaster crouched down, “I understand the police are still investigating.”

  “But it’s been ages. Shouldn’t they have found something by now?”

  “Thomas, it’s best you don’t let such things concern you and try to strive on with your life.”

  “But we’re not even allowed out after school. Why not?”

  “Until the police have concluded their investigation, they believe that it is in your best interest to be under the constant care of an adult.”

  “Then how am I supposed to forget about the police and what happened when we can’t even do the stuff we used to do?”

  “I think it’s time you went back to class, Thomas.”

  “But Sir, it’s not fair.”

  “That’s life, I’m afraid. Now you’re sure that you will be okay with the ceremony this afternoon?”