Phoenix

by Alison Ashley

  I flinched back and flicked my fingers open. Inside, ugh! I jumped up, dropping the slug to the ground.

  Freddie laughed again but this time his voice was deep, his hold on the jewel relinquished and his fuzzy outline back to normal.

  “Probably saved a cabbage by picking that off,” Freddie chuckled.

  I stared, confused, at the grey brown slug struggling to move over the dry carpet.

  “B-but…?”

  “I’ve missed you, Kathy,” he said with a sigh. “I knew you and Jack would come back. Knew all the accusations were unfounded.”

  But if that was true, why were the stolen jewels in Freddie’s loft?

  “About Jack,” I said.

  “He will come back,” Freddie said, tapping his temple. “I know he will.”

  I didn’t know what to believe any more. Maybe Freddie was psychic and Jack would return. I had.

  “Tell me what happened out there, Kathy,” Freddie sighed.

  “Wish I knew,” I murmured. “But trust me, Freddie; I’ll do my best to find out.”

  The lounge door opened and the aroma of toast wafted in ahead of Mum. She laughed at the multitude of water glasses and searched for a place to stand the tray. She opted for the top of the rickety sideboard and I helped her relocate Freddie’s musical instruments beside it.

  “There you go, guys,” she said, sliding the tray onto the coffee table.

  “Thanks…” Freddie broke off. “Aw gawd blimey, what’s your name again, love?”

  “Hazel,” Mum said. Then she fixed her gaze on me. “Thanks,” she mouthed.

  I frowned, uncertain what her gratitude was for.

  She nodded at the door for me to follow her.

  “For being so patient with him,” she said in the kitchen. “He’s so confused all the time. Seems to remember stuff from the past so well, goes on and on about the war as if it were happening right now, yet I bet you, if I were to go back in there now, he’ll ask me my name again.”

  “Haven’t you ever had trouble adjusting to something new?” I said defensively. I wetted a piece of paper towel under the tap and dropped in a seat at the table.

  Mum snatched the chopping board from under my elbow and brushed the crumbs into the sink. “How do you mean?”

  Ouch! Even plain water stung my grazed knee and I struggled not to flinch.

  “Okay, suppose you typed a letter to someone and decide to send it by email rather than snail mail but you remembered the recipient doesn’t open emails with attachments. How would you do it?”

  Mum glanced at my knee but it was hidden under the paper. She frowned, stood the wooden board behind the drainer and then smiled. “Guess I’d just retype the whole letter into the body of the email,” she answered.

  I took a peek at my knee. Dark red lumps of dried blood were mixed with pale washed-out fresh streaks and brown smears of dirt on the paper wad. I quickly pressed it back in place. “So you wouldn’t do it the way I showed you last week then?”

  Mum’s eyes widened. “You did?”

  “Yeah, showed you how to copy and paste.”

  “You did too.” Mum reached for a mug beside the kettle and held it up to me. I shook my head and she put it down, locating Freddie’s favourite cup and saucer in the drainer.

  “Okay, next question,” I said. “Who was your favourite teacher in high school?”

  “That’s an easy one.” She spooned coffee and dropped tea bags into the cups. “Mr Collins, my English teacher.”

  I smiled smugly.

  “I see your logic,” Mum said. “But be aware, Katie, Grandad is showing signs of dementia. I don’t want you to get too attached, you know, just in case he forgets who you are.”

  “Okay, explain this then,” I said. “How come, not even once, has Freddie muddled me and Ally up?”

  I quickly soaked a fresh piece of paper under the tap as Mum fussed with the kettle.

  “The birthmark in your right eye?” she said.

  I automatically brought my hand up to my face as if I could hide the strange brown fleck on my right iris. “Even when I’m not facing him?”

  “Luck then?” She shrugged and fished the teabag from her mug with a spoon.

  “When he sees me he doesn’t see the packaging I come in.” My left hand fluttered through the air around my body as I tried to explain. “He sees deeper than that, Mum. When Freddie looks at me, he doesn’t see Katie Stewart, he sees my soul.”

  His sister’s soul.

  “That’s very profound.” She raised her eyebrows as she dropped the teabag in the bin and squeezed some lemon juice into her tea. Several pips slid through her fingers into the cup. “Like I said, be aware. He’s an old man…”

  “I’ll be right, Mum,” I said, standing back up.

  Even if he did forget everything new, he’d never forget me. I was his past.

  Mum pressed me back in the chair, rinsed more paper towel in diluted antiseptic and dabbed it on my knee.

  “That stings!” I winced.

  A loud thud rocked the wall adjoining the kitchen with my parents’ bedroom.

  “What on earth is Dad doing in there?” I asked.

  “Trying to make more space.” Mum flipped the paper over to dry my knee then grabbed her handbag from the workbench. “What did you do to yourself?”

  “Um, tripped on rocks by the river. They were really slippery.”

  Her focus darted to my skate shoes. “What have I said about getting shoes with proper grip on them?” She secured a large patch of dressing strip in place and helped me to my feet. “One of these days you’ll really hurt yourself.”

  The dressing didn’t want to bend and I hobbled to the door as though my knee was locked in place.

  “Oh, here,” she reached for the cup and saucer and thrust it in my hands, “for Grandad.” Then she yelled at Dad that his coffee was ready.

  I grasped the saucer with both hands and took slow, shuffling steps to the lounge, but tea slopped into the saucer.

  Freddie was partway through the second half of his toasted cheese and tomato sandwich and more tea escaped the confines of the cup as I slid it onto the coffee table.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Do I look worried?” Freddie chuckled, taking the tea and saucer. He poured the slops back into the cup, some dripping onto his shiny brown trousers, and drank it in one go.

  “Ah, perfect!” He flicked his false teeth out with his tongue, laid them on the tray, settled back in his chair and closed his eyes.

  I grabbed my sandwich to eat in the kitchen and collected some of the water glasses on the way. But as I turned to go, one of the padded door panels on the rickety sideboard swung open. I forced it shut with my good knee and headed to the lounge door but the tell-tale click of the cabinet slipping open again drew my attention back.

  I instantly stiffened. The door was swinging on its hinges. Something inside was moving. I shakily backed away but three large books shot out, skidded across the carpet and landed at my feet.

  – chapter seven –

  Freddie’s rhythmic snoring rose and fell from his corner of the lounge, bringing a sense of normality to the suddenly intense atmosphere. I drew a deep, calming breath and stared at the tattered books on the carpet. They were all the same and huge – at least as long as my forearm – but had no writing on the outer covers to say what they were.

  Still trembling, I stood the glasses back down, gathered the books up and perched on the edge of the sofa.

  I examined the covers as I tried to find the courage to open them. Each was covered in a dark blue fabric, the corners of which were worn and frayed. The spines were faded a lighter shade of blue and one had a black ink stain on it. I cautiously opened the inky cover, half expecting something to jump from the pages.

  An old grey photo secured to the thick page with white photo corners stared up at me. The young blonde woman wore a pale long dress and a Mona Lisa smile. She was sitting in a ladder-back chair with her hands
folded in her lap. Behind her, a slim, stern-looking guy in a dark suit stood with his hand on her shoulder. His dark hair was thinning at the temples and he conveyed an air of superiority that the fresh-faced chick didn’t have. To an outsider, they could have been mistaken for father and daughter, but I instinctively knew they weren’t.

  ‘Our Wedding 14th September 1929’ was written in elegant writing beneath the picture. A few pages on, I discovered the bride and groom were Rose and Edward. I gazed at Freddie knowingly. These were his and Kathy’s parents.

  The rest of the album was filled with more wedding shots containing a cast of guests unknown to me and I flicked through it, rapidly losing interest. I placed it on the cushion beside me and began the next album. This one contained pictures of three different babies: Frederick James Edward, John Richard, aka Jack, and Katherine Nancy Rose. I shivered, staring at the photos of Kathy. Not only did she look like me but she too had a smudged outline behind her head in each and every picture.

  The last book had pictures of them growing up. A school photo taken in 1940 showed what could well have been a picture of me when I was younger, but it was Kathy. Jack was in the same class photo. One on the next page showed Freddie’s class.

  Mum came in to clear the lunch things.

  “What’s that you’ve found, Katie?” she asked, looking over my shoulder. “Wow, would you look at the resemblance between you and that girl! Even down to the dimple!” She tapped the picture of Kathy with her finger. “And the fuzzy bit, that’s weird.”

  “That’s Freddie’s sister,” I said. “Kathy.”

  It felt weird to refer to myself in the third person.

  “No wonder he keeps calling you Kathy,” Mum said. “But I do think it’s a little disrespectful that you call him Freddie rather than Grandad.”

  The word disrespectful brought a sudden memory to my mind – I used to get in trouble when I was Kathy for calling Dougie’s parents by their first names, but I refused to call them Mr and Mrs Smith. Millie wasn’t so bad, but I loathed Stan, and by calling him by his first name, it showed how little I respected him. Freddie, on the other hand, I had all the respect for in the world, but I just couldn’t call him Grandad – not when he used to be my brother!

  “It’s what he wants,” I said.

  “Even so,” Mum said, “it may help him distinguish the past from the now.”

  I was having trouble with that myself.

  “He knows who I am, Mum,” I assured her.

  Mum tutted and fussed over the coffee table, tutting again at Freddie’s teeth on the tray. The jewel fell to the floor as she scooped the tray up.

  “Would you mind getting that?” she said, nodding at it. Then she blanched. “Ugh, how on earth did that get in here?”

  She nudged the slug with her foot then briefly left the room and came back with a dustpan and brush, but she showed no signs of being dizzy or getting fuzzy as she laid the precious gem on the table and I assumed she had no visions of the past. She briskly swept the offensive gastropod up and dropped it through the window to the grass three floors below. So much for being an animal lover!

  I swung my feet onto the sofa and went back to the photos. The next page in the album was a fancy dress parade. Kathy was in a weird outfit made of pale crepe paper. In one hand she was holding what could be a walking stick, but not on the curvy bit, on the straight bit. A frilly apron was tied around her waist and she had a peculiar bonnet on. Freddie wore normal clothes, short pants, shirt and woollen vest, but had a cardboard tray secured with ribbon or string around his neck. Jack was – where was Jack?

  Freddie suddenly snored like a jackhammer and woke up.

  “Uh? Oh, morning, Kathy,” he said, yawning.

  “Afternoon, Freddie.” I grinned.

  He reached to his side for his walking frame, swung it in front and tried to get to his feet. I laid the album on the coffee table to help him up and he glanced at the open page once he was stable.

  “Ah, amazing how we improvised during the war,” he said. His words sounded funny without his teeth. “You remember that day, Kathy?”

  “Tell me about it,” I begged.

  “The school held the parade, bit of excitement for us, eh?” Freddie recalled. “You came second with your Little Bo Peep outfit.”

  “So what were you? And Jack?” I scoured the picture again but had no luck locating him.

  “I was a cigarette boy,” Freddie said. “You remember they used to come round at the pictures selling them?”

  His eyes searched mine for acknowledgment, but I couldn’t give him any.

  “As for Jack,” Freddie said. “He wasn’t allowed to participate, don’t you remember?”

  I shook my head. “Why?”

  “After the dictionary incident.”

  My shoulders slumped. That was so not fair!

  Freddie shuffled to the passageway and I continued flicking through the album. Several yellowing newspaper cuttings fluttered to the floor.

  ‘LOCAL YOUTHS GO MISSING

  DURING DOODLEBUG ATTACK.’

  My hands shook as I grasped the clipping.

  ‘Teenage cousins, Jack and Kathy Stewart, were last night reported missing after blackout. It is hoped they may have taken shelter during the air raid. If anyone knows of their whereabouts, please contact Trentham Weald Police.’

  I felt cold as the article stirred memories.

  The blitz where we’d sheltered in tunnels was bad enough. I lived in total fear, fear that the tunnels would collapse and bury us alive and fear that our house would be hit. The former never happened while we were there, but the latter… After that, we moved in with Auntie Carol in Trentham Weald, but as war progressed we came under a new attack. That dreaded putt putt sound as the buzz bombs flew over was something we could sort of ignore, but when that sound stopped – a zillion goosebumps smothered my skin at the thought – we had about fifteen seconds to find shelter. Only time would tell where the bomb – the doodlebug – would drop.

  I shuddered, returning to the present, and went back to the clippings.

  ‘LOCAL YOUTH SUSPECTED

  OF STEALING JEWELS.’

  It told the exact story the old lady by the church had given us. Following reports gave Jack and Kathy the option of surrendering, another offered the public a reward and showed Kathy and Jack’s pictures. They were old school photos: Jack’s eyes glistened, his smile wide and genuine. Couldn’t they see it wasn’t the face of a thief? As for Kathy’s picture, it was like looking in a mirror.

  “Ally! Katie!” Mum yelled from the kitchen. “You need to find somewhere better to keep your computers than the kitchen table!”

  There were no further clippings and the next pages were devoid of photos, none even of Freddie. It was as though he’d vanished when Jack and I had.

  “I’m gonna count to three,” Mum said. “And if you haven’t moved them, I’m giving them both to charity.”

  As if. But I was out of pictures anyway so I rammed the album back in the cupboard and wandered to the kitchen.

  Mum had a saucepan of cooked tomato sauce and an empty baking dish in her hands. On the stove, a pan of cheese sauce bubbled and plopped, splattering dollops of yellow over the splashback. Grated cheese was piled on a plate and scattered on the table and the corner of Ally’s laptop.

  I snatched the computers as Mum slid the baking dish onto the table and began assembling lasagne. The aroma of garlic, tomato and basil sent my stomach into a gurgling ravenous pit, my lunch still uneaten in the lounge.

  “When’s dinner?” I asked, pinching crumbs of parmesan in my fingertips. The computers slid together under my arm and threatened to drop.

  “Not for hours.” Mum tapped my fingers with a sheet of dried lasagne and moved the plate. “And if you’ve finished tripping down Grandad’s memory lane, you can get the washing in.”

  “Why can’t Ally?”

  “Actually, she can.” Mum looked up from her food layering. “It’s mostl
y sheets, so you may need both of you to fold them.” She pointed to the line way below the kitchen window. “There’s a set each for you.”

  Maybe it wasn’t so bad then; I hated my sweaty sleeping bag.

  “And I’m just about to start another load,” she said, “so if you’ve got any washing…” She looked at me accusingly.

  Ally was sitting sideways across her bed, half asleep and listening to music on her phone. She startled when I dropped her laptop beside her and the tish tish of muffled music increased as she yanked her earpieces out. I slid my own computer onto my unpacked suitcase and gave her the news about the bedding, but she just went back to her music.

  Downstairs, I dragged the purple sheets off the line, leaving the pink set for Ally. But the bed, wedged against the wall by the bedside table, was hard to make and I wrestled the linen impatiently over the mattress. Job finally done, I began picking through the pile of clothes on the floor and half pulled my shawl from my backpack to wash it yet again, but I heard the machine begin filling with water in the kitchen so I abandoned my chore to check my email.

  A bed spring pinged and a small vibration ricocheted through my thigh as I flopped on my bed. I had no new messages and reading comments left by old friends made me homesick. I flopped against the wall and gazed at the window desolately. The net curtain floated back and forth over the sill and the swoosh, swoosh, beep, of distant traffic wafted in on the warm breeze. A constant reminder that I was in overpopulated England.