Copyright © 2015 Larche Davies
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For my mother and father
with gratitude
“I can see you,” hissed the Magnifico. “I can hear you. I can watch your every action.”
Lucy pulled the pillow over her head as the nightly whispers began.
“The fire awaits all sinners, and their flesh will melt away.”
The words swished around the bed and through the pillow. Lucy pressed one ear hard down on the mattress, and put her hand firmly over the other. The voice would go away if she was virtuous, and patience was a virtue, so she waited.
Silence! Lucy emerged from semi-suffocation to breathe in the cold January air that wafted through the open window. Did she dare shut it a little? Surely there’d be no harm in pulling the curtain over to block off the draft. But Aunt Sarah had said she mustn’t get out of bed. Would the Magnifico notice if she did?
The more she thought about it the more she felt tempted. She slid out of bed and stepped over to the window. Slipping her hand through the metal bars she paused for a moment as she pulled it towards her, and looked up at the stars in the clear winter night sky. There were thousands of them, millions, big ones and little ones, and clusters of some so small they looked like clouds of dust. Was the Magnifico up there looking down at her at that very moment? Was each one of those stars an eye? He would need millions of eyes to watch all the children in the world, and millions of ears to hear them with.
She pulled the window shut and lingered a little longer, looking over to the common on the other side of the road. The street lamp shaped the bushes around the pond into unfamiliar clumps and eerie figures. Lucy shivered and turned away. She tiptoed over to her little chest of drawers. It gleamed white in the near dark, and her books from the charity shop stood up black along its top like a row of soldiers, held together at each end by large stones from the garden.
As quietly as she could, she pulled open a drawer and took out her non-school uniform jumper and tugged it down over her head. The drawer stuck as she shut it, and she gave it a tap. The row of books shuddered, and a stone clattered down onto the floor. Lucy hastily picked it up and put it back in place. She jumped into bed and strained her ears for the sound of movement from Aunt Sarah’s room on the opposite side of the hall.
All was quiet. She relaxed and pulled the blankets up high. Snuggling down into the skimpy bedding she reminded herself that comfort was the shortest path to a life of sin, and that suffering was good for the soul.
Her mind couldn’t escape the Magnifico. She imagined him looking down from the sky with his myriad eyes, seeking her out among the millions of children that he watched and heard. Maybe he had a street map. She pictured all the eyes trying to have a look at the different pages all at the same time, pushing and shoving each other out of the way, and her tension gave way to a little laugh.
Perhaps one single pinpoint starry eye would be allocated to her. It would have to roam across the world until it found London with its commons and parks. How would it travel? Would it roll or fly or swoop? When it found the right common, how would it manage to find a girl in a bed in the ground-floor flat at number 3 Mortimor Road? Perhaps it didn’t roll or swoop. Perhaps it slithered. Her skin prickled as she pictured it slithering along the narrow path that ran across the common towards the father’s house. It would leave a slug’s silver trail over the road, under the front door, down the hall to her room, across the bare wooden floor, up the leg of the bed, under the sheet, and onto her face. She stifled a scream and pulled the blanket right over her head.
Aunt Sarah plonked a hard-boiled egg onto Lucy’s plate, and a piece of dry toast.
“Eat up,” she said, wiping her hands on the apron that spanned her ample stomach. “You haven’t got much time.” She turned towards the worktop and started preparing two breakfast trays, one for the father on the first floor, and the other for the tenant on the second floor.
Delicious smells of coffee, warming croissants, and bacon with scrambled eggs, mingled together to tickle Lucy’s nostrils. She watched as Aunt Sarah put a pot of honey on the father’s tray, and wished she could have just a little to scrape on her toast. As she gulped down her milk she told herself firmly that she must be grateful for what was put before her. She thanked the Magnifico for providing her food, and carried her plate to the cracked old butler’s sink.
Aunt Sarah lifted the trays into the dumb waiter that was set into the kitchen wall, and pressed the button to send it upwards. She turned to look at Lucy.
“Leave that plate or you’ll be late. I’ll do it later.”
“Thank you,” said Lucy meekly. She stood still for Aunt Sarah to check that her soft brown hair was pulled tightly enough into her pigtail, and that her tunic still came to at least one inch below her knees.
“Aunt Sarah,” she asked tentatively, “has the Magnifico got a body?”
Sarah’s tired puffy eyes opened wide in her round red face. “The things you ask! Of course he hasn’t got a body. He’s a deity – the one and only deity – all-seeing, all-hearing. Now get a move on.”
“But if he hasn’t got a body that means he hasn’t got eyes – or ears. Eyes and ears are part of a body. So how can he be all-seeing, all-hearing?”
Sarah gasped and clapped a plump work-worn hand to her large bosom. She was shocked.
“Don’t argue with me. Of course he’s all-seeing, all-hearing! Don’t you repeat what you’ve just said at school, or anywhere else, or the other aunts will say I haven’t taught you right.”
She plopped herself down for a moment into the comfy old armchair in the corner of the kitchen. Even the morning routine was exhausting her these days. And now Lucy with all these unanswerable questions.
“You’ve really turned into the most aggravating, nosy, inquisitive child I’ve ever come across, always asking, asking, asking! Why can’t you just believe what you’re told, same as you used to? I’m not going to tell you lies, am I? It’s called ‘having faith’. We can’t always understand everything.”
Lucy wasn’t sure if she was supposed to reply. She stood uncertainly and waited, and gently stroked the smooth, warm gold of the reminder bracelet on her right wrist. It calmed her mind and silenced her tongue, and she found it soothing.
“You may well fiddle with that bracelet,” snapped Sarah, mopping her face with her apron, “but just you remember it’s there to remind you that the Magnifico is always watching and listening, so if he’s been listening to you this morning I only hope he can forgive you.”
She heaved herself out of the chair and gave Lucy a little push towards the hall. “Hurry up. Go and clean your teeth and get yo
ur school things.”
Lucy considered it wise to stay silent. Her breath puffed out in clouds of steam as she cleaned her teeth in the icy cold bathroom. Then she went to her room, checked the contents of her school bag, and put on her coat. When she returned to the kitchen Aunt Sarah was still in her apron.
“You’ll have to take yourself to school today, and bring yourself back,” she said. “From now on I’m going to be too busy to go with you.”
Lucy was taken aback and felt a stab of panic. She had never gone anywhere alone. The father must have changed the rules or something, but she didn’t dare ask. One more question today and Aunt Sarah’s round face might flush up so red it would burst into flames.
Strict instructions were given. Lucy wasn’t to talk to anyone when she crossed the common. “Don’t trust anyone who tries to be friendly. You can be sure they’re up to no good.”
The more Sarah thought about it now, the more she could visualise the dangers that awaited an unaccompanied Lucy. “And when you get to South Hill don’t go over with that lollipop lady, and don’t have anything to do with the primary school children or any other non-followers. Their souls are unclean. Make sure you cross carefully at the lights at the bottom of South Hill.”
Lucy shifted her satchel onto her shoulders and nodded. “Yes, Aunt Sarah.” As she left the house she turned and gave a little wave, and then walked gingerly down the front path, its black and white herringbone tiles slippery with last night’s frost. Sarah’s final words followed her. “The Magnifico will know if you disobey me, and you will be punished for the sake of your soul.”
Sarah stood at the front door watching as Lucy crossed over Mortimor Road onto the common. Stop worrying, she told herself. Nothing could go wrong. The child had walked that route with her every school day for the last ten years. As for herself, it would give her more time for her housework. Even so, she would miss her escort duties. At this very moment the aunts from the communes would be arriving outside the Magnifico’s school with the younger children, and gathering for their early morning chat. That chat was the highlight of Sarah’s day. She sighed. There was no room for self-pity. The father had said she must concentrate on a newcomer to the household, and let Lucy learn to do some things on her own. She sighed again. Shutting the front door, she returned to the kitchen. There was no time to waste.
The father had to be obeyed. It was every aunt’s ordained duty to follow his instructions, and to raise his children in the righteous path of the Magnifico. Sarah glanced up at the guidance cane that hung on the wall by the kitchen door, and was thankful she had never had to use it on Lucy. Despite all her recent doubts and questionings and lapses of faith, Lucy was a good girl. It was probably just her age. Sarah had heard that girls could become a bit difficult when they reached fourteen – though she herself had certainly never been difficult, and she couldn’t think of anyone else in her commune who had been either (apart from one or two naughty boys). It was one of these modern ideas – just a phase that was all, and it would pass. Sarah prided herself on having brought up a polite, well-behaved child who knew right from wrong.
She cleared up the kitchen and took the rubbish out through the back door, then round to the left behind the rear wing, and down the side of the house to the bins. Thomas, the gardener, was just inside the garage doors changing out of his respectable jacket into his gardening anorak. Sarah greeted him but there was no time for a chat, and she never felt comfortable with him anyway – there was something about him, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She hurried back to the kitchen, peeled some potatoes and put them in water.
As she dried her hands she looked up at the clock. She must get a move on. Flicking a switch high on the kitchen wall, she waited for a moment, listening for a voice from the little back room that she had prepared for the newcomer. There it was. Getting a bit scratchy these days. “I can see you. I can hear you. I can watch your every action…” She switched it off and went to check the room. Adjusting a small loudspeaker that emerged from a corner of the ceiling, she turned it slightly more towards the cot. That voice had hissed at her throughout her own childhood and had burrowed into her mind. Even after she was old enough to realise it was recorded, it had kept her on the straight and narrow path laid out by the Magnifico. No child could fail to benefit from it.
She made sure that the bars on the window were firm and rust-free, and straightened the bedding on the cot. The blanket was thin and hard, as were hers and Lucy’s. Both she and Lucy knew the importance of stoicism and endurance. They were blessed in that their upbringing would lead to the saving of their souls, and Sarah would do her best to ensure the same for the newcomer.
At eleven o’clock a door upstairs in the rear wing banged shut and Sarah heard heavy footsteps coming down into the lobby behind the kitchen. A key turned in the lobby door and Father Copse appeared, carrying a small child. Towering over Sarah from his immense height, dark eyes smouldering under heavy black brows, he wasted no time on courtesies.
“His name is Paul. He’s three. He’ll be with you till he’s sixteen, and I expect you to bring him up in the teachings of the Magnifico. Should he fail to appreciate his good fortune in any way it will be your duty to be generous with the guidance.”
Putting the child on the floor he took the guidance cane down from the wall, flexed it between his hands, and hung it up again. He flicked the switch for the loudspeaker, waited for the Magnifico’s voice, and then opened the door to the hall and went to inspect the newly prepared bedroom. Like Sarah, he adjusted the loudspeaker slightly and checked the bars on the window.
“He doesn’t need those,” he said, pointing to an electric fan heater and a small mat at the side of the cot. “Make sure they’re removed.”
Sarah nodded silently, gazing down at her rough red hands, unable to look into those burning eyes and wishing he would go. She wanted to comfort the child who was standing alone in the kitchen, rigid with anxiety.
“I must go to work. When I get back tonight I’ll send his clothes down in the dumb waiter. I’ll keep an eye on his progress over the next few days. If he seems unlikely to conform he’ll have to go to the commune, and the aunts there can look after him.”
He left through the lobby and locked the door to the kitchen behind him, removing the key. Sarah could hear him unbolting the outer lobby door at the side of the house. She watched through the kitchen window as he strode down the side path that ran between the house and the garage. When he reached the driveway he turned left, and disappeared into the front garden through an arch in the high laurel hedge. She heard the click of the front gate and gave a sigh of relief.
She bent down to pick up the boy and half carried him to the sagging armchair in the corner of the kitchen. He was heavy and she pulled him with difficulty onto her spacious lap. Nuzzling her face into his soft curls, she held him close.
“It’ll be alright,” she murmured. “Just be a good boy and do as you’re told and have faith in the Magnifico’s holy word, and everything will be alright. It’s your soul that’s important, not what happens in this old world.”
The child started wailing and Sarah cuddled him to her. What the Magnifico had decreed had to be. It was the written word of the Holy Vision.
As Lucy crossed Mortimor Road onto the common she was tempted to nip through the bushes to see if there was ice on the pond, but she suspected Aunt Sarah might be watching. She kept to the path and spoke to no-one. Not that there was anyone to speak to. Her initial panic had gone and was now replaced with a sense of rather nervous excitement. The frost on the common was sparkling in the cold winter sunlight. The sky was an icy blue. All the stars of the night before had disappeared, and she smiled to herself as she thought how silly she had been to think they could possibly have been eyes. The Magnifico didn’t seem quite so terrifying in the daylight.
The sense of freedom was very pleasant. Lucy almost skipped along the path towards South Hill, taking in great breaths of the sharp, clean
air. Even the scruffy backs of the terraced houses ahead of her looked pretty under the pale blue sky. When she reached the little lane that led between the houses to South Hill, she turned and looked back. Number 3 Mortimor Road glared at her from the other side of the common, and she pulled a face at it. She was glad she was here and not there.
Nearly three doors down South Hill, temptation raised its serpent’s head again. Two temptations already this morning, and she’d only left the house a quarter of an hour ago. The Magnifico must be testing her. This time it was the lollipop lady – a delightfully smiling lollipop lady – surrounded by children and mothers and two or three teenagers. They mingled together as though they belonged. There must be something very comfortable about belonging. It surely couldn’t do any harm to go over at the zebra crossing instead of at the lights down by the Underground station. The lollipop lady stepped out into the middle of the road and held up her hand. All traffic stopped. What an amazing feeling it must be to have such power, just one little woman against all the buses and taxis and cars of London!
As Lucy approached the crossing, her joy in her newly found freedom was replaced by an overwhelming shyness. These strangers knew each other and chatted together. They would stare at her and wonder why she had pushed herself among them. She knew that they were to be pitied, for they were doomed to suffer the fire of the melting flesh. Even so, she longed to be among them – as long as she didn’t have to actually touch them. Luckily the thought of the fire reminded her that she too would suffer that fate if she built up a record of too many sins, and she pulled back.
The lollipop lady called out, “Come on, love, or you’ll miss your chance.” She didn’t reply because she had been told not to speak to anyone and that kind strangers were up to no good, but as she shook her head she couldn’t help smiling back.
At that moment she was knocked sideways as a boy shot out of the gate of number 38 South Hill and took a flying leap, landing on the zebra crossing with both feet.
The Father's House Page 1
