The Memory Cage

by Ruth Eastham

  I remembered Reverend Posselthwaite telling me about the Dunkirk memorial. What had he said? Something about a third of a million people being rescued … there were a good many people who never made it home.

  “Loads died too, though, right?” I whispered down the mouthpiece.

  “Yeah. It was pretty horrible. But there would have been thousands more dead if the boats hadn’t gone.”

  We were both quiet a bit, and then Lia said, “I still can’t believe that Mr Webb and Great-Aunt Mildred think your grandad killed your Uncle Tommie. He’s supposed to have done it on purpose so he could marry your grandma? Seems a bit far-fetched! I mean, it was the middle of a battle. People were getting killed left, right and centre.”

  My jaw went tight. The perfect place to murder someone then, I thought.

  Maybe Lia had exactly the same thought right then because she suddenly said, “Oh,” and neither of us said anything for quite a while.

  “Then I suppose your grandma and grandad had your dad,” said Lia at last. “But your grandma died when he was still a baby, and all that’s a mystery too … Hey, have you thought, maybe that’s why your dad doesn’t seem to like your grandad much? I mean, if your Great-Aunt Mildred helped bring your dad up, she could have said all sorts of horrible things to turn him against your grandad, like ‘Did you know that your father got your Uncle Tommie killed?’ blah, blah. I mean, you didn’t believe her, did you, because that stuff about your grandad, well, it can’t be true, can it?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t say, Course not! or Don’t be stupid! I didn’t know what to believe any more.

  Lia whistled down the phone at me. “So you had to leg it from Mr Webb and his garden shears?” She giggled. “Maybe you were next in line for a good pruning!”

  “It wasn’t funny.”

  “Hey, Mr Webb said your grandad was a conchie?”

  “Yes.” I repeated the vicar’s words. “A conscientious objector.”

  “Yes, Dad told me about those too. You wouldn’t be the most popular person around, though, if you were one of those.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Well, think about it! If your dad or brother or whoever were soldiers in a war, you might not like your local William Smith very much if he seems to be getting away with not fighting. Some people thought they were cowards.”

  “It wasn’t like that, though, was it?” I said. “Conchies still did important jobs, right?”

  “Yes. A lot of them worked in very dangerous situations, actually, alongside the soldiers, as medics or whatever. But I guess there were plenty of people who still didn’t like the idea.”

  Yes, Mr Webb for one, I thought.

  Lia sneezed and I heard her blow her nose. “Sounds like your dad’s pretty serious about you not carrying on with your grandad’s scrapbook,” she snuffled.

  “I don’t care,” I told her. “I’m still going to finish it! But listen, we’ve got to be totally careful from now on. If Dad finds out …”

  “Don’t worry,” said Lia. “My lips are sealed. I just wish I were there to help you more instead of having to work with Dad so much. Can you believe we’ve another antiques fair coming up? Military memorabilia, of all things.”

  She rang off. I wished she was there to help me.

  I went to find Grandad. I had to get him to talk. To talk about what happened to him during the war. About being a conchie. About Tommie and Dunkirk. I had to try and fill the gaps. He wouldn’t like it, but we didn’t have any choice.

  Grandad was in the Messing About Room. It was already gloomy in there. Outside it was all overcast and it was still raining, and the smoke from his pipe didn’t exactly help.

  He smiled as I went in. “Come and look at these, Alex.”

  I went over and turned on the lamp. Smoke spiralled up towards the bulb, looping and growing above his head into a grey, hovering haze.

  Grandad had his tins of tea cards in front of him. He rooted around in one and picked out a pile. He took the elastic band from around it and fanned the cards on the table. Flags of the World. He did the same with Cars and Kings of England.

  “All complete sets!” he said proudly. “Worth a few bob now, I shouldn’t wonder!”

  I didn’t have the heart to jump straight in with my grilling. It probably wouldn’t work anyway. How was I going to stop him either getting angry or clamming up? How was I going to get him to talk?

  I had an idea.

  I got him to put on a record and hunt out some biscuits, and while he was fiddling around with the mugs and tea bags, I scooped the cards off the table and replaced the pile with a different set I’d sneaked from another tin.

  It was sly, I know, but I was desperate.

  We settled back at the table with tea, and Vera Lynn on the gramophone, and I took the first tea card off the pile and laid it down.

  The Battle of Little Bighorn, the Battle of Hastings, the Battle of Dunkirk …

  Unfortunately he saw straight through my cunning plan.

  “Forget it, Alex,” he said stubbornly, gathering up the Famous Battles of the World cards.

  “But you got a medal, Grandad,” I persisted. “For bravery.”

  “Who told you that?” he snapped. “So what if I did?” He thumped the cards back into the tin. “I don’t believe in medals. What are they? Bits of metal stuck on the chest of a corpse! There were plenty of boys far braver than I was who got nothing for what they did.”

  So much for my Plan A, I thought. I’ll switch to Plan B.

  I got out the album and casually turned to a photo of Tommie.

  Grandad lifted the page up to his face and grinned a little.

  “I told him not to let the barber cut his hair so short, but he never listens to me.”

  He looked at his watch. “He should be here any minute. We’re going to the Officer for a pint.”

  I swallowed. Why was he talking about his brother as if he were still alive? I found myself looking nervously at the door.

  I turned the pages, searching for another Tommie picture. There he was with my grandma having a picnic. I decided my burning question, Grandad, did you kill your brother? was a bit too blunt, and I was about to start with a more gentle way in, when I stopped. I peered at the print.

  Tommie and Grandma were sitting on our back lawn, I realized. That was definitely our house in the background. But the reason I hadn’t worked it out before was that there was another small building by the house, about where Mum’s veggie patch was now. There was a huge tree too, between the smaller building and the house, an oak or something that was so tall it looked like its branches were touching our roof.

  I must have had my finger on the building while I was staring at the photo because Grandad said, “That’s my darkroom.”

  I looked at him. “But it’s not there any more, Grandad,” I said. “You’ve a darkroom further down the garden now, in your Den. That’s where we are now!”

  He looked blankly at me. He stared around the room. “Don’t be daft!” He tapped the building on the photo. “That’s my darkroom. What’s this about a den?”

  The stuff Grandad was coming out with was making me very nervous. I took hold of his hands. I decided it was now or never.

  “Grandad. What happened at Dunkirk?”

  “Eh?” He flinched, like I was scalding him.

  I kept going, trying to keep my voice firm. “What happened to Tommie?”

  He looked at me, long and hard. I saw a familiar stubborn look creep over his face.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Try,” I demanded. “Come on!”

  I knew my voice was angry, and I could see he was getting upset, but Lia had said you had to remember the bad things too, hadn’t she? The bad as well as the good.

  I wanted to shake him. He must remember! Course he remembered. He just didn’t want to.

  “Leave me be, can’t you?” said Grandad. “You’re always getting at me! I can’t remember any of that, all ri
ght?”

  I looked at his face. Maybe it was true. Maybe he wasn’t deliberately being difficult. Maybe he really was starting to forget the things from years ago that were once as clear as a bell. Maybe the Alzheimer’s had taken a stronger grip over his mind than I thought.

  I felt suddenly afraid and miserable. I was like that Canute, holding his hands up to try and stop the tide coming in. But it was impossible to stop the sea. Impossible to stop it smoothing the sand and wiping the beach flat. Stupid even to try.

  What I was trying to do was impossible. I was as crazy as Canute.

  Letters drawn out in sand came into my head.

  William Smith was here. Moving water chiselling away the letters.

  Alex Smith was here. The words crumbling into nothing.

  “It’s what’s in here …” Grandad tapped his head angrily. “Don’t you understand? It’s what’s in here that counts, and I’m losing it. I may as well be dead and buried, like my Tommie.” His voice broke into a sob. “Dead and buried, like my Freda!”

  He jumped up and started throwing things down. His mug of tea crashed down and broke; the biscuit plate smashed. He kicked at his pile of records and sent them scattering across the train tracks. Before I could stop him, our box of fossils had thudded down and there were pieces of broken rock all over the floor.

  I rolled myself into a ball. The smallest curled-up shape I could. A pebble. A bullet. Hard and cold. Totally still. Trying not to even breathe …

  … But they have seen us. We run through the woods. I am gripping Nicu’s hand, pulling him, the men with guns getting closer …

  If only I hadn’t stumbled. Made us slip down the bank into the river.

  We are scrambling, tumbling, hitting the water. Its coldness suffocates me. I feel its strong press against my throat. Tree branches scratch at the top of my head. We are being dragged along. I remember water in my mouth, kicking wildly against the current. The river claws me under …

  I remember the look in Nicu’s eyes

  I can never forget those eyes

  the moment

  I

  let go

  of

  his

  hand

  I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t stand it. I had to stop my memories coming back. I had to focus on Grandad’s life. Finish his scrapbook. Keep my promise.

  I had to sift through the fragments of his life. Piece them back together until the truth was lying there for everyone to see.

  The past.

  The truth.

  Like a long-dead fossil in a chunk of cold, dead rock.

  – CHAPTER 13 –

  COCODRILES AND TRANSHLERS

  My bedroom. Past midnight. All in the mind.

  I had a dream that night. Different from the others.

  I was running through our house, frantically searching for something. I didn’t know what, but I knew it had to be there somewhere. I had to find it. I just had to. It was a matter of life or death.

  All the doors were closed and I was scrambling with the handles to get through them as fast as I could. But the more doors I opened, the more shut doors there seemed to be, and the rooms were filling with water. The water was gushing in through the walls, through the floor, the ceiling, and I was getting more and more desperate. There was water up to my knees as I scrambled about, and then it was up to my waist. Furniture floated around the room. Chairs and coffee tables and chests of drawers. I was trying to swim but my head kept going under.

  I tried the last door handle, but it was locked. I tugged at it, screaming for help. I saw Grandad, sitting calmly on a floating armchair. The round table from the Den was floating next to him, with the gramophone on it playing a Vera Lynn record.

  “Hello, Alex,” he said. “Promise me you’ll not let them take me away.”

  His hand stretched towards me, but instead of helping me out of the water, he was pushing me under.

  “Promise me.”

  I felt water go into my mouth and nose. Then I woke up.

  Moonlight spilt through my curtains on to the bed. My sheets were drenched with sweat and twisted tight around me. My throat felt parched. I struggled to get free and as I pulled at my pillow, I heard something drop to the floor.

  The key I’d found in the grandfather clock.

  I got on my knees and searched around for it. While I was down there, my eye caught the dark shape under my bed. A box. The box I never look inside.

  I ignored it. Tried to pretend it wasn’t there. Instead, I turned the key over in my palm. I knew what I had to do. The thing I’d been avoiding for too long. I had a strong feeling that something in that room was going to help me find out about Grandad’s missing memories. So why was I so scared to go in?

  I put on my dressing gown and slipped my torch in the pocket. I didn’t want to start turning on lights and risk waking anyone.

  The house was deathly quiet. There were bars of moonlight across the landing as I crossed to the second flight of stairs. They were much narrower than the main stairs, and the wood steps were cold against my bare feet. One suddenly creaked horribly as I stood on it. I stopped, heart pounding, waiting to see if anyone had heard. Seconds ticked by. The house stayed quiet. I carried on. The stairs twisted as I climbed, my palms running up the smooth wood of the banister, and I finally found myself on the top landing, facing the forbidden door.

  Crocodiles … tarantulas, a voice inside my head mocked.

  My mouth felt even drier than before. I felt my skin prickle. My torch beam stretched and shrank as I stood there holding the key. Shadows scuttled under the door. I could hear the grandfather clock ticking in the downstairs hall and echoing up the walls.

  Tock, tock … Tock, tock …

  I pressed the key into the lock.

  It wouldn’t turn.

  I used more strength, but it still didn’t budge.

  I pushed my shoulder against the door and tried again. This time there was a dull click. I caught my breath. I pushed the door and it opened with a weak, long whine. I looked inside.

  The first thing that hit me was the smell. It was a burnt smell. The smell of ash. I wanted to leave right there and then, but I forced myself to go in.

  Moonlight slanted through a triangular window at one side of the room. Strands of cobweb glistened from the ceiling and the wind whispered through a crack in the glass.

  Memories from Grandad’s album came back to me, things he’d told me about Grandma. I knew straightaway – this had been her room.

  I slowly walked around, the floorboards shifting under my feet like the planks of a boat. Fingers of torchlight crept over her things and sent long, jagged shapes up the walls like teeth.

  There was a writing desk with a framed photograph of her and her best friend, Hatty Kirby. Could that have been the string of pearls she wore on her wedding day? In one corner was a baby’s cradle. Did she sit on that rocking chair with Dad on her knee?

  The forbidden room was Grandma’s room, all shut up. Left like a museum nobody was allowed to visit. I had the feeling of being an intruder. That I shouldn’t be there. You have no right. I remembered Grandad’s horrible reaction when he thought Lia and I had been here uninvited. Get out. Get out!

  But I knew there had to be clues to Grandad’s past somewhere. I made myself keep looking.

  I touched Dad’s old cradle and it creaked from side to side as if an invisible hand were rocking it. A piece of fancy material hung around its hood and I noticed that an edge of the lace was all dirty, but when I looked closer I realized that it had actually got burn marks on it.

  There were other things that were wrong too. I found burn marks on the wallpaper. In places the paper had peeled away, and underneath charred brickwork showed through. I looked up and saw that several wooden beams in the ceiling were blackened.

  I felt a tingling on the back of my neck.

  The fire damage, smoke damage, whatever it was, seemed worse around the window, as if that was where the fire had c
ome from.

  I began to open drawers. I felt like a thief looking for things to steal. They were all empty, except for the last one I tried, the bottom drawer of the writing desk. I found a book, about the size of my hand, damaged by strange, dark patches. DIARY was written on it in speckled gold letters. On the inside cover it said:

  Freda Smith

  I knew that diaries were supposed to be private, and I definitely didn’t feel good about what I was about to do. I felt my fingers tremble. The diary came apart slightly at the spine as I turned the page and started to read.

  May 12th 1941

  Today I told Hatty everything. About how Tommie died.

  There was a noise outside. A cold panic squeezed through me. It sounded like tree branches scraping the window, but there were no trees next to the house, not any more. Still holding the diary, I edged over and peeked out through the triangular window.

  I could make out the church spire, a witch’s hat against the sky. Next to it was the graveyard.

  I let out a sigh of relief. Small bats were flying around outside, quick shapes in the moonlight, making highpitched squeaks. That was what I’d heard!

  The bats were darting about too fast to see properly. If only they’d settle, I thought. Stay still for a moment so I could catch a proper look at them.

  Suddenly, as if it had heard me, a bat fluttered down the pane, hovering right in front of me with its delicate, paperthin wings, before swooping away over the trees.

  That’s when I saw the light. Shadows rising and falling between the gravestones; a torch, like the beam of a lighthouse, a warning. For a split second it seemed to swing straight towards me.

  I imagined whoever it was creeping about in the dark down there seeing my torchlight. A light in a room that nobody was supposed to go into, a room that had been shut up for years.

  I flung the diary on to the writing desk, and I got out of there as fast as I could, fumbling to lock the door, scrambling down the stairs to put the key back in the clock, rushing back to my room and wrapping myself up in my ruined bed with the stone cold sheets wound tight.