Crooked Heart

by Lissa Evans

  The days became untethered. Mealtimes slid around or disappeared altogether. Noel ate mainly biscuits for three days, and then found a cookery book. The recipes were wonderfully satisfying; it was like doing an equation, in which the correct answer was edible.

  ‘Very good indeed,’ said Mattie, of the blackberry pie that he made with fruit picked on the Heath, but she ate only a mouthful or two. For the whole of Noel’s life with her, she had been quite large – stout and solid, like a tree-stump, but now she was dwindling. Her stockings drooped. She had no time to eat, she said; there were too many things she needed to do.

  One morning, he came downstairs to find that all the helpful labels he’d written had been crossed out. He was standing with ‘CUTLERY DRAWER’ in his hand when Mattie came into the kitchen.

  ‘Someone’s been breaking in and writing messages,’ she said. ‘I shall have to have a new lock installed on the . . . the object for opening.’

  When Uncle Geoffrey rang the doorbell on the following Sunday, Mattie stayed seated, finger marking a place in her book. Noel stood up, and she shook her head at him.

  The bell jangled twice more, and then they heard the gate creak.

  ‘There,’ said Mattie, looking pleased.

  ‘I just need the WC,’ said Noel, and ran upstairs. He peered out through the round spyhole window on the landing and saw Uncle Geoffrey still standing in the lane, looking unhappily back at the house. Noel ducked down, counted to a hundred and looked again. Geoffrey had gone.

  ‘Why didn’t we want him to come in?’ he asked Mattie, that evening.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Uncle Geoffrey.’

  ‘They all know each other,’ she said. ‘Wardens. All authority is linked, Angus, that’s how the world is run. Independence is one’s only hope. You must promise me one thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘To never tell anybody anything.’

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘You called me Angus,’ he added, after a moment.

  ‘I did not.’ She spoke with absolute certainty.

  That was the first time he really felt afraid; soon, he began to carry the feeling around with him, a cold scarf wrapped around his neck, a stomach full of tadpoles.

  The autumn was warm and dry. Noel raked and burned leaves while Mattie did other things. He wasn’t sure what. The two of them had started to revolve in different directions, moving into alignment only three or four times a day, at meals, or in the drawing room where Mattie would delve around in the desk, rearranging papers, while Noel sat in the window seat and read all of Edgar Wallace and then all of Dashiell Hammett. Sometimes he sat and watched the lorries lurching along the track.

  They had no more visitors, apart from delivery boys, and the postman, and once a woman who was collecting for the North West London Branch of the Army Comforts Fund. Noel watched from the drawing-room window as she sprinted away up the lane, Mattie shouting after her. Uncle Geoffrey made no further appearances, and neither did the local warden. Noel would walk round the outside of the house every evening, making sure that no chinks of light were visible.

  Winter seemed to start suddenly. He woke one morning, and saw his own breath. The scuttle in the kitchen was empty, and he went outside to the bunker and raised the heavy sliding door. A cascade of small coals tumbled out, and then a slither of paper. Letters, open and crumpled. A thick sheaf of forms, torn in half. He crouched and fingered them, and saw his own name under the smears of black. Gathering the whole lot up, he took them to the summerhouse.

  It was in a corner of the garden: a fretwork chalet, built on a turntable so that it could revolve to chase the sun. At some point it had rusted and stuck, facing east, and then ivy had crept across the roof so that now it was just a green hillock, rarely used. The wood of the front rail was silky with age. Noel knelt on the cold boards of the porch, and spread out the papers:

  A letter from Mr Clegg, the headmaster of St Cyprian’s, suggesting that Noel should join them in Llandeilo:

  . . . unless, of course, you have made other arrangements for his education, in which case perhaps you would be kind enough to let our bursar know as soon as possible, and to settle your outstanding account accordingly. Places at St Cyprian’s are greatly sought after, especially in light of the current international situation, and I think you may find that your godson’s capricious approach to study, coupled with his reluctance to participate in team activities may not be catered for with the same degree of tolerance at other educational establishments . . .

  National registration forms, dated 7th September:

  There is a legal requirement for you to furnish such details as are requested on the following pages. Without this information, we will be unable to issue the ration book that you will need for basic food purchases, or the national identity card, which it will be necessary for you to present whenever requested by authority. Please use black ink. Erroneous or deliberately misleading information will result in prosecution.

  Two letters from Uncle Geoffrey and Auntie Margery:

  25th September 1939

  Dear Mattie,

  Geoffrey called on Sunday, as per usual, but perhaps you were out.

  On the other hand, perhaps you were feeling ‘under the weather’ and had rather not receive visitors. Geoffrey thought he saw Noel, but perhaps he was mistaken.

  Should he call next Sunday instead?

  Yours affectionately,

  Geoffrey and Margery Overs

  9th October 1939

  Dear Mattie,

  Just a little note. We tried to telephone you, but there must have been some fault on the line since you were unable to hear our voices.

  Is all well with you and young Noel? Shall Geoffrey call on the usual Sunday this month? We imagine there may be some little jobs around your house needing attention, and it’s always Geoffrey’s pleasure to help out.

  Yours affectionately,

  Geoffrey and Margery Overs

  Geoffrey and Margery always said ‘we’ for everything, as if fused together like Chang and Eng. He imagined their ears jointly pressed to the telephone. He had witnessed that call, he realized – Mattie listening silently for a few seconds before replacing the receiver.

  His hands were black. He filled the scuttle and dragged it back to the kitchen and when the range was lit, he burned the papers one by one, keeping only the letter from the National Registration Office. He would write to the office, he decided, asking for another set of forms, and when those arrived he could fill them in himself.

  He washed his hands, and made some porridge. Mattie was awake; he could hear her talking to herself. She’d been doing that, off and on, for days now – odd, chipped remarks, without obvious context, as if she were reading a newspaper article, and throwing out comments. ‘Never asked permission,’ he heard her say, from halfway down the stairs, ‘just went full speed ahead. It’s a bit thick, if you ask me.’ He heard her slippers slapping down another three steps, and then pausing. ‘I told you it damned well wasn’t,’ she said. The footsteps began again, but this time heading back up towards her bedroom.

  Noel looked at the spoonful of porridge he was holding. It was wobbling, and he realized that his hand was shaking. He put the spoon down and knitted his fingers together. It must be awfully cold, he thought, to make him shiver like that.

  He found a pair of mittens and a scarf in the boot-room, and then, because it seemed silly to dress so warmly and stay in, he went out. He had an urge to go somewhere quite far away, and he hopped on the 136, going down Pond Street, and stayed on it until it rounded the corner at the North Side of Regent’s Park. As soon as he got off, he could hear the gibbons hooting.

  It was at least six months since he’d last been to the zoo, and it was a shrunken, toothless version of its old self. The pandas and elephants had been moved outside London, the aquariums closed, the reptile house emptied of poisonous snakes. He asked a keeper what had happened to them, and the man – the sort who thought himself funny
– took out a handkerchief, placed it over his own nose and mouth, and feigned death throes. ‘Had to do it,’ said the man. ‘Once Hitler starts, it’ll only take the one bomb and Camden High Street’ll be crawling with rattlers.’

  The remaining insects in the insect house were mostly ants and beetles. Noel stood in front of the glass box that had once held black widow spiders. ‘My tutor at Somerville looked just like that,’ Mattie had remarked, when they’d been here in early spring. ‘Spindly little arms and legs, and a great round body. Devoured her husband directly after the wedding, apparently.’

  He went to the café and ate a teacake, and then spent a quarter of an hour tailing a group of Canadian airmen, marvelling at how many times they swore and then calculating an average per minute (twenty-three).

  ‘Hey, kid,’ said one of them, eventually, ‘fuck off or we’ll throw you in with the fucking chimps. You’ve got the ears for it.’

  There was no bus coming. He started to walk back across Primrose Hill, and rapidly wished that he hadn’t. At the zoo, the only children had been toddlers with nursemaids, but out here there were packs of boys, dangling from trees, playing football, jeering at the ladies digging allotments on the south slope. One group was engaged in a spitting competition, with a woman’s bottom as the target. As Noel passed by, one of the spitters detached himself, and swung into step beside him.

  ‘Hello,’ said the boy. He had a scab on his lip; the greeting was not a friendly one. ‘Where are you going?’ asked the boy.

  ‘Home,’ said Noel.

  ‘Where’s that, then?’

  ‘Relatively nearby,’ said Noel. If he walked any faster, he would begin to limp. He kept his pace steady.

  ‘Why aren’t you evacuated?’ asked the boy.

  ‘Why aren’t you?’ asked Noel, bravely.

  ‘Went. Came back,’ said the boy, laconically. ‘Stinks in the country. No flicks, no chippie and they shit in a hole in the ground. Give us a bob or I’ll kill you.’

  ‘No,’ said Noel.

  ‘Tanner.’

  ‘No. I don’t have any money.’

  ‘Liar.’ Almost casually, the boy extended a foot and tripped him up. ‘Two bob, now, for lying,’ he said.

  Noel dug around in his pocket and found three sixpences. ‘There,’ he said, throwing them over his shoulder, and then trying to scramble up quickly. The boy stamped a plimsoll on Noel’s hand, and strolled over to pick up the money. He examined the coins carefully. ‘Go on, then,’ he said, glancing back, ‘get off home to Mummy.’

  There were still three halfpennies left in the other pocket – enough for the bus – but Noel somehow found himself in the Woolworth’s at Camden Town, buying a bag of cinder toffee and a skein of liquorice laces. He ate a whole lace and two lumps of toffee at the same time, and felt his mouth fill up with sweet glue.

  On the way home, he happened to pass along Mafeking Road where Uncle Geoffrey and Auntie Margery lived in the basement flat of number 23. He had only been there a couple of times. ‘A rabbit hutch,’ Mattie had commented, after one of the visits, ‘and far too tidy. One should have large, light rooms with comfortable clutter. Remember that, Noel.’ He peered down through the railings at the whitened step, and the china rabbit beside the front door.

  They weren’t really his aunt and uncle; Geoffrey was Mattie’s nearest relative, a first cousin once removed, and no relation at all to Noel. ‘A recent literary analogy,’ Mattie had remarked, not all that long ago, ‘compared one’s family to an octopus – a dear octopus, from whose tentacles we never quite escape, but I’d say Geoffrey and Margery are more like a couple of barnacles, welded to the hull of the ancestral vessel. Whereas you, Noel, are my cabin boy, and shall some day replace me as captain.’ He’d loved that image: Mattie and Noel, on a little wooden ship like the Santa Maria – a carved nutshell, intricate and rounded, scudding across the ocean with pennants fluttering. Though with such a small crew, you’d have to hope for fine weather.

  He loitered by the railings until the sweets were finished, tipping his head back and eating the liquorice laces as if they were spaghetti. Then he crumpled the bag and threw it down into the area, so that it no longer looked quite so neat. It took him an hour to walk the rest of the way.

  The house was frozen, the road outside filled with growling lorries. Mattie’s bedroom door was closed, but when he pressed his ear against it, he thought he could hear snoring.

  He went downstairs again and knelt to open the range, and the low sun poured in through the kitchen window. Suddenly every item was doused in orange light and it was as if he were seeing the room for the first time in weeks: the crusted dishes filling the sink and draining board, the hillocks of bric-a-brac on the table, chairs, dresser, sideboard and windowsill, the drifts of shoes and books, unwashed stockings, apple cores, hair grips, used matches and crumpled newspapers on a floor that was as sandy as Broadstairs beach. And through the open door, the slovenly tide flowing on into the drawing room, with a place for nothing and nothing in its place, a clutter no longer comfortable but choking.

  ‘My idea,’ said Mattie’s voice, coming down the stairs. She was still in her striped dressing gown, but was wearing galoshes and holding a torch. ‘And it was in the cupboard in the room there,’ she said. ‘They’d hidden it, of course. The bread is quite dreadful, they must be adding that particular dust, wood dust you know, I said to the boy, that was what happened in the Great War although I don’t think he believed me. How was your day?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Noel, realizing belatedly that she’d lobbed him a question. ‘I went to the zoo.’

  ‘Splendid. Toast, I think.’

  She cut a couple of slices from the loaf that had been delivered that afternoon, and then seemed to lose interest, leaving it unbuttered on the bread board. ‘Can’t see a bloody thing,’ she said. ‘O radiant dark, O darkly fostered ray.’

  ‘I’d better do the blackouts,’ said Noel.

  When he came back downstairs, she’d gone. The front door was wide open, moving slightly in the wind.

  He went outside and looked up and down the road. The light had dropped from the sky, leaving only a grey band along the western edge. A single lorry, the last of the day, was heading downhill towards Hampstead, its shaded lights smudging the ground as it bucked between the ruts. Noel waited till the sound had dwindled into the twilight, and then he called Mattie’s name. There was no reply. Fear began to slide across his skin like a thin film of ice.

  He walked along the road a hundred yards or so and then tripped on a bluish shadow, a ridge masquerading as a hole, and grazed his knee. He hobbled back to the house and spent fifteen minutes trying to find another torch, raking through drawers full of rubbish and dead moths, before snatching up the old garden lantern and a stub of candle. It was probably illegal, but he lit it anyway. By the time he left the house again, darkness had fallen.

  Apart from the circle of candlelight, he could see nothing at all. London might as well have disappeared. He walked cautiously, swinging the lantern, half-hoping that someone would notice and come rushing out to tell him off, but there was no noise apart from his own footsteps. Once he saw a fox, poised in the long grass; on the next swing of the light, it was gone.

  Where the track met the tarmacadamed road down to Hampstead, he stopped. A motor car, barely visible, swished past. The lantern light began to flicker; it wouldn’t be long before it went out altogether. He had no idea what to do. Should he ring the police? But Mattie hated the police, she would never forgive him. Should he knock on a neighbour’s door? But then whoever it was would come round to the house, and see what it looked like and that would be the end of him and Mattie; he knew that people weren’t supposed to live the way that they were living now; there would be letters written and decisions made.

  He turned back. Perhaps he could just tidy downstairs, in the places that a visitor might see. Though in any case, even if he summoned help, how could anyone search for Mattie when you weren’t allowed to
use a torch unless it was covered with two layers of tissue paper and pointed only at your own feet? Perhaps a dog could find her; a bloodhound. Except he wasn’t sure if any dogs were left in London. He hadn’t seen any for weeks; the Heath was full of rabbits now, the swathes of coarse grass cropped like a bowling green. And where had Mattie gone?

  His body felt loose, unstrung, as if terror were cutting the cords that held it all together. He had never spent an evening without her, not since he was four. He could remember arriving at the house for the first time. ‘Would you believe that I don’t have a single toy?’ she’d asked, and had given him a fossil of an ammonite to play with. It had looked like a large grey pebble, the size of a hot-cross bun, and then he had lifted the top half like a lid and seen the ridged and shining curl from ages past, a hundred million years ago.

  The candle lasted until he reached the front gate, and then he walked to the door with arms outstretched, like a child playing blind man’s bluff. He had hoped that Mattie might be back, but she wasn’t.

  Her beaver-fur coat was hanging over the banister, and he put it on and sat halfway up the stairs, under the landing window. He could see the front door from there, and hear any noise from the back. After a while, he went and fetched the ammonite from his bedroom. At first it was like ice in his hands, but he tucked it under the fur and by the time he awoke it was quite warm.

  His neck felt stiff, and pale yellow light was leaking around the shutters. He walked downstairs like an old man. Mattie wasn’t home yet, and he opened the front door and went to look for her.

  PART ONE

  1

  Hitler was thumbing his nose from just across the Channel, and London had decided to move the children out again, all the ones who had come back and all the ones who had never gone. This time Noel was going with them; once again, he hadn’t been consulted. Margery had packed his suitcase and Geoffrey had walked him round to Rhyll Street Junior School, like a prisoner under escort. Not that he’d had any thought of escape: being sent away with a classful of children he hated was still an improvement on life in 23B Mafeking Road.