A Thief in the House of Memory

by Tim Wynne-Jones

  Dec stared at him dumbly. “My mother?”

  “No, Dec. Amelia Earhart.”

  “Look where? She hasn’t written since March 8, 1998.”

  Ezra began typing on the tabletop.

  “The Internet?”

  Ezra nodded and then, as if his work was over, he took a big bite out of his muffin.

  Dec looked down at the table, surprised that he had never thought of it. He wrapped his arms around himself. Did he really want this?

  Meanwhile, the architecture magazine on the table diverted his attention. A house with trees growing inside it; or was it a grove of trees that a house had grown up around? It was brilliant. It elated him — the magic of it. Then it made him ache inside so much that he had to hold his stomach. He turned the magazine over.

  “I’ll never be an architect,” he said.

  “That’s true,” said Ezra with his mouth full.

  Dec’s head snapped back. “You missed your cue,” he said.”

  This is where a best friend says, ‘Sure you will, old buddy, old pal.’“

  Ezra swallowed and wiped the crumbs off his mouth.

  “Ah, but we have a different sense of what Τ means. You think of ‘I’ as part of a continuum, the locus of which you call Declan Steeple.”

  “Now I’m a locust? Thanks a lot.”

  “A locus, Dec. A set of points, the position of which — ”

  “Cut to the chase, Dr. Harlow.”

  “I’m talking about how a person is really a succession, a series of selves. These selves are connected in what seems to be a unique and discrete entity by a mysterious but none the less quantifiable link called the andthen.”

  “And then?”

  “Exactly. And your dream of being an architect is still a couple of andthens away.”

  Dec grinned. “So, you saying I’m a couple of andthens short of a load?”

  “Well, three, actually,” said Ezra, looking thoughtful. He lined up the sugar bowl and what was left of his muffin beside his half-finished bowl of coffee. “This is andthen number one,” he said, touching the coffee bowl. “This is andthen number two and number three,” he said, opening his hands above the sugar bowl and the muffin in the manner of a magician indicating a couple of rabbits he has just pulled from a hat.

  “Great,” said Dec. “My future is a half-eaten muffin?”

  Ezra smiled condescendingly. “Work with me, Dec. This coffee cup is andthen number one: that would be the rest of your secondary school education. The sugar bowl is andthen number two: college. Which brings us, finally, to andthen number three: international acclaim. Ta-da!”

  Dec’s eyes wandered back to the coffee bowl. The contents looked tepid and unappetizing. This was now? He picked up the salt shaker and plunked it down beside the coffee bowl.

  “You forgot something,” he said. “I’ve still got this to deal with.”

  Ezra stared at the lady in her dressing gown and rollers with her hands on her hips and the perplexed look on her face.

  “Ah, yes,” he said. “That messy midnight marauder. The past.”

  Stealing Back the Past

  THERE WAS A missing person’s cyber-centre. There were missing person’s helplines, message boards, registers, indexes and clearing houses. There were missing Irish people and missing Yugoslavian people. Lots of missing Yugoslavian people. There were kidnappings and unidentified bodies and unsolved mysteries and fugitives.

  Dec surfed aimlessly for hours. Where to begin?

  With a photo of Lindy. He could post it on line. And he knew where to find one, even though it would mean going back up to the big house.

  He made his way upstairs to the room with Lindy on the door. He opened it, stood on the threshold.

  There wasn’t much there. She had never lived in this room. It had been a place for her to hang her clothes, play her guitar, write her songs. The guitar was long since gone — one of the few things she bothered to take with her. There were photo albums on a bookshelf along with her high-school yearbooks and a few romance novels. He sorted through the photographs, found himself trembling a little, hurrying. He picked what he needed, then he closed the drawer. He should go — go right away. But it was too late.

  He heard his name being called. The voice seemed to come from far away. He looked around in alarm before crossing the room and looking out the window.

  She stood on the back lawn by a birch tree, beckoning him. She was wearing a short, cotton-print summer dress with spaghetti straps. She was shoeless. By the time he had made his way outside, she was at the far end of the garden. There were steps there cut into the steep bank leading down to the Eden River. She disappeared down the hill. He ran after her, tumbling down the steps like a bruised-knee child, laughing at the headlong speed of his descent.

  As soon as he reached the bottom, he gathered a pile of lumber: scraps of two-by-four and off-cuts of plywood, a few cedar logs. He had a big wooden-handled hammer from his grandfather’s workshop and bottles of the biggest nails he could find. He was building a raft.

  “Now, that’s some boat.” She was squatting on the last earthen step. “You reckon that thing could take us out to sea?”

  He stopped hammering and looked at his handiwork. He shrugged.

  “Maybe as far as the Tay.”

  “Good enough,” said Lindy. “The Tay connects up to the Rideau, doesn’t it? Then there’s the canal to the St. Lawrence, and after that you’re laughing. Next stop Gay Paree.”

  Dec looked out at the lazy river. All he wanted the raft to do was float. If he could pole his way across to the other bank, that would be something. There was an apple orchard there that he could plunder like a pirate. But Lindy wanted so much more.

  “Build me a boat that will carry two, and both shall row, my love and I.” It was one of the songs she played on the guitar, but not as much lately. The guitar didn’t seem to take her where she wanted to go, either.

  A noise made him look up from his work. It was over in the bushes where the old road was. A rustling, that was all. Then a glimpse of something moving, something brown.

  “A deer,” said Lindy. Her eyes were smiling. “Did you see it, Dec?”

  He wasn’t sure what he saw. “A buck,” she said. “He was beautiful. We’ll tell daddy we saw a buck.” Her eyes grew large. “Let’s say it was a giant buck with huge antlers, each with a hundred points on it.”

  “Daddy gets mad when we make up stories,” he said.

  “I know,” said Lindy, beaming.

  Now Dec sat on the same earthen step. He closed his eyes and a sense of uneasiness claimed him. The ground was damp. It was cold in the deep shade. A deer. Had there been a deer?

  Night was coming on. He climbed to his feet and headed back up the earthen stairs. He stopped and looked down at the riverside.

  A raft.

  He had made her a boat of some kind. A birthday present. It came back to him but not clearly. His memories, so crystal clear one moment, were disjointed, fragmented the next. Had he made the boat or had he only thought of making it?

  There was one way to find out. Back in the room with Lindy on the door, there was a shelf on which were arrayed, like trophies, all the presents he had made for her: things of paper, things of felt, and things of string and pipe cleaners. The ashtray with notes painted on it, a little house made of off-cuts from his grandfather’s lathe. But no boat.

  “Deckly Speckly?”

  He jumped at the sound of Sunny’s voice. She was standing at the door.

  “What are you doing here?” he snapped. He saw her flinch, her lip quiver. “Sorry,” he said. “You just caught me by surprise.”

  She looked miserable. “Daddy said I could come Up ’cause your Note said you were Here and the alarm system isn’t turned On yet. He said when the ’larm system Is on I won’t be able to Come here any more on my own Because I’m Too Small. I couldn’t find you but I stayed Anyway because you know Why?”

  “Why?”

 
; “I miss my Polly Pockets.” She said it so sadly, he was afraid she was going to cry.

  He looked at her tenderly. She was wearing her yellow raincoat with a green cardigan under it, and she had a bandage over her ear. They had gone to see the doctor.

  He squatted and she came to him. He gave her a hug.

  “What’s this?” he said. He gently pushed her away until she was at arm’s length. Then he smiled. Every available pocket was stuffed with tiny dolls.

  She tried to cover them up. Her brow furrowed.

  “Daddy will be mad,” she said.

  Dec grinned with complicity. “He won’t be mad if he doesn’t know.” Sunny smiled, and it was Lindy’s smile, devilish and one hundred watts strong.

  “Let’s go,” she said and ran to the grand stairway. But when she got there, she wanted Dec to go ahead of her. He waited obediently at the foot of the stairs. He looked up and watched her mount the wide, smooth oak rail, watched her hug it to her chest. She didn’t slow herself at all as she came hurtling down the graceful curve until she flew into his arms, knocking him clear over.

  She roared with laughter and flung herself back spread eagle on the carpet. Dec laughed, too, until it occurred to him that his sister was lying exactly where Denny Runyon had fallen.

  “Come on,” he said, holding out his hand. “Dec has work to do.”

  Sunny didn’t take his hand. She was gazing up at the bust on the bookshelf.

  “Hello, Mr. Play-Doh,” she said, pushing great gobs of hair from her eyes. “Sorry we don’t get a chance to Talk no more.”

  Dec looked at the statue. He saw his mother perched on the ladder, eye to eye with it. What was she doing? I was sharing a little secret with Mr. Know-it-all, she had said.

  “Any more,” he said distractedly, and he took Sunny’s hand to pull her up. She leapt into his arms and wrapped her legs around him.

  “Any more,” she said.

  “You’re too old for this,” he complained. “You’re too heavy.”

  Sunny threw her head back and laughed. One of her Polly Pockets fell out. She jumped down to retrieve it and shoved it back in her pocket. “’Member Deckly, Don’t Tell.” She put her finger to his lips. He pretended to bite her finger. But she was serious. “Daddy doesn’t like it when we Take stuff out of the Big House. Once it’s Here, it’s a Memory, right?”

  “Take whatever you like,” said Dec.

  “Somebody else is,” she said.

  Dec was busy locking the front door.

  “Is what?”

  “Taking stuff!”

  “Like what?”

  She looked at him as if he was setting a trap. “In Lindy’s room,” she said. “I wanted to look at that yearbook, the one where she’s Queen of the Pumpkin Patch. Birdie showed it to me a long time ago. But it wasn’t there.”

  “Are you sure?” he said.

  She glared at him. “’course I’m sure. Three books are there. One is Gone.”

  A Boat Full of Nails

  DEC WENT BACK up to the big house later that evening. The trees were full of rain. The moon between the clouds seemed to sputter and flare like a candle in a drafty room. He followed the meagre path of his flashlight up the hill. Then he made his way through the house, turning lights on as he went. Through the dining hall — click. The arched and narrow corridor that led to the vast kitchen — click. Left to the pantry — click. Left again to the servants’ entrance — click. Left a third time to the cellar door. Click.

  The stairs were steep. They creaked under his weight. At the bottom he pulled a string and a bare bulb glowed, though not nearly bright enough in the crowded darkness. The cellar was really several connected cellars, floored here in cement, there in brick and, in the oldest reaches, nothing more than compacted earth.

  She is not ever going to be around, Dec. Get used to it. He grabbed a hold of the stair rail. He tried to remember Ezra’s comforting voice explaining away his mad thoughts.

  The heart of the cellar, where he now stood, was ruled by a giant oil furnace that reminded him of some medieval torture chamber. It was no longer in use. His father had put in an efficient electric furnace some years back, but he had left the old iron monstrosity in its place, part of his private museum.

  Stooping under the old ductwork, Dec made his way down a corridor crowded by wide shelves lined with cloudy pickle jars and ancient dark jars of fruit preserve. This was the way. Click. The deeper he went, the less adequate the light seemed. The ceiling was lower, the walls and cupboards closed in around him. There was a smell of dampness and rot.

  His grandfather’s old shop was under the newer east wing. There were steps down, just a couple, but they allowed some head room, some breathing room. The work table stood against the farthest wall of the room, beyond the perimeter of the light. Dec made his way towards it holding his breath and staring into every shadowy corner. He reached for the string above the bench. Click.

  He had loved this work table. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been down here. The bench was exactly as he recalled except for a blanket of dust. But there was no boat. He must only have imagined making it.

  And yet…

  He scanned the worktop. Nothing was out of place. The tidy bottles of nails and nuts and bolts screwed to the under side of the shelf; the tools hanging or lying upon painted outlines of themselves. He touched things reverently: a bit brace, a jack plane, the pitted and scarred vice mounted on the table’s edge. Beside the vice there was a deep-sided wooden scrap box. The last time he had come down here the sides of the box had reached nearly to his chest.

  He looked down into it now and gasped.

  There it was among the angular shadows: a boat. He picked it up — needed both hands. He blew at the dust and then coughed at the cloud that rose from its decks. He placed the boat on the work table. From a hook on the wall he took a paintbrush and began to swab the decks. The brush was stiff with age so he found an old rag, shook it clean, spat on it and slowly washed the boat down.

  It was three levels high. A tight railing of finishing nails surrounded the main deck. The ship boasted a rubber-band-operated paddlewheel at the stern, and a dowel mast topped by a triangular flag.

  Lindy, he read. It was written in the best hand he could muster at ten.

  Yes, he had been ten. Looking at it now he knew exactly when he had made it. He bent down to see the boat at deck height, then he rested his arms on the work table and his chin on his arms. He imagined himself the size of a toy captain; he imagined his mother lounging on a chair on the plywood deck playing her guitar.

  “Build me a boat that will carry two.”

  He looked behind him suddenly, across the expanse of the shop, back down the shadowy corridor.

  “Mom?” he called. He listened, but all he could hear was the wind swirling around in the window wells. “Lindy?”

  Nothing.

  He returned his attention to the boat. Who had put it in the scrap box? He lifted it up and turned to leave, making his way back through the labyrinthine cellar, turning lights off as he went, feeling the darkness close in behind him like something chasing him and threatening to catch up to him at any moment. He found himself hurrying until he was fairly flying. Finally he reached the stairs and looked to his right down towards the oldest stretch of the basement. His eyes picked out a row of garden tools ranged along a wooden wall of peeling paint. He stared at the spade with its sharp point.

  She never dreamed she was going to rot away in a huge empty house.

  It’s not possible, he told himself, and then he tore up the cellar stairs, falling in his flight and scraping his shin. He sat holding it and holding back the panic he felt inside.

  He placed the boat on the shelf in Lindy’s room. He was about to leave when he recalled what Sunny had said about things disappearing. He checked the bookshelf. One, two, three yearbooks — just as Sunny had said. It was her last year that was missing. Graduation year.

  Getting off his knees, he
was about to leave the room when he stopped and turned and picked up the boat, cradling it in his arms. He had lost it once before; he didn’t want to lose it again.

  It started to rain as he made his way down the hill to Camelot. He took off his windbreaker and wrapped the boat in it. At the back door, as he returned the house key to its hook, he listened. They were downstairs in the den, Bernard and Birdie, watching television.

  He made his way to his bedroom, where he placed the boat proudly on his dresser. He was shivering with cold, so he towelled himself down and changed into his pyjamas. He stared at the boat, leaning close to it to count the finishing nails around the deck. There were twenty-nine.

  Twenty-nine. That was how old Lindy had been when she left home. It must have been the last thing he had made her, but somehow had never had the chance to give to her. He didn’t remember any kisses and hugs associated with this boat. All he remembered were tears.

  The Queen of the Pumpkin Patch

  DEC SAT AT the table outside the guidance office waiting for Mr. Marlborough. Ezra sat across from him, his pointy chin resting in the cup of his hand.

  “My mother’s upset,” he said. Dec looked at him dubiously. “She can’t understand why you don’t come around any more.”

  Dec frowned. “And you told her I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, I hope?”

  Ezra looked surprised. “Do you really hope you’ll have a nervous breakdown?”

  “Idiot,” said Dec.

  Ezra grinned. “But, seriously, why don’t you come over Saturday? She’ll make macaroons just for you. She likes you way more than me.”

  Dec smiled. “Thanks. I’d like that.”

  “And it might be a good idea to get away?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Dec. “In fact, ask your mother if I can move in.”

  Then Mr. Marlborough arrived. “Ah, the brain trust,” he said. “What can I do for you fellas?”

  In a moment, he had found them the 1986 edition of The Fife and Drum with its garish tartan cover. He owned every yearbook published in his thirty-two-year stint at Ladybank Collegiate.