Tommie had also sprung to attention. ‘We need a key.’
I was laid on my tummy, scratching a moat around an immovable stone. ‘But Kat’s hidden the key,’ I protested, turning to squint at my companions.
‘Let’s think about this logically,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘Why do you say she’s hidden the key?’
‘It’s not on her key-ring.’
‘But does she know you know about the secret room?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Well, know so, Peter. Has she done or said anything that makes you think she knows you know about the secret room?’
I thought hard. ‘No.’
‘Then why,’ asked Anna-Marie, ‘would she hide the key? Tommie, where does your mum keep her keys?’
‘On the hooks in the kitchen.’
‘Mine too. Come on.’
They leapt to their feet and raced across the garden into the kitchen. I rose and followed them. ‘But we haven’t got a—’
Anna-Marie and Tommie were stood staring at the back of the kitchen door, grinning at my stupidity.
‘Oh, Peter,’ said Anna-Marie as she examined the row of keys. I’d never even seen them before, ‘do you realise that if we doubled your brain cells we could have a very small game of conkers.’
Well, that was hardly fair. They only knew there was a secret room because of me. It wasn’t like I went round investigating the backs of doors.
‘Honestly,’ muttered Anna-Marie. ‘It’s almost like she wants you to find it.’
The keys jingled as her finger traced along the row. She stopped when she reached the only key that wasn’t labelled, lifted it from its hook and smiled. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Can you imagine any circumstances in which someone would label a key: Secret Room?’ She was just like someone out of The Famous—
But they were already bounding their way upstairs. As I trudged up behind them I could already hear Anna-Marie dragging back the heavy curtain and Tommie gasping: ‘It’s true. There is a secret room.’
‘Maybe,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘or maybe there’s just a door behind a curtain and an odd little boy,’ she glanced at me as I stepped onto the landing, ‘with an over-active imagination.’
‘But, Anna-Marie—’
‘Hush your whining, Peter,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘Let me think.’ She studied the door peering at the hinge and then the lock. She reached out and touched it, placing first the pad of her finger and then the palm of her hand against it as if testing the temperature.
The only sound was our breathing. Anna-Marie put the key in the lock and turned it. I suddenly felt all hot and cold at the same time. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Anna-Marie as the lock clicked. ‘Have you got the collywobbles?’
I shook my head but didn’t move.
‘All right,’ said Anna-Marie with a sigh, ‘before we go in, let’s say for argument’s sake that this is a secret door to a secret room. What is a secret?’ Her hair was almost white by the light that shone through the landing window. ‘What’s it for?’
‘A secret,’ said Tommie, ‘is something that somebody knows that they don’t want somebody else to know. So they keep it a secret.’
‘Good,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘So, what is it that Kat doesn’t want Peter to know? What are the sorts of things that people keep secret? What are the things that people don’t want other people to know?’
‘Well,’ said Tommie, ‘say sometimes a person might have done something like committed a crime or stolen a lot of money and they don’t want the police to know about it or they’d go to jail.’
Anna-Marie looked doubtful. ‘Are you telling me you think Kat is one of the Great Train Robbers?’
‘No, I—’
Anna-Marie groaned and pressed two fingers against her forehead. ‘Let’s say for the time being that Kat doesn’t exactly look like the master criminal type. No, there must be some other reason why she doesn’t want Peter to know about this room.’
‘Oh,’ said Tommie, ‘in films they sometimes have secrets like documents that they don’t want the enemies to get hold of. They have a big stamp that has “Top Secret” on it.’
‘Well, what sort of secrets are they?’
‘Like where their missiles are based or it might be a secret code.’
‘Again, Tommie, I don’t think Kat’s the type of person who has missiles.’
‘Well, I know, but—’
‘Look around you,’ said Anna-Marie. So we did. ‘It’s 1976. It’s Amberley. It’s not Nazi Germany.’
‘All right,’ said Tommie, thought wriggling across his brow like a caterpillar. ‘Well, a secret is like another word for what’s true, isn’t it?’
‘Go on.’
‘And if people don’t know the secret,’ gasped Tommie, ‘then what they think they know is a lie.’
Anna-Marie stared at Tommie. ‘You know, that’s very smart,’ she said. Tommie smiled. ‘For a moron,’ and his smile disappeared. ‘So, Peter, do you want to know the truth?’
Well, that wasn’t even a fair question. Of course I did. This, under my own roof, this was like cheating.
‘Peter?’
Because Kat and I did have a secret, of course, but not from each other. Except she did have a secret, didn’t she? So, what did I have?
‘Peter!’
Of course I wanted to know. I was entitled. ‘Ouch.’
‘I’ll do it again if you don’t get a move on.’
‘She’ll kill me,’ I whispered, and Anna-Marie and Tommie laughed but, of course, they didn’t know her like I did.
Anna-Marie tutted and reached over my shoulder. ‘When Kat’s away …’ She pushed the door open and we looked inside.
‘Oh,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘Wow,’ but my breath caught in my throat like a large peanut. Scared to talk, scared to breathe, scared to be there at all, it was like stepping into Wonderland but on the wrong side of the looking glass, like we were reflections, noses pressed against the glass, peering through.
It was empty. The room I mean. I mean it was empty of people. That was the first thing I noticed. The second thing I noticed was that it was twice the size of my room. Twice the size! But at least my room didn’t have pink walls, and shelves crowded with stuffed toys and glassy-eyed dolls. There were bats and balls too, and cubes with letters, cubes with numbers, all mixed up. There were books: story books, picture books, you know, all over the place. And boxes, toy boxes, pushed up against the walls and, to one side, a rocking horse, shining as if it had been dipped in syrup, a red bridle gripped between its teeth. I could guess who’d made it, of course, working away in her magic workshop, removing the unbeautiful.
‘It’s a nursery,’ said Tommie.
‘It’s a nursery,’ copied Anna-Marie like he was stupid. ‘Well done, Magnus.’
She investigated a family of framed photographs. ‘Is this your dad?’ she said, and then, laughing, ‘Is this you?’ It’d been taken at this fair when I was four years old and showed me with a monkey (a real live one) in my arms. I remembered it from the mantelpiece at home. It was my mother’s favourite. Anna-Marie picked up a silver frame. ‘And what about this one?’ I hadn’t even noticed it at first. It was the same picture as that one above the fireplace in the lounge downstairs but without the torn corner. The mysterious person sat alongside my mother and father was revealed. ‘Look at your hair,’ said Anna-Marie peering at it with a grin. ‘The barber did a grand job that day.’
A clock marked time with thick wooden clicks, winding like string through the toys and games, not so much passing but unravelling. And between each click we heard the silent pulse like that moment between heartbeats when you’re little better than dead.
The curtains were open and the room was bright. I noticed the cardboard square that still covered the broken pane. What workman would you call to fix a window in a secret room? But my eyes were drawn to the cot, its pink sheets turned down and laying on its pillow the skipping rope, near
ly new. Beside the cot was a small chair, the twin of the one that sat on the landing protecting the green curtain, and on the chair a book of nursery rhymes, a bookmark poking from the pages. Above the cot hung a mobile of bright colours—butterflies—waiting to spin.
And on the wall behind it, in a frame, a name embroidered: ‘Alice’.
‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ muttered Anna-Marie.
They were wrong though. Anna-Marie and Tommie I mean. It wasn’t a nursery. I mean it wasn’t just a nursery. It was more like a museum.
‘Well,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘it looks like Kat has more than one secret, eh, Peter?’ She walked to a shelf and stroked the hair of one of the dolls. ‘So,’ she said, looking around, examining the toys and games like a detective, ‘who’s Alice?’
‘Wow,’ said Tommie. ‘This is great.’ He knelt beside the rocking horse, caressing its smooth haunches, moving it back and forth, letting the chain upon its bridle ring. ‘My dad used to ride.’
‘This must be where Kat sits,’ murmured Anna-Marie. She picked up the book of nursery rhymes from the chair and flicked through it.
‘Be careful,’ I gasped. ‘She’ll know.’
Anna-Marie returned the book just like she’d found it, her fingers lingering a moment on the cover before they withdrew. She looked at the cot, trying to solve the mystery.
Between the cot and Kat’s chair stood a cabinet and on the cabinet there was this small box. Anna-Marie picked up the box between her thumb and forefinger, and examined it before—click!—lifting the lid. When she returned the box to the table, I could see that it was lined with little mirrors each bearing the reflection of a tiny ballerina. Anna-Marie found a key inside the box and put it into the hole, turning it with a soft clicking sound. A melody of gentle chimes trickled out filling the room with light as the ballerina turned.
‘Oh,’ said Anna-Marie, and she began to sing but so softly, so gently, that she was barely singing at all.
Baby, sleep, my baby girl, Dimpled cheek, a single curl,
Music box of gold and pearl, Baby, sleep, my baby girl.
Daddy’s gone, away to war, The beating drum, the bugle call.
The pounding gun, the cannons’ roar, Close your eyes and cry no more.
The music box is tightly wound, The seasons turn the world around.
Dreams that fade, are seldom found, Stir you not, nor make a sound.
Baby, sleep, my baby girl, Dimpled cheek, a single curl,
Music box of gold and pearl, Baby, sleep, my baby girl.
The tune ended. But we carried on listening to the silence as if it hadn’t.
‘So,’ went Anna-Marie again as she removed the key and returned it to the box, gently lowering the lid, ‘who’s Alice?’
‘Of course,’ said Tommie, ‘there is another reason why somebody might keep a secret.’
‘What other reason?’
‘Well, it’s like when my mum and dad were getting a divorce and they didn’t tell me for ages and—’
‘Get to the point, Tommie.’
‘Well, when my mum brought me here they said it was just for a holiday and—’
‘Quicker.’
‘Well, my dad said it was for my own good.’
Anna-Marie turned to look at him. She’d turned pale. I mean even paler than usual, her freckles standing out like they were sprinkled in a bowl of milk. ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ she said biting her lip. ‘Maybe we’ve got this the wrong way round.’
‘What?’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, because we thought Kat must be keeping this room a secret to protect herself.’
‘So?’
‘Well, what if she was keeping this room a secret … to protect you.’
‘But what? What do you mean? Protect me from what?’
Anna-Marie’s eyes stared into mine. Suddenly I felt like I was standing alone somewhere far away on the shore of two huge, blue lakes emptying themselves into an ocean of worry. ‘From the truth,’ she said. And then she looked away. ‘But there’s something else,’ she murmured, ‘this hasn’t just sprung into existence since—’
And then we heard it: the spluttering engine, tyres on gravel, the squeak of the handbrake. We spilled onto the landing. Kitty, sitting just outside the room, eyed us accusingly. Anna-Marie peered through the landing window. ‘She’s coming! Quick!’
I checked the room to make sure we hadn’t left any sign of our visit before closing the door as gently as I could.
‘Let’s go in your room,’ hissed Tommie.
‘Oh, God!’ I said. ‘I’ve got the key!’
We shot downstairs at full pelt. We didn’t have time to be quiet about it. Bouncing off the wall at the bottom of the stairs, I could hear Kat outside the front door wrestling with keys of her own. Down the hall. The front door was opening. Into the kitchen. I slipped, the key clattering to the floor.
‘What are you lot up to?’ She sounded cross. She always was when she’d been to the church.
I grabbed the key—
‘Nothing!’
—Key on the hook—
‘Where are you?’ A flash of anger in her voice. Even Anna-Marie looked surprised.
—We sat down.
‘Oh, there you are,’ said Kat marching into the kitchen. ‘What’s all the running about for?’ She slammed her handbag onto the counter and spun to face us.
‘Sorry, Kat,’ said Anna-Marie, smiling like an angel. ‘We were just playing.’
‘Well,’ said Kat with a sigh, ‘not like that, please.’
‘Sorry, Kat,’ I said.
‘Sorry, Mrs … Kat.’
‘Are there any biscuits?’
Kat joined us at the table as we drank squash and unwrapped jammy dodgers. ‘There’s something happening here,’ she said, ‘and I’m not sure I like it.’ Kitty strode into the kitchen and went straight to her. ‘Hello, my darling!’ went Kat, gazing into her eyes. ‘You’ll tell me what they’ve been up to, won’t you?’
I shrugged and smiled, whilst my friends drained their glasses and, crumbs still on their lips, departed: Anna-Marie to do her history and Tommie to forge a note for getting out of games. I was left to face Kat alone.
‘So,’ she said, ‘what have you really been up to?’
I was staring at her wondering why she’d torn my face from that picture.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘We just went for a walk.’
‘Oh, yes? A walk?’ She picked up the glasses and took them to the sink. ‘And where did you go exactly?’
‘Just along the river,’ I knew I had to distract her somehow, thinking quickly, ‘down to the hospital?’
‘Hospital? What hospital?’
‘Well, there’s this hospital.’ I stretched out every word like an elastic band all tight and ready to ping. ‘It’s where Anna-Marie and I go. And Tommie. It’s a big red building; an old building. You know. It’s called the Lodge, I think. You go under the road and—’
There was a smash. One of the glasses slipped from her fingers and shattered across the floor. I jumped to my feet but Kat—I mean my mother—had already stepped over the splinters and grabbed my wrist. Her face was all twisted out of shape.
‘Peter,’ she went, ‘you are not to go there again! Do you hear me? Haven’t those people …?’ My wrist began to hurt. ‘Promise me you won’t go there again. Promise.’
And so I promised—crossed my heart. ‘But why?’
She slowly relaxed her grip.
‘It’s for your own good,’ she said.
13
‘We are here,’ said Anna-Marie, eyes glinting, ‘to talk about Alice.’
‘What about Alice?’ said Tommie.
‘Well, I’ve been thinking about her.’ That wasn’t a surprise at all. I’d been thinking about little else myself. ‘And what I think,’ she said, ‘is that we should find out who she is.’
I hadn’t been surprised to find Anna-Marie waiting for Tommie and me at the end of schoo
l, sucking in her cheeks and nibbling strands of hair. But I had been surprised when she’d led us to The Copper Kettle, this small café in the village. The Copper Kettle was a place for grown-ups: the knives and forks were polished and gleaming, and there were paper doilies on every surface. The waitress shook her hair and gave us such a look I wasn’t sure we’d be allowed to stay but she smiled quickly enough when Anna-Marie waved a one pound note and requested: ‘Two Tizers, please, and a pot of tea for one.’
I felt very grown-up even though my feet barely touched the floor. ‘Peter.’ I glanced around at the lacy, flowery decorations, and was particularly curious about the young man with the long hair sat at the table next to us. ‘Peter.’ He was wearing a green jacket, a bit like a soldier, and smoking cigarette after cigarette after cigarette making the whole room hazy and writing in red on a large pad of blue—
‘Peter!’
‘What?’
‘Are you listening to any of this? It’s for your benefit, you know.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘What do you mean: why?’
‘Why do we have to find out who she is?’
‘Because,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘it might be important.’
‘But I don’t think Kat would—’
‘Oh, it’s too late to worry about that, Peter. You’ve already broken into Alice’s room, haven’t you? You’ve already poked your nose into things that don’t concern you.’
‘But you—’
‘Never mind about that. The cat’s out of the bag as they say.’
‘But you said it was for my own good.’
‘And now I’m saying that this is for your own good. Frankly, Peter,’ she waved her hand to whisk away some of the cigarette smoke which had drifted in her direction, ‘you are alarmingly slow on the uptake.’
‘So,’ said Tommie, leaning forward, pushing his thick spectacles as far up his nose as they would go and pulling a stubby pencil from his pocket, ‘how are we going to find out about Alice? We haven’t got much to go on.’ He unfolded one of the paper napkins and wrote Alice at the top. He underlined it twice.
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