Hidden

by Shalini Boland

  ‘We will show them to you later, if your father permits it,’ Alexandre replied, his eyes twinkling.

  ‘Really?’ they asked in unison.

  ‘Yes, really. We have muskets and pistols. And Agha Kaya also has a shining scimitar and a good sharp knife.’

  The children nodded and looked impressed.

  ‘Father has a sword and also many other weapons, but we are not allowed to touch them, or we will turn into beetles,’ Yusue said.

  ‘Yes, you must heed your father,’ Alexandre replied. ‘You do not wish to wake one morning and find you are scuttling about the bed,’

  They all began to talk at once. Telling the men about their father and their ponies and asking them about bandits and battles, until their loud chatter brought their father into the hallway.

  ‘What is all this noise? Our visitors will run away if you continue to pester them like this. Quiet, all of you.’

  ‘Father,’ Aysun said. ‘They do not mind.’

  ‘I mind. It is time to eat. Come.’ He smiled across at his visitors and welcomed them into the dining room.

  Several people already sat cross-legged on plump cushions around a low table draped with a richly patterned cloth. The three children scrambled to their cushions while Asil Rais gestured to Alexandre and Isik to sit near him.

  ‘Allow me to make the introductions. Everybody, please welcome our guests. This is Monsieur Alexandre Chevalier from France and this is Agha Isik Kaya.’ He turned to the men. ‘Allow me to introduce my Great Grandmother, Havva Sahin.’

  Alexandre turned to see an old lady, small but regal-looking. She sat upright and wore traditional local dress with a double headscarf, covering her chin and forehead.

  ‘Good evening Bayan Sahin.’ Isik said to her in Turkish. ‘And thank you for your kind hospitality.’

  She nodded towards him with a smile.

  ‘Good evening, Madame,’ Alexandre spoke in English, not entirely sure of the etiquette involved. The last thing he wanted to do was make a faux pas.

  ‘My wife, Nuray,’ said Asil Rais. ‘And my two eldest daughters, Ayla and Aysel. And you have already met these three troublemakers,’ he added, indicating Yusue, Yunue and Aysun.

  ‘You have a lovely family, Asil Rais. May I give you a small token of thanks for your kindness in opening up your home to a stranger?’

  Alexandre put a parcel on the table, next to Asil Rais’ wife. She undid the string and folded back the paper. Inside was a large bag of dried mulberries and some freshly made baklava - the delicious local sweetmeats made with honey and pistachios.

  Nuray spoke quietly in Turkish and bowed her head in Alexandre’s direction to show her appreciation.

  A servant carried in a large platter of mezze and placed it in the centre of the table along with a plate of warm pitta bread.

  ‘Bon appetite,’ Asil Rais said, raising his glass.

  Alexandre wondered how to steer the conversation towards the local legends and underground caves. They had to find out where the old woman lived; the one who knew the ancient folklore of the region. He cleared his throat, ready to speak, but before he had uttered a word, the grandmother, Havva Sahin, addressed Alexandre directly.

  ‘I know why you are here,’ she said. ‘Do not ask me your questions, for it will be your greatest misfortune that I will answer every one of them.’

  Chapter Nine

  *

  The party was in full flow and Madison stood, squashed in the corner of the lounge, chatting loudly to some school friends. Through the haze of faces, she saw the features of someone who most definitely did not belong there. A middle-aged man wearing an open-necked checked shirt and brown corduroy trousers and he was heading her way. He looked mildly familiar and she trawled the fuzzy recesses of her brain to try and place him.

  It was Morris, the caretaker.

  ‘This going to be going on all night is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah, probably.’

  ‘Right. Just checking. I’ll leave you to it then.’ He turned around and walked out.

  ‘Miserable old fart,’ she said to Lois and Keisha after he’d gone. ‘Nothing to do with him is it. Not his house. You seen Ben anywhere?’

  ‘No, but I have seen a lot of really fit locals,’ Lois giggled.

  ‘Me too,’ agreed Keisha. ‘But first I want to dance. Come on, you two, come and dance with me.’

  ‘In a minute,’ said Maddy. ‘Just going to find Ben first.

  The air shimmered and sang with the heat of midsummer and by now there must have been several hundred people on the front lawn, with cars still arriving, pulling up wherever there was a space. Clusters of local kids ambled up the driveway with carrier bags of drink and the music thumped and pounded in the still night air and through the solid earth.

  Every room on the ground floor was rammed with sweaty people. Talking, smoking, drinking, kissing, playing pool, throwing darts. Outside in the ornamental garden, people splashed in the shallow water features and Maddy heard laughter and screams from the maze.

  She hadn’t spotted Ben yet so she made her way back inside and negotiated her way past strangers sprawled across the staircase. She tried the handle to her bedroom door ... Good, still locked. She walked down the landing to Ben’s room and tried his handle. Locked too.

  ‘Ben!’ she shouted through the door. ‘You in there, Ben? It’s Maddy!’ She waited a moment, then heard the sound of a key turning. The door opened. ‘Ben, what are you doing hiding away in here?’

  ‘I’m not hiding. I’m just watching everyone out of my window. Do you think the deer mind the noise? Do you think it’s freaking them out?’

  ‘I’m sure they’ll be okay. Why don’t you come downstairs? Come and enjoy the party?’

  ‘Mmm …’ He looked doubtfully at her. ‘I’m fine up here.’

  ‘Come on, Ben.’ Maddy pulled him by the hand and dragged him out onto the landing, just pausing long enough to let him lock his bedroom door. They went back downstairs into the kitchen and Ben stuffed a few crisps into his mouth. She got him a glass of lemonade and they went out front where Travis was still working his magic on the crowd.

  ‘Good DJ, Mads,’ Ben said. ‘This track is banging.’ They sat for a while, cross-legged together on the grass. ‘Oh gross! Look at Lois.’ Ben pointed to the open lounge window and through it they saw Lois inside, snogging one of Travis’ friends.

  Maddy laughed and covered Ben’s eyes. ‘Just gonna have a little wander, shortie. You coming?’

  ‘No, I’ll sit here for a bit. Can you get me some more crisps when you come back?’

  ‘What did your last slave die of? Yeah, okay. See you in a bit, bro.’

  In the kitchen, Maddy bumped into some friends from Collingstone. They told her she was a lucky cow and it was a wicked party and she should have one every month. That it was such a cool venue, much better than the London clubs. She chatted to them for a while and caught up on all the school gossip. But she felt detached from them, like she didn’t belong to that world anymore and found she didn’t mind at all.

  She realised her party wasn’t at all what she had imagined it would be. She had thought it would be a typical good night out, a bit of a laugh. But this was different. This was her house and she was responsible for everything in it, including Ben. She found she couldn’t relax at all. Even after a drink, she felt the complete opposite of relaxed. Totally wired, on heightened alert, disconnected from everyone around her. She felt different.

  Maddy excused herself from her mates and decided to have a quick look round, to check on everything else. She saw Lois, still snogging her fit bloke. They lay on the green velvet sofa in the lounge, oblivious to everyone else in the room. She did a quick reccy of the other ground floor rooms, all heaving with people, all of them strangers.

  She entered the library, the most chilled out room so far, with just a few people sitting around chatting – no one she knew though. As she turned to leave the room, she heard the splintering of gl
ass from behind the far door on the other side of the room. Everybody jumped and swivelled their heads towards the source of the noise, but nobody got up. Nobody was really bothered.

  Madison threaded her way through the seated partygoers to the door which led into the orangery. When she got there, she was horrified to see a whole section of glass wall missing and two lads on the ground, beating the crap out of each other. They were rolling over bits of broken glass and smashed plant pots, black earth and ripped leaves.

  A tall blonde girl in a short red dress screamed uselessly at them, calling out for them to stop. Tears rolled down her face and Madison could tell she’d been the cause of the fight.

  Maddy looked around for help, but nobody looked like they wanted to get involved. Worry morphed into anger. A coiled hose hung from a hook on the back wall. She heaved it up and held the nozzle, letting the rest of the hose unravel onto the floor. Turning on the nearby tap, she pointed the nozzle at the scrappers and waited as the water made its long journey to freedom.

  The cold jet gushed with satisfying force and Maddy got right up close, for maximum impact. The boys sprang to their feet in shock. Blood and water dripped from their bodies, marbling like paint on the tiled floor. They stood there open mouthed and panting. She turned off the water.

  ‘You two can get out right now.’ Maddy glared up at them. She continued to stare, with the hose trained on them like a weapon. Next, she turned to the blubbering girl. ‘And you can leave too.’

  The girl stopped crying, pouted and looked down her nose at Maddy. ‘Oh really. And who are you?’

  Maddy gave her a withering stare. ‘This is my party. This is my house. Now get out.’

  The girl tossed her long hair and spoke to one of the dripping boys.

  ‘Come on, Sam. It’s a crap party anyway.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Maddy said, as they walked away, crunching over broken glass. ‘Thanks for coming. Thanks for the criminal damage.’ She threw the hose on the floor and turned her back on the mess and destruction, walking out the way she had come, back through the library. No one else paid any attention to the incident and the party atmosphere continued to ramp up.

  Still annoyed, Maddy stomped into the kitchen to get some crisps for Ben. A food fight had broken out and screams accompanied sausage rolls as they flew across the room, while beer sloshed over people’s heads. Oh my God. How did I ever think a party was going to be a good idea?

  She left the kitchen and went back outside to find her brother. A large group of blokes now sprawled where she and Ben had sat and Ben was nowhere in sight. A small finger of worry plucked at her chest. He’ll be okay, she reasoned. Maybe he’d got bored waiting for her and had gone back to his room. She returned to the house, barged past the people on the stairs and banged on his door, but there was no reply.

  ‘Ben! Ben! Are you there? It’s me! It’s Maddy!’

  Still no reply. She ran back down the stairs and went into every single room, looking systematically and asking everybody if they had seen a twelve-year-old boy. Nobody had. She hauled Lois off the sofa and she and her bloke looked at Maddy in surprise.

  ‘Have you seen Ben?’

  ‘Ben?’ Lois asked stupidly. ‘No, I haven’t seen anything,’ she laughed. ‘I’ve been a bit busy.’

  ‘Yeah, I noticed.’ She stalked off, leaving a confused-looking Lois.

  Maddy found Keisha slouched over the dining room table, talking to some friends. She drunkenly banged the table with her glass, trying to make an important point about something.

  ‘Maddy, there you are,’ she slurred. ‘I was jusht shaying, I mean shaying, saying …’ Then she dissolved into a fit of giggles and banged the table again, nearly falling off her chair, which made her laugh even harder.

  ‘Have any of you seen my brother? Have you seen Ben?’ Maddy asked, ignoring Keisha.

  ‘No.’ They all shook their heads.

  Maddy hurried out of the room and back into the kitchen, ignoring the shouts and the mess. She pushed open the door to the games room. The atmosphere in here seemed calmer. The room was at the back of the house, further away from the music. A serious-looking game of pool was in full flow. People leant against the walls, smoking, drinking and watching the pool-table action in the murky light.

  ‘Has anyone seen my brother?’ Maddy’s husky voice, rose above the murmuring chatter. ‘He’s twelve with dark brown hair, wearing a green t shirt and black jeans.’

  One of the pool players used his cue to point under the table and Maddy saw a black trainer sticking out. She crouched down to look. Ben lay on his back, passed out.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ she said. ‘He’s drunk! He’s lying on his back! He’s a kid! Didn’t any of you think there’s a problem with that?’ But she was angrier with herself than anyone else.

  The two lads playing pool knelt down and helped slide Ben out from under the table.

  ‘Sorry, man,’ one of them said to her. ‘He hustled us and kicked our asses at pool. He’s pretty good.’

  ‘Yeah,’ the other lad interjected.

  ‘But then he said he was gonna have a little kip under the table. Didn’t think he was that drunk.’

  ‘You morons. He was lying on his back. He could’ve choked on his own vomit.’ She rolled him onto his side. ‘Ben. Ben, wake up. Can you hear me, Ben?’

  ‘Mmmm?’ Ben opened his eyes, murmured something incomprehensible and threw up over one of the pool player’s trainers.

  ‘Oh that’s just great,’ he said. ‘My new Pumas. Yeah, thanks for that!’

  Maddy ignored the boy’s complaints and got Ben slowly to his feet. She led him shakily out of the room.

  ‘Party’s over!’ She shouted as she went. ‘Thanks for trashing my house, but you can all eff off now. Party’s over!’ She got a few puzzled stares and dirty looks, but most people just ignored her. She washed out a glass in the kitchen and filled it with tap water. Then she took Ben upstairs to his bedroom and put him to bed.

  Maddy locked the door and lay next to him, on top of the covers. She ignored the shouts and the yells, the booming bass line and the crashes, bangs and smashes. She knew all hell was breaking loose down there with nobody to stop it, but she couldn’t leave her brother on his own, not when he was in such a state. She smoothed Ben’s hair away from his eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, little man. I didn’t look after you properly. But I promise you, that’s going to change. We don’t need any of those people in our lives. They don’t care about us. We’ve got each other and that’s enough.’ She closed her eyes and fell asleep.

  *

  She opened her eyes and instantly closed them again. The curtains hung open and the sun’s rays were shining straight onto her face. Madison turned away from the light. She heard the birds singing ridiculously loudly and then the sound of a car engine trying to start up. Her mouth tasted fuzzy and stale. Her eyes felt heavy and achy, the skin on her face dry and taut.

  The previous night’s events jumped uninvited into her brain and she sat up too quickly, leaning over Ben to check he was okay. His breaths came loud and even, so Maddy lay back down. She knew she had to get up, leave the bedroom and look at the rest of the house. Assess the damage. The thought of it made her close her eyes again and curl into a foetal position. What on earth had possessed her to throw a party? She knew what they were like. She’d been to enough of them.

  Maddy left Ben sleeping and opened the bedroom door. No sign of anyone on the landing. So far so good. She tried her bedroom door ... Still locked. Good. She tried another bedroom door. It opened and Maddy’s reluctant gaze rested upon a heap of sleeping bodies. At least four people in the double bed, one person on a slim chaise and the rest, sprawled or squashed on the floor. She stepped over them and pulled back the curtains.

  ‘Okay, people,’ she croaked. She cleared her throat. ‘Okay, wake up.’ Slightly louder this time, but not much.

  One boy rolled over and groaned. He squinted at Maddy, who stood in front of the window, dr
enched in a flood of morning sunshine. The boy looked at his watch.

  ‘It’s six o’clock in the morning,’ he whispered.

  ‘Don’t care. Party’s over. Time to go home.’

  ‘Have mercy.’ The boy closed his eyes again.

  ‘Okay, everybody!’ Maddy shouted this time. ‘Time to go!’

  Madison marched through the house, pulling back curtains, flinging open windows and telling everyone to get out and take their crap with them. She went into the kitchen, found a big roll of bin bags and began the hideous task of cleaning up. Uppermost in her mind was the thought that she did not, under any circumstances, want Esther or Morris to see the house in its destroyed state. She knew it was her house and she could do what she wanted, but the thought of their disapproving stares was more than she could bear at the moment.

  A couple of kindly souls took some bin bags from her and started to help with the clearing up. Maddy smiled, but no words were exchanged. People were too hung over and tired to speak. By 8am, a trickling exodus had begun. Rooms were vacated and cars coughed to life, crawling away leaving muddy tyre tracks on the previously pristine lawns.

  Travis was asleep in the passenger seat of the yellow transit van, his mouth and nose squashed up against the window, blonde hair, matted and sticking out in tufts. Maddy tapped on the glass. He awoke with a start, sat up and wound the window down.

  ‘Madison.’ He gave her a sleepy grin. ‘That was a good night. Tunes alright for you?’ he asked in his lazy Gloucestershire drawl.

  ‘Yeah, you were right, Travis, you’re a good DJ.’

  ‘Actually, that’s the first live gig I’ve ever done,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve only ever DJ’d in my bedroom up till last night. Now I’ve got a rep. I might be able to get some more bookings.’

  ‘It was lucky you didn’t suck then. This is for you.’ She passed him a wodge of notes through the window and enjoyed the look of wonder on his face.

  ‘I didn’t really think ...’

  ‘I said if you were good, you’d be happy.’