* * *
John’s eyes rolled up into his head in despair.
“I’m really not sure how you got this number, but I can assure you that I do not have a virus on my computer.”
Twiddling the cord of the phone, John smiled pleasantly.
“Because I do not have a computer.”
Pause.
“Yes, well, all I can suggest is that you aim your money-making scam with better care next time and that you remove my number from your list. Anyway, I have to go now, as I have important things to do. Good day.”
With a grin of pleasure, he replaced the phone in the socket and strode across the room.
Tick: Twenty-eight thousand three hundred and fifty-two.
Opening the door, he paused to pick up the paper by the mail slot in the front door, showing no surprise over the sad antics of the footballer and the politician that between them filled the front page. Nothing really changed from day to day. He wondered if it was really worth getting a paper, but then he did like the crossword.
Outside, the morning rush hour traffic honked their distress two streets away on the main road into town. Outside the front of the house, two of the local kids argued about something on the way to school. John smiled as he turned.
His hand scraped along the shelf and a cloud of dust rose into the air.
Just dust.
John felt a lurch of panic.
Where was the KEY?
Tick: Twenty-eight thousand three hundred and ninety-seven.
No! This was impossible. He was a man of the most mind-numbing routine. He’d lost potential relationships through it. It ruled his life. He’d wound the CLOCK every twenty-eight thousand four hundred and twenty-one seconds since his grandfather had died and bequeathed him the magnificent thing.
Tick: Twenty-eight thousand four hundred and four.
He’d been drunk. Drunk and… playing. Using the KEY as a sword. He’d dispatched the guards in the lounge!
Running through the door, his eyes scoured the room.
He’d killed all three imaginary guards, but… but he’d left the sword standing proud from the chest of the last one – the one who’d guarded the piano!
Tick: Twenty-eight thousand four hundred and sixteen.
His hand hit the piano and ran along the top, knocking off the photos and ornaments.
The KEY!
His hand closed on the familiar, comforting, brass item and he ran to the CLOCK, his heart pounding.
Tick: Twenty-eight thousand four hundred and twenty.
His hand ripped open the door of the CLOCK, breaking the locking mechanism on the walnut casing. That could easily be replaced later.
Tick: Twenty-eight thousand four hundred and twenty-one.
He had the tip of the KEY in the hole, but his shaking hand betrayed him. With leaden horror he watched the small brass KEY fall, rotating over and over, flashing golden reflections of sunlight from the window and catching each mote of dust as it fell.
Tic…
Silence.
Total silence.
No honking of horns, no shouting of children. In the sky above the house, two swooping house martins hung there, nailed to the sky like the plaster ducks that hung in a silent tableau on the wall above the frozen, immobile figure of John, reaching down to catch a KEY that would never hit the ground.
* * *
“Blast,” snapped the Creator. “Why does this thing always crash when you haven’t saved your work?”
The Doll’s House
By A.J. Armitt
(Springfield, Missouri, 2012)
House clearances.
Mostly, they’re a complete waste of time. The bits and pieces of junk left over once the deceased’s vulture-like relatives have picked the home clear of anything of any use or value. Quite often, we’re left with threadbare rugs, nicotine stained net curtains and laminated chipboard furniture (which has either been chipped or watermarked), urine stained mattresses with protruding rusty springs, ancient television sets that are as deep as they are wide, and stacks of VHS videos, most self-recorded, all useless.
Every so often however, we’re called out to clear the home of someone who has died and has no living descendants, and when that happens, we can sometimes strike real gold.
When me and Sam pull up outside Noreen Taylor’s rented home, her landlord, Percy Tucker, is already perched on the porch like the bloody vulture we both know him to be, his beady eyes viewing us behind a huge hook nose and his bald pate shining under the midday sun. Yup, Percy’s a real low-life scavenger.
I get out of our removal van and the summer heat hits me like the opening of an oven door. Within a few minutes I’ll be sweating like a turkey on Thanksgiving week. Sam climbs out the other side of the truck, dark pools of sweat are already forming underneath his armpits and the old timer has a face the colour of beetroot.
“Hi, Tim... Sam.”
“Percy,” I nod in the landlord’s direction. Sam barely offers him a squint of recognition. To say that he dislikes Percy would be an understatement. “When did the old lady die?”
“Late last week, but they only buried her this morning. I thought it would be disrespectful to move her things before she was safely in the ground.”
Sam gives Percy a wide grin, and I know why.
For a middle-aged man, Percy sure is superstitious. Forget lack of respect; Percy once told me that he’d taken a dead client’s gold wedding ring whilst she was barely cold and he swore she’d haunted him until he’d returned it to her folks.
“Probably best,” I agree with a wry smile.
He hands me the front door key. “Our usual agreement?”
“Sure. We’ll clear the house, dump the junk and take the useful stuff to the auction. Once we make the sale, we split the proceeds three ways. After that, you can decorate and advertise for new tenants. That alright with you?”
Percy nods, “I’ll see you gentlemen later. I have an appointment with a hot woman and a cool beer down at Miss Macey’s.” He steps off the porch and gets into his car, an old Cadillac with white walled tyres and a coat of dust. The engine roars, and moments later he swings his car in the direction of the front gate and then on to the local bawdy house.
“Greedy bastard’s probably already taken anything of value before he called us in.” Sam spits a huge wad of tobacco over the veranda.
“Of course he has, but that’s the business we’re in, right?”
We wait until Percy’s car is out of sight and open the van’s shutter door. A few minutes later we begin perusing through Noreen Taylor’s most private possessions.
Most of her stuff isn’t that bad — quite new actually. The twin leather sofas and satin curtains are in excellent condition: the solid mahogany sideboard and dining room furniture are waxed and polished. Sam points to the clean rectangle of wallpaper on the wall, the last resting place of what must have been an impressive flat screen TV. I shrug my shoulders. What did he expect? Percy Tucker was hardly going to leave a flat screen TV behind was he?
We clear the rubbish first — old clothes, bedding, and chipped crockery. Anything that our trained eyes tell us is worthless. Two van-fulls later we begin to take stock of the good stuff. All in all, it’s a pretty good haul.
“Should fetch quite a tidy sum, this little lot.” Sam grins widely and a glob of black saliva runs down his chin. He wipes it clean with the back of his hand.
“Sure will. I’m surprised Percy didn’t help himself to some of this furniture though, it’s real quality stuff.”
“Too bloody idle, that’s his problem.” Sam reaches into one of the boxes and removes a silver picture frame. “I wonder what happened to her family?”
I shudder at the smiling faces looking back at me: Frank and Noreen Taylor, their son, Carl, and daughter, Carrie. In the photograph, the children look about the same age as my own two. “The Taylor kids died a few years back — car crash. Killed Mr Taylor too.”
“Wow, bummer.
”
“It was.” The solemn tone in my voice is enough for Sam to raise an eyebrow.
“What’s wrong?”
“I used to hang out with them when I was a boy.”
“You were friends with the Taylor kids?”
“Yeah, I used to come round here after school. Carl Taylor was my best friend. And Carrie...” my voice wanders off as I remember the green-eyed teenager with the flame-red hair and freckles. Sam gives me one of his all-knowing nods.
“And you can stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“You know what.” I give Sam a playful thump in the arm. “It’s just that Carrie... well... she was as pretty as a peach. She was the first girl I ever kissed...”
“I knew it,” Sam grins triumphantly. “So you kissed her.” His eyebrows rise quizzically, “Anything else?”
“Sam! Don’t be so disgusting! We were like ten years old. We were playing spin the bottle at Carl’s birthday party.” I can feel the corners of my mouth turn up into a wide grin. “Mrs Taylor made a batch of her choc chip cookies and brownies. Her baking was the talk of the street.”
“Must have been a bit of a blow losing your best friend and first love like that?”
“No, not really. Carl and Carrie were in their late teens when they died. We’d grown apart long before then.” Sam’s quizzical frown is enough for me to continue. “Out of the blue, the family suddenly found religion. All of them. They went from being your average American family to a bunch of evangelical, bible bashers. The problem was when they started to try and force their beliefs on everyone around them, force feeding their friends and neighbours bible excerpts at every opportunity. After a while I stopped calling around. It became far too uncomfortable for me to continue to stay friends with them. Shame really, we shared some good times. They had this huge attic where we used to play. It was every kid’s dream.”
Sam’s eyebrows raise half an inch, as he furrows his brow. “Do you think there’s anything still up there?”
“I dunno, but we could take a look.”
I stride up the wooden steps, two at a time, partly because I want to know if the attic has any hidden treasures, and also because I want to revisit an old haunt from my childhood. At the top of the stairs, I reach for the old rope and pull open the trap door. The attic ladders slide down and without any hesitation, I make my way up to the old playroom.
Even though the two roof-lights are filthy, the room is relatively well lit, and I don’t have to strain my eyesight. Dust motes dance in the narrow beams of light. The air in the attic is musty and damp. Cobwebs hang from every recess, and white fungus crawls across one of the roof beams. My heart leaps in excitement at the memory of these familiar surroundings. And yet...
“See anything?”
“No, nothing. The attic’s empty, everything’s gone.” Disappointed, I turn to leave. And then I see it, a large mass covered by a blanket in the far corner of the room. Intrigued, I walk towards the hidden object. “Hang on a minute. I think I’ve found something.”
***
“I’ll give you fifty dollars for it.”
Sam looks at the two-foot high doll’s house and rolls the tobacco around in his mouth. “It’s worth more than that.”
“Yeah, of course it is, but once we take it to the auction, sell it and split the proceeds three ways, your share will amount to far less than that.”
Sam views me suspiciously. He’s not stupid and he probably knows the doll’s house will fetch a lot more than one hundred and fifty dollars. I try tugging on his heartstrings. “My daughter would love it. You know I couldn’t afford to buy her a decent Christmas present this year, what with the economy being the way it is. Would you really want me to tell her that her favourite uncle made me sell it so he could get a few more dollars for it?”
“Just let her know that it’s off her Daddy and Uncle Sam, will you?” I cock my head quizzically. “Oh, don’t give me that. You can keep your fifty dollars. I never could resist little Sarah,” he smirks.
I give Sam a big grin and pat him on the shoulder. “Thanks, Partner, she’ll really appreciate it.” I take a long look at the doll’s house. It’s an exact replica of the Taylor’s home. The only difference is the furniture; it looks far older and has a 1980’s feel about it. The kitchen is a garish shade of orange, and the tiny bathroom has an avocado bathroom suite. Even the family of four that inhabit the house appear to be wearing clothes that wouldn’t go amiss from that era.
“Hmm, skinny leg jeans somehow just don’t look quite right on a man.” Sam shakes a disapproving head as he holds up one of the dolls.
“I think I had a pair not too dissimilar back in the day,” I laugh.
Sam returns the figure to its seat on a chair in the corner of the room. ”Did the doll’s house belong to Carrie Taylor?”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t ever remember seeing it,” I shrug. “Perhaps Mrs Taylor made it after her family had all been killed, like a hobby or something?”
“That’s just darn creepy,” Sam shudders. “If she did though, she must have been darned skilled. All the pieces have been carved from blocks of wood.” Sam reaches into the house and withdraws a gaudy looking yellow and black polka-dot sofa. “No accounting for taste though, eh?”
We both begin to chuckle. “Come on, help me load it onto the back of the van before Percy comes back and decides he wants to sell it.”
***
A couple of hours later I’m back home. Sarah loves her new doll’s house and Sam’s beaming at her through that ol’ grey beard of his. He’s such a big softie really.
“Oh, Daddy, I love it. Thank you so much.” She turns to my partner, “You too, Uncle Sam.” She gives him a big hug and I swear the old fella’s face will split in two if he grins any wider. Moments later, she’s on her hands and knees re-arranging the furniture.
“Did you get anything for me?” asks Mark, my eleven year old son.
I feel a bit guilty, but this time round I have nothing to give him. The last clearance we made, I managed to salvage him an old games machine.
“I’m sorry, Mark, but no. Not unless you fancy a fondue set.” I attempt to make a joke with him, digging out the first thing I find in a large cardboard box — the unsold items from the auction.
Mark merely shrugs and turns away before sloping off to his room, muttering some unintelligible remark.
“What? Don’t ever complain I don’t ever give you anything,” I chuckle. Sam gives me a playful nudge, and we both watch Sarah as she plays with her new house.
***
By the time the whole family retires for bed, I’m dog-tired. It’s been a long day, and after kissing my wife good night, I close my eyes and begin to drift. Not surprisingly, I begin to think about the Taylor house.
I’m a boy again, and I’m running through the front room chasing Carl and Carrie. We’re playing tag. Frank Taylor joins in the fun by lifting a screeching Carrie over his head, and out of my reach, so I continue my pursuit of Carl. He leaps over the sofa, before dashing off into the kitchen, where the delicious aroma of freshly baked cookies wafts through the entrance. As I too, leap over the sofa, I can’t help but think that this is the ugliest piece of furniture I have ever seen — bright yellow with black polka-dots. I run through the entrance and into the kitchen, and I’m almost blinded from the glare of the orange Formica surfaces. Carl has already forgotten our game as his mother hands him a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie. She offers me one and I take it, as does Carrie, and then the three of us head for the refuge of the attic where we can play more games.
Oh, happy times...
***
Carl Taylor woke from his sleep and rubbed his eyes. He felt like he’d been asleep for a very long time. He sat upright and slid to the side of the bed, his feet hanging over the edge. The room was still cloaked in darkness, but something didn’t feel quite right. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he rubbed them again. This wa
sn’t his bedroom. Carl slid out of bed and walked towards the door.
Where was he, and how did he get here?
He placed a trembling hand on the door knob and twisted it to his right. Gently, he opened the door. A long corridor lay before him and as he silently crept along it, a door opened to his right. He froze on the spot as a man in his mid-thirties wearing striped pyjamas stepped out of the room in front of him.
“Carl?” the man asked.
Although he was pretty sure he hadn’t met the man before, the guy in the pyjamas looked quite familiar. Still, he didn’t answer him.
“Carl,” repeated the man, “is that you?”
“Yes,” came the reply.
“Oh thank God.” Before Carl knew what was happening, the man took hold of him, lifting him up and holding him in his arms. Before he could say another word, a second pair of arms enveloped him, and he realised that a rather attractive woman wearing nothing more than a nightdress was holding and kissing him too.
“W-what’s going on?” he asked.
The man placed him down, and taking his hand led him towards the full length mirror hanging in the bedroom from which the man had just exited. As he looked at the image staring back at him, his mouth fell open and he started to scream.
***
Frank Taylor stared down at the doll’s house, an exact replica of the one he was now living in, and far removed from one he’d bought for his daughter at a yard sale almost twenty five years ago.
He held the tiny figures in his hands, recognising them as exact replicas of his family’s new bodies. Ironic then, that they were previously inhabited by the family of his son’s former friend.
“So what are you going to do now, Dad? You just can’t leave them there.” The question came from his son, Carl. Frank forced a smile and answered the boy.
“I’m sorry, Carl, but from now on we have to be the Shepard family. If we start telling everyone we’re the Taylors, we’d most likely all be committed to a sanatorium.”
Temporal Tales Page 8