The Big House

by Larche Davies

  She gazed thoughtfully up at the photograph on the mantelpiece. It had been propped back against one of the china dogs. For Maria’s sake she had to try to befriend those children, without setting off one of her husband’s violent rages.

  “I’ve taken a part-time job, Evan,” she said after a while. “There’s a Mary Ellis who needs someone to take her little boy to school and back every day while she’s at work, and I said I’d do it. His name’s Paul. I should be gone for about half an hour in the morning, while you’re still in bed, and half an hour in the afternoon when you’re having your nap.”

  Evan smiled. “Excellent, cariad! It’ll make a change for you and get you out of the house.” His eyes lit up as an idea struck him. “Perhaps she’d let you bring him here sometimes on the way back from school. It would be wonderful to have a child in the house again.”

  So, at least that went smoothly, thought Gwen, getting up and kissing the top of his head. “I’ll make you a cup of tea, dear,” she said.

  It was a pity she’d had to lie, but it might bring him happiness in the end. She wondered if the authorities would let her bring Paul back to the house after school occasionally. Of course, she’d have to tell him not to say he’d been to the house before, and she wouldn’t tell Evan who he was – and she’d have to hide the tablets and the tranquilising syringes away from curious little fingers.

  *

  That night, the occupants of the flat in the Cromwell Road were feeling a little more optimistic. Isobel had come home with a suggestion that they should look for the children in Wales.

  “I discovered today that Wales hadn’t occurred to any of the agents,” she said. “Their excuse was that the Magnifico has hardly any followers there, apart from a few infiltrators in the councils.” She rubbed the blond bristles at the top of Drax’s head. “Mmm! Nice. These are growing fast. But how stupid can people be! I pointed out how that would be a very good reason for sending the children there. Anyway, they’ll be getting some agents down there first thing in the morning. The only one I know is that Robin from the Kent commune. He’s pretty competent. Let’s hope the others are too and, you never know, we might strike lucky.”

  Drax was pleased. He switched off the television and uncurled himself from the sofa. “Good! But they should have had the sense to think of it without your help. I’ll have to tell the holy leaders that their agents are not what they used to be.”

  Isobel went through her usual routine of putting away the shopping. Holy Mag! He could be pompous sometimes! She threw Drax a newspaper, and he caught it deftly.

  “We just have to accept the fact that standards have dropped since Copse and Thomas were caught,” she said. “Recruiting has virtually stopped, and a lot of the agents are slinking off. The Good Doctors are leaving too. Most of my colleagues have just slipped away. They’re probably comfortably practising as family doctors in some nice, warm, foreign country.”

  “You could do the same and come with me to Mexico – or wherever.”

  “I’ll never desert the Magnifico! When I married you, I married him.”

  “Of course you did, my darling. But he operates all over the world, remember, not just here. In fact, I might make a point of seeking an audience with the Holy Envoy when I’m abroad. There can be no harm in getting him to notice me, and he might well be glad to make use of my financial talents. The prospect of greater wealth is always attractive to wealthy people. Now, a change of subject! I went out to see a film today.”

  Isobel sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t take risks. I can’t understand why the holy leaders have been so tolerant. Why didn’t they dispose of you as soon as they realised it was you who told Thomas to burn Drax’s house?”

  “They won’t touch me because I’m brilliant at making money, and they need their share of it.” Drax laughed with the confidence of self-satisfaction. “Anyway, life’s no fun without risks. You’ll be pleased to know, I wore the hat. I felt a complete fool, but I’ll get used to it. How was your day?”

  Isobel groaned. “I was sent on a computer project, teaching some of the less bright agents how to hack into secret networks.” She rolled her eyes. “Flaming flesh, it was tedious! I wish the holy leaders wouldn’t send me on rubbishy jobs.”

  She pouted prettily and Drax’s cruel face melted into tenderness as he put his arm around her.

  “I wish they wouldn’t, too,” he said, sniffing the back of her neck. “I’d much rather you could be with me always – even though you do swear like a quarryman!”

  “It’s not just the sending me away,” she grumbled, ignoring his caresses. “It’s the job satisfaction. I much prefer the medical projects. There’s something very satisfying about euthanasia. It’s all part of the purification process.”

  Her face lit up and her voice rose and trembled with emotion. “We’ll rid the world of the tainted and the toxic. Bit by bit, we’ll eliminate the weak, the rebellious and the comfort seekers.”

  She clasped her hands to her chest. “The world shall be united in purity of soul, and the Magnifico will reign in glory.”

  She rarely spoke of her inner feelings, and Drax gazed at her in admiration. “Wow! If anyone deserves to sit at the Magnifico’s right-hand side, it’s you.”

  Chapter Six

  Gwen Jones arrived in good time on the Monday morning to take Paul to school.

  Lucy was too embarrassed to meet her eye when she opened the door to her, and no mention was made of the disastrous visit to the house. The photograph had confirmed to David and Dorothy that Mrs Jones was indeed her grandmother, and now she was mortified to think she’d suspected a trap. She was consumed with shame when she remembered her fleeting impression of a crazy lady. Mrs Jones wasn’t a bit crazy. She had a really sweet face. But how did you speak to a grandmother when you hadn’t known she existed, and when you’d thought she was a trap, and when you’d been shouted away from her door?

  She wrapped Paul up warmly in his new clothes. “School will be fun,” she said softly, trying to put the cruel memories of the Magnifico’s school out of her own mind. “You’ll have lots of other children to play with.”

  “Will you be here when I come back?” he whispered back.

  “I think you might get back before I do because I’m going to school too, but I’ll be with you in spirit all day.” She fingered the gold circle that hung from the chain on her neck. “See this, with the tiny daffodils in the middle? That’s you, remember, and the chain is me, so we’re always together.”

  She bent to hug him tight and give him a kiss, and then handed him over to Gwen. In her head, she could hear Aunt Sarah’s voice telling her to remember her manners – if you’re ever too embarrassed to look at someone in the eye, look at their chin.

  “Thank you for taking him,” she said, looking at her grandmother’s chin. “It’ll be a great help to Miss Clements.” She tried to smile, and held the door open for them.

  Gwen could sense the chill in the courtesy, but a warm current of pleasure ran through her as Paul took hold of her hand. She tried to chat a little with him as they walked down the hill, but there was no response and she could feel his tension. His hand tightened as they reached the town, and he looked up at her.

  “Will I see the monster frog?” he asked.

  Gwen was puzzled. The boy must have seen something on television. “There’s no monster frog,” she said.

  “What about the spawn? The spawn of the monster frog? That man didn’t want them in your house.”

  “Aha!” she said with slow realisation. “That monster frog! No, it’s gone now, and the spawn, so you won’t see them. Frogs don’t hurt you, so you needn’t be afraid of them, but we certainly don’t want them in the house or you might tread on them by mistake.”

  When they reached the school, he went into the playground without pulling back, and Gwen was relieved. She spoke to his teacher, gave him
a kiss, and left him standing in a queue of little children waiting for the whistle.

  *

  “This is almost as terrifying as when we escaped from the disposal cells!” said Dorothy.

  Finding the school had been no problem. They had just followed the stream of uniformed children uphill until they reached the building. Now they stood frozen with apprehension outside the main entrance, and looked at each other.

  “We’ve never been with normal children before,” whispered Lucy, “and there are so many of them!”

  Even Dorothy was daunted.

  “Well, we’ve been with each other, and we’re normal,” said David, eventually, making no attempt to go in.

  Dorothy drew in a deep breath. “Right!” she said. “Head up, shoulders back.”

  *

  When Lucy arrived back from school, Paul was waiting anxiously for her in the hall. He threw his arms round her, and she hugged him tight. There was Aunt Sarah’s voice yet gain – The Magnifico says no child shall receive comfort from the day he starts school. So what? She took Paul’s hand. They went upstairs and lay quietly on her bed until the tension seeped out of them. “Breathe deep breaths,” she said, “very slowly, in and out.”

  *

  “There are some really nice girls in my year,” Dorothy said later that evening after supper. She was kneeling on the window seat, looking between parted curtains at the dark street outside. “A girl called Izzy lives in this same road, further up, and she invited me to a sleepover.”

  Lucy lay on her stomach on the rug in front of the fire, trying not to think about tomorrow and another day at school. She turned over a page of Paul’s new reading book. “What’s a sleepover?” she asked, without looking up.

  “It means sleeping at her house with a whole lot of other girls.”

  Lucy sat bolt upright and stared at Dorothy.

  “You can’t do that!” exclaimed David, emerging from the depths of an armchair. “You have to be with us. They’re strangers. You don’t know who their parents are. It might be putting you in danger – and us.”

  “Yes, I know that, silly!” Dorothy tossed her head, a little crossly. “I told her I couldn’t, but it was nice to be asked, and I do want to fit in.” Her face brightened. “And there’s a really good-looking boy called Jason in the year above. One of the girls said he was asking who I was.” A pleased little smile crossed her face. “I might put on some of that mascara tomorrow before I go to school.”

  David laughed and relaxed back into his chair. He liked this school. Despite the cruelties at the Mag’s school, he’d had a lot of fun there with his friends, but his best mate, Matthew, had turned out to be an infiltrator and he couldn’t think of the place without revulsion. Holy Bag! It was no wonder they couldn’t trust anyone. This new school felt different. People weren’t afraid.

  “What about you, Lucy?” he said.

  “It’ll be better tomorrow when I’ve got more used to it. There were two girls who were friendly, but it was awkward because they wanted to know why I’d moved down from London and why I’m with a foster mother, and obviously I couldn’t tell them. And who on earth is Beyoncé? Is it a man or a woman? I felt a bit of a fool.”

  “I think Beyoncé’s something to do with television,” said David. “We can ask Miss Clements how to find programmes. If we watch the right ones, we can talk as though we know what people are on about. It’s called being ‘cool’.”

  “And,” Dorothy reminded Lucy, “just remember, you’ve had experiences they’ve never had, so you know a lot more about some things than they do. I bet they’ve never rescued people from a fire, and from disposal cells, or captured someone evil like Father Copse and got him arrested, or slept under a railway arch in London.”

  “I know, but I think it’s because of all those things that I feel I’ll never fit in,” replied Lucy

  “Well, if I can fit in, you can. Don’t shrink into yourself. Be proud.” Dorothy jumped down from the window seat and straightened her back. “And another thing,” she added, “at lunchtime I heard one of the boys say, ‘Who’s that exquisite little beauty with the pre-Raphaelite hair?’ and he meant you. I didn’t say anything, because the less people know about us the better, but one of my friends told them it was the new girl in year ten. So you’ve got your admirers already.”

  David scowled. “What a cheek!”

  Lucy flushed. A tiny thrill of pleasure popped up inside her, but vanished immediately. They must have meant someone else. Aunt Sarah had often told her she was plain, and she could see that for herself when she looked in the mirror – though she couldn’t help secretly thinking that she looked better these days, with her face slightly less pinched and her hair growing more thickly. It would probably be nice to be a beauty – and an exquisite one at that – but Aunt Sarah had warned her of the dangers. She said it was best to be as plain as you can, so you’ll be allowed to keep house or learn a skill, instead of being cooped up in the breeding rooms for years.

  “Well,” she said eventually. “I like the teachers. That Mr Owen we had for the computer lesson was really nice. He was surprised I’d never done it before.”

  “Did you tell him that only the boys were allowed to do computers at our last school?” asked David.

  “No. I didn’t say anything, because he might have asked why, and then he’d think we must be very odd.”

  “Do we know why?” asked Dorothy, closing the curtains properly and throwing herself down on the sofa.

  “Yes,” replied Lucy. “Aunt Sarah told me. The holy leaders believe that only a very few specially chosen women are responsible enough to have that sort of skill, because it reaches out to the outside world. Most women should be concentrating on their duties in the communes.”

  David and Dorothy burst into fits of laughter.

  “Pompous old fools!” spluttered Dorothy. “We’ll concentrate on our duty to give evidence, and it’ll put the lot of them in prison, with or without computers, and they’ll have to shave off their revolting beards, and everyone will see their weak chins and droopy mouths.”

  Lucy smiled. It felt good to look at the holy leaders in a ridiculous light. “Anyway,” she said, “Mr Owen showed me how to do a few things. He said I had an aptitude for computers and would soon catch up.”

  “I liked him too,” said David. “I had a really good day. Some of the boys were friendly. And we did football, which was far more interesting than that pathetic old rounders we always used to play at the Mag’s school. One boy gave me his mobile phone number, so I’ve actually got someone I can ring if I want to.”

  Paul wasn’t listening. He had stood up and was singing a little song to himself. Suddenly, he barked, “Bore da, Miss Wyn Lloyd!”

  The others looked at him in awe.

  “He can speak Welsh!” exclaimed Dorothy in admiration. “If we learn some Welsh, it could make a really good code for us in an emergency. I bet the Mag’s men don’t speak Welsh.”

  “Bore da, Miss Wyn Lloyd!” chanted Paul again. “It means ‘Good morning, Miss Wyn Lloyd.’”

  The others chanted back at him, “Bore da! Bore da! Bore da!”

  “I asked her why she had two names, and she said one was her mother’s and the other was her father’s, and they put them together to be fair and equal.”

  ”Bore da, Miss Two Names,” they sang.

  *

  The week passed pleasantly. They began to relax. Dorothy applied her mascara a little more thickly and thought a lot about Jason as the days went by. Some of the other girls in her class had boyfriends, and she did feel it would be exciting to have one of her own. Not a traitor like Tom, her so-called friend from last year in London, but one who could make her happy inside. She could tell that Jason liked her, but there were other girls who were prettier and far more sophisticated than she was, and she didn’t dare hope that he would p
refer her. She couldn’t believe her luck when he asked if she’d meet him at the weekend.

  When Saturday came, she asked Miss Clements at breakfast if they could go into town and take a stroll up the prom.

  “Of course you may, dear. It’s such a lovely, sunny day, so make the most of it while you can. There’ll be plenty of nasty weather to get through before the spring. Remember to be back by one, in time for lunch.”

  It was nearly eleven when they left the house.

  “We’ll go this way,” said Dorothy, hurrying them along. “Izzy said we have to turn right as we come out of the gate, go up to the end of the road and then down a hill.”

  They passed the entrance to a narrow path that led steeply up the hill immediately to the left of the house. Then, there was a row of big houses on their right and tennis courts below them on their left. At the end of the road, they turned left downhill, straight towards the sea and the promenade.

  Dorothy sat down on the last bench, nearest the cliff.

  “You can all go and investigate those rocks under the cliff, while I wait here,” she said, “I’m meeting Jason on this bench at eleven o’clock. What’s the time on your watch, Lucy?”

  “Eleven o’clock on the dot, and – watch out everyone – here he comes!”

  Dorothy watched as they dashed off to the beach, and then forgot all about them. She turned and her heart leaped. Jason was approaching with a huge grin on his handsome, good-natured face, and she felt happy. He sat down next to her and threw one arm around her shoulder. She reminded herself hastily that she must give nothing away about her background. The best technique would be to let him do most of the talking.

  There was no awkward silence. He chatted about his sister, his dog and what he hoped to do for his A levels. When he asked her about herself she told him she was living with a foster mother, and she was grateful for his sensitivity in not enquiring further. His great passion was rugby, and although Dorothy hardly knew one sport from another, she was amazed to find that she had a passion for rugby too.