by Claire Wong
The hallway was empty. Through the glass pane next to the front door, he could see Sean striding away across the grass towards a dilapidated building that might once have been stables. A draught slipped in through a window frame’s ageing timbers and rattled the frayed twine garland of seashells that hung along the opposite wall. He was willing to bet that the out-of-bounds room was not even locked. There was only one way to test his theory. He reached for the handle and the door opened easily, just as he had predicted.
The room was lit only by daylight pouring in through a wide window. The bookcases Kit had glimpsed through the doorway earlier lined the wall nearest him. By the opposite wall was a table set up with watercolours and a sketchbook. Paintings lay propped up in corners or against furniture; an empty canvas leaned against the table and in one corner an easel had been set up with a half-finished picture of a ship at sea. Beside the window sat a woman in a wicker chair, with a gingham blanket over her legs. She was young and pretty, with a bob of brown hair framing the sort of face that probably looked friendly even when it wasn’t thinking about anything in particular.
“Hello.”
She looked round at the sound of Kit’s voice and smiled. “Hello. What’s your name?”
“I’m Kit.”
“Nice to meet you, Kit. My name’s Beth. You look like you’re exploring.”
What was she doing? Her hands rested on the arms of the chair. There was no book open in her lap, no screen or headphones in sight to entertain her. It seemed to be just Beth and the window.
“Yeah, I’m only allowed to look around indoors today though. Mum says.”
“Oh well, rules are rules,” she sighed sympathetically.
“Are you on holiday here?” Kit wondered if this conversation would count as bothering the other guests.
“No, I live here. Did you meet Sean when you arrived?”
Kit nodded.
“Well, he and I are married, and we own Askfeld Farm.”
That was good news. He had not been forbidden from talking to the owners. It occurred to him that Beth had the same accent as Sean. He liked the sound of it: it was less brisk and clipped than the way his parents and teachers spoke.
“Are you looking for something out there?” Kit pointed at the window Beth’s chair was facing. It looked out on a stretch of overgrown grass leading to the edge of the cliff and then the great grey sea rising and falling in flecks of white foam. It was not bright and beautiful, the way a picture-perfect summer holiday snap might be, but it was striking in its vastness all the same. Like discovering a giant, Kit thought: at once both frightening and incredible, so that it was impossible to look away.
“Nothing in particular. But it’s a good view, isn’t it?”
“Why are you sitting there then?”
She gave a conspiratorial smile. “I’m learning about stillness today.”
“What do you mean?”
She leaned forward in her chair as though about to tell him a deep secret, and Kit instinctively stepped towards her to hear it. “Have you ever noticed how people rush around in such a hurry all the time? Everything has to happen right now. No one knows how to listen to the stillness any more.”
Now that she mentioned it, this place held a deeper silence than Kit had encountered before. When he stopped to notice, he found there was no background rush of traffic sweeping past Askfeld on distant roads, no siren screeches or shouts from outside. He had not noticed their absence until now. It was disconcerting.
“When I have to sit still and be quiet in school, I get bored. Don’t you get bored?”
Beth laughed, making the string of blue and yellow beads around her neck shake with a clackety sound. “Sometimes, yes! But when you’re stuck in a chair for days or weeks at a time, you learn ways to deal with boredom. I’ve read a lot of books. On good days, I paint too, and bring the outside world in to me.”
There was a pile of books on the table in the corner: a strange mix of ancient leather-bound tomes and thin paperbacks. Beside them was a small sketchbook and a handful of pencils. Kit stared at this woman, trying to decide what it was that meant she could not get up and go outside. He could see no crutches in the room, no plaster cast on her legs to indicate an injury. Then he spotted the bump under her dress.
“Are you going to have a baby? Is that why you can’t go out?”
“Yes and no. I am going to have a baby. But I can’t go outside because I’m not well. And I was ill before I knew this little one was on the way.”
“What kind of not well?” Without thinking, he took half a step backwards. Kit’s mother was always telling him to be careful about germs. She carried a bottle of antibacterial handwash in her bag and would produce it after any interaction with potential hazards, such as dirt or the outside world. Beth did not answer straight away, but looked off into the distance, as if searching for the right words. She twisted the string of beads around her hand and tilted her head to one side.
“The kind with a very long name that’s hard to pronounce, where your arms and legs don’t want to work properly most days. And all of you is tired.”
“Maybe you should have a nap,” he suggested, seeing that she already had a good selection of pillows propping her up.
She laughed again, but it was a different sound this time, somehow heavier and more introspective. “If only,” she murmured. Then she shifted in her chair, raising herself up and wincing slightly at the movement of her shoulder muscles. “Well, tell me something about yourself, Kit.”
“Like what?”
“Hmm, good question. Let’s not bother with what school year you’re in or what you want to be when you’re older. I bet grown-ups ask you that all the time. I used to want to be a dancer. Do you like reading? I liked reading when I was about your age.”
“Yes. I prefer playing in the park, but if I can’t go because it’s raining, then books are more fun than homework.”
“What’s your favourite kind of book then?”
This was easy to answer. “I like the ones with superheroes and adventures. Especially comic books, though Mum says she wishes I’d read more of the classics instead. She says they make you a more rounded person. I like the King Arthur stories too. I think they’re cool.”
Beth smiled, as if this information somehow told her more about Kit than just his reading habits. But it was not as if he had admitted to her that, aged seven, he had been known to run around the house in a cape fashioned from a duvet cover. He was too old for that now, of course, and beginning to be embarrassed by the memory.
“Well, you are welcome to borrow any of those, if you want them.” She pointed to the bookcases. “I’m sure there are some classics on there that would keep your mum happy.”
“Thanks!” Kit bounded to the shelves and searched through volumes whose titles promised excitement and journeys. There was even one about the knights of the Round Table. Not many of them had pictures, but Kit knew (thanks to his mum’s frequent reminders during their Saturday morning library trips) he was getting to an age where he was not supposed to be interested in books with illustrations. They were childish, apparently. He pulled the book about King Arthur out first, and then selected Odysseus’ Adventures: An Epic Retelling for Young Readers, which had beautiful gold letters on the cover. The pages were yellowing at the edges, but when he opened it, the letters on the page were reassuringly large and rounded.
“Can I come back again?” he asked. “When I’ve finished these, to return them to you, I mean?”
“Of course you can.”
If he had Beth’s permission to come back, it surely would not matter that Sean had said the room was out of bounds, or that his mother did not like him bothering people. Askfeld’s secret was not so terrible after all, but it brought him a gleeful kind of excitement to know it when his mother and sister did not. He would not tell them about meeting Beth just yet. After all, they were clearly keeping secrets from him, about this move and why his dad had stayed behind, so w
hy should he tell them everything?
As he left the room, he looked over his shoulder at Beth, who was sitting perfectly motionless, a silhouette against the window. She had gone back to whatever had occupied her thoughts before he interrupted them.
Kit was so distracted tearing down the corridor with his new books under his arm that he almost collided with a man leaving the guests’ sitting room.
“Steady there, lad!” the stranger cried with a laugh. He wore a brown tweed jacket, and trousers whose cuffs were flecked with dried mud. His grey hair was dishevelled and his blue eyes sparkled with amusement.
“Sorry. I didn’t see you.”
“Clearly. To have the single-minded energy of youth again! On holiday with your family here, are you?” He peered down at Kit, the way one might study a particularly curious museum artefact. Kit rearranged the books in his arms so he would not drop them.
“Not exactly. We’re supposed to be moving up here. But the house wasn’t ready. Or we moved too soon. I’m not sure. But anyway, it was something like that, and Mum says we need to stay here for a while.”
“I see,” said the stranger. Kit resisted an urge to reply “said the blind man”, which was what his dad always liked to say after this phrase. “Well, let me think; it’s July, so you must be enjoying the start of your school holidays. Am I right?” He smoothed out the now-crumpled newspaper he had been carrying under his arm.
“Almost. Holidays don’t properly start until next week for my school.” The school play was on Thursday and someone else would have to take over his part now that he was going to miss it. It was hard not to be cross, after he had spent weeks learning the lines.
“So you’re getting an extra week’s grace, lucky lad. I thought it was near impossible to take holiday in term time these days. However did you parents manage that?”
It had taken many phone calls and a visit to the school office to secure it. His friends, though sad to see him go, had been clearly envious that Kit got to go away before the end of term – something that was forbidden in almost all circumstances. But when they asked him what was so important that he couldn’t stay till the end of term, especially since it was their last term together before everyone moved up to secondary school, Kit had been forced to shrug and plead ignorance, which nobody in his class believed. His best friend Toby had seemed quite hurt by it, suspecting that Kit was betraying their seven-year friendship by keeping this secret from him. Nothing Kit could say would convince him that they were both equally in the dark.
The stranger glanced at the borrowed books. “That’s an impressive reading list for someone so young. Nice to meet a fellow intellectual. If you’re looking for a good spot to enjoy your books, I can highly recommend the blue armchair in the corner by the fireplace.”
He pointed through the doorway to the guests’ sitting room. It was cosy and inviting, with woollen blankets draped over chairs facing an oak mantelpiece.
“The name’s Bert, by the way. Or Professor Albert Sindlesham, if you’re talking to any of my colleagues. But you look a bit short to be an academic just yet. Mind you, I swear the post-doctoral assistants are getting younger with every passing year.” He shook his head as if the inevitability of this saddened him.
“I’m Kit. What’s a post-doctor… what did you call it?”
“Kit? Bit of an unusual name. What’s that short for?” Bert asked, missing the question that came first.
“Christopher, but I only get called that when I’m in trouble. It’s after this man who wrote plays a long time ago. Mum and Dad like the stuff he wrote, I think. They used to go to the theatre a lot, before they had children. My middle name’s Shackleton, after the explorer. Dad thought it should be Ernest instead, because that’s a real name at least, but Mum said she didn’t want people thinking I was named for an Oscar Wilde character.”
His mother had told him it was a cultured name that would never go out of fashion, because they had wanted to give him the best chance of succeeding in life. Apparently there were too many bad role models in the world these days, which was why he was named after famous men who had done remarkable things with their time on earth.
“Hmm. Strange thing to lump your child with, if you ask me, but each to their own!”
Kit was about to say that he had never minded his name, and if you were going to feel sorry for anyone, it should be Juliet, whose namesake was only famous for dying tragically, but they were interrupted by the sound of raised voices from the reception desk around the corner.
“I don’t see why it’s any of your concern!” a woman could be heard declaring. Bert raised his greying brows at the aggressive tone, but there was a definite sparkle of curiosity and amusement in his eyes as the two of them listened in.
“Ms Morley, I was only –” Kit recognized that voice: it was Sean Garsdale, and his efforts to reason with this angry woman did not appear to be working.
“If I want to extend my stay here, and frankly it’s clear that you need the bookings, then what more is there to talk about? Really, if you learned to respect your guests’ privacy perhaps you’d run a more successful business!”
“I’m sorry to have offended you.” Sean’s voice turned quiet and controlled. “Let me assure you I meant to be polite, not to pry.”
“Well!” the woman began, but having no more to add, she ended the conversation there and came storming round the corner to find Kit and Bert, who could not feign nonchalance quickly enough to convince her they had not overheard everything. Flustered, Kit met her eyes with what he feared was quite a guilty expression.
“See, this is exactly what I’m talking about!” she fumed. “Even the other guests are eavesdropping now. Nobody knows how to mind their own business these days.”
Kit’s face flushed red with embarrassment. Bert coughed and looked away until she had marched past them and stamped up the stairs to her room. Somewhere above them, a door slammed. Kit jumped at the noise, but Bert merely chuckled.
“That’s Maddie Morley. Don’t mind her; she’s barely smiled once at anyone here. It’s curious, though. She was already a guest at Askfeld when I arrived last week, and that’s the second time she’s extended her stay.”
“Doesn’t she want to go home?” Surely you would only draw out a holiday if you were enjoying it, which Maddie clearly was not.
Bert glanced up, as if assessing the soundproof qualities of the ceiling, before confiding in a low voice, “From what I hear, she hasn’t got much of a home to go to any more. Not sure of the details, but the current guest house rumours are that there was some kind of incident at work, and she’s not welcome back there. Though best to pretend you don’t know anything about that, of course.” Bert gave a knowing look to underline the secrecy of this information.
“Of course,” Kit nodded. He saw no reason why he would want to make Maddie shout at him any more than she already had.
“Well, I’d best be off before anyone else accuses me of loitering and spying. Got a professional reputation to salvage somehow, after all. I’m sure I’ll see you again, Kit. Cheerio.”
And with that, Bert strolled away. Kit went through into the sitting room and sat in the recommended armchair. Its high back forced him to sit up straight and formally, as though he were overseeing an important gathering. He liked the feeling.
The cover of Odysseus’ Adventures showed a bearded man alone at sea. The waves looked almost like tentacles grasping at the ship. He thought of Maddie, with no home to return to, and wondered if that took the fun out of travelling. Then he opened the book and forgot about her and everyone else at Askfeld. For the next hour, the room around him vanished and Kit was transported to the island of Ithaca, to white sandy bays and olive groves, where young Prince Telemachus waited on the seashore for his father to return home, while Queen Penelope wove tricks together to placate the people around her. And then Odysseus himself burst into the story in the middle of a storm, struggling to find his way to land while the boat rose and fell
with each surging wave of the raging Mediterranean Sea. When Kit pictured Odysseus in his mind’s eye, it was with his own father’s face.
CHAPTER THREE
THE UNFINISHED MAP
DAY TWO
What would be the coolest superpower to have if you could pick one?
I think I’d go for either flight, because then you could get anywhere really fast, or else mind-reading, so you’d always know what secrets other people were trying to keep.
Over the next twenty-four hours, the rest of the Fisher family seemed to completely forget they were in an exciting new place. Far from being eager to go out and explore the coastline or meet their new neighbours (if indeed there were any people to meet; Askfeld was so isolated on its cliff perch, you could imagine that there was no one else for miles), Juliet blocked out the world with her headphones and a history textbook, while Catherine sent emails and muttered under her breath about her former colleagues’ incompetence.
“I thought you said you were leaving your job when we moved,” said Kit, when he came next door to borrow the toothpaste after breakfast. His mother looked up sharply as if about to tell him off for the remark, then relented.
“I know I did, but it’s not a case of simply walking out of the office and leaving it all behind. That’s not how things work. When you give your resignation, you have to hand over everything to your colleagues so that they can manage without you. I didn’t quite get round to finishing that off, so I want to make sure they have what they need from me. It’s just a few loose ends. I was very senior in the company, after all. Not that any of that has stopped Colin from swooping in like a vulture to try to snatch up everything I worked so hard to build. As if he’s even capable of taking over my job. We Fishers work hard for our rewards.”
That was one of Catherine’s favourite sayings. The Fisher family were not lazy or entitled: they all worked hard. Catherine believed in high expectations, the virtue of keeping busy, and in speaking to her children as if they were adults. As a result, Kit knew a lot of long words, and enjoyed surprising people with them. All the same, there was a lot that his mum said that still made no sense to him. If moving early was so troublesome to her job, then why had she been the one to insist on it? It didn’t seem to benefit anyone. Then again, there was a lot about grown-up jobs that Kit could not get his head around, like how you no longer got the summer off after you left school, but nobody seemed to mind.