Submersion

  After our trip to the old shop last time, Mother was a little reluctant to send me, and Great Aunt Penny seemed as equally reluctant to receive me, but after some whispered instructions – he’s not to go with you, under any circumstances – I was put in their care once again.

  I tried to suggest I might accompany Mother to work – another opportunity to get face to face with Monty Harrison and find out just how bad he was – but she was quick to dismiss this.

  ‘And have you under my feet? Oh no, Mr Harrison wouldn’t like that. And neither would I!’

  And so I returned to the tenth floor of North Courts, the crumbling high rise that housed my great-aunt and -uncle.

  From the minute I arrived, Great-Aunt Penny treated me with obvious scorn. She had a cross look about her the whole time and rarely spoke to me, unless I asked a question, and even then her answers were short and sharp.

  As with my last time at their flat, Great-Uncle Jimmy spent most of his time away from the flat on business. This business I correctly assumed was pottering about in their old shop, clearing away the dust and cobwebs, checking the artefacts they’d stored away from the water for damp and decay. On the third day, he came home mid-morning in a small panic and an equally small drama was whispered in the kitchen. This time, I stayed where I was instructed – in their lounge, playing with the small box of toys. Eventually, my great-aunt came into the room and announced she was accompanying her husband to the shop to sort out a recurring problem.

  ‘Are you leaving me here?’ I asked.

  Her eyes narrowed instantly. ‘Yes!’ she spat, and in doing so revealed the source of her contempt. My last visit here had landed her in Mother’s bad books – taking me to the shop had broken some rule. Just having me here again had been enough to stir up all the associated ill feeling. ‘We’ll lock you in so you come to no harm!’

  I was a little alarmed by this - being trapped on the tenth floor of this crumbling tower didn’t strike as particularly safe.

  ‘What if there is a fire?’ I asked, but Great-Aunt Penny was relentless in her resolve to imprison me regardless.

  ‘Then jump!’ she said, pointing a wicked-witch’s finger at the living room window.

  I heard a gentle ticking off from Great-Uncle Jimmy in the hallway – Penny, remember he’s just a boy – before the door was opened, shut, locked and I heard the muffled rumble of the stinky, steel lift plummeting them downwards.

  I gave them five minutes – just to feel certain of no imminent return for something forgotten – and then I began a careful search through their belongings.

  I started in the most obvious place – their bedroom. I was careful when rifling – I didn’t want to leave a trace of my snooping. A chest of drawers and matching bedside cabinets gave nothing away – jewellery my great-aunt had kept from a bygone era of relative wealth, underwear that made me feel guilty as my fingers touched the lace, a few old cards from birthdays and other occasions, which I feared might crumble as I brushed against them. But little else. Behind the mirrored sliding doors of their built-in wardrobe, I suspected I might find something hidden amongst the colourful flumes of all the glamorous dresses Great-Aunt Penny stored there. But again, there was nothing. The dresses made me pause, thinking of Elinor trying them on and trotting around in the oversized high heels.

  ‘Where would you look Elinor?’ I asked myself, thinking inside: are you really dead, or are you missing, like Aunt Agnes and Tristan insist. Or did you simply go looking for something, like me, and go missing?

  Giving up on the main bedroom, I tried their spare room next. The cupboard where Great-Uncle Jimmy kept his priceless toy cars in their pristine boxes and his unlabelled tins of food, also housed a thin wallet containing some papers. I looked inside this and found a couple of official looking letters that appeared to be about the lease on the shop, which meant nothing to me. There were also some certificates in a white envelope: the lease that had been referred to in the letters; a driving licence in Great-Uncle Jimmy’s name; and four birth certificates: one each for my great-aunt and –uncle, and two others in the names of Ethan and Joshua. I checked the dates of birth on all. Great-Aunt Penny was much older than she let on and was, in fact, a year older than her husband. The certificates in the boys names revealed they would be in their thirties now and two other interesting facts that surprised me: they were twins and they were the offspring of Great-Aunt Penny, but the father’s name was marked as unknown.

  I stared down at them for several minutes in complete shock. I knew nothing of these cousins. There were no photographs – either on display or tucked away – and there had never been any mention, not even a whisper about them. This was a dark, hidden secret, pushed deep, deep down. And I knew something instantly – they were dead. They were dead and they were Great-Aunt Penny’s greatest shame. Illegitimate children were to be scorned upon – I’d heard her say something like that to Mother about Elinor, when they didn’t know I was listening. And yet, hidden in the closet, was that exact scenario. That very shame.

  For a minute, I felt bad about my judgement and allowed myself a little sympathy for my harsh aunt. She had suffered, no doubt, and this was the reason for how she was, how she behaved. My own shame pricking my conscience, I put the paperwork back inside its envelope and wallet, and put it back where I found it - hoping it was the right way round and that there would be no indication that the secret had been disturbed.

  The bath and living rooms gave up nothing of interest. A bathroom cabinet revealed some creams for sores on body parts I tried not to think about, and the living area I knew inside-out, having spent so many hours searching through it previously for boredom-breakers. That left me with the kitchen. Largely, it had little to offer up. My Great-Aunt’s cupboards – and they were hers, as she was often heard telling Great-Uncle Jimmy to get out of my kitchen, so I knew this for a fact – her cupboards were laid out as if on display in a museum, or a posh shop. The plates were gleaming and neatly stacked, the glasses sparkled and were lined up like soldiers, napkins and tea-towels were folded in dust-free drawers. I wondered if Mother had inherited her own domestic skills from her aunt’s side of the family. This standard of orderliness was found in every nook and cranny of the kitchen – from the cutlery draw to the dry food cupboard – apart from one place: a small drawer at the far end of the kitchen.

  This particular drawer was crammed with an assortment of bits and bobs and I had the distinct impression that maybe this was the one part of the room that belonged to Great-Uncle Jimmy. Pencils, pens without lids, tiny pads of paper bound together on metal springs, a rubber, a thimble, a bag of rubber bands, odd buttons, a tiny rusty spanner, nails, picture hooks, a bit of lint, a packet of rusting batteries still in their plastic seal, a tin with Vaseline written on the front – the drawer was crammed with a mess of unrelated items. I kept ferreting through, rumbling and jangling my way through this small sea of intrigue and junk. And then I eventually found something – a set of keys, right at the back, pushed away and forgotten. They had a plastic, oblong fob attached to them, with a piece of paper slipped into it, labelling them. When I read the label, I felt a shiver down my spine. Just two words were written on it, but they said a lot. They spoke of promise, and they told me, instinctively, that I was meant to find them. After hours of interviewing and searching, I’d finally found something. It had to be that. Those two words? Spare and shop. I’d found a spare set of keys to their old, mouldy shop.

  I knew my next move was wrong, and there was a good chance I’d get caught at some point, but I did it all the same – I put the keys in my pocket.

  When my great-aunt and –uncle returned, they found me back in the lounge, playing with the box of toys, looking as bored as I possibly could. My aunt’s scorn from earlier appeared to have lessened a little.

  ‘There wasn’t a fire,’ I said to her, huff-puffing a little, suggesting the excitement might have been welcome.

  ‘Oh, good,’ she uttered, a smile reluctantly
leaking across her face. ‘Well, I’d best feed you before your mother turns up. It’ll be too late for dinner by the time you are home.’

  When Mother picked me up later, early evening, both my belly and my pocket were full. I sneaked out the spare keys without even raising a twitch of mistrust. Once home, I wondered if we’d get a call from my great-aunt, claiming they’d gone missing and I was the chief the suspect. But that call never happened and missing keys were not mentioned in any conversations I overheard.

  All I needed now was the chance to slip away and find my way back to the shop in secret. Then I was going to have a good look in there, searching for more secrets, for more clues that might find some answers about my father’s fate. With Mother still locking me in my attic bedroom at night, that opportunity took a while to come about.

  A few days after obtaining the keys, we had a visit from Uncle Jessie and Tristan. They were going on some sort of adventure, according to Uncle Jessie, who’d popped by just to see me. I didn’t really see Tris, as he spent the time talking to Mother, which was odd, because they didn’t really get on. But on this one occasion they managed to not upset each other. Uncharacteristically, they actually parted on very amicable terms. She had said something like now don’t you worry about that in a soft voice, as he and Uncle Jessie pulled their protective gear back on.

  The following day was my last spent at my great-aunt and –uncles’ flat. We got word that school was up and running again, so Mother sent me there the very next day. It was pretty empty, as not all of the pupils or the teachers had returned. Many wouldn’t have heard yet. Not everyone had working telephone lines, and letters of notification always took a few days to make their way into homes.

  Disappointingly, Tilly Harrison was one of the absent ones, so I wasn’t able to resume our friendship and work my way to finding out more about the connection between her uncle and my father. However, an opportunity to slip away early presented itself when our teacher, Miss Cracker, announced she was leaving us two hours early herself. She had a private appointment that she couldn’t cancel. Unfortunately, the person she had organised to take the last hours of class had not returned to school. So you’ll have to self-supervise, she instructed, spraying those nearby with a hiss of spittle, her beady eye warning us that she expected us to stay put and work. But, ten minutes into her departure, every one of us packed away our books and played games or read something non-educational from our lockers. Everyone apart from me, that is. I did two things that I’d never done before. Two things that I knew I’d be punished for.

  One, I left the school grounds without permission.

  Two, I stole one of the school’s emergency boats in order to aid my escape.

  And I made my way in the direction of my great-aunt and –uncle’s old shop.

  As I initially rowed away, I kept looking over my shoulder, wondering if anyone from the school was looking out. Worrying that someone would come after me, catch up with my child’s progress and drag me back for instant punishment. But to my unbelievable relief, no one came and I got away unnoticed.

  It took me longer to reach the shop than I expected. Coming to it from a different angle than previously, I went down a few streets in error. Once past school and the surrounding swampy water, I came to what Mother called the Atrium – it was a shopping village in its day; everything you could ever want under one roof. But what I sailed into was just a rusting shell, a glass-less, roof-less framework, submerged in a river of decay like everywhere else. Once through this Atrium, I got a little lost. I knew the road from a different direction and went down several roads, looking on the wrong side before I eventually got my bearings. And then, as if by magic, it simply appeared. The boarded up windows and the thick metal door, all locked up with chains and padlocks.

  A sudden panic hit me – what if I hadn’t brought the keys? Quickly, I checked the inside pocket on my satchel and there they were: five individual keys on a ring and the plastic fob with the label Spare shop.

  I paused for a minute and looked the building up and down. Its façade revealed there were four levels. The ground I knew was flooded, the first floor a plastic wrapped archive of past glories, but the second and the attic I hadn’t ventured into. Hadn’t been allowed to. With the keys in my hand, now was my chance. What else were they hiding, I wondered? And would it help me on my paternal mission?

  ‘Only one way I’m going to find out,’ I whispered to the creeping evening, looking up to those second and attic floor windows one more time, my imagination working overtime.

  And that’s when I saw it. First it was just a flicker, a shadow, a suggestion. But then it came up close to the attic window’s pane. A face. I think my heart actually stopped for a second or so, because I couldn’t breathe or feel or anything. You see, it wasn’t just any face. There was something I recognised about it.

  It was a family face.

  PLAY

  ‘Does anyone else know?’

  ‘About me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No, I haven’t told anyone else. Only you. Are you going tell anyone?’

  ‘What would be the purpose of that?’

  ‘A lot of people are after me – for what I did.’

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘A lot of money on the table.’

  ‘What would a hermit like me do with more money? No, no, your secret is safe with me.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean I like it, though. What you did. Families suffered, and some of those children, well, they didn’t make it home.’

  ‘No. No they didn’t.’

  PAUSE

  Part II

  Midlogue

  ‘I want to know more.’

  ‘More?’

  ‘About what they did to people, the tricks they played. About the way they got to people – hurt them, got them to confess!’

  ‘What makes you think that kind of thing happened?’

  ‘You saying it didn’t?’

  A pause.

  ‘They could get into your mind. Work their way inside your head and make you think something was happening, when it wasn’t. When it couldn’t possibly.’

  It started with the eyes – eyes that burrowed deep into your mind, eyes that somehow beamed around a thought, a memory, a picture, and drew that thought out. Like sucking up lemonade through a straw. The good ones, the experts, they could do it with one glance. Just a quick look in your direction and your memory was extracted or altered. Gone. There were enhancers for those less talented or just starting out – drugs injected, solutions swallowed, or perfumes sprayed into the air, that worked in conjunction with the hypnosis.

  But it wasn’t all skill. As with everything, there was science involved.

  ‘Science?’ she asked, eyes wide, feigning concern, but I knew she was fine.

  I knew she wanted more.

  ‘They invented a serum,’ I explained, keeping it simple for her young mind, ‘which was injected into the core of the pupil. Not many were prepared to be subjected to it – there were risks. Blindness, infection, death.’

  ‘Death?’ Mock-horror again. I grinned.

  ‘Death,’ I said, dropping the grin and my voice, adding gravity. ‘But when the procedure was a success, it was deadly for other reasons. You could suck out memories at will. It was used for interrogation, too. A hypnotic stare into the wrong eyes and long held secrets were yours in seconds.’

  ‘Did they do it to you?’

  No, I thought, just to myself. Not to me. But I remembered his screams. His defiance and spasms as they held him down and plunged the sharp prick of the needle into the surface of his eyes. And of what happened afterwards. Once he had recovered. His terrible, terrible revenge, and where it led us all.

  Where it led me today.

  ‘Tristan, did they?’ Her voice was frightened; in the silence I’d let hang, she had concluded the worse.

  ‘No,’ I reassured, with a soft forehead kiss and a tucking of blanket under her
chin. ‘No, they didn’t. And it’s just a story, after all.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘A story.’

  Whilst our eyes spoke the truth, the words that left our mouths were simple lies.

  There was no such thing as just a story.

  12. Agnes

  When Tristan announced that he and Jessie were going on a trip, my initial thought was fear – the forests were dense and the waters surrounding and beyond them rumoured deep and treacherous. The territory had been unknown for years – from childhood, the rumours of those colossal canines and their rabid appetites kept us all away; for the last five years, the water contained us. Contained them, too, maybe. But who knew for certain? Those brave ones who had fled our city, determined to find dry land, had never returned, and I wondered if this fate awaited Tristan and Jessie.

  ‘How long are you going for, and how far?’

  Tristan had shrugged.

  ‘A few days. Just got too many questions that need answering.’

  ‘You think she’s out there?’

  Another shrug, slower, more considered.

  ‘Agnes, I’m not even sure exactly what we’re looking for, but we’ve just gotta look.’

  Then, he dropped his eyes, not seductively, but still giving me a soft look.

  ‘You will be okay, won’t you?’ he said and I saw his worry. So, I knew exactly what I needed to do, how I needed to behave.