by Ross Welford
‘OK, my bad.’
‘Don’t say that, darling. It’s rather common.’
‘Sorry, my mistake. Where was the meeting?’ It might have been in Tynemouth, which is where the FindU app had said she was.
‘Goodness, aren’t you curious tonight! It was at the vicarage. Why do you ask?’
Not Tynemouth, then. Gram is lying.
‘No reason. Goodnight, Gram.’
I go up to bed but I can’t get to sleep; I’m just lying there wide awake. You would be too if you had as much on your mind as I have. I hear a rummaging coming from Gram’s room.
It’s not her normal going-to-bed noises. This is different. Each of the noises I have heard before, but not combined in this order.
First of all, she checks in my room to make sure my light is off and that I’m asleep. I’m not. I’m just lying in the dark, but that seems to satisfy her.
Next, there’s a creak and a little clanging noise. That’s the small stepladder that’s kept in the built-in cupboard on the landing along with the vacuum cleaner and the Christmas decorations.
She walks quietly back to her room, the floorboards creaking.
Then I hear the key turn in her bedroom door. Why on earth is she locking the door? The only conceivable reason is in case I get up and go in during the night.
That is not at all likely, but whatever she is doing must be so top secret that she cannot take even the slightest risk, therefore she locks the door.
Well, that’s got my attention. I’m up in an instant and pressing my ear to my bedroom door.
She’d only get the stepladder out in order to retrieve something from one of the high cupboards. Sure enough, I hear the click of the catch as one of the cupboards opens, and …
That’s it, basically.
There’s a bit more rustling and some footsteps around the room, and then she takes the stepladder back to the landing.
After that it falls silent, and eventually I fall asleep.
According to the clock on my phone, I wake an hour later.
I have a fierce thirst and I go to the bathroom to get a drink. A thin light is coming from under Gram’s bedroom door, but as I pass by on the landing, it switches off.
I mean, really: what’s going on?
Until recently, Gram has never really struck me as one for secrets.
On the other hand, she does think that everyone should be discreet, and that you shouldn’t ‘make an exhibition of yourself’.
Making an exhibition of yourself is, in Gram’s world, one of the worst things a person can do. It goes with ‘showing off’, ‘demanding attention’ and ‘being a drama queen’.
Growing up with Gram meant I was encouraged never to draw attention to myself. Even stuff that all kids do – cartwheels, silly dances, jumping off a stool – came with a warning.
In fairness, I did fall once, and it really upset Gram. I must have been about six, and the council had put up a new climbing frame.
To a tiny six-year-old this climbing frame was huge. There was even a sign saying it was for kids over eight but everyone ignored it, even Gram.
She would sit on the bench, reading a book, and Lady would lie underneath, while I played. On the day it happened there were a couple of other kids there who I knew, and we dared each other to climb to the top where there was a little platform.
I was halfway up when the other kids’ mums called them, and by the time I reached the top, they’d climbed down again. They were walking to where their mums were, almost at the exit, and so I shouted.
‘Amy! AMY! Ollie! Look at me! Gram! LOOK AT ME!’
I was waving and shouting, and I could see other people in the park turn to look, but still Amy and Ollie hadn’t seen me, and Gram was looking around because she had heard my voice but hadn’t thought to look up.
‘UP HERE!’ I yelled. ‘LOOK AT ME! I DID IT!’
That’s when I fell. My foot slipped, and I toppled over. I hit a metal bar with my head, and then some rope netting, so I didn’t hit the ground with full force, but it was still hard enough to knock me out for a few seconds. Underneath the climbing frame was that soft spongy surface, and I sprained my wrist, but I guess it could have been worse.
When I came round, there must have been a dozen people crouching, standing, kneeling all around me. Gram was cradling my head and going, ‘Not again. Please, God, not again,’ which – at the time – seemed a bit odd.
I lay there for a bit longer – far longer than I wanted to, in fact – but the park attendant had to do all these tests which he had probably learned about in his park attendants’ qualification course. Things like: was I breathing properly? Did I have blurred vision?
All I wanted to do was get up and go home and cry about my hurt wrist.
Eventually, the crowd thinned out, and it was just me, Lady, Gram and the parkie. There was no blood, and Gram wanted to get home to put ice on my wrist.
On the way home, I asked Gram, ‘What did you mean back then? When you said “not again”?’
She seemed a little taken aback, now that I think about it, but it was a while ago.
She just said, ‘Nothing, darling. I didn’t mean anything by it. I just don’t want you to get hurt, all right?’
Even then it struck me as unusual. So unusual, I suppose, that I’ve remembered it quite clearly.
That, and also what she said after that:
‘People only look in case you fall.’
Next morning, Gram is as nice as pie, all smiley and morning-brisk. As if nothing at all is going on.
I almost convince myself that I’m imagining all the odd stuff over the last few days and weeks, and the rummaging sounds coming from her room the night before.
I’m still off school ‘sick’, you’ll remember, but I’m downstairs in my school uniform as usual.
Gram leaves before me, and I’m left to lock the house and take Lady to the dog-sitter. (It occurs to me that I could save the £10 that we pay the dog-sitter and keep it, and I’m on the verge of doing just that when my conscience speaks up and reminds me that I’m already involved in a web of deception. I don’t really need to add to it. Besides, I’d just get found out.)
So I drop Lady off at the normal time, but instead of carrying on to school, I double back and I’m home again before school has even started, standing in the middle of Gram’s bedroom and staring at the top cupboards.
Gram’s room is by far the neatest and tidiest in the house, probably because I never go in there. Everything is put away: there are no blouses slung over the back of a chair, no stray socks, or books on the floor. The top of her dressing table is home to a silver-backed hairbrush and a carved box with a lid, full of loose change. Everything is blue or grey. The carpet is grey, the bedcover is blue stripes, the cushions are blue and white, the curtains are grey and white and blue. It smells nice, like Gram’s perfume and deodorant.
There are built-in wardrobes along one wall, with a row of cupboards along the top going up as high as the ceiling.
I grab the little stepladder from the cupboard. There are only three steps on it. Even on the top step, I have to strain to see into the first cupboard I open. It contains pretty much what I expect to find: blankets, a spare duvet and a long Puffa jacket that Gram bought, wore once, and then saw someone on TV wearing one similar and never wore it again.
The second cupboard is empty. The third has more sheets, and a cardboard box containing my old picture books from when I was little, and I spend a happy half-hour looking through them and remembering how Gram used to read them to me. (Gram said she was going to give them to the church book sale, but that was ages ago so I suppose she has just forgotten.)
The last cupboard is just cupboard junk. There’s an old sewing machine that never gets used, a bag of old clothes and a pretty brass vase thing with carving on it.
That’s it.
Can Gram really have been taking down the box of old picture books to look at? I hardly think so.
&nbs
p; Frustrated, I’m up on the steps again, putting the book box back, and it’s not an easy task when you’re as small as I am. As I lift it up, it tips back and a few books slither out and land on the floor, so I have to come down the steps and put the box down to retrieve them.
One has skidded across the carpet and under Gram’s bed, and I’m on my knees to get it.
That’s when I see it.
A metal box. I know it’s what I have been looking for. Don’t ask me how I know. I don’t even know myself. But I just know.
Gram must have taken it down from one of the cupboards and put it under the bed – why, I don’t know. Maybe so she can access it more easily?
I reach under and pull it out. It’s quite big: the top is about the size of a tea tray, and it’s about six centimetres deep.
And it’s locked. Of course it is. It had to be.
There’s a padlock with a combination lock securing the lid to the box with a little latch, and my heart sinks. If it was a key lock, I could at least look for the key, but it’s not.
Can I guess the code? It’s four digits.
I try some obvious ones: the year of my birth, the year of Gram’s birth, then each year either side in case I got it wrong. The last four digits of her mobile number. The first four digits of her mobile number, then mine.
Then 1066 because of the Battle of Hastings, and 1815 because of the Battle of Waterloo, and 1776 because we’ve just done the American War of Independence at school.
It’s hopeless. I’m never going to just guess.
But …
I could try every number from 0000 to 9999.
Every single one.
How long will that take? I do a quick calculation on my phone’s calculator. Assuming two seconds to input each new number (might be quicker?), and rounding 9,999 up to 10,000, that’s 20,000 seconds. Divide that by sixty to find out how many minutes … that’s 333 (point three recurring, actually) and divide that by sixty to get the hours and I’m looking at …
Five and a half hours.
On Tuesdays, Gram’s back by lunchtime.
I’ll just have to hope she hasn’t chosen a high combination number.
I get to work immediately.
0000
0001
0002
0003
0004
After each turn of the dial, I give a little tug to see if it has worked. I can’t be slapdash – I don’t want to get to 9999 and realise that I have missed one, or failed to test the lock on each number.
So here I am, sitting on Gram’s bedroom floor, with my back against her bed and the metal box in my lap, turning the combination dials and tugging, again. And again. And again …
An hour goes past.
2334 tug
2335 tug
2336 tug
I get up and stretch and go to the loo and make a cup of tea.
Another hour.
3220 tug
3221 tug
My shoulders are aching and my fingers are hurting from the sharp edges of the number cogs.
Another hour.
I’m looking at the clock nervously as it ticks towards midday. I’m thinking to myself, So long as Gram doesn’t come home early, I’ll be OK.
No sooner do I think that than I hear her car outside.
Oh God oh God oh God.
I’m on my feet in an instant and running downstairs to lock the front door, because if the door is not locked when Gram comes in then either:
a) I’ll be in trouble for not locking it when I left for school, or …
b) Gram may think I’m already back for some reason, and come looking for me.
I can see her coming up the path through the bobbled glass of the front door. She has Lady with her, which means she has finished for the day and will be home for the rest of the afternoon.
I turn the key quickly, extract it and dash upstairs again, where I kick the box – still locked shut – back under her bed, close the top cupboard door, and I’ve just managed to put the stepladder away when she comes through the front door and immediately starts coming upstairs.
She taken her coat off, but that’s it. She’s in a proper hurry.
I have no choice but to dive under Gram’s bed.
OK, yes, I do have a choice. It would involve hiding in my own room, but I can’t get there without being seen with Gram already on the stairs. Or it would involve jumping into a cupboard …
Which, now that I think about it, would have been a better idea because what if Gram has come up to get the box? It’s clearly something that’s on her mind at the moment, and if she looks under the bed she’ll …
Shh.
She’s coming in, Lady has followed her, and Lady is sniffing the carpet. I can see their legs – Gram’s and Lady’s – and Lady seems agitated, probably because she can smell that I’m in the room.
‘What’s the matter with you, Lady? You’re very sniffy today,’ says Gram.
There’s a creak, and above me the bed sags as Gram sits on it. She kicks her sensible court shoes off and then goes over to the cupboard. Next, she sits down again and puts on a pair of trainers.
Gram laughs. ‘You know, don’t you, Lady? You know this means a walk! Well, you’re going to have to be very good today, because we’re meeting someone else and I want you to let me know if you like him.’
Then she gets up, because the doorbell has rung, and she’s going downstairs.
I can hear all of this, but very muffled, from my position under the bed, and my mind is already reeling.
Gram: ‘Hello. Do come in. I’ll just get my gloves from the kitchen.’
Man’s voice: ‘Hello, Bea. Hello, Lady – nice to see you again. You wanna tickle?’
I gasp, because I have heard this voice before. I can’t place it, but I have definitely heard it before.
I squeeze out from under the bed. I need to see who it is, but I’ll have to look out of Gram’s bedroom window. I can’t risk looking down the stairs.
I hear Gram say, ‘Come on then.’
Then the front door closes.
Together, Gram and Lady walk down the front path, followed by the man, whose face I cannot see but who has short sandy hair.
Yes. It’s him.
The guy I met in the doorway of Priory View.
What the heck is he doing here? With Gram?
An hour. That’s how long Gram normally walks Lady for. Down the street, across the Links, down onto the beach, along to the lighthouse and back. You can do it in less. A lot less. But with ball chucking, letting her play with other dogs and so on, it’s about an hour usually.
But who knows? She might go with this bloke down to the bandstand and turn round. Or might continue on to Seaton Sluice and be gone all afternoon.
I’m telling myself this to distract from the pain in my fingers.
5004 tug
5005 tug
5006 tug
Then there’s the man himself.
I’ll come straight to the point. And I know it seems like a strange conclusion and it’s not even a conclusion, but …
Is Gram dating him?
The thought makes me shudder. For a start, he’s years younger than she is. I do not like to think of Gram as some elderly lady with a toyboy. To be honest, I wouldn’t be keen even if he was the same age as her. It just wouldn’t be right.
And he’s a smoker. Gram would never date a smoker.
(I once asked her if smoking was common. She thought for a while and then said, ‘When it was very common, it wasn’t actually “common”. Now that it’s less common, it’s actually much more “common”.’ She smiled at her own joke, and so did I. I understood what she meant.)
Thing is: Gram is Gram. Strait-laced, strict, very proper. And, importantly, single.
6445 tug
6446 tug
6447 tug
I’m trying to piece together all the instances of Strange Things That Don’t Add Up. The thing with Great-gran, the lie about
being at the bazaar meeting at the vicarage when she wasn’t, and coming home looking as though she had been crying, the date with a younger man and this flippin’ flamin’ box that JUST WILL NOT OPEN.
7112 tug
7113 tug …
Pop!
It opens. On the seven thousand, one hundred and thirteenth try.
My throat is dry. My hands are even shaking a little bit as I pull the padlock out of the latch, and open up the lid.
If you’d asked me before what I expected to see, I would not in a million years have said, ‘A photograph of the pop star Felina’. Yet that’s what it is, staring right at me.
A colour picture of a dead pop star, in all her cat make-up, hands held up like a cat’s claws, but with a sneaky glint in her eyes and a cheeky smile.
Felina.
As well as the photo in my hand, there are loads of others, some of them cut from magazines. There is a copy of Soul magazine, with a picture of Felina on the front, and a load more photos and text inside; a copy of the Sun newspaper from ten years ago, with a black-edged picture of her on the front and the headline RIP Felina.
There’s a copy of the Guardian as well, folded over on a page headlined Obituaries, which is where anyone famous who has died gets their life story printed.
I read the whole thing.
FELINA
Smoky-voiced pop singer whose catchy hits could not hide her inner torment
Another name has been added to the sad list of victims of the wild rock-and-roll lifestyle: pop and soul singer Felina, who has been found dead at the age of twenty-four. The cause of her death is not yet clear.
One of the most successful artists of her generation, her distinctive voice – and equally distinctive appearance – created an appeal across generations, making her the top-selling pop artist of recent years. But Felina suffered from serious drug and alcohol addiction that plagued her life.
Her second album, The Cat’s Whiskers, occupied the number-one slot for four weeks, and propelled her to a level of fame that – some would say – became her downfall.