I hope you are well and so is your grandfather.
Yours sincerely –
.
Yours sincerely? Yours sincerely?
The baby was due in May. Now it was July. So, I thought – my father’s baby –
Then I wasn’t thinking any more.
.
.
IV
.
.
I have no idea how long I sat there. It could have been forty seconds; it could have been forty minutes. The sun moved round until it was shining straight into my eyes. That was the first thing that made me remember where I was. I put my hands over my face. Suddenly I started to shake. The thoughts all kicked back in at once.
My father was getting married again. He had another kid. He was staying in Australia. And my grandfather –
Granddad had kept Dad’s letters. He hadn’t even told me about them.
I folded my arms across my chest to try and stop them trembling, but it made my whole body shudder. I forced myself to take deep breaths. Why would he do that? Lying to me, making sure he was the first to get to the letterbox in the morning. Yes, my mind added, and why keep them? He should have burnt them while he had the chance. Because now I’ve found them, and now . . .
I scrabbled for the letters and started to stuff them back into the box, not caring whether I crumpled them up or tore them by mistake. My hands were still trembling. I put the lid shakily back on the box, hearing my heart pounding in my ears. The elastic band was just next to my foot, where I’d flicked it aside. I picked it up and started to pull it over the top of the box, but my fingers wouldn’t work properly. The box slid out of my hands and fell on to the floor, spilling bits of paper everywhere – old photos, an exercise book or something, envelopes . . . I looked at the mess, knelt back down, started to gather it in my hands and drop it untidily back into the shoebox. Then, in spite of myself, I started to cry.
I kept sniffing and wiping my face on my arm, still scooping up bits of paper and dropping them into the shoebox, not giving myself time to think. I grabbed the old exercise book without looking at it, the tiny black-and-white photos, the flimsy yellow newspaper clippings. A couple of spots of water appeared on the topmost bit of paper – an envelope, O. Gardner Esq., Sidney Sussex – and I pulled back, scrubbing at my eyes. Stop crying, I thought. Stop it. Stop it now. It didn’t work. I leant over to one side so I wouldn’t drip on anything else, and dabbed at the envelope with the edge of my T-shirt. I didn’t know why I was bothering – I didn’t care if Granddad saw, I didn’t give a damn about him any more – but I did it anyway. It left a smudge: O. Gardner . . . I looked at it for a moment. It must be important, if Granddad had kept it. He was always throwing stuff away and then regretting it. If he’d kept this since he was at Cambridge . . . I ran my thumb over the name, obliterating it. Now it wasn’t addressed to anyone. It gave me a nauseous, triumphant feeling.
I reached for the lighter on the mantelpiece, the spare one he kept there to light the fire. I put the shoebox in the hearth, picked up the last few papers in handfuls and piled them on top. They quivered slightly in the draught.
Wait. Wait –
What if there were more letters from Dad? What if there was one to say, Don’t worry, Kathleen wasn’t really pregnant, we’re not getting married after all? What if there was one saying, Sorry about the misunderstanding, why don’t you come and live with us in the new house? And what if I burnt it along with everything else?
I pulled the box out of the hearth again and started to rummage through it.
Olly Gardner, Sidney Sussex. OK, not that one. Olly Gardner, The Old Vicarage, Church Street, Peltenshall. No, not that one either. Oliver Gardner, Sidney Sussex – no. Oliver Gardner . . .
It took a long time. And there wasn’t anything else for me. Or at least . . .
Just one lumpy envelope, right at the bottom of the box. A heavy, yellowing envelope, with a key-shaped bulge that I could feel with my fingers. It said: Oliver. Not my father’s writing, but I’d seen it before somewhere. Or – I was almost sure I’d seen it before, as if it was someone I’d known when I was too young to remember, or – I shook my head, trying to get rid of the feeling.
.
Tyme’s End, May 1936
My dear Oliver,
Splendid news – so glad you can come! You can take a direct train to Falconhurst from Charing Cross via Tunbridge Wells Central, or change at Tunbridge Wells West from Victoria. Once you’re at the station, Tyme’s End is a ten or twenty-minute walk. Simply follow the road, turning right out of the station, and walk for about half a mile along the High Street until you see a pair of wrought-iron gates on your left. This is the entrance to Tyme’s End. Go through the gates and follow the drive: the house is another quarter of a mile or so from the road. I have drawn a small map for you – see below. (I hope your knowledge of hieroglyphics is sufficient to decipher it.)
I do hope your exams go well, and I’m sorry that I didn’t have a chance to see you last week. I’m very much looking forward to your visit – there’ll be a couple of other people here, whom I’m sure you’ll like.
Yours,
Jack
.
And there was an old, heavy, rusting key, which was almost as long as my middle finger, making the envelope bulge. It had a neat little paper label tied to it with a fraying scrap of string, that said Front Door. It wasn’t the same handwriting as the letter; it was more familiar, and the ink was blacker, as if it had been written more recently. It took me a second to realise it was Granddad’s writing – but untidier than it was now, more like mine. Granddad’s writing from a long time ago.
The other side of the label said, TYME’S END.
I looked at it, and my hands stopped shaking, and everything was solid again.
I knew – of course I knew – that Granddad’s name was the same as mine. The other letters, the ones to Cambridge and Peltenshall, were for him. And this one was just as old; it was falling apart along the creases, as if it had been read and reread. I didn’t even know where Falconhurst was, or who Jack was. I’d never heard of Tyme’s End.
But . . . I squeezed the key in my fist, until the edges dug into my palm.
I knew that the letter wasn’t for me. I knew that the invitation had been for Granddad, years and years ago. Jack, whoever he was, was probably dead. But none of that made any difference.
I was going to go to Tyme’s End. I didn’t care about the party, or what Adeel or Rosina would think. I wanted to run away, and Tyme’s End was there, waiting for me.
It was mad. I knew it was a stupid, crazy idea. But the rational part of me wasn’t strong enough to override the calm, quiet certainty that I was doing the right thing, something I needed to do. The key was meant for me. Granddad had hidden it but I’d found it. It was just as much mine as Dad’s letters were. I put it in my pocket. Then I paused and decided to take the papers, too.
I packed my stuff. I took my sleeping bag and two changes of underpants and another T-shirt and my mobile phone and wallet and my toothbrush and a bar of soap and a towel. I took the emergency cash from the spaghetti jar. And then, because I had space in my rucksack, I took a carrier bag of food.
And I left Granddad’s study door open, with the empty shoebox still sitting in front of the fireplace, so that when he got back he’d know why I’d gone.
*
It was like a dream. I got the train from Charing Cross, and although there wasn’t a Tunbridge Wells West any more the Tunbridge Wells train still went to Falconhurst. I sat on the wall outside Falconhurst station with the letter in my hand, squinting along the road into the sunlight. I could feel the sweat on the back of my neck starting to trickle down my spine, but it was cooler here than in London – pleasant, not like the train, where everyone had been beetroot-
red and pissed off, flapping newspapers and sighing.
And the little hand-drawn map on the other side of the letter was easy to follow – too easy, easier than it should have been. A couple of years ago I’d navigated in Italy while Granddad drove, working from a map a few years old, and we’d ended up on a brand-new motorway that apparently didn’t exist. But this was different. Falconhurst hadn’t changed. The landmarks were in the same places. There was the one-armed stone cross at the crossroads. There was the signpost to Tunbridge Wells. And the church was there, on my left, set back behind a shady churchyard, only the tower rising above treetops. The High Street was quiet, as if everyone was drowsing indoors, away from the heat. A couple of times I stopped and stood still. It wasn’t like London; it was another country.
And when I’d walked down the High Street for a quarter of a mile, the gates were there, exactly where the letter said they’d be.
I stood in front of them and heard myself laugh, because they were padlocked, and there was a sign saying TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. What had I expected? Someone to welcome me in?
I rubbed the key in my pocket with my fingers, feeling the rust crumble against my skin. Someone else owned this house now. The locks would have been changed. Trespassers would be prosecuted.
My dear Oliver . . .
I don’t know why I didn’t turn round and go back to the station. Maybe it was because I’d come this far; or because of the letter in my pocket, or because it was so quiet, so green, so hot . . . But somehow I couldn’t bear the thought of giving up now, of leaving without even seeing what Tyme’s End looked like.
I followed the wall, keeping an eye open for a gap or a tree growing close enough to help me climb over. It curved away from the road, until there was only the occasional swish of a car or the dull drone of a motorbike coming from a long way away. And I saw there was somewhere to climb over the wall, where the railings had been knocked out like teeth. I felt a great electric surge of triumph. I pulled myself up and over, dropped into a bed of bracken, and stumbled through a thin band of trees on to a ragged-edged lawn.
And there was the house, pale in the sunlight, windows glinting.
It was quiet, even quieter than the road; as if the world had swung slowly to a stop, and the moment went on and on. I felt like I’d stepped into the past. All I could do was stand there and stare, forgetting to think, forgetting to breathe. The place, the sunlight, the way the shadows fell . . . I’d been here before, seen it before – not just the house, but the summer afternoon, the exact position of the sun, even the heat. At least – I hadn’t, of course. But déjà vu swirled round me like water, filling my ears, silencing everything.
Tyme’s End looked back at me, waiting.
And I knew then, somehow, that there was no one there.
The house hadn’t been forgotten exactly. It wasn’t derelict. It hadn’t gone to rack and ruin – but it wasn’t lived-in any more. The grass must have been mown and the roof hadn’t fallen in and the windowpanes were intact, but all the same I could tell it’d been left to itself. I felt a kind of strange tension in my gut that I thought, then, was excitement. I’d be able to have a look after all.
And I was happy. Even now, I can remember how that felt. It was like I’d come home.
.
And when the door key actually opened the front door, it seemed like . . . it didn’t surprise me, somehow. It was like being in a dream, where you know everything’s going to happen the way you want it, smoothly, easily, without any fuss. The lock was stiff and the door was swollen, and it took all my strength to push it open; but it seemed inevitable that sooner or later I’d stumble through the gap and stand in the porch, my arms trembling from the effort. I walked into the hall, watching the dust billow up into a narrow blade of sunlight. There was a massive fireplace with white-shrouded chairs hunched in front of it, and more doors. My heart was beating hard. I heard the front door scrape shut behind me, and I jumped and swung round, but there was no one there.
I took a few steps into the room, hearing the small sounds of the floor under my feet so clearly it was as if they were amplified. There was a smell of cigarette smoke. For a second it made my skin prickle, until I realised it was only my clothes, because of being in the same house as Granddad. I was too hot, and breathing too fast. I tried to take a deep breath but it only made me feel dizzy.
I went to the door beside the fireplace and opened it. It opened easily, almost before I’d touched it, as if there were someone on the other side pushing it open just as I put my hand on the handle.
It was the drawing room. There was another fireplace, more white-cloaked furniture, a wall of bookshelves that had been curtained with more dust sheets. The sun streamed in, throwing a lattice of shadow over the floor. And –
My heart leapt. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe.
Someone had been in here just a moment ago.
I didn’t know how I knew. There was nothing moving – no dust swirling or cobweb drifting to the floor, no footprints, not even the tiny noise of the floorboards settling – but I knew. Someone had been there. I’d only just missed him. If I’d been a second quicker . . .
But there was only one door: the one I’d come in through.
And no one lived here. There was no one here.
I stood still, frozen to the spot. I could smell fresh air, dry grass and flowers, and still that bitter trace of tobacco smoke. It should have smelt musty, a room that had been closed up for years, but it didn’t. The silence settled like dust.
There was the sound of someone tapping on the window.
I jumped violently and stumbled backwards. My back smacked into something hard, and something dropped palely over my eyes, wrapping itself round me. I panicked, fighting to get free, until I was panting and sweating. Oh, God, there was someone trying to get in, someone – I stood still, shaking, with a dust sheet still draped over me like a toga. I clung on to the bookshelf behind me and stared at the window.
The casement was slightly open. There were tendrils of ivy moving in the breeze, beating gently against the glass. That was what had made the noise.
I started to laugh. My voice hit a high note and stuck there. I pulled the dust sheet off my shoulder and bundled it up, still shaking with laughter. The tension went out of my body and I sagged over one of the hooded chairs, limp with relief and embarrassment. Honestly, Olly. An empty house with an open window could reduce me to hysterics. I coughed and shook my head, dragging the air into my lungs. Of course there was no one here.
When I stood up again it was as if the room was bigger than before, as if the walls had all taken a step backwards. The breeze from the open window played on the back of my neck and in my hair. I could smell flowers.
I shrugged my rucksack off and leant it against the nearest chair. The huddled, bulky shapes underneath the sheets seemed to inhale slowly, like sleeping animals. I felt floppy and hot, holiday-ish, half tired, half excited. I didn’t know what I was doing here, but it felt . . . right.
There were more windows in the opposite wall, and I went over absently and opened them, pushing against the friction of rust and damp-swollen wood. More outside smells flooded in, and the warm air billowed round me. The loose corners of the dust sheets fluttered and moved, as if the furniture underneath was waking up. I turned my back to the windows and looked at my shadow falling across the dusty, bright floorboards. I felt as if I was waiting for someone; as if the owner of the house had just popped out for a second to get something. Without really thinking about it, I wandered back to the bookcase and stared at the spines of the books. There was a thin veneer of dust, but the sheet had kept the worst of it off and the titles stared back at me. There were gold-lettered leather books – Dickens, two volumes of Middlemarch, a lot of Shakespeare – but there were mouldy-looking canvas hardbacks too, that looked as if they’d been read over and ov
er. The Odyssey, Le Morte d’Arthur, Treasure Island . . . I slid Le Morte d’Arthur out and held it gently in my hands. Then I let it fall open on the first page and brought it up to my face, smelling the old-book tobacco-and-dust fragrance. Le Morte d’Arthur was one of Granddad’s favourites, and for a second, in spite of myself, I could hear his voice reading it aloud to me years ago, when I couldn’t sleep. I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again, clearing my mind. It hurt to think about Granddad. If I didn’t concentrate hard I’d be back in his study, kneeling over his shoebox of papers, reading the letters from my dad over and over again.
I thought, Stop it. You’re here, now. You’re miles away from all that. I took a deep breath, tasting the pollen in the air. This wasn’t London, this was another country. It was as if none of that had happened yet.
I glanced down at the flyleaf of the book in my hand before I put it back. There was a line of dark brown handwriting, thin and clear.
H. J. Martin, August 1923.
The book missed the shelf and fell on the floor.
The noise was so loud that I stood frozen. What if someone heard? What if the owner was coming down the stairs at this very moment, to see who was in his house? What if –? Even though I knew the house was empty, I felt my whole body prickling.
But there was nothing. Nothing happened. No one came; the dust rippled round my feet and came to rest again. The book lay face down, its covers spread like wings.
I picked it up. It felt heavier in my hands than it had done, warmer, like something alive.
H. J. Martin, August 1923.
I put it back on the shelf and slid the next one out. Treasure Island. This one was older, but sturdier too, covered in thick ash-coloured fabric that might have been another colour once. I flipped it open to the fly leaf. Hugo JoHn MArtin. His Book. The Year of Anno Domini, 1899.
My stomach felt funny, and my knees. I reached out and leant on a dust sheet-covered chair. It seemed to rock gently, pressing itself into my palm and then pulling away. I thought, I’m dehydrated. I need to sit down.
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