Of Things Gone Astray

by Janina Matthewson

  Two crowds of boys headed down opposite sides of the street until they reached the same corner, the corner around which the fight was.

  It wasn’t there.

  For the first time, the leaders looked at each other.

  ‘Where is it?’ said Will.

  ‘Have we lost it?’ said Jeff.

  ‘We can’t both have lost it,’ said Will.

  But they had.

  The Looks.

  WINIFRED GRAHAM LOST HER LOOKS. She hunted for them carefully and methodically, but they were all gone. It seemed remarkable for them to have all disappeared at once, but although she tried, she could not find a single one.

  Her looks had been so many. So many looks, and they were glorious: a look to show a secret, a look to freeze blood, one to curdle milk, a look of longing, a look of rejection, a look of despair. A look of love.

  It would be several weeks before she managed to leave her house. To confront a world in which she would now have to rely on words.

  The Heart.

  AND BARNABY JONES LOST HIS heart. He was fifty-seven years old and had kept a good handle on it until that day. He’d never had to question its whereabouts at school or university, even when his friends were finding theirs so hard to keep track of. He’d checked for its presence as he left the house each morning, along with his keys and wallet. There was a brief moment in his mid-thirties when he couldn’t remember where he’d left it, but a quick search revealed not far from its usual place.

  Then this day, seven weeks before his 58th birthday, it was gone. After searching his house thoroughly and to no avail, he retraced his steps, eventually coming across the finder of his heart. Unfortunately he would be unable to get it back from her, and before he would have time to think of staying near her, just so as to always be near his heart, she would not have it anymore.

  From then, Barnaby’s heart would change hands with dizzying frequency. He would do his best to keep up with it, but it would show itself determined to evade him. Try as he might to get it back, in the end he would have to learn to do without it.

  Jake.

  Jake stands on the footpath facing his house. The street is quiet, because it is not Saturday. Even though it’s Tuesday, Jake is not wearing his uniform. Not wearing his school uniform on a Tuesday that’s not in the holidays makes Jake feel like he’s breaking the rules. But he can’t get into trouble because his mum is the one who’s told him not to wear it.

  Jake doesn’t want to go to the doctor. The doctor is boring and he doesn’t like someone looking at his feet that closely. He doesn’t want to go to the doctor, but he does want to go to McDonald’s.

  He is not wearing a jersey, but he should be. The day is cold; the first cold day in ages and Jake isn’t prepared for it. His mum said that he should put on a jumper, but he didn’t. He looks down at the goosebumps on his arm and wishes his mum would hurry up.

  She’s gone back into the house because she forgot to bring a recipe she’d promised to drop off to the smiling lady that sometimes comes over with her friend Mel. Jake knows his mum doesn’t like the smiling lady, because she never uses her name. She always just calls her Goldilocks, which is not a real name at all. Jake doesn’t know what the smiling lady’s real name is.

  Jake can tell his mum is really grumpy because she’s already dropped her keys on the floor three times. Jake’s mum is always clumsy when she’s cross. When she’d turned to go back into the house, Jake had started to go with her and she’d snapped at him to stay where he was and wait for her. Jake’s mum hardly ever snaps.

  Jake has been waiting for a long time.

  The ground moves like it does a lot. Like it never used to. It started happening a few months ago, after that one big time when buildings came down. Jake was scared when it started, when it happened months ago, but he isn’t anymore. It doesn’t really make anything happen.

  This time, though, something does. This time something awful happens.

  Jake looked down at his arm. There were goosebumps on it now. Had there been that day? He didn’t think so. He couldn’t remember feeling cold, but he couldn’t remember not feeling cold either. He couldn’t be sure.

  He so wanted to be sure.

  He trudged slowly along the road towards his house. Without really planning to, he kept walking past it and around the corner. He wandered until he was on a street he didn’t know, walking along a row of shops. Also without planning to, Jake stopped walking. He looked around himself, up and down the quiet street.

  The shop he was standing outside didn’t seem to have a name. He stood looking for several minutes but there wasn’t one anywhere. There was the street number, hand-painted in pea green, and that was all except for a small blackboard hanging on the door which read, ‘Nothing can be found that is not lost’. Jake wasn’t sure he knew what that meant.

  He pushed open the door and walked in. The shop was dark inside, and dusty, and full of second-hand things. There was a shelf of old typewriters by the door, and a pile of battered books stacked precariously on top of a rusty umbrella stand.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’ said a voice from the ether.

  ‘Yes.’ Jake blinked and peered around the shop, trying to locate the speaker.

  The Voice was sitting in an armchair in the corner. She had her legs slung over one arm of the chair and a book in her lap. She watched Jake for a while as he looked around.

  ‘Well?’ she said eventually. ‘Buying or selling?’

  ‘What?’

  The Voice got up from her armchair and leaned over the shop counter towards Jake.

  ‘Are you buying or are you selling?’

  ‘I don’t have anything to sell.’

  ‘Well, wouldn’t you suppose that that means you’re buying?’

  Jake fingered the money in his pocket. His dad had left it on the table and probably forgotten about it. They had run out of milk and bread. His dad had probably forgotten about that too.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m buying.’

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘Something interesting.’

  ‘Everything’s interesting.’

  Jake’s wandering gaze fell on a small, silvery, old mirror.

  ‘Who’s was that?’

  The Voice followed Jake’s eyes, shook her head and leaned further forward, with a conspiratorial air. ‘That,’ she began dramatically, ‘belonged to a war heroine. She came from a small village near Cambridge, and when things started to turn to custard over the way, she ran off to Paris and joined the French Resistance. She carried that mirror with her always, to make sure her hair was in place while she fought the Nazis. Then, when she died, her granddaughter, who is the kind of person who is Not Interested, inherited it. She brought it here to sell because she thought it was tacky.’

  Jake picked up a pair of cufflinks from a shelf.

  ‘Those,’ said The Voice, ‘were sold to me by the new husband of their owner’s wife. She had asked him to return them to her ex-husband, but he was so jealous he couldn’t stand to see him. So he brought them to me instead.’

  Jake put the cufflinks back and turned to a pile of books. The one on the top was small and red and faded. He opened the cover and read the inscription: ‘You are the reason I’m glad there are words.’

  ‘Who’s was this?’ he asked The Voice.

  ‘Oh, I don’t actually know about that. Some woman found it when she moved into a new house. It had fallen behind a radiator or something.’

  ‘I’ll buy this, I think,’ said Jake. ‘What was the woman like?’ he asked as The Voice counted out his change. ‘Tall. A bit chub. Had a baby. Very, very long hair. Blonde.’

  ‘When did she sell you the book?’

  ‘Holy hell, I don’t know. A month ago maybe. Maybe two.’

  ‘Great,’ said Jake. ‘Thanks. I’ll see you.’

  Jake could feel The Voice staring after him as he left the shop.

  He walked the three blocks to his house as
quickly as he could. He was feeling sort of fevered, but he didn’t know why. He let himself into the house. The door to his dad’s office was open, and Jake could tell he was in there, but he didn’t go in, nor did his dad come out to see who had come in, or to ask Jake why he wasn’t at school.

  Jake climbed the stairs to his room and shut the door behind him. It was no good. There was too much stuff, too much clutter. His mum used to make him tidy his room all the time but now no one did. Jake hadn’t noticed how messy it had become. He put the small red book carefully on his pillow and began to tidy. He folded his clothes and put them in his drawers. He slipped his books neatly onto their shelves.

  When everything had been put away and the floor was clear, he took the red book and placed it in the middle of the floor. He took a piece of paper and wrote, ‘Book. Gift. Behind radiator.’ He put the paper beside the book. He leaned back against his bed and looked at it.

  Delia.

  THERE WAS A ROOM IN Delia’s house that Delia never went into. It had been her room when she was a child, and for all her trips home after she moved away to study.

  It was still decorated in the style she’d chosen when she was thirteen. Redecoration had been her birthday present that year and she’d spent hours deciding on and second-guessing colour choices. Three of the walls (luscious cherry 037) were almost entirely obscured by posters of pop singers and movie stars, many of which had come unstuck in key top corners. The fourth wall (bruised concrete 109) had a series of doodles in white paint that had started as a rebellion and grown into a meandering, wordless story. The curtains (dark purple brocade) had been closed for years. The bed (single, patchwork mainly in pink) was unmade. The last time Delia had slept in it had been the Easter holidays, a few weeks before the accident that would bring her home for good. She was supposed to wash the sheets and remake the bed herself, having never officially lifted the Keep Out Agreement of 97, but she’d been late for her train and had left them.

  But it wasn’t the garishly twee decor or the depressing insight into adolescent Delia’s psyche that kept grown-up Delia out of the room.

  When Delia had moved back home, she’d taken the seven boxes marked ‘Master’s Degree’ and stacked them in the middle of the room. She’d piled sketches and paintings on the bed, she’d dumped her easel, her box of paints and brushes, and her blank canvases on the floor and closed the door on them. She’d taken over the room that her mother would no longer be able to use.

  If Delia had gone into that room, if she’d unpacked the boxes marked ‘Master’s Degree’, and if she’d gone further and unpacked ‘Bachelor’s Degree’ and ‘College’ and ‘Secondary School’, and even ‘Primary School’, she would have looked over a startlingly consistent academic history.

  ‘Delia is a quiet and driven child,’ Miss Gooding had probably written twenty years earlier. ‘She shows extraordinary focus and is progressing well. She is reading well above her age level, and has shown marked improvement in maths, despite her tendency to doodle all over her work.’

  Ten years after that, Mr Brown might have said Delia was ‘A solid A-plus student who clearly prioritises her studies above all else. She is very goal-oriented and works unceasingly to achieve her high aims. She has clear artistic talent, which she has worked hard at developing.’

  It’s likely that her university essays and portfolios carried barely legible statements like, ‘Your continued efforts to extend yourself are clearly evident and, once again, you’ve met with success.’

  There may have been a side note on an essay she’d never collected that read ‘I look forward to your dissertation and final project.’

  But Delia never did go into that room. She never did unpack her many boxes. She didn’t look at her half-finished paintings or read over her old art history books. She went for walks to nowhere. She came home. She slept. And repeat.

  Marcus.

  DIDN’T SEEM TO BE MUCH point in getting out of bed. Didn’t seem like there was anything to gain by moving or by eating or by anything at all.

  He got up anyway. He didn’t know what else to do. He had his light breakfast of fruit. He couldn’t bear to go into the music room, so he sat in the lounge waiting to be hungry enough for a proper breakfast.

  There used to be a piano store, he remembered. Nearby. Maybe they’d let him play for a while.

  He’d never liked playing other pianos. When he was younger, when he was less than he had become, he’d had to play other pianos in performances. It was never the same; it was hollow and stilted, and although no one ever said they noticed, he felt the coldness of his own performances. As soon as he could, he had his own piano moved to wherever it was needed. Too much, some people thought, but they didn’t understand. The story was better when it was told on his piano.

  But this was different, this was just for him, this would be worth it.

  At the thought he had a sudden burst of energy. He decided to make an omelette for breakfast instead of just frying some eggs.

  By nine he was putting on his hat and coat and walking out of his front door. He walked purposely, and a little faster than usual. The day was muggy and it looked like rain. Rain didn’t bother him, though; if it was too heavy, he’d wait it out at the music shop.

  He reached the parade of shops nearest his house. He’d thought this was where it was but there was only a record shop, not one for instruments. He wasn’t worried. There were a few sets of shops like this, he’d just gone to the wrong one. He pressed on.

  He passed three separate rows of shops before he really started to lose hope. His knee was aching and he was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe.

  He was suddenly exhausted.

  There was a girl standing on the other side of the road. She had a heavy-looking bag over one shoulder and was looking from one end of the street to the other. He crossed over to her.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I wonder, do you happen to know where the piano shop is? I’m certain there’s one in the area, but I’ve been unable to find it.’

  The girl stared, wild-eyed. She swallowed once and mutely shook her head.

  ‘Oh. All right, then. Do you know if there are any other shops in walking distance of here? I was sure, you see, that there was a piano shop somewhere around.’

  The girl’s wide eyes suddenly filled with tears. ‘No,’ she whispered, as if it was the most shameful confession she’d ever had to make. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Well, that’s OK.’

  ‘It’s the third time.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s the third time I haven’t known. I don’t know where anything is. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about it, young lady. There’s no reason for you to know exactly where I want to go.’

  ‘But I should know. I’ve always known. It doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘Is there anything I can help you with at all?’ he asked cautiously.

  ‘Oh god, no, sorry. I’m being ridiculous. Sorry I can’t help you.’

  The girl gave each end of the street another glance, screwed up her face and headed off in a direction she appeared to have chosen at random. He looked after her in concern, and headed back the way he’d come.

  He wended his way past the disappointing shops and walked up his street. He opened his door and stepped inside. He stood in the entrance of his empty and silent house. There was nothing to do now but wait for the day to pass.

  Robert.

  ROBERT WAS SEVERAL PER CENT sure he was going crazy. Either that, or he’d been crazy for a few years, going to a made-up job in a made-up building, and all of a sudden he’d recovered.

  He was standing on the footpath in front of where his building wasn’t. Where it should have been. He’d been standing there for twenty minutes. The whole ride in he’d been trying to convince himself that he’d had a strange dream about the previous day, in which he’d tried to go to work and it had disappeared and he’d wandered ar
ound London instead of sitting at a desk. It was frustrating to have wasted all that mental energy. He needn’t have bothered, it was much less effort to consign it all to insanity.

  It occurred to him that he could ask someone in one of the nearby buildings what had happened. He didn’t want to admit to himself how much the idea of doing this terrified him, so before he could think about it too hard he marched into the hotel, loins a-girded.

  The girl at the check-in counter was lovely, all honey-coloured tresses and winsome eyes. Robert wanted above all things for her not to think he was a madman. He strode to the desk trying to appear purposeful and direct.

  ‘Hello,’ he began, setting his jaw and in general doing his best to create the impression that the question he was about to ask was not a stupid one. ‘I was just wondering if you knew what happened to the building next door?’

  The girl raised an eyebrow and blinked in surprise. ‘Next door to where?’ she asked.

  ‘Next door to here. On the left.’

  ‘Why? What happened there?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me.’

  The girl looked around for back up, but she was on her own.

  ‘There was a building there, you see,’ continued Robert. ‘A white stone building with a cheap-looking statue of Artemis in the lobby that actually cost a horrendous amount of money. I was wondering if you knew what had happened to it.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, sir, I’ve only worked here for three months. I guess I could ask someone else for you?’ The girl’s hand hovered over the phone on her desk as she looked at him enquiringly.

  ‘No, that’s fine, it’s been within that time. You would have seen it.’

  ‘Really? I don’t remember it. When were you last there?’

  ‘Tuesday.’