Where was Dad anyway? Usually he was back by now, from his pretend job.
I got down on my knees and I started searching.
Adelaide Road, Fremantle Avenue, that pile over there. No point throwing everything into a heap when it all needed to go out anyway. Letters for 3, 4, 12, 16 Fremantle Avenue. A brown jiffy bag for 15 Clarence Villas. Snap decisions, separating out the important stuff. Anything from Pizza Hut or PC World or SpecSavers I shoved to one side. I’d throw those back in the shed tomorrow, try to maximise the floor space in there somehow. Looking all the time for anything with a silver-and-blue sticker on it that said Special Delivery. I’d had a few of those, always made them top priority whenever I saw them, knowing how important they were. Someone had to sign for Specials but I never bothered with that, just shoved them through the letterbox or left them on the doorstep like all the other stuff. People don’t care so long as they get their post, that’s my experience. Dolphin Way, right down the street, start to finish, letters from the council. The flats on the corner of Mortimer Crescent piled up there –
Bingo. A big padded envelope, a silver-and-blue barcoded sticker, for 79 Annandale Avenue. Daniel’s mum’s precious documents, standing out a mile. Thank Christ. Keep looking though in case there’s more. Letters with scrawled handwriting, neat square birthday cards, letters from the gas and electricity and water and phone companies. Difficult to tell with those which are bills and which are the stupid sales gimmicks. No time to find out even if I wanted to. Another item for 79 Annandale Avenue. And a third, over there. This was more like it.
Hand and eye moving fast, reading, sorting, arranging, not thinking any more.
On and on and on and on and on.
A white envelope, printed, for Ms Annie Fraser-Howe of Flat 6, Langney Place, Totland Terrace.
I stopped. I held it up in front of me, felt the sweat pooling on the tips of my fingers. The pink fifty-pound note I took from her last time, the letter I opened and stole from and then hid behind my fake-wood chest of drawers.
Could there be fifty pounds in this one too?
I turned it over.
I put my thumb under the flap of the envelope. Weak glue, hardly even stuck down at all.
The money I had, the money left over from the bolt cutters, it’d buy school dinners for a while. But it wouldn’t last forever.
Give in to temptation. If you’ve done it once, it’s easy to do again.
Almost a habit.
I opened it.
Nothing. No fifty-pound note.
Out of curiosity, I read the letter.
Rooklands University Hospital
NHS Trust
Christopher Prince Oncology Centre
York Road
Dear Ms Fraser-Howe,
We are writing to inform you that the results of the tests carried out at the Christopher Prince Oncology Centre on 23 November were, unfortunately, abnormal, and that it will be necessary for us to undertake further investigations. An appointment has been made for you to be seen at the Centre on 19 December at 12:15. Please note that you may be seen by any of the doctors attached to the clinic.
Please arrive ten minutes prior to the appointment time to allow your weight and blood pressure to be measured and recorded by the nursing team. Please wear loose-fitting clothes for the appointment and leave any jewellery at home.
An abnormal test result may mean many things and there is no reason to be concerned at this stage. For more information we enclose a leaflet, ‘Abnormal test results – your questions answered’, which also includes contact details of relevant organisations and helplines.
As clinic time is valuable, please help us to reduce appointment waiting times by notifying us during normal office hours if you are unable to attend.
19 December, I thought. That’s tomorrow. Doesn’t give her much time.
I mean, Dad hasn’t given her much time.
What’s Oncology anyway?
I resealed the letter, ignoring the leaflet, and put it in the stack with the others for Totland Terrace and the streets round about then I packed the Big Bag and grabbed the little pile I’d made up for 79 Annandale Avenue, securing it with one of the red rubber bands they always use at the mail centre.
There was still loads of post I hadn’t sorted properly yet so I pushed it under my bed and yanked the quilt down just-got-up-style and decided to have another go at it later.
I went downstairs thinking maybe I’d take five before charging over to Daniel’s house. I was feeling pretty wiped out, what with one thing and another. Mrs Cushway had waited all that time for her mail. Another few minutes wouldn’t matter, that’s how I figured it.
It felt abandoned now, our house. Only the kitchen light was on. The lounge, the little dining area, they were dark and cold. I left them that way. Sometimes when you feel sad and like things are never going to get any better it’s OK walking around in the dark. I clicked the TV on and saw an ad for all the fantastic stuff they’d be showing at Christmas. Switched it off right away. Too bright, too cheerful. Christmas wasn’t exactly going to be a bundle of laughs this year, what with Mum locked up in Tredegar House with zombie eyes and Dad coming and going whenever he felt like it, getting those sleeping pills off the doctor, not caring about me or him or anyone else.
From a high shelf in the lounge I took down the big red dictionary that lived next door to A Tale of Two Cities, which’d somehow ended up in our house. (It’d taken a long time but I’d once followed those pages right through to It Is A Far, Far Better Thing I Do …). There was a tiny dead spider on top but that was new because I took it down quite often, the dictionary, liking to look up words I didn’t know. I carried it through to the lighted kitchen, brushed off the spider, turned and scanned the pages.
oncology n the study of tumours
oncogene n a type of gene involved in the onset and development of cancer.
I felt numb all over.
Annie Fraser-Howe had cancer and she didn’t even know it because my dad was too lazy to get off his arse and do his job.
Annie Fraser-Howe who I stole fifty pounds off.
Annie Fraser-Howe whose hospital appointment was tomorrow at 12.15.
I stood there a long time, staring at those words. I don’t know how long exactly. They had a mesmerising sort of power. I only stopped when I heard the gate outside click open, when I heard footsteps coming down the path.
I ghosted across the kitchen and pressed myself to a wall where they wouldn’t see me, whoever it was.
Knock knock knock.
‘Bob? You in there? Bob?’
Knock knock knock.
‘Answer the door! It’s Hawkie. I need to talk to you.’
Bang bang bang.
‘Listen, this is serious. I was talking to Eric and he was talking to Danny. An email got forwarded by mistake, from Investigations. Bob, they’re monitoring you …’
Bang Bang Bang.
‘You’re an idiot! A bloody idiot! Anyone ever tell you that?’
Hawkie knocked once more and then he swore and sighed and went away.
After that I did a really funny thing. I went and put my hands in the greasy sink. I pushed them right down into the icy water. At the bottom there was a whole load of dirty knives and forks, a whole sharp dirty frozen load. I picked them up in my hands and tightened my grip, tightened and tightened and tightened. It hurt like hell at first but pretty soon all the feeling went away and then it was better. Having my eyes screwed shut the whole time, that helped too.
Chapter 27
79 Annandale Avenue. The double driveway, the iron railings and half-hidden basement off to one side, the five steps leading up to the big front door. I propped the racing bike against the hedge and took out the rubber-banded package from inside my coat. What I really wanted to do right then was go sneaking down those basement stairs to check on Haxforth. It felt too risky though, what with all the windows lit up and the big silver car out there on the drive. Even knocking on
the front door to deliver Mrs Cushway’s mail might be taking too much of a chance. What if she answered, and not Daniel? No, I’d drop it quietly through the letterbox, the brass-edged brushless letterbox that I knew already, and be on my way. If there was any news about Haxforth, Daniel’d just have to tell me about it in school tomorrow.
I went up the steps and started putting the stuff through but even as the first package hit the mat the door was opening.
‘I didn’t know if you’d come,’ Daniel said, looking relieved. It was like he’d been standing there that whole time. Then, ‘Blimey, Aidan, you look terrible.’
‘Here you go.’ I thrust the rest of the mail into his hands. ‘I think that’s all of it. It’s all I could find anyway.’
‘Where’d you get it from?’
I shrugged the question away. ‘How’s Haxforth?’
‘Sssh!’ Ask me about that later, Daniel was saying. Not now.
‘What’s that whispering?’ a voice called from the far end of the hall. ‘Come into the kitchen. You’re letting all the warm air out.’
Daniel took the post I’d delivered and put it on a shelf in the hallway, arranged it beside some other bits of paper and envelopes and takeaway menus, and then he motioned for me to follow him inside.
It seemed to be made completely of metal, the kitchen of 79 Annandale Avenue. There was a boxlike metal island in the middle of the tiled floor and above it a metal cage hung with shiny metal pots and pans. The cupboards were metal and there was a great metal hood over the metal cooker and it was big and clean and coffee was brewing somewhere among all the silver gadgets. I thought of my kitchen, of the cold brown water, the shrivelled apple, the red bill from the gas company.
‘And who’s this?’
Daniel’s mum. Mrs Cushway. She was standing beside the metal island, glossy bags, the sort you get from expensive clothes shops, piled up around high-heeled feet. Everything about her looked brittle and no nonsense.
‘Mum, this is Aidan. Aidan, Mum.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Aidan.’
She didn’t look pleased to meet me, though. She looked like she was already counting the minutes till I got out of her house.
‘Oh,’ Daniel said casually, ‘I forgot to tell you. All that stuff you were waiting for? It came about half an hour ago.’
‘Well, why on earth didn’t you tell me? Where is it?’
‘Out there.’
Mrs Cushway disappeared, came back a moment later with those items that until a short time ago’d been lost inside Dad’s shed. Her lips were puckered and white. ‘You know how important these documents are,’ she said. ‘You know tomorrow’s the first day at Winchester. Really, Daniel, I wonder what goes on inside your head sometimes.’
Daniel turned, about to walk away.
‘And you still haven’t explained yourself,’ Mrs Cushway continued, like there hadn’t been any break in the conversation. ‘I haven’t heard you practising today. Or yesterday. Is there a problem?’
‘The piano’s out of tune …’ Daniel said, not too convincingly.
‘It can’t be. The man only came last month. Hours he spent, plinking away down there. I’m afraid it sounds rather like an excuse to me.’
‘It’s not an excuse …’
‘All we want is the best for you, darling,’ Mrs Cushway said, a little softer. ‘Once your friend’s gone, I really think you ought to go downstairs and have another try at the Beethoven.’
I looked at Daniel, wanting to know what he’d have to say to that. But then I looked away, seeing how his face was big and burning suddenly and his eyes glued to the floor.
‘There’s no need to be a baby about it,’ she said. ‘Really.’ From one of the silver machines she poured out a cup of coffee, and then she gathered up the glossy shopping bags and the padded envelopes. ‘Well, I’m going upstairs. I need to get to work on these right away. There are pizzas in the freezer. Just remember what I said. In the New Year they’ll be expecting you to practise at least two hours a day …’
‘Perhaps I should go?’ I said, taking a step back into the hallway.
‘Hang on. Just wait in there a minute.’ Daniel pointed me towards another door that led away from the kitchen, into what seemed like a lounge. ‘That’s OK, isn’t it?’
‘Not for too long, I think,’ Mrs Cushway said. ‘I’m sure Aidan will need to be home before it gets too cold.’
I stepped from the large kitchen into a room with an enormous sofa, a wooden dining table, two crystal chandeliers, a wall of books and a fireplace. It was real, this fireplace, with tongs and a scoop and a brush hanging in a brass stand off to one side. They were all dusty though and so was the iron grate. There hadn’t been a fire there in ages. I thought what a shame that was, how nice it would’ve been to crouch down and rub my hands in front of real flames, feel the heat while outside the nightly frost settled. When Daniel didn’t come I went over to the bookcase and looked along the shelves.
The top shelf had a lot of big textbooks with titles like The Law of Criminal and Civil Evidence. Beneath that there were flat-stacked art books and some green paperbacks, novels, I guessed, though I’d never heard of any of them. All the rest were history-type things with important-sounding names like God’s Englishman and The Pursuit of the Millennium.
Right at the bottom, in a corner, was a copy of Beowulf.
I took it out and went and sat down on the sofa.
A boat with a ringed neck rode in the haven,
icy, out-eager, the atheling’s vessel,
and there they laid out their lord and master …
It was a beautiful thing to look at and hold, a heavy hardback with gold lettering on the cover, the paper inside rough and grainy in a nice kind of way. The Old English printed on the left-hand pages with the translation facing them. Those weird angular runes, they could mean anything. How had anybody ever made sense of them? How did everyone else know they got it right?
Daniel appeared at the door. He shut it behind him. He sat down next to me on the sofa. I thought his face was still red but I didn’t like to look too close. Mrs Cushway seemed to have gone upstairs.
‘Thanks for pointing out that word to me,’ I said. ‘“Atheling.” That old bag of a teacher …’
‘What am I going to do? He was meant to be gone by now.’
I didn’t know what to say. I was feeling pretty bad about Daniel’s situation, that was the truth. I mean, I hadn’t forced him to take Haxforth in or anything but still at the same time I felt sort of responsible.
‘Can’t we go downstairs and check on him?’ I said. ‘That’s what she wants you to do isn’t it – go down to the basement?’
‘We’ll have to. But give it a few minutes, let her get properly stuck into her work.’
‘All right.’
I turned the pages of the book, still in my lap. Something was written in blue ink on the inside front cover, there in the top right corner:
DENNIS CUSHWAY, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. MAY 1979.
So then I knew who the D. CUSHWAY was who I’d been delivering all the history stuff to.
Daniel glanced across. ‘Take it,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Take it. Keep it. You gave me Haxforth’s clasp. So you have that.’
‘But it belongs to your dad …’
‘He isn’t coming back for it. He isn’t coming back for anything that matters.’
‘Oh,’ I said.
Silence. One of those uncomfortable sound-emptinesses you want to break but somehow all it does is feed on itself.
I gazed some more at the Beowulf pages. Not just the proper English and the sense you could get out of it but the ancient impossible facing words. I thought of what Miss Tuckett said. Try to imagine the life of the person who first wrote it down. Try to believe what they believed.
‘Where’d you get that post from, Aidan?’
I looked at Daniel. He already knew about Mum, how she’d been sectioned. And he’d
sheltered Haxforth in his basement despite not really wanting to. Now under the crystal chandeliers I told him the rest of it – about the mail Dad brought home and how I’d been trying to deliver it to keep him out of trouble, and about Matthew Greenwood from Birmingham who got fourteen months in prison for doing the exact same thing, and about the men at Royal Mail whose job it was to monitor and watch and investigate.
It took about ninety seconds to tell. Less, even. Funny how something so massive can come out so fast. Sort of like a missile being fired. You can feel the hole where it’s been, too.
‘And that’s why you needed your bike?’ he said, when I’d finished talking.
I nodded.
‘They really send people to jail for that?’
‘Yeah. And if they do, if Dad gets sent down and Mum’s still in hospital, guess where I’ll end up?’
‘Where?’
‘Care home.’
Daniel stared into the cold grey fireplace. ‘At least you try to do something about your problems,’ he said. ‘I just curl up and pretend mine aren’t happening. Or pretend they’re happening to someone else, not me.’
Another minute or two passed in silence.
‘You know, if there was any more post for Annandale Avenue, I could – well – help you with it. If you wanted me to, I mean.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. Mum won’t be around much in the next few days. She’s so caught up in this trial …’
‘There’s loads more,’ I said, closing Beowulf and putting it on a little coffee table-type thing. ‘It’s endless.’
‘That’s all right. What time do you start?’
‘4.30. A bit before, usually.’
His eyes bulged at that, but still he nodded OK.
I was going to say Thanks only just then, down in the basement, something crashed over. A loud metallic ringing crashing that seemed to echo through the whole house.
Instantly we were on our feet, staring at each other, alert like gazelles.
Chapter 28
We listened hard for a long minute. No reaction from upstairs.
Why I Went Back Page 10