Attica

by Kilworth, Garry

  ‘In that case, the attic’s grown.’

  ‘Now you’re being even sillier.’

  Chloe sounded angry but Jordy knew that Chloe, in her heart, was upset by their situation. Jordy himself didn’t know what to think. It was all very extraordinary, very weird. Out there in front of them was a kind of thicket fashioned from scores of old fishing rods, with their lines going back and forth creating a tangle of cords. Dangling from the lines like loose wicked thorns were fishing hooks of all sizes. It really was like a dense bramble bush, which had obviously been there a long time: it was covered in spiders’ webbing from top to bottom.

  He muttered, ‘Come on, we’ve got to find our way home. I hope I recognise which is our trapdoor.’

  Jordy started to walk back the way he had come, but Alex cried, ‘That’s not the right direction.’

  ‘It’s this way.’ Jordy pointed. ‘Isn’t it, Clo?’

  ‘Well, I thought we came from that way.’

  She pointed in a different direction still.

  ‘Now we’re stuck,’ growled Jordy. He made a decision. ‘I’m the eldest. It’s my responsibility. I say we go my way.’

  ‘You and your two months,’ Chloe said. ‘You think because you were born in July and me in September you’re the boss.’

  ‘Well, somebody’s got to be.’

  ‘Not necessarily. You’ve heard of democracy, haven’t you? We’ll vote on it.’

  But a vote did nothing to get them any further, since they voted three ways. It was settled in the manner it always was when they were unsure which way to go. Jordy started out in the direction he wanted to go and the others felt they had to follow or lose him. Both Chloe and Alex still grumbled that it was the wrong way, but they felt they ought to stay together. Jordy felt no triumph on this occasion: he was simply praying he was right.

  Chloe decided they were like explorers crossing uncharted regions as they walked the boards of this huge vault of wood and plaster. Deeper and deeper they went, failing to find their own trapdoor, and finally even Jordy was forced to admit they had probably gone wrong. He said he was sure he had the right direction, but the others said obviously not. So they turned round and began to retrace their steps. At least, they believed they had turned round, but after a while Chloe wasn’t even certain about this.

  ‘Look,’ she said, peering up into the gloom above, ‘you can just see the apex of the roof. It’s running opposite to the lines on the floorboards. We’re going level with them now. If we walk at right angles to the cracks, we should get back to where we started.’

  It seemed Jordy was too worried to argue with her this time, so the three of them did what Chloe considered to be sensible, yet after an hour or two they still didn’t know whether they were any nearer to their own part of the attic. They were all becoming quite tired, and thirsty too. Piles of junk containing the clutter that one finds in an attic were here and there on the landscape.

  Chloe picked up an old bottle made of green glass, with a loose glass stopper rattling in its neck.

  ‘Cod bottle,’ she said, having once collected old bottles. ‘These are quite rare.’

  ‘Is there any cod juice left in it?’ asked Alex, through parched lips. ‘Anything to drink?’

  ‘You don’t get cod juice in a cod bottle. It’s just called that. I think they used to have lemonade in them.’

  Alex wandered off a bit while the other two sat down to rest on the floorboards. Alex was one of those people who usually have luck on their side, and this time was no different. He found a water tank hidden in the shadows. Using his hand as a cup he drank from it, ignoring the dead spiders and one or two down feathers floating on top. Then he called the others. They stood and stared at the water for a while, reluctant to drink.

  ‘We don’t know when we’ll find another waterhole,’ said Alex. ‘You’d better drink. And Clo should fill that cod’s bottle.’

  ‘Why do you call it that? A waterhole?’ said Chloe. ‘You make it sound as if we’re wild beasts, lost in the desert or something.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Jordy said. ‘It is a waterhole. There’s nowhere else to drink, is there? And the light’s going …’

  The other two followed his gaze upwards, to see the square sun dimming in the rafter-crossed sky.

  ‘We must conserve our torch batteries,’ said Jordy. ‘Don’t use them unless you have to.’

  ‘Who made you boss?’ murmured Chloe, but the heart had gone out of her protests. She found herself gripping her torch as if it were a talisman, as if to let it go would be to abandon any chance of escape from this arid wooden place.

  The smell of the water was tempting her now. Her throat was so dry she was rasping her words. She filled her bottle, pushing it right down under the scummy surface. She watched as the escaping air bubbles were replaced by water. Then she took the bottle out and drank from it, not caring that the glass container had probably lain in the attic for over a hundred years. She told herself if there had ever been any germs on the neck, they themselves would have died of thirst before now.

  Jordy too succumbed and drank directly from the tank, skimming the surface free of dead insects with his hands first.

  ‘If we all wake up with stomach ache,’ he muttered, ‘I won’t be at all surprised. No one’s brought their mobile, I suppose?’

  ‘Not me,’ Alex said. ‘Why would I?’

  True, thought Chloe, who did not even bother to answer. Why would they take a phone to search the attic? It wasn’t as if they were even going out of the house.

  Normally, if they were camping or sleeping somewhere strange on holiday, they would sit up and talk into the night. Yet here, in this great attic they could think of nothing to say. Chloe simply sat there, hugging her knees through her jeans, staring up at the roof. She half hoped that stars would appear up there, now that the sun had gone down. Only one single such twinkling light came to comfort her. It was a bright one, probably Venus, caught in the skylight window. It did cheer her somewhat, to know that there actually was a real world out there.

  ‘See that?’ she said, pointing it out to Jordy. ‘The Evening Star.’

  ‘But locked in here,’ he muttered. ‘Trapped inside a bloody great attic.’ He reflected for a moment, before adding, ‘No wonder they call them trapdoors.’

  A silence fell between them again. A little later Jordy’s torch went on for a few seconds. He inspected his wrist. Then it went out again.

  He whispered to her, ‘My watch is going backwards.’

  They both lay down on the boards and tried to sleep. In the middle of the night Chloe heard noises in the darkness. Not loud sounds, more like people walking softly, or small creatures scratching around. They were not even particularly alarming noises. Simply sounds which told her she and her brothers were not alone.

  Later Chloe felt something soft brushing her face. She pushed it away, too sleepy to do anything else. An animal curled in the hollow of her stomach and joined her in sleep.

  They woke early. The light was grey and dingy for a while, then the sun came through the skylights. The first thing they did was drink from the tank without any fuss. Alex found half a bar of chocolate in his pocket, which he shared out. Had it been in Chloe’s pocket, or Jordy’s, they would have starved. Alex was the only one who didn’t gobble down chocolate as soon as it was in his hands. He saved things for later. On this occasion his restraint did not irritate Chloe. Instead of saying in a sarcastic voice, ‘Oh, you’re so good, little brother’ she said, ‘Well done, Alex.’

  ‘Could have told us last night,’ muttered Jordy, chewing his three squares.

  Alex replied with some logic, ‘Then you’d have had nothing for breakfast.’

  Chloe suddenly looked around her, remembering.

  ‘Nelson came in the night,’ she said. ‘Isn’t he here?’

  The two boys stared around them. ‘Can’t see him. You sure?’

  ‘Yes, positive. Oh well, he’ll find his way back.’

&n
bsp; When Chloe had filled her bottle again, the three explorers set out once more. They were assuming that they would find their way out, but Chloe wondered what Ben and Dipa were doing. She guessed her mother would be frantic. Neither Chloe nor Alex had ever stayed out all night before – not without their mother knowing exactly where they were.

  Chloe wasn’t sure about Jordy.

  She had picked up inferences from her step-brother that things had not been too stable in his family, during and after the divorce. Chloe had the idea that Jordy had run away at least once, when the split in his family had come. Then Jordy’s mother had declined custody of her son, a rejection which must have hurt him. Perhaps he might still have chosen to be with his father, but to have a mother who did not seem to want him must have been painful.

  Maybe Ben was at this moment blaming Jordy, thinking that perhaps he’d run away again, taking the other two with him.

  ‘What is this place?’ muttered Jordy.

  ‘Obviously it’s a giant attic.’

  ‘We guessed that,’ Jordy snapped, ‘but why is it so big?’

  ‘How am I supposed to know?’

  They looked at each other for a moment, then Chloe said, ‘Can we stop arguing for a while? We’re all in a fix and we need to pull together to get out of it. Can we just be friends?’

  Jordy stared, then grinned. ‘Yeah, sorry, Clo. I don’t mean to be mean. I mean – well, you know what I mean. Just because we don’t always agree, doesn’t mean anything.’

  She smiled too. ‘There’s about three million means in there.’

  ‘You’re no good at maths. There are only about half a dozen. OK, let’s not worry, let’s get walking.’

  ‘Have you thought,’ she asked, ‘how Ben and Dipa are going to be worrying?’

  Jordy shrugged. ‘Not much we can do about it, except keep going. Got to find a way down, is all.’

  Chloe knew that Jordy’s pretence at a casual attitude was a front. She knew he felt responsible for what happened to them in any adverse predicament, such as this one. That was because he was male and because he was the eldest. It was stupid of him, of course, but his real mother had drummed some rubbish into him about men being stronger and having to take care of women, who were supposedly weaker.

  Chloe felt well able to take care of herself and didn’t need a guardian who was only two months older than she was, even if he was a male. But she couldn’t tell him that, because he would take no notice and it would only make him all the more anxious. Jordy was a product of someone who believed in the old order, when men ruled the world and women did as they were told. Men were made of iron, women were fashioned of thin glass. It was a load of old rubbish, really.

  ‘We don’t break any more,’ she muttered. ‘We’re made of tougher stuff these days.’

  ‘What?’ said Jordy, turning his head, a puzzled look on his face. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Suddenly Alex stopped dead in his tracks.

  ‘Did you see that?’ he asked, staring off to the right of where they were standing. ‘Someone’s out there.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Jordy, straining to see through the dimness into the far side of the attic. ‘Out there?’

  ‘Someone moved. I saw a shadow jump.’

  Chloe said, ‘Perhaps it’s someone who’s just come up from the house underneath us?’

  ‘It didn’t move like a person,’ Alex said. ‘It moved like – like some other creature. I don’t know what. An animal or something.’

  ‘Stop scaring me,’ cried Chloe, her heart beating faster. ‘Don’t play games, Alex.’

  ‘I wasn’t – look, there it is again. In the shadows. Maybe it’s Nelson?’

  ‘I saw it. I saw it,’ cried Jordy. ‘It wasn’t a cat, it was – I dunno – it must be a person.’

  Alex shook his head. ‘No, it wasn’t. It didn’t move right. Look, again! It’s sort of jerky. Now it’s gone. Gone into the blackness.’

  ‘I think it’s a person,’ said Chloe quickly. ‘I think we’ve got to look for him – or her. Whoever it is. They can tell us the way out.’

  CHAPTER 3

  Sky with a Thousand Windows

  ‘Who?’

  Young people.

  ‘You can tell they’re new to the attic. They keep twisting their heads round trying to catch the dust sprites. No chance.’

  The youthful board-comber sees them through the holes in his Venetian carnival mask from afar off and he shivers in another person’s shoes.

  He wears several layers of ankle-length coats, all too big for him. He has on his head a great floppy hat, also several sizes too large. These clothes do not belong to him, but were some other’s, for the board-comber himself owns nothing; no clothes at all. He takes them where he finds them and they become part of him, but never belong to him. The camouflage is perfect. When he feels the need to transform himself into a pile of rags he simply falls on the floor in a heap.

  I am afeared of people, he tells the bat hanging from his left earlobe. But they draw me to them.

  ‘That’s because you was people once yourself,’ says the bat. ‘You think of them as family.’

  The board-comber, like all his kind, was once an ordinary boy, but he has lived here too long. He does not like direct contact with his old race, for now he’s different, he’s not a person. He wears the mask – it is the mask known to Venetians as Cocalino the jolly friar, with red nose and cheeks and bright red lips – not because he wants to scare anyone, but because he’s not what he used to be. He’s something different now.

  But he likes to see children, follow them, gather bits of conversation like dust on a draught.

  ‘They’re looking,’ the bat cries. ‘You should hide.’

  The board-comber drops to the floor and is instantly a pile of rags. Those looking from afar cannot see his eyes, peering out between the folds. All they see are old coats, thrown in a heap, with a hat on top. Those who look more carefully might notice the frozen features of Cocalino, who beams at them with an expression of merry contentment.

  Have they gone yet? he asks the bat. Anyway, how can you see them? You’re a blind creature.

  ‘I am at the moment. You’re squashing me.’

  The board-comber lifts his head slightly and finds he has indeed been crushing the bat.

  Sorry.

  ‘How many times?’

  I know. I’m sorry.

  ‘So long as you really are.’

  I really am.

  ‘They’ve gone now. You can get up. Are we going to comb the boards any more today? It’s getting late.’

  Just a little longer. The light’s still golden.

  The pair of them, horseshoe-bat and board-comber, exist in the attic for one purpose: to collect things. They comb the boards like shell-gatherers comb beaches, but not for shells of course. Not this board-comber at least. It is interested solely in soapstone carvings made by the Inuit Eskimos. That’s his bag. That’s what he seeks. Others might collect paintings, or toy cars, or books, or porcelain figurines. This one scours the tideless reaches of the attic for Inuit carvings. Head down, he walks the long wooden planks, inspecting flotsam, jetsam or any kind of drift-junk, turning over heaps in case a gem of a soapstone carving lies beneath. When he finds one, his heart fills to bursting with joy. He could shout his pleasure to the four high draughts but doesn’t, for board-combers are shy creatures and do not like attention. They wear masks to hide their features and they wear their many layers of clothes not just as a disguise but to become shapeless things of no worth.

  ‘Look,’ says the bat, ‘a recent chest of drawers. Is your heart going pitter-pat?’

  Oh, it is, it is. Do you think there’s one in a drawer?

  ‘Who knows? You have to look.’

  They’re so rare in this part of the attic. We should have emigrated over the boards.

  ‘If they weren’t rare, you wouldn’t be interested in them. Who wants to look for something common?’<
br />
  That’s true.

  He searches the chest of drawers thoroughly, finding only a few bits and bobs of no interest at all. Cotton reels. Buttons. A few old postcards. A scarf.

  Those young people. They might have one in their pockets?

  ‘Fat chance, unless they’ve just been to Alaska or Northern Canada.’

  Maybe they’re straight from Cape Dorset?

  ‘The eternal optimist. Is it likely? How many people go on holiday to Baffin Bay? I could count them on my claws. You just take those drawers out and look behind them. Sometimes humans hide things behind drawers, so that others can’t find them. Anything there?’

  Only a dead bat.

  ‘You liar.’

  Had you, there.

  ‘Not a chance. Can we rest up now? You need to go to sleep and I need to go out and hunt. I’m starving.’

  Shall we count our treasures first?

  ‘We know how many there are. We counted them last night.’

  I want to see them again.

  The board-comber takes a leather satchel out of the folds of his coats and lays it carefully on the attic floor. Having opened it, he begins to take out carvings and carefully unwrap the rags which protect them. First there is a beautiful jade-green dancing bear, which is so finely balanced it can stand on one leg without a prop. Next comes a sealskin-coated Inuit drummer, complete with drum and drumstick. Then a dark-grey whale, so shiny it brings tears to the board-comber’s eyes. After that a ruffled-coated wolf is revealed: white and savage-looking, but with tender eyes.

  There are thirty-seven pieces in all. Five of them were found in the same box. They’re heavy, but the board-comber never minds the weight. In fact, he likes it, because it reminds him of his success. There is nothing to match the finding of another Inuit carving: no feeling like it. It’s what keeps the board-comber in the attic, what turned him from a person into what he is now. He strokes the bounty of the boards, finding great pleasure in the smooth stone which has been transformed from a simple chunk of rock into a work of art.

  Beautiful, murmurs the board-comber. Aren’t they?

  ‘Oh yes,’ replies the bat, ‘quite beautiful.’