Lonely House

by Collins, James

  ‘So how long are you to going to wait around for him?’

  ‘As long as it takes. We agreed to look after the house ‘til he got back.’

  ‘Even if that’s midnight?’

  ‘S’pose so.’

  ‘So, you live nearby?’

  She notices the other boy move his head. He is no longer staring after Lily. He is now looking back at Liam.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So how are you going to get home in the dark, through the woods? I didn’t see any transport outside. And while we’re on that, tell me, how did you get here?’ She gives a wry smile as if to say, I know you’re lying.

  But those emerald eyes just twinkle back at her and she feels a slight thrill. Is he flirting? No, she just wants him to. Green eyes, dark eyebrows, is that a small scar on his forehead? Does that slight imperfection ignite a deeply stored memory? There’s something about this boy…

  ‘Maybe we should go now.’ Pete says.

  It breaks Pam’s reverie and brings a smile to her face. The Irish one might be good at this game but the other one is clearly uncomfortable.

  ‘We gotta stay, Pete,’ Irish says. ‘It’s what William said to do.’

  Lily is still fiddling with the alcohol.

  ‘Lily, your coat!’

  Lily makes some kind of mumbling sound and swishes out to the hall. The dumb boy keeps looking at her.

  ‘No tea for me,’ Myles says, holding up his glass. ‘This old malt is doing just fine.’

  Pam ignores him as she usually does. ‘Well, then,’ she says, and folds her arms. ‘We will all wait.’

  Myles looks at her sharply.

  ‘Really?’

  Irish-boy is clearly not going anywhere, Pam thinks. Perhaps he is meant to be here after all. Perhaps he does know what’s coming. Pam hates herself for not being able to see through this one. She simply doesn’t know if these boys are up to no good, telling the truth, or holding back on the fact that they are part of tonight’s events.

  She sighs inwardly. Okay, so if you can’t get rid of him, let him wait it out and see what happens. Keep a close eye on the pair of them, but this one in particular. If he’s hiding something he will betray himself soon enough. Or his friend will.

  ‘Why not, Myles?’ she says. ‘If that’s what William said to do. I mean, he has to come back sometime, doesn’t he? And when he does, he will be able to take care of this confusion and put everything right. Won’t he, Mister Lamb?’

  Drover nods, and, for a split second, something in his expression betrays his confidence.

  Pam sees it instantly. She knows there is definitely something not right about this situation. The problem is, what?

  Pete knows he is behaving normally and that he hasn’t said anything wrong. He almost called Drover by his real name but Drover stopped him just in time. He told himself off for doing that and tried to help the story along. It’s not a lie, it’s a story, Drover had said so. And, so, Pete is trying really hard to do what Drover had asked and is concentrating as much as he can.

  It’s all going to be fine, he tells himself, though inside his heart is pounding away and he knows that if he carries on telling this story-lie he might well end up on that ghost train with everyone else going down to hell, but he won’t be one of the lucky ones who get to come back up again.

  The nasty looking lady who scares him has stopped talking for a moment and Drover has leant casually back against one of the tables. Pete tries to make himself look just as casual but he is still scared. His eyes flick around the floor, he can’t see any traces of blood. He can’t see any traces of the old man’s body, either. He wonders where Drover might have put it. He doesn’t want to look around the room in case the scary lady sees him and knows he is lying to her. He starts to feel sweat bubbling up on his forehead and wonders what he should do now.

  ‘Lily!’ the scary lady calls out, and the girl with the funny metal on her teeth comes back into the room.

  She has taken off her long coat and underneath is wearing jeans and a jumper. She’s really skinny, Pete thinks. She needs a good meal just like he does. He wonders if the metal in her mouth has something to do with it and then wonders if he will end up looking like her if he doesn’t get to eat soon. And that thought makes his mind flick back to the mess they left the kitchen in. No, it’s okay ‘cos Drover, Liam, went to the kitchen, so he would have tidied that away. And where did he hide the gun? And then he starts to wonder why Drover is calling himself Liam. Is that his real name? Pete realises that it might be. Drover has never told him his real name.

  ‘What?’ Lily stands with her arms folded across her fleecy jumper.

  If Pete looks hard enough he can see her breasts through it. Well, not through it, he’s not got X-ray eyes, but he can see the shape of them under it. He realises he is staring and looks away.

  ‘We are waiting for Grandpa to come home,’ Pam is saying. ‘I want you to wait in here with us. Myles, you should go and make sure the rest of the house is as it should be.’

  She looks at Drover like he was a thief and Pete wants to tell her, no, he’s not a thief, he’s not a murderer either, it was an accident. But he knows he has to keep everything to himself.

  ‘Shall I make some tea and something to eat?’ Lily asks, hopefully. ‘Pete can help me.’

  She smiles at him and Pete feels his face turn red. His insides feel hot.

  ‘No,’ says Pam. ‘You stay in here. You will get to eat later when your grandfather comes back. We have it all planned. You boys can go and make us some tea. I assume you will wash your hands first. Myles!’

  The funny looking man hasn’t moved yet, but she has told him what to do a few times. Pete thinks that he is really going to be in trouble if he doesn’t do as she says. She is like a teacher he once had, horrible and strict. She used to hit him with a wooden ruler if he got questions wrong. He always got questions wrong.

  The man called Myles stands up. He’s quite tall, taller than Pete, and he’s got a bit of a fat tummy, but he is not chubby like Pete. His hair is going grey around the sides and it’s cut short. But he’s got a gentle look on his face, his eyes are light coloured, grey maybe, and he has a permanent smile; it’s the shape of his mouth, friendly. Not like the woman. She looks like she should be guarding wild animals or something.

  Pete copies Drover and leans carefully against a table, trying to look as calm as his friend. He watches as Myles passes his glass to the girl and asks her to pour him another one, ‘With water this time,’ the strict woman says, like she doesn’t approve. And then Myles goes out of the room and Pete can hear him tramping up the stairs.

  ‘You do know how to make tea?’ the woman says, and Drover stands upright.

  ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘The finest you ever had. C’mon Pete.’

  Pete lets Drover go to the door first and then follows him. He knows he has to keep this as normal as possible. At the door he stops and looks back into the room. Lily is looking at the booze bottles and there is no sign of the dead man around that corner of the room. The nasty lady is on the sofa and everything looks fine there. There is no blood anywhere, no sign of the gun. It all looks like a normal sitting room. The woman has switched on some table lights and is glaring back at Pete.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ she says, leaning over to turn on another lamp.

  ‘Sugar, milk?’ Pete says, and he is really pleased with himself as his voice sounds so normal.

  ‘Bring it all,’ she says.

  ‘And biscuits,’ Lily adds, and she is once again looking at Pete intently, and smiling. ‘I’d like something sweet.’

  Pete nods. He tells himself that all he has to do is pretend. Act out one of his stories and all will be well. They came here today to help an old man tidy up his barn. The old man has gone out and won’t b
e back. Nothing else has happened. He thinks it, starts to believe it, and feels a lot better.

  But still, as he looks at the girl, he can’t help feeling that there is something about her that has hooked him. He wants to know more about her. No, he wants to know everything about her. He wants to find time to be alone with her. And he has no idea what it is that is making him feel this way.

  He just knows that whatever it is, it feels dangerous.

  Eleven

  PAM SITS IN THE ROOM biding her time and looks around. Her daughter is mooching about making dewy eyes at the retard as he leaves the room.

  ‘You, sit there and keep still,’ she says with a snap of her fingers.

  ‘Can’t I go and help him?’

  ‘No.’

  She spears Lily with her stare until the girl sits in an armchair, sulking like a wet weekend. She looks at the old clock; its ticking is laborious and steady, the sound is annoying her. No, it’s not the sound, it’s the indecision, the not knowing. If they are burglars they will take the chance she’s just given them and make a run for it. In that case she will let them go. There are higher things at stake tonight. If they stay then she can only assume they know what they are staying for. But they are not family. Maybe they don’t have to be. If only she’d read those books more closely.

  Myles comes back into the room, interrupting her thoughts.

  ‘No problems upstairs,’ he says. ‘I think they’re genuine. But it’s all rather odd.’

  Pam shushes him by raising her eyebrows and flicking her head towards Lily who is pulling pieces of thread from her jumper. Myles comes over and squats down.

  ‘The den isn’t locked,’ he whispers. ‘But there’s nothing in there but the usual stash. Doesn’t look like anything is missing, but, then, how would I know?’

  ‘Did you look in the garage?’

  ‘No.’

  Pam rolls her eyes.

  ‘If he’d been in there he’d have heard us when we pulled up,’ Myles reasons.

  ‘The car? If that’s gone then maybe he is out.’

  Myles nods and gets up. As he leaves the room she wonders what she ever saw in him and then remembers. Tonight. She saw in him tonight.

  Pam, between college and her first job, went back home to see her parents. She had kept her background from the other cadets, played a role and played it so well that no-one suspected she was from a poor family. No-one knew she had been brought up in a back-to-back, two up, two down, with an outside toilet at the back and a front door that opened straight onto the street. She’d lost her accent, she’d worked hard on that, and she’d struggled through school, desperate to get to college and leave the shame of her upbringing behind. Her parents had also struggled and sacrificed, and the strain of working and saving and going without had nearly killed them. When Pam went back to see them that once, they had aged before their time. While Pam had been living a lie at college, they had also been keeping truths from her.

  No money had been spent on decorating the house, no new furniture or clothes had been bought, and not much of dad’s earnings had been spent on food by the way her parents looked, scrawny and underfed. Only the basics were still running in the house; electricity and water were rationed. They cooked on a Primus stove, when they cooked, and every penny earned and saved had gone into Pam’s bank account so she could live and learn, better herself, and get that career.

  She was appalled at how much they’d given up for her. She had had no idea. She should have felt honoured, or proud of them, or loved, but all she felt was shame that she had been the reason for them to live like this.

  But then it got worse. There were more secrets.

  Her father went out to work every day, or at least he said he did. After two days in the house with them Pam became suspicious. She followed him one day, staying out of sight as he walked sadly past the factory gates, keeping his head down, avoiding the eyes of the gatekeeper. She kept back and wondered what was he was doing. Skiving from work?

  He walked to the high street and into the library, and then into the reference section. The room smelled of seldom read books that waited patiently on high, unreached shelves. They had grown old and damp as their heavy leather covers protected once-new, unread words on yellowing pages. The sunlight, cold and grey, came down from high windows, catching dust and thoughtful silence in its rays as it fell far to the floor. There she saw him take a book from a shelf and sit at a table, in a corner, out of the way. He took off his watch and put it in front of him, he placed a sandwich box on the floor beside him, turned on the light and leant into the pages, squinting to read the book. He had gone without glasses so that Pam could go to college and here she was spying on him.

  It all came out that day when she approached him in tears and they sat and talked. Pam felt the cold, unforgiving wood of the table top as they lent close to each other, holding hands. There was a smell of polish in the air. She felt the scratch of her father’s rough skin, the brittleness of his fingers, and she felt wretched. As they sat in that vast room, surrounded by millions of words, they shared a precious few of their own.

  He’d lost his job, they only had the Social for money now, but still they sent her what they could. Every day he came to the library to read while her mother went about her housework, pretending to themselves and the neighbours that he had his job, keeping the same routine, nine to five, keeping up a pretence for themselves and saving money for the daughter they loved.

  After they had spoken, Pam stayed with him all day, and they looked at books together as the time drained away.

  And it was while looking at books from obscure library shelves that she found a story, a legend, a myth that intrigued her. She went back the following day and found other references to this story, and, day by day, started to piece together its history, and then its genealogy. Until, at the end of her visit, she knew she had to find out the truth. After all, she decided, all myths must be grounded in some kind of truth.

  She investigated the ancient story secretly, and, after several years, her investigations led her to believe in an unbelievable truth. Finally, they led her to Myles. From there it was easy to take things further. He was an awkward, unloved, accountant with no romance in his life and certainly no sex. A powerful woman with some kind of wage and a bit of manipulation was all he needed.

  He slipped into her plans as easily as he slipped the wedding band onto her finger. It had been deceit on her part, but she acted it out for the good of her real family the same way her parents had pretended and suffered for her. Now, after enduring nineteen years of marriage, she was on the verge of being able to do what she had always wanted to do: to pay her parents back. Tonight was her night.

  Soon, Pam thinks as she looks at the books on the shelves in William’s bookcase, she can pay them back. She runs her finger across the spines and wonders if there is something in there that would clarify if there should be extra people here. Non-family participants? She doesn’t remember reading about it during her research. Maybe she missed something vital? No, she is sure there’s nothing about it in the books that they snuck away from William’s shelves. Not even when Myles got hold of the book that gave her all the other answers, not even that book had mentioned non-family.

  That was the time when Myles was working from home and Lily was off school. That afternoon he’d rung her and said, ‘Come home, I’ve found something.’ She’d hurried back and he had indeed found the link that had been missing. The rules, the lore, the final outline, but even that was vague. The book laid down what must be done and how to do it, but it didn’t say if there should be others there or not. The images showed other people, for sure, sometimes great gatherings of people, but then they could have been family. Or they could be strangers. The point had never been discussed.

  She growls in frustration and reminds herself that she has
a plan and she must stick to that plan. If the boys are not meant to be here then they are not going to last long when things kick off. If they are meant to be here then all well and good. There is more at stake than a couple of scruffy volunteers.

  Myles comes back.

  ‘The car is here,’ he says.

  ‘Then, where’s William?’ Pam asks, looking up at him as she sits on the sofa. She instinctively reaches for her handbag on the side table, but it is too far away. ‘That’s odd,’ she says, and shuffles forward. She grabs it and rummages through it. ‘Damn. Have you got cigarettes?’

  ‘You left them in the kitchen too.’ He starts patting his pockets, finds a packet and tosses it to her before taking his glass to the drinks tray again.

  Pam notices that Lily is watching him. She thinks far too much of her father. Well, she won’t be thinking that much of him later. She looks at the clock. Time is ticking away.

  ‘Lily,’ she orders, ‘find me an ashtray.’

  Lily’s face lights up. She leaps from her chair and heads to the kitchen.

  Drover looks down the hall towards the front door and then back through the kitchen to the garage door. He’s seen something and it has given him an idea.

  The boys had done as they were told and had gone straight to the kitchen. It was the perfect opportunity for Drover to check that he had cleared everything away. There was no sign of the broken glass. Although there could be questions asked about the window, there was no reason why it should suggest a break in. ‘It was on the list he gave us of things to fix,’ he could say. Or, ‘Yeah, I did that by accident, we’re gunna fix it.’ The room looked as it had done when they broke in, which was, in a word, unused. The bag and the gun were in the tall cupboard and he’d taken a quick moment to shove things in front of them, buckets, a mop, a broom. They were nicely out of sight. He’d taken his shirt sleeve and rubbed it around the door, the window, the lock, anywhere that prints might suggest a burglary, and had then added some ‘realistic’ prints of his own, as if he’d come in through the backdoor after working outside. Everywhere else was fine; it looked like the woman had accepted their story about them being here to work. Even so, Drover kind of knew that she was suspicious and their only way out of this was to act as casual as possible and hope she went away.