The Thief of Broken Toys

by Tim Lebbon

  He dragged a duvet down from upstairs and curled up on the sofa, staring into the flames as the coals caught. There are caves in there! Toby used to shout as he watched the fire, and Ray saw them now, bright glowing caves inhabited by fantastic creatures and a child’s innocent hopes.

  3

  We drift through the storm where no bird dares fly. The sense of being alone is staggering; there are no contrasts between up and down, here and there. Wind surges like angry breaths of forgotten gods, and rain lances through the air. Lightning bursts all around — the gods’ fury given form — and the world shakes.

  Down, floating down onto the village, the life to be witnessed past midnight is different from that during daylight hours. Descending over the full harbour and past seagull shit-streaked rooftops, an old man walks through the warren of streets and alleys. He is making his sad way home after several pints at the Flag & Fisherman. Twenty years ago he went out on a fishing boat with five of his mates, and he was the only one to return. He still dreams of them, especially his brother’s face as the sea took him down, and sometimes in those dreams he remembers other things in the water with them that day. Amorphous, amorous things, waving hair and smooth skin, claws and the insinuation of sharp, sharklike teeth. His name is Duncan, and he can still remember the day they found his friend David’s body. Drowned, the doctors said when they opened him up, but there was no mention of the other wounds on his corpse. No one even seems to remember those other wounds. Duncan drinks alone most nights now, and he knows that many in the village think him mad. He walks home in the darkness, still scared of what the storm might contain.

  As we move away from Duncan, he pauses in the street and looks up into the storm. There’s nothing to see, but still he staggers sideways and leans against a wall. Perhaps madmen can see farther.

  We peer down into a small, overgrown garden, where two teenagers on their way home from the pub are rutting. She’s called Maxine, and as she bends over she clasps her knickers, worried that they’ll drop and get dirty and her mother will see. She’s soaking and cold from the rain, but hot inside. The boy’s name is Flynn. His family has lived in the village forever, and he has some vague idea that he and Maxine might be distant cousins somewhere down the line, but she has a sweet arse and cute tits. He looks around warily, worried about getting caught and eager to get it over with, but he’s had too much to drink, and this might take a while. When he’s older he’ll think back to this moment as the time his life changed, because he’s not using a condom and Maxine isn’t on the pill, and lightning thrashes in a new life.

  Beyond the young lovers, giving them their privacy, the house is not too far away. It’s an old rundown place, great swathes of cement render crumbled from the outside walls by frost. Rachel does her best, but with Johnny run away to Bodmin with that slut Lucy-Anne Woodhams, she’s left here with Ollie, a house that needs maintaining, and two jobs. She can only do so much. She’s sitting in Ollie’s room, the curtains drawn against the storm, a tumbler of whiskey in her hand, legs drawn up under her on the large wicker chair. Ollie is sleeping contentedly in his bed, and Rachel is confused. Her boy has been sick for several weeks now, and the doctors have given her varying diagnoses. Her GP told her that it was tonsillitis, and that sometimes young lads like Ollie can suffer from it badly: fever, terrible sore throat, swollen tongue, vomiting, breathing difficulties. She’s been to hospital with him twice, and the tests have come back indicating he has glandular fever. That worries Rachel, because she had that illness when she was young and its regular recurrence is one of the main things she remembers from her teens. Whatever is wrong with him, Ollie has been home from school for three weeks, meaning that her working patterns at the bakery during the day have been haphazard at best. Margaret the owner is sympathetic, but she’s also said she might have to let Rachel go and have her niece Maxine work the still-busy lunchtime shift. She doesn’t pay much, and if Rachel hired a babysitter to come and look after Ollie for those four hours, she’d end up working them for a little over ten pounds. It’s a problem — so much so that for the last three days she’s been considering contacting that fucking bastard Johnny and begging him for help. But this evening Ollie seemed to suddenly improve, between the time she started dinner and the time they’d finished. His pallor lifted, his eyes grew bright again, his colour returned, and by nine o’clock he wanted to go out for ice cream. If there’d been one place in the village still open at that time, she’d have gone out to buy him a whole tub.

  So she sits watching him now, and the frown is only a little to do with the mystery of his miraculous recovery. Mostly it’s because he is cuddling his old beanie doll, and she disposed of Oswald a few weeks ago when its leg came off and started leaking bean-innards. Now it’s whole again, and so, it seems, is Ollie.

  We move away from Rachel now, back into the storm, because come morning she will have forgotten Oswald and found a measure of happiness again. On to the top of the village, following the direction of the storm, and in a small attic room above the Smugglers’ Inn, a man and woman sleep wrapped together, naked, warm. There are dreams in this room, and Elizabeth opens her eyes and cries out as she hears her dead son’s laughter. The fisherman, Jason, mumbles something in his sleep and cups her breast, and Elizabeth lifts her head and stares through the curtainless window at the storm beyond. She’s breathing heavily, and soon the tears on her face echo the raindrops on glass.

  Back through the village, its secret lives huddled down against the storm, we see and sense other people enjoying or suffering different dreams. There is laughter and sadness, lovemaking and lovelessness. And up past the last of the houses, on the cliffs overlooking the sea, here he is, the man sitting in a small stone shelter working by the light of a fire.

  “Wake up, sleepy bum!” Toby shouted, and Ray smiled as he surfaced from sleep. He could smell fire, and they were camping on the moors, one of their neighbours having already fired up the barbeque for breakfast. “Sleepy bum, sleepy bum!” Toby called, and Ray was stiff and sore. I just love my home comforts, he remembered Elizabeth saying about her ambivalence toward camping, but this holiday would change that.

  Ray opened his eyes, expecting to see Toby kneeling just outside their tent compartment, ready to open the zip and leap onto their airbed. But everything was wrong. The ceiling was too high, and lined with spider webs. The airbed was harder than it should have been, and he wondered whether it had gone down during the night.

  Reality crowded in and Ray groaned. The smell of smoke remained.

  He sat up slowly. Some of the duvet had slipped from the sofa during the night, and he was cold. He’d gone to sleep still naked, the fire roaring in the hearth, but now it was a sculpture of ash, and he saw his breath condensing before him.

  “Damn it, Toby,” Ray whispered, as if his son really had woken him. He stood and walked slowly to the kitchen, pausing with every step to twist and turn the kinks from his limbs and back. He must have slept in the same position all night, and now his body wanted to remain in that shape. He was like the teenager Toby had never become, annoyed at being woken up, eager to remain exactly where he was because nothing outside could possibly be of any interest. Ray had often dwelled upon how the future would have played out, and what sort of a teenager Toby would’ve been. He himself had been a bit sulky and shy, but he’d never given his parents anything to really worry about. He’d been a virgin until nineteen, so there had never been girl issues, only no-girl issues. No drugs, only booze. Ray had always hoped Toby would be as easy to handle, but only in his darkest moments had he ever considered his son no longer being there at all.

  In the kitchen, he slipped on his wet walking boots from the previous night and padded across the slate floor to the sink. Filling the kettle, he looked out on the little garden. Puddles of muddy water lay where he’d once planned a small vegetable patch. Leaves had been blown against the rocky slope that formed the garden’s rear perimeter, sticking there in the wet. The fence, always ricket
y, now leaned at almost forty-five degrees. He’d have to fix that before the next storm came in, otherwise —

  He remembered the old man, the things he’d said, and in the daylight they seemed . . . if not ridiculous, then distant. Unlikely.

  “Weird old coot,” he muttered. He crossed to the fridge, and it was only as he passed the glazed back door that he remembered his nakedness. He glanced out, across the garden at the path that climbed past the house, thinking, Of course there’ll be no one there, it’s early, and it’s my house anyway, whose business is it if —

  The old woman from the shell house was standing out on the path, head tilted back as she laughed at the sky. If he’d opened the door he’d have heard her cackling. Ray quickly covered his crotch with his left hand. The woman continued down the path smiling and shaking her head, and then he heard the muffled crackle and buzz of the Ben 10 watch.

  He froze, watching the old woman turn left and start descending the old stone steps.

  The watch sounded again, as if someone had twisted the face and then slammed it shut on a new monster. That sound had driven him mad on Toby’s fifth birthday, for some reason more than all the other beeps, shrieks and whistles that seemed to emanate from every modern kid’s toys. But of course, the watch had broken. And he’d put it away in that box beneath the bed, promising his son he’d fix it and make it well again.

  Like any kid, Toby had quickly moved on to something else.

  Ray turned around and scanned the kitchen. Maybe it was still in his coat pocket, and the rain had got in and shorted a broken circuit or —

  It buzzed again and he turned back to the door. It was lying on the step outside — the step wet, the watch completely dry. Ray unlocked the door, glancing around quickly to make sure no one else would get an eyeful today, and then squatted to pick it up. He hesitated just for a second, hand an inch away from the watch. I searched for it, must have dropped it, and now . . . He picked it up and went back inside, moving through to the hallway and climbing the dogleg staircase.

  He sat on his bed and stared at the toy. Shook it. Looked for water droplets, any sign that it had spent the night exposed to the elements. But it was completely dry. He lifted the face, turned the dial until another monster was illuminated, then closed it again.

  Maybe the old woman had found it and dropped it on his step. That would explain what she’d been doing there. But she’d been walking down the path from her own home when he’d seen her, not leaving his small sloping garden. And it was broken. The spring fell out. It was incomplete when I lost it, and now . . .

  “Now it’s complete again.”

  And because there was no explanation that made sense, he took the toy back into Toby’s room and left it for a while.

  Washing and dressing, he concentrated on shaving, the bathroom’s décor, flossing, brushing his hair, what he might have for breakfast, what he’d need to fix the fence later that day, and all the while that broken thing was on his mind, fixed now and in the next room.

  Standing on the landing, facing the open door to Toby’s old room, Ray felt more normal and there than he had since waking. I dropped it, someone found it and fixed it and brought it back for me, he thought. Or maybe when it dropped from my pocket, it hit the ground, dislodged something that was . . .

  But there was the spring that had fallen from the toy. And when he’d started back down the cliff path after leaving the old man, he’d felt the lump in his coat, touching it protectively because it was a secret the old man had known. His coat pocket had a clip button on the flap, and it had been securely fastened.

  He could go mad thinking this through.

  The door creaked slightly as he opened it, and he steeled himself for the rush of grief that always awaited him in Toby’s room. But today, the emotions were different. He gasped at the strangeness of things, then sat on Toby’s bed beside a dozen other broken toys. He looked slowly around the room, and wondered where this new feeling had come from.

  He was melancholy rather than sad. Where crushing grief usually compressed his chest and distorted his perception of the surroundings, now there was a cool glow of distance and absence. And for the first time, he could look around the room and see evidence of joy. There on the bookcase was one of his son’s drawing books. He’d become adept at sketching, and could draw animals as well as some kids twice his age. I want to be an artist, he’d said once, and Ray remembered the pride he’d felt at that moment, as if already acknowledging future achievements. In one corner sat a soccer ball, mud still dried into creases and stitches from the last time they’d kicked it around on the field at the top of the village. Toby had been able to kick the ball almost as far as Ray. They’d laughed as they played, and there were many kids who never had that, whose fathers were too busy or distracted or distant. That was a good memory, and though it would not be repeated, Ray felt happy it had happened at all. Toby’s life had been short. But he had been loved.

  Ray leaned forward and looked at the dusty carpet between his feet, watching rosettes of tears drop there. But he was smiling, because for the first time in a long while he heard Toby’s laughter afresh.

  The storm had cleared, blowing itself out during the night, and now the sky was crumbed with the remnants of white clouds. It was still cool, but the weak autumn sun was already drying the paths and streets in random patterns. The harbour was bustling with a bus load of tourists, cameras humming and beeping, faces smiling, heads wearing hats. Ray passed them by and headed into the warren of back streets.

  The bakery was on the corner of two narrow streets. It smelled wonderful, and Ray’s spirits always lifted a little when he approached. The sun peeked over the buildings behind him and reflected from the upper half of the shop’s window, and the lower half was alight with a display of Chelsea buns, cream cakes, custard tarts, fresh crusty rolls, and doughnuts. Part of his reason for coming down was to buy a loaf and a couple of cakes for lunch, but there was another reason. That haunted him, and it seemed to be the only darkness on his mood this morning.

  I shouldn’t be feeling good, because Toby’s dead , he thought. But one thing he and his wife had agreed upon from the beginning — from the start of their new life, not the terrible end of their old one — was that guilt would kill them both. Their son had died of a rare condition no one could have foreseen, and to carry guilt for his death, as well as the grief, would be too much. Acknowledging this had done little to lessen it, however. For the first time today, Ray felt without blame.

  “Morning, Rachel,” he said, entering the shop.

  “Ray! Nice to see you.” And then the question that must always come. “How are you?”

  “I’m doing okay,” he said, smiling. Rachel smiled back. She was an attractive woman, and for years the two of them had conducted what he thought of as distant flirting. But not for some time. He glanced to the rear of the shop where Margaret the owner was unloading loaves from their oven, then back at Rachel. “How’re your buns today?” he asked.

  “Er . . .” she averted her eyes, and he thought, Shit, fool, that’s just clumsy. He was the grieving father, the village’s figure of unbearable, inconceivable sadness. He had a front to project.

  “Soft today, actually,” she said quietly.

  “Then I’ll take four.” They exchanged smiles again and he felt better. Better than ever, he thought. “How’s Ollie? I hear he’s been poorly.”

  Rachel’s son Ollie and Toby had gone to school together. They’d been friends. Sometimes Ray would drive them both to school when he knew Rachel had to start work early at the bakery. It had always been a friendship of convenience; Rachel was distant and preoccupied. Not cold, as Elizabeth had suggested, but complex. Ray saw a lot going on in there.

  “He’s better!” she said. She shook her head, frowning. “One day he’s still in bed, and the doctors . . . they’re just confused. And then last night he woke up, and that was it. Sat up, wanted ice cream, started complaining when I told him it was bedtime.”


  “Ha!” Ray said, genuinely pleased for her. “You can tell they’re well again when they start protesting.”

  “Yeah, right,” Rachel said, then her gaze flitted away again in discomfort.

  “Tell him I say hi,” Ray said.

  Rachel nodded. Frowned.

  “What?” Ray asked.

  “He still doesn’t quite . . . understand. About Toby.”

  “None of us do,” he said. “But that’s okay.” He handed her a five pound note, and nodded at the lifeboat collection box when she offered his change. “Rachel . . . you’ve lived here a long time.”

  “All my life.”

  “Is there an old man living up on the moors, above the cliffs?”

  “You mean on your side of the village?”

  “Yes. Up the coastal path. Only I was up there last night — ”

  “In the storm?”

  “Yeah. I like walking in the dark, it . . . Anyway, I was there and I met an old guy. Really old, like ancient.” And he said things he couldn’t have known, Ray thought, but he did not go that far.

  “There’s nothing up there that I know of, not close anyway. Once you get on the moors, you can walk back as far as the main road. But the going’s tough, and I don’t know of any buildings there. Caravan, maybe? Perhaps he’s a traveller?”

  “Perhaps,” Ray said. He took the bag of bread and cakes she handed over the counter, and just for a second their fingers touched. And then the sun welcomed him outside once more.

  Need someone to share your cakes with , he thought, but he walked away, and the first sadness of the day descended. Previously, through all the grief of losing his boy, Elizabeth’s departure had seemed like just another facet of his new life, not a loss.

  He’d seen her yesterday, in the pub with the fisherman. And he had vowed to move on. Today, things had started to feel different.

  All because of him , he thought, but the idea was ridiculous. He’d met some mad coot walking in the storm, a weird old sod who was probably losing his marbles. And then the next day when the storm cleared and the sky brightened and he felt good, he attributed it to a midnight, rain-swept meeting. “All in my head,” he mumbled, and as a tall, thin woman looked at him, he realized where he was. He’d left the bakery and walked up out of the village, following the single road that curved its way toward the Smuggler’s Inn. He hadn’t been there since Elizabeth left him, and he’d only driven out of the village a handful of times. He shopped here, lived here, conducted his business from home, and passing his wife’s new home always made him feel torn. Now he was walking toward it.