by Ivan B
“Now grab hold of me and I’ll walk you slowly to the next window.” She hesitated and wanted to do it by herself, then felt the sea-breeze on her face. She walked up close to him and put her arms round his chest. They shuffled slowly along the parapet and then he helped Mary slip over the window and she stood on the window ledge inside the hidden room. He said in her ear.
“I brought a step-stool up, it should be in front of you. She turned to face him, he placed her hands under her armpits and somehow they managed to get her down the step-stool. Once she was down he came and stood beside her. She surveyed the room, it was lined with green filing cabinets on one wall and a huge desk on the other with three wooden chairs, she gratefully sat down. The hatch came up directly beneath the table. Robert did a backward mini-jump and sat on the table. Mary continued looking round.
“What is this place?”
He half-shrugged and swung his legs.
“I’ll tell you my guess. This place was built in the 1950s just as the cold-war was starting. I think it’s some sort of war-room in case of a catastrophe, the cabinets seem to be full of plans of every building in Eastburgh and the layout of sewers etc.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I thought they built bunkers for that sort of thing?”
He shrugged again.
“So did I, seems a funny place for a war-room.”
She looked at the window and suddenly exclaimed.
“I never realised those windows were so big before, I can’t stand on my window ledge at home.”
He gave a professional smile.
“It’s a matter of proportion. Your library is more than double the height of a normal room and the shops below must be around one and half times as high; so to keep the appearance right you give the top-story high windows with a reasonably low sill and from the outside it all appears to be in order.”
He jumped off the table and walked over to the door that Mary had ignored, he opened it and there was a breeze-block wall.
“My guess is you come up through the hatch and knock out the doorway and bingo, a fully kitted out war-room.”
He pulled out a few drawers, as he had said they all seemed to be full of plans. Eventually he got to the last cabinet, it was locked.
“Got a jemmy?”
She smiled at the preposterousness of it.
“Always keep one in my back pocket.”
He inspected the cabinet and smiled before manhandling in out from the wall. He then got behind it and tipped it forward, he grimace.
“Can you give the top drawer a sharp tug.”
She grabbed the handle and pulled, the drawer slid open. He let the back of the cabinet drop to the floor, came round, took out the top drawer, which was empty, fiddled with the mechanism inside and the put the top drawer back. He started opening the other drawers. She laughed.
“I shan’t ask where you learnt that trick.”
He shrugged.
“Old war-time cabinet, they skimped on the thickness of the metal sheet, they’re supposed to be screwed to the wall.”
His labours appeared to be in vain as the top three drawers were empty, he pulled out the bottom drawer and both their mouths dropped open. He inspected the contents and counted.
“I make it about two hundred.”
“What are they?”
He picked one of the coins up and handed it to her.
“Guineas, I think that they are gold guineas.”
He returned to look at the drawer.
“Make that four hundred, there’s two layers.”
Mary suddenly shivered.
“Surely no-body in their right mind would leave hundreds of gold coins just lying about.”
He sat down on a chair.
“Surely no-body in their right mind would invent a bomb that could destroy even the biggest city.”
“But surely someone must know they are here.”
He closed the drawer and manhandled the cabinet back against the wall.
“Who knows? I must admit I would have thought that when the cold-war ended they would have been retrieved.”
He glanced around.
“Notice anything else.”
She looked around.
“No.”
“There’s very little dust, the window has a special rubber seal and there’s no air-brick; ventilation to keep the place from damp is via the hatch, it has some small holes drilled in it.”
He suddenly looked at his watch.
“We’d better go back down , I promised the hardware store that I would return the ladder before five.”
She took a deep breath.
“Lead on Macduff, but please don’t throw me over the edge now you know I have a fortune stashed away.”
He chuckled.
“I’ll wait till you’ve made out your will,” and started to help her climb the step-stool, which she did by placing her forearms on his shoulders and using the strength of her arms to take most of her body-weight; it was probably excruciatingly painful for him, but he gave not a single grunt.
After clearing up the books they made their way back downstairs with Mary once again tucking her left arm into Robert’s right elbow. Once in the library Mary sat down to heave a sigh of relief while Robert scuttled up the ladder, closed the window and came down carrying the step-stool. He looked at his watch and moved the ladder over to the other hatch. He scuttled back up the ladder and heaved against the hatch to no avail. He rattled the hatch and then came back down.
“Your not going to believe this, but I think it’s bolted from the inside.”
Mary sat still, her legs felt like jelly for no good reason; she’d given them far more exercise in the past.
“But surely that’s impossible?”
He shrugged.
“Perhaps there’s a way in via the room’s ceiling. Anyway I’d better get this ladder back.”
He expertly closed the ladder and made his way to the escalator, once he was out of sight she pulled out the golden guinea that she had slipped into her pocket. She cleaned it with a tissue and it glittered in the sunlight. She slipped it back into her pocket before he returned. He flopped down in a chair.
“I’ve closed the front door and bolted it.”
She nodded “Thanks.”
He looked at the ceiling, clearly enjoying the adventure.
“Can I come back tomorrow night and try through the roof-space?”
She smiled.
“You can come and try during the day, I’ll just say that you’re an architect doing an inspection, after all most of that is true.”
He grinned.
“Tomorrow morning it is then.”
He stood up and hesitated.
“Have you eaten?”
She carefully considered her answer and decided that they were partners in crime, well not crime exactly, but fellow adventurers.
“No.”
He was clearly undecided.
“But I guess you’ve got to go home and cook for your mum.”
“She’s on holiday with my sisters.”
He suddenly broke into a beaming smile.
“Then may I take you to dinner, or high-tea, or whatever you want to eat?”
Her legs had virtually stopped shaking so she heaved herself to her feet.
“Next door, but it’s strictly Dutch.”
He took on a wounded look.
“I would like to thank you for looking after Josie, she’s rather taken with you.”
She half-smiled.
“Well just this once.”
She turned the escalator off.
“We can go to the restaurant next door through this way.”
He followed her like a lamb being led to the slaughter.
Forty minutes later they started eating their respective meals, she had rice and savoury mince, him a full plate of ham egg and chips plus extra onion rings. They had already practically exhausted their joint range of small talk. Each carefully avoided asking any
questions about the other, specially the burning questions each would like to address out of curiosity. Mary went to take a mouthful of rice.
“Does Josie see her grandparents often?”
Robert swallowed a hot chip
.“Once or twice a year, but they are not really her grandparents.”
Perplexity must have been displayed on Mary’s face because Robert paused his conveyance of food from plate to mouth. He poked out his jaw.
“Shall we try and be real with one another? I’ll try and answer the questions that I think are on your mind and vice versa?”
Mary was slightly taken aback and his direct approach, but nodded. Robert smiled.
“Lets start with the grandparents and Josie’s mother.”
He took a small mouthful of ham.
“Josie’s mum walked out of our lives when Josie was two and a half. We’d met at University and she had studied Egyptology and Archaeology. I went to University slightly late in life as I had spent five years backpacking round the world, so I was happy to get married at the start of our last autumn term. Josie was born the following August, she was not planned and Marcia had serious post-natal depression following her birth. Marcia recovered from her depression and I thought that all was well. Her leaving was a total and utter surprise to me and I’m pretty sure now that it wasn’t planned, but a spur of the moment decision; when she left she took only her handbag and passport; I had to send the rest of her chattels on later. She left me a curt note that said that she was not willing to put her career on hold and was leaving to join an archaeological dig in Cairo. She had the decency to leave a small silver cross on a chair for Josie, but that’s all. I did fly out to see her, but it was a painful and unfruitful meeting.”
Mary was astounded.
“Did she have a breakdown?”
Robert shook his head.
“She had an offer from her old professor and a chance to dig in the sand and she decided that took preference over bringing up Josie. She’s never been back and never contacted Josie.”
He sounded bitter. He ate a chip.
“We divorced two years ago, as far as I know she living by herself.”
Mary watched his face.
“That must have been hard.”
He gave a fleeting smile.
“That is an understatement. I had just joined a practice as a fledgling architect and I had to leave that and work at home to look after Josie. I started my own business drawing plans and gaining planning permission for people who wanted house extensions. It’s not what I really wanted to do, but it brought in the cash.”
Mary pried a little.
“Is that what you still do?”
He nodded.
“More or less. Planning permission has become harder to get in certain areas and more and more architectural practices are contracting out the drawing work as it’s seen as unglamorous. On the other hand since Josie has been at school I have re-forged some links with my original partner and do some slightly more ‘sexy’ work with him.”
He fell silent and she felt that she had to fill the void.
“I had a parachuting accident.”
He gave a self satisfied smile.
“I know.”
Mary was taken aback.
“How?”
He looked mildly embarrassed.
“I checked you out.”
He noted Mary’s expression and hastily continued.
“I was leaving Josie in your care, I didn’t know you from Eve.”
Mary took a deep breath and held back a sharp retort, after all it was a reasonable explanation.
“So what did you find?”
Robert finished off his last chips.
“I put your name in an Internet search engine and came up with a couple of hundred pages, I was quite surprised. They ranged from the magazine article, ‘the girl with a thousand stitches’ to a gory blow by blow description in some special edition of a medical journal about treating people with severe trauma.”
He leant back.
“I also found out that you were the County schools champion for the 200 metres sprint and set a blistering record that wasn’t broken for five years. And that you resigned from the County library service over their policy of allowing pornographic books to be taken out by all ages.”
She grinned.
“But I wasn’t on a pervert’s list.”
He shook his head and leant forward.
“Did you really have a thousand stitches?”
She winced.
“Actually I never counted them, but believe me falling into a pile of glazed flowerpots from a great height wasn’t a bright thing to do. It was actually the sharp edges of the broken pots that caused the most damage, they tore the muscles and tendons in my right leg into shreds and didn’t do much for my left leg either.”
He nodded and gave her a broad grin.
“And the article said that your buttocks were very interesting!”
She gave him a withering look.
“Lets leave my buttocks out of this shall we?” She laughed. “Actually I couldn’t sit down for months and had to lie on a special mattress with holes in the right places.”
The waitress cleared away the plates and he ordered a piece of apple pie; the waitress turned to Mary.
“Usual?”
“Yes please Joan.”
Robert looked at her.
“Bet you come her often?”
She smiled at the repeated joke.
“Often enough.”
He nodded through the wall.
“How long you worked here?”
She thought.
“Just under six years. I came here from the council job; all I know is books and there is no way I could work in a book-shop”
He nodded.
“Because you’d be on your feet all day.”
“Exactly; here I’m at the desk most of the time and on the odd occasion when I am behind the counter there is a cut-down high-stool for me to use.”
Mary flashed Robert a nearly dazzling smile.
“Your turn - tell me about the non-grandparents.”
He chuckled.
“When Marcia left me I saw this article in the local press about this church near me that was offering surrogate grandparents. I contacted them and got put in touch with Grace and Michael, they sort of adopted Josie as their granddaughter. It was all carefully managed and approved by Social Services. It’s been a Godsend. But they moved to Norway to be near their own daughter last year, so Josie hasn’t seen much of them lately, least not in the flesh; they have web-chats at least once a week.”
Mary unconsciously rubbed her left knee.
“With webcams?”
“Of course.”
Mary gave a concerned look.
“What about Marcia’s parents?”
Robert shook his head.
“They didn’t approve of me, didn’t come to the wedding and only saw Josie at her baptism. Marcia said that given time they would come round, we obviously didn’t have enough time for that to happen.”
The pudding arrived and Robert looked at Mary’s plate.
“What on earth is that?”
She picked up a spoon.
“Minced bread and butter pudding. I gained a liking for it when I was in hospital, there is nothing quite like it.”
Robert shook his head in disbelief.
“You can say that again.”
He suddenly looked at her.
“And what do you intend to do with the gold coin you slipped into your pocket?”
Mary laughed.
“Don’t miss much do you? I’m going to take it to Bill the Jeweller down the road for a valuation.”
He nodded.
“Sensible, but then I guess you are always sensible, you strike me as the sensible type.”
She deliberately ignored the comment.
“So what’s it like bringing up a young girl as a male single parent?”
H
e grimaced.
“Difficult. She needs a woman in her life and her non-grandparents are now too far away.”
Mary chuckled and with only half her mind on the conversation replied.
“So what are you doing about it?”
He smiled.
“Talking to you.
Chapter 8
Pardon?
Following Robert’s remark the world seemed to slow down for Mary and the background noise faded away. Robert seemed to be sitting opposite her with an over-smug smile on his face as the rest of the restaurant faded from her consciousness. She gulped for air.
“Pardon?”
Robert went to open his mouth, but she held her hand up.
“Was that a proposal?”
A look of extreme horror crossed his face.
“Good grief no, absolutely not, I was thinking more of you as a friendly aunt.”
Mary’s heart started to beat again.
“So the lady’s not good enough for a wife, but good enough to be a surrogate aunt until somebody better comes along.”
He rolled his eyes in exasperation.
“I didn’t mean it like that! Why do you have to take everything so…”
He didn’t finish the sentence but took a deep breath.
“Let me try again. Josie thinks an awful lot of you, more than any other woman she has come into contact with; you seemed to have naturally bonded. I was just suggesting that it may be good for Josie to get to know you better.”
Mary replied sharply.
“Then I suppose you hope that she’d realise what a bitch I am and lose interest.”
Robert looked appalled.
“I don’t mean it like that at all, your twisting my meaning again. I think it would be good for Josie to get to know you more .”
She tossed her head.
“Because I am sensible.”
Robert sighed.
“Partly, but also because I think you would be good for her; you’ve already done wonders for her self-esteem.”
Mary took a moment to simmer down, uncertain of the cause of her anger. He used the time to re-think his strategy.
“Look, let me put it another way, I want the best for Josie and I thing you are the best.”