‘Do you remember,’ she said slowly, ‘that day I came to your cottage: when Kat was putting flowers in a painted glass jar?’
It seemed a strange question, but, ‘Yes.’ Vaguely.
‘It was red. I noticed it because I made something similar myself in school.’ I smiled blankly. ‘Well,’ growled Anna-Marie, ‘it’s now sitting on that grave over there.’
Oh, that jar. I could see it now. It did look like the kind of thing that a child would make. It was pretty in an arts-and-crafty kind of way with—
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ snapped Anna-Marie pushing me out of her way. ‘Now’s not the time.’
We crept between the graves towards the jar until, less than ten feet away, we caught sight of someone kneeling. She had her back to us but the rust-coloured hair was unmistakable. Anna-Marie and I dipped behind the headstones to lie among the nettles and dandelions. Kat was undisturbed by our movement, her attention devoted only to the grave before her.
We could hear her voice talking in gentle tones: half to herself and half to … No, she was singing.
He’ll return, one summer’s eve, When sun is low, behind the trees.
He’ll sit you down upon his knee, His voice is soft, he’ll sing to thee.
Baby sleep, my baby girl, Dimpled cheek, a single curl,
Music box of gold and pearl, Baby, sleep, my baby girl.
She was arranging flowers—pink roses—in the red jar that now rested in her lap. It was then I noticed that we weren’t the only ones spying on Kat. Butterflies: all around the graveyard, fluttering in the breeze, falling like blossom. I saw them watching. It was like a weight on my chest and I could hardly breathe.
The singing faded away and we peered out to see Kat struggling to her feet. I would have rushed to help if Anna-Marie’s grip hadn’t reminded me of what we were up to. This, after all, was subter … being sneaky. We waited until we heard the clunk of a car door, Kat’s engine whine into life and then a whole minute or more to be safe. I got up, brushed down the grass stains and crept out of our hiding place. As I approached the grave a butterfly came to rest on the rim of the red vase and moved its wings in a slow wave.
‘Peter.’ It was Anna-Marie. I turned around. She was still on the ground but sat up, her arms wrapped about her knees. She shook her head. ‘No, Peter. I don’t want to know.’
And then I got that feeling. You know that feeling you get when someone walks over your grave. Well, I got it right then. It was kind of funny when you thought about it, what with all the graves Anna-Marie and I had actually trampled over.
‘It’s all right,’ I said.
‘No, Peter! Please don’t.’
But I’d already picked up the red jar and was examining it with interest, although I didn’t really know what I was looking for. And then a sudden hand grasped my shoulder.
‘Ha!’ cried the vicar. ‘I knew you two were up to no good!’
The jar slipped gently through my fingers. It fell, turning, reflecting unexpected patterns of light. It took ages to fall and crash upon the ground, but still quicker than my attempts to catch it. We, the vicar and I, watched as the vase shattered into large blades of glass and splinters of dust, exploding in slow motion. The red shards were vivid like my mother’s eyes.
‘Why you little vandal!’ The vicar’s grip tightened. ‘You deliberately broke that vase! Have you no shame? I’ve been watching the pair of you marching over the graves like you own the place. Rearranging flowers! Spying on people! Have you no respect?’
I began to protest but the vicar was too busy shaking his spare fist at Anna-Marie as she escaped over the low, stone wall.
‘Come on, Murphy!’ she yelled from the pavement.
‘Don’t think you can run, young lady. I know you. Anna-Marie Liddell. Oh, yes, I know all about you and I’ll be speaking to Mrs Carpenter about this, don’t you worry!’
He was so agitated that he barely noticed me wriggling and pulling against his tight grip, dragging him with me. And then I tripped, falling as fast and as slow as the red vase. As I did so I glanced in the direction of the other part of the graveyard, you know, beyond the oak tree and saw this jar perched on one of the graves. It was blue with daisies. It looked like the kind of thing a child would make: pretty in an arts and crafty kind of—
And then I saw the grave. The grave where the red vase had sat. The grave where Kat had knelt as the butterflies had watched. And then I saw what was written there.
And I read every word.
And then I scrambled to my feet and followed Anna-Marie as fast as I could, scraping my leg as I clambered over the uneven wall.
And we ran, ignoring both the vicar’s bellowing and the green cross code. Anna-Marie managed to stay ahead all the way along the Nancarrow Road until I caught up with her resting against the sign that read Everlasting Lane. She was clutching her sides, swallowing lungfuls of air when she could.
And then she said, ‘Well, did you see it?’
‘Yes,’ before I could even think of anything else to say.
‘Well, what did it say? Whose grave is it?’
But all I could think of was Anna-Marie dancing. And Alice. Spinning round and round. Reflections of each other. But who was right-handed and who was left? Who was leading the dance and who following?
‘My grandma,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘It’s my grandmother.’
Anna-Marie took a deep breath. And then she laughed. Like a mad person.
‘It’s not funny,’ I said. ‘He’s going to tell Mrs Carpenter.’
But she wouldn’t stop laughing. She laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks. And then the laughter stopped but the tears kept on going.
And when I asked her why she wouldn’t even tell me.
‘After all,’ she said, ‘you know all about secrets.’
But she was wrong. Anna-Marie I mean, when she said I knew all about secrets. I didn’t know anything about secrets. Not really. All I knew was that a secret was like a big sack over your head and so dark that you couldn’t see anything. And when you did finally manage to poke a couple of eye-holes all you really found out was that there was another big sack over the first sack.
But I did know someone who knew about secrets.
18
The pillbox was deserted—although a new handwritten sign warned that Trespassers will be persecuted—so I made my way back to Amberley and pressed my face against the big window at Kirrins’ cupping my hands to keep the sunlight out. The elder Mr Kirrin stood behind his counter like the troll beneath the bridge ready to eat the three Billy-Goats Gruff. And there, down between the aisles, at the back of the shop I could see Kat’s ring winking at me.
To the side of the shop, a wooden gate had been propped open with broken plant pots and sacks of horse-stuff, and through it was an alleyway running down to the back of the building. I slipped down the narrow tunnel and found myself in a backyard cluttered with everything the Kirrin brothers had ever given up trying to sell: broken ladders, rusting tools, rotting vegetables and a large metal drum containing the black ashes of crates and packing boxes.
Here was another door and a small window through which I could peep. Norman was sat at a round table, head in hands, a pencil drumming on the top of his thin hair and before him blank sheets of frozen snow. I scanned the rest of the room but he was alone. I tapped on the glass but as hard as my fingers worked Norman remained still. Perhaps I should have gone. He had told me how much he valued being private and I wasn’t at all sure that I’d be welcome. But I also knew that I had questions and no one, not even Anna-Marie, had come close to pointing me in the direction of the answers.
So I cleared my throat and called out whilst the palms of both hands pummelled the glass between us. Norman fell from his daydream with a start. He stared at me for a moment, eyelids blinking, before he recognised me and leapt to his feet.
‘Good Lord, Peter, was that you?’ he cried as the back door swung
open. ‘What on earth is wrong? I thought Greg must be murdering someone over the price of a cabbage. Here. Come in.’
From the shop, I heard the other Mr Kirrin’s voice: ‘Norman! Norman, I’ve told you: for God’s sake keep the hysteria down ’til closing. We can do without you scaring off the customers?’
‘Sorry, Greg. I erm … I burnt my hand on the kettle,’ called Norman. ‘Won’t happen again.’ And then, ‘No, no, it’s all right,’ he reassured me as I glanced in the direction of the shop-door. ‘Greg knows better than to disturb me mid-flow. Besides, we’ll keep our voices sotto voce. I mean quiet. And if we turn the radio on,’ he did so, ‘he’ll think we’re The Archers.’
Taking my arm, his grip firm, Norman escorted me into the kitchen. He lifted rather than pulled out the chair next to where he’d been sitting and waited until, ‘Right,’ I’d taken my place, ‘what’s your poison? No, no, I mean what do you want to drink? Don’t look so worried. Look, I know, we’ll start with a glass of water.’ He handed me a tissue, his gesture suggesting that I should dry my eyes. ‘We’ll work up to the harder stuff,’ he murmured, ‘if needs be.’
I sipped the water, warm from the tap, from a chipped mug, whilst Mr Kirrin squeaked back and forth across the kitchen floorboards muttering to himself and stealing a peek at me every now and then. Eventually, when I’d stopped shaking he took his own chair and sat down. He took up a pencil and began to sharpen it, unpeeling it like an apple as he waited for me to speak.
But I didn’t
In the end he said, ‘So, to what do I owe this unexpected—though by no means unwelcome—interruption?’ He squinted through his spectacles down his pencil-sharp nose. ‘How is the search going? Have you uncovered your secret yet?’
I nodded and took another sip of water.
‘Really? Excellent.’ He put down his pencil. ‘Ah, but I can see by your face that it isn’t excellent at all.’ He retrieved his pencil and, without ever taking his eyes from my face, began to draw great looping patterns on the empty paper in front of him. ‘Well, can you tell me anything?’ I hesitated. ‘Whilst you mull that over,’ he said, ‘let me just say that I think you and I have established a … a connection. Perhaps you’re too young to appreciate how rare that is. But, Norman, what an assumption! Perhaps, of course, it’s not rare at all for a young man like Peter. But, believe me,’ he murmured his doodles growing ever more complicated, ‘it is a singularly uncommon experience for me. Perhaps it isn’t—’
‘There was this secret room in the cottage.’
He put down his pencil again. ‘Really? How exciting. And have you found out what’s in it?’
I nodded again, unsure as to how much I should tell him.
‘Listen, Peter, rest assured I don’t want you to tell me anything you’re not comfortable—’
‘It’s a nursery,’ I said. ‘A little girl called Alice used to live in it. But I don’t know why it was a secret. Kat kept it locked and there was this big curtain across it. Anyway, we—that’s Anna-Marie, Tommie and me—we found the key and we went in and it was this nursery and so we wanted … Well, Anna-Marie wanted to find out who Alice was so we asked the waitress at the café but she didn’t know and neither did this man in the café who was writing about us and there’s this man Mr Merridew and he said that life was pointless and we might as well be dead or something but then we went to the graveyard and Kat was there and there was this vase and it got broken, although it wasn’t our fault, and the vicar is going to tell Mrs Carpenter about it and Anna-Marie won’t tell me—’
‘Woah, woah!’ cried Norman laughing. ‘Hold your horses, Peter. Goodness me, when you get started … Well, you remind me of someone not a million miles from you right now. I told you we’d made a connection, didn’t I? See, Norman, see. I told you: Peter is one of us.’ He smiled to himself and tore the page on which he had been scribbling from its pad with a dramatic rip. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you’ve certainly been busy. But clarify one thing for me, I’m confused, have you discovered the secret or not?’
I shook my head. ‘Every time we find out a secret it’s like there’s another one.’
‘Ah, I see. ’Twas ever thus.’ Norman bounced his pencil thoughtfully against the palm of one hand. ‘Tell me, Peter, bear with me a moment, but have you ever encountered a game called Consequences?’ I nodded. Well, I’d heard of it. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s have a go,’ and tore the clean page from his notebook. ‘Now, you write a name at the top of this piece of paper and then you fold it over so that I can’t see it.’
He handed me the pencil and my spare hand hovering over the paper so that he couldn’t see, I wrote Anna-Marie. I folded over the page as instructed.
‘Left-handed, eh?’ said Norman. ‘Good for you. Now, I write met and add a name.’ He did so. ‘And now I fold it over again and give it back to you and you write in and add the name of a place.’
I wrote in Everlasting Lane, folded it over and handed it back.
‘My turn,’ said Mr Kirrin. ‘Now I write He said followed by something that he said.’ Once he’d finished writing he returned the paper to me and I wrote She said …
‘I can see you’ve got the hang of it.’
… a secret is like another word for what’s true.
‘Splendid. And finally I write And the consequence was,’ and he completed the sentence with, you know, an exclamation mark at the end. ‘And when we read it out we find: Anna-Marie met Peter in Everlasting Lane. He said, “I have a secret.” She said, “A secret is like another word … for what’s …” ’ Mr Kirrin read to the end before crushing the paper in his hands and popping it into my empty mug. It sat there like a crumpled egg in an egg-cup. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I think you get the point …’ I must have looked unsure. ‘Well, the point is that everything has a consequence. You cannot act—you can’t even avoid acting—without causing other things to happen.’ He took his pencil. It balanced on the palm of his hand. ‘What happens if I drop the pencil?’
‘It’ll fall?’
He turned his palm upside down and the pencil fell to the floor. He leant forward to pick it up. Now he held it in both his fists, his thumbs meeting at the halfway point.
‘Another easy one: what’ll happen if I push up with my thumbs and pull down with my hands? That’s right: get the cogs turning.’
‘It’ll break?’
The pencil broke with a sharp snap.
‘And now a hard one: what will happen if I leave my two pencil halves side by side here on the table?’
‘Nothing?’
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Maybe but you can never be sure.’
I looked at the two half-pencils. ‘What will they do?’
‘They might …’ He hesitated. ‘I can see I might have stretched this particular metaphor to a breaking point of its own. What I’m trying to say is that sometimes we can predict consequences and sometimes we cannot.’
I must have looked doubtful.
He sighed. ‘Look, Peter, you have a choice. Well, you have two choices. Two options, if you will. One: you can forget all about secrets. If you can drive them all to the back of your mind, or, preferably, out of your mind altogether, then do so. Or, two, if you can’t forget, then you must go on, unpicking each secret until you get to the heart. Until you discover the truth. What do you think?’
‘But you said—’
‘I know, I know. You’re quite right,’ he said. ‘I say a lot of things, but …’ and then he muttered, ‘Oh, Norman, you’re skating on thin ice here. Why should Peter listen to you? Why should he learn from your mistakes? Why should you, Peter? Listen, do you remember when we first met and I told you a little about my secret?’
I did.
‘Then let me tell you a little more. When I was a young man I was in the army. I wasn’t alone, of course. There was a war on after all. I knew a girl and I loved her very much. She loved me too, I think, but she didn’t want to marry a soldier. Why should she? It was a terrible time. It m
ust be hard for you to imagine what it was like. When you watch the movies, well, you always know how it’s going to end, don’t you? Of course you do. We emerge victorious. Hurrah! Hitler’s defeated. Mussolini too: strung up on a lamppost. And, what’s his name, the Japanese fellow: Hirohito.
‘But what was it like then? Have you ever wondered? We didn’t have the comfort of knowing how it would end. It wasn’t like that. Wouldn’t we all have liked to shriek at the silver screen, “Come on, Mr Projectionist! Skip to the last reel! Let’s find out how this nightmare ends!” It wasn’t like that to live through, Peter—like the films is what I’m trying to say. We didn’t know what people know today. We didn’t know it was going to be all right. We didn’t know we were going to win. Or even that it was ever going to end, no matter what Mr Churchill said. Let me tell you, Peter, that kind of life,’ he said, ‘that kind of existence, well, it leaves its mark.’
Norman removed his glasses and buffed them on the corner of his sleeve. Without his spectacles his eyes seemed larger, the opposite of Mr Merridew, but they were kind eyes surrounded by a flurry of tiny wrinkles.
‘You were in the army, Norman. North Africa and Italy. Do you remember?’ he said in that way that made me feel like I wasn’t really there. ‘Remember?’ he exclaimed. ‘I can still taste the sand between my teeth.’ He picked at them as if he’d been eating raspberries. ‘Oh, and the heat,’ he went on. ‘Each day, Peter, someone would wake us up and we’d polish our rifles and whatever else we had to do for King and Country and we would go out to face the world. And each morning as you looked out on the desert or across a valley you wondered whether you’d still be alive to see that same sun go down or whether you’d be … I knew a lot of men, Peter, decent men from all over the country: Merseyside, London (‘All right, Guv’nor?’), Geordies, Scotland who died in places they’d barely heard of. Imagine that: six years of going to bed never knowing what tomorrow would bring.’
I had never heard anyone talk about the war like that. Certainly my dad had never spoken about it. It all seemed such a long time ago and yet here I was talking to someone who had lived through it, with memories so sharp that to him it must’ve seemed like yesterday. And then I thought about my father. It must’ve been the same for him, of course: getting up in the morning, going to work, even as he lay there dying the war, the whole war, must have been in the back of his mind—and maybe not so far back. And as he stood there washing his car or, later, lying in bed gasping for breath listening to me running around in the garden taking pot-shots at German trees, what must he have thought?
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