The Father's House Read online

  Upstairs Maria carried the tray over from the dumb waiter and set it down on the table. She winked at Claudia.

  “Sarah is a wonderful cook,” she said. “You’ll enjoy the food while you’re here.”

  “I’m so glad you persuaded me to think over what the priests said.” Claudia spoke clearly, but stopped for a moment to stifle a little laugh. “I was so unreceptive at first, but I think it was because I was still in shock from finding myself here. Now that my mind has cleared, I can see the logic of what they say. We really do need a new order to this world. All the corruption that goes on is quite shocking.”

  Maria smiled, and nodded her head. Down below the father thought Aha! So the Holy Leaders had trouble with this girl, but now all was well. She was beginning to see the light, thanks to Belinda. What an amazing lady! Too honourable to pretend to believe when she could not, yet she was prepared to support others who might be able to do so. If only she herself could be persuaded. She would be a prized convert after so many years of doubting, and would ensure him a position at the Holy Envoy’s right hand.

  The voices floated back and forth. “Father Copse is very kind to me,” Belinda was saying. “So generous.”

  Claudia’s response was clear. “He’s certainly very handsome. I’m looking forward to getting to know him better.” The music became louder and smothered the splutter of laughter.

  Putting aside his financial problems and his promotion aspirations for a while, the father felt satisfied with his lot, and with himself. He switched off the sound. There was nothing there to disturb him, though it might be wise to remove their music player just in case it drowned anything he needed to hear. If all went well Claudia might produce a child fairly quickly and then she could be passed on to the commune as a convert. The Holy Envoy might even increase his expenses.

  One day in the middle of July a rumour swept through the school that Dorothy had been caught.

  “What happened?” Lucy asked David in the playground as she handed back the ball he had kicked in her direction.

  He answered hastily in a hoarse whisper. “They say she went to the police, but one of them was an infiltrator.” He ran off with the ball and Lucy joined a game of rounders.

  When they came out of school that evening he muttered as he passed, “The aunts are saying she might have to be disposed of.”

  Lucy’s skin crawled. She stopped on the steps. “If anyone asks,” she said quietly, “say we’re talking about the homework.” David nodded and took a maths book out of his satchel and opened it up between them. Most people had gone home already.

  “Can we find out where she is?” asked Lucy quietly. “Perhaps we can save her.”

  “I listen to the kitchen aunts every night,” David whispered, “except when there’s a risk I might be seen. I shall just keep listening. At the moment even they don’t know where she is. She’s probably in the upper rooms of some other commune.”

  “I could get out through the coal hole in the middle of the night and go and look for her.”

  “No. You’d never find her. We’ll certainly know if she gets taken to the disposal cells because they’re just behind Drax House, and the kitchen aunts will have to take her food and they’ll be gossiping about it non-stop. Until she’s taken there we’ll know that she’s alive.”

  Lucy was gripped with fear for Dorothy. She couldn’t eat her supper, and her homework was a meaningless scribble. “What’s the matter with you?” asked Aunt Sarah in exasperation. “You’re shuffling around like a zombie, and you’ve not uttered a word all evening.”

  “Sorry, Aunt Sarah,” mumbled Lucy, and made an effort to pull herself together. She changed the subject. “Why does the father live upstairs?”

  “He wants peace and quiet, like all men.”

  “We don’t make a noise.”

  “No, but men have very important things on their minds, so they find women and children a nuisance unless they’re out of sight.”

  “Why can’t I go with you when you go into his flat?”

  “Because it’s private. Now don’t ask any more silly questions.”

  Lucy risked one more question. “Will I be allowed to earn money when I’m grown up?”

  “No. Your place will be in a commune. You’ll be taught all the skills and, if you listen to what you’re told, you might be a really good cook like me.”

  So what Dorothy had said was right. A lot of the things that Dorothy had said seemed to be true. Lucy wouldn’t be allowed to leave. She would never have the money to take a bus to the outside world. As for being a good cook, so what? The meals that went up on the dumb waiter certainly looked and smelled as though they had been prepared by a really good cook, but the food that went on her plate didn’t, nor did the food on Aunt Sarah’s plate. In fact Lucy often wondered how Aunt Sarah had grown so fat.

  Tonight was Wednesday, prayer evening. After supper Sarah and the two children tidied themselves up and walked across the common. They emerged into South Hill via the little lane, just up from George’s house. As always, Lucy hoped George wouldn’t see them passing or, if he did, that he wouldn’t shout anything about snoots or nutters. There was no sign of him thank goodness, and they marched purposefully down to the lights, over the junction and up the High Street.

  Copse House was on the right, a few hundred yards up the hill beyond the shops. Drax House stood almost exactly opposite, and behind Drax House were the woods where Aunt Sarah had sometimes taken Lucy to play when she was little. Tonight the prayer meeting was to be in Copse House, and all the aunts and children from both communes would gather together.

  Aunt Sarah loved visiting Copse House. It was her one and only social event. The men would be holding their prayer meeting in the school building tonight because they had important business matters to discuss. They would finish much later than the women and children, so there was plenty of time for Sarah to gossip with the aunts and for Lucy to play with the children.

  The Copse boys were circling round and round the tarmac parking space on their bikes, showing off as they rode with no hands or on one wheel. The girls were not allowed bikes. Tonight they were skipping and playing hopscotch, and Lucy joined in. Now that they were not in the school building some of the girls made her feel welcome, and if she hadn’t been worrying about Dorothy she could have felt happy.

  “It’s more fun living in the commune,” she said to Sarah on the way home.

  Sarah was offended.

  “You should be grateful for what you’ve got,” she snapped.

  “Yes, I am,” said Lucy humbly, “but they’ve got each other to play with.”

  “They’re probably jealous of your life, all the attention on you and Paul.”

  “Yes, I expect so.”

  “You don’t know how lucky you are,” said Aunt Sarah after a moment’s silence. “I was brought up in a commune. You can’t imagine how hard it was.” She shook herself briefly. “I suppose it was all for the best.”

  Lucy was irrationally surprised to hear that she had had a childhood.

  Paul was grumbling about having to walk so far.

  “It’ll make you strong,” said Sarah. “You don’t want to grow up a weakling, do you?”

  “Aunt Sarah?” ventured Lucy. “Do you think I would be allowed to have a bike?”

  “Never!” exclaimed Sarah. “Of course not! Decent ladies don’t ride bikes.”

  On Wednesday nights the father would call in on his way back from the prayer meeting to hear Sarah’s weekly report on the children’s behaviour. Lucy had decided that in preparation for her birth-record-finding plans, she was going to note carefully the details of these visits.

  The father never entered the ground-floor flat by the front door. He would stride up the side path past the garage, past the kitchen window and into the lobby. Lucy would listen as he first unlocked the outer door to the lobby, and then the door to the kitchen. He would stand in the doorway, tall and fiercely handsome with his shining black h
air and eyes like smouldering coals, putting questions to Aunt Sarah and giving her instructions. She would respond respectfully with a minimum of words, because men didn’t like talkative women.

  Sometimes he would call Lucy and Paul to stand in front of him so that he could have a good look at them. He rarely spoke to them, or asked them to speak. Then he would leave, locking the door behind him. Lucy would listen to his footsteps going through the lobby and up the stairs to his flat on the first floor. She would hear him unlocking his own front door and closing it after him.

  Tonight, as soon as she saw the father pass the window, Lucy got up from her chair and, as casually as she could, positioned herself so that when he entered the kitchen she could see past him into the lobby. As the door opened she could see the stairs that led up to the upper flats, and the outer door of the lobby with its three bolts. She had passed that door on the outside many times when she took rubbish to the bins round the back of the house or played in the garden, but she had never thought much about what lay inside it. Now it intrigued her, and she studied it with interest. It was solid oak with small coloured glass panels at the top, and there was no letter box even though it was the front door for the first and second-floor flats. Not only did it have three bolts, but there were two keyholes.

  It was obvious that Lucy would never be able to get into the lobby from the outside door. If she only had the key to the kitchen door and, of course, the key to the upstairs flat, it would be simple. She imagined herself nipping up those stairs in a tick, finding her birth record lying on the desk open at the right page, and running off to catch a bus with Paul under her arm.

  “Why doesn’t the postman ever go up the side path?” Lucy asked Aunt Sarah when the father had gone. “Doesn’t the father ever get letters? Even we get letters – from the school or telling us when to put the rubbish bins out.”

  “He gets all his letters addressed to his work, I expect,” said Sarah. “Men don’t like to be bothered with business in their own home.”

  “What’s so special about men?” asked Lucy.

  “It’s the Holy Order of things.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  The evenings were light and Lucy lingered longer on her way home. The tea would already be laid out when she arrived, but Aunt Sarah was often too busy to eat with her and Paul. She seemed to be finding her work more and more difficult. Occasionally Lucy would hear her grumbling to herself about having to wash and cook for so many people upstairs and downstairs, followed by a muttered prayer for forgiveness.

  Sometimes, when Lucy dawdled up South Hill, George would be swinging on the front gate at number 38, watching the traffic or calling out insults to any of his friends who happened to pass.

  “Hello, snoot!” he shouted one evening as Lucy approached. “You need a nutcracker to crack all those nutters.”

  A large ginger cat was sitting on the gatepost next to him. Lucy stopped and looked over her shoulder. There was no-one watching her.

  “Is that your cat?” she asked.

  “Yes, and his name is Marmalade, Marma for short.”

  He turned to stroke the cat and made a purring noise right into its face. It turned its head away.

  “Actually, he’s not just mine. He belongs to me and my sister, but I’m older so he knows me better.”

  Lucy put her hand up to stroke Marma.

  “He’s beautiful,” she said. “I’d love to have a cat.”

  Marma purred.

  “What’s your sister called?”

  “Elizabeth.”

  “I’ve seen her. In the pushchair.”

  “Yeah, well I’m lucky because I live in a normal family, not in a sect with a bunch of nutters.”

  “I don’t live in a sect,” retorted Lucy sharply. “I live in a private residence. And as you’re so clever, Mr Clever Clogs,” she added, nipping round behind the gate, “perhaps you can tell me something.”

  Her unexpected foray into his territory silenced George for a moment.

  “I want some information,” said Lucy hurriedly, huddling down into a hydrangea bush. “And I want sensible information, not some stupid remark.”

  George gaped. This was trespass.

  “I want you to find out how to get at a key if it’s left in the lock on the other side of the door.”

  He looked at her so blankly she wondered if he had understood.

  “Like burglars,” she added.

  “How would I know that?” he said, racking his brain for what he had seen on television.

  “Your dad,” said Lucy earnestly. “You can ask him.”

  “My dad’s not a burglar!”

  “Of course he’s not, but you said he knows everything. You must ask him, but don’t say why. Just say you’re writing a story for school or something. When he tells you, write it down as though you’re taking notes, otherwise you might get it wrong. I’d like the information on paper please, so you can pass it to me as I walk past looking the other way.”

  Lucy was surprised at her own authoritative tone. She sounded just like Aunt Ann who taught them English.

  “What’ll you give me for it?” asked George.

  “I can’t give you anything, because I don’t own anything. But one day you’ll get your reward.”

  Remembering Aunt Sarah’s oft-repeated promise she chanted, “If you act righteously now, your reward will be great.” She stopped herself from saying it would be great in the next world, but added, “It will be great sometime in the future.”

  George pondered over her strange request. Perhaps she wanted to be a burglar, he thought, in which case she might steal something wonderful for him as a reward. That would be exciting but, after some consideration, he hoped it wouldn’t happen because his mother would be sure to find out.

  “OK,” he said, “but I don’t want any stolen goods or I might be put in prison.”

  Lucy laughed. “Of course not! When can you get it?”

  “I’ll try and get it by tomorrow.”

  “Thanks.”

  Lucy peeped through the bars of the gate and looked up and down the road. Then she slipped out onto the pavement and ran up South Hill.

  The next day was Wednesday. George was not at the gate. Lucy didn’t wait in case she was seen by some old busybody turning up early for the prayer meeting.

  That night, after she and Paul and Aunt Sarah had arrived home from Copse House, Lucy was putting away her books when she saw the father’s tall figure pass the window. A moment later he was in the kitchen, and the door to the lobby was wide open. Aunt Sarah was saying something about “not enough time in the day,” her eyes downcast and her hands clasped together.

  “Then make time!” he thundered.

  “Yes, Father,” replied Sarah with a meekness that contradicted the high purple colour in her face and the downward glare of her eyes.

  Lucy watched unnoticed, afraid to move. The father was horrible to shout at Aunt Sarah. Lucy looked past him through the open door into the lobby, and up the stairs that led to his apartment.

  When he had gone Aunt Sarah looked upset. Lucy wondered if she dared to ask what it was she had to make time for.

  Sarah was muttering to herself.

  “What’s the matter, Aunt Sarah?” asked Lucy nervously.

  Sarah let go of her usual stern expression for a moment, and even looked resentful.

  “I can’t do everything,” she said, almost to herself. “Look after him, two children, two tenants, do all the cooking, washing, shopping, and now he wants me to clean his flat because Martha’s got a bad back.”

  “I’ll help you,” said Lucy promptly.

  “You’ve got school,” said Sarah, “but you’re a good girl. Thank you. You can help in the holidays by looking after Paul for me, and doing some shopping.” She sighed. “I must look upon it as a duty performed in the service of the Magnifico.”

  She sat down at the table and put her head in her hands.

  “I’ll make you a cup of tea,”
said Lucy, putting on the kettle. “And I’ll give Paul his bath.”

  When Paul was in bed Lucy stepped out into the garden. It was a lovely evening. She sat on the swing and gently pushed herself back and forth with her feet. The side gate clicked and she thought for a second of the hooded figure, but it was only Thomas.

  “Hello,” he said. “Shouldn’t you be in bed, or doing your homework or something?”

  “No, I’ve done it, and I don’t go to bed till nine o’clock nowadays because it’s so light.”

  She jumped down and joined him on his way to the garage. A rolled-up cigarette dangled from his lips dripping loose wisps of tobacco. It reminded her of the chauffeur on the night the new tenant had arrived. She realised to her surprise that she had never mentioned that night to him.

  “Why have you come so late?” she asked.

  “I’ve just finished my shift at the hospital. Today it was sad work because somebody died. A bit of gardening will help take my mind off it.”

  Lucy stroked his hand. “Poor Thomas,” she said. She wished she could comfort him.

  She followed him into the garage. Picking up his torch from the window sill near the door, he went over to the shelves at the rear. He switched on the torch and shone it into his toolbox, poking around for a screwdriver and a hammer, and other bits and pieces. Lucy stood beside him, watching with interest.

  “What’s that for?” she asked, when he picked up a small tool with a round wooden handle and long piece of pointed metal.

  “It’s an awl, for making holes where I want to put screws.”

  Stumbling over some old tins of paint he made his way back towards the entrance. It was surprising, thought Lucy, that he kept the garden so tidy and yet the garage was always in a mess. He put the torch back on the window sill, and threw the tools down onto a pile of sacks near the door. His working anorak hung from a hook in the corner by the window. He pulled it on and hung up his respectable jacket in its place.