The Father's House Read online

  Lucy burrowed in the back of the cupboard and found a clean bag. Sarah sat down for a moment to catch her breath, and then took out the old bag and inserted the clean one.

  “Take this out to the bin please,” she said handing the full bag to Lucy.

  Trying not to breathe in the dust, Lucy took the bag and ran out through the back door and round the back of the wing to the bin. When she returned Sarah was washing her hands and muttering to herself. Sitting down while she dried them she took some deep breaths and then, making a huge effort, she heaved herself up, grabbed the hoover and left the kitchen, shutting the door behind her.

  There was no locking sound.

  Lucy stood with her ear to the door and listened as the vacuum cleaner clanked its way up the stairs once more. She tried the handle cautiously. The door opened. Lucy peeped round it and saw that the key was still in the lock. She craned her head towards the stairs, and could hear the father’s front door being unlocked, opened, and shut.

  She stepped out into the lobby and, holding her breath, she strained her ears for sounds. There was nothing except for the occasional clunk of furniture being moved out of the way. The blood pounded in Lucy’s ears. She dashed back into the kitchen and grabbed Paul gently and gave him a hug.

  “You stay here and play with the farm,” she said. “I’ve got to go out for a minute. Be a good boy. I won’t be long.”

  She crept into the lobby closing the kitchen door quietly. The stairs were wide and thickly covered in a rich crimson carpet. Lucy tiptoed onto the first step and then the second, and waited. She could hear the hoover getting into its stride. Despite the carpeting, some of the steps creaked. Stepping as lightly as she could to lessen the sound, she ran nimbly up the stairs onto a big square landing. The walls were panelled with dark brown wood, and red velvet curtains hung each side of a long stained glass window. Behind a highly-polished mahogany door the vacuum cleaner roared away. It stopped for a second. Lucy was poised to flee but there was a thud as though Aunt Sarah had given it a good kick, and it started again.

  Checking around her Lucy could see that if she needed to hide the only place would be behind the curtains. To the right of the front door were the stairs to the second-floor flat, but there would be no point in hiding up there because Aunt Sarah would get back to the kitchen before Lucy and lock the door, and she’d have to knock to be let in.

  The vacuum stopped again. Sarah said something crossly to herself. There was a clattering of dishes, and then a muffled trundling noise from somewhere behind the panelling to the right of the landing. Lucy recognised the sound of the dumb waiter. It went downwards, and she could faintly hear its familiar thump as it landed in the kitchen.

  Just as she was wondering if she had time to run up the next flight of stairs to have a look, Lucy heard the vacuum being dragged across the floor. The door opened and she was rooted to the spot. Aunt Sarah’s figure appeared side-on as she bent down to pick up her bag of brushes and dusters.

  In a split second Lucy slipped behind a curtain and held her breath. Her mind raced. There was no way she could get back to the kitchen before Aunt Sarah. She didn’t dare look round the edge of the curtain, and only hoped it would muffle the sound of the blood thumping away in her ears.

  There was some more muttering and banging, and the vacuum cleaner knocked against the stairs. It was going upwards.

  Dizzy with relief Lucy peeped out and saw an ample behind proceeding up the next flight. There was a turning at the top, but Aunt Sarah didn’t look down. She was hot and sweating and cross. With a final lug of the machine she moved out of sight onto the upper landing.

  Darting over to the big mahogany door, Lucy put her eye to the keyhole, but could see nothing except light from a window and part of an armchair. She turned and ran down the stairs to the kitchen two steps at a time. Paul was crying. Shutting the door quickly behind her, she threw herself onto a chair and pulled him onto her lap.

  When Sarah eventually came down with her equipment she realised she had forgotten to lock the door. She muttered something to herself, but the scene before her was peaceful, and she turned the key behind her with a puff of relief. The children seemed to be playing cheerfully with the farm set, and she didn’t notice Lucy’s burning face. She put the vacuum away, washed her hands, and put the kettle on.

  “We’ll all have a cup of tea and a biscuit as a treat,” she gasped as she sat down heavily. “You’ve been such good children.”

  “Thank you, Aunt Sarah,” said Lucy. “I’ll make the tea. You have a rest.” She put Paul down and started to bustle about with the mugs and the milk.

  “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” said Sarah. “You’re a good girl. I’ve brought you up well.”

  “Lucy left me on my own,” said Paul.

  “I had to go to the bathroom.”

  “Well,” said Sarah, “he’s got to learn to be on his own sometimes. The father said so.”

  She sank back into her chair and closed her eyes, and added somewhat bitterly, “And his word is law.”

  The rain stopped and the next day was fine and warm. Lucy and Paul went over to the common. They could see some of the children from the Drax and Copse communes playing far away over on the other side, near the backs of the houses where George lived. Perhaps Dorothy was there. Lucy searched for the mop of black curls, though she knew it was too far to tell one child from another. She was permanently anxious, but always hoping that Dorothy would reappear one day as cheerful and cocky as ever.

  She and Paul stayed within their permitted area near the front of the house. They kicked a ball for a while, and then Lucy showed him how to do handstands. When he had mastered the skill of not collapsing as his feet left the ground they went through the bushes to the pond. They found suitable sticks and lay down on their stomachs to poke at the muddy water and disturb its interesting residents.

  “See that? That’s a water boatman.”

  “Where’s his boat?” asked Paul.

  “His feet. That’s his boat. They keep him afloat.”

  “Hi, Lucy.”

  Lucy rolled over and looked up. A pair of wiry brown legs appeared, topped by scruffy blue shorts, and David pushed through the bushes with his bike. Lucy noticed that his knees were grazed and guessed that he’d probably fallen off doing tricks.

  “Hello,” she said. “I was looking to see if you were over there.”

  “Yes, I saw you.” He leaned his bike up against a rhododendron and squatted down beside them.

  “I wanted to tell you something,” he said. “It’s important.”

  He reached around to find a stick of his own, and started to poke at the water.

  “I’ve heard something. The aunts were talking. I was hiding where Dorothy used to hide.”

  Lucy felt the sickness of fear at hearing Dorothy’s name.

  “I heard the aunts say that our Father Drax and your Father Copse…”

  “Not my father, just the father,” Lucy intercepted.

  “Yes, I know you don’t like it, but he is your father, so listen. Don’t interrupt.”

  “But what about Dorothy?” Lucy was impatient. “Have you heard anything?”

  David’s eyes clouded over with despair. “Nothing.” For a moment he forgot what he had come for. Lucy’s anxiety turned to impatience.

  “Well, what’s the important thing you wanted to tell me?”

  He swallowed. “This isn’t to do with Dorothy. It’s something quite different – about you.”

  Lucy sat upright and stared, and David continued.

  “I heard that Father Drax and Father Copse are deadly enemies and rivals for the Holy Envoy’s favour. They both want to be the Holy Envoy’s deputy when this one retires.”

  “Oh,” said Lucy, turning back to the pond. “Is that all?”

  She wasn’t particularly interested in what the father wanted, or what his enemies wanted, unless it meant he would be going away. It was Dorothy who was important, no
t the father.

  “No, that’s not all. There’s going to be an election for the Deputy Envoy post, and whoever wins it will get the job. The Holy Leaders will have one vote each, and the Holy Envoy will have ten votes on top of that.”

  “Won’t they notice over there that you’ve gone?” asked Lucy, waving her hand towards the other side of the common.

  “I doubt it. There’s no-one supervising. The aunts have all gone to a prayer meeting, and Matthew had to go to the dentist.”

  “I’m sick of prayer meetings,” said Lucy, trying to catch a stickleback with her bare hands.

  “I got a fish,” said Paul as a silver streak slipped through his hands and escaped. He leaned too far after it and would have fallen in if Lucy hadn’t grabbed his shirt.

  “Careful, you silly boy! Aunt Sarah will be cross if you get wet.” His rolled-up sleeves were already soaking.

  “Listen to me,” said David crossly, “and let me finish. You’re being really annoying today.”

  He pushed his fair hair out of his eyes and lowered his voice. “What I wanted to tell you was not to trust anyone. I don’t know what’s going on, but there’s something. They were saying that Father Drax wants to find out things about Father Copse that’ll make him look bad to stop him from being elected. It’s called discrediting him. And one of the things they said was that if you do something bad that could be used to discredit Father Copse.”

  “Me?” Lucy shot bolt upright, her eyes wide with astonishment.

  “Yes. They said you’re not as innocent as you look because you were seen talking to Dorothy, and if you can be lured into doing something to bring shame on Father Copse it would damage his chances in the election. Like when you had the guidance.”

  Lucy felt a rush of shock. Then she stood up, flushed and angry.

  “Are you saying you deliberately sang those words to make me laugh just so I could be punished?” She hauled Paul to his feet.

  “No, no, of course not, but it could well have put the idea in Father Drax’s head, and if it did I’m really, really sorry.” He grabbed her arm. “Please don’t go. I was singing those words because Matthew dared me, that’s all. It wasn’t meant to make you laugh, and it was nothing to do with the fathers. I didn’t even know they were rivals at that stage. Honest. I would never have done it if I’d known.”

  Lucy shook his hand off her arm

  “It was you who told me not to trust anyone,” she said. “How can I trust you? Come on, Paul.”

  She stalked off pulling a grumbling Paul behind her. David left his bike and ran after her.

  “Why are you so unreasonable?” he almost wailed. “Why would I have warned you if you couldn’t trust me?”

  “To make me not trust someone else who really is my friend?”

  Tears of despair filled Lucy’s eyes. She had thought she had two friends as well as Thomas. Dorothy had gone, and now she couldn’t be sure of David.

  “Why does nothing happy ever happen?” she said sadly. “All I want to know is where they’re hiding Dorothy. I don’t care about Father Copse or Father Drax and their silly job.” Holding Paul’s hand firmly, she crossed over the road towards the house.

  David sighed. It wasn’t just that he felt permanently guilty that she’d had the guidance, it was that he had really been getting to like her. She spoke to him easily these days, and occasionally her face would light up so brightly that he could almost see inside her mind, but then someone or something would interrupt them, and the invisible wall would descend again and it was as though she wasn’t there. Now that she was being irrational he wasn’t so sure that he liked her after all.

  He fished his bike out of the bushes and rode sadly back over the bumpy grass until he found the path. Dorothy was somewhere. She had been right about needing a friend he could trust in an emergency, but he needed that friend to trust him too.

  Lucy and Paul went through the front gate, turned left under the laurel arch into the driveway, and past the garage into the back garden. Thomas was there, cutting the lawn with the ride-on mower. He gave Paul a ride and Lucy pushed herself slowly back and forth on the swing. She wondered if she should tell Thomas what David had said just so that he could say “What rubbish!” and put her mind at rest. She wished she knew how to run away without waiting for the birth record. All the possible problems jiggled about in her mind – how to find food, where to sleep, how to keep Paul with her, and most worrying of all, how to avoid the infiltrated police.

  “What’s troubling you, young lady?” asked Thomas, handing Paul over to her and popping a fruit gum in her mouth at the same time. “Have you been having any climbing adventures lately?”

  Lucy looked at him for a moment, loving his kind face and gentle smile.

  “No. I’ve stopped that. I was really scared the tenant would complain about me, but she didn’t. I’m not risking it again.”

  “Very wise,” said Thomas. “You have the wisdom of a Queen Solomon.”

  He pulled a very wise and serious face and Lucy laughed. Thomas could be funny sometimes. It was good to be able to laugh. Aunt Sarah was never funny, and the father was just terrifying.

  “Thomas,” she said. “Do the fathers ever quarrel?”

  “We’re all human,” he said. “Everyone falls out with someone now and then. But I’ve not heard that the fathers quarrel. It wouldn’t be appropriate. They’re supposed to set us all a good example. What made you ask?”

  “Someone told me that Father Drax and Father Copse are rivals because they both want the same job.”

  “Who told you that?”

  Lucy hesitated. It would not be fair on David to say his name. She fell back on one of Aunt Sarah’s expressions.

  “A little bird.”

  Thomas laughed.

  “And you can’t tell me who the little bird is?”

  “Not really,” said Lucy.

  Thomas looked disappointed.

  “Can’t you tell a friend a secret?” he asked, popping another sweet in her mouth.

  Lucy didn’t want to hurt his feelings. It might seem as if she didn’t trust him. On the other hand he might say something to David if he knew, and she didn’t want to get David into trouble.

  “I’ll have to ask her permission before I can tell you,” she said deviously, “because she told me in confidence.”

  “How soon can you ask her?”

  “It’ll have to be when school begins.”

  “OK. But just be very careful who you trust, in school or anywhere else.”

  “Yes,” said Lucy. “I will.”

  It was the last day of the summer holidays. There were workmen in the drive when Thomas arrived.

  “Morning!” he called as he changed out of his tidy jacket and hung it on the hook inside the garage. “What are you up to?”

  “Fixing the gate. The automatic gear ain’t working properly. Too slow.”

  Thomas watched them for a while. It was a beautiful day, and the morning sun warmed him gently. The children would be playing in the garden today, though it was supposed to rain later. He must try and chat to Lucy to see if she had any useful information for him. Drax was getting on his nerves, always on at him to find a way of discrediting Copse. Soon it would be too late because the interviewing had already started. As Thomas turned towards the back garden a plan started to form in his head.

  Aunt Sarah had acknowledged the last day of the holidays by making a cake. Lucy lifted the lid of the cake tin and she and Paul pushed their noses in to sniff the delicious smell of chocolate. Sarah clattered noisily down the stairs with her equipment, and the children hastily put the lid back. The key turned in the lock and when she came in both children were looking out of the back door, watching a magpie strut about the lawn.

  “One for sorrow,” said Aunt Sarah. “But if you blink, you’ll have seen it twice and that makes two. Two for joy.” They both blinked.

  Sarah was in a good mood. The father was going abroad for a few days, to be
interviewed in the palace of the Holy Envoy.

  Lucy had come into the kitchen when he was giving Aunt Sarah final instructions. She was to clean his flat and the stairs daily. That was daft. What was the point of doing it daily when he wasn’t there to dirty it? There was to be no contact with Drax House, and he wanted a full report on the children’s behaviour when he came back. Ok. Well he had that every week anyway. He’d handed Sarah a key, saying: “Top flat. For emergency only.” She had bowed her head submissively and dropped it into her apron pocket.

  Now Aunt Sarah was smiling to herself which was most unusual, and both Paul and Lucy felt their hearts lift. While she was putting her cleaning tools away Lucy ran out to the swing and Paul ambled off to look for stones to decorate his garden. The sun was shining, and the air was hot and filled with the sweet scent of cut grass.

  Sarah breathed deeply. Tomorrow would be Thursday, and by early Friday morning the father would be gone until Monday. It felt like a holiday.

  She put the vacuum bag in the bin and went round the side of the garage to check the rat poison. Immediately she saw that the wire barricade had been removed and the sheet of hardboard had disappeared. It had been there yesterday. As she squeezed into the gap between the garage and the garden wall she looked up and saw that the little wooden roof had gone. Looking down she saw that the plastic pipe containing the rat poison had gone too. She searched up and down the length of the gap, but there was no sign of it. Her heart began to thump. Emerging into the garden she called to Lucy.

  “Why did you move the barrier?”

  Lucy jumped down from the swing and ran over.

  “What barrier?” She looked down the side of the garage. “I haven’t moved any barrier.”

  “What did you do with the bit of pipe that was here?”

  “I didn’t do anything. What pipe?”

  “Where’s Paul?” Sarah’s voice was sharp with anxiety.

  Lucy pointed.

  “Over there. Doing his garden.”

  Sarah ran, gasping and clutching at her chest.

  Hidden by a shrub Paul was kneeling happily in front of his garden with the piping in his two hands, dribbling out a fine line of blue granules in loops and twists all around his pansies. He looked up at Sarah and smiled.