The Father's House Page 3

  “I’m not sure about Lucy,” said David after a while. “I don’t know what to make of her. It’s three months since they put me to sit next to her, and it’s like sitting next to an empty space. I do try talking to her, and she’s always terribly polite and she does laugh at my jokes, but she never shows what she’s thinking.”

  He stopped as a shocking thought came to him. “That would make her a good spy. Perhaps she’s already an infiltrator for the Magnifico!”

  Dorothy laughed. “Lucy’s OK,” she said. “She’s just got a really bleak life. Worse than ours, I think. It knocks the stuffing out of you. It’s because she’s so quiet that they put you there – to calm you down.”

  “Well, Matthew’s on the other side,” David pointed out. “He’s certainly not quiet. He laughs louder than anyone!”

  “He’s good fun, so they probably hoped he’d draw you away from me. It was when they were threatening to send me to another commune. Remember?”

  David nodded. He smiled to himself at the thought of anyone entrusting secret plans to Matthew. It’d be all over the place in no time. He’d be fooling around and it would just pop out before he realised. Disaster!

  “Yeah, you’re right. We need someone from outside. Lucy never lets out secrets because she hardly ever speaks to anyone. In fact, she’s like a secret herself.”

  “I wonder what does go on in Father Copse’s house. It’s probably even more miserable than living in a commune.” Dorothy straightened her back. “Right! Decision made. I’m going to try and get closer to Lucy and find out what she’s like. Someone who hardly ever speaks is discreet, if nothing else.”

  The primary school children had gone home long ago. It was almost dark, and bitterly cold, but Lucy was not in a hurry. She had managed to put John’s face to one side temporarily, and was intending to savour the novelty of going home on her own.

  A school bus drove up. She stood on the steps above all the bustle, and watched as pupils from faraway communes clambered on board. Suddenly the pavement cleared and she could see the older boys from the Drax and Copse communes fetching their bikes from the shed at the side of the building. The girls were already crossing over the junction and traipsing up the High Street chattering among themselves.

  She watched as Dorothy and David walked together up the High Street towards Drax House and melted into the crowd. They were so lucky to have each other, she thought. It must be much more fun living in a commune. She waited until they had disappeared completely, and then pulled herself together. It was time to get a move on, or Aunt Sarah would be cross and say she wasn’t to be trusted on her own. She crossed at the lights. The traffic seemed to be stuck and people poured up and down the steps of the Underground station. Lucy would have enjoyed feeling inconspicuous as she was briefly swallowed up by the crowd, if only she hadn’t had to try and avoid actually touching the non-followers. That was impossible. No doubt she’d get used to it in due course. She dawdled up South Hill, looking into front gardens and brightly-lit rooms. Children were sitting at tables eating their tea, or doing their homework with mothers hovering over them. Fireplaces glowed, and television screens flickered like fingers inviting her in. It all looked so cosy that Lucy had to remind herself firmly that these were corrupt households. Television corrupted the soul.

  At number 38 South Hill a boy was climbing a curtain. He looked out and saw Lucy, and stuck out his tongue. She recognised that awful boy, George, and hastily moved on, embarrassed at being caught staring – especially at a non-follower. Aunt Sarah would have said, “Non-followers’ lives are their lives and our lives are ours, so mind your own business.” Only yesterday she had said, “When we rule the world they’ll all come under the Magnifico’s blessed guidance and their souls will be cleansed, but until then we are the elite, so don’t get involved.”

  Lucy had smiled to herself as she pictured all the non-followers in the world trooping onto the headmaster’s stage, and knocking him over in their haste to be cleansed by the guidance cane.

  “Why are you smiling?” Aunt Sarah had said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then don’t be cheeky.”

  Remembering this incident, Lucy turned round and stuck her tongue out at the non-elite George. Just as she did so the curtain pole collapsed and George, the curtain and the pole all disappeared simultaneously. Lucy burst out laughing and then hastily turned away as his mother appeared in the window looking crossly down at the floor. What a stroke of luck to have witnessed that! She passed the next two houses with a big smile on her face and turned into the little lane that led between the terraced houses onto the common. It looked very dark from where she stood. Creepy. She took a deep breath and ran. The sky seemed to grow lighter as the streetlamps of South Hill receded behind her. When she reached 3 Mortimor Road she was out of breath, but she felt good. The porch light was on. She jumped with both feet over the covered hole in the front path where men used to pour coal in the olden days when people had heating in the ground floor flat. Father Copse didn’t allow heating, but it didn’t matter today because the running had warmed Lucy up nicely.

  She had forgotten about poor John in the dash across the common, and she felt almost happy. It had been fun coming home on her own. Then, remembering that the Magnifico expected females of all ages to walk with dignity, she stepped sedately into the front porch and tried to subdue her panting. The door had been left slightly ajar for her. She pushed it open and made straight for the kitchen. Aunt Sarah was just beginning to get anxious.

  “You took a long time coming home,” she said accusingly.

  “I had to wait ages at the lights,” said Lucy.

  She hoped the Magnifico was too busy with more important things to notice the lie. It would have been nice to be able to tell Aunt Sarah about George and the curtain, but it would have led to a lecture on dawdling.

  Sarah had put the oven on to heat up the kitchen. The father need never know, and she was sure the Magnifico wouldn’t want that poor little boy going down with pneumonia just as soon as he’d arrived. Lucy pulled off her coat. As she did so her happiness turned to astonishment and concern. There was a child in the corner of the room. She stared in amazement. He stared back for a moment and then opened his mouth wide and yelled. He stopped for a moment to glare at Lucy, and then howled louder, gripping the bars of the playpen as he tried to climb out.

  “This is Paul,” said Aunt Sarah, her voice raised above the noise. “He lives with us now.”

  “Where did he come from?” asked Lucy.

  “He has been sent to us by the Magnifico.”

  Lucy approached the playpen. The screams became more frantic. She paused.

  “He’s afraid,” she said.

  “We must all be afraid,” said Aunt Sarah. “Afraid of the evils of this world so we may be free of sin for the next. He’s got to get used to it.”

  She turned away and set out Lucy’s tea. There was a small piece of cold meat, some bread without butter, and a glass of milk. Also, there was a banana.

  Bananas were a treat for special occasions so Lucy guessed that Paul’s arrival was a cause for celebration, though he obviously didn’t think so. Her old high chair had been brought in from the garage, and it now stood at one end of the table with Paul’s supper laid out for him. Sarah picked up the screaming child, struggling with his weight, and hauled him over the side into the chair. He threw his plate on the floor and shut his mouth firmly, and a beautiful silence fell briefly on the kitchen.

  Lucy needed to think. There were three important matters to digest. One, of course, was the boy’s arrival, and another was Dorothy’s surprising and novel display of interest in her. The most important of all was poor John, who was once more weighing heavily on her conscience. She was disgusted with herself. How could she have preached at him when he needed comfort?

  “May I go in the garden?” she asked Aunt Sarah.

  “But it’s dark.”

  “Just for a minute, so I can pr
ay quietly to the Magnifico.”

  Paul opened his mouth to yell and Sarah zoomed a spoon towards it.

  “Don’t be long,” she shouted over the noise. “I don’t want you going down with a cold. I’ve more work than I can cope with as it is.”

  Lucy let herself out through the back door. Light fell on the lawn from the kitchen, but beyond that the garden was an ocean of darkness, and the eight-foot high surrounding wall was barely visible.

  There were rustlings in the bushes and scuttling sounds that made Lucy’s skin crawl. Glancing back through the glass in the door she could see Aunt Sarah struggling to make the boy eat, and she dared to hope that his arrival might mean more freedom than just going to school on her own. Perhaps she’d be allowed to help Aunt Sarah by going to the shops for her sometimes. Of course she would never speak to the non-followers, she assured herself, because she knew that would be wrong, and she would certainly ignore that rude boy George if she ever met him again.

  Her eyes became accustomed to the dark and she ventured further out across the grass and round the back of the rear wing. She leaned against the trunk of the huge lime tree that spread across the lawn behind the garage and over the wall into the next-door garden. Closing her eyes and running her fingers back and forth over her reminder, she asked the Magnifico to forgive John. The gentle rubbing didn’t soothe her as it normally did, and she couldn’t help asking herself why He hadn’t done something to stop the beating. Poor John, with his mousy hair and pale skin and glasses! He’d never harmed a soul in his life. What on earth was the Magnifico thinking of to allow him to be treated like that?

  Only last week she’d pulled him away from some horrible bully-boys from the class above, and though she’d been scared at the time she was glad now that she had done it, or she’d be feeling even more guilty. “Mind your own business,” they’d shouted, “you don’t even live in a commune!” Since then they had jeered every time they saw her. “Watch out! Here comes the fire of the burning flesh!” or “The FOBF is coming!”

  Aunt Sarah had told her to ignore them. “There’s worse things waiting for you in life than a bit of name-calling,” she had said, and she was right because what had happened to John today was far worse. “Though mind you,” Aunt Sarah had added, “I’m proud of you for helping that little boy.”

  Lucy felt a flash of anger as she remembered that the Magnifico hadn’t helped John escape the bullies on that occasion either, but she hastily pushed it away. As Aunt Sarah would have said, He had a purpose which ordinary followers like themselves shouldn’t even try to guess at. At school tomorrow she would look for John again. She would ask his forgiveness, and try and help him think of a way to master the twitch.

  The decision went a little way towards soothing her conscience, and she forced her mind to switch to something else. She looked up at the side of house. The first floor was in darkness. Father Copse would not be home from work till about seven o’clock. Lucy wondered briefly what he did in the evenings, but tried not to think about him too much.

  She shifted her gaze to the second floor. There the blinds were open, and the light was on. All she could see was a lamp dangling from the ceiling. Against the light she could see bars on the windows. Her own room had bars, but she was on the ground floor and it was for her own safety Aunt Sarah had said, to keep out intruders. Lucy couldn’t see why bars were needed on the second floor. It was too high up for intruders. Obviously the first-floor windows weren’t barred. No-one would ever dare creep in on someone as frightening as the father, with his powerful shoulders, his burning eyes, and the thunderous voice that froze a person’s heart.

  Lucy wanted time to think about the little boy and Dorothy, but the sky had clouded over and it started to rain, and she shivered. She ran back to the house just as Aunt Sarah appeared at the door.

  “That was a very long prayer,” said Aunt Sarah.

  Lucy said nothing. She washed her hands at the sink, and sat down at the kitchen table to eat her tea. The best thing, the banana, was left till last, and she ate it slowly. She thanked the Magnifico for her meal, washed up her mug and plate, and then settled down at the table to do her homework. Paul had stopped crying, and was lying on his back in the playpen staring silently at the ceiling. When Lucy had finished her homework and had put her books back in her bag tidily ready for tomorrow, she lay on the floor by the playpen and put her arm through the bars. She stroked Paul’s listless hand.

  “Don’t be afraid, little boy,” she whispered. “I’m going to be your friend.” He didn’t move.

  Dorothy lay in pitch darkness under the bottom shelf in the linen cupboard thinking about what had happened to John that morning. This was a good place for thinking, but an even better place for listening

  Years ago, when she was very small, she had been locked in the cupboard in the dark as a punishment. She had felt her way along the bottom shelf on the right and crawled under it and curled up into a ball. Voices had floated into the blackness around her like ghosts, and she was rigid with fear until she recognised Senior Aunt Sonia’s imperative tones, and realised that they came from below her. When her heart had stopped thumping she explored with her hands and discovered a small section in the furthest corner where the floorboards had been cut too short and didn’t quite reach the wall.

  An eternal optimist, she was always telling David that bad things sometimes happen for the best, and this was her favourite example. Whenever they were feeling really down they would remind themselves that if she hadn’t been locked in the cupboard she would never have picked up all sorts of interesting and important information over the years, information that they hoped would help to lead them to freedom.

  Now she had wiped in the corner with a tissue as usual to make sure there were no spiders waiting to spin webs in her hair, and had pressed her right ear to the floor. Whoever was in the kitchen below her must have been on their own because all she could hear was occasional clattering and sighing, and the humming of a dreary hymn tune. She knew she wouldn’t have to wait long because it was always busy just before supper. This was the best time for her to come.

  Her mind switched from John to Lucy while she waited. She and David really needed to find out more about her. If they were lucky it might be that her strict upbringing had secretly made her react against the Magnifico. On the other hand she could well be a zealous believer only too ready to report on sinners – for the sake of their souls. They would have to tread very carefully.

  She was startled out of her thoughts as a voice below said, “How’s it going? Have you stirred the gravy?”

  The humming stopped. “Mm. It’s a bit lumpy.”

  “Let me have a go. What’s the matter? Is it John?”

  “The good doctors came for him,” the hummer said sadly. “They took him down through the passageway.”

  The hair prickled on the back of Dorothy’s neck. There was a long silence.

  “Poor little fellow,” said the other voice eventually. “I suppose it was the best thing for him in the long run. It was the Magnifico’s will.”

  More voices floated upwards, but nothing was said about John. Dorothy lay too shocked to move until Aunt Sonia’s brisk bark snapped, “Take that laundry up to the cupboard, please. It should have gone up hours ago.”

  She scrambled hastily out of her hiding place and groped her way past the shelving. With her ear to the door she listened for a second and then slipped out and shut it behind her. She was sauntering nonchalantly down the stairs as one of the aunts came up with a pile of sheets.

  Later that evening in the first-floor flat Father Copse, dark and sombre, sat at his desk staring at the window. Now and then the rain-washed twigs of the leafless lime tree caught the light from the room and glistened, piercing his reflection like twinkling pinprick stars. But he saw nothing, nothing but a black pool of money, ambition, and the hurt that swamped his soul.

  The expense of maintaining his family was troubling him. An open file lay in front of
him. It contained records of the fifteen children born to his wives on instructions of the Magnifico. Apart from two deceased, and the girl and boy downstairs, all were living in his Copse House commune. Also, there were the aunts and the discards – extra children dumped on him because their fathers had died or been sent abroad. And of course he had to maintain his own private household. His income just wasn’t enough. He wanted more from life than just to be able to make ends meet. Admittedly he earned a fortune as a lawyer in the outside world, and the Holy Envoy paid him well for infiltrating the legal profession, but it seemed that no matter how hard he worked, whatever he earned, he needed more.

  As he gazed blankly ahead his brilliant brain was working but, unusually for him, it was failing to come up with a solution.

  He would have to make economies but he couldn’t see where. Sarah didn’t receive a wage, and nor did the aunts who worked in his commune. Like Sarah, they toiled for the glory of the Magnifico, and would receive their reward in the next world. It was enough for them that the father fed, clothed and housed them. They were truly blessed. As for the children, fortunately his religion preached austerity so their food was plain and their possessions few, as his had been as a child. Nevertheless, they were a necessary expense because he had a duty to the Magnifico to make sure that they grew up healthy and strong, and fit to further the Holy Cause.

  There was one major extravagance. It was crippling him but he couldn’t even contemplate giving it up. It was the woman upstairs. He bought her books and magazines, and beautiful clothes and jewellery. She had music and television, and whatever foods pleased her. For all his generosity she had never shown him any gratitude or tenderness.

  All he wanted was to see her smile, and to stroke her hair.

  Outside the rain beat on the window and the bitter wind blew through the branches of the lime tree. Despite the warmth of the room, he shivered as he imagined how cold life would be without the knowledge that she was there just above him, and could never escape. He stood up and closed the curtains against the bleak winter darkness, then crossed the room to the opposite window and looked out over the garden. The shrubs were dark and wet and depressing. There was nothing to cheer him. He sighed. Everything was too big – the garden, the house, his family. Why did he have to be responsible for a house with status, and for so many wives and aunts and children in whom he was not really interested? Happiness would have been one wife in a little flat in the Temple near the High Court so he could walk to work, and a couple of kids that he could send to good schools and take on skiing holidays.