The Father's House Page 5

“Pretty,” he said. “It’s got flowers in the middle.”

  “Three daffodils. My mother put it round my neck when I was taken from her, just your age. The Holy Leaders were kind and let me keep it.”

  Lucy hung up her coat and went to her room to change out of her school clothes. When she returned to the kitchen Paul was standing in the open doorway looking out into the back garden and chanting, “Holy Leaders, Holy Leaders,” over and over again to himself. Aunt Sarah was briskly setting out the tea table.

  Lucy fetched some mugs.

  “John’s died,” she said.

  Aunt Sarah’s face softened. “Yes, I heard,” she said sadly. “Aunt Martha told me. Poor little fellow!” She looked at Lucy’s stricken face and touched her hand. “It’s the purpose. We must try not to grieve. He’s probably sitting at the Magnifico’s right hand at this moment, and is happier than he ever was in this sad world.”

  Paul clambered up into his high chair with Lucy shoving him from behind, and Sarah put a fish paste sandwich on his plate. “Now come along and eat up both of you. We’re running late as it is, and I’ve got the upstairs suppers to cook yet.”

  “Where’s my mother?” asked Paul with his mouth full.

  “You were taken from her just after you were born.”

  Sarah sighed. Already she could see the questions in Lucy’s eyes. “Some fathers think it’s cruel to let children remember their mothers, so they let the mothers name them and nurse them for a month, and then they’re put with the foster aunts till they’re two or three, same as you were, except you were lucky. You didn’t have to go to a commune. It was the same for Lucy too.”

  She took down a saucepan from the shelf above the sink and started laying out supper ingredients onto a wooden board. “Mind you, it’s not cruel for everyone. I’m glad I can remember my mother. I’ll know her when I see her.”

  Lucy couldn’t stop herself. “Where is she?”

  “She’s in Paradise,” said Aunt Sarah, “waiting for me.” Her face lit up with a flash of pure joy. “And when I get there she’ll hold me close.”

  It was April, and today was adult achievement day at the school. An atmosphere of suppressed excitement filled the hall. Lucy’s class sat near the front and she had to crane her head up to look at the stage. In the centre, seated on a splendidly carved chair, was a Holy Leader, one of the Magnifico’s worldwide body of priests. He stroked the wispy beard that straggled over his black robes, and his small hooded eyes darted back and forth over the rows of children, penetrating their souls and prising out their sins. To his right stood the headmaster, head thrown back, eyes closed behind little round glasses, and the palms of his hands held up to the ceiling. His pink chins quivered and shook and the little tuft of white hair on his head stood upright pointing towards Paradise. No-one would have guessed he was wondering what was for dinner.

  When complete hush had fallen over the congregation the headmaster lowered his arms and spread out his plump hands. The twelve boys and girls who had reached their sixteenth birthdays by the beginning of March were lined up in the aisle that ran down the centre of the seating area. The girls were dressed in white and the boys in suits.

  Calling them up one by one the headmaster cut off their reminders with holy pliers and dropped them with an elaborate gesture into a sacred woven basket. He sent each child to the right, left, or middle of the stage. As they stood staring in embarrassment at their toes or the ceiling, or anywhere except at the audience of smirking school fellows, he began a long speech to the effect that they were now men and women and would be required to do their duty in the service of the Magnifico. His voice droned on and on.

  The first Holy Envoy stared accusingly at Lucy from the mural at the back of the stage. A cobweb hung down from the ceiling just above his head. It must have been difficult for him to rule the world if he was stuck with a sword and leaning on a rock. The current Holy Envoy would probably find it difficult too, even though he wasn’t stuck with a sword. How could anyone rule the whole world when everyone in it had a different way of looking at things? Lucy tore her eyes away and tried to focus on something else. A boy to her left was annoying the girl in front by gently tapping the back of her chair.

  Suddenly the headmaster’s voice changed.

  “And now,” he announced in triumphant tones, “we move on to the most significant moment in the lives of these young ladies.”

  Next to him the Holy Leader rose to his feet and came forward to a lectern at the side of the stage. Lucy pictured him washing his beard and drooping side curls in a wash basin. She didn’t like to think of him having a shower. It wouldn’t be respectful. Supposing he went bald? Would he have to wear false curls? She hastily pushed the thought away. Disrespect to the Magnifico’s servants was a sin.

  The Holy Vision lay open on the lectern. The Holy Leader’s voice was deep and solemn as he read.

  “And when a female has reached her seventeenth year, she shall be wed to the Magnifico body and soul to serve Him faithfully either as a mother or as an aunt to His children, or as His agent infiltrating the world of non-followers in furtherance of the Holy Cause.”

  He then turned to the girls and asked them to stand in a line before him. They stood meekly with their heads bowed, some gawky, some buxom, and some nothing in particular. He passed along the line placing his hand on the head of each of them in turn saying, “Do you promise to serve the Magnifico faithfully as his wife in whatever capacity he may allocate to you for the rest of your life?”

  Each girl murmured a promise.

  After a very long prayer and a hymn the young brides trooped awkwardly off the stage and down the centre aisle to the recorded sound of an organ. The boys followed, looking sheepish and self-conscious. One winked at the congregation and someone sniggered. Then came the headmaster and staff in solemn procession. As the ponderous music thundered out, the Holy Leader remained on the stage waving incense from side to side. Then he raised his hands, palms facing the audience, and said, “Bless you, my children. Now return to your classes.”

  That evening, after supper, Lucy sat in her hidey-hole in the back garden under the bush with the green and yellow spotted leaves. It was nearly dark and there was a nasty little wind, but she had a great deal to think about.

  The thought of marrying a father, once a distant curiosity, was now an utterly depressing reality. The fathers that Lucy had met at prayer meetings had all been chosen for their brains and their looks so that the Magnifico’s children would be clever and handsome. She had no reason to doubt that they were clever but as for their looks, well, they never smiled and, to her, their faces seemed terrifyingly severe or even cruel. She had noticed the bitter submission in Aunt Sarah’s face as she stood with her eyes downcast, listening to Father’s Copse’s ferocious instructions. Once she had even heard Aunt Sarah mutter a prayer to the Magnifico to forgive her evil thoughts against the father that had been allocated to her.

  Now Lucy decided firmly that if she could serve the Magnifico in any other way she would not marry a father. She would study the Holy Vision word for word. There must be exceptions – especially if she could make herself really ugly and useless at cooking so that none of them wanted her. There were no mirrors in the father’s house or at school, but she had seen herself in shop windows and her face had looked so pinched and plain that she was sure she could make herself hideous. She twisted her mouth round now as the first step of a practice regime.

  Soft fine rain brushed against her skin, and she shifted further back into the shelter of the bush. She mentally assessed the beauty of today’s brides. A few were pretty, but some of the plain ones had nicer faces. She wondered whether her own mother was both pretty and had a nice face. A twig caught in her hair and pulled at her pigtail. Her mother would not have had boring brown hair. It would have been a luxurious chestnut, or black, or blonde, or auburn. Lucy could picture the hair, but not the face. She would certainly not have had a face like Lucy’s because the shop windows
wouldn’t have lied. Aunt Sarah had told her many times that she was plain, and always scraped her hair back as severely as she could so as to emphasise it. Vanity was a sin she said.

  The clouds were heavy and it was getting darker. Aunt Sarah switched on the light in the kitchen and it poured out in oblong shapes through the glass panes in the back door. Lucy knew she should go in before she had to be called, or she would get the sharp edge of Aunt Sarah’s tongue. As she moved forward there was a creak at the back gate and she froze. The latch lifted with a little scratching noise and the gate squeaked slightly as it slowly opened. A hooded head appeared and looked around. Lucy held her breath as a figure emerged and slid along the side wall till it reached the back of the house. It darted across to the kitchen door and crouched down, peering in through the panes.

  The sound of blood thumping in her ears was so loud that Lucy wondered why whoever it was didn’t hear it.

  Very quietly the figure made its way across the back of the rear wing and vanished round the corner to the further side of the house. Lucy didn’t dare move. For the first time in her life she wished that Aunt Sarah would come out, or even the father. Her wish was granted because at that moment Aunt Sarah opened the back door and called her in. Lucy was torn between the terror of being caught by the figure as she ran across the lawn, and the terror of incurring Aunt Sarah’s wrath if she disobeyed the summons.

  From inside the kitchen Paul started to yell.

  “Come in quickly. It’s cold,” shouted Aunt Sarah.

  Her stout frame filled the doorway and she seemed to be taking gulps of the cool night air. Then she turned back into the kitchen and slammed the door. Lucy waited. The figure must have waited too, because an eternity passed before it slipped back round the corner and behind the wing. It paused to take another furtive look into the kitchen, and then dashed over to the wall to the left of the garden and out through the gate. Lucy waited a few more seconds then shot across the lawn with what felt like a thousand demons behind her.

  Aunt Sarah was busy with Paul, and Lucy slipped in almost unnoticed.

  “Just praying,” she muttered, and went to her room to fetch her homework.

  She opened a drawer and pulled out her extra jumper. Aunt Sarah was right. It was cold. Everything was cold – her room, the school, Aunt Sarah’s stern face. Every morning the sight of the lollipop lady made her feel warm, just for a moment. Sitting behind the shed with Dorothy made her warm too, but that didn’t happen very often.

  In the kitchen a small electric heater softened the chill. Lucy plonked her satchel on the kitchen table, and drew up a chair.

  “You were much too long out there,” said Aunt Sarah. “I’ve got enough on my plate without having to nurse you through influenza. Tomorrow you must come in sooner.”

  “Yes, Aunt Sarah,” said Lucy.

  “And just look at you! You’re as white as a sheet. Don’t expect me to be sorry for you if you come down with a cold.”

  “No, Aunt Sarah.”

  Lucy pulled her books out of her satchel and sat down at the table.

  “Take this out to the bin before you start, will you.” Aunt Sarah handed her a plastic bag full of potato peelings. Her throat felt tight. She tried to swallow but couldn’t.

  “Come on. Get a move on,” said Sarah. “I haven’t got all night.” She gave her a little push, and turned to the stove.

  Lucy hesitated. “Can I do it when I’ve finished my homework?”

  “Do it now and it’s done. It won’t take a second.”

  “Shouldn’t we save it for Thomas’s compost?”

  “I’m not telling you again.”

  Lucy grabbed the bag and peered out of the back door. Beyond the shafts of kitchen light the garden lay in darkness. The familiar bushes had vanished, and the world was a black nothingness from which goblins and hooded figures might leap and grab a girl by the hair and pull her down into a burning brazier full of sinners.

  “Hurry up! You’re making the place cold with that open door,” called Sarah.

  “Can I take the torch?”

  “Yes, but be quick and don’t waste the battery.”

  Lucy took the torch from the shelf by the door and shone it onto the darkest areas before stepping out into the garden. Its light was feeble. Her eyes and ears strained as she followed the path round the back of the wing and down the left side of the house towards the garage. The bin was in its usual place under the kitchen window. She threw in the plastic bag hastily and closed the lid. A rustling sound behind her made her jump and turn. In the light of the torch something darted between the shafts of a ladder that leaned against the garage, and disappeared into the gap between the garage and the garden wall. She ran back to the kitchen with legs like lead weights.

  “Good heavens!” said Sarah. “Are you ill?”

  “No,” she mumbled. “It’s cold, that’s all.” She sat down to finish her homework. “And I saw a rat. It went down the far side of the garage.”

  “Nonsense,” said Sarah. “Get on with your work.” She made a mental note to put some rat poison down tomorrow.

  Father Drax was sitting in his private residence just off the High Street, two doors up from the Drax commune. His feet were propped up on the fender in front of a dying log fire, and in his right hand he held a tumbler of whisky. He was listening to Mozart and thinking about his childhood tormentor, Father Copse.

  The post of Deputy Holy Envoy would be coming up some time this year, and today Drax had learned that Copse was going to apply. He mentally sized up all other possible candidates. The only one with the brains, qualifications, and the experience to match his own, was Copse. But Copse had something extra. He could turn on the charm – which was why he made such a brilliant infiltrator. In the courts juries melted at the sound of his voice, and in social gatherings he was the fascinating magnet that drew establishment figures towards him. In the interview process for the deputy’s post no-one else would stand a chance.

  Somehow Copse had to be put out of the running. If he could be discredited in some way the path would be clear. The Holy Envoy would never touch someone with a scandal to his name.

  There was a tap on the door. He called out, “Enter!” and in came a thin wiry man with spots and lank sandy hair. Father Drax waved him to a chair by the fire and rose elegantly to his feet to fetch him a drink from an exotically carved sideboard covered in bottles and decanters and crystal glasses.

  “Well, Thomas, did you manage to see anything?” he said, placing a whisky on a small inlaid table next to his guest.

  “No, Sir. Father Copse hadn’t come home and there was no light in his window. The light was on in the upstairs flat, and I was just about to get into the tree to have good look when I realised the girl was somewhere out there because I heard Sarah call her. I waited long enough for her to go back in, but I thought it best to come away and try later when she’d be in bed and Father Copse would be home.”

  Father Drax paced up and down on his long legs, his feet sinking softly into the plush fitted carpet.

  “Right,” he said at last, smoothing back his thick golden blond hair. “We’ll wait. There’s no immediate rush, but we need to find out all we can about Copse. What is he up to in his apartment, and how many wives has he got in the top flat? Chat to Sarah, and the girl, and find out any little bits of gossip they might have about him.”

  “They never gossip, Sir. Sarah rarely speaks to me, and the girl seems to know nothing about Father Copse except that he frightens her.”

  “We must try and discredit him somehow. There must be something we can use to blacken his name. Can we use the girl? What’s her behaviour like?”

  “Impeccable. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open, Sir,” said Thomas, getting to his feet. He pulled a woolly hat over his head and stood by the door.

  “I’m not going to pay you for tonight because you misjudged the timing and found out nothing. When you can bring me enough information to knock Copse off his pedestal,
I’ll be generous enough.”

  Thomas was disappointed, but not surprised.

  “I’ll let you know when I find anything,” he said, and left. He turned into the High Street and stood in a shop doorway to roll himself a cigarette. If only that child had not been around he could have got up into the tree and waited till Father Copse came home. Kids always spoiled everything. They were worse than garden pests.

  “Blessed be the Magnifico, blessed be His holy name.” The headmaster’s fruity voice sang out over the assembly.

  “Blessed be the Magnifico,” responded the children.

  Lucy’s mind was on last night’s incident. The skin on the back of her neck prickled as she thought of the hooded figure. The rat was nothing in comparison. Her throat tightened up and the words would not come out.

  Next to her David bellowed out the chant with gusto. The headmaster threw his arms up heavenward.

  “Guide us with your holy word.”

  Something cut across Lucy’s thoughts. Suddenly she was alert. Had she heard what she thought she heard? She held her breath and waited for the next response.

  “Magnifico, the holy word,” cried the headmaster.

  “Magnifico’s a silly nerd,” sang David, his cracked newly husky voice drowning in the universal chant.

  Lucy was rigid with shock.

  “We thank you for your holy writ.”

  “No we don’t you stupid git!”

  Lucy was horrified. She started to giggle. The more she tried to stop the worse it got. In panic she grabbed at her reminder and rubbed it frantically, but she still couldn’t stop. She shook uncontrollably as the giggles exploded in snorts and sniggers and tears began to stream down her cheeks. David stood poker-faced beside her and the headmaster lowered his arms and stared. The silence that fell on the entire congregation was broken only by Lucy’s uninvited splutters. Her purple face switched from mirth to sobriety and back to mirth as she tried to suppress the horrible hiccups and choking sounds. When at last it was over, she lowered her eyes and hoped she was invisible. But of course she wasn’t, and she waited for the storm.