Everlasting Lane (12 page)

‘It’s a nursery,’ said Tommie.

‘It’s a nursery,’ copied Anna-Marie like he was stupid. ‘Well done, Magnus.’

She investigated a family of framed photographs. ‘Is this your dad?’ she said, and then, laughing, ‘Is this you?’ It’d been taken at this fair when I was four years old and showed me with a monkey (a real live one) in my arms. I remembered it from the mantelpiece at home. It was my mother’s favourite. Anna-Marie picked up a silver frame. ‘And what about this one?’ I hadn’t even noticed it at first. It was the same picture as that one above the fireplace in the lounge downstairs but without the torn corner. The mysterious person sat alongside my mother and father was revealed. ‘Look at your hair,’ said Anna-Marie peering at it with a grin. ‘The barber did a grand job that day.’

A clock marked time with thick wooden clicks, winding like string through the toys and games, not so much passing but unravelling. And between each click we heard the silent pulse like that moment between heartbeats when you’re little better than dead.

The curtains were open and the room was bright. I noticed the cardboard square that still covered the broken pane. What workman would you call to fix a window in a secret room? But my eyes were drawn to the cot, its pink sheets turned down and laying on its pillow the skipping rope, nearly new. Beside the cot was a small chair, the twin of the one that sat on the landing protecting the green curtain, and on the chair a book of nursery rhymes, a bookmark poking from the pages. Above the cot hung a mobile of bright colours—butterflies—waiting to spin.

And on the wall behind it, in a frame, a name embroidered: ‘Alice’.

‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ muttered Anna-Marie.

They were wrong though. Anna-Marie and Tommie I
mean. It wasn’t a nursery. I mean it wasn’t just a nursery. It was more like a museum.

‘Well,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘it looks like Kat has more than one secret, eh, Peter?’ She walked to a shelf and stroked the hair of one of the dolls. ‘So,’ she said, looking around, examining the toys and games like a detective, ‘who’s Alice?’

‘Wow,’ said Tommie. ‘This is great.’ He knelt beside the rocking horse, caressing its smooth haunches, moving it back and forth, letting the chain upon its bridle ring. ‘My dad used to ride.’

‘This must be where Kat sits,’ murmured Anna-Marie. She picked up the book of nursery rhymes from the chair and flicked through it.

‘Be careful,’ I gasped. ‘She’ll know.’

Anna-Marie returned the book just like she’d found it, her fingers lingering a moment on the cover before they withdrew. She looked at the cot, trying to solve the mystery.

Between the cot and Kat’s chair stood a cabinet and on the cabinet there was this small box. Anna-Marie picked up the box between her thumb and forefinger, and examined it before—click!—lifting the lid. When she returned the box to the table, I could see that it was lined with little mirrors each bearing the reflection of a tiny ballerina. Anna-Marie found a key inside the box and put it into the hole, turning it with a soft clicking sound. A melody of gentle chimes trickled out filling the room with light as the ballerina turned.

‘Oh,’ said Anna-Marie, and she began to sing but so softly, so gently, that she was barely singing at all.

The tune ended. But we carried on listening to the silence as if it hadn’t.

‘So,’ went Anna-Marie again as she removed the key and returned it to the box, gently lowering the lid, ‘who’s Alice?’

‘Of course,’ said Tommie, ‘there is another reason why somebody might keep a secret.’

‘What other reason?’

‘Well, it’s like when my mum and dad were getting a divorce and they didn’t tell me for ages and—’

‘Get to the point, Tommie.’

‘Well, when my mum brought me here they said it was just for a holiday and—’

‘Quicker.’

‘Well, my dad said it was for my own good.’

Anna-Marie turned to look at him. She’d turned pale. I mean even paler than usual, her freckles standing out like they were sprinkled in a bowl of milk. ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ she said biting her lip. ‘Maybe we’ve got this the wrong way round.’

‘What?’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, because we thought Kat must be keeping this room a secret to protect herself.’

‘So?’

‘Well, what if she was keeping this room a secret … to protect you.’

‘But what? What do you mean? Protect me from what?’

Anna-Marie’s eyes stared into mine. Suddenly I felt like I was standing alone somewhere far away on the shore of two huge, blue lakes emptying themselves into an ocean of worry. ‘From the truth,’ she said. And then she looked away. ‘But there’s something else,’ she murmured, ‘this hasn’t just sprung into existence since—’

And then we heard it: the spluttering engine, tyres on gravel, the squeak of the handbrake. We spilled onto the landing. Kitty, sitting just outside the room, eyed us accusingly. Anna-Marie peered through the landing window. ‘She’s coming! Quick!’

I checked the room to make sure we hadn’t left any sign of our visit before closing the door as gently as I could.

‘Let’s go in your room,’ hissed Tommie.

‘Oh, God!’ I said. ‘I’ve got the key!’

We shot downstairs at full pelt. We didn’t have time to be quiet about it. Bouncing off the wall at the bottom of the stairs, I could hear Kat outside the front door wrestling with keys of her own. Down the hall. The front door was opening. Into the kitchen. I slipped, the key clattering to the floor.

‘What are you lot up to?’ She sounded cross. She always was when she’d been to the church.

I grabbed the key—

‘Nothing!’

—Key on the hook—

‘Where are you?’ A flash of anger in her voice. Even Anna-Marie looked surprised.

—We sat down.

‘Oh, there you are,’ said Kat marching into the kitchen. ‘What’s all the running about for?’ She slammed her handbag onto the counter and spun to face us.

‘Sorry, Kat,’ said Anna-Marie, smiling like an angel. ‘We were just playing.’

‘Well,’ said Kat with a sigh, ‘not like that, please.’

‘Sorry, Kat,’ I said.

‘Sorry, Mrs … Kat.’

‘Are there any biscuits?’

Kat joined us at the table as we drank squash and unwrapped jammy dodgers. ‘There’s something happening here,’ she said, ‘and I’m not sure I like it.’ Kitty strode into the kitchen and went straight to her. ‘Hello, my darling!’ went Kat, gazing into her eyes. ‘You’ll tell me what they’ve been up to, won’t you?’

I shrugged and smiled, whilst my friends drained their glasses and, crumbs still on their lips, departed: Anna-Marie to do her history and Tommie to forge a note for getting out of games. I was left to face Kat alone.

‘So,’ she said, ‘what have you really been up to?’

I was staring at her wondering why she’d torn my face from that picture.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘We just went for a walk.’

‘Oh, yes? A walk?’ She picked up the glasses and took them to the sink. ‘And where did you go exactly?’

‘Just along the river,’ I knew I had to distract her somehow, thinking quickly, ‘down to the hospital?’

‘Hospital? What hospital?’

‘Well, there’s this hospital.’ I stretched out every word like an elastic band all tight and ready to ping. ‘It’s where Anna-Marie and I go. And Tommie. It’s a big red building; an old building. You know. It’s called the Lodge, I think. You go under the road and—’

There was a smash. One of the glasses slipped from her fingers and shattered across the floor. I jumped to my feet but Kat—I mean my mother—had already stepped over the splinters and grabbed my wrist. Her face was all twisted out of shape.

‘Peter,’ she went, ‘you are not to go there again! Do you hear me? Haven’t those people …?’ My wrist began to hurt. ‘Promise me you won’t go there again. Promise.’

And so I promised—crossed my heart. ‘But why?’

She slowly relaxed her grip.

‘It’s for your own good,’ she said.

‘We are here,’ said Anna-Marie, eyes glinting, ‘to talk about Alice.’

‘What about Alice?’ said Tommie.

‘Well, I’ve been thinking about her.’ That wasn’t a surprise at all. I’d been thinking about little else myself. ‘And what I think,’ she said, ‘is that we should find out who she is.’

I hadn’t been surprised to find Anna-Marie waiting for Tommie and me at the end of school, sucking in her cheeks and nibbling strands of hair. But I had been surprised when she’d led us to
The Copper Kettle,
this small café in the village.
The Copper Kettle
was a place for grown-ups: the knives and forks were polished and gleaming, and there were paper doilies on every surface. The waitress shook her hair and gave us such a look I wasn’t sure we’d be allowed to stay but she smiled quickly enough when Anna-Marie waved a one pound note and requested: ‘Two Tizers, please, and a pot of tea for one.’

I felt very grown-up even though my feet barely touched the floor. ‘Peter.’ I glanced around at the lacy, flowery decorations, and was particularly curious about the young man with the long hair sat at the table next to us. ‘Peter.’ He was wearing a green jacket, a bit like a soldier, and smoking cigarette
after cigarette after cigarette making the whole room hazy and writing in red on a large pad of blue—

‘Peter!’

‘What?’

‘Are you listening to any of this? It’s for your benefit, you know.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘What do you mean: why?’

‘Why do we have to find out who she is?’

‘Because,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘it might be important.’

‘But I don’t think Kat would—’

‘Oh, it’s too late to worry about that, Peter. You’ve already broken into Alice’s room, haven’t you? You’ve already poked your nose into things that don’t concern you.’

‘But you—’

‘Never mind about that. The cat’s out of the bag as they say.’

‘But you said it was for my own good.’

‘And now I’m saying that
this
is for your own good. Frankly, Peter,’ she waved her hand to whisk away some of the cigarette smoke which had drifted in her direction, ‘you are alarmingly slow on the uptake.’

‘So,’ said Tommie, leaning forward, pushing his thick spectacles as far up his nose as they would go and pulling a stubby pencil from his pocket, ‘how are we going to find out about Alice? We haven’t got much to go on.’ He unfolded one of the paper napkins and wrote
Alice
at the top. He underlined it twice.

The waitress arrived with our drinks and a plate of biscuits. As she placed our order on the table, Anna-Marie said, ‘Excuse me, are you Alice?’

The waitress frowned and shook her head. ‘No, m’love.’

‘Oh. Does Alice work another day then?’

‘There’s no Alice, m’love. Sorry.’

‘No,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been misinformed.’

‘Not to worry, m’love.’

Anna-Marie grinned to herself as she lifted the lid of her silver teapot and peered in. ‘You’re right: we haven’t got much to go on,’ she said, ‘but we can ask questions. For instance, we already know she doesn’t work at
The Copper Kettle.
Besides we have our imaginations.’ She took a teaspoon and stirred her leaves without touching the sides. ‘Or at least we have my imagination and you, Tommie,’ she said, ‘you have your napkin.’

‘Okay,’ said Tommie. He slowly wrote
Copper Kettle
and put a big cross next to it. He gave his Tizer a triumphant slurp.

‘But why?’ I said. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘Stop whining,’ said Anna-Marie. She held her tea-strainer over the top of her cup and poured. ‘Have you never heard of knowledge for knowledge’s sake?’ Well, of course I hadn’t. ‘For starters,’ she said addressing Tommie, ‘there are no Alices here and we know there aren’t any at school, not even in the infants.’ Tommie wrote
School
and
X.
‘But that’s not a surprise,’ she continued when he’d finished, ‘Alice is probably a grown-up by—’

‘But how do you know?’ I interrupted crossly. Even I could see that if we were going to investigate Alice building by building Tommie would need a much bigger napkin. ‘And how do you know she’s still here?’ I meant still in the village.

‘Call it a sixth sense,’ said Anna-Marie. Having added milk and a spoonful of sugar she raised her cup. ‘Besides, nobody ever really leaves Amberley.’ She sipped at her tea, her pinkie curling outwards. ‘And some of the toys in the nursery could be twenty years old—’

‘Not all of them,’ said Tommie.

‘—so it seems to me quite likely that we are talking about a young woman. She’s probably quite pretty and almost certainly
very intelligent. She won’t work in one of those boring jobs,’ she said leaning forward and adding with a whisper, ‘certainly not waitressing. She couldn’t stand it.’ She returned her cup to its saucer with a rattle.

‘Well, what is she then?’

‘If you ask me she’s probably a teacher.’

A teacher? But why …? And then I smiled to myself. ‘A good one?’ I said.

‘Exactly,’ said Anna-Marie and blew a hole through the sunlit steam rising from her cup. ‘You read my mind,’ and, well, I had a funny feeling that I almost had.

‘Well, what about the teachers?’ said Tommie. ‘At school I mean.’

‘It’s Mrs Carpenter,’ I said with a gasp. ‘I bet it’s Mrs Carpenter.’

‘Are you not listening? I said a
good
teacher. Besides I happen to know that Mrs Carpenter’s first name is Sybil.’

‘Sybil?’ said Tommie. His snigger turned into a cough as he breathed in a mixture of Tizer and the fumes billowing from the next table.