The Father's House (16 page)

Lucy put the kettle on and took the biscuit tin out of the cupboard. Her tummy had been rumbling hopefully ever since the smell of the father's supper had tickled her nostrils. The thought of a biscuit was quite delightful, and she hoped Aunt Sarah would be quick because she was starving. She stood at the back door and watched as Aunt Sarah puffed with her load of washing and vanished round behind the wing to the clothes line. Moving back across the kitchen to the side window she could see Thomas with his wheelbarrow making his way across the lawn towards the garage. He stopped under the lime tree and looked up into its boughs. Then he went into the garage and reappeared with three saws of different sizes. Perhaps he was going to cut the branches. It didn't matter to Lucy. She would never climb that tree again.

Aunt Sarah hung up the last of the laundry and picked up the empty basket, but instead of coming straight back so that Lucy could have her biscuit she went over to talk to Thomas. She looked cross, and they seemed to be arguing. Eventually Thomas rolled his eyes and shook his head, and took the saws away.

“He wanted to cut that big branch,” said Aunt Sarah indignantly, when she came into the kitchen. “Anyway, he'd never be able to do it with those silly little saws. It's much too thick.” She opened the lid of the biscuit tin. “Right!” she said, “Two each.”

After school the next day Aunt Sarah was complaining about the stairs. Her face was shining with sweat and her hair fell in lank wisps away from its bun. She had had a bad day.

“I've not only got to clean his flat while Aunt Martha's away with her bad back, but I've got to do all those stairs, all the way up to the top floor.”

“Did you take Paul up with you?” asked Lucy.

“No. Of course not! He's no more allowed on those stairs than you are. I had to leave him in his room. No harm can come to him there. Anyway, the father says he's got to get used to being without company, same as you had to. It gives you time for quiet contemplation and brings you closer to the Magnifico.”

Lucy thought she would prefer not to be close to the Magnifico. In fact, ever since Dorothy had been captured she had wanted to escape him altogether.

“Well, I'll be looking after Paul in the holidays,” she said.

“That's true. Though I hope Aunt Martha is back by then.”

Lucy knew she was being selfish, but she couldn't help hoping that Aunt Martha would stay away for a little longer. The thought of being asked to do the shopping was very appealing. Her mind was already working out what she could do with her freedom on the days that Aunt Sarah was upstairs. If she could find out how to use the Underground or the buses she might be able to plan her escape. As for money, well, she had no idea where that would come from. Perhaps Thomas would lend her some. In the meantime she wanted to find out if there was any news about Dorothy. The only person she could talk to about it was David.

“Can I have a friend over in the holidays?” she asked.

“It depends who it is. I'll have to ask the father first. Who is it?”

“It's David from Drax House. He's very well-behaved. He used to have the guidance cane, but he doesn't any more.”

Sarah wrinkled her forehead.

“I doubt that you'll be allowed. You shouldn't be seen to mix with people who've had the guidance, even if you have had it yourself. It might make matters worse. Anyway, for some reason I think the father disapproves of Drax House these days, even more than he used to. But I'll ask him.”

After that Aunt Sarah felt she had talked too much and too leniently for one day, and drew her lips into their usual stern line. She shut Paul in his room, to which he objected, and told him to be silent because we all have to do things we don't want to do at times.

The following morning Lucy ran all the way to school hoping she'd see David before everyone went in. She checked that there was no-one near enough to hear them, and caught him as he was going up the front steps.

“I've asked if you can come to my house in the holidays,” she panted. “If the father gives permission we can be friends. Then you can let me know if you hear anything about Dorothy, and you can help with suggestions for my escape.”

David stopped and looked at her doubtfully.

“I'd have to get permission too, and I have a feeling from things I've heard that Father Drax and Father Copse don't like each other. In fact, I think they hate each other, which of course is a sin, but I suppose they're above all that. I'll wait till you've heard what Father Copse says.”

Needless to say, the father refused permission. Aunt Sarah was not told why. The result of Lucy's request was that Father Copse asked the school to discourage any friendship between Lucy and children from Drax House, particularly David.

Lucy wondered how she could have been so naïve as to think of such a thing, let alone get so excited about it. If only she had been more subtle! Now everyone would be on the lookout to make sure she didn't talk to David. What made it all the harder was that there was no news of Dorothy, except that she was being kept somewhere, awaiting a decision as to her future.

The summer holidays came, and on the days that Aunt Sarah had to clean upstairs the door from the kitchen to the lobby would be firmly locked behind her before she went up to the first-floor flat. If Thomas came Lucy and Paul would follow him around. Sometimes he gave them rides in his wheelbarrow, or pushed them both together on the swing, all squashed up in the wooden box with their legs sticking out through the holes at the front. Their favourite place was the common, and they would lie on their stomachs looking into the pond and poking it with sticks. Lucy was always hoping David would come and find her there, but he never did.

She hadn't had a chance to try out George's recipe for removing keys from doors because she knew Aunt Sarah would be up and down those stairs, but she felt frustrated that she was frittering her holidays away by doing nothing about it. She still didn't know what her escape plan was going to be, but she couldn't do anything until she had been inside the father's flat and looked for the record of her birth.

One cold rainy day in August, when it was too wet to go out, Lucy and Paul sat at the kitchen table playing with his farm set.

“One, two, three hens,” said Lucy. She counted out the little wooden pieces and made clucking sounds.

“One, two, three hens, cluck, cluck, cluck,” repeated Paul, counting off his thumb and two fingers.

“See? There's some more here.”

“Four, five,” said Paul. Then using his fingers he counted up to ten.

“Clever boy!”

Aunt Sarah had gone out into the lobby and locked the kitchen door. The children could hear her trundling up the stairs pulling the vacuum cleaner behind her, puffing and grumbling to herself. Then down she came again. The vacuum bag needed changing. She unlocked the door, pulling the machine into the kitchen.

“Fetch me a new hoover bag from the cupboard,” she grunted, already out of breath before she had even started her cleaning work.

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.”