The Father's House (24 page)

The policeman leaped out after him, skidded on a pile of wet leaves and went flying. Within seconds David had reached the abandoned Mercedes and darted behind it. With his cuffed hands he pressed the catch of the boot and the lid flew up. Lucy's huge terrified eyes gazed up at him as he pulled down her gag.

“I saw them do it,” he said, reaching into the boot and tugging at her.

For a moment she was too weak with relief to move. Then she managed to uncurl herself and sit up. Turning her back she presented her hands to be untied. Then she shook her wrists, and stepped out onto the road.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

She glanced back along the road. A dark bundle lay directly in front of the gateway to the drive. “Holy Mag!” she muttered. “It looks like Matthew!”

For a second neither of them could move. Then she turned to look up at the house and gasped, “Paul!”

Just as the policeman caught up with David and grabbed him by the back of the neck, she slipped away and ran. The front door was burning. She dashed through the laurel archway and ran up the side path. As she passed Aunt Sarah's window she could see the curtains had gone and the room was in flames. Smoke was pouring from the kitchen window. She ran into the lobby. The kitchen door was open. Smoke was billowing through it, swept through by the draught from the window.

She ran up the stairs, past the mahogany door on the first floor, and up to the second landing. Just as she reached it the door opened and the tenant emerged, holding Paul with one hand and Aunt Sarah's keys in the other. Paul leaped forward and threw his arms round Lucy burying his face in her middle. She squeezed him to her quickly and then took his hand.

“Hurry! There's a fire.”

They ran down one flight, only to be faced with a wall of smoke that made all three of them choke.

“In here,” gasped Lucy, pushing them into the father's living room.

Slamming the mahogany door behind them, she rushed to the window and tried to reach the catch, but it was too high.

“I'll do it,” said the tenant.

Stretching up she released it easily and pushed up the window. All three of them leaned out and looked at the ground below. It seemed a long way away. Quickly the tenant and Lucy fetched the big leather cushions from the couch and the armchairs and threw them out in as orderly a manner as they could manage. Paul tried to drag a cushion, but it was too heavy.

“Let me do it,” said Lucy. “You take this.” She handed him a cashmere shawl that was draped over the back of an armchair. “But don't throw yourself out with it.”

The smoke was creeping under the door. They all looked out of the window again.

“You go first,” the tenant said urgently to Lucy. “Curl up and roll over as soon as you hit the ground. I'll hold the little boy by his arms as low as possible and you must try and catch him.”

Lucy took another look at the ground below. She put one leg over the sill, paused for a second, and suddenly pulled herself back into the room. The BWD file – on the floor behind the armchair! Dashing across the room she bent down behind the chair and snatched up the file.

“What on earth are you doing?” cried the tenant.

“It's to prove I exist.”

She ran to the window and threw out the file, then flung her leg over the sill, twisted herself round, and dropped. She curled up and rolled as instructed, and landed comfortably. Jumping to her feet she steadied herself on the pile of cushions and held up her arms.

The tenant lifted Paul onto the sill and, grasping him by the wrists, she swung him over and dangled him for a second before she let go. He landed on Lucy and they both fell together on the thick soft leather.

Smoke was beginning to billow out through the window. The tenant was coughing. Lucy hastily moved Paul out of the way onto the grass. The tenant threw her legs over the sill. As she twisted round to face the room she inhaled a cloud of smoke, coughed, and fell. Lucy tried to break her fall but she landed awkwardly with one leg under her on the cushions and her head on the ground. Semi-conscious, she coughed and gasped for breath.

“Is your leg alright?” asked Lucy anxiously. The tenant coughed and coughed, and couldn't catch her breath.

Lucy grabbed Paul and one of the lighter cushions and ran to her hidey-hole under the bush with the spotted leaves. She plonked him down on the cushion and dashed back.

“I'm going to get help,” she said. “I'll be as quick as I can.”

The tenant had stopped coughing and was lying very still. Lucy quickly gathered up the scattered pages of the BWD file and the cashmere shawl. She ran back to Paul and threw the file down beside him.

“Don't move from here,” she said, wrapping the shawl round his pyjamas and trying to sound as stern as Aunt Sarah. “I'm going to get someone to help the tenant, and you must not move or make a noise. Understand?”

Paul nodded.

She dashed out through the back gate and turned right along the alley, past the backs of two houses, down the side, and out onto the road. The crowd was still standing staring at the flames as firemen turned their powerful hoses on the front of the house.

“Get back behind the cordon!” shouted a policeman.

Lucy ignored him and ran towards a waiting ambulance.

“Quick!” she panted. “Round the back.”

There were already firemen behind the house when the paramedics ran in with the stretcher. As they started shifting the tenant, Lucy backed off into the darkness. She slipped out of sight into the hidey-hole with Paul and watched.

The paramedics went out the way they had come, through the back gate and down the alleyway. As they left Lucy heard one of them say, “What's happened to the little girl?”

“She must have gone back to the road,” said the other.

The firemen were now on the lawn, their hoses thundering onto the first-floor flat.

“Come on,” whispered Lucy.

Picking up the file, she took Paul's hand and, keeping behind the shrubs, they sidled along the wall to the back gate and out into the alley. Instead of turning right towards the access to the road, they turned left. They passed the wall of the father's house and reached the back gate of the house next door – the diplomat's house. It had looked empty when Lucy had seen it from the branches of the tree, and she hoped desperately that it still was.

She lifted the latch and they crept inside. In the light from the fire the neglected tennis lawn grew eerily tall and the flowerbeds were thick with weeds. They tiptoed furtively down an overgrown path to the rear of the house and, cupping their hands around their faces, looked in through the windows. There was nothing to be seen but the curtain linings.

The back door was locked. Lucy looked around her. On the step was a cast iron beetle with large antennae for removing gumboots. For a split second she hoped the Magnifico wasn't watching, and then remembered that he didn't exist. She picked up the beetle and, making Paul stand well back, she smashed the glass pane nearest the door handle. Gingerly putting her hand inside, she pulled put the key. They entered a lobby that led to the kitchen and silently shut the door behind them.

“We're safe now,” whispered Lucy. They had escaped the fire of the melting flesh.

Just before midnight on the Friday night Father Copse received a coded message from the Holy Leaders. He was to leave the Holy Envoy's palace at once and withdraw his candidacy for the deputy's post. He was to go to the city centre where one of their agents would meet him and transfer him to a new identity with all necessary documentation and instructions. A flight had been arranged for the new identity, departing for Manchester in nine hours' time. From there he would be taken by car to run a commune in the north of England which had recently lost its father in a car accident.

All his life he had obeyed the Magnifico's instructions, delivered by the Holy Leaders, and there was no way he could disregard them. He withdrew his candidacy, took on his new identity as Father Arthur, and flew to Manchester on the Saturday morning.

Despite his adventure Paul was sleeping well. Lucy lay beside him in the king-sized bed. Everything was quiet apart from the distant voices of the firemen as they doused the remaining ashes of the father's house. She was still shaking inside as she went over the events of the day. It seemed centuries ago that David had met her by the pond and warned her, yet it was only today – that very afternoon. Since then she had been betrayed by a trusted friend, acquired a brother, and lost Aunt Sarah.

Lucy had taken Aunt Sarah for granted, had been afraid of her tongue and irritated by her homilies, and now she was ashamed. She stroked the gold circle of daffodils that hung from the chain on her neck and remembered the comfortable lap of years ago, and the face nuzzling into her hair – the kissing and cuddling, and the secret treats, and the soothing voice whispering ‘my little darling'. And then she remembered that horrible day – the first day of school – when she had thrown her arms round Aunt Sarah's legs and asked to be cuddled. With tears falling down her fat cheeks Aunt Sarah had pushed her away. “No. It's not allowed. You're a big girl now.”

Lucy turned away from Paul and buried her face in the pillow. She wept, not just for her own terrible hurt, but also for the sadness of poor Aunt Sarah who had owned nothing but the gold chain with the daffodil circle, and had not even been allowed to love.

A chink of light between the curtains told Lucy it was daytime. Her head hurt and her eyelids were so swollen she could hardly see through them. She snuggled a little further down into the bed. There was no need to get up.

Paul stirred beside her and opened his eyes.

“Getting-up time?” he asked.

Lucy climbed out of bed and went to the window. “It's Saturday,” she said. Her voice sounded thick and heavy.

There was a gap in the heavily lined curtains, and she peeped out. The room overlooked the front garden and the main road. To the left she could see the remains of the father's house. It was still smoking in places and there were men climbing over the ruins.

Lucy carefully closed every bit of the curtains and went over to the door. She flicked the light switch but nothing happened.

Paul was bouncing on the bed when she returned.

“I think there's no electricity,” she said. “It's like when Aunt Sarah has to light candles after a big storm.”

Paul wasn't particularly interested.

“I'm hungry,” he said.

They found a bathroom which was unlike anything they had seen before. The bath was made of beaten copper and stood like a great bowl in the middle of the marble floor. There was a mirror across one entire wall, from floor to ceiling. They stood in front of it and stared at themselves. For the first time in their lives they could see what they really looked like. The sight was a disappointment. Paul was still in his pyjamas and Lucy had slept in her day clothes, and they were both filthy, covered in soot and mud.

Downstairs they explored the kitchen. It was large and square with a giant wooden table in the centre and a big blue clock ticking away on the furthest wall. There were cupboards and yards of smooth worktops with mysterious gadgets lined up against mosaic wall tiles. In one corner stood a giant silver cupboard with two doors. Lucy opened the right-hand door. It was a refrigerator. A few bottles of wine lay on the wire trays inside, but there was nothing to eat. What was significant, Lucy realised, was that the light inside the fridge had come on. That meant at least there was power in the kitchen.

Paul had dragged over a chair and was looking at the gadgets.

“This is a pretty kettle,” he said, lifting the lid. “All silvery.”

Lucy tried the tap and after a few gurgles and splutters water started to flow, and there was a slight rumbling noise from the corner of the kitchen. The children opened a door and found a boiler churning away in good sized laundry room. A clothes airer like Aunt Sarah's hung from the ceiling, and the walls were lined with shelves full of towels, and sheets and blankets. A silver-coloured washing machine stood next to a matching tumble drier. An ironing board stood erected with the iron positioned ready for use.

If Aunt Sarah had had all these things, thought Lucy, her legs might not have got so swollen up.

Back in the kitchen the tap was still running.

“Look!” said Lucy. “Steam! That means we might be able to have a bath in warm water.”

“I'm hungry.”

Lucy opened the left-hand door of the huge silver cupboard, and both children stood staring. It was full of food. Paul poked it with his finger.

“It's cold,” he said, withdrawing his finger quickly.

“It must be a freezer.” Lucy looked at the carefully labelled shelves of vegetables, meat, fish, ready meals, puddings, ice creams, fruits, and fruit juices.

If Aunt Sarah had had a freezer she would not have had to go shopping every day. Lucy was astonished at the number of things that could have made Aunt Sarah's life easier, and they were all here right next door to her in the diplomat's house!