The Thief of Broken Toys (5 page)

“You should be getting home, then,” the
man said. “No need to be out on a night like
this when there's sorting to be done.”

“Did you walk from along the cliffs?” Ray
asked, nodding past the old man. It was at
least three miles to the next small village, up
and down treacherous and challenging paths
even in bright sunlight.

“No, son,” the old man said. “And . . . really,
I can mend it. You want me to. It'll help.”

“I told you, I don't have a fucking toy for
you to fix! What is it with you? Don't you
just — ” A more violent gust of wind roared in,
forcing rain almost horizontally before it, and
Ray turned from the sea. The rain struck his
back hard as driven hail, and when the gust
died down and he turned back to the old man,
he was just as he'd been before. Hood pulled
forward a little more, perhaps. Leaning a little
heavier on his cane. Ray didn't think for a
moment that the man hadn't felt the gust, but
he seemed completely unbothered by it.

“Just keeping a promise will set you free,”
the old man said, and yet again his voice
carried through the storm. “Well, if you're not
me, that is.” Then he turned and walked back
along the path.

For a moment Ray considered going after
him, but what could he really gain? The guy
was obviously on another planet. He felt a
moment of concern and responsibility — the
old fool was walking along the cliffs, farther
into the wild, and the storm was gathering
strength — but he'd said he didn't come from
the village anyway. Maybe he had a shack out
there somewhere, or a little hut hidden up on
the moors. Even though Ray and Elizabeth
had lived here for ten years, they were still
considered newcomers by some of Skentipple's
oldest families, and perhaps this man was a
village secret.

Ray ducked from another withering blast
of wind and rain, and when he looked again,
the man was gone. No shadow, no sign of
movement. But Ray was not that mad, nor
that far gone. He
had
talked to an old man up
on this cliff, and that old man —

He had known about the broken watch.

“Damn it,” Ray muttered, rain running
down his face and onto his lips. It tasted of
the sea. His hand still stung from the thorns,
as if reminding him that it had been hurt as
well, and he tried to examine the wounds in
the moonlight. But he could not focus. He
kept glancing around at shadows threatening
to crowd in. Far out to sea, lightning stabbed
the horizon.

He started back toward the village, moving
quickly along the dark path. The moon had
retreated fully behind the clouds now, and
the only trace of illumination came from the
reflected glow from the clouds' underside.
Skentipple's borrowed light guided him in. He
slipped several times, but managed to remain
standing. Water flowed across the path on
its journey toward the cliff edge, and he
wondered what would happen if he submitted
to that flow.

After Toby died, Ray had considered suicide
three times. Once he'd gone so far as to walk
up here to the cliff top and explore a less-trodden path, one that led down past an old
stone bench buried deep beneath a bramble
bush and skirted close to the cliff edge. He'd
stood on that path for some time, the ground
ending maybe ten steps in front of him,
and all he'd needed to do was force his way
through the twisted heathers and gorse that
grew to the edge. That had been three months
after Toby died, and three days after Elizabeth
moved out. He'd stood there, analyzing in a
dispassionate, objective way his reasons for
wanting to die. And much as the world without
his son was a terrible, empty place, he hated
the trace of self-pity he could not help feeling.
If he fell, it was Elizabeth he'd be thinking of,
and how she would react to his death.

He'd sighed, and then glanced left along
the cliff. Just in view was the regular edge of
a stone wall. It was closer to the cliff's edge
than him, and he'd leaned forward trying to
make out exactly what it was. A building of
some kind, he thought. A small hut, maybe,
buried by plant growth, surely never used.
He'd wondered at someone loving this view
so much that they'd gone to the effort of
constructing something up here. And then
he'd sat there for a long time, listening to the
sea, smelling gorse, feeling the gentle warm
breeze against his face. . . .

It took twenty minutes to get back to the
village, and by the time he reached his home,
his limbs were shaking with exertion. His
clothes were sodden and heavy, and the final
climb up the paths and steps to his front door
almost defeated him. But he made it inside,
hiding from the storm and drawing curtains
against the cheery lights of the village.

He set the open fire in the living room, and
as the rolled newspaper burned and the wood
caught, he stripped. The warmth from the fire
was almost instantaneous. He unfolded a rack
and hung his clothes, then remembered the
Ben 10 watch.

Have you brought me a broken toy?

It wasn't in any of his coat pockets. Ray
searched again, making sure he checked each
pocket thoroughly. Then, naked, he went
through the kitchen to the back door, turning
on all the lights and looking on the floor.
There was no sign of it.

So you going to give me the toy?

He went back to the living room and checked
the coat again, then his trouser pockets, then
retraced his steps to the back door one more
time. He flicked on the outside light and
opened the door, forgetting his nakedness
as he went out beneath the small porch and
scanned the broken stone path leading to the
small garden gate.

The watch was gone. He'd dropped it.
I have
to go and find it
, he thought, but the storm had
reached its full fury now, and Ray suddenly
felt more weary than he'd realized. He shut
the back door and checked the kitchen clock.

It was almost midnight. He'd been up on
the cliffs for two hours.

“Tomorrow,” he said to the terrible empty
house. “I'll go and find it tomorrow.”

He dragged a duvet down from upstairs
and curled up on the sofa, staring into the
flames as the coals caught.
There are caves in
there!
Toby used to shout as he watched the
fire, and Ray saw them now, bright glowing
caves inhabited by fantastic creatures and a
child's innocent hopes.

We drift through the storm where no bird dares
fly. The sense of being alone is staggering;
there are no contrasts between up and down,
here and there. Wind surges like angry breaths
of forgotten gods, and rain lances through the
air. Lightning bursts all around — the gods'
fury given form — and the world shakes.

Down, floating down onto the village, the
life to be witnessed past midnight is different
from that during daylight hours. Descending
over the full harbour and past seagull shit-streaked rooftops, an old man walks through
the warren of streets and alleys. He is making
his sad way home after several pints at the
Flag & Fisherman. Twenty years ago he went
out on a fishing boat with five of his mates,
and he was the only one to return. He still
dreams of them, especially his brother's face
as the sea took him down, and sometimes in
those dreams he remembers other things in
the water with them that day. Amorphous,
amorous things, waving hair and smooth skin,
claws and the insinuation of sharp, sharklike teeth. His name is Duncan, and he can
still remember the day they found his friend
David's body. Drowned, the doctors said when
they opened him up, but there was no mention
of the other wounds on his corpse. No one
even seems to remember those other wounds.
Duncan drinks alone most nights now, and
he knows that many in the village think him
mad. He walks home in the darkness, still
scared of what the storm might contain.

As we move away from Duncan, he pauses
in the street and looks up into the storm.
There's nothing to see, but still he staggers
sideways and leans against a wall. Perhaps
madmen can see farther.

We
peer
down
into
a
small,
overgrown
garden, where two teenagers on their way home
from the pub are rutting. She's called Maxine,
and as she bends over she clasps her knickers,
worried that they'll drop and get dirty and her
mother will see. She's soaking and cold from the
rain, but hot inside. The boy's name is Flynn.
His family has lived in the village forever, and
he has some vague idea that he and Maxine
might
be
distant
cousins
somewhere
down
the line, but she has a sweet arse and cute tits.
He looks around warily, worried about getting
caught and eager to get it over with, but he's
had too much to drink, and this might take a
while. When he's older he'll think back to this
moment as the time his life changed, because
he's not using a condom and Maxine isn't on
the pill, and lightning thrashes in a new life.

Beyond the young lovers, giving them their
privacy, the house is not too far away. It's an
old rundown place, great swathes of cement
render crumbled from the outside walls by
frost. Rachel does her best, but with Johnny
run away to Bodmin with that slut Lucy-Anne Woodhams, she's left here with Ollie,
a house that needs maintaining, and two
jobs. She can only do so much. She's sitting in
Ollie's room, the curtains drawn against the
storm, a tumbler of whiskey in her hand, legs
drawn up under her on the large wicker chair.
Ollie is sleeping contentedly in his bed, and
Rachel is confused. Her boy has been sick
for several weeks now, and the doctors have
given her varying diagnoses. Her GP told her
that it was tonsillitis, and that sometimes
young lads like Ollie can suffer from it badly:
fever, terrible sore throat, swollen tongue,
vomiting, breathing difficulties. She's been
to hospital with him twice, and the tests
have come back indicating he has glandular
fever. That worries Rachel, because she had
that
illness
when
she
was
young
and
its
regular recurrence is one of the main things
she remembers from her teens. Whatever is
wrong with him, Ollie has been home from
school for three weeks, meaning that her
working patterns at the bakery during the
day have been haphazard at best. Margaret
the
owner
is
sympathetic,
but
she's
also
said she might have to let Rachel go and
have her niece Maxine work the still-busy
lunchtime shift. She doesn't pay much, and
if Rachel hired a babysitter to come and look
after Ollie for those four hours, she'd end up
working them for a little over ten pounds.
It's a problem — so much so that for the last
three days she's been considering contacting
that fucking bastard Johnny and begging
him for help. But this evening Ollie seemed
to suddenly improve, between the time she
started dinner and the time they'd finished.
His pallor lifted, his eyes grew bright again,
his colour returned, and by nine o'clock he
wanted to go out for ice cream. If there'd
been one place in the village still open at that
time, she'd have gone out to buy him a whole
tub.

So she sits watching him now, and the frown
is only a little to do with the mystery of his
miraculous recovery. Mostly it's because he is
cuddling his old beanie doll, and she disposed
of Oswald a few weeks ago when its leg came
off and started leaking bean-innards. Now it's
whole again, and so, it seems, is Ollie.

We move away from Rachel now, back into
the storm, because come morning she will
have forgotten Oswald and found a measure of
happiness again. On to the top of the village,
following the direction of the storm, and in
a small attic room above the Smugglers' Inn,
a man and woman sleep wrapped together,
naked, warm. There are dreams in this room,
and Elizabeth opens her eyes and cries out
as she hears her dead son's laughter. The
fisherman, Jason, mumbles something in his
sleep and cups her breast, and Elizabeth lifts
her head and stares through the curtainless
window at the storm beyond. She's breathing
heavily, and soon the tears on her face echo
the raindrops on glass.

Back through the village, its secret lives
huddled down against the storm, we see and
sense other people enjoying or suffering
different
dreams.
There
is
laughter
and
sadness, lovemaking and lovelessness. And
up past the last of the houses, on the cliffs
overlooking the sea, here he is, the man sitting
in a small stone shelter working by the light of
a fire.

“Wake up, sleepy bum!” Toby shouted, and Ray
smiled as he surfaced from sleep. He could
smell fire, and they were camping on the
moors, one of their neighbours having already
fired up the barbeque for breakfast. “Sleepy
bum, sleepy bum!” Toby called, and Ray was
stiff and sore.
I just love my home comforts
,
he remembered Elizabeth saying about her
ambivalence toward camping, but this holiday
would change that.

Ray opened his eyes, expecting to see Toby
kneeling just outside their tent compartment,
ready to open the zip and leap onto their
airbed. But everything was wrong. The ceiling
was too high, and lined with spider webs. The
airbed was harder than it should have been,
and he wondered whether it had gone down
during the night.

Reality crowded in and Ray groaned. The
smell of smoke remained.

He sat up slowly. Some of the duvet had
slipped from the sofa during the night, and
he was cold. He'd gone to sleep still naked,
the fire roaring in the hearth, but now it
was a sculpture of ash, and he saw his breath
condensing before him.

“Damn it, Toby,” Ray whispered, as if his son
really had woken him. He stood and walked
slowly to the kitchen, pausing with every step
to twist and turn the kinks from his limbs and
back. He must have slept in the same position
all night, and now his body wanted to remain
in that shape. He was like the teenager Toby
had never become, annoyed at being woken up,
eager to remain exactly where he was because
nothing outside could possibly be of any
interest. Ray had often dwelled upon how the
future would have played out, and what sort of
a teenager Toby would've been. He himself had
been a bit sulky and shy, but he'd never given
his parents anything to really worry about.
He'd been a virgin until nineteen, so there
had never been girl issues, only no
-
girl issues.
No drugs, only booze. Ray had always hoped
Toby would be as easy to handle, but only in
his darkest moments had he ever considered
his son no longer being there at all.