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Authors: Tim Lebbon

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BOOK: The Thief of Broken Toys
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In the kitchen, he slipped on his wet
walking boots from the previous night and
padded across the slate floor to the sink.
Filling the kettle, he looked out on the little
garden. Puddles of muddy water lay where he'd
once planned a small vegetable patch. Leaves
had been blown against the rocky slope that
formed the garden's rear perimeter, sticking
there in the wet. The fence, always rickety,
now leaned at almost forty-five degrees. He'd
have to fix that before the next storm came in,
otherwise —

He remembered the old man, the things
he'd said, and in the daylight they seemed . . .
if not ridiculous, then distant. Unlikely.

“Weird old coot,” he muttered. He crossed
to the fridge, and it was only as he passed
the glazed back door that he remembered his
nakedness. He glanced out, across the garden
at the path that climbed past the house,
thinking,
Of course there'll be no one there, it's
early, and it's my house anyway, whose business
is it if
—

The old woman from the shell house was
standing out on the path, head tilted back
as she laughed at the sky. If he'd opened the
door he'd have heard her cackling. Ray quickly
covered his crotch with his left hand. The
woman continued down the path smiling
and shaking her head, and then he heard the
muffled crackle and buzz of the Ben 10 watch.

He froze, watching the old woman turn left
and start descending the old stone steps.

The watch sounded again, as if someone
had twisted the face and then slammed it shut
on a new monster. That sound had driven him
mad on Toby's fifth birthday, for some reason
more than all the other beeps, shrieks and
whistles that seemed to emanate from every
modern kid's toys. But of course, the watch
had broken. And he'd put it away in that box
beneath the bed, promising his son he'd fix it
and make it well again.

Like any kid, Toby had quickly moved on to
something else.

Ray
turned
around
and
scanned
the
kitchen. Maybe it was still in his coat pocket,
and the rain had got in and shorted a broken
circuit or —

It buzzed again and he turned back to the
door. It was lying on the step outside — the step
wet, the watch completely dry. Ray unlocked
the door, glancing around quickly to make
sure no one else would get an eyeful today,
and then squatted to pick it up. He hesitated
just for a second, hand an inch away from the
watch.
I searched for it, must have dropped it, and
now
. . . He picked it up and went back inside,
moving through to the hallway and climbing
the dogleg staircase.

He sat on his bed and stared at the toy.
Shook it. Looked for water droplets, any sign
that it had spent the night exposed to the
elements. But it was completely dry. He lifted
the face, turned the dial until another monster
was illuminated, then closed it again.

Maybe the old woman had found it and
dropped it on his step. That would explain what
she'd been doing there. But she'd been walking
down the path from her own home when he'd
seen her, not leaving his small sloping garden.
And it was broken. The spring fell out. It was
incomplete when I lost it, and now
. . .

“Now it's complete again.”

And because there was no explanation that
made sense, he took the toy back into Toby's
room and left it for a while.

Washing and dressing, he concentrated
on shaving, the bathroom's décor, flossing,
brushing his hair, what he might have for
breakfast, what he'd need to fix the fence later
that day, and all the while that broken thing
was on his mind, fixed now and in the next
room.

Standing on the landing, facing the open
door to Toby's old room, Ray felt more normal
and
there
than he had since waking.
I dropped
it, someone found it and fixed it and brought it
back for me
, he thought.
Or maybe when it
dropped from my pocket, it hit the ground,
dislodged something that was
. . .

But there was the spring that had fallen
from the toy. And when he'd started back
down the cliff path after leaving the old
man, he'd felt the lump in his coat, touching
it protectively because it was a secret the old
man had known. His coat pocket had a clip
button on the flap, and it had been securely
fastened.

He could go mad thinking this through.

The door creaked slightly as he opened it,
and he steeled himself for the rush of grief that
always awaited him in Toby's room. But today,
the emotions were different. He gasped at the
strangeness of things, then sat on Toby's bed
beside a dozen other broken toys. He looked
slowly around the room, and wondered where
this new feeling had come from.

He
was
melancholy
rather
than
sad.
Where crushing grief usually compressed
his chest and distorted his perception of the
surroundings, now there was a cool glow
of distance and absence. And for the first
time, he could look around the room and see
evidence of joy. There on the bookcase was
one of his son's drawing books. He'd become
adept at sketching, and could draw animals as
well as some kids twice his age.
I want to be an
artist
, he'd said once, and Ray remembered the
pride he'd felt at that moment, as if already
acknowledging future achievements. In one
corner sat a soccer ball, mud still dried into
creases and stitches from the last time they'd
kicked it around on the field at the top of the
village. Toby had been able to kick the ball
almost as far as Ray. They'd laughed as they
played, and there were many kids who never
had that, whose fathers were too busy or
distracted or distant. That was a
good
memory,
and though it would not be repeated, Ray felt
happy it had happened at all. Toby's life had
been short. But he had been loved.

Ray leaned forward and looked at the dusty
carpet between his feet, watching rosettes of
tears drop there. But he was smiling, because
for the first time in a long while he heard
Toby's laughter afresh.

The storm had cleared, blowing itself out
during the night, and now the sky was
crumbed with the remnants of white clouds.
It was still cool, but the weak autumn sun
was already drying the paths and streets in
random patterns. The harbour was bustling
with a bus load of tourists, cameras humming
and beeping, faces smiling, heads wearing
hats. Ray passed them by and headed into the
warren of back streets.

The bakery was on the corner of two narrow
streets. It smelled wonderful, and Ray's spirits
always lifted a little when he approached. The
sun peeked over the buildings behind him and
reflected from the upper half of the shop's
window, and the lower half was alight with a
display of Chelsea buns, cream cakes, custard
tarts, fresh crusty rolls, and doughnuts. Part
of his reason for coming down was to buy a
loaf and a couple of cakes for lunch, but there
was another reason. That haunted him, and it
seemed to be the only darkness on his mood
this morning.

I shouldn't be feeling good, because Toby's dead
,
he thought. But one thing he and his wife had
agreed upon from the beginning — from the
start of their new life, not the terrible end of
their old one — was that guilt would kill them
both. Their son had died of a rare condition
no one could have foreseen, and to carry guilt
for his death, as well as the grief, would be too
much. Acknowledging this had done little to
lessen it, however. For the first time today,
Ray felt without blame.

“Morning, Rachel,” he said, entering the
shop.

“Ray! Nice to see you.” And then the
question that must always come. “How are
you?”

“I'm doing okay,” he said, smiling. Rachel
smiled back. She was an attractive woman,
and for years the two of them had conducted
what he thought of as distant flirting. But not
for some time. He glanced to the rear of the
shop where Margaret the owner was unloading
loaves from their oven, then back at Rachel.
“How're your buns today?” he asked.

“Er . . .” she averted her eyes, and he
thought,
Shit, fool, that's just clumsy
. He was
the grieving father, the village's figure of
unbearable, inconceivable sadness. He had a
front to project.

“Soft today, actually,” she said quietly.

“Then I'll take four.” They exchanged
smiles again and he felt better.
Better than
ever
, he thought. “How's Ollie? I hear he's been
poorly.”

Rachel's son Ollie and Toby had gone
to school together. They'd been friends.
Sometimes Ray would drive them both to
school when he knew Rachel had to start
work early at the bakery. It had always been a
friendship of convenience; Rachel was distant
and preoccupied. Not cold, as Elizabeth had
suggested, but complex. Ray saw a lot going on
in there.

“He's better!” she said. She shook her head,
frowning. “One day he's still in bed, and the
doctors . . . they're just confused. And then
last night he woke up, and that was it. Sat up,
wanted ice cream, started complaining when I
told him it was bedtime.”

“Ha!” Ray said, genuinely pleased for her.
“You can tell they're well again when they
start protesting.”

“Yeah, right,” Rachel said, then her gaze
flitted away again in discomfort.

“Tell him I say hi,” Ray said.

Rachel nodded. Frowned.

“What?” Ray asked.

“He still doesn't quite . . . understand.
About Toby.”

“None of us do,” he said. “But that's okay.”
He handed her a five pound note, and nodded
at the lifeboat collection box when she offered
his change. “Rachel . . . you've lived here a long
time.”

“All my life.”

“Is there an old man living up on the moors,
above the cliffs?”

“You mean on your side of the village?”

“Yes. Up the coastal path. Only I was up
there last night — ”

“In the storm?”

“Yeah. I like walking in the dark, it . . .
Anyway, I was there and I met an old guy.
Really old, like ancient.”
And he said things he
couldn't have known
, Ray thought, but he did
not go that far.

“There's nothing up there that I know of,
not close anyway. Once you get on the moors,
you can walk back as far as the main road.
But the going's tough, and I don't know of any
buildings there. Caravan, maybe? Perhaps he's
a traveller?”

“Perhaps,” Ray said. He took the bag of
bread and cakes she handed over the counter,
and just for a second their fingers touched.
And then the sun welcomed him outside once
more.

Need someone to share your cakes with
, he
thought, but he walked away, and the first
sadness of the day descended. Previously,
through all the grief of losing his boy,
Elizabeth's departure had seemed like just
another facet of his new life, not a loss.

He'd seen her yesterday, in the pub with
the fisherman. And he had vowed to move on.
Today, things had started to feel different.

All because of him
, he thought, but the idea
was ridiculous. He'd met some mad coot
walking in the storm, a weird old sod who
was probably losing his marbles. And then the
next day when the storm cleared and the sky
brightened and he felt good, he attributed it
to a midnight, rain-swept meeting. “All in my
head,” he mumbled, and as a tall, thin woman
looked at him, he realized where he was.
He'd left the bakery and walked up out of the
village, following the single road that curved
its way toward the Smuggler's Inn. He hadn't
been there since Elizabeth left him, and he'd
only driven out of the village a handful of
times. He shopped here, lived here, conducted
his business from home, and passing his wife's
new home always made him feel torn. Now he
was walking toward it.

“Huh,” Ray said. He stood motionless on
the pavement, stream gurgling by on his
right. Ducks paddled there, kicking their legs
to remain motionless against the flow, and he
knew what they felt like. He'd been kicking
for a whole year. Maybe now it was time to go
with the flow.

When he blinked, the eyes of a broken
soldier stared at him. He frowned and blinked
again, and a headless Transformer watched
from behind his eyes. Moving on meant
packing up. Toby's room needed work, and
until he'd finished there, he still carried the
ghost of his dead son around with him.

And that was the last thing Elizabeth
would wish to see.

It took him a while to choose. He thought he'd
simply return home and snap up the first toy
that came to hand, but he believed that he'd
need one with a strong memory attached. The
action figures looked too similar — all bulging
muscles,
camouflage
gear,
and
gripping
hands. There was a remote-controlled car with
a broken axle, but he couldn't recall Toby ever
having played with it. He supposed he must
have for the thing to be broken, but maybe
he'd played with it on his own.
Or maybe I was
so busy I never noticed
, he thought. He chewed
on a Chelsea bun, sugar speckling the carpet
around his feet as he scanned the room for
something suitable.

In the end, he sat on the floor and played
with
the
toys
himself.
A
small
plastic
warplane did circuits of his head, firing
down at the action figures which all slipped
for cover beneath the bed. A troop of plastic
animals — there'd been a farm building, he
was sure, but he had no idea where it was
now — stood in line beside his leg, like cattle
on parade. A Spider-Man motorcycle that had
used to spin and run on its own was propped
against the bed leg, Spider-Man nowhere in
sight. He hadn't sat and actively played with
these toys for ages, and rarely even when Toby
was alive. He remembered seeing his son on
the living room floor with a riot of colours and
shapes splashed across the carpet around him.
He'd combine farm animals with Spider-Man,
action figures with fluffy toys, and inside his
head was a whole world. That world was gone
now, and Ray had never been privy to it.

BOOK: The Thief of Broken Toys
6.56Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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