The Thief of Broken Toys (8 page)

When he woke up the next day he stretched,
unwilling to relinquish the comforting warmth
beneath the duvet for the chill bedroom air.
He'd woken with an erection and a dissolving
dream involving Rachel from the bakery, and
he smiled at the brightening room, sighing
contentedly. He supposed he'd always had a
crush on her, like an excitable teen instead
of the forty-something he was. He had no
memory of the dream, just a feeling, and it
shrank away in the promise of a new day.

At last he stood up from his bed, shrugging
on a dressing gown and padding to the toilet.
After urinating he walked back to his room,
enjoying the feel of the landing floorboards
on his bare feet. Wood was never cold, just
cool, whatever the temperature outside. He
had always liked being this close to things.
Carpets were fine, but walking on them
barefoot he always felt as though he were
separated from the body of the house. The
wood was its skeleton, carpet merely clothing.

Dressing,
Ray
frowned
at
a
memory
hovering just beyond his perception. He
paused with one leg in, one leg out of his
jeans.
What was that?
Something forced itself
toward him, a memory he should clasp, and
he blinked in surprise at the suddenness of
the vision that struck him: Rachel from the
bakery slipping off her blouse with flour-covered hands, her smile promising more.
That's not it
, he thought, frowning the dream-memory away.
There's something else, it wasn't
that, it was never that
.

It was halfway down the stairs, as he saw
the yellow toy safari jeep sitting on the fourth
step up from the bottom, that he remembered
he'd once had a son.

And Toby was like a dream fading in
instead of out. There was a boy without a face
or voice, and he had gone somewhere. Then
his face emerged in Ray's memory, freckled
in the summer, blond hair made lighter by
the sun, and he shouted in glee as he tipped
bucket after bucket of water onto the flower
bed, mud pies much more interesting to him
than daffodil bulbs.

“Toby,” Ray breathed as he sat down on
the stairs. He bent forward slowly and picked
up the jeep, wondering how the hell he could
have woken up and not remembered his dead
son. Every morning since Toby had died, Ray
had surfaced with the boy's laughter or tears
on his mind, and the knowledge of his death
pressing him down like the greatest weight.
Some mornings he had risen from sleep that
had itself been infected with that dreadful
knowledge, and sometimes — the meanest of
times — he had dreamed that Toby was alive
and well and laughing, and the waking had
been unbearable.

But this morning he had come awake like a
contented man.

“Tobes,” he said, “I do love you so much.”
He cried, but they were not bitter tears, nor
even tears driven by anger at himself. They
stopped quickly and he went to the kitchen,
nursing the mended toy as the kettle boiled. A
new door had been fixed on, and the three new
tires exactly matched the one remaining —
shapes, make, treads. He turned the jeep this
way and that, trying to see any mark or clue
the old man might have left as to how he'd
done it. But there was nothing.

He was in my house
, Ray thought.
He was
here, inside, while I slept
. But that did not
frighten or concern him as much as it should
have. While the tea was brewing he went
upstairs to his dead son's room. Broken toys
were still scattered across the bed and floor
where Ray had left them the previous day, and
he smiled sadly as he sat on the bed, picking
them up at random, remembering. Here was
the Power Ranger whose arm had come off
when Elizabeth stepped on it, Toby's cry of
grief heartbreaking to both of them. They'd
comforted him, given him a chocolate bar,
and Ray had promised to fix it, but never
had. Here was the self-propelling car whose
mechanism had become jammed, and Toby
had cried because it no longer moved on its
own.
It's dead
, he'd said, and Ray had not fixed
that one, either.

On the side of the wardrobe, which still
held many of Toby's little clothes, was a
self-portrait he'd painted in school when he
was five years old. It was the usual childish
splodge of paint; big round pink head, bright
blue eyes, smiling mouth with — much to Ray's
and Elizabeth's amusement at the time — two
long vampirish teeth. Since he'd gone, Ray
had not been able to look at it without crying.
It was something more than a photograph,
evidence of Toby's mind working, his hands
moving, and a sign of the self-awareness he'd
barely had time to explore. But now he looked
at it and smiled, and his dead son smiled back.
At least he'd had a chance. At least he'd spent
some years on this planet, instead of no years
at all. He'd known laughter and joy, and he
had been loved.

Ray gathered some toys to him and rested
back on the bed, looking around the room with
new eyes and finding in himself an ability to
celebrate — instead of only mourn — Toby's
life.

“Elizabeth,” he said. Something about his
estranged wife's name had changed. It held
more meaning than it did yesterday, when it
had simply been the first name of the woman
who'd left him. Today it was Toby's mother,
part of this room, these toys, and part of Toby's
mind when he'd picked up the fat paintbrush
and painted himself as he believed his mother
and father saw him. “Elizabeth,” Ray said
again. And he knew he had to talk to her.

His walk through the village was alive with
memories, and Ray wondered whether in his
grief he'd been burying them so deep that they
were as good as forgotten. They came to the
fore now, bright sunlit moments of pushing
Toby's
pram,
guiding
him
on
unsteady,
unlearned legs, and chasing after him when
he progressed from toddler to little boy. The
most obscure, meaningless recollections hit
home, and Ray realized that no moment is
meaningless. His son's smile over his shoulder
as he entered the local post office holding his
mother's hand, skipping along the curbside
with one foot on pavement and one on road,
kneeling down with bread in his hand and a
robin hopping cautiously closer, closer . . .
each of these images was precious, because
they were evidence of his son's life. Toby was
gone now, but memories could be as rich
and as meaningful as experience. After all,
every instant that passed — every step Ray
took, every beat of his heart — was instantly
consigned to memory.

He passed the bakery and paused to look
inside, but he could not see Rachel. Perhaps on
the way back he'd call in to see her, after he'd
spoken with Elizabeth and . . .

“What am I going to say?” he whispered,
walking on past the bakery and staring at
the ground before him. He couldn't tell the
truth. That he'd met an old man on the cliffs,
and that the old man was fixing Toby's toys
and somehow easing Ray's grief. That was
ridiculous. The very idea lessened their loss,
but much as Ray dwelled on the reality of what
was happening as he walked, he could not
change the way he felt. Something was lifting
from him.

He
worked
his
way
through
the
winding
streets and onto the road that curved out of
the village. He'd decide what to say when he
got there. Planning these things would never
work, and he'd have to trust himself. They had
such a history, so much love between them, and
he'd always thought of their relationship as
something that had paused rather than ended.
There had
been
no ending; no shouting, arguing,
or severing of ties. Elizabeth had simply moved
out and on, but perhaps their past was not yet
beyond reach.

“We could have another,” Ray whispered,
and his breath caught in his throat. He stood
frozen by the roadside, trying to imagine
Toby with a brother or sister. The idea was a
shocking acknowledgement of there being a
future.

The day moved on, and when he reached the
Smugglers' Inn, he sat on a bench in the small
beer garden, feeling damp soaking through
his trousers, staring at the façade, wondering
where Elizabeth was now and which room was
hers. It was approaching midday, and a family
of tourists was perusing the menu board,
father silent, mother distracted, two kids
laughing and joking. Ray thought of the old
smuggling tunnel the landlord Tony Fox had
shown him an age ago, and wondered why he
never made more use of it with the tourists.
Maybe some things were too private.

The
pub
door
opened
and
Elizabeth
emerged. Ray caught his breath. She carried
several ashtrays and started laying them on
the tables, and she actually passed him by
before pausing, turning back, and realizing
who he was.

“Ray,” she said, and her eyes filled up.
I remind her of him
, he thought. “What are
you . . . ?”

“I came to see you,” he said.

“Why?” She could not quite look at him;
her eyes flickered from side to side, as if in the
sudden presence of her estranged husband she
sought her son's ghost.

“Because . . . there's life beyond. We don't
have to let it beat us. Destroy us. Toby wouldn't
have wanted — ”

“Don't say his name,” she breathed, staring
right at him for the first time.

“Toby?”

“Don't.” A plea.

“Don't be afraid of his memory, Liz.” He
stood and walked toward her, hands coming
up to hold her arms. She backed away.

“I can't . . . I can't even . . .” She shook
her head, and Ray thought she was going to
crumple. He prepared to catch her, ease her
onto a bench where they could sit and talk.
But then she started shouting. “Just leave me
alone! You have no idea! You just don't know.
How can you even . . .
smile
?”

Was I smiling?
Ray thought, but he frowned
and backed away. Elizabeth was not crying.
Her face was red, and her hands worked by her
side, clawing.

“It's something we have to come to terms
with,” he said. “Smiling isn't forgetting him.
We can move on, without dishonouring his
memory. He was our little boy, Liz, and the
last thing he'd want — ”

“He's dead!” she shouted, as if believing
he'd forgotten all they'd gone through.

There's a man up on the cliffs
, he thought, but
there was no way he could say that, not even
now.

“Can't we just talk?” he asked.

“You know we can't,” she said. She glanced
sidelong at the parents who'd been perusing
the menu board. They were leading their
children
away,
trying
to
distract
their
fascinated kids from the shouting woman. “I
just can't, not with you. You remind me of him
so much.”

“That's a bad thing?” he asked.

“Yeah.” He thought she'd shout her reply,
scream it, but it was little more than a gasp.

“And Jason?”

Elizabeth stared at him then, and it was the
first time she'd looked at him like that since
leaving. She wore the old Elizabeth behind
her expression, not the grief-stricken shell
she had become, and for a second he allowed
himself hope.

And then she shot it down.

“Jason helps me forget.” She turned and
went back into the pub, shutting him out. He
sat down, clasped his hands on the wet bench,
and stared down at them for a long time.

From above, we follow him down below. He
walks along the road like something defeated,
but as he nears the harbour his shoulders
straighten, his head lifts, and perhaps there's
a smile on his lips. He walks faster. He smells
dead things, because that's much of what
the sea's smell is — a familiar and nostalgic
scent. He wonders whether the sea has always
smelled the same, even before humans settled
here hundreds, thousands of years ago.
Almost
,
he guesses. Though without humans here to
sense, did the sea even smell at all?

He starts climbing the path that leads
up onto the hillside, where his home is
balanced amongst many others, walls set into
precarious footings, the buildings huddled
and clinging like eager observers of the
harbour down below. Up beyond his home,
the path to the cliffs is empty for now. There
are footprints in the mud, and a seagull is
cracking a shelled thing against a rock tucked
beneath a gorse bush at the path's edge. Its
own feet add more delicate prints as it dances
back and forth, picking up the sea creature in
its beak, dropping it on the rock, again and
again. It knows that it could take flight and
drop it from a greater height, but already the
slick saltiness of the shell's innards is exposed
and leaking. A few more impacts and it will be
able to prise the thing apart and swallow the
insides.

The sounds reach the old man's ears where
he stands up on the cliff path looking out to
sea. We know that he is waiting for someone
who will come from a different direction.
The old man has intrigued, has entwined the
younger man's perception like a blade of grass
around his finger, and now it is time to finish.

He sighs and waits, and hopes that this
time it will work. He has been doing these
things for far too long.

This time he took a brightly coloured toy that
was supposed to be a hand-held saw. When it
was pushed across the floor, the wheel beneath
would turn, lights would flash, and it made a
saw-like buzzing. Ray had bought it for his son
on a work trip to the States, and it had been
well-used over the following few months.
Then one day, it had stopped working. He'd
changed the batteries, to no avail. He took
the thing apart, but he'd never been that
handy, and the electronics of the thing just
confused him. He saw no loose wires or broken
connections, and he remembered screwing
the toy back together thinking,
It'll work now;
I've taken it apart, put it back together, and it'll
work, and I'll never know what was wrong
. But it
had not worked, and after an evening sulking
about it, he thought perhaps Toby had never
considered it again.