– chapter seven –
Freddie’s rhythmic snoring rose and fell from his corner of the lounge, bringing a sense of normality to the suddenly intense atmosphere. I drew a deep, calming breath and stared at the tattered books on the carpet. They were all the same and huge – at least as long as my forearm – but had no writing on the outer covers to say what they were.
Still trembling, I stood the glasses back down, gathered the books up and perched on the edge of the sofa.
I examined the covers as I tried to find the courage to open them. Each was covered in a dark blue fabric, the corners of which were worn and frayed. The spines were faded a lighter shade of blue and one had a black ink stain on it. I cautiously opened the inky cover, half expecting something to jump from the pages.
An old grey photo secured to the thick page with white photo corners stared up at me. The young blonde woman wore a pale long dress and a Mona Lisa smile. She was sitting in a ladder-back chair with her hands folded in her lap. Behind her, a slim, stern-looking guy in a dark suit stood with his hand on her shoulder. His dark hair was thinning at the temples and he conveyed an air of superiority that the fresh-faced chick didn’t have. To an outsider, they could have been mistaken for father and daughter, but I instinctively knew they weren’t.
‘Our Wedding 14th September 1929’ was written in elegant writing beneath the picture. A few pages on, I discovered the bride and groom were Rose and Edward. I gazed at Freddie knowingly. These were his and Kathy’s parents.
The rest of the album was filled with more wedding shots containing a cast of guests unknown to me and I flicked through it, rapidly losing interest. I placed it on the cushion beside me and began the next album. This one contained pictures of three different babies: Frederick James Edward, John Richard, aka Jack, and Katherine Nancy Rose. I shivered, staring at the photos of Kathy. Not only did she look like me but she too had a smudged outline behind her head in each and every picture.
The last book had pictures of them growing up. A school photo taken in 1940 showed what could well have been a picture of me when I was younger, but it was Kathy. Jack was in the same class photo. One on the next page showed Freddie’s class.
Mum came in to clear the lunch things.
“What’s that you’ve found, Katie?” she asked, looking over my shoulder. “Wow, would you look at the resemblance between you and that girl! Even down to the dimple!” She tapped the picture of Kathy with her finger. “And the fuzzy bit, that’s weird.”
“That’s Freddie’s sister,” I said. “Kathy.”
It felt weird to refer to myself in the third person.
“No wonder he keeps calling you Kathy,” Mum said. “But I do think it’s a little disrespectful that you call him Freddie rather than Grandad.”
The word disrespectful brought a sudden memory to my mind – I used to get in trouble when I was Kathy for calling Dougie’s parents by their first names, but I refused to call them Mr and Mrs Smith. Millie wasn’t so bad, but I loathed Stan, and by calling him by his first name, it showed how little I respected him. Freddie, on the other hand, I had all the respect for in the world, but I just couldn’t call him Grandad – not when he used to be my brother!
“It’s what he wants,” I said.
“Even so,” Mum said, “it may help him distinguish the past from the now.”
I was having trouble with that myself.
“He knows who I am, Mum,” I assured her.
Mum tutted and fussed over the coffee table, tutting again at Freddie’s teeth on the tray. The jewel fell to the floor as she scooped the tray up.
“Would you mind getting that?” she said, nodding at it. Then she blanched. “Ugh, how on earth did that get in here?”
She nudged the slug with her foot then briefly left the room and came back with a dustpan and brush, but she showed no signs of being dizzy or getting fuzzy as she laid the precious gem on the table and I assumed she had no visions of the past. She briskly swept the offensive gastropod up and dropped it through the window to the grass three floors below. So much for being an animal lover!
I swung my feet onto the sofa and went back to the photos. The next page in the album was a fancy dress parade. Kathy was in a weird outfit made of pale crepe paper. In one hand she was holding what could be a walking stick, but not on the curvy bit, on the straight bit. A frilly apron was tied around her waist and she had a peculiar bonnet on. Freddie wore normal clothes, short pants, shirt and woollen vest, but had a cardboard tray secured with ribbon or string around his neck. Jack was – where was Jack?
Freddie suddenly snored like a jackhammer and woke up.
“Uh? Oh, morning, Kathy,” he said, yawning.
“Afternoon, Freddie.” I grinned.
He reached to his side for his walking frame, swung it in front and tried to get to his feet. I laid the album on the coffee table to help him up and he glanced at the open page once he was stable.
“Ah, amazing how we improvised during the war,” he said. His words sounded funny without his teeth. “You remember that day, Kathy?”
“Tell me about it,” I begged.
“The school held the parade, bit of excitement for us, eh?” Freddie recalled. “You came second with your Little Bo Peep outfit.”
“So what were you? And Jack?” I scoured the picture again but had no luck locating him.
“I was a cigarette boy,” Freddie said. “You remember they used to come round at the pictures selling them?”
His eyes searched mine for acknowledgment, but I couldn’t give him any.
“As for Jack,” Freddie said. “He wasn’t allowed to participate, don’t you remember?”
I shook my head. “Why?”
“After the dictionary incident.”
My shoulders slumped. That was so not fair!
Freddie shuffled to the passageway and I continued flicking through the album. Several yellowing newspaper cuttings fluttered to the floor.
‘LOCAL YOUTHS GO MISSING
DURING DOODLEBUG ATTACK.’
My hands shook as I grasped the clipping.
‘Teenage cousins, Jack and Kathy Stewart, were last night reported missing after blackout. It is hoped they may have taken shelter during the air raid. If anyone knows of their whereabouts, please contact Trentham Weald Police.’
I felt cold as the article stirred memories.
The blitz where we’d sheltered in tunnels was bad enough. I lived in total fear, fear that the tunnels would collapse and bury us alive and fear that our house would be hit. The former never happened while we were there, but the latter… After that, we moved in with Auntie Carol in Trentham Weald, but as war progressed we came under a new attack. That dreaded putt putt sound as the buzz bombs flew over was something we could sort of ignore, but when that sound stopped – a zillion goosebumps smothered my skin at the thought – we had about fifteen seconds to find shelter. Only time would tell where the bomb – the doodlebug – would drop.
I shuddered, returning to the present, and went back to the clippings.
‘LOCAL YOUTH SUSPECTED
OF STEALING JEWELS.’
It told the exact story the old lady by the church had given us. Following reports gave Jack and Kathy the option of surrendering, another offered the public a reward and showed Kathy and Jack’s pictures. They were old school photos: Jack’s eyes glistened, his smile wide and genuine. Couldn’t they see it wasn’t the face of a thief? As for Kathy’s picture, it was like looking in a mirror.
“Ally! Katie!” Mum yelled from the kitchen. “You need to find somewhere better to keep your computers than the kitchen table!”
There were no further clippings and the next pages were devoid of photos, none even of Freddie. It was as though he’d vanished when Jack and I had.
“I’m gonna count to three,” Mum said. “And if you haven’t moved them, I’m giving them both to charity.”
As if. But I was out of pictures anyway so I rammed the album back in the cupboard and wandered to the kitchen.
Mum had a saucepan of cooked tomato sauce and an empty baking dish in her hands. On the stove, a pan of cheese sauce bubbled and plopped, splattering dollops of yellow over the splashback. Grated cheese was piled on a plate and scattered on the table and the corner of Ally’s laptop.
I snatched the computers as Mum slid the baking dish onto the table and began assembling lasagne. The aroma of garlic, tomato and basil sent my stomach into a gurgling ravenous pit, my lunch still uneaten in the lounge.
“When’s dinner?” I asked, pinching crumbs of parmesan in my fingertips. The computers slid together under my arm and threatened to drop.
“Not for hours.” Mum tapped my fingers with a sheet of dried lasagne and moved the plate. “And if you’ve finished tripping down Grandad’s memory lane, you can get the washing in.”
“Why can’t Ally?”
“Actually, she can.” Mum looked up from her food layering. “It’s mostly sheets, so you may need both of you to fold them.” She pointed to the line way below the kitchen window. “There’s a set each for you.”
Maybe it wasn’t so bad then; I hated my sweaty sleeping bag.
“And I’m just about to start another load,” she said, “so if you’ve got any washing…” She looked at me accusingly.
Ally was sitting sideways across her bed, half asleep and listening to music on her phone. She startled when I dropped her laptop beside her and the tish tish of muffled music increased as she yanked her earpieces out. I slid my own computer onto my unpacked suitcase and gave her the news about the bedding, but she just went back to her music.
Downstairs, I dragged the purple sheets off the line, leaving the pink set for Ally. But the bed, wedged against the wall by the bedside table, was hard to make and I wrestled the linen impatiently over the mattress. Job finally done, I began picking through the pile of clothes on the floor and half pulled my shawl from my backpack to wash it yet again, but I heard the machine begin filling with water in the kitchen so I abandoned my chore to check my email.
A bed spring pinged and a small vibration ricocheted through my thigh as I flopped on my bed. I had no new messages and reading comments left by old friends made me homesick. I flopped against the wall and gazed at the window desolately. The net curtain floated back and forth over the sill and the swoosh, swoosh, beep, of distant traffic wafted in on the warm breeze. A constant reminder that I was in overpopulated England.
I sighed. So many killed in my past life yet how quickly the population regenerated. Except Jack.
I searched his name on the internet but all I got was American sports players. I tried Kathy Stewart, but she was a marriage celebrant or something. Finally, I searched Katie and it brought up my social networks. I clicked back on the one I privately shared with Zac – I had so much to tell him, but how could I? It would sound stupid. I was about to shut it down when I realised my inbox had registered a new message. Had he only just sent it? My heart quickened at the thought that we could chat, but he wasn’t online.
Hey Katie. Mum and Dad reckon I need cheering up after breaking up with Stacey, ha ha, so guess what! Me and Dad r going rock climbing for a few days. So hey, won’t b online 4 a while. Don’t miss me 2 much! Oh u managed 2 get in time with your guitar yet? lol. U gotta video yourself and put it on net so I can hear (and c) u. Zac
I typed in my reply, hoping he’d read it before he left.
What a shame – my guitar’s not here yet, lol. Have fun on your trip and stay safe. Can’t w8 2 hear about it when you get back. Katie. xoxo
Zac loved rock climbing, any outdoorsy stuff really, that was why he was so strong. He would never have been allowed to go if Stacey was still on the scene; her idea of extreme sport was walking up stairs rather than riding the escalator at the shopping mall.
“You left half the washing downstairs!” Mum scolded.
Not my problem.
Hours ’til dinner, Dad was helping Freddie with a bath, Mum was making a list of I didn’t know what. She survived by lists, way too forgetful otherwise, and she had the nerve to say Freddie was losing his mind. As no one was online, I guessed everyone back home was in bed, so what else was there to do but go back to the past? I felt dizzy as soon as I retrieved the jewel from my pocket and wondered if I looked fuzzy like Freddie had.
“Ally?”
Her eyes widened when she looked up, then she blinked rapidly, snatched her computer and pretended to type. Guessed that was a positive then.
I dropped the stone beside me. “Ally?” I tried again.
The keys tapped furiously but I doubted her words were legible.
I lobbed my pillow at her but it bounced off the back of the laptop and dropped to the floor. Ally peered over her screen, scowled then lowered her gaze.
“Al, how d’ya like to come back to my former life and help solve the mystery of the jewels?”
“Former life?” Ally said. She snapped her laptop shut, shoved it on her bed and glared at me. “You mean the one before you went totally psycho?”
“I know you know it’s true. When you hold this,” I tossed the jewel at her and she caught it in reflex. Her outline instantly blurred. “Your body tries to be in two times at once, that’s why you feel kinda fuzzy.”
Ally flinched and hurled the jewel back to me. It knocked against the wall and dropped on my bed.
“Look,” I said. “Why d’ya think Freddie calls me Kathy?”
“Der, he’s an old man with an old brain.”
“I’m his sister,” I said.
Ally jumped from the bed and hurried to the door.
“It’s true – he’s two years younger than me and…” I broke off. How could I make her believe me? I snatched the jewel and closed my eyes. Maybe there’d be something from our childhood I could show her.
But everything – except the photo albums and clock – was destroyed by the bomb. Mum had the foresight to store them in Auntie Carol’s basement, but she hadn’t stored the camera! No wonder there were no more photos of Freddie, no more photos of any of us, other than those taken by the school.
“Ask Freddie what our camera was!” I yelled at Ally’s back. “Bet you he’ll say a Brownie Junior!”
“Totally la, la.” Ally swivelled around to face me and twirled her finger at her temple. “And tell you what? I’m gonna prove it.”
Two thumping footsteps and she was in the kitchen. The bathroom door opened in the passage and Freddie’s and Dad’s voices grew steadily louder.
“Grandad!” Ally yelled. “What camera did you have when you were little?”
“Ally!” Dad scolded. “Grandad and I were talking.”
“Yeah, well, talk about what camera he had.”
“I never had a camera,” Freddie said. “Never had lots of things. My dad had one though, now what was that?”
A long pause.
“Would have been a Brownie of some sort.”
My heart quickened.
“Why d’ya want to know, Ally?” Dad asked.
“Oh, huh, doesn’t matter,” Ally grunted.
Maybe now she’d believe me, but even if she did, I doubted she’d want to help with the jewels. I took it carefully in my hands again and tried to focus through my instant light-headedness.
My sight finally settled on the partially dismantled statue behind the church and I gaped at the abbey’s size. It must have been a least three times the size it was now, and the intricate carving and mouldings seemed to suit it better, the intimation of grander things a reality.
A group of old men and young teenage guys flitted back and forth to the statue and wooden crates lined up on the path in front of the graveyard. Low sunlight caught on the jewelled eyes of the statue’s head as Jack and Dougie Smith struggled towards a straw-lined crate.
“Thanks, Dougie,” Jack panted as they carefully eased it into the packing.
I wondered how long it had taken for Jack to forgive Dougie for the dictionary thing, but junior school seemed like a lifetime ago and Jack always looked for the best in people. He reminded me so much of Zac.
Jack pressed more straw over the top and began laying timber planks across the width of the crate.
“I got it from here,” Dougie said. He held up a hammer, dug in his pocket and produced a handful of nails.
Jack nodded and wandered to the rear of the church where two ladders were propped on the walls either side of the headless statue and one against its torso. Two men worked to carefully saw the statue into manageable pieces and clouds of dust and rubble showered down. Chances were the statue would have been okay anyway, yet they were hacking it to bits?
Jack climbed the torso ladder and grasped the stone monolith as the men sawed.
“You ready?” one shouted.
“Ready,” Jack said. He wobbled slightly as the men moved away from the statue then the three of them carefully wrestled a piece of sacking and rope over the cut piece.
“Steady there, boy.”
Jack glanced down as Mr Bettis called up to him from the foot of the ladder and his concentration was broken.
“Ugh,” Jack moaned. “Wait up! It’s too heavy!”
The men nodded and Jack shimmied down the ladder to get someone else to help lower the weighty section. Jack wandered across to Stan Smith and the lorry parked on the grass but the breeze only wafted fragments of the conversation to me.
Jack: Knock. Early.
Stan: Worried. Blackout? See. Home?
Jack: Kathy’s birth. Come?
Stan: Alright.
Stan nodded, waved a half wave and turned back to continue loading the truck.
Jack hadn’t forgotten my birthday!
Jack’s voice sounded again, closer to me. “Just leave it, Dougie.”
Surely Jack wasn’t going to steal the jewels! Had he just told Stan he was going home to see me to throw him off the scent?
“I mustn’t!” Dougie hissed.
“Your dad said it was alright,” Jack insisted.
A wave of nausea washed over me and I opened my fist to let the stone roll out.
“Oh, meant to tell you, Dad,” Dad’s voice in the kitchen startled me. “Saw an ambulance on the corner just now, outside the shop.”
I sat up straight.
“Yeah, the old guy, Doug Smith?”
I unfolded my legs and dropped stiffly to the floor.
“Didn’t look so good, poor fellow.”
I strode to the kitchen.
“Poor fellow?” I said. “Twelve pounds he wanted for two bat…”
Freddie glanced at me and shook his head. “Don’t think ill of the dead, Kathy.”
“Dead?” Both Dad and I asked at the same time.
“When did you hear?” Dad asked. “I only just…”
But Freddie’s eyes locked with mine, and the image of a sheet being pulled over Dougie’s face flashed to my mind. My hand flicked up to mask my gaping mouth. Freddie was psychic? What’d Dad make of that! But rather than being angry, his face turned a weird shade of grey, his body trembled and he sank heavily into a seat. I guessed he couldn’t argue with his own dad. Although he might have just been shocked that the old guy died.
“Freddie, do you know what happened to Jack?” I asked quietly.
But Freddie shook his head and all I saw was blackness.
“Jack?” Dad asked.
“My cousin.”
“Please, no.” Dad’s lips went white and he shuddered, burying his head in his hands.
“Freddie’s cousin then.”
Freddie nodded in confirmation.
“D’ya know what happened to me then, Freddie?” I asked.
“Katie.” Dad moaned. His face was even whiter when he raised it to look at me. “Please, you have to stop this…”
“Yes, Katie,” Mum snapped, striding into the kitchen. “I thought I warned you…” She jerked her head in Freddie’s direction.
I rolled my eyes but she must have taken that as me about to keel over as she pressed her hand to my forehead.
“It’s not me,” I assured her, pushing her hand away. “Dad’s gone a funny colour.”
Mum flinched when she saw Dad’s sallow complexion and darted back to their room.
“You went looking for Jack,” Freddie said quietly. “And took all these years to come back.”
Dad sank heavily against the back of the chair with his head tilted back and I wondered if he was about to pass out. His eyes flickered to mine when I pressed my hand to his clammy forehead and the tears barely held within them brought a lump to my throat. I’d never seen Dad cry.
“What is it, Dad?” I begged.
“Here.” Mum dashed back to the kitchen and nudged me aside. A vitamin pot rattled as she spilled several garlic oil capsules into her cupped palm and pressed them into our hands. Dad stared vaguely at his.
“What’s this for?” I challenged.
“You have a fever.” She did her hand temperature check again. “In fact, as much as I hate the idea,” she rummaged in her handbag for paracetamol, punched two from the unused blister pack and pushed those in my other hand, “have those as well.”
“A fever?” Dad mumbled. “Please tell me that’s all this is.”
Mum squinted at him and, despite his protests, gave him a glass of water to swallow his capsules. I left them arguing and went back to my room.
The jewel winked in the light from the window. I was ninety-nine per cent certain Jack hadn’t taken them, but how could I prove that?
And why could Freddie only see blackness when it came to Jack? The attic where the stones were hidden was dark – had Jack put them there? Or was it the blackout Freddie was seeing?
I flopped on my back on the bed, snatched the jewel up and drifted into the past.
“Morning, Kathy!” Mr Bettis said brightly. The volume of the wireless went up as he opened his door wider to allow me inside. “Go on through.” The door closed behind me. “Henny must have known what day it is today as she laid you an egg, special!”
Mr Bettis’ kitchen was a bit like Auntie Carol’s, although half of it was missing because some of his cupboards had been used for firewood during the winter. In the middle of the floor was a tiny table with two chairs, one of which only got used when he had a visitor, the other two having also been burnt. A gas mask and cracked saucer were the only things on the table, and on the saucer was a single brown egg.
Mr Bettis reached to the windowsill and turned the wireless off.
“Don’t need to hear about that tragedy again,” he said. “You know the Halifax bombers?”
I nodded sadly. So many airmen had already been lost.
“Maybe they could put some good news on for a change,” I said. “Like Henny laying me a special birthday egg?”
Mr Bettis took my right hand and placed the egg in my palm then cupped my left palm over it.
“Now you take good care of that,” he said, winking. “And enjoy your treat.”
I hurried home, cradling the egg as if it were made of glass. The stink of boiled cabbage hit me as soon as I walked in Auntie Carol’s front door so I guessed Auntie Carol was making her disgusting broth again. I wandered to the kitchen where the stale end of a loaf sat on a plate in the centre of the table. I glared at it and her as she dropped some muddy potatoes onto an old newspaper.
“Is Jack with you?” she asked, looking up.
“No,” I said. “But it’s his turn for the crust so he better get himself back soon.”
“If Jack doesn’t want the crust then he doesn’t have to have it,” Auntie Carol replied.
“But that’s not fair!” I said. “I always have to have it when it’s my turn and I hate the crust, especially when there’s no butter.”
“It won’t be so bad if you dip it in your soup,” Mum said, coming into the kitchen. Her hair was still tied up with a scarf, the bow darkened with fingerprints, and dark circles rimmed her eyes after her day at the munitions factory. “Happy birthday, sweetheart.” She plonked a kiss on my cheek then unhooked a pinny from the back of the yellow door, fastened it around her waist and washed her hands with the last slither of soap under the tap. She took the vegetable knife from the chopping board beside the sink.
“Yuck, you’re not putting potatoes in the soup as well?” I said, rubbing Mum’s kiss away. My cheek smelled of the factory, all metallic and greasy. “Potatoes make cabbage taste even worse!”
Auntie Carol drew a sharp breath and Mum shook her head to try and stop me antagonising her any more.
“We have to have something of substance to fill us up,” Mum said, slumping into a seat. “And it wouldn’t be so bad if we had some salt…”
But even if we had salt, Auntie Carol wouldn’t use it. She was the worst cook in the world.
“Thought we were supposed to save cooking fuel in summer,” I challenged. “And have salads.”
“Any more of your complaining,” Auntie Carol fixed me a stern glare and pointed her knife at me, “and you’ll go to bed without any tea at all!”
“Uh huh,” I said, triumphantly. “I don’t have to have soup today. Look what Mr Bettis gave me!”
I laid my egg beside the bread and as it slid from my palm, my memory vanished.
I sat bolt upright, the jewel on the bed beside me. Halifax bombers. The day before my birthday. The day before Jack and I disappeared and the day before the jewels were stolen. Yet that paper the teapot was wrapped in…
I jumped up and hurried to the attic hatch, bumping into Mum as she headed out of the bathroom.
“Where did you get to, Katie?” she gasped. “Been looking all over for you.”
“I wasn’t in my room?”
Mum looked at me strangely and shook her head. “But no matter now, just wanted to say, Dad’s been called into work, and we’re hoping he can organise a car while he’s there. If so, we can get you to the naturopath and see if we can’t find something to fix you up.”
“But isn’t Dad sick as well?”
Mum let out a huge sigh. “You know what a workaholic he is, and as for the naturopath…”
“Yeah, well I don’t like them either,” I said. “I won’t go unless Dad goes.”
Her hand flicked to my forehead again but I was sure it wouldn’t have changed; the tablets were still on the bedside table.
“How about I sleep on it?” I said. “And if you’re still not happy tomorrow, then take me?”
“Fine,” she said. “How about I get dinner done early so you can have an early night?”
Whatever, I shrugged.
As soon as she was out of sight, I hurried into the loft.
The torch, teapot, newspaper were all where I’d left them. And finally, solid evidence that Jack and I hadn’t stolen the jewels.