When the war came, Paul was evacuated one morning. He was put firmly on the train and waved off into the west. London, they told him, was a death trap, even though his side was going to win anyway. These words filled him with anxiety and hope at the same time, but both emotions faded in force as the hours passed. He fell asleep and dreamed of a garden.
He often had the same dream. The garden was large but without any sense of space or freedom. There was no story, just the old orchard trees and the paths between them, a crumbling brick wall, low bushes bright with ripe berries in the muted twilight, a structure that seemed to be a decayed shed, a large butterfly in a spiderweb. He trembled for no reason.
He awoke and found that the train had arrived at his destination. It was the village in Devon to which he had been assigned, suitably remote and safe, or so it was claimed. His guardians waited for him on the platform, distant cousins on his mother’s side of the family. He had never met them before. They put him at his ease. They were awkward but friendly.
His new home was a short walk from the train station. The house was large and oddly shaped but there was nothing menacing about it. The front door led to a passage cluttered with bicycles, hat stands and gardening tools. Paul knew that his hosts were rather disorganised people. He had been warned. The rooms were dim, filled with the detritus of generations.
“Never throw anything away, that’s our trouble,” said Albert. He patted his guest on the head and turned to his wife.
“Could throw it all away,” she said, doubtfully.
“Never know when we might need some of it. A bent spanner, a broken old gramophone, a mouldy blunderbuss.”
“The gun is an eyesore.”
“Best to keep it, all the same.”
“In case we are invaded,” his wife agreed.
“Now that’s unlikely.”
Albert laughed and guided Paul into the living room. They perched him on a chair too high even for an adult. He was given weak tea and sandwiches and a promise of a tour of the house later.
“And the garden,” said Christabel, the wife.
“Overgrown, it is,” said Albert.
Paul took off his school cap and devoted himself to the meal. But soon his eyes were roving around the room, examining the assorted objects on shelves, a curious selection of books, parts of machines, jars of powders and liquids, dusty figurines, brass lamps, empty picture frames, paint brushes, vases, candlesticks, wax apples, briar pipes, green bottles.
“Soon get used to everything,” said Albert, cheerfully.
“He already is,” said Christabel.
“Anything is possible, but not everything is desirable. That’s my motto. It has stood me in good stead, anyway.”
“But has it?” wondered his wife, and he paled.
“We are doing alright,” he said.
Paul had been prepared for eccentricity. In fact he was mildly disappointed by the banality of the oddness of his hosts. They should have been dangerously insane, sword swallowers or fire eaters. That would have been more entertaining than this cryptic dankness. He asked:
“May I see my room?”
“Certainly, but the garden first. The garden is unusual. Bet you never saw a garden like this one in London.”
“Do they even have gardens there?” his wife said.
“Don’t be foolish, dear.”
Albert showed Paul where the back door was. It opened with a loud squeal of rusty hinges. Tall grass lay beyond. Gnarled trees and ivy-covered boundaries of stone blocks. No, it wasn’t the garden in his dream. It was utterly different, a wedge of neglect, a former vegetable plot run riot, creepers and tendrils snaking across the width of the area. Vast mushrooms sprouted from rotten branches that had sheared off from gloomy trunks.
“But this is only half of it,” said Albert, and he squinted into the distance, a sigh that was a failed laugh emerging from his mouth. He nodded at infinity, or somewhere in its environs. Both hands thrust deep into the pockets of his tweed jacket, he turned on his heel and re-entered the house. Paul lingered and tried to see what lay beyond the limits of human perspective. The stone walls converged to a point, but the point was illusory.
“Can any garden be so big?” he asked when he returned to the living room. Albert was on his knees building a fire in the grate with sticks and anthracite. It was a delicate operation. He said:
“It was an orchard originally but somehow it ended up as a garden. This is one of the last houses in the village.”
And as if that explained everything, he rolled up a page of newspaper and thrust it deep into the pile of sticks.
Paul licked his lips. The ball of paper began to uncurl.
“The garden turns a sharp corner right at the end? That’s why we can only see half of it from here, I suppose.”
Albert stood and shrugged. He groped for a box of matches on the glossy mantlepiece. “I’ve never ventured down there to check. Brambles and thorns. It doesn’t seem worthwhile to me.”
“Now I’ll show you your room,” he added.
Paul was given the room of their only son, Bobby, who was away at sea. They said he was out East somewhere but were reluctant to be too specific. They had already got into the habit of being secretive. It was less cluttered than the other rooms in the house, but contained a fair share of oddities, curios, ornaments and souvenirs, not to mention heirloom furniture. There was an iron bedstead, a cabinet full of books, a rack for hats.
Most imposing of all, yet strangely inconspicuous in some manner, was a wardrobe of truly impressive dimensions. As soon as he entered the room, Paul was mystified as to how it had been carried up the stairs and conveyed between the door jambs. It was wider than the doorframe. It was all of one piece with no joints visible, not the sort of thing that can be dismantled and put back together. Its presence here seemed impossible.
The enigma of its existence ought to be explained, but Albert didn’t ask if Paul wanted anything. The opportunity to inquire was lost. Paul was left alone, wondering how much Bobby had really made his mark on the room. Nothing here evoked an individual. It was all an amalgam of generations. The woodcuts on the walls, the sabre hanging in a scabbard above the door, even the drapes on the window spoke of a mixture of eras.
And the wardrobe was a monolith among weeds. When Paul stretched on the bed and stared at the ceiling, it loomed over him, implacable, immense. In his mind he turned it over, used it as a boat to sail down a river. It could easily accommodate him and his possessions. A playful idea. The daydream faded. It was quiet here, unlike in the city, no passing vehicles hissing like the waves on a beach. The darkness had weight, it was solid. Yet there was a blueness within it and he found he could see everything.
He was fast asleep and on the threshold of the dream about the garden. His eyes snapped open. The blueness shimmered as if he had slid under the sea. The wardrobe seemed more obvious than before, a block of night, a tomb. He stilled his breathing. Now he could hear footsteps, very distant, quite methodical. They echoed weakly. Was someone moving about downstairs or out on the street? He concentrated, lifted his head higher.
The pillow he had been resting on was damp with sweat. He felt feverish, a spasm racked his body. He exhaled slowly, fighting the urge to sob. There could be no doubt. The footsteps were coming from inside the wardrobe. Slowly they grew in volume. Distant, too remote, as if coming along a path of broken stones, the echoes were trapped within its wooden sides. Paul chewed hard on his lower lip but tasted no blood. He shivered.
Fear had gripped him, but something strong deep within his mind was now gripping the fear. If any grip was relaxed, anything might happen. Paul felt more like a disinterested bystander than an active participant. He remarked to himself with curious aplomb, “Just someone inside the wardrobe,” and then he threw off the bedclothes and sat up, waiting. For some reason, it was easier to listen when he wasn’t encumbered by the sheets.
The footsteps were accelerating. Whoever was making them was speeding up from a walk to a run. The handles on the wardrobe door, loops of iron, were eyes watching Paul’s reaction. Paul knew he had to appear unconcerned. Did the wardrobe sway slightly? In the tangled blue shadows it was difficult to be sure. The footsteps stopped. The feet, shod or bare, that had made them were standing on the other side of the locked door.
“But they sound more like hooves,” he said quietly, then horrifying himself with his boldness he called out, “Are you the Devil?” But his voice failed at the end of the question, became a croak.
His body was absolutely rigid, the wardrobe seemed to regard him with an amused expression or a malign one, he wasn’t sure which. The circular handles gazed at him intently. They wanted to remember him, he thought. He realised he had resumed breathing, but his breaths were shallow. He felt light headed. Then the wardrobe door rattled, just once.
There was silence for a moment. The footsteps resumed, growing fainter as Paul struggled to control his convulsive lungs. They were retreating into depths that simply shouldn’t have existed. At long last they faded away to nothingness, but Paul remained where he was, ears straining, until the grey light of dawn and the singing of birds heralded daytime.
Paul lay down but was unable to sleep. He wondered why the Devil would be inside a wardrobe. Logic told him it was a ludicrous idea. The footsteps must have some other source. Perhaps he was going mad. His father had told him the tale of a man with a tumour in his brain who saw ghostly figures in his kitchen. No, that couldn’t be right. The wardrobe was a creature in its own right and had been playing malevolent tricks on him.
Albert said, “You look worn out.”
Paul sat at the table in the living room and ate the toast that Christabel had placed in front of him. He grimaced.
“First night in a new bed, I expect,” Albert added.
“It was fine,” said Paul.
“Guess you’ll want to explore the village today?”
“Of course he will,” confirmed Christabel, “and make new friends. It must be a bit disconcerting for him.”
“Stranger in a strange land? Out in the sticks with the yokels. Here with the daft ha’pennies of Devonshire.”
“No, it’s alright really,” answered Paul.
Albert smirked his approval.
“Tough lad, no namby-pamby nonsense with him. Get some fresh air down by the river. There’s an old bridge.”
“I’d quite like to see the garden again.”
“What for? All weeds.”
“It’s very interesting,” said Paul.
“Bit of a jungle, mind,” Albert remarked, “But there’s a good view from a skylight in the attic. Only window in the house that faces that direction. Hardly ever use the attic these days.”
“Full of clutter,” said Christabel.
“The clutter that got in the way of the clutter down here,” was Albert’s idea of a witticism. He laughed as he filled his pipe with some obscure tobacco, lit it with a match and allowed it to go out almost at once. “So we removed it. Deuce of a job to get it up there.”
“Show me the way,” pleaded Paul.
“Ain’t nothing to it, my lad. The passage leading to your room? Keep on to the end of it. There’s a door in the wall, but it doesn’t look like a door at first. It is flush with the wall, see. Need strong fingernails to prise it open. The cavity it exposes has a spiral staircase.”
“Every step creaks with a different note of the scale,” said Christabel, “and makes a hell of a din if you fall.”
“Play a Music Hall song on it, if you’re clever.”
“Thank you,” said Paul simply.
He finished his toast. He pushed his plate away, as if it was his past and a hindrance. He rose to depart.
Albert ignored him, Christabel had returned to the kitchen. Paul climbed the stairs to the landing, took the corridor that led past his room, soon found the hidden door and managed to open it. The spiral staircase wasn’t as dramatic as he hoped it would be. It was made of unvarnished wood and colourless. He ascended in a tight helix. His head rose above the level of the attic floor into a dusty world under the sloping roof.
Cobwebs sagged from the rafters, furry with dust motes, desiccated flies, a bone dry moth of immense size. Paul was struck by the idea that he was inside a vast wardrobe, not an attic at all. He shook his head, balanced himself on rickety floorboards, blinked in the dim light.
The knick-knacks here were of a wider variety than those downstairs. In a corner stood a pipe organ, the relic of some unconsecrated chapel, with yellow keys like stained teeth. Paul wandered erratically towards the window, touching objects, spinning an old globe on its pivot, swinging the pendulum of a warped grandfather clock in a smashed case, brushing the spines of ancient volumes in green leather with tingling fingertips.
He found a flashlight and to his surprised delight it worked, though it was weak. He switched it off again to conserve the dying battery. There was a brass telescope. He picked it up and carried it to the window, setting it down, leaning on it as if it was a crutch. He sneezed.
The pane of the skylight was grimy. He wiped it with the sleeve of his shirt and made a porthole. He could see the garden spread below, the boundary walls undulating into the distance, two wavy lines meeting at a point far away. With a serious expression, he tried looking with the telescope. At first he had difficulty adjusting the focus. He persevered.
The lens was faulty, perhaps. He saw a brown door at the farthest end of the garden, ordinary enough, but the image shifted, chromatic aberration made it seem he was peering through a rainbow and abruptly he lost focus. He lowered the telescope, sighed, turned to search for other interesting objects. He found a magnifying glass and a walking stick.
He knew there was something odd about the stick when he picked it up. It was heavy and the word Calcutta was inscribed on the bulbous pommel. With a quiver of delight, he realised it was a swordstick, a secret rapier, the weapon of a cultured assassin. He drew it out gingerly. The blade needed oiling but it was in relatively good condition. He smirked.
As he was crossing the attic to the spiral stairway, he noticed a knothole in a floorboard. He threw himself flat in the dust and pressed his eye to it. He saw shadows beyond as thick and flowing as treacle. He aimed the flashlight beam through the hole. Although the bulb was weak it provided enough illumination for him to perceive that he was directly above his bedroom. The wardrobe was there, the top just a few feet below him.
On that flat surface he saw strange carvings, tendrils or tentacles, entities that were both plants and sea creatures.
This minor adventure gave him an idea. He stood and descended and went into the garden with the swordstick. Albert and Christabel were elsewhere. Free to do whatever he pleased, he risked incurring their displeasure. He planned to slash his way to the end of the garden, to the brown door. Just because the door of the wardrobe was locked didn’t mean the garden door was too. He must find out the truth for himself. He plunged into the growth and soon was lost among the ferns and brambles and rose bushes.
They found him an hour after the onset of night. He had managed to cut a path one quarter the length of the garden. He was exhausted by the effort, sitting on the ground among the dripping sap, the sword next to him, his flashlight bulb pulsing slowly. Albert picked him up.
“Bit of an explorer, eh? Just like our Bobby.”
“Needs a slap,” said Christabel.
“I was the same when I was a lad. No real harm done.” Albert regarded the fuss his wife was making as amusing but unnecessary. She pretended to be in a worse mood than she was, but she did resent the time spent worrying when they hadn’t been able to find him anywhere in the house. They assumed he had gone to the river and fallen off the bridge.
“Tired out, yes? Manual labour,” said Albert, suddenly in a political frame of mind. He added, “Imagine doing that kind of work day in and day out for ten or twenty years. Or worse, being down the mines.Not much fun, is it? Poor pay, injurious to health. This is why we need a different kind of government after the war. Thank your lucky stars, lad.”
But he didn’t mention what Paul ought to be grateful for. He carried him back to the house and set him down in the most comfortable chair in the living room. Christabel brought him a cup of tea. Albert crouched and continued his political speculation. Paul yawned.
“Oh, leave the boy alone.” Now it was Christabel’s turn to be sympathetic and she stroked Paul’s hair tenderly.
“Not everything in the world should be delved into,” Albert said, his voice growing melancholic. “Often things have other reasons for existing. I have no idea what’s at the bottom of the garden. But I bet it ain’t fairies. Or pots of gold. Probably just blackberries when the season’s right. It’s a lesson for us all. The effort is almost never worthwhile.”
“There’s a door,” said Paul.
“There’s always a door,” countered Albert, “but it doesn’t mean a blooming thing. You left the sword behind.”
“Didn’t you bring it?”
“Nasty old thing. My grandfather was in India. Brought it back with him as a memento. I never liked the look.”
“It’ll rust in the garden,” pointed out Paul.
“Best thing for it,” said Christabel, but she held out the flashlight. “Didn’t forget this, though, did we?”
Paul nodded. He could collect the sword tomorrow. He hoped it wouldn’t rain during the night. They allowed him to rest in the chair until he felt strong enough to climb the stairs to bed.
He should have fallen asleep immediately, but something in the room had a disconcerting effect on him. He lay on his back and felt he was moving, pushing his way through the tangled garden. The muscles in his arm twitched as if he was still swinging the blade. And then the footsteps began, distant, remote, the irregular rhythm. He stared at the wardrobe. The handles were eyes. He gulped and waited. The hooves clattered.
This time he wouldn’t call out. He would say nothing. It wasn’t the Devil in there, it couldn’t be the Devil. It was somebody else. The hooves were just shoes, wooden clogs, or it was an acoustical trick? He waited. These footsteps were coming from a great distance.
Louder and closer, but now they seemed to slow down. The first time he had heard them, they had accelerated into a run. This time they were cautious, perhaps aware of Paul on the other side, approaching him with greater stealth. What if he had the key to the door this time? It would swing open and then the world beyond would be exposed to Paul’s gaze. Or would the inhabitant within block the view? The steps diminished.
Almost imperceptibly, the wardrobe vibrated. Paul held his breath, waiting for the sound of the turning of the key in the lock. He felt clammy all over. His eyes ached. Then the door moved. Whoever was inside was trying to open it but had no key. Paul was safe again, just for one more night. The steps retreated but only a few paces. There was silence.
Paul waited under the sheets, icy, shivering, until the fear became like the turning of a gigantic wheel over his body, and he shook himself out of the cold sheets and moved towards the wardrobe. The idea that the knothole in the attic had given him returned. He nodded.
The keyhole could be peered through. It was better to get the ordeal over and done with as rapidly as possible.
There was no need to kneel or squat. The keyhole was at eye level. Just a matter of leaning forwards and pressing his orbit to the gap. He saw nothing at all, just blackness, but felt a slight breeze on his eye. There was wind inside the wardrobe. And now he smelled a sweet scent. Flowers of some kind. Also mild decay, a rich aroma of humus, ancient soil. He groped for his magnifying glass and tried again. Still only blackness.
Now he took the flashlight, switched it on, held the feeble beam to the hole and tried to look inside. But the flashlight was bulky and wouldn’t allow him to shine and see at the same time. Yet there came a sigh from the other side as the beam played over the form of whatever lurked behind the wooden door. A sigh of sadness deeper and more intense than terror, a whisper of infinite resignation. Whatever existed in the wardrobe was timeless, eternal, trapped and despairing, a victim as well as a menace, a void.
Paul fell back, shaking his head, his chest constricted.
The flashlight fell and broke.
Slowly, he kneeled.
Bobby turned up one day, on leave. Unlike his parents, he wasn’t reticent about what he had been doing. He had sailed to India in a troop ship. He was going to be based there from now on. The Japanese were surely planning to invade. He was tall and jovial and took to Paul immediately, showing him the photographs he had taken of his barracks, the forests, the trees. His family had a connection with India, he said. “Vast place, it is.”
He added, “Swamps and tigers too. Whole country is overgrown, just like the garden of this house.” And if this joke wasn’t enough, he dipped into one of his pockets and pulled out a box of matches. “Seen anything like these before? They might look familiar but they aren’t.”
“Bengal Lights,” he explained, after a suitable pause.
Paul watched as Bobby struck one.
The head flared up, white streaked with blue and spitting, and it burned for a long time without eating the wooden stick that Bobby was holding. “Used by the Signals Corps. Toxic, though, so you must take care, realgar and orpiment, a dangerous mixture. But safe in capable hands. Come on.” He nudged Paul and took the flaming brand to the back door. “Let’s take it into the garden. It’s too smoky here. Fumes filling the house.”
Paul opened the door.
“Look at that,” said Bobby, as he cast the brand into the distance. “Who’s been cutting at the plants?”
“Like a rhinoceros charged through,” he added.
Paul was tongue-tied.
The Bengal Light finally spluttered out. It had burned a circle around itself that still glowed with tiny sparks.
Bobby held up the box of Bengal Lights, shook it, opened it, rummaged inside. Some of the sticks were tipped with more of the flammable chemicals than others. He was seeking a fat example.
“Here’s one for you,” Bobby said, and Paul accepted the precious gift. His mind reeled as he realised that here was a key to the secret of the wardrobe. Not the key, but a key nonetheless.
“Great,” said Paul, and Bobby replied:
“I won’t be wanting my room back. No need for you to move out. See that shed over there?” He pointed to the decayed shack next to a lichen-covered pear tree. “There’s a camp bed inside. Often slept on it in the past. Prefer it to a soft bed, in fact. You can stay in my room.”
Paul nodded. He clutched the precious stick.
Bobby emitted a laugh.
“Life’s a strange old thing, mind.”
It was a commonplace observation that suddenly struck Paul with a terrific force. He felt a great weight on his soul. The footsteps in the wardrobe carried a weight too. The density of oblivion.
Paul went into his room after supper and lay down and waited. He felt he would never sleep again, but this feeling was deceptive. He must have dozed off despite his reluctance. He was awakened by the sound of the hooves inside the wardrobe. Now they paced from side to side. Whoever they belonged to had decided to remain near the door.
They ceased. Paul scarcely dared to breathe or blink. Five minutes passed before he slipped silently out of bed. He moved in a crouch to the wardrobe and stood until his eye was level with the keyhole. Darkness and a feeble sigh. With trembling hands, Paul took the Bengal Light and struck it on the rough surface of the iron lock. It flared up, threw a garish glow over his face. Whimpering, he inserted it into the keyhole, propelled it with a flick. It dropped inside. He fixed his right eye to the hole once again.
The Bengal Light was spluttering a yard away from the door, illuminating an area larger than the bedroom. Paul felt the saliva in his mouth turn oily. He was unable to swallow. There was a garden in the wardrobe. Not a garden like the one that belonged to the house. The walls that formed its boundaries on each side were much higher and stronger.
There were trees, old and gnarled but some laden with fruit, and the scent of night blooms wafted to him on the currents of hot air generated by the Bengal Light. Low flat stones made a path into the distance. On a slightly rounder stone sat a figure with its back to Paul, but he knew it was clutching its knees. Then it gradually turned and gazed with an anguished but infinitely weary expression at the keyhole. Paul was horrified, captivated. The figure was a man but there was something wrong with his lower legs.
Then he blinked and Paul’s stomach twisted inside him. The eyelids closed upwards. The man’s eyes were inverted. Now the man smiled and Paul realised his mouth was upside-down too. The smile was a grimace of despair. His flaring nostrils sucked in the smoke of the Bengal Light. His nose was also inverted. In fact his entire face was wrong. Somehow it had flipped on his head. Paul shook but was unable to retreat. He retched.
The man walked forwards and lifted an arm. His fist was clenched and then he opened it to reveal an empty palm.
What did this gesture mean? Paul felt a desire to rescue him but also a deep aversion to him, a blend of horror and intolerable sadness. He needed the key. It was the only answer. A key to the wardrobe door! The man began to stamp on the Bengal Light, putting out the flame.
Paul fell back, gasping. A few wisps of smoke came out of the keyhole. He said to himself again and again, “I will let him out. I wouldn’t keep an animal in a cage. I won’t let him remain there.”
The burning Bengal Light floated before him as an afterimage. It scorched the walls as he turned, turned the bed into a lake of fire, incinerated his hands as he held them up to repeat the enigmatic gesture, opening and closing them. He sat on the edge of the bed and wept.
Bobby left after ten days. He was summoned by telegram unexpectedly and had no time to say farewell to Paul. Then enemy bombers were reported in the area. It seemed the village was no longer a sanctuary. A new military establishment a short way along the coast, a radar station, made the region a target. Albert said the children had to be evacuated again.
Paul realised he would never learn the secret of the wardrobe and it would torment his soul for the rest of his life.
On his last day in this house, he made a supreme effort to reach the far end of the garden. He did so when Albert and Christabel were out shopping. When he opened the back door, he was confronted by a wedge of charred earth. Even the shed that Bobby had occupied was a ruin. Its walls had vanished and only the blackened wooden roof remained.
Paul approached it and saw the same patterns carved into the timbers as he had seen on the top of the wardrobe. Had the enemy already bombed the garden without his knowledge? No, that was a ludicrous idea. Then he understood that the sparks from the discarded Bengal Light had started a fire in the roots of the grass, one that had spread very slowly.
It had devoured the shed and most of the vegetation as far as he could see. This made his task easier, though grimier. He walked forwards, crunching soft granules of carbon underfoot. He soon passed the furthest point he had reached with the swordstick. He found the blade melted and cooled into a new shape, a deformed scimitar, a bizarre, cruel and useless weapon. He stepped over it and kept going. Ash billowed around him.
The fire was dead and it had eaten everything right to his destination. But as he proceeded, he learned a curious truth. The convergence of the walls wasn’t a trick of perspective. The garden was shaped like a long isosceles triangle and came to a sharp point. Wherever the other half of the garden might be, it wasn’t here. There simply wasn’t sufficient space. He was channelled by these walls to the elusive brown door, which was covered in soot but still standing firm. Paul pulled at the handle. Nothing happened.
The door was shut but there was a key in the lock. He tried to turn it but it was stuck. He extracted it and saw that it was the wrong key, too small for such a door. He pocketed it and rested his forehead against the wood. Whatever was beyond, whether adventure or paradise, suffering or nothingness, was forbidden to him. That was the only explanation.
He stumbled away at last, turned and loped back to the house. Albert was standing in the kitchen. He seemed unsurprised that Paul had made a desperate attempt to find an ultimate meaning in a pointless activity. He remembered his own youth and smiled indulgently.
He said, “We’re packing you off right now. A bus is on its way. I reckon you’ll have a fine time in your new home. Anything you forget, we can send it on as a parcel. Brave face, lad.”
“But clean it first, you grubby rascal,” he added.
The war ended but Paul went to sea. He wanted to emulate Bobby despite the victory. Years passed. Something happened, an accident. It was kept a secret by the military. Albert and Christabel heard only rumours. But one morning Albert was reading the newspaper and an item caught his attention. He read it aloud to his wife, who was at the sink, peeling potatoes.
“Something I heard in the pub stuck in my mind. Harold was talking about his brother who was missing in action. Then he gets a contract to provide some of his prefabricated houses and lots of the words were blacked out. But he held it up to a light and found he could read it from the other side. The prefabs were intended for the really badly wounded.”
“What’s odd about that?” wondered Christabel.
She used the point of her knife to dig out an eye from the potato she was holding in her strong chilled fingers.
“Thing is,” said Albert, “they were too mangled to be alive. Yet they were alive anyway. Get it? How can you send chaps like that back home or even tell the loved ones? Better to say ‘missing in action’ or something. Makes sense, if you see it from their point of view. Well, Harold began thinking that maybe his own brother was one of them. He said he always had a feeling his brother was trying to send him messages in his mind. I don’t know how that works but the trauma, whatever it was, altered his brain.”
“Just banter and ravings,” was Christabel’s opinion. She paused to see how Albert would react to her scepticism.
He slapped the table with the newspaper. “Reckon this confirms it. If you read between the lines, anyway. The government has established a new hospital for hopeless cases, you know, the ones that can’t go home. They are denying it but a minister had a slip of the tongue.”
“Where is the hospital located?” asked Christabel.
“That’s the point. They won’t say. Somewhere very isolated, maybe on an island that’s off-limits to visitors. Maybe it’s not even on the map. Could be on military land or in a foreign country.”
Christabel washed the peeled potato in the bowl.
“Paul went missing too.”
“Not in action,” said Albert, “but maybe that doesn’t matter. What was his role? If he was working in the engine room and there was a snag.” He shrugged and sipped his cup of tea. “Ah well.”
“He was a fun little blighter, though, wasn’t he?”
“They soon grow up.”
“What are these hospitals like then?”
“How the blooming hell should I know that? Harold didn’t describe them. And I didn’t want to question him about the voices in his head. That wouldn’t be polite. Might drive him barmy.”
“If your tale is true, they have taken Paul to some place where he can be looked after for the rest of his life.”
“But what kind of life, eh? That’s the question.”
“Must do something with them.”
“That’s just what worried Harold. What kind of something? I’ll pop down the pub later and show him the paper. Here,” he said in a more practical tone, “I am thinking it’s time to get rid of some of this clutter. We can start with Bobby’s room, rent it out to a lodger. Could do with the extra cash but nobody is going to want to stay here with all the junk.”
Christabel nodded abstractedly and continued peeling and washing. At last she said, “Study the shape of these, Albert.”
“Homegrown, delicious.”
“But they don’t look right to me.”
“Who cares what they look like, dear? It’s what they are that matters. That is a general rule for life. The war seemed terrible, didn’t it? It looked awful. The craters, the wreckage. But it was the best time of our lives. I should have been a philosopher, but I never had a chance.”
He turned to the crossword, licked a pencil.
“Anything is possible,” he said, and then after a pause, “but not everything is desirable.” He clicked his tongue.
In the facility, in the enclosed garden, waiting. It is a beautiful prison but lonely. He walks towards the door, lies down on the grass under a tree to sleep. Night falls. He tries to dream of a different garden. His mind refuses to find the right images in his subconscious. Once they came so easily and then they were driven so deep into his soul they were lost forever. They remain inside, he is sure. His soul is cluttered with fragments of broken memories, splinters, shards so jagged that some cut him in unknown places.
He abandons sleep, sits on a stone, clasps his knees. A spanner, broken old gramophone, mouldy blunderbuss. These are the decayed images he is trying to evoke. He concentrates on them but he feels too anxious to continue. The door behind him rattles gently as if it is being deliberately pushed. A breath of wind from another world follows it. The garden brightens. He hears a hissing like one of the rare snakes he has been warned about. A Bengal Light has come through the keyhole and landed on the grass.
Paul stands up. He turns and steps forwards, opening his clenched fist. On his palms rests an object. He smiles. Twenty years have passed in agony and his future has passed with them. But the pain has finally subsided to a dull burning. He shuffles forwards, resisting the impulse to run and hurl himself at the door. His hooves kick the sparks high as he walks. All his features are upside-down. He holds the key he has been keeping for so long, moves to the door and inserts it. He turns the key. The door opens.
Originally published in Nightmare Abbey, Winter 2023/2024.
