“There is a spare room upstairs,” Simon said, “but we never go in there. To be honest, we don't go in this room either, but we're going to open it for you.”
A cobweb stretched and broke as he pushed open the door.
The room was piled high with things that, for one reason or another, Sarah had been unwilling to let Simon get rid of. She had regarded this room with grudging reverence, whereas Simon could not have cared less if every stick of furniture had been used as firewood. The thought occurred to him now that it was the season to carry out such a purge, but without Firdy to oil the gears, they would have to find legitimate ways of making money and he considered that they could live off the proceeds of this room for several months.
He had blocked the contents of this room from memory so completely that he was shocked by the smell of old books and antique furniture. He saw brass handles that he used to tug on when he was a boy and a writing desk where he had sometimes done his homework, back when things had been more sane.
Clare admired an enormous landscape painting that had been lent up against an old chest of drawers. In the corner, an ornate silver mirror faced the wall.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said. “I'd forgotten.”
“It's cool,” Clare said and she wiped dust from a hardback. She fingered the raised, silver lettering. “Do you mind?”
It felt strange, her being here.
He said: “No.”
“I miss reading,” she said. “Maybe I can borrow a few.”
“You can stay,” he assured her. “Not only tonight.”
Her eyes flicked towards the kitchen.
“It would be good for Sarah if you stayed,” he added.
“How so?”
“She could do with someone to talk to about what happened. Someone other than me. I think she'd open up to you.”
Clare nodded thoughtfully. “And what about you?” she asked.
“I could do with your help,” he said, avoiding the true meaning of what she had asked him. She seemed disappointed by his answer, but he didn't think that he would be ready to open up for a while. Not to her; not to anybody.
*
The three of them disposed of the dead dog in Simon's room using gloves, a mop and a couple of heavy duty rubble sacks. Sarah insisted on helping them and Simon agreed on the condition that they swap rooms for a few nights, while he returned some semblance of order to her bedroom. Later, when she lay down to sleep in his bed, he went to her room and stood in the doorway, observing the chaos that Firdy had created. After a pause to take in the enormity of the job ahead, he set to work, beginning by putting scattered photographs in piles, separating them roughly into family, strangers he assumed were her friends, and photos that were damaged but repairable. He disposed of those that Firdy had destroyed or defiled.
Many items were saturated with piss, some with shit. Among the worst casualties was a photo of Sarah, Simon and their father, taken by their mother outside the entrance to a cave. Simon picked it up between the finger and thumb of a rubber glove.
He was not quite 20 years old in the photo. The family had been hiking through the forest. Sarah and their mother had lagged behind, exhausted, but his father had taken him by the wrist and hauled him down to the bottom of a hill, where the stream they had been following split into two paths, one continuing through the forest and the other reaching into a hole in the rock face and on into darkness. At the time, Simon had thought that he was confused, because it had appeared that the second of the channels ran uphill. With hindsight he knew that he had seen the Third for the first time.
His father dragged him into the cave, a few feet into the darkness had been enough, and threw him to the floor, at which point the water had grabbed him. Almost all Simon could remember about the experience was that the water had held him, inside and out. He had choked on it.
“Don't fight,” his father said, “and it'll be over quicker.”
He couldn't have been more wrong.
“Where have you been?” Sarah had asked them when she caught up.
“Man talk,” their father had said and grinned, holding Simon by the shoulder hard enough to bruise him.
Sarah had demanded that someone take a photograph. Her father was smiling and she wanted to preserve it, even if it was a lie. She had successfully ignored the lines that had encroached upon his face over the last eighteen months and she had managed to look away whenever he passed a weary, almost hateful look to one of the others. She needed his smiles, because every week there were fewer than the week before and she worried that one day they would stop coming completely.
In this photograph, everything was fake except for Sarah's smile, which was desperate but genuine. It would have been worth keeping it for that alone if Firdy hadn't done such a good job of soiling it. When Simon dropped it into the rubbish bag, he had to shake it from his gloved finger.
He slumped to the floor with his back against the wall, recalling that three days after his mother took that picture, she had had to report their father missing and she had surprised herself by crying for him every night. Simon regretted that he hadn't been much comfort to her or his sister at that time, but he had been preoccupied. He had been learning about the thing to which his father had introduced him. The thing had been busy learning about him. It didn't take him long to understand that his future was in its hands.
Now he was free, but there were a few more things he had to do before he could rest. He had to eradicate Firdy's presence from the house, starting with this room. He had to sweep up the broken things that Firdy had kicked around the floor, shove wet sheets into bags for dumping or burning, reclaim the room for Sarah. It was too little ... too late ... but he had to make her feel safe again ... he had to … with no surprises … this time …
no hiding …
no … no hiding ...
no more ...