Chapter 7: Plans…
Father lifted the door-hammer, and let it fall. He knocked with his knuckles, and then waited. His brother should be home. He was a quiet type. Liked to keep himself to himself, and made delicious pancakes.
The door opened, and Bob stood in a nightcap, yawning. “Bo? Come in.”
Bob was Bo’s older brother, and had inherited the family house. As Father gazed around the spare bedroom, formerly his bedroom, he felt a stream of memories. He looked down, down from the window into their garden. The old tree had been cut, replaced by small shrubs. And the garden next door had a water fountain that had never been there before.
He remembered Christy. How she had walked through that garden, the girl next-door, swinging a short stick with a couple of leaves. He remembered how she had looked up at him, but not seen him, then had scrambled over their fence and climbed the tree. Daring herself to climb higher, to take a greater risk. As she neared the top, she had looked straight at him, into the window. And she had gasped, embarrassed and flustered. She’d shimmied down the tree truck as fast as lightning. Bo had run from his room, and down the stairs. He’d tripped on the carpet, and by the time he reached the garden, she was gone. Like now. She was gone. Gone. His no longer.
“Why are you here?” Bob asked, standing in the doorway. “And why so early?”
“I came because I had to get away,” Father said.
Bob shrugged. “Good enough for me. I’ll be downstairs making pancakes for breakfast.”
Father took a shower, turning the heat as high as he could take it. The rivulets of water washed over his skin, washed away his problems.
Father dressed, and stood before the bedroom mirror, comb in hand. And the face he saw there was not too dissimilar to his own. Moppet.
“Why are you here, Father?” the reflection asked.
“Like I said, I had to get away.”
The face remained the same, but the eyes changed. Held a glow. “And why are you really here.” Moppet asked again.
“Because, I’m afraid.” He looked at his feet. “I am afraid to lose her, afraid to be hurt again, broken again.”
He stared at himself in the mirror. “Where are you? Where have you gone? Where is the you I once loved so very much?”
“I am here. Right here.”
“No,” Moppet shook his head. “You are not. You are letting her escape you, and you are not fighting for her back.”
“I can’t fight any longer…”
“Yes, you can. You can. And you will. Go back, Father, go back. Go back and fight.”
The door opened. The spell was broken. “Still speaking to yourself?” Bob asked.
“I’m leaving,” Father said.
“Why? You only just got here.”
“I have to get back,” Father said. “I have to get her back.”
*****
The shrill ring of a telephone broke Jack from his sleep. He scrambled out of bed, and grabbed the phone. “Yup, Jack here.”
“Hi, it’s Don Canolli. About that scheme of yours?”
Jack dug for a way to put it that would sound sincere, yet vague. “Er, it’s still boiling, Mr Canolli. But it hasn’t brewed yet.”
“Are we talking about business, here, or tea, Jack?”
Ok. Maybe a little too vague. “Business, of course. Big business.”
“Well, whatever it is, I want results. And soon.”
“Of course, Mr Canolli. Of course.”
“Good bye, Jack. I’m sure we’ll talk soon.”
Jack hung up the phone, and went in search of his clothes that he had dumped here and there while getting ready for bed. Why did he agree to this plan of his sister’s? What did he have to show for it? Nada. He’d have to think of something better. Get some results. And money to back up his lie. And soon.
*****
Anne awoke first, and slipped out of her bed and into a thin nightgown. She stepped lightly down the stairs, and climbed up onto a chair beside the table, where her dad sat working on a problem on a piece of paper. “Daddy,” she said. “Can I talk to you?”
Adam looked up. “Of course.”
“Was it all a dream?”
Adam Cole thought about this for a few minutes. He folded his hands in front of him on the table. “No,” he said. “It was not a dream. What happened was real. What do you remember?”
She scratched her head. “There was a danger in your study. And then we found Vibs, and went to save Viq.”
“To save him?” Adam frowned. “Was he in danger?”
She looked up at him through large eyes. “He was locked in the cellar. Didn’t Vibs tell you?”
“No. No, she did not.”
“And there were the two men.”
Mr Cole leant forward, thoughtfully. “Two of them?”
“Yes. A dark man, and a light man. But the light one disappeared, like you do sometimes, Daddy. And you captured the other man.”
“Do you remember who this first man was?”
Anne shook her head. “Uh, uh.”
Adam reached forward. “Hold still a moment, Anne.” He placed his hand over her head. And listened. “It was Ron,” he said. “Abu Fletcher was an evil man.”
“Yes, he was. He put us in bag and we couldn’t breathe,” Anne said.
“But he did have one good thing. He could save lives.”
Anne dipped her head. “How, Daddy?”
“He used to use a strange medicine. But it was very dangerous, and he used it for bad, not good.”
“But he did save this person, Ron?”
“Yes. Yes, he did. But that means your Aunt is in trouble. Big trouble.”
“As big as we were when we broke the potion case?”
“Yes,” Adam said smiling at the innocence of youth. “In fact much worse.”
*****
“That’s it. I’m outta here,” Christy Moppet said, grabbing her coat from the bed, and leaving the hotel room. Mac caught up with her in the hallway.
“Do you know what you will do?”
Christy sighed. “No. Not yet.”
“What can you do?”
“Well, I can start by getting home to my children.”
She strode out of the hotel, leaving Mac to pay and sign them out. She took his car. And he caught a taxi back to his own home.
“Knock, knock,” Mother said, stepping into the house. “Hello? Is anyone awake?”
“Hello Mummy,” Vibs said from the kitchen.
Christy gasped, and burst into a smile. “You’re home!” she squealed, grabbing her up into a hug. Viq frowned. “And, you too,” Christy said tousling his hair. “Where’s Father?”
“I don’t know,” Vibs answered sweetly, as Vic dug into his cereals. Literally.
Mother strode up the stairs. “Father? Bo?”
Vic’s door was open, so she stepped inside. Vic was sat on the bed. He didn’t look as though he has slept much, though from the state of his hair, he had slept some.
“Mum,” Vic said, the single word holding more meaning than a hundred. He knew. She knew he knew. “Mum, is it all true? About Dad?”
Mother paused for only a moment, then moved to him, sitting down. He rested his head on her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be sorry, mum. You did what you could. I don’t blame you.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“I know, mum. Mum?”
“Yeah?”
“Is it true about Dad. That he’s still alive?”
And to that, she didn’t know what to say. Luckily she was interrupted by a scream from outside. Rushing downstairs, she found Aunt Dan-Dan trying to eat the twins. She separated them quickly, calming Dan with a pair of pliers that she handed him to sort his hair out with. “These will make an fabulous edition to my toiletries,”” Dan-Dan exclaimed, running away down the road on his hands. “I shall place it next to the fan of the Boeing 747 that I use as a toe dryer.”
Christy shook her head, and went into the living room, where she saw the note.
*****
Ron pressed the intercom to Jack’s flat. “Who’s there?” Jack called down through the fuzzy speaker.
“A friend of the family.”
“Which?”
“The Moppet Family.”
“Oh. Come on up.” The door buzzed open, and Ron stepped into the lobby. He took the stairs two at a time, and knocked on Jack’s door. It opened almost immediately.
“Hi,” Jack said. “And you are?”
“Ron Demetri. I understand you are looking up family history.”
“How’d you…”
“Never mind that. Can I come in?”
“Er, sure, step inside.” Jack moved over, as Ron stepped past him. “Hey, there’s a thing,” Jack said. He pinched a piece of pink dust out of Ron’s black hair. “Now, what did you want to talk about?”
“You probably know my wife, Christy?”
*****
Father shovelled his way past assorted strings and sticks. “What is this a gift wrapping shop?” He called.
Mr Harvey waved from the inner office. “No,” he said. “Kite testing. However, the kites aren’t passing many tests. So far they have find the written report particularly gruelling.”
“Oh, um…”
“Never mind. A little pun, there.”
Father frowned. He’d never quite understood his colleague. “I’m looking for a lawyer, you wouldn’t happen to know of a good one?”
“Is there such a thing? As a good lawyer? Matter of fact, I trained in law. Took the bar exam. I named twenty-three of the twenty-five different drinks, and passed with an MDA in my system, a Moderate Degree of Alcohol. What do you need? Oh, by the way, Miss Mingo-something was around here yesterday, wanted to know something about you.”
“What about me?” Father asked suddenly alarmed.
“Everything about you.”
*****
Miss Mingostone placed the files back into the folder. She should return them to Harvey immediately. Or, better still, to Father. If it was true what Jack had said, that this was the only copy, and that this was the only proof of the Moppet’s marriage, then it was vital to keep it –
A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. Miss Mingostone crossed the thin carpet of her flat, and peered out the fish-eye peephole inlaid in the door. “Jack?” She quickly undid the latch, and pulled the door open full. “Hey, come in. Who is- Why did you bring Ron here?”
“Sis, this is vitally important. You still have the marriage certificate?”
She glanced at the folder on the bed-sofa, snapping her eyes to it and away, like a lizard flicking its tongue in and out. “No, I, took them back. Yesterday.”
She heard a muffled thud, and turned again, quickly. The folder was on the floor, the certificate half out of it. Ron crossed the room quickly, and snatched it up. “It’s true then,” he said.
“Of course it is true,” Jack said.
Mingostone’s eyes burned fiercely. “You told this man about the certificate?”
Jack started to speak, but Ron spoke quicker and louder. “Don’t you think I deserved to know?”
Miss Mingostone frowned. A sudden fear hit her. “Jack, you didn’t tell him that-” She stopped, and her face flushed. She looked at Ron.
“That it’s the only copy?” Ron said. “Of course he did. Remember, dear, you did make him grovel to his boss, and mob-boss’s need payment. In fact, I’d say I helped him more than you did in this instance.”
She opened and shut her mouth. How could he, after all she’d done? To betray her trust just like that?
Jack moved over closer to her, almost protectively. “Sis, I didn’t mean, well, what difference does it make?”
“None,” Ron said, folding the certificate, and placing it in the breast pocket of his light jacket. “It makes no difference to you, Liza. Only to me.”
He strode past her, and out the open door. Miss Mingostone stared after him open mouthed. She turned back to the folder on the floor, then bent to inspect something beside it. Pink dust.
To be continued...
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