Submersion (5 page)

After that first visit, it was another two weeks before we visited the old man again. The occasion was a family gathering at Aunt Agnes’ and the general rule when the entire family was round was
no-going-out.

‘Your great-aunt, great-uncle and Ronan are here, they want to see you,’
Mother would insist and I’d have to stay in, hanging around for the odd, dull question I was certain they asked out of necessity, embarrassed by the boy who lingered at his mother’s request alone.
How is school? What are you studying this term?
And the most pointless of them all:
what do you want to be when you grow up?
But Mother was insistent with her rule: people wanted to see you so there was no going out, understood?

But Aunt Agnes had intervened on this particular occasion.

‘Why don’t you both go out in one of the boats for a bit, get some fresh air,’ she said, a family joke that always made me smile, particularly when she delivered the line and the gasmasks simultaneously. Yet I failed to smile on this occasion – I was under strict instructions to
stay put and be seen
. ‘I’ll say I insisted, forced you out from under my feet. Now, put on your outdoor clothing and off you go.’

Once we were in the boat, there was no question as to where we were heading.

On our second visit together, the old man didn’t invite us into the rear room with the television trickery.

‘Oh, it’s all a mess in there, parts all over the floor, no, you’re to stay out,’ he told us, a little grumpier than he had been the last time. I had the sense we had interrupted his work, and that we were less welcome, but if Elinor noticed, she didn’t let it affect her.

‘Can I show Billy the other rooms?’ she asked him and he nodded and muttered in irritated agreement, before heading out to the back room again and shutting the door.

‘Just keep out of my way,’ he called back and I sensed a little of the friendliness return to his tone. I comforted myself with the belief that we weren’t so unwelcome after all.

‘Come on,’ Elinor urged, leading me on, her eyes bright with adventure, eager to unveil further riches that were scattered about Merlin’s lair.

Central to the building’s structure was a spiral, steel staircase that twisted its way up to the very apex of the house. The twisting steps did not stop at any of the floors, so you had to hop off at each level, alighting onto a circle of landing that would lead to the rooms. Only at the very top did the stairs cease, taking you straight into the single attic room.

On the first floor, there were three rooms. Elinor ventured ahead of me and, as she reached the first of the doors and turned the handle, she looked back and her face burst apart with a grin.
Just toys!
she mouthed an exclaim.
Nothing but toys!

It was a large room, with no window as far as I could see. All four walls were fitted with shelving, shelving that was, in turn, packed with box upon box of children’s games. Board games, mainly. Some were versions of games we had at home or at my great-aunt’s: draughts, chess, dominoes. Likewise, there were several packs of cards and a couple of books on different games and tricks you could play with them. However, this wasn’t the draw for us; what lured us in were the colourful boxes with games that had somehow remained a secret to our childhoods so far.

As Elinor had been there before, she introduced me to her favourites at the outset.

‘I love this one,’ Elinor had enthused, grabbing a box from one shelf and placing it on the floor. With the lid off, she took out a cylindrical tube, into which she plunged a series of colourful sticks and topped with marbles. ‘You take turns to pull out the sticks and eventually the marbles fall down to the bottom. The winner is the one with the least marbles at the end. Oh, and you shout
Kerplunk!
when the marbles come tumbling,’ she added, explaining where the pastime got its name.

I won the first round, frustrating my cousin, who yanked out the sticks with relish and speed, while I took my time, careful not to unsettle any precariously balanced marbles. The game was over in minutes, taking less time to play than it did to set up.

Elinor quickly pushed my victory and the box aside and took another from the shelf.

The second entertainment was titled
Frustration,
which was apt. In order to start the game, you had to hit a plastic dome in the centre, which in turn popped a dice. You needed to get a six to start and Elinor became quite vexed as this particular number eluded her, giving me a head start. Once you got a six, you were free to move one of four coloured pegs around a board; the first one to get all pegs home was the winner. Along the way, you could land on your opponent and send their pegs back to the start; a regular achievement on my part that also left my cousin aggravated.

We played two more games of a similar quick-paced nature –
Buckaroo
and
Mousetrap
– and, after her third and fourth defeat, Elinor lost interest and occupied herself with a dressing-up trunk in one corner of the room. I tidied away the games we had played, carefully putting the items back in the plastic molds that kept them orderly, placing the lids on each box and returning them to the shelves from which they came. I scanned the shelves, reading the names of all the other activities they contained:
Cluedo, Monopoly, Pictionary, Trivial Pursuit, Articulate, Yatzee;
some of these I had heard mention of, but many were new to me. I wondered why Old Man Merlin had such an archive, when so many things, not just toys and games, had been lost – drowned, confiscated – over the years. I made a note to ask him.

‘Right, follow me,’ Elinor instructed, suddenly at my side. I looked at her and took in her face and costume. Her lips were curled into a giddy grin, a reflection of her joy at being dressed as a witch: a pointy hat and long purple velvet cloak. ‘There’s allsorts in the box. Have a look in a bit, but first follow me.’

She led me back onto the circle landing and into another room, adjacent left. It was smaller and less cluttered than the games room. Elinor switched on an overhead light that hung, bare-bulbed, in the middle of the ceiling. In the centre – and taking up the vast majority of the space – was a large, oblong table with what appeared to be a model of a landscape, with a miniature rail-track running throughout it. I stared at it in silent wonder, my eyes absorbing every amazing detail. I had never seen anything quite like it. The track was laid out in a figure of eight; landmarks were sign-posted by tunnels, bridges, and four stations. The peripheral area was mapped-out with miniature trees, several buildings, including a windmill, and a lake. There were four tiny trains and each appeared to be hand-painted: one silver, one red, one black and one metallic-blue. The name
Xavier
was inscribed in gold paint on each vehicle; it wasn’t a name I was familiar with. A noise and sudden movement drew me from my thoughts: Elinor had flicked a switch, hidden under the table, and all four trains began to move along the circle of eight tracking. When each train reached a station, it stopped for a second, picking up invisible passengers and then continued on its way. There were sound effects, too: a warning horn was triggered when a train passed through a tunnel and a
toot-toot
when the trains crossed each other at a bridge – one travelling under, the other over.

I could have stayed and watched the trains go round and round all day, but Elinor was keen to show me the rest of Merlin’s hoard. After briefly checking out the third room – another small room, populated with two fat arm chairs, shelves crammed with books of all height and thickness, their kaleidoscopic spines creating a pictureless wall-to-wall mosaic – she headed back to the iron spiral staircase and stepped up to the next floor.

‘He really doesn’t mind,’ Elinor reassured me, sensing my hesitation. This was only my second visit to the house and, unlike my cousin, I hardly knew this strange old man. ‘I pretty much have free range here. Come on, just to have a look. Then we can go if you’re still not happy.’

So, I followed her up to the third storey.

On first inspection, this level was less exciting. Whilst there were three doors leading off the landing, one was a cupboard housing a jumble of tools, tins, jars and little storage boxes. Of the remaining doors, one led to a small study, occupied by a stout, oak desk, littered with papers, and various grey, metal cabinets that I guessed contained even more paperwork. We didn’t get to confirm this, as the drawers were locked. The final room on this floor, like the small library on the second floor, was home to another pair of plumped, comfortable armchairs.

‘Sit down,’ Elinor instructed and I did as I was told, instantly swallowed up by the enveloping comfort the chair provided. ‘And listen,’ she added, heading towards one of two dark wooden cabinets opposite the chairs. Turning a small key, she unlocked and opened the doors to one and revealed a stack of black electrical equipment. After pressing a few buttons, she withdrew, joining me in the second chair. In her hand, she held a remote control, similar to that which had operated the televisions on the ground storey. Pressing a button, the purpose of this exercise was revealed: recorded music filled the room, a surround sound that I couldn’t locate the source of. ‘Hidden speakers,’ Elinor explained, although she had no idea where they were. More magic from Old Merlin.

Elinor pressed a further button on the control and the music changed, and then changed again. I didn’t recognise the music, although I had heard similar on our small radio in the kitchen, on the days when limited music was transmitted. It was a composition of guitars, drums and a male voice, but not one I found pleasant. Elinor grinned and pressed the control again and the pace of the next piece was very different: strings, no drums or vocals.
Classical,
I thought to myself, recognising the style from a radio program Grandad Ronan listened to on occasion, late at night.

‘What’s the other cabinet?’ I asked, as Elinor switched the music again: this last arrangement was a violent mess of guitars crashing into each other.

Elinor shrugged. ‘Dunno. It’s locked, no key. I’ve never asked. Come on, follow me.’ With that, Elinor led me out of the room and up a further floor. But the second locked cabinet stayed with me and, on one of my first visits without Elinor, I asked Old Man Merlin about it. To my surprise and delight, he fetched the key and revealed the wonder concealed within.

The fourth level was less exciting that the previous three. Comprised of two rooms, one locked, the second occupied by a series of desks with fat, bold computer terminals perched upon them. I pressed a button on one of them that looked as if it would start the machine up, but the screen remained blank. I tried another, with the same result.

‘They’re all dead,’ Elinor explained, beckoning me with a finger, luring me away from this technical graveyard to the apex of the house.

The fifth was simply an open plan attic room. Scanning the room, I was instantly aware that we shouldn’t have come this far. This final room was Old Merlin’s personal quarters. In truth, the whole house was his personal quarters, but the other floors had the cross-purpose feel of a museum and a workshop - a laboratory examining things from a distant past. The final storey was quite the opposite. Whilst only a single room, it was clearly divided into sub-rooms, just without dividing walls. One area was home to a bed, wardrobe and chest of drawers, indicating his sleeping arrangements. Two armchairs, a small coffee table and a rusting, grey fan heater created a cosy lounge area. In one corner, a dividing curtain was loosely hung up; a peak behind that revealed a bath, sink and lavatory, in white porcelain. A tiny stove, a kettle and a cardboard box of jars and tins was the only sign of a kitchen, so I assumed there were proper facilities below, at the very back of the house.

‘I don’t think we should be in here,’ I informed Elinor, who grinned, enjoying the discomforting effect my assumed intrusion was having upon me. ‘This seems too private.’

‘Okay,’ she nodded, and we descended the spiral staircase again, right down to the first floor, where she took another board game from the shelf –
Guess Who?
– and we played out the rest of our time there, working our way along the shelves.

I went to Old Man Merlin’s many times with Elinor. On one other occasion he did the trick with the televisions screens again, but on the others he was busy at the back of his house, not wanting to be disturbed. So, we would venture up the steel staircase and play with the ancient delights concealed in his upper chambers. But it wasn’t until Elinor’s death that the place became my own; it wasn’t until she died that my true adventure with Old Man Merlin and his towering house began.

The incident with the dead rat happened three days after my Cousin Elinor’s accident. We’d been staying at Aunt Agnes’ since it happened.

On the day she drowned, Mother met me with the boat outside school and rowed us straight to her sister’s house. She said we needed to be there, for my aunt, but when we arrived it was clear to me that Aunt Agnes’ didn’t want us there at all. It wasn’t just us, either. My great-aunt and -uncle, Jimmy and Penny, soon arrived, as did Grandad Ronan, although Great-Aunt Penny would quietly correct me whenever I called him that.
He’s not really your grandad,
she would say, but not loud enough that anyone else could hear. I didn’t really like Great-Aunt Penny; I know I shouldn’t say that, but she wasn’t my idea of what a great-aunt should be like. I wanted a soft-faced, loving, cuddly old lady. Like our grandma, Jill, had been. I only vaguely remembered her, before she died. What I did remember – I was at pains to tell Great-Aunt Penny – was that Grandma Jill had been married to Grandad Ronan.
Not married,
my great-aunt insisted, her pursed lips and hissed words indicating she was annoyed at my questioning.
Not married at all.
Still, it didn’t bother me and I took my lead from Elinor and my Aunt Agnes: Elinor called him Grandad Ronan and that was enough to allow me to call him it too; likewise, I’d heard Aunt Agnes call him
Dad
on one or more private occasion
,
although in company he was always Ronan.

On that day, it was clear that Aunt Agnes was after the company of only one person: Tristan. Every time she thought she heard a noise or a door, her head would turn suddenly, looking at the nearest entrance, anticipating his appearance.

‘He’ll be here as soon as he gets the message,’ Grandad Ronan would reassure her, something that annoyed Great-Aunt Penny, I could tell.

By the time he finally arrived, I had been shooed out the way. I was
getting-under-people’s-feet
according to Mother and needed to
occupy-myself-with-something-other-than-whining,
although I was sure I hadn’t moaned a word.

‘Go play in Elinor’s room,’ my aunt had suggested, with a soft, flat smile. ‘She won’t mind,’ she added, and I left with a sense of reassurance: my aunt’s words suggested both Elinor’s approval and her eventual return.

They suggested hope.

But Elinor didn’t return and still hasn’t.

My cousin’s room became mine for three nights. Like mine at home, it was a simple room. A single, narrow bed, with a top and bottom sheet, a single pillow and a couple of blankets to tuck you in and keep out the cold. She had a wardrobe and a small chest of drawers too, but I didn’t venture inside either. They were just for her clothes. The room also housed a small desk, with an upright chair in front of it and, for a while, I lifted its lid and looked over her things. Like me, she didn’t have a lot – a couple of books, well read, the pages yellowed; a journal, in which she appeared to be capturing the scary stories that Tristan told her; two bags of marbles and a small set of draughts. I took out the latter two and played with both for a while, but it wasn’t much fun, not on my own.

There was one thing that Elinor owned that was a little unique, something Uncle Jessie had got her from
God knows where –
Great-Aunt Penny’s words, expelled with disapproval and a sniff. It was a small recording machine, with a microphone on a lead that she used to interview people about their lives. She had a couple of oblong cassettes that she inserted into the mechanism, on which she recorded what family and friends were saying. It looked like a lot of fun, although not everyone joined in with this spirit when she waved her microphone in their faces – you can guess who they might be. I thought I’d find this amongst her things that evening, thought I’d play back some of her recordings, listen to her familiar voice as it asked its questions, but I couldn’t find it.

There was really only one interesting thing that happened that evening - when Grandad Ronan brought Tristan upstairs to tell him about Elinor. I stopped playing and listened to their conversation. Tristan was being blamed, it seemed, him and Uncle Jessie, who everyone knew was Elinor’s father, although that was another thing you weren’t allowed to say. But I didn’t understand how it could be their fault, when Elinor had drowned.

‘They built the platform, the one that gave way,’ Grandad Ronan explained to me the following day. ‘That’s what the police are saying. An accident, you understand.’

‘And is that what happened?’

‘Tristan’s not to blame, you understand, nor Jessie.’

‘But is that what happened?’ I asked again.

‘It looks that way,’ he confirmed, but there was a doubt, I could tell. Doubt that would surface again and again, from different minds and mouths, as the months since Elinor died or disappeared (depending on what you accepted) lengthened.

With little to do at my aunt’s house and wanting to be out from under the twin glares of disapproval that beamed from my mother and great-aunt, I borrowed a boat and rowed down to Old Man Merlin’s house the first morning after Elinor had gone.

If Old Man Merlin knew about Elinor that first day I went by myself, then he didn’t show it. As with many of our visits, he was preoccupied with his machines, his
white goods,
as my cousin had continued to refer to them with an ironic smirk. A rusty, dirty, crumbling white.

Upon my arrival, I knocked and he let me in, but didn’t acknowledge that I had come alone.

‘You know where the stuff is,’ he muttered, half-smiling, as I pulled off my protective mask. Then he padded his way back to the rear of his house, back to whatever he was working on. ‘Just don’t disturb me young man,’ he instructed, his tone friendly, but his intention firm.

So, up the winding steel staircase I went, stepping off at just the first level. Popping my head into the games room, I thought instantly of my cousin: delving into the dressing up chest, pulling something ridiculous over her clothes, then reaching up for
Kerplunk!
or
Buckaroo!
Despite the image of her having fun, I felt saddened.

Not wishing to hang out with melancholy, I drew away from the doorway and chose a different room, one I didn’t associate as keenly with our visits here.

The library wasn’t a big room. Housing just two chairs – albeit large, plush leather chairs that swallowed you up like two fat lips of dough when you sat in them – it was the smallest room off that first landing, but the old man had made good use of the space. Every wall was heaving with books, the casings reaching up to the ceiling, with the last few inches between the top shelves and the plasterboard crammed with thin horizontal volumes.

Previously, I had only spent a limited amount of time in there. Elinor wasn’t keen to linger. Much as she liked the tales that Tristan weaved for her – the journal I had found in her desk, documenting his every word, was proof of that – she wasn’t a very avid reader and none of the tomes in Merlin’s lair tempted her.
They’re all a bit academic,
she had criticised, dragging me away whenever I loitered too long in the doorway. But my cousin was wrong. Yes, there were lots of educational volumes – maths books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, endless spiral bound journals that covered all the sciences – but if you looked closely enough there were stories too. Many of these still did not appeal – books about murder and politics that held no mystery for my mind – but there were some with fantastic titles that drew me in.
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
and
Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea –
both by the same author. Given that Elinor hadn’t cared much for spending time in the library, I had previously sneaked the aforementioned novels out. Old Merlin wouldn’t mind, I had told myself, and as long as Mother didn’t find them I was safe on the home front too. I could just imagine her reaction:
what on Earth were you thinking? You shouldn’t be looking about in that old man’s private things! And put that book out of sight, before people start asking questions!

That was a thing with Mother, with Aunt Agnes and the others, too. Showing you were bright wasn’t welcomed. Be good with your hands, like Tristan, and that was applauded, but if you got something like a book out in company, or asked too many smart questions, they all went a bit quiet. Liked they feared something.

I had been saving one title I particularly liked the sound of for quite a while. On that first morning without Elinor, I finally pulled it out from its tight place on the shelf and began reading.

And, on the second day of Elinor’s absence, that’s where Old Man Merlin found me, engrossed in Alexander Dumas.

‘Ah,
The Count of Monte Cristo,’
Merlin muttered, shuffling in, his hands gripping a small tray. ‘I thought you might like a little something.’

That’s when I knew that the old man knew about Elinor. Whether he had just discovered the news, or whether he had known the previous day and simply been preoccupied with his work, I didn’t know. But on the tray was a glass of murky looking juice –
It’s orange squash, a bit old, but it shouldn’t do you any harm
– and a fruit bun that he appeared to have made –
burnt, if I’m honest
– his words. Merlin never offered us refreshments of any kind, not even those of an out-of-date or overcooked variety. So, this occurrence was a gesture of some kind.

‘Thank you,’ I said, accepting the offering, hoping any concern over my future wellbeing wasn’t showing as I bit into the cake. It was a bit dry and bitter, but otherwise fine; the drink was surprisingly tasty, despite its slightly muddy pallor.

‘I’m to understand you are coming without the girl for a reason,’ he said, somewhere between a sentence and a question and I nodded in response, taking another sip of the cloudy squash.

‘They think,’ I began, trying to find the right words, but struggling to speak as sudden tears clogged them up. ‘They’re saying she drowned, swallowed up by the water.’ Though no one had said that, not directly, but that’s how saw it. It’s what I imagined happened - the waters opening up, like a huge wet jaw, its translucent head reaching out of the river and engulfing her. ‘Could it do that? They said it happened before. That the sea swallowed people whole.’

‘It did,’ Old Merlin replied, echoing my language. ‘As you said, it did swallow some people and some parts of our city whole. But I’ve already heard that they don’t exactly know what happened to Elinor, either. That she might be okay.’

He said the
might
softly, carefully, trying not to suggest too much hope.

‘Do you think about the water a lot?’ I asked him, going slightly off our subject. ‘Do you wonder why it didn’t just go back to where it came from?’

The old man gave me a half-smile – caught between the seriousness of the subject and the humorous simplicity of my question.

‘I think in the old times it might have done, eventually. But we’ve done a lot of damage to our world along the years. Progressed with so many great things, but lost sight of the cost as we went, despite the warning signs. So, I think maybe the way back for the water may no longer be there. So, here is its new home – this is now where it lives.’

He searched my face with his eyes, trying to see if I understood. Seeing a glimpse of confusion there, he tried a different approach.

‘When you look out of the window, how many trees do you see?’ he asked.

I thought for a minute, imagining the view from my attic window – grey skies and slated rooftops.

‘None.’

‘None,’ the old man repeated, as if instead he was saying
exactly.
‘There’s a theory that the trees used to help break up the fall of the rain, keeping up to half of it off the land. But, look around you and you’ll not see many trees – if any - for miles. It’s got to have an impact.’

‘And that’s why the water doesn’t go?’ I asked, eager to latch onto this explanation, my young brain engaging with its simplicity, its appeal.

‘Well, it might be one reason our environment has changed, a contributing factor, but only one of many others,’ he answered, trying to steady my enthusiasm. ‘But it does explain why the flooding gets so much worse when it rains and why the rain always feels so
heavy
.’
He said that last word –
heavy
– with such weight I felt it load his entire body. ‘But, you know, we have to…’ His voice petered away, as he failed to finish his sentence. I mused over what he might have said and guessed he had simply lost faith in whatever snippet of hope he was going to expel. Instead, he changed the subject; a welcome diversion. ‘How about I show you something I always keep to myself?’

‘A secret thing?’ I asked, my spirits perking up.

‘Not really,’ he answered, trying not to dampen my spark of delight, but a flicker of disappointment must have flashed across my features, as he added quickly: ‘Private. Yes, it’s more like it’s something private. Something special to me.’

It was enough. Yes, I nodded. Whatever it was, I wanted to see it.

‘This way then…’

I followed him up to the second floor, to the
music room,
as Elinor had labelled it.