Hollow Chest Page 2

  “We have to get everything ready for when Theo’s home,” Charlie couldn’t keep himself from adding, and then regretted it. Two of Sean’s brothers had gone away to fight, and neither of them would be home soon, or ever. But it had been sneaking into everything Charlie said lately, like a hiccup. Lovely weather we’re having, and Theo will be home soon. How much are cabbages today, and did you know Theo will be home soon? Our Father, who art in heaven, Theo will be home soon.

  “I’ll see you at the church tonight, though?” Sean went on as if Charlie had not spoken.

  “Yes,” Charlie replied. Father MacIntosh had organized a group visit to a hospital tomorrow to welcome returning soldiers, and was overseeing it with the flinty focus of a seasoned general. He wanted to have a meeting tonight to make all final preparations. Absence would not be acceptable.

  “Grand. I’ll see you then.” And, with one last heave of snow, he disappeared back inside his house. Charlie caught the sound of a baby crying before the door clicked shut.

  He sighed and kicked at an ice chunk that skittered off into the street, barely avoiding braining a pigeon that was hunting for rubbish near the sidewalk. Theo would have known what to say to Sean, what quiet little gesture would convey that Charlie hasn’t meant anything by it, he’d just been excited was all. But if Theo were here it would be a moot point anyway.

  Biscuits broke his train of thought, leaping smoothly into the bicycle basket, her paws braced on the edge like a masthead. Charlie petted her gratefully and pushed the bicycle into motion, his knees stiff with cold. He went slowly and carefully, keeping one eye the path ahead and one on the ground immediately in front of him. The Blitz—German planes dropping bomb after bomb after bomb all over England near the start of the war—had blacked out and rewritten the topography of the city, making even the familiar sidewalks strange and treacherous, even several years later. Their street had escaped the bombs unscathed, but the displaced earth from a few streets over had tilted parts of the road and sidewalks like carnival mirrors, the odd edges just waiting to catch unsuspecting feet and tires.

  A small pack of returned soldiers were smoking on a street corner, talking in low voices. They could only be soldiers, given their age, maybe a few years older than Theo. Even two months ago there hadn’t been half as many, and the newly demobilized soldiers were rare and obvious sights on the street, either dressed still in their uniforms or in the conspicuous demob suits the government had provided to each returning serviceman: coat, trousers, shirt, and hat, all so fresh they had a self-conscious gleam to them. Would Theo already have his, or would he need to go somewhere to get it? Not that he would need it; all of Theo’s clothes were exactly where he had left them in his room.

  Mum had been talking less and less idly about repurposing some of Theo’s things for Charlie. There were only so many clothing tickets allowed per person every year, but Charlie kept growing. He’d been excited as the marks for his height got higher and higher on his door frame, so excited that it had been months before he’d noticed that Mum’s dresses had new darns and places where the fabric was worn thin and shiny. Charlie, in turn, kept trying to stretch his clothes to fit. Everything had to be exactly the way Theo had left it, exactly. If Charlie could help it, anyway, and he couldn’t, always.

  A precarious bit of road pulled Charlie out of his thoughts as he swung his bicycle around to avoid a gaping hole where a house and a stretch of sidewalk had been blasted away. It was only odd when he thought about it now, how one street could be as untouched as a snow globe, and the next one over flattened as if a shovel had swept it clear. He had to work now to remember what it had looked like before.

  He pulled up to the grocer’s and parked his bicycle next to a few others. He touched his jacket pocket again to assure himself he’d brought the ration book and the money Mum had left in a jar on the counter. He occasionally had nightmares that he had lost the little book, or accidentally used it as kindling, often accompanying dreams that he had shown up for school in his underwear and nothing else.

  The shop was small and cramped inside, cans and bottles stacked high on shelves that went almost to the ceiling, a few baskets of wilting vegetables arranged a bit precariously underneath. The effect was so that it always seemed as if there had to be enough, more than enough, for everyone. Even as there never was.

  Charlie remembered Mum’s shock-slack face, the first time she had seen their rations for the week laid out on the kitchen table, how she had not been able to hide it quite fast enough before Charlie got the idea that maybe he ought to be worried. He had never really thought about food before, to wonder what would happen if there wasn’t enough. “You can make do with anything, if anything is all you have,” Grandpa Fitz had said firmly, squeezing Mum’s hand tight in his own, under the table where he thought Charlie couldn’t see. But Charlie had seen. And he had worried. And he had never been able to work out how to stop.

  It was a thin little dark thread that was sewn up into the fabric of everything, that worry. It stitched the pieces of his life together. What would even happen if it was gone?

  Now Charlie carefully picked their usual rations from off the shelves. He could pick out the correct amount of everything for two adults and one child by memory now, the weight of it in the shopping basket not even enough to tire his arm. The line moved and soon he was in front of the counter, with Mr. Short, the grocer, smiling at him expectantly.

  Mr. Short was in fact rather short, but short like a bulldog, all compressed ham-hock muscles and determination. He had a nice, open sort of face and he was reassuring in his sameness—the same dusty apron as always, the same neat off-white shirt, the same gleam of light off his bald head.

  “Hello, Charlie,” he said warmly, taking the ration book Charlie offered and comparing it to his ledger. “How’s your mum and old Fitz?”

  Charlie pulled out the money from his jacket pocket and carefully counted it out, adding in his head. Once, the second or third time he had come on his own, there had not been enough for everything in his shopping basket, and the awful pressure of the shame had seemed to press Charlie into the floor as he tried to work out which thing to get rid of, when they needed them all. Even now he could feel the memory of it staining his neck red and splotchy. Charlie had immediately gone home and informed Mum that he was going to look for a job the next day, maybe a paper route like Sean or collecting scrap metal like Eustace. Mum had told him that for the time being, his job was to be at home to help her and Grandpa Fitz while she had to be at work.

  “They’re fine,” Charlie replied, swallowing down the memory. And then, unable to help himself once again, he added, “Theo’s home next week.”

  Mr. Short’s whole face changed as he broke into a wide smile, deep crinkles appearing around his eyes. “Now, that is good news,” he said, counting out change in one meaty hand. And then, almost to himself, “That is good, good news indeed.” Mr. Short’s crinkled-up eyes narrowed a moment later, though, squinting suspiciously out the shop window.

  The old woman everyone called Mad Mellie was pushing a baby’s pram full of odds and ends down the street with surprising spryness. She paused outside the grocer’s and began inspecting the rubbish bin.

  “Oi!” Mr. Short shouted out the door. “Clear off!”

  Charlie shifted his weight around, uncomfortable and embarrassed. Mad Mellie had been shuffling around the neighborhood for years, always with her pram and usually surrounded by the pigeons she fed bread crumbs. She was grumpy and dirty, but she never really bothered anyone—she hardly spoke to anyone at all besides her birds. But she was grumpy and dirty, and she made people uncomfortable. And that was why people yelled at her, he supposed.

  Still.

  “Woman’s a menace,” Mr. Short muttered under his breath as he finished loading up Charlie’s groceries.

  “Thank you, Mr. Short,” Charlie said, careful to enunciate. Theo always said clarity was essential for thank-yous, and thank-yous were the cornerstone of g
ood manners. Theo had once kicked a football straight through a glass window while playing in the street with a friend, and he had marched right up to the house in question, swept his hat off, and somehow apologized so eloquently and thoroughly that the old lady who owned the window sent him home with both the football and a slice of cake wrapped in wax paper. He’d let Charlie have a bite of it, the icing so sweet it almost stung.

  “You’re more than welcome, Charlie,” Mr. Short said with another smile, and clapped Charlie on the shoulder. Charlie almost buckled under the weight of his hand, but he was pleased, nonetheless. For as long as Charlie could remember, every time he’d come with Mum or Grandpa Fitz, Mr. Short had smiled indulgently at him as said “Mr. Merriweather” in mock-serious tones. The first time Charlie had come into the store by himself to get the family’s weekly allotment of bacon and cooking oil and milk and all the other little things that made life possible but that there were never enough of, he had been shaking so badly with nerves that his ration book fluttered in his hands like a moth. Mr. Short had looked at Charlie for a long moment and then nodded and said, “Charlie,” and taken the book in calm, sure hands to fill out the logs. And he had been “Charlie” ever since.

  Being treated as a grown-up by someone who mattered had made Charlie feel proud and a little embarrassed and, for just a moment, terribly, terribly lonely.

  On the corner, Mad Mellie was continuing her inspection of the street’s garbage, the flock of pigeons trailing after her like an ugly cape. They fluttered and squawked as he walked past to his bicycle, and Mad Mellie glared at him for disturbing them. Trying to hide behind his upturned jacket collar, he carefully settled the groceries into the basket attached to the handlebars. He avoided talking to Mad Mellie if he could help it.

  “Keep your beast away from my pigeons!” Mad Mellie shouted at him as he approached, and Charlie opened his mouth to protest that Biscuits wasn’t even doing anything when he saw a little white-and-marmalade shadow lurking underneath Mad Mellie’s favorite bench. She was stalking a pigeon with the focused intensity of a big game hunter, eyes huge, tail twitching, body slunk low to the ground.

  Go home, Charlie mouthed at her, trying to shoo her away without drawing Mad Mellie’s attention to her. Biscuits chirruped at him in greeting and Mellie whirled around at the sound. Before Charlie could shout that he would take Biscuits home straight away, he promised, Mellie had dived after Biscuits, brandishing an umbrella and shouting some very unflattering things about Biscuits’s lineage. Biscuits streaked away in a cat-shaped blur, Mellie chasing after her down the block. Charlie pedaled as fast as he could and ducked his head down, trying very much to look like he was in no way a part of this exchange.

  “Biscuits,” he hissed as soon as he’d rounded the corner, swiveling his head back and forth looking for her little cat shape. But Biscuits had disappeared again, presumably to gloat and digest. She would show up at home for her tea when she was good and ready and not a second before. Biscuits time had very little to do with people time. “Cats view time as more of a philosophical construct,” Mum had said once. “They’re a bit like your grandfather that way.” Grandpa Fitz had just snored louder from his chair by the fire.

  Even with Biscuits off somewhere bringing more shame to the Merriweather family name, Charlie found it difficult to stay gloomy as he rode home. The sun was bright and fat in the sky and it made him feel warmer than he probably really was, and his bicycle basket was full of soap and sugar and tea.

  Seven days and Theo will be home. The thought made him pedal faster.

  Charlie’s good mood fizzled and died as he turned the corner to his house. A thin, reedy man in a rather upsetting hat was crouched in front of the door with an oil can, making a great production of doctoring the hinges.

  “Charlie!” the man called, waving.

  “Hello, Mr. Cleaver,” Charlie said, getting off his bike and walking it to the house, while trying to maintain a safe distance from the man and his hat.

  Charlie did not like Mr. Cleaver. It wasn’t that Mr. Cleaver was unfriendly—rather, it was, among other reasons, his extreme friendliness that made Charlie keen to avoid him. When Mr. Cleaver smiled, he had what seemed to Charlie to be far too many teeth for his rather thin, small mouth. The hat was just unpleasant window dressing.

  “Heard your mum talking about how this old door here has been giving you lip, and thought I’d just stop by and remind it who’s in charge here.” Mr. Cleaver stood, and slapped his grotesque hat on his knee for emphasis.

  “Oh.”

  “Yes, I wasn’t sure about her hours at the phone company; I know they’ve been letting people go all over the city, what with the boys coming back from the front. Will she be home anytime soon?” Mr. Cleaver’s eyebrows bowed like a hopeful dog. “Worth sticking around for a bit?”

  “No.”

  “Ah, drat, I was afraid of that. But you know, Charlie, I wanted to say, just between us lads, that if you ever need any help around the house, don’t hesitate to call! I know how difficult things have been, just the three of you, and old Fitzy feeling his age—”

  “Theo will be home next week,” Charlie said, parking his bike and making his way to the door, being sure to keep a safe distance between himself and Mr. Cleaver, as if he were contagious. “So we’ll be fine.”

  “Of course, of course! And about time, too!” Mr. Cleaver looked as if he were about to slap Charlie’s shoulder or ruffle his hair, and Charlie willed himself to look as prickly as possible. “Well, I’ll see you all at the church meeting tonight, then, yes?”

  “Yes,” Charlie allowed, easing the door open and trying to slip inside.

  “Lovely, well, please tell your mother I stopped—”

  Charlie closed the door in his face. The hinges didn’t even have the good grace to squeak in solidarity.

  “Thank the sweet Almighty, I thought he’d never leave.” Grandpa Fitz was in his regular clothes and fussing with the woodstove next to a pile of fresh wood. “He kept asking to come inside. Had to sing a rather inappropriate shanty about a porpoise to convince him I was dotty.”

  Charlie ran over to hug Grandpa Fitz, his arms barely closing around his waist. It was like hugging a tree trunk, something that had stood forever and could never fall. He pressed his face into Grandpa Fitz’s soft shirt until his eyes no longer prickled.

  Grandpa Fitz ruffled Charlie’s hair with his one hand, and then helped him unpack the groceries.

  3

  CHARLIE NEVER USUALLY MINDED GOING TO church meetings, but knowing that Mr. Cleaver was lurking somewhere, waiting for his chance to talk to Mum, Charlie found that it was the worst idea he had ever heard in his entire life. He squirmed in his good shoes as Father MacIntosh stood before him and a dozen other kids from church, gazing out at the pack of them as if inspecting mustered troops.

  “As you all know, tomorrow is our trip to the hospital to visit with the convalescing soldiers there. Now,” he said, straightening up behind the art table in front of him as if it were a pulpit, “I know none of you would have such poor taste, such little regard for the sacrifice of both our servicemen and our caregivers that you would run in the halls, or raise your voices, or speak out of turn, or”—he turned his bright eyes on them like searchlights—“loiter.” His voice held unspeakable disgust.

  Charlie was not sure what was so horrible about loitering but knew better than to ask.

  The church visit to the hospital had been planned for weeks, but somehow it had still managed to sneak up on him. Stacks of newspaper were arranged on each table, and some enterprising parent had glued sheets together to make thicker paper for the cards. They were a bit bubbly and still damp in places, but satisfyingly sturdy. Pots of watercolors and even some tubes of oil paint were distributed between chairs with cups of water for rinsing and stained hand towels.

  “The doctors and nurses at the hospital will be working while we are there, do you understand?” Father Mac continued. “You are not to distra
ct or bother them in any way, or I will be forced to have words with my supervisor.”

  “Who?” Rosie Linton asked in a loud whisper.

  “He means God,” Sean hissed back. Rosie paled.

  “These soldiers have enough to deal with without the load of you running rampant through the wing like a pack of wild boars. Some of them may have especially grievous injuries, some of them may even seem a bit frightening. So it is important to know that if their appearance makes you feel at all uncomfortable, even for a moment, you will not draw attention to that fact.”

  Father Mac swung around to scowl at them all accusingly, scanning them for signs of weakness.

  What if Theo looks different?

  Charlie slammed the door shut on the thought as soon as he had it. There were certain things he could not think about, things that stole the breath out of his lungs, that left him breathing in shallows pants, unable to either concentrate or properly relax. He had to throw them out before they could take hold.

  Charlie wanted to paint a garden on his card—everyone liked gardens—but of course there was no green paint, all of it long since gone to the military for camouflage coloring. So he made a blue sky in long swaths of watery paint and blew on it to dry. He added a few gray clouds—it was England, after all—and black Vs of birds.

  That one wasn’t very good. He picked up a fresh sheet of paper.

  Well, of course Theo would look different. He might be a bit taller, he might have lost some of the softness around his cheeks. Maybe he could grow a beard now. Charlie’s shoulders unknotted themselves a bit.

  Father Mac was prowling around the tables, offering such helpful commentary as, “I’m not sure a painting of a graveyard sends the precise message of calm you intend, Eustace.”

  “But they’re nice and quiet!” Eustace protested.