He was in the attic, where, unbelievably, there were even more boxes of crap. The atmosphere up here was thick with neglect. There was a box full of this stuff—mouldy, flimsy paper, crammed with single-space faded typing. Some of it was incomprehensible so probably poetry, Sunny concluded.
It was like a neglected museum in the attic, all dust and rust. Sunny didn’t like the atmosphere in museums but he liked the idea of collecting, liked all those trays of butterflies and insects, cabinets of rocks. He liked the Augustus books, although he wouldn’t have said so. Not the insides so much, just the uniform outsides. They each had a number on their spines so that if you lined them up they counted from one to forty-two. When he was little he collected stones, pebbles, bits of gravel from the road, anything. Sometimes, still, he felt the urge to pick up a stone and put it in his pocket.
A fine dust, like grey talcum, was dislodged every time he took the papers out. He read slowly, his lips forming each word as if he was deciphering a foreign language.
The stable where the Holy Family were taking refuge for the night had but a small fire which was on the verge of going out. A robin—one of the many small creatures who had come to rejoice at the advent of the Messiah—seeing how cold the infant was, placed himself in front of the weak fire and fanned the flames with his wings. In doing so he burnt his breast which for evermore would be red as a sign of gratitude.
There were lots of these. At the end of each one was typed “Agrestis.” Whatever that meant. Different topics each time—“truffling for primroses,” “the welcome return of spring,” “the golden pomp of daffodils,” “an otter and her kits, sleek with water,” “the snowdrop in purest white array.” Hares—“the Celtic messengers of Eostre, the goddess of spring”—that were boxing in a field. Hares boxed, Sunny puzzled? Competitively?
Another fusty box full of buttons and old coins. A shoebox with photographs. He recognized hardly anyone in the photographs. A lot of them were small black-and-white ones dating from prehistory as far as Sunny was concerned. In the Seventies they changed to colour. Some little square snaps of him and Bertie in Grandpa Ted’s garden, fading to yellow. They were dressed in primary-coloured outfits that made them look like clowns. Thanks, Viola, he thought bitterly. No wonder he was bullied as a child. Himself and Bertie standing in front of a flower-bed with Tinker seated between them. His heart gave a little twitch. He had cried when his grandfather told him that Tinker had been put down. He took the photo and put it in his pocket.
There was another box, small and rusty, and when he opened it he found medals inside. His grandfather’s presumably, from the war. Also a small gold caterpillar. A caterpillar? A little card, soft with age—a “Caterpillar Club membership,” it said, made out for “W/C E. B. Todd.” Another membership card, different, for the “Goldfish Club” for “P/O E. B. Todd.” What did all these mysterious letters mean? What were all these weird clubs that Grandpa Ted was a member of? He could just make out the typed lettering on the Goldfish Club membership card, “escaping death by use of his emergency dinghy, February 1943.”
Sunny thought about the outing they’d had to Harrogate when Grandpa Ted was laid up with his hip. He hadn’t said so, but Sunny had enjoyed it. He had appreciated the orderliness of the gravestones in the cemetery. He had had to walk away at one point and leave Grandpa Ted in his wheelchair because he had felt tears starting. All those dead guys, it was so sad. They were his own age, doing something noble, something heroic. They were lucky. They’d been given history. It wasn’t going to happen to him. He was never going to be given the chance to be noble and heroic.
It made him feel angry. He took the medals out of the tin and slipped them in his pocket along with the purloined photograph.
The war was interesting actually, all that stuff about the bombers. Perhaps Sunny would read a book about the war. Maybe then he could talk to Grandpa Ted about it without feeling like an idiot. His grandfather was a hero too, wasn’t he? He’d had a life. Sunny wondered how you went about getting one of those.
He climbed awkwardly down the ladder from the attic and dropped a box on the floor. Viola made a great show of choking on the dust. “You know I’m allergic,” she said crossly.
“There’s a whole load more stuff up there,” Sunny said.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Viola said to Teddy. “You’re a hoarder, Dad.”
Teddy ignored her and said to Sunny, “You didn’t come across a box that had my medals in it when you were up there, did you?”
“Medals?”
“From the war. I haven’t set eyes on them in years. I was thinking of going to an RAF reunion dinner, thought I could take them along.”
Sunny shrugged and said, “Dunno.”
“Can we get on, please?” Viola said.
That’s everything loaded on to the van,” Viola said. “You just need to do an idiot check before it leaves.”
“A what?” Teddy said.
“An idiot check,” Viola repeated. “You know, look round, make sure you haven’t left anything behind.”
Only my life, Teddy thought.