Free The Father's House by Larche Davies Page A

process. She sat on the floor and felt around for something to climb on. Her frozen fingers sank into a damp mass of cardboard. The smell of mould was overpowering. Her fingers scraped against the splintery side of a wooden crate. Before she had time to pull it towards her she heard the key turn in the lock and the cellar door opened throwing a beam of light down the rickety steps.
    â€œCome on out wherever you are,” called the father.
    She crept towards him. Her hands, face, legs, and her clothes, were black.
    â€œGet yourself cleaned up and then go to your room and pray for forgiveness,” said the father. “To mock the Magnifico is a deadly sin. Those who cannot be forgiven must perish.”
    Lucy pulled herself up by the rail of the wooden steps. With her head so bowed that she was almost bent double, she skirted round the father and stumbled down the corridor towards Aunt Sarah.
    â€œThe same again tomorrow night, and the next,” he said to Sarah as he departed through the kitchen and into the lobby, locking the door behind him.
    Sarah longed to hold Lucy, coal dust and all. But that was forbidden. She fetched clean towels and started to run the bath. The water was cold, as always.
    â€œMake sure you rinse your hair thoroughly.” She closed the bathroom door and went back to the kitchen to prepare the dinner trays for the upstairs flats.
    Lucy couldn’t sleep. She lay on the bed and shivered. Her mind raced round and round reliving the nightmare day. The trip into the cellar was nothing when she thought of the assembly and the public humiliation of the guidance cane. She didn’t blame David. It was her own fault for losing self-control. Why on earth hadn’t she used the reminder straight away? But even now, when she thought of David’s words and visualised the deadpan innocence on his face, a hysterical splutter escaped her.
    In the middle of the night when the house was very still and the distant traffic over on South Hill had ceased to rumble, she climbed out of bed and silently opened the door to the hall. Moonlight sparkled through the coloured glass in the front door and made patterns on the herringbone floor tiles.
    Sarah’s room was at the front of the house, on the opposite side of the hall from Lucy’s, and she paused outside the door to listen carefully. There was no sound. She tiptoed to the kitchen, took the torch off the shelf, and returned to the hall. The cellar door was shut and the key was still in the lock on the outside. She turned the handle. The door gave a little creak as it opened and she stood for a second, her heart in her mouth.
    She switched on the torch. The click sounded like an explosion, and again she paused and listened. Then, standing on the top step, she shone the beam down to the far end of the cellar. On the right the floor sloped upwards till it touched the ceiling just beyond the circular plate that was letting in the light. A wooden crate and a pile of disintegrating cardboard lay near the base of the slope. There were other crates and boxes, a chair with only two legs, a heap of old clothes, and what looked like a piece of rolled-up rug.
    Lucy tried to take in the position of every item. Then she closed the door silently, crept back to the kitchen, and put the torch in its proper place on the shelf. She stood at the side window for a while looking over to her right at the huge lime tree. On one side its branches stretched over the high brick wall into the next-door garden, and on the other side they spread across the lawn and disappeared behind the wing. Lucy glanced over to the left. The ladder was still propped up against the garage. She remembered the rat and tiptoed back to bed.

The next morning it was cold. Lucy put on school trousers instead of her tunic. They rubbed against her sore legs. She was stiff all over and had bruises on her arm and shoulder where she had fallen down the cellar steps. The walk to school was more