Advent
08 December 2017
I’m asleep when we arrive. Not like bed sleep. I rattle around, head smacking against the window with every twist and turn in the road. No big roads anymore. Little ones that go up and down like a rollercoaster. Everything wet and green beyond the window. Mum chivvies me out of the car and I'm standing on gravel pressed into mud. Nothing to see but a road and tall hedges.
"We're here," says Mum as the car pulls away. Its engine is a cough and then a growl and then a hum and then nothing. I tell her that there's nothing here. That I don't get it.
We go up the road a little way and the hedge drops away. There's a little wooden gate. On the other side is a cottage with white walls and a straw hat. Net curtains in the windows. A little well in the front garden with heavy bars over the mouth.
I ask Mum if it's her house and she laughs, and then covers her mouth, eyes wide. Like we can't be too noisy. "My house? You think I'd live somewhere like this?" She opens the gate and we go into the front garden. She bends down and starts picking up rocks from beside the path. "We're just borrowing it."
Then Mum shows me something. She holds up one of the rocks. The underneath is wet and covered in soil. And there's a hollow in it. A little square gap. And inside of that there's a key. I stare at it. I don't understand what is happening.
Mum takes out the key, which is actually two keys, one big and one small. We go up to the door and she fits them in the keyholes and the door just swings open. It's dark inside. I'm very afraid, but I don't say anything because I'm not going to be afraid in front of her. Not where she can see it.
We go in. Quietly. One step at a time. Are there people sleeping in here? Mum shuts the door slowly behind us, and then it's dark completely. I blink in it. All the tiredness has gone away. I hear Mum moving around. Moving past me. A cupboard opens. Switches flick. And then, slowly, like it's taking a moment to make up its mind, there's light.
The cottage is small. Low ceiling that almost touches Mum's head. The furniture is all cramped tight together. Soft-looking sofas and shelves crowded with board games and ornaments and old-looking books. Mum stands by one wall. She looks tired. She shuts a cupboard and breathes, then goes to the door and locks it with both keys.
"I don't know about you", she says, "but I could really use some sleep." In one of the rooms leading off the lounge there's a big double bed already made up. We fall into it, me and her together. She hugs me against her. Nobody in the entire world knows that we're here, I think. And that's exactly what I'm thinking as I drift off to sleep.