‘You don’t get the decorations down every Christmas?’
‘I never get them down at all.’
Carmen frowned at this, then, armed with her phone torch, ascended into the unknown.
Carmen could straighten up once she got into the attic. There were little windows poking out, and from the back window there was a superb view over the top of the Grassmarket out towards the hills beyond, which she stared at for quite a while. It was also completely freezing up there though. A bit of insulation wouldn’t have gone amiss.
The attic was full: old boxes, suitcases with initials stamped on, tea chests and old frames. There were skis so ancient they had leather bindings on them and were made of wood. Carmen blinked and wondered if they had traversed the Antarctic. It was kind of amazing. No sign of any medals though. She wondered if Mr McCredie had perhaps sold them years ago and simply forgotten.
Carmen was getting dusty, but she didn’t mind that. Mr McCredie was bouncing rather awkwardly on his small toes down below.
‘Be careful up there.’
Carmen poked her head through the hole. ‘Doesn’t anyone in your family ever throw anything away?’
Mr McCredie blinked.
‘Why would one?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Carmen, thinking of the rucksack that constituted most of her worldly possessions, for once with a certain amount of fondness. ‘Doesn’t it ever weigh you down?’
Mr McCredie looked up from his chintzy pink drawing room, with the china, the pictures in their silver frames, the old piano desperately needing tuning, the embroidered footrests and ornate poker set.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, his little eyes peering over his spectacles. ‘It’s the only home I’ve ever known.’
Carmen smiled. Maybe if her parents had expensive antiques rather than odd liquors brought back from Spain and a large Virgin Mary marked ‘A GIFT FROM LOURDES’ that used to light up with fibre optics which she and Sofia had loved but hadn’t worked in years, then maybe she might have felt the same way.
But then, it didn’t look like he was enjoying it at all.
‘There is SO MUCH STUFF up here,’ she hollered.
Packing case after packing case of books, spooky old teddy bears and hockey sticks, rugby boots and an entire set of dishes in an elaborate box. Carmen frowned at the latter – surely it would be useful somewhere, for something. But Sofia had trendy mismatched earthenware in deep turquoise and blue that either came from Morocco or was strongly pretending that it did. What could she possibly do with a dozen dainty floral saucers?
She saw something that looked like tinsel coming out of an old box, and in her haste to get over to it, banged her leg hard on a low table she hadn’t noticed.
‘Bloody bloody buggering hell!’ she yelped.
‘Are you all right?’ came the tremulous faraway voice.
‘Yes,’ said Carmen, not loud enough for him to hear. ‘That’s the noise I make when everything is going incredibly well.’
She bit her lip and rubbed her leg. That was going to bruise – bugger. She looked at what she’d tripped over, and her mouth dropped open.
In front of her, covered in dust, was an old train set with little fields and trees and stations, working signals, porters on the tiny platforms and criss-crossing rails. It was huge and complicated and beautiful.
‘Wow! Is this your train set?’
‘Oh yes!’ said Mr McCredie. Suddenly his voice had perked right up, and he got quite excited.
‘I haven’t seen it in years. Can you bring it down?’
‘Why don’t you just … ?’