My herbal teas were much loved. I told David and Birdie that I’d been experimenting with a new blend: chamomile and raspberry leaves. They looked at me fondly and said that sounds delicious.
I apologised to Birdie as she drank hers that it was maybe a little sweet; I told her it was just a touch of honey, to balance out the rather bitter edge of the raspberry leaves. The spell had specified that the recipient of the spell needed to drink at last half a cup. So I sat and watched with an affectionate look on my face, as if I was desperately seeking their approval, so that they would keep drinking, even if they did not like the taste.
But they did like the taste and both of them drank their full cup.
‘Well,’ said Birdie a while later as we put away the washing up. ‘That tea was super, super relaxing, Henry. I feel I could … In fact …’ I saw her eyes roll back slightly in her head. ‘I might have to go to bed,’ she said.
I could see David struggling now, too, to keep his eyes open. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Just a little nap.’
‘Come on,’ I said, ‘let me help you both. Gosh, I’m so sorry. Maybe that tea had too much chamomile in it. Here, here.’ I allowed Birdie to hold on to my arm.
She rested her cheek against my shoulder and said, ‘I love your tea, Henry. It’s the best tea ever.’
‘Really, really good tea,’ David agreed.
David fumbled for the key to their bedroom in the folds of his tunic. I saw as he did so that beneath his tunic, he wore a cross-body leather purse. I assumed that this must be where he kept all the keys to all the rooms in the house. He was having trouble putting the key in the lock so I helped him. Then I got them both on to the bed where they fell instantaneously into a deep sleep.
And there I stood. In David and Birdie’s bedroom. I had not set foot in this room for years, not since David and Sally had still been together.
I looked around the room and could barely absorb what I was seeing. Piles of cardboard boxes over the tops of which spilt suggestions of clothing, of books, of possessions, the possessions we had been told were evil and bad. I saw two pairs of shoes in the corner of the room, his and hers. I saw alcohol, a half-drunk bottle of wine with the cork replaced, a glass with a dark sticky residue at the bottom, some of my father’s very expensive whiskey. I saw a box of biscuits, a Mars Bar wrapper. I saw a slip of silky underwear, a bottle of Elvive shampoo.
But I ignored all this for now. I had no idea how long this state of ‘temporary stupefaction’ would last. I needed to find my father’s paperwork and get out of there.
As my hands passed through the boxes I came upon my pencil case, not seen since my last day of primary school. I held it briefly in my hand and stared at it as a relic from another civilisation. I thought briefly of that boy in the brown knickerbockers, skipping from his last day at school, a triumphant tip to his chin as he imagined the brave new world about to be presented to him. I unzipped it, held it to my nose, inhaled the smell of pencil shavings and innocence; then I tucked it into my leggings to be secreted later in my own room.
I found a ballgown of my mother’s. I found my father’s shotguns. I found my sister’s ballet leotard and tutu, the reason for the keeping of which I could not fathom.
And then, in the third box, I found my father’s files: grey marbled box files with fierce metal clips inside. I pulled one out that had written on the side ‘Household Affairs’ and flipped quickly through the contents.
And there it was, the last will and testament of Henry Roger Lamb and Martina Zeynep Lamb. I slipped this too into the waistband of my leggings. I would read it quietly, in my own room. I heard Birdie’s breathing grow quicker and saw her leg twitch. I quickly pulled another box towards me. In here I saw passports. I picked them up and flicked to the back pages: mine, my sister’s, my parents’。 I felt a flame of fury build up inside of me. Our passports! This man had taken our passports! This seemed almost to surpass the sheer evil of locking us into our own home. To steal another human being’s passport, their means to escape, to adventure, to explore, to learn, to take full advantage of the world – my heart pounded with rage. I noted that my own passport had expired, that my sister’s had another six months to go. Useless to us now.