Early 2005

There was a quick trip to the doctor, where it became clear that Denny wasn’t suffering anything worse than malnourishment and minor infections.  After that, they went back to Jonathan Lambton’s place.

Alex hadn’t seen his house before.  He’d met him at his office in the theatre, after making an appointment and spending all day worrying that he wouldn’t be believed.  The home was a three-storey Victorian building hidden from the main road by trees and ivy.  Alex felt better upon seeing it.  Denny needed a place to hide. 

They installed Denny in the spare bedroom.  He didn’t have any things to unpack, so that amounted to dimming the lights and tucking him under the chunky duvet.

“They” were Alex himself, Denny’s older brother Jonathan, and their sister Octavia.  None of them spoke much.  They were all still processing what they’d seen in that cabin.

But at one point, after Alex had brought Denny his fourth or fifth cup of tea.  Jonathan stopped him in the hallway outside.  “Alex, I just wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done for us.  You don’t know how much it means for us to have Denny back.”

Alex nodded.  “I just wish I’d been quicker.  Then maybe…”  How long had Denny been locked in that cabin?  Just a few days, or more like a month?

“The important thing is that he’s here.”  Jonathan cleared his throat.  “Do you think your sister could spare you for a few more days?  I think Denny would respond well to a familiar face.”

For a moment, Alex wondered what a desperate situation they were in if somebody Denny hadn’t see in nearly a year was more of a familiar face than his own family.  “I’m sure she could.”

*

“A few more days,” turned into two weeks, then a month.  Roxanne wasn’t happy about it, but Alex made sure to phone her every evening so she knew he wasn’t disappearing on her again.

It had taken nearly a week to get Denny to talk, and even after that it was mostly just yes” or “no.”  Denny spent most of the day squeezing his eyes shut and pushed his face into the side of the pillow, as if he was willing the whole world to go away.

Pinder had just locked him in that cabin and forgotten about him.  There had been a bike lock on the door- nothing that a healthy, determined person couldn’t have broken through, but Pinder had put in a lot of effort to make sure that Denny was neither of those things.  The walls had been covered in scratches and little smears of blood.

It didn’t take long for Alex to decide to read to him.  Denny had got him through his recovery with stories, so the logical thing was to return the favour.  And while Jonathan Lambton’s house wasn’t quite grand enough to have its own library, there was definitely more of a selection here than there had been at the campsite.

Alex found The Chronicles of Narnia– all seven books, lined up neatly in order despite their creases and cracked spines- on the bottom shelf of the bookcase in the dining room.  He knew, right away, that they must have belonged to Denny- neither Jonathan nor Octavia had any children, and the books weren’t old enough to have been here since their childhoods.  They’d be a comforting memory for Denny, and relatively easy to follow while he was still in his spaced-out state.  They were the perfect thing to read to him.

“I’ve thought about it, and I’ve decided to get in touch with Denny’s mother,” said Jonathan wearily.

Alex nodded.  He knew very little about Denny’s mother, besides the fact that she existed and was named Niamh.  “Do you think she’ll come?”

Jonathan sighed.  “Maybe…  I don’t know how much good she’ll do, but it’s worth a try.”

While Alex was reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe to Denny, watching for any reaction beyond a tired hum, he realised that it was an even more appropriate book than he’d thought.  He should probably have seen it coming with all the Christian symbolism, but there was a lot of redemption in it.  Maybe not for the White Witch, who enjoyed sacrificing lions and turning people to stone too much to give it up, but Edmund and Mr Tumnus came out OK despite having screwed up at the start.  That was exactly the kind of thing Denny needed to hear about right now.

*

“She ran off and abandoned him when he was twelve,” Octavia told Alex, “Her new boyfriend didn’t like him, so out he went.”  She was cooking pasta for Denny (besides soup and toast, it was pretty much all he ate), and as she clattered the pans and cutlery around, she seemed to vibrate with anger.

“And that’s when he came to live with you and Jonathan?”

Octavia waved her hand.  “Just Jonathan, at the time.  He was still married to Jeannie, back then.”  She stirred the pasta, one hand on the spoon and the other planted on her hip, staring at the pan as if daring it to disappoint her.  She was quite pretty, in a sharp, imposing way, but it always alarmed Alex to see how thin she was.  “She just phoned them up one weekend- Please take my kid.  He’s cramping my style.”

Alex poured a glass of orange juice.  “Did Denny ever see her after that?”

“They spoke on the phone.  I don’t know if they ever saw each other face-to-face.”  She made a smacking noise with her lips and teeth.  “But you can’t treat children like that, can you?  Shoving them into the background as soon as you get bored?”  She gave the pasta an extra, indignant stir.  “I mean, God knows Jonathan and me saw more of our nanny than our parents most weeks, but I expected better from her.  Maybe just because she was younger.”

*

“It’s not the sort of place where things happen,” Alex read, “The trees go on growing, that’s all.”

Denny smiled.  “Sounds nice.”

*

Denny’s mother had long, ash-blonde hair, and an expression like someone in chronic pain.  After they’d let her in, she stood in the downstairs hallway wringing her hands and looking from side to side as if waiting for instructions.

“This is Alex,” said Octavia, surprisingly gently considering how angry she’d been at the prospect of this visit.  (Jonathan was standing off to one side, looking as intimidating as possible.)  “He helped us get Denny back.  In fact, he was the one who told us where he was in the first place.”

Denny’s mother nodded, and held out a hand.  “Pleased to meet you.  I’m Niamh.”

Alex shook her hand, which felt surprisingly small in his.  He was beginning to suspect that the reason Octavia hadn’t been able to stay angry was that Niamh seemed so fragile in person.  “I’m glad you’re here,” he told her, “Denny will be pleased to see you.”

Niamh grimaced, as if she doubted that.

When they got upstairs (Octavia having volunteered Alex to show Niamh up), Denny didn’t seem to recognise her at first.  His eyes seemed to focus and unfocus, and after a moment, Alex noticed how rapid his breathing had become.

“Denny?” asked Niamh, “Are you…”

Denny had collapsed into himself, shoulders hunched, face buried in his hands.  “I’m sorry!” he wailed, “I’m sorry!”

Alex looked sideways at Niamh, and saw her backing away, a look of sheer horror on her face.

*

“This was a mistake,” said Niamh, on the landing, “I shouldn’t have come.”

So far, Alex had managed to convince her not to run straight out of the house again.  He didn’t know if he could keep that up for much longer, but he had to try.  “You coming was exactly the right thing to do.  Denny needs as many people in his corner as possible.”

“But you saw what happened…”

“He had the same reaction to us, the first couple of weeks.  Shaun messed with his head.  He convinced him that he’d done terrible things.”  He could tell by Niamh’s face that she didn’t believe him.  “Please stay.  I think you being around will be good for him.”

Niamh gave a disdainful splutter.  “It never has before.”

“What do you mean?”

“Haven’t they told you?”

Alex tried to think of a diplomatic way to put it.  “They told me you’d given custody to Jonathan…”

“Yes!   After years of hearing from them that I wasn’t good enough!”  She wasn’t crying, but she sounded on the edge of it.  There was a damp quality to her words.  “You’d think they’d be pleased.”

Alex looked at the wall opposite, working out what to say next.  If he asked her what had happened, she’d probably tell him a slightly different story to the one Octavia had- not necessarily because either of them were lying, but just because they’d seen things from different sides.  But he didn’t think that going over what had happened four or five years ago was going to help things now.  “If they didn’t think you were good enough, they wouldn’t have asked you to come.”  He listened out, making sure that Jonathan and Octavia weren’t coming upstairs to interfere, then added, “Please stay.  I think Denny really needs you around.”

*

In the end, Niamh sat in while Alex and Denny finished The Magician’s Nephew.  Alex noticed that there was a lot of emphasis on how otherworldly and terrifying the White Witch was, but that never seemed to stop the human characters from mouthing off to her.  There was a lesson there, if Shaun Pinder ever showed up in their lives again.