Knightley and Son (9781619631540) (2 page)

What he did receive, however, was an audible signal from outside the door: a minute squeak from the linoleum, as if someone had been standing outside, possibly even eavesdropping on him. Darkus turned his head to the door and saw a small circle of mist on the porthole window. Someone had most certainly been watching him, but he told himself that in all likelihood it was only a concerned member of the nursing staff. He checked his simple Timex watch, which confirmed his time was up. Besides, he had an event to attend that evening.

“That concludes my report for today,” he announced. Then he added gently, “Sleep tight, Dad.”

On cue, a female nurse opened the door, making no attempt to be quiet. She had stopped bothering with details like that a few years ago.

“Same time next week, then?” she asked Darkus.

“Yes-yes,” he answered softly, then collected his herringbone coat and Donegal tweed walking hat and quietly left the room.

Chapter 2

Wordplay

By that evening, a thick fog had rolled across the South-east, moving through the dense woodland and over the substantial grounds of Cranston School. The classrooms were empty, the rows of desks faintly lit by lampposts standing along the perimeter. The fog gathered around the facade of the main building, creeping over the railings toward a modern structure set back from the rest.

The assembly hall stood out like a beacon, its windows giving off a good-natured glow. A murmur of activity came from inside as some two hundred pupils and parents sat facing a wide, raised stage. The pupils were all in off-duty clothes, including a small group in designer hoodies skulking near the back of the room.

A male teacher in a patterned sweater stood at the side of the stage holding a microphone. Behind the lectern, three teenage pupils sat waiting their turn: a boy in jeans and a T-shirt, a girl in leggings and a black leather jacket, and a familiar figure in a green tweed vest and jacket ensemble.

“Darkus Knightley, prepare to spell,” the teacher announced.

Darkus stood up and approached the lectern. He looked upward and to the right, unconsciously holding the mic stand for moral support.

The teacher held his own microphone close. “Your word is . . .” He paused enigmatically, then said, “Zarzuela.”

The audience whispered the word to each other, exchanging glances.

The teacher repeated it once more for dramatic effect: “Zarzuela.”

The audience went quiet.

Darkus focused his gaze on the upper right of the auditorium, briefly closed his eyes, then responded: “Z-a-r-z-u-e-l-a. Zarzuela. A Spanish opera noted for its spoken dialogue and comic subject matter.”

The teacher nodded. “Correct.”

The audience applauded, except for the hoodies who remained indifferent near the back of the room.

The teacher added, “The definition is not strictly necessary, Darkus, but I won’t object. Thank you.”

Darkus nodded and returned to his seat, unmoved by the applause. He made brief eye contact with his mom and stepdad, who were seated in the middle of the audience, dressed in neat casual clothes. Darkus returned his attention to his vest as the teacher announced the next name.

“Gary Evans, prepare to spell.” The boy in the jeans and T-shirt approached the microphone. “Your word is . . . yosenabe,” said the teacher, then repeated the word for effect.

The boy gripped the mic stand and stared dead ahead into the crowd. “Y-o-s . . . ,” he stammered, “e-n-a-b-y? Yosenaby?”

The teacher paused, then shook his head. “I’m afraid that is incorrect. The correct spelling is: y-o-s-e-n-a-b-
e
. A soup consisting of seafood and vegetables cooked in a broth. You may leave the stage, Gary.”

The audience clapped respectfully. Gary hung his head and exited the stage, avoiding the gaze of his parents, who were huddled together applauding in the front row.

“Tilly Palmer, prepare to spell.”

The thirteen-year-old girl in the black leather jacket approached the microphone, and a murmur rippled through the crowd, as if her reputation preceded her. Her hair was jet black with blue lowlights—although it had a tendency to change color dramatically and without warning, for no reason that Darkus could deduce, and much to the consternation of the school authorities.

Darkus’s relationship with Tilly was complicated, for several reasons. First, she was the daughter of his father’s former assistant, Carol. Second, Carol had died in a tragic car accident six years ago—a year before Darkus’s own parents split up. Third—and most unexpectedly—the world had conspired to bring together Darkus’s divorced mom and Tilly’s widowed father.

As a result, Tilly had become his stepsister.

“Tilly, your word is . . . logorrhea,” the teacher announced. “If you answer correctly, you have a chance to win the championship.”

Tilly narrowed her eyes in concentration.

Darkus watched from his seat, feeling no sense of competition—quite the opposite, in fact. Tilly had performed admirably throughout the qualifying rounds; she had a broad, often incisive knowledge of a variety of subjects, drawn from many long hours spent browsing the Internet. This was partly due to the fact that her father had temporarily confined her to Cranston as a boarder after she ran away from home once too often. More than anyone, including Darkus himself, she deserved to win. Darkus interlaced his fingers and waited for her to answer.

“L-o-g-o-r . . . r-h-e-a. Logorrhea,” she recited. “Pathologically incoherent and repetitious speech.”

The teacher nodded. “Correct.”

The crowd rippled with applause, which was quickly overtaken by the customary murmuring that followed Tilly like a shadow. She returned to her seat without expression, imperceptibly glancing at Darkus as she went.

“Darkus, prepare to spell. Your word is . . . abalone.”

Darkus arrived at the microphone, staring up and to the right again. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tilly behind him, shifting in her seat.

The teacher repeated, “Abalone.”

Darkus responded, “A-b-a-l-o-n. Abalon.” He turned to the teacher.

The teacher looked up, surprised. “I’m afraid that is
in
correct, Darkus. Abalone is A-b . . .”

As the teacher correctly spelled the word, Darkus noticed Tilly react, bemused, from behind him. The teacher read the definition, and Darkus unconsciously whispered the words along with him, for he was well aware of both the meaning and spelling of “abalone.”

“A mollusk of the genus
Haliotis
with a bowl-like shell and a row of respiratory holes,” the teacher advised him.

Darkus nodded and returned to his seat, closely examined by Tilly.

“Tilly, prepare to spell for the championship. Your word is . . . vivisepulture.”

As Tilly approached the mic, Darkus’s mind drifted off a bit. He knew she would get this one. Vivisepulture: the act of being buried alive. Hardly the most uplifting end to the competition, but a common occurrence in the annals of crime, at least according to his research. In fact, he had only just read about the heinous custom in his father’s account of the Incident of the Missing Headstone.

“V-i-v-i . . . ,” Tilly began, then glanced off at Darkus with some suspicion, then continued, “. . . s-e-p-u-l-t-u-r-e. Vivisepulture.”

Before the teacher could confirm the result, Darkus had already started clapping.

“That is correct,” the teacher announced.

The audience reluctantly broke into applause, temporarily drowning out the murmuring. Darkus quietly made his way offstage, away from the commotion.

Tilly squinted behind the lectern as flashbulbs captured the moment. A second teacher arrived carrying a trophy.

Audience members began filing out of the auditor­ium. Darkus made his way up the aisle toward the back of the room.

“Hey, Dorkus,” said one of the hoodies, leering at him. “Better luck next time.”

“Thanks,” he answered politely.

Unfortunately his name was perfectly suited to a number of less-than-flattering alterations and abbreviations. If it wasn’t for this moniker, he could have faded even further into the dull backdrop of school life, which was his preferred position: out of sight, out of mind. The name was by all accounts his father’s idea, not his mother’s—as she reminded him on a regular basis. Perhaps by way of apology, his father had abbreviated it to “Doc,” which was marginally less of a problem, although Darkus preferred to reserve that name as a term of endearment between him and his dad rather than share it with the school.

For that reason, he hadn’t heard the name “Doc” in almost four years.

“See you around,” the hoodie threatened.

“Not if I see you first,” Darkus whispered to himself, until a hand grabbed his shoulder.

“Hey—” A voice accompanied it.

He turned to find Tilly facing him.

“You let me win,” she said.

Darkus paused for a moment, then shook his head. “There’s no empirical proof of that.”

“I don’t need proof. I know you did.”

“You were an excellent competitor, Tilly. You won on your own merit.” He bowed his head a little. “I, for one, am looking forward to half-term break,” he embellished. “How about you?”

She examined him with her overpoweringly dark eyes, unconvinced by his story.

“Kids . . . ?” A booming male voice broke the moment.

Darkus turned to see his stepdad, Clive, emerge from the crowd. The waist of Clive’s jeans appeared to be even higher than usual, leaving a gap of several inches between the hem of his trouser leg and the tongue of his loafers. This being an occasion of sorts, the sock was an argyle. The outfit was completed by a silver nylon jacket that resembled something an astronaut might have worn during the early days of lunar exploration. Meeting Tilly’s stare, Clive modified his tone a bit and unconsciously ran a hand through his nest of curly salt-and-pepper hair.

“Er, Darkus? Your mother wants to get back for her TV shows,” Clive lied. “Unlucky on the spelling test,” he added with a shrug. “Tilly, you’ve earned yourself some reward points. I’ll reconsider my position on the Xbox.”

Tilly looked at him, unflinching, then reluctantly turned and followed Darkus out of the assembly hall.

At Shrubwoods Hospice, Alan Knightley’s chest heaved and sank at long, excruciating intervals, while his eyelids remained defiantly and terminally closed. The female nurse rhythmically raised and lowered Knightley’s feet at faster intervals, bending his legs at the knee joint with a loud clicking noise: a thankless ritual she had to perform several times a day to maintain adequate circulation to his extremities.

Behind her, a male doctor entered and examined the patient warily.

“Any improvement?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“Speech function?”

“Not a word.”

The doctor watched the patient, then shook his head. “Let me know if anything changes.”

“Will do.”

The doctor exited, walking down the corridor.

The nurse waited for her superior’s footsteps to recede into the distance, then roughly dropped Knightley’s feet onto the bed and checked her watch. Without looking, she quickly located the remote control on the side table and pointed it at the TV set. She sat on the lone chair, leaned back, and stared up.

The TV flickered to life, showing a panel of judges sitting under a row of spotlights. One by one they rose up in a standing ovation. The nurse lowered the volume, so as not to be heard. On the screen, music reverberated through the studio, only to be drowned out by the cheers of the audience.

“Congratulations,” the first judge announced.

The female contestant shrugged modestly.

The second judge paused for effect. “I think . . . you might have just the right combination to win this competition.” The applause got louder.

The nurse’s eyes glittered as she watched the screen, as if the praise were for her. Behind her, Knightley’s eyelids appeared to flutter, as if he were aware of the commotion. The fingers on his right hand tensed up, seemed to make a gesture for a second, then relaxed.

On TV, the third judge took over: “I agree. The
combination
of that voice and that performance could take you all the way.” The crowd erupted into applause again.

The nurse shifted on her chair, excited.

Behind her, Knightley flinched. Something the judge had said was having an effect on him. One eye seemed to open, then closed again. His mouth started gaping, as if he were trying to say something. “Coh . . . ,” he whispered, unheard. “Coh . . .”

On TV, the music started up again as the contestant left the stage. The nurse watched, entranced.

Behind her, Knightley’s hand moved again. It was more extreme this time, pointing into space, his mouth clearly trying to articulate a word.

On TV, the music began to die down.

“Coh . . . mm . . .” Knightley’s lips jutted out, taking all his effort. “Combi—”

Suddenly the nurse’s pager beeped loudly, startling her. She quickly raised the remote control, clicked off the TV, and marched to the door, her white shoes squeaking across the floor.