Sneaking.

I waited at the foot of the stairs until I heard Norman descend from his attic, then I snuck up and in.

He’s made a little home for himself up there, with my old TV in central position, the camp bed, a kettle and coffee corner, one of my mother’s jigsaws half completed, and the new clothes Angela sourced for him folded neatly into a pile. I don’t know what it is between him and Angela – they seem to disagree about everything from the time of day up. I think it’s since she blew up his car.

Moved to one side are all the boxes of not quite junk but not quite wanted. All my mother’s clothes and jewellery are up there, and there’s a box that catalogues my education. As well as school books, there are the pages I used to learn by heart, of Russian or Italian. My father used to make me recite these passages out loud, without any understanding of their meaning. I used to complain that it was pointless if it made no sense, but I now see that he was training me, preparing my memory to cope with spells. I wonder what else he did with that motive.

He’s kept very little of his own things. Bizarrely there’s a fur coat, too big to have been my mother’s, but I can’t imagine him getting all pimped up. Mostly he’s kept the things that tie him to my mother. I found my baby photos.

There’s a photo, in a silver frame, of him, my mother and Miranda. It’s black and white, and going by the cars behind them and their clothes, it was taken in the Fifties. My father looks no older than he did the day before he died. Miranda looks the same as she does today. He has his arms around both of them, as they smile awkwardly at the photographer. All this time she let me believe she had no idea about magic.

Norman came back up to the attic, wearing nothing but a towel. We looked at each other for a minute, blushing alternately like traffic lights. I decided to leave him his space. It was Angela who confirmed the photo’s likely age.

I walked straight to Miranda’s house, halfway up the hill to Crookes. There was no answer. Her mobile number said it was switched off. Her landline was engaged. I walked back down, across the park to her gallery, still clasping the silver frame, so that the pattern cut into my hand. I needed to hold it next to her to prove; only her hair has changed in fifty years. I had asked her, I had practically asked her, if she knew about my father’s study, and all the time, when I’d come home from school to find her, or I thought she was pretending to collect something – she was collecting something. She was sharing in my father’s magic. She was going into my father’s study, coveting what she saw there. It was her in the house that night, and she knocked me down.

The gallery was closed, with a mosaic of junk mail inside the door. The shops either side didn’t know where she’d gone. The artworks were still in place, as if she would open again. The people in the shop next door said it had been closed for two weeks. She had a couple of women who worked for her too; I wonder what happened to them.

Back at the house, her house, I tried to see inside, but could see nothing unusual, except for absence. I don’t remember if she had a car last time. In the kitchen there were dirty dishes left to wash up. One of her neighbours came out to look at me funny. I thought about asking her if she knew about Miranda – and if she knew how long she’d been living there, but I left before she could call the police.

Norman and Angela were in one of their gritted teeth conversations. I got close enough to gather it was about God before I interrupted.
“You’re certain this is from the Fifties?”
“I can’t be certain,” said Angela. “I mean you can get those mock up pictures can’t you.”
“You think it’s that?”
“No, I think it was taken in the Fifties. And the photo looks really old, and it’s faded. You know, your dad looked exactly like that when he summoned Tomlin, except for the hair. And he wasn’t smiling then.”
“Where’s Samuel at?” I asked, handing Norman the photo.
“Definitely Fifties,” he said. “Maybe early Sixties.” The two of them waited between them so they could go back to quibbling.
“Where’s Samuel?”
“He’s gone again,” said Angela. “Not taken his car though. So he can’t have gone far. Why?”
“Told me my father helped him to avoid the war. Now I’m wondering which war.”

I remember now, that after the funeral, Miranda was stood looking at the study door, not as though she’d never seen it, but as though she couldn’t believe it was visible. She would have had a key, cut in the days when she was my father’s girlfriend. I don’t know if she sent someone or if she hit me herself. I don’t know what she’s capable of.