‘Well, don’t say thank you, whatever you do,’ snapped one of the oranges, now pressed into an exhausted-looking, squashed rind and lying in a bundle on the counter as it glared at the boy.
‘Thank you,’ said Noah, stepping away nervously. A wooden teddy bear with white hair falling into his eyes was sitting on the window seat, wearing a bright red wooden bow tie, and Noah considered sitting next to him to eat his food, but the bear let loose a low growl as he walked towards him and Noah stopped in his tracks, unsure what he should do next.
‘Take a seat over here, my boy,’ said the old man, indicating one of the two chairs that stood on either side of the kitchen table. He hesitated for a moment before picking up a fresh piece of wood and a thicker chisel with a sharper edge to it than the one he had been using downstairs, and started to chip away, carefully at first and then with growing confidence. ‘Might as well have another go at this,’ he said with a smile.
‘What are you carving now?’ asked Noah. ‘Another rabbit?’
‘I hope not,’ he replied. ‘Although as it never turns out the way I planned, who knows what will appear out of the wood? But no harm in trying again.’ He settled into the other chair and put his hand to the base of his spine as he did so. ‘Bad back,’ he muttered when he saw the boy watching him. ‘One of the drawbacks of growing old. I’ve got no one to blame but myself though. Should have stayed as I was. I suppose you think everybody grows old and I have no right to complain.’
‘No,’ said Noah, without a moment’s hesitation. ‘No, I don’t think that for a moment. Not everyone grows old at all.’
The old man stared at him, thinking about the boy’s words, but didn’t ask any further questions. ‘Eat,’ he said after a moment, pointing at the plate that sat fully loaded in front of the boy. ‘Eat, before it gets hot.’
Noah didn’t wolf down his lunch, despite his hunger, as his mother always said he should have consideration for the other diners and not eat like a pig who hadn’t been fed in a month. Instead he chewed his food quietly and slowly, enjoying every mouthful of the spread, which was as delicious as any food he had ever tasted.
‘I used to have an appetite like yours once,’ said the old man. ‘Not any more though. If I have a dozen or so meals a day now, that’s generally enough for me.’
‘A dozen or so?’ asked the boy, astonished. ‘At home we only ever have three. Breakfast, lunch and dinner.’
‘Oh dear,’ said the old man. ‘That doesn’t sound right at all. Doesn’t your wife know how to cook then?’
‘My wife?’ asked Noah, bursting out laughing. ‘But I don’t have a wife.’
‘Don’t you? And why is that? You seem like a pleasant enough sort of chap. You’re easy enough on the eye. You don’t smell too bad. Well,’ he added, sniffing the air and considering this, ‘actually, now that I mention it—’
‘But I’m only eight,’ said Noah. ‘You can’t get married at eight! Not that I’d want to anyway.’
‘Really?’ asked the old man. ‘And why ever not, might I ask?’
Noah thought about it. ‘Well, maybe when I’m very old I’ll get married,’ he said finally. ‘Like when I’m twenty-five. There’s a girl in my class, Sarah Skinny, who’s my fourth best friend, and I expect we’ll get married one day, but not for a long time yet.’ He looked around and considered how small this kitchen was and how it appeared to be designed for only one. ‘And what about you?’ he asked. ‘Aren’t you married?’
‘Oh no,’ said the old man, shaking his head. ‘No, I never met the right girl.’
‘You live here alone then?’
‘Yes. Although I have plenty of company. Alexander and Henry, for example, whom you met.’
‘The clock and the door?’ asked Noah.
‘Yes. And there are others. Many others. I’ve lost track really. And I have my puppets, of course.’
Noah nodded and continued to eat his lunch. ‘This is very good,’ he said, his mouth filled with food. ‘Sorry,’ he added, giggling a little.
‘It’s all right,’ said the old man, holding the wood away from him now and blowing the dust off it. He examined it, appeared pleased by what he saw, and carried on, his chisel making careful and precise incisions in the wood. ‘There’s nothing quite as satisfying as watching a hungry boy eat,’ he remarked. ‘So if you have no wife, I expect you live alone too?’
Noah shook his head. ‘No, I live with my family,’ he said, his fork stopping in mid-air for a moment as he thought about them. ‘Or rather, I used to live with them,’ he said, correcting himself. ‘Before I left, that is.’
‘You don’t live there any more?’
‘No, I left this morning. I’m off to see the world and have adventures.’
‘Ah, there is nothing quite like a good adventure,’ said the old man, smiling. ‘I once went to Holland for the weekend and stayed for a year after getting involved in a plot to overthrow the government.’
‘I can’t imagine I’d get involved with anything like that,’ said Noah, who wasn’t in the least bit political.
‘And your parents were happy for you to leave home?’
Noah said nothing for a long time and then looked down at his plate, his face clouding over, the food before him suddenly seeming far less appetizing than it had a moment before.
‘You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,’ said the old man. ‘I do know a little of what it’s like to be eight years old, you know. After all, I was eight myself once.’
Noah thought about it for a moment. The man was so old, he was surprised he could even remember what it was like to be his age.
‘Did you ever run away from home when you were eight?’ he asked, looking up and swallowing hard, for there was something he didn’t want to think about because if he did, he would only become upset. He had been trying not to think about it ever since he woke up that morning, but it had a terrible habit of reappearing in his toes and running all the way along his ankles and up his legs and into his back and racing up into his brain and then sending pictures to his eyes that he didn’t want to see.
‘I did a lot of things when I was a boy,’ said the old man. ‘And not all of them were very sensible.’
Noah quite liked the idea of doing things that weren’t very sensible and was going to ask the old man about them, but before he could he noticed a large wooden box sitting on the floor next to his feet. He was a little surprised he hadn’t seen it when he had first sat down, for it was very ornate and looked like the sort of antique his mother always picked up and examined in shops and wished she could buy for their house. It had a carving of a puppet on the top, one that was quite unlike the puppets on the walls downstairs, and Noah bent down to examine it closer.
‘Did you make this?’ he asked, looking up for a moment, and the old man shook his head.
‘Oh no,’ he replied. ‘No, not me. I’m not quite as good a craftsman as that. The detailing, as you can see, is quite superb.’