The Hoarder

"I've brought my mum," Michael said and managed to look sheepish as he said it.

Of all the replies that Kendal was expecting, this was not one he had contemplated. He was unable to hide his surprise, a talent which had never previously left him, his face showing his utter shock at Michael's statement.

"She's in the car," Michael stuttered. "I thought I ought to speak to you first before bringing her through in case..." Michael tailed off as Kendal bent over, shaking, his hands on his knees to support himself in his incapacitated state.

To Michael, it looked like Kendal was having some sort of seizure and Michael was incredibly concerned.

"Mr. McIntyre?" he questioned and ran over to the older man and got there just as Kendal threw his head back and roared with laughter.

"You've brought your mum!" Kendal laughed hard and long, tears falling as Michael looked on at him, bemused.

"Your mum!" Kendal continued, rasping with mirth, leaning forward only to throw his head back again.

"Yes," Michael said, still completely confused by Kendal's reaction. He stood, watching the old man whose composure he'd so admired, completely lose it.

Michael felt foolish. "And a whole lot of tins," he added to ease his discomfort. Kendal continued to laugh in a world of his own mirth. Michael, still bewildered by Kendal's reaction, which was unsettling him, said quietly, "And seed packets and some other stuff...", finally trailing off as Kendal seemed to be resuming normal function.

Mopping his eyes, Kendal finally stopped laughing, his face still stretched in a wide smile.

"Oh Michael," he said. "That was..." Kendal paused, searching for the word, "unexpected." He saw the look of utter puzzlement on Michael's face and said, "Forgive me. I forgot myself there for a minute." He smiled at Michael and then, a shadow crept, darkening his expression. "I thought you were going to kill me, you see."

Michael was appalled, his shock showing clearly in his wide mouth.

"What? You thought what?" he exclaimed. "No! Why? Because..." As Michael tailed off, so Kendal nodded and so the whine of a drone sounded overhead.

"No, I would never. No! I was just...I came because of what you said...when I was last here... you remember?" Michael fell over his words in his eagerness to get them out. "You said something about if the world turned darker, that I could come here and it has got darker, considerably so, and I thought "What can I do?" and I thought of you and what you'd said and I realised you were right and...well, I thought I'd come because I thought you'd know what to do...and I couldn't leave my mum." He took a breath. "She's all I've got," Michael murmured the last sentence, looking a little chagrined, more like a little boy than a 33 year old man.

Kendal looked directly at the young man and stated bluntly, "I thought you were the darkness."

Michael took a step back at this and in a confidence which showed his full conviction, "I could never be part of that."

There was a moment as his words were allowed to settle and Kendal's face softened. The mood having lifted, Kendal added mischievously, "So you're not here to evict me either?"

Michael's expression went from bold to perplexed. "What? Evict? No. Why would you think that?"

Kendal waited to see if the penny would drop and when it didn't, laughed again. "Ah, Michael. You're like a breath of fresh air! I'm teasing you, my boy!" Kendal wheezed a laugh again. Good Lord but it feels good to laugh! he thought.

Michael continued to look baffled by the old man. Had he done the right thing coming here? He thought he had, having seen the way the world was going, exactly as Mr. McIntyre had intimated. This place had seemed the right place to come.

Kendal, ever intuitive to the whims of men, recognised Michael's reticence and that he needed reassurance. He adopted a tone that he hoped conveyed this and his awareness of the seriousness of why Michael had chosen to come to him. Enough of this messing about!

"So, you're starting to see what I've seen, eh? The whims of men? Their designs?"

Michael nodded solemnly, relieved that Kendal was more like the man he'd met previously, composed and controlled again. Michael's secure view of his world had been continually rocked over the last few weeks and he wanted the harbour he'd chosen for his survival to be one of safety. He'd thought long and hard about coming here but he knew it was the right choice, despite his reservations.

Kendal nodded once, seeing that Michael was still an innocent compared to himself, but was far less green to man's manipulation and capability for corruption than he had been on their first meeting. Better get this show on the road! he thought and said,

"Well, you better go and get your mother then!"

"Right! Yes! I will!" And Michael leapt his way back through the throng of stuff, shouting, "She's dying to meet you!"

Kendal watched as the young man disappeared and shook his head, smiling to himself. He could hear a car door shut and waited patiently for his two new house guests to make their way to him. He'd get Michael to move the car later to a temporary lock-up Kendal had. It was too conspicuous to leave it out the front and may prove useful in the future when he, they, had to move from here as Kendal, despite his preparations, inevitably thought he, they would. It was going to take some adjustment, thinking in the plural.

But he would adapt, as he always had and perhaps a part of him was glad that he didn't have to do this alone.

It was strange the way things worked out, wasn't it? He was a man, he thought, destined to live a solo life, to die alone, he thought, and now it would seem that as the reckoning was arriving, he would be facing it with company.

Perhaps this coming together was a sign of things to come. Perhaps people would rally and listen and start to work together and then with time, they could eradicate division and see more and more that not everyone was on the take or trying to covet what you had. That the world was made up of folk just trying to get along and that the minority were the ones trying to pull your strings and that they were the ones with bad intentions.

Yes, it was strange what life threw your way and even though times were darker, Kendal felt the most optimistic that he had in weeks. The only thing that had him marginally worried? That Michael's mother was in the same league as Mrs. Bellingham.

This is the final part in a serialisation I've been writing. Part 9 is here: