Jordan Gravette Part 6 of 6

Jordan and his father stood facing one another in front of the three doors from which Jordan must select just one.

‘Are you sure boy. Did you hear what I said? Whatever offer I make, you are bound to accept.’

Jordan nodded. Whatever option his father gave him could surely be no worse than any before him now. ‘I’m sure. Make your offer.’

His father’s eyes lit up at his son’s response and his entire body became more animated. He stepped forward towards Jordan, hands reaching out like claws.

‘Then first, you must give me the key,’ he said. The sudden eagerness in his voice unsettled Jordan, who instinctively took a step back beyond his father’s reach.

‘Why should I give it to you? What use can you have for it in this place?’

Samuel Gravette, faced with his son’s reluctance to comply with his demand, grew angry. ‘You cannot deny me boy. We made a deal. You must accept any offer I make. Give me the key.’

For a moment, they stood face to face in a silent stand-off. Then, slowly, half crouching, they began to circle each other. Jordan held the key like a weapon, a club with which to defend himself, while his eyes remained alert to his father’s movement, waiting for him to lunge in attack. As they circled, a curtain in Jordan’s mind lifted and the truth was revealed to him. An anger began to swell inside him.

‘You lied about the key. It does open something. It opens the way out of here and you were going to take it for yourself. You would have left me here. There was no offer, only betrayal’

His father snorted in disdain. ‘Don’t be a fool. You know nothing about that key. Give it to me and we’ll say no more about it.’

Jordan wasn’t listening. ‘You said so yourself, right at the beginning, you failed your challenges. You couldn’t find the key and because of that you were trapped here. But I didn’t fail. I succeeded.’

As if a switch had flicked in his father’s head, his father’s disdain suddenly became a whining subservience. ‘Boy, there’s no need for all this. We are both intelligent beings. Let us come to some agreement. Let us act like father and son.’

‘No. It is too late for that. You offer nothing but lies and deceit. You lied and deceived your way in life and now you do the same in death. You would even betray your own son.’

It was a response that elicited a return of his father’s rage.

‘Give me the key,’ he bellowed. ‘I am your father. I order it.’ He darted forward and grabbed the key, and a struggle began where each began to wrest the key from the other’s hands. Their bodies twisted and writhed, rolling this way and that, as they snarled and grunted from their exertions. Neither was prepared to surrender the key. It seemed there could be no outright victor until the anger that had been rising in Jordan ignited, giving him a renewed strength. With one great effort he wrenched the key free.

‘You have never been a true father to me,’ he screamed, and without giving his father any time to react, he brought the key down on his skull with all the strength he could muster. There was a look of genuine surprise on Samuel Gravette’s face as his legs gave way beneath him. His body hit the floor with a dull thump and disintegrated into a pile of dust and dry earth. 

‘Ashes to ashes,’ Jordan murmured and let the key fall from his grasp. As it hit the floor Jordan saw that its golden hue was fading and its body was shrinking, until all that was left in its place was a small black key.

* * *

He is standing in front of the three doors once more, the black key in his hand. Only there are no longer three doors, there are four. It is clear to him now what his choice really is. He steps up to the fourth door, turns the key in the lock and steps through without even looking to see what he is stepping into. What would become of him? What would he become? Sometimes, he tells himself, it is better not to know. Whatever awaited, wealth and nice things didn’t matter. Sometimes, all it takes is a leap of faith.

* * *

It is four o’clock on a Friday afternoon. It has been six months since his heart attack and Jordan Gravette is locking up his small, rented office for the week. It lacked the blatant, ostentatious persona of his previous office, being big enough only for a small desk and a filing cabinet, and a cheap, second-hand swivel chair, but it served its purpose just as well. The sign on the door said, ‘Golden Key Services’ and beneath that, in smaller lettering, ‘Helping the Homeless into Homes and Work.’ As he trotted lightly down the narrow staircase that came out onto the high street between a greengrocer and a betting shop, he reflected on the week’s successes. Three people off the streets and into safe accommodation and four people, including an ex-addict into job placements. All in all, an excellent week. He crosses the road to a flower shop and re-emerges with a bouquet of sunflowers. Thirty minutes later he parks his rusty Toyota outside a row of terraced houses. He mounts the steps to number twenty-seven, turns the key in the lock and steps inside. 

From the depths of the house, he hears Ellie’s squeal of delight accompanied by the sound of two dogs barking in excitement. ‘Daddy’s home. Daddy’s home.’  

He goes through to the back of the house where his wife has been sunbathing in the garden. They embrace like he has been away forever rather than just a day and he feels the warmth from the people he loves most wrap itself around him like a cloak.