June 30 4 page

THE FIRST TIME I saw Jacko, he was in an incubator ’cause he was born too soon. That was in Gravesend General Hospital, too, though the maternity wing’s in a different building. Mam, who’d just had a C-section, looked tireder than I’d ever seen her, but happier, too, and told us to say hi to our new brother, Jack. Dad had been at the hospital all the previous day; he looked and smelt like he’d been sleeping in a car park for a week. Sharon, I remember, was most dischuffed at losing her cutest-thing-at-the-Captain-Marlow crown, specially to this monkey-shrimp in a nappy with tubes coming off of him. Brendan was fifteen and spooked by all the bawling, breast-feeding, sick and poo in the ward. I tapped on the glass and said, “Hi, Jacko, I’m your big sister,” and his fingers waggled, just a tiny, tiny bit, like he was waving. The God’s honest truth, that; nobody else saw but I felt a tickle in my heart and I felt willing and able to kill to protect him, if I had to. I still feel it, when some twat talks ’bout the “weirdo” or the “freak” or the “premature one.” People can be so crap. Why’s it okay to draw spaceships if you’re seven, but not okay to draw diabolical mazes? Who decides that spending money on Space Invaders is fine, but if you buy a calculator with loads of symbols you’re asking to be picked on? Why’s it okay to listen to the Top 40 on Radio 1 but not okay to listen to stations in other languages? Mam and Dad sometimes decide Jacko needs to read less and play footy more, and for a bit he’ll act more like a normal seven-year-old kid, but it’s only acting, and we all know it. Just now and then who he really is smiles out at me through the blacks of Jacko’s eyes, like someone watching you from a train zipping past. At those times, I almost want to wave, even though he’s just across the table, or we’re passing on the stairs.

• • •

HALLUCINATIONS OR NOT, I can’t just sit on my arse all day. I need food and a plan. So off I walk, and after a roundabout, the fields stop and I’m back in the world of garden fences, billboards, and zebra crossings. The sky’s hazing over a bit and I’m thirsty again. I haven’t had a proper drink since me and Brubeck got some water from a tap in the church, and the rules say that you can’t knock on a door and ask for a glass of water in a town the way you can in the middle of nowhere. A park with a water fountain’d be perfect, or even a public toilet, but there’s no sign of either. I’d like to brush my teeth, too; they’re all scaly like the inside of kettles. I smell bacon from a window and stomach pangs wake up, and here comes a bus with GRAVESEND written on it. Hop aboard, I could be home in forty-five minutes …

Sure, but picture Mam’s face when she opens the side door. The bus wafts by, and on I trog under a railway bridge. Up ahead there’s a row of shops and a newsagent where I can buy a can of drink and a pack of biscuits. There’s a Christian bookshop, a knitting shop, a betting shop, a shop that just sells Airfix models and stuff, and a pet shop, with scabby hamsters in cages. Everything’s mostly closed and a bit sad. Okay, so I’m arriving in Rochester. Now what?

Here’s a phone box, strawberry red.

Strawberries. That’s an idea.

THE DIRECTORY ENQUIRIES woman finds Gabriel Harty and Black Elm Farm on the Isle of Sheppey, no bother, and asks if I want to be put straight through. I say yes, and a moment later the ringing tone rings. My watch says 08:57. Surely not too early for a farm, even on a Sunday. Nobody’s answering. I don’t know why I’m so nervous but I am. If it rings ten times and no one answers, I’ll hang up and assume this wasn’t meant to be.

On the ninth ring the phone’s picked up. “Ye-es?”

I ram in my ten pence. “Hi. Is that Black Elm Farm?”

“It was when last I looked, ye-es.” A rusty drawl.

“Are you Mr. Harty?”

“When I last looked I was, ye-es.”

“I’m phoning to ask if you’re hiring pickers.”

“Are we hiring pickers?” In the background a dog’s going mental and a woman yells, Boris, shut your cake-hole! “Ye-es.”

“A friend worked on your farm a couple of summers back, and if you’re hiring, I’d like to come and pick fruit for a bit. Please.”

“Done picking before, have you?”

“Not on an actual farm, but I’m used to hard work, and”—I think of my great-aunt Eilísh in Ireland—“I’ve helped my aunt with her vegetable garden, which is massive, so I’m used to getting my hands dirty.”

“So all us farmers have dirty hands, have we?”

“I just meant I’m not afraid of hard work, and I can start today, even.” There’s a pause. A very long pause. Very, very long. I’m worried I’ll have to put more money in. “Mr. Harty? Hello?”

“Ye-es. No picking on a Sunday. Not at Black Elm Farm. We let the fruit grow on a Sunday. We’ll start tomorrow at six sharp. There’s dorms for pickers, but we’re not the Ritz. No room service.”

Brilliant. “That’s fine. So … have I got a job?”

“Thirty-five pence a tray. Full punnets, no rotten fruit, or you’ll be picking the whole tray again. No stones, or you’re out.”

“That’s fine. Can I turn up this afternoon?”

“Ye-es. Do you have a name?”

I’m so relieved I blurt out, “Holly,” even as I realize giving a false name might be cleverer. There’s a poster by the railway bridge advertising Rothmans cigarettes so I say, “Holly Rothmans,” and regret it straightaway. Should have chosen something forgettable like Tracy Smith, but I’m stuck with it now.

“Holly Bossman, is it?”

“Holly Rothmans. Like the cigarettes.”

“Cigarettes, is it? I smoke a pipe, me.”

“How do I get to your farm?”

“Our pickers make their own way here. We’re no taxi service.”

“I know. That’s why I’m asking you directions.”

“It’s very simple.”

I bloody hope so, ’cause at this rate I’ll run out of coins. “Okay.”

“First you cross the bridge onto the Isle of Sheppey. Then you ask for Black Elm Farm.” With that, Gabriel Harty hangs up.

ROCHESTER CASTLE SITS by the Medway River like a giant model, and a big black lion guards the iron bridge. I pat its paw for good luck as I pass. The girders groan as trucks go over and my feet are aching, but I’m pretty pleased with myself; only twenty-four hours ago I was a weeping bruise, but I just passed my first-ever job interview and next week’s sorted, at least. Black Elm Farm’ll be a place to lie low and get some money together. I think of small bombs going off in Gravesend, one by one. Dad’ll go round to Vinny’s later, I reckon: “Oh, morning, I believe you’ve been sleeping with my underage daughter; I’m not leaving till I’ve spoken with her.” Ka-booom! Vinny’s ferrety face. Ka-boom! Dad’ll rush back to tell Mam I’m not there either. Ka-boom! Mam’ll start replaying that slap, over and over. Then she’ll march round to Vinny’s. Shit, meet Fan. Fan, this is Shit. Mam’ll leave Vinny splattered down the hallway and hurry to Brendan and Ruth’s to see if I’m there. Brendan’ll report I was on my way to Stella Yearwood’s yesterday morning, so he and Mam’ll stomp off there. Stella’ll be all, “No, Mrs. Sykes, she was never here, actually I was out, I’ve got no idea,” but she knows a heat-seeker missile’s heading her way. Monday comes and goes, and Tuesday, then on Wednesday school’ll phone ’cause I’m missing exams. Mr. Nixon’ll say to her, “So let me get this straight, Mrs. Sykes. Your daughter’s been missing since Saturday morning?” Mam’ll mumble ’bout a small disagreement. Dad’ll start wanting details, like what she said to me, and what she means by “a little slap.” How little? Ka-boom, ka-boom, ka-boom. She’ll lose it and and snap, “I already feckin’ told you, Dave!” and go upstairs to the kitchen, and as she’s looking out over the river, she’ll be thinking, She’s only fifteen, anything could’ve happened … Serve her bloody right.

Gulls kick up a racket on the river, below.

A police boat buzzes under the bridge. I walk on.

Up ahead, there’s a Texaco garage—it’s open.

“WHERE’S THE BEST place to hitch a ride to Sheppey from?” I ask the bloke at the till, after he’s handed me change and my two cans of Tizer, my Double Decker, and pack of Ritz biscuits. My £13.85 is down to £12.17.

“I never hitch,” he says, “but if I did, I’d try the A2 roundabout, the top of Chatham Hill.”

“How do I get to the top of Chatham Hill?”

But before he answers, a woman with raspberry-red hair comes in and the Texaco bloke just drinks her in.

I have to remind him I’m there. “ ’Scuse me? How do I get to the top of Chatham Hill?”

“Head left out of the forecourt, over the first set of traffic lights, past the Star Inn, and up the hill to the clock tower. Take the left turn to Chatham and follow your nose a bit further, past Saint Bart’s Hospital. Keep going till you get to an Austin Rover dealer and you’re at the Chatham roundabout. Stick your thumb out there, wait for a knight in a shining Jag to stop.” He deliberately said it all too quick for me to take in. “You might get lucky, or you might be waiting hours. You never know with hitching. Make sure you’re dropped at the turnoff to Sheerness—if you find yourself in Faversham, you’ve gone too far.” He readjusts his crotch and turns to the woman. “Now, what can I do for you, sweetheart?”

“Not calling me ‘sweetheart’ would be a good start.”

I don’t hide my laugh. The guy stares daggers at me.

• • •

LESS THAN A hundred yards later this knackered Ford Escort van pulls over. It might’ve been orange once, or perhaps that’s just rust. The passenger winds down the window. “Hi.” I’ve got a gobful of Ritz biscuit and must look like a total spaz, but I recognize who it is straight off. “It’s not quite a shiny Jaguar,” the woman with the raspberry-red hair slaps the door cheerfully, “and Ian here definitely isn’t a knight,” the guy driving does a little lean-over and a wave, “but if you’re after a lift to Sheppey, we’re going nearly to the bridge. Guide’s honor, we’re not axe murderers or chainsaw killers, and it’s got to beat standing on a slip road for six hours waiting for someone like that”—she cocks her head towards the Texaco garage—“to stop and ‘What can I do for you, sweetheart?’ all over you.”

My feet are killing me, and a lift off a couple’s safer than a single man, she’s right. “That’d be brill, thanks.”

She opens the back of the van and shunts some boxes to make space. I wedge myself in, but there’s windows on all sides so I’ve got a nice enough view. Ian, who’s midtwenties, baldish, and has a nose as big as a Concorde, asks, “Not too crushed back there, I hope?”

“Not at all,” I say. “It’s dead cozy.”

“It’ll only be twenty-five minutes,” Ian says, and we move off.

“I was saying to Ian,” the woman tells me, “if we didn’t give you a lift, I’d spend all day worrying. I’m Heidi, anyway. Who are you?”

“Tracy,” I answer. “Tracy Corcoran.”

“You know, I never met a Tracy I didn’t like.”

“I could find you one or two,” I say, and Ian and Heidi laugh, like that was pretty witty, and I s’pose it was, yeah. “Heidi’s a nice name, too.”

Ian does a dubious mmm, and Heidi gives him a poke in the ribs. “Stop interfering with the driver,” he says.

We pass a school ordered from the same catalogue as Windmill Hill Comprehensive—same big windows, same flat roofs, same muddy football pitch. I’m actually starting to believe I’ve left school: It’s like old Mr. Sharkey says, “Life’s a matter of Who Dares Wins.”

Heidi asks, “Do you live on Sheppey, Tracy?”

“No. I’m going there to work on a fruit farm.”

Ian asks, “Gabriel Harty’s place, would that be?”

“That’s right. D’you know him?”

“Not personally, but he’s known for having a subjective grasp of arithmetic when it comes to totting up your pay, so keep your wits about you. Errors are likely to be in his favor.”

“Thanks, I will. But it should be okay. A friend at school was there last summer.” I find myself gabbling to make myself more believable. “I’ve just done my O levels ’cause I’m sixteen, and I’m saving for an InterRail in August.”

That all sounded like I read it off a card.

“InterRails look great fun,” says Heidi. “Europe’s your oyster. So where’s home, Tracy?”

Where would I like home to be? “London.”

The lights are red. A blind man and his guide dog step out.

“Big city, London,” says Ian. “Whereabouts, exactly?”

Now I panic a bit. “In Hyde Park.”

“What—in Hyde Park? Up a tree, with the squirrels?”

“No. Our actual house is closer to, uh, Camden Town.”

Heidi and Ian don’t answer at first—have I said something stupid?—but then Ian says, “I’m with you,” so it’s okay. The blind man reaches the other side of the road, and Ian struggles with the gearbox before we move off. “I stayed in Camden Town when I first went to London,” he says, “sleeping on a mate’s sofa. In Rowntree Square, by the cricket ground next to the Tube station. Know it?”

“Sure,” I lie. “I go past there, like, all the time.”

Heidi asks, “Have you hitched from Camden this morning?”

“Yes. I got a lift off a truck driver to Gravesend, then a German tourist brought me to Rochester Bridge, and then you pulled up. Jammy or what?” I look for a way to change the subject. “What’s in all these boxes, then? Are you moving house?”

“No, it’s this week’s Socialist Worker,” says Heidi.

“They sell that in Queen Street,” I say. “In Camden.”

“We’re with the Central London branch,” says Ian. “Me and Heidi are postgrads at the LSE, but we spend our weekends near Faversham so we’re a sort of distribution hub. Hence all the boxes.”

I pick up a copy of the Socialist Worker. “Good read, is it?”

“Every other British newspaper is a propaganda sheet,” replies Ian. “Even The Guardian. Take one.”

It seems rude to refuse, so I say “Thanks” and study the front page: the headline is WORKERS UNITE NOW! over a photo of striking miners. “So do you, like … agree with Russia?”

“Not at all,” says Ian. “Stalin butchered Russian communism in its cradle, Khrushchev was a shameless revisionist, and Brezhnev built luxury stores for Party sycophants while the workers queued for stale bread. Soviet imperialism’s as bad as American capitalism.”

Houses loop past, like the background on cheap cartoons.

Heidi asks, “What do your parents do for a living, Tracy?”

“They own a pub. The King’s Head. Near Camden.”

“Pub landlords,” says Ian, “get bled white by the big breweries. Same old story, I’m afraid. The worker makes the profit and the bosses cream it off. Hello-hello, what’s all this about?”

The traffic ahead’s come to a standstill, halfway up a hill.

“An invisible war’s going on,” says Heidi, which confuses me till I realize she doesn’t mean the slow traffic, “all through history—the class war. Owners versus slaves, nobles versus serfs, the bloated bosses versus workers, the haves versus the have-nots. The working classes are kept in a state of repression by a mixture of force and lies.”

So I ask, “What sort of lies?”

“The lie that happiness is about borrowing money you haven’t got to buy crap you don’t need,” says Ian. “The lie that we live in a democratic state. And the most weaselly lie of all, that there is no class war. That’s why the Establishment keeps such an iron grip on what’s taught in schools, specially in history. Once the workers wise up, the revolution will kick off. And, as Gil Scott-Heron tells us, it will not be televised.”

I don’t know who the heron is, but it’s hard to think of our history teacher Mr. Simms as a cog in a vast plot to keep the workers down. I wonder if Dad’s a bloated boss for employing Glenda. I ask, “Don’t revolutions often end up making things even worse?”

“Fair point,” says Heidi. “Revolutions do attract the Napoleons, the Maos, the Pol Pots. But that’s where the Party comes in. When the British revolution kicks off, we’ll be here with our structure in place, to protect it from Fascists and hijackers.”

The traffic inches forward; Ian’s van rumbles on.

I ask, “D’you think the revolution’ll be soon, then?”

“The miners’ strike could be the match in the gas tank,” says Ian. “When workers see the unions being gunned down—first with laws, then bullets—it’ll be clear that a class-based revolution isn’t some pie-in-the-sky lefty dream, but a matter of survival.”

“Karl Marx,” says Heidi, “proved how capitalism eats itself. When it can’t feed the millions it spits out, no amount of lies or brutality will save it. Sure, the Americans will go for our jugular—they’ll want to keep their fifty-first state—and Moscow will try to grab the reins, but when the soldiers join in, as they did in 1917 in Russia, then we’ll be unstoppable.” She and Ian are so sure of everything, like Jehovah’s Witnesses. Heidi leans out to look ahead: “Police.”

Ian mutters about Thatcher’s pigs and attack dogs, and we reach a roundabout where a lorry’s lying on its side. Bits of windscreen are scattered across the tarmac, and a policewoman’s merging three lanes of traffic into one. She looks calm and in control—not piggish or wolfish or on the lookout for a runaway teenager at all, so far as I can see.

“Even if Thatcher doesn’t trigger the revolution this year,” Heidi turns to say, strands of her raspberry-red hair blowing in the wind, “it’s coming. In our lifetimes. You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. By the time we’re old, society’ll be run like this: ‘From each according to his or her abilities, to each according to his or her needs.’ Sure, the bosses, the liberals, the Fascists, they’ll all squeal, but you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. And speaking of eggs,” she looks at Ian, who nods, “fancy breakfast at our place? Ian cooks a five-star full English.”

• • •

HEIDI’S BUNGALOW’S SURROUNDED by fields and isn’t what I’d imagine as Kent’s HQ for a socialist revolution, with its net curtains, cushion covers, porcelain figurines, and Flower Fairies. There’s even carpet on the bathroom floor. Heidi told me it was her gran’s house before she died, but her mum and stepfather live in France somewhere so Ian and she come here most weekends to make sure squatters haven’t moved in and to distribute the magazine. Heidi shows me how to lock the bathroom from the inside and makes a joke about the Norman Bates Motel, which I pretend to get. I’ve never used a shower before—we only have a bath at the Captain Marlow—so I freeze myself and boil myself before I get the water right. Heidi has a whole shelf of shampoos, conditioners, and soaps with labels written all in foreign, but I try a bit of everything till I smell like the ground floor of a department store. When I get out, I see the ghost of letters written in last time’s steam: WHO’S A PRETTY BOY THEN? Did Heidi write it for Ian? Wish I hadn’t lied ’bout my name, now; I’d really like to be friends with Heidi. I smear a bit of Woods of Windsor moisturizer on my suntanned skin, thinking how easily Heidi might have been born in a grotty Gravesend pub, and me the one who’s clever and confident and studying politics in London, and who has French shampoo, and a kind, funny, caring, and loyal boyfriend who leaves messages on the mirror and cooks a five-star English breakfast. Being born’s a hell of a lottery.

“THEY’VE GOT THIS bridge in Turkey,” I harpoon a sausage and juice dribbles from the prong holes, “with Europe on one side and Asia on the other. I’m going there. The Leaning Tower of Pisa. And I love Switzerland. Well, I love the idea of Switzerland, though the closest I’ve ever been is eating a bar of Toblerone …”

“You’ll adore it.” Heidi swallows her toast and dabs her lips with a tissue. “La Fontaine Saint-Agnès is one of my favorite places on Earth, nestled up near Mont Blanc. My mother’s second husband had a lodge there so we’d go skiing most Christmases. Switzerland’s pricey, that’s the only thing.”

“Then I’ll drink snow and eat Ritz biscuits. And thanks again for breakfast, Ian. These sausages are incredible.”

He shrugs modestly. “I’m from three generations of Lincolnshire butchers, so I ought to know my stuff. Will your Grand Tour be a solo expedition, Tracy, or will you take a traveling companion?”

“The poor lass’s love life is none of your business,” Heidi tells him, “Captain Snoop. Ignore him, Tracy.”

“It’s okay,” I say, swallowing. “Actually I don’t have a boyfriend right now. I—I—I did up till recently, but …” My throat sort of closes.

“Any brothers and sisters?” As Heidi changes the subject I can tell she’s kicked Ian under the table.

“One sister, Sharon, and my brother Jacko.” I slurp some tea and leave Brendan out of it. “But they’re both a few years younger so, yeah, it’ll be a solo expedition. How ’bout you two? Any holidays planned?”

“Well, between the Party conference and helping the miners,” says Heidi, “we’ll try to get to Bordeaux in August. Visit my mother.”

“Can’t wait,” Ian mimes being hanged, “I don’t think. I’ve used my wicked wiles to seduce Heidi into an evil cult of lefty loonies, you see.”

“The joke is that Ian’s parents are sure I’ve done the same to him,” says Heidi. “We should have an anti-wedding and split up.” She dabs her lips. “Is Corcoran an Irish name, Tracy?”

I nod and fork a tomato. “Mum’s from West Cork.”

“Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Troubles,” Ian reaches for the ketchup, “every post-1920 revolution owes a debt to the Irish. The English reckon they handed Ireland over out of magnanimity, but no; the Irish won it back, by inventing modern guerrilla warfare.”

“My aunt Roisín,” I reply, “says the English never remember and the Irish never forget.”

Ian’s still slapping the bottom of the ketchup bottle, but nothing’s coming out. “I despair of humanity. We can put a man on the moon but can’t invent a way of getting tomato sauce out of a bottle without—” A huge dollop glollops out, smothering his bacon.

I’M DOING THE washing-up. Ian and Heidi were all “No no no, you’re our guest,” but I insisted. Secretly I’m hoping they’ll offer to give me a lift over to Black Elm Farm later, or maybe invite me again next Sunday, if I don’t go back to Gravesend. Heidi might share her hair dye with me. I rinse the glasses first and wipe them with a dry cloth, like we do at the pub so you don’t get streaks. Suds drip off the marble chopping board, and I let it drain next to a lethal carving knife. A song called “As I Went Out One Morning” by Bob Dylan’s on the cassette player; Ian told me to choose anything so I chose this John Wesley Harding tape. The mouth organ would normally put me off, but this song’s great; his voice is like the wind swerving through a weird day. “Cool choice,” says Heidi, passing through the kitchen barefoot. “I haven’t heard this for eons.” Inside I glow. She goes outside with a book called Inside the Whale by George Orwell; we did his Animal Farm in English, so maybe I can impress her later. Heidi leaves the patio door open so the smell of grass drifts in. Then Ian comes in and puts a Pyrex jug of milk into the microwave. I’ve never seen one close up. Turn the dial, push a button, and forty seconds later, ping, the milk’s steaming. I tell Ian, “That’s like Star Trek.”

“The Future,” says Ian, in a film-trailer voice. “Coming soon, to a Present near you.” He puts the jug on a tray with three mugs and posh coffee made in a plunger-thing. “When you’re done, join us outside for café au lait.”

“Okay,” I say, wondering what one of them is.

Ian takes the tray out to the patio. I check the time: ten-thirty. Mam’ll be going to church now, maybe with Jacko, who sort of goes to keep her company. Dad’ll take Newky along the river for a run in the Ebbsfleet direction, towards London. Or are they walking up to Peacock Street now? Here am I, doing fine, carrying on with the washing-up, and Dylan moves on to a song called “I Dreamed I Saw Saint Augustine.” It’s a ploddier, howl-at-the-moon sort of song, but finally I get why everyone raves ’bout Dylan. Through the window, down the long garden, foxgloves and red-hot pokers sway a bit. The lawns and flower beds are pretty as a picture on a tin of shortbread, and earlier I asked Ian and Heidi if they’re gardeners as well as postgrads. Heidi says a man from Faversham comes a few hours a fortnight “To breathe order into chaos.” That didn’t sound very socialist to me either, but I kept my mouth shut ’cause I don’t want to come over smart-arsy.

THE WASHING-UP WATER glurps down the plug-hole, a teaspoon clatters in the sink, and Bob Dylan has a cardiac arrest halfway through “All Along the Watchtower.” Oh, no! The tape’s being eaten: When I press eject, a tangle of brown spaghetti spills out. I’m a dab hand at fixing tapes with a little rectangle of Sellotape, though, so I go onto the patio to ask Ian and Heidi where they keep it. They’re both lying on these wooden lounger things, behind a wall of Ali Baba pots with herbs. Heidi’s book’s dropped to the ground, with her thumb still sandwiched in it; she’s out for the count. Ian’s snoozing, too, his head tilted to one side and his sunglasses skewed. The tray of coffee things is on a low wall. They must’ve been exhausted. Cautiously I call Heidi’s name but she doesn’t stir. Bees graze the herby hedge, sheep baaa, a tractor drones away. That low bump half a mile away is the Isle of Sheppey, and that sticky-up thing’s the bridge. Then I notice three, four, more busy black dots zigzagging up Heidi’s arm.

I take a proper look ’cause they can’t be ants …

They are. “Heidi! You’ve got ants crawling up you!”

But she doesn’t react. I sort of brush the ants off her, but I smear a couple by mistake. What’s wrong with them? “Heidi!” I shake her arm harder, and she slides over onto the side arm of the lounger, like a comedy drunk, but this isn’t funny. Her head slumps over and her sunglasses slide off and then I see her eyes—they’re all iris and no black bit in the middle. I sort of leap back with a scared gaaa! noise and almost fall over. Ian hasn’t stirred so, frantic now, I call his name—and see a furry fly crawling along his plump lips. My hand’s unsteady as I lift the baseball cap off his face. The fly buzzes off. His eyes are the same as Heidi’s—like he’s just died of some new plague—and I drop the hat and that same shaky gasp judders out of me. A bird in the pink roses threads sharp and shiny notes together, and my mind’s throbbing and woozy and only half here, but it serves up one explanation regardless: Heidi and Ian have food poisoning from breakfast. Food poisoning from breakfast. But after only twenty minutes? Possibly, but I don’t have the same symptoms. We all ate the same stuff. Next I think, Heart attack, but that’s not much of a theory. Drug overdose? Then I think, Stop thinking, Sykes—call for an ambulance now …

… the phone’s on a stand thing in the lounge, through the kitchen. Dash through, dial 999, and wait for the operator. Answer, hurry hurry hurry, now now now! The line’s silent. Then I notice a man in the mirror, watching from the armchair in the corner. The gears of what’s real slip. I turn round and there he is, in the archway between the kitchen and lounge. I know him. The piranha eyes, the curly black locks, the busted nose—the man from my daymare in the underpass, in the kite-shaped room. His chest’s heaving like he’s run uphill. He barks at me, “Which one are you?”

“I—I—I—I’m—I’m a friend of Ian and Heidi, I—I—”

“Esther Little or Yu Leon Marinus?” His voice is all hate and ice.

There’s a small sort of flickering on his brow, like, well, nothing like I’ve ever seen. Did he say, “Marinus”? Who cares? He’s a man from a nightmare, ’cept when you’re this afraid you usually wake up. I step back and fall onto the sofa. “My friends need an ambulance.”

“Tell me your name, and I’ll give you a clean death.”

This isn’t an empty threat. Whoever he is, he killed Heidi and Ian and he’ll kill you too, like snapping a matchstick. “I—I—I—don’t understand, sir,” I curl up into a terrified ball, “I—”

He takes another step my way. “Name yourself!”

“I’m Holly Sykes, and I just want to go—please, can I just—”

“Holly Sykes …” He re-angles his head. “Yes, I know the name. One of those who got away. Using the brother as bait was clever, but look what you’re reduced to now, Horologist. Trying to hide in this slut-gashed bone clock. Xi Lo would shudder! Holokai would puke! If, of course, they were alive, which,” he sneers, “they are not, after your midnight raid went horribly, horribly awry. Did you think the Shaded Way has never heard of burglar alarms? Did you not know the Chapel is the Cathar and the Cathar is the Chapel? Holokai’s soul is ash. Xi Lo’s soul is nothing. And you, whichever you are, you fled. As per your sacred Script, no doubt. We love your Script. Thanks to your Script, Horology is finished. This is a great day for Carnivores everywhere. Without Xi Lo and Holokai, what are you? A troupe of conjurers, mind readers, and spoon benders. So tell me before you die: Are you Marinus or Esther Little?”

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 716