* * *
When the cathedral clock strikes ten on Sunday morning Vishna and I set off. We are both looking as respectable as possible, because people are out and about on Sunday mornings, having big breakfasts in the city or going to church. As we walk alongside the river Vishna greets people politely with “Good morning,” or “A lovely day!” and nobody at all would think we were feckless. It was cold overnight and the grass is white with frost, which is unusual. There are people walking dogs, and a small group of American soldiers runs past us, all panting, wearing heavy-looking backpacks. Everyone gets off the path to let them pass, and some people smile but others frown, and I wonder what they are all thinking. We leave the river path before we get to the bridge, climbing up some steps to a small public garden and then following a little back street to the Friends’ Meeting House. I am feeling excited.
When we get there we see that the boy who was in the garden before is squatting a little further along the street, petting a cat. He sees us, glances up and down the street, and when he has seen that there is nobody around he gives a little jerk of his head towards the big wooden gate.
“Cool!” says Vishna. “They’ve got a proper lookout system going.”
We go in through the gate and close it quickly behind us. Nobody can see us from the road now unless they go right up to the broken gate and peer through, and I feel safe and excited at the same time. I lead Vishna round the side of the building, expecting to go to the little wooden hut I went into last time. Then a man steps out from the bushes and makes us jump.
“Can I help you?” he asks.
He is quite old, but not really old like the Old Man. He has a grey beard, and he is wearing a cloth cap pulled down over his forehead so that we can barely see his eyes. Vishna says, “We were hoping there might be a Meeting here.”
The man says, “What sort of meeting?” He looks at the big house, boarded up at the back, and says, “The Meeting House is closed.”
Colours shine in my head as he speaks, the dull orangy-yellow of the word closed, but also a much warmer pink colour which is to do with something he has not said but means. It is the colour of welcome. I have not seen two colours come at once like this before, and I find it strange.
Vishna hesitates, but I speak up. “Please, sir,” I say, being as polite as I can, “we would like to go to a Quaker Meeting.”
The man still does not seem convinced. He says, “Why would you want to do that?”
I have a good idea. I fish my symbol of the Q and the cross out from the inside pocket of my snug jacket, and I hold it out to the man. “My parents gave me this,” I say. “And they have disappeared. A long time ago.”
The man takes the necklace from me and peers at it. Then he takes a pair of glasses out of his pocket and puts them on, and looks more closely at my necklace.
“They were Quakers, weren’t they?” I ask, and reach out to take back my symbol.
The man does not hand it back. Instead, he takes off his glasses, looks up at the tall house, then puts them on again and examines my necklace again.
“I have not seen one of these for years,” he says. “I don’t think many were ever made.” He is still looking at my necklace, and then a smile comes slowly all across his face. “If your parents disappeared,” he asks, “how did you come to have this?”
To my relief, he hands it back. I put it safely into my inside pocket. “I was wearing it when I was found,” I say.
The man frowns. “And the authorities let you keep it?” he queries. “That doesn’t sound very likely.”
Vishna speaks then. She has been standing still, watching and listening. She says, “He wasn’t found by the authorities.”
I understand then why the man is suspicious. Of course, if the care people had found me they would have taken my symbol away. I say, “We’re Scum of the Earth.”
The man looks more confused than suspicious now. He says, “Scum…?”
Vishna laughs. “We’re considered feckless,” she explains. “We live off-grid.”
“Oh, I see!” Now the man looks neither suspicious nor confused, but perhaps a bit surprised. He says, “We’re meeting inside today because quite a lot of people are here.” He nods to a boarded-up door. “Go on in, and head for the room at the front.” He steps back into the bushes, and is gone.
We open the door and find ourselves in a sort of porch area with old fridges and stuff, all with their doors open. It is very quiet. When you live outside it is never completely silent, there are always sounds in the background: wind and birds, the whine of traffic, church bells and aeroplanes, and little creatures skittering through the grass. This complete silence feels a bit creepy to me. We walk through the gloom of a kitchen, past a stairway and into a larger room where chairs are in a circle round a table. On the table there is a candle. They are not using the electric lights, and the room is shadowy. One window is boarded up, the other has newspapers stuck all over it. Nobody can see in and we cannot really see each other until our eyes have adjusted.
At once it reminds me of sitting round the Old Man’s fire before everyone went north and the Professor died. There are not crowds of people here, perhaps about twelve. I see the two girls I met before, and several other children round about my own age, but there are grown-ups here too, all sitting very still. Some have their eyes closed; one woman is looking steadily, almost without blinking, at the broken window which has been boarded up; and some are staring at the candle. The flame gives a sort of wriggle because of the breeze we create by coming in and sitting down, but as we settle, so does the flame. People open their eyes and glance at us. Some smile, but others just close their eyes or look away. It feels friendly and peaceful. I look at Vishna. She has shut her eyes, and I wonder what she is doing in her head. I keep my eyes open and look at the candle. For a long while it stays very still, and then it flickers as the man with the cap and the boy from the street come in and sit down. Again, everything goes very still.
I close my eyes too, and then I discover a surprising thing. I am used to words giving me colours in my head, but I do not remember that silence ever did, until today. But with my eyes closed, I can see colours flickering around, the way they might do if the people were talking. Mostly there is a pink colour which flickers to red, the colour of welcome, but there is a pretty, soft greyish-blue too, and I see that it is to do with sadness. I think it is coming from the two girls I met before, and I open my eyes and look at them. The little girl is leaning on the bigger girl, and her eyes are closed. She could be asleep. The big girl is looking at the candle and I see that she has tears in her eyes. I understand that she is missing her parents and that, although she has not said the words aloud, in her head she has been talking about them, and I have heard the colours.
The man in the cap, who came in last, stands up. Some people open their eyes and look at him, others do not. After a moment or two, he starts to speak.
“Friends,” he says, “on behalf of our little remnant of Winchester Meeting, I welcome you. It is good to see folk from Alton and Andover, and to know that we have your support. In the silence, let us hold in the Light those Winchester Friends who have been so cruelly prevented from being here, and their children. In the silence, let us remember that John said that the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot put it out.”
One or two people sigh, as if acknowledging the truth of what the man has said. I wonder who John was, but I understand that the Light he talked about must be to do with what is good and true, and I feel comforted to think that this John believed that the darkness could not get rid of truth and goodness. Deep inside me, I feel that this is right. I have a sort of feeling that there is a Goodness which is greater than the goodness of Skye, who took me to the camp and saved me from the care people, and greater than the goodness of the Old Man, who kept our camp peaceful and friendly until it was time for most people to go north
. I think that perhaps there is a Goodness which is behind everything.
I close my eyes again. More colours are shining in my head. As well as the pink and red of welcome there is a golden light, which is the Goodness lying behind all the world, and then the bright green of a new holly leaf, which is also the colour of my dad, and I find myself wondering vaguely why that colour came into my head, but not really caring, because the colours are taking up all my attention and it is as if I am on a ride with them, whirling through the sky.
Then Vishna nudges me, and I come back down to the dimly lit room and see that everyone is shaking hands and smiling, and one woman is hugging the little girl. I feel as if I have just woken up from a really nice dream. I shake the hands of the people around me, and when everyone has stopped saying, “Good morning!” and “It’s good to see you!” we all go quiet again.
The boy stands up. He says, “Thank you, everyone, for coming this morning.” He smiles at Vishna and me. “We do not ask visitors to introduce themselves anymore,” he says. “Sometimes it is better not to give too much away, but you are very welcome.” Then he asks, “Do we have any news of Friends, who wish it given?”
I think that these Quakers speak in a strange and careful way. The cloth-cap man stands and says, “Well, in the last week there have been a few developments in the matter of our arrested Friends. News of the anti-terrorist raid has been circulated in Scotland and Ireland, and the press there is quite interested. All my attempts to find out where they have been taken have drawn a blank, but the Scandinavian papers are reporting that our Friends are in a prison somewhere, all together, and that infants under the age of three have not been taken from their parents. We cannot find that any charges have been laid, but of course that does not mean very much.”
A woman asks, looking directly at the boy, “Are you managing?”
It is the girl who answers. She says, “Will and I are okay, but Grace is always frightened and we are worried about her.”
They all look at the little girl. She is holding the hand of the big girl and looking at the floor. Cloth-cap man says, “Gracie, do you want to tell us how you are feeling?”
For a moment or so Gracie says nothing, but everyone just waits until she is ready. Then she says in a very quiet voice, “I want my mummy.”
People look at each other in a sad sort of way. An elderly man with a walking stick says, without standing up, “Will, Pixie and Gracie, Maria and I have a suggestion to make to you, after this Meeting.”
The boy, Will, stands up again. “Do we have any other notices?” he asks. I think that Will is very young to be in charge, not even as old as Big Bear, but then, if all the adults have been arrested…
Someone talks about a demonstration the United Socialists are going to have in London against the detentions of activists, and someone else tells us that Walker is out of hospital and doing well, and he sends us all his love. Then cloth-cap man stands again and says, “Friends, there will be tea and coffee in the kitchen and of course everyone is welcome to stay. I should warn you, though, that a Swedish journalist has asked to speak to some of us for an article she is writing, and she expects to arrive here by one o’clock. So, for those who do not wish to risk a journalist, please be sure that you are out of the way before then!” There are a few laughs and grunts of approval. Then cloth-cap man adds, “And I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that we need to leave a few at a time, and only when the coast is clear.”
The boy Will adds, “Pixie will give you a signal, won’t you?” and Pixie nods and smiles.
* * *
I expect that Vishna will want to go quite soon, but she starts talking to cloth-cap man and a younger woman who tells us she is from Alton. I eat three cookies, and out of the corner of my eye I see the woman Maria hugging Gracie again, and the man who is with Maria says, “Good, that’s settled, then!” And I realise that Will, Pixie and Gracie are going to go and live in their house for a while. I feel pleased. Their little wooden hut does not seem like a safe place to me.
Vishna says to me, “Hey, Giorgi, do you think this Swedish journalist is the same one Skye was talking to?”
I wonder the same thing. Vishna says, “We could stay here and see for ourselves,” and I forget altogether that she might recognise me from when I crept up on her in the nature reserve, so I say, “Okay.”
And as soon as she comes in she does recognise me! She says, sounding really surprised, “Edward! It is Edward Pearson, isn’t it?” and she holds out her hand to shake mine.
Vishna looks really, really surprised. I never did tell Skye or Vishna about that creeping up thing, and of course my name is not Edward Pearson. It makes me feel a bit odd, as if I have been caught out in a lie.
I say, “Hi, Mrs Saker!” and hold out my hand to shake hers, because it is what the journalist expects. Vishna is giving me a funny look, but she does not say anything.
Vishna says, “Do you know a friend of ours? Skye?”
The journalist looks even more surprised. She says, “Why, yes!” Then she looks at my jacket, and says, “So it was you I bought that parka for!”
It is not really a parka, because parkas have fur hoods and are old-fashioned, but I do not tell her that. I just say, “Oh, thank you!”
“So, how do you guys know Skye?” asks Liliane Saker, the journalist.
Of course, we do not give away that sort of information, so Vishna just says, “It’s a long story,” and the journalist understands, and says, “Right!”
Then cloth-cap man says, “It might be best if we go upstairs to talk,” and the few of us who are left climb the dark, creaking, wooden stairs to a room which seems to be a disused bedroom. It is not the one with the open window and the blowing curtain I saw last time. We sit on the bed, which has a mattress and two pillows but no sheets or blankets, and on a wicker chair, and on the floor.
Cloth-cap man says to the journalist, “Thank you for coming, Liliane,” and the journalist says, “It’s my privilege,” and then we all settle down to what seems to be the business of the Meeting.
The journalist explains what I already know – that she is Swedish, that she has been placed at the School of Journalism at Winchester University, and that she is interested in people she calls ‘dissidents’. She talks about her commitment to human rights, and then she comes to the interesting bit.
She says, “It is very difficult, actually, to get any information about what is going on from the authorities here, but my husband back in Sweden has contacts. He thinks the Winchester Quakers have been incarcerated all together, in one prison, as you were told, I believe, earlier today. They are not in the capital, in London, as far as we can tell, so they must be out in the provinces somewhere. There are some jails we can rule out because we have inside information in those institutions, but there are a lot of prisons in England, as you know. There have been a number of protests about the arrests – demonstrations outside English embassies in at least a dozen European cities, to say nothing of India and Costa Rica, and Canada naturally. Of course, these protests have not been reported here. The Canadians are threatening sanctions. We are hoping that if we keep the pressure on, your people will be released, but it is not a forgone conclusion.”
The younger woman, who is sitting on the floor, asks, “Have you heard any news of anyone by name?” Then she adds, “My sister was arrested. She’s pregnant.”
The journalist looks sorry. “No,” she says, “no names. But we think there is someone involved in prison transportation leaking information to a group in France, and from him or her we gather that there have been no large-scale transports out of the country, so we can be pretty sure they are not in Cuba, or on their way to the new set-up in Puerto Rica. We hope – and believe – that they are just incarcerated.”
“Just incarcerated!” queries the woman on the floor.
“I’m sorry,” says the journalist. “I
didn’t mean to minimise your troubles. But incarceration alone shouldn’t harm your sister too much, whereas rendition or hard labour…”
Cloth-cap man says, “Let’s hold all our Friends in the Light again, and those who risk so much to try to help us.” He smiles at the journalist, to show that he is including her. Then he reminds us all, “And please leave carefully. Pixie won’t be outside anymore, and we really don’t want people guessing that the Meeting House is still in use.”
After another silence, a blue-grey one this time, we feel our ways through the dim light of the stairwell. Just as she reaches the bottom step the journalist turns and looks up at Vishna and me. We are on the half landing above. She says, “I don’t suppose you are called Edward Pearson at all, are you?” But before I can answer Vishna says, “It’s as good a name as any.”
The journalist considers for a moment, then says, “Yes, it is a good name, as names go.” She is buttoning up her coat ready to leave, but just as she is going through into the kitchen she says, quite casually, “I still like to walk in the nature reserve. There are so few people there at this time of the year. It gives me a clear head, so that I can think.” Then she goes.
While we wait for cloth-cap man to tell us it is safe for us to leave too, Vishna says to me, “I think you have a story to tell me, Edward Pearson!”
* * *
I tell them all, Vishna, Skye and the Old Man, as we eat our evening meal round our fire when it is dark. It is Skye’s last night before going on another trip. She hopes for further news of those who have gone north, and she will tell us all about it. She thinks she will be back by Christmas, if not before. Vishna says, when she hears about me creeping up on the journalist, “Wow, Giorgi, you took a real risk there!” and Skye looks worried, but the Old Man says, talking about me as if I were not there, “But the boy needs to be able to stand on his own two feet, and he came to no harm.”
The Song of the Lost Boy Page 17