I am feeling thankful nearly all the time, now. It is easier to wander around Winchester when it is dark so much. I often go down when the light starts to turn from the grey of daytime to the blue of dusk, and I walk up and down the High Street looking at the brightly lit market stalls. There is a Christmas market in the cathedral close, with ice skating on ice which they have to make with a machine because it is not cold enough for anything to freeze. Mostly it is wet, but my jacket keeps me warm and dry and well disguised. One day I find a shiny dollar coin on the ground by the fruit man’s stall, and I say to him, “Is this yours?” and hold it out to him in my open hand.
He says, “You are a good kid; you can keep it.” He gives me a bag full of tangerines and a box which has dates in it. He says, “Don’t eat the dates all at once; they’ll give you tummy ache!” I take the dollar to the stall that sells bread, and buy a small loaf of brown, seedy bread which I know we will all like. The woman at the bread stall says, “Oh, I’ll throw in one of these, too, because it is the end of the day.” She doesn’t do any throwing, though. She just passes me a paper bag, and when I look inside there is a cake with icing on it, wrapped up in plastic. I say, “Thank you very much!” and walk quickly away before she can change her mind.
I think about how kind people are, and then I suddenly seem to notice: there are no beggars anymore. I wonder what the police have done with them. I expect that they are in labour camps, and I hope they have not been given hard labour, because when they talked about hard labour at the Quaker Meeting it sounded bad, like care.
For several Sundays, Vishna and I walk down the Hill together and go to the Quaker Meeting. Usually there are just a few people. I never see as many as I saw that first Sunday, and I realise that it is because most of the children who belong to the Meeting are living with other Quakers now, in Alton or Andover, or perhaps in Southampton. Will, Pixie and Gracie come every Sunday; Maria drives them over. Percy is nearly always there, although he is still fighting to get the grown-ups out of prison and sometimes this fighting takes him up to London, which is our capital city and the place where our king lives when he is not in Washington DC. Actually, I discover, the Quakers do not really fight at all, not in the sense of hitting people or pushing people over earthworks. It is one of the many reasons for the authorities not liking them. They refuse to take part in the war in the Caribbean, and instead suggest ways of making peace, which annoys the government. Percy tries to explain it to me one Sunday. He says, “There is a lot of money to be made out of war,” and that mystifies me, because I think war mostly consists of blowing people up or leaving them hungry. But Percy is a very clever man, a retired lawyer, as well as being kind, so if he says war makes people rich it must be true, even though I cannot understand how this can be.
Will, Pixie and Gracie are going to school near to Maria’s house. She registered them there, and they say it is pretty good. None of the remaining Quakers are feckless, so they can all send their children to school, and go to the doctor if they are ill, and show their papers to the police if they are stopped.
Will and I become mates. He knows my real name now, and says, “Hi, Giorgio!” whenever we walk into the Meeting House kitchen. Every Sunday after Meeting we go to the children’s room and sit upstairs in the sleeping area and talk. Sometimes Pixie comes too. We guess that Will is about a year older than me and Pixie perhaps a bit younger, and she is a cool girl, with the same sort of sense that Vishna has. They ask Maria to drive them over to Winchester every Sunday because they want to keep the Meeting open until the grown-ups come back. Some people from other Meetings come most Sundays, just one or two, to help support Winchester, and the journalist usually comes. She is a Muslim, but she likes to sit in silence with us.
One morning when we arrive there is a sort of excitement in the air. When I sit down in the circle and close my eyes I can see the fizzing yellow of people’s silent words to the Goodness. Gradually, as the hour passes, the yellow stops fizzing and becomes smooth and golden, like the Goodness itself, and soft, gentle colours swirl in, and it is like the colours I used to see around the fire circle when all the shelters were on the Hill and we sang songs together. I think that although the Quakers do not sing with their voices, they sing with their spirits.
Afterwards, during the notices, I find out what the joy is all about. Will or Pixie always seem to be in charge. One or other of them always asks whether there are any notices, but it seems to me that if Percy is there he does the job of backing them up. He is here this morning, looking happy. When Pixie asks if there are any notices, and nobody else has said anything, Percy stands up and speaks.
He says, “Well, Friends, some of you will already know… Our friend Liliane has had her article published – the article she came here hoping to write.” He picks up a newspaper from under the chair where he was sitting. It is in Swedish. Percy says, “It has attracted a lot of interest right through the European Union, and a translation has been published in the Canadian papers. And here,” he picks up another newspaper, “is the same translated article in today’s Scottish papers!”
Quakers seem to like to do things in quite an orderly way, but all the grown-ups (there are seven that day) lean forward in their chairs and I think someone might grab the article. Nobody does, though. Percy goes on, “Now that the arrest of our Friends is so widely known, we are hoping that the authorities will be embarrassed enough to release them. My colleagues in Belgium and I are working to get them home by Christmas.”
When we have heard some other news, and Pixie has reminded us that there are drinks in the kitchen, everyone gathers round Liliane the journalist and shakes her hand, or hugs her, or both, and the spoken words of everyone make the same fizzy and excited yellow in my head as I saw during the silence.
I have not thought, until today, how close Christmas is. There will be one more Sunday, and then Christmas Day comes during the following week. When there were lots of children in the camp we used to make little presents for each other. I used to have a pipe that played five notes, that the Music Maker made for me. This year I have not prepared at all, and I feel a bit guilty. Still, there is time.
When Will, Pixie and I are sitting in the children’s room, Pixie says to me, “What will you and Vishna do on Christmas Day?”
I say, “I’m not sure.” I am thinking that I hope Skye comes back. If Will’s and Pixie’s parents come home, and Skye returns to the Hill, we will all be reunited with our best people. Except, of course, that I still have not found my mum and dad…
* * *
I am beginning to understand what people mean when they talk about praying. In fact, grown-up Quakers do not talk about it much at all; they say things like, “We must hold Walker in the Light,” or, “Let us remember the people of the Caribbean.” But Pixie and Will talk about praying, a bit, once they know me enough to discuss important stuff. Pixie says, “I have prayed for Mum and Dad every day since they were arrested,” and Will once told me, “When you pray you are asking for love to take over.” I remember that the man John told people that Light is stronger than darkness and that darkness cannot put out the Light, and in my mind I think that if the Light were a person, praying would be a bit like holding hands with the Light.
When there are grown-ups you really trust, like Skye, and even Vishna, who is nearly grown-up, sometimes you are walking along and you just find yourself holding hands with them. If you had to think, When did we start holding hands? you cannot remember, because it just came naturally while you were talking, or looking at the swans flying, or whatever was going on at the time. And you do not know whether you reached for their hand, or they reached for yours.
I think I do that sort of praying on the way back up the Hill. The sort of praying which is like holding hands without noticing you are. My prayer is that Skye really will be back for Christmas, and when we turn the corner by the scrubby blackberry bushes, where we first catch a glimpse of our
shelter, there is Skye, poking the fire and doing something with the can we hang over the flames when we are cooking.
I call, “Skye!” and run up the last few steps, and she stands up and gives me a big hug, and then she says, “Giorgi! It isn’t possible! I’ve only been away a few weeks and look how you’ve grown!”
Then she hugs Vishna too, and says, “You look great. How’s it going?”
* * *
We spend all afternoon catching up on our news. We cannot comfortably sit still because of the wet wind, so we pull our hoods up over our heads and walk all the way round the Hill, below the copse. When we get to the place where all the shelters used to be, we see that almost all the signs we left are vanishing. Really all that remains is the paddling pool which still does not have water in it, and the ditches we dug round the tents and the huts to stop the rain pouring in, and even they have become more shallow and have started to fill up with dead leaves and other bits and pieces of nature.
We stand on the earthworks and look down on the river and the city. It is a grey and misty afternoon and Winchester, which sometimes feels quite close, looks a long way away. The cathedral bells are ringing for something special but they, too, sound as if they belong somewhere else, and it seems as if there is just we three and the Old Man in all the world. And of course, the Goodness, but you cannot see that.
Skye has already been shown the Swedish newspaper article and the Canadian translation which has been published in Scotland. “And Ireland,” says Skye. The journalist Liliane is going home for Christmas, and Skye says, “They will never let her back into this country again, of course,” and Vishna chuckles. I feel a bit sad about it, but also a little relieved, because I cannot forget that I lied to her, and it makes me feel uncomfortable that she knows that and I know that.
In the evening we join the Old Man at the big fire circle, and drink bitter tea, and Vishna tells Skye about my comment that the Quakers do not sing.
The Old Man says, “Well, they probably do. People sing when they’re happy, whoever they are.”
Then Vishna and Skye decide to teach me some songs which belong to this time of the year. I already know ‘Jingle Bells’ and ‘It’s a Hap-Hap-Happy Christmas’ because we used to sing them in the camp, but now they teach me religious songs, and the Old Man does not mind because there are no longer other people around to make difficulties if we talk (or sing) about religion. Vishna wants to teach me ‘Away in a Manger’ but Skye says I am already too old for that, and so I learn ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’, and when we get to the bit about, Yet, what can I give him, poor as I am? I feel sad, because perhaps we four are quite poor, with just our shelters and the clothes on our backs. Then we sing, Yet what I can I give him, give my heart. I think that we are singing about the Goodness, which is more than a him or a her, but which is definitely a real Being, and to which we will, all four, give our hearts. It makes tears come into the corners of my eyes.
The Old Man has a good voice for singing, and so does Vishna. I find it more difficult to keep to the tune but I do not think the others mind. Then I say, taking a risk, “Do you know a song about How can I keep from singing? or Bed is too small for my tired head.”? But they do not.
Vishna says, “Sing them to us,” but of course I cannot, because I only know little bits of them.
Even so, when we all go to bed that night I am feeling happy and as if everything is going right.
* * *
We celebrate our Christmas on the Hill. Skye has brought gifts, and the Old Man, who I cannot remember giving gifts before, has made a wind chime for Vishna and me, to hang outside our shelter. It has hollow pieces of wood of different lengths hanging from a roundish bit of thick bark, with a snail’s shell hanging in the middle. When the shell catches the wind, the wooden bits make a sort of bonging noise, each hanging piece a different note. The Old Man says, “I hope it won’t keep you awake at night!” But I know that it will not. The sound of the wind chime will make us think of the Old Man. It will be no more disturbing than hearing Vishna on the other side of the curtain.
My gift from Skye is a book called Swallows and Amazons. She says, “I used to love that book when I was your age.”
So I say, “How old am I?”
And Skye says, “About the right age to read Swallows and Amazons.” And we all laugh.
I have made carved pictures for the others, to put outside the shelters. I got the idea from thinking about people putting crosses outside their church buildings to tell people what goes on inside. I carve OM on the Old Man’s sign and V on the piece of wood to hang outside the shelter where Vishna and I live, but I have carved the complete word Skye on Skye’s gift, partly because she has always been so special to me and partly because I made her present first and I still thought I had lots of time. Vishna has made her gifts too. We each have necklaces made of acorns and bits of wood, and we all put them on at once and tell each other how good we look. We have quite ordinary food out of tins, because the best Christmas gleaning comes the day after the festival, but it is a happy time. We sit round the big fire circle and sing ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ and some other religious songs that the others know from days gone by, as well as the usual songs we used to sing when everyone was here. We even sing ‘The Tax Man’ and laugh a lot, and Skye tells us that in Scotland Christmas is not a big deal, and that the big celebrations all happen at the New Year.
It starts to get dark soon after the cathedral clock has struck four. After weeks of damp winds and flurries of rain, the air has turned colder and we can already see the moon. The Old Man says he will stay by the fire and stir the soup, but Skye, Vishna and I walk down to the earthworks to watch the valley getting dark. Vishna says, “If Percy is right, the Quaker adults should be home by now.”
Then Skye says, “I hope they’re not banking on that. You never know, with the authorities.”
I say, “Gracie is longing for her mum to come back. She says so every Sunday.”
“I expect they all are,” suggests Skye. Then I think of Will, Pixie and Gracie telling their parents what has been happening while they were in prison, and I wonder what it will be like if I ever meet my parents again. There will be such a lot to say. Will we ever be able to catch up with each other? Skye notices a change in me each time she comes back, and she is usually only gone a few weeks. My parents have not seen me since I was a really little guy. It will be odd for them, and odd for me too.
Vishna says, “The stars are shining. Look!” We have not seen stars for weeks because of the drizzle and the clouds. So we identify the different constellations and talk about light pollution and how you cannot really see many stars if you are in the city until they turn off the street lights at midnight.
* * *
Skye is gone again by the next Sunday. She just made a short visit to celebrate Christmas with us, but she does some useful stuff while she is here. She discovers that I have outgrown my trainers already, and gleans me a new pair. She gleans me a pair of jeans, too, long trousers to wear on cold days if I want to go into the city, because boys who are not feckless do not wear shorts when the weather gets really cold. It feels odd to have my legs covered, and I do not really like it, but I know how important it is to blend in. Skye helps Vishna and me to stock up our woodpile too, and spends time talking to the Old Man, by his shelter, where Vishna and I have never been.
She leaves on the Saturday after Christmas, saying that when she returns she hopes she will have first-hand information about how Little Bear and his family are getting on. Then I know that this time Skye is going right into Scotland, and I wonder if she has ever done that before.
On Sunday we walk down the Hill by a new way, to the old towpath and into the city, to go to the Quaker Meeting. We are used to it now, but if you try to look at the building the way a stranger might, you can see that it looks abandoned and disused. Pixie is keeping watch, standing by the path through
to the children’s play area. Nobody else is around. It is a cold day, and I am wearing my long trousers for the first time and feeling a bit self-conscious. We catch Pixie’s eye, and I think she looks sad, not like a girl whose parents have just come home, but she gives us a nod and we go in.
I expect the meeting room to be full today, because of all the grown-ups who have come home, but it is just the same people as usual. When I sit down and close my eyes I find it hard to concentrate because I am wondering in my head what has gone wrong. Bit by bit, though, the Meeting settles down, and the colours start to come. They are only sad colours: greys and pale blues and a wavy sort of green. In my heart I try to reach out for the golden light, the Light which cannot be put out by darkness, but it is hard work. There is too much sadness in the room.
After quite a long time, Maria stands up. Usually if people are going to say something in Meeting they first stand and then speak, but Maria just stands, not saying anything, for what seems like quite a long time. Then she just says an odd thing, “The Lord has turned my weeping into joy.” She sits down again. I think, What does that mean? But I do notice that whatever it means, the colours in the room start to change. There is a gentle pink colour, winding itself around the grey.
The Song of the Lost Boy Page 19