Quarter Square

by David Bridger

He was only a kid. I shouldn’t let him do it.

  “Would you mind?”

  “’Course not. Lend us your torch?” He hooked my lamp over the back of his belt, shinned up the ladder like a monkey, pushed the hinged hatch cover back with a loud bang and hoisted himself into the darkness.

  The back of my neck prickled, and a cold damp shiver ran up and down my torso. I’d never experienced one of my nightmares while wide-awake, but blanking out mental images of a wolf savaging Jimmy to death came horribly close to the pounding dread that always accompanied them.

  He poked his head into the hatch opening and called down, “Loads of rats up here, but nothing much else.” He coughed. “It’s bloody filthy, mind.”

  He came back down, slamming the cover shut behind him. He favoured his injured arm as he neared the bottom rungs of the ladder.

  He saw my frown when he reached solid ground. “It’s a bit sore, but we don’t need to bother Flo about it. I’ll rest it up again, and it’ll be fine. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  He winked as he handed me the lamp and left me at the foot of the ladder.

  I was pathetic. I should have gone up, not tricked a teenager into doing something I was too scared to do myself. Shame burned my cheeks. I closed my eyes and vowed I would never do something like that again. Never. From now on I would face my fears and fight my own battles.

  I stepped into my room to grab a long drink of bottled water, swallowed my shame and went back to work.

  When we were ready to break for lunch, I realised I hadn’t seen Min for hours. Jimmy said she was working out back in the dressing rooms, and I found her just finishing off my bedroom. She and a middle-aged woman had spent the morning washing the walls and floor in there, and they’d done a far better job than I had when I moved in. The room was spotless.

  “You deserve it,” was Min’s only response to my sincere thanks. “Let’s go find some food.”

  That evening she came to collect me, filling my bedroom with her delicate scent. “We’re having a party in the garden tonight. Would you like to come?”

  Of course I would. When we reached the blank wall in the foyer, I stopped her from snapping her fingers.

  “Do you think I could learn how to do that?”

  “It’s easy. Once you know the door is here, all you need to do is break the glamour. Click your fingers.”

  Yeah, right. Just like that. But I did as she suggested. When I clicked my fingers, my whole hand and forearm tingled with pins and needles, but nothing else occurred. I rubbed my itching fingers and shook my head.

  “Try again. This time see the door when you do it.”

  I reached my hand out and visualised the magic door. The tingling happened again, and the door appeared.

  “Yay.” She opened it. “Now you can come and go anytime you like.”

  I thrilled from head to toe when she linked arms with me. We walked in step easily and fitted together as if we’d been doing this all our lives. Her lovely, light scent made me feel fresh and clean.

  The party was already well under way, and children were running around. It hadn’t occurred to me there might be families among the insiders. Did they party like this every night?

  We headed towards what I thought of as the elders’ campfire. Andrew introduced me to the woman massaging Jimmy’s forearm.

  “Meet Flo’s apprentice, Tara. Tara, this is Joe.”

  Tara was very zen: mid-twenties, suntanned, lean and strong, sitting cross-legged in a long, flowing skirt and sandals. She raised her head of plum-coloured dreadlocks and welcomed me with a smiling hello that was little more than a breath.

  The campfire was bigger, with glowing coals filling a shallow trench two feet wide and ten feet long. A dozen or so people kneeled around it, cooking, and Andrew and Min introduced me to them all.

  People welcomed me with varying degrees of warmth, which wasn’t surprising. Inevitably, some would doubt my integrity.

  The coldest welcome came from three dancers—Dish, Blue and Sab—the quiet men I’d followed into the square that first night. Someone mentioned they were part of a street act with a Spanish acrobat called Delores. They seemed to prefer their own company.

  Delores was friendly, flourishing a bottle of red wine while she practised her heavily accented English on me, and delighted when I recognised her as the spectacular flying dancer from the shopping centre. But her warmth towards me didn’t spread to her partners. They looked right through me and remained silent in my presence.

  I hoped things would turn out okay, even with people who treated me with such open suspicion. This was their home. I was just some outsider who’d strolled into their lives, promising rescue. I wanted to be accepted into this community where no one was telling me what to do and how to live. I wanted to belong here, but I had to be patient.

  Fliss appeared at my shoulder. “Dance.”

  “I don’t dance.”

  “You do now.” She dragged me to my feet.

  The next hour disappeared in a whirl of dancing. When the music slowed and the cooks called everyone over to the fire, I wore the grin that had been stretching my face all evening.

  Beer and wine had been flowing freely while I danced, and the group I returned to was merry and loud. Someone shoved a can of beer in my hand, and someone else handed me a plate of roasted chicken pieces.

  “Help yourself to spuds and salad.”

  Another fire had been lit apart from the cooking fire, and people sat around it, eating, drinking and talking. Still grinning and sweating, I sat beside Old Flo. Jimmy and Fliss waved to me from the other side of the fire, and Flo nodded once, as if she’d made a decision.

  “You’ll do fine.”

  Elvis ducked his head in agreement and chuckled away into her ear. They weren’t doing their stare routine on me anymore, and my head stayed clear. Maybe that had been some kind of preparation to wash my memory, in case I’d turned out to be someone they didn’t want around.

  As I ate, I studied the people gathered in the garden. I estimated there were about eighty people, twice as many as the previous evening. Quarter Square was more like a secret village than the strange circus troupe I’d thought at first.

  Beyond the silhouetted Elizabethan houses, the fiddles and drums and tree lights in the garden, was Plymouth. Outside, there was noise, lights, traffic and all the hustle and bustle and heavy air of a summer evening in the city. Here, there was peace and lightness, music and magic.

  High above, on the opposite side of the square, a movement caught my eye. The chimney and ridge tiles of one of the houses shimmered briefly and faded away.

  Of course. Everyone was eating or making music or dancing. No one was maintaining the structure and fabric of the place, which Andrew had hinted was an ongoing task. Suddenly it dawned on me that the square would disappear, forever, without their magical repairs.

  I found myself looking for Min all evening. Our eyes met frequently, and we smiled at each other every time.

  After a while I became aware of a tall young man I hadn’t seen before, who also kept making eye contact with me. His stare wasn’t friendly. He’d arrived at the party later than me, with a teenager in tow.

  “That’s Will and Danny,” Flo said. “They’re magicians, been working the streets up in Bristol all week.”

  For some reason I couldn’t stop watching Will, although I tried to do it surreptitiously. He was the kind of person I instinctively never liked, supremely self-confident and always smiling with those dark eyes in that predatory way. He was suave, elegant and easy in his own body, with well-groomed good looks. He must have spent hours getting his hair swept back like that and his little pointed beard clipped perfectly.

  But the thing that really pissed me off was his manner around Min. He kept touching her, draping his arm across her shoulders or stroking the backs of his fingers against her cheek in a proprietary way, watching me the whole time to make sure I noticed. His message was loud and clear—he was Mi
n’s lover.

  Min noticed this silent exchange yet did nothing to deny his message. She didn’t reciprocate his affectionate touches, but neither did she push him away, and she continued to make friendly eye contact with me.

  My instinct told me Will’s behaviour was for me alone, that he’d heard about me when he arrived and felt threatened by the quick friendship I’d struck up with Min.

  My instinct also told me Min wouldn’t put up with his mauling her if they weren’t intimate.

  I was off balance. I had to be honest with myself: the whole thing was making me deeply uncomfortable and jealous as hell. Thoughts of Carole and Tony surfaced, and I pushed them back down.

  At some point during the evening Danny sat next to me and started chatting in a friendly way. He was a pleasant young man of eighteen or nineteen, about ten years younger than Will, whom he talked about as if he were some kind of film star.

  That irritated me, but I understood hero worship. I remembered feeling exactly the same way about Tony when I was struggling to stay focused long enough to graduate from university, while he’d already joined his family business and was enjoying early success as a young property developer.

  Will sat on the other side of Danny. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him lean in to murmur something in Danny’s ear and couldn’t help but notice the stiffening of the boy’s shoulders and the sideways glance he nearly gave me. I ignored what was going on. Will whispered more to the lad, grinned at nothing and went to dance with Min.

  Danny didn’t move away immediately, but his attitude towards me turned noticeably cooler. I decided to win him round, not only because I liked him and wanted to be liked, but also to thwart Will’s game.

  The man himself came and stood beside me while I was talking with Andrew. He waited until there was a lull in our conversation.

  “You’re a builder, then?”

  I met his eyes and paused before answering. I hated to admit it, even to myself, but his voice was melodic and pleasant. I couldn’t quite place his accent, which sounded like a mix of West Country and maybe some Irish. Possibly some Romany too.

  “And you’re a magician.” I kept my voice cool.

  “You’re going to do up the theatre for us. Out of the goodness of your heart. And we’re supposed to believe you.”

  I eyed him down to the ground and back up again, feeling the familiar brain fog creeping back. “Believe what you want, and don’t bother with your Vulcan mind-meld shit. It doesn’t work on me.”

  Andrew watched Will walk away. “He’s a firebrand, that one. Give him time.”

  I nodded but decided to call time on myself. The evening was spoiled.

  Later, lying on my camp bed, I tried to resist the disappointment that crowded in on me. Most of the insiders had been friendly, and I had no reason to think that would change.

  Will was jealous, and he didn’t trust me. He didn’t believe my motives. But mainly he was jealous of me and Min, and he was just one man. Sod him.

  I wasn’t worried about the dancers’ cool treatment of me, because they didn’t mix with anyone. But I couldn’t stop Will from getting under my skin, and I didn’t try to fool myself that my sensitivity had nothing to do with my jealousy over his relationship with Min.

  I tried not to imagine what they might be doing together at that moment.

  Hiding in a dark city alleyway, buried under a stinking pile of food scraps and domestic waste, ignoring the rats that shove around me and nuzzle against my nose and tightly closed eyes, hearing only my own heartbeat hammering in my throat and ears, I know the monster is coming to kill me. A heavy shuffle sounds close by, and the rats of the midden heap fall instantly still and silent. A terrible grip takes me by the scruff of my neck and hauls me out, and I peer into the terrifying face of my nemesis, my final thought a silent thanksgiving for my lover’s safety.

  A deep boom vibrated through the building and woke me up with a start at eight o’clock. By the time my feet hit the floor I recognised the familiar crashes, bangs and hydraulic squeals coming from the road outside. The skip was being delivered.

  I wasn’t the only person disturbed by all the noise. On my way to the front door I was joined by four insiders.

  Jimmy saluted. “Ready for work, boss.”

  “How’s that arm?”

  “It’s good.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “No, really, it’s fixed and I’m good to go.”

  “Good. Let’s start shifting the rubbish.”

  I left them to their dusty work and washed the dirt off my hands and face. I wanted to get round to all the timber and builders’ merchants in the city, to get a feel for the different places and order the tools and materials we would soon need.

  I called into the square to see if Min would like to come with me, but she was busy teaching in the garden.

  It was interesting to see all thirteen of the kids together in one place. The five youngest ones, sitting cross-legged on the grass with their scruffy exercise books, looked like an outdoor class in a real junior school.

  I wandered over and caught some of Min’s lesson.

  “The Mayflower sailed from Plymouth in September 1620, with thirty crew and one hundred and two passengers. Thirty-two of them were children. Next time you’re down by the Mayflower Steps on the Barbican, take a look at the bronze plaque on the wall across the road. All their names are there. It wasn’t a big ship. Just a fat-bellied, creaky, old wooden boat with sails. There wasn’t even enough bed space for everyone, so some passengers had to sleep in boats on the upper deck.

  “It took them sixty-six days to reach America, and it must have been an uncomfortable crossing. Most of the passengers had never been to sea before, and they were scared before they left, especially the families. The weather was already turning bad, but they’d run out of money and had to leave right then.”

  Min’s descriptions were so vivid, it almost sounded as if she’d been there. I told her so when she sent the kids off for a break.

  “Maybe I was.” Her eyes glittered with mischief.

  “Those kids are a credit to you.”

  “Thank you, but it isn’t all down to me. We all muck in.” She nodded over to a bench where Linda, one of the insider mothers, was using tattered issues of National Geographic to teach the older group.

  “As far as the outside is concerned,” Min continued, “these kids don’t exist. They’re totally free. No one out there knows their real names, and no one ever will. We all have aliases. If the police want a name, the kids know to give a different one every time. You won’t see many insiders with tattoos. Distinguishing marks make things difficult.”

  “That’s why the kids hang around the square in normal school hours.”

  “To avoid drawing attention to themselves.” She nodded. “And that’s why they need to know how to read and write, at least. Anything that makes them stand out from the crowd is dangerous. They need to look and act just like normal children. It’ll be a lot easier for them in a few weeks when the outside schools close for the summer.”

  She called them back from play and settled them under the tree again as I left for my shopping trip.

  I spent five hours, and several hundred pounds on my credit card, buying tools and materials and arranging for them to be delivered as soon as possible. The timber merchant’s warehouse smelled like heaven, and I spent twice as long in there as I needed to. I usually did in those places and always left in a good mood.

  I returned to the city centre to buy a Cornish pasty for lunch and was attracted by the deep, breathy, plaintive notes of a woodwind instrument somewhere nearby. I followed the mellow sound into a tree-lined pedestrian area, where Andrew was playing a pipe of some description. His tune was slow and thoughtful—sad, even, although not mournful. I was pretty sure it was a Native American instrument. I’d never seen one being played before, but I recognised the sound.

  A young couple dropped coins into his upturned leather cowboy hat as th
ey passed, and smiled as they walked away. He was certainly an engaging character, and his music was beautiful. I slipped back round the corner rather than disturb him.

  I was enjoying getting to know Plymouth, especially because I knew Min would be at home when I got back there. Home: that was how I’d come to think of the theatre and the square.

  The tools and timber arrived the next morning while a gang of insiders were filling the second skip, and I got to work. I estimated it would take three months to complete the structural work, mostly on my own but with some labouring help from Jimmy and as many insiders as could be released from fundraising work.

  They’d agreed to keep me supplied in food too so I could concentrate on getting the work done as quickly as possible. This haste was for my benefit. Payment in kind was all very well, but sooner or later I would need to start earning real money from outside jobs.

  For now, though, my total focus was on the job in hand. I cleared a workspace on the stage, set up two sawhorses and selected lengths of oak, maple and ash to build a monster eight-foot-by-three-foot workbench. I’d bought a manufactured clamp for one end and planned to make a heavy-duty one by hand for the front, complete with dogholes and a quick-release lever. A big job needs a big bench.

  I tacked my sketch to a nearby wall, stripped off my shirt, licked my new pencil and started measuring and sawing, measuring and sawing. I welcomed the exhilarating smell of fresh sawdust and the customary rush of happiness, so completely in my element that I’d sung right through to the end of my the Parlor Mob repertoire before I surfaced from the rapture.

  When the final length of maple sat on a plastic sheet alongside its brothers and a dozen bar clamps, ready to be glued together like a huge butcher block for the working top, I used my balled-up shirt to wipe the sweat from my face and chest, stretched my back with a long groan and heard a giggle from somewhere behind me.

  Min, Cindy and Debs stood in the wings, watching me. The poi girls’ amusement was obvious and appeared to be directed at Min rather than at me. Her shining eyes said more than the smile she was trying not to show, and she arched an eyebrow at the girls. They each jostled a shoulder against her before giggling off into the darkness backstage.