He got out of bed and slipped it on. It was too big for him, but he’d taken to wearing it after the funeral. It was comforting in the way it enveloped him, the sleeves extending past the end of his hands. It used to smell of his father, but that had faded now—he had to press his nose into the collar and breathe in deeply to catch a hint of it. He brushed the woollen coat down with his hands, savouring the rough sensation on his fingertips. What stories could this coat tell him?
Out of the dark of his memory shot the image of his father’s medal, hitting him with a great wave of guilt. He hadn’t thought of it since he’d thrown it away in anger.
Wrapped in his father’s coat, he sobbed at the stupid loss.
THE NEXT MORNING Hal retraced his steps of that first day, looking for the place he’d thrown the medal. It was hopeless, he thought; he couldn’t remember where it had landed, nor see anywhere it could have lain undisturbed all these weeks. He checked the gutters and all along the edges of the courtyard. Someone must have taken it. He could picture it now, hidden away in someone’s drawer, like Mrs King’s shawl, an anchor of history lost to him.
With his shoulders slumped and his mood low, he went in search of the Rag and Bone Man.
“DON’T SAY A word,” the Rag and Bone Man said as they stood in the hallway on the third floor of York House. “Just watch and listen.”
He knocked on the door of one of the flats. It was opened by a woman in her 40s, who stepped aside to let the Rag and Bone Man enter. The whole thing was done with an air of ceremony. Hal followed him in before she closed the door.
A single candle lit the living room, casting a flickering glow over everything, giving the scene a sense of something cultish and medieval. In daylight, it must have seemed a depressingly normal living room: family pictures hung on the wall, floral-patterned cushions adorned the sofas, and a copy of Queen with Julie Christie on the cover sat on the coffee table.
“I’ve brought my Ward with me today, Mrs Bell,” the Rag and Bone Man said. “He’s learning the ways of my family. Do not worry, he has been sworn to secrecy.”
Mrs Bell looked at Hal, noticing him for the first time. “Well, take your shoes off and sit over there.”
Hal did as she bid, picking a shadowy spot out of the way.
Mrs Bell sat at the table, closed her eyes and began to measure her breathing, like she was meditating. The Rag and Bone Man went to the kitchen, feeling his way with his hands. Hal watched through the doorway as he filled a kettle with water and began boiling it on the stove. He came back with a teacup and saucer, which he placed on the table in front of Mrs Bell.
When the kettle started to whistle, he didn’t immediately take it off the stove, waiting until the piercing whistle caused Mrs Bell’s nose to wrinkle. He poured the boiling water into her cup, not spilling a drop, then retrieved a small hessian pouch from inside his coat, loosened the neck, and took out a pinch of tea leaves, sprinkling them into the cup. He stirred the liquid once and sat down on the chair opposite Mrs Bell, the candle and the tea between them.
They all sat in silence, Mrs Bell with her eyes closed, the Rag and Bone Man motionless, hands resting in his lap. Hal watched them both. He realised they were waiting for the tea to cool.
“Let us begin,” the Rag and Bone Man said, breaking the uncomfortable silence after a full five minutes. Mrs Bell wriggled in her chair, settling herself. “Last time I read the leaves I told you your son would get sick. Is he better?”
“Oh, yes, I got the doctor round as soon as he got a fever,” Mrs Bell said eagerly. “His chickenpox cleared up in a week.”
“And the disruptive storm I said was coming?”
“Yes, well, I took that to mean my James’ mother, my mother-in-law. She came unannounced for the weekend. I’m sure that’s what you were seeing. Every time she comes, everything gets thrown—”
“The tea should be ready,” the Rag and Bone Man interrupted.
She looked stung at the interruption, but took the cup in both hands like she was drinking from a goblet of communion wine. Lips pursed, she drank the whole thing in one go. The Rag and Bone Man took the cup and saucer from her and repeated the movements Hal had spied in his living room the week before. He placed the saucer on the table and raised the cup, and Mrs Bell leant forward to take a look.
The Rag and Bone Man beckoned Hal forward to take a look at the damp dregs.
“What do you see?” he asked Hal.
With a flicker of surprise at being asked, Hal stared at the tea leaves, trying to pick out a pattern.
“Weeds?”
“Don’t be a dullard,” Mrs Bell snapped. “It’s clearly a crown. Yes?”
Despite his china face, Hal was sure the Rag and Bone Man gave them both a despairing look.
“What I see is that sadly Mrs Bell will lose a friendship and a loved possession, though she may be happier for it. The storm is returning and this time it will stay for longer than before, and be more turbulent. I am afraid, also, that your husband’s having trouble at work.”
Mrs Bell asked questions of the predictions and the Rag and Bone Man offered a little clarity, but kept the specifics, if he knew them, to himself. After a while, he signalled an end to the transaction by blowing out the candle.
On the doorstep, about to leave, the Rag and Bone Man turned and said, “Oh, Mrs Bell, I have a gift for you—” Out of a pocket, he drew the blue shawl he had shown Hal the day before.
“What a marvellous colour,” she said, taking the shawl and holding it up to the light. “I’ll wear it out with the girls later.”
“I HADN’T REALISED there was such ceremony to everything,” Hal said when they got down to the courtyard below. “You didn’t do that yesterday when you told me about the shawl.”
“The ritual is for them. Everyone I read for brings their own ideas of what it should be like. This”—taking the small sackcloth bag out of his coat—“is just PG Tips loose leaf. What did you see me do?”
Hal recounted what he’d seen, focusing on the Rag and Bone Man’s actions. He had gone to the kitchen, boiled the water, brought back the crockery, brewed the tea, flipped the cup.
“Objects hold their owner’s history, I told you this. Mrs Bell will lose a friend when she wears that shawl to see Mrs King later today.”
“You said she’d be happier for it, though.”
“Most people are happier without Mrs King in their lives.”
“And her son, how is his being ill tied up in that cup’s history?”
“When I was in the kitchen I didn’t just pick out one cup and boil the kettle. I listened to a lot of stories. The whisky tumbler had a lot to say about Mr Bell’s performance at work.”
“This is crazy.”
“Is it really so bizarre? Right now, your scientists are plotting the paths of satellites between the gravitational pulls of planets, based not on where the planets are now but where they will be years—decades—from now, when the satellites have travelled the millions of miles to reach them. My people have a gift for perception. What your people need a computer to do, our minds can do by focusing on a teacup.”
“But—”
“Enough, we’ve more work for today.”
HAL AND THE Rag and Bone Man went to more flats. Each time it was different, with the tenants bringing different rituals. One woman answered the door all in black, like she was dressed for a funeral. All the pictures were turned to face the wall or placed face down on shelves. In another, the man had lit incense and listened to his reading while lying on a chaise longue with the Rag and Bone Man sitting on a chair opposite him, like a psychiatrist.
Each time, Hal was asked to interpret the leaves, and each time he found himself looking at indecipherable mulch. Aside from ‘weeds,’ he said he saw a squid, spaghetti, and—when he was feeling a little more frustrated with the routine—a horse ridden by Death. None—particularly the last—seemed to be what the Rag and Bone Man was looking for.
“I DON’T GET it,
” Hal said, when they were back in the courtyard. “Why did you have me try to interpret the tea leaves?”
“That? That was for my own amusement.”
Hal’s face coloured.
“You say you can tell the future of an object just by touching it, and you’re using that gift to convince people in a housing estate in Leeds that you can read tea leaves?”
“Yes.”
“What a monumental waste.”
“My Ward, you don’t know how I came to be here, and you don’t know my ways.” The Rag and Bone Man bent so his face was only inches from Hal’s. “Don’t presume to tell me my duty. Even this small act is a violation, to my brothers and sisters who are happy to be stones in a stream. Go home. We’re done for today.”
Angry at being fobbed off again by an adult, Hal returned to the flat, a plan forming for how he could get answers to the questions the Rag and Bone Man was avoiding.
8
THE NEXT MORNING, after their parents had gone to work, Hal went over to Shahid’s flat. Sitting on Shahid’s bed, Hal told him everything that had happened over the past two days.
“There’s a trick, there’s got to be,” Shahid said. “He’s already lying to the people he’s telling the future for—that whole thing with the tea leaves is an act—so what’s to say he’s telling you the truth?”
“But that doesn’t explain how he found me on the roof,” Hal said. “I’ve got an idea how we can get some answers, without going to the Rag and Bone Man. Remember when we got told off for following him around the estate? It wasn’t him who told our parents, it was someone called Mr Foster.”
“I know him, he’s an old man living in Nielson House. He’s been here as long as anyone; I think he actually moved in when the estate was first opened. He used to be the head of the neighbourhood association. My mum cleans his flat.”
“Well, for some reason, he’s doing jobs for the Rag and Bone Man. He might know something else about him, and I want to know everything we can about the Rag Man before trying to talk to him again.”
SHAHID KNOCKED ON Mr Foster’s door. It looked like all the others—the same concrete facade, the same plywood door with mottled glass—but the man who lived inside had tried to make it his own: a welcome mat and two standing plants framed the entrance.
Through the glass, the boys watched a figure approach the door slowly. They listened to the sound of locks clicking, before it swung inwards to reveal a man bent with age.
“You’ve come,” he said in a rasping voice. “In. Come in.” He beckoned them in.
The boys hesitated, but the man was already turning to go back into his flat. They followed.
“He said you would come, but not when. Never when. Find yourselves somewhere to sit.” Mr Foster gestured at the sofa, threadbare with age. “I’ll make us tea.”
The boys sat close to each other, trying to take in every detail of the packed room. The walls were lined floor-to-ceiling with bookcases, every shelf stuffed. Looking over the spines revealed the mind of a polymath—plays sat next to histories, wedged between manuals on cosmology and volumes of poetry.
The only gap in the cases was filled by a desk littered with papers.
“You must tell me what it was like, what you saw,” Mr Foster said, returning to the living room carrying a tray of cups and a pot of tea. He placed them on the table before the boys, pouring them all a cup before sitting in the chair by his desk. “He’s never shown me, you see. I’ve been asking him for 30 years and then—you’ve been here, what? A month?”
Shahid looked at Hal.
“I don’t know what I saw,” said Hal.
“Your future. He showed you your future, boy.”
“No, I mean the images didn’t make sense—he can’t really see the future—”
“—the tea leaves are an act,” Shahid interrupted.
“Yes, they’re an act,” Mr Foster said. “He doesn’t need the leaves, but what he sees is prophecy. He touches objects and he does see their future.” He turned to face Hal. “You know this, you’ve seen him do it.”
The boys sat silently, not sure what to say to Mr Foster’s certainty.
“You”—pointing at Hal—“you he touched directly. He’s always so careful not to brush against someone. His gloves, coat, it’s all to cover him. Years he’s come to my flat and he’s never even taken off his cap. He’s told me things, yes, but never shown me, not like he showed you.”
Hal frowned.
“Why did you tell our mums we were following him?” Shahid asked.
“He came to me and told me who you were and what I had to do. We had to set you on the path.”
“The path to what?” asked Hal.
“Please, tell me what you saw,” Mr Foster said, leaning forwards in his chair, his eyes fixed intently on Hal. “When he touched you, what did you see?”
“I—I don’t know. There was water. Lightning, I think. Dancing shadows, and a candle on a table? The images were only flashes and they were all over so quickly.”
“It must have been overwhelming,” Mr Foster said, leaning back in his chair with a look of disappointment. “Goan was born with this ability, and has had a lifetime to understand it. It may just be too much for the human brain.”
Mr Foster twisted in his chair and picked up a notepad and pen from his desk, starting to make notes.
“What—” Shahid started. “What did you mean by that?”
“He’s not like us,” Mr Foster was excited, animated. “No, not at all.” Leaning in again, he added, conspiratorially, “He’s not from here.”
“Where is he from, then?” Shahid asked.
“I don’t know, but it’s not Earth.”
“Bollocks,” the boys said in unison.
“What’s an alien doing in a housing estate in Leeds?” Hal said.
“They’re hiding.”
The boys waited for Mr Foster to continue.
“From their war,” he eventually added.
“‘They’?” asked Shahid.
“I don’t know it all—or I did, but I lost it. Things go missing around them, memories. It’s why I write it all down, now—I’ve been trying to piece it together for years.” The old man indicated his piles of papers. “Their people were being eradicated. It seems being able to see the path of things is a dangerous talent, wherever you come from. Goan, he led a group of refugees here.”
“To Leeds?” Shahid said incredulously.
“No, not to Leeds,” Mr Foster said with annoyance. “They were transported here—I don’t know where from.”
“How many are there?”
“Never been sure. Not many. Twenty, maybe.”
“Where?” Shahid said cynically. “I’ve lived on this estate all my life, and you’re saying I’ve had twenty aliens as my neighbours?”
“You don’t understand. Why would you know? Goan has been walking about the estate your whole life and it never entered your mind. He’s an odd figure, and that’s all you need in this world to shield you from most people’s curiosity. People stare at the strange, but they don’t engage with them. It took him reaching out to draw you in. As to the others, they aren’t like Goan, they don’t leave the boiler room, they hold up there like monks in their cell.”
“Even so, how can they not have been found in 30 years?” Hal asked. “Thousands of people live in Quarry Hill. You can’t keep a secret like that.”
“You can if the right people are keeping it,” Mr Foster said, leaning back in his chair. “The Farreter—that’s what they call themselves—didn’t just wander up to Leeds, they were planned for. This estate was built to keep them safe, at least in part.
“It was Jenkinson’s idea, as far as I know; he was a priest here in Leeds, who looked after the people living in the slums. They were awful places to live, those old terraced houses. He and another man—can’t remember his name, Lively or something—they were on the Council’s housing association and the pair of them designed this place, but und
erneath their plan was a secret purpose—a sanctuary for these unique refugees.”
“They’ve been here the whole time?” Shahid asked again.
“Yes!” Foster replied irritably. “Built into the foundations. When we moved in back in ’38, a few of us were brought in on the scheme. Everyone on the housing committee helped. We didn’t have to do much, they keep to themselves mostly, but if any of the residents started causing trouble, we’d solve the problem quietly, move people along—talking to the mothers of inquisitive boys, mostly. I still have the key to the boiler room, but I’ve not been down there in years; Goan gets them their food now. He only comes to see me to borrow books and talk with a human. I don’t think he can stand his brothers’ cloistered life.”
“But, why here?” Hal asked.
“I don’t think this was the long-term plan, but the war changed things. Where could they go to, where people wouldn’t ask questions? At least here they were settled in, and there were people in place to keep them safe. Now, though, most that knew about them are dead, or have moved away and forgotten about them.”
“How could you forget about a thing like this?” Shahid asked.
“You’ll see. It’s something they do—or something our minds do to themselves. The Farreter slip from your memory, if you aren’t careful.”
THE BOYS SPENT all afternoon with Mr Foster, Shahid making them teas while they talked about what Hal might have seen—the old man was certain, with practice, a human could make sense of the visions. Hal tried to dig into the Farreter’s history before Quarry Hill and find out why they were on Earth, but Mr Foster either didn’t know or couldn’t remember the details. Hal didn’t realise how draining this was until they left and Shahid had to help him walk back to the flat.
Back home, Hal got into bed, making sure there was nothing to give away his excursion to his mum when she returned from work.
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