‘One of us?’ Victor asked.
‘Get out of it.’ Evil was looking at the little field, where the donkey still stood in the shadows watching, one ear back and one ear forward. ‘When the admiral gets aboard, he’s going to find someone there who’s a bigger ass than he is.’
He opened the gate of the field and went in. He took off his broad belt with the death’s head buckle that Lynette had given him, and put it round the neck of the donkey, who followed him patiently out of the field.
The donkey in the sea! What were they going to do to this poor animal? Rose thought it was awful, but Lynette thought it was hilarious, and having quite recovered her spirits, helped to push the donkey down the narrow gangplank and on to the deck of the boat.
Evil and Victor went with him on to the yacht, and Evil took the belt off the donkey’s neck and put it back on himself, with an arrogant hitch of his tight black jeans. He strutted about the deck, giving orders in a plummy voice, and saying, ‘Put that man in irons,’ and the others on the dock, for a laugh, untied the ropes that held the boat and pretended they were going to push it off. They pulled the gangplank up on to the dock, so that Victor and Evil, yelling blue murder, had to jump for it.
They were all in fits of laughter, fooling about, pushing and shoving each other, and making daft jokes, while the donkey stood leaning against the side of the cabin with its head down.
‘Looks a bit seasick, don’t he?’
The white lifebelt hanging on the boat’s rail was painted with the name ‘Princess Vicky’. To have a boat called after you! But Lynette didn’t want to be awed. She pointed to the lifebelt and shrieked, ‘Princess Sicky! Yuck, yuck!’ and they all rolled about and bent over the edge of the dock, making disgusting vomiting noises.
‘Let’s really give them a shock!’ Lynette, who was wildly excited, wanted to throw the mooring ropes back on to the deck and let the boat go out to sea, but to Rose’s relief, the others decided that was too dodgy. And all of a sudden, Evil was bored with it, so the others had to be bored with it too.
They refastened the ropes by giving them a couple of turns round each bollard, although Rose was trying desperately to make Lynette’s fingers do the half hitches that Vicky had tied so expertly.
Giggling about what the toffee-noses would think when they came back and found the donkey, the whole gang hared across the car park, jammed on their helmets, jumped on their bikes, roared the engines and swerved off down the lane and on to the main road.
There was a roaring in Rose’s ears when she came back from this journey and found herself leaning against the white gate, with the wood behind her and the hotel in front, its turrets and chimneys and gables silhouetted darkly against the night sky.
She shook her head to clear it and swung round, but the wood was empty and silent. No blurred yellow lanternlight moved among the trees. No one was waiting there.
Had they ever been? Her own wood and garden and the back of the hotel looked so familiar and innocent that it was hard to imagine the danger that had lurked there. But now there was a danger that was new and immediate. The donkey struggling in the sea must be the donkey that had been dragged on to the boat. Had he jumped or fallen overboard and been swept out to sea? Would the sloppily-tied ropes come loose, and the boat drift away from the dock with the outgoing tide?
Had all this happened already, or was it something that was going to happen next month, next week, tomorrow? Safely in her own room without waking anyone, Rose lay on her back in bed, staring at the ceiling as if it were a screen on which she could see answers. She thought of one. She could go to the marina and see if the donkey was still in the little field. Brilliant. She turned over and made her brilliant brain go blank and fell instantly asleep.
There was a film on in Newcome that Rose and Ben both wanted to see, and Mr Kelly agreed to drop them off at the cinema, which was on the far side of the town near the estuary of the river. As part of her brilliant plan, Rose looked up the wrong time in the paper, and told Ben’s father that the afternoon show started half an hour before it actually did.
‘Stupid Rosie,’ Ben said when his father had driven off and they found they were too early. ‘Why can’t you learn to look things up right?’
‘Because I’m stupid,’ Rose said happily. ‘Let’s go and get something to eat. There’s a new American ice cream place on the other side of the bridge. Want to try it?’
‘What are we waiting for?’
They ran. Ben always ran everywhere. It was quite tiring going out with him.
Rose had seen the ‘Texas Ice Cream Parlour’ when she was on the back of Evil’s motorcycle as Lynette. The gang had stopped there briefly and rattled the door because it was locked. It was on the corner of the short lane that led to the marina.
After the hot chocolate fudge nut sundae, Rose took Ben to see the boats. The motor yacht Princess Vicky was not there. So either it had not arrived yet, or the worst had happened and it had already drifted away from the dock.
While Ben was looking at the smaller yachts tied up at the slips, Rose turned towards the little paddock, and saw that it was empty.
Oh, my God, then it had happened, and that poor patient donkey she had seen being dragged and pushed on to the boat was already out at sea, or in the sea, struggling to keep its white nose above the waves.
The door of the whitewashed cottage opened. An elderly man came out and whistled, and, to Rose’s immense relief, the dark brown donkey emerged from a lean-to shed and went slowly towards him.
The man limped out to the donkey and fed him with something out of his hand. Then the donkey stood with its legs askew underneath it, like a ricketty table, and rested its nose in the man’s hand while he stroked the side of its broad cheek.
As soon as Rose saw him limp, she realized that she knew him. The same balding head and red cheeks and fond smile. What was left of his hair was white now, and he was thinner and more bent, but she recognized him as the donkey man who had given Georgie and her family rides on Newcome beach about twenty years ago, when Rose had been Ruth.
And the donkey – of course it was the larky foal, now grown old. The same white stomach and nose. The same curious white rings round his eyes which made him look as if he were wearing huge clownish spectacles. Gully … Little Gully. Favour must have taken her on that first journey to show her that her mission this time was to save a donkey; and because she was concentrating on the people, she had been too blind to see that.
So nothing had happened yet, thank God, but because of the gang, it would. If she tried to warn the donkey man, he would think she had gone barmy, and so would Ben. She had tried that before – warning people about something she knew and they didn’t – and it had fallen as flat as a lead balloon. No one took any notice, except to tap their heads pityingly as if she had gone off her rocker.
The old man looked up and saw her. She waved at him.
‘Nice donkey!’
He tilted his head as if he couldn’t hear. Oh dear. Shouting at him would make it even harder. Should she … shouldn’t she…? Ben made up her mind for her by saying, ‘Come on, we’ll be late for the film,’ and dragging her off to run up the lane and over the bridge.
She could hardly follow the film. Her mind was in a turmoil. The old man, the yacht, the gang, Evil with those flat eyes like the Lord’s sinister henchman, the memory of the man and the donkey standing quietly together like old friends …
The hectic, noisy picture on the screen blurred and faded, and the lighted space was full of the sea. Nearer to the shore this time, small waves breaking, retreating, surging forward, retreating again with a rush and rattle of pebbles.
From out of the sea, the donkey staggered, fell over in the breaking waves, found his feet again and dragged himself towards the beach. His coat was plastered slimily to his heaving sides, his sagging belly dripping, his eyes dull and staring.
He gained the sand and collapsed on his side, short legs stretched out stiffly, stomach bloa
ted, square head extended with the eyes closed, mauve tongue showing between long yellow teeth. The shallow water, advancing and receding, washed over him as he lay there motionless.
He might be dead.
‘I didn’t tell the donkey man. I couldn’t. Oh, Stavingo, I feel I’ve messed it up, but what was I supposed to do?’
Rose had gone to find Mr Vingo when she got back from the cinema. He was in his turret room practising the last part of The Ballad of the Great Grey Horse, which he was going to play for Frank Foley when he came to Wood Briar tomorrow.
When he saw that Rose had a lot to tell, he stopped playing and shut the piano and cleared some books and papers and clothes off a chair and sat down to listen closely. He had better concentration than most grown-ups.
Rose sat on the bed. ‘I couldn’t tell Ben, and the old man seemed a bit deaf, and anyway I’ve tried warning people before, and it never works. Why doesn’t it? Why can’t a messenger stop something before it happens?’
‘Because something has to take place before we can react to it.’
‘You mean, like if the person on the other side of the tennis court doesn’t serve the ball over the net, you can’t hit it back.’
‘Excellently put. Messengers can’t change the course of history. They can only take care of its casualties.’
‘As long as it’s not too late. If you had seen that poor exhausted donkey lying in the edge of the water like a lump of seaweed! I can’t let him die, but what can I do? I’ve no idea which beach he was on, or when it will all happen, and we’re so busy here. I can’t possibly keep hanging round the dock to see when the yacht turns up. What would you do, Stavingo?’
‘Trust the horse?’ He raised an arched black eyebrow like a furry caterpillar. ‘He’ll give you the clues.’
‘Of course. Why do I forget that?’
‘Because he gives you the responsibility to act on your own. Not like the ugly servants of the Lord of the Moor, who have to do exactly what he tells them.’
‘Listen.’ Rose reached behind her to look out of the door, although everyone in the hotel was much too busy to eavesdrop, and the Miss Mumfords couldn’t get up the corkscrew staircase. ‘I met one.’
Mr Vingo leaned forward as she lowered her voice. ‘One what?’
‘One of the evil spirits who work for the Lord. He’s in this. I saw him once, as a soldier, and now he’s the leader of the gang. He’s even known as ‘Evil’, as if the Lord had named him. And listen, it’s amazing, but guess what?’
‘Amaze me.’
‘I’m pretty sure he’s the one who almost ran you down in the road.’
‘I am amazed.’ Mr Vingo rubbed his shoulder, which had been sore ever since Rose had pulled him backwards into the sand. ‘This is fascinating, the weaving of the enemy in and out of all the various phases of reality. I wonder if he recognizes you in any of your time changes and different guises. I think you’ve discovered a new manifestation, Rose of all Roses.’
‘Or they’ve dreamed it up because, this time, the Lord will not be overcome.’
‘Don’t say that.’ Mr Vingo stood up. ‘Don’t even think it. You can do it, Rose, strong heart of shining courage.’
She stood up, much shorter than him, and not feeling strong or courageous.
‘I’m afraid,’ she admitted in a whisper.
‘Splendid!’ He threw back his head and shouted so loud that the wires of the little piano twanged. ‘That makes the courage even more spectacular.’
‘Who’s up there?’ Smasher’s voice came up the stairs. ‘Rose, are you up there? Been looking for you everywhere.’
‘Coming!’
‘There’s three parties booked for dinner and the cream’s gone off and the tumble dryer’s bust and The General has brought in a ton of earth from the garden that he says is beets, and you’re up there, gassing about nothing!’
Chapter Eight
When Frank Foley arrived at the hotel, Rose took him up to Mr Vingo’s room.
‘Excuse the mess,’ Mr Vingo said, although Rose could see that he had made an effort to tidy up before the librarian came.
Frank sat on the chair. Rose sat on the end of the bed, her arms on her knees and her head down, her hair swinging forward over her face. She did not want Frank to look at her, because she was always tremendously affected by Mr Vingo’s music for The Ballad of the Great Grey Horse.
‘The horse has galloped himself to a standstill,’ Mr Vingo explained as he started to play, ‘but they are still too far away to warn the villagers. The swollen stream before them is too deep for the horse to wade through and too wide to jump. But with a despairing effort – he jumps!’ A crash of powerful chords. ‘And the boy Alan slides off his back and runs ahead shouting through the rain and wind.’
As he played, the storm was in the music, the wind wailing with an urgency that filled Rose’s ears and caught her up into the rescue scene, as if she were there while it was happening. She was in the scene, but not part of it. She could only watch.
Alan, the young son of one of the soldiers at the castle above the valley, had stolen the Lord’s charger and ridden him on this life-or-death mission to warn the people in the village below about the approaching flood. The notes of the piano rushed and hurried and stumbled over each other as Alan ran headlong, falling over stones and into ditches, climbing a fence to hammer on the door of the nearest cottage.
‘The flood – the flood! Run for your lives!’
His voice was hoarse and ragged. He flung himself against the door of the barn. ‘Run for your lives! Get the people and the animals out!’
Doors opened, and people began to come out of the buildings into the drenching rain. Looking up the valley, they could see the swollen river cresting in a wide wave. They ran, dragging children, carrying bundles and babies, driving cows and sheep before them. A sick woman was hoisted on to a farm horse. An old man was pushed in a rough wooden barrow.
‘Save yourselves!’ they called to each other, and all the time, Rose could hear the music behind their shrieking voices. ‘Run!’
Alan was running too, but not with them. He was running in the other direction, back up the valley to the stream where Favour had collapsed on the muddy bank. His hind legs had slipped down, the hoofs in the water. When Alan reached him, he made a final effort with his great shoulders to pull himself up, but his front feet scrabbled uselessly and he sank down.
Alan fell on his knees. He stroked the horse’s head with both his hands, and stared wildly into the dimming eyes.
‘Don’t die,’ he sobbed. ‘I can’t live if you die.’
‘Hurry! Hurry!’ The last departing villagers had turned back and were shouting for him.
Alan looked towards them, then back at the torrent of water that was beginning to surge over the river banks and into the stream where Favour lay, then down at the horse’s rain-dark head.
‘Come with us, boy – save yourself!’
Alan bent and whispered something that Rose could not hear over the tumult of rain and wind. But as a disembodied watcher, she was close enough to see that the horse raised his head slightly. His eyes opened wider for a moment and brightened with a message of life that passed between him and the boy. Then the light went out and the noble head sank into the mud.
With a cry of despair, Alan stood up and ran towards the doomed buildings. Someone thrust a small child and a tiny lamb into his arms, and he climbed with the few remaining people up the side of the valley, away from the relentless flood waters.
At the top, he turned away from the straggling crowd of peasants and crying children and cows and pigs and goats. As Rose looked back with him, seeing what he saw, she could hear through the wind the melody of the beautiful lament, ‘Death of a Hero’.
The stream over which Favour had made his last triumphant leap was now one with the surging river. It had risen over the horse’s hindquarters and was reaching to his shoulders. He lay there with the water washing over him, like the br
own donkey lying at the edge of the sea.
‘The water, the water …’ Rose gasped. She woke in tears, not knowing where she was.
‘Rose,’ Mr Vingo said gently, and she was back in the room, crying, her hands clutching the edge of the bed.
‘You are deeply affected by the music.’ Frank Foley bent forward to look at her curiously. ‘I’m not surprised. I found it wonderfully moving.’
‘Sorry.’ Rose wiped her eyes and shook back her hair. ‘It’s just that I …’ she stammered, still dizzy from the impact of what she had seen. ‘Mr Vingo told me – I mean, I know some of the story, so I …’
‘Are you all right?’
She nodded, not looking at him.
Mr Vingo gave her a vast clean handkerchief, and poured out orange squash for everybody, to give her a chance to recover.
‘It’s spectacular music for what is certainly a very dramatic story,’ the librarian said. ‘The water flooded everything. The little houses of the settlement were swept away, the fishing boats were swamped, and foundered. Later, it seems, there was a landslide higher up the valley, which dammed the waters of the river into a lake – what they now call Noah’s Bowl. The villagers camped for a while on higher ground, and then, because they were fishermen as well as farmers, they travelled west and eventually settled near the bay. They called their new home Newcome, because they were newly come there.’
‘How do you know all this?’ Rose asked.
‘There are a few ancient records, fortunately, otherwise we wouldn’t know anything about that primitive little settlement in the valley below the castle.’
But Rose knew. From the jutting rock where Favour had so often waited for her, she had seen the huddle of houses and barns, and the tiny white boats at anchor far below.
‘As the water receded below the lake,’ the librarian went on, ‘it left a broad marsh where the river mouth and the harbour used to be, farther east of here, along the coast, beyond the headland of Sandy Neck. It’s a bird sanctuary now, although they say that at dead low tide you can sometimes still see a small part of the rocks that once formed the harbour wall.’
Cry of a Seagull Page 7