by Nina Bawden
He got off his chair and went to her. She took his hands and held him between her knees, looking up at him. He could smell the onions on her breath, and her sweat. She was an ugly old woman and not very clean. But she was a kind person. He said, “I’m sorry you had to stay in the orphanage. If I’d been a grown up, I would have chosen you.”
She cackled at that, but in a pleased, friendly way, laughing with him, not at him. She said, “Get along, you soft ha’porth, if you go on like that I’ll be startin’ to think I don’t want to lose you.”
It was lovely riding pillion on Samson’s big bike. Alex had been alarmed to begin with, when Jake first tied the scarf round his eyes, but in a way being blind made it much more exciting; all sound and motion, the roar of the engine, the smooth tilt and swoop as the bike rounded corners. Pressed close to Samson’s leather jacketed back, arms clinging around him, he felt both safe and exhilarated; part of the beautiful, powerful machine, moving with it. Twenty times, fifty times better than skating! Like being a huge bird, he thought, free and graceful.
He could have gone on for ever, flying blind through the warm night. When the bike stopped and Samson lifted him off the pillion he staggered, losing his balance. Samson caught his arm and unfastened the scarf. He said, “Okay, kiddo. On your own now. Know where you are? Where old Poll picked you up, just about.”
They were in a quiet, narrow street. Lamps threw yellow puddles of light. Dark beyond them. A mournful hoot from the river. Alex said, “near the Embankment.”
“Right,” Samson said. “Back where you started from an’ no hassle. Smart lad, our Jake.”
“He didn’t have to blindfold me,” Alex said. “I wouldn’t have told anyone where I’d been.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Samson said. He got back on the bike, and grinned down at Alex. He said, “Nice knowing you, kiddo.”
Suddenly, Alex didn’t want him to go. He said, “Thank you for the ride, it was fabulous, Samson. I wish I had a motor-bike…”
But Samson was revving up too loudly to hear. He shouted, “Straight home now. No more messing about.”
The noise of the engine echoed back from the dark walls either side. After that, silence. Sunday night, the City was empty of people, dark and mysterious. Like a City of the Dead, Alex thought, a bit fearfully. He hurried away from it, down to the river, to the welcoming lights strung along the Embankment, and, a short walk away, an Underground station. The last bus had probably gone, but there might be a train. At home, they would be in bed by now. He would have to ring the bell, wake them up. Mum and Dad wouldn’t mind but he hoped that Bob and Ellie wouldn’t be scared by someone coming to the door late at night. He worried about that, a little, but it wasn’t until he got to the station and felt in his pocket that real anxiety seized him. He had no money. Not enough for his fare, anyway. Three two-pence pieces and one half-penny. That was enough for the telephone. But there was only one kiosk inside the station. And the sign on the door said, Out Of Order.
Several people were going through the barrier, to the trains. Most of them seemed in a hurry, looking straight ahead, purposeful. There was one lady with a kind face he thought he could ask but he hesitated too long. Before he could reach her, she had followed the others. Now there was only a man left, putting coins into the ticket machines. Alex stood beside him. He said, “Please, Sir…” The man turned and looked at him. One side of his face was quite ordinary, the other, shockingly and hideously scarred, with what looked like a bunch of purple grapes hanging from the shrunken socket where his eye should have been. Alex stammered, “I’m s-sorry…” And ran.
Out of the station, he was ashamed almost at once. It must be dreadful to look so frighteningly ugly that people ran away from you. But he was afraid to go back; afraid, even, to look back over his shoulder in case he should see the man staring after him.
He walked on, whistling softly under his breath. He could walk home. It was only about six miles, it wouldn’t take much more than an hour and a half. But the way home lay through the deserted, dark City. And he was tired. His legs were tired, and his mind. Once he got home there would be so many questions.
He hadn’t meant to visit the scene of his Finding, but when he came to Cleopatra’s Needle with the two bronze Sphinx either side, it seemed a natural and comforting place to be. He climbed the steps and sat between the arms of the left hand Sphinx, knees drawn up to his chest, head resting against the cold stone, watching a long barge gliding past, ripples widening slowly behind it, flashing silver where the light caught them, rocking the water against the wet walls below him.
It was very peaceful. The bridges arched beads of light across the dark water, and the river flowed under them, thick and wrinkled and slow. Poll had said that his mother had been tired of life. She had said, let her rest in peace. Peace was a sweet word. His mother had laid him down here, in the arms of the Sphinx, and gone into the quiet, peaceful river, like a mermaid going home to the sea. He thought about that with a kind of sad wonder, seeing her for a moment quite clearly, young and dark-eyed like the girl in the photograph. Then she seemed to fade in his mind and other thoughts came.
He wished he could have a motor-bike, a big one like Samson’s. Perhaps Dad would let him buy one when he was older. Mum wouldn’t like it, she would be frightened, but Dad might persuade her. He would be rich enough to afford it. Rich enough to buy a house, Poll had said. He would buy a big house by the sea and find people to live in it, go out to look for them and take them home with him; the lost children, the ugly ones, all the sad, lonely people. Laura could live with him too, and help him look after them, and make them happy again. And perhaps, when Mum and Dad were quite old, they would come too, and live in a big, bright, sunny room, facing the sea…
He was yawning. His eyes were closing. His thoughts seemed to be floating away from him like the pieces of driftwood floating past on the river. Big Ben struck the hour, twelve solemn strokes booming down river, on a cool wind that stirred his hair gently, but he didn’t hear them. He didn’t hear the car stop. He didn’t even hear Laura’s excited laughter.
This time he was fast asleep when they found him.
Also by Nina Bawden
THE ROBBERS
Philip is happy living by the sea – in a real castle – with his grandmother. So he’s not pleased when his father calls him to London to meet his new wife. But the city isn’t as unpleasant as he suspected, especially after he meets Darcy, a boy who lives on the other side of the canal. But when Philip has to decide whether to obey his father or help Darcy, it’s the most difficult decision of his life…