Runners

by Ann Kelley

  ‘Can we build a sandcastle?’

  Hazel glanced around her anxiously.

  Sid tried to reassure them. ‘No razor-wire here, is there, eh? No coastguards. Don’t worry, it’s safe here, really.’ He swung the child down onto the path.

  The little girls looked wide-eyed at Hazel for her to give the final permission.

  ‘You can, yes, go on.’ And the three little ones ran down to the beach and began finding pebbles and shells and building a castle with their hands, as if nothing awful had happened. As if they had not seen the bullet-torn bodies of loved ones. As if it was normal to have been nearly burnt to death under the floor of a caravan. As if they had not been hidden away in a dense wood for as long as they could remember and had not seen the open sky.

  ‘What happened, boy?’ Gaz was anxious.

  ‘The rest of the New-Earthers are all dead. These are the only survivors.’

  ‘Reducers?’

  Sid nodded.

  ‘Rose?’

  Sid nodded again, lowering his eyes.

  Gaz looked stricken, and put both hands to his head. He walked down the beach on his own, ignoring the girls. Izzi didn’t know who to be with, Gaz or Sid. He ran from one to the other, barking and whining.

  Hazel sat on a rock, keening at the sea, her clothes dark with her mother’s blood. Sid was suddenly shy with her. He stood close by, but didn’t interrupt her in her grief.

  Was it really safe for the children to play on the beach? His eyes razed the sky – no helicopters. And Gaz had said that no coastguards bothered with this part of the coast. He’d never seen any. No Runners would attempt to sail here, it was too hazardous a coastline. You had to be a local to know the fierce currents and where rocks and wrecks hid beneath the waves. And it was true: there was no land between here and America apart from the Isles of Scilly – or the one that still existed, if it really did.

  Gaz came back along the beach after a while, his face set in a fixed smile. ‘Come on, you must be hungry.’

  He poked at the fish stew with a stick, adding a handful of mussels and the stalks of snowbell to it. He said to Sid, ‘Make up beds for them in the new part, you share with me.’

  Hazel washed the children in the buckets of rainwater and dressed them in the change of underwear she had managed to salvage.

  ‘What shall I do with their soiled clothes?’ she asked Sid.

  ‘Give them to me. I’ll sort them later.’

  She untied the bundle of blankets and helped Sid make room in the tiny hut.

  ‘I built this bit,’ he said, wanting to impress her.

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yeah. Don’t worry about Gaz. He’s orright, taught me all sorts. Dowsing and that. He’s got a sailing boat.’

  ‘A boat?’

  ‘Yeah, we’re going to find the safe island – Scilly.’

  ‘Scilly?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard about it? Runners’ safe island?’

  ‘Thought it was a myth.’

  Sid didn’t know what a myth was, but didn’t want to show his ignorance. ‘It’s off Land’s End.’

  She smiled at him and took his hand. ‘Thank you for saving us, Sid.’

  He felt himself blushing.

  ‘Any time,’ he said, his hand burning. It hadn’t occurred to him before that moment, that they could really sail to Scilly, but he had wanted to give her hope. And thinking about it later, when he was lying awake listening to the sobs of the bereft children, he decided that he would try to persuade Gaz that it would be a good idea, a solution. They would be safe from the Reducers and the TA. There would be other Runners there. They would build a new life together.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  NEXT DAY GAZ got up earlier than usual, long before dawn, when the only sound was the sea’s constant roll and boom, the south-westerly wind moaning and sobbing, and distant gulls calling in the dark mist. He took a spade and set off over the fields. The low-hanging sea-fret masked and soaked everything. Diamonds hung heavily from cobwebs. A vixen slunk away from the man smell and the scent of dog that seemed to be part of the man smell.

  Sid, when he had drunk some water and washed himself, mended the roof, which still leaked on one side, and washed the children’s soiled clothes in rain water. He built a cooking fire. He loved to build a fire. It felt good, right, natural. He felt like a man.

  After hanging up the washing on a makeshift washing line, Hazel fed the little ones with the remains of a bread pudding that she had brought from the camp, and spent most of the day searching the rocks for winkles, limpets and mussels, trying not to think of the horrors of the last day in Freedom Farm. She grieved for Moth, her mother. She missed the comfort of the community of women, the communal cooking and sewing. They had shared the care of the children. Now, it seemed that it was all up to her. It was obvious to her that Gaz wanted nothing to do with them, and Sid had other duties around the place. Work was therapeutic. It was when she stopped that the sorrow overwhelmed her.

  She had thought that the little ones were remarkably stoic. But today, they were all tearful. Sweetpea in particular, who had always been a difficult child to please. She didn’t like fish or shellfish. She didn’t like rabbit. She didn’t like nuts, she hated green stuff. She had never been sociable and now she refused to have anything to do with the others and she refused to eat. Hazel was anxious about her and when Sid sat down at last she told him.

  ‘Has she tried mushrooms?’

  ‘Yes. Doesn’t like them.’

  ‘Apples?’

  ‘Fruit is about the only thing she will eat.’

  ‘If she’s hungry enough she’ll eat,’ said Sid. He was sure his mother had used the same words about Lo when she was being finicky.

  It started to rain, drizzle at first, then more heavily. Hazel called the little ones and took them into the shack. They huddled together under the blankets.

  ‘Why did we leave Freedom Farm?’ asked Sand. ‘I like it there, it’s much better. I want donkey.’

  Hazel cuddled the child, unable to answer.

  ‘Hello, can I come in?’ Sid peered into the muggy room. It was a sad sight. The motherless girl and children, huddled together, all weeping.

  ‘What’s this?’ he knelt and plucked a seashell from Sweetpea’s ear. The little ones looked astonished.

  ‘I want one, I want one,’ demanded Sand.

  He conjured a cockleshell from her ear, too. Then a small white pebble from Lo’s ear.

  ‘It’s magic. Sid can do lots of magic,’ she said, proudly. The small girls smiled through their tears. Hazel thanked him silently; her black eyelashes heavy with tears. She blinked and smiled at him.

  ‘Do it again, do it again,’ they begged.

  From Hazel’s ear he took a piece of smooth blue beach glass. ‘Same colour as your eyes,’ he said to her.

  Gaz returned late, grey with exhaustion, and instead of going to the shack, he went to a high flat rock way out at the edge of the cove, and sat on his own watching the watery sun drop heavily into the ocean.

  Sid was hungry. He scrambled over the rocks to where the man sat hunched. ‘Shall I cook tea?’ Sid asked.

  ‘Do what you like, boy.’ Gaz’s voice was quiet and flat with controlled emotion.

  Sid was angry. He couldn’t manage to look after them all on his own. He cobbled together a meal of boiled rice with a few herbs in, and a dozen mussels opened over the fire. And a pot of herb tea. There weren’t enough tin mugs for them all, or dishes, or spoons, and they had to share. Gaz still sat on in the dark, but now Izzi kept him company.

  ‘Is he all right about us being here?’ Hazel asked, as she washed the few dishes.

  ‘Course he is. Just unhappy, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, so am I!’ Hazel sobbed, throwing down the rag she had been using. ‘My mother’s dead, and all my friends.’

  Sid didn’t know what to say or do. His throat was tight with grief for his own parents, too, but he couldn’t talk about it
. At least he had Lo.

  Hazel was reading a bedtime story to the children, who were cocooned in blankets and huddled close to her.

  ‘I want to talk to you about something,’ Sid said to Gaz, who had been away all day again and now ate on his own outside the shack, away from the sound of children.

  He was silent for a while after listening to Sid’s plan.

  ‘What makes you think I want to go to Scilly?’

  ‘A helicopter only has to spot one of the kids on the beach and we’re all done for. Someone could tell on us. The farmers, perhaps.’

  ‘Your problem, not mine. I didn’t ask you to bring them all here. I was all right on my own before you came.’

  Gaz threw down his tin plate and walked away to the other end of the beach. Sid spat on the sand and followed him.

  Later, Sid and Hazel sat by the dying fire.

  ‘He doesn’t want us here, does he?’ She held her knees.

  ‘He’s a loner, that’s all. Not used to lots of kids.’

  ‘What about the island?’

  ‘He’s not sure. The boat’s only small. It might not get there.’ Actually, Gaz had refused outright to consider it. It was too dangerous, they hadn’t got a chance of reaching the island. Too many of them for the small boat. But Sid wasn’t about to dash her hopes, just like that.

  ‘I see.’ Hazel shrugged her shoulders. ‘We’ll leave. Go find somewhere else to stay.’ She straightened her back and stared into the fire.

  ‘No, no, you can’t go. Please don’t go. I’ll look after you.’

  She shook her head. ‘What about the people up on the hill in the cottages? Might they be able to hide us?’ She had no faith in the boy.

  ‘Don’t you like it here?’

  ‘The man doesn’t want us.’

  She lowered her head.

  Shy, but determined to comfort her, Sid moved closer and put an arm around her. She leant her head on his shoulder and sobbed.

  Gaz kept himself to himself. He reluctantly cooked for them but avoided the youngsters as much as possible, given the cramped living quarters. He went to other coves; he went fishing alone. He festered, not bothering to wash or change his clothes, not talking to Sid. He threw stones at tin cans on rocks. He became morose and uncommunicative. Sid was confused. Gaz had said he could bring Lo back to his hut. Why not the others? It wasn’t fair of him.

  Even Izzi was affected by his moodiness. He lay next to Gaz, sighing loudly, his head on his paws, his eyes looking sadly from Sid to the man and back to Sid.

  After the initial shock and numbness, Sweetpea couldn’t shift from her small head the horrors of the day the camp was invaded. She screamed at night as nightmares overtook her. Hazel slept with her, cuddled her and tried to soothe her, but the little girl was inconsolable. Sand was subdued but didn’t cry. Hazel was worried about her. Sand seemed content to play during the day, but at night she cried quietly, privately, keeping up a low wail, not able to conjure the comfort of sleep. Dark circles appeared under her eyes, she lost weight. She wet the bed. Hazel had to wash blankets almost every day and dry them on the rocks or the washing line behind the hut.

  Izzi was sensitive to the children’s grief. He began to howl at night. Gaz tied him to the boat in the cave to muffle the racket.

  Sid spent at least an hour each day in the water, swimming. Since his near drowning in the flood he had determined that he would never feel that helpless in water again. He was impervious to the cold, and loved the feeling of power in his arms and shoulders as he crawled through the waves.

  ‘Teach me, Sid, teach me to swim.’

  ‘Okay, Lo, it’s easy. See how Izzy does it.’ The dog performed with his doggy paddle, barking in joy as the children splashed around him.

  Lo learned fast, they all did, running into the surf and letting the waves carry them back to the beach on their tummies. He watched over the girls as if he was a sheep dog watching his flock.

  Looking through the stuff in the cave that Gaz had found over the years, Sid found an old surfboard. It was scratched and dented but he sanded it down and waxed it with a stub of candle and spent hours teaching himself to surf on the big rollers that came into the cove. He would lie belly down and paddle out over the surf until the beach was about two hundred yards away. Izzi often swam out to join him, barking happily and wagging his tail behind him. Sid would lie there, waiting for the rise of a good wave, and as he felt the surge take the board under him, he stood, leaning and balancing while the wave sped him past the black rocks into the shallows.

  On shore he spent time with Hazel, showing her edible seaweeds and fungi, teaching her the things that he had learned. She, in turn, taught him to cook and sew. Together, they mended the little girls’ clothes and patched Gaz’s fisherman’s smocks. Sid kept pricking his fingers, but he persevered, and she praised the tidiness of his small stitches.

  The children went barefoot. One day, Sand trod on a weaver fish in the shallows. She howled with the excruciating pain of the sting from its barb. Sid carried her quickly to the hut and Gaz roused himself to heat a pan of water and hold her foot in it until the pain had eased. He was surprisingly gentle with the small girl, Sid noticed, soothing her cries, wiping her nose for her, and he actually sang a silly song to her until she stopped crying and began to smile. Sid had never heard Gaz sing before.

  ‘Half a pound of tuppeny rice,

  Half a pound of treacle,

  That’s the way the money goes,

  Pop goes the weasel.’

  At the word ‘pop’ he touched the end of her button nose and made her laugh.

  ‘Are you our daddy? asked Sweetpea. The man flushed. He laughed, confused.

  ‘He’s my daddy,’ said Sand.

  ‘He’s my daddy, too,’ pronounced Lo.

  All of them sat round Gaz, each one trying to control their emotions, though none of them could have said why they felt like crying.

  The little girls spent their time playing with Izzi, throwing bits of driftwood into the water for him to retrieve, except Sweetpea, who didn’t like dogs. They built fairy castles in the sand, decorating them with shells and pebbles. They splashed in the shallows, showered under the little waterfalls that spurted from the cliff. It took them no time at all to discover the cave and make a den in the boat.

  ‘I’m going to sail the boat,’ announced Lo to Sand and Sweetpea.

  ‘Me don’t like boats,’ said Sweetpea.

  ‘Me don’t like boats,’ said Sand.

  ‘You’re a pooey-face,’ shouted Lo, turning her back on them.

  ‘You’re a pooey-face, too,’ shouted Sand and threw a handful of small pebbles at the departing child.

  Hazel decided that it was time the children went back to school. She sat them down on a rock, and read to them. There was no paper for them to write or draw on.

  ‘They could use the charcoal,’ she said to Gaz. ‘Use the back of your paintings?’

  ‘Do what you like,’ he said, walking away. There’s been no drawing or painting for him since the girls had arrived. There was no peace, no room, no way to escape first the sounds of grief, then later, the squeals and shrieks of small children playing. More than anything, he was missing Rose.

  One bright windy day, Sid said, ‘What date is it?’

  ‘Ninth April,’ said Gaz, ‘or thereabouts.’ He had a calendar of sorts, which he had drawn on one wall of their room.

  ‘I think it’s my birthday.’ Sid beamed.

  ‘Seriously? How old are you?’ said Hazel.

  ‘Sixteen,’ he lied.

  ‘We’ll have a party.’

  Hazel organised the three little ones to build a birthday cake with sand and pebbles, little twigs as candles. That evening, after another supper of limpets and mussels, and with a rare tin of beans, she got them all to sit in a circle around the sandcastle, even Gaz. Each girl had found or made him a present – Sand found a perfectly round white pebble; Hazel made a belt of shells with holes in strung onto a
length of blue nylon that she had found on the beach, and Sweetpea found a mermaid’s purse – a white cluster of whelk egg sacks. Lo presented him with a perfect sea urchin skeleton. ‘It looks like a potato, doesn’t it?’ she said, and gave him a big kiss. They sang Happy Birthday, except Gaz, who sat morosely silent.

  The cooking fire was dying, and Hazel took Sid’s hand as they sat and gazed into the embers.

  ‘I need to go back to Freedom,’ she said. ‘There might be things we could use.’

  ‘I think the fire destroyed it all.’

  ‘There’s bound to be stuff that’s survived.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘I don’t want to leave the children with Gaz. He won’t look after them.’

  ‘I’ll ask him to,’ said Sid.

  ‘I don’t trust him. He doesn’t like us.’

  ‘He’s unhappy, is all. He loved Rose, I think.’ Sid was embarrassed to use the word ‘love’.

  ‘He’s not kind to us.’

  ‘Give him time.’

  They sat quietly, leaning together, shoulder touching shoulder, hip touching hip. Sid felt the warmth of her body close to his. Her warm hand in his. It was the best birthday he had ever had.

  ‘Where were you before Freedom?’ he asked her.

  ‘With Mum, in St Ives. She was a school-teacher.’

  ‘St Ives? I was near there: Hayle. Lo and me were hiding on a roundabout.’

  ‘Roundabout? Wasn’t it rather exposed? Hayle is where the Reducer Headquarters is.’

  ‘Nah, covered in bushes and trees, it was. Well hidden. It was okay there. I got water from a lake. Met a Reducer. Saved his life.’

  ‘Saved his life?’

  He didn’t need much persuasion to relate the story.

  Hazel regarded the boy at her side. Although she was older than Sid, she realised that he was the more experienced. He was strong and clever with his hands. He was gentle with his little sister and the other children. He had survived adventures she could only imagine.

  ‘How come you ended up in Freedom?’ he asked.

  ‘We were too near the Reducer base. Mum was scared we would be taken.’

  ‘What about your dad?’

  ‘He left years ago. Don’t know where he is now. Never kept in touch, except sometimes for my birthday.’ She sounded bitter, and he felt ashamed for the man.