Angel Blood

by John Singleton

  ‘She the one told them about the Sky Boat and flying to the stars?’

  Natalie nodded.

  ‘Then she's as batty as the kids.’

  They were silent for a minute. ‘Look, angel,’ said Nail at last. ‘We need stuff for these kids, blankets and food.’ He paused. Then dropped his voice. ‘Are we really going to take them to the sea? We don't even know where it is. I mean that doctor jimmy's right. We're not trained to cope with kids like this. If it were ordinary ones, well, that's a different tune.’

  ‘You promised,’ said Natalie. ‘You promised.’

  ‘No,’ said Nail, ‘you promised.’

  Natalie swore. ‘Well, you went along with it. And why have we raced like insanity up and down and all over, nearly savaged by dogs and hypo-ed by mad doctors?’

  ‘Because… because…’ Nail wasn't sure. Probably because it was a laugh skid-panning through the forest at night. Probably because Kenno had shopped him and he wasn't going to let that pusie-face take him. Possibly because he fancied a portion of those soft Natalie lips that brimmed so purple-black in the moonlight. Possibly, possibly. Thing was, just how much did he really want the girl? Was she worth it? Worth a drive halfway across Scotland? Worth long distancing a bunch of banana brains with them?

  He rammed into second as the track took a sudden rise.

  ‘You know what I think,’ said Natalie at last.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I think inside you're like me. You can't stand kids with nothing going for them having their lives run by the likes of that Doctor D. Why else would you drive a van over a rotten bridge roaring torrents below?’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Nail. ‘Hang on. You're pinning hero on me, Nats. I don't do heroes. People expect too much. Heroes have a hard time.’

  ‘Well, the kids like you… now. You can't let them down. Doesn't it weigh on your conscience, all the suffering, all around? You only have to look…’ Natalie stopped. She didn't want to get too heavy.

  Nail looked up through the windscreen.

  Conscience? What was that? Something that got in the way of having a good time! What did she know? He'd done his suffering. His mum and dad had seen to that. Mum! How bad time the name sounded. He'd seen her wreck her life. Waited for hours, weeks, months, years for his dad to come home. Watched his baby brother die. Nothing you could do there. That was life. It happened. You went with the flow. Take on all the bad out there and you'll end up in the nut house with the freaks and the zombies.

  The moon's sail billowed and floated on the deep calm of the night.

  Then into his head drifted the face of a small baby, skin purpled, eyes big as moons.

  Blind and helpless.

  He tried to blink the apparition away but another came mewling into view.

  It was the little thin one with the no eyes. She was morsing him, tapping in his blood. He could see her again leaning her head against him after the bridge bit. Later he'd found stray hairs on his jacket and quickly brushed them off.

  He turned to Natalie. ‘If I get you there will you give us a kiss?’

  ‘If that's what it takes,’ she said.

  Right, yer on thought Nail.

  3

  The wheelie stops once more. Is it the Hyena Men again?

  We hardly dare move.

  Chicken Angel holds me tight to try and stop the shivering.

  Now she is whispering in my ear. ‘Soon we'll be in the Sky Boat,’ she says, ‘safe among the stars sailing with the angels.’

  But my head is full of flutters. We heard all that talking, hard barking sometimes and horrible things. About guns, and Mrs Murdoe, our angel, all dead and takeaway, and about us going back to the Bin.

  ‘We've got to do smiley with that Nail boy,’ whispers Chicken Angel. ‘I don't know if he's a leopard or a Murdoe.’

  ‘Lights Out says he has a pippi side and a leopard side.’

  ‘That's sounds like Cough Cough talk,’ says Chicken Angel.

  I think about my friend CC. He has angel blood now. Mrs Murdoe said we were angels. Maybe we all have angel blood. Angel blood and leopard blood.

  I wish Cough Cough was coming to the sea. I wish Cough Cough could see the Sky Boat. He'll need angel eyes for that.

  Maybe CC is in the Sky Boat waiting for us.

  Yes, I can see him sitting in the front waving us to come closer and get in. He's going to pull up the anchor and then we'll be off. Flying over the blue blue sea.

  Then the door opens and the girl is there and the moonlight enters and Chicken Angel's face gleams and her hair shines.

  She is very beautiful. I like Chicken Angel.

  Natalie says we have a little way to go before we stop for a rest. We are going to sleep in real beds. No dozie. No cameras. No Moose. No Tin Lid. No Doctor Dearly. No hypo. No trank.

  4

  They reached the caravan as the dawn was lifting the lid on the world.

  Natalie carried Lights Out and laid her on one of the bunks. She drew the curtain closed, found a blanket and draped it loosely round the frail huddle of the child.

  The others curled up too and were soon asleep.

  By the time Nail returned from hiding the van under a cover of trees Natalie had managed to light one burner on the stove.

  ‘Keep the place warm,’ she said.

  ‘Well, cook my beans!’ Nail suddenly exclaimed. ‘We got Heinz and rice pudding.’ He was checking out the tins in one of the overhead lockers. ‘I'm starving. Lucky that jimmy turned up when he did,’ he said, ‘otherwise you and I would be in the slammer now.’ He stretched into the back of the locker and brought out a rusted tin. ‘Sausages as well, Nats. How about that?’

  He looked around.

  No Natalie.

  ‘Natalie,’ he called sing-song fashion.

  No reply.

  5

  He found her outside sitting on a huge slab of rock.

  ‘You all right?’ he said. ‘Not hungry?’

  For a moment she didn't answer. And then staring across the water she said: ‘Nail, tell me we're doing the right thing by these kids.’

  ‘Come on, Nats, don't lay that on me too. Remember, me flip, you serious. You heard what our man said back there – time is short and they ain't got long.’

  ‘Yeah, but suppose they get ill with us. Did you notice how thin and pale the little girl's gone? She's seems, well, floppy. I don't think she's very well.’

  ‘She was OK screaming at those Hyena Men.’

  ‘That was because she was frightened stupid.’

  She paused and turned to face Nail. ‘Suppose they… you know…’

  ‘Die?’ said Nail.

  ‘Yeah, go takeaway while we've got them. Then you know what that means – we'll be up for manslaughter or something, won't we? I mean that is serious stuff.’

  Nail shrugged. Wasn't this what he'd been saying all along?

  ‘I look at it like this,’ he said. ‘They've seen a bit in the last few hours. They're probably just knackered, like me.’ He picked up a stone, walked to edge of the loch and in a quick sure movement skimmed it across the water till it died in a run of splashes like a flapping fish.

  Natalie watched him. He had a good shape. Strong shoulders. Beyond his silhouette she could see, either side of him, the ripples from the stone casting wider and wider circles.

  They could be pulses of energy she thought, coming from some deep mysterious source inside his body, disturbing the loch, disturbing her life.

  Then he turned to face her.

  ‘Natalie, if it's screwing you up having them,’ he said, ‘then let's call it a day and just take them back. They've had an adventure. Time to go home. That's not just me saying. That Murdoe guy said the same.’

  She didn't say anything.

  In a way she knew he was making sense. Then suspicion entered her mind. Was he saying this because in his heart of hearts he just wanted out? She could understand that. She was the one pushing. Why should he take the risk of getti
ng banged up in a young offender's camp or whatever they did to people like him? It had just seemed a bit of a joke back in the forest, a bit of charity the two of them taking kids to the sea for a day. But that was before the Hyena Men and that Dearly spook. It had all happened so suddenly. Only now had she started thinking straight.

  ‘OK,’ she said gazing out across the loch, whose waters were turning pink in the rising sun. ‘This is my fault. I've pushed it. You go, I'll take the kids. It's not fair on you.’

  Of course she didn't mean this. It just made her feel good saying it. OK! Made her feel generous and sacrificial. And yes, she didn't want him to take it at face value and actually, really walk out.

  ‘Hours ago you said I had a mission to save the little freaks,’ said Nail.

  ‘I've had second thoughts,’ said Natalie.

  ‘Oh, so now you want me to bog off?’

  ‘No,’ she said startled. ‘That wasn't what I meant at all. I didn't want you to feel you had to do this. I didn't want you to feel I'd talked you into it.’

  ‘No one talks me into things,’ said Nail. ‘No one.’

  ‘Because you're hard as,’ said Natalie coldly, suddenly sensing he was actually going to walk out on her. Yeah, he was the sort she thought. Never gave for free. Always had his price. Took whatever came his way. Pulling cars and flogging dodgy stuff and stolen goods. No family stability, that was his problem. That's what her dad would have said.

  He'd turned back to watch the lake and above the line of his T-shirt Natalie could see the bronzy colour of his neck. Nice! Probably got the tan lying in parks lagered out and legless.

  ‘You can't do it on yer own,’ he said, walking back and standing in front of her.

  She brightened. He was coming after all. It was going to be OK. She stood up.

  ‘I think,’ continued Nail, ‘for their own good, they're better off in hospital or back at what's-its-name. It might be fun for us but we've got to think of them.’

  Natalie stared at him.

  ‘You bastard,’ she said.

  Nail was taken aback. ‘You asked me. You said you'd take them on yer own, which is a mega-stupid idea if you ask me.’

  ‘You're a one-off hypocrite. You're not thinking of them. You're thinking of yourself.’

  ‘And what about you, Miss Bleeding Heart? You can't just cart a bundle of sick kids around because it makes you feel good.’

  Natalie reached into her jacket pocket. ‘You smug, selfish little git. Here take this.’ She handed him her mobile. ‘Now, ring your mate Kenno and tell him to tell his friend Dearly where we are and to come and collect us. Tell him you're sending the kids back to the Bin, where no one cares, where they'll be tranked and toxed like laboratory rats, and where they'll die exhausted and alone and forgotten. Now ring him, Nail, hard as stone. It's your call.’

  6

  I can feel something walking over my face. I wake with a start. It's Lights Out and she is tapping my cheek. She is very pale. She takes my hand and starts morsing me. With my free arm I reach across to Chicken Angel and shake her.

  Chicken Angel is slow to wake. We are all very moosed out.

  Chicken Angel says Lolo has seen Doctor Dearly flying through the air. He is like a huge bat flying through the trees looking for us, she says.

  ‘A bat. A giant bat!’ I start to tremble and Chicken Angel gets up and gives me cosy cosy.

  ‘What shall we do?’

  We agree to ask Natalie girl but when we pull the curtain back there is no one there.

  We look out of the window.

  And we see something that is amazing.

  We forget about Doctor D.

  We go outside.

  Water. Water full of sky.

  We are standing on the edge of the sea.

  We stand outside. It is very bright.

  ‘It's the sea,’ I say.

  Chicken Angel is too amazed to say anything.

  ‘And,’ I whisper, ‘look, the Sky Boat.’

  Chicken Angel follows my pointing finger. A little wooden boat is tied to a boulder and lies in the blue water.

  ‘The Sky Boat,’ she says slowly as if not believing it. ‘Mrs Murdoe knew what she was talking about.’

  ‘She's always right,’ I say.

  We smile over each other and do Jesus Hands.

  ‘Safe at last,’ I say.

  Then we see Natalie and Nail boy. Natalie girl is fitting.

  Something's happened I say.

  When we reach them they look surprised. Nail has a mobile in his hand. ‘Are you taking us back?’ I say.

  Natalie looks at Nail boy.

  ‘You are, aren't you?’ says Chicken Angel.

  ‘You came out here so we wouldn't hear,’ I say.

  Chicken Angel nods.

  Then Nail boy does something daftie, very daftie. He turns towards the water and hurls the mobile into the sea. As it climbs higher and higher it starts to ring. We all watch the tumbling ringing phone till it falls back into the water and splashes away.

  ‘No one's going to send you back,’ says Nail boy.

  Natalie girl looks a bit moosed out. I think it was her phone and I think she wanted to send us back but Nail boy didn't and that's why he threw the phone into the sea. So he's not a leopard after all.

  Nail looks at Natalie and smiles.

  ‘Nail is going to look after us, save us. Hold us tight,’ she says and she starts to smile too.

  And everybody is smiling.

  Then Nail boy says to Natalie girl: ‘Hold you tight? What is that? Don't put me down for daddy. I've got a life to live.’

  Chicken Angel and I look at each other. We don't know this ‘daddy’ thing. Later Chicken Angel said it is probably their word for hugging.

  Back in the henhouse, that's what the Nail boy calls our new home by the sea, we eat and go back to bed.

  The girl draws the curtain and says we are to have sweet dreams.

  After a bit I whisper to Chicken Angel and she lets me cosy cosy to her. It is colder here than in the Bin and the air is stiffer. It is harder to breathe it in. Chicken Angel agrees.

  *

  Later I wake up. It is very bright. Not like in the Bin. Cough Cough is next to me because I can hear his wheezing. I turn and stroke his back. Then I feel little fingers stirring against my palm. Wings. Angel's wings. It's not Cough Cough. It is Chicken Angel. I remember then. We did cosy cosy. Cough Cough is goodbye.

  I've never heard Chicken Angel wheezing before.

  That shows the air is harder here.

  CHAPTER 22

  Stupid Little Noddies

  1

  Nail stirred awake, his shoulder aching and stiff. He turned. Natalie was lying next to him on the floor.

  ‘What?’ He rubbed his eyes.

  Natalie grunted, disturbed by Nail's movement, but she didn't wake.

  What? Hadn't he agreed to have his foam mattress on the floor while she took the bunk with hers?

  He sat up. It was bright.

  A few hours ago she was slagging him off, now they were spooning. OK, so she'd apologized for calling him names and he'd apologized for hand-grenading her mobile. So they were square except she didn't know it was only the kids turning up that stopped him phoning Kenno.

  He sat up and looked at her. Close to she wasn't quite so top of the range as he'd first thought. Her nose was just a little too pointed he judged and the front two teeth, which he could just see through her parted lips, bent slightly backwards. He hadn't noticed that before. And her fingers were a bit plumpy. But her skin was good enough, girly smooth with downy hairs, only visible to the close eye, running from the ear along the jaw bone and into the soft neck.

  He wanted to touch her. Just one stroke. But he was scared of waking her. Then he laughed at himself. What had he boasted to that plookie Kenno? He would score, whenever. Pulling girls was picking cherries. Well, he had the pick now. So why wasn't he taking his chance? After all, just how many was he going to get?


  He moved his hand over her shoulder.

  She stirred and turned over. He pulled back as she opened her eyes.

  ‘What time is it?’ she said. ‘And what's this?’ She sat up and spread her hands out to indicate the mattress and the blanket and Nail.

  ‘You were all over me,’ he said.

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Better check the kids.’

  ‘Oh, forget the kids,’ he said and took her hand, trying to draw her down to him.

  She pulled away.

  ‘Piss off, Nail. These are little innocents, remember. Just like me. Now, be a good boy and see if they're OK. Then who knows, maybe, one day.’

  Nail got up. ‘Come on, Nats, we need some fun now, while we got the chance. This isn't exactly yer standard day trip is it, ice cream and candy floss and donkey rides.’

  He reached for the curtain separating the kids' sleeping area from their own.

  Pulled it back.

  Nail yelled.

  Natalie shot up. ‘What is it?’

  ‘They've gone,’ he said. ‘They've done a bunk. Come on. We've got to find them.’

  Natalie didn't move.

  ‘Before something happens to them,’ said Nail pointedly.

  Natalie nodded at the window above the kids' bunk.

  Drawn in the condensation was a picture of a boat. The sail was full. Under the hull ripples sped the craft along. Three small figures were sitting in the centre. Beside the flying boat stood two more figures waving.

  ‘The Sky Boat,’ Natalie breathed. ‘It's beautiful.’

  ‘It's mind-bending bonkers,’ said Nail and dashed out.

  2

  He ran down to the water's edge. Natalie joined him.

  Out in the loch, about two hundred metres from shore, was a small rowing boat. Three little figures sat in the middle. It didn't seem to be moving.

  ‘Sod it,’ said Nail. ‘Sod it, sod it.’

  Natalie waved. ‘Come back, come back,’ she shouted.

  Suddenly the boat started rocking.

  ‘You scared them,’ said Nail. ‘They'll capsize, the nutters. What the hell do they think they're doing?’

  ‘Sailing the Sky Boat,’ said Natalie. ‘They think they're going to heaven.’

  ‘If they don't stop rocking the thing the only place they're going is the bottom.’