It dawned on David that he had not yet agreed. “I think it’s a brilliant idea!” he said.
“Oh, I’m so glad!” said Astrid.
“You wait until he starts feeding ravens with the week’s meat,” said Luke.
13
WALLSEY
Astrid drove home and Luke went into the house with them. As soon as Aunt Dot appeared, they both realized what a mistake this was, but Aunt Dot, to David’s amazement did not seem to remember having been convinced that Luke was a criminal. She invited him to lunch. At lunch, Uncle Bernard complained of his liver, and Cousin Ronald that David had left three deck chairs to get soaked and ruin the lawn, and Mrs. Thirsk that she had not been expecting a visitor. But none of them seemed to remember anything else.
David asked Luke about it, and Luke, with a rather secretive smile, remarked that both Mr. Wedding and the Frys were good at making people forget things.
However it happened it was fortunate, because the real Mr. and Mrs. Fry called that afternoon. David was forced to sit in the drawing room and be polite to old Mr. Fry’s courtesies. Mr. Fry was interested in David. He talked to him the whole time, which was difficult, because Mr. Fry’s interest in cricket was plainly only polite. But it was over in the end. David and Luke wandered off together and both of them forgot that Luke was only free until Sunday night.
Next morning, Astrid announced that she was taking David out on a trip to Wallsey. It caused an immediate outcry from the other three.
“I can’t think why you want to take David to a vulgar place like that,” said Aunt Dot.
“On a Saturday, of all times!” said Cousin Ronald. “Why take him anywhere?” said Uncle Bernard.
“If you remember,” Astrid said, somewhat in the same loud, polite way David had told them they could leave him on his own, “if you recall, we decided not to go to Scarborough because David was at home. And if you think looking after David means telling him to mind his manners at meals, I don’t. I think it means taking him about and taking an interest in him. So I’m going to Wallsey. With David.”
“I can’t possibly let you go to a low place like that on your own,” Cousin Ronald said crossly. “You might be annoyed by trippers or—or people. If you insist on going, Astrid, I shall insist on coming too.”
“She won’t be alone. I’ll be there,” David pointed out.
“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Cousin Ronald. “It’s Saturday, Astrid, and the place will be crowded out. You’ll be jostled. You’ll get one of your heads.”
That was attacking Astrid on her weakest side, but, to David’s gratitude and admiration, she stood firm in spite of anything the other three said. David thought this must be the first time he had ever been truly and spontaneously grateful to any of his family, and it gave him a rather odd feeling. Then, to his dismay, he found that Cousin Ronald was standing firm too.
“I’m not having you go and waste my good money on trash,” he said, which David suspected was his real reason for standing firm. “Go if you insist, but I shall come too and make sure you don’t squander the earth on hot-dogs.”
And come he did. When Astrid backed the Mini out of the garage, Cousin Ronald got into the seat beside her and sat there looking firm and righteous. Astrid gave David a most meaning look as she got out.
“What are you getting out for?” Cousin Ronald demanded.
“To let David in,” said Astrid. “There are only two doors.” She gave David a wink and put a cigarette in her mouth. “Match, David?”
David laughed as he got out his box and struck a light for her. It was extraordinary how much nicer Astrid was than his other relations. Living alone with her promised to be great fun.
Cousin Ronald was in a very bad temper at being forced to come with them. “Put that thing out!” he snapped. “Filthy habit!”
But by this time, Luke was strolling across the road. David blew out the match and Astrid put the cigarette away. “Hallo,” said Luke. “I see the clans are gathering.” He was climbing into the Mini in front of Astrid, when Alan too appeared, riding a bicycle and looking uncertainly at the numbers of the houses.
“Hallo,” he said to David. “How’s your quest going?”
“We’re just going to Wallsey,” said David. “On the next bit.”
“Can I come too?” said Alan.
David looked helplessly at Astrid. Luke leaned out of the car and said: “Let him come. I think you’ll need him.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to ask Mrs. Thirsk along too?” Astrid asked tartly. “Car or bike, Alan?”
“Bike,” said Alan. “Bet I beat you there.” It was a good bike, with a good many gears. Alan wheeled round, ticking smoothly, and was away long before David had climbed into the car.
The way Astrid went to Wallsey was nothing like the way David went with Mr. Wedding. She did not go through the center of Ashbury but through the shabby outskirts beside the river. Shortly, they came to a wide gravelly space full of parked cars and hot-dog vans. Astrid backed the Mini into a space, and they were there. Alan was there also, leaning against the wall by the river. He waved to them.
David climbed out of the car in some bewilderment. He could see the lake over the wall Alan was leaning on. It was quite small, really only a place where the river widened, and, because it was a fine Saturday in the holidays, it was full of little colored pedal boats and the pedal boats were full of screaming girls and shouting boys. There were warehouses on the other side of the lake and, on the near side, a white-tiled pub called The Rainbow. Beside the pub was an archway decorated with colored lights and a neon sign above it which said Wallsey Island Funfair. The funfair was on the island in the middle of the lake. There David saw more colored lights, the towering Big Wheel, roundabouts and stalls. Music and screaming came loudly across the water. For a moment, David seriously thought they had come to the wrong place.
“It’s all right,” said Luke. “It is here, I promise.”
Cousin Ronald looked at the crowds of people in the car park, the boats and the noisy island, and sniffed the hot-dog scented air in the greatest disgust. “Well, what part of this palace of pleasure are you going to waste my money on first?” he said to Astrid.
Alan came up, saying: “Shall we hire boats? That’s fun.” Cousin Ronald shuddered.
“Go over to the island,” David said. “I’ve got to find someone there.”
“Crude, noisy and expensive,” said Cousin Ronald. “I won’t hear of it.”
But David, Luke and Astrid were consulting about it, so none of them took any notice. “All go?” said Astrid.
“I can’t,” Luke said regretfully. “They blackballed me years ago. And I don’t advise you to go either, Astrid. It’s an all-male club, you see, and they might not let David in if you’re with him.”
“Well!” said Astrid. “What price Women’s Lib!”
Luke chuckled. “Ask Wedding,” he said. “It’s nothing to do with me.”
Astrid did not seem to mind too much. “We’ll wait in the pub then,” she said, “and let the other three go. Or do you want to go alone, David?”
David did not at all mind Alan coming, but he very much hoped that Cousin Ronald would decide to wait in the pub too. But this was not to be. Astrid said: “Ronald, we’re going to sit outside the pub, while David asks about the—”
“Watch it!” Luke said sharply. Astrid clapped her hand over her mouth.
“Very sensible idea,” said Cousin Ronald, noticeably relieved that Astrid was not threatening to spend money on dodgems and things. “Then I’ll take the boys to the island, shall I? Give them a trip on the roundabout and then join you there.”
“Thanks,” David said glumly, and Alan added: “The Big Wheel’s better.”
“Roundabout or nothing,” said Cousin Ronald jovially, leading the way toward the archway. “Just one ride, mind.”
Alan looked at Cousin Ronald in a slow, considering way and David knew he was wondering how anyone came to
be so stingy. He felt ashamed of Cousin Ronald, so much ashamed that he could not think of anything to say to Alan. They walked in a silent procession over a steel bridge looped with colored lights with the little pedal boats splashing and screaming gaily beneath them.
Almost the first thing beyond the bridge was a roundabout. “Do you both want a ride?” asked Cousin Ronald, in a tone that meant surely they didn’t.
Alan looked at David and understood that they were here for another reason. “No thanks,” he said. David refused too, and winked at Alan. Alan might not be very clever—David was sure he was not—but he had the makings of a real ally. David began to like him very much. Alan winked back, and they wandered on, past rifle-ranges, hooplas and dodgem cars. Cousin Ronald was very jolly, now that he had not been asked to pay for the roundabout. He even offered them candy-floss. And when both of them refused, Alan with obvious regret, he became happier than ever and followed David without grumbling, while David walked down one alleyway and up the next in search of the hall.
It was a large, narrow building, open to the alleyway at one end. A notice over the opening said Hall of Fun. David went in without hesitating, and Alan went with him. Cousin Ronald followed, saying: “I can’t think what people see in these places. It’s sheer daylight robbery.”
There were pinball machines along both walls and a fruit machine at the entrance. The place was full of the musical thud, thud, thud of the balls hitting the pins, with the occasional long rattle when the fruit machine gave up coins. There was music too, and much loud laughter from groups of young men with long hair who were working the pinball tables, shouting jokes and quite often rocking the machines ruthlessly to make sure they won.
“This is a very rough place,” Cousin Ronald said. “Come along, boys. You can have a ride on the dodgems.”
“Walk round that way,” David said to Alan. “And if you spot someone with a dragon about him, come and show me.”
They separated. Cousin Ronald followed Alan saying: “There should be a law against these machines. I refuse to let either of you spend a penny on them.”
Left on his own, David walked casually round inspecting the various groups. A lot of the young men had jackets with emblems or pictures on the backs but, though David saw death’s heads, arrows, tigers and streaks of lightning, he saw no dragons at all. He looked at badges, flowing ties, bands round hair and patterns on shirts, without success. They were a very dressy lot, and very happy too. David was discouraged, although he was sure this was the right place. There were no girls or women in the groups—just noisy young men, enjoying life and cheating the pinball machines.
Alan was at the end of the hall watching a particularly noisy group cheating a machine called Wall of Death Spectacular. Two young men were having a contest and the others were cheering them on. David joined the group on the other side, and sighed with relief. One of the young men put out his hand to pull the lever and there was the dragon. He was wearing a short-sleeved sweater, so that it was quite obvious. The dragon was tattooed round and round his forearm, with its head on the back of his hand.
David let the young man have his turn—he was winning—and then reached out and took hold of him by his tattooed right wrist. “Excuse me,” he said. “There’s something I need to ask you.”
The rest of the group were far too interested in the other young man’s turn to notice, but the young man with the dragon turned and looked at David. David thought he seemed remarkably pleasant, fair and good-humored and kind. “Now just who are you?” he said.
“My name’s David Allard,” said David. “The three Knowing Ones sent me to ask—”
“Wait a minute,” said the young man. “You don’t belong here do you?”
“No,” admitted David. “But I know Mr. Wedding.”
“Don’t we all?” said the young man, laughing. “But I can’t tell strange kids like you anything unless the rest of them agree. That’s the rule here. Was it urgent, what you wanted to know?”
“Yes,” said David. “I’ve only got till tomorrow night.”
“Well, I’ll see what I can do for you,” said the young man. He turned to the rest of the group. “Hey, you lot! There’s a kid here wanting to ask me something. Says it’s urgent.”
Someone from the next pin-table called out: “You know there’s three of them, do you?”
“Then that’s simple, isn’t it?” said the one who was having his turn. He was not anxious to be interrupted. “Throw them all out.”
“Come off it!” said the one with the dragon. “It’s only two kids and an old fatso. And it’s urgent.”
They gathered in the central space, arguing about it in a good-humored way. Before long, most of the other young men left their pin-tables and joined in. David stood back beside Alan to wait. Cousin Ronald came up to them.
“I think we’ll leave now,” he said. “We don’t want these yobboes to beat us up, do we?”
“We can’t. I have to ask him something,” David said, pointing to the young man with the dragon.
“Who is he?” said Cousin Ronald suspiciously.
“I’ve no idea,” said David. “But he’s nice.”
Here the group broke up, laughing and smacking the young man with the dragon on the back in a friendly way. He came back to David. “Sorry about this,” he said. “You shouldn’t be here at all, you see, any of you. But it’s lucky there’s three of you, because there’s a rule that lets me talk if three people run the gauntlet first. Will you agree to that?”
“Yes,” said David, though he had no idea what he was agreeing to.
“All right,” said Alan loyally.
“Agree to what?” said Cousin Ronald.
“Run the gauntlet,” said the young man. “It’s a bit of a giggle really, but the boys won’t hear of me talking to the kid unless you agree.”
“A mature man like me,” said Cousin Ronald, “does not play games. But since you make such a point of it, I’ll agree for this once. As a great favor, mind. David, I hope you’re grateful.”
“Yes, I am,” said David, though it was a feeling he had to struggle for rather, and quite unlike his gratitude to Astrid. He was fairly sure Cousin Ronald had only agreed because the young man with the dragon was so large and strong-looking.
As soon as they heard that the strangers had agreed, all the young men, with a lot of laughing and many jokes to the young man with the dragon about his past catching up with him, arranged themselves in two long lines up the center of the hall and prepared to enjoy themselves thoroughly. They were two very long lines. David, as he began to see what they were in for, rather wished there had not been so many of them. It was surprising that the hall had room for so many—except that it was now no longer quite the same place. It was wider and loftier and longer. With what little attention he could spare from the jostling lines of young men, David saw carved pillars, painted recesses and the glitter of golden things on either side. But the end of the hall still opened into the fairground. People passed, eating candy-floss and toffee-apples, some hundreds of yards away there.
“Ready,” called the nearest young man. “First one, please.” And everyone in both lines began to clap in rhythm by way of encouragement. Clap clap clap-clap-clap.
“They do this to new-bugs sometimes,” Alan said. “Want me to go first?”
Clap clap clap-clap-clap.
“No. I’ll go,” said David. He had seen it done too, but he had never been on the receiving end of it before.
Clap clap clap-clap-clap. David took a deep breath and set off up the space in the middle of the two lines. He got a heavy, playful punch on the arm from each of the first pair. Then the same from the next pair. Next, an open handed smack from one side and a tweak from the other. Clap clap clap-clap-clap went all the others. It was no good going too fast. The young men were all so strong that David knew he would be knocked off balance in no time if he started to run. Then his course would become a zigzag and very much more painful. He kept do
wn to a steady pace, and they did their good-humored best to knock him sideways. They were very friendly about it. David did not mind too much until about the center of the line, when a rather brutish-looking boy punched him unkindly in the stomach. David turned to say something, found the boy about to do it again, and went on hurriedly, with the clap clap clap-clap-clap ringing in his bruised ears. The young man with the dragon was right at the end of the line. David saw the dragon-coiled arm come out and winced away a little, because he looked the strongest of the lot. But the dragon-faced hand merely patted him on the head.
“You’ll do,” said the young man, laughing. Panting, David nodded and tried to laugh too. His upper arms ached, his ears fizzed and, judging by the hot, hard feeling, his top lip was very fat indeed. David licked it all the time he was watching Alan come up the line.
Alan took a faster pace than David. Being more solidly built, he could afford to. He also took the precaution of covering his head with his arms. That meant that he got a fair old drubbing in the ribs and over the shoulders, but all in all he probably had an easier time. When he got to the end, he grinned, felt his ribs carefully and then assured David he was all right.
“They could have hit a lot harder if they’d wanted to,” he said.
Clap clap clap-clap-clap went the two lines. Down at the other end of the hall, Cousin Ronald refused to move. “Nothing will possess me to indulge in this brutish pastime!” he announced, rather shrilly.
The rhythm of the clapping changed. It became unmistakably the slow handclap.
“Uh-uh!” said the young man with the dragon. “Seen what he’s in for, has he?” He shouted to the other end of the hall. “Get him moving then!”
The slow handclap grew louder. People called out. Then, as Cousin Ronald still refused to move, the two young men nearest him took him by the arms and slung him into the line. “Go on, you agreed!” one shouted.
Cousin Ronald bucketed into two hard fists and bounced off across the gap into two more. “I shall write to the papers!” he screamed. “Brutal louts!” The slow handclap grew louder and slower still.
Eight Days of Luke Page 13