Red Leaves

by Sita Brahmachari

  Zak’s body shook with cold. His head was a tight knot of pain and, despite the young soldier’s encouragement, he knew he could not go on for much longer. But now a soothing song rose up from somewhere deep underground. Zak tried to decipher the words, but it was being sung in a language he could not understand. Wherever the sweet sound was coming from, he was sure it could not have emerged from Elder’s rattling lungs. Zak turned this way and that, following the song to its source. He had the feeling he had heard this voice before. As he ploughed on through the rain, the voice drew louder and closer. It seemed to carry him forward, and even though he stumbled and fell often, he felt as if he was moving towards safety.

  Aisha kept her eyes closed longing to sink deeper into her lullaby sleep but something was pawing at her arm insistently, pulling her away. She opened her eyes and gasped at the sight of a dog peering into her face. As she sat up and let go of her dream reality came rushing back in. The dog pushed its nose into her side as if to nudge her fully awake.

  ‘Conker, my friend,’ she whispered as she rubbed her eyes. ‘Why won’t you let me sleep?’

  She yawned and the earth-mulched scent of the wood brought her back to her senses. Conker whined and the hair on the back of the dog’s neck bristled as it continued to paw at Aisha. She reached out and stroked her head to calm her, but Conker only whined louder.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Aisha asked, following the dog outside.

  The ground fell away under Zak. He attempted to find a foothold, but failed and began to slide on his back, water rushing down a steep mud slope either side of him. He tumbled over and over through the rivulets of rain, clawing at the earth. Instinctively he curled in on himself shielding his face with his arms, letting the momentum take him, his head crashing with a pounding pain against the ground until he finally came to a standstill. An image of a doll’s head coming away from its body entered Zak’s mind. He wiped his face as if to clear away the picture as well as the thick layer of clay mud that now coated his skin. He opened his eyes to find a dog staring at him, panting in his face. Beyond it stood a girl with a blue headscarf and the face of an angel. A name surfaced from somewhere deep inside him.

  ‘Aisha,’ he whispered.

  ‘Ungrateful boy. Why didn’t you keep him here, Crystal? Now don’t you start your yelling. Sorry, quite right. Not your fault.’ Elder picked the doll up and cradled her close. ‘I know, my baby. Always by my side. You’ll never leave me, will you, my sweet?’

  Elder sat in the doorway of her den. ‘We’ll wait here until the rain stops, drop, drop, non-stop sky-crying.’ She lifted her feet off the ground and admired her new wellington boots. ‘No more plastic bags for these old feet. People think Elder’s an old nutter, lives in the gutter, but Elder sees the earthstars landing. You’re the first, my Crystal, then the girl with the blue scarf and the red dog – that’s three. Now the boy Zak comes falling into my nest.’ She stood up, walked over to the pram, unwrapped something from a towel and inspected the piece of plasterwork, the black-and-white photo of Edwin and Albert, and a torn map. ‘That’s four lost souls, but the Elder branch bears five leaves, sometimes more. Five little leaves gathering in Elder’s wood and if they stay they’ll flower in May and we’ll gather their starry heads . . . When the rain has stopped we’ll go, you and me, my Crystal and find the last lost earthstar roaming alone, calling for her dog, poor child. Nearly there now . . . just one more leaf to go.’

  Elder threw the recycled bags on to the floor and placed Crystal in the pram. Then she manoeuvred it backwards out of her den and on to the rough path. The rickety wheels splashed mud over her clothes and into her face.

  ‘Need a mudguard. Mrs Kalsi made me look pretty, and now I’m all filthied-up, but you’ve got to get out, not lay about, feeling sorry for yourself.’ Elder leaned heavily on the pram for support as she walked.

  ‘Ooh, look at that now! There’s my breath-mist, warm breath, cold air, dragon breath, dragon hair!’ She pulled her fingers through her long strands and got stuck halfway. ‘Elder’s leaf crown’s all of a mangle tangle again, wrung through the weather-mill.’ She pushed the pram up the path leading to the high metal fence that bordered the wood.

  ‘Too bumpy? I’ll carry you from here,’ she told Crystal, lifting the doll into her arms and scanning the fence for the place by the Gypsy gate where she’d managed to crawl through the last time. The ground was sodden and the wet soaked through all her cloth layers and seeped into her bones. Her head emerged first. She held Crystal out in front of her for safekeeping as she eased her way out on to the pavement.

  ‘What the hell!’ Iona stumbled backwards. ‘Sorry, Elder!’ she mumbled as she realized who it was emerging from the wood. Elder slumped down on the pavement, puffing and panting.

  ‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’ Elder smiled at Iona. ‘I’ve come looking for you!’

  It had been a while since Iona had got a close-up look at Elder and she had definitely aged. Every time she saw her and smelt her rank stench, Iona had an urge to run away. If she stayed on the street all her life, refusing help in all seasons, would she end up as mad and sad as Elder?

  ‘Take Crystal for me?’ Elder asked. Iona did as she was told, sat down next to the woman and listened to her wheezy breath. Iona stared at Elder’s skin; it seemed to have sagged away from her cheek bones, as if there was no longer enough substance inside her to fill it up. How has she survived all these years with just her baby doll for company? Now Red’s gone I feel as lonely as the day I stepped off the ferry-boat from Iona. What had the ferryman said as she had emptied the contents of her stomach into the sea? That it had been the roughest crossing in years. It had been rough all right, and it had lasted much longer than the crossing. That was the day that she’d left behind everything and everyone who had been her world, even shedding her real name and adopting the name of her island.

  ‘Weather’s changed,’ Iona muttered, looking up at the brooding sky.

  Elder nodded and took Crystal off Iona’s lap. ‘Watch how you hold her head! Need to cup it. Don’t you know anything about babies?’

  ‘Not much!’ Iona admitted.

  The two of them sat in silence for a while, staring at the road. I must be desperate because it feels better to be sitting here with Elder than on my own, Iona thought. A tall man wearing a waxed jacket and buckled green wellingtons walked towards them, his golden retriever wore a coat smarter than anything Iona had ever owned herself. She made her usual assessment. What was the betting that he was going to find something in the middle distance so interesting that they would become invisible? If that had been his plan it was foiled by his dog, which sniffed around Iona as she fussed over it.

  ‘Look at you in your designer coat!’ Iona laughed as she patted the dog, but she was looking up at the man as she spoke.

  ‘Are you the girl who’s lost her dog?’ the man asked. Iona nodded. ‘I read about it in the paper,’ he explained and took a ten-pound note from his pocket.

  ‘I don’t take charity,’ Iona said, rummaged in her bag. ‘Here – buy a copy of the Big Issue.’

  ‘Keep it!’ the man said, offering the cash to Iona again.

  She clenched her fist and refused to take it. With the other hand she thrust the magazine towards him once more. ‘Take it!’ she ordered.

  ‘I don’t want it!’ he said, still holding out the ten-pound note.

  ‘Why not? You might learn something!’ Iona sneered.

  ‘Suit yourself!’ The man shrugged and went to put the money back in his pocket, but before he could, Elder reached up and grabbed it.

  ‘Get a warm meal inside you both,’ waxed-jacket man mumbled, and for a brief second he let his eyes rest on Elder and her doll. A look of pity swept over his face. Perhaps I was wrong about you after all, Iona thought as she took in the expression of genuine compassion. ‘It’s turning nippy now,’ he said, and off he walked.

  ‘As if we don’t know how cold it is! Hurry al
ong now. You go back to your comfy house and sit by your fire!’ Iona shouted after him, and the man’s pace quickened as he walked up the hill. Elder chuckled, turned the ten pounds over in her hands in disbelief and started to crawl back through the fence.

  ‘Where you going with that?’ Iona asked Elder’s backside as she started to ease herself through the railings. ‘That’s half mine!’

  ‘Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!’ Elder barked, wiggling her bottom and squeezing her way through the hole in the fence.

  ‘What are you doing that for, you mad old bat?’

  ‘Mad old bat? This mad old bat knows where your dog’s at!’

  ‘What?! You know where Red is? You’ve seen Red?’ Iona squeezed through the fence after Elder. ‘Have the money. What do I care?’

  ‘Come on, Crystal, don’t you cry, someone singing an old lullaby.’ Elder had reached the pram. She placed the doll in it and began to wheel her slowly back through the wood. It seemed to Iona to take hours as she followed Elder along her bumpy paths listening to her chunter on and on. The old woman seemed frailer than Iona had seen her before. ‘Hear that? Haven’t I had enough of tears?’ Elder paused and pointed between the trees. ‘There goes old Hannah, never stops her weeping and wailing like a banshee, tears enough to keep the spring water flowing. Hush now, Hannah, don’t you cry, Elder will sing you a lullaby!’ Iona peered in the direction in which the old woman was pointing but saw no one. Eventually they reached a sort of den and Elder turned to Iona, her face grey with exhaustion.

  ‘She wears me out with her crying, that poor Hannah, but she knows what it is to die of a broken heart and young, too young. I feel them all you know, spirits past and spirits present. I’ll lead you there in the morning. Now Elder needs to sleep.’ She wheeled the pram inside the den and beckoned for Iona to follow. Then she lay down wearily. ‘All my earthstars in formation now.’ Elder spoke through a wide yawn that exposed her rotting teeth.

  ‘What are earthstars?’ Iona asked, but Elder, though awake, did not answer.

  ‘You’ve got to be joking. This is where you live?’ Iona surveyed Elder’s den.

  ‘Where do you live?’ Elder asked, patting the ground for Iona to sit down next to her. Iona had noticed this disconcerting habit of Elder’s before; how she could move straight from a raging rant to a perfectly normal and searching question.

  ‘I get by. Hostels for a while, squats, Mrs Kalsi’s storeroom, on the street. I’m always moving on.’

  Elder nodded, sat up and attempted to pull off her boots. ‘Mrs Kalsi’s present.’ She smiled as she struggled to reach her feet. Iona helped her pull them off. ‘Itchy feet, itchy feet.’ Elder’s voice rose in discomfort as she removed the woollen socks and scratched away at her toes.

  ‘Chilblains.’ Iona grimaced in sympathy at the sight of them.

  ‘Bane of my life. I’ve had enough of walking on these old hoofs for one day,’ Elder agreed.

  ‘But you’ll show me where Red is in the morning won’t you Elder?’ She got no reply. In a few minutes the old woman was snoring. Please, please, please don’t let her be making this up just to get me to stay with her for the night. Iona understood more than anyone how it felt to be desperate enough for company that you’d invite anyone in just to see yourself reflected in someone else’s eyes. Iona examined the cobwebby roof. Even with all the rain, this place was still dry. Good on her. She must have added so many layers to it over the years that she’s managed to make it watertight.

  Iona smiled as she spotted the ten-pound note strewn among the leaves of Elder’s bed. She picked it up, walked over to the pram and placed it under the mattress. A family of woodlice scurried over her hand as she tucked the note away. She swiped them off. If in the morning Elder leads me to Red, I’ll tell her where the money is. After all, everything in life is a deal. There had to be something in it for everybody, except maybe the likes of Mr and Mrs Kalsi, but they had their religious thing, and she couldn’t be doing with it when they started going on about their everyday charitable acts, why they helped her and old Elder and anyone else who needed them. She could hear Mrs Kalsi now when she had first taken up the pitch outside their shop . . .

  ‘So if you don’t want my charity, you must do something for yourself.’ Mrs Kalsi placed a copy of the Big Issue in front of Iona. ‘You can sell it from outside my shop, if you want.’

  To her surprise Iona had found that she actually liked selling the magazine. It seemed like a fair you-have-to-look-me-in-the-eye trade. It was the same when she busked. There was a trade-off that was not just about someone pitying you or salving their conscience.

  As these thoughts flowed through Iona’s mind she lay down next to Elder and peered into her ancient face. Strands of bright red hair were strewn over the leaves. With all the emotion drained from her features she looked like a mask of herself, as if the real Elder had seeped down into the earth, leaving just this shell of a body behind. Iona shivered. ‘Don’t you go dying on me,’ she said out loud. Like Elder, she had taken to talking to herself. Being so close to this ancient homeless woman was like looking into the future and walking among the broken fragments of her own mind. At least Elder didn’t ask too many questions. Iona preferred not to talk to the counsellors at the hostel about why she had taken to the streets. What business was it of anybody else’s? She’d had her reasons. But as Elder slept, cradling her doll tightly in her arms, Iona wondered, not for the first time, what had brought the old woman to this sorry state. Iona looked down at Elder’s feet and gently felt her toes. They were icy cold. She walked over to a pile of clothes and laid a jumper over Elder’s legs and a moth-eaten sheepskin coat over her bird-like body.

  Conker sniffed at the boy’s blood-stained bandage as he lay on the ground outside the entrance to the shelter.

  Aisha was sure that he had whispered her name, but he was so mud-smeared that she could hardly make out his features. The dog tugged at the sleeve of his coat and Aisha stared as Conker licked the boy’s face clean. Now she knew him. This was the boy who had been in the wood when Elder had scattered breadcrumbs over them, the one who had talked to Liliana at the picnic. Had he come to find her? Aisha bent down and touched his head and the boy opened his eyes. He was shaking with cold and his head felt feverish. Aisha pulled the sodden rucksack off his back. Then she took hold of his arms and dragged him inside with some difficulty, being careful not to knock his wounded head as she lowered him down the steps. She was not strong enough to lift his dead weight so she grabbed the mattress from the lower bunk, lay it on the floor and rolled him on to it. She went out again, lugged his rucksack in and opened it, but everything was sodden. Aisha took her own sleeping bag, unzipped it, placed it over him and watched as the boy’s eyes grew heavy. Conker lay over his stomach as if to add an extra layer of warmth. Aisha stared down at him as she unwound the filthy bandage that covered his forehead. The cut was deep and probably should have been stitched, but it seemed to have begun to scab over and was surrounded by a raised purple bruise. She took a plastic bottle of water, knelt down next to him and gently cleaned the wound. The boy stirred and his dark eyes opened for a second, but they seemed to hold no expression at all. Aisha was grateful when he settled into a deep sleep.

  How can everything change so quickly? Aisha felt in shock. As the boy slept she began to pray, and after some time when she opened her eyes again she found that he was staring back at her.

  ‘What happened to your head?’ Aisha asked gently.

  Zak didn’t reply, but traced his hand along the gash on his forehead and winced as he felt the wound. He had a vague memory of the old woman smearing something bitter and foul-smelling into it. What had happened to him since he’d come into this wood? He didn’t even know how long he’d been here. He felt as if he had been mugged and left blindfolded.

  ‘I’m Zak,’ he said, the name still a question in his mind. But this girl ‘Aisha’ he knew. As he stared into her eyes memories came flooding back: her look as they had stood toget
her in the wood bathed in sunshine, with friends eating a picnic, her honey voice, his own hands sketching her and . . . pinning a wanted poster to a tree . . .

  ‘People are looking for you.’ Zak struggled to piece the fragments of his memory into some kind of order. ‘I’ve seen this dog before too.’

  An image of a frightening-looking girl with snake-coiled hair bombarded Zak’s mind. ‘It’s not your dog, is it?’

  Aisha shook her head. ‘She just turned up.’

  ‘Like me!’ Zak smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back.

  ‘Are you going to tell them where I am?’ Aisha asked, holding the dog close to her.

  ‘Who would I tell?

  Zak stared at Aisha and then looked around at the stark concrete walls of . . . What was this place? An air raid shelter? Had he been looking for this? The sound of the soldier’s voice spurring him on through the driving rain returned to him. The only thing he knew for sure was that he had left his old life behind him. The debris of memories that now floated through his mind consisted of: a familiar staircase, a wall falling, a woman trailing a silk sari through piles of dust, someone walking in a procession with children, a news report, a shouting man on the other side of a screen, a black-and-white photograph of someone in a tweed cap with his arm wrapped around his son . . . Zak shook his head. Maybe if he could sleep for just a little longer his mind would clear.

  ‘I’m not going to tell anyone anything. I think I might’ve run away myself,’ Zak told Aisha.

  ‘Patience is a virtue, virtue is a grace, Gracie was a little girl who wouldn’t wash her face!’ Elder laughed. ‘Silly old rhymes stay in your head. That one’s better off dead.’

  ‘But you promised you would take me to find Red this morning, Elder. You’re not making this up, are you?’