by Sharon Sant
‘So… did she send you – ?’
‘Course not! I couldn’t stand to see it.’
‘So you ran?’
‘Yeah, I ran.’
‘You shouldn’t have done that.’
She paused. ‘Neither should you.’
‘How long did you last before you got caught?’
She grinned sheepishly. ‘About four hours.’
‘Nice one.’
‘If it hadn’t been for old Nutter Rothschild I’d have been ok.’
‘Mrs Rothschild…
Patience Avenue?’ ‘She turned me in. Locked me in her shed.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘What were you doing in her shed?’
‘Looking for stuff, of course.’
‘In Rothschild’s shed?’ His voice raised an octave with incredulity. ‘What did you find?’
‘China pigs. All over the place. That’s all she’s got in there, and it’s massive!’
‘Not what you needed then.’ She started to laugh. Elijah watched her face light up briefly. ‘So why didn’t you go home?’ he asked.
‘I couldn’t. The CMO didn’t believe me. Rothschild, the old cow, wouldn’t back up my story… besides, I wasn’t sure I wanted to.’
‘But your mum…’
‘I know. I feel bad about that. But I was in a weird place at the time, y’know, in my head.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘I know you are.’
‘So… what happens now?’
‘I’m going home.’
‘You ok with that?’
‘Yeah. Mum needs me. I’m cool with it now. I guess I’ll deal with things when they happen.’
‘Listen, when she… whatever happens, I’m here for you.
‘That’s nice, Eli. Where, exactly, will here be?’
He paused for a moment. ‘Dunno.’
Outside the summer house, it started to rain. They listened for a moment as it drummed on the roof. Elijah eventually spoke again. ‘When will you leave?’
‘Dr Bettencourt will take me as soon as he’s happy that there’s no lasting damage…’ She stroked her wounds again.
‘Right.’
‘Sky seems nice.’
‘She is.’
‘The others are cool too.’
‘Yeah…’ Elijah rubbed a hand through his hair, ‘they are.’
‘I suppose Francois will stay with his folks now.’
‘I suppose.’
‘What do you think Xavier will do?’ she asked. Elijah shrugged. ‘What about the others? Rowan, Jimmy…’ Elijah thought he caught a slight emphasis as she said Jimmy’s name.
‘I suppose we’ll all have to go back to a camp somewhere eventually... me, Sky, Rosa, Jimmy and Rowan. There’s nowhere for us to go, unless we keep running. And to be honest, I don’t know about the others, but I’m tired of running.’
There was nothing left to say. Exhaustion hit Elijah suddenly, like a brick wall thrown in his path. ‘Do you mind if we go in now?’
Sadie nodded. ‘Ok.’
They walked slowly back to the house, this time not holding hands. New ground rules had been set and Elijah felt the significance. He wasn’t sure how to act around Sadie now. In the morning he would set things straight with people, but now he wanted to sleep.
That all eyes were upon them as they entered the kitchen escaped his attention. He sat on a chair at the table and leaned his head across folded arms, unable to stop his eyes from closing.
Elijah pushed himself slowly up. He was in a sleeping bag on Xavier’s bedroom floor at White Lodge. He couldn’t remember how he had got here. Then, he realised that Tessa had gone and it was his fault and the pain flooded his core again. He sank back onto his pillow. He wanted the oblivion of sleep back but his eyes wouldn’t close. A bright day streamed in through the open curtains that somehow seemed inappropriate, almost offensive, after everything that had happened. Xavier was still sleeping in his bed; Francois, Jimmy and Rowan in sleeping bags dotted around the floor. The Bettencourts had not had the heart to turf them out into the summer house this time. The girls slept in Francois’ room.
Elijah gave up trying to go back to sleep. He pulled on his trousers and t-shirt that were hanging, miraculously freshly washed and dried, over the back of a chair. He was amazed at how weak he still felt. He crept downstairs on unsteady legs, hoping that the entire household would still be asleep so he could spend some time keeping himself company. Entering the homely kitchen, he was disappointed to find Pierre at the table, bent over some paperwork. He was about to duck back out of the room when Pierre looked up.
‘Feeling better?’
‘Loads. Thank you.’
Pierre waved away the thanks. ‘Come and sit down. I expect you could eat something. I know Isobel has some yogurt somewhere around here.’ He got up and began to rummage in cupboard. Elijah took a seat at the table and watched him.
‘Here.’ Pierre set a bowl with a dollop of creamy yogurt and some dried fruit and a spoon down in front of Elijah, who surprised himself by falling upon it with gusto. Pierre looked at him thoughtfully as he ate.
‘Elijah, tell me about your family.’
‘Not much to tell.’ Elijah swallowed a large mouthful. ‘I lived with my dad, my mum I never knew, she left when I was a baby. When dad died I had nowhere to go. I didn’t know where my mum was,’ he paused, his spoon half way to his mouth, and stared into space, ‘I suppose I should start looking for her again now.’
Though he had not considered it properly before, the idea of leaving for such a seemingly impossible task made him feel sick. ‘What’s going to happen to all the kids on the camp?’
‘It’s too early to say.’ Pierre put his papers into a neat pile and placed his pen on top of them. He leaned back in his chair and gazed at Elijah, who felt his face grow hot under the doctor’s scrutiny. ‘Obviously, Xavier and Francois are back with us. Isobel has taken quite a shine to young Rowan so we have offered to sponsor him.’
Elijah stared. ‘Really?’
Pierre nodded. His usually dour expression almost cracked into a smile.
‘That’s brilliant!’ It was an odd mixture of emotions. When Elijah said it was brilliant, he meant it. But there was another emotion that was so hard to fight, even though he didn’t want to feel it. He couldn’t help feeling like the mongrel dog that gets left in the home, losing out to the endless cute puppies.
His thoughts were interrupted by Xavier and Francois, who came into the kitchen laughing. They were followed by Rowan, whose brow was contracted into a petulant frown.
‘Trying to get first dibs on breakfast, eh?’ Francois clapped a hand on Elijah’s back and took a seat next to him. Xavier jumped up onto a kitchen worktop, his legs swinging, and grinned. Rowan folded his arms and stood in a corner glowering. Elijah looked at him and raised a questioning eyebrow.
‘It’s them,’ Rowan pouted in reply. ‘They keep calling me little bruv and saying I have to do as I’m told now.’
Pierre got up from his seat. ‘I have some other things to do. I’m sure these three can get you anything else you need, Elijah.’
Before he had left the room there was a sharp rap at the back door. Pierre stiffened, glancing at them all in turn before his gaze settled on Elijah. ‘I think you should get out of sight.’
Elijah bolted from the room and up to the top of the stairs, where he listened intently as Pierre went to open the door. The warm, rhythmic tones of a Hampshire accent drifted up to him. Elijah couldn’t help yelling and taking the stairs, two at a time.
‘Ishmael!’
He couldn’t really comprehend the joy he felt at seeing his Good Samaritan again, but it was there just the same. Ishmael’s presence felt like a lucky charm.
Ishmael let out a throaty chuckle. ‘How are you, Mr Thackeray? See you’ve been scrapping again.’ He raised an eyebrow, appraising Elijah’s wounds as he grasped his hand in a firm shake.
Pierre motioned for Ishmael to go through into
the kitchen. ‘Did your errand go well this morning?’
‘Well enough,’ Ishmael began as he heaved himself into a chair at the table, pulling at his bad leg until it was comfortable. ‘To be truthful, I saw her to the door and didn’t stay after that… I thought it was a bit private, if you know what I mean.’
Pierre nodded. ‘Would have done the same myself. I’ll call Isobel. I know she wants to speak to you.’
As Pierre left, Elijah pounced on Ishmael, a million questions about what had happened during his absence burning his mouth, almost all coming out at once in a garbled rush.
‘Hold on, plenty of time for that later,’ Ishmael laughed. ‘What I want to know is what happened to you. An eventful few days, by all accounts.’ He sat back and folded his hands over one another on the table, waiting.
Again, Elijah was forced to remember. Talking about it, as he knew he must, meant dealing with it, and he wasn’t ready. Xavier saved him by interrupting.
‘She went then?’
‘Aye.’
‘Must have been really early.’
‘It was. She didn’t want a fuss, bless her.’
Elijah was pulled back from his private abyss. ‘Who?’
Xavier exchanged an uncomfortable look with Francois. ‘Sadie’s gone back to her mum… we would have woken you last night but… she didn’t want us to tell you.’
‘Oh…’ Elijah couldn’t help a twinge of bitterness. He felt, in some way, that she was having her moment of revenge, although he knew it was petty to think so. She had left him without a word, just like he had done to her. It hurt. But there was also relief, an unwanted complication removed, and he hated himself even more for that thought.
Though Xavier and Francois didn’t know the history between Sadie and Elijah, they could guess.
‘I think,’ Francois began, putting a hand on Elijah’s shoulder, ‘maybe she just thought it was easier this way… after all, she could see that you and Sky –’
‘She couldn’t see anything,’ Elijah interrupted, shaking free of Francois’ hand, ‘because there is nothing to see. Sky and me… we’re not… there’s not….’
‘So you two…?’ Francois glanced with some confusion at Xavier and Rowan in turn. Rowan stifled a grin and turned to look out of the window.
‘If you ask me,’ cut in Ishmael, who also fought back a smile, ‘things are as they should be now. Young Sadie belongs with her mother until whatever happens happens, and she has put things in order as she thinks best for everyone. You can’t say fairer than that.’
Isobel swept in, looking fresh and radiant, and Ishmael immediately began to rise from the table. ‘Don’t bother yourself to get up for me,’ she smiled. ‘Sorry you had such an early start; it was very good of you to offer to take Sadie home.’
Ishmael dropped back to his chair. ‘When young Sky asked me to help… well,’ he chuckled, ‘it’s not easy to refuse her anything you know, being such a sweet thing.’
Isobel’s smile failed a little as she glanced at Francois, whose unconcerned expression reassured her and she found herself on solid ground again. ‘I’m quite sure she is a lovely girl, Mr Bunton.’
‘Call me Ishmael.’
‘Would you like some breakfast, Ishmael? The others are on their way down and it would be no bother to set one extra place.’
‘That would be grand.’
It was a chilly day, but Elijah wrapped himself in one of Xavier’s coats. He sat on the bench under the firs, soaking up the gentle sunrays that illuminated the crystalline dewdrops coating the grass. Sunshine that you could actually sit in was a rare thing. Everyone else was eating breakfast, but Elijah had made his excuses and bolted for the open air. The kitchen was full of life: too noisy, too crowded, too happy. Xavier and Francois continued their good natured taunting of Rowan who, despite his frowns, was obviously happier than he had ever been. It was almost more than Elijah could bear. Neither could he face the earnest, questioning gaze of Sky, knowing that she had contrived to get Sadie out of the way. Or the way Francois measured them both in turn. All these things annoyed Elijah without him understanding why. He gazed out over the neat, glistening lawns to the perfectly white house, and his thoughts strayed to his dad and the pokey flat they had once shared. It didn’t hurt to remember as it once had. The past had almost been washed away in the torrent of events that had gone since. But, whatever his dad had been, Elijah knew he needed to hold on to his memory.
His attention was drawn to a figure shuffling awkwardly across the lawns towards him.
‘Mind if I sit with you a bit?’ Ishmael asked as he drew closer.
Elijah moved aside. Ishmael sat down and fished in his breast pocket. He handed Elijah a photograph. It was the same photo that Elijah had found in the shoebox at Ishmael’s house: a young woman with a cloud of black curls and dazzling indigo eyes. Elijah was suddenly struck by a remarkable likeness that he had never noticed before, one that made his stomach lurch to think of. How strange the world was right now.
‘Sky asked me about this yesterday. Said she’d found it while she was cleaning up,’ Ishmael said.
Elijah almost smiled at Sky’s little white lie.
‘Cordelia Tate, as she was then. Cordelia Thackeray she became.’ Ishmael looked at him squarely.
‘Mum?’
‘It would seem so.’
‘But how –’
‘There wasn’t a boy at St Dominic’s who didn’t have a crush on Cordelia Tate. She was a tiny little thing, almost more hair than girl… but those eyes… eyes that could charm the birds out of the trees. And a wicked sense of humour, real clever.’
Elijah struggled to make sense of what he was hearing. ‘So you were at school with her?’
‘Hard to believe, I know. In my defence, being outdoors doesn’t age a man kindly. I do believe I was in with a chance for a while, though.’ Ishmael suddenly looked wistful. ‘But your dad soon had me out of the frame. One day we had a fight and he gave me this gammy leg for my pains.’ Ishmael gestured to his knee and Elijah remembered the odd gait he had noticed when they first met.
Elijah felt suddenly guilty for something he could have had no control over, for something that happened even before he was born. Knowing the history didn’t change his feelings about Ishmael.
‘Anyway,’ Ishmael continued, ‘they took off together one day after we had all left school and I never saw her again. It was strange,’ he regarded Elijah fondly, ‘as soon as I saw you that day on the road, I think, deep down, I knew you were her boy.’
Elijah stared at the photo. Here she was, his mother, a moment of her life captured on paper, now gone forever. His head was swimming with new revelations, fantastic possibilities suddenly opening out ahead of him. ‘You’ve never moved far from where you grew up, then?’
‘Family home, passed to me from my father.’
‘So my mum came from near Ten Oaks?’
‘She did.’
‘So, maybe, when she left dad she came home?’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘I don’t know, like her mum and dad… I could have grandparents!’
‘No, Elijah,’ Ishmael replied quietly with a tentative hand on his shoulder. ‘There are no grandparents. ‘I’m sorry, there’s no one else. And if your mother had come back, believe me, I would have known about it.’
‘But –’
‘I wish I could tell you something different.’
‘So my mum is dead too?’
‘I’m not saying Cordelia is dead, just that she doesn’t live nearby.’
Elijah slumped. The elation that had seized him dissipated again, and the daunting task of finding his mother loomed once more.
‘I’ve been thinking. There’s a home for you with me… if you want. I’m all on my own on that big farm and I’m not getting any younger and, truth be told, I could do with a bit of company.’ Ishmael watched Elijah carefully, waiting for a response that didn’t come. ‘Elijah,’ Ishmael continued softly. ‘I
can sort your sponsorship… that’s if you want to…’
Elijah remained silent, his thoughts disordered. This was something he had never anticipated and he couldn’t quite trust his hearing. Was Ishmael really offering him a home? Ishmael cleared his throat. ‘Of course, if you’d rather not…’
Elijah’s vision blurred and he handed the photo back, rubbing at his eyes. He laughed shakily. ‘You mean that?’
‘I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t. Think about it. I realise it’s a big decision.’ Ishmael hauled himself up without another word and loped towards the house. But Elijah was given no time to contemplate his future. Xavier passed Ishmael on his way out to find Elijah.
‘Mum says you should come in and eat.’ He dropped down onto the spot that Ishmael had just vacated.
‘Just give me a few minutes?’
‘That’s what I said you’d say. You don’t have to come in, you know, if you don’t want to.’
‘I will, just…’ Elijah’s reply tailed off.
Xavier waited. He had seen Elijah like this before, at the mill. This time he knew that distance was the best therapy. He stood up to go back, but remembered something. ‘You still thinking of looking for your family?’
Elijah shrugged.
‘It’s probably a coincidence, but at the camp, there was a file on a girl named Thackeray. You don’t get many Thackerays, do you?’
Elijah’s interest was sparked, despite himself. ‘Did you get any more information?’
‘Sorry, there was no time. I only saw that she had been sponsored pretty soon after she had arrived. Her first name was Tessa… coincidence or what?’
Elijah began to shiver. The day was getting weirder. ‘I think I will go in.’
He walked stiffly across the grass towards the house and Xavier followed.
The kitchen was full of animated chatter. Breakfast was still in full swing, a long and leisurely affair, punctuated by sporadic peaks of emotion - excitement and sadness - as new information and anecdotes came to light.
‘How did you know where to find us?’ Jimmy asked Xavier and Francois. ‘How did you know we were in those woods?’
‘We went back to the camp to get you, and you weren’t there,’ Xavier replied.
Francois cut in, ‘You’ve no idea how persuasive dad can be.’ He grinned, ‘When dad told that secretary at the camp, you know, the really vile one that checked us in, when dad said that he knew all about her cover-up, how Xav had got his injuries, told her he would make sure she was arrested as an accomplice… well,’ he put on a rubbish mock American gangster voice, ‘she started singing like a canary.’