Mary held the first soap up for everyone to see. It looked about as good as her first candle, but it worked and, although it did fall apart, it made soap suds in water and washing with it did get off some dirt. In summer, we had swum near the river bank or sat in the rock pools, but in winter, washing just meant a bit of splashing from time to time and not very often. Although the days were warmer now, the water in the river still ran cold.
‘I want a hot bath,’ Ivy whinged and Jenna told her to shut up, but it must have started Jack thinking as we found out later.
Jack had gone down to the river carrying a deer skin, down to the rock pools. Before winter, when they had been used nearly every day, Sara and Emma made a dam from a fallen tree trunk, making the pool deeper. When they lifted the tree trunk, the pool partly emptied, so it could be filled again with clean water. They were very proud of what they’d done.
Jack had built a fire and heated some large stones. Using the deer skin he dropped them into the pool. We all heard the noise the stones made as they cracked and sizzled.
Mary guessed what he was up to and she was the first there, followed by Ivy.
‘He had to heat up a lot of stones before the water was hot enough for me,’ Mary told us. ‘Then we chased Jack away and jumped in with the soap.’
In the end we all took turns.
‘When are you going to invent hair conditioner?’ squealed Emma in the warm water while splashing her feet.
‘In about a million years I think,’ replied Mary.
Into the Blue
-20-
Much later I sat by the river watching fish jumping and flies buzzing. I was thinking about my conversation with Jenna, about home. Then a different thought came to me and I turned to Jack. ‘Did you see what happened to the hot stones?’
‘They cracked and broke up when I chucked them into the water.’
I said nothing more. I knew Jack would get the point. He went very quiet and I could almost see his mind churning. The sounds of the others blurred into the background. Jack’s fierce concentration took centre stage.
Slowly he turned to me. ‘It might work. Won’t be easy and I can’t do this on my own, not like the scraping.’
‘We’ll all help.’ I meant it, but somehow the words seemed too heavy for me to say.
‘Before we get the rest let’s give it a try.’ Jack looked round. ‘Mary,’ he called.
The three of us tried to slip away back to the cave. Jenna still saw me and I asked her to keep everyone else down by the river while we tried something out. She nodded, but it was a worried look that passed between us.
We collected a pile of dry wood and lit a fire under the huge boulder – the one Jack had worked on for so many useless days. Mary filled their largest pot with water. We stood back watching the flames grow hotter.
‘More wood,’ Jack cried and I ran off into the forest.
It took two more wood gathering trips before Jack was satisfied. The boulder glowed in the heat. I watched as Jack and Mary stood ready with the water pot.
‘I can’t go any closer,’ Mary yelped as the flames almost licked at her feet.
‘Now,’ Jack shouted and together they threw the water onto the rock and dived backwards.
I ducked to the floor. The first crack sounded like gunfire, then the sound of snapping, breaking, and the rumble of falling stone. We ran. The cave filled with steam and ash from the fire.
‘What’s happened?’ Jenna stood at the mouth of the cave surrounded by the others. They all knew we were up to something.
The air cleared and we ran back in. The fire smouldered on. Most of the water had landed on the burning wood. In the middle of the steaming wood lay a few broken fragments from the huge rock.
‘Result.’ Jack leapt into the air and hugged Mary.
I thought all the noise might have meant the rock had completely fallen apart, but it hadn’t. Result sounded a bit too optimistic. But nothing was going to take anything away from Jack’s celebration.
‘Quick!’ Mary turned to the others. ‘Get more water ... and more wood.’
‘Wait,’ Jenna called. ‘It’s nearly dark. We can’t do any more tonight. In the morning we’ll all have to get wood. This is not going to be quick.’
Mary’s face fell but Jenna was right. There was nothing else we could do that day. That didn’t stop Jack and Mary almost sleeping under the overhang we’d made in the rock. They talked and planned. Nobody got much sleep. Anxious chatter filled the cave in the night. Talk of home. As though we’d already cleared the tunnel. It sounded too excited for me, too worrying and I wasn’t sure why.
‘Do you think they’ll still be looking for us?’ I heard someone say, I think it was probably Emma – one of the younger ones anyway. That made me think that they didn’t seem younger now. We all seemed in this together. But were we all together? The talk moved backwards and forwards over the things that might have happened while we were away.
Jenna moved closer, restless and fidgeting like me, as though she almost read the trouble in my mind.
‘Eh?’ she said questioningly.
‘Eh what?’ I wasn’t sure I wanted to answer. I wasn’t sure I knew what my answer would be anyway.
‘You’ve had some weird look on your face ever since the cracking rock.’
‘So have you.’ I would have stared into her eyes but I could only just see her shape in the dark. This conversation was going to have to go by instinct.
‘Do you really think Jack can clear the tunnel?’ Jenna said with a catch in her voice.
‘Guess so, if we all help. It’ll be slower than they want, but it can be done.’
‘Then what?’
‘We go home. I visit dad in jail then I find a squat on the street. I take up drug dealing, bit of enforcing. Might survive five or even ten years. Then it all crashes in on me. How about you?’ I was almost spitting the words, but quietly. I only wanted Jenna to hear this – not the rest of them.
‘Yeah. I guess I’ll leave school and stay at home for a life long course in sex and domestic violence.’
‘Sounds like a great advert.’
We both went quiet. Listening to the others. Their plans didn’t sound like ours at all. That’s when I knew we weren’t all in this together.
Jack started organising as soon as there was enough light to see the trees.
‘Make sure it’s dry and dead,’ he called sending off one group to get wood. ‘No green stuff. The fire’s got to be hot.’
The rest were sent to fill all the pots with water. We even filled the one remaining water bottle. One that we’d brought on the walk. Was that nearly a year ago, I wondered?
Rock breaking was slow. Sam and Ivy went off to get some chuckerns. Jenna helped to clean them. I was still on wood collection, having to go further and further. Matt and I dragged huge dead tree trunks from deep in the forest. Each time we got back to the cave there was another loud crack, more steam and a lot of shouting. But it was slow.
‘We’re going to run out of stuff to burn,’ I said with a tired voice, sitting for a moment on my rock.
The last time I’d looked into the cave there seemed almost as many rocks as before. But Jack’s burning enthusiasm didn’t stop. He drove us on. He tried to get us to keep on through the night. Jenna stopped him. We were all exhausted.
Two more days and we’d maybe cleared six feet of tunnel. Everything was running out. Not just the burning wood. We were low on food. We needed a hunting trip to catch a deer.
Jack almost went berserk when Jenna suggested it. ‘No. If we stop then we’ll never do it. Who cares if you’re hungry?’ He glared round at us all before screaming. ‘Don’t you want to get home? Get on with it.’
But Sam and Ivy still went off over the river. I followed them for
a while.
‘So what’s waiting for you back home?’ I asked. I said my words without looking at either of them. I knew something was up because they hadn’t been as excited as the others.
‘Not much,’ mumbled Sam.
Ivy said nothing at all. I left them as they scrambled over the tree, making for the deer on the other side of the river. I should have got on with the wood collection, but I sat a while and watched. Sam walked with his shoulders slumped as though carrying some heavy weight. Ivy looked about as miserable as only Ivy could. But at least we had some decent meat to eat, although Jack almost stopped us using the fire to cook it.
On the fourth day it happened. Jack had opened a hole under another enormous boulder. Bigger even than the first one. It was difficult to understand how it got there. Fallen from above somehow and stuck.
The fire was burning hotter than ever. Jack poked the blazing wood under the stone. He’d found a long length of bark from one of the dead trees and used it to channel water onto the rocks.
‘It’s like a roof gutter. We don’t have to get so close. Means I can get the fire hotter,’ he said proudly holding up his flaking piece of partly rotting bark.
I watched. It certainly was hot. Jack looked like a miner. Covered in black soot. He wasn’t going to stop for a hot bath now. He held up his bark gutter. Mary and Lisa poured on water from their pots. It formed a torrent washing down on to the huge rock. For less than a second it seemed as though nothing would happen.
Then a fissure cracked into the stone. It spread upwards. The stones started to shift. It seemed to happen so slowly, we watched – mesmerized as this beast of a rock started to split. A deep growling rumble came from above.
‘Run!’ I yelled, grabbed Jack and wrenched him towards the daylight.
Falling rocks and a cloud of black dust chased us. Spluttering and coughing we waited. The dust settled and we went back in. The huge stone had disintegrated, pulling down a mass of rubble but opening a gap into the tunnel. A dim blue light shone for an instant but another small rock fall blocked the view.
Now we didn’t need the fire. When everything cooled down we could shift the piles of rock. There were still some larger boulders and we used Jack’s first idea of dragging them with creepers. Slowly the path opened up in front of us. The blue light became stronger. The light looked unnatural and seemed to make the tunnel colder. We dragged rocks for another day but it felt that we were getting through.
Then, as Matt and I heaved and rolled another boulder away, the tunnel suddenly opened up – the way now clear. The way home lay before us.
It was time for me to stop. Jenna called me back out of the cave.
‘What are you waiting for?’ shouted Jack. ‘Come on.’
But I wasn’t following. I was standing outside the cave with Jenna. She knew what was in my mind, what was in her own mind.
‘What happens if we stay?’ she asked after we’d been standing in silence while the rest of them slowly gathered round.
‘You don’t want to go back?’ Mary sounded so surprised, hearing Jenna’s words.
Neither of us replied.
‘What happens if more of Crow’s lot or some others come after you?’ Mary sounded really angry. ‘We’ve nearly starved to death, nearly been eaten by a bear. There’s nothing here. Why would you want to stay?’
‘Because there is nothing,’ Jenna answered. ‘Just us. I can’t face going back.’
I thought of what lay on the other side of the tunnel. Why should I go back? I wanted to go to Mum’s grave although I didn’t believe she was in it. I needed to look at Alice’s journal again if I could find it. But even if I didn’t do that, then I wanted to stay here with Jen. She was right, this was our place to do whatever we wanted. Back home had nothing to offer.
Everyone else broke into anxious chatter. It wasn’t only us who hesitated.
‘What do we do about Zog?’ asked Lisa, who had spent more time looking after her than working on the tunnel. ‘I can’t leave her alone here.’
‘If you stay, then I’ll stay,’ said Matt but his voice trembled.
‘No, I’m going to take her with me,’ Lisa sounded determined.
‘But Lisa, what ...’ Mary started to give all the reasons why Zog would have problems back home.
‘She’s coming with me!’ Lisa screamed as she held Zog tightly. Mary shrugged.
While the others talked, Jenna and I still stared at each other, then I took her hand, turned to the group and said, ‘Whatever anyone else does – we’re staying.’
‘I’m staying too,’ said Sam more firmly than he usually sounded.
I smiled. ‘Thanks Sam, we need you.’ I thought he probably said it because Jen and I were staying. But with no family left maybe he had good reasons not to go back. Life here had changed him. Had he changed for the better? Sam was looking in Ivy’s direction. Now it made even more sense. He hoped she would stay. But Ivy didn’t react. I think Sam was hoping that being firm might send a message to her. But Ivy had a home. Her mother might be a witch and sounded pretty crazy but it was home. Would she really want to stay here? It didn’t look like it.
‘I’m not going,’ were the first words Demelza had said since her rescue. Nearly her only words before she said, ‘And you can stop calling me Ass.’ Demelza wandered off, preventing anyone trying to change her mind. Why would she want to stay?
‘Well, I’m afraid I’m going,’ said Jack, looking at Mary who took his hand, squeezed it, and said, ‘Me too.’
‘What, inventing soap not enough for you?’ I said with a laugh, but I knew things would be difficult without them. ‘And Mary said you had an idea for a water supply.’
Jack started, ‘Yes, actually I’ve been thinking about that and ...’
‘Jack!’ Mary interrupted. ‘We have to hurry. I don’t think the tunnel will stay open for long.’
Small stones had started to fall.
I could see that Mary and Jack felt guilty about leaving, but neither of them would want to spend the rest of their lives in this weird world.
‘Sorry ... about the water supply,’ Jack muttered.
‘Maybe next time,’ I said with a grin. Jack nodded, but jolted when he realised what I had said.
‘The rest of you are coming with me whether you like it or not. I don’t want us to be the only ones trying to explain all this,’ Mary said loudly. Then she came and wrapped her arms around me.
‘You’ve done it Alvin. If it hadn’t been for you,’ she loosened her hold and turned. ‘And you Jen. If it hadn’t been for you two we would all be dead.’
Jenna gave her a look which I thought meant thanks and you can let go of him now.
‘You and Jack did it too,’ I said rather quickly.
‘Maybe, but no one would have expected you to make it happen. You’re Alvin Carter. Didn’t know you had saviour written on your heart.’
I was now a beetroot red. Jenna untangled Mary from me and took her place. ‘And he’s my Alvin Carter now, so you can’t go wandering off up the mountain with him.’ They both smiled at each other in a fairly friendly way. I think I found a colour redder than beetroot – not that I know much about vegetables.
Goodbyes were short; it looked as though the tunnel could be blocked off again by another rock fall at any minute.
Emma hesitated in the tunnel, ran back and gave me a kiss saying, ‘Thanks.’ before she ran after the rest of them.
Jack led the way.
We shouted, ‘Good luck!’ Demelza returned to the cave, peered at the leaving group and seemed to wave.
Lisa carried Zog towards the blue light. Zog went wild, screeching, scratching and biting as Lisa tried to enter the tunnel. She came back, talking to Zog. Back in the cave, Zog calmed down immediately and snuggled into Lisa. She tried a
gain. This time it was worse.
‘She won’t go.’ Lisa’s eyes were red with tears as she turned to Jenna. Lisa tried again, cuddling and stroking Zog as she walked towards the others. The same thing happened – it wasn’t going to work.
‘Lisa – come on, the rocks are falling!’ Jack shouted as the ground start to shake. ‘It’s the earthquake ...’ his voice drowned by falling stone.
Lisa sank to the floor, her face red and bloated from crying. Jenna took a step towards her. I stretched out my arm to stop her. ‘She has to decide.’
Appearing like a ghost through the dust and noise, Ivy came striding back.
‘Here.’ Ivy took the struggling Zog from Lisa. ‘Now GO!’ And Ivy pulled Lisa to her feet and pushed her into the tunnel. Lisa stumbled on with no chance to look back as the passage disappeared in one last fall of rocks. The tunnel roof had caved in, no chance of breaking through again, no way to follow them now.
‘That’s it then.’ Jenna turned away and looked out of the cave.
Sam looked as though everything wonderful that could happen had arrived in that moment Ivy came back. But he couldn’t find any words. He just beamed at her.
We stood in silence until Ivy said in a cheerful voice, ‘What’s for dinner?’ and put Zog down, who scampered off.
‘Oh – a special stew I expect,’ Jenna tried to smile.
‘Not chuckern again?’ Ivy’s rare grins were always worth waiting for.
‘Now and forever,’ I said and I walked back out to my rock.
Jack’s note
Alvin asked me to make sure I wrote it all down. Everything that happened when we got back. Just in case we should ever meet again.
Tregarthur's Promise Page 18