“We can’t find him. No one knows where he is.”
“Really?”
“He didn’t tell you he was going off somewhere?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?” Her voice has that hurry in it, which means she’s stressed. She’s not like Kate or Fiona or Viola or even Molly or Missus Anderson. His mother Can’t Cope. He heard Laurel say that to Pink once when they didn’t know he was listening. “He must have said where he was going to play. Think, Rory!”
He waits for a moment so it seems like he’s thinking, then says, “I didn’t hear him say anything.”
“Somewhere inside. Around the hotel, maybe? Could that be it?”
He can tell she’s not really listening to him at all, so he just says “Dunno.”
From outside someone shouts, “Connie!”
“I’m in here!” she shouts back. The door clatters again and in comes Missus Shark, whose name isn’t actually Shark but the kids call her that because it’s close to her name, plus she’s very ferocious. Rory could have identified her by the sound of her feet even if she hadn’t shouted. It’s a small world.
“Anything?”
“Rory hasn’t seen him.”
Missus Shark’s head comes up the staircase too. “Since when?”
Rory really has to think this time. “I saw him by the Pond this morning. Playing in the Hide.”
“This morning,” Missus Shark says.
“Yes.”
She turns to his mother and lowers her voice. “The blue dinghy’s missing,” she says.
“What?”
“The blue dinghy. It’s not on the beach. Someone took it.”
There’s a nasty silence.
“Which boat did you take?” his mother asks him, though she knows which boat he took since she was waiting on the Beach when he rowed back from Briar. She’s getting worked up and can’t think straight.
“I took Rat. Remember?”
“And the girls took the yellow one.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh God,” his mother says, to no one, unless it’s actually to God. She clutches the banister. “Oh God.”
Missus Shark says, “We mustn’t panic. We don’t know what happened yet.”
“I want you to go back to Parson’s,” his mother says. Parson’s is the house they live in now. Neither of them call it home. They had their own house once, where they lived in The Old Days, with Dad and Jake and Scarlet. It’s a shell now, full of sand and nettles. “Right away.”
“What about doing the berries?”
“Forget the sodding berries!”
Missus Shark puts a hand on his mother’s shoulder. “Connie.”
“Parson’s,” says his mother. “Now.”
Missus Shark looks at Rory with an expression he can’t read. “He’ll be all right. Let him finish.”
There’s another Rule. They learned it the previous winter, when things kept going wrong and Missus Stephenson and Missus Hatchard died. The Rule is that whenever you’re doing a job to do with food or fuel you have to do it properly until it’s finished, no matter how long it takes or what else you think of. It’s only a bag of blackberries; when they’re dried they’ll just be a few handfuls. But there’ll be days in the coming winter when those morsels of sweetness will feel like the difference between giving up and going on.
“I want him inside,” his mother says. Her voice is sort of scraping.
Missus Shark gives Rory a sad look. “Tell you what,” she says. “You stay here with him. There are enough people looking.”
His mother tightens her grip on the banister. In the silence they all hear a terrible sound, a distant scream which makes Rory think of the illustration in one of his books showing people with the wrong religion being burned at the stake, teeth bared and eyes popping out. “Oliver!” It’s Molly, somewhere up the lane, howling across the island. “Ol!” Rory turns back to the tray, dips another berry in the basin, gently shakes it out.
* * *
His mother sends him to Parson’s as soon as everyone else is out of sight. As he’s climbing the Lane he looks back across the Channel towards Briar, though she told him not to stop. It’s getting dusky, and there are torches bobbing around on the far shore. No one uses torches unless it’s an absolute emergency. They’ll run out one day, like the toothpaste.
He guesses they’ve probably found the dinghy by now.
* * *
It feels strange sitting up in bed, reading by candlelight, alone in the house. His mother said it was all right to light one of the candles, but it’s been burning a long time now: he’s finished seven comics already. Usually his mother sits at the end of the bed while he goes to sleep. That’s what’s supposed to happen after dark. She’s always calm then. She talks about how they’re going to be all right. We’ll manage, she says, you and me. He doesn’t know whether he should try going to sleep on his own. Eventually he snuffs out the light because he’s used up half a candle all in one go. He lies down like he normally would. He’s not even slightly sleepy. He lies in the dark thinking about the fact that there is no more Ol. After a while he finds himself thinking about his father and brother and sister as well, remembering what it was like when they too stopped being there.
He must have dozed off anyway because he doesn’t hear Viola come in. The first he knows of it is her murmur at the door.
“Rory?”
She’s got a candle in a glass lantern. It casts weird shadows on her face.
Rory sits up. “Where’s Mum?”
Viola doesn’t come in. She stands in the doorway like she’s embarrassed about something. She’s wearing warm clothes, coat and gloves and boots. The smudgy light makes her face a sad mask.
“Everyone’s at the Abbey,” she says. “I said I’d fetch you. Your mum’s with Molly.”
Viola is Laurel and Pink’s mother. Actually she’s their auntie but she acts like their mother. She’s not Nice like Molly, exactly, but she can definitely Cope, she doesn’t get stressed out the way his mother does. Tonight she’s full of mysterious gentleness.
“You’ll need to get dressed,” she says. “It’s too dark to bike. We’ll walk over.”
Rory changes from pajamas into the clothes he was wearing. While he’s pulling on an extra sweater Viola says, “I’m sorry, Rory. We found Ol’s clothes. His sweater and his shoes. On Briar, on the far side. Right at the edge of the bay.”
“Oh,” Rory says.
“He won’t come back,” says Viola. “You know that, don’t you. I’m so sorry.”
He bends down and does up his shoes. “Am I going to sleep at the Abbey?”
Viola holds her lantern up higher to look at him. “We decided we all ought to be together tonight.”
“All right.”
The sky’s almost completely dark. Clouds have blown in, which at least stops it from getting cold. By Viola’s light they walk down the Lane to the Pub and then along beside the Channel. Briar is just visible, a long lump of deeper black. The road twists around the Club and then skirts the Pond. Rory doesn’t have to see these things to know exactly where he is, step by step. It’s a small world, and Home’s a small part of it. You could walk all the way around the island in a morning.
“I don’t know what made him do it,” Viola says beside him. He’s always liked her voice. Laurel’s is the same. Though Ol says they sound posh. (Said.) “He knew why it mattered. Was he angry about something? Do you know?”
If there was anyone in the world he could say something to it would be Viola, but he can’t. He knew what was going to happen to Ol and he didn’t stop it, and now Ol’s dead.
“Don’t think so.”
“You wouldn’t do anything like that, Rory, would you? Something you’d been told you mustn’t do?”
“’Course not. Definitely.”
“It’s so important. You do understand that? How important it is?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought maybe They’d finis
hed with us,” she says.
Rory’s glad of the darkness. They’re on the Abbey road now, heading away from the shore. He can smell the big trees above and around them. Things are scuffling around in the leaves.
“I wonder why They hate us so much,” Viola says, a quiver in her voice. “He was just a boy.”
With a strange sort of delayed shock Rory realizes something which should have occurred to him straightaway. There aren’t any other boys now. Not even on Maries or Aggies, so everyone says, but even if there were they’d never risk the crossing, so he’d never see them. He’s the last boy in the world.
* * *
They’ve lit the fire and a lot of candles as well, more than he’s ever seen before. No one’s saying it’s a terrible waste. In fact, no one’s really saying anything. They’re all gathered in the big room, everyone except Ali, who’s sick, and Doreen, who’s too old to sit up in the night. They’re all quiet except for Molly, who’s crying in little squeaky snuffles. Rory’s mother runs over when he and Viola come in and hugs him without a word. Laurel gives him a bleak red-eyed look and then turns away. There’s more light in the room than he’s ever seen at night before but it still gives out halfway to the high ceiling, so it’s like there’s a cloud of brown shadow floating over them all, drizzling unhappiness. The women take it in turns to sit by Molly, curling up around her, holding her hands, but no one seems to know what to say to her for long.
He’s seen this scene before. Many times. Probably they’re all thinking how many times it’s been, except Pink, who’s managed to go to sleep in the seat under the tall window, wrapped in a (pink) blanket. After What Happened it was like this over and over again, women crying and holding each other, Rory never knowing where to look or what to say.
For some reason his mother did it differently. She does her crying by herself, at Parson’s. He’s seen her get the album out and look at pictures of Jake and Scarlet, but it’s only when she doesn’t know he’s there. When they’re talking at bedtime she almost never cries. She likes to pretend instead that Dad and Jake and Scarlet are somewhere else, all fine, that they made it to the Mainland. Rory goes along with it. He used to believe it was true because his mother said it so often, but when he told Pink she laughed at him, how stupid are you, and she’s right, of course. Boats used to come and go all the time in The Old Days (and planes, and the helicopter). Now there’s nothing. Nothing survives the sea.
Missus Grouse stands up. She’s an old lady and her skin’s blotchy. She’s always cold, even in summer, so tonight she’s wearing so many layers it makes her look as wide as she is tall.
“We ought to catch one of Them.”
It’s the first loud thing anyone’s said since Rory arrived. Everyone looks startled.
“We really ought to. Why do we sit here and let Them do this to us? We ought to get one of Them and hang them from the gibbet where They can see.”
Kate stands up and goes over to Missus Grouse.
“I mean it,” Missus Grouse says, crossly. “They need to be taught a lesson. We’ve got to fight back.”
Kate’s a grown-up but quite young. There’s a big picture of her on the wall of this very room, a painting. The Abbey used to be her house, if you can even call it a house when it’s more like a mansion. In the painting she’s wearing a black dress with sparkles and her hair is long and she looks sort of creamy, like a petal. The real Kate has almost no hair at all and wears trousers and sweaters like everyone else. Ol says she looks like a boy. (Said.) She leans close to Missus Grouse and says something too quietly for Rory to hear.
“It is exactly the time to talk about it,” Missus Grouse protests. “What’s going to happen to us if we don’t try to stop Them?”
When she says that, half the people in the room turn to look at Rory. Molly’s one of them. In the candlelight her face is dead white and veined like the bowl of an old sink.
* * *
His mother wakes him up with a shh. It’s first light. Grey misery’s seeping in through the big window and spreading around a roomful of sleeping women and their various snores. Everyone must have slept in the big room instead of going upstairs, for company. Missus Grouse is in a chair with her head back and her mouth open, grunting so noisily it’s surprising everyone else isn’t sneaking out too.
They creep out the side door. The dawn feels damp and heavy but it’s good to be outside in clean air, though he’s cold and stiff from sleeping on a rug. The chickens are fussing in their room. His mother bangs the door to scare them away from it and goes in, reappearing with two eggs.
At the end of the Abbey road they come out from under the drooping wet branches of the big trees and stop, looking across the Channel. There’s Briar Hill, dead ahead, a colorless mound. Gulls loop around it, yelling at each other.
“Do you know what happened to Oliver?” his mother says.
“Viola told me.”
“But you understand. What actually happened?”
He’s not sure what she means but he says, “Yes.”
“That he didn’t do what he was told.”
“Yes.”
“And They took him.”
“Yes.”
“He might have only looked for a second. That’s all it took. Just a second. Because he went where he wasn’t allowed to go. A second’s enough. Do you understand?”
“Yeah. I understand.”
His mother draws in a shivery breath. “It must all have happened while you were there.”
“I suppose,” he answers, after a pause, and then adds, “Laurel and Pink were there too.”
She turns to look at him. From the look in her eyes he can tell he’s going to have to be careful what he says. “It’s got nothing to do with Laurel and Pink.”
He doesn’t answer. He sort of leans forward, encouraging her to start walking again, but she doesn’t budge.
“Rory,” she says.
“What.”
“You . . .” She’s hesitating over something. “You like Laurel, don’t you?”
He wasn’t expecting this at all. He has no idea what the right answer is. “Yeah?”
“She’s your friend.”
“She’s all right.”
“Look at me, please. Do you ever . . . ?”
He knows from experience that it won’t be all right to stop looking at her, so he waits.
“Laurel’s pretty, isn’t she?” his mother resumes. “Don’t you think? Nice-looking. Rory, I said look at me.”
“Is she?” It’s all Rory can think of.
“It’s all right, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s normal. Do you ever . . .” It’s as if she’s not looking at him but at something right in front of his face which only she can see. “Do you ever think about her?”
“What?”
A quiver of irritation breaks her stare. It’s a danger sign. “Think about her. You know, in a special way. Like . . . Like with a funny feeling.”
“No,” he says.
“I mean a feeling like you really like her. Like you want to be, you know. Special friends with her.”
“No,” he says again. This is a nightmare.
“It’s all right if you do. It’s completely normal.”
“I don’t.”
“I’d never tell anyone. That’s not why I’m asking. You can always trust me, I’m your mum. You know you can always trust me? Right?”
“’Course.”
“So you’d tell me, wouldn’t you? If you ever thought it might be nice to, I don’t know, give Laurel a hug, something like that. Just a normal thing. Do you ever feel like that?”
“Dunno.”
She presses her lips tight. Disappointment.
“I could say,” he adds, in a rush. “If I did.”
Better. She doesn’t quite smile but a cloud passes.
“Good boy,” she says. “I know it feels funny talking about it. You’ve always got to tell me, though. Tell your old mum.”
“I will,” he says
.
Thank God, she starts walking again. His face is hot despite the dawn chill.
“I knew it would happen,” she says, in a more normal voice, a bit further along. “Molly was never strict enough with him. He was out of control even before all this started. He always did just as he pleased, that child.”
Rory knows it’s best to mumble agreement.
“Not like you.” She gives him a quick hug. “Thank goodness. Sensible boy you’ve always been.”
He decides this doesn’t need answering.
“Happiest in bed with your comics, aren’t you.”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t mind that we don’t go and stay with everyone else at the Abbey?”
“’Course not. I like Parson’s.” This he can say without watching his words. Since the winter everyone else has been living in the Abbey, to save fuel by not having people burning fires in different places, except Esme, who says she’s used to her solitary ways and couldn’t get on with the change. Molly and Ol also stayed in a separate house, of course, in the woods in the middle of the island so Ol would never be anywhere near seeing the open water, but Molly’ll be moving to the Abbey now. Rory can’t imagine how they can stand it, all the snuffling and shuffling and snoring and the smell of old women everywhere. Pink’s always trying to get him to come and stay there. She says he must like comics better than people. She means it as an insult but it never sounds like one to him.
“Just the two of us,” she says, squeezing his hand. Pink also said they’re being Selfish, and it’s not Eekonomical to use their own candles and light their own fire, though Parson’s is very well insulated and has a stove which looks like something out of a spaceship so actually it’s incredibly Eekonomical. He’s also overheard some of the women whisper about his mother being Selfish, but he doesn’t care, as long as he can have a room where he knows no one’s going to come and bother him after he’s finished with all the day’s jobs. Pink would never leave him alone if they lived in the Abbey. She thinks all the comics are stupid, though seeing as she’s never read one how would she know.
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