But when Kate finally lets him sit down again it turns out that she’s got something on her mind other than whether or not he’s telling the truth.
“Well,” she says, “I think that’s pretty much that. We have visitors.”
Half of them are shaking their heads and muttering that’s impossible. The others, like Missus Anderson, are somewhere between shocked and terrified.
“There’s only two possibilities,” Kate says. “Either one of us set that fire or someone else did. Rory’s the only person who went near the Toolshed yesterday afternoon. The rest of us all know where each other were. And even if Rory did take the things from the shed, which I never for a moment thought he did, he was asleep all night and can’t possibly have had anything to do with the fire, not that I ever thought you did either.” She smiles warmly at him. She hasn’t said anything to anyone about catching him stealing the food. She’s on his side. If Kate’s on his side then it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, Laurel or Pink or even his mother.
Esme speaks up in her whispery voice. “Can we really say what’s possible or impossible anymore?”
Fi, sitting next to her, rolls her eyes. “I don’t think the fairies would have bothered breaking into the Toolshed and dragging all that crap down to the quay just to start a fire.” Esme only smiles: she’s impossible to offend.
Kate holds a hand up before people start taking sides. “Lots of things could have happened. It’s most likely just someone over from one of the other islands, making trouble.”
“It’ll be those two girls from Mary’s,” Missus Shark says. “What are their names. Those sisters. I caught them messing with our nets in the summer.”
“Or it could be people off that boat,” Viola says. “From France.”
“We’ll have a look at the boat later on, when it’s calmer,” Kate says. “I’ll row a boat out there. Someone should keep an eye on it meanwhile.”
“Two people,” Viola says.
“The important thing,” Kate says, “is to work out what needs doing now. Viola’s right, we should make sure two of us are always together. We’ll need to lock the Stash and the barn. There’s no need to worry, we just have to start being careful again, until we find out what’s going on.”
“This is an island,” Missus Grouse says, as if no one else knows. “No one can arrive or leave except by boat. We should have patrols around the shore. If anything’s going on we’ll see it soon enough.”
“What about that boat you brought over, Connie?” Viola says. Startled, Rory looks at his mother. She’s gone rather pale and is shaking her head tightly at Viola. “Could someone from Mary’s have—”
“Vera’s right,” his mother says, quickly. “We should start a search. I’ll go.”
Rory’s remembering hiding in the cupboard and overhearing Molly say something about a twenty-footer. He wasn’t paying attention at the time, all he cared about was not getting discovered. But now the nasty thought he had in the night rears up again. His mother went to Maries and came back with a boat? Why would she do that? She always hated sailing. It’s one of the reasons she said she’d stay with Rory on Home when Dad and Jake and Scarlet went off to try to reach the Mainland and find out what was happening.
“Whatever’s going on,” Kate says cheerfully, “it won’t take too long to find out. It’s a small island after all.” Kate can feel the nervous unhappiness in the room as well as everyone else can, and she’s doing her thing where she tries to jolly them all out of it.
“It’ll be those girls,” Missus Shark says. “If you ask me they’ve been sneaking across from Maries and stealing things for months.”
“What’s the point of stealing fuel and then wasting it burning down a useless building?” Viola says.
Missus Shark sniffs. “Teenagers.”
By now almost everyone has started muttering to their neighbors, but when Esme speaks they’re all quiet again in a moment.
“The fire was the point,” Esme says. “That must be why whoever it was took all those curtains and blankets and whatnot down to the quay. To make the fire burn brighter and longer. So bright it woke us all up. Like an offering.”
Viola and Fi exchange knowing looks. Kate stands up before the gathering murmurs get out of control.
“We’ve dealt with worse than this,” she says. “Remember what really matters. We make sure we do what needs to be done. Together.” She has a way of making it sound like the worst thing any of them can do is start arguing with each other. “We’ll have the meeting as usual. We need to lock up a couple of places and maybe send a couple of people to look around the island and keep an eye on that new boat. But we also need to finish the spelt.” Or we’ll all starve this winter: she doesn’t need to say it aloud.
“First things first,” Fi agrees, looking pleased.
“So.” Kate stares everyone back into their chairs and then sits back down herself. “Let’s sort today out.” This is how the Meeting always starts. Everyone relaxes a bit. It’s as if she’s persuaded them that nothing unusual is happening at all.
Except Rory’s mother. “We were going to discuss . . .” she begins, and glances at Rory. “That thing I wanted to talk about.”
“Maybe not this morning,” Fi says. “What with all this going on.”
“No,” his mother says. “I’d like to.”
For a moment Kate’s not sure what to say. “Well, I suppose we can see what everyone thinks—”
“I’d like you to decide today,” his mother says, not meeting Kate’s eye.
You? No one ever says you. You? Who’s you? I’d like us to decide, that’s what people would say. What’s his mother doing pretending that she’s not one of the people in the world?
The room is suddenly extremely tense.
“Surely it can wait until we know for sure what’s happening,” Viola says.
“We talked about this.” It’s his mother against the whole room. Rory’s never seen anything like it. She’s bracing herself, ready for a fight.
Kate looks very uncomfortable. Everyone’s waiting for her to make a decision.
“It’s her right to decide,” says Molly. This is the first time Molly’s spoken up all day. Her voice is hollow with desolation.
“Yes,” Kate says. No one can say no to Molly at the moment. “Of course it is. All right then.”
Viola frowns into her lap.
“So,” Kate says, looking at Rory again. “Um.”
“Rory.” His mother motions him to his feet. “We need to discuss something privately. Go home”—she means Parson’s—“and wait, all right?”
“Not by himself,” Missus Anderson says.
“You two can go with him,” Viola says to the girls. They both start a no at the same time but Missus Anderson, of all people, cuts them off.
“I’ll take him,” she says. “I don’t want any part of this decision.”
The silence is as bad as Rory can ever remember it.
“Straight there,” his mother finally says, “and lock the door. Stay in your bed and read. Understand?”
“You’ll come back, Dorothy?” Kate says to Missus Anderson. “We need to—”
“Stick together,” Missus Anderson says, in a flustered rush. “I know I know I know. I know we do. Why doesn’t someone tell Connie that? Come on, Rory.”
“I won’t be long,” his mother says. They always say that before Meetings or chats. It’s nonsense. Adults talk for ages and ages and don’t get anywhere. He hurries out after Missus Anderson anyway. He doesn’t know how long he’s going to need and if his mother doesn’t find him at Parson’s when she gets back he can’t even imagine how much trouble he’ll be in.
* * *
The wind’s gusting up and the brownest leaves are beginning to fall. Summer went on so long he’s forgotten what it’s like to feel the air sting and to see the relentless heaps of nettles and grass and weeds slowing down, wilting. He lets Missus Anderson escort him all the way to Parson’s
and inside and even upstairs. She hugs him rather tearfully, which isn’t like her, but he’s only waiting for her to leave so he doesn’t give it much thought. Once she’s gone at last he collects all the food from the pockets of his other coat and puts it in the spare bag, before unlocking the door and dashing out again into the blowy morning.
He’s only gone as far as the church, hardly thirty steps, when there’s a sharp whistle above.
“Boy!”
It takes him a few moments to spot the bald dome of the stranger’s head leaning over the parapet of the church tower. The stranger looks around—he must be able to see a good way from up there—grins, makes a pssst noise, and beckons Rory inside before disappearing from view like a squirrel diving into a hedge.
The church is empty and dusty as a barn inside. He never went there in The Old Days but he knows what churches are supposed to look like, rows of wooden benches and cushions and big candlesticks. The little one over on Briar still looks like that, peaceful and solemn. Here the benches were chopped up for fuel long ago and everything else was taken in the bad time after What Happened, when people grabbed whatever they could before leaving. The only things that make it feel like a church are the windows with their sooty patterned glass, and the tablets like gravestones around the walls.
A rope comes flying from the ceiling in the square space beside the entrance. Rory jumps at the sudden movement—it’s like a snake uncoiling out of nowhere—and looks up. For a painful instant he thinks he sees Ol, but of course it’s only Ol’s clothes. The stranger appears around a hole where the rope disappears into the ceiling and then drops out of it. It looks for a moment like he’s going to fall the whole way to the floor, but he’s got hold of the rope somehow. He slides down it straight and smooth as an acrobat and lands lightly beside Rory. The clothes turn out to be a bit big on him, which has the effect of hiding the shape of his body so his head looks even bigger.
“Good,” he says, snatching the bag. “Very good.” He doesn’t look dangerous at all today. He looks comical, with his goggly eyes and loose clothes, like a clown. Rory can’t imagine why he was ever frightened of him. The stranger’s excitable today, hopping from foot to foot as he picks through the bag, muttering under his breath in his own language. “Good boy!” He clips Rory on the shoulder. “Say to no one? Eh?”
“I didn’t tell anything.”
“Clever. So you live, hmm? I don’t kill you?” He makes a bared-teeth grimace and then smiles like it was a joke all along.
“I got matches.”
“Come?”
He doesn’t understand. Rory takes the bag back and fetches the matchbook from the bottom. “Matches.”
“Ha!” The stranger looks more amused than pleased. He holds the matchbook up to the light and reads the words. “ ‘New Inn,’ ” he says, carefully, making the Pub’s old name sound silly: nyeuw een. “Osteria nuova.” He flips the matchbook back to Rory, forcing him into a fumbling catch. “I have,” he says, and points up into the gloom at the top of the rope.
“You’re hiding out up there?”
The stranger seems happy to talk. He seems happy in general, in fact. He bites the end off a carrot and makes appreciative noises.
“Hiding, si si.”
Rory looks up the rope. “Can you climb up that?”
The stranger’s stuck for a moment before he understands. “Ah. Yes. You do.” He puts the rope in Rory’s hands. “Go up.”
He’s teasing. Rory’s never liked being teased about how bad he is at sporty things.
“No thanks,” he says sullenly.
“Ecco. No one does this. Good, ah . . .” He clicks his fingers to help himself remember. “Hiding! Good hiding.” He grabs the rope back and waves it at Rory. “This, up. Perfetto.”
“What’s up there?”
The stranger outlines a curvy shape in the air and sings “Donnnnn.”
“Oh. The bell.”
“Bell, ecco. And me. Uccellino.” He holds his hand out. It’s very dirty, with ragged discolored nails. “Uccellino,” he says again.
Rory shakes hands.
“You? Name?”
“Oh.” Rory has a very strong feeling he shouldn’t say, but he wants to, plus the stranger’s big round eyes are almost bullyingly insistent. “Rory.”
“Rory.”
“Yeah.”
“Clever boy.”
Rory pulls his hand away shyly, making the stranger laugh.
“Or bad boy.” The stranger pokes him, hard. “Eh? Bad boy? In island of women.” He shakes the bag of food at Rory. “This, women don’t know. Shh.”
Rory’s feeling obscurely ashamed. “I should get going.”
“No no no no no,” the stranger says, extremely fast so it comes out like singing, nonononono. “No, no. Listen. This night.”
“I can bring more tomorrow.”
“No. Food is OK. No more. This night you bring bicicletta.” He mimes riding a bike, hopping with his knees bent like a deranged puppet.
“Bicycle?”
“Si si si! Bicicletta. You bring her.”
“You want a bike?”
The man seizes him by the arms. His strength is amazing for how tiny he is. “Listen. You know. Fuoco.” He lets go to mime again: with his empty hands he strikes an invisible match and then (puffing his cheeks and billowing his fingers) raises invisible flames. “Fuoco.”
“Fire?”
“Fire. OK. You know, in the night, fire.” He points in the direction of the Old Harbor. “You know this?”
Rory nods nervously. Of course it was the stranger who set fire to the shelter. Like Kate said, there’s no one else it could have been.
“OK. There, where fire is. You bring, ah, bicycla, this night. Bicycla with light. Like you have before.”
“I don’t understand.”
The stranger grimaces in frustration. “You. This night. Bicycla with light. There. OK?”
“I . . .”
“Good boy.”
“I can’t.”
“Come? No no no. No no no.” His face turns stern. “You do this.”
It’s gone too far. Until now it was feeling exciting, dangerous in an interesting way, like an adventure out of the comics; special, like the fact that no one else talks to Her. This is something else. He can’t go out in the night on his own stealing bicycles. He’s not allowed. “I can’t!”
The man pushes him, hard. Rory staggers backwards. The man pounces after him.
“You and mamma,” he says. “You have this house.” He points up in the direction of Parson’s. “I see you. Go in, go out. All the time, I see this.” He’s talking very fast, pausing only to chase down English words. “Day. Night. So, night, like this.” He makes a pillow of his hands and leans his cheek on it, eyes closed, all in a breath or two: sleeping. “Long time. So, mamma like this, you go out. No one to see. You bring bicicletta with light. One thing you do, this thing. Then no more. Or I kill you. I kill you and mamma. In this house.” He pulls a knife out from the waistband of the trousers. Rory recognizes it: it’s the knife from the Toolshed. It glints a few inches from his eyes. Rory’s guts turn to water. No one’s ever threatened him with a weapon before.
The stranger stops his rapid patter and steps back, eyeing Rory curiously. He puts the knife out of sight.
“Ecco là.” He pats Rory awkwardly. “Good boy.”
Rory’s sniveling. He drags in a deep breath.
“They know you’re here,” he mumbles. “They’re all looking for you.”
The stranger grins. “Women. Is OK. I go”—he whistles and waves at the ceiling—“up.”
“I can’t keep taking things. They’ll notice.” The man waves a finger by his ear and shrugs: he doesn’t understand. “They’ll notice. They’ll notice stuff missing. I’ll get in trouble.”
“No one see Uccellino,” he says.
Rory wipes his nose. “Is that your name?”
“Mmmm?”
“Oochel—”
“Uccellino. Si si.” He smacks his chest. He pronounces it slowly. “Uccellino.”
Rory knows he’s got to get back. It hasn’t been long but he can’t take any risks.
On the other hand, he’s standing here in the church talking to a foreign man who’s arrived on Home. It’s as miraculous as talking to Her, though not, he has to admit, as nice.
“Where are you from?”
“Where are—? Ah! From Trieste. Italy. You know? Italy?”
It’s like he can feel the world spinning. There were, once, other places: he remembers (or half-remembers, or remembers now for the first time in so long that it’s like making it up) seeing them, on weather maps on telly before the TVs all went dark, on the covers of books on the shelves at School before all that went away. There are Italians in some of the stories in the old comics, gangster stories. They wear long overcoats and say you sleep-a with-a-da fishes. It’s all imaginary, all beyond the world, meaningless and impossible.
Sometimes the women talk quietly together about When All This Is Going To End. Rory wonders whether this is it, now, whether it’s happening. There’s a man from Italy on Home. It’s like some point of view has suddenly zoomed up, up, away from the reality of the earth and the sea, up until the islands of the world are no longer earth and rock anymore but little flat green shapes in a big flat blue surround, with a name attached, The Isles of Scilly. We’re a dot on the map, Dad used to say.
The man takes him by the shoulders, less forcefully. “I need help of you,” he says. His eyes are so big and intense they’re almost glowing. They’re a funny color, too yellowy to be properly brown. “One time only. Very important.” He says it verrrry. “For you is facile. Small thing. One hour this night. Women all,” he mimes sleeping again, “così. For you is OK. No one see. Only women here?”
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