A Ravelled Flag (Strong Winds Trilogy)

by Julia Jones

  This looked like a town. Time he tuned back into Sandra.

  “There’ll be a chairperson who’ll explain everything and make sure you’re comfortable with the procedures. They’ll try to make everything as informal as possible. I’m not entirely sure who else will be there. Your tutor said he’d be teaching so he didn’t want to come unless it was urgent. I told him it was okay because we’re just signing you off. Mr Ribiero had a theatre list that he couldn’t reschedule but Mrs Ribiero said she’d be attending as your supporter.”

  “Maybe Flint won’t bother coming either,” thought Donny, with a sudden surge of optimism.

  But the first people they saw as they arrived at the big, slab-sided SS building were the Gruesome Twosome, Flint and Toxic. It wasn’t surprising that they enjoyed each other’s company. He was a massive bully: she was twisted and clever and liked watching children get hurt. Donny and Anna were certain that they had something sinister going on behind their official disguises. Something that allowed him to own his million pound shark-boat stuffed with state-of-the-art equipment and her to indulge her taste for designer outfits and multiple pairs of seriously expensive shoes.

  What was worrying was that the man walking in between them turned out to be the Committee Chairperson. They were coming out of the ‘No Admittance to the Public’ area and all three were smiling broadly as if they’d had a jolly good chat and were absolutely the best of friends.

  Donny’s heart sank.

  Then Great Aunt Ellen set off the metal-detector alarm.

  Sandra had led them to the reception desk where some woman was distributing visitor badges from behind floor-to-ceiling toughened glass. As soon as Gold Dragon stepped forward, a siren sounded and red lights began to flash.

  Everyone turned to stare at her. Flint took several giant strides forward and positioned himself dramatically between the octogenarian and the receptionist – legs apart and arms wide – as if to shield the latter from violent attack.

  Great Aunt Ellen looked puzzled for a moment. Then she half smiled and raised her hook. “Is this the problem?”

  “No, madam,” Flint lunged towards her. “This is.”

  Gold Dragon was wearing her shore-going togs: navy-blue jacket and trousers with a politely formal cream silk shirt. She’d even twisted her long straight plait into a bun. Unfortunately she’d forgotten to leave off her sailor’s leather pouch, with a set of tools for emergency repairs. He’d watched her using them that day on Snow Goose.

  Flint pulled out her broad-bladed knife, leapt back and held it up for all to see.

  Denise Tune gasped in well-faked shock. A knaife!

  “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” Great Aunt Ellen explained. “It’s old. The whole set’s old. I wear it all the time. Sleep with it sometimes. I’d have left it on board if I’d thought.” She unbuckled the belt and pouch and stepped around Flint towards the sealed-off desk. “Why don’t you take care of my tools while we’re here?” she asked the receptionist. “I didn’t realise you people were so jumpy. I’m a sailor, not an international terrorist, you know!”

  If she was trying to help everyone relax it didn’t work.

  The siren and the flashing light were switched off. Then a man in security guard’s uniform came unsmilingly out from behind the reception area with a clear plastic bag. He took the equipment without a word and placed it in the bag as if ready to be used in evidence.

  Flint did not hand over the knife. Instead he reached into his black briefcase and extracted a padded zip-lock into which he sealed it with exaggerated care. Then he brought out a triplicate pad, wrote Confiscation of Offensive Weapon, filled in the date and place and passed it to Great Aunt Ellen for signature.

  “This item will be available for reclaim at your local police station after not less than three working days, to allow for processing,” Flint intoned. “It may be returned to you on presentation of a certificate of occupational need signed by your employer or other suitably qualified professional person.”

  Gold Dragon stared at him as if he were a Wellington boot dragged out on the end of a salmon line. Then she extended her hook and scratched a mark that crumpled and tore the top leaves of Flint’s pad.

  “Sorry,” she said, unconvincingly. “I’ve never quite managed to get the hang of writing no-handed.”

  The fat policemen flushed crimson around his stubbly jowls but Donny noticed the brief and satisfied nod that he directed at Toxic Tune over the head of the Chairperson. He didn’t like the look of it.

  Skye was also watching this strange scene. “These are crooked tongues,” she signed. Then she put her arm around Donny’s shoulders to give him a quick hug. It was strange. They’d only been separated for a few weeks but her arm seemed to reach him at a slightly different angle. He’d grown taller since he’d been down here.

  This was good but kind of awkward. Great Aunt Ellen hadn’t been able to persuade the people at the car pound to let them take the camper-van away and get all their stuff out. Apparently there were still problems about the insurance and the MOT and finding Skye’s driving licence. Plus a fine and something called an impoundment fee. So Sandra had gone there for them and picked up a couple of bags of clothes. That morning Donny had climbed grumpily into his old best jeans – only to find that they were now half way up his ankles and decidedly tight around the waistband. Considering how many meals he’d missed recently, that didn’t seem fair.

  He felt even more irritated when Sandra said that the SS would be wanting him to have another height and weight check before they signed him off. He didn’t see why they should take any credit for him having a growth spurt over the time he’d been on their register.

  Skye had also got fresh clothes from the van and Donny had persuaded her to wear a plain dark shawl over her long dress instead of one of Granny’s man-size home-knitted sweaters. She’d washed her hair and allowed Donny to braid it but she hadn’t wanted him to twist in any of the coloured ribbons that she’d used to love.

  Donny could feel his mum trembling slightly as she held him close. This seemed to go on all the time now. She was taking about six pills a day because the new doctor said it would be dangerous to come off medication all at once. They were anti-depressants but the doctor kept calling them her ‘happy pills’. Donny thought he was a complete idiot.

  After Flint had shut the knife into his case, and done something ostentatiously complex with the combination locks, Toxic glared at the Chairperson. He cleared his throat and looked a bit shifty; then said that everyone needed to come straight to Room M1. He said there were some matters of procedure he needed to run past them.

  Run straight over them more like. Leaving Donny, Skye and Gold Dragon spluttering and splintered in his wake.

  Room M1 was a large room with a huge table. They found themselves at one end of it, sitting opposite the line of the Professionals like prisoners in the dock. Sandra changed places to be near them. Someone, who she introduced as the Gallister High School nurse, moved with her. The rest stayed solidly where they were. Flint and Toxic plonked themselves either side of the Chairperson as if they were his minders.

  There was a secretary taking notes and a small Asian-looking man in a suit and two other women who were not introduced and who never spoke. Their function seemed to be to nod at everything the Chairperson said and to glare disapprovingly at the misfits opposite. There was no Mr McMullen, no June Ribiero, no Rev. Wendy even.

  First the Chairperson thanked everyone for coming – his cheesy grin flashed from side to side at Flint and Toxic and the support team and somehow fizzled out when it reached Skye, Donny and Great Aunt Ellen. Then he got his mouth full of words and announced that this inter-agency meeting had originally been convened to enable the Statutory Services to be discharged of the responsibility of accommodating John Walker, aged thirteen, a young person discovered homeless.

  ‘Origi
nally convened?’ thought Donny. What does he mean by ‘originally’?

  The Chairperson gave Donny a patronising smile to show what a nice kinda guy he was. “Hi John, I’m Tony, by the way. I’m called a Service Manager but you don’t need to worry about that. Good to meet you, John.”

  “Thanks. Actually I’m called Donny, not John. I’m fourteen now not thirteen and I wouldn’t have been homeless if the police hadn’t grabbed my mum and taken our van away.”

  “Happy birthday to you then ... But you know, er, Donny, in this part of the world we think our young people should be looking to live in something, you know, a bit better than a van. We’re signed up to delivering a society where Every Child can have high material expectations.”

  Tony tried another grin but it was Denise Tune’s lip-sticked leer that bothered Donny. Maybe he’d best shut up.

  Tony carried on. “As most of you know there was a certain amount of orchestrated media attention when Miss Walker – hello Miss Walker!” He gave Gold Dragon a flirtatious little wave.

  (Don’t wait for her to wave back because she isn’t going to, thought Donny.)

  “When Miss Walker arrived in our country publicly announcing that she was going to take charge of the boy.” Tony’s voice grew stern. “Miss Walker has, I understand, enjoyed a certain measure of celebrity in the past and perhaps she assumed that this would be sufficient to smooth her through the safeguards of our Caring System ... ”

  “I didn’t give it a thought. Your system, I mean. I’m Donny’s great-aunt. My sister died so I came to take her place. They’re my family: where’s your problem?” She gave her sudden, rippled smile to Skye and Donny. “Besides, I’ve seen a bit of weather now. I reckoned it was about time I found someone to raft up with.”

  It was obvious to Donny that she was trying not to sound as if she was taking them out of duty, but she’d said the wrong thing as far as Tony was concerned. His cheesiness turned positively rancid.

  “Ah, that delicate matter of a lady’s age ... So you’re intending to take up residence here? Make use of our Health Service, perhaps? But Miss Walker – or may I call you Ellen? – I don’t believe you hold a current British passport?”

  “No, no and no! From what I’ve seen of your health service so far I wouldn’t touch it with a full-length quant.” She glanced at Donny to make sure he was signing for Skye. “No, I’m not sure exactly where we’re going to fetch up. I think my niece needs to take some time to get to know me first. And no, I don’t have a British passport. Handed it back years ago. I’m an Australian citizen. My mother was Australian ... though she raised five children here.” She paused for a moment, then she fixed Tony hard with her bright blue eyes. “One final negative – I certainly do not give permission for you to call me Ellen!”

  “Thanks for the family history, Miss Walker,” Tony wasn’t trying to sound nice any more. “Though I’m afraid it’s irrelevant. My point is that we have Procedures for Inter-country Adoption and we can’t simply set those aside when someone arrives at our shores with the TV cameras running. You’ll need to return to Australia and make your initial application there. And, you know, Miss Walker, I fear you’ll find that your age is against you. In our country we ask that our prospective parents should not have reached retirement age before the young person ceases full- time education. It can be a tiring business raising a youngster.”

  Gold Dragon looked surprised. “Eh? You can’t have been listening, Mr Chairman. I’m not planning to adopt Donny. He has a mother. She’s here. Look.”

  “Ah, yes.” There were no fake grins for Skye. “Ms Skye Walker ... who can give the support agencies no information about the father of her child. Ms Skye Walker ... who has herself required intensive support from the day she was born and whose most recent release from hospital was not conducted precisely according to the provisions of the Mental Health Act. You know, Miss Walker, it should have been you who signed those discharge forms. Not some misguided foster-carer.”

  So Rev. Wendy was in trouble. Maybe that was why she wasn’t here?

  Gold Dragon shrugged. “I wasn’t asked to sign any forms. I’d have gone over as soon as I found where she was. I guess I’d have managed to use my good hand if I were signing for my niece.”

  There wasn’t a cat’s-paw of amusement.

  Tony carried on as if he was a prosecuting lawyer on prime-time TV. “But Miss Walker, events that next day surely confirm that your niece would have been better staying where she was? In Hospital where she was being Professionally treated and was prevented from endangering herself, or the public, or other people’s property.”

  Donny saw that there were newspapers at Tony’s end of the long table. A local evening paper with photos of the wrecked Snow Goose and Great Aunt Ellen looking old and inadequate. That must have been when she was saying that she wasn’t as quick as Edith when it came to dishing out dry clothes. There weren’t any photos of him but there were plenty of Skye. Not Skye looking terrified and panicking but Skye looking deranged and ... dangerous.

  The secretary handed them out like they were class worksheets. Toxic tutted. Flint hrrmphed. Tony looked smug.

  Gold Dragon got angry. “Listen here, hobo, I don’t see you as a marine insurance assessor, I don’t see you as a doctor. I’m having some trouble even seeing you as a human being. You say you have a responsibility for accommodating Donny? Good. Now get this into your log book: I intend to share my home with my family for as long as they want to share it with me. Sleep easy, Mr Chairman, your problem’s solved.”

  “Not quaite ... “ Toxic cut in as if she’d been waiting for this moment. “Denise Tune, Educational Welfare in a Multi-Agency Context, Every Child Matters, Lead Worker.”

  Donny’s hands froze. He couldn’t sign that lot to Skye. Couldn’t even make jokes from it. He’d forgotten how sick Toxic’s sugar- coated voice made him feel.

  “Aim tasked with assessment of Appropriateness and Risk Factors. Tell me, Miss Walker, where exactly are you living?”

  “On board my boat, Strong Winds.”

  “And is ... Strong Wainds ... a British boat?

  “No, she was built in ... Southern China and flies the Australian flag.”

  Did Great Aunt Ellen hesitate? Maybe she was surprised to find someone like Toxic taking an interest in her boat.

  The small man raised a finger as if he had a question to ask. Toxic tipped her head to one side. Her caring side.

  “You’ve had quaite a long day, Miss Walker. Research suggests that, in the older person, even maild fatigue may exert a negative influence on the ability to retrieve fact. Especially in a context of personal disorientation. Ai don’t expect you’re able to recall more precaisely where your vessel originated?”

  “I’m not ga-ga yet, Ms ... er. Strong Winds was built in Bias Bay.”

  That meant something to the small man. Looking at him, he was probably Chinese so maybe this Bias Bay was his hometown.

  Toxic carried on working through her phoney check-list.

  “Has Strong Winds a permanent postal address?”

  “Yes. When we’re in Shanghai.”

  “Ai see ... And what steps have you taken towards purchasing some suitable Property in our area?”

  “Property? You mean ... a house?”

  Toxic tilted her head the other way. She looked pitying this time.

  “Yes, Miss Walker, a house. A place where people live. Normal people, that is. Not un-invaited travellers causing a public nuisance in their un-insured vains. Or bringing in their Chainese junks, which run amok and wreak devastation to an English Yacht.”

  She gestured towards her own copy of the newspaper. Picked it up in her long-taloned fingers, smailed without cracking her make-up.

  Great Aunt Ellen ignored the taunts. She was still playing it straight: still trying to explain her perfectly reasonable intentions to these
strangely hostile people. Donny remembered how he had felt when he first hit the System. He felt sorry for her. But he wanted her to give an answer to this question – even more than Toxic did.

  “I haven’t any plans at all to buy a house. I’ve not owned a house in my entire life. I’m a sailor. But I’m ready to drop anchor for a while, see how we rub along. If Donny’s happy with this school he’s at, I thought maybe we might make Harwich our home port.”

  “Ai see,” Toxic repeated. “Ai see that you have no intention of buying a Property. You intend to remain an itinerant traipsing around in your Chainese boat ... sorry, your Chainese junk. And you’re seriously proposing this junk as suitable accommodation for a family! Has it been ... quarantined?”

  Gold Dragon’s eyes grew hard. Her voice was steely. “Doesn’t need it. Paperwork sorted in Rotterdam. EU country. Strong Winds is my home, Ms ... er. The place where I’ve lived the last fifty years. She’s sound and she’s seaworthy. She’ll last my niece and great-nephew another half century if they find they like the life.”

  Of course, thought Donny. Of course Gold Dragon hadn’t been planning to buy a house! How could he have thought it? The moment he seriously tried imagining her piratical figure walking sedately up a garden path to go ping-pong on a front- door bell, he knew he’d been living in Neverland.

  He didn’t mind – a home on board Strong Winds sounded great to him. Could be a bit tricky till Skye learned the ropes – at least how not to untie them all of the time. But Internet access, telephone lines ... how was he going to break this to Anna? He’d promised to help her in her quest: Anna never forgot promises.

  “John may consider your old junk an improvement on his mother’s van,” Toxic sneered. “But I doubt anyone else will share his view.”

  “Personally I think living on a boat sounds rather romantic,” said Sandra.

  Tony turned on her like a spitting cobra. “As your manager, Sandra, I have to remind you that this is a Professionals’ meeting. We don’t speak personally here.”