He took out his phone and gazed at it – the third time in as many minutes – pressed some buttons, but it still wasn’t working. Almost – kind of – blocked – in some way –
Is that possible?
Seriously?
Wesley’s call had been the last he’d received. But did that… could that make him culpable?
Am I going crazy?
‘The man who wrecked the boat,’ Arthur said –
It had to be…
– ‘did you get a good look at him by any chance?’
Sasha shook her head, ‘Too dark, and it was raining.’
Arthur pushed his phone back into his pocket and gently pulled his rucksack from his shoulders, careful not to do anything too abruptly. He was cold. She must be too. He pulled out his sleeping bag and unfolded it, propped it around them and loosely tucked it in.
His cut arm was aching. And warm. And numb. It was still bleeding. Felt heavy. He’d tied a handkerchief around it, but wasn’t entirely sure what good that was doing. His stomach rumbled –
Hungry
He was sure he had a small packet of honey and sesame crackers hidden away inside his rucksack, somewhere.
‘Do you swim?’ he asked, scrabbling around – eventually removing his computer, a flask, some spare socks. ‘I mean if the worst comes to the worst?’
The girl nodded, ‘But there’s rocks down below. That’s why my grandad settled the boat here. The tide’d need to be pretty high before we could risk jumping without getting hurt on them.’
‘Pardon?’
Arthur had the sesame crackers in his hand. But his hand had frozen, mid-air.
‘Rocks,’ she reiterated slowly, ‘down below.’
‘Oh,’ Arthur nodded his head, then forced himself to start moving again. He offered her the packet.
‘What are they?’ she frowned.
‘Honey and sesame crackers. Good for energy. Take one. It’ll keep you lively.’
‘Giraffes,’ she told him morosely, reaching out for the bag and carefully removing one, ‘only ever sleep for three minutes a night.’
Arthur was piling the other stuff back into his rucksack again – everything so far but the computer, which remained on his lap. ‘Not so,’ he said.
He couldn’t let her have it. He was Arthur Anthony Young, after all.
‘Is so too,’ she answered.
Arthur shook his head, ‘I think you’ll find that they only ever doze for three minute durations. In total – throughout the day – they sleep for about half an hour…’
Silence
‘Which isn’t very long,’ he conceded, ‘admittedly.’
She handed him back his cracker packet, grumpily.
‘How about deer?’ he asked, taking them and removing one for himself, then glancing over his shoulder towards Brion. Brion was still standing firmly and implacably between the kitchen cabinets. He’d barely moved an inch in the past twenty minutes.
‘Brion likes the cold,’ she said, ‘reindeer live on the ice-caps out of preference. This is nothing to him. This is a walk in the park for Brion.’
‘Well that’s a weight off my mind, then,’ Arthur said, shocked to discover his lip curling. He took a bite from his cracker and chewed on it, thoughtfully.
Sasha – as if looking to him for a lead – took a nibble of hers then pulled a face.
‘Although in actual fact creatures rarely adapt to something out of preference,’ Arthur continued. ‘It’s more often a case of biological necessity. For all we know Brion could dislike the cold as much as you do, but his body just happens to cope with it better than yours does.’
‘Yeah,’ the little girl sighed, shoving her finger into her mouth to try and prise the glutinous layer of honey and sesame away from her back molars.
‘So why are you here?’ Arthur asked.
Sasha removed her finger from her mouth and inspected it. Then she took another bite of her cracker and chewed on it, deliberately.
‘I was just wondering,’ she said, her mouth still full, ‘how long it would be before you asked me that.’
She nodded towards his lap, ‘Is that a computer?’
‘Yes. Laptop.’
‘Can I take a look?’
‘No.’
‘What kind is it?’
Arthur frowned, ‘Uh… Toshiba.’
‘Piece of shit, huh?’
‘Not at all.’
She sniffed.
‘So this was your grandfather’s boat?’
‘Did I say that?’ Her eyes widened.
‘Yes.’
‘Then I suppose it must be true, dammit.’
She pushed out her hand into the darkness to try and catch a snowflake on it. Brion shifted. The boat shifted. Arthur grabbed hold of the doorframe, as if in preparation for hurling himself through it. But the boat slowly settled back into place again.
‘That pesky reindeer,’ the girl tutted, rolling her eyes, unfazed. Arthur released his grip, humiliated. He looked down at his hand, his arm. The handkerchief had been white. Now it was dark.
‘Aren’t you afraid?’ he asked the girl, quietly.
‘Aren’t you?’ she backhanded.
‘Slightly.’
‘Are there games on your computer?’
‘No.’
She snorted, ‘I bet there are, too.’
‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘No games. I’ve never seen games on it.’
‘I bet there are.’
‘And the battery’s almost flat.’
‘I bet there are, though.’
Arthur was silent.
‘Games,’ she persisted.
Arthur remained silent.
‘I bet.’
He drew a deep breath. ‘We’re going to have to wait until dawn. I don’t really see what other choices we have. The big question is whether when the water eventually rises the boat becomes more insecure.’
‘Are you familiar with the tides?’ Sasha asked. ‘I imagine you must be if you live here permanently.’
Her eyes were still on the computer.
‘I’ve not lived here long,’ he acknowledged, ‘not really.’
‘Oh.’
She nodded. She shrugged.
They listened to the boat creaking. Brion sighed, noisily.
‘It should be light enough by seven, seven-thirty. And you never know, someone might… A rambler or a hiker or a farmer or someone…’
‘Or someone,’ the girl repeated, echoing his curious emphasis. He glanced up –
Is she taking the piss?
‘I bet you do have games,’ she continued, fiddling with the pom-poms on her wrists.
Arthur pulled open his laptop, turned it on. He blinked at the sudden light it generated.
‘Go to Start and call up the menu. Then roll up to Programs,’ she instructed, leaning over. He ignored her, heading instead for the battery sign in the bottom right-hand corner, pressing it for more information. 1 hr20 flashed up –
Okay
Arthur whizzed over to Start.
‘Programs,’ she reminded him impatiently, pressing her finger onto the screen.
‘Keep your hands off,’ he warned. ‘It’s… it’s…’
Couldn’t think of the word. She ignored him, anyway.
‘Now over to Accessories,’ she wheedled.
Arthur went to Accessories.
‘Games,’ she chuckled. ‘See? See?’
She was pointing, rocking excitedly.
But Arthur wasn’t looking at Games (a choice of four: Free Cell, Hearts, Minesweeper, Solitaire). He wasn’t itching to play, or cursing his ignorance or celebrating his laptop’s extraordinary multiplicity. He was looking at the desktop, at his files (peeking out reliably from under the sudden city-scape of menu-boxes) and he was seeing,
Better watch your step, Arthur
‘Let’s play Minesweeper,’ the girl said, moving in closer, inching a proprietorial finger towards the keyboard.
WATCH
YOUR STEP, ARTHUR
‘What?’
What?
This time Arthur didn’t try and stop her.
*correction: William Harvey would like it to be stated here that Wesley’s brother was not – as Iris specifies in the interview – younger than him, but older, by approximately sixteen months.. That’s why I never want him to have anything to do with my Sasha.’
Thirty-nine
It was still dark – still night – when he slowly unwound his arms from around her and –
Oh the smell of him
Like sweet ginger and leaf-mould and Polyfilla
– quietly left the car murmuring –
That voice
Like the wind through an ash tree
– something about –
Don’t wake up
Don’t worry
I just need a…
– not being gone a minute. Not a minute – he’d said, breathing into her ear. She remembered that breath –
Warm
– then a blast of cold air as he’d opened the door, pulled on his jacket, his waterproof, slammed it.
She remembered yanking the sleeping bag over her shoulder, her arm throbbing. She remembered her knee being punctured by the gear-stick –
Don’t care
– and her feet feeling like solid blocks of –
Stuff that falls from the septic tanks of aeroplanes
A bright blue colour
Crashes through the air and lands –
Oh God!
On the heads of an innocent couple going cycling
In a newly established country park near…
She woke up –
Wah?
Her feet were frozen. Crampy. She tried to shake them –
Where am I?
She was suddenly jolted. Sat upright, gasping –
Where’s Wesley?
The sun was rising. But it was cloudy. The windows were icy. There was snow – just a thin layer – and the simple reflection was making everything whiter –
Lighter
– than it otherwise might be.
The clock on her dash said 2.23. But that clock wasn’t working –
Actually
– so there was no point in looking. She was guessing 7.00… 7.30?
Jo threw off the sleeping bag, grabbed her clothes (still damp, for the most part) threw them back on (without even a murmur) found Utah Blaine, rolled the bag up, grabbed the flask –
Uh…
– Doc’s tupperware container –
Okay –Okay –Okay
She was almost panting –
Panicking
Then something occurred to her –
Footprints
– there was snow out there. There would be…
She threw open the passenger door, gazed down. There they were… relatively clear. Although a certain –and quite inevitable –amount of back-and-forthing –
Uh…
She slammed the car door behind her, stamped her feet to try and bring the life back into them, yanked down her hat (over her ears), secured the bag under her arm –shoved the flask into one coat pocket (pulling the seams too tight –not caring), the tupperware into the other, the book… the book… down the front of her jeans –
Only place for it
– and strode out, her brown eyes glued to the floor…
But it was never as –
Whoops
Arms rotating like a wind up wooden toy
Almost fell over
– but it was never as simple as it should be –
No
– because there were other footprints too –
And bird and dog and…
Bloody hell
– a total mish-mash.
It was still blessedly early, though. She turned a corner. A blast of cold sea air hit her –
Full in the face
A huge, perishing…
Fist
A mighty, spiralling
Whooah…!
She teetered on the edge of the pavement, blinking. The prints were even less decipherable here –and leading off in both directions. She tossed a coin in her head, rubbed her nose –
God, the tickling
– turned left, kept walking until…
Ahh
Ahhhh
Ahhh-tish-u!
Urgh
‘Bless you.’
Jo looked up, dazed, her eyes streaming. She’d been concentrating so hard it’d been almost like dreaming. Doc reached out his arm and took the sleeping bag from her. They were standing near the gates of the caravan site, the sea wall rearing above them like the precipitous brow of Frankenstein’s monster –
Did he come this way?
The other?
Gulls were circling, their keening cries at once muffled and amplified by the fleecy sky. ‘He’s long gone,’ Doc said, ‘and the phone and the internet sites are both still down.’
‘I was just bringing you back… uh…’
Jo grabbed the flask from her pocket, the tupperware.
She glanced down at the footprints. Up again. Doc was offering her a tissue.
‘Those prints you’re following are mine,’ he said, ‘I came to check up on you about an hour ago –just before first light –and he was already well-gone by that time.’
‘Oh…’
Jo took the tissue, pained, ‘So you knew?’
‘Of course I knew,’ Doc looked suitably irritated. ‘It’s my job to know. I’m Doc.’
As he spoke he glanced around him with an air of slight anxiety (as if uttering his own name so brazenly might prove inexplicably risky). Jo gazed around her too. Her eyes settled on a man –still in the middle distance, but heading towards them, at speed –wearing a smart coat, holding a white stick. He was being led by another man, much younger, and sighted. Shoes was just behind, following in their slipstream.
‘This Internet stuff’s causing chaos, huh?’ Jo said. ‘Are you in direct contact with the site? I thought you were their man on the ground. Are they likely to sort it all out?’
Doc didn’t answer. He tipped his head stiffly towards the approaching threesome. ‘The Blind Man,’ he murmured, ‘have you had the pleasure yet?’
‘No.’
‘I strongly recommend you keep it that way.’
‘Why?’
‘Ex-cop.’
She glanced up. Doc gave her a straight look. Shrugged. Turned back to appraise the advancing party. ‘I’m a little worried,’ he mused, ‘that Shoes might’ve gone over to the other side.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Why not just walk on,’ Doc advised her, his voice suddenly lower, more urgent, as if he’d made a decision, a snap one, ‘and be casual. Say nothing about Wesley. Give nothing away. Meet me in the Wimpy. We need to talk privately.’
‘When?’
‘Ten minutes. If anyone starts bothering you, pretend you’re still crazy. They all really fell for that clever little tactic yesterday.’
‘But I…’
I wasn’t pretending
‘The whole shebang,’ he expanded, raising his white brows at her. Jo scowled, gazed up at the sea wall. ‘What about Wesley?’
‘I’ve got it covered,’ Doc casually rested his hand on his coat pocket, tapped it ‘tracking device,’ he muttered, ‘Dennis is working undercover.’
‘The dog?’
‘Scarper,’ Doc growled, ‘I’ll fill you in later. And for God’s sake… ’
He pointed towards her chest, grimacing.
Jo looked down –
Bollocks
The jumper
– she pulled her coat tighter, blushing, then cleared her throat and raised her voice, ‘Tell Hooch thanks for the bag. I suppose I’d better be getting back to my car…’
She thrust the thermos and the tupperware into his huge, old hands. Doc nodded, ‘You do that.’
She started walking; zigzagging across the road, to the opposite pavement, pee
ring keenly to the right of her as if looking for something (a key or a sign or some money). As she drew adjacent to the others she could hear the sighted guide talking, ‘A young woman,’ he described, ‘skinny, wearing a knitted hat…’
‘The nurse,’ Shoes butted in, ‘the one from the bar.’
‘Hey,’ the Blind Man pointed his stick towards her. Jo pretended she hadn’t noticed. Walked even faster.
‘Hey,’ the Blind Man repeated. His tone was stentorian.
She continued to ignore it.
‘Jo,’ Shoes called, ‘Jo. Hold up a minute. This is Herbie. He’s blind. He wants a…’
Jo turned around, still very much on the move. ‘I’ve got… uh…’ she shouted back, then almost tripped up, ‘the AA,’ she continued, jerkily, readjusting her posture, ‘coming over to check out my car. I have to get…’
She threw up her arms in a gesture of apology.
‘Did you get the book?’ Shoes asked (normal volume, making quite a mockery out of all the yelling).
‘Yes,’ she answered (still loud, still moving. But he didn’t seem to catch her).
‘Yes,’ she shouted louder. ‘Thanks. I’ll give it you back later…’
‘HOW’S YOUR ARM?’ he bellowed –
Taking the piss
Has to be
She lifted it into the air, like a wing. ‘Good. Better.’
The Blind Man turned and began saying something. Jo turned herself and started jogging. Her feet were heavy, though, and the ground was slippy.
Thirty seconds later, the young guide was bobbing along at her shoulder. He’d plainly been dispatched. She glanced over at him. He was black haired, wide-eyed, with a sprinkling of acne on his jaw.
‘So Doc got to you first, huh?’ he panted. He had a good accent. Well modulated.
‘What do you want?’ she asked.
‘Could you just…’ The guide was breathing heavily, ‘just stop for a second?’
He skidded.
Jo stopped automatically, grabbed his arm and steadied him.
‘Thanks,’ he blew out his cheeks, relieved.
She glanced behind them. The others had met up and were now all in a huddle. The Blind Man was tapping Doc’s leg with his stick. Doc was smiling, raising his voice… he seemed… he seemed jovial…
Was that…?
Was that the right…?
Jo realised that she was still clutching the tissue he’d given her. Her nose was dripping. She patted her face with it.
‘What do you want?’ she asked brusquely, finishing with it, screwing it up and pushing it deep inside her coat pocket.
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