by A. Sparrow
Isobel was alone in the flat with Linval! If Papa went there and she answered the door…!
Karla bounced to her feet and rushed to the door. She peeked warily down the pavement. Edmund was paused at the end of the block, consulting his leather bound prayer book. He glanced up at a street sign and then over his shoulder. Karla ducked into the launderette.
The old woman looked on, her eyes burning with concern.
“Honey, there’s a back room if you need to—”
“No, it’s okay.” She looked again, Edmund had moved on, his grizzled hair bobbing past a group of chatting ladies “He’s leaving.”
She fished around in her purse for something, anything that would be useful in defense … or offense, something sharp, something she could spray in his eyes, but she found nothing but coins, receipts and old hair ties.
The shotgun was back at the flat, tucked away in Linval’s closet. Isobel would never think to bring it to the door.
She saw him cross the street. A bad sign. He was heading straight for Linval’s flat. She waited a bit before following after him. There was a broken bicycle chain lying on the ground. She scooped it up.
How strange it was seeing that loose-limbed gait again. How many places had they walked together like these, she following at least one step behind as was proper for a deferent daughter.
His clothes were looking baggy. She wondered if he was doing his own cooking. Not that she felt any pity. He had beaten any capacity for empathy out of her years ago. Edmund had become an object to her, a nasty thing to be avoided and forgotten.
How had he found them? Linval had zero contact with his mother in Inverness anymore. She had sequestered herself deep within the fold of the Sedevacantist cult. From time to time, he spoke to his father, a Jamaican immigrant living in London, but as far as she knew, Linval had never told him about his new roommates.
Karla swooped down and pried a whitewashed rock from the border of someone’s tiny front garden and slipped it into her purse. She discarded the bike chain. It would likely only sting him and make him mad, and then he could turn it against her as a garrote. Her purse now had the mass to take him out with a well-landed blow. Any move towards harming Isobel would be his last.
Edmund took long, determined strides. Karla picked up her pace to close the gap between them, screened by a couple strolling handing in hand. The stairway to Linval’s flat opened into an alley between two tenement blocks. If she timed it just right, she could come up behind him as soon as he started up the stairs. Isobel would not even have to come to the door.
She was ten paces behind him now and he was still walking fast, clutching the prayer book to his chest, lips moving in silence. When did the man not pray? Even in his sleep he sometimes muttered psalms.
As he approached the alley, she took up the slack in her purse straps, wrapping them around her knuckles. Did she really have it in herself to strike him down? How many opportunities with him slumbering on the sofa had she passed up? Even in the midst of their most turbulent days she could never bring herself to harm him, despite what he had done to her. Such was the bond of blood.
But things felt different now. She had broken free of his grip, and the time and distance had caused her heart to grow colder and meaner.
She tensed as he approached the opening to the alley, but he strode right past it without a hitch in his gait. Clearly, he did not know exactly where Linval lived. He probably had no address, just a vague sense of what neighborhood to search.
She slipped behind a tree at the head of the alley, letting him walk on. He glanced back once as he turned the corner. His eyes lingered on the hawthorn, but he kept on walking. As soon as he was out of sight, she sprinted for the landing.
***
The keys slipped out of her jittery hands. She picked them up off the welcome mat, opened the lock and slipped inside the foyer, pushing the door shut firmly behind her, making sure the latch engaged. She pounded up the stairs, and unlocked the second door leading into the flat itself.
Linval still rasped away on the sofa. Isobel still stood there in the kitchenette, an empty water glass before her. Her palms lay flat on the counter, her posture again unnatural and strained.
“I just saw Papa,” said Karla, breathless.
“Where?”
“He just turned down Cranmore Terrace. Grab your things, we’re leaving.”
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know, but we have to go. Now! Get your things!”
Karla brushed past her sister into the kitchenette, took a paper sack from a drawer and began loading it with damsons, buns from the breadbox, half a jar of olive paste.
Linval’s phone tinkled on the counter as a text message arrived. Isobel sidled over and reached for it. Karla slapped her hand.
“What are you doing, snooping at Linval’s messages?” Karla glanced at the display and her ire exploded.
“Gwen! Your best friend Gwen is texting you on Linval’s phone? How dare you, Izzie? I told you we needed to stay incognito. How long has this been going on?”
“Not very long.”
“How long?”
“A week maybe. I was feeling lonely. So I sent her a little note.”
“Izzie! Did you tell her we’re in Glasgow?”
“No. I mean, well, maybe kind of. Not outright. But it’s just Gwen. She wouldn’t tell anybody. Besides, Glasgow’s a big place.”
“Phones can be tracked, Izzie.”
“But she wouldn’t. Why would she?”
“Maybe not her, but her parents? Get your stuff together. We’re leaving.”
“But where will we go?”
“I don’t know yet! Collect your things!”
They ran up into the attic and tossed things into their one shared suitcase. They didn’t have much to pack—their few clean clothes, Izzie’s book, a trinket from Rome, sanitary towels, a doll.
“My good jeans! They’re not here.”
“They are in the launderette, you doofus. We will stop by and get them. We will have to take them wet.”
”Take them where?”
“I told you. I don’t know yet. We will figure something out.”
“We should wake Linval, to say goodbye.”
“Let him sleep,” said Karla. “Better he doesn’t know anything, for his own protection.”
“We can leave him a note.”
“No. That would prove we were here. Now come. Let’s go.”
They went back down the narrow staircase and entered the flat, treading softly past Linval, whose mouth hung open, head tossed back. Wheat straw dreadlocks dangled halfway to the floor.
“Bye Linnie,” whispered Izzie, blowing him a kiss. “Thanks for everything.”
Chapter 4: Motorcycle
Inspired by our little field trip to Cardiff and no longer intimidated by British motorways, I re-applied myself to a project I had already started—fixing up Renfrew’s old motor bike. It wasn’t much of a motorcycle—a late 70s Suzuki GT 185 that hadn’t been ridden in years. Mice had shredded the vinyl seat and passed untold broods in the nest they made beneath it. But Renfrew told me that if I could get it to run, it was mine to use.
Until Harry stepped in to give me a hand after hours, I had made only dribs and drabs of progress. But Harry was a wizard with engines. And once he got involved in a project, his obsessive/compulsive nature kicked in. Throbbing ankle and all, he would be there in the garage with me till all hours of the night, dissected motor parts strewn across a sheet of canvas, while I was nodding off on my feet.
And he had no desire to even ride the thing. He just felt impelled to make it run. He was that way with everything—computers, watches, electric mixers.
It was a revelation the day we finally got that engine cranking in a cloud of blue smoke. I took it for a test run, to find it had no brakes. I was forced to stop by plowing into one of the overgrown yew hedges in front of the milking barn.
That just made Renfrew’s day. He
came out of that barn guffawing like he might cough up his liver.
When I wheeled it back into the garage, Harry was already at the bench, ready to pounce on it with a screwdriver. Jessica came by after a spell, with some beers.
“Dinner’ll be ready in a few.”
“What’s on for grub tonight?” said Harry.
“Renfrew’s favorite,” said Jessica.
“Shepherd’s pie, again?”
“Thanks for the bitters, Jess,” I said.
“Cheers!” said Harry. We clinked our bottles.
“Quite a show that was, guys. I bet Renfrew’d pay money to see it again.”
“He’s too easily amused,” I said, threading a new brake wire through its protective sheath.
“How’s your ankle doing, Harry?” said Jessica.
“Itches like a bugger. Can’t wait to get the bloody cast off.”
“How long will you need to keep it on?”
“Two more weeks, God willing.”
“You think God really cares about your ankle?” I said, tightening a cable on the brake drum.
“Say what?” said Jessica.
“I just think, if there’s a God, She’s probably got bigger things to worry about than Harry’s ankle.”
“Why would you say such a thing? Are you an atheist?”
“No,” I said. “I happen to know for sure that there are higher powers in this universe. I just don’t think they’ve got time to micromanage us humans. And I’m not so sure they’re benevolent.”
“Oh? You’re saying the devil’s in charge, then?”
“I’m just saying there’s not much separation between good and evil.”
Jessica cocked her head and squinted at me. “You haven’t known true love, then, have you?”
“Love? And which category is that, then? Good … or evil?”
She expelled a burst of breath and shook her head. “What a cynical, hopeless thing to say.”
Harry squeezed the brakes. “Feels kind of stiff, like it’s hanging up somewhere.”
“Well, the wire was kinked in places,” I said. “Maybe it’ll straighten itself out with time.”
“Squirt a little silicone in there. That’ll help.” I took a swig of my beer.
“I still can’t believe you think God is a bad egg,” said Jess.
“There’s no good or bad. It’s all a bunch of grey. But bad things happen when there’s no adult supervision. Foxes get into henhouses.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Let’s just say, I’ve been places, I’ve seen things most people don’t get to see.”
She tilted her head at me. “Like what? Disneyland?”
I was saying too much. There was no way a regular person could understand what I had been through in Root. I sighed. “Just take my word for it; nobody’s watching the henhouse much these days.”
“James Moody, you’re an odd duck.”
“Better to be a duck than a hen, apparently,” said Harry.
Helen clanged on the propane cylinder that served as our dinner bell.
“Come on Harry, let’s go eat,” I said. “We can fiddle with that later.”
Looking around for something to wipe my hands with, I moved a bundle of letters and cards off some rags. The string binding them snapped and they fluttered to the floor of the garage.
Jess stooped down to help me pick them up. “I wouldn’t have taken old Renfrew for the sentimental type. It seems he saves every Christmas and Easter card he gets.”
Most of the cards had local return addresses, but a few came from Scotland. One in particular caught my eye. It was from Glasgow, a guy named Linval Mathers. There was something about that name that rang a bell.
“This Linval fellow. Is he a relative of Ren’s?”
“Nah. He’s an old school friend of Sturgie’s. Used to come down here when Sturgie still lived on the farm. They were in a band together for a time.”
My heart lurched. I remembered now. That last night in Inverness, he was the guy who had picked up Karla and Isobel in the Fiat.
I slipped the letter into the pocket of my hoodie and followed Jess and Harry out of the garage.
***
That night I lay back in my bunk, under the reading light, studying that Christmas card from Linval.
Linval Mathers
77 Budhill Avenue, #301
Springboig, East Glasgow
G32 0JJ
It wasn’t much of a card. Just a generic snow-covered woodland scene with Linval’s name scrawled inside—no message of any sort. The envelope was addressed in a loose but legible scrawl.
Yet, here it was, a tangible, Google-able address of the person who had escorted Karla to Glasgow, a person who was quite likely to know where to find her. This was what the CIA might call ‘actionable intelligence.’ How could I ignore it?
For over a month I had honored Karla’s request to stay away from Glasgow. My fear of bounty hunters helped keep me in place, but now that trip to Cardiff made me realize that maybe they weren’t actually lurking around every corner.
And it was becoming clear that if I was ever going to see her again it was not going to be in Root. On top of that I had this extra bit of temptation in front of me—an actual address where I might knock on a door and have a reasonable likelihood of having her or who knew her answer it.
Shades of Ardconnel Terrace and Inverness. That hadn’t worked out so well. But that was then and this was now. I had wheels, road experience, confidence and a place to go—there was nothing stopping me now.
I slept very little that night. When morning came I went to the milking barn early and waited for the others to show. I kept mum amidst all the usual rowdy and risqué banter. Only Jessica seemed to notice, from all the long glances she sent my way, but she said nothing.
After cleanup I tracked down Renfrew in his cramped little office against the wall of a barn. He looked up and gave me this leery expression, as if I were a stranger come to sell him life insurance.
“I was wondering if I could have a couple days off.”
“What for? It’s not as if you’re being overworked.”
“I just need some time to get away. A couple days. I’m going up to Glasgow.”
“Glasgow? Why in bloody hell would you want to go to Glasgow?”
“My friend lives there.”
“I see. And how do you expect to get there? Jess tells me you have this thing about trains.”
“Well, I was hoping to take the Suzuki. If … if you didn’t mind.”
“What, with no brakes?”
“They work now. Harry and I fixed them.”
Renfrew sighed and crossed his arms. “Well … I suppose I give you a day or two. I mean, why not? This is the first time you’ve asked for a holiday since you’ve come to work for us, so you’re certainly due. I have to warn you, though, that’s not the best motorcycle for cross-country riding. I mean, I did it, back in the day, but—”
“Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”
Renfrew took a long slow breath. “Suit yourself. I just don’t understand why you’d want to go all the way up to bloody Glasgow. Why don’t you have your friend come down here?”
“Well, it’s supposed to be a surprise.”
He shrugged and opened a desk drawer, handing me a squarish metal plate painted yellow and embossed with ‘AEK 206.’ “Take this and bolt it on the back. It’s one of Sturgie’s old plates. It’s not valid anymore, but it might spare you some trouble with the authorities, as long as they’re not too diligent with their databases.”
***
The next day, I hit the road at dawn after making myself an American-style breakfast of bacon and eggs in Renfrew’s kitchen. As I started up the bike, Jess came out on her stoop to wave goodbye in the first light. I hadn’t told anyone the specifics, but she had probably figured out that I was going to see Karla. There was a wistfulness in her eyes that reminded me of Marianne back in Florida.
&n
bsp; Heading north, I kept to the smaller roads like the A465 and the A49 which were more my speed. Sturgie had taken me down the M6 superhighway, but that was on a 1200cc BMW. Renfrew’s little 185cc putt-putt had no trouble overtaking tractors and Ford Fiestas, but Beemers and Audis kept roaring up and blowing me off the road.
After a glorious time zinging through a countryside dappled with sun, I took an early lunch in place called Moss Side, just outside of Manchester center, which turned out to be the dodgiest place I had seen since leaving the states—mile after mile of brick and decay all squished together in claustrophobic maze. My meal, taken in a greasy spoon joint, matched the ambience: an egg sandwich slathered with some kind of salty brown scum that nearly made me barf.
It was a relief to blow through Manchester and enter the more verdant districts beyond. Busy, tree-lined suburbs opened up into some wide and lonesome spaces on a road called the A6, on the fringe of the Lake District. I passed low green hills and fields criss-crossed with brown stone walls, mottled with groves of larches and firs. The kilometers piled up behind me.
I pulled over to refuel in a town called Carlisle, near the Scottish border. All the rattling on the back of that little bike made me feel like I had mowed a hundred lawns. Every muscle and bone in my body thrummed. My bum ached from the rebuilt seat, padded only with cardboard and electrical tape.
I bought a soda and some crisps at a little grocer’s and took a break on the little bench outside. A couple came by, walking a beagle and a terrier. They chatted about some poachers who just gotten apprehended. What anyone could possibly be poaching around here, I had no idea. I hadn’t seen any wildlife along the roads.
Refreshed and girded for the last leg of my journey, I buckled on my borrowed helmet and started up the bike. I reaffixed some of the tape on the seat, which was starting to come apart. Next time I fixed it up, I would have to make sure I added a little more cushioning.
Not an hour down the road I passed a brown ‘Scotland Welcomes You’ sign and my spirits soared. With every beat of my heart, I was getting closer and closer to Karla. That heart seemed to speed ahead of my motorbike, leading the way to Glasgow.
***
East Glasgow seemed a bit rougher and poorer than Cardiff, but its poverty was patchy and less daunting than the massive brick warrens that I had witnessed in Manchester. Its banks of row houses were interspersed with tidy little parks and single family homes with lush, green yards.