“I don’t understand,” I say.
“You got caught by our gang—they live in that ship there. That’s all. It was stupid to come down in the canal. No one comes down here. But you’re going to help me. That’s why I got your coat back. It’s worth a lot.”
“I don’t remember what happen much.”
“You got hit pretty bad on your head,” she say.
Far off towers rise up into the sky. Behind us been the empty canal and people like wolves and the smoking tents of the settlement like an illness.
The girl clamber up a great drift blown across the path.
“But I got to go back. Look for my friend,” I say.
“You can’t go back down there. They’ll come along soon. We’re close to the city. If we get past the checkpoints … look, I aint helped you just so you can run off.”
The girl turn toward the hard cold buildings jagged on the distant skyline. “It isn’t far. But we’ve got to move. Now.”
And I wonder if all the things the grown-ups tell me been true. If the old days gonna come back like before. If this just been a time when men forgot to be good.
Cos I don’t know. Maybe my dad and the graybeards just been telling us lies around the fire. Talking about beacons of hope and teaching us lessons. What Patrick call “moralizing.”
That’s all well and good, Patrick tell me when we been felling the dead rowan, down by the river last spring, but sometimes you got to follow your guts. He hit himself in the stomach then. His muscles tense under the scratchy woolen tunic Magda knit him. Your killer instinct, he say, lifting the axe above his head, sometimes that’s the thing to follow.
The girl turn and look at me proper. Scratch at her head.
“You’ve never seen the city before, have you. You really are from the hills.”
“Well I aint lying, if that’s what you think.”
“I didn’t say you were lying,” she say.
“Look, I got to go back. I aint coming with you. Mary. My friend.”
“If they catch you again they’ll kill you.”
Then off in the distance we hear the shouts. Sticks banging on the brick walls. Echoing up the canal. Screaming and baying like the angry noises I hear in the settlement. The girl start up.
“I told you! Quick!”
In the dimness way back a torch flare up—I see it bobbing in the distance. Aint no dream.
“They’re coming,” she shout. “Run!”
The canal been far behind us now. The girl slip through some tents and crawl under a broken wall. We come up onto a road. Blackened buildings loom up all around. The streets full with people. I just been following, cos I aint got no clue where I am.
“We’re going to need to find us food.” Girl look at me with her milky eye. Rub on the inside of her arm, moving uneasy on her feet. “Come on. Got to get to Saint Ann’s before the queue gets too long. We can beg up the Arndale after.”
I been tired and hurting proper from the run. Hunger stirring like an angry dog in my guts now.
Big truck come honking down the road, everyone pulling over. Soldiers in thick gray felt coats and fur hats staring down at all the people, wet in the slushy dirty snow, holding their guns tight as the truck bump along.
“Why they got guns?”
She don’t answer. Pull me away.
“Why they got guns?”
“I don’t know. They’re soldiers, that’s why.” Across the street, over on the corner, I see a tall brick building, big square windows, ledges high up and thick with snow. Queue of ragged men and women hanging around the door. People come and go like tired horses except it don’t look like they got much to show for all their coming and going. Women dragging little kids and old men shuffling in saggy canvas coats.
The girl push me along, in among the crowd of people. Through the doors. I aint never been in a room so tall. Big long room. Either side dark wooden benches all facing to the front and the ceiling high up like a barn. The shouting and talking echoing up into the roof and all around.
Down each side of the room are tables. Women stand behind piles of rags and boots, handing out clothes to people crowding around.
“One at a time! One at a time!”
A short man, his face hot and sweaty, struggle across the floor with a large bucket of soup. Put it down on a table. The people close around him.
A baby squawk loud in this din, a shrill cry rising above the wall of sounds, rising up into the rafters. Baby shrieking out to someone. Even these starving people understand that sound. The sea of legs part and hands push the mother to the front of the queue, the mass of legs closing tight behind her.
“Got to wash a bit,” the girl say. “I know the woman.”
She go to a door in the wall. Bang on it.
The door open up. A round-faced woman stick out her head in a cloud of steam.
“It’s me Cath,” the girl say.
The woman let us in. I duck under her arm.
“This a friend of yours?”
I don’t say nothing. I aint gonna tell the smiling round-faced woman that I don’t really know this girl with her milky eye. Just making the most of the warmth in the long windowless room. Look like a proper wash day, with vats of boiling water on the stove, vats full up with rags and the smell of hot soap in the air.
No I don’t say nothing cos I still been thinking about what happen to Mary and how I got to get back to the hills and find my dad and get Geraint and stuff like that. And the woman aint interested in me really. She got that helpless look on her face people got who been kind and doing some good thing.
Come shining right out.
“You look like you could do with a wash up, Cath. Take that basin and get yourself a bowl of hot water. Over there.”
In the corner there’s a steaming urn full of hot water, and the girl fill a metal basin from the shelf. Take off her coat. I can see her red scrawny hands dipping in that bowl of good hot water.
“You too, young man. You’ve got blood all over your face.” So I got to go over and wash my face. It been good to feel it warm on my skin, on my hands. I put my face right in. Wash away the blood and dirt. It been a good feeling.
“You’ve got yourself in a wee spot of bother laddy, haven’t you?” The woman talking to me.
I wipe the water off my face with my sleeve.
“Don’t say much for a boy who’s obviously old enough to get his own baby and who’s got himself a nice fur coat from somewhere,” she say.
“He’s shy,” say the girl, giving me a stare.
“Aye, well that’s no crime. That’s no crime right enough. And get yourselves down to the shelter. No place out on the streets in this cold. No place at all.” Then she look about like someone watching even though there aint no one here except us. “Here, take this.” She take a sliver of soap out of a cup and wrap it in a rag. “Don’t go telling anyone or I’ll have half the women from the shelter around here. And that’s where you should be, down at the shelter. Come on, you’ve got to leave now before someone finds you here.” She push us toward the door. “Off you go now and God bless you. God bless you.”
Sound like Magda—thinking soap so precious and spouting on about God like that.
The girl pocket the soap. The woman hustle us out of that good warm room and the noise from the crowds of people in the church—the noise and the smell and the cold of it—hit me straightaway.
“That blind old cow in there. Look, she didn’t even notice I got a whole bar of soap.” The girl pull a big square block of soap out her pocket. “I can sell this down the Arndale and get some grog for us both.”
“Why do you want grog?”
“Something to do.”
“Aint it better to get something to eat?”
“You don’t want any grog? That’s all right by me.” She pocket the soap. “I’ll have it for myself.” She laugh then, rubbing her arm and shifting around on her feet. She got a proper nervous look about her all of a sudden but kind
of excited, which I aint seen before. Looking around all the time.
“I don’t think you shoulda take that soap,” I say.
“Yeah, I know. But you want to eat don’t you? Give me your coat—we’ll get good money for it up the Arndale.”
“I aint gonna sell my coat. It’s all I got to keep out the cold.”
She look at me.
“I risked a lot to get that coat away. Why do you think I helped you? You think you’re better than me cos you’ve got a home up in the hills where everyone’s got fur coats and plenty to eat?”
“No. It aint that.”
“Some people say aint no stragglers left”—her voice turn mean—“just stealers who take their old people to die up on the mountains in the snow. That’s what they say.”
“Well we aint eating each other or chasing after hungry kids.”
“Well it’s just what they say.”
“No straggler been half as wild as the people I seen in this city.”
But the girl aint listening really, rubbing her arm and shifting on her feet.
“Why do you think I helped you?” She grab at me. “You should give me your coat to buy grog.”
I push her back. “I aint selling it!”
She get a proper mean look in her thin face then.
“Suit yourself. You won’t last a day.”
She spit it out. Turn into the crowd.
Then she’s gone. Between the dirty stiff sea of legs and canvas and rags in that great tall building.
Seem like you aint gonna get nothing for free here. Not even a friend.
25
The girl don’t come back.
I slink about that building trying to find her among the people scrabbling over scraps of blankets and old shoes.
But she aint there.
I get myself wedged down against the wall where no one gonna notice me. I can keep a lookout too. No one gonna see me down here.
I fall asleep.
Someone knock into me and I wake up. Don’t know where I been for a moment. But it don’t take long to remember.
There aint so many people about no more. Evening come on already and hunger burning inside me. Someone shouting.
“Come on, everyone out!”
But I aint got nowhere to go. Girl aint come back. I’m glad I aint given her my coat at least.
A sound behind make me turn. It’s the wash woman with the round face. She come bustling out the door, big coat covering up her pink arms. She got a key and been locking the door. I come up close. Tugging on her sleeve.
“What am I gonna do?”
For a minute she aint understanding me. Then I see her face remembering.
“You’re still here? I told you to get down to the shelter before it’s full.”
But I aint got no clue where the shelter is.
Her face look blank. But I know she got a good heart if only she gonna take off that great canvas coat she been wearing like a shield.
“Well, I don’t know why you’re telling me. What am I supposed to do about it now? You aren’t the only hungry child on the streets. God knows I’ve got my own problems right enough. You’ve got to go now. We’re shutting up.”
She’s right. A big man standing at the door shouting how it’s time for the service. A few old men hobble toward the door.
The woman’s about to turn, but then she look down. She put her bag down.
“Look, this is all I’ve got, and God help me for giving it to you. Here.”
She got a little jar out of her bag. It been filled with milk.
“You can have this. Are you on the opium too?”
“Opium?”
“The madak. Like the girl, Cath.”
“No. I aint.”
She look right in my face then. “I’ll buy your coat from you, give you a good price. If you want.”
“I aint selling it.”
The woman look down. “No, right enough. And I wouldn’t sell it for all the money in China if it were mine either.”
“Where can I go?”
“I don’t know, lad. If I knew where we all should go I’d go there myself. The shelter will take you. I’m sure of it. I can’t help you more.”
I slip into the shadows and crouch down with the milk.
All the people who been handing out clothes and ladling soup all day, all those people come out from the dark corners now. They got tired faces too, those men and women, but they come out silent and sit on the benches, looking down the hall. And a man get up and climb some stairs around a pillar. He stand up on a little platform.
“Friends,” he say.
I gulp the milk down. Good and creamy.
“‘The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?’”
The man on the platform look about at those sorry tired people.
“‘When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident … .’”
Someone cough.
“Remember those words, my friends. In these bleak times. Of whom are we all afraid? Just as it is winter now, the summer will come. It may not be long, but the sun will shine a little and wash away our cares as it washes away the dirty snow and ice … . ‘The merciful man doeth good to his own soul, but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh!’”
Sound like he gonna give those tired people a lesson from the way he talk. But they murmur like sheep together in a barn. He spout on about a man helping someone out on the road where he been riding. I mean it been the kind of thing anyone gonna do really but his voice drag on about being what he call a good Samaritan, about snow and ice and forgiveness. It been a good story right enough. But all I been thinking of is my empty belly and what I’m gonna do this cold night and how it been funny that some people got jobs feeding other people and some people got to take their charity and others just take things from others without asking. And me, I don’t know what I am.
The people hang their heads down, saying words under their breath … . Give us this day our daily bread … . forgive us this day our daily trespasses … . Just like Magda. She say the same words every night, with my dad, shuffling under the bedclothes, saying, “You need a coat not a prayer, so get in, woman. You’ll freeze if you don’t get in.”
But I know why Magda say her words. Same reason as me. I say my words up on the Farngod cos sometimes you get to want someone to listen to you, want something to be out there in the cold windswept valley with death crunching about in the crisp snow. Something more than wind and snow. Reckon it aint much different for all these people, just they aint got no hares to catch and no dog to talk to. Just that man standing up in front of them trying to get them less frightened of all the gruesome things they probably got on their minds.
I finish the milk now.
The round-faced woman look back over her shoulder at me and sort of smile.
The lesson been over. I got to get out of the church I guess.
26
Being out of the wind all day make me forget the weather. Make me forget that everyone on the street probably want to knock me on the head just for my coat. I been pretty thankful for sleeping in that church all day for sure.
The big doors close behind me. The snow all trampled down outside where the people been standing about. A kind of smog over everything still hanging down in the cold air in between the tall dark buildings. And the smell of the city bad and deep, burning my nostrils with its foulness even in the cold dark. All the shutters closed and snowflakes starting to fall, big flakes, dropping down slow.
The wash woman tell me how to get to the shelter. Don’t reckon I’m gonna remember it all. She say it been a long walk. “Up to Corporation Road,” she say. “Ask someone if you get lost.” Don’t reckon I’m gonna be too keen on asking anyone anything.
&nb
sp; Wish Mary was here.
Aint too many people out on the street this time of night, just an old man hunched over carrying a bag. Shuffling along.
He don’t look too dangerous. Don’t look strong enough to rob me. I aint really got no clue where I been heading. Cos there aint no trees or rocks or valleys to tell you where you been. Just those tall dark buildings every side all look the same to me.
I walk a bit faster. The old man turn a corner up ahead and I jog along trying not to slip. All of a sudden out of a pathway between the houses a gang of boys rush out—just as that old graybeard shuffle past. They get all about him shouting. Something hit him in the back and he fall down. I been scared and pull myself flat against the wall. But they aint seen me. The old man shouting out scared. Get away. Get away with you! He put his hands up to cover his head. His bag spill out and a few potatoes roll onto the snow.
But the kids aint interested in the potatoes, they just having fun. Laughing, cuffing at his head. I hope they don’t see me in my good warm coat.
The gang run on. They got other things on their mind for now.
The man scrabble about in the snow for his potatoes. When he see me come over he cower down.
“Take them. Take them. Yes, yes. Just take the food. Take the food.”
“I aint gonna hurt you.”
The old man look up from the ground. His eyes scared. I see he don’t trust me. Not one bit.
I bend down, find his potatoes, put them back in his sack.
He got up on his feet now. I hand him the bag.
“Here. See, I aint gonna hurt you. Just want to know the way to the shelter.”
He hold the bag. Pausing. Waiting to see what I’m gonna do.
“You’ve got to get back on Corporation Road. Yes. Got to go back and up to Redbank. If you want the shelter you’ve got to get to Redbank.” His face is thin, a wispy bit of gray stubble covering his lined cheeks.
“Is it far?” I say.
“Is that a dog-skin coat there?” he say, reaching out.
The man’s glove rest on my sleeve.
He look down at the stitching.
“A real old-time coat, isn’t it. Isn’t made for show. But a good skin. Where did you get it, boy like you out on the streets?”
After the Snow Page 13