To See the Light Return

by Sophie Galleymore Bird

  No. He would never give up. He stuck by every decision he had ever made. Some people might have come out of it poorly, but the majority had done OK. They wouldn’t have forgotten that, or how desperate things had been when he took over. He might not be able to persuade them to continue with the live produce shipments, but he still had his special project to fall back on. Devon could still become a world player.

  He turned right, heading for the quickest route home. With any luck, he could find someone to help him before he had to walk all the way.

  Within moments he was sweating through his shirt and had to remove his jacket, folding it over his right arm. When the stone struck his left shoulder, there was no wool to cushion its sharp edges, and it hurt. There was a plink as it dropped to the pavement behind him. Spight turned, and saw someone ducking back into one of the houses he had passed. For a moment, he considered going back and remonstrating with the stone-thrower. What on earth were they thinking? But it was hot, he wanted to get home not remonstrate with lawless hooligans, so he continued on his way, making a note of the address so he could visit retribution on the occupants once he was back at the reins.

  The next stone struck the back of his neck. He yelped. When he turned around there were two young men in the street behind him.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing? You could have injured me!’ he shouted in outrage.

  ‘Slaver!’ one of them shouted back, before stooping to look for more stones. The surface of the street was in disrepair; he wouldn’t have to look far.

  The other already had a handful of stones and was choosing which to throw. ‘Baby raper!’ he yelled as he let fly. His aim was good but Spight managed to dodge out of the way, his ankle turning as he leaned backwards and the stone whizzed past his nose.

  For the first time, he considered that he might be in actual danger.

  The safe house was behind the young men, out of his reach. He had to continue in the same direction, hurrying now.

  At the end of the road was a T-junction. Right would take him further into run-down streets. He turned left, towards the river. Spaces were wider there; he was feeling hemmed in and wanted room in order to think.

  The street he entered was short. A quick glance behind told him his pursuers were gaining ground; without making it obvious, he speeded up, but refrained from breaking into a run. As he reached the end of the road he was sure he could hear more footsteps behind him but dared not look again and hurried into a small and overgrown park lined with thick hedges, on the other side of which he could glimpse the river, sunlight flashing from its surface, dazzling him. The quayside was to his right and he angled towards that. Perhaps he might have to find a boat for the short term. He would feel safer on the water.

  A pitted and uneven path wound around the perimeter of the park, but he wanted to get to the quay as quickly as possible and made a short cut through knee-high grass to the nearest gap in the hedge. He didn’t realise the quayside was packed with townsfolk until he had fought his way through dense hawthorn and blackthorn, becoming festooned with the rotting and water-blighted remains of blossom, emerging scratched and torn.

  Spight came to an abrupt halt when he saw the crowds of people ahead. They were standing in long lines that snaked back towards the bridge. Squinting, he saw they were queuing up to approach a flotilla of boats tied up to the wall. The people at the heads of the queues were holding out shopping bags, into which fruit and vegetables, cuts of meat and rounds of cheese were being placed by the crews of the boats.

  His cargo. They were giving away his cargo. Outraged, Spight’s first impulse was to run out, to start remonstrating with them to give it back, but his instinct for survival backed him into the hedge. Until he felt it shake, as his pursuers started making their way through.

  Launching himself forward and out of reach, he turned left and trotted away from everyone, looking for a dinghy with oars. It would take too long to locate one with an outboard and a full tank. With no shade to protect him, caught in the full glare of mid-morning sun bouncing off concrete, he was soon gasping from the heat.

  It was only moments before he heard his name being shouted, echoing across the quayside and the water.

  ‘Spight!’

  He risked turning to look back and saw that the townspeople at the boats had stopped what they were doing and were now looking in his direction. The two men who had been following him were through the bushes, still in pursuit. When they saw him looking back they stopped, pointed, and one of them roared again, ‘SPIGHT!’

  One or two of the townspeople stepped in his direction. Emboldened, others followed them. Spight didn’t wait to see what the rest would do but turned and sped away from them as fast as the heat and his aching bones would let him.

  The end of the quay was getting close, but he still couldn’t see a suitable boat. Besides, they might follow him onto the water. The riverbank continued from the end of the quay, but he would have to make his way across tussocky grass or be cut off, trapped. He decided to go to the left, towards the long marsh that gave the town its name, in the hope he could hide among the willows and reeds until they had gone past. Or he might be able to outpace them, double back the way he had come and sneak into town and from there make his way to Bodingleigh. Fred would still be an ally, as would Dug and Biff. Thoughts whirling, he dashed to his left, towards the marsh.

  *

  Spight was showing up as a blue dot on the GPS app on Merryn’s laptop, made possible by the location transponder activated in his satellite phone. Stooping over the Cornish agent’s shoulder, in the kitchen of the safe house, the Major watched as the dot moved across the park, angled left, sped up a little and then turned left again.

  Merryn was on his own phone, receiving reports from their people stationed on the quay, and confirmation that the Mayor was indeed being pursued by angry townsfolk and was now heading for the marsh. He ended the call and dialled another number.

  *

  The mob chasing him was shouting. Spight was sweating, batting at the biting insects that had descended in swarms as soon as he entered the marsh, holding his jacket over his head to keep them away from his vulnerable skin, and to cover the whiteness of his shirt. He looked up, expecting to see clouds of insects forming a huge arrow, pointing at his head and giving away his position, but the stands of willow were so thick he could barely see the sky. From the cries of sudden pain, he wasn’t the only one being attacked. Good. Serve the bastards right.

  His strategy seemed to have worked. As he listened, the cries and shouts started to fade, the crowds moving out of the brackish bog and heading for dry ground and better visibility.

  ‘We’ve got him,’ he heard a man say as he crashed through undergrowth twenty metres away from where Spight was cowering. ‘All we have to do is spread out and wait. He’ll come to us.’

  Silence. He was alone. Trapped.

  What to do now? That man had been right. Anywhere he emerged, he would be seen and chased. The thought made his stomach clench.

  He was too tired to come up with another plan. He was also thirsty and his head ached. He’d had enough.

  A shrill whining noise disturbed his misery. At first, he thought it was another insect, a huge mutant coming to finish him off. Then the willow began to sway and bend, wind swept the insects away and he realised it was a helicopter, coming in fast and low. It stopped and hovered above his head.

  He looked up, his hair whipping over his bitten scalp.

  The side door was opened. He could see someone inside, lowering a harness. The phone in his pocket vibrated as it rang.

  He could barely hear the voice on the other end of the line, but he could hear enough to know it was the man who had cooked him breakfast and released him earlier that morning. Merryn.

  ‘This is a one-time offer. Get in the helicopter and we’ll take you to safety. Or stay there and take your chances.’

  Fury almost sent him deeper into the marsh, but he was nothing if not a pragmati
c man. He replaced the phone in his pocket and reached for the harness.

  *

  For a long moment, after Spight had ended the call, Merryn and the Major looked at each other without speaking. Merryn found himself holding his breath and made an effort to let it out and breathe normally.

  His phone rang.

  The clatter and whine of the helicopter almost drowned out the pilot’s voice as she said, ‘We’ve got him.’

  banishing the dark

  Will ended the video call and sat back in his chair. After a week of rest and treatment, Mal had looked almost returned to normal during their chat, although he had tired quickly and they didn’t talk for long. He would be released from the hospital in another day or two, and his parents would take him home to St Germans while they decided whether to relocate back to Exeter now the war was over. There would be many such decisions being made over the next few weeks and months.

  The referendum had been held swiftly. Given the lack of technology readily available, and the urgency of the need to resolve Devon’s future, it had been conducted with an old-fashioned secret ballot adjudicated by some of the younger members of the Door Knockers, keen to demonstrate themselves willing to move on from the Spight days. The result had been a 68-32 per cent split in favour of re-entry into a federated British Isles. So, not everyone was happy to see changes coming, but enough were for the decision to stick. Now came a long process of restorative justice. Mediation, meditation and counselling would be offered to those who found the transition difficult, as well as retraining in low-carbon industries, renewable energy installation and regenerative farming for those that wanted it.

  It was hot in the kitchen of Mrs P’s cottage; she had thrown open curtains, windows and doors in a symbolic act of banishing the dark. In consequence, summer sun was baking the room, but it felt good to feel its warmth against the back of his head as it angled in on its way towards the horizon. He checked his watch. Five o’clock. It was almost time to leave. He hoped Primrose was doing OK and would make it back in time.

  *

  Will had offered to go with her, but his presence would have been a distraction so she had said she would take Mrs P with her instead. Her parents knew Mrs P, and hopefully she retained the authority inherent in being the village schoolteacher; Primrose hoped they would behave themselves if she were there.

  The cottage looked much as she remembered it, if a little less dilapidated, with repaired and newly painted windowframes and front door. The raised vegetable beds looked recently built and the crops neatly tended. Red and black currant bushes were flowering and insects hummed around the remaining late blossom. It looked as though they had done well since sending her away. She tried not to feel resentful. Will had been teaching her calming techniques and she concentrated on the rise and fall of her lungs, bringing herself into the present. It wasn’t all she and Will had been practising together, but she couldn’t think about that now and keep her breathing steady. She felt herself going red at the memories.

  Mrs P gave her an encouraging nudge towards the front door. It was closed and she knocked on it. They had been told she would be coming, but not why, and she wondered if they might have gone out rather than see her. But the front door opened and there stood her mother.

  She looked older, more weathered and less well-kept than the house, long greying hair in untidy plaits looped onto the crown of her head; she was wearing a shapeless and faded housedress with a pair of secateurs in the pocket. If she felt any strong emotions at sight of the daughter she hadn’t seen for five years, she was keeping them in check.

  ‘Primrose.’ No warmth in the familiar voice. ‘You’d best come in.’ She turned and led the way through the short hallway into the kitchen, where Primrose had spent most of her waking life when she lived at home, spared from work in the fields and helping her mother cook instead. She’d thought at the time it was because she was her mother’s favourite, and had found a guilty pleasure in that. Now she thought it was probably so she wouldn’t get fit, lose weight and be ineligible for the fat farm. Mrs Prendaghast’s hand found hers as she they emerged out of the comparative darkness of the hall and blinked in the light falling through the kitchen windows.

  Her father was sitting in his customary place at the head of the worn pine table, his face closed to her, his body gaunt and dressed in muddy work clothes. Her mother moved towards the stove and began fussing with the kettle that lived on a hook above it, pouring in water from a jug and placing it on the hot plate. There was no sign of any of her siblings. She wondered if perhaps they had been sent out so her parents could ensure control of the situation.

  ‘Would you like tea? We have real teabags.’ Her mother sounded proud of this.

  Mrs Prendaghast accepted for them both, and shoved her towards one of the chairs drawn up to the table, sinking down into another with a sigh. Primrose felt she had been rendered mute, trying to remember why she had come here. What were these people to her, besides a genetic legacy?

  Her father broke the silence.

  ‘Well, you’re here. What do you want? If it’s a home you’re looking for now your farm’s shut down, we might consider it, but you’ll have to earn your keep.’ He looked her up and down. ‘Or we could marry you off. You’re not looking too shabby since they sucked all that weight off.’

  Where had he been these last few days? Did he not know that everything had changed? Was this what Will called denial? That some people couldn’t see things as they were, had to rewrite everything to fit their idea of how things should be?

  ‘I’ve come to ask what you were thinking, when you gave me away?’ Her voice was shaky, but she got it out, and sat straighter while she waited for a reply.

  ‘We didn’t give you away, we traded you, and gave you an easier life, girly.’

  Girly. Like he couldn’t be bothered to remember her name.

  ‘Easier life? Are you mad?’ She could barely choke the words out. ‘Do you have any idea how I was treated? How much it hurt? Do you know what they were planning to do with me?’

  Her father was looking at her like she was one of the cattle he herded, with mastitis or some other complaint that might cost him grief from his boss. Like it might be cheaper and less trouble just to cut her throat. ‘It was uncomfortable, was it?’ he sneered. ‘Pah! Life hurts, get used to it. You were housed and fed. It was more than we could do at the time.’

  Primrose looked towards her mother, but she was busy pouring hot water into a teapot. She looked to Mrs P, who rolled her eyes and shrugged as if to say, what can you do?

  The whole conversation suddenly struck her as ludicrous. How could her parents think she wanted to come back to them, to be married off or worked to death? Were they crazy? She took a deep breath.

  ‘I also came to say goodbye, actually. I hope you get everything you deserve out of a long life, both of you.’ Without another word, she got up and headed for the front door.

  ‘Well, it’s been a pleasure,’ she could hear Mrs Prendaghast saying as she scraped her chair back from the table. ‘I can assure you she will be very well taken care of. A brave and resilient girl like that has a wonderful future ahead of her. I know, as her parents, that means a lot to you.’

  Neither parent said anything until Primrose and Mrs Prendaghast had reached the door, when they heard Primrose’s mother say, annoyed, ‘Well, what a waste of tea!’

  ‘Are you sure you won’t come with us?’

  Now the time had come, Primrose felt bereft at the loss of her friend, and panicky at leaving behind everything she knew. She was travelling with nothing; she had nothing to take besides the clothes she was wearing, again donated by the teacher, far too large and very worn, but received gratefully. She had been assured she wouldn’t need anything, that Will’s sisters would find her a wardrobe more to her liking, but she was feeling crippled with insecurity.

  ‘Oh, no,’ Mrs Prendaghast laughed. ‘Or at least not yet. I’ll come and visit soon, and you make sure you c
ome back here too, when you can find the time.’ The teacher patted her hand through the car’s rear window, then straightened with a grunt of effort. ‘I’m old and ready for a rest, and then to see how things pan out here. It’s going to be interesting – I’m looking forward to designing a new curriculum!’ Her eyes sparkled. She looked years younger, despite her protestations.

  Merryn was in the driving seat, looking impatient to be off; he had confided to Primrose that he was missing his littlest girl’s birthday and was keen to get back home. It was just her and Will in the back seat, with Demelza, an agent she didn’t know in the front passenger seat, catching a ride. The Major and Flora stood behind Mrs P, waving and smiling; they were staying in Devon with their son for now. Hector Jr stood beside Flora with his mother’s arm across his shoulders. For once the boy was actually smiling and sight of it made her heart lift. If Junior could change, anything was possible.

  The electric car was the same one the Major and Will had borrowed from the safe house near Yealmpton, retrieved from the outskirts of Dartmouth. It slid away silently as she and Will waved goodbye out of the open windows, and within thirty minutes of uncomfortable jouncing on the uneven roads, she was further away from Bodingleigh than she had ever been before. Will and the other two activists were talking about Cornwall and people she didn’t know. Primrose listened for a while but her attention turned inward, even as her gaze took in the unfamiliar landscape passing by the windows.

  She re-ran the conversation with her parents, looking for a sign of warmth, of love, wondering if it was her fault they didn’t care for her. Why had they had so many children if they didn’t love them? Or was it only her they didn’t love? She tried to remember if there had ever been signs or gestures of affection when she lived with them. For anyone.