Who Runs the World?

by Virginia Bergin

  It’s a savage comment. If one of the Littler Ones said anything like such a thing, we’d . . . just ignore it. You’ve got to circle back round to such obvious expressions of anger. Kate performs a handbrake turn:

  ‘And your father would be proud too,’ Kate says.

  ‘I doubt it,’ Mason says. ‘And he ain’t here to ask, is he? She just killed him.’

  ‘For which I do most sincerely thank you,’ Mason says into the silence that follows.

  The silence continues.

  ‘Your father . . . ?’ Kate says.

  ‘I tried to tell you last night – but you up and left,’ Mason says to me.

  ‘. . . he was your father?’

  ‘Unit Father! I don’t know who my father is any more than anyone does – any more than you know who your she-wolf mother is!’

  ‘My Mumma . . . she’s my mother.’

  Mason, he stares at me. ‘She’s your real mother?’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  All this time, it never occurred to me that he would think otherwise. The resemblance alone, surely? My heart fills with pity for him.

  ‘What will happen to Mason?’ I ask Plat.

  ‘Whatever the National Council decides,’ she says.

  ‘He’ll probably end up in bloody China,’ says Kate. ‘I am sorry, you know,’ she says to Mason, ‘but we can’t challenge this whole trade thing right now . . . even if we wanted to. There’s just too much at stake.’ She looks at me.

  My head is full of thoughts. Thoughts I don’t want to be there. Thoughts that feel as alien in my head as Mason being here in the first place. I am used to thinking hard, but it’s maths I know. Correct and incorrect. Things you can work out, even if it takes a long time. Seems to me people have been puzzling over this whole girl–boy thing for hundreds – maybe even thousands – of years, so how would someone like me, who never really listened in Community Studies and only met a boy for the first time in her life a couple of weeks ago and pretty much hates any kind of slippery debate . . . how would someone like me know what’s right and wrong here?

  ‘If Mason was a girl,’ I say to Plat, ‘what would the restoration be?’

  ‘The Agreement is clear,’ she says. ‘Usually the victim’s family would have the first say on what the restoration would be. Although there isn’t really any ‘usually’ – there are so few cases . . . ’

  ‘What if the victim had no family?’

  ‘. . . I don’t think that has ever happened.’

  ‘But what if?!’

  ‘The Communities involved would be asked. They’d be consulted anyway, as part of the process. As would the perpetrator’s family.’

  ‘What if the perpetrator had no family?’

  Plat shrugs.

  ‘. . . But he has,’ says Kate. ‘He has! Mason has a Mumma! Everyone has a Mumma!’

  Kate places the ring on the table in front of me. It is her engagement ring. Silver, with a diamond. A once-was ring, a gift from her boyfriend. It’s not that people don’t wear such things any more – they do; people exchange and wear all kinds of rings. Mumma wears one for the National Council, and another she won’t talk about. I grew up thinking it was for me, until the day I told Kate I thought that and Kate laughed, so I asked Mumma and Mumma said it was also for me. But this ring? It is so precious to Kate, yet never, ever worn. I have only been allowed to see it a few times in my life. I have never been allowed to touch it, and now she is giving it to me.

  ‘We should never have asked the National Council to decide restoration,’ Kate says. ‘Plat is right: his Mumma must decide.’

  Mason, Plat and I are silent – as we have been for the past ten minutes as Kate shouted on the phone – to Akesa, to the Granmummas, to persons unknown – as she rummaged in her bedroom.

  ‘We can find out who she is. All those tests Akesa did? Let’s just say his DNA info is not secure. It could be hacked – very easily. It could be matched – very easily. Uh! Do I have to spell it out for you?!’ she says as we all stare blankly at her.

  ‘Clueless,’ she mutters. ‘You’re going to go to some people who can locate his Mumma. Now you take this,’ Kate says to me, sliding the ring across the table with one work-scarred finger, ‘and you go to this address.’

  I see her finger hesitate for a second before it leaves that ring. The first time it has been out of her possession in sixty years. She lays a crumpled scrap of paper on the table: ‘BABYLAND, BULLRING,’ it says – block capitals in her atrocious handwriting.

  I look up at her, still not quite understanding – or perhaps not quite willing to understand.

  ‘You’re saying this isn’t right, aren’t you? You’re saying it’s not right Mason should take the blame,’ she says to me.

  I nod, uneasy.

  ‘If you’ve seen a problem, you have to come up with a solution, don’t you? Well – lucky you! – I’ve thought of it for you. You take this ring to this place and you trade it for his mother’s identity.’

  ‘And then what?’ Mason jumps in.

  ‘And then you’ll be safe,’ says Kate. ‘Trust me: she’ll keep you safe.’

  ‘I don’t trust no—’

  ‘Oh, put a sock in it, would you? You’ll be fine – and if you’re not fine, you can come right on back here and have a good old whine at me.’

  ‘No, I –’

  ‘What? You’d rather be shipped to China? How gutless are you? This is a chance, and you need to take it.’

  Mason falls silent again.

  I pick up the piece of paper, as though holding it would make any of this – or her handwriting – any er. ‘I don’t even know where this is,’ I tell her.

  ‘The Bullring – it’s in Birmingham?’ Plat says.

  ‘Correct,’ says Kate. ‘There’s a train at 5 a.m., gets into Birmingham at seven. If you leave at four you should be OK.’

  ‘The snow?’ says Plat.

  ‘Three, then,’ says Kate. ‘Two thirty just to be on the safe side.’

  ‘By horse?’ says Plat.

  Kate frowns – so does my brain. But OK, OK, OK, I’m thinking: this is crazy and scary and typical Kate . . . but this is a thing I can do.

  ‘My bike can handle snow,’ I say – meaning, I can handle snow . . . and then I remember; my bike is dumped in the woods – miles away, tank empty. There is the Bonneville in the workshop, but even if it could handle off-road – and it can’t – it is almost as precious to Kate as her ring; the only use it ever gets is a once-a-month trip up and down the lane – So I know it’s still alive, Kate says.

  ‘Can I take your bike?’ I ask Plat.

  ‘You can’t take a bike. It won’t matter if you even manage to wheel it a kilometre away before you start it up: everyone will hear.’

  ‘I’ll wheel it two kilometres!’

  ‘Better to take the little pony,’ Kate nods in Agreement with Plat.

  I glance at the kitchen clock; just gone midnight now, though it could be somewhat wrong. I grab the phone Kate’s been ranting on: 12.10 a.m. I re-calculate, based on ONE horse power: Milpy’s plod . . . in snow . . . in a bad mood, she’s bound to be, she won’t like this . . .

  ‘I should go now.’

  ‘I’ll get you some warmer clothes,’ she says to Mason. ‘Well, obviously you’re going to have to take him with you,’ she says to the look of horror on my face.

  ‘No. I don’t want to.’

  ‘You have to take him.’

  ‘Oh – wait – what?’ says Mason. ‘No – I can’t do that. No way. Did you see the way them she-wolves was around me back there?! All staring at me like I’m some kind of freak!’

  ‘That’s because you are a freak,’ says Kate. ‘To them, I mean. Because they know what you are. I mean – look: most of them have never seen a boy – or ever expected to –’

  ‘They. Stared. It was . . . not Courteous.’

  ‘Ha,’ Kate smiles, ‘so you’re speaking the language now, are you? Your Mumma’s going to love that.
Trust me, if we put the right sort of clothes on you, no one’s going to bat an eyelid.’

  Mason tugs at his fuzzy beard.

  ‘. . . Facial hair is hardly unusual,’ says Plat.

  ‘I never saw no one in that room with this much.’

  ‘That’s because Hope’s Mumma wasn’t there,’ mutters Kate.

  ‘She abstained too?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ says Plat. ‘She Agreed – by proxy. She was too . . . upset to attend. The point is, Mason, facial hair is not an issue. Especially not in Birmingham.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know anything about that,’ he says. ‘All I know is how a female is supposed to look.’

  Plat and I shrug helplessly at Kate – who rolls her eyes. ‘All right – I’ll shave your face if it’s going to make you feel better,’ she says.

  ‘It will not make me feel better,’ he says.

  ‘Oh, get over yourself,’ says Kate.

  ‘Fuck you,’ Mason mutters . . . then glances up at us. Only Kate seems to be not remotely shocked by his words. He lowers his gaze.

  Oh, but in that glance I see it: his fear and his helplessness.

  ‘River, I don’t think you should go,’ Plat says. ‘Look, I wasn’t thinking straight just now. I’m not disagreeing with the principle; I see the argument that Mason should be treated fairly, and I understand why Kate – and the rest of the Granmummas – would want this.’

  ‘You understand nothing,’ says Kate.

  ‘But I don’t think you should go – with him – because we cannot be certain that he won’t attack you, as that other XY did.’

  The memory, loose in me, chills my blood. Even Kate is quiet for a moment.

  ‘Code of Honour,’ Mason says.

  ‘What is that?’ says Plat. ‘That means nothing. That’s just words.’

  ‘That’s all I’ve got,’ Mason says. ‘I wouldn’t do that thing you’re saying. I wouldn’t hurt River. I owe her my life.’

  I don’t feel relieved at hearing this. I feel again a burden I do not want to carry: his gratitude for having been treated like a human being. I want to be free of it. I want him gone. The kaleidoscope is back, being twisted this way and that; I did a thing I could never have imagined doing. I didn’t mean to do it, but I did do it. And he is prepared to take the blame for it. Any which way it all twists, I see Mason – and I do not want to see him. I wish I had never seen him . . . but . . .

  ‘I trust him,’ I tell them. And it astonishes me that this is so. ‘We need to hurry.’

  Kate nods – but still she turns to Mason:

  ‘You listen to me,’ she speaks at him, pointing her scarred, shaking finger in his face, ‘if anything happens to my great-grandaughter, you will die. Slowly, and painfully. We will hunt you down.’

  This is not so very far away from the kind of casual threat Kate would make me to me in jest. She was particularly fierce with me when Plat and I pulled off the raft trip to Gloucester. But I have been hunted down; I know what it feels like to be running for your life – and so does Mason.

  ‘I know it,’ he says.

  ‘That’s it?’ says Kate. ‘That’s all you’ve got to say?’

  ‘What else am I supposed to say? You’re issuing a threat. I’m telling you I’ve heard it.’

  ‘You could reassure me that nothing will happen to my granddaughter.’

  ‘I already did. Sayin’ a thing twice ain’t gonna make it any truer.’

  Kate scowls at him.

  ‘Please – shut up now,’ I tell her – and we go to my poky room, Plat and I.

  I am so grateful that she stays, hunched on my creaky campbed, as I shove items into my rucksack – no more than I’d take to my cousins’ for a weekend stay . . . which seems too much; I won’t be gone for more than a day, will I?

  ‘How long do you think this’ll take?’ I ask her.

  ‘It doesn’t have to take any time at all,’ Plat says.

  ‘Plat . . .’

  ‘River,’ she says, standing and putting her loving arms around me, ‘don’t go.’

  ‘I have missed you so much,’ I tell her.

  I have, I have, I have.

  ‘But I’m going.’

  CHAPTER 25

  THE CHILL

  And so I go. I leave the village – my village. My everything.

  Milpy doesn’t like this, not one bit. Nor do I.

  What I used to know is that there is nothing in this world that can hurt us. I knew there was no such thing as . . . all the things people and horses used to be scared about.

  Now I know some of those things exist.

  One of them is right behind me.

  We are not speaking. What is there to say?

  He is shivering – shaking, almost uncontrollably. The heat in the house was cranked up for him – but you’d think he’d be OK with his layers, even on this snowy night.

  Finally I can stand it no more.

  ‘Here,’ I tell him, pulling off my riding cape, a huge waterproof tent of a thing. ‘Put this on.’

  ‘What about you?’

  What about me? I’ve got my coat on underneath. I’ve got layers underneath that, but I’m facing the wind, and the wind is immediately poking its chilly fingers wherever it can. I’d rather deal with its ice than deal with –

  ‘Just put it on, would you? And don’t flap it around; Milpy doesn’t like it.’

  Mason puts the cape on – and scoots forward and wraps the cape around himself and me.

  I feel myself tense – but it is very sensible. There is room for two. And if it was Plat – I wish – or, in this situation, ANYONE else from the village – anyone else in the world – I wouldn’t hesitate . . . and almost as soon as I think that, I do not hesitate. I button the cape up. I shove my hands through the armholes and gather up the reins.

  His body is so cold inside this cape it feels like the wind is now at my back.

  When Milpy stumbles, his arms grab around me. Through layers I feel the grip of fingers icier than the wind clutching, and I shudder.

  ‘Sorry,’ he mumbles, withdrawing his hands.

  ‘This is like in olden times,’ he says, after a while. ‘You know, when there was knights and stuff, saving chicks.’

  I shift and turn my head to look at him. I mean – really – in what world . . .

  ‘’Cept the horses was smaller then, I reckon,’ he says.

  ‘She’s a Shire horse,’ I tell him.

  ‘Hobbit thing?!’ he says.

  ‘No, I mean she’s meant to be big. It’s her breed.’

  ‘That so . . .’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘You know about Hobbits and stuff, then?’ he says, after another long pause.

  ‘Yeah . . . I . . . can’t remember it that well, but everyone reads those kinds of books at some point, don’t they?’

  ‘Not me. K-Beta Unit Father used to shove on story discs when he was supposed to be doing whatever FUs are supposed to do – y’know: fitness talks, lec-tures about anti-social be-haviour. He was all right in some ways. Sometimes.’

  ‘Z-Beta. That’s what you said. You’re from Z-Beta Unit.’

  ‘That was way down the line. I’m talking about K-Beta. I was . . . seven? Think I must have been. Started off in A-Beta. New Unit every year . . .’

  I can’t help myself. I calculate immediately. ‘That’d put you in G at seven,’ I say out loud.

  ‘Not if you’re bad. If you’re bad you skip Units. You sink so fast it’s like there’s rocks tied to you. I saw that on a game; had a choice to shoot a man or just tie him up, weigh him down and then shove him into the river. So you think, save a bullet, tie him, shove his pockets full of rocks and push – ’cept you do that and you can’t be sure, can you? You can’t be sure what’s gonna happen; if you ain’t tied him up tight enough or stuffed enough rocks into his pockets, any man’d find a way to get loose and rise again.’

  I hear the sound of skull on rock. The sight in a flash of lightning of a flood of hot blo
od on cold, wet rock. I shut my eyes, squeeze them tight, to shut it out; as though shutting my eyes can make it not so.

  ‘Maybe this is me rising,’ he says. ‘Or maybe I’m just sinking further. It’s kind of hard to tell. I am just glad you ain’t got tangled in this too, River. Any more than you are, I mean. It’s good that you’re cutting yourself free.’

  Cutting myself free? That he sees it like that shocks and annoys me, but what is even more disturbing is my feeling of knowing with absolute certainty: I am never going to be free of this.

  CHAPTER 26

  BRITISH RAIL

  ‘That’s where we’re going?’ Mason asks, looking over my shoulder at the flood of lights on snow.

  You can smell the smoke of the station guard’s fire, even from up here. We have stopped – that is to say, Milpy has stopped – at the top of the steep, twisting path that leads down to the station. A short-cut down from the drove road. A path I have decided we need to take. Time is not on our side.

  ‘Yes . . .’

  ‘There wimmin there?’

  ‘Yes . . .’ (Who else would there be?) ‘Come on,’ I tell him, unbuttoning the riding cape. ‘We need to get down.’

  As the cape falls away from me it releases a fug of human and horse sweat so warm a little cloud of vapour is released into the chill of the night – a night that’s starry now: clouds gone, Moon blasting, snow crisping with frost. I jump down . . . and he hesitates.

  ‘Come on,’ I tell him.

  ‘. . . I can’t.’

  ‘It’s easy! Just swing your leg around and slide down.’

  ‘No. I mean . . . I can’t. I don’t want to go down there.’

  I look at his face in the moonlight; what I see on it is fear.

  ‘You can and you will,’ I tell him. I’m telling it to myself really; I do know that. And I think, perhaps, he might almost know that too.

  He shifts his leg around; manages to hang there for a moment, as I’ve seen the littlest of the Littler Ones do, climbing, when they are convinced the drop below them might require a parachute, and really they are centimetres from the ground. He so tall he is centimetres from the ground. I tug the cape and he falls – knees buckling – into the snow.

  He gets up, dusting frost-powdery snow from his legs, shivering. Shaking.