Watchers

by Philip Caveney

  ‘Yeah, nice,’ said Ari appreciatively. ‘She’s a babe.’

  Will gave him a look.

  ‘Do you mind?’ he said. ‘That’s my mum.’

  ‘Sorry, kid. But it’s like Amy says, she’s still a fine looking lady.’

  ‘Correct,’ said Amy. ‘And I can see in her eyes that what she wants more than anything else is to be loved by a man.’

  Will scowled. ‘No, you’re wrong,’ he protested. There was only ever one man for my mum. She told me that herself.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure she did. But that was some time ago. You have to be realistic about things, Will. Your mum is very lonely.’

  ‘She’s got me,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, but it’s not quite the same. She needs somebody.’ There was a general nodding of heads around the campfire, as though this kind of thing was discussed all the time. ‘But it can’t be just anybody,’ added Amy. ‘If she wound up with someone unsuitable, she’d be unhappy and you’d be unhappy and that would make your dad’s spirit miserable. We’d be back to square one. No, it needs to be somebody that you approve of.’ She thrust a wooden spoon into the cauldron of tea and stirred it around for a moment. ‘I don’t suppose there’s anyone like that knocking around the place, is there?’

  ‘No, there isn’t,’ said Will. ‘You don’t think I wander round looking for replacement dads, do you?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘But . . . it wouldn’t hurt to keep your eyes open . . . just in case you should spot somebody suitable.’

  Will laughed out loud at that. ‘How about David Beckham?’ he snapped. ‘Mum reckons he has nice legs.’

  ‘Hmm. I can see the appeal,’ admitted Amy. ‘But isn’t he already married?’

  ‘I wasn’t being serious,’ cried Will. ‘And besides, do you honestly think that somebody like him would look twice at someone like my mum?’

  ‘Oh, that bit’s easy. It’s a simple enchantment. We’d just have to engineer an initial meeting and when the two of them look at each other . . . pow! Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.’

  ‘Amy’s done it loads of times,’ said Ari. ‘You’d be amazed at some of the people she’s brought together over the years. Quite famous, some of them.’

  ‘Napoleon and Josephine,’ said Reg.

  ‘Caesar and Cleopatra,’ added Wormy.

  ‘Becks and Posh,’ said Ari. ‘You know, I keep thinking, if I could just get my hands on one of her enchantments . . .’

  Amy directed a scornful look at him.

  ‘You never give up, do you?’ she said.

  ‘I’m a man on a mission,’ he told her, and she laughed. Then she tried to be more serious. ‘Will, I know it isn’t easy to think of your mother wanting to be with someone else, but take it from me, she is not the kind of person who copes well on her own. A new man, that’s what will make her happy. Now think for a moment. Is there nobody else your mother might be interested in.’

  Will frowned.

  ‘Well, there was this guy called Jake,’ he said.

  Amy’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘Jake?’ she murmured.

  ‘Er . . . yeah, Mum’s mentioned him a couple of times, usually when she’s had a drink. It was this guy she went out with before she met Dad. Supposed to have been a big love affair and everything, but Jake went off to live in South America and Mum didn’t want to go with him. She stayed here and then she met Dad and the two of them hit it off and . . . well, you know the rest.’

  Amy smiled. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘Perfect.’ She closed her eyes for a moment.

  ‘Well. He won’t be exactly handy, will he?’ said Will. ‘South America is a long way away.’

  Amy opened her eyes again.

  ‘It is,’ she agreed. ‘But don’t worry, I’ve found Jake. And he’s a lot closer to home than South America.’

  ‘You . . . you found him? How? I mean, you haven’t even moved from your seat!’

  Amy spread her hands.

  ‘Piece of cake,’ she said. ‘All he needed was a little whisper in his ear.’

  ‘But . . . what about Dad?’ asked Will. ‘He isn’t going to be delighted is he, seeing Mum going out with someone else?’

  ‘Well now, that’s where you’re wrong. You see, your dad is sufficiently mature enough to want your mum to be happy, whatever it takes. There’s an old song he used to like. ‘If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free’. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it said better.’

  Will nodded. She was right about the song. Sting. Dad used to play it a lot. Now he came to think of it, he hadn’t heard Mum play any of Dad’s records since he died. Perhaps he’d have to search them out for her.

  The mirror had finally come back around the circle to Amy. She took it, waved her hand across the glass and the image vanished. Will pointed at it.

  ‘That gadget,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose . . . well you couldn’t get my dad’s face on it, could you? I mean, I’ve got photographs at home and all that, but that would be way better. It would almost be like he was still alive.’

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t call back the faces of the dead, Will. Not after so long. Perhaps if he’d only just passed over but . . . I’m sorry.’

  Will shrugged, not wanting them to see the crushing disappointment he felt.

  ‘I just wondered,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Except that it did and he realised that everybody there knew it. There was a deep reflective silence around the campfire and Will suddenly felt rather awkward. He made a point of looking at his watch.

  ‘Oh, I should be going,’ he said. ‘Really, Mum will be wondering what’s happened to me.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Reg, and he sounded almost relieved. ‘You get back now. Remember, if you need to contact us, use the emails; or one of those mobile phone thingies . . .’

  ‘Text message,’ said Ari scornfully.

  ‘Yes, and if you need to see us in person, you know where we’ll be.’

  ‘Sure.’ Will set down his tin mug and gave Spot a pat on the head. He got up from his seat and Ari followed his example.

  ‘I’ll walk back with you a little way,’ he said.

  ‘OK.’ Will looked around at the circle of faces, not quite sure how to say goodbye. ‘See you then,’ he said after a bit and he and Ari retraced their steps up the hillside. As they reached the top of the hill, Will glanced back. The raggle-taggle group still sat around their campfire, watching him walk away.

  ‘They’re not a bad bunch,’ said Ari. ‘Once you get to know them.’

  ‘They’ve got some funny ideas though,’ murmured Will.

  ‘They might seem funny now,’ said Ari. ‘But you’ll soon come to realise that we don’t make false claims.’

  ‘Yeah? So there’s a super-computer waiting for me at home, is there?’

  ‘Of course. Or do you doubt that we can do it?’

  They walked along in silence for a while.

  ‘Well,’ said Will, turning to face him. ‘I’m not being funny but . . .’

  He was on his own. There was no sign of Ari anywhere.

  Back at the house, Will found Mum doing her level best to make a Sunday roast dinner. She wasn’t a great cook and the prospects didn’t look too promising, but he refrained from making any comment. Instead, he announced that he had homework to finish and made a beeline for the ‘study.’ One look at the computer, squatting forlornly on the desk, convinced him that the Watchers must have been talking nonsense. It still looked hopelessly dated. He punched the start button and waited for the abject tickings and noodlings it always emitted. Instead, he was greeted by the deep, sonorous chord sound of a Macintosh computer.

  He dropped into the seat and sat watching in disbelief as the machine went through a totally new start-up routine, whizzing through a host of applications that hadn’t been there before. Macintosh applications. Impossible on a cheap PC. And after just a few moments, there were the famous Mac graphics along the bottom of the screen. He grabbed the battered old mouse and clic
ked on the Safari button. One millisecond later the home page was up on the screen in glorious colour.

  ‘No,’ he said, aloud. ‘That’s nuts!’

  He went to his bookmarks, selected Google, wrote in the word ‘Angels’ and in no time at all was browsing through the same site it had taken him so long to load the last time he’d tried, the cursor zipping through page after page with ease. He just couldn’t believe it. He exited Safari, went to the apple symbol in the top left hand corner and looked at the ‘about this computer’ box. His jaw nearly dropped onto his keyboard. The machine now had a higher spec than the iMac he’d wanted for so long. Ok, it didn’t look as stylish but . . .

  He clicked on his mail option and began a new message. In the address window he simply wrote REG. He thought for a moment and was about to type, his hands poised over the keyboard, when he saw the letters appearing in the message window, as though they were keying themselves in. The message read:

  OK, I TAKE IT ALL BACK. YOU WERE RIGHT.

  Will had to clap a hand over his mouth to stop himself from yelling out loud. It was incredible! An ancient PC was out-performing a state-of-the-art iMac and it was even typing in his thoughts as they occurred to him. He thought about clicking the SEND button and it clicked itself. Reg’s message went flying off into the ether and then, a few seconds later, an instant message box appeared on the screen.

  WILL. GLAD YOU LIKE IT! LET ME KNOW IF

  THERE’S ANYTHING ELSE YOU NEED. REG.

  PS. THIS MESSAGE WILL NOW DELETE

  ITSELF.

  As Will sat there and watched, it did exactly that.

  Amazing! He wanted to jump to his feet and dance around the room, but was afraid his mum would hear him and come to investigate. Instead, he decided to do the unthinkable and actually get on with a bit of homework.

  The assignment was to write a 1000 word essay on the Russian Revolution, something he’d been dreading with every fibre of his being. He clicked Microsoft Word – the latest version naturally – and gazed at the blank page, wondering how to start.

  A title typed itself centrally on the screen:

  THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION – AN OVERVIEW.

  Then, as he watched in astonished silence, the essay began to write itself.

  He watched long enough to ensure that it was getting the facts and the spelling right. Then he reached for a comic and sat down to read it, pausing every now and then to ensure that the essay was still coming along ok. It was doing better than ok. What seemed to be evolving was a brilliant account of the major events of the period, complete with quotes, references and a conclusion that would have made the most gifted historian smile with pride.

  Finally, as he sat there, his battered old printer reeled out pages of laser-quality text, all ready for placing into his history file. Done.

  Mum called him through to the dining room for his dinner and he went through whistling cheerfully. She looked at him in surprise.

  ‘You seem to be in a good mood,’ she observed. ‘You’re usually like a bear with a sore head when you’ve been struggling with that computer.’

  He reached for the gravy boat and poured a generous dollop of lumpy gravy over his roast chicken.

  ‘I downloaded some new software,’ he said. ‘It’s working a lot better now.’

  ‘Really?’ Mum was delighted. ‘But I thought you said it was useless.’

  Will sliced into his meat. ‘It’s amazing what you can do when you’ve got a bit of help,’ he said. ‘You just need to know where to look.’ He gazed down at the heap of overcooked sludge on his plate. ‘This looks delicious,’ he added.

  Mum stared at him. ‘Goodness me,’ she said. ‘You are in a good mood, aren’t you?’

  EIGHT

  The next morning was Monday which inevitably meant school. The alarm clock went off with all the subtlety of a drum kit falling down a flight of stairs and after several shouted reminders from Mum, Will finally dragged himself out of bed, scratching and yawning.

  He trudged to the bathroom, had a wee, splashed cold water onto his face, dragged a toothbrush across his teeth and then, still half-asleep, went back to his room and struggled into his school uniform. He’d been troubled all night by odd dreams in which he’d been trying to catch flying men in an oversized butterfly net. He didn’t have the least idea what it meant, but he could hardly be surprised that he was having odd dreams after what had happened.

  In the cold light of an October day, recent events had taken on an air of total unreality. He even slipped into the study and had a quick doodle on the computer, just to assure himself that he hadn’t been imagining things. The internet opened as easily as it had the previous night. Will stared at the screen for a moment, still not quite believing it.

  But if he had any lingering doubts, he only had to look at his homework, lying on the desk, pristine and word perfect. Mr Jenkins, the history teacher would probably have a heart attack when he saw it.

  It certainly wasn’t the kind of standard Will usually turned in and he wondered if he should smudge it up a bit, try and make it look a bit more like his own work. In the end, he decided there simply wasn’t time. He dropped the folder into his school bag and made his way to the kitchen, where he found Mum frantically burning toast and making instant coffee, already in danger of being late for her first cleaning job of the day.

  ‘Here, eat something,’ she told him, shoving a plate of buttered toast in his general direction. He took a token piece, crammed it into his mouth and headed for the door, grabbing his gym bag from a chair on the way.

  ‘Please don’t tell me you’ve got a match today,’ his Mother called after him. ‘I haven’t even washed your kit.’

  ‘It won’t matter,’ he told her, through a mouthful of toast. ‘It’ll be covered in mud again after two minutes.’

  ‘Honestly, why didn’t you remind me?’ she protested. ‘People will think you haven’t got a mother.’ She ran to the back door and started calling the dog, who had been let out for his morning wee in the garden. ‘Spot! Spot, come on boy, I’m going to be late!’

  Mum’s yells followed Will as he let himself out of the front door and strolled through the estate. It was a cold blustery day, but the sun was trying hard to break through the patches of dirty grey cloud. He turned right at the main road and walked down to the bus stop, where he found Terry Blackham waiting.

  Terry was Will’s best mate at St Brendan’s, they were both in the same class, had known each other since they were toddlers. Once as thick as thieves, it was probably true to say that they hadn’t been all that close since Dad had died. Will didn’t exactly know what had happened between them. He supposed his reluctance to talk about his dad was the main problem. He was aware that Terry tried a lot harder than he did to keep things good between them, but for the moment at least, he was unable to return the interest.

  Terry was a scruffy, good-natured boy with a freckled face and a shock of unruly black hair that was always hanging down over his collar and into his eyes. The two of them both played for St Brendan’s First XI and since Terry wasn’t much better than Will at the game, both of them greeted each other with an understandable degree of trepidation.

  ‘Nice day for a massacre,’ observed Terry, glumly.

  Will shrugged.

  ‘Well, what can you expect? They eat, sleep and drink sport at St Chad’s. Of course they always beat us. I mean, if we practised more often it might help.’

  St Brendan’s managed to practise for exactly forty minutes, once a week. ‘Whether we need it or not,’ Will was fond of saying. And even then it was unusual for the whole team to turn up at the right time.

  ‘Let’s face it, they’re going to hammer us,’ said Terry, gloomily. ‘What was the score last time? Twelve nil? It was embarrassing.’

  ‘Don’t remind me,’ said Will. Then, remembering that the Watchers were planning to give him a little help with the game, he tried to cover himself by adding, ‘But listen, I’ve been practising over the
weekend. Might have a few surprises for them.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Terry looked doubtful and somewhat annoyed. ‘Why didn’t you give me a call? We could have practised together.’

  ‘Umm . . . well, when I say ‘practise,’ I just mean . . . you know, kicking a ball against a wall for ten minutes. No big deal, really.’

  Terry seemed unconvinced by this explanation and Will was glad when the school bus finally lumbered into view and came chugging down the road towards them. It screeched to a halt and they climbed aboard. On the top deck they were met with a raucous chorus of greetings, catcalls and insults, as they moved along the aisle, heading for their regular places up at the back.

  Terry was popular with most kids around his age. Will wasn’t anything like as popular but was tolerated because of his friendship with Terry; he was under no illusions about that. He knew he ought to try harder but there was something in him that distrusted the idea of forming too many close attachments. People you cared about could leave forever without any warning. Mind you, there were some people he would like to know a whole lot better . . .

  Halfway along the aisle, Will noticed Sophie McKinnon, deep in conversation with Shaun Willis. She glanced up as he moved by but he pretended not to notice her.

  He’d been mad about Sophie for quite some time. She lived a couple of stops further up the Sealand road in a big white farmhouse. There was always a Range Rover in the driveway and everyone said her parents were loaded. Not that this was the reason he was so interested in her. It was more to do with her pretty face, her dark brown eyes and the shock of glossy black hair that fell to her shoulders. And her smile. She had a wicked smile.

  Somehow, Will could never bring himself to let her know that he was interested. He was too scared that she would laugh at him and tell him to get lost. He had no particular reason to suppose that this might be the case, he just felt that it was the way his luck usually ran.

  He dropped into his usual seat and Terry flopped down beside him. Nobody ever just sat down on the bus, that wasn’t cool. The idea was to flop. They stacked their school bags in an untidy heap in one corner. Now he was at a comfortable distance, Will took the opportunity to sneak a look at Sophie. She was laughing out loud at something Shaun had told her and he was grinning like an idiot, obviously delighted at how well he was doing. Will felt like going over there and thumping him, he was far too confident with girls. As far as Will knew, Sophie wasn’t going out with anyone yet, but that was only a matter of time and it would be just like Shaun to get in there first.