Outwalkers

by Fiona Shaw

  –What?

  –It’s Italian. My speciality. Not much chance for it so far, but I live in hope.

  –But I don’t know what I can do, Jake said, because they had everything covered. Everything he could think of. He felt Ollie’s shrug in the dark.

  –Not much use having you in the gang if you can’t do something, Ollie said. –Nobody stays in without a skill, so you’ll find one, I expect.

  All night long Swift carried Cass on her shoulders. Each time they stopped, she would crouch to let her down so she could eat a biscuit, have a drink. Each time Cass would walk back to where Jake was and she’d stand and watch Jet, licking her lips, serious and unblinking. Not close enough to touch him, but closer each time. And she wouldn’t move till Swift said to climb up again.

  Three times they stopped and each time Swift and Poacher would check the compass, look at the map. The girl with the grey eyes and the round face, who must be Martha, brought out a packet of biscuits one time, and another time Poacher passed round a big bottle of orange squash. The third time, there was a sliced loaf.

  –We be there soon? Davie said.

  –Another hour, Swift said then. –Less, maybe.

  –’Bout time, Davie said, but really quiet like it was just for Jake to hear, and he eyeballed Jake, then turned his back.

  The last stretch they walked was on a railway line. It must have been a long time since it had been used, because even in the torch beam Jake could see trees and bushes growing between the rails, and grass high as his knees everywhere. After a while it dropped down beside a river – there was the glint of the moon on the water. Once a bird surprised him: a big owl, white-bellied, that bent its wings once and swept silent through the trees above their heads. But most of that night he was so tired, all he could do was keep his eyes on Ollie’s back and keep walking. He just took one step and the next, and the railway line stretched on for ever.

  –We’re there.

  Swift’s voice took him by surprise. He looked up, and ahead in the lantern light he saw an old train. Three carriages, most of the windows boarded over with planks, sliding doors shut tight.

  –How’re we going to sleep in that? someone said.

  –Gimme a minute, Poacher said, and he took the lantern and disappeared. A few minutes later, one of the boards was slipped from a window and Poacher beckoned from inside. One by one the gang scrambled in, and Poacher slipped the board back in place.

  The carriage smelled of old carpet. Poacher had set a torch high up on a luggage rack, and it threw enough light for Jake to see all the way to the end. There were rows of red seats, two and two on either side of the aisle, and at the end a poster offering a FREE refill with your choc-choc muffin and a smiling lady holding one up. Swift spread a plastic sheet down in the luggage bay, put her jacket over it and tucked up the sleeping Cass. Jake watched the others pick places for themselves, curl themselves up on the seats, pull out a blanket.

  –Lookout rota, Poacher said. –Swift’s going first, then Martha, Ollie, Jake, Davie an’ me. He took a timer from his rucksack and a wind-up torch. –One hour on watch. Anythin’ strange, wake me. I’m going to sleep by the doors. Time’s up, you shake the next person. He looked at Jake, still standing, watching. –Go on, dog boy, get yourself a sleeping place.

  Jake lay down beneath a table. The floor was hard and gritty, and it smelled dirty. The timer ticked out the minutes. Someone whispered in their sleep. Outside, a bird shrieked. He put one arm under his head and the other on Jet’s flank and closed his eyes. Sleep wrapped around him like a blanket and he slept.

  Eight

  They walked all that day, and the next, and the next. Not the actual daytimes. But soon as the sun got low in the sky and half through the night sometimes. Then up again soon after the birds’ first calls, before the day had started even. They didn’t go fast, but they went steadily, sometimes on paths and sometimes not. When they came to gates and stiles, there were the signs, same as always, tacked to every one of them:

  Nearly always, Swift led the way, stopping often to look at her map. She’d set Cass down and do some stretches, drink some squash, but she never, ever complained, and she never asked anyone else to carry her sister. They walked between high rocks and through yellow gorse and through fields thick with tiny flowers. The weather had grown warm, and Jake tied his anorak to his rucksack. The paths were overgrown because nobody walked on them now, so Swift would slash with her stick to clear the way. She got stings and cuts all over her hands and wrists, but she never mentioned them.

  Jake was used to walking in the countryside. He’d been for loads of walks with his mum and dad. They’d always told him the warning signs were just a bluff, and when Jake had said: –But my teacher says … they told him they knew better than his teacher.

  –Look, his dad used to say, swinging his arm around in a circle. –Thanks to the Coalition, we’ve got it all to ourselves. Enjoy it, Jake. It’s the only good thing to come out of it all.

  On a walk, Jake knew what you were meant to be looking at because his mum was forever pointing things out to him. Sometimes he’d get annoyed at it, want to be left alone, wished he’d gone skateboarding, but mostly not. Mostly he liked it, even if he pretended not to. –See that hawk? she used to say. –Or that stream? And he’d look above the trees, or he’d see the thread of silver, and climb down the hillside till he could smell the peaty water, and scramble over rocks till he could kneel and dip his hand in and feel the cold water rush over.

  But now they were walking to get somewhere else. Not to explore, not to look at anything. Just to move on, move on. They passed a stone circle; you could see it clear as anything. There was even a slanty board, faded writing covered in plastic to tell you all about it. Look, Jake wanted to say. But they didn’t even pause.

  One time the gang took a footpath he remembered taking with his mum and dad. That was creepy. He was keeping his eyes on the ground because the path was rocky and you had to pick your way, and when he looked up, the path had turned and they were in a gorge and he knew the place. He’d been here before, picnicked on a flat rock, and his mum and dad had got into a massive argument. He’d got bored and gone off, scrambled up the rocks. They were nice rocks to climb, with good crimp holds, and he found a cave up there – he could see it right now, the dark patch on the rocks – just big enough for him to sit inside and he’d waited till at last they’d stopped shouting at each other and shouted for him instead. He remembered how he’d made them call for ages before he came out.

  The argument was always about the same thing. His mum said they had to stay and his dad said they should go, take their boy and go. Jake had heard it so often, he didn’t worry about it.

  But now, with the gang, he was glad to get out of there because it was horrible, remembering.

  Each night they slept on borrowed floors, and they ate what they could find or steal. One night they slept in a gamekeeper’s shed at the edge of some woods, and Poacher and Davie set traps and the next morning Jake woke to find Poacher shaking him.

  –Gonna check the traps. We take yer dog with us, he can get some food too.

  –All right, Jake said. But watching Jet trot into the trees between Poacher and Davie, he felt black fear rise, and while everyone else slept on, he sat and watched the woods and waited for them to return.

  They were back inside the half hour, each of the boys with long sticks over their shoulders, and rabbits strung along the sticks, and Jet walking beside them.

  –Breakfast, Poacher said. –But I gotta skin an’ draw ’em first. You build a fire?

  Jake nodded.

  –Got his own breakfast, your dog, Poacher said. –Caught himself a rabbit. Damn quick too.

  –Dog’s more use than the boy, Davie said.

  Jake stroked Jet’s head. –Smart boy, he said. –He’s never done that before.

  –They got the knowledge in ’em, Poacher said. –Don’t need no teaching for that. Just need to be hungry.


  One night they slept in a barn full of machines, and Poacher took Ollie and Martha on a raiding party. Jake was sitting alone, back against a tractor wheel, when Davie came over. He stood in front of Jake till Jake looked up at him. He was doing a funny thing with his hand, flicking at his forehead like there was something tickling him.

  –Hey, dog boy. Bona fide. I been wondering, Davie said. Flick went his hand.

  There’d been a girl in Jake’s class like Davie. Things came out of her mouth like she couldn’t stop them; she used to slam her hand over her mouth, try to keep them in. Jake had steered well clear of her, because the things she said weren’t nice, but mostly they were true.

  –Cos you been with us a week now. A whole long week. An’ I seen all the business with little Cass, an’ it’s very nice. Now the flicking had grown to a swipe, over and over, a kind of rhythm in it, like he was trying to make his own head turn, but his own head didn’t want to. –She’s got a sweet thing going there with your dog, but it ain’t a thing. Least not your thing. Not your special skill. So what I want to know is what’re you doing for us? Cos we been doing plenty for you.

  Jake pulled Jet closer, put a hand down to his head. Jet had his ears half-flattened back. Out of the corner of his eye, Jake saw Ollie behind them, listening.

  –Anyway, we’re all waiting. Cos Ollie says he explained, ’bout the skill. Your skill.

  –Yeah, he did, Jake said.

  –So watch it, Jakey boy, Davie said, –cos we ain’t your family, an’ Swift don’t give a toss about you. It’s only Cass she loves. You don’t prove you’re worth it, you don’t find yourself a skill, she’ll keep yer dog, cos Cass is sweet on him an’ that’s a skill; an’ there’s the rabbits too. But you: you ain’t no earthly use, an’ she’ll boot you out.

  The raiding party came back with bags of scampi and chicken nuggets and frozen carrot slices and oven chips, lifted from the farmer’s freezer. They made a fire in the woods and Ollie cooked the food on an old metal sheet.

  Davie sat apart, hunched, his hands drumming a silent rhythm into the dead leaves.

  –Davie. Martha held out a tub of food for him.

  Davie went on with his drumming.

  –Come on, Martha said.

  His hands were going faster, lifting the leaves.

  –Shouldn’t do that, he said. –Rabbits is one thing. Chicken nuggets is another.

  –Farmer ain’t gonna starve, Poacher said.

  Davie’s hands drummed down on the leaves in a whirr.

  –Nor thieves, nor the greedy, will inherit the kingdom of God! The words seemed to burst out of him, and the drumming stopped, and he slumped forward, stilled.

  But Poacher was standing over him, and he grabbed Davie and rammed him against a tree. –You calling me a thief? he said, and his voice was scary and thick, and he spoke through his teeth.

  –He who steals is a thief. Davie’s voice sounded like a machine. Like something speaking that wasn’t him. And it sounded matter of fact, not frightened at all.

  Poacher had Davie by the collar, his fists under Davie’s chin. He looked like he might kill him. Nobody moved. Jake held his breath.

  –Poacher? Martha spoke very quietly, but there was something in her voice, something steely: Jake was glad it wasn’t his name she’d said. And Poacher shook Davie away from him, like Davie was something dirty, and Davie fell down into the brambles.

  –Keep yer god to yerself then, Poacher said, –cos he ain’t got a clue about anything. And he took his food off the metal sheet and went and sat apart to eat it.

  –Whoa, Jake said. –What was that?

  –Happens to Davie sometimes. Like something he can’t keep in. Like a pressure in him and he’s going to explode if he doesn’t speak.

  –And what about Poacher? And Martha?

  –They put Poacher’s dad in prison for stealing, Ollie said quietly. –Money, not chicken nuggets. Poacher says it wasn’t his fault. He says it was the only way his dad could get enough for the family. But anyway, that’s how Poacher ended up in a Home Academy.

  –What about his mum? Jake said.

  –I dunno. He’s never said he had a mum. But he had a sister. Older. She got sent to the picking fields. But she had asthma, used to suck on one of those machines, Poacher said.

  –So?

  –Pesticides in the picking fields: they’re specially bad if you’ve got asthma. She got sent to the covered ones. It’s worse under the plastic. Then she disappeared. Poacher reckons it killed her, cos he hasn’t been able to find her.

  –He must be very angry, Jake said.

  –Yup, with the Coalition. He wants to murder the Coalition.

  –And Martha? She was really quiet, but …

  –Scary, right? Ollie said. –She always looks out for Davie. You want to be careful, getting into a fight with him, cos you’ll have her to reckon with too.

  The next night they were in a church and they had bruised bananas and apples from the bins behind a Co-op, and four carrier bags from the bins behind Cheung’s Chinese takeaway. The seats in the church were all inside their own boxes.

  –Box pews, Martha said. –They’re really old.

  They sat together in one of the boxes and Martha divvied out the food on a slab.

  Swift set Cass down in another pew and fed her bits of food. But after a few mouthfuls, Cass turned her head away, and curled up on the hard wood.

  Not enough for body and soul, Jake thought. Another thing his mum used to say.

  When they’d all finished eating, Davie climbed up to the pulpit, pulled off his beanie, and opened the Bible. The pages crackled. Davie swiped a hand once through his buzz-cut and began to read. –Suffer the little children, he said. –Suffer them to come unto me, and forbid them not.

  He spoke in a quiet voice, and it was like a cold whisper down Jake’s spine.

  Davie turned the pages and read out again. –Because the young will faint, he said, –and they will get weary, and some of them will even fall down …

  –Shut it, Davie, Swift said, and she was on her feet, but Martha was there ahead of her, up the pulpit steps, her hand on Davie’s collar, her face like thunder. She marched him up the church and through a door at one end.

  –Why did he read that out? Jake whispered. –He must’ve known it’d make her angry.

  –He can’t help it, Ollie said. –But he’s right. Cass is getting weaker.

  Then Martha and Davie came out again, and Davie went and spoke to Swift, and after a pause, Swift nodded and they punched knuckles.

  They each had a box pew to themselves to sleep in. Jake lay along the narrow pew, his arms tight to his sides. There were cushions on hooks around the box – they were kneelers, Martha said – and he used one for a pillow. Jet curled up at his feet, and when he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend they were back at home, in his old bed. He woke in the night to find a strange, cold arm across his face, but it was only his own.

  Another night they found an old horsebox in the far end of a field, up to its ears in sticky grass and nettles. They slept head to tail like fish in a tin, and in the morning Poacher brought eggs, a pile of them snuggled in the hood of his parka.

  –Still warm, he said. –Drink ’em down. Then we got to go. All those eggs gone, they’ll be looking for us.

  Jake ate them warm and raw, and they slipped down his throat like satin.

  –An’ the dog, Poacher said, and he broke them into Jake’s cupped palms for Jet.

  Only Cass wouldn’t eat one, setting her jaw shut, her chapped lips set in a tight line. But Swift pinned her down. –You have to, she said. Cass twisted this way and that way, and her hair was full of straw, but Swift forced her mouth open and broke the eggs. Cass made no sounds, not a single cry, but Jake could hear her anyway.

  Night-times, Jake dreamed of his mother again and again. She was there. He could see her. He could hear her. She’d call to him, or cuff his head like she used to, or grab and hug him before he wriggled fre
e. Then something would wake him, someone crying in their sleep maybe, and he’d feel her disappear. He wanted to batter and shout out, he was so angry with her, because it was him who used to wriggle free. That was what he did, not her. And now she was slipping from him and he couldn’t hold on to her.

  He kept count of the days, making a new notch each morning on a stick he picked up on the first day with the gang: twelve days, thirteen. His boots rubbed and blisters grew on his feet, on his toes and on his heels. They made him limp and in the evenings Martha put plasters on them. He watched her face. He guessed she must be about Swift’s age, but where Swift was hard and tough and wore combats, Martha seemed soft and gentle. She never shouted, not even when she was being scary, and when she smiled, there were dimples in her cheeks. The way she tucked her hair behind her ears – long, dark, curly hair – reminded him of his mum.

  –We’ll stop soon, she said. –Then the blisters will have a chance to heal.

  –Why do we have to stop? he said, because he didn’t want to. He wanted to keep on and keep on and get to Scotland and find his grandparents and sleep in a bed with Jet on the floor beside him. He didn’t want to wait for anything.

  –Because everyone’s exhausted, she said. –And your blisters will get worse if we don’t.

  –I don’t care, Jake said. –I just want to—

  But Martha cut in on him. –If we don’t stop soon, then Cass … She trailed off, and Jake remembered Davie’s Bible reading: the young will faint, and some will even fall down.