“Sebastian. Yes. I got to know him over the last few weeks. Found out why he lurks there, decided he can help us if we help him.”
“I gather he has a friend in here,” Jonathan said, “That’s what he told me, anyway. Said he’d help us get out if we got his friend out too. Sounds a bit improbable.”
“It’s true though,” said Matteo, “But if we are going to escape, we have to do it soon.”
“The sooner the better,” said Leila, “But why the urgency?”
“They are going to move us to another Camp. A more secure Camp further down the coast. Sebastian told me all about it. It’s not like this one. This one is just a temporary arrangement. The next one is being converted from an old prison. Stone walls. Locked gates. All that kind of thing. There’ll be no escaping from there.”
“And from here?”
“Maybe. Sebastian and I came up with an idea.”
“And what exactly is that idea?” Jonathan asked.
Just then, Matteo’s friends turned up: Ben, short, plump, sandy-haired; and Fred, tall, curly-haired with a nose that looked as though it was broken. The two of them had slouched across the dining room towards them and now stood by the table, staring vacantly, not sure what to do next.
“Sit down,” Matteo told them. The table was large and there were several vacant chairs.
“We were just talking about your friend, Sebastian,” Matteo said to Fred, “You remember Sebastian, don’t you?”
Fred smiled and nodded. “Sebastian,” he said.
“What can you remember about Sebastian, Fred?”
Fred frowned, thinking hard. After a few moments he smiled again and nodded. “Sebastian. My friend. Sebastian.”
Resistance
Stony Cove: The Previous December
Last Christmas
“A ham sandwich walks into a bar. The barmaid says, ‘Sorry, we don’t serve food here’. Ha! Ha! You’ve gotta laugh, ain’tcha!”
The pub was full that night. An endless loop of Christmas music was playing through the speakers – Slade’s ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’, Wham!’s ‘Last Christmas’, Shakin’ Stevens’s ‘Merry Christmas, Everyone’.
“A midget walks into a bar and asks for a beer. The bartender says ‘Sorry, we can’t serve you. You’re a little drunk.’ Ha! Ha! If you don’t laugh at that you must already be dead.”
The barmaid, a large, middle-aged blonde woman with a figure that was putting her tight silver-lamé sweater under extreme duress, leant across the bar. “Give it a rest, Charlie. Them jokes is so old they’ve got whiskers.”
“If you wasn’t such an attractive woman, Mavis, I could take that personal. What say you and me grab ourselves a couple of cod’n’chips from Frier Tuck’s after closing time. Go on, I’ll treat you.”
“If you think my idea of a swanky night out is a takeaway from the chippie followed by a quick grope in your flat, I’ve got news for you, Charlie!”
“You’re right, Mavis. Best do without the fish’n’chips and go straight for the ’ow’s-yer-father.”
“Eee, you’re a smooth-talker, Charlie Rubenstein. If I was twenty years younger and a heck of a lot stupider than I am, who knows, you might be in luck. But as I ain’t neither, are you going to sit there with an empty glass or do you want me to fill it?”
“Aye, Mavis. I’ll ’ave another pint. Oh, and a packet of pork scratchings.”
Mavis sighed. “The last of the big spenders…”
At the far side of the pub next to the open log fire, two young men sitting at a table had been watching the conversation between the barmaid and the fat, loud-mouthed customer sitting on a bar stool.
“Can you face going through that all over again? I don’t think I can,” said one of the young men – a slim, good-looking man with electric-blue eyes and dark, curly hair.
“You mean, working at the Camp again? Don’t know, really. What else is there to do? Round here, I mean.”
“Exactly. Round here. There’s nothing round here. If you want to get on in life, you have to go away.”
“You thinking of moving away, Freddie? Where would you go to?”
“Not sure. London, I suppose.”
“London! Why London?”
Freddie smiled. It was exactly the sort of thing he’d expected Sebastian to say. Sebastian was a nice bloke, Freddie’s best friend, he was funny and intelligent and good company. But he had no ambition. He would have been content to work the summer season at Jollity’s Holiday Camp until he was old enough to collect his pension.
“London is where it all is,” Freddie said.
“All what?”
“All everything. I could be an actor, I reckon. If I had the right chances.”
“You could be an actor in the Camp,” Sebastian said, “The Yellow-coats are always putting on shows and stuff. You should do an audition. I bet you could get into a show.”
“Not quite what I had in mind. Telly is what I had in mind. Films maybe. See, I read about it. You go to Soho, which is where a lot of the film companies hang out, and you get a job as a runner.”
“What’s a runner?”
“It’s kind of like… well, I think it’s kind of… Well, to be honest, I’m not really sure. It’s kind of a junior position anyway. But it’s how you make contacts. And once you get the contacts, there’s no end to what you can do.”
“Oh.”
“What’s up?”
“Nothing. I assumed you’d be, you know, working at the Camp again next summer. We had some good times last summer, you have to admit that. It was fun. Sometimes anyway.”
Freddie couldn’t figure Sebastian out sometimes. Five minutes ago he’d been in a good mood. Now, all of a sudden, he was down in the dumps.
From across the crowded room, the booming voice of Charlie Rubenstein cut through the hubbub of talk and the endless loop of Christmas music – “There were two cannibals eating a clown. One says to the other, ‘Does this taste funny to you?’” Nobody laughed except for Charlie Rubenstein.
“I couldn’t stand another summer of that,” Freddie said.
“Yeah, well, maybe you won’t have to. I mean, even if you didn’t go to London.”
“Why? Is Charlie retiring?”
“Maybe we all will be.”
“What? The Camp’s shutting down, you mean?” Freddie smiled broadly, “It should do. Nobody’d miss it.”
“Not sure. It’s just something I’ve heard. It was Charlie who said something. When I was in here the other night. Didn’t say what exactly. But I got the impression he knows something he’s not letting onto.”
Freddie laughed. “That’d be a turn up for the books. Old Jollity shutting down. What did Charlie say?”
“He was really drunk at the time. He didn’t make a lot of sense. He just said that he was being kept on.”
But then, two girls came over: the blousy red-head called Jennie and her mate, a mousy girl called Sandra. Jennie had the hots for Freddie, that much was obvious. Sebastian and Freddie had got to know the girls when they were all working in Jollity’s the previous summer season. Sebastian and Freddie had been working in the canteen. Jennie and Sandra had been chalet cleaners. Jennie obviously fancied herself. God’s gift to men – that’s how she saw herself, in Sebastian’s opinion. Back in the Camp, some of the lads had called her The Bike because she was ridden by everyone. Sebastian wasn’t sure if she was really as promiscuous as her reputation suggested but she certainly did flirt a lot. Look at the way she was fluttering her eyelashes at Freddie! It was a bit common, really.
“What are you drinking?”
“What?” Sebastian had been miles away. Sandra had been saying something to him.
“What are you having?” she repeated, “I’m going to the bar. I’ll get you whatever you’re drinking.”
“Oh. Oh, no, it’s OK. I’ll get them.”
“All right then. I’ll have a vodka and tonic.”
She didn’t take much talking into that, tho
ught Sebastian. He was never very good at all the social niceties. Not with women. He was never sure whether they expected the men to pay for everything or whether they believed in sexual equality and wanted to pay their fair share. Sandra, it seemed, wasn’t big on sexual equality.
At the bar, Cheerful Charlie Rubenstein was still telling jokes that everyone had heard a hundred times and didn’t want to hear again. When Sebastian came back with the drinks, Julie and Freddie were deep in conversation. So Sebastian said to Sandra, “You heard anything about the Camp closing down?”
Sandra was shocked. “Closing down! I bleedin’ hope not. I’m booked on for the next season. Where did you hear that?”
“Oh, nowhere. I mean I didn’t hear it was closing down. I just heard a rumour that, you know, maybe someone was taking it over or something.”
Sandra mulled that over. “Disney maybe?”
“What?”
“They do that, don’t they. They buy up old holiday camps and turn them into Disney Worlds.”
But Sebastian was no longer listening. He was watching Jennie and Freddie. The way they were smiling and laughing was getting right on Sebastian’s wick. Freddie never smiled and laughed that way when he was talking to Sebastian. Sebastian resented that.
Cold Front
The New Year blew in on an icy wind that they said was coming from Siberia. The sky was leaden, the wind was wild and the waves came crashing over the promenade as though the sea was planning to engulf the town. But at least there wasn’t snow. There was cold, sleety rain, though, that stung your face and found its way under your coat and into your shoes.
There is nothing quite so miserable as a British seaside resort in the middle of winter. That winter, Stony Cove gathered upon itself a morbid sense of depression that was unalleviated even by Cheerful Charlie Rubenstein’s unquenchable mirth.
“I can always tell when my mother-in-law’s coming to stay. The mice throw themselves on the traps! Ha! Ha! You’ve got to laugh, ain’tcha.”
“Throw themselves onto the traps! Ha! My word, that’s most amusing.”
“As a matter of fact, I haven’t spoken to my mother-in-law for two years. Well, I don’t like to interrupt her.”
“What?”
“I don’t like to interrupt her. I said, I haven’t spoken to her for two years. Because I don’t like to…”
“I don’t think I get…”
“Well, when I said I haven’t spoken to her, you’re probably thinking it’s because we’d fallen out, you see. But then I say, I don’t like to…”
“Oh yes! I see. You haven’t spoken to her because she’s been talking for two years so you couldn’t get a word in edgeways, as it were…”
Charlie Rubenstein couldn’t help but groan a little.
“Oh yes, I get it now. Ha! Yes, that’s awfully funny. I really don’t know how you dream them all up.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a talent I have, you see. Now are you getting the next round in or shall I?”
“Oh, I shall get them in, old chap. What are you drinking?”
Sebastian had been watching Charlie Rubenstein and the other chap from his table at the other side of the pub. Sebastian was sitting there alone. Freddie had said he’d be there by nine o’clock but it was already twenty past and there was still no sign of him. Sebastian had never seen the chap with Charlie Rubenstein before. He wasn’t the sort of person you’d have expected to see with Charlie. Charlie’s mates were normally either almost as obnoxious as Charlie himself or else pathetic little hangers-on who thought Charlie was the next best thing to a TV star. The bloke with him that night wasn’t like that at all. For one thing, he was posh. He had one of those drawling, nasal accents that only really posh people have. He was also wearing the sort of clothes that posh people wore: a dark blazer, tan-coloured trousers with a crease as sharp as cheese-wire and a long, expensive-looking overcoat, the kind of thing you’d expect Humphrey Bogart to be wearing in an old film. The bloke himself was tall with fair, wavy hair and a beaky nose.
“Well,” said Charlie Rubenstein, “Since you’re offering, Mr Smedley, I’ll have a pint of bitter and a packet of dry roast peanuts.”
“Oh, do leave orf with the Mr Smedley,” said the posh chap, “First name terms, old man. Call me Archie.”
“If you insist, Archie.”
“I do, I really do, Charlie old man.”
And then Freddie arrived. “Sorry I’m late,” he took off his anorak, shook some raindrops from it and hung it onto a bent-wood coat hanger next to the fire, “I was watching the telly and I must have dozed off. What’re you drinking, lager?”
“Stella.”
“I’ll get them in.”
Sebastian lost interest in Charlie Rubenstein after that. He was vaguely aware that he was still sitting at the bar with his posh friend, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying and he wasn’t really interested, anyway. Sebastian had never liked Charlie. He’d got on OK with most of the staff at Jollity’s when he’d worked the summer season in the canteen. But he’d never got on with Charlie. He’d always been rude. The campers, though, they loved Charlie. They thought he was the life and soul of the party, a real scream, always full of fun. But they only saw him on stage. Or maybe they saw him judging the knobbly knees contest or the glamorous grannies. But that wasn’t the real Charlie. The real Charlie was the miserable git who shambled into breakfast with a hangover and shouted at the waiting staff because the tea was cold or there were only two sausages and he always had three. The real Charlie was someone who’d knife you in the back for the fun of it. The real Charlie was a foul-mouthed, mean, nasty, vicious slob and Sebastian did his best to avoid him.
“They say snow’s on the way,” Freddie said.
“You what?”
“Snow. I heard it on the BBC. They’re forecasting heavy snow falls. A cold front, they said. Blowing in next week. Just when you think this place can’t get any worse, ’ey!”
“Maybe we won’t get any.”
“We’ll get it. We always get it. Any rotten weather on offer and we are sure to get more than our fair share.”
Better not start on that topic, Sebastian thought. These days, Freddie seemed to think that everything was worse in Stony Cove than anywhere else. Even the weather.
At some point later that evening, Sebastian was at the bar getting a round when he overheard the posh chap, Archie. He was saying, “Of course, we’ll still be needing entertainment. No matter what happens. We have to keep up morale, old boy.”
At the time, Sebastian had no idea what Archie was talking about. He had no idea why Archie was there. And he couldn’t figure out any possible explanation for Archie being so friendly with a sleaze-ball like Charlie Rubenstein.
That was the first week of January. It wasn’t until two months later that Sebastian saw the man called Archie again. He arrived at Camp Jollity in an Army vehicle. He was wearing military uniform on that occasion, the uniform of an officer. Later on, Sebastian discovered that he was Captain Archibald Smedley and he had been appointed as Entertainments Officer for the Camp.
But the thing that puzzled Sebastian was why Captain Smedley had been in Stony Cove on a cold, windswept night in early January. There had been no reason for him to be there. There had certainly been no reason for him to be on first name terms with Charlie Rubenstein. That had been before the Great Snow. What could possibly attract an Army officer to Stony Cove in the middle of winter? After all, there was nothing in Stony Cove apart from a couple of down-at-heel hotels and a faded, out-of-season holiday Camp.
*
And then the snow came. It didn’t come as a surprise. There had been warnings on the radio for days before it finally arrived. The snow fell in France and Germany before it finally landed in Britain. There had been riots in France, all kinds of disturbances in Germany. Sebastian paid no attention. They were always rioting in France and Germany, weren’t they?
When the snow arrived in Britain, people would just get on
with business as usual. The kids would have a few days off school, probably, to build snowmen and throw snowballs. The trains would no doubt grind to a halt the way they always did when there was so much as a light flurry of sleet. Other than that, things would go on as usual. And Sebastian would go to work as usual, come rain or shine.
He’d managed to get a part-time job at the Grand Plaza Hotel, which was by far the biggest and swankiest hotel in Stony Cove even though it had obviously seen much better days. The hotel had been built towards the end of the nineteenth century to cater for well-off Victorian families who would come for a week or two to ‘take the air’ which was supposed to be healthier than the air they’d had in town. These days the hotel catered for budget holidaymakers too poor or too mean to have a half-way decent holiday abroad or in a more up-market resort.
The snow arrived overnight. When, by the light of day, Sebastian saw the world in dazzling white, he was suffering from the worst hangover he’d ever had. And when Freddie arrived, Sebastian knew that something tremendously bad must have happened. Had someone dropped an atom bomb? Had there been a tsunami? An earthquake?
Freddie looked like people Sebastian had only ever seen on TV and never in real life. People in disaster zones. People whose houses had been blasted to the ground by bombs or tidal waves or who were suffering from some horrible disease.
In the days that followed, Sebastian worked night and day to help his friend regain his health. And gradually, bit by bit, Freddie did get better. Sebastian did not know, at the time, how unusual that was, how special it made Freddie. Until the day the soldiers came and took Freddie away.
Let There Be Light
It was the flies that sickened him most. At first it had been the sight of dead bodies that repelled Sebastian. In the early days, as the thaw set in, there were bodies strewn across the streets and lying on the pavements, there were bodies in the foyer of the Grand Plaza Hotel and bodies on the sand of the beach below the promenade. As time went on, the shapes of the bodies changed, some seemed to shrink, many became bloated. The stench was unbearable. But it was the flies that Sebastian hated the most.
The Exodus Plague | Book 2 | Imprisoned Page 15