The Song of the Lost Boy

by Maggie Allder

  I half think I should just leave, right there and then. It is not my business if people are hiding, and I do not know if they are friendly or dangerous. Yet I turn and walk towards the bushes.

  There are three people there, two about my age and one younger. The tallest of the three, a girl, says to me, “Go away!” Her voice is a bit gruff, as if she has a cold, and she sounds angry, or maybe frightened.

  I think that they must be feckless kids, because they look damp and ragged, and maybe hungry. I forget that I am wearing my smart new camouflage jacket and that I might look quite threatening to them. I say, “Why are you hiding?”

  The boy says, “We’re not hiding, we’re playing a game,” but I feel sure he is telling a lie.

  The small kid, another girl, starts to cry.

  I am standing there thinking. There is something vaguely familiar about the older girl, and for a moment I cannot think what it is, then suddenly I say, “Hey! Aren’t you the girl who drove the van? Are you one of the People?” I realise where I heard that hoarse voice before – at the foot of the Hill, when Vishna and I went down to explain that everyone from the camp had gone.

  “What people?” says the boy. I can tell that he just wants me to go away.

  I say, “Are you the people who used to bring us water and food, up on the Hill?”

  The gruff girl asks, “Us?”

  I explain. “There used to be a camp on the Hill. St Catherine’s Hill. Homeless people. And you used to bring us food and water, in a van, a couple of times a week.”

  The gruff girl says, “Not us, but people from our Meeting.”

  I say, “We thought you might be saints.”

  The little girl is standing very close to the boy. She still looks terrified. I say, “I used to live in that camp.”

  The boy says, “You don’t look like someone who lives in a homelessness place. They are scruffier than you.”

  “I did live there, though,” I say. Then I remind the girl, “You told us that all the grown-ups who were at your Meeting were arrested.”

  The little girl starts to cry again. “My mummy has gone!” she wails.

  “Shush!” soothes the boy. Then to me he says, “Anyhow, what’s it to you?”

  I say, “So how are you managing, without any adults?” I have a horrible thought. “Will they put you in care?”

  “That’s why we’re hiding,” says the hoarse girl.

  The boy says, “Did you really live at that camp?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, where do you live now?” I can tell he is still suspicious. I know it is because of my jacket. I do not look feckless at all dressed like this; I look like the little brother of a teenager who hangs around outside the Guildhall whistling at girls like Vishna, and then goes home at the end of the day to a mum and a dad who both have good jobs and can buy their children warm winter clothes.

  I answer, “In a shelter,” without mentioning the Hill.

  “They closed all the homelessness shelters,” says the tall girl. “At least a year ago.”

  I say, “Not that sort of shelter.” Then I ask, “Where do you live?” I look at the bushes. “You can’t hide there all night!”

  The tall girl and the boy look at each other. “Why would he lie?” asks the girl.

  The boy seems to be thinking. Then he says, “Come and see.”

  The wooden hut I saw first, from the path by the main house, has windows facing towards the garden, and a French door which is closed. The boy goes to the door and opens it. We all go inside.

  There is one small room in the hut. On one side, there is a row of shelves with a strange mixture of things on them: books, an open packet of flour, a few mugs and a stack of plastic beakers, and some colouring crayons, and there is a stepladder leading to a sort of inside balcony upstairs. There is very small furniture for little children, stacked under a normal sized table, and two or three armchairs. There is a beanbag, which the little girl sits on. She picks up a piece of woolly blanket and holds it to her face, and puts her thumb in her mouth.

  I look around. “This is nice,” I say.

  “It’s the children’s room,” says the boy. “It’s where the little ones were when everyone was arrested. The grown-ups were in the large meeting room. In the House.”

  “Where were you?” I ask.

  The girl says, “We were on a nature trail. Looking round Winchester. We were doing work on the environment.”

  She points to a piece of paper pinned to the wall underneath a clock. Someone has written Protect and care for the Earth as a sacred trust, and underneath there are some autumn leaves glued into a pattern and looking rather shrivelled up, and a picture that looks as if it has been cut out of a magazine and stuck on the paper, showing flowers in a pot.

  And then I see it. Next to the unfinished display is a printed poster. It shows two children sitting with their eyes closed. There is a black boy, who looks a bit like Firefly, and a blond girl. The words say, Take heed, dear Friends, to the promptings of love and truth in your hearts, but the thing that makes me freeze is the word at the top. It says Quakers, and the Q is exactly the same as the Q on my necklace.

  I say, “What are Quakers?” and perhaps my shock makes me sound angry, because the little girl starts to whimper again. I say, “Sorry, sorry! I just mean… well, what are Quakers? Are you Christians? Do you have crosses? Why were the grown- ups arrested?”

  * * *

  Nobody answers me. The little girl stops crying but she seems to huddle down even more into her beanbag. The older two look at each other.

  Then the boy says, “Don’t you know anything?” He sounds quite angry.

  I say, “No, not really. I’ve never been to school. I’m feckless, you see. Should I know about Quakers?”

  The two older kids look at each other again. I know they are still struggling to trust me, and I cannot really blame them.

  Then the girl sits down on one of the armchairs and points to another, showing that she wants me to sit down. It is warmer in the hut, not warm but not as cold as outside. I pull the Velcro of my jacket open and it makes a ripping sound, which makes the little girl jump. The boy goes over to the table and switches on an electric kettle. A light on the base comes on. I have never lived in a place with electricity, and I really want to go over and have a look at the kettle, but it is more important that I learn about the Quakers.

  The boy says, “Counsellors used to use the children’s room during the week, and they left coffee behind. Do you like coffee?”

  “Not really,” I apologise. “Can I just have hot water?” The boy does not answer. He just goes on making the drinks. When the water is boiling the kettle switches itself off and the light goes out.

  He puts the mugs on the little table near to our chairs, and sits down. “Come here, Gracie,” he says to the little girl, and she leaves her beanbag and climbs onto his lap. He puts an arm round her and strokes her hair.

  The girl says, “Quakers are just people who… we… we’re like Christians but…”

  “I think we are Christians,” interrupts the boy.

  “Well, maybe… yes,” agrees the girl. “We listen to the Light within,” she says.

  “And that’s God speaking to us,” says the boy. He is drinking his hot drink rather clumsily because of the little girl who is curled up on his lap.

  “Yes,” agrees the girl. “And we do what we are prompted to do.”

  “We meet here to worship,” says the boy. “We don’t call it a church, we call it a meeting house.”

  “Oh!” I say. “And you call each other Friends, so that’s why this is called the Friends’ Meeting House!”

  “Yes,” agrees the girl. “That’s right.”

  I drink some of my hot water, which is a bit chalky. I can sort of understand how a person might listen to the Light
inside themselves, although you would think people would see light and hear voices. It seems to me that these Quakers are like me. I see colours when other people just hear words.

  “Why did they arrest the grown-ups?” I ask.

  For a moment neither of them says anything. The girl drinks from her mug and says to the boy, “I really wish we had some milk.”

  The boy says, “Perhaps Gerald will bring some tomorrow.”

  The little girl sits up and reaches for her drink. She looks a bit happier now that she is safely on the boy’s lap.

  The boy says, “We felt it was right to protest about the labour camps.”

  The girl says, “A group of people went to the South Stockbridge camp and sat on the road outside, so that the trucks carrying the prisoners to the A34 to clear the litter on the hard shoulders couldn’t get out of the camp.”

  “We don’t use violence,” explains the boy, as if it is very important for me to understand that. “We are always peaceful. But that doesn’t make any difference to them!”

  “The police?” I ask. “And the anti-terrorists?”

  “Yes.”

  “So they picked them up, off the road, and took them inside the labour camp and made them inmates,” says the girl.

  The boy says, “But there were only about ten people there. So everyone else wrote letters of protest and we gave out leaflets at the Butter Cross…”

  “Then they came to our Sunday Meeting,” continues the girl, “and arrested everyone.”

  “A month ago,” says the boy. “They’ve been gone a month.”

  I think about their story. I have a nasty feeling. “Will they put you in care?” I ask. “The kids who are left behind?”

  The boy gives a worried glance at the little girl on his lap. She is curled up again with the bit of blanket next to her face, her thumb in her mouth and her eyes closed.

  “We don’t know,” he says. “They haven’t tried to yet.”

  The girl says, “One of the Friends, Percy Duxford, used to be a lawyer. He was at Alton when they raided our Meeting, so they didn’t arrest him. He’s gone to London to try to get everyone free. They didn’t break the law.”

  “They disturbed the peace…” says the boy.

  “What, sitting in silence on a road?” says the girl indignantly.

  “How many of you are there?” I ask.

  “About a dozen, give or take,” says the boy. “The twins went to their grandparents, so they’re okay. Joey and Matty have an older sister who is looking after them. Percy and his wife took in the three Braithwaite girls. We’re not sure what is happening with Harry or Anne-Marie.”

  “And we can’t remember whether Paul and Tina’s parents were at Meeting that day, so we don’t know if they were arrested.”

  “Paul and Tina often came with Joey and Matty,” explains the girl.

  “And you are living here?” I ask, looking around the little hut again.

  “Yeah,” agrees the girl.

  “Aren’t you frightened?” I ask. I’m thinking of the graffiti on the building, of drunk soldiers from the American base coming in at night.

  “I am,” says the little girl, who I thought was asleep.

  “They don’t know we’re here,” says the boy. “We sleep up there,” he nods to the balcony bit above our heads.

  And the girl says, quite proudly I think, “And on Sundays we have Meeting for Worship in the house. Like the early Quaker children did, when their parents were arrested. Back in the old days. Anyone who wants to, may come!”

  “You could come, if you wanted to,” says the boy.

  * * *

  For a while we talk about their problems. It seems to me as if they are managing quite well. Some people from other churches have brought them food, and the lawyer Percy Duxford has contacted human rights groups in Europe to get them to write lots of letters. There has not been a court case, so the older boy and girl think all the adults will be freed soon. I hope they are right.

  Then I look again at the poster of the boy and the girl with their eyes closed, and I say, “So, why are you called Quakers?”

  “We just are,” says the girl.

  The boy says, “There’s some story…”

  I ask, “Are Quakers always getting into trouble with the police? And with the anti-terrorists?”

  The girl sounds a bit uncertain. “I think so,” she says.

  The boy says, “It comes in fits and starts. It’s been bad recently.”

  “Yes,” agrees the girl. “Ever since we made that big alliance with America, after we left the European Union. That’s when it started to get bad.”

  The boy says, “Actually, I think Quakers were always running into trouble, right from the time of George Fox. It’s sort of in our DNA.”

  “George Fox?” I say. Actually, I nearly shout it. “George Fox?” I ask again. “Who was he?”

  The girl looks at me, surprised. “Oh, he lived ages ago,” she says.

  “Yes, but…” I am thinking about my name, about my parents perhaps naming me after somebody who was important to them.

  The boy says, “He sort of started the Quakers.”

  The little girl, still huddled on her brother’s lap, sits up again and says, “No he didn’t. We learnt about it in our Meeting. Maria says the Spirit started Quakers.”

  “Well, yes,” says the girl, and shrugs her shoulders, as if to say that this is really not the point.

  I take a deep breath. I say, “I think my parents might have been Quakers.”

  The boy says, “Why don’t you ask them?”

  “I’ve lost them,” I say, feeling suddenly very sad.

  “Well, you never know,” says the girl, but I think she is more concerned about the mess they are in, and really I cannot blame them.

  I say, “They’ll be expecting me back at the…” I stop myself just in time. “At home,” I say.

  I do up the Velcro on my jacket again. It looks as if it has started raining. It is only early afternoon but already it is getting dark.

  The girl says, “Come on Sunday. Come to Meeting for Worship. At eleven o’clock.”

  I say, “Maybe,” and then, “Good luck!” And I head off to the Hill.

  * * *

  Vishna, Skye and I talk about the Quakers over our evening meal. Skye seems to know a bit about them, which is a surprise to me because she really isn’t religious.

  “Oh!” she says, when I first ask her. “Yes, I used to have a friend who was a Quaker. A while ago.”

  “Aren’t you friends anymore?” I want to know. If something made Skye stop being friends with the Quaker she knew, then I’m not sure I want to be friends with people in that group either.

  “I would be,” she says, “except that she vanished – disappeared. She got on the wrong side of the anti-terrorists. Or maybe she offended someone, I don’t know. She was very close to an anti-terrorist officer and I never did trust him.”

  I want to know about Quakers, not about Skye’s friend who has disappeared, even if it is sad for Skye, which I think from her tone of voice it is. I say, “And she was a Quaker, your friend?”

  “She certainly was!” says Skye.

  Vishna says, “But wasn’t it a bit strange, if she was one of the People, that she was friends with an anti-terrorist?”

  Skye says, “We all thought so, but they were friends for ages. He obviously had a soft spot for my friend, and for quite a long time I thought he was protecting her. But obviously not, in the end.”

  “So, what did she believe?” I ask Skye, trying to keep the topic on Quakers.

  “Well, that’s a good question,” says Skye. “She didn’t talk much about her religious beliefs at all, although I think she took them very seriously. She went to that Meeting House you discovered on your way home. I’m no
t surprised that they all got arrested,” she adds. “They were never discreet about their opinions. They have this strong attitude to social justice.”

  Vishna says, “So that’s why they brought us food and water.”

  “I should think so,” says Skye, staring into the darkness beyond our fire.

  I say, “Skye, if my parents were Quakers, they might have been disappeared too, like your friend.”

  Skye goes on staring into the darkness, with a little frown on her forehead, and I think she has not heard me, but then she gives a big sigh and looks at me. “Do you know, Giorgi,” she says, “I think that that is very likely. Really, very likely.”

  * * *

  While Vishna and I are jogging up the Hill to get warm before bed, I say to her, “I like to think that my parents were Quakers, because they are good people. And it would explain the cross in the Q.”

  Vishna says, “I think we ought to go to their Meeting on Sunday, to find out some more. There might be someone there who knew your family.” Then she says, puffing a little bit because we jogged fast uphill – you have to, if you want to get really warm – “But I think we ought to talk to Skye again, and the Old Man. It might be a big risk. Skye’s friend disappeared, and all the grown-ups at the Quaker Meeting were arrested. Someone really doesn’t like those people!”

  * * *

  The Old Man likes the idea of us going to the Quaker Meeting better than Skye does. She says, when we talk about it next day, “But, Old Man, the authorities are bound to know that they didn’t catch all the children in their net. They’ll be watching that Meeting House. It’s obvious.”

  But the Old Man puts his hand on Skye’s arm and says, as if I were not there, “The boy needs to know about his roots. Let them go. Nothing in life is without its risks. You should know that!”

  He stares into his fire. We are sitting in the big fire circle where the whole community used to gather, close to where the Professor is buried. Then he says to me, “I think you should take that necklace with you. Someone might know about it.”