The Song of the Lost Boy

by Maggie Allder

  Then Pixie joins the group. Of course, Pixie has known all along who we are and where we live, because she was the one driving the van, when she came to the bottom of the Hill to tell us that the People had been arrested. She has heard what her mum has said to us, and Vishna’s reply. She says, “Mum, they can’t come. They live on St Catherine’s Hill. How would they get there?”

  Then her mum looks embarrassed, and says, “Oh, my goodness! Yes, of course… Let me talk to Ted.” And a few minutes later it is agreed that someone will give us a lift, if we wait at the parking space where the People used to bring us food and water.

  * * *

  We tell the Old Man, of course. He does not say much, but he smiles a slow smile. His only comment is, “You are becoming quite respectable, going to supper in a house in Harestock!”

  Vishna says, “A Quaker house!”

  And the Old Man says, “You have a point!”, because although the Quakers are not feckless they are certainly not very respectable!

  Vishna and I are waiting at the car park a bit before the cathedral clock strikes six thirty, in the trees where we cannot easily be spotted. It is dark and cold, with hard rain in the wind, which is nearly sleet. We do not have to wait long. A car drives along and stops, and Will jumps out of the front passenger seat. When he opens the door a light inside the car comes on, and I can see Will’s mum. Will says, “Giorgio! Vishna! Are you here?”

  We come out from our hiding place, and Will gives a sort of hop of excitement. He opens a back door of the car, and Vishna climbs in. She was used to cars before she became feckless. I follow her. As far as I can remember this is my first time in any vehicle, and as soon as the door is closed I feel a scary, shut-in feeling.

  Vishna’s mum says, “Hi, you two! Seat belts, please!”

  Vishna reaches out and buckles up at once, but I do not know what to do. I cannot see a seat belt on my side. Vishna realises my predicament and says, “Here,” and reaches across and finds a strap lying flat against the seat. When she tugs it, it comes out almost as if it is on elastic, and she finds a clip and fixes it in. Then I feel even more trapped.

  Vishna says, by way of making conversation, “Nice car!”

  Will says, “It’s our only car. We used to have two, but we gave one up. For environmental reasons. You don’t have a car at all, do you?”

  I think that is a very silly thing to say, given that Will knows perfectly well that we are Scum of the Earth and only own the clothes on our backs. After all, he has visited our camp. So I say, “I have never even been in a car before.”

  We are driving along one of the back roads into the city now. I feel as if we are going very fast, although the notices tell us there is a twenty-mile-per-hour speed limit. Will says, “Wow!” and I think he does not know what to say.

  Vishna says, “Giorgi has lived on the Hill for most of his life.”

  Will’s mother says, “Yes, of course. It’s easy to forget…”

  We very quickly reach the middle part of the town, where many of the shops still have bright lights shining on their window displays, giving the darkness a sort of strange magic. We can see down the precinct where only delivery vehicles can go, and then only before nine in the morning. There are people walking about. Since the shops are closed I know they will be going to the restaurants and the pubs. I think, There could be some good gleaning tomorrow morning.

  Then Will’s mum makes the car go up the Romsey Road, and we just about fly past the old prison, all lit up with lights on the walls to stop people escaping, and the old hospital, and then the newer houses and the smart private hospital which says it has been given five stars. I am looking out of the side window of the car, not saying anything, but holding on very tight to the armrest, because I feel that if we were to crash I would not stand a chance, going this fast. There are no people walking along the pavement. A police car drives towards us and I hold my breath, because if they stop us and ask for our papers I am done for, but Will’s mum just raises her hand, as if she knows the officers, and we do not even slow down.

  Then we get to a roundabout, take a turn and then another turn, and pull into a driveway. There is a big house in front of us, with a garden at the front, and some trees, and there are lots of lights, and other cars parked up and down the road. I feel like a person in a storybook.

  Will jumps out, and says, “Come on, Giorgi, I want to show you my room!”

  But I just stand by the car and look up at the house, and my mouth goes dry, and I do not want to go in.

  Vishna asks me quietly, “What’s up?”

  I say, “If the police come, we will be trapped in there.”

  Vishna says, “The police won’t come, Giorgi.” Then she sees how frightened I am. She says, “It’s no different from going into the library, or the milk bar, or the shops.”

  I say, “But is there another exit?” I am thinking that if the police come in through the front door, which Will’s mum has opened, and from which a stream of yellow light is shining into the darkness, we could all be trapped.

  Vishna laughs, although not as if I have said anything funny. She says, “Yes, there will be a door out through the kitchen, and probably glass doors from the living room into the garden.”

  So then I feel better, and we go in, and Pixie says I may hang my jacket up, but I think I would prefer to keep it with me, in case we need to make a quick getaway. Vishna goes into the room called the living room, where lots of the Quakers are already sitting in groups, talking, and I check in the kitchen, so that I have seen at least one other way out, before Will takes me up to his room.

  Will’s bedroom is bigger than the shelter which Vishna and I share. In fact, it is bigger than our shelter and the Professor’s (which is now Skye’s) combined. There is a bed, high up, with a ladder going up to it, and underneath there is a desk with a blue droid like the ones in the library. On the wall there is another screen, and I see at least two other droids lying on a shelf. I say to Will, “Wow! You must be really rich!”

  Will says, “Not really rich, but comfortable.”

  I go over to his bookshelf and look at the row of interesting books. “These are the ones you read before you go to sleep?” I ask. Walking across Will’s bedroom is like walking on blue moss, because it is soft and springy underfoot. Everything is very clean, with no mud at all on anything, and I feel dirty. The air is warm, like summer, and there is a smell I do not recognise. Will says, “I wanted to show you this,” and he gives me a photograph to look at, in a frame. It shows a group of kids in summer clothes standing by the little wooden hut which is the children’s room at the Quaker Meeting House. “This is all of us, last summer, before the arrests,” he says. I see Will and Pixie standing with the two who are obviously the twins, and I see Gracie, holding a doll, sitting cross-legged by a little boy in dungarees. It reminds me of the way we were last summer, before the others went north.

  Then Will’s mum calls up the stairs, “Kids! We’re about to eat,” and we go down again and into the brightly lit living room, where there is a lot of food displayed on plates on a table, and some of the Quakers already have drinks in glasses. Will’s dad suggests, “Shall we have a short silence, to give thanks?” and everyone stops talking, but I am not giving thanks. I cannot concentrate. I am thinking about the richness of the house, and that I am not as clean as I thought I was, and about how warm the air is, and about whether there are glass doors out into the garden, by which we could escape if the police come, behind the red floor-to-ceiling curtains at the far end of the room.

  Skye was always very strict with me about my table manners, even though we have never had a table. I remember the Professor saying once, to Skye, “It’s good to see that you haven’t let your standards drop.” Tonight I am pleased Skye held up our standards. I know to keep my mouth closed when I chew, and not to talk when my mouth is full of food, and not to take huge bite
s even though some of the cakes are so delicious, and not to lick my knife. I am not quite sure about the coloured squares of paper, but I see people patting their mouths with them, and wiping their fingers, and I use my red square in the same way, and when I have finished I screw it up and leave it on my plate, just the way other people do. I think that my fingers still feel a bit sticky, though, and I know that I would feel a bit more comfortable if there was a tuft or two of wet grass nearby, to get rid of the sugar.

  And then Percy says, “Well, Friends. Shall we get down to the real business of the evening?” and people on chairs cross their legs or rearrange the cushions, and shuffle in their seats. Will, Pixie and I are sitting on the floor, on a patterned rug, opposite the armchair where Will’s dad is sitting. His mum perches on the arm of the chair, and his dad puts an arm round her, and it reminds me of Walking Tall and Little Bear’s mum, making friends again after they’d had that row about going north. I have seen so many new things that when we have a silence to settle our spirits, my mind remains unsettled.

  Until they start to talk.

  * * *

  Percy says, “I’ll kick off,” as if we are going to play football. He is giving us the background, putting what has happened to the Winchester Quakers in context. He reminds us that Quakers have always, right from the start, found it difficult to be very cooperative with governments. He says, “Of course, we all know about Quaker businesses which were started because the professions were barred to us, and we never forget the conscientious objectors of World War I.” Then he reminds everyone that once again the universities are difficult to access because a lot of Quakers will not swear the new Oath of Allegiance, and that it is becoming usual for people once again to start their own business and to be self-employed. These are things I do not understand, but Will nudges me and says in a whisper, “Like my dad.”

  Percy says that the Quakers were not happy with a thing called austerity even before England left the European Union (which happened a long time ago, I know, before I was born). He says that way back, right from the start, Winchester Quakers were concerned about homelessness, and that their first big run-in with the authorities happened a while ago. “For the last ten or twelve years,” says Percy, “we have run the risk of arrests and disappearances, but until now the authorities have always targeted individuals. We have never been a banned organisation.”

  A few people nod and make grunts of agreement. Some look sad, and I wonder if they knew the people who disappeared. I remember that Skye’s friend was a Quaker, and she disappeared too. I wonder where they go, and then I think that they are probably doing Hard Labour somewhere, or in prison in Cuba or Puerto Rico.

  Percy says, “So the mass arrest in the autumn was totally unexpected. We are the only Meeting so far to have suffered this sort of persecution, and fortunately our story became internationally known, which is why we are all able to meet freely again now.”

  One man says, “I don’t think we should take our freedom for granted.”

  And a woman says, “I think the York Quakers are experiencing quite a lot of difficulty.”

  Percy nods. “Yes,” he agrees. “You’re both right. And the American Friends are having a pretty tough time too. But just now, following the international outcry, there is likely to be a period of easing up.”

  Will’s father says, “And our imprisonment was not without its benefits.”

  “Exactly,” says Percy. “And that is why we have called this Meeting.”

  I whisper to Will, “Have you heard all this before?” After all, he is living in a house with two people who were in prison.

  Will whispers back, “Sort of.”

  Percy goes on, “So, at this point, I’d like to ask Jenny to tell us what happened.”

  Jenny is quite a young woman. She is wearing a loose, colourful dress and I see that she is pregnant. She says, “Well, you probably all know that we were sitting in Meeting for Worship.” People nod again and look interested. She says, “Actually, I was about to go out. I was feeling a bit sick. Then a group of the anti-terrorists came bursting in through the gate and into the meeting room.”

  “They had guns!” says another woman.

  “Yes,” agrees Jenny. “It was quite frightening. And they wouldn’t let us talk.”

  Will’s dad says, “I asked them by what right they had disturbed a lawfully constituted act of Christian worship.”

  Several people smile.

  Jenny says, “Yes, and it made them even more angry. They said ‘Christian worship?’ as if they thought we belonged to some quite different religion, and one of them said, ‘A bunch of troublemakers’!”

  “Well, we are!” whispers Will, and Pixie giggles on the other side of me.

  Jenny continues, “So, they took us out to the street, and there was a large black bus there…”

  “With the windows covered,” says someone else, “and they brought the children from the crèche.”

  “And we were thinking of the older ones, doing a nature trail…”

  “Then they drove us away,” finishes Jenny.

  We are all quiet. Without planning to, I ask, “Where did they take you? To a labour camp?”

  Lots of people look at me, and smile. Percy says, “Well, now we get to the interesting part.”

  Will’s mother says, “They took us to the old prison, on the Romsey Road.”

  Will’s father says, “And they put us all in this one, large room…”

  “It was the chapel,” says Will’s mum.

  “Did they separate you?” asks Vishna. She is sitting on a settee between two older ladies.

  “No,” say several people, more or less at the same time.

  Will’s dad says, “I got the feeling that they didn’t really know what to do with us.”

  His mum says, “I overheard one of the anti-terrorists arguing with a prison officer. The officer was saying that this was a prison, not a detention centre, and that the anti-terrorists had no right to bring big groups of people there.”

  Percy says, “Well, of course, there’s no love lost between the old law enforcement agencies and the anti-terrorists.”

  “So they just left us there,” says Jenny.

  Will’s mum says, “We can’t complain about the way the prison officers treated us.”

  There are nods of agreement. Jenny says, “They brought us food, and there are bathrooms by the chapel. But it was worrying because we didn’t know what was happening. And we didn’t know where the older kids were.”

  “You were gone for weeks,” says Vishna. “Were you in the chapel all that time?”

  Will’s dad says, “We kept a record of the days, marking them off on the wall.”

  His mum says, “We were not the first ones to do that, either!”

  Jenny says, “Then the Bishop of Winchester came, and we heard about the Swedish newspaper article, and they gave us cells but they didn’t lock them, so we could visit each other up and down the wing but we couldn’t get out.”

  “And that,” says Will’s mum, “is when the exciting bit happened.”

  Everyone is quiet. For a few seconds all you can hear in the room is the hum of something electrical in the kitchen. Then Will’s dad says, “We discovered that we were not the first Quakers to be housed in Winchester prison.”

  Will’s mum says, “Well, of course, we knew there had been conscientious objectors there, during the First World War, but we discovered that there had been other Friends there, more recently.”

  Jenny says, “We even found things they had scratched on the walls, in the paintwork!”

  Someone asks, almost breathlessly, “What things?”

  “Names and dates,” says Jenny. “Not World War I names and dates, but the names and dates of people we knew, or have heard of. People who disappeared, from this Meeting!”

  �
��And a song,” says Will’s mum. “We found the words of a song, scratched in the paintwork behind a mattress, where a bunk was up against the wall.”

  “It was a song some of us knew,” says Will’s dad. “So we taught everyone else.”

  “And we sang it,” says Jenny, “every day.”

  “What was the song?” I ask, and that tight feeling is in my chest again, as if I cannot breathe.

  “We are going to sing it to you now,” says Will’s mum. “All of us who were in prison.”

  Then Jenny hums a note and they start to sing, a song which is both sad and happy:

  My life flows on in endless song,

  Above earth’s lamentation,

  I hear the sweet, though far-off hymn,

  That hails a new creation.

  Through all the tumult and the strife

  I hear the music ringing.

  It finds an echo in my soul –

  How can I keep from singing?

  What though my joys and comforts die,

  The Lord my saviour liveth.

  What though the darkness gathers round,

  Songs in the night he giveth.

  I lift my eyes, the cloud grows dim,

  I see the blue above it.

  And day by day this pathway smooths,

  Since first I learnt to love it.

  We have no home, no freedom here,

  To temporal hopes no clinging.

  And yet we know the light of Truth,

  How can we keep from singing?

  So here we languish, not alone,

  A well of joy is springing,

  For love and truth and light will reign,

  How can we keep from singing?

  Some of the Quakers are singing with their eyes closed, others are looking upwards. The song is sad and joyful, full of peace and a sort of kindness, like being hugged. They do not see that I am crying until the last note is sung and we are all in silence. Then Vishna looks across the room at me and says, “What’s the matter, Giorgi?”