Escape From Shangri-La

by Michael Morpurgo

  I needed to ask something else and now seemed the right moment.

  ‘But I still don’t understand, Popsicle. Why didn’t you go back to France and look for her, for Lucie Alice?’

  He sighed, and then smiled sadly. ‘I’ve been asking myself that same question, just about every day of my life, I should think. Up to now it’s always been the same answer, and it’s not easy to explain, Cessie. But I’ll try. It’s like this. Whilst I don’t know what happened to her, I’ve got hope, some little hope that she’s still alive somewhere. The chances are of course that she’s been dead all these years, I know that; but if I don’t know that for certain, then at least I can think of her as if she’s still alive, can’t I? Once I’d found out that she was dead, then it’d be the end of all my hope, wouldn’t it? And let’s say I did find her and she was alive after all, what would she think of me, I mean after what I’d done? I’d betrayed her, hadn’t I? Her and her mother. I looked out of that window when I shouldn’t have. So I’d lose both ways, wouldn’t I? That’s what I thought, until . . . until now that is.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, I was sitting here thinking, just before you came. That little stroke I had – it was a warning, that’s how I see it. It was telling me something, telling me that for better or worse, and before it’s too late, I’d better go and look for Lucie Alice and find out what really did happen all those years ago. And then maybe, just maybe, I can put things right between us. I’ve been running away from this all my life, Cessie. Not any more. Not any more. I even know the street where she lived. It’s in the photo. You’ve got to look carefully, but it’s there.’

  He showed me the photo again and, sure enough, I could just make out the street name above Lucie Alice’s head: Rue de la Paix.

  ‘It’s not far,’ Popsicle went on. ‘And you never know, Cessie, I could get lucky. Maybe I’ll find her. Maybe she’ll still be there.’

  The idea came into my head at once and I didn’t hesitate. ‘Can I come? Please, Popsicle, I can help. Honest I can. You’ll need someone to help, won’t you? I can do the mooring ropes. I can be on look-out. I can cook. Anything. Please?’

  He was looking at me long and thoughtfully. ‘You and me, Cessie, we think like one person sometimes, I swear we do. I was just wondering how I was going to manage the old girl all the way over to Dunkirk on my own.’ He reached forward suddenly and took my hand. ‘Would you do it?’ he asked. ‘Would you really come with me?’

  ‘When?’ I said. ‘When do we go?’

  ‘Soon as I’ve fixed a few things up,’ he said. ‘Soon as the tide’s right.’

  11 THE GREAT ESCAPE

  AN HOUR LATER POPSICLE WAS STILL BENDING over his charts. There were tins of condensed milk all around to hold the edges down. He’d done his calcula-tions in complete silence, his brow furrowed in deep concentration.

  ‘Almost there, Cessie,’ he said at last, reaching across the table for a slim grey booklet. ‘Tides,’ he went on, as he searched for the right page. ‘Mariner’s bible, this is. You’ve got to know the time of the tides, high tide, low tide. You can’t move unless you know that. It should be just about right Saturday next, that’s what I’m hoping. One thing you’ve always got to remember about the sea, Cessie, is that you can only do what she’ll let you do.’ He found what he was looking for. ‘I thought so. I thought so. Full moon Saturday night. High tide just after midnight. Perfect. Could be cloud cover, of course, but that doesn’t matter. We’ll have enough light to see our way out of here. We don’t want it blowing a gale of course. Keep our fingers crossed, eh? With a bit of luck we’ll make it in five or six hours. It’s sixty-three miles to Dunkirk, less than I thought. We should be there before first light. We’ll come in in the dark. Better that way. If they don’t see us, then there won’t be any questions, will there? And if they do see us, well then, we’ll just have to talk our way out of trouble, won’t we? Done it before.’ He closed the book. ‘So, you’ll need to be here by midnight next Saturday. Are you sure you can make it?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. But I wasn’t at all sure of any of it. I only knew that I wanted to go with him. Of that I was quite sure.

  ‘Good girl. But there’s one thing you’ve got to do for me, and I don’t want you forgetting it. I want you to leave a note for your mum and your dad. We don’t want them worrying themselves to death, do we? Just tell them that you’ve gone off with me for a couple of days, that I’ll bring you back home again soon. And whilst you’re at it, tell them goodbye from me. Tell them no hard feelings. Time for me to move on, that’s all.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘I told you, Cessie. I can’t abide being shut in – cupboards, prison camps, Shangri-La – all the same to me. I don’t ever want to go back. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not a bad place, except for that Dragonwoman. I’ve got good friends up there, and I’ll miss them. But it’s not for me, not in a million years. No, Cessie, this is my home, this boat. Whatever happens over there in Dunkirk, whether I go barmy or not, here’s where I’ll end my days, on my own boat, with the sky above me and the sea all around me. It’s where I belong.’

  I pleaded with him even though I knew it was useless. ‘But I’ll tell them. I’ll tell Mum and Dad what’s happened, that you’ve remembered everything, and you’re better, completely better. You’ll be able to come home. They won’t send you back to Shangri-La. I know they won’t. I won’t let them.’

  He was shaking his head as I was talking. ‘No, Cessie, don’t you go telling them anything of the kind, anything at all come to that. And don’t you go blaming them for sending me up to Shangri-La. The way I was carrying on, they had no choice. I was a liability. That’s what I was, a liability. I’ve caused them enough trouble, enough pain.’

  ‘But you’re better,’ I insisted, quite unable now to hold back my tears.

  ‘Yes, I’m better, better than I’ve ever been, thanks to you – and now I’m going to do just what I should’ve done all those years ago. I’m going to go over there and find out what happened to Lucie Alice, and I don’t want anyone trying to stop me. So we’ll keep everything just between the two of us. No one else must know a thing. Promise me, Cessie.’

  ‘Promise,’ I said.

  He reached forward and wiped my face with his sleeve. ‘And no more tears either, Cessie. I can’t cope at all if you do that.’ I did what I could to sniff them back. ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Now, I’ll get myself back to Shangri-La, and you’d best get off home quick. They’ll be getting anxious, and we don’t want that. I’ve got a thing or two to finish off here, before I go – check the batteries, see if I’ve got enough diesel in the tanks, that sort of thing. We don’t want the engines packing up on us in mid-channel, do we? Not with all those giant tankers steaming up and down.’

  He took me up on deck and walked with me as far as the gangplank. ‘Saturday midnight,’ he said. ‘Don’t be late.’ I looked up into his face. It was ghostly white against the dark of the night sky. The thought came over me that Popsicle might not be real at all, that he was a mere figment of my imagination, that maybe I was living all this only inside a dream. I needed to reassure myself. I stood on tiptoe and threw my arms round his neck. He was real enough. I was down on the towpath before he spoke again.

  ‘Oh and, Cessie, bring lots of warm clothes, there’s a girl. You’ll need them. And that fiddle of yours too. Nothing like the sound of music out at sea. It’ll keep our spirits up.’

  There was plenty of music to face when I got back home. I was hardly in through the front door before it began. I didn’t argue, but I did defend myself.

  ‘I just went looking for him, that’s all. What’s so wrong with that?’ Then I remembered to ask: ‘Haven’t they found him yet?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said my mother. I could see that she had been crying. ‘But they will,’ she went on. ‘They will find him, won’t they, Arthur?’ She turned away from me and buried her head in my father’s shoulder
. It was only then that I realised how much they were suffering, my father as much as my mother. I had a sudden longing to comfort them, to tell them everything I knew, everything that had happened to me that night. But I could not bring myself to do it. Popsicle had confided in me. I’d given him my promise.

  ‘I bet,’ I said, inventing as I went along, ‘I bet he’s just gone off for a wander or something. He’ll find his way back sooner or later, you’ll see.’ It was the best I could do without giving anything away.

  Later I made them a cup of tea – not something I often did – and brought it into the sitting-room. They were sitting side by side on the sofa and holding hands. Their faces lit up when they saw me come in with the tray, and I liked that. ‘Popsicle can take care of himself,’ I said, pouring the tea. ‘He’s a survivor, Dad; you said it yourself. Wherever he is, he’ll be all right. I know he will.’

  As we sat there waiting, I was trying to think of more reassuring things to say, but I knew I had to be careful. I had to be seen to be anxious too. So I kept silent. It was the safest way.

  Suddenly my father was on his feet and standing with his back to the fireplace, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. ‘I’m going to say something, something that’s got to be said.’ He looked uncertain as to whether he should go on. ‘You’re going to hate me for this,’ he said, catching my eye.

  ‘What? What is it?’ my mother was on the edge of the sofa.

  ‘All right, all right.’ He still didn’t want to let it out. ‘All along, ever since he came here, I haven’t been fair to him. I know that, and I’m not proud of it either. The truth is, I think I may have sent him up to Shangri-La, not just for his own good, but partly to hurt him, like he hurt me when I was a kid. I think I really wanted him to sit up there and long for us to come and visit, just so he’d know what it was like.’ His whole face was overwhelmed with tears now. ‘Day after day, year after year, I’d be sitting up on that wall outside the home, and I’d be looking down the road, believing he’d come round the corner and take me away, and he never did. I’ve always hated him for that, always. I know I shouldn’t have, but I did.’

  ‘But you’re not like that,’ my mother whispered. ‘That’s spiteful, vengeful.’

  ‘Yes, all of that,’ my father went on, ‘and worse, too. He could be lying out there under a bus right now, or mugged in some dark alleyway; and if he is, it’ll be like I killed him myself, my own father.’ He was reaching out for understanding, for comfort, and I didn’t know how to give it. ‘I should’ve been like you, like both of you. I should’ve welcomed him and with open arms, but I couldn’t. I should have forgiven him by now. I’m a grown man, for Christ’s sake. I should have had it in me to . . .’

  The telephone rang. My mother was there first. We followed her into the front hall. She wasn’t doing much of the talking. All she said was: ‘Yes . . . Yes . . . thank you.’ Then she put the phone down and turned to us. She was beaming through her tears. ‘He’s all right. Popsicle’s all right. It seems he just walked up to a policeman in town and said he’d like a lift up to Shangri-La. He’s fine. He’s safe.’

  The hug that followed was a threesome one, and lasted and lasted. ‘We’ll bring him home,’ said my father when it was over. ‘We’ll bring him home.’

  The week that followed seemed more like a month. Every night, every day I spent thinking of Popsicle, of Saturday, of Dunkirk, of Lucie Alice. At school Shirley Watson plied me with endless questions about the Lucie Alice, questions I fended off as best I could without offending her. I told her as much of the truth as I dared – it always helps when you’re telling a lie. I explained that Popsicle loved lifeboats because he’d worked on one long ago, when he was a young man. He must’ve seen the Lucie Alice down on the canal, and used her as a model for my boat. She believed me, I thought, but I wasn’t quite sure. I couldn’t be sure of anything with Shirley Watson. Certainly, she seemed to have become an ally, a friend even; a turn-around I welcomed but still could not quite trust.

  At home hurried preparations were under way to have Popsicle home again. My father was arranging for a nurse to come in to be with him each weekday until he was well enough to be on his own. But the nurse couldn’t come until after the weekend. We’d surprise Popsicle, he said. We’d go up there on Sunday and we’d just tell him out of the blue that he was coming home. We’d pick up his things there and then and bring him home with us.

  They were so much looking forward to it all; but of course, all the time they were planning I knew it was never going to happen, that by Sunday, Popsicle and I would be gone to France, they’d have found my letter – the letter I was still trying to compose – and they’d know the worst. So many times I nearly told them. I longed to unburden myself of my secret, but I could not and I would not betray Popsicle. I held my secret inside me and willed the days to pass.

  I didn’t finish my letter until the Saturday morning. I’d tried to write it all out, to explain everything, to tell Popsicle’s whole life story; but when I read it through it seemed so unlikely, as if I’d concocted the whole thing. Maybe it was the way I’d written it. I wrote pages and pages, but it all ended up in the wastepaper basket. In the end I settled for the briefest of notes:

  Dear Mum and Dad,

  Please don’t worry about me. I’ve gone off with Popsicle for a couple of days. There’s something he’s got to do and he needs me to help him. That’s why I’m not here. Don’t worry. I’ll be quite safe and I’ll be home soon.

  Love from

  Cessie.

  We spent the Saturday afternoon making ‘Welcome Home Popsicle’ signs, one for the front door, one for his bedroom door. We brought out the box of Christmas decorations from under the stairs, and festooned the sitting-room with streamers and balloons. We hung the Christmas tree lights over the mantelpiece. I blew up so many balloons that my head ached with it.

  In spite of the deception I was playing out, it was a lovely time, because the three of us were together, really together as we hadn’t been for a long time. My father never once talked of going to work, nor even answered the phone. And my mother hardly mentioned ‘her’ school or ‘her’ children. I wished it could always be like this.

  I hoped they’d get off to bed early, and I tried to encourage them to do so by going up to have my bath straight after supper.

  ‘See you in the morning,’ said my father. I think it took him by surprise when I kissed him goodnight. I hadn’t done that for weeks. ‘Tomorrow’s the great day then,’ he said, holding on to my hand for a moment longer.

  ‘Yes, Dad,’ I said, hating myself for what I was about to do to them.

  ‘Don’t run all the hot water off,’ my mother called after me. ‘I’ll come up and see you. Won’t be long.’

  When she did come up an hour or so later, she found me in bed seemingly asleep with my light turned out. Over the chair my clothes were all ready to step into, and behind the chair two extra jumpers, and my anorak. My violin was under the bed – I hadn’t forgotten it.

  ‘Asleep?’ she whispered. I didn’t reply because, in my state of high excitement, I couldn’t trust my voice not to give me away. She closed the door quietly. I lay there in the darkness, riven with guilt. I knew well enough how much anguish I was about to cause, but I could see no other way I could fulfil my promise to Popsicle.

  I tried not to shut my eyes. I had to stay awake. The last thing I wanted to do was to fall asleep and not wake up in time. I just wished they’d turn off the television and come up to bed. But they didn’t. The television hummed and burbled downstairs, lulling me out of my resolve.

  Only when I woke did I realise I’d been asleep. I sat up with a jolt. My bedside clock said eleven fifteen. The house was dark and quiet all around me. I knew where everything was without turning on the light. I was dressed, down the stairs, and out of the front door within a couple of minutes. With my violin clipped to the rack behind me, I cycled out of the estate and into town as fast as I could go. The roads were
practically empty. I heard midnight strike from the church as I cycled over the canal bridge. I’d made it, just.

  I could see the barges quite clearly in the moonlight, and beyond them the wider hull of the Lucie Alice. But there were no lights on board. She was as dark as the barge next to her. There was no one there. As I wheeled my bike along the towpath, I began to think, and worry and doubt. Perhaps Popsicle wasn’t that much better after all. Perhaps he still had bouts of forgetfulness. Perhaps he was barmy. Or maybe the whole story about Lucie Alice, about Dunkirk, was some kind of old man’s fantasy. Perhaps Popsicle was lying fast asleep in his bed up at Shangri-La, our rendezvous quite forgotten.

  I left my bike lying in the undergrowth beside the towpath, and went on board. I called out for him as loudly as I dared. The moon slipped behind a cloud and the world darkened suddenly. A warm shiver of fear crept up the back of my neck. I went below. The cabin door was still locked. I felt for and found the key in the tea tin. Popsicle was definitely not there. I thought then that maybe he’d said Sunday night, not Saturday night. I went up on deck. The moon was out again and gave me new hope. It was as round, as perfectly full, as it could possibly be. Full moon was Saturday, Popsicle had said so. It had to be tonight, midnight tonight.

  There was the sound of an approaching car, headlights sweeping out over the canal, briefly illuminating the entire length of the Lucie Alice, and blinding me as they did so. I ducked down below the gunwales. I could hear the car bumping along the towpath towards me. It stopped. The engine died and there was silence again. I had to look. It wasn’t a car. It was a minibus, a white minibus with writing on the side. One of the words was definitely ‘Shangri-La’. Popsicle was getting out of the driver’s side and coming round the front of the minibus. He smiled up at me.