Running on the Cracks

by Julia Donaldson

  Jacqueline reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. She doesn’t say any more about those pictures, but flicks through till she reaches the Glasgow ones.

  Then, ‘What a fat cat!’ she says.

  ‘That’s Midget, Mary’s cat. And that next one is the bridge over the canal near her house.’

  Jacqueline turns the page. ‘I really like the reflections of those clouds and berries.’

  ‘That was when I was sitting on the bridge.’

  She studies one of the pictures for longer. ‘Is this one your reflection?’

  ‘It was going to be, but then Finlay appeared and gave me a fright. I never finished that picture.’

  ‘Finlay!’ Jacqueline laughs. ‘I really like that boy. He’s so funny – clever too.’ She turns another page. ‘Hey, here he is!’

  ‘Yes, I did that one at Mary’s.’

  ‘What a scowl! And look at that devil pendant.’

  ‘That was when he was really into being a Goth. I think that’s wearing off a bit now.’

  ‘Who’s this dog?’

  ‘Zigger – he’s one of Mary’s waifs and strays, like me.’

  ‘What about Mary? I can’t see any of her.’

  ‘That’s because she never keeps still long enough. She doesn’t even sleep.’

  ‘That must be tiring for you.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ I take a sip of my coffee. I could say more – I could tell her how much I long to move out – but I don’t. Nor do I admit that the main reason for tracking down my long-lost relations was the hope that they would give me a home. That seems impossible now. The Yeungs’ flat isn’t very big and it’s clearly bursting at the seams. And from what they’ve told me about my grandfather it doesn’t sound as if he welcomes visitors, let alone a live-in granddaughter.

  ‘I’m quite nervous about meeting him,’ I say, as Jacqueline hands me back the sketchbook.

  ‘Who, Uncle Jing? Don’t be. Your granddad can be a bit gruff, but he’s more sociable when he’s at the Elderly Centre. But listen, we can always go there another day if you don’t feel ready.’

  ‘No, let’s go now. Let’s stick to the plan.’

  Jacqueline grins, then squeezes my hand again. ‘I tell you what – would you like a quick look round the art school first? It’s quite a famous building, actually. It was designed by this brilliant architect called Rennie Mackintosh. They do guided tours, but I can whisk you round for free.’

  The art school is across the road from the café. Above two huge windows with curved iron brackets, an iron bird sits on top of a turret, like a weather vane.

  ‘Look! It’s like the one in your picture.’

  ‘Yes, it’s one of the Glasgow signs.’

  ‘And I like those iron leaves and roses on the railings.’

  ‘If you like the outside I bet you’ll love the inside.’

  And I do. I’ve never been to school, and I always picture schools and colleges as dull institutional buildings with dozens of identical doors leading off dozens of identical corridors. But this building doesn’t feel like an institution. The walls are of dark wood, yet light is everywhere. It streams through windows and skylights. It glints on dainty pink and purple glass hearts embedded in hanging lamps and in squirly iron rafters.

  Jacqueline takes me along a corridor lined with statues – a Madonna and child, a winged headless angel, a warrior with a serpent twining round his muscular legs. ‘They were put there for students to draw, but most students today aren’t that interested – they’re too busy making what they call personal statements. I’ll show you.’ She opens a door into a room full of pictures. ‘This is the student exhibition gallery.’

  ‘I see what you mean. That one’s a bit strange.’

  Someone has torn up a lot of holiday postcards and has glued the fragments on to a life-size photograph of a fridge, like fridge magnets. The picture is entitled ‘Wish You’.

  Another one is of a massive scarlet scaffold with a jumble of cryptic symbols below it, as if two ancient Egyptian giants had been interrupted in a game of Hangman. It’s hard to see why this one is called ‘Self Portrait’.

  But I like three pictures of a path, disappearing into a wood, overshadowed by trees, and then emerging from the wood and branching in two. And there’s another one of a woman with wild hair and a sad moon-like face which somehow makes me think of Mary in one of her rare quiet moments.

  ‘It’s all so exciting! I wish I could come here.’

  ‘Well, why shouldn’t you? You could apply in a couple of years.’

  ‘But don’t you need to have A-Levels, or Highers, or something?’

  ‘If they really like your work then they only ask for Standard Grade Art and English.’

  I don’t see how I could get those. Missing people can’t sit exams.

  Jacqueline is obviously a mind-reader. ‘We’ll find a way,’ she says. ‘But now I think we’d better go and see your granddad.’

  The Chinese Elderly Centre is just round the corner from the Art School but it’s a different world. The smell is the first thing that hits me – a foody smell, warm, salty and spicy, familiar and somehow comforting. A smell can bring back so much. It brings back our kitchen at home, with Dad cooking noodles in black bean sauce, and Mum’s cello practice floating through from the next room.

  A smiling young man sits at the reception desk behind a china Buddha. He says something to Jacqueline in Chinese. She replies, then he glances at me, nods and gestures towards the stairs. He’s still smiling, but did I detect a flicker of something? Puzzlement – suspicion, even? No, I’m being paranoid again.

  ‘Uncle Jing is in the common room upstairs,’ says Jacqueline. ‘Shall we go and see him?’

  I nod and swallow.

  ‘Did you say who I was?’ I whisper as we round the bend in the stairs.

  ‘No, I just said you were a friend.’

  The smell is fading, but now there are sounds: soft jabbering voices, and the irregular rhythm of a ping-pong ball. A door on the landing is open. Jacqueline smiles at me encouragingly and we go in.

  Four squat women look up from a card game and beam at us. Two agile men carry on with the ping-pong game. A few people are reading newspapers attached to bamboo sticks, and there is a cluster watching a Chinese television channel.

  Which one is he?

  Jacqueline looks round swiftly, then approaches one of the newspaper readers. He looks up, and I see Dad’s face.

  Older, lined, but still Dad. And I was expecting a stranger.

  He nods at Jacqueline and smiles vaguely. He looks the way Dad looked when he was interrupted in the middle of a detective story – as if he was still in another world.

  Jacqueline speaks to him in Chinese. This is it. She’s telling him. Her voice seems to halt and falter. Either she’s not fluent in the language or it’s difficult to say what she has to say.

  He’s not smiling any more. He looks perplexed. His eyes dart to my face and then away. Jacqueline is looking at me; I sense that she is willing me to speak.

  I say, ‘Hello, Grandfather.’

  He won’t meet my eye. The perplexed expression has gone now. He just looks … blank. He’s shaking his head. Now he’s saying something, slowly, five or six words. He says them twice, I think.

  Jacqueline turns to me again, as if she’s about to speak, but she says nothing. I’ve never seen her at a loss for words like this.

  I say the words for her. ‘He doesn’t want to know me, does he?’

  Finlay – The Ravelled Sleeve

  Finlay had nearly reached Struan Drive when he remembered that Leo probably wouldn’t be there. Hadn’t she arranged to meet up with Jacqueline? Despite being the one who had united the two cousins, Finlay felt a stab of jealousy. Would Leo still have time for him now? It seemed unfair that the reward for his detective work should be to lose her to her new family.

  He felt a little sour when he thought of Jacqueline. She had been so taken with him, in her teasing
way, at the Barras, but she seemed to have transferred all her curiosity and chat to Leo.

  But maybe he was just in a self-pitying mood because of the row with Mum. He tried telling himself that Jacqueline’s younger brothers were good fun, and the quiet sister seemed nice too; perhaps he would be making friends rather than losing them.

  ‘Sherlock!’ Mary’s shrill voice broke into Finlay’s thoughts. There she was, outside the flats, with a thin ginger cat in her arms. He had seen the cat before; it belonged to someone on the ground floor, he thought. Mary was wearing a long leather coat which was much too big for her; the sleeves flopped down, hiding her hands, and Finlay wondered how she had managed to pick the cat up.

  ‘Hi, Mary. Who’ve you got there?’

  ‘It’s Midget’s long-lost twin. No, not a twin. There were four of them, four. Not twins, not triplets … quadrupeds!’

  ‘Quadruplets, do you mean?’

  ‘Aye! Quadruplets! Quadruplet quadrupeds! A squad of quads, sent by God!’ Mary screeched with laughter and the cat jumped down from her arms. Mary’s expression changed from mirth to anguish. ‘No, no, no!’ she cried. ‘Divided at birth, united in age!’ She stooped in an attempt to grab the cat, but it ran into a bush.

  Finlay had told Mum he was going to see a ‘mad old lady’, but until now he hadn’t really thought of Mary as mad – well, not properly mad, just a bit over-the-top. But seeing her out here, wandering about in that strange coat, pursuing a cat and talking a load of rubbish, he realised it was something more than that. Her eyes, always bright, had an extra gleam to them

  – maybe something like Lady Macbeth in the sleepwalking scene, he thought. Finlay touched her shoulder. ‘I like your coat,’ was all he could think of to say.

  ‘It’s the Godfather’s coat – the long-lost twin!’ declared Mary. She seemed to have forgotten about the cat, and Finlay took the opportunity to steer her up to flat 2/1.

  Zigger bounded to the door, but his welcome barks couldn’t drown out the loud music. It was Johnny Cash, as usual, this time singing ‘Ring of Fire’.

  ‘Maybe we should turn that music down,’ said Finlay.

  ‘Aye, turn it down! Turn down the music! Turn down the bed! Turn down the job application!’ cried Mary, clapping her floppy sleeves together as she led the way into the sitting room.

  Leo wasn’t there, but Squirrel, the Big Issue seller, was sitting on the floor, drinking from a bottle of Irn Bru and dipping into a monster-sized bag of crisps. On the sofa sprawled the President, with a cigarette in one hand, a can of lager in the other and several empty cans at his feet. Beside him sat the Godfather with a large saucepan on his lap. The pan was full of Chocolate HobNobs. Mary’s benefit cheque must have come in.

  ‘Certainly, certainly.’ The Godfather jumped to his feet and turned the volume on the CD player down. Then he held out a hand to Finlay. ‘Delighted to meet you again,’ he said. The other hand still held the biscuit-filled saucepan. ‘Would you care for one?’ he asked. ‘I am assured that they are unadulterated.’

  ‘Hiya, Prospect!’ the President greeted Finlay. He tapped his nose and added, ‘I’m working on your initiation.’ Then, ‘When are you going to gie twinny his coat back?’ he asked Mary.

  ‘It’s the leader’s coat,’ said Mary solemnly, unbuttoning it. She felt in a pocket, and pulled out a red hat with a pom-pom on it. ‘I must give back the leader’s crown too,’ she said. She threw the hat to the Godfather. It landed in the pan of biscuits.

  ‘I am very much obliged,’ said the Godfather. He sat back down on the sofa, placed the pan on his lap and pulled the hat on to his head.

  The effect was dramatic. Zigger, who all this time had been begging for crisps from Squirrel, growled and made a rush for the Godfather. He seized the man’s trouser leg and, still growling between clenched teeth, began to tug. The Godfather jumped to his feet amid a cascade of biscuits. ‘Away, hound! Away!’ he cried, waggling his trapped leg. Meanwhile, his twin brother roared with laughter.

  ‘Let the leader be! Set the leader free!’ cried Mary.

  ‘Down, Zigger! Bad boy!’ scolded Finlay. Zigger took no notice.

  ‘I think it’s the hat,’ said Squirrel. ‘Try taking it off.’

  The Godfather removed the hat and instantly the dog loosened his grip.

  ‘He’s always been like that,’ said Squirrel. ‘He hates hats. He’s Ronnie’s dog, remember. The polis were always picking Ronnie up, right? I remember when Zigger was just a puppy and he went for one of the polis outside a pub.’

  That explained a lot of things, Finlay realised. He had thought that Zigger’s occasional attacks on members of the public were random, like airport staff doing a body search on every fifth or tenth person, but now he could see a pattern: the girl outside the library with the hooded anorak, the man on the bus, the boy with the baseball cap: in each case it was the headgear which had alarmed and provoked the dog.

  Zigger was now happily devouring a HobNob while the Godfather retrieved the rest. On the sofa, the President belched. ‘Any more Tennent’s, Mary?’ he asked in a slurred voice. ‘Our Prospect could do with a drop of liquid.’

  ‘Maybe I could have a cup of tea,’ said Finlay, surprising himself. Without Leo there to disapprove, he found he didn’t really want to be part of the boozing, smoking, scrounging scene.

  ‘Liquid for Sherlock! Liquid for Sherlock!’ Mary flapped a leather sleeve at the two brothers on the sofa. ‘Up! Up! It’s under the cushions! That Lorraine’ll no find it there. Up! Up and away!’

  The Godfather got up readily. The President grumbled, ‘You’re off your heid, Mary’ (rather tactlessly, Finlay thought) but then dropped his last empty can and dislodged himself reluctantly. ‘Gie’s the coat then,’ he said. ‘We’ll be off to Froggie’s.’

  Mary slipped the coat off. Underneath it she was wearing a nylon nightdress, and she looked thinner than ever, Finlay thought; she’d been providing for all these friends but eating practically nothing herself. She knelt down and began to scrabble at the sofa cushions, not seeming to notice that two of her guests were departing. The third one, Squirrel, had fallen asleep on the floor.

  ‘Thank you for the hospitality, Mary,’ said the Godfather, now reunited with his coat. He glanced warily at Zigger as he stuffed the red hat back into the pocket, then held out a hand to Finlay. ‘I hope we meet on some future occasion.’

  ‘Aye, see ya, Prospect,’ said the President. ‘I’ll have to talk to you about that Harley Davidson.’

  As the door closed behind them, Mary was still busy with the cushions. She was pulling them off the sofa and flinging them on the floor, all the time muttering incoherently about liquid and Lorraine. Then, ‘Here they are!’ she cried, and burst into song:

  ‘Ten black bottles, sitting on the wall,

  Ten black bottles, sitting in the sofa!’

  Finlay knelt beside her. Inside the sofa was a stash of at least twenty tiny bottles.

  ‘Nail varnish!’

  ‘They’re yours, pal. They’re your bounty.’

  Finlay picked up one of the bottles and looked at the label. It was the Black Death shade which he used to wear but had now gone off, along with the whole Goth look. ‘Thank you, Mary, that’s really kind, but …’

  ‘The best for the best,’ she said.

  ‘But you shouldn’t be spending your money on me. Mary, you’re not eating properly. I really think …’

  Mary ignored his protests. ‘All things go full circle,’ she said cryptically.

  Why couldn’t she talk sense? Finlay felt out of his depth. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

  ‘Stand in the middle!’ Mary placed her hands on Finlay’s shoulders and pushed him gently into the middle of the room. He stood there bewildered while she arranged the bottles in a circle around his feet. ‘It’s your satellite!’ she said.

  ‘Look, Mary …’ Again, Finlay didn’t know how to respond, and in any case, Mary wasn’t listening. She was once more busying her
self with the sofa cushions, rearranging them in an outer circle around the bottles. ‘All things go full circle,’ she said again.

  ‘How about that tea, Mary?’ said Finlay, as if trying to break a spell. It seemed to work.

  ‘That’s the brew for us!’ cried Mary. ‘No the Irn Bru – the tea brew! The leafy leafy tea-leafy brew!’

  ‘You sit down and I’ll make it.’ Finlay picked up a sofa cushion, hoping to restore the room to normality.

  But, ‘No! I’ll make the tea brew! I’ll make the Hebrew tea brew!’

  Finlay followed Mary into the kitchen. Instead of filling the kettle she started twiddling the knobs of the gas cooker.

  ‘What are you doing, Mary? We don’t need the gas on.’

  All four gas rings had sprung to life and were blazing away.

  ‘We need the rings of fire!’ said Mary.

  ‘No we don’t! It’s an electric kettle.’ Finlay was trying hard to keep the conversation normal, though he knew very well that Mary wouldn’t respond in a logical way.

  Mary was staring in fascination at the flames as she raised and reduced the level of each ring in turn.

  A panicky feeling was rising in Finlay’s chest. What was it Mum always said? Three deep breaths. He took them as he stirred the three spoonfuls of sugar into Mary’s tea. Then, thinking of Mum, he had an idea.

  ‘I know! You could have a nice lie down. My mum sometimes has a cup of tea in bed in the afternoons – she says it’s rejuvenating.’

  ‘Rejuvenation!’ The idea, or perhaps just the word, appealed to Mary. ‘Rejuvenation and jubilation!’ she chanted as she allowed Finlay to lead her towards the bedroom. His hope was that once in bed Mary would fall asleep. Sleep was surely what she needed most. There was something in Macbeth about that, Finlay remembered now – something about sleep ‘knitting up the ravelled sleeve of care’. Miss Cottrell had said that meant that sleep could untangle people’s minds. If anyone’s mind needed untangling, Mary’s did.

  But when he opened the bedroom door, the room was far from restful. The bedclothes were all on the floor, mixed up with Leo’s oil pastels, and the bare mattress was covered in strange multicoloured marks, rather like Egyptian hieroglyphics. The only normal feature in the scene was the cat, Midget, who was curled up at the bottom of the bed, purring obliviously.