The Baby and Fly Pie

by Melvin Burgess

  ‘You’re just scared,’ said Sham.

  ‘Are you going to do it?’ demanded Jane. Sham shrugged, but he didn’t offer.

  ‘Sod it, let’s do it,’ said Jane suddenly. She turned round, walked back to the nearest box and went in.

  The first thing was to find out the number from directory enquiries. It turned out there were three different New Dawn offices. We had no idea which one we wanted. In the end the operator gave her head office. Then there was nothing between us and that awful call. Jane kissed me. ‘Wish me luck, Davey,’ she begged. Then she dialled the number.

  We all three had our ears pressed to the headpiece.

  ‘Good morning, New Dawn Publications,’ said a woman’s voice.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ said Jane. ‘I want to talk to Mr Tallus, please.’

  ‘Mr Tallus is in a meeting at the moment. Can I take a message?’ said the woman.

  ‘I really want to speak to his wife. I’ve found his baby, I think,’ said Jane.

  The woman said, ‘Just a minute, I’m putting you through.’

  ‘Please hurry,’ begged Jane.

  ‘Hold on, please.’

  There was a pause and a man’s voice said, ‘Hello? Can I help you?’

  ‘Mmm – Mr Tallus?’ gasped Jane.

  ‘I’ll put you through to Mr Tallus once we’ve established that you have genuine information.’ He sounded bored.

  ‘I’ve found her. The baby. I’ve got her here in the telephone booth with me.’

  ‘We get a lot of phone calls about the baby,’ said the man. ‘As you may have heard, we do need some sort of identification. Is there anything you can tell us?’

  ‘Well, she’s just a baby …’

  ‘Tell him what she looks like,’ Sham hissed. Now it was actually happening he was right in there with us. I was glancing up and down the road because I was sure that as soon as we were put through they’d started tracking us down. Maybe they could track us down very quickly.

  ‘She has brown eyes …’ began Jane.

  ‘So do a lot of babies,’ said the man, sighing.

  ‘How can I prove it?’ Jane begged. ‘She’s just a baby, isn’t she?’

  ‘I’m sorry …’ began the man.

  ‘Well, what sort of thing, then?’

  ‘If I told you that it wouldn’t prove anything, would it?’ said the man, laughing slightly.

  ‘Come on, Jane, let’s clear off. They’ll be tracing our phone,’ I begged her. ‘Please …’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Sham. Jane stuffed money into the slot while Sham turned the baby up this way and that, trying to find something. She really was just a baby like any other baby. Then Sham remembered something. He turned her upside down. She was gurgling and screaming because she thought it was a game. Sham pulled down her nappy and there it was – a birthmark. A pale pink birthmark that had almost faded away. Jane nodded and gave Sham the thumbs up.

  ‘She’s got a birthmark just above her bum,’ said Jane into the telephone. ‘A pale pink birthmark.’

  ‘What sort of birthmark?’ asked the man sharply.

  ‘Sort of pink – pale, like I said. Shaped a bit like a – well, not like anything really – sort of oval. And pointy at one end,’ said Jane.

  ‘That’s it,’ said the man. ‘That’s it. You have – you have – you’ve got her there with you?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s a lovely baby. We’re taking really good care of her.’

  ‘Hold the line, please hold the line.’ There were some clicks. Sham was grinning and nodding. My heart was beating so hard. It had begun at last.

  ‘Is the baby all right?’ asked the man.

  ‘She’s fine, fine,’ insisted Jane. ‘We’re looking …’

  Then there was another click and a different voice said, ‘This is John Tallus speaking.’

  Jane gulped and gawped. She couldn’t get a word out.

  ‘Hello? Hello?’ he said.

  Sham nudged her. ‘Er … hello, Mr Tallus …’ began Jane. Then she stopped.

  ‘You have the baby? You know about the birthmark?’ demanded the man.

  ‘Yes, we told your friend,’ said Jane. ‘She’s here with us. I was just saying, she’s fine, she’s really well, Mr Tallus, we’re looking after her very well, Mr Tallus. We give her whatever we can get for her and she’s very happy. Here, listen …’

  Sham had put Sylvie down and she was sitting on the floor playing with the litter and cooing and talking to herself. Jane put the telephone to her but she stopped talking and started playing with the phone instead.

  ‘She stopped as soon as she saw the telephone, Mr Tallus, but she’s fine, honestly,’ said Jane.

  ‘What do you want?’ said John Tallus.

  ‘We don’t want anything – no really – we really, really don’t want anything. Unless you want to. You know. We just want to give your baby back because we found her. We found that man in the cardboard boxes before he died. We’re just kids, see, Mr Tallus? We don’t want a ransom. We don’t want seventeen million pounds. We’re just doing the right thing and we’re hoping maybe you’ll – that there might be a reward for finding her …’

  ‘How much?’ he demanded. ‘How much do you want?’

  ‘I can’t say, it’s not a reward if we say. You have to offer it. Look – we want to do it right, see? We just want you and your wife to have your lovely little baby back. But it’d be nice if we had a reward because we got nothing. See?’

  Mr Tallus paused. ‘We’ll issue notification of a reward through the media. Is that what you want? No ransom, a reward?’

  Jane smiled like an angel at us over the telephone. ‘See?’ she whispered. ‘See?’

  ‘Say – a hundred thousand pounds?’ he said.

  We stared at one another. Jane put her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘How about that?’ she demanded of Sham.

  He looked shocked too. He’d never thought anyone would give away so much! He tried to shrug and look cool. ‘We won’t be millionaires on that,’ he said.

  ‘Is it enough?’ asked Mr Tallus anxiously. Maybe he heard Sham. ‘People think this kind of money is just sitting there but I have to raise it.’

  ‘You don’t have to give us anything if you don’t want to. It’s a chance for people like us to do someone like you a favour, Mr Tallus. Street kids don’t get much of a chance,’ babbled Jane.

  ‘Two hundred thousand? Three hundred? Why don’t you just tell me …’

  Jane dropped the phone. She didn’t mean to, she was shocked. But it cracked on the little shelf in the phone booth and dropped right on Sylvie’s head. She started screaming and screaming.

  ‘Oh, no!’

  Jane scrambled after it and picked it up.

  ‘Hello? Hello?’ she said.

  ‘What’s that? Is she all right? What are you doing?’ he was demanding.

  ‘I just dropped the phone, Mr Tallus,’ babbled Jane. ‘She’s all right, Mr Tallus, honest. She’s a lovely baby. We’re taking good care of her.’ Sham was patting her and soothing her down. I whipped a dummy out and stuck it in. She took it and began sucking.

  ‘It was just an accident – she’s better now. I’m sorry, Mr Tallus.’

  There was silence on the other end of the phone.

  Jane babbled on desperately. ‘You don’t have to give us anything at all, honest, see, Mr Tallus.’ Sham glared at her and started banging her ribs with his elbow. ‘Not unless you really want to …’ she added.

  ‘Oh, I want to, I really want to,’ said Mr Tallus. ‘I just want you to make sure Sylvie comes to no harm. I guess we understand one another.’

  ‘Oh, I hope so, Mr Tallus.’

  ‘Tell me how she is – is she okay? Eating well and everything. I’m willing to pay you well to take good care of her.’

  I hissed. ‘They can find out where we are.’

  ‘Mr Tallus, my brother says we have to go now. We have to make a date to give you back your baby. Listen, just your wife, because she’s such a
nice lady – I heard her on the radio. We’ll meet her, all three of us, and give her her baby back. And thank you for being so generous, Mr Tallus.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’

  ‘We just want to get off the streets, see.’

  ‘Where will you meet her?’ he demanded.

  Somehow we hadn’t thought of that. Stupid! Jane looked desperately at us. ‘Where?’ she hissed.

  I looked out of the window. ‘Here,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow.’ I looked at the phone; the number began with six. ‘Six o’clock.’ I wasn’t thinking. I just said it. Sham stared at me, because it wasn’t like me to be so quick on the uptake but I wanted to get out of there.

  ‘Here,’ said Jane. ‘I mean …’ She clapped her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Where are we?’ she demanded.

  ‘Sidcup, innit?’ said Sham.

  I opened the door of the booth and called to a man walking up the road. ‘What road is this, mister?’ I begged.

  He glanced up at the road sign – there was one right by us on the wall.

  ‘North Cray Road,’ he said.

  Jane nodded. ‘North Cray Road, Sidcup. By the phone box …’ she began.

  But Sham suddenly leaned across and grabbed the phone, stopping the mouthpiece with his hand. ‘You only bloody told him where we are,’ he hissed fiercely. He dropped the phone and glanced down the road.

  ‘Oh, God …’ groaned Jane.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said the man.

  Jane snatched the receiver which was dangling down on its cord.

  ‘At six o’clock tomorrow night,’ said Jane. ‘Your wife, her that was on the radio.’

  Then she slammed down the phone and we legged it. He only had to ring up the police and they’d be there! I bet he was on the phone that same second. We were certain we’d had it, but we managed to jump on a bus. It was going the wrong way – into town I mean, but it got us away. We got off a little later and caught another one – and then another one – just going anywhere to break our trail. Only then we started looking for buses to take us back.

  Once we felt safe, we started grinning. We just kept looking at each other and grinning because we’d done such a thing! He was going to give us our fortunes. We were rich! Tomorrow evening, we could start to live.

  ‘That much money must be just peanuts for that guy!’ I said wonderingly.

  Jane kept leaning across and whispering, ‘See, I told you, I told you!’

  I’d never felt so proud of my sister. She’d been right all along! I’d thought she was just a stupid girl but she’d rung up someone like John Tallus. She’d done it, she’d done it her way, a way no one would ever have dreamed. She’d been the only one who’d known what making good really meant and now she’d done it and I’d done it with her, and we were going to make it. I felt I was rich already! Sham was celebrating too to start off with, but after a bit he got all superior and thoughtful again and sat there watching us as if we were a pair of kids.

  I suppose it was seeing him being so cool that set me thinking. About halfway back my brain started working. We’d done it all wrong! They had a whole day to get ready for us. We’d never get anywhere near that telephone box! I turned round to look at Sham, sitting there like Mr Wise-guy on his own. He knew, he’d known all along. He was smart. He must have been laughing at us for a couple of dopes the whole time.

  I had to keep quiet on the bus but when we had to change to get the bus into Santy, I dragged Jane up into the doorway of a derelict shop.

  ‘We’ll never get anywhere near,’ I hissed. ‘They’ll have the place staked out. As soon as we get off the bus they’ll grab us and take Sy off us. We’ve been stupid …’

  ‘Why?’ said Jane. She seemed really puzzled. ‘We’re going to give her back anyway …’

  I shook her arm. ‘It’s a trick. Why should he believe us?’

  She scowled. ‘Why shouldn’t he believe us?’

  ‘We should have found somewhere and made them come to us. We shouldn’t have given them any time,’ I said.

  ‘I told him we wanted to do it right,’ insisted Jane.

  ‘We don’t mean anything to them. We’re just street kids,’ I moaned. ‘You shouldn’t have told him we were street kids.’ I watched as Sham came sauntering up. He had it all worked out.

  ‘You knew,’ I spat at him.

  Sham looked mildly surprised. ‘What’s the problem? One of us keeps the baby and they only get it back after we’ve got our reward. Right, Jane?’ he said brightly.

  Jane said, ‘It wouldn’t be a reward, then, would it?’ between her teeth. ‘I promised. I said I’d give her her baby back.’

  Sham shrugged as if it meant nothing. ‘You’re in charge,’ he told her. He was looking at me. I couldn’t say anything I was so furious.

  ‘Mr Tallus is a good man,’ insisted Jane. ‘He has so much. What does he need to do things like that for?’

  ‘Why should he pay a reward to get his own baby back?’ I argued. ‘We’re rubbish kids. You wouldn’t trust your baby to a bunch of rubbish kids, would you?’

  ‘Don’t think like that,’ she scolded. People were beginning to watch us. She looked at me unhappily. ‘We’ll talk about it later.’

  I was sick. I knew I was right and I knew why Sham wasn’t backing me up, too. He had it all worked out. I didn’t know what it was, but I was pretty sure I’d soon find out. I started up again as soon as we got off the bus in Santy.

  ‘He’s going to betray us,’ I told Jane. ‘He already has. We should clear off quick – you and me. Leave him to it.’

  ‘He’s one of us,’ said Jane coldly. Sham just stood there, plain-faced, as if we were talking about the weather.

  ‘You bastard,’ I told him.

  Jane blew up. ‘Listen, Fly Pie,’ she hissed. She was furious. ‘In the first place, I don’t care if we do get jumped tomorrow. We done it the best way we could. We’ll get a chance to say our piece, we’ll tell ’em what we are and what we done. If they want to do us after that, what does that make them?’

  ‘You’re mad!’ I screamed. ‘What does it make us? What do you think they’ll do? Haul us up in front of the court, a bunch of rubbish kids? They don’t need to do that.’

  ‘They can do what they want,’ she insisted. ‘And in the second place, Sham can stab me in the back till his arm drops off. I’m not going to stop trusting him or you, or Mr Tallus or anybody. So stuff that in your pipe and smoke it!’ And she tossed her head and stormed off, shoving the pushchair through the rutted mud and leaving me and Sham standing there together.

  Sham watched her rattle furiously off. ‘She’s bonkers,’ he said, with some awe.

  She really was bonkers. She’d let them slit her throat – and mine too – rather than give us a decent chance. I don’t know if she’d always been like that and I’d just never noticed, or if being sold on as a prossie had done something to her or what. I couldn’t be expected to go along with this, it wasn’t reasonable. It wasn’t right.

  I eyed Sham up and waited. He dug his toe in the mud.

  ‘I’m going for a walk,’ he said. He nodded his head at Santy, as if he was going everywhere and anywhere. ‘See you back there.’

  I watched him sidle away between the shacks and sheds. I wished I was going with him. He was gone over three hours.

  9

  IT WAS A windy night again. Scousie shut up his home. He bolted the door, shuttered the windows, stuffed rags and paper in the cracks to keep the draught out. He fired up the stove until it roared and we settled down to pass the night.

  It was a funny atmosphere. We didn’t ask Scousie about his son, he didn’t ask us about our trip to town and we didn’t ask Sham where he’d been. It was a day that had never been. After the dishes were washed and the baby asleep Scousie sighed and pulled out a pack of cards.

  ‘I’ll show you how to play poker,’ he said.

  ‘What stakes?’ asked Sham.

  ‘No, no, no, just for matchsticks. I never bet, not on the
dogs or the horses or anything. Why should I pay the bookie’s wage, he doesn’t pay mine. No, no, but it’s a good game …’

  It was a good game, too. Scousie kept winning and losing fortunes in matchsticks. Jane kept steadily building her pile up, fondling a bent penny all the time which she thought brought her good luck. Sham played cautiously for a while but he couldn’t seem to concentrate and in the end he went to sit on the settee to watch. I couldn’t get the hang of it. Scousie always knew when I had good cards and bluffed me away. It was driving me crazy. I’d faced him down at last and won a huge quantity of matchsticks when there was a knock at the door.

  Scousie moved back in his chair and watched us over his half-moon spectacles. ‘Who is it?’ he called.

  ‘It’s me, Dad.’

  ‘Our Sammy …’ he mouthed. He waved his hand towards the bedroom and we melted away, picking up our bits and pieces on the way. Scousie lumbered slowly to the door pointing out things we’d forgotten. Nappies, the pushchair, a dummy by the chair.

  ‘Coming, Sam …’

  We got into the bedroom and closed the door. Jane went to the window. We all knew. I pushed a chair quietly against the door handle. Sham stood uncertainly, watching us. Then he ran to his coat and started going through the pockets.

  The gun.

  ‘You do it,’ I said. ‘You do. You do.’ The front door opened.

  ‘Have you brought your friends, Sammy?’ said Scousie. I pressed my eye to a crack. Three men pushed into the room. Jane tugged at the window but it wouldn’t budge.

  ‘What is it, Sammy?’ asked Scousie. He had his back to us. The man he called Sammy – his son – pushed towards the bedroom but Scousie barred the way.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded.

  Jane was heaving but the window was stuck. ‘Sham, help me,’ she hissed. Sham was frantically going through his things. He glanced at her and at the door. He was patting his coat, searching on the floor. I ran to help Jane but we were frightened of making a noise. Now Sham gave up his search and glared poisonously at us.

  ‘Who stole it?’ he hissed.

  ‘Sham …’ Jane groaned. We gave a great pull and the window shot open with a crack.

  ‘Move, Dad, move!’ screamed Sammy.