Vengeance Child

by Simon Clark

  Jay frowned. ‘Why does the island do that?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Make things different inside your head.’

  ‘It’s very relaxing here.’ Victor grinned. ‘Sometimes too relaxing. When a warm wind blows from the south you could fall asleep on your feet. It’s inspirational, too. There are a couple of islanders who write scripts for—’

  ‘Ghorlan. I can take you to see Ghorlan.’ Tremors ran through Victor. ‘Come with me to Ghorlan.’

  Victor recoiled. ‘What made you say that?’ He snapped out the words with an equal measure of shock and anger.

  The boy’s eyes glistened. ‘I told you. I’m creepy.’

  Victor took a deep breath. ‘You’re not creepy.’ He tried to put Jay at ease again. ‘Put your arm around Wilkes. I’ll get another photo.’

  ‘You hate me.’

  ‘I don’t hate you. What you said surprised me, that’s all. Now put your arm round his neck. OK. On the count of—’

  ‘Hey! Stop that!’ Victor turned to see Laura Parris bearing down on him with a furious expression. ‘No one gave you permission.’

  ‘I’m just taking Jay’s photo with the goat.’

  ‘You don’t have the authority to photograph Jay.’

  ‘It was Jay who asked,’ Victor protested in bewilderment. ‘There seemed no harm—’

  ‘I’ll be the judge of whether or not there’s any harm.’

  ‘There’s never been a problem in the past. Lou didn’t mind last year.’

  ‘It’s my professional duty of care to mind.’

  ‘OK. Not a problem.’

  ‘Jay,’ she said in gentler tones. ‘Go join Lou. I’ll be right over.’ The boy obediently trotted across the yard to where children fed the chickens.

  Victor held out the camera. ‘Jay, you forgot something.’

  Laura snapped, ‘I’ll take it.’ Her face flushed a fierce red. Shrugging, he handed her the camera. Once Jay was out of earshot she hissed at Victor, ‘Which paper’s got you in its pocket?’

  ‘Paper? I don’t—’

  ‘A newspaper would pay you a fortune for a photograph.’

  ‘Hey, Nurse Parris! I don’t know about any newspaper. I’m the island ranger. I do it to the best of my ability, that includes respecting the privacy of my visitors.’

  ‘And I respect the children I care for. They deserve my protection.’

  ‘So you’re protecting them from me?’

  ‘Yes, you bastard!’

  His jaw dropped. ‘Pardon me? Bastard?’

  ‘I’m sick of every rat who finds where Jay is living and thinks they can earn easy money by selling his photograph.’

  ‘You’re not listening to me, Nurse Parris. I don’t know what’s so special about Jay, why the press are interested in him or why you think you’re so high and mighty you can speak to me like I’ve committed the crime of the century.’

  ‘When I’m protecting those kids I’ve got every right.’

  ‘The right to be permanently angry, foul-mouthed, judgemental, always bawling everyone out?’ He paused as he noticed something in her expression. ‘Wait, you’re not angry, are you?’

  ‘Go to hell.’

  ‘You’re not angry. It’s fear – you’re frightened.’

  ‘You’re saying I’m scared? Who of? The mayor? Billy goat gruff here? You?’

  Victor rubbed the goat’s back. Angry shouting made it jittery. ‘You are frightened.’ He lowered his voice. ‘No, not of me. You’re scared of Jay.’

  She began to walk away.

  ‘Nurse Parris. I’m right, aren’t I?’

  She froze mid-step. Slowly she turned to face him. From her expression he sensed her shift in mood. He continued. ‘I don’t know exactly what’s bothering you. You may never tell me. But can I confess a problem that’s bothering me so much right now that, quite frankly, I want to go to my room and gulp down half a dozen whiskies?’ He rubbed the rough fur on the goat’s neck.

  Her eyes flicked from his face to where Jay stood near the children. ‘A confession?’

  ‘Yes, a confession.’

  In a quiet voice she said, ‘OK, go on.’

  ‘A few minutes ago Jay offered to take me to Ghorlan.’

  ‘Ghorlan? I don’t know where Ghorlan is.’

  ‘Ghorlan’s a person, not a place.’

  ‘You mean Jay offered to walk with you to find Ghorlan?’ The colour drained from her face. ‘Mr Brodman, who is Ghorlan?’

  ‘My wife. Ten years ago she drowned in the river.’

  He saw the way she reacted, as if she’d clumsily hurt someone. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I didn’t mean you to feel bad about it. I guess there’s no delicate way to explain how my wife died, even if it was a decade ago.’

  ‘But she and you must have been so young when you got married.’

  ‘Both twenty-three. We’d been married fifteen months, when . . . ah.’ He stopped himself from going into more detail. ‘That’s by the by. Jay offered to show me Ghorlan. What bothers me is how does Jay, who I only met yesterday, know about my late wife?’

  ‘Victor.’

  ‘Nurse Parris.’

  ‘We seem to have got off to a bad start.’ She gave a ghost of a smile. ‘And please call me Laura.’

  He nodded. ‘Laura. We’ve been at cross-purposes, haven’t we?’

  ‘A downright muck up, if you ask me.’ Her face became serious again. ‘Victor. Now for my confession.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I think I must be going mad.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’ve had a conversation with Jay. He knew Ghorlan was in your life. When he said her name did it feel like you were losing your grip, and you could feel yourself slipping into some big, dark hole in the ground?’ Her eyes were glittery. ‘Because, sometimes, when I talk with Jay, that’s how it feels to me.’

  From the chicken enclosure came a shout. Lou called Victor while pointing at her own watch.

  He checked the time. ‘We should have set off ten minutes ago.’ Quickly, he ushered the goat into its compound. ‘Look. Can we talk about this later?’

  ‘How about tonight?’

  ‘OK, meet me at the village pub at eight. The Three Impostors – you can’t miss it. You look as if you need a friendly ear.’

  She held out her hand. ‘So we agree to press reset button and start at the beginning.’

  Smiling, he shook her hand. ‘Laura. I’d like nothing more.’

  Eight

  Victor Brodman walked alongside Lou as they followed the path to the castle at the southern tip of the island. A tiny boy accompanied them. His hair was a mass of blond curls, yet his face seemed far older than his proud boast that he was ‘eight years, three months’. Behind them, the rest of the group, about twenty in all, their ages ranging from eight to sixteen. One teenager slouched along. His miserable face said it all; as one of the oldest from Badsworth Lodge he’d been detailed to help look after the group. An adult carer guarded the tail of the crocodile.

  From the mop of curls the adult-looking face peered out at Victor. For some reason Victor found himself reminded of a high-court judge just about to gravely announce a life sentence.

  ‘Victor?’ said the boy.

  ‘Yes, Archer.’

  ‘What’s the river called?’

  ‘The Severn.’

  ‘So there are at least six of them?’

  ‘No, the Severn is spelt different to the number. It’s S-E-V-E-R-N.’

  ‘I see.’ The tiny blond boy walked with his hands clasped behind his back. ‘Why’s that, then?’

  ‘Two thousand years ago the Romans invaded England. They gave places names in their own language. They called this river Sabrina after a magical woman. Down through the years the name Sabrina eventually became Severn.’

  ‘I see. My name is Archer. An old kind of soldier who fired a bow. Have you ever fired a bow and arrow, Victor?’

  ‘A few times. My father made
me one when I was your age. The arrows weren’t pointed. Even so, I broke the glass in the greenhouse door. My dad took the bow and arrows away. He said I could have them when I was more responsible.’ Victor smiled. ‘I never saw the bow again. Maybe he still thinks I’ll only go and break more windows with it.’

  ‘My dad’s dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘He stole money from a bank, sold lots of drugs, cheated his friends so –’ Archer gave a little shrug – ‘they shot him.’ Then he added cheerfully, ‘I watched them do it. Blam-blam.’

  Victor glanced at Lou for a lead. She gave a look that said don’t worry. She held up her arm to signal to the children to stop. ‘Victor’s guiding us around the island today. Just now he wants to tell us something interesting about this beach.’

  Hearing the tiny boy’s cheerful admission of watching his drug-dealing father being gunned down derailed Victor. He raised his eyebrows, hoping Lou interpreted it as quick, give me a clue.

  ‘It’s really interesting,’ she said. ‘It involves sharks. Victor? Over to you.’

  Instantly, he was back on track. ‘Sharks. Right.’ He pointed to a stone slab at the low-tide mark on the beach. ‘See that square of stone. Seventy years ago the island’s doctor had it put there. We won’t go down there because it’s too dangerous.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ asked Archer.

  ‘Quicksand.’ He made a sucking noise. ‘Anyway, Dr Evans believed that sharks swam up the river to breed in shallow water. So he bought himself an old diving suit. One of those with the iron boots and a big brass helmet that fitted over his entire head. He’d a bad leg, which meant he couldn’t walk in it, so he’d put on the diving suit, connect a hose to an air pump higher up the beach. Then he’d sit in a chair fixed to that stone slab. He’d wait until the tide came in and covered him. That’s when he could look out underwater.’

  Archer nodded wisely. ‘And the shark ate him.’

  ‘Uhm, no, it never did. No sharks come up this far, as he was to find out, but he did make developments in underwater photography and the doctor became famous for his pictures of fish as they swam underwater.’ The kids weren’t hugely impressed. ‘We can see the diving suit in the visitors’ centre at the castle.’ They still weren’t impressed. A couple threw stones at the stone slab. Archer pretended he had a machine gun. He blasted everyone at point-blank range.

  They continued walking. By this time a heat-haze made the outline of the castle ripple. Often the River Severn was a muddy brown; today, however, bright sunlight turned it golden yellow. Archer fell behind to talk to another boy. From the way he made a pistol out of his hand with the barrel/finger pointing at his own head Victor guessed the topic of conversation.

  ‘I like to picture your old Dr Evans.’ Lou grinned. ‘Going out there to sit on the chair in his diving suit, then waiting for the water to get higher and higher up his body until it reached his helmet. Back then, to sit underwater must have been like travelling to another world.’

  ‘It’s this island. It inspires people to think in unusual ways. Sometimes crazy ways. But it can make us inventive.’

  ‘What an amazing little heap of rock this place is. It gets inside your head. You think thoughts here that you don’t think back home. I remember that story about the shepherd who arrived here a hundred years ago. He suddenly got this wild idea he wanted to write a play even though he could hardly write his own name. The Value of Man. That’s the title, isn’t it? Didn’t it persuade the government to introduce old age pensions for the first time? Now what’s the guy’s name? Victor, you’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you?’

  ‘Sorry. I was thinking.’

  ‘I’ll say. You look like you’re sleepwalking. Too much cider last night?’

  ‘No,’ he said with a laugh. ‘It’s just what you said about the island getting inside your head. Jay told me the same thing this morning.’

  Lou tensed. ‘Did he say anything else?’ She glanced back at Jay. He seemed lost in his own world.

  ‘Oh, this and that. He enjoyed feeding the goat.’

  ‘But there’s something bothering you, Victor.’

  ‘If anything, I’m concerned about the kids. They seem different this year. They just come across as . . . edgy? Scared?’

  ‘Maureen’s accident was a shock.’ Lou called back to the children. ‘Keep up, people. We’ve got to reach the castle by one.’ She walked faster. ‘I want to see that diving suit if you lot don’t.’

  Victor liked Lou. An open, honest, warm-hearted woman. But she’d changed. There was something she wanted to stay hidden. He hung back to point out to the group a lizard sunning itself on a wall. Even so, he found himself thinking about what Laura might tell him later. Oddly, despite the heat, his blood all of a sudden ran cold. When he started walking again he found himself in the company of the little boy with the blond curls.

  ‘Cool lizard,’ Archer told him. ‘Can you get them as pets?’

  ‘It’s not a good idea. They’re better off in the wild.’

  ‘They bite?’

  ‘No, there’s nothing to be scared of. But they’re happier living a natural life.’

  ‘I’m not scared of lizards, but I don’t like him.’ He scowled at Jay. Luckily, the child was out of earshot. ‘Nobody does.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Not even grown-ups.’ Archer became angry. ‘If he starts saying your name again and again it means something bad’s going to happen to you.’

  ‘How can someone saying your name hurt you?’

  ‘Jay said Tod’s name and Maureen’s, and look what happened to them.’ Archer shuddered. ‘One day he’s going to say my name. I know he will. Then I’ll be like my dad. I’ll be in a big black coffin and shoved into the ground.’

  Before Victor could say anything the little boy retreated down the line so he could hold the hand of a carer.

  Jay approached with a smile on his face. ‘Victor . . . Victor.’

  Victor couldn’t help himself. He felt cold shivers race through his body. The boy had spoken his name. For a moment he stared at those big brown eyes that seemed so other-worldly.

  ‘Victor.’ Jay pointed to a clump of trees. ‘Are those Saban Deer?’

  With a gush of relief that embarrassed him with its intensity he went to join the boy. He repeated my name . . . I don’t believe what Archer told me, do I? As he pointed out the deer to other children he tried to push away the sense of superstitious dread. Even so, he remembered Laura’s words when Jay had referred to Ghorlan: ‘When he said her name did it feel like you were losing your grip and you could feel yourself slipping into some big, dark hole in the ground? Because that’s how it feels to me.’ He shuddered. That’s exactly what it felt like to him. A huge, dark pit of nothingness opening beneath his feet.

  Nine

  ‘Adventure.’ Archer stood on a tree stump. ‘Red alert! I want adventure now!’ In his mind’s eye he was no longer eight but a man. A tall man with muscles bulging in his arms, a pistol strapped to his belt. Something about the island excited this boy with a face that was more like that of a world-worn adult. An urge gripped him to be reckless. He eyed the trees beyond the fence. Climb one of those, then yell in a voice as loud as thunder, ‘I am Archer!’ This wasn’t like Archer at all. Back at Badsworth Lodge he was one of the timid boys. He avoided climbing frames. Swings made him nauseous. But now he was on this island . . . damn . . . damn! Excitement buzzed through him. He wanted to climb trees, then yell swear words.

  He surveyed the island, pretending it was all his. The other kids had gone into the barn for fruit juice. But he was too wired to waste time sucking at stupid cartons. There was the river. What had Victor said? A goddess lived in it. Waves ran across its surface. In his mind’s eye, he saw a beautiful woman swimming underwater with long hair wafting back, her kicking legs would make those waves. Maybe the goddess fought monsters in that wide stretch of water?

  Archer studied the field. Nothing
here to do. Nothing exciting anyway. Over the fence were massive trees. Wasn’t it time he climbed one? He felt his biceps. There was a bulge of muscle, he was sure of it. He remembered his father’s big, hard muscles. His father used to have a gym at home. There he’d work out with weights until it felt hot as a furnace. Sweat would drip down his dad’s face as he hoisted those big metal dumb-bells up and down. ‘Archer . . . get your skinny body down here with some water. Make sure it’s cold. Archer. I’ll give you to the count of ten . . .’ His father had an argument with his friends. They had killed him. The grave in the cemetery had been like a big oblong mouth that had swallowed the black coffin . . .

  ‘Adventure! Damn to danger, damn to danger!’ Whooping, Archer jumped down from the stump and raced across the field to the fence. He glanced back. No one about. No one to stop him! Archer climbed through the fence rails. Rotten trees. They’d be tricky to climb. No branches lower down to use like ladder rungs. But surely there’d be one that he could climb. Almost straightaway he saw it. One of those funny creatures with the blue eyes. Saban Deer. He grinned. Knowing the name of the animal pleased him. Getting smart as well as strong. The moment the deer caught sight of him it slipped away into some bushes.

  Great! The hunt is on! He grabbed a stick from the ground. This would serve as a spear. The hunter’s spear! He rubbed his thumb along the rough bark. The other kids would be amazed when he caught the animal and brought it back. Laughing with sheer excitement, Archer plunged into the bushes, gripping the stick like a huntsman handling a weapon. When he spied the deer again he’d zoom the stick right at the animal. Then – pow! Knock the animal out. He smiled as he imagined the way the kids would be impressed. That’s great, Archer. Will you show us how to hunt? Can I hold the spear? Blood thudded in the boy’s ears. If he could have seen his face he’d have been startled by the wild expression. He was drunk on the thrill of the chase. The branches smacking into his chest didn’t faze him as he sped deeper into the wood.

  Soon the afternoon sunlight vanished as the tree canopy grew dense, shutting out the sun’s rays. Within minutes he ran in near darkness. With the gloom came silence. All he heard was the thump of his feet and the rush of his breath through his mouth. Every so often he caught a glimpse of gold fur. The animal fluidly weaved around the tree trunks. Oddly, it had the appearance of sliding along the earth rather than running.