Clay

by Melissa Harrison

  Now he was full of adrenalin, buzzing with it. He felt ready for anything, but strangely ardent, too. He wanted to go home and see Znajda, make sure she was safe; he felt a rush of tenderness for her. And the boy, too; it seemed clear, now, that he should just tell him not to run away where he couldn’t find him, that he should find a way to help him, somehow, himself. Perhaps it really could be that simple; perhaps he had been worrying too much before.

  He took the stairs two at a time – but the flat, when he opened the door, was empty. He stood in the doorway, his key still in the lock. No kitbag on the chair, either: fuck, he thought, this time in English; fuck. The boy had gone to wherever it was he was hiding out, and he’d taken Znajda. He should have stayed, talked to him. But he’d had this thing hanging over him, and he’d wanted a chance to think. Now he’d lost it – the chance, and the boy. Fuck.

  Jozef clanged back down the stairs and jogged out onto the high road, sweat gathering above his eyes and in the small of his back. The sun blazed above, and the hot city stank. Think. Think. Maybe the old lady would know; she saw all the comings and goings from the window of her flat. He dodged between the traffic and headed towards the little park.

  On her way back from dropping Daisy at her mother’s, Linda walked into an atmosphere as thick and febrile as kerosene. A group of people had gathered on the pavement, aimlessly loitering with hands in pockets but with none of the defeated demeanour that marks those waiting for a bus. They looked keyed up, somehow – although this information came in well under Linda’s radar. She looked around, but apart from a small, chippy-looking man disappearing into the junk shop, there was nothing to see. Still, she clamped her bag a little closer under her arm and picked up her pace as she walked on.

  She had only witnessed a fight once, and it had been an unedifying affair. None of the biff! and pow! of the movies; it was all grabbing and shoving, and over very fast. It was the summer after she left school and she had been, what, sixteen?

  I knew nothing, nothing, she thought. But I thought I knew everything. That was the really dangerous age, and she dreaded it with Daisy. The world was changing even faster now, faster than it had between her mother’s youth and her own, and who knew what Daisy would have to confront that she had no hope of understanding.

  Before she’d even got her O-level results she’d rejected the idea of university, although she knew it broke both her parents’ hearts. But she wasn’t quite ready for the world yet, either. She’d wanted one last summer holiday before the rest of her life began, and with that huge unknown drawing closer day by day she’d discovered in herself a vein of recklessness, a nose for danger, that she’d never acknowledged before – and hadn’t since.

  Never again, she thought now. It had been a bit like being subtly possessed; a delicate slew rather than a full-on career, but a state in which she heard herself say yes to things before her brain had had a chance to raise its usual objections. Yes to gig tickets, yes to cider, yes to kitten heels and cigarettes. And yes to boys.

  She’d lost her virginity that summer, of course. Like a skin to be shed, it was something to get over with before her real life – as she had thought of it then – began.

  ‘Horrible, horrible,’ she found herself muttering now, shaking her head slightly to be rid of the memory. As for the fight, she could barely remember how it had started. The boy she had slept with and . . . who was it? God, what time did to you. He must have been someone she knew well, back then, but damned if there was anything left of him now.

  Yet the fight itself was like yesterday. They had been hanging about in the park, her and her friends, when it kicked off. She had stood up as the boys scuffled, her heart racing in joy and horror – and suddenly there was her dad, weighing in from nowhere, as angry as she had ever seen him. He pulled the lads apart as though they were children, told them to get lost. And then he had looked at her there by the bench, in her short skirt and frosted pink lipstick, and she had hung her head.

  Later that day, when she had finally slunk back to the flat, she had wondered what she was in for. But nothing was ever mentioned, and if her mother knew, she never said anything about it.

  TC was about to go back to Jozef’s when Znajda took off. One moment she was beside him; the next she was streaking out of the park towards the busy traffic. TC raced after her, shouting her name, but she was like a bullet. She barrelled into Jozef as he turned off the high road onto the grass, jumping and crying and trying to lick his face. He crouched down to soothe her as TC caught up.

  ‘There you are! I was looking for you – you were not at the flat. I thought you had run away, I thought I would not be able to find you.’

  ‘Sorry – sorry – are you OK? What happened?’

  ‘Is nothing. I am glad to find you. Get off, stupid dog.’

  ‘She knew you were coming – she ran off to find you!’

  ‘She is my good girl, my sweet girl,’ he crooned. ‘She has been worried about me, I can see.’

  ‘Yeah – she just lay by the door, she must’ve wanted to go outside and find you. Are you OK? What happened?’

  ‘And I wanted to find you. Come, let’s sit down for a moment,’ he said, nodding towards the benches and the shade. ‘I need to get my breath.’

  ‘TC’s talking to a bad man.’

  Daisy, who had not helped with the cake mix and who did not actually care what kind of icing it should have, was looking out of Sophia’s kitchen window.

  ‘What’s that, sweet pea?’

  ‘TC. You know, TC. He’s talking to a bad man.’

  ‘What bad man? Where?’ Sophia peered through the glass. ‘No he isn’t, that’s Jozef. He’s perfectly nice. You can’t go round thinking everyone’s a bad man, Daisy, it’s ridiculous.’

  ‘He isn’t nice, he’s a bad man. Look, he’s got blood on him.’

  ‘I’m sure he hasn’t. Now come on, madam, I need you to stir the mixture, or you can’t lick the bowl afterwards.’

  ‘He looks like a – like a pikey to me. And he’s got a horrible dog.’

  ‘Daisy! What did you just say?’

  Daisy had known the word was bad when she said it. She had said it anyway; she had made her granny angry on purpose. Now she coloured. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Yes you did, young lady. I heard you quite clearly. Now you listen to me,’ Sophia said, taking her granddaughter by the shoulders. ‘Jozef is not a bad man, and he is not a pikey. And don’t you dare use that word again, d’you hear me? Ever. Not in this house.’

  Daisy squirmed out of her grasp, suddenly furious. ‘Mummy says pikey, so there, and there are bad men, whatever you say. People are always getting killed, always. You just never watch TV, so you don’t know. You think you know everything, but you don’t. You’re just a – just a stupid old woman with romantic ideas!’

  ‘That’s not true,’ said Sophia, putting her hand to her chest where her heart was skipping and lurching. The words were clearly Linda’s, and she felt her eyes fill with tears that she tried to blink away. ‘That’s just not true!’

  ‘Yes it is. Yes it is! If there aren’t bad men then why aren’t I allowed to play by myself?’

  ‘Because – because your mother says so.’

  ‘You didn’t used to care what she said! You never cared before! You let me, and I could have got kidnapped or – or killed. Just like TC is now! And you don’t even care!’

  Sophia sat down at the table. The pain in her chest was new; an ache. She breathed carefully and tried not to feel frightened.

  ‘I’m going out there right now,’ Daisy said, marching towards the door. ‘I’m going to – to spy on the bad man and save TC. You can even tell Mummy, I don’t care.’

  She left the door open behind her and Sophia knew she wanted her to follow. In just a moment, she thought, when my heart stops, when I can get my breath. Just a moment. And until then, I can see her from here.

  ‘Were you in a fight?’

  ‘It’s nothing. A man – I used to
work for him. He doesn’t like me.’

  ‘Why not?’ TC seemed jumpy and upset by the aftermath of violence.

  ‘He . . . he doesn’t like people like me.’

  ‘Polish people?’

  ‘Yes, perhaps. And he wants money, and I did not want to give it to him. It doesn’t matter, you know? It is over. Koniec. Everyone OK.’

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘A little. Not so much now. My nose – I have broken it before. So who knows, maybe this will make it better, what do you think? Maybe it will make me a handsome man.’ Jozef smiled, but carefully, and TC could see that it hurt.

  ‘Now, we talk about you, eh? To be truthful, TC, I do not want you to run away.’

  ‘I’m not running away. I told you, it’s a camp, and it’s not like it’s far.’

  ‘The city – you know, it is not always a nice place for a young boy. You might not be safe.’

  ‘It’s nicer than home. And anyway, the secret garden is safe. It’s secret, that’s the whole point. And I’m by myself all the time anyway, it’s not any different. Don’t you think I can look after myself?’

  ‘I know you can, of course. But what about your mother? She will worry about you if you don’t come home, of course. Then what happens?’

  ‘She doesn’t care. I told you that.’ TC looked down. ‘I – I thought you understood. The garden – it’s mine, it really is. I just want to be part of it, like the owls are. Properly, not just a visitor. And it’s not like you can make things any better at home, is it?’

  Jozef put his head in his hands and listened to the traffic roar like the sound of his own blood in his ears. He did understand; of course he did. At the same time it was madness. The boy had to have a home, a proper one. He couldn’t live on a bit of waste ground, even in summer, even with Jozef’s help; he was ten years old, na milość boską. And yet the park, the common and the secret garden made up a beloved territory of a kind that Jozef recognised only too well. It was the richest, most stable thing in TC’s life, and Jozef knew that if he were to summon the authorities it would mean tearing the child away from everything he really loved, and who was he to inflict that on him?

  Jozef wished he had some experience of children. He wished he knew what the right thing to do was.

  ‘What about your – your father?’ he asked, stumbling slightly over the word.

  TC stared ahead. ‘He isn’t – I haven’t got one.’

  The bilious notes of an ice-cream van drifted from a couple of streets away. The city air lay around them, exhausted and still.

  After a moment TC took the wooden owl from his pocket and held it out to Jozef. ‘I found this, at your flat. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to take it.’

  Jozef smiled. ‘That’s OK. It was for you, anyway. A present.’

  ‘Thank you, it’s brilliant.’ The boy smiled, but it was a small smile.

  ‘You know what, though,’ Jozef said, taking it from him and turning it in his hands, ‘it’s not finished. Come, I’ll finish it now. You can watch, see how I do it, OK?’

  He took the knife from his pocket and unsheathed it. Behind the benches, deep in the ivy, Daisy watched as the pitiless sun caught the blade.

  Fourteen years since the row of limes had first been brutally pollarded, and yet still the shade they cast was very slight. Before long it had inched away from the benches where TC and Jozef sat; then the sun bore down on them and drove them to move.

  ‘What if I show you it?’ said TC, as they walked towards the road. ‘Then you’ll know it’s safe.’

  ‘Really? Your camp?’

  ‘Yeah. You can see the owls, too. If you want.’

  It was something; it was definitely something. And maybe later he could ask the old lady what to do. ‘OK,’ he said.

  At the exit to the little park, Daisy, following fifty paces or so behind, paused. She looked back, but with the sun in her eyes it was impossible to tell whether or not her grandmother was at the kitchen window.

  TC and the man were walking side by side, the dog at the man’s heel. She followed them into Curtilage Street, where they turned into a narrow alley. She waited on the pavement for a slow count of ten, then looked carefully round the corner.

  The alley was almost choked with weeds and litter. At the end were some bins – and the dog, which lay in the shade and regarded her with level eyes. There was no sign of the man with the knife, or the boy.

  She turned and ran.

  ‘I’m going to call your grandmother. This is outrageous. Outrageous!’ Linda paced about the kitchen, one hand on the back of her neck, while Steven leaned in the doorway, his arms folded. ‘I knew it. I bloody knew it! She’s irresponsible! She’s not to be trusted!’

  Daisy sat at the kitchen table. She had stopped crying, though she was still flushed, and now wore a mulish expression. ‘You ask her,’ she said. ‘I don’t care. She let me – she always lets me.’

  Linda stared at her daughter for a moment. ‘I will. But you’d better be telling the truth, young lady.’ She picked up the phone and dialled, turning her back on them both while she waited for Sophia to pick up. Behind her the kitchen hung, airless and silent, for a long moment.

  ‘No answer.’ Linda turned back and put the phone on the table. ‘She’s probably gone out to look for Daisy. Steven, go out and find her, will you, let her know Daisy’s OK? I can’t face it.’

  ‘In a second, love,’ he said. ‘Daisy, what was the other thing you said? About the man?’

  ‘I told you, a bad man, I saw him with my friend. That’s why I went outside.’

  ‘What friend?’ asked Linda.

  ‘TC. You know,’ Daisy said, appealing to her dad, ‘you saw him that time. In the park.’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Linda. ‘Who?’

  ‘A little boy Daisy knows,’ said Steven. ‘About her age, I think.’

  ‘Where from? Which school?’

  ‘No – he lives around here. Look – what were you saying, Daisy? What man?’

  ‘A bad man, with one of those horrible dogs. He took TC away, that’s why I followed them.’

  Steven crouched down in front of her. ‘Daisy. This is really, really important. You’re not in any trouble, but you have to tell me the truth, OK? Now, what happened to the little boy?’

  ‘He – he –’ She looked from one parent to the other. It wasn’t about Granny any more, and that was a relief, because it wasn’t really Granny’s fault, she knew that. They had just been cross with each other, which happened sometimes. But they loved each other really.

  Her mummy and daddy were still staring at her; they wanted her to say it, there was no going back. And anyway, it was true.

  ‘I saw a man with one of those horrible dogs, and a knife,’ she said. ‘He had blood on his clothes. He took TC down an alley and they disappeared.’

  Steven picked up the phone and called the police.

  21

  ST BARTHOLOMEW’S DAY

  The interview with social services was nearly over. It was the last in a long series – three weeks it had been, on and off. First the police, again and again; now the social. TC had been seen twice before this, by different case workers; they didn’t seem to be able to decide whose responsibility he was. He had answered the same questions over and over, talked about it all so many times, sometimes with his mum there in the room, sometimes just with a copper and the social. He wondered, when they had finished asking questions, what they would do with him. He wondered what they had done with Jozef.

  They kept on asking him, asking him. How had Jozef ‘first approached’ him, why he had let him buy him chips. Whether he had given TC any money or any presents. They’d taken the wooden owl away, and TC didn’t know if he was allowed to ask for it back.

  They wanted to know all about his bag. The coppers had found it when they searched Jozef’s place and they wanted to know why it was there, they kept going on about it. TC knew he wasn’t giving them the right answers; they kept looking at each o
ther, and even though he could tell they were trying not to be nasty or frightening, because of him being a kid, even then he’d still cried, his mum looking at him in a way he didn’t understand. He hadn’t known – he still didn’t know – what the right answers were.

  It was the worst thing ever, when the coppers came for them. He’d been in the camp with Jozef, under the old pollard oak. Just sitting, quietly, the shade cool and quiet, the owls somewhere invisible above. They weren’t saying much, just looking and drinking in the old garden and each thinking their separate thoughts.

  It felt OK; Jozef was nice to have with him in the garden. When they dropped down from the fence he’d just stood still for a bit, he hadn’t asked, ‘Is this it?’ or anything. He’d let TC lead the way along a little trail he’d made through the undergrowth, slowly, quietly, looking carefully around him. When they reached the camp he’d stopped, and TC, cross-legged on the bricks, had grinned up at him and said he could come in.

  Jozef had asked him quietly about the owls, and TC showed him, pointing carefully up to the hole in the larch where the chicks were nearly ready to fledge. And there, on a branch against the trunk, was one of the parents, its stippled feathers nearly invisible against the bark. Jozef smiled at him then, his eyes shining, and TC had felt, at that moment, that it was brilliant having him there, that nothing had been lost by sharing the garden, nothing taken away. It was lovely.

  Then the coppers had crashed in, shouting. They smashed the fence down, breaking and splintering it, crushing the vetch and the honesty and the morning glory under their big black boots. The light poured in through the terrible gap, the policemen poured in, they trampled the blackberries, nearly ripe, and the herb robert and nettles and everything that lived beneath, everything that scurried or crept and hadn’t meant any harm. Jozef had stood up when the fence came down; he stepped forward while TC cowered back. He stood and sheltered TC, and the coppers shouted and shouted at him, Drop the knife! Drop the knife! like he was a maniac or something. They grabbed Jozef and twisted his arms back, and TC couldn’t help it, he turned and hid his face.