Luca, Son of the Morning

by Tom Anderson

  Tough luck, Jeff, I thought. If he’s that keen to come for dinner then he’ll have to knock hard and wake them himself. Why on earth would I want to hear more of his crap anyway?

  Ready to head out, I returned my focus to the gallery. Could I find a picture of one of Alex’s fire sticks? I had no idea how Gaby would react if I could show her evidence of what it was, but it seemed important to be able to do that. Maybe the sticks were the thing that could link our daytime world and the stuff that was happening in my nights. Yes. That’s why this was important. No music needed. My ‘Art’ research. Yeah, right. It had to be possible to find something. Just a few more clicks. More important than Maths. More important than me. More important than Lucifer.

  * * *

  It was getting easier, somehow, to see through Gaby. This seemed, in some sort of messed up reality, to make her keener to hang out together.

  ‘Why didn’t you come to the office on Thursday then?’ she asked first.

  ‘Call it “school”,’ I said. ‘If I end up in an office one day, I’m not gonna have it linked to that place. Anyway, why didn’t you come Friday?’

  ‘Come where?’ she said.

  ‘School. Come on. You know what I mean.’

  ‘I didn’t want to. That’s what I do. Trust me. I need the days I miss. Maybe one day I’ll tell you…’ She looked upwards, as if weighing something up, but then her gaze dropped sharply back to me, and she pushed on. ‘But you, Lukee – you’re always in school. You never have a day off.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘I know you don’t. Like I said, you’re always there.’

  ‘No I’m not.’

  ‘Come off it, LL Cool J. You’re super consistent.’

  I thought about the one month that my mum had made me take off school, after the Skunk incident and the bleeding knuckles. Mind you, at least I’d been consistent then, too. Consistent in not going outdoors, not speaking to anyone. Consistent in refusing to tell her why I didn’t want to eat. Consistent in sticking to my shrinking world of bedroom and garden. But that was the only time. And maybe it didn’t really count. Gaby was right. I was consistent.

  ‘You were somewhere interesting on Thursday, though, weren’t you?’ she said, still pressing to know more.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Bet you were.’

  ‘Fine. Went to work with my dad,’ I said, out of the blue, boldly as I could. ‘He needed a hand.’

  The tiniest trace of a laugh came over her face, before she chickened out. Yes, I thought. Yes! Go on, Gaby Carranero. Laugh at him, the guy you keep telling me is cool. Laugh at me. Go on. See where that puts you.

  She straightened her face and looked down. ‘Doesn’t matter, anyway,’ she said. ‘We need a plan for what to do after the exams. I’d rather die than work with my Dad.’

  ‘Yeah. Don’t think it’s gonna come to that for you though, is it? You’ll be able to do your A-levels. You can take Art.’

  ‘Dunno. I’m not feeling it right now,’ she said. ‘Been trying to mess around with that rusty stick thing we found, and then I thought to myself, like, what is the point? All I’m doing it making weird stuff and it doesn’t really mean much.’

  ‘I know that feeling,’ I said.

  ‘Not like I know it,’ she said.

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Careful, LLJ. You’ll get more than you wish for.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Me to know. You to find out.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  We were arriving in the little strip of old shops that Gaby liked to think was her ‘mall’. She mocked the way kids our age used to go and hang out at the shopping centre over on the motorway side of Chapel Marshes. She reckoned they’d just got the idea from American television and were copying what kids in the bigger, cooler country did. Or what they did on TV, according to Gaby.

  ‘You and me,’ she used to say, in a fake American accent. ‘We got more imagination than that. You listen to REGGAE (she’d say this with a big, booming Caribbean voice that made me cringe) and I go to the art shops!’

  ‘Neither of us is being particularly creative by doing either of those things,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah we are. We’re doing it for ourselves, see. Not so we can show others.’

  ‘Is that all it takes to be creative?’

  ‘Pretty much. “Live in the moment” equals “to create”.’

  ‘Sounds too simple.’

  ‘It is. Creative stuff is always simple.’

  The ‘art shops’ as she called them, were in a little loop off the side of the main road, where workers from a row of warehouses would come for a lunchtime baguette. There was a big, trucker-type bakery at the start of the street, then a Costa Coffee and a Greggs, some garden shops, a boat showroom and then at the back end, right out the way, a paints shop, an antiques shop and a little café that joined onto both of them. It was always quiet, usually dark and had mellow jazzy music playing in it. Gaby would bring money for a ‘flat white’ there, and a cookie. That meant I watched her drink and eat. All my pocket money had been cancelled forever to pay the bills on the iPhone that got weird messages from the friends of its old owner. The phone did let me look music up and stream, though, so I’d just remind myself of all that as Gaby drunk coffee and pretended she might buy little dresser tables from the antique shop, or rolls of canvas from the other one.

  ‘I wanna check out the acrylics,’ she said, finishing coffee number one. Going to browse the paints shop, just after telling me how much she felt ‘over artwork’ was typical Gaby.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Ready when you are.’

  ‘No rush,’ she said. ‘Just letting you know. That’s why I wanted to come here.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said.

  She slid the plate with her seeded cookie on it over to me.

  ‘Wanna bite?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Okay. Suit yourself. It’s lush mind.’

  ‘Had a big brekkie,’ I lied.

  She sat and looked out the window, at the daylight which this place seemed so good at squeezing down to a minimum.

  ‘I’ve been finding out more about grand pappy Carranero,’ she said.

  * * *

  Gaby’s morning coffee ran to early lunch, which ran to another coffee after lunch, which ran to a five-minute flick through some tubes of paint, which ran to more coffee time.

  She wasn’t here to mess about with her art supplies at all.

  But I knew that, right?

  I wish. Hours after that first mention, she finally came back to the topic.

  ‘So anyway, old great poppa Carranero,’ she said ‘Well, there’s a bit more to him than we knew about.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. Loads of cool stuff. Did I tell you he was into kidnapping too?’

  ‘You know you didn’t.’

  ‘Well, he was, Luca. Made a fortune, too. Half the money my dad bought his hotels with, they reckon!’

  ‘Whaaa?’

  ‘I’m serious. My mum’s sister said it when she was pissed off with my dad the other day.’

  ‘She said what?’

  ‘Honest. She comes over and she’s all, like, shouting at my mum, saying “leave him leave him leave him”, which is fine.’

  ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘Rewind. Leave?’

  ‘Yeah. My auntie always tells my mum to leave my dad. In front of me too. She doesn’t care.’

  ‘But I thought your folks were…’

  ‘Nah. They hate each other. Serious, Lukee. My mum can’t stand my dad, and he ain’t nice to anyone, so that’s kinda okay.’

  ‘Yeah, but that doesn’t mean they’re gonna…’

  ‘Split up? Course they won’t. Don’t be silly. My mum would never be brave enough
to do that. Imagine the crap she’d get trying to have enough cash.’

  I laughed. I imagined how my mum and Rachel and Amy would love to hear this, and how I’d never, ever, ever tell them for that exact reason.

  ‘My mum’s a proper diva,’ said Gaby. ‘I hate her.’

  ‘Bit harsh?’ I said.

  ‘It’s not. I really do, honest. I do… hate her. But anyway, who cares about that. Thing is, I found out something cool as, just the other day, by listening to her whine. My auntie’s come over, and she’s giving it all her usual “Think of Gabrielle, you can’t let him make you into a doormat” rubbish, and then my mum says her usual “Back off, he’s a hard-working man, he gets stressed, so would you if you had as much on your plate as him” reply…’

  Gaby shuddered, rubbed her hands on the sides of her arms like she’d suddenly become cold.

  ‘…Then… Well… That’s when my auntie goes, “Come off it. The whole Carranero fortune’s bad money anyway. Get your slice and get out!”’

  Gaby paused again, like she was weighing up whether to say more. I kept still. Waited.

  ‘So,’ she carried on, ‘my mum says to my auntie “You’ll be getting out in a minute!”, which makes my auntie press on and my auntie tells it then… Well… hang on… more like reminds her. Seemed as if my mum knew it already… Anyway, my auntie says something about great-pappi Gigi, and how everyone knows his money came from some big kidnap, and that his whole side of the family basically has money only because he was such a nasty piratey-kidnappy-robbery type and like a full-on bad guy from history books and then my auntie’s shouting at my mum, “Who would want to be married to that money, so why not get some lawyer to grab you a wedge of it and get out while you still can before it makes you into a devil like the rest of them!” How cool is that, LLJ?’

  Gaby’s breath was coming faster. ‘Seriously! How about it, then Lukee! And that’s not all.’

  Seriously, this girl had no clue. She still thought hearing bad, behind-the-scenes shit about your family was something to be excited about. Mind you, she was new to it. She always went on about how she thought my dad’s dodginess was cool, and now here she was hearing about dodginess from her own dad and almost pleased. It wouldn’t last. I could promise her that, if she wanted the free advice.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I pulled out my iPad straight away and went researching. Because the other bit I overheard was my auntie calling him something else – like a secret name! Gigi Carranero was known as “Gerald” Carranero too, and if you hit that into a search engine you won’t believe what comes up. It’s awesome!’

  ‘Really? Another name? Like an English version of it?’

  ‘I dunno. Yeah. Maybe? Anyway. Check it out,’ and she pulled out her iPad, cased in its Nintendo Game Boy cover, and swiped it. Have a look at this!’

  I flipped it so the page went horizontal, and had a look:

  CHAPEL SHORES MARITIME LEGENDS: ‘GERALD’ CARRANERO

  Gerald Carranero was a small-time runner of contraband goods between the old Welsh port of Chapel Shores, Ireland, Asia and the Americas before finding infamy for the successful kidnapping of the wealthy widow, Lady Melville’s only son, John. Carranero was believed to have amassed a large fortune from that and other unknown kidnappings, before successfully laundering the money into the Carranero Family’s catering and hospitality empire. He was believed to have been stowed away in officer uniform on the HMS Pictor when it wrecked in high seas in 1909, although his body was never found and sightings of Carranero continued up until World War One when a much less likely theory was formed that he had gone to battle in The Somme and was killed in action. Given Carranero’s vast fortunes at the time and the fact that front-line action was rare for wealthy men, this theory has been widely discredited, leaving death at sea in 1909 by far the most plausible explanation for his demise.

  Carranero was born in 1871, the son of Cardiff dock workers, before getting a reputation as a seaman. He arrived in the then bustling port stop of Chapel Shores in 1896, which is when the earliest accounts appear of his ruthlessness and capacity for criminal activi… continue reading…

  ‘Have you read on?’ I asked. She lifted herself up and swung, hips first, onto the sofa-type chair I was sitting on. Then she shuffled along, just to the edge of my personal space and touched the iPad, scrolling down for herself.

  ‘What do you think? Look. Hit this link here, Luca. This has to be what my auntie was on about:’

  KIDNAPPINGS OF 1902 AND OTHERS

  In 1902 it is widely believed that Carranero was the orchestrator and chief beneficiary of the famous kidnapping of John Melville the Second, the only son of a wealthy widow living on the Ceredigion coast in the now derelict Melville House. Lady Melville was reported to be worth enough money to purchase the entire Chapel Shores shipping and military manufacturing industries, and Carranero had developed the idea of using ransom money to buy into these growing trades. This money would later be used to acquire restaurants and hotels across Wales and Southern England, allowing Carranero’s grandson, Riccardo, to become Chapel Shores’s first multi-millionaire by the age of thirty. Allegations that his starter funds were derived from ancient kidnap money would dog the early years of Riccardo Carranero’s business empire, before stock market flotation raised further funds and effectively ended any serious chances of the Melville family’s instigating any investigations into the hotelier or his descendants.

  Key to Carranero Senior’s kidnapping plan was the ability to keep the victim safe and comfortable, whilst ensuring the immediate family still believed severe and imminent harm was likely. Along with ensuring that Carranero could never be proven to be involved, these methods are alleged to have afforded Gerald the opportunity to become extremely clinical and successful as a kidnappe… continue reading…

  Gaby snatched the iPad away.

  ‘Anyway. That’s all you’re gonna care about,’ she said. ‘You get the gist of it, eh? A full-on nasty, crooked pirate and hard-core kidnapper! And we’re drinking coffee with his money!’

  Well, you are, I wanted to say. She hadn’t bought me one.

  ‘So how cool is that!’

  ‘It’s pretty heavy,’ I said. ‘If it’s true.’

  ‘It has to be! Luca, there’s loads you can read into it once you know the right names to google. It’s insane! It says the Melville family had made slave money anyway, so that’s why Gigi wanted to target them. He used to go to the South of the USA, see, so he had strong feelings about equal rights for the slaves.’

  ‘How d’you know that?’

  ‘I worked it out,’ she said. ‘From stuff written about him. He had to be into it.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said.

  ‘And anyway, the Melvilles grew their money back. They sold loads of land and sailed to America themselves.

  ‘So you feel okay about it all?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Like, about the way it’s making your, like, great ancestor out to be, you know…’

  ‘Yeah, it’s totally fine. I’m finding it exciting. Haven’t told my mum or dad about it, though. None of this is in the family history stuff they keep.’

  ‘So how did you say you found out about it? How to look up the other name? And anyway, maybe it’s not the same person?’

  ‘Shut up; of course it is! I heard my auntie say ‘Gerald’ to my mum, then looked it up from there when they weren’t around. And it’s the same boat he’s meant to have died on. Same dates of his life. Almost. Same… you know. It is true. I’m telling you. It is. When you read on it’s even got my actual grandpa’s name in there, who’s still alive even. Plus I never heard about it because they wouldn’t want me to. My dad sues people who write bad stuff about our family, so it must be true or that site would be out of business by now. So it’s all true, true, true. It has to be.’

  ‘And you feel okay ab
out it then?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I? What you trying to say, Lukee?’

  ‘Nothing. Just…’

  ‘Just what? Okay, maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this stuff then. Just what? Are you okay about it?’

  ‘Me? Why would I be…’

  ‘So that’s fine then. Anyway, I don’t need you to make me feel okay about that stuff. That’s not your job in my life.’

  ‘Not my job?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what is it, then? My job?’

  ‘Haven’t decided yet.’ She winked, and shuffled across the sofa seat until she was pressed unusually close to me. It was like the temperature in my body had suddenly gone up a few degrees and my heart thumped three times, loud and excited, too.

  ‘What else is news?’ she said, leaning her furthest arm across my lap to the iPad and pressing the home button.

  ‘Er. Okay… Well, I got something to show you too, anyway,’ I said.

  ‘Ooh yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Sounds fun!’

  ‘Er, maybe.’

  ‘Well come on then. Don’t leave me hanging.’

  Even though I didn’t want to, I wriggled a little bit to push just the tiniest gap of personal space back between us. I wanted to tell her what I’d found out about the metal stick because of what it meant, not for any other reason. She just leaned over again, though, and I gave in. Fine, Gaby, I thought. Stay close. My heart hit three more off-beats.

  ‘I worked out what the rusted thing we found at Bunkers is,’ I said.

  ‘So did I,’ she smiled, lifting the iPad back off my lap and onto hers. Now she did edge away again slightly. And now I didn’t really want her to.

  ‘It’s a wand,’ she said. ‘Belongs to a sea god. That’s what it’s gonna be in my sculpture anyway. I’m gonna make a big spirit of the sea thingy out of metal and wood and fishnet and plastic. That bar’s gonna be his wand or sceptre or something like that.’

  ‘It’s a fire-eater’s baton,’ I said.

  ‘It’s a what?’

  ‘It’s from a fire eater. They light one end and hold the other. The rust is growing on the end they light. There would have been a rubber handle on the other bit. Look.’ And I slid open my phone, pulled up my browsing history and zoomed in on the photos I’d screenshot just an hour before.