Twenty-Four Hours

by Margaret Mahy

  “How about one of the girls?” asked Phipps.

  “No,” said Ellis slowly. “No!” If he took a step towards death, if he joked with it, it might retreat … grow circumspect. He might in some way put Simon in his place, be able to grieve for him in a simple fashion, without feeling that he had somehow been faced with a challenge he could not meet. “I’ll have a little skull – one with a sense of humour.”

  He pointed at one with a rose in its teeth. The rose was crimson with green leaves. The skull’s round eyes were electric blue. It smiled around the rose as if it were making fun of him.

  “That one!” said Ellis.

  “In here!” said the woman, pointing. “Don’t worry! We use new needles every time … new ink! We’re really good on colour work!”

  Ellis had not even considered the possibility of infection.

  “Some people get big pictures done,” the woman ran on. “Sit down here, dear. Mind you, they don’t get them done in one go – just as they can afford it. We’ve got one bloke having his back done … a big crucifixion and a view of Jerusalem. Phippo’s laid down the outline and now we’re doing the colouring in, bit by bit. It’ll cost him about fifteen hundred dollars by the time it’s finished.”

  As she talked, she was settling Ellis in a narrow chair, fitted into a narrow space. Phipps was shuffling through what seemed to be a filing drawer.

  “Here it is,” he said. “We put a transfer on you first. I won’t have to improvise, though I can if I need to,” he added rather boastfully. “We’ll have you finished in next to no time.”

  The woman was swabbing Ellis’s arm with disinfectant which reminded Ellis of what Leona had said about her own work.

  “Do you know Ursa and Leona well?” he asked rather awkwardly.

  “Well enough!” said Phipps. His voice was guarded, but there was satisfaction in it, too – the satisfaction of someone who sees nervous prey working its way towards a cleverly-placed bait. He thinks I’m doing what he wants, thought Ellis.

  “I know everyone around here,” Phipps continued. “Well, my family’s lived here since the year dot. And the Hammonds have been here a good while as well.”

  “Phipps thinks he’s king of the castle,” said the woman. “But what I can’t work out is why the Hammonds stay on. I wouldn’t, not after what happened, back then.”

  The needle stung Ellis’s arm – a tiny, fretful, persistent stinging … Zzzt! Zzzt! Zzzt! Like a trained mosquito.

  “What did happen back then?” he asked lightly.

  “Thought everyone knew!” cried the woman. “It was famous at the time. The Hammonds lived down by the cemetery when they were kids, the two girls, their brothers, and the little one. She was only a baby, though. Shouldn’t think she’d remember much about it.”

  “Shouldn’t think the others could forget,” mumbled Phipps, almost to himself.

  “Remember what?” asked Ellis. He had not come here to spy out the pasts of Leona, Ursa and Fox, but he was astonished at how much he suddenly wanted to know everything about them. Besides, he could tell that Phipps was enjoying his moment of power. It was making him expansive. The red-headed woman took a breath, but Phipps got in first.

  “Their old man shot their mother,” he said. Ellis could see he was irritated by the thought of someone else telling an outsider local gossip.

  “He shot his wife, then woke the kids, marched them into the cemetery and shot the two boys,” the woman went on.

  “… and then … and then he shot himself,” Phipps added, finishing the horror story. “Family life, eh?”

  Ellis remembered the way that Leona and Ursa had stood staring around the cemetery earlier in the day and wondered if Phipps had expected to shock him with his casual dismissal of such a terrible story. But Phipps was concentrating on the nimble needles, skipping and stinging across the skin of Ellis’s upper right arm.

  “I don’t think they’re worrying about past stuff right now,” Ellis said at last. “That little kid they look after is missing.”

  “Mystique’s kid?” said the woman. “Yeah! Monty told us. Perhaps her mother’s decided to take her back so she can claim child support.”

  “When I went past you this morning,” Ellis began, “you asked if we were looking for anything … You sounded as if you might know something you weren’t telling.”

  “Phippo!” exclaimed the woman. Suddenly, she seemed a little threatening. “Were you playing one of your games?”

  “I didn’t know the kid was missing then,” said Phipps defensively. “It’s not like anyone told me anything. You all just marched by, looking jittery. And then I remembered seeing something this morning. Mightn’t mean anything, but you never know.”

  “Oh, Phippo!” said the woman, rolling her eyes. “Didn’t you say anything to Monty when he looked in?”

  “There wasn’t anything to tell, not anything much,” said Phipps, sounding harassed. “Anyhow, sometimes those Hammonds act as if they own Moncrieff Street and it gets up my nose.”

  “What did you see?” asked Ellis Phipps regained his composure and grinned at the needle tingling across Ellis’s skin.

  “Phippo!” repeated the woman sternly.

  “OK! OK!” exclaimed Phipps. “I was out and about early this morning, like always, having breakfast over at the caff, like always …”

  “Bacon and eggs and sausage,” the woman cried, interrupting him. “He’ll kill himself, won’t he? All that cholesterol!”

  “And – and – I saw a particular car – a car I knew – turning into Garden Lane.”

  The needle stung, but it was a lot less uncomfortable and painful than having a tooth drilled.

  “This car – you can’t help recognising it – expensive red job. It belongs to that kid who comes slumming around here with everything hanging out – tongue, dick, everything. Anyone can tell he’s really hot for her, and he’s one of those kids that has had the lot and doesn’t see why he shouldn’t have a little bit more,” said Phipps. There was certainly irony in his gaze as it lingered on Ellis.

  “Who is this character?” Ellis asked suspiciously, but Phipps was enjoying his moment of revelation and wanted to spin it out.

  “Listen,” he said. “I’m telling you, aren’t I? I saw his car. And then, just a few minutes later I saw it pulling out again. So it wasn’t a social call. Must have been about 9.00 am. And he took off down the road like a bat out of hell … ran a traffic light … vanished! You probably know the guy. Longish fair hair, and a beauty spot, right here.”

  And Phipps’s finger reached out like the finger of a witch in a Disney cartoon to touch a point on Ellis’s cheekbone. As his eyes met Ellis’s in the mirror, he kissed the air mockingly, then laughed.

  “Christo Kilmer!” cried Ellis. He had intended the name to be a question but, almost simultaneously, he knew the answer – knew it for sure. He thought of the toddling child. He thought of drowning kittens. All day he had been anxious, but his anxiety had been a reflection of other people’s distress. Now he felt a true horror that was all his own.

  “Christo?” said Phipps, tasting the name. “Christo! Could be. Fact is, we’ve never been introduced. I’ve just seen him around. And I’ve listened to gossip.”

  “Why didn’t you tell them?” asked Ellis. “Ursie and Leona, I mean! Or Monty!” He glanced sideways at the needle stinging his shoulder. He could see something like a knot of dark colour developing there, with a pink blush extending on either side.

  “Well, what do I know for sure?” said Phipps, shrugging. “I mean, half the weirdos in the district drop in for coffee and God knows what else at the Land-of-Smiles … and that Monty – he still thinks, deep down, that he understands people, whereas most of them are just ripping him off, the poor old has-been. As for the Hammond girls … well, we’ve touched on their particular family circs, haven’t we? Gives a new meaning to nuclear family, I reckon.”

  Ellis was, at that moment, so swollen with possibility that he
felt he was about to explode. Christo! Christo Kilmer! They should have known – he should have known. He should have known immediately! He should have recognised that voice on the other end of the line. Think! Think! he commanded himself, trying desperately to bring to mind anything about Christo that might give further clues. Christo’s parents were separating … only last night Jackie had stolen Ursa away from him …

  “The kid in the red car – Christo, did you say he was? – I reckon he’s questionable,” said Phipps suddenly. He winked at Ellis in the looking-glass. “Takes one to know one,” he added, “and I’ve met a few. That kind turns nasty when they don’t get what they want … and he’s not going to get Ursie, is he? She’s too sharp for him.”

  The words Phipps spoke dropped into Ellis’s head like smooth, oval stones, falling almost soundlessly into a deep dark pool. The pool accepted them silently. What Phipps said felt true.

  “OK – that’s you done, mate, and looking good!” said Phipps, admiring his own work.

  Ellis stared down over the curve of his shoulder, but he could not see much. A moment later Phipps had folded a tissue and was strapping it over the tattoo with Sellotape.

  “Now, it’ll probably scab a bit,” he told Ellis. “But the scab just flakes away. Put a bit of antiseptic cream on it if you like, but it should be fine. Never had any complaints, anyway.”

  Ellis got to his feet. All he wanted to do was to run back to the Land-of-Smiles.

  “I reckon I’ve made my mark on you,” Phipps commented with satisfaction. “That’ll be forty dollars.”

  Ellis looked back at him and, as he did so, felt a new, unanticipated power flood through him.

  “Actually,” he said, “it’s not your mark, it’s mine. Firstly I chose it, and secondly I’m stealing it. Because I’m not going to pay you.”

  Phipps’s smile vanished.

  “I’ve got the money,” Ellis went on, “but I think you owe us something, because you didn’t say a word about any red car.”

  “I could be making a mistake,” said Phipps dryly. “I sometimes do.” The corners of his mouth turned down in private discontent, but he seemed to accept that Ellis was the true representative of the Hammond sisters. “It is my mark,” he declared. “Come on! Pay up, or there’ll be trouble.”

  “It’s mine now!” said Ellis. “Mine forever!”

  Then, turning his back on Phipps, he dived for the door, taking both Phipps and the red-headed woman by surprise, and leaped out into Moncrieff Street, running with an energy – almost a light-heartedness – that surprised him. He was running back to the Land-of-Smiles, his tattoo burning a little on his upper arm and his head unexpectedly cool in the afternoon breeze.

  In spite of his lingering hangover, in spite of feeling so battered and bald, in spite of his fears for lost Shelley – stolen away, he was sure, by Christo Kilmer – Ellis laughed a little as he ran, gathering his new power into himself and hoarding it there like treasure.

  3.10 pm – Saturday

  When he burst through the dining room and then into the kitchen, a television set was playing. Frenetic cartoon figures jived across the screen, shouting and gesticulating. Monty and Fox were watching these together, Monty looking as if he had not moved from his big chair since the night before.

  “I know where she is,” yelled Ellis. “At least, I’m pretty sure I do.”

  “Back so soon?” said Ursa. He hadn’t seen her at first, half-hidden by the open door. “I thought you’d gone for good.”

  “I told you he’d be back,” said Fox complacently, tapping the bubble of glass a little to her left. “Glass tells all.”

  Ellis ignored her.

  “Christo! Christo’s got her,” he cried. “Shelley, I mean. I had a thought, and I asked Phipps, and he said he’d seen Christo’s car coming out of Garden Lane at about nine this morning.”

  “Oh, God!” exclaimed Ursa. All day she had greeted various crises by looking alert, or looking alarmed, or looking angry. But now, for the first time, she looked stricken. “Christo!” she said in a soft voice. “I never once thought of him. Why didn’t I?”

  “Christo!” exclaimed Leona, appearing through the doorway that led to the rubbish bags. “Did you say ‘Christo’?”

  “Ellis thinks he’s the one who’s taken Shelley,” Ursa said. The words came out stiffly as though they were unwilling to be spoken.

  “Christo?” cried Leona. “Why would he?”

  “He’s a bit crazy,” Ursa said. “And I did sort of walk out on him last night.”

  “Christo!” exclaimed Jackie’s voice, and Jackie himself loomed up behind Leona, his voice a darker echo of hers. His right eye had blackened and swelled. He looked out at them through a sinister, gleaming slit, his upper lip drooping grotesquely over his lower one. He put out his hand, stretching past Leona towards Ursa.

  “Sorry!” he cried with real fear and pain in his voice. “Sorry! Sorry! It’s my fault. I should have left you alone. Sorry!” He looked at Ellis. “Where is he? I mean he must be somewhere close because he knew when we came back from chasing Winston over the hills.”

  “Is he keeping her in his car?” asked Leona.

  Ellis knew she was imagining the baby gagged, tied, and perhaps stuffed in a box or suitcase, locked up tightly and struggling to breathe. He was imagining it himself, imagining it with such close sympathy that his breath caught in his throat. Out of old memories, Christo’s bare foot, the toes feeling so competent – almost prehensile – came down on his head to push him once more under the muddy water of the swimming hole.

  “The Kilmers have an apartment in the old library complex,” he said. “You know, in Foley Street.” He pointed in the direction of the city centre.

  “Could he see us from there?” cried Jackie.

  Ellis shrugged. “It’s more or less in a straight line from here,” he said. “With binoculars, say? Maybe!”

  “Then let’s check it out. Now!” yelled Jackie. He and the two sisters spun towards the door, then hesitated. All three of them turned and looked back at Ellis, Leona perhaps a little unwillingly. However, there was no choice. She had to appeal to him, because he was the man with the car.

  “Let’s go!” Ellis agreed, and felt for his car keys, a little like the good sheriff in a Western feeling for his gun. They charged ahead and he followed, leaving the Land-of-Smiles for the fourth time that day. But this time, at least, he was in charge. He may have been following the other three, but, whether they knew it or not, Ellis was the leader.

  PART THREE

  4.00 pm – Saturday

  Time was bending back on itself. Nearly twenty-four hours earlier, Ellis had walked up the road along which he was now driving. He wondered how he could be so sure that he was still last-night’s man, yet, at the same time, feel certain that he had completely altered. Lights changed and, without needing a single shouted instruction, Ellis turned right into Foley Street which now struck him as unnaturally clean and artificial. The elegant, spindly signs, the street lights sporting red hoods on long, green stems, looked like pieces in an expensive game being played on behalf of people who could afford to play. And there, in front of them, was the old public library, transformed and still transforming. It looked like some grotesque insect bursting out of a cocoon. The cage of orange-coloured scaffolding clamped it in as if it might possibly turn dangerous – as if it might need to be restrained. Ellis drove towards it, one in a line of cars, all probably searching for parking places.

  Second Stage Development, said a notice.

  There was no visitor-parking area. Indeed, there were dire warnings on the small, paved area in front of the building that illegally-parked cars would be wheel-clamped or taken away. On the far right, a line of blue-doored garages vanished behind the building.

  “Shall I risk it?” asked Ellis without needing to say what he was talking about.

  “Better not!” said Ursa. “Suppose there’s no one at home and we come back to find the car gone?�
��

  “Suppose we need to get away quickly?” added Leona.

  “We might have another car chase,” Jackie said, making a ferocious sound that suggested desperate braking and cornering.

  “Don’t joke!” yelled Leona, but Ellis could not tell if it were grief, terror or fatigue that was roughening her voice.

  “I have to,” Jackie cried back. “I can’t help it. You ought to know that by now.”

  “There!” cried Ursa, pointing.

  Only a few spaces ahead of them a car was sliding carefully out of a parking place.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” exclaimed Jackie, for the car ahead of them was backing greedily towards the vacant space.

  But, once again, Ellis amazed himself. He accelerated and then, angling sharply past a parked green Mazda, slid into the space with the sort of assured rudeness he had often resented in others. The right-hand side of his mother’s car had scraped against some part of the Mazda, but the parking place was definitely his. The driver of the rival car, after making a gesture of disgust, changed gear and drove away.

  “Right on!” said Jackie in surprised admiration. “Hey, who taught you to drive?”

  “My mum,” said Ellis, jamming on the handbrake. “I think I took a bit of paint off that Mazda, though.”

  “At least there was no one sitting in it,” said Ursa.

  They scrambled out as they spoke and turned towards the old library.

  “You stay here,” Ellis said to Jackie.

  “No way,” said Jackie.

  “Think about it!” commanded Ellis. “Just suppose Christo is up there somewhere – just suppose that, right now, he’s looking out of a window …”

  “Ellis is right,” said Ursa.

  “I’ll slide along next to the wall,” said Jackie, looking right, looking left, then setting off across the road. “Even if he does look out of the window he won’t see me.”

  “He might have seen us already,” said Ursa gloomily, “if he really has been watching the Land-of-Smiles from somewhere up there.”