“Slow down,” Moll whined, her legs straight out in front of her and her hands clinging to the edge of the seat.
“We need to drive fast now,” he said, accelerating on the bends to carry them around. There were signs for deer and cattle, but George did not slow down. They were far enough ahead that the siren was faint. His hands sweated on the wheel. At his side, Moll began to whimper. He tried to comfort her, a hand on her knee, but swerved and so returned to concentrating on driving. His eyes scanned the road ahead. It was still bright daylight and they needed to hide and then get rid of the car.
The road was straight and downhill, and the Allegro managed over seventy miles an hour. It was a stretch of road famous for the British Cycle race, with the hills of the Roaches shimmering green in the distance. Ahead was the town of Leek. George had never been there, but he knew from the map that it was a market town and would be cramped and busy, and he was sure to get caught in traffic or worse. There might even be police in the town waiting for him.
He glanced in the mirror and saw the flashing lights on the top of the last hill. About a mile away, George could see a tractor trailing a wagon. There was no other option.
“Hang on tight,” he said, as much to himself as to Moll.
There was an opening in the field at the bottom of the hill and George cut off the road onto the Staffordshire Moorlands. There had been little rain in the autumn and the land was dry so there was sufficient traction in the wheels to take them forward. George cut right across the field, behind a barn and toward the tree-lined river. Moll squealed as the car jumped up and down on the rough grass. George drove in second and third gear, feeling sweat break at his hairline.
The moorland was uneven and he put the car into first gear to climb a small ridge. The car’s undercarriage got stuck on the mud and grass, and George swore, reversed, then tried again, this time making it over. On the other side, he drove down the hill slowly, breathing through his teeth, aware that they would no longer be visible from the road. Moll was pitched forward, both hands on the dashboard and her eyes screwed shut.
He drove alongside the River Churnet until he found a spot hidden by tall ash trees that cast the bank into shadow.
George parked the car and looked around. There was no sign of anyone. He rolled down the window and heard the thin whine of the siren above the sound of the river.
“Why did you do that? What … ?”
“Whssht,” said George, a finger on his lips and his left hand on Moll’s head. “You gotta be very quiet, angel, just a moment longer.”
Moll wiped her cheeks and turned to look in the direction of George’s gaze. The whine of the siren grew louder and George sat holding the key in the ignition. The police car slowed and turned off its siren, and George reached out to take Moll’s hand. She squeezed it and he squeezed back, coursing his thumb across her soft skin. It was close and he knew it. If the police car had seen them branch off, they might not be able to get away. George turned to peer out of the window. The police car kept on driving on the A53 into Leek.
George put both hands on the steering wheel and exhaled.
“Are you OK, pet?” he said, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
“I don’t like it when you drive that fast.”
“Well, you’re in charge. I’m not going to drive that fast again. Matter of fact, I think we need to leave the car here.”
“What do you mean?”
George got out of the car, went around, and opened Moll’s door. He helped her out and then lifted her right up so that she was sitting on the roof of the car, looking him straight in the face. She was smiling again, all blue eyes and eyelashes and gapped teeth.
“How was the first part of our adventure?”
“I don’t like fast driving,” she said, frowning.
He tickled her and she squealed and wriggled. “I told you, I’m done with driving just now. We’re going to leave the car and I need to figure out what to do. We maybe need to catch a bus. You remember your name, Batman?”
“Robin.”
“That’s right. I want you just to hold my hand and let me do the talking. We’re going to walk into town and we’ll catch the bus and then I’ll get us another nice place to sleep and a new car to drive, OK?”
Moll nodded. “And when will we start to go home?”
George lifted her down quickly, to avoid her eyes. “We’ll go home after we’ve finished our adventure … after we’ve got where we’re going. Penzance.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s a bit farther south, not far now.”
She seemed satisfied with that. George took her satchel out of the back seat and his bag of money out of the boot and tucked his change of clothes and Moll’s new clothes inside, along with his knife and a flashlight. He took off his jacket and draped it over the carryall. Moll was crouched in the grass picking daisies and dandelions, feet apart and knees together, sucking her lip in concentration. George checked inside the car, and took out his cigarettes.
“Button, get over here,” he said suddenly.
She looked up at him, coy, chin over her shoulder.
“Come and sit over here.”
She went to him and presented him with the posy, standing on her tiptoes and holding the flowers up to him.
“They’re gorgeous,” he said, smiling and getting down on one knee to take them. “No one’s ever given me flowers before. Really.” She was pleased, hands clasped behind her back and swinging side to side. George put the flowers into his shirt pocket.
“How does that look?”
“Good.”
He lifted her up to the first low, thick branch of an ash tree.
“I want you to sit tight there and don’t move.”
“Where are you going?” she said, her face suddenly shot with concern.
“I’m going nowhere, but our car’s going for a swim and I want you safe and out of the way.”
She giggled, one hand over her mouth. “Cars don’t swim.”
“Well, this one does.”
He had done it several times before—tipped cars into the River Clyde to get rid of evidence. But he was a stranger to this place and he felt alien in the countryside. The quiet and the sweet smell of dung unnerved him. He hoped that the river was deep enough. The Clyde was deeper and darker than all hell. It had been a dry week, but he remembered that there had been rain in England the week before.
George took a screwdriver from the boot and removed the number plates front and back and then tossed them into the river upstream. He rolled down each of the windows, then put the car into neutral, took off the handbrake and pushed it to the edge. He glanced at Moll for a second, sitting on the branch wide-eyed like an owl. He pushed with all his strength and stood back as the car tipped over the edge and splashed into the river.
Moll wriggled off her branch and shimmied down the tree, then ran to the bank beside him. He was standing with his hands on his hips, but she reached for his hand, and they stood side by side watching as the body of the car disappeared from view and sank farther, until only the top of the roof could be seen.
“Damn it,” said George, letting go of her hand for a second to shake a cigarette from his pack and light it. When his cigarette was lit, he took her hand again.
“Why are you saying ‘damn it’?”
“Because I want it to sink.”
“It has.”
“Not all the way. I want it to sink right down.”
The river emitted a gulping sound, there was a creak of metal and the car sank farther. George exhaled. It was enough. If the water stayed at that level, the car could go weeks or longer without being discovered, but if the river level dropped, even by a few inches, the car would be obvious.
“Come on, button,” he said.
He put her satchel back on her shoulders, picked up the carryall, took her hand, and then together they walked toward the town. The grass was soft and Moll jumped from one mound to th
e other, the pencils rattling inside her satchel. As soon as they hit the road, George slowed his pace. There would be police here. He was sure that the police who had chased him had not seen his face, but he still did not know why they had asked him to pull over. They might have been looking for him, and knew the make of car. He needed to get to Stoke-on-Trent and see if Bernie would take them in.
“I’m hungry,” said Moll.
“I know, precious,” he said, “but I need to sort something out. Hold on if you can and then I’ll get you the best dinner ever.”
She sighed and he squeezed her hand.
“What’s your favorite thing for tea?”
“Macaroni and cheese.”
“Good choice.”
“Is that your favorite too?”
“Well, it’s up there in my top five.”
“What’s your number one?”
“Stovies.”
“They’re in my top five,” she said, and he smiled, realizing that she was trying to please him.
He was doing his best to stay calm and cheerful for her, but his stomach was now tight with tension. He stuck out and he knew it. He needed to steal a car and get somewhere safe, where they had food and she could rest. Without the car, they were a long way from Penzance and the danger of being recognized was high.
The bus station in Leek was on Ashbourne Road and George found it quickly. A woman stopped him to ask the time and two other men wished him a good afternoon. He hated small towns. They reminded him of how he had felt when he arrived in Thurso: tall and conspicuous. He smiled and rushed his words to try to disguise his accent. He kept Moll close to him as he looked at the timetables. The numbers made sense, but the names of the towns were just letters swarming at him. He felt a pain in his throat, remembering the failure he had felt as a child.
George crouched down beside her. “I don’t know if you can do this,” he said to her, “but if I lift you up, can you read the names of the towns to me? I have a friend lives near here. I’ll lift you up and you tell me if you see a timetable for a bus going to Hanley. Can you do that?”
She nodded gravely and held out her arms to be lifted. He held her into his hip, pointing at the town names listed at the top of the timetables.
“Here,” she said, pointing after a few moments.
“Are you sure?” said George, shifting her weight so that he could peer at the word.
“Yes … Ashbourne, Buxton, and then Hanley.”
He looked at the bus number on the timetable Moll had indicated.
“X18,” he said, under his breath. “Today’s Friday. Can you find the right day on the timetable?”
Moll leaned forward, sucking in her lower lip and letting both palms rest on the noticeboard. “Maybe this one,” she said, looking worried and unsure. “It says Monday and Friday.”
He let her down, then took her hand.
“OK, good job. Now we need to find a phone box.”
There was one at the other end of the station and George pulled Moll inside. He felt safer inside the call box. It smelled damp like a cellar. He reached into his pocket and took out his change and placed all the silver on the metal tray inside. There had been a phone book but now only the outer pages remained. George knew that he would have been unable to read a phone book anyway, and he wasn’t sure if Moll could have either. She leaned against the booth and looked up at him as he picked up the telephone and dialed. He wanted a cigarette very badly.
George had kept in touch with Bernadette after she moved south and they still got together for a cuddle when she went back to Glasgow to see her family. They had even talked about Moll once or twice. The first time he had slept with Bernie, she had thought the name tattooed above his heart had been a lover’s, and he had told her the story.
It had been nearly six months since George had seen her in Glasgow. If Bernie was home, he could trust her and she would help him out.
“Directory Inquiries,” said a woman’s voice.
George cleared his throat. “Hello, I wonder if you have a number for Bernadette Shaw in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent.”
“I have two listings for a B. Shaw in Hanley. One is B. P. Shaw on Rawlins Street and another B. Shaw on Cavendish Street.”
“Rawlins Street,” George exclaimed, remembering. His inability to read and write had honed his memory.
“Very well, the number is—”
“Hold on a minute … Moll, pen and paper, please?”
Moll crouched on the floor of the booth as she took out her exercise book and selected a pencil from a tin box that bore an image of Scooby-Doo.
George wrote the number on the back of Moll’s exercise book. He fed a fifty-pence piece into the slot and dialed. He checked his watch: just after four o’clock. He expected Bernadette to be at work. He stared through a small pane of glass in the phone box, thinking that he could get the wean some food and they could wait and call later when she returned.
After the fifth ring, to George’s surprise, Bernadette answered. He recognized her voice.
“Bernie? It’s George … How are you?”
Sweating with anxiety in the cramped call box with Moll, George still flashed his smile, as if Bernadette was before him.
“Georgie!” she said. “This is a surprise. I thought you were allergic to phones?”
“I am indeed, but the thought of hearing your dulcet tones again drove me to it.”
She laughed.
“How are you, beautiful?”
“I’m very well,” she said, and George could tell from her tone that she was also smiling. “I’m kind of rushing at the moment. I’m about to go away for a week’s holiday and you know what I’m like. So bloody disorganized. I can’t find my passport.”
“You’re leaving the country?” George put a hand against the phone box and leaned against it. He was the unluckiest person he knew.
“I am indeed. I’m going abroad with a girlfriend.”
“Abroad? Get you! And here was I coming to visit you.” George leaned his forehead against the glass.
“Where are you?”
“I’m, eh, I’m passing through … in Leek just now, would you believe—bloody Leek—and I thought to myself, I can’t pass Stoke-on-Trent and not say hello to wee Bernie.”
“God, your timing’s always off. I need to go in half an hour … unless I really have lost my passport and then I suppose I can’t go anywhere.”
Dings began to sound and George hurriedly fed more coins into the slot.
“And here was me thinking you’d give me a bed for the night, but you’re right, I should’ve warned you.”
“You’re welcome to stay if you need a place …”
“Is it a trouble, Bern? How would I … ?”
“I can leave a key under the mat for you. If the key’s not there, it means I’m still home because I couldn’t find my passport.”
“You’re a sweetheart, Bernie, do you know that?”
“And you’re the bane of my life. How long will you stay? Will you be here when I get back? I’m back on the eleventh …”
“How could I not wait for you, gorgeous?”
“Where are you off to anyway?”
“I’m headed to London, but I can hang about a few days if it means seeing your pretty face again.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
The bus to Hanley was every half hour, and George bought a newspaper for himself to hide behind, and crisps and juice for the bairn.
The bus came just as she had opened her crisps. They waited in line and then George lifted her up on board. He took her almost to the back of the bus, setting the carryall on the floor at her feet and helping her into the window seat.
“Why are we going to Hanley?” she said as the bus pulled away.
“Hush,” he said, leaning down toward her. The bus was almost full, mostly elderly people, but they had not been in such an enclosed public space since he left Scotland. “We’re going to stay at a friend of mine’s house. I�
�ll tell you all about it when we get there.”
He helped Moll open her can of juice. The crack and fizz sounded and the woman in front turned around at the noise. She had gray hair twisted into a neat knot at the nape of her neck, and small pink lips. George smiled at her broadly, and she returned the smile and then turned back.
“Drink it carefully and don’t spill it,” said George as he passed it to Moll, who took it into two hands as the bus left the station. He felt a flicker of nerves after the woman’s attention, so he risked saying, “There’s a good boy.”
Moll turned to him and George held his breath, but she only said, “Robin,” and smiled. He tapped the brim of her cap.
Trying to relax, he opened his newspaper. There was a photograph of Rock Hudson. George had heard on the news that he had died. There was also a picture of rioters in London. He looked at the photographs and turned the pages, working his way slowly to the back where he would be able to read the cartoons. He took his time, his eyes scanning the pages, as if he were able to read. He had practiced the art. Suddenly he stopped and folded the paper over, drawing it closer to him. There, on page seven, near the fold, was a picture of Moll. Her photo was at the top of the article, the same school picture that had been circulated before.
George felt his throat dry. The bus was full. He looked at Moll. The squint had been mentioned on the radio reports and now, he thought, even in her boy’s clothes, it was obvious who she was.
He needed a cigarette, but daren’t light up on the bus for fear of irritating someone and drawing further attention to himself. He wanted to ask Moll what the article said, but he didn’t want to upset her.
He sat hunched on the seat, sweat in his armpits, glancing up and down the bus to see if anyone was watching him.
When they pulled into Hanley, George helped Moll out of her seat before the bus had come to a stop. He prodded her gently forward, one hand on the back of her T-shirt to stop her from falling as the bus rolled into its stop. They were first in line to exit. The carryall was heavy and George could feel his hands sweating. There was no air and he just wanted off the bus.
The doors opened, and Moll skipped down the steps. George was just about to follow her when he felt a man’s hand on his arm.
Everything She Forgot Page 25
