Tramp Life

by Tony Telford

  I went to the rucksack and took out the linen shopping bag and the ball of string. I cut off a length of string with my penknife and tied it to the handles of the bag.

  ‘Come here, Boo.’ Before she could get away, I grabbed her and pushed her down into the bag so that just her head was poking out. She was squirming like an eel in a net. ‘It’s all right, Boo, it’s all right.’ As soon as she’d stopped wriggling so much I wound the string round the handles of the bag so that the opening was fairly tight. Then, still holding the other end of the string, I left poor Boo sitting there in the bag and quickly got back up onto the bin. As I hoisted her up to me she started kicking and struggling worse than ever. It was awful. I felt like I was torturing her or something. When I’d pulled her up I hugged her through the bag and kissed her lovely ears. ‘Don’t worry, Boo, don’t worry.’ She was trembling all over. ‘Trust me, Boo. We’ve got to find somewhere warm and dry.’

  I wrapped the loose end of the string tightly around my hand, lifted Boo through the window and slowly lowered the bag into the darkness. The string twisted and shook as Boo tried to break free. Then suddenly it went slack. Panicking, I shone the torch down into the room. The bag was lying empty on the floor and there was Boo was standing next to it, looking up at me like the Count of Monte Cristo in his prison cell.

  ‘Wait, Boo! I’m coming.’

  I reeled up the bag and used the string to lower the satchel and rucksack into the room. Then came the job of getting myself in. What a laugh. The window was too high for me to get my legs in first but too narrow for me to turn around when I was halfway in, so I had no choice but to go in headfirst. Keeping hold of the torch, I launched myself up onto the window ledge and wriggled in as far as my waist. For several long moments I felt like I was being cut in half by the metal window frame. I squirmed in a bit further until I started to tip forward. At the same time I instinctively pushed my legs out against the window frame to stop myself tumbling in. Then I wriggled in further. Now I was hanging upside down with my legs hooked round the edges of the window. Suddenly all the coins in my pockets cascaded down onto the floor and my coat flopped over my face like a heavy curtain. I let myself slide in even further. Now I was hanging by just my feet. I reached down in the darkness, expecting to be able to touch the floor, but there was nothing. I switched on the torch. It was a bigger drop than I’d guessed, but I had no choice now. I checked that Boo was safely out of the way, tossed the torch over to one side, stretched out my arms, took a deep breath, and unhooked my feet from the window frame. I dropped like a sack of coal. My left hand came down on my rucksack, but my right hit the floor at a funny angle and a bolt of pain shot up my arm. Next thing I knew, I was lying there in the dark having my face licked all over by a warm, wet tongue.

  ‘We did it, Boo!’

  My arm and wrist were killing me but thankfully nothing seemed to be broken. I found the torch, gathered up all the coins and had a mooch around the room. It wasn’t half as comfy as I’d thought. The wallpaper was covered in mildew, the carpet was damp, and it was almost as cold in here as it was outside. I tried the door. It opened, and the torchlight shot out across tiles, pews, stone columns, stained glass. Cursing my thoughtlessness, I snapped the torch off and hoped no one had seen the light through the windows.

  I carried my bags out into the church, trying not to bump into anything in the dark. It was pretty cold in here, too, but at least it was dry and clean. By now I was completely shattered. All I could think about was sleep. I felt the seat of one of the pews. It had a long cushion, like a skinny mattress. That would do. I put my rucksack at one end for a pillow, pulled off my boots and collapsed onto the pew. It was too narrow, of course, and I was a bit worried that I’d roll off in my sleep, but the soft cushion was like heaven. Within moments I was drifting away. The last thing I remember was Boo jumping up on the other end of the pew and settling by my feet. Then I was dead to the world.

  I was woken by laughter. I opened my eyes and stared up into darkness. For a few moments I didn’t have a clue where I was. Then I remembered—the village in the rain, the church, the window. It all seemed like a feverish dream, and yet here I was. The cold black air felt oily against my skin. The only sound was the faint ringing that you always hear in silence. Had I dreamt of the laughter, then? No, God help me—there it was again, a soft giggly laugh, as real as the cold air and the darkness.

  Terror jerked me upright. At the front of the church a single candle was burning in the dark. It was standing on the edge of the pulpit. Above the flame there was a face, a laughing, yellow face with black holes for eyes and a mouth like an open wound. I started to scream, and then I recognized him—O’Hare. He was laughing his head off now, hooting and howling like a mad clown.

  ‘Oh dear!’ He tried to control himself. ‘Oh dear, I’m sorry, I was—oh!—I was just reading some of this stuff.’ He flipped through a few pages of the big bible at his elbow. ‘I mean, the absurdity of it all—’ He started laughing again and the yellow clown-face swung through the darkness like a lantern. Finally he pulled himself together. ‘Well, well, well!’ He leant over the pulpit, peering out at me through small round spectacles. ‘Are we awake now?’

  I think he expected me to say something, but I was paralysed, speechless. All I could think was, he’s been following me. All this time, he’s been following me. What the hell was he after? What did he want from me?

  He adjusted his specs, cleared his throat and started reading from the bible in a high-pitched voice, like a posh vicar:

  ‘And ver-i-ly I say unto yoooo, they who strive against the Angel of Light shall shoo-er-ly be consum-ed in the darkness of confus-ee-on.’ It took me a while to realize he wasn’t really reading. He was making it all up. It was just another one of his stupid games. ‘O ye who seek to flee the all-seeing eye shall taste the bitterness of thy sin. Sons and daughters of asses, canst thou outrun the fleet-footed hare?’ He went on and on, obviously enjoying himself in some twisted way. But as I sat there watching him, a strange thing happened to me. My fear, so overpowering at first, started turning into anger. And not just ordinary anger: insane rage. I could feel it rising up inside me like a molten sea. This twerp had made my life a misery at school. He’d broken into my house and scared me half to death with that video thing, or whatever it was. He’d driven me from the only home I’d ever known. And now I find out he’s followed me halfway across the country, probably been spying on me, too, the creep, and he thinks I’m going to sit here in the middle of the night while he does this wacko vicar routine. No, I’d had enough. Slowly I got to my feet. I wasn’t scared. I didn’t care what happened to me anymore.

  ‘O dolts and dullards!’ He was still raving on. ‘O leaden-footed slaves! Canst thou outpace the nimble dee-ah? Canst thou catch the flying fox?’

  The next moment I was hurtling down the aisle towards him. Don’t ask me what I was going to do. I hadn’t thought about that. I wasn’t thinking about anything. I was just a mad beast, a missile fired by my own fury.

  O’Hare saw me coming, I’m sure of it, but he simply continued with his sermon. ‘O fools of the flesh! O poor benighted fools!’ I was nearly at the pulpit now. ‘Poor mortal creatures! Thy fate is ever to remain—’

  He snuffed the candle.

  ‘—in darkness.’

  Suddenly blinded, I ran straight into a pew. I toppled. The floor slammed against the side of my head. Pain cut through my right knee.

  ‘Cold…’ It was O’Hare again. He still seemed to be at the pulpit. ‘Cold and dark.’ I lay there listening, with my face pushed against the hard tiles. His voice was so quiet now, I could hardly hear him. ‘Behold, the hour is at hand.’

  Silence for a while. Then the sound of footsteps and a door opening and closing. I heaved myself up, felt my way back to the pew where I’d left my things, fumbled round for the torch and shone it towards the front of the church. Behind the pulpit there was a little arched doorway. I hobbled back up the aisle and tried th
e handle. It was locked. Somewhere above I heard footsteps on stone stairs. The tower. What on earth was he doing up there?

  But then came another thought, loud and urgent, crowding out all others: Never mind about him. Just get the hell out of here, quick as you can! God knows why that came into my head just then. I just get these hunches sometimes.

  I went back to the pew, pulled on my boots and picked up the rucksack and satchel. Boo jumped down from the pew and started skittering round me like a nervous ghost. ‘It’s all right, Boo, it’s all right. We’ve just got to get out of here.’ I flew across to the entrance, unbolted one, two, three iron bolts, swung open the huge wooden door, and then we were running through the churchyard and out across a field, stumbling and slipping in the long wet grass. I could hardly see where I was going, but I didn’t dare use the torch. We kept running until we reached a line of trees on a hill above the village. Feeling a bit safer now, I dropped down in the shadows and pulled Boo close to me. ‘All right, Boo.’ I was panting hard. ‘I think it’s okay now.’

  I lay for a while, shivering in the cold wind as I watched the village. It looked just like a model village from up here. But there was something unusual about the church, a pale green line curving down from the top of the tower and disappearing in the bushes at the edge of the churchyard. A rope, maybe. Was that how he’d got down from the tower, then?

  Suddenly a flashing blue light lit up all the trees around the church. A police car raced along the road and stopped abruptly by the church gate. Two figures got out and hurried into the church. A few moments later every light in the place was blazing. The stained-glass windows shone like movie screens.

  That was close. But was I really safe? Once they’d finished in the church they might come looking up here. I got to my feet and started gathering up my things—and that was when I saw the small light hovering under the trees, maybe 100 yards away. I knew straight away what it was. A phone. Someone was standing there under the trees looking at their phone. As I watched, the light moved up and down, quivering like an electric dragonfly. Then it went out.

  It had to be O’Hare. He’d probably used that phone to call the police—‘Someone’s breaking into the church in Swafford, you’d better come quick!’ And now he was expecting to see me dragged out of there by those two officers. But that set me thinking. If he thought I was still in the church, then he didn’t know I was up here. Which meant that this might be my chance to turn the tables on him. The hunted could become the hunter… Yes, I know, I know, it’s completely crazy—following the very person you’ve been trying to get away from. I’ve often wondered what could’ve put such a ridiculous idea into my head. Maybe I really had gone a bit mad by then. There are lots of kinds of madness, aren’t there? Anyway, all I know is that at that moment, lurking there in the dark with the wind singing in my ears, it was the only thing I wanted to do. The thought of it made me feel…different, somehow. I was tingling all over, and I didn’t want that feeling to end.

  I slipped on my rucksack, tucked Boo under my arm and started moving along the line of trees towards where I’d seen the light. I moved quickly, a shadow gliding through shadows—until my foot caught on something and I almost fell flat on my face.

  When I looked up there was someone in front of me, no more than ten yards away. It was O’Hare. I recognised his outline immediately. Luckily he was facing away from me, looking in the direction of the village. He was very still, very upright, like a scarecrow or a palace guard. The wind was tossing his long hair all over the place. As I watched, he brought one hand to his mouth and the tip of a cigarette flared like a tiny dragon’s eye. He seemed so calm now, so purposeful. I would have given anything to know what he was thinking.

  Boo, still wedged under my arm, gave a little growl. O’Hare’s head snapped round in our direction. He’d heard her, I was sure of it. But could he see us here under the trees? I held my breath and longed to be invisible, to melt like an inkblot into the darkness. He was still looking towards me, staring, staring. And now, I couldn’t believe it, he was coming, crashing through the bushes, moving fast like an animal closing in on the kill. I thought I was going to die of fright, I really did. My whole body went numb, as if I was half-dead already. But then something in me said move! move! move! and I sort of slid to my left and flattened myself hard against a tree trunk, squashing poor Boo. She wriggled like mad, trying to escape, but I held her tight against me. And then O’Hare was there, towering over me, close enough to touch, his face a blurry white mask, and I could smell his cigarette and his damp clothing—and then, then he was gone, stalking off into the darkness, his long coat making a hissing sound as it trailed across the grass. He hadn’t seen me. Somehow he hadn’t seen me.

  I closed my eyes and rested my forehead on the rough wet bark. The blood was singing in my ears and my heart felt like it was going to jump out of my chest—and yes, I know that if I’d been in my right mind I would’ve made my escape then, while I still had the chance. But I wasn’t in my right mind. I was worn out and confused by everything that had been happening, and I had this mad, giddy feeling, like I was on some sort of ride that I couldn’t stop—that I didn’t want to stop. That’s why, after a couple of minutes, when my heart had stopped beating so fast, I put Boo down and headed after O’Hare.

  As I wove between the trees I kept saying to myself, this is crazy, this is crazy. And yet I was so aware of things around me—every clump of grass, every shivering leaf. Soon we came to a narrow lane running along the back of the trees. At that very moment there was a noise to my left: the squeak of a bicycle brake. I started jogging towards it, Boo gliding along at my side. We hadn’t gone far when the lane came out of the trees and I spotted a red light, a bicycle light, maybe 200 yards ahead. I continued jogging, trying to keep my eye on the light. It kept disappearing and reappearing as the cyclist went round bends or down hills, but it was always about the same distance away, so he couldn’t have been riding very fast.

  The lane snaked through woods and dipped down into little valleys where each breath was like a gulp of river water. By now my jog had turned into a fast walk. When I was twelve I could run all day and hardly notice it, but now I was wheezing like an old woman. Sweat slid down my back and stung the corners of my eyes. My flipping great rucksack made it harder, of course, and I wasn’t exactly dressed for running, with my big boots and my heavy woollen coat.

  I was so relieved when we came to a flat stretch. Breathing hard, I stopped for a moment and scanned the view ahead. I could see the lane meandering across the black fields like a faded chalk line, but there was no bicycle light anywhere. Then I heard the squeak of a brake, much closer this time. I flung myself down on the grass at the side of the road and pulled Boo in next to me. Next moment there was a long, rickety clatter of metal on metal, as if someone had crashed into something. I waited, squinting into the darkness. The wind was keening over the empty fields. I could feel the wet grass soaking through my jeans, but I made myself wait two, three, four minutes before I got up and continued on.

  I hadn’t gone more than fifty steps when something shiny caught my eye at the side of the road. It was a bicycle, hanging upside-down on the wire fence. I went over and felt the tyres. The back one was flat as a pancake. Apparently he hadn’t been too chuffed about that. Now I’d have to be even more careful. I padded on, straining eyes and ears for the faintest sound, the tiniest movement. Only once, as I was coming down a hill, I thought I saw someone at the crest of the next hill, but maybe it was just a shadow.

  After a while I could hear traffic. Minutes later, we came to a busy main road with cars and lorries hurtling past like there was no tomorrow. I picked up Boo and hid from the headlights behind some bushes at the side of the road, peeping out in search of O’Hare whenever there was a break in the traffic. I was just starting to think I’d lost him when, in the silence between two waves of cars, I heard a short, soft cough, and sure enough, there was a figure by the side of the road about 100 yards away
. At a bus stop.

  Brilliant. That was the end of our late-night chasey game, then. Suddenly I felt really tired. And fed up. And cross. But then I heard the groan of an engine. A bus was approaching—a double-decker bus…

  I started running towards the bus stop. The bus pulled up, its doors sprang open and O’Hare—yes, it was him—stepped inside. He paused at the ticket machine next to the driver, and then, just as I was hoping, disappeared upstairs.

  I staggered on, clutching Boo to my chest and waving madly to the driver with my free hand. It was okay, he’d seen me. He watched me climb aboard, leaning back in his seat with his arms folded over his big stomach. I started fishing for change in my coat pocket.

  ‘No dogs allowed,’ said the driver.

  I looked at him in horror.

  ‘Except whippets,’ he said, straight-faced.

  ‘Thank you,’ I panted.

  ‘Where to?’ he asked.

  That was a good question. I didn’t know where we were, let alone where we were going.

  ‘Anywhere—I mean, all the way.’ I said the last words in a whisper, suddenly realizing that O’Hare might be able to hear from upstairs.

  ‘Sorry?’ boomed the driver.

  ‘All the way,’ I repeated, a bit more loudly. ‘As far as you’re going.’

  ‘Single or return?’

  ‘Single.’

  He gave me a funny look and jabbed at a button on his ticket machine.

  ‘Eight pound seventy.’

  Blimey. How far was this thing going, then? I gave him the last ten-pound note in my purse and waited for the change, feeling all the time like I was in a dream. The bus was already lumbering off as I hauled my stuff down the narrow aisle and threw myself onto a seat at the back. Never in my whole life had it felt so good to sit down. As soon as I put Boo on the seat next to me she curled up into a ball and went to sleep.

  Once I’d got my breath back I had a look at the other passengers. There were six of them, all men, all alone. None of them seemed to have noticed us. In fact, most of them seemed to be asleep. I glanced at my watch. Five past midnight. Where were they going at this time of night, these six men?