The Stopping Place

by Helen Slavin

  Outside was a bus stop. As Ruby left the hair salon a bus hissed to a stop and Ruby knew she couldn’t miss it. Or the next. Or the next. Or the next. Boarding and alighting, until the end of the line.

  Part Three

  Ijo o desu

  That’s all, the end, concluded

  Zannen desu ga, shitsurei shinakereba narimasen

  I’m sorry to say, I’ll have to be leaving

  The words came to a stop. It was dark outside now. My mouth felt very dry suddenly and Angharad reached round and fetched me a glass of water. I couldn’t look at anyone by then. I could only glance at the distortions and reflections in the body of water in the glass. I kept drinking, taking water in like someone drowning. No one said a word, in fact they didn’t even seem to be breathing.

  ‘That was when you arrived here?’ Mrs Atkinson spoke at last. I nodded. She nodded back, as if I had settled something for her. Silence clouded over again.

  ‘What are we going to do about him?’ Mrs Milligan said, arms folded, eyes cast, intent, to the carpeting, as if she might find the answer written there.

  There were a few moments of almost total silence. Then Angharad and Ellen brewed up more coffee and tea and still there were no words, just the deep breathing of the kettle, the chank and splash and chinkcachink of stirring. Mrs Milligan opened a tin she’d brought full of caramel shortbread and everyone was very thoughtful. I fought tears, damped them down inside. I would miss this place, these people. This life. Tea dished out, there was more pondering.

  ‘What in hell can we do?’ Angharad stirred at her tea as if all the answers would come swirling to the surface.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said very simply, very calmly. Because after all I’d been here before, at the jumping off point. ‘I just have to go.’ Sipping at my last chance tea.

  Outrage. Angharad tutting. Mrs Atkinson shaking her head slowly. Mrs Milligan’s scornful snort and vehement ‘No.’

  ‘There has to be another way. There has to be something else we can do,’ Martha said, indignant. ‘There has to be. For Christ’s sake can’t one of us come up with an alternative to running away?’

  ‘Punish him,’ said Iris, licking the chocolate off the chunk of caramel shortbread she’d just dunked.

  * * *

  In the lobby later, it was just me and Queen Victoria. Stony faced. Waiting. I looked up to her for some comment but she said nothing, just kept staring blankly out through the fanlight above the revolving door. Staring out at the car-roara borealis of the rush hour traffic. The headlights streetlights shoplights shimmering in the rain. And then it came. I heard the glass shattering, the wood splintering in the near distance. The clump of a chair tipping in the staff room.

  The chair by the window. The one he’s had to climb over as he breaks in. The bus lumbers up and I know the moment is here. The chickenwired door fobs open behind me. Fubs shut. The huge metallic rectangled bus, bejewelled with lights, hissing and spitting. Nathan’s arm moves around my shoulders, his grip strong across my collarbone, shoulder, neck. His face nuzzles into my hair. ‘Time to go home.’

  And there is a savage tearing of duct tape.

  * * *

  Duct tape handsno shitwristsburn numb nocan’tno armsfuckno can’t movecan’t twistcaught dark dark baggedsweat breath dark boot car engine thrum grind stark boundbollockboundnaked sweatbreathsweat breath breathebreathe fucking think ViiiiiiiiiiibbbbbbbbbrrrrrrrrraaaaaattTTTTtttiiiiiiiIIIIIIIioooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnn. rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrjagjagjagjagRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR elbow snag twistachenumbnumb pins needles fuckingfingersfucking numb AgHUgh ache breathebreathe sweat breath breathefuckingbreathefuckingthinkbreathebastardbreathessspp ppppp EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEdSpeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed goingwhere fuckingthink shift kickpush graze scuff tear numbnumbnumb moveyou bastardmoveyourself wherethefuck ticketyticketyticketyticketytickety left wheelinground rolling clonktoolsbox sharpspare ticketyticketyticketyticketytickey rightrollcrush numbwristswrists skinburncatch shouldertwistpopthebastardpopthebastardfuck fuckingthink agUhugUh on tickety tickety what time clank bang crump knee sings sweat breath breathe sweat breath can’tbreathe dark shit dark shit fuck think ache numb sweatbreathcan’tbreathe vvvvvvIIIIIIIIIIBBBBBBBBBBBBbbbbbbbbrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRViiiiiiiiiiibbbbbbbbbrrrrrrVVVViiiiiibbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaatttttttiiiiiiiioooooooooo nnnnnnnnnnnn agh teeth lip blood teeth fucking chipped shit breathe sweat sweat like a fuckingpigyou’refucked speeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed gearsgears jab bang lurch crack twist burn halt gears move sppeeeeeeeeeeSpeedSpeed rumbleskinrub coldskinsweat fucking breathbreathe youfucker inoutinout hornblare ticketyticketyticketyticketyticketytickety left pop the bastard if you roll fuck push up up twist bump grind clank gravel long rolling straight longlonglong POT hole bruised skin fingers numb tape scratch bind edge tape scratch sore face burning smellsniffsmell armpit sweat breath wet boots stop kerclick hiss torches white fuck torches fucking hood mask gloves reach reach tugtug hands claw clonk hands grab GRAB clutch clonk roll Out DOOOOWN aUgh.

  Ellen and Mrs Atkinson tip him out of the oversized waterproofed tent bag onto the bark-strewn woodland floor. Mrs Milligan rolls him, naked, onto his back and I slash the duct-tape cuffs around his ankles with a hunting knife. He kicks out instantly, furious. As he bucks and flails at me Mrs Milligan makes a sure-handed grab for his penis. Her gloved hand grips it, uses it as if it is a handle that she tugs sharply to make him get to his feet. He stands up growling and snarling behind his duct-tape gag. Angharad reaches up and strips off the duct tape that blindfolded him and takes his eyebrows with it. His face is angry and prickled and red as his eyes water. His penis wilts and shrinks into itself. He is breathing heavily through his nose and he is watching very carefully. Now he can see that we all have guns. Big guns. Impressive guns.

  Mine is the only face he can see clearly, the others are skimasked. He sees the night vision goggles that are strapped around our heads.

  It would be easy to do this differently. These clothes, the combat trousers and the fisherman vests we’ve all been given, smell of damp in the forest. Smell mushroomy and strange. What they bring to mind is your animal self. Right now, in the forest, that is who I need. All around the floodlights blare and scorch and the paths lead away into the edges. Beyond this sheer face of light is darkness. I step forward.

  ‘Yulfuinpy,’ he gnaws. I want to laugh. Naked, surrounded, miles from home, miles from his rugby buddies, he still thinks he can win.

  ‘We’re here to play…’ I begin, my voice low and quiet.

  ‘YullFUINGay.’ He is chewing at the words, at the duct tape. In outraged fury he lunges towards me, kicks at me. Catches me. He is impressive, the sheer physical confidence of him can knock the breath out of you. He makes me flinch. So I have to pause. I have to take a careful breath. Then, ‘We’re here, to play a new game…’

  He catches me again in the backside with his left foot this time, a good, hard kick, despite his bare feet. And that is it. As he topples himself over, snapping and growling I am ON HIM. MY BOOT. HIS RIBS. PRESSING DOWN.

  ‘When I say run, you run. Understand?’ He kicks and wrenches at me. Once again his penis is an ergonomically designed handle and I lift him to his feet. We pull down our night vision goggles in perfect synchrony as if we have rehearsed it.

  ‘Because this is a new game.’

  He looks at me, wild, disbelieving.

  ‘YUFUGBCH. YUFUGBCHYULPY. ILLMKUPY. FUKYOBCH.’

  He tumbles against me. My hand grips and twists his penis, using all the torque available in every last centimetre of its flaccid rubberiness to twist him away from me. He hisses air in through his nose, is all snarled out, struggling to match his breath and his strangled, gagged mouth.

  ‘’Cause this is a game…’ I raise my arm in the air, ‘called Hunter.’

  He is snorting snot, wrenching and twisting at the duct tape that binds his hands behind his back.
/>   ‘Run.’ I say it oh so quietly and I look right into his eyes.

  As my arm falls all the lights go out and what I see in the forest is green and dense and edged bone white.

  Atchen tan

  English Romanichal: ‘Stopping place’

  She arrived so early, I had to swipe her into the museum with my new security card. It’s shiny and plastic with a photograph that looks like a mug shot and it dangles on a green ribbon around my neck. As I came down the entrance steps I saw she was wearing her customary black leather coat, supple and worn, a hand-me-down from her mother. She ground out her cigarette under the polished toe of her biker boot. Silver buckles latched the boots closed, all the way up the sides like teeth.

  Donya Keet’s name and face have been plastered over the local paper. She’s part of the Traveller group who have been battling the council to keep possession of Gabriel’s Hundred, a scrabby bit of land sandwiched between the plastics factory and the dual carriageway. The council wants to redevelop the area. Already the machines are there, their steel dinosaur jaws tearing down the plastics factory. It is going to be, and I quote, Hillside—a state of the art retail arena. The Travellers can’t stay because, as Councillor Banks puts it, no one wants to shop at a mall ‘with a gang of gypsies camped out in the carpark’.

  Donya has fought hard to keep their camp, fought to prove their ownership of the land but she doesn’t have the documentation, the planning law is not on her side. The camp will be moved to another site and Donya knows that in a year the council will pull the plug on that site too. In the meantime, Councillor Banks’ colleagues want to smooth over all the ruffled feathers and so funding has been given for a Traveller Culture Centre in the museum. Since, during my time at the library, I have already catalogued Lady Breck’s journals and photographs from the turn of the century Traveller camp, putting together the Travellers’ cultural and social history with Donya Keet is my first project in my new job as assistant curator at the museum.

  There isn’t going to be room for me at the new County Information Systems Centre that they are building on a brownfield site in the city. I am, in fact, to be replaced by a new self-service terminal ‘library@ssistant’. It is a stark black box with a glowing heart, ‘Please place your book face down in the aperture…’ It is currently being tried out at Heather’s branch of the County Information System Network: Eastern Outreach. Brookdale Library, as it used to be called.

  Mrs Atkinson and the others have already begun parcelling up the books so that they can be moved into temporary storage before the final move next spring. They broke ground last week, Mac Tierney looming over the mayor as he wielded his silver ceremonial spade. Below the photo was an artist’s impression of the new building. Wire. Glass. A fountained piazza.

  ‘It looks like Space Station Zebra,’ Mrs Milligan commented.

  Mrs Atkinson always knew that the negotiations and meetings were just keeping her busy until the ink could dry on the contract with Tripp Tierney Associates. Mac Tierney has, by a roundabout route, exacted his revenge on us all. The library building is to be redeveloped into Bibliotheque, a swanky restaurant none of us will be able to afford to eat in.

  Which explains why I am now employed at the museum. I know I’m here because each morning I walk up the stairs and I can see the name Ruby Robinson imprinted into a plastic name tag on my office door. I’m on the first floor, in a little corniced room with a deep half-moon window and no cupboard space.

  I have sympathy for Donya, a sentiment she would scorn. I understand that you can be restless and vagabond but you need somewhere to call home. Donya’s family have been returning to the Gabriel’s Hundred site for over a hundred years. When the Travellers leave in a week’s time for the October Horse Fair, the gates will swing shut behind them and they will be outlawed.

  She has a strong accent and it took me a while to tune in. It helped that the oral history collection have some reel-to-reel tapes done in the sixties so I could listen and let the words seep inwards. She was hostile to me at first and I don’t blame her. They are trying to make her into history. Then she saw what I’d done with the library exhibition. I took her through Lady Breck’s journals, the photographs. How the Keets had married into the Herons, how the Kirchers feuded with the Pikes. She saw how I would go about it.

  Instead of sitting in the office I thought we would go to the café. She still couldn’t smoke in there, but the coffee was welcomed. As I returned from the counter she grubbed some photographs from her pockets.

  ‘Dug ’em out. Stuff as my gran kept. Thought you could add them into the collection.’

  The corners were bent a little and the prints would need conserving and probably reprinting but they were atmospheric, taken in the twenties. Kept by her gran. A social history captured in the swirling skirts of two girls posed like dancers; her grandmother Athenia and her great aunt Kezia. Another of menfolk working with a band of horses. Something about the photographs began to whisper to me.

  Finally an image of an old lady, perched on the steps of her wagon, clay pipe in her mouth, clad in a greatcoat. There was a familiarity about this and instantly I realised, this is the woman from the portrait, A Pipe of Baccy. This was the face that greeted me each day as I turned on the stairs.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  Donya squinted at the photograph. My guess is she needs glasses but she won’t get them.

  ‘That is Vancy Kircher’s girl. Not much of a girl by then o’ course.’ She snorted. There was something about the photographs. What was it?

  ‘Kircher’s daughter?’

  ‘Na. Ma Kircher took her in in her troubles like she was a daughter. But she wasn’t blood.’

  More images of the menfolk, metalworking this time, at a fire. The light. The easy, realistic poses. I recognise the style. The eye for details.

  ‘You don’t happen to know who took these photos?’ I asked and already, my mind was whispering the impossible. Donya sipped at her coffee, pointed a square, stubby finger at the old lady in the photograph.

  ‘She did. Kircher’s girl.’

  I looked at the image of Kircher’s girl, who, in the photographs, was somewhere in her early sixties.

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Kircher. Like I said.’

  ‘Before that. If she wasn’t blood, she wasn’t always a Kircher. Do you know what her name was before she took up with Vancy?’

  Donya shrugged, sipped more coffee, refilled her cup from the glass cafetiere.

  ‘Gran told me Vancy always called her Lady…but when my gran was a little ’un, after Vancy had passed, they always named the old lady Ma Breck.’

  * * *

  The letters were in a box sent from the library. Since I had long ago begun the task of sifting history, Mrs Atkinson had brought me the last of the boxes from the upstairs archive. Mostly it was rubbish, documents so rotted or mildewed after a radiator leak they had to be discarded. A box of school reports from 1910 proved useful and informative and then, at last, the letters.

  Three thick cream envelopes tied together with parcel string. They were addressed to Lady Breck, Kite House but a strong line had been crossed through each address and the words Not known at this address, return to St Heliers Villa, No. 5 The Heights.

  I sat for a long time with them unbundled before me.

  Matilda Buller, a woman of independent means, writing home from her grand tour to her younger sister, Beatrice Buller, lately Lady Beatrice Breck.

  * * *

  France January 1891.

  …the girl delights in every fashion my dear Beatrice. Her impeccable manner, her natural charm and diffidence and the eagerness with which she approaches each new task and situation are heartening to behold. Each day she is invigorated by the sights and experiences. Like an etiolated plant, too long in a dark room, she stretches for the sun…

  Italy, March 1891.

  … the mountain and meadow charm of the Southern Tyrol. The crossing at Lake Constance was
rain lashed but the estimable Miss Penny was forearmed with oilskins. Mary-Ann anticipates my every need and is become my guardian and my angel…

  The last. From Calais, 1893.

  …I do not anticipate that you will be able to meet our ferry at Dover. Rather, I am concerned by your silence. Mary-Ann and I have decided to abandon our planned stay in London and instead will return straight to St Heliers Villa. Write to me at home there. Beatrice, I must know of your misadventures. Tell me every circumstance.

  Your loyal and true sister,

  Tilly

  * * *

  I took the letters and sat on the turn of the stairs for a while as, just above me on the wall, painted into the wilds of Gabriel’s Hundred in 1921, Lady Breck sat and smoked her pipe of baccy.

  Toshokan shimarimasu

  The library is closing

  There was to be a last book club in the library building. With all the books packed away and the shelving dismantled the library resembled a ballroom. As darkness fell, Martha and I put out the chairs so that we could all sit under the starlit dome. Not everyone was there; Jill, Deirdra, several others, were missing.

  ‘No. It’s the abridged book club this evening.’

  Mrs Atkinson met my gaze pointedly. Then the door opened and Iris swept in.

  Mrs Atkinson pulled the letter from her pocket as we poured the wine.

  ‘This came for you yesterday.’ She handed over the thin brown envelope. I looked at the nondescript printed address label, the blurred franked postmark. As Mrs Atkinson turned to give Iris and Angharad their wine I made my way to the ladies’ toilets.