Rift

by Beverley Birch

  Joe’s never been taught by Miss Strutton at school. So, so far he’s out of sight, out of mind. Keep it that way, he’s thinking. Duck and weave and dodge: bad enough she’s got Anna in the line of fire already.

  Now Matt’s playing rising and falling notes, ending with a fast pulsating sequence: not a bad imitation of one of the birdcalls that echo across the treetops at dusk.

  Joe hasn’t noticed Sean. No one has. Just, suddenly, that long arm swoops out of nowhere, plucks the harmonica right out of Matt’s mouth, and that voice, ‘Here, let’s see that.’

  Sean. Joe knows him by sight. He’s in the year above at school. Goes round with people Joe knows from swimming club, but he’s never spoken to Sean. Nothing to make him stand out, nothing to make him stick in Joe’s memory particularly, before.

  There is today.

  He’s turning the harmonica over, looking at it, then he’s shoving it in his mouth and blowing. It gives off a kind of strangled screech. A couple of girls nearby laugh, maybe at that, maybe not. But Sean looks at them. Nothing in particular in the look either.

  Is there? Maybe there is, in that blankness of his. Like there’s no focus in his eyes.

  He turns his gaze back to Matt. And then, slowly, to Anna. He looks at her for a moment. A long moment. And she flushes, looks angry. But doesn’t say anything, like you’d expect.

  And then Sean starts to toss the harmonica. Just a little – throw, catch, throw, catch, throw . . .

  ‘Hey, watch out!’ yells Matt, ‘you’ll drop it, you’ll dent it, that’s . . . ’

  Each throw’s just a little higher, just a little harder, and Matt, frantic, lunges for it. Sean catches the harmonica above Matt’s head, lobs it way out of range, and Matt’s leaping to the bench, missing his footing, crashing down, trestles thud over, people topple – squeals, shrieks – Anna trying to pull Matt up, Sean tripping and falling, and the harmonica hits the ground, bounces high on the grass, Matt flinging himself after it, yelling, the uproar sliced by the screech of Miss Strutton’s voice.

  Not anyone else. Has to be Miss Strutton. Like she hovers, somewhere invisible, poised to pounce.

  ‘Anna! Again!‘

  And Matt’s shout, ‘No, Miss! It’s him, he’s nicked my harmonica!’

  ‘No, I have it, and it’s mine now. Permanently. If your minuscule brain can absorb such a word.’ She rakes them with her practised look of distaste. ‘If you two think you can run amok whenever you like, you can think again. No trips – for either of you – today. Clear up round camp. On second thoughts, you can also do the meals today. All of them. Report to me this evening.’ She ignores Matt’s, ‘But Miss, he just swiped it . . . ’ and Anna’s open stare of contempt.

  ‘Now, Sean, go and help Katra get the solar shower up into the tree. That genius girl has just designed one. Worth a few team points between you, I’d say, to make up for the ones other people work so hard at losing. Won’t it?’

  Miss Strutton.

  Miss Strutton and her team points. Miss Strutton and Sean.

  Miss Strutton and her aren’t-they-always-right, aren’t-they-always-brilliant little helpers.

  Sean was still there, Ella still opposite on the far side of the table, the inspector still beside her. As if the moment was frozen in time.

  Without looking towards him, Joe could sense the policeman’s watchful gaze.

  Sean, though, was doing nothing, just lolling against the table, hands stuffed deep in his pockets. He was surveying Joe. Then he turned his attention to Ella. It was the way Joe remembered him looking at Anna that day. Up and down. This time Sean gave Ella a wide, white-toothed smile. Ella looked away, startled and embarrassed by the scrutiny.

  Joe wanted to hit Sean, knock him back, felt his own face blanch with the rush and rage of it.

  No. He steadied himself. Just let Sean hear you tell the inspector . . .

  Wrong. Opens the field to when the inspector isn’t here. Invites Sean back some other time.

  He caught the inspector’s eye; could tell he was reading this.

  He skimmed his gaze past Sean. Don’t see you, don’t know you’re there, don’t see you at all.

  And walked away. No looking at Ella, no drawing fire towards her. No glancing back. With every ounce of self-control he wanted to hide from Sean that he’d even noticed he was there.

  Murothi observed the encounter in all its detail. He noted the clench-jawed willpower of Joe’s exit, and then the flutter of disturbance in the other’s face. Surprise?

  He took in other things too, storing them like an inventory. The boy’s looks: unusually tall, well-built, black-haired, wild, messed-up hair, the tips dyed fair. Time had been spent on this hairstyle. Most of the other students, particularly the boys, had the ragged look you would expect in youngsters unused to anything but city lives with ample running water and clean clothes provided. A few were enjoying a lengthy holiday from serious washing.

  Not this boy. Everything designed, scrupulously planned: the round-shouldered nonchalance, the mannered slouch as he turned his back on the departing Joe and gave Ella another deliberate, appraising look, rudely obvious to the policemen.

  The boy strolled away. He passed close behind Sergeant Kaonga but without so much as a glance at either policeman.

  Murothi leaned towards the sergeant. ‘You know this one?’

  ‘Miss Strutton speaks of him often, Sir. Sean this, Sean that! We hear this name many times. But I have not heard of a connection with our missing ones.’

  ‘He was trying to frighten Joe,’ said Ella. ‘But Joe was just angry.’

  Murothi regarded her thoughtfully. ‘Ah, you have seen it, Ella. Yes . . . ’

  The sergeant turned his mug of tea in his hands, staring into it as if for inspiration, then up at Murothi again. ‘I have seen that his friends are those.’ He tipped his head towards a group visible to Ella and Murothi over the sergeant’s shoulder.

  Rapidly, Murothi scanned the seated students and made a mental note of two girls, two boys, who, it struck him, were very much aware of his glance and of Ella beside him. They were now paying particular attention to Sean’s departure.

  ‘Let me say this,’ Sergeant Kaonga mused, ‘I have heard of this from my friend Samuel Lekitumu. This is the man I have told you about, Sir, the cook for this camp. This is very lucky for us! He has been here since these people made this camp at Chomlaya. Samuel is my old, old friend – from school we have known each other. I have spoken to him much. Samuel tells me that this Miss Strutton has friends, like this Sean and his friends. And then there are all the other people who do not matter to her. Teachers, students, she divides them all up like this. In little boxes, she locks them in! That one agrees with me, so that one is my friend. That one does not agree with me so that one is not my friend. In fact, that one is going to be my enemy.’ He wrinkled his nose, as if the whole thought produced a stench. ‘I have thought that when this teacher is discontented, somebody will suffer. Here, it will be a child who will suffer, I think so. I will ask Samuel Lekitumu more of this Sean person, but,’ he shook his head, ‘these matters have nothing to do with our missing ones. I think nothing . . . ’

  ‘Yes, and no. No and yes, perhaps. Has Samuel told you that Miss Strutton has been discontented here?’

  ‘There’s what Charly says,’ Ella interrupted, listening curiously to all of this. ‘Inspector, you saw what she wrote about Miss Strutton.’

  ‘She does, you are right. Sergeant?’

  Sergeant Kaonga considered the question. ‘The teacher Ian Boyd and Miss Strutton do not agree on many things,’ he commented slowly. ‘I have heard him argue with her. It is the one sitting there.’ Again he made a movement of his head, a jutting of the chin, this time towards where the teachers had been breakfasting. The table was empty now of all but one man. At once he seemed conscious of the policemen’s gaze, standing up as if to come over to them.

  ‘Hoi!’ the sergeant warned Murothi. ‘She advances!’

 
; Ian Boyd looked towards Miss Strutton, Ella saw, appeared to change his mind, and walked away.

  Miss Strutton was nearing fast, chatting to students, to another teacher – who nodded and went hurrying away – to more students.

  ‘She wishes us to see her review her troops, I think,’ the sergeant muttered to the inspector. ‘She is a Big-Chief General, I think, in her head.’

  ‘Well, everyone,’ Miss Strutton said, very brightly, arriving, but ignoring the sergeant and Ella, her attention only on the inspector: ‘so what does the rest of today bring?’

  She’s nervous! Ella thought. She marches off before, all angry, and now she’s back already, because she can’t stand not knowing what the inspector’s going to do!

  ‘The search continues, Miss Strutton, obviously,’ the inspector replied. ‘Climbers and helicopters are out now. Meanwhile I will speak to everyone –’

  ‘Who? We’ve all been interviewed already!’ Miss Strutton stopped, lightened her tone, enlarged her smile, and went on, ‘The thing is, you may not have been told, of course, but you should understand that these missing students were consistently disobedient, always in trouble . . . the truth is, they have simply ignored the rules, and stupidly got themselves lost.’

  ‘Let us hope and pray fervently, then, Miss Strutton, that they will return and get the opportunity to be disobedient again, and you will have the task of disciplining them. For whatever misbehaviour you are so certain they have committed. It is an outcome to be hoped for, I think?’

  The smile slid right off Miss Strutton’s face.

  The sergeant exchanged a look with Ella, imperceptibly raising one eyebrow before recomposing his face in an expression of polite attention. Ella had difficulty suppressing a giggle.

  The inspector pressed, ‘Perhaps you will explain to me the rules about leaving the camp? The ones you feel these students have disobeyed?’

  ‘I’ve already –’

  ‘I would like to hear it again, you see, because today is a new day, and with a new day, new light always shines. Things may reveal themselves that were obscure yesterday. Today we have the significant benefit of Joe’s return. We must leave no stone unturned. Go through it again, Miss Strutton. Quickly. This is already taking too much time.’

  Her lips compressed thinly. ‘The rules are very clear. Not to leave the area of the camp except with an adult. The perimeter of free movement for the students, without supervision by an adult, is explicitly defined.’

  ‘And that is?’

  Now the teacher’s voice was shrill with irritation. ‘The flat area only, and the path up the cliff – no climbing on the rocks at all, anywhere. Only as far as particular landmarks. Only to where the path finishes that way, for example,’ she flapped a hand towards the leaning buttress of rock to the east.

  ‘And the other way?’

  She sighed testily.

  The sergeant offered, ‘I will show you, Sir –’

  ‘With all due respect, as I have repeatedly said,’ the teacher interrupted frostily, ‘this is all of no importance, you see. The rules are of no importance, as these particular students always looked for ways of breaking them.’

  ‘Is this really true?’ the inspector asked.

  Disbelief froze the expression on her face. ‘The truth is, Anna should not have been allowed to come on this expedition to Africa at all, Inspector,’ she snapped. ‘She is not a suitable candidate for this kind of experience. She goes her own sweet way, regardless, and drags others with her. I opposed her coming, but Mr Boyd persuaded the head teacher. Regrettable. A recipe for trouble. And now we have trouble.’ She ended, to Ella’s utter astonishment, with a smile of satisfaction.

  ‘And I ask again, Miss Strutton, is this really true? There is the African boy, Silowa, to consider. And the journalist, Charlotte Tanner. I do not see how disobedience of your camp rules for students is relevant to them.’

  Ella saw that the teacher’s face was no longer in the slightest bit pretty, but sour and unpleasant as if it had never softened into even a whisper of a smile. Her gaze was now drifting into the middle distance where apparently she saw something that claimed instant attention. She muttered something inaudible and went.

  The sergeant gave the inspector a beam of pure, undisguised satisfaction. ‘Of course, when the DC was here, she tried to be very polite.’

  The inspector, however, was visibly annoyed with himself. ‘Why do we waste precious time arguing with this person? She will put us in this big box of enemies. We should arrest her for obstruction!’

  ‘Ah, Sir! The Minister would not like it. It would not look good in the newspaper,’ countered the sergeant mischievously.

  ‘Well,’ Inspector Murothi got up decisively, ‘Sergeant, show me these places the students could go. That is the first task. We take Joe, we visit them together –’

  ‘And me!’ Ella jumped in. ‘Inspector, please!’

  ‘Ah, Ella, I am sorry, it would be better to join those two girls who invited you. I do not want –’

  She knew it: he was thinking in case we find something bad. ‘But I can’t just hang about waiting!’

  ‘Sir, these places are well searched already,’ put in the sergeant, with emphasis and a meaningful look at the inspector.

  The inspector looked from the sergeant back to Ella. After a minute, he sighed, with a rueful smile. ‘OK, OK. You win! You are a determined young woman, I see, and you have recruited Sergeant Kaonga to your cause! So, we will go, all of us. To help Joe remember.’

  ‘And Tomis or Likon too. They know this Chomlaya like it is their own hand! They will be good help. I will find one of them. We depart now, before the heat is up.’ The sergeant hurried off.

  ‘I’ll get water for us all, and hats.’ Ella rushed away too, to prove her usefulness before the inspector could change his mind.

  It is important, Murothi was thinking, turning to go in search of Joe, to gain the boy’s confidence. Not to confront him too fiercely or he will retreat again. In the hours before sleep last night, Murothi had tried several conversations; each had ended with the terrible blank fright in Joe’s face.

  Ella, Murothi thought now, can help with this. Whenever he is most unhappy, the boy draws towards Ella. He will speak to her when he cannot speak to me. Perhaps. She has a measure of his mood.

  The camp troubles him, I see this, too.

  Something here I did not expect. Strains. Quarrels. Rifts between one student and another. This is all inside the camp, not outside, and I had not seen that. A prickle of coldness passed over him. Has harm been done to these children from within? Are they more than just lost?

  Ella, heading towards the kitchen area in search of water, stepped over guy ropes between the tents, and saw the way was blocked.

  She turned round; the way was blocked again. A girl in front and a girl behind. Casual, but in the way.

  Before she could squeeze by, the one behind said, ‘Hey, you – whatever your name is. What’s going on?’

  Startled, Ella looked back at her. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I said,’ the tone was impatient, sharp, ‘what’s –’

  But she didn’t finish, shoving past with such violence that Ella was flung sideways over a guy rope, tripping on a tent peg and stabbing her ankle.

  ‘Later,’ hissed the girl, and yanked her friend away.

  Ella looked round. No one else in sight. It dawned on her that these two were the ones the sergeant said were Sean’s friends. Warily, she picked her way across the remaining ropes, and only then registered the man ahead, paused with his arms full of wood, watching.

  Those girls saw him. It’s what scared them off.

  The man was making a show of observing them till they were out of sight. Then he shook his head and returned to stoking the fire in a large half oil drum tipped on its side. Satisfied, he balanced a grille across the top, lifted several pots from the ground and placed them to heat.

  Now he looked up at Ella coming towards him, greeting her wit
h a wide smile.

  She said, ‘Excuse me, I’m –’

  ‘The sister of Charly,’ he acknowledged. ‘I know this. And I am Samuel Lekitumu, feeder of multitudes! And I must give my instructions.’ He indicated students behind him, carrying things from a tent to trestle tables ranged on one side of the working area. ‘I will return!’ He moved away, organising two people to sort utensils, another to scoop beans from a sack into a large flat pan. Others, kneeling by the stream, were washing up in plastic bowls, talking loudly, stacking things to dry on grilles propped between stones. One saw Ella and waved. It was Tamara, and the ordinary friendliness of the greeting quelled the last of Ella’s unease at the peculiar incident with the other two girls.

  ‘Do I get drinking water here or from the stream?’ she asked Samuel as soon as he returned. ‘It’s to take with us. I mean for the policemen and me and Joe.’

  Samuel pointed to water bottles dangling by straps from a tree branch, and a metal tank standing below it. A ladle hung on a twig.

  ‘Take, please,’ he said. ‘It is good and fresh. The students fetch it from the stream, high up, where it escapes from the rock.’ He pointed, and she saw the telltale line of a moist gully and lush green foliage that marked water springing from a cleft in the cliff. She went over and took a water bottle from the twig.

  ‘It is better if you take one for each person,’ suggested Samuel.

  She unhooked five bottles, then added a sixth, just in case. She ladled water into them, conscious of the wasteful spill on the ground.

  Politely Samuel paid no attention. He stoked the fire with more wood, large and calm and deliberate in his movements, saying, after a moment, ‘Miss Charly’s Sister, let me say this to you: these girls – the ones who stop you there – do not let them trouble you. They are small people. They wish to play big games. But they cannot truly hurt people who have good hearts.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t know what they wanted,’ replied Ella, relieved to talk about it.