by Robin Jarvis
The tall, solid, round shape of the Martello tower dominated everything. It was one of many built during the Napoleonic Wars for an invasion that never happened and was now a Coastwatch Station. Others had been turned into eccentric homes, while the rest were crumbling. Suffolk was peppered with old defences along its sea-ravaged coast: pillboxes from the Second World War, or concrete bunkers from the First.
Conor’s grey eyes scanned the crowds. The boot fair was busier than usual. More people than ever were inspecting the unwanted junk arrayed behind the cars. He recognised several faces in there. He checked his phone again. Emma was late.
Cursing under his breath, he looked back at the sea. Yesterday had been a blank fog for him. No one at home knew what to say and the more they fussed the more he resented them. Now he felt like a can that had been violently shaken and was ready to explode at anyone who said the wrong thing. The sight of the sea was calming though; he could watch it for hours.
“I don’t have no money or nothing,” Emma said flatly. “So you can forget that right way.”
Conor looked around. The girl was standing beside the wall. He had been so wrapped up in himself he hadn’t heard her approach. She was chewing loudly.
“I’m not stopping long,” she told him, flicking her ponytail behind her with a toss of the head. “What do you want?”
“Money?” he repeated in confusion. “What are you on about?”
“You tell me, Goldilocks. Aren’t you after something to keep you quiet? That’s blackmail, you vile sicko. If it’s not money you’re after then it can only be the other and you have got to be kidding, you filthy perv.”
Conor held up his hands defensively. “Oi!” he cried. “I only wanted to talk about it, nothing else. You got it so wrong.”
Emma folded her arms and eyed him sharply. She couldn’t understand any motive that wasn’t selfish.
“So talk,” she said at length.
The boy wasn’t sure how to begin. He glanced down at the tracksuit bottoms she was wearing and guessed she was deliberately hiding her bandaged legs.
“How are they?” he asked.
Emma shrugged. “I’m not about to marry Paul McCartney,” she said.
Conor watched as three gulls fought over a generous piece of battered fish skin.
“It keeps going round and round in my head like a bit in Grand Theft Auto I can’t get past,” he said. “Nobody who wasn’t there can understand.”
“Are you confusing me for an agony aunt? I’m not Denise bleeding Robertson. You got problems with it? Go to a head doctor or chuck some Prozac down your neck.”
“Don’t you keep seeing it in here?” he asked, tapping his forehead. “Those faces – the screams and the panic…”
Emma turned away. “That’s my business,” she replied.
“But Ashleigh and Keeley…?”
“What do you want me to do, shave my hair off or something? They’re in the morgue, dead and blue, but I’m still here. There’s no amount of talk or blowing my nose going to bring them back or make it go away. No sense in banging on about stuff like that. It’ll do your brains in.”
Conor shook his head. “God, you’re hard,” he said. “They were your best mates.”
“I’m my best mate! Have you finished, pretty boy?”
“Not yet. I saw the papers today. No one knows why the car was out of control. What happened?”
Emma chewed and clicked the gum in her mouth. “Danny Marlow was driving, that’s what happened. He was a useless pillock. It was his fault – all of it.”
“Why don’t you tell someone? You should.”
“Who? The fuzz? Are you from Norfolk or what? I had a visit from them last night about that Sandra cowing Dixon. I’m not going to give them an excuse to come back and ask me a load more questions. I had nothing to do with that crash. I was just lucky to get out of it alive. The other poor pieces of toast didn’t.”
“Danny’s family would want to know. So would Kev’s and the others.”
“So what? Not my problem and it’s not yours neither.”
Conor couldn’t think what else to say. He should have known better than to try and speak to flint-hearted Emma Taylor about this. The fact that he had probably saved her life that night didn’t even occur to her, or if it did, she wasn’t going to acknowledge it, let alone thank him.
He changed the subject.
“I saw Sandra Dixon back there before,” he said, nodding towards the boot fair.
“She was lucky we thumped her,” Emma declared proudly. “She might be lying on a slab right now with the rest if we hadn’t. I told the police that last night. Not that they took any notice. She should be bloody grateful.”
“She isn’t the sort to go to a flash mob,” he answered.
“Don’t go sticking up for her! She’s so far up herself you don’t have to. And she deserved what we done. You know she said you was thick and couldn’t read a book without colouring it in. Snobby cow.”
Conor managed a grim smile. “She’s right there,” he agreed.
An elderly couple had been admiring the sea as they walked along the promenade. Drawing close, they paused when they saw the two young people and let out sympathetic groans.
“Oh, you poor lad,” the woman cried. “Your bruised face. Were you caught up in that terrible disaster?”
“Awful business,” the man added consolingly.
Conor didn’t know how to answer them, but Emma said, “Bog off, you nosy coffin-dodgers! Go find someone else to patronise or I’ll squeeze your colostomy bags so hard your false teeth will shoot out!”
The couple backed hastily away from the hostile, hard-bitten girl and walked off as quickly as they could. Conor exploded with shocked laughter. She really was relentlessly foul.
Emma watched them leave with a snarl on her lip. Then she reflected it might have been a mistake wearing tracksuit bottoms. Conor bore signs of battle; perhaps it was time she displayed her wounds too. She had a feeling she would need all the sympathy she could get, especially if that Sandra was going to make a stink. She had been looking forward to at least a week off school, but now she thought it would be smarter to make an appearance tomorrow, with her poor bandaged legs on show.
“Have we done here?” she asked the boy.
Conor didn’t think there was anything more to be said.
“So you’ll not tell anyone, yeah?”
He felt conflicted. “Not today,” was all he could promise.
“Just keep that gob buttoned,” she warned. With that, she strode away.
Conor chewed his bottom lip. He didn’t know what to do. A brazen seagull alighted on the wall and took a stalking step towards him, hoping for something to eat. Another landed beside it and came bullying forward.
“I haven’t got nothing!” the lad said, showing his empty hands. One of the gulls pecked greedily at his fingers and he pulled his hand back.
“Vicious little beggar!” he cried. “Bet your name’s Emma as well.”
He swung his legs around and jumped off the wall, into the boot fair.
The laden tables sported the usual tat: old toasters, garish souvenirs brought back from abroad, boxes of broken jewellery, rusty tools, redundant VHS tapes, typewriters, ugly clocks, unfashionable shoes, chipped vases, bent candlesticks, incomplete jigsaws, cracked crockery, vinyl recordings of cover-version compilations, empty picture frames. There was nothing here the red or blue teams of Bargain Hunt could take to an auction and make a profit on.
Conor moved through the crowd, only vaguely noticing what was on sale – until he came to a beaten-up camper van where a young woman was standing behind a wallpaper table covered in a display of old books. The same old book, with a green and cream cover.
With Emma’s spiteful account of what Sandra Dixon had said about him still in his mind, the boy stopped and picked one up.
“Dancing Jacks,” he read.
The woman behind the table regarded him oddly, shooting him war
ning looks. Almost as if she was telling him not to look at it, never mind buy it.
Ignoring her, he flicked through some of the pages. The black and white illustrations looked archaic to him and the thought that they really did need colouring in suddenly popped into his head.
“Ha!” he blurted. “You don’t want that,” the woman muttered. “What’s it about?”
“You won’t like it.”
“How much?”
“You’d be wasting your…”
Her voice was cut off as a movement sounded from within the van and a lean-faced man emerged from the sliding door.
“Peasant coins are all we seek!” he said with a crooked grin. “Just thirty of your shiny new pennies.”
“Thirty pence? Is that all?”
The man bowed. “For this day only,” he said. “Next week they shall be ten pounds each and after that… who knows, a hundred – a thousand, maybe more?”
Conor almost laughed at him, but something about the man’s manner commanded more respect than that. Then he noticed that the scuffed leather jacket he was wearing had been added to and was now sporting two long tails, like an old-fashioned fancy dinner jacket. There was an illustration of a character wearing something like that in the book. In fact, it even looked a bit like that weaselly man.
Conor handed the money over and walked away with the book under his arm.
The man’s eyes gleamed. Then he turned to the woman and took her hand to kiss it.
“You must endeavour to be more persuasive in your vending, my fair Labella,” he told her.
Shiela nodded slowly. “Yes, Ismus,” she said in a fearful voice.
Chapter 10
Protecting the Ismus, night and day, keeping vigilant watch upon his Holy person are his devoted bodyguards: the three Black Face Dames. No dainty damsels they, but brawny bruisers in black skirts and iron-studded boots, with midnight ribbons tied about their knees and arms. Soot bedaubs their cheeks and brows, for they have renounced their true names and their stomping dance is the deadliest of all. Seek not to gambol with them, only the Jockey has e’er frolicked and jigged in their midst and lived to laugh. Beware their Morris, beware Old Oss’s poisoned bite and Scorch’s fiery tongue.
EARLIER THAT MORNING, Howie’s tattoo parlour had been the scene of something inexplicable, perhaps even miraculous.
Tesco Charlie had left his lorry parked outside all weekend, at Howie’s insistence. Also on his strict order, they had left Jezza inside the container, with only a bottle of water, no food and no light once the batteries died in those LED lamps. Only Shiela had argued against this insane idea. He needed medical treatment. The others seemed far too ready to agree to Howie’s instructions. She couldn’t understand why they were suddenly so docile and compliant.
She had slept in the VW that night, listening out for her boyfriend’s agonised cries as he drifted in and out of consciousness. She had felt utterly helpless, but when she turned the radio on and discovered what had occurred outside the Landguard Fort, her blood ran cold. What the hell were they involved in? Jezza had spoken of a diversion, but that carnage was horrendous. Shiela knew she was caught up in something she could not begin to understand and that it was totally evil. She was more frightened than she had ever been. She did not know what to do or where to go.
Saturday passed without any more sounds coming from inside the container and she almost wished Jezza had died from his horrific burns. Perhaps then everything might go back to how it was.
Throughout the day Howie and the others would come out of INK-XS to stand along the near side of the container, thereby screened from the road. Sometimes they joined hands and sang a song they had read in that creepy book; other times they would simply stroke the cold metal, rest their heads against it and hum. Shiela had already grown to despise that book and she refused to have one in the van with her, no matter how much Howie tried to persuade her.
“It will bring you comfort,” he had told her. “Your questions will be answered within its pages.”
“Really?” she had snapped back. “Does it say what to do when everyone you know has turned into a brainwashed zombie and your boyfriend’s back looks like a rasher of bacon?”
Howie had merely smiled and returned to the others.
When they were not attending to the lorry and its strange cargo, they sat in the shop where Howie would read to them. It was like a surreal prayer meeting. They had asked her to join them, but Shiela refused and stood in the rear yard, smoking and trying to understand what was going on.
The next time she went back inside the tattoo parlour, Howie and the others were rocking backwards and forwards as they read, and Shiela had hurriedly fled back to the van. This was getting crazier by the hour.
After a while, Manda and Queenie left in Queenie’s car. They had curtseyed in her direction before they climbed in.
Shiela desperately wanted to talk to someone. Who would believe her? Her mother certainly wouldn’t and none of her old friends spoke to her any more. Since taking up with Jezza, she had dropped each of them, or rather his influence had caused her to regard them and their ideals differently. Shiela wouldn’t even know what to say to any of them anyway – she didn’t believe this herself.
When she next peered in through the glazed door of the shop, she saw that the guys were still deep in concentration, the books gripped tightly in their hands.
Shiela felt isolated and afraid. She contemplated getting back in the van and driving as far away as possible. But something inside her knew she wouldn’t be permitted to escape this. Somehow they would find her and bring her back and it would be worse than ever for her. Besides, all this was her fault. It was she who had suggested going to that old house.
Saturday night passed slowly.
Shiela was awoken from a fitful sleep, just before first light. Queenie and Manda had returned. Manda was carrying something. Was that Jezza’s biker jacket? Queenie had a fan in one hand and was holding it in front of her face as she whispered to her plump friend. Both of them had changed their hairstyles. Their hair was now curled and pinned on top of their heads. Queenie had ringlets bouncing down beside her ears and Manda had fastened a diamanté brooch above her fringe. They looked like little girls who had been playing at princesses in front of their mother’s dressing-table mirror.
The men had spent a wakeful night in the tattoo parlour. When they came out, Shiela hardly recognised them. Tommo and Miller were usually so full of stupid, infantile energy, but now they were treading in single file with slow, solemn, almost ceremonial steps, their faces grave and their normally playful voices silent. Dave and Tesco Charlie came next. Shiela stared at them in astonishment. They had blackened their faces and rolled up their trouser legs.
Howie came after and he walked over to the camper van.
“Blessed be your day, Lady Labella,” he said, bowing outside the passenger window. “It is time.”
“Jim,” she began. “What’s going on?”
He looked at her in surprise. “’Tis the third day!” he exclaimed. “The Ismus shall arise.”
“No, stop that. What are you all playing at?”
“We must welcome him and give him praise,” he answered.
“Jim!” she called as he wandered away to join the rest at the back of the container.
“I am the Limner,” he corrected with an indulgent smile.
Shiela stepped warily from the van.
Queenie murmured something to Manda behind her fan, but the pair of them curtseyed to her as she drew close. Shiela saw that they had been playing with their make-up too. There was an exaggerated, almost pantomime-like quality to them now.
Dave and Charlie inclined their heads. “Lady,” they greeted.
Shiela looked at their soot-smeared faces. “What are you two doing?” she asked.
“We are the bodyguards to the Ismus, Lady,” Dave answered respectfully.
“They are but two at the moment,” Howie apologised, “but the thir
d of the Black Face Dames shall be found and soon.”
Shiela turned to Miller, hoping to wring some sense from him. Then she noticed that both he and Tommo also had marks on their faces. They were not soot smears. They were patches of colour. On each of the men’s cheeks there was now a large diamond shape; one cheek was green – the other was red. But they were not the results of Queenie’s make-up bag. These patterns were not removable. They were still scabby and inflamed. Howie had tattooed them.
“God’s sake!” she gasped. “On your faces? Richard? Talk to me.”
He and Tommo were standing side by side. They put their fingers to their lips and shook their heads.
“The Harlequins do not speak, Lady,” Howie reminded her. There was a noise within the container and the Limner clapped his hands with joy. “He has arisen!” he cried. “Let him return unto us!”
The dawn was glimmering in the sky when Tesco Charlie clambered up to pull on the great doors. The container opened with a squeal and creak of metal.
Ruddy beams of the new morning light went dancing within. They fell across the figure of Jezza, standing before the iron throne. The blanket was tied about his waist and his head was drooped over his bare chest, concealing his face.
The others bowed and curtseyed to him.
“You must also, Lady,” the Limner prompted Shiela.
The girl looked anxiously up at the man in the huge container. Very slowly, Jezza lifted his arms until they were stretched out horizontally. Then he raised his face. It was rapt in a spiritual, almost ecstatic, expression of contentment.
“Jezza?” Shiela asked.
“Hush, Lady,” the Limner admonished. “You must be mindful not to speak of that now. The Holy Enchanter has suffered the Great Ordeal that we may have order restored unto us. All praise the Ismus.”
