A Ravelled Flag (Strong Winds Trilogy)

by Julia Jones

  This was what it should have been like. Living at Pin Mill.

  Hours passed. They were all amazed when a sharp toot-toot from Rev. Wendy’s car informed them that the vicarage supper had long gone cold.

  “I’ve made a decision,” said Gold Dragon later. “There’s been a film crew circling ever since this old lady arrived in Shotley.” She beamed at Strong Winds. “They want to spend time on board and they’re offering a location fee. The modern equivalent to doubloons. If I accept, we can stock up on provisions for the rest of the winter and there’ll be enough left over to buy a cheap sixteen- or seventeen-foot day boat. Something that would take all those young scallywags out for a sail. It’d suit Nimblefingers too. Not to mention that I’m going stir-crazy cooped up here.”

  Donny was signing to Skye. He didn’t know what she’d say. She seemed really well this afternoon – the kids always did her good – but had their stormy entry into Lowestoft scared her off sailing? She hadn’t even tried to use Lively Lady since they’d been here. Admittedly she was too big to do much more than row.

  “We seek adventure on the rushing waters,” she signed back.

  “I wish,” thought Donny.

  “Hmmph,” muttered Great Aunt Ellen when he passed this on. “If only ...”

  “Good,” she said. “Now, Sinbad, you tell your mother she’s got to stay off the grog and learn to swim.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Parting Friends

  Next day

  “I love it,” said Anna. “It’s the perfect cover story. We’re going shopping in Ipswich to buy your mum a cossie. How much more girly can we get?”

  “That’s so totally cool,” said Maggi. “It means I won’t have to lie to the parentals.”

  “Yes – but you’re still not telling them anything about Oboe.”

  “No. But that’s okay-ish ’cos it’s not me meeting him. I’m just hanging round to make sure he doesn’t whisk you off to the white slave trade.”

  “That’s such a dumb expression,” said Xanthe disgustedly. “Assumes all other slaves are black.”

  “Sorr-ee,” replied Maggi. “Where are we meeting him Anna?”

  “Er, McDonald’s. I couldn’t think of anywhere else. I’ve hardly been to Ipswich and he said it needed to be near the railway station. Even though he says he’ll get a taxi.”

  “Then I’m definitely going to have to keep Mum and Dad out of the loop – they might not be that bothered about the sealed compartment he’s got ready-booked on the Orient Express but they’d have a utter sense-of-humour failure about us going to Maccy-D’s.”

  “I reckon I’m gonna change my ring-tone. Get something in-your-face imperialist.”

  “Huh?”

  “Ironic, little sis. Making a statement.”

  “Whatever.” Maggi shrugged.

  Donny didn’t get it either. Xanthe had this big thing about being a world citizen. She’d already announced that she wasn’t going to do A-levels next year, she wanted to do the IB. And then she planned to study International Politics. He supposed she’d be leaving Gallister High.

  He didn’t want to think about that. He’d stick to now.

  Anna’s plan seemed good. McDonald’s might leave adults gibbering but it was a handy spot to meet. He’d printed off a map of Ipswich docks and found what looked like a side arm of the river that would take them almost all the way there.

  “How are you supposed to know it’s him?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” confessed Anna. “He says he’ll be wearing his tie pin and I’ll recognise it as a souvenir from Happier Times. He still thinks he’s meeting Mum. I’m not worried. In the real world how many Saturday afternoon Maccy-D customers are going to be wearing a tie? Let alone a tie pin!”

  Gold Dragon signed her location contract from the film people and suggested Donny should buy a couple of pairs of larger trousers and some new school shoes as well as the swimming costume and a waterproof jacket for Skye. There could have been bus fares all round except Donny pleaded that sailing would turn a chore into an adventure.

  “Setting off by boat to buy school shoes sort of brightens up the prospect.”

  She grinned her wrinkly grin. “A raid on the unsuspecting burghers and you sail home laden with their finest produce. It almost makes me want to stow away with you.”

  “Your Great Aunt Ellen in McDonald’s – I don’t think so!” said Anna when he told her later. “Not her sort of burgers at all.”

  “She’s such a star,” said Donny affectionately. “I’ve never met anyone else like her. I must read that book that she’s so keen about.”

  “Now your bike problems aren’t so bad maybe you could. You’re surely up to date with work after all those detentions.”

  “Certainly am! And did the music teacher ever catch up with you? He was marking your work as if you were some young Mozart and kicking himself into next week because he’d never noticed you.”

  “That’s the way I like it.”

  “Well, there’s a really scruffy old folder of yours in the DT cupboard if you want to let him down a bit.”

  She looked surprised. “Can’t be. I’ve got all my books. Last year’s as well. Thanks anyway.”

  If it hadn’t been for the weather, Donny might have settled down to read Missee Lee at that point. Or Swallowdale or Winter Holiday. But these days were gorgeous: it seemed as if summer couldn’t bear to end. The trees along both sides of the Orwell were changing colour with such reluctance that they were a mass of orange, red, and green – nature’s traffic systems gone totally asynchronic.

  The late afternoon light slanted low across the water when Donny got home from school each day, colouring the river a deeper, more intense metallic blue. Actually blue – not grey or green or latte-brown. Skye seemed steadier, Gold Dragon was spit-and-polishing Strong Winds for the camera crew and, now that he’d got fitter, Donny wanted to be out of doors all the time.

  Even the sullen surveillance of Toxic’s Year Ten thugs couldn’t spoil his pleasure. They hung around the Hard a lot, drinking from cans labelled ‘Vommitt’ or ‘Killer!’ which they chucked empty into the mud, lurching and swearing. One of them had a black, half-grown bullterrier in an outsize spiked collar which was so cartoon-ish it could almost have been funny – except for the way they were winding it up, which wasn’t.

  Friday 20 October

  On the evening before the expedition, Luke, Liam and Vicky came down with Donny to the Hard. They called for Skye and set out along an up-river path, meandering through the trees towards the Royal Orwell & Ancient Yacht Club. They didn’t go any nearer than the edge of its smooth green lawn. They weren’t sure that they were allowed to be there and anyway they didn’t have long. These late-October afternoons finished a lot sooner than in real summertime.

  Skye had brought some water and a survival mix of nuts and raisins and they stood eating these and gazing at the view. The masts of moored boats made a mat of prickles along the left bank of the river but it was the smooth concrete curve of the Orwell Bridge that dominated the skyline. The setting sun seemed to strike it full on as it towered above the surface of the water on its eight solid legs.

  “We’re going to sail under that tomorrow.”

  “You’re well lucky. You might discover it’s a magic doorway.” Luke was yearning to be part of Lively Lady’s crew. “You might get eaten by aliens.”

  “Maybe you and Liam can come next time,” said Donny, though he knew that it was the first time that mattered.

  “Eff orf, won’t yer?”

  “ ’Ere Gnash, get ’em!”

  “Friggin’ mutt’s round me legs!”

  “Let ’im go then!”

  “Nah, ’e’ll bleedin’ eff orf, won’t ee?”

  “Let ’im ’av it then, useless crittur!”

  “Kill ’em
, Gnash!”

  The Year Tens and their dog were there. Standing among the trees behind them, blocking their way home. Four of them and a girl wearing hoodies and ripped jeans. Tattooed, razor-headed, and wired for a fight. Especially a fight with a deaf woman, a baby, two primary school kids and a skinny boy in the year below them.

  “You asked for aliens?” said Donny aside to Luke. He wasn’t sure how to cope with this situation. He’d seen off a couple of them when he’d been completely furious and armed with a hefty wooden oar. This was different. He was unarmed, relaxed and all the kids were here.

  “They look well hard. Reckon we can take ’em on?” Luke asked.

  Should they run? Through the dinghy-park or across the lawn? Seek shelter in the yacht club? Even as he began thinking this, he spotted a black Range Rover parked near the flag-staff above the moorings. The fat policeman must be there, probably checking his foul shark-boat – or in the bar, slurping.

  Skye picked up Vicky and turned for Pin Mill. Began walking towards the well-hards and their dog. They bunched together blocking her way.

  She paused and felt in her bag with her one free hand. Pulled out the remainder of the nut and raisin mix. Offered them to the young thugs as if some sort of payment for safe passage.

  They were accepted, passed round, shoved into mouths, chewed.

  And then in a hail of spit and fragments they all came flying back again, splattering Skye, Vicky and the boys.

  The well-hards wiped the last smears of gob from their mouths and fell about laughing. Their dog looked confused but pulled against its chain and growled obediently.

  Skye put Vicky down again and took the water bottle and a muslin from her bag to wipe the child’s face and hair, softly comforting. She cleaned Liam too as his mother ... might have done. Smiled at Luke, shook her head at Donny, signalling that he should stay calm, not retaliate.

  When the last of the water had been used, she screwed the lid back onto the plastic bottle, scooped Vicky back up on her hip again and walked across to the gang holding out the bottle for them to take.

  Astonishingly, they did.

  The girl began screeching at Skye to ‘stick-it’ but one of the boys told her something that Donny couldn’t hear. Probably that Skye couldn’t hear.

  The girl quit screeching, cackled with unkind laughter and began putting on an act of herself glugging from the empty bottle. The well-hards loved it.

  Then they stood aside and motioned to Skye and her group to pass. Followed them back along the narrow path, relishing their mumbled private jokes and lobbing the occasional beechnut, insult or hard brown acorn at the backs of retreating heads.

  The woods were growing darker. Birds were hunched along the river’s edge and there were sudden flappings in the trees as pigeons and pheasants tried to settle for the night, then were disturbed by this strange procession.

  Donny was seething with rage. But what could he do? Vicky had fallen asleep against Skye: Luke and Liam were walking in silence, shoulders hunched, enduring. The evening had turned sour. All the younger boys had to think of now was tomorrow’s car journey to the prison.

  He wondered what visiting a prison was like. He wondered what their dad was like. The boys never said much about him.

  There were lights through the trees ahead of them. Car-lights. Gerald was waiting where the path turned into road. The thugs vanished into the gloom, dragging the dog along and tossing Skye’s plastic bottle into the air as if it were a trophy.

  Gerald was looking agitated. “Miss Walker’s had bad news. A friend has died. Wendy’s waiting with her till you get back. Come along, children. Strap into your booster seats. Anna can supervise baths. I’ve set the thermostatic control.”

  Skye and Donny hurried home to Strong Winds. Donny noticed that his mum had begun shaking again. She’d been so calm. Had dealt with the thugs, so confidently.

  He supposed it was a reaction. Or the shock of the news he’d just signed to her. She probably saw Gerald’s car-lights as the eyes of Pauguk, the death-spirit, gleaming through the darkness.

  “A particular friend has died,” explained Wendy who was waiting at the end of the gangplank. “A friend from childhood. If she’d known he was alive, she’d have made contact as soon as she returned to England. She heard it on the evening news. I didn’t want to leave her until you came back. God’s ways can take some getting used to.”

  “I’ll say!” muttered Donny as he watched Wendy’s sensibly- clad figure disappearing into the twilight. “Poor Gold Dragon. She thought that all her friends were gone and now she knows they are.”

  He cooked a noodle stir-fry but couldn’t persuade Great Aunt Ellen to do more than pick at it in silence. Skye didn’t want anything at all.

  No-one lit the cabin lamps.

  Donny went early to his bunk, retrieved Missee Lee from his bag, and was soon absorbed in the adventure. Several chapters in, he fell asleep.

  Skye couldn’t sleep and was afraid to dream. Very late that night she gave up trying and went ashore.

  Saturday 21 October

  Next morning the cabin smelled sour and Donny couldn’t wake her. Certainly not in time to walk up to the vicarage, meet Maggi, collect Vicky, and catch the bus for Ipswich.

  “She’s been on the grog again,” said Gold Dragon grimly. “I don’t know where she’s getting her supplies. She’s got no money unless I dole it out and they won’t have her inside the pub. Someone’s putting it her way and I can’t figure out who or why.” She looked old this morning: old and haggard and angry.

  “I should have kept a better look-out. I knew she was upset. It was totally my fault. I’ll catch the bus and help look after Vicky. It doesn’t matter if we don’t sail.”

  His great-aunt stared at him. “Doesn’t matter if you don’t sail? Eh? Chin up, Sinbad. Sleeping Beauty’s out for the count. She won’t miss us. Let’s cut along to the vicarage and I’ll step up for sprog-minding.”

  “Er, wicked ... Er, would you want to come to Ipswich then?”

  “Certainly not,” a gleam of amusement lifted her expression for a moment. “Rest at ease, Able Seaman. If the Reverend accepts my services, I’ll bring young Vicky back and stand a watch on Sleeping Beauty too. You youngsters don’t need me cluttering your decks.”

  Donny was incredibly grateful but he felt really bad. He wanted to say that they did want her on their expedition; he wanted to urge her to come with them. But this was Anna’s adventure: Oboe was her secret and probably a dodgy one. Skye would have been okay hanging about McDonald’s but Gold Dragon was far too shrewd.

  “We do really,” he said weakly. “Will you come next time?”

  “Wait till I get my sixteen-foot skiff: then there’ll be no escaping me.”

  As it turned out, she wasn’t needed for baby-minding either. Vicky was going to the prison with her brothers and so was Rev. Wendy. No-one had wanted to mention this to Anna.

  “We put in an application some weeks ago. Luke and Liam convinced us it wasn’t right that we should always leave Vicky behind. She is his child too. But because she’s so young the checking procedure is much more complex. And he’s not seen her since the first weeks after she was born.”

  “When he tried to snatch her!”

  Anna was so furious she’d hardly bothered to say good morning to him and Gold Dragon.

  “Anna, I understand your hostile feelings.” Rev. Wendy was using her especially calm voice – the one that only ever made Anna angrier. “And I don’t want to upset you further but in fairness I have to say that it’s quite likely that your mother condoned the abduction attempt. Mr Whiting was still on bail then. He hadn’t been convicted.”

  “You think my mother knew that he was trying to grab Vicky and do a runner with her? He’d never have coped. She ... she was a baby!”

  “Possibly your mother was planning to go w
ith them?”

  “And leave me! And the boys! With you? I don’t think so!” Anna sounded almost hysterical.

  Gerald tried to help. “We don’t know, Anna. None of us know. One day we may find out ... ”

  “Too right we will!” she interrupted, but for once Gerald didn’t let himself be stopped. “Until that time we have to do the best we can. You have recently started to display a much more mature and caring attitude to the younger children. Perhaps your example has encouraged Luke and Liam? They asked for Vicky to come with them. It wasn’t our suggestion. We agreed, however, and so did their father. And so, belatedly, have the authorities.”

  “Oh suit yourselves. I don’t give a stuff. Come on Maggi, come on Donny, let’s go sailing.”

  She’d turned round and was flinging out of the house when Gold Dragon stepped in her way. “Avast there, Anna. You’re bound east and they’re bound west but it’s important that you part in friendship. They might sink with all hands before the day’s out. Or so might you. Never let the sun go down on your anger. My father used to tell us that.”

  Anna stared at her. Suddenly she began to tremble as if she were freezing cold. “Never ... let the sun go down on your anger,” she whispered. “It’s what my father used to tell me too. But parents don’t always do what they tell you. He and my mother quarrelled that night. Before he was called out. It was why the music in our house had gone wrong. They didn’t make up and he never came back. The plane had crashed. The sun went down into the sea that night and never came up again, for me.”

  Everyone stood still, staring.

  Great Aunt Ellen was the first to recover. “Oh my darling child!” she said, quite out of character, and put her old arms round her. Anna began to cry as if she’d never cried before – big, gulpy sobs that ran through her thin body like waves.