by Julia Jones
Gold Dragon stood still, held her.
Eventually Anna regained control. She kissed Vicky, sniffed a lot, said good-bye to Luke and Liam and wished everyone a nice day. Maggi helped gather up their jackets, bags and purses, then walked with her out of the door. Donny and Great Aunt Ellen followed.
Gold Dragon returned to Strong Winds. The three children headed for Lively Lady.
No-one said much.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Oboe
Saturday 21 October
The only person wearing a tie in the Ipswich branch of McDonald’s that Saturday afternoon was Inspector Flint. And he had no tie pin. Nor anything else that could conceivably remind Anna of Happier Times.
Normally the sight of Flint hogging an entire corner of a café would have filled them all with apprehension but they were feeling too emotionally windswept to care. It even seemed funny.
“Fat spluffer! I’ll bet he was born here, cramming fries into his baby gob and slurping diet Pepsi instead of mother’s milk.”
“Are you seriously suggesting that Flint had a mother? You mean he might once have been human?”
“I don’t think so.”
Thy waited in the small McDonald’s for over two hours and so did Flint. There was no Oboe. Had he ever existed, they began to wonder? Was there some mistake in Anna’s arrangements? Or had it all been a set-up, one more malign happening that they didn’t understand?
Their single comfort was that this time Flint was suffering too. He’d been eating a brunch muffin when they arrived: then they watched him work his way through several cups of tea, a giant 1⁄2lb burger tower, double-fries, extra-large coke and two McSpecials with side orders of onion rings. He had his briefcase with him and made a few ostentatious jottings on his palm pad but, as he wasn’t using his radio or mobile phone in the restaurant, he had nothing else to do and no-one to bully.
Customers came in, stared. Then sat as far away from him as they could.
He tried walking up to the couple of non-white workers behind the counter and asking to see their residence permits.
“You’ll want me birth certificate then, mate. Born here in Ipswich ’Ospital. And me mum and dad. How about you?” was one offended answer: a flood of angry Portuguese and an obviously perfect piece of EU paper was the other.
Flint was driven back into his corner and sat there, glaring and making notes whenever either worker came to the counter. But this was a sideshow: Flint’s way of passing the few moments between meals.
He was there because Anna, Donny and Maggi were there: because someone cleverer than him had used the information from Anna’s old computer to hack in to her messages. He was lying in wait for Anna’s mother or Anna’s mother’s friend.
They had to be glad that Oboe never showed.
Unless Oboe had been Flint all along? Unless it was some other kind of trap?
Their worst moment came when the fat policeman waddled over and offered Anna a special McFlurry in a glass with pink sugar frostings.
Anna was so disgusted she couldn’t speak.
“Ooooh I’ll have it!” said Maggi, testing the theory that Flint considered her sub-human because of her colour.
“That’s not fair!” Donny backed her up. “What about me? Don’t I get offered one? Just because I’m a boy? I like pink. I think it’s really gay!”
“How was your Mummy this morning?” snarled the policeman, plonking the ice cream in front of Anna and stomping back to his seat.
They left the restaurant then. There was no way they could sit there any longer, waiting for a man in a tie pin who wasn’t coming – or didn’t exist. Not with that creamy-white and acid pink mound of embellished air and sugar beginning to drip away in front of them.
Flint followed, waddling in their wake.
Did he think they were going to lead him somewhere? Was he playing them like small hooked fish – or could they play him?
Donny knew they definitely had to lose him before they went back to their dinghy. He really hated the way the fat man had begun smiling at Anna.
“Don’t worry,” said Maggi. “He’s never seen me shop! Dad says he’d rather be an emperor penguin doing incubation duty through the Antarctic winter than buy a single bar of soap with me when I’m programmed to selective mode.”
Her pickiness was amazing. Donny had never realised that anyone could make such a fuss about the length of lace and number of eyelet holes on a pair of trainers. Nor that it could be so completely crucial that school trousers should have waistband buttons instead of hooks or that the large, plain, swimsuit they were choosing for Skye should not be black but an exact shade of navy blue.
Anna stayed quiet. She was going along with the tease but her heart wasn’t in it. She’d hoped so desperately that meeting Oboe was going to lead her to her mother.
The sooner they ditched Flint, the sooner they could get back to the river and try to think what she could possibly do next. Maggi and Donny began moving even more slowly, stopping between shops to wait for the policeman and ask for his advice. Always within earshot of other members of the public – as if he was some sort of favourite uniformed uncle, doing special school liaison duty. Did he think turn-ups on boys’ trousers should be made illegal? Mightn’t they offer an unsuspected hiding place for a weapon? What were his views on trainers with flashing lights? Had the emergency services ever been mis-directed by them? Could he tell them which shops had the best range of outsize clothes? He must surely be an expert!
Flint’s retail stamina turned out to be in the mayfly league, not the emperor penguin.
“I’d need a little more privacy if I were advising you on sizes,” he said to Anna, completely blanking the others. And he sent his fingers trailing across her skinny chest as casual and as deadly as the tentacles of a lion’s-mane jellyfish.
He’d already got a caller set up on his mobile phone. Proving he’d been on official business all the time. He strode off down the busy street, giving orders, a solid figure, authoritative and reassuring.
Anna looked ill. Donny felt as furious with himself as with Flint. He already knew how dangerous the fat man could be. How could he have let her get in that situation? He had come along to protect her.
Maggi was as big-eyed as if she needed extra optical capacity to believe what she’d just seen.
“Can we buy everything and go now please?” said Anna.
“You’re not ...”
“Going to lodge a complaint? You still haven’t understood, have you? How people like me can be treated. What ‘vulnerable’ means. Think what you like about Wendy and Gerald but at least they’re totally straight.”
They’d left Lively Lady moored alongside a pontoon in a branch of the river called the New Cut. There was a boatyard there, heavily protected against vandalism. A survivor from a different world.
A disused railway track ran further along the quay then was blocked by a high fence with spiked grey metal palings and razor wire. Someone had bent away a corner of the fence to make a hole through which trespassers, dog walkers, litter throwers and other people with private business could easily pass.
REDEVELOPMENT AREA
DANGEROUS
KEEP OUT
The railway line stretched on into a wasteland. It didn’t look dangerous. All that was there – apart from litter, shrubs, dog mess and rubble – was a pile of cream-painted metal containers, the same type as were constantly being loaded and unloaded from the huge ships in the Port of Felixstowe.
Except they were older and rustier. Rejects probably. Their corners were buckled, joints and rivets weeping with corrosion. They were stacked two-high behind a huge screen which had a colourful impression of the offices and executive apartments that were going to be built on the site. Not a cloud in the painted-blue sky.
The children hung around for a moment staring
vacantly. The containers had single doors and occasional windows and instructions pasted onto them: assembly point, drying area, overall storage. A flesh-pink flower logo curled over the words Pura-Lilly Services. There was a TV aerial and a washing line with t-shirts, underclothes and pillow-cases, which looked as though they’d been recently pegged out.
“No-one could be living there,” said Maggi. “They must be for workmen to change their clothes and stuff.”
“But they aren’t doing any work. It says completion 2012. That’s years away.”
“I think they are ... houses,” said Donny. “I think I saw a face like peeking out. From that top one with the wire-mesh over it. That wouldn’t be workman, not on a Saturday afternoon. Anyway that’s someone’s personal washing.”
“Do you want to go through the hole in the fence so we can check them out?” Their disappointing day and her broken collarbone hadn’t slaked Maggi’s appetite for adventure.
“No I don’t,” said Anna. “If there are people who have to live in boxes like that I don’t even want to know. It’s totally creepy. I’d rather be down in that smelly mud. Can I have another go at helming? The rest of today’s been such a total write-off.”
“We went shopping,” said Maggi. “We got the trousers and the cossie and the shoes.”
“Yeah,” said Donny “Shopping. That’s what people do on Saturdays.”
It was almost teatime and the water level in the New Cut had fallen to a thin, brown stream. High walls blocked any breeze and Lively Lady’s sails hung slack as Donny rowed her out into the main river. Anna was at the helm and Maggi sat snugly at the foot of the mainmast. She said she was ship’s cargo.
The breeze caught them as they exited the Cut and the dinghy heeled sharply. Donny worried that Anna might panic or even capsize. They’d had an easy trip on the way up. But she wasn’t caught out. She loosened the mainsheet and shifted her weight onto the dinghy’s gunwale as they went flying down the river.
“You’re good!” he said, clicking the jib sheet back into its cleat.
“I’ve been reading,” she called back. “And I keep looking at those red and green strips of ribbon to check which way the wind’s coming.”
“They’re tell-tales,” explained Maggi. “Gold Dragon was probably using them for Liam.”
“Couldn’t Lively Lady have a proper flag? On top of her mast, with maybe some special symbol on it?”
“Huh? Who was it said that flags were stupid? Who wished she’d never made one?”
“If it was me, I blame you. You were probably stressing me out at the time.” Her face was pink, her hair whipping untidily in the wind. For the first time that day she looked almost cheerful.
“Break it up, you two,” said Maggi. “We’ll have an Allies’ meeting and ask Xanthe.”
They had passed the commercial area at Cliff Quay and were heading towards the centre of the Orwell Bridge. The cars above them were invisible but a constant flow of lorry tops indicated that this was the major connection between the Port of Felixstowe and the rest of the UK. The view beneath the bridge looked like a framed old master painting.
“Luke said this might be a magic doorway. I can see what he meant.”
“That boy’s got quite a mind,” replied Anna dryly.
“I think Luke and Liam are cute,” said Maggi. “And Vicky. Maybe we should let them be Allies too?”
“Nope,” said Anna, leaning forward and gazing ahead. “They can’t keep secrets – except for Vicky ’cos she can’t talk properly. She and Donny’s mum are good like that.”
“Confederates then,” said Donny. “They’d like to be confederates and they are guarding my bike for me.”
“You mean they’re burying the woodshed key and digging it up six times a day like puppies with a bone ... but, okay, Luke and Liam can be confederates. If Xanthe agrees.”
“She will, she thinks they’re cute too,” said Maggi. “Hey! Look behind you, Anna!” An East European grain ship had pulled away from Cliff Quay and was overtaking them rapidly as they headed for the bridge. Two yachts were approaching from the other side. Suddenly the wide central space looked much narrower, a potential disaster area, not a tranquil canvas.
“Help! Donny! Maggi! Tell me what to do – quick!”
Donny glanced astern. The grain ship was already crossing their wake and the yachts were hanging back to let it through. It was no big deal.
“No probs,” he said. “Helm down, sheet in, bring her closer to the wind. Go about even. Head for those two old rust-buckets moored over there. Never mind the stink. The ship’ll be past in a few minutes. You could let the yachts through as well. Then straight down river for Strong Winds. I want my tea.”
Skye retreated back to her cabin when she saw them come alongside. That was Donny’s worst bit – even worse than seeing Flint put his pudgy hand on Anna. That his mum should want to avoid him. He’d been so proud of her, only yesterday.
Maggi and Anna pretended not to notice and Great Aunt Ellen was ready with bread and paste, ginger biscuits and a pile of newspapers.
“I want to tell you about the man who died,” she said. “I told the Reverend he was a childhood friend but that was ... the smaller half. I want to tell you, Sinbad, because we’re family and you, Anna, because of what happened earlier. You probably didn’t know but ... you broke down a barrier.”
Anna looked a bit uncertain.
“Should I leave?” asked Maggi. “I’m okay – if you need the space.”
Great Aunt Ellen closed her eyes a moment, then shook her head.
“You’re ... ship’s company,” she said and launched straight in. “Towards the end of the war, September 1944, to be exact, I was finally old enough to be doing my bit. I was working in a radar station – Bawdsey – and my job was to plot shipping and also air traffic. That was the year of the flying bombs, V1s, doodlebugs. More and more were coming our way as the Germans retreated up the North Sea coast. They came in so fast. Crossed the North Sea in minutes. When we operators were changing shifts we had to leap out of our seats to let the next girl take over without missing a single cross on the plot. A matter of honour – and important. It happened one night that the bomb I’d been tracking was coming direct for Bawdsey. They very often came close – we were so near Harwich. But this was straight for us. My shift ended. I jumped up: my relief carried on. Then I ran outside to watch. I was young. Even if we were going to die I wanted to see. It was dark. The sound of waves against the shingle was always there but I could hear that V1 engine. It was heading for our array – those pylons that they’ve demolished. There were wires between them: one and two, three and four. If it hit – and I couldn’t see how it was going to miss – we would all be gone – and the main radar defence system for eastern England would be gone with us. There was someone beside me. The engine cut. That was the moment everyone dreaded. The moment you knew that the bomb was coming down. It was him and I was in his arms.”
Utter silence in the cabin.
“It was the Boff. He didn’t work there then. He was inspecting or something. Must have thought he was about to see everything destroyed. But the bomb missed. It found the only gap between the pylons and came down in the marshes behind. Didn’t even kill a sheep. It was a double miracle. I had found him and we didn’t die.”
“The Boff?” asked Anna.
“It was what the others called him. I expect there’s one in every group of friends.”
“What happened then?” Maggi was looking at Gold Dragon as if she was seeing her in a completely new way.
“Nothing. We jumped apart, laughed, exclaimed, chatted. We were alive. We were happy. We probably kissed a bit more but that was it. No more than an extraordinary coincidence. He had to leave the next day and I went back on duty. It was only a few months later that the torpedo killed my brothers. He wrote, of course, he and his sister. Letters
of condolence and deepest grief.”
“Sister?” It was Anna again.
“Theodora. They were close friends with the older ones. They’d often holidayed together, before the war. She worked in one of the Ministries. Cal was a specialist in digital encoding. I’ve been reading his obituaries all day.”
Her voice was soft and tired. Donny had never known Gold Dragon like this. She pushed a selection of papers towards them.
He took a big swig of his tea and started to read. ‘Professor Callum Reif: distinguished scientist, telecommunications pioneer, ornithologist, spiritualist ...’ After a while he looked up. “This guy sounds okay,” he said. “He had a dinghy ...”
“On the Norfolk Broads ...” added Maggi. “They’re sort of behind Lowestoft. We’ve never been there. Don’t know why. They sound well cool. We’ve sailed past Bawdsey Manor though, loads of times. That’s where he worked, it says. Not during the war, afterwards.”
“Objective Bombing of the Enemy,” Anna’s voice was so faint that they had to stare to hear her, “was his greatest single contribution to the war effort.”
“All those lives saved on D-day,” agreed Great Aunt Ellen. “And there was so much more. He was part of that brilliant group of scientists, linguists, mathematicians. The code-breakers at Bletchley Park – you’ll have heard of them but there were so many more great minds. The importance of what they were doing ... it made my school-girl crush seem pitiful.”
“Objective Bombing of the Enemy,” said Anna in the same flat tone. “O.B.O.E.”
Donny and Maggi looked at her: they were beginning to get it.
But she was looking at Great Aunt Ellen. “Ellen,” she asked. “Do you know who you’re talking about?”
“I’m talking about the man I loved and never married,” said Gold Dragon with just a fleck of asperity in her voice. “The man who’s just died without me knowing he was still alive.”
