by Nick Gifford
“Good day?” asked Rick, adjusting his pony-tail so that it lay straight between his shoulder-blades.
“Okay,” said Danny. “You know how it is.”
“Yeah.” Rick laughed. “I do, Danny, I do.”
A murmur of voices rose in the corridor, then passed, fading away to nothing.
“You’re doing okay here, aren’t you, Danny?”
This was about him bunking off on Monday, Danny realised. A friendly chat. Make sure there aren’t any major problems, make sure he doesn’t do it again.
“You do well in most subjects, don’t you? You do enough without ever giving a hundred per cent. You don’t want to stand out, although you probably could. You keep your head down. Some good friends, too. How long have you been here at Severnside? About six months?”
Danny nodded. Outside, two of the buses had arrived, and the crowd had thinned. The sky was a heavy grey in the direction of Wishbourne. It looked as if it might be a wet walk home if he didn’t get out of here soon.
“You were following us, weren’t you?”
Danny looked up. Rick was staring at him, eyes narrowed, a half-smile fixed on his face.
“I...”
“Now why would you be doing something like that? It’s not healthy, is it, Danny? It’s not good.”
Rick picked up his cup of coffee, blew on it and sipped, blew on it and sipped again.
“You’re a bright lad, aren’t you, Danny? We’ve already covered that ground. We know you’re bright, when you want to be. That’s good. It means I can explain a few truths to you, Danny, and you’re bright enough to understand what I’m saying. Is that okay? Danny? Is that okay?”
Danny nodded, once. He tried to swallow, but his throat was dry, clogged up.
“Good.” Rick raised his cup, blew the coffee and sipped. Carefully, he lowered the cup and placed it on the bench, in the exact position it had occupied before. “I’ve had a difficult life, Danny. It’s okay: I don’t expect sympathy. I’m just setting this in context for you, so you can see where I’m coming from.”
He raised his cup, blew, sipped, and then put it back in its place on the workbench.
“David.” Rick chuckled. “He made life hell for me. And for mum. He drove her away, and he’d have driven me away too if I could have gone. Instead, I stayed and grew up with his put-downs and his stupid rules and whims. I’ve never been very successful with the ladies, you know? Would you believe that? I’ve tried. Oh, I’ve tried everything, but it’s never lasted. I always blamed myself. But now, Danny, do you know what has happened? Do you?”
He waited until Danny shook his head.
“I came to a new understanding, a realisation. I saw that the problem had simply been that I had never found the right woman. And do you know what it was that made me realise that? Val. Your mother, Danny.”
Outside, the last of the buses arrived. Children filed onto it and the bus pulled away.
“You don’t want to hear all this, do you, Danny? You don’t want to think about these things – people my age, your mother... But Danny, you have to. I have to make you understand how things are. You see, Sharmila spoke to me about all this last night. She asked how things were, and she let slip that you’re bothered by my relationship with your mother.
“That’s only natural, Danny. You’re protective. You’ve been through a lot in the last few years and you don’t want to let anyone in. But Danny, I hope you’ll be on my side. I hope we can still be friends.
“Because... I’m not going to let anything stand in my way. Do you understand? The course of love can be difficult at times, but I am determined. I won’t give in. If you have a problem with that then you need to sort yourself out.”
He raised his cup, blew, sipped.
“I know what happened, Danny. I know your dad’s inside. I know what you went through at your old school. You don’t want that to start again here, do you? All the attention, all the exposure. And just think what it’d do to Val... I can help you, Danny. I’m good at helping people – that’s why I’m a teacher. Do you want me to help you, Danny, or do you want me as an enemy? I won’t allow you to stand in my way. I’m a teacher, Danny. I could make life very difficult for you here, if I had to. If I was forced to. I don’t want to do that. I’d much rather help you.”
Danny sat on the stool, in the science lab, and stared at him. Rick. Mr Sullivan.
There was a madness in his eyes.
Danny knew about these things.
Just then, a little voice somewhere deep in his head said softly, I told you so. You should have believed me. You should have trusted me. You should have scared him off when you had the chance.
“We’re late,” said Rick, pausing to finish his coffee. He smiled, and straightened his pony-tail. “I’ve got the Mini. Do you want a lift? No? You’re walking in this?” He gestured at the window with an open hand. It was raining hard outside, all of a sudden. Fierce golden sunlight lit the school buildings against the heavy grey ceiling of the sky.
Danny gathered his bag and threaded his way through the benches to the door. As he left the room he glanced back and Rick was watching him, smiling like an old friend.
Outside, great gobs of rain assaulted him, plastering his hair to his skull, stunning his senses with its ferocity.
He walked, barely noticing.
~
“Look at you!” said Val from the top of the stairs, when she saw him enter the flat.
Danny looked up at her, then down at himself. He was soaked through.
“You get those things straight off, do you hear? You’ll have ruined that blazer! You drop everything where you are and I’ll get a hot shower going for you.”
He dropped his bag. He tried to shrug himself out of the blazer, but it was too tight and it was sticking to him with the rain. He hauled it off and let it fall on the door mat.
“Go on. The lot.”
He turned his back, then stooped to unravel his shoe-laces. There was a pool of water around him on the tiled floor.
Out of his trousers and his shirt, there was a sudden, soft thud in his back. He twisted and caught the bath towel before it could fall to the ground.
He peered up the stairs, through his wet fringe. Val was smiling. “Okay, that’s enough,” she said. “The shower’s running. You’re allowed up.”
All of a sudden, he wanted to tell her. Right here. Shout it up the stairs if needs be.
About the voices in his head, about the struggle he was having to keep tight control. He wanted to tell her about Rick. Tell her what he was really like.
She was still smiling, waiting.
He couldn’t.
It was her life.
He dipped his head, and climbed the stairs.
~
Late in the afternoon, dry and dressed from the shower, Danny answered the phone. He was half-expecting it to be his father. It had been a while since he had called.
“Hello, is that Daniel Smith?”
“Yes. Yes it is.”
“Ah, good. It’s Justin Peters here. I don’t know if you remember me... the barrister. How are you?”
“Okay,” said Danny. “Not bad.”
“Is your mother there?”
Danny went through to the kitchen, where Val was sipping at a mug of herbal tea. He handed the phone to her, and sat down at the table.
“Mm-hm,” she said. “Yes, that’s right.”
The appeal, Danny thought. This must be about the appeal. He tried to read his mother’s expression, but couldn’t.
“I see. So that’s it?” A long pause, as Mr Peters explained something. “Okay. Thank you. Thanks for letting us know.”
She pressed the disconnect button on the handset and placed the phone on the table.
“That was your father’s barrister,” she said.
“I know. What’s happening?”
“He says the appeal isn’t going to be pursued.”
“No!”
Danny twisted in
his seat. Oma Schmidt was standing in the doorway, her mouth open. “No,” she said again, more softly this time. She looked very small and old, just then.
Danny stood and went to her, held her. She felt rigid in his arms, trembling like a trapped animal.
“Why?” he said, looking back at Val. “What changed their minds?”
“Mr Peters said the new evidence was too flimsy to construct a good case. The journal. It doesn’t add enough that’s new to demonstrate a miscarriage of justice, he said. And he said that your father’s been behaving erratically. Was he okay last time you visited? You didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head and looking down. “I didn’t, did I?”
“No,” moaned Oma again, sobbing now, her tears soaking through Danny’s dry shirt. “Mein junge. I want my boy. I do not want to see him in that place. I want my boy!”
Danny exchanged a look with his mother.
Oma had been clinging to the idea of this appeal. They were never likely to release Danny’s father, but for a time it had given Oma some kind of hope.
It was her age, Danny realised. That was why this was so critical to her. She would die with her family divided and her son locked away in prison. Nothing would change that.
“We’ll see him again soon,” said Danny, into his grandmother’s white hair. “You can find one of your old pictures and we’ll take it and you can talk about the old times. He’ll like that. You always make him happy.”
“You think?”
Just then there was a thud from below, as the front door opened and shut.
“Hello, everyone,” Little Rick called up the stairs. “Only me.”
He came up, and stopped on the landing, with Danny and Oma standing in the kitchen doorway.
“Hey, Danny,” he said, smiling. “You must have got a good soaking tonight. Did you?” He patted Danny on the arm, just like old friends. Mates. “You should have taken up my offer of a lift. Isn’t that right, Val? He should have come back with me in the car.”
He grinned. In the kitchen Val was still sitting quietly, staring down at the phone.
“What’s up, Val?” said Rick, brushing past Danny into the kitchen. “Did your ex break out of the nick, or something?”
At that, Oma pushed away from Danny and headed in the direction of her room. Danny watched her retreat, then he looked into the kitchen.
With a quick flick of his head, and a movement of his eyes, Rick indicated that Danny should go. This was his territory now and he didn’t want Danny in the way.
19 Open Day
He slept and, once again, he dreamed of Hodeken.
Danny sat at the foot of a huge, towering tree, so big that its roots spread out around him like a cathedral’s buttresses, each as broad as a normal tree’s trunk.
In front of him there was a big wooden tent peg stuck in the leaf-litter. Somewhere, a woodpecker drummed on a dead tree, the sound reminding him of pneumatic drills in the streets and another dream altogether.
He stood and pulled the peg from the ground. A short distance away he saw another. He went over to it and pulled it out. He put both pegs into his coat pocket. It seemed important to be tidy.
He looked around, and there was another. He pulled it, and continued on his way, gathering the pegs and taking them with him as he went.
He came to a stream, and decided to follow it up the hill. There must be a spring somewhere. He seemed to remember looking for a spring one time before.
Through the trees! A tune. A familiar tune: one of the old German folk tunes that Oma sang. He felt the magic in the music now, the calming influence. He pulled himself up the slope past a young tree, and paused. There was a wall of rock before him, a little cliff set into the hillside, and from its base the stream burst out.
So this was the beginning of things, the spring.
For a moment, he thought what he had taken to be music was actually the merry gurgling of the spring, but then he saw that there was a dark crack in the cliff, and perched on a boulder by that cavern there was a small figure, its head partly-hidden by a conical, grey felt hat. The music was coming from this figure – Hodeken’s head bobbed from side to side as he hummed.
Danny took the pegs from his pocket and laid them carefully at the base of this boulder, his work complete.
“Very good,” said that nasal voice. “I’d grant you a wish. But then I was granting you a wish anyway. I hadn’t forgotten.” Hodeken sprang down from the rock and stood so that Danny now had to peer down at him.
“Forgotten?” asked Danny.
“Your wish,” said Hodeken. “Remember? You want everything to be how it was.”
“But it can’t,” said Danny. “That’s not possible.”
“Don’t give up so easily,” said Hodeken, skipping back up onto his rock again, so that now he looked down at Danny. “Okay, I’ll confess: things are more complicated in this modern world of yours. It takes some working out. But we can do it, Danny. We can fix everything. I just need your help.”
Help?
“The first thing to do is to get rid of Rick.”
Danny shook his head. Hodeken’s words sounded ominously final. Was this what he had done to Danny’s father? Whispering suggestions, instructions, haunting his sleep until he cracked. “It’s her choice,” he said. “It’s nothing to do with me.”
“Oh very admirable, Danny. Well done! But we both know that he’s wrong for her, don’t we? And how will your wish ever come true while he’s around? Trust me, Danny. I’m doing what’s best for you all. Sometimes you have to act in other people’s interests when you know what’s best.”
With that, the little man jumped down so that he clung to Danny’s collar with his feet on Danny’s hips and stared him in the eye.
“Look at me, Danny. I’m ancient! You’re a child, Danny. You all are to someone like me. Trust me, boy. I know what’s best. Do what I say and we’ll fix it together.”
He hopped off Danny, down to the ground.
“Look,” he said, pointing to where Danny had laid the pegs. “You missed one.”
Danny turned, saw a peg still in the ground. He stooped to collect it and there was a sudden weight in his back, pushing him. He sprawled in the dirt, gasping for air.
When he looked up, Hodeken had vanished and he was alone in the woods.
He gathered himself up. He didn’t want to be here.
Trust me.
No. He started to walk through the trees, and then to run, desperate to get away from here.
Do as I say, Danny. It’ll be okay.
No. No! Nonono!
~
He woke.
Again and again, he woke, and each time his head was filled with the dying echoes of Hodeken’s thin voice.
His father had been an ordinary man. He often didn’t notice what was going on around him, and he forgot birthdays and anniversaries. He was prone to the occasional outburst of temper, but he seemed reasonably happy in his job and in his family life. But then he had changed.
Val had started to neglect him, and Eva and Oma had taken to pointing this out to him and slowly, ever so slowly, his life had started to fall apart around him.
He had cracked.
The voices in his head had done it, pushed him over the edge.
Danny lay there, in the dark hours of the night, and he wondered how much of this he could take before he, too, gave way.
If it had broken his father, then what chance did Danny have?
Finally, he woke and there was silence in his head.
He climbed out of bed and went to the window. Dawn had already broken outside, the morning light bright through the trees.
He pulled on his clothes and trainers and went outside.
The air was fresh, as if it had rained overnight. It was Saturday morning, he remembered. The day of the Open Day.
Suddenly, he remembered the dream, gathering all those wooden tent pegs. He rushe
d across the car park and peered over the rose and honeysuckle hedge.
The marquee was still standing.
The grass shimmered with moisture – either rain or dew, he wasn’t sure which.
He breathed deep, and savoured the stillness of the early morning. Maybe things would work out. Maybe this was some kind of turning point.
He went back inside.
~
The weather was cool but sunny and promising to turn into a real scorcher. Everyone was sure the Bank Holiday Saturday crowds would be tempted out of their homes for the Open Day.
One of the local farmers had set aside a field at the back of Wishbourne Hall for parking, and Danny helped Won’t and Sunil guide the cars in, and hand out leaflets listing the day’s attractions and a map of the grounds. They were collecting money, too. HoST had agreed with the Fete Committee that entry would be free, but they would charge for parking, encouraging people to use alternative means of transport.
Won’t was grumbling about their work almost from the start. “How come we get this, then?” he said.
“Smile,” Sunil told him. “We form the first impression of Hope Springs for our guests. Be happy!”
Danny quite enjoyed the routine of it. Filling up the field from the front. Making sure there were sensible routes through the parked cars and no-one was blocked in. He liked the buzz of anticipation of people arriving for a day out.
He liked the silence in his head.
By mid-morning the field was half-full and Martin and Tim had come to take over car park duties.
Danny wandered back with Won’t through the wooded area towards the marquee. There were people everywhere. Lots of them were following the garden trail indicated on the leaflet’s map of the grounds, but others were just wandering, having a good look.
“So, is Cassie going to be here, then?” asked Won’t.
Danny shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Thought you might. Thought you might be meeting her. You two being–”
“Being what?”
Won’t sniggered, but said no more.
They came to the hedge at the top of the lawns, and Danny surveyed the crowd. Lots of old people. Families with children rushing about. Residents of Hope Springs and the rest of the village standing behind stalls with plants for sale, a tombola, a raffle, bouncy castles and bric-a-brac stalls.
