Ticket To The Sky Dance

by Cowley, Joy

  The City Mission did the best breakfast, even if it meant a bit of a wait. Most of the people in the long line were guys like Banjo’s dad, not shaved and smelling of booze. But there were a few kids, too, and a few old ladies who lived in the park and the railway station.

  ‘Hi, Jancie! How you doing, darling? Hi Shog! Nice boots from Father Christmas? Heh, heh!’

  The twins took their buttered toast and hot chocolate out into the sunshine and dropped crumbs for the pigeons and sparrows. They ate, drank, talked, wiped their hands on their pants, felt good and warm. On the right side of breakfast, they were ready for everything.

  At this time of year, there weren’t too many flowers in the park but they did find some pink chrysanthemums which Jancie picked while Shog kept watch. Then there was the discount bus ride to Eventide Home and the tricky bit of sliding invisible past the nurses and attendants.

  There was a fifty per cent chance of getting in undetected, to see their grandmother. Other times it was:

  ‘Where did you two come from?’

  ‘Hey, you kids! This isn’t visiting hour!’

  ‘We told you before. Don’t you ever listen?’

  ‘Did you ring the bell at the desk?’

  Once, only once, a new nurse with a smile like sunshine said, ‘Mrs Donoghue? Of course, you can see her! Oh my, what beautiful flowers!’

  This time, the woman at the desk was on the phone and they got past without being seen, right down the corridor and into Gran’s room. Except that it wasn’t just their grandmother’s room. There were three other women too, each in a corner bed: north, south, east and west.

  The twins were aware that Gran was by far the youngest looking in the room. Her hair was white. They’d never seen it any other colour. She said it went white the first time a boy kissed her. But her face was still strong, not cracked and falling in against her skull like the other women, and she had all her teeth. Only her eyes were old—very old and yet, at the same time, very young. They seemed to have got bluer, a milky colour with no light, no shine. It was as though her eyes were simply painted on her face, nothing at all behind them.

  She was lying fully dressed on top of her bed, winding a piece of string round her finger. When it was fully wound she undid it and started again with a finger on the other hand. She did not look at them.

  ‘Gran?’ Shog touched her shoulder. ‘It’s me. Shog.’

  Jancie laid the flowers on the bed and leaned over Gran to kiss all over her face. Then she rested her cheek against Gran’s hair. She didn’t say anything. But Gran turned her head a little, lifted her hand from the string and said, ‘Carmel? That you, Carmel, you wee thing?’

  It had been a long time since she had recognised them as her grandchildren. If she knew them at all, it was as her son and daughter-in-law, Seamus and Carmel.

  Shog knew that Jancie was crying and that the crying was between her and Gran and beyond him. Jancie had always been Gran’s favourite. He did not resent the fact but sometimes felt bad that he could not share the pain Jancie suffered. Gran was not living and not dead. She didn’t seem to exist anywhere except for rare moments when she seemed to come back to her eyes and ask what there was for tea. Then her eyes would lose focus once more and she would drift away.

  While Jancie was whispering in Gran’s ear, Shog took some old flowers out of a vase and put the pink chrysanthemums in it. Then he looked for a place to put the faded flowers. There wasn’t any. He stood there holding them, looking about the room, aware that the other women were staring at him over the tops of their sheets. One old lady watched his Zeus boots, with widening eyes and a tremor that spread from her mouth to her hands and then her entire body. Shog thought she was admiring the shining boots but then realised that it was fear that filled her. She reached with a shaking hand for her bell and began calling, ‘Nurse? Nurse? Nurse?’

  Gran was lying still again, her eyes blank, her face almost unlined. Jancie smoothed the white hair back from her forehead and walked away from the bed.

  ‘Nurse? Nurse?’ The woman’s voice went on and on like the shaking reed of a clarinet.

  Shog and Jancie managed to get out of the door before the attendant came, running. They cut down the fire stairs to the ambulance bay and slipped out, Shog still holding the bunch of dead flowers.

  The twins went to the caravan park where Banjo’s dad was staying, but they found his trailer locked. Shog didn’t want to hammer too loudly. Banjo’s dad had a terrible temper when he was drunk. But he was sure that if Banjo had been there, he would have heard and opened the door to them.

  As usual, Jancie picked up his thoughts. ‘Shog, just because he’s little doesn’t mean he can’t look after himself.’ She grabbed his arm. ‘Let’s jump a bus to Flander’s Theme Park.’

  ‘He can’t,’ said Shog.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Banjo can’t look after himself. I know it.’

  ‘Sure he can! I bet he’s at camp right now.’

  Shog frowned. ‘I’ve been wondering about that guy, the heavy in the shoe shop. Suppose he got out of the car yard and went after Banjo.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Anywhere. I don’t know. Just suppose he already knew him or he ran into him. I mean, it could have happened. Look, when we were running, I said I’d meet you and him back at camp. I yelled it, didn’t I? The guy could have heard and he could have known it was the fish factory. Maybe Banjo got back first and the guy grabbed him.’

  ‘Nah!’

  ‘How do you know? He could have been beaten up real bad.’

  Jancie shook her head. ‘Ashoga Donoghue, you big dippy thing! You’re going to be a shootin’ misery until you find him, aren’t you? Right then! Shoot the day! Shoot having fun! We’ll go back to the camp and find Banjo!’

  He looked sideways at her. ‘You’re getting mad,’ he said.

  ‘Mad? Me?’ She bounced from one foot to another. ‘I’m not mad. Look at me laughing! Well, come on! Don’t shootin’ stand there!’

  By the time she’d finished talking, she had whirled round and was running towards the wharf. He followed. They sprinted all the way down Marine Parade, hooting and yahooing and kicking garbage cans. It was Jancie’s way of running off her anger and Shog’s way of fighting his anxiety about his best friend. Heck, he’d known Banjo for five years, long before Gran took sick. Banjo had no mother and a father who couldn’t care less for him when he was sober, and who beat him when he was drunk, which was why, Shog knew, that Banjo was always trying to please people. He was like a puppy in a pound. He’d do anything to get someone to like him.

  Banjo hadn’t wanted to be part of the Zeus boots pick-up but he had gone along with it because the boots were for his best buddy. That made Shog feel twitchy. They shouldn’t have got Banjo involved.

  Shog’s feeling got a whole lot worse when they arrived back at camp. There was no one at the old fish factory, not a kid to be seen. But there was a car with flashing lights parked out the back, and standing in their office, as though they owned it, were a couple of cops.

  Jancie sucked in her breath and hissed, ‘Lieutenant shootin’ Peachman!’

  Chapter Five

  Jancie knew from Shog’s face that he thought something had happened to Banjo. His mouth was like an open window and there were drops of sweat on his forehead and upper lip. She thought the same thing, but soon worked out the cops had come about something else. No prize for guessing what. Old Peachman looked straight at Shog’s feet and then gave them both the garbage look.

  Jancie looked straight back at him. ‘Excuse me. You’re standing on my sleeping bag.’

  Lieutenant Peachman glanced down at his own feet, and stepped back, kicking the sleeping bag away. ‘Thanks for warning me. I wouldn’t want to catch anything now, would I?’ he said.

  The constable with him didn’t say anything but half-smiled in an apologetic way. He was young and had short-cut yellow hair.

  Peachman looked at the constable. ‘Be careful wha
t you touch, Polanski,’ he said. ‘This place is like a sewer.’ Then he turned to Shog. ‘Well, well! Zeus boots! Why am I not surprised?’

  Shog didn’t reply. He was licking his lips, nervous as a wild fox.

  ‘I take it you know Marcus Kitteridge?’ Peachman asked in the same teasing way.

  ‘No,’ said Shog.

  ‘Well, let’s try Mr Paul Ramsay as in Ramsay Shoe Sales.’

  Shog’s eyes flickered but he said, ‘No.’

  Lieutenant Peachman took an envelope from his pocket, and waved it like a flag. ‘Mr Marcus Kitteridge was employed by Mr Paul Ramsay because various forms of low-life were stealing his shoes. Now does that help your memory? Mmm? Does it?’

  ‘We don’t know those people!’ Jancie said, moving closer to Shog. ‘We never heard of them.’

  ‘And your brother just happened to find these boots. There they were, lying in a trash can, all by themselves. Or maybe you won them in a lottery.’ Peachman’s face suddenly hardened. He whirled back to Shog. ‘Shall I save us all a lot of time by telling you what happened? You robbed Mr Ramsay and when Mr Kitteridge gave chase, you lured him into a car demolition site, ambushed him and beat him unconscious with a solid lump of timber!’

  ‘I didn’t!’ Shog cried.

  ‘Oh no?’ From the envelope, Lieutenant Peachman pulled a black and white photograph of a man in a bed. The man’s face was cut and swollen with bruises which made his features indistinct but there was no mistaking the bulk of muscle, the shaven head, the stud earring.

  The look on Shog’s face was of relief. Jancie knew what he was thinking. If this had happened to the heavy at the car yard, then Banjo was okay.

  But Lieutenant Peachman was misreading Shog’s expression. ‘So you think it’s funny! Big laugh, eh? Well, believe you me, you’re making this very easy. Come on. I’m taking you both in.’

  ‘We want to see a lawyer,’ said Jancie.

  ‘A lawyer?’ Lieutenant Peachman gave the garbage look. ‘Now you’re making me laugh.’

  They were pushed into the back seat of the car and driven to the police station on Maple Drive, not far from the City Mission where they’d had breakfast that morning. It wasn’t the twins’ first visit to the Peaches Can, as it was called, but it was their first experience of being shut in an interview room with an officer on guard. It was the same man who had been with them at the camp and in the car, and he wasn’t too bad. At least, he didn’t give them the garbage look. He said his name was Officer Stephen Polanski and he asked if they wanted coffee or a soda.

  Jancie wouldn’t reply on principle. She shot a look at Shog and he didn’t say anything, either.

  The cop shrugged, picked up a magazine and sat down to thumb through the pages. Shog rocked on his chair, back and forth until the legs squeaked. Jancie folded her arms and thought about Gran.

  Nothing happened. Ten minutes passed, fifteen, thirty. Jancie wanted to go to the bathroom. A woman called Officer Villiers took her down the hallway and stood outside the door of the cubicle. On the way back, she tried to engage Jancie in conversation, casual talk about weather and holidays. Jancie didn’t know what it was leading up to and she kept quiet, but she did accept a pack of playing cards from Officer Villiers’ desk.

  The twins were on their third game of Sweep when the door burst open and slammed back against the wall. Lieutenant Peachman came in like a charging bull. He threw the photo down on the table in front of Shog. ‘So you beat him up with a lump of wood,’ he said, as though there had been no gap in his questioning.

  ‘No sir! I didn’t! He did that to himself!’

  ‘You mean he beat himself up with a lump of wood?’

  ‘Don’t answer him, Shog!’ said Jancie.

  But Shog said, ‘He fell down! He fell in the car yard!’

  ‘Shog, you don’t have to say anything!’ Jancie yelled. ‘Just shootin’ well shut up!’ Then she said to Lieutenant Peachman. ‘We want to see someone from Social Welfare. We want to see a lawyer.’

  ‘You watch too many movies,’ said Peachman.

  Jancie pounded the table with her fists. ‘I want to see a shootin’ lawyer!’

  ‘The appropriate time for that is when you are charged,’ he said. Then he added, ‘If you are charged.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Shog.

  ‘Well, that depends on you, doesn’t it?’ Peachman smiled. ‘On what you have to say.’

  Jancie leaned across the table. ‘I told you, Shog, don’t talk to him!’

  ‘Oh, stop it, Jancie,’ Shog said. ‘I never bashed the guy. I got nothing to hide.’ He pointed to the photo and said to Lieutenant Peachman, ‘Look how big he is and then look at me. You really think I did that?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘He chased me into the car yard. I ran up over a heap of wrecks. He followed. I heard this crash behind me, like wrecks falling. He must have hurt himself.’

  ‘And you, of course, did not hurt yourself one little bit!’

  ‘I told you, he was behind me—’

  But Jancie cut in again. ‘We are kids! We’re twelve years old! You’re not allowed to question us if we don’t have someone here. You have to get us someone from Social Welfare.’

  Peachman stood up. ‘Yeah, well, I’m too busy to waste my time right now. I’ll be able to do something about that in—oh, five or six hours.’ He opened the door. ‘You carry on with your card game.’

  Jancie shot Shog a quick warning look. Keep cool, man, she was trying to say. But she knew that the panic was in her own eyes, too. Five or six hours! If word got round the camp that they’d been taken in, their things wouldn’t last long. Not unless Banjo was there to protect them. It would all disappear, their clothes, food, primus, bedding. It wasn’t easy to discount a new feather sleeping bag. And some of the kids would move in to the coveted office space, as quick as look. That’s the way it was at the fish factory.

  Peachman went out and closed the door.

  Jancie said to Officer Polanski, ‘He can’t keep us here. What’s he going to do with us?’

  She thought that the constable looked sympathetic but all he said was, ‘Can I get you something to eat?’

  In less than ten minutes, Peachman was back with his crocodile smile. ‘You got your wish,’ he said to Jancie. ‘I’ve been in touch with Social Welfare and they’ve sent over a doctor to check you out.’

  ‘A doctor?’ echoed Shog.

  ‘Street kid camps are dens of pestilence,’ said Peachman. ‘For all I know, you could be carrying the plague.’ He held the door open. ‘Come in, Doctor.’

  They stared at the tall young woman in the grey check suit, who carried a bag like a briefcase. Peachman nodded at Officer Polanski who got up and walked out, then Peachman turned to the woman and said, ‘Doctor—’

  ‘Robinson,’ she said.

  ‘Dr Robinson, meet your subjects Jancine and Ashoga Donoghue, orphans of no fixed abode.’

  Her manner was quiet and cool and she barely spoke. She put her briefcase on the table. When she opened it, Jancie saw that it contained all the usual stuff a doctor had in a bag. She took out a stethoscope and said to Lieutenant Peachman, ‘If you please.’

  ‘Oh sure, I’ll be right outside,’ he said.

  As soon as he went out, Jancie and Shog began talking at once. ‘He’s fitting us up,’ said Shog. ‘Reckons I beat a guy and put him in hospital. I never did. Never. Just pinched some boots!’

  ‘He can’t keep us here, can he?’ said Jancie. ‘Look, we got to get back to our gear. Will you tell him?’

  She put the stethoscope in her ears and listened to their chests without saying a word. She took a small rubber hammer from her bag and hit their knees. She looked in their ears with a light. She felt the glands in their necks and examined their eyes.

  ‘What’s going to happen to us?’ Jancie insisted.

  Dr Robinson spoke in a soft, distant voice, as she packed her bag.

  ‘Well, considering your habita
t and your diet, you are both remarkably well. What is going to happen? Who knows? I suspect that you will be put in care. Not together, of course.’

  ‘What do you mean not together?’ cried Jancie.

  ‘I understand that the last effort on your behalf didn’t work. You ran away and joined a gang of street kids. The general consensus is that you have a deleterious effect on each other.’ She looked at them. ‘That means you get each other into trouble. I imagine that this time they will split you up and put you in separate parts of the country.’

  ‘They can’t do that!’ said Shog.

  ‘You asked what will happen. I told you what I thought. But I am not a welfare supervisor, merely a doctor. I can assure you, though, you are both in perfect health.’

  As she went out, Jancie cried, ‘Separate parts of the country!’

  ‘They wouldn’t do it,’ said Shog. ‘They wouldn’t. Things like that don’t happen—’

  Lieutenant Peachman put his head round the door. He grinned at them. ‘Still not hungry or thirsty? You will be. I’m sending Officer Polanski down to McDonald’s for some cheeseburgers, fries and Coke. You’d better eat them, cause you got a long wait ahead of you.’ He smiled again and disappeared.

  ‘He’s bluffing,’ said Shog. ‘He’s been bluffing all along. Trust me.’

  ‘No. They’ll do it. They’ll separate us. We’ll be hundreds of miles from each other and Gran.’

  ‘What does that doctor know? Huh?’ Shog put his arm around her. ‘Jancie, there’s something funny going on. Do you realise they haven’t even made me give back the Zeus boots? Weird, eh? I haven’t been charged with assault. Why? Because he knows I didn’t beat that guy. There would have been people in the car yard. They’d have seen. I tell you it’s a bluff. But I don’t know why he’s bluffing. You know what? I’m going to phone Fern and Trevor Sanders. They’ll have us back at their place—together—and they’ll take us to see Gran. This time, Jancie, we’ll give them a fair go.’