by Fiona Shaw
–And if they don’t get there?
–She’ll die. In the gang, or in a Home Academy, makes no difference. But at least in the gang, they can be together. In the Home Academy, they were separated most of the time. Different dormitories for different ages. So if they got caught and put into another Home Academy, then Cass would die on her own. Martha looked across at Jake, waited till he looked back at her. –Did you think about that when you grabbed those wellies? she said.
He dropped his head. –I thought it was safe …
–And I knew it wasn’t, and you disobeyed my order. That mobile you dropped – if somebody gives it in to the hubbers, they’ll know we’re something strange. Because what are you doing for money if your mobile isn’t real? She picked up the bag. –We have to get on, she said, and she walked away from him.
Ten minutes later they were at the bridge. The water was dark and choppy with rain and the path beside the river looked lonely. Fifteen more minutes and they were walking up the fire-escape stairs. Martha knocked and Jake watched through the glass. Two figures approached, one tall and one small. The door opened and there was Swift and there was Cass.
–Go all right? Swift said.
–We got everything, Martha said, and Cass made a little jump and clapped her hands together. –But Jake needs to talk to you. I’ll sort out the stuff.
I don’t want to tell them anything, he thought. I should just get Jet and go. But when Swift opened a door and signalled to him, he followed her. And when she came back with Poacher, and they all three stood in the empty room, and Swift asked, –So what happened?, he told them.
–Right, Poacher said when he finished telling. –You done what you done. He was fiddling with his knife, flicking the blade in and out. –You broke a rule. So now we got ter decide if you can stay; and when Jake looked over at Swift, she just gave this quick nod.
They made him stand outside in the corridor. He wished Jet was there beside him. He was probably with Cass. He leaned against the wall and stared at the wallpaper: little yellow birds and green leaves, only Davie had scraped the heads off all the birds in a long line along both sides, and the paper had brown bubble blotches that had leaked down from the ceiling, like the brown stew they served up in the Home Academy on Tuesdays that always spread across the plate and drowned the peas and dyed the mashed potato.
He could hear their voices, Poacher’s and Swift’s, but not what they were saying, and he wished again that he’d just gone.
–Stupid, he said, and he hit his forehead with his hand. He should have legged it with Jet. They didn’t even want him in the gang.
–We’re done. Swift’s voice broke into his thoughts. She gestured with her head and he followed her back into the room. –Shut the door, she said.
He stood facing them. The rain had stopped and the sun had come out, shafting through the window, into his eyes. He could see the dust dance, but he couldn’t see their faces. So he looked at the floor: wide old floorboards, the cracks between them stuffed with fluff and crud, painted round the edge with a deep, black border. This was it. They were chucking him out. His heart lurched and he set his teeth tight and clenched his fists in his pockets. If only they had let him stay …
–Gang’s gotta leave tonight.
Jake looked up. –What?
Swift had turned her back to the room, and stood looking out of the window. It was Poacher who had spoken.
–Gang’s gotta leave tonight. Cos o’ you. When the hubbers find that phone, they’ll hunt fer us. An’ they ain’t stupid, they’ll find us soon enough. An’ with you nicking the wellies too, an’ the chase an’ that: staying’s too dangerous now. We gonna wait till it’s dark, then go.
Jake bit his lip. His chest felt tight. Fear ran along his spine like electricity. But he met Poacher’s stare and he didn’t cry.
–I’ll get Jet and go, he said.
Beyond the window the sun was still high. Hours till dark fell. He would fetch Jet now and they’d head along the river. They could put a good few miles in before dark. Follow the river far enough, it would take them to the sea, and then he’d get a boat to France, or Holland, or Scotland even, somehow. Him and Jet. Him and Jet always. To the death …
–You listening? I said yer still in, Poacher said.
–What?
–Yer still in – if yer want to be.
–But I broke the rule, Jake said.
–Yeah, you did. Swift turned back towards the room, towards Jake. –We’ve thrown kids out for less. You’ve put Cass at risk, cos she still badly needs to rest, and now we’ve got to walk again. You did the wrong thing, yes, but you did it for the right reasons. That’s why you’re still in.
–We ain’t yer mum and dad making rules, Poacher said. –Do it again … And he drew his finger across his throat.
Jake nodded and looked down at the ground. He was blinking hard.
Swift’s eyes were hard and her mouth was tight. –So, are you staying? she said. Jake nodded. –Right. You can go now. We’ve got stuff to sort out.
–I’m sorry … Jake said, but Swift lifted her hand.
–Yeah, she said. –We know. And don’t go guilt tripping. It isn’t wanted, and it isn’t useful.
They left the house that night. Packed up their rucksacks, hung the mattresses back on the wall, shovelled out the ash, swept the floors, threw out the food they couldn’t leave or carry.
–Gotta leave it in here like we found it, Poacher said.
–Where we headed? Davie said.
–Find out soon enough, Poacher said. –Be a long walk tonight.
Fourteen
They walked north straight through the night from the hospital, not stopping almost. Past houses shut up with sleep, and animals sleeping like stones in the fields. They walked in silence and Jake’s mind drifted. He was on the climbing wall, finding holds, just climbing and climbing, with his father below. For hours they walked, and for hours he climbed in his mind. Only once he lost his footing. It was another village and it was a small, white house: nothing special; nothing to write home about. But as they passed the front gate, he smelled his mother’s smell, her perfume. It was there, in the air, and he breathed it in and his feet went from under him. He fell headlong, crashing down on to the cold grit of the road.
They’d been in the woods for two days now. Found a place between high trees where the ground dipped and the bracken grew deep. They foraged in the high bins behind the Welcome Break for old food – trays of sushi, burger meat, packets of old salad, with Thousand Island sachets that Davie would squeeze neat down his throat.
–Milk and honey, he’d say, and tear away the strip on the next one.
On the first afternoon, Swift brought back two half-cups of Costa and a newspaper with the food.
–Here, she said, passing one cup to Martha. –They’re still warm. Left on an outside table. Get rid of the lid. It’s where they drank from.
The two girls sat shoulder to shoulder, turned away from the gang. They talked in low voices, and they giggled. Jake hadn’t heard them giggle before. They looked like the Year Eleven girls Jake used to avoid at school: the girls who used to tease the newest boys, asking questions that made Jake’s ears hot even to remember.
The smell of their coffee: Jake closed his eyes. It reminded him of his mum and dad. He let his memory drift …
–Jake? Ollie’s voice made him start. –The virus vaccine. That’s what your mum and dad were doing?
Jake opened his eyes. Ollie was hunched over the newspaper, spread across the flattened bracken. He looked round, his blue eyes wide with excitement.
–Look. Here, Ollie said, pointing.
Jake crouched over to read:
VACPLUS VIRUS VACCINE HELD
READY AT SECRET LOCATION
Volunteers Needed for Final Trials
Martha and Swift had turned back to the gang, no giggles now.
–Is that what your parents were working on? Martha said.
Jake
shrugged. –A vaccine for something. They didn’t tell me what. I’m guessing it was for the virus. But it must’ve been important, cos the day they died, these people came and took all their work files from our house. Didn’t say anything to me. Not even that they were sorry about Mum and Dad being dead.
–Strange, Ollie said.
Jake shrugged again. The coffee smell. He saw his mum sitting in a deckchair and his dad giving her a cup of coffee, made all special like he did at the weekend, and his mum putting her finger in the froth and laughing.
–Listen to this. Martha tapped the column halfway down the page. –Stun boats see off French aggro to rescue ninety migrants off Kent Coast, before picking a further fifty bodies out of the waves.
–People drowning’s nothing new, Ollie said. –My cousin drowned, trying to get out.
–But stun boats? Swift said. –They’re new. We might have to get over the border by sea. Let’s hear what we’re up against. Read it out, Martha. All of it.
So Martha read the article out in a low voice, not to wake Cass, sleeping beside her:
–More than one hundred and forty migrants broke the law and ignored weather warnings on Thursday, cramming into rubber boats in an effort to cross to France. When French boats were sighted inside English waters, hub police quickly used state-of-the-art drone stun boats to apprehend the migrants and prevent the French from picking them up. Once stunned, many drowned because home-made life jackets failed to keep their heads clear of the high waves. The Home Secretary told reporters: “It is hard to believe parents will jeopardize, even sacrifice, their children’s lives in this way. Our laws are clear and our borders are absolute. The safety of our people depends upon it. We will do all necessary to protect England. It is, of course, a tragic pity that so many children died during this operation.”
–Cass wouldn’t have stood a chance, Swift said. –The children don’t stand a chance.
–We couldn’t have got a boat anyway, Poacher said. –Cost a bomb an’ we ain’t got any money. An’ yer can’t nick ’em. Keep ’em in big hangars now with guard dogs and alarms and that.
Poacher showed them the emergency exit at the back of the Welcome Break, and Swift explained how to get past the CCTV.
–We’ve got two anoraks for it. You go in pairs and you wear the anoraks. Don’t put the hoods up because if anyone’s watching the screen that minute, it’ll make them suspicious.
–So what about our faces, then? Davie said.
–Keep your head down. Take a mobile, pretend to be texting. Your eyes are the thing. They can trace them. And you feel like you’re gonna twitch about, Davie, or blurt anything, get back here.
So in the small hours they slipped inside in pairs to use the Conveniences. The Conveniences reminded Jake of the Home Academy: cold lights, lines of basins, straggles of hair on white tiles. Machines sold condoms, and round balls you could chew to clean your teeth. Jake stood at the basins and squeezed pink soap from the dispenser and a dozen boys in beanies stared back at him in the long mirrors. Beside him, Davie swiped across his forehead once, twice, three times, and the mirrors were crazy with a dozen lost boys in a dozen sleeveless donkey jackets, all patched with tiny stitches.
But the hot water: that was good, and he put his hands under the tap again to feel it.
Swift took Cass and they weren’t gone long, but she came back shaking her head. –Got given the eye by one of the cleaners, she said. –We can’t go in again. We gotta get a ride soon, doesn’t matter where to, else we’re done for. They’ll catch us.
The bracken was dry and soft in the place between the trees and it smelled like earth and almonds. When Jake woke again, there was the green of the bracken and Jet warm against his warm knees. Martha was shaking him.
–Your watch, she said. –Go get us a lorry. She gave him a quick smile too, like she’d finally forgiven him, and he was so glad he nearly skipped over to his watch.
Poacher had explained this to him. –What you got to do is check the lorries for our sign. A driver that’ll give us a ride, he’ll put a sign on the lorry.
–What kind of sign? Jake said.
–Ours. An’ the lorry driver, he puts it on the licence disc. That’s what yer gotta check.
–Risky for him, Jake said.
–Yup. Dangerous for him like it is for us. Fracking fields fer him, or the like, if he gets caught.
–But if we see the sign, we can get a ride, Jake said. –Did you get rides last time?
–There was only two of us, so it was easier, Poacher said. –We could get rides in the vans too. Never had to wait beyond a day. But there’s too many of us now fer a white van, so it’s gotta be a lorry. We want one goin’ north, but we ain’t gonna be too picky now. Too late fer that.
It was Jake’s third watch, and this was the eleventh lorry he’d checked. Green with white stripes. Jake watched the driver head towards the Welcome Break. Going for his dinner, Jake thought, and his stomach growled. Once he was out of sight, Jake climbed down from his tree, picked up Jet’s lead and clambered over the fence on to the tarmac. If anyone stopped him, he was just a boy giving his dog a bit of a walk; long car journey, that sort of thing.
Keeping Jet tight to heel, he walked across the tarmac.
The lorry was called ‘Barbara’, up there in fancy gold writing on the bonnet. Through the high cab window he could see photos above the windscreen of children, and a cat and a naked woman pinned up behind the driver’s seat. The licence was tucked behind the lorry’s second set of wheels and he had to peer in close to see it properly. It looked just like the others and he was already turning away when he saw the sign.
–Oh … he said out loud.
It was on the corner of the disc, and small enough that he’d nearly missed it. He looked again, in case it was an accidental mark: a bit of grime off the road, a smudge in the licence ink. But no. It was the sign. The same sign he had tattooed on the back of his neck. The Outwalker sign, there on the corner of the licence in blue biro: a circle with a dot in the middle.
–That’s it, Jet, he whispered. –That’s our ride out.
Fifteen
Poacher made them pack up the camp there and then.
–We gotta be ready to go soon as the driver gets back.
–But we don’t know where he’s going yet, Martha said. –He might not even be going north to Birmingham. He might be going anywhere.
–Don’t matter. Swift’s right. We used up our luck here. We go where he takes us. So we gotta eat what we can now, cos once we’re inside that lorry, we dunno when we get to eat next. An’ peeing, same thing applies. So go an’ do it now in the woods. An’ keep yer rucksacks by you.
Then he sent Jake and Jet back to their watching post.
–Soon as you see the driver, git over the fence and wander over like it’s a chance thing that you cross his path. Tell him quick you seen the Outwalker sign. After that it’s up to him to get us into the lorry.
So Jake sat and watched and waited. Jet had his ears pricked too, like he knew something was about to happen.
Off to the left, cars were driving in for fuel. He watched kids get out of a car and head into the garage shop, come out with packets of Haribo. He’d done that with his mum and dad, and never dreamed there might be a boy like him watching. An Outwalker boy.
–Come on, our man, Jake murmured. He watched for nearly an hour, and at last his driver returned, a paper and a Costa in one hand and a slab of something in the other. He was a slab of a man too. Big hands, big belly, red face. Didn’t look that friendly. Jake climbed the fence. Quickly he walked across the tarmac, making sure his path crossed the driver’s.
If he’d got it wrong, this man could shop them all. There’d be a hub station in the Services. He could do it in two minutes.
As soon as Jake was near enough, he made as if he’d got Jet’s lead tangled, and bumped into the man by mistake, and he said it out straight. –I saw the sign. We need a ride.
The driver acte
d cool as a cucumber. Didn’t look at him, or slow down. Spoke to Jake in a quiet voice. –Follow me.
The driver unlocked the cab door. –Get in, he said, –and the dog.
Jake climbed inside the lorry cab and sat down underneath the picture of the naked woman. The driver swung himself up and inside, pulled the door shut and locked it.
–Right. You and how many more?
–Six more, Jake said. –And Jet; and he pointed.
The driver was shaking his head. –The dog’s fine, but I can’t take seven. It’s too many. He took a bite out of his slab.
Jake stared out of the window. Poacher hadn’t told him what to do if he said no. Would some of them go and some of them stay beneath the trees and wait for another lorry? Would Swift and Cass go? And Martha? He bit his lip and waited.
–How old are you? the driver said at last.
–Thirteen, Jake said.
–Thirteen, the driver repeated, raising an eyebrow.
–Nearly.
–Twelve then, the driver said, and Jake nodded. He saw the driver look up towards the photos of the children. –You the youngest? They get you doing the dirty work? Checking out the lorries and that?
–It’s not anyone’s dirty work, Jake said. –And we all do it.
–All right, all right. The driver put his hands up like a pretend surrender.
–Except Cass, Jake said. –She doesn’t do a shift cos she’s too small.
–So how old is Cass, then?
–About five. Or six, maybe.
–Five? You serious? Jesus. The driver put his head in his big hands and Jake wondered if he was going to cry. But when he lifted up his head again, he looked angry, not sad.
–You got any adults with you?
Jake wasn’t sure. Were Poacher and Swift and Martha adults?
–I dunno exactly, he said.
–First time I picked up kids from Michaelwood. So how long you been waiting?
