by Pauline Fisk
Abren returned too, but only after making sure that the door was tightly shut between her and Old Sabrina. Then exhaustion overwhelmed her and she fell asleep. It happened very quickly. One minute she was drifting off, her thoughts returning to Dogpole Alley, and the next minute she was waking up, still thinking of it but a whole night had gone by.
Abren lay in the darkness imagining her empty bedroom, with Christmas-stocking paper strewn about and nobody around to pull back the curtains. She wondered if Bentley would be awake yet. And Fee and Mena. Had they been up all night, searching for her? Been to the police and told them all about her? Taken down the decorations, Christmas forgotten as if they knew that she wouldn’t ever come back?
For the next few days, the boy was sick. Abren wanted to look after him, but he made her go and look after Old Sabrina. Her need was greater, he insisted. She couldn’t even hobble to the toilet without help.
Abren didn’t want to help the old woman, but with the boy threatening to drag himself off his sickbed and do it instead, she had little choice. In the mornings, she made up a fire. Then she fed Old Sabrina out of what the boy called the ‘Best-by-End-of Chest’ – a rat-proof metal box with a tight lid, into which he put the food he’d either bought with cash or scrounged out of bins. Then she bathed the old woman’s face and hands and blotchy feet. Then she tidied up her bird’s nest of white hair – though why she bothered she didn’t know, because it was always messy minutes later.
Then she stayed close by, dancing attendance should Old Sabrina need to be taken to the rusty-chained toilet or require more fuel on the fire. She brought food when the bell rang, and even chased spiders out of the old woman’s lap when they started making webs as if she were a dead object, not a person. And she tried to talk to the old woman.
In this last effort, Abren’s time was wasted more than in any other. Old Sabrina obviously didn’t want any conversation. She wouldn’t look at Abren, let alone answer any of her questions about who she was, how long she’d been here, how she’d found this limbo-land of old abandoned waiting rooms, and where she’d come from in the first place. She never asked for anything except by using the bell, and at the end of each day, when Abren had prepared her for the night and was heading off through the door, she didn’t thank her for anything.
‘How do you stand her?’ Abren asked one night, flopping down on her end of the mattress.
‘I keep my head down and I don’t think. Don’t ask questions – just get on with it,’ the boy said.
The next morning, to Abren’s relief, the boy was better. He got up looking like a new boy, washed himself in a kettle full of water and introduced himself by the unlikely name of Phaze II. His cough hadn’t cleared up, but he was in good spirits. He ate a quick breakfast and went to ‘do’ Old Sabrina.
She didn’t ask if he was better, but he didn’t seem to mind. He washed her like a baby – face, neck, arms, hands, feet – struggled with her tangled hair, brushed a mixture of crumbs and dust out of her lap and found a new cardigan, which he buttoned over the previous ones to keep her warm. Finally, he produced a pair of socks which he pulled over her blotchy-looking, red-and-blue feet.
‘Keep them on,’ he said. ‘Don’t mess around and pull them off. I’m going out for food. You’ll be all right, won’t you? I’ll see you later.’
Later meant that night. It was a long day for Abren without the sound of his coughing, which she had grown strangely attached to. But finally he came back, scrambling through a boarded-up window which Abren hadn’t even known was there, bringing mackerel, olives and chocolates with him. They had all passed their sell-by date and the chocolates had acquired a speckled bloom. But Abren scoffed down everything she was given – and was promptly sick.
Phaze II took her out on the girders to get some fresh air. He said this often happened, eating old food past its prime.
‘But your stomach’ll get used to it, just like mine.’
The two of them sat on the girders, swinging their legs high above the river. Abren pulled her little blanket around her. It was the first time she’d been out since Christmas night and she was astonished at how cold it was after the fusty warmth of the waiting rooms. Overwhelmed, too, by the freshness of the air and the brightness of the stars. It was a beautiful night.
Phaze II said that it was a special night – New Year’s Eve when everybody went out partying. And not just any New Year’s Eve, but the one the scuds called ‘the Millennium’.
Abren didn’t know what he was talking about, and Phaze II looked at her as if she’d landed from another planet.
‘Where have you been?’ he asked. ‘Everybody’s on about it. A once-in-a-thousand-years experience! The moving-on of time from one age to another! The biggest global party since the Big Bang!’
Abren felt sick again. She leant over the girder and heaved into the river. Afterwards she felt weak enough to drop, and Phaze II had to hold on to her.
‘That’ll be the last of it,’ he said, with an air of expertise. ‘You’ve emptied out your stomach. You’ll be all right now.’
Abren leant against him – a tall gangling boy in a flapping coat, who was the nearest she had to a friend. Suddenly all the questions came out again. The ones she’d asked Old Sabrina, and a few new ones too.
‘Why Phaze II?’ she asked. ‘What sort of name is that? Did Old Sabrina give it to you? Is she your grandmother? And if not, who is she? What’s she doing here? How did you ever find this place? And how did she?’
Out it poured in an endless stream. In the end Phaze II held up his hands, crying for mercy. He couldn’t possibly answer all those questions, he said, but he could tell her that Old Sabrina wasn’t his grandmother, and that she hadn’t given him his name.
‘But she did give me a home,’ he said. ‘And I’ll never forget her for it. She mightn’t have much else to give, but in the empty kingdom of the railway bridge she’s made me her crown prince!’
He laughed and, just for a moment, a faraway expression appeared on his face as if there was a story here, but he wasn’t telling it. Abren shivered. She wanted to ask so much more, but suddenly the town erupted. Cheers and shouts burst out across the night, starting in the Quarry Park and quickly spreading along the old town walls. What was going on? A cannon thundered in the castle garden and the town’s bells started ringing. Fireworks shot into the sky in golden chrysanthemums, red star sprays, fountains of phutting violet and rainbow rockets which whooshed through the dark. Klaxons whirred, sirens wailed and whistles shrieked.
Phaze II produced a can of lager from his black coat. He ripped it open, took a swig and offered some to Abren.
‘This is it!’ he said. ‘Twelve midnight! The twenty-first century arrives – and will it be different from all the other ones? Will it really? What do you think?’
Abren didn’t answer. She didn’t know what he was on about. The cheers grew louder, and the town’s bells rang on and on. She took a small sip of lager, then a bigger one. The world began to whirl around her in a mass of yet more fireworks and laser lights. The air was alive with cheers and chimes, the sky so bright that she imagined it never turning dark again. Even the river was brilliant with light – a golden river reflecting all those fireworks as it disappeared beneath the railway bridge, out of sight.
Abren tried to hold herself upright. The whirling world was making her giddy. She’d stop that river if she could. Stop it flowing and keep the moment steady. Freeze the fireworks in the sky. Stop the midnight clock. Make the celebration calm down. Stop time moving on and make it stand still.
‘This could be a dream,’ Phaze II said. ‘Not one that wakes you in a panic, but one that makes you never want to wake at all. A perfect dream, which you want to keep for ever. What do you think?’
‘I think you got it wrong about my stomach being empty!’ Abren said, leaning forward to be sick.
Remembering
Time moved on, flowing like the river out of sight. The days passed like a dream. Not Ph
aze II’s perfect dream, but one that was impossible to keep for ever. Occasionally the days brought wonders with them – snow on rooftops and frost on the river; pale clouds of mist and swans floating between foamy waters like dancers in a silent ballet. But mostly the days were cold and dull. Clouds blew in from Plynlimon Mountain in mid-Wales, where Phaze II said that the river began. Rain fell remorselessly and the river water, which had been so golden on Millennium Night, became a silty brown sludge. No sun offered brightness to its journey and the sky was as grey as the landscape it presided over.
On these days Abren would curl up tight, hibernating on the camp bed which Phaze II had found for her on a rubbish tip. Trains would rumble by, shaking everything, but she had become so used to them that she didn’t notice. Rats would scamper by, and pigeons coo in their roosts. But Abren didn’t notice anything. She had left Dogpole Alley on a brave adventure, but now she didn’t feel so brave.
It was as if the darkness had got her in its grip. When Phaze II went to town, she wouldn’t go with him. When he asked her to keep Old Sabrina company, she wouldn’t even do that any more, but hid out on the girders. The old woman frightened her with her blank, unseeing eyes. The girders were far less scary, for all their dizzying height.
Abren would sit out on them, watching people going by. They’d come into the tunnel, their heads down. Scuds, Phaze II called them. Stupid Cruddy Ugly Dumb people, living in Stupid Cruddy Ugly Dumb houses and working at Stupid Cruddy Ugly Dumb jobs, never looking up, always looking down, always in a hurry somewhere, busy and important. Abren watched them bustling on their way, people from another world who couldn’t see her sitting up above them. It was as if the railway bridge wrapped itself around her like an invisible cloak.
The days continued to pass in a dream, and winter turned to spring without Abren noticing. One Friday night she sat up late listening to an outdoor concert in the Quarry Park. A throng of music fans roared themselves hoarse, and Abren watched them noisily dispersing across the English Bridge. Finally the park’s floodlights went out and everything fell quiet.
For the first time Abren realised that it was a lovely night. She looked upriver to the English Bridge where a little mist lingered and stars hung over the rim of the mist. The air wasn’t clammy, as it had been for weeks. It didn’t soak into her bones, but was light and fragrant.
Spring was on the way and Abren noticed at last. As if to prove the point, a blackbird started singing. The middle of the night, yet it trilled and crooned as if it were day!
Abren thrilled to the sound of sunshine in the blackbird’s song. It was singing for her alone, with nobody else to enjoy it.
Or so Abren thought – until the saxophone joined in! It was Bentley’s saxophone, of course. She didn’t need to see him to recognise his unmistakable style. Abren listened as his notes rose among the girders, catching their own echo and playing back with it. No one but Bentley could do that, picking up the sounds around him, whether blackbirds or the river, and making something of them.
Abren crept along the girders until she could see him standing in the cobbled tunnel under her. His face looked up, but his eyes were closed. Abren hadn’t thought about him for weeks, and now here he was. She waited for him to move on to ‘her’ tune. The one that sang to her with its strange enchantment. And he surely would. He’d play ‘her’ tune, and she would wake up from her winter dreaming. It would make her strong again, and brave enough to shake off this dark limbo-land and move on.
Abren held her breath and waited. Beneath her Bentley played until his lungs and lips and fingers had been blown to pieces. And she listened until the last note faded. But he didn’t play ‘her’ tune. She watched him pack away the saxophone, toss its case over his shoulder, then start off along the tunnel, never knowing the disappointment he left behind.
Abren willed him to return, but he trudged down the river path and never once turned back. She watched him disappearing. Phaze II tried to make her come in, but she barked out that she wanted to be alone. She remained like that for most of the night, still willing Bentley to come back, but he never did.
In the end she fell asleep, with only the narrow ledge between her and the river. It was a miracle that she didn’t fall in. She awoke in the morning to sunrise over the English Bridge. But she didn’t notice it. Spring was in the air, and the blackbird was singing again, but it didn’t raise her spirits.
Abren sat up on the bridge, feeling strangely empty, as if a chance had come her way but then been snatched back. When Phaze II came high-wiring along the girders to ask if she was all right, she didn’t even answer. He carried on to town as if he couldn’t care less whether she wanted to talk to him, and had better things to do with his time, anyway.
When he had gone, Abren went back inside, looking for breakfast after a night out in the cold. But no food remained in the Best-by-End-of Chest, only a mess of rotting leftovers which even Phaze II’s hardened stomach obviously hadn’t been able to take. Abren searched the entire room, rummaging among Phaze II’s boxes and bin bags, and beneath the long counter of the tea bar, but finding only china plates with mould growing over them. A pall of dust covered everything – a lurid, grubby sheen lit by plastic icicles.
Abren looked at it all, and suddenly she hated it. Hated the mess, and the manky smell which came from bodies living without proper ventilation. Hated Old Sabrina’s wretched bell which had started ringing as if she’d heard someone moving about. And, worst of all, she hated herself.
‘What’s the matter with me? Am I crazy? I might have had to stay when Phaze II was sick, but I don’t have to stay now! What a dump! I mean, look at it!’
Old Sabrina rang again. Abren went through to find that the fire had gone out and a plate of food had fallen off the old woman’s lap. It was obvious what Abren was supposed to do, but she strode down the room to Phaze II’s boarded-up window. She was off, she told herself, never to return! Let Old Sabrina freeze before the ashes of her fire! Let her food rot on the plate, if she wouldn’t pick it up for herself!
Leaving the bell ringing, Abren squeezed out of the window on to a rusty, disused railway track. Weeds grew between the sleepers, and litter lay everywhere. A stony bank rose in front of Abren, and along the top of it stood a row of advertising hoardings upon which massive toucans, torn and ragged, advertised a drink called Guinness. Beyond the hoardings stood an old station platform, abandoned in favour of a modern station across the tracks.
Abren climbed the stony bank, squeezed between the hoardings and jumped on to the platform. Here she discovered that it spanned the river, forming one side of the railway bridge. She hurried away, hoping that nobody would notice her. At the end of the platform she found an iron gate. She slipped through it, passing a sign which read RAIL PERSONNEL ONLY, and found a footpath on the other side, cutting down between the station and the castle. Following it, she found herself in town.
Here the bustle came as a shock after weeks hidden in the darkness. People pushed around Abren as if she were in the way. Everybody seemed in a hurry except for her. What was she doing here? She didn’t know. Where was she going? She didn’t have a clue.
She reached the high town cross, and the sun shone all the way down Pride Hill. Abren looked at daffodils in tubs and leaves bursting on the trees. Blackbirds sang and sparrows chirruped between rooftops. This wasn’t the town Abren had left on Christmas night. It was a new town, and a new day. And suddenly it was a new adventure too. Never mind that Abren didn’t know where she was going or what would happen next! She started down the hill, determined to make the most of things – and starting off by finding a ten-pound note lying in the gutter.
A ten-pound note! Abren snatched it up, and bought herself a bowl of soup and three enormous pieces of chocolate cake, one after another. Then, upon a whim, she bought a postcard for Bentley – a typical tourist view of the river. She scribbled a message on the back, saying that she was alive, safe and well, and there was nothing for him to worry about. As an af
terthought, she said how much she’d enjoyed his playing under the bridge, and she finished off by signing her name.
Then she stuck the postcard in the Bytheways’ letter box, remembering that other card she’d sent to keep Mena happy – the blank card with no signature or message.
At least I’ve got someone to send it to this time, she thought. And I’ve got something to say and a name to sign!
She hurried down Dogpole Alley, feeling as cheerful as she’d done for weeks, and emerged into Old St Chad’s Square to find it full of yet more daffodils. The old church was bright, the crows on its walls were preening their feathers in the sunshine and even St Chad’s crypt had caught a bit of sunlight.
Abren started up the grassy mound, in the best of spirits. Birds swooped and sang among the trees, waiting for the Chadman to start feeding them. It was his time, obviously. He came up the mound from the other side, carrying plastic bags which bulged with sandwiches and seed, whistling the birds down through his long teeth.
Abren watched them spiralling down, undeterred by his ragged clothes, matted hair and beard, and feet bursting out of old boots. Which of Mena’s stories about him had been right? Abren wondered. Was he a merchant banker fallen on hard times? A teacher caught up in a scandal? A baby born without blood getting to his brain? The Chadman drew close, but he didn’t see Abren. All he had eyes for were his friends, the birds.
Or so it seemed until a mother and her toddler daughter came over the mound towards him. The toddler ran up to him and started chattering as if they were old friends. She smiled at him and he smiled back, filling her cupped hands with birdseed. The mother smiled too, as if this meeting were a perfectly normal occurrence.
She came and joined them, taking birdseed too, and it was a nice moment between the three of them. A pink-breasted chaffinch came and sat on the little girl’s hands. It pecked the seed, and they all beamed. The mother nodded to the Chadman as if to say thank you, and if he hadn’t been in rags, and she so clean and tidy, they could have been a proper little family.
