The Whispering Road

by Livi Michael

  And Flo says, ‘Hush, my baby, Mammy's here.’ And Annie's staring at me again with huge, bewildered eyes. Another mess I have to get her out of.

  ‘It's not your baby,’ I point out. ‘It's Annie.’

  And Flo's eyes flare up angrily but Balthasar says, ‘He's right, Flo. Whatever it is, it's gone now.’ He puts a shaking hand on her shoulder and Flo sighs a long, trembling sigh.

  ‘Well, by God, lad,’ says Honest Bob. ‘I've never seen anything like that before. That child's a goldmine, a living goldmine!’ His eyes are like two bright coins. And for some reason this makes me mad.

  ‘It's not a show!’ I shout at him. ‘It… it's like some bloody madness… or sickness she's got. She can't help it!’

  And at that moment I look round at Cora and Ivan, Balthasar and Flo, and realize what I'm saying. That Annie's just another kind of freak. She'll probably do well here. It'll be like home. Only not for me. I can see that now. This place'll never be my home.

  Honest Bob looks like he's about to say something, to command Annie to do something else, but Flo says, ‘She's so tired,’ in a soft voice, still stroking Annie's hair.

  ‘We all are,’ says Balthasar. ‘It's time for bed,’ and Cora starts to gather up the pots. Honest Bob starts to speak again but Balthasar holds his hand up. ‘Whatever's next, it'll wait till the morning.’

  Flo stands up, still holding Annie, and looks at me, pleadingly but with a kind of challenge in her eyes too, and with a bad grace I help her to lead Annie back towards the van.

  Flo and Balthasar whisper together for a long time, glancing over at Annie, who doesn't move. Then, when they're finally asleep, rattling the van like usual with their snoring, I lie awake and my thoughts are all sour. What's Annie doing, drawing attention to herself like that? They all think she's God's gift now. Honest Bob thinks she'll make his fortune. People'll come looking for us; people we don't want to see. I lie there, my thoughts churning over like sour milk and suddenly I can't stand it any more.

  I scramble round so that my top end's near Annie and whisper at her in the dark. ‘You think you're something now, don't you, eh? You think you're so clever.’

  I stop, breathing hard and suddenly I know Annie's not asleep, either. She's lying there, listening. It doesn't stop me, it makes me worse.

  ‘You think you're so special – little Annie from the workhouse, the star of every show. Well, you're not. You're nothing special, Annie, you're nowt. You think these people care about you – you're wrong. They'll pick you up and leave you behind like everyone else. Soon as they realize what you are – nothing. Dead weight. No one's going to carry dead weight around like I've been doing. And I'm not doing it any more, I'll tell you that much.’

  My voice runs on, spilling out all the poison in my brain, until I'm wore out and I can't think of any more bad things to say. ‘No one wants you, Annie. No one ever did. And I don't want you any more either. Soon as I can – I'm off.’

  And Annie says nowt, just lies there. I can hear her breathing. She's not even crying and somehow that makes me even more mad. But in the end my voice just runs out all on its own, and I scramble back round and lie on my back, staring at the jumble of masks and pots dangling from the ceiling. It's hard to know why I'm so miserable, but I am. My thoughts chase themselves round and round until they come back to this one big thought – that Annie's found her place now and I haven't. She's got something that she can do and I haven't.

  So what use am I? I keep asking myself, staring upwards. What use am I?

  14

  Thief

  ‘What use are you, lad?’ thunders Honest Bob. ‘If you can't even keep an eye on our stuff?’

  Street kids have broken into the van with all the props while we were performing, and nicked it all – loads of stuff. Costumes, masks, scenery, tools. God knows what they think they'll do with it.

  ‘Not my fault,’ I say sulkily, kicking at the wheel of a van. Wrong.

  ‘Not your fault?’ he explodes, and all the veins in his neck stand out. ‘Not your fault? Well, whose is it then? Mine? I mean, where were you?’ he raves on. ‘What were you doing?’

  I say nothing. I was watching the show from the sides.

  ‘You've been hanging around with us – eating our food, drinking our drink, sleeping in our van… What do you do for it all, eh? What do you do for your keep?’

  I hate him. I wish I was bigger and I'd kill him. I mean what does he do, eh? Stays in his tent drinking all day.

  ‘Leave the lad alone,’ Balthasar says. ‘I can make more props.’

  I hate him too. And everyone else. They're all listening.

  ‘Make more?’ bellows Honest Bob. ‘How long's that going to take? And what do we do while we're waiting?’

  Good question. No one answers.

  ‘We've got enough for the next show,’ says Balthasar, ‘if we cut out the puppets.’

  But Honest Bob isn't going to calm down. He pushes his face right up to mine. I can smell his stinking breath.

  ‘I took you on,’ he says, ‘as a favour to a friend. Well. You've got one more chance, laddie,’ he says. ‘One more. Anything like this happens again and you're out. Got it? Out!’ He stares round at everyone. ‘What are you lot staring at, eh?’ he barks. ‘Haven't you got work to do?’

  He stalks off and everyone else shuffles off too. They don't look at me and I don't look at them. Except for Annie, who's staring so that I want to kick her.

  I wish I could tell Honest Bob to stuff his travelling show but somehow I can't. I can't say anything, and that makes it worse.

  Balthasar walks by me, carrying a saddle. If he says something sharp I'll hit him. But all he says is, ‘Don't worry about him. He's all blow and no bellows.’

  Somehow it doesn't make me feel any better. Everyone's gutted – I can see that from the way they're all moving around like they're carrying something heavy. I stay where I am, staring at the ground. I wish I could run away but somehow I can't. Anyway, where would I go?

  We're in Ancoats now and there's a kind of fog hanging over the fields. We can hear the din of the town – the groan and whirring of great factories, the bells calling the workers in, the blasts of heat from the chimneys. All around us the earth's bare, like it's been scorched.

  We've given one performance in the afternoon, and there's another this evening. That's when I lie in wait.

  First off I sit on the steps of the props van. Then I realize that no one's going to come near with me sitting there so I skulk down behind the wheels. Because what I want to do is catch the little devils. Catch them and thrash 'em, and drag their bleeding bodies to Honest Bob, to make him eat his words.

  From where I am I've got a view of all the vans. I can't hear much, though, because of all the racket from the tent.

  It's a cold night with a damp mist. The smoke in the air's sunk down to meet the steam rising from the earth. I lie beneath the van with my hands tucked under my armpits to keep them warm, and all I can think is, Please come back, come back now. Just one more time.

  They will come back, now they've found they can nick stuff. ‘There you are, sir,’ I'll say to Honest Bob when I fling down the bloody corpse. ‘Don't trouble yourself to thank me. Glad to have been of service. But now I'm off.’ And I'll walk away without a care, though Annie and Flo'll beg me to stay. And Honest Bob'll shake his head and say, ‘I misjudged that lad – and now I don't know what we'll do without him.’

  I'm so busy thinking that I almost miss my chance when it happens. I'm cold and stiff under the van and am just thinking of moving when I see a kind of flicker from the corner of my eye. There it is again! Only when I look for it directly, it disappears.

  Slowly I edge out between the wheels. There it is – a movement by Cora's van. I crawl on my stomach over wet earth. I don't give a thought to how many of them there might be. All I can think is I'll catch them, and prove Honest Bob wrong.

  I can see him now – a little, whey-faced young'un, and I'm in luck
because he's smaller than me. He's picking at the lock with something sharp. I haul myself along and when a twig snaps I duck right down behind a tuft of grass, not breathing. But I'm in luck again. He's concentrating so hard he doesn't look up. Then the door creaks open and swings wide and he's in.

  Quick as a ferret I'm up and in after him. ‘Gotcha!’ I say.

  He whips round, all eyes. All eye I should say, because I've just got time to see that he's only got half a face – half a face and one eye – then he bowls into me so fast I'm flung backwards down the steps. There's the thud of his foot on my chest as he leaps over me, and bounds off down the field like a jack rabbit.

  I leap up, cursing and clutching my chest and hoof it after him. I don't even shout for help – I want to catch this one myself. But he can run! He's only little but he moves like a hare. Over a stile at the bottom of the field, through a ditch and out towards the houses that press in round the edge of the field. I'm cursing even harder now, because all he's got to do is disappear into one of them houses and I'm stuck. But he doesn't. Right along the narrow street he runs, the mire splashing up round his feet, and I follow and soon we're in a maze of alleys and houses, and he's diving down one alleyway and then another, and it's all I can do to keep him in sight.

  Soon we're on a broad street with stalls and vegetables strewn all over the road, my nose is full of the stench of old cabbage, and the kidney-pie man shouts, ‘Hoy!’ as we barge past. It isn't raining but there's water everywhere. There's a burst pipe gushing out on to the street; dirty water drips from the eaves and gutters, and spills into the pipe water. It's like the whole place is dissolving into an ooze.

  Twice I nearly have him. Once as he crashes into barrels sending the whole lot spinning over, and once as he darts round a corner only to find a big gate swung to. But that doesn't stop him and over he goes, and I just about grab the ripped end of his jacket and pull, yelling in triumph, but he yanks himself out of it and bounds over the gate. I've got a stitch in my side that feels like a knife, but there's nothing else for it so over I go.

  Now we're in like a courtyard with alleys running off and folk lying drunk in the doorways. The stench gets worse and the fog thickens into a soup. I can hardly see. There's the sound of crying and moaning from underground rooms, all the glass of the windows is broken. But the fog muffles all and soon I can only hear my own ragged breathing and the drip-drip-drip of water.

  I wish I'd never set off after him. I wish I'd just scared him off. While I'm here giving chase, there could be ten more of them breaking into the vans. But I can't give up now. I can't just go back.

  Out of the alley, back on to the broad street which curves and goes steeply down so that we're,huring downskill skidding on cabbage skins. I wish I knew where the hell I was. Turn left and the houses crowd in thick and fast. It's so narrow there's no light left. I feel like I've been following him for miles. I don't even know my way back. How will I get back, dragging him?

  Then this alley ends in a broad open space with a great warehouse at one end, and I can't see him – I can't see a thing. All my mad hot temper changes to despair.

  ‘OI!’ I cry. ‘Come out!’

  ‘It's no good!’ I yell and my voice falls muffled, like shouting into a pillow. ‘I'll get you! I'll find you wherever you are!’

  And I swear I hear a tittering laugh, like a scattering of tiny stones.

  That makes me mad all over again. ‘Come out now, you coward!’ I roar. ‘Too scared to show yourself, are you?’ And I run towards the warehouse but the door's locked.

  Then I hear it again – thin ghostly laughter through the fog – and all my hair stands on end and I know this is not where I want to be. Annie'd like it, but not me.

  ‘Show yourself!’ I cry, and my voice sounds thin and high as well.

  Then suddenly I can see them; shapes in the fog, as though the fog itself is swirling into human form. Here and there, then all around me on all sides, ghostly forms closing in, and suddenly I've no breath left to speak. There's dozens of them, and only the closest ones have eyes. There's a roaring in my ears and I can hardly breathe. The closest face has long straggly hair, jug ears and a wide thin mouth. As they press in on me I see that they're all carrying weapons – sticks and jagged bottles, raised high. And Jug-ears has a length of metal pipe.

  ‘Wh-who are you?’ I stutter, and Jug-ears smiles. It's a girl. There are big gaps where her teeth should be, and the metal pipe gleams.

  ‘We're the Little Angels of Angel Meadow,’ she says. ‘Who are you?’

  15

  Angel Meadow

  Right at this minute I can't remember, so I say nowt. The girl with the pipe steps closer. I recognize the shawl she's wearing, from one of the vans, and a stripy skirt.

  ‘Get him, boys,’ she says.

  ‘Stop!’ I yell as they dart forward and I leap backwards on to a crate. ‘I'm not on my own. There's more people coming after!’

  The girl's smile doesn't even flicker.

  ‘He seem like he was on his own to you, Half-moon?’ she says, talking to the lad I chased. I can see him more clearly now, and he looks for all the world like someone took a trowel and smudged half his face out. He nods.

  ‘He's on his own all right,’ he says, in a high, raspy voice. ‘Rest of 'em's back at fair.’

  ‘And he followed you all the way here?’ she says.

  ‘Tore my jacket off.’

  ‘Did he?’ and they all close in some more.

  Oddest bunch I've ever seen. One looks like she's got a horrible, monstrous head until I realize its an enormous bonnet with feathers curling from the top. Then there's one with no fingers, several with no teeth, one black as a coal shovel, so I can't help but stare. They're near enough their own freak show. But I can tell they mean business. I can either scream blue murder or think – fast. Behind the crate there's a wall with builders' rubble all along the top.

  ‘Eh,’ I say. ‘I only wanted to meet you.’

  This pulls them up a bit. ‘You what?’

  ‘Everyone's heard of the Little Angels,’ I say, my heart beating thick and fast. ‘You're famous. I wanted to come and… and join.’

  Jug-ears pushes her face close to mine. Grey-brown eyes, with crescent moons of white beneath. ‘You?’ she says. ‘Wanted to join us?’

  ‘Beat his brains out, Queenie,’ one of them says.

  ‘Straight up,’ I say quickly. ‘Or I'd never have followed… Half-moon there. I'd have just shouted for help when I caught him.’

  Never knew I could think this fast. Surprising what a murderous gang with lead piping'll do for your brain power. Queenie looks like she's considering, but I can see it's only an act. She's playing with me and I'm playing for time.

  ‘You want us,’ she says, ‘but why would we want you?’ and she turns on her heels and flounces off. ‘He's all yours, boys,’ she says.

  Quick as lightning I scramble up from the crate to the wall behind, sending rubble and sharp stones flying in all directions. Before you can say watchit I've got Travis's sling out and I'm firing stones at them faster than a pea-shooter, thankful for all those hours I had nothing to do at the fair but practise.

  Whirr! Whizz! Splat! There goes the last tooth one of them's got. Pheeew! Bonk! Got another one right between the eyes. I catch one after another of them as they try to scramble up the wall after me, and I run along it, still firing stones. One of them slings his stick up at me catching me on the shin. There's a blinding pain so that I nearly fall off, but I manage to stay, and next moment he's nursing a bloody nose.

  There's no way off this wall except over rooftops, so I carry on, running and firing. One of them's clambering up again and I stamp on one of the two fingers he's got, and he falls back with a roar of pain. Now they're getting mad. More and more of them attack the wall at once and it's getting harder to keep firing and stamping. Plus the wall comes to a dead end and I'm nowhere near the alley. I can only go over the rooftops, or else jump straight into the th
ick of them and hope to scramble away.

  Just as I'm thinking this, Queenie Jug-ears speaks. ‘Stop!’ she says. ‘Hold off!’

  Gradually they all fall back, and stand surrounding me like a pack of dogs. ‘There's no way out,’ she says. ‘He'll have to come down some time.’

  ‘I can keep this up as long as you can,’ I say.

  ‘No you can't,’ she says, and she might be right. But there's always the roof. I glance over my shoulder at a steep roof with missing tiles. Never tried scrambling over one of them before.

  ‘Tell you what,’ she says. ‘Hand over that sling and I'll grant you safe passage.’

  I laugh at her. ‘No way.’

  She steps closer. ‘Up to you,’ she says. ‘We can wait.’

  I lick my lips but my tongue's drier than they are. Seems like a week since I had food or drink. Why doesn't someone come into this yard and see what they're up to?

  ‘I tell you what,’ I say. ‘You let me down and I'll teach you how to make your own slings.’

  There's jeering and catcalls at this, but Queenie seems to be considering.

  ‘If you had slings,’ I say, ‘you'd have had me off this wall by now.’

  ‘Slings are best weapon there is,’ I say above the heckling. ‘You can break a shop window, nick all the stuff and knock the hat of the policeman who comes for you.’

  There's a bit of a laugh at this, so I go on. ‘I've seen six policemen in a row knocked out by a single stone,’ I say.

  ‘Give over!’

  ‘Pull the other one!’

  ‘It's true!’ I say, and I believe it. ‘Let me off this wall and I'll show you.’

  Queenie steps even closer and I stare down into her white-rimmed eyes. ‘Go on then,’ she says. ‘Step down.’

  ‘How do I know you'll stand off?’

  Queenie smiles. ‘You don't,’ she says.

  This is the crunch. ‘Step back,’ I tell them, but no one moves until Queenie nods, then they shuffle back about an inch.

  ‘Further,’ I say, and glaring they move further away. Not very far, though. Close enough to have me when I jump down. Still, it's my best hope. I fit two stones into my sling and jump down from the wall, springing upwards at once, ready to strike. No one moves.