by Pauline Fisk
After that, things happened very fast. For the second time in just a few weeks, an air ambulance had to be radioed for, to take Hal to hospital. The last Kid saw of him was a white face smiling through the pain with the satisfaction of knowing what he’d achieved.
Sure enough, when Hal had gone, Jez took Kid aside. He didn’t want to know what had started the fight because it made no difference. Wide-World Trekkers International, to give the company its full name, had a zero-tolerance policy on fighting.
‘No violence. No way. No chances. No warnings,’ said Jez. ‘There are other ways of dealing with people you have problems with. You break the rules and you’re out.’
‘Out?’ Kid said.
‘Out,’ Jez said, looking grim.
‘You mean …?’ Kid said.
‘I mean I have no choice,’ Jez said. ‘You can’t stay in this team. I’m sorry. I’ve radioed field-base and Craig’s driving out to collect you. It’s over, Kid. You’d better get packed and make your farewells.’
20
NICE WEIRD
Beneath the jungle canopy, the track lay hidden like a secret creek. Craig reckoned no one had used it since the last time the archaeologists had been through months ago. The journey back was going to take a long time, he said, and in places it was going to be tricky, so they’d better get going.
People said goodbye, but couldn’t quite look Kid in the eye. Snow hugged him hard. She tried to hide her tears, but it was obvious how upset she was. Kid climbed into the Land Rover and Craig set off. Kid looked back once and everyone was waving. He wasn’t a one for tears but that last sight of them all made him want to cry.
It was a tricky road, full of ruts and potholes. Craig navigated like a helmsman steering through dangerous waters, his palms on the wheel, spinning it first one way, then the other. Nothing seemed to bother him, no matter how rough the going became or how much the Land Rover tossed and lurched.
Kid shivered at the thought of what news might be waiting from the hospital by the time they arrived back at the field-base. Craig drove in silence as if he’d decided to keep his counsel to himself, at least for now. The Land Rover pitched and rolled, forcing its way between the trees. Kid closed his eyes, trying to block out the sight of the Chiquibul Forest, mile by mile, disappearing behind him.
On a couple of occasions the Land Rover became stuck and Kid had to get out and push. Finally it reached the Macal Bridge, where Kid had first met everybody. Here Craig stopped to let the engine cool and Kid looked downriver, feeling as though the last weeks in the forest had never happened and somewhere down there, drunk on whisky in that ruined shack, was the boy he once had been – his old self back again.
Kid closed his eyes. He felt as if time was trying to rein him in. It tugged at him, playing with his memory, telling him he was still that boy who’d thought he’d find a father in Belize.
When the Land Rover was ready, Craig set off again. The Macal Bridge disappeared and the past was just that, Kid thought – in the past. The river was gone, and so was his father. His naive hopes were gone, and the Chiquibul Forest was history.
The landscape was changing, hour after hour, turning from rainforest to pine tree country, and new hills opening out, waiting to be crossed. Craig continued to drive in silence and Kid’s thoughts returned to Hal, knowing that nothing he did or said could ever put things right.
Craig drove them through a couple of villages, which even had electricity pylons and a few cars, despite the road still being an earth track. Then Kid caught a glimpse of the Night Falls Lodge turn, much to his surprise and, the next thing he knew, they were turning on to the Western Highway, heading in the direction of San Ignacio.
Here, driving on a properly paved road again, Craig managed a small smile. Houses appeared, and a couple of cinder-block supermarkets. Kid caught a glimpse of a church tucked down between orange groves, then some more houses – a whole cluster of them this time. Then the Land Rover turned by a petrol station on to another unpaved track lined with houses and trees. At the end of the road stood a tall wooden building painted orange and white, protected by a high, barbed-wire fence.
Craig pulled up outside it, and unlocked a pair of double gates. He drove through, then locked them from inside. Kid felt like a prisoner arriving to serve out his sentence. A woman appeared on a balcony at first-floor level. She was small and thin, with fuzzy brown hair and copper-coloured skin. Craig leapt upstairs to greet her, asking, ‘Any messages?’ Kid trailed behind, seemingly forgotten until the woman turned back before going inside, and said that supper was ready. In fact, it had been for a while.
‘I’m Jasmine, by the way,’ she said. ‘Welcome to the Wide-World field-base.’
She smiled when she said that. It was the first proper smile Kid had seen all day. But what if she was only smiling because she had bad news to break? Kid’s thoughts returned to Hal.
‘What’s the latest at the hospital?’ he asked.
Jasmine beckoned him to follow her indoors. ‘Hal’s had some X-rays,’ she said. ‘He’s got some nasty bruises but amazingly no cracked ribs. But the hospital’s keeping him in because he’s got a thumping headache – I mean, a really thumping headache – and they want to keep an eye on it. His parents have been informed of course. Like us, they’re waiting to hear more. The nurse I spoke to says he’s comfortable, but then that’s what they always say.’
Supper was a dismal affair. Craig spent the whole time going through his messages, scarcely noticing what he was eating, Jasmine kept getting up to answer the phone, and not even the surprise appearance of Fritz, hobbling in on sore feet, managed to cheer things up.
‘I’ve been an idiot,’ Kid said, when the two of them had finished eating and were sitting out on the balcony.
‘In other words, you’ve done it again,’ said Fritz.
‘I hate myself,’ Kid said.
‘Nobody should do that,’ Fritz said. ‘It’s a waste of time and takes up too much energy.’
‘But you and I …’ said Kid.
‘… are mates who fell out,’ Fritz said. ‘That’s all. We’ll get over it.’
They sat in silence after that. Kid thought he didn’t deserve a friend like Fritz, who was prepared to put the past behind him with such ease.
‘If Hal dies, I’ll be sent to prison as a murderer,’ he said.
‘Don’t be so dramatic,’ Fritz said. ‘Nobody’s died yet from a few bruises. Besides, if I had to choose between prison or rotting feet, I know which I’d choose. On the subject of which, do you want to take a look?’
It broke the ice. Fritz started unwrapping his bandages, and Kid told him he could smell his feet and that was enough, thank you very much. Fritz said he’d been an idiot, he could see that now, but it was good to know he wasn’t the only one.
‘It could be weeks before I get back into the jungle,’ he said. ‘If at all. I think about the team all the time, feeling like I’ve let everyone down. Craig and Jasmine give me jobs to do, but I didn’t come out to Belize to update some log or man the phones. I feel so useless and pathetic.’
That night the two of them shared a dormitory behind the operations room, which they had all to themselves. As Kid fell asleep, he thought about how fast things could change. Only a night ago he’d been in Caracol, looking forward to weeks more in the jungle. Now what did he have to look forward to?
Next morning he didn’t have to wait long to find out. After breakfast, Craig called him into the operations room. Hal was fine, he said. The hospital had phoned saying he was ready to be discharged. But before driving to Belize City to collect him, Craig wanted to hear what Kid had to say for himself.
Kid had known this would be coming at some point, and had tried to prepare himself. It had given him something to do in the long hours of the night. But facing Craig, everything he’d planned rang hollow. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’ ‘He started it.’ ‘He got me all wound up.’ Given what he’d done, how petty was that?
Kid sa
t in silence, unable to look up. ‘All right, then,’ said Craig. ‘If you’ve nothing you want to say, let me tell you what Wide-World thinks of people who use their fists to settle disputes. Acts of violence aren’t what we’re about. They totally undermine what we’re trying to achieve. It’s not just the person who’s attacked who gets damaged. The whole group gets damaged, and so does the attacker too. In other words, what you did wasn’t just stupid. It wasn’t just mindless. It belittled you. Your standing in the group is diminished by what you’ve done. Everybody thought so well of you – but not any more.’
Kid hung his head. He waited to be shown the door. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled.
Craig said he wasn’t the one who needed apologising to and, if Kid really meant it, he could say so to Hal when he returned.
‘In the meantime,’ he said, ‘here’s a list of jobs that you could do while I’m away. I’ll be gone most of the day. It would be nice if they were finished by the time I come back.’
Kid worked flat out. He saw the list as a challenge which he was determined to meet. Even so he still hadn’t got through everything when the Land Rover pulled into the compound. Hal was sitting next to Craig, bruises on his face and a swollen, shiny-looking nose. When he saw Kid looking at him, he turned away. But when he’d eased himself out of his Land Rover seat, he came straight over.
‘I hoped you’d still be here,’ he said, not quite able to look Kid in the eye.
‘Why would you hope that?’ Kid said, hoping he didn’t sound as nervous as he felt.
Hal took a deep breath. ‘Because it takes two to make a fight,’ he said.
He stuck out his hand. Kid stared at it. He didn’t know what to do. He’d prepared himself to make some sort of humiliating but deserved apology, but he hadn’t prepared himself for this. Craig stood next to the Land Rover watching him. Jasmine stood on the balcony and Fritz stood next to her. Kid flushed. Did Hal mean this, or was he putting on a show?
Kid said that he was sorry for his part in the fight, and Hal mumbled back that he was sorry too, then quickly shook his hand and excused himself. For all the air of awkwardness between them, supper was easier that night. Hal was quiet and so was Kid. But Craig was full of news regarding next year’s projects, Fritz was full of jokes and Jasmine produced a triple-layer chocolate cake the likes of which Kid hadn’t seen since arriving in Belize.
After he’d stuffed himself and could eat no more, he went out on to the balcony to do the final job on his list, which was repairing mosquito nets. Hal followed him, volunteering to help. Hal had sewn before with a needle and thread, but Kid hadn’t, and he showed him how to do it. There was none of the old swagger though, none of the desire to show Kid up. It was as if a thunderstorm had blown over and the air had finally cleared.
Fritz came and joined them, and for a while all three of them sewed in silence. Then suddenly Hal said, ‘You weren’t lying, were you, about your mother being dead and having nothing in the world but a cardboard box?’
Taken aback, Kid admitted that he might have been exaggerating slightly. ‘I do actually have a bit of cash, thanks to some relative who paid me to go away,’ he said.
‘But your mother,’ Hal said. ‘That bit was true?’
Kid said it was. Hal said he felt ashamed. He’d been doing a lot of thinking while he was in hospital, and he’d been talking to Craig too, and he didn’t like what had come out.
‘I treated you badly,’ he said. ‘No excuses. I gave you a hard time.’
Kid was surprised. In Hal’s shoes, he’d never have owned up to that.
‘I don’t know how you can say that. You’re the one who got pushed down a pyramid,’ he said.
‘But I’m the one who asked for it,’ Hal said. ‘We both know that.’
Again silence fell between them as they sewed. Then, for no particular reason that he could explain, Kid went and dug out his parents’ photograph. This was his father, he said, and this was his mother and this – brandishing a squashed bundle of feathers that had seen better days – was her hat.
Hal and Fritz both burst out laughing when they saw the hat, and Fritz put it on. ‘Your mother never really wore this!’ he said.
‘On her wedding day,’ said Kid.
The three of them cracked up. Parents were weird, they all agreed. Hal said he missed his more than he could say.
‘Every day I miss them,’ he said. ‘The pain’s like a toothache that won’t go away.’
Fritz said that Hal was lucky to have parents like that. ‘My father died when I was six,’ he said, ‘and I went to boarding-school so long ago that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to miss anybody. At least, I thought I had until I started missing you lot.’
Hal said he’d never been anywhere, let alone away to school. In fact, that was why his older brothers and sisters had clubbed together to send him here, reckoning it was bad for him to have never met anyone he hadn’t grown up with, gone to playgroup and school with, or worked with on the family farm.
‘This was meant to be a treat,’ Hal said, ‘but I found it really hard, especially at first. It wasn’t the jungle that bothered me. It was the people. I’d never met a black man before, except on the telly of course, or a boarding-school boy, or a Dutch girl or a Goth. I’d never met anyone like Jez, who’d travelled round the world. And I’d definitely never met anyone like you, Kid, so oozing with self-confidence.’
Kid rolled his eyes. ‘So what?’ he said. ‘Self-confidence? You must be joking!’
‘I’m not, ‘Hal said. ‘Nothing ever throws you. Not jaguars, not xateros, not even coming to Belize all on your own.’
Kid said things threw him all the time – it was just that he’d had years of practice in hiding it. It was hard owning up to a thing as deeply engrained as that, but then it was hard for Hal too, to admit to envying Kid for seeming so cool.
Finally even Fritz got in on the act, saying that he didn’t own a castle, no matter what the gossip-mongers said. And as for becoming a lord, his granddad was the one with the title, not him, and he was pretty fit, so it would be years before it came Fritz’s way.
The truth was really coming out. The three of them grinned at each other. Kid wanted to know if Fritz’s family really had it in for him like Tilda had said. Fritz said that unfortunately, in his family, everybody had it in for everybody else. Then Hal admitted that he did fancy Snow, and had been lying when he said he didn’t. Then, seeing as the other two had been so open, Kid told them both about his mother – how she’d been dead for days on a cocktail of pills and alcohol, and he’d been the one who’d found her and he’d never been able to get the sight out of his mind.
This was something Kid had never told anybody, not even Nadine. But then he’d never sat round like this before, or been in a situation so intimate or trusting. It felt weird, he thought, but it was a nice weird.
The phone rang inside the house. Kid heard Jasmine’s voice behind the screen door. Up in the trees cicadas whistled and night birds whooped. The stars were out above the house and Kid could see the moon rising above the San Ignacio rooftops. It was good to be here, he thought.
At least it was until Craig came out on to the balcony, his face stretched into a smile which definitely didn’t reach his eyes.
‘It’s good to hear the three of you on speaking terms again,’ he said, in a sad, slow, weary voice. ‘But I’m afraid I’m the bearer of bad news. Fritz, why’s it always got to happen to you? There’s been a car accident and your family want you home. Your mother’s fine, and so’s your grandmother, but your grandfather was at the wheel, and I’m sorry to have to tell you that he died on impact.’
PART FIVE
BLUE BANK SPRINGS
21
PARTING GIFT
Fritz flew home next morning. Craig helped him book his flight, then drove him to the airport, leaving Jasmine to transport Hal out to Gold Mine for Hubert to collect him. Hal was delighted to be thought well enough to rejoin the team, but angry and emb
arrassed that Kid wasn’t being allowed back too.
Kid said he was the one who’d struck the first blow so it made perfect sense for him to be the one who wasn’t trusted any more. But Hal pointed out that he’d been the real aggressor, winding Kid up with words instead of fists.
‘I’m afraid rules are rules,’ said Jasmine, getting into the Land Rover. ‘It isn’t in anybody’s power to change them. And, besides, there’s the little matter of Kid not being a proper, paid-up, signed-for and insured volunteer.’
It was a miracle, apparently, that Jez had managed to keep Kid on the project for as long as he had. But after what Kid had done, there was no way he could twist the rules any further. Kid watched Jasmine driving Hal away. Despite his brave words, he felt pretty bad. After all, the bunkhouse wasn’t just a project. It was a home. And the team weren’t just fellow-volunteers. They were family.
When the Land Rover had completely disappeared, pulling on to the highway, Kid let himself out of the compound and started mooching along the road, feeling like a lost dog, kicking cans and raising dust. He’d been asked to stay in and man the phones, but he was too restless to stay still. Children watched him as he walked by. He said hello to them, but they ran away. Then a car came along, and he stepped out of the road to let it by, only for the driver to lean out of the window, calling out, ‘It’s the lost boy – well, I’ll be damned!’
It was Taxi-May. She switched off the engine and leapt out of the car to give Kid an unexpected hug. She’d been worrying herself silly, she said, about the way she’d left him up at Night Falls Lodge.
‘I went back asking after you a few days later,’ she said. ‘They told me you’d moved on, but I could tell it wasn’t as straightforward as that. Sure enough, a couple of weeks later, I saw one of those Night Falls girls in Mrs Edie’s place, trying to sell a rucksack full of boy’s clothes which I just knew were yours.’
