by Tim Ewins
He pulled Manjan’s father’s head back again. There was a loud splash which was shortly interrupted by choking.
‘What are you going to do when Jan rings again?’ Alastor spat into Manjan’s father’s ear. There was no reply. ‘What are you going to do?’ Manjan’s father finally managed to take a proper breath. ‘Say it.’
‘Bring him home,’ came a weak and whispered voice.
‘Say it!’ Alastor shouted.
‘Bring him home,’ Manjan’s father said, trying to sound more convincing. They both knew he was lying.
Alastor pushed the old man’s head back underwater and shuffled on his knees. Each dunk had bought a strange calm to their surroundings. The sea was rough, but the light from Alastor’s car was casting a beautifully sharp ray through it, and the grass behind them could be heard in the wind. Alastor knew they were alone; no one would be anywhere near this spot. He relaxed and took in the moment. When they were back at the house, he would apologise to the old man and make him a cup of tea. He just needed to get the message to him, that if he did not comply in the finding of his son and his son’s girlfriend, it was curtains for the three of them.
Alastor thought about his future. He wasn’t sure he wanted to stay in this line of business forever. He quite liked being a security guard at the airport, but he couldn’t help but feel that his other line of work, the line of intimidating and killing, might be hindering his prospects somewhat. But he didn’t know how to stop. The two Jans were quite good at escaping, and he felt he’d had a certain rapport with the female one a few times in the airport. Maybe he could use the old man to find them, and then leave with them.
He thought about this for a very, very long time.
* * *
The lake was colder than the night air and Manjan’s father wasn’t wearing a scarf. He was wearing his pyjamas and they were soaking through. He felt hot. Heat comes with panic.
Under the water, he wondered if he would live. He thought about Jan and he thought about Jan’s mother. His stable girl and their renegade colt.
Then he thought about Ladyjan, whom he’d never met. Maybe she was Jan’s stable girl.
A school of fish went past Manjan’s father’s face, but he didn’t notice them in the dark, and they didn’t notice him. They had their own lives to deal with and each other to think about.
Manjan’s father had always done what he could do for an easy life. Such chaos always seemed to happen around him.
His thoughts focused solely on Jan as his consciousness faded. He wanted to tell him how proud he was of him and how, even in his absence, Jan had made life worth living.
Manjan’s father passed out, feeling nothing but the gratitude and the love he’d felt all through his life.
‘That’s enough,’ Alastor said calmly, pulling Manjan’s father’s head back out of the water. ‘I’m going to let go of you, and then I’m taking you home. Then, we wait.’
Alastor released his grip and the old man’s face fell back into the water, lifeless.
28
No life
Sweden. 1978.
Ladyjan drove to the airport from Manjan’s old house. She knew they hadn’t killed Alastor because he’d been breathing when she’d dragged Manjan off him, but they needed to leave England if they were to be safe. By the time Manjan had regained consciousness, she’d already purchased two flights to Sweden.
Ladyjan found them a small flat on the South Coast to live in. It was small, dark and damp but it was enough to keep them warm through the winter. They didn’t have much money left and what they did have they spent on rent and food. After a week, Ladyjan found part-time employment at a very low rate, serving tea down at the harbour, and she used the income to buy second-hand baby clothes and a small bed. She spent the other part of her time carefully constructing a letter to a group of people she had seen but never actually met. It needed to be striking, apologetic and anonymous, ready to be pinned up in the sheltered statue house outside the city hall. Maybe Manjan would pin it up for her.
Manjan did not find employment, nor did he look. He spent his days sitting next to the only window in their small flat, looking at the spot where, eight years ago, Ladyjan had shouted ‘hjälp! Hjälp!’ to the little and large policemen before they arrested Manjan. He missed his father and he missed his mother. Ladyjan was all he had now but he was too depressed to be grateful for her presence. He couldn’t see past his grief to appreciate her efforts down at the docks to provide them both with shelter, and he didn’t much care for her gentle persuasion for him to look for work. He knew that the baby would change their lives and he was looking forward to the distraction, but until then, he would sit.
* * *
To the people listed below,
I am sorry that I took your passports.
I will leave them under the furthest west tree in St. Djurgården on 31st March.
I also took your money. Please know that it has helped me in my life and that I am grateful.
These are the passports I have managed to hold on to.
If I took you passport and you do not find yourself on this list, I am sorry.
Yours apologetically,
x
* * *
In early January 1978, Ladyjan started bleeding. Six months into her pregnancy she still hadn’t felt anything kick and she hadn’t gotten any bigger. For his part, Manjan felt responsible for leading Ladyjan into his father’s house and Ladyjan felt stupid for following him and even stupider for trying to restrain the man with the wide face. More than anything, and overwhelmingly, they both felt unhappy.
29
The people listed below
St. Djurgården. 31st March 1978.
Under the furthest west tree in St. Djurgården sat a stranger’s leather wallet. It hadn’t been there the day before and no one had seen who had placed it there at midnight. Well, a small quail who occupied the tree had, as it stirred from slumber, but it wasn’t going to tell anyone.
At six-thirty that morning, a lady walking her dog paid no attention to the wallet. In fact, she paid no attention to anything around her. She didn’t notice the now wide-awake quail and she didn’t notice the sun beginning to rise. She didn’t notice her dog having a good sniff of the wallet before chewing the strap right through and then jumping up at a squirrel in the tree, and she didn’t notice that she was being watched.
At quarter past seven a man in a suit walked briskly into St. Djurgården through the west gate and straight up to the tree. He looked up the trunk and then back down the trunk quickly, stopping at the chewed leather wallet. He lifted it by the strap, opened it up and rummaged through the passports, paying no attention to the pictures of strangers in the other passports. When he found his, he gave himself a small smile, dusted his already-clean black shoe with his hand and hurried out of St. Djurgården the same way he had entered.
For the next five hours the wallet remained watched but untouched. It was a cold Friday and St. Djurgården was reasonably quiet. Until lunchtime, that is. Around 12.30, a man in a novelty bowtie strolled towards the tree from the north gate eating a sandwich. He stopped at the tree, having seen the wallet, but continued to eat his sandwich. He was in no rush to look for his passport and why should he be? It had already expired.
At 12.37, a lady with large purple glasses and a blond perm entered St. Djurgården from the south gate. She was in no rush either. She’d never used her passport before and she didn’t expect to, but she had no one to meet on her lunch break and fancied the walk.
‘Passport?’ the novelty tie-wearing man asked. The lady in the purple glasses smiled a tight-lipped smile and nodded. ‘Same,’ the man said. The lady picked up the wallet in her thumb and forefinger, being careful not to touch the chewed-up strap too much. ‘I bet you can’t guess which one’s mine,’ the man challenged, with a mouth full of sandwich. The lady quietly
laughed a one-syllable laugh but didn’t reply or attempt to guess which passport belonged to the man. ‘Seriously,’ the man encouraged, ‘go on, see if you can find me.’
‘Um…’ the lady replied, fingering through the pictures in the different sleeves, part looking for herself and part looking for the man. ‘This one?’ The man looked at the passport in the lady’s hand. The man in the picture was a little younger than he was now, but then what picture of him wasn’t? The hair was fuller and the jawline stronger. Put simply, the man in the picture was a better-looking version of himself.
‘That’s not me,’ the man said, and the lady looked up at him as if maybe he was wrong. ‘But thank you, I’ll take it as a compliment.’ The lady took her purple glasses off to look at the passport closer. It did look like the man.
‘You’re better-looking than the man in this passport,’ she said, looking away.
The man shifted on his feet awkwardly and his cheeks turned red. Neither of them said anything while the lady continued to rummage through the wallet. Finally, she looked her younger self in the face and placed her hands on the floor to lift herself up. The man offered her a hand and she took it.
‘It’s expired.’ She offered him his passport and he looked at the picture.
‘That’s me,’ he said.
‘You’ve travelled.’
‘Not much.’
‘More than me.’
‘Well…’ he started, before taking her passport from her other hand and looking through the blank pages, ‘yes. More than you.’ He gave her passport back. ‘Where would you like to go?’ The lady saw from the open page in his passport that the man had been to Belarus.
‘Belarus,’ she answered.
From the other side of the park, behind the public toilets, Ladyjan and Manjan watched the man offer the blond, permed, purpled glasses-wearing lady some of his sandwich. They watched the lady decline the offer but point to the coffee kiosk across the park. The lady and the man queued together, bought two coffees and sat down.
Over the next hour six different people visited the wallet under the tree. Five left with passports and one looked through the wallet and, not finding any money, walked away again. The lady and man noticed each new visitor from their table and quietly laughed together at the hopeful one who left empty-handed.
Ladyjan thought about the night she and Manjan had first spent together down at the port before stowing away on Valter and Saga’s boat. They’d had so much to talk about that night. All through Poland and Russia they’d joked and laughed. They’d made each other feel good. In India they’d helped each other – she’d helped Manjan during a hard time grieving and he’d helped her escape her life in a terrifying illegal lamp ring. They were closer than ever in India.
But now...now they barely talked at all. Ladyjan spent a lot of her time now, at work, feeling deeply unhappy, or at home in their little flat arguing with Manjan. Manjan spent his time arguing with Ladyjan, or not doing anything. She started to cry silently.
Manjan did the same but neither of them noticed one another.
* * *
The lady and the man stood up either side of the table and left through the same gate. After their respective work days, they went to their respective flats before meeting again that night in a restaurant. After a meal, they returned to their respective flats to pack. The next morning, they met at the airport and flew together to Belarus.
30
A small quail who occupied the tree
Sweden. 1978.
The small quail who occupied the tree had enjoyed five peaceful weeks. Other quails in the park had chosen to nest in bushes low down, which gave her and her eggs some privacy in the high branches.
She hadn’t found it easy building her nest. The weaving was a doddle, but she could only fly short distances, so every time she found a good twig for insulation she’d have to make several short flights back to the nest, and that made the whole process very slow. In the cold early morning light she looked at her eggs lovingly, and sang a merry tune. In only a few weeks they would hatch.
* * *
The five boxes that surrounded the only door made the already small flat even smaller by a third, but to Manjan it felt bigger. To him, the boxes were a reminder of an absence that greatly upset him. Ladyjan, who was currently at work down at the port, would return to the flat in an hour. She would pick up the boxes one by one and put them in her friend’s car. Then she would leave.
Manjan looked at the door, each box was labelled in black marker, as if Ladyjan owned enough to require a filing system.
CLOTHES
HOUSEHOLD
KEEP
OTHER PEOPLE’S THINGS
JAN
Ladyjan’s life packed into five boxes. The box marked ‘KEEP’ implied that she didn’t feel the need to keep the contents of the other boxes but Manjan knew that wouldn’t be true. She would at least keep other people’s things – that was, until she had returned them to other people. With the exception of ‘OTHER PEOPLE’S THINGS’, none of the boxes were full. Manjan had checked through ‘CLOTHES’ and ‘HOUSEHOLD’ to make sure Ladyjan hadn’t forgotten anything and that she would be OK, although he knew that she would be. He did not look through the box labelled ‘OTHER PEOPLE’S THINGS’. Instead, he opened it, rummaged through a pile of his own things that he had ready to pack in the corner of the room, pulled out a phot of the two of them and placed it inside the box.
Manjan did not look in the box labelled ‘JAN’ either. In his naivety, he thought this box would be private to Ladyjan. It was only later, when he was packing his own boxes, that Manjan saw some of his things were missing.
* * *
The quail watched St. Djurgården from her branch. Her eggs had started moving last night and she felt an overwhelming need to protect them now more than ever. It was 6.30 and the sun was beginning to rise. The park was nearly empty, with the exception of an absentminded lady walking her dog and two other people whom the quail had watched hide behind the public toilets on the other side of the park. Thankfully, the lady walking her dog paid no attention to the quail or to the eggs high up in the tree. She didn’t notice her dog having a good sniff of a wallet that had been left below the quail’s tree and she didn’t notice her dog chewing the wallet’s strap straight through.
The quail looked towards the public toilets. The wallet had been left there in the night by the people hiding behind them and she wondered if they minded the lady’s dog destroying it but there was no movement from the pair.
Neither the lady nor the quail noticed the dog drop the wallet and jump up at the first branch in the furthest-west tree in St. Djurgården. They didn’t notice the squirrel running up the tree away from the dog and the lady didn’t see the squirrel knock into a small nest of eggs in a panic.
The quail saw. The quail watched as her nest wobbled to one side of the branch she was sitting on. She bobbed her head forward to hold on to the straw to protect her eggs, but the nest fell. The quail watched the nest hit the ground. She watched as her eggs broke and she watched as the dog ate them.
* * *
Ladyjan’s friend looked forward awkwardly. She’d known Ladyjan when she was a little girl but she did not know the man Ladyjan was with. She didn’t want to interrupt but she also wanted to start the long night-drive back to Sollefteå, a small riverside town further north.
Manjan’s skin was pale from the cold air and his eyes shone with motionless tears.
‘Where will you be?’ he asked. This wasn’t the first time he’d asked.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Ladyjan replied. Her tears weren’t as motionless as Manjan’s and bright thin streams were running down her cheeks. She stood tall on her toes and kissed Manjan softly. For a moment everything was still. The sound of the icy air returned to their ears as they parted lips and Ladyjan said the last thing Manjan would he
ar her say.
‘We’ll meet when fate next decides.’
* * *
The small quail who used to occupy the tree now occupied an old, unused car engine. There were two quails to the right of her and one on the left. There was also a nest but it didn’t belong to her and she tended to ignore it.
The day after the small quail had lost her eggs, she’d flown out of St. Djurgården (over the north gate), across several roads and over many small buildings until she didn’t know where she was any more. Then, tired and emotional, she’d stopped to take stock of her surroundings. Since leaving the park she had only seen suburbia, people and man-made machines. This suited her fine – she never wanted to see a tree, a squirrel or a dog again.
A large yellow dustbin truck drove slowly down the road, stopping at every few doors to allow the men working behind it to catch up. The noise was deafening and the quail basked in it. It seemed the more sound that entered her ears, the less thinking could happen inside her head. For three streets she hopped alongside the truck, concentrating only on the whirring of the engine and the hissing sound the mechanical arm made every time it lifted a bin. At the end of the last street, the men behind the truck hopped into the cabin and it drove away down a highway.
For quite some time the quail couldn’t hear anything. She saw two people talking and one person looking in their bin, annoyed, but she did not hear any of them. After a while there was a ringing sound that she had never heard before, and finally, after the ringing sound had gone, she heard the sound of a small quail.
She was startled. Looking around, she saw the end of a wing as it disappeared into a large garage. She had already flown further than she had ever flown before that day but she picked up her feet and darted at the garage.
Inside it was dark and noisy. She saw the quail hop onto the bonnet of a car and under a raised hood. Hoping to find some form of safety she followed, pushing her little plump body between two pipes and into a clearing where the engine should be. The three quails already occupying the engine space didn’t acknowledge her and the noise from the garage filled her ears as her thoughts once again escaped her head.
