Why?
Was it because if I joined the Gathering, I would be answering another darker Call? And if I refused, what would the penalty be?
15
When I got home, the house was dark, but the kettle was warm. That meant my mother had just gone. There was a note from her telling me to go to Elderew for tea. My head was starting to ache again, so I had another headache pill and fed The Tod. He jumped all over me and chewed me. He still didn’t accept school as a reasonable excuse for us being apart. I played catch with him for a while but it started to rain again, so we came inside.
I pored for a while over the list of phone numbers I had written down the previous night, then dialled the second Sikorsky number. His name had gone up a notch in importance because it had come up in Irma Heathcote’s scrapbook, along with the newspaper clipping about the fire.
It rang out again, so I tried the one that had been engaged that morning. Either the person had the phone off the hook, or they were having a massive pow wow because it was still engaged. I tried a Myalls number for a change.
A woman answered. I could hear a baby screaming its head off in the background.
‘Hello?’ she asked in a frazzled voice.
‘Hi, I’m trying to locate …’
A minute later I hung up with a sigh. The name meant nothing to the woman, who kept breaking off to yell at the kid. ‘Johnny don’t; Johnny get off the stove; Johnny don’t stick that in there.’ I grinned, thinking Johnny sounded like a holy terror. The next number I called was an older woman. I explained about the assignment and asked if she was any relation to Afron Myalls.
‘You’ll be talking about my aunt,’ she said. ‘She moved to America years ago. I’m afraid she died over there.’
I was reluctant to let her go. ‘Do you remember anything about her? Did she ever say anything about the school she went to?’
‘No, well… I remember my mother saying they taught dancing at the school. You know, not the sort of thing kids do now. Proper dancing. Waltzes. But I don’t suppose that’s any use to you.’
I thanked her and rang off, feeling it was hopeless. My best chance had to be Anna Galway. I decided to go over early to Elderew. Maybe I would be able to track her down.
I changed out of my school clothes and pulled on my favourite scruffy old jeans. My mother kept wanting to throw them out but they were the most comfortable pair I had. She couldn’t understand jeans were only ripe when they were falling apart. Every rent in them was a memory.
Thinking of memories reminded me of the things Mrs Vellan had hinted at about my father. Had there been some reason for us moving around, other than my mother’s restlessness? And why had he never answered any of my letters or contacted me? Was it possible my mother had told Mrs Vellan something she had kept from me?
I shrugged because that was one mystery too many right now, and pushed the whole thing to the back of my mind. I locked The Tod up in my bedroom, thinking of Buddha on the loose.
I grabbed a notepad and pen, and arrived at the stop just as the bus came round the corner. Two blocks off, I sank down in my seat as we trundled past Buddha and a gang of kids heading towards my house.
Foiled, I thought. And The Tod was safe inside.
That put me in a good humour, though I realised the whole Buddha thing was just on hold, not dealt with.
The bus lumbered its way across town and I dozed, almost missing the Elderew stop. It was still daylight, but chilly when I hurried up the path and rang the staff bell. An older woman in pink answered.
‘So?’ she said. ‘You are who?’
I was startled. ‘Uh… my mother works here.’
‘Mother?’ she echoed, sounding mystified.
‘My mother. Inside,’ I pointed.
‘No can go,’ she said firmly. ‘Visiting hours over. You come back later.’
Another head poked around the door. It was the girl from the canteen, Lilly something. ‘Hello, Nathanial. In for tea?’
The other woman stared at me, then at her. ‘Mother?’ she echoed.
Instead of trying to explain, Lilly pulled me past her, giggling as we went down the hall. The lights were dim, but when we reached the dining room, she noticed the bump. I explained it had been an accident.
‘Some accident. How’s it feel?’ Lilly asked.
‘Not too bad.’ I refused her offer of company for dinner, explaining I was supposed to eat with my mother in her break.
‘I’m going for a walk to kill time.’
I slipped through the doors and into the recreation room. Mr Pellman was sitting alongside a huge muscular man with black hair and a sallow monkey’s face.
‘Come over, Nat. There’s someone you should meet.’
‘Hi, Mr Pellman,’ I said.
‘This is Patrick. He’s an ex hit-man.’
‘What?’ I gaped.
‘It’s true. Look at those hands.’
Patrick beamed, holding out king-sized paws for inspection.
‘He… he tell you that?’
Mr Pellman snorted. ‘Anyone can tell. Patrick’s not shy. He says he only killed the bad guys.’ He leaned closer and winked. ‘He’s Irish.’
People on the other side were always the bad guys. I figured Patrick had probably been a taxi driver imagining himself as a secret I.R.A. operative. ‘Have you seen Anna Galway around today?’
‘Now there’s someone that deserves killing,’ Mr Pellman retorted. Patrick looked at him with a bloodthirsty eagerness that made me think maybe he hadn’t been a taxi driver after all.
‘All right,’ Mr Pellman said, mistaking my silence. ‘Yer not in a joking mood. I saw the old biddy in the garden. She threw a pine cone at me. I’m gonna get my solicitor on to her for grievous bodily harm.’
‘Better she should be killed,’ Patrick said in a molasses thick Irish accent. Mr Pellman stared at him, then burst out laughing.
I slipped away, deciding I’d better talk to Anna Galway before Mr Pellman organised for Patrick to take her out. I had heard someone say old people’s homes were depressing because everyone went there to die, but Elderew was pretty lively.
Outside, the leaves of some of the trees were turning brown and there was a rich fermenting smell in the damp air. It was no longer raining but only a few people were outside because of the cold.
I stared around glumly, realising I had no idea what Anna Galway looked like.
An old woman with her hair in curlers came past, but when I tried to speak with her she gave me a frightened look and a wide berth.
I sighed and looked around the wet, dark grounds. Then I saw a movement in a clump of trees. From the distance the woman looked too young to be Anna Galway, but she was alone.
I walked hesitantly towards her, thinking if it wasn’t Anna, I would ask where she was. She spotted me, screeched and launched a pine cone at me.
It was her all right. I held my hands up and walked towards her as if she were holding a gun on me. This confused her and she let me come right up to her.
‘What are you doing?’ she snarled. Up close, she was in pretty good shape and her hair was still black, but her face was like a dark prune with a deep-etched frown and scowl lines, her lips twisted into a perpetual sneer. Her eyes were hard and glittering in the leathery folds of her face.
‘I… My name’s Nathanial,’ I began.
‘You’re not a Mormon, are you?’ she demanded, lifting her hand as if she meant to hit me if I was.
‘No… I’m not anything religious.’
Her eyes swept down over my ragged clothes and her face changed. ‘What do you want?’
‘I… I just wanted to talk to you. I’ve got a school project and we have to talk to someone …’ I stopped short of calling her old to her face.
‘And you think I’m someone? Well, you’re wrong. I’m no one. Once I thought I was, but it was all lies.’ An expression of bitter hate filled her face. She began to mumble to herself.
‘You’ve lived around thi
s area for a long time,’ I said loudly, thinking there was no point in trying to interview her.
She broke off mid rant and stared at me with as much astonishment as if a cat had addressed her. ‘I’ve lived too long,’ she whispered.
My mind was working furiously. Anna had known the youth charged with burning the old caretaker. How could I get her on to that subject? ‘You used to live in Cheshunt,’ I said, desperately. ‘I was wondering if you remember anything about it.’
‘It was a bad place.’ Her eyes slitted suspiciously. ‘Why do you want to know?’
‘A… a school project …’ I stammered, unnerved.
She reached out and grabbed my chin in her bony witch’s grasp. ‘I think not.’
‘But it’s true …’ I gasped. ‘I… It’s just an oral history project… For school.’
‘Which school?’
‘Three North Cheshunt …’
She let me go abruptly and backed away from me. ‘What do you want?’ she hissed, looking both terrified and insane. ‘Who sent you?’
I was astounded at the effect the name of the school had on her, but at the same time, the security guard’s voice floated into my mind: ‘Some places are made for trouble. Years ago, when I was just starting out some bad things happened around here.’
‘Get away from me,’ Anna Galway whispered in a voice cracked with terror.
I was breathing fast, almost panting. I wanted to do what she asked, because suddenly I was scared of what she might tell me if I stayed. But something held me there.
‘There was a court case over a fire at the school when you were there. A boy killed a caretaker and you were a witness. Do you remember?’
I expected her to start screaming, but she just sank onto the sodden grass as if her legs had no strength in them. ‘I was a witness, but in the end they didn’t need me because he pleaded guilty.’
That was the last thing I expected her to say.
Anna Galway looked up at me with desperate, agonised eyes. ‘He agreed that was what had to be done. So the rest of us could stay, one of us had to be sacrificed.’
My heart was beating fiercely in my chest at that word. ‘Are… Are you saying he didn’t set the caretaker on fire?’
Anna Galway began to weep soundlessly, tears running along the grooves and lines of her ancient face. ‘He loved the old man. He could not have hurt him.’ Now she was sobbing in earnest and I stared down at her, dumbfounded. She had just confessed to helping an innocent person go to gaol for a murder he hadn’t committed; an innocent man who had pleaded guilty.
‘Then who… who did kill him?’
She did not bother to wipe the tears away. They ran unheeded down her face, soaking into the yellowing neck of her dressing gown.
‘No one killed him. The old man poured kerosene over himself and lit a match. We all saw but who would have believed us. We knew they would blame us, so Zeb told them he did it. He took the blame so the rest of us could stay.’
16
‘How did it happen?’ my mother asked, looking horrified.
‘I’m okay,’ I said. ‘I spent most of the day in sick bay.’
She leaned forward and shifted my hair so she could get a better look at the bump. ‘You might have concussion. Maybe I’d better get one of our doctors to take a look at it.’
‘I’m fine,’ I insisted. I still felt dazed from what Anna Galway had told me.
‘Well, we’re both fine then. I’m on split shift again so I won’t be home till all hours of the morning.’ She sighed. ‘It’s harder than I expected working shifts again. It was a lot easier just being a mother.’
‘It was good having dinner home sometimes,’ I joked, but maybe because of the business with Anna it came out more seriously than I had meant it to, because she looked stricken.
‘Oh Nat, I’m sorry. But it won’t be for ever. There’s a permanent day position coming up towards the end of the year, and then I’ll be home every night. We can watch television together, go to the movies …’
‘It’s all right,’ I said, feeling guilty about making her feel guilty.
In the end, she wanted to drive me home but I talked her out of it.
Walking along the street later, I regretted being so noble. Dark clouds rushed along the face of the moon and blotted out all but a few stars. Cars passing by splashed muddy water onto the footpath, and I felt lonely and vulnerable.
By the time I reached the stop, my hands were blue and I was shivering, but it was another half hour before the bus came. By then my head was pounding and all I could think about was getting warm. The only other people on the bus were an elderly couple who stared at me as I went past them and down to the back.
A whole lot of kids were waiting to get on the bus at Ercildoune Mall and, as they boarded, I recognised two of them as school patrol boys from Three North.
I slid down deeper into my seat, hoping none of them would see me. After getting bashed around at school, the last thing I wanted was to be caught alone on the street at night.
I was startled to see Danny get on at the next stop. He didn’t see me, but took a seat about halfway down the bus and across the aisle from the elderly couple. He had his backpack on, and something big was poking up out of it. His symbol.
The two school patrol guys moved up to sit in the seats directly behind him as soon as the bus started moving again.
‘Hey, Whacko,’ a meaty redheaded kid called to Danny. ‘I didn’t know they let loonies on public buses. Aren’t there special buses for people like you? Ones with bars?’
Danny ignored this.
‘Fruit loop?’ Redhead called. The other kids tittered. ‘Hey, you. I’m talking to you, Loony Tunes.’
The old man turned to look pointedly across at Redhead.
‘What are you gawking at, Gramps?’ asked another kid nastily.
‘Rudi,’ the old man’s wife quavered. ‘It is nothing to do with us.’
The man frowned at her, then turned back to Redhead. ‘Son, there is no call to cause trouble. Why not just enjoy the bus ride?’
‘Why don’t you eat shit?’ Redhead sneered.
The man flushed and looked angry. ‘You are from Cheshunt, but that does not frighten me. I know all about these gangs that come from Cheshunt to terrorise Ercildoune.’
‘Sit down Gramps, before you get hurt and watch how you talk about Cheshunt,’ Redhead said threateningly. ‘Or else we’ll pay you and your wife a little visit and teach you to respect the only decent neighbourhood in this area.’
‘Decent,’ the man said angrily.
His wife tugged at his sleeve. ‘Rudi, please.’ Rudi looked mad at her, but he gave in and straightened up in his seat.
Redhead chuckled loudly. ‘Smart move, Rudolph.’ He turned back to Danny when the old guy failed to bite. ‘What do you reckon, Whacko? Cheshunt is a good neighbourhood, isn’t it? Good school, good teachers, good head shrinkers… good cops.’
Danny said nothing. I kept my fingers crossed he would just ride it out. There were at least a dozen of them and Nissa had warned us specifically to stay out of trouble, especially public-type trouble.
Danny seemed to remember that because he kept his mouth shut. Or maybe it was because the busline policy was to pull over and throw all parties to any dispute out regardless of who was in the right. I saw the driver watching them all in the mirror, but he didn’t say anything. He had become deaf, too. Adults do that a lot when they think there is trouble they might not be able to handle.
Danny and the group of kids got out at my stop, which was almost the end of the bus route. The old couple had got out at the last stop in Ercildoune.
I got off the bus last with a feeling of impending disaster. The kids from the bus were already ranged around Danny.
‘Did they give you any electric shocks in the nuthouse, Whacko?’ one of the kids asked. I thought I recognised him from Buddha’s group.
‘Weirdo,’ another said. It was like a whole flock of birds p
icking on one.
‘Loony.’
‘Freak.’
‘Nutso.’
One of the kids elbowed another and pointed to me. Danny turned and looked surprised.
‘What are you gawking at?’ Redhead demanded. ‘Nick off.’
I told myself to go. Nissa had said to stay away from one another and it was Danny’s fight.
But I didn’t move.
Redhead stepped towards me and a flash of triumph came into his eyes when he saw the shock in my face. Only it wasn’t him coming up to me that made me look like that. I could feel something in my pocket heating up. The circle. A warning from the Twilight Zone.
‘I said nick off,’ Redhead said slowly, as if I were mentally retarded.
‘Look, I was just going to say I saw a police car back there.’
Redhead’s eyes narrowed, but he looked around the street uneasily.
I pressed on, hoping I had put two and two together and come up with the right answer. ‘You better quit this. You know he doesn’t like anything to happen in Cheshunt. And it’s nearly curfew.’
Redhead actually paled. ‘Yeah, I forgot for a second. You won’t tell him, will you?’
‘Definitely not,’ I said truthfully.
He looked relieved. Then he turned to Danny. ‘You just watch it, Freako. We don’t need your sort in Cheshunt. It’s open season on anyone who’s not in the Gathering. Remember that.’
I willed Danny to get moving while the going was good. The other school patrol guy had started to look at me. Any minute someone would realise that I didn’t belong to the Gathering either. You could only bluff so far and so long.
I stared at Danny pointedly, trying to make him go.
‘Snotbag,’ Danny said to Redhead. Then he turned to a scared-looking kid and punched him square in the nose.
Redhead’s face contorted with fury but to my amazement he made no move towards Danny. Instead, he looked around nervously before responding. ‘You’ll keep, Whacko. Don’t go in any dark alleys.’
He turned and hustled the kid whose nose had been mashed.
The Gathering Page 11
