by David Almond
I look back. Nattrass is at the pit’s edge. He raises his spade high, plunges it downwards again and again and again, then heads towards the house.
11
The baby’s been in hospital for tests. She’s being fostered in Newcastle. She’s fine and strong and healthy. There’s a picture of her with laughing nurses in the Chronicle. There’s a film of her with her foster parents on ITV.
They’ve called her Alison.
“It should be Perdita,” Dad says. “Like in Shakespeare. The Winter’s Tale. Perdita, that’s the name for foundlings.”
I watch Alison on her foster mother’s lap. I can still feel her, can still smell her.
“Oh, just look at her,” says Mum. “Who could abandon a mite like that?”
“Who is she?” I say.
The news moves on to a hit-and-run in Throckley, then forward to Baghdad. More soldiers have died, including two lads from Gateshead.
“Who is she?” says Mum. “She’s a shining light in a dark dark world. That’s what she is.”
Mum says we should visit her.
“No,” says Dad. “Leave her alone to live her own life.”
“Live her own life!” says Mam. “She’s just a few months old. Anyway, you could say Liam’s like one of her family.” She laughs. “He’s like her big brother.”
Dad heads back upstairs. Mum phones social services. Impossible, they say. Then she says she’s the mother of Liam Lynch, one of the lads that found her, and they say OK.
So it’s into Newcastle the next day, all three of us. Out of the emptiness of the country to the bustle of town. The road in from the west is lined with shops selling saris and fruits and spices. Indian restaurants, Persian restaurants, Turkish takeaways. Dad says how great it is to see. A bit of cultural ferment, he says. Not like the paleface countryside we inhabit.
“So let’s move back, then,” says Mum. “Be fine with me.”
“Course it would, with your galleries and your cafes and your Jack Scott crowds. But d’you think I’ve got time to move, with my publishing schedule?”
Mum shakes her head and sighs at me.
“And to think he used to tell me he wrote because he loves it,” she says.
The foster home is a big double-fronted terraced house with a bright red door and checky curtains at all the windows.
The man that opens the door’s wearing a butcher’s apron. He holds his hand out. His hand’s fat and soft, just like the rest of him. His eyes are tiny and shining.
“You’ll be the Lynches,” he says. “And you’ll be Liam, that found our lovely Alison for us. I’m Phil. And this is Phil as well.”
There’s a woman just behind him.
“I’m Philomena,” she says. “He’s Philip. Phil and Phil. Come on in.”
We sit on a bench at a massive kitchen table. Two great loaves of bread in the center and a bowl of salad and a big pot of jam. Philip’s frying sausages and tomatoes. There’s a door into another room half open. A couple of girls sitting in there close together on a sofa. Somebody’s playing a guitar. Somebody’s banging drums.
Philomena makes coffee for Mum and Dad. She gives me orange juice and a chunk of chocolate cake.
“The baby’s snoozing,” she says. “We’ll get her soon.”
She touches my head.
“You looked nice on telly,” she says.
“Very whatdeyecallit,” says Philip.
“Photogenic,” says Philomena.
“That’s right,” says Philip. He holds up a sizzling sausage with a pair of tongs.
“Oliver!” he calls. “Come and set the table, son! And Crystal, see if the baby’s awake, love!”
Oliver’s black. He lays down knives and forks and mugs. There’s a long-healed deep scar on his cheek, like a knife scar, and another at his throat.
“This is Oliver,” says Philip. “He’s from Liberia. We’re very proud of him.”
Philip goes to his side, puts his arm around him.
“Another foundling,” says Philip. “Walked away from hell, spent a year in the backs of trucks all across Europe, then a boat and another boat till he turns up shivering and petrified at the side of Cramlington ring road. What a place to end up, eh? He’s strong, he’s brave, he’s got brains. He’s a good boy. Aren’t you, son?”
“Aye,” says Oliver.
Philip looks at me.
“We don’t know we’re born, do we?” he says. “We don’t know how lucky we are.”
I look at Oliver’s knife scar, at his calm eyes. He looks straight back at me and smiles.
“They want to send me back,” he says.
“To Liberia?”
“Yes, to Liberia.”
“They say he’s telling lies,” says Philomena. “They say he’s at least seventeen, but he’s only fourteen. They say that the story he’s told about his past is not true. But it is true.”
“And look at him,” says Philip. “Is there a better advert for the whatdeyecallit of the human heart?”
“Resilience,” says Philomena.
“Aye, resilience.” says Philip. “Hey, maybe you could send your story to Mr. Lynch, Oliver.”
“His story?” says Dad.
“It’s a tale you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy, and he’s writing it. Aren’t you, Oliver?”
“Aye,” says Oliver.
“Yes,” says Dad. “You could, Oliver.”
Does he mean it? It happens all the time. People tell him, I’ve got a story, I’ve started a novel, do you give advice to hopefuls? He gives slithery replies. Afterwards he shakes his head. Advice? It’s simple. Get your backside on a seat, work hard and write.
This time, though, he does look like he’s interested. But Oliver shakes his head.
“No,” he says. “It is only for me for now. And maybe for those who have loved me.” He goes on laying the table. “It takes time to tell the truth, Mr. Lynch.”
“You’re right,” replies Dad. “And even longer to tell it well.”
“I know that, Mr. Lynch,” says Oliver.
“Here she is!” says Philomena.
12
A skinny girl with wild bleached hair carries the baby in. She’s fourteen or so. She sits down close beside me. Puts the baby on my lap.
“It’s Liam!” she says. “Look. He’s come back for you!”
The baby grips my finger. I lean down to smell her lovely weird scent—I can’t help myself. I widen my eyes. I coo and sigh. I smile and smile.
“Hello again,” I whisper, then Mum lifts her away and starts her own sighing, smiling, cooing.
“You saved the baby,” says the bleach-haired girl. “You’re a hero.”
Tiny silver studs in her eyebrows. A tiny ring in her nose. A yellow T-shirt, striped tights, and walking boots.
“I’m Crystal,” she says. “I’m trouble.”
“She’s Crystal,” says Philomena. “She’s lovely.”
Crystal smiles.
“Charmer!”
More kids come in, half a dozen of them. They sit and eat their sausages and tomatoes and salad and bread. They’re all kinds, all colors, young kids and teenagers. They say hello. They wave at the baby and make big eyes at her. A couple of them ask Dad for autographs.
“That place where you live,” says Crystal. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
I shrug.
“Suppose so,” I say.
“Suppose? I seen it on the telly and it is.” She looks around the table. “It is, isn’t it? We all seen it on the telly, didn’t we? And it is, isn’t it?” They all laugh. They all agree. “See?” says Crystal. “Don’t take it for granted.”
She eats her sausages.
“Mebbe I’ll come and see you there,” she says. “Mebbe I’ll come one day with my friend Oliver. That’d get your neighbors talking. Wackos like us two walking through your fields. What d’you think, Ol?”
Oliver looks across the table. He smiles. Crystal winks.
“Better th
an going back to Liberia, eh?” she says.
She looks at me. A layer of unblemished pale makeup on her skin. Clear green eyes that look right into me.
“Or would you turn us away?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“No,” she says. “I think you would not.”
We all eat. Mum dances the baby on her lap. She talks with Philomena about sleep and milk and baby clothes.
Crystal’s close against me.
“They died,” she says.
“Crystal,” says Philomena.
“It’s OK,” says Crystal. “He’s a big lad.”
She puts a forkful of food into her mouth.
“Who did?” I ask her.
“All of them. Me mam. Me dad. Me sister. It was a house fire.” She looks at me again, clear green piercing eyes. “There’s no answer to that, is there?”
She’s right. No answer.
“I was tiny. Tiny as that little angel there. So I remember nowt.”
She tugs up the sleeve of her T-shirt. There’s a tattoo of a fire and a bird there.
“There I am,” she says.
She grins as I try to work it out.
“The phoenix!” she says. “I’m the bird that rose up from the flames!”
She jumps up and flaps her arms and laughs.
“Look out for the fire!” she calls, then flops down into Philomena’s lap. She sits there like a little child, resting against Philomena, watching me. Philomena strokes her head.
Mum continues to hold the baby. She lifts her up before her face.
“What’ll happen to this lovely one?” she says.
“Depends,” says Philomena. “If there’s no leads, no solution to the mystery, in the end she’ll go up for adoption.”
She touches Alison’s cheek.
“And you won’t be short of takers,” she says. “Will you, my sweet?”
We stand up to leave soon afterwards. Dad’s at the door, impatient to get away. Mum whispers with Philomena. Crystal comes to my side.
“I’m not as daft as I seem,” she says.
“You’re not daft.”
“Sometimes I don’t know how to be, not with normal folk. Are you normal?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe we’re all normal, and maybe we’re all daft, all at the same time. What do you think, Liam?”
“Don’t know,” I say again.
“Me neither.” She scratches her head. She presses her index finger to her cheek. The makeup cracks around her fingertip, just like plaster.
“It’s all a mystery to me,” she says.
I look back as we leave. Oliver’s eyes are on me. So are the baby’s. So are Crystal’s.
“See you,” she says.
“See you,” I say.
13
“No!” says Dad as we drive towards the empty land to the west. “No! I do not want the responsibility. I do not have the time. I do not want a mystery child living in our house.”
Mum’s dead calm.
“Liam and I would look after her,” she says. She turns and winks at me. “Won’t we, son?”
“How do you know what you’d be letting yourself in for?” says Dad. “What about when they come back for her? How would you cope with letting her go?”
“When they come back for her!” says Mum. “It’s not one of your silly books, you know.”
“Silly!” snaps Dad.
The speedo needle swings past ninety.
“Anyway,” he says, “it’s the last thing you need, with your work starting to go so well. It was bad enough when Liam came.”
“Pardon? You’d rather Liam hadn’t come, then?”
He groans. He grits his teeth and looks at me to say he doesn’t mean it.
“Don’t be daft,” he says. “Anyway, like they said, it can’t happen yet, and when it does, what chance would we have, at our age?”
Mum inspects her nails.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she says. “We’re not that old. And we do have some advantages.”
“Thanks to my silly books!”
“Exactly,” says Mum. “Thanks to your silly books.”
I check my seat belt as Dad launches us to a hundred and beyond.
14
It happens fast. A couple of days later, I’m in the kitchen with Mum when she phones up to see how Alison’s getting on.
“A heart attack?” she gasps.
She clicks the phone onto speaker. Philomena’s voice.
“Aye, just the day after your visit, love.”
“How is he?” says Mum.
“He’s already had a triple bypass, they’re already talking about getting him out of intensive care, and he’s already asking for sausages. Who’d believe it? Medicine these days, eh? Just miraculous.”
“But what’ll happen to the kids?”
“I’m holding the fort. There’s a couple of temps with me. But they’ll soon be split up and sent off to other families.”
Mum and I watch each other.
“And the baby?” she says.
“Don’t worry, I won’t let them send a single one of them to anybody I haven’t been and vetted myself.”
Mum chews her lip. Dad’s printer whirrs away upstairs. I squeeze her hand.
“Go on,” I whisper.
“Philomena,” says Mum, “how do I go about becoming a foster carer?”
Philomena laughs.
“Now, why am I not surprised to hear that?” she says. “Well, there’s forms to fill in and people to impress, but in the end, it all comes back to the ability to love. And of course Philomena’s reference will be very influential.” She pauses. We can hear the smiling in her voice. “Would you like me to sort out some application forms for you, Mrs. Lynch?”
That night I’m in the tent with Max. The night’s warm and still and the tent door’s open. Bats are flickering against the sky. I’ve told him about Oliver and the war in Liberia and I’ve been going on about Iraq and Greg Armstrong and beheadings and suicide bombers and all the wars and savagery all around the world and the more I think about it, the worse it all seems, and I tell him how terrible it all is and how it feels like it’s all getting closer and it even feels like the start of World War III.
“World War Three!” he mocks.
“Aye. World War Three. I mean, I’ve just met a lad that’s been in a war a million miles away, but there he is right beside us in Newcastle. How much closer can you get?”
He shakes his head.
“Hell’s teeth,” he says. “Listen, I was talking to Kim to-day…”
“Oh, aye?”
“Aye. And she was talking about Becky Smith, that lass from Wark. And she reckons—”
“Becky Smith,” I say.
“Aye. And—”
“There is one thing coming closer,” I say.
“What’s that?”
“The baby,” I say. “I think she might be coming to live with us.”
And she does. Mum fills in the forms. She goes to see people at the town hall. They come to visit us. They interview us all. Dad calms down about it. He says yes, of course he’ll be happy about having the baby here. Yes, of course he’ll love her and look after her. It takes weeks, but all the time they’re talking to us and assessing us, we can see they think it’s all just marvelous, that Alison’s coming to a little bit of paradise.
Philomena visits several times.
“What a perfect place for a her,” she says. “What perfect people for her to live with.”
And the weeks pass, and the days get even hotter, and the foundling, Alison, is brought to live with us. She sleeps in a cradle in the room just next to mine. The first night, we stand at the cradleside as she sleeps. Her eyes are shifting beneath their lids.
“Who are you?” I whisper. “Where did you come from?”
“We used to ask you that,” says Dad. “Who are you? Where did you come from? Why did you choose us?”
“We’re all like foundli
ngs, then.”
“That’s right,” says Mum. “Little lost souls in a big big universe.”
She smiles. She sighs.
“It’s like it was intended,” she says. “Like it was meant to be.”
two
1
Mum photographs me. She gets close up to my skin. She gets the sunburn and the scarring. She gets the pores, the scars and nicks and bruises. She blows the photos up until they’re like paintings, like weird landscapes. She photographs my elbows, my knees, and the scabs there become like massive outgrowths on an alien world. She does sections of hair, a nostril, an earlobe, a knuckle. She makes them four feet wide.
One day I’m lying in the garden with Max. Mum comes out.
She frames us with her fingers. She says how great we look. She tells Max she’d love to photograph him.
“No thanks,” he says. “Sorry, Mrs. Lynch.”
I say it’s fine, it’s just a game, there’s nothing weird about it. Maybe his skin’ll hang in a gallery in Newcastle and people will say it’s beautiful. But he just shakes his head again.
She smiles, goes back inside.
“It is weird,” he says. “Stripping off so somebody can take pictures of you that won’t even look like you.”
“Course it’s not,” I say.
“It is,” he tells me.
“Just like I’m weird?” I ask him.
He shrugs.
“And what’s the point of it?” he says.
“Dunno. Mebbe it shows how weird we all are if you look closely enough.”
“I’m not,” he says.
We look at each other and look away.
“It’s easy for you,” he says. “You can do what you like. You’ll always be the son of Patrick Lynch.”
“All of us can do what we like.”
“No we can’t. You’re stupid if you think so.”
I run my fingers through my ragged hair. I pick at a scab on my arm till the blood starts running. I use my fingernail to write with the blood. I write on my chest: STUPID. Max watches, shakes his head.
“Sometimes,” he says, “I think you’ll end up doing something really stupid.”
I just laugh.
“That’ll be your dad talking, is it?” I say. “I bet he’s saying, ‘Watch that Lynch lad. He’ll go off the rails.’”
