20 Years Later (9 page)

“Mum, am I named after someone?”

She pulled away. “Why do you want to know about that?”

Zane frowned at her, sensing that there was something in this. “The Red Lady wanted to know.”

Miri looked surprised and confused all at once. “That's why she wanted to see you?”

“Oh, no … she just wondered, that's all. She said I had a strange name.” The thought of that made him fretful. “Is it strange?”

Miri didn't want to be sidetracked in this way and answered in a frustrated voice. “It's rare, I suppose. That's not important though!”

“It's my name!” Zane retorted. “It's important to me!”

Miri sighed heavily and ran a hand through her hair, this conversation not going the way she wanted. “I didn't mean that. What did she want?”

Zane was about to answer and then frowned. “I don't think she wanted anything in particular … just to meet me. For a chat I think.”

Miri's eyes narrowed suspiciously. “The Red Lady doesn't invite people around for chats, Zane.”

“Well, she didn't say what she wanted,” he replied peevishly, the rosy glow of his visit being threatened by this interrogation.

Miri drew back, calming herself down in an effort to manage her son's emotions. She looked at him with a mother's critical eye and frowned. He didn't quite seem himself.

“So what did you chat about?” She lightened her tone to one of casual interest and the tactic worked, as Zane's face brightened immediately.

“Oh Mum, it's brilliant! She's going to send a Hunter to train me so I can catch meat and get big and strong!”

Miri blinked rapidly, struggling to take it in. “What!”

In his excitement, he misinterpreted it for amazement at how lucky he was. “Yeah, isn't it great!”

“No!” Miri cried, bursting the bubble around her son. “This is terrible! She's sending a Hunter
here
? Here, to my square!”

Zane's face rapidly lost its radiance. “Yes,” he said hesitantly, watching his mother's hands cover her mouth, eyes wide in panic. “But that's good, right? I mean, then I can catch meat for us here. That's a good thing!”

Miri shook her head in disbelief. “Oh Zane, what have you done!”

He floundered. “What? I … I thought it was a good idea!”

Miri dropped into the armchair and held her head in her hands. Zane hovered, utterly confused, watching his mother trying to calm down, her hands shaking. After a few moments she spoke, not lifting her head. “Who is it going to be? How long will they be here?”

“Um … she didn't say …” Zane replied quietly.

Miri tried to collect herself. “Tell me
exactly
what happened. Was this a suggestion? An offer?”

Zane fidgeted. “It started as an offer … then it was a deal.” His mother looked up at him, as white as the gauze at the windows in the Red Lady's room, and his voice became quieter.
“One of her Hunters will train me, and I'll give her a quarter of anything I kill.” By this point, his voice was little more than a mumble. “We shook hands on it.”

Something inside Miri snapped and she leapt to her feet. “You didn't think to ask me first?” she yelled.

Zane stumbled back a couple of steps. “I … I thought –”

“No, Zane!” his mother interjected, her voice loud and harsh with anger. “You didn't think at all! Don't you know how fragile what we have is? Don't you see what you've done!”

An uncomfortable lump rose in Zane's throat and his eyes stung with tears, but then anger rose to squash it down as he struggled to preserve his dignity. “No!” he shouted back. “I did what you said! I didn't tell her anything! And I was polite! Why are you so angry with me?”

His voice began to crack and he fled out of the house as his vision misted with the tears he was determined not to shed. He ran to the garden of the abandoned house to hide in the long grasses behind its rose bush, trying to push away his distress with ragged breaths.

Zane brooded there for hours, his appetite destroyed, alternately thinking of the meeting with the Red Lady as he toyed with one of the roses, or wrestling with the first real argument with his mother, playing both again and again in the theatre of his memory. He was so absorbed in his private distress that he didn't notice the sun beginning to set, nor did he hear Callum shuffle onto the overgrown path. It wasn't until he sat, crumpling the grasses a couple of metres away that Zane noticed him.

Callum's beard twitched and the slant of his eyebrows indicated his sympathy. “Perhaps ears as old as mine have heard similar troubles before,” he said in that deep, lilting voice. “Why don't you try telling them, and I'll see if I can remember.”

At first, Zane couldn't speak. It was as if all of the words and emotions were crammed behind a small door and trying to get out all at once.

“I don't understand!” he finally exclaimed and then related the argument with his mother to the old man. Callum nodded slowly when Zane searched for an indication that he was listening, as he sat so still. Then Zane told him what had happened with the Red Lady and the deal, and somehow that turned into an exposition on her beauty and generosity.

Callum waited patiently for the natural end to Zane's account. For a minute that seemed like an hour to Zane, he tugged at the bottom of his beard, in deep thought.

“Zane,” he finally said. “You're of an age where you need to understand what women can do, and that's nigh on impossible when you've only met two in your whole life, especially when one's your mother.”

Zane nodded sadly. “I don't understand my mum right now, and I usually do.”

“I mean the Red Lady too,” Callum added gently.

“But she didn't confuse me at all!” Zane replied hastily and Callum sighed, shaking his head.

“But she clouded your thoughts. If I told you this morning that you would visit her and make this deal straight away, without talking to your mother, would you have believed me? Think carefully now.”

Zane looked up at the twilight sky, considering the question. He shrugged and then reluctantly confessed, “No, I don't think I would.”

“So what happened between this morning and when you made that deal?”

“I met her.”

“And?”

“And she was so beautiful.” A slow realisation spread across his young face. “Oh.”

Callum let it sink in. “And did you really think about anything else when you saw her?”

Zane hung his head in shame. “No, I don't even remember what I thought about really.”

Callum nodded and watched Zane frown to himself. “Don't be too hard on yourself, young Zane. To meet the Red Lady is an event that could make even the most experienced man into a fool. I've heard tell of what she does to men and how beautiful she is. Never seen her myself, but I can believe it. You know why?”

“Because people said it?”

Callum's beard twitched and the skin at the outer corners of his dark grey eyes crinkled with his amusement. “That's something that never makes me believe anything. No, I believe that she's as beautiful as they say because I've seen her Hunters.” At Zane's confused look he continued. “Men as strong and powerful as them could easily take over, so there has to be something that keeps them loyal, keeps them in check. A beautiful woman can do that with only a smile. Just a look in her eye can make even the toughest man forget everything save pleasing her.”

Zane mulled this over as Callum waited. Eventually he nodded and then pounded the grass with his fist. “I should've been more clever!” he exclaimed. Then just as quickly he looked confused. “But I still don't see why Mum is so upset. I mean, she must be angry because I didn't talk to her first, but I think it's more than that.”

Callum nodded. “You're a bright lad, but you don't know all that your mother does. She's tried so hard to keep it all from you, to keep you happy and safe, but things are changing,
Zane. When someone like the Red Lady takes an interest in you, blissful ignorance has to end.”

“What does blissful ignorance mean?”

“Not knowing what's going on and being happy because of it.”

“But I like being happy.”

Callum sighed. “Your mother likes you to be happy too, but you've already been drawn into this, and it's a dangerous game. The Red Lady is a clever woman. She used your ignorance to seal a deal with you that you couldn't possibly have understood the consequences of.”

Zane looked down at the ground, crumpled.

Callum tilted his head in pity for the boy. “How old are you, Zane?”

“Mum thinks I'm nearly fifteen.”

“Before It happened, boys your age were much older in their minds. They lived in a world where people grew up quickly. The Boys have a harsh life that hardens their hearts, and I imagine your mother didn't want that to happen to you too. But I think it's time you understood what you've done. Do you agree?”

Zane nodded and looked at Callum apprehensively.

“Away from this place, the rest of London is very dangerous. And one of the main reasons is because of the gangs. You only know of three, but there are more, and your mother knows this too. So she's made friends with the two gangs that live closest to here to make sure that no-one can come along and spoil everything for you both. Being useful to both gangs means that they have an interest in keeping her, you, and this garden safe. But she had to make friends with both the Bloomsbury Boys and the Red Lady. Do you see why?”

Zane thought hard, not ever having considered anything like this before. “I suppose if she only helped the Boys, the Red Lady wouldn't like it. And the same if it were the other way round too.”

Callum nodded. “And more than that … if one day the Boys decided that they didn't like Miri anymore, the Red Lady would help and protect her. And the other way round too. Do you see?”

Zane gasped. “Oh no! That's why it's so bad!” he exclaimed. “If one of the Red Lady's Hunters comes here to train me, Jay will think that we like her more than him, and he'll be upset when one of them comes so close to his patch.”

“And that Hunter will tell her all about what you do here and how close you are to the Boys,” Callum added.

Zane slapped his palm against his forehead, groaning at his stupidity. “Oh, why did I make that deal!” he moaned.

His and Callum's eyes met and they said in synchrony, “Because she was so beautiful.”

Zane bit his lower lip. “I need to say sorry to Mum. And I need to find a way to break this deal.”

“No!” Callum held up a hand blackened with dirt. “You can't ever back out of a deal made with a gang leader. It could make life very difficult for you. But I do think that an apology to your mother would go a long way, and I should think she's probably feeling very bad about shouting at you too.”

“Alright then.” Zane stood, charged with the desire to act on his new knowledge. “I'll say sorry to Mum, then I'll work out what to do about Jay finding out about the Hunter, and then I'll find a way to make sure I think properly when I next see the Red Lady. I should go home anyway. It's almost dark and Mum'll be worried.”

Callum slowly rose to his feet. “She knows where you are,” he said, and was about to add something when a loud clanging of metal against metal sounded out from the west. Callum listened to the rhythm of it and his brow furrowed. “Trespassers in the Boys' territory,” he interpreted and began to hurry off towards Russell Square, Zane close behind him.

As they arrived at the end of Guildford Street, it was apparent that something extraordinary was happening. For one thing, there was no-one posted at the edge of the square, a huge oversight on Jay's part. For another, there were shrill whoops and yells coming from one of the roads off the square to the north, sounding like all of the Boys had congregated there. It seemed they weren't scared of the trespasser.

Zane ran into the square, aiming to go up Bedford Way to see if they were there, but Callum stopped him with a gentle hand.

“No, Zane, best they don't see us. We don't know what's happening yet.”

The old man steered him towards an alleyway next to what Zane called the “Husbuc” building. It was an old HSBC bank that stood on the corner, long since stripped of anything flammable or useful by the Boys, with only the facia left intact. Callum took hold of Zane's hand and steered him through drifts of rubbish and foul-smelling places up to a fire escape at the far end.

He lifted Zane up to the lowest rung, the bottom ones having been lost through a combination of rust and vandalism on the part of the Boys, and then hauled himself up. Zane watched him, amazed. Even though he could only make out his outline in the last of the rapidly fading light, it was clear that underneath all the smelly layers Callum was really quite agile.

They both climbed, Zane shaking as much as the ladder that rattled in its rusty fixings against the wall. But soon they were at the top, outside a door into the highest storey of the building which Callum opened and stepped through cautiously.
After a few moments, he pulled Zane in too and shut the door behind them, plunging them into total darkness with only Callum's surefootedness to lead him through.

After picking their way round various obstacles and passing through several doorways, they reached a room on the other side of the building. The clamour of the Boys got louder as they reached the window. By the time they got there, night had fallen, yet the room was illuminated by flickering amber light. Zane realised that the Boys had lit torches. Jay only let them do that on rare occasions, so he knew there must be something interesting to see.

Callum deftly unhooked the window latch and opened it enough to be able to peep down into the street below. Zane was desperate to look too, but Callum's mass obscured the view.