Breakdown (7 page)

‘O–K,' says Lenny very gravely. ‘I'm not gonna do that again.'

‘Because it doesn't like being talked about,' I say lamely. I don't really know what kind of story he'd like. Somehow I don't think a Greek myth about the boy Zeus will do, even with the cornucopia in a secret setting.

Lenny nods his head solemnly.

I rack my brains for something else to say. ‘Because it's a secret place.'

‘I know.'

‘So why did you?' I hiss.

‘Because,' whispers Lenny, ‘I knew you'd know.'

That stumps me. He looks up into my eyes like he's really sure I know all about his secret place.

‘Because you was in the pictures.'

‘I'm what?' I say.

And Lenny slowly counts through the pages. With only the light from the smoky oil lamp I can't see a thing. But he knows what he's doing.

So I wait.

And finally he turns up a page. ‘There,' he says. He points at something, all shadowy. ‘That's you.'

‘I see.' I know better than to upset him again, so I pick up the oil lamp, hold it close, squint at the picture until it comes into focus. There's a spring sky, all fluffy clouds. There's a girl standing in a valley outside a little cottage. Roses trail round the door. The girl is willowy and has my smile. She's wearing a coat like mine and above her in the sky, blue birds are singing. And it is kind of weird because she does look a lot like me, but then again she doesn't, because I never smile these days.

And it's just a book.

‘But it doesn't make any difference,' I say. ‘It's still a secret and you mustn't tell.'

‘OK,' says Lenny.

‘Not unless I say,' I add.

‘OK.' He nods very seriously and snuggles back down beside me.

‘Because it's our secret?' he says. ‘Just you and me. Ain't it?'

‘All right,' I say.

‘And if you could get away and if I carry the things, you might take me there?'

Lenny falls asleep. I don't. I'm too restless. With a smile I remember – today's my birthday. I tread the floor, heart beating. I keep going over Careem's words:
After that I've got something else in mind.

Happy birthday, Melissa.

I need air. Clean air, not oil lamp or wood smoke or the foul stench of this place. But I'm too scared to go outside. What if Kaylem's still around? I should go out though, and see if there's any hope of escape. Nan would tell me to.

‘You must always get up and fight back, Melissa. If you give up on yourself, few will help you.

‘You must strive to be like Melissa, your namesake, the mountain nymph. The myths tell that when her neighbours tried to make her reveal the secrets of the boy Zeus, Melissa remained silent. In anger, the women tore her to pieces, but Demeter, the sister of Zeus, sent a plague upon them, causing bees to be born from Melissa's dead body and the bees swarmed on Melissa's enemies and stung them to death.

‘You must always fight back, my honeybee. Sting your oppressors, swarm on your enemies.'

I force myself to go out and look.
Even if only to find something to protect myself with  …  an iron bar, a sharp piece of rusty metal, the right words.

I leave the locker room and climb up the ramp to the racetrack.

I see him at the exit, dark against the early dawn. His locks falling to his broad shoulders. He's standing guard. I could go back without him noticing. He doesn't know I'm here. I don't know why I feel so nervous. I hear Nan's voice, what she would say:
Get to know him. He's saved you twice. You don't have to trust him. Just use him.

I walk softly up the concrete slope. I'll speak to him. Suddenly I don't mind speaking to him.

‘Thank you for earlier,' I say.

He doesn't turn. I just see him stiffen, just a bit. ‘Thank you too, for being nice to Lenny,' he says.

I draw level and rest on the edge of the barricade beside him.

‘He told me you was nice,' he continues.

The racetrack lies like a dark lake encircled by a ring of hills. The trash is transformed by the moonlight into ripples of silver.

‘There's no way out,' he says.

‘OK.'

‘In case you was looking.'

‘I needed air.'

‘And I'm sorry.'

‘Sorry?'

‘Sorry I brought you here.'

In the light from the stars I can see his face, the square angle of his chin.

‘I'm sorry too, if the thing with Kaylem brings you trouble,' I say.

‘It doesn't matter.'

‘I'm always trouble,' I add.

‘Lenny likes you.'

I remember Nan saying, ‘Beauty is a gift. Use it wisely.' I start thinking about just how to use it here.

‘Lenny ain't got no one to care for him.'

‘He's got you.'

‘Ain't the same.'

‘You took care of me,' I point out.

‘You can pay me back.'

‘Pay you back?'

‘Take care of Lenny for me, give him love, and I'll try and save you from Careem.'

For some strange reason my heart drops. He saved me for Lenny.

‘You got the shoes all right then?' I remember his words. ‘Even if we get the shoes, even if everyone's happy, it's only for tonight. That's all.' And I remember how he left the rest unspoken:
because Careem's got something else in mind.

He nods. ‘I'll try an' save you anyways. Like I said, you can trust me.'

‘OK,' I say. ‘But you need to know, I'll be trying to save myself too.'

He turns and looks at me.

‘Just letting you know. I'm not “spoil”. I don't
belong
to anyone. I'm getting out of here one way or another, whatever it takes. Whether I owe you for Kaylem or not. I told you I'm trouble, and I'm not joking. Kaylem is a dead man. I'll get my own back on him. You just watch. And from the moment you hauled me out of the river you got yourself into it too. So expect more.'

I turn on my heel.

I don't know why I'm so angry.

I stomp back inside. It's not just because I've landed here.

It's Tarquin.

It's entirely irrational. Which just makes it worse. But I don't think I've ever felt so angry with anyone ever before.

I do eventually get to sleep. That is, I slip in and out of consciousness a bit. Not really sleep. Just a shutting down of everything.

I'm grateful. I can't think any more. Don't want to think any more. I want to turn it all off. Maybe dream of being in that other place with Nan.

Lenny doesn't let me rest for long, though. That's the thing about little kids, they don't let you do anything. I swear they must know better, but they just pull on your sleeve and yank at your hand and just when you're dropping off and you're so very nearly there, where you know it's going to be so lovely, and birds are singing by a waterfall and you're holding a huge chunk of bread and about to sink your teeth right into it, they wake you up.

Lenny shakes me. He's got hold of a few bits of glowing wood and a broken old bottle with more oil in it and a fresh rag wick. He lights it.

‘You can read it to me now,' he says and shoves his tattered book under my nose.

‘No, I can't,' I say. ‘I can't read.'

‘Yes, you can. I know you can. I saw you read that street sign down by the dock.'

Trust kids. ‘Even if I can read, I'm not reading to you.'

His face falls. All the sparkle goes out of his eyes. Back comes the guilt.

‘OK,' I say, ‘but only once and that's it – and when I've had enough I'm stopping.'

He smiles immediately and pushes the book onto my lap. I open it up. He cuddles up close. This time I don't push him away.

‘OK,' I clear my throat. ‘Once upon a time –'

‘Where does it say that?' he asks.

I point at the picture. ‘Once upon a very annoying time,' I say.

‘Read what's there,' he says.

‘I'm not going to read anything if you keep on interrupting me.'

‘OK.'

‘Once upon a time there was a farm.' I stop. There really is a little farm in the book. I stop and peer at the picture. There's a mountain in the background and the same little cosy cottage with a farmyard in front of it. Well, a kind of farmyard – looks more like a garden and a pond with wild ducks swimming on it. And there're the roses around the door.

‘Look.'

Lenny puts a grubby finger on one window. There's a girl looking out of it. The girl who looks like me.

‘Go on,' says Lenny, turning the page for me.

There is a picture across both pages. It's a close-up of the farmyard and all the things are labelled. One little farm cottage. Two stone outhouses for storing logs. Three cottagers – an older girl, an older boy and a little kid. The boy and the girl are my age and they're smiling. The little boy is jumping up in the air with his arms flung skywards.

‘That's me,' says Lenny and this time he plonks his finger down right on top of the little kid. I can see this isn't the first time he's done that. The kid in the picture has dirty marks all round him, like Lenny's been sitting here and pointing himself out to himself in that faraway place for a long time. He's pretty nearly rubbed the kid's face clean off the page. He's pointed out the girl too. She's none too clean either.

‘That's me and that's you.' He points down on the girl.

I don't ask, ‘So who the hell is that?' about the last cottager. Instead I quickly move on to the four berry bushes and the five wild rabbits and the six apple trees and the seven fishes in the brook and the eight ducks in the pond and the nine birds on the roof and then I look around for ten. But there isn't any ten.

Lenny gets this shiny look in his eyes. ‘Turn over the page,' he whispers. ‘This is the best bit.'

I flip the page and the whole double spread is full of tens. There are ten bees buzzing away and all over it is written stuff like: ten bees visiting ten cherry trees, and ten bees calling at ten bramble bushes and ten bees pollinating ten vegetable plots and ten bees collecting honey from ten wild meadows filled with foxgloves and buttercups and harebells and moon daisies, where ten woolly sheep graze while ten lambs frolic and ten hens lay ten eggs each in ten henhouses  …  And in the middle of the page are ten big old beehives.

I've never seen a bee before. I can't tell if they look like the pictures or not. I saw a couple of wasps once, but we don't get many of them either. There must be bees somewhere though because we still sometimes get apples in London. Not many and mostly they're shrivelled, but Nan said: ‘Where there's apples there's bees. And it shows they're coming.'

There isn't much else in Lenny's picture book, so I start telling him a tale of my own. There's only so long you can go on saying three birds and two bunnies and counting them up and imagining those bees really existing before you get bored. I turn back to the first page to where the girl who looks like me is.

‘Once upon a time this girl fell in a river –' I start.

Lenny gasps.

‘You don't like that story?' I ask.

‘What happened?' he whispers.

‘Are you sure you want to hear it?'

‘It's about you?'

‘Yes.'

‘And me?'

‘OK.'

‘And the secret place?'

‘I suppose so.'

So I carry on. And the tales of abundance start to flow. I tell him all about how he and I go to this place, our secret place, our hidden valley  …  a place where a stream forever trickles its pure waters through a glade ripe with hazelnuts and blackberries; where a tiny crofter's cottage stands empty, its woodshed full of hewn logs, its gardens brimming over with wild spinach; where grouse and pheasant are plenty and the mountain pools hold huge perch  …  and how we sit on little chairs every night in front of a little fireside and eat from bone-china plates and tell stories  …  and only I know the way there, and only I can show him  … 

And just when his eyes are as round as saucers, I make him close them, and I pull Nan's key out of my coat pocket and I put it in his hand. I close his fingers around the key.

‘And that's the key to the front door – the one that is covered in roses.'

He opens his eyes. He stares at the key in his hand. He turns it over, peers at its plastic-photo key ring and gasps.

‘
It is
,' he whispers. His eyes are full of magic. His finger traces the mountain frozen in the plastic, the croft and the pond with the duck on it. The word
SCOTLAND
in tiny silver letters.

And a dreamy look mists up his whole face – as if he's already there in that other place. He lifts his head and looks at me.

‘Will there be real food there?' he says.

‘What d'you mean?'

‘I mean
real
food, not book food?'

‘There'll be bread and soup and roast duck,' I say, ‘and blackberry crumble.' Nan told me that. She told me how she stayed at a bed and breakfast in the Scottish Borders and they had bread and soup and blackberry crumble.

‘No,' he says, ‘like dog meat.'

I frown. ‘Is that real food?'

‘Yes,' he says. ‘That's what we get here, dog meat and potatoes and a few things the gangs bring in.'

‘Well,' I say. ‘There'll be real food in Scotland, but you are going to love the book food better.'

‘I know,' he says. His little face is all grave. He nods wisely to himself like he knows all about the book food.

‘And I get to feed the ducks, don't I?'

‘If you want,' I say. ‘As long as you don't make pets of them.'

‘Because we're going to eat them?'

‘Yes we are,' I say.

I close the book up. The wick on the lamp is blowing sootily. I feel tired. Every bone in my body has had it.

‘Could we just keep one of them? If it had ducklings?'

I look at him. ‘I'm not doing any deal on the ducks,' I say.

‘I could go without my roast duck to make up?'

I sigh. ‘OK,' I say and I close my eyes. ‘But only if it has ducklings.'