Close to the Wind (11 page)

Malik knew that Papa would find a way – Papa knew how things were done and Malik was happy with that.

Papa nodded toward the hall. ‘Have they gone, do you think?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t heard them but I haven’t been downstairs.’

‘No, of course not. Just as I told you. That’s right.’ Papa had the rucksack on his knee. ‘What do you want for breakfast?’

‘Chocolate.’

‘I might have known.’ Papa took out the food that he had been given last night and spread it on the floor. He unwrapped the cheese, took the silver foil
from the chocolate and broke away two segments. He handed them to Malik. ‘Do you want cheese with that?’

Malik made a face. No one ate cheese and chocolate together.

Papa took his knife, cut a square of the hard yellow cheese, the same size as the chocolate, placed one on top of the other and popped it in his mouth. He chewed once, then held his hand up and spat it out. ‘Oh, that hurt. I shouldn’t have done that.’ He put a hand to his jaw and held it gently.

‘Didn’t it taste good?’ asked Malik.

‘Hmmm? I’m not sure.’ Papa licked his lips. ‘It’s not bad. If I could chew it properly it would be better. An acquired taste, I think. Something of a speciality.’ He shook the lump of half-chewed food from his hand so it fell to the floor and he left it there.

There were footsteps in the room below them and the front door opened and closed. ‘That’ll be them downstairs,’ said Papa. ‘We should get ourselves ready.’

‘What about the cat?’ asked Malik.

Papa handed Malik the remaining chocolate and gave him a banana from the rucksack pocket, then he took out some of his own clothes and placed them
on the floor next to him. He unfolded his knife and used the point to make a series of small holes in the side of the canvas.

Malik went over to the window as he ate the banana. ‘There are people leaving the houses, Papa. They’re going down to the dock.’

‘We should hurry.’ Papa nodded at the rucksack. ‘See? I put some holes in the side for the cat to breathe. Waste of a good rucksack, but it should work. I warn you, though, the cat won’t like it. It will whine for a while but it should settle down OK. Where is it? We should put it in now. Give it a chance to get used to it.’

Malik fetched the cat from the corner of the room. He held it under the front legs and Papa opened the top as wide as he could and Malik put the cat on top of the clothes and held it down as they pulled on the cord to close the edges over the animal.

The cat whined and cried, and it scratched at the side of the canvas. Malik wanted to open the bag up again and let it out. He fingered the holes in the canvas. ‘It doesn’t like it.’

‘No. I don’t expect it does. But it won’t last for ever.’

Malik sucked at his bottom lip and frowned. ‘If it’s not quiet, we’ll get caught.’

‘It’ll calm down once it’s used to it.’ Papa lifted up the sack and held it out. ‘Here. Come and put this rucksack on. It’s better that you carry it for the time being.’

Malik saw a small nose pressed against the holes as he put his arms through the straps. ‘It’ll be all right,’ he whispered to the cat. ‘You can trust me. Just wait till we’re on the ship. Just wait till you meet Mama.’

The air was clear and fresh when Papa stepped onto the pavement, pulling Malik by the hand. Now that the cottages were occupied, the street had assumed a semblance of normality. There were curtains drawn across windows where none had been before, and a shirt had been washed out and hung up to dry from an upstairs sash – Malik thought he could even smell bacon. He wanted to stand still and breathe it in but Papa started toward the dock and Malik had to follow.

They walked at a quick pace. A horn sounded from the direction of the docks and a bird answered with a shrill call from the cottage roof above their
heads. Everything was moving. A family stepped into their path from the front door of the cottage ahead of them – a mother, father and two girls of a similar age to Malik. The mother shouted up the stairs for the last of them to hurry up. ‘Come on, Joey. It doesn’t matter if the case won’t lock.’ Papa stepped from the kerb to give the family space and Malik looked into the house as they passed and saw a boy struggling down the stairs with a suitcase.

‘Keep up,’ said Papa briskly. Malik quickened his pace, which meant he had to run every few steps, and when he ran the rucksack bounced on his back and the cat gave a loud ‘Meow’ and scratched at the canvas behind Malik’s head.

All this hurrying made Malik anxious and the butterflies returned to his stomach. Why did they need to hurry? Why did they need to arrive before everyone else? Ahead of them, a couple slammed a front door by pulling at the handle above the letterbox. What if there were too many people? What if Papa couldn’t get tickets for the ship? What if Mama got delayed? Malik suddenly had a hundred questions in his head.

They walked on. A car came up the street behind them and Papa stepped back onto the pavement to
let it past. Malik saw a family inside, with four of them on the back seat clutching bags.

Papa marched around the corner and on toward the chain-link fence. A jeep was parked at the entrance to the docks, just the same as there had been the previous day. This time there were three soldiers slouched in the leather seats. Malik got a better look at the charred cockpit of the stricken plane, but he knew not to ask if he could climb inside, and Papa held his hand so tightly that he couldn’t pause for more than a moment and had to look back over his shoulder to get a proper look at it.

They strode onto the wide strip of concrete on the outskirts of the port. This was once where lorries would have been parked and then queued while they waited to embark, but now the strip was full of armoured vehicles and trucks with canvas covers, painted green and black for camouflage. Malik saw a grey tank like the one that had paused outside the cottage, and behind it there were two more.

Ahead of Malik, the ship was huge. It had a navy blue hull that towered into the air, with three tiers of decks, set one on top of the other like a wedding cake, each with bright white rails that ran around
their edge. A single blue funnel rose from the middle of the ship. They walked toward it.

When they were closer, Papa slowed to a stop and looked around him. ‘Where did all these people come from?’ he asked.

Malik saw that a metal railing had been erected along the quay in front of the ship. Armed soldiers were strung out along its length to prevent anyone reaching the front and rear gangplanks. A line of passengers pressed up against the rail and more passengers were loosely gathered on the dock behind them.

Papa tightened his hand around Malik’s fingers. ‘Stay close to me. Do you hear?’

Malik was worried about the cat on his back. He imagined it sitting in the little dark space, too terrified to even make a noise. He wanted to take the rucksack off and open it up, but Papa wasn’t about to stop now. He was making his way through the crowd, stepping to the left and the right to avoid people that walked slower than they did. Malik was jerked quickly to one side as Papa pulled him out of the way of a truck which cut across their path sounding its horn, scattering the crowd.

Papa changed direction, making for the back of
the dock, toward the warehouse and Port Authority buildings where the crowd thinned out and people were able to move more easily in both directions. Papa stopped six metres short of the red doors and Malik looked eagerly to see whether Mama was waiting at the entrance, though he could see she wasn’t there. Four men stood close to the warehouse entrance smoking twisted cigarettes they had rolled themselves, and on the far side of the doorway three women lay on hospital trolleys in the company of a cluster of nuns.

Malik said, ‘I can’t see Mama.’

‘We’re early,’ Papa replied, and he leaned against the wall of the warehouse. ‘There’s plenty of time yet.’

Above them was a billboard with an advertisement for Imperial Stout. Malik stood back and looked up at it – it showed a smiling man with a long black beard, holding a glass of dark beer.

‘But this is where we’re meeting her?’

‘Yes, this is the place.’ Papa had to raise his voice against a convoy of trucks, which had driven onto the quayside and came to a stop at the foot of the crane. They carried crates stencilled with the words C
ENTRAL
M
USEUM
. ‘I have to go and see my contact
now but I want you here when I return.’ Papa gave Malik one of his stern looks. ‘Do you understand?’

‘Can’t I come with you?’

‘No, Malik. Stay right here and don’t move a muscle. You need to be here so that Mama can see you.’

Malik nodded. ‘I’ll stay right here, Papa.’

An official with a clipboard and megaphone hurried past them and turned into the crowd. Malik pointed at him and tugged Papa’s sleeve. ‘Is that the man you know?’

Papa glimpsed the man passing through a line of dockers wearing overalls and cloth caps. ‘No, that’s not him. He’s just a ticket collector, isn’t he? My man won’t leave his desk. He’ll be inside. I shouldn’t be too long.’

Papa walked to the building’s red door and went inside.

In the hall of the Port Authority building there were a lot more people than before. Soldiers stood at the red painted door when Papa reached the top of the staircase. ‘I’m here for Nicholas Massa,’ he told them.

A voice came from inside. ‘Who are you?’

‘Salvatore Bartholomew.’ Papa stretched to see inside the crowded room. ‘We spoke yesterday.’ He heard Massa’s voice, saw his face turn quickly to the door and Papa waved the papers that he had taken from his jacket.

‘Let him in,’ Massa ordered, and the soldiers moved either side of the door and Papa walked into a crowded office, thick with the smoke of cigars. The sun sent a stream of light through a tall window and onto a desk in the middle of the room. There were men in suits and others in shirt sleeves who wore guns hung from their shoulders on leather straps. Papa handed Massa the papers marked B
ARTHOLOMEW
E
NTERPRISE
– I
MPORT
& E
XPORT
and Massa called his lawyers over to the table and two of them bent over and sifted through the papers.

Papa walked to the window and stood at the glass. He could see the crowd below him and the ship at the edge of the quay. During better times, he had stood at this window and watched ships arrive with the parts and raw materials for his factory. He had seen the same ships leave with the goods that he had manufactured and which he had sold around the world.

‘How much of your business has been left intact?’ Massa shouted at his back.

Papa turned and answered him. ‘The factory should be safe, for sure. It may have been looted but there has been no shelling in that area as far as I know and most of the machinery is too large to steal easily. But then it’s my reputation that’s important for you. You won’t be making anything, eh? People don’t ask questions when they see my name on the side of a box.’

Massa walked over to Papa’s shoulder. ‘Nevertheless, it’s always good to have something solid to put your finger on. What of the warehouses?’

‘The two largest, that are close to the factory, should be intact, though we have lost the depot down here by the port. I am sure of that.’

Massa looked at each of his men. ‘Is everything in order?’

The lawyers shrugged. They turned a page. ‘He just needs to sign.’

‘Can I see the passenger list?’ Papa looked between the lawyers and Massa. ‘I’d like to check Malik’s details are correct.’

Massa pointed to another desk in the corner of the office. ‘Those men will sort everything for you.’

‘And what about my daughter?’ Papa asked. ‘Have you found her?’

Massa was already leaving the room. ‘I told you, I don’t make promises.’

The lawyer held the papers up ready to be signed. There was only so far you could push these men, and Papa knew that. He signed, then walked back to the window while they amended the ship’s passenger list. To his left, Papa could see the edge of the Imperial Stout poster, and he followed the big bushy beard on it down towards the ground till he caught sight of Malik, standing directly below the glass of beer, waiting patiently.