Mountains of the Moon (29 page)

Listens.

We all listens. Someone can see, to move, to unclip the brass hook on the Pit boundary rope. I smell Darren’s aftershave close by. Two people? Moving. They can see the Pit phone on the plinth. Pick it up. Listen. Nothing. Put it down. Magines the Gods, close, dived down flat on the carpet. Mrs. Herrington still up in her high chair.

Stopped. Now coming closer, stepping over.

“Keys,” a voice box says like a Dalek.

Kick of an instep says
yes, you.

“Don’t shoot! Please don’t shoot me!” The God’s knees crack as he stands up. Keys jingle-jangle on the way to the cash desk.

I sign the bottom of my statement
Kim Hunter.

“Thanks for this.” The policeman squares the pages on the desk. “Send the next one in, would you?”

I nod and close the office door behind me. In reception a couple of electricians are working on the wiring for the alarms and camera systems. The gaming-hall double doors are propped open, can see a huddle of Gods in the Pit and forensics still taking fingerprints and looking for the bullet. Everyone is quiet; shocked and still deaf from the blast of the gun. Gwen is in the staffroom with Betty-Boo and Moonface waiting for their turn, and Princess Grace who wasn’t here this afternoon or yesterday.
Seems like they called her in especially to shed some light on something.

In the changing room I put my coat on, skid on an oily patch of exhaustion and hang on the hook for a minute. I has to get out of here.

“Aren’t you going to wait for me?” Gwen says as I pass back through.

She thinks this afternoon’s robbery has wiped out last night’s treachery.

“What’s the matter with you?” she shouts.

Her
, I think; she’s what’s the matter with me. Darren is outside on the marble steps, smoking a cigarette.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” I say.

“I don’t,” he says, coughing. “Have yourself a day off tomorrow; everyone needs it. We’ll open again on Thursday.”

“Thursday is my day off.”

“Come in on Friday,” he says. “Where’s your taxi? Everyone is having a taxi.”

“I’m happy to walk,” I say.

“Are you all right?”

“Uh-huh.”

I turn right stead of left, turn left stead of right. Walk.

Sway suspended up on this beautiful bridge, with strings of lights above and below shining in the estuary mud. Everything stays behind me.

On the main road, between the street lights, I jump the wall into Ashton Court Estate, dark with boundary trees. Blow out into the open meadow. The sweep of light from the city below makes my shadow run up the hill. Catch a flapping wind on the ridge, my shantung lining flashing like a distressed signal. I stop to breathe in the open on the edge of the stony car park, find the tire tracks in the grass where Peter Eden swung the van around. Then blow over the golf course and slide sideways into the woods. A tree takes me up into its arms; I balance there with my forehead on bark and sleep with one leg dangling down.

First light finds me up, flying up on the wing of the city, on the edge of a promising sky. Shush.

Shush.

I breathe through the scene with the blue flowers, glancing off silver-birch trees, slowly and lightly tracing back the footprints of a nine-toed animal.

Has to squeeze my mind, to find him, find him, find him last in lights of cabbige whites, and puzzled eyes, his baby lips, sounds small and fluttering.
Int no god.
I open my eyes. Colors is painted on. Sky is too blue. Clovers is too purple. Buttercups shine too shiny. Wonders who I is? A ladybird. Who is I. Who I am. Close my eyes. Sees a meadow in my mind. I hovers. Open my eyes. Fingers read the lines done down on my cheek.

Lulu. Grady.
Pip.

Waves wash words up in my mind. Seed grass talks Chinese. Words come plain as truth,
int seeing Baby Grady no more
. Swifts cut dashes cross my body. I got knuckles and knees in the dirt, sounds like a night-time wolf howling in sunshine and buttercup stalks.

Screaming wakes me up. I got the taste. Purple clouds. Got thirst worster than sand. My skin is Six Weeks in the Bahamas Brown. It don’t look like the same day. Dandelion clocks has growed up around me. I look up in the sky. Wonders if I made it up and got me stuck inside a story. I think the story from the beginning, see if I told any lies. Ants tickle around my toes. Sees where my baby toe int. I looks at sneakers in the grass sides me, both left feets. Cornflakes where I was sick, wonders if to eat them gain. Breathing through my skins; something…snapping.

Shadow.

Man with a dog. I crawl through a gap in the bushes and get out on the road. Run long on the verge. Posh houses both sides with tall walls. When cars come I hide in driveways and in gardens under laurel bushes. A police car drives past and a dog starts barking in the house. Scared case
it’s big and gets me. I look out at the road, too many cars. The dog is loose, coming. I run at the big wooden fence, get up on nothing. That’s how come I panics over the top and drop down on the other side, next to a car, nearly trips over some feets, sticking out from underneath.

So surprised.

Can’t move.

“Pass me the big spanner, would you?” says a man’s oily hand.

So I pick it up and give it to him. The barking throws itself at the other side of the fence.

“Bloody dog,” says the man under the car. “If you’re looking for Suzy she’s gone shopping with her mother.”

“Sorry,” I says tween my beating hearts. I listen to the dog and a lady calling it Bruno. Police car drives back past the gates.

“Wait for her if you want,” he says. “There’s some cake and lemonade in the porch.”

Word lemonade does me a swirl. I look at the house and two garages. Underneath the car I hear the spanner slip.
Ouch
. He’s sipping in a fist, spects his knuckles has gone. I kneel down and look under to see how it is. Uh-huh.

“Sorry,” I says.

“It’s OK, it slipped, that’s all. Suzy will be back soon. Just go on in and help yourself.”

The porch is like a glass room, the door is slided open. Smells all the red geraniums. The lemonade is in a glass jug, real lemons floating in it and bits of thin ice. Tall glasses shine with orange stripes around. Jug is too heavy for one arm, muscles has set like concrete from running. I got shakes bad, try not to slop it. Legs is twitching, I has to sit down on the furnitures. Bamboos and cushions done with cabbige-rose chintz. I look at the four cakes; they got white icing and cherries on. Int proper to take a cake, case someone is coming especial for it; they got four glasses and four plates. I spects Suzy is a princess, she’s got a dad and friends come around for lemonade and cake. He rolls out from under the car, wiping his hand on a bit of rag.

Don’t want him to see me proper, case they done me on the telly.

He int coming over, stead now he’s gone under the bonnet. Rovers int too much trouble. Lemonade int fizzy, it’s got bits of lemon, better than bubbles. I dab it, dab it with my tongue. Wishes I could glug it down but can’t case the ice cuts my throat, case my stomach gets oversited and chucks it all back up gain.

If Suzy comes with her mum I has to say
hello
. Then run. Or just run. Could say
sorry got the wrong house
. Could arst them if they got a spare room or a shed or something, only if I does the ironing and the decorating and gardening and fixes the cars. I spects if they seen my fingers they’d know I’m good at fiddly and I always clean proper and hoovers around the edges. My mum learned me everything case one day I has to be a slave. Car on the gravel.

Empty glass on the glass table.

I’m down the steps and around the side, quick I’m up in a lilac tree and quiet over the fence, case they want me to clean the oven.

Handbrake. Car doors slamming.

“Your friend was here, Suzy; I think she must have gone.”

I spects if you live in a great big house you has to learn how to shout.

“Which one—which friend?”

“I don’t know, darling. How would I know which one?”

“I hate you! You’re never here!”

“I’ve bought tuna, darling, to barbecue,” shouts Suzy’s mum.

I run stripy cross the next-door grass. The road int safe, too many cars, wishes I never come this way. I try around the side of the house, see a shed and get up on it. Behind is a footpath. I drop down. Don’t know. Left or right? Right is always best with me just cos my sneakers is facing that way. I run past people walking dogs, I is a little girl out jogging, does it bouncy with a tend ponytail, don’t know how come.

This bit int posh. Somewhere on this state an ice-cream van is doing its tune, sounds pink and sticky, same as my tongue, and running out of battery. My legs don’t want no more, muscles is burning in spots like
cigarettes. I spects my arms is stuck up running, don’t know if I can get them back down. My eyes is first to give up, can’t make sense of all the blurring. Hungry is biting at my sides. I start chewing my own fat tongue, tastes the blood fore the pain. I has to get something to drink. Something to eat. I has to. I has to.

The path comes out in a small field with gardens around it and back gates. Been around it three times, no way out cept where I come. No point going back, I never passed nothing to eat. Hungry pains is chewing me up. Knees is screaming for a rest but they int allowed to stop case we lays down dies. Corner house is the best chance, on its own with big grass and apple trees. No apples, just bits of leaf and leftover blossom.

Kids was playing.

I heard them squealing with the hosepipe and the paddling pool and all the stuff out of the shed, but there int no kids here now. Everything looks bandoned. The garden path is straight, the back door is still open. Someone was in the kitchen washing up fore but I can’t see no one now. Probably gone to the ice-cream van. Can see right through the house cos the front door is open and the front gate. I climb over into the garden. Crawl long by the fence. Crawls past a boy hiding in a bush. Makes us jump.

“I thought you were Nuptials!” he says. Looks terrified.

“Sorry.” I keep on crawling. Stand up and squeeze long behind a shed, comes out by a water butt where a girl int hiding very well. She’s got jeans and a red top.

“Sorry,” I says cos I made her jump. I stay low and spy where to go next. The girl comes kneels sides me.

“Gerry’s in the canoe,” she whispers. “Barry’s in the tent. Chantal is in her usual place.”

I see how the garden is, they got sheets and blankets pegged out from a line, been doing a show. I spects the shape behind the sheet is Chantal waiting in the wings.

“Rory the Story is in the Wendy house,” she says. “Tina went indoors. Flea is down behind the wall.”

Cept he int cos when she blinked he jumped cross, now he’s laid down in a curve tending to be part of the paddling pool.

“Where is Nuptials?” I whisper. “Who is we hiding from?”

“Me,” she says.

Surprises me. I look where everyone is hid.

“Who is you going to get?” I arsts.

“You!” She shoves me so hard nearly fell through the cold frame. She don’t know. How much trouble I got.

“I int
playing
,” I says.

No good cos now she’s walking backward shouting and pointing at me.

“She’s It! She’s It! She’s It!”

That’s how come kids come out, got me surrounded. They look like for some reason I int standing straight.

“Sorry.” I sees all the eyes sliding sideways. Uh-huh.

“It! It! It! It!”

They does me swirling, around and around, ring-a-ring-a pointed fingers. Kids int no good. They int proper, they int.

“It! It! It!”

I has to get a good idea. I has to, fore they take me hostage, case they seen me on the telly.

“It! It! It! Let’s chain her up!”

I get a good idea.

“OK,” I says. “I’m It.”

They int sure if I said something, that how come I has to say it louder.

“I’m It.”

They still int sure if it’s true, so I does them savage claws and a roar. Then all is screaming and running way bottoms of feets.

Chantal is in her usual place.

Flea is being a paddling pool.

Tent has got an elbow.

Canoe rolls over on the slope, makes a thud and a slide and says
ouch.
My feets nearly leave me behind, through the kitchen and through the hall and out through the front door. Rude but fastest way.

Down the road I is a blur in colors of green, light and dark and
camouflage bark on all the plane trees flying past. Ha-ha-ha makes me laugh. I is lucky. Uh-huh, I is. I grabbed a bread bag on the way through the kitchen. When I get to the end of the road it’s one way or the other. Has to get off the roads. I run past some cottages, up a dirt track and over a farmer’s gate. I sit down in a corner huffing and see what I got.

Six slices and a crust. I eat two slices and a half, save the rest for later.

I is the wind, fast as stitches in lines of green wheat. Trees is thick long the top of a ridge. I run with sunlight into the woods, run downhill, come out by a church in a village.

Int proper to lock a church.