Quarter Square (4 page)

The man himself came and stood beside me while I was talking with Andrew. He waited until there was a lull in our conversation.

“You’re a builder, then?”

I met his eyes and paused before answering. I hated to admit it, even to myself, but his voice was melodic and pleasant. I couldn’t quite place his accent, which sounded like a mix of West Country and maybe some Irish. Possibly some Romany too.

“And you’re a magician.” I kept my voice cool.

“You’re going to do up the theatre for us. Out of the goodness of your heart. And we’re supposed to believe you.”

I eyed him down to the ground and back up again, feeling the familiar brain fog creeping back. “Believe what you want, and don’t bother with your Vulcan mind-meld shit. It doesn’t work on me.”

Andrew watched Will walk away. “He’s a firebrand, that one. Give him time.”

I nodded but decided to call time on myself. The evening was spoiled.

Later, lying on my camp bed, I tried to resist the disappointment that crowded in on me. Most of the insiders had been friendly, and I had no reason to think that would change.

Will was jealous, and he didn’t trust me. He didn’t believe my motives. But mainly he was jealous of me and Min, and he was just one man. Sod him.

I wasn’t worried about the dancers’ cool treatment of me, because they didn’t mix with anyone. But I couldn’t stop Will from getting under my skin, and I didn’t try to fool myself that my sensitivity had nothing to do with my jealousy over his relationship with Min.

I tried not to imagine what they might be doing together at that moment.

Hiding in a dark city alleyway, buried under a stinking pile of food scraps and domestic waste, ignoring the rats that shove around me and nuzzle against my nose and tightly closed eyes, hearing only my own heartbeat hammering in my throat and ears, I know the monster is coming to kill me. A heavy shuffle sounds close by, and the rats of the midden heap fall instantly still and silent. A terrible grip takes me by the scruff of my neck and hauls me out, and I peer into the terrifying face of my nemesis, my final thought a silent thanksgiving for my lover’s safety.

A deep boom vibrated through the building and woke me up with a start at eight o’clock. By the time my feet hit the floor I recognised the familiar crashes, bangs and hydraulic squeals coming from the road outside. The skip was being delivered.

I wasn’t the only person disturbed by all the noise. On my way to the front door I was joined by four insiders.

Jimmy saluted. “Ready for work, boss.”

“How’s that arm?”

“It’s good.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“No, really, it’s fixed and I’m good to go.”

“Good. Let’s start shifting the rubbish.”

I left them to their dusty work and washed the dirt off my hands and face. I wanted to get round to all the timber and builders’ merchants in the city, to get a feel for the different places and order the tools and materials we would soon need.

I called into the square to see if Min would like to come with me, but she was busy teaching in the garden.

It was interesting to see all thirteen of the kids together in one place. The five youngest ones, sitting cross-legged on the grass with their scruffy exercise books, looked like an outdoor class in a real junior school.

I wandered over and caught some of Min’s lesson.

“The
Mayflower
sailed from Plymouth in September 1620, with thirty crew and one hundred and two passengers. Thirty-two of them were children. Next time you’re down by the Mayflower Steps on the Barbican, take a look at the bronze plaque on the wall across the road. All their names are there. It wasn’t a big ship. Just a fat-bellied, creaky, old wooden boat with sails. There wasn’t even enough bed space for everyone, so some passengers had to sleep in boats on the upper deck.

“It took them sixty-six days to reach America, and it must have been an uncomfortable crossing. Most of the passengers had never been to sea before, and they were scared before they left, especially the families. The weather was already turning bad, but they’d run out of money and had to leave right then.”

Min’s descriptions were so vivid, it almost sounded as if she’d been there. I told her so when she sent the kids off for a break.

“Maybe I was.” Her eyes glittered with mischief.

“Those kids are a credit to you.”

“Thank you, but it isn’t all down to me. We all muck in.” She nodded over to a bench where Linda, one of the insider mothers, was using tattered issues of
National Geographic
to teach the older group.

“As far as the outside is concerned,” Min continued, “these kids don’t exist. They’re totally free. No one out there knows their real names, and no one ever will. We all have aliases. If the police want a name, the kids know to give a different one every time. You won’t see many insiders with tattoos. Distinguishing marks make things difficult.”

“That’s why the kids hang around the square in normal school hours.”

“To avoid drawing attention to themselves.” She nodded. “And that’s why they need to know how to read and write, at least. Anything that makes them stand out from the crowd is dangerous. They need to look and act just like normal children. It’ll be a lot easier for them in a few weeks when the outside schools close for the summer.”

She called them back from play and settled them under the tree again as I left for my shopping trip.

I spent five hours, and several hundred pounds on my credit card, buying tools and materials and arranging for them to be delivered as soon as possible. The timber merchant’s warehouse smelled like heaven, and I spent twice as long in there as I needed to. I usually did in those places and always left in a good mood.

I returned to the city centre to buy a Cornish pasty for lunch and was attracted by the deep, breathy, plaintive notes of a woodwind instrument somewhere nearby. I followed the mellow sound into a tree-lined pedestrian area, where Andrew was playing a pipe of some description. His tune was slow and thoughtful—sad, even, although not mournful. I was pretty sure it was a Native American instrument. I’d never seen one being played before, but I recognised the sound.

A young couple dropped coins into his upturned leather cowboy hat as they passed, and smiled as they walked away. He was certainly an engaging character, and his music was beautiful. I slipped back round the corner rather than disturb him.

I was enjoying getting to know Plymouth, especially because I knew Min would be at home when I got back there. Home: that was how I’d come to think of the theatre and the square.

The tools and timber arrived the next morning while a gang of insiders were filling the second skip, and I got to work. I estimated it would take three months to complete the structural work, mostly on my own but with some labouring help from Jimmy and as many insiders as could be released from fundraising work.

They’d agreed to keep me supplied in food too so I could concentrate on getting the work done as quickly as possible. This haste was for my benefit. Payment in kind was all very well, but sooner or later I would need to start earning real money from outside jobs.

For now, though, my total focus was on the job in hand. I cleared a workspace on the stage, set up two sawhorses and selected lengths of oak, maple and ash to build a monster eight-foot-by-three-foot workbench. I’d bought a manufactured clamp for one end and planned to make a heavy-duty one by hand for the front, complete with dogholes and a quick-release lever. A big job needs a big bench.

I tacked my sketch to a nearby wall, stripped off my shirt, licked my new pencil and started measuring and sawing, measuring and sawing. I welcomed the exhilarating smell of fresh sawdust and the customary rush of happiness, so completely in my element that I’d sung right through to the end of my the Parlor Mob repertoire before I surfaced from the rapture.

When the final length of maple sat on a plastic sheet alongside its brothers and a dozen bar clamps, ready to be glued together like a huge butcher block for the working top, I used my balled-up shirt to wipe the sweat from my face and chest, stretched my back with a long groan and heard a giggle from somewhere behind me.

Min, Cindy and Debs stood in the wings, watching me. The poi girls’ amusement was obvious and appeared to be directed at Min rather than at me. Her shining eyes said more than the smile she was trying not to show, and she arched an eyebrow at the girls. They each jostled a shoulder against her before giggling off into the darkness backstage.

Min and I stared at each other across the stage, until, eventually, one of us had to say something.

“Care to lend a hand with this? I need someone to help clamp these pieces together so I can glue them.” I didn’t need any help. Not right then anyhow.

“Sure.”

And that was how Min became my carpenter’s assistant.

I subcontracted the electrical and plumbing work to two local tradesmen Jimmy recommended, and put them to work immediately on installing a shower in my room. They got the unit fitted and working by the end of the first day, impressing me with their cheerful efficiency and making this tired, dusty carpenter very happy.

Ten minutes into my inaugural shower after work I found myself singing Led Zeppelin’s “Thank You.” I paused, thinking of Carole, and realised I wasn’t at all sad without her. But I didn’t think of her for long. My mental image of Carole was replaced by one of Min, who’d invited me to hear her sing at a jazz club that evening.

I grinned and burst into the Parlor Mob’s “Can’t Keep No Good Boy Down,” stamping a driving drumbeat in the shower well and playing a wicked wet-air guitar.

The gig was brilliant, and Min’s voice was incredible. She brought the house down.

We left the club arm in arm and walked towards the city centre, where she said we would probably find some of the insiders performing for evening strollers.

It felt so natural for us to walk this way, in perfect rhythm. So right. I loved the intimacy of our bare inner forearms rubbing together and our gentle shoulder-to-shoulder bumps on every second step. Her scent filled my head, and I resisted the strong temptation to fold her into my embrace and kiss her.

I wondered how she would respond. The fantasy aroused me.

It was a lovely evening, and there were plenty of people around. Sure enough we found a small crowd gathered in the middle of the pedestrian shopping area, applauding Will and Danny’s magic act.

Min slowed as we approached them, clearly intending to stop and enjoy the act, but I kept moving. She caught my eye and smiled.

I smiled back, all innocence. “What?”

“Nothing.”

We strolled through a wide paved area between department-store buildings, where two more insiders were busking for an enthusiastic audience. When we got close, they lowered their violins and called Min over to join them.

“I’ll help them out,” she said. “You go on. We’ll be here for ages if the crowd grows.”

I crossed Royal Parade and left the city streets behind as I headed down towards the harbour. Within a few hundred yards the streets changed from concrete paving to cobblestones, from orange street lighting to strong moonlight and sharp shadows, and I imagined I was travelling back in time four or five hundred years. I’d only been here a few days, but already I loved the Barbican.

I turned the last corner by the theatre with a relaxed smile and walked straight into a gang fight, a vicious brawl happening in plain view, with forty or fifty men beating one another savagely inside one of the tight crossroad spaces between terraces of crooked old houses.

The battle took place in near silence, apart from grunts and scrapes and heavy blows, and seemed almost unreal. This was a scene from a movie, surely? A remake of
Highlander
or something? That was the impression I got from the whole thing: a battle of the clans. But even as the thought suggested itself to me, I knew what I was seeing was horribly real.

And these weren’t teenaged lads scrapping after a night on the beer. These were grown men: big, heavy men like bikers and battle-hardened warriors from the looks of things, battering and stabbing one another to death right there in front of me. They were killing one another.