Shadow of a Hero (25 page)

As soon as she’d gone, Letta explained, just saying it was something family Van had wanted to tell her about.

‘I’m sorry,’ she finished. ‘You see, I can’t explain, but he doesn’t want to bother Momma with it. It isn’t really that important, but . . .’

‘Don’t you worry, dear,’ said the Sister. ‘I knew he’d got something on his mind, and as long as he stops fretting about it now, it’s all the same to me. That’s what matters, keeping him quiet, isn’t it? Good looker, isn’t he, though? Broken a few hearts in his time, I’ll be bound.’

She almost winked. Obviously she thought the ‘family’ problem must be something to do with Van’s love-life. Letta managed to smile.

She wanted to be alone, to try to think, so she went slowly out to the waiting area by the main doors and settled into a corner. She was worried sick. There was only one thing she could think of that might be in the packets . . . two of them . . . absolutely safe if they were kept separate . . . he must have been a bit delirious to tell her that much . . . she’d promised on the bones of St Joseph . . . he was her brother . . . it was for Varina . . .

She hadn’t got anywhere when Momma came out and sat beside her, stiff and controlled.

‘I knew this was going to happen,’ she said. ‘I’ve had nightmares about it. I’ve hated that bloody
bike
from the moment I saw it. Let’s hope it’s a write-off.’

‘But he’s going to be all right?’ said Letta.

‘All right? With that foot? Oh, darling! You’ve seen little boys running? Lumps with legs? Van wasn’t like that, ever. When he was only five he ran properly, like a deer, beautiful . . . Get me some tea, darling. It’ll be disgusting, but I can’t drive like this.’

‘Why don’t we walk home and come back for the car?’

Momma stared into space. Letta guessed she was remembering what Van had looked like, a small, dark child running like a deer.

‘All right,’ she said suddenly. ‘Let’s do that.’

There was a young policeman in the hall, talking to Grandad, loud and slow, because he was bothered by Grandad’s accent and had decided he must be stupid. He turned with relief to Momma, who took him into the living-room, while Letta went into the kitchen with Grandad and told him about Van’s accident. She put an extra mug onto the tray, but by the time she carried it through, the voices had stopped and the policeman had gone.

Momma drank her mug in silence, standing by the window and staring out at the shaggy old rose bushes.

‘He could be dead,’ she said, not turning round. ‘He was coming down the outside lane when a van pulled out in front of him and forced him into the central barrier. They don’t think he was going desperately fast. The woman in the car behind him saw it all. He was thrown off his bike and landed half on the roadway and half on the central barrier
and
then the bike came slithering along and went over his legs. She managed to stop just in time, and there was a doctor in another car which stopped too. The ambulance was there in twenty minutes.’

‘I’m sorry,’ was all Letta could think of to say. ‘Would you like some more tea?’

Momma shook her head and went on staring out of the window. Grandad came across and put his arm round her shoulders. She didn’t seem to notice. She sighed, shook her head and tried to laugh.

‘God, I wish I hadn’t given up smoking,’ she said. ‘I bet there isn’t a cigarette in the house. Never mind. They want us to go and get his stuff from the bloody bike. I don’t think I can bear to look at it.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Letta. ‘You can just sit in the car.’

‘Oh, would you, darling? You don’t mind?’

‘Of course not. Where’s the bike?’

‘At a garage in King’s Worthy. He must have been almost home.’

‘We could get a taxi if . . .’

‘No, I’ll be all right. We’ve got to collect the car in any case.’

‘Are you going to ring Poppa?’

‘I can’t till – oh, God – at least ten o’clock tonight. He’s on a survey.’

‘I will call Steff and Mollie if you like,’ said Grandad.

‘Oh, yes, please. And if you could wait by our telephone, in case . . . in case . . . Oh, I’ll call you from the garage.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Grandad. ‘Oh, my dearest child, I am grieving for you.’

‘It’s all right. That’s what we’ve got to hang on to. It’s all right. He could be dead, and he isn’t!’

Momma drove more slowly than usual, but perfectly calmly. They found the garage and knew at once it was the right one, because the bike in its unmistakable colours was parked in a side-area behind the forecourt, next to an old yellow Mini with its bonnet stove in. The bike itself looked almost all right, apart from having a smashed headlamp. Momma stared ahead, trying not to see it.

‘Why don’t you go and phone Grandad?’ said Letta.

‘I’m going to. In any case, we’ll have to go and tell them who we are or they’ll think we’re stealing.’

They found a young man in oily overalls who didn’t even ask for identification. Only as they were turning away he said, ‘Them panniers is locked, you know. You’ll be needing the keys.’

Momma stared at him, not seeming to understand.

‘It’s all right,’ said Letta quickly. ‘Van gave them to me.’

Momma didn’t seem to notice anything odd, and started asking about telephones. Letta went round to the bike. She’d brought a grip and a carrier-bag. Trying to stand so that what she was doing was screened from the road – the Mini was a help – she unlocked the right-hand pannier. It was scraped and dented but the key turned easily and the lid opened. She took out two plastic bags full of clothes and a pair of trainers, put them in the grip, closed the lid, locked it, swapped the keys, turned the new one twice the wrong way, heard a
sharp
click from inside, swapped the keys back and opened the pannier again. What had seemed to be the bottom of it had opened up on a spring, and underneath was a yellow packet about the size of a thick paperback. She took it out and slipped it into the grip beneath the bags of clothes.

She glanced over her shoulder. Momma had still not got back to the car, so she went round to the other pannier, which turned out to be half-full of books and papers. She put them into the carrier and did the trick with the keys again. The packet below the false bottom was, as Van had said, black – stiff paper, heavily taped, holding a lumpy padded shape.

She took it out and weighed it in her hand. It felt like a small piece of machinery. Now, as she stood there hesitating, the shock of what she was doing almost overcame her. This wasn’t Varina long ago. It wasn’t legend. It wasn’t a struggle against enemies everyone could see. It was England, now, real. Her whole impulse was to put the packages back, to turn away, have nothing to do with them, let the mess sort itself out without her.

But then what would happen to Van, if anyone found them?

She couldn’t think about it now. There wasn’t time, and her mind wouldn’t work. She tucked the black package down under the books, closed and locked the pannier and went back to the car, feeling sick and ashamed, as if she was betraying everyone she loved.

LEGEND

The Shoulder-blade of St Joseph

THERE WAS A
man called Paulu, of the clan of Kalaz, being second cousin to the Kas, though his mother was a Bulgar. He came to the Kas and said, ‘See, Lash the Golden is swaggering round our camp. His grandfather killed my grandfather, who was your own grandfather’s brother, by the Iron Gates and threw his body in the river. My grandfather’s spirit moans to me in my dreams, asking how I can endure the shame.’

The Kas Kalaz said, ‘That feud is frozen. I have sworn on the shoulder-blade of St Joseph that while Turk abides on the soil of Varina we will do no harm to Lash.’

Paulu said, ‘Not so. That oath was fulfilled many years ago, when we drove the Turk away. Did not Lash himself know this and flee? Have you re-sworn the oath since he returned?’

‘I have not,’ said the Kas Kalaz.

‘So is the feud frozen, or is it not?’ said Paulu. ‘Tell me, and I will abide by your judgement, for you are the Kas.’

Then the Kas Kalaz looked at him sideways and said nothing, for he too had heard the spirit of his great-uncle moaning in his dreams.

Then Lash the Golden came to Restaur Vax and said, ‘The men of Kalaz look at me with bullets in their eyes, though they have taken oath on the shoulder-blade of St Joseph that our feud is frozen.’

So Restaur Vax took thought and saw what was in the hearts of the Kas and his clan, and gathered his chieftains and said, ‘Selim is come, and Varina is in such peril as she has not seen since the days of the Red Serpent.
¹
We have no time for feuds or thoughts of feuds. Let us travel then to Riqui and renew our oaths on the shoulder-blade of St Joseph.’

But the man Paulu, hearing this, went swiftly by night, journeying by goat-paths and the paths of the hunter, and found the priest of Riqui at his midnight prayers and crept up behind him and put a dagger to his throat and said, ‘Do what I say and tell no man, or the manner of your death will be remembered through seven generations.’

He made the priest lie in a chest and closed the lid so that he should not see. Then he took the shoulder-blade of St Joseph from its reliquary and replaced it with that of a dog, which he had found by the way as he travelled, and released the priest and threatened him once more.

The priest knew well that some sacrilege had been committed, but said nothing when the chiefs came to Riqui, for he was afraid. Thus it was that the Kas Kalaz and the other chieftains swore their new oath not on the shoulder-blade of St Joseph but on that of a dog.

When it was finished the man Paulu went to the Kas Kalaz and told him what he had done and asked him again, saying, ‘Tell me, is the feud frozen, or is it not?’

The Kas Kalaz crossed himself, but looked sideways at the man Paulu and said, ‘For myself, I do not know. But let no shame fall on my house.’

¹
Nothing is known about the Red Serpent. This is the only reference to the creature in the surviving literature.

SEPTEMBER 1990

WHEN THEY GOT
home Grandad told them that there’d been nothing from the hospital, but Biddie had called to say that her parents were going out to the cinema and would Letta like to come and spend the last evening of the holidays with her. Once more Letta felt a wave of sick guilt at the way everything seemed to be helping her in her lies and betrayals, but Momma said, ‘It will do you good, darling. It’ll take your mind off things. I can see you’re upset. No point in our all sitting round being miserable together. I’ll be all right.’

So, feeling worse than ever, Letta went and put the grip and carrier up in Van’s room and took the packages up to her own room, where she hid the yellow one behind her paperbacks and the black one at the back of her jeans drawer. On the way down she copied Mr Orestes’ number out of Van’s address book. Normally she’d have gone up and said goodnight to Grandad, but she was sure he’d look at her and see she wasn’t just upset about Van, and ask her, so she didn’t.

Biddie was watching
EastEnders
.

‘I’m not allowed to if Mum and Dad are around,’ she said. ‘I feel I’m not normal if I don’t give it a go, and . . . What’s up?’

‘Van’s in hospital. He’s had a smash on that bike I told you about.’

‘That’s awful. How bad a smash?’

‘He’s not going to die unless something goes wrong, but he’s broken a lot of bones and they might have to cut his foot off. Momma’s very upset.’

‘I bet she is. We could go back up to your place, if . . .’

‘No, it’s all right. Besides . . . Is there a call box near here?’

‘Nearest one’s at the station.’

‘Look, don’t ask what it’s about, but I’ve got to go out and make a call and then I’ve got to come back here and wait for someone to call here . . . I’m sorry. It’s important. Van asked me, and I promised. Is it all right?’

‘I suppose so. You’ll have to warn whoever it is they only get three minutes.’

‘Oh, God, I’d forgotten. I suppose it’ll have to do. At least it’ll get it over. Thanks. See you soon.’

The payphone in the station was occupied by a girl in a black leather miniskirt with lank black hair and a ghoulish white face who babbled on and on, chain-smoking, while Letta hung around feeling more and more sick and anxious. It must have been at least twenty minutes before the girl stopped. Letta had the money ready and dialled. Mr Orestes answered at once. Letta knew it was him by the permanent slight whine in his voice.

‘I’ve got a message from Vivian,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘He’s in hospital.’

Pause.

‘I’m sorry to hear that. I shall send flowers. Do you know his favourite colour?’

Letta answered on the spur of the moment. It was something to do with Mr Orestes’ voice. She could hear, as sure as if he’d told her, that he didn’t
give
a damn about Van lying in hospital in an agony with his foot so smashed he’d probably never walk properly again. It didn’t matter that Mr Orestes didn’t actually know about that. If he had known, he wouldn’t have cared. All he cared about was his conspiracy, and the secret messages, and the excitement of what he was planning to do with the packages. Till that moment, Letta had been telling herself that though she didn’t like it at all, and was badly frightened, at least passing the message on would mean that Mr Orestes would come and take the packages away, and the whole thing would be out of her hands, out of the house, clear, nothing to do with any of them, even with Van, because it’d obviously be months before he was well enough to do anything much except lie around and get better . . .

Now, because of Mr Orestes’ voice, she changed her mind and said, ‘Red.’

Another pause.

‘You’re sure?’

She gulped and said, ‘Yes.’

‘Perhaps you had better give me the number so that I can enquire for myself.’

Letta had written it down while she was waiting for the ghoul-girl to finish. Half-panicking she read it out.

‘Thank you. I will call in a few minutes.’