The Father's House (34 page)

A tiny flame flickered in her heart as she thought of Tom.

They trudged along pavements for over an hour. For a while they followed the Thames, but they felt too exposed, and turned in towards the back streets. Paul was exhausted and was dragging on Lucy's hand, whining. They came to a small triangular playground with swings, some dreary bushes, a bit of grass, and public conveniences. There was nobody else about. Dorothy shoved her hand into a rubbish bin and groped around, and pulled out two cardboard coffee cups.

“We'll stay here for a little while,” she said, sitting down on a bench. “Here, Lucy, take Paul into the lavatories.” She handed her a cardboard cup. “Wash this really thoroughly till you've got rid of all the germs, and then make sure you both have a good drink of water because we might not get another chance for a while.”

When she and Paul returned Dorothy dished out the bananas, and they all had a couple of bites of the apple. Huddled together on the bench, they tried to work out a plan of action, but without much success.

Dorothy's spirits rose as she thought of Tom.

“Once we've had a good night's sleep, we'll be fine.” She smiled as she remembered the laughter in his voice and his cheery acceptance of life under the railway arches.

“I'm too tired to think,” said Lucy. “They've caught Thomas, and Father Copse, so the only one left is Father Drax. I suppose the Holy Leaders will see that he gets away safely.”

“I'm not so sure about that,” said Dorothy slowly. “It may be that they want to get rid of him so they can pretend he's nothing to do with them. They might even try to dispose of him unless he's got the sense to escape.”

The children sat in silence, recovering their strength. Paul leaned on Lucy and fell asleep. It was nearly dark.

“I'll have to carry him piggyback,” said Dorothy, “otherwise we'll never get there. It's only about another mile.”

They woke Paul up and made him stand on the bench behind Dorothy. She pulled his hands round to the front of her shoulders, and wrapped his legs round her waist.

“Holy Bag! He weighs a ton!” Her legs buckled momentarily, and she straightened herself up. “Right, now we're going to have to try to follow the railway line.”

Trains thundered past overhead as they plodded on slowly through dimly lit back streets.

“Is it here?” asked Lucy nervously, as they reached a railway arch seething with dark figures.

“No, not that one,” whispered Dorothy. “Come away from there. That's a bad one. Keep going.”

She put Paul down.

“I can't carry him any longer. It's not much further.”

David and Lucy each took a hand and pulled him along as best they could. Then they linked their palms and sat him on their hands with his arms clutching their shoulders.

“You're too tall,” said Lucy. “We're lopsided.”

“It's you. You're too short,” said David.

For a moment the strain left their faces and they looked at each other and laughed.

Every few hundred yards they stopped and changed sides.

“Paul, you'll have to walk now,” groaned Lucy eventually. Her arm felt as though it was about to drop off. “You must try to be big and strong.”

They put him down, and all four children trudged on, too tired to complain. A wind blew up and it started to rain. David pulled up his hood. Big cold drops fell on Lucy's head.

“I left my cap in the hospital.”

“Never mind,” said Dorothy, pointing to a flickering glow two hundred yards ahead. “Look, there it is.”

At last they came to an arch where a fire was burning and a delicious smell of sausages wafted out towards them.

“Let's see if Tom's there,” said Dorothy quietly.

They stepped somewhat fearfully into a great black cave, lit fitfully by the leaping red, yellow and orange flames of the fire.

“That's Tom!” whispered Dorothy. She pointed at a young bearded man in a brightly-coloured cap propped up away from the fire against the right-hand wall of the arch.

Stepping over a body to reach him, she said softly, “Hello, Tom. It's Dorothy.”

He looked up with glazed eyes. His arm crept round the shoulders of a woman leaning next to him. Her head flopped sideways, and he muttered, and his eyes rolled up till only the whites were showing.

“You won't get nothing out of him, love,” laughed someone. “He's been stoned for days.”

Dorothy's heart sank. She stepped back to the others. Trying to keep the shock and disappointment out of her voice, she said quietly, “He's very tired. Come on. Let's go in the farthest corner out of the way, and try to sleep for a while.”

No-one took any notice of them as they snuggled down together, and despite their hunger and the mouth-watering sausage smell that washed over them from the fire, they slept the sleep of exhaustion.

When they woke dawn was casting a faint grey light into the entrance of the archway. The fire had gone out and sleeping bodies lay around the embers. Dorothy stood up and stretched. Tom and his woman friend were wrapped around each other, their faces a ghastly white against the black of the wall. A syringe lay on the floor beside them.

Dorothy tried to push away the dull ache of misery inside her. Living in a commune made you pretty naive about the outside world but, even so, she felt embarrassed that she had believed in Tom. And she was ashamed that she had brought the others here. It had seemed so friendly, even cosy, when she had been here with Tom all those weeks ago. Now it just seemed sordid. Well, at least it had given them shelter for the night, and they could leave now, before everyone woke up. There was nothing to keep them. She breathed deeply, trying to quell her nausea, but the air was full of dust and ash, and the delicious whiff of sausages had settled into the sickening smell of grease.

Ok. So she too had been betrayed by a friend. Too bad. It was time to pull herself together. She looked down at her nice red skirt. It was dusty and crumpled. She brushed it down briskly with her hands and fluffed up her hair, and glanced over to the further side of the fire. In the dim light she could just distinguish some of the sleeping shapes and features. She breathed in sharply.

“David,” she whispered. “Look who's over there, beyond the fire to the left.”

She pulled at his arm and he stood up. In the dim light from the mouth of the archway he could just make out the curled-up shape of a very tall man with thick golden blond hair. His head rested on a black briefcase, and his face was relaxed in sleep.

“He's followed us,” murmured David.

“Or perhaps he's hiding from the Holy Leaders. Whatever it is, let's go!”

The children crept out into the street. As they left Father Drax lifted his head and then clambered stiffly to his feet. He picked up his briefcase and looked around for his hat – his disguise. It wasn't on the ground. There it was two feet away, adorning the medusa-like locks of a sleeping youth. Nits? No thanks! Never mind the hat. Clutching the briefcase he stepped over several bodies. Then, keeping well back, he followed the children as they hurried up the street.

After a few hundred yards Dorothy slowed down.

“At least he didn't see us,” she said. “I've got to find a phone. We don't need money to phone the police.”

They half-ran along the back streets looking for a public telephone. There wasn't a soul to be seen in the early morning light apart from one sleeping body in a doorway. They sidestepped past it quietly, and it didn't stir.

The first phone was vandalised and it took them some time to find another.

“No wonder people use mobile phones,” grumbled Dorothy.

At last they found a phone outside a pub, and it actually worked. The children sat on the pavement next to the booth. It took Dorothy some time to get through to the right person and to make herself understood. David and Lucy were desperate to move on. Paul's attention was caught by a cyclist, and then, far away at the bottom of the street, by a tall man with fair hair.

“Yellow hair,” he said. “Father Drax had yellow hair.” David and Lucy followed his gaze, but, apart from the cyclist who was coming up towards them, there was no-one to be seen.

“His hair's not yellow,” said Lucy. “It's his cycling mackintosh.”

Dorothy was giving directions to the railway arch.

“He's tall and blond,” she said finally. “You'll have to hurry or he might be gone when you get there.” She put the phone down and pulled David up from the pavement by his sleeve. “Come on, quick!” she said. “Let's get away from here in case they trace the call to this phone box.”

Scuttling down a narrow side street lined with parked cars, they didn't see Drax as he turned the corner at the top end and followed them with cautious steps. They found their way to the South Bank of the river and sat on a bench looking at the sunrise. The sky was a soft pink and silver. Somehow it soothed them, and the tension that had gripped them for days started to seep away. They relaxed a little. Drax stood watching from the far side of a parked car about two hundred yards away.

“Let's make a pact,” said Dorothy. “We all stick together through thick and thin.”

“Agreed!” exclaimed David.

Lucy pulled Paul to her and nuzzled her face in his woolly hat. “We'll agree too. Won't we, Paul?”

“Agreed!” he shouted, and they all laughed.

“Even if we're caught by the Holy Leaders, and even if one of us finds our mother, and even if all of us find our mothers, we'll be blood brothers and sisters for the rest of our lives,” said David.

“I'll never find my mother,” said Dorothy bitterly, and no-one spoke.

Lucy broke the silence. “You don't really know,” she said. “What you heard may not have been true. It may have been said just to frighten you into not being so cheeky.”

Dorothy straightened herself up. “Maybe. Anyway, David's my half-brother so I'm very lucky. You are too because you've got Paul. If we're all four of us blood brothers and sisters, we'll have each other, so we'll be even luckier. We'll be a family. Not everyone gets the chance to create their own special family.”

A surge of excitement swept through Lucy.

“We really are the luckiest people in the world!” she exclaimed. “We've not only managed to escape, but we've got each other!” She took in great gulps of the sharp morning air. “None of us has ever had a family before.”

She dug in her bag for the awl.

“We'd better not actually draw blood with this,” she said, “in case we get an infection. But if each of us gives each of the others a poke with it, and says, ‘I swear to be your blood brother (or sister) all the rest of my life,' that'll bind us together for ever.”

David took the awl. He held Lucy's small hand in his. It was very grubby, but it was warm and soft, and it pleased him to hold it.

“This is a strong, brave hand,” he said quietly. “It saved our lives.”

Lucy left her hand in his. She was too taken aback to say anything.

Dorothy smiled. “You'll embarrass her,” she said. “But it's true.”

She turned to Paul and picked up his plump little paw. “This is a strong, brave hand too,” she said, giving it a loud kiss, “and it belongs to a strong, brave boy.”

Paul beamed with pleasure and pride.

David jabbed the awl gently into the back of Lucy's hand and swore to be her blood brother. He did the same with Dorothy and Paul. The others all took their turn, and the little ceremony was performed with great solemnity. Even Paul managed to jab gently and, with some prompting, recited the appropriate words. When it was over they looked at each other and smiled. Lucy's eyes filled with tears.

“I'm hungry,” announced Paul.

“Don't worry,” said Dorothy. She spoke softly out of respect for the sacredness of their vows. “We'll find something to eat somewhere, somehow. I know a street with lots of restaurants. If we go round the back there'll be plenty of food in the bins. That's what I did the last time I was around here.”

They stood up, and Drax started moving more swiftly down the side street. The children sauntered towards a bridge that crossed the river. A mist rose up above the water to meet the sun's pink morning rays.

“That's the West End over there, the other side of the bridge,” said Dorothy. “It's full of restaurants. We'll manage. Now that we're a family we can make a good life for ourselves if we stick together, and we'll probably come across some of my old friends. It'll be an adventure.”

Their hearts sang.

The early morning traffic was beginning to rumble as they strolled along, and they could just see the heads of the pedestrians as they crossed over the bridge on their way to work.

“I'd love to work in an office,” commented Dorothy. “It must make you feel so safe. There's a cake trolley, and you can wear nice clothes, and you get paid at the end of each month.”