The Power of Five Oblivion (4 page)

But what he had done now was against all the rules. He had been inside the church during a meeting of the Council and if eavesdropping wasn’t bad enough, he had actually made himself known, joining in the discussion, giving his opinion where it wasn’t wanted. And he was still at it, moving forward in that dark way of his, passing me and facing the Council members but at the same time examining Jamie Tyler out of the corner of his eye and smiling to himself, as if he’d been waiting to meet him and had come here expressly for that purpose.

“This is a disgrace,” Sir Ian exclaimed in the sort of tone he might once have used in court. “Traveller, you have absolutely no right to be here…”

“He was spying on us!” Dolan said. Spying. Suddenly it was everyone’s favourite word.

“And we did not ask for your opinion,” Sir Ian went on.

“But you’re going to get it anyway.”

Reade and Dolan were already moving towards the Traveller with violence in their eyes. I had no doubt that they were going to grab hold of him and throw him out of the church – perhaps into prison too. There was a pit in the garage that was used for exactly that purpose, a square hole covered in wire mesh. It hadn’t been used since Jack Hawes, the undertaker, had attacked his neighbour in a dispute over cabbages. He had been sent there for six weeks but he had been let out after three because Mrs Draper had suddenly died and nobody else could be bothered to dig her grave.

“Wait a minute!” Mr Flint had got to his feet and put himself between the three men. He was a small, neat man with wavy grey hair and if a fight had broken out he would have been squashed in an instant. But a fight was exactly what he was trying to avoid. “The Traveller is here,” he said. “The damage is done. We might as well hear what he’s got to say.”

Reade and Dolan looked ugly – not difficult for them – but all eyes turned back to Sir Ian, awaiting his decision. Meanwhile, I glanced at Jamie. He had sat perfectly still through all this but I could see he was thinking hard, as if he had no idea what was going on here but was doing his best to work it out.

Sir Ian was still dithering. Whose side should he take? How could he get out of this without losing authority? In the end, Miss Keyland came to his rescue.

“I don’t think it will hurt to let him speak, Sir Ian,” she said. “After all, these are exceptional circumstances. And the Traveller came here just like the boy. I agree with Mr Flint. We should hear what he has to say.”

“Very well.” Now that someone else had made the decision for him, Sir Ian felt more comfortable. “But be brief, Traveller. Say what you have to and then leave.”

Everyone took their places again. The Traveller had reached the open space in front of me and Jamie and stood there, surrounded by the Council members. Rita, wisely, had said nothing for the whole time. I knew she still had deep suspicions about the Traveller and her opinion hadn’t changed in all the seven years he had been here. “There was nothing chance about the way he arrived, slipping in in the middle of the night,” I’d once heard her say. “And what does he get up to on that boat of his? He says it won’t move. He says it’s stuck on a mudbank. But I wonder!”

“He doesn’t have a horse any more,” I’d reminded her. “And anyway, why would he want to move?”

“Why did he come in the first place? That’s what I’d like to know!”

And here he was now, examining the Council with a glimmer in his eye, as if he knew a lot more than they did and a lot more than he was going to tell.

“It’s very simple,” he began. “You said it yourselves when you were examining the girl. The only reason that this village has survived as long as it has is because nobody knows it’s here. You’ve got the forest and the river but there’s more to it than that, isn’t there? How many years is it since you took down all the road signs and dug up the road so nobody would find their way through? You’ve even got watchtowers. You’ve taken a lot of care to make sure that you’re left alone – and quite right too.”

“You found us,” Reverend Johnstone muttered.

“I found you by chance, vicar,” the Traveller agreed. “And you were one of those who voted to let me stay. I’ll always be grateful to you for that. I like it here. I’m comfortable on the
Lady Jane
and I’m sure you’ll agree that I pull my weight in the village. I’d say I’m pretty much one of you now – which is why I don’t want you to spoil it. You contact the police, you’ll be telling them about yourselves. Worse than that, you’ll be inviting them here – and who’s to say what will happen as a result? Of course, they’ll take the boy. But are you so sure they’ll be grateful to you? You really think you’ll get their thanks?”

“They offered a reward,” Dolan growled.

“That’s easy enough to do, isn’t it. A hundred thousand pounds that you don’t need and that you can’t spend. And for that you’re willing to risk the life of every man, woman and child in this place?”

“Why should we be afraid of the police?” Sir Ian asked. He had been one of those who had voted to send Jamie away.

“Because if you’re afraid of everyone – and you’re right to be – you should be equally scared of the police.” The Traveller ran a hand across his cheek. It was dark with stubble. He was still shaving, although with blades that he must have used hundreds of times. A lot of the men in the village had given up when they ran out of razors and now had shaggy beards. “When I travelled here seven years ago,” he went on, “I passed through villages upriver, miles away. The buildings were still standing but there was nobody in them … not a soul. I found houses stripped bare and empty fields with nothing growing except weeds. What happened to those people, do you suppose? Maybe one of them decided to get in touch with the police for some reason. Maybe someone found out where they were.”

He let those last words, ice cold, hang in the air.

“The police could come here anyway,” Miss Keyland said. “They could find the boy quite by chance. If we were harbouring him, we could all be punished.”

“Why should the police come here unless we call them?” Mr Flint said. He was obviously taking the part of the Traveller.

“Even so, if the boy has committed some sort of crime…” Miss Keyland reached out and picked up the photograph. I was surprised that she could even consider turning Jamie in, but at the same time she was a teacher and so I supposed she had a greater respect for the law.

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” Jamie said, quietly. It had been a while since he had spoken.

“How can you know that?” Dolan sneered. “I thought you’d lost your memory.”

“I wouldn’t do anything to hurt anyone. I didn’t come here to hurt you.”

“Then why are you in the photograph?” Miss Keyland asked. “Why do the police want you?”

“I don’t know. And they’re not telling you either. All they’re doing is offering you money…”

“There’s also the question of why the photograph appears to be ten years out of date,” Mrs Flint added.

“I agree with the Traveller,” I said. “I don’t think you should send him away. What’s wrong with letting him stay?”

That was most definitely a mistake. Sir Ian turned on me with a withering look. “You are not here to vote, Holly,” he intoned. “You are here because you are accused of breaking village law and helping to conceal a stranger. And we’ve heard enough from you too, Traveller, thank you very much. You will now leave this place and allow the Council to do its work and decide on the matter.”

I thought the Traveller was going to answer back but he knew better than me and simply bowed his head, turned and left. I noticed he walked with a slight limp. Maybe the cold and the damp of the river had entered his bones. We waited until he had gone, his footsteps echoing on the stone floor. A door at the back of the church creaked open, then boomed shut. Once more we were alone.

“There is nothing more to be said,” Sir Ian exclaimed. “We were about to have a vote. We have now heard certain representations. Let us make a decision.”

“I think the Traveller was right,” Mr Flint said. “Why put ourselves in danger? The boy can stay here, even if we have to keep him under lock and key. Let’s leave the police out of this.”

Not surprisingly, Mrs Flint agreed. The vicar nodded too. “He’s a child. Maybe, if we look after him, his memory will return. Until then…” His voice trailed away.

Equally unsurprisingly, Dolan and Reade hadn’t altered their position one jot. “Turn him in,” Reade said.

“Get the reward,” Dolan added.

“I don’t know,” Miss Keyland said. She was looking very old and tired. Her face was full of concern.

Before she went on, Sir Ian weighed in. “All in all, I think we need more time. I agree with Mr and Mrs Flint – and with Reverend Johnstone. There may be more danger handing this boy back than there is in keeping him.”

“Then why not just kill him?” Dolan said. “We have laws here. That’s what we do to intruders…”

“Shame on you!” Rita had got to her feet and I had never seen her so angry. She had quite forgotten where she was. “He’s a fifteen-year-old boy, young enough to be your son, and you talk about killing him as if he were no more than an animal. Well, maybe the village doesn’t deserve to survive if that’s what we’ve come to!” She drew a breath. “He can come and stay with me, if the Council will allow it. I’ll vouch for him and I’ll make sure he doesn’t set foot outside the house … at least until he’s been before the Assembly. As for you, Michael Dolan, I remember you when you were his age.” She nodded at Jamie. “You were cruel and spiteful then and it’s a shame you haven’t grown up to be any kinder. Now it’s late and I want to get to bed. So what do you say?”

There was a bit more argument. Sir Ian was obviously annoyed that his precious Council had been interrupted a second time, but in the end it was agreed. Miss Keyland didn’t even have to pass her vote.

And that was how Jamie Tyler came to live with us.

FOUR

There were three bedrooms in our house and now there were five of us living there, but Rita had already worked that out. She moved Jamie into the bathroom – it had been years since the bath or the toilet had worked – with cushions from the spare sofa spread out in the bath. It wasn’t very pleasant but at least it was private and, as she said (so often that it was one of her favourite sayings), beggars can’t be choosers and we were all beggars now.

It was a Wednesday when Jamie first appeared … I think. Officially, we didn’t really have days of the week any more because if you had days of the week you had weekends, and since the work never stopped that wasn’t exactly helpful. Of course, everyone had a rough idea of the date. For example, I knew my birthday was coming up. But most of the time, things were kept deliberately vague.

Anyway, we had to wait four days until the next Assembly, which was different from the Council because everyone was expected to be there – and that was when Jamie would be presented to the entire village. Until then, he couldn’t leave the house, which, for the rest of us, meant there was going to be no avoiding him. George and John reacted to the new guest in different ways. As usual, John said very little but I saw him glance at Rita once or twice and knew that he was questioning her judgement and that he was nervous about what might happen next, having a stranger living with us. As for George … he disappointed me. When I first told him about Jamie, he seemed to be on my side but now that Jamie was living with us, he completely changed his opinion.

“The house isn’t big enough.”

“George – he won’t be here for ever. As soon as the village has got used to him, he’ll be given his own place to live. Anyway, he’s sleeping in the bathroom! I thought you were glad I’d helped him.”

“I was glad you didn’t just walk away when he was hurt. And you were right not to turn him in to Mike Dolan and Simon Reade. I hate those two. But that didn’t mean you had to bring him here.”

“That wasn’t me. That was Rita.”

“Well, I’m surprised. Living in a place like this, you just have to keep your head down and get on with it. You don’t want to do anything that upsets anyone. Everyone’s going to be talking about us now and – you’ll see – no good will come of it.”

George was right, of course. For the next few days everything went on as sort of normal. George left for the bakery as soon as the sun was rising and I headed for the orchard. We had breakfast together but we never talked very much as we were too tired and the room was too cold. Winter wasn’t that far away and the general feeling was that it was going to be a bad one. Meanwhile, Jamie stayed indoors, not doing very much as far as I could tell, mainly resting and regaining his strength.

I really wanted to talk to him, to find out more about him. I even went back to the church and walked through the door a couple of times to see what that had been all about. But it was impossible to have a proper conversation. The two of us were hardly ever on our own and Jamie was still sticking to his amnesia story, even though I was certain it wasn’t true.

And then came the village Assembly. Practically everyone was there. Attendance was compulsory unless you were sick or on duty at the perimeter, but nobody would want to miss an Assembly. We were alone in a world that was dangerous and difficult to understand. Everyone was afraid more or less all the time. At the end of the day, we needed each other. We needed to be reassured.

The meeting began with the usual stuff. All the crops – from the wheat to the apples and even the wild blackberries on the hedgerows – were down and once again there would have to be cutbacks, although we’d still be able to survive. Old Mrs Brooke had finally died and nobody was going to miss her. She’d been suffering from dementia for some time, wandering in and out of The Queen and swearing at the top of her voice. Applications were now open for those wanting to move into her house. More volunteers were needed for the collection of winter firewood. It looked as if the snow was going to be worse than ever this year and stocks were low.

At last Reverend Johnstone climbed into the pulpit.

“My friends,” he began. That was what he always called us, although at the end of one of his dreary sermons there were plenty of us who were anything but. “I do have one remarkable piece of news for you. Many of you will remember that it has been seven years since the Traveller arrived in the village and was welcomed by us. Well, another visitor has turned up out of the blue and presented himself to us, this time a young man of about fifteen. His name is Jamie Tyler and he came here through the wood after being badly injured. He has no memory and cannot tell us where he came from, but having taken account of his age and the fact that he is unarmed and alone, the Council has decided to let him stay.”