The Red Judge (19 page)

A buzz of voices broke out all round the room. Embarrassed voices, as if behind their masks people were finally realising what they'd got caught up in. Amid the general clamour, the red judge rose to his feet. None of the others noticed, but Grace did.

‘
Go!
' she cried to me. ‘Get out of here! He can't hold you. He's got no right. You didn't kill Gilda, because she didn't ever live. You may have thought you did, but that was an illusion. You're free, Zed, free! This so-called court can't touch you. Go. Right now.
While you still can!
'

I should have done it, like she said. But something made me hesitate, and then it was too late. As if he
had regained his strength, the red judge clapped his hands. Immediately, a black candle flame sprang to life deep in the shadows at the outer edge of the room, revealing a hospital bed with my sister Cary lying in it. She was covered in tubes and bandages and surrounded by screens and monitors that bleeped as if her life still hung in the balance, despite what Pawl had said about her turning a corner, and only I could save her.

My mother cried out, and so did my Fitztalbot father. And I cried too, knowing that the red judge had got me. I looked at Grace, and she looked back as if she knew the deal I'd struck and couldn't help me. For a few moments there had been a chance, and she had seized it, but now that chance had gone.

The red judge smiled, holding out his hand to me, as if the game was won fair and square. And perhaps it was, and I would have shaken on it, conceding defeat. But suddenly a new voice rang out – one that I recognised, but didn't know where from.

‘Cary's life is hers alone, to live and die in her own time!' it shouted. ‘It isn't yours to give, or take, or gamble for or buy. She stands and falls by her own efforts, thank you very much. And so does Zed. He's capable of great things, and he'll do them too, and if some here in this room can't see it in him, then that's their loss. They may look down on him, and think he isn't good enough and even wash their hands of him. But they don't see him like I do.
Don't see him like a father looking at his son!
'

The moment was electric. Voices broke out all round the room. Then a figure came striding out of the shadows and I recognised it – of course I did. But I
knew it wasn't possible. It simply couldn't be. Not so firm, and bold and certain. Not with words so clearly spoken. Not the man I'd always thought of as my uncle.

Not Pawl Pork-pie
.

On the far side of the room, I heard somebody start to cry. I turned and saw that it was my mother. She was looking at Pawl as if he was somebody she'd once known, long ago, but turned her back on. Her expression was sheet-white, and there were things in it that I had never seen before. Hidden secrets, shaken out at last. Secrets between the two of them.

She said his name. ‘Pawl,' she said, but he wouldn't look at her.

Instead he looked at me – my shambling uncle, who couldn't usually string his words together but had done it just this once, because he wanted people to know that he was proud of me!

‘Pawl,' I said, as well. And then, because I understood at last, and wanted him to know – understood it all, and the word I'd longed to use was suddenly appropriate – I said, ‘
Dad
.'

Then the whole room erupted as if an explosion had taken place. Everything went flying up in the air. Somewhere in the chaos of it all, I heard Grace crying, ‘
Yes, oh yes!
' as if it was out at last, and my mother no longer had a hold over her. I tried to get to her, but tables went flying between us. So did my cousins, Frieda, Lottie and Claudia, along with all my other Fitztalbot relatives, and the monitors and tubes and my sister Cary's hospital bed.

Bells rang inside my head. The WELCOME ZED banner went flying past, and so did chairs and
tablecloths, silver cutlery and crystal glasses. The
C
ŵ
n
y Wbir
were swept up, howling, into darkness. The black corph candle was snuffed out, as if it had lost its power, and my ramrod-straight Fitztalbot grandmother was swept away like a handful of old bones. The red judge was swept away, clutching his wig. He went flying past and the expression on his face was enough to last me a lifetime. Then he was gone, and the shadow of Plynlimon fell from me.

Finally, Grace went as well. I saw her swept up with the rest of them. And I never got to say goodbye, but I felt her brave spirit in the face of death passing down to me like a family bequest.

It took a while for the dust to settle. When it did, I found myself standing back in the hotel basement, before a staircase leading up into the light. It was the world I'd left behind, and I climbed the stairs to join it. Through the open kitchen door, I could see leftovers from the New Year's Eve dinner – everything from tureens of soup and carcasses of pheasant to the remains of lime tarts and baked chocolate pies.

Suddenly I felt hungry. It wasn't the hunger of a starving boy who'd eat berries if he really had to, but the hunger of an ordinary boy who wouldn't mind the chance to stuff his face.

‘There's food upstairs … for us waiting … in our room,' a voice said.

I turned around, and it was Pawl. The rest of them had gone as if they'd been a dream, but he remained, as real as ever. And the room key in his hand was real as well.

I awoke in a sea-green hotel bedroom to find myself curled up in an enormous four-poster bed with curtains pulled around it. Pawl lay at the bottom of the bed, sprawled across a chaise longue. His shoulders rose and fell as he snored his way towards morning. I sat up and watched him. I couldn't see much likeness to myself, but knew that I had found my father. My real father too – not some father I'd invented because I didn't have anybody else, but the one who'd always been there for me, even though I hadn't known it.

It felt like coming in to shore after a long sea voyage. I got out of bed, too excited to lie still, went to the bedroom window and pulled back the curtains to let in the new day. Outside the sun shone across the forest with not a hint of mist. It was a beautiful morning, crisp with snow-white frost, but as bright as summer. The light awoke Pawl. He ran his fingers through his hair, and sat up looking confused as if he didn't know how he'd got here. I'd wondered that as
well, but, from the expression on his face, I guessed I mightn't ever find out.

We made ourselves cups of coffee, watched a bit of morning television, ran ourselves hot baths and finally went down for breakfast. In the dining room a table was waiting for us, with our room number on it. The waitress greeted Pawl by name, as if he was a proper signed-up guest, and we tucked into a full English breakfast, not scrimping on the toast or extra cups of tea.

Then, after we had eaten, we went out walking. I wore Pawl's old black coat, which had dried out overnight on the bedroom radiator, and he wore his pork-pie hat. I wondered what the hotel staff made of us, down there at the reception desk, me in my scruffy clothes and him with half his back to front. He checked out before we left, paying for our room with handfuls of money, then leaving the hotel abruptly without wanting change.

We made off through the forest, following the sun. I was full of questions and didn't know where to start. I wanted to ask Pawl about the red judge's court and how he'd come to be there, about my mother and their lives together and about the accident that hadn't killed my father, like I'd always been told, but had turned him into Pawl Pork-pie.

When I tried to ask, however, Pawl started looking confused again, as if he didn't know what I was on about. In the end I gave up trying and we walked in silence, drinking in the cold, crisp air. Maybe answers weren't always necessary, I told myself. Maybe, especially on days like this, it was good enough just to be alive.

We passed silver ponds, freshly frozen over in the night, and wooded copses so deep and hidden that the frost hadn't found them and neither had the sun. We climbed hills full of spruce trees, decorated with real-life Christmas baubles fashioned out of ice, passed beech trees, oak trees, ancient hollies, young, sweet chestnuts, aspens, alders, birch trees.

The list went on and on. The landscape of the forest was changing all the time. Sometimes we were in deeply wooded areas, with not a sign of human life, but other times we came across worn tracks with heavy tyre marks, and stacks of felled logs, ready for transportation. Sap oozed out of their sawn-off ends, sparkling in the sunlight like clusters of polished diamonds. I remember brushing against it, and its scent was like the perfume of the forest – something to take away with me and remember the day by, when we finally went our separate ways.

I think I always knew, right from the start, that we would end up going separate ways. I didn't say a word about it and neither did Pawl, but I think he knew it too. I remember us reaching the edge of the forest, and standing there knowing that our time had come. We'd climbed a hill and found the river on the other side, running like quicksilver through a salt marsh estuary. A town lay nestled at the bottom of the hill, and the sea sparkled in the distance. I stood looking at it all, thinking that this was as far as my journey would take me.

Then Pawl and I headed down the hill, not a word said between us. We entered the town and made our way through its streets, which were mostly empty because it was the first day of the new year. There
were no buses at the bus station, or taxis in the rank outside the railway ticket office. But we walked on to the platform as if we knew the station was open really, and stood waiting for our trains to come along.

That they would, we had no doubt, even though it was a public holiday. Mine came first, and nobody got on it except for me. I slammed the door behind me, and we stood facing each other through the open window, still not a word between us. It was as if we were both afraid of spoiling the moment by saying the wrong thing. Then Pawl thrust some money at me through the open window. ‘For the journey …' he said. ‘Happy New Year.'

My train pulled out, and he disappeared. The least said about that the better. After I settled down, I found a photograph amongst the handful of notes that he had given me. It was of him and my mother. He wore a white carnation in his lapel and she wore a white dress and held a bunch of flowers. She was smiling. They both were. They were very young, and both looked pretty different to the people they were now.

I sat looking at them throughout my journey back to Pengwern. Sometimes I dropped off to sleep, but they were always there, right in front of me, when I opened my eyes. By the time I reached my destination, I knew every detail of that photograph so well that I can recall it without difficulty, even now.

It must have been mid-afternoon when Pengwern's spires and rooftops finally appeared. I put away the photograph and watched the castle drawing closer as the front of the train pulled over the railway bridge. My heart started thundering. The conductor's voice
informed all passengers that they should make sure not to leave any baggage behind. But I was the only person who got off the train, walking empty-handedly down the platform, head down, collar up, fearful of being recognised.

Not that I needed to worry – one look at the stranger reflected in the ticket office window and I wouldn't have recognised myself. Who was this gaunt, thin, hollow-eyed boy in his big black flapping coat? I turned away from him with a slight shudder, and set off into town, not knowing what I was doing here, and rather dreading finding out.

When I hit the main shopping streets, I found that, though I might have changed, nothing else had. The Christmas decorations were still up and the people still the same. I saw my sister's cello teacher, Mr Bytheway, on Pride Hill. But he didn't see me, and neither did our dentist, Mr Jenkins, who drove past in his car.

I turned my head away quickly, but I needn't have worried. It was as if I'd acquired the knack of invisibility, walking through the streets of Pengwern without anybody looking my way. I spent the rest of the afternoon in town, hanging around the High Street and Pride Hill, buying food and drink in the few cafés that were open, using the money that Pawl had given me.

Finally they closed and the empty streets looked like a ghost town. Not knowing what else to do, I headed for Swan Hill. Here I found a couple of our house lights on, but my parents' cars gone from the garage. Sighing with relief, because I wouldn't have to face them yet, I located the spare key, let myself in and
headed through the scullery towards the back stairs.

Pengwern mightn't have changed, but our house had. Before I could get far, I quickly discovered that something was up. Boxes were stacked up everywhere, and cupboards had been emptied. Paintings had been removed from walls. Books had been removed from shelves. Statues had been wrapped up carefully and labelled. Dustsheets had been thrown over the furniture.

I went from room to room, and everything was the same. What was going on here? Down in the kitchen, my mother's pots and pans had been packed away. In the drawing room, the Christmas tree and all its decorations had been taken down. In my father's study, dustsheets had been thrown over his desk and chair, and his shelves emptied of books. In the rubbish bin I found the photographs and broken frames where I had thrown them and the bunch of mistletoe that I'd hung over my father's desk, knowing that it would irritate him.

Now I took it out, thinking how childish I had been. I've changed, I thought. I'm not the boy I used to be. No wonder I can't even recognise myself!

I turned to leave the room, but my mother stood in the doorway, car keys in her hands, a coat thrown over her shoulders. I hadn't heard her drive up, but now here she was, staring at me in surprise.

I guess I was surprised as well. We both blushed, and I can't remember what we said to each other, only that we ended up in the kitchen, drinking warm white wine because that was all my mother could find. The fact of my banishment was brushed under the carpet. My mother didn't mention it, and neither did I.
Neither did she mention anything that had come between us since, from the phone messages she'd left because she didn't want to speak to me, to the way she'd washed her hands of me in the red judge's court.