Thimblewinter (6 page)

The next day was a new day and the sun was shining, so I left all these thought behind me. I knew that we would be leaving the next morning, so there was some sadness, coming over me in occasional waves, but mostly I wanted to get on and get back to the valley and everything that I knew.

I knew that today was to be the day of the trade and I had prepared myself for the excitement of it. I had made sure that I’d washed my face and under my arms, though there was precious little water allowed for these purposes. Then I put on my prettiest blouse, but under the shapelessness of my sweater and jacket there was just a glimpse of the sky-blue flowers of the pattern to be seen. Still it made no difference to the way I was feeling that morning.

When I went down the stairs to breakfast, though, my mood was somewhat lowered by the serious faces around the table. They had obviously all been talking before I got there, although I was at a loss to think what about.

It was Cal who raised the subject with me, after the others had finished their porridge and found things to busy themselves with.

“We’ve had a talk,” he said, “and we think it would be wiser if you stayed here, while we go and do the trade.”

I pouted to a degree and started to protest, but I could see that his mind was fixed and his eyes steely. I was always just a bit wary of Cal. When he’d first come to the village, he’d seemed wild, violent and unpredictable. They’d only taken him in because of his mechanical skills. He’d in no way been what you might call a civilised man, but given to fighting at any affront, real or imaginary, intemperate and angry most of the time. Then, when he and Rachel had got together, I’d started seeing a gentler side of him, but he could still scare me with not much more than a look.

“From what Nes says,” he went on, “that little incident that happened yesterday may turn out to be more serious than it seemed.”

I suddenly called it all back to mind. In my head, last night, I’d put an end to it and hadn’t considered it any further.

“Some of these gangs have close links with the militia and they work hand-in-glove with them. They may be out for revenge or some sort of reckoning. So it’s best if you and Nes stay close to the house today, to let things calm down.”

I started to complain, but he just fixed his gaze on me and said:

“It’s settled. We’ll be gone tomorrow anyway.”

Cal and the Constable spent some time with Richards, going over a tattered, old street map. They would have to drive the Land Rover to the compound, taking the old dock roads. They would also be taking Mrs. Sharma with them as an intermediary, as she was already known to Mr. Ali and the rest. The journey and meeting ahead of them were not without danger, but I didn’t concern myself with that. Instead I sulked and moped around upstairs, whilst Richards saw them through the gate and out into the street.

When he came back, he and Nes had a whispered conversation and then he climbed the stairs and gazed out of one the first floor windows that looked over the street. He left the door open and I couldn’t help but look in. This was Nes’ room and it was a puzzle to me. There was just a metal bed there, a simple affair with a thin mattress, topped by a sleeping bag and very little else, apart from a partially unpacked rucksack and some anonymous bags. There were one or two books, but no ornaments. It hardly looked like she lived there, or, perhaps more truly, it seemed more like the room of someone who was staying for one night in a lodging they were unsure of, ready to flee at any moment.

I had no time to ponder this, as Richards saw me as he left the bedroom and said, more brusquely than I had heard him talk before:

“Stay away from the windows, for god’s sake.”

I was worried then; I didn’t know what was happening. Later, I went down to the kitchen, seeking company, some re-assurance from the nearness of others. Richards and Nes were talking in low, serious tones and both glanced up at me when I came in. They didn’t smile as they usually did. The ground floor rooms at the front of the house that gave onto the garden, the fence and the road beyond, weren’t used for much except storage. Their windows were kept shuttered and barred, but Richards went to check them anyway.

Nes sat down on one of the ram-shackle kitchen chairs and motioned me over.

“That gang you met yesterday,” she said, “there are some of them outside, hanging around. We don’t know what for, but it’s worth keeping alert.”

She must have seen the fear on my face, written there as if I was an open book

“It may be nothing. There’s no way a gang like that would try and get into a house in broad daylight. Even the militia couldn’t ignore that. But I may have hurt that boy badly, so they’ll be out to get even with me and probably with you.”

There was a selfish part of me, dredged up by the burgeoning panic I was yielding to, which wanted to ask: “Why me?” I hadn’t done anything, this voice said. It was Nes who’d wielded the brick. As I thought this, I felt some shame and even more so, as I think that Nes divined something of what was going through my mind.

“They probably want to reckon with me, but to them you are a commodity. A piece of goods they were robbed of. There’s always a market for young girls from out of town.”

There was not much to do there and then, but to sit and wait. Richards brought me some books down from his study to look at to pass the time.

“This one’s a present,” he said. It was an old paperback book, battered and yellowed with age. It was called Moby Dick and, as I read the title, I had some faint recollection of seeing the name before or hearing of the story.

“It’s about a man and a whaling voyage, but also so much more. All life really.”

I held it in my hand, thinking of all that had gone into it, into its making, and how ephemeral the package was that it was all tied in. The briefness of its life, really, where libraries had become ruined caverns and books so much kindling.

“It’s the classic of American literature,” he said, “it deserves to survive.”

I wondered out loud if there were any whales left any more.

“Nobody knows,” Richards said, “the sea is tainted with all we’ve been washing into it and it’s so acidic now that not much can survive. But you never know, perhaps somewhere, in the Arctic say or in Antarctica, somewhere in the open reaches of the South Atlantic, perhaps they still live on.”

It had started raining some time earlier, so both of them seemed more relaxed. Nobody spent much time in the rain, unless they could help it, and the gang members watching the house were gradually slinking off to shelter. But then Nes came in and interrupted our conversation.

“Trouble!” She said. “The militia’s outside!”

Richards nodded and rose from his chair. He went up the stairs to the first floor and into Nes’ bedroom again. I noticed that he sought no permission for this, but the woman didn’t seem to take any offence. He opened the window carefully, it was old and rotten and shuddered in its frame, but the glass didn’t give.

I stayed at the back of the room beside Nes, but strained to look over his shoulder. Two militia men were by the gate, two others were beside an old military truck further down the road. The thing had its engine running and was belching smoke from a make-shift chimney. I couldn’t guess what it was running on, but from the noxious exhaust fumes it must have been particularly questionable.

Richards stuck his head out of the window and asked them what they wanted. They replied in surprisingly formal tones:

“Mr. Richards,” the one who had sergeant’s stripes said, “we’re investigating a particularly serious incident that occurred yesterday in this neighbourhood. We need to question the woman known as Necessity and the girl who was seen with her. We know they’re in there.”

Richards turned back to us. Nes started to speak, but he motioned her to be silent. He turned again to the window.

“And where’s this questioning going to take place?” He asked. “Here?”

“They have to accompany us to the barracks,” the sergeant replied. “It’s orders,” he added, the accompanying shrug indicating that he wasn’t minded to discuss matters.

“Wait a minute,” Richards replied and turned from the window.

“Perhaps it’s better if I go with them,” Nes said. “We can tell them that you left.”

She turned to look at me as she said it.

Richards lifted a hand to his head, thought for a moment, then replied.

“Nes, you know people don’t come back from the barracks. You must have really pissed someone off. Perhaps the boy you hit was someone’s relative or perhaps this is about something else. A pretext. You know what you’re like!”

He attempted a smile, but it didn’t quite work and Nes glared back.

“Besides, they won’t leave it at you; they’ll search the place for the girl.”

“Then we’ll take them on,” she said, “we’ll fight.”

“What?  The whole militia?” Richards asked. “The whole town Council?”

Nes fell quiet then, seeing the futility of it.

“Take the girl,” Richards said,” go out the back way. I’ll stall for a while.”

Nes protested, but Richards silenced her.

“It’s the only way! Just go! I’ll tell them you both left. The gang have been watching the place, but they can’t be sure you’re still here. Go out the back way, but be careful, they may be watching that end of the house too. Come back tonight, it’ll all quiet down by then”

The dog Yogi was barking in the yard. The militia were getting impatient and trying the gate. Events seemed to happen quickly, as if speeded up; Nes disappeared for a few moments; Richards went to a drawer and took out a hand-gun, an automatic of some sort, which he hid beneath his jacket. Nes came back with rain capes and a couple of shoulder bags. She exchanged one look with Richards - whether of longing, grief or anger, I couldn’t tell - and then hustled me down the stairs. On the way through the kitchen I grabbed the whale book.

The back gate was at the end of an overgrown garden, there was a hidden way through the undergrowth and then the locked gate itself to negotiate. The lane at the back of the house was so overgrown as to be almost impassable, but again there was a tunnel-like way that took us through the undergrowth towards the last houses before the sea and the encroaching sand dunes which framed them.

You couldn’t keep really dry in that rain, it was too heavy, and where it touched your skin it eventually started to itch and irritate. We were soon on the beach and along it, into a tract of dunes that led out to the old harbour wall and beyond. Nes, it seemed, was heading for the dockland compound, but we could not afford to go back into town and take the river bridge, she was leading me another way.

The dunes were not empty; there were people trying to exist there, hanging on by their fingernails to a precarious life. Many of them were living in holes dug from the dune sides and roofed over with whatever was available, old corrugated iron, canvas, even old coats. Some were elderly and looked as if they were just waiting for death; others were in family groups and watched us with hostile eyes. Most of them were, thankfully, inside sheltering from the rain, so they didn’t bother us.

Once, two figures loomed out of the dunes in front of us, swathed in rags and wearing make-shift masks to protect them from the downpour, but Nes coolly slipped a sawn-off shotgun from her bag and they sloped away without a word.

She motioned me on, pointing with the snub nose of the barrel.

“We’ll have to chance the barrage.”

I didn’t know what she meant, but then it became clearer as we came out onto a narrow spit of sand and mud that sheltered the mouth of the river like a protecting arm. Concrete piles marched out from this spit, supporting a walkway and a strange forest of old machinery, now the twisted metal and the gutted weird shells of some past technology, strung like a tarnished necklace across the river estuary.

We had been walking fast, so I stopped to catch my breath. The rain was still irritating me, bringing up hives and rash marks on my wrists and ankles, where it was penetrating the tarpaulin cape. I was also cold and starting to feel that I was ailing. Nes looked to be fresh and more; fierce to get on and get back. There was a rage in her, it was clear, just there under the surface waiting to emerge.

While I tried to steel myself to go on, she looked around us, almost, it appeared, sniffing the air.

“I thought I heard shots,” she said, “back there.”

I knew where she meant, it was evident. She looked undecided for a while, but then, with reluctance it seemed, motioned me on.

“We have to be careful,” she said. “You never know who’s coming and going on the barrage. Boats can tie up here for a while and then be quickly gone. No-one with any sense would come here, not even the militia, except out of necessity.”

As we climbed up the metal ramp, which led out on to the concrete walkway on top of the barrage, Nes told me its story. It had been built, she said, to generate electricity from the tide, though she did not explain how this was done. It had also served as a flood defence, when it had become clear to people that the sea was rising and tide surges were overwhelming the outlying lands of the town like an army overrunning outposts.

All that was in the past, she said; there was no way the town Council had enough resources or knowledge to keep the generators maintained and working. So now the barrage just stood like a forlorn monument to the past’s vain and empty ambitions. But there were turbine chambers here and tower rooms put to all kinds of questionable usage.