Black Maria

  “Nothing,” the clothes-shop lady murmured.

  Mum backed into the road, pulling me. “I can’t watch any more!” she said. “Let’s go back to Miss Phelps. Quickly.” We hurried down into the town again.

  I said, “At least we didn’t see a chopped arm or leg.”

  “But I think I saw a bit of cloth fluttering. I’m not sure,” said Mum.

  “Wouldn’t this let him out?” I asked. But I knew from the way everyone had been eagerly looking that it was not like that.

  “Nonsense,” said Mum. “They were out to destroy him completely. Why not use spades if they weren’t? Did you see Aunt Maria’s face?”

  We hammered at the door of Number Twelve and had to wait ages until Miss Phelps slowly, slowly opened it. “Ah, I thought you’d be back,” she said.

  “They’re bulldozing the mound,” I said.

  “And we’ve got to act fast,” Mum said, and whirled into the hallway. Miss Phelps fell over ushering me in, and Mum whirled back and caught her just in time. She kept hold of Miss Phelps and supported her back into the living-room. I don’t think Miss Phelps was pleased. She likes to do things for herself, including falling over. Mum is too used to Aunt Maria to realise. I shut the front door while Mum was saying, “Is your brother very busy? We need a very urgent council of war with both of you.”

  “Call him, Margaret,” said Miss Phelps. “No, I can get into my chair unaided, thank you.”

  “Mr Phelps!” I shouted.

  Mr Phelps was upstairs. He came stiffly hurrying down, looking as if he had just got out from under a shower. “What was the snag?” he said. And he hardly waited for me to answer before he stalked into the room. “I can’t go this time,” he said. “What time was it when you saw his projection last night? Don’t stare, woman. Answer. It’s important.”

  Mum said, “I didn’t mean to seem stupid, but I don’t understand.”

  Miss Phelps said, “My brother is somewhat ahead of himself. It is clear that if our friend is not to be destroyed by excavators, he will have to be removed some time between when you last saw him and the moment the workmen started to dig.”

  “Time-travel, Mum,” I said.

  “Just a short way,” said Miss Phelps. “My feeling is – just after dawn this morning. Do you all agree?”

  This kind of thing is not Mum’s strong suit. Her forehead wrinkled. “I – see,” she said. “Then could we go as quickly as possible, please?”

  “You could go this evening or tomorrow and still get there in time. Next year.” said Mr Phelps. “Women’s brains alarm me. Totally obtuse. But if you would be happy going now, do so. I’m rather busy.”

  We had a last sight of him marching out of the room again as we went. I felt sick. Mum lurched against me and we both shivered. Mum was still thinking of back in the future. She said, “Oh dear, I’m afraid we interrupted him in something. I think his sister is much nicer. Good heavens! It really is dawn!”

  It was. The sky was all pink. Mist hung across the fields in bands, and the woods uphill were grey with it. The mound in front of us was black, wet and dripping, except for the sparse white-green buds on the bushes.

  “You want to wait a moment and adjust?” I asked. I did.

  “When will the workmen be here? What time is it?” Mum said. She looked at her watch. Of course it said eleven-thirty. “Let’s try now,” she said.

  We walked up to the mound. My feet got soaked in dew. It was getting lighter all the time, and I took a long look round, remembering this was the last time I’d see the mound and its bushes in the green field. I looked up at the woods, clearing out of the mist, and wondered where Chris was.

  “Get on, Mig. You have to do it,” Mum said and looked at her watch again.

  “I know,” I said. “I’d better do it in the words she used, hadn’t I?” Mum nodded. So I stretched out both hands and said, “By the power vested in me, I unseal this mound and – er – you from it, Antony Green.”

  “Say your name, ”Mum hissed.

  So I said, “This is Naomi Laker. I call you out, Antony Green.”

  There was a moment when Mum slumped, thinking it hadn’t worked. Then we saw that the bushes were different nowadays. The right place was up and to the right a bit. The earth and bushes seemed to be milling into hundreds of transparent dots there. But they weren’t moving, the dots. They were just going sort of unsolid to let a long pale figure rise up out of them. He came up to the surface just like someone would come up from water, lying sideways, and lay for a moment up along the mound, in the exact position he would have fallen in when we tripped him up. Then very slowly and shakily, he stood up.

  “Oh my God!” Mum whispered in dismay.

  He was thin as a skeleton and that made him seem about nine feet high. His hair had grown into a great mane. It was white now. So was the long scraggly beard on his chin. And in all those years, most of his clothes had rotted away, and the skin underneath was a horrible clayey-white, too, and wrinkled and dirty. He stared at us and at the dawn breaking, and I noticed his eyebrows were still dark, in ‘V’s upside down, like the ghost had.

  “Who – who are you?” he asked in a voice that would hardly work. It sounded like wind blowing in the plughole.

  “We are Betty and Margaret Laker,” Mum said.

  That, of course, puzzled him dreadfully. He bent his face to think, and then of course he could see his beard and all the rest of his skeleton body. He looked up at us unbelievingly. “I’m old,” said his creaky windy voice. “What has happened?” He was horrified. He was too horrified to listen when Mum said, “Would you like to come with us?” He said, across her, “No! I’m old! What happened?”

  And then he ran away. There was nothing we could do to stop him. He charged down the mound and ran like a stag across the field, in and out of the mist, waving his arms. It was like a scarecrow running. The tatters of his clothes streamed every time he waved his arms. They looked white when he disappeared into the first bank of mist. They seemed to be green when he came out.

  “We’d better go after him,” I said.

  “Yes, in case he hurts himself. He’s in shock, I think,” Mum said.

  We spent the rest of that morning trying to keep up with Antony Green. He was up in the woods about half the time, and we were climbing and slipping and panting, trying to keep sight of the crazy running leaping scarecrow figure who always seemed to be going uphill from us. When I had breath, I shouted for Chris to come and help us with him. But no wolf appeared, and Antony Green bounded crazily on. Every so often he stopped, or we’d have never kept near him. Then he shouted things and the woods rang, bringing birds up in clouds. Or he did a mad leaping dance. Part of the dance seemed to be that his clothes changed colour, though they were always in tatters. You never knew if you’d be chasing a green or a white or a red scarecrow next.

  “Perhaps it’s a ritual?” I panted. “Suppose we go down to the fields and wait until he comes down from the woods?”

  Mum wouldn’t hear of it. “He could break a leg any moment. Or he may not come out at all. I feel so responsible,” she said.

  “You would!” I snapped.

  Antony Green came down from the woods of his own accord soon after that, and for a while he seemed even more crazy. He bounded across the field where the wolf had been shot and did his maddest dance yet in a clear space among the cars in the station car park. This time his tatters turned several colours at once, like a jester’s suit, and he waved long arms whirling white and black, red and green.

  “He’s as mad as his mother,” I said as we limped down the field path.

  “Is Zoë Green his mother? Oh, now I understand why she was so upset,” Mum said, and she put on a limping spurt as if the thought of Zoë Green really inspired her. We just might have caught up with him there, if the booted porter hadn’t come rushing out into the car park. We were too far away to tell if the porter was trying to stop Antony Green or what, but the madly whirling figure cavorted awa
y from the porter’s grabbing arms and went rushing off towards Cranbury Head.

  Off we hobbled after him. We could see him leaping about on the road above the cliff while we were still at the edge of the houses.

  “Mum,” I said, “I know what he’s doing. He’s going all round Cranbury, sort of beating the bounds. Let him. We can stop him after that.”

  It did seem as if I was right, more or less. He came down from Cranbury Head, long before we got near it and ran along the sand for a while, a bit more calmly, only skipping and waving every so often. Then he went off among the houses. Mum insisted that we kept him in sight, though, so we staggered on.

  “Why is the town so empty? You’d think somebody would see him,” Mum said.

  I explained that, by this time, everyone would be at the excavation except the people who had gone to work. Mum looked at her watch. She couldn’t cure herself of doing that. It now said nearly three o’clock, which puzzled her horribly.

  “Now you have an idea how he must feel,” I said.

  We spotted him then, running much more slowly, away from us down the street where the chemist’s is. We toiled behind him in a sort of dog trot.

  “He’s slowing down, I think,” Mum said. “We’d better take him to the Phelpses when we do catch him. He’s really not responsible.”

  “Yes but,” I said, “I don’t know if you’re going to grasp this, Mum, but do try – at this precise moment we are at the Phelpses, you and me, discussing how to get him out. We can’t go there. Because we didn’t when we were there, do you see?”

  “Yes, but we were away for hours being cats,” Mum said. She looked at her watch again, as if that helped.

  “No. We were probably only away for the time it took to be sent and brought back,” I said. “If your watch said eleven-thirty when we were at the mound at dawn—”

  “Oh don’t!” said Mum. “It’s worse than when we have to put the clocks on!”

  “All right. But if you look at your watch again, I shall scream,” I said.

  At that moment we came into Aunt Maria’s street. Antony Green ahead of us began going faster. I groaned. He had a purposeful sort of look I dreaded now.

  Mum said suddenly, “Run, Mig! He’s on his way back to the mound. Stop him!”

  I knew she was right. It was in the dream somehow. He used to imagine himself out of his mound and dancing round Cranbury, just like he had been doing, but he always came to himself to find he was in the mound. So he thought that was where he should be now. And that meant he would walk straight into Aunt Maria’s arms.

  By then I didn’t think I could run another step, but I did. Mum and I pelted down the street. He glanced back and began to run faster too. I thought I was going to burst. Mum almost did. At the end of the street she gave up and leant on a house. Antony Green was just turning up the street that led to the Orphanage.

  “Stop!” I yelled. And Mum screamed at him, “Antony Green! Stop. Come here, you fool!”

  He stood still facing away from us.

  “Come back here and I’ll explain!” I called.

  He turned round and came towards us, very hesitatingly, clutching his rags around him. He was limping too. He had changed himself a little while he had been running. He still looked like a mad Robinson Crusoe, but he didn’t look so old as he had. His beard was shorter and streaked with darker hair, though his mane was still white.

  “What is it you want of me?” he said. He was panting but his voice was like a real person’s now.

  “Just to see you safe,” Mum panted. “What do you say to going to see Nathaniel Phelps?”

  “I could do,” he said, rather surprised. “He lives in this street, doesn’t he? Is he still alive? What year is this?”

  “Nineteen ninety,” I said.

  “You’ve only lost twenty years,” Mum said. “Though I dare say it seemed like centuries to you.”

  We both stared at Antony Green anxiously, wondering how insane this would make him. “Only! ”he said. “That’s one way of looking at it—” Then he looked at us, really looked at us for the first time. “I know you both,” he said. “From a dream I had a short while back.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Please come to the Phelpses. I’ve lost track of what the time really is and I don’t want Aunt Maria to find you.”

  He came with us quite obligingly then, and we rang the door of Number Twelve. Mr Phelps opened it. He stared. He glanced over his shoulder to the door of the living-room. “In,” he said. “All of you. In at once.” We crowded into the hall, and the huge skeletal shape of Antony Green towered over Mr Phelps as well as us. Mum moved forward to open the living-room door, but Mr Phelps opened the door on the other side of the hall. “In, in, in,” he said and fairly bundled us through it. “Not in there,” he whispered. “You are already in there at the moment, your former selves. You mustn’t meet.”

  At that moment, we heard the door of the living-room burst open and hasty feet in the hall. It gave me a queer feeling.

  “Is that so important?” Mum said. So that was who said it.

  The front door slammed. “It may be,” Mr Phelps said. “I didn’t want to take the risk.” Then he looked at Antony Green who was standing, hanging his head, and asked, “Is he-all right?”

  He didn’t look all right, but Mum said, “Yes, of course. He wants food and a bath and clothes and – listen, if Mig and I just went out of the front door, won’t there be two of each of us ever after?” Mr Phelps looked at the ceiling and clenched his jaw.

  “Oh God, Mum!” I said. “And don’t forget to look at your watch too.”

  Antony Green laughed. “No,” he said. “Your earlier selves will just move round to the point where you went into the past. They are you, after all.”

  It sounded utterly sane. It looked as if Mum had accidentally said the right thing. She went on being accidentally helpful too, because she really was puzzled. Mr Phelps fetched food to the dining-room we turned out to be in. All the time I was eating my share as hungrily as Chris, Mum was asking about time-travel and Antony Green was telling her, quite clearly and sanely. But he couldn’t eat much.

  “My stomach’s shrunk,” he said. “It was bound to, I suppose.”

  Miss Phelps came shuffling in and shook hands shyly with him. “I’m pleased to see you back,” she said. “But I can’t stay long. Margaret and her mother will be back shortly.”

  “But we’re here!” said Mum. She was hopeless.

  After that Mr Phelps took Antony Green upstairs to have a bath. The bathroom was over the dining-room. We could hear tremendous splashing, mixed with a lot of loud unhappy laughter and Mr Phelps barking orders that weren’t listened to.

  “He’s gone dotty again,” I said.

  The doorbell rang. We heard Miss Phelps shuffling to answer it. Now I knew why Miss Phelps said, “Ah, I thought you’d be back.” I didn’t know I sounded so wimpish. Then our earlier footsteps went into the living-room. Shortly mine came racing out again, and my wimpish voice yowled, “Mr Phe – elps!” All this while there were such splashings and yellings from the bathroom that I couldn’t understand how we hadn’t heard them the first time we were there.

  As soon as Mr Phelps came downstairs, Mum dived for the door.

  “I don’t think he should be left alone,” she said. She raced upstairs and I raced after her, whispering, “Mum! Mum, it’s not our house!” and trying to make her stop.

  Actually, Antony Green was quite all right. He was sitting up to his neck in bubble bath with his beard trailing in the foam, building the bubbles into shapes. When we came in, he gave us his long grin, put out a skinny arm and touched the nearest pile of bubbles. All the piles of foam took on faint, misty colour. You could suddenly see they were hills and fields, with castles on the hills and clusters of little houses in the dips. It was like when you see landscapes in your bedcovers.

  Mum said, “Good heavens! That’s beautiful.” I said, “You ought to come out now. You’ve gone
all wrinkly.”

  Then Mr Phelps came back, and he was terribly shocked to find us in the bathroom. He made us go out on to the landing and shut the bathroom door. Then he began barking orders again.

  “I wish he’d stop. That’s not the way to manage him,” Mum said, leaning her ear to the door. “I wish he’d let me.”

  “I don’t think people should manage people at all, ”I said.

  “Yes, but he’s treating him like a child!” Mum said, not listening.

  I leant gloomily on the banisters, wondering how I would ever get Chris turned back to a boy now Antony Green was mad, until Mr Phelps threw open the bathroom door and said, “Do either of you cut hair? He won’t let me touch it.”

  “We could try,” Mum said.

  Antony Green was sitting on a cork-topped stool looking halfway normal. His body was in neat fawn trousers and sweater, but his head looked like a shipwrecked pirate’s. He was staring at himself in the bathroom mirror. “Ben Gunn,” he said.

  “Robinson Crusoe,” I said.

  “Do you want to stay like that?” Mum said.

  He gave us a long wondering grin. “I am like that,” he said. “Can I change?”

  “You changed yourself while you were dancing round Cranbury,” I said.

  “Hush, child,” said Mr Phelps. He kept trying to stop me talking about things like that. He said “Hush!” every time I mentioned the mound or any of the mad things Antony Green had done, but Antony Green didn’t mind and Mum didn’t try to stop me.

  “I could cut the beard off,” he said, looking in the mirror.

  “I wish you would,” I said. “It looks awful.”