You’re too soft for this. You don’t want to be in this fight between ship and corrugated-iron sea and wind racing like an express train. You feel how soft you are, you and Johnnie, and how easy it is to hurt you. You stepped on to the gangplank and believed the sea was there to take you where you wanted to go. Now you know it can do anything it wants with you.
Your head hurts. At first it was a laugh, a bit of weather to spice up the crush in the bar and the drink and speeded-up closeness of everybody. People grabbed at chairs or bar railings. They whooped and clapped each other for keeping on their feet and getting to the table with half the drinks still in the glasses. It was all right until a lurch of the ship caught one of the Danish women with a glass in each hand. She fell with her weight on the breaking glass, and suddenly there was bright red blood between her fingers, falling on the orange carpet. She was too shocked to open her hand. The barman uncurled her fingers for her and his blank bored face looked alive for the first time that night as he drew out a long splinter of glass. He was binding up her hand tightly with a white cloth and people were talking about finding a doctor. The woman sat on the floor with her legs splayed out in front of her, while someone else held her bandaged hand up in the air as if she was a boxer who’d won the fight. The barman was telling everybody what to do.
‘Let’s go,’ said Johnnie. He looked bad, and you remembered that he’d never liked the sight of blood. Who does, you thought.
All you’d been able to get was a cabin with twin bunks. It’s tiny, but it’s clean, and it has a shower-room as well as a porthole. You wanted to wake up and look out at the sea.
You sit down heavily on the bottom bunk. The pitching of the ship doesn’t feel so bad when you’re sitting. Apart from a tight feeling behind your eyes, you’re perfectly all right. It’s just a bad night at sea, like thousands of bad nights this boat has battled through safely. Shaking up the passengers a bit doesn’t matter. Johnnie’s holding the ladder to the top bunk, wondering if he can get up it. He decides he can’t, and he clambers in past you to lie on the bottom bunk, tucked in against the wall.
The bunk isn’t too bad. They’ve boiled and starched the sheets until the edges rip apart like sticking plaster, but there are two pillows, and a cover with roses on it. The roses look as if they could be scraped off like paint, but all the same, it’s a gesture. A touch of the high life in a ferry on the grey North Sea.
‘Think of all the water underneath us,’ you say. You look at Johnnie, but his eyes are closed and perhaps he’s already asleep. You hope that he is. This should be the best part of the journey, the middle part where you can’t do anything but let the boat carry you. You eat, drink, sleep. The boat makes the decisions, not you. You’ve got to let it lurch on and take you both with it. There’s the name of the port on your tickets, but it’s only a paper name and it doesn’t have to mean anything yet.
You think of the water underneath the Palace Pier. There could be anything down there, and the North Sea is the same. Not clear, but murky and packed with life.
Dad loved the water. He said the dirty old Thames was the greatest river in the world. He showed you how strong it was, and how you had to have respect for it. He used to take you down to Tilbury to watch the boats go out, and he’d point out the currents, and tell you about the tide. It went out past Sheerness and Shoeburyness, he said, past Sheppey and Canvey and the Isle of Grain. People had been going that way for thousands of years, even before there was London built on the marshes.
‘Look at that orange box, Lou. That’s going to go right out to sea, and if it’s lucky it’ll miss being smashed in the shipping lanes, and it’ll end up in France or Holland. Think of that. There’s been more traffic on this piece of water than anywhere else in the world. Once you’re out of the estuary you can go where you want. The tide’s been going in and out of here longer than there’ve been people to watch it. It’s only because of the river that London’s here at all.’
He made you see what it was like before the Romans came. He said history wasn’t everything, it was only what got remembered.
‘People standing where we’re standing here, Lou, waiting for the tide. They went everywhere. They didn’t have bridges over the Thames then, every time they went over the river they went by water. They set off around the world in boats no one’d use on a pond in the park these days.’
You knew by the way he said it that it meant something to him. They set off. Your dad would have hated all the safety legislation they have these days. Life’s not safe, he used to say, why kid yourself? He let you stand on the edge of the dock, but his hand was always there. He thought you should go out and have a good time, as long as you didn’t hurt anyone. He’d been in the Merchant Navy in the war. You asked him about it once, where he’d been and what it had been like, but he said there was no point dragging all that up again, it was over and done with. Mum said he’d been to Russia. Russia, you said. Yeah, said Dad, I don’t recommend it, though I was all for Uncle Joe at the time. Most of us were. We thought a sight more of him than we did of Winston, whatever they tell you in your history book.
You stood and held Dad’s hand while the gulls screamed and a hooter sounded, once and again. His hand was big and warm and you swung out, clinging to it, until you were leaning over the water, then he brought you back again. The boats for Sweden sail from Tilbury, he told you, always have done. You watched the brown water and the cranes prickling the sky, and you wanted to go, too.
‘Can we go on one of those boats, Dad?’
‘Yeah, all right, when you’re a big girl I’ll take you.’
The orange of the sun hid in the fog. It was getting dark but you didn’t want to go, and you knew Dad didn’t either. He told you about the pilots the ships took on to get them out of the river. They knew every mudbank and current.
‘They’ll drop the pilot farther down, once they’re out in the open water. He’s got a skill, see, even the captain of the ship won’t know what the pilot knows. He’s got the knowledge, like a cabbie, only the sea’s harder than roads, because it doesn’t stay the same. It only takes a storm to shift a sandbank. They’ve got to trust him.’
‘If he gets it wrong, will the boat sink?’
Your dad shook his head. ‘He doesn’t get it wrong.’
Then the lights were coming on and Dad took you to a caff for sausages and chips, and you drew a picture of the river while Dad smoked and chatted to Dot, who kept the caff. You never mucked about when you were out with Dad.
‘We had a good day, didn’t we, Lou?’
You didn’t need to answer, you just squeezed his hand tighter.
‘I’m going to say to Paul, we’ve got to tell Anna. Not for us, but for her. Everyone has the right to know who they are.’
You say it aloud, because Johnnie’s sleeping. You know it isn’t the schnapps talking, and that you’ll feel just the same the next morning. The sea’s calming down now, and you don’t feel tired any more. You could sit here for ever, uncomfortably perched on the edge of the bunk while Johnnie sleeps with his face against the wall. There’s a laundry smell, and the smell of those oranges you put into a carrier bag at the last minute. They were beauties, big navels with the tight skins that split open to show the packed fruit. You’ll have one each for breakfast tomorrow, if Johnnie keeps on with this rubbish about not wanting to go to the restaurant in case someone sees him. It didn’t stop him going in the bar, though, did it?
You reach out to the bunkside switches and turn off the lights. You’ll rest for a while, then you’ll investigate the shower. It’s about the size of an upright coffin, but you’ve already tested the water and it runs hot. Fresh water, not salt.
You lie down carefully alongside Johnnie, though there isn’t really room for you both, and you’re hanging over the edge of the bunk. You’d better curl in to him so you’re like a couple of spoons. The dark is lovely, like soft thumbprints on your eyelids. Not pressing or hurting, just saying, It’s all right, you don’t
need to move. You don’t need to do anything at all. Warm and dark. Even the rocking of the ship isn’t frightening any more. It’s like being held in someone’s arms, being hushed every time you try to move or think. Like rocking Anna when the top of her head was so soft you only touched it with your lips. You don’t know if you’re rocking, or being rocked. You curl in closer to Johnnie and you’ll do anything, you know it now, anything to keep him like this, resting, safe, at ease because you’re here.
Thirty-one
And there’s the train, ripping its way down the right-hand side of England. Leeds to London in less than two hours. On it, among the businessmen travelling at resentful full-price, and crowds of kids who go for two pounds each on family railcards, there are two children who have paid for their own tickets with good money. Returns from Leeds to London, child fares. David did the thinking behind that one. He knew enough not to buy tickets to London from the local station, and not to buy his own return along with a single for Anna. If they’re brother and sister, why would one be staying, and the other coming back?
They are brother and sister. They’ve got the story ready in case anyone asks: they’re going to London to stay with their aunt, because their mother’s having another baby. Their dad saw them off at Leeds, and their aunt’s meeting them in London. Yes, they’ve done the journey on their own before.
But no one’s asked. The conductor clipped their tickets, said, ‘Mum and Dad not with you then?’ and gave them back. He didn’t sound as if he wanted an answer, not with the whole packed, swaying train to deal with.
Brother and sister. David’s looking after half the money, in case they get mugged at King’s Cross. Anna’s told him about the men who wait for kids coming in off the northern trains. They ask if you’re looking for somewhere to stay, then they take you off with them and make videos of you which they put on the Internet. Suddenly he sees that she knows a lot of things he doesn’t know. If he’d come to London on his own, he thinks, he might have listened to those men. He might have thought it was the right thing to do. At home Mum always says, ‘David’s got his head screwed on. I don’t have to worry about David,’ but he feels like a book that’s been turned to a new page his mum has never read. At home Anna was the one who asked the wrong questions, and everyone knew she didn’t belong in the village as soon as she opened her mouth. Now he’s going where it’s Anna’s voice that fits, not his.
He asked her, ‘What should we do when we get to London, Anna?’ and straight away she said, ‘We’ll get out of King’s Cross.’ He’d thought they’d take taxis, with all that money, but Anna says it’s better not. The taxi-driver might remember them. He’s bound to check if they’ve got the money for the fare before he takes them, and that means he’ll get a good look at their faces. And it’ll stick in his mind, because most kids on their own don’t have money for taxis. It’ll come back to him, when he hears something on the News about two kids who have gone missing.
‘We can go on the Circle line, and change,’ she says.
‘We won’t be on the News, will we?’
She eats another Minstrel. ‘I don’t know. They put things about missing children on the News, don’t they?’
‘Only when they’ve been murdered. They wouldn’t bother with us, because I left a note.’
He’s been to the buffet twice already and bought them a stack of drinks and burgers and microchips in cardboard boxes. ‘Here’s your chips.’ David plonks the cardboard box on the table in front of Anna, and squeezes in next to her. The train’s packed.
Anna picks at the edge of the box. ‘Is this really chips?’
‘Yeah, I had a look inside mine. And here’s your burger.’ He gives her the yellow polystyrene burger box, sachets of tomato sauce, mustard, salt. ‘I couldn’t remember what you wanted on it. You’ve got relish.’
‘Another conductor came around,’ says Anna. ‘I told him you had our tickets.’
‘I know. He asked me for them.’
‘Was it all right?’
He nods, mouth packed with food. He’d been frightened, in case somehow, by looking at him, the man could tell they’d no right on the train.
It’d all been so easy. Anna had her backpack ready, and left it in the woods down by the bridge. They’d go to town that way, along the track, not through the village. When Anna came down to meet him, she had the kitten with her, in a shoe-box with holes in it. She swung up her backpack, but she held the box in both hands as if it was jewels.
‘We’ll get a proper cat-basket in Leeds market,’ David said. The market was right by the station, he knew that. He was still on home ground then, knowing more than Anna. He looks sideways at Anna, skinny and pale, shovelling in her chips as they rush south, towards where she’s at home.
‘You’ve got your mum’s address, haven’t you?’
‘You think I don’t know where she lives, don’t you, just because I don’t live with her?’
‘No, I don’t —’
‘You do. You’re just like all of them. You think my mum didn’t want me, that’s why I live with my dad. You think she’d move house without telling me where she was. You think I’ve only got Sonia for a mother. It’s what Fanny Fairway thinks, that’s why she keeps asking me what my mother does.’
Her face is paler than ever, her eyes spitting out anger.
‘No, I don’t,’ he soothes her in desperate whispers. ‘I don’t think any of it. It’s your mum’s money paid for the tickets, isn’t it?’
She frowns as if she’s trying to read something off a blackboard where it’s written too small. Then she shoves her box of chips over to him. ‘You have the rest if you want. I’m going to feed the kitten.’
He shoots a look at the woman opposite and says, ‘You’d best do it in the toilet.’
‘Why? Would you like to have your dinner in the toilet?’
‘What if she fetches the conductor?’
‘She’s too busy stuffing herself.’ It’s true. Two rounds of ham and pickle sandwiches, an Eccles cake diat sprayed crumbs all over Anna’s comic so she couldn’t stop laughing, a big packet of teddy-bear crisps. Anna couldn’t believe the crisps. ‘I thought you only had diose at litde kids’ birthday parties.’ Now the woman opposite is working her way down a box of Roses chocolates which have gone soft in the heat of the train. Every time she pops a chocolate into her mouth, she wipes her fingers on a blue flannel she keeps in a plastic bag. Her face is shiny with food, but her eyes are small and restless and unkind.
‘Go on, take him in the toilet, Anna.’
The woman doesn’t like them whispering. She thinks they’re talking about her. She shifts in her seat, charged, ready to speak.
‘What’s wrong with feeding a kitten? See that man down by the doors, he’s changing his baby on the table.’
‘Anna, go on.’
And she goes suddenly, giving in, with the new cat-basket and the pint of milk they bought in Leeds market, and the medicine dropper which is too small for the kitten’s hunger.
The train rushes on. All these fields are flat, no hills at all. He wonders if that’s what all of southern England is like, or if they’ve just chosen the flat bits to put the railway line through. He doesn’t like it. If you can’t climb to the top of a hill, how will you know where you are? He thinks of Mum, finding the note he’d left taped to a packet of frozen puff pastry in the freezer. He knew she’d find it there, because she’d already told him she was going to make sausage rolls for tea. It was hard to write it, when Mum was in the next room, sorting the washing, calling out to him they’d have to go into Halifax for his new school shoes on Saturday. He could have called back to her. If she’d come in just then, she’d have seen what he was writing.
Dear Mum, Anna’s running away from her stepmother so I’ve
gone to look after her. I’ll be back tomorrow.
He put that bit in about Sonia because he wanted everyone to know what she was really like. The next time she went swishing through the vill
age in her Land Rover, everyone would stare. They wouldn’t want her up at the stables any more.
P.S. I’ve got money for food, so don’t worry.
Mum would know he was all right. She’d know he could look after himself. David’s got his head screwed on. She didn’t know he knew about King’s Cross and the men who said that if you hadn’t got anywhere to go you could always come back with them, but she’d understand that he had to look after Anna.
Thirty-two
Johnnie wakes in the dark. He’s sweating and the thud of the engines is part of the nightmare as he struggles to find out where he is and who is crushing him against the wall. The dream swirls in his head, sickening him.
‘Lou. Louie!’
‘All right, I’m here.’
It’s pitch dark. He clutches at her while his free hand slaps the wall, trying to find a way out.
‘You’re OK, Johnnie, we’re on the boat.’
‘What’s the matter? Is it sinking?’
‘Don’t be so bloody stupid. You woke me up, that’s what’s the matter, yelling and shouting.’
‘Can’t you put the light on?’
She snaps on the light. ‘You’re here.’ He sees her propped on her elbow, smiling. She sees him sweat-sodden, eyes stunned with coming out of his dream too quickly.
‘You haven’t been asleep,’ he accuses her.
‘No. You know me. I never sleep when I’m on a plane either. I’ve got to keep it up in the air, haven’t I? It’s hard work.’
‘What time is it?’
‘Half-past three. You want a drink of water?’ She holds out a blue plastic bottle towards him, and he drinks greedily.
‘It’s being on the boat. It gives me a headache.’
‘That’s not what’s given you a headache. Anyway, it’s not so rough now.’
‘Turn that light off, Lou, it’s too bright.’