“It’s like when I dream I’m inside my own brain!” Polly exclaimed. “Oh, I’m going to come here often and often!”
“I hope so,” Dad said, rather soberly and devoutly.
The way he said it made Polly anxious again. “Do you know which school I’ll be going to in Bristol?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
Dad laughed. “That’s a knotty problem in this town,” he said. “Let’s not worry about that for the moment. Plenty of time when we’ve all settled down.”
Polly’s uneasiness came back at that, and grew. It went on growing all through the day, interesting though the day was. They had a snack at the Zoo and then went to see one of the first ever iron ships. Polly could hardly take it in for her uneasiness. And once again, when they went back to where the flat was, they stayed outside, walking about, until Joanna had time to recover from work. Polly looked back to the old days and knew that Dad was very nervous about something. As soon as she knew that, her uneasiness flooded everything else, blotting through all her other feelings like spilled bleach. Her throat felt like a sore white tunnel of shame. Dad hasn’t told Joanna! she thought. He didn’t tell her I was coming, and he hasn’t told her I’m here for good! But it did not seem possible. Dad was not like that. It was only Mum who said he was secretive.
She was so bleached through by her uneasiness that she found it hard to eat even the small nut cutlet Joanna cooked for supper. Dad was now talking feverishly. Neither Polly nor Joanna laughed at his jokes. Joanna simply got up and went to fetch the sweet.
She came back and set a glass of yoghurt in front of Polly. “Polly,” she said, “without wanting to pry, is there any chance of your telling us how long this visit of yours is going to go on? Reg and I do have to go out tomorrow night, as it happens.”
Shame bleached Polly right through. She knew for certain that Dad had not told Joanna. He had simply hoped, or made himself believe, that Joanna would take to Polly. And Joanna hadn’t. “Oh, that’s all right,” she said brightly, without even having to think. “I’m going tomorrow morning.”
“What time train?” Joanna asked, almost eagerly.
Polly glanced through her hair at her father. There was profound and utter relief on his face. “Ten o’clock,” she invented. She was drowning in bleach. That look on Dad’s face. Mum had been right about him after all.
“Then we can all leave here together,” Joanna said. “If we go really early, I’ll have time to drive you to the station.”
A bleached kind of pride rose through Polly’s shame. “That’s perfectly all right,” she said. “I can easily find my own way.”
“Then it’s all settled,” Reg said heartily. “What shall we do this last evening?”
Polly nearly said, “Play Let’s Pretend,” but she bit it back in time. They watched television and Polly went to bed early, where, to her surprise, she slept a heavy sleep, as if she had been drugged. She still felt drugged when she got up next morning and packed, putting her nightclothes and the photograph back in her bag on top of the other things that she had never even taken out of it. In the same heavy, half-awake state, she went into the kitchen, where Joanna was racing through her routine as before.
“I’m afraid I haven’t time to pack sandwiches,” she said to Polly. “But you can get something to eat on the train, can’t you?”
“Of course she can,” said Reg. “Hurry up, Poll. We have to get to work.”
Polly nibbled some nutty brown toast she did not want, and then the other two were racing her out of the flat. Outside in the road, Reg waved goodbye to her as he and Joanna hurried to where the car was parked. “Shall I drive today?” Polly heard him say. “Or is it better if I guide you out?”
Polly was left standing on the pavement with her duffel bag hooked on one shoulder. She turned and walked the other way. Her pride would not let her stand and watch the car drive away. She heard it drive off as she reached the end of the road. Then, when it was too late, she remembered that she had no money and no ticket back to Middleton. And he never even asked me if I had! she thought. She knew it was her own fault too. She had been too bleached with pride to remember. But she also knew that Dad had not asked her about money because that was part of the pretence that she was only here for a short visit. Naturally, she would have a return ticket, and spending money for her stay.
Polly went on walking away. She walked among strong stone houses, then she walked among rows of older, airier houses joined together into yellow terraces. She walked through a stretch of green park with bushes. It rained a little. The sky was full of rolling, thick clouds, black as bruises and fat and wet. It did not surprise Polly that rain kept falling out of them. And yet, in a queer way, she was surprised at everything. She kept on walking. She crossed a road and walked on more green, under bare trees swaying and clawing against the clouds. Through the black branches she saw two lofty grey towers holding an upside-down arch of white metal. There’s the Suspension Bridge, she thought, and aimed towards it.
You had to pay to go on the bridge. Polly felt in her pocket and found her last two p. She handed it over and walked out to the middle of the bridge, under the great upside-down arch of the suspension cables. The bridge was a flat double strip under the cables, hung high, high up between two cliffs. Polly walked out to the middle and stopped. The wind took her hair there and hurled it about. She leaned both arms on the chubby metal fence at the edge and looked down, dizzyingly far, to the sinewy brown water of the Bristol Avon racing between thick mud banks below. The wind hurled seagulls about in the air like wastepaper. The bridge swayed, and rumbled under cars passing behind Polly. March, she thought. Wind. The trees on the opposite cliff were the same bruise colour as the clouds, only pinker. There were no leaves yet. She thought of the parachute-crinoline lady, and wondered if something like this had happened to her too.
A long time later, when she was nearly frozen, the wind flapped Polly’s hair in her face so hard that she had to turn her head to shake it away. Among the flying light strands of hair, she caught sight of someone standing at the far end of the bridge, leaning on a stick and looking at her. Only a glimpse, of a tall, bulky figure with the wind flapping its coat. Polly kept her head turned towards the river. She counted a hundred. Then she looked. Mr Leroy had gone by then, but she knew it had been him. Now she knew whom she had to thank for the situation she was in.
She turned and walked back across the bridge. Mr Leroy was not going to be able to stand and gloat over her. But what was she to do? There was a notice pasted up at the end of the bridge. SAMARITANS, it said, and a telephone number. But Polly had no money to telephone, and if she begged money off someone and rang them up, the first thing they would do would be to get hold of Dad. It would be the same if she explained at the railway station, or went to the police. They would get Dad, and he would be exposed, and so would Polly’s shame. And Joanna would open both eyes so wide. Anyway, it was all Mr Leroy’s doing really. But she still had to do something.
Polly thought, If I see a policeman, I’ll say I’ve lost my memory. And set off walking again. This time she went steeply downhill and walked and walked. Terrace after terrace of elegant houses, but she never saw a single policeman. Then I’ll go to the railway station and tell them I’ve lost my memory there instead, she thought. Somewhere near a big church she met a traffic warden and asked him the way to the station. He was kind. He directed Polly just as if she was a car.
“After the Centre, you drive over three roundabouts, see.”
“I see,” said Polly. “Three roundabouts.”
“That’s the ideal,” he said.
They really do say it! Polly thought. Evil, Idle and Normal. She knew she was going to get lost, not being a car, and she did.
She found herself in a part with tall office blocks, narrow towers of office, each with a thousand windows. Like stripes of graph paper, she thought. The wind hurled seagulls round the graph paper and old peanut packets round her feet. She turned a corner,
and instead of offices, she found a narrow street. Here the houses were suddenly old, dark, and a little bulging. Like stepping from Here to Nowhere, Polly thought.
She went up the winding, lane-like street and there, like part of Nowhere coming when she called, she passed a small car crouching against the kerb with a parking ticket flapping from its wiper. It was cream yellow and kettle-shaped, and Polly only had to flick her eyes to its number plate to make sure. TC 123. She passed it without even slowing down. Mr Leroy was not going to realise that she had recognised that car. But inside, she was saying, Oh, thank heaven! over and over again. Oh, thank heaven!
2
They’ll turn me in your arms, lady,
Into a serpent or a snake
TAM LIN
Polly went on walking, but now she had somewhere to go. She was following a tugging in her head. It was like an instinct, the way migrating birds go, or salmon swim, sure and unhesitating, to the right place in the end. It took her round in a devious U-turn, back through the small streets, under the graph-paper buildings, across two very busy roads and up a slanting street to one side, to the elderly-looking front of a concert hall. Notices were stuck on it, one for wrestling – THE WESTON WHIRLWIND V CLAPHAM PETE – and one for a concert – THE DUMAS QUARTET TONIGHT 7:30. The part that said DUMAS QUARTET was an oblong strip of paper stuck on top of some other name and flapping loose in the wind. But it was there. Thank heaven!
The doors of the hall were shut. Polly knew at a glance that she could not get in that way. She only turned her eyes sideways to make sure, and to read the notice, and walked on without pausing, so that Mr Leroy would not know, uphill and round the side, a way she could not have found without her instinct, and arrived at a side door, which was not quite shut.
She went straight in. Nobody seemed to be about, but now she had something to guide her beyond instinct. There was music. Overhead somewhere there were thumps and shuffling. Maybe it was the wrestling. The music was coming from below. Polly went down bleak stone steps, and down more, with the music getting louder all the time. She opened a door.
Inside was a dingy green-painted cloakroom sort of place, fairly brightly lit. In the middle of it, four musicians were sitting on tubular metal chairs in front of music stands, playing. They seemed so wrapped up in what they were playing that Polly simply stood by the door, not liking to interrupt. It did not matter anyway. Her instinct had brought her to the right place.
Mr Lynn said, “Just a minute,” and stopped playing. The rest of the music broke off while he was leaning his cello on its spike against the chair and carefully laying his bow across the seat. The first violin said, “But I swear I got that right this t—” to Mr Lynn’s back as he went over to Polly.
“What is it, Polly?” he said, without fuss or exclamation, quite quietly. “What’s wrong?”
Now that Mr Lynn was really there, standing in front of her in shabby old jeans, with his chin covered in unshaven golden hairs and a faint, familiar scent coming off him, Polly found it hard to speak without crying. She blurted out what had happened with Dad and Joanna, and then bit her lips together hard.
“Jesus wept!” said Mr Lynn. “Lucky we happened to be here.”
Polly breathed in, then out. “And even if I had any money, I can’t go home.” Her voice started to jiggle about. “Mum thinks – thinks – Anyway she says I ganged up with David against her.”
“I see. Pig in the middle again,” said Mr Lynn. “Can you go to your grandmother?”
Polly nodded. Tears were pushing to get out of her eyes.
“Then don’t worry about a ticket,” Mr Lynn said. “I’ll get you one. Wait till you feel better and then we’ll see what we can do.”
Polly waited, breathing fiercely in and out. When her tears had stopped pushing and retired a little, she nodded. Mr Lynn put his large hand in the middle of her back and guided her over to the other three. They had been talking together, tactfully, in small murmurs, but they looked up with interest as Polly arrived.
“Polly Whittacker,” said Mr Lynn. “Ann Abraham, Sam Rensky, Ed Davies.” He gave one of his gulps of laughter. “I told you we were all heroes, didn’t I?”
The three faces broke into friendly, recognising smiles. They know all about me! Polly thought in amazement, looking from Ann’s frank friendliness to Ed’s twinkle, and on to Sam’s great, gloomy grin. She almost felt as if she knew them too.
“Polly finds herself stranded,” said Mr Lynn. He looked up at the ceiling. “Now, who might happen to have the times of trains to Middleton?”
There was a groan and a laugh from the other two as Ann bent down to a bag on the floor beside her.
“We wonder why Ann doesn’t trust motor transport,” Sam Rensky said.
Ann turned her face to Polly while she dug in the bag. The dark hair dangling across it was almost the same colour as Joanna’s, but nothing like so neat, and Ann’s brown eyes looked out among the strands, direct and amused, with friendly creases underneath. “I never ride with Tom if I can help it,” she explained. “It’s far too frightening.”
“Tom’s what I call a creative driver,” said Sam. “And the cello’s always allowed the best seat.”
“I was told you were his very first passenger,” Ed Davies said to Polly. “What horrible bad luck!”
Funny to think of Mr Lynn telling them all about her, Polly thought. She felt better already. Sam got up and fetched her another tubular chair from the stack by the wall. Ed took the timetable from Ann and propped it on a music stand, where he held it down with his violin bow so that they could all see it. There was a through train at six-thirty.
“That’s the one,” said Mr Lynn. “I can put you on that and still have time to get ready for the concert. I’ll phone your grandmother and ask her to meet the train.”
He went away to look for a telephone. Ann said, “Would you like some coffee?” Polly still did not like coffee, but she nodded shyly. Whereupon Ann pulled a thermos flask out of her bag and poured Polly a cupful. It was warm and dark and sweet, and Polly found it surprisingly nice.
Ed Davies said, “What isn’t in that bag, Ann?”
“Would you like a sandwich?” Sam Rensky said to Polly. When Polly nodded, he fished in his trouser pocket and produced a bent cheese sandwich wrapped in plastic film. Ann and Ed laughed.
“Sam always has food somewhere,” said Ann.
Sam smoothed the sandwich out and passed it to Polly. “I’m not like other people,” he said mournfully. “I have hollow legs. It’s a great trial.”
The sandwich was warm as well as bent, but it made Polly feel almost good again. Ann poured her another cup of coffee to go with it, and by this time Polly felt she knew them all well enough to explain, a bit shyly, to Sam that he was Tan Hanivar the shape-shifter and that shifting shape took a lot of energy. “I expect that’s why you’re always hungry,” she was saying when Mr Lynn came briskly back.
“Your grandmother says you’re not to worry. She’ll be at the station to meet you,” he told Polly.
“Thank you,” Polly said gratefully.
“Tom, you never told me I was a shape-shifter!” said Sam. “What’s Ed?”
“He calls music out of the air,” said Polly.
“I do! I do!” Ed said enthusiastically.
Mr Lynn gave Polly one of his blandest joke-sharing looks. “Sometimes,” he said, “it can be quite deadly.”
“Hey!” cried Ed, as everyone laughed.
“And what am I?” Ann asked Polly.
Polly saw Mr Lynn looking at her with interest. They had never yet decided what Tan Audel did. But now she saw Ann, with her square, quiet face and her deep, friendly brown eyes, Polly knew exactly what Tan Audel did. “You never give up,” she said. “But your main gift is the gift of memory. You remember everything—”
Ed and Sam exclaimed, and looked at one another in astonishment. “How did she know?”
“Knowing things is Polly’s heroic gift,” said Mr Lynn.
Polly had not realised before that she had a gift herself. It was a surprising discovery. She and Ann looked at one another and laughed, Ann, with her head flung back, obviously very pleased.
After that, everyone became more sober. Ann said doubtfully to Polly, “Would you mind very much if we got on with our practice?”
“We agreed to give the same programme as the Hertzog Quartet,” Sam explained, “because they’d already printed all the stuff.”
“Which means doing one thing we’ve only done about twice before,” Ed said. “We’re having devilish problems with our ensemble in that one.”
“Oh yes. I didn’t mean to be a nuisance,” Polly said.
“You’re not a nuisance,” said Ann.
Everyone waited while Mr Lynn considered Polly, tipping his face until Polly looked at him, just as he had done at the funeral, to judge whether she would be all right.
“I think I will be,” said Polly. “I’ve got your book to read.”
Mr Lynn nodded. That seemed to reassure the others, and they got down to playing music again. While they were making strange whinings and plunks, tuning strings, Polly moved her chair back and got out The Golden Bough. But she hardly got halfway through ‘Temporary Kings’ and nowhere near ‘The Sacrifice of the King’s Son’. The practice was too fascinating. She laid the book down on the floor and leaned forward to listen and look.
The music halted as she did so. “What did I do now?” said Ed.
“Nothing,” said Mr Lynn. “Polly, for the love of the strange gods of the heroes, don’t do that to that book!”
Polly looked down at the book, bemused.
Ann said, “Tom, I really do think you have eyes in the back of your head now!”
“You’ve got it open, lying on its face,” Mr Lynn said. “The poor thing’s in torment.”
“One of his obsessions,” Sam said to Polly.
“Humour him,” said Ed. “So that we can get on.”