Running Page 6

  Saul hovers around a huge dark wooden chest blocking the front door. He blows into his cupped hands. The rings under his eyes are darker than usual, but he doesn’t look as worn out as Mannis, who’s huffing and puffing and looks as red as an overripe tomato.

  ‘Get out there and see what the hell he’s up to,’ he tells Saul.

  Saul doesn’t appear to see me. He goes straight back outside. Mannis kisses his teeth and waddles after him.

  I drag myself along the damp wall to where the chest lies. It has a chunky padlock dangling from one side of it.

  Tosh peeks out through a crack in the door. His eyes dart back and forth. ‘What is it?’ he asks.

  A pirate’s chest, I say to myself, bound with iron straps.

  Saul wanders in, bent up like an old man and carrying a black sack over one shoulder.

  The Wolf strides behind him, wearing a smug grin and carrying nothing but his car keys.

  Saul drops the sack and shoots me a fearful glance. He waits, head bowed for his next set of instructions.

  The Wolf catches sight of me and smirks. ‘All right Kate?’

  My eyes widen. I’m surprised he remembers my name. He throws his bunch of keys in the air and catches them in his open palm.

  ‘See Kate,’ he says, resting his foot on the chest. ‘This is top stuff. Play your cards right and you’ll see a slice of this yet.’

  I don’t want a slice of anything he has to offer. He’s nothing but a great stinking wolf. And wolves are sly and cunning.

  ‘Grab one end of this,’ he tells Saul, lifting his foot off the chest. ‘Let’s get this lot away.’

  Saul lifts one end of the chest and proceeds to stagger all over the place, his limbs shaking. I rush to help him. He scowls at me, but says nothing.

  ‘Not you,’ the Wolf says, glaring at me.

  I back away from the chest and resume my place - back - against the wall. I don’t want to make trouble for Saul and I get the feeling Saul won’t appreciate me insisting to the Wolf or anyone else that he hasn’t the strength to lift the chest. I don’t think he could stomach being shown up by a girl.

  Rick lifts his end with ease, taking most of the chest’s weight from Saul. Saul relaxes and stops swaying. They carry the chest along the passage. I just hope they’re not going to put it in our junk room.

  I step outside to find Mannis smoking a “proper” cigarette and staring up into the cloudless sky. I spy the glimmering face of the moon moving behind the treetops. I sidle up next to him. What’s he doing? Counting stars?

  ‘Hey Kate,’ he says, glancing at me briefly from the corner of his eye.

  ‘What’s the wol-I mean, what’s Rick’s got?’ I ask.

  ‘Exactly what it looks like, a chest full of treasure. I wouldn’t get too excited if I were you; he won’t be able to shift that lot for months.’

  ‘And he’s going to stay with us all that time?’

  ‘Listen girl. I’ve told you once, I’m not telling you again, don’t give him no trouble. He’s as good as his word when it comes to making threats.’ He tilts his head back and sighs. ‘You think I want a cut of what’s back there? Trust me I don’t.’

  ‘Why not?’ I ask the question, not pondering on his words long enough to figure out the answer for myself. He looks down at me and I gaze up at him. ‘It’s a way out, isn’t it?’

  I thought Mannis would be glad to get out of here. Start anew. See the back of us.

  ‘You can never start afresh with hot money. I’ll be looking over my shoulder every minute of every bloody day and Rick will have me over a bleedin’ keg. I’d sooner be dead than be at his beck and call again.’ He scratches his protruding belly.

  ‘Believe it or not, Kate, I like it here. Out there - there’s all kind of rules, someone telling you what you can and can’t do. I’m sure another short dose of it won’t do me no harm, but I can’t hack it in the long run. Some of us aren’t meant to stay on the straights, no matter how hard we try.’ He flicks his cigarette butt onto the grass and goes inside.

  I crush the cigarette butt under my heel. I feel the night chill and hug my arms tight to my chest. A part of me wants to feel sorry for Mannis. A small part; a fragment floating somewhere between my heart and my head, and I can’t grab hold of it long enough to care. If I were Mannis, I would never have come to the bungalow. I don’t understand what keeps him here. It’s certainly not us.

  * * *

  Chapter 23

  Aspirations

  Mum had no great aspirations for me.

  ‘I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up,’ I told her. To which she replied, ‘Do what you want. It’s your decision; just don’t waste any time doing it. You can’t be a child forever.’

  I felt as if she were scolding me. She didn’t want me to be a child. She stopped treating me like one a long time ago. She wanted someone with whom she could share the harshness of adult life. She chose me. She didn’t understand that I could see it with my own eyes.

  ‘I wanted to be an astronaut,’ she said to me quietly one day.

  I was folding the laundry at the time. I dropped the towel I was folding and sent the laundry basket spinning across the floor. Mum rarely opened up to me, but when she did her words hit me like a thunderbolt.

  She sat staring into an empty cup and smoking on her twentieth cigarette. ‘No reason why I couldn’t have done, I guess’, she said tossing back her mane of wiry black hair. ‘When you’re a child, you can’t get wait to grow up. When you finally do grow up, you wonder where all the years have gone - and the freedom…’ She trailed off and stared at something I couldn’t see.

  I never questioned her about it. My mum, the astronaut; somehow, I couldn’t picture it.

  One day, I found a book at the bottom of mum’s wardrobe called Walking on the Moon. I thumbed through the creased, folded pages. They were littered with coffee stains. I wondered if I ever really knew her at allI glance up to find Saul standing beside me, locked in his own thoughts. He holds an unlit cigarette between his third and fourth finger.

  ‘Where did he take you?’ I ask.

  ‘He picked something up from a house in Collis Town. Then we drove to a garage in Fenway. His gang was there. All four of them. They talked for ages.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Dunno,’ he replies, pulling his scarf up over his nose. ‘I was too far away to hear. Rick and Mannis made me wait in the car. The next job I guess.’

  ‘You gonna smoke that?’ I ask nodding at the cigarette in his hand.

  ‘Might do.’ He shrugs.

  ‘Where did the chest come from?’

  ‘The Hortsford Museum.’

  I nod. ‘I’ve never heard of it.’

  ‘It’s in Hortsford, Brickley Wood.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Mannis reappears, spitting into the air. He strikes Saul a blow across the head, before I can stop him.

  ‘What are you doing out here?’ he yells. ‘Get the hell inside. There’s work to do.’

  Sometimes, if I’m good and quick, I can shield Saul by standing in between him and Mannis. Mannis is not going to hit me. Though I swear he’s come close a few times.

  If Saul feels any pain from the blow Mannis dealt him, he doesn’t show it. He shoves his hands in his trouser pockets and goes inside.

  ‘That brother of yours is in there chatting to himself,’ Mannis announces to a plank of wood lying on the grass. He doesn’t like to look me in the eyes after he’s dealt Saul a blow. ‘It’s getting on my blinking nerves. Shut him up or I will. One nutter in this house is enough. We don’t need no more.’

  I bite my tongue. He’s no right to call my brother a nutter. He should save that title for himself, or the Wolf, or Tattooed Johnny; who loses his temper if you so much as breathe in the same space as him.

  I return to Our Room. The door lies open. The torch spills a pathetic pool of light, no bigger than a beach ball, onto the floor. Tosh is chattering to himself all right. He’s sittin
g at the far end of the room with his back to me and a broken biscuit in his raised hand.

  ‘Take one bite. Please come on…’ he says.

  From what I can see, he’s talking to the wall, playing his own game of make-believe.

  I shift some of the blankets around the floor with my foot. ‘Who are you talking to?’

  He whips his head around to face me, startled. ‘Myself,’ he mutters. He takes a bite of his biscuit and stares at the floor.

  I close the door, light three candles and spread them around the room to even out the light.

  I haul the crate we found in the junk room out of the corner. Tipping the contents on the floor, I succeed in drawing Tosh’s attention away from his biscuit and the haggard wall.

  ‘I wish we were looking in Rick’s chest and not this mangy old box,’ he pipes.

  He stretches out next to the crate and taps each of the books’ in turn. ‘Fifteen. There are fifteen books.’

  ‘Sixteen, including this diary,’ I add, tucking the diary under my pillow.

  ‘Pick one,’ I say to Tosh, ‘and I’ll read it to you.’

  ‘This one,’ he says, choosing a tatty blue book. Blue’s my favourite colour.’

  He hands me the book.

  ‘Willows End!’ I announce, opening up the withered pages.

  ‘It sounds boring.’

  ‘Bet it isn’t.’

  ‘Bet it is.’

  ‘Are there any pictures?’

  I thumb through it. I don’t expect to see any pictures. To my surprise, there are a few black and white pictures, drawings of cottages, trees and farm animals. ‘Yeah, there are pictures. Ready?’

  ‘No, wait!’ Tosh springs up. He drags a blanket into the middle of the room. He lies face down. And propping himself up on his elbows, rests his head in his hands.

  I throw the rest of the books into the crate without a care and push it to one side. I pull off my trainers. I sit cross-legged opposite Tosh. Then straightening my spine, I begin. ‘Willows End, by Jane Sinclair…’

  * * *

  Chapter 24

  Pig

  I don’t think Tosh listens to a word of the story. I rather believe, he listens to the sound of my soothing voice. Not before long, his head drops forward. And with a sigh and a smile, he falls asleep.

  I put the book down. I’ve no idea what it’s about. I can’t immerse myself in it. I’m constantly aware of what’s going on around me - and - of what isn’t. I hear angry whispers, grunts, hisses and Dock staggering in from outside.

  I pull the covers over Tosh and go to my own bed. Drawing the blanket up to my waist, I take out the diary from under my pillow.

  I can’t make any sense of the first mould-covered page. I prise the other pages open with my fingers. I pause in the middle of the diary, struggling to read the joined up scrawl.

  20th November 1885.

  The wind is bitterer than…nights are the longest I’ve ever known. We lost another one today. Thomas got caught under… wheel…snapped his… in half…That’s the second this week… I don’t doubt it will—

  A single cry pierces the room walls, tearing me away from my sanctuary.

  Saul!

  I drop the book and race out, grabbing the torch off the floor as I go. I hear Dock mumbling to himself in the kitchen. I can’t hear Mannis. Where is he? I hear more cries coming from one of the smaller rooms along the passage. As I draw near, the cries become muffled. I reach the room where the noise is coming from. The door’s closed. I put down the torch as if I’m laying down a loaded weapon. My heart’s pounding in my chest. I can hear the Wolf talking, his voice has an edge to it. I hesitate, my mind on the gun.

  My inner voice has a Strong Will, and it speaks to me, ‘Come on Kate, open the door.’

  I suck in my breath and push the door open to find Saul lying on the floor with a bloody gash on his forehead, and Rick swinging his booted foot into Saul’s belly.

  Saul gasps for breath and draws his knees to his chest. I throw myself down on the floor beside him. ‘Pig, you bloody pig!’ I scream at Rick.

  The Wolf laughs silently. He takes a swig from a bottle in his hand.

  I clutch the sleeve of Saul’s jacket in earnest, trying to get him to sit up.

  ‘Come on Saul, come on. I’ll help you,’ I tell him.

  I’ve no idea what I’m doing. In desperation, I rub his back. He screws up his face in agony. A bloody foam spews from his mouth.

  Don’t panic.

  I panic. What am I going to do? I can’t leave him. I swallow hard, fighting back tears. If I cry now, I’ll never stop. I throw my head back and scream at the top of my voice: ‘Mannis!’ I turn to the Wolf. ‘Mannis, where is he?’

  ‘Not here,’ he says, smirking. ‘It’s just you kids and me.’

  ‘Saul’s hurt bad. He needs help.’

  He takes another swig from the bottle, his wolf eyes glittering. He runs his tongue along his upper lip.

  ‘What the matter with you?’ I scream at him hysterically. ‘Why did you do this?’

  I don’t know why I’m asking. I never ask Mannis why he beats the hell out of Saul, so why am I asking a wolf?

  ‘I was bored,’ he replies, glaring at me coldly, the smile gone from his face.

  At that moment, Tosh runs in, his red eyes filled with sleep. He takes one look at Rick, and then glances at Saul strewn across the floor like a discarded newspaper. The colour drains from his face.

  ‘Go! Get Mannis,’ I tell him ‘Or-or Dock.’

  Tosh stands trembling, unable to take his eyes off Saul.

  ‘Go!’ I shout again, and he’s gone.

  ‘Dock?’ The Wolf laughs. ‘Of all people. I only have to hold this bottle of booze to his nose and he’ll forget what he came in here for.’

  I pretend not to hear him. There’s not much junk in the room. I take a flat cardboard box, the closest thing I can find to a sheet, and cover Saul with it. ‘It’s okay helps coming,’ I whisper in his ear.

  The Wolf’s laughter echoes around the room.

  A kind of madness seizes me, I’ve never experienced before. I leap up, run straight at the Wolf, throwing punches. ‘You bastard!’

  My first punch catches him on the arm. He dodges out of the way, brandishing his bottle, taunting me. Tears of laughter stream down his face, inciting my anger.

  ‘Get high on my anger all you want, it won’t stop me belting you,’ I yell.

  The blood rushes to my hands and the muscles in my neck and shoulders tighten. I pound on his back with my fists. He doesn’t seem to feel pain. He spins around sharply and I go for his face, swinging my fist in a wide arc. I miss.

  In one swift movement, the Wolf’s grabbed a hold of my arm. He shoves my arm up behind my back and holds it there, locked. ‘Bitch!’ he growls.

  I arch my back, gritting my teeth as the pain shoots down my arm. ‘Pig!’

  He tries to throw me to the ground. I don’t go down, instead I stumble and hop, eventually steadying myself.

  He leaves, stepping over Saul on his way out as if he stepping over a dead log. I fly past the Wolf, afraid he’ll catch up with Tosh and give him the same bashing he did Saul. I crash into Mannis, my body slamming into his fat belly. Tosh is at his side.

  ‘Steady on,’ he says, catching my arm. I snatch my arm away from him in disgust.

  The Wolf swaggers up behind me. I whirl around and shoot him a narrow-eyed look.

  ‘Where have you been?’ I scream at Mannis. ‘Why did you leave us wit-with him?’

  ‘He hurt Saul,’ Tosh says in a tone far calmer than my own.

  Mannis’s lips twitch and his eyes flare, but he doesn’t say a word to the Wolf, who stands, bottle in hand with an all-too-familiar smirk on his face.

  ‘Show me where is he,’ Mannis says, shouldering past the Wolf.

  Tosh leads Mannis by the wrist, up the passage, to the room where Saul lies groaning.

  Rick winks at me and heads off towards the kitchen. I
stare after him, every muscle in my body as tense as a metal spring.

  * * *

  Chapter 25

  We’ll Take Care of You

  Saul’s not as badly hurt as I thought, at least that’s what Mannis says.

  ‘He’s half-conscious. Down, but not dying,’ he informs me as I help him carry Saul to Our Room.

  Saul’s head lolls from side to side. His eyelashes tremble like moth wings. I listen for the slow drumming of his heart. And on hearing it, breathe a sigh of relief.

  ‘Rick won’t come in here,’ Mannis assures me. ‘He knows better than that.’

  He appears to have forgotten about the gun, or the fact that Rick’s mad.

  We don’t have a lock on our door, and even if we did find something strong enough to hold it, it wouldn’t keep a wolf out. A wolf could easily jump through the windows or slip in through the roof.

  ‘Where were you?’ I ask, tentatively laying Saul’s head on my pillow.

  He looks so delicate; so weak. His breathing is shallow. His eyes are squeezed shut.

  Tosh brings a bowl of soapy water and a cloth. I put the cloth in the water, swish it around a bit, and wring it out. I then use it to dab at the gash on Saul’s forehead. He winces, murmuring my name. ‘Kate. Celia.’

  Celia. I cringe. Serves me right for telling him.

  ‘Where did you go?’ I ask Mannis again, trying to keep the fury out of my voice. He appears not to have heard me the first time or the second.

  ‘I had to get rid of Rick’s hot wheels, if it’s any of your business,’ he snaps. ‘Like I told you when you got here, I ain’t no parent to any one of you kids so don’t go expecting anything from me.’ He leaves the room, his boots clumping heavily on the floor.

  I’m glad he’s gone. How right he is. I was wrong to expect more from him, to count on his protection from the Wolf, for him to always be there when we needed him. He’s neither friend nor foe.

  Tosh takes hold of Saul’s hand. ‘It’s all right Saul. Don’t be scared,’ he whispers gently. ‘Me and Kate, we’ll take care of you.’