Arcadia (3 page)

“All right.”

The sky's almost completely dark. Clouds have blown in, which at least stops it from getting cold. By Viola's light they walk down the Lane to the Pub and then along beside the Channel. Briar is just visible, a long lump of deeper black. The road twists around the Club and then skirts the Pond. Rory doesn't have to see these things to know exactly where he is, step by step. It's a small world, and Home's a small part of it. You could walk all the way around the island in a morning.

“I don't know what made him do it,” Viola says beside him. He's always liked her voice. Laurel's is the same. Though Ol says they sound posh. (Said.) “He knew why it mattered. Was he angry about something? Do you know?”

If there was anyone in the world he could say something to it would be Viola, but he can't. He knew what was going to happen to Ol and he didn't stop it, and now Ol's dead.

“Don't think so.”

“You wouldn't do anything like that, Rory, would you? Something you'd been told you mustn't do?”

“'Course not. Definitely.”

“It's so important. You do understand that? How important it is?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought maybe They'd finished with us,” she says.

Rory's glad of the darkness. They're on the Abbey road now, heading away from the shore. He can smell the big trees above and around them. Things are scuffling around in the leaves.

“I wonder why They hate us so much,” Viola says, a quiver in her voice. “He was just a boy.”

With a strange sort of delayed shock Rory realizes something which should have occurred to him straightaway. There aren't any other boys now. Not even on Maries or Aggies, so everyone says, but even if there were they'd never risk the crossing, so he'd never see them. He's the last boy in the world.

  *  *  *  

They've lit the fire and a lot of candles as well, more than he's ever seen before. No one's saying it's a terrible waste. In fact, no one's really saying anything. They're all gathered in the big room, everyone except Ali, who's sick, and Doreen, who's too old to sit up in the night. They're all quiet except for Molly, who's crying in little squeaky snuffles. Rory's mother runs over when he and Viola come in and hugs him without a word. Laurel gives him a bleak red-eyed look and then turns away. There's more light in the room than he's ever seen at night before but it still gives out halfway to the high ceiling, so it's like there's a cloud of brown shadow floating over them all, drizzling unhappiness. The women take it in turns to sit by Molly, curling up around her, holding her hands, but no one seems to know what to say to her for long.

He's seen this scene before. Many times. Probably they're all thinking how many times it's been, except Pink, who's managed to go to sleep in the seat under the tall window, wrapped in a (pink) blanket. After What Happened it was like this over and over again, women crying and holding each other, Rory never knowing where to look or what to say.

For some reason his mother did it differently. She does her crying by herself, at Parson's. He's seen her get the album out and look at pictures of Jake and Scarlet, but it's only when she doesn't know he's there. When they're talking at bedtime she almost never cries. She likes to pretend instead that Dad and Jake and Scarlet are somewhere else, all fine, that they made it to the Mainland. Rory goes along with it. He used to believe it was true because his mother said it so often, but when he told Pink she laughed at him,
how stupid are you,
and she's right, of course. Boats used to come and go all the time in The Old Days (and planes, and the helicopter). Now there's nothing. Nothing survives the sea.

Missus Grouse stands up. She's an old lady and her skin's blotchy. She's always cold, even in summer, so tonight she's wearing so many layers it makes her look as wide as she is tall.

“We ought to catch one of Them.”

It's the first loud thing anyone's said since Rory arrived. Everyone looks startled.

“We really ought to. Why do we sit here and let Them do this to us? We ought to get one of Them and hang them from the gibbet where They can see.”

Kate stands up and goes over to Missus Grouse.

“I mean it,” Missus Grouse says, crossly. “They need to be taught a lesson. We've got to fight back.”

Kate's a grown-up but quite young. There's a big picture of her on the wall of this very room, a painting. The Abbey used to be her house, if you can even call it a house when it's more like a mansion. In the painting she's wearing a black dress with sparkles and her hair is long and she looks sort of creamy, like a petal. The real Kate has almost no hair at all and wears trousers and sweaters like everyone else. Ol says she looks like a boy. (Said.) She leans close to Missus Grouse and says something too quietly for Rory to hear.

“It is
exactly
the time to talk about it,” Missus Grouse protests. “What's going to happen to us if we don't try to stop Them?”

When she says that, half the people in the room turn to look at Rory. Molly's one of them. In the candlelight her face is dead white and veined like the bowl of an old sink.

  *  *  *  

His mother wakes him up with a
shh
. It's first light. Grey misery's seeping in through the big window and spreading around a roomful of sleeping women and their various snores. Everyone must have slept in the big room instead of going upstairs, for company. Missus Grouse is in a chair with her head back and her mouth open, grunting so noisily it's surprising everyone else isn't sneaking out too.

They creep out the side door. The dawn feels damp and heavy but it's good to be outside in clean air, though he's cold and stiff from sleeping on a rug. The chickens are fussing in their room. His mother bangs the door to scare them away from it and goes in, reappearing with two eggs.

At the end of the Abbey road they come out from under the drooping wet branches of the big trees and stop, looking across the Channel. There's Briar Hill, dead ahead, a colorless mound. Gulls loop around it, yelling at each other.

“Do you know what happened to Oliver?” his mother says.

“Viola told me.”

“But you understand. What actually happened?”

He's not sure what she means but he says, “Yes.”

“That he didn't do what he was told.”

“Yes.”

“And They took him.”

“Yes.”

“He might have only looked for a second. That's all it took. Just a second. Because he went where he wasn't allowed to go. A second's enough. Do you understand?”

“Yeah. I understand.”

His mother draws in a shivery breath. “It must all have happened while you were there.”

“I suppose,” he answers, after a pause, and then adds, “Laurel and Pink were there too.”

She turns to look at him. From the look in her eyes he can tell he's going to have to be careful what he says. “It's got nothing to do with Laurel and Pink.”

He doesn't answer. He sort of leans forward, encouraging her to start walking again, but she doesn't budge.

“Rory,” she says.

“What.”

“You . . .” She's hesitating over something. “You like Laurel, don't you?”

He wasn't expecting this at all. He has no idea what the right answer is. “Yeah?”

“She's your friend.”

“She's all right.”

“Look at me, please. Do you ever . . . ?”

He knows from experience that it won't be all right to stop looking at her, so he waits.

“Laurel's pretty, isn't she?” his mother resumes. “Don't you think? Nice-looking. Rory, I said look at me.”

“Is she?” It's all Rory can think of.

“It's all right, there's nothing to be ashamed of. It's normal. Do you ever . . .” It's as if she's not looking at him but at something right in front of his face which only she can see. “Do you ever think about her?”

“What?”

A quiver of irritation breaks her stare. It's a danger sign. “Think about her. You know, in a special way. Like . . . Like with a funny feeling.”

“No,” he says.

“I mean a feeling like you really like her. Like you want to be, you know. Special friends with her.”

“No,” he says again. This is a nightmare.

“It's all right if you do. It's completely normal.”

“I don't.”

“I'd never tell anyone. That's not why I'm asking. You can always trust me, I'm your mum. You know you can always trust me? Right?”

“'Course.”

“So you'd tell me, wouldn't you? If you ever thought it might be nice to, I don't know, give Laurel a hug, something like that. Just a normal thing. Do you ever feel like that?”

“Dunno.”

She presses her lips tight. Disappointment.

“I could say,” he adds, in a rush. “If I did.”

Better. She doesn't quite smile but a cloud passes.

“Good boy,” she says. “I know it feels funny talking about it. You've always got to tell me, though. Tell your old mum.”

“I will,” he says.

Thank God, she starts walking again. His face is hot despite the dawn chill.

“I knew it would happen,” she says, in a more normal voice, a bit further along. “Molly was never strict enough with him. He was out of control even before all this started. He always did just as he pleased, that child.”

Rory knows it's best to mumble agreement.

“Not like you.” She gives him a quick hug. “Thank goodness. Sensible boy you've always been.”

He decides this doesn't need answering.

“Happiest in bed with your comics, aren't you.”

“Yeah.”

“You don't mind that we don't go and stay with everyone else at the Abbey?”

“'Course not. I like Parson's.” This he can say without watching his words. Since the winter everyone else has been living in the Abbey, to save fuel by not having people burning fires in different places, except Esme, who says she's used to her solitary ways and couldn't get on with the change. Molly and Ol also stayed in a separate house, of course, in the woods in the middle of the island so Ol would never be anywhere near seeing the open water, but Molly'll be moving to the Abbey now. Rory can't imagine how they can stand it, all the snuffling and shuffling and snoring and the smell of old women everywhere. Pink's always trying to get him to come and stay there. She says he must like comics better than people. She means it as an insult but it never sounds like one to him.

“Just the two of us,” she says, squeezing his hand. Pink also said they're being Selfish, and it's not Eekonomical to use their own candles and light their own fire, though Parson's is very well insulated and has a stove which looks like something out of a spaceship so actually it's incredibly Eekonomical. He's also overheard some of the women whisper about his mother being Selfish, but he doesn't care, as long as he can have a room where he knows no one's going to come and bother him after he's finished with all the day's jobs. Pink would never leave him alone if they lived in the Abbey. She thinks all the comics are stupid, though seeing as she's never read one how would she know.

His mother's still holding his hand, so when she stops again he has to as well.

“Whatever happens,” she says, “it'll be all right if it's you and me together, won't it?”

“Yeah,” he answers, cautiously.

“You won't tell anyone what I said, will you? About Molly. It's not her fault. I shouldn't have said it. Poor Molly.”

“I won't.”

“It was always going to happen. Eventually.”

“Yeah,” he says, and then, “What was?”

“Oliver.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“Always going to happen,” she repeats. She shakes her head, gazing across towards Briar. “Stupid to think anything else. Just a matter of time. No matter how careful she'd been.”

He waits.

She sighs and wipes her eyes. “I'm sorry. We all think about poor Molly and forget it's hard for other people too. You must be feeling sad about it too.”

“Yeah,” he says, wondering whether he is or not. It's odd thinking about Ol not being there anymore, but he doesn't know if that's the same as sad.

“They're so cruel.”

“Who d'you mean?”

This was a stupid thing to say. She turns to him, welling with the beginnings of anger.

“Who do you think? Who's taken away so many people we loved?”

“Sorry, Mum.”

“Your own father.”

“Dad and Jake and Scarlet might have made it,” he says. He and his mother say this to each other quite often, at bedtime. They smile at each other when they say it, to feel better.

“Of course they didn't make it.”

Rory feels it like a blow.

“No one made it. No one's ever come back. Don't you understand they'd have come back if they could? People only ever leave. They drowned like everyone else.”

He stares at his feet, eyes stinging. After a bit she says, “Rory, Rory,” and tries to hug him, but he's too busy fighting off tears. Then she starts talking about what a good sailor Scarlet was, and how Jake and Dad would have hid belowdecks while she steered them safely to the Mainland. She's forgotten that this version of the story was his idea in the first place. He got it from a comic story about a Greek hero who tied himself to a mast to listen to the Sirens while everyone else plugged their ears and rowed past. It's too late for the lie now, there's no comfort in it. As they come past the Club and out by the Beach he looks up the narrowest part of the Channel to the big rock off the shore of Briar, where the gibbet is. He imagines a glistening white body dangling there, turning back and forth in the wind, and feels sick at heart.