No Time Like the Past (20 page)

I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, the two of them were just turning the corner at the end of the street. I picked up my skirts and trotted after them.

We were fine for nearly three streets. Then we weren’t.

On the face of it, they were just a bunch of kids and they too were collecting stuff for the Bonfire. Small items. One or two of them clutched pots. One had a small bundle of material. Most were aged between about eight and fourteen. Only three or four of them were older boys.

Heads turned as we approached.

‘Keep going,’ I said. ‘Don’t catch anyone’s eye.’

‘Max …’

‘We discussed this. Back to the pod, gentlemen.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Watch your backs. Go.’

They went.

I paused, just to keep an eye on the kids and make sure no one followed.

As I said before, these were not nice children. They were encouraged to spy on their parents and all those around them. All of Florence lived in an atmosphere of fear and betrayal. Like the witch trials. And communism in America. Accuse before you yourself are accused. The church had enlisted their help and they’d been very useful, but at the end of the day, I told myself, these were just kids. With the attention span of an historian.

I recognised a familiar scene. A little girl stood with her back against the wall surrounded by a mob of shouting children. At least they were still shouting. It’s when they go quiet that the trouble really starts. Every now and then one of them would dart forwards and slap her or pull at her clothing. She was aged about eleven. She stood defiantly, but every now and then, a tear tracked through the dirt on her cheeks.

We all looked at each other.

I should have followed on after Clerk and Sands. That few minutes start would be all they needed and this was nothing to do with me. Just a bit of childhood bullying. It happens to everyone. A child’s world is divided between the bullies and the bullied. This was the moment when I should have left and I would have, but just as I turned away, someone twitched off her dirty linen hood and a great quantity of matted red hair tumbled to her shoulders.

I stopped. Without warning, I was back in the school playground.

I was alone, as usual, standing in the angle between the music room and the main building. I was leaning against the wall, and, just for once, not doing any harm to anyone, when Georgia Woods and her cohorts found me. They were big girls, two or three years ahead of me and I thought, initially, they were on their way to ruin someone else’s day, but no, today was my turn. It is the unerring instinct of the pack to pick on the weakest, but they got it wrong that day.

They started on about my hair. All right, yes, sometimes it looks as if I’ve been in the European Wind Tunnel, but those were the days of Big Hair and I’d seen worse. Apparently, it was the colour that was ruining their day.

I stared at them with silent contempt and turned away. I already had detentions stretching into the next century, and some instinct was warning me my behaviour would not be tolerated forever.

Meanwhile, according to this gaggle of teenage Barbies, only stupid people have red hair. Only evil people have red hair. Judas Iscariot had red hair.

I said good for him. I’d always been a fan.

They replied that red-haired people were descended from Satan.

I replied that in that case so were Elizabeth Tudor, Titian, Mary Stuart, Henry VIII, Barbara Villiers, Nell Gwynne, Matisse, Emma Hamilton, General Custer, and Christopher Columbus.

Their blank faces indicated they hadn’t heard of any of these. I wasn’t surprised. Non-redheads lack brain cells. I might have mentioned that to them.

Out came the scissors and I realised this was planned. They hadn’t just been causally wandering past. I was going to have an impromptu haircut, and whereas other people might have proper parents who would descend upon the school in an avalanche of righteous wrath and demand retribution for this sort of thing – I hadn’t. I was on my own and they knew it.

I stopped leaning against the wall and slowly straightened up, moving into fighting mode and summing up the opposition. There were four of them, but one was definitely unwilling. She hung back and didn’t want to be involved at all. One was fairly unwilling – she would only join in when there was no danger to herself. One was the leader – she might not want to get involved personally – but the last one was her enforcer – a big girl who would make two of me and who played hockey with all the brutal fervour of one who intends to play for the county one day and won’t let anyone or anything get in her way.

I reviewed my own resources. On the plus side, I had a lot of hair. On the debit side, I had the muscle tone of lettuce.

They closed in and things might have gone badly – although for whom, we’ll never know – because a prefect turned up.

Five minutes and quite a lot of shouting later, we were all in front of Mrs De Winter, the Head Teacher. She didn’t usually deal with disciplinary issues, so I knew I was in trouble this time. I assumed my traditional expression of sullen disinterest and stared out of the window. She was surprisingly brief and they all filed out, encumbered with detentions. I went to leave as well, but she stopped me.

‘Sit down, please.’

This was a new departure. Warily, I sat.

She looked at me for a long time. ‘I can help you.’

I gestured at the door, which had just closed behind Barbie and her bullies. ‘I can look after myself.’

‘That wasn’t what I was talking about.’

I sat very quietly, not moving a muscle. As do small animals when confronted by some unknown peril.

The silence went on. The bell for the next lesson rang and we both ignored it. A little voice inside my head said, ‘This is important. Don’t screw it up.’

We looked at each other. Something was about to happen. I was about to have the most important of my entire life. The one that changed everything. The one that set me on the path to St Mary’s. When someone told me I had worth.

However – the point I’m taking so long to make – is that from the beginning of time there’s always been a worldwide prejudice against red heads.

‘Better dead than red,’ they would shout at school. To which I would reply:

‘Blondes will cry.

Brunettes will pooh.

But here is what a redhead will do.’

Usually just prior to smacking them one. Now, in another time and another place, here was some other kid on the receiving end.

We need to be clear on this. I don’t like children. There isn’t an orifice that doesn’t exude something unpleasant. Sometimes, all of them exude simultaneously. And this was not a waif-like elf with huge, appealing eyes. She was small because she was malnourished, and a waterfall of yellow snot bubbled from one nostril to solidify in the crease above her top lip. Occasionally, she licked it. I am continually astonished that people actually choose to have children! To be honest, if she hadn’t been small and ginger, I would probably have walked straight on. But she was …

I weighed up the opposition. They were only kids, after all and children always do what adults tell them to do.

You can tell I’m not a parent.

I was only a couple of hundred yards from the pods. Just a quick sprint over the Ponte Vecchio and straight to San Spirito. No problemo.

I shouldered my way through the crowd, picked up her hood and handed it back, making sure I stood between them and her. A narrow alleyway opened up a few feet to her left. I took her hand, barged through the kids that didn’t get out of the way quickly enough, led her to it, said, ‘Go home,’ and watched her run away.

Her footsteps echoed for a while and then she was gone. I should have followed her then. I should have got out of there while I could.

I turned back, all ready to make myself scarce, and it was too late. Children had closed in around me. The silence had a sinister quality. I felt a sudden moment of fear and pushed it aside. These were kids, for God’s sake. What could they do to me?

Quite a lot – as I was about to find out.

I had a choice. If I called for help, both teams would drop everything and come to pull me out and we’d lose everything. We couldn’t do that. Apart from the fact that the future of St Mary’s was riding on this, I couldn’t, just couldn’t, abandon those paintings to the mob of religious bigots and bullies that comprised Florentine citizenry on this day.

A voice spoke in my ear. Peterson.

‘Max, they’ve got the cart. We couldn’t outrun them.’

I could hear raised voices and the sounds of a scuffle.

There was nothing anyone could do.

‘We planned for this. Let them have what they want. Walk away. No one gets hurt. Just walk away. Sands and Clerk are just ahead of me. Find them and get back to the pods.’

‘Copy that.’

I stuck my chin in the air and prepared to shoulder my way out and chase after the others. Back to safety. But suddenly, all the little kids were in a ring around me and everyone was ominously quiet.

I still wasn’t that scared. What could they do to me? They were children. Some of them barely reached my waist.

Whenever I look back at this, I wonder if it wasn’t History trying to teach me a lesson. Not to interfere. Don’t get involved. We’re always being told: don’t get involved. There’s always a price to pay and usually it’s a life. Do what you have to do and get out. That little girl had been in no desperate peril, but suddenly, I was. Because – and what were the odds of this happening – as I eased my way along the slimy, wet wall, trying to get past them, my coif caught on something – a nail, maybe – and as I moved away, the stupid thing fell off. I made a grab for it, but too late. A gasp went up. More red hair. They probably thought they were being overrun by Satan’s minions.

Something caught me on the arm and I couldn’t think what it was until another stone whizzed past my face. I barely had time to jerk my head out of the way.  

I said, indignantly, ‘Ow!’ because I still had no idea how much trouble I was in. I backed myself hard against the wall for support and protection. Not the best move because now I was really trapped, but there were now so many of them that there was no other direction in which to go.

I don’t know why I didn’t call for help there and then. I think part of me couldn’t believe this was serious. They were children, for God’s sake, throwing a few stones. Someone would open a window and yell at them, they’d all run away laughing. I’d rub my arm, curse a bit, and get back to the pods.

More stones clattered around me. Some of the ones thrown by the smaller children never made it as far as me, but the older ones had found their range. A lucky shot hit my knee in exactly the wrong spot and a sharp stabbing pain ripped through my leg. I felt it buckle beneath me and now it really was serious. I wouldn’t be running anywhere anytime soon. Time to get help.

I fumbled with my com and whispered. ‘This is Maxwell. Code Red. Code …’

I felt stones rain down on my head, my shoulders. They weren’t large rocks. People don’t sling boulders because it only takes two or three of those and then you’re unconscious, which is no fun at all. You have to suffer first. It’s probably good for the soul; so they threw smaller stones – pebbles found in the street. Which was a bit of a bugger because that meant there was an unlimited supply and they wouldn’t be running out of ammo anytime soon.

I tried again. ‘Man down. Behind the Villa Strozzi.’

Some of these pebbles had sharp edges but fortunately for me, the thick brown dress I was wearing offered a certain amount of protection. I made make myself as small as possible and hoped for rescue because there was no way out. Nowhere to run to and, in my case, no left leg to run with. There were far too many of them to engage. Yes, I had a stun gun, but even I recoiled at the thought of tasering a bunch of kids – nasty little buggers though they were. I needed to keep as much distance as possible. Deep down, I think I was still hoping they weren’t that serious. Just a bit of a stoning, just to teach me a lesson and then everyone goes merrily on their way. To church, probably, for their reward. Even deeper down, I knew I was kidding myself. I wasn’t going to get out of this without help.

Not everyone was throwing stones, but everyone was urging them on, baying for my blood, cheering the hits. The sound of high-pitched, childish voices was terrifying. There was no mercy to be shown here.

 Only the wall was holding me up. I told myself I had to stay on my feet because once I was on the ground, they would close in, and then things would really become unpleasant.

Vaguely I could hear someone talking in my ear, but my knee was throbbing so much that I was sick with the pain of it. My head swam. My knee would no longer hold my weight. Like a voice from the past, I could hear Helen saying, ‘I told you that knee of yours would let you down one day.’ On the other hand, it seemed unlikely I would live long enough to regret not getting it fixed. There’s always a bright side if you take the time and trouble to look.

I had what seemed a good idea at the time, and bent to pick up a stone myself. After all, there were plenty of them around – and threw it back. Yes, I know, but I think I’ve already said I’m not fond of kids, especially this bunch of 15
^th-
century ASBO contenders encircling me. I blame the parents. And I didn’t throw it hard – more a kind of gentle toss, really, but someone out there took exception. You’re not supposed to fight back.

Something hard slammed into the side of my face. My head jerked round and I lost my earpiece. My vision blurred. The world tilted. I was falling. My face scraped down the rough wall. I scrabbled for some sort of handhold to keep me on my feet. I tried to cover my head. My knee was on fire. Probably more seriously, there was that deep internal pain that tells you that things inside are not as they should be. There was blood everywhere and it was mine. It ran down into my eyes, blinding me.

I heard a man’s voice. With my luck, this would be the parents turning up to yell at me for chucking stones at their innocent children, because they were good kids really, and the whole thing was just an unfortunate situation that got out of hand. I became aware that someone was shouting in my face. Nothing new there, then.