Second Night (24 page)

Maddie glanced at him in the rear view mirror. ‘Yes, you do.'

‘No. I don't.'

Jasper checked the map spread out on his knees. ‘Forget the Satnav, Ma. Take the second turn at the next roundabout, it should be quicker.'

‘Oh no!' protested Jemima. ‘Not another Jas shortcut! We'll never get there!'

‘Yes, we will, Fats. Trust me!'

‘Don't start calling me that again!'

‘Why not? Now that Loz is out of the way, I can get back into practice. Old Pardon won't mind.' He licked his lips savouring the word. ‘Fats. Fats. Fats!'

‘That's enough, Jasper!' said Maddie. ‘There's no need to start that all over again.'

He made a face at Jemima. ‘True, after two years of enforced abstinence it doesn't come so naturally, but give it time.' He turned round to Caz. ‘You can't get out of school. You're committed to the end of the summer exams whether you like it or not, bro.'

‘No, I'm not.'

‘Yes, you are,' said Jemima. ‘Ma's not ending up in prison because of you.'

‘She won't go to prison!' scoffed Caz.

Jemima folded her arms and stuck out her chin. ‘She will if you don't go to school. Our tutor group had a lecture about it. You'll just get told off but Ma will go to prison.'

‘Okay, I'll quit in the summer then.'

‘You're going to sixth-form college, Caz,' said Maddie firmly.

‘No, I'm not.'

‘Yes, you are,' said Jasper. ‘How else are you going to do your retakes?'

‘I'm not doing retakes.'

‘So you're going to pass everything first time, are you? I don't think so!'

‘Why do I have to pass anything at all?'

‘So what are you going to do? Live a permanent cop-out like the boss?'

‘He lives for what he believes in. I don't see what's wrong with that. He's got a couple of degrees. I'd probably learn more with him than I do at school. I'll do home education.'

‘You most certainly will not,' said his mother.

‘Why not?'

‘Because there's one big difference between you and the boss,' said Jasper. ‘He's rich and he can do what he likes. You can't. It's as simple as that.'

‘Are you saying you can only live your own life if you have money?'

‘Money's freedom, bro.'

‘The only freedom?'

‘Ultimately yes, in this sinful world.'

‘That's not true!' exclaimed Jemima.

‘What do you know about it, Fats?'

‘What do you know?'

Maddie gripped the steering wheel. ‘Please! All of you! Can we talk about this later? I need to concentrate on the road!'

‘No problem, Ma,' Jasper replied. ‘They know I'm right. I'll take over when you're tired.'

Caz closed his eyes and smiled. ‘That's settled then. I quit in the summer.'

‘Caz, I said enough!' said his mother warningly. ‘And put on your seatbelt!'

He shook the empty thermos by way of reply. ‘I'm out of coffee.'

Jemima leaned over the seat and pulled another thermos out of a bag in the back. ‘There's loads more. Daisy sent enough to float a boat.'

The hours and the miles of dull brown and grey countryside slipped by. A strong northerly wind whipped up and buffeted the car, slapping sleety rain across the windscreen. The road wound through villages tucked into a folded, plateau-land dotted with the remains of ancient earth workings and long barrows. Sheep grazed the last of the corn stubble in patchwork fields in the valleys, while tantalising glimpses of a grey and troubled sea began to appear between the hills. Maddie took a firm hold on the steering wheel and fought to keep the car straight on the road. Every sign they passed read
Plymouth
.

‘We're nearly there,' said Jemima quietly.

The traffic slowed, inching along bumper to bumper. Orange warning lights flashed ahead.

‘Take the next left turn, Ma,' said Jasper. ‘We don't want to get jammed up in road works and queues. We'll go to Dad's old watering-hole for lunch.'

They breathed a collective sigh of relief when at last they drew level with the turning and Maddie swung out of the queue. The car picked up speed again, following the narrow muddy road towards the horizon that was always brighter, even on a day of wind and storm, because of the sea.

Caz spotted a group of horses gathered together under a hedge in the corner of a field, their heads down and their tails to the wind. One grey mare galloped along the fence, trying to keep up with the car. She stopped at the corner of the field, calling after him as the car moved away.

She'd be good for Hag Night,
he thought.
Pray to be chosen, brave girl!

He had his Guardians' knife rolled up in the cloak at the bottom of his backpack and the thick wad of bank notes stuffed in his back pocket.

There's an old God with his finger on my life and there's no way I'm going to waste a minute of what's left of it stuck in school. Whatever Ma says, the Bank's got to be persuaded to set me up with a tutor. I've got to get out before the end of term. I just need a good excuse.

Jasper's accent slid comfortably back into West Country mode in a heated discussion with a group of locals in the pub – only one of them a true Devon man. The argument went back and forth for nearly an hour as to the particular merits of the various ales on tap behind the bar in the thatched, thirteenth-century pub in the middle of the village.

Jemima giggled. ‘Listen to him. He's already saying
buye
instead of
boy
, like that old man. It's like he never left.'

When he was finally reminded of the urgency of their errand, he walked briskly back up the road to the car park, satisfied that he had made his point. The others followed, bracing themselves against the wind. Behind them, the sea was dark under a leaden sky.

‘I want to look at the church before we go,' announced Jemima.

‘What for?' asked Caz.

‘I just do. It's ages since I've seen it.'

‘I'll come with you,' said Maddie.

‘That's fine,' said Jasper. ‘We're late enough already. Bro and I'll wait out here and freeze to death. You can get us cindered alongside the old man when he's snuffed it, and dump us all in the drink together. It'll save on the cost of hiring a boat.'

‘You can wait in the car,' said Maddie. ‘Do you want the keys?'

‘No, we'll keep ourselves alive looking at the graves.'

They found a seat beside an old yew tree looking out over the village towards the sea.

‘I don't remember it ever being this cold when we were living here,' Jasper grumbled, turning up his collar and shoving his hands into his pockets. ‘Do you reckon Grandpa's dead yet?'

Caz shrugged, watching the sea. ‘No. That would be too easy.'

‘We'll have a job finding someone to ferry us out with the cinders if this weather goes on like it is,' observed Jasper. ‘Old Jeb Hardy's probably pushing up the daisies himself by now and he was the only one left in the village with a decent enough craft.'

He kicked at a loose brick lining the edge of one of two narrow and long neglected graves under the tree. The brick rolled out of
place and down the path. He picked it up and put it back, wiping the grime from the worn slate headstone to read the name: Ernestina Wylde, born October 21
^st
1833, died September 18
^th
1889.
He bent down to the second headstone tracing the faint lettering with his fingers:
Georgia Wylde, born March 25
^th
1841, died November 6
^th
1866.

‘It looks like we've got a couple of long-lost rellies here, bro,' he said surprised.

Caz shook his head dismissively. ‘They could be anybody.'

‘The name's spelt the same.'

‘That doesn't mean we're related.'

When Maddie and Jemima came out of the church, Jasper waved to them, calling out, ‘Hey! The Wyldes are over here, if that's what you're looking for.'

Jemima came running up the path. ‘What Wyldes? Where?'

‘There,' he said, pointing to the headstones under the tree.

Jemima was disappointed. ‘But it doesn't say anything about them.'

‘It tells you when they were born and when they died,‘ said Jasper. ‘What more do you want?'

‘Do you know anything about them, Ma?' she asked.

‘No,' replied Maddie. ‘It's the first time I've seen them, but then I never had a reason to look for any Wylde gravestones here. Your dad only came down to the pub, as far as I knew. He never mentioned them. Neither did Grandma Em.'

‘They
must
be our family,' insisted Jemima eagerly. ‘I wonder what they looked like?'

Jasper sighed. ‘They were probably just a couple of crones, dressed in black and covered in warts.'

‘Of course they weren't! Georgia was only twenty-five when she died, so she must have been ill. I bet Ernestina nursed her, and then she came to the grave every day with fresh flowers until she died herself.' Jemima tried to picture the two Victorian ladies walking around the village.
I wish I could see more than just clouds and fire-pictures,
she thought crossly.

‘Could we find out about them, Ma?' she asked.

‘Maybe one day we will,' said Maddie. ‘Right now, there's another Wylde we must concern ourselves with. We can't put the hospital visit off any longer.'

CHAPTER 41

Franklin Wylde lay in a bed in a small room set apart from the main ward. The curtains at the window were closed. A bag on a stand above his head dripped clear liquid down a tube into his arm. Another bag, half filled with dark urine, hung discreetly by the side of the bed. The room smelled of stale breath. Caz wanted to choke.

‘He can hear, so do talk to him,' said the nurse. ‘I'm sure he would appreciate it.'

They stood around the bed, staring down at the shrunken figure flattened under the white cotton coverlet. The nose and cheekbones were starkly prominent and blotched with tiny purple veins. The chin was covered with white stubble. His once thick white hair was sparse over a scab-encrusted scalp. Maddie shuddered involuntarily and immediately checked herself with an apologetic look at Jemima.

Jasper took charge. ‘Well, we're here and we might as well do this properly,' he said. ‘I'll stay with him while the rest of you go and sort out the hotel. Let me know what's going on.'

Caz looked at the clock on the wall. Three forty-five – less than an hour to sunset.

‘How long are you good for, bro?' he asked Jasper.

‘Until I'm starving, I suppose.'

‘Then I'll stay in town and eat early, and do tonight.'

The figure in the bed opened his mouth, his breathing rasping in his throat. Jemima shrank up against her mother, terrified that he might speak. The boys looked at each other.

Jasper grimaced. ‘He doesn't look like he's going to last much longer. There's no need for us all to be here. I'll see you later, bro.'

As soon as they were gone, Jasper checked his messages and sent one to Sara:
All alone far from home, G looks dead is smelly still breathing, dont get drunk without me, jucy smackrs js.
He deleted the last line and sent the same message to Tristan. Then he deleted the first two lines of the amended text, inserted
obey your leader
and sent it on to Laurence.
That's the boys sorted!

The armchair beside the bed was an upright, long-term invalid monstrosity. He opted for the cheap plastic alternative by the window, tweaking back the curtains and looking out over the city to the harbour.

It's probably crawling with my old mates out there,
he thought wistfully,
all getting themselves sorted for a bit of pubbing and clubbing while I'm stuck up here. What a way to savage a good Saturday night out.

‘There's a good old blow getting up out there tonight, Grandpa,' he said loudly. The fingers on one shrunken hand twitched. ‘Does that mean yes or no? I'll take it as yes.'

He must be just about the same age as the old boss but look at the state of him. A manky, shrivelled up old sack of bones and even more cracked, if that's possible. Makes the boss look quite sane and respectable.
He studied the face on the pillow.
I'm the one who always looked the most like him, except for the hair. Is that what I'm going to look like when I'm snuffing it? It'll be tough on Stat, unless she goes first.

‘What am I supposed to say to you, Grandpa?' he asked. ‘That you were a miserable old git all your life, but I forgive you? Personally I don't care either way. You did what you had to do and I'm doing the same. I just hope I make a better job of it, that's all.'

In all his life what did he ever do that meant anything, except have Dad? And then he had to mess him up by always going on about the family being cursed. Why did he burn the boat when Dad died? Why did Grandma Em always cover up for him? Every time I asked her about something in the family, it was always the same answer.
‘It got lost in the war, like Caleb.'
I suppose that didn't help, having his mum and dad blown up by a bomb. He can't have been more than a kid when it happened.

He remembered the last time he saw his grandmother alive.
It was the summer after we'd moved up to the manor. The boss had rented us a car and we came back for a holiday, except that Grandpa was more crazy than ever and Ma refused to stay with them. Grandma Em told me,
‘He's got his little ways but he's a good man at heart. Tom's dying unsettled him.'
She was standing by the gate when we drove away. I wish she hadn't cried.

His eyes stung. He stared down at the lights bobbing over the dark water in the harbour.
Six months later she was dead herself, and he was carted off to the nursing home. We had old Jeb Hardy all fixed up to take us out in his boat to scatter her ashes, same as when we did with Dad's, and then we found her Will and got her dug in with the rest of her rellies up at Rame.