The Dark Inside (22 page)

As James’s mind worked everything through, he began to realize that Gudgeon was no different to him or Webster or Cook, or even the farmer. And none of them were different to anybody else
who had ever lost someone they loved or known of somebody who had died.

After the shutters were opened, Billy unlocked the door and walked into the wagon. James took his bowl of broth and began to eat. He could see the knot of caravans glowing in
the murk. Someone had lit an open fire. Voices wove in and out of the clatter of pots.

‘Well?’ asked Billy.

‘I told you, I didn’t see anyone.’

Billy leant against the bars and watched James eating, and when the boy stopped he told him to go on and finish the bowl because he was waiting to take it back. But James could not finish his
meal, nervous about being watched because such a thing never normally happened.

‘Suit yerself,’ said Billy, plucking the bowl away and slinging the rest of the broth between the bars. ‘If you want to eat again, you’ll keep yer ears and eyes open
tonight, and tell me if you see anyone.’

James nodded.

After Billy had left, he sat down in a corner, and crossed his legs and waited.

And waited.

But Gudgeon did not appear.

Eventually, he lay down on the mattress and looked up at the stars. He watched satellites ticking by. Saw shooting stars rip lines in the dark. And he tried to see if there was anything else he
had missed in the night sky despite all the times he had looked.

When James awoke, he felt something poking him in the ribs.

A stick.

Rattling between the bars.

Gudgeon was holding it.

The early morning light was purple and there was a light drizzle falling, making the air crackle. James rubbed his eyes and sat up.

‘That Billy’s been waiting up all night,’ whispered Gudgeon. ‘Hidden in the woods behind you. He’s dozing now, mind.’

‘He saw your footsteps in the dew.’

Gudgeon leant closer to the bars.

‘But you didn’t tell him anything about me?’

James shook his head.

‘We have to be quiet.’ Raindrops rolled down Gudgeon’s nose. They clung to the hairy parts of his face and dripped from the lobes of his ears. ‘So you tell me then, how
come you know so much about me?’

James nodded slowly, remembering all the time what he had planned to say.

‘I know,’ he said, ‘because I’m an angel.’ He stared at the man who stared straight back. The rain grew harder and the grass hissed as it fell.

‘An angel?’ whispered Gudgeon. His knuckles turned white as he squeezed the bars.

‘Billy and his ma cut off my wings so they could keep me,’ said James and he pulled down his sweater to show Gudgeon the red scars on his shoulders. The old man hauled in a breath
and let it out slowly. He flicked the rain from his face.

‘An angel,’ said Gudgeon again as though not believing it and yet believing it at the same time. James nodded.

‘Your wife’s happy where she is now. You don’t need to worry about her.’

Gudgeon pushed his head into the gap between two bars until he could go no further.

‘I don’t?’

‘No. She watches over you every day.’

Gudgeon’s eyes glistened. Tears rolled down into the wet on his skin, mingling with the raindrops. He choked in his throat.

‘Where is she?’

‘In a safe place.’

‘What’s it like?’

‘Light and warm. Golden.’ Gudgeon kept staring at him, expecting more. But James had no sense of how he should describe the place he was thinking of. And then he remembered where he
hoped his mother might be, safe from harm. And where he hoped Cook and Webster were too. ‘It’s a place where nobody’s evil. Where nobody wants anything from anyone else.
It’s where everybody knows the truth about everything.’

‘Is God there too?’ asked Gudgeon. He was entranced. Eyes bright and wide, his wet face sparkling.

James juggled words in his mouth, unable to speak, because he was unsure what to say.

But Gudgeon was waiting. Staring. James dug his nails into the palms of his hands and remembered how important it was to tell the man what he wanted to know.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘God’s there.’

Gudgeon smiled. Nodded slowly. He rubbed a forearm over his face.

‘Thank you,’ he said, and reached between the bars and took one of James’s hands, and squeezed it. ‘Thank you.’

‘I have to get out,’ whispered James. ‘Please. Help me get me out of this cage.’

But Gudgeon let go of the boy’s hand and looked down at the ground. ‘You belong to Billy and his ma,’ he said.

‘But they stole me away. They keep me in here where I can’t be seen.’

‘Where not even God can see you?’

‘No.’ And James could see Gudgeon wondering whether such a thing could ever be true. ‘Billy’s ma knows magic,’ he said quickly. ‘All sorts of things.
That’s how she’s keeping me hidden.’

Gudgeon nodded his head very slowly as he thought it through.

Suddenly, he looked behind him as though he had heard something.

‘I reckon he’s coming,’ he whispered. ‘Billy’s coming.’

Gudgeon began backing away.

‘Wait. Tell me you’ll help me.’ But Gudgeon kept moving and disappeared from view. ‘Wait!’

James heard someone running.

Then a gunshot.

And nothing else.

Billy appeared by the bars. Cursing. Out of breath. His hair slicked back and shining. And James took a few steps back.

‘Tell me who it was?’ Billy growled.

‘I don’t know.’ James shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen him before.’

‘Little bastard!’ shouted Billy. He disappeared round the side of the wagon and opened the door, then marched towards the boy who dropped down into a corner. Billy stooped and
grabbed him by the throat, making James cry out. ‘Tell me it was him,’ shouted Billy.

‘Who?’ cried the boy, tears sparkling on his face.

‘Tell me it was Webster.’ Billy squeezed harder. ‘Tell me it was him. I know it’s him. I know he’s not dead!’

James blinked. He couldn’t breathe.

Billy stared at the boy. Thoughts hammered in his head. He opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it again and let go of James’s throat, and the boy gasped for air. Billy marched out of
the wagon, slammed the door and locked it, and started pulling the shutters over the bars.

‘Don’t you speak to nobody, you little wretch,’ he hissed. ‘Or I’ll cut out yer tongue. Do you hear?’

James nodded, watching the world disappear as the shutters were locked into place. But all the time his mind was racing, churning over what Billy had said about Webster.

When he laid the Lanber down on the table in his caravan, Billy stayed still, looking at it, rain dripping off him on to the floor. Then he kicked out at the table leg.

‘Bastard gun.’

He towelled down his hair and made himself a cup of tea, and then sat at the table and looked out of the window at the field and the wagon in the distance, with the woods behind it. The
fairground was starting to take shape in a field to the left of the trees. He stared at the half-built helter-skelter pointing at the sky, thinking for a while, until his blood had cooled. Taking a
slurp of tea, he reached across and picked up a flyer for the fair from the large pile stacked on a chair beside the table. He studied the details silently, and then cursed to himself, and balled
up the flyer in his fist and threw it against the wall.

Gudgeon sat in his caravan for quite some time, listening carefully for any footsteps or voices outside. But no one came and knocked on his door. Eventually, his hands relaxed.
They had been glued tight to the edge of the table in front of him the whole time.

Whenever James’s face drifted into his mind, he swatted it back into the dark. But like a fly it kept coming back.

He got up and went to a drawer, and took out an old iron key. He laid it down on the table and looked at it.

‘Maybe I kept you for a reason after all,’ he said.

After putting the key in his pocket, he checked on the sky and saw patches of blue, and realized the day was set for fine weather. He decided he would take a drive to the coast nearby.
He’d smoke. Walk. Think. It would be easy enough to throw the key off the cliff if he felt that was the best thing to do.

‘Sod ’em,’ whispered Gudgeon when he saw the fair going up beside the woods. And then he glanced at the wagon and thought about the boy behind the shutters.

When he opened the door, he saw Billy, walking straight towards him, carrying a shotgun. Gudgeon gripped the door frame with one hand. The other went into his pocket and closed around the
key.

‘Hey, Gudge,’ shouted Billy, hurrying towards him. ‘I’m glad I caught ya.’

‘Yeah?’ The old man’s heart was close to breaking as Billy stopped at the bottom of the steps. ‘Why’s that?’

‘Cos you can fix anything, everyone knows that.’ And Billy grinned. ‘This Lanber keeps sticking on the upper barrel.’ He pointed the gun at Gudgeon and pulled the
trigger, and there was no click. Not a sound.

As Gudgeon stared down the black mouth of the upper barrel, a thin trickle of sweat rolled over the bumps of his spine.

‘Probably just needs a good clean,’ he said. It was as many words as he could muster.

‘I done all that,’ said Billy, shaking his head. ‘It’s something else. The workings. You wanna take a look?’

‘Could do.’

‘You got time now?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’ll leave it with you then.’

Billy walked up the three steps to the doorway of the caravan, and turned the Lanber around and handed it to Gudgeon stock first. He didn’t let go immediately. The two men eyed each other
along the length of the gun.

‘You all right, Gudge? You look like you seen a ghost.’

‘Old age,’ said Gudgeon, who tugged the gun free and stood it next to him inside the door of his caravan. ‘Some days just ain’t as good as others.’

‘That right? Long as it en’t catching then,’ said Billy, smiling.

Gudgeon was sure he could smell the key in his pocket. The rich iron whiff of it. And he was sure he heard it moving and clinking, even though he was breathing as slowly as he could.

‘Seriously, if you ever need anything, you know where to go. Me ma an’ all.’

‘Yeah. Thanks.’

‘By the way. My wagon?’

‘What about it?’

Billy rolled his fingers back and forth over the door frame.

‘There’s no way in or out, is there? It’s solid, right?’

‘Built to last, according to my dear old da.’

‘Yeah. That’s what he said when me da bought it off him.’ Billy looked round the inside of Gudgeon’s caravan. Everything in its place. Neat and clean and tidy. Windows
full of blue sky and green field. ‘I know you’re a good man, Gudge. And so was yer da. But I want you to check the wagon over for me anyway. I want you to tell me it’s still
solid. You got better eyes for it than me.’

‘Why?’

‘Cos I don’t want what’s in there getting out. So you give it the once-over, all right?’ Billy glanced at the half-built fairground in the distance, checking on its
progress, and then he drew out a roll of twenty-pound notes from his shirt pocket and pushed them into Gudgeon’s trouser pocket, squashing them down on top of the key that was hidden there.
‘Forget the fair today. It’ll go up fine without you. I want you to put an extra lock on the door too. That’ll cover yer costs and yer time.’

Gudgeon nodded.

‘A padlock won’t keep Smithy out, if that’s what you’re worried about. He’s got a gift, that boy.’ Gudgeon tickled his nose. Coughed and spat on to the grass
below. ‘I heard he got into your wagon a while back.’

‘He did,’ said Billy, nodding. ‘Poking around where he wasn’t supposed to.’ He smiled. ‘Didn’t you hear the rest of it though?’

‘Hear what?’ When Billy frowned, Gudgeon just shrugged. ‘I been away visiting family, ain’t I? Only really just got back.’

‘Course you ’ave,’ said Billy, clicking his fingers. And then he smiled as he did it again, as if he found clicking his fingers amusing. ‘Well, I took Smithy’s
thumbs for it. He won’t be going near that wagon again and causing trouble.’

Gudgeon nodded. Wiped the heat from his brow.

‘What you got in there then?’ he asked. ‘The bloody Crown jewels, is it?’

But Billy just smiled back. ‘Just you let me know when you’re done, Gudge. All right?’

When Billy had gone, Gudgeon closed his door and took out the roll of bank notes and the key from his pocket, and laid them next to each other on the table. He was not sure what he was going to
do. Things had become more complicated. As though it was a test set by someone who was watching him to see what happened next.

Setting Webster free had been easy once he had realized how best to go about it. Collecting up Smithy’s cigarette butts. Depositing them beneath the wagon steps. Making it look as though
it was Smithy who had been talking to Webster and been convinced to pick the lock to set him free. Smithy with half a brain and who was always in trouble on account of it. The story was there for
Billy and his ma to read without question.

But now Smithy had no thumbs.

Gudgeon flexed his hands and heard the joints crackle. He tried not to think about what Billy and the old woman might do to him if they caught him freeing what was in their wagon now. He stood
there for some time, thinking everything through, until he realized he was staring at the Lanber resting by the door. And he began to wonder why the top barrel had jammed and never fired. Whether
it was luck or fate, or something else entirely of another design, a clue perhaps, about what he was really supposed to do. After all, why had he bothered to keep the spare key for the wagon all
this time, after finding it in his father’s things as a boy? Why had he not thrown it away after helping Webster? And why had he suddenly decided to go and hunt for berries the other morning
in the mist only to come across the boy?