The Petitioners (16 page)

‘No, you’re right, I don’t suppose she can be more than sixty-ish.’

‘How did you get together with the two old men and that couple you were with?’ I asked, mainly because there was a shortage of things to talk to him about.

He shrugged. ‘It just happened. Once I was with them I couldn’t get away again.’

‘I thought I wouldn’t get away from the people I was with either,’ I said ruefully. ‘I argued with my son quite a bit – I wish I hadn’t now.’

‘How old is he?’

‘About fifteen – or has he had a birthday since then?’ Suddenly the simplest things seemed incredibly difficult to remember and to fit into the normal patterns of life. I hoped I hadn’t missed Dan’s birthday. It would once have been unthinkable not to mark the occasion by doing something special, or making fun of one of Emma’s rare efforts at home baking, or even going out to eat, which we hadn’t done all that often even when we had the chance. I gave a heartfelt sigh at the memory of things that were lost and might never be found again. Though really having a meal at the nearest pizzeria wasn’t the most important of the things that were lost.

I could eat a pizza now, though. With spinach, and sweetcorn, and peppers, and all the other toppings we hadn’t seen for years.

‘How long is it since we ate?’ I enquired.

‘Not that long.’ Mark delved into his shirt pocket and brought out a stick of chewing gum wrapped in the traditional foil. I stared at it suspiciously. He handed it to me. ‘Pure protein. That should keep you alive until we come to the next fish and chip shop.’

Fish and chips. That was another thing that had been lost. There had been no fish in and around the North Sea for decades. Or at least, none that people were allowed to fish for.

I unwrapped the protein gum and put it in my mouth gloomily. Why was I lapsing into nostalgia about fast food options when there were so many other things to worry about?

It tasted of nothing at first, as chewing gum traditionally does, and then suddenly gave me a hint of steak and onions. That wouldn’t have been my first choice but still… Like most chewing gum it lost its flavour eventually, but by that time I had had enough of steak anyway – I could almost picture the animal fat clogging my arteries. That was brain-washing, of course. There wasn’t really any animal fat.

The man who had questioned me came back. He manhandled me out of the cabin so roughly that I protested. ‘Hey! I thought you said you were meant to deliver me without a mark on me.’

‘I lied,’ he said. ‘I’ve been told to interrogate you further, and not to hold back on the violence this time.’

‘Who told you that? Was it Irene? I knew her little old lady persona was too much of a cliché to be true,’ I said. I didn’t know why I was answering him back so blithely. It was almost as if I were asking for the physical violence he threatened.

It was in some ways fortunate that there was a huge bump at that moment, and I was flung out of his grasp and down the corridor – or was it called a companionway or something else on a boat? I didn’t have time to ponder that, because I was too busy scrambling to my feet and looking wildly around for the way out. I wrenched the nearest door open. It led to some stairs – which probably also had an alternative nautical name. Without waiting to see if he was coming after me, I headed up the stairs as fast as I could. Mark would have done it quicker, but I wasn’t about to go back and fetch him so that we could run a race. He was old enough to look after himself, and I didn’t think my interrogator had locked the cabin door again behind us, so at least there was a chance Mark would get out.

I came to another door that led to the deck outside. But even from here I could see there was something badly wrong. I couldn’t be sure in the darkness, but both my sense of balance and my eyes told me that the ship was listing dangerously to one side. Had we run into something? Surely the captain or whoever was driving had the sense to keep to the middle of the channel that had been the River Forth? Unless another boat had got in the way.

I opened the door and went out on deck anyway. There was something extremely frightening about the idea of being stuck under cover in a sinking ship. At least on deck, in the open, I might have a chance.

I had to cling on to the rails to stop myself being flung around. My side of the boat was rising up in the air, away from the water, which gave me a sense of security that was almost certainly false. I vaguely wondered what had happened to our narrow-boat. But I knew this was no time for vague wondering.

The door behind me burst open again and Mark emerged on to the deck next to me, gasping for breath.

‘What’s going on?’

‘We’re about to sink,’ I said, clinging mindlessly to the railing, which was now the only secure spot in my universe.

Mark started to laugh.

‘It’s no laughing matter,’ I said.

‘You’ve got to laugh,’ he said. ‘You’d think the customs people would look where they were going.’ He peered over the side. ‘There’s another boat down there. We must have hit it.’

I had half-closed my eyes so that I wouldn’t see the full enormity of our situation but now I steeled myself to look. There was a fishing boat only a few metres away from us, moving up and down on the waves in a way that made me feel dizzy. I hoped I wasn’t going to be sick. That would be a fine way to spend my last moments.

‘Dad!’ shouted somebody, sounding as if they were in a tunnel quite a long way away. This was it. My life flashing before my eyes.

‘Look – he’s waving at us,’ said Mark, nudging me. ‘Do you know him?’

As I didn’t seem to have died yet, I opened my eyes wider again and dared to look. Dan was waving frantically from the deck of the fishing-boat. Was it Dan or was it a mirage, or whatever the seagoing term for that was?

‘Dan,’ I said.

‘Dan? It’s your son? Well, it must be our lucky day after all.’ Mark laughed again. It was beginning to irritate me.

‘Are you all right?’ I shouted. My words probably got whisked away on the wind, but at least I had spoken them.

‘Get over the side!’ shouted Dan. ‘You’re going down.’

Over the side? Was he mad? I made the mistake of glancing down at the swirling water below us. And then Mark heaved me over the rails and I was falling down into a whirlpool that would suck me under and separate me from my family for ever…

DAN

It was all a bit scary. After making sure Declan was still alive, which he was, I had gone up on deck to see what was what, and the only thing in my line of vision was a slightly larger boat looming over us, but at an odd angle, and then I saw Dad hanging on to the rails of the other boat and looking as if he was about to be sick.

Luckily the man with him had a bit of sense and did exactly the right thing, which was to get Dad off the sinking ship and into the water where we could pull him out, once he came back to the surface that was. The skipper and mate of the fishing boat, who had come out of the wheelhouse briefly to see what was going on, threw him and Mark a line each. Fiona was on deck too by that time, helping.

Amazingly, the other boat seemed to have sustained more damage than we had in the collision. I found out later that this wasn’t just an ordinary fishing-boat. Surprise, surprise – how did Declan always manage to know just the right people?

‘Is Declan all right?’ I said to Fiona once we had managed to drag Dad and his new best friend on to the deck and were trying to squeeze some water out of their lungs.

‘Declan? Where is he anyway?’ she said, trying to stop Dad from getting to his feet too quickly.

‘He’s down below. He bumped his head.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me in the first place?’ she exclaimed crossly, and hurried off, leaving me to deal with both men.

‘Dan – this is Mark,’ said Dad, still sounding a bit waterlogged. ‘Mark – my son Daniel.’

‘How did you get here?’ I asked. I was grateful we weren’t the kind of family who hugged each other. That would just have been irrelevant at this point. I didn’t bother asking who Mark was, either. There wasn’t time.

‘Better get below in the warm,’ I suggested. Both men showed signs of wanting to hang about on deck, which was a bit worrying. Just as the words left my mouth, there was a sharp bang and something ricocheted off the side of the boat. It looked as if somebody didn’t want us to live long enough to tell the tale.

I pushed and shoved my father into the wheelhouse out of the way, then went back for Mark, only he was quicker and I met him in the doorway. It was getting a bit crowded in there.

‘They’re shooting at us,’ I told the skipper. ‘Better get out of here.’

‘That’s what I’m trying to do, pal,’ he said. ‘We’re caught on something… Better throw a few more logs on the fire,’ he added, to his mate. The engines increased their noise and suddenly we surged forward. My Dad and Mark fell over, of course. When I was sure we were out of firing distance, I wrapped them in scratchy grey blankets from one of the lockers and took them down to the cabin.

Declan was sitting on a chair, and Fiona was mopping his brow with a tea-towel. They glared at me and my father with equal hostility.

‘Thought we’d shaken you off,’ growled Declan.

‘I was kind of hoping I’d never see you again either,’ said Dad. He sat down at the table and said nonchalantly, ‘I’m quite pleased to find Dan though. Emma would have killed me if anything had happened to him.’

‘What are you doing here anyway?’ said Fiona.

I turned to start up the kettle. I thought Dad and Mark should at least have a hot drink if they were going to be interrogated.

My father told a complicated tale of Tanya Fairfax abandoning them, raiders killing people and Mrs Swan turning out to be an enemy in the style of these international spies who used to turn up in old movies. I listened with half an ear as I made tea. There were some chocolate capsules Fiona and I had discovered in a drawer earlier, and I felt quite domesticated as I put it all together. First time ever.

‘Have you heard anything from Emma?’ said Declan once Dad stopped talking.

‘Not recently. But when I was being questioned on that other boat, they said everybody’s supposed to report to Balmoral for some kind of census thing. She’s maybe on her way there.’

‘Balmoral,’ said Declan. ‘Yes, we heard about that on the cloud-cast. It sounds very much like a trap to me.’

Fiona nodded in agreement.

I wasn’t sure.

‘If they’re telling Emma to go to Balmoral, she’ll go there all right,’ said Dad. ‘She won’t want to miss out on anything. Is that where you’re heading?’

‘Not really,’ said Declan evasively. ‘Somewhere near there though.’

‘You’re going to that old rebel place at Spittal of Glenshee, aren’t you?’ said Dad accusingly.

‘What’s that?’ said Dad’s friend Mark. He had been so quiet I had almost forgotten he was there, but when I glanced at him I saw that he was on the alert, leaning forward on the bench with his elbows on his knees. I thought he looked a bit familiar.

‘It’s just a place,’ said Declan even more evasively.

He was right not to trust the newcomer, I thought.

‘Oh!’ said Fiona suddenly, staring at Mark. ‘Aren’t you that world cycling champion?’

‘Mark Sutherland,’ said Dad. ‘That’s right.’

‘How on earth did you two get together?’ she said, rather tactlessly I thought. Even if my father was an archaeology nerd, it didn’t mean he didn’t have any friends in different spheres of life. It was quite cool really. I didn’t mind him being a nerd anyway. Better than being a total idiot, like so many people I could mention.

Mark shrugged his shoulders. ‘I just tagged along,’ he said.

‘Oh, go on,’ said Fiona. ‘I’m sure there was more to it than that.’

Declan coughed. There was a sort of cross tone in the sound. I don’t suppose he liked the way Fiona was looking at this other man.

‘There wasn’t any more to it,’ said Dad. ‘He came along with Irene Swan. That was before we knew about her secret life, of course.’

‘What are we going to do about her and the others?’ said Fiona.

‘Nothing,’ said Declan. ‘I hope they’re at the bottom of the Forth by now, along with that boat. The skipper can’t have been paying attention. They were definitely in the wrong.’

‘Just as well this boat’s tougher than it looks,’ said Dad with a smile. ‘How do you find those people, Declan?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Declan, laughing. ‘I just seem to come across them now and again.’

It was all very jolly. After a while, to judge from the engine sounds, the boat slowed down a bit and after a bit longer the skipper came in and said he was preparing to drop anchor for the night and that we were off St Andrews, or at least the place where St Andrews had once been. I would have liked to get up early the next morning to see if there was anything left of the ancient cathedral sticking up from the sea, but in fact I fell asleep on the floor of the aft cabin on another of the grey scratchy blankets, and they didn’t wake me up until we were under way again, which was annoying.

I had been awake in the middle of the night, worrying about Mum and Jen. It wasn’t like me to worry about them – I knew Mum was well able to take care of herself and my sister without any help from the male side of the family at all – so then I worried that they had somehow sent me a telepathic request for help.