Ash road, p.8
Ash Road, page 8
‘There’s an old door in the shed,’ she said, almost fiercely. ‘It’ll do for a stretcher. We can each take a corner.’ She glared at the boy in the rear. ‘You’re a fine sort of gentleman, you are!’
‘Come on, Graham,’ said the big one. ‘We’ve got to do it. Haven’t we?’
Pippa walked and stumbled down the road with her eyes fixed ahead. She longed to sit down somewhere and have a good weep, or go home, but she couldn’t turn back, couldn’t even stop, while Peter was there. She hated him and he wouldn’t stop following her. He was like a dog. If he had started yelping and snapping round her ankles she wouldn’t have been surprised. ‘Go away,’ she said. ‘You make me sick.’
Peter didn’t answer back; he stuck stubbornly behind her, though he had a suspicion that he was ‘cheapening’ himself (whatever that may have meant), that if he really valued his ‘dignity’ he would do as she wished. But there were things more important to Peter than the bewildering adult standards of conduct his parents and grandparents talked about and tried to impose upon him. Nothing was more important to Peter than Pippa’s goodwill. He had never had a real fight with her before. It was a disastrous thing, as if he had been caught in a sinking ship and was powerless to save himself. It seemed that the only way to get back into a happy frame of mind was to be close to her when her humour changed; for surely her anger had to run out. This half-haughty, half-frightened girl in front of him was not like Pippa at all.
‘You’re still there, are you?’ she said. ‘You’re like a little puppy dog. Do they call you Fido at home?’
Pippa had not forgotten what the argument was about; she had seized upon it as something to be pursued to the bitter end, as a way of being rid of Peter Fairhall for good and all. Then she saw at the side of the road the three haversacks the heavy-footed boys had carried down the hill. She was instantly, if vaguely, curious and was surprised to see that she had come abreast of the Georges’ gateway, that she was opposite the path flanked by cypress trees that ran for about a hundred yards to the Georges’ house.
‘Goodbye,’ she said suddenly. ‘Good riddance. I’m going to see Lorna.’ She scarcely changed her stride, merely pivoted on the sole of her shoe.
‘No,’ pleaded Peter.
For at once she was out of reach. The road was as much his as anybody’s and he could pursue her there, but he couldn’t take the argument through the Georges’ gateway. Other people would straightaway be involved: it wouldn’t be private any more. She’d got away from him!
He had been so sure that it would all work out. It hadn’t. It had ended with nasty words and with a pain so deep that the world around him blurred and the details of earth and scrub and trees for a few moments merged into a uniform colour, a nameless colour that looked like misery. Then it separated again into its components, and not far from his feet were the three haversacks dumped in the tall, dry, wiry grass at the edge of the roadside ditch. These became of absorbing interest to him, though for a while he didn’t really observe them. He could see that they had come out of the fire, that the fire had been so close to them that it had left its mark upon them, that the packs were partly burnt, and that two of the sleeping-bags strapped to them were not fit to be used again. They triggered a strange response in him. He felt he knew about these haversacks, that they were not new to him, that they had reappeared out of some past or half-forgotten experience. Three campers. Three teenage boys missing in the fire...
He had never doubted for a moment that his deduction was the right one. He knew.
There was in him, too, another bridge of understanding, another flash of perception. Pippa had followed them down the road. Pippa had followed them through the Georges’ gateway. In some obscure way they had created the division between Pippa and himself; and he began to feel against them the stirrings of a positive dislike.
They were the missing boys. And they were missing not because they had been burnt to death in the fire but because they had got away from it. And for what reason would they get away from it? Certainly not for the reason that applied to himself. They were on their own; they were free agents; and for that, too, Peter resented them and envied them and wanted to strike at them. Surely if they had had nothing to hide they would have stayed to fight the fire? And what did they have to hide but the fact that they had started it?
Rarely had Peter seen anything so clearly. Never had the processes of his mind brought him so swiftly and surely to a conclusion. That he had based it on the flimsiest of evidence never occurred to him. He knew.
He didn’t rush through the Georges’ gateway; that was not his nature; he started off down the path nevertheless, frightened of those three big boys, but not so frightened that he was afraid to face them in front of Pippa.
They put the door down in the shade at the back of the house, and Lorna dropped on one knee beside her father. She didn’t know what to do next. She ran her fingers nervously across his brow and said, ‘I’ll get a pillow.’
As soon as she had disappeared into the house Graham hissed at the others: ‘You’re crazy. You’re plumb crazy. Now look what you’ve done. How are we supposed to get out of this lot? We’re hooked.’
Harry and Wallace glanced at each other and at the sick man at their feet. Harry was tight-lipped. ‘It’s just one of those things,’ he said.
‘Yeh,’ agreed Wallace. ‘No one’s laughin’, Graham. It’s like Harry says.’
Lorna clattered out with the pillow in her hand.
‘Here, give it to me,’ said Harry, anxious to get her out of the way again for a moment. ‘You’d better get a blanket, too.’
‘It’s too hot for that,’ said Lorna.
‘We don’t know for sure, do we? We don’t know what’s wrong with him. At least we’re on the safe side if we cover him.’
‘All right,’ said Lorna and went inside again. Whether it was the right or the wrong thing to do, it was at least something to do.
Harry fluffed the pillow up and pushed it under the old man’s head. Graham mumbled, ‘We were safe. I just know we were safe.’
‘We still will be,’ growled Wallace, ‘if you’ll shut up.’
‘We’d got all this way,’ sighed Graham.
‘Yeh, yeh.’
Not one of them really knew how he was managing to stand up or how he had managed to walk more than fourteen miles. Fear and fright and dismay had pushed them past a sensible limit. What a nightmare the hours of darkness had been, hiding from passing traffic, dodging lights, sometimes running with their packs jolting and jarring and chafing at them. Their feet were like balls of fire. And their shoes had been in Harry’s pack all the time. Harry had bundled them up and stuffed them in his pack and hadn’t even known he had done it.
Lorna brought the blanket and Harry took it from her. At that moment Pippa came round the side of the house.
She met Graham’s eyes first. ‘He’s nice,’ she thought. But Graham didn’t notice Pippa for what she was or wasn’t; he saw her as just one more hazard to be overcome, one more person who might take news of what he had done to the authorities or to his parents, one more reason why he had to get away by himself. He didn’t want even Harry or Wallace. Much of what had happened was Harry’s fault, anyway. ‘We’re going to stick together,’ Harry had said, while they were still hiding not far from the fire. ‘We’ll make for the Pinkards’ straightaway. No one’s there. All we’ve got to do is find the place. Jerry said if we got there before he did to make ourselves at home. That’s good enough for me. It’s the perfect place to lie low.’
Harry had meant it for the best, but it had been a mistake, for it had turned them into a recognizable and fugitive group of three. They should have separated and agreed to meet up again at the Pinkards’ in a couple of days. Graham was sure that guilt was stamped indelibly upon him. He was sure that the first keen eye, the first searching look would imply, ‘You did it, didn’t you?’ If the daughter of this sick man had not been so afraid for her father’s life she surely would have spotted it herself. Now there was this new girl, this keen-eyed, alert girl. Graham felt instantly that she was as sharp as a tack, but apparently she wasn’t, for her glance moved swiftly from him to Lorna and from Lorna to old man George. ‘Lorna,’ she cried, ‘what’s happened to him?’
Lorna stared at her. ‘Where’d you come from? I’ve been ringing your number. Everybody’s number. I couldn’t get an answer anywhere.’
‘Mum’s there,’ said Pippa, not fully understanding. ‘Dad’s there. Stevie, too, I think.’
‘But no one answered. I rang and rang. Oh, Pippa, my dad’s awfully sick. I don’t know what I would have done if these boys hadn’t turned up. I thought your dad could drive him to hospital, but I couldn’t get an answer. They’re not home, Pippa. Honest, they’re not—’
‘But they are—’
‘I can’t get the Robinsons, I can’t get the Fire Station, I can’t get the doctor or a taxi or an ambulance or anything. People just don’t answer. Where is everybody?’
‘They must be there,’ insisted Pippa. ‘They’ve got all the packing to do. We haven’t even had breakfast yet. You must have dialled the wrong number.’
‘But I didn’t.’
‘Well let me try.’
‘Try if you want to, but I’m telling you they’re not there.’
The boys, prompted by a single thought, found themselves looking at one another, for the girl called Pippa followed the girl Lorna indoors. ‘Right!’ said Harry.
As one, they scuttled round the side of the house and took a short cut across a garden bed towards the path. Then they saw Peter, and Peter saw them. They almost ran him down.
They halted a couple of paces apart, Peter, startled, no longer even partly sure of himself, confronted by Wallace and Harry, each aghast, but apparently threatening in their attitude—boys that Peter knew instantly and instinctively to be his enemies—and by Graham. Graham was weak with fright and gasped aloud. If only they had walked! Now their guilt was declared so positively they might as well have shouted it from the rooftops. Innocent people didn’t leap like scalded cats across garden beds.
But it was Peter who ran. The boys were so big; they looked so strong. He bolted, afraid that they were going to set upon him. Peter feared violence more than anything; he would go to any lengths to avoid a fight. He didn’t stop running until he reached the road, and when he looked back the three boys were not to be seen. The only person in sight was someone who looked like Stevie, a long way up the hill, waving to him.
But the bigger boys were still there; they had gone to earth like frightened rabbits. They couldn’t see Peter any more than he could see them. The roaring trees along the road and the path and round about them concealed them from one another, but only visually. In the minds of the three boys every tossing leaf was a spying eye, an accusing eye, and the difficulty of covering up their guilt was beginning to look overwhelming. They were so dog-tired that the situation was beyond them. They couldn’t think straight, not even clever Harry could think straight, and Wallace’s mind was a frightened blank waiting for a lead. Running away from the fire had only proved their guilt; it hadn’t made them safer at all. And it wasn’t that Graham had meant to start the fire; it had been such an innocent accident. But who’d believe them now? All the alibis they had invented seemed so feeble and so futile. Everyone would know now that they hadn’t spent the night at the Pinkards’, and if they couldn’t face up to a few unsuspecting children how were they to face suspicious parents or angry officials.
Graham felt evil and deceitful and full of remorse because he had failed to help that poor girl willingly. She had looked such a nice girl. And why would an undersized boy of about thirteen take such fright? Graham was relieved that the boy had taken fright, but it still didn’t make sense. Were all Graham’s feelings beginning to show? ‘What do you think?’ he said, in a half-choked voice. ‘Will I give myself up? It’ll be so much easier if I do.’
‘Of course you won’t give yourself up!’ Harry’s were angry words and Graham wanted them to be. He wanted Harry to drive the thought away, to kill it. ‘We can’t worry ourselves about a kid. He got a fright, that’s all, same as us. We haven’t done murder or anything. The way you act anyone would think we had.’
But they had lost the opportunity of escape: the girls had come to the side of the house: in sight of them and in hearing range if voices were raised. Perhaps the boys could still walk away as Graham had wanted to do in the first place, but that would be more cold-blooded now than it would have been then. Wallace said with a touch of bravado, ‘Why should they guess anythin’? Why should they find out anythin’ if we don’t tell them?’
‘But that kid,’ said Graham. ‘He acted like he knew something. He was scared stiff.’
‘He got a fright,’ repeated Harry, belligerently. ‘So did we. He’s gone now, anyway. I bet he hasn’t stopped running yet.’
‘Well, what about our packs?’
‘What about them?’
‘They’re up on the road for everyone to look at.’
‘Yeh,’ said Wallace. ‘You blokes see to the girl. I’ll get rid of the packs. I’ll hide ’em somewhere.’
‘Let me,’ said Graham breathlessly.
Harry looked at him, perhaps too closely, but believing he understood Graham’s earnest desire to continue avoiding people if he could. ‘Okay. You do it. But remember where you hide them.’
Graham, trembling from head to foot, headed for the gateway with all the haste his sore feet could summon. Pippa made a move, afraid that the boys were all going to melt away before her eyes. ‘Lorna wants some more help,’ she called and took a couple of steps towards them. ‘Are you going to give it to her?’
Pippa took a couple more steps hesitantly, not sure of herself or whether these two big fellows were nice boys all dirtied up or a couple of toughs. Another time she probably wouldn’t have thought of it, but the day itself was so violent. The wind that buffeted her was nerve-racking in a way; and her passionate argument with Peter was still in her mind like an ugly fright from which she had not recovered, and the shock of looking into Mr George’s face was something she would not quickly forget. What an awful morning it had been, from the very first moment; as if she were living a day in the life of another person, as if all the circumstances of this day simply didn’t belong to her. Even the monotonous buzz of the telephone that her parents had not answered. And why should these boys hold back? Why should they be as Lorna had said they were? ‘They do act funny, Pippa,’ Lorna had said. ‘Even when they helped me carry my dad they wouldn’t look me in the eye.’
Pippa took two or three more steps, and suddenly felt that she had ventured as close as any sensible person would dare. ‘Have you been fighting the fire?’ she said.
It was a question they didn’t want to answer but had to answer. ‘Yeh,’ said Wallace, ‘that’s right. Worn to a frazzle, too.’
‘You’re tired?’ said Pippa.
‘Ready to drop,’ agreed Wallace, visibly slumping.
‘Is that why you’ve been acting funny?’
Harry shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t say we’re acting funny.’
‘I told Lorna that you’d been firefighting, that that’s what was wrong with you.’
‘Nothing’s wrong with us.’
‘Where’s he going?’ Pippa glanced in the direction Graham had taken.
‘Nowhere,’ said Harry. ‘He’ll be back.’
They didn’t sound like toughs, not really. ‘Lorna wants help to carry her father up the road,’ said Pippa. ‘We’ve got to get him to my place. My dad doesn’t answer the phone, but I know he’s there.’
‘You mean carry him on that door?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘How far is it?’
‘About a third of a mile.’
‘Crumbs...When Wally said we’re ready to drop he meant it, you know.’ Harry knew he shouldn’t have said more, but he couldn’t stop himself. ‘We’ve been fighting fires all night. We wouldn’t be here now except they sent us away for a rest.’
‘Did they send you as far as this?’
‘Yeh,’ said Wallace. He couldn’t resist the temptation to impress. ‘That’s right. We’re down this way to have a rest and keep an eye on things. Eh, Harry?’
‘Sort of,’ said Harry uneasily. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier for you to get your dad to come down here?’
‘It would be if he’s at home. But if he’s not home we’ll have to get someone else. The Fairhalls, probably.’
‘Who are the Fairhalls?’
‘They live opposite my place. They’ve got a car, too.’
‘It’s no farther then—is it?—to walk to the Fairhalls than it is to your place?’ said Harry.
‘I suppose not.’
‘Well, what’s the use of killing ourselves struggling up that hill with the door and all? Doesn’t make sense, does it? You don’t need us at all, do you?’
Pippa couldn’t quite follow the circle the conversation had taken. She turned back to Lorna with a confused shake of her head and Lorna said heatedly, ‘I told you they wouldn’t help. I told you they were running away from something. They’re not worn out from fighting fires, they’re worn out from running away.’
Wallace was suddenly frightened and aggressive. ‘What’s that you say?’ he shouted.
‘You heard what I said,’ Lorna yelled. ‘My brother’s a firefighter and he’s fighting them now. If he was here he’d punch you on the nose. You’re not firefighters. You’re just nothing. Get off my father’s property before I set the dog on you.’
‘What dog?’ sneered Wallace. ‘I don’t see any dog. Y’haven’t got one.’
‘I have, too,’ screamed Lorna. ‘Blackie. Blackie! Here, Blackie!’
Wallace saw red. Somehow this screaming girl seemed to be the whole reason why their wonderful holiday had turned into a nightmare. He grabbed at a garden stake and dragged it out of the ground, uprooting the plant with it, and brandishing it at her. ‘Put a dog on me,’ he yelled, ‘and I’ll beat the daylights out of it. I’ll beat ’em out of you, too.’
