Fire And Hemlock Part 14

"I saw it," said Polly. "That's how I knew you were in Bristol. It had a parking ticket."

"It's used to them," said Tom. "Where was it?"

"I'm not sure," Polly said.

"Lucky we left time to look, then," he said.

They crossed the two busy roads, which were now busier thanever. As they arrived safely on the other side, Polly asked hopefully, "Do you think you might marry Ann?"

"Not a hope," Mr. Lynn said cheerfully. "Ann has her own ideas about such things."

They turned into a narrow street with old houses, which Polly was sure was the street where she had seen the horse-car, but it was empty, all blue twilight and orange streetlight. The wind met them here. It whipped Polly's hair in front of her, set Tom's anorak rattling and the rubbish in the gutter rolling and pattering as they walked up the street. Polly thought of herself walking in the wind all morning. She found she was able to talk about Dad and Joanna now without threatening to cry, and she began telling Tom, shouting against the wind at first, and then talking normally, as they turned into another narrow street, where the wind was less. There was no car there either. Paper and old leaves tumbled gently along behind them.

Mr. Lynn yelped with laughter over the gray-and-gold toilet paper. "I wish I'd known you were here, having that kind of time," he said.

"It makes me think," said Polly. "What happens to all the people who don't have someone like you they know?"

"G.o.d knows," he said very soberly. And they walked the rest of the way down that street without speaking. The rubbish pounced and pattered behind them in the wind. Almost like little creatures running after us, Polly thought in a dreamlike way.

At the end of that street they were among the graph-paper towers and the wind was fierce. "This is wrong," Polly said. "It was in an old street."

"I know. This is the most confusing town I've ever been in." Mr. Lynn turned round to go back up the old street. Polly felt him go stiff. "I think we'll keep on the way we were going," he said carefully.

Polly turned too, against the wind, and looked back up the street. Her dreamlike feeling at once became the feeling of pure nightmare. For a moment, as you do in nightmares, she could not move. In the middle of the dark little street, the pattering rubbishwas slowly piling upon itself, floating slowly and deliberately into a nightmare shape. It could have been a trick of the wind, but it was not. It was too deliberate. Plastic cups, peanut packets, leaves, and old wrappers were winding upward, putting themselves in place as parts of a huge, bearlike shape. As Polly watched, a piece of newspaper rose like a slow ghost to make the creature a staring face. Tom seized her wrist while she stared and pulled her away, among the tower buildings. They did not exactly run, but they went with long strides as fast as they could walk. Both of them kept looking back. The creature of rubbish was following, billowing on pattering, manlike legs.

"What can we do?" said Polly. "Throw a lighted match at it?" Her head was turned over her shoulder. It was coming rustling after them against the wind.

"I thought about that, and I don't think so," Mr. Lynn said. "There's a risk it will just come after us burning. Let's find somewhere where there are a lot of people."

Beyond the towers, they came to some kind of shopping precinct. It was wide and paved and quite well lighted, with lighted shops all round. A lot of people were there, heads down against the wind, hurrying, so that the place was full of banging feet. The creature of rubbish came after them faster here, traveling in swoops, changing shape as it traveled. Polly could see the thing more clearly every time she looked. She could see the s.p.a.ces between the writhing newspapers, and the peanut packets riding in it alongside dead leaves. It was collecting more as it came. Every time Polly looked, it was larger, with more legs, but it never fell apart, and it always had that staring newspaper face.

"It's mostly made of air," she said. "It may not be able to hurt us.

"Do you want to bet on that?" said Mr. Lynn.

As he said it, the thing was near enough to put out a pattering piece of itself and search toward their heels, so near that they could hear the hundred papery parts of it scuttling along the pavement. They both ran. They ran sideways across the precinct, behind a kiosk and some concrete seats. But the thing streamed sidewaystoo, round the kiosk and rattling across the seats, and kept on coming after them. Quite a few people looked up curiously as Tom and Polly pelted past them.

"No one else can see it!" gasped Polly.

"I know. Proper clowns we must look!" Mr. Lynn panted. "If only we could find my d.a.m.n car car!"

They raced along beside lighted shops and whirled round a corner into another open stretch of precinct. They could tell by the rustling and rattling that the thing was close behind. Both of them were sure that the car was somewhere over to the left of this s.p.a.ce. Tom took Polly's wrist and dragged her over that way. And then retreated hurriedly as the newspaper face and a storm of small rubbish rose billowing and reaching for them. As they backed round the corner again, Polly caught a glimpse, between the s.p.a.ces of it, of a dark, bulky figure standing watching against a lighted shop-window.

"Mr. Leroy-"

"Yes," Mr. Lynn said. "I know." It was that quiet manner of his that ran you up against silence. Since Polly was not ten years old any longer, she knew better than to say any more. She simply sprinted back the way they had come, with Tom's hand lugging at her wrist and the creature scuttling close after, wondering if this nightmare would ever end. They missed the way they had come into the precinct and simply plunged up the first street that seemed to lead away. And there, up a short hill, was the horse-car crouched against the curb at last. Tom let go Polly's wrist to get out his keys as they dashed toward it. He got there before Polly. When she pelted up, he had the doors open and was throwing her bag into the back seat.

"Get in," he said. "Fasten the seat belt."

Polly dived into the pa.s.senger seat. While she was rumbling with the belt, the car started with its usual whinny and jerk. She looked up to see its headlights glaring two bright spots on a solid, writhing mound of rubbish. The great newspaper face leered. It was entirely blocking the end of the narrow street.

"Hold on. I'm going to drive through it," Tom said. It was one of those times when heroic driving might pay off, Polly thought dizzily. The car clunked into gear and leaped from the curb, roaring. They hurtled at the thing of paper and leaves. Blue, orange, and red paper whirled in the lights, a solid thickness, and the great white paper face seemed to stoop at them, so real that Polly almost saw eyes in the crumpled eyeholes. It was too real.

"Tom!" she screamed. " Tan Hanivar Tan Hanivar!"

Mr. Lynn swore and dragged the steering wheel round. Polly had an instant's slow-motion glimpse of Sam Rensky sliding sideways off the car bonnet along with a cloud of little gla.s.s cubes from the windscreen. On the other side there was Ed Davies, with his mouth open, yelling. "Tom, what the h.e.l.l-!" Polly heard faintly through the hole in the windscreen. They nearly hit Ed too. The tires shrieked as Tom missed Ed by bouncing up on the curb on the other side of the street. They jolted down again. He was still driving flat out. Polly supposed she must have turned round then, because she had another glimpse of Sam Rensky rolling over in the road, trying to get up and looking utterly astonished, before they screamed round a corner and she could see nothing but white cobweb shapes from the broken windscreen.

"Stop!" she shouted. "You ran him over!"

Mr. Lynn found a handkerchief somehow and punched at the smashed windscreen with it over his fist as he drove. The car wagged. "Sam was all right," he said. "I think. Ed was there. I'm getting you to the station before anything else happens."

Polly helped smash the rest of the gla.s.s out of the front window. The wind howled in. They were both shaking. Polly wanted to scream out that this was the meanest trick yet of Mr. Leroy's. It was meaner even than all the things he had done to Polly herself. He had nearly made Tom kill Sam. Sam had probably been badly hurt anyway. But she knew Tom would not talk about Mr. Leroy.

"Was it Sam and Ed all along?" she said as they roared along a huge, orange-lit road. "Not paper at all?"

"I don't know," Tom said. "I just don't know." Polly thought he was going to run into silence then, but he went on, "What is itabout us?" and roared through some traffic lights just as they turned red. Cold air whistled in Polly's hair. "We make things up, and then they go and happen. I wrote you a letter something very like this."

Mr. Leroy uses them, Polly wanted to say. But there was more to it than that. She thought of Mr. Piper's shop in Stow-on-the-Water, which seemed to have nothing to do with Mr. Leroy. "I don't know," she said wearily.

The car bucketed round a corner and screamed up the slope to the station. A big, lighted clock said twenty-five past six. In a dreamlike way Polly noticed birds roosting in a row along the hand of the clock. "Just time!" said Tom. They jumped out of the car and left it standing while they ran inside through the gla.s.s doors. Tom used a credit card, like Ivy, to get Polly a ticket. It seemed to take hours. Polly s.n.a.t.c.hed up the ticket and they pelted to the platform to find the train already there, standing waiting. There were still two minutes to go.

Tom handed Polly her bag, panting. They were both still shaking. "Will you really be all right?" he said.

"I will now," Polly said. "But what about you? You won't be able to give your concert if Sam's hurt, will you?"

"That I shall have to go and find out," he said. "Don't worry about us. Better get on the train." He reached out and undid the handle of a door and swung it open for Polly. The other hand he put behind Polly's head and squashed her face against his old anorak for a second. "Take care of yourself."

The burr of his voice coming through the anorak almost drowned the sound of footsteps coming up beside them, but not quite. Out of one squashed eye Polly saw polished black shoes stop and stand just beyond Tom's. "This is becoming more than just a joke, Tom," said Mr. Leroy's chesty voice.

Mr. Lynn's hand changed direction. It was now pushing Polly hard toward the open door of the train. "Get on it, Polly," he said quietly. "Quick. It's just going."

The whistle blew as he spoke. Polly scrambled up the steps, and the door slammed behind her. The train moved before she couldturn round, and she was moving further away when she did turn and look. Mr. Leroy and Tom were standing face to face on the platform, leaning toward one another, in fact, both talking angrily at once. She was fairly sure Tom was shouting at Mr. Leroy. She did not blame him, considering that Mr. Leroy had probably just ruined the Dumas Quartet.

3.

But, Thomas, you shall hold your tongue THOMAS THE RHYMER.

Polly did not seem to be able to read on the train. She felt odder and odder, and the things which had happened in Bristol began to seem more and more phantasmagoric. Long before the train reached Middleton, the only parts that were real to Polly were Sam Rensky sliding off the car bonnet and terrible worry because of the way Mr. Lynn had shouted at Mr. Leroy.

Granny met her at Miles Cross with a taxi, which was just as well, because Polly had a high temperature by then. "Mr. Leroy made Sam Rensky look like a monster!" she told Granny indignantly.

Granny felt her forehead. "I'm not surprised," she said. She put Polly straight to bed and called the doctor next morning. Polly had flu. It was the season for it, the doctor said. Stay in bed.

Polly lay in bed and worried about Sam and Mr. Lynn. The flu got into her head, the way flu does. By the time her temperature came down she was really not clear what had happened in Bristol. Sometimes she doubted her clear memory of Mr. Lynn's large hand squashing her face against his old anorak. But the time in the green cloakroom watching the quartet play never seemed to be touched by doubt. It stood out, quiet and real, from all the rest.

Granny said very little about what had happened. Polly only remembered one thing Granny said, in the taxi. "I'm ashamed,Polly," Granny said. "Your Mr. Lynn behaved better than my Reg." And that was all she said. Granny seemed to take it for granted that Polly was living with her now. When Polly began to get up, she found that Granny had been round in a taxi and fetched her things from Ivy.

For quite a while after that, Polly lay around fretfully reading The Golden Bough The Golden Bough and annoying Granny considerably by insisting on having a proper bookmark so that she would not need to lay the book down on its face. She had to mark her page in some way or she kept losing her place, and she could not find where she had left off in Bristol for days. "The Hallowe'en Fires," was it, or "The Magic Spring," or "The Ritual of Death and Resurrection"? Or was it "Kings Killed When Their Strength Fails," or "Kings Killed at the End of a Fixed Term"? It took her ages to discover that she had been in the middle of "Temporary Kings." and annoying Granny considerably by insisting on having a proper bookmark so that she would not need to lay the book down on its face. She had to mark her page in some way or she kept losing her place, and she could not find where she had left off in Bristol for days. "The Hallowe'en Fires," was it, or "The Magic Spring," or "The Ritual of Death and Resurrection"? Or was it "Kings Killed When Their Strength Fails," or "Kings Killed at the End of a Fixed Term"? It took her ages to discover that she had been in the middle of "Temporary Kings."

She worried about Sam Rensky. But she did not dare tell Granny, or write to Mr. Lynn, or even phone, because Mr. Leroy had proved he really did know all she did. She had to wait until nearly the end of the holidays, when a postcard of Bath Abbey arrived for her. It was written in clear, bold writing that she did not know.

Don't worry. Sam is made of rubber and the show went on even though he was black and blue.

Love from us all, Ann.

Polly was glad, but quiet. She did not see how she would ever manage to see Mr. Lynn again.

She still felt quiet when she went back to Manor Road. It was rather embarra.s.sing at first, because everyone had thought she was leaving and was very surprised to see her. Fiona was the only person Polly explained to, and she did not tell even Fiona very much. Fiona was delighted to see Polly. "I'm glad you didn't leave," she said. "You'd have missed a right joke if you had. Look at Nina!"

Nina was into clothes and hairstyles as well as boys that term. She came to school in a shiny golden hat and purple spangled tights. She got herself new glamorous gla.s.ses. She experimented with false eyelashes.

"I shall die!" said Fiona the day Nina's eyelashes slithered down inside her new gla.s.ses during Biology and fell off onto a dissected frog. "I'm getting a figure now, by the way. If I breathe in, I almost have a waist. How about you?"

"Sort of," said Polly. As Granny remarked when Polly introduced her to Fiona, both their figures were a pinch of faith, a spoonful of charity, and the rest entirely hope. But she admired Fiona's red hair and told them both not to wish their lives away.

Polly and Fiona took Granny's advice, on the whole, and turned their attention to other things. They invented a sport called slodging slodging. You pretended you were urban guerrillas who were planning to blow up the Town Hall or some other target. You sneaked into the place and spied out the best place to plant your bombs. In this way Polly gate-crashed a number of places at least as imposing as Hunsdon House and was once caught red-handed lurking in the yard at the back of Woolworth's. Polly could not think what to say and had to leave it to Fiona. Fiona said a boy had thrown her purse over the wall and she and Polly were looking for it. "It had my dinner money in it," she explained, with an artistic sniff.

Oddly enough, Polly remembered slodging. slodging. It seemed to be in both parts of her memory. So why was it she had not remembered her thirteenth birthday party? Granny said invite some friends. She knew Polly needed cheering up. Polly invited a number of people, including Fiona and Nina. And it turned out that Nina, as well as Granny, admired Fiona's red hair. With Polly's party as her excuse, Nina bought a packet of red hair dye and tried to dye her hair. But she forgot to read the instructions on the packet. It seemed to be in both parts of her memory. So why was it she had not remembered her thirteenth birthday party? Granny said invite some friends. She knew Polly needed cheering up. Polly invited a number of people, including Fiona and Nina. And it turned out that Nina, as well as Granny, admired Fiona's red hair. With Polly's party as her excuse, Nina bought a packet of red hair dye and tried to dye her hair. But she forgot to read the instructions on the packet.

The result was spectacular. For one whole day Nina blazed through the school like someone's prize dahlia, red and sort of blond and near-black in streaks, with her hair in an enormous shock. Her Mum met her at the school gates and marched her to a hairdresser. Nina arrived at Polly's party with almost no hair at all. That was, Polly knew, about the last time Nina's Mum had any say in what Nina did. What made her forget that?

And here was another thing Polly had all but forgotten. About aweek later, right at the end of term, when Nina's hair was already beginning to grow back in little wriggles, they all went on a school outing to the Cotswolds. It was a scorchingly hot day, and Mr. Partridge, who was in charge, began to look martyred long before they even reached the Cotswolds. Polly envied Nina her cool hairstyle. Sweat ran out under Polly's hair, wetting her neck and dripping past her ears. She drank five cans of fizz while they were seeing round the Roman Villa. Laughing and shouting, they were herded back on the coach again, getting hotter and hotter. Fiona's freckly face went a pale mauve which clashed with her hair. Polly was in a hot, fizzy daze by the time the bus stopped in the market square at Stow-on-the-Water.

Out they all got again. Mr. Partridge gathered them all round the cross in the middle and told them it was a very old Saxon cross. The sun beat down. Polly stayed at the back where it was cooler. People round her filtered quietly away, over to the supermarket to buy more fizz.

"Oh boredom!" said Fiona. "What's the first sign of sunstroke?"

Polly looked round, over her shoulder. It was there. It was still there. Thomas Piper Hardware. There was a display of garden seats outside this time. It would be cool in there. "Let's pretend we want to buy a lawnmower," she said.

The idea made Fiona giggle. They were edging quietly away when Nina came plunging after them, asking in a loud whisper where they were off to.

"Nowhere that would interest you, Nina," said Fiona. Since Fiona did not like Nina much, that, Polly thought irritably, was a stupid thing to say. Naturally, Nina crossed the square with them, and they all went into the clean, cool shop together.

School holidays must have already started in Stow-on-the-Water. The only person in the shop was Leslie. He was sitting at the cash desk in a brown overall some sizes too big for him, minding the shop. These days he had a lot of fair, curly hair. Polly could only just see the skull earring glittering through the curls. Leslie's face lit up cheekily at the sight of them. "Ay, ay!" he said. "What can I do for you today?"

This was invitation enough for Nina. She leaned her elbows on the cash desk and stuck out her much-discussed bosom at Leslie. "A lawnmower," she said.

Leslie pretended to back away. "My doctor told me to give those up," he said. "Lawnmowers are bad for you. Where are you from?"

"That's telling," said Nina.

"We're three mystery women," said Polly.

"What have you got besides lawnmowers?" said Fiona.

"Wouldn't you like to know!" said Leslie. "Come on, tell us where you're from."

"Wouldn't you you like to know!" said Nina. like to know!" said Nina.

Everyone seemed to understand everyone else so well that the flirtation went with a swing for some time. Then Leslie pointed to Polly. "I know you," he said. "You came in once with that fellow who looks like my Uncle Tom." When Polly had finished being astonished that he remembered, Leslie said, "And you're all from Middleton, aren't you?"

"How do you know that?" exclaimed Nina.

The questioning turned the other way round for a while, with Leslie playing mysterious, until he laughed and said, "Saw you getting out of that coach. Tweedle Brothers, Middleton. I'm coming to Middleton myself soon. That's why I asked." All three of them clamored to know why. Leslie winked at Fiona and said, "Heard ofWilton College?"

"You're never going there there!" said Nina. "It's a Public School!"

"I am so!" said Leslie. "Won a music scholarship. I start next term. Tell me your names and I'll look you all up when I come."

None of them really believed him. Nina said pull the other one. "Other what?" asked Leslie. Fiona said Leslie would be a fish out of water there. Polly said college boys were not allowed to meet girls from the town.

"I will. I'm different. I'll be out and about," Leslie promised. "I swear I'll meet you. What's the date today?" will. I'm different. I'll be out and about," Leslie promised. "I swear I'll meet you. What's the date today?"

"July the twenty-fourth," said Polly.

"Then September the twenty-fourth," said Leslie. "Let's make a date. Come on, tell me a good place to meet."

"Town Hall steps?" Fiona said dubiously.

"What time?" said Nina.

"Yes, if we are are going to make fools of ourselves, we don't want to stand on the steps all day," Polly said. "When?" going to make fools of ourselves, we don't want to stand on the steps all day," Polly said. "When?"

"Nor do I want to," said Leslie. "I tell you what-Oops!"

A tall man in a brown overall like Leslie's came and leaned both knotty hands on the cash desk. His gla.s.ses glinted ominously at Leslie. Leslie edged away, looking thoroughly subdued. "Are you girls wanting to buy anything?" Mr. Piper asked unpleasantly.

None of them could think of anything they could even pretend to buy. Nina gulped. Fiona looked at the floor. Polly stared. Mr. Piper was in some ways quite startlingly like Mr. Lynn. He was the same height, with the same sort of high shoulders and the same forward thrust of the head. His face was a very similar shape. But there, to Polly's relief, the likeness stopped. Mr. Piper's mouth was pinched with self-righteous bad temper. His face was lined with peevishness and his eyes were dark. The hair above it was gray, cropped as short as Nina's.

"I see," he said. "Then get out, all of you! I know your kind. I'm not having girls like you in my shop!"

Fiona blushed bright, unhappy mauve. Nina sullenly unhitched herself from the cash desk. Polly said, "We were only talking. There's no need to be so rude."

"There's talk and talk, isn't there?" Mr. Piper said nastily. "Out!"

They began to move sluggishly toward the door. Nina, with great presence of mind, said loudly, "Half past twelve-lunchtime!" and looked ostentatiously at her watch, which in fact said twenty minutes to three. Leslie, looking demurely down at the desk, nodded slightly.

"Get out!" snarled Mr. Piper.

They hurried outside into the heat. "What a horrible man!" saidFiona. Polly nodded. She hated to think that she had, in some back-to-front way, half made Mr. Piper up. The likeness to Mr. Lynn made her feel sick.

"I was clever, wasn't I?" said Nina. "Over the time. Do you thinkhe'll-"