Missing Joseph Part 41

"I only wanted-"

"Shh. It's okay. It's nothing." He opened her coat and slipped his arm round her. "It's nice just like this," he whispered against her hair. He moved his hand to her back and began caressing the length of her spine.

"But I only wanted-"

"Shh. See. It's just as nice like this, isn't it? Just holding? Like this?" His fingers pressed in long, slow circles, stopping at the small of her back where they remained, a tender pressure that relaxed and relaxed and relaxed her completely. She finally slipped, protected and loved, into sleep.

It was the dogs' movement that awakened her. They were up, about, and dashing outside at the sound of a vehicle coming into the farmyard. By the time they were barking, she was sitting up, fully awake, aware that she was alone on the blanket. She clutched it to her and whispered, "Nick!" frantically. He materialised from the darkness by the window. The light from above was no longer shining. She had no idea how long she had slept.

"Someone's here," he said unnecessarily.

"Police?"

"No." He glanced back at the window. "I think it's my dad."

"Your dad? But how-"

"I don't know. Come here. Be quiet."

They gathered up the blankets and crept to one side of the window. The dogs were sending up enough noise to announce the Second Coming and lights were snapping on outside.

"Hey there! Enough!" someone shouted roughly. A few more barks and the dogs were silent. "What is it? Who's there?"

Footsteps sloshed across the yard. Conversation ensued. Maggie strained to hear it, but the voices were low. A woman said quietly, "Is it Frank?" at a distance and a child's voice cried, "Mummy, I want to see."

Maggie pulled the blanket closer round her. She clutched on to Nick. "Where c'n we go? Nick, can we run?"

"Just be quiet. He ought to...d.a.m.n."

"What?"

But she heard it herself: "You don't mind if I have a look round, do you?"

"Not at all. Two of them, you said it was?"

"A boy and a girl. They'd be wearing school uniforms. The boy might have had a bomber jacket on."

"Never saw a hair of anything like that. But go on and have a look. Let me get my boots on and I'll join you. Need a torch?"

"Got one, thanks."

Footsteps went in the direction of the barn. Maggie grabbed Nick's jacket. "Let's go, Nick. Now! We can run to the wall. We can hide in the pasture. We can-"

"What about the dogs?"

"What?"

"They'll follow and give us away. Besides, the other bloke said he was going to help in the search." Nick turned from the window and looked around the shed. "Our best hope is to hide out in here."

"Hide out? How? Where?"

"Move the sacks. Get behind them."

"But the rats!"

"No choice. Come on. You've got to help."

The farmer began to tromp across the yard in the direction of Nick's father as they dropped their blankets and started pulling the sacks away from the wall. They heard Nick's father call out, "Nothing in the barn," and the other man say, "Have a go with the shed, here," and the sound of their approach spurred Maggie into a fury of pulling sacks far enough from the wall to create a burrow of safety. She had retreated within it-Nick had as well-when the light from a torch beamed in through the window.

"Doesn't look like nothing," Nick's father said.

A second light joined the first; the shed became brighter. "The dogs sleep in here. Can't say as I'd want to join them even if I was on the run." His torch clicked off. Maggie let out her breath. She heard footsteps in the muck. Then, "Best to have a closer look, though," and the light reappeared, stronger, and shining from the doorway.

A dog's whine accompanied the sound of wet boots slapping on the floor of the shed. Nails ticked against the stones and approached the sacks. Maggie said, "No" in despair without making any sound and felt Nick move a step closer.

"Here's something," the farmer said. "Someone's messed with that chest."

"Those blankets belong there on the floor?"

"Can't say they do." The light darted round the room, corners to ceiling. It glinted off the discarded toilet and shone on the dust on the rocking chair. It came to rest on the top of the sacking and illuminated the wall above Maggie's head. "Ah," the farmer said. "Here we've got it. Step out here in the open, youngsters. Step out now or I'll send the dogs in to help you make up your minds."

"Nick?" his father said. "That you, lad? Have you got the girl with you? Come out of there. Now."

Maggie rose first, trembling, blinking into the torchlight, trying to say, "Please don't be angry with Nick, Mr. Ware. He only wanted to help me," but beginning to weep instead, thinking, Don't send me home, I don't want to go home.

Mr. Ware said, "What in G.o.d's name were you thinking of, Nick? Get out here with you. Jesus Christ, I ought to beat you silly. You know how worried your mum's been, lad?"

Nick was turning his head, eyes narrowed against the light that his father was shining into his face. "Sorry," he said.

Mr. Ware harumphed. "Sorry won't go far to mend your fences with me. You know you're trespa.s.sing here? You know these people could've had the police after you? What're you thinking of? Haven't you no better sense than that? And what were you planning to do with this girl?"

Nick shifted his weight, silent.

"You're filthy." Mr. Ware shone the light up and down. "G.o.d almighty, just look at the sight of you. You look like a tramp."

"No, please," Maggie cried, rubbing her wet nose against the sleeve of her coat. "It isn't Nick. It's me. He was only helping me."

Mr. Ware harumphed again and clicked off his torch. The farmer did likewise. He'd been standing to one side, holding the light in their direction but otherwise looking out the window. When Mr. Ware said, "Out to the car with both of you, then," the farmer scooped up the two blankets from the floor and followed them out.

The dogs were milling round Mr. Ware's old Nova, snuffling at the tyres and the ground alike. The exterior lights were shining from the house and in their glow Maggie could see the condition of her clothes for the first time. They were crusted with mud and streaked with dirt. In places the lichen from the walls she'd climbed over had deposited patches of grey-green slime. Her shoes were clotted with muck out of which sprouted bracken and straw. The sight was a stimulus for a new onslaught of tears. What had she been thinking? Where were they supposed to go, looking like this? With no money, no clothing, and no plan to guide them, what had she been thinking?

She clutched Nick's arm as they slogged to the car. She sobbed, "I'm sorry, Nick. It's my fault. I'll tell your mummy. You didn't mean harm. I'll explain. I will."

"Get in the car, the both of you," Mr. Ware said gruffly. "We'll do our deciding about who's at fault later." He opened the driver's door and said to the farmer, "It's Frank Ware. I'm at Skelshaw Farm up Winslough direction. I'm in the book if you discover this lot did any damage to your place."

The farmer nodded but said nothing. He shuffled his feet in the muck and looked as if he wished they'd be off. He was saying, "Funny blokes, out of the way," to the dogs when the farmhouse door opened. A child of perhaps six years old stood framed in the light in her nightgown and slippers.

She giggled and waved, calling, "Uncle Frank, 'lo. Won't you let Nickie stay the night with us please?" Her mother dashed into the doorway and pulled her back, casting a frantic and apologetic look towards the car.

Maggie slowed, then stopped. She turned to Nick. She looked from him to his father to the farmer. She saw the resemblance first- how their hair grew the same although the colour was different; how their noses each had a b.u.mp on the bridge; how they held their heads. And then she saw the rest-the dogs, the blankets, the direction they'd been walking, Nick's insistence that they rest at this particular farm, his form at the window standing and waiting when she had awakened...

Her insides went so calm that at first she thought her heart had stopped beating. Her face was still wet, but her tears disappeared. She stumbled once in the muck, grabbed the Nova's door handle, and felt Nick take her arm. From somewhere that sounded like a thousand miles away, she heard him say her name. She heard him say, "Please, Mag. Listen. I didn't know what else..." but then fog filled her head and she didn't hear the rest. She climbed into the rear seat of the car. Directly in her line of vision a pile of old roof slates lay beneath a tree, and she focussed on them. They were large, much bigger than she'd imagined they would be, and they looked like tombstones. She counted them slowly, one two three, and was up to a dozen when she felt the car dip as Mr. Ware got into it and as Nick climbed in and sat next to her on the rear seat. She could tell he was looking at her, but it didn't matter. She continued counting-thirteen fourteen fifteen. Why did Nick's uncle have so many slates? And why did he keep them under the tree? Sixteen seventeen eighteen.

Nick's father was unrolling his window. "Ta, Kev," he said quietly. "Don't give it a thought, all right?"

The other man came to the car and leaned against it. He spoke to Nick. "Sorry, lad," he said. "We couldn't get the la.s.s to go to bed once she heard you were on your way. She's that fond of you, she is."

"S'okay," Nick said.

His uncle slapped his two hands down on the door in farewell, nodded sharply, and stepped back from the car. "Funny blokes," he called to the dogs. "Away with you."

The car lurched round in the farmyard, made a slippery turn, and set off towards the road. Mr. Ware turned on the radio. He said kindly, "What d'you fancy, youngsters?" but Maggie shook her head and looked out the side window. Nick said, "Anything, Dad. It doesn't matter," and Maggie felt the truth of those words pierce through her calm and drip like cold bits of lead into her stomach. Nick's hand touched her tentatively. She flinched.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I didn't know what else to do. We didn't have any money. We didn't have any place to go. I couldn't think what to do to take care of you proper."

"You said you would," she said dully. "Last night. You said you would."

"But I didn't think it would be..." She saw his hand close round his knee. "Mag, listen. I can't take care of you proper if I don't go to school. I want to be a vet. I got to get through school and then we'll be together. But I got to-"

"You lied."

"I didn't!"

"You phoned your dad from c.l.i.theroe when you went to buy the food. You told him where we'd be. Didn't you?"

He said nothing, which was affirmation enough. The nighttime scenery slipped by the window. Stone walls gave way to the bony frames of hedges. Farmland gave way to open country. Across the moors, the fells rose like Lancashire's black guardians against the sky.

Mr. Ware had turned the car's heater on along with the radio, but Maggie had never felt so cold. She felt colder than she had when they were walking in the fields, colder than she had on the floor of the cart-shed. She felt colder than she had on the previous night in Josie's lair, with her clothes half off and Nick inside her and the meaningless promises he'd made creating fire between them.

The end was where the beginning had been, with her mother. When Mr. Ware pulled into the courtyard of Cotes Hall, the front door opened and Juliet Spence came out. Maggie heard Nick whisper urgently, "Mag! Wait!" but she pushed the car door open. Her head felt so heavy that she couldn't lift it. Nor could she walk.

She heard Mummy approach, her good boots clicking against the cobbles. She waited. For what, she didn't know. The anger, the lecture, the punishment: it didn't really matter. Whatever it was, it couldn't touch her. Nothing would ever touch her now.

Juliet said in a curiously hushed voice, "Maggie?"

Mr. Ware explained. Maggie heard phrases like "took her to his uncle's...bit of a walk... hungry, I'd guess...tired as the d.i.c.kens.... Kids. Don't know what to make of them sometimes..."

Juliet cleared her throat, said, "Thank you. I don't quite know what I would have done if...Thank you, Frank."

"I don't think they meant real harm," Mr. Ware said.

"No," Juliet said. "No. I'm sure they didn't."

The car reversed, turned, and headed down the lane. Still, Maggie's head drooped with its own weight. Three more clicks sounded on the cobbles and she could see the tops of her mother's boots.

"Maggie."

She couldn't look up. She was filled with lead. She felt a whispery touch on her hair, and she withdrew from it fearfully, taking a gasping, indrawn breath.

"What is it?" Her mother sounded puzzled. More than puzzled, she sounded afraid.

Maggie couldn't understand how that could be, for the power had shifted once again, and the worst had happened: She was alone with her mother with no escape. Her eyes got blurry, and a sob was building down deep inside her. She fought against letting it out.

Juliet stepped away. "Come inside, Maggie," she said. "It's cold. You're shivering." She began to walk towards the cottage.

Maggie raised her head. She was floating in nowhere. Nick was gone, and Mummy was walking away. There was nothing to grab on to any longer. There was no safe harbour in which she could rest. The sob built and burst. Her mother stopped.

"Talk to me," Juliet said. Her voice was desperate and uneven sounding. "You've got to talk to me. You've got to tell me what happened. You've got to say why you ran. We can't go any further with each other until you do, and if you don't, we're lost."

They stood apart, her mother on the doorstep, Maggie in the courtyard. To Maggie, it seemed that they were separated by miles. She wanted to move closer but she didn't know how. She couldn't see her mother's face clearly enough to know if it was safe. She couldn't tell whether her voice's quiver meant sorrow or rage.

"Maggie, darling. Please." And Juliet's voice broke. "Talk to me. I'm begging you."

Her mother's anguish-it seemed so real- tore a little hole in Maggie's heart. She said on a sob, "Nick promised he would take care of me, Mummy. He said he loved me. He said I was special, he said we were special, but he lied and he had his dad come get us and he didn't tell me and all the time I thought..." She wept. She wasn't quite sure what the source of her grief really was any longer. Except that she had nowhere to go and no one to trust. And she needed something, someone, an anchor, a home.

"I'm so sorry, darling."

What a kindness sounded in those four words. It was easier to continue in their echo.

"He pretended to tame the dogs and to find some blankets and..." The rest of the story came tumbling out. The London policeman, the after-school talk, the whispers and rumbles and gossip. And finally, "So I was afraid."

"Of what?"

Maggie couldn't put the rest into words. She stood in the courtyard with the night wind whistling through her filthy clothes, and she couldn't move forward and she couldn't go back. Because there was no back, as she knew quite well. And going forward meant devastation.

But apparently, she would not need to go anywhere, for Juliet said, "Oh my G.o.d, Maggie," and seemed to know it all. She said, "How could you ever think... You're my life. You're everything I have. You're-" She leaned against the door-jamb with her fists on her eyes and her head raised up to the sky. She began to cry.

It was a horrible sound, like someone was pulling her insides out. It was low and ugly. It caught in her breath. It sounded like dying.

Maggie had never before seen her mother cry. The weeping frightened her. She watched and waited and clutched at her coat because Mummy was the strong one, Mummy stood tall, Mummy was the one who knew what to do. Only now Maggie saw that Mummy was not so very much different from her when it came to hurting. She went to her mother. "Mummy?"

Juliet shook her head. "I can't make it right. I can't change things. Not now. I can't do it. Don't ask me." She swung from the doorway and went into the house. Numbly, Maggie followed her into the kitchen and watched her sit at the table with her face in her hands.

Maggie didn't know what to do, so she put on the kettle and crept round the kitchen a.s.sembling tea. By the time she had it ready, Juliet's tears had stopped but under the harsh overhead light, she looked old and ill. Wrinkles reached out in long zigzags from her eyes. Her skin was blotched with red marks where it wasn't pasty. Her hair hung limply round her face. She reached for a paper napkin from its metal holder and blew her nose on it. She took another and blotted her face.

The telephone began to ring. Maggie didn't move. Which way to head was mystery now, and she waited for a sign. Her mother pushed back from the table and picked up the receiver. Her conversation was emotionless and brief. "Yes, she's here...Frank Ware found them... No...No...I don't...I don't think so, Colin... No, not tonight." Slowly, she replaced the receiver and kept her fingers on it, as if she were gentling an animal's fears. After a moment in which she did nothing but look at the telephone, in which Maggie did nothing but look at her, she went back to the table and sat once again.

Maggie brought her the tea. "Chamomile," she said. "Here, Mummy."

Maggie poured. Some sloshed into the saucer and she reached hastily for a napkin to soak it up. Her mother's hand closed over her wrist.

"Sit down," she said.

"Don't you want-"

"Sit down."

Maggie sat. Juliet took the teacup out of its saucer and cradled the cup between her palms. She looked into the tea and swirled it slowly round and round. Her hands looked strong, steady, and sure.