Arcadia (11 page)

In the end Viola squats down and spends quite a long time reminding them both about the big Rule, the crucial one. They were given a job to do, she says, which means they absolutely have to do it. It's only as her speech nears its end that Rory realizes what it means: he and Pink are going to be sent back to the woods to finish what they were doing, accompanied by the most stern and dire warnings about not even thinking about going anywhere else or doing anything else. Of course they are. You always have to finish what you're doing if it's to do with getting food.

Pink barely waits for the adults to be out of earshot before she begins hissing at him under her breath about him being a liar and how she'll always hate him and all that. He trudges along like she's not even there. That's the funny thing about being told off, when it's over it feels like nothing's really happened. It's just the same as when his mother gets all weepy and strange sometimes; it doesn't mean anything afterwards. You let it pass and it's gone.

Pink gets furious for a while, then when he goes on ignoring her she pretends to be upset. He concentrates on combing slowly through the woods. There are lots of mushrooms once you start looking carefully. Esme says it's the same as with the fish and the crops. She says technology drove them away but now everything's plentiful if you ask the spirits nicely, or something like that.

“Please,” Pink says. Now, at last, she sounds a bit like she's really upset. He straightens up and looks at her.

“I'll forgive you for lying if you stop ignoring me,” she says. “I swear.”

His back's sore from bending over. He stretches out. He's been waiting for this moment and he's going to enjoy it.

“I'm not a liar,” he says. “Unlike you.”

Her eyes bug out and she's about to answer back but he silences her by pointing.

“You said you wouldn't tell,” he says, nice and clearly. He knows he's right. He's full of things he knows about, things stupid Pink couldn't imagine in a million million years. “You swore. And then you told before I even got back. Now you'll never see Them.”

He crouches down again and doesn't say another word.

  *  *  *  

When Rory's bags are full he starts back to the Abbey for lunch. Pink has to come with him, of course, because they promised to stay together. She's hardly got anything in her bags because of all the time she's wasted crying and threatening and begging. She won't get in trouble because no one really expects her to do much proper work, but still, it'll be embarrassing for her.

Lunch is fish, as always. The barbecue's a perfect way to use up any twigs which are too small for the fire. It's set up in a sheltered corner of the gardens. All summer long they've been sitting out there, people coming and going while one of the older ones looks after the fire. Today you can tell it's not summer anymore. The sky's clear and the light's yellow but there's a freshness in the breeze. Missus Grouse rubs her hands over the barbecue. No one else is eating yet. Dealing with the spelt is hard, slow work and chances are they'll be at it till dark without a break.

Rory hitches himself up onto a garden wall with his plate (Missus Grouse insists on them using plates) and scoops dribbly bits of fish into his mouth. The garden slopes away in front of the Abbey. Parts of it are almost completely impenetrable now, but he can see over the top of the thick dark bushes, across the Small Pond and the scrubby southern tip of Home. On the horizon sits the bump of Maries, with its broken radio tower on top like a burned-down skeletal candle.

“What's that boat?”

There's a sailing boat he hasn't seen before moored off the South Landing.

“Oh,” Missus Grouse says, “I'm not sure.”

Some awkwardness in her voice makes him look at her. She turns away to fiddle unnecessarily with her stack of kindling, though not before he's caught her watching him with a weird stricken expression on her face.

“It wasn't there before, was it?”

“Nothing to worry about,” she says loudly.

Last autumn, he remembers, people quite often used to talk about what would happen if Other People tried to land on Home. Ol got excited and made them play complicated games involving making fortifications and stockpiling ammo, but Rory could tell it was serious. The women knew they were barely clinging on after everyone else had left, a colony of the weak, the old, the inexpert, or so they thought until winter came to teach them how resilient they could be when they had to. Libby was always imagining bands of pirates or cannibals (or was it pirate cannibals?) roaming the world taking whatever they could get. Kate, more boringly, worried about the Maries or Martin people. So for a long time it was always someone's job to spend the day on Briar Hill, watching the open waters around the edge of the world; quite often it was Rory's own job. No one ever came. By the time winter set in they'd given up worrying about it. Everyone had left and no one was coming back: that was the way the world was, so obvious in the end it didn't need discussing.

Until now.

“When did it get there?” he says.

“I've no idea. This morning, I think. Never you mind.” She prods the coals. “And do be careful with those bones, you know Fi can use them.”

Could it be the stranger's boat? But it's there in plain sight, obvious to everyone.

“I could go check it out.”

“No. I said never mind. Come on, let's find you two something else to do.”

Pink complains about being tired so Missus Grouse sends her off to find Viola. Rory's told to go and sweep out the stoves and fires in the Abbey. This is a stroke of luck. There's no one else inside except Ali, who's back in bed with her cough, so it's the perfect opportunity for him to snatch a bit more food. He doesn't try using a bag this time. It was stupid of him to think he could get away with carrying a bag of food around. Instead he has the idea of packing the pockets of his coat. He skims quickly around the cellars collecting things that don't smell: potatoes, raisins, a few dried figs. He takes just a little from each pile so it won't look like anything's missing.

Then he goes up and down the Abbey collecting the ash. He ferries it to the big scuttle downstairs. It's almost full by the time he's done, so he goes and asks Missus Grouse whether he should take a barrow-load to the shed behind the old Laundry. Fi makes them keep all the ashes to use as some kind of fertilizer on the fields. Before What Happened Fi was a gardener at the Abbey.

“All right,” Missus Grouse says. “But mind you don't go wandering off again.”

“I didn't wander off,” he says. “I was just having a poo.”

You can't hurry when you're pushing a barrow full of ash, because even with a tarpaulin tied as tight as you can you'll lose some if you jiggle around. So he walks slowly. The food in his pockets bumps his legs. He's got time to think now. He wheels the barrow around the back of the Club and past the collapsed shed next to the old Laundry. All he has to do is think of a safe place to leave the food overnight, then he can find time to collect it in the morning and take it over to the Hotel and no one'll know anything about it. There are hundreds of places where no one would ever look. Easy.

Normally when he's walking by himself he's thinking about Her, but today it's all the stranger. He finds himself wondering what else the man might need.

It so happens that he's thinking about this just as he's passing the Toolshed. His eye alights on its wonky sliding door, and straight-away he thinks:
matches
.

Matches are incredibly precious. Last winter he and Ol were given the job of turning over every inch of every building they could get into looking for boxes or books of matches. They've taken them from houses, from behind the counter at the Shop, from the Pub (lots), from the pockets of jackets left hanging behind doors, even from the office of the Hotel though Rory nearly died of fright getting in there. Every abandoned sailing boat they can reach has been searched for them. People whose hands aren't steady enough aren't even allowed to try lighting matches in case they break one. And their whole collection is stored carefully in the Toolshed, in a waterproof tin box with a lock.

Rory's not sure what the stranger would even do with matches. But he can imagine giving them to him. He can imagine this very clearly.
I thought you could use some of these
. And the stranger grinning in answer:
Good boy.

He imagines this over and over.

He sets the barrow down by the Toolshed and slides the door across. It's dim inside. While his eyes adjust he feels along the ceiling to the left, where the key to the padlock on the tin box hangs from a nail behind a rafter. He's very proud of the fact that he's been told where the key is and Pink hasn't yet.

He unhooks the key and goes to unlock the box. There's no padlock.

He stands looking at it for a bit, surprised. Maybe someone forgot to lock it last time, or maybe they don't care anymore. He opens the box. There's all sorts of matches in there. He takes out one of the little purple matchbooks from the Pub. After he's replaced the key he looks at it outside, in the light.
THE NEW INN
, it says, and then a row of numbers, which by forgotten instinct he identifies as a telephone number a few moments before he can remind himself what a telephone number was actually for. The numbers look pointless now, random doodles or an indecipherable code. He puts it in the pocket with the raisins.

The ash goes in a shed a bit farther back. He tips it out very carefully. He loves its soft, cloudy slither. Quiet as secrets.

  *  *  *  

His mother says they're going back to Parson's that night. He's immensely relieved. He was dreading being shut up in a room with Pink and Laurel. They don't even hang around at the Abbey to eat with everyone, which is unusual. It's even more surprising that no one presses them to stay for supper. Perhaps they're all too exhausted. With the weather clear they all worked until dusk and now they're spent. But Rory thinks there's something else as well. He has the feeling everyone's being a bit quiet around him and his mother.

She's finished being angry, or maybe it's just that she doesn't have the energy for it. He's acutely conscious of the lumps in his coat as they walk back to Parson's but she never looks like she might notice. She's preoccupied. They have cold mashed vegetables mixed with a bit of salty fish oil and then they clean and tidy up and it's bedtime.

Rory's not quite asleep when someone thumps the door. He sits up in alarm, thinking of the stranger, but when a voice calls out it's a woman's.

“Connie? Are you still up?”

It's Kate and Missus Shark. Rory goes downstairs in his pajamas, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders like the stranger did. Kate's carrying the little night-light cube again. His mother sits them down in the kitchen.

“Is something wrong?”

“Rory,” Kate says. She's put the night-light in the middle of the table. “You took a load of ash to the pile earlier on, didn't you?”

“What's he done?” says his mother.

“Nothing,” Missus Shark says, “I'm sure.”

“Yeah,” Rory says to Kate. He doesn't like the sound of this.

“You didn't see anything unusual up there, did you? By the dump?”

“No.”

“What's this about?” his mother asks.

“Just a sec.” Kate's not easily interrupted. “Did you see anyone else on the way there? Or on the way back?”

“No.”

“What about hearing anything.”

“Like what?”

“Anything you noticed. A bang, a loud noise.”

“No.” They wait. “Nothing like that.”

“OK, so.” Kate folds her hands and leans back. “Someone's been in the Toolshed.”

“The lock on the matchbox was broken,” Missus Shark said. Rory can't help glancing towards his coat. It's hanging on the wall just by Missus Shark's head.

“Broken how?”

“The padlock's gone,” Kate says. “And the metal of the catch is twisted, someone must have snapped it right off. And there's a knife missing, and the bottle of lighter fluid. Someone rummaged around in the tools as well.”

After a short silence his mother says, “I don't understand.”

“No one's said they took anything,” Missus Shark says. “We've asked everyone else.”

“You don't know anything about it, do you, Connie?”

“No. No, of course not.” She sounds angry for a moment, before the implications sink in. “But . . .”

“So then,” Kate says. She doesn't have to spell it out.

“Well,” his mother says. “Obviously someone must have been in there.”

“Yes,” Kate says, and “Exactly,” says Missus Shark. Kate turns to Rory. Her shaved head looks like a statue in the gloom. “Are you absolutely sure you don't know what happened to those things in the Toolshed?”

“No,” he says. “I mean, yeah. I'm sure.”

“Hang on,” says his mother.

Missus Shark leans in towards Rory. “Because if there are things you're worried you might need, it would be best to discuss that with everyone.”

“Are you accusing Rory of stealing?”

“Nobody's accusing anyone of anything, Connie,” Kate says.

“He doesn't know the plan,” his mother says, very coldly. “I haven't told him.”

“What plan?” Rory says.

“Never mind.”

“It's just that nobody else went up that way today,” Kate says. “The rest of us were busy all afternoon.”

“Lighter fluid,” Missus Shark says. It's a reproach. Anything flammable is precious.

“Perhaps someone came over from Maries,” his mother says. She's beginning to get a little angry. “Have you thought of that?”

Kate slumps, sighing. “I don't know what to think,” she says. “They might have. I just hate the idea of people stealing from each other. I suppose we'll have to start keeping a lookout again.”