Arcadia (8 page)

He stands stock-still while the apples slowly come to rest. He doesn't have a single word to say.

The slippers must be padded, because Kate makes almost no noise as she comes in, squats down, and starts picking things up. He ought to help instead of watching her scrape around on the floor, but he can't move. Some carefully built tower is about to blow down. Some structure he lives by is on the point of collapse.

“You know,” Kate says, “if you think you need extra you only have to ask.”

She props her arms on her knees and looks at him. He feels as tiny and worthless as a mote of dust.

“No one owns any of this,” she says. “It's not like the old days.” She puts the last couple of things in the bag and straightens up, swinging it thoughtfully from one finger. “Everything's for everyone. If someone's hungry, it's fine, you can have a bit more, as long as there's enough for the rest and you really do need it.” She holds the bag out to him. “There you go.”

She's waiting, so he takes it. Kate's like that. It's hard not to do what she wants. She has that particular sort of kindness that makes you feel utterly helpless.

“The thing is, though.” She puts her hands on her hips. Pink's lantern hasn't been spun for a while so it's faded almost to nothing. The little night-light shows the torn pocket of Kate's dressing gown; he can hardly see her face at all. “We all have to know who needs what. Otherwise anyone could say, I need this, I need that, and it might not be fair. That's why you always have to ask. See?”

“Yeah,” he whispers. He actually tries to say the word properly but he can't.

“Otherwise . . .” She pauses, thinking about it. “Otherwise it's like saying your needs are more important than everyone else's. Like saying, I'm hungry and I don't care whether everyone else is hungry too, me being hungry is the only thing that matters. Which is the thing we can't do anymore. Isn't it?”

“I know,” he says. Being told off by Kate in her Nice way is actually worse than being told off by his mother in her tearful babbling Can't Cope way. His mother's telling-off doesn't go inside him like Kate's does, it stops on the surface.

She pats his shoulder. “That's all right. You'll know next time. And you're silly to go creeping around in the night. It's important to stay warm. Look at your feet.”

He'd been looking at them anyway. He's wondering now what he's going to do with all this food, and whether Kate's going to tell everyone what he's done.

“Rory?”

He looks up towards her voice.

“Is something bothering you?”

For a piercing moment he feels how good it would be to tell her everything. Kate says she's not their leader but she is, or at least she and Fi are together, everyone knows that. She'd know whether Rory had imagined everything. She'd know what it meant that he thought he met an angry foreign man in the middle of the night.

But he can't do it.

“You haven't been quite yourself these last few days.”

“Sorry,” he says.

She makes a sympathetic hum. “It's not your fault. We've all been feeling terrible since what happened to poor Ol.”

To Rory this sounds like another reproach.

“Do you sometimes worry about that?” she says, in a different tone: cautious.

“A bit,” he says, when the silence has dragged on too long.

“We'd look after you,” she says. “You know that, don't you? We'd make absolutely sure you'd be all right.”

“OK,” he says.

Unexpectedly, she steps forward and hugs him. Her gown is fuzzy and tickly and doesn't have the sour smell most of the clothes have picked up. “You'll be fine,” she says. “I know you will. Now get yourself back in bed. We'll leave all this here, all right?” She eases the bag out of his hands and puts it down. “And what do you do next time?”

“Ask,” he says.

“That's right. It's not like anyone would ever say no.” She hugs him harder. He can feel her muscles. Kate's very strong. “We all love you and Connie,” she says with bewildering earnestness. “We always will.” He feels her strength and her kindness melting him. He should have told her straightaway. He opens his mouth to say
When I was riding over to Parson's
—

“Off you go now,” she says, picking up the lantern and giving it a few revs. “Get warm.”

And just like that the moment's gone. She's sent him away. He runs back upstairs, burning with confused shame and unexpiated doubts. Whatever he thought he was doing, he's made a total mess of it.

“World's longest pee,” Laurel grumbles, as he eases himself back onto the cushions. He lies there completely stiff and silent, refusing to give any sign that he's there at all.

F
or a few breaths as he struggles awake he's forgotten everything. It's just another day. He rolls over, sees Pink by the door putting her trousers on, wonders what she's doing in his room, then wonders where he is. Then it comes back, all of it, a weight dropping on him, knocking his breath out and replacing it with panic.

He's going to have to do it today. He has to figure it out, by himself. Or he'll be killed like a rat.

“Wakey wakey,” Pink says, seeing his eyes open. “Breakfast time.”

They all eat together. It's more Eekonomical, which is the word for why it's better to light one fire instead of two and bring water to one place instead of lots of different ones and let one person clean and tidy up for everyone. While they're chewing the tough spelt bread Libby makes (everyone else's bread is worse) they talk about who's got to do what. Rory's seized with the wild idea that since his mother's not there no one will tell him to do anything and he'll be free to fetch the bag of food, find some clothes, and take them all over to the crest of the Lane without anyone noticing.

“What about Rory?” Laurel says.

He's not sure he's ever hated anyone as much as he hates Laurel right then.

“Gathering,” Missus Shark says. “That storm will have stirred things up. Brought down a lot of cones too.” She looks around the room. There are murmurs of agreement. “In the Borough Farm woods. Connie wouldn't mind that.” Everyone looks at Kate, who nods.

“Look for mushrooms too,” Fi says. “The woods are full of them.”

“Eurgh,” Pink says. “He'll get the wrong ones and poison everyone.”

“You know which ones, Rory, don't you?”

“'Course.”

“Get them all,” Missus Shark says. “No need for separate bags. I'll sort them out for you.”

It's not too bad, actually. He'll be by himself, which is the main thing, and in the woods, which means he'll be hidden and no one else should be working anywhere nearby. He can sneak off and no one will know.

“Pink should go with him,” Laurel says. “She's a good forager.”

If he could kill Laurel by looking at her, she'd be dead.

“Good idea,” Kate says, and because Kate says it that's that. He barely hears another word. Pink's jabbering about something, he doesn't know what. He's sick with dread. He can almost feel the stranger's hands on his throat. What's he going to do, what's he going to do? His mother's coming back soon too and then he'll never have a moment to himself. Since Ol died she's been weird about keeping an eye on him all the time, and she'll have a hundred other jobs for him to do, mopping, weeding, going up the ladder to do the gutters, or just the endless exhausting labor of lugging water around. Missus Shark loads him up with bags and instructions, and Viola adds more—“Stay in the woods around Borough Farm, all right? Rory? Nowhere else”—and wherever he goes Pink won't stand more than two feet away from him. He's in such a state that he's dressed and out the door before he remembers the bag in the cellar.

He stops dead, staring at Pink.

“I forgot something.”

Pink's already cross with him for not listening. “What?”

“Something. Wait here.”

Pink follows him inside, pink wellies scuttling. “Where are you going?”

“I said wait here!”

“I won't!” she shouts back. He pushes her but she just pushes back. She's got a much older sister, she's used to asserting herself and refusing to be left out.

“I'm only getting something from inside.”

“What is it?”

“None of your business.”

“Is it a secret?”

“'Course it isn't a secret, stupid.”

Pink dances along behind him, skipping away each time he rounds on her and tries to shove her back. “You've got a secret! You're acting funny. I'm coming too.”

“No you aren't.”

“Show me. I promise I won't tell.”

Rory may only be ten but he knows enough about people to be quite sure that anything Pink promises not to repeat will be common knowledge before sunset. Short of hurting her, though, he doesn't see what he can do. “It's only some food.”

She looks disappointed. “Why can't I come with you, then?”

It's always hopeless trying to argue with Pink. She's a Brat, Laurel always says so. Without another word he stamps downstairs and collects the bag from the larder cellar.

“What's in there?”

“I told you, food.”

“Who's it for?”

“Shut up. Idiot.”

She really is disappointed, though, and she's lost interest in needling him. There's nothing exciting about some vegetables in a bag. She goes quiet while they set off along the Burra Road, which is now so overgrown on the sides there are places you could hardly ride a bicycle along it. A skin of sand and mud has grown over the hard surface. Rory goes ahead, letting the twigs and brambles spring back behind him so Pink has to duck them (“
Ow!
Watch it!”). He's trying to think, but all he can think of is that before he does anything else he's got to get rid of her because she's so incredibly annoying he'll never be able to think properly about what to do until she's gone. The road bends around the Pond and comes to a muddy junction by a small house with nettles growing through smashed windows. A stony track leads up towards the ruins of Burra Farm. To one side are the trees. It's more or less the middle of the island. The sea's not far away—it's never far away—but standing here you'd never guess. They climb over a bent gate onto earth caked with dry pine needles.

“OK,” Rory tries. “You go that way. I'll go round this way.”

“I want to go together.”

“Well I don't.”

“Auntie Vee told me to go with you.”

“You did go with me, didn't you. Now we split up. It's faster, we'll collect more.”

“I don't want to.”

It's no good. She refuses. She won't admit it but she doesn't like being by herself in the mess and shadow of the undergrowth, with things rustling around. She's a baby. She follows him, chattering. He can feel panic and despair beginning to pinch him. The morning's passing. He's running out of time. He thinks about knocking Pink out or tying her up or just running away from her until he gets clear, but he can feel the senseless desperation in all those ideas, they're not proper Plans. He could make a proper Plan if only he could think. But all the time she's chatting, chatting, no matter that he doesn't say a word in reply except telling her to shut up. She won't shut up.

“When we're older we'll have to get married.”

“Shut up.”

“We will. Laurel's too old.” They're combing through the litter around the trees, looking for puffballs and chanterelles. “We're the only boy and girl. We could be king and queen.”

“I'm never going to marry you.”

“We'll have babies.”

This is too much. “Shut up!”

“Yes we will! Or there won't be anyone, all the old people will die.”

“You don't know anything about it.”

“Yes I do. You need a boy and a girl to have babies.”

“You're a baby yourself.”

“It's about kissing.”

He tells himself not to say anything. If he doesn't say anything at all she might give up eventually.

“I'll get the nicest dress from the Stash and we'll get married. It's like a big party. Everyone can eat whatever they want for a day. Then after the party you go upstairs and kiss and have babies. I know, Ol told me. You're just embarrassed 'cos you don't know anything about it.”

He kicks a handful of pine straw out of the way.

“You could kiss me now.”

Despite his resolution he can't bear it. “Shut! Up!”

“No one's looking.”

He's going to have to knock her out. He'll say she tripped and hit her head. Maybe he'll kill her. He's angry enough to kill her.

“I saw Laurel do it with Ol. I know how you do it. Do you want me to show you? Don't tell Laurel I saw her. You won't tell, all right? Rory?”

“I will if you don't stop talking right now.”

“If you do I'll say you're lying. Anyway I didn't really. I just said I did but I never. So don't tell her I did.”

Or he could pretend to faint and wait till she ran away to get help. Pretend to knock himself out.

“But I do know how to do it. Look.”

“Go away!”

“No one's looking. I want you to.”

“I don't want to kiss you.”

“Go on.”

“I'd rather kiss a goat.”

“Eurgh!”

“I'd rather kiss Doreen. I'd rather kiss Missus Grouse.”

“You're disgusting!”

“I'd rather kiss one of Them.”

That, finally, shuts her up. Maybe he said it a bit too fiercely. Maybe he actually meant it. Whatever, her mouth hangs open and she stares at him with an exaggerated shocked face.

“That's sick,” she says. (It's what Ol used to say.)