Desire Line (14 page)

Kim said, ‘So who're you?'

‘I'm nobody.' She tried for a self-deprecating note, false even to her own ears. ‘My name's Sara. I'm staying… for a while.'

‘Thought you hadn't been round much.'

Laughter rose from the direction Meg had disappeared and immediately Sara imagined her out there not on a mission as promised but sharing gossip, enjoying her freedom. A search for Eurwen had never been the intention; rather she, her mother, was the butt of some joke. Josh would be in on it, had colluded.

‘Hey,' Kim whispered. ‘Got anything?'

‘I'm sorry? Oh… I have got this.' She found the bottle, could virtually feel its level without looking and handed it over. Distaste at having to share was disposed of by Kim's downing most of the contents and, at Sara's shake of the head, finishing the dregs.

‘Ta. You're all right. I'm Kim. Sara, yeah?'

‘Actually I'm here looking for my daughter.'

Kim nodded as though this was something suspected and now verified and ran her tongue around the interior of the bottle cap before tossing it away. The bottle was also dropped and it took effort for Sara not to protest… a cheap, sweetish odour was coming from Kim's clothes as they warmed and steam began to rise from their ragged edges and you could see the vodka doing its work of relaxation. Kim seemed to blur from the inside out. In a rush of fellow-feeling that just pre-empted resentment, ‘Her name's Eurwen,' Sara said. ‘She's not quite sixteen. Red hair. Very pretty and talks… well like me, in an Oxford… shire accent.' She added details. Too many: Kim yawned. ‘Have you seen her? She's been in Rhyl since the end of June and it's a small place.'

‘Yeah. Yeah, I might have done.'

‘
Recently
?'

‘Dunno. Red hair. Yeah. But you don't always, like, clock who you're seeing and when—not me anyhow.'

‘But where was it, the very last time you saw her? You're certain it was Eurwen? Please, if you can remember—'

‘Wel-ll.'

Suddenly Meg was there. ‘Sara, I think you should come and talk to someone.'

Eyes fixed on the prize, she said, ‘This is Kim. She thinks—'

‘Yeah, hi-ya Kim.'

Kim was on her feet, stepping on the skirts, swearing… now in a complete tangle of skirts, so for a moment she could easily have gone into the fire. Her leaning forward may have been part of a genuine loss of balance but then her face came close to Sara's, shielded from Meg's line of sight. ‘See you tomorra by the bridge, ‘bout eleven,' she whispered.

When Sara made to go after her she found an arm out, barring the way. ‘Don't! Please— that woman's seen Eurwen!' She tried to push Meg off, turning one way then the other in frustration but still losing track of the departed Kim and, a sudden breeze maliciously in her face, the tears sprung from saying Eurwen's name became streaks of ice, ‘She
has
seen her.'

‘Sara! That's just Kim for you. She'll tell you anything, if only for a bit of attention. You have to know what she's like. She hasn't see Eurwen. Or if she had she'd never remember next morning. Kim's lit up most of the time. But never quite bright enough, get it? You need to be careful with—'

‘She's at your party or whatever you call it. On your land!'

‘It's not like that. Come on.'

There were more vehicles arriving and the crush around the sound stage had definitely grown. Dreadlocks were everywhere framing pasty faces. Scanning for novel clothes, new heads, there were too many androgynous bodies and with hanging on them either strata of clothing, like Kim's, or not nearly enough, like the fire-juggling boy. A selection of over-sized felt hats topped off some of the girls: pantomime-wear. Under any one of which Eurwen could be lurking. But was not.

And yet… and yet. For a split second she heard Eurwen's voice, only in her head but true and clear, clearer than clear. ‘No,' it was saying, ‘no,
no.
'

Anticipating a faint, Sara gripped the empty bottle in her pocket and staggered against Meg.

‘Sara?'

‘It's all right. I thought that… that… for a moment.' But Eurwen had no other messages.

‘Over here, then.'

Meg pushed their passage through, though it was getting harder. Something in the atmosphere was definitely evolving, the dance more purposeful, fuelled by a fresh sound that seemed to fill the field at ground level and swell higher than the treetops. What baffled was that the rhythm had not quickened, yet from faces close enough to be read, this new pulse, its focus internal, was strong enough to burst organs. Heads flicked in violent negatives, hands clawed the air… at the decks the woman crouched and loomed up again, weaving and flexing, even her own shadow failing to keep pace. Now she grinned, mouthing lyrics that were stale but turned potent to one listener: …
gabbing on threads that are well beyond dark/ You don't know who you're rumouring/ He bites like he barks/ You think you're playing him girl/ You think so, you think so/ But it's you that's the mark/ You're the girl, you're the girl/ found dead in the park.

‘Dear God,' Sara said.

But if Meg heard, it signified nothing. ‘Are you coming or what?'

They dodged the action, making for the far hedge where, in grid pattern, most of the bigger vehicles had been parked with the darkness between like black pits. Meg's object was a high-sided van, pale, possibly
yellow
but streaked with overlaid designs. Its side shutter was rolled almost down but not quite and it was this attracted Sara's attention until an entity jumped from the driver's seat, slamming the door. A boy… another woman? The latter, though muffled up. She was less than Sara's height, was smoking and the kindled end as she inhaled showed up a sharp, pixieish face, not unfriendly: as to generation, her own or Eurwen's…? Indeterminate.

‘Hiya!' Her voice was sing-song. The smoke was offered to them both in turn. ‘ Megs? No?' She turned back to Sara. ‘You're Eurwen's mum, yeah?'

Meg said. ‘Jay, poor old Kim's been spinning her a line. Tell her, will you?'

‘No one has been spinning me a line!' Sara heard it come out loud and brusque but too late. ‘If
you
know anything about my daughter, I'd like to hear.'

‘Can we move it away, d'you reckon? Neil's in the back trying to chill. He's just done a twelve-hour shift. Give it a rest, huh?'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘She's upset,' Meg explained.

The woman, Jay, exhaled with the slowness of a yogi. In her pockets Sara's very fingernails ached.

‘Neil and me, we got this rescue down backaways—' she gestured vaguely into the darkness. ‘We get a lot of abuse cases. Eurwen asked him if she could come over, just to hang, be with the animals. She's got a way with them. We got this old staffie come in, nobody else could get near him, first. Some scrote had—'

‘When was the last time you saw her?'

‘—painted him. And, like, it's his poor coat's on fire with the reaction.'

‘Yes, but Eurwen. This is very important.
Please
! When?'

Jay shrugged. ‘Sorry… not sure when. She did tell Neil she oughta be going back by now but wasn't gonna.'

‘What day was this? What actual day?'

‘Like I said, nada.'

‘I'll talk to Neil, then.'

‘You'll have to let him have his kip first. And he'll only tell you same as me—'

Meg cut in. ‘We'll catch you both later. Thanks anyway. It'll be a cold one, huh? Come on Sara. Let's go find—'

She let herself be herded in the direction of the bonfire again, but once out of earshot, could not contain her outrage, found she was shaking with it. ‘If you don't do something I'm going to go back and I intend to pull Neil or whatever his real name is out of that grocer's van. I will get to the bottom of what happened between him and Eurwen. And you and your friends can try to stop me! Or I'll phone Josh to come here with half of the North Wales Police and let them get it out of him. Which he will do. Eurwen's his daughter. You are
nothing
in comparison, believe me. You are! I am as well!'

‘Shush! Calm down. We're not missing anything. We'll talk to Neil. Or you can if you like. But not now— he'll have come off shift. And Josh'll just make it worse. That's why it's you and me. Neil and Jay are good people but when Neil gets his act together, they'll be selling legal highs. D'you understand?'

‘No.'

‘OK. Whatever. They'll have their skunk with them as well. They won't get caught with that, they're old hands. Most of the other stuff's not… illegal. But—' she seemed confused herself as though unused to considering the concept of illicitness. ‘You don't need to say anything to Josh.'

‘I'm meant not to react? I'm supposed to stay calm when you tell me Eurwen's involved with people like these?'

‘Yes,' Meg said. ‘Come on. We'll go get a coffee.'

At the lighted back of an old Land Rover someone else was dealing, but in bottled water, chocolate in unfamiliar wrappers and scalding coffee that could have been made from ground acorns. Certainly it had nothing to counteract the— would it be five spirit measures she felt stifling her will? Meekly she went with Meg as near to the fire as she could get though now besieged by a replacement crowd and Kim was nowhere. Jay appeared carrying steaming cups, saw them, and veered off… Sara closed her eyes, counted fifty and opened them again looking straight up. Gradually the cold, glittering constellations were discernable. It was the sort of sky that swung over the Boar's Hill of her childhood, for spotting meteorites in and waiting for the next, making wishes, all the while feeling her singularity, the experience of discrete selfhood as Sara Severing painfully
there
on the cool of the lawn. Only a daub of grey in the west threatened the perfect arch of it now. Then the stars came alive or some of them did, clustering and rising in families, adding more to their number all the time, moving up and yet remaining in sight. ‘Good God!' she tried to will away the hallucination, and clutching at Meg's arm.

‘They're just sky lanterns. You never seen them before?'

‘Lanterns. I… Yes. I suppose I have.'

‘Candles. They're in balloons, you know? The girls said they'd got a load dirt-cheap. That's all they are.'

In Vauxhall Gardens servants light a thousand lamps at a signal of a sudden to banish the shade
. Thomasina Swift, sixteen, up from the country to London with her lover,
saw the spectacle once
. Like night in Heaven but with kissing and sweetmeats!
she had written guilelessly to a Betsy Clark, her less fortunate, more virtuous friend.

‘Just lanterns,' Sara repeated. Yet divine. The word liberated, letting her fasten onto Thomasina as her spirits rose. The Peerless Girl, never abashed, never fearful was herself a sort of stimulant. Did she trust in anything? No! Here was the Thomasina that had enthralled a subsequent age, musing on life, playing God off against the Devil? There were rumours: among them that an Oxford education had spurred on innate inquisitiveness and edged her towards dangerous ground. Atheism, Magick. But correspondence destroyed by the husband meant it wiser not to take a view. And Thomasina put faith in learning, at least, and had believed in that…

Eurwen was with her next as though by Thomasina's agency. Eurwen is saying Rubbish! All rubbish! yet the barb is blunted now, the desire to wrap Eurwen in her arms intense, to whisper that even if this is all there is, no hope, no meaning, no ultimate Saviour, the indifference of space over us and the cold earth waiting, even if the lanterns are a cheap trick designed to make us cry, still they offer a glimpse of night in heaven. Of kissing and sweetmeats before we fade.

When she came to, she saw amongst her fellow stargazers an addition; a new man had arrived and taken up station on the other side of the fire. An Oriental. Alone, apparently, since he'd claimed sole occupancy of the ragged bale vacated by the lovers. She stole another look at unremarkable features. There were smooth planes to the brow and cheeks that provided no haven for shadows, and yet it was not a calm face and, more arresting still, he was observing her. As an interesting object. Or maybe a misjudgement, catching him in a moment of abstraction? She peeked, peeked again, shivered though more irritated than troubled, feeling a touch curious as to what he saw.
Nothing sexual
. A thin pale woman in garments bulky enough to erase gender. And he was young, judging by the vigour of his physique. The legs in the inevitable jeans were thrown out towards the warmth and all his weight rested on widely braced arms, with the neck being thrust forward out of a dark fleece zipped to the chin. Not a position to maintain for long. He kept it though. Flames blazed up between them and still he did not flinch, making her suspect this was not imagination, this was more than a random act and she herself had been singled out. He
meant
to speak but was failing to and she was just about to rectify the situation when the single word Oriental came back to stop her mouth. Was it quite proper… ever? …any more? Oxford's
School of Oriental Studies
operated blamelessly in Pusey Lane and Geoffrey spoke of
the Oriental perspective on world trade
without embarrassment or fear of correction… but a sudden loss of confidence over that singular person (masculine) usage meant she never did summon up the will to meet his unblinking stare.