Everlasting Lane (37 page)

I dragged my tongue across my lips. ‘I could borrow
ten
pounds.’ My eyes burnt into the little doll imprisoned behind the pink bars of Greg Kirrin’s podgy grip. Her pearl of a face, barely bigger than a tear, stared at me. ‘For the blonde one,’ I said, ‘with the blue eyes and freckles and a wand.’

‘The fairies aren’t for sale.’

This was all wrong. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen, was it? I’d read enough stories and seen enough films. The children were always able to persuade the grown-ups to do what they wanted. That was their magic power. I mean nobody stopped Christopher Robin or Dorothy from the
Wizard of Oz
from doing whatever they wanted, did they? Nobody in stories put up such walls. Stories always ended happily; why wouldn’t this one? It was like I had one story in my mind but Mr Kirrin didn’t know how it was supposed to end.

Norman had collapsed on the floor, his arms wrapped about his knees, his head nodding like a dandelion. He was moaning softly.

If I’d been older or taller I might have told Greg Kirrin that he was a horrid man with a horrid shop and that I was offering all the money I had in the world and even some that
I didn’t have for a little fairy that a friend of mine happened to think looked like her. I wanted to hit him and kick him. Not ‘kick’ as in a stupid kid’s fight kick but a ‘kick’ like in the films I’d seen: a big, grown-up’s kick that would send him to the floor, wriggling in agony. I wanted to rant and rave and tell him that my dad was dead, dead, dead. I wanted to say that I was only a little boy, ten last birthday, and that I felt lost and alone most days. I didn’t know where I was or where I belonged or where I might end up. That I’d done things that would never let me sleep. I wanted to shout at him that there were things all around me that I didn’t understand: the small, narrow faces that watched me from behind trees; secret rooms; grown-ups, men and women, and the things that they said and the things that they didn’t say.

And I wanted to tell him, what I really wanted to tell him, was that in the middle of all this was a girl, tall and blonde who I … who I liked. And who I wanted to buy a fairy for. And if I didn’t, well, something terrible was—

‘I’ll give you all my pocket money ’til Christmas,’ I said. ‘And this!’ I pulled my mother’s gift from my pocket, silken purse and all. ‘And this ring!’

Greg took the ring from my hand, revolving it between his fingers and examining like Norman had the day he’d sold it to me. ‘All that money?’ he murmured. ‘And the ring? All for the fairy? Well, that’s quite an offer.’ And the he grinned. ‘Unfortunately,’ he said, ‘the fairies are not for bloody sale,’ and he wedged the poor creature back into the display.

The bell above the shop door rang and Mr Kirrin and I turned to see who had entered. It was Mr Merridew. His great yellow teeth smiled broadly.

‘Good morning to you, Mr M,’ wheezed the shopkeeper. ‘Be with you in a tick.’ He winked at Mr Merridew and turned back to me. ‘Now, will there be anything else,
sir
?’

I stared straight ahead, my top teeth biting deeply into my lower lip.

‘Please don’t hurry on my account, Gregory,’ said Mr Merridew shuffling towards us, stepping around Norman’s trembling shape, one curious eyebrow raised. He leered down at me, his mossy green eyes glowing. ‘Why, it’s … It’s Peter, isn’t it?’

I nodded enthusiastically. Perhaps, perhaps …

‘Gregory,’ said the old man, ‘Gregory, what on earth have you done to cause young Peter such distress? Have you caught the young miscreant pilfering and administered a sound beating?’ and he smacked a fist into the palm of his hand causing the end of his walking stick—that walking stick—to wave dangerously close to the fresh eggs.

‘No, no, Mr M, nothing like that. It’s kids’ stuff; that’s all it is. He’s after one of the fairies. You know the little fairies in the toy display. Well, if I let
one
go …’ He shrugged. ‘You know the drill.’

There was a look in Mr Merridew’s eye. A gleam. If Mr Kirrin wouldn’t listen to me, I thought, then surely he would listen to Mr Merridew. Perhaps, perhaps … But instead the old man simply laughed, spitting from his quivery lips.

‘Here, here,’ he said, holding out his hand, clicking his fingers. ‘Let me see.’

Reluctantly Mr Kirrin took the fairy from the display and dropped it into his customer’s upturned palm. The old man’s bulging spectacles studied it closely, a frown growing on his face. ‘It seems an odd little item to merit such distress,’ he informed Mr Kirrin. ‘A cheap ephemeron: nothing more.’ He looked up and smiled. ‘Its significance must, I therefore suggest, be symbolic. It bears, I believe, a relevance to Peter of which you and I, Gregory, are thus far ignorant.’

‘Well,’ huffed Greg Kirrin, gazing disapprovingly at his
brother, ‘I don’t have much time for symbols myself, Mr M. I like things to be what they are. I don’t have time for much else.’

‘Ah, but you are a practical man, Gregory: a man of business.’ Mr Merridew looked at me. ‘Peter, I fear, is … something other. Peter, do you have an answer? Can you explain or justify yourself?’

All I said was: ‘Anna-Marie.’

He returned to the fairy, stroking her long blonde hair with his old man’s fingers, touching her sparkly frock, her lacy wings, a sneaky smile creeping from corner to corner across his lips. ‘Indeed?’ he muttered. ‘Indeed? Well, a passing resemblance, perhaps …

‘You imagine, do you, Peter,’ he said angrily, ‘that by possessing this item you might likewise possess Anna-Marie? Is that it?’

What? No! That wasn’t it at all. What was he even talking about?

‘Well, if not that, then what?’ He mulled this over. I wasn’t going to help him. I don’t think I could’ve done even if I’d wanted to. ‘Perhaps, then, it is this: this bagatelle represents something to the fair Anna-Marie herself. And you, by acquiring it on her behalf, seek in some way to gain her favour. Is that it?’

I wasn’t sure but it sounded closer.

Mr Merridew suddenly roared with laughter. ‘Don’t you see, Gregory?’ he cried. ‘Don’t you see?’ Mr Kirrin shook his head. He didn’t see. ‘This fairy is not simply a symbol. Oh, no, it is nothing so anodyne. It is something far greater: it is a token!’

The old man laughed again, clutching a nearby shelf for support with one hand, leaning against his stick with the other. Tins rattled and the shelves shook as he struggled to
control himself. Mr Kirrin joined in but his great barking bellow came only from his throat. In his eyes I could see him wondering whether Mr Merridew wasn’t a little bit mad.

‘It is a common mistake, Gregory, to which Peter is victim and one that drove me from my former profession: that old canard that action equals reaction, cause and effect, that order can be defined and that the consequences of our actions can be predicted.

‘Tell me, Peter,’ and here he grabbed me quite hard just above my elbow, pinching, his stick still held tight between his fingers, ‘do you imagine that the events of your life can be ordered like these tins and packets on Mr Kirrin’s shelf: a place for everything and everything in its place? Well, think again.’ The other hand, the hand which was still gripping the shelf began to tremble. ‘Imagine the universe ripping said shelf from the wall.’ Both the items on the shelves and Greg Kirrin began to shift about uncomfortably. The shaking got more violent until a tin of pears fell from high on up, crashing to and rolling across the shop floor. ‘Ha!’ exclaimed Mr Merridew, ‘See, Peter, see how easily order is disrupted.’

‘Now, now, Mr M,’ warned Mr Kirrin lumbering across the floor to retrieve the can, gasping as he bent and glancing nervously at his jiggling stock. Another tin—baked beans—leapt from the top shelf missing his head by no more than the width of a ten pence piece.

‘Who can know where each item will fall, Peter? Watch as all your assumptions come crashing to earth with—’

‘Mr Merridew!’

The shaking of the shelves stopped immediately and Mr Merridew attempted a bow towards the shop-keeper. ‘Apologies, Gregory. Apologies: a perhaps overzealous attempt at a visual demonstration designed to show poor Peter the futility of his efforts.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I quite forgot myself.’

‘Well, be that as it may, Mr M, this is my bread and butter as it were. I’d be obliged if you would save your visual demonstrations for where I can’t see them.’

Again the doorbell sounded. We looked up to see Mr Waterberry shuffle in. Norman barely stirred. The school caretaker stared at us with his single eye: me and Mr Merridew; Mr Kirrin stumbling to his feet and the shopkeeper’s brother collapsed in the corner like a bag of potatoes.

‘Frank!’ exclaimed Greg, straightening his spine with some difficulty. ‘What a relief! You can’t imagine the shenanigans we’ve had in here this morning.’ He bustled off behind the counter. ‘
Express
,’ he said, folding a newspaper, ‘and an ounce of the usual?’

The two fell into conversation. Pleased to be away from us, Mr Kirrin continued to glance in our direction every now and again whilst Mr Waterberry read aloud the morning’s headlines growling with disbelief and—

‘Ouch!’

‘Then tell me this, Peter,’ hissed Mr Merridew, his hand again gripping my elbow, ‘do you imagine, when you are snug in your bed, that you are still, whilst the world beneath you hurtles through the universe at 66,000 miles an hour? How will you sleep tonight? Will you feel breeze?’

I pulled my arm away from his bony fingers. ‘But it does,’ I said.

‘It does?’ he snarled. ‘It does what?’

‘It does feel like you’re still.’

He stared at me, his eyes filled with hatred.

The bell rang and, ‘So, gentlemen,’ said Greg Kirrin walking towards, his hands rubbing together, ‘are we done with this nonsense? Mr M, did you want—?’

‘One moment, please, Gregory,’ murmured Mr Merridew, raising his walking stick to block the shopkeeper’ path, ‘for it
seems that Peter here is making a stand. In the face of an unforgiving universe, Peter alone has the courage, strength and fortitude to shape events to his own ends. Why, Peter, to do so would make you a God amongst men, would it not? Do you not see, Greg? Do you not see the determination with which young Peter stands his ground in the face of chaos and cries, “No!” ’ and he stamped his stick upon the floor. ‘ “No, this will not do!” He would stem the flood and banish disease. Death and distress will wilt beneath his steely gaze; catastrophe will cower … And you, Gregory,
you
would deny him his moment.’

‘Well, Mr M, it’s the fairies, you see,’ grunted Mr Kirrin. ‘It’s the principle—’

‘Ah, Peter,’ said Mr Merridew with a heavy sigh and a shake of his head, ‘a shame, perhaps, but it seems that Mr Kirrin is more determined still, determined that you are to be thwarted and, therefore, where does your own determination leave you? It appears that both you and we are to be denied your moment in the sun. Ah, well: for the want of a nail …’ And then he turned away:

‘Now, Gregory,’ he said, resting his hand upon Mr Kirrin’s back, ‘I would speak with you on the subject of candles. I’m in absolute darkness …’

And so Greg Kirrin and Mr Merridew went about their business. Norman was slumped in the corner, his face like washing-up water, his eyes defeated. It was over. And so I stood there although I had no reason to. I felt like a stray dog, kicked and starved, but I just stood there as if the only choice I had to make was between sweets and a comic. I just stood there although my eyes burned with tears and anger.

And, for a moment, I thought: what if he’s right? It was kind of nice, in a way, to think that it didn’t matter what you did: that you couldn’t control things. It was funny that I’d
always thought it sounded such a terrible thing but it was like Anna-Marie’s ten thousand men, I suppose. You know about how she said they’d be so happy. It was one or the other, wasn’t it? There were either consequences or there was chaos and, suddenly, I thought maybe I could just go home. I mean if there was no point, then what was the point of fighting it? That’s what Anna-Marie thought—I knew that now—and that’s why she was giving up.

And I nearly did—go home, I mean—but, you see, the thing was that Mr Merridew was wrong. And Anna-Marie was wrong too. I knew they were both wrong. Absolutely wrong! But the thing is, even if they were right, well, just because Anna-Marie wouldn’t fight for herself, didn’t mean I couldn’t fight for her, did it?

I felt the piggy-bank resting in my arms. Chunky and so full of change.

I felt my arms rising, slowly, slowly.

Well, I thought, if it’s chaos they want …

The piggy-bank was high above my head.

… Then it’s chaos I’ll give them.

And I threw it down.

It crashed.

It smashed.

It shattered.

Tiny, shiny pink blades of pig and coins, bronze and silver went spinning and rolling and rattling across the shop floor. Greg Norman turned to stare at me and even Norman stirred.

And then I began to scream. And if you thought my grandmother’s screaming was loud, well, ha, you’ve never heard anything like the scream I did right then.

I was late of course. The leavers’ assembly had already started and I could hear Miss Drew’s piano booming out across the field as I ran along, tripping and stumbling. They were singing that song ‘One More Step Along the Road I Go’ which you might know. They sang it at my old school too, at the end of each year. It had always made me sad before but …

I hoped I wasn’t too late.

I pulled open a classroom door—I didn’t even care whose classroom it was—and barged my way through, pushing tables out of the way and sending pencil cases sliding and chairs rattling to the floor. I ran down the corridor—the singing getting louder and louder—and pushed against the heavy doors before bursting into the back of the crowded assembly hall. All the children were sat in their usual rows. As it was a special assembly all the teachers were there too, sat on chairs next to their classes pretending to sing rather than drinking coffee in the staffroom or sharing cigarettes. Mrs Carpenter was right at the front, her voice louder and higher than everybody else’s. But Miss Drew stopped playing, her fingers hung above the keys, and every child in the school swivelled to watch me as I clattered in. Mr Gale turned and glared at me and Mrs Carpenter shot me this stare.