Maggot Moon (12 page)

The moon man stood up, hugged Gramps. I went to find the eggs, feed the hens and make sure no rats had got in. Then I lit the Bunsen burner and put the kettle over it. We drank our tea and ate the bread and the Spam fritters. A feast.

The moon man tried to talk to us with drawings. They weren’t clever like Gramps’s pictures but they told us the story. I could see clearly what was happening behind the wall.

Gramps got up, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and retuned the radio. It crackled and hissed. He fiddled with the set until we heard the Voice, the only one Gramps trusted to tell the truth. That is, he said, if there is any such thing as a truth. Hard to tell when so much is a lie.

The Voice spoke.

“The monstrous Motherland may claim to have launched a rocket to the moon, but our scientists believe that such an expedition is not and will not be possible for many years to come.

“The radiation from the moon’s atmosphere will prevent man from landing there. We must not be forced into surrender by propaganda. We must carry on with the fight, regardless. I call on all Obstructors to support the advancing Allies. Sleep easy in your beds. Do not be frightened into believing that the Motherland has the capacity to fire weapons from the moon’s surface. Instead concentrate your energies for the final battle. Afterwards we will live in a free world.”

The alarm bell rang, a red-painted lightbulb flashed. Gramps looked up, and so did I. We both knew what that meant. There was an intruder in the house. We had less than a minute to cover our tracks.

Terror is an odd thing. It has made me panic, it has made me spew, but this time, I felt a calm fury.

Gramps opened the painted wall and the moon man locked it behind us. A torch beam shined into the dark of Cellar Street.

Quickly we picked up the traps. Gramps took two, I took one.

“What are you doing down there?” a man called out.

“Rats,” shouted Gramps.

I was closest to the stairs that led up to the kitchen. The torch shined in my face. The light blinded me and I put up my hand to cover my eyes and by doing that I accidentally pressed the release button on the trap and the rat leaped up the stairs, past the intruder into the kitchen. A shot rang out.

Gramps was by my side. He went up the stairs first, carrying the cages with the other two rats in them. In the kitchen, sitting at the broken table, was a man we had never seen before. He laid down his revolver and lit a cigarette. The rat was dead in the corner.

“Mr. Treadwell,” said the man. “I have come to take the visitor to safety. We haven’t much time.”

Gramps and I both knew that if this man really did belong to the Obstructors, he would never have shot the rat. The gun had no silencer on it. The noise would have been heard outside, loud and with bells on. The detectives in their car would have to be deaf, daft, or both not to have heard and come running.

The man was a joker.

You see, that intruder was too well-dressed. Much like the dead rats he was too clean, too well-fed.

“I don’t know who you are,” said Gramps, “but I don’t think you should be here. I would like you to leave. Standish, go and tell the detectives outside we have an Obstructor here.”

The man picked up his revolver. “I am here to help you.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Gramps.

“I think,” I said, “you are one of the people who broke into our house today and found nothing.”

That got the man agitated. He took out another cigarette. You don’t see many of those. Tobacco was for the few. No freedom fighter would ever smoke those smokes. They have the crest of the Motherland printed on them. The man was a prick if he thought we were that thick.

It was pitch-black outside. Only that eyesore of a building at the end of our road was lit up, starbright, earthbound. I crept towards the waiting car in which the two detectives sat. I made them jump out of their seats. One wound down his steamed-up window, his mouth full of sausage. The car smelled of farts.

“We have an intruder in the house,” I said. “You’d better come.”

The supposed Obstructor made a feeble attempt to run.

We watched as the car did a three-point turn and gave chase. It was pathetic. Even we could see they all knew one another. The “Obstructor” shrugged. The back door of the wasps’ car was opened for him.

I tell you this, if he had been the genuine McCoy, they would have shot him to where no kingdom comes.

In the kitchen, Gramps had his coat on.

“What are you doing?” I said.

He shook his head and put his fingers to his lips.

“Taking the rat out.”

But I knew he wasn’t. He was off. Where, I didn’t know, couldn’t say. I wanted to cling to that coat of his, beg him to stay. He wouldn’t. I could see by the look in his eyes that he was going to go, come what may.

I slept on and off with my head on my arms at the kitchen table. I hadn’t dared move. Call it superstition. It must have been about six that morning when I woke. It was light, had been light for a long time. Still Gramps hadn’t returned. To tell the fricking truth, I was no longer calm. I was bloody terrified.

The moon man emerged from the cellar, relieved to see me. He still wore his gravity boots, which he didn’t need as there was plenty of gravity there. Too much. In fact, I thought a little less of it might be a good idea.

I made tea for the moon man while he rinsed his mouth in salty water. It was all the medicine we had to offer. That and the rest of the aspirins. I saw him wince. I knew he shouldn’t be up here, it was far too dangerous. But I didn’t want him to leave, didn’t want to be on my own, waiting. He sat down. I still found it hard to look at the word sewn on his space suit:
ELD9.

He wrote the word
Gramps
and I said, “He’s not here.”

I could see that worried him. I tell you this, it worried me too. I wasn’t even going to think of the what-if scenarios.

We sat in silence, the moon man and me. I knew he couldn’t speak but there is silence and there is silence, if you get my meaning. I’ll tell you this for nothing: I was born into a frick-fracking nightmare. The only way out was in my head. In my head there are Croca-Colas, Cadillacs. There is planet Juniper and Hector to rescue us all.

My bones nearly jumped free from my muscles when I heard a noise in the back garden. The moon man disappeared back to Cellar Street. I washed up the cups, put them away.

I don’t think I was breathing when Gramps said, “Let me in.”

“Where have you been?” I asked as I opened the back door. His face was all smoky, his shirt torn and burnt. He wasn’t wearing his hat or his coat. No. Miss Phillips was. She stood behind him. She looked as if she had been beaten up pretty badly.

“What happened?”

Gramps just put the kettle on and made tea. Miss Phillips was shaking.

“They set fire to her house. I knew they would,” he said. “It was only a matter of time.”

I took a bowl of water to the table. That was one fricking bruise she had.

Gramps lifted up Miss Phillips’s face towards his and gently wiped away the smoke. I watched all this and felt that there was something more there.

When she winced, he said softly, “It’s all right, love.”

I thought I understood. Well, I thought I did, but hell’s bells, I wasn’t that sure.

I placed the cup of tea near her.

She put both her hands round the cup and stared at the grain of the table. Gramps was now at the sink, washing his face and hands. I turned on the radio again. It was playing music for the workers of the Motherland.

Quietly, she said, “Thank you.”

Gramps returned to where Miss Phillips was sitting. He took off her hat. Miss Phillips’s hair had always been long, neatly wound into a bun. It was now so short it stood up in tufts, and blood was mixed up in it.

I knew that haircut and I knew exactly what that haircut meant. It was what they did to the Obstructors. Strip them naked, take away all their clothes, cut their hair off. If it was a woman they didn’t bother to kill her, not outright. They left that to the young, hungry vultures. The Hans Fielders and the boys from the torture lounge.

It was a slower death but it gave them a bit of practice in killing. You couldn’t be squeamish if you joined the Youth of the Motherland. The Mothers for Purity would be ashamed of them if they hadn’t mastered the art of butchery before they’d left school. I mean, it’s one of those rights of way you have to go through. It certainly showed up the fags from the thugs. A thug would have beaten Miss Phillips’s brains out for breakfast. Goodness knows what he would have done to her by lunchtime.