‘Forgotten something?’ She stopped beside me.
‘Maths homework,’ I replied.
‘It was the same one, wasn’t it?’ she asked.
‘What?’ I couldn’t think what she was talking about.
‘That boat, that old boat on the canal.’
‘Oh, that . . . Yes . . . Thanks . . . I’d better go back home and fetch it . . . I’ll catch you up.’ I ran off back across the road and into the estate without ever once looking behind me. I wasn’t sure I’d been entirely convincing, but at least I’d got away.
I skulked in a bus shelter for a while, just until I was quite sure the house would be empty, and it was just as well I did. I’d been there only a few minutes when I saw my mother coming along the road in her car. I looked the other way hard, and hoped. Fortunately, she went by without seeing me. At least now I knew the coast was clear.
After that it was plain-sailing, except that the hill up to Shangri-La seemed a lot steeper and a lot longer than before. In the end I had to get off and walk, which was just as well because it gave me time to think. I couldn’t just walk in there and announce that I wanted to see Popsicle. That Mrs Davidson, the Dragonwoman, would be bound to ask searching questions. I was in school uniform. Why wasn’t I at school? I was alone. Where were my parents? At all costs I was going to have to avoid the Dragonwoman.
I left my bicycle hidden deep in the rhododendron bushes beside the drive, and then crawled the rest of the way through the undergrowth, until I was as close to the house as I dared. A white minibus was parked outside the pillared porch. I could just make out the writing on its side, in large pink lettering: ‘Shangri-La. Residential Nursing Home’. I thought of making a dash for it, across the drive to the dayroom window overlooking the front lawn. It wasn’t far, but I just couldn’t summon up the courage to do it. I could see people moving about inside the house, but they were too far away, too shadowy for me to be able to identify any of them as Popsicle.
Then I had a stroke of luck. I’d been sitting there in the bushes for some time, wracked by indecision, hugging myself against the cold of the wind and with terrible pins and needles in my legs, when the front door opened. It was Harry, in his wheelchair. He was wheeling himself out from the shadow of the porch towards the rose garden on the other side of the drive from me. He had some kind of basket on his lap, a gardening trug perhaps. It crossed my mind that this might be the moment to make my move. The front door was open and inviting, and Harry would know where Popsicle was. It was a very good thing that caution got the better of me.
Suddenly Mrs Davidson was at the door and shouting after him. ‘Half an hour only, Mr Mason. Do you hear me?’
Harry ignored her and went on wheeling.
The front door closed. Harry was bumping himself up on to the lawn. He reached the rose garden, took a pair of secateurs out of his trug and began clipping. I watched him, cowering in the undergrowth, and wondered what to do next.
‘Cessie!’ He wasn’t looking at me, but it was Harry’s voice – I was sure of it. ‘Cessie! Don’t say anything, and whatever you do, don’t move. If I spotted you, then she could too. If you want to play hide-and-seek in dark green bushes then you shouldn’t go wearing a red blazer – if you understand my meaning. I don’t know what you’re up to, young lady, but my guess is you’ve bunked off school to come and see your Popsicle. That right? Well you can’t, not this morning. He didn’t like the scrambled egg at breakfast, and he said so. She didn’t like that, so she’s gated him. He’s got to stay in his room till lunch.’
‘But I must see him. I’ve got something for him,’ I said. ‘It’s important. It’s really important.’
‘All right, Cessie. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’ll clip off a few more of these deadheads, then I’ll come over your side of the drive and park myself as close as I can. Give me a few moments. But don’t move. Don’t move a muscle.’
He clipped a last deadhead, glanced up casually at the house, and then came wheeling across the drive towards me. There was a single rosebush in the centre of a small flower-bed. He stopped beside it with his back to me, so that he was between me and the house, and put his brake on. Then he reached out, caught a bloom between his fingers and pulled it gently to his nose.
‘Old Velvet Tuscany,’ he said, sniffing deeply and savouring it. ‘Lovely old-fashioned rose. Scent of paradise. Beautiful. All right, so what do you want me to do then?’
‘Tell him,’ I was speaking as loudly as I dared. ‘Tell Popsicle I’ve found his boat, I’ve found his home. It’s down on the canal, by the barges. I’ve been there. And it is called the Lucie Alice, just like he said it was. And I found things, all sorts of things, photos, newspaper cuttings, all about the war, about the boat. I’ve got one or two of them with me. If he sees them, then maybe it’ll help him remember. He fell over. He hit his head, lost his memory. But it’s coming back, and this’ll help, I know it will.’
‘He’s told us, Cessie,’ Harry said. ‘He told us everything, everything he can remember, that is. He’ll be happy as pie about this, over the moon. Be a real fillip. It gets him down a bit sometimes, you know, when he can’t remember. Thinks he’s going barmy, round the twist; but he isn’t, not our Popsicle. Don’t you worry, Cessie, he’s amongst friends up here. We’ve most of us got dicky memories, including me. Popsicle’s no nutter. The Dragonwoman thinks he is, of course, but then she thinks we’re all nutters. Where are the photos then?’
‘In my bag. In my English book.’
‘Now listen, Cessie, and listen good. You put it down, right where you are, and then get out of here, quick, before anyone spots you. I’ll see he gets it, don’t you worry.’ I took out my English book and checked the cutting and the photo were still there. They were. I left it on the ground under the rhododendrons, backed away slowly on my hands and knees, retrieved my bicycle, jumped on, and made off like a bat out of hell.
For the rest of the day I loafed about the house behind closed curtains, worrying that some busybody might have seen me coming home from school in the morning, that someone might say something to my mother. I thought of playing my violin, but I couldn’t, in case I was heard. In the end I went up to my room and finished my maths homework, and then read my book – Animal Farm it was.
When my mother came in, I played the exhausted schoolgirl and complained, bitterly and very convincingly I thought, about all the homework I’d been given that day. She wasn’t at all sympathetic, but then I didn’t expect her to be. I wasn’t exactly in her good books. ‘Then you’d better get on with it, hadn’t you?’ she said.
So it was that I found myself up in my room again doing more homework, or pretending to. I was still there when I heard my father come home. I didn’t go down. I heard their confidential murmuring downstairs in the kitchen. They’d be talking about me, I was sure of it. I knelt down and put my ear to the floor. I was right.
‘She’ll get over it in time,’ my mother was saying. ‘You’ve got to remember, she’s twelve; and believe you me, that’s an awkward age for any girl. All right, so she’s being a pain, a real pain; but when all’s said and done, you can’t blame her.’
‘So you’re blaming me then, I suppose?’
‘No, I’m not blaming you either, nor Popsicle, nor anyone. We took a decision that was maybe the most difficult decision we’ve ever had to take. You didn’t enjoy sending your father up there to that place, and neither did I. But it was the only thing we could do. You know something, Arthur? I hate myself for what we’ve done, and what’s more I think you do too. And if we hate ourselves for sending him off to that place like we did, then we can hardly blame her for hating us too, can we? She loves that old man, and we sent him away. For God’s sake, how do you expect her to feel?’
The doorbell rang. I heard my father leave the kitchen and go out into the hallway. I crept out on to the landing so that I could hear better. The door opened.
‘Yes?’ my father was saying.
‘Is Ces
sie in?’ It was Shirley Watson. She’d never ever called at my place before.
‘She’s upstairs.’ My mother’s voice.
‘So she’s all right then?’
‘Yes, of course. Why do you ask?’
‘Well . . .’ Shirley began, and a cold shiver went up my spine. I knew already what she was about to say. ‘Well, it’s just that we were on our way to school this morning, and she forgot her homework and she went back to fetch it, and then she never came to school. I looked for her everywhere. Thought something might have happened to her that’s all, but if she’s here . . .’ She knew then that she’d dropped me in it. To be fair to her, she did try to put it right, but it was too late. ‘Well, maybe . . . maybe she wasn’t feeling well or something.’
‘Probably,’ said my father, and I could sense the fury in him rising already.
‘That’s all right then,’ said Shirley Watson. ‘I’d better be going. I’ll see her tomorrow. Bye.’ The door closed.
‘Cessie!’ my father bellowed up the stairs. ‘Get down here this minute. This minute!’
I appeared at the top of the stairs and came down slowly. I had no wish to hurry. They stood there in the hallway watching me. They waited until I was halfway down, until I was in range, before they began.
‘How could you, Cessie?’ said my mother. She was going to try the patient teacher approach. ‘Where were you? Why? Why would you do such a thing?’ I stayed inside myself, behind my wall of defiance. I would offer no explanations, no apologies, nothing.
‘You go on like this, Cessie.’ It was my father this time, stabbing his finger at me and fast losing all control. ‘You go on like this and we’re going to have to take steps, d’you hear me?’ How could I not? He was shouting at the top of his voice, not two metres away.
‘Leave it, Arthur,’ my mother was trying again. ‘I’ll talk to her. Just leave it to me.’ She came towards me. ‘Is it something at school, Cessie? Are you in trouble? Has someone been bullying you, is that it?’ She put her hand on mine on the banister. I pulled my hand away. ‘This isn’t like you, Cessie. How can we help you if we don’t know what the problem is?’ She looked deep into me and I did not flinch from her gaze. ‘It isn’t school at all, is it? This is a protest for Popsicle, isn’t it? You stayed away from school to get back at us, didn’t you? That’s it, isn’t it?’
My father was about to wade in again, but the phone rang and cut him off short. My mother picked it up. ‘Mrs Davidson . . .?’ The Dragonwoman. She’d seen me up at Shangri-La and was reporting it. I sat down on the stairs and prepared myself for the worst. ‘When was this?’ my mother was asking.
‘What is it?’ my father tried to interrupt. She shushed him, but he went on in spite of her. ‘Is he all right? Is he ill?’
She put her hand over the mouthpiece and shook her head. ‘No, it’s not that. He’s gone missing. Popsicle’s gone missing. They haven’t seen him since just after lunch. No one has. They’ve looked everywhere.’
Not quite everywhere, I thought, trying to hide my joy as best I could. Not quite everywhere.
10 DUNKIRK
THEY WERE GOING UP TO SHANGRI-LA RIGHT AWAY, they said, to see Mrs Davidson. I was to stay behind just in case Popsicle decided to come home in the meantime, and I had to be sure to call them at Shangri-La if he did. They were full of last-minute panicky instructions as they went out of the door. I looked suitably concerned and nodded away, willing them to be gone.
I waited only till I saw the tail-lights of the car disappear round the corner. Then I was out of the house and away on my bicycle, head down and pedalling like a mad thing towards the canal. I ran into traffic jams, but I managed to keep moving, weaving in and out of the cars, cutting across carparks. Then at long last I was clear of the traffic and bowling along under the prison walls, the canal running darkly across the other side of the road. I always hated going past the prison, especially in the evening. The whole place glowered at me, but it gave me an even greater incentive to pedal harder. I never stopped the whole way, not once.
From the lock gates I could see there was a light in Popsicle’s boat. He was there, and as I cycled along the towpath past the barges, I was sure that he knew I was coming, that he would be waiting for me. I’d barely set foot on the gangplank when I heard him calling out to me.
‘Cessie? Is that you? Come aboard. Come aboard.’
I found him down below in the glow of his cabin, lying on his bed, and grinning like the Cheshire cat. He was propped up on a pile of cushions, with his knees drawn up in front of him. His shoes were off and he wore no socks. He was wriggling his toes at me.
‘Long walk. My feet are killing me.’ He had a tin in his hand. I knew at once it had to be condensed milk. He held it up. ‘Remember this, Cessie?’ He swung his legs off the bed, stood up and came towards me. ‘Well, what do you think of the old Lucie Alice? Isn’t she the most beautiful thing you ever saw? And she’s not just pretty either. Two forty-horsepower diesel engines. You can hardly hear yourself thinking when she’s at full throttle. Eight and a half knots, two hundred miles without refuelling, and – unlike yours – she’s quite unsinkable.’ He was close to me now, his hands on my shoulders, and his eyes were burning bright into mine.
‘Thanks to you, Cessie, I know it all now. It’s all here, in this boat, all around me, and you found her for me, Cessie. I got your school book. Harry said it was important, and it was too.’ I looked down and saw my English book lying open beside the half-finished model of the battleship. ‘Lucie Alice . . . Dunkirk,’ he went on. ‘You gave it all back to me, Cessie; but this old tin helped a bit, I’m sure of it. You can smile, but it was like Popeye with his spinach. Like a flood it was, Cessie. The moment I lay there on that bed and tasted it, all the memories came flooding through me. I’m telling you, Cessie, I was dizzy with it.’
He picked up another tin from the desk behind him. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I’ve got dozens more in the cupboard. You can have a whole tin to yourself, if you like. You’ve had it before, have you? You turned your nose up at it, if I remember rightly. One taste and you won’t put it down. Guaranteed.’ And he stabbed two holes in it with his knife, settled me down in one of the big armchairs in the middle of the cabin, and sat himself down opposite me.
I had never tasted anything so sickly sweet, nor so completely and overwhelmingly delicious.
‘They’ll be out looking for you, you know,’ I said.
‘Well, they won’t find us here, will they? You haven’t said anything, have you?’ I shook my head, and sucked in another mouthful of condensed milk.
Then I asked the one question I’d been longing to ask him: ‘Who’s Lucie Alice, the girl in the photo?’
It was some time before he replied. ‘Well, after all you’ve done for me, Cessie, if anyone’s got a right to know, then you have. I’m warning you before I start, there’s things I’m going to tell you you’ll find hard to believe. But it’ll all be true, true as I’m sitting here. You keep knocking back your condensed milk and I’ll tell you the lot, beginning to end.’
He took a deep breath, and then he began.
‘I don’t rightly know where I was born, Cessie. Never knew who my mother was, nor my father. So that bit’s easy. First thing I remember was the house in Lowestoft. Barnardo’s home it was – fifteen, maybe twenty of us. And it was all right too. I wasn’t miserable, nothing like that. If you don’t have a proper family in the first place, then you can’t miss them, can you? I’m afraid I was a bit of a tearaway as a young lad, always in trouble: bunking off school, scrumping for apples, and poaching too – rabbits, pheasants, trout – whatever I could find. Time and again I’d get myself caught, and of course I’d get a good wigging for my trouble. Didn’t stop me. Never seemed to learn my lesson somehow.
‘You could see the sea from my bedroom window, and I never wanted to be away from it. All I wanted to do when I grew up was go to sea. And do you know why? It wasn’t just the beauty of it, nor the wildness of it
. It wasn’t the salt on your lips, or the shrieking of the gulls, not for me. It was the boats, and one boat in particular – the Lowestoft lifeboat. To watch that lifeboat shooting down the slipway and go plunging into the sea, to see her ploughing her way out into the waves – it’s all I lived for. Nothing like it, nothing in all the world. Whenever she went out, all weathers, I’d be there, down on the beach waiting for them to come back. And afterwards, I’d follow the crew through the streets, as they walked up to the pub. I’d be outside the window listening to their talk. All I wanted as a lad was to be near them, to be like them, to be one of them.
‘I was fifteen years old, big for my age and strong too. I was out there, along with half the town, when the new lifeboat was launched. Forty-six foot, Watson cabin-type, she was; bright yellow funnel, shining blue with a red stripe round the gunwales. I never saw anything so beautiful in all my life.
‘Later that day, I was walking round her in the shed at the top of the slipway, stroking her from end to end, when I first saw her name: Michael Hardy. Now I don’t know who gave me my name when I was little, but all my life I’d been called Michael, Michael Stevens. And here was this lifeboat with half my own name on her. Silly, maybe, but I knew then that it was a meant thing with me and the Michael Hardy, that we belonged together. One day I would be a lifeboatman in that boat. I would pull on the blue jersey and the yellow oilskins. I would climb up into that boat and go roaring down the slipway. I would go to sea in her and save lives. So I went right up to the coxswain – I can’t remember his name now, a great big bearded fellow – I walked right up to him next day in the town and I asked him, point blank. He laughed, and shook his head. “You’re far too young,” he says. “Come back in a couple of years,” he says. I’ll tell you, Cessie, I went away and I cried like a baby.
‘By now everyone was talking about the war they knew was coming, but all I could think about was how they wouldn’t let me join the crew of the Michael Hardy. I mooched about the beach all that summer. Every time I saw the lifeboat go down the slipway it was just more salt in the wound.’