“Hello, Polly!” he called. Polly had to stop and talk while her friends stood waiting impatiently and getting wet. “Polly,” David said earnestly, “I’ve long felt you deserved rich rewards for sanctity and forbearance and all that jazz. Is there something you haven’t got that you’d like to have? Speak up. Sky’s the limit and so on.”
Polly looked at his face carefully and saw he meant it. “I need a return fare to London,” she said. “And some spending money for when I’m there,” she added, since miracles seldom happen and it is best to get the most out of them when they do.
“Done!” cried David. “Money under plain cover this evening as ever is!” And he bounced off again, back to his lady.
He was as good as his word. He put an envelope full of pound notes into Polly’s hand that night before she went to bed. Polly had a vague feeling he expected something in return, if only she could understand what it might be, but she did not let ignorance stop her taking the envelope. She wrote Mr Lynn a hasty card and, on the day she had said, she mounted a fast train at Miles Cross Station and was rattled up to London on the morning of what proved to be the only fine day of the half-term holiday. She felt very brave and grown up, doing it, and she worried all the way in case Mr Lynn had not got her card or turned out to be doing something else that day.
To her relief, he was waiting for her on the platform, with the sun gleaming mildly on his glasses and a well-known large hand held out to shake hers. They were talking as if they had not met for five years – or only been away five minutes – before they had even got off the platform.
“Tan Coul must have some more adventures,” Mr Lynn greeted her.
Like a password, Polly replied, “And we must find out about Tan Audel soon. It’s stupid not knowing him.”
The horse-car, TC 123, was waiting outside, and they climbed into it, still talking. But there was a slight break in their talk as they set off and Polly discovered that Mr Lynn still drove as heroes do. It seemed to be the way he was made. They shot into the traffic, squealing on two left wheels, cut in front of a bus, tipped a cyclist neatly into the gutter, and dived between two taxis through a gap that would have been small for the cyclist. But the taxi drivers knew a hero when they saw one and sheered off, honking their horns.
Those horns were drowned in a new outburst of honking as the horse-car shot across in front of the oncoming traffic and screamed into a side street on two right wheels. Two old ladies leaped for their lives.
“Missed them!” remarked Mr Lynn. Polly was not sure if he said it with relief or regret. “The car’s feeling its oats,” he explained, realising Polly had gone quiet.
“Do – do you get killed often?” Polly said.
“Old heroes never die,” said Mr Lynn. “But I do rather surprisingly often drive the wrong way up one-way streets. I think I am now.”
They were. Somehow they missed the van coming the other way. Polly tried to take her mind off this heroic driving by asking, very casually and carefully, “Were you in Middleton just before Christmas?”
“No,” Mr Lynn said, surprised. “I was stuck here with concerts. I’d have looked you up if I had been. Why?”
“I was staying at Granny’s and I thought I saw you,” Polly said carefully.
The little car leaped from the end of the side street and heroically dived among traffic going round a large roundabout. “You couldn’t have done,” Mr Lynn said, whizzing across the front of a lorry and squealing into the next turning. “I really wasn’t there.”
“Did you see Mr Leroy at all?” Polly asked. “I thought I saw him too.”
With a jolt and scream of protest, the car stopped for a red light. “I did run into him just before Christmas. Yes,” Mr Lynn said, carefully and with just a touch of grimness. It reminded Polly of the way Dad talked about David Bragge. And he changed the subject by asking about her stay at Granny’s.
The lights changed while Polly was in the middle of telling him about Dad and David Bragge. The horse-car set off with a bellowing roar before any of the other cars had moved. There were red lights at intervals all down that road. Mr Lynn treated each one as if it were the starting block for the hundred-metre dash, screaming off ahead of all the other cars, only to rein in with a jerk as the next light turned red. It was fun. Polly began to enjoy the way heroes drove. She felt quite used to it by the time they roared into the street outside Mr Lynn’s flat and Mr Lynn parked the car by the simple expedient of knocking the rear bumper off the car in front of the only space there. “I don’t think my car likes other cars,” he explained as he knelt in the road, putting the other car’s bumper roughly back in place. “It does this rather often.”
“Perhaps it would rather be a horse,” Polly suggested.
“That must be it,” agreed Mr Lynn.
Mr Lynn’s landlady, Carla, opened the door for them before they got there. The baby from last time had grown into quite a large toddler, hanging on to Carla’s hand and shouting, but otherwise Carla was just the same. “I thought it was you,” she said cheerfully. “I heard the crash. Learn to drive, can’t you!” As they went upstairs, she shouted after them through the toddler’s yelling, “Get him to show you his collection of parking tickets. It may be a record!”
When they reached the privacy of Mr Lynn’s flat, Polly asked, feeling rather mature, “Is Carla a one-parent family?”
“Not quite,” Mr Lynn said. “I think there are several Mr Carlas. It’s rather confusing.”
“Oh,” said Polly, and felt childish after all.
Mr Lynn gave her one of his considering looks. “People are strange,” he said. “Usually they’re much stranger than you think. Start from there and you’ll never be unpleasantly surprised. Do you fancy doughnuts?”
They were excellent doughnuts, soft, sugary and fresh. Polly ate them absently, though, considering Mr Lynn in return. He was behaving cheerfully enough, but he was not happy. She knew the signs, from Ivy. There was a sort of effort going into his cheerful remarks. She could feel the pushes. She decided not to say anything about it. She knew how useless it was with Ivy when she was in a mood. But Mr Lynn was not Ivy. Without intending to, she said, “What’s the matter? Are you very miserable?”
“Yes,” Mr Lynn said frankly. “But mostly I’m worried and undecided about something. I’ll tell you about it, boring though it is, but there’s something I’d like you to do first. I’ve got quite superstitious—”
“So have I!” Polly exclaimed. And they broke off for her to tell him about the Superstition Club. When she got to the Deputy Head in the mirror, Mr Lynn gave a great yelp and began laughing properly. Polly stopped then, because she was getting unpleasantly close to telling him how she had stolen the photograph. “What did you want me to do?” she said.
“Cheer me up,” confessed Mr Lynn. “Selfish of me to drag you all the way to London for that, even though it seems to have worked. The other thing is – do you think you’d know the other heroes if you saw them? Tan Thare and Tan Hanivar anyway?”
Polly nodded. “I would. Positive.” She could see them both as clearly in her mind as she could see Ivy or Nina or David Bragge.
“Then,” said Mr Lynn, “see if you can find either of them here. Or Tan Audel, if possible.”
He plunged to his mantelpiece and brought down a roll of paper from it. After he had spread it out on the hearth rug and it had rolled up, and he had unrolled it and pinned it down with two books and a salt cellar, Polly saw it was a mass photograph of the British Philharmonic Orchestra. It was very posed. Everyone was in evening dress, facing the front, with their violins or clarinets or trumpets held out stiffly to the side.
“Yes, I know,” Mr Lynn said. “The BPO posing for Madame Tussaud’s. Rows of stuffed penguins. The conductor comes along with a big key, probably A flat, and winds us all up. Can you see any of them?”
Polly saw Tan Thare almost at once. His face leaped out at her, in spite of an unexpected beard, chubby and carefree and possibly a
little dishonest, from the front row of violins. She stabbed her finger on him, crying out with surprise. “Tan Thare! It really is! I don’t like him in that beard, though.”
“Neither did most of his friends,” said Mr Lynn. “He was held down and forcibly shaved on New Year’s Eve. Anyone else?”
He sounded casual, but Polly could tell it meant a lot to him. She searched the photograph again. Mr Lynn himself came to light among the cellos, although he was not so easy to find. He seemed to have faded away into the rest of the cellists, built into the orchestra like a brick. Tan Hanivar’s long nose and gloomy face ought to be easier to find – and there he was! He was among the violins too, over to the right, behind Tan Thare. The gloomy face had a mop of dark hair above it, more than Polly had imagined, but it was definitely poor, shape-changing Tan Hanivar. Polly pointed. “Tan Hanivar. What’s his real name?”
“Samual Rensky. And Tan Thare is usually known as Edward Davies. Any luck with Tan Audel?” Mr Lynn asked rather tensely.
But Polly still did not know what Tan Audel looked like. She searched and searched the mass of faces. “Sorry,” she said at last. “I just don’t know him.”
“Him?” said Mr Lynn. “Er – have you considered, as a female assistant hero yourself, that Tan Audel might be a woman?” He sounded really nervous about it.
As soon as he said it, Polly knew he was right. “Oh, good heavens!” she said. “I never thought!” Of course Tan Audel was a woman, now she thought. She even knew, dimly, some of the things Tan Audel was famous for. She went back to the photograph, scanning the ladies in dark dresses she had been ignoring up to then, very much ashamed of herself. And there was Tan Audel at last. She was in among the set of those big violins – violas, they were called. “Here,” she said, with her finger under the strong, squarish face with strong, square, black hair. Tan Audel was not pretty. But she looked nice.
Mr Lynn leaped up with a shout. “Ann Abraham! You’ve done it, Polly! You truly did it! I can hardly believe it!” He was so excited that Polly had to pull his sweater to get him to explain why. Then he seemed to think she might find the explanation boring. “It’s like this,” he said, folding himself down onto the hearth rug rather apologetically. “As soon as I joined the BPO, I found I wanted to leave it – not the orchestra’s fault, just my habit of not fitting in very well – and play on my own. But I hadn’t any money, and there’s only a limited amount a lone cellist can do anyway. The best way to do it was to form a group, a quartet or a trio, because there are quite a lot of things four players can do. But of course they have to be known before they can make any money at it. You wouldn’t believe how many good players in the orchestra wouldn’t dream of taking the risk. They thought I was crazy. So did I, to tell the truth. Then you came along and told me about heroes. And then there was the horse, which made me sell a picture, and I thought: Damn it, I can do it! So I talked to some friends and, to cut a long story short, Ed Davies, Sam Rensky, Ann Abraham, and I got together and tried—”
“What went wrong?” Polly asked as Mr Lynn trailed off.
“Nothing at all heroic.” Mr Lynn gave his gulping laugh. “Cold feet. If we want to form a proper quartet, we’re going to have to leave the orchestra and try – but it’s always possible we’ll end up busking in the Underground a year from now. I thought I’d sell another picture.” He pointed. Polly swivelled round to look at the pink-and-blue clown picture leaning against the wall. Her face went hot with guilt and she had to stay turned away when Mr Lynn said, “I thought it must be a reproduction or at least a copy, but it turns out to be a real Picasso.” He added, sounding unhappy, “It’s not money, though. It’s – well, are we good enough to foist ourselves on the public?”
That made Polly turn back. “Granny says the only way to find out is to try,” she said. “I say that too,” she added, thinking about it.
“I know,” Mr Lynn said in his humblest way. “And I hope you’ll forgive me, Polly. Since it started with you in a way, I thought I’d let you decide. If you could find the right heroes in the photograph, I swore we’d go on. If you didn’t, I’d superstitiously decided to scrap the whole idea.”
“You took a risk!” said Polly. She was extremely glad she had not known how much depended on her finding Tan Thare and the others. “Suppose I hadn’t found them? Or what if I did find them, but they weren’t the ones you meant?”
Mr Lynn bowed his head over his big hands and looked ashamed. “I think I’d have approached the ones you chose instead. You have a knack of telling me the right thing.” And at that he sprang up. “Now you deserve a treat. Where would you like to go in London? What shall we do?”
The rest of the day was a great golden excitement to Polly. She had never been anywhere much in London, so it was all new and wonderful to her, whether she was in the horse-car screaming round and round the roundabout in front of Buckingham Palace because Mr Lynn kept missing the road they wanted, or heroically belting along the Embankment, or looking at the Crown Jewels in the Tower, or eating kebab somewhere beyond that. Now Mr Lynn was happy again, they talked and talked the whole time, but Polly only remembered snatches of what they said. She remembered being in front of the Houses of Parliament, eating a hot dog. She looked up at Big Ben and said suddenly, “Tan Coul and the others have to be on a quest for something.”
“Do you insist?” said Mr Lynn.
“Yes,” said Polly. “All the best heroes are.”
“Very well,” said Mr Lynn. “What are we looking for?”
Polly replied promptly, “An Obah Cypt.” But when Mr Lynn questioned her, she had not the least idea what an Obah Cypt could be.
Later they were standing looking at the Thames somewhere while Polly ate a choc-ice – she spent most of the day eating something – and Mr Lynn asked her if she had liked the books he had sent for Christmas.
Polly did her best to be tactful. It was not easy, because the choc-ice had just fallen apart and she was trying to balance a sheet of chocolate on her tongue while she sucked at the dripping ice cream beneath. “King Arthur’s all right,” she said liquidly.
“You don’t like fairy stories. Have you read them?” said Mr Lynn. Polly was forced to shake her head. “Please read them,” said Mr Lynn. “Only thin, weak thinkers despise fairy stories. Each one has a true, strange fact hidden in it, you know, which you can find if you look.”
“A’ ri’,” said Polly over a dissolving handful of white goo and brown flakes.
Later still the horse-car broke down in rush hour when they were racing to catch Polly’s train. Mr Lynn was quite used to this. Shouting that the brute always did it when he was in a hurry, he leaped out and pushed the car at a run onto the nearest pavement. There he first kicked it in the tyre, and then tore open the bonnet and prodded inside with the largest Stow-on-the-Water screwdriver while he called it a number of very insulting names. Then he kicked it again and it started. “The only language it understands,” he said as they roared off again.
They arrived not quite too late for Polly’s train and ran towards the platform among the thousands of other hurrying people. Polly shouted across the hammering of their many feet, “You know, the way you got the car to start is the only peculiar thing that’s happened this time!”
“Beware famous last words!” panted Mr Lynn. “Not true. Think of the way you spotted the heroes.” As they came near the barrier, he stopped almost dead. Polly thought she heard him say, “Famous last words indeed!” She looked round to ask what he meant and saw Mr Leroy coming through the crowds towards them with long, impatient steps.
Mr Leroy was wearing a coat with a fur collar which made him look both rich and important, and he was holding a rolled umbrella out before him, slanted slightly downwards. “I don’t want to hurt you with this, so get out of my way!” the umbrella said, and people obeyed it. With Mr Leroy there was a smaller person in a sheepskin jacket. It took Polly an instant or so to realise that the second person was Seb – Seb about a foot taller t
han when she last saw him. In that instant Mr Leroy’s umbrella had cleared every other person out of the way and he was standing looking at Mr Lynn. “I have you now!” said the look in the dark-pouched eyes, angry, triumphant, and accusing. The things Polly had overheard in Hunsdon House came out from hiding at the side of her mind when she saw that look, and she felt sick.
“Well, fancy meeting you here, Tom!” said Mr Leroy. The friendly surprise did not go with his look at all.
“Hello, Morton,” Mr Lynn said. Polly wondered how he could take it so calmly. “Are you going down to Middleton?”
“No. I’m just putting Seb on the train after his half-term,” Mr Leroy said. “I assume you’re doing the same with—” the dark pouches under his eyes moved as he looked at Polly “—this young lady.”
Polly had an idea that Seb was looking at her too, rather consideringly, but when she tore her eyes away from Mr Leroy to make sure, Seb was staring scornfully at a book stall.
“Yes I am,” said Mr Lynn. “And she’s going to miss the train if she doesn’t go now.”
“Seb can look after her,” said Mr Leroy. “Got your ticket, Seb?”
“Yes,” Seb said.
“Off you both run, then,” said Mr Leroy. “I can see the guard getting ready to signal. Hurry.”
Mr Lynn said, “Bye, Polly. Better run,” and gave her a firm, friendly smile. Seb glanced at the air above Polly, jerked his head to say “Come on” and set off at a trot towards the ticket barrier. There was nothing Polly could do but call “Goodbye!” to Mr Lynn over her shoulder as she ran after Seb. The train really was just about to go.
They caught the train by getting on the nearest end as it started to move. Then they had to walk down it to find seats. Polly expected Seb to lose her at this point, since he had done what his father wanted. But he stuck close behind her the whole way down the crowded train. Polly felt trapped. And she was horribly worried about Mr Lynn. They found two seats facing one another. As Polly squeezed into one and watched Seb sit down opposite her, she was wondering if she would ever see Mr Lynn again.