As the night draws out, the crowd of people at the pub begins to thin and the fiddler stops playing so I can finally stop shouting. Lake’s father sits in an old threadbare armchair slumped forward, still clutching a mug in his right hand, but the contents have spilled out down his trousers. Lake takes his shoulder and shakes it roughly but the old man doesn’t respond.
“I need to get him home,” Lake says to Adelaide.
“Sure, I’ll help you carry him.”
Between them the two men hoist the unconscious body up onto their shoulders, leaving his feet to drag along the ground between them. I rush ahead to open the door leading back out into the cold night air. The two men struggle to carry their unconscious package, needing to stop frequently to change position or get a better grip. I thought the cold air might sober him up a bit, but he remains as limp as a rabbit hanging in the butcher’s window.
“We’ll just take him to mine,” Adelaide suggests, gesturing towards the house on the opposite side of the street only a few houses up. “At least we won’t have to take him upstairs.”
Lake nods in agreement and they head across the road. I look up and down the street; there are no food stalls at this time of night, just the last few figures weaving their way home after drinking to their health and everyone else’s too apparently.
“Take the key,” Adelaide calls and I realise that he’s talking to me.
I take the key from his hand and insert it into the stained brass lock on the front door. I try to turn it first one way and then the other, but it doesn’t give.
“Put some muscle into it,” Adelaide pipes up from behind me.
Putting both hands on the key I twist with all my strength and to my surprise the lock gives and the door swings open with me still holding the key. I hear Lake sniggering behind me as I gather myself back up. I’m starting to think that even though I could only manage to drink two mugs of the filthy brown liquid, they’ve been enough.
The two men drop Lake’s father onto a sofa pulled up close to an empty hearth, with not much care.
“Thanks for that. I think I’d have just given up and left him in the street,” Lake says with a laugh, stretching his arms. “We should be getting back, just send him home in the morning.”
“No,” Adelaide replies, suddenly less jovial than before. He’s let the fake smile fall from his face. “You’re not leaving yet,” he says, rushing over to the door and slamming it closed.
Panic rises within me when I realise that no-one knows where we are and we’ve no idea who this man is. Lake lunges at him but he anticipates it and grabs hold of him with both arms. As they fall to the floor Adelaide’s jacket is pulled back revealing something that takes all the air out of me.
An official’s badge.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I hear a commotion above me and then the sound of feet thundering down the stairs. Reaching towards the hearth I wrap my fingers around the smooth cold end of a fire poker as the door opens. Wielding it in front of me, I’m met not by a group of officials who’ve been lying in wait for us, but instead a young woman in a dressing gown flanked by two small children appears. She lets out a short, sharp scream when she sees me and protectively pulls her children back towards her. I lower the poker and let it drop from my fingers, feeling foolish. Lake has managed to wriggle free from Adelaide’s grip, but Adelaide is still standing in front of the door, trying to get his breath back.
“What I meant was that I need to talk to you about something in private,” Adelaide pants. “So it’s a good job you haven’t made any noise or you’ll wake my wife,” he hisses through gritted teeth.
Lake and I look at each other in astonishment, and I’m about to point out that I saw his official’s badge when the woman breaks the silence.
“No, Ade, you said you wouldn’t,” she says in a shaky voice. “It’s too dangerous. You have children to think of,” she gasps, beginning to weep.
“To bed, woman.” Adelaide replies firmly but not unkindly.
“What about James? He was running his mouth in the pub about the food deliveries not arriving and how it’s all a way to keep us subservient. He went missing. We’ll all go missing,” she shouts, busting into long shaky sobs.
“GO.” Adelaide shouts at her, whilst looking at me, and reluctantly she leads the children back upstairs.
He twists his fingers in his hands nervously before beginning to talk in such a low voice I have to lean in closer to hear. “In my years as an official I’ve risen through the ranks to become a highly trusted colleague to other officials and governors alike,” he begins, walking over to the window and looking through the net curtains out into the street. “I’ve been privy to many private conversations and on the other side of numerous locked doors.” He inhales deeply and then lets it out slowly, like he’s considering what to say next or whether to say it at all. “I’ve watched this place become hell’s mirror image and it’s only gonna get worse. It’s right what they’re whispering in the shadows; this compound’s a population experiment that will only end in one way.”
“With us all dead,” I interrupt. “I’ve read about the mouse experiment that the compound’s based on, but we’re not mice!”
“You don’t look so far removed to me, skulking in the shadows. This is not a game of cat and mouse; you can’t outsmart them. This whole compound is a crucible that’s going to get hotter and hotter and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Then maybe that’s the difference between us and mice. I know that there’s something beyond those walls and if we’re gonna die anyway then what do we have to lose?”
Adelaide pauses before beginning to speak in an unnaturally serene voice, like the calm before the storm. “I didn’t say you were going to die, you did. The chances are that as long as you don’t have children and stay away from anything controversial, you can make a reasonable age.”
“MAKE A REASONABLE AGE?” I scream at him. “I don’t want to survive, I want to live! There’s nothing worth living for here, and I’d rather die trying to live, than live just trying not to die.” I’m out of breath and my hands have clenched into fists by my side.
“What did you want to talk to us for, just to say ‘don’t, it’s futile’?” Lake asks.
“No, I wanted to make sure that you knew what you were getting yourselves into as you’re barely out of your childhood years. I didn’t want to push you.”
“What?” Lake interrupts. “Will you just say what you goddamned mean already!”
“What I’m trying to say is that although the odds are stacked against you massively, there isn’t an alternative.” Adelaide turns to look at me, his eyes shining bright with tears. “You’re right, this isn’t living.”
I touch his sleeve with my hand. “Then you’ll help us?” I ask tentatively.
“Yes,” he whispers.
Adelaide walks over to the armchair next to the sofa and falls heavily into it, as if the magnitude of what he’s just offered to do has overwhelmed him. I take a seat at the end of the sofa where Lake’s father’s feet are laid and Lake hovers behind the sofa.
“Aren’t you worried about your wife and children?” I ask, thinking about her outburst.
He nods gravely. “Yes, I’m going to send them to stay at her sister’s. It will be too dangerous to stay here.”
I open my mouth to offer some sympathetic words when Lake’s father groans unexpectedly and changes position. I close my mouth immediately and stand up.
“It’s okay. He already knows all about what you’ve been doing, and I know he doesn’t show, it but he’s proud of you,” Adelaide says looking at Lake.
“How do you know him?” Lake asks suspiciously.
Adelaide smiles. “I met him in the pub and bought him some beers.”
“Why?” Lake peruses.
“Because I knew he was your father, and I also knew that where I found you I’d find her. Don’t you think that officials have been given detailed brief
s about all of you?”
“How do we know that you’re not just trying to get us to reveal what we plan to do so you can prevent it?” I ask.
He thinks for a moment before replying carefully. “You don’t,” and he doesn’t elaborate on it any further.
After a few moments’ consideration, Lake and I seem to come to the silent agreement that we will trust him with our plan to get inside the governor’s building, not least of all because we hope he will be able to offer some advice on how to do it. We spend the next hour telling him what we know about the compound and my mother’s key. We even reveal that we have a map because, even if the officials knew we had them, I can’t see how that would stop us from using them. Adelaide’s also being careful about what he’s saying until mid yawn I hear him say something very interesting and close my mouth immediately.
“I can’t make any promises but the official in charge of security at the governor’s building is an old friend of mine. I’ll see if I can have a word with him.”
My mouth almost drops back open in shock. Only hours earlier we didn’t know where we’d stay tonight, and now we’ve befriended someone that knows the official who stands guard. I feel weary; it’s all gone so well that I can’t shake the feeling that this isn’t a coincidence.
“Like I said though, no promises. I haven’t spoken to him in a while and I’m not sure where he stands on these issues,” Adelaide adds.
“Any help would be greatly appreciated,” Lake replies, drifting towards the door. Our talk has come to an end and a plan has been formulated. “And stay safe,” Lake says as he opens the door.
“Same to the both of you,” he replies cheerily with a wave.
“And send that layabout home when he wakes,” Lake calls over his shoulder with a laugh.
I hear Adelaide snort in amusement, then the door close behind us. Lake takes my hand and smiles widely at me.
“Not bad for an evening’s work,” he says with a mischievous sparkle in his eye.
“Don’t you think that it was, well, too easy?” I ask, concerned.
“It’s about time something went our way,” he replies, grabbing my other hand and spinning me around.
I feel a bit queasy now the alcohol’s wearing off, but Lake’s moods are infectious and soon I’m grinning from ear-to-ear as we walk home, swinging our joined hands like we’re a normal couple.
The house is completely dark when we arrive, and a quick test of the door handle reveals that it’s locked. Like a burglar Lake walks around the property, looking it up and down until he spots a window on the second floor that’s been left ajar. He nimbly scales the fence dividing this house from the next, and from there he pulls himself up so that he’s crouched on the window sill. I watch as he reaches his hand through the open window and releases the catch so that he’s able to pull it wide open and slither inside.
Waiting at the window, Lake doesn’t reemerge; instead I hear footsteps coming down the stairs so walk back to the front of the house where I find him already stood with the door open for me.
“What, you mean I don’t get a go at the window?” I joke with a wink.
He doesn’t answer my question; instead he fakes a thoughtful pose. “I’ve never seen anyone end up on their knees opening a door before tonight.”
I punch him playfully in the arm but he catches my hand and leads me upstairs.
***
I squint when I open my eyes, seeing the weak sun shining high in the sky through the small dirty window above the bed. It must be late in the day, I think to myself. Turning over, I watch Lake sleeping; his breathing is slow and rhythmic and I can see blue veins in his eyelids. His dull blond hair is spread across the dirty pillow like a halo.
BANG, BANG, BANG.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The noise comes from downstairs; someone is thumping the front door. It’s probably the same noise that woke me up. I listen for Mrs Ford or Lake’s father’s voice, but I don’t hear anything until to banging comes again.
BANG, BANG, BANG.
This time Lake wakes with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed and looking around wildly.
“There’s someone banging on the door,” I say, second-guessing what he’s thinking.
He grunts as he swings his legs out of bed and staggers over to a cheap plywood wardrobe with one door missing. Reaching inside he retrieves what look like a cleaner pair of black jeans but sporting almost as many holes as his other pair.
BANG, BANG, BANG.
“COMING,” Lake yells angrily as he shuffles out of the room without putting on a t-shirt on.
I listen as he slinks down the stairs and hear the front door open. A conversation takes place but it’s muffled by the door to the stairs which I presume has swung closed. Rummaging around on the floor for my trousers, I find them in a heap under the bed. They had a ripped hole in the knee before, but now they’re filthy as well, and smell worse than the pub did last night. My gaze lands on the wardrobe and I wonder if any of Lake or Redd’s clothes will be small enough to fit me. I pull out a faded pair of pale blue jeans, not too dissimilar to my own, and slipping them on I’m surprised to find that not only do they fit, but they’re a bit tight if anything. I put it down to the fact that I’m a woman and therefore I have hips, and pull out a faded black t-shirt with a skull and crossbones on the front which I’m pleased to find hangs off me.
I can’t hear shouting anymore, but there’s a lively conversation taking place and my curiosity gets the better of me. I creep out into the landing and begin to make my way downstairs. As I reach the bottom of the stairs I find the door hasn’t closed completely and see Adelaide standing in the centre of the kitchen looking worse for wear.
“So what time does Patryk leave?” Lake asks as I push the door open into the kitchen.
“Eight at night ‘cause his shift starts at eight-thirty,” Adelaide says, turning around to greet me with a smile. “I told him you’d be there by seven, which gives you an hour to discuss what you need to,” he says to Lake, who nods to show that he understands.
“Are you going to be there?” Lake asks.
“No,” Adelaide replies after a moment’s thought. “You don’t need me there, and I need to help my wife and kids move.”
Lake nods again and Adelaide makes his way back towards the front door. He glances back at us with his thin lips pressed firmly together and then disappears from view.
“Who’s Patryk and why’s Adelaide here at this time?” I ask when I think he’s out of earshot.
“After we left last night Adelaide says that he couldn’t sleep, so he waited until his friend Patryk finished his night shift and went around to his house,” Lake explains.
“The security guy?” I ask, surprised.
“Yeah, he told him about what we’re trying to do and that we need to get into the governor’s building and he agreed to help.”
“This is all happening so fast,” I say, taking his hand to help calm my nerves. “So why are we going around tonight?”
“Just to talk to him about the security in place there I think.”
Click.
I look at the door just in time to see the handle turning. The door swings open with the sound of rustling bags as Mrs Ford barges her way through the door. Stepping forward I take some of the bags off her.
“Oh, you’re up at last, are ya?” she bellows in a loud but musical voice.
“Have you seen my father?” Lake asks, sidestepping the fact that we’ve only just got up.
“No, he probably went straight to the pub,” she answers, busy unpacking her bags.
“Okay, thanks.” Lake replies, walking back towards the stairs.
“Have you had breakfast?” she asks after a thoughtful pause.
We shake our heads in synchrony and I see creases appear next to Lake’s eyes as he tries to keep a straight face.
“Oh, well you’d better sit down then.”
We sit in silence, half because we don’t
want to talk too freely in front of Mrs Ford and partly, I suspect, because we’re both thinking about this evening. Every time we meet somebody new it feels like a huge risk, but it’s one we both know that we have to take. I watch as Mrs Ford empties out a brown paper bag of assorted mushrooms and begins chopping.
“I could do that if it’d help?” I ask.
She doesn’t exactly jump at the offer but lays down the cleaver and starts rummaging through one of the cupboards instead. I walk into the kitchen and pick up the cleaver. The mushrooms are all sorts of shapes and colours that I haven’t seen before. I’m not sure how thinly she wants them chopping but think better of asking and just go ahead and chop them roughly. When I’m done she leans over and takes the chopping board from me, scraping the mushrooms into a hot frying pan with a thick layer of melted butter at the bottom which spits and hisses.
“Is there anything else I can do?” I ask, not feeling that I’ve been a great help as of yet.
“You can butter the toast,” she says, pointing at the bread stacked on the back of the Aga that she’s been occasionally turning.
I look around the kitchen for the butter and spot it on the kitchen table already with a knife sticking out of it. Gathering up the hot toast onto another board I make my way back to the kitchen table – out of the way – and Mrs Ford soon follows with three plates.
“Put two pieces on each plate and I’ll bring the mushrooms over,” she instructs.
There are enough mushrooms to cover almost all of the toast and it smells heavenly. She reminds me of my mother, who could make the most wonderful meals out of things that others considered only good for the bin.
“Thank you,” I say, lifting up my first slice.
“You only have to thank me for half,” she replies. “You did the other half.”
I know exactly what Lake meant now when we first met her. Yes, she’s quite harsh and scary, but there’s not a mean bone in her body. I should’ve known from the way that she puts up with Lake’s father, although I bet she puts him in his place, I think smiling to myself.
***
We spend the hours until seven downstairs in Mrs Ford’s apartment. She doesn’t seem to think that it’s strange and I suppose that’s because she’s often had to look after Lake and Redd when their father has been incapable or unwilling to look after them himself. In my mind’s eye I see Lake sat upon the kitchen table as she tends to the young boys’ wounds after coming up against his father’s drunken rage. I can imagine them falling asleep on her sofa, top and tail whilst she watches TV at night, covering them with a blanket and sleeping in her chair to watch over them.