CHAPTER TWENTY

DAWN CAME SLOWLY, the sad cries of curlews drifting over the sea-flats. Bruised and sore, I forced myself to make a start. I had to work: feed and clean out the chickens, dig, plant, water, gather, store. All the usual chores. I left a bowl of water and soap by the barn, with a towel. But he just drank the water and tried to eat the bar of soap. I saw him spit it out.

I found myself panicking at the thought of losing Barcode too. I took him to the dunes to play with Manga, who had come home sometime during the night. Like Barcode, he needed some proper fun. I heard the boy blowing a blade of grass between his thumbs to make a shrill sound, and watched as Manga jumped at his hands, trying to catch the peculiar noise.

‘Flora Mandela!’ Barcode called, like a parrot. ‘Flora Mandela.’

‘Barcode!’ I called back after a while, ‘Come home and eat.’ I beckoned him back to Shell Shack where I had rice cakes baking. He sniffed the air like a dog. I held one out to him. He snatched it from my fingers and dropped it, shaking his hand and gazing at it in astonishment. He had never had hot food. I picked up the rice cake and blew on it to cool it. He took it again and bit into it, his face blossoming into a beatific smile. I showed him that there were more. He snatched one and ran.

Perhaps I could teach Barcode Nort, teach him to read. I could raise him, he could help with the farm. I’d hide him from the Uzis. That’s what I wanted to believe was possible. Yet I was aware that all this thought of a normal life was foolishness. When and if the revolution began, and the idea still sounded utterly ridiculous in my head, there would be injuries, deaths. The Uzi soldiers weren’t going to lie down and give up their arms, just like that. The fighting might go on for months. Years.

Still no Kit. What was he up to? During the night I had had visions of him turning up at The Hall and gunning Yo-yo down. I walked to the yurt, anxious about what I might find. It was empty. At least there were no dead duck or pheasants hanging from the roof to condemn Kit as a thief.

But where was he? I had a wild thought that he might have run away to join the revolutionaries. Perhaps he knew who Rosa Dov was. Perhaps I’d given him all the information he needed to go and join up. Join the Cause.

I knew what I knew. But it was all so hard to understand. As I walked back across the narrowest part of the Spit I took in the loveliness of the place. The barren beauty of the sand-dunes and sea-fields, the wind flowing through the yellow grass. The big sky. As Nano had so often said, I was fortunate that this was the place of my birth. Why rock the boat? I wondered whether that had been my mother’s response to Rosa’s pleas for help.

When a few days later Kit came back to Shell Shack, he looked bashful.  I hugged him and he handed me a bunch of daisies, a basket of blackberries – and the book!

‘Where have you been? Thought you’d given up on me.’ I unwrapped the precious book from its sandy plastic bag and wiped it clean. I put the flowers in a cola of water.

‘I needed to talk to people, to find out more about things. We can’t know what we now know and do nothing, Flora.’

I nodded.

‘So that’s what I’ve been up to. For now it’s best we bide our time.’

The look in his eye told me that he wasn’t ready to explain. I changed the subject.

‘The book – why did you take it away? If you’d been caught with it, as well as the pheasants…’

‘After Li-li… after we’d split up, I thought Li-li might use it as evidence to get you into trouble one day.’

It was the first time Li-li’s name had been raised in a while, and it was almost a relief to remember that not just me, but both of us had been seduced by glamour. Led into temptation. And instead of something that would come between us and destroy our friendship, I suddenly saw it as something shared that might even strengthen our bond.

‘I’m sorry,’ Kit said. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said about the invasion and the revolution and all that. I did know a bit about it, from Dad. I never knew whether he was talking sense or not. It looks like Nortland is in trouble, Flora.’

We sat and ate the blackberries that he had brought. Barcode appeared but darted behind the big barn when he saw that Kit was there.

‘That kid’ll get shot.’ He sighed.

‘Not if no one tells the Uzis.’

‘Someone’s bound to see him and tell.’

‘He’s stayed safe this long,’ I could see Barcode peeking around the corner of the barn. ‘Kit, he practically carried me home after Yo-yo… He looked after me. He’s a good little lad, really he is.’

Kit shook his head.

‘Barcode – come here, come on,’ I called. Barcode didn’t approach us, but he hung around, blowing through his grass and making a crude music with it, before running away into the dunes.

Kit turned and looked at me. ‘I think I ought to move in with you for the time being, in case he comes back.’

‘I’ve told you, he’s harmless.’

‘No. In case Yo-yo comes back.’

Yo-yo? I felt cold at the thought.‘ Kit, that would be wonderful. You can even bring your ferret.’

He looked at me with his crooked grin. ‘It’s a deal, then.’ We hugged. ‘I’ll go and get some stuff – I don’t have much.’

Kit was gone no more than an hour, returning with a bundle of belongings which he stowed under Nano and Grandpa Noah’s bed. The ferret belted around the place, delighted to be back. Manga wasn’t too happy, though. He turned his back on the room, curled up in his basket.

‘Actually,’ said Kit after a while, ‘even I can smell her. I’ll put the ferret in the shed for now.’

I wasn’t sorry. Just a few minutes in the creature’s presence made me nauseated.

Kit and I made a good team. We worked well together. As the days passed it dawned on me that I was happy for the first time in months. Every so often, something would remind me of the uncertainty of our existence and my insides would clench, but by keeping busy I held worry at bay. Kit took his turn cooking and although I found some of the consequences of his poaching hard to stomach, he made the most wonderful broth from the meat stock, which soothed my nervous stomach.

We were together in the orchard, painting the tree trunks with a tarry liquid to stop the ants climbing up and burrowing into the fruit, when I saw a figure stumbling across the water meadows. The wind blew my hair into my eyes and at first I couldn’t make out who it was. Then I recognised her. I ran to her.

‘Annie! What’s happened?’

‘Thrown out.’ She was panting, bent double.

‘By the Laos? Why?’

‘Can’t you guess?’ As she straightened up, she gestured to her plump belly.

I didn’t know what to say. ‘Was it… an Uzi soldier?’

‘No! Who knows! Probably the son. Maybe the father.’

I couldn’t take it in.

‘And my mother’s thrown me out too.’ Annie sank to her knees in despair.

‘Come on inside, Annie. You look done in.’

As I helped her to her feet, I noticed that her face was bruised. I called to Kit to carry on with what he was doing while we went indoors. I didn’t want him reacting to more grim details about the way the Laos treated people.

By the range, with a cup of mint tea in her hands, Annie recovered herself a little.

‘I know how you were soft on the son,’ she said. ‘Even the father was nice to me at first. When I told them I was pregnant, Lord Lousy made me give back the uniform and told me to get out.’

I bathed her eye with witch-hazel.

‘Did he hit you?’

‘No, that was Ma.’

‘The Laos…’ I trailed off. The memory returned of a dishevelled Yo-yo, his shirt unbuttoned. It was clear to me now. I had interrupted them. And then I remembered the baby her mother had lost recently, and thought how terrible Annie must feel, carrying a child that no one wanted.

‘You can stay here if you like,’ I said.

‘Thanks. Tonight would be good. While I think what to do.’ She was still breathless.

‘You don’t mind sharing with me?’ I asked.

She looked surprised. I suppose she assumed that Kit and I were sleeping together.

Annie spent half the night throwing up in the crap-shack. Next morning, she sat pale and wan across the table from me. Kit was already working outside.

‘Have an apple. It’s the only thing that’ll do when you’ve been sick,’ I said to her.

‘I tried to get rid of it, but it won’t go. Stubborn little beggar.’

I winced. ‘How many months gone are you?’

‘Dunno. Five?’

Too late for a termination, even with the dees for that.

‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

‘Tell you what?’ Annie laughed humourlessly. ‘That they used me and threw me away when I was no more use to them? We’re all in the same boat here, aren’t we? Eden Spit trav attractions.’

‘What do you mean?’ I was rattled by her odd turn of phrase.

‘Eden Council had a meeting at The Hall not so long ago. I was serving. They talked about us on the Spit as if we weren’t real people. In the trav leaflet we’re described as “relics” and “colourful local characters”. Tame povs, that’s what we are, Flora. Our shacks, MacFarm, your orchard and veggie plot, Kit’s yurt – they’re only allowed to be there for the sake of privs and travs who want to experience how World used to be. We’re part of a “living museum”. People keep their heads down and their mouths shut if they know what’s good for them.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ I whispered.

‘And now the travs are staying away. You don’t get them lining up to take a digigraph like they used to. Flora Mandela, you always were a dreamer. Wise up.’

‘Where is this trav leaflet then?’ I asked.

‘They’re at The Hall, just lying around. I’m surprised you never saw one. It has a map of Eden Spit showing Shell Shack, Kit’s yurt, MacFarm and the Bartermart and the coastguard station, all with star ratings. Even our place. Shell Shack was top attraction, but with the sculptures gone, you’ll lose your ranking. Your orchard gets a special mention – the oranges are a rare type.’ Annie’s voice rose. ‘Can’t you see, we’re only here so that we can be gawped at.’

Surely Nano would have told me, I thought.

‘Flora, we are prisoners as much as the rice workers are. Can’t leave the Spit, can we? Can’t even go to Spitsea, we have to sell everything at the Bartermart. Remember the travs coming there to watch us trade? We might as well be in a cage.’

I shuddered. I needed time to think about what she’d said. I changed the subject. ‘What will you do now, Annie? What about the baby?’

‘Dunno. There’s a soldier sweet on me. Maybe he’ll think it’s his. Look, I’d better go. Ma will have calmed down by now. Thanks for letting me stay.’

At the door Annie gave me a quick hug and set off into the soft rain.

Nothing was as it seemed any more. My life was no longer simple. It was almost as if my life wasn’t, in fact, mine.

A large V of pelicans split the sky like a tick sign, like the signature on the letters in the chest.