Ma’s lying on the couch with a wet towel draped over her face and her hair sprawled out over the side. After we dragged it to the middle of the backyard, Ma wiped it down and then stood there for ages looking at it and saying over and over, ‘Not a thing wrong with that,’ even though it’s pretty ripped in places.
I’m watching her and thinking of the shadow in the basement. And the coins disappearing. But I can’t do anything till Ma goes out. And I don’t think she’s going to move for a while.
I’m going up to the Silo roof to make sure the Authorities are definitely gone.
I tiptoe back through the kitchen and past the stairs, and then I run into the basement real quick to see if I can catch the shadow. I don’t see anything, though. I’m not surprised. There are loads of pillars and corners in here. Plenty of ways for shadows to mix.
I turn back and run up the stairs, up, up, up, all the way to the sixth floor. At the top of the stairway, I sprint through a door and then I’m outside and I’m running across the sky-bridge. It goes right out over nothing, like running through the sky. It’s got loads of holes but they’re real small so you can’t fall through. And way down below me is Ma lying on the couch with a towel over her face.
I get to the ladder, and climb up the Silo as fast as I can go, which is real fast cos I do it every day. When I get to the top, I run straight to the side where we were begging. I look down to the street. The Yellow Jackets are gone. I look left and right but I can’t see them. Just people walking between the offices and apartment blocks and coffee shops.
I head for the other side of the roof, but there are no Yellow Jackets on the bridge neither. I look down the canal, along the streets and paths on the other side, till I can’t hardly make out one building from another. Except for the spires of the churches and cathedrals. They’re real easy to see.
The Authorities are gone. We’re safe.
I lean against the wall and breathe out heavy. I didn’t even realize I was holding my breath.
There are clouds coming in from the sea. They’re piling up over the city but you can see the places where the sun gets through the holes in the clouds. The rays reach down through the sky and touch the buildings below, like the fingers of the giant in the basement, searching for the souls of dead people to take them up, out of this world.
The river cuts right through the city. It comes from the mountains. Usually you can see the mountains real clear, but today is so sunny that you can’t hardly see them cos the air’s all wavy.
That’s where Ma says Care is. Out in the mountains. Care is the place where the Authorities take you. They lock you up and you can never see your ma again.
But it’s where the enchanted forest is too. Cos enchanted forests are always in the mountains.
I like being up here. There’s one church that’s two streets away. It has a clock and a bell and a skinny steeple, and it strikes one dong for every quarter hour. Four dongs means it’s a new hour. And at noon it just goes mental.
My favourite thing to do on the roof is snoop on people. There’s this one woman that wears a red coat. Every morning, when the clock on the church is at around 8.40, I spot her way off down the streets. She’s walking by the canal with this guy that’s probably her husband or boyfriend. They look real funny cos she’s tall and he’s small. But they’re always talking when they’re walking, all the way up the canal. I don’t think they ever run out of things to say to each other.
At around 8.50 they cross the bridge. When they reach this side of the canal I lose them cos the mill is in the way, but I know they come down off the bridge and walk along the street by our basement, right past the place where old man Caretaker sleeps.
Ma calls him Caretaker cos he always sleeps in the same spot, in a sheltered little area that’s covered by a tin roof, between the outside wall of the mill and the street. Him being there all the time makes it seem like Caretaker’s guarding the mill.
It doesn’t even have four walls cos on the right the ground rises up slowly like a ramp till it reaches street level. It’s where the carts used to drive down and load up, years and years ago, when the mill was still working.
There’s a window in our basement that peeks into his shelter. It used to be boarded up but I pulled the top two boards away. On that side of the mill the basement is lower than the street so when you crouch on the ledge, all you can see of people above is their feet.
Sometimes I climb out and sit with him. It’s not really outside, though, cos if I sit in the right place, people on the street above can’t see me.
Caretaker’s weird. He likes blankets and books and tins of sardines. And he never ever, washes. Ever.
After Red Coat and Short Guy have passed Caretaker, they get to the corner of the mill. That’s where I see them again. They cross the road at the traffic lights and Short Guy kisses Red Coat. Then he walks straight on, towards the church, and I don’t see him any more. But she turns and walks down the street beneath me and goes into one of the office buildings. I don’t know where she goes after that cos she doesn’t have a desk by a window.
But every day after 1.00 she comes out of the building and walks up the street and picks a coffee shop. She buys two coffees and two sandwiches and sits outside. On Fridays, she buys a muffin too.
Ten minutes later Short Guy turns up. He looks outside every coffee shop till he finds her. And when he does, he makes this face like he’s so surprised she picked the one she did. And she laughs.
Every day she laughs.
And for the next forty minutes they talk between mouthfuls of sandwiches and coffee. And on Fridays, they share the muffin. But he only takes a little and then gives her the rest of his share.
I think he must have a real interesting job. Maybe he’s the cleaner in the church and he snoops outside the confession box. Cos he always has a story to tell her and she always laughs.
At 1.55 they get up. He goes back towards the church and she goes back to her office. The next time I see her is after 5.00, when she leaves and walks down the road. She waits at the traffic lights till Short Guy arrives. And they kiss. Then they cross the street and walk right past the mill and Caretaker, then over the bridge and along by the canal, chatting, chatting, chatting, till the buildings and the traffic and the people swallow them up.
Sometimes they stop on the bridge and look down the canal. Sometimes they buy bread from a bakery and feed the swans. Sometimes they sit at a table outside a bar by the canal and drink wine. But never once in the last year and eight months have they stopped and looked up here. Never once have they noticed me. Or the mill. No one ever does.
Except for those men in the yellow jackets earlier. They noticed the mill.
It’s weird cos I know I used to live down there, out on the streets, but even if I look all day, every day, I never see anything I recognize. But I remember it all. The alleyways and the doorways and the cans and the fighting and the shouting and the hiding and the hunger and the cold and the dark and the scary nights.
But it didn’t start off like that. It used to be real good. Before it went real bad.