5
The Night (II)

Scritch, scritch, scratch!

Pip was woken by a scratching sound in the deep heat of the night. He didn’t know where he was and the room was black as pitch. He thought about going into his parents’ room opposite. He knew that his mother would half open one eye, pull him under the blankets and nuzzle him against the warmth of her body. He’d wake in the morning and his father would pretend that he’d discovered a baby bear in the bed – he’d grab Pip and they would play-fight until Mama said he’d be late for school.

Then, to his dismay, Pip recalled that his parents were lying dead in the cold ground. With a feeling of overwhelming loneliness, he remembered that he was in the dormitory of the St Joseph Poor Boys’ Orphanage. The scratching sound must be another boy in the darkness beyond.

But that wasn’t right either. There had been a long, long journey in a truck and now he was lying . . . where? In a bed made of wooden palletes and straw above a disused stable. There had been a huge woman who had stroked his shoulder; a beautiful silent Indian girl; and a giant of a man who hated him with a fierce violence, although he had never once set eyes upon him.

Pip sat up in bed. He heard a faint drone of engines and a cold slab of light leaped onto the ceiling. The light multiplied and a kaleidoscope of geometrical lights danced about the room.

The engines grew louder, and it became clear to Pip that the lights were the headlights of many approaching vehicles. Then the sound seemed so near, he feared they would enter the room.

Pip dived beneath his blanket and squeezed his palms tightly to his ears. It seemed a long time before the sound subsided and the vehicles passed the farmyard and continued uphill into the fields.

And all that remained was the scratching – scritch, scritch, scratch! – of rats in the stable below.