45
Flight of the Hypnotist

High above Dead River, angry clouds assembled like a mob for a lynching. The air was dense with electricity.

Pip kept his promise. Early that Sunday morning, he and Hannah walked across the track to wait with Jack for the taxi.

They got a shock when they saw him. Jack was sitting on the deck of the bungalow, one hand stretched out to hold the tabletop, gazing into space like a sightless old man.

‘Ah now, it’s my favourite people,’ he said when he heard them coming.

Pip rushed to his side. ‘Jack, what’s wrong? Why ain’t you looking at us?’

‘Well, it’s true, Pip, the old peepers are playing up a bit. It’s not something I talk about, but I’ve had a few problems with my eyesight over the years and now they’ve gone a bit wonky. It’ll sort itself out, I’m sure, so there’s no need to worry.’

‘I am worried, Jack. I think we need to call a doctor—’

‘Pip, any minute now the taxi will be arriving. I’m going home, old fellow. But if it hasn’t settled by the time I get to Dublin, I’ll see someone about it – although perhaps that’s not the best expression!’

Pip waved his hand from side to side in front of Jack’s face, but there was no reaction. He noticed another odd thing: in spite of the oppressive heat, Jack had a scarf wrapped around his throat.

‘Hannah,’ Jack was saying. ‘Where are you, darling girl? We haven’t got long and there’s something very important I need to say to you. Will you sit beside me for a while? And perhaps Pip would be kind enough to carry my bags down the steps.’

Pip began the task of hauling the heavy luggage to the side of the track. As he laboured, he watched Hannah and Jack side by side on the swing seat, Jack talking earnestly to Hannah in a quiet voice, and Hannah holding his hand and nodding from time to time.

After a while the cab approached in a cloud of dust, and when the driver got out, Pip heaved the bags into the trunk. The driver ignored Pip as if he were an invisible houseboy, but he called up to Jack in a friendly way, ‘Headin’ fer th’ airport, sir? There’s one helluva storm headin’ our way!’

With Hannah’s help, Jack rose slowly to his feet. And just as the man had said, there was a rumble of distant thunder over the mauve mountains and jagged lightning slashed at the sky.

Carefully Jack locked the bungalow and tucked the keys under the mat. He climbed slowly down from the deck, toes searching for each step, leaning on Hannah’s arm all the while. He reached out for Pip and an expression of contempt spread across the driver’s face as the Black boy and the White man embraced each other. Then the man’s expression changed to utter astonishment as Jack kissed Pip tenderly on each cheek and wiped a tear which tumbled from the boy’s eye.

‘I’ll be away now, Pip. But you’ll come and see me with Hannah, won’t you, old fellow? Ireland is a beautiful place – perhaps I’ll move out to Kerry . . . the mountains and the sea . . . Ah, you should see it, Pip! So very blue, so very green, it is . . .’

What Pip wanted to say was that he felt the same love for this man as he had for his own father, but the words would not come. Instead he guided Jack silently towards the taxi and helped him into his seat.

‘Promise you’ll never forget; your names are linked – Pip and Hannah . . . palindromes, see.’

‘Same forward an’ backward, Jack!’

‘That’s right, Hannah. The same forward and backward. You look after each other, you two. Do you hear me, now?’

In the back seat of the cab, Jack wound down the window and raised his arm in a wave. One last time Pip had the sensation of falling into the wise eyes of Dr Morrow, where, just for a second, the mists of the Kerry moors seemed to swirl.

Hannah took Pip’s hand as the taxi bumped away along the dirt track, and the whole world trembled with the approaching storm. They watched until the cab turned onto the main street by the poplar trees. And as the dust settled, it was lost from view.

Pip wandered sadly into the farmhouse, but just as he was about to fetch water for Lilybelle’s wash, he heard a sound he had never heard before: instead of the familiar teasing tinkle, Lilybelle was clanging her handbell frantically. Pip snapped out of his reverie and raced along the corridor. He burst into the bedroom where he found Lilybelle sitting upright at the end of her bed. She seemed deeply distressed, with one hand over her mouth and the other pointing at a news item on the TV.

‘Pip! Pip! Come an’ watch. Thar’s been a terrible incident in Birmingham . . . Jes’ terrible, Pip . . .’

Pip rushed to her side. He saw an agitated reporter holding a microphone beside a pile of rubble at the back of a large modern church. The man was trying to make himself heard above the din of sirens and yelling reporters and wailing women dressed in their Sunday best.

As Pip watched the appalling sight of bodies being removed on stretchers, the reporter was saying, ‘I’m standing by the sixteenth Street Baptist Church here in Birmingham, Alabama. As you can see, there is absolute chaos here . . . It’s a truly dreadful sight. Details are emerging as I speak, but it seems that in the early hours of this morning, 15th September 1963, persons unknown have planted dynamite and, I guess, a time-delay system, beneath the steps of this famous African-American church. As you may know, this church is used as a meeting place for civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King himself, although we believe that Dr King was not present today. I repeat, Dr King was not present at the time of the explosion . . .’

The man spoke urgently into his microphone as firefighters hosed the smouldering debris behind him. ‘Now, the information we are receiving is that at 10.22 this morning, twenty-six children were preparing for a sermon when the dynamite exploded . . . A lady has just told me that the title of this morning’s sermon was “The Love That Forgives” . . .’

Tears were streaming down Lilybelle’s face as the report continued, ‘Tragically I can now confirm that four little Black girls aged between eleven and fourteen have lost their lives . . .’ Visibly moved, the reporter consulted a piece of paper in his hand. ‘The names of those children are Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley. Police have confirmed that a further twenty-two people have been seriously injured in the blast. As you can seen behind me, every window in this church has been blown out by the explosion . . . except one – a stained glass showing Christ leading a group of little children . . .

‘You will understand that investigations are at an early stage, but I think we have a pretty good idea of who is behind this brutal attack – as regular viewers to this station will know, we have witnessed more than fifty terrorist bombings against Coloured people in this city, which have all been linked to the Invisible Army of the Ku Klux Klan. We must conclude that the Klan are the main suspects, but this crime against innocent children attending Sunday school has hit a new low. As I speak, rioting is spreading through the city, and two more Black children . . . I repeat, two more Black children have been killed, one at the hands of a police officer . . .’

All day Pip went sorrowfully about his tasks in the ever-building heat. There was plenty to do – Zachery had told him to board up windows and secure anything that might be damaged by the storm. As he worked, Pip tried to divert his mind from the tragic events in Birmingham and the sad memory of Jack’s departure by focusing on the plans that he and Hannah had made. Before the week was out they would pack their few belongings, collect Pip’s money from its hiding place in the secret valley and walk away for ever.

By the time Pip had kissed Hannah goodnight and climbed the ladder to his bed, a howling wind was raging. In the yard, ghostly doors were banging, and in spite of Pip’s efforts, objects raced about as if they had a life of their own. Throughout the rackety night the storm rumbled closer, so Pip did not hear Erwin’s Jeep coming down the hillside in the first weak light of morning.

As Pip tossed in a troubled sleep, Erwin leaped from the Jeep into the yard, swigging whiskey from a bottle, his clothes whipping in the wind. In the wild dawn he fought his way across the cobbles towards the tool store, where Hannah sat upstairs, wide awake in bed, staring through her swaying dreamcatcher at the flashing sky.

So how could Pip have heard the dog yelping in its kennel, or the slow thud, thud, thud as Erwin climbed the staircase to where Hannah had piled furniture against the door?

Amongst the clattering and crashing of the night it would have been impossible for him to hear her faintly whispering – ‘Pip! Pip! I need you now!’

Or even the loud crash as Erwin heaved aside the flimsy pile of furniture that barricaded her door. And certainly he would not have heard those menacing words: ‘Ah’m cummin’ for ya, gal. Ah always tol’ ya ah would.’