But for now the only available antiseptic was the wine. Jay tilted the bottle and poured a thin stream of yellow liquid onto the gash. It stung for a minute, releasing its scent of summer and spice, and though he knew it was absurd, such was the power of that scent that Jay felt a little better.
The radio gave a sudden crackle of music and fell silent.
A breeze of other places – a scent of apples, a lullaby of passing trains and distant machinery and the radio playing. Funny how his mind kept going back to that song, that winter song, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.
Jay slept, a piece of red flannel still curled tightly in his palm.
But the wine – raspberry red, blackberry blue, rosehip yellow, damson black – stayed awake. Talking.
22
Nether Edge, Summer 1977
ZETH HADN’T CHANGED. JAY WOULD HAVE RECOGNIZED HIM instantly, even without the rifle crooked into his arm, though in a year he seemed to have grown much taller, his long hair tied back now in a thin pigtail. He was wearing a denim jacket, with GRATEFUL DEAD written across the back in biro, and engineer’s boots. From his hiding place above the canal Jay could not tell if he was alone or not. As he watched, Zeth raised his rifle and took aim at something just beyond the towpath. Some ducks which had been sitting by the water sprayed upwards, their wings going like clapperboards. Zeth yelled and fired again. The ducks went crazy. Jay stayed where he was. If Zeth wanted to shoot ducks, he thought, that was his business. He wasn’t going to interfere. But as he watched he began to have his doubts. Zeth seemed to be firing not at the canal, but somewhere beyond. Past the trees and towards the river, though the terrain there was far too open for birds. Rabbits, maybe, thought Jay, though with the noise he was making, surely any animal would have already fled. He narrowed his eyes against the lowering sun, trying to make out what Zeth was doing. The bigger boy fired again, twice, and reloaded. Jay realized he was Standing in almost exactly the same place he himself usually hid to watch…
The gypsies.
Zeth must have been firing at the washing line strung between the nearest two caravans, for one end already trailed limply into the grass, like a bird’s broken wing, flapping half-heartedly in the wind. The dog, tethered in its usual place, set up a strident barking. Jay thought he caught sight of something moving at the window of one of the caravans, a curtain pulled aside briefly and a face, pale, blurry, eyes wide in anger or dismay before the curtain was yanked back in place. There was no further movement from the caravans, and Zeth laughed again and began to reload. Now Jay could hear what he was shouting.
‘Gypp-o-oh! Gypp-o-oh!’
Well, Jay told himself, there was nothing he could do. Even Zeth wouldn’t be crazy enough to actually hurt anyone. Firing at a washing line, that was his style. Trying to frighten people. Making a fair job of it, too, he imagined. He thought of himself that first summer, crouching under the lock, and felt heat creep into his face.
Dammit, there was nothing he could do.
The gypsies were safe enough in their caravan. They’d wait it out until Zeth got tired or ran out of ammunition. He had to go home sometime. Besides, it was only an air rifle. You couldn’t do any real damage with an air rifle. Not really. Even if you hit a person.
I mean, what was he supposed to do, anyway?
Jay turned to go and let out a yelp of surprise. There was a girl crouching in the bushes not five feet behind him. He had been so absorbed watching Zeth that he hadn’t heard her approach. She looked about twelve. Under a bramble of red curls her face was small and blotchy, as if her freckles had been stretched out of shape in an attempt to save on skin. She was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt so large that the sleeves flapped around her thin arms. In one hand she was carrying a grubby red bandanna, which looked to be filled with stones.
The girl was on her feet as quickly and silently as an Apache. Jay barely had time to react to her presence before she sent a stone whizzing through the air with incredible speed and accuracy to strike against his kneecap with an audible, agonizing crack. He gave another yell and fell over, clutching at his knee. The girl looked at him, a second stone ready in her hand.
‘Hey,’ protested Jay.
‘Sorry,’ said the girl, without putting down the stone.
Jay rolled up the leg of his jeans to inspect the injured knee. A bruise was already rising. He glared at the girl, who returned his gaze with a flat, unrepentant look.
‘You shouldn’t have turned round like that,’ said the girl. ‘You took me by surprise.’
‘Took you…!’ Jay struggled for speech.
The girl shrugged. ‘I thought you was with him,’ she said, jerking her small chin fiercely in the direction of the lock. ‘Using our caravan and poor old Toffee as target practice.’ Jay rolled back his trouser leg.
‘Him! He’s no friend of mine,’ he said indignantly. ‘He’s crazy.’
‘Oh. Ok.’
The girl returned the stone to the bandanna. Another two rifle shots sounded, followed by Zeth’s ululating war cry, ‘Gypp-o-oh!’ The girl peered down warily through the bushes, then lifted a branch and prepared to slide underneath and down the banking.
‘Hey, wait a minute.’
‘What?’
The girl barely glanced back. In the shadow of the bush her eyes were golden, like an owl’s.
‘What are you doing?’
‘What do you think?’
‘But I told you already.’ Jay’s anger at her unprovoked attack had been replaced by alarm. ‘He’s crazy. You don’t want to have anything to do with him. He’ll get tired soon enough. He’ll leave you alone when that happens.’
The girl stared at him with undisguised contempt. ‘Spect that’s what you’d do?’ she demanded.
‘Well… yes.’
She made a sound which might have been amusement or scorn, and passed effortlessly under the branch, steadying herself with her free hand as she slid down the banking, braking with her heels when she reached the scree. Jay could see where she was heading. Fifty yards down the slope there was a cutaway, which opened out right over the lock. Red shale and loose stones smattered the banking where the hill had been opened. A screen of thin bushes provided cover. A tricky place to reach – if approached fast or carelessly you could ride the scree right off the edge onto the stones below – but it would provide her with a good place to launch her attack. If that was what she was planning. It was hard to believe that she was. Jay peered down the banking again and caught sight of her, much further down now, barely visible in the undergrowth except for her hair. Let her do it if she wanted, he told himself. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t warned her.
None of this really had anything to do with him.
It was none of his business.
Sighing, he picked up the coalbox with its three-day load and began to scramble down the rocky path behind the girl.
He took the other path to the ash pit, shielded from view most of the way by bushes. In any case, he thought, Zeth wasn’t looking. He was too busy shooting and yelling. Easy enough, then, to get across the open expanse of the ash pit and under the concealed lip beyond. It wasn’t as good a hiding place as the girl’s, but it would have to do, and with two of them against one even Zeth might have to concede defeat. If it was two against one. Jay tried not to think about any friends Zeth might have in the area, maybe just within shouting distance.