Cold Shoulder Road (2 page)

Captain Podmore watched them anxiously and solicitously from the ship, as they began the steep climb.

Then, behind them, silent as a moth, the
Dark Diamond
drifted away southwards, towards Hastings.

Ahead, as they walked quietly along the pier, Arun and Is could see a few lights, scattered up and down a high rampart of black land which began to show against the paler night sky.

The air felt bitterly cold and dank. A gusty wind chewed at their elbows and ankles. Nothing could be heard but the slop of waves along the stone jetty.

“Whereabouts does your Mum live, Arun?” whispered Is.

“At the east end of the town.” Arun pointed with his right hand, forgetting that she could not see it in the dark. “In what they call Frog-Hole Lane.”

“Rummy kind of name.”

He shrugged. “Scruffy kind of neighbourhood. Not very friendly. Its other name is Cold Shoulder Road. You see, that’s where the Sect first settled, when they came over from the Low Countries.”

“The Sect?”

“I told you about them, didn’t I? My Mum and Dad belonged to a Sect, the Silent Folk. They don’t allow any talking, not by anybody. Except the Elder, and he speaks only when it’s needful. Like, maybe, talking to folk who don’t belong to the Sect. And, of course, when he preaches on Sundays.”

“Nobody talks
at all
?” said Is, aghast. “But how the pize do you find out anything you want to know?”

“By making signs. Or, if it’s too hard for signs, you write on a bit of paper. Or a slate. I used to do a lot of that when I was a kid.”

“But what a fubsy way of going on! – Now I come to think, your Dad did say summat about it.” But, after a moment’s thought, Is burst out laughing. “Hey, though, it wouldn’t matter to
us
, would it?”

Is and Arun were able to speak to each other by using thoughts instead of words. They did not always choose to do so. But sometimes an idea crossed over more quickly if it did not have to be translated into language. So their talk was often a patchwork of words and silences during which thoughts flashed back and forth between them like shuttles on a loom.

“That was why I ran off from home, d’you see,” said Arun. “I couldn’t stand all that silence. My Dad used to wallop me if I asked a question. Or else I’d be shut up in my room. And that was only a cupboard.”

“Your Dad was sorry after you ran away,” said Is thoughtfully. “He was
real
sorry, later on, when he lay a-dying.”

“It was too late then, wasn’t it?”

Arun’s tone was impatient. He was peering ahead, into the gloom. “Can you hear music, d’you think?”

“No. Did your Mum wallop you too?”

“No. She didn’t. But she’d never cross my Dad. She always did what he told her. Dad would never allow what the Sect called
flightiness
. Even fetching a bunch of primroses into the house – he’d say that was flighty. I – I sometimes thought my Mum would have
liked
to bring a bunch of primroses into the house. Or dandelions.”

“D’you reckon she stayed with the Silent Sect after your Dad died? How many of ’em are there?”

“Forty or fifty. Most had come over from Dunkirk. Some joined in Folkestone. They’re a-saving up to collect enough cash to shift the whole Sect over to New England by and by, get themselves a plot of land there, and build a village.”

“Maybe they’ll have gone already?” suggested Is.

“Not very likely. They are mostly weavers, or basket-makers, or joiners, or chimney-sweeps – those trades don’t make enough to save more than a few shillings a week. Dad was a chimney-sweep and cobbler. But he never saved much. He was out so often, roaming about.”

“Well,” said Is, “
I
think it’s a scaley notion, choosing not to talk to folk. Why did we ever
invent
words in the first place, if we ain’t to be allowed to use ’em?”

“Song and dance was even worse,” Arun said. “My Dad joined the Sect partly because he couldn’t stand Uncle Desmond and his music. Dad said they were the Devil’s tunes.”

Is sighed. “It’s true,
my
Dad really took the bun when it come to wickedness. A proper rat,
he
was. But that’s not to say his music is wicked. That’s plain foolishness. – Hey!”

She stood still, grasping Arun’s arm. Then she said, “You’re right, someone is a-playing music. And that’s one of my Dad’s tunes they’re playing – ‘The Day Afore May-Day’.”

“Maybe there’s a fair,” Arun said. “Or a market.”

They had by now reached the inner end of the jetty and turned right along the harbour front. A thin slip of moon was rising, and it was possible to see that, though not destroyed, the town had suffered in the flood. Bits of the sea wall were missing, a number of houses had boarded-up windows or stove-in doors; chunks of masonry lay here and there on the muddy, sandy roadway.

Another few minutes’ walking and they could clearly hear the sound of music ahead of them: a tune intended to be cheerful was being played slowly and dolefully on a crumhorn.

“Ah, it
is
a fair.” Is peered ahead at the cluster of little booths and market stalls in a space where the houses fell back from the sea front. “Rabbitty little set-out, though, ain’t it? Still, maybe one of ’em will have summat we could buy your Mum for a fairing, Arun?”

“My Mum?” he said, astonished. “Take my Mum a present? Why? My Mum never had a present in the whole of her life. The Silent Folk don’t give each other presents. They don’t hold with such doings.”

“Well then, it’s high time she
did
get given summat, even if it’s only a new milk-jug,” Is retorted, thinking of all the presents, small but welcome, that her aunt Ishie and her sister Penny had given her.

But when they reached the meagre little row of stalls it became plain that there was no great choice of goods to be bought. Most of the things on sale were food – rows of silvery herrings, a handful of withered apples, cabbages, a pot or two of honey, and some loaves and pies. There were, too, old clothes, a few household wares, some wooden whistles, pipes, and tops.

A skinny old man, sitting on a box, played tunes on his crumhorn, but so slowly and wearily that even the liveliest ones sounded like funeral marches.

The stallholders were gloomily stamping their feet and rubbing their hands to keep warm. There were very few purchasers – half a dozen shadowy figures shuffling from one stall to another, inspecting the goods for sale. Nobody seemed to be buying much.

Then Is, looking up over the market stalls, saw something very strange. There were houses up above, scattered over the hillside, and higher still, a stretch of roadway, crossing the grass. Now, along this, passed a figure so singular that Is rubbed her eyes, wondering if she had been mistaken. What she saw seemed to be a person astride of two large wheels – nothing more – and tugged along by the pull of a large pale-coloured kite, which flew above and ahead in the windy moonlit sky. The person – the wheels – the kite – all passed so swiftly that, a moment after, Is thought she must have imagined the whole thing.

For how could a person ride on two wheels?

Pulled by a kite?

Arun lingered by a stall, looking at the pipes and whistles on it.

“
I
used to
long
so for one of those,” he murmured. “I don’t suppose—”

“Oh, come on, Arun, do,” said Is impatiently. “Your Ma won’t want a whistle! How about a fourpenny pie?”

As she spoke, Is felt a sudden startled movement beside her, as if someone were about to grab her arm. She looked round to find, at her elbow, a person even shorter and smaller than she was herself – and Is was not tall – a stumpy, thickset little boy, clasping a bundle of hazel branches which he could only just carry. Their eyes met for a brief moment – his were large, round and pale – then he scuttled off hastily into the crowd.

“Those pies don’t look too tasty,” said Arun, who had not noticed the boy.

“Well there ain’t a lot else. And we may be glad of one ourselves, if we don’t find your Mum—”

“Don’t find my Mum?” said Arun crossly, feeling for pennies in his breeches pocket. “Why shouldn’t we find her? She’s not one to gad—”

As he bought the pie, and the stallkeeper wrapped it in a bit of greasy paper, Is noticed the little boy again.

He had now stopped in front of a stall that sold brooms and brushes; without speaking, he held up the bundle of brushwood he carried, showing it to the man behind the table. The man took the bundle, inspected it carefully, nodded, and passed over a few small coins. Clutching them tightly, the boy ran to a fish counter, where he pointed silently at the herrings. Three were handed to him in a cabbage-leaf, he paid for them, and scooted off at top speed into the darkness.

“Wonder if he’s one of Arun’s Silent Folk?” Is asked herself quietly. “Wonder if he
can’t
speak, or won’t speak? Come to think, if they’re never allowed to say a word, it’s a blooming marvel their kids ever learn to speak at all.”

“This way,” said Arun, who was now walking at impatient speed; and he turned inland from the sea front, threading among a criss-cross of little streets which had plainly suffered from the flood, for their cobblestones were heaved out of place and lay in piles ready to trip passers-by. The ground between the cobbles was muddy and slippery; a sour smell of salt, wet rope, and rotting wood hung in the air. A few shadowy animals – dogs? wolves? – slunk in and out of gaps between the houses.

“Now we turn right, this is Cold Shoulder Road.” Arun gestured to a little tumbledown row of weatherboarded houses, joined together by a common roof, which ran the length of the lane. “Our house is the last but one, down at the end.”

Beyond the last house rose a bushy, brambly hillside, and above that, cliffs were outlined against the sky.

Is, who had grown up in the spacious woods of Blackheath Edge, felt a little sorry for Arun, obliged to spend his childhood in such a dank, muddy little street. Still, at least open country must be near by – supposing his parents had allowed him to go off into the fields, or climb the cliff?

“And the sea’s just over the road, after all,” she said, half-aloud.

“What’s that? Come along, I’m freezing,” snapped Arun. He was striding faster, almost running. Waves of worry came from him.

When they reached the last house but one, Is could see that its door, unlike many in the row, must once have been painted white, and had a brass ‘2’ on its crosspiece, tarnished by sea air.

Arun banged nervously on the door with his knuckles. Then, as there was no answer, he rapped again, louder.

But there was still no response. He tried the door. It was locked.

Now a black cloud slipped across the slender moon.

“Seems like there’s nobody home,” said Is, after a fairly long pause. She added hopefully, “Maybe your Ma might have gone out a-marketing? To the fair? To get herself a fish for supper, likely? Or to visit a friend? Do you think?”

“No I don’t!” said Arun. “She never went out. Dad did the marketing. And she wouldn’t stir out at night. Not unless it was to look after a sick person.”

Is could hear the worry and uncertainty in his voice.

She thought to herself: His Dad died. Now, maybe, he’ll find his Mum has died, too. Poor Arun. It’s hard for him. But what
we
need, right now, is a bite to eat and somewhere to doss down. Aloud she said, “Did your Mum use to keep a key anywhere? Like, under a brick?”

A note of hope came back into Arun’s voice. He said, “Yes, she did, come to think. Round at the back. You have to go past the end house, and there’s a path all along behind the back gardens.”

They walked on past the last house in the row. Its windows were dark. In fact there had been very few lights all along Cold Shoulder Road. Which seemed odd, thought Is, for it must be early still, not more than about nine o’clock.

She shivered as two large drops of icy rain fell on her cheek.

“I sure hope she did leave a key. Maybe she’s round at one o’ the other houses, chewing the rag with a neighbour.”

“I tell you, she never—”

Arun shoved open a small paling gate, and made his way gingerly along a narrow slippery garden path between cabbages which had shot up tall and then fallen over. They smelt strong and rank.

By the back door of the house there stood a wooden rain-water barrel, set up on two piles of bricks. Arun knelt and poked his hand into the gap between the bricks; then let out a grunt of satisfaction.

“Here’s the key, inside of a jam-pot.”

“Not before time,” muttered Is, for rain was now falling steadily, and a low rumble of thunder came from over the sea.

The key from the jar opened the back door and they walked through into icy cold and damp, thick, stuffy dark.

“Smells like a sardine factory in here,” muttered Is. “And the floor’s ankle-deep in mud – watch how you step! Where does your Ma keep her candles, Arun?”

“On a shelf under the stair.”

He crossed the room and felt in the accustomed place. But let out a yelp of disgust.

“Shelfs all mud and slime. Like fishing in a basket of eels.”

“Reckon the flood got into the house, waist level at least,” said Is, feeling the stairs, which rose straight out of the kitchen. “And no one’s troubled to clean up since. Best have a look upstairs, had we?”

She tried to speak in a cheerful, matter-of-fact voice, but secretly she had a frightening notion of what they might find up above.

“Ma always did keep a bedroom candle and some lucifer matches in her room,” Arun murmured. “I’ll just take a look up there.”

He slipped past Is on the narrow stair, and went up. She followed close behind, hoping strongly that the upper floor of this little house might be less damp and wretched than the downstairs.

A rumble of thunder overhead accompanied them as they climbed; it was not a full peal, but sounded like people shifting bits of furniture about the sky so as to make room for something bigger.