Cold Shoulder Road (7 page)

“Why, love, maybe she saw some faces what she’d ha’ done better
not
to see. Let alone draw them down.”

“But when would she have seen them?”

“Maybe time she worked for the dentist feller. Denzil Fishskin.”

“Fishskin? A
dentist
?”

“He be a cousin of the owd Admiral. But nothing like so grand. A tooth-drawer, he be – an’ one o’ the Silent Folk, like yer auntie and uncle. And she, yer auntie, used to work for him as his nurse, helping folk rinse their mouths an’ all. A notable tooth-puller, he were, that Denzil Fishskin . . . took three o’ mine, an’ offered to make me a new set from mammoth ivory, but ‘No, thank you,’ sez I, ‘I’ll just mumble along on what I got left.’”

“Mammoth ivory?” said Is, very interested indeed. “But that—”

“
And
,” went on Mrs Lillywhite, “this is where I reckon yer auntie might ha’ put herself in trouble. Folk do say the Merry Gentry has tattoo marks on their tongueses.”

“In the name of mystery, why?” demanded Is in astonishment.

“Why, so they can’t ever slip off and leave the band. They’re marked for good an’ all.”

“Oh, I see. I reckon that’s so. But, croopus—”

Is fell silent, considering. Plainly anybody in a position to have seen those tattoo marks – while helping a dental patient rinse his mouth – would also be in a position of danger.

“And if Aunt Ruth drew the faces she had seen—”

“That’s it, dearie. If she put ’em down on her bits of paper—”

“Paper? Not board?”

“No, she done her picters of flowers on board. But the faces were on paper. The owd Admiral, he give her a liddle copy-book, one time, to make face picters in. ‘You have a ree-markable talent, Miz Twite,’ he tells her.”

He never told
us
that, thought Is. “Mrs Lillywhite, do you know anything else about the Merry Gentry?”

“
Hush
, lovey!” The old lady looked very much alarmed. “I dunno as I oughter told ye what I did. And not another thing do I know, not a blessed thing. And wouldn’t tell ye if I did. Now run along, I can’t talk to ye no more, I begin to feel my apilepsick sweats a-coming over me.”

Indeed she shivered violently, and almost pushed Is out of the room, calling after her in a loud voice, “I can’t tell ee nothing. Nothing at all! And that’s my finial word!”

Is made her way down the steps, pondering deeply. As she did so, a man loitering on the other side of the street moved off and vanished down an alley-way.

Although Is had been absent from Cold Shoulder Road for a couple of hours, when she got back, she found Arun still gazing at the sea, hunched up in the same despondent position; it seemed as if he had not moved a toe or a finger since she left him.

“Listen, Arun!” said Is, plumping down beside him. She glanced up and down the beach. Nobody seemed to be within earshot. There were a few fishermen doing things to their boats a long way off. Still, it seemed best to talk to Arun in thought language. And he might pay better attention.

“I believe it was Aunt Ruth who drew pictures of the Merry Gentry,” Is told Arun. “You remember the Admiral’s story about Mrs Boles’s husband? How the Gentry left him out in the forest for the wolves, because he said he’d seen pictures of the band, and knew who they were?”

“But there aren’t any pictures of people in the house. They are all flowers.”

“Aunt Ruth did her likenesses on paper. In a book the Admiral gave her.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Wanted to find out who they were.”

“But why would my Mum do such a thing?” Arun complained. “Why
did
she paint pictures and draw people’s faces? She never used to do so.”

“Ah, but in those days your Dad was alive,” pointed out Is.

“Well I wish she hadn’t,” Arun grumbled. “It just makes things worse.”

Is thought Arun was being amazingly unfair to his Mum.

“What d’you expect her to do? You walk your chalks from home, never come back for years, never write her a letter, you expect to find her still a-waiting, a-knitting away at a new pair of socks for you?”

“Well, what else could she do?”

“She
did
summat else, didn’t she? My notion is, she’s gone off with my sis Penny.”

“But they didn’t even know each other.”

“Ah,” said Is, “but I writ Penny from up north, telling her that I’d found you, and that you were alive and well. Penny used to travel the roads, now and again, selling her dolls; she knew your Mum was in Folkestone, she might think it was neighbourly to drop in and say you was pert and bobbish. And that feller in the lane said summat about a lady with a cat. When we’ve stowed away your Mum’s pictures, I votes we go off to my sister Penny’s place. Maybe your Mum is there. And shan’t I be pleased to see my old Figgin.”

A faint interest came into Arun’s face. “Can’t do any harm, I suppose . . .” he agreed.

It seemed a terribly long time until dusk. Both Is and Arun were hungry again long before the light was dim enough for them to dare start moving the pictures. But there was not a scrap of food in the house. Doubtless anything edible had long ago been taken by Mrs Boles.

The job was slow and laborious. If they loaded the trolley too heavily they found they were unable to haul it up the steep slope to the East Cliff. In the end they had to divide the pictures into four loads, and were worn out, panting, and hollow with hunger by the time they had piled all the pictures around the wall in the garden room. On none of their trips had they seen a single soul, but when they arrived with the final load, they discovered a lighted lantern which had been left near the top of the ladder in the well, and a note leaning against the lantern said:

“Oh, thanks! And likewise, don’t mention it!” tartly commented Is, who had been hoping that another pair of hands would undertake this part of the job. For the last hour she had been thinking longingly of the Admiral’s hot supper.

“Oh well,” sighed Arun. “Better make a start on it, I suppose. I’ll climb halfway down the ladder, and you pass the pictures to me.”

“The old gager might ha’ left one of all his gardeners to give us a hand,” grumbled Is, impatiently handing down the pictures. “My back aches fit to snap in half.”

This part of the operation took them nearly three-quarters of an hour. By now it must be well after midnight. Then Is too climbed down the ladder, and stared curiously about her. They were in a round, dome-shaped room, hollowed out of the chalk. The walls were white, and glistened faintly in the lantern light. The floor had a sandy surface, covered by a thick carpet of dead leaves. There was a sharp, dry, chill, chalky smell.

“Different from the coal-mine,” said Is, sniffing. “Croopus, how that place did stink.”

“Well, it was under the sea, and all wet.”

“Which d’you reckon is the small cave where he wants the pictures stowed? There seems to be a whole passel of ’em.”

There were about a dozen door-holes all the way round, leading apparently to further caves.

“The one opposite the ladder, d’you reckon?” Arun said, pointing. He picked up the lantern and went into the next cave. “Seems dry and clean,” he called.

He left the lantern in the second cave, and they started carrying armfuls of pictures through, and stacking them tidily on edge against the rock wall. After a while the floor was quite covered, so, leaving a gangway across the middle, they began filling a further cave which lay beyond.

“Last load,” panted Is, carrying four pictures together into yet another cave, on beyond the third one. “Odds Fishikins! There’s as many caves down here as daisies in a meadow. Lucky that’s the lot; I reckon our glim is ready to die on us.”

Indeed the lantern was flickering smokily as if running out of oil.

“Hey for the old codger’s hot supper. I’m clemmed,” said Is.

But, on returning to the first cave, now cleared of paintings, they were greatly disconcerted to find that the ladder had been withdrawn. Or at least they were just in time to see its feet and bottom rung pulled up over the top of the well-hole.

“Oy!” shouted Is. “Don’t forget about us! We’re still down here! Hi! Hollo! Let down the ladder, ye dumfoozle squareheads. Don’t leave us down here!”

There was no reply.

But, a moment later, a loud bang overhead caused Is and Arun to jump. Looking up they saw that a heavy, round wooden cover had been lowered into place over the hole. And a metallic clang suggested that it had been bolted down. At the same moment their lantern went out.

“W
HAT THE PLAGUE DO YOU MAKE OF THAT
?” said Is to Arun. “Some knothead’s gone and shut us in.”

“Let us out of here!” she shouted again, at the top of her lungs.

But her shout came echoing back from the high chalky dome overhead. It did not seem as if the sound would pass through the heavy, wooden trap cover. Or as if anybody intended to take the slightest notice.

Thoughts began whizzing back and forth between Is and Arun like bees darting among clover blossoms.

“D’you reckon it was the Admiral that had us shut in down here?”

“But why? Why would he do that?”

“Cos he wanted to get hold of those pictures?”

“But they are down here in the cave with us.”

“Could it have been someone else shut us in? Not the Admiral?”

“But who?”

“One of the gardeners? One of the neighbours from Frog-Hole Lane?”

“Why?”

“Something to do with the Merry Gentry? And Mum’s pictures of them?”

“But those ones aren’t here.”

“The person might not know that.”

“What d’you reckon they plan to happen to us?”

“Starve to death? I daresay you could, down here.”

“It would take quite a while, though. And they won’t be able to get hold of the pictures, all the while we’re live lumber down here . . .”

“Maybe they plan to finish us off somehow.”

The thought was a disagreeable one.

“Well, let’s see if we can’t get outa this place. Maybe there’s another entrance.”

“Not much use to us if it’s high overhead, like the way we came in.”

Arun, now that he had a real problem to tackle, became much more sensible and alert than he had been while brooding over his Mum’s mysterious actions. And, usefully, left over from those days when he had believed he was a cat, he had eyes that could see in the dark much better than most people’s. They even glowed a little when the pupils were expanded, as cats’ eyes do, so that Is could see where he was standing. She, too, from months spent working in the northern coal-mines, was not much scared at being shut into this underground place, though very annoyed about it.

“They took us for right gull-finches.”

“Well, and so we were,” said Arun. “One of us shoulda stayed up top. Come on then; no sense in hanging about. You follow after me. Somewhere along that way I think I can hear water running. But don’t make a row. For all we know, we ain’t the only ones in this place.”

“No – that’s so. Ain’t it a maze, though,” said Is, quietly following behind him. And, to herself, she thought, I just hope there ain’t any spider-kin of the Admiral’s Rosamund down here.

The notion of outsize spiders scuttling along the chalky passages was a very disagreeable one.

But Arun picked up her thought and said comfortingly, “Spiders wouldn’t thrive down here.”

“Why not?”

“No flies.”

“Reckon you’re right,” agreed Is, much relieved. “Can you still hear water?”

“A long way off. Anyway, so long as we go downhill, we ought to find it.”

They walked and walked.

Is had the depressing thought that, if they went on going down, they might end up under the sea-bed. But Arun, catching this, said, “No, but we are heading north, not towards the sea.”

Is knew that his sense of direction, like his hearing, was better than her own.

“It ain’t half a plaguey long way, though,” she sighed, after an hour or so. “We must have walked two-three miles by now – much farther than from Cold Shoulder to the Admiral’s place. I wish we didn’t keep going down. We must be deep underground by now.”

“But remember,” said Arun, “where the Admiral lives is high up, on top of a chalky hill. By now, think on, we’ve just about got down to ground level.”

“Arun, you can be a right sensible chap when you try. But where’s this water of yours?”

“Not far ahead. I can still hear it.”

His ears were as keen as a bat’s. And, sure enough, in a few minutes, they came out into a larger tunnel. Is could feel a faint freshness in the air. Quite soon Arun, with a grunt of satisfaction, stooped and said, “Here’s the stream.”

It ran out of the wall on their left and trickled along, in a little stony channel, just an inch or two lower than the floor of the cave.

“Good water,” said Is, tasting it in cupped hands. “I wasn’t
half
thirsty.”

The water, filtered by a whole hill of chalk above, was pure and tasteless and very cold.

“It ain’t so dark now,” said Arun, peering forward.

But soon they were brought to a halt by a mysterious obstruction in the passage.

It was quite high – higher than either of them – and smooth. And curved.

“Feels for all the world like a thundering great earthenware crock,” said Arun, tapping it first with a knuckle, then with a fingernail. “Smooth and round.”

Is, rubbing with her palms, agreed. “Feels like one o’ them big pots the Admiral has in his garden with rosebushes and daffydowndillies in. But this is a whole lot bigger. And who in mussy’s name ‘ud want to stick a big flowerpot down in a cave?”

Arun had a try at squeezing between the great obstacle and the cave wall, but nearly got himself jammed, and had to wriggle back again.