2003 - A Jarful of Angels (24 page)

Iffy nodded and licked butter from her lips.

“Well, after you’d all gone in I hung about for a while, and after a bit Dai come back down, but guess what?”

“Give in.”

“He didn’t have the sack with him.”

“So?”

“So, he’s hidden it somewhere. And coming up through town just now I heard that someone broke into the presbytery the other night and pinched the silver. I reckon it was Dai and he’s hidden the swag up the mountain somewhere.”

“What shall we do?”

“Find it and get the reward.”

“Is there a reward?”

“Bound to be, mun, for silver.”

Fatty hid round the corner while Iffy called for Bessie but Bessie’s mam, who wasn’t really her mam, opened the door and said she was otherwise engaged.

That meant she was in the lav having a pwp.

Iffy banged on the door of the Tranters’ lav but Bessie wouldn’t answer.

Iffy called out, “Bessie!”

Bessie grunted. “Go away, Iffy Meredith!”

“Bessie, it’s important.”

“I’m on the lav. Now get lost.”

“Get lost yourself,” Iffy hissed. She wanted to say more, but instead clamped her mouth shut and ran after Fatty, leaving Bessie there grunting and blowing.

Billy came up the hill and Fatty told him the plan.

“We’ll look round the shale tips,” Fatty said.

They climbed up onto the Black Band and walked up the hill towards the shale tips. They searched all round the huge grey tips, but there was no sign of the sack.

“Tell you what, let’s spread out and walk towards the pond, see if we can find any clues,” Fatty said.

They spread out and walked, heads low, towards the blue lake searching the ground for clues.

Billy started jumping up and down and beckoned to the others. He pointed to a fag end on the ground.

Fatty picked it up and sniffed it. “Fresh, my dear Watson. No more than a day old!”

He gave it to Iffy and Billy to smell. It stank. Capstan Full Strength.

“Well done, Billy!”

Billy grinned from ear to ear.

“Which way do you reckon he went?” Iffy asked.

Billy pointed towards the blue lake.

They went at a run and found another clue. There were footsteps in the sand leading to the edge of the lake and footsteps leading away again.

“He’s hidden the loot in the lake!” yelled Fatty. “Let’s get in and look for it.”

Iffy shook her head and so did Billy. The lake was full of drowned wild boys and drunk men.

Iffy and Billy kept a lookout, while Fatty paddled out into the murky waters. He told them to keep their eyes peeled for Dai or anyone else who might come along.

“Chuck us a stick, Iffy.”

Iffy scrabbled about, found a stick and threw it out to Fatty who was up to the top of his legs in the water. He poked about for ages.

“Geronimo! Got it!”

Whatever it was, it must have been heavy because he was tugging at something under the surface of the water that didn’t seem to want to budge.

“Gonna have to drag it out, it weighs a ton!”

Iffy thought that it must be the stolen treasure from the presbytery. A bag full of precious silver! And maybe even gold!

Fatty dragged the sack to the edge of the pond. It was an old coal sack tied at the top with string.

Iffy grinned as she thought of the reward. They’d be rich. Have their pictures in the paper. Bessie would be dead mad that she’d missed being a hero!

“Open it, Fatty! Quick! Untie the string before someone comes.”

Iffy and Billy hopped about in excitement but still kept a wary eye out for Dai.

“Hang on, Iffy. Give me a hand to drag it into the dip out of the way in case anyone sees us.”

Iffy grabbed a corner of the sodden sack and helped him drag it down into a hollow. Fatty was soaked to the skin, his legs were streaked with weed and scum, black mud squelched out from the holes in his sandals but he didn’t seem to care a bit.

The three of them stood close together staring down at the sack hardly believing their luck.

“Go on, Fatty, open it!”

Billy was so excited he was clapping his hands and jumping up and down on the spot.

Fatty cut the string with his penknife.

Iffy wanted to pee.

“Ready?” said Fatty.

“Yep.”

Iffy sang a hymn from school, “Daisies are our silver, buttercups our gold. This is all the treasure we can ha a a ave or hold!”

Fatty bounced the sack onto his knees to take the weight and shook the bottom corners to tip out the treasure. Any minute now and the silver would fall onto the green grass. Billy grabbed hold of Iffy’s arm and shivered. Fatty heaved up the bag to his chest and the treasure tumbled out.

Billy gasped.

A bird piped out a tinny song and a fish jumped and plopped back into the blue lake.

Fatty squealed.

Billy stared down at the grass open-mouthed, eyes wide.

Iffy looked from the grass to Fatty’s face. He stood as still as stone looking down at the treasure. His face was mud-streaked, his blue eyes were staring. A wide-eyed statue.

There was no silver, or gold. No reward to be had.

On the green mountain grass, among the daisies and the buttercups, lay a pile of broken bricks and five drowned puppies.

Billy tucked his small hand into Iffy’s, which was shaking. Fatty dropped down onto his knees beside the puppies. He cupped his dirty hands around one of them and lifted it up. It was soggy and limp. Its velvety little face was crumpled up and its eyes were closed tight. The tiny, tiny mouth was twisted into a sad little smile showing two white pointed teeth.

It was Fatty’s puppy. The miniature Barny lay dead in his trembling hands. Yapper.

A terrible noise came out of Fatty. It made Iffy’s whole body quiver. It was a sob, a shudder and a moan all at once. It was the worst sound she’d ever heard. He lifted the puppy up to his lips, like Father Flaherty lifting the sacred host at Mass, and he kissed it so softly.

His mouth crumpled as he said, “I was gonna put a collar on him and teach him to walk on the lead I bought…and teach him to sit…”

Fatty’s eyes were a blur of blue tears that squeezed between his thick black eyelashes. The tears slid down the sides of his nose, magnifying his freckles and making muddy rivers of his cheeks. His tears fell onto the wet puppy.

“And teach him not to chase sheep…and let him sleep with me so’s he wouldn’t be lonely and neither would I any more.”

Fatty’s nose was running, a waterfall of snot, all over his top lip.

Iffy looked across at Billy. Billy’s eyes were two dark ponds bursting their banks. Her throat felt as though it was stuffed full of sharp stones.

Fatty rubbed away the snot and tears with the back of his hand. His face was a smudge of sorrow.

Iffy let go of Billy’s hand and knelt down beside Fatty. She put her arm around his shoulders. She felt the pain run off him and pass through her fingers like electricity. She held him close against her for a long time until his body stopped shaking and the fierce pain that came out of him turned into a dull throbbing ache.

Billy ran all the way home for a shovel and a candle and came back bringing a red-faced and puffing Bessie Tranter with him.

They buried the puppies one by one down in the little hollow. Yapper was the last one to be buried. They made daisy chains and hung them over wooden crosses made from lollipop sticks. Fatty lit the candle but it kept on going out.

All day they stayed on the mountain keeping watch over the graves. As the sun dipped behind the Sirhowy Mountain they stood up. Fatty said, “May the souls of the faithful departed puppies rest in peace.”

“Aremen.”

They made the sign of the cross:

Ace

Jack

King

Queen

Walking slowly down over the Black Band towards home it was as though the whole world was on fire. An orange-red glow filled the sky and the clouds were lined with gold and silver. The windows of Carmel Chapel blazed with fire and sparks from the dying sun singed the trees with light.

No one spoke. Even Bessie seemed to know when to keep her trap shut sometimes.

Down in the valley Zeraldo’s bell rang, but none of them was in the mood for ice cream.

As they reached the steps that led down to Inkerman, Fatty was first to break the silence, “I know one thing,” he said.

“What’s that?” said Bessie.

“Dai Full Pelt is a bloody dead man.”

Billy nodded. So did Iffy.

“Well swear an oath,” said Fatty, his eyes bright in the growing darkness.

“I’m not swearing,” said Bessie.

They ignored her and swore with their hands on their hearts, “Dai Futt Pelt is a bloody dead man!”

Even Bessie.

Fatty called a meeting, he said they had to do it properly. It was no laughing matter. It was tamping down with rain so they’d sneaked round the back of Mr Edwards’s bakery and crept into Billy’s coal shed.

“We could boil up bags of mushy peas and pelt him on the way home from the pub,” Iffy said.

“Where we gonna get all those peas from, stupid?” Bessie said.

Iffy glared at her.

“You think of something better then!”

“We’ll make bombs out of horse shit!” said Fatty.

Bessie sniffed.

“Dynamite,” she suggested.

Iffy roared with laughter. Fatty stared at Bessie.

“Got some have you?” he asked.

Bessie sulked.

“Fireworks,” Iffy said.

“I’m not going in Shanto’s shop after what the dirty pig done to me with that discustin’ false eye of his,” said Bessie.

Then Fatty yelled. He whispered something to Billy, who grinned and his eyes lit up.

Fatty whispered to Bessie. She went white and shook her ringlets.

“No,” she said.

Fatty whispered in Iffy’s ear. They couldn’t! They’d get killed if they got caught, or go to jail. It was terrifying! It was brilliant! Fatty was a genius! Or a nut case.

Fatty was in charge of the plan: the boss, the general.

“We have to get to know our enemy,” he said.

“We do,” said Bessie. “It’s Dai Full Pelt.”

“I know it’s Dai. But we need to know everything about him, what he does, every move he makes. We can’t afford to make a mistake. Now, listen.”

And they did. All ears.

For days they followed Dai to find out all his habits. Everything he did was written down in Bessie’s notebook until they knew his movements by heart.

At six o’clock he parked the bone-shaker of a bus down near the town clock. It took him fifteen minutes to walk home. They followed him through town, ducking and diving into doorways if he stopped to light a fag or looked behind him. They stalked him past Morrissey’s shop, left down the hill, over the bridge, and watched him go in through the doors of the Mechanics.

They hung around for ages outside the pub, hidden behind wooden beer barrels waiting for him to come out, checking the time on Bessie’s Cinderella Timex.

Bessie wrote, one hour and thirty minutes and five pints, in the notebook.