Arcadia (14 page)

The stranger stops his rapid patter and steps back, eyeing Rory curiously. He puts the knife out of sight.

“
Ecco là
.” He pats Rory awkwardly. “Good boy.”

Rory's sniveling. He drags in a deep breath.

“They know you're here,” he mumbles. “They're all looking for you.”

The stranger grins. “Women. Is OK. I go”—he whistles and waves at the ceiling—“up.”

“I can't keep taking things. They'll notice.” The man waves a finger by his ear and shrugs: he doesn't understand. “They'll notice. They'll notice stuff missing. I'll get in trouble.”

“No one see Uccellino,” he says.

Rory wipes his nose. “Is that your name?”

“Mmmm?”

“Oochel—”

“Uccellino.
Si si
.” He smacks his chest. He pronounces it slowly. “Uccellino.”

Rory knows he's got to get back. It hasn't been long but he can't take any risks.

On the other hand, he's standing here in the church talking to a foreign man who's arrived on Home. It's as miraculous as talking to Her, though not, he has to admit, as nice.

“Where are you from?”

“Where are—? Ah! From Trieste. Italy. You know? Italy?”

It's like he can feel the world spinning. There were, once, other places: he remembers (or half-remembers, or remembers now for the first time in so long that it's like making it up) seeing them, on weather maps on telly before the TVs all went dark, on the covers of books on the shelves at School before all that went away. There are Italians in some of the stories in the old comics, gangster stories. They wear long overcoats and say
you sleep-a with-a-da fishes
. It's all imaginary, all beyond the world, meaningless and impossible.

Sometimes the women talk quietly together about When All This Is Going To End. Rory wonders whether this is it, now, whether it's happening. There's a man from Italy on Home. It's like some point of view has suddenly zoomed up, up, away from the reality of the earth and the sea, up until the islands of the world are no longer earth and rock anymore but little flat green shapes in a big flat blue surround, with a name attached, The Isles of Scilly.
We're a dot on the map
, Dad used to say.

The man takes him by the shoulders, less forcefully. “I need help of you,” he says. His eyes are so big and intense they're almost glowing. They're a funny color, too yellowy to be properly brown. “One time only. Very important.” He says it
verrrry
. “For you is
facile
. Small thing. One hour this night. Women all,” he mimes sleeping again, “
così
. For you is OK. No one see. Only women here?”

“Yeah. 'Cos of Them.” The stranger looks blank. “Them. The people in the sea.”

“Ah,
si si. Sirene
.” He sounds like he understands.

“Why didn't they kill you?”

“Hmm?”

“How come you're here? They didn't kill you?”

“Ha!” He thinks about an answer, drumming his fingers on Rory's shoulders. “Listen. So, you help me, then you know. Next day. We say. We say all things to you.”

We?
“Who's we?”

Oochellino smiles a broad sly smile and taps the side of his bizarrely straight high nose with a finger. “You help, then you know.”

“It's not just you?” This is another extraordinary thought. “There's other people here?”

“
Shh
. Next day, you know. This night,
bicicletta
. OK?”

“So you want me to bring a bicycle to the Old Harbor tonight?”

“With light. Very important, light.”

“Why? What d'ya need a bike for?”

“Ah ah ah.” He taps Rory's temples with a finger. “You think.”
Work it out for yourself,
he means. “Now. I, like this.” He closes his eyes on his imaginary pillow again. He takes hold of the rope and starts shinning up it, gripping with knees and ankles. He makes it look as easy as going up stairs. “This night!” he calls, his voice echoing around the tower. Absurdly soon he's at the top. He disappears through the hole in the ceiling. There's a bit of clattering around and then the rope whisks up as if it were alive and vanishes after him.

Rory realizes he's still holding the matchbook. He shoves it back in his coat pocket as if it might burst into flame in his hands. He has no idea how much time has passed. He feels years older.

  *  *  *  

The rest of the day is a blur. He'd really like to get away from everyone and talk to Her. She knows a lot of things and likes answering questions. There's no chance, though. Once his mother gets back and they start on their jobs he's never out of her sight. The adults are talking about searching the island. He listens to Missus Shark guessing all the places someone could hide on Home. She never thinks of the belfry. Rory wonders whether he ought to find a way to warn Oochellino so he can tell the others to be careful, wherever they are. He can't stop thinking about them. Are they all Italians? Are they gangsters? How's he going to do what they want him to do tonight, fetch a bicycle with a dynamo and bring it to the Old Harbor quay? But the more he thinks about that the easier it seems. All he has to do is wait until everyone's asleep.

His mother's very preoccupied that evening, which is good since Rory is too. As they're walking back from the Abbey after supper she says, “Don't you want to know what we talked about at the Meeting this morning? After you left?”

“It's OK, Mum,” he says. She's more likely to settle to sleep quickly if she doesn't get going on one of her conversations. He walks on a bit before he realizes she's staring at him. It's almost dark, the first evening of the autumn when it's really felt dark after supper. Kate insisted they take one of the little night-light cubes back to Parson's with them.

“Unless you want to say,” he adds, sensing rather than seeing the look on her face.

She turns away. “Never mind,” she says. “Tomorrow, why not.”

“OK.”

“Are you feeling all right?”

“Yeah.”

“You've been very quiet the last few days.”

He shrugs. He tries to walk a bit faster, to encourage her along.

“It's Oliver, isn't it,” she says.

“Yeah,” he lies.

“Have you been thinking about what happened to him?”

“A bit.”

She catches up. “I'm not going to let it happen to you. I promise. You know that, don't you?”

“OK.”

“They won't get you,” she says. “Not while I'm alive. Never.”

“Thanks, Mum,” he says.

Again they go on a while before he becomes aware that she's looking at him peculiarly.

“You're a funny one,” she says. It's what Dad used to say too. They never said it to Jake or Scarlet. It means he's not like his brother and sister, he likes the wrong kind of things, he's not into what they were into. Now he's feeling so much older the sting's gone out of the words, though. There's no pinch of shame anymore. He may be funny but it's because he's the only person in the world who talks to Them and knows there're Italians hiding in the belfry.

H
e pulls the curtains open a crack to monitor the darkness. He was worried he'd get sleepy but he isn't, not at all. As he came back down the twist of the Lane to Parson's after his poo he looked at the silhouette of the church tower. That was all it took to set his heart thumping and his stomach tingling like he'll never sleep again.

He waits. He mustn't start too soon. The bikes are kept in an outside room near the arched entrance at the end of the Abbey road, so even if he makes a bit of noise they shouldn't hear it inside the Abbey, but Kate is sharp-eared and pays attention, she doesn't stumble in and out of sleep the way the old women do. He's got to wait until he's sure she'll be fast asleep.

It's agony. He tries counting to a hundred and then works out that even if he counts as fast as he walks that's only a hundred steps, not even as far as the Club, which is no time at all. His mother's rustling and huffing in bed next door. He can't even think about starting until she's completely quiet. He makes himself lie motionless, as if that'll help her settle. The effort makes his legs ache.

Eventually he can't stand it anymore. He pushes the blankets back and sits up. His mother's breathing in long deep puffs. He counts twenty of them and then eases himself out of bed. He creeps downstairs as if the floor's carpeted in nails, gritting his teeth each time he puts his foot down.

He can't believe he's doing this.

Yet when he makes it to the kitchen at last and starts pulling warm layers over his pajamas he's overwhelmed by an ecstasy of exhilaration. It's a hundred times more pure than anything he ever felt during one of Ol's mildly naughty, not-quite-forbidden escapades. A grandeur's descending on him. He's stepped into the panes of the comics, among the superheroes and their exquisite perils.

He finds the night-light, checks its charge—it gleams cloudy warmth for an instant—and pockets it. He's sure he can find his way to the Abbey under anything but the most absolutely black night sky, but it won't hurt to have a tiny bit of extra light, especially in the bike shed.

Getting out the door is the hardest bit so far. The lock snaps and the hinges rattle.
I'll say I needed another poo,
he's thinking, convinced that every slither of the wind is actually the sound of his mother getting up and coming downstairs; but she doesn't. It's still hard to make himself go out. Once he's started there'll be no turning back. He'll be doing something he's never done before. An unimaginable line will have been crossed. If he gets caught everyone will know. He's not even sure exactly what they'll know: they'll just
know
.

He counts as far as forty-one and then suddenly it's too cold just standing there and he's off, jogging up the bend in the Lane. The night's immense and full of noise. He takes the night-light out straightaway. It's no brighter than a candle but it's something. When he gets to the crest of the Lane he can see a faint glow on the water of the Channel. It glistens even in the dark, like Her skin. All the distances stretch out. It feels like it's taking twice as long to get to the Club as it ought to. The deep night changes everything, it's not the same island. He's not the same Rory. Everything has changed since Ol died.

At long last he catches the smell of the pines over the Abbey road. He'd like to hide the light entirely as he approaches the Abbey: what if someone's looking out a bedroom window? But it's far too dark under the trees. Now the arched gateway comes up too quickly. Everything's suddenly happening too fast. Someone could easily be awake, listening. . . . He steers the night-light towards the screen of ivy opposite and jerks the shed door open in a clumsy rush. The wind catches it and it bangs against the wall,
thwack
. He jumps and swears. He pulls out a bike, knocking over the one next to it. The noise it makes is a metal shriek. Without stopping to close the door he jumps over the saddle. The light whirs into existence in front of him, quickly blazing white as he races away. He's panting. It's like swallowing ice in his lungs. He skids past the signpost at the bottom of the Abbey road, not expecting the turn: he's panicking, he's forgetting where he is, what he's doing. By the Club he stops and holds his breath, looking over his shoulder, listening for the sounds of pursuit.

Nothing, though.

Oddly, it's right then that he wonders for the first time what his mother was going to tell him. Up until now he hasn't been able to see beyond tonight, but all of a sudden he can picture himself getting the bike over to the other side of the island, dropping it off for Oochellino, going back to bed, waking up the next day and then . . .

What's the point of his mother going to Maries to get a boat?

He doesn't want to pass Parson's so he turns off behind the Old Laundry and rides up past the Dump on the middle road instead, even though it's broken and stony and clogged with twigs and leaves. As he comes down onto the ruined side he spots a small light off in the distance, on Martin. He stops to rub his eyes and confirm it's really there. There's no one left on Martin after the fire, that's what he's always been told.

There's something odd about the light too, the way it's bobbing around, winking brighter and dimmer.

With a delicious tangle of fear Rory realizes his mistake. The light's not on Martin at all. It's much closer. It's the light of a torch, not a distant window. It's on that wrecked boat.

It goes out. The blink of darkness sharpens his ears and he's sure he hears the fragment of a voice across the water.

The other Italians aren't in the belfry. They're on the ghost ship. They've been there all day, probably, lying low, while Viola and Fi and everyone stood around on the quay and stared through binoculars and wondered what to do. All at once—and it's so obvious he can't believe the others don't know this too—he understands the fire. Esme was right. The only reason to burn the shelter was to make a big fire. It wasn't an offering, though, any more than it was teenagers from the other islands being vandals. It was a beacon.

He's about to assist an invasion.

He stops. The headlight fades to nothing.

When Ol used to make him play games with forts and trenches and ammo they'd often pretend that someone was the Traitor. Usually it was Missus Anderson because she's actually from Maries not Home, plus Ol didn't like her. They'd sneak around looking for her and pretend to toss ammo if her back was turned.

It would never have occurred to Rory that the Traitor would turn out to be him.

Right now—at this exact moment: it's the instant of choice—he should turn around, cross back to the Abbey, and wake everyone up, shouting,
They're coming! Invasion! Enemy alert!
Kate would know what to do. They'd barricade the weak ones in the Abbey and the rest would go out on guerrilla warfare. He'd be the one who saved the island. He'd be the hero.