Bold as Love (42 page)

‘What was your best bit?’ Chip asked Verlaine.

They knew how serious things were. But the sun was shining, and (okay, only on the local, high street scale of the post-internet. Okay, purely due to the Ax effect), their album
Correspondances
was selling brilliantly.

‘Carlisle,’ decided Verlaine. ‘The climber-technos in the welding masks—’

‘What about Sage and the Irish persons at Platt Fields?’

In spite of Anne Marie and Smelly Hugh, the Western tour had been the one for the intelligentsia: Sage and the Heads (and Dilip before he crashed out) able to let their hair down for once, talking about Baudelaire and Brecht. Patroling the curfewed streets of Lancaster and Preston with Aoxomoxoa in barmy army officer mode, how cool. The thunderstorms for the two big outdoor gigs in Manchester. Pearl, Anne-Marie’s six year old, dumping her baby brother Jet in the pig pen on Heaton Park urban farm, to see if pigs really eat humans. Two hundred addled punters in a basement in Liverpool, getting the cortex-burn-out concentrated version of
Bleeding Heart
. Smelly Hugh and Anne-Marie debuting their new alt.folk band Rover at the other, massive, Liverpool gig—

Sage and George were playing with Sage’s shadow, to annoy Pearl. The real Aoxomoxoa eating toast, the hologram matching every gesture, mirror-image.

‘I don’t like it,’ said the evil child uncertainly; glowering. ‘It’s
stupid
.’

‘Oh well,’ said Sage. ‘If Pearl doesn’t like him, we’ll have to scrumple him up and throw him away. George, Sistine—’

The shadow rose, did a very elegant twirl and dropped into his Adam pose, reaching out a hand to the origin of his existence. Sage extended a masked finger, the shadow doubled over, writhed like a punctured balloon, and withered into nothing—

‘I DON’T LIKE THAT!’ yelled Ruby the toddler.

Pearl gave Sage a glare of disgust, and ran off through the french windows.

‘Sage,
’ said Anne-Marie, ‘If you frighten my kids into nightmares again—’

‘Hahaha—’

‘How much do lemons cost?’ wondered Silver Wing, the eight year old.

‘I don’t think you can buy them up here, sweetheart,’ said her mother. ‘Why?’

‘I’m going to make traditional english lemonade and sell it to the refus.’

‘Silver, you can’t do that,’ Chip was shocked. ‘One
gives
things to refugees.’

‘Why not? They’ve got money. They’ve sold tons of Afghani shit.’

On the tv, three jeeps rolled across the sand—

BLAM!

Everyone jumped up—

As if they could run to help, as if they could pull out burning bodies.

Cafren was saying, lots of places in the United States are worse, more violent, more guns: and that’s the heart of empire, that’s where everything still works—

Fiorinda was saying, Caf, can you reach my jacket, I think I can hear my—

Then she was flying through the air, in an envelope of violent sound. She was tumbling, head over heels, sand driven into her eyes, in a ringing, singing whiteness. Landing, winded, something warm and sticky falling, spattering her, in her mouth, tasted like raw meat—

She was lying at the foot of a grassy dune. The jeep she’d been in was on its side, the one behind it was in smoking pieces. Cafren and the driver were sprawled, right out in the open. She jumped up and ran back to them, painful stitch in her side. She had not grasped, in her spinning head, what was going on. She thought they were under attack from the air. She grabbed Cafren and yelled Can you get up! Caf’s mouth working without a sound, the driver trying to yell something but no sound from him either. Cafren was able to stand. The driver had a big slice out of his leg which was bleeding like mad, but they could have helped him between them if he would stop struggling. Finally, she got it. Oh, we hit a mine. Big mine, maybe there’s more. Well, okay, we’ll do it on physical, back the way I came in. I didn’t blow up.
Stop thinking, do it on physical
, what Ax and Sage said, in circumstances that would often sound mad and scary unless you were in the habit of performing on stage—

So they got back to the grassy part. A roaring in her ears, she crouched in the brilliant sunshine with Cafren in her arms, staring at the wrecked jeeps, the third one behind, stranded out there motionless, with the rest of DARK: but
where’s Tom???
Cafren sobbing without a sound, people come running, what is this foul sticky goop all over me?

Oh shit, she thought. This is bad. We fucked up, we didn’t make it.

Then she was in a trailer hospital, in a cot bed in a little room with metal walls. She’d had her bruises dressed, and the bits of Tom washed off. It hurt to breathe, she’d cracked some ribs. She was wearing a hateful hospital gown, wishing she could pass out but the sedative they’d given her wasn’t working. Ax was there, she was telling him (it weighed on her terribly) about when she’d fucked Tom, back at the beginning with DARK, because it was her policy not to make a fuss, she would do it with anyone that saw the ribbon and still wanted sex, and she hadn’t known Cafren would mind. Why would anyone mind, it was only Fiorinda, stupid worthless kid. But Cafren
had
minded, and it had been between them ever since. Oh, why can’t I go back and not have done that? And where’s Sage? Why isn’t he here? She couldn’t understand why Ax wasn’t talking, not that she cared, she was too dizzy to care, as long as he would hold her.

The driver of the second jeep, and one of the reporters, had been thrown clear and had survived, badly hurt.

Bits of Tom in my mouth, oh dear, oh dear, can’t get rid of that—

‘Sage.’

‘
Ax
! Is she okay?’

‘She’s okay. She’s hurt but she’s okay. Tom Okopie’s dead—’

‘Yeah, and that reporter. We saw.’

‘Sage I have to go to fucking Cleethorpes, right now. Got to leave her. Can you get up here, soon as humanly possible—’

‘Ax, what is it you’re not telling me?’

‘Nothing serious.’

‘Then let me I talk to her.’

‘She…she can’t hear you, temporarily deafened by the blast. She’s sleeping. Just be here when she wakes up. Don’t leave her. She’s not in a good state.’

Gone. Sage had walked away from the table where barmy army officers were urgently discussing what had happened. He stared out through mullioned windows: relief still mixed with terror. He’d been waiting for Richard Kent to show up, ex British infantry major who was the barmies’ Chief of Staff. No way he was waiting any longer. Someone knocked on the Victorian-Gothic door: a timid sound, like one of the kids. Except that any of the kids in this circus would have marched straight in, knocking on doors a lost, archaic concept, Sanskrit to the lot of them. Along with the words
no,
and
bedtime,
and all stuff like that. Someone went to open it. Smelly Hugh stood there, diffident.

‘’Scuse me fer interupting. Has any of you guys seen Silver?’

They established that the child had been missing for four hours. Forced to give up the lemonade idea, she’d taken advantage of the upset this morning, half-inched a litre of vodka and a shot glass, and set out to sell tots in the prefab village. Which was supposed to be out of bounds, but some other tour kids, who’d been playing with refugee kids on sanctioned, neutral territory, had seen her over there. The vodka story they’d extracted from Pearl, Silver’s usual business partner. But Pearl had come back alone.

When Fiorinda woke up she was in a different bed. Charm Dudley was there, red-eyed, furious. But fury, in Charm, had to stand in for several other emotions, permanently missing from the repertoire. To get on with her at all you had to accept that. She sat up, ribs twinging hard. ‘Where’s Ax?’

Charm picked up a notepad from the bed table, and scrawled on it.

He’s gone to Cleethorpes.

‘Oh… Oh yeah, I remember, I’m deaf… Hey, me Beethoven.’

‘You fucking self obsessed little prima donna! The fucking country is about to explode, Ax has gone off to get himself killed by the mob and TOM IS DEAD! You’re unbelievable! How can you think of yourself at a time like this?’

‘You’re wasting your breath,’ said Fiorinda (getting most of this from context, as Charm was not remembering to write it down). ‘I’m not kidding, Charm. I really can’t hear you, and I don’t know how to lipread. Oh, I suppose I’ll have to learn. What about Caf? Is she okay?’

Not pregnant any more, Charm wrote. And her lover is dead. Otherwise fine.

‘What about me getting out of here? Where is here? Is this a hospital?’

You’re under guard. Sage was supposed to come back and babysit, but he got held up.

Fiorinda stared ahead of her, thinking what to do. Every breath she took was painful. ‘Where’s Ingrid? I need clothes, a corset. Oh, and I need to talk to a doctor. Not this lot. Get me someone who deals in extreme sports.’

There were two hundred and fifty-odd Boat People housed in Easton Friars deerpark, about two thousand more in emergency-requisitioned caravan parks and tourist campsites in the area. The Easton Friars spokesperson insisted no one in the prefabs had seen Silver, or her vodka bottle. The refugees’ social workers were understandably on the defensive: but if this wasn’t an infuriating prank (which still might be) the worst conclusion was probably the right one. Easton Friars was a sink estate, in Boat People terms, quietly arranged that way with the idea that the barmy army could handle any trouble. And obviously, now this had happened, a very stupid place to bring lawless, fearless Countercultural infants. There were some bad bastards from bad places, lurking among the dispossessed.

They’d found her dress and cardigan stuffed in a hole in a wall in the mock monastic ruins. No shoes (Silver rarely wore shoes); no underwear. Her Oltech tag was in her dress. Was that smart kidnappers, rapists, or Silver being wild and free? The search of the grounds continued. Sage and others moved out to the satellite camps.

He’d talked to Ax and to the people at the hospital, got some reassurance about Fiorinda and left messages for her. Best he could do. In the grey dawn of the day after Silver had disappeared he was completing a circuit around Easton Friars, looking for a beaten-up white panel van, that possibly didn’t have a number plate. Pearl had eventually revealed she’d seen her sister getting into a van, and the social workers had reluctantly agreed they knew a vehicle like the one she described; so it might be true, although kids will say anything under pressure. Gate control was not tight, refugees went in and out, some of them had wheels, a van could be anywhere. What do we do if we cannot put a cap on this thing? Shall we try to make light of it? Hey, one little rockstar hippie kid, we have several more, no worries, see, we’re smiling—

Another caravan park, government Boat People Welfare trailers at the entrance. A run-down looking place, weird idea for a holiday spot, next to a breaker’s yard. Ilkley moors off to the west, with Yap Moss somewhere beyond. He left the bike a few hundred metres up the road and headed back. No dogs about, thank God. He spoke quietly to the night security, went to have a look around alone. They were trying very hard to be discreet. The van was on the grass by one of the permanent trailers. It had an unreadable license plate, hammered by gunfire. There was also a large dark BMW, a hire-firm sticker in the back window. He touched his wrist. ‘George. Think I have something.’

Walking softly, he went right to the trailer and looked in. The interior was brightly lit. There were six men around a small table, drinking. Four of them were better dressed than the average Boat Person, the two others younger, no more than teenagers,
maybe
he’d seen them at Easton Friars, hard to be sure. The little girl was tied to a chair: she was naked. There were three handguns lying on the table, two well-used assault rifles propped against a wall. If there was another weapon, it was out of sight. As he watched, the six men took cards from a pack, each turning up his choice among muttering and uneasy laughter.

It looked as if they were drawing lots.

He turned away. ‘She’s here. There are six of them, armed. Get to me soon as you can.’

The light was changing, as the red limb of the sun rose over the Vale of York. Should he wait? A few minutes could mean a lot to Silver Wing. Many times in the past few weeks being big, weird and welcome to at least some of the crowd had allowed him to get away with non-violence. But he did not think there were any Aoxomoxoa fans in that van. Better just go for it.

The door shattered like matchwood. The kidnappers jumped to their feet and he piled in, making best use of the confined space. He had them too busy to go for the guns, but
he should have immobilised their transport
: what Ax would have done, but Ax had two good hands and a fucking unholy knowledge of how to make a motor go or not go. Sage would just have to make sure no one here got the slightest chance to grab the kid and escape. This thought, along with the memory of Pigsty’s video diaries, instilling a ruthless and brutal determination
not to fuck up…
he was surprised how quickly it was over. Three of them down and out, the fourth nursing a broken arm, two of them out the door. The sound of the van’s engine: too bad. He cut the child free with his pocket knife, stripped off his jacket and his shirt, dressed her in the shirt. She hadn’t made a sound.

‘Well, Silver, did you get raped?’

There were wheels and engines outside, doors slamming, footsteps.

She shook her head violently.

‘What the fuck have you been doing, Sage?’

George and Bill stood in the broken doorway, surveying the wreckage, the skull masks grinning in disbelief.

‘Um… I was in a hurry.’

North Yorks police, who had been discreetly supporting the search, took over. Sage had not killed any of the bad guys: the teenagers who had caught Silver and sold her on were picked up without further mayhem. But too many people had been involved. The story of the child’s abduction was out, on the air and in newsprint, forming a vicious symmetry with the explosion on South Shields beach. Angry crowds gathered again. The final gig of the Rock the Boat Tour suddenly looked like a ready-made flashpoint.