Escape from Shangri-La (10 page)

They had all turned away from me and were walking towards the house. I took my chance and made off. I had it in mind that I would find Popsicle before they did and tell him of my plans for his escape. He had to know that I hadn't abandoned him, and that I never would.

I must have been preoccupied. I was making my way across the lawn, past the rose garden towards the
window where I'd seen Popsicle before, when I walked right into a man in a wheelchair.

‘Where you off to in such a hurry, young lady?' I expected him to be furious, but he wasn't. ‘Visiting someone, are you?'

‘I'm looking for Popsicle, for my grandad,' I said.

When he smiled I saw he had very even, very yellow teeth. He held out his hand. ‘I'm Harry,' he said, ‘and you must be Cessie. Never stops talking about you. Pretty as a picture, just like he said you were. Grand fellow, your grandad. Won't stand any nonsense from the Dragonwoman.' I knew well enough who he was talking about. He looked around him and then beckoned me closer. ‘All smiles she is on visiting days. Different story when they've gone. Shouts at us like we're all deaf. Treats us like we're a bunch of loonies. I'm telling you. It's not right what she does. Not right at all. Popsicle – he's the only one that talks back at her. And she doesn't like it, not one bit. Got it in for him already, she has, but Popsicle doesn't take no notice.'

‘Where is he?' I asked.

‘He goes down to the gun emplacement on the cliffs. Just sits there, looking at the boats going in and out, birdwatching sometimes, or reading his poetry. Potty about poetry, isn't he? Best place to think his thoughts,
he says.' He pointed through the trees. ‘Over there he doesn't like to be disturbed. But he won't mind, not if it's you.' I began to move away, but he hadn't finished yet. ‘I'll tell you something else, young lady. He may not have been here long, but your grandad, he's like a breath of fresh air. Keeps us smiling, he does. And that's a lot to be thankful for. Off you go now.'

I found Popsicle standing on top of a concrete bunker. There were holes in the sides where I supposed the guns had once been. He was looking out to sea through a pair of binoculars. He hadn't heard me, so I climbed up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. The moment he saw me his face lit up.

He hugged me to him tight for a moment or two, and then held me at arm's length. He seemed so much happier than the last time I'd seen him, more his old self again. ‘Oh, Cessie, I've been hoping you'd come back. Every day I've been hoping. That woman, that Dragonwoman, she didn't catch you when you came before? She didn't catch you?' I shook my head. I had everything ready to tell him, my whole escape plan, but I didn't get the chance even to begin. ‘Good, good. Now listen, Cessie. I've got news for you, good news. I've remembered something, something important. That boat I made you, it's more than just a boat.'

‘What d'you mean?'

His eyes shone with excitement. ‘It's where I live, Cessie. It's my home. That boat's my home. I live on the
Lucie Alice
.' I must have looked a bit doubtful. ‘It's true, Cessie. I live on that boat. Honestly. I woke up a couple of days ago and I just knew it. Don't ask me how. I reckon it's the old memory waking himself up at last. About time too, if you ask me. It's just like the one I made you, the one they went and sunk. I'm not barmy, Cessie, honestly I'm not. For a while I really thought I was, and it frightened the living daylights out of me. You do believe me, don't you?'

‘Of course I do,' I said, but I wasn't at all sure that I did. I had to ask: ‘But where is it then? Where you live, the boat, where is it?'

He looked suddenly downcast. ‘That's the thing, Cessie. That's the bit I don't know. I mean, it's got to be moored somewhere, hasn't it? I'm still trying to work it out, and I will too. I will. You'll see.'

A pair of gulls wheeled above our heads and flew out to sea. ‘Lesser Blackbacks,' he said. ‘Have a look.' He took off his binoculars and gave them to me. It was a few moments before I had them in focus. I found them floating out on the thermals over the cliffs. ‘That's what I'd like to be, free as they are,' said Popsicle. ‘All my life
there's one thing I've hated, Cessie. You know what it is? Being cooped up, shut in, told what to do. That's why I always dreaded coming up here to Shangri-La. I heard all about it from a friend of mine – Sam he's called. Sam had an older brother, and he went a bit barmy in the head. So Sam had to send him up here to be looked after. He hated it up here, and he never came out. That's not going to happen to me, Cessie. I'm getting out of here, soon as ever I can.' He was angry now, angrier than I'd ever seen him. ‘There's fine people in this place, good people, but that Mrs Davidson, that Dragonwoman, she who must be obeyed, I've seen her screaming at them, Cessie. Maybe we're a bit slow. Maybe some of us wet ourselves. But that's not our fault, is it? And all she does is scream at us. Not right, Cessie, not fair. Little Hitler she is. I'm telling you, Cessie, I'm getting out – and for two pins I'd take Harry and the others with me. Honest I would. Soon as I remember where that boat of mine is, I'll be gone, out of here for good.'

That was when I heard my mother's voice from in amongst the trees.

‘Popsicle!' She was hurrying down towards us, and with her were Mrs Davidson and my father.

‘We've been looking for you, Mr Stevens. I thought
I told you to stay inside to meet your visitors, in the dayroom,' said Mrs Davidson. There was an edge to her voice that hadn't been there before.

‘How are you, Popsicle?' My mother was helping Popsicle down off the gun emplacement. ‘Mrs Davidson says you're eating really well these days. That's good, very good.' She breathed deep of the air as she looked out to sea. ‘Isn't this the perfect place?'

‘You doing all right, then?' my father asked.

‘Better all the time, Arthur. And d'ya know why? I was telling Cessie. I've remembered. I've remembered where I live. It's on the
Lucie Alice
.' They were all looking at him, nonplussed. ‘That's right. It's a boat, just like the one I made for Cessie. It's a lifeboat, and I live on it.'

We didn't stay talking for very long. Popsicle did his best to explain how it was that he could be so sure about the
Lucie Alice
; but how, even so, he still couldn't remember where it was moored. ‘That'll come,' he said. ‘That'll come.' But I could see what Popsicle couldn't see, that they all thought he was losing his mind, that Shangri-La was just where he should be, and where he'd have to stay.

All the while Mrs Davidson was eyeing me. I was sure she was beginning to recognise me.

As we were leaving she took Popsicle by the elbow.
‘I think you'd better come inside now, Mr Stevens, don't you? Bit breezy out here.'

‘I'll be fine where I am,' Popsicle pulled away. ‘I like a good breeze. Gets rid of bad smells, if you know what I mean.' Mrs Davidson glared at him.

When we said goodbye I held him as long and as tight as I could, so that he'd remember it when I was gone. It was all I could do to choke back my tears. ‘Don't you go crying on me, girl,' he whispered. ‘I've got enough on my plate without that.'

My mother kissed him goodbye too. ‘It's not for ever Popsicle,' she said. ‘You do understand that. Just till you're better. We'll come again soon.'

My father shook Popsicle by the hand. There was just a nod between them and a brief meeting of eyes.

‘You do see what I mean,' said Mrs Davidson as we walked away. ‘He says such bizarre things. He does live in a bit of a fantasy world, I'm afraid, but he'll settle down. They all take time to settle. I'll look after him, don't you worry.' To me, that sounded more like a threat than anything else.

We drove home in silence. I waited till the engine was turned off before I let them both know exactly what I was thinking. ‘I don't know how you can do it, how you can leave him up there in that place with
that horrible woman.' They stayed silent, which simply provoked me to go further. ‘You don't believe him, do you? You never do. If he says he lives on a lifeboat, then he does. Why should he make it up? You think he's mad, do you? Well, you're the mad ones. Why don't you just trust him? Why don't you ever trust him?'

I lay there that night asking myself that very same question. Try as I did to dispel them, my doubts still nagged at me. Was Popsicle really in his right mind? How could he be living on a lifeboat? If I could find the
Lucie Alice
, if only I could prove there was such a boat . . . I knew what I had to do. I don't think I slept at all.

I was up early. I told them I was going for a cycle ride. I searched the marina from end to end, and the harbour beyond. There was no lifeboat. I went out after lunch and tried again. There was no
Lucie Alice
. No one had ever heard of her. So maybe they were right after all. Maybe Popsicle
was
sick in his head. Maybe he was barmy. I remembered what Mrs Morecambe had said about her aunt in the RE lesson, how she was dying of Alzheimer's. I went and looked up Alzheimer's in a medical dictionary from my mother's bookshelf. It took me some time to find it, because I didn't know how to
spell it. Everything I read confirmed my worst fears. Alzheimer's began with muddled thinking, with intermittent loss of memory. When I'd finished reading I was quite sure that Popsicle was in the early stages of Alzheimer's.

With two sleepless nights behind me, I was so tired the next day and so worried that I could hardly think straight at all. The last person in the world I wanted to have to face at school was Shirley Watson. I was sitting under a tree eating my lunch on my own, when I looked up and saw her coming towards me. There was nothing I could do to avoid her. She stood for a moment looking down at me out of the sun. I thought she was going to kick my head in.

‘You know that boat?' Her tone was conciliatory, ingratiating almost. ‘Well, I've seen it,' she said.

‘What do you mean, you've seen it? You bust it up, remember?'

‘No, I mean a big one, a real one. Down by the canal. By the lock. You been there?' I shook my head. ‘I was fishing down there yesterday with my brother. There's a whole lot of barges moored down by the old warehouses, and right at the end there's this boat, and it's just like the one your grandad made. Just the same it is. I'm not having you on, Cessie, promise. It's there, really
there. “
Lucie
. . .” something or other, it's called. Great big yellow funnel. Blue, just like the one . . .' She was shifting nervously from one foot to the other. ‘I'll show you, if you like. After school?'

IT WAS A LONG WALK FROM SCHOOL TO THE canal, right across the other side of town. All the way I felt uneasy. Shirley Watson didn't say very much. There was never a mention of the sinking of the
Lucie Alice
. She asked after Popsicle, and she seemed genuinely concerned, as if she really cared about him. It wasn't like her at all. All the while I felt I might be being led into some kind of a trap. I stayed with her only because I knew there had to be some truth in her story. No one else could possibly have known what Popsicle had told me up at Shangri-La, about the
Lucie Alice
. She couldn't have plucked the idea out of thin air. But Shirley Watson was Shirley Watson, so I stayed on my guard.

As we neared the lock gates I was becoming ever more intrigued, but ever more anxious too. She stopped
on the bridge and pointed. ‘There. See?' I could see only the funnel at first, a yellow funnel beyond the line of brightly painted pleasure barges. But then I saw the side of the boat, dark blue, broader than the barges, her hull bellying out into the canal, a rope looping the length of her, just as there had been on the model Popsicle had made me. I looked around nervously, half expecting some kind of an ambush.

‘What's the matter?' Shirley Watson asked.

‘You,' I said. And then I asked her straight. ‘What are you doing this for? Why did you bring me?'

I didn't know Shirley Watson could cry, but suddenly there were real tears in her eyes. ‘What happened to your grandad, I didn't mean it to happen like it did. It just got out of hand. I don't know why we did it, and I wish . . .' She couldn't say any more. She turned away and went off, leaving me alone by the canal.

As I walked over the bridge it was coming on to rain. I hurried along the towpath past the barges – they had names like
Kontiki
and
Hispaniola
– and there in front of one was the vertical prow of the lifeboat rising majestically from the water, her name painted in large red letters on her side:
Lucie Alice
. I stepped over the mooring ropes and ran my hand along her side. She felt so solid, so sturdy.

The towpath in front of me and behind me looked deserted, and so it seemed was the boat. I called out. ‘Anyone there? Anyone on board?' Then I saw the huge wheel – polished wood and brass – as high as a man, and beyond it the dark of the cabin down below. The only difference between this boat and Popsicle's model, apart from size of course, was that no man stood at the wheel in his sou'wester. In every other detail this was the same boat. I called out once more just to be sure. There was no reply, and there was no one watching except a pair of swans gliding past on the canal. It looked safe enough for me to go on board.

For a few moments I stood at the wheel and just held it. It wasn't hard to imagine the towering seas and the throb of the engines and the cries of the shipwrecked sailors. I could almost feel the spray on my face and the cruel wind whipping the seas into a frenzy all around me. I clung to the wheel now for dear life, just like the man in the sou'wester. I looked up at the funnel, but the rain stung my eyes at once so I had to look away. There was a gangway of some kind leading down, to the cabin perhaps, or to the engine-room.