Escape from Shangri-La (15 page)

‘I bet,' I said, inventing as I went along, ‘I bet he's
just gone off for a wander or something. He'll find his way back sooner or later, you'll see.' It was the best I could do without giving anything away.

Later I made them a cup of tea – not something I often did – and brought it into the sitting-room. They were sitting side by side on the sofa and holding hands. Their faces lit up when they saw me come in with the tray, and I liked that. ‘Popsicle can take care of himself,' I said, pouring the tea. ‘He's a survivor, Dad; you said it yourself. Wherever he is, he'll be all right. I know he will.'

As we sat there waiting, I was trying to think of more reassuring things to say, but I knew I had to be careful. I had to be seen to be anxious too. So I kept silent. It was the safest way.

Suddenly my father was on his feet and standing with his back to the fireplace, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. ‘I'm going to say something, something that's got to be said.' He looked uncertain as to whether he should go on. ‘You're going to hate me for this,' he said, catching my eye.

‘What? What is it?' my mother was on the edge of the sofa.

‘All right, all right.' He still didn't want to let it out. ‘All along, ever since he came here, I haven't been fair
to him. I know that, and I'm not proud of it either. The truth is, I think I may have sent him up to Shangri-La, not just for his own good, but partly to hurt him, like he hurt me when I was a kid. I think I really wanted him to sit up there and long for us to come and visit, just so he'd know what it was like.' His whole face was overwhelmed with tears now. ‘Day after day, year after year, I'd be sitting up on that wall outside the home, and I'd be looking down the road, believing he'd come round the corner and take me away, and he never did. I've always hated him for that, always. I know I shouldn't have, but I did.'

‘But you're not like that,' my mother whispered. ‘That's spiteful, vengeful.'

‘Yes, all of that,' my father went on, ‘and worse, too. He could be lying out there under a bus right now, or mugged in some dark alleyway; and if he is, it'll be like I killed him myself, my own father.' He was reaching out for understanding, for comfort, and I didn't know how to give it. ‘I should've been like you, like both of you. I should've welcomed him and with open arms, but I couldn't. I should have forgiven him by now. I'm a grown man, for Christ's sake. I should have had it in me to . . .'

The telephone rang. My mother was there first. We
followed her into the front hall. She wasn't doing much of the talking. All she said was: ‘Yes . . . Yes . . . thank you.' Then she put the phone down and turned to us. She was beaming through her tears. ‘He's all right. Popsicle's all right. It seems he just walked up to a policeman in town and said he'd like a lift up to Shangri-La. He's fine. He's safe.'

The hug that followed was a threesome one, and lasted and lasted. ‘We'll bring him home,' said my father when it was over. ‘We'll bring him home.'

The week that followed seemed more like a month. Every night, every day I spent thinking of Popsicle, of Saturday, of Dunkirk, of Lucie Alice. At school Shirley Watson plied me with endless questions about the
Lucie Alice
, questions I fended off as best I could without offending her. I told her as much of the truth as I dared – it always helps when you're telling a lie. I explained that Popsicle loved lifeboats because he'd worked on one long ago, when he was a young man. He must've seen the
Lucie Alice
down on the canal, and used her as a model for my boat. She believed me, I thought, but I wasn't quite sure. I couldn't be sure of anything with Shirley Watson. Certainly, she seemed to have become an ally, a friend even; a turn-around I welcomed but still could not quite trust.

At home hurried preparations were under way to have Popsicle home again. My father was arranging for a nurse to come in to be with him each weekday until he was well enough to be on his own. But the nurse couldn't come until after the weekend. We'd surprise Popsicle, he said. We'd go up there on Sunday and we'd just tell him out of the blue that he was coming home. We'd pick up his things there and then and bring him home with us.

They were so much looking forward to it all; but of course, all the time they were planning I knew it was never going to happen, that by Sunday, Popsicle and I would be gone to France, they'd have found my letter – the letter I was still trying to compose – and they'd know the worst. So many times I nearly told them. I longed to unburden myself of my secret, but I could not and I would not betray Popsicle. I held my secret inside me and willed the days to pass.

I didn't finish my letter until the Saturday morning. I'd tried to write it all out, to explain everything, to tell Popsicle's whole life story; but when I read it through it seemed so unlikely, as if I'd concocted the whole thing. Maybe it was the way I'd written it. I wrote pages and pages, but it all ended up in the wastepaper basket. In the end I settled for the briefest of notes:

We spent the Saturday afternoon making ‘Welcome Home Popsicle' signs, one for the front door, one for his bedroom door. We brought out the box of Christmas decorations from under the stairs, and festooned the sitting-room with streamers and balloons. We hung the Christmas tree lights over the mantelpiece. I blew up so many balloons that my head ached with it.

In spite of the deception I was playing out, it was a lovely time, because the three of us were together, really together as we hadn't been for a long time. My father never once talked of going to work, nor even answered the phone. And my mother hardly mentioned ‘her' school or ‘her' children. I wished it could always be like this.

I hoped they'd get off to bed early, and I tried to encourage them to do so by going up to have my bath straight after supper.

‘See you in the morning,' said my father. I think it took him by surprise when I kissed him goodnight. I hadn't done that for weeks. ‘Tomorrow's the great day then,' he said, holding on to my hand for a moment longer.

‘Yes, Dad,' I said, hating myself for what I was about to do to them.

‘Don't run all the hot water off,' my mother called after me. ‘I'll come up and see you. Won't be long.'

When she did come up an hour or so later, she found me in bed seemingly asleep with my light turned out. Over the chair my clothes were all ready to step into, and behind the chair two extra jumpers, and my anorak. My violin was under the bed – I hadn't forgotten it.

‘Asleep?' she whispered. I didn't reply because, in my state of high excitement, I couldn't trust my voice not to give me away. She closed the door quietly. I lay there in the darkness, riven with guilt. I knew well enough how much anguish I was about to cause, but I could see no other way I could fulfil my promise to Popsicle.

I tried not to shut my eyes. I had to stay awake. The last thing I wanted to do was to fall asleep and not wake up in time. I just wished they'd turn off the television and come up to bed. But they didn't. The television
hummed and burbled downstairs, lulling me out of my resolve.

Only when I woke did I realise I'd been asleep. I sat up with a jolt. My bedside clock said eleven fifteen. The house was dark and quiet all around me. I knew where everything was without turning on the light. I was dressed, down the stairs, and out of the front door within a couple of minutes. With my violin clipped to the rack behind me, I cycled out of the estate and into town as fast as I could go. The roads were practically empty. I heard midnight strike from the church as I cycled over the canal bridge. I'd made it, just.

I could see the barges quite clearly in the moonlight, and beyond them the wider hull of the
Lucie Alice
. But there were no lights on board. She was as dark as the barge next to her. There was no one there. As I wheeled my bike along the towpath, I began to think, and worry and doubt. Perhaps Popsicle wasn't that much better after all. Perhaps he still had bouts of forgetfulness. Perhaps he was barmy. Or maybe the whole story about Lucie Alice, about Dunkirk, was some kind of old man's fantasy. Perhaps Popsicle was lying fast asleep in his bed up at Shangri-La, our rendezvous quite forgotten.

I left my bike lying in the undergrowth beside the towpath, and went on board. I called out for him as
loudly as I dared. The moon slipped behind a cloud and the world darkened suddenly. A warm shiver of fear crept up the back of my neck. I went below. The cabin door was still locked. I felt for and found the key in the tea tin. Popsicle was definitely not there. I thought then that maybe he'd said Sunday night, not Saturday night. I went up on deck. The moon was out again and gave me new hope. It was as round, as perfectly full, as it could possibly be. Full moon was Saturday, Popsicle had said so. It had to be tonight, midnight tonight.

There was the sound of an approaching car, headlights sweeping out over the canal, briefly illuminating the entire length of the
Lucie Alice
, and blinding me as they did so. I ducked down below the gunwales. I could hear the car bumping along the towpath towards me. It stopped. The engine died and there was silence again. I had to look. It wasn't a car. It was a minibus, a white minibus with writing on the side. One of the words was definitely ‘Shangri-La'. Popsicle was getting out of the driver's side and coming round the front of the minibus. He smiled up at me.

‘Bit late, Cessie. Beggar wouldn't start,' he said.

The nearside door opened and the side doors slid back. I counted them as they got out. I could not believe what I was seeing. Twelve. I recognised Harry as one of
them. He wasn't in his wheelchair. He was walking, bent between two sticks. There was an old lady beside him, helping him along. ‘You know Harry, don't you?' said Popsicle, ‘and this is Mary. Used to be a nurse, did Mary. She's seeing to all the medicines for us, aren't you, Mary?' He clapped his hands. ‘Everyone, everyone. This is my granddaughter, this is the Cessie I've been telling you all about.'

They were all coming on board and they all seemed to know exactly where to go as well.

Popsicle was beside me, his arm round my shoulder. He was showing me off. Some of them ruffled my hair as they passed; one of the old ladies – later I found out that everyone called her ‘Big Bethany' – touched my cheek with her cold hand and said, ‘Just like you said, Popsicle, a princess. That's what we'll call her then, Princessie.' And they all laughed at that.

‘Ancient mariners we may be,' Popsicle told me proudly. ‘But we'll do fine. We've got blankets, food, water, all we need.'

I watched Harry's wheelchair being carried on board and the gangplank hauled in. ‘Don't worry, Cessie. We did a dummy run, two nights ago. “Borrowed” the minibus for a couple of hours,' Popsicle went on. ‘I showed them what was what. Everyone's got a job
to do. They all know what they're doing.'

I could only stand and watch and admire as they bustled purposefully about the boat.

‘Do they know everything? About Lucie Alice?' I asked.

‘Everything,' Popsicle replied. ‘The whole thing, beginning to end. I reckoned we were going to need all the help we could get. They volunteered, Cessie, to a man, to a woman. Of course there's some that couldn't make it; not well enough. But those we've got are raring to go. Isn't that right, Harry?'

‘Only one thing I'm going to miss,' said Harry, ‘and that's the Dragonwoman's face in the morning when she finds out that half her inmates have done a bunk!' Harry had settled himself down in his wheelchair and Mary was wrapping his legs in a blanket. ‘Some ship, eh Cessie?' he said.

Some ship, some crew, I was thinking. All about me the ancient mariners went about making the lifeboat ready for sea. The lights came on down below, tarpaulins were rolled and stowed away. Popsicle was everywhere it seemed, helping, reminding, cajoling. There was no doubt who the skipper was. Everyone had a part to play – except me, it seemed. I was beginning to feel a bit redundant, until Popsicle took me to one side.

‘Soon as I start up the engines, Cessie,' he said, ‘I
want you to go and tell Sam up at the lock-keeper's house that we're ready. You know him already, don't you? He told me all about your little meeting. He'll be expecting you. Give him a hand with the lock gates, will you? Then, once we're through, I want you back on board and for'ard, keeping your eyes peeled for buoys and ropes and what have you. We won't get to Dunkirk with a rope wrapped round our propellers, will we?'

As the engines roared to life, I dashed along the towpath, over the canal bridge and hammered on Sam's door. He must have been ready and waiting, because the door opened almost at once, and he was standing there in his wellies and his dressing-gown, a torch in his hand. He looked at the
Lucie Alice
, all lit up like a Christmas cake from bow to stern, her ancient crew hauling in the lines, Popsicle at the wheel, with Harry beside him in his wheelchair.

‘I need pinching,' said Sam. He never stopped chortling the whole time as we opened the lock gate and let in the
Lucie Alice
. The wheel was heavy and stiff, and there was a lot of huffing and puffing before the gate was fully open. She inched into the lock, engines chuntering sonorously. It was a very tight fit. We closed the gates behind her. As the lock flooded, she rose majestically up towards us. Only now that she was away
from the barges and on her own, did I see just how magnificent she really was. Sam spoke my thoughts. ‘Never seen anything like it,' he said. ‘I just hope Popsicle knows what he's doing, that's all. It's an awful long way over to Dunkirk. Still, you've got the weather. Should be like a millpond out there tonight.'