Fire and Hemlock (20 page)

Mr Lynn leaped up with a shout. “
Ann Abraham!
You’ve done it, Polly! You truly did it! I can hardly believe it!” He was so excited that Polly had to pull his sweater to get him to explain why. Then he seemed to think she might find the explanation boring. “It’s like this,” he said, folding himself down onto the hearth rug rather apologetically. “As soon as I joined the BPO, I found I wanted to leave it – not the orchestra’s fault, just my habit of not fitting in very well – and play on my own. But I hadn’t any money, and there’s only a limited amount a lone cellist can do anyway. The best way to do it was to form a group, a quartet or a trio, because there are quite a lot of things four players can do. But of course they have to be known before they can make any money at it. You wouldn’t believe how many good players in the orchestra wouldn’t dream of taking the risk. They thought I was crazy. So did I, to tell the truth. Then you came along and told me about heroes. And then there was the horse, which made me sell a picture, and I thought: Damn it, I
can
do it! So I talked to some friends and, to cut a long story short, Ed Davies, Sam Rensky, Ann Abraham, and I got together and tried—”

“What went wrong?” Polly asked as Mr Lynn trailed off.

“Nothing at all heroic.” Mr Lynn gave his gulping laugh. “Cold feet. If we want to form a proper quartet, we’re going to have to leave the orchestra and try – but it’s always possible we’ll end up busking in the Underground a year from now. I thought I’d sell another picture.” He pointed. Polly swivelled round to look at the pink-and-blue clown picture leaning against the wall. Her face went hot with guilt and she had to stay turned away when Mr Lynn said, “I thought it
must
be a reproduction or at least a copy, but it turns out to be a real Picasso.” He added, sounding unhappy, “It’s not money, though. It’s – well, are we good enough to foist ourselves on the public?”

That made Polly turn back. “Granny says the only way to find out is to try,” she said. “I say that too,” she added, thinking about it.

“I know,” Mr Lynn said in his humblest way. “And I hope you’ll forgive me, Polly. Since it started with you in a way, I thought I’d let you decide. If you could find the right heroes in the photograph, I swore we’d go on. If you didn’t, I’d superstitiously decided to scrap the whole idea.”

“You took a risk!” said Polly. She was extremely glad she had not known how much depended on her finding Tan Thare and the others. “Suppose I hadn’t found them? Or what if I did find them, but they weren’t the ones you meant?”

Mr Lynn bowed his head over his big hands and looked ashamed. “I think I’d have approached the ones you chose instead. You have a knack of telling me the right thing.” And at that he sprang up. “Now you deserve a treat. Where would you like to go in London? What shall we do?”

The rest of the day was a great golden excitement to Polly. She had never been anywhere much in London, so it was all new and wonderful to her, whether she was in the horse-car screaming round and round the roundabout in front of Buckingham Palace because Mr Lynn kept missing the road they wanted, or heroically belting along the Embankment, or looking at the Crown Jewels in the Tower, or eating kebab somewhere beyond that. Now Mr Lynn was happy again, they talked and talked the whole time, but Polly only remembered snatches of what they said. She remembered being in front of the Houses of Parliament, eating a hot dog. She looked up at Big Ben and said suddenly, “Tan Coul and the others have to be on a quest for something.”

“Do you insist?” said Mr Lynn.

“Yes,” said Polly. “All the best heroes are.”

“Very well,” said Mr Lynn. “What are we looking for?”

Polly replied promptly, “An Obah Cypt.” But when Mr Lynn questioned her, she had not the least idea what an Obah Cypt could be.

Later they were standing looking at the Thames somewhere while Polly ate a choc-ice – she spent most of the day eating something – and Mr Lynn asked her if she had liked the books he had sent for Christmas.

Polly did her best to be tactful. It was not easy, because the choc-ice had just fallen apart and she was trying to balance a sheet of chocolate on her tongue while she sucked at the dripping ice cream beneath. “King Arthur’s all right,” she said liquidly.

“You don’t like fairy stories. Have you read them?” said Mr Lynn. Polly was forced to shake her head. “Please read them,” said Mr Lynn. “Only thin, weak thinkers despise fairy stories. Each one has a true, strange fact hidden in it, you know, which you can find if you look.”

“A’ ri’,” said Polly over a dissolving handful of white goo and brown flakes.

Later still the horse-car broke down in rush hour when they were racing to catch Polly’s train. Mr Lynn was quite used to this. Shouting that the brute always did it when he was in a hurry, he leaped out and pushed the car at a run onto the nearest pavement. There he first kicked it in the tyre, and then tore open the bonnet and prodded inside with the largest Stow-on-the-Water screwdriver while he called it a number of very insulting names. Then he kicked it again and it started. “The only language it understands,” he said as they roared off again.

They arrived not quite too late for Polly’s train and ran towards the platform among the thousands of other hurrying people. Polly shouted across the hammering of their many feet, “You know, the way you got the car to start is the only peculiar thing that’s happened this time!”

“Beware famous last words!” panted Mr Lynn. “Not true. Think of the way you spotted the heroes.” As they came near the barrier, he stopped almost dead. Polly thought she heard him say, “Famous last words indeed!” She looked round to ask what he meant and saw Mr Leroy coming through the crowds towards them with long, impatient steps.

Mr Leroy was wearing a coat with a fur collar which made him look both rich and important, and he was holding a rolled umbrella out before him, slanted slightly downwards. “I don’t want to hurt you with this, so get out of my way!” the umbrella said, and people obeyed it. With Mr Leroy there was a smaller person in a sheepskin jacket. It took Polly an instant or so to realise that the second person was Seb – Seb about a foot taller than when she last saw him. In that instant Mr Leroy’s umbrella had cleared every other person out of the way and he was standing looking at Mr Lynn. “I have you now!” said the look in the dark-pouched eyes, angry, triumphant, and accusing. The things Polly had overheard in Hunsdon House came out from hiding at the side of her mind when she saw that look, and she felt sick.

“Well, fancy meeting you here, Tom!” said Mr Leroy. The friendly surprise did not go with his look at all.

“Hello, Morton,” Mr Lynn said. Polly wondered how he could take it so calmly. “Are you going down to Middleton?”

“No. I’m just putting Seb on the train after his half-term,” Mr Leroy said. “I assume you’re doing the same with—” the dark pouches under his eyes moved as he looked at Polly “—this young lady.”

Polly had an idea that Seb was looking at her too, rather consideringly, but when she tore her eyes away from Mr Leroy to make sure, Seb was staring scornfully at a book stall.

“Yes I am,” said Mr Lynn. “And she’s going to miss the train if she doesn’t go now.”

“Seb can look after her,” said Mr Leroy. “Got your ticket, Seb?”

“Yes,” Seb said.

“Off you both run, then,” said Mr Leroy. “I can see the guard getting ready to signal. Hurry.”

Mr Lynn said, “Bye, Polly. Better run,” and gave her a firm, friendly smile. Seb glanced at the air above Polly, jerked his head to say “Come on” and set off at a trot towards the ticket barrier. There was nothing Polly could do but call “Goodbye!” to Mr Lynn over her shoulder as she ran after Seb. The train really was just about to go.

They caught the train by getting on the nearest end as it started to move. Then they had to walk down it to find seats. Polly expected Seb to lose her at this point, since he had done what his father wanted. But he stuck close behind her the whole way down the crowded train. Polly felt trapped. And she was horribly worried about Mr Lynn. They found two seats facing one another. As Polly squeezed into one and watched Seb sit down opposite her, she was wondering if she would ever see Mr Lynn again.

To her surprise, Seb said quite cheerfully, “Did you have a good time in London? I did.”

Polly jumped rather. She had not expected him to speak. He had looked so fed up at being put in charge of her. But because he had spoken so cheerfully, she found herself replying, equally cheerfully, “Yes. Lovely, thanks.” Hearing herself, she went into a silent panic. Quite apart from the fact that Seb was guarding her, she had not the least idea what you talked about to boys of fifteen. At Manor Road no boy that age would be seen dead talking to a First Year girl. “I – er – I saw the Tower of London,” she said lamely.

“I was there yesterday,” said Seb. “Cigarette?”

“N-no thanks,” Polly stammered, and watched with awe while Seb took out a packet of cigarettes and a silver lighter and lit himself a cigarette. It was all the more awesome because he was sitting beside a NO SMOKING sign on the train window. She could feel her eyes going wide and round.

“My father objects,” Seb said, blowing lines of smoke like a dragon. “You don’t, do you?”

“Oh no,” said Polly.

“Good place, London,” Seb said. “Better than school.”

“Yes,” said Polly.

That seemed to bring the conversation to an end. Polly thought she was relieved. But it seemed so awkward just to sit there that she began to feel compelled to say something else. But what? The only things she wanted to say were to ask about Mr Lynn and why Mr Leroy did not want him to see her. She was sure Seb knew why. But she did not dare. It was maddening. She seemed far more afraid of Seb now than she was when she was ten.

Perhaps if I could get him talking first about something else, she thought, I could lead round to it. But what
did
you say? She scrambled round inside her head, rooting in odd corners for something – anything! – she could say, and suddenly she came upon her secret visit to Hunsdon House. It dawned on her that she had a guilty inside view on Seb. “Which pop groups do you like?” she asked, in the greatest relief.

“Doors. Pity their singer’s dead,” said Seb. “Do you know Doors?” Polly did not, but it did not matter. Seb told her. He talked all the rest of the way to Middleton, and all Polly was able to do was nod and listen. She never got a chance to ask anything. Before long she was glad she had put her question the way she did. The posters on Seb’s walls were the groups he had liked last year, and he told her he was sick of them now. He still liked Michael Moorcock, he said, but this turned out to be a writer. “Great stuff,” Seb told Polly. “You should read him.”

By the end of the journey Polly was finding Seb almost agreeable. He looked much nicer when he smiled. His laugh was like Mr Leroy’s, but lower and more grating, which made it, to Polly’s mind, much less fatal. A sort of elegant churring, really, she thought. And it was flattering that he did not seem to mind talking to her.

The train drew into Middleton. As they got up to get off, Seb said, “There’s a disco at my school at the end of term. You could come, if you’re interested.”

Polly was so flustered at this that she said, “I’d love to!” and then wondered what had made her say it.

Seb said he would let her know when it was. They got off the train and walked out of the station together, into the dark and windy forecourt. Seb stopped near the fountain thing in the middle. “See here,” he said quite kindly. “I warned you off a year and a half ago. You didn’t take the blindest bit of notice, did you?”

This shook Polly exceedingly. By this time she had begun to believe that Seb had forgotten who she was. “No, I didn’t,” she said. “But you hadn’t any right to, anyway!”

“You should have listened,” said Seb. “You’ve got my father angry now, and he can be quite vile when he’s angry. You’d better be careful from now on. Very careful. That’s all. Want me to walk home with you?”

“No thanks,” said Polly. “See you.” It was a long way home from Miles Cross, but she ran all the way. It was a relief to find that Ivy and David were out when she got there. She did not feel like talking.

About a week later Mr Lynn telephoned. Polly had got used to taking messages for David Bragge, and she answered the phone in the way she had invented to make it less boring.

“
Good
evening,” she said in a silly squeak. Then, making her voice go deep and booming, “Whittacker residence here, and Bragge lodging.”

“Good Lord!” said Mr Lynn. “Is that what it is? Miss Jeeves, would you be so good as to tell Hero that Tan Coul wishes to speak to her?”

“Oh it’s
you
!” shouted Polly, and found she was blushing at the telephone. “I thought it was—Are you all right? Really all right?”

“Very well, thank you,” Mr Lynn said in his polite way. But he was upset. Polly could hear he was. She clenched her teeth and half shut her eyes, thinking of all the things she had imagined Mr Leroy doing to Mr Lynn. “Polly, do you remember us discussing selling a picture?”

“Yes.” Polly’s conscience gave her a guilty jab somewhere in the middle of her chest.

“One of the ones you helped me choose,” Mr Lynn said, causing Polly another jab, “and I told you it turned out to be a Picasso. Well, it seems that we somehow got all the wrong ones. They’ve just found out. Laurel’s been on to me, and Morton Leroy, and they’re trying to trace the one I sold to buy the horse. Of course I’ve had to give the Picasso back—”