If I Could Fly (4 page)

A man with a ring through his cheek and a woman with studded eyebrows and black eyes appear out of the mist, walk past me with disinterest and push open the pub door. I glimpse customers at tables, tucking into fish and chips or lasagne. They look happy. I feel even more alone. The door swings shut before anyone inside can raise an eyebrow at the kid who is loitering, looking lost.

What’s your plan, Paper Clip?

I’ll keep moving, Crease. Like you said, a moving target is harder to hit.

I’m running through rainbows. The wall of water
has become a fine mist shot through with sunlight. Richard Of York Gained Battle In Vain. Gran taught me that to help me remember the colours of the arc. She makes a wish whenever she sees one. I’m panicking, trying to think of the best thing to wish for. It’s no good – I can’t think clearly and sprint at the same time.

Come on, brain, help me work out what to do next. I need to get to the hospital. Let’s just focus on that, OK? My thigh feels like it’s being attacked by a meat slicer. How did I get injured? Did it happen when I ran away? Is it something to do with the feathers? Why did I take off with no money, no phone, no ID, no plan? It would help if you could stop your little game and tell me what happened. Just give me a clue – anything.

Glimpses of bright blue sea are winking at me as I splash across roads, kerbs awash with overflow water from the drains. I’m heading west, I think, towards the setting sun and the hill in the far distance. I remember the view from the hospital ward where I was treated.
It looked down over the town to the sea. This has to be the right direction.

I need to be vigilant. Now the rain has eased up, there will be patrol cars out and about again and the CCTV cameras will have a clear view.

‘Life can turn on a five-pence piece,’ Gran says. I never really understood what she meant until now. When things start spinning, they can go face up or down. Less than a day ago, I was a kid with a routine. I knew what to expect. Days were a blur of school, homework, thinking of new ways to avoid the electronic ID scan by the gates of our estate. At night, there would be Mum’s exotic stories of elephants and strange fish, and monkeys that steal food, clothes and trinkets from the night markets in Chang Mai. It didn’t matter that Dad wanted the TV and the whole front room to himself. We were happy, just the two of us.

Maybe I didn’t realise someone had flipped the coin and that things were in the balance. ‘
Mai pen rai
’ – no worries! – Mum always said, no matter what happened.
Not long ago, though, I found her crying. She said she felt like the tiny Thai birds captured in nets so that they could be released during festivals. They were never truly free.

I told Mum about the Feathers; how they could scale almost any man-made barrier in their way, how they had this amazing agility. She smiled and asked if she were too old to join.

And she told me to be careful, because some people didn’t agree with that kind of crazy running without rules, even though this is a free country.

I’ve arrived in the Magic Kingdom, swear to God. In this part of town the buildings are like toy houses, leaning against one another, with chimneys and front doors all in a line and every colour you can think of. The road rises steeply and curves, coils, snakes back and forth. The castle-shaped towers at the top are raised high above the long brick structure beneath, under a deep pink and orange sky.

Any moment, there could be fireworks . . .

I don’t remember the hospital looking like this. Then again, when you’re clutching your belly and a bucket in turn, you don’t notice detail, just pain. Even if Snow White herself had appeared with the seven dwarfs, whistling a happy tune, she couldn’t have made me smile.

A church clock struck six a while ago. The sun is just a red crescent, sinking into the sea. The air smells of salt and wood smoke, incense sticks and uncollected refuse. Gulls the size of terrier dogs are picking at abandoned black sacks on the pavement, spreading their contents with yellow beaks.

Almost there. The hill is so steep my legs feel as if they are moving in slow motion. The windows are blazing in the last rays of light. This close, the hospital is less like a fairy castle and more like a fortress. I had forgotten the huge wall round its perimeter and the giant stone griffins standing on high pillars either side of the gateway to the main entrance. They have the bodies of lions and their eagle heads are thrown up in a massive roar.

Holy hummingbirds, something is terribly wrong here. There are boards saying
Keep Out, Private Property
across the drive. There must be a mistake. A hospital never turns patients away. As my eyes scan the upper segment of the building, I notice that some of the
windowpanes are broken or missing and there’s ivy creeping under the roof gables. It has an air of neglect, like a corpse left behind on the battlefield, a casualty of war.

Look at the problem every which way, Paper Clip; the size of the barriers, the angle needed for your ascent.

I’m jogging with heavy feet along the perimeter of the wall, hoping for an opening, an explanation, a welcome. I’m greeted by streams of black and red graffiti tags, locked doors and high metal gates chained together. I wrap my fingers round the cold bars and rest my head against them, exhausted.

‘No, no, no, no, NO,’ I’m saying, over and over again, in disbelief. My arms are wrenching at the gates, which make a clanking noise like a metal monster yawning, but barely move.

I’m staring into the overgrown garden where three swings suspended from a wooden frame sway in the breeze, bumping into one another aimlessly. A rocking-horse head with grab bars has fallen off its spring and
lies amongst the wild grass. Two benches lie smashed and in pieces. On a third sits a small teddy, holding a red heart. His fur is grey with dirt. His eyes are fixed in my direction, unblinking. A shiver ripples down my body from my skull to my toes. It is so unexpected, I bite my tongue.

For some crazy reason, I want to hold the bear. I scan the road, up and down. No vehicles. No pedestrians. Only the greedy gulls peck, peck, pecking. I move back to the wall, which is about three metres high and has a ledge at the top. This would be a classic manoeuvre for the Feathers involving just three actions, so here goes:

1. Jump up from a standing position, grabbing the ledge

2. Pull up and anchor my body with a foot on the ledge

3. Roll or swing over the top of the wall, landing silently

OK, not exactly silently, but I’ve done it! Easy peasy lemon squeezy, even if I have grazed my left hand and twisted my right ankle almost out of its socket. Crease would have scaled the wall almost without touching it, but, hey, he’s Phoenix Alpha.

I’m crouching low, checking the terrain. Red tape cordons off the grassy area in front of the main entrance. The remains of large cardboard boxes and several piles of old blankets are spread out behind it. Cans of drink are lined up against the side of the hospital’s wall and a bare rose bush is wearing a man’s jacket, bent low under the weight.

The grounds are a mess, the tarmac driveway breaking up under pressure from weeds pushing through from the earth below. Information signs have been removed, leaving only the metal poles they were attached to.

A lot of the windows I’m looking at now are boarded up. One of the boards even has a neat painting of a blond kid waving from inside a window.
Artist joker! Must have taken ages to do. It looks quite spooky.

There’s no one about, hardly any sound, just the distant thrum of traffic from the town and an occasional
rawk-rawk
of a seagull, flying overhead. I move cautiously towards the bench and its lone inhabitant, ready to run if there is so much as a whisper of danger.

The bear looks smaller up close. I sit next to him and lift him on to my lap. He is still wet from the rain. His eyes are scratched and misty. When I squeeze his heart, he says, ‘I love you,’ in a funny voice.

‘I love you too,’ I reply, and give him a kiss on his damp head. He smells of wood and leaves, of night air and soggy stuffing.

‘You need a name, bear,’ I tell him, looking into his face. ‘You look like you were once fluffy, but now your fur is matted and flat. The seams of your paws are coming undone. You should go to teddy hospital. Maybe you came here, just like me, thinking they would
make you better. Easy mistake to make. I think we’re not allowed to be sick any more, bear, that’s the truth. The doctors and nurses have vanished –’

‘My name is Andy. I just
lerve
honey.’

‘How did you do that? I didn’t press anything! So, you’re called Andy, are you? That’s a nice name for a bear. I’m Calypso, Caly for short.’ I take his paw in my hand and give it a shake. ‘Nice to meet you.’

Andy doesn’t respond, just stares at me with unseeing eyes. I hold him close, his heart against mine. I can feel mine beating very fast. I can also feel a numb ache spreading up my legs and around my hips. All my energy seems suddenly to have left my body, and whooshed away amongst the scattering autumn leaves. I’m as floppy as a rag doll. If I sit here much longer, that’s what I’ll become.

‘Shall we stay or go, Andy?’ I ask him. ‘What’s that? You’re thinking about it. Yeah, well, one of us has to make a decision. It’s cold out here. It’s nearly dark. There’s nowhere else to head for tonight. We could
sleep inside, out of the wind and rain, and make a new plan tomorrow. What do you say?’

There is a strange hiccupping, buzzing noise from Andy. It’s a response, at least. I take it as a ‘yes’.

‘Here goes, then,’ I say quietly, poking the bear down the front of my hoody, in case I need to run. I move towards the front of the huge, derelict building, checking for possible entry points. Even though it looks like it doesn’t want visitors, I’m drawn to the main entrance – a vast door with cylindrical stone pillars either side. I can see my reflection in the long, thin windows. I’m shocked by how much of an urchin I look.

I stop, take a deep breath. Everything is eerily quiet. Having Andy close is giving me courage, though. Crazy idea, Caly. It’s not like he’s a kung fu black belt, or anything useful. I walk up the three shallow steps to the entrance. This is how Alice must have felt in Wonderland. The door is so huge I imagine I am shrinking, shrinking. Soon I won’t be able to reach the big brass handle.

Cut it out, brain. Behave.

I walked through this entrance once before, only then there was light and bustle and the smell of antiseptic, and flowers on the reception desk and colourful mobiles of sea creatures hanging from the high ceiling above a wide staircase with a polished wooden hand rail. It’s like it was yesterday. I close my eyes and imagine I am holding Little Bird’s arm, that Dad is parking the car, that there is a bed in a pale-green ward waiting for me, that soon my problems will be over.

I feel dizzy. My vision spins with images of roaring griffins, laughing nurses, a doctor with a syringe, Little Bird crying, Andy saying, ‘I love you,’ over and over again. I’m falling, and my thigh is tense with pain, but as I reach out to grab the handle of the door so that I can steady myself, I realise I’m experiencing a memory. A moment later, it is gone and the agony subsides.

What was that, brain? Something from my past or a malfunction?

Confused and shaken, I lean against the door. There is a loud creaking and it begins to give way, opening heavily on to a tiled floor, strewn with envelopes.

Suddenly, there’s a terrible screeching noise. I put my hands over my ears just as a huge dark shape, as big as a vulture, swoops out of the darkness inside, the draught from its wings ruffling my hair as it passes. It is a raven, ragged and probably starving.
How long has it been trapped in here?
It is so close to my face I look into its eye. There is just a socket, scratched raw by claws.

Someone is screaming. I think it’s me.