Lost on Mars (31 page)

‘Ma?' called a gruff voice below us. The man sounded concerned. He had heard our voices and the old woman telling us to go. ‘Ma, are you all right?' It was a very resonant voice. A strong and dependable voice.

My breath froze in my throat and my heart was the size of a sack of sand in my chest.

Bang bang bang on the metal rungs, the running man came closer. I looked down and saw the bulk of him. He was swaddled in heavy winter clothes, and wearing a dark hat and muffler.

Everything about him – even glimpsed from this odd vantage point – was instantly familiar.

Peter noticed my strange reaction. He thought I was about to faint and fall over the side. ‘Are you all right?'

The old woman's mouth was grinning in ghoulish satisfaction. ‘I'm here, Edward! I'm all right, but I'm getting harassed. I've been dragged to the front door by these ruffians!'

She shouted past us, smacking her cracked lips and gloating. ‘My Edward will see you off, you robbers! Try to get inside an old woman's home, would you? Steal her few poor possessions, would you? Edward – help me! I'm here! Come quickly!'

Peter told me, ‘I think we'd better go.'

But I couldn't move a muscle.

The bulky man reached the top of the staircase. He towered over us both. He removed his battered hat and rubbed the snow out of his hair and beard. He stared at me and his eyes burnt holes in my face.

‘Lora,' the man said.

I could only get out one word in reply.

‘Da…!'

Where had he been?

Had he been here all along?

He had been taken away. He had been Disappeared. We had learned to live with that fact. I knew better than to hope to see him again.

We stood staring at each other. Nobody moved.

At last Peter spoke up. ‘Lora – do you know this man?'

Da spoke roughly, moving past us to the apartment door. ‘Open up,' he told the still-visible mouth in the hatch.

After a few seconds there was the sound of locks and bolts sliding and slamming. Then the door opened, revealing Grandma in the warm hall light. She looked even older and more fragile than when I'd last seen her. She was even more tanned and leathery, too.

‘It's Lora, is it?' she cackled. ‘I would hardly have known you.'

I didn't move to hug her. I didn't know what to do.

We were led inside. Those wonderful baking aromas enveloped us. Da followed us into the hallway and secured the door.

The old woman took us into a spacious but cluttered living area. Aged Christmas decorations were everywhere: cheap, cheerful and tatty.
There was a tinsel fir tree in one corner.

This was the home – incredibly – of my da and my grandma.

Da was staring at me. ‘You look older. Even though it's only been a few months. You are the spit of your ma.'

I said, ‘You can't be here. Either of you. This isn't possible. It can't be true.'

‘We are,' said Grandma, sitting heavily on a faded armchair. Her voice was still harsh and her eyes were shifty. ‘You know it's us. Of course it's us. Who else would we be? We never forgot you. Not for a single day. Could it be that you've forgotten us?'

‘Of course not!' I said. ‘But you both Disappeared. We thought you were dead and gone. That's what we believed…'

Grandma wore a patch where her glass eye had fallen out. Now that I looked, she had a new cybernetic leg that sparked as she adjusted it.

There was no doubt that they were who they said they were.

I fell into my da's arms and when he hugged me close I thought I would suffocate happily in the feeling of coming home.

‘Is Hannah with you?' he asked. ‘And your ma?' It was as if every word pained him. ‘And what about Al? Are they all here in the City Inside?'

‘Al lives with me,' I said, trying to see through my tears. ‘The others … I don't know. We were all separated, I don't know where they went, or if they are OK or not. It was terrible, Da. We left the Homestead. We went into the wilderness alone…'

He hugged me closer. ‘I know. I know. Don't cry, Lore. I know how difficult it must have been. You did the best you could. We were hoping that one day you would find us and come to be with us…'

We didn't attempt any further explanations or swapping tales. There would be time for that later. We simply gazed at each other.

Da looked like he had aged some since his Disappearance. He was more grizzled and grey, but he was still vigorous and powerfully strong.

Grandma hopped out of her chair and hurried away to bring us mulled wine and some spicy bread. Just the type she used to make at Christmas when I was a little girl.

‘You live here,' I said, trying to make it all sink in. ‘You actually live here, in this City…'

I was suddenly aware of Peter on the periphery of my vision. I called to him and introduced him to my surviving family members.

I don't remember much about our journey back across the City, late that afternoon. My thoughts were saturated with the heady spiced wine Grandma had made us drink.

Peter came with me. Our plan was simple. We would go home and fetch Al and bring him back to Da and Grandma's apartment. There we would have a family Christmas together. It would be kept a surprise to Al until he got there.

What could be better than that?

‘We've got a goose,' Grandma was cackling when we set off. She was smiling by now. ‘You fetch that little boy of ours.'

We sat in the Pipeline carriage and Peter touched my hand. ‘Are you sure you're all right?'

I was. I truly was. This was the best possible Christmas present. An impossible present. But I was freaked out and my mind was swimming frantically to catch up.

They were alive. They had been transported here, some months ago, so far from the prairie and they had been eking out a living since then. Da was working as a carpenter at a toy workshop. Grandma stayed home most days. She still didn't relish the busy City streets. But they were settled by now in the City Inside. Their horizons had drawn in closer about them.

For these past months they had wondered what had become of the rest of their family. They had petitioned the Authorities and they had begged to know more.

I suddenly thought, Hadn't they seen the newspapers when Al and I came out of the wilderness? Hadn't they followed our story? Why didn't they try to contact us?

There would be time for these questions later. Time for a whole load of catching up.

Peter said, ‘They didn't really mean it, did they? About asking me along, too? I'd only get in the way of your family reunion…'

‘Nonsense,' I told him. I didn't want him to return alone on Christmas Eve to his Den. I could imagine him sitting in his alcove, without Karl. He said there was always lots going on down there, and maybe he would go to the bars. But I worked to convince him that he was welcome to share Christmas with me and my family.

Me and my family! How long since that had been a real, true thing?

Even so, Peter still didn't look sure. I don't think he was used to being wanted.

42

By the time we got back in Stockpot District and on Storey 202 of my building, it was evening. I knew as soon as Peter and I set foot in the apartment that we had company.

My brother was sitting at the dining-room table, flanked by his girlfriend and her father. All three were beautifully dressed. Tillian was pouring them dainty thimbles of sherry, making herself right at home. They looked like a portrait of folk in olden days.

Glancing at the room I could see that my brother had, in my absence, made an effort at decorating the place. It looked a bit spartan and sad after all the golden tinsel in the home we had just left.

I was bursting to tell him what had happened this afternoon. The miracle.

But I couldn't. Certainly not in front of the sober-suited Mr Graveley and Tillian in her fancy tea-gown.

Peter and I crashed into their sherry-tippling and we just wanted to grab Al, and to hijack him away. He looked at us in some confusion. There was that small frown line between his eyebrows that he always got when he was displeased and wasn't sure what was going on.

Mr Graveley took charge, standing up and smoothly offering me a drink.

‘We aren't staying,' I told him. ‘We only came to fetch Al. He's coming out with us this evening.'

The old man dismissed this with a wave of his hand. ‘Oh, that's impossible, I'm afraid. You've got that quite wrong, my dear Miss Robinson. You see, you will both be spending Christmas Eve at my home, with Mrs Graveley, my daughter and myself.'

‘What?!'

Al seemed upset. ‘Can I see you privately, Lora?' he said, in a voice he'd never used on me before.

Then we were in my messy bedroom.

I held up my hand. ‘Listen. There's something I have to tell you.'

‘No, Lora. You listen to me for once. You might not like it, but Tillian's family are being really kind, asking us to spend Christmas with them…'

‘No, they're not,' I snapped. ‘Her family are in cahoots with the Authorities. I don't trust them an inch. You've got to keep away from them.'

‘You can't tell me what to do! Not any more!' he shouted. He raised his voice, sounding like he'd been brainwashed. ‘And,' he went on, ‘you've got to give that bundle of papers back. Mr Graveley needs them returned. We should never have taken them.'

I shrugged and grabbed them out of my bedside cabinet. ‘Whatever. He can have them. I've got what I needed from them.' I dumped the beribboned parcel into his arms. I was losing patience with my brother. Why was he turning into such an idiot?

‘What's wrong with you, Lora? Why are you being like this? Why can't you just be happy?'

‘Because you're so into that snobby lot?' I asked.

‘You can't be happy about any of it, can you?' he yelled. ‘About our new life here. You should be grateful to the City Inside. You should be grateful to the Authorities and to men like Tollund Graveley. They have given you everything you need. And how do you repay them? By running out of the Remembering Room and damaging expensive equipment and causing a rumpus. Oh yes, I heard all about that. Everyone involved is most upset. Why can't you be content and obedient, Lora? Why can't you be happier, like me? Why can't you be
grateful
?'

His voice was very high and loud by then. Was this really the Al I'd grown up alongside? The Al who'd questioned every little thing?

I hung my head, biding my time and pretending to feel ashamed. ‘I don't know,' I said. ‘I wish I could be happier.'

‘Is it that boy you've been hanging around with?' he asked. ‘That hobo?'

My jaw dropped open. I couldn't believe what he'd called Peter. He'd been so friendly to him when they met. I pushed past him. ‘I never thought you'd grow up snobby like this.'

‘Me?' he cried. ‘What about you? I'm ashamed of you, Lora. Look at you – shabby and paranoid and horrible! You won't get a proper job and you hang around with … vagabonds and deviants!'

I'd had quite enough of this. I spoke to him in a very quiet, controlled voice. ‘This isn't you talking, Al. It's those awful Graveleys speaking through you. I realise that. Now, I'm going to give you a chance. I'm going to tell you something very important and exciting. After that you can decide what you want to do. Whether you want to come with me this evening, or whether you want to accompany the Graveleys to their home in snooty old Darwin District for their Christmas shindig.'

He frowned at me, hugging that parcel to his chest. ‘I'm going with Tillian and her father. What have you got to say that will change my mind?'

So I took a deep breath and told him.

And it changed his mind.

‘I'm afraid there has been an alteration in my plans,' Al told Tillian when we returned to the dining room.

She rose out of her seat. ‘What are you talking about?'

‘I can't come with you tonight. I'm going out with Lora.'

The Graveleys stared at us, dumbfounded. ‘But,' began Tillian, ‘you can't. He can't disobey us, can he, Father?'

Mr Graveley smirked. ‘It would be very unseemly.' Then he snatched the parcel out of Al's hands. ‘That's mine, is it? Thank you, my dear Alistair.'

I wondered when he would peek inside and discover that every page in the bundle was empty?

‘Look, Tillian,' Al told his girlfriend, keen to mollify her. ‘I'll see you tomorrow, won't I? We'll be together on Christmas Day.'

‘It's not the same,' she said, crestfallen. ‘It's our family ritual, Christmas Eve. I thought you would want to be a part of it.'

Al went to pick up his coat and gloves. ‘Something very important has come up. Peter – could you please pass my scarf from over there? Thanks!' Al was looking very excited. He could barely contain himself. He hadn't noticed the distress Tillian was in or how her face was suffusing with angry colour.