The Gift (8 page)

Beyond the perimeter fence, running almost all around the site, was a circle of temporary buildings that housed the shops and banks that would one day find permanent homes in the complex. The places where they stood would then become a public garden and parking lot. Davy began to draw his aerial view of the site, thinking that it was going to make an interesting project and that he was lucky after all to have been paired with Sonia. He glanced across to the muddy end of the site to see how she was getting on.

A man was talking to her. She bit her pencil and then pointed back in Davy's direction. They started to pick their way back toward him, but before they reached the edge of the concrete, Mr. Palozzi met them. He started to wave his arms about, as if he couldn't argue well enough with words. Trouble, thought Davy, and climbed down the ladders.

Close under the girderwork a concrete truck which had dumped its load was being hosed down by a workman who squirted the jet of water into the still turning drum to loosen the last of the load and prevent it from caking on the return journey. The workman was Wolf.

Davy didn't realize this at once, though he might have guessed it from the picture he saw; the green of the truck was too bright, its drum too round and fat, and the darkness inside it too thick and black; the sprayed droplets where the water battered the metal were far too brilliant for the weak sunlight of the real day. Davy pushed the picture out of his mind and looked directly at the man just in time to see the truck driver walk over and say something. The workman scowled but handed his hose to the driver, who rapidly sprayed down the chute and turned the water off. Davy relaxed.

Instantly the pictures came again: the driver huddled in the mud with a boot smashing into his face; the truck bursting like a bomb; the first manic squiggle squirming across the sands.

“It's all right,” said Sonia. Davy turned slowly and saw her at his elbow.

“What's all right?” he asked.

“Didn't you see? There was this bloke who came and said what was I doing and I told him and he said I couldn't because of safety so I took him to Pop and Pop's fixing him. You've got to come, but it's going to be all right. He's gorgeous.”

“Half a sec,” said Davy. Wolf was still standing by the tap, watching his toy trundle away. That's what it was, a toy. His delight in washing it was a child's—there was even something childish about his hideous dreams. But he was a man, square, dark-browed, heavy-jawed; you wouldn't have noticed him specially, though his nose was rather too small for his face. Suddenly his whole body twitched, and he wandered away with the same springy step that Davy had seen before. His arms hardly swung at all as he walked, but his big hands clenched and unclenched by his hips.

“Sorry, kids,” said the brown-eyed man in the office. His name was Mr. Venn, and he was the site manager. “I can't have you scrambling all over the site, even if it is schoolwork. It's not just that you'd get in the way of the job, but it's dead against safety regs.”

“I am safe!” shouted Mr. Palozzi. “When have I lost one man? You think I lose my own daughter?”

“Okay, okay,” said Mr. Venn soothingly. “Nobody even busts a fingernail when you're on the job, Tony. But you know quite well head office wouldn't okay it, and if I took it on without asking them and then something
did
happen—or even if someone from head office just spotted them about the place—I'd get the sack. Sorry, Tony, I've got kids of my own. I'm not going to risk it.”

“Okay,” said Mr. Palozzi with sudden calmness. “I take my cards. I go home.”

“Ah, come on, Tony,” said Mr. Venn, grinning at the threat. “I'll do anything I can for you, but …”

“You fix it,” said Mr. Palozzi.

“Well, look,” said Mr. Venn, “I don't mind them coming in here Friday mornings, provided they keep out of my way. They can see what's going on out of the window, or most of it. And if I go out on the site, I'll try and take one of them with me.”

“No good,” said Mr. Palozzi.

“Oh, yes, Pop,
please
,” said Sonia. “That'll suit us fine.”

Davy could tell from her voice what had happened. She had fallen in love with Mr. Venn, who was just her type—quite young, cheerful, strong-looking, fresh-faced, and only a little bit bald. Davy thought that working from the office was a good idea; it was warm and dry, and soon November would be coming. And if the object of her love was actually in the room most of the time, that would stop Sonia chattering about him. The main rule of Sonia's game was that her beloved should be the only person not to know what was happening.

“Okay, okay,” said Mr. Palozzi, smiling. He picked up his hat, jammed his whistle between his teeth and left. Mr. Venn sighed.

“I wouldn't do it for anyone else,” he said.

The office was a hut in the air, six bleak little rooms perched on scaffolding just beside the second entrance to the site. It was outside the fence, and a muddy pathway ran beneath it. Its large windows looked across the site to the other entrance, with the girder construction to the left and all the new churnings to the right. The other rooms were jammed with desks and filing cabinets, but Mr. Venn needed a bit of floor space for conferences, so that Sonia and Davy found a nook between the filing cabinets and the window where they could see everything, not be in the way, and use the top of the cabinet as a writing surface.

From outside came the throb and clang of work; from inside the erratic jangle of several telephones and the ceaseless natter of codelike comment on the walkie-talkies with which the various foremen kept in touch. Mr. Venn never seemed to have more than three minutes to work on any one problem before he was being harassed for a decision on something else—a consignment of castings three weeks late, a set of drawings that didn't marry up, a crane driver absent sick, a dispute between two trade unions, a message from head office saying that the chairman's wife wanted to choose the color schemes, a complaint from the police about dirt trucks taking shortcuts through residential streets, and so on. Even so he found time to come and ask how the project was going. Sonia sighed and blushed.

“Where do the workmen come from?” said Davy. “Do you know them all?”

“I try to. I have a word with anyone head office sends up.”

“That's my Dad's job, I think,” said Davy.

“I daresay. The only people who don't come from them are specialist drivers of really big plants. You hire the plant and the driver with it. But most of the blokes here were taken on at head office. They keep a pool of spare labor down there, so if any of their sites in town has a shortage they can supply it. I've just been talking to them about a crane driver I need; if they haven't got one, they'll take him off one of the other sites if they have to. But he reports to me when he gets here, and after that I'm his boss for as long as I need him. You can only do it when you're running a really big show like we are in Spenser Mills—we've got over three thousand men scattered around the town. In twenty minutes you'll see the wages van start its round. That's quite a show—police car escort and everything.”

His telephone rang, and at once he was deep in a complicated argument about copper piping. Davy made notes about what he'd been told before he forgot it, then looked out of the window to see if he could spot Wolf. Yes, there he was, unmistakable in his walk, carrying a shovel across the deep ruts where the concrete trucks ran, being shown something by a foreman, being shown it (to judge by impatient gestures) a second time, and at last bending to shovel a load of wet concrete into a hod; it looked as though the load had been dumped in the wrong place. Davy, at their house before last, had helped a neighbor lay a concrete path so he knew just how heavy the stuff was, but Wolf rammed his large shovel deep into the gray mass and lifted and tossed as though it weighed nothing; and then he wasted all the time his strength had gained him by taking several minutes to scrape up the last scattered remains of the pile. At last he leaned on the shovel and watched the winking light of a police car sliding past the entrance, followed by a dark security van, followed by another police car. Toys again, thought Davy.

Afternoon school ended at four. Davy waited for Penny at the gate and told her to tell Mum he wouldn't be home till six. He did forty minutes' math homework in the library, then biked around to the site; opposite the main entrance was a stack of concrete storm drains on a patch between two temporary shops; a gang of five-year-olds were playing a bang-bang-you're-dead game in and out of them. Davy chained his bike to a lamppost and stood watching them with his back to the entrance. Wolf might go out the other way, of course. In that case he'd try again on Monday.

The hooter sounded. The clack and thud of machinery, which had already been dying away, stilled almost entirely. The new noise was the sound of home-going, motorbikes starting, boots on tarmac, joshing farewells. Davy didn't even have to look around when Wolf came out; in his mind picture an army tank was grinding through the crowd of men, mowing them down with its guns, crushing them under its tracks. Davy pushed all that from his mind, counted ten slowly, and turned. A man with that distinctive, wild-animal walk was already moving down the far pavement by the site fencing. Davy let him pass the long queue at the bus stop, then followed on the other side of the road.

The pictures were still there when he chose to let them come, though Davy was aware that if he'd fallen another twenty yards back, they would have been too faint to register. Wolf seemed to be calmer now, seeing the street with almost ordinary eyes—but with colors still too garish, and with strangely squat buildings, and the lampposts and young saplings of what would one day be a tall avenue all impossibly thin and spindly. Once this picture vanished, and Davy readied himself to drive away the frenzied squiggles that he thought were coming; but instead he saw that strange dark mass, marbled with snowy veins, that seemed to show that Wolf's raging mind was experiencing a moment of peace. Then this too vanished, and there was nothing.

Davy stopped and shook his head violently. He stared at the real street, of which for the last five minutes he'd only let himself be conscious enough to avoid walking into lampposts or stumbling over curbs. Wolf was gone.

Obviously he had turned the corner by the fire station, a massive slab of building. Perhaps that had helped screen his thoughts. Davy would have liked to hurry, but he was frightened to. He could see Wolf's thoughts so clearly that he couldn't be sure that the gift didn't work both ways. Perhaps Wolf could see through Davy's eyes, too. He might be just around the corner of the fire station, in ambush, waiting for a sign that would show that Davy had been deliberately following him. The only thing to do was stroll on …

Yes, Wolf was waiting, but not for Davy. The picture surged out before Davy reached the corner, a blue car standing empty at the curb of the side street. Then a fury of squiggles, all rushing together in an instant, whirling and darting, going on and on, never being wiped away to show even a glimpse of the calm sands below. Davy winced and tried to push the horrors clear of his skull. He needed something to concentrate on. Ahead of him a dog was wetting a road sign, but at once it ran off under some bushes. A man was walking up the road on the other sidewalk, wearing a pale blue suit and a black hat. His shirt, tie, handkerchief, socks, and shoes were all different shades of pale blue. His face was very brown, but not in a healthy way, pouched and flabby under the tan; and though he wasn't even middle-aged, his body looked too heavy for his legs. He was clean-shaven, but black sideburns came down in front of his ears right to the jawline. He was smoking a very long cigarette, and looked rich.

By the time he had painstakingly observed all these details Davy thought he had walked far enough to risk relaxing his defenses, to see whether Wolf had mastered his frenzy. He had, but the new picture so startled Davy that he faltered in his stride and had to make an effort not to look over his shoulder. Wolf was back in this road, gazing this way; there was even a boy in the middle distance of the picture walking along with a satchel at his hip. And in the foreground, blue as a kingfisher, came Wolf's hero, Wolf's God. Davy could feel the rush of joy and greeting and worship. But if it had not been for the blue suit and the black hat, he would never have guessed that he was now seeing through Wolf's eyes the man whom he'd studied so carefully a minute before. Wolf's God was tall and moved with lithe grace; his skin was as smooth as a water-skier's in an airline ad. He was powerful enough to own the universe and wise enough to understand it.

And now he frowned. His lips spoke judgment. Wolf cringed inside and turned away, shaking his head, looking with misery down the side street where he had been ordered to wait by his master's empty car.

Davy walked on till the pictures were too faint to catch. Poor Wolf, he thought. Poor Wolf.

“It's a funny thing,” said Mum.

“I wish you wouldn't say that,” said Penny. “It makes me nervous. When you say something's funny, it turns out dead serious. But when you say it's serious, you give me hysterics.”

“But I
am
serious,” said Mum, “It
was
funny.”

Penny made her burbling chortle and Mum smiled. Davy was slightly jealous of Penny's knack of teasing Mum just the right amount.

“What's funny?” he said.

“About being followed,” said Mum.

Davy's knife faltered. He had a fetish of spreading his peanut butter absolutely smooth across his toast. Now he'd have to begin again.

“I expect you're used to it,” said Penny placidly. “You're looking smashing these days.”

“Oh, I'm always getting picked up,” said Mum smugly. “Did I ever tell you about that parson …”

“Yes,” said Penny. “What happened today?”