Triskellion (4 page)

Adam was every bit as shellshocked as Rachel. “Let’s get to Gran’s place.” He stepped out into the road, looking left after the whistling man, only vaguely aware of a bell ringing near by.

“Adam!” Rachel shrieked. She all but pulled her brother off his feet, as a vicar in a fluorescent tabard and cycling
helmet sailed past on a black bicycle, missing Adam by a whisper. The bell jangled again. The vicar looked back and, seeing that nobody had been hurt, cycled on, waving a vague blessing in the twins’ direction.

“Remember, they drive on the other side,” Rachel said. “Let’s stick to the path.”

They collected their bikes and rucksacks and walked away from the shops to where the village thinned out a little, and the houses started either side of the main road. Set back behind a mesh fence and beyond a small playground marked with yellow, red and blue tramlines, sat a squat, stone school-house.

They walked on round the other side of the green, where children, clearly enjoying every moment of their summer holidays, kicked footballs and chased one another noisily. On the far side of the green was a cricket pitch, and opposite, just before the line of buildings gave way to one of trees and thick hedges, stood the village pub.

“The Star” looked to be one of the oldest buildings in the village, with timber beams visible on the outside, whitewashed walls and a thatched roof. A trickle of smoke rose from a chimney that leaned so far to one side it almost defied gravity, and a painted sign of a shooting star hung from an ornate iron bracket above the door. The building, shadowed by a massive oak tree hundreds of years old, appeared so at one with its surroundings that it could have grown out of the soil itself.

Rachel and Adam had never seen a building so ancient. They had once stayed in an old whaler’s cottage in Cape Cod that was over a hundred years old, but this place was prehistoric. A blackboard outside advertised the food on offer that day and also claimed that “Children Are Welcome”.

“Yeah, right,” Adam snorted, wondering what on earth a “Lancashire hotpot” was and whether or not you could eat it.

Rachel suddenly looked at him. “Can you feel it?”

Adam paused, cocking his head to one side. Yes he could. Once again, Rachel and Adam had the overpowering feeling that they were being watched.

They wasted no time heading back towards Root Cottage, pausing only to let a large vintage car pass them in the narrow lane. The car was the colour of red wine and highly polished, and it honked its thanks with a deep, rasping horn. The reflection of the trees on the windscreen made it impossible to make out the driver clearly but, as the car rolled past, Rachel and Adam could see a grey dog the size of a small horse sitting upright in the passenger seat.

The air was still heavy and humid, but the heat had gone out of the day, and as they walked up the garden path, their grandmother’s cottage was bathed in a golden light and the long shadows of hollyhocks, growing either side of the path, stretched out in front of them, as if pointing Rachel and Adam towards the door.

Rachel stepped up confidently to rap the knocker, its brass gleaming as if it had just been cleaned.

“It’s that same shape,” Adam said.

“What shape?”

“Like that thing on the station windows and on the war memorial. What d’you think it is?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Rachel said, about to knock.

Before the knocker touched wood, the door swung open, revealing Celia Root behind it in an electric wheelchair.

The old lady flung her arms out wide. “My
poor
darlings … I’ve been so
worried
…”

Rachel and Adam fell into the hallway and into their grandmother’s open arms, all three promptly bursting into tears.

T
he kettle whistled on the Aga and Granny Root’s wheelchair hummed across the tiled kitchen floor as she moved to take it off. For the hour or more since their arrival, Rachel and Adam had been recounting the strange events of their journey to their horrified grandmother.

For a woman in her late seventies, Celia Root was remarkably well preserved, and though the wheelchair gave the impression of frailty, it was only that. Though heavy, her make-up was immaculately applied and her silvery-blonde hair looked as though it was set on a daily basis.

“You poor things,” she said. “What must you think of us?”

“Shouldn’t we call the cops or something?” Adam said.

The old woman smiled indulgently. “There hasn’t been a station here for years, darling. We have a local constable who pops in every few weeks, but he has two other villages to deal with. There’s really not much goes on around here.”

“We were probably just unlucky,” Rachel said.

“That’s right,” Granny Root said. “I’ll have a word with the commodore up at Waverley Hall. He’s the local magistrate, tends to sort these things out…”

Rachel and Adam looked at each other. What on earth was a commodore?

“Anyway, you’ve got the worst behind you now.” She smiled and squeezed Rachel’s hand. “Now you can relax, and start to enjoy yourselves.”

Sitting at the long kitchen table, Adam tapped out a number for the umpteenth time on his mobile phone and, after a long pause, thumped it down again.

“Nothing. Is there anywhere around here you can get a signal, Gran?”

“I don’t really understand these mobiles, dear. You could try the telephone again.”

Rachel’s earlier attempt at calling home on the land-line had met with nothing but static and a series of electronic bleeps. The third time she’d dialled, a recorded voice had told her something she didn’t understand in French, and New York had never felt further away.

“The weather’s been a bit unpredictable, dear,” her grandmother said, “and it sometimes affects the line. We had a power cut just last week, on Tuesday … or was it Wednesday?”

Rachel smiled affectionately, while Adam wondered what kind of Third World backwater they’d ended up in, where phones didn’t work and power failed in the rain.

Granny Root put a large plate of warm scones on the table
in front of Adam. “Help yourself, darling.”

Adam grabbed two scones and put them on his plate, slathering them with butter and jam, and shoving the first one into his mouth almost whole. His grandmother’s eyes widened slightly, then softened into a smile.

“You poor darling, you’re half starved.”

While Rachel buttered her own scone with considerably less urgency than her brother, Granny Root brought a teapot to the table and looked at Adam. “Milk and sugar?”

Adam, mouth half open and full of scone, looked at his grandmother and mumbled.

“Not with your mouth full, dear. What has your mother been teaching you?”

Adam wiped the remaining jam and crumbs from the corner of his mouth with a knuckle. “Oh … sorry, Gran. Can I get a soda?”

Celia Root appeared not to understand, or not to hear. “Sweet with plenty of milk after the shock you’ve had.” She opened a drawer in the long table and took out a knitted cosy, which she fitted snugly over the teapot.

Rachel giggled. “Gran, why are you putting a hat on the teapot?”

Celia looked at Rachel blankly, then back at the teapot and laughed out loud as if she had momentarily grasped the absurdity of the tea cosy from Rachel’s point of view. Seeing her eyes glittering, Rachel caught a glimpse of the handsome woman her grandmother must have been forty years
before; the one Rachel had seen in those black and white photographs.

The old woman put her hand on the back of Rachel’s, and looked her in the eye. “You are so like your mother,” she said.

Rachel blushed, enjoying the compliment, basking in the warmth of her grandmother’s approval.

Granny Root turned and smiled at her grandson. “Whereas Adam, I think, takes more after his father.”

Adam, who was feeling nervous and vulnerable, as though he were making a bad impression, did not take this comparison very well. “Right,” he snapped back, “except I haven’t walked out on my family, have I?”

Rachel dived in. “C’mon Adam, that wasn’t what Gran meant. It wasn’t all Dad’s fault, anyway. Let it go.”

“I may have some orange juice in the pantry,” Granny Root said loudly, desperately trying to change the subject.

“So Mom
made
him get a girlfriend?” asked Adam, his voice thick with sarcasm.

“Adam, you’re being a pain.”

“And who do I get
that
from, Rachel?”

Celia Root backed her wheelchair away from the table, moved over to the other side of the room and busied herself with an old radio on the windowsill. Outside, the golden light had turned to bronze and the sky had gone a dull blue-grey. The air was still heavy though, and Rachel felt short of breath. She held her hands up in surrender, trying to placate her brother. “Adam, Dad wasn’t happy.”

“Great. So now, none of us is.” Adam stared intently at the pattern of flowers bordering his plate and rolled the remaining crumbs of scone around with his forefinger.

Granny Root could stand no more. “Children, please. You’re very tired.” She raised a hand to silence them and, with the other, turned up the volume of the radio. “Please … the wireless. I never miss this…”

A rich voice like that of a Shakespearean actor began to intone words that sounded like gobbledegook to Rachel and Adam.

“…issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency at one seven three oh on Friday, thirteenth of August. There are warnings of gales in Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire, Forties, Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger…”

Rachel and Adam looked at their grandmother, confused.

“It’s the shipping forecast,” she said. “Sounds like there’s a storm coming.”

I
n the village, the landlord hurriedly took down the umbrellas from the deserted benches outside The Star. The raindrops grew heavier, sticking the shirt to his back and bouncing off the long, waxed bonnet of the burgundy-coloured Bentley parked outside. The landlord made for the entrance, stepping daintily to avoid slipping on the wet cobbles in front of the pub, and slammed the heavy wooden door behind him.

Another thunderclap. Then the sky opened and the rain came down in torrents, lashing against the windows of The Star and washing away the dust of a long, hot afternoon.

From his vantage point high in the old oak, the boy watched the landlord go inside. Then nimbly, unhindered by the damp branches and dense foliage, he climbed his way down, limb by limb, to the foot of the tree.

He stopped for a moment in the shelter of the tree to watch the sign of the shooting star swinging wildly in the storm. Then he turned and padded across the wet green towards the inn.

*  *  *

“Same again, commodore?”

Commodore Gerald Wing pushed a large cutglass tumbler across the bar and stacked three pound coins neatly next to it. Without waiting for an answer, Tom Hatcham, the landlord, took the glass, and put it up to the optic of the whisky bottle behind the bar. A rumble of thunder overhead rattled the ancient windows.

“Nice for the ducks.” Hatcham pushed the large whisky back across the bar and scooped up the coins. The enormous grey dog that lay at Commodore Wing’s feet let out a heavy sigh, as if to acknowledge Hatcham’s banal comment.

At a table, four villagers played dominos in silence. In the corner, Gary and Lee Bacon sipped illegal pints of lager and lime and poured coins into The Star’s slot machine. The landlord and the commodore were happy enough to turn a blind eye. It was generally thought better to have youths like the Bacons where they could be watched, rather than have them running free, causing all sorts of trouble.

As if triggered by another clap of thunder that sounded outside, the heavy door of The Star flew suddenly open and a huge gust of wind sent beer mats and bits of paper flying. All eyes turned to see a slight, feral-looking boy framed in the doorway. He wore a dark hooded sweatshirt and track-suit bottoms. As he pulled back his hood, water dripped from his long black hair, running into wide green eyes that flashed, vivid against an olive complexion. He stood, soaked
to the skin, and he stared into the bar with an unblinking intensity.