Feather Boy

“Can’t stop it. Sorry, without The Wisdom, I’m a goner. Didn’t Catherine say? Just one or two old forest truths and I’ll be OK. You can save me. You do want to save me, don’t you?”

She gives me that stare. “Of course. I’d give my life to save you. You know that.”

“Oh. Right. Great. Well, you’ve got to tell me something important then.”

“What?”

“I don’t know! You’re supposed to be telling me. Whatever the most important thing in your life is. Was. Whatever.”

“Top Floor Flat. Chance House, twenty-six St Albans.”

“What?”

“You can go there. Walk. It’s not far.”

Geography has never exactly been my strong point but I’d say St Albans has to be two and a half hours’ drive from here. So maybe Niker’s right about the vegetable shop after all.

“Sure,” I say. “I’ll go right after school.”

“You’re such a good boy,” she says and then she reaches up towards my head and gives me this little dry, tender tap. “Beautiful,” she murmurs, hand in my hair, “beautiful.”

I pull away. “It’s horrid,” I say, “my hair.” And I tell her how they used to call me “Chickie”.

“I don’t see Chickie,” she says and then: “Pass me my bag.”

Jammed down the side of the seat is one of those triangular witches’ bags, faded black leather with a large gold clasp. I extract it and hand it to her as instructed. From the musty interior she draws out a mirror in a suede case.

“Now,” she wipes the surface with the back of her liver-spotted hand. “What do you see?”

She holds the mirror up to her own face. And this is what I see: A spooky old bat with snow-white hair, weird black eyebrows and about a million wrinkles.

“Come on,” she urges, “come on.”

“I just see a lady.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Well an old… erm, an elderly lady then.”

“Liar,” she says. “Tell me what you see.”

But I can’t.

So she says, “You see an old hag. A wrinkled old hag. Yes?”

“Maybe.”

“So do I.” She puts away the mirror. “It always surprises me. You see, I expect to see the girl I was at twenty. With skin and hair like yours. And yet whenever I look – there’s the old hag.” She laughs quietly.

“Right.”

“So you’ll go to Chance House for me?”

I’m not sure where the “so” comes from in this. There doesn’t seem any “so” about it. But I nod like the sad guy I am.

“Good. Thank you.”

“Everything OK?” asks Catherine, coming by.

“Oh yeah. Great.”

“Good.” She moves on but not before Albert bursts into song:

“Run rabbit, run rabbit, run run run.”

“Stop it,” says Edith Sorrel. “Stop that at once!”

“Don’t be afraid of the farmer’s gun!” squawks up Mavis.

“Right on,” says Niker.

“He’ll get by…” continues Albert in a gravelly lilt, “without a rabbit pie…”

“Stop the singing,” says Edith. “Don’t sing. I asked you to stop.”

“Ole misery guts,” mutters Albert.

“Run,” Niker encourages the Chicken, “run rabbit…”

Edith draws herself to her feet. She is tall. She reaches for her stick. For one insane moment I think she intends to hit someone. But of course she only means to walk away.

“Run,” sings Albert jovially to her stiff, retreating back, “rabbit, run, run, run.”

I follow Edith into the corridor. Each stride looks painful.

“Can I help?”

“No,” she says “No. Go away. Leave me alone.”

“Don’t mind her,” says Matron. “She doesn’t mean anything by it.”

But, as Edith shuts the door of her room, I have this horrible feeling that she does mean something by it. All of it.

3 (#ulink_7c4e4ced-cee3-5b28-9e0e-1b411aed2bc2)

I don’t go to Chance House. Not right after school anyway. But I find myself wanting to go. The whole walk home to Grantley Street I keep thinking, “I ought to be going to Chance House. Why aren’t I going to Chance House?” And it’s not just because I told some batty old woman that I would go, it’s because I feel, about as powerfully as I’ve ever felt about anything, that the house is standing somewhere close, waiting for me. Maybe being batty is catching.

Grantley Street is a thin strip of houses, wedged between two roads. Our front door opens straight on to the pavement of Grantley and our rear patio on to The Lane, which is lucky considering it could open on to The Dog Leg. The Dog Leg can be scary. More about that later.