Tom Pollock - The City's son

Last night Beth had watched as the red-haired girl had stumbled free of the spiders’ tower. She, at least, had embraced the chance to face the world again.

After the spider had finished feeding and gone, Beth sat for a while on the roof. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth, but nothing came out, not even a hiss. She looked up at the mural, her story, etched in paint and pigment on the City itself, and her lips twisted into a wry smile. It was worth it.

Pen waited for her at the bottom of the tower. It was a Sunday, so there weren’t many people walking the steel-and-glass-lined streets of Canary Wharf. Those who did stared at Pen’s scars, making Beth wince, but Pen stared fiercely back, which made Beth prouder than anything.

‘All right, B. How’s the picture going?’ she asked.

Beth nodded and shrugged at the same time, universal sign language for Okay, I guess.

Pen’s face softened. ‘The spider come?’ She stroked the side of Beth’s face with her fingertips. ‘You okay?’

Another shrug-and-nod combo.

Pen hugged her tight. ‘That’s backbone, Beth Bradley,’ she whispered into Beth’s ear. ‘Proud of you.’

They walked slowly around Westferry Circus and into Limehouse. The skyscrapers gave way to brick terraces and concrete blocks of flats. Whenever they found a quiet spot, Beth would crouch and ink in a quick marker picture — a turtle, or a crane. Pen occasionally jotted a line down in the pad she carried, but she didn’t tag. Graffiti had always been more Beth’s thing, and Pen didn’t feel the need to copy her anymore.

‘Back to school tomorrow.’

Beth nodded.

‘I wonder what the other girls will make of this.’ Pen traced her fingers over her face. She started to say something else, then changed her mind. Instead she asked, ‘What about you? Are you coming back tomorrow? I asked at Citzens’ Advice and they said Gorecastle was well out of line for booting you out for what we did. We can get your exclusion lifted.’ They paused at a junction. ‘How about it, B? That hole of a school won’t be the same without you.’

Beth bit her lip. She’d moved back in with her dad, at least nominally, and it was going okay. She felt safe there now but she still spent most of the time out in the streets. And there were times, especially after rain, when dusk fell and she looked up at the monolithic grey tower blocks, at the sodium light washing against clouds, and felt a pull.

If you do this, a voice in her memory said, you give up home, give up safety forever.

Beth didn’t know if a single bed in a two-up, two-down would really be home again.

‘Let me know what you decide,’ Pen said, then, ‘You coming?’

Beth shook her head and pointed at the street ahead. She wanted to stay out in her element a little longer. She smiled at Pen, and jogged off up the road.

Pen waved goodbye and watched her go. She’d come so close to telling Beth about Dr Salt — the words had been halfway out of her mouth — but then she’d hesitated, because she knew how Beth would react. She’d be stunned and furious, and she’d blame herself.

Pen wondered at what point in their relationship she’d become the one who protected Beth. As for Salt… Pen still had the clothes she’d been wearing the day he’d… forced himself on her. They were screwed up and tucked under her bed — she’d been too terrified of her mum finding them to put them in the wash. She was grateful for that now. She fished in her pocket for her mobile. She’d found and saved the number for the police station that morning. A tight anxiety balled in her chest. Would they believe her? Even if they did, would they do anything? She hit dial. She had to try.

And if they didn’t believe her — well, she had a friend who was handy with an iron spear, and that was always comforting to know.

Dusk crept in. Beth decided to cut through the park. Wet grass squelched between her toes. The shadows under the trees and by the swings grew longer, wilder. The clouds above the tower blocks darkened until the sky was almost exactly the same hue as the concrete walls and the edges blurred into the sky.

Beth flexed her fingers. The iron railing-spear was under her bed, and every night, as darkness fell, she wondered if tonight would be the night she would pick it up, scramble through her window and race out over the streets.

I could bed down in any square inch of London town. Welcome to my parlour.

The piercing wail of a crying baby snapped her out of her reverie as she approached the park’s west gate and she looked around, but there was no one else there. The sound was coming from the bushes next to the railings that separated the park from the street. A crazy thought flashed into Beth’s head, and she started to run.

Down in the weeds by the railings, an old limestone statue lay on its side in the long grass. It was roughly hewn, its features eroded by hundreds of years of weather, and initials and tags had been scratched into it. The baby’s cry was bleeding from the pores in the stone.

Hardly daring to breath, Beth picked up a pebble and struck the statue, not too hard, just a tap, and the stone cracked like eggshell. Beth’s fingers trembled a little as she smoothed away the fragments.

Inside, the baby lay curled in its womb in the heart of the stone. It opened its screwed-up eyes and pushed an arm out of the hole Beth had made in the stone. Reaching past her it wrapped its pudgy fingers around one of the park railings and instantly ceased crying. The child’s skin was the colour of concrete, and marked in black on the inside of its wrist was a tiny crown made of tower blocks. It looked seriously at Beth, perfectly calm as the stone began to reform around its outstretched arm.

Beth stared at it for long seconds until the baby jolted her by shrieking again. He sounded hungry. She jumped to her feet and staggered around in circles, trying to remember where the nearest corner shop was. As soon as she’d fed him, she decided, she would go to the graveyard in Stoke Newington. Petris and Ezekiel, they’d know what to do.

She couldn’t be certain, of course — all Pavement Priests wore the tower block crown. If you were a soldier in the army, you had to wear the mark. But there was something about the skin colour, and the way he was holding that railing…

What was it Timon had told her? It’s years before we get our memories back…

But he’d said it: we get our memories back.

Beth could wait. Her stomach did the kind of backflip she thought she’d never feel again and she broke into a run as the child’s cry followed her out of the park. The way the wind cooled her sweat made her shiver. She felt her chest tighten and she released a silent, joyous shout into the city.

Above her head, in their cages of the glass, the Sodiumites woke and began to dance.