Peter May - Runaway

I glanced at the sign, which read Church of St Mary the Virgin .

‘So?’

‘So, I’m Jewish.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘The spirits might not like a Jew poking about a Christian burial place.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’

‘Exactly!’ Jeff glanced at Maurie. ‘Will you help me?’

But Maurie just raised his hands. ‘You’re on your own this time, pal.’

To his credit, Jeff accepted his fate, punishment for his role in talking us into taking Dennis on board, and I almost felt sorry for him as he tentatively pushed open the gate to the churchyard. A tangled arch nurtured over decades from the intertwined branches of two trees led to the church itself. Beyond and around it the cemetery lay in deep pools of darkness cast by the shadows of trees in the intermittent moonlight. I was glad it was Jeff going in there in the dark, and not me.

I returned to the van and curled up in my big furry coat in the front passenger seat. The others had made themselves comfortable in the back. But sleep was not quick in coming. It had been a long day, and although we were all tired, the adrenaline was still pumping. It hardly seemed credible that this was the same day that had begun with Jenny and me being summoned to Willie’s office. Already that seemed like a lifetime ago.

Dave’s hushed voice came out of the darkness. ‘Why does Jobby Jeff always have to say that fucking word?’

‘What word?’ Luke said.

‘ Jobbies . I hate that word.’

Which was met with silence.

Then, ‘Are you asking me?’ Maurie’s voice came out of the dark.

‘You’re his pal.’ Dave made a noise of snorted disgusted. ‘I mean, every time he says it I get this picture of brown, stinky sausages dropping oot a dug’s arse.’

Maurie said, ‘It’s to stop him swearing.’

‘Why does he want to stop swearing?’

‘He told me he was shocked when he started work at Anderson’s. He’d always thought it was just us, you know, kids that swore. I mean, you don’t hear your folks swearing, do you? Then he’s in among all these adults. Grown men. And they’re all swearing like troopers. So he thought he would try and stop.’

I raised my head from my coat. ‘What about you, Luke? I never heard you swear before tonight.’

‘Oh, I decided years ago that I wasn’t going to swear.’ Luke’s was the sweet voice of reason illuminating the night. ‘Seemed to me that if you had to swear it demonstrated a lack of vocabulary.’

There was a further silence as we all absorbed this.

Until Luke added, ‘Mind you, there’s times when nothing else’ll fucking do.’

And we all roared and laughed, and heard Jobby Jeff’s plaintive voice calling from somewhere beyond the cemetery wall.

‘What’s so funny?’

I woke up freezing cold as the first sunlight of an early-spring morning slanted through the trees and crept slowly into the front of the van. I was stiff and sore from sleeping in a bizarrely twisted position in the front passenger seat. But slept I had, without stirring all night. I stretched and peered into the gloom behind me to see Dave and Maurie on the settee, locked in what was almost an embrace, and wished I had a camera to capture the moment. There was no sign of Luke.

I glanced across to the driver’s side and saw Jeff curled up in a foetal position, wrapped up in his own jacket, his head tucked inside it for warmth. I hadn’t heard him getting in. The inside walls of the van were running with condensation.

I didn’t have the heart to wake anybody, so I climbed stiffly out on to the tarmac. I stood, then, at the side of the road and released a stream of hot urine on to the daffodils, watching steam rising into the sunlight. The scrape of a footfall in the lane turned my head and I saw Luke walking down from the road, hands pushed deep into his pockets. He nodded and stood beside me to unzip his fly and empty his bladder, too. Sunlight sparkled in the twin streams.

‘We’re not going to get far on twenty quid,’ he said. ‘Not with five of us to feed. And the Thames is a thirsty beast.’

I zipped up again. ‘So what do you think we should do?’

But he just shook his head. ‘I haven’t the first idea.’

I pushed open the farm gate and slithered down the bank to the stream that bubbled past the church, first dousing my hands in it, then slunging my face with ice-cold water. The shock of it brought blood stinging to my cheeks.

I looked back up at Luke, who stood watching me. ‘I wonder if Jeff found the keys?’

Luke pursed his lips. ‘He didn’t.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I was still awake when he got back in the van. He didn’t look for long. To be fair, he was never going to find them in the dark.’

I shook my head in despair. ‘Maybe we’re going to have to go home after all.’

Luke was unfazed. ‘You go if you want, but I’m not.’

And I knew that if Luke wasn’t, then neither was I.

I scrambled up the bank as Maurie and Dave jumped down from the back of the van. They both emptied their bladders and then joined us beside the stream.

Dave glared at Maurie. ‘He had a stonking bloody hard-on during the night.’

Luke and I both laughed.

I said, ‘How do you know that?’

Dave was indignant. ‘Cos it was sticking into my back, that’s how.’

Maurie blushed. ‘That wasn’t my fault.’

‘Well, it certainly wasn’t mine!’ Dave was not amused.

Luke controlled his laughter. ‘Nocturnal erections, otherwise known as nocturnal penile tumescence, Dave. We all have them. Three to five times a night, usually during REM sleep. Doesn’t mean Maurie’s in love with you. You must have woken up with one yourself a few times.’

Maurie growled, ‘Or when he’s got his face stuck in that Playboy magazine.’

Dave punched the fleshy part of his upper arm. ‘Shut up!’

Maurie clutched his arm. ‘Hey! That hurt!’

I changed the subject. ‘So did either of you bright sparks get any ideas during the night about what we’re going to do?’

Which brought an abrupt end to the juvenile banter. The lack of any serious suggestion was ominous, the four of us standing there with our hands thrust in our pockets feeling the early warmth of the sun make inroads into the legacy of cold left by the night.

Then Maurie said, ‘Do you think we could make it to Leeds?’

He had the oddest look in his eyes that I would remember many years later. But at the time I thought nothing of it. The rest of us gawped at him in disbelief.

‘Leeds?’ Dave said. ‘Why would we want to go there?’

At first Maurie seemed reluctant to tell us. But in the end he said, ‘My cousin’s there.’

I frowned. ‘Is that the lassie that ran off with her boyfriend?’

He nodded.

‘I thought no one knew where they’d gone.’

Maurie said, ‘They went to Leeds. That’s where he’s from. Andy McNeil. I’m the only one that knows. She called me, and made me swear not to tell anyone. You know, we were close when we were kids, so she trusted me. Then she wrote to me. Sent me her address and a phone number. I packed her letter to bring with me before we left, just in case my folks found it.’ He was struck by a sudden thought. ‘Shit, I hope those bastards didn’t take it.’

He rushed back to the van and disappeared inside, only to emerge a few moments later clutching a dog-eared blue envelope.

‘Got it.’ As he reached us again he took the letter out and looked at the untidy handwriting scrawled across the page in pencil. ‘Always had a feeling that things weren’t going quite right for her.’

He glanced up. And that same expression flickered briefly across his face, like a passing shadow.