Joanne Harris - Blackberry Wine

He just hoped it still worked.

He reached the bridge, with the gap between them widening, and cast about for somewhere to hide. Too risky to try the steep path up towards the road. Jay was winded by now, and there was maybe fifty feet of twisting dirt path before the road and safety. He clenched his fist over Joe’s talisman and took the opposite direction, the one they wouldn’t expect him to take, under the bridge and behind, towards Pog Hill. There was a swathe of willowherb gone to seed behind the rail arch, and he bobbed down in it, head pounding, heart tight with dark exaltation.

He was safe.

From his hideout he could hear voices. Zeth’s sounded close, Glenda’s more remote, thickened by distance, rebounding over the empty space between the bridge and the cutaway.

‘Wheer the bleedinell izzy?’

Jay could hear him on the other side of the arch, imagined him checking the path, measuring distances. He made himself small under the waving white heads of the willowherb.

Glenda’s voice, breathy with running.

‘Thaz lost ’im, tha beggar!’

‘ ’Ave not. He’s here somewhere. He can’t have gone far.’

Minutes passed. Jay clung to the talisman as they went over the area. Joe’s talisman. It had worked before. He had not fully believed in it then, but he knew better now. He believed in magic. He truly believed in magic. He heard a sound as someone crunched over the accumulated litter in the space underneath the bridge. Footsteps crossed the gravel. But he was safe. He was invisible. He believed.

‘Iz ere!’

It was the ten-year-old, Paula-or-Patty, standing waist-deep in the foamy weeds.

‘Quick, Zeth, gettim! Gettim!’

Jay began to back off towards the bridge, clouds of white seeds puffing away with every move he made. The talisman dangled loosely from his fingers. Glenda and Karen rounded the curve of the arch, faces sweaty. There was a deep ditch just beyond the arch, ripe with late-summer nettles. No escape that way. Then Zeth came from under the bridge, took his arm, drew Jay towards him by the shoulders in a dreadfully matey, not-to-be-refused gesture of welcome, and smiled.

‘Gotcha.’

The magic had finally run out.

Jay didn’t like to think about what happened after that. It existed in a curious silence, like some dreams. First they pulled off his T-shirt and pushed him, kicking and screaming, into the ditch where the nettles bloomed. He tried to climb out, but Zeth kept pushing him back, the leaves raising welts which would itch and burn for days. Jay put his arms up to cover his face, thinking remotely, How come this never happens to Clint , before someone yanked him up by the hair and Zeth’s voice said, very gently, ‘Now it’s my turn, yer bastard.’

In a story he would have fought back. He didn’t. He would at least have shown defiance, some hint of desperado swagger. His heroes all did.

Jay was no hero.

He began to scream before he felt the first blow. Perhaps that was how he escaped a serious beating. It could have been worse, he thought as he assessed the damage later. A bloody nose, some bruises, both the knees of his jeans taken out from a skid across the railbed. The only thing broken was his watch. Later he came to understand that there had been something more, something more serious, more permanent than a watch, or even a bone broken that day. It was to do with faith, he thought dimly. Something inside had been broken and could not be mended.

As Joe might have said, the art was gone.

He told his mother he’d fallen off his bike. It was a plausible lie – plausible enough, anyway, to explain his shredded jeans and swollen nose. She didn’t fuss as much as Jay had feared; it was late, and everyone was watching a rerun of Blue Hawaii , part of the Elvis post-mortem season.

Slowly he put his bike away. He made himself a sandwich and took a can of Coke from the fridge, then he went to his room and listened to the radio. Everything seemed speciously normal, as if Gilly, Zeth and Pog Hill were already a long time in the past. The Stranglers were playing ‘Straighten Out’.

Jay and his mother left that weekend. He didn’t say goodbye.

Lansquenet, May 1999

JAY WAS AT WORK IN THE GARDEN WHEN POPOTTE ARRIVED with her postbag. She was a little, round, pansy-faced woman in a scarlet jumper. She always left her ancient bicycle at the side of the road and brought any mail along the footpath.

‘Héh , Monsieur Jay,’ she sighed, handing over a packet of letters. ‘If only you lived a little closer to the road! My tournée is always half an hour longer when there’s something for you. I lose ten kilos every time I come over here. It can’t go on! You must put up a postbox!’

Jay grinned. ‘Come in and have one of Poitou’s fresh chaussons aux pommes . I have some coffee on the stove. I was just going to have some myself.’

Popotte looked as severe as her merry face would allow. ‘Are you trying to bribe me, Rosbif ?’

‘No, madame.’ He grinned. ‘Just lead you astray.’

She laughed. ‘Maybe one. I need the calories.’

Jay opened the letters as she ate her pastry. An electricity bill; a questionnaire from the town hall in Agen; a small flat package, wrapped in brown paper, addressed to him in small, careful, almost-familiar script.

It was postmarked Kirby Monckton.

Jay’s hands began to tremble.

‘I hope they’re not all bills,’ said Popotte, finishing her pastry and taking another. ‘Don’t want to wear myself out bringing you unwanted post.’

Jay opened the packet with difficulty.

He had to pause twice for his hands to stop shaking. The wrapping paper was thick and stiffened with a sheet of card. There was no note inside. Instead there was a piece of yellow paper carefully folded over a small quantity of tiny black seeds. One word was inscribed in pencil on the paper.

‘Specials.’

‘Are you all right?’ Popotte seemed concerned. He must have looked strange, the seeds in one hand, the paper in the other, gaping.

‘Just some seeds I was expecting from England,’ said Jay with an effort. ‘I… I’d forgotten.’

His mind was dizzied with possibilities. He felt numbed, shut down by the enormity of that tiny packet of seeds. He took a mouthful of coffee, then laid the seeds out on the yellow paper and examined them.

‘They don’t look like much,’ observed Popotte.

‘No, they don’t, do they?’ There were maybe a hundred of them, barely enough to cover the palm of his hand.

‘For God’s sake, don’t sneeze,’ said Joe behind him, and Jay nearly dropped the lot. The old man was standing against the kitchen cupboard, as casually as if he had never left, wearing improbable madras shorts and a Springsteen ‘Born to Run’ T-shirt with his pit boots and cap. He looked absolutely real standing there, but Popotte’s gaze never flickered, even though she seemed to be staring right at him. Joe grinned and lifted a finger to his lips.

‘Take your time, lad,’ he advised kindly. ‘Think I’ll go and have a look at the garden while I’m waiting.’

Jay watched helplessly as he sauntered out of the kitchen and into the garden, fighting back an almost uncontrollable urge to run after him. Popotte put down her coffee mug and looked at him curiously.

‘Have you been making jam today, Monsieur Jay?’

He shook his head. Behind her, through the kitchen window, he could see Joe leaning over the makeshift cold frame.

‘Oh.’ Popotte still looked doubtful, sniffing the air. ‘I thought I could smell something. Blackcurrants. Burning sugar.’

So she too could sense his presence. Pog Hill Lane had always had that scent of yeast and fruit and caramelized sugar, whether or not Joe was making wine. It was steeped in the carpets, the curtains, the wood. The scent followed him around, clinging to his clothes, even permeating the fug of cigarette smoke which so often surrounded him.