LITMIR.BIZ

       VIII

      i

      ‘We moved out here because you wanted to move, Eleanor. Please remember that. We came here because of you.’

      ‘I know, Hugo.’

      ‘So what are you saying? That we should move again?’ Will couldn’t hear his mother’s despair. Her quiet words were buried in sobs. But he heard his father’s response. ‘Lord, Eleanor, you’ve got to stop crying. We can’t have an intelligent conversation if you just start crying whenever we talk about Manchester. If you don’t want to go back there, that’s fine by me, but I need some answers from you. We can’t go on like this, with you taking so many pills you can’t keep count. It’s not a life, Eleanor.’ Did she say, I know? Will thought she did, though it was hard to hear her through the door. ‘I want what’s best for you. What’s best for us all.’

      Now Will did hear her. ‘I can’t stay here,’ she said.

      ‘Well, once and for all: do you want to go back to Manchester?’

      Her reply was simply repetition. ‘I know I can’t stay here.’

      ‘Fine,’ Hugo replied. ‘We’ll move back. Never mind that we sold the house. Never mind that we’ve spent thousands of pounds moving. We’ll just go back.’ His voice was rising in volume; so was the sound of Eleanor’s sobs. Will had heard enough. He retreated from the door, and scurried upstairs, disappearing from sight just as the living-room door opened and his father stormed out.

      ii

      The conversation threw Will into a state of panic. They couldn’t leave, not now. Not when for the first time in his life he felt things coming clear. If he went back to Manchester it would be like a prison sentence. He’d wither away and die.

      What was the alternative? There was only one. He’d run away, as he’d boasted he would to Frannie, the first day they’d met. He’d plan it carefully, so that nothing was left to chance: be sure he had money and clothes; and of course a destination. Of these three the third was the most problematical. Money he could steal (he knew where his mother kept her spare cash) and clothes he could pack, but where was he to go?

      He consulted the map of the world on his bedroom wall, matching to those pastel-coloured shapes impressions he’d gleaned from television or magazines. Scandinavia? Too cold and dark. Italy? Maybe. But he spoke no Italian and he wasn’t a quick learner. French he knew a little, and he had French blood in him, but France wasn’t far enough. If he was going to go travelling, then he wanted it to be more than a ferry trip away. America, perhaps? Ah, now there was a thought. He ran his finger over the country from state to state, luxuriating in the names. Mississippi; Wyoming; New Mexico; California. His mood lifted at the prospect. All he needed was some advice about how to get out of the country, and he knew exactly where to get that: from Jacob Steep.

      He went out looking for Steep and Rosa McGee the very next day. It was by now the middle of November, and the hours of daylight were short, but he made the most of them, skipping school for three consecutive days to climb the fells and look for some sign of the pair’s presence. They were chilly journeys: though there was not yet snow on the hills the frost was so thick it dusted the slopes like a flurry, and the sun never emerged for long enough to melt it.

      The sheep had already descended to the lower pastures to graze, but he was not entirely alone on the heights. Hares and foxes, even the occasional deer, had left their tracks in the frozen grass. But this was the only sign of life he encountered. Of Jacob and Rosa he saw not so much as a boot-print.

      Then, on the evening of the third day, Frannie came to the house.

      ‘You don’t look as if you’ve got ‘flu,’ she said to Will. (He’d forged a note to that effect, explaining his absence.)

      ‘Is that why you came?’ he said. To check up on me?’

      ‘Don’t be daft,’ she said. ‘I came ‘cause I’ve got something to tell you. Something strange.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Remember we talked about the Courthouse?’

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘Well, I went to look at it. And you know what?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘There’s somebody living there.’

      ‘In the Courthouse?’

      She nodded. By the look on her face it was apparent whatever she’d seen had unnerved her.

      ‘Did you go in?’ he asked her.

      She shook her head. ‘I just saw this woman at the door.’

      ‘What did she look like?’ Will asked, scarcely daring to hope.

      ‘She was dressed in black—’

      It’s her, he thought. It’s Mrs McGee. And wherever Rosa was, could Jacob be far away?

      Frannie had caught the look of excitement on his face. ‘What is it?’ she said.

      ‘It’s who,’ he said, ‘not what.’

      ‘Who then? Is it somebody you know?’

      ‘A little,’ he replied. ‘Her name’s Rosa.’

      ‘I’ve never seen her before,’ Frannie said. ‘And I’ve lived here all my life.’

      ‘They keep themselves to themselves,’ Will replied.

      ‘There’s somebody else?’

      He

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