CHILDREN OF THE THUNDER Page 9

  Grief! Since the eighties, haven’t they figured out any way of amending their data? What about when someone dies?

  But governments being governments, and that of Britain being particularly loathsome, all he did on the way to the front door was check that his pro-Thrower ribbon was pinned conspicuously on the breast of his sweatshirt. There was a possibility, not yet confirmed, that he might be offered a steady job with TV Plus. However, the executive who had brought him the good news had also handed him the ribbon and advised him to wear it if he hoped to obtain the post. He concluded by saying apologetically, “Better safe than sorry, Peter! Though sorry, I admit, is what I am…”

  Moreover, against regulations, the policewoman was wearing one, too.

  She was not in fact alone. Nearby but out of range of the camera, a white car had drawn up, and its driver was keeping an eye on her. Having registered the fact, Peter said in his politest tones, “Good evening, officer. What can I do for you?”

  And thought for a second he was looking at Claudia, for this woman had the same solid build, much the same color hair, and the same slightly sour expression on her square pale face. But the resemblance was fleeting.

  Consulting some notes in her hand, she said brusquely, “You’re Peter Andrew Levin?”

  “Yes.” He blinked. “If someone has reported me as a squatter, I can assure you—”

  “Father of Ellen Dass, alias Gupta?”

  At first he failed to take in the words. It had all been so long ago… A terrible sinking feeling developed in his belly and his mouth turned dry.

  “Come on!” the woman snapped. “You admitted paternity, according to our records!”

  And that was true. It came from one of the files about him that was not corrupt. Eventually he forced a weary nod.

  “So what? I haven’t seen the kid in ten years! Kamala didn’t want me to! And since she took up with her new man I haven’t even had to pay maintenance!”

  The WPC wasn’t listening. Folding her notes, she was shouting to her companion. “We finally found the right place! Bring her over!”

  Bewildered, Peter suddenly realized there was another person in the car, getting out now, clutching a canvas bag: a slim, tawny-skinned child in sweatshirt and jeans, a girl about the right age to be Ellen. The driver escorted her toward the door.

  As they drew nearer, he saw she had been crying. Her lids were puffy and she kept biting her lower lip. She clung to her bag like a shipwreck survivor to a lifebelt.

  Stopping in front of him, staring up with immense dark eyes, she said uncertainly, “Dad?”

  “What’s all this about?” Peter whispered.

  “Don’t you think you’d better ask us in?” riposted the policewoman.

  “I… Oh, Christ!”—thinking what an impression this visit from the Bill must be making on his new neighbors. “Yes, I suppose so. It’s a mess because I only moved in today, but—Oh, shit. Okay!” He stood aside, gesturing in the direction of the living room. The woman entered first; Ellen followed, and the male constable insisted on Peter preceding him.

  Closing the door behind him, he said, “I’m PC Jones. My colleague is WPC Prentis.”

  “How do you do?” As Peter spoke the automatic words he thought they were the stupidest he had ever heard himself utter. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from this stranger who must be his daughter. Nor she from him.

  “Sizable place, this,” said Prentis, sitting down without invitation. “Plenty of room for a kid.”

  “What do you mean?” Peter snapped, rounding on her. “What’s all this about?”

  “Mainly it’s about a kid with nowhere else to go,” Jones murmured. “You want to explain, Ellen? No? I suppose not… All right then, Mr. Levin.” He drew a deep breath.

  “Remember the airliners that crashed the other day? I’m sure you do. You had a lot to say, I’m told, about the wickedness of the government in hiring private firms for air traffic control. You may be right, you may be wrong, but what it boils down to is that a chunk of one of the planes fell on your daughter’s home. She was out visiting friends. When she came back it was all over. Burnt down. With her mother and father—excuse me: her common-law stepfather—inside. Mr. Gupta died at once. Ms. Dass died today. So when we checked the records…”

  “Oh, my God.” Peter had to grope his way to a chair, thinking: How could I ever have guessed? I didn’t even know where Kamala was living!

  “Had a hell of a time tracking you down!” Prentis said acidly. “Like you were trying to hide!”

  In a milder tone Jones objected, “Maggie, Mr. Levin’s a very busy man! You know that… Well, now we’ve got the kid settled, we’d best be getting back. There’ll be a social worker round in the morning to sort out things like victim support and advice on clothes and such—all she’s got left is in that bag, of course. The rest was burnt. Best thing in cases like this is to get back to normal ASAP, though this is a long way from her old school. Still, the social worker will explain. On our way?”

  Prentis rose briskly and both constables made for the door.

  “Wait!” Peter shouted. “You can’t just—”

  And could have bitten his tongue out. In their faces he read uniform contempt. But, as it turned out, they had different reasons.

  Jones said, still in the same mild tone, but now it sounded sinister, like an inquisitor’s: “In case you hadn’t heard, hundreds of people were killed by the falling debris and thousands were rendered homeless. Mainly they’ve been camping out in schools. But term starts next week, so they’ve got to move. You ought to keep up with the news. Dependent children are to be cared for by their nearest able-bodied relatives. Since yesterday, that’s the law. And in Ellen’s case that means you.”

  And Prentis: “Anyway, it’s your responsibility, isn’t it? Serves you bocky right in any case! Same as anyone who fucks around with niggers! Traitor to your country, that’s what you are, ‘spite of that ribbon on your shirt!”

  Slam.

  And they were gone, leaving Peter to contemplate the ruin of a thousand dreams.

  “Morning, Dad—morning, Mum!” cried Terry Owens as he rushed into the kitchen accompanied by a whiff of expensive aftershave. He wasn’t of an age to shave yet, actually, but it was the style.

  “Morning, dear,” his mother Renee replied over her shoulder as she refilled the teapot after pouring the first cups. Then, turning: “Is that a new jacket?”

  “Mm-hm.” The boy’s mouth was already crowded with cornflakes. “Like it?”

  Renee suppressed a sigh. To her current fashions, such as they were, looked like something bought off a second-hand cart, but… “I’m sure it’s very nice, dear,” she said diplomatically. And added, “You’ll get indigestion if you gobble like that! Do you want an egg?”

  His cereal bowl nearly empty, Terry shook his head. After swallowing, he answered, “This’ll have to do. I’m late. ‘Bye!”

  “Will you be back for—?”

  She had been going to say lunch, but her son’s feet were already clattering down the stairs.

  After a pause, she said, “I’m worried about our Terry. He’s changed so much in the past few months.”

  Not looking up from his newspaper, her husband Brian grunted, “ ‘Sonly natural. It’s the normal time. And I’d say the change is for the better. He doesn’t get picked on at this school the way he did at his last one. Matter of fact he’s got more mates than I ever had at his age. Older than he is, too. Must mean they respect him, right?”

  “Yes, but…” Renee bit her lip, sitting down and stirring sugar into her tea, eyes fixed on nowhere. “I do worry. Can’t help it. I mean, another new jacket! And all those tapes he buys! Where does he get the money?”

  “Not from us!” Brian snapped. “We’ve been all over this a dozen times! We’ve never come up short on the takings, ‘cept a pound or two that was probably due to Sarah giving someone the wrong change.” He meant the girl who helped out in their grocery shop on Saturd
ays. “Reminds me—how are we doing for time?” With a glance at his watch. “Oh, that’s all right. Be a love and pour me another cuppa.”

  Complying, she persisted, “But even so—”

  “Look!” Wearily Brian laid aside his paper. “He works for his money! He’s told us! Isn’t he out all day Saturday and Sunday, and most evenings too, doing odd jobs around the neighborhood? Shows a proper sense of responsibility, to my mind. Better than having him come whining to us day in, day out, saying, ‘So-and-so at school has this and that, why can’t I have it too?’ Isn’t it?”

  “Oh, I admit that, but even so—”

  “All right, I know it’s not strictly legal and all that, not at his age, but he hangs out with these older boys and they split the take with him. That’s what mates are for. You pull your weight, they take care of you. Anyway, it’s all cash-in-hand stuff. What the eye doesn’t see…”

  He drank most of his tea at a gulp and rose, wiping his lips.

  “Right, time to go and let Sarah in. See you downstairs in a minute. Don’t be too long—there’s bound to be the usual rush.”

  On the other side of the street was a corner shop, formerly and for a brief while owned by a guy in videotape rental, that had been boarded up for the past six months. Its closure being a memorial of their only failure to date, Terry insisted on meeting his oppos in the recess of its doorway, to remind them where they’d be without him.

  This morning, though, they were waiting for him outside.

  A single glance explained the reason: some cank had bocked all over it last night, and it reeked.

  “We’ll put in a complaint about that,” Terry muttered. “Offense to public health, or something. I’ll ring up about it later, get it seen to.”

  He was very good at affecting an adult voice and manner on the phone. He could mimic an angry member of the upper crust to near-perfection. Also he knew more about what could be done, even nowadays, even by people at the bottom of the heap, to force official action, than almost anyone in the area. The harassed careers master at his school, whose failure rate in finding jobs for the leavers was now seventy percent, had once said quite seriously, “I shan’t need to worry when it’s your turn, Terry! You’re practically a one-man Citizens’ Advice Bureau already!”

  Terry knew what he meant, but the other kids in earshot had had to ask, the CABs having been abolished as hotbeds of anti-government subversion.

  His oppos—the regular ones—numbered three. Barney had not been baptized Barnabas; he’d earned his name thanks to his fondness for a fight. Built the way he was, and weighing twice as much as Terry, he generally won. Sometimes Terry worried what would happen if he started to generally lose. Taff was called Taff for the usual reason, because he came from Wales; he was much given to asking people who poked fun at his accent whether he didn’t have a better right to British streets than the Packies and the Windies, and leaving his mark on those who disagreed. The third one, the oldest—nearly eighteen—was known as Rio because he affected embossed leather boots and a matador hat his father had brought back from Spain and liked to talk about fighting off the topless talent on the beach at Benidorm, regardless of the fact that owing to the slump the bottom had dropped out of the package tour trade and he had never been further from home than Whitley Bay—where he had bought the knife he carried in his right boot.

  Terry had cultivated them with care, and between them they added up to a formidable force.

  But today he had a bone or two to pick with them.

  “All right, business!” he announced in his precociously deep voice. “Rio, what’s this I hear about your not taking out Mr. Lee’s dustbins? How often have I told you? We’ve got to be seen to be doing something! We’ve got to show legit! It’s not hard graft, is it? He’s good for fifteen smackers and all it takes is fifteen minutes. Or isn’t a maggie a minute enough for you?”

  Abashed before the younger boy’s piercing stare, Rio shifted from foot to foot. “He wouldn’t let me,” he muttered. “Said he won’t pay up this week. Or ever again.”

  “Why, the bocky slope!” Terry exclaimed. Mr. Lee owned the fish-and-chip shop and Chinese takeaway: a thin, perpetually worried man with a short fat wife and a platoon of interchangeable small children with flat faces and inscrutable expressions, who peeked at the customers from behind a curtain.

  “Same with Mr. Lal!” Taff exclaimed. Lal was the Indian who ran the newsagent-tobacconist-confectioner’s shop. Its window was covered with iron grilles because of repeated attacks by Pakistanis. The grumbling war on the subcontinent had spun off many such far-distant clashes. He spoke with the accent called “Bombay Welsh” and Taff delighted in mocking it. Doing so now, he added, “ ‘So sorry, mister sir! It is not good enough takings any more for you carry out my unsold papers!’”

  “I think they’re ganging up on us,” rumbled Barney, and a grin parted the punch-broadened lips beneath his twice-broken nose. “What are we going to do about it, Terry?”

  By now they were strolling down the street. Early shoppers parted nervously to let them by, even if it meant pushing prams and strollers into the roadway. The boys took no notice.

  “Well, I think I’d better tell Mr. Lee that I know the flashpoint of commercial frying-oil, don’t you?” Terry said after a moment for thought. “And I know what burns at a higher temperature!”

  Rio chuckled. Barney looked disappointed. That sort of thing was too indirect to suit his taste.

  “And,” Terry went on, “I’d better explain to Mr. Lal that people who don’t get their papers won’t pay him. We know all the kids who deliver for him, don’t we? Catch?”

  Taff pondered a moment, figured out the connection, and gave a double thumbs-up sign accompanied by a broad smile.

  “And,” Terry concluded, “I think I’ll also tell them that their weekly touch goes up to twenty in future, for acting so bocky.”

  At that even Barney looked pleased again, and they parted on the best of terms.

  Just as Brian was closing the shop that evening, there came a tap at the door. Prepared to bellow, “Sorry, too late!”, he recognized the caller through the glass and was taken aback. He knew Mr. Lee by sight, of course, but he and his family kept themselves entirely to themselves, which was the way most people in the area preferred it. Never before had he called here. And, by the expression on his face, it wasn’t in the way of custom.

  Opening the door, he said uncertainly, “Good evening, Mr. Lee. What is it?”

  “It’s about your son. May I please talk for a moment?”

  Brian hesitated. Then he muttered, “All right. Come on upstairs.”

  “Evening, Mum! Evening, Dad!” Terry called as he rushed into the sitting room.

  And stopped dead in the doorway. The TV was on, as usual, but the sound was muted. And there was a visitor.

  His heart pounded. This smelt of crisis!

  How long have they had by themselves?

  But his mother was saying, “Would you like a cup of tea, Mr. Lee? I don’t suppose it’ll be like what you have in China, of course.”

  Relief flooded Terry’s mind, and he felt a sudden sense of calm control. That was a sign that Mr. Lee could only just have arrived; offering tea to a visitor was a kneejerk reflex with his mother, the first thing she thought of after “let me take your coat” and “please sit down.”

  Brian was saying, “Mr. Lee said he wanted to talk about you, Terry.”

  “Oh, good!” The boy advanced, taking Mr. Lee’s hand and shaking it warmly. “And I bet I know what he’s going to say! Let me see if I’m right! He’s come to say how pleased he is with the work me and my friends do for him—isn’t that right, Mr. Lee? He’s come to say that because he finds us so helpful he’s going to up our pay—isn’t that right, Mr. Lee? Isn’t it?”

  He could practically feel the man’s toes curling inside his shoes. After a pause, dully:

  “Yes. Yes, that is right. Thank you, missis, but I think I won’t stay for te
a. Now you know, I will have to get back. We open in half an hour. Excuse me.”

  And he headed for the stairs.

  “Well!” Renee said, staring after him. “That was a funny sort of call, I must say!”

  “Ah, you never know where you are with the Oriental mind,” Terry declared authoritatively. “They think differently from us—says so in all the books… What’s for tea? I’m starving!”

  Later, as he was changing to go out for the evening, he reflected:

  They can’t think all that differently, of course. Even a slope like him knows which side his bread is buttered— No, they don’t eat bread, do they? What would they say? Which side to sauce their noodles?

  And that was good for a laugh with his oppos when they met up later at their usual pub, whose landlord knew better than to try and keep Terry out for being under the legal drinking age.

  You’re watching TV Plus. Now for Newsframe.

  The inquiry into the disaster that rendered hundreds of people homeless in Carlisle last year has been told that the explosion was caused by an oversight when scaling up a chemical reaction from laboratory to commercial scale. A firm bottling mineral water, forced to cease trading by contamination of natural springs, is to sue the company responsible, Flixotrol, for a million pounds in damages.

  In Tottenham, London, today a black youth was beaten nearly to death for refusing to wear a Thrower ribbon. Wilfred Holder, 17…

  The following week turned out, in fact, to be not quite as terrible as Peter had envisaged during those awful minutes after the police marched out and slammed the door.

  Not quite…

  But that was a minor consolation for having this stranger hung around his neck. He thought of pendants strung with millstones.

  Bad was finding himself reduced to living and working in an even smaller area than at his old home, for Ellen had to have a room to herself. The social worker, who duly appeared next morning, left a stack of leaflets in which, she declared, he would find the regulations that made it obligatory. Her attitude indicated that she suspected him of planning to rape his daughter as soon as she left.