The Viking and the Vendetta
A. J. Braithwaite
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 A. J. Braithwaite
For Niamh
C
hapter
One
"How about if we meet up in London one day?" suggested Pagan. "You know, see the sights, hang out together?"
"Great idea!" replied Luke. He was lying on his bed, chatting to Pagan on his mobile phone, as he had done on most days of the summer holiday. "I'll ask Mum and Dad if it's OK and call you tonight to let you know."
His bedroom door burst open and his dad came into the room. He was gripping a printed piece of paper and looking highly annoyed about something. Dad pointed at the phone in Luke's hand and then drew his finger across his throat. Luke got the message.
"I've got to go, Pagan. Speak to you later," Luke promised. He ended the call. Dad came over to the bed and took the phone out of his hand, turning it off.
"We got you this so that you could call us from time to time when you were away at school," began Dad. "Not so that you could spend a small fortune whispering sweet nothings to your girlfriend." He passed the piece of paper to Luke.
It was a telephone bill for Luke's mobile. Nearly all the itemised calls were to Pagan's mobile phone and the black figure in bold at the bottom of the page showing the total amount owing was considerable: certainly high enough to explain his father's confiscation of the telephone and the angry expression on his face.
"Sorry, Dad," Luke said, "I had no idea it would cost this much."
"Well now you know. You can call her on the house phone from now on – and don't call her mobile, call her home number. And no more than once a week."
As Luke had been talking to Pagan almost every day for the last month, this seemed harsh. "But Dad-"
"Are you in a position to pay this bill?" Dad cut across him.
"No," admitted Luke.
"Well, when you are, you can make as many calls as you like." His father stalked out, slamming the door behind him.
After a few minutes, Luke followed him downstairs. Dad was in his study, glaring at the screen and punching at the keys on his computer's keyboard as if they, too, had offended him. It had been a while since Luke had managed to annoy his father this much.
"Er, Dad," began Luke.
"What?" replied Dad, in a tone of voice that did not indicate any eagerness for a friendly conversation.
"I don't have Pagan's home phone number and she doesn't know ours. Can I email her?"
"I'm busy right now. Paying your horrendous phone bill. You can email her later."
Luke deduced that this was not going to be a good moment to ask whether he could go to London and meet up with Pagan. He cast a regretful look at his phone on Dad's desk and retreated to the living room. Here, his twin half-sisters were putting together the plastic tracks of their toy railway. They did not understand how to make the pieces fit together to make a circuit for their train to follow, so Luke got down on the floor with them and slotted the tracks into a figure-of-eight layout. He played with Elsie and Molly for a full hour, hoping to improve his popularity rating with his parents before raising the question of his planned trip to London.
At lunch-time, Luke made himself useful by cutting up one of the pizzas into toddler-sized pieces for his sisters. His father regarded him with suspicion.
"Being helpful isn't going to get you your phone back, you know," he observed.
"Actually I wanted to ask you about something else," Luke said. His parents looked at him expectantly. "Pagan suggested that we could meet up in London one day," Luke explained. "I said I'd ask you if it was OK."
The mention of Pagan's name sent another scowl of irritation over his father's face. His mother didn't look happy either. "I don't really want you travelling up to London on your own, Luke," she said. "And, after what happened last year, I'm sure that Pagan's mother won't be too thrilled with the idea, either."
"But Pagan camped out for a whole week all by herself and she was fine!" protested Luke.
"While her mother was beside herself with worry," Mum pointed out. "You'll be seeing her in September, which will come round soon enough, just be patient."
Luke turned to his father, though with little hope of support from him. "Dad – you'd let me go, wouldn't you?"
"You heard your mother. The answer's no."
After a few weeks of getting along fine with his parents, Luke felt as though he had been catapulted back into the summer holiday of the previous year, when he had been rowing with them almost daily. He lost control over his temper and his tongue, as he had done so often back then.
"I don't know why I bothered asking you anyway. You're not even my real dad!"
The hurtful words seemed to bounce back at him from the kitchen walls in the silence that followed and Luke immediately wished he hadn't said them. Dad began to rise from his chair and Luke took a step backwards, half-expecting to get a cuff round the head, like he had last summer. But, after a moment, his father sat down again, seeming to shrink away from the confrontation. He massaged his forehead with both hands for a moment as he mastered his feelings, his face hidden from Luke. Then he looked up.
"No, I'm not," he agreed, in a conversational tone of voice. "And how do you think your biological father would feel about this?"
Luke wasn't sure, but he strongly suspected that Ned, who also happened to be their next-door neighbour and Luke's headmaster, would side with his parents. In any case, he was now so embarrassed and guilty about raising the subject in the first place that he said nothing.
"Precisely," said Dad, as if Luke had voiced his thought out loud. "So issues of genetics are completely irrelevant. If this is going to be your response to every disagreement we have then I think you need to come up with a new tactic."
The anger had left Dad but seemed to have taken up residence in his wife instead. "I can't believe you said that, Luke." Mum glared at him. "Go to your room."
It was so unusual for Mum to be the one to send him to his room that Luke hesitated for a moment, his gaze resting briefly and longingly on the home-made pizza, which he was all too ready to eat. Then he looked back at his mother, about to ask whether he could take a slice with him. The expression on her face made the safety of his bedroom suddenly quite appealing. He retreated upstairs and lay down on his bed, feeling resentful, remorseful and, overridingly, hungry.
After an hour of brooding, Luke decided it might be safe to go back downstairs to try to patch things up with his parents. As he passed his bedroom window, he noticed that Ned was out in the back garden of his house next door, cutting back an overgrown shrub. It occurred to Luke that what he really needed was some exercise to work off his bad mood. He went back downstairs and found his mother in the kitchen.
"Can I go next door and help Ned in the garden?"
"Don't you want something to eat first?" She handed him a plate with a slice of pizza on it. Luke wolfed it down, then gave his mum a hug of thanks and apology.
He walked round to his next-door neighbour's side gate and let himself through. Ned turned at the sound of the gate creaking open and raised a hand in greeting.
"Need any help?" Luke asked. He was in the exactly the right sort of mood to be hacking at a bush. Ned handed over the secateurs he was holding.
"OK, you carry on cutting this back and I'll collect the clippings." He turned and started picking up the pieces of bush that had already fallen to the ground, throwing them into a vividly pink plastic basket.
"Nice colour," commented Luke, looking at the basket.
"It was the only one left in the shop," Ned explained. "Makes it hard to lose, mind you. And I can't imagine anyone ever trying to steal it."
For a while they worked in silence, until Luke stepped back and surveyed what remained of the bush, which was considerably smaller and neater than when he'd started. Ned looked at him.
"Good job. Do you feel better for that?"
"Yeah," said Luke. "It's kind of satisfying." He helped collect up the last of the cuttings.
"Want a drink?" asked Ned.
"Thanks," replied Luke and he followed his neighbour into the house. Ned made some tea for himself and handed Luke a can of Coke from the fridge. They sat down in the small living room of the cottage.
"So, what's the matter?" Ned asked. Luke looked surprised at the question. "Come on, Luke. The way you attacked that bush, it's fairly obvious there's something bothering you."
"I had a bit of a row with my…" Luke paused. Now that he knew that it was Ned who was really his father, he felt a little uncomfortable calling his dad ‘Dad' when he was talking to Ned.
"With your dad?" prompted Ned.
"Yes, but that's sort of the point. I ended up telling him that he wasn't my dad. But then I felt bad about saying that. I think it really upset him."
Ned frowned. "What were you arguing about?"
"Pagan," said Luke. "We were planning to meet up and spend the day together in London, but Mum and Dad won't let me go. They're not happy about me travelling up there on my own. They're treating me like a little kid."
Luke could hear the whine in his own voice and was not surprised when Ned said: "And so you acted like one."
"Would you have let me go?" asked Luke.
"It's hardly relevant," replied Ned, repressively, making Luke feel even worse. They drank in silence for a few minutes, and then Ned spoke again. "What you need to do is think of a way of getting around the objections that your parents have. And I mean one that doesn't involve you sneaking off to London without their permission."
Luke stared at him. "I wouldn't do something like that!"
In reply Ned merely raised his eyebrows and tilted his head forwards slightly. His disbelieving expression summoned from Luke's memory the day in the previous summer when he had absconded to the seaside to meet up with his old school friends without telling his parents.
"That was completely different!" he protested. Ned's eyebrows inched higher still, forcing Luke to carry on talking. "Well, things were different then," he said, lamely. Ned remained silent and Luke was forced to think about it more deeply. "I was different then," he finally admitted.
"Perhaps it's time to prove it then. Think about it, Luke. If your parents don't want you travelling to London on your own, then why not ask if one of them could go with you to meet Pagan?"
"Oh," said Luke. "Yes, that might work."
"And make things right with your dad while you're at it. He is your father in every important way."
"Yeah, I know. I felt bad as soon as I said it." Luke finished his drink, feeling more cheerful. "Thanks, Ned," he said. "I'll go back and talk to them about it."
His father was working at the computer again when Luke sidled into the study. Dad cast him an unfriendly look over the top of his glasses. "What now?"
It wasn't a promising start, but Luke took a few steps into the room and leant against a small table at the side of his father's desk. "I wanted to apologise for what I said earlier, about you not being my real dad."
Dad looked surprised. "What's brought about this change of heart?"
"It was a mean thing to say and I'm sorry. I was sorry as soon as I said it."
"You've been talking to Ned, haven't you?" divined Dad.
"How do you know that?" asked Luke, his turn to be surprised.
"Because he seems to be the only person in the world who can make you see any sense." Dad sighed. "Did he have any other insights to share?"
Luke began to worry that he was somehow making things even worse, by making his father feel inadequate compared to Ned. "It's not because he's my real dad," he said, trying to reassure him. "He's just good at explaining things without being too involved. He said that you are my dad in every important way."
"Alright," said Dad gruffly. "Apology accepted."
Luke escaped to the living room, relieved to have apologised, but unsure whether he had made things any better by doing so. His mother was sewing labels into his new school trousers. Luke's stomach gave a loud growl. "Is there any pizza left, Mum?"
"In the fridge," she told him.
Luke retreated to the kitchen and ate the remains of their lunch, thinking about his promise to phone Pagan and wondering whether to put Ned's suggestion to his parents. He washed the plate and returned to the living room where he started to tidy up the twins' toys in an attempt to get back on friendly terms with his mother.
"Mum," said Luke, after a few minutes.
"Hm?"
"Could you or Dad come with me into London to meet Pagan?"
Mum put down her sewing. "That's not a bad idea, Luke. But I'm not sure how easy it will be. Dad's pretty busy with work right now and I'm not sure I'd want to make that journey with the twins."
A picture of the chaos that could be caused by the twins on a train trip to London formed itself in Luke's mind and he had to admit that his mother had a point.
Dad came into the room and sat down on the sofa, opening his newspaper and disappearing behind it. Mum explained Luke's proposal to her husband, who lowered the paper and shot a piercing look in Luke's direction. "Is this another one of Ned's bright ideas?"
Luke felt his temper beginning to rise but made a determined effort to keep his voice level. "Yes, it is. Mum thought it was a good plan."
"Well I've got better things to do with my weekends than to take day trips into London just so that you can gallivant around with that silly girl and you can't expect your mother to do the trip with the twins."
Luke's dad had never had a high opinion of Pagan, mainly because she had managed to poison herself and Luke with toxic mushrooms a few months previously. But Luke couldn't let that comment pass. "She's not a ‘silly girl'! And you're just saying that because it was Ned who suggested it!"
"Well maybe he'll be willing to take you into town himself then. And since you can't keep your voice down you can go back to your room." Dad raised his newspaper again.
Luke made one last attempt. "I promised Pagan I'd call her tonight. Can't I at least send her an email?"
"You heard what I said," replied his father.
Luke departed, shutting the living room door behind him. On impulse, he ducked into the study and retrieved his phone from Dad's desk before going back upstairs. Luke shut his bedroom door with slightly more force than he'd intended to. It wasn't quite a slam, but wasn't far short of one. He paused next to the door for a moment, checking to see whether the noise was going to provoke a response from his parents, but all remained quiet.
Luke turned his phone back on, finding a text message from Pagan.
Hi Luke - Mum says trip only OK if I travel down w her on train & meet u at Euston. How about u? xoxox
Luke was fairly sure that texts were not going to add to the phone bill problem, so he composed a reply to Pagan, giving her his home phone number and asking her to call it. He turned the phone off again, slipped it into his pocket and lay down on his bed, feeling pleased with himself.
Two minutes later, the phone in the hall rang. Luke crossed his fingers and thumbs, willing his mother to answer it rather than Dad. He put his ear to his bedroom door, trying to hear the conversation.
"Luke!" came his mother's voice. Luke hammered down the stairs, leaping over the last five steps in his haste to get to the phone. "It's Pagan," said Mum, holding her hand over the receiver. "Make it quick," she added. Luke took the phone and his mother went back into the living room.
"Hi Pagan," said Luke.
"What's going on?" asked Pagan. Luke briefly explained the problem with the mobile phone bill and his failure to reach an agreement with his parents over their planned trip to London.
"And Dad says I'm only allowed to call you once a week now," Luke concluded.
"Oh, that's OK, I'll phone you instead," said Pagan, pragmatically. "My phone has loads of free minutes on it each month."
"Great," said Luke. "I'd better go now; I'm supposed to be in my room, in disgrace."
"You bad boy," teased Pagan. "I'll phone you tomorrow."
Luke hung up and went back towards the study so that he could return his mobile phone to his father's desk. As he did so, his dad came out of the living room, looking suspicious. "You said that Pagan didn't know our phone number," he said.
Uh-oh, here we go again. Luke reached into his pocket and surrendered his phone to his dad for the second time that day. "I texted the number to her," he confessed. "I thought she might worry if I didn't call her tonight and I didn't think texting would cost anything. Sorry."
He watched his father warily, waiting for the inevitable burst of rage. But, to his astonishment, it did not come. Dad was regarding him with a perplexed expression. Luke was even more amazed when Dad passed the phone back to him.
"You're showing more concern for other people's feelings than I gave you credit for," his father said. "Pagan can call you on that and I'll sort out a different package for it so that you can call her, too."
"Er, thanks," said Luke, startled by this sudden change of heart and delighted to have his phone back again. "I'm really sorry about the phone bill," he added. "If I'd known it was going to cost that much…"
"It was a bit of a shock, that's all," replied Dad, "and it seems to have sent the day off into a downward spiral. I'm sorry if I over-reacted."
He turned and went back into the living room, leaving Luke feeling bewildered. To be on the safe side, he decided to return to his bedroom in case he accidentally said something that caused his father to change his mind.
Chapter Two
Dad had left for work by the time Luke got up the next day. His mother was busy giving the twins their breakfast when he arrived in the kitchen.
"Luke, I'm running out of milk. Could you pop round to the shop for me and get two pints?" She pressed some coins into Luke's hand and went back to buttering the toast.
Luke walked to the village shop. As he was paying for the milk, Ned entered and picked up a newspaper. Luke waited by the door for Ned to pay and then walked back with him to their terrace of cottages.
"Did you sort things out with your dad?" Ned asked.
"Yeah, eventually," said Luke.
"So you're going to London?"
"Ah, well I haven't managed to wangle the trip to London yet," Luke admitted. "But at least I'm on speaking terms with him again. Pagan's mum has said she'll come down with her because she doesn't want Pagan travelling on her own, either."
They strolled along in silence for a while.
"As it happens, I was thinking of visiting London soon to see an exhibition at the British Museum," Ned commented. "If you still want to meet up with Pagan, I could probably come as far as Euston with you as your official escort."
Luke stared at him. "That would be great!" he said.
"Fine by me," said his dad when Luke put Ned's offer to him later that day. "So you're finding that there are some advantages to having two fathers, then?"
On the next Wednesday, Luke and Ned travelled up to London to meet Pagan and her mother, Julia. The morning was clear and Luke and Ned were in good spirits as they boarded the train and sat down opposite each other, either side of a table. Ned had a newspaper with him, but instead of disappearing behind it, as Luke's dad would have done, he folded it open at a page of word puzzles and enlisted Luke's help in tackling them. They worked on them together as the train passed in and out of bright sunshine and dark, noisy tunnels on their way into the city.
Half-way into the journey, a small elderly woman with a large bag joined them at their table. She started to lift the bag onto the luggage rack but was clearly going to struggle to get it above her head. Luke leapt to his feet and took the bag from her, safely stowing it in the rack.
"Oh, thank you my dear," she said. She sat next to Luke and bestowed a grateful smile on him. Addressing Ned, she added "Your son is a very thoughtful young man."
Luke and Ned shared a conspiratorial smile, absurdly pleased at having their true relationship recognised by a stranger.
At eleven o'clock Luke and Ned were waiting at Euston station for the Randalls. The crowd that had just disembarked from the Manchester train filled the left hand side of the station concourse, heading to the exits or to the Underground escalators. Some were dragging small wheeled suitcases; others were striding in purposeful, business-like manner, while still more were ambling along in a more aimless fashion, looking almost surprised to find themselves at their destination. When Julia and Pagan emerged from the throng into a bright shaft of sunlight coming from the high windows at the front of the building, Luke could not suppress a small gasp of surprise.
When he had first met Pagan, in June, her hair had been dyed a nondescript shade of light brown and she had been dressed in similarly unmemorable clothing. Now, the brown had been washed away and her hair was back to its natural shade of pale blonde. The jeans and baggy tops of the runaway had been replaced with a figure-hugging, arm- and leg-revealing summer dress in a pale shade of blue. In the beam of sunshine, she glowed. Luke became painfully aware that if Pagan had looked anything like this on the day they had met, he would never have found the courage to speak to her, let alone ask her to pick up freshly-smoked cigarette ends for him. And if Julia had not been walking next to her daughter, Luke would have had great difficulty in recognising this radiant young woman as the person he had started to think of as his girlfriend.
Pagan had spotted him and Ned and she pulled her mother towards them with an excited smile on her face. "Hi," she said, beaming at Luke.
Still dazzled by her and tongue-tied by shyness, Luke was only able to offer a feeble echo of Pagan's smile and her greeting. "Hi."
Ned and Julia were more articulate: they shook hands with each other and started talking about their journeys immediately, leaving Luke and Pagan staring at each other in silence, with Pagan beginning to looking puzzled at Luke's failure to say anything more substantial than 'hi'. After a few awkward seconds, Luke recovered his ability to compose complete sentences, although his voice came out more hoarsely than usual. "You look great," he managed to say.
"Well, at least my hair's back to its normal colour now," said Pagan. "And I will confess that I spent a bit more time in front of the mirror today than I could when I was camping in the woods."
"That's an understatement," interjected Julia, "I thought she was never going to leave the bathroom this morning and we nearly missed the train!"
"Mu-um," complained Pagan, rolling her eyes dramatically.
This exchange went some way towards reassuring Luke that, despite her considerably changed appearance, Pagan was still the same person underneath. Julia had a knack for saying the right thing. He smiled up at her in gratitude.
"How are you, Luke?" she asked.
"I'm fine," he replied, pleased to find that his voice had returned to normal.
"Good. Well, I'm sure you two are anxious to be free of us. Pagan and I are booked to go back on the six twenty train tonight, so why don't you meet us back here at about six o'clock? Pagan's got my number if you run into any problems."
"OK," said Luke and Pagan, in unison. Pagan took Luke's hand and grinned at him. They started to walk away but Pagan stopped and half-turned back.
"What are you two going to do?" she asked.
"I'm heading off to visit the American print exhibition at the British Museum," Ned told her, looking at Julia to see what her plans were.
"That sounds interesting," said Julia. "Do you mind if I join you?"
"Not at all," replied Ned.
Pagan gave Luke's hand a slight squeeze, which Luke interpreted as a sign that she still harboured hopes of a romantic relationship developing between her mother and Ned. Luke pulled her away towards the Underground entrance, hoping that the adults hadn't noticed the soppy look on Pagan's face.
*
"Shall we walk down to Bloomsbury?" Ned asked Julia.
"Yes, let's. It's too lovely to be travelling by Tube today," she replied.
It wasn't a long walk, but by the time they reached the museum they were both feeling sticky with city heat. The interior of the museum offered a cool and peaceful refuge, although the lower floors were busy with tourists. There were fewer people in the exhibition area upstairs where the American printed artworks were on display. Ned and Julia drifted apart so that they could examine the illustrations at their own pace.
Julia was buying postcards of some of the images from a small shop in the exhibition area when Ned caught up with her again. She packed her purchases into her handbag and smiled at him. "Are you ready for some lunch?" she asked.
"The restaurant here is pretty good," said Ned. "Shall we treat ourselves?"
"Why not?"
The restaurant was running an American-themed menu to match the exhibition. "Does all this make you feel nostalgic for the States?" asked Julia, after they'd ordered. She had found out on their walk from the station that Ned had lived there for a while.
"A little," replied Ned, with a smile.
"How long were you over there for?"
"Ten years, in all."
"And what made you come home again?"
Ned took a long drink of his water before answering. "It was a combination of factors, really. By the end of that time I was working as the deputy principal in a great school and was looking to take on a headship. I was monitoring jobs over there and over here when the post at Hawley Lodge came up. It sounded perfect: a small school which had been poorly managed for a time. It gave me a chance to throw myself into something and really make a difference."
"And what were the other factors?"
Ned raised his eyebrows. "Nothing gets past you, does it?"
Julia shrugged. "Reading between the lines is my job, I suppose."
"I knew you were the right person to take on as Hawley Lodge's counsellor," said Ned, "but I wasn't expecting you to start using your skills on me."
"Sorry, force of habit."
"No, it's OK. I just haven't talked about any of this to anyone before. You're not going to start charging me by the hour are you?"
Julia laughed and Ned steered the conversation in another direction. "How's your relocation going?"
"We'll be moving in to the cottage next Wednesday," Julia replied, accepting the change of subject with a smile and a nod. "I'm renting out our house in Manchester to a friend and will be leaving a lot of the furniture there, as the cottage is quite a bit smaller. It'll be fine for the two of us, though," she added, not wanting to sound as though she was criticising the new home that Ned had helped to get for them. "And the village is lovely. The only thing I know I am going to miss is my vegetable garden - I've got so used to growing my own food - but maybe I can get one of the allotments in the village."
Ned frowned. "I've heard there's a long waiting list for those, I'm afraid. But I have been wondering about whether we should start a vegetable garden at the school. There used to be one there, in the old days when Hawley Lodge was a country house with lots of staff."
"That's a good idea," exclaimed Julia. "Maybe the school could have a gardening club?"
"If you're willing to run it, I think that would be great. Most kids these days have no idea where their food comes from," said Ned. "Our groundsman, Paul, would be willing to help out, I'm sure."
"Done!" said Julia. "I would be utterly lost without a garden to potter around in."
"I'll be back in the village next week, so will be able to help out if you run into any problems with the cottage," Ned offered.
"Wonderful!"
*
Luke and Pagan were enjoying being tourists for the day. They rode on the big wheel of the London Eye and then took a boat trip down the Thames. After a hamburger lunch on the Embankment they took the Underground to Oxford Street and spent time in the shops there. Luke remembered his sisters' impending birthday and they spent an agreeable hour exploring the Hamleys toy store in Regent Street. They settled on buying additional pieces for the twins' train set, which was their favourite toy of the moment.
"I'm sick of walking," Pagan declared, as they left the store. "Let's just go and...sit somewhere."
Luke liked the sound of that, particularly in combination with the sly sideways look Pagan gave him when she made the suggestion. He examined the Tube map he'd been carrying all day. "Regent's Park is the next stop on from Oxford Circus."
"Sounds great," smiled Pagan.
At the park they found themselves a bench in a secluded area, surrounded by trees and shaded from the afternoon sun. Luke was strongly reminded of the time they had spent together in Pagan's campsite under the trees of the country club near his school when they had first met in June. The spot was improbably peaceful, with the loudest noise coming from the birds of the Park. The surrounding city and its millions of people could have been many miles distant. Pagan tucked her handbag into the Hamleys bag with the twins' toys and Luke shoved it underneath the seat. He relaxed onto the wooden bench, resting his arm along its curved back. Pagan leaned up against him, briefly resting her head on his shoulder. The scent of her hair filled his nostrils. After a few seconds, Pagan turned her face to his and Luke bent his head forwards, all too ready to kiss her. Their lips were micrometres apart when a rough voice inserted itself between them with the force of a crowbar.
"Aw, how sweet. Now stand up and hand over your phones and cash."
Absorbed in each other, Luke and Pagan had failed to notice the approach of two men. The one who had spoken was looming over them, behind the bench and in his right hand was a long knife, cruelly-curved and shiny with menace. The other man had his back to them, making sure that no-one else was approaching.
Luke and Pagan slowly got to their feet and the mugger followed them round to their side of the bench, holding his knife close to Pagan's face as Luke handed over his phone and his last few banknotes. The man slid them into the pocket of his hooded top with his free hand. He looked expectantly at Pagan.
"I'm not carrying any," she said, truthfully enough.
"What's in there?" The mugger pointed towards the white Hamleys bag underneath the bench.
"A toy train set for my baby sisters," Luke told him. "But it might be a bit advanced for you."
There was a brief moment of stillness before the mugger responded to these imprudent words. He punched Luke hard in the stomach, forcing him back onto the bench, winded and unable to react. Then the man lunged forward, one hand bunching the neck of Luke's t-shirt, the other holding the knife against the side of the teenager's face. Luke could see every detail of the mugger's deep acne scars. The man's upper lip curled into a snarl, revealing uneven, yellowish teeth.
"Less of your cheek," he hissed, his warm breath washing over his victim. The snarl became a sadistic smile as the man pulled the knife down into Luke's face, carving a gash into his skin. Luke still had no breath with which to cry out, but Pagan had plenty. As blood spilled from the wound, dripping down onto Luke's white top, she let out a piercing scream.
The birds stopped singing.
Chapter Three
"C'mon Spud, time to go," the other mugger said, looking around uneasily. The knifeman followed him as he ran off into the trees.
Pagan ducked down and dragged the Hamleys bag from underneath the bench. She removed her handbag and dug out a plastic-wrapped packet of tissues which she ripped open with her teeth and passed to Luke, her hands shaking. Luke held the wodge of soft paper against his bleeding face as Pagan sank back down onto the seat. "It's not as bad as it looks," he tried to reassure her, once he'd got his breath back. In reply, she punched him on the arm, almost as hard as the mugger had punched his midriff.
"You idiot!" she shouted. "What did you have to go and say that to him for?"
Next, Pagan got her phone, first dialling 999 to summon the police and then phoning her mother's number. Help soon appeared in the form of a Royal Parks policeman, who checked Luke over and called an ambulance to meet them on the nearest road. While they waited for it, the teenagers told the constable what had happened. Pagan's phone rang and Julia spoke to her. "We're just getting to the park, Pagan, where are you exactly?"
"I'll pass you on to the policeman, Mum and he can explain where we are." Pagan handed her phone to the officer, who gave their location to Julia. The taxi pulled up shortly afterwards and Luke was relieved to see Ned climb out of it after Julia.
When she caught sight of Luke's blood-stained top and the drenched red bundle of tissues he was holding against his cheek, Julia cried out in horror. Pagan had not mentioned the knife attack in her call.
"Oh my God! What's happened to you? Are you alright?"
The adults rushed over to them and Pagan's self-possession fractured. Tears began dripping down her face as freely as the blood had run down Luke's a few minutes earlier. She was gathered into a motherly hug by Julia while Ned stopped in front of Luke and took hold of his chin, tilting his head sideways and gently removing the bloody paper to examine his injury. Luke looked up at him, feeling dangerously close to tears himself. His neighbour's face was grave.
"How did you get this?"
Ned's level voice calmed Luke down enough to allow him to describe the mugging and to explain that the mugger had sliced his face open with a knife. He didn't go into detail about the exact circumstances which had provoked the attack. As he talked he was watching Ned to gauge his reaction to his tale. He could see a puzzled frown forming on his neighbour's face and was sure that he was not entirely satisfied with Luke's explanation. Julia did not seem to notice any problem with it, however; she released Pagan and bestowed a hug on Luke instead. "You poor thing. What a terrifying experience."
He was spared from any further questioning by the arrival of the ambulance.
"You seem to be developing a taste for riding in these things," Ned remarked.
He accompanied Luke to the hospital, while Julia and Pagan were driven around the area in a police van, to see whether Pagan could spot the muggers. It was arranged that they would all meet up at one of the local police stations, once Luke's gash had been treated.
Luke and Ned waited in the Accident and Emergency department. Above their heads was a stern notice warning against the use of mobile phones. Ned looked up at it and commented, "I should phone your parents and tell them that you're in hospital. Again. Will you be alright on your own for a bit?"
"Yeah, fine," said Luke.
Ned left the building and returned five minutes later.
"How did they take it?" asked Luke
"Your mum was all for getting on a train and coming up to London herself," replied Ned. "But I persuaded her that you were quite OK and we would probably be home before she could get here."
The deep cut in Luke's cheek was sealed with thin strips of adhesive dressing. Ned didn't say much but Luke was grateful for his company. He wasn't in the mood for conversation, anyway. Once he had been patched up they took a taxi to the police station where they were reunited with the Randalls, whose hunt for the muggers had been unsuccessful. Pagan and Luke's statements were taken (neither of them mentioned Luke's rash words to the mugger) and, at last, the four travellers were free to return to Euston.
On their way back into the station Luke's injury and bloody top attracted some startled glances from passers-by. Pagan was uncharacteristically quiet and didn't hold Luke's hand as she had earlier in the day. Luke thought she was probably still annoyed with him for making the situation with the muggers worse than it needed to be. He felt shy of her again and furious with himself and their attackers for spoiling what could have been a perfect day.
The Manchester train on which the Randalls were booked was long gone and already half way to its destination, but Julia persuaded a sympathetic train company employee to let them use their tickets on a later train. The four of them parted company. Julia and Ned shook hands again. Her smile was warm. "See you next week," she said.
Pagan's goodbye to Luke was more muted. She just said "Bye, then," and turned away to walk towards the platform entrance. There was no smile to accompany her words and certainly no hug or kiss. Julia compensated for her daughter's coolness by patting Luke's shoulder and giving him a sympathetic look.
"Take care of yourself," she said.
Luke nodded but didn't speak and Julia followed her daughter into the sloping passageway which led to the train. As they vanished from his sight, Luke could not help but dwell on the contrast between Pagan's cold farewell and the warmth of her greeting in the same location at the beginning of the day. He clearly had not been forgiven for his impulsive words in the park. The pain of the cut inflicted by the mugger seemed insignificant in comparison.
He walked in silence with Ned to the escalator and down through the advertisement-lined tunnels leading to the Underground station. A southbound Victoria Line tube arrived as soon as they reached the platform. The train was busy with commuters and they both had to stand all the way to Victoria. Luke found that his bloody top worked like an invisible protective barrier, ensuring that he had more space around him than any of the other passengers. He was becoming weary of the scandalised looks he was getting from their fellow travellers. He tried to hide the stains by wrapping his left arm and shoulder around one of the pale blue metal posts which supported the roof of the carriage and to which the passengers clung as the train lurched jerkily through the hot, airless tunnels.
The nearest people to him were a dark-skinned young man and woman whose attention was focused entirely on each other. They were the only people in the coach who appeared unaware of Luke's grisly appearance. Luke watched the couple kissing every time the train stopped at a station and found himself hating them with an equally strong passion.
At Victoria, Ned led Luke upstairs into the small shopping precinct above the station where he insisted on buying Luke a new t-shirt from a men's clothes store. "Your mother will turn a knife on me if you arrive home covered in blood. You look as though you've spent the day as an extra in a horror film."
Once he had paid for Luke's new top, Ned made him change into it, right there in the shop. Embarrassed, Luke pulled off his gore-spattered shirt and replaced it with the new one, humiliated at having to do so under the curious stares of the sales assistants.
They secured a table to themselves on the train that would take them home: Luke's injury proving useful again as a deterrent to anyone who might have considered sharing their space. As the train left Victoria and began to pick up speed, its noise provided them with a degree of privacy and Ned took advantage of it to return to the topic of the mugger's attack. Luke was expecting and dreading this: he had been fairly sure that his neighbour had been dissatisfied with his earlier account and with the statement he had given to the police.
"So, did you get knifed because you tried to stop the mugger from taking your things?" Ned asked.
"No. I didn't dare. He was holding his knife at Pagan's face," Luke explained.
Ned's eyebrows went up and his head tilted forward. He was back in cross-examination mode. "And yet yours is the one with the knife wound."
Luke was reminded of the cigarette-end incident of the summer term, where Ned, as his headmaster, had used careful questioning to deduce Luke's plan to plant incriminating evidence in the room of his rival, Benjamin Wharton. This interrogation felt as if it was going to go the same way. He suspected that Ned was not going to let things rest until he had got all the facts. Luke tried to change the subject, although he knew it was unlikely to divert the inquisition. "What did Mrs Randall mean, when she said 'see you next week'?"
"I'm going back to Hawley Lodge on Monday and I'm going to pop by and make sure they've moved in to their new house OK on Wednesday," Ned replied. He returned to his previous line of enquiry as though there had been no interruption, this time with an open question which demanded a straightforward answer. "How exactly did you come by that cut?"
Luke sighed. He was beginning to think that his neighbour had missed his true vocation as a police detective. He consoled himself with the thought that at least Ned wouldn't be landing him in detentions as a consequence of nailing down the truth this time. "I provoked him," he admitted, going on to explain how, while keeping a wary eye on Ned, to see how he was going to react. "Then Pagan screamed and they ran off," he finished.
Ned was frowning.
"And then Pagan punched me," Luke added resentfully, rubbing the bruised part of his arm and hoping to distract Ned into offering sympathy instead of blame.
"Now that attack seems more than justified," said Ned in a tone that was far from sympathetic. "She must have been scared stiff. Luke, you do realise that you could both have been killed just because you couldn't keep your mouth shut, don't you?"
Ned's voice rarely betrayed his feelings and this was the first time Luke had ever heard him sounding genuinely angry, although he was not shouting in the way that Luke's other dad normally did. Luke supposed that Ned's exasperation was perfectly reasonable under the circumstances but he felt ill-equipped to cope with it, especially as he knew he was likely to face a similar response from his parents when he got home. One of the significant disadvantages of having two fathers in his life was becoming all too clear. As far as Luke was concerned, the throbbing cut on his cheek and the chilly nature of his parting with Pagan were painful reminders enough of how reckless his words to the mugger had been.
"I know!" he snapped back. "And now Pagan's not talking to me, I've had my face sliced open and I've screwed up the whole day for everybody. I'M SORRY, ALRIGHT?"
Luke didn't have anything like Ned's control over the volume of his voice. By the time he reached the end of this short speech, his shout was much louder than the background noise of the train. Passengers around them in the carriage were lowering their newspapers, phones and novels and staring at the two of them with open curiosity, perhaps pleased to have the monotony of their daily journey broken by this unusual helping of drama. Ned and Luke glared at each other for a few moments and then Luke broke the tension by letting out a sound that was half-laugh and half-sob. "And now I'm arguing with you like I do with my old man. Just perfect."
He overlapped his forearms on the table and dropped his forehead onto them, hiding his face (and the tears that were threatening to fall and shame him further). Ned said nothing for a few moments, and then placed his hand lightly on the back of Luke's head. It was a gesture of comfort and, perhaps, forgiveness. When he spoke, his voice was back to its usual even tone.
"Pagan will come round, Luke. When someone cares about you, they can't help but be angry when you put yourself at risk like you did today. It's just a temporary thing."
Luke filled his lungs with a deep breath and tried to absorb some of Ned's restored calmness into himself. He let out the air in a long, slow exhalation and pushed himself upright again, feeling more hopeful."D'you think so?"
"I'm positive. But you will need to explain how sorry you are, first. And it might be best if you can manage to do that without shouting at her."
*
On the Manchester train, the Randalls were also exchanging information about the way in which they had spent their day. Pagan didn't want to talk about Luke, so pressed her mother to tell her what she and Ned had done.
"Well, we went to the museum and looked around the American prints exhibition, which was interesting," Julia started. "Then we had a really lovely lunch there and wandered round some of the other parts of the museum. I was pretty tired by the afternoon, so we decided to go on one of those tourist bus tours of the city. It was such fun: I haven't been on an open-topped bus for years!"
Julia laughed at the memory but then stopped and paid attention to her daughter.
"And then you rang and we jumped off and got into the taxi. I know your day ended badly, Pagan, but did you have a good time before that last part?"
Pagan's feelings were muddled. She shrugged and said nothing, staring out of the window at the arch of Wembley Stadium which was glowing orange as it caught the light of the evening sun.
"Don't give me that, Pagan Randall." Julia's voice was sharper than usual and Pagan turned to look at her, startled out of her dejection. Heavy-handed parenting wasn't her mum's usual style. "You stopped talking to me about your feelings once before and look what happened then. Tell me what's the matter."
Pagan smiled and shook her head. "I'm not planning on running away this time, Mum. Although I made such a fool of myself that I almost wish I could. It was when that guy slit Luke's face open with the knife, I-," she covered her face with her hands, unwilling to complete the sentence.
"What?" insisted Julia.
Pagan slowly raised her head out of her fingers, her face screwed up, as though she was in pain. "I screamed," she said. "I screamed like a flipping eight-year-old. It was so humiliating. Luke must think I'm a complete idiot."
"Well it sounds like a perfectly natural reaction, to me," Julia reassured her. "I should think he's more worried about the fact that you barely spoke to him when we left."
"I was too embarrassed. He must have been thinking what a big girl's blouse I was."
"Pagan, I'm sure he was thinking no such thing. I saw his face when you walked off to the train. He looked heartbroken when you barely said goodbye, as if you'd just slapped him in the face."
"I did punch him quite hard after we were mugged," admitted Pagan.
"When he'd just been sliced open with a knife?" asked her mother, her voice shrill with disbelief.
"Er, yeah," said Pagan, thinking that perhaps it did sound rather unkind when she put it like that.
"Well, you really know how to show a boy a good time, don't you? First you nearly kill him by poisoning him, then you punch him when he's already been stabbed. If the poor lad's got any sense he'll run a mile from you!"
Pagan knew she was only joking, but she began to wonder if her mother might not have a point. Perhaps this relationship had been cursed with bad luck from the very beginning.
Chapter Four
Ned accompanied Luke to his parents' house. The door flew open before they reached it and Luke's mother rushed out to greet them. She examined Luke's face and gave him a powerful hug. Finally releasing him, she turned to Ned and took his hands.
"Thanks for looking after him. I'm so glad you were there."
Luke's dad joined them and added his thanks to his wife's.
"We've kept supper until you came home," said Luke's mum. "You'll join us, won't you, Ned?"
Ned agreed and the four of them entered the house. Mum had made a quiche and there were bowls of potato and green salad next to it on the kitchen table. The twins were already in bed. The four of them sat down and began to help themselves to the food. Luke's stomach growled in anticipation of the meal; it seemed a long time since he'd eaten that hamburger beside the Thames with Pagan.
It was strange to be eating a meal with all three of his parents at once; it was only rarely that Luke spent any time with all of them together. He felt unusually self-conscious, as though he were somehow having to live up to each of their expectations of him. Seeing his mother and Ned together always made him feel uncomfortable, anyway, as it made him remember that they had once (however briefly) been lovers. And no-one likes to think about their parents in those terms. He found it difficult to understand how they could now act neutrally towards each other, having once been so close. Surely there must still be some spark of feeling between them? Luke tried to imagine being equally cool towards Pagan and then felt another stab of almost physical pain as he remembered the way they had parted. Perhaps that was what it felt like for Ned, when he was around Luke's mother.
Absorbed in these dismal thoughts, Luke hadn't noticed that he was being asked a question, but the way the adults were all looking at him told him that an answer was expected. "Sorry, what?" he asked.
"I think you mean 'pardon'," said his mother, reprovingly.
Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be on my best behaviour for her, in front of Ned, thought Luke. He eased his resentment by stabbing his fork into a piece of potato.
"I asked you how you ended up getting knifed," his dad repeated.
Here we go again, thought Luke. He looked over at Ned, reluctant to face a re-run of their row on the train, but unable to avoid telling them the truth when Ned already knew what had happened.
But (not for the first time) Ned came to his rescue, apparently interpreting Luke's glance as an appeal for help. "As I understand it," said Ned, "Luke was trying to distract the mugger's attention from the bag holding Pagan's things. But the man reacted violently, punched Luke in the stomach and cut open his face."
Luke nodded to confirm Ned's version of events and gave his neighbour a half-smile of thanks, wondering why he hadn't thought of explaining it that way to Ned in the first place. But then he felt dishonest, so he added, "It was my own fault, really."
"You're not to blame that there are people out there who think they can go around stealing things at knifepoint," Luke's mum said, hotly. "I hope the police catch him and lock him up for good."
"Is Pagan OK?" asked Dad.
Another difficult question to answer, but Luke couldn't leave this one to Ned. "She's fine," he managed to say in a slightly hoarse voice. He did not feel like being honest about the fact that Pagan had hardly spoken to him since the attack and that he was worried she would never speak to him again.
He remained quiet for the rest of the meal, listening to the others making polite small talk and trying to ignore the pain which was radiating from the cut on his face with every mouthful he ate. As soon as he felt he could, Luke excused himself and went to bed.
It wasn't a good night's sleep. Every time he rolled on to his left side the pain in his face woke him up. Then Luke would find himself reliving the events of the previous day and found it difficult to nod off again. At six o'clock in the morning, he woke once more and knew that it was pointless trying to get back to sleep. He got up and went downstairs to the computer in his father's study. During the night he'd decided that he would send an email to Pagan in the hope of re-establishing a friendly relationship with her. He spent a long time writing it, trying to hit the right balance between apology and humour, without coming across as desperately needy.
Hi Pagan
Just wanted to say sorry for being a complete idiot yesterday.
Ned gave me a bit of a bollocking on the way home cos I had to tell him why I got cut with the knife. He did buy me a new t shirt to replace the bloody one, tho, so i cant complain too much (except he made me change into it in the store in front of the shop assistants, which was well embarrassing!!).
I havent got your home phone number, or i'd ring you to say sorry properly. Totally understand if you never want to talk to me again,
Love,
Luke
xxx
ps i've got quite a big bruise on my arm where you hit me... :-)
Luke hit 'send' and hoped that this email would soften Pagan's feelings towards him.
*
Julia and Pagan spent the morning packing up books in their living room in Manchester in preparation for their move. Pagan was uncharacteristically quiet; still brooding, her mother assumed, on the state of her relationship with Luke. At lunchtime Pagan took a break and logged on to the computer while Julia went into the kitchen and started to prepare some cheese-on-toast. Her concentration on the task was interrupted by a loud squeal from her daughter, who ran into the room and gave Julia a hug which nearly knocked her off her feet. "You were right, Mum!" she shouted and then practically skipped out of the room again, flinging the words "I'm phoning Luke!" over her shoulder as she left.
Julia surmised that her daughter's relationship with Luke was back on track. She turned to look at Pagan's father, who was smiling out at her from a photograph attached to the door of the fridge-freezer. "I wish you were here, Roy. I don't know if I can handle this teenage love affair by myself," she told him, shaking her head.
*
On the Friday of that week, Luke and Ned had arranged to go out for one last hike over the Downs before Ned's return to Hawley Lodge. The weather was overcast and cool: more like autumn than summer. The combination of the weather conditions and their map-reading turned Luke's mind towards school and the forthcoming orienteering season. These thoughts raised a question which had been bothering him and which he needed to sort out with Ned. The problem was, that doing so would involve reviving memories of the confrontation they'd had at school in the previous term. He waited until they stopped for lunch before broaching the difficult topic.
"Er, Ned," he began.
"Mm?" Ned replied, his concentration on the hard-boiled egg that that he was peeling.
"Will I be able to join the orienteering team at school again this year?"
He had been banned from the team by Ned for going out of bounds while on a training run in the summer term. Luke was not sure whether this was ban was just for the previous school year, or if it was supposed to continue into the new one. It made sense to settle the issue while they were out on the Downs together rather than to wait until they had resumed their school roles and Ned had retreated to a headmasterly distance, but Luke was uncomfortable about bringing up the subject during the holidays: a time when they usually avoided mentioning their life at school.
Ned glanced over at him, looking surprised at the question. "I suppose I wasn't explicit about the duration of the ban, was I?"
"No," said Luke, adding (in an attempt to keep the conversation light), "but I'm hoping it wasn't a life-time one."
"New year, clean slate," declared Ned. "Goes for everyone."