The boats sailed past slowly, and Victoria waved at the men steering them. He liked motorboats, and would have liked to have one, but he was too little. Maybe he’d have one in a few years, when he was as big as she was. He imagined what the boat would look like and soon he remembered what his cousin had promised him.
‘How much fun it’s going to be moving to Sk?ne. My cousin lives in Helsingborg and we’ll be able to play nearly every day. He’s got a really long car track and he’s going to give me one of his cars. Maybe a Ponsack Farburg.’
She didn’t answer, but he thought her breathing was a bit funny. Jerky and fast.
‘Next summer we’re going abroad. The new au pair’s going to come too.’
Martin was thinking about boats, cars and planes, and knew he wanted them all as soon as he got a bit bigger. He’d have lots of land and more than one garage and maybe his own pilots, chauffeurs and boat captains. Because he didn’t think he’d be able to drive them himself. After all, he couldn’t even tie his own shoelaces, and sometimes the other children said he was stupid. Although really he was just a bit slow developing, like his mum always said.
Suddenly there was a strange noise from the bushes on the slope behind them. A squeak, like a little mouse, then a sound like his mum’s pinking shears sometimes made, the ones he wasn’t allowed to cut paper with. Victoria turned round and he shivered when she got up and the warmth from her body disappeared.
She put on her top and pointed towards the bushes. ‘Do you see, Martin …?’
There was more rustling. A bird came hopping out on one leg, and it didn’t look very well. It appeared all messed up and its other leg was missing. ‘She can’t fly,’ Victoria said, creeping towards it. ‘Her wings are broken.’
He thought the bird looked mean. It was staring at him, and its head was lowered, and if you looked like that then you had to be horrid.
‘Make it go away, please.’ He tried to hide under the towel, but it didn’t help. The bird was still there. ‘Make it go away, Victoria …’
‘All right …’ He heard her sigh, and then he peeped round the edge of the towel and saw her stretching out her hand towards the bird, slowly, and it was sitting completely still now, as if it wanted to be caught.
Finally she grabbed it and picked it up off the ground. He couldn’t understand how she could be so brave. ‘Take it away, a long way away,’ he said, feeling safer.
She laughed at him. ‘What? Are you scared of it? But it’s only a bird!’
‘Take the horrid bird away,’ he said loudly. ‘Put it in a bin so it dies!’
Victoria patted the bird’s head and it pecked gently at her fingers, but she didn’t seem to mind. Martin hoped it would bite her so she realised how dangerous it was.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Stay there and don’t fall in the water.’
‘I promise,’ he replied. ‘Hurry back.’
He lay down on his stomach, crept to the edge of the jetty and watched the boats again. There was one with an old lady rowing, then two motorboats. He waved at the drivers, but neither of them saw him.
Then he heard the sound of voices and bicycle tyres on the path and looked up.
There were three of them coming along the path, one on a bike and two walking. He recognised all three from school and he didn’t like them. They were much bigger and stronger than he was, and they knew it. They caught sight of him and came down towards the jetty and stopped.
Now he was properly scared. The bird was better than this, and he hoped Victoria would soon be back.
‘Little Martin!’ This from the biggest one, and he was grinning. ‘What are you doing down here all on your own? The river monster might get you.’
He didn’t know what to say, so he just stood and looked at them.
‘Can’t you speak, or what?’ One of the others this time. They looked very similar and Martin thought they might be twins. They were in year 5, anyway, and the biggest one was in year 6.
‘I …’ He didn’t want to seem cowardly, so he decided to say he’d done something that he hadn’t actually dared to do. ‘I’ve been for a swim,’ he said.
‘You’ve been for a swim?’ This was the biggest one again, and he tilted his head and frowned. ‘Well, we don’t believe you. Do we?’ He turned to the others, and they joined in when he started laughing. ‘Go swimming again, and we’ll believe you. Jump in!’ He walked out onto the jetty and it started to sway, making the wood creak.
‘Stop it …’ Martin backed away a few steps.
‘Maybe we should help you get in?’ the biggest one said.
‘Maybe,’ one of the others said.
‘Definitely,’ the third one joined in.
Please, Victoria, he thought. Come back.
Why was she taking so long? Why did she have to go so far?
Sometimes when Martin got really scared his body went all stiff. It was like it decided to stand as still as it could, like a statue, and that would help him avoid whatever the horrid thing was.
Martin’s body was completely stiff and hard when they picked him up, holding him between them, then swung him back and forth like a hammock between two trees.
He looked up at the sky as they swung him, and just as the three boys let go a little star twinkled.
Nowhere
THE LIGHT FROM the bulb in the empty room is hurting her eyes.
She’s lying naked on a cold, grey concrete floor, and her hands are still tied behind her back, and there’s still tape over her mouth. Her legs are tied at the ankles as well.
A large ventilation unit rumbles intermittently. Otherwise the room is just grey concrete, apart from the door, which is made of shiny metal.
She’s curled up in a foetal position with her head to one side, and about a metre away stands a man with a hammer drill in his hand.
Heavy black boots, worn jeans and a naked, sweaty upper body with a swollen stomach that bulges over the waist of his trousers.
She can’t take her eyes off the hammer drill. It’s huge, and the drill bit is very thick.
She can’t bear to look into the man’s empty eyes, and continues staring at the drill. She sees that the cord is attached to the end of an extension lead just inside the door. The muscles in the man’s coarse fist tense, and the drill bit starts to spin.
The sound of the machine gets louder, then he eases up and the machine goes quiet. She shuts her eyes, hears his heavy footsteps leaving the room, and doesn’t open them again until she hears him come back.
He’s put a wooden stool down on the concrete floor and has climbed up onto it. Next to the stool is an almost empty bottle of vodka.
The drill starts up again, and the air is filled with dry concrete dust.
She has no idea what he’s doing, and just wants to scream, but the tape over her mouth is stopping her and all she can manage instead is a little groan, a bubble of air from her stomach, and she starts to worry that she might be sick.
The concrete dust tickles her nose, and she feels like she’s going to sneeze.