Page 88 of The Flowers of Bay C
I ignore him and move closer to the sound, which has turned into a full-on yowling. It’s coming from a cardboard box on one of the seats at the rear of the caravan. ‘What have you got in there?’
DCD scowls at me and shrugs. ‘Nothing.’
The Nothing is making a sound so piteous my heart sinks into my stomach. As I edge closer to the box I see little air holes punched into it. I pull the flaps open, and inside the most exquisite white cat I have ever seen cowers away in one corner, its entire body quivering.
‘Oh,’ I say.
‘Leave that alone. It’s mine,’ he yells, and at his voice the cat arches its back and hisses, its fur standing on end, then cringes further into the corner, shaking violently.
A commotion sounds outside. It sounds like a car, crawling up the hill towards us. DCD turns his back and ushers the others away, hissing at them. ‘Get back behind the van. Don’t let him see you.’ I see the glint of the knife again as he holds it out, and I also see that his arm is even more unsteady than before.
I look at the door, and then I look at the cat, and I make a snap decision. I’ve suffered for too many years under the hands of a bully, and while it’s in my power I won’t let another creature suffer the same fate. I slide my arms around the cat’s belly and gingerly lift it to my chest, waiting for it to spit and hiss at me just as it did at its master’s voice. But it’s strangely compliant, curling into my parka as I zip it up to the neck. I pull the blanket tighter around us both, hiding its little head from sight, feeling it quivering against me and then, just slightly, relaxing. It’s a ball of warmth in the midst of a great chill as I step into the doorway of the caravan with the sleeping bag over my arm. Outside the other car is approaching slowly and I step back as it comes to a stop, a filthyLandrover that looks at home on these roads. ‘Can I help out?’ the driver shouts out. ‘Are you broken down?’
DCD has obviously managed to get the others out of sight around the other side of the caravan. ‘You’re all right,’ he shouts back. ‘Just fixing something on the van. I’m all good to go now.’
‘Well, if you’re sure,’ the other driver says, and then he’s off before one of us can shout out, roaring away up the road and cutting a deep tread through the snow.
I should have called to him. I should have made him see us. But all I could think about was DCD and his knife, far too close to the others for comfort. I don’t think he’d hurt us, but I can’t be completely sure.
He finds me standing in the doorway holding the sleeping bag tightly to me. I made sure to close the flaps on the cardboard box and I’m glad, because he pokes his head in and glances over at it. ‘Are you quite done?’
The cat stiffens against my chest and I try to breathe slowly, to calm it.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Thanks. I mean, for the ride. And the blanket.’
He slams the van door and skits back round to his car. ‘Get this old bint out of my car and then get out of my way.’
By the time we have Barbara arranged back in her chair, oxygen cylinder safely stowed in its holder, and into the bus shelter, all we can see is the caravan’s one working taillight, flickering and fading into the foggy distance. I crash my palm against my forehead. I didn’t even look at the licence plate.
‘Well, he were a right barrel of laughs, weren’t he,’ Barbara says.
Kat snorts. ‘Oh, Barbara.’
Barbara screws up her nose. ‘Well, it’s true.’ She shivers suddenly and I gaze around us, taking in this predicament in which we find ourselves, this tiny frozen shelter in a wasteland of oblivion. It’s three sided, so at least the snow doesn’t drive in overus through the sides, and the storm is blowing north so doesn’t drift too much into the shelter. Small mercies, I suppose.
‘You’d best get praying again,’ Jodie says to Kat. ‘Only ask for someone a bit more human.’
‘Look here.’ Amina is clearing a small transparent box attached to the side of the shelter. It’s a timetable, but it looks old and grubby and I wonder if it is in use at all or if we are going to find some relic from the eighties. She leans in and squints at the tiny font enclosed in the smeared laminate. ‘Oh.’
My stomach clenches.
‘What?’ Kat asks.
‘There are buses on weekdays on this route, two times a day, but not weekends.’
The shelter presses in on me, its shadowy corners suddenly a whole new depth of darkness trailing out into a limbo of hopelessness.
I unzip the sleeping bag and signal to Kat to help me lift Barbara slightly and slide it underneath her frail body. She has no weight to her, she feels like an insubstantial puff of breath in my arms. I pull the bag around her, blankets, oxygen line, and all, and zip it all the way round so she is completely enclosed. I pull the tog at the top so that her head is covered and her little white face with its nasal cannula pokes out of the puckered elastic, her Rovers hat askew, her skin stark against the violent orange of the bag, almost as white as the snow gathering in great drifts outside on the road. She gives me a wan little smile.
There’s a bench running right across the shelter at the back and somehow, in a great providence I can’t quite take in, it has room for us all, with Barbara to one side in her chair. I drape the blanket over Violet and Jodie, and find that it’s big enough to go round Amina as well as they huddle together into its fleecy warmth. ‘Could do with a nice hot water bottle,’ Violet says.
Jodiesays, ‘We left the frog chair in the caravan. Kane won’t be happy.’
‘Wait, what is that?’ Kat says, peering closely at my neck. ‘That flash of white? Did you get snow in your coat?’
I unzip it slightly and the cat peeks its head out at them, blinking in the snow-glare and giving a tiny mewl.
‘What, what did you… you took his cat?’
