Previously…
“Run. Don’t let her have died in vain.” The
boy wipes his tears and moves towards the gate, but the camel has gone into
meltdown. Her wobbly knees know not whence nor where. They are no longer
connected to her brain. Her toes dig into the sand and she refuses to move.
Undaunted, Senjur goes round the back of her and taking her tail gently in his
hand he bites down hard. Clytemnestra takes off like a racing camel. Had the
old woman not been wedged in between the humps she would have flown off the
back. The camel outstrips the boy in mere yards, heading like hell for the
gates of doom.
Behind them come the demon woman and her
Gravidores, running at such a pace that the backwash of their saliva looks like
a comet trail behind them, racing to get to the boy before he reaches the gate.
And now...
The house was as quiet as a mouse when Clara
got home. She took off her shoes and tiptoed gently up the stairs, trying to
avoid the creaks. It was the only time she could bear to be in the house - when
everyone was asleep. She only came home because it helped her feel some sort of
normality; gave her something to do too, instead of just going crazy with
worry. She still hated leaving Joshua, convinced that he was going to wake when
she wasn’t there, but took some solace in the fact that the old cleaning lady
was always there and seemed to dote on him. Anyway, it was good to sleep in a
bed for a change and not in one of those uncomfortable armchairs. She stopped
at the top of the landing and listened for any sounds. Silence.
On her way to her bedroom, she sneaked a
look in Joshua’s room. She knew he wasn’t there. She knew Alice was sleeping on
his bed but she couldn’t resist. Just in case…as if by magic. But there was
Alice….and there was the dog, sleeping on the end of the bed. It somehow upset
her…because that’s where it normally slept with Joshua, after sneaking up the
stairs when Samuel had fallen asleep.
The poor thing had been distraught the first
few days that Joshua was missing, apparently searching and sniffing the house
from top to bottom and whining continuously because he couldn’t find him. She
knew she was hard on the dog sometimes but that’s only because Samuel had brought
him home. She only liked him because he had adopted Joshua.
Suddenly she just couldn’t stand going into
her bedroom and climbing in beside Samuel. She was finding it harder and harder
to stomach the sight of him. She was becoming openly caustic and scathing of
him and his habits. But that wasn’t good. It wasn’t Christian…for all that she
believed in religion…or didn’t. Still it tended to make her feel worse…not
better.
Tired as she was, she turned around and
tiptoed down the stairs again. Putting on her shoes and coat, she opened the
front door.
‘Oh my Joshua, why did this have to happen
to you?’ she thought. A cold fear clutched at her heart – perhaps he’d never
wake again. But she mustn’t think things like that. While he was still alive
there was hope. She must trust.
She hurried her steps now – eager to see how
he was. Something was pulling at her. Perhaps he had woken up. She could feel something
had happened…was happening. She hoped he was alright. She began to run.
Oh God, she hoped he wasn’t dead. She thought of all the children that die
every day around the world. What a lot of pain and heartache. How did the
mothers stand it? She didn’t think she could cope if he died. She wouldn’t want
to. Her pride and joy….the light of her life…her only reason for living, her
reason for coming home. All these much used clichés now took on a real meaning.
From the very beginning she’d felt a close
connection with him. Unlike Beulah, who didn’t seem to want to come out of the
womb, Joshua was an easy birth. He never cried as a baby and had no trouble
feeding from her breast. Beulah on the other hand, true to her nature, would
not suck - she didn’t do anything she was supposed to - so she ended up being a
colicky baby because she didn’t get the good bacteria she was supposed to get from
the breast milk.
Joshua had been a good boy, quite content to
play by himself…keep himself amused. Sure, he went through his phases and
rebellions, but that never got in between them. The bond they had was gentle
and accommodating. Beulah on the other hand was her father’s child. A little
bossy-britches that never listened to anyone. With that fringe of hair that
hung in her eyes, you could never tell what she was thinking. Bad tempered,
moody, sulky…she listened to the echo of her words and suddenly heard her
mother’s voice. This was exactly what her mother had said about her. Had she
turned into her mother without noticing? Had her mother reincarnated in her
when she hadn’t been watching? No. She was sure she didn’t behave like that to
Beulah. Beulah was just a very difficult child. She was different to her mother;
she thought to herself…but wasn’t entirely convinced. And thinking of her
mother she felt another twinge of guilt. She hadn’t visited her mother’s grave
in ages. Perhaps she should.
Thankfully at that moment she found herself
at the hospital door and was quite relieved to be able to leave her mother
outside in the cold. There was no one about, but she knew the way to Joshua’s
room without even thinking. Quickly she weaved her way down the corridors to
the children’s section, past the duty nurse sitting in her little alcove with a
muted lampshade on her desk.
She turned into his ward and immediately her
eyes fell upon his empty bed. She stood stunned for a long, long moment. Then
her brain scrambled into action. Surely they hadn’t taken him away. They never
moved him…except when they were taking tests….and this was far too
early…surely? Her blood ran cold and alligators began crawling across the top
of her scalp. The bed was empty. A thousand thoughts fought for clarity in her
beleaguered brain…the bed was empty and freshly made up.
Was he dead? Was he awake? But more importantly…where
was he? She turned and called loudly down the empty corridor.
“Nurse….Help.” She lurched to his bedside
and pressed the emergency call button…again and again and again.
“I don’t understand,” said the duty nurse,
consulting her roster. “Unless the Doctor had him moved…but I would’ve known. Joshua
was here not so long ago. I’m very sorry Mrs Mitke. I’m sure there is an
explanation.” She turned to the phone, calmly, trying not to show her panic.
“Hello. Is that the duty doctor? This is Ward
C. Nurse Deal. Yes fine thank you. Well actually not. I was wondering if you
could come up here. It seems we have a missing patient.” She put down the phone
and smiled wanly at Clara.
“He’ll be along in a moment.” But Clara was
tired of smiling at people. They stood
in the frozen silence, waiting for the doctor.
A few moments later he bustled in trying to
look calm and under control.
“I can’t understand it,” said nurse Deal. “He
was here the last time I checked up on him. And no one has come in or out.”
“Have you checked the other wards?” asked the
Doctor, but Clara could feel he was clutching at straws. If these two didn’t
know where he was….no one else would. The nurse scuttled off down the corridor
and the Doctor picked up the phone.
“Don’t you worry Mrs Mitke. I’m sure there’s
an innocent explanation for this. Yes hello,” he said into the phone. Is that
the night porter? Yes. I’d like you up on Ward C immediately please. And bring
the staff nurse with you.”
The Doctor hung up the phone and turned to
give Clara his most confident smile. At that moment she hated him more than
anything else in the world. She was just about to lash into him for being such
an…….
“It’s
that old lady,” she said, with sudden understanding. “She’s done something with
him.”
“Which old lady?” asked the doctor.
“The old cleaning lady. She comes in every
night…at about ten or eleven. She’s been looking after him when I’ve been
away.”
“Are you sure? The cleaning staff only comes
on in the morning. No one but the nurses and care-workers are allowed on the
wards at night.”
“She’s been here every night,” said Clara
adamantly. “She has her little cleaning trolley and…”
“Cleaners aren’t allowed on the wards after
six pm.”
“I don’t care. That old woman has stolen my
child.”
*
“GONE!” she shrieks, her voice three octaves
higher than human hearing. “GONE!” She tries again, a little lower, so that
Carrapacchio can catch the full drift of her meaning, and hopefully get a hint
of what is about to happen to him as scapegoat-in-chief of the expedition. “You
have failed.”
“But where in all this is it my fault, oh
unimpeachable one?”
“If you hadn’t wasted precious time
masturbating behind the dunes this morning then we should have him now,” she says,
thrashing at his head with her stick.
He can’t argue with that.
“Ouch, ouch, ouch.”
Demona looks again at the door but it is
firmly closed.
“Stupid eye,” she mutters, looking around
for something else to hit. Then a huge sigh rises up from inside her and escapes
with a deflating hiss into the air.
“I’m getting too old for this shit,” she
says and sits down in the sands – her dreams in ruins around her.
“Never fear my most magnificent mistress
that smells of rose petals and other things divine – we shall find them again.”
“What do you mean, you mealy mouthed muck
pile?”
“Well, do you remember that the echoes spoke
of…” and here he lowers his voice for dramatic effect, “…a secret tunnel. A dark
secret tunnel,” he says with many a lascivious wink and much tongue
lolling.
Demona gives him a steady evil eye.
“If you’re just yanking my chain again, I’m
going to wrap it around your neck and throttle you.”
“Nooo, my mistress, nooo. This is true. So
much true that you are going to love me again shortly…your faithful servant.”
Carrapacchio does a little crippled dance on his claws at the thought of
that.
“Soon we will have him and you will be Queen
and I shall be King…..”
“In your dreams….” She murmurs under her
breath.
“Do I not serve you well, oh juicy one?” he
says, licking at her feet and slavering all over them. She has to beat him back
with the stick some more.
“And you can stop staring at my crotch you
moon-bred maundering malfeasant misfit. It’ll be a cold day in hell afore you
sup at that well…………………again,” she says with a slight, stupidly lopsided, smile
on her lips. It is……………..complicated.
Then the Gravidores begin mounting one
another and Demona has to rush in there with her stick.
“Filthy creatures,” she says lashing left
and right and hearing some very satisfactory thwacks meeting their mark.
