Sabrina Fludde (11 page)

What could Abren say? She blushed, but remained silent.

‘School? Brothers? Sisters? Home town …?'

Abren sighed and shook her head. The woman sighed too, looking up again and tapping her pen up and down.

‘All right, let's start again,' she said, her forehead wrinkling into a frown. ‘It's important that we understand each other, you and I. You have a name. I want to know it. You have a date of birth, and a home somewhere and a family. A mum. A dad. An uncle or an aunty. A guardian maybe. Or a social worker. There must be somebody who's missing you. Little girls don't just appear out of thin air! So let's start again, shall we? From the top. Tell me your name. Come on. It's not too much to ask. Just a name for a start.'

She tried to smile – an expression worse even than her frown. Abren longed again for rescue, and suddenly Sir Henry appeared. He came through the door carrying a tray of coffee things.

‘Here we are,' he said. ‘I hope you haven't started without me.'

He poured the coffee, splashed a bit of rum in it for himself, and settled down between them like a referee. Abren turned towards him, her eyes pleading for help. The woman turned too, holding up her empty papers as if they spoke for themselves. There was little she could do to trace anybody's family without information, she said. A first name wouldn't hurt, just for a start.

Sir Henry looked at Abren. ‘Surely a first name wouldn't be too much to ask?'

The woman's eyes bored into Abren. Abren blanched. Panic dried out her mouth. ‘My name … I mean …' She took a deep breath. ‘My name's –
Guinness,'
she said, grabbing the first name that came into her head.

‘Guinness,' the woman said. Her voice was frosty. She wasn't smiling any more. She didn't write the name down on the form. ‘And do we have a surname, dare I ask?'

‘Er, yes –
Railwaybridge,'
Abren said.

‘Guinness Railwaybridge
.' Again the woman didn't write anything down. She plainly couldn't see anything to laugh about – unlike Sir Henry, who had to turn away. ‘And can you tell us anything about yourself?' she said, making an effort to keep her voice even. ‘A birthday? A holiday with your family? A favourite memory?'

Abren didn't answer this time. She didn't dare. The three of them sat in silence. ‘Is there
anything
that you'd be prepared to tell us about yourself?' the woman said at last.

‘Can't think of anything.'

The woman packed up all her papers. Perhaps she'd had special training to know when people were wasting her time. Or perhaps she could just tell anyway. Pausing only long enough to waft stale tobacco over Abren, she left the room saying she'd come back another time. Sir Henry saw her out. Abren listened as they stood in the hall, talking in low voices. Then the front door closed and the woman passed the window, heading along the town walls.

Sir Henry returned to clear away the coffee things, only to find Abren still sitting on the chair, staring at
the empty sofa.

‘I'm sorry. I shouldn't have upset her. Now she's angry, and it's all my fault,' Abren said.

‘It's not entirely your fault, you know,' Sir Henry said. He looked down at Abren, and she found herself blushing. ‘Sometimes other people are to blame too, and sometimes no one is. But the thing that really matters, at least for now, is that you know you're safe. And you are, you know.
You're safe with us.'

As if he'd said enough, he passed out of the room, carrying the tray. In a moment of gratitude Abren felt as if she would have followed him to the ends of the earth. But she followed him into the kitchen instead, and here an unexpected smell greeted her, driving everything else away. Pungent and rivery, it came from the stove.

Abren wrinkled up her nose. Sir Henry grinned.

‘Look what I found in my putcheon,' he said, nodding at the cooking pot. ‘Tonight's supper. You can help me bake it. It's eel pie.'

‘It's
what
?
'

Sir Henry took the lid off the pot. Inside Abren caught a glimpse of something dark and shiny, poaching in cider vinegar.

‘I couldn't possibly,' she gasped.

‘There's no such thing as
couldn't possibly
,' Sir Henry replied. ‘Particularly when you're worried silly – and don't tell me that you're not – and need to take your mind off things!'

He took an apron and tied it round Abren's waist, then took another for himself. As a means of taking her mind off things it was remarkably effective! It was only after the eel had been chopped and seasoned, laid
out in a squidgy mess in the pie dish, covered with green herbs, rings of leek, soy sauce, little bits of ginger and Abren's pastry, that her thoughts returned to Phaze II. She glanced at the phone. Why didn't Pen ring? How was Phaze II? Was he all right, or was something dreadful wrong with him?

Suddenly she realised that Sir Henry was watching her.

‘What is it?' she said, wondering if he'd heard something but was keeping it to himself. ‘Why are you staring at me like that?'

Sir Henry laughed, deep in his eyes. ‘I was just thinking that if your name's Guinness Railwaybridge, then I'm the real Sir Henry Morgan!' he said.

Abren laughed too, full of relief. ‘If you must know, my name's Abren,' she confessed.

‘Abren.'
Sir Henry looked impressed. ‘Well, well, well, so you're a river girl!'

Abren didn't have a clue what he meant, but before she could ask the back door swung open and Pen came in – without Phaze II. There was no cause for alarm, she said. He'd had some x-rays, and everything seemed fine inside his head. But his ear still ached, and the hospital had decided to keep him in overnight, just to be on the safe side.

Abren couldn't make out whether that meant that he was all right or not. But no one seemed unduly worried. Sir Henry made Pen a fresh pot of coffee, then disappeared down to his boat shed. Pen sniffed the air and glanced at the oven, and Abren told her about the eel pie.

They ate it for supper, and it turned out to be surprisingly tasty, washed down with port wine and
mashed potatoes. When he'd finished eating, Sir Henry went back down to his shed. Pen sent Abren after him with a thermos of coffee. ‘In case he's planning to work into the night,' she said.

Abren found Sir Henry crouched on the wooden-slatted jetty, painting black stuff on the upturned bottom of a little boat. He thanked Abren for the coffee, but didn't stop to drink because he wanted to get finished. Abren found a second brush and helped him. The boat was shaped like a nutshell, made of wooden lathes with canvas stretched over them. Once everyone would have travelled about in vessels like these, Sir Henry said. The squire to visit his neighbours, the local traders to peddle their wares, the preacher to visit the chapels on his circuit and the local poacher to bring home his ill-gotten game.

Coracles, they were called.

‘They've been on the river since the dawn of time,' Sir Henry said. ‘But most of them have gone now. And not just coracles, but river punts and ferries and old upriver trows. And the men have gone too – the river men who earned their living on the waters. And now they're lonely waters. A tame river, not a working one. And all that's left for us to do is read about the old days and wonder what it was like.'

Sir Henry sighed. Abren remembered what he'd said about her being a river girl, and wanted to ask him what he'd meant. But he got up as if he'd had enough for one night. He hadn't finished painting, but he'd do it in the morning, he said.

He turned to go. Abren looked at the water flowing past. It was hard to imagine a busy, working river on a night like this, with the water calm, not a hint of a
breeze and nobody in sight.

‘What's its name?' she asked.

‘Whose name?'

‘
Its
name – the river's.'

‘She's not an “it”. She's a “she”. And she's called the Sabrina Fludde,' Sir Henry said.

Abren couldn't sleep that night. She lay on her marshmallow mattress and the river's name rose before her eyes. The
Sabrina Fludde
. She thought of Old Sabrina in her room under the bridge. Was it a coincidence that she and the river shared a name, or was there a connection between them – some special reason why Phaze II had called her its queen?

Abren tossed and turned, cursing Phaze II for being in hospital instead of here to answer her questions. And what about her own name – the one Sir Henry had said meant she was a river girl? Unable to get to sleep, Abren reached for her little blanket. But she couldn't find it in the bed, and it dawned on her that she hadn't seen it last night either. Not here, close to hand, nor anywhere else since coming to Compass House.

‘I must have left it under the railway bridge. The only thing I really own – all I have from my old life!
How could I?'

Abren lay rigid, her arms empty. Suddenly her bed felt harder and colder than the camp bed had ever done. It felt like a prison cell. She couldn't sleep without her blanket. She had to have it. To smell its special smell and feel its feathery edge against her cheek.
And she had to have it now!

‘Tomorrow just won't do!'

Abren got dressed, crept past Pen and Sir Henry's
door, taking comfort from the fact that she could hear them snoring, crept downstairs and slipped out, leaving the front door on the latch.

Outside she found the town walls silent, not a car or house light in sight. She headed for the railway bridge, taking the quick route across town rather than the long one following the river. She passed the high town cross and plunged down the road between the library and the castle, reaching the station to find its sliding front doors locked and its forecourt empty. The taxi rank was empty and the station's windows were dark.

Abren stared up at them, feeling foolish. Why couldn't she have waited until morning, she asked herself? Waited until she could have told Pen and Sir Henry about the blanket, and then they could have helped her find it? Why did everything always have to be a secret? Why couldn't she ever trust anybody? And why was she always running off?

With no answer to her questions, Abren started up the footpath between the station and the castle. She was sure that the side gate would be locked, just like everything else. But when she tried it, she found it open. Maybe nobody ever came up this dead-end path any more, or maybe the gate had been forgotten, just like the waiting rooms beyond it.

Whatever the reason, Abren slipped through the gate and started down the platform, heading for the Guinness hoardings. She couldn't see the old abandoned station rooms behind them yet – couldn't even see their roofs and chimney pots – but she could feel them waiting for her.

She reached the end of the platform, where railway
tracks snaked off into the distance leaving Pengwern behind. Only yesterday Abren would have seized the chance to follow them to Birmingham or London, but now all she could think about was her blanket. Nothing else mattered – nothing felt as real to her as embroidered flowers and birds, rivers and mountains, streets and houses, trees and boats. Nothing as real as a feathery edge against her cheek and a knot under her chin.

Abren reached the hoardings and squeezed between them. The waiting rooms sat at the bottom of the bank, dark and hidden, with the river running underneath them. There was no hint of light down there, but there
was
a twist of woodsmoke rising from a chimney pot.

Someone was at home in those waiting rooms, hiding in the darkness!
And that someone had to be Old Sabrina
. Abren stared at the smoke, glad that the old woman hadn't stumbled on the girders and fallen to her death, but wishing her anywhere but here – at least for now. She slid down the bank and started looking for a way in that wouldn't bring them face to face.

Finally she found it, squeezing through a broken window into the toilet, then making her way into Phaze II's room, looking for the light switch. But the moment she started across the room, she knew that something was wrong. And when she found the light, she realised what it was.

Everything had gone
. The bags and boxes on the floor, the horse-hair mattress and the blankets, the camp bed and the plastic icicle fairy lights. Even the stacks of china cups had gone, and the tea bar had
been yanked off the wall, leaving only a row of gaping holes.

Abren could have cried. Not just because she couldn't see her blanket in this room swept clean of everything. But for Phaze II. Once this bare, dark place had been a home – maybe not most people's idea of home, but his all the same. But now if he ever wanted to come back, he'd have to start again. Start turning nothing into something, always knowing that someone might come back and destroy it again.

Sick to her stomach, Abren turned away – only to find herself standing in front of the door to Old Sabrina's room. She caught a whiff of woodsmoke coming from it, and imagined the old woman in the ruins with not even a chair to sit on, staring at the door as if she knew that Abren, yet again, was to blame.

Abren felt even more sick. She would have run away if she could, but something drew her to the door. She peered around it – only to find that everything was as she had left it.
Exactly the same!
The carpets on the floor, the piano with its polished brasses, the mirror with its gilt frame. Even the chandelier with its cut-glass droplets was the same, and so was the marble fireplace. Old Sabrina's chair was pulled up in front of it, and the only difference was that a fire now burned again in the grate –
and old Sabrina had returned
.

Abren felt herself turn cold all over. What had kept this grandeur safe while even the chipped cups been taken from next door? Why had all these treasures been left behind, and what did the mysterious Old Sabrina have to do with it all?