Escape from Shangri-La (6 page)

‘Have you got any photos of him?'

‘No.'

‘Not one?'

‘No. Well, there is one of him as a young man. But it's in his wallet and he must have his wallet with him.'

‘Do you know who his friends are?'

‘I'm afraid not.'

‘How long has he been living with you?'

‘A month or so.'

‘And before that?'

‘We don't know,' said my father.

The more we didn't know, the more strange they seemed to find it all. A third policeman came in, filling the doorway. They had already checked all the hospitals for miles around, he said, and no one of Popsicle's description had been brought in. No one had seen him. It was just as my mother had said, Popsicle had disappeared.

She seemed suddenly very dejected. The tattooed policeman leant forward across the table. ‘Listen,' he said. ‘It's true what they say: no news
is
good news. You just sit right here, and we'll keep on looking till we find him.' He gave me a cheery wink as he stood up again.

But by six o'clock that evening, after the longest day
of my life, there was still no news of Popsicle, good or bad. ‘I need a walk,' said my mother. ‘I've got to get out. I can't stand any more of this waiting.'

‘Nor me,' I said.

This time my father stayed by the phone. As we left, he said, ‘He'll turn up, you'll see. That old man's a survivor. He'll turn up.' He never called him ‘my father' or ‘Popsicle', and I wished he would.

We ended up in the park – I'm not sure why. There was a large crowd gathered round the duck pond, so we couldn't even see the bench where we usually sat with Popsicle, nor the pond beyond. We had to force our way through the crowd to see what was going on. There were a couple of policemen holding everyone back, not the same ones who had come to the house. I heard a sudden agitated quacking commotion from the middle of the pond, and a flurry of ducks took off and circled over the park. My mother grasped me by the arm. I looked where she was looking. Out of the pond rose first one head, then two. Frogmen. Frogmen in goggles and wetsuits, with oxygen tanks on their backs. My mother had her hand to her mouth. She knew what I knew, that they were dragging the pond for Popsicle.

I led her home in tears, and the three of us sat in the kitchen in silence, just waiting, fearing the worst,
believing the worst. There were more encouraging words of reassurance from my father, but we didn't believe them, and I don't think he did either. I tried to pray as I had in the ambulance. After all, it had worked that time, hadn't it? But I couldn't concentrate long enough even to finish a prayer. I had a picture floating in my head that would not go away, a picture of Popsicle, drowned, lying face down in the pond, his hair spread out over the water like golden seaweed.

Then came the knock on the door. Both my mother and father seemed paralysed, so I had to go and open it myself. It was the police again. This time one of them was a woman, and behind her was the one with the tattoo on his arm.

‘May we come in?' she said. Dark and dreadful words that fell like stones on my heart. Tears choked my throat. They'd found Popsicle, I knew it. They'd found him dead and drowned and I'd never even said goodbye. I took them into the kitchen. ‘We've found him,' said the policewoman. ‘Down by the harbour. He was just sitting there looking at the boats. Just sitting there. He's fine, fine.'

My mother was sobbing. I found myself sobbing too and I couldn't stop myself. My father had his arms round both of us. ‘Didn't I tell you?' he said. ‘Didn't I tell you?'

‘He's a very confused old man,' the policewoman went on. ‘Didn't seem to know where he was nor how he'd got himself there. We took him off to the hospital. Routine check-up. Can't be too careful, can you? Not when they get to that age.'

‘They'll be bringing him home soon,' said the tattooed policeman. ‘All being well, he should be back in time for supper. Bit scatty in the head, I'd say. Bit forgetful like, is he?'

The ambulance brought Popsicle home from the hospital that same evening. I was overjoyed to see that the neighbours were out in numbers yet again. As we fetched him into the house, I waved regally at Mandy Bethel. I enjoyed that.

All through supper no one said a word about Popsicle's disappearance – that had been my mother's idea. ‘He'll tell us when he wants to,' she'd said. Popsicle carried on as if nothing had happened. He sat there, quite at home, waiting for me to cut up his pork chop for him. Then he ate ravenously, chuckling to himself as he chased his peas around his plate with his fork until he'd speared the very last one.

‘Gotcha,' he laughed, popping it in his mouth with a flourish. He pushed his plate away and sat back. There came the moment then when we were all looking at
him, and waiting, and he knew well enough what we were waiting for.

‘Was I hungry!' he said. ‘I haven't eaten since breakfast, you know.'

‘You could have come home sooner,' said my father, and I could sense him reining in his exasperation, with some difficulty. ‘For goodness' sake, you were gone all day.'

Popsicle was looking straight at my father as he spoke. ‘What Cessie said last night, I heard every word. I didn't want to cause any more upsets, that's all. Time to pack up and go, I thought. So I did. I got up early and I just went. I was sitting there down in the park, feeding the ducks, and I was wondering what to do with myself, where to go. That's when it came to me. This is just like where I live, I thought, by the water, with ducks and gulls and all sorts. So I went off looking, looking for my place. I thought the best bet would be down by the harbour, along the seafront. I thought I'd maybe see something, something I'd recognise. Where I live, I can see water out of every window. I can smell the sea too, I know I can. So I went looking. Walked miles, I did. I looked at every house along the sea front, in the windows of some of them. Got myself shouted at too. But it wasn't any good. I didn't recognise a thing.'

‘I still don't understand,' my father said. ‘All right, so you upped and went, went off looking for your house. But when you couldn't find it, why didn't you just come back here? We've been worried sick, all of us.'

‘I couldn't,' said Popsicle. ‘I didn't know where I was, where I'd come from, or anything. I couldn't even remember the name of this street, so I couldn't ask, could I? I mean, you don't want to look stupid, do you? So I just sat myself down and tried to piece it all together, you know, work it out, make some sense of it. I could see you all up here in my head. I could see this house, this kitchen, my room upstairs, the garden, everything; but I didn't know where you all were, nor how to get to you. That's my trouble. Sometimes things are as clear as day, and sometimes . . . well, ever since I was in the hospital . . . You take your mum for instance, Arthur. I can't picture her like I used to. I know what she looked like from her photo; but I can't see her up here.' He tapped his head with his knuckles. ‘When I think of your mum now, it's not her face that comes into my head, I know it's not. It's someone else, always someone else altogether, but I don't know who.' For a few moments, he seemed quite unable to find his voice. He looked at us, his eyes brimming with sadness. He was trying to smile, but he couldn't. ‘A nowhere man,
that's me. A real nowhere man, like the song says.'

‘Things'll come back, Popsicle,' said my mother. ‘Time's a great healer. Things'll sort themselves out.' She reached out and took his hand in hers. ‘You're family now,' she said. ‘You're family, and you're staying. You belong here with us. We want you to stay as long as you like. Isn't that right, Arthur?'

We had to wait some moments for my father to reply, and when he did it was not at all fulsome. ‘Of course,' he said. ‘Of course we do.' That was all. I was angry at him again, angry at his thinly disguised reluctance. Maybe he had his reasons, but he could pretend a little, couldn't he? Just to make Popsicle feel at home and welcome. He could pretend.

‘But you've got to promise you won't go off on your wanders again,' said my mother, wagging her finger playfully at Popsicle. ‘Frightened us half to death, you did. Promise?'

‘Promise,' Popsicle replied, holding up his hand. ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.'

‘We don't want you doing that either,' she said, and we all laughed at that, even my father.

‘Well,' my mother went on, getting to her feet, ‘now that's settled, we can get on with life, can't we? And you know what that means, don't you, Cessie Stevens?'

‘No.' But I knew exactly what she was getting at.

‘I have this feeling that, in all the excitement, you might have forgotten something.' I played dumb. ‘Your violin practice?' There was no point in arguing. I made the best of it and got up to leave.

‘You want me to come up and hear you?' my father asked.

‘It's all right,' I replied. I was so angry with him, and I wanted him to know it. ‘Popsicle'll come, won't you? We'll do some Beatles songs.'

‘“Nowhere Man”,' said Popsicle, as I helped him to his feet. ‘We'll do “Nowhere Man”.'

So we went upstairs and, sitting on the bed in my room, Popsicle taught me ‘Nowhere Man' till I knew it through and through. I played. He sang. We were good together, very good. But my mind wasn't on it. I just couldn't enjoy it as much as I usually did. I kept thinking of my father downstairs, and I kept wishing I hadn't been so cruel.

When I'd finished, Popsicle looked at me for a while, and then he said, ‘You and me, we're friends, aren't we? And friends have to be honest with each other, right?'

‘Yes.'

‘You've always been good to me, Cessie. You spoke up for me last night, and I shan't forget that, not ever.
But you mustn't judge your dad like you do. You mustn't hurt him. You're the apple of his eye, you are. So you be kind to him, eh? There's a girl.'

Popsicle had been reading my mind again, and I wondered how he did it.

IT WAS SOON AFTER THIS THAT I BEGAN TO NOTICE Popsicle talking to himself. I'd hear him in his bedroom, a muffled monologue, so muffled that I could never make out much of what he was saying. I noticed too that he was becoming more and more absent-minded. Once, he went wandering out into the garden in the rain with just his socks on; and time and again he'd make the tea and forget to put any tea in the pot. He'd think that lunch-time was tea-time and tea-time was lunch-time. Every time he'd try to laugh it off and call himself a ‘silly old codger', but I could see that it worried him as much as it worried us.

Then one day he lit a bonfire too close to the garden shed and Mr Goldsmith's fence. I wasn't at home when it happened. I was out at Madame Poitou's for my violin
lesson. When I came back the fire-engine was already there and a pall of brown smoke was hanging over the house. I ran inside. Popsicle was sitting on the bottom stair in the hallway, his face in his hands, and my mother was crouched down beside him trying to comfort him.

‘It's not your fault, Popsicle,' she was saying. ‘These things happen. Why don't you go upstairs and have a nice wash? You'll feel a lot better.' His eyes were red, his face tear-stained and besmirched. He went up the stairs very slowly.

I followed my mother out into the garden. It was a mess out there, a real mess. The fire-fighters were packing up and going. As one of them passed us, he stopped. ‘Could have been a lot worse, missus. Whatever does he think he was doing anyway? First he builds a bonfire too close to the shed and then he goes off and leaves it. Got to be a bit doolally, if you ask me.'

When they had all gone I gave her a hand tidying up what we could in the garden. We raked all that was left of the garden shed into a pile of charred timbers and soggy ashes. She worried on and on about what Mr Goldsmith from next door would say about his fence when he got home from work. And she worried on about Popsicle too.

We were an hour or so clearing up the worst of it. My wellingtons were covered in mud by this time, so I had to take them off at the back door before I went in. I was padding through the hallway into the kitchen when I felt it. The carpet was sodden under my bare feet. I charged upstairs to find the basin overflowing, and the bathroom awash. I turned off the tap and pulled out the plug.

Popsicle was in his room, sitting on his bed and staring into space. I sat down beside him.

‘It doesn't matter, Popsicle,' I said. ‘It's just a rotten old garden shed. It was falling down anyway. Dad's been moaning on about it ever since we moved here. He was going to get a new one. Honestly he was.' But nothing I could say seemed to bring him any comfort.

Then he muttered something, something I couldn't quite hear. ‘Sorry?' I said, leaning closer.

‘Shangri-La.' He clutched at my hand as he spoke. ‘Shangri-La, I don't want to go to Shangri-La.' I could see in his eyes that he was terrified. He was pleading with me, begging me.

‘What's Shangri-La?' There was an echo in my head, an echo of something he'd said before.

‘I don't know. I don't know.' The tears were running down his cheeks, and he didn't even trouble to wipe them away.

‘If you don't want to go there,' I said, ‘then no one's going to make you, I promise.' He seemed happier at that.

‘You promise?' he said. I laid my head on his shoulder, and after a while I felt his arm come round me. That was how my mother found us some time later. She helped Popsicle to wash, and put him to bed.

We spent the rest of the day mopping up. But there was still water dripping from the lightbulb into a bucket in the hallway when my father came in from work. I explained what had happened, how none of it had been Popsicle's fault, just bad luck, that's all. ‘Anyway,' I said, ‘now you can have your new garden shed like you wanted.'