Looking for Mrs Dextrose (23 page)

Mr and Mrs Dextrose?

The visions disappeared and I was back on the Nameless Highway.

I looked down at my father and saw that he was crying.

Tears rolled down my own cheeks.

I lifted him to his feet.

Some while later, Dad announced that he was “minking done” and toppled over into the side of the road. Though we had stopped for several rests, I sensed that this
would be our last of the day.

Would he be able to continue tomorrow, I wondered? Would there even be a tomorrow?

We might die of the cold, or thirst, or hunger, or be eaten by one of the monsters that lurked out there, hidden from view. The odds were stacked against us.

I sat down beside him and shuffled closer so that I might share with him some of my body heat. The light was fading. The sky had turned red again.

Red sky at night… But there were no shepherds out there. There was no one at all.

We had previously passed just one other vehicle – that crappy old farm truck – having travelled almost halfway along the Nameless Highway. What were the chances of another appearing,
to whisk us to safety? Slim. And if we weren’t rescued, we would surely perish.

In a rising panic, I checked my pockets and was delighted to find, besides my wallet, that second bag of Sheep Shavings I had saved.

“Look!” I exclaimed, holding it aloft. “Food!”

My father glanced at the bag and raised an eyebrow, breaking a crusted scab in doing so. “Well done,” he said, half-heartedly. “Let’s see what I’ve got on
us…”

He laid what he retrieved before him, naming each item as he did so.

“Lighter… string… pocket knife… torch…” He checked it worked, playing the beam on my face and chuckling when it did. “Boiled sweets…
compass… haemorrhoid cream. Hehe… sticking plasters… wallet.” He did not open that in front of me. “Notebook… pencil…”

I was gobsmacked. He’d reminded me of Tom Baker in
Doctor Who
, and I was disappointed when he did not produce a paper bag of Jelly Babies.

But he hadn’t finished. “Hang on, I were sure I had…” Patting around his chest area, he held up a finger and delved into an inside pocket. “Knew I’d packed a
bottle of mink somewhere! Never had need of it before…”

And he produced a plastic bottle of water. It had stagnated and turned slimy green, but that did not matter. It was liquid and we would live.

For the time being.

The least I could do was go on a recce for something to burn – the cold was beginning to bite – and our fortune held when I spotted, some distance up the highway
and off to one side, a broken wooden crate. It had fallen off a lorry, I imagined, and I saw that someone had scrawled

along one side; however, the poultry was long gone. Mutated by now into something with a beard and fangs, I didn’t doubt.

The wood was so wet that it wouldn’t light, until I split it into smaller pieces to expose the dry inner layers. Once Dad’s lighter generated a flame among those, we were in
business, piling them before us, the fiery glow warming our hearts while steam hissed off them.

Above us, the clouds had vanished and the darkened sky’s galactic denizens watched our preparations with mounting interest. We took a long slug of slimy, foul-tasting water each, even my
father for whom the substance was tantamount to treachery. It slipped down my throat like a length of snot. Then I shared out half of the Sheep Shavings, carefully replacing the remainder in my
pocket, and we ate those in a reverent hush, broken by the noisy crunches on the unhealthy grossness.

Finally – since our rations were sparse – Dad and I sucked one boiled sweet each. His was purple, my favourite flavour, though I didn’t complain, and mine was a twist of amber,
sugar-coated on its edges. Cough candy. It brought back happy memories: a quarter-pound for tuppence from the school tuck-shop, and all mine because no one else liked them.

This wasn’t the life – we could have been far better off – however it was the very best we could manage under the circumstances.

I stared at him, illuminated in shades of orange, saw past the fact that he looked as if he had been cut barely alive from farm machinery, and so many questions flitted around my head.

Why had I been adopted? Why had he gone travelling? How much of the machismo was a façade? What about his own parents? My real grandparents. They hadn’t even crossed my mind. What
was Mum really like? I had only seen that one photograph, and she looked so lovely and alive. I didn’t even know her first name. I could hardly keep calling her Mrs Dextrose.

I chanced it. “Dad, what’s…”

But he cut me dead. I think he’d seen me lost in thought, and there was only so much he was prepared to give away so soon. “I’m minked, boy,” he said. “And that
fire won’t last long. Here, move in next to old Dextrose. Mind yer don’t touch me old…” He remembered who I was and caught himself, before the innuendo could slip out.

The bottom of my foot had been kicked and there was a voice, somewhere above me. My closed eyes registered light and I could hear a deep, rattling hum. An engine?

“Wakey wakey! Bet you boys are glad to see me!
Thunderbirds
to the
rescue
!” Hold on, what had he said?
Rescue
?

I was on my feet in an instant.

The sky was mauve. Before me on the Nameless Highway was an old truck, tinny looking and dented, cream-coloured with a tarpaulin covering the rear. Its engine was running and there were
spotlights at the bumper and above the windscreen. That cyclical guttural thrum, cutting through the silence of the early morning, felt both eerie and exciting.

In shadow against the vehicle’s glare was the figure of a man: short, with bow-legs and a brimmed hat.

He repeated himself: “Bet you boys are glad to see me!”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes we bloody well are!”

He held out his hand. “Charles Tiberius Snipe, at your service!”

I threw myself at him, sending him almost off-balance, and enveloped him in a bear-hug. “Thankyouthankyouthanyou!”

His hat came up to my nipples. The hug began to feel awkward and he pushed me gently away.

“No worries, mate. Don’t mention it. My friends call me Charlie,” said our saviour. “At least they would if I… anyway! What’s yours?”

“I’m Pilsbury. This is my Dad.”

Despite the racket, Dextrose remained curled up and unconscious. I couldn’t bring myself to wake him.

“Is he alright?” asked Charlie. “He looks terrible.”

“Yes. Yes, he’s fine. How…”

He put his hands on his hips and swaggered a bit without moving his feet. “You’re lucky I spotted you there, down at the side of the road. Chances of another vehicle passing this way
in the next 24 hours are slimmer than a… slimmer than a… shit! No, hang on, I’ll think of something!”

I waited patiently while he tapped his temple.

“I’ve got slimmer than a person who’s on a diet, but that’s not one of my best… hang on…”

My patience waned. “So, can we have a lift?”

“That’s why I stopped, dummy!”

Were saviours meant to be punchable?

I shook Dextrose gently, then much harder when he would not wake up.

“Wh? Hnn? Quench?” He blinked and looked up, shading his eyes from the lights. “You again.”

I tried not to let it affect me. “We’ve been rescued. We’ve got a lift.”

He cleared his throat disgustingly and spat out the results. “I’d have survived,” he said. “But if it’s here…”

Charlie bent down to shake his hand. “I’m Charlie! But you can call me Virgil from International Rescue… no, call me Scott – he’s my favourite!”

“Mink off, twot,” snarled Dad, who couldn’t have had enough sleep.

Thankfully, Charlie was not put off. “I’ve got another surprise for you guys,” he said, his voice barely containing his excitement.

What could he mean?

“What minking surprise?” growled Dad, clearly in concurrence.

“Guess who else I picked up?”

Neither my father nor I spoke.

“Alright, here’s a clue: she said she was looking for you boys!”

He began biting his fingernails in anticipation.

It couldn’t possibly be. My face drained of all its life.

“Asked me to keep an eye out for you, she did! And I found you! She’s gonna have a right surprise too, and no mistake!”

I had to force out the words. “Where is she?”

He motioned towards the tarpaulin. “In the back… you don’t exactly sound delighted.”

When we didn’t say anything, he burbled on: “I, I couldn’t get her wheelchair in the front. Cos of the seats. That’s the only reason I put her in the back. But I tied her
down OK!”

I looked at Dad and he looked at me.

“I’ve done my bit,” he said. “You sort it.” And he sat down.

The air was perfectly still, the lights from Charlie’s truck made the Nameless Highway seem ghostly, and tiny insects cavorted and glowed in their glare. All the while
the engine idled, a constant, undulating mechanical moan. All I felt was a sense of evil present. Hilda the murderess was just a few yards away, concealed only by a single layer of material.

I had thought we were rid of her, had assured myself that she was dead. But old people can be terribly resilient.

The horrors of Lonely Bush came flooding back to me in a whirling vortex of nightmarish imagery. Eustace in the rain, drenched and despondent; that room with its photographs, its tea and cake;
that thing she had said about the upper floor… what was it? “We keep that for the visitors”. What atrocities lurked up there?

The knife and the blood. Poor Importos’ face and that horrific, gaping wound. “Stick him, Eustace, stick him!” The relentless pursuit by the witch…

Dad’s voice broke through my fearful thoughts. “Oh mink it! I’ll do it me minking self!”

I can’t pretend I wasn’t relieved. “Be careful,” I urged him.

“Minks,” came back.

He limped past me, flicking on his torch. Its beam danced around as he disappeared to the back of the truck encased in near-darkness. I saw him flick up the tarpaulin flap and disappear inside
the vehicle. Not a word did Hilda utter and I wondered why, fearing the worst.

“Sound a-minking-sleep!” called out Dad. “Hold on.”

There came sounds of movement then the torch beam shone from the rear of Charlie’s truck, back towards Lonely Bush. In it suddenly appeared a figure in a wheelchair, pushed off the back
and landing with a clatter and a thump.

“Ooooow.” Hilda’s voice, weak but not defeated.

Charlie finally clicked that something was awry. “Hey, now hold on, boys! What’s this all about? That’s no way to treat your mother!”

I could see that one of her arms was bent backwards at an interesting angle and her black dress was in tatters, exposing her skinny, wrinkled, pale midriff. Her bun had come undone and her white
hair looked like an explosion at the surface of water. Her face was vividly bruised and her glasses were missing. She squinted into the light of Dad’s torch.

“That’s not my mother,” I said. “That old woman murdered my friend.”

Charlie laughed without feeling. “No way, guys! You’re having me on!
Her
?”

I could only shake my head. He stared at me, his eyes dancing over every detail of my face, seeking the truth. Then he knew.

He whistled. “Jesus. If I’d…” His voice trailed off.

Dad eased himself down from the truck and began walking towards the vehicle’s cabin. “Right, we’re off. You, get in the front of the van,” he ordered Charlie.

Hilda’s voice emerged from the shadows beneath the taillights. “That you boys? It is, isn’t it?”

It was an old lady’s voice. A broken, bent old lady. I had to remind myself what she had done.

Still I couldn’t help myself. In the dim haze of the taillights I righted her wheelchair. Then I took hold of her beneath the armpits, picked her up and placed her gently in the chair,
rearranging her dress as best I could. I felt her wince and she muted a grunt, but she did not cry out.

It was a spontaneous action. Had she secreted away a knife, she might have stabbed me; in that moment it was a chance I would have taken.

All the while, I could not look into her face. But our heads were close and when I was preparing to take my leave she whispered into my ear, “Thank you.”