“I want to give one now.Never mind the hospital.Will youdrive me out to East Hill?”That was as close as Laurie wasprepared to let anyone come, even this good man, to hisdestination.He could get the bus from there.“I’ve got friendsthere.They’ll look after me, I promise.”He wasn’t much at givingorders, he reflected, slumping back into the passenger seat,letting his skull fall back against the headrest.He just wanted tobe away and, for a short while, to sleep.The need wasoverwhelming.“Charlie, please.”
“All right.”Peripherally Laurie was aware of Charlie gazingfiercely ahead through the windscreen, drumming his fingers on thewheel.“East Hill, though, son?I never knew you have a friendoutside the Tube zone one.”
Lauriesmiled—or tried to.The effort sent a dull ache up into his eyesocket.He thought about his friends inside the zone and tried toimagine seeking help from any of them tonight.Bleeding on theirmarble Knightsbridge floors.“More fool me, then,” he muttered.“Been keeping mixed company, Charlie.”He felt his eyes close and,a moment later, a smooth, deep shift underneath him as Charlie putthe Daimler into gear.
Chapter Eight
He wasalone, and in the dead of winter night, the lane stretched outforever.Laurie stumbled slowly along the verge.There was justenough demarcation there between grass and track that he could findhis way.
Heremembered sunlight and Sasha at his side.The crackling electricalsnap in the air between them.He had known then that they werewalking toward a union that would change his life.Yes, the lanehad been a path between two worlds.It still was.The last shredsof Laurie’s childhood lay behind him, drops of his blood on therichly carpeted floor of a Mayfair house.Sasha had said he shouldget out.Very well.He was gone.Sasha would help him to build anew life.
He hadto stay alive to let him.Laurie missed his footing, crashed hardto his hands and knees on the verge.The impact sent stars of painskyrocketing through his skull and his lungs.By the time he hadforced himself upright once more, he no longer cared about anyfuture more distant or complex than his next step.The night wasmoonless.The lights of Birchwood somehow did not reach here asthey had when Sasha had walked him back to the main road.The firesof the encampment did not shine.
Perhapsthey were gone.Up until eight o’clock that night, Laurie hadbelieved certain things without ever fully articulating them tohimself.That, if pushed, his mother would stand up to defend notonly her small daughter but her grown-up son, as well.That hestill had a place in his home, and that his father still loved himenough not to knock him unconscious on the edge of a table.Perhapsother things he believed were just as fragile, just as muchproducts of his own need.“Ves’tacha,” Sasha had called him, andLaurie had believed that too…
But who could possibly callhimbeloved and have it be true?Hewas nothing, wasn’t he?Useless.Pathetic.The lights were gone,the encampment vanished.Sasha, who was kind but not stupid, hadtold him what he wanted to hear.
Oh, God.He was sobbing, off the path and caught once more in the fuckingbrambles.He stopped himself, mortified.The encampment was barelytwenty yards away, over in the trees to his right.He had not seenit because his head had been down, his vision wiped out byself-pity.He turned, reorienting himself, tore himself out of thethorns, and headed for the lights.
Zaga thebulldog ran out like a bullet the second she heard him.Sasha hadbeen right, though.She knew him this time and did not bark.“That’s just great,” Laurie whispered to her, dropping to hisknees.
Hecouldn’t take another step, had been relying on her commotion todraw someone’s attention.That was it, then.He was out here forthe night.Apart from his sorrow at being so near to Sasha andunable to make the last stretch, it didn’t seem so bad to him.Thepacked earth beneath him was becoming oddly soft.If the bloody dogwould stop dancing around him and sticking her great tongue intohis ears, he could probably lay himself down here andsleep.
But therattle of her chain had been enough.The door to the nearestcaravan swung wide, emitting a rectangle of pale yellow light andthe immense shape of Gunari, Mama Luna’s son.Laurie looked up athim.On any other night, that vision would have scared the crap outof him—a six-foot skinhead striding out of the darkness toward him,baseball bat swinging from one hand.Now Gunari almost seemed likelight relief.Laurie tried to laugh, but it hurt too much, and hedoubled up, coughing.
Gunaricrouched beside him.He dropped the bat and shone the torch he wascarrying into Laurie’s face.Squinting, holding up one shaking handto shield himself, Laurie bore the examination patiently.He heardGunari fire off a brief, rapid-fire stream of Roma, then add at theend of it, as if in translation, “Fucking hell.”He got to his feetand marched off as fast as he had come.“Mama!Fetch MamaLuna!”
Lauriedrifted.He’d been propping himself on his arms, but when thesoftening earth rolled itself up like a warm wave to meet him, hefelt he couldn’t resist it.He saw, through a blurring veil, thatas soon as he was prone, Zaga gave up her assault and sat herselfdown beside him, as if on guard.He closed his eyes.
Rustling robes and a faint chiming, as if of the little goldcoins that Sasha had told him were calledgalbi.He felt a dry grasp close onhis wrist, dry, warm fingers push back his hair.A faint scent ofapricots reached him.An exchange of Romani, not loud but urgent,the voice he could just distinguish as Mama Luna’s giving whatsounded like a string of commands.Laurie tried to take aninterest, but it didn’t seem to concern him anymore.Nothingdid.
The lastthing that held him out of the pit was another rush of footsteps,light and fast.Another grip on him—sweet, familiar, cold withshock.An embrace that closed and lifted him up off the earth.“Oh,my God.Laurie!Laurie!”
* **
He couldnot pinpoint a moment of waking.In a way, he felt as if he hadalways been here—lying on his side in a room he slowly worked outwas the bedroom of Sasha’s caravan.The bed, a small double, wascovered by two blankets and an unzipped sleeping bag.At the momentthese were turned down.Laurie’s shirt was tucked up to expose theleft side of his rib cage.He wondered if he should tell Mama Luna,who was perched like a gaudy sparrow on the bed beside him, of hisreturn to awareness.Certainly he should tell Sasha, kneeling inthe tiny gap between the bed and wall, watching with one handclamped tight to his mouth, his dark eyes bleak withhorror.
Hecouldn’t—not just yet.The old woman’s palm was pressed flat to hisribs.She was exerting a pressure which, while he somehow knew itwas good, diagnostic, and would not harm him, was at the same timeimposing on him such extraordinary pain that, if he opened hismouth, he would wail like a child.And he’d made enough of a foolof himself already.He had a vague memory that Gunari had pickedhim off the ground and carried him here.He concentrated onbreathing and keeping silent.
The oldwoman finished her probing and lifted her hand after a littlecaress, as if to tell him she was sorry.She looked at Sasha.“He’shurt inside, chiavala.”
Sashatook his hand from his mouth.“Christ.You mean like internalinjuries?I told you we should have called anambulance.”
“No.No, not like that.Inside.People like him don’t heal fastin the places where they trust.You must be careful ofhim.”
“I will.I’ll do anything to help him.”
“You don’t understand.Careful of yourself around him, Sasha.Dadro shee mulo.”
“What?He’d never hurt me.”Sasha swallowed audibly, and Laurietried once more to get enough safe breath past his larynx for areassuring sound, but it wasn’t going to happen yet.“And I knowhis bloody father is death.He’s nearly killed himtonight.”
“No.Balame will live a long time.The ribs are cracked, notbroken.I can treat him here, good as in hospitalanyway.”
“Okay.What about his face?”
“Oh, face.”Laurie felt the thin mattress rock as the old ladyemitted a short chuckle.“Lovely again soon enough.No harm to theskull or eyes.Very well—poultice for ribs, arnica for face.Andnow he’s awake,darozhafor all that pain he thinks he’s hiding.Englishboy, why don’t you cry out?You think I don’t know?”
“Is he awake?”Sasha leaned toward him, reaching out to brushhis the hair from his brow.“Laurie?No, he’s still…” But Laurie,for whom being seen through amounted suddenly to permission,flinched back, buried his face in the pillow, and howled.He shotout a hand, blindly groping, and felt Sasha seize it.Sasha’s otherhand went into his hair.Laurie felt his warm breath on his cheek.“Laurie, it’s okay.You don’t have to hide.”But Laurie did.Drilled from infancy to put a stone mask over pain, he could notjust put it aside, and after a moment he sensed Sasha accept thisand lean over him, shielding.“All right.I’ll hideyou.”
