Free The Cruellne by James Clammer Page B

too hot to go outside unless you had to. My head did not feel so swimmy now that we had our destination in sight. Maybe there would be cold drinks for sale when we arrived.
     
    At the very end of the street, covered over by a brick archway, stood two wooden doors, the doors of a mechanic's yard. If you opened them both, cars could pass one by another as they were repaired or discharged. Mother told me to wait on the other side of the street and then she knocked, not too loudly, on the right hand door. They needed a coat of paint, those two doors. You could tell they had faded in the years of sunlight, once they might have been red but now they were pink, peeling pink, flaking away. Mother stood knocking for a long time, she was very persistent and she did not lose her temper. All I could think of was cold drinks and those desert explorers who used to go mad imagining palm trees and water where really there is only sand. But I knew I would be fine, we were in the middle of London after all.
    Still she knocked. I could not understand why, she continued, it was obvious nobody was in. Our day out had been a waste of time and the journey home would be tense, no talking, I could see it all. But then the door opened and a man stepped through and pulled the door shut behind him, immediately. Mother spoke to him and beckoned me across. Everything's fine, she said. We can go in now.
    She seemed triumphant. Her face was pink with pleasure and her eyes were bright and alive.
    Go in fast, the man told me. Don't give her a chance to escape.
    I wondered who he was talking about. Did he mean mother? He must have seen my look of alarm because hastily he added: It's for her own safety, she wouldn't last five minutes out there. Kids would get her - hunt her down. Or the firearms squad. Or she'd eat something wrong, be dead by nightfall.
    Now I was totally confused. He could not mean mother, it was impossible. Who then? I took a quick look at the man as we slipped through. He was middle-aged, with a beard, grey t-shirt, trainers, wide khaki shorts, perhaps a slight foreign accent. But really there was nothing unusual about him. He was like anyone else going quietly about their job, taking care of business, a person you would not notice.
    The doors opened onto a cracked concrete yard, covered in weeds and straw. I did not think of straw as a peculiar thing to find in London. The Post Office tower leaned in at one enclosed corner. It was everywhere that afternoon. To the left-hand side of the yard stood a long open-sided shed where they must once have repaired cars. Deep in the shadow I saw the gaping hole of a mechanic's pit and away in a corner a mound of old tyres. The rest of the roofed space, which looked deliciously shady, was taken up by three cafeteria tables, the sort where the table-tops, chairs and legs are all welded together, a small cooking area, and a glass-fronted fridge crammed with soft drinks.
    Sit down, the man said, indicating the cafeteria tables. You might have to wait. Get out of the sun, why don't you?
    I did not have to be asked twice. While mother wandered aimlessly around the yard I headed for the tables and the fridge with its treasure of cold cans. But there did not seem to be a cash register, or anywhere to leave money, so I stood in the shade gazing at the drinks and hoping someone would come and tell me what to do. It did not seem possible that I could just help myself without paying. Those were not the rules I understood. Why didn't mother come and join me? Round and round she went, first one way, then another, stopping occasionally to stare at the windows of the building on the opposite side of the yard. Most of them were boarded up, or had cracked glass. The doorframes were rotten, the window frames were rotten, the whole thing was derelict, but still she kept staring.
    Take one, the man called out to me. Go on, you look like you need cooling down.
    He pointed at the fridge but still I could not bring myself to