Lorali Page 21

  Egor shows me to the bathroom. It’s white and gold. Frothing bubbles tower out of a bath. The room smells warm. Like a wood fire. Like a Christmas tree pine. My body craves it.

  ‘You lot bathe in this?’ I joke. Egor can make you feel relaxed with his dozy, lumbering stroll.

  ‘Every day, mate.’

  ‘Gosh, it’s the life, ain’t it?’

  ‘Sure is, cuz.’ He laughs without irony. ‘Step in. Here’s a robe.’

  A robe? Why are they being so nice?

  ‘Right, first you need shampoo – that’s lemon and coriander in the glass one with the stopper – then conditioner. The silver creamy-looking one, that’s almond. It’s proper dope. Don’t be afraid to go in on that bad boy.’

  ‘Right.’ I laugh. ‘I don’t think I need conditioner. I never use it at home.’

  ‘Trust me. Use it.’

  ‘OK. I normally just use body wash. Like … for everything,’ I explain as if I’m confessing bad habits to a beautician at a parlour.

  ‘None of that here. Dries the skin out. Already in the bath are alpine and frankincense drops. That’s to keep you grounded, so you don’t lose your head – smells like church, right? Use the oat bran to scrub the sea salt off your skin, and then the mitt with the camomile, almond and aloe essence to moisturise. Soak, my man. Let me know when you’re done.’

  I hide myself in the bath. I want every part of me covered. I imagine what it must be like to have a life completely immersed in water. Everything so weightless and soft. I hold my breath and go under. See how long I can last. Drowning out everything. Only hearing my heart. Time slips away.

  ‘Rory? Rory! You all done?’

  Agh! ‘Yeah! Sorry!’ I have lost track of time. I scramble out clumsily.

  ‘Chill. You’re bless. No rush, boss. I’ll wait for you out here.’

  Egor leads me to another room. A dressing room, he calls it. It is a large purple room with plants and candles. Rap music patters from the speakers. ‘Right. Fresh unders. You boxers or briefs?’

  ‘Boxers.’

  Egor presents me with a freshly starched set. They are so ironed they could crack.

  I panic. ‘Oh no, I don’t need new ones!’

  ‘What is you? We wear new ones every day, boy. You don’t get this bossy wearing other people’s groin sweat! Jeez! Whack these on.’

  Egor ushers me behind a changing screen. I have seen these before in the antique shops in Hastings but never used one for real.

  ‘Don’t –’

  ‘Look? No. I wouldn’t dare. Man’s not a chief. Take the talc, it’s lavender and vanilla. But it’s not too sweet. You’ll see.’

  ‘’K, I’m done,’ I say, revealing my scrawny, skinny no-hairs-on-chest pasty self. The talcum powder isn’t doing me any favours.

  ‘You look flossy, brother.’

  I don’t. But I almost believe him.

  Egor slathers his hands in cream.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘This is sun cream. Factor fifty.’

  ‘I’m not that pale!’

  ‘Our skin is precious, brother. Look at mine, so dark and I still wear factor fifty. Come here.’ I go over like a child that wants a parent to see to a cut hand. I think of Mum. I bat tears away. I can’t do anything about my circumstance right now. ‘Every day,’ he tells me. ‘All over.’ His hands are big and firm. They are not tender and gentle but there is a kindness there. He wants me to feel good.

  ‘OK, now sit. Look at these nails.’ He tuts. ‘You’re worse than Oska. Come.’ Egor unravels a leather tool wallet and draws from it lots of little spikes and files. He begins filing. White powdery bone instantly makes new dust.

  ‘How you gonna neglect your cuticles like this, bruv, and expect anyone to take you for real? After all the hard work your hands do for you all day, every day, and no love there. You’re on a madness, ain’t you?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I sniff. ‘I never noticed. I didn’t even know what a cuticle was.’

  Egor shakes his head. He begins to scoop out the dirt from the underside of my nails.

  ‘What you been doing? Climbing trees?’

  ‘Actually, yeah.’ I laugh and then so does he. He is quick. But effective. His brows furrow, a cheeky smile on his face. Sometimes he raps along gently to the music.

  I feel sick about having to put my old mash-up clothes back on. I am so clean now.

  ‘Where are my clothes?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh … OK …’ Egor smiles even broader. ‘Man’s been busy.’

  And then he steps up, so light-footed for his size, and unveils a rail. On it are pressed trousers, a shirt, a vest. Underneath the rail sit boots. Shining. Polished. Laces. Leather.

  ‘I don’t know what to say!’ I almost whisper.

  ‘Them clothes can’t hear you, fool! Get them on!’

  Egor helps to dress me. Like the way a tailor does. An extra help and a hand here and there.

  ‘This is a granddad shirt.’ He brushes my shoulders. ‘You see where there’s no collar and a top button? Fits you like a glove.’

  ‘Where’s it from?’ I admire the material, looking for a label.

  ‘I made it, bruv.’

  HE IS SO COOL.

  ‘Let’s hope these babies fit. Step in, I’ve cut some slack round the waist in case we need to adjust, but I think it’s a good ’un.’

  The trousers slide on like skin.

  ‘Oh, Egor, they are wicked.’ I am desperate for a mirror. I wish Mum could see me. I wish Lorali could see me. I wish Dad could – ‘And I’m not even going to a funeral or a wedding or anything – this is just for a normal day?’

  ‘Just for a normal day, although we don’t get those much round here. Sit.’

  I do.

  ‘See, this is why I’m glad we got you and not that Elvis kid; see the yellow heads on that boy?’ Egor laughs. ‘I was thinking, What me gonna do with dat?’ I crack up with laughter. ‘You get what I’m saying.’

  ‘Oil.’ He combs it through my hair and makes a slick side parting. It smells like dark fruits. ‘You got that smell? Good, huh? From my home town.’

  He reaches for the buzzer. I gulp. I haven’t had a shaved head since I was a kid, and even then I looked like a convict.

  ‘Wait –’

  ‘Cuz, you nearly died yesterday. Worse, nearly yammed up by some crazo chicks. What’s a little trim and fade gonna change?’

  I nod and he buzzes away. My hair falls to the floor.

  A little ointment on the neck and wrists and I am ready to meet the mirror.

  I look like a boss. As Egor would say. That is all.

  ‘Easy,’ Otto says as we reach the deck. I feel like a fraud in front of him, an imposter. I prepare myself, in case he laughs at me and makes me feel stupid for playing dress-up. But he doesn’t. He grins, as though I’ve always looked like this, like him.

  HASTINGS REACH

  5 September

  LOCAL BOY RIPPED FROM MOTHER’S ARMS BY ‘BIRD WOMAN’

  Another Hastings teenager has been reported as missing. Rory Francis, 16, was last seen by his mother, Cheryl Francis, as they stood together on Hastings beach. Mrs Francis said that her son was physically ‘torn’ out of her arms by a ‘bird woman’, which she said appeared ‘from out of nowhere’. This alleged event follows the disappearance of Francis’s friend, sixteen-year-old casino worker, Elvis Caine. The two cases are thought to be linked although there were no eyewitnesses to the disappearance of Caine. Online reaction has signalled that the disappearances are not coincidental but ‘organised’ and are following a pattern.

  HASTINGS GAZETTE

  5 September

  ‘BIRD WOMEN STOLE MY SON’ CLAIMS LOCAL WOMAN

  Victim of depression and Hastings local, Cheryl Francis, 41, has reported her son, Rory Francis, as missing after a ‘flock of bird women’ swooped down ‘from out of nowhere’ and snatched him away. Mrs Francis’s psychological state is an open secret in the town. Neighbours have described her
as ‘distant’ and ‘in a dream-like state’. Others say she is constantly ‘off her head’ on sleeping tablets and antidepressants.

  Mrs Francis said the last she saw of her son was in the grasp of the bird women, ‘winging it across the sea’ to an unknown location, fighting for his life. Mrs Francis was found by the cliff side, shouting her son’s name and holding one of his trainers. Her car was also on the scene, despite her licence having been revoked. There are no eyewitnesses to support Mrs Francis’s story.

  SAILING

  The sea is massive. My god. The sea is MASSIVE. I had no idea. I’m not even sure where we are now as the sun smashes us in the face like a wrecking ball of fire.

  ‘Do you want me to do anything?’ I ask Oska, who is steering the ship. Not that there is anything I can do to try to look less useless and keep busy.

  ‘Nope,’ he replies, fag in mouth, eyes wincing at the clear view ahead. ‘Just chill, I got it.’

  I walk over to the front of the boat. I spread my arms out. Close my eyes. For a moment I can almost pretend I am in a different life. That I am strong. Fearless. Indestructible. Fierce. Not afraid. Not hurt by Elvis or missing Mum or worried for Lorali. But I am none of those things. I am terrified. The water occasionally spits me in the face with a spritz of ice-cold sea. But it feels good. In the heat and that. Every way you look there is nothing. For miles. Just blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Every shade of blue you could ever imagine. Without the disruption of pylons or cranes or wires or the sound of sirens. Just emptiness, but everything at the same time. It is a lot to take in. I wonder why these pirates took me with them? Why they didn’t leave me to rot with Elvis? Was I useful? A bargaining tool? A device? Or maybe … was it so far-fetched to think that maybe they might like me?

  And then, out of nowhere, next to me, but below in the water, rises the body of something huge. Just the back – must be a whale; I’ve never seen a whale in real life. But it keeps going. The size of it! No, can’t be a whale. Too long. Too grey. Too scaly … It is still moving, gliding past, never-ending.

  I gasp. Stumble back. ‘What … what was that?’ I shout to Oska.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That great huge mammoth thingy that just swam by. It looks like a … giant … sea … lizard!’

  ‘Oh!’ He laughs. ‘That’s a slizard.’

  ‘Huh?’ The wind is stealing his words.

  ‘It means we don’t know the name of it but it’s this hench sea lizard thing that swims around here. HUGE! And it eats men! Oh all the great brave souls are lost to the belly of the slizard!’

  ‘Slizard. Got it. And it eats … men, you say?’ I gulp. A slizard. I do not want to be meeting one of those.

  ‘I’m having you on, you fool.’

  ‘Oh! Phew!’ I laugh awkwardly.

  Oska cracks up too. ‘Ha ha! Proper got you, didn’t I? A slizard!’

  My laughing slows. ‘So if it’s not a slizard, what is it?’

  ‘I don’t actually know.’ Oska sighs and that just makes us laugh harder. Together. Creasing up, tears coming out of our eyes.

  I look over at Jasper. He looks at me cold and then back down at the fishes he is scaling. We still haven’t said a word to one another since I’ve joined the ship. There’s something about him that gives me the feeling he doesn’t like me, so I leave him be.

  I feel the weight of an arm thrown around my shoulder. ‘Let’s not waste time.’ Momo smiles. ‘Have you ever held a sword before?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘A shank? A blade?’

  ‘Huh? What?’

  ‘A jook? A knife?’

  ‘Er. Only to … you know … butter toast with.’ I sound like a right goon.

  ‘How about a pistol? You ever held a gun?’

  I gulp. ‘No.’

  ‘Come.’

  I follow Momo to the bunker. He opens a door to a room that is, honestly, just filled with guns and explosives.

  ‘I’m gonna show you how to blow stuff up.’

  TROUBLED WATERS

  Liberty, the old soul, is going at her fastest pace, but there is slim chance she can ever catch up with the Cetus. Her sails, although loved dearly, are taking a beating from the remorseless wind. It seems the wind is biased and has decided to back the deadly crew. Shame. Liberty’s salt-chewed beams are decaying, rotting, but the boys ride her well still.

  Meanwhile, across the way, the Cetus are devouring me. Hacking at my surface, raking my guts and spewing darkness back at me. Thick. Heavy. Oil. Regurgitating unnatural dark hateful, harmful spool. A skull-and-crossbones flag drags behind them. Their waste on my tongue. But greed leads them on. Eyes forward or on the girl at the front. Who is mostly naked. In and out of sleep. They have no idea the floating house is on their trail.

  BECOMING A PIRATE

  ‘Oh no, no, no, you don’t. I’ve just dressed the boy. Look how cris he looks.’ The silhouette of Egor in the doorway interrupts us.

  ‘Egor, the boy needs to know how to fight,’ Momo says defensively.

  ‘Fight? Why?’ Egor tuts. You can see he hates the word. He is a tender person, I realise.

  ‘In case we go into battle.’

  ‘And in that case, we can do the fighting.’

  ‘Just some basics. For protection.’

  ‘He knows the basics. He’s got the basics. His mind. His experience. He shouldn’t even need to reach for a weapon. Remember, a weapon is last –’

  ‘Last resort. I know, I know. I just wanted to, you know … educate.’

  ‘You mean, behave like a little boy. Go read him one of your poems instead Momo. Do something productive.’

  Momo does as he is told. I’ve noticed the power Egor has aboard. Momo sighs deeply as he puts the gun in his hands down. I recognise his embarrassment. I have felt like that a million times before, when you think you are more responsible or cool than you are. Your pride is knocked. Bit by bit I am seeing bits of myself in all of the Ablegares and it kind of feels good to relate.

  I help Momo lock up the weapon room; he moans about Egor’s authority for a bit, how Egor should be taking advice from him as he is clearly the best pirate on board and then he slaps an arm round my back, joking, and tucks me in close, his beard hairs tickling my cheek.

  ‘Oi.’ Momo sniggers. ‘Shhhh. Don’t tell.’ And in my top pocket he places a small grenade. ‘You never know when this might come in handy.’

  My chest ticks with the pressure of the baby bomb by my heart and what I could do with it.

  Up on deck I relax. We drink vodka. It’s so frozen you can’t even taste the alcohol. I don’t know where I am in the world or even the time of day.

  ‘Have you ever been in love, Rory?’ Momo asks me.

  ‘I, errr …’

  ‘Course he has, you moose!’ Oska butts in. ‘He loves that girl. Lorali. The mermaid.’ The colour of my cheeks must speak for me.

  ‘Yeah. I dunno. I can’t explain … I’m just … proper glad she came into my life and to think of her … you know … suffering, kills me. I just want to be next to her and make sure she’s OK. I wish I could make things better. I want to hold her … be near her. All the time. Without sounding weird. Does that sound weird?’

  Momo grins. ‘No, it sounds like love.’

  ‘We’ll get her back, don’t worry,’ Oska chips in.

  ‘And when you do … what happens then? You lot are obviously looking for her too … so … what’s in it for you?’

  ‘Aww. You are a good kid, Rory,’ Egor reassures me, but Jasper sniggers to himself. It’s a noise I don’t like. It makes me think further about why I’ve come this far. Maybe I am wrong to think of them as my friends or trust anything they say to me, but it is so difficult when they make me feel so at home. Like one of them.

  ‘Ignore him.’ Egor winks at me just in time and then I hear Otto’s boots clapping over. ‘See that dark spot there in the distance?’

  I don’t see it. ‘Errrr … no.’

  ‘Yes, just t
here ahead, a tiny spot.’

  ‘Really sorry, Otto, I can’t see it.’

  ‘Look for the smoke, grey smoke, like a little fire. Can you see it now?’

  And suddenly, out of nowhere, as though it was there all the time, the smoke appears and below it a dark, black, almost burnt-looking ship.

  ‘Yes!’ I say. ‘I see it now. I don’t know why I couldn’t see it before; it’s like it appeared out of nowhere.’

  Otto shakes his head and laughs. ‘I know.’ He sniffs, stretching, rubbing his tummy, almost acting disinterested, like it’s no biggie. ‘That’s the Cetus. They’ve got Lorali.’

  ‘What?’ I panic. ‘There? Well, what do we do?’

  ‘We eat, of course.’

  CLOSER

  Rory is one of them now. He is fitting in. Nicely, I see. The role suits him. They drink little flat whites and eat silly spiced knots of pastry studded with currants and orange peel. They take vitamins. Evening primrose, omega-3, iron, vitamin C. But the boy, after food, doesn’t look so certain any more. He has said too much maybe about the girl. What makes him think he can trust these Ablegares? How is he so certain that they aren’t about to use him as a pawn to win back the princess? How does he know they aren’t going to leave him high and dry? Just because they have fed him, bathed him, put clothes on his back and given him a bed to sleep in does not mean they are his friends.

  RAGING

  The wind is really bad now. I don’t want it to knock my great new hairstyle out of place. It’s hard to look cool when it’s so windy. The vodka from earlier has put me in a bad mood. My nose is also sunburnt from the early sun, even through the factor fifty.

  I look around. The Ablegares seem to be doing a pretty good job of looking cool still, so I guess I just have to assume that the same applies for me.

  It is annoying me now that I can see where Lorali is but can’t get to her. Can’t help her. I remember when I used to watch people playing the vending machines at Elvis’s arcade. They would put all their money in to win some dumb poxy teddy that probably only cost a quid in the first place. The metal claw would always open up, like a big grasping hand, and it would always, every time, drop. Scoop up the head of the teddy bear and then drop it at the last minute. People couldn’t understand how they were so close and yet so far in the same moment.