Part 7 (1/2)

Greeneye snarled, slammed his gun into some invisible holster and reached down with his free hand to grab Benny. He hauled her up to his eye-level by her hair, and shook her until the sc.r.a.ps of balloon, now turning an ugly brown, fell from her face. 'You hurt her!' he bellowed.

'You started it,' Benny told him.

He yanked her head roughly to one side.

Her hair-extensions came away in his hand. He stared at them for a second.

She b.u.t.ted him across the bridge of the nose.

Greeneye fell back and slashed wildly with his sword.

The blade cut a fine line across the blouse material over Benny's stomach.

She turned and sprinted away along the ditch in her bloomers, glancing over her shoulder to see him scramble to his feet, clutching his nose. A little crowd of townsfolk were kicking the stile away. One pointed at her, and suddenly Greeneye was at the centre of a ma.s.s of hearty and drunken young men, determined to avenge her honour. She ignored gallant shouts to return and jumped up on to a gate, then over it.

She landed in a side-road, right in front of Mr Hodges' greengrocer's wagon.

'Whoa!' Hodges shouted, pulling up the horses as they whinnied and bucked. He opened his mouth at the sight of Benny's muddied and disrobed state, blushed and started frantically to clamber out of his ap.r.o.n. 'What in - ? I mean, by G.o.d, girl-'

Benny jumped up beside him and swiftly covered herself up with the ap.r.o.n.

'Home, Mr Hodges,' she told him grimly. 'And don't spare the horses.'

Chapter Four.

Good and Bad at Games

Smith wobbled out on to the pitch, pullovers wrapped around his waist. He took up his place on the little rise beside the cricket pitch. On a distant hillside, a shaft of undiluted sunlight was illuminating the ground.

Smith wished he were there. Only this cricket practice, and then he could go home, change, settle down to dinner and conversation with Joan.

It had been nice to see Bernice. She was like her father in some way, he wasn't really sure which. Jonathan had been in the Navy, broke his nose in Pompey Barracks. Bit of a clumsy so and so. Which was odd, for a sailor. Smith pondered on his image of sailors. He'd known of two, and both seemed very unlike everything he knew about the profession. Everything he'd learnt.

He glanced down at the woollens wrapped about his waist. He remembered the feel of them. He'd worn one that his mother had made for him, playing in the street with the other children. His should a.s.sociate them with proud poverty and ambition.

But still, somewhere in a dream, he felt different things about this material.

Something about it spoke of sacrifice.

What a strange existence this was, when all that was inside him seemed to contradict the world. Bigger on the inside than the outside, and bursting at the seams.

'Sir? Sir?' Anand was calling. 'We're ready to play, sir.' Smith started and looked up. 'Yes. Ready. Have you picked teams?' He glanced around and saw that a complete field had been a.s.sembled on the pitch, and that Hutchinson and Merryweather had taken up position, doubtless without much debate, with their bats at each wicket. Alton turned his head from wicket-keeping and raised an eyebrow at Smith questioningly. A line of boys were sitting beside him with varied degrees of interest, ready to get padded up and go on. 'I see that you have. Well, go on.'

Anand nodded and turned to begin his run-up. Smith glanced over his shoulder and saw Tim, way out on the boundary, gazing at the infield hopefully. Smith chastised himself. One little mental wander, and the Hulton team captain was sent off to the middle of nowhere. He glanced back at Hutchinson, the watery sunlight dappling the boy's s.h.i.+rt as he thumped his crease, antic.i.p.ating Anand's first ball.

And tried to ignore the fact that the boy looked up to smirk at him.

Bernice ran from the cart into her cottage and bolted the door behind her. Hodges had spent the whole journey asking her half-embarra.s.sed, half-salacious questions, and seemed to be on the verge of either calling the police or following her inside when she'd hopped from his cart.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she ran into her bedroom, and winced. No time to wash the mud off. She flicked open the locks of her cases, and pulled on some jeans, a T-s.h.i.+rt and some more useful boots than these lace-up monstrosities with heels. Finally, her work jacket with all the pockets. They'd expect her to head straight for the Pod, of course, but if she could do that without them tracking her, then all she had to do was to rugby-tackle Smith and put the thing against his forehead.

She crept quickly downstairs, mentally saying goodbye to the place. Her easel still stood in the garden outside, the painting half-finished.

Everything spoilt, as always.

Aphasia staggered down the hospital corridor, holding her stomach. Her tiny hand clutched for the railing on the wall, and she pushed herself along with it, leaving traces of brown liquid at every touch. That didn't make much difference to the overall colour scheme. The walls were covered with a thin organic paste, green and brown, which was also dripping from the ceiling as a cycle of mist and condensation.

This place smelt. This whole world smelt. They'd taken her away in a vehicle, when she'd been injured, and they'd tried to make her lie down and put a mask over her face. She'd tried to tell them that she just needed to go and heal herself, but they didn't listen, they just said stupid things to her.

The gas hadn't knocked her out, and when they noticed that, they'd taken off the mask and started talking excitedly to each other. They wheeled her into this place on a trolley.

So she'd opened the pouch in her wrist, and pulled out the bulb, and then they'd started to scream.

Through the haze of her vision, the little girl saw that, ahead of her, a nurse had fallen, pulling over a trolley of instruments as she did. The body lay across the junction of two corridors and was still fairly intact. Aphasia redoubled her efforts to walk and stumbled to her knees beside the body.

The wrist pouch wouldn't close. She'd die if she didn't do something soon and that'd let down all her fathers and her dear son, Hoff.

She reached for the nurse's decaying face, and started to feed.

'Sir!'

Smith, despite his intentions, was deep in Mansfield Park Mansfield Park when he heard the shout. when he heard the shout.

He waved a hand distractedly - - and found a cricket ball in it.

The schoolboys applauded and whistled. Smith tossed the ball back to the bowler and bowed exaggeratedly.

'That could have taken your head off, sir!' said Phipps, awed.

'Oh, probably not. Still, someone must be looking after me ...' Smith would have turned his attention back to his book, but the boys became agitated again, a great whispering and the occasional whistle disturbing those sitting beside him.

He looked up to see his niece, dressed in very tight trousers, running frantically across the ground towards him. The batsmen paused as she ran between the wickets, their gaze following her, awestruck.

As soon as Bernice reached the little rise where Smith was sitting, she was offered a flurry of jackets and pullovers to cover herself with, as well as a panama hat from the laconic Alton. She waved them all aside, grabbed Smith's hand and hauled him to his feet.

'Come on,' she said. 'I've got something to show you.' The boys coughed and muttered things, and a few grins sprang up.

'I haven't time...' Smith looked around in confusion. 'This is Bernice, my niece.

Bernice, these are my boys.'

'There's no time for that. You must come with me, it's a matter of life and death.'

'It is?' Smith squared his jaw. 'Very well. Lead on.' He pointed stoically and marched off, then glanced back. 'Shall I bring some of the boys?'

'No,' Benny told him. 'Just bring yourself.'