The Turnarounders and the Arbuckle Rescue (2 page)

He slammed the book shut and stumbled from the room.

For the next few days, Ralf kept to himself. He felt he didn’t understand anything anymore. The thought of the locked room gave him the creeps and the image of young Gloria haunted him nearly as much as the accident. There was a connection between them, something dark and mysterious in the distant past, but he didn’t want to be part of it. He just wanted a normal life.

Unfortunately, his life was now far from normal. Ralf’s room was draughty, spidery and freezing cold at night, despite the summer weather. Gloria’s cooking continued to be stomach churningly bad and Ralf survived for the first week on fruit, bread and marmite until he found a sticky, yellow cookery book called ‘Eggcellent Eats!’ and learned how to make omelette. 

In his second week in London, Ralf’s emptiness subsided and the anger returned. What had he done to deserve this? Why should he have to live with a mad old bat who wouldn’t even call him by his name? The injustice of it all ate away at him and his thoughts turned to ideas of escaping. On two occasions he actually got as far as packing his bag, but the thought of the photo
graphs held him back each time.

Well, there was something he could do about that, he thought when he woke the following Friday. The social worker was coming back to check on him that afternoon. He would solve the mystery that morning and when Jade arrived he would ask to leave. Even a children’s home would be better than living at Janus Gate.

Filled with this new resolve, Ralf decided to continue with his search of the house. He spent the hours after breakfast exploring all the rooms on the ground floor he had, since the locked room, been too scared to go into.

The first door he tried opened into a huge library. At the far end was a desk and on it a letter rack jammed full of paper. Most of the paper was blank and there were a lot of empty envelopes, but there was also a letter from the social worker telling Gloria of Ralf’s arrival. Folded inside it was another photograph – exactly the same size as the one missing from the album upstairs. His stomach l
urched in anticipation.

The picture was one of those 1940s ones that made everything look a bit grainy and blurred. It showed a village harbour thronged with people. The men were in uniforms or suits and hats; the women wore floral dresses and aprons and had neatly rolled hair. Everyone in the photo was grinning like mad, except for a boy of about twelve on the far right of the picture. He was standing with a tall, black boy, a severe looking girl, a curly-haired, bespectacled lad and a grubby kid wearing an overlarge
tam o' shanter. Unlike everyone else, the boy wasn’t looking at the camera – his eyes were focused off to the left beyond the edge of the photograph. Unlike everyone else he looked surprised, shocked even, and his right hand was slightly raised as if he was about to point or reach out for something. All of this was intriguing enough, but not what had caught Ralf’s eye. It was the boy. His hair was so fair it looked white and his face lean and serious. It was just like looking at an older version of himself. His head whirled and suddenly he felt like the floor was about to fall out from under him.

With trembling fingers, he flipped the photo over, hoping for a date or a name but Gloria, it seemed, had never been very organised. There were only three words on the back, written in a looping, italic hand.

‘The Last Day’

What was that supposed to mean? Ralf was just trying to figure this out when he heard a sound behind him. It was Gloria. Now
I'm in trouble, he thought.

‘Found it, at last, I see,’ she said, a strange half-smile upon her face. ‘Good for you. I didn’t think you had it in you.’

He started guiltily. ‘Who?’ He stopped then sniffed. ‘Can you smell...?’ but the question tailed off when he saw a wisp of smoke in the hall. He shoved the photo in his pocket and hurried out of the library with Gloria close behind.

‘Boys love chips, don’t they?’ Gloria called after him. ‘Do you suppose they’re done?’

Judging from the dense black smoke that was billowing through the kitchen door, Ralf supposed the chips were very done indeed and his first instinct was to run and dial 999. There were two problems with this, though. The first was that, unlike every other house in London, Janus Gate did not have a phone and the second was that Gloria, upon seeing the smoke, had not done the sensible thing and made for the door, she had instead galloped, shrieking, right into the smoke filled kitchen. Ralf dashed after her. He caught her just as she was about to chuck a bowl of water on to the flaming chip pan. Ralf was only ten, but even he knew that this was an incredibly stupid thing to do, and he grabbed at her, screaming.

‘NO! It’ll explode!’

He managed to knock the bowl from her grasp but some of the water splashed on to the blaze. There was a popping roar and a drop of blistering fat connected with Gloria’s hand.

‘Aiiyeee!’

‘Stand back!’ he yelled.

‘Stop! Stop!’ Gloria screamed. ‘You mustn’t!’ She danced around the kitchen getting in Ralf’s way and cursing him as he switched off the gas.

‘If you’ll just let me –’ Ralf started, in what he hoped was a soothing voice, but Gloria shrieked again as he dampened a tea towel and lowered it over the flames.

‘If you could just sit –’ he tried, but Gloria was not to be calmed. She hopped around and wailed until Ralf realized at last that he must take charge. He seized one of her spindly arms and thrust her in to a chair.

There she watched as the fire winked out, tut-tutted as Ralf opened all the windows and muttered for the full five minutes he made her hold her hand in a bowl of cold water. By the time he’d found a medical kit, she’d stopped making noises. She gave an approving nod as he wound a bandage over the burn but said only a very stiff ‘Thank you’ when he handed her a cup of sweet tea.

Half an hour later, after wiping over the rather blackened kitchen in tense silence, they made a replacement lunch of bacon, brown sauce and marmalade sandwiches. These were not mad, Ralf thought, but so delicious they were genius.

The social worker arrived at three and Ralf persuaded a still subdued Gloria that, this time, the woman really must be allowed in to the house. Grudgingly, Gloria served tea and more sandwiches (baked bean, this time) in a vast conservatory overlooking the tangled garden. Jade accepted the tea, wrinkled a pert nose at the sandwiches and turned to face Ralf with a pretty smile and a questioning expression.

‘So how are you settling in?’

‘Well, I – er –’

Jade’s forehead creased into the tiniest of frowns. ‘Because if either of you is uncomfortable… if it’s too much for
Ms Osborne to manage…then perhaps other arrangements could be made?’

‘Too much?’ Gloria snapped with a disdainful snort. ‘When I was your age I was parachuting into Occupied France! I think I can manage a small boy!’

Ralf blanched. The image of her in the photograph came back to him with a jolt. 1940? Parachuting into France? That couldn’t be right, surely? He’d been told she was in her sixties, not ninety-something. He glanced nervously at Jade but she appeared not to have heard. She touched his arm. ‘Well?’

For a second Ralf lost himself in dizzy longing. He thought of escape and a nice, sane foster family with a TV and central heating, but caught sight of Gloria’s bandaged hand as, muttering, she reached for her fifth sugar lump. Their eyes met. She looked at him quizzically and Ralf knew he could not leave.

The photograph in his pocket felt like it was about to burn through the fabric. Those kids. Who
were
they? Who was that boy who looked so much like him? And why did that picture of young Gloria look so shockingly familiar? He had to know what was going on. Besides, Gloria might be nuts but she was still family and he couldn’t bring himself to hate her. The chips had been for him, hadn’t they? How would she manage without him? She’d probably burn the house down.

Faintly nauseous, and for reasons he would never be able to explain he took a huge bite of sandwich and, chewing stickily, forced himself to smile.

‘It’s great here,’ he lied. ‘I absolutely love it!’

He and Gloria exchanged a look. So began their life together.

If Ralf had believed staying would earn him any leeway with Gloria he was sadly mistaken. As soon as Jade left, he showed her the photograph but her answer left him wanting to scream.

‘The boy?’ she smiled mischievously. ‘Why, that’s Ralf Osborne, of course!’

‘But how? Who –?’

‘Oh no, dear,’ she said. ‘You’ll get no answers from me. A worthy man would find out the answers for himself.’

No amount of badgering could make her say more on the matter.

Removed from the warmth of his childhood home and all the familiar comforts it might have provided, Ralf was friendless and alone. He missed his dog. His eleventh birthday passed without card or comment and as time went by he became more and more lonely. Confused and restless, he would bring out the photograph and stare at the boy who was Ralf Osborne, wondering...

Gloria didn’t notice his turmoil. She spent long periods shut up in her room, during which time Ralf was forbidden to make any noise. At other times, however, she would kick cancans in the sitting room, tap dance in the kitchen or sing along to crackling old records in the dining room. (Ralf particularly hated it when she did this because all her favourite songs seemed to involve trumpets and the words ‘boogie-woogie’ being rep
eated every ten seconds.)

To avoid her, he spent a great deal of time in the library and by the end of summer he had a pale complexion to match his hair. He still looked at the photograph, but over time the urgency of finding out the other Ralf Osborne’s
story faded, diluted in the mix of everyday existence. He started to forget the past and look forward to the future.

Everythin
g would change when he started secondary school, he thought. All the Year Sevens would be starting at the same time and he would be just like everyone else. He’d make friends. Things would be better.

Fate willed things differently, however, and on his very first day, things got significantly worse.

He was thirty minutes early, munching a sausage roll and watching the first few kids make their way through the school gates when he noticed the two women on the corner. They were standing in the shade of a tall garden wall and the younger was absent-mindedly rocking a pram back and forth as she talked. Ralf’s neck prickled and the sausage roll suddenly felt like flour on his tongue. His eyes flickered in panic from the pram to the side road and back again.

‘Hey!’ He shouted across to them but they didn’t even look up.

Ralf dropped the sausage roll as the fear of what was about to happen was replaced by a feeling of complete terror that he was going to be too late. His breathing quickened. His pulse raced. He could almost hear the rush of blood through his veins. He sprinted across the busy road, cars missing him by inches, barged between the two women and grabbed the pram.

‘My baby!’ the woman shrieked and darted after him. He could hear two sets of feet clattering behind him as he ran. He was sprinting with the bouncing pram, a curly-haired baby staring up at him with wide, curious eyes, when the lorry thundered out of the side road. It skidded, careered up the pavement and crashed into the wall where only a few moments before the pram had stood. Bricks and dust exploded in all directions.

It took Ralf a second to register what had happened but then he stopped running and turned to witness a scene of devastation that he had known about, somehow, seconds before it happened. He was scared stiff that he could easily have been so wrong and was utterly petrified that he wasn’t.

The baby was crying now. There was a riot of sound, screeching tyres, shouts, cries of shock, and the continuous blast of the lorry’s horn as the driver, his face blank with shock, stared at the ruined wall in front of him.

There was a sobbing cry and the mother, tears streaming, snatched the baby to her chest. The woman stared fiercely at him and, for a moment, Ralf thought he was going to get a slap but then he was dragged, one handed, into an awkward embrace. The baby bawled against him as she choked, ‘Thank you. How did you…? Oh, thank you!’ Ralf stumbled free and half ran to the corner.

Kids were clustered at the school gates, staring – not at the wreckage or the screaming baby – but at him. In the centre was an aristocratic looking boy with dark hair and a mocking smile. His eyes met Ralf’s and the smile curled into a sneer. Face burning and eyes on the ground Ralf hurried away. He didn’t see the whispering crowd gather on the other side of the road, or behind them in the shadows, the tall, dark figure of the hooded man.

Ralf truanted his first day at secondary s
chool. It was not the best start but he didn’t feel he could face anyone. The accident was all over the local papers that evening and had been picked up by the tabloids the next day. A reporter made the mistake of calling at the house but was soon seen off by an irate Gloria who, for reasons unknown, threatened to have him arrested for treason. For once, Ralf was glad Janus Gate did not have a phone.

He made the effort to go into school the next day but was soon wishing he hadn’t.
‘BABY GEORGIA SAVED BY SCHOOLBOY HERO.’
The sight of the headline on the newsstands and in people’s hands on the bus made Ralf feel sick.