The Bone Clocks

I duck down, out of sight, wanting to puke. Did they see me just now? No. Stella would’ve said something breezy and poisonous. There’s a gap between the machine and the screen. Stella’s feeding Vi

“I didn’t hear the magic word,” says Stella.

Vi

Stella spikes the strawberry from the ice-cream dish and pushes it up Vi

I could erupt and hurl plates, call them every name under the sun, and get a ride back to Gravesend in gales of tears and a police car, but I blunder back to the heavy door, which I pull instead of push and push instead of pull ’cause my vision’s melting away, watched by the old moo, oh, Christ, yeah, ’cause I’m bags more interesting than the News of the Worldnow, and those button eyes of her don’t miss one single detail …

OUT IN THE open air my face dissolves into tears and snot, and a Morris Maxi slows down for the old fart at the wheel to get a good eyeful and I shout, “What are youbloody looking at?” and, God, it hurts it hurts it hurts, and I clamber over this gate into a wheatfield, where I’m hidden from the roundabout, and now I sob and sob and sob and sob and sob and sob and punch the ground and punch the ground and sob and sob and sob … And That’s it, I think, I’ve no more tears left now, and then Vi

The wind strokes and stirs the wheat.

The wheat ears go pitter patter pitter.

I’ll never get over Vi

TWO HOURS AFTER the roundabout I get to an end-of-the-world village called Eastchurch. There’s a sign saying ROCHESTER 23. Twenty-three miles? Little wonder I’ve got blisters like Ayers Rock on my feet. Strange thing is, after the Texaco garage in Rochester it’s all a bit of a blur till the Kingsferry Bridge onto Sheppey. Actually, it’s a total blur. Like a section of a song that’s been taped over. Was I walking along in a trance? Eastchurch is in a trance. There’s one small Spar supermarket, but it’s shut ’cause it’s Sunday and the newsagent next to it’s shut, too, but the owner’s moving about inside so I knock till he opens up and get a packet of Digestive biscuits and a jar of peanut butter, plus another pack of Rothmans and a box of matches. He asks if I’m sixteen so I look him straight in the eye and say I turned seventeen in March, actually, which does the trick. Outside I light up as a mod and his modette drive by on a scooter, staring at me, but my mind’s on the shrinking pounds and pence I’ve got left. I’ll get more money tomorrow, as long as Mr. Harty doesn’t play fu

There’s a phone box by the bus stop. Mam’d go all sarky and Mammish if I phone her, but if I phone Brendan’s hopefully Ruth’ll answer, and I’ll say to get the message to Dad—not Mam, Dad—that I’m okay but I’ve left school and I’ll be away for a bit. Then Mam won’t be able to send me on a you-could’ve-been-abducted guilt trip the next time we meet. But when I open up the phone box I find the receiver’s been ripped off its cord, so that’s that.

Perhaps I’ll ask to phone from the farm. Perhaps.

·   ·   ·

IT’S NEARLY FOUR P.M. by the time I turn down Old Ferry Lane onto the chalky track that leads to Black Elm Farm. On-and-off sprinklers in the fields spray cool clouds, and I sort of drink the vapor in like super-fine water-floss, and look at the little rainbows. The farmhouse itself is an old, hunkered-down brick building with a modern bit stuck on the side, and there’s a big steel barn, a couple of buildings made from concrete blocks, and a windbreak of those tall thin trees. Here comes this black dog, like a fat seal on stumpy legs, barking its head off and wagging its whole body, and in five seconds flat we’re best mates. Suddenly I miss Newky, and I pet the dog’s head.

“I see you’ve met Sheba.” A girl in dungarees steps out of the older part of the house; she must be about eighteen. “You’ve just arrived for picking?” Her accent’s fu

“Yeah. Yes. Where do I … check in?”

She finds my “check in” amusing, which pisses me off ’cause how am I s’posed to know the right word? She jerks her thumb at the door—she’s wearing wristbands over both wrists like some te

“THERE’LL BE TWENTY pallets’ worth by three o’clock tomorrow, see,” comes a man’s voice from the office down the hall, “and if your truck isn’t here at one minute past three, then the lot’ll be going to the Fine Fare depot in Aylesford.” He hangs up and adds, “Lying twat.” By now I’ve recognized Mr. Harty from my phone call this morning. The door behind me flies open and an older woman in stained overalls, green wellies, and a spotted neckerchief thing sort of shoos me on. “Chop suey, young lady, the doctor will see you now. Mush-mush. New picker, yes? Of course you are.” She bustles me forwards into a poky office smelling of potatoes in a sack. There’s a desk, a typewriter, a phone, filing cabinets, a poster with GLORIOUS RHODESIA on it and photos of wildlife, and a view of a farmyard and a decomposing tractor. Gabriel Harty’s in his sixties, has a low-tide sort of face and hair tufting out of his nose and ears. Ignoring me, he tells the woman, “Bill Dean was just on the blower. Wanted to discuss ‘a distribution niggle.’ ”

“Let me guess,” says the woman. “His drivers have all got bubonic plague, so could we run tomorrow’s strawberries over to Canterbury.”

“Ye-es. Know what else he said? ‘I wish you landowners would try to help the rest of us.’ Landowner. The bank owns the land and the land owns you. That’s what being a landowner means. He’s the one taking his family to the Seychelles, or wherever it is.” Mr. Harty relights his pipe and stares out of the window. “Who are you?”