Alchemy. Margaret Mahy

the shop walls, preparing to track her at a discreet distance.

      But Jess had arrived at what must be her house. She was walking past a blue letterbox up a long drive between two neat hedges, towards a tall two-storied building set back behind other houses which peered enigmatically out between them. Heading towards the footbridge himself, Roland watched her as she made for a green front door, then hesitated in front of it, fumbling in her bag. She’s looking for her keys, he thought. That means there’s no one at home yet. As he speculated, Jess found her key, unlocked the door and stepped through. The door seemed to spring shut behind her as if it were every bit as anxious as she seemed to be to keep the outside world at bay. She was gone.

      Roland suddenly began to laugh silently to himself, shaking his head as he did so. “Fabuloso!” said his inner voice sarcastically, making fun not only of the world but of Roland himself. What a day! (“Not now,” his inner voice instructed him. “Think about all that later.”) So! Dreary old Jess Ferret had imagined she could just shrug him off. Well, he had been too clever for her, hadn’t he? He now knew where she lived – there, directly across the river.

      In spite of the frustrations of the hunt, Roland realised he had enjoyed himself and, unexpectedly, was still enjoying himself, alone in this overlooked piece of the city. He knew that the stream must be Carlings Brook, a tributary of the main river. Under the willows below these gates, close to the river’s edge, was a picnic table which seemed somehow surreal. A notice board caught his eye. There were to be stalls and raffles there next Wednesday afternoon. There was to be a magician. Riverlaw Kindergarten was hoping to raise money for its equipment fund.

      Roland crossed the strip of green to look down into the water. For all its sleek, soft flow, it was edged not only with living cress, but with sodden cartons, cigarette butts, anonymous strips of plastic and Coke cans. Flow, flow, flow, something said, breathing into him as if it were trying to dissolve into his blood and to negotiate his pumping heart. That delicate chatter began once more. Unfolding, unfolding, transform, transform, transform! (“Back away,” his inner voice warned him. “Careful! Back away!”)

      So Roland backed away by thinking of his car, waiting out on the main road beside a hungry parking meter. Home, he thought. I’ll go home now. As he walked up the lane once more, he puzzled, not over the breathy chattering (which he always preferred to ignore), but over his inexplicable moment of exhilaration. Realising he was grinning with pleasure, he reined in his wide smile, but then shrugged and let it spread again. Why not grin? Why not enjoy what was happening whenever he could. An adventure! I’ll work it out later, he thought. Heading for the car, he saw to his horror that a parking warden was standing beside it, writing out a ticket.

      Roland marched forward as the warden moved on, to snatch the ticket from behind the windscreen wiper, grimacing as he did so. Frowning down at the ticket he felt himself changing back from being Roland the mysterious huntsman, into Roland the man of the family who must soon make some sort of confession to his mother. And this confession would probably have to be made in front of his two younger brothers – nine-year-old Danny, and Martin who was seven, both of whom watched him perpetually, waiting for him to make the sort of mistakes which would bring him down to their own level.

       6. REMEMBERING MIDNIGHT TEARS

      For the first few months after his father had disappeared, Roland would wake in the night to hear his mother crying in the darkness of her room, across the hall from his. She would be feeding the new baby and weeping wearily, almost as if she were lamenting in her sleep. The sound of that sadness, faint though it was, had pushed its way out relentlessly from under her door and in under his.

      Roland had been eight years old when Martin was born, and his father had left them. Thinking back, it somehow seemed to Roland that, as his mother had staggered out at the front door, desperately counting money for the taxi fare (and pausing, every so often, to concentrate on the sort of breathing which would urge her unborn baby out into the world), his father had been racing through the back door, also eager to catch a taxi but not the same one. His father’s taxi would whisk him to the airport so that he could fly up and away, leaving them all behind him. It was a long time ago now, years ago, but, though he hoped his mother’s tears were over and done with, he was never quite sure. Certainly, the sound of her sadness had spread itself backwards and forwards through time, and whenever he was able to tell her of some new school achievement, he was aware of a hidden pleasure in the idea that he might be balancing things out for her. Sometimes he felt with dismay that he, and he alone, stood between his mother and the lurking sadness which was still there, waiting to move in on her once more.

      “You do look like your father,” she would say in a shy voice, for she knew that Roland did not want to look like anyone but himself. “He was very good-looking,” she would add defensively. Good-looking or not, Roland did not want to resemble in any way the man who had taken half the family money out of the bank and who had shot off – first to Australia, then to Canada – never to be seen again.

      Yet though she might weep at night, during the day Roland’s mother (“the indomitable Mrs Fairfield,” he had once heard the principal of his school call her), had been staunch. She had found an office job, had taken a night-course in computer skills, and had worked hard and long. Life had occasionally buckled and sometimes even snapped during the first two years, but Mrs Fairfield had twisted everything back into some sort of shape; had mended or half mended the breaks so that things worked well enough to get from one day to the next. Slowly, she had won power over her altered world and had been able to afford, first a better nursery for the baby, Martin, and then, when the time came for Roland to go to college, fees for a school that was officially admired, and (unofficially) resented for the good opinion it had of itself.

      “I know it’s a struggle to send me to Crichton’s,” Roland had once said tentatively “I could just as easily go to Huntsbury High, you know.”

      “Oh, no!” his mother had cried, just as he had secretly hoped she would. “I’m sure Huntsbury is a good school, but Crichton’s has got something extra. They do really well when it comes to public exams and scholarships and so on. And style! It’s got style! Everyone says so. And, oh boy, we need all the style we can get in this life.”

       7. LOOKING INTO AN INVENTED DARKNESS

      When Roland opened the door that evening the sound of his brothers’ perpetual arguments burst in on him. Hearing this familiar sound, he grimaced a little. His mother was sitting by the heater and reading a magazine – a rare, restful luxury for her. But then Friday night was always an easy, fast-food night for the Fairfields. A rising politician was holding forth on the television screen, tilting his eyebrows and smiling confidently as he spoke, but the sound was turned down so that Mrs Fairfield’s reading would not be interrupted. Glancing at the screen, Roland immediately recognised the speaker.

      “That’s old Hudson’s brother,” he remarked, his interest rather more sour than it would have been this time yesterday. “They reckon he’s a future prime minister.”

      The future prime minister mouthed and gesticulated, but Roland’s mother was not interested. Nevertheless, her face had brightened. As she stood up, she gave him that familiar beaming smile he knew so well.

      “So there you are at last,” she cried. “Is the car all right? Did you remember to lock it?”

      “Yes, of course,” said Roland impatiently, tilting his left shoulder down so that his pack thumped on to the floor, while he dangled the car keys from his extended right hand. Amused by his irritation, his mother moved quickly on to the next question.

      “So what do you reckon? Pizza or Chinese?”

      “Chinese,” said Roland.

      “Oh, well, that’s that,” said Mrs Fairfield. “Now, give me a kiss!”