Art
Art
As Art climbed onto the minibus, Lucky waved at him, gesturing for Art to sit in the empty seat beside him. Lucky—still silent, but so different from the boy who’d refused even to look at him three months ago.
Art sat down and stared at Daphne, sitting a few rows ahead of him, just behind Lydia. How had he got her so wrong? He’d thought her so cold and aloof, so irritatingly perfect and patronizing. Yet now he knew she was just as flawed and vulnerable as he was. More so, even. But she was also magnificent . None of them would be here now if it weren’t for her. They were changed, as if her energy had somehow leeched into them all, without them noticing.
“What on earth have you got in your bag, Anna? We’re only going away for a day,” Art said, gesturing at the huge, battered leather bag Anna had on the seat next to her, across the aisle from him.
“It’s my travel bag, from my days on the road. We learned always to pack for every eventuality: spare undies, toiletries, torch, first aid kit, Kendal Mint Cake, Mace, Lucozade, and passport,” said Anna.
“You don’t need a passport to get to Bristol,” said Ziggy.
“I know that, obviously,” said Anna, who was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words Keep on Trucking . “But old habits die hard. I never knew when my route might change, and I’d end up taking a load to Düsseldorf. Better safe than sorry.”
The mood on the bus was jubilant, only dented slightly by the need to stop for Ruby to go to the loo. And just thirty minutes later, she announced she needed to go again. The bus had also started to smell a little pungent, on account of baby Kylie.
“OK, OK, I’ll stop at the next services!” said Lydia.
“Nee-nah. Nee-nah,” said Kylie, peering out of the rear window.
“Bloody hell, it’s a police car,” said Ziggy. “I think they want us to stop right now, Lydia.”
The minibus fell eerily silent, except for the ticking sound of the indicator and the police siren, as Lydia maneuvered it onto the hard shoulder. She turned off the engine and pressed the button to open the bus doors. They all stared as a young, slightly weary-looking, female police officer climbed on board.
“Why did it take you so long to pull over?” she said, clearly not at all happy.
“So sorry, officer. I was looking for a service station for another urgent toilet break. You have no idea how many of those we need with this lot,” said Lydia. “It’s a miracle we get anywhere, to be honest. So initially when you started flashing all those lights and the traffic began moving out of our way, I thought maybe you were giving us a helpful escort. But then I realized that you couldn’t have known about the state of Kylie’s nappy, or Ruby’s weak bladder, and you were being rather insistent, so I thought it best to stop.”
“I don’t think you’re allowed to disclose sensitive and personal medical information like that without permission, Lydia. Or a warrant. Does she have a warrant?” said Ruby.
“I wasn’t speeding, was I?” said Lydia.
“No. In fact, if anything, you were driving dangerously slowly. But we’ve been asked to apprehend this vehicle. I believe someone in this minibus is wanted by the Met for questioning,” said the police officer.
Art looked over toward Daphne. He could see the back of her elegant neck, tense and unmoving, a deer caught in the crosshairs. He could feel the adrenaline emanating from her skin, as if the intense night they’d spent in that cupboard had connected them somehow, in a way he sensed was irreversible. In a way he wanted to be irreversible.
“Oh gosh,” said Lydia. “Is he pressing charges? I’d thought he might. I just snapped, you see. After twenty years of dismissive comments, criticisms, or—even worse—being completely overlooked and ignored, I’d just had enough. Although I admit it was partly my own fault.”
“It was not your fault, Lydia,” chanted Art, William, Ruby, and Anna for the hundredth time.
“That photo montage was the final straw,” continued Lydia. “The one that broke the camel’s back, I guess you could say. Are you going to arrest me? What on earth are the girls going to think? Their own mother, a common criminal…”
Art reached his hand across the aisle. The upside of ten years of shoplifting was fingers which, despite resembling gnarled knobs of ginger, were incredibly deft. Checking that everyone was distracted by the drama at the front of the bus, he slowly pulled open the zip on Anna’s bag. Luck was on his side, as his fingers closed around the thing he was searching for, right at the top. He tucked it into the seat pocket in front of him. He just had to get the police officer away from Daphne, farther down the bus.
“Lydia, my dear,” he said, “I don’t think they’re looking for you. It’s me they’re after. You know, it’s almost a relief after all these years. It had become an addiction, I think. But the stakes had to get higher and higher to create the same rush. I should have stuck to bingo, like an ordinary pensioner. I think the only way I was ever going to be able to stop was to get taken down. And now, it seems, that time has come. Bang to rights.”
He held his hands out in front of him, clenched into fists, just like he’d done in every police show in which he’d played an insignificant criminal with no lines and no major role in the plot development. To his relief, the policewoman walked down the aisle toward him, and he could see Daphne edging over, toward the open door of the bus.
“HIDE EVERYTHING! IT’S A FUCKING RAID!” shouted Lucky, right next to him. The police officer took a few paces back in shock. But she wasn’t as shocked as the rest of them were to hear Lucky speak. Not just a word, but two whole glorious sentences! With an adjective, even! The whole bus erupted into applause. Except Maggie, who started barking in alarm.
“Shut UP, Maggie Thatcher!” said Anna.
“Bravo, Lucky! We knew you could do it!” Art said to the little boy next to him, who looked even more surprised at himself than Art was. “Sorry,” he said to the stunned policewoman. “It’s just those are the first words we’ve ever heard him say, and he’s nearly five. Not an ideal choice of vocabulary, obviously. Better if he’d started with a ‘hello,’ or a ‘thank you,’ but hey-ho. You work with what you’re given.”
“What did he mean— hide everything ?” she said, rubbing her forehead and looking completely overwhelmed.
“Who knows, dear girl. Lucky’s past is a bit of a black box. He’s the most inappropriately named child you can imagine,” he said. “Anyhow, he wasn’t referring to me. None of my ill-gotten gains are aboard the vehicle. Well, not many, at least.”
“Look,” said the officer, with a sigh. “I have no idea what you’ve been up to, and I’m quite honestly not sure that I want to know, but it’s not you I’m after. Or her,” she said, nodding at Lydia.
Art saw Daphne, who’d moved over to the seat nearest the open door, freeze as the police officer looked in her direction, like a playground game of Grandmother’s Footsteps. Then, as she turned away again, Daphne stood and started climbing slowly down the steps.
“Did Social Services send you?” said Ziggy, from the back of the bus. The police officer began walking down the aisle toward him, and away from Art. “I honestly had no choice, and I swear I’ll never, ever do it again.”
Art stared out of the window at Daphne, standing on the hard shoulder. She looked up at him and gave him a jaunty salute. He took Anna’s passport from the seat pocket in front of him, slid open the little ventilation window above Lucky’s head, and tossed the passport out toward Daphne.
Anna didn’t look much like Daphne, but he remembered what Daphne had said about using the stereotypes to your advantage. To most people, especially the young, one geriatric looked much the same as another. If Daphne dyed her hair the same lurid scarlet as Anna’s hair in her passport photo, that would be all most observers would see.
Good luck , he mouthed at her.
“If you’re here on behalf of the council, then tell them it’s not criminal damage, it’s art. They’re just a bunch of philistines who can’t tell the difference,” said Ruby to the policewoman.
“Well, I’m not going in for questioning again. How many times do I have to tell you lot, they all died of natural causes? I’m just extraordinarily unlucky with husbands.” said Anna. She was, Art thought, in danger of protesting too much.
“Not as unlucky as them,” he muttered.
“WILL YOU ALL PLEASE STOP CONFESSING!” shouted the police officer, who was holding a photocopied picture in her hand. A picture that was, unmistakably, of Daphne. She waved it at them all rather aggressively. “THIS is who I’m looking for.”
Everyone went silent. Almost as one, they turned and stared at the seat immediately behind Lydia. The empty seat. Then, they all swiveled to look toward the open bus door, and the motorway beside them, where they could clearly see Daphne, walking stick tucked under her arm, vaulting the central reservation.
Art didn’t think he’d ever met such an extraordinary, vital, and beautiful woman.
If only he’d realized that before she’d gone.