Elidor. Alan Garner

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СКАЧАТЬ just when it’s starting to be interesting? And isn’t this the way to your Thursday Street?”

      “Well – sort of – yes – I think so.”

      “Come on, then.”

      It was not one or two houses that were empty, but row after row and street after street. Grass grew in the cobbles everywhere, and in the cracks of the pavement. Doors hung awry. Nearly all the windows were boarded up, or jagged with glass. Only at a few were there any curtains, and these twitched as the children approached. But they saw nobody.

      “Isn’t it spooky?” said David. “You feel as if you ought to whisper. What if there was no one anywhere – even when we got back to Piccadilly?”

      Helen looked through a window in one of the houses.

      “This room’s full of old dustbins!” she said.

      “What’s that chalked on the door?”

      “Leave post at Number Four.”

      “Number Four’s empty, too.”

      “I shouldn’t like to be here at night, would you?” said Helen.

      “I keep feeling we’re being watched,” said Roland.

      “It’s not surprising,” said David, “with all these windows.”

      “I’ve felt it ever since we were at the map in Piccadilly,” said Roland, “and all the way up Oldham Road.”

      “Oh, come off it, Roland,” said Nicholas. “You’re always imagining things.”

      “Look there,” said David. “They’ve started to bash the houses down. I wonder if we’ll see a demolition gang working. They do it with a big iron ball, you know. They swing it from a crane.”

      Something had certainly hit the street they were in now, for only the fronts of the houses were standing, and the sky showed on the inside of windows, and staircases led up a patchwork gable end of wallpaper.

      At the bottom of the row the children stopped. The streets continued, with cobbles and pavements and lamp posts – but there were no houses, just fields of rubble.

      “Where’s your Thursday Street now?” said Nicholas.

      “There,” said David.

      He pointed to a salvaged nameplate that was balanced on a brickheap. “Thursday Street.”

      “You brought us straight here, anyway, Roland,” said Nicholas. “The whole place has been flattened. It makes you think, doesn’t it?”

      “There’s a demolition gang!” said Helen.

      Alone and black in the middle of the wasteland stood a church. It was a plain Victorian building, with buttresses and lancet windows, a steep roof, but no spire. And beside it were a mechanical excavator and a lorry.

      “I can’t see anybody,” said Roland.

      “They’ll be inside,” said Nicholas. “Let’s go and ask if we can watch.”

      The children set off along what had been Thursday Street. But as they reached the church even Nicholas found it hard to keep up his enthusiasm, for there was neither sound nor movement anywhere.

      “We’d hear them if they were working, Nick. They’ve gone home.”

      David turned the iron handle on the door, and pushed. The church clanged as he rattled the heavy latch, but the door seemed to be locked.

      “They wouldn’t leave all this gear lying around,” said Nicholas. “They may be having a tea-break or something.”

      “The lorry’s engine’s still warm,” said Roland. “And there’s a jacket in the cab.”

      “The tailboard’s down, too. They’ve not finished loading all this wood yet.”

      “What is it?”

      “Smashed up bits of pew and floorboards.”

      “Let’s wait, then,” said Nicholas. “Is there anything else?”

      “No – yes, there is. There’s a ball behind the front wheel.”

      “Fetch it out, and we’ll have a game.”

      Roland pulled a white plastic football from under the lorry, and then he stopped.

      “What’s the matter?”

      “Listen,” said Roland. “Where’s the music coming from?”

      “What music? You’re hearing things.”

      “No, listen, Nick. He’s right.”

      A fiddle was being played. The notes were thin, and pitched high in a tune of sadness. Away from the children an old man stood alone on the corner of a street, under a broken lamp post. He was poorly dressed, and wore a crumpled hat.

      “Why’s he playing here?”

      “Perhaps he’s blind,” said Helen. “Hadn’t we better tell him where he is? He probably thinks there are houses all round him.”

      “Blind people know things like that by echoes,” said David. “Leave him alone: he may be practising. Oh, hurry up, Roland! We’re waiting!”

      Roland let go of the ball, and kicked it as it fell.

      He was about twenty yards from the others, and he punted the ball to reach them on the first bounce: but instead it soared straight from his foot, up and over their heads so quickly that they could hardly follow it. And the ball was still gaining speed, and rising, when it crashed through the middle lancet of the west window of the church.

      David whistled. “Bullseye, Roland! Do it again!”

      “Shh!” said Helen.

      “It doesn’t matter. They’re pulling the place down, aren’t they?”

      “I didn’t kick it very hard,” said Roland.

      “Not much!”

      “Never mind,” said Helen, “I’ll go and see if I can climb in.”

      “We’ll all go,” said David.

      “No. Stay here in case the gang comes back,” said Helen, and she disappeared round the corner of the church.

      “Trust you to break a window,” said Nicholas.

      “I’m sorry, Nick: I didn’t mean to. I just kicked the ball, and it seemed to fly by itself.”

      “It СКАЧАТЬ