“All right,” said Nicholas. “You’re fed up. So am I. But we’re better off here than at home.”
“It wouldn’t be as cold as this,” said David.
“That’s what you say. Remember how it was last time we moved? Newspapers on the floor, and everyone sitting on packing cases. No thanks!”
“We’re spent up,” said David. “There isn’t even enough for a cup of tea. So what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. Think of something.”
They sat on the bench behind the statue of Watt. The sculptor had given him a stern face, but the pigeons had made him look as though he was just very sick of Manchester.
“We could go and ride one of the lifts in Lewis’s again,” said Helen.
“I’ve had enough of that,” said Nicholas. “And anyway, they were watching us: we’d be chucked off.”
“What about the escalators?”
“They’re no fun in this crowd.”
“Then let’s go home,” said David. “Hey, Roland, have you finished driving that map?”
Roland stood a few yards away, turning the handles of a street map. It was a tall machine of squares and wheels and lighted panels.
“It’s smashing,” he said. “Come and look. See this roller? It’s the street index: each one has its own letter and number. You can find any street in Manchester. It’s easy. Watch.”
Roland spun a wheel at the side of the map, and the index whirled round, a blur under the glass.
“There must be some pretty smooth gears inside,” said Nicholas.
The blur began to flicker as the revolving drum lost speed. Roland pressed his finger on the glass.
“We’ll find the one I’m pointing at when it stops,” he said.
The drum turned slowly, and the names ticked by: and the drum stopped.
“Thursday Street,” said Helen. “Mind your finger. ‘Ten, seven L’.”
“Ten will be the postal district,” said Roland. “You turn the map wheel until number seven is level with these squares painted red on the glass, and then Thursday Street is in square L. There.”
“I can’t see it,” said Nicholas.
The map square was full of small roads, some too short to hold the name even when it was abbreviated. But at last the children found a ‘Th. S.’ jumbled among the letters.
“Titchy, isn’t it?” said David.
“It’s such a funny name,” said Roland. “Thursday Street. Shall we go and see what it’s like?”
“What?”
“It’s not far. We’re in Piccadilly here, and Thursday Street’s off to the right up Oldham Road. It shouldn’t be hard to find.”
“I might have known you’d think of something daft,” said Nicholas.
“But let’s do it,” said Helen. “Please, Nick. You and David’ll only start scrapping if we don’t. And when we’ve found it we’ll go home: then nobody’s bossed about.”
“OK,” said David. “That’s all right by me.”
“It’s still daft,” said Nicholas.
“Can you think of anything?”
“Oh, all right. This is your idea, Roland, so you take us. Can you find the way?”
“I think so. We’ll go up Oldham Road for a bit, and then cut through the back streets.”
They left Watt. David and Nicholas were better tempered now that there was something positive to be done.
“This is the turning we want,” said Roland after a while. “Down this next alley.”
“Mm,” said Nicholas. “It looks a bit niffy to me.”
The children had never been in the streets behind the shops. The change was abrupt.
“Phew!” said Helen. “All those fancy windows and posh carpets at the front, and it’s a rubbish dump at the back!”
They were in an alley that ran between loading bays and store-houses lit by unshaded bulbs: the kerb was low and had a metal edge, and there was the smell of boxwood and rotten fruit. Fans pumped hot, stale air into the children’s faces through vents that were hung with feathers of dirt.
Beyond the alley they came to a warren of grimy streets, where old women stood in the doorways, wearing sacks for aprons, and men in carpet slippers sat on the steps. Dogs nosed among crumpled paper in the gutter; a rusty bicycle wheel lay on the cobbles. A group of boys at the corner talked to a girl whose hair was rolled in brightly coloured plastic curlers.
“I don’t like this, Nick,” said Helen. “Should we go back up the alley?”
“No. They’ll think we’re scared. Look as though we know where we’re going – taking a short cut; something like that.”
As the children walked past, all the eyes in the street watched them, without interest or hostility, but the children felt very uncomfortable, and walked close together. The girl on the corner laughed, but it could have been at something one of the boys had said.
They went on through the streets.
“Perhaps it’s not a good idea,” said Roland. “Shall we go home?”
“Are you lost?” said Nicholas.
“No, but—”
“Now what’s all this?” said David.
Ahead of them the streets continued, but the houses were empty, and broken.
“That’s queer,” said Nicholas. “Come on: it looks as though Roland has something after all.”
“Let’s go back,” said Roland.
“What, 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,