“I wish I’d seen you back when you were performing,” Maggie said. “I bet you were amazing.”
Gerald Benning put his arm round her. He never really spoke about his show-business past, but somehow word had got around the children here, probably via Martin, and they liked to ask him questions about his former life. Gerald always answered with good humour, but usually steered the conversation around to other things and asked them about themselves. He thought it was important to remind them, especially the younger ones, what their world was like before all this had happened.
He got them talking about the little aspects of that time, the simple things that they’d forgotten: family holidays, best birthday presents, favourite movies and songs, names of pets and who they’d sat next to in school. He didn’t promise them that, one day, those things would return and everything would be as it was. That would have been cruel. They wouldn’t have believed him anyway. But those memories told them they weren’t just refugees dependant on the charity of a suspicious nation, and that there had been goodness and love in their lives, and they shouldn’t hate their parents for rejecting them. It wasn’t their fault. Dancing Jax was to blame.
Maggie smiled at him. “God knows what we’d have done without you,” she said. “All these months, stuck away up here with less freedom than we had in the camp and nothing to do, day in, day out, but snipe and bitch. We’d have probably killed each other by now. I was ready to strangle that Esther first thing today. She’s worse than she ever was. What a spiteful cow; she’s really doing my head in.”
“She’s difficult to like, that one,” Gerald conceded. “And, since she went all limpet-like on Nicholas, he’s developed full-blown annoyingness too. But we’re none of us perfect and you’ve all been through enough to send most people round the twist and back again. Being cooped up here like battery hens doesn’t help. Don’t let it get to you. Rise above it, my dear.”
“You always make it seem better somehow. Even in this miserable place…”
“Titipu,” he interrupted with a wink. Gerald had mischievously christened the mountain base after the fictional town featured in The Mikado, which was a huge insult to their North Korean hosts. There was nothing but enmity between them and Japan, where The Mikado was set.
“See, all the kids call it that now. They dunno what it is, but it sounds funny. You’ve given them something to laugh at, as long as the Generals don’t find out. You make it bearable and keep us busy with daft schemes. Look how you wangled your way into the kitchens to make that birthday cake for Lee last month.”
“He’d have been happier if I’d managed to get him some ciggies.”
“Oh, don’t expect him to show gratitude, he’s never been the demonstrative type, but that meant a lot to him that did. He’s not the same since Charm… since she died.”
“Poor girl,” Gerald said sadly. “That was horrific for all of you. I’d like to have known her. She sounds dazzling.”
Maggie lowered her eyes. “Best friend I ever had,” she said. “Not a day goes by when I don’t think about her – and my Marcus – and miss them. After all these months, it still hurts.”
“Course it does. And it always will, but it won’t always be as sharp and you’ll remember how good they made you feel more often than the pain of losing them. Takes a long time though.”
Maggie bit her lip guiltily. She had forgotten the Scottish boy, Alasdair. He had lured the Punchinellos away so that the rest of them could escape. They had all heard the ferocity of the gunfire in those dark woods and understood what it signified. His body was probably still in the New Forest, unburied and picked at by birds and animals – or worse.
And then there was Mrs Benedict…
“I should’ve done more to help Charm’s mum,” Maggie said unhappily. “That first week, after she found out what happened, I should’ve…”
“There was nothing anyone could do,” Gerald told her firmly. “Mrs Benedict just couldn’t live with her grief. Not everyone can. Don’t you ever think you could have stopped her. Despair is a terrible thing, the absolute worst.”
He blew on his gloved hands as if to dispel the sadness and the vapour cloud melted into the fog.
“But it’s no use dwelling on the past, young Maggie,” he declared breezily. “‘Turn, oh turn, in this direction,’ as the chorus sing in Patience. Worse things are undoubtedly just around the corner and we’ve got to be ready for them. But, in the meantime, ‘Let the merry cymbals sound.’ We’re not at home to Mr Despair and we’ve got to ensure your friend Lee doesn’t slip down into that dark pit.”
The girl agreed. “He’s not about to join your choir though,” she told Gerald. “I don’t know how you roped the rest of us into it either. My voice is never going to be mistaken for Adele’s. And then there’s the music lessons you do, way more popular than Martin’s boring maths classes. You really do keep our spirits up, not to mention the stuff you coax out of the guards for us. I’ve no idea how you manage that. I can’t get a smile out of the surly buggers.”
“I let them slay me at chess,” said Gerald, waving the compliment aside. “They’re mad about it. Now, glad you mentioned the choir because I’ve decided it’s going to be Christmas carols all this week – and not just the obvious ones. There’ll be no jingle bells, Batman smells or shepherds’ socks from you lot. Let’s show these gloomy Titiputians what they’re missing.”
“They’re not going to let us sing Chrimble songs, are they? I thought you said they were anti the whole thing in a mega way?”
“Oh, they are. Before this madness happened, the South Koreans used to put lights round a tower near the demilitarised zone so it looked like a Christmas tree and this bunch always threatened to fire rockets at it. They didn’t want their hoi polloi getting any fancy ideas. So what we’re not going to do is tell them we’re singing carols. I know some lovely old ones that aren’t too specific and I can tweak the words in others. They won’t cotton on; they’ll just think we’re doing our usual practising. I might even get the interpreters and guards joining in – now there’s a challenge. If I could get them to warble a wassail, or ‘The Coventry Carol’, that would be my Christmas present to myself. How hot do you think their Latin is?”
Maggie laughed. “About as good as mine – which is non-existent.”
“Fab, I might see if we can get away with a bit of ‘Quem Pastores’. That should fox them.”
“Feels weird talking about Christmas here where they don’t believe in anything but the party and their precious leader,” the girl murmured. “I used to love it: tinsel and telly, parties and the food – specially the food. I used to really wind up my stepmum by pigging out. Seems like another life now; so much has happened since.”
Gerald gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “You’ve grown up, that’s what’s happened to you,” he said. “You’ve realised you don’t need to live up to anyone’s expectations but your own. That stepmother was a monster, trying to make you anorexic, and, of course, you being you went and did the exact opposite – you barmpot. But look at you now. How much weight have you lost since you got here? Not that you needed to: you were lovely as you were. The other kids have managed to put some on, but you must’ve trimmed down by a couple of stone at least.”
Maggie looked back into the fog. “I didn’t need to be big any more,” she said. “And, one thing the camp taught me, there’s a better chance of survival if I can run a hundred metres without collapsing. That’s why I jog up and down here every morning; besides, there’s not much else to do.”
“Yes,” Gerald agreed. “And the running isn’t done with yet. This place has lasted much longer than I expected. Austerly Fellows must be saving it for the very end.”
“When