Everlasting Lane (39 page)

Now I was free I stumbled between the rows of children not being nearly as careful of toes as Anna-Marie had been. I didn’t have time for that and I didn’t even have time to say I was sorry either. By the time I was half way across the hall most of the children were hurriedly pulling their feet back under their knees for fear of being trampled.

‘Peter Lambert!’ cried Mrs Carpenter above all the commotion. ‘Where on earth do you think you’re going?!’

‘Go on, Peter. Go on.’ It was Miss Pevensie out of her chair and waving me on. It was funny really because it wasn’t like I even really knew her or anything. I mean I wasn’t even in her class.

I ran out of the hall, through the lobby and out into the car park. I was pleased to leave all the shouting and screaming behind. And I didn’t even need to look around to find Anna-Marie. I knew where she’d gone. I skidded around and nearly fell but managed to go so fast that I didn’t. The gravel crunched beneath my feet. As I spun around the corner towards the playground I could see her. She was standing on the swing, clutching the chains in each hand. The chains of the broken swing hung beside her.

‘Anna-Marie!’ I cried, now running across the dried field and the broken grass. ‘Anna-Marie!’ as loudly as I could.

She looked up.

As I drew near I gasped: ‘Anna-Marie, don’t.’

She stared at me but not like she could really see me. It was like she’d seen a little boat on the horizon or maybe a distant swimmer waving at her as the sunlight twinkled on the waves.

I was right in front of her and held out my hands where they cradled the tiny fairy like a crib.

Oh, I didn’t tell you I got it, did I? It was when fat old Mr Kirrin was scrabbling round on his hands and knees for all those coins on the floor. It was easy.

‘It’s all right,’ I said, puffing for air. ‘It’s going to be all right.’

Anna-Marie frowned at my open palm and then squinted as if she couldn’t quite see what I was offering.

‘What is it?’ she said.

‘It’s …’ Well, I wanted to say that it was what Mr Merridew said: that it was something different from what it was. You know, like my mummy’s ring. That it was a symbol. Or a … a token. But that would’ve sounded stupid, wouldn’t it? So I just said: ‘It’s the fairy.’

And then her eyes lit up and went all wide. She whooped and leapt off the swing leaving it waving wildly in the air.

‘It’s for you,’ I said as she drew close. ‘I got it for you.’

‘How did you …?’ she sniffed. ‘How much did it cost?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Nothing.’ And then I said, ‘I stole it.’

And then she smiled and closed her eyes. And then she grinned, and then she laughed her head off. Literally.

She reached out and took the fairy in her own hand. She looked at it. That was all: she just looked at it. And then she said, ‘Thank you, Peter,’ and I thought my heart was going to blow up. I mean like a bomb, not like a balloon.

Tommie came trotting up behind us. He was hooting with laughter too.

‘It’s complete chaos in there,’ he said slapping me on the
back. ‘They had to let everybody go early. Good for you, Pete. You’re a hero.’ He’d never called me that before: Pete or hero, but I kind of liked it. ‘That,’ he said, ‘was the best assembly ever.’

‘Listen,’ I said to Anna-Marie, ‘it’s like a story.’ I held her hand really tight. ‘It doesn’t need to be real. It can still make you happy or make you sad. You can make the story end any way you like and if you don’t like the end of the story then you can close the book and make up your own.’

Anna-Marie made a face like a mad person. ‘What are you on about, bean-brain?’

‘We have to walk the lane,’ I said.

‘Well, that’s just what I—’

‘Shut up, Tommie! Why, Peter? Give me one good reason. Why do we have to walk the lane?’

‘I … I don’t know,’ I said. And then, ‘Just because.’

Anna-Marie gave me a heavy look but then she shrugged. And then she looked at the fairy and smiled. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that’s good enough for me.’

And then I smiled too. And Tommie smiled although he didn’t even really know why we were smiling. And then I began to cry. It’d been that kind of day. Anna-Marie gave me a funny kind of look and then glanced back to the swings and their long shadow; the chain, turning, creaking, the air still. She frowned again and then she looked back at me. And then she cuffed me round the ear. But not too hard.

‘Oh, and, Peter, another thing,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Don’t say “literally”.’

Everlasting Lane was fresh and new, as if newly washed, newly made, newly born. As if we, Anna-Marie, Tommie and I, were the first to see that sun and the first to taste that air. As if the world were untouched and unused like a box of paints, new out of the stocking on Christmas Day or a set of coloured pencils all the same length with perfect points or even that piece of wood waiting for Kat’s magic to turn it into … into something. And the day was still. As we walked the trees saluted us and Everlasting Lane unrolled itself like a carpet.

We walked on.

I was thinking about everything that had happened, my head spinning like a sixpence: all the stuff that Doctor Todd had said about me and Alice; and then when I’d gone to
Kirrins
’. And after that when I’d got to the school assembly and everybody was shouting at me. And Anna-Marie in the car park. And me running after her. It was like everything had happened at once. And then we’d started walking the lane: Anna-Marie, Tommie and I, just like we’d always—

‘I wonder what’s going to be at the end,’ said Tommie.

I shrugged. I didn’t know.

‘I think it’s probably going to just turn into this big road or maybe even a motorway. It might be like the motorway that my dad and I go on when he takes me to London. Sometimes
we stop at the big service stations and have fish and chips or sausages or something.’

Well, I didn’t really know but I could imagine my disappointment if he turned out to be right.

‘It’s the only thing that makes sense,’ he continued. ‘People don’t just build
lanes
for no reason—I mean, any kind of road—all roads go somewhere. Nobody would build a road for no reason. What would be the point? Why would anyone do that?’

I didn’t know that either but it sounded like the kind of thing that Mrs Carpenter would say. ‘Maybe there isn’t any point,’ I protested. ‘Maybe there doesn’t have to be one. Maybe the lane just comes to an end because whoever built the lane in the first place just stopped because they couldn’t decide where the lane should go.’

As we walked I began to wonder what other feet had passed this way before us; what wheels had gouged deep ruts in the wet mud; what hooves had clattered upon the dry, baked earth. It was easy to imagine the shadows of the past sprung suddenly to—

‘But that would be stupid,’ said Tommie. ‘Who would start building a road without knowing where it was going?’

I thought about the roaring motors, bright lights and pumping fumes: Tommie’s motorway. I didn’t like the idea at all. ‘Maybe it’s just a normal road, then, with a few cars and bicycles,’ I said.

Tommie grunted. ‘Maybe, but I bet
that
ends up being a motorway.’

He was right of course. I know Kat had said that there was real magic but could that really be true of a road, no matter what its name was? Suddenly I wasn’t so sure.

Once—it seemed such a long time ago—we’d wondered whether Everlasting Lane might be true. And then we seemed
to have grown up so much that we thought its name could only be pretend. But then I’d thought, what if, after all, it was true? What if there wasn’t an end? What if, maybe, it wasn’t like a story with a happy ending all tied up in bows? Maybe Everlasting Lane was more like that programme
Coronation Street,
just endlessly unwinding and never reaching an end and never meaning anything; I mean anything that mattered. And, anyway, which would be worse: getting to the end or never getting to the end. I didn’t even know.

But I was going to find out.

‘Bill and Ben the flower-pot idiots,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘Flob-a-lob. Honestly, you two give short planks a bad name.’ Tommie and I each caught the other’s eye and blushed as if we’d been caught telling lies in class. ‘It’s typical,’ she went on just like she was a teacher or something. ‘You’ve been walking along, wittering on about what you’re going to find at the end and you haven’t even noticed what’s going on around you now.’

‘What?’ twitched Tommie his head switching from side to side. ‘What’s going on?’

Anna-Marie shook her head in despair. The fairy was hung from Tommie’s chain wrapped two or three times around her gentle throat. ‘Come on,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘and, this time, at least
try
and pay attention.’

We walked on.

I would like to express my love and gratitude to the following in the hope and expectation that they will know why:

Dennis, Valerie and all at Melville House.

Eloise, Sam and all at Galley Beggar Press (UK). And Henry.

The ladies at EDGE: Ruth, Kathryn, Nikki, Bev and Rachel.

Keith, Paul and Tim.

The siblings: Iain, Harry, Paula and Brian.

Caren.

My boys: George, Charlie and Harry.

My patient and ever-loving wife, Kate.

And Carole and Wynne: Mum and Dad.

How did you come about writing
Everlasting Lane
?

The original inspiration was my relationship with my mother. It broke down when I was in my twenties and I needed to try and make sense of what had happened. I was also moved by the story of a little girl in the school where I was working with whom other parents wouldn’t let their children play – she was the inspiration for the character of Anna-Marie. The title itself came from a residential road in the town where I lived. “Everlasting Lane” sounded so fantastical I couldn’t resist pinching it.

Would you tell us a little about what it’s like to write a child protagonist?

Childhood innocence is such an extraordinarily precious state, but, as Anna-Marie suggests, trying to capture it successfully on the page is like the difference between a picture of a tiger and the tiger itself.

I’m not sure I see Peter as being so very different from the average adult (by which, I suppose, I mean me). We all like to think we understand the world better than we do when in
fact we’re neither less confused nor less desperate for guidance than the average child.

Or is that just me?

What was the most challenging part of writing this book?

Digging deeply into childhood memories was a mixed blessing: sometimes beautiful, sometimes traumatic; always emotional.

The weaving of many disparate memories into a coherent whole drove me to distraction, but the fact that much of the book was written in the early kid-free hours or late at night probably didn’t do much to help my mental state.

Writing the book was a doddle, however, compared to endlessly rewriting and editing it.

Who are the writers who inspire you?

My first literary hero and biggest inspiration was J. D. Salinger, the writer who made me want to be a writer. Others who influenced
Everlasting Lane
in some way were James Joyce and Christopher Isherwood. I like Orwell, Austen, Steinbeck and Updike. Paul Simon is a great short story writer who, unfortunately, has never written prose. A contemporary inspiration is Aimee Bender.