Ultimate Justice (21 page)

“Lived in Atlanta all my life,” shouted the old man. “An African-American like me can be free in these northern parts, can't he?” he inquired with mock confidence.

“No matter you're black, Mr Williams. We're all friends here. We'll soon make you feel like a true Nutmegger like the rest of us … and welcome to our young people who have come to help us. They've already earned their supper looking after Bert even before he got through the door.”

Some people looked at Bert but he didn't seem to notice. Mrs Gillespie was fiddling with her hearing-aid. “Damn thing!” she said in a voice loud enough for anyone not deaf to hear. But again people just ignored her.

“And one of them has brought along her guitar to get us all singing.” A little lady down the front clapped. “You like singing, Mrs Smith?”

“Ye-es, I do.”

Smith,
thought Kakko.
It is Earth then. New London?
Hadn't her nan talked about London?
Even though she had never ever been to Earth One before, hearing her own name made her feel that she, somehow, belonged although all this was foreign to her. She wondered if she and this bright old lady who liked singing were somehow related. She would talk to her later if she got a chance.

They did ‘birthdays' and Mrs Higgins got all the young people to confess to their ages. Dah turned out to be nineteen. Kakko was relieved to find that she, herself, wasn't quite the youngest – there was a young girl who admitted to being a ‘high-school sophomore' whatever that meant, it did mean that she was a lot younger than Kakko – but otherwise they were all as old or older than her. She felt annoyed about this, but then, she told herself, it wasn't age that counted, but experience. And as far as that went the experience represented in that room must have been huge. She was sat next to a lady who had just had her eighty-first birthday. She couldn't imagine what it must feel like to be her. She didn't want to. But the lady seemed content enough.

After a few more preliminaries Dah was invited to the front.

“I didn't know I was going to sing for you today,” she began. “I'm afraid I don't know any of the songs you know. I generally write my own.”

“That's wonderful,” declared Mrs Higgins, “teach us some of yours.”

Dah tuned her guitar nervously, then struck a chord. She cleared her throat and said, “OK. This is about a boatman who has sailed a river boat up and down his river doing trade all his life.” She began to sing. The effect was wonderful. In this context, her rich, sweet tones were gripping. As she sang she saw every eye on her and she warmed even more into the song. As she got to the third repeat of the chorus, Mrs Smith began to join in. It didn't seem to matter that no-one else did, she was enjoying herself. Kakko smiled. One day she would be an old lady by the name of Smith. She glanced at Tam. He was enthralled by Dah and her music. Kakko felt a twinge of something.
Was it jealousy? It couldn't be, could it?
For all her natural confidence she hadn't any of Dah's gifts. Dah was talented and under-estimated herself. Kakko thought about herself, and wondered whether, in comparison, she was just an empty extrovert.

At the conclusion of the song, there was loud applause. Tam applauded too. He turned to Kakko and whispered, “I wish I could sing like that! We really were meant to bring her here.” And then he put his arm around Kakko's waist and she wondered how she could have doubted his devotion. Whatever he saw in her it was far more than any talent she might or might not have – his love did not depend on her being anything else than who she was. And the pang of jealousy brought home to her how much that devotion had become mutual.

“That was beautiful, Dah,” said Mrs Higgins. “Have you any more?”

Dah sang another song and, as she did so, she saw tears in some of the old folks' eyes. As it finished there wasn't immediate applause; rather there was a silent pause. And then Mrs Higgins started to clap loudly and soon the whole room was joining in.

Mr Williams called out, “I see you come from the South, young lady. You may not be as black as me, but you've got a black soul. I haven't heard anything quite like that for years. So commercial these days. You keep singing like that my girl! Don't you ever let anyone tell you to stop!”

Dah sniffed, “Thanks.”

“It's almost time to eat now, ladies and gentlemen, but Dah, we would all like another song before we go. Have you made a record?”

“Nah,” said Dah, flattered and embarrassed.

“You should… now folks, the food is coming to you.”

The helpers collected food from the kitchen and distributed it among the tables. Kakko and Dah were given the task of taking round cups of tea, coffee and cans of cold soda. Larry Williams took Dah's hand as she served their table and smiled at her. “What's your name… I mean your last name?”

“Lugos,” she said shyly.

“That's an unusual name.”

“It isn't where I come from.”

“You don't come from the South then?”

“Nah. I ain't from your country.”

“You could a fooled me. You got black soul, girl. Mark my words. It's in there somewhere.”

“Thanks,” smiled Dah.

“That's my girl!”

After she had finished serving, Kakko went and sat at the same table as Mrs Smith.

“You and I share the same name,” she smiled.

“Common as dirt,” said Mrs Smith unexpectedly.

“What's that?” asked Kakko.

“The name. Common as dirt. I told that to my Jim before we were married. Now
my
name –
my
family name is different. It's Prendergast. Now that's a special name if ever there was one.”

“I was wondering,” said Kakko, “if your husband might have been related to my father in some way. He's called Jack and his father was Shaun.”

“Where they come from?”

“Persham. Well that's where my dad grew up.”

“Persham?” said a lady from the same table. “Persham. That's in England isn't it?”

“Yes.”

“I
thought
you were English. My husband's mother was English. I think she came from somewhere like Persham. Met during the war they did, his ma and pa. He was a GI stationed over there. Met her at some dance. He gave her chocolate and silk stockings and that was it. They didn't have those things because of the war… not that she didn't care for him. She loved him all her life. A good woman.”

“Most of us here came from Europe though, didn't we?” said another. “I mean in the beginning. Even if you can trace your line back to the very early days in America, you come from Europe. My family were Dutch. Could be I am a direct descendant of the original settlers.”

“Could be,” said the lady proud to be born a Prendergast.

“All of us. Except him,” she said theatrically, “the new one from Atlanta. His ancestors would have been African for certain.”

“Now, then. Don't talk like that. We're all equal these days. We won the war so they could be free.”

“That was when your husband's father met his mother?” queried Kakko.

“No dear, not
that
war. The
civil
war. The war we fought here, among ourselves.”

“How many wars have there been?” asked Kakko.

“So lucky you young'un's today. You take peace for granted. There's been
hundreds
of wars over the years, dear.”

“And there's hundreds going on today in different parts of the world that we don't know about,” said Mrs Smith.

“Hundreds?” queried Kakko amazed.

“Hundreds. They don't bother putting them on the news any more. My son says that if you look on the computer you can learn what's really going on. But the news, like you get on the television, they only tell you the bad stuff from around here, and the stuff about the big boys like China and Russia – and the Arabs, of course.”

“Sometimes it gets over here though, doesn't it? I mean we had 'Nam didn't we, and then the 9/11 lot…”

There was so much Kakko wanted to ask her father and her nan when she got home. She listened as the old folks on her table went through war after war that they had lived through or heard about.

“Why do people want to fight wars?” she asked. “I mean so many people getting killed and so on. I mean isn't there a – ”

But Kakko never got to finish her question. Dah had let up a scream, threw her chair back and was chasing a man out of the door. Mrs Gillespie was shouting, “He's got my purse! That man, he just came in and stole my purse!”

Dah was after him, but the man had rollerblades on his feet for a quick escape. He whistled down the path and was at the gate before Dah could catch him, quick though she was. Kakko was on her feet too and Tam instinctively followed. The thief had not anticipated being pursued so immediately, but he clung on to Mrs Gillespie's bag as he pulled the gate open and skated off down the hill. Dah dragged her skateboard from the hedge, threw it through the open gate, leapt on it and was in hot pursuit as Kakko and Tam got to the gate themselves.

“Not just a musician,” declared Tam. “She can handle that thing.”

“It could be nasty if she catches him,” breathed Kakko as she tried to run. Her chest hurt and she slowed up but Tam was in hot pursuit. He rounded a bend and saw the thief and Dah below him. She was keeping up with him, possibly even gaining slightly. Suddenly the thief leapt to his left off the road into a wood. He stumbled and fell down a steep slope, got to his feet and tried to run across an open clearing. Here the wheels on his feet were an encumbrance, as with each step he strained the ligaments in his ankles just to keep his feet upright, but if he made the cover of the trees on the far side of the open ground he would have a chance to hide from his pursuers.

An instant after the thief had left the road Dah had reached the same spot. She took a quick glance and saw the challenge but she had enough speed to take her and her skateboard up and over the edge and the slope. Crouching on her board, Dah landed upright in a mass of undergrowth on the edge of the clearing. She was now only metres away from her quarry, only she was on
foot
over the springy turf.

As he reached the trees, the thief spun round and threw Mrs Gillespie's bag at Dah, just missing her right ear, and then plunged through the undergrowth. Dah continued in pursuit but Tam had now arrived at the top of the drop from the road and saw what was happening.

“Dah,” he yelled. “Leave him! Dah, if you catch him what're you going to do? Leave him!”

Dah stopped. Tam's call had quietened the adrenalin coursing through her veins and she stopped, breathing hard on the edge of the clearing. She couldn't see the thief, he had dived for cover somewhere, but he hadn't taken the bag with him.

Tam and finally Kakko caught her up.

“He's in there somewhere,” said Dah.

“I guess they will have called the police,” puffed Kakko. “Let them find him. He can't get far without being seen. Anyway, we've got Mrs Gillespie's handbag which is the main thing. Let's get it back to her. She'll be able to relax then. She was really upset.”

Tam picked the bag out of a thorn bush. “The way she reacted, you'd think she had the family jewels in here.”

“Probably has,” said Kakko, wheezing. “Sorry, I'm not quite fully mended.”

“You OK?” said Tam with concern.

“Yeah. I'll be fine. Just give me a minute.”

Dah had retrieved her skateboard from the undergrowth.

“You can really use that thing,” said Kakko.

“Thanks. I've had one for years. I got this one for my eighteenth. Loads of parents were buying their kids wheels – only they had cars. My mum said she reckoned I would prefer this kind of wheels, she says she was lucky I wasn't actually born with a board attached to my feet.”

Kakko winced. “Sounds painful!”

“But she's right,” said Dah as they climbed back up to the road, “I reckon I was using one of these as soon as I could walk.”

As they got back to the gate a police car pulled up. Kakko was aware of Dah flinching.

“It's OK, Dah,” said Kakko. “You're the hero!”

Tam walked up the path with Mrs Gillespie's bag in his hand. As soon as she saw it she gave a whoop.

“My purse! Oh thank you, thank you!” she grabbed his wrist and pulled him to her and planted a huge kiss on his cheek.

“It wasn't me,” explained Tam. “It was Dah. She was so quick on her skateboard.”

Dah and Kakko were talking to the police and showing them which way the man had gone.

“I reckon we'll need helicopter back-up,” drawled one, and he got back into his car and began to talk on his radio.

The other motioned to Kakko and Dah to go back into the hall. “We'll need you to make a statement,” he explained.

Dah looked at Kakko and Kakko nodded, “No problem, officer.”

As they stepped into the hall the old folk applauded them. Mrs Higgins came over to them all effusive with congratulations and praise, which Tam and Kakko immediately directed towards Dah.

“We really, really are so grateful to you. You were so fast. One minute all was peace and joy and the next Mrs Gillespie's purse was gone and you were in hot pursuit. She really shouldn't put all that money in there. Two thousand dollars,” she said. “Imagine. Two thousand dollars in your purse! She was scared to leave it in her apartment. Well, I don't blame her but it's no safer with her is it? I mean she could get mugged anywhere, couldn't she?”

“She was!” said Dah.

“Yes. Well, all's well that ends well. That's what I say. I do hope they catch the man. It was a man, wasn't it? Mrs Gillespie said he had a scarf over his face and sunglasses. Gloves too so there won't be any fingerprints. Didn't have a gun, did he?”