Dark Eden

being called back and why.
    ‘What does that mean?’ I wondered. ‘
Why
didn’t I notice? Why didn’t it worry me?’
    And yet it
still
didn’t seem to worry me. I just felt restless restless, pacing up and down, slapping the shaft of my spear against my hand, trying to think what else I should look for while I was out hunting bucks, down in forest in Cold Path Valley. No, I didn’t feel worried, but I wasn’t at peace either. There was no peace in me at all.
    ‘Some clay,’ I muttered. ‘Some soft clay for the glue pit. And maybe some . . .’
    But then I heard a voice call my name.
    ‘John! Hey John! John! It’s me.’
    It was Gerry, I could tell that pretty much straight away, and it was weird weird, because at first I wasn’t pleased.
    Oh Harry’s dick, not Gerry, that was my first thought. I’m way too busy to bother with him.
    ‘Hey John! It’s Gerry and Tina and Jeff!’
    I had shut all my feelings away inside me these last wakings, I suppose, shut them down so they didn’t get in the way. But now a little glimmer stirred inside me of being pleased and grateful. I was about to go down and meet them but then I changed my mind.
    ‘No,’ I muttered, ‘no. That’s not the right way to start things off.’
    It needed to be
them
coming to
me
, not me going to them. I didn’t want to have to owe them anything, not when I had so many plans.
    I cupped my hands round my mouth and called down to them.
    ‘Hi there, I’m just up here by the caves.’
    I put my spears back in their place, and squatted down to wait for them in front of my game of chess.

21

Tina Spiketree

    John had made himself his own little camp up the slope of that rocky spur to left of Cold Path Neck. He’d got a couple of spears neatly propped up beside the mouth of a cave, one of them a real blackglass hunting spear that Redlantern had given him, plus wraps and skins and bags piled up neatly inside, and four stonebuck legs hanging on strings. He’d got a little fire going and had marked out a chessboard on the ground and – Gela’s tits! – when we got up to him he was calmly sitting there, playing chess against himself.
    Tom’s dick, I thought, what a poser. He’d been alone all those wakings and as far as he’d known, he was going to stay that way. Surely
anyone
would feel relieved to have friendly visitors in that situation? And anyone else would have come to meet us. Anyone else, for that matter, would have thought that maybe we’d need a hand with Jeff. But no, not John. He’d thought it all out carefully and he’d chosen to wait and be found there like that, playing chess by himself as if he was resting after a good waking’s work.
    Jeff stopped where he was, taking this all in, but Gerry disentangled himself from his little brother and went running straight up to John, giving him a big hug and kisses with tears running down his face. As for me, though I released myself from Jeff as well, I hung back, waiting for John, waiting to be given some attention. But it didn’t come. Considering all that we’d given up to be here with him, all that we’d quite possibly lost, John was so distant distant that it was just weird.
    ‘I thought I heard a funeral a couple of wakings ago,’ were his first words. ‘Is that right? Who was it that died,?’
    Gerry looked round at me to see if I was going to answer, but I gave a little shrug to let him know that he should do it. John might want to make me do all the hard work, but I wasn’t about to let Gerry do the same thing.
    ‘It was old Stoop,’ said Gerry. ‘Old Stoop finally bought it. But . . .’ He looked back round at me like I had the power to take the sting out of the news somehow. ‘But it wasn’t just Stoop, John, it was . . . well, it was Bella too.’
    At once John looked away from all three of us, out over Circle Valley. He kept his face still still, but his whole body tensed up tight.
    ‘Bella? You don’t mean
our
Bella? Not Bella Redlantern?’
    ‘Yes, ours,’ Gerry said, looking round at me yet again, hoping I’d help him out.
    ‘Did for herself, John,’ I said. ‘Hanged herself from a tree like Tommy did.’
    ‘Yes, but . . .’
    He squatted down again by his chessboard and looked at the little carved pieces for a long time like he was considering his next move.
    ‘It wouldn’t have happened if I’d let her come with me, would it?’ he said after a time.
    ‘No, John,’ said Gerry, ‘but . . .’
    ‘It wouldn’t have happened