The Peacock Cloak

chance.
    “What is this place anyway?” Tammy asked.
    This felt to Angus like more comfortable ground. He relaxed his grip, let go of her, began to walk towards the gate with Tammy following at a little distance.
    “That’s a long story,” he said with a laugh. “It’s supposed to be a building site. There’s supposed to be a new housing estate here called Poppyfields…”
    And off he went, off into all the details about the landfill and the underground marsh and the court case.
    “…Of course I’m not working now,” he concluded. “I just borrowed the key because I wanted to watch the birds. I’m a bit of a birdwatching fanatic, I’m afraid. Sad, I know. My other big thing is rugby. I…”
    Tammy stopped again to heave and retch.
    “Oh I am sorry!” exclaimed Angus. “Here’s me prattling away and you…”
    “Is this the gate?”
    “Yes,” he said. “Yes it is. But listen, what are you going to do when you get outside of it?”
    She looked through the gate at the cars rushing by on the bleak new road that divided Poppyfields from a bleak park that had been laid out on the other side. The bright headlights and tail-lights of the cars were glimpses of the warm, lively places they were coming from or going to: homes, restaurants, cinemas, bars. But here inside the fence the daylight was rapidly fading and soon the only illumination would be the cold orange of the argon streetlights. By 2 a.m., even the passing cars would have stopped, except for the occasional solitary one rushing by through the motionless orange glow, the sound of its engine intruding for a moment to be swallowed up again by the silence.
    A few tears rolled silently down Tammy’s cheeks. Tomorrow she could go down town and look for the people like her, the outsiders, the fugitives, the druggies, the people who’d grown up in care: make contact with them, start to familiarise herself with the networks, start doing deals. But she was too exhausted for all that now and she had nowhere to go.
    “Come on, Tammy,” cried Angus, thrown him into a panic by her distress, “we’ll sort out something! I’m not just going to leave you here!”
    She reached out, took his hand, held it tight like a small child.
    “I couldn’t stay round yours, could I?” Tammy asked. “Not being funny or nothing. Just for one night?”
    Angus cleared his throat. “Well, I…”
    “Just for one night,” she said. “I don’t know where else to go to be honest.”
    “But there are hostels and things. I could phone up the social services or something. There are people who’d look after you…”
    She grabbed his arm.
    “No, please ! They’d lock me up! Please don’t phone no one.”
    Angus wished Judy were here. She’d have known what to do.
    “Um, one thing,” he said. “I’m just a bit worried about… Well would you mind telling me your age?”
    “Nineteen,” lied Tammy and she quickly added, “and don’t you start off on how I don’t look that old because that’s what everyone says.”
    Angus opened the gate, then shut it behind them and closed the padlock. Poppyfields was alone again in the darkness, behind the fence, beyond the orange light. Poppyfield’s owls with their infrared eyes were looking for shining mice. Poppyfields’ hedgehogs were rooting for snails Poppyfields’ bats were swooping and swerving after Poppyfields’ beetles and moths. They didn’t care what would happen next. Poppyfields didn’t care.
    “Well, perhaps for one night,” said Angus unhappily.

    As they drove across town, Angus considered with increasing dread the implications of what he was doing. It didn’t look good, he realised, picking up a young girl and taking her home on the very night that his wife went away. It wouldn’t look good even if she hadn’t been a fugitive, owning nothing but the skimpy clothes she wore. It wouldn’t look good even if he had some inkling about where she came from and what her history was. It wouldn’t look good even she had been ten years older, or if she hadn’t been one of the prettiest girls he had ever met, or if, when she took his hand, he had not felt desire, like a sharp cold electric shock, running straight from his fingers to his groin…
    “Um… are you sure that it wouldn’t be better if I phoned the social services or something. I’m not sure whether it’s such a…”
    Tears came to Tammy’s eyes again.
    “Please. I just can’t deal with that shit now. You don’t know what