The Hope Read Free Page B

humiliation. Because his fist had not been fully clenched, it hurt him more that it hurt her. The force, however, sent her crashing against the wall. Droplets of rainwater pattered on her raincoat.
    “Hit her again!”
    “Shall I?”
    “Yeah, hit her again! Go on!”
    Mary had dropped neither carton nor bag. She was proud of herself for that. She mumbled, “You couldn’t fuck a porthole,” again. She was not too proud about that.
    It had the desired effect. Popeye hit her once more, a couple of grunting punches to her hips which her raincoat managed to baffle. As there was no way out of this, no obvious salvation, Mary felt calm and resigned.
    Hit me , she thought, but don’t steal my prize, my magic charm .
    Popeye aimed blows at her arms and back, kicked her calf a few times, but she clung to the tins of food and they were reassuringly solid.
    “Kill the bitch!”
    Mary loved the children.
    “Fuck the bitch!”
    She loved the children.
    “Kill the bitch!”
    Popeye came away panting and pressed himself against the opposite wall.
    “Just catching my breath, lads,” he gasped, “then I’ll fuck her. We’ll all fuck her.”
    “She doesn’t make a sound, does she?” said the one with the hat.
    “She will, Billy. She’ll scream when I’m shafting her.”
    They all laughed, even Mary, because she found something quite amusing in Popeye’s grotesque imagination. He pushed himself off the wall and cocked his head to one side and stuck out his ribcage.
    “Want some more?”
    Mary raised her face.
    Someone asked, “Do you know?”, and she was aware of a thin figure somewhere in the corner of her vision. Someone else, one of the boys, breathed out a “Jesus Christ…” and the other voice asked, “Do you know?” again, the thin man’s voice, pitched somewhere between an ache and a shriek.
    “Look at those fucking scars,” hissed Billy with the hat.
    “Do you know?”
    Mary, not understanding what was happening but sensing a shift in fear, seized the opportunity and ran. She heard Popeye behind her saying, “No, we don’t know,” most but not all of his cockiness gone, and this was followed by a swift and abrupt crack (head meets steel – guess which wins). She found Billy running with her but they were like animals before a forest fire, caring nothing about anything except the heat at their heels. From further away now came a yelp and another crack. Billy disappeared up a staircase connecting to the above deck, and Mary ran on alone.
     
    Sophie’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when she saw Mary closing the cabin door behind her carrying an armful of box that looked as if, could it be, could it be … food . Mary herself could barely speak with the confusion of ecstasy and terror she felt. At last she managed to say: “Adam, Sophie, put your coats on and go out and play.” Mark was too ill to do anything but sit and stare and rock on his haunches. “We’re going to have a banquet.”
    Adam and Sophie had never moved so quickly in their lives. It occurred to them that the sooner they started playing, the sooner they might finish and come back for the food.
    Mary called after the two fast-disappearing children: “Be back in about an hour, but be careful. Don’t go too far and don’t talk to strangers!” She was delighted they were happy enough to pay no attention to her warnings. The thin man seemed just too distant to be a threat.
    In fact, Adam and Sophie did not go far at all, only round the corner, where they sat in the rain and boasted who could eat the most food. Adam said he should have the lion’s share as he was the biggest and a boy but Sophie objected, saying that Mark deserved most because he was so ill. Adam thought girls were silly, always being nice to weak people, but eventually he agreed that Mark should have a tiny, incy-wincy bit more than everyone else. Under normal circumstances, this argument would have been an excuse for total war, but today, with food so