The Cartographer (23 page)

The Palmers could only stay for a short while, but Mrs Palmer said she would like me to come and visit for lunch one day, and suggested I give James a call to find out when would be a good time. She wrote down the phone number for me, and I noticed that she left off the address. She said: ‘Let's go to Downyflake in the city — if we're lucky, we might see Graham Kennedy broadcasting from there.' And off she went, with a pretty wave and a laugh, as if she had never heard of Wonder Woman.

Back in the living room, Mr Sanderson said he would like to give me a present, and I could see that they had been talking about me. It was a book, called simply
Kim
, but the big surprise was that it was by Rudyard Kipling, the same guy who wrote
If.
I opened it at the beginning and began to read. It was alive with strange words and expressions, but it immediately got inside me and held me spellbound, the way Wonder Woman had done.

‘I think you'll find that you and Kim have a few things in common,' said Mr Sanderson. ‘Anyway, you can have it and
read it at your leisure. It must be getting close to teatime for you.'

I must have hesitated, because he added: ‘Something's wrong, isn't it?'

There was, of course. Mum and Granddad somehow knew that I was involved in the bashing of Bob Herbert, just how I didn't know, but I was sure of it; I saw it in their faces. I still didn't know what that was going to lead to. Then there was that damn photo in
The Sun
. The Sandersons had seen it, and they didn't even strike me as
Sun
readers —
Age
readers, yes. Bob, on the other hand, did strike me as a
Sun
reader – that was probably how he'd tracked me down at school. Then there was this thing with the cop; it had been too close for comfort. All in all, I felt that Mr S had hit the nail on the head.

‘What is it?' asked Mrs Sanderson, taking over. It was like watching a tag-team match where the contestants all wear slippers. ‘Is there a problem at home? Is that why you came over? If there is, perhaps we can help. If you like, I could have a word with your parents for you. They might let you stay with us for the night. Would you like that?'

I had to admit that was an excellent idea, all except the bit about Mrs Sanderson meeting Mum. I wasn't sure how that would go over. But when Mum came to the door, she seemed to think that wasn't a bad idea, and Granddad, who was still there, agreed. It was all a bit strange. I grabbed my pyjamas and a few other things and headed off with them. My explorer's bag and my victuals were still on the island, where I'd dropped them when I tried to save Biscuit, but I reckoned they'd be safe until tomorrow. The Sandersons' place was huge compared to my place, and I had a large room with a bed that was much bigger than mine: it was the bedroom for no one in particular,
the bedroom that faced the window of the Honey Warm and Hungry girl next door.

We watched TV until late, and as I could watch anything I liked we watched
O.S.S.
, which was about spies in the war. For a while I completely forgot about Wonder Woman, and stopped worrying about the coincidence of her appearance at the Sandersons' house. I thought that the Sandersons were probably the nicest people I had ever met and could see why Mum and Granddad had seemed quite happy to go along with their idea. Come to think of it, I think they would have gone along with
any
idea the Sandersons might have had.

That night I was pretty pleased with myself: I honestly believed that my troubles were over — that's what a nice hot meal, a bubble bath, a good TV show and a clean, comfortable bed will do for you. That was the Tom part of me thinking. The other part had a bad feeling.

After that night at the Sandersons', I changed my mind about leaving home. The Sandersons said that I could always stay at their place if I felt like it, and I said that I would like that very much. But I couldn't get over how easy it had been for Mrs Sanderson to talk Mum into letting me visit, and I said so.

‘Well, it turns out Mr Sanderson and your mother have met before, and it was only necessary to mention his name for Jean to agree.'

It was funny hearing Mrs S call Mum ‘Jean', as if she knew her.

‘Where did they meet?'

I expected her to say: ‘Down the butcher's' or something, but she only looked hard at her feet, like an Olympic shot-putter who's just noticed that someone has tied her shoelaces together, then looked me in the eye; but she was giving me the frog mouth, all of which told its own story.

‘Mr Sanderson told me they met during the war. That's going back a bit, isn't it?'

‘It certainly is,' I said, tempted to do my Stan Laurel impression, but changing my mind at the last second because of the odd look on Mrs S's face, which hadn't changed. I knew what it meant. It meant she was telling me the truth, but taking a risk. I'd seen that look in the eyes of a million kids at school when they were swapping comics. Granddad once told
me to never let the punters see that look unless I was lying, so I didn't.

I knew I wasn't going to get any more out of Mrs S about that unless I gave her a Chinese burn, and I didn't think I could get my hands around her wrists, so I gave it a rest. Still, she had given me solid gold intelligence to chew over and bung on the map. Mum and Mr S. Mr S and Mum. Nope, nothing happened. I put it on the back burner, as Granddad was always telling me to do — something'll turn up.

The next thing I discovered was that the Sandersons had got a bigger, better typewriter to work with and they now had a spare, the Remington I had used the first time I had been there, and they said that I could use it any time I liked. So I got into the habit of going over there just to type.

I was now typing my notes for the map and sticking them on when I got home, though I was thinking of bringing the map over to the Sandersons', simply because it was getting too large to keep secret, and there was often a Commando or two hanging around my place. And besides, Mr Sanderson had told me that I could bring anything over to his place for safekeeping any time and even lock it in my cupboard, which had its own key. In the end he got curious about all the notes I typed up and took home with me.

‘Writing your memoirs?' he asked me one day.

‘Making a map,' I said, distracted, then reddening, because it was supposed to be a secret.

‘Ah, the ancient art of the cartographer.'

I felt like I'd been hit with a cricket bat when he said that.

‘Pardon?'

‘A cartographer is a mapmaker. What's it a map of?'

‘Oh, you know, Richmond.'

‘And the notes?'

‘Just notes about my … explorations.'

‘I see,' he said, and for once I was worried that he really did see.

But no one except Mum, Granddad and Biscuit had ever seen the map — I didn't count Mum because she couldn't have cared less, and I didn't count Granddad because he knew some of my biggest secrets as it was. As for Biscuit, I don't know if he was more interested in the map or the Clag: I would have made him swear an oath of secrecy, but I didn't think he'd take to the cat's skull. Still, Mr Sanderson's offer to take things there for safekeeping was tempting, and comforting to know.

But there were other reasons for going over to the Sandersons'. For one thing they had a room full of books, which is something I had never seen before, except in a library. I would spend hours in that room, with the reading lamp turned on, just reading. The first book I read there was
Kim
, the one Mr and Mrs S gave me when the Palmers visited, which was about a kid called Kimball O'Hara who was a secret agent. But there were so many books, I just read bits of all of them sometimes, until I struck one that I really liked. I did that because I found that the title of a book was often not enough to go by. For example, I thought
Green Mansions
sounded like a really good book, until I started reading it. Then I thought
The Scarlet Pimpernel
sounded pretty dumb, until I read a bit of it, then I was hooked. That Baroness Orczy was dynamite!

So usually when I was there I would be either in the library, or in the typing room, or in the jungle out the back with Biscuit, who couldn't get enough of the place. A few days after Mr S made the offer, I moved the map and my mapping equipment over to the Sandersons'.

I did go over to Wonder Woman and James's house the week after they showed up at the Sandersons', and we did go into the city and have lunch at Downyflake, which turned out to be a restaurant that smelt so good I thought I was never going to smell anything better in my whole life. In fact, I made a mental note on the spot to get out my Spirax notebook as soon as I got home and give it a ten on my Smell Scale. I discovered from my Manual that the scale on a map tells you how small everything is compared to the real thing. My map was about a yard wide, and I reckoned the scale was about 1:1000, which meant that if the map had a thousand sheets, and you lined them up in the middle of Church Street — that would be on a day when the trammies were on strike — they'd stretch all the way to the Richmond Police Station. Smells were the same.

I had only given a ten to two things before that day: Wonder Woman, in spite of her being my nemesis; and the main bedroom of the Sandersons' house on the day the Dynamite Dame bought the farm. I had also given a one to something, something Granddad showed me down at Ryrie's Boxing Gym: smelling salts. One whiff of that stuff, and no matter how half dead you were, you just wanted to get up and hit someone. I know I did. Compared to smelling salts, diarrhoea got a two.

The reason Downyflake smelt so good was that they made terrifically scrumptious doughnuts, probably not as scrumptious as the ones at Victoria Market that the lollopy lady in the silver spaceship made, but I reckoned the judge would have to call for a photo. They also made tons of coffee, which I thought would be just the thing for a busy explorer, and James agreed (though Wonder Woman had different ideas). It smelt good for other reasons, too — warm, sweet and mysterious, like babies; though I couldn't quite put my finger
on it. But that's okay: you see, in order to get a ten, a smell must have a certain something about it, so that you can't just say:
Oh yeah, that's because it's got whatsaname in it — vanilla or something —
if you know what I mean. It has to have a lovely strangeness, like Josephine, to whom I hadn't been able to get close enough to smell.

On the wall was a curious sign — at least that's what Sherlock Holmes would have called it. It had on it a picture of a court jester — yeah, like Danny Kaye — holding a doughnut and looking at it, and these were the words that were written there:

It was called ‘The Philosopher's Creed'. Not only that but every now and then they played Burl Ives's ‘The Donut Song', which was a song that Mum used to sing when she was in a good mood, in other words, in the old days. But as I listened it struck me that the song had nothing to do with doughnuts: it was a kind of riddle, one that I understood. I had never seen the word ‘philosopher' before, but now I guessed that a philosopher was a person who understood something, something deep. I asked Wonder Woman about it.

‘What a funny question!' she said. ‘Where did you see that word?'

‘Up there.' I pointed with my doughnut, which isn't as easy as it sounds.

‘Oh yes. Well, it's a person who thinks about things, all right. I'd say that one is thinking about lunch, wouldn't you?'

We all laughed, especially James, who was better at laughing than most kids I knew, but who hadn't, I knew, got the riddle.

‘It's a riddle, isn't it?' I asked.

She looked at me and took a puff of her Benson & Hedges, and blew the smoke up in the air before answering. ‘Yes, I suppose it is a kind of riddle. Do you know what it means?'

‘Yes, it means: Watch out for things that count, not the things that don't count.'

‘No,' said James, ‘it means: Keep your eye on your doughnut, or someone might stick it in his pocket.'

I laughed along with James, but Wonder Woman just took another drag on her B&H and looked at me with her hypnotic stare. I prayed that she would not make me float up in the air or something, but she didn't.

‘I do hope James and I are going to see a lot more of you now that we are all friends,' she said, butting her half-finished cigarette in the silver ashtray, and not looking at either of us.

‘I hope so too,' I said. I could tell that she was happy that James had a new friend, but I knew that she really was using him to keep an eye on me. After all, she
was
a kind of spy. I looked at the cigarette she had just stubbed, and wondered what the lipstick on it smelt like. Probably, I thought, damn close to ten.

 

The following day, I was reading
Wanderlust Goes South
, and I decided that that was just what
I
needed to do: go south. I was at home at the time, so I pulled out the map and had a look to see what kind of things were in that general direction. It's always a good idea to check your map before you go into unknown territory: you don't want to see someone doing something evil to someone else and scaring the life out of you,
and getting you into all kinds of trouble. I'd had enough of that. I packed my map and compass, some victuals, and my pinch bar, and struck out for Josephine Island, leaving home before brekkie, so that no one would see which way I went, and how I got to the island. My plan was to explore the building I had seen there before setting off on my journey to the south.

I would have loved to take Biscuit with me over to the island — he was due for an overseas trip; however, I couldn't think of a way to get him down to the entrance to the power cable tunnel without breaking his neck, as the entrance was in the side of a cliff. So in the end I decided not to tell him about the trip, and left him dozing.

It was not until I got to the island that I felt safe.

One look at the building told me that it had gone to the dogs, so I knew it was empty, yet still it had padlocked doors and barred windows, and the doors were made of iron, so I knew my faithful pinch bar was not going to move them. As I got closer, I saw that it was protected by four anti-aircraft guns, just sitting there, pointing at the sky. Each of them sat on a wide steel ring, and had a deep concrete trench around it, and each of the trenches was connected by another trench, forming a square. After inspecting the guns, which looked like they still had a few shots left in them, I walked down the steps into one of the circular trenches, and found a good place to start a fire. With my frying pan I fried two eggs and a slice of bread. I got that frying pan from the back of Mum's pots and pans cupboard. She hated opening that cupboard, because every time she did, everything would fall out, and she'd lose her temper. So I reckoned it was going to be a while before she missed it.

After brekkie, I went down to the river and washed my eatin' irons, and then came back to the fort and repacked my
explorer's bag. I was just about to leave, and was taking a look around the concrete ditch, when I discovered a low steel door in its wall with a rusty padlock, which told me that nobody wanted it any more, so I snapped it off with the pinch bar. Inside was a small room containing a lot of steel shelves, leading into a larger room. In this room was a small lift with no walls, but none of the switches worked. When I looked around I realised I was inside the old building, which was really a concrete shed with steel girders all over the place, and a set of iron stairs going up to a door in the ceiling. Up there was another room containing the lift engine and the winch that pulled the lift up. On top of the room was a platform, reached by a ladder, and once on the platform, I found I could see in every direction.

Looking west, I could see across the river to the back of City Boys High and just to the right and further away, Government House; to the northwest, and much further away, was the city, and further to the right a piece of the river. Turning right again, I saw another sweep of the river and, on the other side, the buildings I saw every day, or every week: the brewery, St Felix's Church and, to the north, the power station, including the exact spot I had climbed down to the entrance of the tunnel. Still turning, I got a view of the back of a river ferry that I knew was heading up near my Aunty Dell's place at Fairfield, and, completing the circle, more river, and south, a view of Como House on the other side of Como Park.

Back in the main building, I found a bolted hatch in the floor of the central room which opened to reveal a set of wooden stairs going down into the basement. In the basement I found the bottom of the lift shaft, and some tramlines, heading off down a tunnel that was big enough for a tall person to walk in.
This was definitely as far down into the ground as I had ever been, and I was wondering who could possibly want to come down this far. Not a wanted criminal — their kind preferred the peace and quiet you get from a drain under a cemetery. An evil scientist? Probably. Evil scientists never lived above the ground, and preferred caves and the cities that other people had built before the human race began.

I headed off down the tramlines. The tunnel here was wide and made of bricks with a low, rounded ceiling with electric lights in it, though they were all switched off. I switched my torch off and walked for about a hundred feet with my hand on the wall, then switched it on again. This part of the tunnel was cold and damp, and water seeped through the ceiling and down the walls, and disappeared down a drain. I hurried on a little way and found that it was dry again. Once more I had crossed the river.