Pandora Red

Chapter 5

Chapter 3

Maria Chapman walked with the pushchair that her youngest, Zak, was dozing in. Her older son, Joe, shuffled along a few paces behind as they made their way from Barnes Bridge Station and along a passageway that led to the main road. They scurried along to the end and turned, cutting through the streets and pausing occasionally to study a folded up map. Finally, they reached the address they were looking for.

The houses were four stories high, in semi-detached blocks of two. The adjoined house Maria and Joe both stared up at was painted with a graffiti style collage. The centrepiece was a painting of an old wry tree that stretched from the ground all the way to the top, its branches reaching across the width of both houses, spreading like a spider’s web on the brickwork. The end of the branches morphed into television screens, periscopes and satellite dishes.

“Why are we here?” Joe asked, still staring up at the artwork.

“Seeing an old friend,” Maria replied, pressing the doorbell.

The buzzer crackled into life and a bored-sounding male voice answered.

“Hullo?”

“It’s Maria. I’m here to see Rosie Connelly.”

“Okay, one minute.”

Maria unbuckled the belt around Zak and hauled him out of the pushchair onto the doorstep as Joe, now fully trained in the procedure, snapped the hood back of the buggy and folded it up.

A tall girl with braided hair and piercings on her nose and ears opened the door and beamed with delight. She threw her arms around Maria. The two had met whilst travelling in India eight years before and swore to keep in touch. They had bumped into each other a week before on a tube train and made the arrangement to meet.

“It’s so good to see you again,” Rosie beamed. She looked down at Joe and Zak with equal delight. “And who are these lovely boys?”

Joe placed the folded up pushchair on the ground, grinned, and held out his hand. “Joe,” he said.

Rosie cooed at the manners and shook his hand. “…and very well brought up, I see.”

“Hmm, maybe not so much,” said Maria and laughed. She picked up Zak and they all walked into the hallway. The visitors’ eyes were drawn to a huge montage of photographs of various people that had been arranged onto a cork board.

“Pictures of all the people who have lived here over the years.”

They all began to study the photographs as Rosie gave a running commentary on each one.

“So what is this place?” asked Maria finally.

“A big happy family. A community of like-minded people. We’re very particular who lives here. The activist, John Rhodes, owns it. He lets a select few of us run the place. Have you heard of him?”

Maria nodded her head. Rhodes, a man in his early forties, was an outspoken voice against what was being seen as a rising tide of globalisation and corporate greed spanning the world. He was also behind the alternative media group, Liberatus, that produced a weekly newspaper and had recently started publishing their content online. Maria had heard him speak on the local radio and found herself agreeing with pretty much everything that he had said. Rhodes presented his arguments in an intelligent fashion, backed by facts, and had ripped his interviewer apart as they had tried to dismiss and pigeonhole him as a conspiracy nut.

“Well, he’s speaking in a few days, I think. I’ll give you the details. Anyway, come on in.”

Rosie led them into a spacious dining room that was adjacent to the kitchen. There was a large bay window that overlooked the truss arched Barnes Bridge and Maria walked over to peer outside. The Thames, much narrower in this part of London, along with the flat greenery of the sports clubs opposite, reminded Maria of Holland.

A shabby looking young man, with dark wispy hair and a faint outline of growth on his chin, was sitting at a large oak dining table and looked up at them from behind a Toshiba laptop.

“Maria and Joe, this is Matt. He’s a kind of journalist for John’s newspaper.”

Matt leaned back with an impish smile on his face.

“When you say ‘kind of journalist’, I’ll take that as a big compliment then?” Maria noted a light accent but couldn’t be sure where.

“You know what I mean. The Liberatus isn’t exactly The Guardian. It’s nothing about your journalistic credentials, which are, of course, first class.”

Matt shook his head and continuing typing. “Very nicely redeemed, Rosie.”

Rosie offered her guests drinks and they sat down around the table.

“So, what are you writing?” asked Maria, bumping Zak up and down on her knee.

“We’re finishing off an investigation into a major corruption by our most trusted and elected members of parliament,” Matt said and looked at Rosie. “And, as a matter of fact, the mainstream papers are picking up on the story.”

Rosie smiled and rested a hand on his shoulder. “So I heard. You’re doing a great job, Matthew.” She turned to Maria. “Come on. Let’s go out into the garden while the sun’s out.”

Rosie led them down the hallway towards the back of the house and through a utility room at the end, where the light of the garden seemed to be flooding in.

As Maria and Joe followed her outside, they heard a shriek, where they found a boy with blonde hair around the same age as Joe with a scowl of discontent on his face. Another older boy with dark brown, matted hair was crying, holding his cheek and pointing at him.

“Troy, did you hit him? That’s very naughty!” She grabbed his arm and made him apologise but it was evident he was used to being told off. Instead, he just stared at Maria and Joe quizzically. Maria bent down to comfort the other boy.

After five minutes, the commotion was forgotten and the three boys continued playing on a large wooden climbing frame.

As the mini-drama receded, the two adults sat around a large wooden table set outside and Rosie disappeared into the kitchen to fetch glasses and a bottle of Rioja.

“Troy is John Rhode’s son,” she said on her return. “A right handful as you can see.”

“Who?”

“The blonde one. He’s staying here for a while. The other one is Tom, my first.”

Maria smiled and glanced at the children, as they clambered over the frame like monkeys. “So, this John Rhodes. Tell me more about him and this talk you mentioned.”