Ali’s challenges multiply as she tries to escape from Wonderland and rescue her father. Who can she trust in this world of exotic, vulnerable creatures? How can she enlist their help without putting them at risk from the brutality of the Jabberwocky and the agents of the White Rose?
‘Someone came through with me,’ said Ali. ‘I think she’s dying.’ ‘Is that so?’ The Hatter stared at the water for a moment, then stepped up onto the bank. ‘How badly is she dying?’
‘How badly? She’s in a lot of pain. Is that what you mean?’
‘No. A bad death can be painful, certainly, but dying is difficult to manage over here. Her body will try to repair itself, but what form that mending takes will depend on her.’
‘What form?’ Ali grabbed his elbow. ‘Are you saying that damage triggers the transformations? You get injured and your body starts adapting to save you?’
‘Exactly so.’ The Hatter sat to pull his boots on. ‘Our bodies will do everything in their power to mend. Don’t press me for details. None of our palace scholars can agree on the subject, except for one thing – do NOT get badly injured.’
Ali’s challenges multiply as she tries to escape from Wonderland and rescue her father. Who can she trust in this world of exotic, vulnerable creatures? How can she enlist their help without putting them at risk from the brutality of the Jabberwocky and the agents of the White Rose?
‘Someone came through with me,’ said Ali. ‘I think she’s dying.’ ‘Is that so?’ The Hatter stared at the water for a moment, then stepped up onto the bank. ‘How badly is she dying?’
‘How badly? She’s in a lot of pain. Is that what you mean?’
‘No. A bad death can be painful, certainly, but dying is difficult to manage over here. Her body will try to repair itself, but what form that mending takes will depend on her.’
‘What form?’ Ali grabbed his elbow. ‘Are you saying that damage triggers the transformations? You get injured and your body starts adapting to save you?’
‘Exactly so.’ The Hatter sat to pull his boots on. ‘Our bodies will do everything in their power to mend. Don’t press me for details. None of our palace scholars can agree on the subject, except for one thing – do NOT get badly injured.’
The journey to the next village went without incident. Lord Grey drove as carefully as he could, keeping below the speed limit, conscious that every bend in the road would be a challenge for Ali curled up in the boot. From time to time, he shook a little, unable to suppress the image of Potts rising from the debris of their dining room like a bloodied demon from a Goya painting.
‘Potts!’ It was all he could think to say.
‘I know, dear.’ His wife, Martha, rested a gloved hand on his elbow. They had called for an ambulance as soon as they were clear of the village, keeping the information brief, giving just the location of the accident and the extent of the injury before ending the call when they were pressed for more details.
‘Can you believe this? What in God’s name have we done?’ He reached down and squeezed her hand.
‘What we had to. No time for regrets.’ She paused. ‘What time we do have will be in service to that girl. We will rescue her father. Everything else is just so much flotsam on the beach.’
They arrived at the next village and found a quiet street on the outskirts where tall hedgerows lined a municipal park.
‘This will do,’ said Martha. They parked. Lord Grey climbed out, checked that no one was about, opened the car boot – and felt his old heart clamp tight in his chest. The boot was empty, except for a note. ‘Oh Ali,’ he sighed. ‘What now?’ He took the note, slammed the boot lid, and climbed back into the car. He didn’t say a word, but Martha had read his expression the moment he’d opened the door.
‘She’s gone, hasn’t she?’
‘She has, my dear.’ He took a deep breath, unfolded the note, and they read it together.
Thank you for making me fall in love with you. Please keep driving and don’t be angry. I know where the secret is, and I know how to keep it from them. When Dad gets hold of you – and he will, I’m sure of it – tell him I found Jackie and I’ll take care of her for Mum. Tell him I love him with all my heart and I’m sorry I was so angry all the time. It was never him. Never.
Now keep driving, and don’t stop till you get safely to London.
They sat in silence, holding hands, their cheeks wet. Then without a word between them, Lord Grey turned the car around. Ali was family, and family stuck together, no matter what.
They stopped once, when Martha said she needed a restroom. She didn’t, it was for her husband, but she knew he’d never say and would press on whatever his discomfort. They pulled into the courtyard of a country pub, parking as close to the main door as possible.
‘This will do us.’ Lord Grey got out, stepped round the car and helped his wife out in a well-practised ritual. He lowered his head and lent down towards her so she could put her hands behind his neck and lock her fingers together.
‘May I have this dance?’ he said as he straightened his back, pulling her gently to her feet. Then, with his hands on her hips, he took her waist to support her as they walked slowly into the pub, him forwards, her backwards, as if they were dancing to music no one else could hear.
‘We used to come here, Bertie . . . years ago. Do you remember?’
‘I do. Sadly, you won’t know the interior. Some colour-blind delinquent was let loose on the place, all cash and no class. Be warned.’ ‘Oh, and how do you know this?’
‘Rotary. Can’t have all our meetings in one pub. Must spread the love.’
They carried on through the lounge, their slow-step hardly registering on the only other customers – three workers in orange safety vests. They were sitting together at a corner table, two men and a woman, their eyes fixed on a TV behind the bar.
The toilets were small, clean and tidy. The washbasins were in a shared space outside the cubicles. They stood side by side washing their hands, and caught sight of their reflections in the mirror.
‘We need a brandy,’ said Lord Grey, and to his surprise, his wife agreed. They eased their way back into the lounge, Martha holding to her husband’s arm with one hand, the other taking hold of whatever support she could find on the short journey: the top of an old radiator, a side table. They sat, perching on bar stools like exhausted pigeons recovering from a long flight.
‘What in God’s name does she hope to do?’ Lord Grey stared at his drink.
‘I doubt she knows. The dear child is doing exactly what we are.’
‘Which is what, exactly?’
‘Thinking with her heart.’
‘Yes.’ He reached out and placed a hand on her arm. ‘Well, it has served us well enough.’
Across at the corner table, the workers in their orange safety vests got to their feet, their phones all pinging some call to action. They left their drinks and hurried from the lounge. Lord and Lady Grey finished their brandies and followed at a more sedate pace.
‘My toiletries please, Bertie,’ said Martha. She lifted her arms clear of the seat belt her husband was struggling to place across her tiny
frame. ‘In the top of the travel bag I think.’
Lord Grey reached over onto the back seat and opened their bag. Tucked into the top beside the bag of toiletries was Ali’s journal.
‘For us, I suppose?’ He pulled it out and handed it straight to Martha. She glanced at it, briefly closed her eyes as if gathering strength, then took her reading glasses from her purse.
‘I’ll read, you drive.’ She opened the journal, and Bertie drove the Bentley out onto the road. Inside the cover was a note.
If all goes to plan, you’ll be safely in London unpacking your bags when you read this. There’s so much I have to tell you, and no time left. So read this, keep it safe, and give it to Dad when you find him. It’s just bullet points – what I saw over there, and what I think is going on. And you were never crazy, Auntie, your bluebell clearing among the silver birch trees is a real place, but it’s good your family sent you away, or you might be lost over there like our Great Aunt Alice . . . AND . . . you would have never married the best uncle on the planet.
Stay in London and stay safe. I don’t think these people will touch you there, not with me gone, they don’t need you as leverage anymore and they don’t like attention, so just find Dad – but that’s all. PLEASE don’t kick the hornet’s nest, Uncle Bertie, we really don’t know what’s in there.
Forgive me,
Ali XXX
Neither made comment. Lord Grey kept driving and listened intently as Martha read through the journal. He shook his head from time to time but kept his eyes on the road ahead, flexing his hands and fingers from time to time to ease the cramp in his knuckles.
‘You’re speeding, Bertie.’
‘Yes.’ He glanced across at his wife, realised her comment was a statement, not a reprimand, and kept his foot down. They were almost home when they hit traffic.
‘What the blazes!’ Lord Grey stared at the line of cars up ahead. In all the years they’d lived here, neither had ever seen any congestion in the village.
‘Can we get around it?’ Martha was watching the scene outside. It was far more than a simple traffic jam. The pavements were crowded with locals hurrying on foot towards the main green. She cursed quietly. Whatever this was, she’d bet it involved Ali. How could it not?
‘We could try the service road behind the shops,’ said Lord Grey. A siren drowned him out as two fire engines came weaving their way through the cars behind them.
‘Something’s not right,’ whispered Martha.
‘Obviously, my dear.’
‘Not the traffic – the skyline.’ She leaned forward and stared through the windscreen. ‘Something . . . what is it . . .?’
At first, she couldn’t place it. Then it struck her like a blow to the stomach. ‘Oh, dear God! The church spire – it’s gone!’
They pulled over to let the fire engines through. All the cars were stationary now, their drivers getting out, everyone reaching for their phones and setting off on foot.
‘Follow them!’ said Martha. She saw her husband’s hesitation, the concern clouding his eyes. ‘I’ll be fine. Go!’
He did, joining the surge of people heading toward the green. In minutes he had a clear view of the church.
‘Bloody hell!’ Lord Grey had been a teenager in London during the Blitz and had experienced its depressing aftermath, the demolition of so many damaged and unstable buildings. Now, here in front of him was his own parish church, its steeple gone and much of the roof. Not that he cared in that moment; all that mattered was the girl who might be under all that rubble.
He pushed his way towards the yellow tape of a police cordon where locals were badgering a young officer. The young woman looked fresh out of college.
‘Was it the builders?’ asked a teenager with green hair. ‘Are the builders buried under that lot?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Anyone hurt?’
‘No word yet.’ The officer raised her voice, responding to the moment as best she could with lines borrowed from some TV show. ‘Can everyone please stay behind the tape. Let everyone do their jobs, okay?’
‘There was a girl . . .’ A mother holding a small baby waved a finger at the church. ‘She was climbing the scaffold. I called you. I called the police.’
Lord Grey pushed his way towards the woman but felt his knees giving way so leaned on the nearest shoulder to steady himself. He needed to sit down. He needed another brandy.
An ambulance pulled out from behind the church, it’s blue light flicking into life as it found a path around the scattered bricks.
‘Ali!’ Lord Grey pushed his way back to his car as the ambulance weaved a slow passage through the chaos around him. Martha said nothing as her husband climbed in beside her; she’d seen the ambulance and their next move needed no discussion.
‘Damn it!’ Lord Grey executed a clumsy five-point turn, clipping the bumper of a Toyota van and toppling a parked motorbike. He graunched gears and turned the air blue with expletives. They followed the ambulance a few short blocks to the medical clinic.
Lord Grey pulled up, climbed out, and was heading for the rear doors of the ambulance when a police car came racing in from the other direction. The back of the ambulance swung open and a medic stepped out. He was pink with dust. On the gurney behind him, a body lay beneath a green sheet.
‘What are you doing here?’
Lord Grey turned. Superintendent Dovecot was standing behind him. She too, was pink with dust.’
‘Who’s this?’ he asked, ignoring her question.
‘We don’t know.’
‘Thank God!’ Lord Grey’s relief was so transparent, Dovecot couldn’t fail to notice it.
‘You thought it was Alice.’
‘Nonsense!’ He almost barked the response.
‘Yes, you did. Plain as day. You think Ali was in that church?’
‘All right, yes.’ Lord Grey tried to gather his wits. ‘The thought had occurred to me. She ran out on us, you see. Gone to find her father. Hitching her way down to London as we speak.’ He could feel the officer’s gaze scanning him like a laser, dissecting his performance.
‘But you’re not a hundred percent sure.’ She said it softly, guiding him to trust her.
‘No . . .’ he said, appearing to drop all pretence. ‘London was her plan, but did she really leave? How can we know? When that young lady has her mind set on something, I think the fates must take great care to step out of her way.’
‘Yes. Bit of a hothead, that one. We must talk, Lord Grey. I’ll be in touch.’
To take Lewis Carroll's timeless "Alice" books and a selection of their uniquely bizarre and unsettling elements and craft them into something which has the same rich taste but a new author's seasoning is the move of a bold writer, I think.
Has Martin Baynton carried it off? Well, I would say from my point of view, yes. I mean, this is a very different book to Carroll's but it's a really good read with excitement and tension and some very dark moments indeed that have the flavour and essence of the original Alice; however, this book is something quite different, quite modern, a 21st century Alice book with science references and modern vernacular and it's all the more enjoyable for Baynton's insertions; I would add, though, continuing the food analogy, that it has a bitterness, a tang which the original "Alice" books may have had traces of but which were not so concentrated and which adds a darkness and less frivolous edge which will please modern readers.
This is the second book in Baynton's vision of Wonderland and we are following Ali, who is not Alice but her great niece, as she re-enters this other world to find her father and help her mother's friend, Waxstaff. She is in danger as are her associates in the outside world - Peter, Aunt Martha, Uncle Bertie, Dovecot - as well as those who help her in Wonderland - the Rabbit, the Hatter, the Queen.
This is fast-paced action from start to finish. I've not read the first so I will admit that the initial chapters required me to focus and try and thread together who the characters were, their relationships to each other and the back story which had obviously already been established in book one, but it wasn't hard to work out who to trust and who are the bad guys.
Baynton has imagination in spades and is able to create characters who are smart and likeable and brave, who are resilient in the face of danger and give you a warm feeling as you are invested in them and their success. There are chases, tension, mysteries, riddles and reveals. There are some nice touches too, such as the identities of the boys (no spoilers here), which I rather liked.
I'm looking forward to book three, but first, I think I will make time to visit book one!