Clay (6 page)

six

All week, clay babies crawled and whimpered in my dreams. Little devils with stunted wings strutted and cackled and flew. I told myself I was wrong. I must have been. Like Stephen said, I’d been deceived. It was all illusion. I thought of God making us. I wondered if artists were like God, if they had a bit of God inside themselves. I wondered,
Is it only God who can breathe life into the world, only God who can create
? I kept recalling Stephen’s voice.
Move. Live.
I kept recalling what I’d seen before my eyes. I wanted to see it again, and to touch it for myself, to hold living breathing clay between my hands.

Prat brought bags of clay into his lesson that week. I molded lumps of it. It was cold and gritty stuff. It wouldn’t take the lovely shapes I wanted it to take. All I could create were stupid clumsy hopeless things. I looked at Stephen’s beautiful apostles standing on a shelf. I watched Geordie quickly extruding arms and legs, eyes on stalks, forming scales and claws. I watched him make a multilimbed disgusting thing. Prat held it up to show it to the rest of us. Such a bold exciting piece, he said. A thing from deep down in the dark, a true true monster.

He laughed.

“Some would say, of course,” he said, “that what the artist does is to give an outer form to his inner self.”

And he held the monster’s face by Geordie’s face and gasped in horror at the similarity. I caught Maria looking at me then. I closed my hands around my useless shape. She held up a thing that was becoming a horse and pretended to race it through the air in front of her. She smiled at me and suddenly I felt so stupid, so small. I raised my hand.

“Sir,” I said.

“Yes, Davie?”

I tried to form the question.

“Do you think,” I said, “that an artist is a kind of god?”

“Aha!” Prat flicked his hair back. He tugged at his scrawny beard and pondered. He suddenly reached up to a shelf behind him and pulled a dusty Bible down.

“‘And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,’” he read, “‘and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.’”

He closed the book. He walked back and forward before us with his chin in his hand.

“We are certainly copying him in some way,” he said.

Some of the kids were throwing clay about. Prat didn’t even notice, or he pretended not to notice, when a little bit of it just missed his head and smacked into the blackboard.

“But is human creativity equal to the creativity of God?” he said. “That question has led many down a darkening and ever more terrifying path. What would our priests say to such a question? At one time their answers might have involved boiling oil and thumbscrews and racks.” He smiled at Geordie’s monster. “No, Davie,” he said, and he addressed all of us. “I think an artist is simply human, a human with an astounding skill, a skill that may indeed be God-given, but nevertheless…human.” He gently handed Geordie his monster back. “We cannot, like God, create a soul. We cannot, like God, create life. But who is to say what the limits of our creativity might nevertheless be?”

Geordie poked and pulled at the clay while Prat blathered on. Geordie blew into his monster’s horrible mouth. He held it up and rocked it in his hand and grunted,

“Hello, Davie. Me gonna eat you up.”

Maria jogged her horse across her bench. She kept on smiling at me.

When Prat shut up, Geordie nudged me, dead chuffed.

“You’ll never guess what I’ve done,” he said.

“You’re right,” I said. “I’ll never guess.”

“I’ve sorted out a meeting with Mouldy,” he said.

“You’re joking.”

“No. I saw Skinner. We sorted it out. Tuesday night. There’ll be a truce.”

“A meeting? With that—”

“I told him Stephen Rose is a bliddy lunatic. I told him about his mother in the nuthouse and all his crazy family. I told him even if he is a Catholic and he lives in Felling he’s nowt to do with us.”

“Is he not?”

“Course he’s not. I said I’d ploat him myself if wasn’t for the priest.”

“And a meeting with bliddy—”

“I know, but Skinner says he’s not that bad, really. He says there’s a soft side to him.”

I just looked at Geordie. He grinned.

“There’s a good side to everybody, man,” he said. “I’ve heard you say it yourself.”

I couldn’t say anything.

“And he’s had a really tough life,” Geordie said.

“Who has?”

“Mouldy, man.”

“I feel really sorry for him, then.”

Geordie laughed.

“Aye,” he said. “The poor troubled soul.”

I grunted, and fiddled with my clay. I rolled it between my palms and the bench top and made a stupid wormy shape. I thought of the baby squirming in Stephen’s hands. I thought of the way he whispered to it to move and live.

Geordie held his monster up.

“Hello, Davieboy,” it growled. “Me is hungry.”

I shook my head and sighed.

“Worry not,” it said. “Me will protect you from horrible Mouldy. Ugh. Ugh.”

Prat urged us on.

“Don’t stop, my artists! Astounding things might lie in wait!”

seven

We served at a wedding that Saturday. It was a lass from Leam Lane called Vera that’d left school just a couple of years back and a scrawny little bloke called Billy White. Geordie reckoned Vera must be up the stick to marry an ugly bloke like him but I couldn’t see a bump. There was thunder during the service. You could see all the aunties and neighbors in the congregation staring up at the roof and worrying about their hats. By the time they went out for the photographs, though, the storm had gone and everything was drying.

They all stood in the sun beside the statue of St. Patrick in his animal skins and with his wild long hair and with snakes squirming under his feet. The blokes loosened their ties and smoked and joked and laughed. The women talked about each other’s hats and kept screaming at something hilarious. Kids belted up and down the church steps. Father O’Mahoney chatted and smiled. Geordie and I eyed the guests up and wondered where the tip might come from. I saw Maria there, standing with the women, looking bored. Then Billy called us over.

He said Vera wanted a picture of us beside them in our cassocks and cottas. A memento, he said. So they could remember everything about their perfect day. Would we mind? We shrugged. All right, we said. I said Geordie’d probably bust the camera, though. We stood there with the bride and groom between us. We joined our hands together and raised our eyes to Heaven. There were great fluffy white clouds in the icy blue sky and I felt like I was toppling over as my eyes followed them. There was a click and a flash; then Billy shook our hands. He said he and Vera would be honored if we accepted a little token and he held out a ten-bob note to us. Geordie shoved it in his pocket.

“Ten bob!” we whispered.

“I told you that Billy was a good bloke,” said Geordie.

Then they took a photo with Father O’Mahoney standing at their side with his hand raised in blessing.

We were just going back up the steps into church to take our altar gear off when Maria came over.

“She looks lovely, doesn’t she?” she said.

I stopped on the second step. Geordie kept climbing. I gulped. I looked past Maria to Vera.

“Aye,” I said.

“She’s my cousin. She must be daft, though, eh?”

“Eh?”

“Getting married, at her age. You won’t find me doing that.”

“Won’t you?”

“No. You won’t find me getting trapped. I’ll be off into the wild blue yonder!”

I looked at Billy cuddling and kissing Vera beside the statue. Maria grinned at me. She shrugged.

“That’s all,” she said. “Just thought I’d come and say hello.”

“Hello,” I said. Her eyes were lovely, bluer than the sky. “I liked your horse,” I said as she turned away.

“What horse?”

“The one you made in Prat’s class.”

She put her hands on her hips.

“That horse, Davie, was a lion.”

She grinned. The women in the hats started howling their heads off again.

“I’m not going to the reception,” she said.

“Oh.”

“It’ll be all ham sandwiches and squealing brats and blokes puking up around the back.”

She looked at the sky.

“It’s a lovely day for a walk,” she said.

“Is it?” I said.

“D’you want to go for one?”

I could feel Geordie urging me to get away from her. She looked up at him, rolled her eyes, looked back at me.

“Do you?” she said.

“Aye.”

“I’ll wait for you out here, then,” she said.

“Aye,” I said.

I tried to stay cool. I went up the steps, and the clouds over the church roof were just like angels’ wings.

eight

“You’re gonna do
what
with
who
?” said Geordie.

“It’s just a walk, man, Geordie.”

“Just a walk? What about what we were going to do?”

“What
were
we going to do?”

“What we always do.”

“What’s that, then?”

“How do I know? Hang about and that.”

“Geordie, man. We’re not joined at the bliddy hip.”

“You can say that again.” He yanked his cotta off. “For a
walk
?”

We were in the sacristy, the room in the church where we got changed. There was a massive crucifix, a cabinet for the altar wine and communion hosts, massive drawers and wardrobes for the priests’ vestments, racks of candles, boxes of incense, heaps of prayer books, hymnbooks, pictures of saints with gammy legs and with arrows in them, portraits of dead priests and bishops. There was an altar boys’ rota pinned to the wall.

I pulled my white cotta over my head. I undid the buttons on my red cassock and took it off.

“You could come as well,” I said.

“Oh, aye? And play little goosegog Geordie?”

I scratched at the grass stains on my pants and the dried mud on my shoes. I hung the cassock and cotta in my place on the altar boys’ rail. Geordie did the same. He wouldn’t look at me.

“There’s her mate,” I said.

“The gargoyle, you mean?”

“Geordie, man.”

“I’ll go and see the lads up Windy Nook. Mebbes we’ll go and ploat some Springwellers.” He pursed his lips and made his voice go girly. “You go for your nice little walk with your nice little lass.” He headed out of the sacristy. “Just don’t go out walking on Tuesday,” he said. And he went into the church and out of the church and the massive door thudded shut behind him.

I followed him out. I passed Father O’Mahoney coming back in.

“Thank you, Davie,” he said. “You and your pal did very well.”

He winked.

“Ten bob!” he said.

I went out of the shadowy church into the brilliant light. I hesitated at the top of the church steps. I looked down across Felling to the river. It glistened in the light. It snaked eastwards towards the horizon, the dead flat sea.

I breathed deep and calmed myself and went down to Maria. We were shy with each other. When we started walking, we hardly swung our arms in case we knocked against each other. We didn’t know what to say. We headed along Sunderland Road and up into Holly Hill park. It was neat like always: flowers in neat clumps and rows, the lawns and hedges all trimmed, the shrubs pruned, the soil all raked. We passed close to the bowling green. We saw people dressed all in white through gaps in the hedges, saw the rectangle of perfect green, heard little clacks as the bowls struck each other, little bursts of laughter and applause. There was a storm of birdsong from the shrubs and tall trees all around. The parkie saw us. His leg brace clicked as he limped towards us. He said nowt, but he narrowed his eyes and raised a finger at us in warning.

“It’s all right,” I said to him. “We’ll cause no bother, Mr. Pew.”

He showed us a little black book and mimed writing in it. He made a fist and shook it at us. Then he turned and limped away.

“Does he
ever
talk?” said Maria.

“Just when he yells,” I said. And I imitated him. “I’ve got my beady eye on you, boyo! Sling your hook, kidder!”

We walked on, out of the park and onto Holly Hill. We passed the Columba Club. Blurry people were drinking beyond the frosted glass. We laughed again about the horse that was a lion. She said that sometimes she felt closer to animals than she did to people. To grown-up people, anyway.

“I don’t want to grow up,” she said. “Not to be like most people here, anyway. You know what I mean?”

I shrugged.

“They’re so tame,” she said. “They’ve got such pathetic little lives. I want to do something special, don’t you?”

“Aye,” I said.

“I used to want to be a nun. Thought it might be a way of getting out of here. Then I found out about poverty, chastity, obedience, and silence and I thought mebbe it’s not for me.”

“I wanted to be a monk for a while. When that White Father came and talked to us.”

“Him! He was gorgeous! And what about now?”

“Dunno.”

“Me neither. But something special. Not the common boring run of things.”

We walked on. Sometimes our hands brushed gently against each other. We headed up Split Crow Road towards Watermill Lane where the wide verges were and young trees lined the street. We kept passing neighbors and relatives. They kept calling to us and we waved and called back. They nudged each other, laughed and smiled.

“Look to them all,” Maria said. “It’s like there’s never anywhere to get
away
. Hello, Aunty Claire!” she yelled as some woman hurried past with a bag full of shopping.

We walked on.

“You know that Stephen Rose, don’t you?” she said.

“Aye.”

“He went away, didn’t he?”

“Aye.”

“There’s tales about him, aren’t there? Are they true?”

“Dunno.”

“People are full of blather, aren’t they?”

“Aye,” I said.

“Is he friendly?”

“No.”

“Is he weird?”

“Aye.”

“Nice weird or creepy weird?”

I thought about it.

“Both,” I said.

We walked on. We approached Braddock’s garden. We looked across at Crazy Mary’s house. I looked into the sky. So blue. The clouds so dazzling white. I tipped my head back and narrowed my eyes.

“What you
doing
?” said Maria.

“Do you think you could think that clouds were angels?” I said.

“You could think anything was anything,” she said. “It’s how your mind works. Prat’s a prat but he’s right. We could imagine just about anything.”

We walked on. We came to the ancient iron gate. It was rusted, twisted. The lock on it had been ruined years ago.

Maria narrowed her eyes and stared into the sky like me.

“Just look at them all!” she gasped.