Burning Boy (Penguin Award Winning Classics), The (19 page)

‘Will we meet anyone?'

‘Shouldn't do.'

‘Can I drive?'

‘No fear, you'd have us down the gorge. No more pines eh, real bush. This is the way it used to be.'

She put her head out the window and looked back. A bit of Saxton showed, scraps of grey, like dirty paper, beyond half a dozen folds of hill. The plains, with orchards and gardens indistinct, dull green or navy blue or faded brown, went off to the foothills and the mountains and the sky. The inlet was full, milky blue, with Stoat Island, Jacks Island, lying flat and ragged and half swamped. Long Island, with its pines turned black and a thread of breaking sea on its five-mile beach, closed the inlet. Yachts and trawlers sailed on the bay, making little smudges on the glitter, and a black and yellow tanker lay off the Cut.

‘I've never been so high,' Hayley yelled. ‘My ears went pop.'

They bumped over a ford where the water was almost dried up, and further on Hayley got out and dragged a fallen branch from the track.

‘That means no one's been here. Not for a while.'

‘There could be trampers. But they mostly go up the top of Corkie. We turn here. See how the bush is getting stunted? This is the snowline.'

They drove in a dry creek bed, with the Land-Rover crawling on rocks and easing its tyres down the other side. It turned so far over, her way first, then Lex's, it would have capsized if it had been a boat. When she looked back the long view was gone. Tops crowded round and the way they leaned inwards made her shiver.

‘What's up?'

‘I was wondering if you'd turn into a goat.'

‘Not today. You're pretty safe.'

They stopped in scurfy beech trees no higher than her head.

‘This'll do. See over there, those brown hills are in the mineral belt. So they'll have the open country and the tops and the bush for shelter lower down. Real goat country. Better than being fenced in, eh? There's too many concentration camps.'

‘With those oblong pupils in their eyes, do they see things kind of square?'

‘Maybe. They see things different, that's all I know.'

They lifted the goats out and Lex untied their legs. At once they scrambled up, almost threw themselves onto their feet, and clattered away ten metres on the stony ground and suddenly stopped.

‘Go on. Get lost.'

‘Do they want to say goodbye?'

‘Goats don't go in for that. They're sizing things up. Piss off, you silly buggers. If you hang around here some bastard with a gun will come and shoot you.'

‘Maybe they want to stay with you. Aren't you their friend?'

He moved away from her and she felt as if he'd pushed her out of a room and closed the door. If he did not want people sharing his goats why had he brought her with him then? She leaned on the tail of the Land-Rover and watched. But Lex did nothing more and the goats walked further off, stopping to look at him in their side-headed way as if they expected him to follow. They scrambled up a bank and went around some beech trees and were gone.

Then Hayley felt Lex shift out of himself. She felt him travel off with the goats. It was like a tearing, part from part, in his head. ‘Lex.' She went towards him, unsure what to do, and put her arms round him from behind. He made a hard twisting of his shoulders, enough to throw her several steps away.

‘Come on, Lex.'

She held him again, pressing her cheek in his shoulder blades. He smelled of goats. She knew she must bring him back from there.

After a while he loosened her hands and turned around. She had thought he might be crying but his eyes were dry and hard, a human look.

‘All I had to do was start.'

‘Then I would have been left here alone.'

Lex was quiet. He laughed. ‘That never crossed my mind.' He put his arms around her and she thought, It's going to happen. She was terrified. ‘One day, Hayley, I'm going where they are. And I'm not coming back.'

‘What would you eat?'

He smiled, and said, ‘I've got to get rid of all this stuff we carry
round. So if you and me fuck it's a oncer. You can't hold me to it later on.'

‘You'll be a goat, you mean?'

‘I don't know what I'll be. You want to do it? I don't mind if you say no.'

‘Yes, I want to. Where do we go?'

‘In the back.'

‘The goats have pooped in there.'

‘Drag all those sacks out. Just leave the clean ones on the top.'

‘I don't want to do it where the goats were.'

‘Sure, OK. I guess it's kind of soft over here.'

She took off her T-shirt and laid it on the ground and knelt beside it. ‘Lex.'

He was watching her.

‘Don't just open up your fly.'

‘Is that what your boyfriend does? Sounds like he's got a lot to learn.'

‘If it's just for once it's got to be proper.'

‘Don't worry Hayley, it'll be proper.' He knelt in front of her and pulled her close and when she tried to unzip his jeans would not give her room. She quietened down, kept still. He seemed to step them back and make a place for them to start again.

They made a bed of all their clothes on the ground.

‘No, cut that out,' holding her face where he could see.

‘I thought you'd like it.'

‘We don't need any tricks. Nice and simple, that's the way.'

He made her move easily and slow. She had never come properly with Gary, but came soon after Lex was inside her, and he stayed in and talked to her a while, then moved some more and she came again, and was doing it all the time, it went on and on and when she thought it was going to finish another one started. She heard her voice calling out, making sounds not words, and heard herself panting as though a race was over.

‘Noisy, aren't you?' Lex said.

‘I hope no one heard.'

‘I heard.'

‘Well, I wanted you to. Are you supposed to stay hard like that?'

‘I hardly moved. I let you do all the work.'

‘Haven't you come?'

‘Not yet. Wasn't easy.'

‘I want you to. I want everything.'

‘Do you want to get pregnant?'

‘Don't go. Stay in, please.'

‘You couldn't come again if I stayed all night. No you don't, no mouths. Your hand is fine.'

She did it with her hand and was happy at the shout he made.

‘Is it always as good as this, Lex?'

‘Depends on who you're with.'

‘Can't we do it another time?'

‘Nope. A deal's a deal.'

‘Where can I find someone as good as you?'

‘It ain't easy. But listen Hayley, don't start shopping round.'

‘I won't. No more Garys, that's for sure.' She closed her eyes and smiled. She was so pleased with herself she wanted to make purring sounds.

‘Come on, time to go.'

‘Was I asleep?'

‘Yep. On my jeans. I can't get dressed.'

‘Do we have to get dressed?'

‘'Fraid so, Hayley. If I'm going to get you back.'

She pulled on her clothes. ‘What are you looking at me like that for?'

‘So I'll remember. Give us …' He took her hand and moved it between his own, to feel the way her bones ran side by side. He pressed his fingertips on the edge of her nails.

‘Oh, Lex.'

‘Hey, we're OK. Nothing bad is going to happen.'

‘Why don't you be like other people?'

‘Come on. In the cab.'

‘Why, Lex?'

‘Can't, that's all. Thanks, Hayley. I'm glad you came to see me. I guess it was more than I deserve. Hands off. No more.'

They drove down to his house and said goodbye.

Hayley rode home along the valley.

And Shelley, who went to visit Neil Chote, where is she? As Hayley rides by the river and through town Shelley is in a car by the soccer ground. She sits in the back, where girlfriends sit, and every now
and then she puts the back of her hand to her mouth and brings it away smeared with blood.

The sun goes down and the sky above the mountains turns red. Around the soccer ground and over the water by the marina streetlights go on. She leans on the car door, her cheek on the window, and waits. She waits for nothing. She does not care what happens to her now. The pain in her swollen wrist, which she holds in front of her as though her forearm is suspended on a hook, scarcely seems to be part of her.

She hears feet running far away and shouts like seagull cries and squeals like a dog. Then they stop.

Slowly the evening turns to night. The lights harden up and make a field of yellow round themselves. Voices are talking in the right-of-way. A policeman comes out and looks around and crosses the road. He opens the front door of the car and shines a torch on her. His smile gleams in the dark.

‘Shelley Birtles, eh? We thought we might find you in on this.'

The dog snored in his basket by the sofa, the TV set laughed in another room, Stella and Miranda competed in knowledge of the world, in the clever word, and Norma wished herself at home. She had not come to listen to these girls. She'd had enough half-bakedness, articulate or not, in her year, and wanted to relax and chat with Josie, who had phoned and asked her round for a pot-luck meal (salad and quiche, nothing pot-luck about it, vegetarian cordon bleu). Tom was on the tiles so the pair of them could have a couple of drinks and a good old natter, Josie said. Norma had supposed Mandy and Stella would be out.

‘It's not a drought, it's simply a dry spell,' Miranda said.

‘Abnormally dry.' Stella.

‘Oh but it's hardly summer yet. To talk of drought when all we've had is six weeks without rain –'

‘And spring's scarcely over –'

‘And the rivers are full of water –'

‘It shows how much the farming mentality rules in this country. If the grass doesn't grow we're in mortal danger one would think.'

Belinda put her head in from the TV room. ‘Ever Decreasing Circles,' she shouted, and was gone.

‘I think some of those redneck farmers would sacrifice virgins for an inch or two of rain.' Miranda.

‘They'd keep the virgins,' Stella, ‘and sacrifice their dried-up wives instead.'

‘Ever Decreasing Circles,' Belinda cried.

‘You should try to wean her off TV, Mum. God knows what the inside of her mind is getting like.'

‘Oh, I watch that.' Miranda stood up. ‘It's one of the more literate sitcoms.'

Stella blinked. Remade herself. ‘That main character has got a very interesting psychosis.'

‘And there's a dishy neighbour,' Miranda said. ‘I fancy him.'

Miranda was growing up, Norma thought, almost liking her.
Stella's confusion was likable too. Would she follow Mandy? Yes, she would, though awkwardly. ‘It's nearly holidays, I guess I can slum.' It took a Round to wrong-foot a Round.

‘Let's sit by the pool,' Josie said. ‘You can swim if you like. I'll lend you some togs.'

‘I don't think I will. Chlorine makes me sneeze.' She settled in a canvas chair and looked at the luminescent surface. ‘There'll be water restrictions soon. You'll have to close it.'

‘Oh, Tom pumps from the river. There's nothing in nature Tom can't overcome. Droughts, floods, you name it. He just pops into a phone booth and changes costume.'

Norma laughed. She hoped they were not going to talk about Tom.

‘What he can't handle is other people's feelings. Other people's feelings,' Josie puffed her cigarette, hunting for something shrewd, ‘trespass on his space.'

They were going to talk about Tom.

‘He'd like us all in neutral,' Josie said.

‘This Stephanie,' Norma hoped she had the licence, ‘doesn't she take the pressure off?'

‘Increases it. He comes home and seems to think he's got to re-establish himself here.'

‘With you?'

‘It's the idea he likes. Running two women.'

‘Let's not talk about Tom,' Norma said.

‘Why not? He makes for pretty good conversation. I think I climbed Tom because he was there. He's just something I stuck my flag on top of. Mount Tom. Nice when the sunset catches him. I wish the bastard wouldn't keep coming home.'

‘Climb another mountain.' She was not sure flippancy was called for. Wasn't Josie asking for help?

Josie laughed. She turned up her face and blew smoke into the air. ‘I have no desire,' – with a nasal pitch; delivery comic, content hard.

‘For another man?'

‘For anyone.' Josie smiled. ‘Tom still gets me twitchy but that's habit. What I've found out in the last few weeks, I don't need sex. Correction. Sexual partners. I just need me. It's wonderful. I'm going to write a book and start a revolution.'

Norma took a cigarette. She did not often smoke.

‘You're shocked,' Josie said.

‘I guess I'm shocked at solitariness. I don't think that's the way to go.'

‘I'm not solitary, I'm talking to you.'

Norma took a puff and stabbed the cigarette out. What a foul taste. ‘Are you sure you haven't rationalized it, Josie? Other men are no good after Tom and women won't do?'

‘No. I'm talking about – God, what? Norma, something marvellous is happening to me, with work and friendships and my kids, and being by myself and not needing anyone else. I've always had people chipping at me, running away with bits I need. Jesus, Tom got off with a barrow load. But now it doesn't happen any more. When I said revolution just now, it's a sort of no-sex I'm talking about. I mean, when it gets so I need something – hell Norma, it's like a cup of Milo before bed.'

‘Don't you get lonely?'

‘No, I don't.'

‘Don't you want someone there with you?'

‘There's nothing wrong with a bit of fantasy.'

‘So you do want someone.'

‘You're talking about yourself. Loosen up. Sex isn't in it really, you know. Being enough for yourself in every way is what it's called. I'll tell you what, I'll come along and give the prize-giving speech. I'd love to get the message to those girls.' She grinned fiercely.

‘What do your own girls think about it?'

‘Oh, families are different. I can't tell them.'

Norma laughed. Suddenly it shrank to nothing at all. Another Josie fad, bee in her bonnet. What Josie could find arguments for Josie would do. Some things worked for a while, no doubt. She sat and looked at the night and the stars glittering emptily over the hill, and thought about the difficulties of living alone. One learned a set of stratagems and put all those other ones of daily connection by. Forgot whole areas of play and desperation and all those cunning thrusts, discoveries of the mind and the affections. What had Josie done? – made a move because of pressures on her. Free move? Oh the pressure was inescapable, but the move was free.

I should stand up and cheer. She's on an ascending curve; and
Norma wondered where she was herself. Starting to descend perhaps? On her way down from a place where she had known contentment? Discontents were making their bat-squeak now.

‘You know what I miss most?' Josie said. ‘Loving my kids. No, I mean physically, of course I love them still. But touching them and hugging them, they don't want it any more. Even Bel is getting past it now.'

No child, no lover. But isn't it my corner-stone that I'm not troubled by regrets for things I chose not to have? How would an adman put it – regret-free? And look now, my career. See how it sparkles and shines. Norma laughed.

‘It isn't funny.'

‘I'm sorry, Josie. Just some nonsense in my head. There must be other satisfactions. Seeing them grow up into women.'

‘That's when the pain really starts. I wish I could,' made a lifting movement with her hands, ‘pick them up and shift them where I am.'

‘No you don't.'

‘Don't be so bloody pious, yes I do. You think there's some virtue in that stuff with men? Love and trust and kicks in the teeth? You kept clear, I notice.'

I won't get angry, Norma thought. But really, does she have to be so crass? She shouldn't be so
careless
as that.

‘Duncan is a man. Or he soon will be.'

‘Don't kid yourself. Duncan is a nothing. No, no, sorry, I mustn't say that. Duncan is – what? – evidence?'

‘He's got some life, you know, outside your mind.'

‘Yes, he has. But I keep on thinking someone said, “That'll bloody teach you.” Duncan as a lesson to me. Isn't that what God's supposed to do? Cut us down when we get uppity. Jesus, if I thought the prick had used Duncan on me …'

‘Oh shut up, Josie.' Said it pleasantly. But self-indulgence of this sort really was disgusting. ‘Tell me about his telescope.'

‘He just went out and bought it. Four hundred bucks' worth. Drew the money from his own account. The day after he met your friend.'

‘Well, isn't that good?'

‘Is it? Do you think it makes a jot of difference how he'll end up? Why in hell did you bring up Duncan? I'd managed to forget him for a while.'

You managed to forget the way you feel. Duncan isn't something in your head. ‘Don't have another drink. You've had enough.'

‘Who are you to tell me what to do? Oh Norma, I'm sorry. You're my friend. You're right, I won't have another. Booze just screws me up, I can't think straight. Duncan is improving, isn't he?'

‘I think so.'

‘He took me up,' she waved at the top of the section, ‘and showed me a globular cluster last night. It was beautiful. I had no idea. And he knows all the names. In a week.'

‘I'd like to get him back to school some time. At least into classes of some sort.'

‘Yes, please do.'

But how? And where? And to what end Duncan might choose? There was a long way to go and Norma had the sense of being excluded. It seemed she might have played her part, and John Toft his, and Duncan be moving on his own. She felt robbed of possibilities for love, astonished at her sudden nakedness. She had not thought him much more than a job, an exercise in – caring? – the fashionable term? The boy had not looked at her or spoken at the table, had gone without a word at the end of the meal, and later she had glimpsed him climbing through the rock garden, dropping over the wall, with a squat black box in his arm.

‘A telescope,' Josie had explained.

‘It's one of those short ones,' Belinda. ‘You can see the moons of Jupiter.'

‘Ah,' Norma said. She had felt elated; and depressed.

He sits in his possie in the firebreak and finds M7 in Scorpius. Viewing low in the west isn't good because of the city-glow over the hills. But there's no single light anywhere. Duncan has chosen his place. The house is hidden by the curve of the hill, and Clearwater's and the clubhouse at the golf course are blocked by trees. There's only one small stretch of road where car lights show.

Saturn is gone. He is too late for Saturn. In all that time he wasted it was there, passing over from east to west. Now it's in the city-glow and it won't rise again until next June. Venus is nearly gone too, but Venus doesn't interest him. He wants to see rings and satellites. He does not want ordinary, unmarked, perfect things. Soon he will shift to Jupiter, high in the north. At half past nine Io
will disappear into eclipse. East to west is the movement after opposition. Duncan means to time the event. In the meantime he practises finding the Messier objects in Scorpius, then uses Venus to find Neptune and Uranus. The distance of those two makes him smile. He spans it between his finger and thumb.

His stand for the telescope works fine, there's not the slightest bit of wobble now. Hard work lugging up that length of tanalized post and the four half-buckets of concrete, and tricky getting the level right and screwing on the chipboard plate and vinyl pockets for the tripod legs. On the plate is written in felt-tip: Equipment for Astronomical Observations. Do not Disturb. R. Observatory. The ‘R' stands for Round but Duncan hopes forestry workers and tampers will take it for Royal. He is using the stand for the first time tonight. He thinks he might show Belinda soon, and maybe his mother. Not Mandy or Stell. And what about Mrs Sangster? He feels a little guilty about her; the sudden way he found he didn't need her any more. He's embarrassed by the kind of crush he had, but knows it isn't fair to act as though they haven't been friends. Next time she comes he'll talk to her.

Now, though, he doesn't want anyone. He looks up to the north and finds Jupiter with his eye, just like a star among the stars. The ancients were pretty bright to notice that it moved. You couldn't blame them, he supposed, for working out their crazy stuff as an explanation.

He gets Jupiter in the spotter-scope, then shifts to the big scope and makes the planet jump towards him, millions of miles, with its raft of Galilean moons; and there is Io on the eastern side.

Duncan bares his teeth. ‘Beaudy,' he says.

‘I think I'll have a swim after all.'

‘What about your sneezes?'

‘I'll just have to try mind over matter. Will you come in?'

They went to Josie's bedroom and Josie found a one-piece suit for Norma and bikinis for herself. ‘Why use these things? Tom's not here and Duncan's gone.'

‘Don't let me stop you.' Belinda might be sensible but could any child resist such a tale – Mrs Sangster swimming in the nick? She put on the togs, wishing these little freedoms were not denied her. They made her buttocks feel as though set in cement. Josie put on
hers: perfect fit, body all ship-shape. That must be the aerobics she did.

They were at the water, dipping their toes, when Belinda cried, ‘Phone for you, Mrs Sangster.'

‘Nobody knows I'm here, who is it?'

‘It's a man,' Belinda grinned.

‘Hallo, Norma Sangster.'

‘For God's sake Norma, where have you been? I've been phoning all over town.'

‘What's the matter, Clive?'

‘It's Mum and Dad.'

She turned from Josie in the conservatory door. She put her hand on the wall to touch something firm. Clive's nittery voice went on and on.

‘Yes,' Norma said, ‘tell her I'm coming.' She put down the phone. ‘Josie, I'm sorry, I've got to go.'

‘Is it something bad?'

‘Mum and Dad. Dad's in hospital.'

‘Oh, Norma.'

‘Someone broke in and tried to rob them.'

‘Hurt them? Attacked them?'

‘I don't know.' She went to the bedroom and took the swimsuit off. It had cut deep marks in her thighs. ‘Don't tell the girls. I'd prefer not to have it round the school.'

‘Is your father all right?'