Cryers Hill (26 page)

S
EAN ASKS ONE
of the builders when the estate will be finished, please.

'In a month of Sundays,' he replies pleasantly, and grins.

'Ta,' says Sean.

Sean is pleased. He will pass this on.

He goes past the White Lion and stares at the Wag-Wanton Mummers grouped around one of the tables outside on the grass. Five of them anyway, one is missing. Perhaps one of the Daves. The Wag-Wanton Mummers are Brian Ross, Charlie Cross, Dave Pritchard, Dave Waddle, Dave Atkins and Dave Hodge. They are all talking at once and one of them, possibly a Dave, is saying, 'May God strike me down if I'm lying.'

Sean stares because they'd heard that Mummers went back as far as the thirteenth century, maybe even further. But they looked surprisingly young in fact, with their side partings, big square spectacles and open-necked shirts. He watches them grinning into their beer, blowing smoke over one another's heads. They like to accuse each other in loud mocking voices and smack the table with the palms of their hands. If two of them say something at the same time, they shake hands vigorously or embrace. Sean thinks they are strange and magical, like leprechauns. He wonders whether God
would
strike one of the Daves down.

*

Peep peep peep. Sean pauses when he gets to the lane. Here is the old church and the war memorial. He parks the line-marker beside the stile under a sycamore. You can't take a line-marker into a churchyard and start drawing lines around the dead, it is bad luck. Nor anywhere near a war memorial neither. He knows this because once when he sat on the little stone step at the memorial's base, his father pulled him up by his collar, by the scruff of the neck, like you would a rabbit.

'Show some bloody respect for these lads who got themselves killed for you,' his father had said. He sounded upset.

Sean had become interested in the memorial after that. He had had no idea any lads had got themselves killed, especially not for him. Why would anyone get killed for someone they had never met? There were no clues in the names.
Stanley Collins. Archibald Dean. Albert Evans. Edward Evans. Herbert Evans.
On and on they went; brothers, cousins, sons. Sean looks at all the names, unrecognisable in their spelling, unfamiliar in their sounds. He searches for his own name, but it is not there.

Inside the church it is cool and still. The air is tinged with green and watery thin. Above his head Sean sees coloured windows in reds and golds; men with shields, with staffs, men on their knees. Far down beyond the altar, where Sean is too afraid to go, the Messiah is still dying on the cross.

In the church it smells of rain and sand, as though it has stood here for all time like the Pyramids, before housing estates or line-markers or astronauts. In the corner are hymn books and flowers. There is a stone font and Sean tries to imagine what it is for. A giant gold lectern, draped in tassels, supports a giant book, partly read. When he looks away, Sean feels, the carvings adjust themselves. He places the hot-pressed daisy inside his hand into the long wooden palm of St Peter.

People sang in churches, he knew that. Plus the vicar was in charge. Sean touches a pew. It is lovely in the church, he thinks. He is amazed it isn't full of people eating their sandwiches, or having a sit. Inside the pew there are little cushions stitched in clashing colours. This is nice. Being here is like waiting for something good to happen.

'Ooooh!' Sean calls. His voice sets off. It travels all around the church. Up to the windows, down to the nave, around the Holy Virgin praying in the corner, over the heads of the wooden cherubs, across the robes of John the Baptist and back to him, four times bigger.

'Aaaah!' Off it went. Then he doesn't do it any more in case a vicar guard flies out. Inside the church there is a stone tablet on the wall, bearing the names of more lads who got themselves killed for Sean Matthews. Sean deduces these are not the same lads as those outside. Still he does not see his own name, though he moves his finger carefully across the ones he can reach.

Robert Riley. Jack Robson. Kenneth Sanderson. Charles Sankey.

He reckons he should say a prayer, but realises he doesn't know any. Godsake. There are things that get said at weddings and funerals and when a man lands on the moon. Sean wishes he had the knack of those words. Then he thinks if he stands very still and stares at his shoes, the way they used to in church in the days when they could still be bothered, this might do for the lads behind the stone who got themselves killed for him. Then he goes outside to collect his line-marker.

17th September 1943

Dearest Mary,

Sorry not to have written for a while. It has been rather a busy time. I felt so weary when we finally left this part of the world. We were loaded like horses and were deadbeat by the time we marched down to the docks. On board ship the bunks were full, so I slept on deck.

The Italian landing, when it came, was hard. Frankly, you were either alert or dead. Five of ours were killed by a flame-thrower. Bob Davis was also killed and Sgt White and Lt Bass have been wounded. There were long-range snipers everywhere and warships out at sea sending screaming shells. At night we lay on the swampy ground (no cover, just face nets and gloves) and the mosquitoes were unbelievably numerous, adding to the misery. Somehow we slept well, even with all the guns banging away, and the rations were good, even providing cigs and chocolate. Everywhere about were ripe tomatoes, either hanging or harvested in piles, squashed, rotting – we grew sick of them.

It is a fearsome thing to see an artillery barrage creeping nearer and nearer to you. It takes all your strength to stay put. One minute you're chatting to the fellow beside you, and the next he is peppered over with holes.

Sometimes our planes came from over the sea, bombed Jerry and quickly flew back. We always seemed to be straining our eyes upward to the Apennine tops. Eventually we grew so weary we became sort of listless over the shells and bombs and the mud dragging, sucking you down. Anyhow, we stuck it. For some reason no thought of retreat ever entered our heads. The few poor simple folk from the hills were very kind – scared of course. The situation was either we were going into the sea or Jerry was going back. Eventually – slowly, slowly – Jerry went back. Now we are waiting – waiting – for what? God knows! All day shooting, bombing, killing, and now in the quiet moments the mosquitoes surge in.

Vickers is hysterical and in the hospital tent. I may have some sort of fever. I feel vaguely wretched. Last night in the dark each fellow as he lay on his blanket sang a song. One fellow sang a song his little girl had taught him, 'God Bless My Daddy'. It made us all feel quite softie. Sorry to go on.

Are you well, Mary? I still have your photo. I was afraid it would get damaged, but luckily you remain lovely, smiling up at me through it all.

I have been vomiting, I do not know why. At this stage I feel the vomiting is worse than the shelling.

I have to close, I wish I didn't. You are the most beautiful girl on God's earth. How lucky I am to have found you. You have lit up my life more than you will ever know. God bless you and keep you always.

Yours, Walter xx

Sean folds the letter into his pocket. He has no idea how far he has gone. He stops and glances back and there is the paint, perfect and precise, no matter how it squiggles or doubles back. Wet paint is a beautiful thing, he decides. He loves everything about it, the smell, the way it moves, the different colours. He wishes he had discovered paint before, but at least it is not too late. This is the best summer he's ever had, partly because of paint. Left or right here? Sean cannot decide. Eeny meeny miney mo.

S
EAN KEEPS VERY
still, same as you would for a deer. There is no deer, however. There is a man. He is in the woods. He just stands there as though this is normal. He has something in his hand. Sean waits, while the paint drips, for the man to say or do something reassuring. Adults do odd things sometimes and there's no point panicking; like when Mandy Day tried nude sunbathing on strips of tinfoil, or the time his own father pushed their car around the corner in his pyjamas so the engine wouldn't make a noise.

What is a man doing alone in a wood? He should be at work. He should be trying to be an executive, a fathead. He should be thinking about his perks. Men in woods. Good or bad? Men who spend time in woods: lumberjack, murderer, lumberjack. Sean has never heard the word 'bodger'. He has no idea bodgers worked in beech woods or that this was their county, or that they had crafted Windsor chairs in the area for two hundred years. But the birds are all songless, because they know as well as Sean knows, bodger or not, that a man is standing aimlessly in the woods. If he dies today, Sean wonders, will he become famous like the dead girl? The man is moving. Rudyell. Bludyell. Sean thinks of two things. First, that he does not want to die. Second: Is the eye watching? Is God watching? Does anyone have their eye on the ball?

The man is looking at the ground. The line. Now Sean understands. The man has followed the paint line. The man has followed him from wherever it was he discovered the line.

The man is looking at Sean. It is too late to hide now, you spaz. Sean swallows instead of breathing. He can hear his own heart and the sound makes him want to cry. He pushes his fingers in his mouth to stop himself crying. What would his mum say? What would his dad say? A man in a wood. A
man in a wood is superior to a woman in a wood, though it is she who will display first to the male.
Sean can smell dirt and dead trees and wind. He wants to run, but his legs have switched themselves off, they will not run: they are filled instead with sand and fag butts. The guardian angel that lives inside him is panicking to get out, he can feel her struggling against his ribs. She doesn't want to die alone in the woods, neither does he. He would rather have a hundred years of whatifs, a thousand. This is a whatif become a whatnow. It's no good crying. Our Father . . . He can't remember the rest. The man is talking. He is talking to Sean. The wood is green and gold, the light is pushing up and high above the blue sky is pressing down. Is that the sound of the man speaking? Is he saying something? He is saying, 'Good afternoon,' like that.

'Good afternoon.' There, he said it again. He is standing next to Sean now.

'Good afternoon,' the man repeats.

Sean doesn't look at him. If he doesn't look maybe he'll go away.

'Hello,' Sean replies. You can change your mind. Girls do. Best to be polite. They are standing underneath a beech tree. The tree has stood here for hundreds of years. Maybe, Sean thinks, he will have to stand here hundreds of years before the man goes away.

'Looking for your trap?'

What? What did he say?

'Pardon what?'

'Looking for your trap?'

Licking Fear Trapped?
What?
What did he say?

'No,' Sean replies.

'What you trapping?'

What?
Godsake.

'Dunno,' Sean says.

'Eh? Birds you after?'

Birds? What, like chicks?
If you fancy a bird, offer her your seat, light her cigarette, ask her name. Birds like to yak.

'Rabbit?' the man tries.

Sean tries to think. P'sof. P'sof spazspazspazspaz. His brain won't cooperate. A rabbit hangs in front of Sean's face, a dead one. It is brown and long and smooth and dead. The man is holding it. Sean says, 'P'sof, spaz.'

'Eh?'

'P'sof

The man lowers the rabbit. It hangs by his side.

'Plenty about if you want 'em.'

Sean turns to look at the man. He has done it now, it is too late, he has looked at him and the man is looking back. It is a long face, spiky with new beard, pale lips with spit between them. Sean knows this face. The face smiles. Sean does not want to say the man's name. He cannot say it. He doesn't want to see any more.

'What's that you say?'

'Nothing.'

The man's shoes are quite shiny.
I saw a man in the woods. He was wearing quite shiny shoes.
Sean feels the man's hand on his head, resting there like a cap.

'You're a good lad. A fine lad, you are. Am I right? I can tell. Can I see your contraption?'

Bludyell. Rudyell. The man begins to move. Bludyell rudyell beggarman thief. Sean is running. The line-marker makes a small noise as it falls. He hears the man call after him.

'Come back, sonny.'

As he runs Sean wonders how long it will be before the paint begins to ooze out over the ground. Sean bursts between the trees. He thinks the man is not following, but he is too afraid to look. Running is about rhythm. See me run. Catch me if you can. Spaz talking spaz talk. Weirdo-man. Sean pumps his elbows. His technique is too jerky for style points, but his speed is undeniably quick. The image of a hare falls into his mind, the way they zag away from danger, the way they flatten on corners. He watches the landmarks that he knows well spin past him. He must be a blur, he thinks. Nobody could get a target on him now, with an arrow, with a gun, nobody, not even the eye. He runs for his life until he reaches the estate. Words fly up with his feet. Weirdo. Spaz. Madman. Murderer. Weirdo. Spaz. Madman. Murderer.

Once he is there, everything seems entirely normal; diggers, kids, dogs, the mushroom cloud of dirt. Sean slows down only to find he cannot walk properly. Gone are the bones, joints and muscle from his legs and in their place is liquid rubber. Each leg squirms and shivers and flaps itself down like a fin. He has become a fish. This is what happens when you meddle. There is surely a fable about this, most likely in the real alphabet, and so now he is paying the price for lying, stealing, meddling and spazzery.

Two giggling girls in hairbands and flower-print dresses put down what they're doing to stare at him. Sean flippers his legs towards them. They approach cautiously, hands on hips like a pair of drudges, to inspect, comment and laugh.

'I've seen the murderer. I've seen the murderer!' Sean informs them. He buckles and sways a little. 'I've seen the murderer. He's in the wood!' Both girls stop, open their mouths and scream.

'Wait! I've seen him! Wait!'

But they are gone, run to their mothers who will hear it all but understand nothing.

Sean sinks to the kerb. He sits and watches his legs bounce, as though each is dancing to its own private tune. He thinks of Ann. He will wait for her to come out. She will believe him, she will know it is true from his rubber leg fins. She will come with him and together they will capture the shiny-shoed murderer in the woods.