Day Boy (27 page)

Anne makes me wait, no surprise there. Maybe she's standing in the dense wood beyond,
maybe she's watching.

I take my leisure, nervous as it is, beneath the shadow of that old tree, looking
at the red flowers about to bloom. They'll light the clearing up like fire, and then
with the first big storm
they'll fall and cover the ground in sweet clots. This tree's
been doing that since whenever and back, and it will be long after I'm gone. Bees
are busy at their work, the trees loud with them, the sky streaked with their passage,
east and west and north. Good dozen or so hives around here. George keeps them. That
honey will taste of the Summer Tree. That honey's the sweetest of all. I'll want
none of it this year, and no one can talk me into thinking otherwise.

I catch a movement to the left of me. Not her. Just a deer that looks at me with
eyes too big and full of the world, then crashes off, a tawny blur, into the undergrowth,
like it knows it's almost time to be frightened.

Going to be the hunt around here, in a couple of days. The woods are full of deer,
and they'll be moving up into the highland with the turning of the tree. And if
we don't keep their numbers down, they'll eat this woodland bare and start coming
into the crops. Another reason too in that killing, Dain says. They let the hunt
continue, year in and out, because it reminds folk that we're like them. That there's
predation in us all. Even the trees eat the Sun, he says. Can't see how that's true.
Seems like a fare too thin for something so big.

I run a hand over the tree's rough bark, grown out of the Sun. Twigs snap behind
me.

‘You set your fancy on the tree?' There's a bit of laughter, penetrating almost like
the laughter of those cold children.

Anne's standing there, smiling, and it fills me with a kind of joy and an ache all
at once. But I'm not crying, I've already decided that.

‘And what's wrong with that? Man can fall in love with the moon or the Sun, why not
a tree as beautiful as this?'

‘Oh, those things are dull and clockwork. Predictable. You'd be bored quicker than
a crow to carrion. You need the change that is folk.'

‘I've found some steadiness these last months. Haven't you seen it?'

‘Yes,' Anne says.

I smile at her. ‘Growing up, Dain says.'

‘Why didn't you ask me to the dance?'

‘Didn't think—'

Anne's lips thin. ‘You never do.'

‘We're always dancing,' I say. ‘Even now. Just no music.'

‘Enough of those twisting words,' Anne says, ‘Stop with that and answer me.'

‘What good would it have done? You're going away, and you knew that you were going
away, and you never told me. Didn't even hint at it. Made like it was furthest from
your mind.'

‘You never asked.'

‘Why would I even suspect?'

And, all of a sudden, she looks tired. ‘Mark, I've played that piano. I've played
and practised and played. I played because I love it, because it's what I am, but
I was calling too, calling into the dark. Calling them out, because I don't want
to live here. I don't love this place like you love this place. I'm no Day Boy, and
I'm damned if I'm going to let them have my blood. They can feed on my music, and
it'll be mine to give. Not have taken just because I live and bleed.'

I reach out and hold her hand. And it is warm and she doesn't pull away. She looks
into my eyes, and I think I might drown in hers. There's a silence that reaches into
forever and is
as quick as a single beat of my stuttering heart.

‘When they took Da away,' Anne says, ‘I was little. But I knew they would come for
me. Not for Da's crimes or my ma's, but because that's the way of things now.'

I keep a hold on her hand, but it's only because she lets me hold it. Her fingers
stick to mine, joined by our sweat, they twist and twitch with little shivers, and
I can feel the music in them and the strength.

‘They're coming for us all,' she says. ‘In the end, that's their plan. It's the only
reason that makes sense. Question is, do we fight it? What if fighting it'll only
make it all the faster?'

I don't know. I've never really fought anything. None of the spits and spats have
been true fights. I've just lived and raged and laughed, and tried to live a little
longer. ‘There's a pleasure in all that fast and wild.'

‘There's no pleasure in that for us. You've lived the rich life. You've had the right
to fight, to mark your ground. We've not had that ever, a moment's defiance is a
death in the Sun, or a death in the shadows. We hang on the comings and goings of
the Night Train like flies spun on a web.

‘The world changes,' Anne says. ‘You know that. It doesn't stay the same. Was a time
when I cried in the dark but I don't do that now.'

‘I don't want you to go,' I say.

‘When has this ever been about what we want, boy?' Anne says, and she pulls her hand
gently from mine, and folds my fingers closed. ‘It's never been about what we want.
I don't even know what it is that I want half the time, for all my plans. How silly
is that?'

But I do. Well, I think I do, and it's not this. I don't want to
lose this. I can't.
I'd set my heart on this want without even thinking on it, just knowing.

She grabs my other hand and stares at me, like she is trying to remember everything.
I'm doing that too; forcing a pin through this horrible moment, trying to capture
the sweet along with all that bitter.

Day's already moving along. Night's coming, and when it does the engines of the Night
Train will be stoked. Whistles will be blown, and the train will shudder and roll,
and build up speed until it is across the new-built bridge, until it is out of sight.
And she will be gone.

She kisses me gentle on the cheek, pulls her hand free of mine. And I want to turn
and tilt her head to mine, and taste those lips again. But I don't, I can't. So my
cheek burns and my eyes sting with a grief I've been denying. ‘I have to go, Mark.
My mum is waiting for me. I have to say goodbye to all my friends. You, you I wanted
to give this explanation to. Because—'

‘Yeah, I know why,' I say. Standing there, not sure where to put my hands now that
she has freed them.

‘I better go,' she says.

‘You better.'

She looks at me once, and runs back towards town.

And I'm left there, in the shade of the Summer Tree.

Not my finest hour. But you don't have too many of those.

CHAPTER
40

THOM'S MOSTLY PACKED when I get home. He's left his books out.

‘For you,' he says.

I look at them and feel my tears welling, but I don't give way, I don't know if I'd
be able to stop. There's a heaviness in my joints and in my flesh, such a weight
as could bend me low. I flash a grin, even though it hurts quite fierce.

‘Sorry. This should have never happened,' Thom says, and he looks suddenly old and
hollowed out, and not like the boy I know. ‘I should have seen it coming, but that's
the way of the world, and none of us are ever going to stop its turning. Thanks for
taking me under your wing like you did. Thank you for that. I won't forget it.'

‘You keep an eye on my Anne,' I say.

Thom puts his suitcase on the floor. ‘I will, I promise. I thought you two were…that
you'd have each other always. But the world thought otherwise. Like the world always
does.' He
closes his bag; he's taking less than he came with. ‘She'll be looked after.
She will be respected and cared for, you know how they are in the city? How they
love the musicians above all? She will be honoured. And she knows how to look after
herself. I will do my best to make sure that no harm comes to her, but there is very
little harm for a woman like Anne. Her virtues are understood.'

Makes me sick again to hear her spoke of this way, of things I'm still too raw to
be missing. ‘You packed?'

‘Yes,' Thom says.

‘Then we're going fishing,' I say.

It's a fine way to see the day to its end, plenty of laughter, and not a single fish
caught. Think back to the time Thom tripped up Dougie. There's not a chance of revenge
for the poor lad now.

I help Thom with his bags, Dain walking beside us.

‘You be careful, Mr Thom,' Dain says, with a formality that surprises me. But then,
Thom's not Dain's anymore.

‘I will be, I promise,' Thom says.

‘It's not just the Crèche that you'll need to worry about. I've enemies for sure,
and I fear my presence will have tainted you.'

‘I'll be careful, Master Dain.'

‘Trust no one,' Dain says.

‘I don't.'

Dain pats his arm. ‘Good boy.'

Then Dain's tapping my arm. ‘Give me those bags, Mark. I'll see to them. There's
a person you might want to be talking to.'

Anne's standing yonder, with Mary. And Mary's as stony-faced as I've seen her, and
I can sense her resolution not to cry,
same as me. Peas in a pod of grief, us two.
Mary glares at me, but there's no heat to it, and then whispers something into Anne's
ear. She nods, and Mary hugs her tight, and then is walking away from the waking
train and into town.

We don't say nothing, her and I, as she passes. We don't need to.

And then I'm running to Anne, and I'm holding her for the first and last time. ‘You
and me…'

‘I know,' she says.

‘There's not time for all that I want to say. Not ever enough time or space in the
world for that.'

‘I know.'

And that cools my heart despite the heat.

Anne laughs. ‘You're a fool.'

I am a fool.

I kiss her once. Not long. Nothing more than a brush of lips, and she's pulling away
and I'm on five types of fire. There's a whistle blowing. She grabs her bags, just
two, how can they contain a life? But they do. The Master of the Train leads her
onboard. And I stand there trembling.

‘It's all right,' Thom says. ‘You'll be all right.'

The Master's already back out, and looking down at Thom. ‘Are you ready, Mr Thom?'

Thom looks at me, all awkward, not enough words or time for us either. Never is,
at the end. ‘I have to go.'

So I give him a hug too, and he hugs me back, all bony arms. ‘Be careful,' I say,
stepping back to see him one last time. And he's just a boy, going home.

‘You know I will be, ‘ he says.

And then he's on that train too.

The last whistles blow. The doors crack shut. The train jolts forward, lurches, steadies,
quickens. And I stand on the platform watching it go. Faster and faster away from
me. The Night Train's speeding up and Anne's on it, Thom too. I can't see them. But
there's a chance I can still catch them.

I run, not even knowing what I'm doing, pick up speed, even as the train jerks and
slows, its front end hitting the turn across the river. I reach out, almost touch
the last carriage, but then there's cold hands wrapping around me, lifting me up.
A colder voice in my ear.

‘Don't be a fool.'

I struggle, but Dain doesn't let me go.

‘They're in there!'

‘And there isn't anything you or I can do to change it.'

I know it. I know it, but it doesn't stop me from hating him then and there, his
easy strength, the way that this doesn't hurt him, the way that he shifts so that
my own struggles don't injure me. Fluid and as hard as stone. He isn't a man and
there's no point in hating, but in that moment it is all I have.

‘You get on that train and you're dead. I can't protect you, not the Sun or the moon
could protect you from the weight of their inquiry.'

He still doesn't let me go, and the Train is already over the river, running faster
and faster, and the two people most precious to me are its cargo. My heart's aching,
tearing. But he don't let me go.

‘Thom can look after himself, you know that. And Anne will be cared for. She has
a skill, a true mastery of beauty in her fingers. She will be rewarded, she will
live well. You know that too.'

‘And what about me?'

‘You. You have a choice.'

‘Do I? Do I just?'

‘You go on living, boy. Never know what tomorrow brings. Sometimes it's a slap or
a boot or a kiss or a scream. You live even though your heart feels torn out. You
go on, because that's what I've taught you, and some day you may not regret it or
hate me. And, more importantly, you may not hate yourself.'

And he must see some sort of stilling, because he lets me go.

The train's gone. There was no way I would have caught it.

‘Home now,' Dain says. ‘You've work on the morrow.'

There's that, at least. There's the work.

So I walk home and it's Egan I see. Coming at me down West Street. He's smiling and
full, with the fullness of hungers sated. Not that it ever is, not really with these
folk. Looks like he's won, looks like he's been waiting for me, and I get a sense
of how petty these fellas are. How little are their pleasures in this little town
that he'd bother with me and my miseries. No misery too small if it means he might
hurt Dain a little too.

‘Night, sir,' I say.

‘Night, young man,' he responds, polite as ever. He stands still, not a bit of movement
in him. But the motion is all around him, in the air, in the earth, in the animal
juddering of my heart. ‘Lonely one for you.'

‘Yes,' I say, and I don't bother hiding it, don't bother suppressing my pain, nor
do I throw it out. If he's looking for a fight, he's found the wrong sort of stupid
tonight.