In Search of the Blue Tiger (18 page)

It was another one of Mrs April's ideas. Like cake-eating and the chess games. It was she who showed me the old kite in her cupboard and suggested the outing to Boxton Hill.

‘The next windy Saturday afternoon,' she said as we unravelled the knotted, tangled string. The kite was blue and green, like the grass and the sky. She promised to teach Stigir and me how to make it screech the language of the wind, loop the loop and skim the flower-tops.

Two Saturdays had passed and not a breath of air stirred the uppermost tips of the trees. But on the third, I woke to hear the rustle of leaves and the flutter of the curtain against the open window.

‘It's kite day,' I announced to Stigir. I knew Mrs April would be ready for us. When I had stopped by the library the previous morning, she'd said she sensed in her bones the wind would be up.

‘And you'll be hanging on to that kite for dear life,' she said with a smile which set off a dart of lines from the corners of her eyes.

‘It's us,' I say as she opens the door, the wind sending leaves cartwheeling down her hallway. ‘It's Stigir and me.'

‘So it is, and so it should be,' she says brightly. ‘Just the day for kite flying on the hill. Wait there and I'll be with you in a jiffy. No point in wasting this wind.'

I look at Stigir. His fur is on end, like a wave on the crest. A dustbin lid clatters to the ground in the next-door garden, the telephone wires whistle. And there is Mrs April standing in the open doorway. She wears a long dark-blue greatcoat over a maroon woollen dress. On her feet are blue Wellington boots, in her hand a wicker hamper.

‘Here,' she says, ‘you can carry this, Oscar.'

She hands me the kite. It is like a skeleton wrapped in a papery skin. I hold it in front of me like it might be my own dead child. We close the garden gate behind us and start our procession up the avenue to the place I now name Kite Hill.

We climb over a stile by the old graveyard, pushing our way through the brambles. Stigir lollops on ahead, as me and Mrs April pick our clothes free from the inquisitive fingers of the thorn bushes.

‘I think they want us to stay awhile,' laughs Mrs April. ‘But we've no time to stop and chat today. We've a wind to catch.'

All of a sudden we are in the open. The grassy knoll opens up before us. The sea slopes away to the east, the hilltop rises off to the west. There is no one around; we are alone. Stigir is almost at the top, waiting his turn to fly the kite. Me and Mrs April make our way up the side of the hill.

‘Here,' she says. ‘Let's fix the kite here.' She puts down the hamper and I lay down the kite.

We put it together, each limb fitting into a socket, stretching its skin over the frame. A resurrection.

She is showing me something new. Something else. I watch her and she is unaware I am watching. I study her face as I copy her movements. Unreeling the string. A spinning motion from hand to hand. She looks so easy. She doesn't know, she needn't know, that for me this is the first time. The first flying of a kite on a windy hill.

I stand where she tells me. I hold the string tight as she launches the kite into the sky. The wind collects it like a gift, lifting it high up. I feel the tension as the kite tugs a promise of freedom. It soars, like a hawk, hovering and then swooping towards an imaginary prey. Then off again in pursuit. I feel every movement. Every sensation fires through my fingertips. Mrs April stands close by, her face turned skyward, watching me looping and writing my thoughts in the chalk of the clouds. The green of the grass, the blue of the sky, the blue-green of the sea way down below us. All captured in the leaping and looping of the kite I juggle on the end of the string.

I am lost in this moment. I am here in this moment: the wind, the air, Stigir running between my feet. He wants to play. He wants a go at this kite flying.

‘Mrs April,' I shout above the wind, above my excitement. ‘Can Stigir have a go? Can we teach Stigir how to fly a kite?'

‘Of course,' she replies. ‘Of course he can have a go. Every good dog should fly a kite.'

Stigir holds the kite in his mouth and listens carefully as Mrs April shows him the ropes. The wind swirls and twists. Layering on itself, then taking off in a new direction. I watch as Stigir runs up and down the hill shaking his head from side to side, the kite stopping and starting, falling and rising. Mrs April claps and encourages.

But at a distance, watching them at play, as a seagull rears into view like a banshee rent from the ground, something shifts in me. The elation is punctured as I stand alone, away from the action. I am lost. No longer a part of this scene. As suddenly as I am found, I am lost. The wind catches something in me. A sadness. A feeling that this is not for me. This moment of happiness, this kite flying. My heart has shrunk to the size of a pea and I am lost.

In my mind's eye I see her with the fishmonger. No longer with me and Stigir on a hill with a kite. She is under a streetlamp, held close by Mr Fishcutter, under his spell. The wolf in man's clothing. She turns to look up and down the street, to see who is coming or going. The expression on her face is wild, alive, and I cannot understand it. But I know she must be aware, she must be careful. I know better than she what hides behind his kiss. The claw and fist, the claw and fist behind the kiss. Her lipstick turning to blood, her face broken and bruised.

Then Stigir growls a bark without releasing his grip. The kite is cutting a colour against the sky. Mrs April smiles at me. There are no smudges of ruby-red lipstick; no look I cannot understand. If I allow myself to, I could rejoin the moment. But they do not know, they cannot tell, how these feelings well inside me. That the loop of a kite traces the slice and twist of the fishmonger's knife gutting a sturgeon, spilling the soft white roe onto the chopping block. They are up and away on the grassy slope, chasing the wind.

As I watch them I am aware of another figure. He stands on the very crest of the hill and holds a silver telescope to his eye, trained on the horizon. I follow his line of vision as a huge galleon ship comes into view, gliding easily through the broiling waves. Mrs April and Stigir are playing happily, oblivious to his presence. But Blue Monkey turns in my direction, tipping his top hat in salutation. The smell of the fishmonger fades away. I turn and run after the kite, a skip in my step.

Today is Sunday, the day after Saturday night, which means madness in the House of the Doomed and Damned, because the Mother sits in the kitchen and weeps softly because her battered and bruised face hurts and she must not complain too much or the Father gets angry because Saturday night must be forgotten (until next week).

There are two good places to go: the picture house, or the pool by the quayside.

It is raining, so I go the picture house for the Matinee, even though it is in Italian, is in black and white and has already started. None of this matters, for inside it is dark, it is peaceful, and it is anywhere but my house.

On the huge screen a young boy stands in the street with his father, looking in though the window of a restaurant. They are both dirty, poor and hungry. A rich boy is inside, eating a huge pizza, and the poor boy looks up at his father longingly. The father counts the coins in his pockets and takes his son inside and uses all his money to order his boy the delicious pizza. He eats with gusto, competing with the other boy to see who can stretch the mozzarella cheese the furthest. At the end of the film, the father, in desperation for money, steals someone else's bike and is caught. Crowds gather around to chastise him and the little boy is lost in their midst. He begins to cry as the crowd mill around him and he loses sight of his father. He is lost and abandoned and he so much wants his dad, even though he is a thief.

It is nearly dark and I should be getting home. The dusk is stealing the colour from the trees and grass, but my lesson with Perch and Carp is not yet over. I was walking back from school when they came up beside me and said I should follow them to the clearing in the wood, up by the old derelict cottage. Here we have been this last hour as they tell me of the promises of the second coming of Jesus and the horrors of Armageddon.

‘When we have finally witnessed to all the Worldlings, given each a chance to embrace the Truth, then Jesus will come again,' exclaims Carp, waving her arms around to take in all the trees in the wood and all the Worldlings in the World.

‘Then all the graves will open and all those who have died before the Second Coming will be given another chance. All will be raised from the dead to prove themselves during Jesus' thousand-year reign,' says Carp.

‘But those alive at Armageddon, those who have turned their backs on the Truth, those who have sinned against the Spirit, will be struck down and sent to Hades for evermore.'

‘Only Jehovah's people will be protected from the terrible fires and torments of Armageddon. You, Oscar can be one of those to be saved.'

I listen to the Twins and conjure images of medieval sieges, the fires blazing around the dome-topped cathedral, and we, Jehovah's people, safe inside.

There is a lull as Perch climbs onto a fallen log, spreading out her arms to deliver the final message.

‘And all those who commit adultery and other sins against Jehovah should realise it is better to die today than to face His wrath at Armageddon. It is better to die now, to wait in the ground for the blessed touch and hope of the Resurrection.'

Then, almost exhausted, Perch flops forward and falls silent.

On the walk home I tread lightly and look over my shoulder. The hairs rise on my neck in fear and expectation. When I get home, with Stigir winding in and out of my steps, I go straight down to the cellar, making sure no one knows I'm back in the house. Opening the Bible, I quickly read the birthday greeting, touch the dried ink and then flick through the pages to the Book of Revelation. My heart races, as I know what I am looking for. I know what the Twins were warning me of. Listen to this Stigir.

‘Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Four there were. Dreaded. And each one with a special terrible secret and gift. Chasing us. In the night-time. Is this what happened to Great Aunt Margaret's baby girl? The fires of Armageddon? Hades? The four horsemen in the coach-house setting fire and sacrificing the baby? Killing the baby because of all those animals sacrificed to the gods of men?'

I turn the pages back to the Book of Proverbs. I know where I'm up to, but I'll leave it to God to show me a sign. So I close my eyes, flip the pages and circle my finger above the words. Stigir, Stigir, I didn't cheat, I didn't peek, you know I didn't, I swear on my life. Hand on my heart. Stigir's ears pop up and down and then up again, telling me he knows I'm telling the truth. Stigir, this is where my finger pointed. I'll read it to you.

‘The fear of the wicked, it shall come upon him: but the desire of the righteous shall be granted.'

I read it over again in my mind until I'm happy that it's telling me that if we're good we'll be okay. When I look up, Stigir is sniffing around the base of one of the trunks, the one with the folder from the hospital. I hope telling the fib about Great Aunt Margaret and the teeth doesn't make me wicked.