Kit's Wilderness (5 page)

A
fternoon light poured through the classroom windows. Burning Bush smiled at us all as she read my tale. I kept my head down, felt my face beginning to flush.

“It’s wonderful, Christopher,” she said, as she came to the end and laid the pages on the desk in front of her.

I heard a few of the others agreeing with her, heard a few sniggers. I glanced up and caught Allie looking at me from across the room. She grinned and put her tongue out; then she winked at me.

“And is it really true?” said Burning Bush. “Did the pitmen really see the boy?”

“That’s what he told me.”

She beamed.

“Well,” she said. “You’ll have to get him to tell you more tales if it produces work like this.” She held the story up to the class. “It’s another one for the wall, I think. ‘Silky,’ by Christopher Watson.” She put it down and picked up someone else’s story.

Annie Myers in front of me put her hand up.

“Yes, Ann?”

“Can we really call it Kit’s story if it’s one he got from his grandfather?”

Burning Bush nodded. “Good question. Yes, we can. All writers write down stories they’ve heard. Writers have always done it. The greatest writers, like Chaucer, or Shakespeare. It’s how stories work. They move from person to person, get passed down through the generations. And each time they’re written down they’re a little different. I’m sure, for instance, that Kit added a few touches of his own to his grandfather’s tale. Yes, Kit?”

“Yes.”

She smiled.

“So stories change and evolve. Like living things. Yes, just like living things.”

Ann turned round to me. “Don’t think I didn’t like it, Kit,” she said. “Just wondered, that’s all. Thought it was great.”

“And of course,” said Burning Bush, “the spoken story and the written story are very different ways of telling.” She pondered. “Get him to tell you more,” she said. “And I wonder—might he be willing to come here and tell one of his stories to us all?”

“You’ve recovered, then?” Allie said as we walked back home.

I smiled and shrugged. “Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“Dunno. Nothing.” I looked at her. “I didn’t pretend.”

“I know that.”

We walked on. I had my hand in my pocket. I held Grandpa’s ammonite in my palm.

“You don’t remember anything?”

“Nothing, Allie.”

“No devils, no angels?”

“Nothing.”

“Jeez, Kit.”

I cast my mind back to the game. There really was nothing to remember. It had just been total darkness that I’d entered. The darkness behind Askew’s eyes. The darkness of a pit. Only when I came out of it had there been anything to remember, and then the ancient children had faded as if they were a dream.

We walked on.

“What is it?” she said. “Hypnotism or something?”

“Dunno.”

“Would you do it again?”

“Dunno.”

She walked slowly.

“Jeez, Kit,” she said. “Not pretending. Everybody else does. I’m sure they do.”

We walked on.

“Was it scary? Like dreaming? Like being asleep?”

“Dunno, Allie. It was like nothing. It was like being nothing.”

“Jeez,” she whispered. “Jeez.”

“There was something when I came out of it,” I said.

“Something?”

“Yes.” I looked down. I was certain she would scoff at me. “There were children, lots of them. Children from the Stoneygate of long ago. But when I look back now I think they were just a dream.”

She just looked at me. “Jeez, Kit,” she said. “Like the boy in your story, Silky.”

“Yes, but lots of them.”

“You’ve seen them again?”

“No, Allie.” I stared across the wilderness, squinted. “No. They were just a kind of dream.”

We came in silence to the gate. Grandpa was in a deckchair in the garden, grinning at us. He had his battered sunhat on.

“It’s that bad lass!” he called. “That little imp that drove me old missus wild!”

He waved us in. “Said it was the wildest bairn she’d ever known,” he said. He laughed and patted Allie’s arm. “The wildest and the loveliest. That’s what she said.”

Allie giggled and wagged her finger like Grandma used to, spoke just like she used to.

“Allie Keenan, you’ll drive me round the twist and round the bend and up the pole, I’m telling you you will!”

“Hahaha!” said Grandpa. “That’s her! That’s her to a T!” He shook his head and grinned into the past. “Give us a song,” he said. “Go on, hinny, let’s have a song.” He winked at me. “Should’ve heard this one singing as a littl’un. Sang like an angel, danced like the devil.”

Allie thought.

“You join in,” she said. “Like she used to.”

“Go on, then. You start it, pet.”

Allie took a deep breath, started, and he quickly joined in.

“Wisht, lads, had yer gobs

An I’ll tell yez all an aaful story,

Wisht, lads, had yer gobs

An I’ll tell ye aboot the worm . . .”

They sang and sang, leaned close together, swayed together, moved in time to the music that joined them one to one.

I
did want to ask Grandpa to come into school to tell his tales. The trouble was, we were already worried that the tales were coming to an end. It was Mum that noticed first. It seemed nothing, just little moments when we lost him. Once she told us to look out for it, though, we got to easily see when it was happening. We’d be eating a meal together, the four of us, talking, joking, telling each other about the day we’d had, and suddenly it would be like he wasn’t with us for a while. He’d stop talking and listening. He wouldn’t touch his food. His eyes’d go blank and dull and he’d just stare out across us. Sometimes it was just the tiniest flicker of time when he lost attention, sometimes it lasted a few seconds. Sometimes Mum had to lean across and tap him on the arm.

“Dad,” she’d say. “Dad.” And he’d come back to us again, with his eyes all confused.

“Eh?” he’d say. “Eh?”

“Where you been, Dad?”

He’d blink his eyes, he’d look at us like he was seeing us for the first time, he’d shake his head.

We’d all smile at him, dead gentle. Mum’d rub his arm. And he’d sigh and his eyes would clear and we’d all laugh about it together.

“Been off with the fairies?” she’d say.

“Aye,” he’d whisper. “Aye, that’s the style, eh?”

And we’d all laugh again, and start to eat and talk again, and try not to let the fear show in our eyes.

Some days it was worse, long periods when he just sat on the sofa or at the table with his body slumped and the blankness in his eyes. One day I sat with Mum after school in the living room and we watched him: two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, and he went on with his eyes just dead and blank, staring, but like he was seeing nothing inside and nothing outside.

“Oh, dear,” Mum whispered. “Poor soul.”

“Maybe he’s just remembering,” I told her. “Like he always did.”

“No, son,” she whispered. “What he’s doing is forgetting.”

And I said nothing more. I thought of the den, of knowing nothing, remembering nothing. I trembled as I watched him, lost in his darkness. I knew that what Mum said was true.

E
arly morning in the kitchen. The sun blazing in at the window, but clouds gathering from the direction of the sea. Grandpa at the table drinking tea. No one else there. I hurried my breakfast, checked my bag. Everything was in there: last night’s homework, pen case, books, packed lunch. I checked my pocket, fingered the heavy hard ammonite that rested there.

“It’s like following Silky, son.”

I turned to him and touched his hand.

“That’s what it’s like. I’ve been sitting here, trying to work out what it’s like.”

I held him tighter. I watched and listened. I thought of the way he turned his face to the sun, the way he strode through the hawthorn lanes, the way he belted out his songs and told his ancient tales.

“It’s like following him all alone along the darkest tunnel, along a tunnel you never knew existed, way past all the other men. It’s like getting to where you think Silky is and finding nothing there. Just darkness. Just nothing. And you can’t move, and you don’t know how to get back. And the more you stand there the more the darkness comes into you, till there’s nothing but the darkness, and you don’t see nothing, you don’t hear nothing, you don’t know nothing, you don’t remember nothing.”

I held on to him, as if my grip might keep him here with us forever in the world of light. He took my hand in his, sipped his tea and smiled.

“That’s right,” he told me. “Cling on to me, boy. Keep me with you.”

“I do think I understand,” I said. “You don’t see anything. You don’t hear anything.”

“Nothing.”

“You don’t remember anything.”

“Nothing. Nothing to remember.”

“And you’re not scared till you come back.”

“Scared to find out that you’ve been away at all. Scared to think you’ll be going away again. But when you’re there . . . nothing.”

He shrugged and smiled again.

“And coming back’s like being found again. Like the men coming through the tunnels with their lamps and calling out to you.”

He shook his head again.

“Old man’s troubles. They’re not for lads like you, however much you think you understand,” he said. “But I want to find a way to help you see what’s happening. If I can help you, be less scary for you, eh?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

He reached across and gently stroked my tears away with his fingertips.

“No need for that,” he whispered. “I’ve done my time, as you’ll do yours.”

And he winked at me.

“That mate of yours,” he said. “That lass. She’s the one. One that’s filled with light and life. Keep near to her, boy.”

I
hardly slept that night. Children giggled and whispered all around me. I stared out and saw dark clouds hanging low over Stoneygate. Hardly a light to be seen. Grandpa groaned behind the wall. I tried to pray for him but the words were dead and empty on my tongue. Next morning he wouldn’t wake. It seemed as if he’d never wake. Mum sat by his bed with a mug of tea cooling in her hands.

“Dad,” she whispered. “Come on, Dad.” I said I’d stay with her but she snapped at me. “Go to school. Do your duty. Get to school.”

I ran through drizzle to the gates. The clouds stayed all day. Rain flooded down the windows during lessons. All day I thought of him lying there in darkness, in nothingness.

In geography, Dobbs yelled at Allie for taking no notice of him.

“You may think tectonic plates have nothing to do with you, Miss Keenan!” he yelled. “But that’s just because the plates in your own skull have yet to join up with each other. You’re an infant world, girl. You’re semiformed. You’re a tectonic gap.”

I saw the tears in her eyes, her clenched fists, saw how she’d like to rip him limb from limb.

We sat together in the corridor at break and listened to the rain hammering on the roof. I wanted to find a way of telling her about my grandpa, but she was filled with spite. All she did was stamp the floor, squeeze her eyes, spit her breath out.

“Hate this place,” she hissed. “Hate it and everybody in it. Maybe I won’t even wait till they let me go. I’ll take myself off early. Runaway, vagabond, make my own life.” She pinched my arm. “You could come with me, Kit. Take a bag and set off wandering. Me and you together.”

“Eh?” I said.

She laughed, her mouth twisted.

“Eh? Eh? You? Course you wouldn’t. And even if you did you’d drive me wild. Eh? Eh? Eh?”

I bared my teeth at her. “You,” I said. “Dobbs is right. All you think about is you, you, bloody you.”

And she stamped off down the corridor.

Then the bell went and I headed down to French. I passed Askew being yelled at by Chambers, the deputy head. Askew was a lout, he said, an imbecile, a disgrace to the school. Askew lounged against the wall with his head down, just taking it all. He lifted his eyes and sneered at me as I passed.

“Mr. Resurrection, eh?” he muttered.

“What was that?” said Chambers. “What was that you said to me?”

“Nowt,” said Askew, and I heard the deep tedium in his voice. “Nowt. Just nowt.”

Then French, and math, and sandwiches that tasted like cardboard in my mouth, and snappy teachers and miserable kids and the rain pouring, pouring down. Everything inside and outside just a blur. Just wanting to get back out and get back home again and see how Grandpa was. Kept gripping the ammonite in my fist. How long had it been down there, in the earth, till it was found again? How long did anything have to be in the dark before it was found again?

Then English, and Burning Bush wanting to make a fuss about the story again. Maybe we should get some illustrations, she said. Maybe we should make a colored cover for it. She smiled at me. What did I think?

“Aye,” I muttered. “Anything.”

She looked at me. “Good,” she said. “Maybe we could talk about it when the lesson’s over.”

“Yes. Anything,” I said.

And she talked about Shakespeare and Chaucer while the rain came to an end at last and the clouds began to break and weak beams of sunlight shone on to the sodden wilderness.

“So,” she said, when the others had gone. “Illustrations. Any idea who we could get to do them for us?”

I shrugged.

“John Askew, maybe,” I said.

She raised her eyes.

“He’s a talented artist,” she said.

I nodded.

“And a friend of yours?”

I nodded.

She looked at me.

“Is everything all right, Kit?”

“Yes, thanks.”

I looked out, saw the others gathering at the gate. Allie there, scowling.

Burning Bush started on about the cover, how it would be great if we scanned an illustration into the computer, put the title above it, my name beneath it, just like a proper book.

I stood there, let her go on. Outside, Askew and Jax disappeared over the edge of the wilderness.

“I’ve got to go,” I said.

“Sorry?”

“Got to go.”

“I thought this might be interesting for you.”

“It is. But . . .”

She caught my arm as I tried to leave.

“Christopher. What’s going on with you? What is it, Kit?”

“Nowt,” I spat. “Bloody nowt.”

And I shook my head, pulled away, lifted my bag, just left her there, hurried out. Why didn’t I hurry home to Grandpa? Why did I rush to play the game called Death instead? The questions stormed inside me as I stood there at the gate with the others. I saw Burning Bush watching from a window. What you looking at? I wanted to yell at her. What’s it got to do with you? I told myself,
Go home. Go home.
But I stood there sullen and silent with my eyes downcast, held back by the terror of what I might find if I did go home, and driven to the darkness that my grandpa knew, driven to the darkness that I knew I’d find again in the den that day.

Allie didn’t look at me. We set off across the soaked ground. Great pools of water in the grass. Water vapor rising and drifting white beneath the weak rays of the sun. Cold breeze coming from the river. Clouds low and gray, scudding slowly over the wilderness. Feet splashing, trousers soaked, not a word spoken. The long wet grass. Standing there in silence. Jax’s bark. Askew’s hand. The door drawn back. We go down, into the drenched den. Crouch with feet in the shallow pool that covers the floor. Look across at Allie’s eyes. You, they say. You drive me wild. You’re on your own. Look at my name, Christopher Watson, carved into the wall, into the long list of the dead. Sip the water, smoke the cigarette, watch the spinning knife. Me, not me, me, not me, me, not me . . . I know that it will be me again. The knife stops, pointing at my feet. I take Askew’s hand, kneel in the pool, crouch in the pool, hear Askew’s whispered words, stare into his eyes, feel his touch. This is not a game. You will truly die. This is death. Collapse into the pool. Darkness. Nothing.