Mountains of the Moon (14 page)

“So,” she says, “this is the second part of Lulu’s story, I think we all enjoyed the first part last year?”

Kids int saying. She holds the page a long way way. Wishes I never done it on wallpaper cos the words is wonky where the pattern is bossed.

“
Mountains of the Moon—Part Two
,” Miss Connor says in her story voice.

Kids look like they believe it already.

“
It’s true. The rain is purple but the sky is gray and doesn’t give anything away. The lions are coming, they’re hungry again. They’re coming for my other leg—”

It int proper, it int me. Surprises me, Mum comes in the classroom and she don’t even knock. Don’t know if Baby Grady is dead. Then I see she’s being Bonnie, cos of the beret and her hair all smoothed under and the cardigan with fur on the sleeves and the collar.

“Wha, honey, I searched all over for y’all,” she says American.

Kids look around to see who she’s talking to.

“Is it urgent?” Miss Connor says. “There’s only ten minutes of class left. Are you Mrs. King?”

Mum don’t answer. She takes her time to look at the blackboard and walks over to look out of the winder. Kids is glued. Mum’s stockings has got seams in. She sits on the front of Miss Connor’s desk, ankles crossed, swinging her legs. Don’t know how come she’s chewing gum. Kids and Miss Connor is spell bounded. I wonder if Mum will change her mind and be the Sound of Music cos it all looks like perfect for “Doh-Ray-Me.”

Lucky cos she don’t.

“Wha don’t y’all just take a look at my little ol’ honeybee?” she says.

Everybody looks at me.

“Wha, she’s just as happy as can be to see her little ol’ momma.”

I sees me in the shine of stupid shoes, teef is out but they int smiling. I don’t know if to sit back down. Stead I bite my conkers. Miss Connor tries to find words.

“Mrs. King, I don’t know—”

“Exactly,” Mum says. “You don’t know.” She gets up and wipes the blackboard clean. Then she gets the chalk, writes big letters, HOME TIME.

“Come on,” she says to me, “let’s get out of this little ol’ dump.”

Mum’s high shoes clack all down the corridor. The ginger warthog lady comes running out of the office.

“Mrs. King, you can’t—” she says.

Mum don’t stop or look back, stead she blows a big fat raspberry and the corridor makes it ripple.

Bryce is waiting in the car with Baby Grady. Mum got a Degree Narcissus, said marriage is finished, but it int. Degree Narcissus don’t mean nothing. I spect he’s come to do me, cos he said
next time
he would. Tonsils nearly stops me breathing. We must be going somewhere. The Escort State is loaded up. Don’t know how come we still got a dog guard. He don’t look at me, when I get in the car.

“Honeybee, would y’all be so kind as to drive us away from this dreary ol’ place?” Mum says cos she’s still being Faye Dunaway.

“Soitenly,” Bryce says.

I look out the winder; see me running on the verge, got red cloth and conkers on; got patterns; got spear; got bare feets, drumming so smooth and easy as breathing. The car int so fast as me. When we get to the top of a hill, there I is, standing waiting under a tree. There I is, red dash in the yellow field. There I is, at the roundabout.

There I am
.

I run so fast through the market nobody even looks up. I sees me silky in the woods, red ribbon through the black pine trees.

Here I is, here I is, running, running on the verge. Now and then I look to see, case I’m still sitting in the car, looking out of the winder. I smiles. Sometimes I run close enough for one hand fingers on the glass.

I am real.

When we get to the seaside, I int even wore out. I sees me in the parking lot, standing off to one side. I nod like understand,
wait here
, I says.

“WE JOINED THE NAVY TO SEE THE WORLD, AND WHAT DID WE SEE? WE SAW THE SEA.”

Mum’s stockings and shoes is off in a pile with the blanket and the picnic bag. Bryce tends to throw her in the water. He puts her down and she runs way in shapes of eight, all pointy-toed and getting no where.
They go holding hands, looks like stopping the land from blowing to France. Tide is out; sand is wet and bumpoldy with swirly worms. Baby Grady is Superman, got red pants over the top of his trousers and the Superman cape that Auntie Fi brung him. He looks at the sea; shakes his head like can’t believe it. I spects him to run at it, but he don’t, stead he gets down, puts his ear on the sand. He still is chubby, don’t know how come, he don’t eat nothing cept Weet-a-bix. I always give him two cos he’s growing more than me.

“Boom. Ba-ba boom. Ba-ba boom!” he yells, waving his plastic shovel like in charge of the music.

We walk out to find the water. The tide is coming in cos it rushes up to meet us. Has to be careful, kids can get drownded even in puddles.

“Here comes a biggy.” I flies Baby Grady over little waves. The water is too cold; I get ouch cramp and my toes cross over. It’s too cold for getting wet, stead we go back up the beach. I find a stick and write our swirly names in the sand:
Lulu
Grady
Pip
. Baby Grady runs up and down with invisible strings cos he thinks the seagulls is flying kites. Mum and Bryce is coming. Bali Hai is calling on the wind. I hates
South Specific
.

Mum’s waving my swimming costume. I thought she forgot it but she int.

“It’s too cold for going in the water,” I says.

“
Too cold
,” she says in my voice, cept smaller.

My swimming costume is blue-and-white stripy, got a little skirt sewed on it. Looks silly; I int five. I go into the sand dunes and put the costume on and wear my school shirt over the top. Gainst the sand, I is Bahamas brown.

“Come here, Lulu,” Mum says. “Look at her pins, Bryce.”

Uh-huh. She feels down the back of my legs and I int even a horse.

“Dancer’s legs like mine,” she says.

“Shame about the two left feet,” Bryce says. “What happened to your face?”

I done three lines, sides by sides.

“Barbed wire,” I says.

“She won’t dance,” Mum says, “or sing. She’s too fucking tight, not like this little bundle.”

She sits down and pulls Grady onto her lap, ready for singing Happy Talk.

“Talk-in talk-in talk-in talk-in talk-in talk-in,” Baby Grady says. His little fat fingers is blinking, “talk-in talk-in talk-in…”

“TALKING TALKING HAPPY TALK—TALK ABOUT THINGS YOU LIKE TO DO…” Mum does the harmony like a nice lady.

Bryce is bent over his
AutoTrader
, got Formula One hat turned sideways so he can get close enough to read the page. He int taking his shirt off niver, cos of the pattern I done on his back. He looks up and calls me.

“Come and be a family.” His voice is friendly but his eyes could kill me.

The wind blowing hard makes me deaf. There I is, in the dunes, singing and dancing the warrior song,
come on
, I says and we starts to run, ripping the beach under our feets.

“Bor-ing!” Mum yells.

We beats the word to the lighthouse and back.

Jam sandwiches has all gone. Baby Grady is burying Bryce in the sand but the hole int no where near big enough. The sea is coming in fast, starting to rub our names out. Wonder how long it will take, for all of us to disappear.

“Shirt off,” Mum says.

I has to keep my patterns hid. Don’t know how many I got; thin and white and side by sides. They minds me of a prisoner what’s marking off the days. Last night I seen the starlings flock and land on Mr. Baldwin’s roof. I seen him bash his dustbin lids to scare them off. I seen Ellie Smithers, her sprightly dance. I seen the Sandwich Man call her over.

Danny Fish has been and gone. Final arrangements. The gas in the camping stove fut-futted and ran out. I’ve opened all of the windows; it makes the cold more honest somehow. The wind has frozen stiff. The candles
are at the end of their wick. There is money on the electric meter but I don’t want to see too clearly.

I’ve never noticed before, I only breathe out; see the woman in the mirror, sitting up on the windowsill. I don’t know how long she’s been there. Listening. The freeze is keeping everything still. The city seems to hold its breath. For one heroic motorbike. On the ring road. Risking it. Loving it. Hear a slow heavy van, rattling down City Road. Exhaust throbbing at the traffic lights. First gear, then second gear, up Stokes Croft, turning right at the car showroom. A fine point of heat starts to burn. Foot down for the hill; third gear, second, grinding. Can’t find a gear—make one. Pete.

The vicarage car park is full. He backs quietly into the bins. Softly scrapes the stone gate post, swings back gently into the road just missing a parked car. While he’s searching for a forward gear the van rolls backward down the hill. Something gets a grip, the accelerator sticks, and the van rages up onto the curb, plows on scraping the wall and then impacts; the phone-box glass explodes in the headlights. Spectacular. The van stalls. Shudders. Pete gets out, leaves his lights on and his door open. The ruin shifts position. The world holds still again. He’s in the road like something planted. Somewhere in the debris under the front of Pete’s van the telephone starts ringing. He puts his head on one side, then the other.

“Hello?” he says. “Hello?”

The phone keeps ringing. He follows his ear to it, bends down, peers into the wreckage; finds it under his front fender.

“I’m sorry, mate,” he says. “It
was
a phone box a few minutes ago, but it isn’t one any more.”

He seems to enjoy the caller’s words. The caller wants some sort of favor. It’s probably Heath. Pete has heard enough.

“It’s four o’clock in the morning, you cunt,” he says. Reaches into the wreckage to hang up.

Headlights dazzle the silence. He seems raptured by the light and the prettiness of shattered glass. A black cat walks into the scene, along the top of the vicarage wall. It sits down to survey the damage.

“Have you ever thought of getting glasses?” I say.

Pete looks up at the cat on the wall. He thinks the cat is talking to him.

“I’m night-blind,” he confesses. “In the dark I can’t see anything.”

“Is it a good idea to drive the van, Pete?”

He scribbles a laugh in the air, surprised and delighted that the cat knows his name. We all listen to the faraway train. The cat splits through the light and disappears in the darkness. Pete seems sorry then. He’s looking up through the bare trees but his blinded eyes can’t find me, or the cat.

“I’d like to stay and talk to you.” He turns a full circle. “But I’ve come around here to see someone.”

“Some other time?” I say. “If you happen this way.”

“I’d like that,” he says.

The intercom blasts as I close the window. I release the main door and open mine to listen. Something urgent brings Pete up the stairs. I hold on to the door frame to keep myself from falling over. Close my eyes. Open my eyes. Close my eyes. He catches a breath beside my ear, spreads it out along my cheekbone; takes the breath from out of my mouth, lays it hot on my neck. His eyes turn my face away, and bring it back and bring it back and bring it back. I could kill him. I could savage his face. He sniffs along my hairline.

“There you are,” I say casually.

He strides into the lounge. Stops short. Wide-eyed. Open-mouthed. The expedition equipment is still laid out across the entire floor. I look at him sideways; see him looking at me sideways. I bite my bottom lip, nod my head. His laugh skates the icy air, flourishes. His eyes ask the question. I look at the clock.

“In four hours,” I say.

He nods his head, calculating all of the odds. I show him the way around the map, to a floor cushion in Libya.

“According to the compass,” I say, “north is in the airing cupboard.”

Rounding Cape Horn we get caught in a storm of mosquito netting, hanging from the light fitting: I’ve been practicing. I move the purple backpack and the medical kit so that he can sit down.

“I’ve run out of heat; can still boil the kettle, though.”

I make coffee for him in the Swallow Hotel cup and saucer, spilling it everywhere. I hear Pete tapping a Silk Cut cigarette out of the packet; smell the sulphur from his match. He’s messing with the camera; hear the slow shutter click and the film winding on. I hear him put it down and then the pages turning.

“Tourniquets and sucking out the poison are now comprehensively discredited,” he says. He puts the guidebook down. I rattle the cup and saucer into the lounge. Rattle all the way to the floor beside him. He’s found the freaky gadget in the medical kit; he’s holding it up like a dead thing, a large polythene bat, with a tube and a plastic orange, oval face.

“According to the leaflet,” I say, “it’s a face mask for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”

He nods his head in a “fair enough” way. He puts it down. He picks it up.

“If you’re unconscious,” he says, “how would you ask somebody to use it?”

I snatch it off him; put it back in the medical kit. We look at the dictionary opened at P for
prophylactics
and the fizzing anti-malarial tablet spat out on the side-effect leaflet.