Mountains of the Moon (31 page)

“You make the coffee,” he says, coming back, “it’s in my holdall. You have the cup; I’ll have the pan, put tons in. I’ll get the rods rigged up.”

I pick about on the shore finding twigs and driftwood to feed the fire. He sits on his quilt in the lotus position, tilting into the firelight, threads the fishing line through eyelets on the rods. He sees me with the spoon and the screw top in my hand.

“That’s not coffee,” he says. “That’s my dad.”

Surprises me.

“Sorry,” I say into the canister and screw the lid back on.

“Every time I try to scatter them, I can’t bring myself to do it.” He bites on a lead pellet to close it on the line. “He wasn’t actually my dad. We weren’t related; just I went to a residential school.”

My hand in his holdall finds the glass jar of coffee.

“He lived in the folly that used to belong to the grounds. He didn’t have any kids, there was me and another boy, we hung about there all the time.”

I wonder what he is telling me. Heath’s eyes are cast out across the lake. A memory of something suffered makes a mist slip over his eyes.

“He bought us stuff. Bought my first karate lessons when I was seven, first black belt at nine. At a school like that you had to wise up. You had two choices: you were either the hunter or the hunted.”

I think he means borstal. I put the cup of black coffee by his knee. Lift a flaming stick toward him so he can see to thread a silver barbed hook.

“When I was ten he bought me a motorbike.” He tugs the knot in the line with his teeth to tighten it. “The other kid was into guns; we only had to call him Dad and he bought us what we wanted.”

An owl fills the bowl of silence. Heath’s mind has gone to the lake shine. I feels the life in him.

“Me and this other boy, we used to terrorize each other in the woods. He shot me once. Only the once.” Heath lifts the side of his shirt, firelight shines on a puckered fist of a scar. “Smashed a rib, glanced off through the soft tissue, I was a bit too quick for him.”

“Why did he shoot you?” I says.

“I fucked him over at the tuck shop.”

We sit for a long time.

“Was that the end of it?”

“Nope,” Heath says, “that was the start of it. I went to see the old man at the folly.
Dad
, I said, can I have a crossbow? One night…”

The story is on the skin, bristling and booming and whispering. Our frightened eyes hang on to each other. The story breathes over our shoulders, keeps poking us in the back. The crossbow bolt parts my hair and thwaps behind me into the tree. Terror hangs on every word, on every stood-up hair.

“So what did I do?” Heath looks over his shoulder, back at me, the heels of his hands tread back through the woods; they do not make a sound, he leans close to whisper, lest all of the ears in all of the leaves come closer to hear him speak, “I doubled back to the witch’s house.”

“Hold on, hold on,” I says, “I has to piss.”

“I’ll come with you,” Heath says.

We didn’t catch anything, no bait. Heath lies down, loving one of my cigarettes.

“Share this quilt with me, if you want,” he says. “We’ve got time for a quick one.”

I’m on the opposite side of the fire.

“I’m all right, the gravel fits me nice.”

“It is a pretty impressive coat. I wouldn’t mind getting one like that for Gwen. Where would I go to get a black sheepskin like that?”

“Lambskin,” I say. The word sounds strange, as if I don’t know it.

The owl sounds like a wolf.

Heath is asleep. I take the smoking cigarette from his fingers and wander down to the water, follow the shore to the next cove. I leave my coat and clothes on the beach. Moonlight bouncing strikes my patterns white. New ones have still got threads of scabs. The lake water is not that much colder than the air. Soon as the water is deep enough I give up my legs and swim soundless to the silver middle.

“Take me out,” I arsts the lake.

I give it my last breath.

But it won’t take me, it throws me back. There’s nothing down there to hold on to.

I leave Heath sleeping on the lake shore and go back through the woods to the lorry. I find the rope behind my seat; climb up on top of the container. Get in knots with knots and tie it on the strong branch. I put the rope around my neck; stand on the edge looking down at the drop. I’m afraid. Afraid it won’t slip, afraid it won’t slip tight enough. I’m afraid I’ll shit my pants.

I’m afraid to live. I’m afraid to die. I’m afraid it lays me down, in the recovery position, one leg out in space. A car whooshes past. Hear Heath coming, snapping back through the trees with all of the stuff.

“
Where are you?
” He does the voice of the witch. “
I can feel your heart, beating through the door handle
.”

“I’m on the roof,” I calls. “Just seeing how it is.”

“It’s Oh–seven hundred hours.”

“What does the Oh stand for?”

“Oh my God I’m fucking late—roll ’em up–roll ’em in–roll ’em on–Rawhide! If it stays clear like this we’ll see Ben Nevis on the way across.”

Blink. We drive off. Leave the noose hanging down. Handy for some other poor bastard.

Welcome to Scotland.

Splatt. Gnat-smack. And smear. Girl in the wing mirror hates me. Disappointed. One day though, I promises her, I am going to take her out. If you practice often enough, you can train yourself to do anything. We know that. I know that. I know that.

“I know you want to,” Heath says.

It’s true, I does. I wait for him to pull the lorry over but he sails past the next chance, undoing his belt, then his jeans and unlacing a basketball boot.
Welcome to England
. Gnats all stop at the border.

“Oh baby let’s do it, let’s do it right now!” He’s on the rumble strip.

I take my coat off; hot on a rush, knowing somehow I am already damned, somehow in a damned skid. I’ve still got a fat lip where an Oak Tree bit, got bluebells filling one third of my vision. I got Park Lane and Gwen waiting, seven hours down the road. How many dog shits in the hall? I slide over the top of the engine cover, step aound the gearstick.

“Over or under?” I say to Heath.

“Now slide, baby, just slide onto my lap, of course if you wanted to take your clothes off first that would be fine by me,” he says. “Hang on a minute; we’d better let this pillock pass.”

The pillock passes and another dark motorway mile and another three minutes on the dashboard clock. I slip over Heath’s thigh bone, tilt my skinny pelvis down the gap in his lap and final get my hands on it, the wheel of this beautiful, beautiful Scania. He just slips out from behind me, disappears up on the bunk behind the seats.

Hear his clothes coming off.
Lake District
a tourist sign says. Then he comes to sit on the wide engine top. Albino tree frog. It’s the huge knuckles and the way he folds his legs, in a pair of karate trousers. He hates driving, fucking hates it. Now he smokes with his eyes closed, sings about what happened one time, when the devil went down to Georgia.

Pillocks come and pillocks go. Keep driving a bluebell strip.

Blink. In your dreams. Heath disappears, gone back on the bunk to sleep. Fast asleep.

Me and the Scanny keep rolling on south. In and out of the slow lane. Two bright sidelights winking and blinking. Someone somewhere forges his tachograph, so Heath says.

Cold.

I reach for my coat and drag it over, get my arms in the sleeves and it around me. Light another cigarette and hold it in my teef, gives an overtaking laundry van a wave with my fluted cuff. We went ice-skating in Manchester. I’ve got bruises on my forearms from blocking, shoulders wrenched from punching, groin strain from taking off and holding up the leg position. Heath is thinking about starting up karate lessons, self-defense for women. Reckons I’m natural-born at it. He taught me how to do a reverse-turning butterfly kick. The trick now is to do it on land, where you haven’t got the speed and the lift provided by flying on the ice. We got chucked out of the ice rink for mucking around. Overcited. Going the wrong way. Next to the seat is a box of tapes. I slip any old one into the machine. Press play.

FEED THE BIRDS, TUPPENCE A BAG

TUPPENCE, TUPPENCE

Wonders whether to put my foot down and smash us face first into a motorway bridge.

AROUND THE CATHEDERAL THE SAINTS AND APOSTLES

Twelve. Twelve clock. Thirst is worster than cramps or stitches. I go around the edge of green grass fields with oak trees and white painted
fences. I crawl long sides a hedge and get out onto a lane. Thirsty worster than a sparrow in the winter. Looks up at oringe rocks, climbing high and steep to a terrible wall and the bell tower standing up behind it.

Car coming.

I jumps fast on the verge, crashes down deep-deep in the ditch, grabbing wild at stingers and gnats.

Splash!

The ditchwater rings around my ankles, see pretty poisons floating on it. Can’t drink it. Int nothing can drink it. I sees a flash of red in the green. A robin has come to see what’s red and happening in his ditch.

“Can’t drink it,” I says.

He blinks his eyes. That’s how come I starts crying.

At the top of the hill is traffic lights, sign says Egham or Virginia Water. Wonders if there is any
water,
if they named the place good and proper. Thirsty worster than a man in the desert. I turns right, follows long sides the terrible wall. There’s big old trees behind it, hanging over making shade. Saves me from the sun’s thumping. The road is busy but not too much. I try to walk like a normal, tends I is a little girl, going somewhere for tea and cake. Then the wall curves in and I sees through the gates.

It is a palice!

The grass is like a beach. Don’t know how many peoples there is, sitting underneath the trees and on the palice steps. The gates int open or closed, halfway, too big and heavy for shifting. There’s a man in a little gate hut, looks like a guard, so I tends to look at all the creatures, climbing up on the gates. Dormice and squirrels and men with leaves for hair. Still bits of colors in the rust. Blue on a kingfisher’s wing. Toadstools red. Silver on the fairies’ wings. Thirsty, thirsty worster than rabies.

Ding
—the bell fills the world.

“Are you in or out, love?” the guard says.

Ding
—

“In,” I say.

“Only the cars come too fast over the railway bridge, we had one killed last year.”

“Sorry,” I says.

He herds me in case I was a last lost sheep.

Has to find a tap or a hosepipe or a gardener’s toilet, could get some water from the cistern. The driveway is wide and glittery white, sweeping toward the palice steps. All the trees long side the drive is round and square and triangle shapes. Hedges flap up sudden in the shape of birds. The people on the grass lie flat, arms out like nailed on crosses, or dropped in chairs out of the sky. I seem like moving slow motion. An old lady comes toward me in a nightie, arms up case she floats way. Spects there int much gravity. No talking or people sound, too stonished by the sun and words has dribbled down chins. Wonders if this is a deaf place. A crow keeps hopping, looks around to see me still coming. It takes me through a tunnel done with burnum trees holding hands. The yellow flowers hanging down splash my eyes like pouring rain. Other side blinded, feels the boom of angels’ wings. Two angels, sprinkling white light. I look up at them.

“Sorry,” I says.

But they is made of stone, white feets gripped on a rock. Water pours from their hands and splashes into a pool. The colors of kaleidoscope tiles keep shifting underneath the water, sees my mum lying on the bottom. Bubbles comes running from her lips, like a string of tiny words; I get a panic to get her out.

“Int real,” I blinks.

Blinks, scared case the water int real. I kneel up on the crumbly stone edge, sees a stone angel under the water, drownded with a broken wing. Spects the other two elbowed her in. It is water. It’s cold and wet, gone tween my fingers. I sniff my hand and lick up a drop. Then I sees a girl in the water, got nutter hair all chopped. She puts her fingertips up to mine.

“Drink it,” she says.

I cups water from an angel’s hand and pour some over my head. I put my face down in the pool and drink it like a horse. Ha-ha-ha makes me laugh. I lay down flat and slop water over my body. Has to take my
sneakers off and dangle my feets right down in it. I is lucky. Uh-huh. I is. Then I see the lions, roaring out of stone, guarding the steps and the stone arches up to the palice doors. One lion is looking down over the wall, to see where his paw dropped off. Still there, too heavy to glue back on. Kids bigger than me sit with people on the grass, all looks like best behaviors. Sun makes my red cloth steam. The stone edge is hot under my back. I close my eyes.

Something swings, falling feeling wakes me up.