Mountains of the Moon (33 page)

A telephone is ringing sides his bed.

“Excuse me.” He goes to pick it up.

“No, I’m not coming today, George, I’ve got a visitor as a matter of fact. The new caretaker’s daughter.”

Surprises me, who I is. George’s voice is bigger than the phone, sounds ho-ho-ho.

“I’ve got to go, George, the sun is coming in. Yes, tomorrow night, definitely deal me in. The Billiards Room? The window is open, is it? Good, see you then.”

Now the sun is coming fast. Anton pulls the chair over from his desk and sits the other side of the box. He picks up his wine and members his story.

“So. When Vera left, five or six years ago, she unlocked her filing cabinet and smuggled the champagne back to me.”

His trouser leg has rided up, he’s got a dent in his shin, I spects where Vera done him. He is a velvit gentleman, got black monkey boots all soft and velvety. His broidery waistcoat is beautiful, poppies in all the colors of green.

“How long has you had this room?”

“Since Peterson Roth died. Some people say that I killed him for it.”

“Oh,” I says. “Was it you that done it?”

“No.” Makes him smile. “He had a heart attack, at home on weekend leave.”

Ding—

Dong, says the grandad clock.

Ding—

Dong.

Ding—

Dong.

Ding—

Dong.

Marigolds go rushing bubbly over my head. We sit side by side in the sun. Growing time. Watch marigolds flower in the air and all cross the wall and floor. He tells me about the olden days fore they closed the East Wing down. I don’t hear no dings or dongs or fast passing trains cos listens the sound of Anton’s voice rocking me same as the
chair. I know how come his mouth is nice; he got little dimples at the sides.

“We’re a bit cramped but I don’t mind too much,” he says. “Life is better with women in it.”

Someone tap-tap-taps on the door. He hides the bottle and our glasses quick, down the side of the bed. Nurse Lizzie comes in and marigolds shine on her face and white coat.

“I’m sorry, Anton,” she says, “visiting hours are over now.”

“Ten more minutes?” he says.

She looks past him at me, rocking in the chair.

“Your uncle’s room is wonderful, don’t you think?”

I nod cos it’s true. It is.

“Ten more minutes?” he says.

Her face does rules is rules.

“I’ll tell you what,” she says, “I’ll come back when I’ve herded all of the others out.”

Sides, someone is yelling her name and she has to run. I stand up, feels sure on this hard hard floor just how heavy I is. Feels sure. I is real.

“I wanted you to see the sunset,” he says. “It’s the perk of being west.”

I look out at the sun, running down red in the marigold sky. Members all the trouble I got. He is looking at me. Teefs is nice.

“Thank you for being my guest.”

“Has I done it proper?” I arsts.

“You’re the finest guest I’ve ever had.”

Int true.

“It’s true,” he says.

Int.

We listens to the tick-tock. And birds outside chirping fore bed. Train coming. Dead fast. Loud and shaking the floor, sudden gone, like it never was. And the birds is quiet after. I spects he is beautiful. I like his furnitures. Wonders if to marry him cos I could keep everything polished.

“Shall we make Lizzie walk back or shall we go of our own free will?”

“Free will,” I says. It sounds nice.

We pass a long line of people, waiting in the corridor. Nurse Lizzie is
with a man, same in a white coat. His badge says Leonard. They got a metal trolley like a desk with medicine and tablits in little plastic pots.

“Anton! Be sure to come straight back up.”

“Five minutes,” he says.

Everything is much darker now. Last people leaving on the stairs.

“Bye, Isaac,” I says to the painting on the way down. The velvit gentleman holds my hand. Something wrong with my eyes makes monsters double in the ghoulish hall. I get the goose bumpoles. Feels wobbly. Tired, like a swimming pool inside me.

“Have you started your new school?” he arsts.

I tends deaf.

“Half-term, I expect, yes, half-term. Are you doing anything tomorrow?”

“Int sure,” I says.

“I hope I haven’t got you in trouble. What time were you supposed to be in?”

Surprises me.

“Thirty-two o’clock?” I says case it’s a joke.

He opens the palice doors for me. The angel fountain has been turned off.

“Do you know where you’re going?” His teef is nice.

I grims at him, shake my head.

“Follow the driveway all the way around the back.” He has to come outside. “Actually the other way is quicker. Follow the terrace along the East Wing and around the back. Then down past the tennis courts and bowling green. Through the archway in the wall, past the greenhouse and the vegetable gardens and that’s where you are. OK? Do you know which house you are? Is your father the maniac with a hedge trimmer?”

Makes us laugh. We stand on the palice steps and then we sit down, talking so long like getting old.

“Anton!” It’s Lizzie, ever so angry. “I have to lock the ward.”

“Sorry,” he calls up. But he int, not really.

“Bye,” I says. Wobbly, misses the step.

“Crikey, Mitten,” he says.

“Now, Anton!” Lizzie says. “It’s ever so late; is someone picking her up?”

“Uh-huh,” we says. Both naughty and confused, sactly who I’m being and sactly who I is.

“Bye.” I hold up one hand. Whoops. Walks a wobbly walk, shivering white, past winders and winders of bashed-up planks and sheets of wood. My hearts and the palice doors bang.

Tzzz. Tzzz.
Ha-ha-ha! I is a python. I shake the ladder on the palice wall.

“Go on then,” I yells at the gods.

Ha-ha-ha, I is a rattler! I got another skin, growing underneath. Bubbly wine has done me wobbly. I take the sneakers off so my toes can grip the tiles. Shivers in the shadow of the sunset nearly finished, sees monsters with wings biting on the edge of the roof. Blinks.

Int real.

The wind has grounded down the teefs but they could still suck you to death or slap you straight off the edge.
Tzzzzz.
The tower makes me small and dark. It’s another world on the palice roof, east and west, sliding Mountins of Moon and dark triangle shapes. Wobbly. My spear can balance me.
Tzzzz
. I look down over the edge at the palice steps and the pool, dark shapes of angels with moon on their wings. Lions, they work best in the dark. Shivers. The moon is up and round, shivery silver, hurts my eyes. There int nothing to hold on to but I is brave up the slope, frightens a line of pigeons sleeping under a ledge.

“Sorry,” I says.

Ding—

Feel the air swing.

Ding—

A warm wind is blowing on the back of my legs.

I turn to face it and it blows way my eyes. A warm wind is lifting up my chin and holding on to my face. I lay down in the dip where two roofs meet and the warm wind comes out from a vent.

“Good girl,” I says and hiccups.

I make a pillow with my sneakers and get my legs up under my cloth.

So nothing as a leaf. Blowed way.

“Any chance of a slurp?” I says.

They both blinks, so surprised.

“I int a monster,” I says. Tries to shift a chink in my neck.

Terrible stiff. They looks at each other. Looks at me. Looks around them case I got them surrounded.

“Thirsty,” I says. “Been sick.”

The man that looks like a white rabbit holds up his cup of tea.

“Whoops,” I says. “Careful case I slip and slop it.”

I spread the tea around in my mouth so that everything what’s dry gets wet, slops it side to side, tips back my head and gargles with it, then I swallows it.

“Don’t spect I could have a ciggi?” I says.

Both of them hold up open packets.

“Thanks, one for now and one for later,” I says. “Beautiful moon, int it?”

The white rabbit strikes a match for me to puff the ciggi light.

“Minds me of a vamp,” I says.

They both look sactly same, total stonished.

“Vamp?” they says together.

I hold the ciggi with long stiff fingers and get balanced careful on the slope.

“Now you,” I says to the white rabbit. “You has to say: puff-puff-puff, only when I nod my head.”

“Puff. Puff. Puff?”

“No. Quicker—puff-puff-puff.”

“Puff-puff-puff.”

“Uh-huh. And you,” I says to the man with the top hat. “You has to say: smoke-smoke-smoke.”

“Smoke-smoke-smoke.”

“Puff-puff-puff.”

“Now I’m a girl with a heart of gold and the ways of a lady so I been told, the kind of a
gal
,” I says, “that wouldn’t even harm a flea.”

They is stonished. Stonishes me.

“But just you wait til I get the guy who vented the cigarette, I’ll shoot that son of a
hick
—believe you me.”

They believe me. I nods my head.

“Puff-puff-puff.”

“Smoke-smoke-smoke.”

“It int that I don’t smoke my self, I don’t reckon they harm your health—I’ve smoked all my life and I int dead, yet.” I does one cough for the song, lucky, gets three real ones added on. Whoops.

“Puff-puff-puff.”

“Smoke-smoke-smoke.”

Feels sudden ever so tired. Tile skids out from under my foot, skids down the roof, goes flying off the edge. We listens. Waits. Waits long time. Then hear it smash on the terrace below.

“Shush!” we all says.

“Sorry,” I says. “The velvit gentleman has done me, wobbly.”

“I’m Fiddler,” the top hat says. “This is Mick.”

“Nice to meet you,” I says. “Had best get going. Bye.”

“Don’t forget your cigarette, for later.”

“Have the packet, love,” Mick says.

“And the box of matches.”

“Thanks,” I says. “Whoops. Careful.”

I waves them from the edge with my spear.
Tzzzz
. Disappears down the side of the chimney.

The moon is perfect round and drumming blue, sees easy down the fire scape. I run long the black edges, East Wing and West Wing, then climb a tree, get up on the terrible palice wall. The green lamp on the velvit gentleman’s desk is shining behind the marigold glass.
Hick.
I drop from the palice wall and down onto the railway line. The silver tracks shine and disappear in the tunnel’s black. Listens. Booming. Around me bats is ducking and diving, I shake my spear at them and get on my toes, warms up the warrior song til good and proper int scared of nothing. Then I scream down the tunnel same as a train, running my spear long on the rail, that’s how come I know where I is but it knocks and bounces.

Flewed out of my hand.

I has to stop and get down, read with my fingers the railway stones, fat concrete slabs and the cold smooth rail. Light at the end of the tunnel is blue with the moon. Same size both ways. Has to close my eyes to listen. Ticking clock. Water dripping and trickle. Int sure now, case I turned around, don’t know which way I come in. Booming. I hear it coming, trotting light. Listens, sorts out boom from blackness and sweetness, breath warm as hay. I blow back soft and kind as can.

“Hello.” I sees tiny horseshoe shapes, trot way silver in the dark. “Don’t go.”

Listens booming. I find the knot in my red cloth and the cigarettes and matchbox. Careful, don’t drop all the matches, tries to light both ends of a dead one. Next one works. The rails curve off to a smaller tunnel blocked up with bars. Good place for staying live if a train was going to kill you. Match burns my fingers so I drop it. Light another one to find my spear, then I run on gain trusting the dark and the rail to take me out. Nobody in the station cept a lady fox, standing on the platform looks like waiting for a train.

“Toot-toot,” I says.

She’s so surprised she don’t do nothing, just watches me run past. I drum long the tracks. Then off up through a night-time woods. Owl’s woo shivers with the moon. The drumming comes so loud and so clear. I sees the signs and the tracks of heavy plants been crossing.

On top of the hill I can see it. I stalks to the edge, then sit down and look at the sky. Listens. Everything held still by the moon. I hear it first and then see it. Red light, green light, white light winking. It slopes down cross the moon. Uh-huh. I run at the fence, climb over the Keep Out sign and then skid down and down. I stop at the bottom. Look left and right and back up where I come. Listens. Long and wide and deep. I know it, I sniffs it, every stir of wind and air and sand settling down. Every hair stands up to feel in the air. Ears listen for something to get hold of. I has to stay up wind, I pick up dust and trickle it, has to
know
where he is. Eyes int the best thing for shadows running wild in moonlight. His feeling starts to burn on my skin and membered ice.

“Go on then,” I whisper.

No. The air is dry and warm, and the dirt, daytime sun still laid on the ground. The Sandwich Man, he int here. I shake his feeling off me, sets off running left, through sand rolled out smooth, leaves strides short but sure behind me. Sees the moon is running with me up onto purple stones, rolled out more wider than a road. Got agony from my bit-off toe, members it and starts to cry but we has to grit over it and run on with staggering stitches. I hang on to the sky, sees three stars go out and the moon turning to burn yellow. Sees the ground black and silky smooth come racing up under my feets, steaming, burning hot, leaves tracks behind in the soft tarmac. Joins up the white dotted line, pulls into the fast lane, past giraffes with wires dangling down and signs covered in plastic. I look around and up at the sky. Can hear one. Uh-huh. Comes over my head, winking, I hammer left up a slope. Airplanes is showing me the way and that’s how come I track them.