Mountains of the Moon (38 page)

“Are you awake?” Robertson says. “Have you got cramp again?”

Everything whites-out and I rise, transcend, transcend, on some high white plane out of this world, a warm wind is singing coloratura.

DAWN’S PROMISING SKIES

PETALS ON A POOL DRIFTING

IMAGINE THESE IN ONE PAIR OF EYES

AND THIS IS MY BELOVED

I run cross the grass past the chapel, pigeons fly up sudden and he sees me coming.

“What’s happened?” he says.

Int sure what he means.

“Why did you come running like that?”

I shrugs. Shrugs gain. Grims at him.

“Crikey, Mitten,” he says.

He stops walking; looks at me like a disappointment. My heart starts knocking.

“How come the rhubarb?” I arsts.

“I want to draw it. I called for you earlier. The interesting thing is that none of the caretakers have got a daughter your age.”

Surprises me. Never spected he would call for me. He int sposed to call for me.

“You’re not the caretaker’s daughter?”

“No,” I says.

“Who are you, then?”

“Your niece?”

“I said you were my niece to get you on the ward. I thought you were the caretaker’s daughter.”

“Sorry,” I says.

“So who are you?”

“Who does you want me to be?”

“Where have you come from?”

“Around.”

“Do you live in the village?”

“No.”

“Your parents, do they work here?”

“No.”

“It
int
proper.” Anton throws his arms up disgusted. “Not when I always tell you everything.”

“Sorry,” I says.

“You must live somewhere nearby, you’re always about.”

I nods. True. He’s looking at me, case I was a picture.

“Your hair is crawling with lice,” he says.

“Terrible,” I says. “How does I get rid of these bastards?”

“What’s your name?” he says.

“Mitten,” I says.

He pinches the top of his nose. I is sorry cos he is my friend, every day we has breakfast and dinner.

“Does you want to come to my place?” I says. “Case you can be my guest?”

“Your place?”

“Uh-huh.”

He thinks a bit. Stands with one hand on his hip.

“Are there any grown-ups in your place?”

“Just ghosts and the Angel Michael.”

His face is trigued.

“Have you got water, in your place?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Let’s go to the chemist first. Then the off-license. Then your place.”

“There int nothing sacred!” We stand in the silly laurel. I arst them proper nice not to take my fire scape. Anton looks up with me at where it was, wisteria all torn down.

“Was a pretty fire scape. Sorry,” I says. “Now we has to go the long way around.”

He comes with me through the Dinner Hall and then up the ghoulish
stairs. We listen at the Grand Hall doors, case there’s a meeting or something. Nothing so we can go in. Always is a surprise, the size how big the Grand Hall is. Spects you could get a football pitch in it. The painted people around the hall look to see us coming in. They is sactly the size of life with names writ underneath.

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Anton says.

William Shakespeare, standing with his pen, actual seems to write it down. The Duke of Wellington looks in agony leant on his own sword through the top of his own shoe. We walk around the edge of the hall so Anton can see the paintings gain. Florence Nightingale has growed a beard. Sir Walter looks like knelt on a stone.

“That’s him,” Anton says, “Thomas Holloway. And his architect, Crossland.”

“Nutters,” I says.

“Where has Queen Victoria gone?” Anton looks at the space on the wall.

“Same place as my fire scape, Fiddler and Mick.”

The sun comes out from behind a cloud and slices through the Grand Hall winders. Angels on the ceiling sprinkle golden dust down on us.

“Kingdom of Heaven, int it?” I says.

“More angels here,” Anton says. “I haven’t been in here for ages.”

He stands looking at a painted lady, she int got a name. Then he opens the bottle of vodka and has a swig and then it’s my turn. Burns my throat, then warms my belly.

“Bwah-ha-ha!” I says.

Anton’s face is dreamy, looks at everything long and careful cos later he will draw something seen. Now he’s smiling at the white statues, standing up high on the Grand tall walls.

“Ancient Greeks,” he says. “Philosophers. Geographers. Aristotle, Socrates, Diogenes.”

The Grand Hall doors swing open. It’s a man nurse in a white coat.

“Have you seen Mr. Clew?” he shouts cross.

We shake our heads and he goes gain, lucky never seen the bottle.

I walk the sun ladders on the floor all the way over to the stage. I get
up and stand on it. Bwah-ha-ha! We looks up at the old Greeks and angels on the ceiling. The painted people all go quiet and look at me up on the stage. They waits for me to say something. Bwah-ha-ha!

“Meine Damen and Herren,” I says, “Madam et Monsieur, Ladies unt Shentlemen.” I walk upstage and back.

“Vhere
are
your troubles now?” I arsts them. Bwa-ha-ha! “Verboten.”

Makes Anton smile. He slides his thumbnail tween his front teefs.

“We were going to your place?”

He meets me at the side steps of the stage and waits while I shift the hatch.

“Your place is under the stage?” he says.

I flick the switch for him to see, lights around the mirrors and costumes hanging on a rail. He climbs down the steep steps and ducks his head.

“It’s where I get my
school
clothes from. See. St Trinian’s.”

“I did wonder about the Dorothy shoes,” Anton says. “And the hooli-hooli skirt.”

I knock, knock, knock the heels together.

“Nothing happens,” I says. “Can’t put the lights on night-time case it shines through cracks in the stage.”

Anton’s face is beautiful. He’s got the paper bag from the chemist in one hand, bottle of vodka in the other. Follows me crawling through a trap door.

“East Wing,” I says. “I’m on the top floor same as you, cept my side most of the winders is broke and covered up with boards. Don’t be fraid of the dark.”

But it int actual too dark today, the sun is splintering in through hundreds of cracks and open doors. Anton stops to look. Dormtrees. Beds still the shape where people got out. Dusty sock makes me jump. Drawers and bedside cupboards left open, nothing left to hide.

“Look at this.” Anton goes into a dormtree with eight baths stead of beds. Rails go around for curtains once and water pipes go about in the air. The sinks slope hanging off the wall with lumps of plaster in them. Anton turns a tap, it’s stiff.

“No water,” he says. Then we hear it coming, bashing. All of the pipes
start swaying and spraying out umbrellas. Puddles run out from under baths and toilet doors and skirting boards. Water comes so hard in the sink, jumps back out for Anton to catch it. Wet, good and proper. I look under the closed toilet doors case somebody is hiding in there. Big fat spider runs out, stops, up on tiptoes. I spects he knows where he wants to go but don’t want to get his feet wet.

The walls are black and green with mold, all plaster bows and loops and bunches of grapes. One long piece has smashed down, broke over a bath. Angels flaking off the ceiling float down on us. Jumps.

A sparrow flewed up! Fast. She goes out through a hole in the winder glass.

Further long the corridor I show Anton the office, with the filing cabinets and the flat board with plugs for telephones. In a cupboard they got machines on wheels. Battery chargers I reckon, dials and needles and electrical switches. They int got clips for car batteries though, they got rubber pads. I put them on Anton’s brain and turn the dial for a joke.

“Tzzzz,” I says.

Anton tends Frankenstein. The office stinks of mold from old magazines and files piled up high in boxes.

“An old doctor left his bag.” I get it out from the desk drawer. Anton loves it, tries to read the labels on all the little tablit bottles. He wants to put the light on.

“No lectric,” I says.

I get the temperature stick from a silver tube and put it under Anton’s tongue. Holds his wrist.

“Uh-huh.” I shake the stick. “You int well.”

I hang the doctor’s things in my ears and Anton opens his shirt, chest is warm as a nest and hairy. His heart is bashing so hard, wonders it don’t knock him over.

“Uh-huh. You is definite still live.”

I listens my own heart. Terrible, makes me sick. I tear a wrapper and get the wooden lolly stick out. I press it down on Anton’s tongue.

“Say aaargh,” I says.

“Aaaargh!” he says. That’s how come I love him.

“You mustn’t ever take these medicines,” he says. “What’s that noise?”

“Fiddler and Mick, up on the roof.”

“What are they doing up there?”

“Taking all the gray stuff way. Reckon it’s dangerous.”

We tiptoe around a stinking lake in the corridor by the lounge and stacks and stacks of plastic chairs, past the big space with empty shelves, spects it was a library once. The Angel Michael never shuts his door. He int in.

“Michael’s room,” I says.

Anton stops to look in the dormtree.

“Michael lives here?”

“Uh-huh, bed number five.”

Poor Michael. He keeps trying to get
sectioned
so he don’t have to hide and stalk about the palice like a nutter. He wants to live in the West Wing proper like Anton and all the others. Anton’s got a cobweb on his gray velvit jacket, flakes of angels in his hair. Right at the end we get to my door.

“It int too bad,” I says. “Morning glory winders this end, only half of them is missing.”

Surprises Anton, my place. He lays his velvit jacket on my bed. Good job I made it nice. The whites of his eyes is so white. He turns a circle, looks up at angels.

“Early Italian Recognizance,” I says.

“
Renaissance
,” he says.

“What does ‘recognizance’ mean then?”

“It’s linked to ‘recognize.’ During the war, planes flew ‘recognizance’ missions, spying from the air at things below.”

“Renaissance recognizance.” I looks up at the angels.

Anton smiles, picks up the dictionary on the table.

“I got it down Ward 7, nobody there.”

He puts it down, looks at the curving wall of winders, most boarded
up rough with wooden sheets and planks. Gaps for air and chinks of light and ivy growing in. The top winders is beautiful though, morning glory flowers twisting with heart-shaped leaves in the glass. Flower color is somewhere true in the middle of blue, like dying I spects.

“Had to clean the glass three times to get that shine. Wishes you could see them in the morning, Anton.”

He looks at the photos of people I found, smiling over my fireplace. At the books on my shelfs. At the floorboards.

“Have you sanded these?”

“Done them with Vim and a wire brush. Then after when it was dry, sandpaper til my arms dropped off.”

“White cotton walls,” he says.

“Sheets,” I says. “It was brown and oringe wallpaper pattern done especial for a headache. A flap was hanging down in the corner but when I tugged it the whole room made of wallpaper came down in one piece. Had to wrestle it.”

He looks at all the wooden ladders I’ve sawed to make the arch, up and over the bed.

“What’s the idea, with the ladders?” He rubs his eye, got a flake of angel in it.

“I got four jasmines coming. Wilf is growing them on a bit in the greenhouse for me. Does you want a cup of tea? A sandwich?”

“I didn’t think you had electricity for a kettle.”

“Beryl in the kitchen always gives me a flask and a sandwich box. She think it’s for the gardeners. Terrible, must mit.”

“I’m all right with this.” He tips the vodka bottle. He loves the dentist chair. It’s shiny white metal with brown padded arms and all the stuffing coming out where people dug their nails in.

“Couldn’t shift it,” I says. “But it’s brilliant.”

Anton lays down on it and his hair splashes out.

“Ready?”

I tip the chair back sudden and his toes fly up.

“Open wide,” I says and he does. Can’t see proper, puts my thumbs in his dimples and my hands cupped around his chin, has to get half up on
the chair. Uh-huh. I look at every tooth, both sides case trouble is hiding, gives them a wiggle one by one, sees if he got any loose.

His hands shoot up.

“There’s your trouble,” I says. “Now spit.”

Surprises me. He laughs, sounds like something heavy falling down the stairs. I spects he is beautiful. Then he looks sad and a knot grows tween his eyes. I rub the knot with my thumb, sees if I can loosen it. My fingers stretch to hold his face case it rolls way. Uh-huh. Terrible lumpy, int so much pushing it, just arsting it nice to leave. Magines my thumbs is tiny irons smoothing skin and sadness way up and over bone. Then, gain, his breathing comes soft, in through his nose and out through his mouth. Shadow around his eyes is velvit. He opens his eyes. I sees water running over stones.

Ding—

We blink.

Ding—

We blink.

The tower bell is a sure thing.