Mountains of the Moon (44 page)

“Give o’er,” Blacksmith yells. “You little shining shitbag!”

I smiles at Anton, shakes my head. Bernard is surprised and happy to see us.

“Fine evening, welcome,” he says to Anton. “We’re having a bit of a struggle, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t be fraid, Bernard.” I take the rope off him.

“He’ll stand for you,” he says and it’s true.

“Twat,” I whispers in Fritz’s ear. He likes the word, stands still, listening, case he can hear me say it gain.

“I’m pleased you’ve called by. I was going to call on you later.”

Anton shakes Bernard’s hand.

“About Burleigh,” Anton says. “I’m quite happy for Mitten to come but I wondered, naturally, about the sleeping arrangements?”

Surprises me, how good Anton is.

“I’d worry, if you didn’t worry,” Bernard says. “Now what I had in mind is this: my sister Ellen will be there with her two daughters and a room is booked for four girls to share. I can give you the details of the hotel. Perhaps I could have Ellen telephone you?”

“No need,” Anton says. “I’m sure Mitten will love it, she’s very happy working here. Thank you for giving her the opportunity.”

“Well, I’m thrilled to have her. We’ll need to leave at the crack of dawn, day after tomorrow, we’ll be back very late the following night, is that OK? I’ll drop her home, of course.”

“In a Silver Shadow, I see,” Anton says. “Beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Bernard says. “She is a fine one. Nineteen thirty-two.”

They go off, talking. The blacksmith files down the last hoof and the job is done.

“Now aint he dainty?” He slaps Fritz’s arse.

Anton and Bernard is still talking, leaning now on the paddock fence; it int dry, only painted it this afternoon.

Me and Anton walk back up the hill, with the tower dinging high up above us. When they test the palice fire larms Bernard always says same thing, watch out a lunatic is loose. Eight o’clock. Last sun is oringe on the steep oringe boulders. We pass two people in a car, kissing in the lay-by.

“I feel a bit bad,” Anton says.

“Sorry.”

“Genuine, Bernard, isn’t he? Christ, how will he drop you off?”

“It’s OK,” I says. “I live at number 7, second left. I go down the side of the house and climb over the back fence.”

“You’ve done it before?”

“Uh-huh. When it’s dark in the winter he drops me off.”

“I didn’t realize that, I thought you walked back. There was nobody there, in number 7, you never got caught?”

“One time a man seen me, said ‘Hey, you,’ said ‘Sorry, lost my cat,’ then he came outside with a flashlight and helped me to look for it.”

“Crikey, Mitten.”

“Donald, he’s all right, I done the clutch on his Mini. He thinks I live over the back, can’t never find the cat. Terrible.”

Terribleness makes us smile.

I spects my room smells sweet with the hoya bella, and the gardenia, and the jasmines over the bed flowering. Yesterday was my day off and we went on the train to Chelsea Flower Show. I had my wages and twenty pounds, won from George at poker. I got an eight-foot hoya bella and a gardenia tree and the Dutch man arst to marry me. Lucky, Anton said I was already his. On the train coming back the carriage smelled like heaven and people got petals in their hair. Sleepy, we was drugged with flowers just like bees and Anton forgot the rules. I got inside his jacket and he kissed my parting all the way back. When I get in I can mist the leaves.

Can have a bath, with miles and miles of hot water.

Thinks about the pots I made on Sunday in Re Creation, don’t know if they will bake nice or splode inside the kiln. Amy says tomorrow we can get them out and see. Anton smiles at me. Sometimes reckon it’s a fine, fine life.

“How are you getting on with the cassette?” Anton says.

“Le garçon est dans le jardin,”
I says.

I loves it. I loves the French, makes me sound pretty, like someone else.

“Cheval,”
he says. “Horse.
Chevaux
. Horses.
Les beaux carrosses
.”

Little sparrow in the hedge says it back. We walk and talk and collects some stems for the vase in my bathroom. Int no pavement. Careful cars. Anton picks tall buttercups; the bunch likes butter under his chin.

“You’re going to have trouble with the next bit of French unless we can sort your English out. I mean, when you think, do you think
int
? Sometimes you say I
is
and sometime you say I
am
and I wonder why.”

“Just cos can.”

“But you know which is correct?”

“Uh-huh, int deaf or stupid.”

“You quite often drop the beginning off words.”

“Saves energy Henry Higgins.”

“Who’s Henry Higgins?” he says.

“Rex Harrison.”

“You’ve got me.” He trips over a cow parsley stalk.

“Careful,” I says. “Tripped over your Antipodean Twang?”

And he laughs, the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. Been saving it especial.

“My
Antipodean Twang.
Where did you get that from?” he says, best mused.

“George,” I says.

By the traffic lights at the top of the hill, we wait to cross the road.

Les beaux chevaux.

“George says all of Ward 11 are being transferred to somewhere in Staines, next month,” Anton says.

The traffic lights turn oringe, then red. Beau int so thorny as beautiful. We look to see if the next car is stopping. I sees the sun on the windscreen, the bonnet of a black Capri, looks straight at the Sandwich Man’s face. Looks straight at me. I cover the scars on my cheek with my hand. We cross the road in front of him. My legs is starting to tremble. The Sandwich Man turns right, same way as us. He points at me and wags his finger, laughs. Laughing.

“We’ll have to go and visit George, Mitten,” Anton says. “We’ll miss Old George and he’ll miss us.”

We walk in through the palice gates.

“Evening,” the gate man says.

The Sandwich Man is throwing me kisses through the gate, tending like he just dropped us off. Can’t hardly walk or see for red.

“The horses are magnificent. I see why you like it down there.”

Red. I hears the fly-garic screaming.

“Something stinks. Is it me?” Anton says. “I’ve got this horrible dry tongue and this metal taste in my mouth, it’s like—it’s like fear, without the emotion attached.”

Still got the red cloth I was wearing when I left Red Roofs. Somewhere in this village the Sandwich Man is waiting for me, waiting for the game to start. I has to get dressed up for the part. The Sandwich Man learned me the frightened game. This time first move is mine.

Here I is, standing waiting under a tree. Here I is, at the traffic lights leaning on the post. Here I is, the only thing standing on the roundabout. Here I is, up on the wall standing in front of the village shops. Here I is, on the railway bridge. I sees all the people in passing cars wonder if they magined me. But he int driving about, he must be sitting somewhere in the Capri. The lay-by in the lane. I pass back through the palice, climb up over the back wall and stalk down the steep oringe rocks.

Uh-huh. Below, the Capri is parked. I look up at the clock on the bell tower. Sit on my heels. Wait eleven minutes. He is in the car, can see his elbow.

Listen for cars coming.

Nothing.

Coming—ready or not.
I jump down, heavy on the roof of the car, the metal crunches and bends in. He gets out ducking to see what happened.

“Sporting chance?” I say.

He chuckles; he loves me. He grabs for my legs. I jump over his arms and onto the bonnet. He has to get around his open car door. I smash my spear through his windscreen and it shatters. Skipping up the rocks, I know that he is following, laughing, I sees red, sees black, sees yellow and Ellie broken, sat on a shelf in the underground sewerage.

I stop at the top of the rocks, lean on my spear waiting for him to catch up. I look up at the clock on the bell tower. He tries to grab me but I jump. The Sandwich Man lands behind me. He laughs. He loves me. I jog, he jogs almost with me. Up the West Stairs. Down the East. He loves
me, walking through the ghoulish hall. Out of the main doors. Down the palice steps. Once around the Angel pool. I squeal like a girly should and he laughs. We does shapes of eight around people sitting on the grass. They laugh, good game, mad man and his visiting daughter. I listen and squeal and flits with my spear and looks up at the clock on the bell tower.

Ding—

Good game.

Ding—

He laughs.

Ding—

I hear the fly-garic screaming.

Ding—

When I picked it–I wanted to die. I died.

Ding—

A thousand times cradled in Mr. Nesbitt’s arms.

Ding—

“Come on, Mr. Draper,” I says. “Getting old?”

The Sandwich Man laughs, he loves me, his little savage. He loved me so much he had to let me live. But now I int a little girl. The search parties int gone off home. I int half dead from cold and starved. Ice int bitten off my toes.

I int in the foxhole. I int in the long narrow pipe. Me, me, I int in the hollow of a tree, int dug in under a rock. I int under the bucket of a JCB. I int buried in the ground breathing through a piece of straw. Here I am.

“Here I is,” I says. “Boo!” Come on, I thinks, we’ve got three minutes.

He loves me, skidding down the railway scarpment. He loves me, running long track. I run deep into the tunnel and stop. Can hear him panting, see the daylight behind the shape of him.

“Come on!” I shout. “Just you and me, in the dark.”

His laugh booms in blackness. Listen. Water dripping. The rails fizzing. Hear him swallow his Adam’s apple; feel all of the air sucked out of the tunnel. On time, the four minutes past.

“Shall we say a prayer?” I arsts.

The headlights of the train shine on the back of his eyes. On the back
of his open mouth. Then all of the brakes on the train scream and fill the darkness with burning sparks spraying out from all the wheels.

Pretty.

I find the Angel Michael on the edge of the angel pool. A crowd is going out through the gates.

“Someone’s been killed on the level crossing,” he says.

“Can I have a puff on that, Michael?” I sits up sides him in the sun.

“Its wacky baccy.” He lays his head in my lap.

Don’t care if it’s camel shit. I see through smoke the blue, blue sky and water pouring from angels’ hands, the shifting colors in the pool from the kaleidoscope tiles. Smells honeysuckle and cut grass. This is my heaven. This is my place. Girl in the pool puts her hand up to mine.

“Where’s Anton?” I says. “Is it poker tonight? I made me a Love for Lydia dress.”

Michael don’t say nothing, starts lulling a song about strawberry fields. Baby pigeons is learning to fly, flapping one leg at a time. A big square amblance comes in the gates, flat tires on it like square wheels. It comes slow long the drive, parks next to where we is sitting. Fight going on inside it, lady sounds madder than this place put together.

“They took him away, they took him away, they took my little boy away, help me, help me.” She don’t want to go in the spaceship. Driver gets out, winks at me, tells me with his hands that the lady inside is as mad as a ram. She’s shouting and screaming and kicking. I grims at the driver, he walks around and opens the back doors of the amblance. A man is in the back with the lady.

“Calm down,” he says. “Don’t do that, Mrs. King! Calm down! You’re all right, Mrs. King! Can you run in, Sid?”

Sid can run in and does, comes back with a straitjacket for my mum.

I’ve got the tune in my head and hum it.

“Mr. Draper was killed by a train, Kim, the inquest recorded Mis-adventure.” Mr. Book starts to pace. “There is no case to answer.”

I hum it louder. Mr. Book goes around in circles. I want to confess. I
want a clean sheet. I want to be punished. I want to be free. I want to blow the lid of this shitter.

I hum it louder.

“Puccini?” Mr. Book says.

I hum it louder.

I find him behind the door, in the ghoulish hall, with his toes pressed gainst the skirting board.

“Arthur,” I says, “do you know where they took that beautiful blonde lady, Mrs. King, came in this afternoon?”

His eyes slide sideways. I curls my hands, mad as a ram, sticks my tongue out sideways.

“Ward 2,” he says. “They took her little boy away.”

I fly the stairs. The ward doors is wedged open for fresh air, can see the long corridor. I move a plastic chair and sit to watch the comings and goings. Drugs trolley and a line. People on Ward 2 walk like they got bricks balanced on the top of their feets. Can hear the television,
Some Mothers Do Ave Em
. Everybody is in the lounge watching, int nobody thinks it’s funny. Corridor is empty cept for two shufflers and a going nowhere. I nips long, keeps my head down past the staff office and lounge. Waits for someone to call me back, say hey, but nobody does. I stand in a doorway of a dormtree. Listens, long the corridor, follows my ears to the frothy and babbling sound.

She is tied to the bed, thrashing her head, splashing pink foaming words up the wall. Nobody is coming. I go in the room. The bed is rattling and shifting.

“Shush.” I pats the air. “Shush.”

“This is where they round you up,” she says. “This is where they come to collect you. No!” She bucks and shakes the whole bed.

“Shush.” I creep closer.

I try to hold her skeleton hand but she grabs my wrist and digs her long nails in.

“Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” She spits words then starts a prayer. “Our father who art, in this, the winter of our discontent, I have to get back to Mandalay.”

“Shush,” I says.

She looks at me.

“Help me, Rebecca,” she says. “I have to find my daughter.” She starts to cry. “They took my little boy away.”

My heart falls to bits.

“Amazing Grace has gone,” she says and sobs. “They took my little boy away.”

I wonder how Baby Grady is. Idea of his name makes me cry; don’t know if someone is feeding him.