My First Colouring Book (17 page)

So I'm lying in bed, it's three in the morning again, and I'm bobbing on my dream raft when – zip! – I'm taken through the night again, fast as electric, and I land outside a shack or cabin up there on the moors. There's a wind blowing in noisy gusts through three or four old trees, tall and stooped over me; their leaves surge and hiss and roar. No moon this time, it's almost totally dark, and very cold. I press my body against the wall of the cabin which is made of big rough boulders. It makes me think of the homesteads in the Wild West, in picture books, with animal skins drying on a rack outside and smoke coming from the chimney; there are eyes staring from the undergrowth maybe and a face streaked with warpaint – the sort of thing you see in books about Hiawatha or Pocahontas. I'm shivering because I'm in my pink Naughty Girl pyjamas and nothing else. This shack I'm standing by has a rusty tin roof held down with hawsers pinned into the walls, and there are rows of white in the corrugations – hailstones. The walls are rough and uneven, with moss here or there on the stones and a rickety door wedged shut, but it's not a tight fit. Shafts of yellow light escape between the gaps. Not all the fire smoke is going up the chimney – some of it's puffing out of the walls in wisps. A beam of warm orange light shines from the cabin's only window, which is small and divided into four square panes. I move slowly along the cabin wall, feeling carefully with my feet in case I step on something sharp, balancing myself by pressing my hands against the wall-boulders. I edge up to the window and stand on tiptoe, which allows me to see in through the corner of a low windowpane. It's dusty and criss-crossed with old cobwebs stuck to the pane, so I have to peer through a penny-sized clearing in the glass. I see a big fire in an open grate, licking the chimney stones, and some of the smoke is spilling into the room in blue-grey swirls, small backward waves. On my right I see a large head – a movement catches my eye and I strain to see what's happening. The head shakes and there's a jingling noise; then I see a steaming flank and a saddle – it's a horse! Creamy with a light mane and mud caked in its fur – I think they're called palominos. This creature is in the cabin and horse-napping, rattling its bridle when it wakes briefly. I can hear its shoes clunk on the floor as it moves its weight from one side to the other. After resting for a bit I stretch myself again and look some more through the peephole. It's all a bit dim, because of the wood smoke and lack of lighting, but to my left I think I see a narrow bed covered in a jumble of blankets. Directly opposite me there's a framed photo on the wall, I can make out something like a ship with an angel hovering above it. Below it, in the room, I see two shapes, one of them curled up on the bed. It's a child and it has its back to me. I think that shape is me, or it could be my dad, because this cabin was in his past, not mine. It's the same angel, sitting there with his wings furled and his arms stretched out on either side, his hands planted squarely on the edge of the bed, as if he were a bit drunk and concentrating on keeping upright. I look at this scene for some time, until the angel looks up at the window. I duck quickly, trying to stay unseen. Then I start peeking again, but the angel's still looking in my direction; this time he's got a smile on his face, and he winks. In that moment it's as if his feathers shimmer all over, like a blue butterfly caught in sunshine, and I think I hear him speak, but I'm not sure. It's a lovely sound, a cross between soft music and running water. Then the experience ends, suddenly, and I'm back in my bed at home, my feet still cold from the snow on the ground. After that I go into a very deep sleep and I wake up in the morning feeling good, completely refreshed. So meeting my angel in the night can be a good experience.

And there's a third meeting with the angel, different from the others. Again, I'm lying between my pink sheets and it's three in the morning, when – pow! – I'm flying again, rushing through the night air, but this time I'm high above the sea, and the
shhh
noise I hear is the wind in my nightclothes, chilling my body. The moon is shining on a vast expanse of water, and the waves are a pattern of shadows, motionless and silent. After a while – not long – I fly along an estuary, into a wide canal, and I see a ship moored to the right bank. It's a coaster with huge black lids over its hold and a machine squatting on its deck – a big metal crab with a long claw-arm. Instead of pincers it's got a massive bucket, to remove stuff from the ship's belly. The first thing I see is the ship's name, painted white on its black stern –
Clydenes
. I land on the deck and immediately I smell coal; it's a bulk carrier holding tons of smelly, dirty coal. There's no sign of life anywhere, though there are red and green lights on the masts.

Slipping through a heavy metal door, which I only just manage to open, I walk along a corridor, looking through portholes as I go. There's nothing much to see: the corridor is well lit, but the cabins are in darkness. Passing one room I smell queasy kitchen smells, then I clamber down a metal ladder and pass along another corridor. Engine smells now, and snores from a darkened cabin. At the end of the corridor I see a beam of hot light pulsing from a porthole, and I edge towards it. Without looking, I know what I'm likely to see. When I look through the thick glass I see a made-up bed, not slept in yet, and there he is – my angel, sitting with his back to the hull, hunched up with his hands clasped around his knees. There's another sepia photograph on the wall – this time it shows something like an old shed, I think, with an angel standing on the roof, in the process of taking off (one foot's already up in the air, climbing an invisible stairway). I peek again at my angel through the porthole, but as soon as I look at him he glances sideways at me, gives me a nice warm smile, as if he's been waiting for me. But there's a difference. In this scene, there's no-one on the bed with him. No-one at all – I am not there, and nor is anyone else. The angel is alone and waiting for me.

This time I feel my heart quicken; a kick of adrenalin enters my system. My senses are heightened; I hear the slap of the water on the ship's side, a strange bird-scream in the scrubland on the bank. There's a loud snort from a sleeper, and a few mumbled words in a foreign language, Russian or Polish perhaps. The ship rolls and creaks. I feel slightly nauseous from the coal and engine oil. I begin to panic, so I edge away from the cabin door. Soon I am running along the deck and then flying through space, into the moon. Almost immediately I'm back in my bed, the smell of coal still heavy in the air around me. Then I sleep, but it's bad sleep, fitful and jerky and sweaty. I cry out in my sleep and mum comes to my bed; she holds my hand and feels my brow. This is the angel dream I don't like. It leaves me tired and exhausted for days afterwards. My angel can make me happy, but alone in the ship at night he is sad, he worries me. I feel the need to help him somehow. But how?

And then it all changes, in a single night. I don't go to the angel – the angel comes to me. For months nothing happens, and I think maybe the angel thing is all over with. He begins to fade, and I have trouble remembering the exact shade of the blue of his skin, lighter than the shade of his wings. Then he comes to me. In my bedroom. I'm fast asleep, but when three o'clock arrives I wake up suddenly from the black emptiness of sleep, and he's there besides me on the bed, looking at me. The way he sits on the duvet and the way he looks at me reminds me of a doctor who came to see me when I was small, when I was really ill. I remember it well, even the smell of the doctor's hands. Now, on my bed, the angel's wings pulse and glow like my fibre-optic lamp. But I don't feel scared. I lie on the bed, still curled up and sleepy, looking at him. When he speaks to me I understand him but I can't really remember the sound of his voice. He doesn't touch me at any time, but he indicates somehow that I'm safe with him. This is what we say to each other, more or less:

I'm an angel.

What's your name?

My name is jupin-3.

Where have you come from?

A special world inside your head.

You mean you're not real?

Yes and no – I am real to you, but not to anybody else.

Why are you here?

Because you haven't been to visit me for a while.

Are you going to hurt me?

No, never.

Are you going to stay with me for ever now?

Only if you make me.

Why would I do that?

Because there's nowhere else for me to go.

Haven't you got a home?

You haven't made one for me yet.

But I thought angels lived in heaven?

Maybe they do, but you haven't made a heaven inside your

head yet.

Yes I have.

You've made a space ready for a heaven maybe, but you

haven't filled it – nobody finishes the heaven inside their heads.

How do you mean?

The heaven inside your head is a place with nothing really in it

– no houses, or animals, or cars, or seas. Do people eat, cry and

go to the toilet? Do they have pets in heaven? Do they get to

see the people they loved when they were living? Do they play

games, do they laugh at silly jokes?

I don't know, I haven't thought about it. Anyway, I don't really

believe in heaven, or hell for that matter.

You don't have to. But if you could imagine another place I

could live in, I'd be grateful. A place where an angel could be

happy. The cabin on the moors and the coal ship are OK for a

bit, but I need to spread my wings
.

I laugh at his joke, but he doesn't know why. Maybe angels don't have a sense of humour, or maybe he's preoccupied. He doesn't seem to be a happy angel, so I have to do something about it. But when I think of his future I get a feeling inside my chest which makes me cry. How do I make a heaven for my angel, a place where he can feel at home? Only jupin-3 himself can do that. What can I do?

I'm lucky, my angel is patient. Thank God, I've made a kind, forgiving angel. He's not going to bring me strange or worrying news, like the angels in stories, I'm not going to get pregnant or anything like that. All he wants is a place where he can relax and feel OK with life.

He's been coming to see me every day before dawn and I've woken up with him sitting on my bed, looking at me, waiting for some news. In the end, we agreed on a plan. We had a good chat about it, and I'm feeling a bit more relaxed about things. He's going to live in my dad's garden shed for a while, until all this is sorted. There's room for him in there, and a bed where my dad goes to sleep when he comes home drunk or when he's had a row with mum. I'm going to tell dad a bit of a fib, a little white lie. I'll tell him I want to paint a big picture of an angel in heaven. He'll go overboard, he'll try his best to help, I know that. He'll buy me a big canvas or a piece of board from the DIY, and he'll prop it up ready for me in his shed. I'll say I want to do it all alone, I'll make him promise never to go inside the shed until it's finished. Every day after school I'll go in there and help jupin-3 to plan a perfect place to live in. It's going to take some time, working out the sort of country he wants to live in. He's strange; his expectations are different from a human's. He doesn't want many people but he wants
lots of animals. He wants total harmony and a place to meet jupin-1
and jupin-2 whenever he needs to. Poor old jupin-3 wants to be off as soon as he can. Who can blame him. He's painting a picture of heaven in my Dad's shed. He's painting it in sepia – because nothing in life is completely black and white, he says, and the only colours he wants to see are the ones in heaven.

I never thought you could imprison angels. But you can. That's the curse of humanity, he says. We can dream angels into existence – but we all forget to create a place for them to live happily in peace.

Maybe I can be the first. I hope so, jupin-3.

blue

I BOUGHT her on the internet one Monday night round about midnight, got in a right tangle about spending money I didn't have, and then worried myself silly about internet fraud – what if some bugger got hold of my bank number? Couldn't sleep a wink all night, tossing and turning. Worst days of my life, everything out of kilter. Big space in the bed too after Wendy went. Couldn't cope with it, needed someone to cwtch up to. No mucky business mind, don't go in for that sort of thing. Never had the chance to do anything exciting anyway, not with Wendy – we had it once a month, on payday, lights out at ten sharp.

Pull my nightie down when you've finished, that's what she said before we started and I always did, never forgot. But we hadn't touched for years, no wonder I was lonely. Bugger off she did, just like that, no note or nothing. The Plod never believed me, round every week saying they were going to dig up the patio, but I says please don't do that, it was the first patio in Glynneath, people came from miles around to see it and I paid a fortune for the fancy bricks with holes in them. Can't think why they cost more than real bricks if there's half of them missing.

On Saturday morning a white van arrived with a box and I took her out careful like in the back bedroom. Blew her up and I thought she looked lovely, bit small but nice in bed by my side and I talked to her for hours. Caerphilly outfit made her, same lot who make Dolly the Inflatable Sheep. I was worried in case someone in the factory knew me, or somebody told Doris Doom down the road, everyone would know before daybreak, before the bloody milkman came round.