Runt (15 page)

And the summer went by into the Rainy Times and the days rose into a bluesome brightness then fell again into a warm darkness, rise and fall and rise and fall that’s what the days did and the summerness went into me all green and foamsome in places and in other places brown like the gravy Teifi, sometimes all bright
like
when the sun sits on the mountain top which it did a lot and sometimes darker like the water in the lakes or the river and I was
on
and
in
the mountain. Me and Arrn ran in a Good Madness across the High Parts and through the yard that Drunkle kept clean and I Kept An Eye Out for the ghost of the bull Snowball but didn’t see it altho one time Arrn came running out of the cowshed with his eyes all big and the hairs on his back all sticky-uppy. Charlesworth’s kittens grew up and got big and we had to Get Rid Of Them, so Drunkle and me made a sign with white paint on some wood that said ‘KITTENS – FREE TO GOOD HOMES’ and people stopped in their cars and took some kittens, all of them in fact except for the little black-and-white feller which I was gladded by cos he was the best one and Charlesworth didn’t seem upset by her children going and then one day she herself had gone, she just wasn’t in the straw one morning and she never came back. She went to open up a shop on the other side of the mountain or went to be with the Beast in the storm and Drunkle said to me don’t be sad cos that’s Just What Cats Do. There are foxes and badgers and other toothed things out there on the mountain. The black-and-white feller grew bigger but never really got very big cos that wasn’t for him and he set up his own house in the straw and every day I’d go to see him and stroke him and he’d go prrrr and wouldn’t bite me any more. I never had My Times again all through the summerness altho I did think I was going to two times but I didn’t, not while the sun shone in a bluesome brightness anyway which it did all through that summer.
Rhiannon
came to visit us a lot and I went Hot and Hard whenever she did but we never Went Together again even tho I wanted to all the time and hoped we would again and she gave me Smilings a lot which was her way of telling me that she remembered what we did in the straw and that she liked to remember it but that we wouldn’t do it again, all of that was in her Smilings. I puzzled about it a lot and thought about it a lot and spoke to Arrn about it but never Drunkle and at times I wanted a Time so I could ask Auntie Scantie Fay about it but My Times never came that summer in the bluesome brightness, no. But I would watch Rhiannon and wish for her Smilings and feel good whenever she gave them to me and I wondered why we never Went Together again if she didn’t want to Go Together with me then why did she do it that one time or maybe she didn’t like doing it with me but I knew that she did cos I remembered the way her face went and the noises she made oh! oh! like that. And then one night-time, just me and Arrn on the hill with all the stars about us and above us
on
the mountain and the mountain
in
us and I had a quick knowing all of a sudden of how sometimes people Need To Do Things cos they think about them things a lot and parts of their insideness go wriggle like eels until they do those things and it might only need to happen once to stop them eels wriggling and after that Once there is no need to do that thing again and maybe that’s what happened with Rhiannon and me. And I was okay with that thinking I wasn’t sadded by it no it was okay. But I did look at Rhiannon every time she came up to the farm and I liked looking at
her
but I started to worry about Arthur and what would be Going Through His Head cos she was up at the farm a lot and four times I thought I saw Arthur’s black truck parked far away on the Other Peak and other times I thought a saw a Bright Flash like when the sun puts a shining down to bounce off glass on that Other Peak but I thought that it might’ve been some kind of glassy rock up there and not binoculars cos there are such rocks like glass up there so I didn’t worry about it and in the meanwhile Rhiannon moved about the yard and through the house and I couldn’t stop myself putting a Looking on her. A Looking and a Smiling and oh yes a Wanting.

No more sheep got killed by the Beast if that is really what was happening to them. The Beast died or went away or started killing other things cos no more sheep got found up trees or anywhere else made dead by rips or teeth or whatever it had been. NotDad never went away but Duw I wanted him to, wanted the Beast to rip his stupid bastard head off but that never happened but My Mam Bethan
did
come up to the farm to see me and one time she brought me My Pills which I never needed or took cos My Times weren’t on me then and she also brought me up some biscuits which I did need cos they were my Very Favourite Types. We sat at the table outside by the house and she drank tea and smoked and I ate the good, good biscuits and I can’t remember what we spoke about only that she told me I was happy where I was and to stay there and I understood what she meant and didn’t want to go back Down There anyway with her and bastard NotDad cos I was better Up
There
in the High Parts with Drunkle and Arrn and the black-and-white cat and Rhiannon when she was around which wasn’t Always but was A Lot and Drunkle asked My Mam Bethan if she wanted to stay over for tea or go for a drink in the Mountain Tavern but she said no, she Had To Get Back and I watched her go fast off the mountain back to bastard NotDad and she moved fast in a panic-ment like a woodlouse when you lift a rock and they go mad trying to find the darkness again and run at another rock, that’s how My Mam Bethan went off the mountain and I didn’t like to see her moving like a woodlouse so I turned away and whistled for Arrn and he came and we both then went running off to climb Straw Hill but not like woodlouses oh no. Bag of flour please Charlesworth oh no you’re not there. Any more.

Drunkle was my Drunkle sometimes but mostly he was just my Uncle which I was happy’d by cos he’s my Drunkle but he wasn’t then, most of the time. Drunkle or Uncle I loved him both. He didn’t talk about Auntie Fay a lot but I knew he could remember her and feel her and smell her cos I could too and sometimes his eyes would go close but not in a sleepment and I knew that he was back with Auntie Fay when he went like that. Sometimes Rhiannon and him would Go Off Together and I wondered if they were properly Going Together but they weren’t I don’t think because there wasn’t that nice cloud around them or those Smilings between them which come off people who Go Together In That Way except My Mam Bethan and NotDad cos NotDad’s a bastard man and the cloud around them two is black and it stinks like the mud
me
and Drunkle spaded out of the yard and like that cloud around face-scrapey Arthur and Rhiannon at the beginning of the summer when the Beast was on the mountain cos the nice cloud was around me and Rhiannon for a bit but the summer burned it away like it burns the mist off the mountain in the morning-times and that sadded me for a bit but I didn’t really mind cos there would always for ever be a little bit of that Good Cloud around me and Rhiannon and I was mostly happy’d by that. And in fact most of the days of that summer happy’d me I had No School and no My Times I was
on
the mountain and I swam with Arrn in the lakes and streams in the High Parts and sometimes with Drunkle and Rhiannon too and our skin went like a chicken’s with its feathers taken out and we found a fish in a suit of armour like a Knight Of Old which Rhiannon told me was a Crayfish and I picked him up to have a close look at him and I liked him very much and saw his eyes and claws and kicking feet he was like some kind of insectfish but big. I watched the kites fly like Jesus’s cross in the bluesome brightsome sky and the buzzards too and I spent ages watching a harrier hover and I found that same bird’s nest when I was walking just a patch of mud in the bogness which smelled very bad and had all bones in it and I could see a chick in the ryegrass all in a huddlement so I went away quick from it cos I didn’t want to make it scared and didn’t want to be divebombed by its mum and dad with their speedy claws and beaks, oh no. I saw an adder on a stone and woke him up but didn’t mean to and his tongue came out all flicky-flicky and he made a noise like when
Drunkle
has to let air out of a tyre and he jumped at us so fast with his mouth open and his fangs so sudden sharp and me and Arrn ran away. I sat on a hill on my own with no Arrn, he was left woofing back in the house cos he would’ve scared the badgers that I was spying on and the sun went down all red and orange behind the mountain and I saw one badger come out of the trees then another one then three smaller ones too and I watched them for ages all five as they played and went into tumblements down the hill my family of little black-and-white bears. I watched the black-and-white cat hunt for rats in the farmyard and didn’t mind cos That’s What Cats Do and I stood still in the yard as the night-time-ness came into the sky and fell down around me and the bats went flit and flick around my head and so close to me. All of the world was
on
me and
in
me and I was happy happy happy like that tiny bit of time I have before I have a My Time, it was like I was nothing but everything just part of the snakey birdy batty world around me and my blood went in me like a river and my brain in my head was like a cloud with the sun bright in it and the days all blue and green and foamsome like a stream going around rocks and I thought of people like me who Had My Blood so many many years ago living on the mountain and turning rocks into tools like Drunkle showed me that time and sometimes it felt like I would burst with the Thinking of that and the Knowing of it and the light that came out of everything and went
in
me I sometimes felt like I was in a Heaven that summer cos so very many things happened and I was happy-happy-
happy’d
by them all
but
then the world moved around in space the bluegreen pea planet spun in the blackness and the brightness went and the blueness went and a bit of the warmness stayed in the air but the sky went dark and the clouds came all of a greyness and of a rain-some weight and the thin rain came down to the world all around me and that was then the Bad Thing happened, oh yes.

There was a storm on the mountain and we went out to look at it, me and Drunkle and Rhiannon and Arrn. We had slippy coats on which would Keep The Rain Off, well Arrn didn’t he just had his fur, and the storm was all purple-flashy above and behind the mountain and rumbling and lightning like the hands of giant white skeletons kept coming down to make a grab at the top of the mountain and then go away again so very very quick. We stood in the yard still clean and watched it and when it moved away from that mountain top we got into Drunkle’s truck all four of us and drove after it fast cos such an amazement it put in us and we wanted to see it more and be in it too and when I looked at it all in its madness close to me on the mountain top I felt like I’d gone to the place where Auntie Fay had gone and that I’d turned like her too into something new and strong that Knew Everything. So we drove up into the Even Higher Parts then past the Tavern and down a bit into lower parts and we were all happy and laughing cos we were Chasing The Storm and Arrn was going woof in a good way and the sky was going dark as the nightness began to eat it which made the storm look Even
Better
and my heart and head were Going Like Mad and I think Drunkle’s were too and Rhiannon’s as well and Arrn’s also cos of all the Happy Noises all of us were making. We drove in to the bottom of the valley and got out of the car and put our wellies on except Arrn of course and walked out on to the squishsome bit all of us looking up at the sky going FLASH and BOOM and how great that was and I knew where we were on that squishsome ground we were going towards the Hole and the Fountain and the Standing Stones and Arrn was jumping around and going wagwagwag and Drunkle kept pointing up at the sky and them giant white skeleton’s hands kept pointing down at us with fingers all thin and big and bone-some and I had a hood up over my head and the rain on it was going:

drumdrumdrumdrumdrum.

drumdrumdrumdrumdrum.

And I felt my eyes go rolling and I could nearly see my brain with them backwards-going-eyes. I tried not to listen to the drumdrum noise of the rain but it was filling my head around my ears cos of the hood so I took the hood off but that was no good in fact it was worse cos then the rain went drumdrumdrumdrumdrum on my skull and made it go wet as well. My eyes were going back. My eyes kept going back. Arrn was looking at me in a worryness but Drunkle and Rhiannon were ahead of me closer to the storm and all in an excitement because of that storm and they were drinking from a bottle of wine which they’d started to do back at the house like me and Rhiannon did The Time We Went Together and which Drunkle
always
used to do but which he hadn’t done for ages and I shouted out both their names but the storm wouldn’t let them hear me and my eyes kept going back.

Drunkle and Rhiannon went off and around the squishsome bit and I followed them with Arrn. The Hole was close by me but I didn’t quite know where cos of the darkly creeping and the Fountain and the Stones were close by too but I couldn’t see them either I just knew they were there. I shouted The Names again but my voice was smaller than a fly’s voice in that boomboom thunder and drumdrum rain. My eyes were going back.

I looked down at the ground for feathers or bones or anything like that but could see none so I pulled some moss up instead off a rock and tucked it behind my ear and wetness from it went in a tricklement into my ear which was already wet anyway but it was different in its wetness cos it made my head go funny all kind of wobbly and flopsome like mud and the mountain around me that I was
on
and
in
went flop from side to side. Bad taste sicky feeling in my mouth It was going to happen They were coming oh God.

—Drunkle … Rhiannon …

FLASH and I saw them in that FLASH standing by the Stones as if for a shelterment that wasn’t there and the four of them like that looked like four stones all standing together even tho only two of them were stones and they looked like some writing or sign from the sky that drumdrum. Everything Going Together.