Runt (16 page)

Yes

Everything going into

Owl: white ghost barn owl skimming through the rain and I watched him and he flew past close and watched me and I couldn’t see his eyes cos of the rain and the coming darkness but still I felt myself going into those eyes and then the body of that bird and then I was looking out through Owl’s eyes high above it all could feel the rain making my wings go heavy and I looked down and I saw

Me and Arrn standing by the Hole like a big black O next to us and the stream going into the fountain fuller and faster cos of the rain and the Stones below me, all of it below me cos I was in Owl and I was flying, yes I was flying again, them two Stones small down there and Rhiannon and Drunkle standing by them gone small too and behind their backs in a red coat Arthur hunched over creeping towards them and in his hand an axe.

—UNCLE! RHIANNON!

I shouted in Owl’s voice which they didn’t know so they didn’t do anything but stand there in the storm so Owl sent me out from him and back into me and Arrn was woofing and all was dark again I could see Nothing just the rain in silver lines. I tried to run but everything was wobblesome and I fell on my arse with a splash in the squishy stuff which was bad and my legs wouldn’t work I couldn’t stand all I could do was sit there wet and shout.

—UNNNNCLE! UNNNNCLE!

Voice gone gulped by the voices from the sky so loud with the booming breaking my head and FLASH and I saw:

Creeping Arthur

RhiannonandDrunkle

Them looking up at the rage in the sky and putting a Smiling at that angerment but I couldn’t see their faces just their backs and another FLASH and:

Creeping Arthur

RhiannonandDrunkle

And I screamed their names as loud as I could so loud it hurt my throat or no it wasn’t their Proper Names just a very loud noise I made but that is the name of everybody really it’s not what people call you or what you write on papers and forms or anything like that it’s just a Noise that is Your Name it is the Name Of The World just that No-Word Noise in the watersome darkness and FLASH again and I saw Rhiannon was in the mud on the floor and Arthur was going chop chop with the axe like a butcher does and Drunkle was on Arthur’s back and then it was dark again but shadows now just dark shapes I could see and one arm in red with an axe in it going up and down and terrible screams I could hear through the drumdrum rain.

Some sick came out of me then and made more squishsome the stuff I was sitting in. Wobblement wobblement everywhere and the mountain gone soft and me not standing and Drunkle and Rhiannon getting chopped by Arthur over there by the Stones and I felt then a rough warmness on my face and my eyes came back and I looked and saw Arrn’s nose so close cos he was licking my face and I saw his eyes like pools and I saw Auntie Fay somewhere in them so I went into them like I’d gone into Owl’s and then I was Arrn my good dog Arrn and I ran in leapings
over
the wet world and I jumped and I felt such a powerness in my legs and neck and a hardness in my teeth and I could see through the silver rain and the falling nightness and I saw Drunkle all crumpled at the bottom of one of the Stones where it rose up out of the ground and his eyes were closed and there was blood on his face from a slit in his head and I saw the axe go up and I saw one of Rhiannon’s hands go in front of her face but it didn’t really look like a hand any more cos of the finger-gone-ness of it and I heard Arthur roar out of his red beard that fell down in rainy ropes on to the front of his red jacket:

—FUCKING WHORE! THINK I’M FUCKING STUPID, WOMAN? ALL FUCKING SUMMER? THINK I DIDN’T KNOW? SHOULD’VE DONE THIS YEARS AGO, YOU TWISTED SICK –

The hand up there holding the axe and bloodstripes on that hand and that axe and about to bring the axe down again and I felt myself leave the earth and then felt that hand between my teeth and then felt a crunching boneness in my teeth and I heard a scream and nothing could make me stop biting that hand, yank YANK went the hand to get away but I bit down even harder and then a bloodtaste happened and I felt a hardness in my teeth so I bit down even harder but then I felt whackings on my side and head and felt and heard some crunchings happening there too so I moved away from them whackings and the hand went out of my mouth. I looked up and saw Arthur holding his wrist with his other hand in the silver lines of rain and he had no axe then and blacker wetness was coming out of his hand and I jumped at him again but not
like
with my legs it was as if the mountain threw me off it at Arthur and I saw his neck coming fast and I snapped with my jaws but missed that neck and when I landed he landed on me with his knee pressed into my neck and my face in the squishsome mud and sinking into the mudness and all that mudness in my eyes and nose and ears my face being forced deeper. Deeper. Deeper into the earth and everything in that mudness then went into me too all the bones of My People Gone and the stones they used and their houses now long gone into the soil all the many hundred years of it, all that life on the mountain leading towards one thing which was the birthing of me and the more of that mud that went into me the stronger I got and I could feel myself my dog-body going bigger and stronger almost bursting with the strongness and I pushed myself down even deeper into the mud where Arthur’s knee could not follow and so I could eelmove out from under him and stand and then I could see him and he was putting a Looking on me and the mountain gave a shrug and threw me at his face again and I heard myself roar like the Beast like the Storm and he roared too but not as loud and my teeth went together SNAP and Arthur was up and running and I chased him with my own roaring so loud in my ears even louder than the storm I was and I felt the mountain kind of bunch itself up under my paws ready to throw me yet again and I just let it do that and then I was in the air and I landed on Arthur’s red running back that axey nasty face-scrapey bastard and he fell forwards with me riding on his back and biting his head and down we both fell but not
on
the ground
no
we went
in
the ground,
in
the hole like a big black O and as I went down into that O I saw just for a moment in one quick FLASH my Other Body sitting in the sinksome mud with eyes open like the windows of a house with no one at home and then there was nothing but darkness whooshing past my red red ears which had happened before but that time I was going
up
and now I was going

down

down

down

into
the earth and everything was quiet just that soft whooshing. Still holding on to Arthur with my paws and teeth I could feel his Terror like heat and smell it too like a septic tank. We both fell joined together
into
the mountain and it was like I was going home so happy did I feel and calm was I as if the mountain wrapped its arms around me and the blackness in that hole wasn’t a Bad Blackness cos I could see through it even, could see the circle of mucksome water with the moon in it far below but getting quickly bigger as we fell fast towards it and I knew that when I landed it would be Warm and Good and everything would be happy and fine when I was in it but just when I was nearly in it and so close I could even smell its niceness I went

out

and started to go back up again and I saw Arthur and Arrn below me go into that water and I saw the splash and that O of water got smaller cos I was quickly going Up and I saw Arthur come up out of that water with his hands dragging at the slimesome stone sides
of
the hole and then I saw Arrn come up out of the water too and bite Arthur’s hand that he’d already bitten and he dragged him back down under the water and then I was back up into the black part of the hole and I couldn’t see and noises started coming in again, screamings from Rhiannon and boomings from the sky and the drumdrumdrumdrum of the rain and then I was back
out
of the mountain and
on
it again not
in
it and everything was so loud and wet all around and I went in spirals through the air like a moth over to my sitting body and I flew round and round into the ear of that body and then was looking out of my eyes again back in my Boy-Body not Owl not Hound just Boy and I saw the lines of silver rain and felt the wetness all around and saw in a FLASH Drunkle and Rhiannon crawling towards me and Rhiannon’s hands had all gone wrong and I could hear her screaming and so I gave a screaming back to them not their Names just the No-Word Noise which really
was
their Names and mine too and even Arrn’s and everything on the World and the World itself that No-Word Noise was the Name of all and I made That Noise out there on top of the mountain in the wet words that the sky sent down yes I made that noise Just Me.

And then there were policemen and rooms and hospitals and doctors. People with pens asking me questions but not like them No Answer ones that grown-ups always give, no, these were Proper Questions which I
did
answer, yes. There was My Name on telly in the hospital room and My Mam Bethan was sitting at the end of the bed and she was crying. There was Drunkle
too
, a bandage wrapped round his head making him look like a desert feller. Where’s your camel, Drunkle? There was Rhiannon in another bed in another part of the hospital and I went to see her and she was asleep and there were tubes going in her and her hands were wrapped in great big bandages like them big puffballs I find in the woods sometimes. There were pills I had to take and exercises I had to do and words I had to say and I said them. There was the finding of Arthur’s body and the funeral when they put him back
in
the earth and I wondered why they didn’t just leave him there down the hole and no one I knew went to that funeral not me or Drunkle or My Mam Bethan or even Rhiannon. There was the selling of Rhiannon’s farm. There was the leaving of NotDad by My Mam Bethan and there was a big Coming Together at Drunkle’s farm, me and Drunkle and Rhiannon and My Mam but no Arrn and there were lots of Crying Times and Talking Times in that big Coming Together in the farm on top of the mountain in those High Parts.

And that was last summer and this is this and the bluesome brightness is come again. Bala Lake is still on in my room but still no monster comes up out of it but right now I’m not looking at it anyway I’m looking out of the window down into the still clean yard and I can see Drunkle and My Mam Bethan moving the new sheep across the yard and I can see Rhiannon sitting on Straw Hill and she doesn’t make me go Hot and Hard any more but she does make me go Warm cos I like her being on the planet and in a place where
I
can see her even with her not-proper arms any more. I think a lot about when she touched me with the fingers she had then and doesn’t any more and one of her arms is still in bandages the left one where it ends. I remember the Owl. Rhiannon is sitting on straw bales and the black-and-white cat is sitting by her and giving a smiling to the new sheep and he seems to like Rhiannon because he is always following her around the yard and sitting by her even tho she cannot stroke him properly. Later I will go out and talk to him like I do every night and he listens cos he can understand and I can hear him too and what he says. Rhiannon’s daughter stays with us sometimes but today like most days she is in Swansea. This is what the world is now around me on these High Parts.

Drunkle looks up and sees me looking down and he waves at me and smiles. Even from up here I can see the bad mark on his head purple it is and big. I give a wave back to him and he calls me down so I go down there and look at Bala Lake a last time before I go but still there is no monster in that lake and so I turn it off.

And halfway down the stairs I hear it again; that voice from inside the mountain. Arrn it is, he’s calling me. He doesn’t sound lost and he doesn’t sound sad he’s just checking on me to see if I’m okay and at the same time telling me that
he’s
okay and I hear his voice sometimes doing that and I hear it now so I sit down on the stairs to listen to it, his calling voice from inside the mountain, and I close my eyes and ears and nose and mouth and just listen to him calling my name and it’s like just before My Times when everything
leaves
me and it’s like I’m nothing just air, and in them few seconds when there is nothing in me but Arrn’s voice or air I can’t imagine, no, being anywhere else but here, on this High Place. I can’t imagine being anyone else but Me and it makes me happy that does, so happy, more happy than I’ve ever been in my life since before I was born.

A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book was written in Sweden. My thanks in that country to: Stefan, Anna and Marcus in Gothenburg; Birgitta Berglund, Anders, Malcolm, Ebba and Dante; Kiki Lindell; Sara Hakansson; Marianne and Axel Thormahlen; Claes Lindskog; Marie Wellin; Karin Altenberg; and anybody else I’ve forgotten in Lund, Malmö, Stockholm, Ales Stenar, Ystad and Helsingborg.

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Published by Vintage 2008

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Copyright © Niall Griffiths 2007

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