The Standing Water (35 page)

Didn’t see them
again till the lad’s bedtime. Rest of the evening, Sandra didn’t utter a sound.
I’d imagine that’s it – there’ll be no forgiveness from her, no more chances.
To be honest, I’m not sorry about today. Should have never let Sandra influence
me with her woman’s ideas about bringing boys up. Don’t think the rest of the
holiday will be much fun – four more days of terse silence, of murderous looks
from Sandra. Well, let her remember
she
provoked all this! Four more
days then back to dreary Goldhill, back to miserable boggy fields. Then the
days will whizz by and before I know it I’ll be in that blasted school. What a
life this is!

Jonathon and I
couldn’t get that gauntlet in the last weeks of the summer term – most days
were filled with school, and at the weekends our parents seemed to contrive
activities, so if one of us was free the other was doing something. It wasn’t
through a lack of desire we didn’t get that deadly glove for in those weeks our
hatred of the headmaster frothed and rose. Weirton’s hand swooped on plenty of
occasions. Jonathon and I both got three wallopings. The brother topped all
previous records by receiving ten! Stubbs, Darren Hill and Richard Johnson each
copped four. Suzie Green was in trouble too – Weirton would stride into our
room, alerted by Perkins’s shrill cries over the girl getting all her sums
wrong or producing drawings of appalling quality. He’d really tease the poor
mouse, pacing around her as she shook on her seat. Often she’d start sobbing
before the first shouts had even jumped from his gob. He’d draw it out – calm
phrases would build to furious storms then he’d settle down again before a
blast of rage would make Suzie leap on her chair. He’d stand behind her, drill
his first finger into her skull as his voice boomed and echoed, shoving it down
hard as her grey face turned into a melting mask of pain and tears. As the
final part of the punishment, the girl would end up over Perkins’s knee. The slaps
she got were nothing compared to Weirton’s wallops; Perkins would limit her
spankings to six of the best with one or two for luck, but still the girl would
howl, her tears would pour, and her failure to stopper her sobs would often
drive Weirton into greater fits of fury.

Speaking of six, it
was a number we heard a lot about. As Weirton and the vicar told us, it was
frequently in the Bible. God had sculpted our earth in six days and had chosen
the sixth day of His labour to create Mankind. But three sixes in a row was the
number of the Devil: the enemy of God and Man. There were six points to the
Star of David, and snowflakes – each uniquely crafted by God’s holy fingers –
had a sixfold symmetry. There were six strings on a guitar. Henry VIII, who
haunted the farmhouse on the way to Salton, had had six wives, one of whom had
had six toes on each foot. Perhaps these extra digits had been granted by the
Lord as compensation for the head she’d lose. Bodies were buried six feet under
– like the sleepers in the churchyard at Salton, the snoozing corpses of the
Scots; a person able to see and hear spooks – like I was sometimes – was said
to have a sixth sense. There were six directions – if you include up and down
as well as the compass points – and, of course, Weirton’s ritualistic six of
the best! But the strangest fact I heard concerning the number six was when
Weirton told us in assembly that the earth was six-thousand years old. He said
if you count back in the Bible, through who begat who – whatever that meant –
from Jesus all the way to Adam, you come to that figure. I sat there
astonished. I could barely believe our planet was so ancient! The black soil,
the dew-sprinkled emerald grass had always seemed young to me – I’d reckoned
they hadn’t had long to decay since God had conjured them at the Creation. I’d
guessed the world went back three-thousand years at the very most. I thought I
might have to change my ideas about Mr Davis being one of Noah’s sons. Then
again, Noah had lived to 950, so – if Davis was really as old as we thought – I
supposed it might be possible. I’d have to ask him.

The longed-for
holidays eventually rolled round. We plunged into those blissful Weirton-free
days, those weeks seeming almost an eternity in our childhood time. Freed from
the tedious obligation of attending school, we could really learn. I focused on
my sketching, drawing things in our house, our garden, sometimes writing
stories and poems about the creatures I observed – the martial ants, the unselfish
earthworms, the spiders’ functional cruelty. Jonathon and I went on concocting
the tales we’d begun at Christmas, going on with our epics of nations and wars,
creating characters heroic, hideous and comic, moulding the ancient histories
of the peoples we’d dreamt up. Speaking of Jonathon, we spent a lot of time in
his house, perching on his lounge floor. If his mother had caught us on the
sofa, his father’s belt might have made us reluctant to sit down anywhere. I
saw quite a bit of the brother who – much less cautious – would flop onto the
settee and gaze down on us with friendly disdain, only to leap from it if he
heard his mum’s footsteps. He still had his scar, which was showing no desire
to disappear. The pink filmy scab still marked the upper corner of his
forehead. And – as the days passed – my amazement grew that the Lord had not
branded a mark onto Jonathon. Now it was summer, God wouldn’t even have any
problems parting Emberfield’s thick sky as – on some days at least – the
glowering banks of cloud were replaced by puffs of white floating over a dome
of blue. Still no scorching bolts leapt from the heavens. But I had faith in
the Bible and I had faith in the Lord. The vicar had told us that God’s justice
could seem slow, that it could work through crooked ways unfathomable to Man,
but – we could be sure – such justice would eventually be delivered. I’d no
doubt the sign of God’s vengeance would one day be singed onto Jonathon.

Maybe knowing such
retribution was coming made the brother well-disposed towards his sibling. That
summer, he and Jonathon got on well. He only beat Jonathon up twice during the
whole holiday – and these assaults lacked the ferocity of those he gave out at
school. There he’d slam his punches, lash his kicks into Richard Johnson,
Dennis Stubbs, Darren Hill, a good few other lads, usually after they’d taunted
him about a walloping he’d got from Weirton. The brother’s rampages would
result in more beatings from the teacher, and so the pattern went on.

Jonathon continued
with work on his robot. He’d sometimes let his brother help though not with the
more intricate parts of the machine’s construction nor did he tell that
blabbermouth what we planned to use the robot for. But, to be honest, I think –
in those heavenly holidays – Jonathon’s mind was drifting away from thoughts of
Weirton, and he just became fascinated with his emerging android. We’d already
made an old bin into its head, sawn slots in it for eyes, nostrils, mouth. Jonathon
now planned to place behind that mouth a speaker from an abandoned record
player, which he’d rig up so the creature could talk. Both arms were now done,
we just needed to top them with hands – extremities Jonathon was still
struggling over. One dingy day, as I helped him in his shed – stripping the
wires from salvaged gadgets then sawing the crinkly iron sheet we’d found by
the roadside which would be our mechanical monster’s muscular belly – Jonathon
told me what he’d found out about robots in his encyclopaedia. Apparently, the
first thing that could be called a robot – or at least an artificial man – had
been made long ago in a place called Prague: a beautiful and magical city far,
far from Emberfield. It’d been made by the Jews, a blessed people who – before
Christ came – had been greatly honoured because they were the only nation God
would talk to while he ignored everybody else. Since then they’d smeared their
copybook somewhat in the Lord’s sight by not accepting Jesus, but surely their
record of being for so long the only people who had the ear and mouth of God
made them special. Anyway, in Prague, a rabbi, meaning a Jewish vicar, one day
decided he’d make a man. This rabbi was deeply learned – like our vicar, he
understood many of the mysteries of God and his magic was mighty. He and his
followers went one night to the banks of Prague’s river and formed the shape of
a huge man from the wet clay there. They circled it seven times chanting magic
spells, and then the rabbi took a piece of paper with a holy word on it, and
popped it in the creature’s mouth. That muddy man at once came alive and became
the rabbi’s servant.

‘Wow!’ I stopped the
jarring jerk of my saw. ‘Seems it was easier for the rabbi than us.’

Jonathon nodded.

‘Jonathon,’ I said,
‘there’s plenty of mud round Emberfield. We could do the same as they did in
Prague – make a man from mud and magic him into life!’

My friend shook his
head.

‘They used special
magic words and we don’t know them. We’ll just have to rely on tech-no-logy.’

‘Maybe the vicar
knows the words?’ I said.

‘If he did, he
wouldn’t tell us. The vicar’s a peaceful man – he wouldn’t agree with us killing
anybody, not even Weirton.’

I thought for a
moment.

‘We do have a
problem, don’t we?’ I said. ‘We can make our robot, put all his parts together,
that’s not too hard. But how do we make him come alive?’

‘It’s difficult,’
Jonathon said. ‘Remember we talked about the legends of those things called
computers. According to the encyclopaedia, the legends are true! It says
computers can work on their own or be used as robots’ brains!’

I’d heard more
rumours of those miraculous machines, but didn’t know anyone in Emberfield who
had one and we certainly didn’t have one at school. I’d wondered if computers
really existed or if they were just some myth – a less believable one than ours
about lost drummer boys and ghosts. The idea a man could make an artificial
brain, especially without magic, just seemed too far-fetched. Surely making
brains was the province of God! But, I supposed, if those incredible
contraptions were written about in the encyclopaedia, they must really have
been invented.

‘So if we need one
of those computers to make our robot live,’ I asked, ‘where can we get one?’

‘Good question,’
Jonathon said, ‘the only thing I can think of is to wait until someone round
here buys one – or the school gets one – then steal it!’

‘How long do you
think that would take?’

‘Maybe a few
years,’ Jonathon replied, ‘but I’ve heard people down in London have already
started getting them.’

I looked at our
robot – the oblong eyes in the wastepaper bin head, the mouth-like gash where
the speaker would go, the powerful arms lying lifeless on the floor. Surely
there had to be a more common-sense way of animating it than waiting for one of
those new-fangled computers. I pondered for some moments.

‘Hey!’ I said. ‘I’ve
got a much more sensible idea! We could get hold of a long metal pole or make
one ourselves. Then wait till there’s a thunderstorm, carry the robot outside,
attach it to the pole and have the pole sticking up into the air. Then
hopefully God will send a bolt of lightning down and it’ll jerk our robot into
life!’

‘Dunno …’

‘Come on!’ I said.
‘We should allow God’s magic to help us instead of trying to do it all
ourselves!’

‘We’d have to put
the robot under a plastic sheet,’ Jonathon mused, looking unconvinced. ‘Wouldn’t
want the wires getting wet …’

I got the feeling
Jonathon couldn’t be jolted from his technical mania, from his determination to
go beyond God’s limits of what a man might do or know. I’d heard legends of people
who’d got themselves into trouble this way. One man had sold his soul to the
Devil – even signing a contract with the fiend in his own blood! – because he
wanted to get all the knowledge in the world. But such knowledge hadn’t given
any happiness, and the man had died screaming as demons had dragged his soul
down to hell. Another fellow had conceived the unnatural desire to fly like a
bird. He’d made wings out of feathers and wax, but had soared too close to the
sun. The wax had melted and he’d gone crashing down to his doom. And even the
good rabbi in Prague, despite his vast wisdom, had got out of his depth with
his muddy android. The automaton had gone mad, and started smashing up the
Jewish district until the rabbi had managed to snatch the paper with the holy
word from its mouth, and the robot had melted into a pile of sludge – going
back to what it had always been, what God had always intended it to be.

And so the summer
slipped by in a kind of happy dream, me writing and drawing, Jonathon labouring
over his inventions. I occasionally thought of the gauntlet, thought we should
try to steal it now we had the time, thought of all the spooks we’d made our
pledges to. I always meant to mention it to Jonathon, but something would
distract or absorb me and I’d forget, or I’d tell him and we’d agree to steal
it soon yet never get round to it.

Those long
wonderful days wore on. We’d still get our sweets from Davis, toss in a few for
the ghostly kids in the Old School then head up to throw some to Marcus in his
pond. The only problem was – Marcus was shrinking. When we’d broken up for the
holidays, his pond had been a sizeable circle, a deep-looking disc of brown
water. But, gradually, it had retreated, leaving plains of raw mud which
hardened into a landscape scarred by criss-crossing cracks, by honeycomb
patterns. We watched in amazement as Marcus shrank further – soon his pond was
half its size then he was only as big as our bathtub then no larger than the pool
in which our gnome fished in our garden. Then Marcus’s domains could have
fitted into our kitchen sink, and – to give him his sweets – we had to walk
across his dried mud and drop them down to him. As the sun shone more, the pool
shrank further – it could have been housed in a pan, a soup bowl, a teacup –
until by July there was nothing but a wasteland of hard earth. Rusty cans stuck
from the dirt like iron gravestones; there were other objects, dust-embalmed,
we couldn’t identify. What had happened to Marcus? How could that life-threatening,
ice-sheened winter lake; that obese ocean swollen with spring rain become so
enfeebled then just disappear? Was Marcus beaten and dead, or might he – like
King Arthur – one day return? Perhaps in a far-off future we’d know.