Beast (9 page)

There was nothing in the pool and there was nothing by the pool or around it. I walked the whole perimeter of the water I thought perhaps it might come here to drink but I saw nothing. So I continued with my plan. I walked the whole wood along my north south lines and then I turned and I did the same thing from east to west. Nothing. It was not here. Not only was it not here but there was no evidence that anything had ever been here even in the place I had clearly seen it the night before.

I made my way back to the gate out of the wood and I clambered over the top of it. I stood looking up at the
long shoulder of the moor against the white sky. It was becoming clear to me that when I looked for this thing I never found it. I only ever saw it in passing when my guard was down when I was tired and hungry and walking away. My system didn’t work. I dropped my rucksack to the ground took out my water bottle and drank half of it on the spot. Then I shouldered my pack again and I made my way up the moorland slope the way I had walked yesterday.

Something dropped into me the minute I walked clear of the wood. Something changed. Now I knew that the search would always be fruitless now I realised that for days I had had this tightness in my belly this great knot like a fist clenched inside me and I felt it begin to loosen. My bowels uncoiled themselves my stomach turned to jelly and a strange calm spread from it through the rest of my body. I dropped my pack onto the heather and sat on the ground. I leaned back against a rocky protrusion and let my gaze wander across the woodland past the wire fence up to the tor across to the gully. I felt the fine drizzle on my face and hands. I saw how damp my boots were. I was not going to look for it anymore. Looking for it didn’t work. I was just going to sit and let my mind wander. There was nothing else.

I suppose I was there for a long time and in all that
time I barely moved my body. I was afraid that if I moved the fist would clench again and that I would be the solid old tree the metal pole the coils of wire wound tightly the solid thing that could not feel. As I lay against the stone with my pack next to me I felt like I was melting into the ground and this was good. I thought I would probably stay here forever. I had come here for this I was certain of it now.

And then as my gaze wandered towards the wood I saw a movement. At one end of the wood was a line of thin birch trees twelve of them white and upright and still in the misty rain. I looked towards the trees and it stepped out and walked slowly along the front of them. Perhaps it was fifty yards from me. It walked slowly along the line of the trees and then it sat on its haunches. It looked around as if it were scanning the horizon but it did not look at me and I felt relieved about that. But I saw its eyes. It had yellow eyes. It was a huge black cat with yellow eyes. It was bigger than I was. Perhaps it sat there for a minute and then it raised itself and walked calmly back into the birches and was gone.

After that everything was movement. I ran home or tried to. I stumbled hobbled tripped all the way home with an enormous joy welling up inside me from
where the fist had unclenched. I had seen it! I had seen it I had seen it! It was a cat! A bloody big cat! It must have been the size of a tiger or a puma or a cheetah or something. What was it doing here? What would a big cat be doing here? How did it come out of the trees when I had walked through the whole wood and seen nothing? What was this? All of this what was this it was nothing. All of these were just words to me but this had not been words this had been so much more than words.

I almost fell back into the yard I was breathing so heavily there was an intense pain and joy throughout my body. My left leg was swimming in its own world my ribs were heaving I was sweating. I sat heavily onto the upturned yellow tub I had washed in before I left. I had a terrible headache again my headache had returned but the joy was overwhelming even that. A big cat. A big black cat! Jesus.

I was so tired. I am so tired. I want to sleep but what if I sleep and when I wake the joy is gone? What if I sleep and when I wake the vision is gone? What if I forget it in the night? What if it turns into words again? I looked so long for it I worked so hard for it I had wanted to see it so that I would know and now I have seen it but I know nothing I know less than I
have ever known in the world. All I have now is questions. Questions and this great joy that is singing that is howling and crashing in me. I cannot even go inside now all I have is what is living in me here in this thin rain.

I wonder if I could explain this to anybody. I can see it now in my mind I can see it in my head the picture of it sitting there scanning the world looking around with its yellow eyes. And in my head too another picture a picture of a woman a woman and a child. A mother and child. A young girl a baby girl. I can see their faces. They are watching me they are scanning the world for me. I know them. Here it is now. Here it is. There we are now. There we a

s no god and god is everywhere. everything is breathing so what is the complication here. all these questions there are no questions. here is an earthworm here is the yellow flower of the broom here are my feet on the ground sometimes i find it hard to see them. i move them but i do not know how. god is the sound of a cat in the cloud. the cat god. i have not seen a tree for days. i would like to lick the clear water droplets off the leaves of a rowan. i will walk i will walk on. the running is the pain the running from. i will walk on.

listen.

there is a noise outside right outside.

there.

a scream.

it is loud and sharp and long and it tears me from my sleep. it is close. it is very close. i sit up in my bed
in shock and i look around me. the shock runs in me like water runs.

the sound hangs in my ears. it was a scream. it was a shriek a howl. it was close as close as if it were coming from outside the door. right outside.

something is outside the door.

i sit up and i go to the window. outside there is cloud everywhere deep rolling thick grey fog. i can’t see anything. i go to the door and i open it and the cloud rolls in. i slip my feet into my boots and i step outside onto the stones of the yard. it is mountain cloud it is sodden and weighty and it seems to move of its own will. it swirls and clusters and creeps about it writhes and coils around me. i can see the shape of a wall dimly perhaps a building nothing else. everything is grey and white and close.

the noise comes again. it is a scream a howl. it is very close.

it is right here.

i am glad that the people are gone. i don’t think i have ever seen any people at all. there is a memory of them. now they are gone and there is no biting no climbing over there is no running from them all just to be. there is only the cloud and the wet grasses here and the sound. the sound and what is that sound.

the first scream came from my right i am sure of it. i am standing still in the cloud in this yard outside alone and now the scream comes again and this time it is in front of me is it closer i think it might be closer.

i wonder what is above the cloud. perhaps an aeroplane.

this time the sound is to my left. it is painful. i can hear it breathe after it makes the noise. now i hear it again now it is behind me.

it is circling me.

it is circling me in the cloud.

now i hear its footfall on the stones. i am frightened i am terrified. i am calm.

i am very calm i am on an aeroplane above the cloud. i am sitting over the wing and i can look out at the engine and i have my family with me my wife and children then as i look out i see the engine explode in orange flame and the plane collapses to one side and flips over itself and begins to tumble and scream from the sky. of course everyone is screaming and crying and things are flying all over there are trolleys and bottles and people flying all over we duck our heads my family and i we cling to each other and i tell them how much i love them and i hope it will be quick for my children. after this there is a safety demonstration.
the flight takes about four hours. i don’t like flying.

i am very calm. yes i am enjoying this. the sounds the thing circling me in the mist. but now the sounds have stopped. i am standing very still here i am not trying to hear but i can sense that the sound will not come again i can sense that it is leaving or has left me.

yes. it has gone.

i stand here for some more time. i was right it has gone its presence has gone i can feel it. there is just the cloud now and it is empty and quiet i am standing outside in this yard and there is this cloud. when you are here in the cloud you are inside you are inside the life of the world. when you go into the house and shut the door you shut yourself outside then there is only you and the dead things you have made into shapes. inside is outside and outside is inside. if i were not so stupid i would have seen this years ago. wherever i have been.

i walk a few yards to my right to where i guess the thing was and i squat down and i scan the stones. even the stones as i squat down are hard to see in this cloud. but there we are. there are prints. footprints. there are the footprints of a big cat a big black cat a big black cat with yellow eyes. i remember this.

there is a small black cat in a big house it is hiding under a stuffed sofa. in the house there is a woman we
are two sides of something. i walk through a door and she smiles at me hello beautiful she says i missed you i missed you too i say she puts her arms around me i remember this warmth. she puts her legs around me fucking in a bed can you imagine. animals fuck under the sky under the stars in the rain fucking in a bed it is disgusting all of our disgrace is here. there is no disgrace in a cat there is no disgrace in anything that walks on four legs that does not have fingers which dig into everything and take it all apart.

my fingers are wet they are damp everything is damp. i run my fingers across the prints on the cobbles the prints like a darker impression in the damp of stone. i run my fingers around the edge of the stone look at the shape of this look at the square shape look at the rounded edges someone chipped this someone carved it a man in cotton and coarse wool with scratched clogs and a lined face he made it and laid it down. he went home every night to a small brick terrace and washed the dirt off in a tin bath by the coal fire in the front room his tiny sparrow wife heated the water for him he drank too much because of what he carried but nobody would listen and anyway he could not say the words. nobody remembers him. imagine if nobody remembered me i would be so happy.

i stand and i turn around i look in all directions and in all directions there is cloud. there is no sound now i feel bereft i have been abandoned i have been left where has it gone my cat. why does it not want me anymore. i have seen it i have heard it and it has come for me so why am i still empty why am i so empty why am i in pain here. why did it come to me and then leave me alone. i am so frightened of what I want.

pain. my leg doesn’t hurt my ribs do not hurt i remember all the pain and now as i stand here i can feel that the pain is gone all of it. how strange. i bend my left knee i bend my right knee they bend together the pain is gone my body is a pillar of light but my soul is empty and my mind is crying out to be filled. why did it leave me why did it come for me and then leave me again. how will i ever find it in this cloud.

this is a lonely place and cold.

they looked after me once once they looked after me. everybody was horrified they wanted to save me they wanted to get me out but i was happy there everything broke down and i was nothing and i have never been happier all of the sheets were so clean. now i am a pillar of light now i am alone and there is nobody to love me. i would like to be in there again with all of the others treated like all of the others.
when they put you there you don’t have to pretend.

my hair is damp everything is damp and god i am hungry i have suddenly realised how hungry i am. i am famished i am hollow my stomach is crying out how long is it since i have eaten have i ever eaten. i turn i go back into the house and i close the door. inside the room i go through the cupboard and the drawers and all of the surfaces there is nothing here there is nothing at all. there is a can of water and a mug on the table but there is nothing to eat. now what am i to do about that. in this place in this cloud hungry and alone with nothing i have no money and where would i go if i had money when i can see nothing. i look for food for days but there is nothing and i grow weak. there is nothing growing in the yard there is nothing in the weedy garden behind the house and i grow desperate i try to strike out across the moor but i can’t find anything i can see no paths i don’t know where i am going in this thick cloud i wander and i fall and stumble and now i am waist deep in the bog and there is no getting away. the yellow water soaks through me the acid stench of the peat is a cloud around my mind i am too weak to pull myself out i sink into the bog and am mummified and they find me in five thousand years and academics build careers around the mystery that i represent.

when they built the stone rows and the stone circles the barrows and the avenues the climate was different here they could grow different things what did they grow i wonder wheat perhaps grapes mangoes cherries cheese chocolate i am so hungry i need food. maybe there is food in the garden. i pull open the door and walk around the back of the house to where there is a vegetable garden i have to feel myself around the walls of the house with both hands because the cloud is so thick. in the garden most of the soil on the vegetable beds is overgrown with cleavers and young red brambles and bindweed. i get down onto my hands and knees and i work my way along the beds and in the second bed amongst the curling goosegrass i see potato leaves i grasp the stem of the plant and pull it out and the roots come up with one tiny potato hanging onto the bottom. i put it down beside me and dig into the soil with my hands and turn over four more small tubers they have thick dark skins but they are hard and fresh. i dig all around the hole in case there are more but i turn up nothing i keep looking through the beds and in the next bed i find another two plants with another nine potatoes between them it is a feast i am so hungry.

i spit on the smallest potato and rub it across my
trousers to get the soil off then i bite it in half and i chew on the half that is in my mouth it is bitter and wet someone once told me that green potatoes have cyanide in them this potato will poison me i will be wracked with stomach pains in three minutes’ time and i will lie here clutching my guts and throwing up but it will be too late i will die in the cloud here and nobody will find me for weeks. then two hikers will come up the track to the house looking for water a man and a woman in their twenties he has dragged her here she is a city girl she does not like this but she wants to please him and he senses this and so he holds her in contempt and soon after they will split up because they found a dead body in the overgrown garden of an abandoned house and this was not something they were built to take the weight of. i should be patient i should take this potato into the house and boil it and mash it with all the others i love mashed potato i used to eat it all the time with sausages or meatballs and frozen peas and gravy i expect something like that anyway and i would say that was enough for me. i would give anything now for a plate of sausages. i wish i were a cat that could hunt through the clouds for meat.

why did it leave me i want to see it i want it to look at me with its yellow eyes my cat. it has never looked
at me i want it to see me. when i can look into its eyes then i will know.

the potato is disgusting my mouth is cracked and dry like glasspaper why did i eat a raw potato what a stupid thing to do. i gather up the rest of the tubers clutching them to my body to stop myself from dropping them and i carefully follow the wall of the house around to the door and i go through the door and shut it. i will light a fire and heat water and boil the potatoes and mash them. i drop the potatoes onto the tabletop where they roll about and come to a rest i find some paper in the bottom of the cupboard and twist it up and put it in the bottom of the stove i break up some dry sticks lying next to the stove and pile them in a pyramid on top of the paper. then i look around for matches. there is one matchbox and it is empty. i go through all the cupboards i look in all the corners i look everywhere there are no matches and there are no lighters i can’t light a fire. i’m starving and the cloud is pressing in and the table is covered with muddy raw potatoes and i can’t light a fire. i am furious about this to be here in all of this i kick the stove so hard that i bruise my toes on the solid black iron then i lunge at the tabletop pick up a potato and hurl it through the window. the glass smashes with a delicious sound for
a second i feel guilty and expect to be told off but then i realise i will never be told off and i pick up another potato and throw it through the window as well. there are twelve potatoes left i pick them up slowly and carefully and i aim using all of my concentration and i use the twelve potatoes to knock almost all of the glass out of the window frame. when all of the potatoes are outside in the cloud and only tiny knives of glass remain embedded in the cracked putty i have a sense of pride. now the cloud is curling into the room.

i hate potatoes anyway i don’t have time for potatoes. now i have broken the window there is nowhere to hide everything is outside and inside at once everything is in the cloud. there is no reason to be in here there is nothing in here for me there has never been anything in here for me. i want to look into its yellow eyes.

i look down at my feet. since i was woken by the scream i have been walking around with my boots unlaced i bend down and i tie them up tightly and then i double knot them. i stand up and stare through the broken window at the cloud. what am i to do now. in a shoe shop a woman is giving me a lolly. it’s red. i am a polite and patient little boy i have broken the window and i enjoyed it. why am i not afraid of this thing. it came looking for me here it came hunting me why else
would it be here. it came for me and it took account of me and then it left. i’m not afraid of it why am i not afraid of it. i suppose it could pounce and kill me instantly. no.

when i have tied my boots i go through the door out into the yard again i don’t take anything with me there is nothing to take with me. i stand listening in the cloud it moves around me like it is alive this cloud i stretch out my arm and i can just see my hand i rise up into the air and i keep rising with my hands outstretched either side of me up through the cloud up and up through the solid hill of cloud until i rise above it. all is blue up here all is so blue and the great yellow ball of fire in the sky is coming down on me and i look down onto this great rolling carpet of cloud and through it i see the yellow eyes of the cat and down i go i fly down through the cloud and i stand in front of the cat and it looks at me right into my eyes. yes. that is what i thought.