Bone Jack (3 page)

He went over and sat on the swing next to hers. He breathed in the smells of hot tarmac, rubber, old bubble gum. Playground smells.

‘I saw you yesterday,’ he said. ‘Out in the mountains, up by Stag’s Leap.’

‘So what?’

The edge of dislike in her voice shocked him. They’d never been friends exactly, but she’d always been there, at the edge of his life, a quiet, serious girl with a slow shy smile. He’d always thought she liked him well enough, as much as he’d thought about her at all. Now she sounded like she almost hated him.

He bit his lip, looked away. After a while he said, ‘Did you see anyone else out there?’

‘Like who?’

‘Like runners,’ he said. ‘Lots of them. Hound boys.’

‘No, I didn’t see anyone.’

‘You must have seen them. They ran up the path to the top of the ridge. They must have run right past you.’

‘The Stag Chase isn’t for another two weeks.’

‘I know that.’

‘They can’t have been hound boys then. Anyway, I didn’t see them. I didn’t see anyone.’

She was lying. He was sure of it. There was no way she could have missed the runners.

‘You’re lying,’ he said.

He expected her to get angry and deny it but she didn’t. She just gave him a look that said she didn’t really care what he thought.

Somehow that was worse. It meant maybe she was telling the truth and he was the only one who had seen the runners. And if he was the only one who’d seen them, then maybe he’d imagined them, maybe they’d never been there at all.

Seeing things, mirages, like people saw in deserts. Tricks of the light. Or of the mind.

He tilted his weight a little. The swing moved. His feet scraped across the safety surface.

‘I heard Mark moved in with your grandpa,’ he said.

A guarded look. ‘Yeah, we stay there sometimes.’

‘Only sometimes? Where do you stay the rest of the time?’

She shrugged, gazed off into the distance. ‘Here and there.’

‘How’s Mark doing?’

‘What do you care?’

That was it, Ash knew. The reason for the anger that kept coming back into her voice. She thought he’d betrayed Mark, abandoned him when Mark needed him the most. As far as Callie was concerned, that made him the enemy.

He didn’t blame her for feeling that way.

‘I couldn’t …’ he said. Stumbling over the words. ‘Everything changed after your dad died. Mark changed. He was like a stranger. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say to him.’

‘What did you expect?’ said Callie. ‘We’d already lost our mum, then Dad killed himself. We lost the farm. Our home. We lost everything. After that Mark wouldn’t talk to anyone for a long time, not even to grandpa or me. He clammed up and got strange and crazy.’ She looked straight at Ash. ‘But he was still Mark.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry’s no use. It’s just a word you say to make yourself feel better.’

‘I don’t feel better.’

‘You don’t deserve to. You were supposed to be his best mate, but you just gave up on him.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again.

‘He wants to see you,’ said Callie. ‘That’s why I’m here. I was going to go on up to your house later.’

‘What does he want?’

‘I don’t know. He’s the one who wants to see you, not me.’

‘When?’

‘Tomorrow night. It has to be tomorrow night.’

‘I can’t come tomorrow.’ Not when Dad had only been home a day, he thought. But he couldn’t tell Callie that, couldn’t tell her that his dad had come home safe from war when her own dad was dead.

‘You’re just the same,’ she said. ‘Useless.’

‘Maybe next week. I can’t get to your grandpa’s house tomorrow. Mum’s busy so I can’t get a lift.’ Immediately he reddened at the lie. It was only a few miles to Cold-brook, where Grandpa Cullen lived. Callie knew as well as he did that it would take him less than half an hour on his bike.

‘He’s not staying at Grandpa’s,’ she said. ‘He’s hardly ever there.’

‘I can’t make it,’ he said. ‘Why does it have to be tomorrow, anyway?’

‘Because that’s when he wants to see you,’ she said. ‘Because next week might be too late.’

‘Too late for what?’

‘It has to be tomorrow night,’ she said again, looking away. ‘That’s what Mark said.’

‘I can’t. There’s stuff going on at home. Mum needs me there.’

‘Your dad’s back,’ she said. ‘I know about that. You don’t have to lie.’

He stared at her, shocked. ‘How do you know he’s back?’

‘You know what it’s like around here,’ she said. ‘Everyone knows everyone else’s business.’

‘Seriously, who told you?’

‘Relax. No one told me. I saw the taxi drop him off at the top of your lane yesterday. Then he walked towards your house. He looked in a bad way.’

‘Drunk,’ said Ash. ‘He was drunk.’

‘He probably had his reasons.’

‘I don’t know. Maybe he did. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He’s a mess.’

She shot him a strange look and this time he glowered back at her. He’d had enough of her judging him all the time, first about Mark and now about Dad. So self-righteous. So sure that he was a waste of space.

‘Go on then,’ he said. ‘What reasons? Tell me.’

‘You’re an idiot, Ash Tyler.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Your dad just got back from a war.’ She spoke slowly, as if she was explaining something very simple to someone very stupid. ‘A war. He must have seen terrible things. He must have been shot at, seen bombs going off. He must have seen people getting killed. Blood and guts. His own men, and enemy fighters, and ordinary people who just got in the way. Old people. Women. Kids.’

The muscles in Ash’s jaw were so tense they ached.

‘Look up “shell shock” on the internet when you get home,’ said Callie. ‘Look up “survivor guilt” and “post-traumatic stress disorder”.’

‘How come you know it all?’

‘We did it at school last year. The First World War. A lot of soldiers in the trenches got shell shock.’

‘Right,’ he said, tight-lipped.

‘I’ll wait for you at the Monks Bridge at nine tomorrow night,’ she said. ‘If you come, I’ll take you to Mark. If you don’t, he’ll never ask you again.’

‘I’ll try,’ he said. ‘It depends.’

He remembered the shopping list in his pocket and stood up. The swing creaked on its chains, knocked against the backs of his legs.

She called after him as he walked away. ‘Those runners,’ she said, ‘the hound boys you said you saw – you should ask Mark about them.’

‘Why? What’s he got to do with them?’

‘He knows everything that goes on in the mountains. Ask him.’

Ash shrugged. She was probably only saying it to get him to meet her tomorrow night.

He crossed the road to the little grocery shop. There was a poster in the window, a stylised stag’s head in blood-red paint against a black background. ‘Share in the excitement of Thornditch’s historic Stag Chase’, the poster said. A thrill ran through him. For a moment, nothing else mattered, not Dad, not Mark. Just that he was the stag boy, that he’d won the trials, beaten all the other boys. All eyes would be on him at the start of the race. His heart quickened at the thought of it. He’d run and he’d win and he’d be a hero for the first time in his life.

He went inside the shop, wandered along narrow strips of ancient chequered lino between high walls of shelving stacked with tinned soup, boxes of breakfast cereal, loo rolls. The hum of the refrigerator at the back of the shop. Reedy voices on the radio that old Mr Linnet listened to as he sat on his chair behind the wooden counter with its scratchcard display and trays of sherbet flying saucers. Everything exactly the same as it had been ever since Ash could remember.

Today it felt like the still point at the centre of a chaotic universe.

He took his time gathering the items on Mum’s shopping list: eggs, bread, milk.

‘Ready for the Stag Chase?’ said Mr Linnet.

‘Yeah, I think so.’

‘I remember when your dad was the stag boy. Must be twenty years ago now. There was a drought that year too, as I recall. Not half as bad as this one, mind. How is your dad, anyway?’

‘He’s all right. He’s home. Got back yesterday.’

‘He’ll be coming to watch you run then. He must be very proud of you.’

‘Yeah, I suppose so.’

As he watched Mr Linnet tot up the bill, the hairs on the back of his neck prickled as if there was something out there, in the hard sunlight outside. Something watching, waiting.

He looked up.

Five faces at the window, faces as pale and blank as masks. Boys he recognised from school, sixth-formers from Coldbrook.

He stared back at them, unnerved.

‘Four pounds and fifty-two pence, please,’ said Mr Linnet.

Ash fumbled in his pockets for Mum’s tenner. When he looked up again, the boys were gone. Only a movement across the street, a flap of black as if the breeze had caught the tail of someone’s coat as they swung a corner. Then there was nothing except a rook shaking out its feathers on a wall before winging away into the pale sky.

SIX

At lunchtime Mum made lasagne and loaded a tray for Dad.

‘He hasn’t eaten anything since he got back,’ she said. ‘Not so much as a bite.’

‘I’ll take it up to him if you want,’ said Ash.

She hesitated.

‘It’ll be OK, Mum. Come on, I’ll do it.’

He knocked before he went into Dad’s room. There was no answer but he went in anyway. It was night-dark in there, the heavy curtains pulled so tight that not even a thread of light showed. The air smelled of sweat and unwashed clothes.

‘Dad, I can’t see anything. I’m going to put the light on, OK?’

A grunt from across the room.

Ash flicked the switch.

Dad was on the hard single bed, adrift among all the random bits of furniture and junk stored here because they didn’t fit anywhere else. He was lying on his side, facing the door, the sheet pulled up to his ears. His rucksack was on the floor nearby, clothes spilling out of it.

Ash put down the tray on a small table and dragged it across to the bed.

‘Mum made lunch for you. Lasagne.’

Dad’s eyes opened a crack. ‘Thanks. Just leave it there.’

‘You getting up?’

‘In a while.’

‘You’ll feel better if you get up.’ Ash hovered by the bed. He trawled his mind for something more to say. ‘You could come out running with me tomorrow, Dad. If you want.’

‘Not tomorrow. Maybe next week.’

Next week. Or never. Then he remembered. He hadn’t told Dad yet that he’d entered the Stag Chase, that he’d won the trials and so he’d be the stag boy in this year’s race. It was supposed to be a surprise, his great gift to Dad on his homecoming.

Some gift.

He should tell him now, get it over with.

But he couldn’t. The timing was all wrong. In the state he was in, Dad would barely even register the news. And it had to be big, it had to be special.

Ash drew a deep slow breath, exhaled again. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Next week then.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Right. Maybe. Do you want me to leave the light on?’

‘No. Turn it off. I want to sleep.’

Ash stood there for a few moments. He felt useless, helpless. An abyss yawning between him and Dad and all he could think of was the lasagne congealing, the salad wilting, the bread roll going dry and hard. He told himself it didn’t matter. It was just food.

But somehow it did matter.

‘Mum made it for you,’ he said. ‘Her special lasagne. It’s what you always want when you get home, better than all that army food. Mum says you haven’t eaten anything since you got back. You need to eat, Dad.’

‘I will eat.’

‘You won’t. You’ll leave it and it’ll get disgusting.’

‘I said I’ll eat it,’ said Dad. Pulling the sheet up over his head, mumbling through the cotton. ‘I’ll eat it when you’ve gone.’

Ash started to leave.

‘I’ll be all right tomorrow,’ said Dad.

‘Yeah,’ said Ash. ‘You said that yesterday.’

He switched off the light, closed the door behind him and went up to his bedroom.

He sat at his desk, staring at the photographs pinned to the corkboard above it. Dad on one of the climbing expeditions he used to go on with his army mates when he was younger. Up on some mountain, blue sky beyond. Dad was weather-burned, squinting into the sun, smiling like he didn’t have a care in the world.

More than anything, he wanted the Dad in the photograph back – strong and capable, always up for adventure.

But that Dad was gone. Maybe for ever.

His gaze travelled over the other pictures on the corkboard. A print of a leaping wolf he’d cut from a magazine; an eerie photograph of a fox on a misty moonlit night; a shot of Stag’s Leap, raw and mysterious under a stormy sky. An old picture of Mark, taken at the farm a couple of years ago. They’d been downhilling that day, shredding their bikes along the dirt track on Tolley Carn. Mark was mud-spattered and grinning, eyes full of light and laughter.

It seemed a lifetime ago.

Ash looked away. He booted up the laptop and opened the web browser.

He typed ‘shell shock’ into the search engine.

Hundreds of hits came up: medical sites, psychology sites, sites about the First and Second World Wars, Vietnam, the Falklands, Afghanistan, Iraq. Help groups for veterans. Videos.

He clicked on a video link. Grainy black-and-white film from a century ago, soldiers who’d fought in the trenches and survived to come home. Men who shook and twitched, wide-eyed with terror, as if the war was still raging around them and shrapnel might rip through flesh and bone at any moment.

A soldier hiding his face, trying to get away from the camera, trotting jerkily in frightened circles.

Like a beaten dog.

Ash couldn’t watch any more. He slammed the laptop shut, sat staring at the wall, seeing nothing.

Slowly he came back to himself. His eyes focused on a small picture of the Stag Chase twenty years ago, the year Dad had been the stag boy. There he was, outside the Huntsman Inn in Thornditch, wearing the ancient antler headdress that the stag boy paraded in if he won his race. He looked uncomfortable, stiffly posed, his expression solemn instead of triumphant.