Byron Easy (30 page)

At this point I will begin rapping with a coin against the glass, the chink-chink-chink sound unbearably magnified in the transfixed silence of the back yard. The thought of throwing stones at the first-floor window will be briefly entertained, then dismissed. There is the possibility of shouting also. Amid this, a fierce sense of paranoia, setting in for the night, like fog. The overpowering component in this paranoia is petrification, in the Greek sense of the word: to be made stone, like the heavy flower tubs, like the statues seen by Perseus. I become stuck in a trauma of inaction, of procrastination. If I peer in deep at the glass I can see the uneven, wine-purple tiles of the corridor stretching to the imposing bulk of the dangling coats at the far end. The same rack of jackets and scarves that—as an even smaller child—I would be terrified of passing on a night-errand to the dank downstairs toilet. Terrified because of the very real danger of sudden twisting arms darting out to grab my neck, or tangle epileptically in the air as I hop past on bare feet.

But no one ever appears. Just the inviting, quiet absence of the corridor and the disturbing vacated space of the kitchen, perhaps in a disarray of prepared food and empty bottles. A recurring dream in which nothing ever happens. Sometimes I am there for hours, heart racing—the party grinding on obliviously upstairs, me timidly tapping a two-pence piece against the pane in the tense solitude of the garden.
Chink chink chink.

And that back door—locked, blue-glossed—is a cipher for all that occurred in that house: an eight-squared honeycomb of history. The portal through which life came and went at number fourteen Dovecote Lane; the front door being hardly used, except to admit post that needed to be signed for, or visitors on special occasions, or anything that required access by car. But that navy-framed back door is where I remember my mother, battered briefcase in hand, leaving for school every day. Or where she’d greet or adios dastardly Delph in my father’s absence. Where friends would stream expectant of jelly and ice cream or the pink Eden of Angel Delight. It was also the location for the washing machine: a noisy corner (especially during the insanity of full-spin), where you would find a disorderly mound of boots and training shoes. I can picture it in high summer too: open to the garden, July wasps streaming in and out; the comforting sound of plates being stacked emanating from the kitchen, which shared the same cracked burgundy tiles as the corridor. Also on the ground floor was the cellar. While technically not a cellar in that it was situated next to a kitchen, the gradient the house was built into meant that its rear had three storeys, while the front appeared to have only two. So the cellar was lit by a grate that let in light and dust from the unmade road out front. A dark repository for timber, sallowing cardboard boxes, newspapers, workbench, nails, tacks, screws, glues, private documents and all manner of secrets. In other words, a playpark for any boy aged between three and thirteen. This shadowy vault also added an air of unease to the bottom part of the house, what with the racks of coats and their phantom arms, the chill of the tiles and the rarely visited downstairs khazi, which seemed to contain every species of spider except those that absolutely
had
to have a tropical climate in which to survive.

Then there was the small matter of the ticking. Every room in the house had a ticking in it, even the ones that didn’t have a clock. You thought you heard it. From the purple-tiled kitchen floors covered in dusty rush-matting to the woody, timber-creaking cellar, the house was abrim with dark, horologic resonances. Especially when you paused for a moment by the frosted panes of the mysterious blue back door—the door that led out into the wider world, away from home, into random and terrifying futures—with everyone upstairs on Christmas Day or New Year’s Eve. And especially at the foot of the stairs, the heavy winter coats on pegs, thick with ghoulish hands ready to grab a little boy, like young Jane Eyre trembling before the red room. Suddenly there, out of the silence, you would hear the ticking of the kitchen clock, also behind an impenetrable frosted-glass door, talking away to itself with the only two syllables it knew:
tick, tock
. The silence on that lower level seemed alive, as if the house were a recumbent sleeper, its respiration slowing as it approached oblivion; the clock marking its cold exhalations. Time the heavy breather, always advancing, always winning.

Not that the place was haunted. I had discovered this with the aid of a ritual I always employed when forced to stay in a strange house or bed. I would find the quietest spot in the building, first making sure it was midnight and that no one else was awake, and then (with all the drama available to a ten-year-old) lay myself open utterly to any spirit whom I imagined was creating the strong presence. I would dare the apparition to make itself known. At number fourteen, this spot was at the end of the passageway—the blue back door. At the climax of the ritual I would ask out loud for anyone—or thing—to come forward. This was always a raw, bare moment, and luckily I only received a reply once, causing me to flee from my silent vigil at the garden-facing glass in white-haired panic. Well, not so much a reply as a demonstration of one of the laws of physics. The ghost had been my own breathing, condensing against the cold panes.

Ghosts. Unheard music. Supernatural clocks. But it didn’t feel that threatening at the time. That’s just a trick played by the memory. And I don’t feel I am any closer to an explanation of what made it home. What is a home? A door that’s always open—a place that offers unconditional safety just by being what it is, where it is. At number fourteen Dovecote Lane I cannot recall a time when I wasn’t there—it was the house I was born into. It contained my first life memories. Something sacred and non-transferable—they will die with me, like everyone’s. Home as a central point, like the spike of Donne’s geometrical compass—no matter how far one travels or how long one resides somewhere in later life, the impulse is always to return. To crawl back to the comfort of known rooms, known voices.

The second floor at Dovecote Lane floor contained the runnered shelves that held my father’s books. I can see them now, a precious emblem of learning; an uncharted rainforest for a child. The light from the sunflower-print blinds used to cast a saffron glow in the room—it often resembled a library under a Los Angeles smog. On the rare occasions when my father was around (in the tranquil days before the degradation and turbulence brought by Delph) I would ask him about the exotic titles: ‘Eugene Won-jin. What’s that Dad? Is that about a real person or a made-up one? You and Your Neurosis. Dad, what’s ner-o-sis?’ I remember his replies as scanty, evasive. He had that strange way of looking at me—a neutral evaluation from under hooded eyes. He was often preoccupied, not surprisingly considering the ructions that were going on behind my back at the time. He often smelt indistinctly of chemicals, of the lab. A short man, with powerful shoulders, bald-headed, handsome, opinionated, I nevertheless remember him as a gentle presence. Like Granny Chloe. His displays of temper would largely be confined to hand-wringing and expressive hisses or sighs, like a lorry letting off its airbrakes. His movements were quick and decisive, especially in the cellar where I watched him at his carpentry bench, planing a door or fixing a broken drawer with wood-glue and heavy G-clamps. I stood spellbound as a chisel made its effortless way through a plank of pine. A manly puff sent the shavings scattering. Same when digging in the patch of allotment opposite the house. The blade of the shovel would go in each time with a decisive
whoompf
as his rubber-booted foot struck it with great force. Yes, he could handle a spade, my father. This is all the more surprising when I think that he had no father himself to watch. No masculine role model. But then the world is full of orphans—orphans of the heart. I often ponder these facts: I am roughly the same age as him when he fathered me. Where are my tools? My workbench? My books and shovel?

Sinead, on the other hand, would always be there, omnipotent. If that omnipotence describes a good mother then that’s what she was. To be everywhere at once; capable, all-seeing. In the top part of the house, the bathroom was her domain, with its cluttered shelves of potions and perfumes, the steam that took forever to clear. The airing cupboard contained folded towels of unimaginable warmth and luxury. This was in the days when she would always apply scent to her wrists and neck before leaving for the school—lavender, or occasionally sandalwood. Her morning ritual was often accompanied by vexed expressions as one minute her mauve headscarf kept slipping off, the next her magic wooden letters couldn’t be located; then the toast was ‘black as cinders’. A lapsed Catholic, she would use expressions such as ‘Mary mother of Jesus!’ during moments of high exasperation. The rough, bike-stealing boys in the lane who she had threatened to ‘sort out with a big stick’ had lately become my friends. But then there are always bigger, rougher boys waiting out there when we leave the soft harbour of childhood. We had formed a gang. This caused Sinead a great deal of pleasure as she was always exhorting me to go out and play. She didn’t know we were a gang, however, until it was too late.

On a Saturday, I would call on the members one by one. Often there were only three of us. Not much of a gang, you might say. My first visit would be to the house of Trevor Thomas on Annesley Rise, who we all knew as the Little Kid. This appellation was due to his stunted, weaselly frame, his wiry knuckles and his choirboy voice. His earnest eyes were as wet and mobile as a dog’s. Then, further up, towards the bad estates that bordered the town (always named after things they
didn’t
resemble: the Sunnyside Estate; the Haywain Estate), we would knock for Nigel, a boy with learning difficulties, four years older than us, who was forced to play with younger kids due to the outright rejection of his peers. He was big-framed, with slow eyes black as the seeds of apples, overhung by a monobrow the length of a large slug. A bit of a pitiful gang, but at least it got me out of the White House, away from the boiling resentments and strained scenes. Initially our activities centred on building things—camps, treehouses, bivouacs, or, when it was raining, robots and contraptions that would never work, with circuit-boards and soldering iron. Then construction turned to destruction. By the end of our reign over the badlands of the neighbourhood, our escapades would involve either throwing, burning or exploding any object we could lay our hands on.

The wall to the overgrown sanctuary of the allotments always required a running jump and a leg-up. It was topped by a mons pubis of slippery moss. Although Nigel was tall enough to scale it by himself, he was too backward to act on this knowledge. Many a rimey morning the Little Kid and I would struggle, one clod-hopping foot in each hand, to push him over the top. He was as heavy as a sack of gravel. The wall was a good indication of how tall I had grown. Once the running jump became a brash joy, not a shoulder charge that resulted in flayed kneecaps and a twisted neck, I knew I was growing up.

One November day marked Game Over for us three bizarre musketeers. It was always cold in my memory of those months—the air a brace of metal against the forehead; earlobes crimson under parka hoods. But this short afternoon was especially bitter, the autumn mist and fog mustard brown and supernaturally abundant. We sloshed our way down the lane then hiked ourselves up the wall. Once among the birches and sycamores at the back of the allotments we began destroying one of our old tree-camps. Out of boredom, out of malice—we all fancied ourselves Jack from
Lord of the Flies
. The wooden observation tower was first to hit the leaf-mulch. Next, the swinging rope, which also doubled as an escape route in case the location was marauded by insurrectionists from one of the euphemistic estates. Finally, the machine-gun nest (complete with stash of toy guns and soggy ammunition) crashed into a mesh of blackberry bushes. The Little Kid appeared ecstatic at this carnage, though I was a little sad. I didn’t want to destroy everything—if we did there would be nowhere to play and nothing to play with. Nigel, seeing that his stunted friend was enjoying himself, started to laugh along, producing a noise that resembled a mule under a load. A sort of strangulated sawing sound. It vanished quickly into the dense air. Like being suspended at thirty thousand feet, the sere November day disappeared into nothingness on all sides. The only other sound was the low cawing of the wood pigeons, with their extended second note: woo-
wooh
-woo.

Then it began to go wrong. We had devised a game whereby Nigel had to attack us, the last soldiers left defending the valuable strategic town that was the compost heap. This Nigel embarked on with abandon, all plodding limbs and rebellious black hair, the imaginary general of his own army; hurling sticks in a frenzied counter-assault. During this occurred the mishap that would reveal to my mother that I wasn’t out collecting fossils or playing marbles. Nigel, like the ghost of Cain, seeing an empty emulsion can, picked it up and flung it full force at the Little Kid’s head. A whoop of pleasure from the overgrown boy; a blood-curdling yell from the runt. Still echoing in my mind today is this scream of immeasurable decibels, emitted as he fell to his knees, holding the big red gouge in his skull together. I had never seen blood come so fast and copiously. Rushing to help the Little Kid, I discovered Nigel was still laughing, antic, unstoppable. He took matches from his pocket and began to torch the remains of the camp. The lighter fuel and ammunition we kept stashed in a waterproof box soon went up. At this point I remember Delph—newly installed at number fourteen, and eager to assert his authority—appearing on the allotments like a big-bearded Adam. My mother wasn’t far behind. He ran through the fog, tall and sinewy, with one motivation: to put Nigel in the ground. As I cradled the Little Kid’s bloody head in my lap, Big Nigel stood next to his pyre, a frown of confusion on his face. His laughter had transformed itself into strange, low mooing sounds. Burned into my memory is his pitiful look: crestfallen, confused; uncomprehending that the game must finish, his close-set eyes anguished under their low black brow. However, before Delph could reach him some survival instinct must have kicked in—he was off in a flash across the cabbage patches, still making the mooing noises, the athletic northerner in pursuit, shouting, ‘Come here you little bastard, you fire bug! I’ll kick your arse! Kick your arse!’ Looking back, I still believe Delph indulged in this gallantry only to impress my mum, who by now was kneeling next to the Little Kid, trembling with butcher’s hands.