Runt (5 page)

I asked Drunkle where we were going and he said the Mountain Tavern which gladded me cos it wasn’t the Farmer’s Arms, the face-scrapey place where I never wanted to go again but did lots of times in the nights in my bad dreams. That Arthur. Creep creep back into the lake and be with your other slimesome chums with big bad teeth like pikes’. We drove even further up into the High Places on to a road with nothing on each side of it but big big space all blue and green beneath like giant waves going out at each side in big big ripples to the sides of the world at each side. I could see each side where the earthball bent cos we were so high and it made me dizzy to think of what we were on.

—I want you to be very careful, Drunkle said. —Don’t, whatever you do, let Arrn run mad. Arthur’s in a rage about losing another sheep and he needs something to blame it on and if he can blame it on your dog then he will. Won’t listen to sense, that man. Told him, I did, I said it’s some idiot’s exotic pet, either escaped or they’ve let it go when it got too big and strong and scary for them to keep. Lynx or something. But he’s got in his head that it’s someone’s dog and he just won’t let it go. You know what he’s like. I told him that dogs don’t climb trees but …

He shook his head. That was the second time he’d said them words or words like them to me but he’d forgotten cos he’s my Drunkle.

—Just keep Arrn under control, anyway. I know he hates being on a lead like but try and keep him on it anyway when Arthur’s around. Don’t give him an excuse, understand?

He looked sideways at me and I nodded but I didn’t really. Understand, I mean. Give Arthur an excuse to do what? I didn’t understand so I reached back behind me and stroked Arrn on the head which is what I usually do when I don’t understand things and Arrn gave a little happy noise and I heard his tail go whapwhapwhapwhap against the seat.

Drunkle turned down off the Dead High Road on to what was just a High Road. I missed the world from the Dead High Road cos then I couldn’t see it all even tho it scared me a bit. We drove into a little village that had a sleeping cat on a car in it and then we drove out of it again.

—What gets me tho is this. Drunkle slowed down so a sheep could get out of his way. He waved it across the road as if it could understand but maybe it could. —Is Arthur’s still got his flock. He’s one of the few round yur that didn’t lose it. Know why? Cos the inspectors didn’t visit his farm. That make any sense to you, bach?

Drunkle’s questions again which I don’t know if he wants me to answer or not but this time I didn’t have the chance to answer anyway. I gave him a nod but he wasn’t looking at me anyway just the High Road we were on.

—The MAFF inspectors didn’t visit his farm so his animals were safe from the disease. See, when they came up to mine and Fay’s, they’d just been on an infected place in the bottom of the valley and didn’t clean themselves up properly so they passed the germ on to our sheep. Or that’s what they
said
, anyway. I mean, there were no signs of sickness in the animals
that
I
could see, Fay neither. Precautions, they said. We’re gunner have to shoot every last one of these animals as a precautionary measure. And it was
their
fucking fault for not disinfecting themselves in the
first
bastard place. What about
that
precautionary measure, eh?

He shook his head and I could see that he was burning hot and I was getting a bit that way too, in the part where my heart was. The High Places were going past outside the truck behind the window and to me the Inspector-Men with their guns and their Not-Doing-Things-Properly-ness shouldn’t’ve ever come up here because these are not places for People Like Them because everything that happens up here happens because it must and has to and it’s always been like that and not as a stupid Precautionary Measure. Things get killed up here because other things have to kill them to eat them and not as a stupid Precautionary Measure. I thought of them coming up here in their white spacesuity things with their guns and all because they didn’t clean themselves properly and I thought of me and Arrn and Drunkle, our little Army Of Three chasing them off the High Places and them all running and going ‘arrgh arrgh’ as they fell off back to the Low Places and didn’t kill the sheep as a Precaution Thing and we’d all go back to the house laughing and cheering all three of us and Auntie Fay would laugh and cheer as well and make us all a big pot of cawl to eat cos she’d still be alive.

—So, if you ask me, Arthur should thank his lucky stars that he’s still
got
a flock. So he loses the odd one, Christ, we
all
do. Or did. The hawks take them as
lambs
, or the foxes, or the badgers, or the stoats. The crows, even. What does he expect? He’s still got a flock, at least. Still got a livelihood.
And
a wife. Should be on his knees thanking God instead of organising this wild fucking goose chase.

No, Drunkle, I wanted to say, no wild geese would ever kill and eat a sheep. They eat grass, them fellers, not sheep. But I didn’t say it cos I didn’t think that that was really what Drunkle meant altho I didn’t know what he
did
mean and he drove us into another village, a bigger one this time with a school and a shop and everything. I wanted to ask Drunkle if we could stop at the shop so I could get something to eat but I didn’t do that either but then I did and he said we’d gone too far past it and that I’d get something to eat at the pub anyway cos Arthur’s missis who ran the shop was making breakfast for everyone and I remembered Arthur’s missis that time in the shop with her arm in a sling and I thought of her at that moment like I’d never thought of her before and I got hot like I did not when I thought of the Precautionary Measure Men but like I did when I thought of sitting on the horse with Auntie Fay pressed against my back and her arms around me holding the reins cos of a sudden it seemed to me then that Arthur’s missis was a bit like Auntie Fay in shapeness cos they were shaped the same. They made the same shape in the air. And I felt funny then cos I’d never thought of Arthur’s wife In That Way before nor his daughter too but I started to think of her Like That as well and I got hotter and thought that I might have to hide a part of myself like most men did around Auntie Scantie
and
that made me think oh no and I got hotter but then Drunkle drove us into the car park of the Mynydd Tafarn and I saw a load of trucks and men like a small army and a couple of bright yellow policemen there as well and that made my hotness go away dead fast and I thought phew and was happy’d.

We parked the truck at the end of the little car park in a space by the stream and we got out and I went to open the back door to let Arrn out too but Drunkle said to leave him there For The Time Being so I waved to him through the window and he looked at me sadded so I waved to him again and told him in my head not to be sadded or worried and he answered me okay which I also heard only in my head but still there was a worryment in his eyes. I followed Drunkle across the car park through the cars and I saw some boys from my school only they weren’t from my school any more cos I didn’t have a school any more and they gave me looks which made me glad I didn’t have a school any more. Their Dads were standing around talking and some of them were checking guns and some of them were drinking tea from mugs and some of them were drinking beer from big glasses or whisky from smaller glasses and they were talking and laughing as if this was all some kind of happy day out and some bright yellow policemen were moving through the crowd talking to the men who had guns and they were trying to be serious and without laughing but I could tell that all this was happying them too. I saw some dogs around as well some of them not even on leads and I wanted to ask Drunkle if I could let Arrn out but I couldn’t find him so I looked around at all
the
people and then I saw him talking to Arthur and half the size of Arthur he was and I remembered then what he said about Arthur and Arrn so I didn’t ask him. I smelled something nice and saw some steam in the air in a little cloud above the pub and noticed that people were sipping stuff out of paper mugs that looked like soup cos they had their hands both wrapped around the paper mugs which is what you do when it’s cold or early and you drink soup or other hot things out of paper cups so I went over to a place undeneath the floating steam-cloud and saw a table with a great big pot on it and a woman with a scarfness around her head dipping a big spoon in the pot and filling people’s held-out cups so I took a cup from the tower on the table and held it out and lovely thicksome soup went in it and well look how much
you’ve
grown said the scarf-headed lady with the spoon who was Arthur’s missis and I went so fast as hot as the soup.

—Haven’t
you
filled out, she said in a smile and I hid my face behind my paper cup and didn’t know what she meant.

—Last time I saw you you were
this
high, she said and held her hand not far below my chin. I felt heat off her fingers on my face and I saw her fingernails in my eyes quite close and the veins in her skin and the rings on her fingers and the things she wore around her wrist which made a jangly sound. I was making a sound like them too all jingle-jangle but only inside.

—Sorry to hear about Fay, she said in a lower voice. She had been friends with my Auntie Scantie but not Best Ones I didn’t think.—How’s he holding up, your uncle? Is he okay? Must be terrible for him.

I didn’t know what to say so I just told her he was sad.

—Well, yes, I can imagine …

I didn’t know what to say so I told her I was staying with him for the summer.

—Oh yes? she said and I didn’t know if I was supposed to answer but I couldn’t say anything anyway cos her eyes got a kind of light in them then and made their drawing-inny darkness not so dark but even more drawing-inny and I
did
think of some words to say but they kind of stuck in my throat like chewy bits of meat so I swallowed the words, with soup, back into the place that made them. Nice soup, it was. It had turnips in it and onions which I like. And the Hot Place in me I thought I might have to hide which made me think Oh No again and sadded me a bit but I was scared too cos Arthur’s missis and her eyes and her hands and her Looking At Me and her smile was making me feel things I didn’t know what to do with, was making me feel growing in parts and shrinking in others and hot in parts and cold in others and I didn’t know what to do so I just drank more soup and remembered of a sudden that her name was Rhiannon and then I noticed too that she had some dark marks on her neck going a bit fadey but still kind of a blueness as if someone had grabbed her there hard. And as
if
I didn’t know who that Someone was.

—Well, I’ll have to come across and visit you, won’t I? she said still with that smiley funny-eyed-ness that I liked very much and was a bit scared of too. —Check up on you both, like. Bring you over some soup or something.

—I’d like that, Rhiannon, I heard a funny voice say. It was deeper and had more out-of-itself-ness than my voice but it must’ve been me speaking cos I felt the words in my heart area and in my neck as well. This also scared me a bit but then I was nudged from behind and a hand held a paper mug in front of me and it was empty and Rhiannon Smiled At Me Again.

—There we are then, she said and spooned soup into the held-out mug and I took my mug away from her with my hotness and coldness and bigness and smallness and my head went spinning almost like My Times were coming on me but it was different than that it was more to do with things I could feel with my hands or taste with my tongue or smell with my nose or feel pressing against my skin altho it was as big as My Times and filled with things in the same way and I didn’t know what to do with this new fast spinniness inside of me. It was fast like a hare or a diving falcon too fast nearly for me to chase or even see. But then one of the boys from My Gone School banged into me and soup spilled on to the back of my hand and burned a bit but not too bad cos it had gone cool a bit but I still looked badness at that boy and he curled his lip up at me like a fern leaf and then went away. I didn’t like him and I wished him bad and he did the same to me and I thought of that black hissy mist creeping around him and him disappearing in it and I felt gladder.

I thought of the dance I did when I left the school and was it only yesterday Duw it seemed like ages and I wanted to do That Dance again. I hated that bastard school. Glad dead glad that it was gone I was and still am.

In a sudden the sun went. In a sudden I was in a shadow. I looked up and up and up and saw a big black shape like a bull on its hind legs and knew then that it was That Arthur. A coldness came in me then and I felt dead dead small like a mouse in front of Charlesworth.

—Having a nice chat with my wife, were we? His voice was like a tree falling over into other trees and making them fall too. —Well well. You’re going with your pisshead uncle. He’ll tell you what to do. And I’ll tell you this.

His face was then in mine and much bigger than mine like a mountain itself with the beard like a red forest and cheeks like boulders and his eyes were two Bala Lakes and Duw I could see some monsters in
them
oh yes. I felt mud come into my knees and a coldness come quick into that place that had been hot when his wife Rhiannon put a smile on me.

—Yewer dog goes anywhere near my fucking sheep and I’ll blow its fucking head off. Hear me? I’m watching
you
. And your fucking hound. Hear me?

Another one of them questions that I didn’t know if I should answer but then the sun was back bright in my eyes cos That Arthur had gone away. Just took all his bigness and
there
-ness somewhere else and let the sun back into my face and I was gladded he was gone cos I hated him being in my eyes and I hated him just for being him and I thought of his wife coming across the mountain in the future-ness ahead to bring me soup and that thought and the thought of the way she looked at me made me glad and less scared of That Arthur and I didn’t know why it just
did
. And Arrn would bite his head off. Arrn would leap and go SNAP and Arthur’s stupid too-big head would go off and bounce all the way down the mountain into the Low Places and we’d watch it go and we’d laugh. I’d laugh and Arrn would wag and then we’d go back to Drunkle’s house where Rhiannon would be making soup and that would let me laugh some more.