Secret Heart
Joe sniffed and shivered. His ears were alert to the night. He trembled, heart fluttered, muscles twitched. What had he almost heard, what had he almost seen roaming the wasteland further downhill, further away from the light? He crouched and watched. Nothing. Behind him, the crowd in the tent clapped and jeered. He imagined Hackenschmidt lapping blood from meat in his locked cage. He imagined Corinna spinning, spinning, spinning. He imagined Stanny dreaming of the panther. He imagined his mum in the Booze Bin, selling cigarettes and cheap lager to Cody's crew.
“Spirits of the air and earth,” he breathed, “protect us all tonight.”
He twitched again. What roamed the wasteland, further out into the dark? He peered. Nothing.
Skellig
Kit's Wilderness
Heaven Eyes
Counting Stars
The Fire-Eaters
For Maggie Noach
The tiger padded through the night. Joe Maloney smelt it, the hot, sour breath, the stench of its pelt. The odor crept through the streets, through his open window and into his dreams. He felt the animal wildness on his tongue, in his nostrils. The tiger moved as if it knew him, as if it was drawn to him. Joe heard its footpads on the stairs. He heard its long slow breath, the distant sighing in its lungs, the rattle in its throat. It came inside. It filled the bedroom. The huge head hung over him. The glittering cruel eyes stared into him. The hot tongue, harsh as sandpaper, licked his arm. The mouth was wide open, the curved teeth were poised to close on him. He prepared to die. Then someone somewhere called:
“Tiger! Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!”
And it was gone.
At the window he made a funnel of his hands and peered out. There it was, loping away beneath the orange streetlights on the pale pavement between the pale houses.
Longer than a man, taller than a boy. “Tiger!” he gasped, and it paused and swung its head to search him out. “Tiger!” he whispered, as its eyes steadied and it gazed up at him.
“Tiger!” someone called, and he saw the man—a huge dark figure in the shadows of the Cut. “Tiger!”
Before it turned again, the tiger watched the boy. Stars glittered in its eyes. It drew Joe Maloney into itself. Then it turned again and loped on toward the Cut. Hips and shoulders rocked. Tail swung. It returned to the dark figure waiting there, and they left his sight, left the village, went into the deeper night outside.
All that night, Joe Maloney sweated, twisted and turned. He dreamed that engines roared and lights blazed. Men yelled, children screamed, dogs yelped. Metal hammered on metal. He dreamed that the surface of the earth was lifted and hung from great hooks in the sky. Beneath it, shapeless beasts danced in the dark. Then he lay dead still. Easy breath, easy heart. He smelt sawdust, canvas, animal sweat, animal dung. Gentle noises, creakings and flappings. He felt something fingering his skull, felt someone whispering his name. He was about to wake up in some new place.
“Joe!” yelled his mum. “Joseph!”
He opened his eyes: just his bedroom, pale sunlight filtering through thin curtains, childhood drawings taped to the walls, his clothes in a heap on the floor. He sniffed the air, trying to smell the tiger again.
“Joe!” she called. “Come on, son, will you?”
He slithered from the tangled bed, picked up his clothes and dressed himself. He dragged on his heavy boots. He sniffed, listened, narrowed his eyes.
“Joe!”
In the bathroom, he splashed water onto himself, then leaned close to the mirror, inspected his pale face, his tangled hair, his one green eye, his one brown eye. He touched his skin. He hadn't changed. He was still just Joe Maloney.
“Joseph!”
He went down into the kitchen. She was at the table, pouring orange juice. She shook her head and clicked her tongue. She tugged his shirt square on his shoulders. She fastened the laces of his boots. “Joe Maloney. What you like?”
He grinned.
“L-like me,” he said.
She cuffed him gently on the shoulder.
“Like you. And you're going to need me to get you up and get you dressed all your life?”
He grinned again.
“Yes.”
He buttered some toast and chewed it. She smiled, and smoothed his hair with her fingers and palms.
“I had a d-dream,” Joe said.
“Now there's a change.”
“There was…”
She shook her head, but she leaned toward him, about to listen.
“There was…?” she said.
Joe rubbed his eyes and blinked. He looked out of the window and gasped. The summit of a blue tent stood high over the rooftops at the village's edge.
“What's that?”
“Eh?”
“L-look, Mum.”
He jabbed the air. A blue tent, a blue paler than the morning sky. A great blue tent that trembled slightly in the morning breeze.
“What?” she said.
“There, look, Mum.”
She narrowed her eyes and peered.
“Tent,” he said. “A tent.”
“Oh…Aye. Now where might that come from?”
They gazed at it together, the slope of blue rising from the dusty red rooftops.
“Fancy that,” she said. “A circus or something, eh? Last time a circus came to Helmouth was in…” She shrugged. “Before our time, I reckon.”
Joe shoved a piece of toast into his mouth. She put her arm around him as he prepared to go out.
“Now, then, Joseph Maloney,” she said.
He lowered his eyes, then turned them to her.
“You know what I'm going to say, don't you?”
“Yes, Mum.”
“You make sure you get into school today. OK?”
“OK, Mum.”
She kissed him.
“Don't want that rotten Wag Man coming round again, do I?”
“No, Mum.”
“You. What a lad. Sometimes wonder what I brought into the world. How can a lad be so lovely and so much trouble? Can you answer me that?”
“No, Mum.”
“No, Mum. Come on, then, give us a kiss.”
She took him to the door, watched him walk through the garden to the front gate. She raised her finger as he turned to wave. “Be sure, now,” she said.
“Yes, Mum,” he said, then hurried toward the Cut.
He rocked on his skinny legs. He dragged the heels of his ungainly boots. He hesitated, sighed, and gathered his strength before he moved through the Cut. Some of Cody's crew were already there, where it opened to the wasteland. Mac Bly, Geordie Carr, Jug Matthews, Goldie Wills, cigarettes fuming in their fists. Joe lowered his eyes as he passed through. They elbowed him, stuck out their feet to trip him.
“Only Maloney,” they sang softly, “lalalalaaaaa!”
“Look. The freaks is come,” hissed Plug. He pointed at the tent.
“You'll feel at home today, Maloney.”
“Only Maloney, lalalalaaaaahahahaha!”
“You've got to try standing up to them,” his mother had said. But he didn't know how to look at them, never mind how to speak to them. He kept his head down as he made his way through.
He wiped the spit off his cheek with his cuff. He moved away from them across the wasteland, toward the great blue tent.
Their voices followed him: directed now at the circus.
“Clear off, scum! Clear off, Gyppo scum! Take your tent somewhere else! Ahhahahaha!”
More kids were on the wasteland, younger kids, singles and little groups, spread out in a broad circle, watching.
A massive poster was draped across the tent:
HACKENSCHMIDT'S CIRCUS
! The FINAL Tour !
! Your FINAL Chance !
! NEVER to be seen AGAIN !
Beyond the tent were ancient cars and trucks and caravans.
He heard his name spoken, turned to find Stanny Mole coming up behind him.
“Heard it coming in the night,” said Stanny. “Thought there was a war or something starting.”
Joe nodded.
“But it's just a stupid old circus,” said Stanny. “Come on, let's take off.”
Joe thought of his mum and he shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Got to go in today.”
But he didn't move. He looked at the tent and
the wasteland beyond it and he knew this would be yet another day he didn't go to school.
A thin pale man in a goatee beard came out of the tent. A bunch of little dogs in silver skirts danced around him. He gave out leaflets that offered half-price tickets for the first night.
“Look at the state of him,” said Stanny. “Look at the state of it all. Come on, Joe, eh?”
The man came toward the boys. He winked and reached out and poked Joe in the ribs.
“Hello, you,” he said.
He turned his mouth down to make a sad face, then turned it up to make a happy face.
“Hello,” he said again.
He reached out to poke him again, but Stanny pulled Joe back.
“Leave him alone,” he said. “Come
on,
Joe. Stop dreaming.”
They started to move away, but Joe stopped again.
There was a girl in the doorway of the tent. She was small and dark-haired, same age as the boys. She had a grubby raincoat on, fastened tightly at the waist, and black tights and silver slippers. She held the canvas to one side. Behind her the air in the tent was a dusky blue. She met Joe's eyes and smiled and held the doorway further open.
Stanny spat.
“Come
on,
” he said. “Let's take off before anybody sees.”
“Aye… aye.”
“What you staring at?”
“Nothing.”
Joe couldn't take his eyes from her. He'd seen her before. He was sure he'd seen her before.
Stanny tugged his arm.
“She's just a Gyppo circus lass.”
Joe stood his ground.
“H-hang on,” he said.
Stanny tugged him harder.
“Come on, Joe. Come
on,
man.”
And Joe turned his eyes away, and headed downhill with Stanny, across the wasteland, away from Helmouth.
Helmouth. It was called a village, but was just a place at the city's edge, before the wasteland started. A mess of new houses and old houses and cracked pavements and roads. The Stag's Head with graffiti sprayed on its walls. A boarded-up KwikSave. A Ladbrokes and the Chip Plaice and Kurl Up & Dye. The Booze Bin, where Joe's mother worked. They kept saying there'd be great things coming—a swimming pool, a leisure center, a shopping center, a new housing development. But it was like Helmouth had been left behind, like it had been forgotten about. Men had been seen there, looking through theodolites and marking the earth with posts and tape. Bulldozers once came and ripped the earth open and shoved it into heaps. But they all just went away again. Nothing happened. In Helmouth, everything just came to nothing.
As Joe and Stanny walked, larks kept rising. They
dashed from the grass and spiraled into the sky. They hung there, nearly out of sight, singing and singing. Joe raised his head, gazed at them, heard them singing in the sky and singing in his heart.
“Listen,” he whispered.
“Joe,” said Stanny Mole.
“L-listen to them all, Stanny.”
He put his finger to his lips. Stanny spat.
“We're going away again this weekend. Me and Joff. You could come with us, Joe. Joe?”
But Joe's attention was lost in the sky.
“Joe!” Stanny said. “I wonder why I bother with you. Joe!”
He yanked Joe's arm, pulled him from his dreams, walked on.
The land out here was filled with familiar names, names that had been passed down from children to children to children. They grew out of old stories, lethal games, awful discoveries. The Field of Skulls, the Ratty Paddocks, the Lostleg Railway, the Blood Pond, Adder Lane.
“Five o'clock tomorrow morning,” said Stanny. “Come with us, Joe. Just imagine it.”
Joe stared to where Stanny pointed. A mile away, there was the motorway where the traffic droned in a haze of fumes and sunlight. Beyond it, the earth turned upward again, to the Silver Forest, the Golden Hills, the Black Bone Crags reaching to the sky.
“We'll walk all day,” Stanny said. “Way past all
this. We'll walk to where it's wild, really really wild. We'll have our combat gear on. Knives and catapults and snares in our pockets. We'll kill something for lunch. We'll strip a tree to make the shelter. We'll light a fire. Joff'll drink and talk about his army days and we'll listen to the night. There's nowt like it, Joe.”