The Chalk Giants (4 page)

Platypus, platypus. Potty-the-rarimus-plat...

The moon sank, beyond the ridge of cliff. With its setting, clouds drew across the sky; and for a time the summer night was at its darkest. In the darkness came wisps and tendrils of mist. They thickened steadily, coiling up from the water in half-seen skeins. The amphitheatre, the level space between cliffs and sea, began to fill. Then the mist rose higher, lapping the tall rock, spilling across the undulating ground above. With the dawn a watery light-burst showed for a time, low down. Shadows were visible, for seconds together; but the fog was not dispelled. Nor did it clear on the following day, or the day after that.

The colony, if such it had become, worked steadily. Latrine pits were dug, in the dry scree below the cliffs, the house rendered more habitable. Joyce, the artist, rigged movable screens for the windows, replacing the blankets that had hung there; the women cooked and rearranged the stores while Martin Jones made an expedition along the foreshore, God knew to where, returned rowing a boat. They heard his hail out in the mist, rushed down to admire the prize. He seemed well versed in nautical matters, running her up on to the beach and securing her with a rope fixed to a spike driven into a crack in the rock. Stan took his rod to a little spit of land, well out in the mist, where he could be away from the others; Maggie with her brilliant dark-fringed eyes, and Martine, trim in a chunky sweater and neat, tight-fitting jeans. He was unused to sea-angling, but at his second attempt he landed four fine silver fish, Jones pronounced them grayling, and showed how they could be scaled by rubbing a knife-blade from tail to nose. They ate them that night, grilled and fresh, and listened to a tranny blurt out its endlessly worsening news.

Increasingly it seemed Jones had taken over the leadership of the group. He it was certainly who ordered their days, organizing rota systems for such chores as chopping wood. What little lay about the farmhouse and the barns was rapidly consumed; so he produced from somewhere a creaking handcart, with which he would set off for the headland that closed the bay to the west, return with load after load of bleached, brittle planks. Also he located a spring of fresh water, some half-mile from the farmhouse. It came welling and bubbling out of the cliffs, cold and crystal-clear; and it became Stan’s job to trudge forward and back each morning till the containers were refilled.

A part of his mind was nearly happy with the turn events had taken. The other thing had, after all, bristled with difficulties. He had no practical experience of lovemaking, but doubted as an engineer whether two bodies would fit together as neatly and automatically as in the paperbacks he had read. Also, what did you say? What
could
you say to them? To lay one’s hands on the body of another seemed suddenly a monstrous thing; so he was glad in a way the problem was not his, he performed his duties with no complaint and spoke little to the rest. Martine in particular he avoided, lowering his eyes when she came near so as to give no cause for offence. He was realizing how narrow his escape had been. He remembered the rope, and what he had thought he might do, and blushed in the dark for shame.

But the even pattern into which his days had fallen was not destined to last. It was Martin Jones who brought matters to a head, one pearly, still-grey afternoon. They had taken the boat out, into the drifting mist, to fish the deeper water a little offshore; now sky and land alike were hidden, the vessel slapped and drifted in the void while Stan sat patiently, head down over the butt of the rod, aware of the other’s stare. Jones lolled in the bows, in reefer jacket and an ancient, battered cap; he watched for a time, eyes narrowed, before flicking a cigarette butt overboard. ‘You know, Potts,’ he said pleasantly, ‘I’ve been thinking. The food’s getting a bit down; and there are loads of other places round about. I think it’s time one of us moved out’

For an instant a thought, as wild as it was absurd, flickered in Stan’s mind. He said, ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, look at it my way,’ said Jones. ‘You’ve got the vehicle for it, we’ll stake you to a couple of days’ grub. Should be good pickings up by Kimmeridge. They had a general shop.’

Stan said dully, ‘Maybe I could go and see what I could find.’

Jones shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘that’s not what I mean.’ He leaned forward. ‘Fuck off, Potts,’ he said. ‘Nobody wants you here.’

Stan smiled, and kept his eyes down. He said, ‘I’ll think about it’

Jones lit another cigarette. His woman’s face was thoughtful, ‘I expect you will,’ he said. ‘But you won’t go.’ He paused. ‘You’re a funny sod, Potts,’ he said. ‘Why did you come down here in the first place? What was it you wanted?’

The flush was starting at the roots of Stan’s hair. He kept his eyes on the sea with desperate casualness, and hoped the other would stop.

Martin blew smoke. ‘I don’t think you’re a ginger,’ he said, ‘so it wasn’t Richard. And it certainly wasn’t me. You don’t like me much, do you?’

Stan said, ‘I wouldn’t say that’

‘Well,’ said Jones, ‘I don’t like you.’ He blew smoke. ‘I wonder if we’ve got what you wanted,’ he said. ‘I hope it wasn’t Maggie. She wouldn’t be any good to you. Shall I tell you why?’

Stan didn’t answer; and the other began to laugh. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe it. But it’s true, isn’t it? I know who it is. You never take your eyes off her.’

Stan said, ‘Oh, shut up ...’ He could have bitten his tongue instantly; but it was too late, the childish remark was out.

Jones went into fresh peals. ‘Potts,’ he said, ‘you will be the death of me ...’ Then he became serious. ‘Stanislaus,’ he said, ‘have you ever had a woman?’

No answer.

‘You haven’t, have you?’ said Martin. ‘And I’ll tell you something. I don’t think you ever will.’ He shook his head. Poor old Potts,’ he said. ‘It’s going to take more than the end of the world to change your luck.
You must be mad...’

He heard his mother’s voice on the stairs, and the door slam as he stood crimson and shaking with shame.

His life had not been easy. He remembered how years back, before he left school, it had been the same. His father used to take him to the Variety sometimes, his father had been an expert on Variety; he said he liked the cleverness of the turns, though if there were nudes he always leaned forward a little in his seat. And Stan would sit and pretend to tuck into his ice-cream and watch up under his lids at the girls who ran about in their little pants and bras and showed their belly buttons, sometimes he couldn’t forget for days. He used to think if only he could have one of those girls, just one, only once to know what it was like, it wouldn’t be too bad. Afterwards, when he knew that wasn’t going to happen, the Variety was finished; and you didn’t have to open the Sunday papers and see it there, or watch it all on the Box. Only as he got older, it got worse again because it started happening everywhere, on the streets; some of them were only kids but you could see their nipples and the whole lot if you looked. It made him more furtive, more secret; it brought the smile back nearly all the time. And the office girls at work, when they came up through the Stores you could see the lot, you sometimes couldn’t help it. Then they’d glare as if it was your fault, something you’d done. So the need came back, stronger than before, till he must assuage himself, though he groaned and cursed. Then he met Martine, and for a time held her image pure. But the dreams would come; till one day, only to stop them, he thought how wonderful it would be if he
was
her, to live inside her body and have it for his own, to walk with his head up and have the world at his feet. He knew it was wrong, but once started the thoughts wouldn’t stop. Any more than the other thing had. Then one morning he found - what he found, slung over the front garden wall.

It seemed his heart stopped. Just stopped. He didn’t want to see; he tried not to see, but it was there,
they
were there. He couldn’t leave them; he had to snatch, and scrunch the lacy ball in his palm, drive his hand deep into his donkey jacket out of sight. He was terrified then that somebody had seen; but it still wanted twenty to eight and the street was empty, blue in the half-light. He hurried off, shoulders hunched, face burning, heels banging the paths. He wrapped the shame in a handkerchief; and it was as if he held her, her herself, tight in his fist. It was a Mystery, the first he had encountered. His heart hammered, through the day, when he thought what he had done, what he owned. He hid the terrible discovery in his wardrobe, pushed right at the back of the topmost shelf. He tried not to think of it, of what lay there, but it was no use. The thing had to be done, the experiment performed.

They were smaller even than he’d imagined. He drew them up, over his white thighs; then his face flamed; then it was done, the transformation complete. And he was panting, he could hardly breathe, he was angling the mirror to see. He had become the enemy, the thing he feared; and fear was banished.

Then of course the door swung open; and he was covering himself, his belly, the scrap of see-through lace about his loins. A cry was echoing, which was his own cry of fear and shame; and his mother backing away, and her voice sounding on the landing.

‘You must be mad. . .’

A pale chink to one side of the shutter told him dawn was in the sky. He moved his eyes round the little room. He had been dreaming; he was almost sure he had been talking to Chalky then, and Chalky had given him some excellent advice, though he couldn’t quite remember what it was. Also it had seemed he had been back at school. He remembered the form room vividly; afternoon light lying across the walls and beyond the tall windows the cattle market with its empty pens, the pines in the cemetery, the buses grinding up to London Road. He had been standing, and the Sledge had been shouting questions and he had been shouting back the answers, confident and assured; and the face of Sledger Bates was altering, with amazement and delight, while Chapman and all the rest sat stunned and quiet. He sighed, because such things could never be. Then he frowned. The frown was the outer sign of the great leaping jolt that had struck his chest; it was as if he had slept to dream of the thing he most desired, and woken to find that thing clutched in his hand.

He rose, and dressed himself. He eased the door open, peered out. The corridor lay quiet and grey, nobody stirring. He guessed it wasn’t more than six a.m. He tiptoed past Martine’s room, listened again.

He was used to the place now. His hand found the door-catch in the half-light, twisted. He crossed the yard to the barn, still stepping carefully. He opened the driving door of the Champ, groped behind the seat. For a moment he was afraid the thing would be gone; but it was still there. He lifted the case, went back the way he had come.

He sat in the meagre light, resting his hands on the lid, smelling the faint antiseptic tang of oil; and it all came back, the little range beside the Masonic Hall, the firing-point with its pinned-up targets, the massive cupboards where the rifles were stored. Though he and the other pistol men pretended to look down on the rifle section. This lying on the floor and strapping yourself rigid, that wasn’t shooting. Besides, there was something about the feel of a pistol, the balance and the way the grip snugs into your hand. And the target wavering and’ dun, pinned by the clumsy foresight; the good feeling when you know you’re shooting well and the spotter is calling them out beside you and the eights and nines start coming in. He had been a steady member, improved a lot over the years; till he gave up using the old club clunker and went a bit mad and got himself a ten-shot Browning. He developed a new feeling for weaponry; and by and by another gun came to haunt him, he was never quite sure why. Certainly it looked like no other ever made; he came to know its lines by heart, the deep-cusped trigger, steeply sloping stock with the lovely curve that takes the base of the thumb, the knuckle bar with its knurled grips like the eyes of a crocodile, or fossil. He made himself an expert; he learned every model from ‘08 to ‘43, when the Reich was feeling the pinch and the new gun came in, the sheet-metal gun, the PPK. Only once again it seemed fate had dealt him a blow; because he couldn’t hold the pistol on his ticket, you needed access to an outdoor range and for that he had neither the inclination nor the means. So he was reduced to talking about the toy to Chalky, who’d used one in the Mob in Germany; till one night Chalky came in more mysterious than usual - Christ, the people he knew - and asked him if he’d like to see a certain thing, and Stan of course said no he didn’t dare. Though later when he held the gun he knew he wasn’t going to be able to let it go. So he bought it, for thirty-five, off the Yank who’d brought it in, and a box of Swedish Parabellum thrown in as well. And after that he sold the Browning and gave up the club, because he daren’t belong any more. He stood, for the first time in his life, outside the law; a new experience, and one not wholly pleasing.

He’d fired the thing just once, on a Bonfire Night. Later he was disgusted with himself; he’d never handled a heavy pistol before, nervousness made him take a bad grip. The Luger spat a leaf of dark orange flame; and a flying house-brick caught his palm and he stood appalled, ears ringing, hearing the cartridge case go clipping up through the branches of a tree.

He unlocked the lid and opened it, sat staring down. Then as ever he hefted the pistol, feeling its weight, seeing the slate blue of the barrel, the
Erfurt
stamp with its crown, the wooden handgrips each held by a screw, the only screws in the action. He divined then a part at least of the Mystery; that this was a gun a group of men had built, when they wanted to fight the world. He frowned, remembering what he had read of the smashing power of a heavy bullet; then the room seemed to spin a little. He had remembered how once at the Club they put a cake of soap up for a laugh, and the Browning drilled a cone out of it two inches across.

The fit passed; and he marvelled at his steadiness. He opened the box of rounds, fed the fat cartridges into the magazine, clicked it into the butt. He pressed back on the muzzle to check the recoil spring and cocked the gun, saw the shiny bullet driven home. He checked the
Geladen
telltale, and pushed the safety on. Then he put the thing aside, and waited.