The Levels (9 page)

I felt softness all around, and a dampness beside me, a woman shouting and the sound of a motorbike. Eight sad horsemen rode by, small women carrying pancakes left them in the fridge. I was comfortable in bed, I remember.

At Thorney Mills there is an old silted pool, where teal and eel swim; rayballing weather again, but I couldn't go, I was working on laundry baskets for the domestic market. It was perfect, another clotting river, high, fast clouds, but it was gloomy in the workshop, an atmosphere heavy with loss. One of mother's finest was laid up in a cardboard box under the window, on no account was I to touch her or make any surprising noises. She had coccidiosis; stood for a day on her own in the run, sick and drawn before the move, and was being treated to a water fast for twenty-four hours. A laxative diet of barley and husks to follow with a clove of garlic for ten days. No other hen would go near her. If she didn't recover, a hatchet would come between her and continued enjoyment of the orchard.

My mother shook her head, and didn't know why she bothered. ‘Coccy's deadly; look at this,' she said, handing me a nugget of blood-stained chicken shit. ‘Kills the girls for no reason and all that science doesn't make any difference. Might as well know how to cure coccy.' She stroked the hen's head with her nails, and tucked some straw around its body.

‘Don't you worry about eggs,' she said. ‘Just eat up, do you good.' She nudged some food at the bird but it closed an eye with a ghastly cloudy lid, and blinked open only slowly. It opened its beak but nothing happened.

‘You watch her,' she said to me, ‘and don't shout at your work.'

There are many diseases of poultry that lead chickens to the cardboard box. Toe-pecking and pantothematic acid deficiency in young chicks, to egg-bind and plain boredom in laying birds. Many treatments are available. My father brought some tea, and while we drank, stood outside in the yard watching some teal, packed together like sardines, flying down to the river behind us. There are many things a teal enjoys, wading in mud, worms, but nothing more than the company of its own species. We have eaten them but they're small and carry little meat. I would prefer a mallard from Taunton bus station, where they stroll out of the river around people, and are well fed on many fattening foods. I would put one of them in a sack anytime, still warm, plump.

‘See them?' he pointed as they flew to the pools. ‘Scrawny buggers not worth a toss.'

I sat down. Plastics have taken the domestic laundry basket market and given it a boxing lesson, but there are still some people who prefer the sort of thing that ladders nylons and tears silk shifts to ribbon. Ribbon in her hair, scarf around her waist, stockings on her legs, a thousand freckles on her face, one hundred eyes turn to look, see Muriel, on a street where I could never live. We'd watched a television programme with the prize of a car, the woman hadn't won. She got £800 with the champagne ‘Pick-a-trick!' bonus prize, but looked fed up with the idea, and backed away when a smarming host tried to kiss her cheek. He'd bumped his chin on her shoulder, while the celebrity hostess stood behind them, holding an envelope. The old man said it was a laugh, but I didn't care, I only saw the street outside the television studio, where men and women drove by on their way to Muriel's.

I spent the afternoon making handles. The egg man arrived and stacked the pallets in his van, checking the invoice and making a joke about putting blown eggs in with the real ones. He had never learned not to crack it.

‘Find a blown egg and it'll not be me who's responsible,' she shouted. The egg man was a bit thick. I never spoke to him about it. He lived in ignorance.

Around tea time the ailing chicken died of its own, spared the bloody steel. I took it to the house and put it on the kitchen table.

‘Take the thing away!' she screamed. ‘I don't want it!' She didn't care once they were dead, and a bird with coccy wasn't edible. ‘Dig a hole for it,' she said, ‘and burn the box.'

I dug a small grave in the orchard. I warmed my hands over the fire, watching the sun sink into a bank of streaky grey cloud, stood over the cardboard box until it was all gone. I could stand over anything until it was all gone. I stood next to my old man while he planted a row of peas.

‘I wanted to stuff that racoon,' he said. ‘Don't get the chance often enough.'

‘Stuff it?'

‘Why not?'

‘You ask them?'

‘They wouldn't listen. It went for a post mortem; I could have saved them the trouble.'

He straddled the row with his feet, walking backwards, scattering the peas on the ground. His back was hunched. He stopped, put a hand to it, stood up.

‘It had a lovely face, beautiful eyes, tiny dog's nose. I've always wanted to stuff an animal. Nothing to it.'

‘I'll catch you a rabbit.' He lifted his hat and scratched his head.

‘Always wanted to,' he said. ‘Would you?'

‘If you want.'

‘It'll have to be live.'

‘All right,' I said, ‘I'll use a broody box. Tie the bait to a sprung flap, rabbit picks the bait up, shuts the door. Piece of string. Easy.'

‘Borax,' he said.

‘What?'

‘Borax. I'll need some.'

‘Borax?'

‘And sulphuric acid, ammonia.'

‘You sure?'

‘Sure. I read it. Borax, sulphuric acid, ammonia, some salt. Sharp knives, and an eye for the natural pose.' He took another handful of peas. ‘An eye for the natural pose,' he said, moving down the row. ‘More than just important, it makes or breaks the whole effect, the pose.' I had to find a rabbit willing. He had to avoid my mother. He would need a place to work. Could he get borax? Sulphuric acid? Are they dangerous chemicals? Can you drink them? Could I hear Dick ride by? My father raked some soil over his peas, the teal flew back the way they'd come. One of them laid a turd on his hat.

Muriel came back. She parked her ambulance in the yard and had brought me a present, but wouldn't give it until we were on our own. It was great to see her. She was more beautiful, and talked to my father about how he'd manage on the underground.

‘Got to finish these peas,' he said to her, though he had. He was just being nice.

Muriel and I walked along the bank and watched the sun set from the bridge over the Isle. The river Isle, which rises near the village of Dowlish Wake, to the south east of Ilminster, in Somerset. There are seven bridges over the river, which flows for about fourteen miles before joining the Parret near Blackwood. Isle Abbotts and Isle Brewers are its main villages. During the middle of the nineteenth century, the Parret Navigation Company built locks at Thorney, and cut a canal to connect Westport, near Drove House, to the Parret by way of the river Isle. You might think, ‘so what', but the man who built the Westport canal was the same Walter Bagehot who became advisor to Disraeli when that man was interested in the Suez Canal.

We walked along the bank to the first bridge from Blackwood, sat in its shade and held hands. The history of canal building in Somerset is an interesting one. We could see the spot on the river where the Westport canal cuts in. It was romantic. She gave me a Dinky Toy ambulance, in a torn box, and I kissed her.

‘It's very rare,' she said. ‘Collectors pay tops for them.' It was her ambulance. ‘I saw it and said “That's it!” You like?'

‘I was expecting a toothpick, in a lump of plastic.' She laughed.

‘He got locked up, rummaging in a policeman's dustbin.'

‘Dustbin?'

‘They thought he was planting a bomb. When he told them he was looking for inspiration they locked him up. Prevention of Terrorism Act. Held incommunicado for seven days. Freaked out. Nobody knows where he is.'

I ran the toy ambulance up my arm, across my shoulder and onto hers. I drove down her arm and into her lap. She took my shoulders and pushed me onto the grass by the river, and we kissed again.

‘I'll always keep it,' I said.

‘And I hope you do!' She wiped her face with a handkerchief. ‘London was so hot. I had to shower twice a day. It's cool down here, air to breathe; last night was the only decent time I had. We went out, old friends from school.' They drank cocktails and danced with each other. The evening ended at her mother's flat, and they'd had a mad time.

‘I thought about you, standing with a drink, thinking. He'll be somewhere with a glass of cider having just as good a time.'

‘I didn't.'

‘Did you miss me?'

‘Dick got me drunk.'

‘Drunk?'

‘Jackson's garage. Green cider, I was ill. Saw things.'

‘What?'

‘Nightmares.'

‘That wasn't my fault.'

‘No,' I said. I only wanted her. I said, ‘Can I kiss you again?'

‘Yes.' She held her body close to me. I ran my hands to her waist, and a strip of skin above her skirt, where I could feel it was smooth and tiny hairs grew, and the ridge of her backbone ended.

Chedzoy let his cows into the meadow, they walked to graze at the fence. The sun set behind them, Muriel and I sat up and rested on our elbows to watch. A swan flew across the face of the sun, a mile away, towards the canal. Times passed, we were still there, a fish bubbled in the Isle, cocks crowed. The scents of honeysuckle blew down on us in the evening, I took her hand, and we walked over South Moor, jumped the stream from Whitecross to the Isle.

‘Smell that!' she said, and dropped my hand to run over the grass to Bob's withy beds. She lost herself in them, and started calling for me, like a bird.

‘Coo-ee! Coo-ee! Billee!'

‘Muriel! Muur-eelle!'

‘Hello! Hello! Billee!'

I chased her down a row and we ended on the ground.

‘You're pretty,' I said.

‘And you're so butch.'

‘Think so?' She laughed.

‘No,' she said.

‘What then?'

‘Handsome?'

‘Ha!'

‘Would I say so?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Believe what I say,' she said. ‘Be bold.'

‘Be bold?'

‘If you like.' She narrowed her eyes. ‘I love those eyes,' she said.

I looked away.

‘What's the matter?'

‘Nothing.' The withies grew around us like the bars of a natural prison, swaying in the breeze. Something moved in the grass, a bird or mouse, startled as evening shadows lengthened.

‘So quiet,' she said, ‘after London, it's so quiet. I forgot what it's like, sleeping over traffic. All night, all day; when I got back here I sat on the bed and could still hear them in my head.'

‘I've never been to London,' I said, ‘I wouldn't know.'

‘I'll take you. Like that?'

‘Okay.'

‘Not sure?'

‘Don't you think?'

‘No.'

‘Maybe I'm not.'

‘I'd show you around. Like you did for me. There's parks, hundreds of places you'd like.'

We walked through the withies to Blackwood with our arms around each other. The sunset made the picture. I told her about my father the stuffer, and his plans for me.

‘I knew he had it in him.'

‘What?'

‘Stuffing.'

I told her about the shearwater. She said she'd tell her mother.

‘She'll paint it,' she said.

‘Paint it?'

‘Why not?'

She stopped to kiss me by the river. She felt me as we pressed together, my trembling knee, and my hands on her back.

‘Don't shake,' she said.

‘Can't help it.'

We walked to the orchard, and watched my father, standing in the yard, looking at a mangle. He nodded his head and fetched something from the garden, held by the tail.

‘What's he got?'

‘I don't know.'

‘It looks like a mouse.'

‘It is a mouse.'

He turned the handle of the mangle, and slowly fed the prone rodent between the rollers, tail first. When pressure came to bear on the body, there seemed to be a pause in time, a silence over the whole land, the mangle handle stilled for a second. Muriel and I stared at each other but did not move, and the chickens froze, dumbed. Then, with a little pop, all the mouse's insides went outside and covered my father's clothes. He let go of the handle and said ‘Bloody hell!'

‘What you trying to do?' I shouted. He jumped.

‘Didn't see you there!'

‘What you trying to do?'

‘Thought I'd see if it worked.'

‘What?'

‘Stuffing. Preparing the corpse.' Muriel collapsed behind me.

‘You don't do it like that,' she said.

‘And you're the expert?'

‘No.'

‘Well?'

‘But you have to cut them open. Not squeeze them.'

‘I was experimenting! These are advanced taxidermitory techniques; all right with those present?'

‘No problem.'

We walked through the orchard to the ambulance, and she said, ‘Let's go swimming tomorrow.'

‘Swimming?'

‘Why not?'

‘Where?'

‘You tell me. Take me to a sunlit pool.'

‘And eels?'

‘What about them?'

‘They bite; and pike.'

‘You care?'

‘No. Do you?'

‘No.'

She climbed into the ambulance. ‘Take you anywhere?' she said.

‘Got to eat.' My mother stood at the kitchen door. ‘Ready!' she shouted. Muriel said, ‘Give me a kiss.'

‘I'll call you.'

‘You do that.'

Once I'd found a small spring, and taken a broody box from the chicken house roof, I made a trap. I fixed it so the door flipped up on a piece of string, through a hole in the top and down to a bait table. This was held from below, so at the slightest movement it sprung back, the string loosened and the door shut. I tested it on a bantam, I tested it on a stick, I tried it with a stone.

‘Hide it,' my father said, ‘give it here.'

Years ago, when my father learnt to hide his thoughts he learnt to hide things. Dick arrived as we carried the trap around the back of the workshop.

‘You look like Jekyll and Hyde!' he said. Dick hadn't learnt anything at school. His bike was falling to bits.

‘When you coming over?' he said.

‘Where?'

‘Jackson's.'

‘Jackson's?'

‘Why not? Or you still giving her one?'

‘I'm not …'

‘Won't let you?'

‘Hey!' I said. ‘Dick, if you haven't got anything better to do …'

‘Hector's gone off,' he said.

‘I'm not surprised.'

‘Eh?'

‘Where?'

‘Would I be telling you about it if I knew?' He threw angry, greasy hair away from his eyes. He wore a dirty brown leather jacket, with a collar like wings, zipped over an advancing belly so it rode up into a peak over his waist. His jeans were stained with cow shit. ‘Don't make me angry!' he said. Where he was trying to grow a moustache drifted a line of thin dark hair. He licked his lips, and picked at the bindings on his crash helmet.

‘My best friend, he was.'

‘Thanks.'

‘Dog friend.'

‘Only because he saved you a four-mile walk every day. You know it, Dick, soon as you got that bike I never saw him. Small wonder he took off. You've been neglecting him. He's gone looking for a new home.'

‘I'm not even his master to leave. He's Chedzoy's dog, I only took him rounding. Chedzoy gave him a thrashing so he stuck to me, he was scared.'

‘You want to look for him.'

‘Asking or telling?'

‘Either.'

‘You going to help me?'

‘You know where he'd go, get on that bike and make it work for a living.'

‘What you talking about? Trying to get rid of me?'

‘Me?'

At this moment, my mother appeared, to shout, ‘What the bloody hell is this?' She came round the corner carrying a mangle by the handle. ‘Who stained my mangle?' I watched my father dart across the yard behind her.

‘I don't know,' I said.

‘So you're not surprised my mangle's in this condition?'

‘No. I mean…'

‘What?'

‘Yes.'

‘Why “no” then?'

‘Don't know.'

‘We were talking about something else.'

‘Shut up, Dick.'

‘Only trying to help.'

‘My mangle's ruined. What is this anyway? Blood?' My father walked into something. She shouted, ‘That you?'

‘Who'd you think it is?'

‘Mangle vandal?' she asked him.

Dick asked me about Muriel's ambulance. ‘That's the stupidest thing I ever saw, that girl driving around; she nearly had me off the bike.'

‘Maybe you don't know Muriel.'

‘Oh! Muriel!' he said, ‘I don't know Muriel!'

Research into animal behaviour has shown scientists that young animals never approach their parents until after a meal. We ate cold pork pie and pickles for lunch, and fruit; apples or bananas. When the old man pushed his chair back to the wall and lit a cigarette, I asked if I could borrow the van.

‘He can't!' my mother shouted. I said, ‘I didn't want it anyway; just give me the afternoon off.'

‘Why?'

‘Don't know yet, we might go swimming.'

‘Swimming? In the river?'

‘Yes.'

‘You're mad. They'll have your toes off.'

My father said, ‘She's right.'

‘Give me the afternoon off.'

‘Tell me who ruined the mangle, I might think about it.'

‘You still on about that?'

She never used the mangle. She only wanted an argument.

‘What have you ever used it for? Crushing roots?'

‘Crushing roots; right, crushing roots, for the chickens. It's useful for that.'

On the road to Drove House I met two hikers. They had packs on their backs, sat in the verge and leant on them. The girl wore a vest and pants. In the heat, the straps on her pack had grooved welts into her shoulders. The man wore no shirt, and his chest was covered in thick, greasy hair.

‘Howdy!' he said.

Americans come to explore the mystical sights of Somerset on a month's tour away from their studies in London colleges. Malk was studying Pre-Christian beliefs. He was knocked out by the liquid quality of the landscape, and the way the morning seemed to float out of the ground rather than the sky. He wanted to take some of it back with him, something tangible, to underline the gist of his thesis; if only he could! His eighteen months in England had opened his eyes to the age of Europe and given him the strength to tackle France, Spain, Italy and Greece. Nothing though, he felt, would prepare him for Greek light. Dan Rummer had told him to expect a white light, burning the crust of America off his eyes. Sis, his girlfriend, though really we're more than friends in the conventional sense, didn't say much, except ‘You're talking bullshit' every time he did. When they said they were living in London, I said, ‘I wonder if you know a friend of mine? Muriel; she's from London, she's staying up the road.' I pointed.

‘American?'

‘No.'

‘Muriel? Muriel who?'

‘Wells.'

‘From London?'

‘Yes.'

‘Millions of people live there.'

‘Do they?' He gave me a look.

I sometimes feel conversations get away from me because I've something missing, a lack of sharpness, or the need to appear more stupid than I really am. I think this is grounded in a fear of rejection. I am an insecure person with a basketful of worry. If I could make a big enough basket it still wouldn't be big enough. That's how bad it is. I spent too much time at school arranging things to prove that I was bigger than what I was being taught, now I stand in the road talking to people who speak a language I don't understand.

‘Howdy!' said Muriel. She noticed my long face, the hikers had upset me. ‘What's the matter?' She put her arms around my neck, ‘Come on, it's never that bad.' I rested against her, and she stroked my hair, and kissed it. ‘Tired?'

‘Not really.'

‘What is it?'

‘Some Americans I met coming over, he said “Howdy!” like you did, but then went on and on about nothing. And mother's been on about her mangle; Dick's going round the bend. It's been one of those days.'

‘Hi!' Anne appeared at the top of the stairs and tripped by, carrying a book about drawing. ‘What a day!' she said, ‘I feel your age!' She looked me in the eye, put out her hands, one on my shoulder, the other on Muriel's. ‘Do something today I can't.'

Carrying lager across West Moor, and following the cut of Westport canal, I saw the hikers walking north. They saw us and stopped, but when I thought they were going to come over, turned round and went in the opposite direction.

I said, ‘There they are, the Americans.'

‘Let's not make ourselves too conspicuous.'

‘All right.'

We crouched in the grass, within the sight of Hambridge church, breathing like moths on a leaf. Her hand was warm.

‘They gone yet?'

‘Yes.'

Down by the Isle, the river flowed gently to the sea, eddying in pools at its banks, I chose one, passed it for another, and passed that when I saw a shaded place with willow trees, and a semicircle of reed, growing around. We scared a pair of mallard from the water, laid towels on the grass and Muriel hung the lager in a bag, to cool in the river. The sound of a church bell. The reeds, whispering in the breeze, broke above the gentle flow of the Isle. I stared at it.

‘Got your trunks on?'

‘No.'

‘Pity.'

‘And you've… ?'

‘Got a bikini.' She stood up, unbuttoned her dress and lifted it off. In stretching, her stomach pinched in, and her navel lengthened, like lips, the soft hairs there shining in the sunlight. On the left side of her body, at a spot beneath the ribs, she had a brown mole, raised above the surface of her skin like a seed. She kicked her shoes off. Her thighs were like tropical vegetables, she walked to the edge of the river, and up to her ankles in mud.

‘It's cold!' she screamed, turned round, balancing in the slime, bent down, and flicked a palmful over me. ‘Come on! Get ‘em off!'

I stepped out of my trousers and shirt and stood in my pants. People never swim around here. There is so much water, who would? I saw bubbles on the surface, she took a deep breath, her arms out, and dived in. Her head went under, just her bottom showed above the water, she surfaced, and threw her head back, so her hair flipped onto her neck.

‘Come on!'

‘Me?'

She stretched her arms out at nobody else. ‘Who else?' she said, ‘Dumbo!' What could I do?

‘It's freezing!' First, the cold, then the thought of eels, cruising through the water, searching virgin brown leg, a muddied light reflected off their bodies. I walked into the river, up to my waist, holding my arms level with my shoulders, and as I began to sink, Muriel swam off, upstream. She kicked little sprouts of water, this Isle had never seen anything like it. I kicked after her, my feet feeling the mud on the bottom, imagining sharp teeth. An adult pike could take a leg off, a vicious beast, best served by the fillet, baked.

She trod water, I met her where the current was strongest, it pushed me onto her, and we fell back to kiss. It did not get warmer. Her arms and neck were covered in goose-bumps. I got mud in my mouth.

‘You like?' she asked.

‘I'm cold.'

‘And what about your eels?' she said, ‘scared?' I felt something long and greasy slither up my leg, quivering, pushing gently against me, cold, it stopped just below my waist. Muriel held onto my shoulders. She balanced and let the toes of her leg peek out of the water.

‘What about that?'

‘Better than an eel; but I'm telling you, there's dangerous places; these waters, everyone knows.'

‘When have you ever seen anyone in them?'

‘Never.'

‘Then how do you know?'

‘I was told.'

‘How did they know?'

‘Other people told them, people who'd been swimming.'

‘But you said nobody ever did.'

‘What?'

‘Swim. I thought you knew everything.'

‘I never said that!'

‘But you've got the look about you. That handsome look.' She pinched me and swam back the way we'd come, to the reeds and our towels. I slipped, walking up the bank, covered my shins with mud; Muriel said I wasn't coming near her, put a foot up and knocked me back into the river.

I dried myself. I never liked swimming. I got dressed.

‘I put your ambulance on the window sill, in my bedroom.'

‘
Your
ambulance. It's yours.'

‘I know, thank you. Mine. Real one still going?'

‘Yes,' she said, and ‘come here.' I moved over and lay next to her. ‘Why'd you put your clothes on?' It was hot. She was lying in her bikini, I nestled, propped on my elbows, took my shirt off again, and lay on my stomach, looking up at her, looking at her face. She lifted a corner of the towel, wiped her forehead, and dabbed at the ends of her hair. She didn't seem to notice me, like I had become someone watching from outside a window at night, a crack in the curtains, a shaft of tempting light. She lowered her eyes and looked at me. Her freckles were still damp. She wore a tiny silver ball in each ear, I reached up and touched them.

‘Did it hurt?' I said.

‘What?'

‘When you had them done.'

‘Didn't feel a thing. You like?'

‘Yes,' I said, ‘and everything else. I looked at her face and a tide mark across her shoulders. I reached up and brushed it. ‘You've got mud on you. Want my towel?' I stood up, knelt in front of her, and wiped. I could feel her breath on my face, like a wind travels miles to gust at the corner of a field, or a bush.

‘Gentle hands…' she said, ‘put it down.' She took my neck with both hands and pulled, so we fell back, and I was on top, with one leg between hers. She ran a hand down my spine to the top of my trousers. I kissed her lips, and then her cheeks and nose, watched her eyes close, and her head roll back to give me a whole tight neck to kiss. Where tiny creases were in the skin, stretched, they revealed slivers of white flesh, like cracks in furniture varnish. She smelt of mud. I held her behind the shoulders, but she shifted so we lay on our sides, facing each other. It was a hot day. The moors were shot with pale yellow light. We did not make much noise, in the reeds around were voles, a mile away, a heron balanced in the sky, and came to stand by the river.

She kissed me on the chin and smoothed my chest. She smiled, tickled me across my neck and in my armpit. When I squirmed, she held tighter, took little rolls of skin and pinched them. Attack the best form of defence, I rolled over so she was on her back, and pinched her cheeks.

‘You'll have me black and blue!' she said.

‘You'll have me black and blue!' I said.

She pushed and rolled me back, but she caught her shoulder so the strap came down, and hung by her elbow, so I saw the rise of her breast where it pinked into brown. I stretched out to help, and she said, ‘Which way's it going?'

‘Is there any choice?'

‘Naughty.'

‘Is there?'