The Standing Water (13 page)

Jonathon and I also
skipped and danced through the school gates. We lingered for some moments to
look at Marcus’s pond as most of the other kids joyfully hurried home. The pool
was capped with ice, ice now covered with a snowy carpet. Obviously unable to
give Marcus any sweets, we just prayed he’d keep protecting us, that he’d
remember all the candies we’d chucked him. We had reason to hope – Weirton’s
hand hadn’t swooped on either of us since that day the teacher had battered me.
Our lips mumbled; we promised Marcus more gifts if he’d continue guarding us,
more sweets, even toys. I’d seen what had just happened to Stubbsy. I knew very
well what might have put Marcus in his pond, Lucy in her cupboard. We finished
murmuring and just stared over the pool, stared at those snowflakes dropping
down – flakes big enough for us to see their patterns: each one uniquely
wrought by God’s hand.

Laughter, shouts,
squeals, sobs startled us from our contemplations. We turned. Between the pond
and the gate were the brother, Darren Hill, Stubbs. The bigger lads had hold of
Dennis. The brother was giving him one of his famous Chinese burns. Stubbs twisted
and writhed, agony crumpled his face, but he couldn’t shake off the scorching
manacle of the brother’s hands. Darren laughed. Torrents of tears swept down
Stubbs’s cheeks. Darren bent down, scraped together a snowball. He moulded then
thrust it into Stubbs face, scrunching and grinding it.

‘There! That’ll dry
your tears!’ Darren shouted.

Stubbs spat out
crumbs of snow. His shaking hands took off his glasses – which had miraculously
not flown off during the walloping – dusted them, fumbled them back on. Stubbs
struck up a wail. The brother responded by unleashing a punch. It smashed into
Stubbs’s jaw; a crack rang out. Stubbs swayed on his already wobbly legs –
those legs making him bounce and bob like some absurd toy. Darren swung his
foot, booted Stubbs in the stomach. Dennis’s torso shot forward; his neck
thrust his face out, positioning it perfectly for Darren’s next move. He let go
a roundhouse punch. It slammed onto Stubbs’s chin, sent Dennis flying back.
Dennis crashed onto the road – there wasn’t even enough snow to soften his
fall.

‘What you doing?’ I
yelled above Stubbs’s bawling. ‘Don’t you think he’s had enough from Weirton?’

‘Yeah,’ Jonathon
said, ‘Weirton gave him a tre-mend-ous walloping!’

‘We know.’ Darren
grinned. ‘We heard it through the wall. This little baby was beefing like mad!’

‘Not surprising,
really,’ I said. ‘Think it was the most enormous walloping I’ve ever seen!
Really thought we might have another Marcus!’

Darren sprang at
Stubbs, hauled him from the ground. He held the weeping boy, Stubbs’s back to
his front, locking Dennis’s arms with his own. The brother ploughed a couple of
punches into Stubbs’s belly. Each time his face flew forward; each time his
eyes bulged out. Stubbs was again grappling for breath – his face screwed with
the strange agony of being winded. More tears surged.

‘Oh, don’t beef!’
Darren mocked.

‘Craig, he’s had
enough,’ said Jonathon. ‘Why don’t you leave him alone?’

‘I’ll tell you
why!’ shouted Craig. “Remember that last really tre-mend-ous one I got? All the
lads were teasing me about what Weirton had said, about how much I’d beefed,
the funny way I walked afterwards. And this little idiot –’

Craig reached out, thrust
his fingers into the back of Stubbs’s neck; Stubbs squirmed.

‘This idiot really
got the lads going then got them to beat me up! Well, now it’s payback time!’

‘Yeah,’ said Darren
as Craig started compacting an ice-ball, ‘and he is an idiot n’all! You heard
what Weirton said – he’s got a brain the size of a pea! Look at this joker,
this buffoon!’

From an incredibly
close range, Craig hurled his missile. It thankfully missed Stubbs’s eyes, but
bounced from his temple. Stubbs howled higher, louder – bawling as if his
little body contained the whole world’s pain. I wondered if Dennis would be
able to summon up more water for his weeping, but his tears kept gushing out.

‘Leave him alone
Craig,’ said Jonathon. ‘He’s really had enough. When he came out of the school,
he could hardly walk.’

‘Whose side are you
on?’ Craig grabbed his brother’s coat, pulled Jonathon towards him. ‘Blood’s
thicker than water, you know! And why are you sticking up for Stubbs? I thought
you hated him.’

‘I do!’ Jonathon
said. ‘I really hate him! But … it’s nearly Christmas, and Mr Weirton said at
Christmas we should be nice and kind and –’

‘Nice and kind?’
Craig snarled, shoved his brother away. ‘I’ll give you nice and kind!’

A punch hurled
itself through the fluttering snow. It slammed into the side of Jonathon’s
head. Jonathon crumpled, collapsed onto his knees. Craig unleashed a kick – his
foot socked Jonathon’s jaw. Jonathon was hurled back; he landed lying face-up
in the snow. He scrabbled to his feet. His gob hanging, he glanced around, blinking
his tear-pricked eyes.

‘Traitor!’ Craig
yelled. ‘Preferring Stubbs to your own brother! Blood’s thicker than water!’

Craig rushed at his
sibling. Jonathon turned, sprinted down the street. Craig chased him then let
Jonathon pelt away, flinging a hastily-scooped snowball after him.

‘Traitor! I’ll get
you at home – just you wait!’

I’d been standing,
rooted in the snow. Darren shoved Stubbs to the ground, strode over to me.

‘What you looking
at?’ he said.

I didn’t even see
his fist. It flew from nowhere, whacked me just above my ear. I teetered, my
legs quaked, but I stayed on my feet. The world rocked – the snowy ground
pitching, the flakes falling slantwise.

‘Ryan!’ Jonathon
shouted. ‘Run!’

I forced my body
into motion, charged down the street. The brother dashed at me, hurled a punch;
I ducked. I ran to Jonathon, who stood on the pub’s corner, and the brother jogged
back to Dennis. Our attempt to reason with Craig and Darren wouldn’t help
Stubbsy. The blows they’d given us had stirred up their bloodlust. Stubbs was
still on the ground. Both lads went in hard – their fists pounding as the snow
spiralled around them. Stubbs wailed, screamed, begged. I wondered if his cries
would alert a teacher in the school, but no one came running out. The lads just
went on battering.

‘Come on.’ Jonathon
jerked his head. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’

We trudged in the
direction of Davis’s shop. The side of my skull stung; my head ached; the world
had stopped its rocking, but still sometimes my feet would stumble as if
walking across a ship’s deck. I turned to Jonathon.

‘Brotherly love,
eh? Guess that was Craig’s idea of Christmas kindness.’

‘I hate my brother
sometimes!’ Jonathon spat those words out, stared ahead, clenched his fists. ‘I
hate him!’

‘You shouldn’t feel
like that.’ I said. ‘Remember what happened to Cain? God says we should love our
brothers, not hate them!’

‘I bet,’ Jonathon
said, ‘God never had a brother like mine!’

‘He did give you a
bloody good punch and kick!’ I said. ‘What if bruises swell up? What’ll you
tell your parents?’

‘I’ll just say I
fell over while playing in the snow. My dad won’t mind. He says a bit of rough
and tumble never did anyone any harm.’

We reached Davis’s.
Jonathon carefully wiped his eyes before we went in. The bell clanged; Davis
looked up. We ordered our ten-penny mixtures, and soon Davis was hobbling and
chuntering, going through his standard routine – holding his tongs over the
jars of our favourite sweets, drinking in the longing on our faces before
slamming the jars’ lids back on. All the while, he was celebrating the whacking
of Stubbs, which – of course – he already knew about.

‘Oh, sounds like Mr
Weirton gave out a
great
one!’ Davis creaked and shuffled in a blissful
dance. ‘His best for ages! Ho, ho! An early Christmas present for Dennis and no
mistake! Won’t be able to sit down till New Year!
That
’ll teach him! Lads
like him need taking in hand!’

As Davis waffled,
my thoughts slipped away. For some reason, I again got thinking about angels.
After seeing Stubbs’s whacking, Weirton’s rage, Dennis’s beating, I’d doubted
that such beings could be wandering among us. I’d reckoned they’d prefer to spend
their Christmases elsewhere. But now I wondered. Perhaps they really were
around us. After all, Stubbs had committed a serious sin. Maybe the angels
thought Weirton was right to have given him such a hiding. He’d stolen
something, breaking one of the dread laws the vicar had told us God had given Moses.
Not only that – he’d nicked decorations from our Christmas tree, a tree we’d
put up to celebrate a most sacred festival! And now I thought about it, angels
could be strict. There were those ones that guarded the gates of Eden with a
flaming sword. I wouldn’t have liked to try to get past them! Maybe angels really
did walk and flutter around us. I looked up at Davis – his sagging cheeks, his
wrinkled papery hands, the slack flesh under his jaw. He was so old – in such a
long life he must have glimpsed some angels. Maybe he’d seen some when he’d
been on Noah’s Ark. As he hobbled and muttered, I thought about asking him, but
some instinct told me I’d better not. Davis was taking his time, shuffling and
teetering, his ancient voice quivering out its endless pleasure at the
walloping of Stubbs.

‘Always been a
rascal that Stubbs. Today’s hiding was
just
what he needed! Ho, ho –
apparently the lad could hardly even
walk
afterwards. Tottering about on
bandy legs like some drunken clown! Shame Mr Weirton can’t give something similar
to our young friend here.’ Davis nodded at Jonathon. ‘Stop him ending up like
that brother of his!’

Anger flared in Jonathon’s
eyes; his gob fell open. He seemed about to protest, but Davis chuntered on.

‘Just what a whole
lot of them need – that Darren Hill, Richard Johnson, maybe even young Mr
Watson here. Mr Weirton should have lined them all up, given them a Christmas
gift they’d never forget! Don’t want them going down the same road as that Lucy
or that Marcus Jones …’

The shopkeeper was
taking ages, even longer than normal. I was starting to get twitchy in his deathlike
store. I glanced around at the solemn slabs of flesh behind the meat counter,
the embalmed flies that were
still
on the window sill. I kept my
breathing shallow, tried to avoid sucking in too much of the confined tomblike
air. To distract myself, I let my eyes wander to the counter’s folded
newspapers. I could understand a bit more than the last time I’d looked, but
still the text was full of strange intriguing words – strikes, inflation, cuts,
ri-ots, pov-erty. Perhaps I’d ask my dad what they meant. But somehow I knew
such terms must have dread meanings, that they couldn’t be referring to
anything good.

The bell clanged as
we left. The snowy air tasted great after the funereal breaths we’d drawn in
that store, even if its milky scent had to battle Emberfield’s smoke and dunghill
pong. We stopped by the Old School, leant on its wall, untwisted our
sweet-stuffed bags. We hadn’t actually done too badly – we’d each got quite a
few cola bottles, both normal and fizzy, I’d got a chocolate football and
Jonathon had received two – two! – flying saucers. I unwrapped my football,
shoved it in my mouth, chucked a shrimp into the playground for the ghostly
kids.

‘Wow!’ I spoke
through the delicious chocolate coating my teeth, tongue. ‘Davis has been quite
gen-er-ous for once!’ I proudly pronounced that word I’d learnt recently. ‘Maybe
even grumpy Davis is feeling some Christmas spirit!’

‘Nah,’ said
Jonathon, ‘he’s probably just happy about Stubbs’s walloping.’

I pitched another
shrimp into the playground then Jonathon – to my amazement – lobbed in a flying
saucer.

‘What you giving
the ghostly kids that for!?’ I said. ‘They’d be happy with owt!’

‘Well –’ Jonathon
shrugged ‘– it is Christmas.’

‘Suppose,’ I said.

As well as shrimps,
I threw in a couple of cola bottles, a liquorice bootlace. I gazed through the
falling flakes, across the snow-draped schoolyard, out over the white fields
beyond.

‘Jonathon,’ I said,
‘you know what Weirton was saying in assembly about angels. Do you reckon angels
might walk round Emberfield?’

‘Nah,’ Jonathon
said, ‘what’d they want to come here for? If you were an angel and could fly
anywhere, why would you come here?’

‘Wouldn’t they even
come at Christmas?’

‘Why should they?
If you could spend Christmas anywhere you fancied, what’d you spend it here
for?’

‘Suppose you’re right,’
I said.

‘Come on,’ said
Jonathon, ‘we’d better get going – before the ghostly teacher appears!’

We tramped away. We
peered down the school lane, but there was no sign of Stubbs, the brother,
Darren. Davis had kept us for so long I guessed that – even after his whacking,
even after his pounding from those lads – Stubbs would have had time to stagger
home. Still, seeing where his beating had taken place depressed me. How could
the angels let such a thing happen? I thought about what I’d read in the
papers. It didn’t seem there was a lot of Christmas cheer around. Maybe it
wasn’t just Emberfield – maybe the angels had abandoned our whole country, our
whole world. Perhaps they were so disgusted with human sin they’d fluttered
off, leaving us to our crimes, our violence, our cruelty. I did, though, see
something on the way home that gave me some hope. We’d decided to peer down the
gap with the witch’s hand. Heads together we stared into that space as far more
than the freezing day made us tremble. The hand didn’t show itself. All we
could see, when our eyes had got used to the gloom, was the rubbish on the
floor, the flaking paint, the snow steadily falling at the end of the crack.
Perhaps that evil outline had been scared away by that time of year’s holiness.
Maybe it had even been banished by righteous angels, angels who were even then
hovering invisibly around us. I could at least hope.