The Standing Water (27 page)

But I snapped back
to reality and didn’t lose a second. Before he knew it, Jonathon was hoisted
up, held out over that river. I wanted to teach the little fool a lesson – let
him know the horror of plunging, vertigo. I let him fall, caught him again,
gave him the hiding of his life. I beat and beat him – beat on through his
sobs, his flying tears, his mouth grasping for the breath my hand expelled.
Beat on through the ominous thuds of my own heart, thuds that pounded faster as
the whacking went on. I beat on, ignoring the tingles racing over my skin, the
sweat my body spewed, my lungs jerking as I also struggled for breath. I got
into a strange rhythm – my beating hand was all I could think about. I just
wanted to thrash out all the bad stuff – whatever demons had made Browning push
his brother off the bridge, all my memories of Marcus his prank had summoned.
Locked in my tempo, I tried to bash them all out – the way a beater thrashes
filth from a carpet. I came to myself again, gave him a few ultra-forceful ones
to finish off and set him back on the bridge. For one terrible second I thought
I’d gone too far again. Jonathon was deathly white. I didn’t show it to the
kids, but I was worried. As he jerked air into his starved lungs, I willed
every breath in, praying to God the boy would be fine. But his breathing
steadied, pink came back into his cheeks and it was myself I started to fret
about. Something didn’t feel right within. My breath wheezed alarmingly, my
heart wouldn’t stop its boom, my head swelled as that heart rushed surges of
blood through my body. Yet my breathing stabilised, my heart’s thud grew more
regular and I guessed I’d be OK.

I straightened up
and only then realised it was my bad hand I’d walloped the boy with. My tie-bandage
lay at my feet in a puddle. Hand hurt hellishly, throbbing and aching. Then I
remembered Craig was still down in the river. Idiot boy just kneeling there,
staring up, as if waiting for the clouds to part and the voice of God to bellow
down some instructions. Well, I don’t think even the Lord would be capable of
dividing Emberfield’s clouds at their thickest so I had to step in. Shouted
down to Craig to get himself out of the stream. Felt sorry for the lad, wasn’t
his fault for once, but what could I do? Only way out was to charge up that
bank forested with nettles. Took a couple of attempts and a good few stings for
the lad to conquer it. Good lesson for him, I suppose – we can’t dodge life’s
difficulties: sometimes we just have to charge into a situation and take
whatever pain it dishes out. At one point, the poor boy really did have to
‘grasp the nettle’ – hold onto a whole plant to stop himself falling back, hang
onto it as agony buzzed through him. Was impressed he didn’t let go – must be
of more robust character than I’d thought.

Marched them all
back to school – another potentially pleasant day ruined by the kids’ idiocy.
Like Dennis Stubbs spoiling the last afternoon before the Christmas break. But
it’s not like Jonathon to play pranks, especially dangerous ones. Usually a
more thoughtful, serious sort of lad. Must be that brother’s influence. Have to
give him a few more wallopings to thrash it out of him. I’ll start with one in
assembly tomorrow. Nothing excessive this time, just six of the best and a
couple for luck. Do it in front of all the classes, show them I won’t tolerate
such buffoonery, let them know what’s what. Don’t think there was any evil
intention behind what Jonathon did. Just a joke that went wrong. Hardly a Cain
and Abel story. We’re not like those city schools – kids stabbing one another, badly
beating each other up. At least here there’s still
some
respect for civilised
Christian values. But I’ll give him that hiding tomorrow, let them all know
violence will never be accepted here.

Got them back to
school. Perkins was fussing about taking Craig to hospital, saying he might
need stitches. Load of old rot! Dabbed plenty of disinfectant on his gash, the
boy squirming as I thrust the cotton pad drenched with that liquid onto the cut
then kept it pressed there. Stuck a plaster on, and knew the lad would be fine.
Sent him home, though, for the rest of the day with a note explaining what had
happened. Made Jonathon stand in a corner then do all his work out in the
corridor. Gave him three weeks of detentions at lunchtime and during breaks. As
the day went on, my hand swelled more – palm and fingers bulging, a good angry
red. Kept it wrapped in cold cloths. Perkins also started fussing about that.
Doctor would just tell me to do the same – what would be the point in seeing
one? Plus having to describe how I’d injured the thing. Same when I got home, Sandra
flapping about it. Women! Nagging me to let someone take a look. Made a change,
though, to see her animated. Better, I think, than her usual cool politeness
that makes me boil inside, as if nothing could rupture the porcelain composure
of her face. She’d certainly never let a smile crack it! The cold disapproval I
feel from her when I have to discipline Nicholas. If she doesn’t like it, I’d
prefer her to come out and say so! She just makes a show of comforting him
afterwards – ‘Daddy feels he has to …’ ‘Daddy really thinks he must …’ – as the
milksop sobs away. Maybe her babying the boy is half the problem! That’s what
we get, I suppose, for disobeying the Lord’s commandments. There’s a lot to be
said for the Church’s teachings on sexual morals, believe you me.

Time for bed. Damn
hand’s burning and stinging, but I hope it lets me sleep.

Tuesday, 10
^th
May,
1983

Bad dreams last
night. In the first one, I was in the damned church at Salton. It was dusky,
twilight outside, I guessed, candles on the altar and at the end of the pews.
Bell tolling as if for a funeral – shuddering its echoes right through the church,
right through my body. And suspended before the altar was that horrible
gauntlet. I couldn’t prevent my eyes staring at it. Its colour started to
change. It was reddening, beginning to glow, as if something was heating it up.
I ran from the church, staggered into the graveyard. Saw those old stones,
those yews silhouetted against the darkening sky. Bell still clanging away. All
around was a feeling of death – or at least of something drawing to a close – a
feeling so strong I could smell and taste it. Retreated from the churchyard,
over the field, that horse watching me – silent, its eyes reproachful, puffing
out clouds of resentful breath. Got through the field and back onto the path,
and things got worse. Bell went on bashing and this strange
singing
joined it. Thundering, mournful, it reverberated across the land. And then, from
both sides of the track, mist began to rise – from where all those Scots
soldiers were buried, from where ancient curses skulked. The mist floated high
into the air as I stood on the path and stared up, as all the while that bell
tolled, that singing boomed away. The mist formed itself into a huge sword and
its end thrust down at me – its point hovering inches from my head.

In the second dream,
I was in the school, in front of the store cupboard. The door creaked open by
itself, and Lucy was in there, just staring at me, her skull fixed in its
grinning gape. She didn’t move, but somehow I knew it was her who’d made the
door swing. I fled from the school, paced from the gates, but felt myself drawn
towards the pond. I couldn’t pass it; I had to stand and gaze at its brown
waters. There were bubbles coming up – spheres of breath too large for any
fish. I didn’t see Marcus. The dream didn’t match the horrors of what had
really happened – we weren’t twisting and grappling in those stinking waters,
my palm ready, held flat, trembling in its eagerness to shove the boy’s head
down. There was no scene of me beating and beating him on the bank. Just those
bubbles spiralling up – evil, vengeful, accusatory.

The rest of the day
was pretty tame in comparison to what had gone on in my head at night. I had
Jonathon standing at the front in assembly as I leapt and ranted about his
antics of yesterday. I then grabbed the boy and clobbered him. I’d intended not
to give him too many, but – somehow – after that build-up, it would have felt
like an anti-climax if I’d reined myself in. So my hand flew; the boy’s tears
sprayed. I slipped into my pounding trance, thrashing and thrashing the lad
until almost all my strength had seeped from my body. He sobbed, spluttered and
hiccupped, bobbed and swayed on bouncy legs afterwards. Felt a bit bad about it
later, knew I’d got carried away. Not sure how many he really needed – if I
know Mr Browning, Jonathon would have got a few licks last night as well. But
they have to learn. Rather give too much chastisement than not enough. When I
got home, read something in one of my books – in ancient Mesopotamia, they had
schools to teach the boys who were destined to become scribes. Not so
different, really, from the kids I’m teaching here. Four-thousand years ago and
that mighty civilisation had an alphabet of over six-hundred signs. Such
societies were built on discipline! No namby-pamby stuff with just the hand.
They
whipped
the kids – for talking in class, for standing up at the
wrong time, for bad work. Don’t build wonders of the world without everyone
knowing their place, knowing what’s what. And these bleeding-heart liberals
want to change the fine traditions that have made civilisations flourish for
millennia. Can only lead to decadence, decay, chaos! All this brought me to my
senses, made me feel better about Jonathon.

We got back to
school after the trip to Salton. Weirton sent the brother home, a sticking
plaster covering the gash on his brow. It was strange – I thought – that innocent
Abel should be the one marked, his cut in more-or-less the same place God had
inflicted his brand on Cain in the Bible. Yet Jonathon – that Cain who’d tried
to bump off his sibling – still had a smooth forehead, free from any sign of
God’s displeasure. Of course, it was early days, and the vicar had said that
many years of our lives could seem just a few hours to God so I supposed it
might take the Lord some time to stir and fire His bolt down to brand my
friend. But I shivered with the knowledge it could come at any moment – it
could smite Jonathon on the way home or smash through the school roof, maybe
scorching a few infants along the way. Weirton kept Jonathon apart from us. He
struggled tearfully through his work out in the corridor, munched on a table of
his own at lunchtime. I was just glad he seemed reasonably OK. I’d seen how
long Weirton had thrashed him for, how white Jonathon had been when the teacher
had put him down. I’d worried for a moment we might have another Marcus or
Lucy. And I was amazed the brother seemed all right after his tumble from such
a high bridge. Maybe Marcus had decided not to gobble him, had saved him with his
magic, hadn’t wanted another boy to share his watery doom. Perhaps it was
towards Weirton that Marcus’s malevolence was focused – the man that might have
caused his death in the first place.

News of what had
happened soon seeped through the town. In his shop, Davis rapped his first
finger on a pile of newspapers, shuffled and chuntered about what the world was
coming to when brothers could do such things to one another. Well, he’d heard
Mr Weirton had given him a damned fine thrashing, and a good thing too.

‘Swinging from that
bridge out over that stream,’ the ancient voice quivered. ‘Right over the scene
of his crime – best thing for him if you ask me, each wallop slamming into him
the fact he’s done wrong. Mind you –’ though there was no one else in the shop,
Davis spoke more quietly ‘– in a way, it’s difficult to blame him, with a
brother like that. If
I
had one like him, think I’d have been tempted to
shove him off a bridge n’all! I’d stay away from that family if I were you,
young Mr Watson. Nothing but trouble those boys – both seem as bad as each
other!’

I walked home, past
the wet fields and gardens, past dunghills adding their gentle steam to the
misty air. I could understand Davis’s advice to avoid Jonathon. That fitted
with the Bible story, in which all had ignored Cain. It just confused me that
poor Abel should be shunned too. I reached my house, trudged up my garden path,
passing our patient gnome who still hadn’t caught any fish despite his
persistence. Leaving our cheery garden dwarf, I entered my home, and was soon
in the lounge as a cartoon blared from the TV. I thought for a selfish moment
how good it was to be free to watch them, without Jonathon eager to pull me
away from those crashes and explosions – pull us away to set-outs, away so he
could tell me some new theory he’d concocted. Mum came in with her tray of
biscuits and milk as my sister raced around her legs, mouth filled with the
dummy she still sometimes sucked. She was now four – another blessed number. It
recalled the four elements – whose existence I’d managed to work out by my own
reasoning; the four directions, or points of the compass; of course, the four
disciples of Christ who’d written their four gospels; the four limbs; the four
points of Jesus’s cross; and the four dread horsemen whose appearance – Weirton
had told us – would herald time’s end. I was getting on for eight – double
four, two circles stitched together, two never-ending loops: a racetrack of an age
with no visible exit. Mum put her tray down, turned to look at me. I knew from
her gaze, the hesitant way she moved that she wanted to talk about something
serious.

‘Ryan, I heard what
happened on the trip to Salton today.’

I nodded.

‘What a terrible
thing to do – pushing your own brother off a bridge! The boy could have been
seriously injured or even killed! We’ll see what your father has to say when he
gets home, but I don’t think you should be friends with Jonathon anymore. And
you can give that brother of his a wide berth too – never been anything but
trouble that one!’

‘Never anything but
trouble!’ my sister sang.

Again, it seemed that
unfortunate Abel also bore the scar of shame, that he was being shunned as much
as his guilty sibling.

‘I’m not surprised
Mr Weirton gave Jonathon a good hiding!’ Mum said.

‘A good hiding!’
shouted my sister.

A little later, Dad
arrived, a big newspaper draped across his arm. I doubted he’d bought it from
Davis as he didn’t appear to know about Jonathon’s outrage. He just sat on the
sofa, unfurled his paper and was soon snarling and tutting to himself. I
overheard some of his mutters, but wasn’t sure what they all meant – ‘these
damned homeless should be locked up, or put in the army’, ‘all these unemployed
are unemployable’, ‘damn Irish bastards – hang all terrorists!’ Dad turned the
page, flexed the newspaper and I peered at a graph of something called
unemployment statistics. It showed a jagged line climbing up – looking a little
like the spikes on the back of my toy plastic dinosaur. Mum beckoned Dad from
the lounge, with a sigh and tut he flung down the paper and went to her. As we
were eating later that evening, my father said, ‘Ryan, your mum told me about
what happened on today’s trip. I thought that here in Emberfield we were at
least spared most of the rot, the hooliganism, the laxity that’s overtaking the
country, but it seems even here we’re beginning to be poisoned by it all –’

‘Hopefully the
government we’ve got in now will improve things, help turn the clock back,’ Mum
said. ‘And at least here we’ve got Mr Weirton at the school to set them
straight.’

‘Yes, at least
there’s that,’ said Dad. ‘And he
did
set Jonathon straight by the sounds
of it. But anyway, Ryan –’ Dad turned back to me ‘– I don’t want you seeing any
more of those Browning lads – either of them! Seems they’re both as bad as each
other! Your friendship with Jonathon ends right here!’

‘But Dad – ’

‘Sorry, Ryan, I’ve
made my decision. Whatever
rot
, whatever cancer might be infecting our
nation, I’m damned if I’ll see it take over my kids. I’m not surprised Jonathon
turned out like that with a brother like Craig! You’ll not hang around with
either of them again!’

‘Aw Dad –’

‘And if you do, I’ll
take my belt to your behind!’

‘Belt to your
behind!’ my sister yelled.

I tried to pinch
her under the table, but she instinctively squirmed away.

That night I lay in
bed in the blackness. As well as the usual terrors of goblins and ghosts,
sadness tugged my heart down. Life in Emberfield without my friend stretched
ahead of me. It seemed nothing but a dull trudge through a numb lonely world.
Who else was there to hang around with but the sneaky Stubbs, the violent
Richard Johnson, the gormless Darren Hill? I gulped, sniffed; a couple of tears
trickled. I tried to distract myself by thinking of the flat dark landscape
spreading outside the house – the silent bogs and ditches, Marcus snoozing in his
pond. I wondered if a flash would light up that world beyond my curtains as God
streaked lightning down to smite Jonathon as he slept just a few streets away,
but no such bolt hurtled. I shuddered as my mind floated off to Salton, as I
remembered all the stories Weirton had told that day. I thought of Henry VIII
drifting, axe in hand, through that quiet farmhouse, the sleeping Scots, the church
at Salton ringed by graves, that gauntlet suspended inside. A shiver jerked through
me as I recalled the legend of it bringing death to anyone foolish enough to
slip it on. I pictured it hanging, just hanging there, full of its dread power.
Then I walked my mind back outside, thought of the poor Drummer Boy trapped in
his tunnel, another child victim of adult ideas. I shivered again as I imagined
how damp and dark, cold and lonely it must be down there. I jumped and twisted
in my bed as his beats started up. Unmistakably they came rattling across the
flatlands. There were bangs and patters, thuds and clunks, swelling from a
quiet sound to a loud echo as I grasped my cover, shook beneath it. In faster
and faster waves those beats clattered as my heart punched my ribs. But then I
noticed something in the Drummer’s rhythm urging me not to be afraid – as if
those bashes and rolls were trying to speak to me across the ages. There was
sympathy there, friendliness, understanding. I relaxed my fear-gripped body, my
booming heart slowed, and I just lay on my back and listened as the beats
reverberated across the countryside before those patters faded.

The following day,
Weirton gave Jonathon a hammering in front of us all in assembly. My hatred for
the headmaster surged as his hand thrashed my friend, as his tears were pitched,
as Jonathon was lowered – his face ghost-white – to bounce on swaying legs and
grasp for breath as Weirton – scarlet-cheeked, sweat-drenched – also struggled
for air. Jonathon then had to work on a table of his own, was kept in at
lunchtime and break. Over the next days, I drifted to and from school by myself,
watching the bright kagools bobbing through the mist ahead. After maybe a week,
the brother’s plaster came off. I gasped when I saw him without it. A thick
inch-long scar ran down one side of his forehead. A film of skin, like the
thinnest tracing paper, held back a gooey, wormlike substance. Surely this was
a mark people would know him by! And it was a mark people responded to. Craig
was shunned by all, even Dennis Stubbs and Darren Hill. It was like some force
emanated from that wound, shoving people away. Jonathon and I, the brother,
would each plod to school by ourselves, trudge through the dull days alone. But
in the long silent night, when I lay in the terrifying blackness, unable to
stop myself imagining the vast plains outside, imagining what lay beneath or
roved over them, I’d sometimes hear the beats of the Drummer Boy rattling
across the land and feel comforted, his patters giving gentle companionship,
his patters driving the threats from all those other spooks away.

In the lonely
drabness of the daylight hours, the odd interesting thing did happen. Once, I
was in Davis’s shop, waiting behind an old housewife as she waffled to that
store’s owner. The talk at first was pretty predictable.

‘Eeh look at that
one there.’ The housewife jabbed her finger at me. ‘Look how eager he is to get
his sweets. No patience, no manners these days.’

‘Aye,’ said Davis,
‘but don’t you worry – Mr Weirton will set them right. May take a good few
years of batterings with that hand, but he’ll put ’em right before they leave,
you mark my words! And that one –’ Davis thrust his trembling finger at me ‘– he’s
been a lot better since they stopped him seeing those Browning boys. Nothing
but trouble, the pair of them! If I ever see you with either of those lads,
young man, I’ll tell your father and he’ll take his belt to your behind quick
smart!’

I let Davis and the
woman waffle, and gazed down at the papers. I could read more and more each
time I looked at them, but they were just full of the usual stuff –
unemployment, inflation, strikes, riots, bombs. I looked up from my studies and
found the talk had got onto something much more intriguing.

‘Now, they say that
gauntlet
,’ Davis was saying, ‘belonged to some knight long ago who died
in a horrible way. You must have heard the legend – anyone who slips it on is
dead in a matter of weeks.’

‘It
is
just
a legend, surely?’ the woman said.

I couldn’t see why
something should be valued less because it was a legend, but Davis went on.

‘Well, that’s what
you say. But I know for a fact that over the years several jokers have tried it
on and all of them died just a month or so later – car crashes, heart attacks,
riding accidents, you name it. Even knew a few of them myself. Remember them
boasting of how they’d dared put the thing on and I also remember going to
their funerals not long afterwards!’

Of course, Davis
would remember – he’d probably arrived in Emberfield shortly after the mighty
waters of God’s Great Flood had retreated. I imagined a younger version of him,
striding across the marshy land – even marshier in those days – to start up his
shop. But what he was saying about the gauntlet pricked my interest.

‘That’s why they
hang it so high on that chain – to stop reckless idiots trying it on.’

‘You wonder why
anyone would want to go anywhere
near
it!’ the woman said.

‘Well,’ said Davis,
‘the legend says the thing does have some useful properties. Apparently, those
who possess it, but don’t put it on are kept safe from all violence, robberies
and murderers. Something pretty useful in the old days, I’d bet.’

‘Useful
now
,
the way things have been going!’ The woman’s finger rapped the newspapers
stacked on the counter. ‘Country’s been going to the dogs!’

‘The thing is
though –’ Davis lowered his voice although I could still hear him ‘– if you
possess it, it gives you this protection, but I’ve heard the thing
tries
to slip itself on your hand. It ends up falling onto it or getting itself in a
place you thrust your hand into. And, well, we know what’ll happen after that!’