The Standing Water (38 page)

‘Sorry, Mrs Leigh.’

‘All right, go on,
but be quick about it!’

I hurried through
the cloakroom, down the corridor. The only noise was the burble through the
walls of kids running, squawking, chattering. Our classroom faced the school
field so I had to squat down below the level of the window. No kids were
hanging around outside, but now and then one ran past and if they happened to
glance in, I knew they might spot me. I crouched by Weirton’s coat, my shaking
hands drew the glove from his pocket. As I moved in a crablike crouch across
the eerily empty room towards my satchel, I cursed our lost opportunity.
Perkins could be back tomorrow; Weirton would again be booming and bashing next
door, making it much harder to get the glove on him. I was just about to slip
it back in my bag when I glimpsed something by Weirton’s desk. My eyes fastened
on it, knowing it was the answer. Weirton’s briefcase sat open on the floor
next to his chair. Keeping hold of the gauntlet, I shuffled over to his bag.
The briefcase smelled of leather, but new shiny leather, unlike the ancient
material that bound our bibles and hymnbooks. Heart thudding, I peered inside.
Flaps divided it into sections – some held papers and books, others bottles and
boxes of what I guessed might be sweets. From the drawings on the cardboard,
and what I could see through the brown plastic of the bottles, it seemed the
contents did resemble candies. I thought about gobbling a few to get back at
Weirton. I knew
I’d
hate it if someone stole my sweets. I grasped a
packet, but then Stubbs charged past the window, dangerously close. If he’d
glanced in, he might have spied me. Reminded I’d no time to squander, I let go
of the package and chose a part of the briefcase filled with papers with maths
exercises on: the sort I could imagine Weirton handing out that afternoon. I eased
the glove into that bit of Weirton’s bag. With all those pages in there, it was
a cramped fit, but I managed to squeeze it in and get the flaps closed so it
couldn’t be seen from above. Only by thrusting his hand down would Weirton
discover that gauntlet. Along the top of the flaps was a zip. I did it up,
leaving only the part above the gauntlet open, making it even more likely his
hand would go in there. I hurried down the corridor, and was soon out in the
playground telling Jonathon what I’d done.

Back in the
classroom, Weirton banged and strode, lecturing some lads about playing
football too roughly in the break though I’d seen the game and it’d looked
normal enough to me. As he flung his pointing finger towards the field then thrust
it at the guilty boys, as he sweated and bawled, I was again reminded of how
he’d changed, of how the tiniest thing now set him off, of how he seemed to be
looking
for stuff to rant about. I wondered if he’d cap his tirade with a walloping,
but – after panning his eyes around the room, a room hushed and humid with
tension – he picked his chalk up and turned to the board. To my joy, the chalk
– squeaking its pain as Weirton drove it hard – was carving numbers, sums,
mathematical signs onto that suffering oblong of black.

‘Now!’ Weirton
turned his vast body towards us, his finger wagged. ‘Make sure you listen and
listen well because I’ll soon be handing out some maths exercises and I’ll
expect you to get them
right
!’

More joy, nervous
joy leapt in me – that joy jumping like the jets of a fountain, a fountain
powered by my pounding heart. Weirton went on barking out his explanations, his
chalk went on squealing as he gouged numerals into the board. He stopped, put
the chalk down, bent towards his briefcase. He thrust his hand deep into that
bag. He wrenched that hand out. That hand gripped a sheaf of papers, with
exercises printed on. They weren’t the pages I’d seen earlier. Any jets of joy
within me plummeted. Weirton strode round the class handing those papers out,
hurling them across our desks with an irritated twitch of his wrist. Thirty
heads were soon down, thirty pencils scratching their way through the tasks.
Weirton paced the room peering down at our progress. He loomed above Suzie
Green, drilling his finger into her head as she struggled over one particular
sum, his voice rumbling, his voice rising to a yell as her tears began to drop,
smudging her page. A couple of minutes later, Stubbs was getting the same
treatment. We battled on through the rest of the exercises. Though the sums
weren’t hard, I still felt I was struggling against the heavy atmosphere – like
I was swimming through air thick with Weirton’s anger. I cursed the fact he
hadn’t reached into the section with the gauntlet, but what he said as the
afternoon break came near gave me some hope.

‘Now, I can see
most of you need a lot more practice at this – mentioning no names Suzie Green,
Dennis Stubbs and Darren Hill! I’ve got plenty more exercises in my bag –’ the
finger thrust at the briefcase ‘– which you dunces will keep doing until you
get them right! Let’s see how we all get on after break. But, I’ll tell you
this, my patience has limits! And some of you are very close to those limits
right now! Just bear
that
in mind when you come back in here!’

Jonathon and I found
a quiet patch of the playground.

‘Can’t
believe
he hasn’t put his hand into the gauntlet!’ said Jonathon.

‘Me too!’ I said. ‘But
you know what? I reckon the next exercises he gets out
will
be from the
bit of the bag with the glove in!’

‘Let’s hope so!’
said Jonathon. ‘Then it’ll be bye-bye Weirton! If the magic works, that is. If
it doesn’t, there’s still my robot.’

‘Course it’ll work!
You’ve heard all the legends! We’ll only need your robot if he doesn’t put the
glove on. Magic’s much more powerful than science, but I suppose science is
useful sometimes as a sort of back-up.’

‘Yeah,’ said
Jonathon, ‘suppose.’

Weirton’s whistle blast
signalled the end of break and we filed in.

‘OK –’ back in the
classroom, Weirton stood wagging his finger ‘– I’ll give you the next set of
exercises. I hope during the break you numbskulls have been able to give your
tiny minds a rest because I really do expect you to get these right. No excuses
this time!’

Weirton strode to
his desk, stooped, reached a hand down to his briefcase. My whole body tense, I
fixed my eyes on his blind fingers. Those fingers found the section that
contained the gauntlet. They fumbled the zip open; the hand thrust inside. Weirton
whipped his hand out. It held the wad of exercises I’d seen before. Weirton
smartly zipped that section up – the gauntlet still within. He handed out the
papers as my body sagged, as all hope streamed out of me. How could his hand
have dodged that gauntlet, not even brushed against it? He must have missed it
by millimetres. There was no more stuff in that section – Weirton had no reason
to delve into it again. What could we do? For the moment, we could only lower
our heads, crack on with the exercises, hope we made no mistakes that would
enrage the teacher.

In the classroom’s
dense silence, I searched my brain, trying to think of schemes to get back that
glove. I was on the final task, the clock was ticking down the minutes to
home-time when I realised the only thing I could try was to raise my hand, ask
again to go to the loo and attempt to grab the glove on my way. I stuck my arm
up, but Weirton didn’t see it as he prowled round the class peering down at the
answers nervous hands were scratching. The clock showed there was less than
five minutes left. I kept my hand high, but couldn’t get the teacher to notice
me. Weirton paused to examine the work of Darren Hill. The eyes stared at his
sums; the face reddened; the fists gripped.

‘Darren Hill!’
Weirton yelled. ‘You … you
stupid
boy! You’ve somehow managed to get
every sum wrong – every single sum!’

The hand shot out,
caught Darren’s wrist, wrenched the boy from his chair. Soon massive impacts reverberated
round the room; soon Darren’s tears flew, and it was not long until Darren was
battling to get breath down his sob-filled throat. More wallops echoed out and
when the howling hiccupping boy was lowered it was already home-time, but we
had to wait some moments as Darren wept and spluttered, as Weirton shivered and
panted, his body bent, his face soaked in sweat, his cheeks scarlet. When,
finally, the headmaster had recovered, he paced back to his desk, picked up his
briefcase and – placing it on his table – packed his things in it, all the
while not opening the part that held the glove. We filed out as Weirton stood
by his desk, hands resting on the briefcase. Once out of the school, Jonathon and
I dawdled behind the others.

‘What are we gonna
do?’ I whispered.

‘Dunno,’ said
Jonathon, ‘maybe wait till Weirton leaves. If he doesn’t take the briefcase
with him, we can sneak into the school and get the gauntlet back.’

We waited by
Marcus’s pond, which was now – replenished with autumn showers – perhaps a
third of its former size. After a few minutes, Jonathon hissed, ‘Weirton!’

We ducked behind
some tall grasses, watched the headmaster stride out of the school. I gulped;
fear tugged my stomach down. The teacher marched up to his funereal car, put
the briefcase in the back then manoeuvred his bulk into the driver’s seat. The
engine roared; he reversed out of his parking space; he drove past us, turned
on the pub’s stinking corner and was gone, carrying with him the briefcase,
carrying with him that dread glove.

The Diary of James Ronald Weirton

Tuesday, 20
^th
September, 1983

The bad dreams
won’t stop. All the usual stuff was playing in my head last night – that damned
church at Salton, that blasted glove hanging there, swinging with some
mysterious force as I sat rooted to a pew, heart thudding. Damned bell ringing
out its funereal tolls. Might really be clanging for me if these nightly
tortures don’t cease. Always wake by jolting upright, old ticker racing.
Anyway, there I was, some strange power holding me on that bench, the same
power forcing my eyes to stare at that glove. Couldn’t close them. I summoned
up all my strength, and – with a tremendous effort – I tore myself from that
pew and sprinted away. I dashed from the building, but what I saw outside was
even more horrific. The ground in the churchyard was moving – the grass above
each grave heaving and shifting as if the sleeper beneath was battling to claw
himself out. As the bell went on booming, I stared across those accursed
flatlands – across the field in which I’d punched that horse, over to where the
bones of those Scots soldiers lie. And that ground was rippling and quaking too
– as if a whole damned regiment was determined to dig itself up. I ran back
into the church. No sanctuary there – that white marble tomb was cracking,
chunks were splintering, falling down. A skeletal hand, its fingers covered
with loose rings, thrust itself through one of the gaps, groping around as if
just woken from sleep. I really thought the Day of Doom had arrived and – right
then – there came the trumpet blast, just like in the Bible. The sound was like
no earthly instrument – it shook the church, made the floor shudder. It
juddered every bone and cell in my body, almost threw me off my feet. That
blast blew again, windows shattered, stones fell from the walls, an explosion
of soil and bones erupted outside as an earthquake ripped through the
churchyard. One more blast and I was awake, upright in bed, heart thumping,
jerky breath, pyjamas drenched. Took a good few minutes to bring myself back to
reality. Have to admit that dream really shook me, couldn’t chase it from my
mind – it’s been spooking me all day.

Got back off to
sleep, but had more nightmares. Not quite so apocalyptic, but equally
disturbing in their own fashion. Dreamt of Marcus Jones – didn’t see him, just
kept staring at his pond. Rain pelted down, the pond grew. I was somehow stuck
to the pavement on the other side of the road. I could only watch as the rain
hammered and that pool crept towards me. I knew that if I couldn’t get away,
I’d drown. Soon those filthy waters were lapping at my feet, running into my
shoes and soaking my socks. At that point I woke, sitting right up in bed as my
heart bashed. If only I hadn’t gone and plunged that boy into that pool! No
peace from that memory day or night!

I also had a dream
about Lucy. I’d decided to do the decent thing and bury her remains. I wanted
to put them in that little cemetery between Emberfield and Goldhill. I carried
her bones from the school, carefully laid them on the backseat on my car,
realising – with a strange shiver – for the first time how hearse-like that
vehicle is. I drove her out along the winding lane, hoping that if her spirit
couldn’t rest, it would be confused by all those curves and wouldn’t try to
wreak its vengeance on me. But as I drove along that road – much longer in my
dream than in waking life – the windows of heaven opened and sheets of rain
poured down. I struggled on through the deluge; the windscreen wipers heaved
torrents from the glass; the engine growled as the car forded deep puddles.
When we got to the graveyard, it was flooded, with pools around the crosses and
headstones. I hadn’t brought a spade. I tried to dig a grave for Lucy with my
hands. But any soil I scooped out would slither and slop back into the hole.
The rain beat down; I worked on, my fingers getting frantic. I stacked the
earth by the hole’s side – forced on by a desperate idea I had misdeeds I must
bury. Yet as soon as that mound of mud got to a certain height, it all slipped
back into the grave and I had to begin once more.

It was the alarm
that saved me from that impossible task. It took some time to remove myself
from that drenched graveyard, readjust to the familiar surroundings of my
bedroom. Dream so damned vivid I swear I still felt the dirt on my hands, the
rain lashing my back. Might as well have been rained on I sweated so much.
Heart banging and galloping as I tried to steady my breath. When I’d calmed
myself a bit, I got out of bed, went downstairs to make coffee. Sandra and Nick
still asleep. Still haven’t got used to sleeping on my own. Remember Sandra
after we got back from that blasted holiday, ostentatiously moving her stuff
into the spare room. Barely a word between us since. I wonder when that woman
will grow up. Well over a month now and she’s still in her sulk! Guess
reconciliation’s not helped by the fact I haven’t changed my ideas about discipline.
Nick’s had a few hidings in recent weeks, but each one’s been deserved! What on
earth does that woman want me to do when he’s acting up? If I let his sullen
cheek go unchecked, his tantrums unremarked, he’ll just get worse. Damned good thrashing
stops all that, at least for some time, and if I close the bedroom door afterwards
I can shut out most of the boy’s blubbering and Sandra’s babying of the lad.
Think I’ll buy myself a TV to put in that room, drown them out completely, when
they start up just flick on a bit of boxing or tennis. Maybe not the news
though – life’s depressing enough without hearing of the country’s decay.
Anyway, back to Nick – I don’t know what’s wrong with that boy: whinging about
this, whining about that. He’s either sulky and obstinate or he’s too timid:
stuttering and hesitating, not looking people in the eye. Lad takes after his
mum – he’s developing the sort of face a smile would shatter. Never grateful
for anything. Sometimes wonder if the boy’s even mine – find myself thinking
back to the time Sandra made her ‘announcement’, whether she’d had any
boyfriends just before we started dating. But no, he’s my son; there’s a shape
to his features which is undeniable. When it comes to character though it
amazes me that lad’s my child just as I can barely admit I leapt from the loins
of Ronald Weirton! Funny old things, families are.

I scoffed my
breakfast, got ready and strode from the house. It seemed a pleasant day – a
warm one for mid-September in this part of the world. That was a relief – a day
of black clouds and pelting rain would have reminded me too much of those
nightmares. Still, I couldn’t suppress a shudder as I drove past the graveyard,
as I rolled my car through the gates opposite Marcus’s pond. I wasn’t around to
see it, but yesterday Mrs Perkins was saying the damned thing dried up in summer.
Apparently, it was no more than a crater of cracked mud. But come autumn the
showers fell and now that accursed pool’s a third of its old size. Well,
whether under cracked mud or stagnant water as long as that pond’s secrets are
submerged it’s OK with me. But I can’t help shiver each time I pass.

I tried to keep my
focus on the sunny day. Countryside’s so much nicer than when under dark clouds
and downpours. Landscape’s so green it glows. Your chest expands – you feel you
can really breathe rather than having to hunch against low cloud and rain. So
mild I didn’t even put my coat on for the breaks, just stood there in shirt and
jacket feeling the warmth seep into me. But though the day did its best, the
frustration of being stuck in that school began to win out. Mrs Perkins was
sick so I took her group while a supply teacher taught mine. Tried to teach
those numbskulls some maths – it was depressing to find how little they’d
learnt with Perkins. Even the simplest things many of them struggled to get.
And that was when I began to feel it – the tiredness, my mind aching from those
bad dreams, the irritation that twitched from all my problems at home. Whatever
the weather was doing outside, black clouds clogged my brain. My finger drilled
the heads of Dennis Stubbs and Suzie Green in the hope that – if words couldn’t
penetrate their thick skulls – perhaps I could bore my way through. More fun
with Suzie at lunchtime – let’s just say she was given some ‘persuasion’ to eat
her sausages. But it was Darren Hill who really triggered the storm. (I’d been
merciful to the supply teacher by taking that lad and Craig Browning with me to
Perkins’s class.) When I checked his work, that buffoon had managed to get
every sum wrong. Thunder peeled, the clouds in my mind burst, let go a deluge
of fury – and soon the boy was swinging as my hand thrashed. Is there any hope
for the likes of Darren? Maybe where explanations fail, pain can drive at least
some knowledge into such pupils. It’s worth a try, I suppose.

Couldn’t wait to
get out of that accursed school at the day’s finish. As soon as I could I
picked up my briefcase, fled. As I drove home, I was disappointed to see the
storm clouds had somehow drifted from my mind and up into the heavens. There
they were – black beastly things, skulking on the borders of the clear happy
sky. I knew we’d be in for a few wet days if those gathering monsters had
anything to do with it. Shame really, but can’t expect much better around
Emberfield. And sure enough, as I sit here and write, the rain’s hammering.

Wednesday, 21
^st
September, 1983

More bad dreams
last night – standing opposite the pond as the rain thudded and that pool
overflowed, only this time those filthy waters were above my ankles. Driving around
with Lucy in my car – which in this dream looked even more hearse-like – trying
to find somewhere to bury her, but having nothing ahead of me except a road
winding through never-ending flatlands. Another nightmare about the church at
Salton – stuck on a pew, watching that gauntlet swing. Yesterday I was sad to
see the rain, but last night I was pleased to have it pelting down. Crashed
with such fury on the roof, it woke me a couple of times, rescuing me from my
nightmares. But from the last dream – the one in the church – it was the phone
that saved me. Device blaring its clear modern rings, jolting me out of that archaic
gloom. Occasionally, just occasionally, I think maybe this modern world isn’t
so evil. Anyway, it was a shock – jerked up just like yesterday, sweat-soaked,
heart thumping. With barely a second to calm myself, I stumbled out of bed,
tottered down the stairs, half my mind still in that dreadful church. My hand
groped for the receiver.

‘Hello,’ I
murmured.

‘Oh, hello, James.’
A well-spoken voice, which nevertheless managed to weave itself into mazes of
hesitation, trip itself up over its own well-meaningness, came down the line. ‘It’s
Rodney here … yes, Rodney the vicar … James, I know it’s frightfully early, I
really shouldn’t have called, terrible blunder to do so now I think about it, I
do hope you can forgive me, it’s just that … something rather unfortunate has
happened in Salton Church.’

The vicar went on
to say somebody had taken that gauntlet, swiped it straight out of there, leaving
its hook dangling empty. My drowsy mind, still entangled in my nightmare,
struggled to take it in. Rodney was clearly upset. To be honest, I don’t think
he cares much more for that accursed glove than I do; he must – with his
education – feel it a superstitious object that has no place in a house of God.
I think he was more disturbed someone could bring themselves to steal from the
Lord’s dwelling.

‘I wonder what our
society’s coming to, James,’ he stammered. ‘What’s happening to our young
people? I feel they’ve been brutalised …
brutalised
, James, jobs and
opportunities taken away, communities destroyed, violence everywhere, and now
it’s come to …
this
!’

I nodded as my
anger rose. I wished I could get a whip, stride out into the street and flog
the first workshy oaf or violent criminal I could find. Rodney’s right about
communities being decimated by modern morality. But I tried to contain myself,
speak with a calm voice.

‘It’s terrible
news, Rodney, terrible. Is there any way I can help?’

Vicar asked me to
talk to the kids, find out if they know anything. Promised I’d make an
announcement in assembly. It’s not that either of us suspected any of
them
– I’ve got my share of rascals, but I wouldn’t have reckoned even Craig
Browning or Dennis Stubbs would stoop to such wickedness. Told Rodney I hoped
I’d pounded a
bit
of basic respect into them over the years, at least
some reverence for the things of
God
. Said between the swoops of my hand
and Rodney’s no-nonsense RE lessons, I was sure we’d done
that
. Said if
it was lads at all, they were probably from that blasted Big School – no
discipline in that place, headmaster’s a namby-pamby buffoon who hardly ever
swings the cane. Hear parents complaining about it all the time. Rodney said
he’d been in touch with the police. He told me their ideas about who might have
done it – boys having some stupid joke, filthy gypsies who stole the thing for
scrap, more sophisticated criminals who aim to sell the glove as an antique.
Well, whoever might have been responsible, I told the vicar what I’d want done
to them – horsewhipped then a good ten years of hard labour in prison then
horsewhipped again before they got out.
That
would teach them not to
violate our sacred places! Those Muslims might have the right idea about loping
off thieves’ hands, killing blasphemers. As I told all this to the vicar, he
gulped down the phone. Such a gentle man, Rodney is, can even forgive those
scumbags who stole from his church. Good sort to be a priest, but thank God not
too many people are like him – a world of bleeding hearts forgiving every
transgression: we’d have chaos, anarchy! The only way we can have respect and
order is if people know their place and what’s expected of them, and if they’re
brutally punished whenever they step out of line! If they can’t understand
they’ve done wrong via their brains, they’ll understand it through their
bodies, believe you me.