The Standing Water (47 page)

As we supposed much
of Salton would be underwater, we waited a week-or-so for the floods to go down
then – one Saturday – we set out. Jonathon repeated his mother’s sneers at the
council houses as we passed their flaking fences and marshy gardens. We walked
by the Big School – its fields still bearing large lakes. We came to Salton’s
gates – each column was surrounded by a puddle, the lions topping them looked
even more worn and bedraggled after their drenching. We walked along the
puddle-pitted path, past boggy fields and swampy woods till we came to the
Bunt. We stood on the bridge as the still-swollen river hurtled. I stared at
that brown torrent.

‘Good job you
didn’t push your brother off here when the stream was like this,’ I said. ‘He’d
have been a goner!’

‘Yeah,’ said
Jonathon, ‘it would have been as dangerous as shoving him into Marcus’s pond.’

‘Strange God still
hasn’t punished you,’ I said. ‘I keep wondering when He’s gonna brand His mark
on you, make you a wanderer on the earth.’

‘You never know.’
Jonathon shrugged. ‘Maybe He’s forgotten about it – just like my mum forgets
stuff.’

‘I don’t think He’d
ever forget. God knows and remembers everything.’

‘Well, even if He
did punish me, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Wouldn’t mind being a wanderer on
the earth, especially if it got me away from Weirton and Emberfield.’

I nodded, looked at
that ribbon of foaming water gushing through the flatlands. How often had I
dreamt of following that stream as it led me through the night’s landscapes
far, far from my hometown. But there’d be no following it that day, and as the
rainbow had faded and vanished we couldn’t follow that either, let alone find
its pot of gold. So it was in the drab plains of Emberfield and Salton we were
for the moment stuck. We went further down the path, skirting around, hopping
over its puddles. Henry VIII’s farmhouse now stood on the shore of a lake; the
Scots slept beneath another watery expanse; the Knights Templars’ lands were a
morass of ponds and marshes. We walked through sodden woods as the water tower
loomed above us. That tower hadn’t done its job, hadn’t saved us from the
deluge by sucking the excess liquid from heaven. But then, if faced with God’s
unassailable wrath, I doubted there was much any inventions of Man could do.
Passing the Drummer Boy’s tunnel – his memorial stone was sunk so deep in brown
water you couldn’t read half the plaque – we came to the gates that opened onto
the fields leading to the church. The fields held two big pools – a
dubious-looking strip of boggy ground ran between them.

‘So much water
here!’ I said. ‘God really can’t have been far from drowning Emberfield!’

‘Yeah,’ Jonathon
said, ‘good job we decided to put the gauntlet back.’

He stopped, thought
for a moment, frowned.

‘You don’t think
though … the rain didn’t … you know, stop by itself? That maybe it wasn’t God’s
anger? We’ve been wrong about things before … like Davis being one of Noah’s
sons and the gauntlet being magic.’

I swear a dark
cloud floated across the weak sun. I shivered, turned to my friend.

‘Of course it was
God’s anger! It was just like in the Bible – He even showed a rainbow when He
decided not to drown us!
And
He stopped the rains just after we said
we’d put the gauntlet back. Come on – let’s get to the church before He changes
his mind!’

We wobbled and
waded across the fields, stumbling into sloughs of churned mud that – with
their rasping sucks – nearly tugged off our wellies. But I’ll say one thing for
those fields – they smelt clean, the fury from heaven having washed away the
scent of dung. It had been the same in Emberfield – the deluge had cleansed the
air of its habitual pongs of smoke and manure heaps. The sour smell of beer had
been rinsed from around the pub; even the stagnant stench of Marcus’s pond had
been diluted by heaven’s pure waters. I guessed it’d been like that in the
Bible when the Ark’s occupants had emerged to find a new earth scrubbed clean
of dirt and sin. Only such corruption, I’d noticed, came back quickly – already
Emberfield’s air was getting back its smoky tang; the pub’s evil odours were
once more forming around it.

We hobbled through
the fields without too many mishaps and were soon entering the churchyard. With
it being on a rise – being, due to its holiness, drawn up slightly towards
heaven – the flooding wasn’t so bad in there, but still a kind of moat had
formed against the wall, swamping the lower tombs. Elsewhere puddles had
gathered in dips; dark water sat in the creases between graves. We pulled off
our wellies in the porch, heaved open the oak doors and padded into the
church’s sacred interior. The air within was chill and damp, but nothing seemed
damaged. I wondered if the vicar had blessed the roof with his mighty magic to
protect that holy house against God’s hammering rage. The flags felt cold
beneath my stocking-feet as we shuffled down the aisle. There was the dread altar,
guarded by the stern railings we’d never dare pass. To the left slept the noble
knight and his lady in their sculpted tomb. I made mental bows towards them,
murmured silent words to soothe their ghosts. Soon Jonathon and I stood below
the hook – a hook that seemed to accuse us with its emptiness. I shrugged off
my satchel, fumbled with its straps.

‘Quick, get some of
those cushions!’ I said. ‘We’d better get a move on, get it back up there
before anyone sees us.’

Jonathon scuttled
off to the pews, trotted back with three of those woolly squares. We stacked them
on the floor. I drew the gauntlet out of my bag, handling it carefully in case
– in this last moment – it might slip itself onto my hand and condemn me with
its magic to an evil fate. But then, I thought, it hadn’t protected us from
Weirton so maybe it didn’t have the power to seal our end. I passed the glove
to Jonathon, balanced on those cushions then hunched down into a squat.
Jonathon, grasping the gauntlet, clambered onto my shoulders. As I straightened
up, I thought about God’s strange justice: how He’d punished our theft of the
glove with an almost immediate deluge while waiting so long to smite Jonathon
for trying to kill his brother. Unless Jonathon’s speculations had been right –
that the Lord was actually a lot more laid-back than we’d reckoned and that the
rain had simply started and stopped by itself. Perhaps if this was true, He
wouldn’t brand Jonathon. We swayed and wobbled on those cushions as Jonathon
reached for the hook. I saw that, despite his recent scepticism, he was
struggling to stay on the safe side of the altar rail. He got the hook in his
hand and moved the gauntlet towards it, trying to line up the glove’s loop with
the hook’s point. As he started to slide it on, the cushions slipped under me.
At first it was just a small shift – I teetered, but kept upright. Jonathon
again brought the gauntlet closer to the hook, but this time the middle cushion
slipped straight out of the pile. I managed to stay standing, but as we lurched
and tottered Jonathon grabbed at the hook. He grasped it, but his momentum
swung that barb up over his forehead and its point gouged a cut on the top
right of his brow.

‘Owah!’ Jonathon
yelled.

The two remaining
cushions were more stable, but – as they still rocked slightly – I had to shift
and teeter to keep balanced. Jonathon swayed, one hand holding the gauntlet,
the other clutching his cut.

‘Try to slip it on
again!’ I shouted. ‘Quick!’

Jonathon moved his
hand away from his wound. His fingers were bloody – a couple of drops fell on
me. He took hold of the hook, squeezed its end through the loop. There was a
scraping noise, scabs of rust drifted down as Jonathon slid that hoop down the
hook. Jonathon let go, the glove swung on its chain until it settled. That gauntlet
now hung back where it was meant to be, hung as a dread warning to us all. I
lowered myself into a crouch; Jonathon scrabbled from my shoulders. I hurled
the cushions back under the pews then looked at my friend. Blood flowed,
meandering down the side of Jonathon’s face, dripping from his chin to splatter
his kagool. We had no tissues, but I pulled out a hankie – crusted with snot and
stained green, and gave it to Jonathon to press against his gash.

‘Looks serious,’ I
said. ‘Better get you home so your mum can look at it.’

‘What will my dad
say? I hope he won’t take his belt to me!’

‘Just say it was an
accident – say you fell over and cut your head on a stone.’

Jonathon winced as
he pushed the hankie harder onto the wound.

‘Feels deep,’ he
said. ‘Hope it won’t stay there forever!’

I looked at
Jonathon and gasped. I raised my hand, let my shaking fingers hover an inch
from the cut.

‘What is it?’
Jonathon said.

I gulped; my heart
boomed; my fingers went on quivering. It took some time before I could say, ‘God’s
justice!’

‘What?’

‘It’s your mark –
the mark of Cain! Right on the forehead – just like in the Bible! OK, God
didn’t blast you with lightning, He used that hook, but the vicar says God’s
justice works in strange ways! And …’

I again pointed to
the wound – or at least where I knew that wound was under the reddening hankie.

‘It’s in exactly
the same place as your brother’s! It
must
be a punishment from God! He’s
Abel and you’re Cain!’

Jonathon sighed. ‘Think
I’d better get home, see what my parents can do about it.’

‘You’ll never get
it off!’

‘Let’s just see,’
he said. ‘Come on, let’s hurry back.’

We left the church,
stumbled across the field, and strode swiftly down the track, leaping the
smaller puddles, skirting the larger ones, breaking into little runs when we
were able. We passed the gates, the Big School, rushed down the road of council
homes, which Jonathon – for once – didn’t comment on. We reached his house,
babbled our made-up story of his fall. Mrs Browning washed the cut, used a pad
to dab it with strong-smelling liquid while the brother watched open-mouthed
and Jonathon’s dad paced. I knew why the brother was staring. The cut on his
sibling’s brow was fresher, bloodier, but – apart from that – an exact image of
his own.

‘We should take him
to hospital,’ Mrs Browning said. ‘He might need stitches.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Mr
Browning. ‘Let me take a look.’

Mrs Browning
obediently removed the pad; her husband peered at the wound.

‘It’s little more
than a graze! Sort of thing I got all the time when I was a lad – just the
consequence of a bit of good old-fashioned rough-and-tumble! You women would
make all our lads milksops! He’s not going to any namby-pamby hospital! Give
that disinfectant here!’

Mr Browning took a
fresh pad, poured some hearty glugs from the bottle of stinky stuff onto it
then thrust it onto Jonathon’s brow. Jonathon grimaced, whimpered and squirmed.

‘Don’t be such a
baby!’ the father said. ‘Or I really will give you something to cry about!
Don’t know what’s happening to lads nowadays. Good dose of disinfectant, slap a
plaster on and he’ll be right as rain! The scar will probably be gone in a
couple of weeks.’

The brother, the red
line of his cut marking his brow, just stared. Soon Jonathon’s gash was covered
with a plaster. But I knew Mr Browning was wrong. I knew that under that shield
of pink the brand of God’s justice was forming and would never go away.

After God had
ceased pounding the land with the waters of his wrath, it took some time for
the floods to dry up. October was cool; the air was full of that wetness that
seemed to clasp the skin like a grasping hand, but not much rain fell. Marcus’s
pond inched back from the road, but it stood – glowering, sulky – determined to
hang on to at least most of the territory it had captured. Streets and gardens dried
out, but masses of silent water stayed in the fields. I didn’t trust those dark
lakes. I knew if God decided to send another deluge, all that water could be
creeping towards our houses.

More worryingly,
there was talk of cancelling Bonfire Night. Usually a farmer would lend the
town a field so we could enjoy that vital festivity, but that year the council
weren’t sure if any would get dry in time. I quaked with dread at what might
happen if we couldn’t light our huge fire, blast our rockets skywards. Wouldn’t
the sun be tempted to give up in the cold months coming, to never wake from his
long winter slumber? I prayed that if we couldn’t celebrate that special night,
all the other blazes lit around the world would be enough to encourage the sun,
to cheer him as he circled our globe.

Emberfield might
have been in danger of losing out on its yearly rockets and bangers, but there
were still plenty of fireworks in our school. For a fortnight or so after the
rainbow had appeared, Weirton had been quite calm, only giving out three or
four hidings. But soon it was almost daily that his yells were reverberating
around classrooms and down corridors, that the vast body was jumping, that the
fists were pounding the thighs, that pupils were wrenched up, that pupils were
swooping and swinging as the hand crashed. And there wasn’t much peace among
the kids either. I remember Darren Hill slamming Richard Johnson’s head
repeatedly into the gnarled trunk of an oak in the school field’s corner. There
was the time Darren and Jonathon’s brother fell out and – by now both quite big
lads – knocked chunks out of each other on the way home as kids crowded round
in a chanting circle: ‘Scrap! Scrap! Scrap!’ They went on bashing as blood flowed
from busted noses, cut eyes.

The way the kids
reacted to the beatings Weirton hurled into us was odd. In the past, after a
whacking, you maybe got a few taunts, a few punches and shoves. Just
occasionally, if Weirton’s oratory was especially funny or dramatic, it might
inspire something like my push into the snow. But now Weirton was slamming more
thrashings into us, and now those thrashings always went beyond the traditional
six of the best and a few for luck. Sometimes they were so extreme all the classmates
could do was gape in sympathy as the victim bawled and hiccupped, lurched and
teetered afterwards. But sometimes a savage beating triggered a different
response. Something would take the kids over, a simmering feeling none of us
would be able to explain yet which gripped us nonetheless. The victim would
usually be grabbed – still staggering, still tearful – on his way home. Fists
had to pummel, feet had to kick until the lads had inflicted as much damage as
Weirton, until the boy writhed and sobbed on the ground, his red tear-splashed
face screwed with grief and looking up amazed at his tormentors. With our
hatred of the headmaster, with our knowledge of what had happened to Marcus and
Lucy and – what we guessed – could so easily happen once more whether by kids’
or the teacher’s hands, Jonathon and I never joined in these brutal
celebrations. But still, as we walked by or stood on the edge of the mob, I
felt a strange bloodlust seethe. I had to concentrate, suck in breaths to calm
my tensing muscles, hold back my fists.

One day Weirton
gave me a colossal walloping. I saw Stubbs’s sly smile as I tottered back to my
seat. We’d been doing group work before Weirton had swept in to thrash me, and
– when the air had settled after the thunder of his rage, the storm of his
whacking – that was what we went on with. This meant a hum of chatter was allowed,
which was soon taken advantage of by Stubbs. Through my tear-blurred eyes, I
saw Stubbs’s cautious grin morph into a smirk. He leaned into Johnson and
whispered, ‘Let’s knack Watson in after school – pass it on!’ Soon that phrase
was buzzing round the class, darting above, under and through the drone of the
kids’ natter like some evil marshland fly. It made its rounds as I sobbed and
hiccupped. My mind still spun in fragments so it was hard to be sure of all
that was happening, but still I heard the gleeful whine of Stubbs’s voice:
‘Pass it on! Pass it on!’ More words came; I couldn’t piece them all together:
‘By the hedge’, ‘Plenty there’, ‘Good strong ones’, ‘He won’t forget
this
in a hurry!’

School soon ended.
I stumbled from the classroom as Stubbs, Johnson and the bunch of lads they’d
worked up hurried off, jogging down the corridor and out through the cloakroom,
pausing on their way to grab Darren Hill, other older lads, whisper to them
their plan. Both Jonathon and the brother were off sick so I was truly on my
own. In the cloakroom, my still shaking hands – now shivering more strongly as
I wondered what Stubbs was up to – fumbled with my kagool. It took ages to get
it on, gifting my enemies – I later realised – time to get prepared. But at
least that time gave me the chance to recover from my walloping, and when I
left the building I was walking almost normally.

I saw them massing
at the gates. My heart thudded. There must have been fifteen lads. Their faces
were eager, their smiles manic. They stared at me as I made the slow walk up to
them. My hands were jolting up and down; my heart bashed faster. Some lads
started beating their fists into their palms; more joined in till they pounded
out an expectant rhythm. Others kept their hands behind their backs – what were
they hiding? I had nowhere to go but forward. I tried to edge past the mob;
Stubbs stepped sideways to block me.

‘Where do you think
you’re going Watson?’ He gave me a push in the chest with one hand while
keeping his other concealed.

‘Home,’ I replied.

‘Not in one piece,
you’re not,’ said Richard. ‘Not if we’ve anything to do with it!’

‘What do you think,
lads?’ Stubbs shouted. ‘Shall we give him ten seconds?’

‘Yeah!’ the mob
echoed.

As the crowd roared
out that word, they thrust up their arms. Some shook fists; those who’d had
their hands behind their backs revealed what they’d been hiding. My mouth
dropped; my eyes bulged. Johnson wielded a hefty tree branch, spiked with sharp
stumps where twigs had been snapped off. Other lads waved weighty sticks.
Stubbs brandished what looked like the lid of a rusty paint tin. The edge of
that evil discus was snagged with fang-like points. Stubbs turned his grinning
face to me.

‘I’ve already
started counting, you idiot!’ he said, ‘Eight, seven …’

My trainers flung
up gravel as I hurled myself into a sprint. I tore past Marcus’s pond – its
brown waters passive – as the mob took up Stubbs’s chant, each number swelling
with their bloodlust.

‘Six, five …’

I hurtled down the
street as my heart thumped, skidding around the pub’s corner as ‘four’ and ‘three’
were bellowed out. With the pub’s sour whiff in my nostrils, I sped onto the
main road as ‘two’ and ‘one’ echoed after me. I pelted past the witch’s hand. The
triumphant ‘zero!’ resounded. A cry went up; it rumbled along the road, across
the fields. I tried to quicken my dash, but I was already sprinting as hard as
I could. My tingling arms pumped; the blood beat in my ears; my spit-flecked
breath jerked out and in. I glanced back; the mob was swerving around the
corner. At the sight of me, the lads gave a battle roar. Up it floated, to hover
above that gang: a warlike cloud. I swear all those feet sent judders down the
road – like one mass the mob ran, its many arms shaking their sticks and
branches.

‘Get him!’ Stubbs
yelled.

The battle roar
thundered again; the arms shook their weapons. A few more strides and I glanced
back. Stubbs hurled his discus. It whipped through the air – its spinning
spikes a blur. I ducked without missing a step. The lid struck a telegraph
pole, wedged its teeth deep in the wood.

‘Get him!’ Dennis shouted.

The war cry
shuddered out; Stubbs ran to the pole, wrenched his lid free. He rushed to the
front of the mob, again unleashed his weapon. Flung with all his strength, its
snags and spikes whirled an inch from my elbow. The disc hit the pavement,
bounced and rolled. I hopped over it, a movement that lost me a couple of steps.
The mob now hurtled just three or four paces behind. My mouth grabbed at the
air; my heart bulged and thudded; a stitch throbbed. I was now just two strides
clear of those pounding feet. A punch was launched; I dodged it; another was
swung; I ducked. One kid tried to floor me with a sliding football tackle. I
skipped across his outstretched leg – his speed carried him into a spiky collision
with a hedge. I pumped all my remaining power into my run, and the gap between
me and my pursuers lengthened. They were flagging; home was just two minutes
away. Johnson pulled back his arm, flung his hefty branch as if hurling a spear.
That javelin crashed into the side of my skull, smiting my ear’s tip. The world
was tumbling – road, sky, houses spun. Then came the scrape and tear of gravel,
the smell of smudged grass from the verge. I looked up – Johnson stood over me:
arms high, once more holding his cudgel. He swung that weapon down. I jerked my
head to the left: the branch slammed onto grass, embedding its spikes in the
earth. Johnson smashed down his club again; I rolled away, but now more boys
crowded round. Sticks beat – one struck my arm, another my thigh, jolting pain through
me. A heavy baton raced at my head, narrowly missing. There was nothing I could
do but curl myself into a ball. Their weapons crashed onto my shoulders, hips,
legs. One sod pounded my knuckles as my hands shielded my face, each strike
jerking agony down my arms. My fingers burned as skin was torn, the flesh left
raw to the air. The sticks hammered harder – bashing out their dull impacts. My
mind searched for ways to escape, but how could I stand under that deluge of
blows? Stubbs yelled, ‘Stop!’

I heard the mob
shuffle back; I looked up through my fingers. My attackers stood in a circle
around me; some leant on their staffs as they waited for Stubbs’s next order.
Was Dennis feeling some sympathy, did he know I’d had enough?

‘Hold him!’ Stubbs
shouted.

Johnson, Hill,
three other lads grabbed me, hauled me from the ground, pushed me down onto my
knees facing Stubbs. Stubbs brought from behind his back his spike-edged lid.
He pointed its snag-toothed rim at me, moved it back and forth as he perfected
his aim.

‘No!’ I shouted.

The mob roared
encouragement. Stubbs went on with his feinting motions.

‘Don’t be stupid!’
My voice trembled; I held out my shivering hand in the hope it might calm him.
‘Please, don’t be stupid.’

Dennis – face set,
eyes staring – just continued his movements. I writhed, bucked, but strong
grips clamped my shoulders, heavy feet pinned my calves; someone clasped my
hands, wrenched them up behind my back. As I twisted and wriggled, I stared at
that weapon’s rusty barbs.

‘No!’ I yelled.

‘Go on!’ Johnson
shouted. ‘Do it!’

Stubbs hurled the
disc. A scream rang out. I turned my head. Johnson hopped and hobbled in a
squirming dance. Pain screwed his face; he screeched and bellowed. The spikes
of that wicked wheel had punctured his mac, embedded themselves in his chest. The
mob stood, open-mouthed, gazing at his torment. I took advantage of their shock
and rushed at Stubbs. I swung a punch, caught him on the jaw. Stubbs went down;
I leapt on him. My knees pressed his arms; my fists battered his face. As Johnson
cursed and yelled, I hammered all my hate into Stubbs. It surged up from inside
me; it wasn’t me – some strange mechanical force drove my hands. Stubbs’s
infuriating face gaped then tears came – tears which made me drive my fists harder.
I socked his nose; blood spurted, mingled with the red that seeped from my
scraped knuckles. Something barged me from the side; I was toppled. I rolled on
the ground, looked up to see Johnson seated on Stubbs. He’d yanked the discus
out – a line of bloody holes pierced his kagool. He slammed his fists onto
Stubbs’s face, inflicting blows harder, quicker than I ever could. The mob
swarmed around those two boys.

‘Scrap! Scrap!
Scrap!’

Murmuring praises
to God, muttering my thanks to all the spooks of Emberfield and Salton, I
staggered away. A voice in my mind wondered what lies I’d tell my parents about
my injuries. Pain pulsed from all the places I’d been hit; the clammy air did
little to soothe my knuckles. But, all the kids’ attention now on the
pummelling of Stubbs, I could at least walk home unmolested as the street and
fields echoed to the lads’ chants.