What I Was (8 page)

15

One of the last acts of the dying Roman Empire was to build a series of forts along the east coast of Britain to hold off the barbarian hordes. The forts, though mighty, didn’t work as planned, and Germanic and Viking tribes soon overran the land.

The fort just up the coast from St Oswald’s ended its life underwater in a great fourteenth-century storm during which an entire port and half a mile of coastal farmland disappeared under the sea, along with most of the town’s inhabitants, its famous churches, and two hundred head of cattle. I had read in the local paper about unsuccessful attempts to explore the site. Underwater visibility in the area was always poor, and when it wasn’t poor, it was abysmal. Even on the clearest day, a diver fitted with a lamp would be unable to read his own compass.

In Finn’s history book, I found a footnote referring to an eighth-century monastery built within the walls of the fort, consecrated by Oswald the King. As I read, I experienced a genuine thrill as the scraps of history came together. Despite the fact that everything written so far had located him primarily in Northumberland near the borders of Scotland, here was written evidence locating Oswald on our coast. He must have travelled south to cement ties with the lower kingdoms of Wessex and East Anglia, establishing a monastery, and causing a huge heavy stone to be carved with a likeness and transported south from Holy Island to commemorate the event.

The face on the stele disturbed me. The boy king had been a great warrior, had died a hideous and dramatic death. He was larger than life, a gigantic presence from the past. But thirteen hundred years later he still looked like someone I knew, or would like to have known.

‘Let’s explore the fort.’

Finn sat opposite me, his brow furrowed with concentration as he wrapped his lure slowly and methodically with fine brown string. He didn’t change expression and I wasn’t sure he’d heard me.

When finally he looked up, he said, ‘Can you empty the traps today?’

I sighed. The short answer was no, but honour required me to act. So I went to fetch the kayak. And in my thoroughly non-sectarian way, I prayed to whichever of the Oswalds happened to be listening.

Dear saint, dear saint, dear saint. Please St Oswald, let me manage this task. Please O Powerful One, deliver me from capsizing, from humiliation and death by drowning. If there is such a thing as a bloody buggering saint, be one and watch over me now. Amen.

If I’d been a better Christian I might have asked for a miracle. Instead, I gritted my teeth and half-carried, half-dragged the kayak down to the water’s edge, stepped into it carefully and, legs extended, settled myself in the cockpit as I’d watched Finn do. My weight instantly displaced the few inches of water underneath us, beaching the boat firmly against sand and stones. Too late, I remembered the paddle and nearly flipped over in an attempt to retrieve it from the beach. I hoped Finn couldn’t hear the horrible scraping noise the boat made as I jerked and shoved it out of the shallows.

Please God.

I hit the small choppy waves side-on – my next mistake – and took on water trying to nose out across them at a forty-five degree angle the way I’d seen Finn do. It was not gratifying to learn how much harder it was than it looked. I struggled to keep the boat steady, but my stability was compromised by sloshing and inadequate paddle rotation. I managed one good strong stroke on the left but inevitably followed up with a completely ineffective slice on the right.

Out of the corner of one eye I could see that Finn had descended to the edge of the water to watch my performance. By now I was drenched in sweat as well. If I capsized in this sea, I was finished. Drowning would be the best possible outcome, for my pride at least.

A few effective strokes managed to steady the little boat and I aimed for one of the buoys, steering as straight a path as possible but aware nonetheless of my zigzag wake. The waves rocked but didn’t tip me over, and I remembered to twist the paddle with every stroke.

I can do this.

I could do it. I could, that is, until I got within two or three feet of the red buoy, which floated above the trap. The current kept pushing me away so it took four different attempts at an approach before I managed to run over the damn thing, and in a death-defying turn based on Russian Cossack horseriders I’d seen in a newsreel, I reached under the kayak to grab the rope. Panting with exertion and fear, I laid the paddle flat in front of me across the deck, but instead of affording greater stability it slipped sideways with every swell, catching the little white crests of waves and flipping a bucket of seawater into my already half-submerged cockpit.

I was beginning to feel beleaguered.

Clinging to the buoy for dear life, I tried not to think of Finn (graceful and calm) as the sea spun me around and tried to wrench my arms from their sockets. Hand over hand, slowly, agonizingly, I hauled the rope up until the heavy wooden trap hung just below the surface. It teemed with crabs all piled together round the fish-head bait, groping and plucking at it with their heavy claws as I struggled to hang on to the canvas bag and trip the latch on the trap. Eventually, triumphantly, I did it – tipping a dozen of the lucky bastards back into the sea. Perhaps a giant crab would rise up on some future dark and stormy night and grant me three wishes.

The few that were left I picked up gingerly. They were too big to lift the way Finn had taught me with sand crabs, so I grabbed them wherever I could and screamed quietly when they latched, with surprising force, on to my fingers. Eventually I managed to shove a few into the sack, secure the opening, and kick the whole thing deep up under the bow. I didn’t want it or its fiendish contents touching any part of my anatomy.

One down; four to go. The wind off the beach had picked up and I suddenly felt the futility of the exercise. Forget the rest of the traps. I’d be lucky to get myself, the boat, and my few thrashing passengers back alive.

And so I headed in, too tired to worry about the correct way to paddle a tiny boat in a dangerous sea; my every fibre straining to remain upright and alive. Finn shouted orders from the shore but eventually collapsed in mock-despair on the beach, head in his hands, unable to observe further calamity. The wind tried to prevent my approach, but the tide was coming in, and once I caught the waves, they carried me (gracelessly, side-on) towards the beach. Scraping bottom once more, I scrambled out, catching my foot under the seat to ensure the final humiliation: me, face down in three inches of water, and the kayak (specially built for stability and easy handling in rough waters) swamped. Finn looked simultaneously amused and appalled and I wondered if I were flattering his prowess by playing the clown. Surely I couldn’t be this clumsy.

‘Go and dry off,’ he said, one eyebrow raised, and I trotted off in disgrace while he pulled the boat up on to the beach, tipped it on its side to let the water run out, and set it afloat once more.

Wrapped in a blanket (how many times had I found myself in this position?), I squinted through the window of the hut and watched from afar as he emptied and rebaited the remaining traps. He swung the kayak a hundred-and-eighty degrees with a quick dip of the paddle and if there was a wind and a current to drag and moan and toss him off course, he seemed oblivious.

So there he was, my boy-king, out and back in half an hour with a good haul of nearly three-dozen crabs. Most of them were destined for the local fish restaurant, where they would be boiled alive and pulled limb from limb by an unremarkable class of diners. We ate a whole crab each that night, the shells crushed and the bodies eviscerated by the warrior in all his cold-blooded splendour. The pinky-white meat we sucked out of each claw was sweet and oily and as fresh as the sea.

Back at school it was shepherd’s pie: lumpy mash, tinned tomatoes and cheap mince swimming in orangey fat.

When we had finished eating, Finn wiped his face and hands on a tea towel and sat back as I collected my belongings in preparation for the trek back to school.

‘I think,’ he said, in the manner of a pronouncement, providing an answer to the question I had long ago forgotten asking, ‘I think we should explore the fort.’

16

A group of students remained behind at St Oswald’s during the break between Lent and summer terms to pursue areas of excellence (swimming, choir, chemistry) – although this was generally a cover-up for those boys whose parents lived abroad, or holidayed without them, or simply couldn’t be bothered to have them at home. In the spirit of entrepreneurship, I forged a letter from Clifton-Mogg informing my parents that I would be staying at school during the break, and another to Clifton-Mogg from my parents with permission to return home by train. I had something of a talent for forgery and wondered if I’d found my calling at last.

The fortnight preceding the break was nerve-wracking, but I needn’t have worried. Neither the school nor my parents noticed anything suspicious and I felt wonderfully smug at the successful planning of my enterprise.

‘Parents not here yet, Kipper? Must have forgotten you,’ Gibbon sneered. ‘Wish I could stay and keep you company. But, bad luck. South of France again.’

‘Father on the run from the revenue?’ I didn’t bother looking up.

He dropped a used condom on my textbook. ‘A going-away present. Broke it in for you.’ Across the room Barrett howled with mirth. ‘At least you and Reese will have each other for company. You
have
had each other, haven’t you?’

I sighed. Reese had been signed off to spend the holiday with an elderly aunt, but wouldn’t be leaving till Monday. He was the perpetual fly in the perpetual ointment, was Reese.

So the last Friday of term, while most of the other students signed out to travel to Spain or Cornwall or France with their loving families, I packed my bag while Reese buzzed about.

‘Where are you going?’ He hovered, suspicious.

‘Spain. I told you.’

‘Where are your parents then?’

‘I’m meeting them. Taking the train.’ I continued to pack. He continued to hover.

‘Could I meet your friend now? You promised.’

‘I’m going away.’

‘I’ll follow you again.’

Again? That was it. I swung at him, catching him in the stomach. To my horror, he folded instantly and began to sob, and I felt tired and fed up and wished vaguely that I hadn’t hit him.

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Reese.’ I helped him up but he shook my hand off his arm with surprising violence. ‘Look, I’m sorry I hit you. Stop crying for Christ’s sake.’

I sat, embarrassed and unhappy, as he struggled to control his (embarrassed, unhappy) sobs. When at last his breathing calmed, I offered him water but he wouldn’t take it, wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t even look at me, and so finally I picked up my bag and left. He just wasn’t that important.

He realized this, naturally, with the perfect instinct a dog has for rejection. And just as naturally, he despised me for it almost as much as he despised himself.

I walked through the deserted school and caught the bus into town, where I’d arranged to meet Finn, but when I arrived at the market a few minutes early, he was nowhere to be seen. His menacing boss-lady fixed me with her beady eye and called me over.

‘Your friend will be back in a minute.’

‘I’ll wait.’

For about ten minutes we sat in uncomfortable silence. At least I was uncomfortable; she looked as imperturbable as ever.

I got up and browsed the stalls but retraced my steps quickly, too excited by the prospect of the weeks ahead to miss out on Finn’s return. He still wasn’t there.

Boss-lady offered me a thoroughly unpleasant smile. I didn’t want to know what she made of my presence here. It wouldn’t have occurred to Finn to wonder.

‘Must be boring for you hanging about. Has anyone ever looked at your future?’ Her voice was slick as hair grease and I remembered the snake from
Jungle Book
even as I struggled to understand her meaning. Was she offering me a job in the civil service? But then it clicked and I recoiled in horror. Was it possible that she actually told fortunes?

I shook my head, no, embarrassed by this obvious ploy to extort money. Did I really need to be told I would meet a dark lady and settle down in a town beginning with ‘S’? My future seemed too obvious to bother predicting. Finn’s fortune would have been more interesting – I couldn’t imagine how he would ever be anything but sixteen, anywhere but in that hut by the sea, his face and limbs any more or less graceful than they were now. It was like imagining a future for Peter Pan.

‘Come with me.’ She laid a hand like a pig’s trotter on my shoulder and I searched frantically for Finn.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘There’s time.’

The fact was, I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know that I was running out of life, that hard times lay ahead, that I was unlucky in love. I didn’t want to know that all my money would be stolen from me by the one I loved most, that trust would turn out to be laced with deceit, that nothing was what it seemed, that my life would be riddled with bonuses disguised as catastrophes, or vice versa.

It was all too obvious in my case anyway.

‘Never mind,’ she said caressingly, ‘we’ll have a cup of tea while you wait.’

With no hope of escape, I followed her into the market cafe with its proud announcement of today’s specials: pork chops and custard pie. I sat across from her at the table nearest the door while an ancient crone brought the tea.

‘Let me look at you,’ she said, when the thick white teacups had been placed on the table.

Although her face was squashy as a pudding, the eyes set within it were glittering and hard. She fixed me with them and my heart stopped beating; it was only after some seconds that I remembered to keep breathing, and exhaled.

‘There’s a girl,’ she said without preamble.

Of course there’s a girl, I thought, performing the mental equivalent of eye rolling. Beautiful, like a princess, with a fat baby on each hip. I felt like laughing out loud.

She gave a little shrug of annoyance.
‘Concentrate.’
It was not a request. She held up the little glass salt cellar from the table and I looked from her to it.

Oh, great, I’m about to be hypnotized and kidnapped now, sold into slavery as a… but exactly what would I be useful for? I stared at the salt cellar and once more nearly laughed when I thought about all the noise in my brain, and what she’d said, and it occurred to me that she was probably right, there were too many thoughts, too many sides to every object and every single person, too many attempts to make sense of it so that I always ended up confused and distracted and somehow out of control, whereas salt, a pillar of salt, like Lot’s wife, or was it Orpheus, someone turned into a pillar of salt by looking back when he? – she? – wasn’t supposed to. And while I was thinking all this, a picture came into my head, of a face, not altogether human, and rippled as if separated from me by a thick plate of glass. It was a girl and I knew her the way you know someone in a dream, a familiar packaging of misinformation. Her hands came up, strong hands with long narrow fingers, and touched my face and the experience was so startling in its clarity that I could actually feel her fingers pressing lightly just above my cheekbones, and when I looked out from the image I realized it was the old woman’s hands on my face, and I jumped back, confused and horrified.

‘How interesting.’ Her voice was light and without inflection, like someone blowing gently through a tube.

The face reappeared for an instant in my head, in ripples, indistinct.

And then it was gone, and the witch had her fingers wrapped round the salt so I could no longer see it, and she looked at me and nodded, though I didn’t say anything. I was back in the outside world, sitting at a table in the cafe while my tea grew cold.

Finn’s witch stared at me and her face had a new dimension. Was it compassion? Pity? She shook her head, narrowed her eyes and pointed a gnarled finger at me, gently tapping the centre of my forehead.

‘Look more carefully,’ she said.

I blinked and realized that was it; that was my fortune. Trotting after her into the market, I wanted to ask questions, but she ignored me as thoroughly as if we’d never spoken.

Which brings me to my next rule, written with hindsight and a certain hard-won wisdom.

Rule number six: There are clues everywhere.

Finn arrived a minute later, and when we left, Witchy handed him his money, and sent him off with a wave. I might have been invisible.

‘What’s wrong?’ Finn asked, nearly as soon as we set off. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

I could have laughed at the appropriateness of the old cliché, but the ability to see the funny side had temporarily deserted me. I wanted to tell him about the uninformative fortune and the strange floating image, but I waited and waited for the right moment and for some reason it never came.

We walked briskly in the pale light, travelling single file along the footpath that skirted the school gates. Pale furled leaves and dazzling sunshine scoured my brain of dark visions. When we reached the water, the ebb tide was running strong, but instead of the kayak, Finn dragged a little dinghy out of its hiding place. I hadn’t seen it before and despite its advanced state of disrepair, I was touched that he had considered the fact that there would be two of us crossing, and prepared for it – concrete evidence that I had entered his consciousness at a time when I was not actually standing in front of him. A thrilling discovery – like seeing a chimp make tools.

I helped him pull the heavier boat down from the dunes, wondering how hard it had been for him to get it up there in the first place. He stowed my bag in the bow while I clambered in as gracefully as possible, squinting into the sun. Finn pushed off, waded in a little and stepped lightly over the side, picking up the oars as he settled. The land rushed away from us at speed; all he had to do was steer in the direction of the little peninsula. The tide swept us out towards the sea, and then suddenly the momentum stopped and we were out of the current, becalmed. With a few lazy pulls of the portside oar, Finn guided us slowly to shore and I scrambled out to help him drag the boat up behind the shack.

My whole being was focused on trying to remain cool, pretending that spending two weeks without adults, without school, without authority or structure of any kind with my best (my only) friend was an ordinary occurrence. Impossible, of course. My head and stomach felt odd, my hands trembled, I had forgotten how to speak normally and was too agitated to eat.

Finn never seemed to notice my failures of poise, which surprised me. I had never in my life entered a room without instantly forming an impression of what everyone in it was doing and thinking. It was as natural as breathing to me, and I wondered if his ignorance were wilful.

The menu that night featured Finn’s fish stew (stew, I had learnt, was his main area of culinary expertise), dished into large bowls with a teacup in lieu of a ladle. I could make out potatoes, carrots, crab, mussels and a mix of fishes, but suspected they were only the beginning; all manner of monsters were routinely dredged up from the bottom of the sea and served for tea courtesy of my host. But it tasted excellent.

The sense of occasion was such that we carried our food outside and ate leaning against the front of the house in the late golden light with the gentle lapping of waves in the background. Finn’s little cat hung around, curling up on his lap for warmth. As I sat and tried to eat, my nerves seemed to flow out with the sea and I began to feel calm.

We sopped up the end of the stew with bread and sat back, sated, with no one to insist on prayers or protocol, and nothing at all to do before the next course, if we decided to have one.

When it came time for dessert, I brought out a cake, the last one left in the bakery, this time decorated with a clown in blue and green icing. I pulled the clown’s head off and used a blunt knife to cut the cake into more or less wedge-shaped chunks. Finn accepted his without enthusiasm, having lived for years without jam and sweets, but for me, at that moment, cake had no equal on earth.

Licking icing off my fingers, I asked about our assault on the fort. I knew it would require an early start to hit the tide right. We didn’t want to fight a vicious current on top of everything else.

‘We won’t have long,’ Finn said, ‘but we might catch a glimpse of it.’ He seemed excited by the possibility, like a child, and I revelled in this unexpected show of enthusiasm.

We sat for a long time in the dark, watching the beam of a lighthouse flash, hypnotic and reassuring, accompanied by the toll of a buoy. The tide seemed particularly low tonight; the beach stretched far away from us and the waves lapped quietly in the distance. I guessed it had to do with the full moon.

‘Is it true that you can still hear bells under the sea?’ My question referred to the legend, popular at school, that the bells of the churches from the lost city could be heard on quiet summer nights. Naturally, I was convinced of the absurdity of such a notion.

‘Of course,’ Finn said, without turning his head.

I looked at him sideways to see if he was serious, but nothing in his face offered a clue. For the next half-hour, until the temperature dropped and drove us inside, we sat in silence. I listened as hard as I could for the magic, but heard nothing but the clang clang clang of a buoy.