Counting Stars (4 page)

In the evenings I sat beneath the photographs to work out my problems and write my compositions. I tried once to write the story of a nurse, a soldier, a baby in a jar, but it came to nothing. I knew I wouldn’t get away with it.

Autumn deepened, darkened. Frost came early. On Saturday mornings the soccer games on the high playing fields continued. Their ferocity was intensified by the cold and there were often bitter running battles on the sidelines. Below us smoke thickened in the still air over the town. White frost lay in the shadows. In the Heather Hills we lit fires and dropped potatoes into the embers. We wrenched thick sheets of ice from the ponds. We talked of girls and the bomb. We imagined that we were survivors after war, that waste and death were all around us.

It was on a Saturday afternoon that I came upon Kev again. I was making my way home. I heard him calling my name, saw him coming toward me across the fields.

“You won’t believe it,” he said.

He took a haversack from his shoulder, took out the polished wooden box from inside.

“You’ve seen nothing like it,” he said.

He opened the box and took out the jar and held it toward me.

“Look,” he said.

I took it from him and held it to the fading light. I saw the half-formed features, the little legs, the little arms.

“There was a note that it should be buried with her. Nobody’d touch it, though. My mam cried all night about it. My dad wouldn’t go near it. Said it was evil. Everybody thinks somebody else took it away.” He leaned close to me. “See?” he said. “They were right about the cow. A bloody witch.”

The baby turned gently in the liquid as I moved it against the light.

“You think it’s real?” he whispered.

The baby’s flesh through the years had become darker, more opaque than ours, but I saw the outlines of bones and blood vessels. The outline of his skin was blurred, as if he had started to dissolve. He held up his hands as if to hold on to or fend off something.

“He’ll be in Limbo,” I said.

He looked at me.

“Where the souls of the unchristened go. You can be happy there. But you can’t know God, and you can’t be with the christened.”

He grinned.

“It’s even got a dick. If you tip it up you’ll see it.”

“What you doing with it?” I asked.

He shrugged.

“Don’t know. I was going to get it out. I got the lid off, then I didn’t dare.”

We stared at each other. He took the jar from me and started to unscrew the metal lid. We breathed deeply. There was a chemical scent as the lid came off.

“I thought of you,” he said. “Soon as I got it.”

We sighed and bit our lips. We watched his fingers reaching in. He grunted and recoiled, couldn’t do it. Some of the liquid slopped out on to the grass.

“Stupid,” I said.

I looked at the sky, the disappearing sunlight. I told Kev to clear off. I said I’d take the baby. We fought, rolling over on the frosty grass, but I was bigger than him and it was soon over. I held him by the throat and said he knew nothing about this. I said it was secret and I’d kill him if he told. I grinned and said there were spells she’d taught me. I grunted some mumbo jumbo and spat down onto the grass beside his face.

“Stupid sod,” I said.

I let him up. I threw the haversack at him. There were tears and blood on his face. I stepped toward him and he backed away. I put the lid back on the jar and the jar back in the box.

“Go on,” I told him.

I took my knife from my pocket and folded out its blade.

He lurched away across the field. He kept cursing me, sobbing. I watched him, waited till he’d gone.

I moved back up into the Heather Hills. The light was fading fast. I broke the ice on a pond. I found a sheltered grassy spot close by, beneath a hawthorn tree. I started to dig with the knife. After the icy crust the earth crumbled easily and I scooped it out with my fingers. I poured the liquid out of the jar, holding the baby back with the lid. I tore a strip of blackout from my trousers, laid it across my hand. I took the lid away and the baby tumbled out on to my palm. I reached into the pond, lifted some water, trickled it over the baby.

“I name you Anthony,” I said.

I prayed that the Devil would be defeated, that the baby would be acceptable to God, that he would be welcomed now. I stared down at him, touched him, his skin so smooth, so tender. I folded the cloth over him.

“There you are,” I whispered, and placed him in the earth.

I pushed the soil back and pressed the turf back into place and prayed again that my deeds on Earth might influence events in Heaven. I threw the jar and the box into the wilderness.

I hurried back down through the dusk.

In my room, I put my schoolwork aside. I still felt the weight and shape of the baby on my skin. As it faded, I began again to write the story of the nurse, the soldier and the baby in the jar.

The Angel of Chilside Road

T
HIS ROAD IS NARROW
and tall trees grow from its verges. It leads upward from Heworth and Watermill Lane. It comes to a broad sloping field which in those days led to the colliery and then the Heather Hills and then the open sky.

The week after our sister Barbara died she was seen walking hand in hand with Mam on this road toward the field. She was dressed in white and both she and Mam walked with a fluency which neither had in their lives, for Barbara had been an invalid child and Mam was already badly damaged by arthritis. It was late winter. They were beneath the trees. A light was burning from our sister and both of them were smiling.

At that time we lived at the dark foot of Felling in a new neighborhood of gray pebble-dashed houses, called The Grange. We had moved there from our parents’ first home in Felling Square, a cold upstairs flat overrun with mice, which had been condemned. Our house was in a cul-de-sac, Thirlmere, which was entered from a long looped road called Coniston. This neighborhood was separated from the body of the town by the new bypass. From the garden at Thirlmere it was possible to stand on tiptoe and peer over the rooftops to the distant center of the town, the streets and parks, the playing fields, the Heather Hills, but there was no easy access to those places. It was in the house at Thirlmere that Barbara died.

After she died, we soon began to move upward again. We returned to Felling Square, to the new flats that replaced those that had been demolished. Then higher, to Coldwell Park, where we stayed, close to Chilside Road. If our father had not died, it’s probable we would have ascended again, perhaps to the new houses built beyond the fields once the colliery had gone.

Perhaps in our dreams we will always move closer to the sky, following the angel that was seen on Chilside Road that day.

The angel was seen by Mary Byrne, mother of Michael, and resident of Watermill Lane. She gave her account to our mother, to whom it brought much comfort, who told our sister Catherine, who told it to us all.

The Time Machine

F
ELLING
S
HORE, EARLY
M
AY,
the year before my father dies. The first time I’ve nested in years. I’m in an ancient hawthorn, with a hedge sparrow’s egg in my mouth. I hear birdsong, the endless din of the distant city, then a grinding of gears and engines, the crunch of wheels on damaged roads. I step higher onto a thin bough, and pull aside the tangled leaves. I see caravans and lorries coming down through the terraced streets, mounting the broken curbs onto the waste ground, entering this broad field above the Tyne. The tree that holds me quivers as I grip it tighter. Its thorns pierce my skin. I see the Waltzer and the House of Death. A sheep, a goat and a little camel lie in the same cage. I slip, the egg bursts on my tongue. I gag and spit. Salt and slime in my mouth. The shell ineffably fine. The ruined egg dangles from my lips. I grip a new branch, rebalance, stare out again. Through the hawthorn blossom I see the Time Machine return to Felling Shore.

I climb down, squat in the shade of the tree. The convoy comes to rest. Children and dogs leap from its doors to the field. I spit and spit, wipe my mouth with my sleeve. Blood trickles from my hands. A group of the children come. A little girl in a short frock with an Alsatian at her side points at me, then at the old shoebox at my side.

“What’s in there?” she says.

I open the box, show the eggs laid in neat rows on smooth sand. I touch them with my fingers, and name them.

“Starling, larky, blackbird, wren.”

I point up into the tree, to the nest deep in the foliage.

“Hedge sparrow,” I tell her.

I pick a fragment of shell from the tip of my tongue.

“Give us an egg,” she says.

I hold out the bright blue fragment to her.

She laughs, grips the growling dog by its mane. Beyond her, men are already uncoupling trailers, throwing rods and girders down onto the grass, unrolling great sheets of canvas. I see the Time Machine, sky blue, with pyramids and flying saucers and fleshy pink women in bathing costumes painted on it, at the center the arched entrance with its beaded curtain.

A skinny naked boy crouches before the eggs, shoves his finger into the sand. I clip his hand away.

“Which one you from?” I ask the girl.

“We tell your age for sixpence. Dad gets out of chains and sticks skewers in himself. Mam tells your fortune and shows her knickers to men after midnight.” She held her hand out. “Give us a penny, eh?”

“What’s your name?”

“Little Kitten.” She shows her nails like claws. “You’re fourteen. Give us a penny.”

I drop a coin in her palm and she giggles and spits then sets off to the river with the dog and her friends. Out in the field, older children are roaming now. A juggler spins knives. Elvis Presley’s voice starts to crackle and roar. I move out from the tree. The woman leaning against the Time Machine hails me as I walk by. She is blond, plump like the women in the paintings. I see how the name and the bodies have been painted time and again.

“Yes, you, boy!” she calls.

She wears high heels, short skirt. Makeup is caked on her face, her eyes are rimmed by black mascara. I start to turn away, then catch my breath at the tenderness I see in her. She is thirty, or older, or even my mother’s age. She smiles, she licks her lips, she tugs gently at the straps beneath her white blouse. I stare at the entrance to the Time Machine, at the darkness inside.

“Make sure you come and see the Time Machine,” she says.

I stare at her.

“Remember,” she whispers. “Remember, bonny boy.”

I turn my eyes away, I leave the field, I hurry home.

I’m in the kitchen with my sisters. Dust seethes in the sunlight that’s pouring in. Light flares in the loose strands of my sisters’ hair. We gaze at the eggs. We practice naming them, remembering them.

“Blackbird,” we whisper. “Starling, larky, wren.”

I show them the paired pinholes in each egg, tell them how to blow out the stuff from inside. I tell them it was Dad who taught me all this, who years ago took Colin and me through the old lanes at Felling’s edges. I tell them the rules he taught me: be silent and quick, don’t damage the nest, take only one egg, and only when the clutch is three or more.

I see tears in Catherine’s eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I say. “What’s wrong?”

She raises her hand into the streaming light. We watch the dust in silvery fragments dance and seethe about us.

“Human skin,” she says. “They told us at school—the majority of dust is human skin. Dead skin.”

We meditate upon this. We laugh. The dust rises and falls, we watch it stream into our mouths with breath.

“Angels are like this,” says Catherine. “Their bodies are subtler than ours. Their atoms are dispersed. They are more spirit than matter. They are all around us.”

We look at her.

“They told us at school,” she says. “It’s true.”

We all laugh again.

“It’s true,” say Mary and Margaret together. “It’s very very true.”

“It is,” I say. “And I saw a Time Machine today.”

Dad comes in from the sunlight. He has his heavy herringbone coat over his arm. He kisses the girls and sits with us and sighs at the beauty of the day. He lights a Players and the smoke weaves and spirals through the dust. He shifts on the hard kitchen chair, catches his breath.

“Press there,” he says, taking my hand, holding it against the base of his spine. I press, feel the complicated solid bone beneath the flesh and skin.

“There?” I ask.

“There. Yes, there. Press harder, son.”

He touches the eggs gently and tells us he’s seen a Time Machine today.

“I know,” I say. “I saw it come to Felling Shore.”

He breathes the smoke from his nostrils.

“I saw it going down,” he says. “Just as it did those years ago.”

He reaches out and touches my cheek.

“Who’d believe it? It’s the same Time Machine that I saw on Felling Shore when I was a boy.”

We lean close together, above the eggs.

“You’ll have to take me,” he says. “It won’t stay long. You’ll have to show me.”

He laughs, touches us all, kisses us all.

He ponders.

“Larky?” he says. “Blackbird, starling and wren?”

I dream that God clambers through the hawthorn at Felling Shore. He balances on thin boughs, gazes into the nests, carefully takes eggs from clutches of more than three. He holds them on His tongue for a moment, then swallows them. Little Kitten watches Him from the ground. She keeps saying, “Give us an egg, sir. Please give us an egg.” At last He tosses one down to her. It cracks open on her palm as she catches it. A feathered child comes out, bright and tiny as a hummingbird.

I catch my breath. It’s our dead sister, Barbara, the fourth of us. I watch her fluttering toward the blue sky and deserts of the Time Machine. “Forgive us,” whispers Little Kitten. “Give us another egg, sir.” But God is furious. He glares darkly down at the girl. He becomes careless and clumsy. He shoves egg after egg into His mouth. Yellow yolk and bright blue shell dribble from His lips. The hedges tremble and the air is filled with the alarm cries of parent birds. I see Barbara flutter through the beaded curtain of the Time Machine. I rush to follow her, and wake in the darkness inside.

Next afternoon Dad calls me from the garden. He’s tying the stems of roses against the fence. He squeezes a bud and we see the petals packed moist and dense inside. He tells me how fortunate I am. He tells me there will be nothing I can’t do.

“You understand, don’t you?” he says.

I nod.

He smiles, ironic, blows smoke on the aphids to make them die.

“We’ll go now,” he says. “Just you and me, the two of us. I’ll take the others later.”

In the house the girls and Mam are at the kitchen table. Colin is somewhere upstairs, trying on his best yellow shirt or his best blue jeans.

Dad takes me inside, brushes my hair down, tugs at my sleeves and hems to make me neat. He lays his herringbone coat across his arm. He sighs, presses his hand into the small of his back.

“Where you two off to?” says Mam.

He grins and winks. “Nesting,” he says. He kisses the girls. “I’ll take you to the fair later,” he says. “I won’t forget.”

We step out into the streaming light.

“Goodbye, little chicks,” he calls.

An untidy cluster of tents and stalls, a couple of merry-go-rounds turning. The caravans are parked above the water. The din of compressors, Elvis’s howl, the scent of onions and boiling fat. The people of Felling move at ease through the field and through the fair. We pause by the hawthorn at the edge of the field. Brilliant light pours down, carries the singing of larks from somewhere high above. Dad faces me, watches me. I see the darkness of his beard beneath his dark skin, the heavy eyebrows, the glittering eyes. I see that soon I will be taller than him.

“Are you happy?” he asks.

I shade my eyes and look away and don’t know what to say.

“Not a fair question,” he says. He raises his hand to some passersby. “You will be happy. You’ll have everything we’ve missed.”

We move forward. He lights a Players. We weave our way through the crowds between the shooting galleries and merry-go-rounds. I feel his hand guiding me forward. Little Kitten stands in the walkway wearing a white dress, calling out that she can tell the age of anyone for sixpence. She catches my arm as we pass. She points to Dad. “Forty-two,” she tells him. She holds out her hand. “Give us me sixpence, then.” He laughs and tosses the coin to her.

She winks at me.

“Give us an egg,” she squeaks.

We move on.

“It’s unbelievable,” he says. “It’s the same Time Machine as in my day. The same woman, the same man. They can’t be.”

The woman stands on a low stage before the facade. She wears net tights, a bathing costume whose stiff bodice shimmers like a kingfisher’s wing. There is an older man beside her, in black top hat and tails. The beaded curtain is pulled back to expose a cool blue interior. The man leans out toward the gathering crowd. He scans our faces.

“Who is bold enough to enter the Time Machine?” he calls.

The woman smiles, so gentle.

“Who could cope with the journey?” she asks. “Who could understand what will be seen?”

I gaze up at her. Dad’s hand rests in the small of my back, pushing me forward. She catches my eye, her gaze moves on.

The man holds a glittering black rock to us.

He tells us, “Here is a stone brought back from the Moon.”

He holds a curved piece of brass.

“The breastplate of a centurion,” he calls.

He shows a framed indecipherable script.

“Writing from the ninth millennium,” he whispers.

He leans closer.

“What will the next voyager bring back? What wonder will be added to our marvelous museum?”

She catches my eye again. She leans to me.

“Who will travel with Corinna in the Time Machine?”

There is laughter in the crowd. Some kid calls, “Me! Me!” Dad’s hand stretches across my back. “You,” he whispers. “You!”

Corinna grins, leans down again.

“You?” she asks. “This bonny boy?”

She reaches down for me. I find my hand in her own. I find myself stepping upward. I hear Dad behind me laughing and calling: “Remember me!”

They hold me between them on the stage. The man grips my shoulders, runs his hands over my arms and hips. “Call me Morlock,” he tells me. He peers deep into my eyes. He asks my name, my school, and I answer softly while Corinna holds my hand and tells me to be brave.

“Are you intelligent?” he asks. “Can you remember what has been shown to you?”

I nod. My head is reeling. I hear laughter and mockery from the crowd. I see the open curtain of the Time Machine.

“What are your ambitions?” says Morlock.

I gulp, reel.

“To be happy,” I say.

“Happy! Then what are your dreams?” he says. “What are your visions? What wonders have come in your young life?”

I stare down at Dad. His eyes burn, they urge me to reply.

Corinna strokes my cheek.

“Be brave,” she whispers.

I see Little Kitten laughing at me from between the stalls. A huge man bound in heavy chains lumbers through the field outside.

“What are your dreams?” says Morlock.

“I see God,” I whisper. “I see babies flying. I go to Heaven and Hell. I see the dead come back to life.”

Morlock laughs. He slaps my back, shakes my hand.

“We have chosen well, Corinna. Take him inside and make the preparations.”

She turns me toward the entrance.

“Who else will come inside?” calls Morlock. “Who will see our voyager set off on his journey through the ages? Who will enter our marvelous museum and learn of the intrepid voyagers from the past? Who will be there when the boy returns with his stories and his souvenirs . . . ?”

We enter the blue interior, and behind us the people of Felling begin to step up to pay and follow . . .

Inside: a translucent canopy, straw spread upon the grass, shelves, caskets and cupboards, another low stage, and the machine itself. It’s an upright cylinder, tall and broad as a hawthorn tree, made of timber, heavily varnished. Lights fixed in vertical rows, purple and red, flash on and off, on and off. There’s a large dial like a barometer, The Past to the left, The Future to the right. There’s a curved door with heavy brass fittings. Its name is printed in flaking gold paint: The Time Machine.

I imagine that I will have to disintegrate, that I will be broken up in there, that my atoms will be dispersed so that I can slip subtly through space and time. I tremble at the thought of this. Corinna puts her arm around my shoulder. I smell her perfume and her sweat. I feel the harsh fiber of her bodice, then above this the soft flesh of her shoulders and breasts. She cups my chin in her palm and kisses me gently on the cheek and asks me to say my name.

“We choose our travelers for their looks and their brains and the wanderlust we see in their eyes,” she whispers. “I’ll be with you. I’ll tell you what you must do and what you must say.”