Counting Stars (7 page)

We tilted our heads back, closed our eyes, waited to have Christ’s body pressed to our tongues.

I knelt afterward with my head bowed in thanksgiving. I told Mick he should take Maria somewhere on his own. He grinned.

“Aye,” he whispered. “Then get together later, eh? See where we got to.”

She waited for me in the courtyard. We sidled through the released congregation. We were almost clear when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and there was Dad, smiling at us.

“Who’s your friend?” he asked.

“Theresa,” I said. “Maria’s cousin. She’s from Winlaton.”

He shook her hand. I stood speechless. He gently laughed, gripped my shoulder, at once holding me and pushing me away.

“Go on, then,” he said. “On your way, son.”

We held hands on the High Street and moved across the Square. Such changes: high thin drifting clouds, immaculate light. We walked up Felling Bank, densely packed houses on either side. Children squealed in hidden gardens. I led her to Windy Ridge, a sloping terraced street with vegetable gardens in front and huge playing fields beyond. Scents of woodsmoke from gardeners’ fires, sun on bare earth, early flowers. Men bending, touching buds, talking with each other over flower beds and vegetable plots. Sun glinting on the greenhouses. Theresa said it was so beautiful here, like somewhere foreign. There were families walking through the fields, boys engrossed in soccer games. I pointed down to the roof of my home, to Maria’s place, to St. Patrick’s steeple. We traced the gleaming river through the banks of the city to the dark sea. The horizon was dead still, dead clear. I asked if she read and she said she loved modern poetry, French novels, she wanted to know about the Russians. She said that one day she’d write novels of her own, and not about Winlaton. I told her about Stevie Smith and Lawrence. I said she must read
The Third Eye,
she must learn of Lobsang, his family, his education, how his occult powers were awakened. We talked of the wideness of the world, the narrowness of our homes. We passed the remnants of the abandoned colliery, the broken concrete gun emplacement left from the war. We took a path that led from the fields into the Heather Hills. Wild daffodils. Bracken and fern unfurling. Long strings and clusters of spawn in the ponds. The yellow buds of gorse, the white of hawthorn.

We lay on a grassy slope and looked down over everything. We lay face upward side by side and watched the clouds drifting. Invisible larks were singing high above.

“We can imagine anything,” I said.

We kissed each other.

“We can go anywhere,” she said.

We kissed and kissed. We held each other, subtle body and subtle body. We rocked and swayed and lifted and fell, and we began to leave ourselves, entangled there together in the sunlight on the grass.

Behind the Billboards

S
TOKER
’
S BEEN AFTER US FOR DAYS.
None of us knows why. Somebody must have been spinning stories about us, telling lies. There’s four of us: Mickey, Tash, Coot, and me. We’re sure we’ve done nothing wrong and said nothing wrong.

“But that’s it,” says Tash. “With him you don’t need to. He believes what he wants to believe. That’s why he’s so wild.”

This morning we’re kicking about on Felling Banks when Mickey sees him in the distance, coming up from the Old Fold with his dog.

“Don’t look like you’re running,” he tells us. “Just get the ball and move.”

We look back from where the new flats are on Wellington Street. There’s Stoker coming in a dead straight line across the field. There’s the dog on a tight chain at his side.

“Maybe he doesn’t know it’s us,” says Coot.

We just look at him. We move on. We can’t help running once we think we’re out of Stoker’s sight. At the square, we climb in behind the billboards and wait for him to pass.

Coot’s already crying. He’s kneeling in the dirt and the litter that’s been shoved through the lattice underneath the boards. There’s tears splashing down from his eyes.

“He slashed Malcolm Rowell’s tongue,” he says. “He made him stick it out and he slit it, right at the tip. He said, “Telltale tit. Don’t tell your tales about me. Next time I’ll cut it off.”

He holds his hand across his mouth and he sobs and gasps.

“And what if he comes in here?” he says.

We say nothing. We just look at each other, then at this place, this narrow gap between the high billboards and the high wall of Dobey’s warehouse. Stupid. The only way out’s the way we’ve come in.

“What if he does?” says Coot.

Tash gets his penknife and thumbs the blade out.

“Shut up,” he says. “Or I’ll do the job myself.”

But we know Coot’s right, and we’re just about to jump out again when we see Stoker heading out from the flats. We crouch there. We hardly breathe. Coot starts blabbering to Our Lady till Tash points the knife at his throat.

“Shut up, Coot. The dog’ll hear you. It’ll smell your fear.”

I feel how I’m trembling, how my heart’s racing. My palms are slippery with sweat. I watch the knife point digging into Coot’s white skin as Stoker and the dog pass by the gap.

Coot’s prayer starts running through my head.

Hail Mary, full of . . .

Coot’s a bastard. We didn’t know what the word meant till we found out the truth about Coot. His mother was young and stupid and she used to go with anybody. There’s a man with them sometimes but he’s not Coot’s father and Coot’s mother’s not his wife. The story is he goes to sea and they’ll marry when he’s back at shore for good, but it’s like the story they used to tell when we were young that his first dad died. We’re told to pray for them but even we can see how they might be past all help.

Coot’s an altar boy like the rest of us. He got his name when he was an acolyte on Passion Sunday and the candle set his hair on fire and he ran screaming off the altar. The priest chased him into the vestry and clipped him and asked what he was doing defiling the feast in such a way. Tash, who’s a couple of years older than us, laughed and said it was an early visit from the flames of Hell. There were great bald patches on Coot’s skull and that’s how afterward he was known as Coot. He used to whinge and tell us not to call him that, but pretty soon he gave up. He knows that this is how things probably will always be.

He’s OK, really. He gets cigarettes from his mother and shares them out. He doesn’t mind when we hang about in his street just to get a look at her. There’s something about him that means you can talk to him. He was the only one that put his arm around me and whispered he was sorry when my little sister died.

Mickey passes a packet of Players round. We make sure we blow the smoke upward so it drifts away invisible over the top of the boards. We sit leaning against Dobey’s wall. We lean sideways so we can see out through the lattice into the square. We know we’ll be impossible to see. Stoker’s on a bench right in the middle. He lets the dog gobble at his fingers and even from this distance, thirty yards or so, we can see its saliva dripping and dribbling.

We get calmer and bolder. Mickey sticks his fingers up and whispers, “Clear off, Stoker.” Tash pees against the back of the boards and says he’s peeing all over the dog. We test each other to see if we can remember what’s on the front of the boards. Tash says one of them’s for Peter Stuyvesant. Mickey says there’s a woman in a tight dress but he’s never bothered to read what she’s selling.

“It’s Omo,” says Coot. “Washes whiter, drives out stains.”

Even he has to laugh when Tash tells him to get out and check them all.

Then we settle down, because there’s an old bloke sitting on a bench close by. He’s eating a pie from Myers, and he’s got a dog as well, a Jack Russell that tilts its head and peers at the boards like it’s heard us.

We sit there quiet. We watch the traffic and the walkers, the dozens of familiar faces passing through the square. Sometimes we murmur a name, or pass quick judgment: he’s a mean old git, there’s talk she’ll die soon, lovely legs.

Stoker doesn’t move.

In here there’s never any proper light and nothing grows. The ground’s dry and dusty. There’s ancient cigarette packets, cigarette butts, brick dust and dry mortar that’s fallen from the wall, little jagged stones. Soon Coot’s whispering his prayers again. When he catches us listening he says Our Lady of Fatima’s the one to pray to. She appeared only to children, he says. Tash laughs. She’s the one there’s that statue of at St. Andrew’s, he says. You can see the shape of her body underneath her dress. Coot chews his nails and says nothing. Mickey passes the cigarettes around again and they’re dry. It’s like smoking the dust.

Tash watches Coot.

“He still believes it all,” he says. “Can’t see through any of it.”

“Why’s he bloody after us?” says Mickey.

Tash runs his penknife blade back and forth across his jeans.

“There’s four of us and one of him,” he says, but we know he knows that’s useless.

“God,” he whispers. He stabs the blade into the earth. He laughs. “Stick your tongue out, Coot,” he whispers.

We see Father O’Mahoney hurrying through the square. He’s got his black-fringed stole on.

“Somebody’s kicking it,” says Mickey.

Coot crosses himself and shakes his head.

We watch the old bloke feeding the last of his pie to his dog.

“I’m starving,” I say. “Run out and buy us a pie, Coot.”

Then I see the tears in his eyes, and I touch his arm.

“Clear off, Stoker,” I whisper.

“What have we done to him?” I ask.

We talk about making a run for it, jumping out and scattering, but we know it’s useless, none of us would want to be the one that’s caught.

“Maybe we’re wrong,” says Coot. “Maybe he isn’t after us at all.”

“Get out, then,” says Tash, and he laughs and smiles. “Go on, jump down.”

He watches Coot, strops the knife.

“Why does it make you so happy to see him so sad?” I say.

Tash shrugs and spits.

“Because he’s a bastard and I’m OK.”

He smiles again.

“Isn’t that right, Coot?” he says.

Coot closes his eyes, moves his lips in silent prayer.

“Tell us about your dad,” says Tash. “Was he a damned bastard as well?”

Mickey calms it down. He hushes us, points out at the Jack Russell that’s facing us, eyes and ears all alert. Beyond it, Stoker doesn’t move. His dog lounges on the bench beside him. The sun’s shining down on everything out there.

“Tell us,” says Tash, more quietly. “Tell us a story, Coot. Tell us where you came from and where you think you’re headed. Tell us the truth, not the lies you used to spread.”

“Tash,” I whisper.

“What?” he says.

I stare at the boards. I try to remember what’s on them. I try to imagine what Stoker thinks we’ve said. I think of the story of Malcolm Rowell’s tongue and I know it’s true. I’ve seen the healed slit when he puts his tongue out for the priest to place Communion on it. I wonder what we’ve done and what we’ll do and I find my lips moving almost automatically, seeking intercession from Our Lady.

“Maybe Coot’s right,” I murmur. “Maybe he isn’t after us at all.”

The others say nothing. We’re silent for what seems an age, till Coot begins to cry again.

“I wasn’t lying,” he says. “I used to believe everything I was told and everything I said. I believed it so much I could even remember him. I saw what he looked like. I heard his voice. I remembered being small and being with him. I remembered how happy I was when he was there. And then I found out I was wrong. There was no way I could remember. But I wasn’t telling lies.”

We wait, and we listen to the traffic and the footsteps outside.

“It wasn’t the truth,” says Tash at last.

He strops the knife and spits.

“She wanted to keep things secret,” says Coot. “She didn’t want me to suffer because of her past.”

“Secrets!” says Tash.

“Yes!” says Coot. “Secrets. Even Our Lady of Fatima had secrets, things that had to be kept hidden, things for nobody but the children to know.”

Mickey hushes them again. The Jack Russell’s on its feet, tugging at its lead. We see Stoker, so calm, not moving.

“And what about now?” whispers Tash. “What’s the secrets now? What’s she get up to when he’s home with her? What do you get up to, Coot?”

“Jesus, Tash!” I whisper.

He points the knife at Coot’s throat.

“One day he’ll stop his traveling,” says Coot. “Then he’ll marry her and he’ll be my father. I know he will.”

“You see it, do you?” says Tash. “Just like you saw the first happy little family. Just like when you were telling all those lies.”

The Jack Russell yaps, tugs at its lead. The old bloke stares toward us.

“You been spreading stories about Stoker, Coot?” says Tash.

Coot gasps, yelps.

“Stick your tongue out, Coot,” says Tash.

Coot stares at me, then pushes past me. He jumps down through the gap.

We lie in the dry dust and look out through the lattice as Coot hurries across the square. We see Stoker rising calmly from the bench. He tugs the dog to its feet. They follow Coot down in the direction of the Old Fold.

We wait for a few moments in silence, then we jump down. We don’t look at each other as we go our separate ways. I hurry uphill toward home. When I’m clear of the square I slow down. My heart beats more gently, I breathe more easily. Already I’m starting to feel happiness through the shame.

Chickens

H
E WATCHED ME WALK CLUMSILY
through the rows of lettuce toward him. He sat against the greenhouse wall as always. He wore his serge suit and his cloth cap as always. He smoked his pipe. He’d have been there for an age. He’d have been listening to the blackbirds and the skylarks, dreaming, watching, waiting. Now he leaned forward, raised his hand, knocked out the pipe against the building’s wooden frame, and allowed himself to smile.

“Grand start to your holiday, then?”

I sat beside him on the bricks that had lain unmoved for years against the glittering building. I leaned at ease against the warm glass, sniffed the familiar scents of tobacco and earth.

“Brilliant,” I murmured.

“Aye,” he said. “And the big un’s coming?”

I shrugged. Colin was still in bed.

“The tomatoes ready?” I asked, and he smiled again.

“No. But there’s some late chickens hatched out. Come and see.”

The first door opened into a dark and musty interior. The cracked floor was littered with tools and plant pots, great sacks of compost and peat. Rusted implements hung untouched from year to year on the walls. Empty rattraps lay in the corners. I picked my way past the obstacles and opened the door of the greenhouse itself, entered the sudden brightness and heat, breathed the sweet powdery scent of tomatoes. I went to a large cardboard box and put my hand inside. I laughed at the tiny voices and the tiny feet that scratched my skin. I lifted one of the chicks and held it bright yellow to my face.

“Can this one be mine?” I asked.

He laughed.

“Aye, that can be yours,” he said.

I stared. It would grow so quickly. It would be just another unshapely squawking thing that strutted in the henhouse. He touched my cheek and we were silent until he asked, “Your mam’s all right, then?”

“She’s fine. She wants a lettuce, if there’s any.”

“Plenty. And flowers for her as well. Come on.”

I replaced the bird, pausing to see if I could distinguish that single yellow bird among so many.

Outside, I felt his eyes upon me as I crouched in the lettuce bed.

“Try to bring the big un round,” he said.

“Aye,” I said.

I felt his touch on my shoulder, heard his murmuring.

“Good lad. Aye, good lad.”

We waded into the chrysanthemums and cut a huge bunch of flowers. We wrapped them in newspaper, and he set me off, bearing these gifts to his only daughter.

It was a short walk between the garden and the house. Narrow Windy Ridge, then Rectory Road with the broad verges and the overhanging trees, then the lane into our ring of houses. The street was covered with dust. Sunlight lay flat against the dark red walls, it glittered on the windows. The shadows cast were angular and black.

“Where you goin’?”

I looked around. Ken and Terry Hutchinson stood at their front door. I turned and walked on.

“Where you been?”

I said nothing, wanted nothing to do with them. It was Ken who was calling, the oldest. Ken strode around the neighborhood like a man and all the younger children knew, without understanding, the squalid rumors about him. I walked on until I heard them on the pavement behind.

“Hey, Ken,” said Terry. “Look. Flowers!”

“Aye. Flowers!” said Ken.

Colin had told me never to run. I turned and Terry grabbed the parcel and spilt the flowers and the lettuce across the ground. I reached for him but Ken came to his side and with his black pointed boots he began to grind the flower heads to pulp. He kicked the lettuce and it burst and scattered onto the roadway.

He pointed into my eyes.

“Next time we speak, don’t bloody well ignore us. Right?”

“There’s plenty left in the garden,” my mother said. “Don’t let that lot worry you.”

When I went upstairs, Colin was still in bed. He told me to pass his jeans from the door. I threw them to him and sat on the window ledge. I flicked through a soccer magazine while he lay cursing and struggling to pull the narrow legs of the jeans across his heels.

“Coming to the garden today?” I asked.

He shrugged. He might. He went to the wardrobe and put on his yellow shirt and watched himself in the mirror. I started to tell him what had happened in the street. He turned. Nobody picked on his brother. Where had I seen them? I answered vaguely. It wasn’t revenge I wanted. If Colin came back with me now, we might meet them on the way, I said. But he turned to the mirror again, and said he might come later.

“You go back,” he said. “We’ll fix the Hutchies later.”

My grandfather took his pipe out of his mouth and spat at the earth. The Hutchies. Always a bad lot, and there were lettuces aplenty. He smiled and touched my cheek. Nothing to worry about.

“He didn’t come, then,” he said.

The morning passed quietly. I fed the hens. I wiped feathers and mud from their shells, placed them in cardboard trays in the greenhouse. Together, we watered and weeded a patch of leeks. The day grew warmer and he sent me to the shop for lemonade. We shared the bottle, wiping its rim before lifting it to our lips. I turned away smiling when I saw how the liquid drew sweat from the old man’s skin. It stood in droplets above his tightly fastened collar, ran in thin trickles from below his tightly fitting cap.

When the distant factory sirens started to howl, I exclaimed at how quickly this morning had passed.

“Aye,” he said. “Not long till you’re at that new school of yours.”

“No,” I said, and I heard the sudden trembling in my voice.

We parted at the gate.

“See you this afternoon, then?” he said.

I nodded.

“Aye.”

He turned toward the club across the fields, where as always he’d spend an hour or two with old friends. I set off for home with fresh flowers and a lettuce under my arm.

A scorching afternoon had settled on the neighborhood. Children played in the gardens, on the verges, in the meager shadows of young trees. Front doors were wide open. Old people in battered sun hats sat in the shade at the sides of their homes. There were prams in many gardens, shades drawn up, chrome trimmings sparkling. There was the scent of many lunches, the hiss of bubbling fat, the chink of pots and cutlery. I hurried on, until my own name was added to the sounds that mingled in the air.

I looked around, shaded my eyes with my arm. It came again, and I saw Colin, sitting with the Hutchies outside their house. He got up and came toward me. He put his arm around my shoulders and he hugged me quickly, clumsily. The yellow shirtsleeve was brittle and crisp against my flesh.

“I saw them about it,” he said. “It meant nothing. They’ll not do it again.”

I tried to pull away.

“You coming home?” I said.

He held on to me. Then Ken came, and he also put his hand on my shoulder.

“It was nowt,” he said. “We’re sorry. We were just messing about.”

I couldn’t speak. When I turned my head, I saw the men walking into the streets, coming home for lunch. In the distance, the road surface was a glistening black pond. The voices of the others were lowered in rapid discussion, then Colin said,

“Stay with us a bit. Come on. Come with us.”

He held me closer. Terry ran to join us.

“We going, then?” he said.

“Aye,” said Ken. “He’s away.”

We crossed Rectory Road, entered narrow Windy Ridge. Ken took something from his pocket, a rectangular box wrapped in brown paper. He held it teasingly, between his forefinger and thumb. I tried to grin, but the edge of my mouth twitched and I could meet none of the others’ eyes. I wanted to scorn these others who could think something so special in this. But I said nothing, and I stumbled through the rubble with them, clutching the flowers and the lettuce, keeping close to Colin.

“We’re going to the garden,” he said, and he looked away quickly.

When we got there, Terry ran and threw the gate open. Ken tried to push me through, but I stood my ground.

“Chicken?” he said.

“It’s OK,” said Colin, taking my arm gently. “Nobody will know.”

We walked in. Terry was already inside. He’d found the box of chicks and was poking them and laughing at them. I told him to leave it. I raised my fists, ready for anything, but Ken stepped in.

“Yeah,” he said. “Stop messing about.”

I laid the box of chicks back on the shelf in the sunlight. I closed the door between the sunlight and the dark. Ken went to the only window and pulled aside the square of cloth that covered it. I stood watching as the others crouched in the pool of light. Ken passed some cigarettes round and I took one and watched the smoke I breathed coiling and spiraling with the dust. Then Ken laid his packet faceup on the floor. A photograph of a woman was on its lid. She was dressed in thin yellow nylon, its edges drawn back to show unnaturally pink buttocks and legs. Her head was turned and she looked out with a fixed grin toward us.

“Hell,” said Colin. “I thought it was cigarettes.”

Ken snorted. He beckoned me down.

“Here. Get an eyeful.”

I crouched with them as Ken opened the box and lifted out the pack of cards. He started dealing them out, slowly, teasingly. He sighed and squeaked as each new woman was exposed. He touched breasts and lips and buttocks delicately with his fingers. I couldn’t take my eyes away. I waited for one woman who did not arrange her limbs or her clothing to keep the secrets of her body out of sight.

Terry giggled. Ken leered and groaned. Colin was silent. I felt the sweat on my skin and heard the drumming of my heart. I looked at the women; then I looked around this darkened room, at the ancient tools, the sacks of compost, the empty rattraps. I watched the dust falling endlessly through the wedge of light. I heard the high-pitched cheeping of the chicks next door. I listened for my grandfather’s footsteps on the cinder path outside. I stubbed my cigarette into the dust and stared at Colin.

“Colin,” I said.

He nodded.

“That’s enough,” he said.

“What’s up?” said Ken.

Colin grabbed Ken’s collar.

“Enough, I said. Time to go.”

I watched them in bitter silence as they faced each other. I saw my brother’s angry eyes, his clenched fist at the other’s throat, his yellow shirt almost luminous in the dark. I heard his whispered threats and curses. Terry scuttled out of reach. Then Colin stood up and Ken squirmed on the floor to collect the cards.

As he left, Ken let his heel dig into my side.

“Chicken,” he whispered. “Little chicken.”

We cleared up the cigarette ends, burned them on a small fire. We flapped the door of the greenhouse to clear the air. As we walked home, Colin put his arm around my shoulder. We paused on the waste ground.

“Didn’t know what was going on,” he said.

“It’s all right,” I said.

But I couldn’t move. I watched the men leaving the neighborhood, heading back to work. The houses shimmered in the heat. A crow nearby thrust its beak at something bloody in a sack. I didn’t want to go home.

The house was stifling and steam-filled. Our mother was preoccupied. She told us to hunt out dirty clothes, told us to keep out from under her feet.

We sat down to plates of limp salad and ate in silence. Then she called me from the kitchen.

“Did you get the lettuce?”

It was in the greenhouse. It lay with the flowers beside the box of chicks.

“We’ll need it for tea,” she said, and she came to the doorway.

I held the cutlery tight, pressed my fists on the table’s edge.

“It’s at the garden,” I tried to say.

“Eh?”

My tongue was thick and clumsy, too big for my mouth.

“It’s at the garden.”

She said my name. She leaned forward and touched my arm.

“It’s all right. You can get it later.”

She watched me, said my name again.

“What is it?” she said.