Day Boy (21 page)

Thom can't help himself, he snorts, gestures to Dougie to button his lip, and I see
a little more of what the grown-up Thom might be like.

‘Life in the Crèche isn't like anything you have ever seen,' Thom says. ‘There was
my ma, once, just the memory of light, of being taken. But since then just the dark,
and the lessons, and the lessons, and the dark. Masters everywhere whispering, more
Masters than you'd have ever seen in this town. We were raised in the dark, they
said, because their words was the illumination, their eyes the truth. That's what
the Crèche is like.'

And all them Day Boys are standing there, wide-eyed. Even me, because I could never
draw him on it. We all heard of the Crèche, but never known someone who is from there
before he came along.

‘In the Crèche, we aren't just raised to be Day Boys but Masters too. They tell us
we're being raised to be Raised. It's classes in oratory and history, and fighting
and living in the dark. And the Council sees over us.'

I don't say nothing. I've seen that Council, I know the truth of it. Just nod my
head a little, and Grove gives me a look. Knows me too well to let that slide.

‘Why you nodding there?' he says.

‘I seen the Council,' I say. ‘I spoke with them.'

Dougie laughs, they all do. ‘You're the biggest liar of us all.'

‘Ask your Masters if you don't believe me,' I say, then shrug.

‘Continue with your story, Mr Thom,' Dougie says.

‘We was raised next to the Council,' Thom says. ‘Heard the screams and the laughter
of those cages where the new-made folk are unmade and set upon the righteous path.
Saw the music halls too, where the Masters line the walls and listen to them that
can play. They've a hunger for all the things that they can't make.' I give him a
look; this is the most I've ever heard him speak at once.

‘You talking this up?' Dougie says.

Thom's voice goes soft. ‘You think I need to?'

‘I don't know what you need,' Dougie says, and it's Grove's turn to give a good old
snort. ‘Maybe a fist. I'm ready for you this time.'

‘Quieten,' I say, and Dougie glares at me. Thom too.

‘Come here then,' Thom says.

‘You come here.'

And he does, light as a knife. Slips a foot behind Dougie's ankle and while he's
swinging his fists out, Thom's already flipped him on his bum. You'd think after
the first time Dougie'd be anticipating such a move, but he isn't. He whoomphs and
sits there looking stupid. I tense ready for the possibility of a fight. But Dougie
just laughs and gets swift to his feet like it was nothing, not even a slight. He
grabs his hat from his head and
waves it in the air like some gentleman of old.

‘Continue, continue, my good man,' Dougie says.

And we're all laughing.

‘I'm like all of you. Just knew that dark place better is all.' He gestures to the
deeper part of the cave, where there's no light, just an encroaching shadow, a breath
of the depths. We've all followed that cave down, deep where it narrows and widens
and grows a sullen sort of watchfulness. The cave mouth Dougie's made his own, but
his grip loosens with every step out of the circle of meagre light.

Sometimes, at night, I swear I've heard that dark whispering my name.

‘You ever have friends?' Grove asks.

‘Some. But they're dangerous. Can't never trust them.' He looks at me and I nod.
We both know the truth in that, and it's like he's warning me, which I guess he is.
We all know our natures, even if they can surprise us sometimes, but we can never
really know others'. Never. Dain says that we fight our natures, which is what makes
us human.

‘You ever betray anyone?' I ask Thom, and he smiles.

‘You got some tips?' Grove asks.

‘Never do it obvious.' Thom says it like it's a recitation, a lesson taught in some
crueller classroom than I've ever known. ‘Make them think it's good for them, even
if it's not. And never be caught holding the knife. You drop it if you have to; bury
it all the better. We betray people all the time, but we're good at justifying it,
and there isn't a better justification than a hidden hurt, a betrayal not realised.'

I know Thom, but I hardly know him at all.

‘Thanks for that, boy,' Dougie says, and I can't see his eyes
beneath his hat. ‘You're
one of us, that's the truth, but we've done nothing official.'

I get a little cold at those words, a shudder pinches me close.

‘No need for anything official,' I say, starting to rise.

Dougie sighs. ‘Mark, you haven't got a say in this. Your time's comin' to an end
and all.' Damn fella keeps saying that, like I don't know. ‘And now to the meat of
this meeting,' he says, chuckling a bit.

He whistles once and hands are grabbing me. I look to Grove and I can see things
fighting in his expression. Was he in on it? Whatever it is. I give him a stare,
and he squeezes his hands to fists.

‘This ain't right,' Grove says, and he stands, a good couple of inches taller than
the tallest of us. ‘This ain't right.'

‘Should have known you'd have no taste for this. But here you are.' Dougie says and
casually punches Grove in the face, unexpected and swift. I see the lights go out
of him and it's almost impossible not to laugh. Poor Grove drops.

‘Run,' I say to Thom, but it's already too late.

The Parson twins are hitting him. I shake an arm loose.

‘Not your fight,' Dougie says, and there's a flash of a knife, polished to such a
sheen that I can see my face in it. And something strikes me from behind.

CHAPTER
30

I COME TO on the stony floor, rubbing my head, groggy. Someone is standing by me.
I can see their boots, a bit of mud on the left one, splash of blood on the other.

‘That you, Grove?'

‘Yep. You OK?'

Thom is there and his nose is bloody, one of his eyes is black, and his lip is split.

Grove's standing over him. Rubs his stubbly jaw. ‘Never thought it was made of glass,'
Grove says.

‘I'm sorry,' I say, the words come thick and muddy.

‘Gave as good as,' he says.

My arm is sore. I look at it, and on the meat of my biceps a shape is carved. Bloody
as all hell, but I can make it out. I blink at it. A letter G.

‘What's that for?' Thom says.

‘Ghost,' I say.

It's a lurching, slow way home.

Dain don't say nothing when he sees us both. He knows the ways of boys, but he looks
at that G, and his eyes darken.

‘Get some antiseptic on that now,' he says.

That G is deep and it's going to hurt in the healing. Hurts a hell of a lot already.
Hurts enough that I know I'm no ghost.

I'm lying in bed feeling sorry for myself when I notice it.

‘Hey, you're not crying,' I say.

‘Been a while,' Thom says, and I think back on it, and yes, he's right. I can't remember
the last time I heard him, at least a week. ‘You tell anyone about those tears and
I'll cut you worse than any G.'

‘Fair enough.'

Next day, my arm sore and red, we see a lot of the boys out, and most of them are
bruised. But, like always, talk of it is done.

But for the blazing cut to my arm, but for those bruises that speak of deeper truths,
it's all done.

I'm talking to Thom when I feel it slide over me, some kind of faint.

I wake up all sweat and shudders. My arm's on fire.

Dain's looking over me, grim as all grim.

‘The wound's gone septic. Didn't I tell you to put something on that? Do I have
to teach you all about hygiene?'

‘Next ta bloody godliness,' I say.

Dain's jaw juts. ‘I'm getting help.'

Thom's in the room too, and he looks scared. ‘I'm fine,' I say. ‘Fine as.'

But they're already fading from me. The room fuzzy at the edges like something's
taking a bite out of it.

‘Why's it getting dark?' I say, or something, or maybe I don't say nothing.

Next time I wake, the fever's broken. There's a cold cloth against my head. Sheets
are damp.

‘You had us worried,' Mary says, and frowns. ‘As close to dead as I've ever seen.'

‘But I'm still here?'

‘Yes, you are.'

I get the shivers then. ‘Mary,' I say. ‘Tell me something.'

‘What?'

‘Anything. Anything. I'm cold, I'm—just talk to me.'

And she starts a chat, one-sided, mostly cause I'm drifting in and out. About the
weather, about Anne's deliveries, about the puppies that the Mitchells' dog had,
and the comet in the sky that I missed. Burned out the stars it did, but it's already
dimming. And she tells me about Anne's da, and the way he left the world, and she
tells it without bitterness, just the way it went.

And she holds my hand gentle and I let her, and I slip down again, but her voice
makes that dark a better place. And I sleep.

‘You're looking stronger.' Thom lifts the cold cloth from my head, squeezes it, wets
it some more, and then down again on my boiling brow. Fever's risen a bit.

‘You learn that in the Crèche?'

‘Eh?'

‘How to look after someone, not just kill them?'

Thom nods.

‘Rounded education, then.' I try to sit up, don't make it too
far. I'm feeling frail
all right. ‘How long have I been abed?'

‘Nearly a week,' Thom says. ‘You should have seen Dain, he was frantic. I think he
might have Changed you. 'Twas Mary that stopped him, told him he was being a fool,
that in that state all he'd raise would be madness and hunger, and did he want that
for you?

‘Dain snapped at her, thought he might bite her through. Said he didn't want that
for anyone. Not anyone.'

‘So I was nearly one of them?'

‘You was nearly one of them, but it would have been a struggle for you, even then.'

I know. They don't take to the new, all that much. They don't like it. And I'd seen
those cages. I'd have been locked away in my own madness for an age.

‘Dougie's right,' Thom said. ‘I didn't believe it, but I seen it. Dain hates himself
and he hates his kind. That's a dangerous thing.' His voice lowers to a whisper,
and there's a horror in his eyes. ‘It'll kill us all.'

I want to slap him, but I manage a scowl.

Thom laughs, mocking. ‘Be brave little man. That's all we got, isn't it?'

And I think of him, and those years raised in the dark. And I feel a bit sorry. He
never had what I had. He's just a little boy.

When I get up from bed, just to do a piss, it's a shaky rise and I can tell the truth
of my illness. I can feel bones pushing against flesh. My cheeks are hard against
my skin, like I was eaten from the inside out. And every bit of me is aching.

I look at me in the bathroom mirror, this Mark-ish skeleton. I give it a grin, and
I stare at the red scar that was once a G.

More truth to that ghost than I want to admit. Death hasn't left. He's just waiting.
Death is always waiting, and I'd forgotten it like the fool I am. No matter, Death
will remind you.

‘You'll fill out,' Dain says when I leave the toilet, makes it sting even more. That
he can see it, that he feels he has to say it.

I get my visitors. Certain comes a few times, even brings Petri. And that dog licks
my face, tail banging on the floor, like she's never been happier to see me. Missing
the farm, I am.

‘It'll be there when you're better,' Certain says, and I think he might even be missing
me.

All them Masters come one by one to visit me in my sick bed. Not for me, of course,
but for Dain. Not a one of them I reckon would care if I carked it, and some would
be all gleeful. Old Sobel stands at the foot of my bed and stares at me with nasty
beady eyes until Dain calls him away.

Tennyson just pokes his head around the door, gives me a grin with more cheek in
it than my near-death deserves. But that's Tennyson. Kast is there when I wake up,
and I don't know if he's decided to eat me or what. The room is cold, the window
wide open.

‘Freezing,' I say. ‘Give a sick man the comfort of a closed window.'

He shakes his head and leaves me (through that window, shutting it after himself
with a click like the snapping of an angry dog's teeth) to troubled sleep.

It's only Egan that bothers to talk to me.

He comes in by the door, Thom trailing him.

‘Out, out, little one,' he says, gesturing back the way he
came, and Thom does what
he is told. This isn't our Master, not even a chance to argue anything away.

‘One always gets what they deserve,' he says. ‘That is a truth that all these long
years have taught me. You brought this down on yourself, boy. You're like this damn
town and there will be a reckoning.'

‘Say hello to Grove for me, would you Mr Egan.'

Egan looks at me like I am the worst of smells. ‘Not dead, though. Not dead at that.'

No, I'm not.

None of their boys come, and I don't know if they're afraid of me or Dain. He speaks
of them now, not dismissively, but with jaw clenched.

I'm well enough to get about a little, though Thom spares me most of the work so
I'm bored and sick, with too much time on my hands. Sometimes I go to Anne's place.
Lurking, Dain calls it, but I'm just listening, no lurk in the attention I pay. She
plays that piano, all furious. She's a talent all right. You hear it, and you hear
sadness and joy. Anne's going places—who knows where but she's chasing those pure
and angry notes.