Mountains of the Moon (36 page)

“Some of us are still working in here!”

Shirley looks at the gods, has to put her sandals back on. She don’t know what to do with the hanky-chief.

“I’ll wash it, Anton,” she says.

“Wash it and keep it,” he says. “I’ll call around later to see him. About seven?”

She nods her head.

“Good-bye, love,” she says to me.

“Bye, Shirley,” I says.

We sit through five trains looking at the chair where Shirley was. Sounds and colors come slow back into the world. Wishes I had my cigarettes but I left them in my place. Don’t want to arst him cos he’s only got two left.

“Fancy doing some painting?” he says.

Uh-huh. Wonders what color it is and if I’m doing mulsion or gloss. Doing the ceiling drips in your eyes and makes your arms an agony and if the light int proper you can’t even see where you been. I is good at careful and edges, never get paint on the carpet or the light switch. Anton puts our tray of dirty plates on the trolley inside the kitchen then comes back out. Then he hangs his jacket on his finger and swings it over his shoulder. We walk around past the underground slope and the bins and then cut cross the grass past the chapel. This is a busy place with lots of people, staffs and patients and visitors, int sure which ones is the nutters. Anton walks left-right so I does a shuffle to change my legs cos in his shadow I int even here.

Down an overgrowed laurel path we get to a building like a classroom standing on its own. In the hall is a noticeboard empty cept for drawing pins and a sign says:
Welcome to Re Creation.
Nobody here. Long one side is pegs with old shirts covered in colors of paint. I spects we’ll have to sand everything down first, int nothing worster than dribbled gloss.

“Has we got sandpaper?” I arsts.

“Cartridge paper. Sugar paper. Crêpe paper. Tissue paper. Newspaper.”

“Sandpaper? Toilet paper?” I arsts.

“Do you mean tracing paper?”

“No—toilet paper.”

“You want to work with sandpaper and toilet paper?”

“Uh-huh. Case you cut your finger on a splinter or bit of nail you never seen.”

“Crikey, Mitten.” He holds up a painty shirt for me to get in. Someone left a daisy hat so he slaps the dust off on his leg and pulls it down on my head. Edges is floppy. He folds his arm, sees how I is. His front teefs is like two little girls, knows how pretty they is. Under his bottom lip he’s got a scar, looks like one time he got hit from behind and accidental bit it.

“Is you growing a beard?” I arsts.

Makes us laugh, don’t know how come.

“No. I keep forgetting to buy a razor. Shall we go in?”

We swing through the double doors like cowboys. Surprises me, peoples. No one looks up, cos busy around the tables making baskets. All the ceiling is made of baskets hanging down off the pipes. I follow Anton around past the backs of chairs. I sees they got machines and clay for swirling pots. By the winders they got a line of heasels. Someone done paintings, still wet, don’t know how many, all swirling red and black. A lady with a brown curly perm comes out of a cupboard with some big sheets of paper. She’s got big boobies down in dungarees and a blue vest.

“I thought if I pegged some paper up, it would surely bring Anton in. I see you’ve got a friend with you.”

“Mitten,” he says. “It’s all right, is it?”

She smiles at me.

“We’ve had a lot of children in over the holidays. The more the merrier! I’m so pleased to see you, Anton; I moved your portfolio into the office.” She leans closer, does us a whisper. “We’ve got one or two jealous people.”

I look around the people. Can’t tell. Most is ladies weaving the basket stuff in and out. Crossed fingers and eyes. I see a great big beautiful person like an angel sitting down making a basket, int proper a man or a boy. Wonders if he is a statue, but then his eyes come down from the ceiling and he pinches and tucks the basket stuff in. Is real cos when he moves his curls bounce. Nobody can sit sides him case they magines trampling on his wings. Wonders what a portfolio is and how to be more merrier.

“You’re very welcome, Mitten. I’m Amy,” she says. “Do anything you like.”

I does a swirl inside. Anton hangs his jacket on a nail bashed into the wall. He ties his hair up with a lastic band, at the back it flicks all up and fans out like a Chinese lady. Then he hangs a ciggi in the corner of his mouth and with a little stub of pencil makes a curving line on the paper. Draws fast. He’s got a rag wedged in the heasel to keep the smudging finger clean. Good cos only smudges what he wants. I sit up on the windersill and watch Anton’s hand and the lines flash. The drawing looks like
Shirley, with her cigarette and feets crossed on the chair. Last he does the wisteria and the paisley hanky-chief twisted in her hands. The pencil makes the picture look silver, like bossed on silver metal.

“That’s me started.” The ciggi in his lips don’t fall out or get wet, that’s how soft his lips is. He unclips the drawing, lays it flat on a side table. Then he starts a new big page. A small face comes out on the paper. One eye is squint, other one big, looking straight up at us. Mouth has a sideways grim and shiny skin. Prickle feeling. Fingertips is cold on my face.

Lulu.

Grady.

Pip.

Gets a side swipe feeling. Has to close my eyes.

“Some people get away with murder.” Amy comes back laughing. “How are you getting on? Oh my goodness, Anton,” she says. “You are so clever, Anton.”

He keeps drawing, does his girl a floppy hat, with daisies on it. Legs like a deer. Words go over her head,
Welcome
to Re Creation.
Anton is smiling cos he likes it, rubs a little winder of light into my open eye.

“Is you really a camera?” I arsts.

But then a chair falls back sudden, loud. Someone getting up. The angel man-boy is tall standing up, in a long white hospital gown. Arms is up and back, like he’s done a perfect landing. Anton draws him quick as real life, sides me on the paper. Then the angel boy’s arms come down, and he hangs his head and one hand inside the other.

Fallen down! On the floor int proper and all his body is electric shock. Terrible. And Amy and Anton has to hold him case he smashes his head on the floor gain. Lucky cos Anton got his tongue. Int no good.

“Nine.”

“Nine.”

“Nine,” people says.

“It’s OK, Michael.” Amy talks tween his golden curls. “It’s OK, Michael.”

But it int. It int.

“Michael! Michael!” they shout cos he twists all stiff.

“Ambulance is coming,” someone says.

“They’re coming,” Amy says.

“Michael! Michael!” His angel face is going purple and his lips. Then Anton does him the kiss of life. In my mind I make it true, I make the angel boy Michael breathe. Anton’s hands is piled up, pushing all the air back out, cept now he’s getting red and tired cos he int had air his self.

“Shall I take over?” Amy says.

But Anton int going to stop. Long time, fore the table legs and chairs shift and the amblance men is here.

“How long has he been gone?” they arsts.

“About fifteen minutes,” Amy says.

“Pains in the chest?”

“A fit. Then stiff. Then still.” Amy’s voice snaps. “He didn’t say anything.”

“Do we know who he is?”

“Michael. From Ward 6.”

“Eight,” a lady says.

“I’ve seen him up on 12.”

“Oh dear,” Amy says. “No one really knows where he’s from. He just comes in every day.”

The amblance mens is all around. I see thumbs pulling eyelids up. The angel boy’s eyes slide sideways, looking at me, arsting me something. Then the thumbs let go and his eyes is closed. His lips is black. I look for where Anton is. Some people is still making baskets. Anton int in the room. I look out in the hallway case he’s in the toilet. Int. I hang up the painty shirt and run down the laurel path. See Anton walking fast cross the grass, like nowhere especial, just into the rhododendrons. I has to run to catch up with him.

“Is you all right?” I arsts.

He shakes his head. He don’t know where he’s going, doing shapes of eight in the bushes.

“I spects we’ve had a terrible shock and needs a cup of sweet tea.”

“We need a bottle of bloody brandy, Mitten, that’s what we need. Look at my hands.” He stops to show me how shaky they is. He int no
good cos upset. Int got his hanky cos he gave it to Shirley. Now his hands is on his hips, he don’t know which way to walk or look.

“I could weep. I feel so sick. Do you feel sick?”

I could weep and sick no trouble at all, cept my tonsils is too big in the way.

“Christ, Mitten,” he says.

Never knew mens cried. I has to hold his hand and take him by the wall so we can sit down on the grass cuttings where the lawnmower man comes to dump it all. I gone icy with the taste of dead and it’s cold and dark in here. Grass smell is sweet and warm underneath us and we breathe it. Anton’s hand pressed together with mine makes us a prayer. We close our eyes to make it true, case we can make the angel boy breathe. Then we hears the amblance leaving, goes down the driveway fast and screaming and we know that the angel boy Michael is breathing, the angel boy Michael is trying to live.

That’s how come we does a kiss.

A porter crumbles a handful of sugar into the kettle. We get lost in the swirl and the stirring knock of the stick. The fire is sending embers streaming up through the hole in the tin roof. Fire flying. I think of Tony Gloucester Road. My eyes slow shutter. Emmanuel picks charred meat from the edges of his morsel then returns the exposed pink flesh to the fire. Morsel, is that the right word? A shrill whistle sounds. Not a bird. Nothing with sense lives up here. The sound makes us all turn around. Again—the shrill whistle. Emmanuel and the boys share ideas, send a response, whistled out into sudden green fog. A few minutes later from the blackened wing two lads arrive, porters. Glad to be here, they dump their loads, firewood, a European backpack, skeins of rope and climbing equipment. There’s hand rubbing and knee warming; the porters are full of talk and gesturing. The word “England” jumps out. Across the fire they smile and nod to greet me. There is debate. Yes, I am coming from England.

No.

An England person is coming.

Makes me smile, it’s so far-fetched. English man and woman meet on a different planet. Christ—I hope he isn’t a romantic. There is only one proper thing to do in these circumstances. The rise to the hut is lethal and steep. A porter takes a flaming stick to light the ridge. A National Park guide shows first. And. Surprises me. It’s a buxom wench in a swimming costume. One of her front teeth is missing.

“Robertson, I presume?” I say. And offer her the mug of tea.

She takes the mug with one hand and shields her mouth with the back of the other.

“My tooth plate hurts,” she says. “I’ve been leaving it out. I wasn’t expecting company.” She drops her hand, revealing a black gap in the front of her smile, and then covers it back up again.

“Shame.” I grims at her. “Well, it gives you somewhere to park your pen. Where did the tooth go?”

“I lost it.” She shakes her head at the memory, at the carelessness. “Lost it on the Matterhorn.”

“What—your tooth or
it
generally?”

She laughs a sudden wholesome bray, then seems shocked, as if she doesn’t know it, and covers her mouth up again with her hand.

“Hard, isn’t it?” She means the Mountains of the Moon, the terrain.

I nod.

“Thanks for this.” She lifts the mug.

“If I’d known you were coming,” I say, “I would have baked a cake.”

She laughs, makes a little self-mockery, the absurdity of the swimming costume, but we both know it is the perfect garment for a Bigo Bog. Her laugh is very infectious, I see it spread to everyone present. It’s probably all part of the bliss, the bliss of arrival, the bliss of a tumbledown mountain shelter; we all shifty around to let them all in at the fire. First she wants to sort out her equipment. Her backpack swarms with plastic bags, everything is organized so that she can’t find anything. It doesn’t stop her looking, though. She finds the “dry sock”section.

“Want a pair?” she calls to me.

“I’m airing foot rot; thanks, though.”

I lose myself in the flames of the fire and the sound of people at home. One of her porters is a clown, the others egg him on. I don’t understand the language but I know the pad of a shaggy dog story. My army of wet cigarettes, standing up to dry in ash around the fire, are ready for an about-turn. When Robertson comes over she’s wearing dry fleece trousers and an olive sweatshirt. Somehow she has combed her hair and performed an immaculate French plait. Complete smile, with the tooth in place. She is blonde-haired but brown-eyed, handsome, wholesome, like the Bionic Woman.

I make space for her to sit.

“Wellacome,” I say.

She laughs that bray, cuts it off short, gets instantly lost in the fire too, mesmerized by the flames. The brew in the kettle comes to the boil; we all kneel to worship at the spout.

“How do you know my name?” she says. “I’ve never met you before, I would have remembered.”