The Standing Water (5 page)

‘No, you should.’

‘No, you.’

‘You.’

Eventually, I sighed
and – with a nervous tread – stepped to where the bank met the shallows.

‘Don’t go
too
close!’ Jonathon called out.

‘Marcus –’ I sent
my voice, with its slight tremble, over the waters ‘– we came to say sorry,
sorry for yesterday … and to ask you to protect us from Mr Weirton.’

I paused, looked
round; Jonathon waved at me to go on.

‘And we’ve brought
you some presents.’

Jonathon stepped up
to join me. I sombrely took out my bags of ten-penny mixture. I reached into
one, tugged out a shrimp and flung it over the pond. That creature flew then
plopped somewhere in the middle, sending its ripples out. My hand was raised,
gripping another shrimp when Jonathon shouted, ‘Wait! What are you giving him
shrimps for?’

‘Might as well get
rid of them.’ I shrugged.

‘That’s not right!’
Jonathon thrust his earnest face at me. ‘No one likes shrimps – Marcus didn’t
when he was alive! You have to give him something better – something you feel
sad about giving away.’

‘You’re right,’ I
said.

‘It’s like Mr
Weirton was telling us that day in assembly – you know, in the Bible when the
He-brews sac-ri-fi-ced …?’

‘Sac-ri-ficed,’ I
confirmed.

‘Yeah, sac-rificed
their cows to God, they had to give him the best ones. They couldn’t give him
any that were injured or too skinny or anything like that, or God would have
got really angry! It’s the same here. If we give Marcus our worst sweets, he’ll
be angry with us and get his revenge!’

I shuddered and
looked over the pond. There was no disturbance, but in their deep knowing brown
the waters seemed to glower at me. What vengeance could be forming in their lower
reaches? You couldn’t be too careful with Marcus – I’d seen how quickly his head
had thrust up. My bag rustled as my fingers groped inside. Those fingers
gripped a little sphere and pulled out my chocolate football. I gazed at its
perfect roundness, its glittering foil. And behind that seductive sparkle was a
luscious globe of chocolate. Spit seeped, sweetening my mouth as I imagined my
first chomp.

‘Throw it in!’
Jonathon said.

As when gripping my
stones the previous afternoon, I readied that football. But my arm trembled. For
some seconds, I struggled with myself, having to will my muscles to obey, make
myself forget the sugary fluid in my mouth tempting me. I unleashed my
treasured orb. It sailed in its sorrowful arc against the cloud-clogged sky then
plopped into the water. The pond gulped, swallowed; its surface took on a more
contented sheen.

‘He liked that.’
Jonathon nodded. ‘He really liked it!’

‘We’ve got one more
chocolate football,’ I said, ‘yours!’

‘I’ll throw it in,’
Jonathon said.

But for some time
he just stood, gawping at the globe he held up between thumb and fingers,
watching it gleam in the dull light. He squeezed his eyes, screwed his mouth,
whisked his arm and the football was flying. Again it plopped as it met the
water, again the pond sent out circles to show satisfied digestion. But I knew
I had to give more – I lobbed in one liquorice bootlace, a fizzy cola bottle,
the cherry red rope. Jonathon pulled more sweets from his bags and soon we were
both throwing. Ripples spread, the slow rings overlapping as the pool gorged
itself. In went more cola bottles, fizzy bears. I stilled my arm as Jonathon
plucked a real jewel from his bag. He held up his flying saucer. My teeth
itched to dent those rice-paper domes. I imagined my mouth sparking that
sherbet explosion.

‘Are you sure you
want to give him
that
?’

Jonathon’s chin quivered;
he brought his head down.

‘Old Davies hardly
ever
gives out those!’ I said.

Jonathon glanced at
that spaceship then at the waters.

‘Marcus might save
our lives,’ Jonathon said.

His arm swooped in
a circle as if bowling a cricket ball. But rather than flying, that spacecraft
fluttered in a zig-zag to land in the pond’s shallows. It floated near the
chocolate slab of the bank in just a few inches of water. The pink of its
rice-paper was tinging to grey.

‘He’ll never get it
there!’ I said. ‘It’s not deep enough!’

‘Quick!’ said
Jonathon. ‘What can we do?’

The spacecraft was
sinking. Just one of its halves now remained above the water – a darkening
soggy dome that looked like it might crumble. My eyes flitted around, fell on a
long twig. I grasped it – feeling the rough rub of bark – and prodded the craft
out into deeper water. Its roof collapsed, a muddy fountain fizzed, the pond
gave another gulp and the saucer vanished into its stagnant stomach.

‘Do you think
that’s enough?’ I asked.

‘Reckon so,’
Jonathon said. ‘He must be full now.’

We each gave Marcus
a wave, exhaled our relief, and – with freer breath – tramped from his pond. We
didn’t have much left – just some shrimps, one cola-bottle, the drab mint, but
I hoped all those tasty sweets we’d sacrificed would urge Marcus to protect us
against Weirton or whoever was bumping kids off. On our plod home, we stopped
to look at the witch’s hand, but it chose not to show itself. We trudged on,
stuffing our mouths with shrimps. It was like eating sweetened plaster – the
way they stuck to the roof of the gob, massed around the gums. As for our cola
bottle, we decided – Solomon-like – to split it. Weirton had told us of that
great king’s wisdom in assembly, but – rather than the flashing royal sword the
teacher had described – Jonathon’s teeth performed the honours. He generously
handed me the bottle’s base, the bit with most cola. The mint I saved for my
dad. He seemed pleased with it.

And so we drifted
through the autumn of our seventh year. Yes, Jonathon, Stubbs and I were seven
– a number magical. It was certainly in the Bible a lot, as Weirton and our
vicar told us – seven days of Creation, seven years of plenty and seven of
famine in the pharaoh’s dream, the seven priests with seven trumpets who
brought down the walls of Jericho, the seven deadly sins, the seven bowls of
God’s anger that would be poured down upon us when God decided to destroy the
whole world! Reaching seven seemed a point we had passed – a kind of opening of
some things and closing of others.

And as we floated through
our seventh autumn, fat black clouds came and dumped their waters. Marcus’s
pond grew, until his murky kingdom was even lapping at the road. We stayed in
our lower juniors’ class – dull days inside, drab weather without; those aeons
of childhood time sometimes enlivened by an eruption from Weirton in the next
room, by the showmanship of an inventive walloping, which would take its place
in our pupil folklore. My hand hovers over my page; I stare at my blank walls
as I try to remember how many hidings were dished out in that damp autumn. My
mind strains as I force it back across the years and I seem to remember Richard
Johnson getting about two whackings, Stubbs around five, Darren Hill perhaps six,
and Jonathon’s brother eight! Jonathon and I – despite having trembled under
the stormy clouds of Weirton’s wrath at times, despite the finger pointing and
the voice booming at us – had still not copped a full thrashing. We hoped this
was due to the protection of Marcus and we’d continued our practice of throwing
sweets to him. But we did have our doubts – I did wonder if it had been Marcus
we’d seen that day. Had his head really thrust up, or had our excitability
merely converted something else into that dread legend? And had it really been
the bones of Lucy Weirton had shown us or just some dark trick to make us
behave better? Could a teacher – even someone with Weirton’s strength and power
– really murder his students? When I saw Stubbs or the brother swinging,
choking and red-faced, as they received their six of the best and two or three
for luck, I did wonder if he might have. But those boys always survived
Weirton’s punishments. Though shaken and tearful, a few hours afterwards – in
the playground or on their way home – their feet would be running, their fists
would be flying, their mouths taunting just like before. And Mr Weirton could
be kind – taking the top class on a nature walk to Salton, a couple of times
letting us finish our lunches with choc-ices, beaming as he watched us unwrap
those frozen treasures. Surely such a person couldn’t be responsible for
despatching two pupils. I couldn’t imagine him callously hurling Marcus’s
corpse into the pond or stowing poor dead Lucy in his cupboard. But, just in
case, we went on feeding Marcus our sweets, went on mumbling thanks and praise
to his dark waters for saving us from that swooping hand.

As that wet autumn
went by, Jonathon went on with his set-outs. The one I’d seen on the day
Weirton had shown us Lucy met the sad fate of all its predecessors. Jonathon’s
city had spread – climbing up empty book shelves, cluttering his windowsill,
splurging through his door and onto the landing. From the Bible we’d been
learning how the mightiest works of men – the tallest towers, the most
magnificent towns – could be levelled with just one act of the Lord: beautiful
buildings toppled, dazzling cities reduced to rubble and dust. And so it was
with Jonathon’s grand schemes. Mrs Browning had lost patience with his sprawling
suburbs and endless boulevards, and taken her broom to them. Jonathon had come
home to find his floor clean, his furniture dusted, and the blocks and toys
that had formed the set-out stacked neatly in a corner. But, tearfully, as
always, he’d begun again – placing the modest foundations of his first bricks
on the floor, and – in time – his elegant temples had risen, his broad roads
had been constructed, his towers had soared until an even greater metropolis
stood in place of the older one. But he lived in dread of the day he would come
home to find all flattened and his painstaking rebuilding would have to start
again. I decided to make sketches of the set-out, to preserve a memory of its
magnificence while I had the chance. I spent hours drawing and shading,
labouring to get the pinnacles of his towers right, the colours of his
different buildings exact. I even made up stories about the people who lived in
Jonathon’s creation, weaved labyrinthine plots about their strange lives, which
I narrated to my friend.

The century of that
autumn dragged on – the rain beating down without pause like in Noah’s Flood. I
wondered if – like Noah – I should make a boat in case the deluge didn’t end. I
looked at the old planks and bits of wood in my parents’ garage, even started
hammering a few together – thinking out the curve of the hull, which poles to
use for masts. I thought I might test my ship in the roadside ditches just
outside town: ditches which were swollen with brown water – that sullen liquid
threatening to conquer their levies. Perhaps when my vessel was finished, I
could try it out on one of those bursting channels – on Marcus’s pond I didn’t
dare.

Yet eventually the
showers ceased, and we were visited by somebody my mum called ‘Jack Frost’ – a
sprite who etched his spiky likeness on both the outside and inside of our
windows. I’d wake to find his ice intricately carved – resembling in its
crystals the glass onto which it had been grafted. The earth was
white-sprinkled, iron-ridged. In amazement, I banged my heel against it –
astonished to discover the ground which had so been soggy hardened into that
unyielding metal. Shells of ice formed on puddles and ditches, and on Marcus’s
pond. Bonfire Night came round and we trudged in the cold to watch Emberfield’s
display. I saw the guy crowning his mountain of wood, the great fire being lit.
As the flames flickered around that effigy and threw their shadows over his
face, I couldn’t help wondering if it was a real man we were burning. If Marcus
and Lucy had met savage deaths in Emberfield, why shouldn’t someone else? Could
we have some purpose in sending those fumes fed by his crackling skin, blazing
hair up into the heavens? I had to calm myself, suck deep breaths of smoky air,
remind myself of how I’d seen the guy just minutes earlier – the tell-tale
straw poking from his shirt and trouser ends, his crudely sketched face. But
still I wondered why we had Bonfire Night. Was it fear of winter approaching,
was our huge fire meant to encourage the sun, who I’d noticed flagging lower each
day on his weary journeys round our earth? Was our blaze to remind him of his
responsibility to flame in the sky, our fireworks to urge him not to forget to
shine and shimmer, to tell him to keep us warm in the cold months coming?

Despite our best
efforts on November the fifth, we couldn’t hold off winter for long. It got
chillier; Marcus’s ice thickened. Ignoring the warnings of our parents, the
commands of Weirton, we had to go on it. We were, of course, enlivened by fear,
but we also had the notion that ice-sheet might act as armour against any
malevolence from Marcus, if indeed Marcus was there. And, if he was, he was
hopefully trapped in the depths of his pool – imprisoned in an ice-block, his
vengeful vision darkened by frozen sludge, his breath bubbles captured in those
arctic waters. One afternoon, a group of us stood around the pond – Jonathon,
myself, Dennis Stubbs, Richard Johnson, a few other classmates.

‘Who’s going
first?’ Stubbs said.

No answer came from
our circle.

‘I reckon it should
be Watson,’ Stubbs said, after some more silent seconds.

‘Why me?’ I said.
‘Why not you?’

Stubbs’s face –
infuriating at the best of times – moulded itself into that of a chicken: the
chubby cheeks scrunching up, his thick National Health glasses jutting forwards,
his nose twisting into a beak-like shape. Now – even more annoyingly – Stubbs
repeatedly jerked his torso like a cat vomiting and brought up from his belly a
convincing chicken noise.

‘Cluck cluck cluck
cluk; cluuuck cluck cluck …’

The ring of boys
laughed; only Jonathon came to my defence.

‘Don’t you know if
the wind changes you’ll be stuck like that?’ he said.

‘Cluu-uck, cluck,
cluck,’ Stubbs replied, jolting repulsively.

I indeed prayed for
the wind to change, for Stubbs to have to pass his life with that grotesque
mug. But there was no breeze – the air was held rigid with cold. We stood in
its brittle frostiness – gloves and mittens, hats and scarves, the furry hoods
of some parkas zipped right up: only giving a small porthole for the face to
gaze out of.

‘Is Watson going or
is Watson a chicken?’ Stubbs sang.

My muscles tensed;
my blood simmered. I could either lamp Stubbsy and start a fight, or step out
onto the pond and shut him up that way. The second choice seemed braver. Arms
horizontal, I placed my right foot on the pool. I pushed my weight upon it as
the other foot lifted from the shore. The ice creaked like old wood. It held,
but a crackling spread under me. I moved my left foot slowly through the sting of
delicate air before bringing it down. The ice gave a sigh, but there was no
serious cracking. Arms still out, I concentrated to keep my balance on that
slippery disk, thinking of Marcus, monarch of his polar empire, impounded in
the ice so far below. Could he see a reflection in his cold mirror of a boy,
arms out, above? How would he feel about that cross-like figure? All my doubts
about his existence had fled. I was glad we’d given him those sweets – I made a
silent pledge to give him more presents if my walk across that frozen moon
should be successful. This gave me more confidence and I took another step. My
weight again on just one foot, the ice creaked its discomfort. I heard the
shattering of tiny joints and particles. No one spoke – I felt everyone’s concentration
press on me. A glance back to the bank showed their tension-gripped stances,
their nervous puffs of air. Fearing all that focus might add pressure to the
ice, I made another careful step. I looked down as I did so. The ice was
enchantingly patterned – light and dark swirls curved, sometimes mimicking
objects such as plants and leaves. Beneath the surface, the corpses of real
leaves were preserved – their spikes and veins exhibited as if in a glass
museum case. The ghosts of twigs were also gripped by that glacial water; there
were bubbles of various sizes seized by winter’s stealth. Had those bubbles
come from Marcus? Another couple of steps and I reached the pond’s centre. The circle
of boys watched – I felt the sceptical warmth of their admiration. I raised my
arms – as a man might who’s conquered a mountain peak while knowing the perils
of his journey down. So on that hazardous trek, I had to continue. I stepped
forward – the ice shuddered out a moan, rending the brittle atmosphere.

‘It’s Marcus!’ a
boy shouted. ‘He doesn’t like it!’

‘It’s just the ice,
stupid!’ Stubbs’s palm collided with the boy’s head. ‘Marcus can’t do owt –
he’s frozen at the bottom of his pond!’

Still, I quickened
my walk. With prudent strides, I aimed for the pond’s far shore. Each step was
answered by a warning creak.

‘Are you sure that’s
not Marcus?’ Richard said, beneath his bobble hat.

‘Maybe it is,’
someone replied, ‘or perhaps the ice is just thinner over there.’

My throat gulped;
my heart banged; I sweated into my thick coat. My racing mind promised Marcus
sweets and toys – even my best ones. I lifted my feet in a couple more paces.
Again the ice groaned. Out of my eye’s edge, I saw Stubbs walk around the pool.
He soon stood facing me – on the spot on the shore towards which I headed. Now
two thirds of the way across, I raised my leg for another stride. The ice
moaned. Stubbs also lifted a foot. He kept it suspended as he sneered, staring
at me. Surely he was just pretending – surely even Dennis couldn’t be crazy enough
to do what I thought he had in mind. Stubbs slammed that foot down, bashing the
ice. But the ice in those shallows must have been a glassy block – his foot
slipped; he waved arms as he struggled to stay upright. All the boys laughed.

‘What’s Stubbsy up
to?’ someone said.

His balance now
rescued, Stubbs answered by stepping onto the ice. He stamped again, driving
his heel into the pond’s surface. The zigzag of a small fissure appeared; a
smile broke on Stubbs’s face. The heel slammed again; the crack lengthened,
split wider. I took another step – Stubbs once more thrust his heel down. Like
a slow fork of lightening, the crack snaked across the pond towards me. Smaller
zigzags shot out from it – rendering the whole area around Stubbs unsafe. I
peered across and down – indeed the ice was thinner on that side of the pool.
Through it I could see the sulky brown of the imprisoned water. I’d by now
paused on the ice – struggling to calm my galloping mind, quell my thudding
heart, decide what to do. Stubbs had nothing to ponder; he hurled down his
foot. That rupture slithered further across the pond. Now it was a metre from
me – other splits spreading to its side like a primitive sketch of some spiky
plant. I didn’t know how to go on. Stubbs’s gaze clamped mine. There was power
in his look – contentment shone in his plump cheeks. His eyes glinted; his lips
smirked: that infuriating face commending itself on its cunning. He raised his
foot – feigned a stamp; I flinched; he chuckled. He again brought his foot high;
sniggered at my twitch of panic. The other boys didn’t join in his laughter –
they waited: their eyes quizzical, concerned, intrigued.