The Standing Water (6 page)

‘Fancy going down?’
Stubbs shouted. ‘Fancy going down to Marcus? Reckon he’ll be pretty pleased
with you!’

‘Yeah!’ Johnson
blurted. ‘If Marcus gets Watson, he’ll probably leave us alone for the rest of
winter. We could go on the pond without worrying at all!’

‘Yeah!’ a couple
more lads echoed, before glancing around, as if unsure of what they’d said.

Stubbs drove down his
foot – the crack became a chasm as it darted towards me. It was now six inches
away. The ice between my feet started to moan. Stubbs gazed at me as he lifted
his foot. He paused for some seconds – the foot hovering.

‘Is he really gonna
do it?’ one of the lads asked.

‘Go on!’ someone
called out. ‘Send him to Marcus!’

Stubbs thrust his
heel down. There was a loud crack, a shattering. That line snaked closer to me,
but Stubbs was now flapping his arms. His foot had gone through the ice; he
teetered forward and back. Forward might have been better, but it was back he
fell – landing on his arse on the frost-rigid bank. A howling chorus celebrated
his topple – boys were doubled with laughter, their arms pointing at Dennis. I
laughed too, but had my own problems to solve. The part of the pond I’d been
walking towards was covered with cracks. I couldn’t retrace my journey across
the firmer ice – that would be cowardice. Seizing the advantage of Stubbs’s
fall, I headed for the shore at perhaps forty-five degrees. As quickly as I
could, I shuffled and skidded across the frozen water. Seeing my strategy,
Stubbs scrambled up. With one shoe and the bottom of a trouser leg dyed a deep
muddy brown, he ran around the pond, racing to the part of the shore I was
tottering to. He reached it; again – to my disbelief –he started bashing the
ice. Before he could produce much of a break, I was on the bank. I shoved
Stubbs; he staggered.

‘What the hell were
you doing!?’ I shouted. ‘You idiot! I could’ve been killed!’

The exasperating
face looked at me.

‘Oh, don’t beef!’
Stubbs said. ‘Oh, doooon’t beef!’

Stubbs repeated
those words; those words became a song, a song of derision that dipped and flew
up. The ring of lads glanced rapidly at each other, faces scrunched with what
could have been worry. But then one started to sing and soon they were all
reciting, ‘Oh, don’t beef! Oh, doooon’t beef!’

This refrain was
becoming a rhythmic chant, a hypnotising hymn. The mockery’s momentum swelled.
I could imagine the taunts being repeated for days – along with a quickly
fashioned legend of ‘Watson on the Ice’. Stubbs’s chubby face grinned in
triumph.

‘Oh, doooon’t
beeeef!’

The sardonic
sympathy fell and rose. Again it was Jonathon who rescued me.

‘Hey!’ he shouted.
‘Didn’t Ryan just walk across the ice?’

The chants halted.

‘That means it’s
safe. If we don’t go near that bit Stubbsy cracked, we can all go on it!’

‘Yay!’ the boys
yelled.

The scarves and
hats, mittens and parkas, all shuffled and shoved their way onto the pool. Soon
that pond’s surface was dotted with slithering, teetering boys. Gloved hands
waved as we slid over that disk; as we bumped and barged one another. Boys
would take run-ups on the shore and launch themselves to skid – on their shoes
or backsides – across that shell. The floods which had gorged the pond made it
big enough for us all. There were moans and squeaks yet we were confident of
that ice – after all, it had been tested by me, and had even mostly withstood
Stubbs’s attempts. But Stubbs was the sort who was never satisfied. He sidled
up to me.

‘Dare you to jump
up and down!’ he said.

‘It’s your turn for
a dare, Stubbs. I walked across the pool.’

‘If I do it first,
will you do the same?’

‘All right,’ I said,
‘you’re on.’

Stubbs gave three
decent jumps. Snaps and cracks echoed, but the ice held. I bent my legs and
arms, prepared them for their upward fling.

‘No!’ said Stubbs.
‘You can’t do it there – you have to jump exactly where I did!’

Stubbs stepped
aside; I shuffled to the spot at which he pointed. As I stood there, the ice
creaked. I jumped; thudded down. The ice gave a loud moan – the surface
splintered yet didn’t split. Boys were crowding round to watch our game. Up I
leapt into the fine crystal air; bashing back down I swear the ice sagged. A
stream of snaps echoed, but the frozen water held.

‘You’ve got to go
once more,’ Stubbs said, ‘just like I did.’

I took nervous tugs
at the sharp air, hoped no one would see me shaking to my heart’s juddering
beats. I flung myself up – jerking my knees right to my chest. The boys had now
formed a ring around us: their pupils traced my upward flight, dropped as I
fell. Thudding down, I slipped, pitched backwards. The boys scrambled away, making
a gap in their circle.  I banged down painfully. A crack rang out; fissures shot
over the surface; the ice didn’t go through. Scrabbling up, I dusted off the
frosty grains, and took a couple of sly steps back towards the bank.

‘Your turn again,
Stubbsy,’ I said.

Stubbs’s lips
quivered.

‘Go on.’ My finger
pointed. ‘In the same place as before.’

Stubbs shuffled to
that spot. I saw fear in the flicker of his eyes. But he took a big leap –
wrenching his knees up to his chin. Down he crashed. A pane of ice tipped up –
showing a wound of bare water. With Stubbs slipping on it, that patch of ice
tilted higher – mud, slime and debris glued to its underside. Stubbs seemed
caught in a sliding pose – legs askew, arms waving, mouth a hole of shock. He
crashed sideways into the water – a splash of brown flew up. Boys scrambled
from that fling of dirty liquid; rushed and teetered off the ice. Skidding onto
the shore, I looked back. Stubbs had one arm, one leg and one side of his torso
submerged. Both hands, one arm and one bent leg rested on the main ice-sheet,
near its jagged rim. But with nothing to grasp, Stubbs was slipping into the
water.

‘Help me!’ he
screamed.

The boys stood on
the bank, gawping at their classmate.

‘What can we do!?’

‘Marcus will get
him!’

‘Marcus is frozen ….
isn’t he?’

My heart boomed,
but a flare of anger rose at Stubbs’s red quivering face. My hands itched to
shove that head down into those dark waters.

‘If he drowns,
we’ll all get in trouble!’

This shout shook me
from my thoughts. I unwound my scarf, motioned Jonathon to do the same. We took
some steps onto the pond then threw those woollen ropes to Stubbs. He gripped
one with each hand and we pulled him across the ice. It crackled and complained
as he was dragged. Nearing the bank, Stubbs scrabbled up and tottered onto the
shore. Shivers jolted him; his teeth chattered a mad rhythm.

‘Get home!’ I
shouted. ‘Warm up, before you freeze to death!’

‘How can I go
home?’ His face shook; he stammered. “Look at me!’

One leg was coated
in mud and green slime; the other stained with brown specs and splodges. One
side of his parka was daubed with sludge, sodden with filthy water. Drops
rained as Stubbs shivered. Yet he couldn’t shake off Marcus’s stagnant stink.

‘See what you
mean,’ said Richard. ‘Wouldn’t like to be in your shoes when your mum and dad
see you! I know just what you’ll get!’

‘The walloping of
my life!’ Stubbs’s teeth clacked and jerked. ‘And not just one, two – a good
hiding from my mum and an even worse one when my dad gets home!’

‘One of your dad’s
famous tre-men-dous whackings!’ said Richard.

‘I’ve seen him get
a few.’ Johnson turned to us. ‘They were incredible – almost as good as
Weirton’s!’

Stubbs knew he had
no choice. He turned and started his shuddering trudge home, leaving a single
row of brown footprints on the pavement. We formed a sombre yet somehow
celebratory procession behind. We’d got a short distance down the street when
Jonathon shouted, ‘Look!’

He was pointing at
Stubbs’s leg – the one which wasn’t totally covered with pond dirt. We all stopped,
stared at it. Among the muddy patches were five long daubs shooting from a
squarish splodge – a pattern that looked like a handprint.

‘Marcus!’ Jonathon
said.

A gasp went up from
the boys.

‘He tried to get
you!’ said Johnson. ‘He tried to drag you down!’

‘He must be angry
with us!’ I said. ‘For tres-pass-ing on his pond.’

‘He’s probably been
angry with Stubbsy since the day he threw that rock!’ said Jonathon.

‘I’m never going
near that pond again – never!’ Stubbs wagged his head as the cold jerked his
body.

Stubbs continued
his plod home. We watched his sodden tramp up the path to his house – head
drooping as he trudged towards the inevitable.

‘He’ll get one hell
of a hiding!’ Johnson sagely said. ‘Doesn’t take much for his mum and dad to
give them out. Stubbsy told me they sometimes even whack each other!’

The lads hurried
off to their homes. Just Jonathon and I were left.

‘So much for having
doubts about Marcus,’ I said. ‘Now we can be sure he’s in the pond!’

‘Yeah,’ said Jonathon,
‘love to know how he got there. Really reckon Weirton might have had something
to do with it. Then again, maybe it was kids messing about – someone could have
been killed today!’

‘What about Lucy?’
I asked. ‘Do you reckon she’s real?’

‘Yeah,’ Jonathon
said, ‘if Marcus is in the pond, why can’t Lucy be in the cupboard?’

I shivered, rubbed
my mittened hands, and we walked off through that cold day.

A crystal spider’s
web – its strands frost-jewelled, its frozen weaver at its centre. I gazed at
it – following the flickers of light in its glassy prisms, staring at the
deathly perfection of its brittle geometry. The radio said, the adults
complained our weather had come from Siberia – which I understood to be a vast
and faraway land, where – by some strange magic – it was always winter. I loved
it – the stinging fragile air, the snow-shrouded fields, the mysterious white
dips that had only yesterday been ditches. But right then it was that cobweb
that fascinated me – its shards and slivers of ice: each one of those diamonds
different, each housing an endless array of lights and chambers. I thought it
would be great to draw it. Eyes still on the cobweb, my fingers fumbled with
the straps of my satchel, which held pencils and paper. But then a jolt
shuddered through me, jerking me to my senses. My heart starting to thud, I
walked off through the snow and left that cobweb stretched between a fencepost
and rusty oil tank – knowing its perfection would never be recorded.

The snow squeaked
and crunched under my wellies as I breathed rapid puffs. But it was hard to
walk too briskly through that enchanted blankness. I saw those little lumps in
the snow that appeared every winter: Dennis Stubbs claimed birds slept in those
white barrows – the types we’d noticed went away when it started getting cold.
Richard Johnson – however – said they housed giant bees. I leant over and
stared at those humps, but couldn’t work out which boy was right and didn’t
have the nerve to kick the snow from them. My heart thumped harder to tell me
not to hang around and soon I was striding through that land of magical white.
I passed the brick hut of the bus shelter, sucked in breath at the line of
icicles hanging from its roof. I paused, shuffled up to that little house, and
– rather than noticing the usual things such as the pong of pee, the strange
words scrawled on the walls – I stared at the glassy fangs suspended from its
eaves. They tapered to sharp points, like the teeth of a wolf or vampire. But
again my heart’s drum began to urge me on and soon I was pacing down our patch
of town’s main street, kicking up powdery snow. Yet I couldn’t help looking
around me at Emberfield transformed: the dull houses now Christmas card
cottages, the drab fields plains of breathless white stretching to horizons
sealed with snow-stuffed cloud. Dunghills had been turned into the summits of
high mountains. Even our community hall – a ramshackle wooden structure – had
been magicked with its snow-heavy roof, its line of icy daggers dangling from
that roof’s edge. I left the straight route I should have gone down, slipped
into that hall’s little garden – the only patch of ground in our part of
Emberfield not forbidden by gates, walls, barbed wire. I gazed, dumbfounded, at
its crust of snow – its perfection only pitted by cautious fox paws,
three-pronged sparrows’ steps. Hawthorn curled around the garden’s crooked
fence. I looked at its frost-hardened spikes, snow-lined leaves, and remembered
some legend of a wizard being trapped forever by a spell under a hawthorn bush.
I wondered if he could be beneath the very plant I was staring at: there was
something odd about it, something ancient and knowing in its spiny limbs,
treacherous thorns. Cobwebs stretched between the hawthorn’s strands, and those
strands and the snow-topped fence, and I soon became engrossed – looking at the
mummified spiders, the black specs of their prey now cocooned with ice as well
as web. But my mind was jolted from its contemplations, my heart bashed and I
had to leave that garden.

As I strode, my
nose and mouth hastily sucked in air – there was a smell on it, like milk
ice-lollies, which my mum said meant more snow. The clouds certainly bulged
with promise. Avoiding the parts of the snow already marked by feet, I tramped
through virgin whiteness, rejoicing in its squeak and crush – loving its
unsullied beauty while at the same time delighting in despoiling it. I looked
back with pride at the procession of my footsteps before coming to the gap with
the witch’s hand. Icicles dangled from the gutters above. I knew that hand
could work some dread magic, send one of those frozen swords plummeting to
piece my neck, but I couldn’t resist stepping up to that crack. Shivering with
more than cold, I looked and saw the hand was there – its fingers rigid with
ice. I scooted away before that hand could cast any hexes, but soon my speed
had slowed as I paused to stare at different things – the stripes of snow
crowning the planks of a bench, the brittle paper in a litter bin, the white
cushion on that bin’s raised lid. I reached the pub, its beery smell struggling
against the snow’s milky aroma, and steered myself round its corner and up the
school lane towards Marcus’s pond.

Apart from a slight
hollow in the land, you’d have hardly known the pool was there. There was just
a dip carpeted with snow. But I knew that under that white was a frozen disc
and under that disc lurked Marcus. I thought of how our sacrifices of sweets
had worked: neither Jonathon nor I had been walloped though recently there’d
been some explosive displays with the brother and Stubbs, with Darren Hill and
Richard Johnson. But now Marcus was buried beneath snow and ice: ice which –
due to the biting chill – must have been far thicker than that Stubbs had
fallen through. I just hoped that frozen cap wouldn’t prevent his power helping
us.

I stared for some
time at the pond – its snow was also dotted with fox feet, bird steps, one
daring line of child shoeprints. After uttering my thanks to Marcus, along with
pleas to keep on protecting us, I moved away and sailed on the final part of my
wintry voyage through the school gates. I wandered past the car park –
Weirton’s huge car, in glossy funereal black, was there, past the staff area,
and in through the cloakroom doors. I felt the blast of the central heating
before I was rounded on by a tutting and fussing Mrs Perkins who propelled me
through that humid chamber of wet gloves, drying parka coats and the swirling
patterns of hundreds of footprints on the floor. Perkins’s long-nailed hand
guided me into the assembly, her head of fluffy hair twitching as her
red-painted lips nagged. I saw the cross-legged rows of children, Weirton
pacing and waving arms at the front, and realised I was late. My mouth fell; a
shiver passed over my skin; my heart’s thuds resounded. I’d seen Weirton erupt
over lateness before – could he grab me now, thrash me in front of the whole
school? Weirton’s eyes flicked towards Perkins as she bustled me in, but he
just nodded to her. She rushed me to my place, hissing about not disturbing the
assembly – as her urgent whispers, the raps of her high heels caused kids to look
up. Weirton was giving a speech about something yet Perkins’s little
performance didn’t make him pause and the hall just went on quivering to the
regular undulations of his baritone. Perkins shoved me to the floor, I squeezed
in next to Jonathon and soon I was made drowsy by the fuggy air, by the voice
that boomed on at its steadiest pitch. Jonathon had to elbow me a couple of
times to stop me slipping into daydreams.

We stood and
thundered out a hymn – a satisfyingly gloomy effort from the Olden Days –
before we sat down again, clasped our hands and mumbled a prayer. This marked
the assembly’s end and soon we were filing back to our classes. We walked into our
lower juniors’ room. I barely saw the grey carpet, Perkins’s huge chair and
desk, the rows of our more sensibly-sized seats and tables, the kids’ drawings
– mainly crap – pinned on the walls. I barely saw them because the vast windows
at the room’s end framed a sight that made my heart vault.

‘More snow!’ Stubbs
blurted.

Down it came in big
feathery flakes. I’d heard a legend each flake was different, that each had its
own pattern uniquely carved by God’s hand. Didn’t He get tired of sculpting
them? But they just kept falling, a shower of God’s never-ending kindness.

‘Yeah, snow!’ Jonathon
shouted, waving his arms before those windows.

I wondered what
would happen if it never stopped – if it went on for forty days and nights like
the rain had in the Bible. I pictured the pure beauty of a deathly blanket
lying over Emberfield – the school, all our houses buried beneath. It was an
image that surprised me by making my lips curl up, by summoning a warm gush
from my heart. What could we do if God punished our wickedness in this way?
Even an ark like Noah’s would be no use – it’d just sink into that suffocating
powder. The prissy tap of Perkins’s heels in the passageway startled me from my
thoughts. She blustered into the room.

‘Get yourselves sat
down!’ The curly head wobbled; the red nail of her finger wagged. ‘Honestly,
people would think you’d never seen snow before! It’s not that amazing, is it?’

Quelling our
excitement, we slipped into our seats. That first class was reading so after
the register we pulled our books from the metal rack on the wall. I took down
my dull novel – an interminable tale of boy detectives. The only alternatives
were the girly books wrapped in glittery pink covers we’d never be seen
holding. My book was easier than the papers in Davis’s shop, but of far less
interest. The tedium of my plough through its pages was only enlivened by the
comical noises of my classmates who still read in the old infant way. They’d
stand next to Perkins at her desk, fingers tracing the big letters of their
baby books as their robotic voices chanted. Jonathon and I – already, along
with Helen Jacobs, allowed to read the older kids’ books – would glance at each
other, try to keep our sniggers down. Our triumph was sweetened by the fact
Stubbs hadn’t yet been permitted to make that change. We loved to smile at him
as we read with fluent and varied tones from our smaller print as we stood next
to Perkins.

And so the morning
wore on – my drab book and the monotone dirges of the students bringing me
again into a kind of trance. It was like my mind had sunk between two walls of
tedium – one built of printed, the other of spoken words. Down it went, as I
dropped deeper into that dank shaft of boredom. I leapt and shuddered as a
voice rumbled through the class.

‘R-r-yan Watson!’

I looked up, mouth
hanging, like someone shaken from a dream.

‘R-r-yan Wat-son!’

Louder the voice
quivered – swelling and juddering. Perkins had gone – somehow it was Weirton
who sat at her desk. My heart started to bang. His blue eyes drilled into me. I
lowered mine, sombrely, with respect, in the hope this might halt whatever
could be coming. Out of my eyes’ corners, I saw students swap glances – those
glances wavered; their lips trembled though whether through fear or eagerness I
didn’t know.

Weirton manoeuvred
his bulk out from the cover of the desk and began to pace. I inched my eyes up,
followed his strides – all was silent except for the sweep and rustle of his
trousers. His feet performed their familiar swivel when they neared the walls.
My heart pounded louder; it knocked at my ribcage; my body started shivering.
My leg muscles began to jerk, making my feet drum. My mind begged Marcus to
help me, to make sure it would be just a telling off.

‘Ryan Watson!’
Weirton didn’t halt in his stride, but his first finger thrust to signal the
start of his speech. ‘I wonder if you could answer a little question. When does
school start?’

I had to master my
spasming mouth before I could reply, ‘Eight thirty, Sir.’

‘Precisely!’ The
stride quickened; again there was the rustle of Weirton’s dark suit. ‘And, Ryan
Watson, would you be so kind to tell me what time the students must arrive at
school?’

I froze with
confusion at Weirton’s labyrinthine words – why would he ask me to be kind to
him? Anyway, I stammered, ‘Eight twenty, Sir.’

‘Very good!’
Weirton paused in his pacing, stood in front of Perkins’s desk. ‘And, Ryan
Watson, I wonder if you might inform us what time YOU made it into school this
morning.’

‘Well … erm … I’m
not exactly sure, Sir.’

‘NOT EXACTLY
SURE!?’

Weirton flung his
huge body into the air – rage propelled him up, before his bulk crashed back
down. I swear chairs, tables, the rack of books on the wall trembled. My mouth
dropped open; my heart broke into a stampede. Weirton leapt again, enormous
fists bashing his thighs. The face was reddening; sweat ran down his cheeks. He
went on leaping and banging till it seemed he was choking on the froth of his
fury. The face turned scarlet; wet patches spread under his arms.

‘NOT EXACTLY SURE!?
I watched you, my lad! Oh yes, I saw you dawdling and dreaming down the street,
stopping to gaze at ordinary objects like some imbecile! And then, when you’d
finally made it down the school lane, you for some reason spent five minutes
staring at that accursed pond!’

The dark-suited
body continued to leap; the fists went on battering the thighs. Sweaty rivers
now poured down the face, flowed into one another; the patches grew beneath the
arms.

‘Oh yes, drifting
down the road like the village idiot, as if you’ve got all the time in the
world! If you’re “not exactly sure, Sir” when you arrived, let me enlighten
you! You were THIRTEEN MINUTES LATE! THIRTEEN WHOLE MINUTES!’

Weirton’s jumping stopped
– his breath loud and heavy, he leant on Perkins’s desk, straight arms
supporting his torso. Face still bright, his fat cheeks quivered as he sucked
in air. He panted and rasped for some time before straightening up. How he
suddenly towered over us – his beacon face glowing so far above his pupils. He
swallowed more air, swiped a sleeve across his face to soak up sweat then,
voice calmer, he went on.