The Standing Water (2 page)

‘What’s the
matter?’ the brother called, his tone mocking, a grin spreading on his face.

‘It’s … the witch’s
… hand!’ Jonathon yelled, between gasps.

The brother’s group
broke into sniggers.

‘You don’t still
believe in
that
, do you?’ one of them shouted.

‘We’ve
seen
it!’ I yelled.

The laughter echoed
again. With a swat of his hand, the brother dismissed us as we sped around the
pub’s corner and bolted up the street to the school. Kicking up gravel, we
overtook more children. At least, due to the witch’s hand, the threat of
lateness and its punishment was less. But now, as we raced towards the school
gate, I glimpsed the pond.

‘Wait!’ I shouted, skidding
to a halt, flinging my arm out like a bar, which Jonathon crashed into.

‘What!? What is
it!?’ Jonathon said, panting.

‘The pond!’

I thrust a finger
at that dirty disc, already fatter with rain. We wavered, still full of the
energy of our charge down the street, but unsure what to do. Three points of
fear from three directions held us: the terror of the witch’s hand, the dread
of Marcus muddy and malevolent in his pond, and our fear of Weirton enthroned
in his school. There we were stuck as the seconds ticked away. Our feet – still
moving but carrying us nowhere – scrunched the road’s gravel. We tottered, arms
waving as we forced our minds to think.

‘What can we do?’
said Jonathon. ‘We’ve got to get past that pond somehow!’

I imagined Marcus
at the bottom, alone in his murky kingdom, the bubbles of his breath
surrounding him. Could he know of our presence, despite his liquid gloom? Would
he still be angry about Stubbs’s offence? Pinned by indecision, we watched the
satchels and kagools drift past, file into the school gate. Jonathon’s brother
and his friends sauntered up.

‘What’s the matter
now?’ the brother called out.

‘It’s Marcus, in
the pond!’ I said, and gabbled out the events of the day before. The brother’s
face darkened.

‘Actually, it’s true.’
He gave a grave nod. ‘Marcus is in the pond. We’ve seen him.’

His gang murmured
agreement, also moved their heads up and down.

‘If Stubbs did that,
you boys should be careful,’ the brother said. ‘Marcus won’t let you get away
with that!’

Again the group
backed up his words with a mumble.

‘What if we say
sorry?’ Jonathon said, his voice high and cracking.

‘Sorry?’ the
brother said. ‘You could try, but it’d have to be a big one!’

Jonathon and I
looked at each other, at the brother and his friends, at Marcus’s pond. Our eyes
reached agreement; we crept up to the pool. We stood for a while trembling,
gazing at those rich brown waters. Circles broke on the surface; we couldn’t be
sure if they were raindrops or signs of breath from beneath.

‘Well, go on then,’
Jonathon’s brother shouted. ‘I wouldn’t hang around if I was you! I don’t blame
him for being angry – wouldn’t you be if someone chucked a rock into your
house?’

‘We’re sorry!’
Jonathon and I blurted. ‘We’re very, very sorry!’

We turned and
sprinted through the school’s heavy wooden gates. Behind us the brother’s group
started to chuckle. Were they just mocking our fear? Surely even those lads
wouldn’t have dared ridicule Marcus.

My mind flies over
the dark miles of country, across the lines of long-expired years, and I
picture our school: squat, redbrick, surrounded by swampy fields. The school
had a field of its own, in which we’d spend our playtimes, bordered by fences
separating it from corn and sheep, and on one side by a hedge, which – to our
delight – was alive with caterpillars in the summer. Jonathon and I fled down
the school’s drive, past where Weirton’s black and glossy car was parked. Nearing
the doors, we slowed our panting steps, and staggered into the cloakroom. It
was full of chattering, squealing, squabbling kids: hanging up coats and
satchels, marking the floor with a multi-layered tattoo of hundreds of
footprints. As the rain hammered harder outside and steamed off our waterproofs
within, in strode the teachers: Mrs Leigh of the infants and Mrs Perkins, who
taught us lower juniors. In a herding motion, as if driving cattle, they
ushered us towards the hall, and – responding to this sign language – we
bunched, barged and shuffled through its doors.

Entering in a chaotic
bulge, we soon became orderly under Weirton’s gaze and filed to our
pre-ordained places: oldest kids at the front, the middle class (predictably)
in the middle and infants (as matched their lowly status) at the back. As my
nose recognised the hall’s usual pong – wet clothes mingled with wisps of wood
polish and the ghost of yesterday’s lunch, Jonathon and I found a space and
joined a cross-legged row on the wooden floor. The hall was used for assemblies
in the morning, lunch at midday, gym class some afternoons. The piled metal and
burnished red leather of the gym equipment for the bigger boys stood in a
corner – all puzzling and cruel-looking prongs, spikes and supports. These
lengths of metal formed baffling contraptions of improbable height and usage, whose
mystery had already given birth to whispered legends in the pupils’ folklore.
For the hall’s function as dining room, the evidence was more straightforward.
Bits of food would be missed by the cleaner’s broom and lie in wait for the
descent of unwary backsides. These could be peas from the day before – ripe
swelling pustules, keen to burst in all their freshness the moment a bum
lowered itself. Or there could be fossilized baked beans, wrapped in their
shrouds of mouldering sauce. Having dodged weeks of mops and brushes, these
beans would avenge their eventual squashing by painting a streak of sulky
orange across the seats of skirts or jeans. Indeed, out of the edge of my eye
at that moment, I saw Dennis Stubbs – sitting one row behind me and slightly to
the right – flick a bit of food – a piece of chicken from the pie of yesterday,
still gooey with gravy – under the descending skirt of a refined girl, Helen
Jacobs. The chicken was soon beneath the shadow of Helen’s behind, and in a few
seconds the space between that rump and the planks of the floor vanished, the
soft meat splattering as those objects met.

The children went
on filing in – we saw Jonathon’s brother with his mates, still smirking and
joshing each other: something suicidally daring in front of Weirton. I glanced
around, stared for some time through the tall windows that made up most of one
wall. They gave us a panorama of drab freedom: the deep green of the school
field, the final barricade of the twisted hawthorn of its hedge. Crows and
blackbirds hopped, beaks driving into the soil for rain-fattened worms. On the
front wall were the iron-shuttered windows of the kitchen, behind which we knew
laboured huge iron machines – mysterious pipes and flues and furnaces we’d been
warned could be deadly. We didn’t understand why – we just knew the kitchen as
the room from which our food appeared. But, having read Hansel and Gretel, I
couldn’t help remembering the witch’s fondness for boiling children, the
screams of the fattened child, the wicked smoke that would rush from her
chimney. Maybe that was why we weren’t allowed in the kitchen. Also on that
front wall were the doors to a kind of teachers’ foyer – another forbidden
area. It was a place into which we were rarely admitted, and if summoned there,
it was for some dread reason. A call to that enclosure, to that other world of
staffroom, offices, teachers’ toilets, could only mean the harshest punishments
would follow. And – as the last few dribbles of children filed in – it was in
front of that fearful kitchen and that portal to the ominous staff area that Mr
Weirton paced.

The heels of his
black shoes rapped out impacts that echoed above the children’s chatter. How he
towered over everyone – the cross-legged pupils on the floor, Leigh and Perkins,
who had now slid into seats at the hall’s side. My eyes climbed up the vast
black-suited legs then over the huge torso encased in its black jacket. A broad
chest stretched this garment; a smaller belly pushed at it below; arms bulged
against its sleeves. The teacher’s muscles tensed and jerked as he strode. It
was as if they were straining to bust those bonds, burst out of that flimsy
material. The teacher continued to pace, his feet performing a sharp swivel as
he neared each wall. Sometimes he’d stop; the black shoes – perfect in their
shine – would tip forward and rock back as he scanned his gaze over the hall.
Weirton would clasp his hands behind him as those eyes searched, as his body
twitched and seemed to swell with expectancy. Jonathon leaned towards me, and –
though a hum of chatter was permitted – he hissed in a whisper, ‘Good job my
brother told us to say sorry to Marcus!’

‘Yeah,’ I said,
also forcing my voice low, ‘he might have saved our bacon!’

I allowed myself
another nervous glance at the teacher, who was tilting his body back and forth,
leaning out across the children as his eyes panned over us. A smile flickered
on the massive face, a smile that also appeared expectant. I thought of how Mr
Weirton seemed built of oblongs, squares and sharp angles. The cuboid body was
topped by a huge rectangular head. The teacher’s glasses – heavy panes framed
in black – reminded me of television screens. Behind the glass, the blue eyes
were for the moment calm though their pupils would flick without warning to one
side or another. But I knew how suddenly those eyes could harden, sharpen, be
unleashed. Jonathon again leant into me.

‘Suppose I should
be thankful I’ve got a brother like that.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘remember
when he stopped Darren Hill beating us up that time? But don’t you sometimes
hate him?’

‘Course,’ Jonathon
whispered, ‘that’s normal, especially when he beats me up a bit himself, but …’

Thought crumpled
Jonathon’s forehead; he bunched his mouth up as he pondered.

‘I suppose I like
him much more than I hate him.’

I flicked my eyes
back to the headmaster. The face was its usual ham-colour – there was no sign
of it flushing to a deeper red. But still, reddish it was, as always. I
wondered why. Maybe it was the tie Weirton wore, the way its knot looked as if
it had been looped so tight, wrenched up so savagely. Perhaps that
strangulation explained Weirton’s skin shade. Above the glasses curved two
blond eyebrows, and on top of the huge forehead – also meat-coloured, lightly
sweat-beaded – was the crown of an iron hairstyle. A plate of hair leapt two inches
from the brow; the rest of it was combed back in a blond, metal-hard parting.
However Weirton twisted and leapt, however fast his arm swooped, however the
rain lashed or wind blew, that hair never moved. It fascinated me; I was
tempted to ask Weirton how he managed to sculpt it, but I knew, some instinct
deep in my belly knew, that I’d better not. Weirton turned, paced for another
moment as the last kids settled themselves. An abrupt halt, he swivelled on
those shoes to face the rows of children.

‘Silence!’

Like an axe this
word fell, slicing through the children’s natter, killing it. Weirton stood for
some seconds in the pool of quiet he’d created. He readied his body to deliver
his next words.

‘Good morning,
children!’ his voice rumbled.

‘Good morning, Mr
Weirton,’ the kids chorused, their intonation rising and dipping through this
submissive song.

‘Let’s start the
day with a hymn!’ Weirton thrust out his finger to launch this command. ‘Page
seventy-six!’

The monitors
despatched the hymnbooks along our rows; the hands of the children hurried to
pass them down. My book came to me – its cover scuffed and scratched; its smell
musty and ancient.

‘Stand!’ Weirton
shouted, before the last hymnbooks had found their pupils. Panicked whispers
squabbled; hands snatched, scrabbled and slapped: sounds which were thankfully
masked by the ninety or so children clambering to their feet.

Mrs Perkins had now
moved to the piano. She bashed out the first chords – wrong notes clashed with
each other, jarred with the air; the instrument was out of tune. It didn’t
matter – after her crashing introduction, our voices united in an off-key roar.
The hymn was fascinatingly miserable; its tones seemed to echo from a long-distant
age, conjuring pictures of stern black-clad people in old-fashioned clothes.

‘Lord we confess
our many faults

How great our guilt
has been

Foolish and vain
were all our thoughts

No good could come
from within

And by the water
and the blood

Our souls are
washed from sin’

The music eddied
and swelled: an out-of-tempo death march. I didn’t know what the song was
about; it was never explained. I just mused on that mournful line – ‘the water
and the blood’. It seemed something to do with dead bodies, their stagnant
fluids: a severe summary of the foolishness of finding any joy in this life.
Perkins plonked away; I sucked down breath for the surging chorus.

‘And by the water
and the blood

Our souls are
washed

Our souls are
washed from sin’

Perkins went on
pounding those melancholy notes. A pain jabbed my ribs; I turned, saw Stubbs’s
retreating hand; palm and fingers held as a flat blade. He’d hoped to plunge me
into trouble by making me cry out. He tried it again – I smacked away his hand.

‘Don’t!’ Stubbs
hissed, cunningly casting himself as the victim. Next to Dennis, Richard
Johnson smirked. We ploughed on through the song’s murky verses.

‘It’s not by the
works of righteousness

Which our hands
have done

But we are saved by
our father’s grace

Abounding through
his son’

Stubbs was now
thrusting his flattened hand at Jonathon; urging Richard to do the same to me.
Johnson tried it – I turned, drove a jab into his gut. His shock spluttered out
of him, but was drowned by the swell of the chorus, by Perkins plonking her
piano with renewed energy for the hymn’s last spurt.

‘But by the mercy
of our God

All our hopes begin

And by the water and
the blood

Our souls are
washed from sin’

On the downward
flow of the last syllable, the children’s voices dwindled, as did Weirton’s
thundering baritone. Perkins gave a few lacklustre plinks as the song faded.

‘Sit down
children!’ Weirton said.

Skirts, shoes,
trousers shuffled in a slow collapse towards the floor. When the hall was
quiet, Weirton again started to pace. Now there was no competition from the
children’s chatter: the only sound was the rhythmic striking of his heels. His
face scrunched, twitched; the smile of earlier was gone, replaced by a frown as
Weirton concentrated, as his colour began to deepen. The cadence of those
black-shod feet and the hall’s humid air were lulling me into an uneasy trance.
Weirton swivelled, flung out his finger, thrust the huge face at us. In a
shudder, I jerked from my daze, as did many of the kids around me.

‘I tell you and
tell you things till I’m blue in the face!’ The finger waved, the voice
bellowed, the face – rather than blue – was a definite red. ‘You should all
know what I’m talking about – that accursed pond outside the school!’

The arm propelled
its pointing finger in Marcus’s direction.

‘How many times
have I told you not to go near that accursed pond!?’

My heart thudded;
leaping with each beat higher into my throat. Accursed – what did that mean?
Under the gathering cloud of Weirton’s wrath, as I started to tremble, I tried
to work it out. I guessed it meant cursed – as in bad magic, wicked
enchantments. Weirton was warning us against Marcus. But had he seen us the day
before – how could he have?

‘What will I say to
your parents!?’ Weirton leaned over the rows; his fist shook; it swooped down,
bashed his thigh. ‘When they’re fishing your limp bodies from that pond after
you’ve drowned or hauling you dead from its sinking mud!?’

There was another
lull as Weirton let his yells echo. The teacher pulled a hankie from his
pocket, wiped fat drops of sweat from his face. I cursed Stubbs for leading us
astray. My heart thudded harder. Had Weirton really spied us? Would he be
leaping into our rows, hauling up those responsible, flexing his right hand?

‘Oh yes!’ The fist
waved again as more sweat ran. ‘Mr Davis told me yesterday that twice – twice!
– last week he spotted youngsters gathered around there! He wasn’t close enough
to recognise any of them, but if he had – I think you all know what the
consequences would have been! Whatever this namby-pamby modern world might say,
I think you know how I would have responded!’