The Standing Water (24 page)

‘For heaven’s
sake!’ Weirton shouted. ‘That little mat won’t take all your filth! Why don’t
you use that metal scraper like any civilised human being would?’

Weirton thrust his
arm at that device, which stood at the side of the porch.

‘I’m warning you!’
Weirton’s first finger on his good hand wagged. ‘The tiniest piece of dirt
trampled into the Lord’s house, and I will come down on you with such force you
will think God himself is pouring down his vengeance! Is that understood?’

‘Yes, Mr Weirton,’
we recited.

We boys pushed and
fought to get at the foot-scraper. Under the cover of the scrum, I gave Stubbs
a good shove, sending him spiralling out of the crowd. He tripped, banged and bounced
across the floor, before being halted by the thud of his head on carved stone.
I gasped; guilt swelled from my stomach at Stubbs’s wincing face, at the very
real possibility this could mean a whacking. But Weirton just beamed benignly,
tipping back and forward on his feet, jovial hands clasped behind his back. He
seemed pleased to see this particular rowdiness; this earnest rumpus aimed at
obeying his orders. In the midst of the throng, Darren Hill jabbed a couple of
blows into my stomach; I retaliated by bringing my knee up into his balls. I
finally got to the scraper and was able to scratch the rich black earth from my
soles. Shoes clean enough, I hoped, I made off through the porch, whose sombre
stone and tapered roof still echoed with our shuffles, scrapes, smacks and
bickers, and – slipping through the weighty doors that stood ajar – I entered
the church’s main body. As a group of us strode into that vast chamber, the
booming voice followed.

‘Remember boys, the
slightest spec of dirt and I’ll make you feel like you’re sitting on the
hardest of pews for a month!’

A flake of mud did
fall from my shoe, but I kicked it in the direction of Stubbs. Weirton didn’t
notice. Soon the rest of the lads had shoved and jostled into the church’s main
part, followed by the girls who’d tutted and scrunched faces as they demurely
scraped their shoes, looking with distaste at the lumps of graveyard dirt stuck
to the metal apparatus: all the evidence they needed to confirm the beastly
nature of us boys. Weirton came last, after having cleaned his shoes – their
black spotted by clots of cemetery brown – in a series of brisk scrapes.

I glanced around. I
stood in a cavern of spartan beauty. Crossed with their lead, the windows
seemed to sieve the murkiness from outside. The cloud, the fog, the cemetery’s
miasma were all filtered to allow only the purest light into God’s sacred
dwelling. I did wonder if we might see the Lord in His holy home, but nothing
divine showed itself. I supposed – with so many churches – He’d plenty of
houses to choose from. The ceiling was vaulted with wooden beams: a long pattern
of diagonal crosses – crosses just as sombre as those Weirton etched on the
brother’s work. At the building’s end were heavy wooden railings, behind which
steps rose to a platform crowned by a simple table, spread with a green
embroidered cloth, upon which a silver cross stood. The whitewashed walls
closed in a hushed semi-circle around this sacred object, their many thin
windows pouring down light in reverence. Stubbs saw me staring in that
direction.

‘Know why those
railings are there?’ he asked.

‘Cos we’re not
allowed to go past them.’

‘It’s a lot more
than that – don’t you remember the legend?’ Stubbs said, face dropping into a
serious expression. ‘If you go farther than them and you’re not a priest, God
will shoot a bolt of lightning down to burn you up! And then he’ll let the
Devil come to carry you off to hell!’

‘Whoah!’ I said,
recalling that story.

I didn’t doubt
Stubbs’s words although I was intrigued at the unusual cooperation between God
and his arch enemy. Maybe even Satan himself would be aghast at such an
outrageous intrusion.

‘Would Mr Weirton
be allowed to go there?’ I asked.

‘Dunno,’ said
Stubbs, ‘maybe not even him. See that hand hanging there?’

Stubbs pointed to
an object suspended from the church roof that dangled just before the altar’s
forbidden precinct. It was a gauntlet from a suit of armour, spotted with rust
and what looked suspiciously like scorch marks.

‘That belonged to a
knight,’ Stubbs said, ‘one of the greatest in the world. He thought he was so
good and that God loved him so much that He’d allow him to step beyond those
railings. He tried it and – well, that’s all that was left. They hung it up as
a warning to others.’

‘Everybody come
over here! Gather round!’

We jumped as the
headmaster’s voice rolled through the church – that building making the
shuddering baritone even louder. All the kids obediently massed around Weirton.

‘OK, children –
find any object you like and reproduce it: it can be drawn or rubbed. Maybe the
pews or those marble tombs or these graves here on the floor …’

Weirton’s bandaged
hand flew, jabbing to each side then pointing down at the fading lettering of
the slab he stood on.

‘You can sketch the
altar if you like, just don’t go too close – don’t go beyond those rails.’

Stubbs and I
swapped a look – knowing the reason for Weirton’s warning.

‘Or you could draw
that gauntlet hanging in front of it. But I wouldn’t try to touch it if I were
you. You know, there’s a special legend about it …’

There was little
hope of us touching it when it hung so high on its chain. Weirton could have
probably reached it with a stretch, but we kids had no chance. I thought
Weirton would tell us the same as Stubbs had, but what he said was quite
different.

‘There’s a good
reason why it’s hung up there. It belonged to a knight, who apparently met a
terrible death. And the legend says that if anyone puts that glove on, they
will die soon after.’

I shivered in the
cool church, my heart struck up its boom.

‘A few jokers, a
few clowns have tried it.
All
of them died within a month of slipping
that gauntlet on – just one month! So, I’d avoid getting too near it! OK, children,
let’s start our sketching!’

As we beetled
around the church, I ensured I went nowhere near the altar and my heart banged
if I saw any of my classmates doing so. I drifted around for a bit, but some strange
fascination made me draw that dread glove, though from a safe distance. I
sketched the chain, the fingers that still seemed tensed in agony. I pressed my
pencil harder to show where the divine fire had scorched the metal. A deep
voice made my body jump, my heart leap.

‘That’s excellent,
Ryan,’ Weirton said, as his tie-bandaged hand rested its weight on my shoulder.
‘When you’ve finished, there’s plenty more of interest here. This is a very old
church. Do you see those crosses painted on the walls?’

Down the church’s sides,
fading red crosses marked the flaking plaster.

‘They’re called
corn crosses – people painted them to scare off devils. Or you could sketch
those tombs.’

The tie-wrapped
hand left my shoulder, pointed to the building’s other side. I sucked my breath
in. In the whitest marble were sculptures of a knight and his lady. They lay on
boxlike shelves, the knight above. Their chiselled faces were serene; their
palms pressed in eternal prayer. Surely he was not the knight who’d been
destroyed near the altar, as he had both his hands left to praise the Lord.

‘Sir,’ I asked, ‘are
there bodies underneath those statues?’

‘Yes, Ryan –’
Weirton smiled ‘– you know, sometimes with these old tombs there are cracks you
can look through and actually see the skeletons. I don’t think you can with
those, but you might like to have a peek – sketch anything if you can see it.’

Propelled by the
force of Weirton’s desire, I wandered across the aisle, past the first row of
pews and came to a halt well on the safe side of the altar rail. As Weirton had
predicted, no cracks offered a way into the couple’s calm sealed eternity. I
wondered if they were from the time of King Arthur. A sword of white rock lay
by the knight; the lady’s pallid breast was jewelled with chains and gems.
Maybe they’d lived long enough ago to remember Noah’s Flood; maybe they’d even
known Mr Davis when he’d been young. Soon my pencil was carving lines into the
white paper to model that tomb’s lines of white stone. After several minutes, I
was jolted from my task.

‘No, don’t!’
Jonathon pleaded.

I turned from the
pale beauty of that sculpture to see the brother and Jonathon twisting, hands
locked, as if doing some vigorous dance. Jonathon was trying to pull away, but
his brother’s grip held him as Darren circled the pair jabbing his fists at
Jonathon’s side, back and belly.

‘You bloody idiots!’
I hissed. ‘Weirton might see you!’

The little group
froze; all eyes turned towards the headmaster. Weirton was in the church’s opposite
corner, his back to us, criticising the picture of Suzie Green. His good finger
lunged at her miserable bit of paper, his tie-wrapped fist shook in the holy
air. Perkins, heels balanced on the flagstones, added her gaze to the adult
pressure bearing down on Suzie. Weirton’s rumbles juddered through the church.

‘Suzie Green, I
have never before seen such a disgraceful attempt at drawing! What on earth is
it supposed to be? It is simply atrocious!’

Suzie’s grey face
wobbled; her tears started. Pathetic, I thought, and with not even the
slightest walloping. Weirton wrenched her sketchpad from her hands, flicked
through it.

‘And this one you
did outside – terrible! Looks nothing like that grave you were sketching! Come
on, let’s take a look at it and compare it to your dreadful picture!’

Weirton grasped
Suzie’s collar and half-dragged and half-walked her from the church. Perkins
glanced about confusedly then followed them through the door, leaving us with
no teachers.

‘Hold him!’ Darren
yelled.

The boys jerked
back into their grappling dance. Soon Jonathon was tiring while the brother’s
grip got stronger. Darren flung punches into Jonathon’s back and stomach. Jonathon
squealed, twisting as he struggled against the brother’s grasp.

‘Leave him alone!’
I shouted.

Darren swivelled at
my cry, which the echoing church made louder, more urgent. He left Jonathon,
stepped towards me. I dropped my sketchpad and pencil, raised my fists, but
Darren was quicker. An uppercut socked my chin, sending me sprawling against
the marble tomb. I lay, propped on its bottom shelf – one arm looped over the
lady’s praying hands, the other resting on the contours of her hair. My dazed
fingers played across the grooves carved by that ancient chisel. Darren didn’t
let me rest for long. He grasped and tugged my hands, hauling me from my sepulchral
couch. He slammed my head against the box holding the lady’s remains. My head
throbbed and spun; in my woozy brain, I begged forgiveness from her ghost,
trying to deflect her wrath onto Darren. But another voice was now swimming
through my pain-drunk mind.

‘Aw! What a pretty
picture! Look what Watson’s done!’

My vision was
whirling, but as the swirling of the church slowed, I saw Darren holding up my
sketchpad. The brother – still grappling with Jonathon – grinned and nodded.
Darren tore off my drawing of the tomb, squeezed it between his hands, screwing
it into a tight ball as the paper scrunched and crackled. He leapt; he was upon
me, pinning me flat on the floor as kids crowded round. He weighted my elbows
with his knees, grasped my head then banged it on the flags – filling my skull
with holy echoes. He pressed the ball of paper to my mouth.

‘Go on, eat it! Eat
it if you love it so much!’ Darren hissed.

With enormous force
he shoved the paper against my lips. I squeezed them together, but Darren –
leaning with straightened arms, with much of his weight upon that ball – soon
had those lips parted. Next it was my teeth. I clenched them, but as Darren
pushed down, I felt them bend inwards, felt an agonising wrenching in their
roots. The paper’s edges slashed at my gums; I tasted the salty tang of blood.

‘Go on, eat it!’
Stubbs hissed from the watching crowd.

I had to give way.
I jerked open my jaw, choosing a gobful of paper over snapped teeth. My mouth
was soon crammed with that spiky ball: it cut my inner cheeks and tongue. To
the salty blood was added the starchy, sweet and not unpleasant taste of the
paper, underscored by the bitter sawdust of the pencil marks. It was no good –
I had to start to chew. My back teeth worked as Darren forced the last of the
paper into my mouth. Slowly but determinedly I ground the front of the ball,
making a thick paste that – as I munched – dribbled out more juices of pencil,
paper, blood. My neck muscles spasmed in readiness. I gulped the first wad – my
throat struggling with that bung which dried and threatened to stick on its way
down.

‘Darren! Leave him!
Give us a hand!’

Darren’s weight
jerked from my body; he trotted over to help the brother with Jonathon. I
twisted onto my side as the ring of spectators giggled. I vomited the paper
onto the floor – the spikes and folds of the last part forming a kind of crown
that floated on the half-chewed slop. The thing glistened with spit and strands
of runny blood. I coughed to clear the rest from my throat, brought up a couple
of half-dry clumps which I allowed to drop onto the rest of the mixture, but
some was just too far down. My throat quivered as I tried to swallow. I summoned
up all the spit I could, gulped it down to help the paper’s passage.
Eventually, it went, forming a heavy clod which would sit at the entrance to my
stomach the whole morning.