Breaking Light (10 page)

‘
Because
this is where the Druids used to sacrifice to the pagan gods.'

‘Would there have been lots of blood?' Gabriel asked, stepping anxiously on to a boulder.

‘There was
soo
much blood that the whole tor would light up like a red lantern at sunset. Even ships off the coast could see it and would sometimes run aground, thinking it was a beacon.' He would not have it otherwise.

‘No!'

‘What? You don't believe me? I'll show you.' He started to scramble over the rocks on his hands and knees.

‘You look like a goat,' Gabriel sniggered, but he felt uncertain as Michael disappeared into the mist. ‘Hey – where did you go? Wait for me.'

‘Hurry up, then!'

He was somewhere nearby and Gabriel followed the echo of his voice into the damp blanket. He was suddenly afraid. Dark figures, cloaked and hooded, seemed to be stepping out of the fog like silent sentinels as he stumbled past the strange rock formations. Everything had gone ghostly quiet – even his own breathing seemed muffled; the only noise was the blood raging in his ears. He swallowed hard and called hoarsely: ‘Michael?'

There was no reply. In order to calm himself down, he started singing under his breath: ‘Put the blame on Mame, boys …' It
helped a bit and he sang it a little louder, the same line over and over again. ‘Ouch!' He cried out in pain as he hit his knee on a boulder.

There was a burst of giggles from only a few feet away as Michael appeared from behind a rock, vaguely at first, and then as his usual self. ‘Ha! You were really frightened, weren't you?'

‘No, I wasn't.' His face was burning, his skin all prickly under his clothes.

‘Who's Mame, eh? Is she your secret girlfriend or something?'

He started to protest, but Michael interrupted: ‘Never mind; I don't care. Come here, though. Look at this.' He kneeled and looked over the side of a large rock which fell vertically down into the mist. ‘Look!' He pointed at a streak of rusty red on the face of the granite.

Gabriel gasped. ‘What
is
that?'

Michael moved closer to his side and whispered in his ear, ‘This is where the blood used to run, after the Druids chopped people's heads off … You can still smell it, if you get close enough.'

They both leant over to smell the rock.

‘Do you smell it?'

‘Yeah … It smells a bit like metal.'

They sat up then, huddled together with their feet sticking out over the edge, each drawn into his own imagination. This mutual silence was warm and close. Then there was a faint draught coming up from the valley to the west and the boys trembled slightly in the damp cold. But there was something else too, something in the air that had not been there before. It sounded like a distant moaning or chanting, which drifted back and forth on the breeze. The sound would grow weaker for a while, only to return with unexpected intensity.
Ho, ho, hooo
, it sounded.

And then, suddenly, something large came swooping up out of the mist – and, as soon as it was gone, it reappeared from the other direction. At once, there was a great din of noise, horrible howling and screaming, as a number of hooded figures came out of the mist and hurled themselves at the boys. Gabriel let out a protracted sound of agony as he realised that they were no longer hidden by the mist but terribly exposed – and completely trapped. Michael, on the other hand, was kicking and making the sort of noises a mountain lion might make. But to no avail. The hooded creatures were soon dragging the boys over the rocks, back towards the basin. Gabriel was quiet now, letting himself be pulled along, removing himself into that familiar space where he could not be hurt, but Michael was still furious. ‘Let go, you bullies! Bloody Nazis!' he screamed. Then he looked up and fell silent as, out of the murkiness, they saw Jim of Blackaton standing stiffly by the basin with a large knife clasped in his raised hands. Just behind him was his faithful lieutenant Billy Dunford, standing with his legs apart, hands on his hips, his ginger hair pasted to his head in the mist.

‘Bring forth the prisoners who are to be sacrificed!' boomed Jim, in the voice of Reverend Colthorpe reading the sermon on Sundays.

Gabriel was pulled up straight by a couple of the faceless bullies, his arms fixed behind his back, a hand tugging painfully at his hair to force his head up.

‘Why are these prisoners being sacrificed?' thundered Jim of Blackaton.

Billy stepped forward and cleared his throat, as if he was a herald about to make a proclamation. ‘This one –' he pointed at Gabriel – ‘is about to be sacrificed because he went and mended
his face, pretending he's no longer Bunny-boy, thinking he could escape his fate.'

There was some hooting and cheering at this.

‘And him –' he turned and pointed at Michael, who was pale and drawn in the arms of his captors – ‘he's being sacrificed because he's an irritating little twat who protects Bunny-boy.'

Gabriel could see that the hooded creatures holding on to Michael were just some of the boys from school with their blazers pulled over their heads. He wanted to tell Michael this to make him feel better, but Michael would not look at him.

‘All right; bring the first prisoner forward.'

If only, Gabriel thought, as he was pulled forward towards the basin, they had not been so trapped in the fog; if only he could see the sky and hear the river, he would be able to let a part of himself slip away and fly against the sun, across the heath and into the trees. Then his head was pushed down over the basin, where he saw his own eyes mirrored in the still surface. He saw in that standing pool his own dark eyes, so deep with dread, and the new scar running from under his nose like a zip fastener, ready at any time to be pulled open.

Jim came forward, the knife terrible in his hands. Its steel hard and dull in the damp, dirty light. So cold where it touched his neck and pressed against his skin. And the warmth of the vomit that came out of him into the basin – not blood, but vomit – smelling sour and sticking to the inside of his nose, making him cry and choke, and all the time Michael's voice in his ears, screaming.

Screaming, ‘Let him go! Don't hurt him! I'll give you anything you want. You can have my brand new Captain Marvel poster – he's from America and much cooler than Superman.'

The steel of the blade was still cold against the goosebumps: aching, shaving.

‘Just say what you want – I'll give you anything!'

‘Really?'

‘Anything.'

‘Okay, Fluffy, you will give me anything I want at any time – and you're not allowed to deny me.'

‘Yes, yes; just let him
go
!' Sobbing now. ‘And the Captain Marvel poster.'

Just a nod.

‘Well, you can have your filthy Bunny-boy to yourself, then. A deal is a deal.'

The icy blade no longer chafing and the others gone – just the two of them, as usual. He knew it was all his fault. None of this would have happened if it had not been for him – if it hadn't been for him being a freak.

‘I'm sorry.'

Michael shrugged. ‘I'll get you a new Captain Marvel poster. I'll ask Uncle Gerry—'

‘Can't you see it's not about the stupid poster? I don't care about the bloody poster. It's about so much more.'

And, although he knew in his heart that from now on it would never be quite enough, he said it again: ‘I'm sorry.'

*

I am remembering too much, Mr Askew thought to himself. Is this really necessary? I had managed to forget so well. He looked around. The basin was no longer a sacrificial pool, the red lava on the rocks no longer thickly flowing blood, and the fog had
cleared over the years. There was no longer anything to see – and yet he shivered. He looked out across the gentle heath, where the setting sun was painting its last impressions of the day. He slept badly these days, afraid to be dragged down into those nightmares where bright faces flashed in the dark, and more afraid still to be swooped back from the depths of sleep and wake into a dawn of dirty light. For a while, since his arrival in Mortford, he had assured himself that the forgetfulness of old age would filter his dreams and protect him from the worst of it. But, whilst looking for his reading glasses or fretting over escaped names in the crosswords on a Sunday, he knew that he was only safe as long as he managed to keep his mind above the surface of the pool of memory.

For the irony of an ageing mind is that it opens itself as brutally and unflinchingly to the hidden depths of its own past as the eye of a snowy owl to the night's prey.

There were days when Doris Ludgate felt a little low. Nothing much would improve things and she might allow herself to lie down on the couch for a moment and be a bit dizzy. She would never try to question or explore this melancholia. Once the heavy feeling around her head had passed, she would brush it away, as one might a fly, because she must go on being what she was – the person she had become. It was no use to fancy otherwise. If a brief nap did not help, daytime television certainly would. There was so much to learn from it. The talk shows alone were
so
improving. Sometimes, when there was a number to ring, she would call up to offer her opinions. She liked chatting to the operator. She did not like to be on her own – she had always been a sociable person. But circumstances had made her lonely.

On other days, she would arrange ornaments on the mantelpiece – there were two Royal Doulton Bunnykins and a row of hand-painted plaster kittens – and dust the china that was displayed on the Welsh dresser. The dinner set was one of the better things that had come from her husband's side, collected by his mother. It
was
Wedgwood, although not one of the better patterns. However, one of the more recent pieces, a side plate displayed in the centre, bore the signature of the Duchess of York on the back. These objects would cheer her up, even on the days
when bittersweet memories of life before marriage would make her mouth go long and ugly.

She had grown up on the coast to the north, an only child in a cold house. Her bedroom window faced the sea. All year round the changing light in that room would help her understand the world outside – it whispered of the hurt blue of winter, the blush of spring, the heavy green of summer and the harmony, the symmetry of autumn. Sometimes, she would sit for hours looking out of the window; her reflection stared back at her then, so that she looked double. When she was little, she would imagine that there was somebody sitting next to her, in silence. A sister, perhaps.

Even now, she would sometimes dream about being back in that room. Her feelings in the dream were very different: light and warm. When she slept, the room came back and, when she woke, she had to start looking for it all over again.

After school, she had gone straight to the Harbour Front Café to work as a waitress. She had wanted to do this for as long as she could remember – that and be married. The waitresses all wore pink frocks with American-style pink-and-white checked aprons. It suited her complexion, as she had always known it would. She met her husband in the café. He walked in one summer afternoon with a group of friends and put his hand on her bum as she leant over to place his order in front of him. It was fish 'n' chips and a pint of cider. So she married him shortly after her eighteenth birthday and went away to live at his farm, where her parents-in-law still lurked in the corners and she had a baby who grew up and went away.

Her husband had always maintained that her arse was her greatest asset, but then he had never really got to know her
properly, and rarely from the front. She recognised that this was not his fault; she had never fully opened up to anyone, let alone herself. She had enough trouble trying to find out what other people were thinking and doing; she began to thrive on their embarrassments and misfortunes, as they would lessen her own.

But when it came to her new employer, the
professor
up at Oakstone, however much she prodded, she could not get to the information she wanted. He remained closed to her and, for this reason, she felt she must defend herself against him – or even begin to attack, as she did that day in May.

He had not been at home when she called in for duty and she had waited outside the front door, feeling hot and bothered. When he finally turned up, he did not seem at all perturbed but bumbled on in his usual manner about some blue poppies in his allotment garden.

‘Poppies are red,' she informed him, ‘or possibly pink.' She was determined not to let him know that she had minded being made to wait.

‘These ones are special; they are Himalayan poppies and the most beautiful, tender things you have ever seen. Mrs Sarobi says …' But he stopped himself in time.

Her smile was more like the grimace of a gargoyle than an expression of a human emotion – but she smiled and smiled.

He looked at her strangely. ‘Are you all right?' There might have been actual concern in his voice, if he had cared.

‘Why should I not be fine? Anyway, perhaps you could open up so that I could get on with my work?'

‘Yes, yes,' he muttered and fumbled with the keys in his pocket.

He held open the door for her and she went inside. The white trainers squeaked her contempt on his tiled floor.

‘Who's this Mrs Sarobi, anyway?' she probed.

He winced. ‘Nobody … Somebody I have met at the allotments.'

‘Ah, that colourful one. What is she, anyway? Indian?'

‘I believe she's Afghani.'

She sucked her teeth thoughtfully.

‘She grows vegetables for that young man at Wilkinson's – she's his main supplier.' Why did he feel the need to justify?

‘Supplier,' Mrs Ludgate murmured. It
was
a hateful word. ‘That might be useful, of course, but an Indian one is never quite as refined, is it?'