Breaking Light (11 page)

‘Afghani,' he corrected.

‘Anyway, the foreign lady isn't the point here; the point is that my husband told me once about this other guy who used to live here – some oddball called Bradley,' she hinted, her voice casual enough.

‘Did he, now?'

‘By the way, why are all these boxes standing here in the hall? They are really in the way.'

‘In whose way?'

‘In
my
way. It's very difficult to clean a house full of boxes. Why haven't you unpacked them yet?'

‘It didn't feel necessary.' He no longer noticed them; the shadows had their furry arms around them.

She let out a sniff of disapproval. ‘Anyway, this Bradley person used to play the organ in the Moor Cross Inn. But that's not all of it—'

‘Look, I'm not interested. Hadn't you better get to work?' He could hear his own unnatural voice – and the tremor in it. He was beginning to feel sick, in spite of the blue poppies.
She looked at him with searching eyes, her bosom heaving in its fleecy folds. He was relieved she was not literate enough to read his face. But she caught the look in his eye and sensed that she had the upper hand.

‘Mr Ludgate told me him and Bradley were quite friendly, growing up. The Bradley boy would do anything he asked. Anything at all,' she affirmed.

‘I would prefer to be left alone – in there.' He pointed towards the door to the study at the other side of the hall.

‘Suit yourself. You're used to being alone, aren't you? No change there, then.' She laughed so that he almost missed the insinuation in those last words.

But, just as he opened the door to the study, he remembered: ‘What is your husband's Christian name?' There were a couple of dead flies on the floor inside the door. He pushed at them carefully with the toe of his shoe, sweeping them to one side.

‘Jim. But he called himself Jim of Blackaton, after the farm.'

The light in the hall seemed hard, metallic almost, as he stared at the woman he had brought into his house.

‘Ah, well. No more dilly-dallying. Time to muck out this pigsty – you'd better stay out of my way,' advised the ardent cleaner.

*

‘You said you would do anything I asked.'

Gabriel could see that Michael was in serious trouble but did not know what to do. He stood a few feet away, paralysed like an animal presented with a threat, as the boys gathered around his only friend.

‘You got my Captain Marvel poster, didn't you? It's from America – my dad brought it back.'

Gabriel heard a dull thump, like when a satchel is dropped on grass, and then a choked cry from Michael.

‘You think I care about a silly poster? I burnt it.'

‘No!'

There was a new pitch in Michael's voice, a tone that Gabriel had never heard before. It was more like something he had once seen in the upturned eye of a rabbit, caught under the claws of a Harris hawk. And still he could not move.

‘Anyway, I'll only ask you one last time, Fluffy – or I'll pull at your fingers and break them all again, got it?'

No reply.

‘OK, this is the last time I ask you: eat this toad.'

Through the guard of bodies, Gabriel could see Michael shaking his head furiously whilst pressing his mouth shut. Billy was standing in front of him with a dead toad in his hand. Long legs were hanging limp from its warty body and its stomach was swelling with post-mortem gas. Gabriel was sweating now. What should he do? What would Michael have done if the situation had been reversed – like it used to be? Michael would have done
something
, but Gabriel was unable to move. Always unable to move. He opened his mouth. His throat was dry, choking with fear. ‘Stop!' he squawked. But nobody seemed to hear – or, if they did, they no longer cared.

*

He was watching a snail make its way across the kitchen window. There was something vaguely perverse about the way it pressed itself on to the glass, leaving a slimy trail in its slow wake. Something lighter flickered past at the edge of his vision – a moth, perhaps, or a butterfly – and was lost. The snail, in the meantime,
hadn't progressed. Pathetic.
Disgusting
. With some force, he opened the back door and pulled on his boots. Outside, he threw the snail to the ground and crushed it under the heel of his boot. There! It was done. Fragments of hard shell squashed into the pale flesh. He was breathing hard, satisfied with the virtues of this tiny murder. Satisfied, yes. And then, once more, he felt the pain in his heart and looked away.

*

From then on, they would not leave Michael alone. There were to be countless other times over the years, like the day Mr Bradley had given them each five shillings to spend at the travelling fair, which had come to the banks of the river. They were still the best of friends, but they were both taller now, Gabriel's scar was no more than a pale parenthesis over his lip and Michael's damaged hand was strong again. But Michael had changed in more ways. The river-green glint of mischief was no longer in his eyes; he had been wearing himself to a shadow. Where before he would have asked why, he was now gravely accepting. And whereas only a few years previously he would have tossed the sun out of his hair and laughed bravely at the open skies, his smile suddenly seemed as brittle as glass. And, more importantly, he was no longer able to conjure up that parallel, imagined world which had been their own, the world that had protected them – in the beginning. But then all best friends – friends of a certain age – must lose something along the way.

On that day of the fair, at the hour of sunset, when the fairy lights turned their backs on everything that was grey and porridgy and opened the door to a world of mystery and strangeness, even Michael seemed to regain something of his old self.

‘Look, Gabe – look at that!'

Illuminated dragonflies, as large as cows' heads, were hovering over the reeds at the riverbank and, standing amongst them, dressed only in a black corset, a young woman was swallowing arrows lipped with fire. A tattoo of a snake curled around her upper body.

‘Wow!' said Michael, but Gabriel, impatient for more, pulled him along towards the main entrance of the fair. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the wonder of it all, they strolled along to the cheerful tunes of the fairground organs. People from villages as far away as Ramland swarmed around them, their bodies hidden in the shadows, their faces weirdly brightened and clown-like amongst the colourful lanterns suspended overhead.

There were a couple of rides with gaily painted horses or flying saucers going round in a circle, but those were for kids and the boys quickly ignored them in favour of the games. At one stall, you could throw balls at the china on an oak dresser, the plates scattering in heaps at the feet of the small, dark man behind the counter. The boys liked to watch the destruction, but would not spend their own coins, as there were no prizes to be won. Mainly grown men would come up to throw balls at the china, their faces red and furious. The little swarthy man would laugh and call out in an accented voice, ‘Come along and relieve your frustration. Only threepence for some longed-for peace of mind. Yes, sir, that's it! Give it to them! Better than hitting the wife, eh?'

Michael had stopped in front of a cork-rifle stall. The background was a painted desert landscape with scattered cone-shaped hills and cacti. When the game started, Red Indians on horseback would pop up and disappear and, if you hit enough
of them, you got to choose a trophy. Michael was staring hard at the row of trophies at the top of the stall.

‘Look at that, Gabe,' he said in a husky voice and pointed towards a small vase in blue glass with little forget-me-nots painted on it. ‘Isn't that pretty?' His eyes were strangely intense as he looked back at Gabriel.

‘Yeah, it's okay, I suppose …'

‘I'll try to win it for my mum.'

Gabriel had almost forgotten Michael's mother. He had not been around to Oakstone much for a couple of years and Michael's parents were rarely seen in the village; they had a maid to do their shopping. But now he recalled her doe's eyes and soft hands and felt a warmth spreading from his stomach. ‘Yeah, we can take turns.' He too wanted to win the trophy for Mrs Bradley.

Michael looked at him feverishly and said, ‘No, I want to win it myself,' and each word was rolled into a perfect marble in his mouth, knotted inside with all the things he did not say.

‘All right.' What did he care, anyway?

Michael paid his threepence, took aim, shot – and missed. The rifle looked real enough, the Red Indians were bright and fierce, but the dull pop of the wasted cork was disappointing. But Michael was not deterred. His eyes were fixed on the painted desert where the Indians would appear out of its single dimension. He did not miss again, but he needed a full score to win the blue vase.

‘Come on, Michael; let's move on. Don't waste more money on that silly game. The Indians don't even look real.'

But Michael was calm now. ‘I
need
to win it,' he said, ‘but you don't have to wait – I'll catch up.'

There was something about the situation and Michael's determination that made Gabriel stay. And suddenly he too wanted Michael to win the trophy. He saw quite clearly why his friend needed to present his mother with the cheap blue vase – the grail that cupped all the joys and all the sorrows of his childhood as he left those enchanted, cruel years behind and climbed the first step of adulthood.

The air around them went still as cork after cork hit its target. Gabriel kept his fingers crossed in his armpits and, once, he even closed his eyes; perhaps he said some kind of prayer. And, when all the Indians were slain, Michael flicked a ‘Yippee!' into the sparkled night as his child's pleasure soared once again and for the very last time.

The spell was broken and Gabriel laughed and hugged his friend. The man behind the counter smiled and congratulated Michael on a terrific shot as he handed over the trophy and a bonus sheriff's star.

‘Yeah! I'm the best sheriff this side of the Rio Grande,' he jeered and fired an imaginary revolver out of his free hand. Gabriel smiled and boxed his friend's arm, because he dared not hug him again. And Michael smiled back at him, his strength renewed with the achievement.

And so they tumbled on deeper into the magical night until they found themselves in front of a sign reading
Dr Buster's Sideshow
. Gold-painted boards had been mounted in front of a red tent. Gabriel stared in fascination at images of giants and dwarfs, a lady with a long beard, a seal-boy with flippers instead of arms, a half-man, half-woman, naked above the waist, which looked down from the golden boards. Presiding over them was the smiling figure of Dr Buster, with a tall hat and red bow tie. A speech
bubble emerged from his mouth with the text
Alive! The thrill of thrills! The world's strangest freaks!

Gabriel pulled at Michael's sleeve. ‘We must go in there.' His voice could hardly make it out of his mouth.

‘No, I don't want to,' Michael said and stepped back.

He was dumbstruck. ‘Why not?'

‘We don't know what we might find in there.'

‘But we do, don't we?'

‘Yeah … Perhaps that's why I don't want to go in.' His voice was clear as water and he seemed to stand alone in the grey light.

‘Don't be a chicken; come on, now.'

He moved forward and Michael followed reluctantly. They paid sixpence each to a man with no arms. They stared in disbelief as the man, who sat on a high stool, collected the money with a curled foot and put it into a tin box. He rolled his eyes in a crazy grimace and gestured for them to enter through a red velvet curtain.

Inside was an anteroom with curtained openings into a number of passages. A chandelier with dripping wax candles was suspended from a metal hook in the canvas roof. They heard a noise to their left as a midget, dressed in a tuxedo, stepped out of the shadows to greet them. ‘Good evening, gentlemen! Welcome to the house of Dr Buster.'

Just then, a fully-grown man entered from one of the covered passages. It was the man with the tall hat and red bow tie they had seen on the board outside. ‘You're most welcome! I have been waiting for such fine company as yours. And you shall not be disappointed. My menagerie consists of some of the most celebrated and wonderful freaks of nature that you will ever have seen.' The man's eyes looked very dark, as if they had been
lined with kohl, and his face had been painted white. He had a broad American accent.

Michael moved a step closer to Gabriel. From somewhere inside the passages, they could hear laughter and music from a piano.

‘You have already met Alfred, “the bust that speaks and moves its goggling eyes”. Not bad, eh? I found him in Montana. It seems like an unfortunate soul is born every minute in Montana. That backward state alone keeps me in business, even in these hard times.'

Gabriel did not quite understand and swallowed hard.

‘But I am sorry,' the American doctor continued, ‘you will find me boring, talking about myself. You seem like clever English boys, all raised on lamb, choral music and poetry, no doubt. Well, I have got some poetry for you!' He tilted back his head, closed his terrible eyes and recited in a booming voice,

‘Ha! Can you tell me who wrote that, then? No, I thought not. And yet it was your own precious William Wordsworth.'

‘Let's get out of here,' Michael whispered in Gabriel's ear, but Gabriel did not seem to have heard.

‘Ah, you're impatient, I can see. Would you like to step into my house, then?'

‘Yes, sir,' Gabriel managed, and, with a bit of courage, ‘I mean, yes, please, sir.'