Breaking Light (25 page)

‘What's that smell?'

‘Roses.' The man chuckled and hunched over the wheel as they turned a sharp corner. ‘You like it?'

‘Oh,' said Gabriel. ‘Yes.' But he wasn't so sure. There was something disturbingly musky amongst the heady sweetness, something that made him think again of the couple on the beach.

The driver was whistling some jaunty tune.

‘I love my job. Driving around in a lorry full of roses, thinking of all them women.'

‘What women?' Gabriel wondered.

‘The gorgeous ones, son. The sort of women who are given roses. Perfect, milky-skinned, red-lipped … Phwoah!'

Bob gripped the wheel harder so that his knuckles whitened under the ginger hair. For a while, Gabriel too tried to imagine these women, but it was no good.

‘Have you ever seen a lamb with six legs?' Gabriel asked instead, not to show off, but just because he could not get the sight out of his mind. It sat there, even when he tried to conjure up a milky-skinned woman.

‘Ha!' The man who called himself Bob laughed. His eyes were clear as mirrors. ‘If I saw a freak like that, I'd wring its neck.'

Gabriel did not know what to say.

‘Bloody scandal that such creatures are still being brought into the world today. You would have thought that they'd have bred them out by now.' Bob shook his head violently and spat out of the window.

‘They are mutants,' Gabriel tried to explain. ‘It just happens.' He thought of Bob's spit dribbling down the side of the lorry.

‘Yeah, well, it's not gonna happen in my world; I can tell you that for free, son.'

Gabriel frowned at that and looked away. How bright was the day and how dark it was in amongst the hedges.

They went on and did not speak much for a while.

‘It's a nice day,' Bob said once.

‘Yes,' said Gabriel. ‘It's nice.'

His legs were beginning to hurt and he tried to move them, but his rucksack was in the way.

*

At last, the lorry stopped and he found a new path and followed it into the woods. He walked for an hour or so between oaks and beeches, the nettles high on either side of the path. And that was where he stumbled upon them relaxing in the sun – the prop gang.

It was midday and the woods were empty. The road he had just left passed by a hundred yards to the south and, to the north, beyond the valley, was the sea. Gabriel remembered that he had not eaten for a while and he knew by the throbbing at his temples that he was dehydrated. He looked down at his clothes; the leather boots and flannel trousers were covered in dust and his cotton shirt, open at the neck, was pasted to his back. Somewhere, far down the road, earlier in the day, he had removed the woolly jumper and stuffed it into the backpack that he carried now, slung over one shoulder. He threw down the backpack on the ground. He mopped his brow with a handkerchief and pulled his hand through his hair. A few beads of sweat had
caught in the downy rag that attempted, once again, to cover his upper lip. He wiped his face with the damp handkerchief. His head was pounding still after the lorry drive and the light that sieved through the canopy of leaves was beginning to hurt his eyes. I need a drink, he thought to himself. I really need a drink. He looked around again but the place offered no clues. A whiff of air, as stale as his breath, brought the scent of moss and rotting leaves. Somewhere a dog barked and the sound carried like a gunshot through the slow air.

With a sigh, he decided to walk on along the ridge of a deep ravine. Far below, he could hear the purling of water amongst rocks. Some small animal, a mouse, perhaps, stirred in the undergrowth of last year's leaves and spiky twigs as his tread crackled on the hard path. He had not walked for long when he heard mumbled voices from somewhere nearby. Straining his ears, he followed the sound off the path towards a small clearing.

Three young men, somewhat older than him, were sprawled out, resting in the dappled shade of the shrubs. A few empty bottles were lying in the grass around them. One of the youths seemed to be telling a story, but fell silent when he spotted Gabriel. The other two, who had been facing the storyteller, turned lazily to see what was going on. As they watched each other across the silence, Gabriel could hear his own heartbeat. The summer heat seemed to be pushing towards him, sipping the air out of his throat. His tongue had swelled and he felt like opening his mouth and letting it hang out. Instead, he swallowed and tried to speak, but the noise that escaped sounded more like the croak of a rook. He tried again, his dry mouth rasping on the words. ‘How do you do?' he said, and, realising how ridiculous he sounded, like Stanley on the shores of Lake
Tanganyika, he tried again. ‘I wonder if you have a drink? I'm thirsty …' His words trailed off as he watched the glassy faces of the young men on the ground. They were casually dressed; the one who had been telling the story wore a soiled string vest and baggy cotton trousers, held up by braces; a battered straw panama had been pushed to the back of his head. The other two were similarly shabby in collarless shirts and faded denim trousers. One of them was smoking a cigarette and the third one, sitting slightly apart from his friends, resting his back against a tree trunk, was lithe and athletic, with a remarkable head of reddish blond curls. Gabriel thought for a moment he looked familiar, but he could not place him. Their eyes were a bit glazed and they seemed to look at him with sluggish remoteness rather than with hostility, as if they expected the cue to come from him. The smoker took the cigarette from his lips and spat on the ground. Gabriel watched as a string of dribble hung in suspension from his lower lip.

Suddenly, as if somebody had turned over a page, the storyteller whistled between his teeth and spoke: ‘Well, well, well. If it ain't a tinker.'

Gabriel frowned. He did not like being called a tinker, but he was not quick enough to answer back. He could feel his face going a little red and hated it. Pointing with his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the road, he said, inanely, ‘No; I just came from the road. I have been walking for a week now.'

‘Go on. You don't say,' the guy with the braces said with flat irony and the others laughed.

‘Hey, Charlie, give this guy a beer; he's as dry as a desert.'

It was the youth with the copper curls who had spoken and, when no one moved to get Gabriel a drink, he scrambled to his
feet and pulled out a bottle from a canvas bag that was sitting in the shade. He tugged the cap off and walked over to Gabriel, who had not moved. ‘Here you go,' he said with a hazy smile, and handed the bottle to Gabriel. ‘I'm Reynard and this –' he pointed towards the storyteller and smoker in turn – ‘is Charlie, and Stan from the States. You can call me Rey.'

Gabriel only nodded and put his head back and drank from the bottle. The three youths watched him attentively in silence until he had emptied the bottle. Rey chuckled, as if he found the situation particularly funny.

‘So, have you got a name, then?' asked Rey, his eyes merry.

‘Gabriel,' he said, looking down at his boots, which were partly covered by dry leaves. It occurred to him that Rey's voice did not sound local. There was a slight twang to it that he could not place; perhaps it was from the east. He looked up and blinked once against the faded gold and green of the woods around them. ‘My name is Gabriel Askew.'

‘Gabriel,' Rey repeated, thoughtfully. ‘That's quite a mouthful. Do you mind if I just call you Gabe?'

Gabriel stared at the stranger in surprise. Something eerie and intent flickered in Rey's gaze now, he noticed, and he saw that his eyes were green and a bit slanted, although perhaps this was just on account of the sun, which had suddenly found its way through the leaves of a great oak behind them. ‘No, I suppose not,' he said, hesitantly.

‘You been on the road for a while, then – spent all your money?'

Gabriel blushed and nodded.

Rey regarded him keenly for a moment before turning to the
others. ‘What do you say, guys? Do we want to help this kid to a decent meal?'

This resulted in a round of laughs. The man called Charlie spoke first: ‘You've got to work for your food in this world, boy. You'd be better off hanging out with us for a while. Here, have another beer.'

‘I'm not sure …' Gabriel hesitated.

‘Ah, go on, Gabe,' Rey sniggered. ‘Relax a little; you look like you have come far, or perhaps you just don't know where you're going … I think you're due some good times, don't you?'

‘I suppose I could stay for a while, until it cools off …'

‘That's the spirit!' Rey called, triumphantly, and nudged the smoker with his foot. ‘Hey, Stan, move over; make room for our new friend.'

Stan stabbed out his cigarette on the grass and shifted reluctantly to one side.

‘Come on, guys; we may just as well finish off all the drink – we'll get paid again tonight,' Charlie said, hoisting four bottles out of the bag.

‘What is it that you do?' Gabriel asked and accepted another bottle. He sat down in the grass.

‘We are the prop gang for a travelling show,' Charlie explained and inclined his head towards the distance. ‘We got a day off today …'

There was another round of laughs at this.

‘That is,' Charlie continued, ‘we
took
the day off. Thought we deserved it, as we've been slaving our guts out lately.'

‘So, you see, we need to fortify ourselves; the boss can be pretty mean, if he finds out.'

‘Yeah, that's right; the cheapest, grubbiest boss in the world,' Stan muttered wryly, and lit another cigarette.

‘Depends what you're prepared to do for him,' Rey remarked, casually.

‘Oh, yeah? Like what?' Stan seemed suddenly interested.

‘What?' Charlie tutted in mock bafflement. ‘Are you saying that three shillings a day is not a high enough wage to keep Stan the Stabber safe on the deserted roads of the Old World?'

‘Shut up, Charlie. I'm warning you …'

‘Oooh,' Charlie cooed like an old woman. ‘Now you're making me
scared
. Perhaps you would rather go home to Oklahoma, where I'm sure you'd get a very warm greeting. I bet they'd all be lined up to welcome you back – sheriff and all.'

Rey regarded Gabriel with an eyebrow lifted. He winked, but Gabriel looked away. Where had he seen Rey before?

‘I told you to fucking shut up!' Stan shouted and threw an empty bottle at Charlie's head. It missed by half an inch and fell on the grass with a dull thud before breaking with a chinking sound against a stone. The sound reminded Gabriel of something – a moment suspended in his memory – an instant of clarity and darkness. He tried to hold on to it, but it was gone, lost in a blue haze. He frowned and looked up at the others, who seemed to have fallen asleep on their backs in the grass, as if under a sudden spell. A deep green shard of glass caught a ray of sunshine and reflected it back into the sky, as if from under water.

Gabriel took another swig from his bottle. And another. He was beginning to feel quite drunk. He was not used to alcohol, especially not on an empty stomach. He looked back towards the path, where the sunshine was dancing in the air. It looked like the path of a road in a fairy tale where you would expect
the highwayman to appear, all dressed in green. He contemplated getting up and walking away, but his head was too heavy. The song of the wind in the treetops was suddenly deafening, as if waves were tumbling on to a shore nearby. How had he not noticed it before? It was as if the insistent noise had just been switched on in his brain. He boxed the side of his head lightly, as if to get rid something lodged inside his ear.

He heard another noise from nearby and looked up to see Rey sitting with his back against the tree trunk again, laughing softly at him.

‘Dear, dear … Has the drink gone to your head?' Rey whispered gently and tilted his head so that the copper locks stirred.

Gabriel stared back at the golden youth, but his head felt too heavy for his neck. He tried to keep his eyes open, but the world seemed to be moving and he felt nauseous. For a lingering moment, he was sure the world had shifted; like a mirror, it had been set at a different angle, the two of them the only witnesses.

*

He woke into a warm, furry dusk. For an instant, he could not remember where he was. There was a dull pain behind his eyes and a metallic taste in his mouth. Then sound started to return through the thick night: at first, the sound of the undergrowth, and then another noise – an engine being revved. He closed his eyes again to the dark and breathed deeply. The air was heavy with scent: the moist smell of moss and herbs, the thick scent of honeysuckle and the earthy stink of animal shit. It was all coming back to him: the tunnel of time that signified his journey, the lorry drive, following the path into the woods and the drink in the glade … Abruptly, he sat up and looked around. Black limbs of trees seemed to reach up towards patches of violet-white sky,
recently abandoned by the sun. The others were gone; there was no sign of them apart from a slight impression in the grass around him. He was suddenly afraid. On his hands and knees now, he searched in the gloom for his backpack. He found it only a few yards away, where he must have dropped it earlier in the day. ‘Okay, calm down,' he said to himself and stood up. Brushing dry twigs and leaves from his clothes, he looked up to see a couple of lights through the trees; they seemed to stare at him like the eyes of some forest beast. Taking a step towards them, he realised they were the headlights of a car, about a hundred yards away. This made him laugh. The car was parked, but with the engine running.

‘Hey, Gabe!' somebody called through the woods. ‘Hurry up, if you want a lift out of here.'

He moved towards the lights – the dark around him and the blinding beams made it difficult to see where he was going, but when at last he felt the gravel road underfoot, he hesitated. He looked back over his shoulder at the path that disappeared into the forest. Well, he had come this far – he'd better walk on.