The Fearful (10 page)

Tim wasn't sure how obvious he was being, and he held onto the question for a good few seconds before asking, ‘Did it ever make you not want to be the Mourner?'

His father wasn't stupid. Tim saw the look in his eyes and instantly regretted the question. He opened his mouth to say something else, to backtrack, but couldn't think of a single thing. It was a big clumsy boot stepping over the invisible line.

Bill wasn't angry, but there was an edge to his words. ‘I was always very proud to be the Mourner.' He sat up straighter, squared his shoulders.

‘Yeah, of course. I know. I just meant . . .' But he knew his father understood exactly what he'd meant.

‘Even when I lost my hearing,' Bill continued, unconsciously raising his hand to his left ear, ‘I knew how special a task it was to be the Mourner.'

This was something else Tim had never known his father talk about. He'd always thought he'd been born with his dodgy ear. ‘Did someone—?'

‘I was walloped around the head with an oar.' He snorted a half-laugh through his nose. It wasn't really funny – just a long time ago.

‘Because you were going to be Mourner?'

Bill nodded.

‘Who did it? Was it Vic Stones?' Tim knew they'd been at school together.

Bill ignored the question. ‘Being the Mourner is a special task. It's a duty, but it's an honour too, passed down a long line of good, brave men. And I can understand how overwhelming it must seem, how big the responsibility is to you as a young man. Don't forget, I've been there myself.'

Tim could hear the conviction in his father's voice, but it didn't move him like perhaps it should have done. Because no, Bill never had been in his position. Because, as far as he knew, Bill had never questioned the legend. And wasn't this Tim's biggest problem? Weren't these the thoughts that really kept him awake at night?

He wanted to go out on the lake like Gully and Scott because he'd told himself he wasn't scared. He was embarrassed by the Feed because he thought it was pointless. He'd looked for the creature every day for as long as he could remember, but he'd never seen it. He didn't want to be the Mourner . . .
Because I don't believe the Mourn is real
.

His father knew nothing of these thoughts. He said, ‘And I do know what people say about us. I don't have my head buried in the sand.' He pointed at the floor and down to the kitchen below. ‘The people in this house are the only ones who still follow the tradition, but thank goodness for them. You know the legend better than anyone: if we don't feed the Mourn it will kill again, like it killed those poor schoolboys. Thank goodness for the people in this house who won't stand by and let that happen, don't you think?'

Tim didn't – couldn't – reply. He didn't think anything would happen to anyone if they never had another Feed again.

‘You'll be a fine Mourner,' Bill said.

The words stung. He knew they hadn't been intended to hurt, but the fact that for his father this statement had never been in question was very obvious and painful. Tim was never going to be a pilot, or an architect, or a teacher, or a journalist. Not in his father's mind.

Yes, Bill had suffered too; he'd been bullied, picked on, even lost his hearing. But it had all been for a greater outcome in his eyes. An outcome Tim didn't want, so why should he have to suffer in the first place?

He spoke carefully. ‘Hardly anyone believes in the Mourn any more.'

‘They're fools to themselves.'

And now, suddenly, there was a huge precipice in front of Tim. Did he speak the truth and plunge headfirst into it? Or did he shuffle backwards and hold his tongue? His father was sitting on the end of his bed, right here, right this very second.

He took a small step closer to the edge. ‘What if they're right?'

Bill's face showed genuine surprise.

‘I've looked every day, Dad, honest I have. But I've never seen it.'

‘Neither have I. I thank my lucky stars I've never had to look at it. I hope we
never
see it.'

Tim teetered on the edge. He knew that if he took too big a step he'd be beyond the point of no return. ‘Maybe it's dead.'

Bill got to his feet; clearly uncomfortable with what was being said. He reached for his hearing aid, and Tim thought he might pull his old trick of pretending he couldn't hear. But he seemed to change his mind.

‘Read the book,' he said, turning to face Tim. ‘I'll give you the key to the cabinet in the study and you read for yourself Old William's exact words from his diary.' He managed to smile at his son. ‘They can move you, those words. The Mourn is a frightening thing, but I've often found that what Old William writes can help me overcome the worst of it.'

Tim took a step back, physically and mentally. His father's belief in the Mourn, in the tradition, was like fog. It couldn't be dented or cut or punctured.

‘And it's not just a book about a lake monster,' Bill
continued. ‘It's about growing up; it's about becoming a man. At sixteen a Milmullen son has to be man enough to bear the weight of the responsibility. Old William talks a lot about how well his son took over the role from him, and about his grandson Henry. He talks about the Carving being a proud moment for both father
and
son.' He patted Tim's shoulder. ‘And I know they are men whose lives seem daunting, no doubt about it, but you're just as much a Milmullen as they were. I've got faith in you, just so long as you accept that you're a man now, not a little boy any more.' He searched his son's eyes for his answer.

Tim held his father's gaze, but only because that was what Bill wanted him to do. The truth was he didn't have the courage to prove his real feelings by looking away.

‘Good. I'm proud of you.' Bill's smile widened, strengthened. ‘I'll get you that key. A week today and it'll be your study anyway, I suppose. I just hope you can find some odd jobs for your old man to do. I still reckon forty-six is far too young for retirement. But that's what it says in my contract.' He chuckled at his own joke.

He left Tim alone. And the second the door clicked shut, Tim grabbed that jumper his father had so neatly folded and flung it with all his strength against the wall across the other side of the room. Whenever he couldn't understand his feelings, whenever his head didn't seem to be coping, he got angry. Anger was straightforward. It was less complicated, easier to deal with than the scary tangle of emotions that wrapped up and constricted his real thoughts.

He couldn't believe he'd been told to
read the book
– not after yesterday, after the childishly vicious thing Roddy had done to him; after all that humiliation. He was furious at his father.

But not just him. At Sarah too, for not feeling the way he did. And at the Fearful for trapping him. And at Jenny for breaking the rules when he didn't dare.

Although the people he was angry at were nowhere near as important as the anger itself. He could fool himself into believing that it had a purpose, a momentum – feeling like this was almost as good as actually doing something about it. He punched his pillow, battered it flat; slammed his wardrobe door, savoured the bang. And, of course, blaming everyone else stopped him from blaming himself.

He'd missed his chance. He hadn't had the courage to tell his father what he really felt. Next Saturday was still next Saturday. He was still going to be the Mourner.

It hadn't just been an argument he'd been worried about; he could handle raised voices and a slanging match. The truth was, he didn't think his father would have started shouting anyway. It would have been a much worse reaction. Bill wouldn't have believed that Tim didn't believe – it was an impossible thought. There would have been a complete lack of understanding and an almost palpable disappointment.

He thought about his father sitting on the edge of his bed, about how he'd looked. Apart from one or two stray threads of grey in his beard he looked exactly the same as he had last year, and the year before. Bill didn't change.

When Tim was younger Bill used to tell him scary
adventure stories about being an explorer. Tim had believed them completely, because with his scruffy hair and beard his dad looked just like explorers should look, hadn't he? But the stories were all about exploring the lake shore, because Bill had never travelled far, never seen much of the rest of the country, and had certainly never been abroad. Not that Tim cared. The stories were too good to worry about that kind of thing back then. Now, however, they seemed like such small stories compared to the ones that could have been told.

Old William's diary was a small story about a small legend.

Read the book
, Bill said.
Read the book.
The diary was his answer to everything. But what hurt most was the way he'd told Tim to grow up. ‘You're not a little boy any more. The book is about growing up. You've got to be a man now.'

Well, when Sarah stayed over tomorrow night, that would be being a man, wouldn't it? He wouldn't be a boy any more after that, would he? There were plenty of ways to be a man.

Read the book.

FUCK
the book!

But throwing tantrums in his bedroom was no way to deal with all these feelings, all this anger. He needed to react. He needed to lash out, fight, hurt someone back.

Out of his window he could see a couple of windsurfers skimming across the lake, the people on the shore at WetFun. If Jenny could go there then so could he. If she could break the rules, he could too.

Mutiny seemed like an excellent choice. He grabbed his coat.

THE ANGER CARRIED
him as far as the water's edge before dumping him back on his own two feet. It had hurried him down the stairs and bustled him out into the garden through the main door, but now he felt it let go its grip. He stood for a moment, staring across the lake towards the water-sports club, confused that his temper had so suddenly cooled. Maybe it was the wind.

He panted heavily, as though he was trying to catch his breath. Did he really want to disobey his father? Was it so important to be so defiant? He looked back at Mourn Home. Then turned to face the lake again.

There were three bright sails out there this morning: one small boat cutting through the water east to west and two windsurfers who had the gusts at their backs as they skimmed and leaped over the chop. It had stopped raining. For the briefest of moments the sun broke through a tear in the clouds. Its thin rays sharpened the edges of the water. The white tips of the shallow waves glittered like myriad knives. And the Hundredwaters threatened, was boastful of its danger.

Don't fall in.

But that was ridiculous. That was his father talking. That was sixteen years of conditioning, sixteen years of having the legend pounded into him. All his life he'd been told how unsafe it was to go near the water. He shook his head as if to dislodge all that talk. It was just a lake. There were lots of lakes in the world, just like this one. It was no more dangerous than any other.

Because I don't believe in monsters.

He didn't have to dig too deep to stir up the anger and resentment again. Right now it was the most important thing in the world to do what
he
wanted to do. And he wanted to go to WetFun. So he turned his back on the house and pushed himself on around the shore.

It might have only been a fifteen-minute walk from Mourn Home but Tim had never set foot on WetFun property before. Yes, he'd wandered as close as he dared (as close as he thought he could get away with without being spotted and bollocked by his dad) but this was his first step across the invisible border and onto forbidden soil, as it were. And during the short walk he checked over his shoulder eight, ten, twelve times, cautiously looking back at the house.

The building site for the new hotel was cordoned off behind a temporary chain-link fence. The JCB was idle, but it had already ripped up a sizeable patch of land – large enough to prove the extent of Vic Stones's ambition. The doors to the three grey metal storage sheds where Roddy Morgan spent so much of his time with a screwdriver or
whatever were padlocked up and Tim was happy to guess it probably meant Roddy wasn't around today.

But this was WetFun, this was enemy territory. Was he a different person now that he was here? He doubted it. Perhaps the lack of ringing alarms exposing his presence was an anticlimax. Or maybe it was for the best. He was certainly wary of the clubhouse. If there just happened, by chance, to be anyone who might recognize him sitting at the bar, gazing out at the lake through those huge plate-glass windows, he'd be hard to miss. It wasn't like there was a summer crowd of trippers he could lose himself amongst. The kiosk where ice creams were sold and fishing rods rented during high season was closed for winter. A speedboat, looking to Tim's eyes like a sleek, silver bullet of a machine, rested on its trailer high up the shore. He couldn't help thinking it seemed unnatural on dry land somehow, as it waited impatiently for a water-skier brave enough to hang on. It was a little disappointing that the one time he'd managed to pluck up the courage to come here was the time when so little was going on. The only activity this morning was happening around the two narrow jetties where the small sailboats were tied up.

At the near jetty was a group of about fifteen little kids who appeared to be part of a sailing club. They all wore matching orange and yellow life jackets and were gathered around a small dinghy that had been dragged onto the pebbly shore, high up out of the water. Two of the group sat inside the boat practising with the sail, following the shouted orders of one of the adult instructors. They seemed to pass
the test because as Tim approached they were allowed to clamber out, and then the whole group trooped off along the jetty to the dinghies moored there. Everyone called enthusiastically to bagsy the boat they wanted – obviously excited to be having a go at the real thing. And Tim couldn't ignore the flicker of concern he felt at the thought of them out on the lake, but he managed to push it deep down. It was that sixteen years of brainwashing again.