by David Almond
“Hey, Ken,” said Terry. “Look. Flowers!”
“Aye. Flowers!” said Ken.
Colin had told me never to run. I turned and Terry grabbed the parcel and spilt the flowers and the lettuce across the ground. I reached for him but Ken came to his side and with his black pointed boots he began to grind the flower heads to pulp. He kicked the lettuce and it burst and scattered onto the roadway.
He pointed into my eyes.
“Next time we speak, don’t bloody well ignore us. Right?”
“There’s plenty left in the garden,” my mother said. “Don’t let that lot worry you.”
When I went upstairs, Colin was still in bed. He told me to pass his jeans from the door. I threw them to him and sat on the window ledge. I flicked through a soccer magazine while he lay cursing and struggling to pull the narrow legs of the jeans across his heels.
“Coming to the garden today?” I asked.
He shrugged. He might. He went to the wardrobe and put on his yellow shirt and watched himself in the mirror. I started to tell him what had happened in the street. He turned. Nobody picked on his brother. Where had I seen them? I answered vaguely. It wasn’t revenge I wanted. If Colin came back with me now, we might meet them on the way, I said. But he turned to the mirror again, and said he might come later.
“You go back,” he said. “We’ll fix the Hutchies later.”
My grandfather took his pipe out of his mouth and spat at the earth. The Hutchies. Always a bad lot, and there were lettuces aplenty. He smiled and touched my cheek. Nothing to worry about.
“He didn’t come, then,” he said.
The morning passed quietly. I fed the hens. I wiped feathers and mud from their shells, placed them in cardboard trays in the greenhouse. Together, we watered and weeded a patch of leeks. The day grew warmer and he sent me to the shop for lemonade. We shared the bottle, wiping its rim before lifting it to our lips. I turned away smiling when I saw how the liquid drew sweat from the old man’s skin. It stood in droplets above his tightly fastened collar, ran in thin trickles from below his tightly fitting cap.
When the distant factory sirens started to howl, I exclaimed at how quickly this morning had passed.
“Aye,” he said. “Not long till you’re at that new school of yours.”
“No,” I said, and I heard the sudden trembling in my voice.
We parted at the gate.
“See you this afternoon, then?” he said.
I nodded.
“Aye.”
He turned toward the club across the fields, where as always he’d spend an hour or two with old friends. I set off for home with fresh flowers and a lettuce under my arm.
A scorching afternoon had settled on the neighborhood. Children played in the gardens, on the verges, in the meager shadows of young trees. Front doors were wide open. Old people in battered sun hats sat in the shade at the sides of their homes. There were prams in many gardens, shades drawn up, chrome trimmings sparkling. There was the scent of many lunches, the hiss of bubbling fat, the chink of pots and cutlery. I hurried on, until my own name was added to the sounds that mingled in the air.
I looked around, shaded my eyes with my arm. It came again, and I saw Colin, sitting with the Hutchies outside their house. He got up and came toward me. He put his arm around my shoulders and he hugged me quickly, clumsily. The yellow shirtsleeve was brittle and crisp against my flesh.
“I saw them about it,” he said. “It meant nothing. They’ll not do it again.”
I tried to pull away.
“You coming home?” I said.
He held on to me. Then Ken came, and he also put his hand on my shoulder.
“It was nowt,” he said. “We’re sorry. We were just messing about.”
I couldn’t speak. When I turned my head, I saw the men walking into the streets, coming home for lunch. In the distance, the road surface was a glistening black pond. The voices of the others were lowered in rapid discussion, then Colin said,
“Stay with us a bit. Come on. Come with us.”
He held me closer. Terry ran to join us.
“We going, then?” he said.
“Aye,” said Ken. “He’s away.”
We crossed Rectory Road, entered narrow Windy Ridge. Ken took something from his pocket, a rectangular box wrapped in brown paper. He held it teasingly, between his forefinger and thumb. I tried to grin, but the edge of my mouth twitched and I could meet none of the others’ eyes. I wanted to scorn these others who could think something so special in this. But I said nothing, and I stumbled through the rubble with them, clutching the flowers and the lettuce, keeping close to Colin.
“We’re going to the garden,” he said, and he looked away quickly.
When we got there, Terry ran and threw the gate open. Ken tried to push me through, but I stood my ground.
“Chicken?” he said.
“It’s OK,” said Colin, taking my arm gently. “Nobody will know.”
We walked in. Terry was already inside. He’d found the box of chicks and was poking them and laughing at them. I told him to leave it. I raised my fists, ready for anything, but Ken stepped in.
“Yeah,” he said. “Stop messing about.”
I laid the box of chicks back on the shelf in the sunlight. I closed the door between the sunlight and the dark. Ken went to the only window and pulled aside the square of cloth that covered it. I stood watching as the others crouched in the pool of light. Ken passed some cigarettes round and I took one and watched the smoke I breathed coiling and spiraling with the dust. Then Ken laid his packet faceup on the floor. A photograph of a woman was on its lid. She was dressed in thin yellow nylon, its edges drawn back to show unnaturally pink buttocks and legs. Her head was turned and she looked out with a fixed grin toward us.
“Hell,” said Colin. “I thought it was cigarettes.”
Ken snorted. He beckoned me down.
“Here. Get an eyeful.”
I crouched with them as Ken opened the box and lifted out the pack of cards. He started dealing them out, slowly, teasingly. He sighed and squeaked as each new woman was exposed. He touched breasts and lips and buttocks delicately with his fingers. I couldn’t take my eyes away. I waited for one woman who did not arrange her limbs or her clothing to keep the secrets of her body out of sight.
Terry giggled. Ken leered and groaned. Colin was silent. I felt the sweat on my skin and heard the drumming of my heart. I looked at the women; then I looked around this darkened room, at the ancient tools, the sacks of compost, the empty rattraps. I watched the dust falling endlessly through the wedge of light. I heard the high-pitched cheeping of the chicks next door. I listened for my grandfather’s footsteps on the cinder path outside. I stubbed my cigarette into the dust and stared at Colin.
“Colin,” I said.
He nodded.
“That’s enough,” he said.
“What’s up?” said Ken.
Colin grabbed Ken’s collar.
“Enough, I said. Time to go.”
I watched them in bitter silence as they faced each other. I saw my brother’s angry eyes, his clenched fist at the other’s throat, his yellow shirt almost luminous in the dark. I heard his whispered threats and curses. Terry scuttled out of reach. Then Colin stood up and Ken squirmed on the floor to collect the cards.
As he left, Ken let his heel dig into my side.
“Chicken,” he whispered. “Little chicken.”
We cleared up the cigarette ends, burned them on a small fire. We flapped the door of the greenhouse to clear the air. As we walked home, Colin put his arm around my shoulder. We paused on the waste ground.
“Didn’t know what was going on,” he said.
“It’s all right,” I said.
But I couldn’t move. I watched the men leaving the neighborhood, heading back to work. The houses shimmered in the heat. A crow nearby thrust its beak at something bloody in a sack. I didn’t want to go home.
The house was sti
fling and steam-filled. Our mother was preoccupied. She told us to hunt out dirty clothes, told us to keep out from under her feet.
We sat down to plates of limp salad and ate in silence. Then she called me from the kitchen.
“Did you get the lettuce?”
It was in the greenhouse. It lay with the flowers beside the box of chicks.
“We’ll need it for tea,” she said, and she came to the doorway.
I held the cutlery tight, pressed my fists on the table’s edge.
“It’s at the garden,” I tried to say.
“Eh?”
My tongue was thick and clumsy, too big for my mouth.
“It’s at the garden.”
She said my name. She leaned forward and touched my arm.
“It’s all right. You can get it later.”
She watched me, said my name again.
“What is it?” she said.
The Fusilier
IT WAS MARGARET WHO TOLD US that Mary had gone.
It was a Saturday morning, one of those we all remember, blackbirds singing in the hedges, sunlight pouring down into our small back garden. I was at the back step, eating toast. Catherine had taken some breakfast to Mam, who was still upstairs. God knows where Colin was.
Margaret was on the swing, pushing herself sluggishly back and forward. I saw the tears on her face, how she’d used her hair to try to dry them.
“What’s up?” I said. I looked around the garden. “Where’s Mary?”
She sobbed helplessly, then caught her breath.
“Mary’s gone,” she said. “She’s run away to join the Fusiliers.”
The Felling Fusiliers. They were a street band from the bottom end of town, one of the hundreds of bands that existed in those days, gathering each Saturday at festivals and fêtes, pouring out of double-decker buses in tunics and glittering helmets to march through our towns behind their banners. They were led by girls with long pale legs twirling batons, and they filled the air with the rattle of drums and the squeal of kazoos. Mary’d been begging all summer to join them. She’d wrapped a broom handle in silver foil and practiced for hours, spinning it and catching it. She had her own kazoo and gave us endless renditions of “Z Cars” and “Colonel Bogey” and “She Loves You.” Back and forth she would march across the lawn, lifting her knees so high, holding her arms so stiff and her head so still and determined. She persuaded Margaret to join her sometimes, but the youngest sister was still awkward in her movements, she tripped and stumbled and couldn’t keep up, she kept dodging away from the flying broom handle, she complained that the kazoo’s vibrations stung her lips, and so often she ended rocking on the swing in tears.
“The Fusiliers?” I said. “But when?”
But Margaret’s voice had gone. She just stared helplessly from streaming eyes.
Catherine came to my side. We listened, and we heard Mam’s slow footsteps creaking on the stairs.
“Her legs are awful this morning,” she said. “We can’t let her know about this.”
“Tell her we’re going for a walk,” I said. “Tell her we’ll be back in half an hour.”
I stepped down into the garden. I called Margaret from the swing and took her hand. Catherine went in and came out again. We heard Mam calling after us to enjoy ourselves, that it was a great day for walking, that she’d be out with us herself if only she could.
We went through the gate. Catherine dabbed Margaret’s eyes with a handkerchief and took her hand. We turned down the hill toward Felling Square.
I knew as we went down the wide road toward the square, with the town spread out below us and the river shining far below, that each of us was thinking of the sister who had truly gone: Barbara, the sister after Catherine, who’d been too good to stay with us for long, and who’d been so quickly taken back by God. That had been before Mary and Margaret had arrived, but even they shared the joy of her short life and the pain of her absence. And I knew too that we thought of Dad, who’d died as well with such suffering once all of us were gathered, and whose disappearance haunted all our days. We walked down hand in hand and gripped each other tight. We said nothing. We knew that another loss might cause a pain that was unbearable.
As we came to Felling Square we saw Colin. There he was in his combat jacket, inside Dragone’s, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee and tapping his fingers on the table with his long-haired friends. The noise of the Rolling Stones poured through the window. We stood and watched, and for a moment in my fascination I forgot my runaway sister.
Margaret tugged my hand.
“Should we get him?”
“I don’t know.”
“He’d know what to do.”
He didn’t see us. We didn’t go in. Too young, too timid, too shy.
“I know what to do,” I said. “Come on.”
And we pressed on across the square, past the fountain and the flower beds, headed further down through the steep High Street, where many times men and women called out to us, their bright greetings filled with affection and tinged with familiar sympathy. We paused once more, outside St. Patrick’s, where we crossed ourselves and said a silent prayer that God would lead Mary safely back to us.
At the bottom of the hill, we took the footbridge across the railway line, we walked through the terraces toward the Fusiliers’ field, we began to hear them, and then at last we saw them, marching across the green. The banner, the long-legged girl twirling the baton, the ranks of children in perfect formation with kazoos at their lips or drums at their waists, lifting their knees so high, holding their heads so still and so proud. At the edges of the field parents leaned on the fences and applauded, dogs yelped, boys kicked soccer balls across pitches marked with shirts and pullovers. Toddlers stumbled as Margaret had, trying to imitate the band. On the road outside, two red double-decker buses waited.
Stupidly, as if she’d already be dressed in purple with a white helmet, I stared into the Fusiliers, seeking her. I tugged the girls forward, urging them to peel their eyes, and felt my own eyes turning time and time again to the girl with the baton. It was Catherine who saw Mary, of course. She was sitting all alone beneath a hawthorn tree with her broom handle on the grass beside her and the kazoo gripped in her fist. She looked up as we went to her, and though her lips were trembling, her eyes were filled with rage.
“They didn’t want me,” she said. “They said I couldn’t come.”
She thumped the grass and stared with longing toward the Fusiliers, who played a final chorus of “She Loves You,” then tugged off their helmets and began to climb into the buses cheered on by the parents.
“They’re off to Hebburn Fair,” she said. She thumped the ground again as the engines started. “They’re going to win a silver cup. They said Mam would have to come with me if I want to join.” Each of us looked down and thought of Mam, who hadn’t been out for weeks because of her legs.
“And she can’t do that!” said Mary, lifting her broom handle and getting up to join us. “She can’t do that.”
The buses drove away, the parents left the field.
“Maybe I could come with you,” I said reluctantly. “Or Colin. Or . . .”
But she just looked at me, and we knew it was hopeless, that none of us had any understanding of her fascination, that it was only Mam who’d ever give up time for such a thing. I shrugged, and Margaret took Mary’s hand, and Catherine comforted them both.
Now there were only the soccer players, the dogs and us, and the high sun pouring down.
“Let’s go,” I said, and back we went through the terraces and over the railway line and on to the High Street. At St. Patrick’s we prayed again, this time in thanksgiving, though we could see that Mary still wished she was in the double-decker bus, and that she scowled when we said she’d have to tell the priest in confession what she’d done today.
In Felling Square we paused and drank at the fountain and splashed our faces and kept on smiling at the folk who greeted us.
&n
bsp; “You’ll just have to keep on practicing in the garden,” I said. “Till she’s strong enough to come with you. You understand?”
Mary shrugged, spun the broom handle between her fingers, flicked it from one hand to the other.
“They wouldn’t even let me show how good I am,” she said.
As we headed on, Colin came out from Dragone’s toward us.
“Where you lot been?” he said.
We said nothing. He stared at us.
“What’s been going on?”
Margaret’s tears started again.
“Mary ran away to join the Fusiliers,” she said. “We’ve been to get her back.”
Colin pushed his hair back from his eyes, took his cigarettes from his combat jacket. His friends were watching from Dragone’s door. He lit a cigarette. We watched the smoke seething from his teeth.
“Bad girl,” he said at last. He wagged his finger at Mary. “You’re a bad bad girl.”
Mary hung her head. The others looked at me.
“Yes,” I said. “You’ve been a bad girl, Mary. You must never do it again.”
I bit my lips. This was what it was like to be fatherly, then.
“Bad girl,” I said again.
Colin nodded in approval.
“Don’t do it again,” I said. “You understand?”
Margaret nudged her.
“Yes,” she muttered. “I understand.”
Colin held his cigarette toward me.
“Want a couple off?”
“Aye.”
I stepped forward, sucked the harsh smoke, coughed, sucked again and quickly blew it out. The girls stood hand in hand, watching and waiting.
“It looked bad,” I said. “But I sorted it out.”
“Good lad.”
I looked at the smoke curling from the cigarette between my fingers, at the old boys gathered at Dragone’s door, heard the distant Rolling Stones.
“Nice,” I said, drawing again, letting the smoke out through my teeth, then passing it to him. “I’d better take them back now.”