Billy Moon : A Transcendent Novel Reimagining the Life of Christopher Robin Milne (9781429948074)

by Lain, Douglas

  He sat in the grass and considered it, listening for the other students, for the workers who were still on strike, but the sunlit world was quiet. There was nobody near him, just the tall grass, and off in the distance the dark windows of the factory’s west side. He tried to remember how he’d gotten outside again, when he’d fallen asleep in the field, but quickly gave up when all that came to him were images from inside the factory. All that came to him were memories of the flat terrain of his dreams, the soft and malleable earth of dreamtime.

  He stood up and found the view of the factory blocked by plumes of tear gas. He heard the sounds of footsteps on gravel. The sight of police on the road sent a wave of panic through him. He lay back down again, got onto his belly, and began to crawl. He set out for the factory.

  Gerrard wanted to wake up. He wanted to remember himself, to bring something forward from the past to correct the present, but as he made his way forward into the grass he held his breath and found that he did not really need to breathe.

  The police saw him. Maybe a dozen men in helmets, and brandishing nightsticks, were pushing their way through the field of wheat toward him. They were cutting a straight line forward. Each step followed the last in an irreversible chain of cause and effect.

  Gerrard stood up and started running, and the men behind him let out yells, commanding him to stop. They shot more tear gas grenades at him, but it was a simple thing to hold his breath as he reached the factory gates.

  “The boy is there,” the policeman yelled. Gerrard turned to look at where they were coming from, to gauge the distance between them, and saw that they were still a long way off. They were pushing through the grass, but not getting any closer. He turned back to the gate, but did not rush. A gas canister exploded ahead of him, and he held his breath. It was painful to keep his eyes open, but he had to do it. He tried to open his eyes wider and wider.

  29

  (PROBABILITY E)

  Gerrard opened his mouth and tasted mud and then opened his eyes. The police were still after him. He’d fallen, slipped in the mud by the river.

  He stood and started running, and then slipped again, tumbled back down into it, and they were on him.

  The police beat him with their clubs. They hit him methodically, as if they were hammering a nail.

  Gerrard had to wake up. They were going to kill him otherwise. Gerrard stood up, and the police pushed him forward, into the water.

  In the grey of the Seine Gerrard opened his eyes, and for just a moment he saw the outline of a window. He opened his eyes and saw sunlight coming into a dusty room.

  He was in a poster bed in a hotel room on Rue du Four and Natalie was lying there next to him. They were both on top of the sheets and Natalie was naked and shivering.

  Gerrard asked her what time it was, but before she could answer he had to breathe. He opened his mouth to let in air and tasted river water.

  29

  (PROBABILITY F)

  Gerrard opened his eyes and found he was underwater. He was being held underwater. He saw the faces of the police rippling above him. They were using their clubs and hands to hold him down, and he struggled. He kicked and bit and thrashed.

  And then, before he could wake up again, before he could open his eyes again, water rushed into his mouth. He felt the struggle pass out of him as the cold water seeped in.

  Gerrard drowned.

  30

  On June 13 all the student groups that had formed during the strike were declared illegal and hundreds of students and young workers were arrested en masse. Natalie, however, was not among them. Instead she spent the day at Café Charbon reading and rereading the front page of L’Humanité. She felt sick. No matter how many times she tried the trick the words remained the same.

  Two days earlier she’d attended her last demonstration, this one in protest called by Les Détournés with the words “A Comrade Is Dead.” After Gerrard had drowned, after the demonstration at the Flins factory had gone wrong, Les Détournés had made him over as a martyr.

  “Comrade Hand: from now on your name is inseparable from the popular revolution, from our people’s springtime!” Their flyer had called for unity, for taking up and continuing the struggle, but Natalie couldn’t continue that way. She didn’t know what she would do next, or even what she wanted to do. She sat at Café Charbon for hours, first drinking coffee and then gin. She was wearing one of Abby Milne’s tweed wool skirts and an oversized chiffon blouse that made her feel small. She’d thought she might go back to Nanterre where her own clothes were, or head back to her parents’ apartment in Suresnes, but she had no idea where she’d go from there. She doubted that her day dresses and American blue jeans would fit her any better than Abby Milne’s clothes did. She had the idea that nothing would quite fit her again.

  Guy Debord and Isadora Baris were at the table next to hers playing a game they’d invented using flags and castles and a hundred little squares on a wooden board. They seemed grotesque to Natalie, like spoiled children. They strategized and played with their toys when they ought to be weeping or at least getting drunk.

  “I’m not the only one who has lost someone,” Natalie said to Guy. She leaned in close to him and whispered in his ear while she stared at Isadora. She rubbed her cheek against his and then said it again. “There are hundreds of us. Hundreds whose lovers died with the occupation.”

  Isadora watched Natalie, met her eye, but didn’t say anything. Isadora moved her flag, and Guy retaliated. They both continued playing their game.

  A few drinks later, once she was sure she was drunk, Natalie stepped out onto the street, which was wet from the drizzling rain. Paris smelled good to her. She stood on a narrow curb along Rue Descartes and leaned against a round red sign with a white dash. The sign read NO ENTRY.

  Natalie continued on despite this. She walked along the concrete embankment of the Seine on the right bank, only occasionally stopping to look into the grey water, only occasionally allowing herself to think of what it would be like to be stuck down there, to drown there, in the muck.

  The insurrections, dreams, and love affairs of the summer were over and it was still June. She was nineteen and it was clear that her chance to live had passed. There was nothing left to reverse, no next step to take.

  On the other side of the Pont Marie a city worker was scrubbing the walls underneath the bridge in an effort to erase the graffiti and the memory of May, but there was still enough of a visible remainder for Natalie to read out the message.

  “‘Rather life,’” she read. She repeated it over and over again softly by the Seine, and she waited for something to rise in her that she could call to by name. “Rather life,” she said.

  31

  At home Christopher felt like a tourist. Rather than take his spot behind the cash register he wandered between the bookshelves and looked at the titles on the spines. He noticed how the books in the gardening section all had green covers, while history books were brown. His bookshop was color coded. Christopher pulled books off the shelves: J. D. Salinger, Jackie Collins, and A. A. Milne. He reshelved these in the gardening section in order to put a vertical splotch of red and brown in the center of the row of green spines.

  He took his cardboard box of anomalies out from his bedroom closet and looked them over. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to dispose of the orange poster and toy cat, or if he wanted to put the toy donkey he’d brought back with him, the green poster that depicted a herd of sheep and the slogan “Retour a la Normale” into the box with the rest of the oddities.

  * * *

  Later, they had lunch at home. Daniel refused to eat and instead arranged his cheese and crackers in a straight line on his plate. Christopher ate apple slices and toast with jam, something he’d quickly prepared for himself. He made himself a cup of tea with cream, and Abby served herself reheated oatmeal with milk and honey. There was no conversation but just eating, stacking, and thinking. Christopher thought the space in the little kitchen seemed false, and
that they were all of them just barely going through the motions of what had been everyday life before. The linoleum kitchen table, the wooden blinds, and even the sunlight streaming in, all of it seemed a bit contrived.

  “Let’s get away from the store for today,” Christopher suggested. “It’s no good acting like nothing has happened.”

  They took the ferry from the quay to Dartmouth Castle. Christopher was pleased by the smell of the Dart and the way the wind whipped across the surface of the river. He was pleased when the other tourists had to grab their sunhats and close their eyes. The women across from him were color coded just like his books. One was wearing a red knit skirt, the next wore yellow slacks, and the girl with them wore an argyle sweater and blue jeans. The lot of them ducked down below the edge of the boat, while Christopher and his family sat like statues with their eyes open. The red, yellow, and light blue houses made from Dutch brick, as well as the green hills and trees behind these, seemed to be moving away from them, but it was the ferry boat that was really drifting away from the quay.

  Abby spoke into the wind and Christopher had to lean toward her and cup his left ear in order to hear.

  “… misunderstood the slogan,” she said.

  “What slogan?”

  “‘Underneath the cobblestones, the beach.’”

  When the students had pried cobblestones free from the streets they’d found sand underneath, but what their slogan implied was that freedom could be found immediately. All that was required in order for the students to liberate themselves was this spontaneous collective effort in the street. They just had to remove the cobblestones.

  “For most of them it was all too hormonal. They wanted the beach. They wanted a seaside vacation and Brigitte Bardot in a bikini. They wanted to make a revolution based only on freedom and pleasure,” Abby said. “But there was something else. There is another way to interpret the word ‘beach.’”

  “Yes.”

  “Christopher, a beach is what one storms. What’s underneath the cobblestones is not Bardot’s beach, but a beachhead.”

  When they reached the castle Daniel and Abby had to use the toilet. Chris waited outside the souvenir shop, passing the time by looking over the activity book that had come with their tickets.

  Saint Petrox Church was built in 1170, two centuries before the fortress was built at Mayor Hawley’s suggestion, and then Saint Petrox was incorporated into the fortress. A hundred years later the French threat compelled the addition of a gun tower. The fortress was built for cannons and the activity book suggested that one keep an eye out for “murder holes.”

  Christopher looked up at the tower and was impressed by it. The structure had lasted even if the world it was built to protect had not. The time for kings and queens had passed, but the high stone walls and crenellations were standing. The people who’d built Dartmouth Castle had been confident of their right to defend their way of life.

  When Daniel and Abby emerged from the lavatories Chris suggested they head for the main structure, which included both Saint Petrox Church and the gun tower.

  Inside the church the gold inlay in the high ceiling reflected light so that even the pale marble columns showed an orange tinge.

  Daniel remembered to whisper as he looked up at the large stained-glass window behind the altar. The glass kept the church safe and separate from the cold sky outside.

  “What about the umbrella?” Daniel echoed television. “What about the Woodentops?”

  When they passed the first set of strong doors Daniel let out a gasp and ran to the far left corner of the vast chamber. He ran along and reached out so that he could feel the texture of the rough walls. His left palm was filthy by the time he reached the cannon.

  “This makes a loud noise,” he said.

  They spent their first day back in just this way.

  Christopher might return to his bookstore, and he could return to his old habits, but he would have to choose to return. And he’d have to keep on choosing. He’d have to choose every day. Somehow Christopher had ended up on the surface of his daily life.

  When they returned to the Harbour Bookshop later that night Chris found a red-and-white soda can along the boardwalk and stopped to pick it up. He held the diamond-patterned Coke can and considered what he wanted to do with it while his wife and son waited for him to unlock the door.

  “Wait a moment,” Christopher said.

  “What is it?”

  “I’d like to try something,” Christopher said.

  “What?” Abby asked.

  “I would like to play a game of Pooh Sticks.”

  Christopher collected garbage and debris as substitutes. He gave Abby a red straw and Daniel received a green-and-white wax paper cup. Then the three of them walked back to the quay and out on the floating cedar dock for the sailboats. They stopped in a spot between the plastic floats attached underneath the cedar planks of the dock, and they all three got on hands and knees in order to set their objects into the water in the exact spot necessary so that the current might sweep the junk all the way to the other side.

  Christopher, Abby, and Daniel said “Ready steady go!” in unison, and dropped the cola can, the straw, and the paper cup into the River Dart. They watched the garbage get sucked underneath the dock, and then crossed to the other side and waited.

  Daniel started humming tunelessly. “Ready-steady-go!” he repeated. “Ready-steady-go!”

  The five sailboats along the floating dock across from them all had white sails, but the boats themselves were color coded just like the books in his shop, just like the tourists on the ferry.

  Christopher watched the spot where the Pooh Sticks should emerge and wondered who would win, but as the minutes passed it became obvious that none of the debris was going to reappear.

  “Well that didn’t work,” Christopher said. “And we can’t just leave that garbage under the dock.”

  “No?” Abby asked.

  Christopher lay down on the cedar planks, edged out over the river, and then reached for the gap. Abby sat on his legs while Christopher bent at the waist and put his hand down and felt where river algae had built up on the plastic floats. He reached into the gap and hoped that something, maybe the straw, would somehow be stuck just under the dark water, but rather than feeling plastic or tin Christopher fingered what felt like hair.

  Christopher grabbed hold of what turned out to be the yellow fur of his stuffed bear. He pulled it out of the water and shouted out to Abby to grab his belt and pull. Then Christopher straightened out and, when he was facedown on the dock, he rolled over and sat up.

  “Look what was under there,” Christopher said.

  “A silly old bear,” Abby said.

  “Silly old bear,” Daniel echoed.

  Christopher held up the toy, looked the pudgy bear over, and then handed him to Daniel. “Careful,” he said. “He’s water logged and fragile. Be careful.”

  Daniel held Christopher’s stuffed toy and smiled. And there, on the docks of the River Dart, after a Coke can had been lost and replaced by his old stuffed bear, and after everyday life in Devon had proven to be elusive, Christopher Robin watched his son play with this wet Pooh, and wondered when the students of Paris, the shopkeepers of Dartsmouth, or the children of their children might decide to look for the North Pole again.

  BOOKS BY DOUGLAS LAIN

  Wave of Mutilation

  Pick Your Battle

  Fall into Time

  Last Week’s Apocalypse

  Billy Moon*

  *A Tor Book

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Douglas Lain has had a number of short stories published. His podcast, Diet Soap, has been entertaining visitors for several years. Billy Moon is his first novel. He lives with his family in Portland, Oregon.

  Discover more at www.douglaslain.com.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are
used fictitiously.

  BILLY MOON

  Copyright © 2013 by Douglas Lain

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Getty Images and Trevillion Images

  Cover design by Base Art Co.

  Edited by James Frenkel

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Lain, Douglas.

  Billy Moon / Douglas Lain.—First edition.

  p. cm.

  “A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

  ISBN 978-0-7653-2172-5 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4299-4807-4 (e-book)

  1. Milne, Christopher, 1920–1996—Fiction. 2. Riots—France—Paris—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3612.A466B55 2013

  813'.6—dc23

  2013006424

  e-ISBN 9781429948074

  First Edition: August 2013