The Color of the Sun

by David Almond

  “It was the lass in the ambulance that telt them. ‘Get out the way,’ she said. ‘This lad isn’t dead.’ When I came round it was her face I seen, in the hospital. ‘Hello, Jimmy,’ she said. ‘Welcome back.’”

  He giggles like a child and spreads his arms wide in delight.

  “I’m not a ghost,” he says. “I’m resurrected like the Lord!”

  The dog snuffles and drools.

  “Good dog,” says Jimmy.

  He reaches out and strokes its head.

  “You led me to the right place, lad,” he says.

  The dog stands up and stretches and yawns like it needs to sleep, then it pads away from them.

  “It’s an ugly bugger,” whispers Jimmy. “Isn’t it?”

  “Aye,” says Davie. “It’s called Foulmouth.”

  “I know where it got that name from!” says Jimmy.

  They watch it go, heading back toward the crest.

  Then the three of them just stand together at Cooper’s Hole, as if they’re lost, as if they’re little boys that need somebody to tell them what to do. And they don’t look at one another, like they can’t look at one another, and they look at the water, the earth, the sky, anywhere but at one another. Then Zorro lets out a string of curses that are filled with astonishment, terror and delight. And he says that he supposes they should all just go back down again. And Jimmy says that he supposes that they should as well. He says that there was talk of some kind of party happening in the field below and they should make their way to it.

  And then he just gasps and he says, “Oh, Zorro, come here, Zorro!”

  And the two boys put their arms around each other and hold each other tight.

  Davie leads them away from Cooper’s Hole across the uneven, beautiful and damaged earth, past knocked-down terraced houses and ancient broken garden walls, past boarded-over and fenced-off pit shafts, past turfed pit heaps and ripped-up rail lines, and as they approach the kissing gate he feels a touch on his shoulder, breath on his cheek, and he slows for a moment, just time enough to whisper, “Goodbye,” and then he moves on.

  And the day quickens in its fading. At the edges of Davie’s vision there are the silhouettes of deer. And there are early bats as well as starlings flickering in the sky. And still the skylarks sing.

  Maria O’Flynn is at the gate. She kisses Davie as he steps through and she waits there for the other two boys. He doesn’t pause. He hears her crying as she greets them.

  The group beyond the gate is made up of Killens and Craigs, of curious kids, of wonderers.

  He sees Anthony Killen, the man he met on the way up.

  “Did the battle start?” Davie asks him.

  Anthony laughs.

  “We were up for it. We glared and stamped and the knives were out. We were all about to start. Then a lad came running up, yelling the truth about Jimmy’s death, so there was no way for us to go on. Many were disappointed, of course. There’s some that always want the war.”

  He stares over Davie’s shoulder.

  “And here comes the truth behind it all,” he says. “Who’d have thought it? Jimmy Killen back in the world again.”

  He shakes his head in wonder.

  “Mebbe we all need a death and resurrection,” he says, “to bring us to our senses. What do you think, son?”

  Davie says he doesn’t know.

  He carries on.

  He wonders how it might feel to be resurrected, to be turned to nothing and then back into something again. He tries to imagine total darkness, total absence. He tries to imagine death, but there’s no way to do that, not when the body thrives, the senses reel, the heart beats, the mind roams and the soul soars. So there’s no way of knowing how resurrection might feel. He only knows that he’s alive. His heart beats. He breathes. He’s made of skin and flesh and bone. His feet carry him onward, downward. He feels the ease of his body, this thing of many parts that move in harmony. He knows the beauty of being a living thing and of being part of everything around. He tastes the dusk and smells the dusk, and the dusk enters him and becomes part of him. A fox calls, from not far away, and the call enters through the ear and becomes part of him. The first billion-miles-away stars already shine in the sky, and they enter through these eyes and become part of him. The dust in the dusk becomes part of him. The scent of grass becomes part of him. The sound of distant children calling becomes part of him. The starlings swirl in him. The fox prowls in him. It all becomes part of this kid, this lad, this boy-becoming-man, this ordinary fragment of the ordinary world. He moves downward through the Tyneside dusk, and in the fading light the everyday miracle occurs as he blurs and becomes all things and all things become this troubled, joyous, ordinary, yearning boy named Davie.

  And “Davie! Davie!” comes a call from down below, and here comes another boy running upward. It’s the boy he met at the start of the tale, his friend Gosh Todd.

  “Davie!” gasps Gosh. “Where you been?”

  “Just wandering,” says Davie.

  “Wandering! You missed it all.”

  “Did I?”

  “Aye. Jimmy Killen, Davie! He wasn’t even bliddy dead!”

  Davie laughs.

  He pauses and looks back. He sees the shadowy bodies of Jimmy and Zorro descending. He sees their followers, their friends, their admirers, those lost in amazement and puzzlement. He looks down. Many folk are already gathered on the field above the allotments. Music is being played. A fire is flickering to life. Should he wait here with Gosh and let those behind catch up? Should he descend the final stretch of the hill with the murderer who’s no longer a murderer and the dead lad who’s no longer dead? Should he be with them when they’re welcomed back? Should he share the excitement, the acclaim?

  No. He starts to run down the zigzag path with the haversack bouncing at his back, and Gosh runs too, and they run through the drift of dark red poppies, and they run on to the grass of the dark green field and through a bunch of yelling kids still playing the everlasting game, and they run to the fire and they fling themselves onto the grass beside it. And someone puts a sausage sandwich into each of their hands, and they laugh and start to eat, and Davie looks up and there above them is Letitia Spall with her hands on her hips and the dusk reflected in her deep dark eyes. And she tousles Davie’s hair and she says, “Well, look what the buzzard has brought back to us. Is this the same babe? Or have you been carried back by a different buzzard and you’re a different babe?”

  Is he a different babe, a different Davie?

  Letitia smiles at him as he wonders about the question, and for a moment all kinds of Davies wander and swarm and fly through him like birds and beasts and dreams.

  But then he shakes such images from his head and he laughs.

  “No,” he tells her. “I was carried back by the same buzzard. I’m the same babe . . . I think so, anyway, Mrs. Spall.”

  Gosh stares at the two of them.

  “What the hell you on about?” he says.

  “And are you the same Gosh,” says Davie, “that I was with this morning?”

  “What?” says Gosh.

  Letitia laughs and turns away.

  Davie bites the delicious sandwich.

  “And do you think a sausage once had a soul?” says Davie.

  “What?” says Gosh.

  “And do you ever think you might be a beetle?”

  Gosh groans and taps his temple.

  “You always were a bit,” he says.

  “A bit what?”

  “A bit mental, man.”

  They giggle at each other, then they lunge at each other and fight like they have done ever since they were small. They wrestle and roll and snort and laugh, and then Gosh gets the upper hand and he sits on Davie’s chest, pressing Davie’s arms down with his knees. Davie feels the hard pencil case pressing into his back.

  “Beg for mercy, you worm,” Gosh says, just like he used to when they were small.

  “Na!”

  Gosh glares
.

  “Submit. Give up.”

  “Na!”

  “I’m ganna have to kill you, then.”

  “Gan on then. See if I care.”

  Gosh draws his fist back and glares, about to strike, but just in time Davie throws him off and they wrestle again until they’re in a clinch.

  “Squits?” says Gosh.

  “Aye,” says Davie. “Squits.”

  They roll apart and lie on the grass and stare at the sky.

  “I’ve lost me sandwich,” says Gosh.

  “Me too.”

  Somebody heard. Straight away somebody’s asking, “Would you like another sausage sandwich?”

  Davie looks up and Catherine and Lara are there. Catherine is holding out two sandwiches. Lara is holding out two bowls.

  “Hello, Mr. Nit,” the girls say together.

  Davie laughs.

  “Hello,” he says. “How’s the garden getting on?”

  “Very well indeed,” say the girls together.

  “We’ve taken a break,” says Catherine. “Mam says it’s just as important to feed the people in the real world.”

  “It is!” says Davie.

  He takes a sandwich.

  “Would you like to dip it in some sauce?” says Lara.

  She holds the bowls toward him.

  “You can have red or brown,” she says.

  “Can I have a bit of both?”

  She shakes her head.

  “No, it mixes the colors and the tastes up and people don’t like it.”

  “I could dip one end of the sandwich in brown and the other in red,” he says.

  She ponders.

  “You could,” she says. “But be very careful not to mix them up or there’ll be trouble.”

  Davie does as she says.

  Gosh dips his sandwich in the red.

  “Are you a nit as well?” says Catherine.

  “No!” says Gosh.

  “If he’s not a nit,” says Lara, “then he must be a dafty.”

  Gosh laughs and bites his sandwich.

  “How’s that monster getting on?” says Davie.

  “He is still,” says Lara, staring intently at Davie, “waiting for his chance.”

  “But the fairies, you will be pleased to know,” says Catherine, “are doing very well indeed.”

  “That’s good,” says Davie.

  “Of course it is!” says Lara. “Everybody knows that!”

  “And we can’t stand here gossiping all night,” says Catherine. “There are people to feed, you know!”

  They turn away.

  “Bye bye, Mr. Nit,” they say together. “Bye bye, Mr. Dafty.”

  Gosh groans. Maybe he wants to ask what that was all about, but he doesn’t. He just says he’s glad he got another sandwich.

  All around them, people continue to gather, wanderers from the town below, footballers detaching themselves from the game, couples and families and little groups. The day’s still darkening. The fire’s burning higher, glowing brighter, a fragment of the sun down here on earth.

  “Look at them two,” says Gosh.

  Davie looks, and there are Dr. Drummond and Father Noone strolling side by side in deep conversation.

  Gosh laughs.

  “You’d think two buggers like that would know if somebody’s dead or not, wouldn’t you?” he says.

  “Aye,” says Davie. “You certainly would.”

  The music comes to life. Musicians at the edge of the light. The Doonans, with their fiddles and drums and whistles and pipes, and others start gathering around them. There are kids with recorders and kazoos. An old bloke plays a comb across his mouth. Another taps spoons on his thigh. People whistle and hum, gently clap their hands and gently stamp their feet. It isn’t raucous yet, but calm, shifting, reflective, as if it’s part of the changing light. Shona sings and her voice rises with the sparks from the fire toward the first few stars.

  The dark keeps coming on.

  The Killens and the Craigs are gathering. They’d have been at war today if Jimmy had been really dead. But now the children are children, running together, wrestling, sitting in little serious groups. The adults have relaxed. Their movements aren’t stiff and muscly, but are fluid, more gentle. Their voices are softer. Maybe they don’t feel the old need to strike the old warlike gestures now that the light has diminished and the kinder aspects of their bodies and their souls can be shown.

  The football game is nearly over. Nearly too dark to see the ball. Even as the daylight fades, the starlings still swirl in the sky, and then they swarm down to the earth again and then they’re gone. The bats are flickering. There’s dancing and love everywhere. Fernando Craig and a bonny lass, Letitia and Annie, Lara and Catherine. Is that two men who dance half-secretly together in the deeper darkness?

  There’s sudden applause, a gentle roar as Jimmy Killen and Zorro Craig appear by the fire with Maria between them.

  Gosh jumps up at that.

  “It’s them!” he says. “Davie, howay!”

  Davie holds back and Gosh shakes his head and hurries to the supposed murderer and his victim. Others hurry with him, to call out their astonishment and delight at what seems to have occurred today.

  Davie’s mam comes to his side.

  She ruffles his hair.

  “Hello, stranger,” she says.

  “Hello, Mam.”

  “And where did you get to?”

  “Oh, you know. Just went off on a wander.”

  “Like always, eh? That’s good.”

  Davie ponders. He knows he’ll tell her about what he saw at Cooper’s Hole today, but he’ll wait for a proper time for that. He’ll open his book and show her the pictures he’s made. He’ll make other pictures, drawing the images from his mind and allowing them to live again on his pages. And he’ll use them to recreate the whole day, and to help him explain what he’s seen and what he’s been through.

  He smiles, realizing that he might be recreating this day in pictures and in words for the rest of his life.

  They watch the folk around Jimmy and Zorro.

  “It’s strange,” says Mam. “When I found out about the murder, I tried being dead worried about you. But I kind of knew it would all be nowt. I knew you’d be OK, that we’d all be OK.”

  “And it is. And we are.”

  She kisses his brow.

  “The worst’s over, son,” she whispers.

  He leans into her and they breathe and sway together to the music. The Doonans play some of the same music and sing some of the same songs that they sang at the funeral, but with different rhythms, different tones, and the music that lamented death becomes a music that announces life.

  Davie starts to lose himself in it, and in his mother and in his ever-moving mind.

  “The bara brith was lovely,” he murmurs softly.

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Then there’s a man at their side. It’s Oliver Henderson, from the allotments, still in his gardener’s clothes.

  “Could I have the next dance, ma’am?” he says.

  Davie’s mam giggles.

  “Certainly, Mr. Henderson,” she says.

  She winks at her son and steps away, and Mr. Henderson leads her in a very formal-looking, rather stately dance, moving through the flickering shadows, the flickering light.

  Davie stands alone for a while, in this field full of folk halfway between the town and sky.

  Then Shona is with him. They smile at each other and greet each other, but they don’t say much. They wander away. Davie finds her hand in his. They pause and look back to the beautiful fire with the sparks spiraling through the darkness. They listen to the music. They see the silhouettes of deer and a fox nearby. They hear the hooting of an owl, and then there comes a voice, just as it did the morning.

  “Now then, Davie.”

  It’s Paddy Kelly. He’s standing with his face toward the fire and it’s shining bright. He is in his blue T-shirt. No black on his body, n
o white collar at his neck. A dark-haired woman is at his side.

  “Now then, Paddy,” Davie replies.

  “You’ll see I cast the blackness off.”

  “I do, Paddy.”

  “I’ve come back to life, just like the dead lad did. So now I make my new way through the world.”

  The woman shyly lifts her face and smiles.

  “As do you, Davie,” says Paddy. “As do we all. Good evening to you, Shona Doonan.”

  “Good evening, Father.”

  “Ah, no, that’s all done. It’s simple Paddy now.”

  The woman takes his hand. They dance. They step away.

  Davie scans the place they’ve come from.

  “What you looking for?” says Shona.

  “I thought Wilf Pew might come down to join in with everything.”

  “Ah, the poor man.”

  “Poor man?”

  “You didn’t hear?”

  “No.”

  “Found passed away in his flat yesterday morning.”

  Davie says nothing.

  “He scared me stiff when I was little,” says Shona. “But he was a canny man.”

  Davie reels and then composes himself. He says nothing. This is something else he’ll have to find the proper time and place to think about and say.

  “Davie,” Shona whispers. “Stop thinking so much.”

  She sings gently into his ear, so gently that only he can hear.

  Then they wander on across the field, hand in hand, as so many young folk from this little place have done and will forever do. And as they walk, the ancient brand-new earth keeps turning, deepening the dark, bringing the lost light back to us again.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2018 by David Almond

  Front cover illustration copyright © 2018 by David Litchfield

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  First U.S. electronic edition 2019