The Fetch

by Robert Holdstock

  ‘Is that all?’

  Goodman glanced sharply at the other man. ‘Yes. Of course. Unless you want to count the mud on my boots at the end of a day.’ He drained his glass and stood up. ‘Another drink?’

  ‘Why not. Then you can tell me more about your new vibrator. Psychic vibrator, that is.’

  The younger man relaxed again, smirking as he eased himself around the silent, eavesdropping Americans. ‘She’s French. Very sharp. She’s got the older boys licking the garlic salt from her palms …’

  ‘Not you, though …’

  ‘Me? Good God, no.’

  He grinned again and made his way to the bar.

  Left alone, Richard felt the full weight of disappointment and panic at not having made it again in an interview descend upon him.

  TEN

  Michael was sitting on the side of his bed, a battered old book open on his lap, his face propped in his hands as he read the words on the pages and stared at the illustrations of dinosaur skeletons and fossils. His school satchel was open on the floor, spilling its contents of comics, illustrated books, and crayons.

  Richard entered the room slowly, hands in his pockets. His son looked up and smiled.

  ‘That’s one of Grandad’s old books, isn’t it? I remember reading it when I was a boy.’

  Michael nodded and closed the red cover to show the faded gold illustration of a Stegosaurus.

  ‘The World in the Past,’ Richard said, taking the book and turning through the pages. ‘Where did you get this? I thought we’d given it to jumble.’

  ‘Had it in my room for ages.’

  ‘I think I’d better get you a more up-to-date book on dinosaurs. These pictures are very old-fashioned. We’ll have to go up to London, go to the Natural History Museum. Would you like that?’

  Michael’s eyes widened and he affirmed his interest vigorously, then took back the book and turned it to the page he had been reading. Frowning, he said, ‘But I don’t understand what a “Weald” is.’

  Sitting next to him, Richard read the passage and explained the nature of the Wealden, the swathe of primordial forest that had covered the Kent and Sussex countryside between the great chalk escarpments of the North and South Downs.

  ‘Weald is just the old name for woodland. It’s Anglo-Saxon.’

  Michael seemed content enough with the explanation.

  ‘Thank you for the present,’ Richard went on after a moment. He drew the wolf-girl dancer from his pocket, holding it so that it glinted.

  Michael stared at the statuette, then looked up at his father. ‘It was pretty. So I fetched it for you.’

  ‘You fetched it?’

  ‘From where it was.’

  ‘It’s very pretty, Michael. It’s made of gold. Did you know that?’

  The boy nodded. ‘It’s heavy.’

  ‘Very. And very valuable. Will you show me where you found it?’

  After a moment, Michael seemed to agree. ‘In my castle. I fetched it in my castle.’

  Richard noted the odd word use. He’d fetched it in his castle. Not found it. Not fetched it from.

  ‘Is your castle in the chalk pit? Is that where you make your castle?’

  Michael squirmed. He stared studiously at his book, then drew breath and sighed. ‘My castle’s by the sea. My camp is in the chalk pit.’

  He’s lying, Richard thought. Or at least, hiding something.

  ‘Shall we go to your camp and see? There might be another one …’

  Michael laughed and shook his head, chuckling at some secret thought. ‘There was only one,’ he said, as if nothing could have been more obvious. But he slipped off the bed and reached for his green anorak jacket.

  With Susan leading Carol by the hand, and Richard walking with Michael, they trooped out of the house and through the cornfield. In the evening sun it was rich and peaceful, stirred by breezes that curled up from the marsh, bringing faint, fresh salt smells from the distant skim of the sea. On the other side of the field, they walked slowly through the woodland that rimmed the edge of the quarry, above the sheer, deep chalk walls. They entered the long-disused pit through the narrow entrance to the east, which faced across the distant marshes. There was a safety barrier here, and a danger sign almost lost in the tangle of small trees and bushes, but nothing that could keep out a determined child. Richard saw the signs of Michael’s access, a pathway, well trodden down, leading deeply into the quarry’s heart.

  Michael led them through the quarry, round a beaten track at the base of the sheer, white cliff, where the signs of the vanished machines that had hewn the chalk could still be discerned. This place had not been a favourite childhood haunt of Richard’s, but he had come fossil-hunting here on many an occasion with his two cousins, and somewhere in the attic of Eastwell House he still had his collection of ammonites, sea urchins, bivalves and cones, flint shards, and the round and strange chunks of iron called marcasite, which he still romanced were the remains of alien machines. He had shown the fossils to Michael years ago, taking him up to the attic among the stored books and toys of two generations of Whitlocks, but the boy had not seemed very interested. To his uncertain knowledge, Michael still did not collect fossils in the same obsessive and hobbyist way.

  The boy had been forbidden to play in the pit, but Richard was aware that he often came here. Chalk marks on clothes and bodies are hard to remove.

  Below the steepest part of the cliff was the earthspill that he had tipped here, seven years past, and excavated later, reconstructing the likely shape of the shrine with the help of Jack Goodman. But Michael avoided this rise of ground and led them on to a bushy area of green.

  Stooping to enter the space within this dense undergrowth, Richard emerged into Michael’s castle.

  It was a kid’s camp like any other. There were comic books, remains of toys, chocolate wrappers, a bit of old carpet that he used to press down on the hard ground, two wooden crates, white driftwood and beach pebbles; and chunks of chalk positioned around the clearing like a defensive circle.

  ‘Is this the castle?’

  Michael nodded. He seemed nervous. He glanced around, then folded his arms across his chest.

  Susan ducked through the thorny undergrowth with Carol following her apprehensively.

  Richard stooped and brushed at the soil on the ground. He found a piece of intensely coloured green marble, broken sharply, a triangular fragment that was surprisingly heavy.

  He could also smell something pungent, chemical, like incense.

  Susan had picked up the aroma too, fleetingly. ‘Incense sticks?’

  They looked at Michael. ‘Have you been burning joss sticks here?’

  He didn’t know what a joss stick was.

  ‘Have you been playing with matches? And church incense?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Where did you find the figure?’

  Michael hesitated, then pointed ahead of him, into the bushes. ‘Over there.’

  Richard led him through the underbrush and into the clearer chalk-spill beyond. Looking around him he said, ‘Where? Where exactly?’

  Michael seemed confused. He turned back the way they had come and said, hesitantly, ‘Over there.’

  ‘Can you show me where over there?’

  But Michael shook his head. ‘I just saw it. It was pretty. So I reached for it and fetched it.’

  Richard dropped to a crouch, getting the boy’s attention. ‘Show me where you were standing when you “fetched” it. Will you?’

  And again they trekked back through the undergrowth, back to the castle, to the first place where Michael had been standing; and again he pointed to the bushes. ‘I fetched it from there.’

  Susan whispered, ‘There’s a scatter of sand around. All over the place. Look – in the grass.’

  Richard had already noticed the sand spread around, like a layer of fine dust. For the moment he was trying to understand Michael’s defensive and awkward language.

  ‘Show
me how you fetched it.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not? Can’t you try? Just for me?’

  Michael’s face was suddenly anguished. He gave every impression of being in a turmoil of indecision. He looked desperately at the bushes, then up at his father. ‘Chalk Boy isn’t here,’ he said in a hushed, frightened whisper.

  ‘Chalk Boy? Who’s he?’

  ‘He’s my friend. He plays with me. I have two friends who play with me. Chalk Boy showed me the pretty thing and said did I want it? I said yes, so he gave it to me. I had to fetch it, though.’

  Richard exchanged a questioning look with Susan. Chalk Boy? Susan shrugged. Michael often played with the younger of Jenny and Geoff Hanson’s two children, Tony, and with Bobby Gould, a slightly older lad who lived five houses away and who made adventure films with his friends, using his parents’ video camera. Was Bobby’s nickname among his friends Chalk Boy?

  ‘Do you mean Bobby Gould?’ Richard asked. Michael stared at him, not understanding. ‘Is Bobby who you mean by Chalk Boy?’

  A little shake of the head. A lip nervously bitten. A small body suddenly shaking. ‘Chalk Boy’s just my friend. He lives here. He’s my friend. He has a dog that catches birds and squirrels. I like him. We play together a lot.’

  ‘Where does he live, Michael? Where exactly?’

  Michael shrugged. ‘Don’t know. He lives at the end of a tunnel, next to the sea. I can hear the sea all the time when we’re playing. The waves are very loud. There’s lots of shadows in the sea, and sometimes they make noises …’

  ‘What sort of noises?’

  ‘Like roaring. And crying out.’

  Susan was smiling. She had picked Carol up and was keeping the slightly restless child quiet by swaying from side to side. ‘He’s talking about an imaginary playmate. Didn’t you ever have an invisible friend? I used to play with Marianne Faithfull when I was nine or ten. We sang together, with the Stones of course, went on adventures together, to dark castles and underground cities, even to Mars. For a while she was my best friend. And she still knows nothing about it.’

  ‘You had an imaginary friend when you were ten?’

  ‘Shortage of the real thing, dear.’

  But Richard had no time for Susan’s reminiscences. He was intrigued by what Michael had said. ‘Tell me about the dog? Is he a big dog?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is he like an Alsatian? Like Bonny?’ Their next-door neighbour’s dog.

  ‘Yes. But bigger.’

  ‘What colour is he?’

  ‘Grey and brown.’

  ‘Are you sure of that?’

  ‘Yes. Grey and brown.’

  Certainly not Bonny, then.

  ‘What colour are his ears?’

  ‘Grey. With white bits.’

  ‘When you scratch him behind the ears, how high is he on you? Where does he come up to?’

  Michael demonstrated. The dog was huge, far bigger than any Alsatian that Richard knew. Michael went on unprompted: ‘He smells, but he’s nice. He catches birds and squirrels. He has a big collar and Chalk Boy runs with him across the downs and through the woods. They really like each other.’

  Smiling, Richard said, ‘But he doesn’t really exist, does he? You’re just inventing him …’

  ‘Not inventing him,’ Michael said gloomily.

  ‘No. Of course you’re not.’ On impulse, Richard hugged his son, uncomfortable with the way he had to summon the affectionate gesture, and conscious of the boy’s stiff, uncertain reaction.

  They left the quarry.

  As the children ran ahead, back through the cornfield, Susan said, ‘That’s one big dog he plays with.’

  ‘Like a hunting hound. Like a dog I’ve seen before.’ Richard stopped in the middle of the field. ‘Do you know which dog I’m talking about?’

  ‘The dog from the earthfall,’ Susan said softly. She was frowning, clearly disturbed by the thought.

  ‘I made drawings of the dog-shrine – and the dog itself. Do you remember? I wonder if Michael ever looked at those pictures.’

  ‘I don’t know. What are you saying? That he’s fantasizing about a dog in a drawing you made?’

  ‘It’s possible. Either that or the hound’s spirit is back among the remains of its last resting place.’

  Shivering, Susan said, ‘I don’t want to think about it.’ Then with a pointed glance, she added, ‘But it’s nice to see you take a bit of interest in the boy for a change …’

  ‘Don’t start on me now. Not now. Please?’

  ‘Your interest in him has cheered him up. He’s almost a changed lad.’

  ‘It’s him who usually doesn’t talk to me.’

  Susan’s laugh was a cutting declaration of her disbelief that he could lie so blatantly. ‘Talking is a two-way process, Rick. The boy misses you!’

  She walked on quickly. Richard ambled after her, hands in pockets, wolf-girl in right hand, comforting, one question in his head, nagging.

  The gruesome remains of the dog had come from the earth-mass which had tried to kill Michael. That earth-mass had come from somewhere, and Michael had been its focus. It had been a part of a haunting that seemed, now, to have disappeared.

  The dog had been there, though. Could Michael, as an infant, have been aware of the dead hound?

  And even if that was true …

  Who was Chalk Boy?

  ELEVEN

  Chalk Boy usually played with him in the pit, but he was in the room now, darting through the darkness and laughing.

  Michael laughed too, but the sound was nervous. He felt slightly scared as he sat up towards the top of his bed, and drew his feet below him. He folded his arms and leaned forward, shivering slightly despite his pyjamas. The chalk-painted shape danced and ran about the shelves.

  ‘Look at that. Oh, look at that!’

  Excited at finding picture books. Flipping the pages rapidly, then stopping in the darkness and gasping with sheer delight. ‘Oh, look at this. Look at this.’

  Michael could see the chalk streaks, like slices of moonlight. Through the eerie white, though, the darkness of Chalk Boy was that same scary black, the depthlessness, the void where the boy should have been. It was something that Michael didn’t like. He didn’t like looking into that emptiness. It made him dizzy. Chalk Boy had no eyes, not that Michael had ever seen. He was just a shadow shape. He watched from the beach where he lived, staring from the tunnel, then playing, and calling for his dog.

  He shouldn’t be in the bedroom. He should be in the castle by the sea, at the end of the tunnel.

  Again, Michael laughed nervously, and watched as Chalk Boy rifled through the drawers of his clothes chest, finding fossils. ‘Look at this! Oh, look at this!’

  Fossils, books, photographs, toys, dolls, colourful shirts, Chalk Boy found them, marvelled at them, discarded them, moving fleetly around the room, sometimes coming close to Michael, stopping, like an elf, like a creature from the sea, coming close, then pausing to look. The stink of sea was strong. Salt stink, seaweedy.

  ‘Look at this! Look at this!’ Chalk Boy thrilled. He had found a pile of comics, turning through the pages so fast that they seemed a blur.

  Michael eased himself off the bed and went to the door, opening it and peering out into the darkness of the landing. Chalk Boy hovered behind him.

  ‘Look at that! Oh, look at that!’ Chalk Boy had found the small, red-clay doll that his mother had given him for his second birthday. Hungarian magic, she had said, and protection against night spirits.

  ‘Sssh!’ Michael closed the door again, turned and raised a finger to his lips. It was three in the morning according to the clock on the landing. Chalk Boy peered into the house, but then darted back into the room, rifling pages, tossing toys, gasping with his strange pleasure.

  The door of his room opened suddenly and the light went on. Michael jumped, coming quickly awake, shocked as he stood in the middle of the chaos in his room, staring up at his fathe
r. He was still holding a pair of shoes, about to toss them. In a disorientating blur he realized he had only been dreaming of Chalk Boy.

  ‘What on earth are you doing? What’s all this yelling?’

  Parental eyes surveyed the untidiness. Sleepy gaze focused angrily. ‘You woke us up.’

  ‘It wasn’t me.’

  Michael looked around. There was no sign of Chalk Boy. Comics and books were strewn around, clothes were draped over shelves and the desk, even the lamp by the bed.

  ‘Go to bed, Michael!’

  The words were angry. His father watched him until he was below the covers, then turned off the light, adding, ‘I’ll expect this mess to be straightened before you come down to breakfast. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ Michael said, confused.

  ‘And no more noise!’

  ‘Chalk Boy?’ Michael hissed when he was alone again, in silence. But the room had nothing but shadows now.

  The shadows were filled with voices, old voices from another time. They stalked around him, like ghosts, like the apparition of Chalk Boy, come to taunt him, come from tearful years gone by. Michael leapt into bed and buried his head below the pillow.

  The sounds were muffled in his imagination and after a while he started to listen again, straining to hear them, to remember them, lying there, now staring at the ceiling, aware of the heavy pendulum movement of the clock on the landing, recalling the raised voice, and the crying, from the sitting room below.

  He closed his eyes and squeezed back tears. But the voice shadows wouldn’t go away, brought on by that flash of anger in his father’s face just a few moments ago, that look that had been such a terror to him for so long, from so long ago …

  ‘We made a mistake. We have to face it, Sue, we made a big mistake.’

  ‘You’ve been drinking. You’re disgusting!’

  ‘Keep your voice down. We don’t want the whole world to know.’

  ‘We did not make a mistake. If you just showed more interest in him. If you just behaved like his father instead of brooding all the time that he doesn’t have your genes …’