by Max Porter
I climbed up, and up, until my weight made the fallen tree slip and I would come crashing down. Sometimes into soft cushioned cradles of greenery, sometimes into nests of sharp branches. My brother would yell DEAD MEAT!
I can’t remember if this game was my brother’s idea, or Crow’s.
Dad came to get us in the woods at dusk and said, ‘You’re bleeding. Fucking hell, your whole body is bleeding.’ I was numb from the cold and the scratches were tingling and Dad told my brother to have a serious think about his behaviour.
CROW
This one is true:
Once upon a time there was a demon who fed on grief. The delicious aroma of raw shock and unexpected loss came wafting from the doors and windows of a widower’s sad home.
Therefore the demon set about finding his way in.
One evening the babes were freshly washed and the husband was telling them tales when there was a knock on the door.
Rat-a-tat-tat. ‘Open up, open up, it’s me from 56. It’s … Keith. Keith Coleridge. I need to borrow some milk.’
But the sensible father knew there was no number 56 on the quiet little street, so he did not open the door.
The next night the demon tried again.
Rat-a-tat-tat. ‘Open up, open up, I’m from Parenthesis Press. It’s Paul. Paul … Graves. I heard the news. I’m truly gutted it’s taken me this long to come over. I’ve brought a pizza and some toys for the boys.’
But the attentive father knew there had been a Pete from Parenthesis and a Phil from Parenthesis, but never a Paul from Parenthesis, so he did not open the door.
The next night the demon ran at the door, flashing blue and crackling.
Rat-a-tat-tat. BANG. BANG. ‘Open up! Police! We know you’re in there, this is an emergency, you have five seconds to open the door or we will smash our way in.’
But the worldly grieving man knew a bit about the law and sensed a lie.
The demon went away and wondered what to do next. He was tabloid-despicable, so a powerful plan came to him.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat. Knock. Knock. Knock. ‘Boys? It’s me. It’s Mum. Darling? Are you there? Boys, open the door, it’s me. I’m back. Sweetheart? Boys? Let me in.’
And the babes flung their duvets back in abandon, swung their little legs over the edge of the bed and scampered down the stairs. The chambers of their baffled baby hearts filled with yearning and they tingled, they bounded down towards before, before, before all this. The father, drunk on the voice of his beloved, raced down after them. The sound of her voice was stinging, like a moon-dragged starvation surging into every hopeless raw vacant pore, undoing, exquisite undoing.
‘We are coming, Mum!’
Their friend and houseguest, who was a crow, stopped them at the door.
My loves, he said.
My dear, sorry loves. It isn’t her. Go back to bed and let me deal with this. It isn’t her.
The boys floated their crumpled crêpe-paper dad back up, one under each arm steering his weightlessness, and they laid him down to sleep. Then they sat at the window looking down and watching what happened and they liked it very much, for boys will be boys.
Crow went out, smiled, sniffed the air, nodded good evening and back-kicked the door shut behind him. Then Crow demonstrated to the demon what happens when a crow repels an intruder to the nest, if there are babies in that nest:
One loud KRONK, a hop, a tap on the floor, a little distracted dance, a HONK, swivel and lift, as a discus swung up but not released but driven down atomically fixed and explosive, the beak hurled down hammer-hard into the demon’s skull with a crack and a spurt then smashed onwards down through bone, brain, fluid and membrane, into squirting spine, vertebra snap, vertebra crunch, vertebra nibbled and spat and one-two-three-four-five all the way down quick as a piranha, nipping, cutting, disassembling the material of the demon, splashing in blood and spinal gunk and shit and piss, unravelling innards, whipping ligaments and nerves about joyous spaghetti tangled wool hammering, clawing, ripping, snipping, slurping, burping, frankly loving the journey of hurting, hurting-hurting and for Crow it was like a lovely bin full of chip papers and ice cream and currywurst and baby robins and every nasty treat, physically invigorating like a westerly above the moor, like a bouncy castle elm in the wind, like old family pleasures of the deep species. And Crow stands thrilled in a pool of filth, patiently sweeping and toeing remains of demon into a drain-hole.
His work done, Crow struts and leaps up and down the street issuing warnings while the pyjama-clad boys clap and cheer – behind-glass-silent – from the bedroom window. Crow issues warnings to the wide city, warnings in verse, warnings in many languages, warnings with bleeding edges, warnings with humour, warnings with dance and sub-low threats and voodoo and puns and spectacular ancient ugliness.
Satisfied with his defence of the nest, Crow wanders in to find some food.
DAD
Such a bad joke, bad dream, bad poem, so different, this cr
cr
cr
cr
cr
e ak, ik e y, evice, ea tor.
Cr
Cr
cr
y
ying
BOYS
He was young and good and sometimes funny. He was silent then he was livid then he was spiteful and unfamiliar, then he became obsessed and had visions and wrote and wrote and wrote.
Come and look at this, Crow said. Your Dad seems to be dead!
We crept in and the room smelt of rotting mouse and there were ashtrays in the duvet and bottles on the floor. Dad was spread-eagled like a broken toy and his mouth was slack grey and collapsed like a failed Yorkshire pudding.
Dad are you dead?
Dad, are you dead?
A long whining fart answered and Dad kicked out.
Course he’s not dead, you boob, said my brother.
I never said he was dead, I said.
Whoops, said Crow.
I’m not dead, said Dad.
DAD
Dear Crow,
Today I drew a picture I am really proud of. It’s a picture of you, sitting on a chair, with a hand-puppet of Ted. Opposite you is Ted, sitting on a chair, with a hand-puppet of you. The likeness is superb!
Ted’s hand-puppet Crow has a speech bubble. The Crow puppet is saying ‘TED, YOU STINK OF A BUTCHER’S SHOP.’
I think you’d love it.
BOYS
Dad told us stories and the stories changed when Dad changed.
I remember a story about a rat catcher. The rat catcher nailed the tails of dead rats to the headboard of his bed, one, two, three, four, five. The rat catcher killed the king of the rats and everyone knows a king rat can’t be killed unless you boil its heart. As the rat catcher slept the rat king’s tail unpinned itself from the headboard and went along the line plaiting the tails of his dead fellows to make a noose and they throttled the rat catcher. Rat catcher, rat, said Dad, what do you make of that?
Dad told us stories and the stories changed when Dad changed.
I remember a story about a Japanese writer who fell on his own sword and it was so sharp it cut through blood and came out clean from his back.
I remember a story about an Irish warrior who killed his son by mistake but when he realised he didn’t mind that much because it served the son right.
DAD
There is an area of the kitchen work surface where I lean while the boys eat Weetabix. It is a little way along from the area of the kitchen work surface where my wife used to lean.
IT IS VERY HEAVY, THERE’S NO WAY TO SAY HOW LONG IT WILL GO ON BUT WE HAVE GREAT FEAR FOR PEOPLE CAUGHT IN THE CITY.
The boys hear the news. They need to know. I tell them a lot about war.
Loss and pain in the world is unimaginable but I want them to try.
CROW
Notes towards my voice-driven literary memoir, if I may:
I loved waiting, mid-afternoon, alone in their home, for them to come bac
k from school. I acknowledge that I could have been accused of showing symptoms related to unfulfilled maternal fantasies, but I am a crow and we can do many things in the dark, even play at Mommy. I just pecked about, looking at this, looking at that. Lifting up the occasional sock or jigsaw piece. I used to do little squitty shits in places I knew he’d never clean.
The first thing I would hear would be the high interlinking descants and trills of chatter, sing-song and cheerfulness. The boys. There might be a thump as they smashed against the front door, then a breath-catching wait for Dad to catch up. He would open the door and with a click the flat would be full of noise, Shoes Off, Bags Down Please, Don’t leave it there, I said Don’t, leave it there, come on, ship chop chip shop up the stairs.
There is a beautiful lazy swagger to tired little men, they roll and flump and crash down in the interlude before beginning to scavenge for food or entertainment, and I was always filled with uncharacteristic optimism and good cheer watching them slouch unselfconsciously back into their roost. And sugar! On the evenings when he gave them treats, or they climbed up to the cupboard and plundered – crow-like – their father’s stash. If you haven’t observed human children after serious quantities of sugar, you must. It raises and deranges them, hilariously, for an hour or so, and then they slump.
It is uncannily like blood-drunk fox cubs.
BOYS
We collected the postman’s dropped elastic bands. We thought we would build a giant ball. We gave up.
We made bases, camps, dens, shelters, forts, bunkers, castles, pill-boxes, tunnels and nests.
We watched London and London offered us possible mothers in jeans and striped T-shirts and Ray-Bans, so we spotted them and liked the nasty insensitive self-harm of it. We were blasé with a babysitter who said, ‘How can you laugh about it, it’s so sad?’
We balanced on the back of the sofa and dive-bombed onto the carpet and Dad shouted You think that doesn’t damage your knees but it does and when you are my age you will have serious knee problems OK, and I will not push you round in a cart like sad beggars and if you think I’m lying you should have seen your grandmother’s knees, ruined, like an aerial shot of a battlefield, she could hardly kneel, from childhood disrespect of her joints, ballet, mostly, but sofa jumping too, and they chopped her knees up, this is before laser surgery, and if you don’t believe me you can
We stopped listening and kept on leaping.
After the advent of laser surgery but before puberty, before self-consciousness, before secondary school, before money, time or gender got their teeth in. Before language was a trap, when it was a maze. Before Dad was a man in the last thirty years of his life. Really, on reflection, the best possible time to lose a mum.
DAD
‘I’ll tell you this for free,’ said Crow.
‘Hmm.’ (I am trying to work, trying to entertain the notion of Crow a bit less since I read a book about psychotic delusions.)
‘If your wife is a ghost, then she is not wailing in the cupboards and corners of this house, she is not mooching about bemoaning the loss of her motherhood or the bitter pain of watching you boys live without her.’
‘No?’
‘No. Trust me, I know a bit about ghosts.’
‘Go on.’
‘She’ll be way back, before you. She’ll be in the golden days of her childhood. Ghosts do not haunt, they regress. Just as when you need to go to sleep you think of trees or lawns, you are taking instant symbolic refuge in a ready-made iconography of early safety and satisfaction. That exact place is where ghosts go.’
I look at Crow. Tonight he is Polyphemus and has only one eye, a polished patent eight-ball.
‘Go on then. Tell me.’
‘Really?’
‘Please.’
‘I’m not a performing monkey.’
‘Tell me.’
‘It’s more like a scent, or a synaesthetic memory, but it is something like this …’
He sits still. His neck ceases jutting, his beak refrains from jabbing. For the first time since his arrival he stops suggesting constant readiness for violence with his posture.
He sits as still as I have ever seen an un-stuffed animal sit. Dead still.
‘Right … p p p, yes, ooh hold on, paradiddle parasaurolophus watch with mother spies and weddings hang on, ignore that, here we go …
Playdates! Red Cross building, parquet floor, plimsolls. Brownies. Angel biscuits.
Fig Rolls. Dance-offs. Fig Rolls. Patchwork for Beginners. Invisible ink.
Chase, I mean, tag, catch, you know. Rope swings. Her dad’s massive hands.
Rock pools (Yorkshire?). Crabbing, nets, sardines, hiding, waiting.
Counting (abacus? beads?).
Trampolines/aniseed sweets/painted eggs.
Pencil sharpenings? Magic Faraway, Robert the … something, Robert the Rose Horse?’
We sit in silence and I realise I am grinning. I recognise some of it. I believe him. I absolutely blissfully believe him and it feels very familiar.
‘Thank you Crow.’
‘All part of the service.’
‘Really. Thank you, Crow.’
‘You’re welcome. But please remember I am your Ted’s song-legend, Crow of the death-chill, please. The God-eating, trash-licking, word-murdering, carcass-desecrating math-bomb motherfucker, and all that.’
‘He never called you a motherfucker.’
‘Lucky me.’
BOYS
Once upon a time there were two boys who purposefully misremembered things about their father. It made them feel better if ever they forgot things about their mother.
There were a lot of equations and transactions in their small family. One boy dreamed he had murdered his mother. He checked it wasn’t true, then he put a valuable silver serving spoon that his father had inherited in the bin. It was missed. He felt better.
One boy lost the treasured lunchbox note from his mother saying ‘good luck’. He cried, alone in his room, then threw a toy car at his father’s framed Coltrane poster. It smashed. He felt better. The father dutifully swept up all the glass and understood.
There were a lot of punishments and anticipations in their small family.
DAD
The boys fight.
BOYS
The cold woke one of them, so he woke the other saying FATHER IS GONE, and the other agreed. Their mother had gone – she had either lain down in the snow and slept to death or been taken by wolves – so they knew a thing or two about how a small house smells and sounds when a parent is gone, and they were right, their father was gone.
Perhaps, said one of the boys, he’ll come back, and the other boy ruffled his hair and smiled with his eyes, because no, he wouldn’t come back. A gone dad is a gone dad ever.
So they sang the tidy up song as they went about the place, putting things away, and they put on all their clothes so they looked much fatter than they were, and off they went.
They walked for three days, sleeping only as they rolled down hills, so they were never still. They lost their childish bodies and grew beards and popped through layers of clothing so that by the fourth day, when the sun came out, they were big naked men.
Look at you, said one to the other. Look at our willies, said the other to his brother.
They came upon a little cottage and they knocked at the door. As soon as the terribly beautiful woman answered they knew they weren’t ready for her to be anything other than a mother, so they scurried home, wee wee wee, up the hills, across the frozen woodland, into the house, up the stairs, into bed – eyes squeezed shut – and when they woke up their father was cooking breakfast.
DAD
We went to a Birds of Prey Flying Display. In a field. Deep country somewhere, with half a dozen old dears and the plump ginger guide with a radio mic; ‘here she comes, the star of the show.’
The first bird out was a bald eagle, stunning, massive, with a six-foot wingspan. Ooh, yeah, we said. Ooh yeah. The boys were tran
sfixed.
‘Now look as she decides whether or not to turn on the OW-WOOP, THERE SHE GOES, lift, lift, UP SHE GO GIRL, that’s MY GIRL!’
And she soared. She got lift. We got lift.
The boys were gripping the plastic seats and the situational artifice of the captive bird performing dropped away and I was just excited by the bald eagle. The physical magnificence of the eagle.
‘Oh, now here you are, who’s this? Oh, lordy lordy, you tasty little bugger, excuse my language folks. It being springtime the carrion crow in this field here is protecting eggs, as well you would with a bloody eagle about, HOW ABOUT THAT! That, ladies and gentlemen, is a brave little bastard. That is a crow, SURFIN’ A BALD EAGLE!’
I turned sideways and the boys were spontaneously holding hands.
‘Ladies and gentlemen I present to you the bloody miracle of nature. That is two birds basically giving each other a bloody great nod of respect. You may be many bloody kilograms heavier than me, about forty times my size, but if you come near my eggs I’ll bloody show you a thing or two about flying!’
Up we shot, all three of us. A standing ovation. ‘GO CROW!’ we yelled.
‘Why ever not,’ said the red-faced lover of birds, our dude, our guide, ‘why ever fucken not. GO CROW!’
Go crow. Go Crow.
And that was probably the best day of my life since she died.
BOYS
Once upon a time there was a king who had two sons. The queen had fallen from the attic door and bashed her skull and because the servants in the kingdom were busy polishing sculptures for the king, she bled to death. The king was often busy with futile curse-lifting and the prevention of small wars. And so it was that the little princes would fight.