by Kevin Brooks
Damn it.
I slammed open the bathroom door and marched inside, stopping suddenly at the sight of Dominic. He was sitting on the lavatory, holding his head in his hands, dressed in nothing but a pair of grey boxer shorts. My anger turned to embarrassment and I let out a quiet yelp of surprise. Dominic looked up. His eyes were teary and bloodshot.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, backing out. ‘I didn’t know you were in here.’
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t doing anything.’
I turned to go.
‘Cait?’
I stopped, but didn’t turn around.
‘You don’t have to go, ‘ he said. ‘I’m finished. I was just going.’
The lifelessness of his voice was painful to hear. It pulled at me, reminding me of what he was and what we used to be – brother and sister. I tried to resist it, I wanted to resist it, but I couldn’t. I turned around. He’d slipped a hooded sweatshirt on and was standing with his back to the sink. His head was bowed and he was toying with the drawstring of the hood.
He couldn’t look at me.
I let out a long sigh. ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to bite you.’
He didn’t seem to hear me.
I moved a little closer. ‘Dom?’
Wearily, he raised his eyes. His face was a picture of confusion: fear, pain, bitterness, pride … It was the face of a child struggling to cope in a young man’s body. Or was it the other way round?
He wiped his face and sighed. ‘It’s bloody hard, isn’t it?’
‘Yep.’
We stood there in a weight of silence. Me in my nightdress, Dominic in his sweatshirt and shorts, both of us desperate to pour out our troubles but neither of us willing or able to start. Dominic lowered his eyes and stared at the floor. I gazed around at the familiar bathroom clutter. Dusty bottles on dusty shelves, toothbrushes, a rusty radio, straggly geraniums in pots, a ceramic fish, a rubber crocodile, a plastic duck, a sponge sheep … and then my eyes settled on the framed picture hanging above the cistern. It’s been there for as long as I can remember. It shows a moose drinking from a sparkling blue lake, the lake surrounded by hills and dark pines. It’s a nice enough picture, but there’s always been something about it that bothers me. The moose has got his heavy head bowed down and he’s dipping his snout into the ring-rippled surface of the water, and I’m always afraid that something’s going to sneak up behind him while he’s not looking and pounce on him, a wolf or a grizzly bear or something. I know it’s stupid. I know it’s only a picture, but every time I go into the bathroom I have to tell the moose to watch out. ‘Watch out for them grizzlies, moose,’ I say. It’s like a prayer. I don’t have to say it out loud, a whisper will do, or even just mouthing the words. I know it doesn’t make sense. I know it’s idiotic. But I don’t really mind. The way I see it, feeling like a complete idiot is a small price to pay for saving a moose’s life, even if it is only a picture moose.
I looked back at Dominic.
He looked at me.
The moment had passed.
We both knew it. If either of us had been meaning to say anything, it was too late now. We’d both had time to think, or not think, and we’d both found it too hard. There was too much at stake. Too many skeletons.
Dominic cleared his throat. ‘Well …’ he said. ‘I’d better get going.’
I grinned. ‘Me too.’
He didn’t get it at first, then the corners of his mouth pricked into a smile. It wasn’t much of a smile, but it was better than nothing.
‘Right,’ he said, starting towards the door.
I watched him.
He walked heavily, with his shoulders stooped and his eyes down. As he passed me he hesitated, then stopped, and I felt his hand on my arm. The lightest of touches. I looked into his eyes. He held my gaze for a moment, then spoke in a broken whisper. ‘None of it means anything, Cait.’
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I knew he was wrong. ‘Don’t do it, Dom,’ I said. ‘You know better.’
A flutter of concern showed briefly on his face, then he blinked and the lifelessness returned.
‘I’ll see you later,’ he said.
He let go of my arm, turned around and walked out.
I listened to his bare feet padding along the landing, then I shut the door and sat down on the edge of the bath and looked up at the picture on the wall. The moose was still there, still drinking calmly from the lake. He was all right.
I wondered if moose-prayers worked on people.
The rest of the day was just a matter of waiting. Whether he believed it or not, Lucas was in trouble. At six o’clock, he’d finish work, cut down Joe Rampton’s lane and come face to face with Tait and Lee Brendell. Big trouble. Someone had to help him. He wasn’t going to help himself. I kept on running through the alternatives – telling Dad, telling Lenny Craine, I even thought of ringing Joe Rampton and telling him – but whichever way I looked at it, the end result was always the same.
It was up to me.
I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t going to do anything stupid, but I knew in my heart that I was. Your future is set. Sometimes you can see it – you know it. You might not understand it, and you might not have any faith in it, but somewhere deep inside, in those unknown places that tell you what to do, you know where you’re going. You know it all along.
I knew it.
Once I’d admitted that, all I had to do was wait.
So I waited.
Nothing happened to pass the time, it just crept along, getting slower and slower … and slower … and slower … until the minutes turned into hours and the hours turned into days and I began to think that something was wrong. Either all the clocks were faulty, or it was just far too hot. The heat had melted time, turned it into tar or something … made it too thick to flow …
Melted my brain.
Around two o’clock I lay down on the settee in the front room and closed my eyes. I knew I wouldn’t sleep, I was too wired, but I thought it might help to calm me down a little bit …
I woke up with Deefer’s wet snout in my face. For a second I didn’t know where I was or what day it was, and then I remembered and started to panic. I pushed Deefer away, rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked at the clock. It’s a lumpy old thing with stubby hands and big fat roman numerals, and sometimes it’s really hard to read. For a moment I thought it said twenty past twelve. Oh God, I thought, I’ve slept for ten hours … then I realised I’d got the hands mixed up and it was actually four o’clock.
I let out a deep breath.
Four o’clock was close enough.
I set out for Joe Rampton’s lane.
Sunlight was misting through the branches of the poplar trees along the lane, and as I headed down towards the creek I could feel the sweat glistening on my skin. Mosquitoes whined in the air, attracted by the heat of my body, and clouds of midges swarmed silently around my head.
I walked slowly, taking my time.
I didn’t know what I was doing.
The only solid thought in my mind was to get to Joe Rampton’s lane before anyone else did, find somewhere to hide, and then wait. After that … I didn’t want to think about it.
Joe’s lane runs almost parallel to ours. It starts from his farm house, winds down through a patchwork of fields, then straightens out and heads off towards the beach, emerging at a shallow bend in the creek opposite the pillbox. Most of the land between the two lanes is taken up with fields, but three-quarters of the way down there’s a narrow strip of woodland that stretches from one lane right across to the other. It’s not much to look at, just a ragged spread of spindly trees, most of which look as if a puff of wind would blow them over. But if you need to get from one lane to the other without going down to the beach, it’s perfect.
With the trees in sight, I clambered up the hedgebank, squeezed through a gap in the hedge, and dropped down into a cornfield on the other side. I made my
way along the edge of the field to a barbed wire fence at the bottom, carefully straddled it, then slid down a dusty bank, and there I was – in the woods. It seemed like a different world. Although the trees weren’t high enough to provide any shade, the light had dimmed and the air was suddenly cool. It was the kind of light you see in those scrubby little woods that run alongside motorways, a cold and forgotten light. It had no energy. It was almost as if it had given up trying, as if it had said to itself – what’s the point? there’s nothing here … why shine when there’s nothing to shine on?
I moved into the heart of the woods and started walking. There was no path, but the land was so sparse I didn’t need one. Although Joe’s lane wasn’t visible, I could see his farm house in the distance, and over to the east I could see the sunlight reflecting on the bay, so all I had to do was head for a point halfway between the house and the bay and I knew I’d come out somewhere along the lane.
Beneath my feet the earth was dry and dusty. The air was cool and still and there were no midges or mosquitoes to bother me. There was no sign of life at all. No birds, no flowers, no nothing. The woods were stark and silent.
I walked on.
The lane wasn’t far away, but it seemed to take a long time to get there. At one point the land sloped down into a marshy area full of rotten tree stumps and boggy pools, and I was forced to walk around in circles for a while to find a safe way through. When I eventually got back to dry land again I didn’t know where I was. I scrambled up a small hillock and looked around, trying to work out where the lane was, but everything looked different. My perspective had changed. The trees looked taller, then smaller. The sky was greyer. The horizon was facing the wrong way … then, just as I was beginning to think I was lost, everything suddenly clicked into place. It was like one of those magic-eye pictures. One second I was staring hopelessly at a blur of meaningless dots, and then, in an instant, the dots took shape and I was staring past the trees at a wooden gate set in an overgrown hedge about ten metres away. Beyond the gate I could see the welcoming lines of the lane.
Keeping my eyes fixed on the gate in case it disappeared again, I hurried on through the trees. The silence was fading now. I could hear farm sounds. The faint scrabble of chickens. A tractor away in the fields somewhere. And beyond that, a distant metallic hammering, as if someone was beating on a sheet of steel. I wondered if it was Lucas. What might he be doing? Fixing a barn roof? Putting in fence-posts? Whatever he was doing, I imagined he’d be hot. Hot and thirsty, tired and sweaty …
I climbed the gate and dropped down into Joe’s lane.
Now that I was out of the woods the light had brightened again and the lane was lush and colourful. Tall hedges either side of the lane were thick with flowers and berries, and the air was sweet with the smell of honeysuckle. Butterflies flitted around in the warm air. I used to visit the lane quite a lot when I was a kid, sometimes with Dad, sometimes with Bill, occasionally on my own. It was a nice place to walk, especially in summer when the butterflies were out, and I always felt at home there. But I hadn’t been this way for some time, and the lay-out of the lane seemed to have changed. It was different. I’m not sure how it was different – maybe it was just the state of my mind – but everything seemed unfamiliar. The lane was narrower and more wiggly than I remembered, and the hedges were too high to see over, so it was almost impossible to judge exactly where I was. Not only that, but I didn’t know where Jamie Tait and the others were planning on meeting Lucas.
I stood there for a moment, thinking.
They wouldn’t come from the direction of the farm house, I was pretty sure of that. If they did, they’d run the risk of missing Lucas. Unless they came down our lane and cut through the woods, they’d have to come along the beach. And I couldn’t see them cutting through the woods … no, they’d come along the beach. They’d have to. It was the only way.
I went over to the gate and clambered up. By keeping close to the hedge and grabbing hold of a hawthorn branch for balance, I managed to get myself into a standing position on top of the gate. I didn’t feel too safe, but at least I had a reasonable view of my surroundings. To my left, I could see the lane winding down towards the beach. I couldn’t actually see the beach, nor where the lane came out, but I could tell that it wasn’t too far away. In the other direction, I could see the distant outline of Joe’s farmhouse surrounded by an assortment of barns and outbuildings, and from there I could follow the trail of the lane down through a maze of coloured fields. There were squares of bright yellow oilseed rape, the blue of borage, and golden corn … but I couldn’t see Lucas anywhere. I stretched up higher, standing on tiptoe, searching the fields … then the gate started wobbling and I came to my senses and carefully climbed down.
I had what I needed.
The way I saw it, Jamie, Lee and Dom would come along the beach and then turn up the lane and wait for Lucas somewhere between the gate and the farmhouse. They couldn’t afford to wait at the bottom of the lane in case Lucas turned off at the gate and went through the woods. Dom knew about the gate to the woods, and I was assuming that Jamie and Lee did too. But, even if they didn’t, I guessed they’d want to meet Lucas somewhere quiet, somewhere they could get on with things without being disturbed.
I looked around. The lane here was narrow, hidden from view, no one ever came here … it was as good a place as any.
I started looking around for a place to hide, walking down the lane for a bit, looking in the hedgerows, then back up again, towards the farmhouse. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, and I thought it might take a while, but after a few minutes I found it. It was just past the gate on the right-hand side going up – an odd little place where the hedge had thinned and the bank was low enough to let me through to the field on the other side without too much trouble. I was only wearing a T-shirt and shorts, and by the time I’d squeezed through the hedge my arms and legs were covered in scratches. The field on the other side was filled with tall stalks of maize. I crossed over to the thickest part and crouched down among the stalks in line with the cut-away bank. It was perfect. I could see through to the lane, but no one could see me.
It was quiet. I could hear all the sounds you never normally hear – the rustle of unseen mice, insects calling, the sea breeze whispering in the air. It was comfortable, too. The ground was shady and soft, and the maize had a nice grainy smell to it. If the circumstances weren’t so dire it would have been a pleasant spot to while away a few hours.
I got myself into an agreeable position, made sure I had a good view of the lane, then settled down to wait.
One of the things I find strange about characters in books and films is that they hardly ever need to use the lavatory. You see them doing all kinds of things – falling in love, having fights, driving cars, eating food, drinking whiskey, smoking cigarettes, having sex, taking drugs – but the only time you see them visiting the lavatory is when they need to escape from somebody by climbing out of a window, or else when they’re going to get beaten up or stabbed or something. You never hear anyone say, Excuse me, I just need to go for a wee. Or if you do, you know they’re not really going for a wee, they’re going to climb out of the window or get beaten up or stabbed or something. I know it doesn’t matter, but it just seems odd that something so fundamental, so universally essential, is almost completely ignored. I’m not saying I want to see actors in films going to the lavatory every ten minutes, it’s just that when I’m watching a film or reading a book I can’t help wondering every now and then if so-and-so needs a wee. I’ll be watching Leonardo DiCaprio running around on a sinking boat, or Russell Crowe doing a bit of gladiating, and I’ll suddenly find myself thinking – he hasn’t had a wee for ages, he must be bursting.
Like I say, it doesn’t really matter. I only mention it because as I was waiting there crouched in the maize I suddenly realised that I was bursting for a wee. I don’t know where it came from … maybe it was nerves … it just crept up on me. One second I was s
itting there nice and snug, the next I was fidgeting about trying to work out what to do about it. At first I kept telling myself to ignore it, hold it in, this isn’t the time or place to be worrying about your bladder. But after a while I couldn’t ignore it, I really had to go. Luckily, there was plenty of cover. I didn’t want to pee where I was hiding, but I didn’t want to lose sight of the lane either. So I crept out of my hiding place and scuttled over to the hedge where I found a spot just to the side of the gap where there was a stray little patch of maize. Although the hedge was dense, I was close enough to see through to the lane, and I was pretty sure that no one could see me. I paused for a moment, took a good look around, then lowered my shorts, squatted down and started to pee.
It was then I heard voices coming up the lane.
They were close, surprisingly close. I couldn’t understand how they’d got so close without me hearing them. I could hear Jamie Tait booming away about something, and then Dominic, muttering in agreement. They were getting closer all the time. I stopped peeing and looked over my shoulder. They were right there – I could see them through the hedge; Jamie in front, Dom to one side, and Lee Brendell slumping along behind them. A half-empty bottle of whiskey was dangling from Jamie’s hand and his shirt was hanging open. Lee Brendell had a big fat joint stuck in his mouth, and Dom looked totally fed up. Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure that I couldn’t be seen. If I could see them so clearly …
Damn.
I shouldn’t have panicked. I should have kept perfectly still and stayed where I was … but I wasn’t thinking. In hindsight, I hadn’t been thinking all day. Right up to that moment I’d been kidding myself that nothing was going to happen. At worst, I was going to wait for an hour or so in the maize, meet Lucas, and somehow persuade him to go back the other way, or maybe hide in the maize with me …