—Think there’s a chopper up there, Sal.
She gives a shrug. —Wouldn’t surprise me if there was. They’re not liking this, y’know.
—Who isn’t?
—The, y’know … authorities, like. See the EU flags? This is treasonous, now. We’re traitors. Have you not been watching the news? Or the podcasts?
—Can’t say I have.
—Saw a couple yesterday on someone’s smartphone. Some twat going on about this being private property or something. They seem to think this is some kind of Occupy thing. Haven’t got a fucking clue. They just don’t like it. But, like, they’re okay with Rhos being closed down, aren’t they? She shakes her head. —Wankers. This fucking country’s gone insane.
I see a skinny guy – really skinny like, I mean emaciated-looking – at the fire, holding his plate out for food. He’s wearing shorts and red socks. They’re very red, his socks, like those bits of pimento you squeeze out of an olive before you put it in your martini. Olives? Martini? Where the fuck have these thoughts come from? I’ve never had a martini in me life.
—Did you ever think this would happen?
—What, Sal?
—All of this? After you saw that, what did you call it, that shape in the sky?
I swallow more food. —Is that what kicked all this off?
—No doubt about it. It was the blog.
—What blog?
—The woman you were with, when you had that, that apparition, she put it up on her blog. Went viral. We spoke about this, remember at the polytunnels?
The polytunnels at Rhoserchan. Another life. Back behind me. Not for the first time I wonder what the fuck I’ve been doing.
—It took on a life of its own, Sally’s saying. —For some people it’s just a party but for others. I mean look at him.
She points with her spoon at some feller wading through the shallows of the lake. He’s got a long beard and is wearing a soaked white robe and, God, he’s carrying a full-size wooden cross over one shoulder. No one else is paying him any attention.
—Been doing that for days, he has, Sal says. —Just wandering around with his cross. An all the people in wheelchairs and stuff. And, Duw, it seems like everyone that’s been through Cysllt has come up here, all the junkies and alkies, all the prozzies. Self-harmers, all of them. So many familiar faces up here. I don’t know why this has happened but it all started off with that blog. What was it you saw, Adam love? You and that blogger woman?
I feel a rumbling in my belly. The food; it’s started something off. Some faecal thing.
—I really don’t know, Sal. Can’t say. A shape, that’s all it was. Like a person. It was shaped a bit like a person.
—They’re saying it was a Brocken spectre. Know what that is? Like a shadow on the air. Just a, an atmospheric phenomenon. Easily explained. But this, tho, all this, this isn’t easily explained, is it? What’s going on up here, like.
I look around. —Maybe people just want to have a party, Sal. Get together. An excuse.
—Yeah, but. She points again at the feller with the cross. —People like that. He’s not just partying, is he?
—Maybe he is, in his own way. Who’s to say?
I know that sounds very fuckin dim but I don’t really want this conversation. I don’t really want to think about what’s going on up here. Maybe later, like, at some point in the future when all of this has wound down and burnt itself out, maybe then will be the time to think about what it all might mean. If anything, and if at all. But to discuss it now, in the middle of it, when it’s all going on – that doesn’t feel right, somehow. Feels not just futile but pure wrong, as well, kind of, what … well; fuckin rude. Kind of impolite. No, that’s not right. All I know is that I don’t want to do it. And there’s a rumbling in me belly, faint at the mo but getting louder.
—Not now, Sal, anyway. Yeh don’t erm, decompress when you’re still under water, do yeh?
—What the fuck does that mean?
—Like, how can yeh debrief when it’s still going on? After something’s finished, then’s the time to talk about what it might mean. Or might’ve meant. Cos you don’t know how it’s gonna end, do yeh? While it’s going on, it’s just going on. It’s just happening, knowmean? It’s like, how it ends is what gives it the meaning. Like a full stop.
Sally laughs. —That’s the addict talking, Adam love. That’s an insight into the thought processes of the addict, that is. The ride-the-tiger thing. The all-there-is-is-the-moment thing. The, the eternal present.
I laugh as well. —And that, that’s the social worker talking, innit? That’s the I’ve-read-some-books-and-been-to-a-few-lectures thing. You gobshite.
—You arrogant twat.
And we have a little laugh together. And hug each other with one arm cos we’re still holding our plates. Which are now scraped clean so we chuck em in the fire and sit down on a rock to have a smoke an then Sally makes a lot of things okay; she asks me if I’ve got money, I tell her I’m skint, she says I can go and work in the outreach thing, there’s a few openings and they favour ex-users, like, people who know what they’re talking about, she tells me that she’ll put in a word for me and I’ll have no problem getting a job. She asks me if I’ve still got me flat and I tell her probably not, no, and she says I can move in with her; tells me that her Jess has just moved out so she’s now got a spare room. Then I tell her that I’ll need to fetch me cat from Rhos and she says that’s fine as well, cos her own tomcat not long ago died and she’s missing the feline company. So then I tell her that she’s a pure fuckin angel and that in the space of a few minutes she’s just sorted out my entire friggin life. She tells me to stop giving her the big head. Tells me again that it’s her job. Cysllt. So then I tell her that the food has given me some crampings and that I need a toilet and she points towards the trees.
—What, there’s a bog in there, is there?
—Kind of. A long trench, like. A latrine. D’you know what to do?
—I imagine so, yeh; hang me arse over the edge and drop me kex. Course I know what to do, girl.
—Aye, but then you kick soil over it and put some leaves on it. There’s all wild mint and stuff in there, y’see. Keeps the pong down.
—Alright.
I go across the beach, weaving through the people like and into the trees. Under the music I can hear the sound of a man’s voice, loud, and then I see him, standing by a sign with ‘Toiledau’ painted on it, kind of druidy, mad beard on him, white smock kind of thing, and he’s right off on one, ranting away to some cool-looking girl chewing gum with her arms folded and her hair pushed back under a bandanna. She’s just standing there, hip cocked, looking at this bloke giving it laldy:
—Because this is the age of the snoop and the snitch and the curtain twitcher! Of the bigot! This is one of those moments in history when the people of Britain have let themselves become enamoured of their own viciousness, d’you hear me, to hate the poor, not poverty itself, and to disdain the vulnerable! To be swift to condemn and slow to forgive! Such is the temper of our scapegoating age and such will tempt the fires that cleanse! The waters! See how they rise! And so we strip ourselves of the necessary qualities of life and have nothing to be taken at death! So we—
I like this feller. He should be on Question Time rather than at the entrance to a communal bog on a mountaintop. And I like the girl too cos she just looks at this feller, blows a great big pink bubble, waits for him to take a breath and then pops the bubble and says:
—Aye, there’s lovely, but do you mind letting me get past, now? Cos I’ve got the turtle’s head, I yav.
A laugh jumps out of me and gets everything moving fast inside and I think I’m gunner shit meself so I leg it past the girl and the ranter and into the trees. Follow me nose down the path to the trench which is a bit off the path, in the thick trees like where it’s more private, turn me back, drop me kex and let it all out. Jeez the relief. The stink isn’t too bad, surprisingly, from the trench;
you can smell it, of course – I mean it’s a long ditch full of shit and piss, how could you not smell it – but it’s not overpowering cos it’s masked by smells of earth and herbs. And it seems like it’s been dug, designed, in such a way so that every few yards there’s a big low branch that hangs over and makes a kind of blind to separate each person. Clever, that. A whiteness catches me eye and I look and see some toilet rolls slotted onto twigs. God – everything’s been thought of, it seems. Wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some handwash somewhere and a canister of Febreze.
I lean forwards to pluck one of the toilet rolls and at this angle I can see between the trees, to the ridge, see the big moon above it, the people on it, the dancing shape of a woman, some others around a pinprick of light which I know must just be the screen of a phone but which looks somehow magical. Christ it all looks fuckin magical. Wiping me arse as I am and it all looks, is, fuckin amazing. And I wonder why you don’t come now. Why you don’t do something now, here, with all these people to see you. All these people up here, with their camera phones, eyes and memories. I mean, any shape in the sky that wasn’t a bird or a bat and everyone would become a baby. Every single one. Because they – because we—
The bushes around me start to shake. I see small animal shapes leap and dart through them to the left, away from the lake, further into the mountains. The branches above me snap and clatter and I look up and see bird shapes doing the same thing. Everything is in a hurry to get away. I look to my right to see what might be scaring them and I see the far end of the lake, by the road, and the trees all lit up; headlights, beams, torches, like the forest is on fire with white flames. My heart leaps. I feel almost sick. Something huge is happening. I see a helicopter rise like a giant insect over the treetops and I see its searchlight move across the lake water towards the gathered people. Like it’s hunting for them. I hear its rotors. I hear the music, not fully drowned out yet, change to ‘Jump In The Line’. Something is happening. Some things are happening – a lot of things are happening. I finish wiping me arse and chuck the bog roll in the trench and rip up a few handfuls of leaves and chuck them in after it. Air freshener, kind of. But then, very quickly, the smell from the trench becomes very fucking bad, horrible, and I go through the trees towards the beach where everyone is looking up at the helicopter hanging above, caught in its blinding light they are, the racket of it, and everyone in its too-bright light looking all exactly the same and I can’t make out which one is Sally, or Sion, or Benji; I can’t make out any individual face at all.
EMMA
—Who was that feller?
—Just some feller I know.
—Looked rough as fuck. Why’d he give you that iPod?
—Dunno. Present. Just wanted to do something nice I suppose.
—Did you …
—Ey now. Don’t go there. Don’t spoil it before it starts.
He looks all sad, his lip sticking out all sulky. I touch him on the knee, just a tap. Daft sod.
He’s pitched his tent next to one of the walls of the old ruined houses and he’s made it all cosy inside – there’s a sleeping bag and a washing line with socks on it and a little table with a lantern on it and, Jeez, he’s even made a bookshelf. It’s a proper little temporary home. The lantern is lit and it’s giving off this warm glow and through the open tent flap I can see the lake a bit below and all the people moving around it and I can hear the music and see it all in the light of the fires. Not far from the tent, as we were walking up to it, it was a bloody orgy – most of the other tents had people shagging in them, judging by the noises like, and one feller was on his back in the grass getting a blowjob from someone with a hairy back, not necessarily another man – I mean, there are women from Tregaron up here. And just outside the tent I’m in, Weasel’s gaff like, I noticed a sculpture, a thing that looked like the skeleton of a fantastic animal, made out of sticks and rocks with a sheep’s skull for a head with colourful flowers in its eye sockets and I asked him about it and that’s what he is now, he said, a sculptor – he makes things from discarded stuff, rubbish like, driftwood, stuff like that. Got a website. Had a couple of exhibitions down in Bristol, where he’s been living for the past few years. Makes a living from it.
—Keeps me out of their clutches, he’s saying now. —Know what I mean? Below their radar. Don’t need anything from them, no benefits, nothing. The less I have to do with those fuckers the better. Sooner have them think I don’t even exist.
I’m gonner wind him up again; I can’t help meself.
—Yeh, well, you’re safe, aren’t you, in yeh little burrow, under the ground? Only danger is when you go out to nick one of the farmer’s chickens.
—Ey! Told you, less of the fuckin weasel!
—It’s what you called yehself.
—Aye but not anymore, I was an arse! I’ve grown up now!
—Oof. Touched a nerve there.
He’s smiling – I mean he’s not really pissed off. But I’m enjoying meself.
—What’s it like in the winter when yeh fur turns all white? Is it hard to recognise yehself? Do other weasels and stoats—
—Will you shut the shite up? It’s fuckin embarrassing me. I was such a dick.
He puts his head in his hands and rubs his short hair vigorously and looks up again, still with a bit of a smile. Shakes his head. —Me name’s Dylan. That’s me real name.
—Dylan?
—Aye, yeh. Me mum was a big Dylan Thomas fan. And me dad was a big Bob Dylan fan, so what else could they call me? Inevitable really.
—It’s a nice name.
—Common tho, in this part of the world.
—Doesn’t matter. Still a nice name.
And then, and then … I was going to save the news; maybe get a bit drunk before I told him. If I told him at all. Dutch courage like. But this talk of names – it seemed to be the right time. And, again, I just can’t help meself:
—Do you want to know what yeh son’s called?
The smile goes. Even in the low light I can see his eyes and the colour of them; the almost black ring around the blue.
—My son? I don’t have a son.
—You do. He’s called Tomos.
—You mean—
—When we shagged in Ynyslas dunes that time. Remember? Seven years ago. You came in me and I got preggers and I had the baby and he’s a lovely little boy and he’s called Tomos. You’d fucked off, remember? Done a runner.
He looks down at his hands. —Are you certain he’s …
—Oh man.
—I know. I’m sorry for asking. But you’ve gorrer admit that at the time you were—
—Fucking everything with a dick, I know. But yes he’s yours. I knew the moment you came. I could tell. I heard a kind of click. And anyway all you’ve got to do is look at him. He’s the spit.
He swallows, and if he was a cartoon drawing there’d be a word balloon coming out of him containing the word ‘GULP’.
—Is he …
—What?
—Is he cool?
And that’s the best thing he could possibly ask. That’s the best response I could ever have hoped for from the man who is the father of my boy. Is he cool … what a brilliant thing to ask. —He’s the best, the coolest little boy you’re ever going to meet. Do you want to meet him? Yma, here he is, look.
I take me phone out and open the photo album and there he is, my boy, in a Spiderman outfit from two Christmases ago. I give the phone to Weasel. No – to Dylan.
—That’s him. That’s your son. Must be like looking in a mirror, aye? Well. A mirror into the past like.
He looks at it for a long time. I look at him looking at it. The music outside is now a deep drumbeat and there’s the sounds of the people too but in this tent it seems as quiet as a church. He touches the screen of the phone dead gently with a fingertip. Hands it back to me.
—I’m gonner go outside for a minute.
—Okay, I say, and he crawls out of the tent. I put the ph
one back and spin sideways on my arse so I’m looking straight out of the tent flap. Legs crossed under me. I see the shapes of the people down there against the flames and I see the firelight reflected in the surface of the lake. I could, what, bask in this I suppose, in what I’ve made happen up here, even if I didn’t mean it to happen; I mean I could just enjoy all of this, what’s going on. They don’t know that I’m in some way responsible for it, all they’re doing is having a good time. They don’t know what I saw. Christ, I don’t know what I saw. And Weasel, no, Dylan, he hasn’t got the first clue either; just, like the rest of them, he saw all the images and read all the stuff online and he came up here to see what was going on. The origins of it don’t matter to the people up here. They’ve come for many reasons, not just one. Most of them – nearly all of them – don’t know who I am. Or what I’ve seen. Or even that I’m here, with them.
Tomos not being near to me is like a weight. The absence of him is heavy. I can feel it, like, feel the hole; I could put it on one side of a scales and a, a fuckin truck on the other side and they’d be in balance. Wonder if it’d weigh as much as Dylan. Wonder if they’d balance each other out.
There’s a movement in the grass outside the tent, around the base of that sculpture. Strands move, part, and then there’s a little face looking at me; beady eyes, whiskers. A rat. One of them mountain rats with the humps on their backs and the snaky tails that Waldo used to catch hundreds of; he’d bring them to me with his tail all waggy and drop them at my feet and sometimes they’d still be alive and he’d pick them up again in his jaws and crunch them some more and drop them again and still they’d try to crawl away, all broken. Horrible, like, but Waldo was just doing what he thought he should do. And so I’d pat his head and call him a good boy but I’d feel bad for the rats and I hated having to finish them off – slamming the spade down on them, ych y fi. But this feller here – he’s in no danger. Well, as long as he stays away from the dogs on the beach he’s not. And he’s not scared of me, either, sitting back on his hind legs, his tiny paws at his chest as if he’s praying. There’s a carrier bag of stuff in the corner of the tent and through it I can see a Ginster’s wrapper so I reach towards it, slowly like so as not to frighten Ratty, and delve inside and take out a half-eaten sausage roll. I hold it out towards him. He’s interested, and his nose goes mad with the twitching, but there’s no way he’s gunner take it out of me hand so I throw it towards him and as soon as it hits the grass he’s snatched it up and vamoosed. There y’go, Ratty-boy. Take that back into yeh burrow for yeh babies and yeh wife.
Broken Ghost Page 34