by Sam Haysom
The family were camping at the base of Hayworth Tor on the night of Philip’s disappearance. Anyone who was in that area of the moor on Sunday who may have any information is urged to come forward immediately.
Tim (2002)
1
He couldn’t look away.
Tim stood on the grass, unmoving, as the sound of Tom’s desperate gasps for breath gradually faded and became nothing more than horse whispers.
His father was straddling Tom’s waist, silent and intent on his task, and Tim couldn’t bring himself to look at his dad’s face. He knew what he’d see if he did; he’d seen that face before.
Blood roared inside his head. He felt a nasty mixture of fear, horror and – just a little bit, deep down – exhilaration.
Tom’s face had gone from red to purple. His eyes bulged outwards, large white eyes splintered with thousands of red capillaries. A line of snot ran from his nose down to his bruised lips. Tim felt his penis stiffening in his pants. He bit the inside of his cheek, hard, and looked down at the ground. There was a large flat rock by his left foot, and Tim prodded it with his toe.
After a few moments his dad let out a long, ragged breath. Tom was completely silent now, and Tim knew it was done.
He glanced back up and saw his dad in the same position, looking down at Tom. His father’s face was back to normal again. The skin of his cheeks had tightened, and his eyes were their usual light brown colour. They stared down at Tom’s lifeless body with something like love, and Tim felt a wave of hate pulse through his mind.
He glanced down at the large rock by his left foot again.
Would he have time, if he moved quickly? He imagined himself bending slowly and grasping the rock, then springing forward and bringing it down against his dad’s head with both hands. His dad’s startled gasp. The thick crunching sound as his skull broke open. The blood.
Tim looked up and saw his dad watching him.
His eyes were fixed on Tim’s face, and for one horrible moment Tim thought his dad knew exactly what he was thinking.
Could he do that? Tim didn’t know, and didn’t want to know. The wave of hate in his mind was being taken over by fear, the way it always was in the end. He looked once more at Tom’s bloated face and glassy eyes, and fought the urge to throw up.
‘Don’t worry, you’ll get the taste for it.’
Mr Stevens was smiling at his son; it was a thin smile that Tim also knew well. He’d seen it countless times when he was growing up, after all.
As Tim watched, his dad glanced around himself at the grass, said ‘Ah!’ and then reached out and picked something up. He put his glasses back on and smiled at Tim once more.
‘It’s always good to keep up appearances,’ he said.
2
Tim’s earliest memories of his father were of the stories his dad used to tell him before bed.
Like many of the memories he had from that age – walking the dog with his mum; playing in the sandpit at nursery school with a red-haired boy whose name he could no longer recall; drawing with coloured crayons over the wallpaper of his bedroom after his mum sent him there for being naughty – Tim couldn’t remember the build-up or what happened after. It was as though his life from the time he was born until the age of around seven was a dark landscape, with only the occasional spotlight to shine down and light up random memories.
Brief, bright islands of time.
His first memories of his dad were like that.
Tim would be lying in his semi-dark bedroom, looking up at the glow-in-the-dark stars and planets his mum had stuck to his ceiling, and his dad would be sat at the end of his bed adjusting his glasses. In these memories his father looked exactly the same as he did now, as if he hadn’t aged. His dad would be perched at the end of his bed, sitting completely still like some large, skinny vulture, and Tim would know it was story time.
Tim’s dad never carried a book, because the stories were all in his mind. They were lessons, really.
In one – Tim thought of this one as The Boy Who Didn’t Fight Back– his father explained what happened to little boys who never stood up for themselves. As with most of the early memories he had of his father, Tim didn’t remember the build-up to this one, but he did remember having a slightly swollen, split lip that he probed with his tongue while his dad talked. It could easily have been a detail his mind had added later, but Tim didn’t think so.
In The Boy Who Didn’t Fight Back, Tim’s dad told him about a skinny little kid he’d known when he was younger who let the other children push him around at nursery school. The kid in the story didn’t have a name, but he was a lightweight and the other children used to take advantage – stealing his toys, pushing him over if he got in their way, that sort of thing.
And because the little boy never stood up for himself or pushed them back, they just did it more and more. Pretty soon the boy was at junior school, and the big kids were taking his football cards away from him in the playground and tripping him up when he came out to break. The boy never said anything back to them, though, he just let it happen, and the children in his own year laughed at him when they saw it because they were afraid of the big kids and they didn’t want it to happen to them. Some of them even joined in, to try to make themselves more popular with the big kids.
And all the time, the little boy never said anything. He felt hurt and ashamed, but he was afraid to fight back so he just bottled up the feelings inside himself.
Then all of a sudden, he wasn’t a little boy anymore. He was at secondary school, and the same things were happening only this time it was much worse. The same big kids that had tormented him at junior school were even bigger, and now they didn’t just want to trip him over in the playground. Now they wanted to take the money he had for the canteen, and they wanted to punch him in the stomach when no teachers were looking. Sometimes they cornered him in the boys’ toilets and beat him up. One time they even held him so that the biggest boy could piss on his trousers.
And the boy in the story never fought back. He had all that shame and hurt crammed down inside himself like a bin that’s full to bursting with decades-old rubbish, only now as well as shame and hurt he also had anger rammed down in there too. Rage, really.
The more it happened and the more humiliated he felt at school, the more that impotent anger filled him up.
At this point in the story Tim remembered how his dad had paused, and how his brown eyes had flicked down to Tim’s split lip. ‘If only he’d had the courage to stick up for himself that first time at nursery school, when that other little boy had hit him,’ Tim’s dad said. His mouth curled up at the corners, but there was no smile in his eyes. ‘If he’d hit the other little boy back, harder, everything else could have been different.’
Tim wanted the story to be different. He wanted the story to be one of his old favourites that his mum read to him about The Famous Five or Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy. He didn’t like this story.
But his dad hadn’t stopped. As Tim lay there beneath his Donald Duck duvet in the dim yellow light from his bedside lamp, his dad told him how, one day, the boy in the story had gone home and rummaged through his mum’s cutlery draw. How he’d found the biggest, sharpest knife he could and hidden it in his school bag. He’d only meant to scare them off, of course. He hadn’t meant to do anything, not really.
But then when the big boys found him the next day out on the school field and he’d pulled the knife out of his bag, that rubbish bin inside him had finally burst. He’d felt powerful standing there with the knife, he’d felt better, and all the shame and hurt and anger had spilled out of him in one big wave.
Some of the big boys had been shocked by the knife, but the tallest one – the same one who’d stood there in the toilets, laughing as he pissed all over the boy’s school trousers – had made the mistake of stepping forward to take the knife away from the boy. The boy had panicked, lunged forward, and before they all knew what was happening the big boy’s
stomach had sprouted a wooden hilt. He was screaming and pawing at that hilt, trying to get it out, and the blood was pumping out around it in sticky red torrents. Kids were screaming. Teachers were running over. Eventually, there was the sound of sirens. And the boy in the story just stood there looking at the knife, his eyes glassed over, with nothing but this big emptiness inside him.
Tim didn’t remember all the stories his dad had told him when he was younger, but he remembered that one well. What he remembered most about it, though, was how his dad had looked at the end of it. The light sheen of sweat on his skin. The way his mouth hung open, almost hungrily, making the skin of his cheeks look strangely slack and loose. How the light from Tim’s beside lamp made his eyes appear yellow in the gloom.
There were other stories, too. Other islands of bright time on the dark landscape of Tim’s childhood. He knew now that some of them had been variations of regular stories – a twist on Jack and the Beanstalk in which Jack gets thrown from the top by the giant and breaks his neck, dying in a pool of his own blood; a version of Sleeping Beauty in which the Prince decides to smother the girl in her sleep rather than saving her; a particularly nasty take on Hansel and Gretel, in which the children never escape from the witch’s hut and Gretel is forced to watch Hansel get cooked and eaten in front of her.
But most of the stories Tim’s dad told him were really lessons. Most of them were rooted in things that happened in Tim’s life.
Then there was the story that Tim remembered most clearly of all. That one was rare, because he could remember some of the build-up as well as the story itself. He couldn’t remember why or what had prompted it, but he knew he’d spoken back to his dad earlier that day. Maybe told him to shut up or go away, something like that. Probably the only time he’d ever spoken back to his father.
His dad had obviously noted its significance too, because later that night he was perched in his usual position at the foot of Tim’s bed telling him about The Boy Who Wouldn’t Listen.
Tim remembered this story extra well, because it had given him bad nightmares at the time. Nightmares that continued intermittently for years afterwards, and which even now as a teenager he found himself having every once in a while.
‘Can you see up there?’ Tim’s dad had said, pointing to the middle of Tim’s ceiling. Tim looked and saw he was pointing to the hatch that led up to the attic. Tim had never been up there before, partly because it was impossible to clamber up to, and partly because his mum told him there was nothing up there but dust and perhaps mice, anyway.
‘Have you ever been up there?’ Tim’s dad asked. When Tim shook his head, he smiled. ‘Good. That’s a good idea. Because there’s something that lives up there, you know. A monster.’
At this point he’d taken off his glasses and put them in his lap. Tim noticed once again how yellow his eyes were in the light.
‘This monster only wakes up once or twice a decade,’ he said. ‘And when it does wake up, it’s normally hungry. Very, very, hungry.’
Tim felt the usual cold fear go through him that he felt whenever his dad was telling a story, but this time it was worse. He glanced up at the hatch in his ceiling and shivered.
‘Is it awake now?’ he mumbled.
‘Don’t interrupt me.’
Tim’s dad leaned forward on the bed and peered down at Tim with his yellow eyes. His mouth was hanging open, and Tim could see the white points of his teeth gleaming in the darkness.
‘Now this particular monster happens to like the taste of children,’ his dad continued. ‘Small ones, teenagers… anything it can get its teeth into, really.’
He smiled, showing more teeth, and Tim resisted the urge to pull his Donald Duck covers up over his eyes.
‘The thing is, though, the monster only really likes the taste of children who don’t behave themselves. Children who don’t listen.
‘The last time it was awake, it got two teenage boys who thought they were too clever to listen to their parents. Not too long before that it got a whole family. The children in that family weren’t very well behaved at all, and to punish them it gobbled up their parents in front of them before it went to work on them, too.’
Tim could feel his whole body shaking. There was a whimper caught in his throat that was doing its best to escape, and it was taking Tim all his effort and concentration to make sure it didn’t. His dad wouldn’t like that.
Tim swallowed and his eyes shot across to the hatch in his ceiling once more. His father followed his gaze, then smiled again. It was wide and unpleasant, that smile, the same one the bad crocodile from Tim’s storybook had; the type of smile adults did when they weren’t really smiling at all.
‘I know, you’re wondering how this monster could have got to all those children if it lives up there, above your room,’ said Tim’s dad. ‘And the thing is, you’re right. But it has to come down every now and then, doesn’t it?’
He shifted closer to Tim on the bed and leaned forward until Tim could smell his breath. It was faintly unpleasant, half-minty and half-rotten, like toothpaste that hasn’t quite covered up the smell of pork.
‘Just keep your ears open,’ his dad whispered. ‘And if you ever hear something moving about up there, or that hatch starting to creak open, you’ll know it’s getting ready to come down.’
Tim’s dad’s eyes were wide, yellow discs. Tim wanted to shut his own eyes, but he couldn’t.
‘You’d just better behave yourself, Timothy, or it’ll be coming down for you one of these days.’
3
They were standing side by side, looking down at Tom’s body. Mr Stevens was humming lightly under his breath, drumming his fingers against his thighs as he crouched to study the purple-faced corpse.
‘Now, you know what you did with the watch, so I’m not going to tell you about that,’ he said. ‘That was your mistake, and this is your fault, but we fixed it and I don’t think it’s going to be an issue.’
His tone was light and airy, as if they were discussing the best route to navigate to the next tor.
‘Hmm?’ Mr Stevens glanced down at his son, eyebrows raised, and Tim nodded his head.
‘Yes, Dad.’
‘Great. Well, ideally, I’d have liked to have got them all tonight after some stories around the fire, but that can’t be helped. I was feeling tired before anyway, so maybe this is actually a good thing.’
Tim nodded his head without saying anything. He still felt nauseous and was concentrating most of his energy on not throwing up. His dad wouldn’t like that, and the last thing Tim wanted to do was spoil his father’s good mood.
‘I’m not worried about the fat one,’ Tim’s dad muttered, almost to himself. ‘The fat one should be fine, but the other one might take some more convincing.’
He stopped drumming his fingers and looked down at Tim. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘This is your chance to prove yourself. I can forget what’s happened so far – all the mistakes you’ve made – if you can get this next bit right. We don’t need anyone getting panicky, after all.’
‘Yes, Dad.’
Tim’s father placed both hands on his son’s shoulders. He lowered himself down to eye level, and Tim watched as the eyes behind his glasses shimmered from brown to yellow, and back to brown again.
As he was telling his son the plan, Mr Stevens’ mouth started to hang open. The skin around his cheeks grew looser, flabbier, like the face of an overweight older man. Tim didn’t say anything while his dad talked. He tried to stop his nose from wrinkling at the smell of his dad’s breath. He stood still and didn’t fidget, and he listened.
He’d learned a long time ago what happened to boys who didn’t listen to their parents.
Finally, Tim’s father straightened up and smiled. This time the smile looked more genuine.
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Now I’m just going to take care of this one here, first, and then we’ll be heading back.’
He turned his back on Tim and walked over to Tom’s body.
He lowered himself to the ground so he was down on his knees, his head positioned by Tom’s feet. Tim watched in sick horror as his father’s body started to tremble. Tim couldn’t see his face from this angle, but he knew what would be happening; his father’s cheeks would be drooping and growing even more saggy, and his mouth would be opening to show his thin, white teeth. Then his mouth would start to open even wider, and—
Tim felt his stomach lurch.
At least he wouldn’t have to watch this bit. His dad wouldn’t know if he was looking or not. Plus, when it was over, he wouldn’t have to see Tom’s bloated face ever again. There’d be no trace left. His father had a big appetite, after all.
I’ll still see his face in my mind, though, Tim thought. There’s no getting rid of that.
He turned around and focused his gaze on the river, listening to it gurgle and trying to blot out the sounds coming from behind him.
4
For long periods of time when Tim was younger, his father hadn’t been around. He’d been there for his bedtime stories when he was little, and he’d been there for a longer, memorable patch when Tim was around nine years old, but for many years he was nothing more than an absence.
During these patches it was just Tim and his mum.
Anne Stevens was a small woman with blonde hair and permanently red cheeks. She had a friendly, tired look about her and she didn’t speak much. When Tim was younger her hair was always bright blonde, but as he got older he noticed that patches of grey had started to come through where she wasn’t dyeing it as much as she used to.
The three of them shared a small house in Yeovil until Tim was 12, when they made the move across to the New Forest and Tim started his new school.