For once, Dom didn’t even try to talk about it. That was just fine by me.
IN THE DARKNESS
IT IS MY birthday, October 30th 1917. I am twenty years old today and running for my life. It is raining. The duckboards are slippery as ice. My feet fly out from under me and I fall. As I go down, I catch the edge of my helmet on a support stake and it is jerked from my head, wrenching my neck. I leave it swinging on the stake. Then I’m down on my back, my rifle gouging into my ribs. I try to roll over, keep running and scramble to my feet all at the same time. The other soldiers leap over me and pound past me, skidding and sliding on the treacherous boards. The rain is falling so heavy and my heart is pounding so loud that I’m deaf to anything else save my own ragged breathing. I get my feet under me and half run, half crouch, my hands supporting me on the slick wood. Someone grabs my collar and yanks me up so that I’m on my feet again. A shell bursts overhead and I’m blind but still running. That guiding hand stays on my collar, holding me up, pulling me on.
Dear God, don’t let me run off the edge of the boards.
Sweet Mary, guide my feet and let me stay on the boards.
Mud is raining down on us, sloppy great clods of it, spattering the backs of our heads and our shoulders. I keep running blindly until my vision clears and my unseen saviour releases my collar. It’s my pal Shamie. He looks back at me once, finds the God-given heart to grin at me, and is gone, just a black shape amongst all the other black shapes running for their lives in the night.
I turn a corner into Black Paddy’s Trench and my feet go out from under me again. I go right over this time. I feel some huge bruiser go down behind me. He rams into me, sending me sliding. I reach back, feel my fingers brush his rain-slicker. But I’m unstoppable – his weight has sent me skating across the glassy wooden planks on a smooth plane of water, sliding towards the edge of the duckboards. The mud waits there, the silent glistening heave of it. Bottomless.
I scream, ‘Oh Jesus! Help me! Help me!’
My voice is silent even to myself, my scream nothing against the roar of the shells and the thunder of the guns. I slide off the edge of the boards. My heart, my lungs, my stomach – all contract with fear. My eyes fill with tears at the terrible, terrible knowledge of how I am going to die.
The mud inhales me feet first. A cold gullet squeezing around my legs, my thighs, my belly, my chest, it pulls me right off the boards and into its arms. It is very fast. Men run past me, their feet a blur as my chin and mouth and nose go under.
Before the mud wraps its blindfold over me, I find myself staring up into someone’s eyes. There is a boy standing above me, a solemn-eyed child of ten. Untouched by the rain and the mud and the shells, he watches me go down. I know him; I know exactly who he is. No amount of years could have erased the memory of his face.
He says my name and I am gone.
I LEAPT AWAKE WITH my heart hammering in my throat and the taste of rain and mud on my tongue. I flailed around for a minute, making small panicked noises, before I realised I was lying in bed, doing battle with my blankets. Already the dream was gone, and I found myself lying there with a racing heart and no clear idea of why I was so scared.
As the silence of the house settled around me, I became aware of a familiar sound coming from the bunk above me – a hoarse, scratching wheeze. It was Dom struggling for air, desperately gasping in a way that I hadn’t heard him do in years.
‘Dom!’ I scrambled and half fell out of my covers. I stood on my mattress, pulling myself up to look over the edge of his bed. Dom was rigid and staring at the ceiling, his arms straight down by his sides, the blankets bunched in his fiercely clenched fists.
‘Dom! Sit up!’
I tried to climb the side of the bunk and failed, scraping my belly on the battered side-rail as I slid back over the edge. Dom rolled his unfocused eyes towards me. His mouth was wide, his chest heaving, but it was obvious there was no oxygen getting to him. Just enough air to make that awful rusty-bellows heave in and out of his throat.
‘Hang on, Dom! Hang on!’ I took the ladder, missed the first step, took it again and scrambled to the top bunk, crawling up Dom’s straining body to the head of the bed. There was nothing in this world that scared me more than Dom’s asthma. I’d thought we’d seen the end of it two years ago, when the last of the really bad attacks had put him in the hospital. It was this damned house. It was this filthy, dusty house, bringing it all back again.
Sit up!’ I grabbed his shoulders, with the intention of dragging him into a sitting position, but froze when I saw his face. ‘ His eyes were all pupil, and he was searching the ceiling with horrified desperation.
‘Lorry . . . ’ he gasped, just a whistle of air meant to be a word. ‘Lorry!’
He wasn’t even awake. He was having an asthma attack in the middle of a nightmare.
‘DOM, wake up!’ I shook him so hard he’d have bruises in the morning where my fingers had dug into his shoulders. He took in a tremendous gasp of air and his head snapped up, nearly loafing me. I scurried back and the rickety bunk creaked dangerously under our combined weight as Dom bolted upright, wide awake.
‘Jesus, Pat!’ he yelled. ‘What are you doing climbing all over me in the middle of the night?’
‘You were having an asthma attack.’
‘No, I wasn’t.’
‘Yes, you were!’ But I had to admit, he didn’t look like he was anymore. There was no sign of a wheeze or a cough, no difficulties breathing. Just Dom, staring at me as if I’d grown two heads, rubbing his shoulders where I’d grabbed him.
He pulled his feet out from under me and clutched the covers to his chest. ‘Patrick,’ he said, ‘I believe you may have had a bad dream.’ He was doing what he called his ‘schoolmarm’ voice, blatantly taking the piss. But damn it, I’d been bloody well awake when he was shredding the covers and gasping for air.
I gathered my dignity. ‘You were the one whimpering like a big girl’s blouse,’ I said. ‘You were dreaming about a car crash.’
He almost snorted, but seemed to think better of it halfway through and suddenly looked thoughtful, as though remembering something.
I jumped on it. ‘You were having a dream!’
‘No . . . well, yeah.’ He looked at me, puzzled. ‘What makes you think it was about a car crash?’
‘You said Lorry. Twice.’
Now he did snort, laughing at me, though obviously intrigued. ‘Lorry?’
‘Yeah! Lorry! You must have been hit by a truck or something.’ ‘Oookaaay.
I’ve had enough.’ He shoved my knees with his feet and pointed at the ladder. ‘Goodnight, Patrick.’
I climbed back down, miffed, creeped out and mortified all at once.
I was crawling under the covers when he called down to me. ‘Pat?’
Expecting more slagging, I snapped my reply. ‘What?’
‘Thanks for coming to my rescue . . . even if you did nearly kill me in the process.’
I smiled. ‘Shut up, you eejit. Some of us are trying to sleep.’
I bunched the covers up under my chin and settled comfortably into the pillow, but I didn’t sleep. I lay listening to Dom instead; the gentle, untroubled rhythm of his breathing was reassuring, but not quite trustworthy enough for me to let go.
I found myself watching the mirror over the dressing table. Its mottled surface had little to show me of the dark room, but I could just make out the lumpy silhouette of my sleeping brother in the shadows of the bunk above mine. Car lights occasionally travelled across the walls, sending crosshatched slashes of shadow from the apple trees, and hazy rivers of reflection from the rain-soaked windows. Each intrusion of light sent a flare across the mirror glass, and the bunk would leap into focus for a moment before the car passed on.
Despite myself, I began to drift off. Just before I fell asleep, another set of beams strobed across the mirror, making me jump but not quite waking me. As I slipped under I heard Dom whisper, loud and clear as though he w
as calling warily into the room, hoping for but not expecting an answer.
‘Lorry?’ he whispered. ‘Lorry? Are you still there?’
THE AULD DRUNK
THE FIRST THING that leapt to my mind the next morning was FOOD. I went from deeply asleep to mindlessly starving all in one go. I was so thoroughly hollowed out that it felt like someone had gutted me in my sleep. I lurched out of my bed before I knew I was conscious, and was out of the room and following the smell of bacon rashers down the stairs before my eyes had even opened.
Dom and I flanked each other into the kitchen and launched ourselves at the table like wolves. I hadn’t noticed him following me, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have bloody cared. I was solely focused on getting something down my gullet. We paid absolutely no heed to the rest of the world, our attention centred on the six slices of batch bread that we buttered one after the other and swallowed in a compulsive, ravenous gorge. We paused at the sight of the suddenly empty bread plate and turned to scan the room, our hands opening and closing, ready to pounce on anything edible.
Dad regarded us dryly from the cooker. A grill of rashers sizzled in his hand; a pan of eggs were frying on the hob. ‘Bit hungry are we, lads?’ I made a move towards the rashers and he turned slightly, shielding them from me. ‘Sit down,’ he said, the way you would with a dog you weren’t sure of.
We sat, our eyes glued to the food. Dad deposited rashers and eggs and fat, sizzling sausages onto our plates. We were barely containing ourselves, our eyes devouring the food before it left the pan. He refilled the bread plate, poured us all mugs of milky tea and, finally, sat down himself.
As soon as Dad picked up his knife and fork, Dom and I dived in. I lost track of everything but shovelling food into my gob and banging back cup after cup of tea. It was only after I had wiped up the last smear of egg yolk with the last hard-won crust of bread and was looking around hopefully for a few remaining scraps that I realised exactly how much nosh I’d packed away. I was stuffed. I was crammed with food. My belly felt like a perfectly round football straining against my pyjamas. At the same time, I wanted more.
Dom was sitting very still, his hands flat on the table, his jaw working slightly as he stared at Dad’s plate. I followed his gaze and had to swallow a surge of saliva at the sight of Dad’s half-eaten breakfast.
Dad hunched protectively over his food. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ he muttered. ‘It must be the sea air.’ He pulled the plate closer to him. ‘Don’t suppose either of you gannets heard a word I just said to you?’ We looked blankly at him and he rolled his eyes. ‘I said your mam and Dee are still asleep, don’t wake them. Dee had a bad night and your mam was walking the floor with her.’
That snapped me out of my food-induced trance long enough to ask, ‘What’s wrong with her? Is she sick?’
Dad shook his head and stuck a mass of fried bread and egg into his gob. Dom followed the food with his eyes. His mouth opened with Dad’s, his jaw worked in little chewing movements as Dad ate. Dad eyed him as he answered me. ‘I think she’s just out of sorts because of the move,’ he said. He swirled a bit of rasher in egg yolk and stuck a blob of brown sauce on top. ‘She had bad dreams all night. Couldn’t get to sleep.’
Something tickled the back of my mind, and I saw Dom frown thoughtfully. Bad dreams? I seemed to recall something about Dom having a dream . . . or had it been me? I couldn’t quite . . .
‘What kind of bad dream?’ Dom was looking very intently at Dad; he was obviously thinking the same as me.
‘Not sure. You know what Dee’s like – it’s hard to understand her when she’s upset. Said something like, there was a bad man or something. He wanted to take her away, or,’ – he gestured at Dom – ‘take you away. I don’t know. Anyway, they’re both knackered, so don’t be galloping up and down the stairs.’
‘A bad man?’ The tone in Dom’s voice had us both looking sharply at him.
Dad paused in the middle of cutting a sausage. ‘You alright, bud? You’ve gone very pale.’
Dom hadn’t just gone pale; he’d gone white. He was gripping the edge of the table so hard that I had visions of his fingernails popping off in bloody flakes. ‘He’s not taking me away!’ he cried, his voice high and shrill – like Dee throwing a tantrum.
Dad was putting his knife and fork down. He was starting to stand up. ‘Dom.’
Dom’s colour scared me. I suddenly remembered something. ‘Dom had an asthma attack last night, Dad!’
‘Hey!’ snapped Dom. ‘No, I didn’t!’ He was perfectly normal again – normal colour, normal voice, no death-grip on the table, just righteous indignation and denial that he’d been ill the night before.
‘Jesus! Why didn’t you call me?’ Dad was on his feet, his hand on Dom’s forehead, Dom already pulling away in irritation. ‘Where’s your inhaler?’
‘I don’t need it. There was no bloody asthma!’ He pointed at me. ‘Yer man there had a bad dream. That’s all!’
Dad pulled back Dom’s eyelids and felt his neck like some doctor from the telly. Dom submitted to this ridiculousness with tight-lipped anger, and I knew I was in for it later. ‘You . . . you look just fine,’ said Dad, puzzled.
‘I am fine,’ gritted Dom.
And he did look fine. There were none of the lingering telltale signs of an attack, no dark rings under his eyes, no pallor – nothing to indicate that the bloody awful menace was back to haunt us.
‘Alright.’ Dad stepped back uncertainly, giving Dom another anxious head-to-toe examination with his eyes. ‘Alright,’ he said again. ‘Go on upstairs and get dressed, the two of you. And don’t wake the girls.’
He watched us go up the stairs, and I knew he wasn’t going to let it go that easy. Dom was in for a good three days of anxious hovering – and I was in for a right bollocking as soon as we got out of earshot.
WE HAD A HISSING, almost sub-audio argument as we pulled on our clothes.
‘You prawn!’
‘I’m sorry!’
Dom sat on the floor and glared up at me as he dragged on his jeans. ‘He’ll tell Ma and she’ll freak out and the two of them will spend the next week treating me like feckin’ Helen bleedin’ Keller.’
‘Oh, shut up. It’s not that bad.’ But I knew he was right. They were going to make a huge deal of this in their own quiet way. Why had I opened my big mouth?
‘What the hell you were thinking?’
‘It’s your own fault anyway. What was that all about in the kitchen?’
He looked at me blankly. ‘Eh?’
I paused in the middle of putting on my shoe and did a vicious impersonation: little girlie voice, clawed hands, eyes rolled into the back of my head. ‘Don’t let the bad man take meee. Wruuhhh!’
I laughed at myself, but Dom just squinted up at me, puzzled. ‘Pat,’ he said, ‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’ Something about his tone made me stop arsing around. He was studying me carefully. ‘I don’t remember saying anything in the kitchen,’ he said. ‘All I know is one minute I was guzzling food like a starvin’ Bangladeshi and the next minute, Dad’s hovering over me and you’re telling him I had an asthma attack.’
I sat slowly onto the edge of the bed. ‘Dad said Dee had been up all night with bad dreams,’ I said. This lit a small flare of recollection in Dom’s eyes. ‘She thought a man was going to take her away,’ I said, ‘to take you away.’
A muscle in Dom’s face twitched. He jerked forward. For a minute I thought we were going to repeat the whole kitchen scene again. But then he just sat back, his eyes thoughtful, his hand on the shark’s tooth that had become a permanent fixture around his neck.
I had a bad dream last night,’ he said softly. ‘
I nodded. ‘So did I. Can you remember yours?’
He shook his head. ‘Tell you what, though, what you said just now . . . about the man? It scared me, Pat. Really . . . my heart’s pounding. But I don’t know why.’
We sat deep in thought for a while. �
�I think I dreamt about soldiers,’ I said quietly.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. Soldiers in mud. Like that stupid film the night . . . last week.’
I couldn’t bring myself to say which night we’d been watching that film. We both went quiet.
Then Dom cleared his throat. ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘that film was boring as shite, wasn’t it? World War I wasn’t half as good as World War II.’
He grinned and I grinned back. What else was there to do? Last night had been freaky, one of those freaky nights where everything seems weird and off kilter. But now? Now, the morning sun was pouring through the window, there was a whole gansey-load of birds singing their heads off in the bare branches of the apple trees and everything was just so bloody normal.
I stood up and reached a hand out to pull Dom to his feet. ‘C’mon. Let’s explore.’
As he stood, he gasped and bent double at the waist for a moment, his face turning a delightful shade of green.
‘Jesus, Pat. How much did we just eat?’
I groaned quietly as we crept down the stairs. ‘God, I know. I’m full as a frog. If I don’t fart or burp soon I’ll burst.’
Dom gawfed, and I slapped him on the back of the head with a hiss. ‘Shut up, you eejit. You’ll wake Ma.’
We headed out the back, through the garden filled with sand, past Dad’s car and through the shuttered amusements. We’d told Dad we were heading up around the headland and back down the harbour. He said he wanted us back for one o’clock. ‘Don’t take any chances, you two. If there’s trouble, just walk away. You’re not with your cousins now.’ As we were leaving, he gave Dom a troubled look. ‘Don’t get cold, Dominick.’ Dom had sighed and nodded without turning around. He whacked me as soon as we were out of sight.
The day was blinding after the rain, the sun reflecting off a million puddles and hanging droplets. We cut straight onto the beach, jumped down off the grass wall and headed left towards the headland and the Martello tower. The tide was out, the great expanse of the flats stretching away in ripples of sand and water all the way to the island. The wind was wicked coming in off the sea and we huddled into our jackets, pulling the collars up to our ears and raising our voices to be heard. We had our usual conversation about taking a chance on walking out to the island: the dangers of quicksand, the possibilities of sharks and seal pups.
Taken Away Page 3