His van and all his possessions were sold the next morning and the Cumbrian lad was never seen again.
*
It’s funny, I thought about this place I’m taking Maria to so much when I was inside that I’m not sure whether it still exists, or ever even existed at all. Mebbes it’s just an image I concocted to keep me mind from flipping out.
I spent so many days sat indoors straining my neck to see the tops of some trees beyond the fences and walls, that I retreated to this rustling wonderland of me imagination’s making. The green cathedral.
All them hours spent yawning my way through the compulsory carpentry and car mechanics classes, and listening to bad jokes fall from the mouths of numpties. Entire days sat in Attitude, Thinking & Behaviour classes, doing the compulsory Drug Awareness courses and Money Management workshops with the piss-takers, the knuckle-draggers and the young career cons, all of them smoking and spitting and smirking their lives down the bog. Well – you cannot blame us for letting me mind escape, if not me body.
Because the only thing that got us through all that was the thought of tasting green freedom again; the chance to wander through the fields and hills, away from all of mankind and to have the wind and the rain and the sun and sky for company. I had all these special places I re-visited; the places I fled to in childhood when my dad would turn up pissed and radged and looking for a punchbag; all them times when me mother would be screaming and Bobby and Charmaine would take off to their gorger marrers’ houses and leave me to bear the brunt, and the only place to go to would be me real mother’s – Mother Nature.
I’m surprised I remember how to get there now, but mebbe it’s inside us, in me blood, the traveller in us like, because it’s like I’ve got a compass where me heart is or summat the way I drive me and Maria up to this green cathedral of mine without a map, and without getting us lost once.
It’s a fair hitch out of town. We drive and drive, from ring road to dual carriageways to B-roads to this dusty track far away from the bustle of the market place and the Saturday shoppers.
I take us high up to where the rivers get narrower and the valleys deeper and the moorlands bleaker. We’re out in the country now and Maria is squinting and smoking behind her shades, the breeze blowing and me whistling and nee bloody ice cream music blaring for once.
Sometimes she points summat out through the window.
But mainly she doesn’t really say owt much at all, and I’m fine with that, because they say that silence is golden and I’ve had enough noise and aggro to last us a lifetime.
After a while Maria turns to us and says, dead casual like, Oh aye I heard about your Dad, and suddenly I’m tensing up because it’s like wherever I gan at the moment people want to mention me fatha.
Dickhead Derek, Arty, the Lovells and now Maria; there’s nee escaping him. It’s like he’s following us round like a shadow. Like a bloody ghost.
And I’m also thinking: heard what exactly? There’s that many stories surrounding that bastard she could be talking about owt.
I swallow a grimace and keep me eye on the track because it’s narrow and bumpy and there’s pot-holes and dark patches where the thickness of the canopy overhead is blocking out the sunlight.
Oh aye, I say.
Aye.
There’s a long pause, then she says. Sounds like a right madman.
Hmm, I say.
Was he really the bare-knuckle king of Britain?
I shrug.
I dinnar about that. Him and me uncles and their marrers reckoned he was King of the Gypsies. But so do fifty other travelling fellas at any given time. It’s not like it’s official or owt. It’s not like he wore a crown.
Still. He must have been canny hard though.
Aye, mebbe. But he was soft as shite an all.
How’s that?
Anyone who beats up women and kids must be.
She nods. She doesn’t need to ask which woman, which kids.
Couldn’t handle his drink either.
Oh aye? she says. Lightweight was he?
Nor. He could drink twenty pints, but it would just make him even more radged than he already was. By the time I were born he was already mental from all the kickings. They reckoned they loosened the wiring in his head or summat. Sent him loopy. Here, how did you hear about him?
Word gets around dunnit. The town’s not that big a place.
I suppose.
It can’t have been too easy for you.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to this so I just keep quiet.
It must have been weird though, she says again. Living in a van with him.
Aye, I say. If it wasn’t him knocking the crap out of us, or making me fight our Bobby to “learn us the ways” it were the lads at school, or in the village or in town who wanted to knack us an all.
Why?
I don’t even know. For being a traveller I suppose. For being the son of the local hard man nutter. I’m still trying to work out why mesel.
But you’re alright now aren’t you. I mean – you can look after yoursel.
Aye mebbe. Why?
Cos like if anyone else started on you or if anyone was after you you’d be able to handle it and that?
I wipe me nose cos it’s feeling runny and say, why would anyone be after us?
I’m just saying like if they were, it wouldn’t be a problem, because you’ve had far worse when you were growing up, everyone bothering you and stuff, or mebbe when you were inside and that?
Aye mebbe, but I’m not planning on getting into any of that though. I’ve had enough of all that shite, me.
Good. Like how it’s best just to keep your head down and that?
Aye.
We fall silent again.
*
When he was auld enough to walk and talk our Bobby was auld enough to own a gun. You’ll not remember, but your dad would take him across the fields, over the dual carriageway, down the back lane and into the woods that flanked the river by Godric’s Abbey.
They’d spend a day shooting and setting snares. Snaring rabbits and shooting squirrels. Mac would learn Bobby how to get the truest aim. How to merge and meld with the scenery; how to become invisible. And he would always have a line and a hook with them in case there were any nice trout lurking. He knew all the spots. He knew them woods like the back of his hand. Your Dad did know every tree root and hidden ravine. He could navigate them woods in the pitch dark.
I never went down there though. There were summat about that place. Too many shadows, too many secrets buried in the soil.
But all the while a violent desire burned in Mac’s belly. Oh, it burned.
He began to treat me differently. I was a mother now. A mother who had endured one miscarriage and two births. I was a body that fetched the water and gathered the wood and kept the fires going and cleaned the clothes and the van and scolded the kids and kissed them better and worried about her husband when he disappeared for nights and days.
He turned on us.
“You’ve always got that face on you,” he’d say. “Like a slapped arse. Never giving owt away, you. Martyring yoursel like that.”
“You’ve lost your figure,” he’d say. “Nee-one but me would have you – you know that don’t you?”
And then he’d beat us and he’d kick us and twist me fingers and pull me hair and nip me tits and rub me face in me tea and all sorts, and me biting the cloth to stop me screams.
*
I drive down this track about as far as I can go then pull in at a passing place. A whatsit. A lay-by.
And I’m thinking, it’s a bloody good job we’re here because the holes are proper screwing the suspension and we’re wobbling all ower the shop. The towers of cones in the back are toppling ower and the float box is rattling and sliding in its locked cupboard.
Arty’ll kill us if I knack his van, I say.
Where’ve you brought us John-John?
I cut the engine and open the door.
We step out the van and are in the middle of the woods. We’re right in the heart of all the trees, and it couldn’t be a more beautiful day. I look around us to check we’re at the right place. The place I visited in my waking dreams.
We are.
I look for the familiar right-angled tree, a sign post, and there it is after all these years, this one odd alder that has a massive branch growing out perfectly sideways from it, about fifteen feet up. The branch is as horizontal as the sky line and nearly as big as the trunk to which it is attached. It looks almost too precise to be natural. It’s off doing its own thing, away from the main growth. It’s a freak of nature, that tree. A bit like me.
Howay, I say again and start to walk off into the trees.
Where we going?
I don’t reply. Instead I take off down the track deeper into the wood.
She stands by the van for a moment, smoking, her hip cocked and her nearly empty bottle of Irn-Bru in her hand.
Come on I say, waving me arm. You said you wanted somewhere peaceful and that, so that’s what you’re going to get.
She chucks her tab on the ground, and I wince because I once read that dimps take summat like six hundred years to whatsit. Bio-de-whatsit.
Here, look at that tree, I say and point to the tree. That’s how I know where to get where we’re gannin. If you park up and look for the alder tree with the right-angled branch, it’ll always show you the way. Even in the dark, so long as you can find the right-angled alder, you’ll be alreet.
Aye, she says, in a voice that’s not quite as enthusiastic as mine. That’s canny clever, that.
Aye well, that’s what comes from growing up outdoors. Hanging out in the green cathedral and that.
What’s the green cathedral?
This place, I say. Everything that’s around us. There’s loads of things I could learn you. It’s just about reading the signs. You’re never bored when you’re surrounded by nature because there’s so much to see and hear and smell, and all of it is changing all the time. It’s like life and death are wrestling each other all the time, and it’s better than owt on the telly, or better than any conversation you could have with someone. Better than booze and drugs, better than owt.
I pause for a moment as we pick our way along a path that is actually just a flattened strip in the long grass and more used to animals than humans passing through.
It’s a path that you’d mebbe not even notice unless you’ve got your eyes trained to the ground. Ground that’s not seen humans for a long time. Then I continue yacking.
The words come out in a rush.
Like, it could be dead quiet and still and there’s not a soul around, I say, and all of a sudden one leaf on a tree will start fluttering and vibrating. Or one blade of grass out of a hundred thousand will start dancing. Just the one. And you’re looking around wondering why the hell it’s moving and it’s mebbes because the breeze has caught this one blade, or mebbe there’s a tiny insect walking along that one fluttering leaf, and it’s so small you cannot see it, but you can just make out that summat is happening. Summat that you cannot really fathom or explain. A little drama. All you know is that it’s Mother Nature doing her thing. I mean, it’s like ganning to the ballet or summat, that is. Not that I’ve ever been like. But I mean, I divvent need to go when there’s all this entertainment for free out here. And that’s exciting to us, that is. Always has been. It’s me upbringing, I suppose. Nature was me schooling.
Maria looks at us and nods so I keep talking. I’m surprised at how easy it feels to be telling her all this shite that’s been on me mind for years. But now I’m offloading it, it feels canny good.
Like, the woods to me are as beautiful as the cathedral. It’s silent here an all, and you can sit and think and be yersel. And you’ve got your own stain-glass window when you’ve got the sun shining down through the tangle of branches like that.
I point to an illuminated clearing over to our right where shafts of lights are beaming down through the latticed tangle of branches above and picking out squares and rectangles on the forest floor. I cannot help but think the sun’s timing is bang-on, appearing as it does through the trees like that as if I’d pre-planned it or summat.
See?
Wow, she goes and the way she says it I think she genuinely means it. That’s proper mint.
Aye, and like it doesn’t cost owt to come into the green cathedral and you’ve not got some vicar droning on about being a sinner even though he probably wants to feel you up and that, like the gadgie who ran the church when I was inside. He were a right weirdo that one. Proper nonce and that. And the church he ran was just some povvy room with a crucifix in it and nowt much else. The green cathedral’s different though. There’s nee rules other than the rules of nature, and even then there’s hardly any other than mebbes summat about respecting nature and not leaving a mess behind.
I turn to Maria.
You alright back there?
Aye.
Good, I say, then continue. And the other thing is Maria, you divvent even need to believe in God and all that bollards if you don’t want to. It’s not about that. It’s not about that at all. Cos like everyone is welcome in this cathedral, so long as they’re not up to nee good.
Realising that I’ve mebbe gone off on one a bit, I shut up and say well, that’s what I reckon anyway.
A minute passes then she goes so are you religious then John-John?
Nor, I say. Nor, it was just summat to kill the time inside, going and sitting in that church. But when I come here, or when I’m out in the fields at dusk, and the sun is setting ower a freshly-cut field and the hares are out dancing and boxing and that, or the sun is coming up over a still pond and the fish are rising, or when you’re up on the moors and there’s a proper storm brewing and the air starts to crackle and the light turns this weird brown colour and all your hairs are standing up on end – well, that’s when I know what it must feel like to be religious, or believe in this God they’re always ganning on about. The idea of summat bigger, I mean. Summat you can’t explain. The thing I like about this green cathedral – about nature, like – is it’s real and it’s all around you and really it’s nowt to do with God or vicars or bibles or shite like that. It’s just there, and it’s proper class.
I’m sweating now, so I wipe my brow on the back of me arm and say what do you think?
Aye, it’s dead nice here, Maria says after a long pause. Dead calm, like.
Aye.
And it’s nowt like at home. It’s nowt like the estate.
You’re right there.
We fall silent for a bit, then Maria speaks, unsure of herself at first.
What you said about the woods being like a green cathedral, I totally know what you mean John-John, about feeling calm and that, only I’d never have been able to put it like you just did. I mean you just described the way I want to feel, but cannot.
There’s loads more I could show you, I say. There’s a whole world around us and it’s just past your front door step. It starts where the concrete ends.
We walk on and then after a couple of hundred yards I turn off to an even smaller path that leads up and away from the track.
The path is overgrown with ragwort and other weeds. Some call them parasitic plants, but I think they’re as beautiful as any wild flower, me. As we brush past the Himalayan Balsam that hangs heavy from both sides, the swollen seed pods pop noisily, scattering their contents in all directions. And the way the pods curl backwards like springs recoiling never fails to amaze us. Maria lets out a little squeal. We’re both showered.
That smells lovely, she says.
Aye, I say. It’s Balsam. Originally from the Himalayas.
The what?
The Himalayas. It’s some country.
It smells dead sweet, she says. I always think of the outdoors smelling of dog shit and dead things and that. Here, you’ve got seeds in your hair.
M
aria flicks some seeds off us, then I go aye it’s not like that at all is it, nature? Things do die all the time, but they’re re-born an all.
Do you reckon?
Pretty much, I reckon animals are far less cruel than people. Humans are always attacking and killin for nee reason, but animals only really do it to survive.
Aye, says Maria, warming to the subject now. Cos like when I was young me Nan had this budgie in a cage that just used to bash its head against its mirror all the time and I used to get dead upset watching it. It used to break me heart, that did. So one day I opened the cage and took it out into the back garden and threw it in the air. But because it wasn’t used to being outside it just sort of flopped to the ground. It wasn’t used to flying and it couldn’t use its wings. They’d wasted away or summat. And even though I felt bad, it was necessary cruelty wasn’t it – to at least try and set it free like that? To at least give it a chance.
Aye mebbes I say, careful not to make Maria feel bad. Aye, I reckon.
Aye, and that was the fault of humans wasn’t it? Like, nee animal would ever lock summat up in a cage for fun would it? It’s just us being selfish and that.
I think you’re right there. Most animals only kill for one of two reasons. Either because they’re hungry, or because they’re under threat. Mainly anyway. Everyone and everything deserves a fair chance, I reckon.
She nods.
That makes sense. But we’ve not been given fair chances have we John-John?
Nor. It doesn’t always work out that way does it, I say.
She shakes her head. Na.
Then after a moment she says, I’ve never really met any lads who know owt about all that stuff. They all sit on their arses smoking tack and sniffing whizz and watching telly and that. Or fighting and twocking stuff, and trying to shag us.
And do you let them?
She shrugs. Says nowt.
By my reckoning we’re nearly at the place we’re headed. The place I pictured in my head. That place I used to come.
So what happened to the budgie in the end, I say, changing the subject.
The cat ate it.
Oh.
*
They said I had a fine singing voice though. It was summat I got from me mam, your Granma Pearl, who your Dad wouldn’t let us see any more.
Pig Iron Page 17