Sophie

by Guy Burt

  Sophie’s books occasionally had pictures in them of naked people, but the appeal was missing somehow. Idly, I picked up one of the colourful storybooks that were stacked in an untidy pile nearby, but I had read it before, and knew the details of the pictures almost by heart. Restive, I was half ready to go and look for something else to do, when my attention was taken by a new-looking pad of paper stuck between the pages of one of the books. Smiling, I gathered together my crayon and pencils, and lifted the book and pad onto my knee. The page fell open at a strange picture, and at first I couldn’t understand what was going on; the picture was of a baby, certainly, but it was twisted around and lying on its side, drawn as if it were part of something else. Gradually, I traced the shapes with my finger. Some of the words were familiar from what Sophie had told me of birth and pregnancy. The vagina would be where the baby came out. I turned the book around so that the vagina pointed downwards, as it should. Everything was wrong; the baby was upside down now. I giggled. Somebody had drawn a very bad picture of a baby inside its mother.

  Interested, I turned back through the book, but there was nothing else that I could make any sense of. The words were too long and printed too small and the pictures, when there were any, seemed to be the sort of diagrams that Sophie understood but which I didn’t. The funny baby had been difficult enough, but Sophie had sketched something like it for me before, so I could see the similarity.

  There was a struggling, and she pushed her way through the canvas flap.

  “Hi, Mattie.”

  “Hi,” I said. “You’ve been a long time. I lit all the candles.”

  “You always do,” she said, smiling. “What have you got there?” She looked over my shoulder. “Cargreaves? He’s a bit boring. Can you read it?”

  “Not really,” I said, truthfully. “There’s a picture of a baby, and it’s upside down.” I showed her.

  “Oh, right. No, that’s how it should be. He’s turned upside down ready to be born. Comes out here, see? Head first.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. Clever, isn’t it?”

  “ 'Spose so.”

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday. Do you want to go to the quarry?”

  I slammed the book shut with a satisfying crack. “Yeah! And look for fossils?”

  “Sure, look for fossils. It’s going to be really hot; I heard it on the radio. Maybe we can take a picnic lunch or something.”

  “Would Mummy let us?”

  “Yes,” said Sophie, shortly, and I knew she would be right.

  “I can find lots of fossils,” I said. “Last time I found millions.” Sophie raised one eyebrow in disbelief. “Really, I did,” I said.

  “OK, maybe you did. Come on, let’s see if there are any sprinklers on the lawn. I’m boiling.”

  My small bedroom had one window, overlooking the back garden. At night, from my bed, I could see the sky, and once, with a vivid clarity that has survived the years until now, I saw a shooting star go across one corner of the frame; a short white line that lasted in my vision for about a second. It was Sophie who told me what it had been, of course: a piece of rock, burning up high in the sky. Rather like the seabed on the hill, I found the idea of rocks burning too far-fetched to accept, and mentally fitted it into that category of information that I had long ago decided was Sophie making up stories.

  Other things came in the night, though.

  There was a thick, heavy pressure across my face, and my throat had shrivelled to nothing. The light that framed the doorway was broken at one side as someone started to pass, slowly, across the other side of the door. My eyes, wide and terrified, were fixed on the doorknob. My hands clutched the sheets into two hard knots. All the time, knowing what was coming, I was trying to call out for Sophie, but all that would escape from my tortured throat were pitiful gasps and wheezes. The doorknob turned, and the door opened. Just a crack. Just enough to let it shuffle in.

  My body was crouched back against the headboard of the bed, the wood grating against my spine. The thing mumbled to itself as it crept along the wall, its blank face and long, trailing arms catching the moonlight eerily. It squeaked and rustled in its movements. I tried desperately to scream aloud, but nothing would come.

  As Ol' Grady neared the bed, the mumblings slowly became audible, comprehensible words, repeated over and over again in a whispered chant. You’ve been a bad boy, Matthew. You’ve been a bad boy. The arms were moving—

  And I lurched awake, my head pounding. Some sort of noise broke through from my lungs, and after that cry my chest and throat relaxed a little. I drew a shuddering breath, and tried to reach for the bedside light, but my hands were clamped down on the sheets and I couldn’t make them let go. The bedroom door opened unexpectedly, and I cried out in fear.

  “Shh,” said a voice. “Mattie, are you OK?”

  I burst into tears.

  Sophie held me, sobbing, until I had calmed enough to listen to her. My breathing was coming in spurts and rushes, so as soon as I was able, she made me use the inhaler that was on the table. My hands were useless; she held it for me. She stroked the hair back out of my face and looked me over critically.

  “You’re an awful mess,” she said. “You didn’t wet the bed, did you?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “Here.” She proffered a hankie. “Blow.” I did so. “Wipe. That’s better. Do you want something to drink?”

  I stopped sniffing. “Orange squash?”

  “You’ve done your teeth—” she began, but, on seeing my face, stopped. “OK,” she said, with unusual gentleness. “Wait here. I’ll leave the door open.”

  “And the light on,” I said.

  “And the light on. I won’t be long.”

  After an age, she returned with a glass of squash. “I put ice cubes in it,” she said.

  “Thank you.” I nursed the glass tenderly, sipping at the deliciously cool drink, making it last. Sophie usually gave me water at night, if I woke up.

  “How do you feel?”

  “A bit better now.”

  “Bad dream?”

  “Yeah.” My left hand clenched, and then straightened as I noticed it. I felt strangely guilty, as if my body was rebelling.

  “What was it?”

  “It was coming to get me,” I said, and once the words were out, they turned into a torrent. “It came round the door and came towards the bed, and it was coming to get me with its arms, along the wall—”

  “What?”

  The tone of her voice made me stop instantly. I looked at her in confusion.

  “What did you just say?”

  “It was coming to get me . . .”

  “No. After that. You said it was coming along the walls?”

  “Yeah,” I said. My voice felt uncomfortable, and small. “It always comes along the walls.”

  Sophie looked at me. Her eyes drilled into mine, and I could feel her weighing the words as if trying to make a decision. The expression on her face was one I had hardly ever seen—almost anger. But Sophie never looked angry. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong.

  It was as if she’d read my mind. “Don’t worry, Mattie,” she said, and held me closer to her. “You haven’t done anything . . . it’s not your fault. . . .” Her voice faded, and she stared for a long time at nothing. Then, “Mattie, I want you to think very hard, all right?”

  I nodded.

  “This—the thing you saw, in your dream. Have you seen it before?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Lots of times. That’s the bad dream I have.”

  Breath hissed out of her. “OK. I didn’t know that. You never told me.”

  “I was scared. If you think about them, they come back.”

  “Never mind now. Mattie, I want you to think carefully before you answer this. Think very carefully. Have you ever seen—the thing, in the dream, anywhere else? Anywhere except in a dream?”

  I tried to remember. “No. No, I don’t think so. It’s just a dream.”
<
br />   “OK. Good, OK. So where the hell did it come from?”

  The question didn’t seem directed at me, but I answered anyway. “I don’t know. But it hasn’t got a face.”

  “Does—it have a name?”

  I nodded. “It’s called Ol' Grady. Can I have some more squash?”

  Sophie looked right past me. “As much as you like, Mattie,” she said. “I’ll go and get some now. You feeling all right?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Sophie murmured, and again I felt that I was only overhearing her words, that I was not expected to comment. I kept quiet. After a long time, she seemed to focus on the bedroom again. “Was that more squash you wanted?”

  “Please,” I said.

  “Right. We’ll straighten your bed out when I get back. Shit, it’s an awful mess, Mattie. You’d better sleep in my room tonight.”

  “Can I?” I was immediately elated, and the nightmare slipped away at last.

  “Yeah. It won’t hurt, this once. Now hang on while I get you another drink. And use your 'haler again.”

  “OK,” I agreed solemnly.

  As she left, I heard her say something under her breath. She had her back turned, but I caught the words. “Not Ol' Grady, Mattie. Its name was Ol' Greedy.” And then she was gone.

  That night, I curled up in Sophie’s bed, warm against her back, and we slept soundly together. There were no more nightmares for a long while after.

  “Ol' Grady had been dead for two or three years, by then,” he says. “I only had him as dreams. When I thought about it, much later, I realized.”

  “What?”

  “That he must have come to you as well. For longer, because you were older. I always used to wake up before he reached me.” His eyes are sharp. “You must remember him, Sophie; properly, I mean, not just as nightmares. What happened? What used to happen after he reached out? What did he do?”

  I stare at him in silence, not knowing what to say, how to deal with this. I notice with sudden dismay that there is a faint sheen of perspiration on his face.

  “I used to try and imagine,” he says, slowly. “And as I got older, the things I imagined became—more awful. They say that childhood fears are by far the worst, but that’s not the whole story at all. It’s when your childhood fears start growing faces that you are really afraid.” He hesitates. “When I realized what you must have been through, I couldn’t really believe it.”

  “What did you think?”

  “You never really talked about him. Not properly. I know you did, a bit, when you showed me—what was left. But that’s different. You didn’t talk about you.”

  I swallow, with difficulty. “Do you think maybe that’s the problem?”

  He blinks. “Do you remember going to the quarry?” he asks. His voice has altered almost imperceptibly. “Summer was really starting to happen by then.”

  The candle flame splutters for a moment before recovering itself. The wind hammers on the boards and tiles of the house, and the upstairs corridors echo its sounds back.

  The sun was brilliant as we walked up the hill to the quarry, and the morning was already thrumming with a vibrant warmth. The edges of the quarry were almost completely hidden by the uprushing growth of tall weeds, pink and purple with flowers, that waved lazily in the gentle breeze. My sturdy legs carried me with more confidence than I could remember them having done before, and by the time we reached the top of the hill, I was proudly controlling my breathing. Sophie was a step or so behind, smiling and carrying the picnic in a large plastic bag.

  “We’re at the top!” I said happily.

  “OK. Let’s see if there’s any way at all through these things. Be careful, Mattie. Stamp them down a little and mind out for the edge.” I nodded. Feeling like an explorer in a jungle, I beat down the weeds with a stick, trampling them underfoot with glee. After five minutes or so of this, we had cleared a path through to the way down. The stark expanse of the quarry stretched out below us, looking more white than grey in the direct sunlight. Only at one end, where the cages were, was the rock dark, caught in the shadow cast by that high side and lip. I swallowed. Strangely, the cages looked even more ominous now that this contrast was apparent. Almost as if they were staining the quarry themselves.

  Once on the quarry floor, we cleared an area of the larger stones and settled down in it. I found a suitable anvil among the rocks to one side, and Sophie helped me to carry it to our central camp. Here also we set out the various constituents of the picnic, on carefully chosen stones. Sophie and I took turns determining the placement of the foil-wrapped packages she had prepared that morning. There were big white labels on some of them.

  “You can read these,” Sophie said, grinning. “They say what’s inside.”

  “OK,” I said, although a part of me was rather bored by the idea. I turned my attention to the first one, and, having read it, read it a second time. I broke into helpless laughter, rocking backwards and forwards. “It says—it says—”

  “What does it say?” There was a gleam of amusement in her eyes.

  “It says dog shit!” I burst out at last, laughter squeezing tears out of my eyes. “You wrote dog shit on this one!”

  “Open it and see,” Sophie said, solemnly. Eagerly, I tore the foil wrapping open. Inside were several sticky, shrivelled-looking brown things. I dissolved into giggles again. Finally, able to talk only with considerable effort, and still gasping a bit, I managed to say, “What is it?”

  “You read the label; you tell me,” Sophie said, but I knew her too well, and had seen the secretive laughter on her face.

  “Tell me, tell me,” I shouted through my giggles. “Tell me!”

  “All right, calm down.” She grinned. “You’ll explode with giggles.”

  “What is it?” I peered into the package. “It looks like—like what you said it was.”

  “It’s dried bananas,” Sophie said, proudly. “They’re really nice. You’ll like them.”

  “Where did you get them? Bananas? Did you make it yourself?”

  “You can buy them in the health food shop. They’re really nice. Someone at school had them in her packed lunch.”

  “What’s in the other parcels?”

  “You can’t open them until one o’clock. But you can read the labels now,” she added, seeing my crestfallen look.

  “Hey! Dead beetles! What’s that?”

  “You have to wait,” she reminded me. While I read the rest of the lunch labels, laughing uproariously at some of them, Sophie went off to collect the quarry books. Seizing upon the hammer once she had returned with the bag, I quickly left Sophie to her pointless scribblings, and set about happily breaking up the more interesting-looking rocks that were scattered around. Within a few minutes I had found several of the common thumbnail-shaped shells, and was thoroughly immersed in my own world. The sun moved higher above where, strangely out of place, two small children were playing quietly.

  We ate the wonderful picnic lunch, threw stones to try and knock over one of the cans, lay in the sun and made stories for each other. I listened, enthralled, to Sophie's, and she endured my rambling efforts with kindness and patience. Her scribblings went on for pages. I ran around the perimeter of the quarry, pleased at my effort, the pleasure banishing any tightness at my chest. Half an hour after lunch, with its cans of drink, I peed against the quarry wall, making patterns where the glittering stream of urine turned the hot rock dark.

  When the evening drew on, the lowering sun turned a marvellous deep red. It spilled into the mouths of the cages, lighting them up like a row of blazing eyes, darkly hooded. Drawn by a half-sickening curiosity, I edged around so that eventually I was staring right into one of them. It felt like gazing into the open throat of something. The old beer cans and bits of rock on the cage floor cast short, black shadows down the depth of the opening. The bars across its mouth cut across the litter and rock, joining the dark shadows at the back. I could not see an
y end to the cage at all. Behind me, Sophie was gathering things together ready for our departure. With my heart beating fast, I picked up a stone and hurled it into the cage, turning and running even as I did so. There was a faint noise as it struck something metallic. I ran down and out across the quarry until I was safely away, then turned and looked.

  In the cage, nothing stirred. There was no sound, no echo. It was as if the stone had been swallowed.

  “You’re getting really brown,” Sophie said, eyeing me.

  “Am I?”

  four

  He has turned away from me, rested his elbows on the windowsill. The dark pane reflects his face, distorting it slightly where the old glass has rippled; when lightning scores the sky outside, the contours of his brow and cheeks are thrown momentarily into sharp relief. He hasn’t spoken now for several minutes, seems instead to be searching for something beyond the cracked boards. One foot stirs uneasily on the dusty kitchen floor.

  I take the time to examine things again, to remind myself of what is happening. I have a faint, unpleasant sensation that I am missing something important, but I am unable to pin it down. I try to ignore it, but the feeling won’t go away.

  The reasons behind this evening are starting to become clearer. I try to hold everything that he says in my head, to turn it around and around in my memory until it fits into the whole sequence, knowing that my only chance to affect him lies in understanding him, and understanding what he wants. Outwardly, I can do nothing; every time I try to move my hands, I am reminded of this. But I can listen, and, up to a point, I can talk to him. If I am careful. If I don’t try to move too fast.

  There is a part of me that looks on with derision as I tell myself this; but it is all I can do, and I have to do something.