by Patrick Gale
The workmen had flown another angel to the rafters. Roly must have been at work at night. Seth wondered whether he had done so to avoid seeing him, then dismissed the idea as ridiculously self-centred. He waited outside the school room, sitting on the low stone wall. The choir were still practising. They seemed to be having less trouble than the orchestra, but then perhaps they had easier parts. His years in the north had not left Roger totally insane. Seth watched the other players walk, or drive away. Afternoon off: half-day excursions. Soon he heard voices behind him and saw that the choir too had finished. Doors opened and singers spilled out over the grass, some – the semi-chorus, Seth supposed – self-consciously showing an interest in the score they had just been rehearsing, and, pride of prides, singing short passages as demonstration of some point.
Pendarth Castle was their private name for a derelict construction a few miles along the coast from Trenellion. Bronwen and he could never decide whether it had once served a military purpose, or whether it had always been intended as a home for animals on wintry nights. Standing barely six feet high and measuring about ten feet square, its interior, lit by a narrow slit-shaped window in one wall, was an unassuming mass of sheep pellets. The attraction of the place was the roof. One could command a fine view of the boiling sea beneath and the coastline to either side, while being sheltered from the winds by a raised edge roughly a foot high. It may have been because he had solemnly led Bronwen there on their first walk together that she led Seth there now.
The path to the Castle had remained miraculously within the domain of specialized local knowledge. For a right-of-way, though not marked on the map as a footpath, it attracted little attention. As the pair walked its length today, they met no-one save the wind-swept sheep and the savage gulls. Bronwen rarely spoke when she was on the move, saving her energies for her eyes and feet. From time to time she would stop to uproot a plant or to snatch an interesting pebble, which she would toss into her carpet bag, or she would stop and stare awhile. There was no need to talk; she and the boy admired the same things. Seth found Bronwen a supportive but unobtrusive companion. He would walk in her wake, playing with his thoughts. Something in her enabled him to stand back from his world in calm contemplation. It may have been that her detachment from things ‘normal’ was so sturdy, her will so adamantine, that his more pliable spirit was drawn into her ways of seeing. As now they strode along the cliff-tops, the amazon and the acolyte, he felt her strength of purpose. The pauses were fewer than before. They passed by the blow-hole without the usual sit on the grass for a spout to erupt into the air above them. Bronwen barely greeted the sheep. They had to reach the castle roof and then they would talk.
After forty minutes they reached Pendarth Point, a narrow promontory that rose to a peak as it stood out from the pitted coastline. As one arrived at this stage in the path, the Castle was barely visible, masked by the rocks above it. Bronwen slung her bag over one shoulder and clambered before Seth over the boulders and patches of toughened grass. A path had been trodden out by the hooves of sheep. It was an indication of the coldness of nights that they continued to shelter in a place so perilous for them to reach. More than once, Seth had peered from the roof into the dank, black inlet to the left to see a shaggy corpse, bloating in corruption as it lay twisted on the rocks beneath. He had told Venetia the first time and she had warned him that he must always hold his breath when passing through a churchyard. Beneath the ground, she had said, all the corpses were twisting and swelling like that and every few minutes one of them burst. To inhale the filthy gas as it seeped from the turf would shorten his life by years. An unthinking uncle had expanded upon the theme to include breaking wind as a god-sent reminder of the tomb. The tease had long since been dispelled, but young Peake had never rid the water closet of this taint of mortality.
As he stepped across to the roof from the last rock, he found Bronwen flat on her back. A dead Viking putting out to sea with concubine corpses and faithful hound. She opened one eye.
‘Took your time,’ she said. ‘Open the bag and tell me if that bloody scrumpy’s stayed cold.’ He bent down and felt in the bag. Among the pebbles, dried-out, forgotten herbs and feathers, he found cool glass. He lifted the bottle out and passed it to her.
‘Perfect,’ he said. She sat up, pulled out the cork with her teeth, and took a deep draught. He admired her unexpectedly youthful neck. She swung the bottle down again and wiped its mouth with the back of her hand.
‘Just what the doctor ordered. Here.’ She started to hold it out to him then stopped. ‘I say, She doesn’t mind you drinking this stuff, does She? I mean, after your grandfather and all that?’
‘Oh no. She never seems to think that cider counts.’
‘Dreadful for the stomach wall. Ha!’ She winked, and held it out.
‘How did you know about Grandpa?’ he asked as he lifted the mouth to his lips.
‘Oh, I think your father told me about him once,’ she said and looked out to sea.
The scrumpy was so dry that it scarcely had a taste. It burned gently at the back of Seth’s throat. He remembered that he had eaten no lunch. The drink was strong and the sun was hot. He would hold back.
Bronwen leant up against the little wall behind her. Slightly pink with the heat, she pushed her sleeves above her elbows and rubbed her forearms, enjoying the sun.
‘Went for a swim across the cove and back this morning,’ she said, ‘bloody cold. Cigarette?’
‘No thanks.’
‘Good boy. Filthy habit. Have a flapjack instead.’ She threw a plastic bag at him full of the things, rich with treacle. He fell on one with gusto.
‘Isn’t it better in the evening, after it’s been warmed up a bit?’
‘Suppose so, but it’s not quite the same.’
‘You mean it would be too soft?’
‘Look, we’re here to talk about you, not me.’
He laughed. ‘We’ve got to talk about both of us, or it wouldn’t be fair.’
‘Cheeky, but OK. We’ll start with you, though, because I’m older and more complicated. Chuck us that bottle like a duck.’ He passed her the bottle and watched as she held her suspicious-looking cigarette in one hand and supported a swig with the other. Then she held it between her knees. ‘No more until you tell me why you’re looking so glum.’
‘I thought I was radiating happiness.’
‘Rubbish. I’ve been watching you and you’re glum as a goat.’
Seth laughed softly and picked at a finger. Bronwen sucked hard on her cigarette and blew out the smoke in a sudden little jet.
‘He’s caught you hook, line, and sinker, that fancy bugger of yours, hasn’t he?’
Seth was startled. Bron and he had never talked about such things. He played dumb.
‘What?’
‘Don’t play the Mother of God with me. It won’t wash. You can save that for him.’
Seth took another flapjack and teased a raisin from its flank.
‘That’s what’s so odd. I can’t play dumb with him. Right from the start he’s treated me as an adult.’
‘Well you are, or near as dammit. It’s only Mother who treats you like a kid. Where does he live when he’s not in a lighthouse?’
‘He did live in Edinburgh, but he’s sold the house and he’s moving to London in the autumn.’
‘Very handy.’
‘Yuh,’ he took a mouthful to give him courage, ‘the trouble is …’
‘What?’
‘I don’t think he’s interested.’
‘Balls.’
‘No he’s not, Bron. He thinks I’m just a little squirt. He’s just playing with me. Typical Aquarian behaviour.’
‘That figures.’
‘What?’
‘Leo and Aquarius: attraction of opposites.’
‘Fire and water? I burn and he puts out.’
‘You could make him boil if you tried.’
‘I told you – he thinks I’m a squirt.’
&nb
sp; ‘Even an Aquarian doesn’t leave a party so openly to sit outside with someone if all he wants to do is call them a squirt. Don’t be a goose. Here. You’ve earned some more of this.’ He drank. The oats had made him thirsty. ‘Steady on. I’ve got Her to answer to when you get home.’ He lowered the bottle.
‘The flapjack made me thirsty,’ he explained.
‘What makes you think he doesn’t love you? Now be honest.’
‘Well … I … It was all going so wonderfully at first. I just couldn’t believe it. I mean, he really seemed to like me. He didn’t just chat – right from the start he talked and made me talk. We even argued. Then we went and sat on the cliffs together and once he picked me up in his car. I think …’ Seth thought back to the graveyard, the angel’s hair. ‘I think he’s afraid. He’s scared because I’m too young.’
‘You’re not too young. People used to get married at your age and God knows, that’s a lot more responsibility than the lifestyle you’re after.’
‘It’s the law, Bron. As from Friday I can get married, well, have sex with a girl. Two years after that I’m old enough to go and watch people doing it in a film and another three years after that the Government allows me to show my love for a man – provided that I don’t do it in public or in a hotel.’
‘But that’s balls.’
‘Nope. It’s silly, maybe, but it’s the law. If I went to bed with Roly I could get him sent to prison for child rape.’
‘But you wouldn’t, though, would you?’
‘That’s beside the point. He probably thinks that … we … I dunno. I think it’s having a family as well. He’s an orphan. Apart from the Trenellion bunch, who don’t have a lot to do with him anyway, he doesn’t have anyone breathing down his neck. I think he’s scared that I’m surrounded by domestic spies. I mean, imagine if Mother found out and got the wrong idea because she was too frightened to ask me about it, and she went to the police. It’d be ghastly.’
There was a pause while Bronwen ground her cigarette into the stone. The herring gulls were wheeling overhead. Seth threw a piece of flapjack on to the rocks and two of them pounced reptilian down on it.
‘You do it with people at school. Doesn’t that matter to her?’
‘How do you know I do?’
‘Seth, I’ve got eyes.’
‘Well, school doesn’t count. It’s just character-building. Innocent fun and games for the growing boy.’
‘And I suppose it’s meant to help you with your Plato. Why on earth did she send you to that dreadful place?’
‘It wasn’t her, it was him, and I’m bloody glad he did.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I think it stopped me from getting screwed up.’
‘You’re not exactly normal, dear boy.’
‘That’s a debatable point.’
‘Well, it hasn’t given you much confidence in your power to please.’
‘Yes it has. A bit.’ He paused and smiled, shrugging his shoulders. ‘It’s just that I know my limitations.’
Bronwen frowned, as much to herself as on him. She bent forward and took a flapjack. Still thinking hard she bit off a piece.
‘Well if …’ Her mouth was too full and she pushed the food to one side, with her tongue. ‘Well, frankly, if he can be put off you by the fact that some preposterous and unenforceable law makes you forbidden fruit, then I don’t think he’s worth pursuing. If he can be put off, that is. I don’t think he can.’
‘Bronwen?’
‘What?’
‘Yesterday. In the graveyard. He said I was too young.’
‘Did he? Probably testing the water, then. He isn’t going to take risks if he thinks you’re only a bit infatuated – that would be stupid. Dammit, he’s only known you for a few days; he doesn’t even know if you’re stable. For all he knows, it’s just another schoolboy crush for you and he’s terrified of you being unable to cope. He’s moved too fast, on impulse, and now he’s slowing up.’
‘You mean he can’t tell how I’d react?’
‘Exactly so.’
‘Well, what do I do?’
‘Wait for him to make the next move. If he doesn’t, which probably means he’s being a coward and waiting for you to do the same, then go and see him. It’s no use talking in gardens and churches and places where you can’t relax. You’d have to walk along to the bloody lighthouse and, calmly and sanely, tell him that he drives you wild with desire.’
‘But …’
‘And if you don’t have the courage to do that, then it probably is only another schoolboy crush and you’d do well to find someone at the RCM who you can’t send to Dartmoor.’
Seth took another mouthful of scrumpy then lay back in the sun.
‘Oh Bron, you are a help.’
‘I know.’
‘I never thought I’d have a conversation like this with you.’
‘I’ll bet you didn’t. Ha!’ Her laugh startled a resting gull.
‘Doesn’t it shock you a bit?’
‘You sound disappointed. Why on earth should it?’
‘Well it’s not usual.’
She stared across and was jealous of his youth.
‘It’s usual for you and your friends. If something’s usual for a few people then it’s not very shocking any more, is it? The logic of insanity.’
‘Do you think we’re mad then?’
‘Love is scarcely sane. It doesn’t worry me. I’d be a lot more worried if you were in love with the youngest Pollock girl.’
‘But you seem to have thought it all out before. Have you had this sort of chat with anyone else?’
‘Just myself.’
It took a few moments for the full import of this to sink in. Seth raised himself on to an elbow and saw that, as she took a drag on a fresh cigarette, Bronwen’s face was lined by mischievous smiles.
‘No!’ he gasped.
She blew out one of her little jets and stared at the horizon.
‘I thought I’d told you to cut the innocent bit.’ Suddenly her tone seemed less gauche than downright sophisticated.
‘Actually,’ he confessed, ‘it had crossed my mind more than once.’ He wanted to whoop and give her a hug, but she was too cool. Simmering, he managed to continue. ‘She’s got you hook, line and bloody sinker, hasn’t she?’ he said, then sensed he had made a terrible mistake. Her smile dropped.
‘She?’ queried Bron.
‘But … oh.’ Seth was covered in confusion.
‘My dear child, you didn’t think I was in love with your mother?’
‘Well I …’
The chuckle in her voice did little to comfort.
‘Bronwen the old dyke. I bet that’s what she thinks, isn’t it. Isn’t it? Sort of absurdly self-centred conclusion she’d jump to.’
‘But who?’ Seth’s mind raced.
‘I’d have thought it was obvious.’ She looked back out to sea. ‘I know you’re inclined to forget his existence, but you are blessed with a second parent.’
‘You and Father,’ he sighed.
‘I shouldn’t be telling you this. I promised him.’
‘No. You’ve got to tell me now. Please. When?’
‘Years ago. You were still a child.’
‘When I first dragged you in at the garden door?’
There was a pause as she swallowed. ‘Before that.’
‘But how?’ He faltered and sensed a welling feeling of betrayal. She had always been his special friend, his special, holiday friend. He found her first.
‘Seth, I swear I had no idea you were his child.’ He didn’t dare look at her, but picked at some desiccated moss on the stone beside his arm, letting her continue. ‘It was only a week, maybe two. He just wandered into the studio one day and started to talk. Wild talk. Something about being chased by a herd of bullocks in Puffin Cliff Field. I thought he was drunk at first. Seth, it was nothing – happened in a vacuum. He needed … I could have been anyone. Until you took me home that afternoon
, I swear I had no idea he had a family.’
And then he saw that there were tears on her face. Desperate, he started to rise, but she forestalled his approach.
‘No. No for God’s sake don’t touch me or I’ll lose control. Just go on talking. Christ! Go on talking, please!’
Seth’s mind went blank. He so wanted to say something but all he could do was stare at her, then at the ground, then at the cliff-face. If he could have disobeyed her and forced her into an embrace, the moment might have been shored up this side of pain – now he was powerless.
‘Back in a sec,’ he muttered, standing quickly. He climbed back across on to the boulders and staggered over to the field. The sheep had wandered close to the peninsula. They fled from around his sudden movement.
He kept visualizing her gaunt face capped by that crown of ginger and choking on its tears. He blushed at his reaction. Then the blush coagulated in his throat as he thought of the times his mother had joked about ‘Bron the Man’ and of how they had all joined in. Dear old Bronwen. Mad Bron with her Man’s Bike. They had all joined in, save Father. He turned at the top of the field and saw that she had climbed down and was walking back to the path, outlandish among sheep. As he reached her side she held out her long arms and seized him in a mute hold that took all the breath from his lungs. Then the grasp relaxed and she pushed him gently ahead of her.
‘Home, unnatural child, and cook some supper for that poor, unsuspecting mother of yours.’
‘Hi there. It’s Harry. Harry Barnes.’
‘Oh. Hello.’ She leant out of the window and smiled down at him. He had changed the cricket whites and blazer for a grey linen suit. ‘Come round to the garden door. It’s open.’
A distinct improvement. It was kinder to his air of receding youth. She looked closely in her mirror and ran a brush through her hair, wincing at the knots.
‘Anyone at home?’
His voice from the sliding doors. She climbed back into bed with a couple of books she knew well enough for conversation and masked her little trespasser with her slightly raised knees and some bunched-up bedclothes.
‘Hello. I’m up here. I’m afraid I’ve been sent to bed.’