Day Boy

by Trent Jamieson

  And after all the congratulations and such, the bowing and curtseys and whatnot, when the band starts up she smiles at Grove and leaves him, his face twisted in confusion (enough that I feel a twinge of pity) and comes over to me, and that pity fades pretty quick when she smiles. How could two smiles be so different? But I think either of them could kill me.

  ‘That was for you,’ she says.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  ‘To say goodbye.’

  Can’t say nothing, my jaw’s dropped. My shoulders sink as though there’s a weight in my gut drawing me in.

  ‘You—’

  ‘They’ve called me to the city,’ she says. ‘I’m to play for the Masters.’

  ‘No.’

  But I can see it in her eyes.

  ‘I don’t want to hear it,’ I say.

  ‘Hear it or not, it’s true. I’ll be gone tomorrow night.’

  Anne touches my arm, and I don’t pull away. ‘Tomorrow,’ she says. ‘See me by the Summer Tree tomorrow. We’ll talk about it then.’

  I grunt something and turn. Leave her to Grove.

  Thom’s nowhere to be seen, and Dain is talking to Madigan. So I stomp home and throw myself at the bed.

  An hour later, Dain’s knocking on my door looking mad as all hell. Holding a piece of fine paper in his hand. I don’t even get a chance to ask him about Madigan, in fact I don’t care to. And besides, he doesn’t wait, just starts on like I already know what he’s about to say.

  ‘They’re taking Thom back to the city,’ Dain says. ‘I’m to get a Day Boy from the Academy in January.’ He looks at me with a not-quite smile. ‘So we have each other for a couple of months more.’

  Don’t know how things could get any worse.

  Thom comes home late as I’m drifting off. I sit up straight in bed and jab a finger at him.

  ‘You’re leaving.’

  He gives a little shrug. ‘They called me back to the mountain. They say I’m not suitable here. It’s too dangerous, they say. I’d be wasted.’

  ‘They’re doing this to punish me,’ I say.

  ‘What?’ Thom shakes his head. ‘It’s not about you. They think it’s too dangerous to have me out here. After the Night Train.’ He looks to Dain, who’s sitting there silent; maybe he’s been there all along, but it gives me a jump. ‘I’m sorry, Master Dain.’

  Dain shakes his head. ‘Isn’t your fault.’ He looks at me. ‘And it isn’t your fault either, Mark. That’s always been the risk of having a boy from the Crèche.’

  ‘And what do you want?’ I say.

  Thom looks at me like I’m the youngster. ‘Doesn’t matter what I want. Tomorrow night when the train arrives I’ll go back to the Crèche. We’re just Day Boys. We go where we’re told.’

  CHAPTER 39

  WASN’T SURE I even wanted to come here, but I do. Of course I do. How can I not?

  When a girl asks you to the Summer Tree, you can’t help but feel your nerves rise up. I’ve never been asked before and it makes a fella bilious, this change in things. This not-having-been to having-been. And it’s Anne that’s asked me. Anne who’s soon to go away and leave me. So much is churning in my brain and my belly. Anne; Thom, too. I should have been the one called to the city. My time’s done. I’m over with this place, or it’s over with me. And now, I don’t know what to think. But she asked me here. My Anne. She told me when and where, and she is the one who cannot be denied.

  Anne makes me wait, no surprise there. Maybe she’s standing in the dense wood beyond, maybe she’s watching.

  I take my leisure, nervous as it is, beneath the shadow of that old tree, looking at the red flowers about to bloom. They’ll light the clearing up like fire, and then with the first big storm they’ll fall and cover the ground in sweet clots. This tree’s been doing that since whenever and back, and it will be long after I’m gone. Bees are busy at their work, the trees loud with them, the sky streaked with their passage, east and west and north. Good dozen or so hives around here. George keeps them. That honey will taste of the Summer Tree. That honey’s the sweetest of all. I’ll want none of it this year, and no one can talk me into thinking otherwise.

  I catch a movement to the left of me. Not her. Just a deer that looks at me with eyes too big and full of the world, then crashes off, a tawny blur, into the undergrowth, like it knows it’s almost time to be frightened.

  Going to be the hunt around here, in a couple of days. The woods are full of deer, and they’ll be moving up into the highland with the turning of the tree. And if we don’t keep their numbers down, they’ll eat this woodland bare and start coming into the crops. Another reason too in that killing, Dain says. They let the hunt continue, year in and out, because it reminds folk that we’re like them. That there’s predation in us all. Even the trees eat the Sun, he says. Can’t see how that’s true. Seems like a fare too thin for something so big.

  I run a hand over the tree’s rough bark, grown out of the Sun. Twigs snap behind me.

  ‘You set your fancy on the tree?’ There’s a bit of laughter, penetrating almost like the laughter of those cold children.

  Anne’s standing there, smiling, and it fills me with a kind of joy and an ache all at once. But I’m not crying, I’ve already decided that.

  ‘And what’s wrong with that? Man can fall in love with the moon or the Sun, why not a tree as beautiful as this?’

  ‘Oh, those things are dull and clockwork. Predictable. You’d be bored quicker than a crow to carrion. You need the change that is folk.’

  ‘I’ve found some steadiness these last months. Haven’t you seen it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Anne says.

  I smile at her. ‘Growing up, Dain says.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ask me to the dance?’

  ‘Didn’t think—’

  Anne’s lips thin. ‘You never do.’

  ‘We’re always dancing,’ I say. ‘Even now. Just no music.’

  ‘Enough of those twisting words,’ Anne says, ‘Stop with that and answer me.’

  ‘What good would it have done? You’re going away, and you knew that you were going away, and you never told me. Didn’t even hint at it. Made like it was furthest from your mind.’

  ‘You never asked.’

  ‘Why would I even suspect?’

  And, all of a sudden, she looks tired. ‘Mark, I’ve played that piano. I’ve played and practised and played. I played because I love it, because it’s what I am, but I was calling too, calling into the dark. Calling them out, because I don’t want to live here. I don’t love this place like you love this place. I’m no Day Boy, and I’m damned if I’m going to let them have my blood. They can feed on my music, and it’ll be mine to give. Not have taken just because I live and bleed.’

  I reach out and hold her hand. And it is warm and she doesn’t pull away. She looks into my eyes, and I think I might drown in hers. There’s a silence that reaches into forever and is as quick as a single beat of my stuttering heart.

  ‘When they took Da away,’ Anne says, ‘I was little. But I knew th
ey would come for me. Not for Da’s crimes or my ma’s, but because that’s the way of things now.’

  I keep a hold on her hand, but it’s only because she lets me hold it. Her fingers stick to mine, joined by our sweat, they twist and twitch with little shivers, and I can feel the music in them and the strength.

  ‘They’re coming for us all,’ she says. ‘In the end, that’s their plan. It’s the only reason that makes sense. Question is, do we fight it? What if fighting it’ll only make it all the faster?’

  I don’t know. I’ve never really fought anything. None of the spits and spats have been true fights. I’ve just lived and raged and laughed, and tried to live a little longer. ‘There’s a pleasure in all that fast and wild.’

  ‘There’s no pleasure in that for us. You’ve lived the rich life. You’ve had the right to fight, to mark your ground. We’ve not had that ever, a moment’s defiance is a death in the Sun, or a death in the shadows. We hang on the comings and goings of the Night Train like flies spun on a web.

  ‘The world changes,’ Anne says. ‘You know that. It doesn’t stay the same. Was a time when I cried in the dark but I don’t do that now.’

  ‘I don’t want you to go,’ I say.

  ‘When has this ever been about what we want, boy?’ Anne says, and she pulls her hand gently from mine, and folds my fingers closed. ‘It’s never been about what we want. I don’t even know what it is that I want half the time, for all my plans. How silly is that?’

  But I do. Well, I think I do, and it’s not this. I don’t want to lose this. I can’t. I’d set my heart on this want without even thinking on it, just knowing.

  She grabs my other hand and stares at me, like she is trying to remember everything. I’m doing that too; forcing a pin through this horrible moment, trying to capture the sweet along with all that bitter.

  Day’s already moving along. Night’s coming, and when it does the engines of the Night Train will be stoked. Whistles will be blown, and the train will shudder and roll, and build up speed until it is across the new-built bridge, until it is out of sight. And she will be gone.

  She kisses me gentle on the cheek, pulls her hand free of mine. And I want to turn and tilt her head to mine, and taste those lips again. But I don’t, I can’t. So my cheek burns and my eyes sting with a grief I’ve been denying. ‘I have to go, Mark. My mum is waiting for me. I have to say goodbye to all my friends. You, you I wanted to give this explanation to. Because—’

  ‘Yeah, I know why,’ I say. Standing there, not sure where to put my hands now that she has freed them.

  ‘I better go,’ she says.

  ‘You better.’

  She looks at me once, and runs back towards town.

  And I’m left there, in the shade of the Summer Tree.

  Not my finest hour. But you don’t have too many of those.

  CHAPTER 40

  THOM’S MOSTLY PACKED when I get home. He’s left his books out.

  ‘For you,’ he says.

  I look at them and feel my tears welling, but I don’t give way, I don’t know if I’d be able to stop. There’s a heaviness in my joints and in my flesh, such a weight as could bend me low. I flash a grin, even though it hurts quite fierce.

  ‘Sorry. This should have never happened,’ Thom says, and he looks suddenly old and hollowed out, and not like the boy I know. ‘I should have seen it coming, but that’s the way of the world, and none of us are ever going to stop its turning. Thanks for taking me under your wing like you did. Thank you for that. I won’t forget it.’

  ‘You keep an eye on my Anne,’ I say.

  Thom puts his suitcase on the floor. ‘I will, I promise. I thought you two were…that you’d have each other always. But the world thought otherwise. Like the world always does.’ He closes his bag; he’s taking less than he came with. ‘She’ll be looked after. She will be respected and cared for, you know how they are in the city? How they love the musicians above all? She will be honoured. And she knows how to look after herself. I will do my best to make sure that no harm comes to her, but there is very little harm for a woman like Anne. Her virtues are understood.’

  Makes me sick again to hear her spoke of this way, of things I’m still too raw to be missing. ‘You packed?’

  ‘Yes,’ Thom says.

  ‘Then we’re going fishing,’ I say.

  It’s a fine way to see the day to its end, plenty of laughter, and not a single fish caught. Think back to the time Thom tripped up Dougie. There’s not a chance of revenge for the poor lad now.

  I help Thom with his bags, Dain walking beside us.

  ‘You be careful, Mr Thom,’ Dain says, with a formality that surprises me. But then, Thom’s not Dain’s anymore.

  ‘I will be, I promise,’ Thom says.

  ‘It’s not just the Crèche that you’ll need to worry about. I’ve enemies for sure, and I fear my presence will have tainted you.’

  ‘I’ll be careful, Master Dain.’

  ‘Trust no one,’ Dain says.

  ‘I don’t.’

  Dain pats his arm. ‘Good boy.’

  Then Dain’s tapping my arm. ‘Give me those bags, Mark. I’ll see to them. There’s a person you might want to be talking to.’

  Anne’s standing yonder, with Mary. And Mary’s as stony-faced as I’ve seen her, and I can sense her resolution not to cry, same as me. Peas in a pod of grief, us two. Mary glares at me, but there’s no heat to it, and then whispers something into Anne’s ear. She nods, and Mary hugs her tight, and then is walking away from the waking train and into town.

  We don’t say nothing, her and I, as she passes. We don’t need to.

  And then I’m running to Anne, and I’m holding her for the first and last time. ‘You and me…’

  ‘I know,’ she says.

  ‘There’s not time for all that I want to say. Not ever enough time or space in the world for that.’

  ‘I know.’

  And that cools my heart despite the heat.

  Anne laughs. ‘You’re a fool.’

  I am a fool.

  I kiss her once. Not long. Nothing more than a brush of lips, and she’s pulling away and I’m on five types of fire. There’s a whistle blowing. She grabs her bags, just two, how can they contain a life? But they do. The Master of the Train leads her onboard. And I stand there trembling.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Thom says. ‘You’ll be all right.’

  The Master’s already back out, and looking down at Thom. ‘Are you ready, Mr Thom?’

  Thom looks at me, all awkward, not enough words or time for us either. Never is, at the end. ‘I have to go.’

  So I give him a hug too, and he hugs me back, all bony arms. ‘Be careful,’ I say, stepping back to see him one last time. And he’s just a boy, going home.

  ‘You know I will be, ‘ he says.

  And then he’s on that train too.

  The last whistles blow. The doors crack shut. The train jolts forward, lurches, steadies, quickens. And I stand on the platform watching it g
o. Faster and faster away from me. The Night Train’s speeding up and Anne’s on it, Thom too. I can’t see them. But there’s a chance I can still catch them.

  I run, not even knowing what I’m doing, pick up speed, even as the train jerks and slows, its front end hitting the turn across the river. I reach out, almost touch the last carriage, but then there’s cold hands wrapping around me, lifting me up. A colder voice in my ear.

  ‘Don’t be a fool.’

  I struggle, but Dain doesn’t let me go.

  ‘They’re in there!’

  ‘And there isn’t anything you or I can do to change it.’

  I know it. I know it, but it doesn’t stop me from hating him then and there, his easy strength, the way that this doesn’t hurt him, the way that he shifts so that my own struggles don’t injure me. Fluid and as hard as stone. He isn’t a man and there’s no point in hating, but in that moment it is all I have.

  ‘You get on that train and you’re dead. I can’t protect you, not the Sun or the moon could protect you from the weight of their inquiry.’

  He still doesn’t let me go, and the Train is already over the river, running faster and faster, and the two people most precious to me are its cargo. My heart’s aching, tearing. But he don’t let me go.

  ‘Thom can look after himself, you know that. And Anne will be cared for. She has a skill, a true mastery of beauty in her fingers. She will be rewarded, she will live well. You know that too.’

  ‘And what about me?’

  ‘You. You have a choice.’

  ‘Do I? Do I just?’

  ‘You go on living, boy. Never know what tomorrow brings. Sometimes it’s a slap or a boot or a kiss or a scream. You live even though your heart feels torn out. You go on, because that’s what I’ve taught you, and some day you may not regret it or hate me. And, more importantly, you may not hate yourself.’