Star Matters

by David John West

  These advanced characteristics of both Joe and Charlotte were most remarked by the teachers, but not lost on the other children too. Joe and Charlotte’s sports abilities made them popular with the other children where their academic skills were less helpful. Christopher, however, was a different matter; he was equally skilled academically but struggled with physical activity. This led to him being picked on and treated badly by some of the small gangs that emerged at that time. Charlotte’s support helped Christopher to a degree as the difficult children bullied Christopher regularly but she could not be with him all the time and he started avoiding trying situations where he knew that he would be pestered.

  Joe was not immune to bullying either. He did not belong to the gangs that sprang up around some of the more difficult children. One day he was walking to school late in the morning. It must have been after a doctor’s appointment as it was a late start to his school day and therefore the road to school was empty. It was a sunny spring day and he was taking in the warmth and the sounds of birds breaking into song and scents of flowers in first bloom when he almost bumped into Alec Coghlan leaning against his open garden gate. Joe was startled and looked into Alec’s eyes, his first thought being that Alec should have been at school. Alec probably caught that look and he saw that eye contact without some kind of subordinate verbal comment as a trigger for aggression.

  “Well, if it isn’t smart-arse Joe,” he said in drawling tones. He uncurled from the gatepost and crowded in close to Joe. Joe was more than uncomfortable with Alec’s face so close to his, shoulders and arms aggressively set forward. This was a new experience for Joe and some clever comment to defuse the situation escaped him. He turned away and to Joe’s complete surprise Alec threw a right hand punch that caught Joe a glancing blow across the cheek as he saw it late and turned away. Joe hustled on along the pavement aware that a bad thing had happened but not able to see the reason for it; why would Alec do such a thing? They had no social interaction prior to this so Joe could not understand why he was so bad-tempered now, today. He also could see no point to it; what possible benefit could Alec get from such behaviour and surely it was stupid to get involved in fighting that could lead to serious injury?

  Joe’s confusion grew over this event, reliving it in his memory and worrying about what future interactions would ensue. He found that Alec would be there when he walked back from school and that the same kind of confrontation would happen again if he was on his own. Joe felt constrained not to respond, as he had learned from teachers and grown-ups that fighting was not acceptable behaviour. Alec Coghlan did not seem to know that this was the case though and so the imbalance of Alec’s aggression and Joe’s defensive behaviour was not benefitting Joe. Joe didn’t think he should tell an adult; it felt like this was his personal problem to sort out despite the fact that Alec was now showing off his bullying to some of his friends who were bigger than Alec and adding to Joe’s humiliation.

  Things started coming to a head in the lunch break one school day. Alec and his gang approached Joe, Charlotte and Christopher and made rude remarks about Charlotte being a girl and Christopher a nerd and all three were jostled in a mean way. Christopher’s black-framed glasses were dislodged and broken on the ground by one of the gang. Christopher was disorientated and looking afraid and Charlotte was getting cross and Joe was afraid she may take the initiative and start fighting back though it was clear she would be physically overwhelmed. Joe unwittingly played the role of leader of his friends and, his anger rising, pushed Alec backwards into his larger friends. They staggered back and more in surprise than anything came back at Joe after processing that they had suffered indignity in front of the crowds of children that had stopped milling around to watch. There were teachers there too supervising the lunch break so Alec and his pals had no time to react to Joe’s action without retribution. Alec quickly threatened in Joe’s face, “You got away this time but watch your back from now on. We will get our own back for sure!”

  The rest of the day was hard on Joe. He didn’t do any lessons with Alec but all the kids got to hear about the threat that Joe was under from Alec and his gang. Some of the boys passed on the message that Alec would be waiting for Joe after school. Most kids were sympathetic but Joe noticed they took no part in supporting him; he was feeling increasingly isolated through the day as all around him considered Alec and the gang would be delivering a beating to him and all except Charlotte and Christopher were excited by the possible spectacle without doing anything to help.

  At the end of the afternoon home time came around and Joe trudged out of school to start his walk home, his mood at a low ebb. Charlotte and Christopher were with him but his feeling of trepidation proved correct when he turned a bend in the lane to find Alec and his small gang waiting for him with a larger group of children as spectators.

  Joe tried to walk past but Alec stepped in front of him in the unnatural silence of the watching group. “It’s the end of the road this time for the smart-arse!” Alec proclaimed to his gang and all the spectators. The group looked large and even the uncommitted onlookers seemed hostile to Joe. He ignored them all and found his focus narrowing in on Alec. His gang of bigger friends were behind him to left and right.

  Charlotte protested from close behind, “Just leave Joe alone, you!” she called in a shrill voice but Joe knew with faraway wisdom there was no escaping this confrontation physically unscathed and remained silent. Some eternal awareness told him that this was the time to sort out this problem once and for all time. It had been growing in his life and he had previously been unable to straighten it out. There was no more dodging the imperative. He passed his school bag to Charlotte and turned to face Alec. Joe caught the moment when Alec’s mask of confidence slipped unseen by all but Joe. In that second Alec realised he had not entirely thought this thing through and that events were slipping beyond his control. He was moving as if in slow motion to Joe’s eye; he did not throw a punch but seemed to raise his right arm to grapple Joe’s shoulder.

  In the course of Alec’s first move Joe was surprised that his psyche escalated from that of nervous schoolboy moments earlier to his body being overwhelmed by fizzing physical anticipation. Firstly a powerful pounding music he had not heard before but which affected him deeply seemed to start quietly and build out of time itself to a crescendo, growing from nothing to thump in combination with his heartbeats. A roiling mix of rolling rock drumbeat and electric guitar riff allied to soaring opera arias that he instantly recognised but equally knew were not of this place; not of this childhood. Next instant this was accompanied by the clarity of his mind emptying of all thought other than hand-to-hand combat as deep in his body energising fluids emptied from endocrine organs to power his blood. He could almost feel the trickle of it into his guts, filling his muscles with power. It was an extreme adrenaline and endorphin release in a burst of ecstasy demanding immediate fulfilment in fight or flight, and there was no option to escape. The total effect was to thrill the joints and muscles of his arms and chest, firing each limb up in turn like a roll call for action. Finally the tsunami wave of his empowerment reached his ears and raced across his brow and eyes like a thunderous wasabi hit, accompanied by recalled images not of this life; of swooping at great speed down steep slopes at Snowscape overlaid with thundering into medieval battle armoured on a warhorse. Joe’s mind cleared and felt cold as fresh ice, entirely focussed on controlling the soaring vigour coursing through his veins. Invulnerable, he turned into Alec’s lumbering embrace.

  Joe’s movements came fast and unbidden by his conscious mind. He lifted his left forearm blocking Alec’s grappling move and proceeded with a succession of strikes too quick for the encircling crowd to see, with hard muscles of his hands to Alec’s chest and stomach. He seemed to have all the time in the world to direct those blows and also shorten them such that they shocked but did not injure. That control, too, was unconscious. Alec recoiled and staggered back into his follow
ers. He was struggling to breathe but otherwise unaware what on earth had happened to him.

  The spectators also could barely see what had happened in the encounter as most of the action was inside Alec’s grasping arms and soon they became bored as it was clear to see that Alec had been incapacitated immediately. The crowd soon began to disperse. The entertainment was over. Charlotte seemed less surprised than Joe himself that he had won out. He was taken aback that she neither congratulated him nor seemed impressed. It was sometime later that he realised that she just had confidence in his ability to handle the situation. Alec was bent over hanging on the arms of his two biggest friends effectively taking them out of further action if they had wished to follow on. Joe himself registered surprise at winning the fight so comprehensively and also at the wild ride of the tremendously exciting stimulus that had come unbidden and so effectively to his aid.

  Joe calmed down and felt the kind of peace that only comes from an intractable problem comprehensively solved. The rest of the way home the skies seemed bluer and he had never been so happy in himself. He had been sorely tested and come out victorious and better still had been in the right!

  Christopher meanwhile had wanted to help out with Alec’s unfair challenge to Joe but when the time came he had been paralysed to inaction by Alec’s scary shout and the threat of physical attack. By the time he had processed the situation it was all over so quickly that he had not had the opportunity to help. He knew also inside himself that he could not have helped physically and was relieved not to be called on. Joe had power that Christopher could only dream of.

  Charlotte was also finding this stage of growth intoxicating also. She had not been challenged like Joe but at some nexus of sensory control Amily was registering that this body even at less than half full size and much less than mature capability had remarkable potential to express itself physically. This nexus seemed located roughly in the brain area behind the eyes and low down in the middle of her head. It seemed capable of suffusing her entire nervous system with a feeling of well-being well matched to the beautiful background scenery of planet Earth. Standing behind Joe in his test with Alec Coghlan she too had felt the soaring release of her spirit to action, and the solid knowledge that this was only a fraction of what Joe had been feeling facing his enemy.

  That very weekend this sensation was encapsulated for Charlotte in a picnic involving a walk from the housing estate where Charlotte lived with her parents up several miles over two ridges of hills up to a high escarpment overlooking the wide and deep dale of a tiny trout stream. She and her mother had prepared a rucksack for the parents to carry salad, ham and cheeses and boiled eggs in their shells, plus enough water, white wine in a lightweight cooler jacket and orange juice for Charlotte.

  It was mid-spring and warm enough to wear summer clothes. Charlotte was wearing a gingham dress with sporty socks and trainers. Mum was dressed similarly in a strappy summer dress, and Dad in jeans and polo shirt. They carried sweaters tied loosely over their shoulders as you never knew when the weather was going to turn and could be colder when they reached ‘The Tops’ of the secluded dale.

  The first part of the walk went past Charlotte’s school along a narrow tarred road that was hardly used by traffic, though you never knew when a hulking farm vehicle would fill the whole lane transiting between farm and fields. A mile or so along the lane there were two tall stones forming a stile with a gap narrow enough to squeeze through but too narrow for livestock to escape. Beside was a wooden post with a long green sign on top pointing away from the stones and along the side of a field of crops bounded by a dry stone wall and hawthorn hedge. The family squeezed through and walked up the path, overhung by long grasses but thankfully not wet and muddy after a few dry days.

  Charlotte bustled along the path immersed in the tranquillity of the bucolic scene. Along the path an occasional spreading oak was in full new leaf growing out of the stone wall and the crops and hedgerows were lush with new growth. Blackbirds and brown hens pursued each other hopping and flaring braking wings along the hedge. A jay flew out from the oak tree overhead, flashing metallic blue and pink plumage, then dipped and rose across the field to a small stand of trees. The weather was warm enough to induce a light patina of moisture on the brows of the adults carrying the burden of their picnic lunch. Charlotte was free to skip along distracted by the wildlife along the way. A grown-up thought beamed in at her that this place was like an elaborate Impressionist landscape, perfect in its impossibly lush greens, counterpoint to azure sky with cotton ball clouds and everyday wildlife drama cameos to distract attention from the mild exertions of the walk.

  Approaching on the right, a taller hawthorn in white blossom was topped by a mixed flock of goldfinches and sparrows, chattering away like wet corks wriggling on glass. They perched atop tiny branches piercing up from the flowery canopy checking in all directions for signs of danger but excited by the urgency of playing the mating game, frisking in the warm sun.

  Charlotte felt first, then saw, a slate-blue vee-shaped shadow loop over the hedgerow and dive down to fly swiftly at ground level before swooping up under the spreading hawthorn bedecked by birds above. The sparrow hawk reached up talons to grasp a larger branch at the base and craned up creeping as if on a hushed ladder at the tight branches, wings tightly mantled to head in the cramped thorny space. The raised eyes were like yellow topaz, hard and bright, searching the column of the tall bush to the prey chattering above. The hawk saw the route up the branches like a climber and hopped up grasping alternate steps in its talons and squeezing its hooded wings through the spaces, feathers protecting skin and bone from the piercing twigs. Stretching upwards and moving fast the hawk made speedy progress from dark at the base through finer and finer twigs into the brightness of sun in leaves and blossoms below the canopy. Shrugging through the covering foliage it burst out head first, steely downhooked beak raking the tail of a goldfinch as it took the air in panic.

  Charlotte saw the explosion of small birds from the top of the hawthorn. The goldfinch heads were striking with bars of red and black, yellow flashes on their wings. The shrill squawks of all combined in a cacophony of terror to jar the peace of farmland in summer. Then she saw the hawk clambering up through the cover to pose in frustration at the failure of its inventive attack through the tight bush. It paused to preen its leg plumage, more in distraction than necessity, then rose on grey wings before flashing lighter belly with dark stripes as it dropped low again and flew along the hedgerow just above the ground.

  The family crested the ridge at the end of the field and there was another stile of two upright stones to pass through. The accompanying sign pointed down a mild slope first of all through a small copse of trees and then across another field to a road running uphill from right to left. Beyond the road there was a track running up to a stone-built farmhouse that formed part of the footpath that led past the house then up to a much higher purpling ridge beyond. Their walk continued up this bigger hill. A border collie came rushing out of the farmyard to yap at their heels but Charlotte’s father said to ignore it; it wouldn’t do any harm, just saying ‘hello’. Beyond the farm the air became fresher which lifted their spirits after the humidity of the lower walk and the trees became lower from wind exposure. Hawthorns again, hung like icing with wreathes of small white or raspberry pink flowers, and increasingly more small silver birch trees with tiny serrated heart leaves. Finally they climbed the footpath to the top of the cultivated fields, crossed a road so narrow it could hardly afford vehicle space and passed another stone stile into the wild area at the very top of the ridge which was their picnic destination.

  The final rise wended up through wandering paths between low humps of livid green bracken shoots with curling seahorse heads and northern blueberries, or bilberries in local parlance, that would produce small but piquant fruit later in the summer. Now they were dotted with tiny white flowers shyly awaiting fertilisation by the bumbling bee
population. The family followed the paths up the last stretch and paused at the top to admire the view down low cliffs to steep ground through blackberry and ever more bracken to grassy slopes below leading still further down to patchwork fields seemingly too small to be economic but achingly beautiful viewed from above. A small village was nestling in front of the trout stream, the church spire rising out of a blue-grey haze, the unusual high view enhancing the model-like aspect when viewed from high on the ridge. Further still the ground rose again to the far ridge of equal height to the one they occupied now, distant enough for its upper slopes to be mysterious and hazed by distance and the always-wet atmosphere of northern England.

  The family paused awhile to soak in the scenery before stepping to a cairn that straddled the ridge, thoughtfully provided with a plinth atop which sat a bronze disk engraved with lines in all directions pointing out cathedral towns, power stations and reservoirs in the far views to south and east, and helpful directions to places unseen over the ridges of the western and northern valley.

  Mother and father found a pleasant spot of springy, thin-leaved grass on which to spread their picnic blanket and break out the treats. Charlotte insisted on getting the drinks out first and they all agreed to that, having held back from drinking it all on the climb up. There were several other family groups taking a stroll, some serious walkers in hiking gear, some little old couples reliving good old days, but all making the most of the country idyll.

  Charlotte saw a couple of small boys chasing each other across the slope they had come up with the big views to flat land way out towards the east coast. She started to explore and was soon chasing along with them too. The paths were tiny, hardly one footstep across, and comprised of flat sandstones with springing sandy soil between. The bilberry clumps overhung the paths like upturned bowls of tight little bonsai bushes with tiny woody stems draped in minutest oval leaves.