Writing On the Wall

by Lynne Reid Banks

  I was glad we were going to sleep in a hostel that night. We hadn’t overdone the washing bit in the camping sites, and I had a plastic bag full of undies that needed doing. My T-shirt was niffy. And my hair was a right mess, all full of dust and salt.

  Kev cycled alongside me. He didn’t say much and he didn’t look at me much, but he did cycle with me. At our first sight of the tower blocks on the skyline he said, quietly, “That’s our take-off point.”

  I didn’t say a thing. Didn’t commit myself.

  We had to ride through a long tunnel to get into the city. Michael said it went under a huge river as wide as the Thames. I said I like water, but not on top of me. And I hate tunnels. I kept looking up to see if it was starting to drip through. If they ever build the Channel Tunnel you won’t catch me going in it – all those tons and tons of water overhead, it just doesn’t make sense. We rode through single file with the traffic roaring past. Thank heaven for the cycle-track! I swerved so often looking up at the roof, I’d have been killed for sure if we’d been on the roadway.

  When we were safely through, Michael led us off the main road and into a bunch of side streets and then pulled up at a little shop where you could get postcards. We all bought some. I got five, mostly country views of dykes and windmills and that, but one of this Euromast tower we were meant to be going up. I was looking forward to that.

  One of the postcards on sale caught my eye and I picked it up. It was some kind of statue. I kept staring at it. I didn’t want to buy it – I mean not to send; I could just imagine how Sean or Lily would send me up – but I kept staring at it just the same. Finally I took it to Michael, who was buying us each a map of the city.

  “What’s this thing?”

  “Why don’t you look at the back?”

  I did, and it said something in Dutch of course. “Can’t read it.”

  A Dutch lady was standing near us. “It is called Destroyed City. It was put up to remind us of the bombing.”

  “When was that then?” Kev asked her. He loves anything about the war, especially planes and bombs and air-raids and that.

  “In May 1940,” she said, “the Germans completely destroyed our city, isn’t it?” Karen giggled at her funny English. “There was nothing left. Just ashes, and—” She stopped and looked at Michael.

  “Ruins,” he said.

  “Ah, yes. But one thing still stood after all the bombs. It was another statue, the statue of Erasmus.” She showed us another postcard. This had an ordinary statue on it of a man in a priest’s robe holding a book.

  “Like St Paul’s in London,” said Michael. “Just stood there all by itself in the rubble.”

  “Something always survives, isn’t it?” said the lady. She smiled at us and left the shop.

  Kev was buying something at the counter, and now he put it in his pocket and turned round. “Come on, let’s go. I want my lunch,” he said.

  We paid for our postcards. I bought the extra one, the Destroyed City one. I just wanted it. I couldn’t decide whether I liked it or hated it. It was a figure of a man with his arms reaching up and a great hole through his middle. All his arms and legs were very thick and clumsy – he didn’t look like a real man. But he looked as if he was putting up his arms to catch the bombs or stop them dropping on him. Only why the hole? I hate these modern statues really; I liked the other one she showed us – the man with the book – much better. So why didn’t I buy that one then, if I was so keen on statues all of a sudden?

  We got back on our bikes and rode through into the main part of the town. After what that lady said I’d half expected to find a lot of empty spaces, but of course it had all been built up again. Lots of it was just about like London. There were parks and that, and wide clean streets. We went in to a little snack-bar for lunch, and this time I did have some of the apple sauce with my pork chop (I felt like lashing out a bit) and it wasn’t bad. The boys all had some Dutch lager. Con had special onion soup with cheese on top. She fairly lapped it up and then had an open sandwich with heaven knows what on it, and loads of mayonnaise. She wouldn’t give me even a nibble, she said it was too good to spare.

  While we were eating, some of us were writing our postcards, but Kev wasn’t. He’d borrowed Darryl’s guide-book and was bent over a map it had.

  “What you looking for?” I asked him.

  “The railway station.”

  I got all goosebumps. “Oh go on! Let’s look at this town first.”

  He looked up at me. His blue eyes had gone all sort of burning.

  “If you don’t want to come with me, just say. I can go on my own, you know, easy.”

  “But what d’you want to leave the rest of us for, I mean if—” I could feel myself getting red—“if I don’t go?”

  “I told you. I heard Amsterdam’s great, the clubs and that.”

  “If you mean strip-tease clubs, I’m not going to them even if I do come.”

  He looked at me a bit longer and then slammed the book shut and gave it back to Darryl. “Please yourself,” he said. “But we could have a good time, you and me, Trace, without doing nothing you don’t want to do.” And he squeezed my knee under the table.

  Well. What was I to make of that? If he loved me, he wouldn’t make me do it. Did he mean it, or was it just a come-on? I wished I knew.

  Michael had been looking at his map, too. He had a lot of things he wanted to see, and that meant us seeing them as well, unless we wanted to lose him. He did get a bit bossyguts then, I must say, with his “We’ve got to see this” and “We mustn’t miss that”. We all wanted to see the docks with the big ships and the cranes and all that, and the tower, but when it came to museums we weren’t so keen.

  In the end we compromised. He suggested a boat tour, which would take us all round the city on the rivers and canals, and we jumped at that of course – even Con, who I thought had been looking a bit restless. Funny, I didn’t want Con to take off and leave us. When she got restless, I did.

  When we were going down to the harbour to find the tourist boats, we suddenly saw this huge thing. Big and black against the sky. Gave us all a turn. It was the Destroyed City man. He was much bigger than I’d thought from looking at the picture. You could see the sky through the big hole in his body. He gave me the shivers, honest. He was all black and twisted as if he’d been burned, and his arms were much too long.

  “Look!” shouted Cliff. “If it ain’t the Incredible Hulk!”

  I hoped Kev wouldn’t laugh, but he did. “Poor old Hulk,” he said. “He must be done for this time. Somebody shot a cannonball through him.”

  “That’s where his heart’s been torn out,” said Michael.

  He said it so quiet I think only Con and me heard. We both looked at him, then back at the statue. Of course I saw straight away now why the hole was there. I still thought it was a horrible-looking thing, but at least it made sense, not like some of that rubbish that’s just lumps and they call it Concept or Infinity or some other mad name. Still, I couldn’t wait to get away and I was glad Michael seemed in a hurry too.

  “Come on, we’ll just catch the next boat.”

  The boat tour was great. We saw the port properly, from the water. The boys loved it, specially the big radar thing that helps the ships come in in a fog. But it didn’t take long, and the minute we stepped ashore Michael was off again about his museums and something called “Bow Centrum”. When we asked him what it was, he said it was all about town planning and architecture and that. We all let out a groan that was more like a howl.

  “Nobody’s getting me to no town planning exhibition,” Cliff said.

  “Nor to a museum,” said Kev. “Blimey. Only poufs go to museums.”

  “I go to ’em,” said Michael. “You calling me a pouf?”

  Kev grunted something. Con said, “What kind of museum is it? I’m not going if it’s paintings and that, but I don’t mind if it’s science.” (She’s brilliant at science subjects.)

  “There’s all
kinds,” said Michael. “Look, why don’t we split up for a bit? You all go and do whatever you want, and we’ll meet at the youth hostel.” He made us open up the maps he’d bought us and he drew a circle round the youth hostel where we were supposed to sleep. He pointed out some of the main places, and made a few helpful suggestions. Then he said, “No one coming with me then?” And he was on his way.

  Suddenly Kev, who’d been looking at his map, said, “Yeah, I’ll come. And Tracy. Come on, Trace, let’s have a butcher’s at this Bow whatchamacallit.” I nearly fainted. Kev had howled louder than any of us when Michael first mentioned the place. What was he up to? Anyway I decided to go, and we set off on our bikes, leaving the other four looking a bit lost.

  It was a fair way to where we were going, and, when I checked my map later, I found Michael had cheated a bit. He didn’t go straight to the Bow whatsit. He took us all round the mulberry bush, looking at this and that. None of it grabbed me (and Kev was getting really narked) until we came into a square and I suddenly saw this statue – not the Destroyed City one, the other, the one of the man in the robe.

  We stopped beside it, or rather under it. Kev was grunting and groaning as if he had a bad belly-ache by then.

  “What we stopping for? Why the hell don’t we get on with it?”

  “Let’s just see this,” I said. “He was on that postcard.”

  Kev muttered something that sounded like “sod the bleeding postcard” and just leaned on his bike looking the other way and heaving great sighs every two minutes. But Michael had his guide-book out.

  “It’s Erasmus,” he said.

  “Oh yeah,” I said, not to show my ignorance. I stood off a bit. What I liked best was the way the statue looked as if he was just turning a page of his book. If you stood there long enough, you felt as if you’d see him do it.

  Michael was reading. “Call a spade a spade!” he said suddenly.

  “Eh?”

  “He was the first person who said that.”

  “I call a spade a black bastard,” said Kev. We both looked at him. He turned round, saw us looking, and went red. “Just a joke,” he shouted.

  Michael went back to his book. “Listen to this,” he said slowly, and read it out: “Since the human race insists upon being completely crazy; since everybody from the pope down to the humblest of village priests, from the richest of men to the most miserable paupers, from the fine lady in her silks and satins down to the slut in her calico dressing-gown—”

  “Oh, I like her! Specially the dressing-gown,” said Kev, sarcastic. “Are we going to stop here all day listening to this load of rubbish?”

  Michael read right on, taking no notice.

  “Since the whole world has set its heart against using its God-given brain but insists upon letting itself be entirely guided by its greed, its vanity and its ignorance—”

  “Speak for your bleeding self, you silly old twot!” muttered Kev.

  “—why in the name of a reasonable Deity should the few truly intelligent people waste so much of their time and effort in trying to change the human race into something it never wanted to be? Let them be happy in their follies. Do not deprive them of that which gives them more satisfaction than anything else, their sovereign power to make fools of themselves.”

  By this time Kev was pretty near dancing with rage. In spite of himself he’d been listening, and he chose to take what old Erasmus had said as a personal insult.

  “And I suppose you agree with all that!” he yelled at Michael. “You know what that is, don’t you? That’s bloody Fascism, that’s what that is. He means us when he says ignorant and greedy and that – us Catholics—”

  “Oh, come on!” said Michael. “He doesn’t only mean—”

  “Pope and priests! That’s what it said. Or, okay, not only Catholics, but ordinary people, working classes and that – us! Setting himself up above us, saying we’re not worth bothering about! Silly old shithouse! I’d like to kick his head in—”

  “You’re a bit late, he’s been dead getting on for five hundred years.”

  That brought Kev up short. He stopped jumping about and yelling and just stood there looking up at this statue of Erasmus, standing there so calm, the way he’d been all through the bombing, reading his book and paying no attention to anybody.

  I couldn’t help agreeing with Kev in a way. Old Erasmus was like some of the teachers we had. They taught us because it was their job, but you could tell they didn’t reckon us. There was one, old Sullivan, he’d been teaching for forty years he told us once, and he reckoned he’d got something into the heads of maybe a dozen kids. For the rest he just stuck the stuff in front of us day after day and if we wanted it we could take it and if we didn’t, well, it was no skin off of his nose, he’d done his best.

  And the truth was, now I thought about it, none of us did take it, not more than a quarter of what he offered us. But whose fault was it? Dad would say it was ours for not trying harder. Mum always blames something called “society” for everything. Sean agrees with her, but then he’s a born moaner. Vlady never blames anybody. He just gets on with it.

  Me? Well, I don’t know, do I? But one thing I did think of, all by myself, standing there waiting for the old fellow to turn his next page. I thought, He’s got stuck. He’ll never turn it. They’re all stuck, all them cleverdicks, they don’t know what to do about us. Erasmus said, “Turn your backs on them, they’re no good, you’re wasting your time.” Some of them go on trying, like Barry, our form teacher, he kept on at us trying to shove in a bit of culture, but we just sent him up. We didn’t want to know.

  Michael did, though. He wanted to know. He even wanted to give us some of what he was finding out. It was that that made Kev mad, Michael spouting at him. It was Michael Kev wanted to bash in, not old Erasmus at all – I saw that suddenly from the way he’d stopped looking up at the statue and started glaring at Michael.

  “Here. I’ve had enough of this!” he said. “Are we going or aren’t we? Come on, Trace.”

  Michael didn’t say a thing. He put his guide-book away and got astride his bike without looking at either of us. I got ready to move on too. Then all of a sudden, just as we were off, it happened.

  Kev dropped his bike on its side, pack and all, reached into his pocket and then made a run at the statue. It was standing on a big square lump of stone with lots of writing printed on it. Kev stood there for a minute, doing something. He was blocking our view. Michael just had time to say, “What you doing?” when Kev stepped aside and we could see.

  What he must’ve bought in that shop was one of those thick-nib felt pens – a black one, the kind they use for notices. In big letters, just under Erasmus’s feet, he’d scrawled the word:

  CRAP

  Michael’s not a fast mover, only sometimes. Like now. Now he moved so fast I hardly saw him. His bike crashed over as he jumped. He grabbed Kev by the front of his T-shirt and gave him two smacks round the head.

  “Rub it off! Rub it off!” he kind of ground out between his teeth. He was shaking Kev back and forth so I thought his neck’d snap. Actually it was the worst thing he could have done.

  Because we weren’t the only people in the square of course, there were hundreds of them coming and going. Maybe nobody would have noticed what Kev had done, but they couldn’t help noticing Michael having a go at him. Straight away they stopped, half a dozen of them, and stared, and I knew in another second some of them would try to interfere, and the next thing, they’d see that word written on their statue. In Holland that’s probably enough to get you put away for life.

  I grabbed Michael’s shirt from behind and pulled it practically off him.

  “Michael! Come on! Come away!”

  He dropped Kev and turned to me. His face was all funny, screwed up like a kid’s and bright red under his red hair.

  “We got to get it off!”

  “You start scrubbing at it, they’ll know we done it!”

  “I don’t care�
�” And he made a move towards the statue.

  I stepped in front of him. Like that I covered the word with my body. Nobody’d seen it yet. There was getting to be a crowd round us now so I kept my voice very quiet.

  “You come near this statue and I’m going to scream my head off. I mean it.”

  That stopped him. Quick as I could I went on, “Tonight when it’s dark we’ll come back and get it off somehow. Please Michael! It won’t do any good if you get in trouble. We need you!”

  He looked at me for half a minute. I’d got the statue and the word behind me and all kinds of bother in front. But for those few seconds it was just Michael’s eyes looking into mine. Then he grabbed my wrist and pulled.

  “Get on your bike.”

  Funny thing was, I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want the word to show. It was like not wanting to undress in public. Kev wasn’t just someone that I could pretend I didn’t know. He was my boyfriend. I felt ashamed of what he’d done. I didn’t want anyone to see it, and that wasn’t just being scared of bother.

  Michael and me just stood like that, looking at each other. When a red-haired person goes “hot and cold” you can see it in their skin. Michael saw why I wouldn’t move and he saw it made sense. He stood there till people got bored and moved away. But he was going hot and cold the whole time and so was I.

  At last things looked clear and he said, “Come on.”

  We grabbed up our bikes and shot off across the square.

  Kev had a head start. I’d never seen him ride so fast. But with Michael and me on racers, we soon caught him up.

  Michael zoomed past him like a police-car in a film, and forced him to pull up.

  “I got a word to say to you, Kevin.”

  Kev stood astride his bike and looked this way and that. There’d been a bit of larking since we started the trip, one sort or another, but Michael had never sounded like that before, even when Kev went into the water that time.

  “You’re a vandal,” Michael said. “There’s nothing I can do about that. So be a vandal in Acton, it won’t notice there – half the population under twenty’s at it with their felt pens and their spray-cans, mucking up every decent bit of clean paint and brick-work in the area. What they do it for I’ll never know – unless it’s the only way they got of making their mark in this world. But I hate it. I hate litter and I hate graffiti and I hate vandalism. Most of all I hate idiots like you.”