The villagers of K_ came to the stonemason with all the money they could afford. They bought dead sons. Some bought an entire platoon of dead sons. Some only wanted one son, a single son, a handsome son, kinder and more honourable and just plain better than the one they had spent years bringing up and had sent away shaking and weeping and scared to die. And the villagers would tell the stonemason the stories of their new sons’ deaths, and most often they had died saving the king himself, or if not, the whole army, there had been such meaning to the deaths, they had died so that hundreds more could live—and always they’d done so with a hardy smile or a witty quip, it was never in pain or filth or puke, it was never screaming for their mummy and daddy to save them, why wouldn’t their parents save them? And it was easier to part with these sons, because they’d been born at the end of a chisel just so they could be killed. And it was harder to part with them, too, because they were perfect. And as the villagers told the stonemason the stories, oh, there were tears of great pride, and tears of loss, a loss all the greater for being for something never actually won in the first place. The stonemason listened politely, but he wished once they’d paid him the money they’d just shut up and leave. He had a lot of work to do.
Pretty soon there wasn’t room on the plinth for all the names. If the burgomaster had chosen between our glorious dead and our fallen sons, then a few more might have been squeezed on, but there it was, he’d just had to be indecisive. The names soon snaked up the horse’s legs, onto the horse’s flank, right across the horse’s arse. And onto the king himself; the king’s face was tattooed with the names of all the boys he had killed, or would have killed, if the boys had been foolish enough to let themselves be born in the first place.
The stonemason always did these special names at night. He was no longer ashamed. But the darkness felt the right place for all the never-was-es and should’ve-beens. He continued to work on engraving the real dead in the daytime, but he was tired, and frequently he made spelling mistakes. No one seemed to mind.
And the stonemason became very rich.
And once, when he was dozing, he dreamed that the statue fell on him. He hadn’t even seen it start to topple, it must have all been very quick—one moment he was condemning another boy to death, the next he was sprawled out flat, pinned fast by the king’s buttocks. And he knew that the statue must weigh several tons, by rights he should be squashed to a pulp, but he understood stone, stone ran through him like lifeblood, stone would never hurt him. It was the dead. It was the dead who’d done it. He’d burdened the stone with too many dead, and it had made the stone top heavy—and it hadn’t been fair on the stone, it was just unfeeling stone, why should the stone be made to care for them? He knew he could push the statue off, set it back onto its plinth, and they’d both be right as rain—but it was all the dead standing on top of it, they made it impossible, the dead all stomping down with their little army boots, he couldn’t budge it an inch. They stared down at him, and he knew they weren’t doing it deliberately, they didn’t know what they were doing, they were just stupid corpses. And there were just too many. There was just one too many. One fewer corpse in the world, and he could have set himself free.
When he awoke, he was drenched with sweat. He steadied his breathing. He got up. He went to his coffers.
And went out, into the night.
The house of Mr. and Mrs. Klein was all dark, like mourning. They had only ever asked him for that one son, the first son, Raphael. After that they had avoided the stonemason, turned away from him at the market, or in church, and he had never known why. Maybe they had realized Raphael’s inscription was smaller than the others, and more discreetly hidden. Maybe they thought he would tempt them to create and then murder another child.
Underneath their door he slid two silver coins.
He went back home, and to bed, and his conscience never troubled him again.
One evening, when the moon was its brightest, the dead came back. Not the dead who had ever lived, but the dead who had never been.
Into the town they marched, right to the square, right to the statue itself. And Raphael Klein was at the front, he was their leader. And everyone could tell it was Raphael Klein, even though no one had ever seen him before, because he had just his father’s mouth and just his mother’s eyes, he did his parents proud.
He announced that they had all been granted a furlough. Just one night, to visit their families. Just one night, and then back to war. And that was good, because war was good, all the camaraderie and all the honour, and they were winning, didn’t their parents feel proud? And the soldier boys read the inscriptions on the memorial, and how they laughed. They weren’t dead, they were well and fit and happy, couldn’t Father see how well, didn’t Mother feel proud they looked so well in their smart uniforms? And the villagers of K_ were proud, and no one wanted to point out that some of them were missing limbs, or parts of their body, or parts of their head; not for all the world did they want to hurt their children’s feelings.
There were cakes and ale, and dancing, and games, and no one slept that night.
The stonemason stayed at home. He had never carved a name upon the statue for himself. He had been tempted. Of course he had been tempted.
When the knock sounded at the door, slow and heavy, the stonemason refused to open up. “Go away!” he said.
More knocking, so slow, heavier still, and it was not the knock of a dashing young hussar, it was the knock of a simpleton, from the lowest dregs of the regiment, standing behind the closed front door there was no one better than cannon fodder—“I don’t want you!” he shouted at it.
For a moment the knocking stopped. But then, as before, no more insistent, but just as mindless, thump, thump, thump.
And outside he could hear his neighbours celebrating what never was and could never have been.
“I never wanted a child!” he shouted. “Do you hear? I never wanted you!”
And there was silence. And he thought he had chased his son away. And that was a relief. And then, so suddenly, it was such a dreadful thing.
“Are you still there?” he said.
No answer.
“Are you there?”
Still nothing.
The stonemason said, “I never had a child. To have a child, I would have had to love someone. I would have had . . . to make someone love me. And, do you hear? Do you hear me? I never even came close.”
Still nothing, but the sound of villagers at play, mocking him.
“Please?” And he opened the door.
There he was, waiting for him. Unnamed. And featureless. His face a fracture of rock and chalk.
“My son,” he breathed. And he put his arms around him, and the statue cut at his skin, and made him bleed, and he didn’t care.
THE ALL-NEW ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD
My son Paul is in the same class at school as Robin Hood. Not the Robin Hood, of course, that would be ridiculous, he’s a semi-mythical hero from the twelfth century. No, this Robin Hood would be his son.
Paul brought home a couple of kids from school one day, and one of them was Robin Hood. At first, I’ll be honest, he didn’t seem much to look at—I wouldn’t have given him a second glance in the street. Short, square-jawed, a little meanness around the eyes—but they all look mean at that age, don’t you think? But I looked again, and I don’t know, I suppose I could see something of the celebrity in him. And he had a stud in his ear, but not in the lobe, stuck into that bony bit at the top, that’d be more painful, wouldn’t it? I didn’t know whether to shake him by the hand or not. I didn’t.
I said to the other kid, “What about you, you got a famous dad too?” I was only joking. The kid said, “No.”
Paul said they were all working together on a school project. I asked what the project was about, and they said it was heroes. Each group had to pick a hero from history, and the best essays would be read out at Speech
Day. I said, “Can I help?” Janet had told me I should take a greater interest in what Paul was up to, but they said that they weren’t allowed to get external assistance from a parent, this was something they had to do on their own. I asked them which hero they had chosen, and they said Winston Churchill.
“Well, can I get you boys anything to eat?”—but Paul said they were all right. So I left them to work on the kitchen table, and they helped themselves to snacks from the fridge: cola and ice cream and peanut butter sandwiches.
A couple of hours later the boys went home. Robin Hood didn’t come and say goodbye, but why should he have done, really? I waited until the coast was clear and then went into the kitchen. I asked Paul whether I should fix something for his supper, but he said he wasn’t hungry anymore.
“Winston Churchill,” I said. “Well. So, what’s your favourite thing about Winston Churchill?”, and Paul sort of shrugged.
I said it was nice he had made some new friends, and at that he just rolled his eyes. They weren’t friends, they’d all been put into groups by the teacher, Paul Hiscock was next to Robin Hood in the register. “I don’t even like Robin Hood,” he said. “Robin Hood’s a spaz.”
In my defence, it hadn’t been anything serious, and I’d never meant to hurt anyone. If I had thought anyone would have got hurt, I wouldn’t have ever got involved. That was implicit from the fact she was married, I’d have thought. If you have a fling with a married woman, it should be pretty clear it’s only temporary.
So when the husband came over, and he was a lot bigger than me, I thought he was going to hit me, and I suppose I might have deserved that—when he came over and he said, “You stole my wife!” my first thought was that it hadn’t been theft, I was only borrowing her for a bit. I didn’t say that, though. And the husband didn’t hit me; in fact, he just burst into tears, and the fight went out of him, and I felt very sorry for him and didn’t know what to do.
Janet left me. She said if I was going to cheat on her, the least I could do would be to show a little discretion. Sleeping with the next-door neighbour had been rubbing her nose in it rather. It was my own fault, I’m not saying it wasn’t, I don’t think I come out of this story well at all. But Janet works long hours, and travels a lot, I don’t think she’d even met the neighbours very often, what difference did it being the neighbour make?
She takes Paul at the weekends, I get him for the school days. I work pretty locally, so it makes much more sense that way. I gave her a call. I told her that Paul had made new friends. I knew she’d been concerned, Paul had been so withdrawn since the break-up and her moving out and the lawyers and things.
“That’s good,” she said.
“You’ll never guess who his friend is. His name’s Robin Hood! You know, the son of the actual Robin Hood.”
Janet said she was pleased, and she sounded pleased, but would it have killed her to have sounded more interested? Excited, even? She said, “They’re thinking of cutting back on my overseas contracts, I should be based in the city much more come the spring. I think I should take custody of Paul when I do.”
I told her it was funny that our son was hobnobbing with famous people! Who would have thought it? And Janet laughed, I’ll give her that. And she said she’d once been at school with a girl whose sister was a backing singer for Dexys Midnight Runners. I told her that wasn’t the same thing at all.
I asked her how she was, and she said she was all right, working too hard of course, but that was as per usual, wasn’t it? She laughed again. She asked me how I was doing, I said I missed her. I said again that I was sorry.
I see the woman from next door sometimes, of course, but I’m not allowed to speak to her. I promised Janet I wouldn’t. I don’t think she’s allowed to speak to me either, she’s still with her husband, I think there were conditions to that. We don’t speak, but I want her to know it’s nothing personal, so if she’s out in the garden I’ll raise my hand and give her a sort of half-wave. She half-waves back, mostly.
Speech Day came. They said that Paul’s Winston Churchill project was one of the best of his year, and it was selected to be read out in front of the entire school. I was very proud, and told Paul so, and he seemed to believe me for once, he grinned from ear to ear.
I didn’t go, though. Janet was supposed to be out of the country on business, but at the last minute her trip was cancelled, and she phoned up and asked if she could go and see Paul instead. She felt it’d be important for their relationship. To be fair to her, she didn’t insist, she said she’d quite understand if that inconvenienced me too much—she’d be bitterly disappointed, but there it was. I said that we could both go, it would be all right; she wouldn’t even need to see me, I could sit at the back. But Janet thought she wasn’t quite ready for that yet. “Maybe next year,” she said.
I found out after that Robin Hood had been there as a special guest, and had given out the sixth form prizes! I called Janet, asked her how the evening had gone. She said Robin Hood had been quite charming, and he’d given a little speech, and told the kids that stealing was a bad thing and not to follow his example, and that besides what he’d done hadn’t been stealing, he had taken from the rich to give to the poor, it had been a political act, he called it “re-appropriation.” I asked Janet if he had been dressed in Lincoln green. She said no.
I told Paul I was sorry to have missed him. I told him he could perform the Winston Churchill speech to me, if he liked, privately, in our front room. He said he hadn’t performed it at all. He’d written the essay, and that other lad had read it out, that’s how they’d divided up the work. Robin had barely been involved in the project at all, Robin had skived off as usual. I told Paul to perform it for me anyway, I wanted to hear it. And Paul huffed a bit, but said all right. At the end I gave him a round of applause and told him I was proud, but Paul didn’t look too pleased. “You already said,” he told me. But I was proud, I meant it. It was a good essay, there was more to Winston Churchill than I had realized, like Robin Hood he’d been a proper hero.
Mr. and Mrs. Hood had the pleasure of inviting my son to young Robin’s birthday party. Paul said it was nothing to get excited about, everyone in his class had got an invitation—but it had come in the post, and it was nicely done, and it asked us to RSVP. It told Paul to bring swimming trunks, so that meant Robin Hood had a pool! I asked Paul whether he thought it would be a fancy dress party, and Paul said, “Why the hell would it be fancy dress?” and I didn’t know, I just thought it might have been.
Before the big day I asked Paul whether he was going to get his friend a present. He said no. I told him he had at least to buy a card. The card Paul bought wasn’t good enough, I had to go out and buy another. I told him to write something nice inside. I hope he did, he wouldn’t let me see.
We drove all the way to the Hood house, the other side of town. I suppose I had expected a castle or something, maybe a mansion. It was just a semi-detached. But it was on a quiet street, the front garden was well tended and a little bigger than ours, no, it was nice, it was nice. Paul looked quite smart; I looked smart too, I’d put on my best jacket even though it was rather a warm day. A harassed man opened the front door to us. “Hello, Mr. Hood,” I said, and I put my hand out. It wasn’t Mr. Hood at all, it turned out he was just one of the other parents dropping his own kid off; they were all out the back, he said, and then pushed past us and made his escape. I was glad he hadn’t been Robin Hood, he hadn’t been how I’d pictured him at all.
In the sitting room all the furniture had been pushed against the walls to create a larger play area. On the patio outside there was a barbecue going, and there were the drinks, and there on the lawn was the swimming pool. It wasn’t a proper pool. It was quite big, I suppose, but it was still made of plastic, at the end of the day you could drain it and flatten it and roll it up and put it away. I was a little disappointed.
There were lots of kids everywhere, all shapes and
sizes, and I just think it would have been nicer if someone had thought to make it a fancy dress party—they could have been Robin Hood’s Merry Men, you could have had Friar Tucks and Will Scarlets and Little Johns (the tall kids could have been Little Johns). I can’t see why someone hadn’t thought of that.
There were a few parents milling around too, all of them obviously hoping to catch a glimpse of the famous man himself. “He’s not home,” a woman told me when I asked, and she sighed, because she’d obviously been asked a few dozen times already. I told her I supposed she was Maid Marian. “I’m Stacey,” she said, “Marian is the ex.”
She suggested that the adults should go, and return to collect their children at six o’clock. I asked if I could stay. “I told you, he’s not here, and he won’t be back ’til late.” I told Mrs. Hood I didn’t care.
Some of the kids had smuggled in cans of beer, and Mrs. Hood and I had to keep going around confiscating them. We’d take them indoors and drink them in the kitchen, and when we’d finished, we’d go outside and confiscate some more. Every once in a while one of us would pop out anyway to check no one had got burned on the barbecue or drowned in the paddling pool.
Robin Hood’s house had a big widescreen TV and off-road parking. I told Mrs. Hood it wasn’t as grand as I’d expected, and I supposed Robin must have given to the poor and not kept much back for himself. She found that very funny. She laughed a lot. I decided to laugh too, so it’d look as if I’d been witty on purpose.
They Do the Same Things Different There Page 31