The Boy Who Drew the Future

by Rhian Ivory

  ‘I’m Mary Wright,’ she told me, stepping over Dog. I’d seen her helping her father in the bakehouse. She handed me a brown paper parcel which was soft and warm in my hands. The hut filled with the smell of apples, cinnamon and peace. My stomach rumbled loudly as I sat back down and took my materials from the box. I was ready to help her see what she wanted to see: her future.

  ‘Ask.’

  She shifted from one foot to the other, unsteady now the moment had come.

  ‘I wanted to know, I mean to say, I wondered if you could tell me something. Jacob Hill has asked me to meet him, has asked me to think on something he’s said, or at least he’s wanting to say and … I want to know if I should? Can you tell me if it’s the right thing, to say … yes?’ She found it hard to get her words out; she kept looking around me, past me, at the floor, checking the window and the shut door.

  ‘Marriage?’ I checked.

  She nodded. Her cheeks flushed and she raised a hand to touch them.

  My sharpened pencil flew over the page up and down, round and round. Circles and light and happiness bloomed on the page, shaping the lines that led to yes. It wasn’t much; it was just a few shapes on a small square. I didn’t have much paper left and wasn’t sure when Emilia would bring me more, she hadn’t been to see me for a few days now. Emilia always brought more paper when she came, hoping I’d show her something she wanted to see in her own future.

  I passed the girl from the bakehouse the piece of paper and she ran her eyes over it again and again, nodding. I hoped she’d bring me another parcel from her bakery, but I knew to make this one last. She gave me a parting smile and skipped out of my door, tripping slightly over Dog, who refused to move. Dog padded over to me once she was gone and pushed his wet nose into my hand. I opened the parcel, tore the heel off the apple loaf and offered it to him, his soft mouth open wide as he swallowed it down, drooling. He waited for more, not knowing when he might be so lucky again.

  You and me both, Dog, I thought, you and me both, as I threw another piece up into the air, watching him catch it like prey.

  CHAPTER 3

  NOAH

  I spot her leaving the fruit section of the supermarket. I’m not sure whether to wave or pretend I haven’t seen her. I’ll probably be bumping into her all the way round. Now I’ve noticed her, it won’t be easy to hide. I tap Mum on the arm.

  ‘I’m just going to look at the DVDs. I’ll catch you up.’

  She nods absentmindedly and goes back to the honeydews.

  I walk quickly now I’ve made my decision. I can hide from Beth at the back of the store until Mum has finished and then sneak out to the car park.

  As I reach the top of the aisle, Beth is coming down it. She’s laughing, trying to turn the corner, fighting a trolley with difficult wheels. A man tries to take the trolley from her to help, but she refuses to let him. Could be her dad, although they look nothing like each other.

  ‘Hi. Beth? Hi,’ I shout before I can stop myself and my arm lifts all by itself over my head in some sort of awkward wave. She sees me and, thank God, waves back. Then we both stand there.

  She says something to her dad and he walks down the aisle past me. He gives me a nod and then reaches behind me for something on the shelves. I move out of the way and walk towards Beth and even though this hadn’t been the plan – this had been the complete opposite of the plan – I find myself smiling.

  ‘I’m bored. Want to come and look at the films?’ she asks and I nod.

  ‘I warn you now, there’s nowhere in the village to buy DVDs. They used to have a rental place but it shut down last year. Gutted. They used to do CDs too, me and Georgia and Eva were always in there. They had this ace little booth with headphones where you could listen to a couple of tracks before buying. I just download tracks now though.’ She waits for me to say something.

  ‘Everyone downloads stuff, don’t they? I mean I don’t, I still like CDs. I like the booklet thing you get at the front you know with pictures of the band and then the notes they write, thanking people and how they got their inspiration and stuff.’ I follow her as if on some kind of autopilot, despite my brain shouting, ‘Please make a U-turn when possible,’ over and over like Mum’s stroppy satnav lady. Beth walks to the back of the supermarket where all the films are, trying not to get in the way of people charging around before it shuts. And my stupid feet just keep following her.

  ‘Dad loves it in here. He likes to wait around until closing time, for the bargains. Mum’s still at work, evening surgery,’ she carries on as we scan the DVDs. I already know her parents are GPs because we’ve been doing family trees in History, another class we have together. Her mum’s family are originally from Vietnam and her dad’s family from Sible Hedingham. Her tree looked a total mess, especially when we had to add in what trades or professions our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents had, if we knew. Turns out my family are pretty ordinary, which is ironic. I have a milliner on my mum’s side from Luton who made hats for royalty. My dad’s side are slightly less interesting, all spending their time in foundries and down mines in Wales.

  ‘My mum’s the same. I lost the will to live in the fruit section. My dad’s at work too. He’s been at work since we moved here practically, which is doing my head in. It’s not so easy running on your own, he kind of paces me. Mum’s dropping me off at the woods on the way back.’ I gesture to my shorts and running shoes to excuse my look. If I’d known she’d be here I’d have changed, I’d have at least put some wax in my hair or something.

  ‘Nice that you do stuff together, you know, like a hobby. I’m sure it’ll ease up once your dad settles in to his new job?’ She’s not bothered by my running gear.

  ‘Maybe, he just gets easily distracted when he starts a new project. He wants it all to be perfect, wants everything to be just right, all the time. Like we’re some happy little family!’ I force myself to stop talking by rubbing my hand over my mouth. I want to clamp it there to shut myself up but don’t want to freak her out.

  I have no idea why I am launching into my family’s dynamic, standing in a supermarket on a Friday night with a girl I’ve just met. I don’t talk about myself at all usually, at least not the real version. I normally stick a fake smile on my face and churn out the clichés that have always let me slot in unnoticed in the past. But this is new, this talking, and it has to stop. I have to stop.

  ‘Sorry … what?’ I realise she’s asked me a question. She is holding up a film. It looks awful. The cover is full of explosions, bits of debris flying everywhere and sweat-stained people in vests ducking for cover.

  ‘I said is this your type of thing? What kind of films do you like?’

  I shake my head, scanning the shelves for something half-decent. ‘Not really. I’ve seen it though. I saw it with my dad at the cinema in … umm, ages ago, when it first came out. It was predictable.’ I shrug, hoping she won’t ask me any more questions.

  She has changed out of her school uniform and is wearing a fitted navy blue vest, short cut-off blue jeans and blue flip-flops. Her nails are painted a dark blue colour to match her vest, but it makes her hands and feet look almost dead. The air conditioning is a bit aggressive; Beth shivers as she puts the DVD back on the shelf. She spins back round to look at me, her long hair swinging into my arm, tickling it. She gathers it up in one hand, pulls a hairband off her wrist with her teeth and somehow manages to put it all up in a bun-type thing on the top of her head. Half of it falls out again and she tucks bits of it behind her ears, which are full of studs and sparkling hoops.

  ‘It’s freezing in here, isn’t it.’ She rubs her arms. I can feel my fingers twitching, wanting to touch her cold skin, to warm it, to wrap my hand around her wrist and hold her there. Instead I grab another DVD off the shelf, taking a small step away from her. I should leave. I should go. Just turn around and run. But she starts talking again and my feet become disconnected from my brain.

  ‘Anyway, I’m not a big fan of action movies
, but then I’m eclectic, apparently,’ she carries on, oblivious.

  ‘Oh? Who told you that?’ I ask, an edge to my voice that sneaks in and surprises me.

  ‘My parents. We have film nights on a Friday, well, not every Friday, depends what their surgery hours are like. Anyway, every other Friday I get to pick. Mum is a big musical fan which can be really hard going. Dad’s more of a sci-fi geek which I can cope with.’ She keeps taking films off the shelf, reading the blurb on the back and returning them to their place.

  ‘Have you seen this one? Mum bought it for me to help with English. It’s OK only because of Miss Havisham, it’s the Helena Bonham Carter one, she’s ace.’ She moves closer to me holding out a shiny copy of Great Expectations. She still smells of lemons.

  ‘Look, there’s a bargain basement bin.’ I walk over to it, putting some distance between us. There are always good finds in the bargain bin, films that have fallen out of favour or weird ones that never made it. They’re normally pretty cheap too.

  ‘Ah, I see you are eclectic too, Mr Saunders,’ she says, gently pushing into me so she can look in the bin too.

  ‘So how was your first week in Sible Hedingham?’ she asks, rifling through the films. ‘Nosy neighbours driving you mad yet?’ she adds in a jokey voice, but keeps her sharp eyes on me.

  ‘Not bad. I’ve had worse. Haven’t met any neighbours though.’

  I lift out Gone with the Wind. She shakes her head violently. So eclectic doesn’t reach to the classics then.

  ‘Oh, I thought she’d have been round by now, staking her claim, marking her territory and all that.’ She begins fiddling with all the silver rings on her fingers.

  ‘Who’s she?’ I don’t like the idea of someone from school being too close. Last time Dad found us a house next to a field with no neighbours at all. Not that it made any difference in the end.

  ‘Ah never mind, you’ll see. So “had worse” … what do you mean? How many schools have you been to?’

  And then I find it, what I’d been hoping to discover. A Tim Burton film.

  ‘Yes! Now we’re talking, this is more like it.’ I hold it up for her approval, neatly sidestepping the question about schools, and all the other questions that will follow if I’m not more careful, if I don’t watch my step and keep my mouth shut.

  ‘Got it,’ she declares, the smugness unmistakable.

  ‘What? Are you kidding? No one I know’s even heard of this.’ I shake my head and look down at the copy of Big Fish in my hands. This is a first and it makes me stop, stop and really look at her.

  ‘Eclectic! I did tell you. You can’t go wrong with a Tim Burton film, can you. Edward Scissorhands is my all-time top favourite. It’s my dad’s turn to choose the film tonight so we’re talking some zombie apocalyspe with spaceships but next time it’s my turn … you can come over, if you like? We’ll watch Big Fish. So save your money,’ she offers, talking and talking and talking while I stand there without a plan B.

  ‘OK,’ I answer quickly before I can change my mind, knowing I should take it back, drop the DVD, run back down the aisles and out of the door.

  But I don’t.

  Instead I say OK again. I make it something definite, something new.

  And something dangerous with her in the middle of it all.

  ‘Ooops, sorry, love. Can’t seem to get this thing to steer properly. Hi, I’m Sadie, Noah’s mum.’ My mum nearly runs into my foot with her trolley as she introduces herself to Beth.

  ‘Hi, I’m Beth, it’s nice to meet you. We were just having a look at the bargains.’ Beth points at the film in my hand.

  ‘Ah now, not more films, Noah? He took up nearly half the removal van with his boxes of films! Anyway we need to get to the checkout before they close. See you down there, Noah.’ I watch her push the trolley off down the aisle and then turn back to Beth.

  ‘So, see you later then?’ My arm lifts again, as if it has a mind of its own. Why on earth do I keep waving at her? Why don’t I just walk away and stop bloody talking?

  ‘Sure. See you at school on Monday. Have a good weekend,’ Beth says, perfectly in control of her own body.

  She gently takes Big Fish out of my hands and drops it back into the bargain bin, leaving the touch of her skin on my hand like a mark.

  CHAPTER 4

  BLAZE

  I waited until it was almost dark before pulling my hat down over my face to walk along the river path. It was the best time to go, to think and be by ourselves, just me and Dog. I took my time, whistling softly to myself, as I stooped low to pick up anything that caught my eye, a stone, a shiny bit of quartz sparkling in the fading light, something to add to my collection. I placed them around my hut to protect us from harm, a circle of special stones to keep us safe from the evil eye while we slept.

  Maman wore a set of stones around her neck given to her by her mother and back through the generations. As a child, I used to wrap myself around her neck and hold them in my palms and wait for the heat to take over my body. These weren’t plain stones like the ones in this river. Pierres sacrées, she called them, sacred stones from the river of her blood, from her family in France.

  Maman’s hot stones each had a tiny hole in the middle, not made by a human hand. She wore several of them on a leather string around her neck towards her end and when they didn’t work, when even the stones couldn’t warm her, heal her or hold her safe, I knew nothing would. But I didn’t show her what I’d drawn, what I’d already seen for her. I wanted to protect her from that pain.

  She told me my father wore one of her sacred stones around his neck, that she had given him. But I didn’t know this because I’d never met him.

  He left before I arrived, so Maman said, sent back to sea as a punishment for falling in love with a French lady’s maid, nothing but a servant. To teach him a lesson for stooping beneath him. But he didn’t know about the seed that had been planted in Maman. He didn’t know about the bloom in her belly, she promised me over and over.

  As if that made any difference. We didn’t need him, we were fine, just the two of us.

  I buried some of her stones at the doorway to my hut. The others I kept around my neck, keeping her close to me. But what would happen to the sacred stones once I passed and started my next life? Maybe the river would claim them, taking them back where they belonged. Everything always came back to the sea, to the rivers that run on and on like Maman’s stories.

  Maman always had a tale to tell me while we worked, cleaning the Manor House with brushes and soap. I asked her questions about my father, but instead she turned to her own family and the legends of the Ambroise women, the wise water women of Couesnon.

  ‘The Ambroise women have always been visited by those who need help. They always come to the women born in the river Couesnon. Our family are water babies born in the river and this makes us wise, femmes sage. I must have told you the tale of Mont Dol, the little island and our river, the river Couesnon?’ she would ask and I would shake my head every time, wanting the story again, needing to hear the music in her voice.

  ‘Well now, listen carefully, come closer, mon chéri. This is the story I heard from my Maman and she from her Maman before. They say Le Diable, the Devil, was furious when Mont Saint-Michel was built and full of hate towards Saint Michel for the monastery they gave him.’ I knew what came next, almost by heart, but waited as she spun the story.

  ‘Le Diable and Saint Michel agreed to compete for ownership of the Mont. Whoever could jump the closest to the island would win. But Le Diable fell into the River Couesnon, going down and down into the dark water. The last they saw of him was his hand clawing up through the water. And then nothing. Disparu! Gone! But Saint Michel? Well, the air lifted Saint Michel up into the sky like a nightingale, singing out all the way to Mont Dol, where he was set down on safe ground under the stars.’

  I could feel my mouth was open as I listened. She smiled and carried on, nearing the end of the tale.

  ‘Some say th
at at the top of Mont Dol there is a footprint of Saint Michel and at the bottom, on the rocks, the bloody red claw marks of the Le Diable. Beware Le Diable sitting at the bottom of the river ready to pull you down by your ankles and gobble you all up!’she would warn, half serious and half not, and I never forgot. I knew the power that her stories held; they were always more than just tall tales to entertain me.

  Dog started pacing up and down in the river barking up at me. No fish or food in there, a pebble won’t fill your belly. He’s caught a few fish in his time, Dog, one or two from the Long Pond which I had to prize from his mouth and throw back in. Maman always made sure those fish were safe and looked after. She called them her rainbows. They had a strange name, one I’d never heard before and couldn’t quite say, but the old man had been fond of them and so I showed them the respect they were due.

  Dog came to stand next to me, panting as quietly as he could in the heat. There was no one else around, but the bats would be out soon, the light was going fast. I looked across the river to the other side, wondering whether we’d have better luck over there, when I saw something. It was in the middle of the river close to the Island, half covered. I screwed my eyes up to make sure, but I knew what it was as soon as I saw it.

  It was a hand. A hand reaching up out of the water, pointed upright but not moving. The fingers were pressed together with no gaps, all closed up, and the palm was steady. It didn’t stir as the rapids flew around it. Stop, it said. STOP. Don’t come any nearer, don’t move an inch, just stand there. So I did – and then the light changed and it was gone.

  It was as if it had fallen back into the water or had never been there in the first place. I looked at Dog to see if he’d seen it, if he’d waited with me. He was chasing another fish, diving down into the water, his tail going back and forth swishing the river at our feet so that I couldn’t see the bottom any more.