Clay

by David Almond

  “Mebbe a bit earlier. You know: war, concentration camps, gas ovens, atom bomb, all that stuff. Enough to drive anybody away.”

  I touch the creature’s cheek. I hear its voice inside me.

  I am yours, Master. Tell me what to do.

  Stephen laughs. He points into the sky. Beyond the window in the roof it is clear and unblemished blue.

  “Remember when they used to tell us God was in the sky, Davie? You ever seen him up there?” He touches his chest. “Remember when they used to say you’d find him in your heart? You ever found him there? Ever? Truly? He ever answer any of your prayers?”

  I shrug. I lean on the creature.

  “And in the church? You ever see him wandering there beside you on the altar?”

  “But…,” I say.

  “He’s gone. There’s just emptiness, Davie. Emptiness, silence, nowtness, going on forever. Mebbe he was here in the past, but these days, man, it’s all a bliddy joke.”

  “But the power of the Lord. The body and the blood. You said we needed them.”

  “Aye, I did say that.” He comes in close. He breathes on me. The three of us—Stephen, me, Clay—are tight together in the shadows. “But it was a lie, Davie.”

  “A lie?”

  “That’s right. Those things you stole were just stupid trashy knickknacks. But I reckoned you needed them, Davie. I reckoned they’d help you to believe in what we were about to do. But the things themselves? They were nowt, Davie. The power that made this thing was yours and mine, and nowt to do with God.”

  He grins, face almost pressing against mine.

  “God’s gone,” he says. “We’re the ones with power now. There’s nowt in the world but us.”

  I hear Clay.

  Master, tell me what to do.

  “But the angel,” I say.

  “What angel?”

  “The angel on the beach at Whitley Bay. The angel that…”

  “Ahahahahahaha! Did you believe that? Ahahahahaha!”

  I stare at him. He rubs the tears of laughter from his eyes.

  “You’re worse than I thought, Davie,” he says. “I bliddy made that up as well.”

  “But she—”

  “You’re a bliddy wonder, Davie. What an innocent.”

  Master! What shall I do?

  “Get him, Clay,” I whisper. The monster opens its eyes. I feel the life in it. “Do something,” I say. It turns to Stephen. It raises its hands. “Hurt the bastard!” I say.

  And Clay does step forward, and Stephen does back away, but he’s still smiling. He raises his own hand and says, “Stop,” and Clay is motionless.

  “See?” says Stephen. “You wouldn’t harm your maker, would you, Clay?”

  He grins at me.

  “You wouldn’t even harm Martin Mould, would you, Clay?”

  “Martin Mould?” I whisper.

  “Martin Mould, Davie. Will I tell you what really happened to your dear departed Martin Mould?”

  I lick my lips. I stare into Stephen’s eyes.

  “He fell,” I say. “The police said that. Skinner and Poke said that.”

  “Aye. Hahahaha! And I said that, didn’t I, Davie? Well, open your lugs, cos I’m going to tell you the real truth—and the funny thing is, nobody but you will ever think that the truth could possibly be true.”

  fifteen

  “You ran away, Davie. It’s understandable, man. You didn’t expect nowt to happen, did you? Not really. Or mebbe you did expect something to happen, but once it started it was all a bit too much for you. So you cleared off. Me, I was ready for it. I’ve been getting ready for this for years. I remember when I was little I told my mam, I’m going to be a god when I grow up. She used to laugh. A devil, more like, she used to say. And she used to kiss my cheek. Funny little boy, she used to say. Funny little Stevie. Ha! Probably it was way back then she started heading round the twist. What d’you think, Davie?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Dunno? But then, how could you know? You and me’s from different worlds, Davie. There’s no way a good lad like you wanted to be like God. And no way a lovely mam like yours had the makings of madness in her. D’you ever think your mam was mental, Davie?”

  I shake my head.

  “Exactly, Davie.” Then he watches me in silence for a while. “D’you ever think you was mental, Davie?”

  I shake my head; then I stop. I look at Stephen, at Clay, at the empty sky, and the events of the last days move in me and in the shadows like ghosts and dreams. I want to run away again, to run back home, to scream. Stephen answers his own question for me.

  “Not till now, eh, Davie? Not till God was gone and Stephen Rose and Clay was on the scene. Never mind. The worry’ll pass. Haha!”

  He pokes me gently in the chest.

  “Or mebbe it won’t,” he says. “Mebbe it’ll be there forever and ever and ever and…And mebbe on your deathbed you’ll be asking yourself, ‘Did I go crackers when Stephen Rose arrived? Has everything since then just been a daft illusion?’”

  I find that I’m leaning close to Clay, that my shoulder rests against his chest.

  “Anyway, you ran away,” says Stephen. “I don’t blame you. You just did what God did, just a bit quicker. You didn’t wait for time to pass and for your creature to start making mayhem. One look was enough for you, eh? ‘I’m off! I’m back to me bed!’”

  He smiles.

  “Stand back,” he says to Clay, and Clay straightens up and backs into the shadows. Stephen pats his arm. “That’s right,” he says. “Good lad. Stand still now.”

  I follow Clay further into the shadows. He is cold, but he moves his arm to accommodate me, like he’s half holding me.

  Lean on me, Master. Tell me what to do.

  “By the way,” says Stephen. “I cleared up after you. Picked your priest’s shift out of them thorn trees. Brought it back here. Just as well, eh? Could have been a bit of evidence for them.”

  “Evidence for what?”

  “Well, if they ever get to trying to implicate you in what happened.”

  He laughs.

  “Don’t worry, man,” he says. “You were in your bed that night, same as I was. The dog? That must’ve been Mouldy or some other nutter out in the middle of the night. Clay monster? Barmy. And Mouldy? Well, he fell, didn’t he? He must have. Except he didn’t fall, Davie.”

  He smiles. Clay puts his other arm across my chest.

  Lean on me, Master.

  Stephen watches us.

  “Ahhh,” he says. “That’s nice.”

  I feel Clay’s arms holding me.

  “He didn’t fall?” I whisper.

  “No,” says Stephen. “You just rest there in your lad’s arms and I’ll tell you how it was….

  “I heard you splashing and crashing away, running back to your mam and dad and your bed. And here’s our creature lifting hisself off the cave floor like he’s saying, ‘Here I am, Master. What do you want me to do?’ And he stands up and he’s bliddy beautiful, so I think, Well, let’s just go for a walk and get to know each other and see what’s what. So we set off wandering like a couple of merry bairns. And it’s such a lovely night. Did you notice that, Davie? That great big shining moon and that lovely clear sky? But mebbe you were too distracted.

  “So we leave the cave and the quarry and we’re in the garden and I’m saying, ‘Stop,’ ‘Walk,’ ‘Turn,’ and teaching him all the stuff like that and I can’t believe it’s all happening, but it is. And time’s passing and morning’s not too far away and I’m starting to think of tomorrow and how I’m going to hide the bugger. Then there’s footsteps in the garden. ‘Stop,’ I say. ‘In here,’ I say. And we get in under a tree and I’m looking out, and there he is. Mouldy. I can’t believe it. But it’s true. That’s his great big ugly silhouette. That’s him, stamping through the long grass and the weeds, coming straight towards me. And no, I can’t believe my bliddy luck.” He pauses and ponders. “Funny how Mouldy always seemed to be around
just when I needed him. Like, remember how he drove you to me door that day?”

  “Aye,” I answer.

  “Aye. Ha, it’s nearly like there was a purpose to him. Funny, eh…? Anyway, there he is. He cannot see us, of course. He would’ve passed straight by. But like I say, it’s destiny. So I step out from under the tree and I says, ‘Hiya, Mouldy.’ He nearly drops dead but then he’s back to being hard as nails again. ‘Who’s there?’ he grunts. ‘Me,’ I say. ‘Stephen Rose.’ And I see his eyes glittering in the moonlight. ‘Stephen bliddy Rose,’ he growls, and he starts coming at me and saying what he’s going to do to me. ‘Oh,’ I say, ‘and there’s my monster as well,’ and I turn around. ‘Howay out here,’ I say, and here comes this feller out from under the tree, and Mouldy nearly drops dead for a second time….

  “I’ll give him this, your Martin Mould—he doesn’t turn and run like ninety-nine-point-nine percent would. He stands his ground, puts his fists up. Mebbe Martin Mould really was hard as nails. But mebbe thick as muck is a better definition….

  “‘This is our enemy,’ I say to Clay, then I say, ‘You got to destroy our enemy,’ and Mr. Clay is after Mr. Mould. Of course, Mouldy’s not panicking and running and screaming. That’d be far too chicken for a big hard lad like him. He’s backing off, backing off. And our lad’s not much of a runner if the truth be told. But he’s looking pretty determined, and he’s going forward. ‘Kill,’ I say. ‘Kill the enemy. Kill! Kill!’ And I’m laughing at Mouldy’s face that’s white as death beneath the moon. And pretty soon he’s backed as far as he can go. He’s at the quarry’s edge and by now even hard-as-nails Mouldy is bliddy petrified and he cannot move an inch. ‘What is it?’ he whispers. ‘It’s me monster,’ I say. ‘Isn’t he lovely?’ I say. ‘Why don’t you say hello?’ I say. I wait a bit, but Mouldy says nowt. Just sort of jabbers and whimpers. ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Now my monster’s going to kill you.’ And I say to Clay, ‘Kill him! Shove him over!’”

  Stephen pauses. He reaches up and strokes Clay’s cheek.

  “Poor lad,” says Stephen. “It was so confusing for you, wasn’t it, Clay? Me going, ‘Kill! Kill! Kill!’ and Mouldy like a little boy going, ‘Don’t! Please don’t!’ Ha. That’s mebbe what comes of having two makers. If you’d just been mine, I doubt you would’ve hesitated. But there’s too much of the Davie in you….”

  I lean on Clay.

  “He didn’t do it?” I say.

  “He couldn’t. Not that it mattered. By now, Mouldy’s a whimpering wreck. I put my hand in the middle of his chest. I tell him, ‘This is for Davie and his mate.’”

  “For Davie and his mate?” I gasp.

  “Aye, Davie. Of course. Then I shove, and over he goes like a little kitten. A bump, a yell, a crash. Bye-bye, Mouldy.”

  He smiles at my silence. I close my eyes. I want to think nothing, to feel nothing.

  “And me and Clay,” says Stephen, “we wander back here in time for morning.”

  He laughs.

  “We’ll train him up, eh? Destroy!”

  I open my eyes. There’s another angel in Clay’s fist. He crushes it and the fragments and dust crumble over me.

  “See?” says Stephen. “He’ll soon get the idea. Destroy, Clay! Hahaha!”

  sixteen

  The brilliance in the sky has gone. The distinction between the shaft of light and the shadowy corners is fading. I stand with Clay in a kind of twilight. He holds me. I lean on this impossible creature. I feel the cold strength in him and I want to stay here with him. I don’t want to go out into the cold outside, into the cold truth of Mouldy’s death and of my part in it. I don’t want to go back into the truth of parents and policemen and priests. It’s so alien out there. Geordie, Maria, Prat Parker, they’re like characters in a story, beings from another world.

  Stephen smiles. He passes his hand before my eyes. He knows what’s going on inside.

  “It used to be so easy, Davie, didn’t it?” he says. “And now such weird things has come to pass. And mebbe the weirdest thing of all is this—the only one that understands you now is me, Stephen Rose.”

  He pats my shoulder, pats Clay.

  “Don’t let it bother you,” he says. “Howay, let’s go inside. Let’s have some jam and bread and settle you down before you go back home again. Clay, lie down and do nowt else till me and Davie tell you.”

  Clay unfolds his arms from me. He lies flat on the floor alongside the shed wall. I crouch beside him, touch him. Nothing in him. He’s nothing but clay in the figure of a man.

  We leave the shed and walk through the channel in the long grass towards Crazy’s kitchen. Stephen ushers me inside. He goes into the other room. I hear his words: “Five, four, three, two, one, wake up, Mary!” and soon she’s with him in the doorway.

  “It’s the good altar boy,” says Stephen.

  “Oh, aye,” says Mary. “Would you like some jam and bread?”

  I don’t reply. She hacks at a loaf for a moment.

  “I must have fell asleep again,” she says. “So much sleeping and waking these days, I cannot hardly tell what’s going on.”

  “You need your rest, Aunty Mary,” says Stephen.

  “That’s true,” she answers. “And in sleep the angels come with all their messages and tales, so mebbe it’s a blessing.”

  She hacks again.

  “You ever see an angel, son?” she says.

  I shake my head.

  “You ever see a monster?”

  I shake my head.

  “I seen one in—” she says.

  “Aunty Mary!” says Stephen.

  “Aye, son?”

  “I told you. There’s no monsters.”

  “No monsters?”

  He passes his hand before her eyes.

  “There’s no bliddy monsters,” he says. “Is there?”

  “Is there what?” she says.

  “Is there any monsters, Aunty Mary?”

  She giggles.

  “Monsters?” she says. “Course there’s no monsters.”

  She spreads margarine, then jam on thick slices of bread.

  “But there is angels,” she says.

  “Aye,” says Stephen. “There is angels.”

  “And they’re lovely.”

  “Aye. They’re lovely.”

  She pours tea for me, shoves jam and bread at me.

  “Eat,” she says. “Eat and drink.”

  I cannot.

  “You must,” she tells me. “This is the good food of the Lord.”

  She watches as I nibble at a crust, then stretches across and rests two fingers on my brow. Stephen laughs and shoves her hand away from me, but for the moment that her cold dry fingertips rest upon my skin, I feel the comfort in them. I look into her crazy eyes and try to see through the craziness to what might lie behind. She blinks.

  “Aunty Mary!” commands Stephen.

  She stops. I stand up. Stephen guides me to the door.

  “You got to act like everything is normal.” he says “We got great things to do together, you and me and Clay.” He passes his hand before my eyes.

  “You got to keep thinking of him,” he says. “Keep him existing in your mind. Only then can he keep existing in the world. And stay calm.”

  I’m more than calm. I’m dead still, stupefied, like I myself have become a thing of clay. I stand there in the doorway, useless, as if I’m waiting like Clay for Stephen’s command.

  “Go home now, Davie,” he says.

  I nod. He opens the door.

  “And come back tomorrow,” he says.

  I nod. I step out.

  “That’s right,” he tells me. “Good lad, Davie.”

  He pushes me gently. I move forward. I breathe the outside air. Very soon I see Maria.

  seventeen

  By now it’s like I’ve stopped being me. It’s like I’ve got no will, no purpose, like something’s moving me through the world, like every footstep is controlled by something far beyond me. The sparrow
hawk’s wheeling in the white sky over Braddock’s garden. Trees are black etches, houses are looming walls. The bypass is a distant groaning engine. Maria’s on a bench, like something not alive, like a pretty white-faced puppet left there on the bright green wooden slats above the bright green blades of grass. I’m passing her by when she rises from the bench. Her mouth opens and some words come out but I don’t know what they are. She grabs my shoulder and tugs at me. Her white face looms close.

  “What’s happening?” she hisses.

  I try to speak but nothing comes out.

  She shakes me. She says my name.

  “All that stuff they say about you and Stephen Rose,” she says. “I know it’s rubbish. But I know there’s something more, Davie.”

  I grunt, stutter, try to speak.

  “I’ll believe anything, Davie. Tell me.”

  “Clay lives,” I say at last.

  I take her hands.

  “What do you mean?” she says.

  I grip her hands.

  “Clay—Clay lives,” I stammer. “Clay moves. We made him, Maria.”

  “Him?”

  “Him. And he…”

  “He what, Davie?”

  I peer into her trusting eyes.

  “Nothing,” I whisper.

  “Can’t tell you,” I whisper.

  “Got to go,” I whisper.

  I drop her hands. I move away. She catches me up. She kisses me.

  “You can tell me anything,” she says. “I’ll believe anything.”

  She lets me go. Sometimes I hear her behind me as I walk. I move on through the familiar streets and lanes, and with every footstep they become stranger to me.

  eighteen

  And at home they watch me enter, and my mother says I’m late and I lower my head and tell her I’m sorry. And my father looks out through the window and he sees a girl out there and he says, “Aha! So that’s the reason!” And they both smile. And I do too. And the girl departs. And we eat a meal together and they do not question me too much, and when they do I am able to grunt replies that appear to satisfy them. And I go to my room and open a book and place it on a table below my eyes and I stare into it but see nowt in it and there is nowt in my mind and the evening passes by and darkness comes on and I am called down to meet with my parents again and we drink warm liquids and say our goodnights and I am returned to my room and I lie on my bed and the nowtness deepens and the darkness deepens, and I am truly not myself, I am truly gone, I have disappeared from the world, no thoughts no feelings no sensations no dreams, just nowt nowt nowt nowt, and then at last from all the nowtness comes the voice.