The noises of a strange house rose up to him and he tried to make sense of them. Ronald could hear, he thought, all the televisions playing at once: they sounded like people fighting, but they were only televisions, he could be sure: talking and playing music, in the way they were meant to do. And there was some kind of motor running, further below.
The place was a terrible mess: his mother would never let things be that way at home, she would know better. Here, the only neat places were the kitchen and the best lounge. Still, the house was much bigger than where he lived and it had all those televisions—three—and a snooker table and a monster freezer full of hamburgers and chickens and half a lamb—he’d gone with Jim and looked—and they had a weird, huge stove here that Jim was allowed to cut wood for: the small bits, anyway. He supposed that the Dicksons must be rich: they just didn’t seem like rich people when you met them.
On his birthday watch it was nearly five o’clock, so at home his mother might be starting to get dinner ready. She might be making a cup of tea for herself before everything had to go on, that’s what he would guess. If he was there and it was all right, he would have milk with her in his glass, the two of them resting and getting peace, like you sometimes needed to. He must have to go soon.
He decided to put on the dressing gown, after all. It wasn’t a bad one, cosy: it smelt of different washing and the Dicksons: and Ronald wanted to curl up on his side in it for a while. Curling helped you to be comfortable and quiet: his mother had explained that to him. It was something that you only did at home, though, not with other people.
He pulled his arms up inside their borrowed sleeves until even his fingers were gone. It would be awful to have no hands. Ronald started to picture how he’d lose them both at once, maybe fighting off a dog, or something like that, maybe if he tried to stop somebody being hurt. Jim sneaked in without him noticing.
“Ha! Dreaming!” Jim pounced him flat on the bed and they rolled together, Ronald wondering how much he ought to struggle, before Jim leaped away again and stood. “Come on and I’ll show you something. Something mad as fuck, ken?”
“I, yes … Aye.” While Jim rummaged under the bed, Ronald licked the inside of his top lip—he must have banged it, because now it tasted hot and was beginning to be thicker than it should be. He could trace the faint imprint of his teeth. This didn’t trouble him, though—he needn’t think about it, not if he didn’t decide to.
“Here now.” Jim emerged with his schoolbag and held it up—which wasn’t that mad, really, but Ronald kept watching, anyway.
“Just what we need.” Jim bounded across to the window and turned the bag upside down, shook it empty and then looked over. Ronald could tell he was asking for a nod, or an aye, or just a shrug, perhaps, and that would be enough to make him start. Jim was going to do something awful, but it was going to be Ronald’s fault. And Ronald knew this shouldn’t matter, because nothing could, so he didn’t stop his head from drooping forward and then he smiled and made Jim fling up the window, jam it wide, and let the night fall in.
Ronald’s stomach twisted, but nicely: not like being scared, like badness climbing in to help him have fun.
Before the first cold could come and touch them, Jim lifted a slim, blue book: his homework register, the one you were never, ever allowed to lose: and then skimmed it sideways, far outside. They heard it drop in the snow—a faint, unforgivable landing. Jim picked a jotter next and it went the same way, between the snow gleam and the deep sky.
This time the word rose behind Ronald’s teeth and fitted perfectly, “Fuck.”
“Want a shot?” Jim offered the hard-backed grammar book they had to use: hundreds of pointless sentences inside it, each one built from mysterious pieces—verbs and nouns and punctuation marks. They didn’t matter at all.
Ronald knew that Jim would get in trouble, that the snow would ruin his books and that everyone who could was going to give him a row, at least a row. But then Ronald was taking the book and holding it and understanding what a fine thing it would be to kill it, drown it in snow, and Jim was being keen, straight at him, and believing that he was Mad Ronnie and that this would be something to please him—Jim was there, wanting to please him and keep up—when none of the boys like Jim had ever wanted that before.
And it wasn’t Ronald’s book, so it wouldn’t matter. He could be bad and it wouldn’t matter, not for him.
He leaned to look out of the window and saw, clear in the sparking, rolling white, the small dark patch that marked where the water was kept free at one edge of the frozen pond. Jim’s father had set a hose that ran water there and stopped the ice from closing to let his ducks go out and have a swim. The ducks were a rare breed, expensive.
The pond would be the place: the best, worst place. Anything that went in there would just disappear. It was a long way, but Ronnie could throw, he knew how to do that. At home, he would practise for hours in the garden, concentrating, imagining he was aiming at a face.
So now he dipped his eyelids and breathed in the way that an Indian yogi would. He fixed where the pond was and sort of stretched towards it in his mind, set a figure there, standing, helpless for him to hit. And then he curved back the whole of his arm. He breathed out. He flicked from his shoulder, along to his wrist. He meant it.
Then he opened his eyes and, along with Jim, watched the book spin across the light from the farmhouse windows. There was something beautiful about it, the shimmer of its edges, the clean flight. He couldn’t really see the last part of its journey, but then a final splash came and
“Fuck.” Jim studied him, solemn, and handed him a jotter, taking another for himself, letting Ronald help to ruin him.
The two of them threw together after that, fast and faster, whispering between their teeth and hearing and liking the impact of every book. And the ruler, the pencils, the rubber, the pencil case: all of them vanished in water and snow. Ronald was sure that he never missed the pond.
Nothing left to throw, they stood, leaning out, their breath drifting in hot clouds ahead of them, Ronald with the idea that everywhere around him was their secret now and a proof of who he was.
“Shut that bloody window. D’you want the flu?”
Jim’s father, enormous in the doorway, making them bump together when they flinched, Ronald’s stomach kicking, but “Ronnie—that’s your father on the telephone” was all that came next, so it must be OK—there was only a problem about the window, which Jim was shuddering down—they weren’t going to get into trouble for anything else.
Ronald half sprinted out under Mr. Dickson’s outstretched arm. “Easy now—the one down the stairs in the hall.”
And, after that, things got difficult, because Ronald was excited, was having this fantastic time, was getting strong, and his dad said that he could stay—there was no need to come home, because tomorrow was a Sunday and the Dicksons didn’t mind—he could have dinner with them and sleep in their house and still be with Jim in the morning and get picked up later and it would be fun. He could stay away.
“Could I?”
“If you want.”
Ronald couldn’t help it—he did want. Somewhere, he had this worry about staying: it pressed at the edge of his happiness, trying to get through: but, when he concentrated, it weakened, sank.
“Please, if I could, then. Yes.”
“All right.”
Easily done—then the run to Jim after and not feeling guilty, not feeling a thing, not even about the books.
Dinner with another whole family was awkward. The heat from Ronald’s newly dried clothes didn’t seem to have left them and by the end of the soup he felt sticky and small.
“So what do you think of the oil then, Ronnie? North Sea’s full of it, they say. Fancy a job on a rig, will you? There’ll be plenty by the time you’re ready.”
It was hard to tell if Mr. Dickson was joking. He never asked questions that made any sense—but the way that he said them made you think they should and that probab
ly you were stupid. “I … I don’t …” Ronnie was blushing, Jim’s two older brothers watching him like sheep-dogs and making it worse. “I can’t swim.”
“All the better. Canna swim in the North Sea, son—too cold. You’d be glad to drown quick there.”
Mrs. Dickson sucked in air between her teeth and Ronnie saw this make her husband frown.
“Bloody Yanks …” Mr. Dickson steered the subject slightly to one side: “Out of Vietnam and into Aberdeen. We’ll not see a penny, I doubt—it’ll all go back to Texas wi’ our oil.” Another suck of teeth came and Ronald ducked his head, not wanting the fight to start while he was here.
Mr. Dickson halted, stabbed at his chops, but then smiled. Mrs. Dickson nodded, satisfied, and Ronald’s scalp relaxed. Mr. Dickson rubbed his stubbly chin—he didn’t ever get a beard, but was never clean-shaven, either. Ronald’s father shaved each morning: whatever happened, however late he’d been awake—he kept tidy. And he didn’t ask Ronald about what he wanted to do.
“Well, I’ll tell you anyway, Ronnie, dinna be a fairmer.” The Dickson menfolk panted quietly with laughter at the thought of this—of Farmer Ronnie—while Mrs. Dickson pursed her lips and Ronald blushed harder, until Jim pinched him under the table, then winked when he turned to see why—we know who you are, though: Mad Ronnie: the two of us, book murderers, we know. Then Ronald started to laugh himself and dug in to finish his chop. Even though they had bones, Ronald liked chops.
The table eased then, and people told jokes that nobody minded and the pudding was chocolate cake and custard, which Ronald also really liked—his mother bought puddings now, she didn’t make them any more. Jim began to tell the story of the sledging, taking the risk of saying what they’d done, making everything that happened seem exciting and on purpose. One of the cats had slipped in and rubbed around Ronald’s shins, being friendly, so he tried to concentrate mostly on that, but still sweated inside the worst blushes yet.
A proper yogi wouldn’t have that problem and neither would Mad Ronnie: he’d been happy with all this. Ronald, though, couldn’t prevent the narrow slip of thought that he ought to be at home, that choosing to stay here had been a mistake.
“Look at you—you’re half asleep.” Mrs. Dickson leaned to squeeze his shoulder and gave him a soft, unsteady feeling. “That’s what you get for trying to break your neck all afternoon. We’ll put you in a bath and then it’s bed.” She was much uglier than his mother, but had comfortable eyes. He couldn’t imagine her crying.
“Yes, Mrs. Dickson.”
But then she squeezed again and looked at him as if he’d made her sad: “You’re a wee soul.” He hadn’t meant to upset her.
Mr. Dickson cleared his throat and came in loud, brisk, “He’s a grand lad—polite. First time we’ve had one of them here.”
Everyone smiled towards Ronald, but apart from Jim, every one of them looked as if they’d seen something in him that was unhappy, or maybe frightening. His head started to get tight.
The bath didn’t make him feel better: the soap wrong and odd-smelling and the towels scratchy. He got back into Jim’s dressing gown and walked into the cool of the corridor holding his folded clothes, pants hidden in the middle, and with a swimming feeling against his eyes. He thought he might be sick, but Mrs. Dickson was there waiting for him so he tried to look fine.
“Oh, you are tired.” She led him away from Jim’s room. “Which is a good thing.” The dressing gown straggled on the floor as he walked, as if he was very little. She kept talking, “We don’t want any riots in the night—we’re up at five, so we need our sleep,” and then opened a new door, let him edge into an empty sort of bedroom, everything brown, with a huge bed in it and a chair, nothing else. “But if you need anything, you come and say so—we’ll be in there.” She pointed, Ronald supposed, at another room somewhere along the hall where she might stay at night with Mr. Dickson, but he didn’t pay any attention. He wasn’t ever going to go and wake them up.
“Good-night then, Ronnie.” She kissed the top of his head, which he hadn’t expected. He couldn’t imagine her kissing Jim—unless she did it when no one else was there.
“Good night, Mrs. Dickson.”
It was a relief when she closed his door, because then he could leave his things on the chair, turn off the light, get into the bed and curl—that would mean he got peace.
The mattress made hollow, metal noises as he climbed in, the blankets heavy over him. He didn’t have pyjamas, but hadn’t liked to say. It would be OK, though—yogis never had them. Air scuttled in the radiator. Then he was by himself without a sound and there was nothing left to stop him knowing.
I made a mistake—a bad mistake—I shouldn’t have wanted to stay away—I shouldn’t have asked to.
It wasn’t my fault, though—it was theirs. I wanted to be away—not for a long time—just for a day—a quiet day.
It wasn’t my fault.
She’s there now, on her own.
His mother—with her best necklace of the red beads which were garnets and from his grandmother who was dead before he was born. His mother’s eyes—blue like his eyes, unless she was crying—and her smell, her warm, home smell—and the way she was the only one who called him Ronald so that was his name, his real name—and how she kissed him sometimes, on his eyes and then his mouth, which was the best—and the way she danced to the radio and made you not want to join in, only watch, because she was so happy, and you could just face her and breathe in being so happy and that was enough—and her hands, they were the nicest hands—and he’d left her alone. She was there with his father and no one to help and you couldn’t trust him. Ronald understood that and she didn’t, not until after. She was on her own there and something bad would be happening.
Please make her safe.
Fuck.
It was part of his head now, his word, the way it was his father’s.
Fuck.
Please make her safe.
He couldn’t ask the Dicksons to let him telephone, because he couldn’t tell them why. Anyway, if he did call, then his father would answer and lie, the way he always lied, and wouldn’t come to fetch him, not tonight.
We could run away, stay somewhere else together, stay with the Dicksons, or anywhere. We could run. I know how to do it, I know what we’d take.
Ronald wasn’t strong—he couldn’t break the door when his father locked it—Ronald couldn’t hit him, not enough. When he shouted sometimes, inhaled like a yogi, full into his chest until it hurt and then screamed out and kept on, kept on until he couldn’t hear it but it was there, like somebody holding him in the throat—sometimes then his father would stop. He would stare hard at Ronald, but then he would leave, drive somewhere and not come back until it was morning. Ronald could make him go, but he always came back.
If she went with me, we’d be us together, we’d be all right. She should let me take her. She should fucking let me.
“Hey, Ronnie …”
Jim closed the door and bare-footed softly to the bed.
“Hey, Ronnie.”
Ronald swallowed and his voice came out tiny. “Yes.” The sheet tightened across him as Jim sat on the bed.
“The books—they’ll be fucked, eh? No use.” Jim sniffed.
“Uh hu.”
“I thought so.”
The dark, quiet nudged in at them. Jim sniffed again, “Mrs. Jepson hates me—fucking cow.”
This was the way things went. Ronald would like someone and then he’d make them sad. He never was able to hurt anyone he hated. His badness never came to him at the right time.
He tried to be friendly for Jim, now the damage was done. “She can’t hate you—teachers aren’t allowed.”
“She fucking does. And I’ll no have any books on Monday. No homework.”
“Say you lost them.”
“All of them?”
“Aye.”
“She’ll think I’m at it. She’ll tell the old dear.”
Ronald c
ouldn’t manage another lie. “Probably.”
“I’m fucked.”
Jim lay back, maybe crying—Ronald hadn’t thought he could and wanted to be sad with him, but it didn’t work. He’d wanted to cry when he thought of his mother, but hadn’t been able to then, either. There was something wrong with him. “You could tell Mrs. Jepson I helped …” He didn’t completely mean this, but he ought to be in trouble for something: he would deserve it.
Jim let him get away with just the offer. “She’d never believe that. You don’t do anything.” He sounded better now, but a bit angry.
“I do things … I do. She just doesn’t notice.”
“If I told her you’d helped, she’d have an eppie—at me.” Jim stopped. There were sputtering noises, little giggling shakes of the bed, “How’s this—I could give her a heart attack. I could tell her I’d thrown all the fucking books out the fucking window and didn’t care, tell her to fuck herself—she’d fucking die.” He snorted a muffled laugh. “How would that be, eh?” Jim didn’t stay sad long, not ever.
Ronald thought Mrs. Jepson was nice. “I don’t know …” She let him stay late and help her tidy things.
“Ach, I don’t care. I’ll be on the farm, working, as soon as I’m sixteen. Or I could join the army—the paras, eh? Out the back of a plane, wherever you like.”
Ronald pictured the books flying, the beautiful skim of them, the feel of the badness when it belonged to him. “It was good, throwing them. Wasn’t it.”
“Too right.” Jim stretched. “It was Mad Ronnie, that. Mad Ronnie.” He lay still and then began to grunt, almost snoring.
At first Ronald thought he was pretending to be asleep, “Jim,” but then his breathing drifted, “Jim,” and he’d gone.
So the touch of the house he’d escaped snapped shut against Ronald, came and claimed him, and he wasn’t Mad Ronnie any more, was only himself and couldn’t fight it.
Fuck her. Fuck her.
We don’t have to stay, we can’t have to stay.
He should love her. He did love her. She maybe didn’t love him.
Indelible Acts Page 7