by David Almond
“You have kynd & understanding eyes,” she says. “I think you hav had trubbls of yor own, Aynjel.”
I turn my eyes down.
“I hav” I wisper. “Meny trubbls. But our trubbls can be overcum.”
“Yes” she ansers. “Yes. With fortichood & prare Im sure they can. But its so hard. Isnt it so hard?”
“Yes Cristina,” I say. “But my thorts ar with you both.”
“Thank you Aynjel. O thank you.”
Then Missus Malone is at ther side. She takes Cristinas arm and leads them both away.
Soon arl the bereaved ar gon. I hear Missuss Malone turning the keys & locking the locks & coming bak to me.
“I am very pleesd with you William,” she says. “You treeted that lady & that girl very nisely.”
“Thank you, Missus Malone.”
She puts sum money into the draw in the shining tabl.
“A pity ther was no poseshun this tym,” she says. “But thers no rush. We hav arl the time in the world for that.”
She pors a wisky.
“But try wons mor for me” she says. “Close yor eyes and stare into the dark. Lissen for a voys that is swete that is lyk a little birds.”
I close my eyes & look into the dark.
“Lissen for my dorter,” says Missus Malone. “Lissen for my Daisy. Is ther enything?”
She thinks Im lookin & lissenin for her dorter wen realy Im lookin & lissening for my Dad. I scan the darkness thats in my hed & the darkness that seems to extend from it to evrywer. I see weard wirling lites in the dark & shiftin shados & fragments of memries & dreams. I try to see his blak clothes agenst the blak & to see his blue eyes shining. I consentrate. Insyd the silens of myself I carl owt, “Dad where are you Dad? Its me! It’s Billy yor son!” But of cors I see nothin & of cors ther is no anser.
I open my eyes agen.
“No” I tel Missus Malone. “Thers just silens in the relms of darkness.”
She siys.
“But it wil cum, William, now that the gateways hav bene opend by the planshet. Be sertan of it.”
She swigs the wisky.
“Arl things brite & byutiful,” she sings. “Arl creechers grate & . . .”
Then she stops.
“So she telt you abowt the priest Wilfred comin isyd her?”
“Yes. She telt me thats how bodys make other bodys.”
“Did she now?”
“Yes. So sumbody must hav cum inside you to mayk yor dorter Daisy.”
“The bluddy bugger Joe,” she says. “Seems to me yor lernin the ways of the world qwiyt qwik, William Dean.”
Then Mams knockin shyly at the dore & then Im headin home with her throu the dusk.
“It went wel?” she says.
“Yes. And wil go better now that the gateways hav been opend by the planshet.”
Its as wer warkin home that day throu the Blinkbonny dusk that we come agen upon the artist Elizabeth. Thers a shattad house with a shattad windo glowing softly in it. I go to it & look into it as I hav lookd throu such a windo meny times befor. Shes crowching on the flor insyd. A fyr burns befor her in the grate & her fase apears golden. She turns & we meet each others eye. She holds up her hand & asks me to wate & comes to me with a book in her hand.
We regard each other through the windos jagged hole.
“What gos on in ther?” she says.
“In where?”
“In Missus A Malones.”
“We look for the dead” I say.
“And what do you see?”
“Nothing.”
I find Im smiling.
“Absolootly bugger all,” I say.
She opens the book & tilts it & carefuly gives it throu the vishus poynts of glass. I take it from her & see a pitcher of 2 pepl warking away. Mam smyls. Its us.
“And thers mor of you,” says Elizabeth.
She trys to reech throu to show me but the hole is too narro & the glass too sharp.
“Turn the pajes” she says. “Look.”
I turn the pajes & I see the peple & the creechers & the buildings & the ruwins of Blinkbonny. And I see a figur that she says is me.
“I dont no why I do it,” she says. “But I do it as if I am driven to do it. And I try to make the things I draw seem byutiful. Look. Even that treshur hunter seems byutiful to me. Look at the way he bends towards the erth & the shayp he makes agenst the sky. And look. The butcher Mr McCaufrey. How grand he is how broad how muscula. And those elegant birds hiy up in the wite emptiness of an emty payj.”
She holds owt her hand. I angl the book and pass it bak to her.
“And I dont no either why I show you & why I tel you,” she says. “But I do thats all.”
Shes dark agenst the fire within as I must be dark agenst the fiery sky. We watch each other for a moment before Mam & me wark on.
Now I look bak & I rite of her & it is like looking throu the jagged glass agen.
I rite her naym as she drew me.
Elizabeth. Elizabeth.
Time passes & I gro in happines & freedom. I wark with Mam from hous to hous for hairdressin. I lern abowt her ladies that liv in littl shady flats & ruind houses with fotos of long gon famlys arownd them with payntings of grene & flowery sunlit plases on the walls. I sit on sofas sippin joos or nibblin a biscut or suckin a swete wile Mam brushes & cuts & cowms & washes & natters & gossips & wispers with them. I lern abowt the ins & owts of styles & rinses & cuts & blowdrys & perms & hiylites & straytenin.
We keep seeing the artist Elizabeth. We see the remants of her scratchd drawings in the dust & how ther blown away by wind & time. We see the pitchers she sctratches into warls — pitchers of pepl holding hands & pepl in groops & pepl with ther arms arownd each other. One day she runs to us and gives us drawings of ourselvs that shes rippd owt from her book. We put them on our kitchen walls.
She says that 1 day soon she wants to leev Blinkbonny and return to the life of wandering that she had befor. But she keeps on staying staying.
My hair grows & grows wich shows as Yankovya Yakobowska said that time is passing & that evrything is real. Hair falls over my ears acros my cheke curls down acros my nek. Many evenings I sit on the flor at Mams fete wile she trims the ends & brushes & says how byutiful it is & how deliytful it is to hav a boy that has such hair. She stops herself.
“Boy?” she says. “Soon it wil be time to say yung man. Soon I will be carling you William in the way of Missus Malone.”
“Call me Billy always,” I say.
And I tilt my hed towards her & invite her to trim & brush agen to perform these acts of love & peese.
I grow stronger day by day & week by week. I move at ease across the rubbl & dust. The mussls in my legs & arms gro harder tuffer. Mr McCaufrey sqeezes them & tels me wat a fyn strong lad I am becomin. He says I am my fathers son — strong & strate & hansom — but unlike my father I hav hansomness insyd as wel as owt.
“Mebbe its not up to me to say such things,” he says. “But he led us astray. He enchanted & deceevd us. He said he cud see to the goodness at the heart. But he did not let us see the wickednes of his own.”
“Is he dead Mr McCaufrey?” I ask.
“Mebbe beter if he is, Billy. Its sertanly beter if you can think he is & if you forget him. And I shudnt say that neither but I do.”
In his shop he explayns how to slice open the bely of a sheep & how to slyd its liver owt. He shows me pitchers in a book about how to take the brane of a cow owt from its skull. He tels me abowt drainin blud from a pig & how to stir it up & spice it to make blak puddin. He says that in the past he wud hav had the reel bodys & bones & skeletons of beests for me to work upon but the time of things like thats long long gon but he tels me of it all to pass on the nowledj of it to kepe it still alive.
Ther ar stil sum simpl things that we can do togetha. I chop up stakes with him. I sqwosh sossij meate into sossij skins & make minse in minsers. I slyce skin from flesh & flesh from bone. I crack bones open & draw owt marro from them.
I carv thin sliyses of ham & bacon & tung.
And we stand close to each other & work together & imajin & dreme together & he tels me his tayls & thorts of beests and the world. As we do this I find myself thinking that this is what it mite be to hav a proper father & I am sertan that Mr McCaufrey wunders is this how it wud be to hav a son.
I also rite ther in the butchers shop. I rest paper on his chopping bord and rite sentenses that he corects. I try to think bak & remember the corecshons now.
The lam is in the medo.
The lamb is in the meadow.
The carf is in the feeld.
The calf is in the field.
I tel him that the way to rite things rite often seems wearder than the way to rite them rong. We laff a lot at this.
Sossij, I rite.
Sausage, he corects me.
Tung.
Tongue.
Brane.
Brain.
Hart.
Heart.
1 day as we laff he suddenly takes me in his arms.
“I thort Id lost you,” he says. “Even befor I fownd you I thort Id lost you.”
“Hows that Mr McCaufrey.”
“I saw yor Mammy growing. I new a bairn was in her. It didnt mater whoos it was. Sum pepl turnd away from her & carld her arl sorts of things. But she was just a lass a lovely lass & now a lovely bairn was in her too. And then the boms came & she said that you wer dead.”
He holds me tiyter.
“And arl that time I spent in gowing to her, ther you wer just beyond the warl — a littl beating heart of goodness in all this sensless waste. Stay with us Billy. Gro strong. Protect yorself.”
Mr McCaufrey continues to teach me abowt the byuty & the goodness & the honesty of beests. No beest would ever bom another beest. No beest wud ever charm another to leed it astray. No beest wud beleev in a thing like Paradiys or a plays like Hell. No beest wud be an enchanter or a deceever.
He says I hav a butchers fingas & a butchers tuch & that Im skilld in the ways of the butchers nife.
1 day he presents me with a nife of my own. Ther ar tears in his eyes. He says his own father did this for him 1 day long long ago.
“Kepe it sharp,” he tells me. “Keep it keen. The beest deserves the finest of attenshun even after death.”
“Yes Mr McCaufrey” I anser and almost find myself saying, “Yes Dad.”
“But you must fynd yor own way Billy” he says. “Maybe you wil use the nife for other things. For maybe the time of butchery is gon & McCaufrey is the last of the butchers & after me ther wil be no mor. The world is a plays of slorter & eech of us has playd our part. But mebbe that will soon be over. Mebbe the beests will be free at last to fynd ther paradys in the meadows & the fields of this wundros erth. That seems corect. That seems how things in the end must be.”
The erth keeps givin up mor to Mam & me.
Here are some of the fragments we find.
Harf of Saynt Patriks hed with the halo stil attachd.
Saynt Fransis chin and beard.
A bit of Saynt Jyles gammy leg.
An arra that must of been stuk in Saynt Sebastyin.
Lots of halo bits & aynjels fethers.
Lodes of other unknown bits an peeces that even my mother cudnt explane.
We glue & clag the bits together as best we can. We mix Blinkbonny dust with water to make clay and we fill the holes in the bodies with it. We use wyr & string to bind & stitch & tie. She finds aynshent paynts from when she was a childe & we paynt ova the craks & the scratches & scrayps.
We get better at maykin & mendin & payntin.
Mam gets betta at remembering how things wer bak in the erly days & how 1 bit matchd up with anotha bit & that bit with anotha.
She tells me storys as we work, storys that ar wonderful & that make no propa sens to me. She tels me for instans how Saynt Patrik chasd every snayk owt of Iland — how Saynt Simon livd in a hut with no food then spent yers arl alone & not sleeping on top of a grate pilar — how Saynte Cathrin was broke on a weel & had her hed choppd off — how Saynte Jorj plunjd his lans into the dragon — how Saynte Cuthbert warkd with aynjels on the holy iland.
She says no she isnt shur if thees things reely truly happend but shes shur they tell sum kind of truth. She grins. Mebbe the truth they show is that pepl can be led to beleev all kinds of styoopid lies.
She says that sayntes wer peple just like us but they had a deeper power & holynes in them. They sufferd grate pane and grate distress. They found joy in the darkest and most terribl of things. They cud see Hevan in the most dredful places & they cud see God inside the most awful folk. I ask her if sayntes wark the erth today & she tels me no. Ther time was way bak in the past.
We put labels on the statews like she said there had been labels in the church. We fill the kichen with them. The angel dangls down from a hook abuv the kitchin tabl. Thers a crusifix naled to the dore. Sante Peta with his grate long beard stands in the horlway. A tiny effijy of the Verjin Mary is on the windosil smiling at us with her gentil tenda eyes.
Stil no hed of Jesus. Stil we look. We no that if we find it we wil hav finishd our work & our happynes wil be compleat.
The yer of fragments — fragments of statew fragments of time fragments of tales — begins to darken & come to an end. Frost gliters like stars on the erth in the Blinkbonny nite. Ice hardens the dust & welds it to the rubbl & we can discover & lift no mor. I wake each morning to byutiful flowers of ice on the crackd windo that mask the heaps of stones outside.
I wark. I crunch & slip & slide. I wer the toobig coat & toobig hat. I tiyten the blakfrinjd scarf at my throte. Smoke from fires drifts from chimneys & throu crackd roofs & broken warls. Sometyms I stand & look down to the sity & see smoke rising ther too & ther is no way to no if it rises from the fires of warmth or the fires of war.
Beyond the sity & abuv the sea the enjins of destruchson continue to fly & to do ther dredful work.
We feed the birds with bred & sausage fat.
Mr McCaufrey gives us meat to carry to Mams customas.
The bereaved stil come to Missus Malones. They still serch for ther lost loves with the mysteryous planshet. They stil gayz at me with yerning in ther eyes. Ther voyses waver with fere & chatter with cold. I do not become possessd. I speak kindly to the bereaved. I hold ther hands & stare into ther eyes. I close my eyes. I see nothing hear nothing. I do not see Dad. All is empty. I do not become possessd.
A grate silent snowstorm comes. It continues meny days and meny nites & leevs a deep wite covering upon the ruwins. In the distans the mowntans ar wite. The moors are wite. The distant sea is black. At nite the lite turns ther & turns & turns. We shiver Mam and I. We tel each other that wen the sun comes bak we wil wark together past the sity to the iland. Even as we say it we wunder if we wil. We burn broken timbers from the broken houses & we wer our coats inside & sit together close to keep each other warm.
The snow pawses for a wile & the sun shines brite and we see that all of this is very byutiful. Our feet make no sownd upon the snow. We see no crarling creechers. We see no tiny plants. We see the traks of pepl in the snow like weard unreadabl sentenses that wind bak & forth across Blinkbonny. We see the byutiful jagged footmarks of the birds. Our breath drifts sloly in the ded stil isy air. Our voyses seem to go nower.
1 morning we wark to Yankovya Yakubowska & find that she is gon. She is lying in her bed ded stil. Mam weeps. We bring Missus Malone who cleans Yankovyas body & prepares it for the erth. Mam cowms her hair a final time. We rap her in blankets & bring Mr McCaufrey to carry her. He carries her throu farling snow & we follow him in a littl proseshon – me my mam and Missus Malone & then a littl way behind is the artist Elizabeth.
Mr McCaufrey carrys Yankovya to what he says is 1 of Blinkbonnys deepest darkest holes. He carrys her down into what was wons a deep deep selar & carrys her further to what he says is an aynshent casm far beneeth.
We on the surfas sing All things brite & byutiful.
The sno
w stops the sun shines the birds sing.
Mr McCaufrey cums out of the erth agen.
We wark homeward across the gleeming snow throu what apears to be a wite wite afterlife.
Elizabeth stands still & draws us as we wark past her.
“Maybe Yankovya wil return to us throu the planshet,” says Missus Malone.
“Maybe” I say.
I no that she wil not.
Next day we selebrate the birth of Jesus in our kitchen. We say happy birthday to our hedless Jesus. Missus Malone brings cake. Mr McCaufrey brings a leg of lamb. We see Elizabth owtside like shes wayting to be let in. I go to the dor and carl her in.
As we eat the snow farls & farls & farls as if it wil farl forever mor.
“Maybe this is the yer that the world stops turning,” says Missus Malone. “Maybe this is the yer that winter never ends.”
But it is not that yer. The byutiful winter softens & melts. The spring starts coming bak.
1 aftanoon wer warkin home with a bag of bits in our hands & we hear footsteps behynd us. Wen we turn thers nothin. We wark on & the footsteps cum agen & we tern agen.
Its that treasure hunter.
“Tayk no noatis,” hisses Mam.
We wark on.
“Veronica!” cums a voys.
We keep on warkin.
“Hairdresser!” he says.
We keep on warking.
“Ar you ignorin me, pet?” cums the voys agen. “Veronica Id like to be introdusd to yor lad.”
Mam grips my hand ded tiyt.
Rattl rattl crunch goes the rubbl as we try to hurry home.
Rattl crunch as the man cums nearer & nearer.
“Stop a wile,” he hisses wen hes rite behiynd us.
“Stop a wile,” he hisses wen hes got me by the colla.
“Just stop a wile,” he hisses wen Mams beggin him to let me go.
He grins. He licks his lips.
“Ive workd sumthin owt,” he says. “Ive workd owt who this lad mite bluddy be.”
Mam gose for him with her fists up. He laffs. Then hes got a nife in his hand and hes sayin, “Go on then. Do what yor abowt to do & Ill do what I wil.”