Gods Own Country

by Ross Raisin

  ∨ Gods Own Country ∧

  25

  In the morning there was a small splattering of sick in the sand by her head. Not a mighty amount, a dribbling. I scooped it up and threw it outdoors, then I dressed her back up, which was no easy job as she wasn’t mooded for helping, she was someplace limp between asleep and awake and her body was heavy as stone.

  I sped along the cliff top. Wait until I told Hobble-Hop about all this that’d happened. He’d pop his clogs. The sea was calm today, all the grim weather had disappeared over the Moors and I could see small black dots in the distant ocean, trawlers out netting cod for me and Hobble-Hop’s dinner. He wasn’t there, though, when I got to the pier. I collected up some food and sat on the railing dangling my legs waiting for him. I was there almost an hour and I near gave up and left, until finally he appeared, he must’ve slept in. I wasn’t riled, mind. It was good to see him. At first, he didn’t look much familiar, he flew in so smooth and graceful, it was only when he dumped down on the rim and near fell into the dustbin I knew certain who it was.

  Mornin’ feller, owt fresh?

  He gave me the eye a moment. Thought I’d stole all the food already. But he didn’t need bother worrying, there was plenty in there, he could see so himself now, as he picked out a whole box and dropped it on the floor. He didn’t have much of a hunger today, though, he left all the scrag-end pieces and just picked at the choice bits. Go on, men, he looked up at me, I can see you’ve something to tell. I smiled. He was no calf-head, old Hobble-Hop. I told him the whole story, and he was mighty interested, watching me all the time. Looks like you’re going to breed her sometime soon, he said. Then I told him I was going to get her some jet, something gradlier than a tin bracelet, a necklace or similar, but I needed some money first because I didn’t want to steal anything off the woman in the shop. He mulled it over a moment, then he went back to his box. No, sorry, can’t help you there, lad, it’s beyond me. He tossed away a chip. Folk certain put a lot of vinegar on their food, don’t they?

  I marked sudden there were two lads watching us from the railing other side the pier. Fucking freak, one of them said, and he turned to walk off, laughing, but the other sudden darted at Hobble-Hop, hissing and wheeling his arms. It boggled him, and he lost balance, flapping his wing against the tarmac and the gammy leg trailing useless until he righted up and flew off, skriking loudly.

  I watched them traipse off toward the end the pier. They had their shirts untucked, their school ties made into short stubs like the nimrods in my class used to have them. They didn’t notice me follow behind, they were all concentration kicking a pebble between each other. They got to the end and slouched over the railing. One of them gobbed into the surf. Oi, nimrods. They swung round, confused. You think you’re funny, eh, chasing him like that? They were betwaddled something champion, they’d not have been more capped if Dracula himself was stood there chiding them. Now, dear fellows, of course I don’t want to do this, but you can’t go behaving in that manner, I’m afraid. I’m going to have to drain the blood from you. I stepped up to the bigger one, him who’d run at Hobble-Hop, and I could see he didn’t know what to do, he glegged at his charver but he didn’t know what to do neither, it’s not every day you meet a convict on the pier. What the fuck’s your problem, freak? I made a grab for his tie but the ground was slippery from the sea-spray and I skidded, he pushed me in the chest, knocking me over. Fucking freak. I looked up, not a cloud in the sky, there was a seagull gliding about, I couldn’t tell if it was Hobble-Hop or not because the legs were tucked in. I got a kick in my side and I doubled over, closing my eyes a moment. Sod off Cyclist. Another kick, on the leg, and I felt a cold splat on my cheek. Let you out the mental hospital for the day, have they? I tried to get up but my stomach cramped. Bracelet? What sort of present’s that? But they were running away laughing, they couldn’t hear me.

  I touched my cheek and a syrupy drool of gob clung to my finger. I wiped it on my jacket and got to my knees, picking up the pieces of food that’d fallen out my box. Hometime. She’d be wondering where I’d got to, by now.

  I walked careful slow down the path from the cliff, limping like my old charver on the pier. My leg was getting an ache up from where I’d been kicked, jipping each time I stepped on it. A proper resting was what it needed. We’d stay indoors now, the afternoon and the night, and I’d spy about for a boat early next morning, while she had a lie-in. I walked past one of the rock-bombs from the day before, half buried in the sand. I had a go digging it out with my foot but there was no shifting it, it was there forever now so I left it be and scrambled round the rock jetty. I don’t know what you’re idling at. She’s been waiting an age already, she likely thinks they’ve caught you, and here you are digging at rocks, I’ve never known the like – you wouldn’t find my husband, Mr Popeye, doing anything like that, believe me. She was right, course, so I hurried on, my brain filling with the night before, and the smell of her, the flesh of her thighs – it didn’t matter she’d let the Cyclist spend them times with her, he was forgot now. There was only me. I’d forgive her everything. Popeye’s wife gave me the wink. Don’t worry you’ve been too long, she’s waiting for you, and who’s the one with the key, anyhow? She gave me the wink again – it’s me, of course. I slid in through the creep-hole and I thought, I’d need to put something on the sand underneath, make her comfortable, a shirt, something out the bags, but as my eyes tuned to the dark and I viewed round I realised the cave was empty, she’d gone. All there was left was the rope coiled on the sand like a giant dead worm, and the bracelet, lying there next the two rucksacks.

  I thought sudden I heard her and I scrabbled out the door, but when I looked about there was no one there, only a pair of seagulls fighting in the sky. I’d wait for her to come back. Middle of the night, that was when I’d get looking for the boat. She could come with me, if she wanted, or stay at home, as she pleased. I’d not tie her up again. We’d sail without stopping, we wouldn’t know where we were until morning and the sun rose up, a vast of orange over the water edge. So, that’s where we are – the middle of the ocean, no land for a hundred miles all round.

  ♦

  My leg throbbed each time I got up, like there was a lead ball trapped inside that dropped whenever I moved, but I’d been wrong thinking it needed a resting, that was just making it worse, so I went outdoors for a walk on the beach to get the blood moving. It was cold out, evening setting in. Someplace distant an engine was buzzing over the water. When we were on the boat, I’d know where she was the whole time. Drifting out to sea, nobody to bother us, only the tug of the engine and the seagulls mawnging that the fish net’s still on the deck, and all the things that’d happened floating further and further away. Daft bleeding gulls, following an empty boat – Hobble-Hop was pissing his kecks laughing at them. This here’s a passenger boat, you cloth-heads, passenger boat for two. We’ll land up wherever we want. There’s the place, see, a viewsome-looking spot of land, that – full steam ahead, no folk there, no puffin shite, nothing. But wait on, spoke too soon, look. Should’ve known it was all a bit too postcard, Father, what’re you doing here? Come to give you a braying, Nimrod. Right you are, and no better man for the job. Do you hear that – Father’s come to give me a braying, come all this way, he has. But she wasn’t listening, she was stood with her back to me, nattering away, it wasn’t until I craned my neck to look round her I saw she was talking to Norman, sat in a new vehicle he was showing her. Nought to sixty in seven seconds, I could hear him saying, a gash of a smile on him. Nought to sixty in seven seconds, what the fuck do you know about that, Norman? She gave me the wink. Daft sod.

  There was a noise then, and we all looked round. Eh up, what’s this, another boat? Father was chuntering something. Quiet up, Father, there’s plenty time for the braying afterward, let’s have a see who this is first. It was the police – the southern copper and his herd of gawby sergeants. They were in an orange lifeboat, buzzing toward us bouncing on the waves,
their hands on top their heads keeping their helmets on. They reached the shoreline and skidded on to the beach. I stood rooted as they jumped out the boat and the waterline drew back splashing over their boots. Afternoon, fellers, I said, then I turned and ran for it along the beach. Greengrass! The wind was rushing against my chops and down my nostrils. Nothing like the sea air. Best treatment there is. Greengrass! Get back here you old nazzart! Greengrass! Sorry fellers, but you’ll not catch me. And I was right – a gap was opening up behind me, but what I hadn’t clocked was another group, in front, coming straight toward me. I near ran right into them, one of them was shining bald and these two red ears sticking out, he belted me in the stomach, taking the wind out of me. No need for that, fellers, you’ve got me now, but they were teeming round, pressing me down, a swarm all over me like maggots at a dead sheep. He’s secure, someone was shouting. Course I was bleeding secure – I had about eighteen handcuffs on me. Father and Norman and the girl had gone now, I was being marched to the lifeboat. One of the police was poncing in the surf, trying not to get his kecks splashed. You’re fucking insane – tied there like a dog, another was spittling in my ear, and he must’ve belted me again, because I blanked out after.

  ∨ Gods Own Country ∧

  26

  There’s a small smear on the ceiling I’ve never marked before. I gawp at it a time, studying what it is. Damp-rot, shite, blood – sod knows how it got there, or if it’s mine. What’s queer is, I feel something frammled, thinking about it. Spent all this time never noticing it and now I’m off out and there’s sudden a new piece of muck on the ceiling, and I don’t feel ready, somehow, I need everything settled familiar before I leave it.

  He’s got the television on next door. I’m not much capped at that, mind, he’s always got the bleeding television on, he watches it right through the night sometimes – if that is what he’s doing, watching it – so I can go forty, fifty hours straight with that noise piercing through the wall. Sometimes I wonder how it is the whole wing can’t hear it, but he’s a big bugger and I don’t say anything any more.

  I keep my stare on the smear. He’s not going to bother me now. I’ve spent four years waiting for today and I’ve gradlier things to think on now I’m about free. He can have his television as loud as he sodding likes – he’s as cloth-headed as the rest of them if he thinks I’m twined about that any more.

  ♦

  I didn’t rightly know where I was at first, it took a time for my brain to stop jenny-wheeling – the last I remembered before the police cell I was fetching fish and chips back to the cavern. All I had aside from that was snags of memory. Norman showing off his new vehicle; bruises on my wrist like the one I’d gave her; dinner on a plastic tray under the door and it was the best thing I’d ever ate; the driver taking me to the prison. They love beasts where you’re going, lad.

  If they’d put me straight in a maximum security, it wouldn’t have been worse. Even a Category A would’ve been snug compared with where I went first off, down the valley. They all knew there, course, what I’d done. They read about it in the recreation room in The Blatherskites’ News, them that knew how to read, and for them that didn’t, there were plenty fain glad to tell the story. Brutal abduction ordeal over. Girl recovering at home with parents. Abductor on remand in local prison. Motivation may have been sexual.

  They knew about Katie Carmichael and all. There was a nimrod I’d been at school with, Ricky Morlock, was in for selling drugs in the toilets of the After Dark in Thorpe Head. He’d a gob on him like a muck-spreader, scuttering my history about the wings until the whole place was teeming hate for me. No matter they weren’t better than a pitful of robbers and muggers and drug dealers themselves, I was the foulest of the lot, was their opinion. The first week, a mob of them came in my cell and dragged my kecks and my pants down and pushed me against the wall, then this grinning fucker called Swiss punched me in the knackers, enough times I pissed blood the next two weeks.

  I learnt quick enough after that where to hide myself after breakfast was finished. Recreation room until midday, while the officers were in watching the television, and then the library, where no one else ever went save for an old boy who was always there falling asleep over Maps of the British Empire. Every day, he was in his spot reading that same book, he must’ve known it arse-uppards. The choice wasn’t too gradely, mind. The months I was there, I read The Scorpion Man, Angels and Demons, Strange Fishing Tales, and plenty others besides – they were better than pissing blood, for all they were bad. One day I was reading a book about haunted castles in Scotland, and on one of the pages somebody had wrote along the side: Barnes is a dickhead bully and a coward and if he touches me again I'll stab the bastards eye out with this pencil. I didn’t know who Barnes was, and the writing was faded from age, but it seemed I wasn’t the first who’d hid out in the library.

  ♦

  I get up off the bed, marking the position of the smear, and go over to the window. It’s an open prison, so there are no bars blocking the view, but that just makes me laugh – I’ve never seen what’s so open about it, myself. It’s not like I’ve been able to come and go as I please, pop to the shops, go on a wander, unless it’s been approved and planned out by the warden, and even then I’ve always had to heel to my soppy sod of a parole officer. Well, it is a prison, after all, isn’t it, we do have to respect that – you can’t swing a cat in an alleyway, can you? No, you can’t, very true.

  It’s a bastard of a day, shuttering rain, but I can still shape up the hills off in the distance. First thing I’ll do, tomorrow, is go to them hills. The time I’ve spent, staring at them, thinking that must be why they put the prison here in the first place, so they’re just in eyeframe, teasing. Come for a walk over here, the hills are saying, but the moment you walk toward them you realise all the land’s level for miles around like a mighty tablecloth pulled flat, pulling you away, so the further you walk, the further away they seem. All you’re allowed to walk in is three acres of landscaped grounds full of ponds and fountains, you’d think it was a prison for second-home owners. I took a walk around the grounds this morning, said goodbye to the ducks and Fat Lip the gnome, then I came indoors and that’s when I noticed the smear.

  I turn away from the window and go to the shelf, where my few books are propped up and, lodged between, the booklet they’ve given me – Adapting to Freedom. I pull it out and take it over to the bed. Some gradely advice in here. You may find these first few months a frustrating time. There will be moments when you might feel lonely, and bored, before you regain employment and a social network. Don’t let yourself become inactive during this time. Develop a hobby: a sport, a volunteer group, a cookery class – not only will you learn new skills, but you will also meet new people…a perfect opportunity to start new friendships.

  Cookery class, they’d love that one, wouldn’t they? I flick through until I get to the picture, tucked in the middle the booklet, and I take her out, waiting a moment listening that no one’s in the corridor. Then I unfold it, laying it on the bedsheet and spreading it smooth so it’s perfect straight and neat, except for the fuzzed edge one side where it’d been careful torn out a magazine by one of the perverts.

  ♦

  Once I’d learnt I was safe in the recreation room and the library, I mostly avoided many more dobberings. I rare saw any other prisoners the whole day through, except for Maps of the British Empire – it was like twenty-four-hour bang-up, apart from at meals. Even then, though, they mainly ignored me. They were concentrating too hard slotching up their dollops of food, and anyhow, they couldn’t do much on me with all them wardens about. There was piss in my mug a couple of times, when Morlock was serving the line, but I learnt fair sharpish to check for the slummery layer on the surface before I took a sup. He’d always gleg over at me from his bench, Morlock, nudging the rough-arsed skinhead next him, their faces creasing with halfways smiles. It was like being at school again. The food was shite there and all.

 
Any bother like that didn’t last long, though. Morlock, Swiss and the rest moved on before I did, to higher security prisons across the country, or back out, to mind to their drug rings.

  And I had the court case to go to and all. A great wood-lined hall full of folk I’d never seen before, all of them ready with their tuppence-worth. Mr Marsdyke, you understand the seriousness of the charge brought against you? Oh, no doubting it, Your Honour, but the problem is you’ve got the wrong person – that’s him, Mr Marsdyke, up on the balcony there in his funeral best, he understands the seriousness of it, certain enough, for who’s looking after the farm while he’s stuck here, eh? Sal? Not likely, Your Honour, you see she’s nothing but a withered sack of an animal now he’s worked her half to death. It’s true, it’s true. True? What the fuck do you know about it, bald sod? She was just the distraction, we planned it together, you never worked that one out, did you? But there’s no stopping him once he gets going, she was clearly under duress, I could see that from the moment they came in. Then he’s off with the story of the beans again, we’ve heard that one before, but the lawyer wants to examine it some more, he even asks him what kind of beans it was, like that’s the key to it all, and the bald sod goes all serious-faced a moment – they were Heinz beans, Your Honour. I didn’t see her. They’d set the room so as we couldn’t look on each other, or, more rightly, so she didn’t have to look on me, it was too distressful for her, was what the lawyer said – I didn’t even know where she was, they’d hid her someplace. The times she had to go up on the stand I was took out by a pair of lugger-buggers and we sat in a small room with a list of Right Honourables carved into a board on the wall. The lugger-buggers were itching to give me a clobbering, I could tell, waiting for me to try something, but I didn’t give them chance. One of them had a piece of snot rattling in his nose the whole time, but he didn’t even realise, the great plank.