But then that happens to me when I stare at something and try to concentrate. Pages of writing shudder before my eyes. The print struggles in front of me, swimming awkwardly on the lines.
There’s nothing wrong with my eyesight though. I’ve had my eyes tested.
Dozens of times.
I don’t have bad eyesight.
Had my hearing tested too.
I don’t have poor hearing.
Or MS.
Or ME.
I’ve been tested for things which most people have never even heard of. They all come up clear.
They told my mother, ‘You’ll be pleased to know, Mrs Morris. Nothing wrong with him.’
One time as we came away from the clinic she gave me a right shake. ‘Nothing wrong with you. Nothing wrong with you. They don’t know the half of it. Bed-wetting at ten years old. Can’t hold a knife or fork the right way. Can’t tell the time. Can’t read. Can’t write. There’s something wrong with you all right. They just haven’t got a name for it. Pain in the bloody arse, that’s what I’d call it. And, whatever it is, we know whose side it came from.’
I move down the main path towards the entrance. I want to see if the gate is now locked up as they said. Perhaps the smallpox story is true and the council want to keep people out when they start digging up the bodies. I should have paid more attention to the conversation earlier. Their talk of a night-watchman. Before I know it I’m almost on top of his little stripy hut.
And there’s a dog. Black, and barking like crazy.
And now I am running. As hard as I can. Never outpace this brute. My runty little legs won’t move fast enough. All that junk food and sitting in front of the telly.
Yet . . . I know which direction to take. Where to go. Know where the animal would not, could not, follow me. I scramble the last few paces and jump up onto my part of the dyke. Looking down I see the dog; its eyes gleam red in the dark night. Its forepaws scrabble at the wall. I pull my feet up. It steps back to prepare itself to spring, its feet among the white ash. Then it stops and is strangely silent. It lifts its paws, one by one, shaking them hopelessly. Then it starts to whine, a high-pitched noise with little frantic yipping barks. It retreats rapidly, stops, then, lifting its head to the sky, it howls.
I’ll never forget that. All the hair on its back rose and stood upright on its neck and shoulders, as the dog moved slowly backwards baying to the heavens. The moon showed briefly in the troubled sky. The animal paused, then turned and fled.
It’s terribly cold. I’m shaking so hard my legs can hardly hold me. I nearly topple from the wall into the hole where the tree’s roots are lying naked to the sky.
I’m not staying here. Down the other side and off through the wood. I’ll go the long way home.
Sometimes we get a night frost in late spring, we’re so far north. But this cold is different. It’s like a house that hasn’t been lived in for years.
An utter absence of heat.
Deep intense chill.
A tomb.
CHAPTER VII
It’s almost midnight when I get home. He’s flaked out on the couch, mouth open. The telly’s talking loudly to itself. I pause before drawing the curtains over.
The world news. Images of starving children and warring adults are reflected on my window panes. The lights in the street beyond and the houses opposite are ghostly shadows. Are the pictures which I see captured on the glass a distortion or for real? I shut the blinds and they disappear.
When I was younger I thought that the people on the telly were actually there. Then at night when the set was turned off, they got smaller and smaller, and slid down the cables all the way to London or wherever. In Primary Five the teacher explained to the class how television actually worked. I remember thinking that my idea was more sensible.
I try not to look at him lying there like a felled tree, jaw slack, face worn and stubbly. I throw a travelling rug over him and go through to the kitchen.
I just leave the mess. I don’t have the energy to clear up this war zone. I find some bread and make a sandwich and go upstairs.
As I take my jeans off I find the notice which I took from the graveyard earlier. I spread out the crumpled paper on the floor and peer at it closely.
‘NOTICE OF INTENT.’
‘Intimation of intention by the District Council to exhume the entire contents of Stone Mill Burial Graveyard and re-inter the remains elsewhere.’
I squint at it with one eye closed. Sometimes that helps. Or if I cover up most of the print and try it one word at a time.
‘Town and Country Planning (Churches, Places of Religious Worship and Burial Grounds) (Scotland) Regulations 1948. Provision of inspection of Register of Burials.’
It’s too difficult for me to work out exactly what it says. I’ve had a problem with print for as long as I can remember. From the very first reading book I ever had.
‘Don’t worry. It’ll come.’ Dad would ruffle my hair as I stumbled over each set of black symbols. Then he’d take the book from me and start to read. Giving it all the actions, and voices, and making faces, his story was always so much better . . .
Even she couldn’t stop laughing. Sometimes.
‘You’re not helping him,’ she’d say, moaning on again.
‘What do those teachers know?’ he’d say. ‘Nothing. Not living in the real world, most of them.’ And he would wink at me behind her back, and we were pals together.
And it was as if there were coloured lights in my head. Silver and gold. I rode with princes and chased dragons. I crept with Mowgli in the jungle and peered out from behind the deep green leaves, my heart thudding in excitement.
I look at the typed notice again. Why doesn’t it work for me? Now I just pretend that it does. There’s a dozen different tricks to avoid getting caught. You watch, copy, listen, and repeat what someone else says. Ask to leave the classroom before it gets to your turn to read out. Cause a disturbance, get sent out. Cheat.
I stuff it in my rucksack. I’ll get Peter to look at it in school tomorrow. I need to tell him what happened tonight. I don’t really understand it myself. Maybe I’ve imagined more than I saw. I was tired and cold and hungry. My arm aches badly where I caught it on the tree. I pull up my sleeve. There is a pinkish rash around the cut. I slosh some water on it and go to bed.
I suppose I was scratching it, and that’s why it became sore and itchy, and why I was restless that night. And you never do sleep peacefully if something’s bothering you.
Perhaps it was in my mind what the professor had said about smallpox. Blisters and scabs on your skin.
Or maybe it was because something had already started to happen. Something which could not be stopped. Reaching out, seeking contact, searching for a way through. Whatever reason.
That night I have the first terrible dream.
At first it was the trees. In the small wood behind the kirkyard where I was walking. The branches on the bushes, brushing across my face, snatching at my sleeve, tearing my skin. Then the trailing leaves, rustling, rustling, as I moved among them. So I stride more quickly, increase my pace as I march along, but they try to trip me up and pull me back. Then in the aisles between the tombs. Great creepers are trailing like serpents, stone vine tendrils winding round my ankles. I shake them from me, lifting each foot, one by one by one.
And the voices whispering. Closely. By my ear. When I turn my head, they move too. Quickly. Just out of reach.
The tombstone with the urn beckons me. Dark grey cloth cascading from its stone vase, billowing in a breeze which is not there. Falling across my face. First, softly, gently. Then as I raise my hand to brush it away, insistently it swathes my face, my arms, now it’s wrapped around my neck, vast folds of dark material. And the voices, no, it’s one voice, muttering, muttering. The musty dank smell is in my nostrils, in my mouth. I struggle and the winding sheet stretches tighter, pulling me down, choking my life away.
I leap up in bed with a loud cry. I
look about me. What is that in the corner of my room? In deep shadows, whispering, whispering, whispering in my head? But . . . it is the sound of rain battering on my window. That’s what woke me up. Isn’t it?
Isn’t it?
And I’ve been caught up too tightly in my bed covers. That explains it. Doesn’t it?
I get up.
My head aches with a half-remembered fear. Some-thing important throbs in my skull. Something I should do. To look for. I cannot recall what it is. There is a compulsion pulling me one way. To do what? Go where? Yet behind that is a fainter shadow telling me something different. Don’t go. Don’t touch it. Don’t go.
Outside the sky is pitted and pock-marked. The cherry blossom flowers will be scattered in the cemetery, driven down, pink and white among the red gravel.
It’s nearly a quarter to nine. I’m late. But I have to get to school. Too many absences mean snooping social workers and ‘place of safety’ orders. A while ago, when she first left and he ‘wasn’t coping’, I spent a few months in a children’s home. No way am I going back there.
I wash my face and, to fend off the BO, I turn my tee shirt inside out. I find an almost clean pair of socks. They don’t match exactly, but then under my boots, no one will notice.
I completely forget Tuesday is a PE day.
CHAPTER VIII
‘Forgotten your kit again?’ sneers Watkins. He picks up a pair of shorts from the lost-property box in the changing rooms and throws them at me.
‘Here, put these on, and take those heavy boots off.’
I run out into the hall. The others are already lined up.
‘How old are you, boy?’ yells Watkins. ‘Old enough to dress yourself, I would have thought,’ he goes on without waiting for a reply.
Old and cold and bold and sold.
He walks up behind me and flicks my ear. ‘So. Why do we have our tee shirt on outside in?’
Flick. Flick. Flick.
‘And our socks are odd.’
Flick. Flick. Flick.
‘Did we know that?’
Actually, yes.
‘But then, you are an odd little sod altogether,’ he mutters under his breath. He sniffs the air. ‘And a bit whiffy too,’ he says loudly. He marches down the hall, arms swinging, thick thighs mottled red.
‘Right. From the top. Run up to the springboard, one forward roll on top of the box, climb the wallbars, jump down and jog a circuit.’
I can’t do it. Never could. I have been skipping PE since we first came into his class last August. If I’d remembered this morning that we were having PE today I would have stayed off. The last time I tried to do this exercise I nearly broke my neck. I look around desperately. The line is moving quickly forward. I can feel my insides melting. It’s my turn.
He’s standing waiting beside the springboard. ‘Come on, Solly boy. I’ll help you over.’
I start a run in.
‘STOP!’ He holds up his hand and steps out in front of me. ‘Go back and start again. And this time act as though you intend to go across.’
The rest of the class have slowed down. They are watching. Most of them know I can’t co-ordinate. After all, they’ve seen my progress since Primary One. Or, in fact, haven’t.
I get ready. I see his sneer. I decide that this time I’m not stopping. I put my head down and charge.
Maybe I slipped to the side or something, although I’m sure he stepped forward as well. Probably to push me over. I rebound against his chest and we’re both on the floor. There are whoops and catcalls from the audience. I’m on my feet before he is. I meet his gaze as he gets up slowly.
‘We’ve got ways of dealing with your sort,’ he says softly. There are small collections of spit at each side of his mouth.
‘Sorry, sir. It was an accident.’
‘Of course it was,’ he says, ‘of course it was.’ He calls over a couple of boys. ‘Put this equipment away. I think we’ll have a quick game of fives.’
He plays opposite me. It was just a case of when it was coming.
Not long to wait.
Fouled in front of the goal. Tripped at the halfway line. Bumping and barging. I decide I’ve had enough.
‘Sir, I need the lav.’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘I do.’
I turn to go. The ball hits me with force on the face. I stumble. He comes across.
‘Sorry, Sol. It was an accident.’
I see him through a blur. My head is thumping. I wipe my face on my sleeve, and taste salty tears. I have to get away.
‘Hang about, you,’ Watkins shouts at me. ‘A little knock and you scuttle off. Time to grow up.’ His voice is higher than usual. He comes towards me. ‘We can’t have you running away, like a namby-pamby.’ He waves play on.
‘I’m going off,’ I say.
Nobody moves.
‘I’m going off,’ he mimics me.
He’s standing right in front of me. I can see hairs sprouting from his nostrils. If I could get the first one in quick, I could burst his nose. Leave a mark. He studies me. Rocks on his heels. Smiling.
‘Sol, don’t,’ says Peter. He lays his hand gently on my arm. I unclench my fist slowly, slowly.
Watkins is livid. He turns to Peter, but before he can say anything Peter holds up a broken lace.
‘Lace snapped, sir. Can I get another one?’
He’s clever, Peter.
Watkins’ eyes refocus. He stares at me for a second.
‘Go and stand in the corridor. And this time don’t run off home to mummy.’
There’s a group of infants in the passage waiting to use the games hall. The teacher stares at me.
‘Are you in Mr Watkins’ class?’
I nod, fingering my bruise. She tuts, and puts her hand to my face. Cool hand with crimson fingernails.
Watkins is at the door. ‘Mzzzzz Talmur,’ he oils. ‘May I introduce you to one of my star pupils? Solomon Morris.’
He turns to me. ‘Sol, sonny. This is our new member of staff. She takes Primary One. You’ll have a lot in common,’ he adds and smirks.
Ms Talmur tilts her head up and stares Watkins down. Then she turns to me. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Solomon,’ she says. And she gives me her hand.
I’m so stunned that I shake it. She smiles firmly and doesn’t let go until I look at her.
‘You’ve had an . . . accident?’ She hesitates over the word and turns to Watkins. ‘Solomon seems to have hurt himself.’
‘Yes, dear. Boys usually do have a bit of rough and tumble in the gym hall.’
‘Do they?’ she asks, all fluffy and light. ‘I grew up with six older brothers. Any “rough and tumble” which ended like that usually meant that someone was doing a bit of bullying.’
Crack.
He doesn’t know what to do. I chance another look from under my puffy eyelid. She’s shepherding her little class through the door.
‘Come along, take hands. Someone show Amy where to go. She’s new.’
They’re gone. He’s trembling. So am I. I lean against the wall and make with the blank I’m-not-here-at-all face of a ghetto inmate.
‘Bitch!’
He notices me.
‘Right. I’ll sort that. You, sunshine, are relegated. You are going to spend the rest of the day in the Primary One class.’
CHAPTER IX
The chairs and tables are much smaller than I remember. Everything else is the same.
The smell. Chalk. Stale milk. Pee.
The walls. Splurges of colours. Custard yellow, pillar-box red, frightening green. Samples of crabbed writing and elongated scrawling.
On the windowsills trays of bright beads and blocks. In the corner the dressing-up box . . .
I had loved that. Opening the huge wicker hamper, the lid creaking as it fell back. The jumble of coloured cloth. Taking out the pieces of material to choose from, stroking fur and silk, the feel of crushed velvet and crisp lace. Trying on hats and helmets, cloak
s and coats.
You could be anything you wanted to be. Any other person. Real or imagined. It’s one of the times I can recall when I was happy in school. Being someone else.
There are drawings pinned up on the walls. Fat circle faces, with huge curvy grins on them, and all around the outside edge, coils of hair like a crazy clockmaker’s springs.
My circles were never round. I made them the wrong way. At least that’s what old Mrs Webber used to say. Everybody else drew theirs anti-clockwise, mine went from right to left, and ended up squint. I had Mrs Webber for the first four years. I think I probably loved her. She was a round plump little lady. Warm and soft and cuddly, and I got to sit right by her when she told the class a story.
She called me her special boy.
Now I know.
For ‘special’ read ‘stupid’.
None of my shapes were right, not the circles or the squares, letters or numbers, lines, curved or straight. I even wrote some of them backwards. Fives and threes and eights were indistinguishable.
Are.
It took ages before I realised that those lines on the pages of books matched up with spoken words. Flat and boring, black on white, the little clumps of letters couldn’t be connected to the sounds which formed the pictures in my head. I didn’t even need the illustrations. I could see Jason’s sword in his hand and feel the hot breath of the Hydra on my face. And at night I told them back to my dad, every sentence complete.
Then Mrs Webber would ask me to point to a word on the page.
And I couldn’t.
I heard her talking to my mother one day. ‘Don’t worry. He’s probably a late developer. He’ll improve as he gets older. Just wait and you’ll see.’
Only my mum hadn’t. Waited around long enough that is, to find out.
Whispers in the Graveyard Page 3