Rough Music

by Patrick Gale

  “That’s disgusting,” he said. “You understand? That is disgusting. You are never to do that to another boy, OK? You’re lucky it was me because I can tell you, try that with someone else and he’ll break your face open. You understand me?”

  Julian nodded. He wanted to cry. He pictured Bill and his mother with no clothes on, bottom to bottom on the sand like a funny crab and it did not seem fair.

  “Now get out of here and we’ll say no more about it,” Bill said more quietly.

  Julian left the room slowly. He had his dignity. But as soon as he was in the hall, he ran, ran as fast as he could, out of the house, across the veranda, up the stony track to the top of the hill and the car park and the telephone kiosk. Someone had peed in there. There was a puddle and it stank. He made himself stand right in the middle, in his bare feet, because it was a spell and would help make things all right again. The receiver was so hot it burned his skin but he pressed it hard against his ear because it hurt and that was a useful spell too. And so was the number. One hundred. Like abracadabra.

  He had been taught several things as soon as he was old enough to understand. Not to talk to strange men or accept sweets from them. His address. His telephone number and a magic phrase you said when you rang a hundred and a nice lady answered.

  “I would like to make a reverse charge call please.” He gave Pa’s office number and waited. When Pa came on the line and said, “Hello? Julian?” it was as though someone had pulled out a cork in Julian’s head and all that would come were tears. He cried and cried. Pa was embarrassed, he could hear that, and a bit cross. Julian tried to talk back but it was so hard.

  “What’s happened? What’s wrong?” Pa asked and he wanted to tell him everything but he realized it was like bad dreams and you had to tell grown-ups what they expected you to say otherwise they’d be frightened too.

  So he said, “I miss you. When are you coming back?”

  “Soon,” Pa said, obviously relieved that they were finally having a conversation. “And I miss you too,” he said. “It’s horrid here. Listen, Julian. Is your mother all right?”

  “Yes. She’s fine.”

  “Oh. Well, you’ve got to tell her we spoke, all right?”

  “All right.”

  “It’s very important. Ask her if she’s seen the papers. I can’t think why she hasn’t rung yet. Will you tell her to buy today’s Times?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good boy. Now I’d better go. Reverse charge calls are very expensive. They’re really only for emergencies, you know.”

  “I know. Sorry.”

  “That’s all right. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  His mother was home when he got down the hill, and wanted to know where he had been but he just said he had been for a walk and was not hungry. She felt his head and frowned and said he had had too much sun and should stay off the beach that afternoon. Skip winked at him. He just stared back. “All right,” he said and left the three of them eating a big lunch with boiled eggs and pork pies and crisps. He was hungry. He could have eaten two pies and a packet of crisps at least but not eating was a spell too. It would help. He did not tell her about The Times because he was still cross with her, more cross than ever now because she could not tell at once what was wrong. He heard her laughing with Skip at something Bill had said and he pulled a face to himself.

  He went outside and sat with Lady Percy for a while, stroking her rosettes in a special order and feeding her a dandelion leaf. He told her everything in a low whisper only she would understand, until it seemed she was darker and heavier for the secrets he had poured in at her ear. Then he lifted a corner of the fence that was rotten and posted her through.

  She seemed unaware of her good fortune at first.

  “Go,” he said to her. “Quick. Before they catch you again. Go!”

  But she just sat on the other side of the fence sniffing and munching. Inside he heard plates being stacked and someone filling the kettle. The liquidizer buzzed for a few minutes. His mother must be making one of her nasty leftover soups. Now Lady Percy ran, frightened by the noise, ran as she normally only ran on a carpet or the hall floor. She headed further and further into the field up the valley and, without so much as a nostalgic backward glance, vanished with his dark secrets down a rabbit hole.

  He had meant to create a drama, something that would give him a reason to cry and be pitied and held close by his stupid, ugly mother but all he had done was make an empty hutch and a no less empty field. He saw a buzzard wheel overhead hunting mice and rabbits and remembered a comment his father had made on their first night here, something about foxes having plenty to eat. He was possessed by a marvelously dramatic sense of guilt, like hands steeped in blood. It would show in his face. No one would be able to keep quiet now and say it was too much sun and stay off the beach that afternoon.

  “Here. Brought you this.” Skip held out a milkshake. “It’s banana. Your mum said that was your favorite. I put ice cream in too so it’s really thick.”

  “Thanks.” He took it from her and sucked on the straw. It was good. It tasted of sin. “Lady Percy escaped,” he said.

  “No kidding.”

  She made no attempt to raise the alarm. She knew better than to make futile rescue suggestions. She just sat with him in silent witness to unswervable change. Julian stole a glance at her as he drank more of the milkshake and realized that it might be possible to be her friend after all. He felt envy too though, not so much of her being a girl as of a kind of flexibility in her which he sensed was part of what it meant to be female. His mother had it too. All women did. He knew that the envy was a low thing, reprehensible, and that he must always be extra nice so as not to let it show.

  BLUE HOUSE

  The heavens should have opened. Thunder and lightning were called for, driving rain and a bone-gnawing wind that would reduce the beach to a littered waste in apocalyptic minutes. The entire ridiculous, ugly scene had been played out in balmy sunshine, however, and the chattering, playful holiday parade closed over his departing family like a brightly-colored soup. Will watched his parents and Sandy drive off, sitting on a rock on the far side of the beach, children playing in a pool at his feet.

  The first thing he did when they left was to hurry back across the beach to the house. He half-expected to find a note from one of them but there was nothing. He could not quite believe they had gone. In the pregnant minutes between hearing the well-earned slaps to Sandy’s cheeks and losing his temper with his mother—for the first time in his life, it seemed—he had expected discussion, the kind of merciless picking over of the situation at which families were supposed to excel. His mother’s tears, his father’s gentlemanly acceptance, his sister’s righteous fury and the revelation of Sandy’s complete lack of spine had all passed so swiftly that he had to replay them in every detail in his mind in case there was some clue he had overlooked.

  In his impulsive impatience to have them gone he had forgotten their bed linen. He stripped it all now, amassing a great pile as he went, then stuffed too much into the washing machine at once so that the load squeaked against the glass as it turned and probably would not clean properly.

  The kitchen was full of food, an elegant unserved lunch that would now go to waste. A four-layered fish terrine was not the sort of thing one could eat on one’s own. He knew it was delicious, he had made it before, but shock had killed his appetite. He poured himself a glass of wine instead, sat in the rear garden, in his mother’s chair, and rang Harriet, prepared to tell her all at last. He rang her direct line as usual but her secretary intervened. Ms. Rowney was in conference until four and could not be disturbed.

  He sat on, drinking steadily until his churning emotions arrived at a glassy-eyed stasis. At last the van came bouncing along the valley track to the encampment. Watching Roly climb out and stoop to tether Fay, Will saw not the answer to his problems but only an added complication. Still, he lifted his glass in greeting and Roly raised a hand ba
ck. When Will waved him over, Roly merely waved. Will beckoned him again and in response Roly went into a wickedly funny parody of the presenter of a program for deaf children that must have featured in both their childhoods.

  “We cannot,” Roly signed, “return all your pictures.”

  When Will beckoned again, Roly teasingly responded with an ever more furious set of gestures: a triangle, a wavy line, a handclap. Will laughed despite his mood.

  “You’re a cruel tease,” he told him when Roly finally came over.

  “Must be something you bring out in me.” He looked around, taking in the deserted house. “What happened to the sculpture?”

  “I didn’t heed the warning.”

  “And where is everyone?”

  “Gone.”

  “Gone gone?”

  Will nodded.

  “But I thought you weren’t leaving till Saturday? And how are you leaving without a car?”

  Will had not thought of that and felt a spasm of fresh weariness as he thought of an entanglement with local taxi services and oversubscribed end-of-season trains. He sighed.

  “Did you have a row?” Roly asked, helping himself to water from the fridge. “All this food! It’s like a canceled wedding.”

  “We had a huge row,” Will said. “Terrible things that can never be unsaid.” He sighed. “Eat whatever you can. Actually no, I’m lying. There was no row, just a stupid scene and I lost my temper and told my parents to leave too.”

  “So the row wasn’t with the brother or the children?”

  “Brother-in-law. No. Do I know you well enough for this?”

  “You’re leaving soon and you’ll never see me again. Why not risk it?”

  “I was sleeping with my brother-in-law.”

  “Shit!”

  “I shouldn’t have told you.”

  “Yes you should.” Roly leaned against the fridge, eating terrine with a fork. He was looking particularly fetching in old, sun-faded shorts, an even older shirt and work boots. Will would far rather have dragged him to a convenient rug and peeled them off him than make his confession but that would have solved nothing.

  “It was all over. I ended it when I met you.”

  “Because or when?”

  “No. Yes. I dunno. I ended it but somehow my mother found out and she told his wife—my sister—who just arrived like the wrath of God and swept the children to safety. And I let my mother have it in the neck, which was quite unfair because she’s got Alzheimer’s and didn’t know what she was doing.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They’ve done tests.”

  “That she didn’t know what she was doing?”

  “Oh. I don’t know. I don’t know anything. And now they won’t speak to me and Sandy’s going around saying he’s gay and in love.”

  “Is he?”

  “No. Not really. Oh fuck, it’s all the most hideous, unnecessary mess.”

  “I think you should use a past tense there. It sounds as though it was a mess and you’ve just managed to cut yourself free of it.”

  “But my parents!”

  “A mess. You’re free of them.”

  “But I feel so guilty. Not about Sandy, funnily enough. But about Poppy and the children. About what I said to Mum. I’ve never shouted at her before. We get on so well.”

  “Then it was probably long overdue. Would a hug help?”

  Will nodded.

  Roly took him in his arms and held him tight so that he could smell the faint tang of glue and sweat on his shirt. “I was an orphan, which is a bit of a cheat,” he said. “But I know what families can do. When I met Seth he was sixteen to my twenty-one, which is nothing if you’re a girl but if you’re both male …” He squeezed Will again, remembering. “His mother had him feeling guilty even when he was dying, which is quite an achievement. Sorry. This probably isn’t helping. I’m in a good mood because Bron’s just sold the lot and the tourist season’s nearly over and I’m about to get my house back. And that was insensitive.”

  “Very.”

  “Give me another slice of that outstanding fishy thing and I’ll take you on a trip. And stop looking so glum. It’s lost on me.”

  It was a pagan site. No signpost marked its whereabouts but there was a well-beaten path through shoulder-high gorse and bracken that buzzed with insect life. Quite suddenly the path opened out into a clearing where, on a plot of land raised above the scrub, twelve ancient stones stood in a perfect circle about a thirteenth. The central one was twice the height, an unashamed skyward phallus. At its base, offerings and spells were heaped. Scraps of bright cloth, rain-sodden messages, bundles of flowers and a limb wrenched from a doll.

  “So,” Roly said. “We should do this properly. You need some ragwort. There’s some. No, you have to pick it or it won’t work. And some red campion. That’s it. And some honeysuckle and a spring of gorse.”

  “Ow,” Will said, cutting his fingers as he wrenched the gorse off a bush.

  “Perfect. Now let a drop of your blood fall on the flowers. That’s it. Now … a hair off your head.” He tweaked out a hair.

  “You are in a good mood.”

  “Ssh. Concentrate. Now. Wrap it all up in one of those dock leaves, like a dolma. That’s it. Now you put one hand on the center stone.”

  Will did as he was told. “Now what?”

  “Now squeeze the bundle as hard as you can and make your wish.”

  Will wished with all his might.

  “Now you lay the bundle with the others.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “That’s it. The gods will listen.”

  “And this works?”

  Roly shrugged. “It was fun making it up, though.”

  Will made to chase him but stopped dead in his tracks. In a clearing beyond the first, on higher ground still, stood a great roundel of stone on its side, a hole through its center. “What is it?” he asked.

  “The pagans claim it lines up with the others at the summer solstice and the rising sun shines clean through the circle and makes the inner stone in the ring light up. It’s also used to heal things. Children with rickets used to be made to crawl through it and people with arthritis and stiff joints still swear by it.”

  Will crouched for a closer look. The inside was worn smooth by the constant passage of bodies. He shut his eyes and thrust his head into the middle.

  “Got a headache?”

  He opened his eyes to look up at Roly. “No,” he told him. “I’m just confused.”

  Back on the coast the weather had finally changed to accord with the events of the morning. Thick banks of fog were rolling in off the sea, blotting out the light and chilling the air.

  “Fay, listen,” Roly commanded. The dog put her head on one side. Out of the mists came the mournful wail of the foghorn on the lighthouse across the bay. Fay whined. “She hates that noise,” Roly said and ruffled her ears.

  Will gazed at where the sea had been and breathed salt and bladder-wrack. He saw the darker, introspective appeal the place must acquire off-season.

  They went to bed less from lust than because it was a comforting place to be. But for Will the bungalow was permeated with conflict and unpleasant reminders of a family he felt sure must be standing in judgment, so they retreated to the trailer and spent the rest of the evening there. Roly made occasional forays back to Blue House for more wine for Will or to raid the fridge.

  Will did not dare speak as he was thinking, of dreams and futures. They both observed the correct form for concluding a holiday romance. The mobile phone was kept turned off so that any callers, plaintive or otherwise, would have to make do with the answering service. For a few hours at least, Roly saw to it that the world could not find them. Then he packed Will’s suitcase and books and bin-liners of damp laundry into the van and drove him to the station. They sat together until the eleventh hour, talking inconsequentially. Then Will broke the rules.

  “I don’t want to go,” he said.

&n
bsp; “Needs must.”

  “Yes,” Will sighed. “Bookshop to open, garden to water, family feud to heal.”

  “Why should you have to deal with it? With the right therapist, you could come to see yourself as the injured party.” They chuckled sadly. A bell rang on the platform. “That means your train’s coming,” Roly said.

  “I know,” said Will, not moving. “Our timing was so lousy. If only I’d sorted all this out first; come on holiday on my own then met you.”

  “I think our timing was pretty good,” Roly said and ruffled Will’s hair, making him feel about eight. “Be brave, you.”

  “Needs must.”

  “Yes.”

  They raced madly for the luggage and, chased by Fay, ran over the footbridge just as the train was pulling in. The carriages were already heaving with holidaymakers returning from the far west, so full that there were already people standing in the corridors.

  “Oh God,” Will said.

  “Get on and don’t be such a sensitive flower. Read a book. Time’ll fly.”

  “Yes.”

  He pecked Will’s cheek and pushed him toward an open carriage door.

  “Can I write to you?” Will asked. “Maybe?”

  Roly smiled, properly, without wiping it away again. “Of course,” he said. “If you like.”

  “But I don’t have your address.”

  “You’ve been staying at it for twelve days.”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Go.”

  “Yes.” Will threw in the bags, jumped in after them and shut the door. He flung down the window as the train started to move. “I forgot the sculpture!”

  “I’ll post it on to you.”

  “You don’t have my address.”

  “So write to me, then.”

  “I should have a hat for this.”

  “That was the ugliest hat in cinema history.”

  He liked Brief Encounter! There was so much they had failed to discuss. Improvising a seat out of his suitcase and the laundry bags, Will took out a novel but failed to read it immediately.

  A bored little girl was leaning against the wall opposite him. She stared at him and played with the lock on the lavatory door, opening and shutting it repeatedly. Will listened to the sound, thought of a child’s plastic sandal thwacking on a piece of driftwood and carefully wiped the smile off his face.