When the Sky Falls

by Phil Earle

  ‘Joseph, I’ve had a letter.’

  But the boy didn’t care. A letter? A letter? How could a letter possibly hurt them after what she’d done today?

  ‘Tell me later. We need to be writing our own. In fact, Syd and me have a plan, we’re going to write to the paper, start a campaign.’

  ‘Joseph...’ but the boy went on.

  ‘Joseph...’

  He would not listen. Couldn’t.

  ‘JOSEPH!’

  Finally, he stopped as a letter was pulled hesitantly from her pocket.

  ‘It’s from your grandmother, son.’

  Joseph didn’t like this. Not one bit. He felt his hands go instinctively to his ears.

  ‘She’s had news.’

  His head shook but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her to shut up.

  ‘About your dad.’

  He wanted an interruption. A Nazi invasion from above. But there were no bombers. There was no siren.

  Yet still the sky fell.

  36

  Joseph didn’t want to hear what she had to say.

  He had feared it was coming long before his father marched off to war, leaving early one morning, planting a kiss on his forehead as he lay in bed.

  Joseph had not been asleep. He’d heard his father enter his room, the floorboards betraying his approach: felt his lips gentle on his skin. Joseph had kept his eyes shut, his breathing even.

  He refused to open his eyes. That would show acceptance, that he was content to see him leave, and a knowingness that he would never return. For that was what people did. He drove them to it.

  ‘Joseph... ? Joseph. Come on now, son. Come away from there.’

  He had almost forgotten where he was until Mrs F’s hands prised his own from Adonis’s bars.

  The ape looked on, still some yards away, chewing slowly, intent on the two of them.

  She tried to turn Joseph, but he resisted, staring on at Adonis, wishing he was on the other side of the bars too, that his life was as simple.

  ‘This isn’t easy for me, Jo—’

  ‘Then don’t say it.’

  ‘I have to. I have to tell you what the letter says.’

  ‘I already... KNOW.’ He pulled his arms from her grip on the last word. He had to move. The charge inside him was growing, and it hurt.

  His movements were random, steps in many different directions, looking for escape.

  Mrs F had no idea how to tell him, what words to use, or how to even think about calming him afterwards. How did you hold a boy together, when he was already broken? There were already too many pieces to manage, without dropping and damaging even more.

  ‘There’s been a telegram. Delivered to your grandmother. Your father has been killed, Joseph. In France.’

  Joseph continued to pace. Shorter steps, and more of them. His face was blank, unreadable, eyes fixed on anything but her.

  ‘His regiment was marching on a town when they were attacked. He battled bravely but they were outnumbered, outgunned. There were many fatalities, and your father’s injuries were too great. I’m sorry, Joseph, but your dad won’t be coming home.’

  At that moment, as the last of her words died away, his movements changed. Gone were the random directions. Instead he ploughed a straight line alongside the cage, in the direction of the gates, so quick and decisive that Mrs F had to trot to catch up with him.

  ‘Joseph? Joseph!’

  She made a grab for his arm to stop him, to make sure he had heard what she said. But the contact was too much for him to bear.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ he said, flatly.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Touch me. It’s not safe. Can’t you see that?’

  ‘What do you mean, Joseph? I don’t know what you mean?’

  But Joseph didn’t answer. He was still on the move, the gates edging closer.

  ‘Joseph, please,’ she cried. ‘I don’t understand. Where are you going?’

  ‘To pack.’

  ‘Pack? What do you mean?’

  ‘I was only here until he came home, wasn’t I? And now he’s not coming. So I can’t stay here. I’ll go home.’

  ‘Joseph, it’s much too soon to be thinking of that. And there’s no need. You need time. Your gran just wants you—’

  ‘Wants me? WANTS ME?Are you joking? She doesn’t want me. She just wanted to be away from me. Just like everyone else.’ The anger was back, a switch flicked, every word, every syllable spat with poison. ‘So, I’ll go somewhere else. I’ll get on a train. No one will notice. I’ll hide, and when I get off the train, wherever it’s going, I’ll look after myself. Cos nobody else wants to do it.’

  ‘That’s not true, Joseph. There’s a home here for you. Here, with me.’

  But he couldn’t hear it. ‘You’ve changed your tune, haven’t you? Anyway, it won’t last. You don’t want me, or need me, and I certainly don’t want you!’

  He made to walk on, but as with their first meeting, Mrs F was having none of it, hanging on as he railed and thrashed.

  ‘Joseph, listen to yourself. To what you’re saying. You do need someone, you’re only eleven, for Chr—’

  ‘I’m TWELVE!’ he barked, which drew a growl from Mrs F in return.

  ‘Yes, you are. And no twelve-year-old should lose his father. Not like this, not at all. But it’s happening, son, it’s happening everywhere. To lots of people.’

  ‘Yeah, well, they’re not me, are they?’

  This stopped her dead, her feet planted. With a single pull, she held his anger and strength, every shred of it. He couldn’t move. He had to listen.

  ‘No, they’re not. But pain is pain. It’s not limited to you, you know. Other people feel it too. Like Syd.’

  Joseph thought of Syd. Her incessant talking and know-it-all attitude – but this was quickly drowned by an image that Syd had given him earlier in their friendship. The thought of her parents, thrown on top of her, their instinct to protect her so she might live.

  While the image had troubled him when she first painted it, it was only now, with the news of his father, that it truly hit him.

  It pulled the plug from his veins and saw him slump to the ground. That sacrifice: the act of protection, of literally throwing yourself on top of your child, no matter what the consequences were. He saw it, clearly: the pain of it filled every cell to the point of bursting, until he had no option but to ask the question that had been racing round him for as long as he could remember. A question he’d never dared to ask.

  ‘What did I do wrong?’ he wept, defeated. ‘Please, Mrs F, tell me. What did I do?’

  37

  It would be wrong, a lie, to say that Joseph had never felt pain like it.

  He’d felt it years ago, as sharp and debilitating as it was now. But for a long time since he’d denied its existence, buried and smothered it with the only thing he could find that would hold it in place and out of sight: anger.

  But the news of his dad had wrecked everything, creating a tremor that cracked the fortress he had built, leaving him only with the pain again.

  Mrs F cupped his chin in her hand, asking, pleading with him to look her in the eyes.

  ‘What did you do wrong? What do you mean, son? To who? I don’t understand.’

  ‘My ma.’

  ‘Your mother?’ It was the first real mention of her to leave the boy’s lips in the time she’d known him.

  ‘I must’ve given her a reason. To hate me like she did.’ His eyes swam with tears, pupils drowning beneath them, pulling him under.

  ‘Hate you? Joseph, that’s silly. How could she hate you? A mother can’t hate her child. It’s not possible. I promise you.’

  He pulled her hand from his chin, and she felt his anger, yet again.

  ‘What would you know?’ he yelled. �
�You know nothing. Only thing you’ve loved in your life is in that cage. An ape. An animal!’

  ‘That’s not true. It may seem like it, but it’s not, I promise you.’

  ‘Then explain this: Syd’s mother and father threw themselves on her. That’s how much they loved her. That’s what Syd was worth. They’d die for her.’ He made a choking noise, almost expecting the world to end as the truth finally came tumbling out. ‘My mother? I can hardly tell you what she looked or sounded like. Not really. Anything I remember clearly is from a photo. Because she left before I could remember, that’s how much she loved me. That’s how much I was worth.’

  ‘Oh Joseph, that’s not true. Of course she loved you.’

  ‘Then why did she leave? What did I say or do that was so bad?’

  ‘Your grandmother has only told me so much, because I don’t think even she knows everything, but your mum wasn’t happy. Not just unhappy. Ill. She’d been ill for a long time. She suffered with her mood. Black moods. And your parents, well, they argued. And it made her worse. For days, weeks sometimes, she wouldn’t get out of bed. She couldn’t, even if your grandmother dragged her out. She was ill, Joseph, and in the end it got to her. So badly that she had to leave.’

  ‘Then why didn’t she take me too? I wouldn’t have made trouble for her.’ He was pleading now, eyes wide and brimming with tears. ‘I could’ve looked after her,’ he sobbed, ‘if she was ill. I wouldn’t have minded.’

  ‘You were five years old, Joseph.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter, does it? I could’ve hugged her. If she was sad, I could’ve made her laugh, told her a joke. Maybe I tried then, I don’t know, cos I can’t remember. All I know is that it must have been my fault, that I must have been bad. Otherwise she would have stayed, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Don’t say that. It’s just not true. It’s not your fault.’

  ‘Then whose fault is it?’ As his head shook, tears set themselves free, puddling in the gravel. ‘Because it’s not the only time, is it? Gran didn’t want me either. Couldn’t wait to send me away. Then I walk into school here, and it starts again, before I even open my mouth. And what about you? From the second I arrived, you made it clear you didn’t want me here either. Did you? DIDYOU?’

  She should’ve answered quickly, lied, told him it wasn’t so. But she didn’t, despite the fact that she didn’t feel that way any longer. And her delay poured petrol onto Joseph’s already considerable fire.

  ‘So tell me, will you?’ he roared, tears coating his face no matter how many times he wiped them away. ‘What did I do to you, eh? What’s wrong with me?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with you, Joseph.’

  ‘Then why do people keep leaving!’ The pain in his voice yanked at her like a loose thread on a jumper, unravelling her. ‘Dad promised me. He promised, when he went to fight, that he would come back. He... PROMISED.’

  He fell again, shattered, but would accept no arm or consolation from her.

  ‘And he meant it, Joseph. Of course he did. It’s probably the only thing that kept him going in all that madness. You’d be the first thing he thought of in the morning, and the last thing before he closed his eyes.’

  He sniffed loudly. ‘But it wasn’t enough, was it? I wasn’t enough.’

  ‘I promise you, Joseph, that none of this is your fault. None of it. I know you don’t want to hear it, especially from me, but it’s true. Life can be hard sometimes. And it can be unkind, more unkind than you can ever possibly imagine. But you must believe me that it can get better too. You can work it out with me. Here. For as long as you need. In time, I promise, it will get better.’

  ‘Will it? And you know that, do you?’

  ‘I do,’ she replied.

  But Joseph did not believe her. ‘How? I mean, what have you ever lost? This place? Is that it? Do you think losing a few animals is the same as losing your entire family?’

  ‘It has NOTHING to do with this place!’ she roared.

  ‘Then tell me,’ he spat. ‘Tell me what you’ve lost?’

  He watched her. And waited for a reply, trying to read all the thoughts and feelings that seemed to flash across her face. She looked close to tears, her lips moist as they twitched and formed words that never came out. She took a step forward, lifted her arms to him before pulling back, like she’d changed her mind.

  ‘I’m here for you, Joseph,’ she said, her voice tired, sagging like her body. ‘And you have a home here for as long as you want it.’

  He didn’t reply. He was done. Spent. He felt no better for saying what he had, didn’t care or imagine that his words would have any effect on anything that followed. He was where he’d always been. Alone. And it was safer that way.

  Silence followed. And when it was finally broken, it wasn’t with words but by the crunch of gravel beneath Mrs F’s feet as she walked reluctantly away.

  Joseph didn’t move until he guessed she was out of sight, and even then, he didn’t go far, only back to Adonis’s cage, until he could lean his forehead against the cold metal of the ape’s bars.

  He knew it went against what Mrs F had told him about Adonis and remaining safe, but in his mind, Adonis was the only friend left that he felt he could turn to.

  So he didn’t flinch or move when he heard the slow, heavy footsteps labouring closer. Instead he lifted his head and looked the ape in the eye. Adonis looked back, breathing slowly, the same low, slow, repetitive noise coming from his mouth that Joseph had heard before, in another moment of distress.

  But today, the effect was different. It didn’t soothe or take away the pain that Joseph felt. Instead it allowed it to come, and Joseph cried, loudly and angrily to the skies, not even stopping when Adonis tipped his own head back and roared his pained song too.

  38

  Winter bit, hard.

  Colder, darker, angrier.

  Spring might only be weeks away, but it felt like Hitler had cancelled it, choosing instead to release a new hell from the skies.

  For three nights solid, bombs rained. A storm unlike any that had gone before, making devastating use of every second of darkness. Even when the sun dared poke its head above the parapet, its powers were useless against the dust and smoke that hugged the ground so stubbornly. Streets lay flattened, reducing families to sifting through endless rubble for the tiniest piece of their life before impact.

  Somehow, amongst the carnage, Calmly View still stood, though two of its residents showed every sign of total devastation themselves.

  Since the bombshell at the zoo, Joseph had reeled from minute to minute. In many ways, he’d reverted to type, pulling his defences as high as he could, building a barricade to repel anyone who dared to approach.

  With no school to keep him busy, whenever the anger fizzed, he stalked the streets, cursing the bombers’ accuracy and ruing the lack of windows left to break himself.

  Instead, he picked through rubble in search of items left intact; a cup, a vase, anything he could line up and smash with a bomb of his own, be it his right foot or a lump of brick. It did little for his state of mind, though: with every explosion there came a growing frustration, an irritation that he felt no better. His father was still dead, he was still alone, and he’d exposed too much of himself to Mrs F that he couldn’t take back.

  ‘That’s someone’s bear!’ said Syd from behind him, as he tried to separate a teddy’s head from its body with only his boot. He didn’t look round, knowing that a long and rambling lecture lay ahead that he didn’t want to hear.

  But he soon realised he didn’t know Syd as well as he thought.

  ‘I’m sorry about your dad,’ she said.

  He braced, waiting for the rest of it, but there wasn’t another word.

  He turned, wondering if she was still there. And she was, perched on a splintered three-legged chair, looking at him, but saying nothing.
r />   ‘What?’ she said, when he frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘That was five words.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘You never use five words. Not when there are another five hundred you can tack on the end.’

  ‘I could use five million if I wanted to, but what would be the point? Your dad’s not coming back. Mine neither.’

  He knew he shouldsay something: thank you, perhaps. Or ask when it would get easier. But shouldwas a lot easier than could.

  Instead, he let his mouth hang open, brain unable to focus on anything except ripping the next thing he found limb from limb. He could see Syd only wanted to help. And he saw her disappointment, a slight irritation when he couldn’t bring himself to ask for it.

  ‘There’s a doll popping out over there,’ she said finally, as she stood to leave, ‘just by the chimney pot. I’m sure she’d love her arms pulling off. You could yank out her hair while you were at it.’ She took a pace away from him. ‘Or you could go home and speak to Mrs F. Sort things out.’

  But Joseph wasn’t listening. Her voice, and good sense, was lost to him beneath the sounds of jagged rock beneath his feet, as he ploughed quickly and clumsily to where the abandoned doll lay.

  For every moment of wanton destruction, there were moments of fear and panic, of waiting and expecting something else to be taken from him. It felt so cruel that the only thing he felt a pull towards was the thing most in danger.

  Joseph knew the clock was ticking for Adonis, and he hadn’t a clue what he could do, if anything, when they came to end the ape’s life. So in the moments when he couldn’t find more objects to smash, he roamed the streets for something to bring joy to the animal for as long as he still had him.

  His bartering at the allotments went to another league. Three pieces of veg became six, then seven and eight. He worked out not only when all the greengrocers in their area opened and closed, but also the times of day when the shopkeepers arrived and left, dashing between them as they binned any vegetables too decayed to sell on, or doorstepping them directly.

  ‘It’s for my ape,’ he’d explain, which would either earn him the threat of a thick ear, or the occasional rotting turnip, just to be rid of him.