When the Sky Falls

by Phil Earle

  Adonis didn’t mind where it came from, though: he became so used to seeing Joseph approach, full bucket in hand, that he sauntered to the bars happily, ready to be fed, an act that filled Joseph with momentary joy. While Joseph was always cautious, he didn’t fear Adonis any more. The ape fed happily from his hand, his fingers brushing his as a matter of course now, and Joseph wanted more. Adonis’s touch felt like the only act of warmth he received, and as a result he craved it.

  Joseph felt a bond with Adonis in these dark days of his life and this filled him with happiness, but also dread. Happiness that Adonis finally trusted him, but dread that their friendship might soon be over.

  The two emotions fought a constant battle inside him. Should he allow himself to love the animal? Of course he should, but that left him wide open to yet more pain and loss as the death sentence hung over Adonis.

  The dread was too great a thing to live with. It was like a parasite, worming its way through him, consuming any hope that he’d stored up in his darkest corners. It took every bit of strength Joseph had to keep it at bay, to not worry about if or when the executioner would come calling, and he did this by spending as much time with the animal as he could. It was harder to grieve for something that was standing right in front of you.

  Eventually, simply feeding the ape through the bars wasn’t enough for him, and it wasn’t helped by what he saw as he looked through them.

  Adonis’s enclosure was in dire need of cleaning out again, and Mrs F was once more out of sight. Joseph wasn’t angry about that: he knew exactly where the woman was: in the office, fretting, chewing on her pen as she wrote yet another letter to anyone who might listen. And if she was going to take that approach, then in Joseph’s mind, he had to be the one to take control out here, and keep the place clean.

  He knew full well Mrs F would be apoplectic if she got so much as a whiff of him being on the other side of Adonis’s bars, though. Should he wait for Syd to turn up, he thought? Rope her in, make her stand guard? But as quickly as the thought arrived, he dismissed it, as she’d never play along. In fact, knowing her, she’d scuttle off to Mrs F and tell her what he was planning.

  No, if he was going to do this, he had to do it now, while there was no one else around. Especially Adonis, who was sleeping in his hut.

  Gathering his shovel and bucket, he filled his pockets with as much food as he could, remembering how Mrs F had it as her backup if she disturbed Adonis.

  As his hands wrestled with the lock to the enclosure, he found himself shaking, which made him pause. Was he doing the right thing? Did he trust himself, or Adonis to share the same space like this safely?

  But he knew he wanted to do this. To be closer to Adonis. It might be his last chance before Adonis’s life was snuffed out.

  So, with one last, deep breath, he let himself inside the cage, not forgetting to secure the door behind him, flinching when it slammed shut much more noisily than he had intended. His own breath loud in his ears, Joseph turned and walked quietly, senses adjusting, seeing Adonis’s lair so differently from this new perspective.

  The first thing that hit him was how small it felt inside, how the world outside the bars seemed to stretch in all directions, and how trapped he felt as a result. It took every bit of bravery he owned not to retrace his steps back to the gate and let himself out.

  ‘Come on,’ he told himself, ‘you can do this.’ And he reminded himself of why he was here, heading to the first piece of dung he could find, scooping it into his bucket, before heading to the next.

  He built up a steady rhythm, combing the ground forensically, concentrating on one area at a time, not even hesitating when he found himself edging closer to Adonis’s hut. It was so quiet in there that it would be easy to believe you were actually alone, yet Joseph knew that would be a mistake. He had to keep his wits about him. So as he tidied around the hut, he never once turned his back on its door, making sure the metal of the shovel made as little noise as possible against the ground or the side of the pail.

  Area complete, he moved towards the front of the cage: clear this, and his work would be done. As he registered this he felt a pang of disappointment that Adonis hadn’t put in an appearance, that he hadn’t even seen that Joseph was so close.

  Then, as he closed in on the final shovelfuls, he heard a rustling, and saw Adonis’s bulk filling the doorway to the hut.

  The ape seemed groggy. He leaned against the frame to stretch his considerable bulk, eyes only widening when he finally saw the child.

  ‘Oh, boy,’ whispered Joseph. He eyed the distance he’d have to travel to make it to the gate, but knew that however quickly he covered the ground, Adonis could travel faster. All he could do was stay where he was as the ape approached, remembering quickly what Mrs F had done when she found herself in the same situation.

  Putting the shovel and bucket quietly on the ground, Joseph kept his body low, one hand snaking into his pocket, filling a fist with the most appealing vegetable he could find there.

  Adonis edged closer, movements slow and considered, his low rumbling tones reaching Joseph as he moved nearer still. Joseph instinctively did the same, applying the routine that had served him so well from outside the bars.

  Adonis was close now, very close. Joseph could hear his every breath, feel every pace in the ground beneath his feet. He wanted to look up to watch the ape’s approach, but it would be folly to do so. He had to remain subservient, the waiter to the king. With his head kept low and his breathing echoing the ape’s, Joseph lifted his arm, fist still clenched as he offered up the food.

  Adonis didn’t take it straightaway. Instead, he leaned forward and sniffed at it, nose so close that Joseph allowed his fist to unfurl, his hand becoming a plate. The ape sniffed a second time, then a third, and after a small appreciative grunt, he took the vegetable from Joseph’s hand, not with his own fingers, but with his mouth, his tongue making contact with the boy’s palm as he sucked the food up.

  Joseph felt excitement kick within him. He couldn’t believe Adonis had done that. He hadn’t seen it happen to Mrs F, and it thrilled him. His hand returned quickly to his pocket for more food, slowing when he sensed Adonis recoil a touch.

  He found a wedge of turnip there, not something he’d eat happily at any time, but to Adonis it was heavenly, and he wasted no time in taking it from Joseph in exactly the same way, tongue tickling his fingers as he did so. It took every bit of self-control Joseph had not to laugh or shout for Mrs F and Syd, or even the council. He wanted everyone to see what was happening, that here was a life worth saving.

  Three helpings in and Adonis sat himself next to Joseph; four servings and the ape didn’t even wait for the food to come out of his pockets, shoving his fingers in there himself, like it was a buffet service.

  ‘Hey,’ said Joseph, forgetting himself, ‘that tickles.’ But the ape didn’t care, emptying the first pocket before reaching across Joseph to delve into the other. As Adonis’s arm moved in front of him, Joseph brushed his palm lightly against his fur, feeling its wiriness and age, but also its warmth. What made it even better was that Adonis didn’t try to stop him or react to his touch.

  Instead, the pair sat together, side by side, Adonis taking food at will, while Joseph marvelled at the beast beside him, slowly, carefully allowing himself to steal glimpses as his friend ate.

  Too soon, his pockets emptied, and Joseph felt a sense of fear wash over him again. How would Adonis react when the food was gone? Would he be angry? Violent, even?

  Joseph’s mind turned quickly to the way out. The gate remained too far away to rush to, and he knew that he was completely at Adonis’s mercy. But when the ape realised there was nothing left in Joseph’s pockets, he sighed long and low, once, then twice, before slowly lifting his hands and placing them gently on either side of Joseph’s head.

  Joseph’s heart rattled like a snare drum, then threatene
d to explode as Adonis patted his head gently, not with one hand, but with both. He felt tears spring to his eyes at the gentleness of the act, then fall down his cheeks as Adonis lifted his chin, resting Joseph’s forehead against his own.

  It was an extraordinary thing to share, and although their heads were only touching for seconds, it felt like so much longer. Joseph looked at the ape, at the burning flames of his orange eyes, and felt a sense of calm that he had too seldom experienced in his life: a sense that everything was all right.

  But as soon as he felt it, it was gone. With one final pat of his head, Adonis pulled away, and made for the sanctuary of his hut.

  Joseph’s route to the gate was unguarded: he could be there in seconds without fear of attack or disruption, but he didn’t move, not yet. Not until he’d fully savoured what had just occurred between him and his friend Adonis.

  39

  Relations at Calmly View were not so cordial.

  Joseph, rubbed raw by the news of his father’s death and his confessions to Mrs F, did everything he could to keep his barriers high.

  She tried to bring him round, managing somehow to hoard and barter the ingredients for a cake.

  ‘I thought perhaps we could make it together,’ she said one night after dinner.

  Joseph, hands in suds as he washed the dishes, felt trapped.

  ‘If you want to,’ she added. ‘I thought it would be nice. We could... talk, as we make it.’

  But the strange thing was, her lips were saying one thing, but her body language something else altogether. She certainly wasn’t demanding him to do it, nor did she push him when he kept his lips tightly closed, despitethe rare prospect of cake. Instead, she retreated to the fire, which spluttered pitifully as always, and she sat poking it without conviction.

  Joseph had seen more change in her that past week. It felt like she was keeping her guard high too, though Joseph hadn’t a clue what she was protecting.

  There were moments when he found her looking at him intently, like words were balanced on her lips, but if they were, she soon swallowed them.

  As a result, the house was often stripped to an odd and uncomfortable tension, and with the wireless reporting news of Hitler’s continued pressure, they found themselves choosing silence, Joseph within the confines of his room, ruminating on when he would be sent back home. He could think of nothing else. Felt the instruction was coming any time now.

  It was here, after yet another tense dinner downstairs, that Joseph heard a soft knock at his door. He wiped at his eyes, confused by the gentleness of the rap. When he opened the door, peeking around it, there stood Mrs F, dressing gown pulled tight around her.

  ‘You’re awake, then,’ she said.

  Joseph nodded.

  ‘I was hoping you’d come with me. There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.’

  Joseph looked over his shoulder for something he could use as an excuse. But there was nothing, so he followed her down the stairs, already sure of what she was about to say.

  ‘You don’t have to explain it, you know? I can save you the bother,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ve already packed my case.’

  He hadn’t, but she didn’t know that.

  As Mrs F walked past the table and Joseph saw what was laid upon it, he realised that he wasn’t being kicked out quite yet.

  Practically every inch was covered in a paper patchwork: letters, photographs and telegrams from the mysterious tin.

  ‘I’ve realised,’ she said, her voice thick with uncertainty, ‘that I’ve not been entirely honest with you lately. In light of what you’re going through, with your father, and your mother, too, it seems only fair I tell you some truths of my own. Truths that might help you.’

  ‘Is this about Adonis?’ he asked, though he had a strong feeling it was not. A lot of the documents appeared old and faded.

  ‘No, Joseph, this is about me. About my family.’

  Family? He thought. There had been talk of a brother and a father, but as his eyes flicked across the table, they didn’t seem to obviously feature. He let his hand fall on the photograph nearest to him, and picked it up, seeing Mrs F flinch as he did so.

  ‘Is this you?’ he asked, squinting at the photo, seeing a resemblance.

  ‘No, no,’ she replied, teasing the photo from his hand as if it had been a mistake to let him see. ‘I’ve no photos of me at that age.’

  ‘Then who is it?’ he said, noticing that the same little girl appeared in the majority of the snaps laid out.

  ‘My daughter,’ she replied.

  His instinct was to laugh, and he had to stifle his surprise as he spoke. ‘But you don’t have a daughter. Is she grown up now?’ He looked for more evidence of her on the table, but not in any of the snaps did she seem to grow older. ‘I mean, she can’t live round here, otherwise I would’ve met her, wouldn’t I? She a nurse or something?’

  Mrs F didn’t answer immediately. Instead she reached for another photograph where there was no sign of the little girl, just a man and a woman, and there was no doubting who the woman was: the explosion of untamable hair gave it away.

  ‘I met Wilf when I was fifteen,’ she said. ‘At a dance.’ She seemed to leave the room for a moment as she spoke. ‘Not that we danced that night. We were both too shy. I could feel him looking at me, could hear his pals ribbing him, telling him to come over. But he was blushing more than me. In the end I said hello as we collected our coats.’

  She finally looked up from the photograph, her face flushed. Joseph could see her discomfort.

  ‘Oh, this is silly,’ she said, a touch of ice back in her voice as she started to sweep the memories back into a pile. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  But Joseph thought otherwise. ‘Bloomin’ does,’ he replied. ‘You can’t not tell me now, can you? I mean, look at the way you’re staring at him in this one. You clearly loved him.’

  ‘I didn’t straightaway,’ she said, struggling to meet his eye. ‘Love him. And I should’ve done. Any time I spent not loving him was wasted time, given how little we ended up having. I turned him down at first, when he asked me out. So he took a different tack, left a flower on my doorstep every day for a week, same flower I had pinned to my dress at that first dance. No note or anything attached, but I knew it was him. Said yes in the end, just so my brother would stop pulling my leg about it. Then the daft beggar turned up with a bunch of them when he picked me up.’

  Joseph wasn’t much of a romantic. What twelve-year-old was? But he knew what he was hearing meant a lot to her.

  ‘I think we both knew we’d get married,’ she went on, ‘you do know, when it happens to you. But we wouldn’t have done it so quickly had war not broken out. He proposed to me on the day he joined up. Maybe he thought it’d soften the blow, but to be honest, stupidly, I don’t think either of us worried about what would happen. Lads joined up for the adventure, everyone thought it’d be over in weeks.’

  She picked up another photograph.

  ‘This was our wedding day, the twenty-sixth of October, nineteen-fourteen,’ she said, her face managing somehow to look both happy and heartbroken. ‘The age of us, though. Looks like that uniform belongs to his dad. Not him.’

  He did look young, and Joseph wondered if Wilf felt like he did, the first time he held a rifle.

  ‘Did he go off to fight straightaway?’

  ‘Nearly. We had several weeks while he finished his training. He moved in with my family. It was strange, becoming a wife, when I still had my dolls sat at the bottom of the bed. Not as strange as it was when he suddenly wasn’t there any more.’

  ‘Did he write to you?’

  She smiled again. ‘He did. Often. Though after a while they became more erratic. I’d get two in a week, but find they’d been written a month apart. Then it would be weeks and weeks. It was hard. I was waiting for him to respond to
a very important letter I’d written.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Expecting a baby.’ She paused. ‘I waited three months before telling him. In case something went wrong. Plus I hoped that the war would be over quickly so I could tell him in person. I wanted to see his face. Wanted him to see mine.’

  ‘He must have been pleased then, when he got the letter?’

  The question seemed to knock the air out of Mrs F. ‘I don’t know if he ever received it. No letter came back. Not for months. Then, when I was five weeks from giving birth, I got a telegram telling me his regiment had fallen under fire. That he’d been killed.’

  Now it wasn’t just Mrs F who was winded. He was too. The closeness of it, the pain he’d felt at the same message.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked her. ‘When you told me about my dad?’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ she replied sadly, shame keeping her head held low. ‘I know I should’ve, when I’ve told you distinctly to talk about things. But the truth is, Joseph, I’ve buried this for so long that I didn’t think I could reach the words any more, not without it being too difficult and painful.’

  ‘I would’ve understood,’ he said. ‘I would.’

  ‘I know that.’ She sighed. ‘But it’s not just Wilf that I lost. You saw the photo, of our daughter... Violet. She was wonderful. I wanted her more than anything to be the mirror of her father, and though she didn’t have his eyes, every time I looked at her, all I saw was him. And although it hurt, it kept me alive, meant I had something to fight on for.’

  ‘So where is she?’

  ‘She was taken, too.’ Joseph felt the pain in each of those four words, saw it in every crease and line on Mrs F’s face. ‘Not immediately. I saw her walk. And talk. Saw her play with my dolls, but when she was four, she got influenza. Thousands did. It took a liking to Violet, and it didn’t matter what I did, it wouldn’t let her go. We fought it, but it won in the end. She died too.’