‘You don’t even care,’ said Trey and he must have shouted it because the mess of argument quietened and everybody looked at him. He stared into the boy’s eyes and shouted it over and over and he wanted to ask why but all he got in reply was, Whatever, whatever, whatever.
Lamby pulled Trey to his feet and the injured boy was lifted and dangled back towards enemy lines and as they retreated Kay shouted after them that it was nothing more than a scratch and they were quits on all things.
Inside the stable Trey sat by the fire for the warmth and he bunched so close he could feel his skin pucker and coil in the heat.
‘You’re shiverin,’ said Lamby and he wrapped a blanket snug across Trey’s shoulders. ‘I’ll make sweet tea with the bag I’ve bin savin and the rest of the sugar. Sugar for shock, that’s what they say, init?’
Trey watched him go to fill the pan with water and asked where the bucket of boiling water had gone.
Lamby looked up and grinned. ‘Used it. Cupped a good bit bout with a mug, splashed them buggers enough that they’ll think me more’n a skinny runt.’
‘Why you laughin?’ asked Trey. ‘I nearly killed a boy and you’re laughin like we bin on a jolly.’
Lamby shrugged and there was a bit of the ‘whatever’ about him that had Trey grab him by the collar. ‘I could’ve killed a boy, you got that? Killed him and they killed one of our own maybe and the chaplain definitely and here you are all smiles and giggles.’
‘I int laughin,’ said Lamby, tears pooling in his eyes.
‘Let him go,’ said Kay and she crouched to prise his fingers from Lamby’s shirt.
They watched the boy run from the stables and into the storm-eye and there was nothing they could shout to get him back. They sat in the quiet except for David who called out for his brother in the stall beside them and when tea was made they held on to its comfort as long as possible.
‘He’ll just sit round the back a minute.’ She looked at Trey. ‘I know you int OK so I won’t ask, but you’ll get a bit of yourself back soon enough.’
‘You don’t know that,’ he said and he looked at her through the lift of heat. ‘How you know that?’
Kay shook her head and she kicked off her boots and socks and stretched her muddy feet towards the fire.
‘How you know a thing like that?’ he asked again. ‘How you know what it’s like to lose it enough to come close to puttin someone in the dirt, someone you don’t know and who done nothin to you besides.’
Kay sighed and settled her mug of tea in her lap and she looked at him and looked into the fire and sighed again.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘You know how you spend your life runnin from somethin and the faster and further you go the closer it gets you inside?’
‘Like a growin thing?’
‘And it sticks to you in a wrap-around way no matter what, like strings of elastic, snappin and trippin you over.’
‘Is that how life’s got you?’
Kay looked at him and shrugged. ‘Spose. You gotta find a way to live with the things you’ve done, int no other way.’
‘Kay,’ he asked, ‘what happened after your mum died? Fosters was you?’
‘Not quite.’
‘What then?’
‘Did my own thing, knockin bout the streets and whatever.’
‘Nobody bother to track you down? The social and all that?’
Kay started to laugh. ‘Couldn’t keep up with me, could they. I had a knack for runnin invisible, for a time anyway.’
‘What happened?’
‘Got caught is what happened, joined a gang, and I spose they weren’t the most inconspicuous gang in the world.’ She looked at Trey and he guessed she could see the confusion on his face.
‘Stealin cars, robbin village stores.’ She shrugged. ‘And I won’t say it weren’t fun cus it was but all good things gotta come to an end.’
‘You got caught?’
‘I killed-someone got caught.’
Trey kept his eyes on her for the flicker that might have meant funning but by the look in her eyes he could see she wasn’t.
‘What happened?’
‘The lad was in a rival gang. He was a mean bastard.’
Trey shook his head. ‘Is that why you’re in here for so long?’
Kay looked at him and he could see tragedy was setting up stall.
‘Two years and countin,’ she said and he could see her pain and he knew it now more than ever because he felt it the same.
‘It’s funny,’ she continued. ‘Until recently I used to dream of escape and now that maybe there’s a chance, dunno, I’m not so sure.’
‘What you mean?’ asked Trey.
‘Where would I go? What would I do? This place is as close to home as I’ve ever known.’ She looked at Trey and shrugged. ‘As I said, I int got no dreams, there int no master plan for me.’
‘How’d you kill him?’ asked Trey.
‘Knocked him down during a fight, things were gettin hairy, we had to make a quick getaway. Dint mean to, thought he’d be OK so I left him.’ She shook her head remembering. ‘Saw him sat in the road in the rear view, just sittin there he was.’
She pulled her knees up to her chin and told him not to worry in any case. ‘We all done things. Each damn kid in this hole done things, bad things. Don’t make you bad all the way through.’
Trey downed his tea despite it being too hot and he crouched to pour himself another. He wanted to know more of that inner steel coil that was Kay’s core and he wanted her to feed him blunt truths all night through. To know other stories made them just that, stories. ‘David’s quiet,’ he said.
‘Sleepin, hope so anyway.’
‘What you reckon bout him?’
‘I’d say he’s our biggest concern.’
‘You think somethin’s snapped in him that we can’t fix?’
‘Yep.’
Trey nodded. ‘I do too.’
‘I think he’s gonna wake at first light with enough charge in him to get up, unlock that door and go out revenging. Someone else gonna get killed either way.’
‘Wish he’d say somethin bout what happened,’ said Trey. ‘Funny all those words comin in a jumble and then gone, just like that.’ He wondered if Wilder would use the radio to call for backup of some kind, maybe he’d contact the Preacher, but Trey knew he was long gone.
‘He might try use it, but then he’s havin a ball right now. Wouldn’t wanna ruin the one thing he’s always wanted,’ said Kay.
‘Power,’ they said in unison.
When it was time for guard duty Kay went to the back of the stables and Trey went to the front and he propped himself against the wall. He stood with one foot on the other and each foot took turns to rest but still they ached and sat stiff in the trainers that were split and flapping and more useless than useful. Outside in the diminishing light the rain fell in iron-sheet drifts and the fierce wind picked up everything not bolted down and flung it towards freedom.
Trey thought about his day in a spin and the pinpoint thing settling central was that he knew what it was to harbour such blistering heat that he could have killed a boy.
‘He was a criminal,’ he said to himself. ‘He was a criminal the same as all of us, it wouldn’t’ve mattered.’
He said this but he didn’t believe it and he knew that if he had taken the boy’s life something of his own would have gone down with it. The demon would have returned.
He shuffled his standing and continued to watch the rain transform the moor into an ocean running rivers. He thought about boats and escape and a passage flowing to the sea and his fantasy sailed the four of them around the world but mostly it sailed him and brother Billy towards that alternative world of fantasy where they would be happy.
Through the drifting rain the moor played games in a constant shift of shape. Things that were there weren’t and things that were crept like shadows beneath the radar of continual looking. That was how it was with the
thin flap outline of movement worrying the horizon. Something was present in the lightning flash that hinted and beat the heart, something that was and then wasn’t.
Trey stood with both feet planted and waited for the next spark of electricity to smack and he was afraid to blink and miss the thing approaching. He kept his eyes on the one spot in the black and when the momentary light was tripped he saw it and had it trapped in mind. When he closed his eyes he still saw it, a photographic image of someone getting closer.
‘Someone’s comin,’ he said to himself and then he shouted it and he looked across at Kay and beckoned her over.
‘Should I open the door?’ he asked. ‘Open the door for a better look.’
‘Not yet.’ Kay climbed up next to him. ‘It might be a trap.’ She stood close to the spyhole and when she couldn’t see anything she decided to venture outside.
‘I tell you I saw somethin,’ said Trey.
‘I believe you.’
She unbolted the top door with the harpoon in hand and scanned one way and then the other and Trey wondered if he had seen anything at all when suddenly Kay said she could see someone. ‘They’re wavin,’ she said. ‘Who the hell would be wavin?’
They stood jammed within the door frame and watched the moving space that pushed the rain into an outline of a figure and they waited.
‘They’re shoutin somethin,’ said Trey and they listened until words formed familiar sounds. ‘They’re sayin your name,’ he said to Kay. ‘It’s Lamby.’
They waited for him to run the final stretch and stood aside when he lurched towards them.
‘What the hell,’ said Trey. ‘Where you bin?’
‘I can’t …’ Lamby held his stomach and they waited for him to catch his breath.
‘You’re an idiot,’ said Trey. ‘You could’ve got yourself killed.’
‘I thought you’d be pleased?’ He looked at Trey and Trey felt bad and looked away.
They sat at the fire while the dishevelled Lamby told them about his midnight meandering and what he’d seen through his wandering about camp.
‘The main gate’s guarded by some tooled-up kids,’ he said. ‘But the towers are clear.’
‘You heard if anyone gonna come for us?’ asked Kay.
Lamby shook his head. ‘Anyway the best bit is all the leccy’s bin taken out.’
‘A power cut?’ asked Trey.
‘Lightnin, took the whole lot out.’ He smiled proudly at his discovery. ‘Means we can escape now, don’t it? Now the fence int on.’
Trey nodded and he looked at his friend and told him that he had something to say to him and that was sorry.
‘For what?’
‘For goin at you.’
Lamby shrugged. ‘Spose you’d just lost it. I should have known to stay back, I could see the wilds in you.’
Trey could picture himself in his friend’s eyes, caught in a moment of fear-fight.
A looked-after kid with nobody to tell him how to step away, lose face. He was the Preacher and Wilder and Dad all boiled into one, a boy with a forever fire fury in his belly and fear in his heart, self-destruction from the inside out. His first social worker had told him he had devil blood running through him, and then everyone started saying it. It was the fire thing that had them think it, made them recognise the one mean demon within.
He got up and went to be alone with the shame that was coming, and would always be, and he tried to fix it with hope but there was no room left inside for wishing.
He leant over the half-door and watched light filter slowly through the low-slung drizzle, today’s pain and despair consigned to yesterday, to history.
He saw Mum standing outside and she was dressed in the veil of vapour and she smiled at him and nodded her pride and it was then that Trey knew he had done right by certain things. In all ways he had tried right and she told him that there was one more thing he had to do and Trey knew this already because it was in his heart. He was nothing like Wilder, he knew this now.
‘You gonna be all right, son.’ She smiled through the haze and Trey nodded and he joined her in happiness because this was the last time he would see her and he knew this was good. Reality had replaced fantasy and he could feel the space of an uncluttered mind stretch to new possibilities as the vision of Mum thinned to wind and just rain.
‘It’s gonna be OK,’ he said to himself and then he said it out loud for everyone to hear because he didn’t just hope it so but he believed it over and over again. If he still had it in him he could save his friends and more certain than that he would save Billy.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The decision to head out under cover of darkness was the only sensible option left open to them and as soon as Trey said it to the others they knew it was the right thing to do. They bundled what was needed into tight cloth sacks and each one of them had something to carry and a weapon or spear of sorts in their arms.
‘What about the horses?’ asked Lamby.
‘I’m gonna let em go,’ said Kay. ‘Give em a bit of a chance at least. Int like we’re gonna return.’
They opened the stable doors and smacked the horses out into the open and they watched them run and could hear them whinny and giggle in the dark.
Kay took the key and locked the door out of habit and into the unknown they marched.
They walked the fence in single file and went fast in the hope that they would not be seen and they tailed it like a guideline to freedom. Once they had distance on their side they could stop and cut and peel the fence.
The dark blue haze of foetal night curled itself around them and it gathered them close and gave them courage.
‘I’m gonna touch the fence,’ said Lamby laughing. ‘I’m gonna defo touch it.’
Trey looked at him and told him to take their escape seriously.
‘I am. Come on, Trey. I’ll do it if you do it.’
David looked at him and at the fence in a passing flash and his eyes soon swung back to digging the bit of earth in front of him.
‘I’m gonna do it.’
‘Do it then!’ shouted Kay.
‘I’m scared, you do it.’
Kay threw down her bag and the harpoon and she checked that all the lights were off and then she stood at the perimeter and she rubbed her hands together and planted them into the fence.
‘Nothin,’ she said. ‘Now shut up.’
They snaked low to the bogland while pushing forward and there were places that were waterlogged in the deep and they had to double back.
Trey stayed at the tail end of their line to keep one eye on Lamby and the other on David. Just to know the grieving boy was walking was something. Trey knew well how slow a heart could beat in guilt and grief, barely moving, not wanting to move but for the slow flow of blood passing through. He looked up into the sky above them. The clouds bumped black and they split white where moonlight won and he wished for rain; if the rain came back they’d have a little more cloak in which to hide. The dark horizon trickled light in a run and the colours snagged in the shadow trees and tors in a loop around them. The morning would be upon them before they knew it and it would hit them like a spotlight.
‘We int got long,’ he said. ‘Not long till mornin.’
‘We’re fine,’ said Kay. ‘It’s still early.’
‘We could go faster,’ suggested Lamby. ‘Could try anyway.’
‘We’re goin as fast as we can, considerin the slop we’re walkin through,’ said Kay.
‘If we went faster our feet wouldn’t sink so far into the mud,’ he continued.
Kay stopped and pointed the torch at Lamby and shook her head.
‘They wouldn’t,’ he said.
‘Yes they would.’
‘It’s science, they wouldn’t.’
‘You can’t just make stuff up and call it science,’ said Trey. ‘Sayin somethin don’t make it true.’
‘Well I know it’s true, read it so.’
Trey told him to keep moving and he wa
tched his step and used his spear as a walking stick and at times he stopped to scan the shadow horizon for the bounce of enemy heads. His brain felt crushed at the temples and his body ached.
Slowly they were sinking into a lake of mud where the rain had fallen and streamed towards the fence and they tried desperately to wade through it. Trey felt the last remnants of his trainers peel from his feet.
It was then that he thought about what it might be like to climb the fence instead of cutting it, run at the razor wire and pitch over, and he was about to suggest it when Lamby said he could hear something.
‘What is it?’ whispered Kay.
‘Somethin,’ he said.
They crouched low within the bog and went on bent and buckled until Kay stopped suddenly.
‘You hear that?’
‘Wilder?’ asked Lamby.
‘Keep quiet.’
‘If it is we gotta run.’
They slumped down in the mud but Trey felt Lamby pull from the mire and head blindly towards exposed land and they heard him fall headlong into another gully.
‘Gotcha,’ someone shouted in the distance.
‘Gotcha all.’ Kay flashed the torch towards Wilder standing on firm ground behind them.
‘Silly kids,’ he laughed. ‘Bin waitin for you.’
Trey looked up and in the torchlight he could see Anders coming towards them with Lamby cat’s-cradled in a rope behind him.
‘Catch a fox and put em in a box,’ he laughed.
‘Get lost, Anders,’ shouted Kay. ‘Let the boy go.’
‘Ah don’t be like that,’ said Wilder and he stuck out a hand to pull her from the suck and she ignored it.
‘Where you think you’re goin in any case? Merry band of misfits.’
Kay used her spear to hitch herself free. ‘Just let Lamby go. Let him go and we’ll keep quits on all this.’
Trey tried to ignore their shouting so he could concentrate on wiggling his toes towards solid ground and he kept himself steady with the metal spear hidden sideways in the slop. He watched Kay stand firm and when Wilder made a grab for her Trey put both hands round the spear to spring free of the bog and he went at Wilder in a charge because the boy was everything that he was not. They fell to the ground and Trey grabbed his neck and he shook him and he punched him black with muck and bruise. The world around them fell away in a tumble; brick by brick it crumbled and its fabric became worthless dust, brutal fighting turning what was some measure of right and wrong into rubble.
The Light That Gets Lost (Shakespeare Today) Page 16