Chalk

by Paul Cornell

  ‘Why are you showing me this now?’ I said.

  ‘You asked me. About how I got the sword.’

  ‘That’s not in here.’

  ‘Oh. Isn’t it?’ He looked fearful for a moment. He looked through the pages. ‘I must never have written that bit down.’ I waited for him to tell me. He didn’t. ‘But,’ he finally continued, ‘you’re old enough for it now. It’s not like in the war comics. Some of this stuff is a bit much. Your mum didn’t want to finish it. She’s had problems of her own. When I came home, she wasn’t eating anything, not until her dad sat her down at the table and forced her to, and then she spent some time in . . . hospital. We weren’t properly together for a long while.’ He took a breath, and I could hear a wheeze. ‘So, I was a soldier. What are you going to be?’

  I shook my head. I didn’t think I was going to be anything now.

  Thirty-five

  Waggoner started saying hello to Mr. Rove whenever he was seen in the corridors. Waggoner made a point of walking after him and calling him sir. Fiesta and Cath and Surtees from my lot were still delighted by what had happened in my stories, and were making up their own variations, greeting me with snickering new developments every time they saw me. I’d been crowned King of Pop in a magical land that was going to appear at the school.

  * * *

  One Sunday in early October, Waggoner was invited over to Mr. Rove’s house to earn some pocket money. Dad drove us over, and came in with us. Steven Rove had an outraged look on his face when we walked in. He looked pale, like he hadn’t been getting much sleep. I expected him to whisper something nasty to me, but he kept silent as his dad made tea. Waggoner was to go into the forest with Rove, to cut logs. They were each given a small axe. Mr. Rove said distractedly that they were both nearly adults now, and would have to learn about paying their way, and it was good for Steven to have a friend over. He didn’t get enough visitors, and he’d been affected by all that had happened last year. Mr. Rove said that right in front of Rove.

  Rove picked up his axe like he’d never carried anything heavy before. He and Waggoner walked off into the afternoon mist with their tools slung over their shoulders. I walked beside them, anticipating and fearful.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re here for, you fuckwit cunt,’ said Rove, as soon as we were out of range of the house. ‘I tried to say you couldn’t come.’

  Waggoner laughed. Rove lurched forwards to attack him. Waggoner bobbed back at him, making Rove shrink back. Waggoner chuckled and slapped Rove on the shoulder. ‘You’re all right,’ he said. Which made Rove look at him like he was wondering who this was.

  They got to a place in the woods where a few trees had been roughly cut down, and they looked at the fallen limbs, which had started to become covered with ivy. Waggoner hacked at one of the lower branches for a while, until it fell onto the floor, which gave Rove the inspiration to do that too, though much more slowly. Waggoner started talking to Rove about the revenge of Bruce Lee against the factory owner in The Big Boss, how he put his fingers right through the man’s ribcage, how all the people Bruce Lee had beaten in fights got revenge on him by hiring an assassin to kill him using a secret ninja punch. Rove laughed, said he bet he hadn’t expected that. Then he looked like he’d regretted joining in. His face went red. He came out with a string of swear words, threw the axe down near Waggoner and then picked it up again.

  They sat down after having hacked a few more branches off. Waggoner used the edge of the axe to carve and plane the fallen wood, until he had made odd-looking scoops with blunt, angular ends. Then he got his fags out. ‘Now I’ve started doing this with you, I ’spect you’ll get sent out here fucking loads.’

  ‘Fucking hope not. And you should fucking shut the fuck up.’

  Waggoner handed him his cigarette. ‘Why do you think your dad’s making you do this now?’

  ‘He keeps saying he won’t be able to fucking “provide” for me. That I have to “stand up for myself.” I do that, I tell him I fucking do. Nobody fucking messes with me. I’m going to program computers. When those Dragons get here, I’m going to put games on them.’

  I watched and I waited, an enormous tension, but then we all went back to Mr. Rove’s, and he made us some more tea, and Dad picked us up and we went home. I kept looking at Waggoner on the way back, and finally he took my hand: he hadn’t changed sides on me.

  * * *

  Angie was off school a lot, and when she was there, I didn’t get to see her much. I imagined her getting so much more respect than she’d had in the past by revealing all the details of my stories. I imagined her smiling as her audience laughed at me. I heard Rove complaining loudly to Drake that, on two more Sundays, his dad had made him go out and chop wood. He looked over in the direction of me and Waggoner. He looked like he was about to blame us, but then he stopped. That would have meant saying that Waggoner had been to his house.

  That Tuesday, Culture Club stayed at Number One. Which meant they would indeed still be there next Monday, the night of the Halloween disco.

  * * *

  On the night of Sunday, October 30th, the tension finally caught up with me. I fell asleep in the dark of the lounge, and Mum and Dad turned the sound down low on the television and left me there.

  * * *

  That evening, Rove was once more sent out by his dad to chop wood. He had a torch with him. He made his way through the woods, his breath billowing in front of him, his hands huge in his gloves, his breath wet on his woolen scarf. He’d raised his axe tiredly into the air over the tree when he heard a noise. He put it down again, and looked round.

  There stood Waggoner. He started laughing, and called Rove a twat. ‘Look at your face,’ he said. Waggoner asked him if he wanted to come and have a smoke. Rove didn’t question the fact that Waggoner didn’t seem to have come over in the way he had before. Waggoner walked off, and Rove left the axe where it was and followed. They walked for quite a way, and Rove started to complain. They were getting way into the woods. Why were they coming all the way out here for a smoke?

  ‘Why do you think?’

  ‘’Cos they might see the smoke from the house?’

  ‘There you go.’ They were heading towards the clearing. It didn’t look that much different from the rest of the forest, in the absolute dark, with just the one torch picking out the trees. There were bright stones and coins on the path, and all around it, knots of string hanging from the branches. ‘Here’s where it all unwound from,’ said Waggoner, stepping into the middle of the clearing. ‘Do you recognise it?’

  ‘No,’ said Rove.

  ‘You and Lang, Selway, Blewly and Drake came here three hundred and sixty-four days ago.’

  ‘When’s that? What’re you going on about?’

  ‘You’ve sort of forgotten, haven’t you? Now here you are with me. Like nothing happened. Did you think I’d forgive you?’

  Rove stopped in his tracks. He started shouting, flatly denying he’d been there.

  Waggoner grabbed him and pushed him up against the tree. Rove was astonished he could do that. Waggoner pulled open the buttons on Rove’s coat and started tugging at his belt. ‘No,’ Rove said, like this was just irritating, trying to slap his hands away, ‘get off.’ Waggoner shoved his elbow up into Rove’s throat, and used the moment to throw Rove’s coat open, and get his belt off and pop the top button on his jeans. He pulled apart the fly. Rove grabbed his head, and really struggled. Waggoner slammed his head against the tree. He pulled down his trousers. Rove was wearing huge white underpants. Waggoner could see the lump of him. He hauled his pants down, and had to slam him back again. Once, twice. Rove was shouting at the top of his voice.

  Waggoner took Drake’s knife from his pocket.

  Rove began to scream, huge bursts of breath, a cloud in the torchlight.

  ‘Right,’ said Waggoner. He grabbed Rove’s genitals in his hand, and pulled them out in front of him. ‘Let’s get rid of these.’ The knife flashed silver in the light. I
t struck at the root of Rove’s genitals. Blood burst from them. Rove screamed. Waggoner had to hack again, then again, and finally they fell, and he grabbed them, and ripped off the last trailing skin and tendons and held them up in the air like a trophy so Rove could see and threw them away.

  Blood flooded out of Rove onto his legs and onto the ground. He spasmed and slumped in Waggoner’s arms. He was breathing in gasps. Waggoner let him fall, and applied the serrated edge of the blade to the wound. He cut expertly upwards, the look on his face that of a skilled ritual butcher. He made a crossed incision, and flicked it, and pulled. A length of purple blue black bulged out. Waggoner tugged at it, and slowly it emerged, stinking, shining like ancient treasure. He heaved Rove up, and propped him standing against the tree, his stiffening muscles helping.

  I think Rove was still conscious as Waggoner started winding his intestines out of the clearing, out of the wood. He looked down at the floor of the clearing, and saw his whole cock and balls lying there at the centre of the glittering, prepared circle.

  Waggoner took the innards along with him, playing them out like rope, sometimes having to haul, sometimes just easing them with his hands. He made his way out into the playing fields, under the blank, dark sky. He crossed the eye of the horse and the black glass in the ground. He genuflected towards the room in the school where Selway had perished, and towards the big tree, and in the direction of Chippenham hospital. He made for the horizon. He hitched the intestinal cord around a fence post with a mark on it. Then he turned, and walked the perimeter of the school, around the swimming pool, past the gateway at the end of the drive, around the lights of the house, round again to the forests at the back.

  As he went, they were watching him. They had massed to look down. The man with the two sticks was there with them, in the gap between times that was close to opening once again.

  Waggoner came back to the clearing. Rove was still standing there, shaking. The impossible length of his stomach contents was stretched out from where Waggoner had left, and now it had returned, at a sharp angle to him. He had been caught so precisely. He was like someone pinned to a clock. Waggoner wound the chord tight around the same tree he was standing against. Rove had his eyes open. He was on the edge of death. He tried to say something. Just noises.

  Waggoner slashed the knife down again. The offal was cut. Blood flew into the world. It fell in the rough circles of bulges and troughs. It landed on the lines. It made the horizon. The glow remained for a moment around the perimeter, then was gone into the soil, ready. Rove fell. His blood spilled hugely into every crevice and vanished in moments into the ground, filling the circle. Waggoner produced the spades he had cut out of the wood when he was last here. He dug a deep grave and lowered Rove into it, and buried his remains until no sign of him was left. The offal and the blood were already being consumed by the animals of the forest. It would fade with the dawn, become a line of knowledge, not flesh, around the boundary, connecting it to distant points, placing it on the map. Waggoner squatted, and used sticks to build a small round house in the centre of the clearing. He stood up from his work, and felt the landscape finally ready around him. It was beautiful, full of promise like Christmas night.

  Thirty-six

  The next day was Monday, October 31st. Halloween. The year had turned. I’d got there. Dad dropped us off, and I stood beside Waggoner on the steps of the town hall, and I sat beside him in the minibus. The stories of fantasy those on the minibus told about me to hurt me now seemed the most glorious thing.

  I hadn’t thought about a costume until Mum had asked that morning. We were due to come home between the school day and the disco, and she’d asked what I’d like her to put together. Maybe something out of Doctor Who? I said I’d just go as myself.

  After what had happened to Rove, I expected there to be phone calls saying not to come into school, or police cars waiting there, but there was nothing unusual about the day. Waggoner spent the woodwork lesson finishing off his elaborate pointed pole. Mr. Sedge’s smile was faltering today. Drake was finally on his own. He was clearly not with the football kids. He stood at a separate bench during Woodwork. He grinned at other kids every now and then. He looked kind of desperate.

  I waited to hear something from Mr. Rove. There was no sign of him.

  I saw Angie at first break. She turned away without looking at me.

  By the middle of the day, I’d started wondering why nobody was saying anything about Rove. Mr. Rove would surely have realised he hadn’t come home last night. At second break, Waggoner knocked on the door of Mr. Rove’s office. There was no answer, so we went in. Mr. Rove was sitting at his desk. He was absolutely still. He could have been dead. Then he looked at Waggoner.

  ‘I was just wondering, sir, said Waggoner, ‘why my friend Steven isn’t here today.’

  ‘Is he not here?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Because I thought he . . . might be.’

  ‘No, sir, he’s definitely not here.’

  Mr. Rove tried to get up from his desk and then didn’t. ‘I was . . . working on my speech . . . for the start of term assembly . . .’

  ‘That was weeks ago, sir.’

  ‘I’m writing about the original intention of the school. It is a microcosm of the world. We prepare you for your place in it. History has set out a path for you. We lead you along it.’

  ‘But that’s not true, is it, sir? Did you know Harris’ closed down, sir?’

  ‘Can’t be helped. Sacrifices must be made.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more, sir.’

  ‘I thought I saw my son at breakfast. He did have a stomach ache. There are these other people in the school now. Or are they coming today? Old pupils, they must be.’

  ‘Shall I tell you what’s going to happen, sir?’

  ‘Please do.’ He said that with irony, as if he was above whatever tiresome misbehaviour Waggoner was about to inform him of.

  ‘Tonight this place is going to become the navel of the world, the judgment of everything. This landscape is going to become the same as our map. You’d got it halfway there already. We’ll make everything right when we’re set free. Your son’s blood runs through these pipes now.’ Waggoner went over and tapped a radiator that wasn’t switched on. ‘Well, it would if you weren’t so hard up.’ He squatted down and, with a bit of effort, turned the tap. ‘Mr. Rove?’

  Mr. Rove had his teeth clenched. He made a noise like a stick had a voice. His eyes rolled up into his head. He lowered his head onto his desk. His limbs thrashed. Waggoner took a deep breath. I remember an odd smell, which I now think was the odour that a fit gives a body. Another sign of the changes that happen when one thing is put inside another. Mr. Rove was physics, biology, chemistry, history and geography in that moment, an entire syllabus. The seizure lasted a couple of minutes. Waggoner went and sat on the desk, watching it. Mr. Rove finally lay tired, taking deep breaths. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Andrew Waggoner, sir.’

  ‘Who am I?’

  ‘You’ll know tonight.’ Waggoner stroked the headmaster’s hair. ‘You helped make this possible.’

  * * *

  I went home on the minibus. I watched through the windows in the back doors as it drew out of the school in the cold afternoon darkness. I thought that was the last time I would see the buildings like that.

  The bus driver put on the radio, and ‘Karma Chameleon’ was playing.

  Thirty-seven

  Dad drove me in for the disco. I was silent. A nothing drive, but a different sort of nothing, one waiting to be filled. I got out onto the gravel in front of the school. Dad had parked the Renault Fourteen with one wheel up on the steps. I shook his hand, which surprised him. He frowned, but he couldn’t find the words to express such a vague worry. ‘I’ll get on home,’ he said.

  Waggoner stood beside me and watched the car drive off. For a moment, I wished I had my two sticks.

  * * *

  As I walked into the
school, I remembered Angie dancing in her witch costume. I’d got to know her, for a while. For the first time, I’d got to see all the contradictions and over-writings and lack of reasons and dislocations which make a person. Then I’d found out how all those flaws and features could surprise you with new horror, bursting out of nothing. I’d found out how randomly frightening people could be.

  This needed fixing. I had no doubt in my mind now. No imaginings or hope for the future. I would see this fixed, and my revenge would be complete, and all would be right with the world, and I, being not all right, would be somehow, blissfully, healed or ended or both. It felt like the same thing.

  I stopped at the corner of the building and looked at the kids in costume already there at the top of the steps, which led down to the cellar. It was cold, but somehow nobody wanted to go down there first. I considered seeing Lang and Selway and Blewly and Rove amongst them. But no. What had been done had been done. A few of the kids had used last year’s costumes again; Fiesta was once again his nonspecific devil, maybe a bit more Michael Jackson this time. I went to join them, went to my lot, nodded. Mr. Coxwell marched up and asked loudly why we weren’t getting down there and enjoying ourselves? Following the others, I ducked under the lintel of the cellar. The first record was playing, ‘Karma Chameleon’ again, the current Number One.

  I stopped when I saw who the DJ was. Mr. Rushden. This was the first time I’d seen him since he was lying there on the football pitch in the rain. He was wearing an eyepatch. He looked up, saw who it was and gave me a big smile. He’d forgiven me. I ducked away, moved on. Louise was opening foil-wrapped packages from Cookery, putting out biscuits, making a spiral pattern on the bar surface with them, counting them, talking to herself under her breath, eager, whispering. I looked back over my shoulder. On the stairs behind me, there was Angie, with Netty and Jenn.

  They had mops of hair and little troubadour hats and braces and big chequerboard trousers. Angie had half dark and half light hair, Netty had dark hair and Jenn had very blonde hair.