Breaktime

by Aidan Chambers

  ‘I feel filthy,’ he said unexpectedly.

  ‘And sound solemn,’ said Robby. ‘We can’t have that. What you need is a good bath. That would work wonders. We’ve no bath, but we have plenty of water. Take a swim.’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ said Jack. ‘You always have to be messing folk about.’

  ‘I’ll settle with you later, deserter,’ said Robby, and stood, grabbed Ditto’s feet, heaved on them, swinging him at the same time so that he was lying along the edge of the river bank.

  ‘No, gerroff,’ he shouted, clawing at the ground to save himself from the water.

  But Robby was laughing again; giggling rather.

  ‘Strip him!’ Robby yelled at Jack.

  Jack did not move. ‘Do your own dirty work.’

  ‘No no!’ Ditto shouted.

  ‘Yes yes!’ Robby replied, lunging for Ditto’s trouser belt.

  ‘Off! Off!’ screamed Ditto, grabbing Robby’s clawing hands and with desperate effort trying to turn himself and his assailant away from the water and his trousers.

  Jack sprang to his feet to save himself from the rolling, struggling pair.

  ‘Grab him, Jack,’ Robby called.

  Jack climbed higher up the bank and sat on a mossy boulder, vantage for the fray.

  Suddenly it was essential to Ditto that he be free. No longer a game. His frivolous dissipate energy at once focused bleakly to that end. Firmly, he took grip of Robby’s wrists, twisted body and arms, pulled, lunged, leaped, hurled himself in clean rhythm.

  Robby was carried, surfing, upon the wave of Ditto’s determined bore. Clasped together like lovers they rose from the scuffled ground.

  ‘Submit, fool!’ Robby cried.

  Each pushed the other away; but each held to the other. Their push-pull upset the poised balance of Ditto’s determined rise.

  They hit the water like felled trees with snared branches, at the same instant.

  Robby rose from the shallow depths first, like a jack from its box.

  ‘Victory!’ he crowed, and danced a plodgy jig in the churning pool.

  Firemuse

  They made a fire of flotsam and dead branches, stood by it, sat by it, lay by it, and dried. Jack did not help, but sat on and on on his boulder, drinking his way through a six-pack of Newcastle Brown, saying nothing.

  Night came, starry, still. The wetness steamed from their clinging clothes in the glowheat of the fire. Activity left them now happier to be cosy and unmoving, with nothing to say, each more comfortably comforted by his secret thoughts.

  Ditto was remembering another fire, another chilly night, hardly more than two years ago before his father’s illness prevented them living a normal life.

  Together he and his father had been fishing up the Tees on some private water. They had lashed the river all the warm sun day but with little luck. Nothing to show, in fact, but one or two middling-sized dace, nothing special, no trout which they would most like to have landed and had hoped to catch when they had set off that morning almost at dawn in a sharp clean sun, the country washed by rain overnight, the air frostdew bright. A glisten. A sparkle. A kind of carnival in birdsong silence. A good day all day, a companionable day. They had not talked much, a few words now and then about bait or pools promising to cast upon. Nothing dissentient. They did not row then; that came later. Over lunch—coffee from a flask, mother’s meat pie, cake, an apple each—they had twitted one another and joked, his father in good form, anecdotal, as he always was at his best and when happiest, but not frenetic as he could be when he had had a drink or two in the evening. Relaxed. Ditto had liked him then, loved him, felt proud in a way he could not explain to himself or to anyone else. But he knew now, thinking, that it was the man’s simple delight in his day of freedom from work, in the beauty about him, his absorption to the point of obsession with his fishing: these were the things which gave him his self and were attractive and made Ditto proud. And Ditto knew at once then, that evening as they sat by their makeshift fire his father and he, that he was not as this man. Knew that he fished to please him by pretending absorption, not living it as his father did. He had spent the day like this to please his father not because it gave himself the kind of pleasure his father took from it. And did that matter? He did not know, could not decide, knew only that finally he did not want to do anything simply to please this man his father. Wanted to please him of course, but not to please him by pretence. He wished to do what was of himself, his own-him. And he wondered if his father knew this.

  Whether his father did or not, from that day Ditto found he could not quite, ever, please his father again. No matter how much he tried, no matter how he acted out the pretence or how fervently he wished to recapture the closeness of that day, the last day of so many that had gone before, he could not. It was as if knowing he had pretended made it impossible ever to pretend again, whether he wanted to or not. His father always seemed to sense the lie. And it was from that time that the arguments, the disagreements, the fractured days began.

  From that time, too, his father’s illness took hold. Was that coincidence? Or consequence?

  He did not know that either. And groaned aloud in the firelight, as people do when they want to push guilt and fear from their thoughts.

  ‘Sounds like you’re ready for some more excitement,’ said Robby, rousing from his own reverie.

  Fireplan

  Soon after midnight Robby proposed that we now set out on the second part of his plan for the evening’s escapade. I asked what he intended. He said he planned for us to burgle the home of that evening’s guest speaker at the public meeting from which we had been so unceremoniously ejected.

  Jack was against this.

  JACK: You’re an idiot, man. Leave well alone. You’re just getting your own back.

  ROBBY: I’m not asking you, deserter. I’m telling. Either join in or push off.

  JACK: You never give up, do you!

  ROBBY: Look, you copped out once tonight. Do it again and that’s it. Okay?

  JACK: So it’s a test for me now as well, is it?

  ROBBY: You treat it how you like. You know the score.

  Their animosity was undisguised. I was not able then to untangle all that lay behind the exchange; this only became clear later, as you will discover in due time.

  I was not, of course, myself happy about the proposal. When I voiced my unease, Robby delivered a somewhat lengthy diatribe, of which the following is an abridged version, reproduced as accurately as memory allows in Robby’s own words:

  ‘Look, this man is a socialist, right? And supposed to be a champion of the working class, at least that’s what he’s always claiming. He goes on endlessly about equality and the capitalist oppression and about a fairer distribution of wealth. He shouts about workers’ control, nationalization of all the means of production and the institutions of business. You know the kind of stuff, you hear it every day. I believe it, as it happens. Not the slogany side of it, not the bandwaggoneers. I can’t stand them any more than that collection of time-servers you saw tonight. But do you know how this paragon of socialist action lives? Eh? He has a house worth upwards of sixty thousand quid, he’s got shares in half-a-dozen well-heeled companies and the last thing he’d want is for any happy band of workers to tell him what he’s got to do. In other words, he’s like all the rest, all he wants is a big slice of whatever there is going. He’s a manipulator, that’s all, and he mouths socialist doctrine because that’s what he knows he has to do to get where he wants to be. It’s the fashionable philosophy. You know how he got where he is? Good degree from respectable university. Into a trade union. Organized a nice little strike that he managed to keep going long enough to get sympathetic publicity but not so long that he lost it. From that straight into the national office as a blue-eyed boy. Then a quick side-step into the political corridors at Westminster and bingo, before you know it he’s on TV all the time, he’s advising unions about companies and employers about trade unions, he’s all s
et for Parliament and is doing all right thank you out of fees, journalism, union support, sinecure salaries and kick-backs. Four hundred years ago he’d have gone into the church, written a classy book on ecclesiastical authority or burned a few heretics and been made a bishop in double-quick time. Bit of sex on the side, not mattering which sort, good food, nice house, secure job. And power. That as much as anything. Status, influence, authority, money. That’s the name of the game. Always was, still is. His politics aren’t a philosophy and they aren’t a mission. And he’s not crackers. His politics are a business, a career that gets him what he wants—being one of the elect of the earth.’

  As this monologue went on, Robby showed many of the signs of stress which you, Morgan, as a budding M.D. would have been interested to note. He began trembling with anger, his voice became proclamatory as if he were addressing a public meeting. He broke into a sweat, beads of perspiration winked on his forehead, reflecting the firelight. By the end I knew I was watching a fanatic promoting his cause. If the sittingstanding talking man would have done well as a corrupt bishop, Robby would have matched him as a ruthless officer in the department of the inquisition. It was the kind of outburst you cannot reply to; and you cannot politely dismiss or change the subject afterwards.

  There was a pause. Robby recovered his composure. (I realized then, watching him, that the thing I had felt vaguely about him all day and had not been able to pin down was that all the time he was on the edge of hysteria, that somehow this was part of both his attractiveness and unattractiveness. Like watching a bomb to see when it might explode. There was rumbling violence always just under the surface of his skin. And I could not tell just at that moment what caused it. I was soon to discover.)

  I said, as calmly and as amenably as I could—as though humouring a madman!—that though what he had said was no doubt true, I could not understand why he wanted to burgle the man’s house.

  I had, he replied, entirely missed the point. Words were no longer enough. Actions were what counted. Only actions revealed intentions truthfully. This man said he was a socialist but acted like any other grabber. This showed his true beliefs. He claimed to believe in equality, in fair distribution of wealth, and to be against greed and privilege. Okay, let him live by that. And as he had so much more than most people let us take some of his unequal wealth and redistribute it. Obviously he would not willingly allow us to do this, so it must be done by a people’s tax, by an act on behalf of the people which we, representatives of the people, would execute.

  DITTO: I agree with your theory. But not with the action you want to take.

  ROBBY: You’re a fool, then.

  DITTO: Talk sense or not at all.

  ROBBY: Okay. You’re naive. You’ve swallowed all that junk they serve up at school about being a good citizen. You’re allowing your upbringing to condition you to the morality of the status quo. Just what the cruds want.

  DITTO: Crap. I’m saying that if you go around burgling people’s houses, however you justify it, it won’t be long before everybody is at it whenever they feel like getting something for nothing. And that means nobody comes off best. Certainly not the ordinary bloke, who always comes off worst anyway.

  ROBBY: You’ve no proof that that will happen.

  DITTO: Don’t talk stupid. It’s human nature.

  ROBBY: Human nature isn’t absolute. It can be changed. And it is changed by conditions.

  DITTO: And when your Great Socialist Society finally dawns, there’ll be no need to burgle, I suppose.

  ROBBY: That’s right. Need makes burglars. And there’ll be no need.

  DITTO: Meanwhile, mayhem on the way to the Great Day.

  ROBBY: If necessary, yes.

  DITTO: And hard luck on the innocent victims.

  ROBBY: To start with, no one is innocent in this fight. Second off, you can’t make a cake without smashing eggs. Third off, there’s no gain without sacrifice, no healing of this sick man without deep surgery. Fourth off, I’m fed up with all this bloody chat. Are you coming or aren’t you? Or are you like the rest of them, all hot air?

  You will have noticed, Morgan, that one of the difficulties of attempting to set down such an account as I am here engaged upon is to reveal simultaneous thoughts and feelings, with concurrent words and actions in such a way that you, dear reader, accept them as being at one, in the moment. Paralleling, as it were, the conversational exchange set down opposite I experienced an interior monologue of influential effect on my decision regarding Robby’s criminal suggestion. What he proposed touched, not my mind, but my emotions. My nerves not my thoughts. You know, Morgan, how often we have inveighed against the narrow restrictions of our education. How we have attacked, between ourselves and to our teachers, the false assumptions made about what we must do in life, how we shall—indeed must—live. How we have discussed the possible ways of breaking from that strait-jacket and of reforming it so that others who follow after are not subjected to similar pressures. (Robby was not alone in possessing hotly held ideals!)

  I thought, at the same time, of my father, whose whole life has been lived by an honest regard for, a belief in the very system that makes it so that now he lies ill and has for two years suffered for simple want of the means of ease, want of the kind of attention that would alleviate him.

  Solemn thoughts; telling emotions. But I have to admit that most persuasive of all was an irrational desire to chance my arm. I wanted to commit a dangerous act, wanted to know what excitements were to be had in crime, wanted for a night to play the outlaw. Had I not set out to take indiscriminately what life offered? Could I turn away because it offered something that might offend a delicate sensibility? Of course not. And I knew then what a ghastly tyranny both causes and logic can be.

  I said, ‘Let’s get cracking.’

  Jack said, ‘You’re mad, both of you.’

  Robby said, ‘Who asked? And who cares whether you come or not?’

  Jack said, ‘I’m coming, but just to see the kid gets into no trouble.’

  Robby said, ‘How touching! Or have you yet?’

  I said, ‘Look, pack it in, you two. If we’re going to do it let’s go now before I change my crazy mind.’

  Robby said, ‘We’re about a quarter of a mile from the house. We’ll leave the car where it is and walk. All we pinch is a few things, valuable, small, resaleable and light. I know just the stuff and I know where it is, so leave the selection to me.’

  Scenes From a Burglary

  I need hardly remind you, Morgan, that I am not exactly accustomed to burgling houses. True, when climbing up and down my ladder during my Saturday stints of window-cleaning, I have sometimes imagined what burgling a house at night might be like, how I might do it, with what stealth and cunning I would execute the operation—never of course being caught or leaving behind one tell-tale clue to betray my identity. I would even vary my modus operandi, thereby foxing the police, whose routine minds would fruitlessly look for a pattern in case after unsolved case.

  But such idle fantasy was no more than pastime speculation, self-hero daydreaming, a hedge against the boredom of polishing vertical glass hour on hour.

  This was to be the real thing.

  As we walked up the dark lane away from the river, sweat rashed my body.

  I am a fool, I thought. What am I doing here?

  Was this a dream? A sleeping fantasy too really felt? A nightmare? I had had a hard day, an unusual day; I was not myself; was sleeping without rest.

  But I knew it was not so. I had felt similar symptoms before. While going to the dentist to have a broken tooth pulled. While walking to school for examinations. Most recent and vividly of all, while in the ambulance with my father.

  Not a dream. Just fear.

  I was scared.

  My body did not move as it normally does. An act of will was required. I had to make myself walk. Had to monitor myself, as an engineer monitors a faulty engine, making certain I walked toward this unknown house with apparen
tly normal ease, revealing none of my alarm to my accomplices.

  But fear itself is a heady excitement.

  *

  When we reached the house, large glooming in the nightlight dark, solid (how much more solid than in daylight!), forbidding, Robby put up a hand to stop us in our stride as if he were a marine commando in some wartime raid behind enemy lines.

  Fear is also a stimulating fantasist.

  *

  ‘Round the back there is an unlocked window that lets into the kitchen,’ Robby whispered, we huddled head-to-head.

  ‘How do you know?’ I asked.

  ‘I drummed the place today,’ Robby said.

  ‘O, god!’ Jack said, derisive, and muffled an unrepentant guffaw.

  *

  Gravel crunches like boiled sweets when you crush them in your mouth with senseless regard for your teeth. And the noise abraded a sleeping world.

  ‘Keep on the grass, fool!’ puled Robby.

  *

  A house about to be burgled is like an animal being hunted. As you stalk closer, you expect its eyes to open and discover your malign purpose and you, its mouth to growl a warning. You wait for it to stand up and charge away. Or, worse, to charge at you. That a house does none of these things makes it all the more menacing.

  ‘Bloody silly this is, kiddo,’ whispered Jack into my face as we stumbled into each other.

  *

  ‘Nobody ever pinches me,’ said the burglar’s wife to her husband.

  *

  We reached the cliff face of the house itself, fleas clinging against an elephant.

  ‘The window is to our left,’ Robby murmured. ‘Edge that way slowly.’

  My feet trod soft soil.

  ‘We’re in a flowerbed,’ I said. ‘Leaving footprints!’

  ‘Shut it!’ Robby said. ‘Who cares?’

  ‘The police will care, that’s who.’

  Jack’s mouth to my ear, lips tickling as he said, ‘There’ll be no police, Sunshine.’

  ‘Optimist,’ I whispered.

  *

  The soles of my feet were tingling in an electrically shocking way. My legs were freeze-dried jelly.