by David Almond
“Heaven!” he whispered.
“Grampa!”
“You is all right, Heaven?”
“Yes, Grampa.”
Suddenly the carving knife was in his hand.
“Come to me, my little one,” he said. “Come away from them ghosts.”
She stood up to go to him. I caught her arm and held her tight.
“She’s ours,” said January.
He stepped forward, holding the ax. Grampa stepped back, into the doorway.
“Touch her and you is dead,” he said.
He narrowed his eyes.
“Little Helper,” he said.
Mouse shuddered and whimpered.
“Little Helper!”
“Grampa.”
“You is all right, Little Helper?”
“He’s terrified,” I whispered.
“Touch him an you is dead,” said Grampa.
“Murderer!” said January. “Murderer!”
Grampa wiped the slithery mud from his eyes and stared at him. He held his hand out.
“Come, Heaven Eyes,” he said.
I held her tight.
“Keep still, sister,” I hissed. “Keep still, Anna.”
I closed my eyes.
“Mum!” I whispered. “Mum! Mum!”
Her voice rose inside me.
“Stay calm, Erin. Stay calm and everything will be well.”
“He does not want to hurt you,” said Heaven Eyes. “Grampa is a good grampa. He will do no harm.”
I heard January’s frantic breath, his terror, his excitement. His arm holding the ax jerked and trembled.
Grampa wiped the mud from his eyes and stepped forward.
“Grampa!” said Mouse.
“Little Helper?”
“Grampa, there was a body in the Middens. A body buried deep deep down.”
“I do know this, Little Helper. And that is why there is great joy in your digging this night.”
“Great joy?”
“Great joy, my Little Helper. For you has found a saint this night. You has found a saint that in all his years of digging Grampa has never never found.”
He reached out his hand.
“Come to me,” he whispered. “Come away with little Heaven Eyes from these wicked ghosts and I will tell you all about saints.”
He glared at me, at January.
“I has seen,” he whispered. “I has seen how you has led my Heaven Eyes astray. I has seen how you has led my Little Helper astray. These two is precious. Time for you to go. Time to leave them here alone and safe with Grampa.”
“We won’t leave without them,” I said.
He stepped forward suddenly. He snatched the ax easily from January’s grip. He knocked the knife from my hand. He took Mouse and Heaven in his arms.
“What now?” he whispered. “Does you leave alone, or does Grampa have to fettle you?”
He shoved Mouse and Heaven into the space behind the desk. He came at January and me. He had the ax in one hand, the carving knife in the other. We backed toward the door.
“Grampa!” said Heaven Eyes. “Do not touch them. These is my friends, Grampa!”
“Friends!” he said. “These is ghosts that’s putting wrongness in your head, my little one. Tell them go, and leave us here happy, safe and alone.”
Heaven wept. Her eyes shone with pain, with love for all of us.
“But Grampa! This is mine sister that you is sending away.”
“You has no sisters! You has nothing! You has only Grampa and now Grampa’s Little Helper!”
She sobbed. Mouse put his arm around her.
“Grampa,” she called. “Oh, Grampa!” She held up the photograph. “What is this picture of mine sleep thoughts? Who is these ghosts? What happened to mine mum and mine dad? What happened to mine sister and brothers?”
He stopped. His body slumped. He rolled his eyes. He stared at me but spoke to Heaven.
“What did you say, my little one?”
“What happened to them, Grampa? Mine mum, mine dad, mine brothers, mine sister?”
Mud and water trickled across his eyes.
“Does you see?” he whispered. “Does you see what you has done to lovely Heaven Eyes?”
And he dropped the ax and the knife and went to her. He took her in his arms and they cried together and spoke each other’s name time and time and time again.
JANUARY AND I STOOD SILENT. We watched them for a time. The tall old man dripping black mud, sobbing, holding the delicate Heaven Eyes in his huge arms. Mouse crouching against the wall, filthy too, staring in dread and fascination. The shovels, the buckets, the shelves of treasures, the boxes of secrets, the great book, the knives and the ax. Soon we left them there. We beckoned Mouse, stepped out into the printing works and closed the door on them.
January rubbed his eyes.
“Is this happening?” he whispered.
“Yes. It’s happening.”
“And there really was a body?”
“Yes,” said Mouse.
We shuddered and wondered. We roamed between the angels and the eagles. Bats flickered against the starry sky. Moonlight poured down.
“There were other things,” said January. “Lots of things. Newspapers and photographs, scribbled pages, drawings, trinkets. The boxes are filled with them.”
“Treasures,” I said. “Stuff from her past.”
“Yes. Treasures. I’d just found them when I heard Mouse screaming.”
We stood in silence beneath the moon, stunned by this place we’d come to, by what we’d found here.
“We could just leave,” said January. “Just go back to the raft and sail away from it all.”
“We can’t,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “I know that.”
We sat down in the doorway of the printing works and looked out across the river. Soon Mouse curled up and slept. January laughed.
“Look at him. It’s like he’s right at home here. He can sleep anywhere, anytime.”
“Dormouse, eh?” I said.
We leaned on each other.
“I keep on dreaming that you’ve gone,” I said. “I see you all alone going out to sea.”
“I’ve almost done it. Climb down to the raft, jump aboard, set off all alone. Seems easy.”
“But you haven’t.”
“Mebbe it’s because I can’t.”
He shrugged.
“I can’t leave you, Erin.”
We stared into each other’s eyes.
“I know that,” I said. “And you know that one day I’ll go anywhere with you. Anywhere. I’ll go to the edge of death with you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said. “I know that, Erin.”
We watched the river glittering beneath the stars. Both of us became lost in ourselves, in our memories, our mysteries and dreams. I slipped into the little garden in St. Gabriel’s and felt Mum’s arms around me. Where was January? In a cardboard box, maybe, wrapped in blankets, being carried through a bitter winter’s night.
We were silent for a long time. The moon journeyed across the sky. The noise of distant traffic came to us, the noise of distant music.
I felt how January’s spirit had quietened, how his anger, his fear and his agitation had faded.
“Erin,” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“Do you think that one day we’ll know everything there is to know about ourselves?”
I thought of the beautiful terrified young woman rushing from the hospital steps into the deep winter dark. I thought of a man on a boat that danced down the river and out into the sea.
“I don’t know,” I said. I held his arm. “There’ll always be lots of things we don’t know. But maybe one day when you least expect it, your mum will come along and say, ‘Hello, I’m your mum.’”
“Yes,” he said. “She will.”
“Yes.”
He sat up straight and faced me.
“She still loves me and want
s me, Erin. One day she’ll come back for me.”
Then he slumped and leaned against me.
“I’ve got nothing, you know,” he said.
“Nothing?”
“No treasures. No photographs. No earrings. No lipsticks. Nothing. Not even a memory. Just dreams and stupid thoughts and stupid hopes.”
“You’ve got your friends.”
“Maybe.”
“You have. You’ve got friends that love you.”
He trembled as he cried.
“Sometimes,” he said, “I want to hate everybody. I want to hate them and hurt them and make them hate me.”
I smiled.
“I know that,” I said. “But you can’t bring yourself to hate them.”
“No. Can’t even manage that.”
We were silent again. Mum came to us. I felt her breath on my cheek. She put her arms around me and around January and we sat together in the moonlight, half-sleeping, half-waking, lost in the joy and fear of being alive in this mysterious world.
AND THEN DAWN CAME, and the stars faded, and pigeons and sparrows took the place of bats above us. Gulls screamed over the river. We looked at each other in surprise. We smiled. We stood up. We gently shook Mouse awake.
“God knows what’s been happening back there,” Jan said.
We went back to the office. There was silence inside. We opened the door gently. Grampa sat with Heaven Eyes on the floor. He had his arm around her. There were opened boxes beside them. Heaven Eyes held a photograph in her webbed fingers.
“Erin,” she said. “I did think you had gone off with Janry Carr.”
Her eyes were bright, burning, filled with tears.
“Oh, Erin,” she said.
She turned to Grampa and he nodded and lowered his eyes.
I crouched beside her. She turned the photograph to me. It was crumpled and faded, but I could see the family there: mother, father, four children sitting before them. She lifted it closer to my eyes.
“Eye close as close,” she said. “And you will see a tiny Heaven Eyes.”
I looked closely. The tiniest of the four. She was fair-haired, bright-eyed, pale-cheeked. She had tiny hands with webs between the fingers. There were webs between her tiny toes. She sat on the woman’s lap and the woman’s hands were tenderly holding her.
“Is me,” said Heaven Eyes.
“Is you.”
“I cannot mouth much, Erin.”
“You don’t need to mouth.”
I looked at Grampa.
“It is her?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Is Heaven Eyes.”
His eyes were filled with his memories, with his mysteries, with his confusions.
“All has been wrongness,” he said. “All has been imagining.”
Heaven ran her fingers across herself as she was, across her mother, her father, her sister, her brothers.
“My name is Anna,” said Heaven Eyes.
She bit her lip at the name, Anna.
“Anna,” she whispered. “Anna. Anna. It does feel that funny in my mouth. Anna. Anna.”
“You were a lovely little baby,” I said.
January took the photograph and stared at it.
“You were,” he said. “You were lovely, Anna.”
“I was not a fishy froggy thing deep down in the black Black Middens.”
“No. You were a fishy froggy thing like me, growing deep inside your mum.”
She took the photograph again. She touched the woman’s face. She was sheepish, joyous, terrified.
“Is my mum,” she whispered. “Is my dad. Is my brothers and my sister.”
There were other photographs. Each of them was faded, cracked, bleached, like they’d been lost in water. They showed the same people, differently arranged. One showed them in a living room, heaped up and giggling on a sofa. There were pictures of just the children, of just the parents. There was a picture of the parents on their wedding day, she in her white gown and veil, he in black, both of them grinning out. One showed the family on a little sailing boat, gathered around the mast. They wore slickers and life jackets, even tiny Anna. The wind whipped at their hair and the sea danced behind them.
We gazed into the photographs, into Anna’s past.
“You were very happy,” I said.
“Is true.”
She held my arm.
“But my mind is flapping like a pigeon’s wing and swirling like the runny water and dancing like the dust. I does not know if I am happy now.”
“You had a lovely mum,” I said. “You had a lovely dad. You had lovely brothers and a lovely sister. Anyone would give anything to have these things. These are your treasures, Anna. You have found your treasures.”
She touched her mum’s face.
“Mum,” she whispered. “Mum. Mum.”
Grampa lowered his head. Tears trickled from his eyes.
“I has been wrong,” he said. “All was for you, little one. All was to keep you happy forever in your heart. And look at the tears that is running from you now.”
“And from you, Grampa.”
She reached out to him, and she hugged him, and they rocked in each other’s arms.
I lifted a newspaper from one of the boxes. It came from ten years ago. A headline told of a whole family lost at sea. January cursed. We put it back in the box and just looked at each other.
“The body,” said Jan at last. “We’d better find it again.”
“You’re joking,” I said, but knew that he wasn’t.
MOUSE STAYED IN THE OFFICE with Grampa and Heaven Eyes as we moved out.
“You’re crazy,” I said.
“Aye,” said Jan. “You’re always saying that.”
He grinned like a devil.
“Where’s your spirit of adventure, eh?”
I laughed and thumped his arm.
“I’m glad you haven’t gone away alone,” I said.
“Me too.”
I smiled.
“Let’s go adventuring,” I said.
“Yes. Me and you.”
I shuddered and grinned.
“Me and you,” I said. “Me and you and the body and the Middens.”
We left the printing works. Jan turned toward the quay. The sun was already up, glaring low in the east above the hidden sea.
“What if it was murder?” I said.
“D’you think it was?”
“Look at him last night and he’d do anything to protect Heaven Eyes.”
“Then it’s murder.”
“So what would we do?”
“Do?”
“Well, the police. You’ve got to do something about murder.”
“He’d call it fettling.”
“Whatever he called it, it would still be murder.”
“Hell’s teeth, Erin. Let’s just find out first, then think what to do.”
We came to the quay. Since last night’s digging, the tide had come in and gone out again. The raft rested on the mud. The holes in the Middens had been smoothed out. Over on the other side of the river, a couple of early-morning joggers bounced along the cycle track. Jan laughed.
“Ghosts, eh?” he said.
We looked down. Jan muttered, trying to work out exactly where Mouse had been digging last night.
“We’ll never find the right spot,” I said.
“Giving up?” he said.
“Course not.”
I shrugged.
“We’ll find it. Come on.”
He stepped down onto the ancient ladder. I followed him. He led me out toward the water, toward the edge of the dry land, to where our feet started to slither and sink into the soft surface.
“Round about here, I reckon,” he said.
I stared at him.
He laughed.
“Come on, Little Helper,” he said. “Get that shovel digging!”
We started to dig. We lifted great spadefuls of oily, silty, stinking mud and water. Our shovels slopped and sucked. Withi
n seconds we were filthy. We slithered down into the holes we dug. We were ankle-deep, shin-deep, knee-deep. We heaped up mounds of the stuff at our sides. We dug deeper, deeper. I looked across at Jan and he whooped and was like a crazed black creature made of the mud itself. The sun rose higher and the morning grew warmer and the stench of oil and rot and waste intensified. We gagged. We spat out mouthfuls of silt. It gathered in our eyes, in our ears, in the creases on our skin. I asked myself what I was doing. I told myself that Mouse was mistaken, that there was no body, that there was nothing here but the stones and broken pottery and lumps of rubbish that we found and flung away. I told myself we should just go back to the office and try to get Heaven Eyes to leave with us. Or we should go to the police and bring them here and get them to sort out the mystery. We should do anything but dig in the filthy Black Middens for a body that was the last thing in the world I wanted to find. But I dug and spat and wiped my face and dug deeper, deeper till I was sick of it all and was just about to tell Jan that I was giving up when I saw the tips of the fingers in the black black mud.
I scrambled out of the hole. I stared upriver to the real world, to the bridge with the glittering traffic moving across it, to the rooftops and spires of the roaring city.
“Erin!”
I swung my head to him.
He scrambled, slithered out of his own digging.
“Erin?”
I nodded. I couldn’t look down.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes.”
He knelt there.
“Where?” he said.
“There. In there.”
He slithered in. He lifted mud from the bottom of the hole with his hands. And I knew by his groans that he had found it.
“IT’S NOT REAL,” he said.
“Eh?”
“It’s not real. It’s a model or a statue or something. It’s made of leather or wood or something. It’s not a body. It’s not real.”
He was out of the hole again, kneeling beside.
“Go on,” he said. “Go on down and see for yourself.”
I still couldn’t look down.
“Go on, Erin,” he said.
I took a deep breath and went back down. Now a whole hand was exposed. It was half-submerged in the mud. It glistened beneath the sun. I saw the loops and whorls on the fingertips, the lines crossing the palm. I touched, and yes it was like some kind of leather, something not skin and flesh and bone. The hand rested there, as if waiting for a gift, an offering, for something to be placed on it.