The Color of the Sun

by David Almond

  He groans and keels over onto the arm of the bench as if he’s dead.

  “Write me a different tale!” he says. “Dress me in bonny clothes and set me dancing up the hill! Bring me to life!”

  He laughs. Davie laughs with him.

  “OK, Paddy,” he says.

  “No need,” says Paddy. “I’ve already started it. I’m already writing a new life.”

  He looks around. There’s no one nearby. He leans a little closer to Davie.

  “Have you ever been in love, lad?”

  Davie can’t answer. The priest smiles.

  “’Course you haven’t,” he says. “Sorry.”

  Father Kelly takes deep breaths. At last he says, “I think I am in love, Davie.”

  The priest unbuttons his white priest’s collar. He laughs.

  “Ah, the air upon me neck, Davie! Don’t you think we live in a grand world, that has such air in it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Of course you do! This could be Heaven itself. Don’t you think that, Davie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes,” he continues. “That’s the thing. I think I am in love.”

  Davie looks back at him. He wonders if he should say something in reply.

  “I tell you this,” says the priest, “because I see myself in you. I am you, wandering these fine streets on a fine Tyneside day. You are me, wandering the hills of Kerry. I’m in love, Davie. That’s the top and tail of it, the in and out of it, the beginning and the end of it. I am head over heels, and I think I will not be much longer in these black and heavy clothes. Do I shock you, Davie?”

  “No.”

  “I won’t trouble you with the details of it. But I have fallen in love with a woman from these streets. And she has fallen too. And let me tell you that the voice of Love is stronger than any voice of any god . . .”

  He ponders, then he digs into a pocket in his vestments. He takes out a little black prayer book with a thin golden cross on its cover, flicks through its pages and then holds it out to Davie.

  “Look at this dreadful little thing,” he says. “Look at those thin mean lines of tiny black writing. Look at the drivel that is in it.” He bites his lip. “It’s time to cast it out. You’re a lad for the books. Mebbe you’d like to carry it now. A relic of the dreadful way things used to be.”

  Davie hesitates.

  “You could just chuck it into the first dark ditch you see. Anyway, you’d be doing me a favor to take it from me. It would help me in my purpose.”

  Davie takes it. He puts it into the haversack and it drops down like a stone beside the sketchbook and the colored pencils and the fox mask and the antlers and the bara brith and Cheshire cheese.

  “Thank you, lad,” says the priest. “As each moment passes, I feel brighter, I feel lighter. The darkness slowly fades.”

  He unfastens the buttons below his collar. He’s wearing a blue T-shirt underneath. There is true bliss for a moment in his eyes.

  “Ah, she is a smasher, Davie,” he whispers.

  “That’s good.”

  “I thought it would be a fight, you know.”

  “A fight?”

  “Yes. I imagined that in order to free myself I would have to struggle and to fight with God. Perhaps that is because . . .”

  He hesitates. He stares into the clear blue sky.

  “Because what, Paddy?”

  “Perhaps because, Davie, there is no God at all. Perhaps, Davie, because God is a figment of our own imaginations. Perhaps God is just a story that we like to tell ourselves.” His eyes widen in shock at his own words. “What a thing for a priest to say!” he says. “But the words have formed themselves and have left my lips and they have flown like birds into the air.”

  He snatches at the air as if to catch the words that have left his lips. He opens his mouth wide and laughs as he pretends to throw the words back into it. “No good,” he said. “The words are spoke, the deed is done. Does it shock you, to hear a priest suggesting that there is no God at all?”

  “No.”

  “Of course it doesn’t. You are a man of the modern world, Davie, and you are the first to know my news. I ask that you will keep it to yourself for now.”

  “I will.”

  “Good man. Thank you for passing by and for lending your ear to me. Doubtless there will be some trouble in my way, but then I think there will be much joy.”

  “There will be.”

  “Indeed there will. A few weeks back I would have asked you to pray for me, but now I ask you just to be yourself, to wander, to share this sunlit heaven with Paddy Kelly and his love.”

  “I will, Paddy.”

  “And now I think that you are keen to wander on.” He winks. “And look out for the murderers.”

  “I will, Paddy.”

  And Davie leaves, with the dreadful old prayer book in his sack, and wanders on uphill.

  Of course, he wonders for a moment who Paddy Kelly’s secret love might be, but there’s no way to discover an answer to that. It is a mystery and must remain so for now, along with all the other mysteries of the world.

  Walk on. Walk on.

  Soon Davie is passing close to home. The entrance to his street is just off Felling Bank. He doesn’t want to go there. The last thing he wants to do is to go home to tell Mam about a bloody murder so soon after the death of Dad. For a moment he has the image of the funeral cars coming slowly out of this entrance. He has the image of himself in a black car with a black tie around his neck. He has the image of the undertaker’s driver dressed in black. Bleak, black memories. He doesn’t want them. He turns away from them toward the light. As his mother said this morning, The world is wide, the day is long, you’re young and free. And despite the dreadful event that’s happened, the world is still wide, the day is still long, he is still young and free, and the last thing he wants is to go back home and for his mam to make him stay inside all day, to stay safe from the murderer.

  So he keeps his head down and walks more quickly past that and past the entrance to his grandma and granddad’s street and toward the hills and sky.

  Then he slows down and breathes more easily and keeps on heading for the hills until he comes upon two little girls squatting on the ground at the junction with Balaclava Street, and one of them screams and says, “Don’t step on the fairies, you nit!”

  He stops and steps back. They’re drawing with chalk on the pavement. They’ve made a garden with trees and flowers and a blazing orange sun. One of the girls, who has bright ginger hair and is wearing a bright yellow dress, points down.

  “There they are,” she says. “See?”

  “See what?”

  “The fairies, silly,” says the other girl. She’s wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt, and she has golden hair. “And you nearly stepped on them, so that makes you a big daft nit!”

  Davie crouches down beside them.

  “Oh, yes,” he says.

  Yes, two winged fairies dressed just like the girls but with wings at their backs, poised to take flight.

  They’ve written a title across the top of the picture.

  THE GARDIN OF FAIRYS & MONSTAS.

  “Monsters?” he says.

  “Yes,” says the red-haired girl. “And don’t you go thinking we can’t spell, ’cos we can. It just looks better that way, doesn’t it?”

  He looks at the words. Gardin. Fairys. Monstas. The words do look better like that, written beautifully on the pavement. They’re like something from a child’s first writings, or like something from a dream, or like the lovely words you’re not supposed to say.

  “Yes,” he says. “It does.”

  “Of course it does. And there’s a monster there, look.”

  She points to a tall, dark shape at the edge of a row of green trees.

  “You can’t make him out properly yet,” she says, “’cos he’s hiding in the shadows and he hasn’t got his proper shape yet. But he’s going to cause big trouble if he gets his way. He�
��s just waiting for his chance.”

  “We draw the monsters with this,” says Goldenhair.

  She points a thick stick at Davie. It’s all burned and charred at the tip.

  “We got this from the fire,” she says.

  “Which fire?”

  “The one on Balaclava Street. There’s always a fire along there.”

  “Where they burn the people they don’t like!” her friend says, giggling.

  Davie looks toward the entrance to Balaclava Street, a little further up the bank. He shivers.

  “What’s the monster called?” he asks.

  “He’s got no name. The horriblest monsters don’t have names.”

  “He’s Mr. Noname,” says the red-haired girl.

  “Or the Nameless Horror,” says Goldenhair. “What’s your name? Mr. Nit? Mr. Dafty?”

  “No. It’s Davie.”

  “Well, you could have been a monster with a name, couldn’t you, if we hadn’t stopped you? You could have put your big daft feet on our precious fairies and squashed them flat and you could have been Davie the Dreadful Monster!”

  “I’m sorry,” Davie says. “I didn’t see. What are the fairies’ names?”

  “Catherine and Lara,” they say together.

  “And what are your names?”

  They giggle and squeak.

  “Catherine and Lara!” they say together.

  “I’m Catherine,” says the red-haired girl.

  “So you must be Lara,” says Davie to Goldenhair.

  “I must be!”

  “The garden looks great,” he says.

  And it does. Lovely shapes and colors on the pavement in the bright sunlight. A world created by two lasses with colored chalks on the pathways of the town.

  “We’re going to make it bigger,” says Lara. “We’re starting here but we’re going to fill all the pavements in the town with pictures and make a whole world of fairies and monsters and lots of other things.”

  “What kind of other things?”

  “Magic things, of course,” she says. “Unicorns and elves and . . .”

  “And lots more monsters,” says Catherine. “And ogres and fiends hiding in holes.”

  “And ghosts,” says Lara. “And . . . snakes and wolves and wild cats.”

  “And angels in the sky,” says Catherine.

  “What about people?” Davie asks.

  “Oh, there’ll be people,” says Catherine. “There’ll be people, just like in the world.”

  “And will they be happy?”

  “Oh, yes,” says Lara. “Just like we are. But they’ll have to be careful.”

  “Because of the monsters?” says Davie.

  “Yes, because the monsters and snakes might get them!” says Catherine.

  “And they’ve got to be good,” says Lara, “or we’ll just scribble them out!”

  “And there’ll be other kinds of people too,” says Lara. “There’ll be people with claws and people with wings and people with . . .”

  “Horns!” says Catherine.

  “Yes!” says Lara. “And people with hooves instead of feet. And . . .”

  “And people with feathers!” says Catherine. “And people with scales! And . . .”

  “That all sounds great,” says Davie.

  “It is!” says Catherine. “Our garden will be a world of wonders!”

  They both squeak and giggle.

  “We’re just like little gods, aren’t we?” says Catherine.

  “You are,” says Davie.

  “And if it ever rains and washes it all away,” says Lara, “then we’ll just have to start again and make it all again.”

  “Yes,” says Catherine. “It is our life’s purpose.”

  They giggle and squeak.

  “It’s brilliant!” says Davie.

  “Thank you,” says Lara. “I bet you couldn’t do something like this.”

  “’Course he couldn’t,” says Catherine. “He’s just a big daft nitty lad.”

  Davie’s about to get his pencils and sketchbook out to show them, but he doesn’t get a chance.

  “Anyway,” says Lara, “that’s quite enough of that, thank you very much. We don’t have time for lads like you. We have lots to get on with.”

  He doesn’t move.

  “The garden and the creatures won’t make themselves, you know!” says Catherine.

  “So go on,” says Lara. “Off you go.”

  “OK.”

  “And just watch where you’re walking.”

  “I will,” says Davie.

  He steps around them and around their picture.

  They giggle and squeak.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Nit,” they say together.

  He walks away, careful where he steps, but he can’t pass by Balaclava Street, the place of endless fire.

  He was told many times when he was little not to come here.

  This is Craig country.

  “They’re decent enough people when they’re on their own,” his dad once said. “And it even seems they might be related to us in some way . . .”

  “Related to us?” said Davie.

  “Aye. But then everybody’s probably related to everybody in a little place like this, if you go back far enough. In fact, we’re related to everybody in the world, if you go back far enough. And to every beast in the world, if you go even further. The point is, when they’re together in their clan, that’s when they can get nasty, even to bairns. So just keep away.”

  Did Davie believe him? He probably did. Little kids like to be told where the wild places are and who the wild people are. But he soon understood that his dad was exaggerating so he could keep his son safe. Davie knew some of the Craig kids at school, and they were OK. Some of them even seemed nice, though you wouldn’t want to make them your proper friends.

  Anyway, he’d looked along the road many times when he was growing up. Had never entered it. No need to. There was nobody he wanted to see along there, and it leads to nowhere else, just circles a green at the far end and comes back out again. A cul-de-sac.

  But today everything feels so different, and Davie’s not that little kid anymore. He stands at the junction and he looks. There are the grass strips with the tall plane trees growing. There’s the cracked roadway. There’s the long double row of terraced brick houses with short gardens and low fences in front. Smoke is rising from the chimneys, even on a day like today. There’s smoke rising from the green as well, where the endless fire must be. And there’s a tall pole, with what looks like some kind of head on top.

  He steps forward. He feels his heart thumping. Don’t be stupid, he tells himself. Don’t be scared. It’s just a street. It’s just another place in your own home town. The people are people, just like yourself. And you’re only a quarter of a mile or so from your own front door. And it all seems very peaceful. The news mustn’t have come this far yet.

  There’s kids playing in the gardens and on the distant green. A few dogs are roaming. Women stand together, gossiping. Blokes hunch low, smoking and muttering to one another.

  Davie keeps going, slowly.

  On the fence is scrawled in black paint:

  CRAIGS 4 EVER

  There’s a skull and crossbones.

  KILL ALL KILLENS

  He keeps on going. A couple of dogs watch him, but no one pays him much attention. They’re not bothered, he tells himself. You can turn around at any time and come back out. He gets closer to the green. He can hardly breathe. Don’t be stupid, he tells himself again. Just calm down. He’s just about to turn around.

  Then they get him.

  They’re smaller and younger than him, but there are four of them, and they know how to grab somebody and to keep them grabbed and how to make them hurt. They’ve got stripes of paint on their faces. One of them’s got an ax shoved into the top of his jeans.

  “Who are ye?” one of them asks.

  “Where you come from?”

  “What’s yer name?”

>   “Are you a Killen?”

  He says nothing. They drag and shove him toward the green. They’re laughing like monsters and giggling like the little girls. A couple of blokes are watching. They’re shaking their heads and grinning.

  “Leave the poor lad alone!” comes a woman’s voice.

  They keep on dragging him.

  He sees that there is some kind of animal skull at the top of the pole. They see him looking.

  “That’s how the last kid that wandered in here ended up!” one says.

  Davie knows that isn’t true. It’s the head of a dog or a deer, some poor creature. There are scratched words and drawings on the pole and painted curses. There are scrawled drawings of devils and ghouls. The smoke from the fire drifts around it. The fire is small, just a low smoldering thing at the middle of a big ring of black ash and cinders. The whole place smells of smoke and ash. The whole place feels as hot as hell.

  “I said, leave the lad alone!” comes the voice again.

  The kids take no notice. A couple of dogs are here now. They keep yelping, snarling.

  “Tie him up!” says one of the kids.

  They scream with laughter at the idea. Davie tries to resist. He tries to dig in his heels, but it’s no good. They get him to the pole. A bigger boy comes. He’s naked to the waist and has a long, thin rope in his hands. There’s a tattoo of a wolf on his chest.

  He laughs softly, even gently.

  “What you doing here, you daft bugger?” he says to Davie.

  Davie knows him. He’s seen him at school. He’s a couple of years older. He’s seen him wandering around town in Wranglers and a Ben Sherman shirt. He’s seen him underneath a cherry tree with a girl in Holly Hill Park.

  He pulls Davie’s haversack off. Then he grabs Davie’s hands and yanks them backward and ties them together behind the pole. The rope digs into Davie’s skin and it stings.

  Then they all stand in front of him and laugh at what they’ve done.

  “What’s yer name?” says the older boy.

  There’s stubble on his lip and chin.

  “I said, what’s yer name?”

  Davie tells him.

  “Good lad, Davie,” he says. “My name is Fernando.”

  Everyone giggles.

  Fernando keeps on laughing softly.