The Color of the Sun

by David Almond

  “Yes,” says Davie. He’s timid, he’s scared, his voice is frail.

  “No!” says Zorro. “You’re a Killen. Say it like a Killen. Say it like you hate my bliddy guts.”

  “Yes,” says Davie again. He looks into the gorse. He tries to see the ruined hall, the demolition site. He tries to turn this place into the place that exists so far below.

  “This is where we were in Mr. Garner’s class,” says Zorro. “Remember, Jimmy, back when we were small? Say yes.”

  “Yes,” says Davie.

  “Say it harder!”

  “Aye. Aye!”

  “That’s better. Now tell me that you hate me. Do it. You’ll never understand what happened until you do it. Do it, Jimmy! Say it!”

  “I bliddy hate you, Zorro Craig.”

  “Good. And how does that feel? How does it feel to tell somebody that you hate them?”

  Davie tries to discover how it feels. He tries to feel that it’s a terrible thing to feel. He wants to say he hates nobody and nothing. He wants to tell Zorro Craig that he doesn’t hate him, cannot hate him. He wants to pull away and run back home. But he’s breathing hard. He’s reeling. He’s turning into Jimmy Killen now, and he’s glaring back into Zorro’s eyes, and suddenly, as the words come out of him, he knows how powerful it is to hate.

  “I hate your guts,” he says in a deep, strange whisper. “I bliddy hate you, Zorro Craig.”

  “Good lad. And I hate you, Jimmy Killen. I can’t stand you. I want you dead. Now go for me, Jimmy. Do what you did this morning. Go for me like you want to kill.”

  Davie pauses, but just for a second. Then his hatred drives him on. He lunges forward. The boys clench each other’s hands. They snarl and glare and drool. Zorro is bigger and stronger, but Davie doesn’t relent. He won’t let himself be overwhelmed, won’t let Zorro push him to the ground. He’s gasping. Tears pour from his eyes, snot from his nose, saliva from his mouth. His limbs shudder, his muscles ache. He doesn’t think he can go on but he goes on. He wants to crush this older boy, to finish him, to kill him. His mind roars and swirls with images of his mother’s tears, his father’s groans, the funeral car, the coffin, the grave, with images of Paddy Kelly praying, with the sounds of the Doonans’ singing. He curses, blasphemes and yells. And Zorro holds him, fights him. They stamp on each other’s feet, they butt each other.

  And then suddenly Zorro comes in very close and kisses Davie’s cheek, so hard.

  He kisses it again, so gentle.

  Davie flinches. And they both pause, still in each other’s grip.

  “This is when you do it,” says Zorro.

  Davie stares through his blurring tears.

  “This is when you get the knife out,” says Zorro.

  Davie can’t speak.

  “So get the knife out,” says Zorro. “Try to kill me, Jimmy.”

  Davie cries.

  “I haven’t got a knife.”

  “No. But just pretend you have. Remember the knife you saw below. That’s the one. Get it out and stab me.”

  Davie remembers. He recalls the look of it. He reaches into his pocket and takes it out and thrusts it at Zorro’s heart. And he sees the knife hit the arm and not the heart. And he feels Zorro’s clout on his cheek and down he goes.

  And he lies again on the earth in the gorse patch.

  “So did I kill you, Jimmy?” says Zorro. “Are you dead?”

  No answer.

  Davie lies there, silent, empty, all fought out.

  And the day continues changing. And Zorro Craig lies on the earth not far from Davie’s side. He stares into the sky, maybe contemplating the immensity of what has taken place today, maybe wishing that he could go back to this morning, or back to the very start of things so that he could change those things, so that everything could start again and take a different course. And he cries, maybe for his lost enemy and friend, maybe for the loss of himself as he used to be in Mr. Garner’s class and in the time before, when he was small. Or maybe there’s no real reason for his crying, except that it is caused by the weird ways of this weird world, the way that love can turn to hate, the way that life is overwhelmed by death and death by life, the way that light becomes the dark and dark the light. And Zorro’s young, and all the joys and pain of being Zorro Craig are experienced by a young body, a young mind, a young heart and soul. And how can he come to terms with all this without shedding tears? So he lies there and cries and there’s no easy explanation.

  And Davie lies like Jimmy did this morning, with blood on his cheek from Zorro’s clout. But there’s not much pain. He feels a kind of joy, a kind of lightness. He doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want to stem the flow of images and memories that pour through him now as if they’ve been unblocked, released and allowed to flow. Simple images of moments with his dad and with his mam. Simple memories of his dad’s breath on his cheek, his voice in his ear, his hand on his shoulder, his whisper: Don’t worry, son. Keep on wandering. You’ll be all right.

  And he finds himself smiling at the thought of going back down again with Zorro Craig, crossing the fields, entering the town, being welcomed home.

  He opens his eyes and sees Zorro lying close by.

  He takes out the pencils and sketchbook and draws the older boy, then draws the battle that has just been fought inside the gorse patch, draws two boys struggling with each other upon the earth, below the sky. He draws their grunts and groans and cries swirling about them, like the great swirl of starlings that has now appeared above.

  “Look,” says Davie.

  Zorro turns.

  “Look at what?”

  Davie points upward.

  “At the birds.”

  And they both look, and there they are, the starlings, a thousand thousand of them drawn out by the fading light, swirling points of blackness against the sky, each single bird drawn in, caught up in the astounding dance.

  They watch for a while, then Zorro turns his eyes to Davie.

  “Are you all right?” he says.

  “Aye,” says Davie.

  He rubs the sore patch on his face. He shrugs and grins.

  “Aye,” he says again. “I’m all right. But I’m famished.”

  And he digs into the haversack and says, “Do you want some bara brith?”

  “What the hell’s bara brith?”

  “It’s bread with fruit in it. Me mam makes it. There’s some Cheshire cheese as well.”

  “Aye. All right.”

  Zorro wipes his eyes with his black shirt.

  Davie unwraps the food from the waxed paper. It’s warm and dense. The butter has melted and seeped into the bread. The cheese is soft. It all smells delicious.

  He breaks it and passes half to Zorro.

  They eat in silence while the birds swirl high above.

  There are a few drops of the Coca-Cola left. They share them. They finish everything. They lick their fingers. They lick their lips.

  “Tell your mam,” murmurs Zorro, “that her bara brith is delicious.”

  “I will,” says Davie.

  And Zorro inspects his wound and sees that it continues to heal, and he pulls his shirt back on, and Davie sighs. It’s as if the whole day has been intended for this, this moment when he eats his mam’s bara brith with Zorro Craig, the murderer, high above the town, among a patch of gorse.

  And as they leave, the air’s hot and still, despite the fading light. And outside the gorse patch there’s no Foulmouth and no Wilf Pew. Davie looks around. Nobody in sight.

  “Did you see anybody here?” he says.

  “You keep on asking did I see anybody. I saw nobody, not till you.”

  “Did you see a dog?”

  “The world’s filled with roaming dogs, Davie. I saw one or two, like always.”

  He pauses and looks northward.

  “Mebbe I should be a roaming dog myself,” he says. “Mebbe I should just go off and start a life of wandering. Mebbe we could go together, Davie. We could be vagabonds and re
fugees, running away from the boring world and from the long arm of the law. You fancy that?”

  He laughs.

  “But you’ve got nowt to run from, have you?”

  Davie shrugs and stares into the north. It’s not just crimes you run from. Part of him does ache to go with Zorro. He wants to run for freedom, for the simple joy of it. And he knows he can’t just yet, not when he’s so young, not when he’s still got school and he’s got his mam to think about, but he knows he will one day.

  And then he wants to ask Zorro if he can see the dark shadow walking away across the earth, toward the open spaces of the north. It’s one-legged Wilf Pew, swaying as he walks, leaning with each step onto his hawthorn crutch.

  “Do you see him now?” says Davie.

  But it’s too late. Already Wilf is fading into the landscape, and now he’s gone.

  “See who?” says Zorro.

  “Nobody.”

  “Nobody! Yes, I see Nobody. There he is. And there, and there! The world is filled with Nobodies!”

  He laughs and shakes his head.

  “I won’t run,” he says. “It’s pointless. They’d catch me, wouldn’t they? It’s not the Wild West, is it? There’s no frontier to head for, is there?”

  Maybe there is, thinks Davie. Maybe we’re always heading to a frontier, even if we don’t know we are.

  “And, anyway,” says Zorro. “We’ve got nowt to eat nor drink, have we? We’d die of thirst or starve to death. The last things to pass our lips would be bara brith and Coca-Cola.”

  Davie grins.

  “Aye,” he says. “That’s just the kind of thing that happens to the hungry kids round here.”

  He gets the picture of them in his mind, two dead lads lying side by side in a dried-out stream beneath the blazing sun. He’ll draw that too when he gets back home. He’ll draw all the ways that he’s been today, and all the ways it’s possible to be. He’ll draw a dozen Davies, each one in a different scene, each one discovering a strange new way of being Davie.

  He walks with Zorro away from the gorse patch, past the hedgerows, across the paddock with the black-and-white pony in it.

  They come to the hawthorn tree with Wilf Pew’s leg in it.

  Zorro reaches up and raps the leg with his fist, and it gives a hollow bong sound. He raps it again like it’s a drum. He shuffles his feet like he’s dancing to it.

  “Any clues?” he says to Davie.

  Davie shrugs. It seems too crazy to tell Zorro what really occurred. He shakes his head.

  “Beyond me, Zorro,” he says.

  “Beyond bliddy me as well.”

  They decide to leave it there. They say it’ll be a good thing to get folk thinking about it and making up their tales about it.

  They move on across the damaged, lovely earth to the crest above their town, and they look down. Everything’s as it was but for the changing light. Already a few lamps are burning in distant windows. Car headlamps move on the streets and roads. The distant sea is almost black. The river shines like ink. There’s a low, deep humming that Davie realizes is always there, a mingling of traffic and engines, birdsong and children, gossip, cries and laughter, the sound of his own heart and his own breath, all making the music of the world in which he’s grown.

  And there’s sweet music again — singing and fiddles and the beat of a drum. And the calling of the footballers who still swarm across the field. They’ll play till night, he knows, until the ball becomes a black shadow, until at last, like the players themselves, it won’t be seen at all.

  On they move, stepping into the depression in the earth that leads to Cooper’s Hole. Davie’s nervous, his breath and heart quicken, but there’s nothing. Just the water, the weeds, the low trees, the tender turf, the hole itself. The hole seems larger now, darker. It seems to be breathing out darkness into the world as the gorse patch seemed to breathe out light.

  The sound of the splashing water draws them to it.

  “This is one of the places we used to come,” says Zorro.

  “You and Jimmy?”

  “Aye. We used to say that nobody would find us here. And they didn’t. Nobody ever found us. It’s weird. Hardly anybody seems to know about this place.”

  “I know,” says Davie. “Yes, it’s weird, eh?”

  “We used to talk about the days when we’d be free, when we’d be able to forget all the stupid nonsense about our families and all the stupid nonsense that’s in this place. We talked about traveling away together. We used to say it wouldn’t be long till freedom came.”

  Zorro crouches down, cups his hands and drinks.

  “Ha! And now look how it’s all turned out.”

  He drinks again.

  “And we told each other we saw ghosts up here.”

  “Ghosts?”

  “Aye. Lads from the pits from times before.”

  “I’ve seen them as well,” says Davie.

  “Aye?” says Zorro, unsurprised.

  Davie cups his hands and drinks.

  “They say,” he says, “that drinking the water here brings you visions.”

  “Jimmy used to say that. You believe it?”

  “I dunno. I sometimes think we can see anything no matter what we drink.”

  “If your mind starts wandering, eh? If your imagination gets to work.”

  “Aye.”

  There are noises in the shrubs and undergrowth: rabbits, rats, roosting birds. A frog plops into the water. They see its kicking legs, its gleaming back, its widening wake that catches the light.

  “That’s beautiful,” says Zorro.

  “Aye. It is.”

  “We could have been like them, couldn’t we?”

  “Like the frogs?”

  “Ha! No. Like the pit lads, Davie.”

  “If we’d been born a hundred years before.”

  “And what if we’d been born a thousand years before? Ten thousand years before?”

  “Living in huts. Living in caves.”

  “Running across the world with spears, hunting.”

  “Oh, I’d have fancied that!”

  Zorro dreams of chasing beasts across the land. Davie dreams of being in a cave beneath. He stands before the cave wall, painting. He makes marks on the wall like he makes marks in his sketchbook. There’s a Davie way back then and a Davie here right now. Both Davies make the marks that link the present and the past.

  “It’s all chance, isn’t it?” he says. “The time we’re born, where we’re born, who we’re born to.”

  “And I suppose we could have been like frogs as well.”

  “Or even like the grass.”

  “Or like the water.”

  “Or the sky.”

  And they smile at the thought of being water and sky, and around them in the shadows the ghosts start rising. Boys like them come out from below, come out from the ancient darkness. Davie and Zorro stay still and say nothing until the moment fades and the ghosts are gone.

  “See them?” says Zorro.

  “Aye,” says Davie.

  “Ghosts of how we might have been.”

  “And mebbe we’re like ghosts to them.”

  “Aye,” says Zorro.

  Davie pauses. He wants the other ghost to rise, the other memory. Nothing comes.

  So he murmurs, “Let’s go on.”

  Then there’s a snuffling, and he knows it’s the dog, Foulmouth, somewhere nearby.

  He sighs.

  “Go away,” he mutters, under his breath.

  He sees it, coming through the shadows.

  Then a voice.

  “Zorro? Zorro, are you there?”

  Zorro gasps.

  They see the boy behind the dog.

  “Zorro, is that you?”

  And they see that it’s the dead lad, Jimmy Killen, coming toward them through the shades.

  Zorro and Davie don’t move, can’t move.

  Jimmy keeps on slowly coming.

  “You’re dead,” says Zorro.
/>   It’s Jimmy. His face, his body. The green checky Levi’s shirt with blood on it, the jeans, black winklepicker boots.

  “Jimmy,” says Zorro, “you’re bliddy dead.”

  Jimmy grins. His grin.

  “Who telt you that?” he says.

  His voice, the voice of Jimmy Killen.

  Zorro’s trembling. His voice is quaking.

  “This lad here,” he says. “His name is Davie.”

  Jimmy grins again.

  “You’re not alone,” he says. “That was the tale that many telt.”

  “But I saw you,” says Davie.

  He wants to scream. He wants to run. This can’t be true.

  “And that’s what many saw,” says Jimmy. “But touch me. Go on. Touch me.”

  He raises his hands, offering them to the two boys.

  “Touch,” he says again. “I’m living flesh and blood.”

  But Zorro and Davie can’t reach out, can’t try to touch.

  So Jimmy comes in closer, and he raises his hands higher and grips each of them by the shoulder.

  Davie gasps. Real hands, real bones, real muscle, flesh and skin.

  And the smell of the boy, and the heat coming from him, and the shining of his eyes.

  “See?” says Jimmy. “It’s me, Jimmy Killen, alive, not dead.”

  He crouches down, cups his hands under the falling water and drinks.

  “I thought of you here, Zorro,” he says. “I thought you might be here. I telt them I want to find Zorro and they said you can’t, you’re not strong enough yet. Then this dog come, like it had come seeking me, and I said I had to go and I let it lead me here.”

  He drinks again.

  “I think there’s a few not far behind,” he says. “They’re worried about me, that I might fall again. I heard them following.”

  He turns around. Nobody in sight.

  “You were dead,” says Davie.

  “It was that daft old doctor,” says Jimmy. “It was that daft old priest. Two old blokes that should be specialists in death that can’t even tell if a lad is dead or still alive.”

  “You weren’t dead?” says Davie.

  “I was flat out, knocked out. It took me a while to come around.” He laughs. “You clouted me good and hard, eh, Zorro?”

  “Only ’cos you stabbed me.”