by John Marsden
‘I was wondering if I could do some work in exchange for a good meal?’ he asked, immediately pursing his lips in exasperation at himself. He had not meant to say ‘good’. It sounded rude, as though he were suggesting that the farmer might offer people bad meals. It was his first real contact with another person since leaving home, and his voice already sounded a little hoarse through lack of use. But the farmer appeared to notice nothing. He came closer, and Argus realised that he had some paralysis down one side of his body; it had even dragged at half his face and warped it out of shape.
‘Well, you can chop some wood,’ the old man said, without much hesitation. ‘It’s always a useful thing to have wood chopped.’ He looked more critically at Argus. ‘Have you had any breakfast?’ he asked. ‘Maybe we better pay you in advance.’
‘No, I’m fine,’ Argus said. ‘I’d be happy to chop wood, if you can just show me where it is.’
The boy chopped wood for nearly two hours, ignoring the sharp and petulant messages from his belly. He wondered why it was more pleasant to chop wood for strangers than for one’s own fireplace, and he was intrigued by the small differences between this woodpile and the one to which he was accustomed. This stack was neater than the one at home, for example, and the wood was cut into shorter lengths. The bark had been stripped from it and had been stacked in a separate pile. Argus chopped at a steady pace, amusing himself by seeing how high he could make the chips fly, trying to land them in a small bird’s nest at the top of a nearby bush. But the pile of chopped pieces steadily grew, and the old man, when he returned, was pleased. ‘Seems like you’ve earned breakfast and lunch’ he commented, leading the boy into the washhouse.
When they entered the kitchen, Argus was surprised by the number of people there. He was introduced to them all and, despite some confusion, managed to gather that the youthful looking woman at the stove was the old farmer’s wife, and that the others were sundry children, grandchildren and farmhands. There were fourteen or fifteen people in all, and their rowdy chatter relieved Argus of the need to say very much, for which he was grateful. They ate soup with hunks of bread, and followed it with a kind of fish stew, containing flavours that were unfamiliar to Argus.
The boy was almost overwhelmed by the rich odours and tastes, after several days of plain living. He was enjoying, too, the warm sound of the people crowded around the table, and he accepted with pleasure the old man’s offer of an evening meal and a bed for the night, in exchange for help with roofing a shed. He worked on the shed with one of the old man’s sons, a dark-bearded fellow named Rastam, and Rastam’s two little daughters, Xenia and Narlan. The two girls worked earnestly and well; Rastam worked well too, but with a constant stream of witticisms and practical jokes, which Argus found alternately irritating and amusing.
After dinner the food was cleared away and the dishes were washed. The children began a game that they called, for no reason that Argus could fathom, ‘Butterflies’. It seemed to be a guessing game based on imitations. One child would jump on the table and impersonate, with appropriate noises and contortions of the face and body, an object or creature; a parrot, for example, or a chair, and the others would try to guess what it was. The children were very skilful, both in their acting and in their guessing. To Argus’ surprise, after ten minutes or so, the adults began joining in. Argus, accustomed to the gravity of his father and mother, was confused but pleased as the game spread through the room. And no-one was more active and rowdy than the old man, who, ignoring his paralysis, seemed to shed sixty years. He impersonated, in turn, the little girl Narlan, a baby pig, and a travelling wool-trader, and he imitated each one with wonderful accuracy. Argus was enchanted. But no-one could guess his last character, as he sat motionless on a chair, gazing into the fire. The guesses ranged from ‘a rock’ to ‘a spirit’. At last everyone gave up and the old man cackled with glee, ‘Myself! I was being myself!’ before he toddled off to bed. They could hear him giggling and wheezing all the way up the stairs.
Argus slept in an attic room. He left the next morning, after a big breakfast that put him in good heart for the day. He did not see the old farmer, but his wife farewelled the boy warmly, slipping extra food into his pack as he left the house and strode out towards the road, eager to resume his journey. He walked all day with only a few short stops, and by late afternoon had covered a great distance.
Chapter Three
That evening Argus had his first bout of what he supposed was homesickness. It was not that he wanted to be at home; on the contrary, he was enjoying his freedom and the new world that he was exploring, but he missed the warmth and closeness of family living. He did not connect his sadness with his stay at the farmhouse the previous night, but he did know that he felt unbearably lonely. Not bothering to light a fire, he ate a cold evening meal and rolled up in his blanket, thinking about the way his parents would be spending the evening. To his alarm, he found he could only summon an exact image of their faces when he placed them in familiar situations. He could envisage his father’s face clearly when he imagined him winding the great clock that stood in the entrance hallway; and he could see his mother’s face when he thought of her studying the night sky and making notes in her voluminous astronomy diaries. For a moment he had an unexpected glimpse of his sister’s face too, as he had last seen her, running down to the river, shouting something about Argus getting tea ready. At this memory sadness overwhelmed the boy completely and he wept into his blanket until he fell asleep.
By the next afternoon he was in country so far from the mountains of his childhood that they could no longer be seen. Instead he was walking through lush and prosperous farmlands, along a well-used road beside a broad river that rolled over the landscape like a lazy carpet. Willows and other trees lined the river’s banks. By Argus’ standards, the land was densely settled, and encounters with people were frequent. He came to fields lined with wooden frames, upon which green vines grew. Many people of all ages were at work, picking from the vines.
Argus watched from the shadows of the roadside for some minutes before he noticed an artist just a short distance from him: a middle-aged man painting the pastoral scene on a canvas mounted on a large easel. Although the man showed no interest in Argus, the boy approached and stood watching, comparing the painting to the activity in the field. After Argus had sufficient time for a close scrutiny, the man asked rather impatiently, ‘Well, what do you think?’
Argus felt a little out of his depth; rather than comment on the artistry of the painting he thought it safer to take a different tack. ‘It must be hard,’ he said shyly, ‘to paint something when it keeps changing all the time.’ The man looked at him in apparent surprise, then resumed his work. ‘I mean,’ said Argus, ‘which moment are you painting? This one? Or the last one? Or one from this morning?’
‘Yes,’ said the man, ‘It’s always difficult to take something that’s moving and full of life and turn it into something that is still. Not even death can do that.’
‘What’s harder?’ asked Argus. ‘Taking something moving and freezing it, or taking something three-dimensional and making it flat?’
The man put down his brush and turned to face his young interrogator. ‘You’re a remarkable boy,’ he said. ‘Do you like art?’
‘I don’t know,’ Argus replied. ‘I’ve never seen much. But I like real things better, I think. I mean, I’d rather see a tree than a painting of one. I think it must be frustrating for you, because even if you do a thousand paintings of a tree, it’s never going to be as good as the real one.’
‘Yes,’ said the man. ‘It may sound trite, but Nature is the great artist, and we can only imitate her. But supposing a painting gives you a new way of looking at something, so that you get an insight into it that you didn’t have before . . . I mean, a portrait might show you an aspect of someone that you hadn’t noticed . . . a sadness or a sense of joy or a thoughtfulness in the eyes . . . wouldn’t it make the painting worthwhile if it could do that?’<
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Argus studied the man’s landscape again, only this time more closely. He saw the weary way in which the pickers’ backs were shown bending over the crops. He saw the careless lines in which the frames had been arranged. And he saw the shadows thrown by the poplars in the afternoon sunlight. ‘Why don’t I notice these things when I look at the field itself?’ he wondered.
Without speaking to the man again Argus walked a little way along the fenceline and stood watching the scene with eyes that were more discerning. He realised that he did not need paintings, just keener eyes. ‘He’s not only describing what we both see,’ he thought. ‘He’s commenting on it as well. I suppose everyone does that when they paint or tell a story, or dance something, or sing about it . . .’ He recalled his attempts the night before to remember the faces of his family and decided that despite his moment’s fear that he would not be able to visualise them, he preferred to carry his own living pictures in his mind rather than rely on ‘dead’ pictures on canvas. ‘My mind’s full of millions of pictures,’ he thought. ‘I just need to know how to look each one up.’ He tried to imagine a square cut out of the view in front of him and replaced with a painting of the missing section, and decided that no painting could ever be adequate.
Lost in thought Argus wandered back to the painter, who had stopped work and was taking food from his bag. The boy stood looking at the painting again, admiring the skill with which it was executed. ‘Share my lunch with me?’ the man asked, offering Argus a piece of pie, which he accepted gratefully. ‘You know,’ his host continued as they both settled down on the ground with their backs against trees, ‘everyone needs some kind of outlet for the artist that’s in them. Doesn’t matter whether it’s painting or writing or carving or music. Everyone’s got to have that outlet, and if they don’t, they get a kind of madness in them, and there’s no sense to be had from them, no sense at all. What about you? What does the artist in you do?’
Argus was taken by surprise and tried to think. ‘I suppose my leatherwork,’ he said hesitantly. ‘I like making belts and stuff like that.’ He wondered about his parents, and decided that his mother’s astronomy was an outlet for her, but it was more difficult to identify one for his father. Gardening, perhaps? He seemed to get a lot of pleasure from the flowers he grew in his garden.
As the two of them ate under the trees Argus pondered the scene in front of him once more. ‘What are they growing?’ he asked.
‘Grapes,’ the man replied, showing no surprise at the question.
‘Is there much work around?’
‘Yes, they’d probably take you on, but it’s not easy.’
‘No, I can see that from your painting.’ Argus finished his pie and licked the crumbs from his lips, then leaned back, drowsily enjoying the afternoon sun. He could hear the occasional murmur of voices from the pickers, who were gradually moving closer to them. He heard the chattering of the frustrated parrots in the trees on the far side of the field. The rich warm smells of the harvest settled around him as his eyes slowly closed. He said to the artist, ‘It’s a pity you can’t paint smells and sounds and flavours’ but the man, who had resumed his painting, did not reply. Or did he say, ‘I do’? Argus, asleep from his ears down, could not be sure.
Chapter Four
That evening Argus was caught in a violent thunderstorm that frightened him. He was soaked through. It did not last long, but at its climax a tree on a slight rise on the other side of the river was struck by lightning and exploded with a booming crash. The world was reduced to nothing but noise. Argus knew he was probably not going to be frizzled by a stray bolt, but it was exciting to realise that it was a possibility. He enjoyed the storm while being terrified by it and wishing it would end. When the thunder and lightning finally moved away, across the plains, a heavy downpour of rain completed the drenching of the shivering boy, who by this stage was huddled under a fallen tree. He waited until the showers too had ended and nothing was left of the storm but an unspectacular drizzle; then he set out across the fields for some trees that he guessed concealed and sheltered some buildings.
It was a long and uncomfortable walk but his guess proved to be correct: the trees hid a farm, a large white house, a spread of outbuildings and yards. The house was too grand for Argus, who felt that he was probably a miserable sight in his bedraggled clothes. And there were wet strands of hair plastered across his forehead.
He picked out a large low building on the edge of the complex and slipped over towards it. The smells and scuffling noises emanating from it suggested to him that it was the stables. Argus entered the building quickly and quietly, but there were no people there. The horses, most of whom were eating from feed-bins, paid him no attention. Argus, however, was astounded by their number. He had never seen so many horses in one place in his life. He walked down the central aisle of the building, examining them more closely. They were fine-looking creatures, obviously well-tended, though Argus, a farmer’s son, thought rather contemptuously that they would not be good for more than an hour’s hard work at a time. He was accustomed to the sturdier, less glamorous mountain ponies.
But the building was dry and warm and the presence of the horses gave it a homely feeling. Argus found an empty stall and stripped off his clothing, then leant over into the adjacent pen and grabbed an old towel that was hanging there, which had obviously been used to rub down the animals. The occupant of the stall, a restless-looking, beautifully-contoured young stallion, tossed his head and glared at the boy.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Argus, grinning to himself, ‘I won’t be bending over in front of you.’ The stallion pranced a little, then went back to his food. Argus began to dry himself, wondering if he had ever experienced anything so good as the feeling of the rough, worn towel on his damp body. He felt the blood sing under his skin once more. He completed the job by drying his hair, not knowing or caring that he was making it stick up like the hay under his feet. He put the towel back on its nail and stood looking down at himself, taking pleasure in the evidence of the long-awaited growth that his body was now indisputably experiencing. He had never been taught about sex in his life, but his years on the farm left him in no doubt or confusion about what was happening to him. He looked at the stallion again. ‘Not up to your standards, maybe,’ he said to the horse, who had now lost interest in him, ‘but good enough for me.’
He began to finger himself curiously; the object of his interest, already stimulated by the attention he had been paying it, quickly rose to full arousal. Argus continued to touch it, lightly and smoothly, as irresistible feelings grew in him and his hand moved more urgently. There was no gainsaying the feelings: Argus realised that he would be compelled to go on until his body gave him permission to stop. The pleasure was becoming so great as to be almost frightening, and it was obvious to the boy that this time, unlike his earlier immature adventurings, there would be a definite climax, not just the inconclusive excitement he had enjoyed in the past. He continued to stroke himself, fascinated by the growing thickness and coarseness of his organ, by its darkening colour, until at last the inevitable happened, and he was grabbing at himself and at the unbearably stiff thing that had temporarily become the centre and focus of his life, and which was now convulsively shooting jets of thin liquid across the hay.
For a few moments Argus stood in the stall, bent over, exhausted by the intensity of the experience. Yet he was pleased and proud too, and aware that it was an experience that he would repeat — and perhaps he could enhance it too, he thought, as he imagined a girl’s hand doing to him what he had just done to himself. That idea caused him so much turmoil that he had to place it aside; instead he watched with interest the steady detumescence of his penis. He realised that something else had changed: the desire that would plague him for hours in the past had suddenly become a finite thing and had disappeared with the ejaculation of the fluid from his body.
He dressed slowly and walked back down the centre aisle to the store-room that housed the huge
feed-bins for the horses. There he made himself a gruel of oats and barley, a meal that he was pleased to flavour with carrots and apples from trays that stood beside the bins. But his greatest delight came when he found a supply of sugar cubes. Starved of sugar since leaving home, he added handfuls of it to his gruel until it was a sweet and syrupy concoction.
Up until then Argus had been acting with complete disregard for the possibility that someone might come into the stables, but after finishing his meal he decided that it was time to take a little care. He eventually settled in a row of unoccupied stalls at the back of the building, choosing the second last one as his bed for the night. He knew from his experience at home that hay was not comfortable unless a good covering was available, so he used his own blanket as well as a couple of horse rugs from the tack-room. Sometime quite late into the night he heard voices and could see a reflection of a moving light dancing along the ceiling: another horse was being brought in and stabled, after a journey perhaps, but the activity was well away from Argus’ corner and the boy soon went back to sleep.
Chapter Five
For the first time on his journey Argus found that he was never out of sight of buildings and, by inference, people. He was constantly passing cottages, guesthouses and farmhouses. Occasionally he went by a cluster of buildings that could be called a hamlet. He enjoyed the evidence of increasing life that was all around him; he gazed curiously at each new sight and approached each bend in the road with anticipation. There were new problems for him — mainly the difficulty of finding places to sleep — but there were compensations too, particularly the plentiful food supplies. Many of the fields he passed were given over to market gardens, and after dark these provided him with a varied diet.
