Max Kowalski Didn't Mean It

by Susie Day

  By the time the clock in the kitchen ticked round to three, Max had had enough.

  Louise was on her third of the bosomy books: The Frenchman’s Bride, with another muscular man with flowing hair on the cover (this time wearing a beret and a striped shirt), and more bosoms.

  Thelma had found a book called Welsh for Beginners, and was lisping and coughing over every word.

  Ripley had piled up the charred old sticks and lumps of burnt wood inside the wood burner to ‘make a fire’, her hands and sleeves and her nose where she’d scratched it now covered in ash and charcoal.

  At three, Max tucked Thelma’s guidebook into his pocket and slipped out across the road.

  It was growing dark again already, and there was a bitter dry cold. Max walked to the end of the lane and sat on the rough stone wall beneath a street lamp, huddling in his squirrel jumper to wait.

  He pulled the book from the back of his jeans. It fell open at the right page, as if it knew who was reading it.

  Y Ddraig Aur may not boast the fame and kudos of a 1,000m mountain, but what it lacks in stature it certainly makes up in drama. The rock formations of the summit are popular with photographers, and there’s enjoyment for walkers too. Most choose the long, challenging ascent up Crib Ysgafn to the Cantilever. To avoid this long Grade One scramble, the ascent of the south face begins in Glyder, with a deceptively easy winding path giving way to a punishing scree slope and a shorter scramble. From here the picturesque Castle of the Winds lies only footsteps away. The descent through the Devil’s Kitchen makes a good morning’s circuit for the regular walker.

  Max read it three times.

  This was a terrible guidebook. There was nothing about lakes of gold, or dragons. He didn’t much fancy the punishing scree, whatever that was.

  It couldn’t be that hard to climb anyway. People in fleeces did it.

  Max peered into the dim grey-green rise behind Tŷ Gwyn. A soft pale line zigzagged up and up in the distance, rising from the black sheep field. That was the deceptively easy winding path, then. But it didn’t lead to the top. Mountains didn’t go up to a neat point: they rose in clumps and dips, sheer climbs and flat platforms. The jagged rocks of the Castle of the Winds were far above, out of sight. To be seen only if earned.

  He could go now, and have a look. He could just have a look.

  ‘You coming in, then?’ said an amused voice.

  Tal was climbing out of the 4×4 in the Bevans’ drive, wearing a neat green-and-grey school uniform that looked utterly wrong on him, like a spacesuit or a coat of fur.

  Max didn’t quite manage to walk as slowly as he had meant to up the path.

  16

  The Bevans’ house might still have been gingerbread. Welcoming light glowed from the windows, golden and orange and yellow. Coffee smells mixed with twists of woodsmoke, rising from the chimney.

  Inside was warm. Max could feel himself gently steaming as Tal led him upstairs, wet trainers left in the hall by the row of boots.

  The carpet was deep under his feet, with a pattern of stripes. The walls were crumbly stone, old blocks and plaster, with no paint or paper to cover them up. The house felt old, but not like the Evans’s place. Old but alive, like an oak tree.

  Tal’s room was not like Elis Evans’s, with its neat rows of figurines in plastic boxes and all his clothes folded in squares. It wasn’t like Max’s bedroom either, with its war of flamingos and books and Ripley’s latest pet. Tal’s room was like a cave. Max felt old hands at work, as in the cottage; a twiggy old witch behind the hairy rough-woven rugs across the wooden floorboards, her eye in the greens and browns and sky-like greys of the blankets heaped upon the bed. No TV, no music.

  ‘Shoo, Tiger,’ said Tal, nudging the dog who was snoozing on the bed, her long legs hanging off the edge like sticks.

  She shook her ears and padded away, claws clicking on the wood floor.

  But Max didn’t watch her go: he was too busy staring at the walls. They were the same rough untouched stone of the stairway, but they were strung with colour and life and magic. Picture after picture, in the same swirling style as Tal’s dragon by the door. Spiralling blue-purple skies and glittering stars, above looming mountains tipped with pines. Snow-white mornings by a cool unrippled lake. People, too. Strange people, in clothes odder than Tal’s own: an old man with a long white beard, his hands reaching to the clouds. And eagles circling above a rocky peak; a ghost-white ship flying through night, leaving a scattering of silver stars in its wake; a young woman with flowing hair, wearing a golden dress, and riding a white horse that seemed to glow off the page.

  None were signed, but he knew they were all Tal’s. There was something of him in all of them.

  No wonder Elis Evans was his friend.

  Max felt a pang of envy. They probably painted together, on holidays. They probably did a million things Max couldn’t. And he bet Tal never broke things.

  Tal, meanwhile, had slipped out to change into his real uniform: floppy orange-yellow trousers and a faded green fleece. He was watching Max looking at his pictures, arms folded, a touch of defensiveness in his stance as if he was waiting for a review or a rejection.

  Max felt as if he was on the edge of something. A step away from opening a door. A bridge to cross.

  A thing he could get wrong.

  And he was Max Kowalski, and if it was a thing he could get wrong, he generally did.

  He looked at Tal, and looked at the pictures, and said what was in his heart:

  ‘You’re good. I mean, they’re good. The pictures. They – they look real. But not,’ Max added. ‘Like … like you must have gone somewhere else to be able to do them.’

  It seemed to be right. Tal relaxed at once, and flopped on to the bed.

  ‘Do you paint?’ he asked.

  Max shook his head. ‘I mean … at school if they give you a paintbrush, kind of thing. But not cos I want to. Not like this.’

  ‘Don’t paint, don’t walk up mountains. What do you do?’

  It was another bridge to cross.

  Max screwed up his brain, wanting to speak the truth again.

  He cooked fish fingers. He spent money on trainers when he shouldn’t. He ran them away to Wales.

  ‘I get into trouble,’ he said.

  Tal grinned at that.

  ‘Sweet,’ he said.

  Max felt his shoulders relax.

  Elis Evans was friends with Tal. Max could be his friend too.

  He looked back to the walls, drawn by the catch of the light from the sun dipping outside on the painting nearest the small, deep-set window.

  It was the dragon again: his dragon, as Max thought of it now; his and Tal’s. The same glint of gold at the knuckles of its wings, and the spikes of its tail. The ruby eyes, sly and wise.

  Max lifted his hand to it, instinctively, even though he knew he mustn’t touch.

  ‘I only saw it the once,’ said Tal, speaking softly from the bed.

  Max waited.

  ‘I was five, I think. I was just being fostered then; it was before I got adopted. Michael took me up into the mountains all the time. I think he didn’t really know what five-year-olds like, so he did what he likes and took me with him. I remember it clearly, though. He was looking at the map. Had it all spread out on the rocks, on his knees, looking down. I was watching the sheep. Even then I knew what sheep were like: slow, dull, munching away. Don’t move if they don’t have to – but if they do, they hustle. They get loud too. And the sheep – they knew something was up. They munched and munched, and then first one and then the whole lot of them began to run. They were wailing. Frightened, you know?’

  Max did know.

  ‘It was this time of year, thereabouts. Still morning, not quite light. Dark low cloud. And then the sun broke through on the crest of Y Ddraig Aur, this big bright orangey-yellow glow, the rocks dark black in front of it. And that’s when I saw the rocks move. That’s when I saw it.’

  He frowned, pushing his glasse
s up as if it would help him see the memory more clearly. ‘It was rock, only it wasn’t. Like crocodiles, you know? Like a thing that knows how to hide. It stood up, and arched its back, and raised up its head. The wings were all folded up, like a bird’s. The eyes glowed, I remember. I remember putting my hands over my eyes, so it couldn’t see me. When I took my hands away, it was gone.’

  ‘No,’ breathed Max.

  ‘I know.’ Tal looked sad. ‘Imagine. Five-year-olds are rubbish. I’d never do that now.’

  He glanced at Max, as if making sure Max understood.

  Max nodded.

  ‘And that was it. I wanted to stay looking, but the sheep all wandered back up the slope, so I knew it was off somewhere. Or back to sleep perhaps.’

  ‘What did Michael say?’

  Tal narrowed his eyes. ‘You don’t tell adults everything, do you? Like, say … if someone was making out they were somebody’s cousin, and you knew they weren’t.’

  Max hesitated.

  ‘No,’ he said softly. ‘You don’t tell adults everything.’

  Tal smiled; not wolfish this time, just a smile.

  Max smiled back. It felt good knowing that Tal knew his secret. Not so lonely.

  ‘And you haven’t been back to look for it?’ Max asked.

  Tal snorted. ‘Course I have. It doesn’t just come when it’s called.’

  He came to join him at the window, looking out.

  Tal’s bedroom was at the front of the house, looking towards Tŷ Gwyn; towards the mountain. You could see the soft zigzag of the path from here.

  ‘We’ll need something to carry the gold in,’ said Tal. ‘Rope. And a weapon.’

  ‘A weapon. We’re going to kill a dragon?’

  ‘Only if we have to. We shouldn’t risk it at night. It might wake up, see.’

  Max blinked, suddenly wary.

  Was this a joke? Was Tal making it all up, and waiting till Max believed, just enough, before laughing at the silly English boy?

  But Tal’s eyes were clear and honest behind his round glasses.

  ‘Wait for the weather, Michael always says. We’ll want a clear day.’

  Max looked at Tal’s narrow intent face, and felt his heart pick up.

  ‘I finish school on Friday,’ said Tal.

  ‘After that, then.’

  It wasn’t a question. Not if, but when.

  And that was that.

  There was no need to explain, no need to discuss it. There was just a plan. They’d do it together.

  17

  The next morning felt different.

  Today, Max was going up a mountain. His first mountain, with Michael to show him how.

  Max pulled on a pair of jeans and a cleanish T-shirt. Then he pulled open one of the stiff old drawers beside the bed, and pulled out a thick brick-red fleece, with a hood and a zip up the front. It was far too large, and he didn’t think it was allowed for him to cut the tag out, so he could feel it prickling the back of his neck. But it was warm, and it was what everyone else would be wearing.

  In the hallway, he hesitated.

  There were his trainers: wrecked now by the rain.

  There was the rack of heavy walking boots, left by Elis Evans and his family.

  Max picked up his trainers and held them to his chest, feeling their soft squash under his thumbs. He closed his eyes. Then he pushed them deep down in the kitchen bin, under all the other rubbish, and pulled on a pair of proper boots.

  Now Max wasn’t just a boy learning how to go up a mountain.

  He was a hero in waiting. A trainee Dragonslayer. The chosen one.

  OK, so he wasn’t the seventh son of a seventh son, or a boy with famous parents, or anyone special. He was Max Kowalski, who according to most of the world was the opposite of special, a problem on legs.

  But he could change all that. He’d got them this far, to this odd wild place. It was like it was meant to have happened, sort of; like Elis Evans had known somehow this was what he’d needed, and left him those keys on the table.

  And now they were going to be rich. Not just for a week or two. Not because of Nice Jackie. For real, and forever.

  He’d buy Elis Evans a present, when he’d got the gold.

  He’d pay back Nice Jackie: what he owed, and a bit extra to leave them alone.

  He’d buy them a new house and Christmas presents.

  He’d buy a pair of pure white trainers: new ones. A new phone, a good one. And a GPS tracker for his dad, so he’d always know where he was.

  The white mountain-centre van was parked up outside the Bevans’ house with the side door open. It was more a minibus, Max saw now; lots of seats, although they were mostly full of bundles of coats, and coils of blue rope with small metal loops attached.

  Michael came out, carrying a backpack with another miniature bag hanging off it like a pocket, and a pair of rubbery shoes that looked like part of a wetsuit.

  Michael didn’t say hello, or ask about his dad. He just nodded to Max, and threw the bag into the back of the van, sliding the door shut with a clang. Then he climbed into the front seat, and started the engine.

  Max didn’t hesitate. He climbed up into the high passenger seat, and slammed the door.

  It was a bench seat, with room for two. Michael didn’t wait for him to click his belt in. He just turned the van, paused to check for sheep in the road, and sped off down the valley.

  It felt good to be in a car. There were lights and screens and nothing that was ancient or crumbling or mouldering away – although the van definitely had a smell that was not quite dry and not quite fresh. Michael smelled of clean pines and toothpaste, and his hands were broad and strong on the wheel, with a dusting of hair showing at his wrists. He didn’t expect Max to chat or know what to say. He just drove, asking nothing.

  Max relaxed into his seat, and watched the cold purple mountains slip by at speed from inside the warm familiarity of a machine.

  The drive was winding and took them out of the Glyder valley, past the bus stop and out on to a bigger, faster road. The occasional cyclist was toiling up and, each time, Michael slowed for them, keeping a careful berth. But the rest of the trip he took at speed, with the ease of someone in control.

  ‘Snowdon,’ said Michael quietly. ‘Up on the right there.’

  Max craned his head round, ducking to see out of the low window. All Max could see was a long twisting line of sheer slopes and dips, not one mountain but three all gathered together.

  As if he could tell, Michael added, ‘You’ll see the cafe at the top in a moment. Sharp edge against the sky. Row of windows.’

  Max spotted it at once: a strange box-like rectangle jutting ever so slightly from the upper slope of one looming black mountain.

  Then it was gone, out of sight as they turned a corner.

  It didn’t look so tough, Snowdon. The guidebook said it was Wales’s highest mountain. But it had a cafe. Max reckoned he could hop up there, no trouble.

  His dragon mountain would be easy. More like a hill, probably. They could stroll up there whenever they liked – just as soon as he’d figured out the dragon-slaying part.

  And he had to wait for the weather, of course.

  Climbing from the van, the wind whipped through his thin jeans. There was a new chill in the air, biting. Winter beginning to show its hand.

  There was a thrumming, too. A thrill that prickled the back of his neck like old high magic – until it became a tearing, roaring sound.

  ‘There,’ said Michael casually, nodding across the valley at a fighter plane approaching at shocking speed, flying low, almost beneath them. ‘RAF base on Anglesey, there is.’

  The jet ripped past.

  A moment later, there was a sudden colossal bang.

  ‘Sonic boom,’ Michael explained, matter-of-fact, as if it happened often. ‘Come on, now.’

  The mountain centre was like a warehouse with a cottage attached. The entrance was a neat low building of white-painted lumps of roc
k, and VALLEY MOUNTAIN CENTRE painted on the wall in high green capitals. Behind was a modern, corrugated structure two storeys high, with a huge picture of a climber silhouetted against a rocky slope. It was the sort of place Max would’ve driven past and thought, Cool, yes, I want to try that.

  And now he was practically working here, carrying the bags in. As if he belonged.

  He wouldn’t mind making the tea and washing up, not if he could learn a few things. Not if he could be with Michael’s quiet competence all day.

  Inside, however, the centre was less calm.

  It was massive, brightly lit, and echoey, loud even with only a few people in there. Off to one side was a window into a cafe area, with rows of benches and the burnt tang of coffee. The whole of the back wall was taken up with a climbing wall: a steep plasticky series of overhangs and sheer flat faces, studded with brightly coloured handholds and footholds. There were two people on it already, wearing hard hats and light rubbery shoes like Michael’s, their bodies strung with ropes.

  ‘Can I have a go?’ said Max.

  Michael shook his head once. ‘Not now. Busy. I can’t promise to keep an eye, see. Maybe some time.’

  Max thought that perhaps that meant he would be allowed back every day, and didn’t mind so much.

  ‘Go on, now, get yourself a bit of breakfast. Olwen’ll sort you out.’

  Olwen was behind the counter of the cafe. A woman with long hair like wire, an improbable dark red shot through with grey at her forehead like a crown. Her accent left Max blinking, lost, until she laughed and started speaking in English.

  ‘The boy in the trainers? Bill said, I remember. I’ll look after you, bach.’

  She sat him in the window overlooking the climbing wall, and brought him hot orange tea from a silver urn, and a plate of white toast with butter and jam.

  ‘Don’t mind Michael, will you? He’s a soft old beast under all that fur.’

  She smiled, bustling off to deal with a delivery of new bread.

  Of course Max didn’t mind Michael.