Broken Ghost

by Niall Griffiths

  The voice wails out, yearning, all the way over the mountaintops. Behind me I know that those mountaintops just go on and on; look at this place on a map and it’s just featureless squares. I start to feel a bit dizzy, spinny in the head. I did this. I did this. A feller with a topknot comes up to me, shows me a stack of postcards, rifles through them. They all have the same image of the lake on them – the lake that’s right in front of me.

  —For sale, he says. —Two quid each. Souvenir. Wanner buy one?

  I laugh. —Why would I wanner buy one? I can see the bloody lake, man. It’s right there.

  —To remember it by, tho. Have a look. Quality, these.

  I see them gleam. —You’ve laminated them?

  —Aye, told you; quality. Last for ever, these will.

  I laugh again; not nastily, like. This feller’s funny. —Mate, why would I wanner buy a picture of something that I’m looking at right now with my own eyes?

  He nods his head all, like, crestfallen. —That’s what everyone keeps telling me, he says, and shuffles off. Daft bugger.

  I watch a woman in a wheelchair get wheeled into the lake until the water is up to her chest and only the top curves of the wheels can be seen. The people with her lay their hands on her head and close their eyes. I start to feel a bit dizzier so I move away, further down the beach towards the pine woods where it’s not so crowded. Find a rock to sit on. I can smell meself – me feet, me ’pits. My fanny, which starts to sting against the rock. It feels raw – rubbed ragged and raw. Parts of me hurt where they’ve been grabbed and yanked; my neck, my shoulders, and, especially, those meaty bits where the arse becomes the back; I imagine those bits almost black with bruising. A great big sudden cheer goes up from a section of the crowd for some reason. I see a vicar – dog collar, cassock, full kaboodle – kneel at the lake’s edge, dip his fingers in the water and then cross himself and kiss the knuckle of his thumb. He walks past me and I look up at him but he doesn’t even realise I’m here – he’s lost in thought. He moves behind me towards the ridge and I stay staring ahead, out at the lake. The waters of it are dead still like oil but the reflections of the fires and lights on it make me think of the Northern Lights. Or pictures of them that I’ve seen. I’ve never seen the Northern Lights in real life and probably never will.

  This world is truly mad. I’ll never understand it. And I don’t understand meself, either; I mean, what the fuck have I been doing … what the fuck have I been doing with myself. It’s not just the body. That’s not important. But I mean why have I been acting like I have, ripping away another protective shell I had, which wasn’t much to start with, and putting meself out all fuckin, all fuckin raw and exposed. I have a son. I haven’t even spoken to him on the phone. Haven’t even texted him. I have folks who must be worried sick. My boy, Tomos, my lovely boy. Scared of the lows he is. And instead of being with him and watching him grow and develop and instead of holding him to me and feeling him all warm, instead of baking biscuits for him and protecting him, being there for him, what have I been doing? Say it, woman, say it straight; you’ve been fucking everything with a dick. And some things without. You’ve been letting men put bits of themselves in your cunt, your face, your arsehole. Letting them grab you, hurt you. Use you. Because. Because – I don’t know any fuckin because. I don’t know any why. Because it seemed like the only thing to do. Because it made the blood go fast. Because it made everything else go away. Because what is wanted, no, demanded for my life is the worst fucking thing I can imagine because I want to feel like I’ve been born. Because when I saw that glowing shape in the sky it was like, like the light in the hospital room must’ve shone when I was pushed and pulled out of my mam. I went down on my knees on a pissy floor and tasted the insides of a woman called Meg and she tasted fuckin brilliant and I made her pant and gasp and crush my head in her thighs and I made her gush into my face and that was all there was. God. God. Because hands on me, grabbing me, yanking me, that skin on my skin leaving red marks that turn darker, the slack faces above, like light, like flames, like I was glowing too.

  I put me head in me hands. I don’t want to see anything for the moment. Is this shame? No it’s not shame. Is it fuck shame. I don’t know what it is but it’s not that because I refuse to feel that. I will not feel how they want me to feel. Guilt, aye – how can there not be that when a lovely little boy is wondering where his mam is? Of course there’s guilt. But never shame.

  —You alright?

  I just nod. Don’t look out from behind my hands, I just nod.

  —Yeh sure? Cos yeh don’t look alright if yeh don’t mind me saying. Anything I can help with?

  It’s a man. It’s another fucking man. I feel a touch on me shoulder, gentle like. Better be nice, just tell him you want to be left alone for a bit. I drop me hands.

  Aye, I’m fine. Just—

  —It’s you. I thought it was. What’s the matter? You look pure heartbroken.

  Instantly I recognise him.

  —Why are you sad? he goes on. Look at all this. Isn’t it ace? And it’s got something to do with us.

  Adam, I think that’s his name. Adlad, I’ve heard people call him. Of course I recognise him. He walked up the ridge behind me so he could get a good look at my arse. I heard him panting, and I’ll bet it wasn’t entirely due to the exertion of walking up the ridge. He squats down in front of me. A whiff comes off him, sweaty like, unwashed, but I can’t exactly complain because I’m minging like a farmyard as well.

  He points to the sky, and the music in it. —Dion, he says. —Can’t beat a bit of Dion. Knows his stuff, this DJ, whoever the fuck he is.

  I look at his face, the bits of it I can see lit up by the lights of the fires. He looks a bit wrecked, if the truth be told; his skin is all burst-veiny and there are big bags under his eyes. Bags? More like fuckin suitcases. The skin on his lips is so dry it’s flaking off. His hair’s all ratted. He tries to run his fingers through it but they get snagged in a knotted clump and he looks at his fingers and smiles at them.

  —You recognise me, yeh?

  I nod. —Course I do.

  He nods back. He seems to be finding it difficult to look at my face, to meet my eyes. —Why are you sad?

  —I’m not sad. Just, y’know, just …

  —Overwhelmed?

  —Yeh. Overwhelmed. It’s a bit much, this, innit?

  He nods again. It’s strange, this; I’m feeling like I felt sometimes when I would wake up in bed next to someone I didn’t in any way like. Kind of awkward, embarrassed. Nothing bad, particularly – no dislike or anything like that, just this faint sensation that I’d feel better if I wasn’t in his company.

  —What have you, erm … what’s been …

  He trails off. He seems to be feeling the same way. He picks up a pebble and studies it then drops it. Rubs his palm on his knee.

  —There’s nothing to be sad about.

  —I know that, I’m not sad. Told you.

  And now his eyes meet mine. Tiny fires in his. His jaw goes a bit juddery, like he’s scared of what he wants to say, and he licks his dry lips. I look back at him. He says:

  —Christ. That was close, wasn’t it? That was really fuckin close. Closest I’ve ever been.

  I swallow back, in an instant, a nanosecond, the words what was because I know exactly what he’s asking me. There is no need for him to explain himself. So now it’s my turn to just do a little nod for an answer.

  —Alright, he says and stands up. I hear his knees crack. His hands are level with my face and I see them, big, the knuckles, the nails all bitten.

  —How long you staying up here for?

  I shrug. —Dunno. See how it goes.

  —Aye, yeh. Me n all. Fuckin loving it tho.

  —Me too.

  —Sure I’ll see yeh soon, then.

  I watch him walk off, down the pebbles, towards the fires. His jeans all baggy on his bony arse, his hair up in a cowlick on the back of his head. He turns into just ano
ther black silhouette in front of the flames.

  Don’t think, just yet. Look at the colours reflected in the water of the lake. The song changes and I recognise this one – it’s ‘No Surprises’. Except there sometimes are, if you go up, aren’t there? A rowing boat comes out of the lit-up lake and a feller jumps out and drags it up onto the shore and other people jump out of it there. The bank of trees at the far end of the lake is a black barrier. Stars above it but the moon is behind me, up above the ridge. The ripples caused by the boat shine orange from the firelight. I stand up. Don’t know what I’m gunner do, just head down towards one of the fires I suppose, where the people are, but the bloke who dragged the boat out of the water sees me and comes over. Don’t think.

  —You alright, out here on your own? Feeling okay? Wanner come on a boat ride?

  Christ; another man. There’s always another fuckin man.

  —It’s lovely out on the water. Geese and ducks and stuff. Saw a big fish leap out, long as me arm he was. Incredible.

  That voice. That accent. The slightest of lisps. They come out of the light behind bar counters or out of a group of others like them or out of cars or out of doorways and they say things that I’ve heard so many times before. But, God, what is this place, because here is one saying something about birds and fish and coming at me out of a lake mad with lights and I know him, fuck, I know who he is, what is happening up here, what have I caused.

  The dreads have been shaved off. The clothes – just a shirt, now, tight to the shoulders, none of the ragged tie-dyed smocks. And I can’t see the eyes or their colour because the light’s behind him and his face is in shadow but I just know those eyes are the exact same blue as those of my little boy.

  He stands there like a statue. Water drips from his fingertips.

  —Fuck me, he says. —It’s you.

  —Weasel, I say. —Fuckin hell it’s you.

  UP HERE

  And these colours, pink and milky, making of the lake’s waters the liquids on which infants are brought into the world. At the edge, where the water laps at the land, the damp earth nibbles and sucks at the feet of the people as if hungry for them to return. When feet exit the water or are pulled from the scrim of mud the sounds made are sighs and groans. This goes on. A barn owl takes the pale scorch of itself from drumlin-hump to top of rock. The words such a pretty house and the ones that follow it prompt a simultaneous soar of voices in which even a few dogs join. So long since this high place up here has given out such sounds.

  ADAM

  There are shapes and faces in the flames. A couple of cans turning black, some roundish shiny things which, I guess, are spuds wrapped in foil. Primitive man’s telly, this. Kind of stops yeh thinking, like some brainless shite yeh put on the telly because yeh can’t think of anything else to do. Stare at it with nothing going on behind yer eyes like the faces on the screen, like a dog watching clothes go round in a washing machine. Except here, tho, in the fire, the shapes and faces constantly change; you recognise something, blink, and then it’s something else. That’s the difference.

  I wanted to crush her to me. It was all I could do not to reach out and grab her and crush her to my chest. Not cos of this – not cos of what’s going on up here. And not cos she’s fit, either, altho she is. More like the way I want to crush an animal to me, squeeze it too hard. No, not like that; not like she’s cute, in the way that a puppy is cute. Protection, then; like I’d want to hold a small child to me in the middle of a war zone – to guard it, like; to keep it safe from harm. No, not like that either, really; there’s nothing about her that says vulnerability. But the way she was sitting there, on that rock, with her head in her hands, the toes of her feet turned inwards, and you could see them toes, like, in them shoes she was wearing. Big cork wedges. All the night sky above her. The ridge behind her, and it was on top of that that I saw her last. I’d been blimping at her arse. And now, now … I don’t fuckin know. I noticed a couple of little bruises on her neck, just below her jawline. A curl of hair was in her ear. I had to get away before I reached out for her, before I could stop meself.

  Like a leaping are, now, some flames. Spring out into nothingness. And now a cobra rearing back to strike. And now the planet Saturn.

  —Yew look like yew need a drink, feller.

  Some shaven-skulled boy is holding a can out towards me. I take it from him. —Ta mate.

  —Just arrived?

  —Not long, aye.

  —Well. Croeso, butt. Welcome up here.

  He walks away, into the darkness just beyond the light of the fire. Nice of him, that, to give out the bevvy like that. It’s all chilled, as well, and wet; he must’ve been using the lake as a fridge. I look down at the ring pull. Beads of water on it. Christ I’m dry. That crack and hiss that will be made when I open it.

  Not yet. Not yet.

  —Yew gonner drink that or jes fuckin look at it? Cos if yewer not, I’ll have it.

  I look up and I see the big rampant dragon on the wide neck, and I feel like a fuckin pinball – I’m being bounced all over the place. Bet if I just stood here for long enough I’d see everybody I’ve ever met who’s still alive, like what they say about Euston Station.

  —Alright mate.

  He looks down at me, intensely like. The reputation this boy’s got – I mean, I’ve known people like him – my own friggin father, for one – and they have these fuckin eyes, these eyes like coal but with bits in them that glint, bits that you know, in certain circumstances like, would kind of break apart and meet again and become bright and empty. And this bloke should have eyes that do that, given his rep, and maybe he usually does but now, here … well, Christ, there are even crinkles in the skin around them eyes, smile-lines like. If he’s as keen on violence as I’ve heard he is, from many people, then he’s left that behind, back on the lower ground. He’s fucking grinning at me.

  —Look oo it is. Shwmae butt. How-a fuck are yew?

  Bit of an orange glow from the flames on the skin of his neck. You could imagine that the dragon’s breathing fire, like dragons are supposed to do.

  —This is fuckin mad, man, innit?

  He nods. —It’s am-ay-zin it is. Yurd it was all going on up yur like but A didn’t fuckin expect this, did yew?

  I shake me head.

  —Jes seen some people getting fuckin baptised, I yav. In-a fuckin wheelchairs, some of um. An a feller carrying a great big fuckin cross up-a hill. Yew seen it? It’s mad. Iss got something to do with us?

  —With us? What, me and you?

  —An that girl. Y’know her. That time we climbed-a hill.

  —Why would it? I say, but that’s not at all what I meant to say. I’m feeling the way I felt when I met her, just now; a little bit, what, fuckin awkward. Not like I’m getting the same urges or anything, I mean there’s no way I’d ever feel the need to reach out and grab this feller to me chest, but still. Feel me eyes getting shifty. I’m looking over his shoulder, at the lake and the people in it. I reach down to scratch me knee. A new song starts up: ‘This Magic Moment’, the original Drifters version. And it makes me think of that Sopranos episode, towards the end like, when Tony and Bobby fight each other and it’s like these two mountains of meat crashing into each other. There was a lake there, as well.

  I make my eyes meet his. He’s just said something, responded to my question like, but I didn’t catch it. So I just tell him that I’ve just been speaking to her.

  —Speaking to who, butt?

  —The woman. The one who was with us when we went up the ridge. She was sitting just over there.

  I point, but I see that the rock’s empty now. —Well she was. Must’ve gone somewhere else.

  —I’ll have a look out for her, then. Wouldn’t mind a word. An yew, how’ve yew been keeping? Look a bit fucked, like, yew do. To be honest.

  Which is what I said to her, isn’t it? And now I see marks on the feller’s face, some small cuts around his eyebrows, and what I took to be shadows beneath on
e of his eyes is actually a shiner starting to fade. He rubs at the stubble on his chin and I see some cuts, deeper than the ones on his face, on his knuckles and for some reason I get a very faint whiff of curry or maybe that’s just my imagination because when was the last time I ate anything? Fucked if I can remember. Suppose I must be hungry.

  —Nah. I’m alright. Well. Getting better, y’know.

  He nods. —Aye, I know. I know that, I do. So what yew gonner do with that can, then?

  I’m still holding it, unopened. Dangling by me side. Me hand comes up and holds it out to him. —You can have it.

  He takes it and goes immediately to open it but then he looks at me and something, what, some funny thing passes between us. I don’t know what it is, it’s something invisible; his eyes seem to connect with something, no, understand something that’s coming out of mine and he gives a little, firm nod and holds the can at his side.

  He pats the breast pocket of his shirt. There’s a bulge of something in there, maybe baccy box or something, and he pats it and sniffs and gives me a nod and then goes off with his can, just like that, just wanders off down the pebbles, towards the ridge. I hear the hiss as he cracks the can and see his head tilt back as he drinks from it. Looks like he’s gazing up at the stars but he’s not, he’s just drinking. It seems like I can hear a helicopter away up in the sky and then the DJ, whoever it is, puts on ‘P is the Funk’ and that’ll do. My knees start to move. Grooveless land. Think I’ll head down the beach towards the main fire, join the people there and have a bit of a boogie. Back down in the town I may not have anywhere to live anymore but for the time being I’m not in the town, am I, I’m up here.

  Pinball again, getting bounced around, because who’s this coming towards me, almost running towards me with her arms outstretched and shouting:

  —There you are! Jess told me you were here! Come here!

  Ah, Sally. Lovely Sally. My arms get stretched out too.