Rats getting married. Him, in his tiny top hat and tails, his whiskers waxed like a hipster’s ’tush. And her, with her whiskers sticking through the holes in her veil and her tail held up by the bridesmaids, which would’ve been mice, wouldn’t they? And a badger for a vicar.
I take out the iPod. Why did he …? God knows. Just passing on a reminder of that morning, I suppose. Don’t know what was going through his head. Normal rules don’t apply up here. I turn the machine on. Battery nearly dead. Screen glows in me hand and all the music goes on outside and something that sounds like a helicopter but that could just be in the music. I scroll down through the playlist. Whoever owned it originally had awful taste cos it’s all dire chart stuff, Ed Sheeran and Little Mix, but then there’s three songs together in a row that stand out: Nick Cave’s ‘Dig Lazarus Dig!!!’, ‘Misty Morning, Albert Bridge’ by The Pogues and Iggy Pop’s ‘Real Wild Child’. After them it’s back to the crap again: Meghan friggin Trainor. But them three songs … scrolling down, in the quiet of a morning, and with a fuller battery and the internal speaker on … tired and fuzzy … and with a crap pill …
Oh Christ. I start to laugh. All of this for that? You’ve got to be fucking joking. Is that it? Oh my God. This is fucking ridiculous. The whole thing from what – chance. An accident. And the morning sun rising. Oh God this is hilarious. What a fucking laugh.
The music outside changes to ‘P is the Funk’. Me knees start to jiggle. I chuck the iPod away somewhere in the tent. The blog. The madness. The storm I was in. This, here, on this mountain. And all because … all because …
I hear Dylan’s voice from outside: – What are you laughing at? and I can’t really answer him and then he appears out of the warm night and gets on his knees and leans his top half into the tent and what’s this, now, he’s putting his face in my neck. His breath is hot on my skin. I cup the nape of his neck in my left hand.
—What’s so funny?
—Nothing. Doesn’t matter. What’s this? You okay? Overwhelmed is it?
He shakes his head. —No. Not really. Don’t know what I am. I’ve got a son. I’m a fuckin dad. What were you laughing at? I heard you laughing.
I shuffle back on me arse to make room for him to enter the tent and we sit cross-legged facing each other. There’s sweat on his face but the moisture in the corners of his eyes – well, that just starts to turn me on.
—I always liked you, he says. —I mean I thought about you a lot after that night in the dunes. There was something different about you.
—So you did a runner.
—I had dealers after me. Bailiffs as well. It was me own safety I was thinking about, at the time. There was a feller called Jerry who I heard was gunner stab me up. Give me a shanking. I had to leg it. But I never stopped thinking about you.
—Shite, I say, and laugh again. He carries on:
—No, it’s true. I always wondered what might’ve happened had we, y’know. If we had’ve tried to make a go of it like.
—What would’ve happened? A junkie who liked to think he was, was a fucking weasel in human form and a promiscuous depressive. What d’you think would’ve happened? One of them great big houses down the Llanbadarn Road? A luxury flat with a nice view of the sea? Or, or …
I trail off. Dylan nods his head. The heat comes off him in a breeze. I can feel it on my skin.
I ask him: – Don’t you have a woman? Has there been anyone else?
—A few, but nothing serious. I mean dates, like, they’re always … I mean, you go for a pee and you come back to the table and there she is, swiping fucking right. Looking for someone better. Can’t be doing with it. Sooner, y’know, casual pick-ups and that. More honest. Nothing else.
I won’t tell him. Not even if he asks. I will not tell him about the rips in me skin and the bruises and the stink of piss in the knees of me jeans. Might tell him about the shape, the glowing thing, and what this gathering on this mountaintop is about but I will not mention the iPod. Not yet, anyway. But the bruises at the back of my throat that make it painful to swallow, no, he’ll never need to know about that.
—It’s all just so shit, he says. —I mean he’s six years old. I’ve missed seeing him as a baby. Never changed his nappy, never heard him say his first word. Everything goes by so fucking fast. I’m gonner be forty years old soon for fuck’s sakes.
My gob is dry. I lean back and reach for the bottle of water in the corner by the bag of food and in doing so my top rides up and he looks down at my belly.
—That tattoo. Is that the day he was born?
—It is, aye. I sit back up and take a big swig of the water. So many of them recently, a high percentage like, they aimed at that tattoo when they came. Why? What’s going on there? I drink more water.
—You always had the best belly, Em. Still do. Looks even better now with them numbers on it.
He grabs my waist and leans his head forwards, down and forwards.
—Oi. What are you doing?
—I was gunner kiss that date. Can I kiss it?
—You’ll see me stretch marks.
—I could not ever care about that. D’you think I’m bothered by stretch marks?
And I can’t quite believe I’m doing this but I take his hands off me waist and gently push him back. And I say: – Not yet. Even tho there is a burning where his skin touched mine, just at that slight touch I could hear my heart and feel my stomach go into a lovely boil I still tell him not yet.
—Alright. Can I hug you, then?
—You can do that, aye.
I open me arms and he kind of flops into them. I feel his back rise and fall as he breathes. Control, control, here is a plan: in a minute I’ll call my mam and dad. I’ll walk up onto the ridge where there’s a signal and I’ll call them and let them know I’m okay and then I’ll tell them to put Tomos on and I’ll tell him that I love him and that I’ve got a great big surprise for him and then he can speak to his dad. For the first time in his life he can speak to his father. And then, tomorrow, me and Dylan will go down off the mountain and we’ll go to Trefenter. And then. And then.
The one time I took heroin – this is like that (well, after the initial vomming). Cotton wool around my heart, around all the exposed parts. The one time I chased heroin and the one time I looked up into the sky and heard those words and saw that glowing shape. Dig and bridge and wild. How mad and strange. Just a man dicking about with an iPod.
Over Dylan’s shoulder I can see through the tent flap. See the lake, and just for a moment it looks like a void, a spread of black nothingness, held where it is and kept where it is by all the stuff going on in front of it, on the beach, the fires and the music and the dancing, moving shapes of people. And there is no fear, for the moment. The void is there and I can see it and smell it but there is a barrier between me and it and if at times it breaks down, well, that barrier can always be rebuilt again. Here I am.
The music changes to ‘Jump In The Line’. As it does, I see the far end of the lake, away near the mountain road, start to flash with bright lights and something rises up over the trees there, something big. I can hear it, as well, behind the music. It’s very loud. It’s a helicopter. And its searchlight is very bright.
—Dylan, I say into his warm ear. Whisper it, like. —Something’s happening. Something’s going on.
COWLEY
- Aw stop begging, mun, fuck’s sakes. Making me feel sick yew are. Listen to yewerself. Stop it.
Sfuckin pathetic, iss is. He’ve got all mud an puke all over him he has an he’s on his fuckin knees with his hands at his chest like he’s fuckin having a pray. Making me feel horrible, he is, an fuck knows iss sick cunt has made me feel horrible before an Am not having him doing it again.
—Oh thank you thank you I know I do not deserve this kindness from you I—
—What av I just said? Fuckin stop it, now. Stop fuckin begging. Shut-a fuck up.
Ee sits back on his arse an wipes his face. Like a little fuckin kid
he is. Like Rhys was with them sticklebacks. Well, without them sticklebacks it should be cos ee never fuckin caught any, did ee, ee fell flat on is face in-a mud.
He coughs. —Is. Is there anything I can say?
—Anything yew can say? What does that mean?
—To make it better. To make amends.
Make amends. Fuck’s sake this man has no idea what he’s done.
—How did you know it was me?
—Pardon?
—Last time yew saw me was when A was a kiddie an Am not a kiddie anymore. Look at me.
—You’re not a kiddie, no. But there’s the boy in you.
—Oh fuck off. Better than you being in the boy.
Ee pulls a face at what he’s jes said as well he fuckin might.
—I mean. What I mean is. You don’t look much different. Bigger and stronger that’s all.
—Too fuckin right bigger and stronger, cunt. Don’t yew fuckin forget it.
A face comes out of a tent and I flick it a V and it goes back in.
—Healthy. That’s how you look now.
—Stop looking at me then.
He looks away. God, he looks stupid.
—But all that is is flesh.
—Ey?
—Fallen flesh. Fallen so far.
—Fuck yew going on about now? If yewer not on yewer knees fuckin begging yewer talkin fuckin bollax. Am yur, now. So are yew. Yew know what yew did to me an Rhys n probably loads-a others n all.
—I’m sorry. So, so sorry.
—Aye, yew’ve said. A thousand fuckin times.
—And grateful.
—Grateful? For what?
He looks at me again. —I would deserve what you could do to me now. There would be no judgment.
I laugh. Can’t help but laugh. —I know that. Any judge’d give me a fuckin medal.
—That’s not what I mean.
—Well what do yew mean, then? No, don’t tell me. I don’t fuckin care.
How could I ever have been scared of iss man? Ee’s nothing; ee’s sitting yur in-a mud covered in is own sick and shite and ee’s jes been crying and begging and now ee’s talking bollax. Ee’s fuck all, mun. Ee’s jes a little boy.
—Did you see her?
—What?
—Were you permitted to see her face?
—Who, her with-a stars? I touch a place behind me ear. —How’d you know about her?
—Her with the stars? Yes, and everything else. Everything. And you ask me how I know about her. I’m a man of the cloth, how could I not know about her? And yet I have been denied her.
—Which serves you fuckin well right, A say, altho A haven’t got-a first clue what he’s arsing on about.
—Her with the stars, he says again. —That puts it better than I ever could.
And, Duw, now-a cunt smiles at me. I can see his teeth through-a caked shite on is face.
—What’s to fuckin grin about, mun?
Ee doesn’t answer, jes wipes his face again with his sleeve. An then, then ee puts his fingers in his gob and rootles around in yur an pulls something out, looks at it, an en holds it out towards me in his hand.
—Take this part of me.
—A tooth? Fuck off, manky cunt. What would I want that for? Put it back in yewer gob, mun, fuck’s sake. Keep it to yewerself.
Ee looks at it again an sniffs and then puts it in his pocket. Fuckin mochyn. I must-a booted im harder than I thought. How could I ever have been scared-a him?
—So what happens now? ee says, an A can see-a gap in his teeth. —Where do we go from here?
—‘We’? What’s iss fuckin ‘we’? A don’t know about yew but I’m gunner go back to-a beach an get drunk and have a bit of a boogie. That’s me. Haven’t got a clue what you’re gunner do, like.
—And I’m forgiven?
Ah, mun, so that’s what he’s after. That’s what he’s tryna get out of me. And he has to fuckin ask it? Sitting yur like he is, he has to fuckin ask it?
—Put it iss way, mun. Yewer talking-a me, aren’t yew? I mean yewer able to talk, like, yewer fuckin alive and breathin. What does that tell yew?
Ee says something but A don’t hear it, it’s jes sounds, cos Am rememberin, for some reason, iss time ages ago when A met another dog-collar cunt in a pub. Pissed as arseholes, ee was. A knew who ee was, like, from-a Sunday school, but iss was ages after that, like. An A was getting pissed with Bernie and iss bugger staggered over to us at-a table with three whiskies and told us ee remembered us an we clinked glasses an drank an ee told us a story an it went:
Adam an Eve in-a garden of Eden. Adam says to Eve: isn’t iss fuckin great? We live forever, we shag all-a time, everything is jes fuckin lovely an anything we want we jes ask for it and it gets brought to us. Isn’t this jes fuckin brilliant? An Eve said: Aye, I know. It’s jes not enough, is it?
An en ee buggered off laughing, iss dog-collar cunt. A saw im after, in-a alley next door to-a pub like, in-a pool of is own piss. Lifted is wallet n all, if A remember rightly.
Ee’s looking at me, Williams is. A hear that song start up, a one about jumpin in-a line or whatever it is. A see that one-a Williams’s eyes is starting-a close up an then, fuck, there’s noise, all noise, and ee gawps up into-a sky an A look and see a fuckin helicopter, coming over low, an yur’s lights everywhere. Everything’s lit up. —See that? a say, to wind him up. —Yewtree, mun! Come for yew, ey have! but he’s not listening, an in fact he’s up n running around-a ridge, into-a lights. Everything’s bright, dead bright, and dead fuckin loud. Something’s going on.
THE FORCE
UNSEEN, THE DARKER swells of hills against the night. Unseen the bats that dart, the owl that glides, a secret squeezed from the black. Unseen too the hedgehog that is burst beneath the wheels of the lead vehicle and squirts guts for the corvids to pick at later, also unseen. And the cleg-flies that curl around grassblades, their bodies glittering with mould spores that eat into their tiny brains. And the postures of these dying flies, their heads down as if in abjection: all unseen, in the passing darkness beyond the headlights’ blurts.
Inside the lead van a phone is passed back from the front seat.
—Have a look. Textbook. This is the Beanfield. See what are taken out first? The vans and that? Get rid of any shelter, see. Shock and awe is what it is. Confuses the fuck out of them. Here ya go, bang, now you’ve got nowhere to hide. While they’re busy digesting that data, you wade in. Textbook.
Faces lean in, around the screen. Under the noise of the engine the screen gives out its soundtrack: shouting, thuds.
—Before your time, that. Remember it well, me, tho. A hand reaches and takes the phone back. Fingers tap. —Orgreave you’ve seen, right? Fingers swipe. —Ah, here. This is the kettling of the student protests. Watch the movement. See how it’s all done in concert? All together? That’s what went wrong in 2011 but we learnt the lessons for the anti-austerity stuff. Didn’t we?
—Certainly did, Boss, a voice in the van replies.
Again the phone is passed back and again the faces lean in, lit up by the screen’s light. Outside the van the high places go by. The screen freezes.
—Signal’s gone, Boss.
—3G shite. Middle of fucking nowhere. We’re nearly there anyway.
The phone is handed forwards. The satnav’s female voice tells the driver to turn next left.
—The fuck are we?
—Middle of nowhere. That’s all you need to know.
Glitter of a lake on the right-hand side.
—Is this it?
—Does it look like it to you? There’s no one there.
—But that’s a lake.
—It’s not the one we want. Listen to what the satnav’s telling you.
The van swerves around the lake and the vehicles behind it follow, in a chain; another riot van, a few Range Rovers, a horsebox, another riot van. The lights of them up here, in this thin air, will-o’-the-wisps that burn too bright and which move with rare purpose. Throu
gh the beams the white moths tumble. Some splat into the windscreens and leave buttery smears on the glass behind the grilles. What a place for ancient gods. And the closer the convoy gets to the lake the more there is to un-see; trackside analoys topped with relics – a pair of spectacles, a football shirt; bullawns on the boulder-tops, most baked dry in this humming summer, those few shaded ones still retaining a scrim of slimy moisture in which entire cosmogonies of strenuous careers continue and which release tiny flies, gnats and midges upwards into the sticky night. And then the snapping bats. And glow-bugs like the eyes of ghosts cowed by the brighter phantoms and seeking bracken anonymity.
The convoy climbs. Around it the ridges serrate the holes between the stars.
—Who’s this cunt?
There’s a shape in the road, a man, legs apart and his hand held out, palm flat in that gesture that says STOP. The lead van slows and the vehicles behind it do the same, crawling forwards slowly until the blunt bonnet abuts the man’s knees. Standing there in the cone of light.
Passenger-seat leans his head out the window. —Police business, sir. Get out of the way.
—No.
—No? I said get out of the fucking way.
—And I said I won’t.
A sigh. Passenger-seat gets out of the van and approaches the man. The two of them face to face in the slice of light on the mountaintop. The idling engines.
—What are you doing up here? asks the man.
—I don’t need to tell you anything. Except to get out of our fucking way.
Broken Ghost Page 35
