by Paul Kearney
I am shuddering with cold, but very happy, my dragonfly mind calm and still now, as though it has become frozen along with the settling dew. I almost feel as though I am floating over the fast-freezing grass.
I walk on, in a silver cloud of my own breathing.
Godstow Nunnery is up at the Lock to the north-east. We have picnicked there, among the ruins. I think it would be a grand place to be in summer, if you were in love.
Fat Henry destroyed it, but the ruins are perfect as they are, so I can almost forgive him. It would be… it would be truly something to picnic there with someone you loved, to hold their hand in the grass, and look up at the sky. I wonder if Miss Hawcross ever lay back in the grass at Godstow with her grey hair still brown, and held her soldier’s hand under the sun before he went off to Passchendaele.
OUT OF THE dark a light leaps, yellow and small, like a candle fighting the wind. It’s out on the Meadow to the north-west, near the river. I feel angry at once that the night has been invaded, that perfect tinsel-bright moon mocked by a stupid little campfire. I look at Pie, and pull a face. There is nowhere to be alone in this world, not even here, not for more than a moment.
BUT I CREEP forward all the same, curious as a cat. Pa told me once I look like a cat, with a pointy chin and big eyes. But I don’t think a cat could possibly have a nose like mine. It’s too long and crooked, and it steers my whole face like the prow of a boat.
I don’t care anyway. Helen of Troy was beautiful, and look what a flibbertigibbet she turned out to be. Beautiful people are invariably boring, Pa says, because there is less of them to admire under the skin than there is upon it.
But Mama was beautiful; I’m sure she was.
I wish I could see in the dark like a cat. I am shivering, and I step in cow-pats as I creep towards the light. My shoes are so wet with the dew that I may just as well be barefoot anyway. Except for the cowpats. Yuck.
I look at Pie again, and sigh. I am close now. Nothing for it, but I shall have to crawl. I can even hear voices, quite a few, and there are shadows passing back and forth in front of the flames. The fire seems brighter than the moon now, especially as the clouds are thickening again. The earlier perfect night has gone, transformed into something else by firelight and strange voices and smelly cow poo. But it is still exciting. I make believe that it’s the Hun up ahead, or Johnny Turk, and I am a brave soldier about to erupt out of the darkness and cut all their throats.
I would feel better if I had a knife. I have one at home, a little Watts penknife Pa used to keep for scraping out his pipe. But I don’t think it’s big enough to cut a Turk’s throat.
Next time, I promise myself, I will bring a knife. It’s best to be prepared for all kinds of villainy when out at night.
With my mouth open, I can hear my own heartbeat in my throat, a pulse, a rush, as though my insides were at the back of my teeth, crowding forward to look out.
The voices are louder now. Men, snarling and growling, a flash of anger. I grip Pie so tight that I am sure she will pop in my grasp. For a moment I lower my head to the ground and I feel a cold thrill go through me. I am no longer cold, but I am afraid.
I kiss Pie, and raise my head. It suddenly seems a very difficult thing to do. I wonder if they will see my white face glowing out in the dark, but a calm, reasonable voice inside tells me that they are blinded by the firelight. The night is blank to them, a wall of black.
‘Look at you, you worthless gyppo shite. Call yourself a countryman. You nicked the guts, you bastard. We’ll have to wash the thing now. Go take it to the river.’
A little carcass is flung across the fire by one of the men about it, to slap wetly in the face of another. This one jumps to his feet. ‘If you had a knife worth the name and not one blunt as a tinker’s thumb, I’d be able to cut clean. I’d have been better off using a fucking spoon.’
They are both on their feet now, a fat man and a thin one, the light glaring out of their eyes. Three more men are lying around the fire on bedrolls and blankets. I can see bottles glinting in the flame-light. I can smell the booze from here. It reminds me of the smell in Pa’s study on the afternoons. It surrounds them all, like a bubble of violence all heated up by the fire. I know this. I have seen it before. Somehow I know what is going to happen.
‘Go on Bert, teach the little bastard one.’
‘Aye. Fucking gypos. Useless bastards. Show him how to use that knife, Bert.’
The fat man slowly pulls a length of shining metal out of his pocket. It is as long as my hand from fingertip to wrist. It certainly looks sharp to me. The thin one, dark and fine-boned, looks at it as though he has just seen a snake. He is much younger than the fat man, barely more than a boy.
‘You would cut a fellow just for that?’ he asks softly. And he is afraid, I can see it.
‘I would cut a little squint like you as soon as spit.’ The fat man edges around the fire, and there is a cackling from the others reclining on the grass. They sit up, pass a bottle around, and generally look as though they are about to be entertained.
‘You thinks you are something special, boy, just ’cos we lets you travel with us and share a fire? You think we don’t know your kind?’
‘I got no fight to pick with you,’ the boy says. ‘Not if you are who you says you are.’
‘What do you know about who I am?’ the fat man sneers, and he flips the knife up in air and catches it again with a grin. All the men laugh, except for the dark boy.
There is a moment, still as a stone, when I think it will end at that, and everything will blow over. But suddenly the fat man utters a yowl, and comes springing round the fire, stepping on one of the others, who spits curses, and he lunges at the boy, pointing his way with the knife blade like a man lighting his way in the dark with a candle.
I thought the dark boy would run away – I want him to. But he stands his ground, side-steps, and with a grunt, he punches the fat man – Bert – in the side of the head, a slap of flesh which makes me cringe. The fat man stumbles, and the boy is so quick and deft that I do not quite see what he is doing. There is a tumble of shadow, a grunt, and then a high, thin wail of pain.
Bert is on the ground, very still. He is still breathing, because I can see his breath smoke. He groans.
The thin dark boy is standing over him. The knife is in his fist now, and he has the firelight at his back so that he is a silhouette. He raises his head, and is breathing very fast, the air sawing out past his mouth. He looks out into the moonlight where I am lying, and my heart seems to stop its rush in my throat for a second. Just for a second, I could swear that there is a light in his eyes, that they catch the moon and reflect it back, as bright as two coins of silver.
And then he throws the knife away, and I hear it clump into the grass just in front of me. I could reach out and touch it. And it is as though the blade is covered in fresh black paint, glistening under the moon.
My heart starts again, beating like the pistons of a train until I think it is going to burst. I cannot move. I look at the knife, and then up at the thin boy thirty yards away. The men around the fire are on their feet, shouting, and cursing, and a bottle is thrown into the flames to shatter, sending up a whoosh of light.
And in that light the boy is looking at me. He can see me. I am as sure of it as I am of the seasons and the sunrise. I cannot see his face, but I know those quicksilver eyes are on me. I can feel them.
Something comes out of my mouth, a sob of air, and with that I can move again. I see the fat man’s friends all in a scatter about the fire, one kneeling at the body on the ground, two baying like dogs, the curses all melting together into a howl of hate and anger. But the dark boy stays in a half-crouch, staring out across Port Meadow towards me. I know he can hear the thumping of my heart.
I look at the knife again, fighting for breath. It is blood, not paint. The fat man is dying. The boy killed him. And now he can see me.
The calm, reasonable voice in my head cuts through everything
, as clear as a bar of frost.
Run.
Up I jump, Pie in one hand, her limbs flying, and I take off back the way I came across the open grass, and the cold air is biting at my lungs as I draw it in. So cold my teeth hurt. I cannot feel my feet, but I know they are moving under me, fast, so fast. I have never run so fast in my life before.
The stars are so far and cold, and now away from that horrible firelight the night seems huge and bright, and I feel as obvious and visible as a ball on a billiard table. I want to look back, but I cannot waste the time. But as I run, I am sure he is following me, and I know his eyes are alight, and I know also –
I do not know how I know this, but I am sure he is loping after me on all fours, like a dog. I cannot see it, but I know it.
And now the great meadow seems huge and unfriendly, a place where I should not be. There is nowhere here I can hide. And I gasp and hiccup as I run, my eyes set on the light of the streets on the other side of the railway line. I can taste the cinders of the trains in my mouth, and the coppery taint of blood, and I feel as though I am going to be sick, but I keep on running, the rime-dew crunching under my shoes. Until I am at the bridge again, and the gate there, black bars across my path.
I stop, I have to, and look back at last. I cannot hear a thing, because my head is thundering so. And I know he is behind me, grinning. He does not need a knife for me.
I hug Pie. She is damp and cold, but I am hot now. I feel as though I am all aglow, and my breath could melt snow.
And the moonlit meadow is empty, as bright and bare as a table before it is laid. There is no-one near me, no-one chasing, no eyes bright as shillings in the dark.
But I am not safe. The quiet voice in my head does not even have to speak for me to know that.
I climb over the gate, and as I do Pie slips out of my hand. I drop down on the far side of it, and Pie is on the ground behind me. I crouch down, and reach through the bars of the gate for her.
And a hand grabs my wrist.
I hear a sound, like that made by a little animal when it is dying. I do not even know it is me making it. The hand has my wrist in a grip I cannot break. When I tug backwards there is no movement. I think I can feel the bones in my arm creak, and the grip of the fingers burns as I try to twist free. I start to hiccup, and can only say, ‘Please,’ and even in that moment, when I am so afraid, I am angry too, at how like a little child I sound.
The boy is there on the other side of the gate, and I can see his face in the moonlight, as clear as clear. It is wedge-shaped with a chin as pointed as mine and a long nose, and his eyes – oh thank you God – his eyes are not nickel-bright but dark and human and normal. But he will not let me go.
We stare at each other like that. Forever it seems, but it is only as long as it takes for a struck match to flare. He says nothing, but with his free hand he lifts Pie off the ground and puts her in my fingers.
Then he lets me go, and I pull my arm through the gate as though it were the bars at the zoo and the lion is on the other side.
We crouch there, and I feel a hot warmth between my legs and I realise that I have wet myself, but I am still so afraid that it seems utterly unimportant. His black eyes hold me; that thin face, as lean as a lurcher’s.
Then he stands up. And I cannot, but kneel on the ground by the gate hugging Pie, and I am breathing so hard I might as well be running again, except I am going nowhere. I can go nowhere. I know that now. Running will not help me.
The dark boy looks up at the moon, and I shut my eyes, for I cannot bear to see if his will brighten again with that awful beastly light.
And when I open mine again, he is gone, swift and quiet as a fox in the night. My wrist still feels his grip upon it, and my legs are rubbery and my toes are numb and the wet in my knickers is cold now, a chill line trickling down my leg. And I cannot help it, but I bury my face in Pie, and the air comes out of me in one big sob, and then another, and another. It sounds like the wingbeats of the swans when they fly low above the river.
THE FLICKERING GASLIGHTS are warm and safe and welcoming now, and the cobbles feel sure and sane under my feet. I am very cold, and I do not know what time it is, or how long I crouched by the gate hugging Pie. It is not late for grown-ups, for the pubs still have life and laughter in them, and there are people hurrying up and down, and motor cars, and the clinking of a milkman’s wagon behind the clopping horse, and I am so cold. Oxford seems to exist on the other side of a thick pane of glass, and I am invisible behind it. I wish I was invisible.
I AM SHAKING, not sure where I am going. I have come too far, seeking the light, and am walking down the Woodstock Road, then St Giles, and I look up to see a sign hanging, an eagle with a little baby clinging to it. The sign halts me in my tracks, and I begin to cry. I don’t want to, but I can’t help it. I stand in the street and look up at the little baby being taken away by the eagle, and I think of the cold moonlight on Port Meadow, and the fat man’s breath dying into the dark, and the knife with the wet paint on it, and I come to a stop.
The men coming out of the pub almost knock me down. They seem huge – well, one of them does. They stink of beer and pipe tobacco, and are both smoking pipes and pulling on their coats and talking loudly, and it takes a moment for the two of them to realise I am there, like a stray dog they have accidentally kicked.
I want to move on, to keep walking, but I am so cold and tired now and I just want Pa to scoop me up in his arms and take me to my room and light the lamp and put me to bed and maybe talk to me for a while like he used to. I want to hear him speak to me, and tell me that everything is all right. And I can’t bear snivelling, but here I am, all a snivel, and I can’t help it, and the calm faraway part of me is so cross about it but it can’t do anything. And I have wet myself as well, like a baby, and I can’t bear that either, and I wish – I wish –
‘What have we here?’ the big man says, teeth still clenched around the stem of his pipe. He seems enormous, with his flapping coat and scarf and hat and the pipe-smoke all about him. He has a fleshy, florid face, like a ham, but it is not a bad face, and his eyes are kind under the black brows. I can see that, even here and now.
His companion is more spare, a long, pale face under thinning hair. He is knocking the dottle of his pipe into the palm of his hand and he has sharp eyes, but they are not unkind either.
I look up at them, and try to say something, and I wonder if they can see the wet on my legs, and I have to fight the stupid crying again. But I am not a baby and I will not cry. There has been enough of that for one night.
I am about to speak, but the big man is kneeling in front of me now. He has taken his pipe out of his mouth and his eyes are searching my face.
‘My dear, are you all right?’
And such is the sympathy and the concern in his voice that I can only shake my head, as dumb as Pie.
‘Are you lost?’
I nod.
So does he, as though I had confirmed what he already knew.
‘What’s your name, girl, and where do you live?’ the thinner man says, a little sharp, looking up and down the street. ‘I do believe she’s on her own, Jack.’
‘Of course she’s on her own. Look at her. She’s freezing.’ The big man touches my shoulder, and feels my shivers.
‘You’re a little icicle is what you are my girl. And out so late! Come now, is your mother nearby? You cannot be out on your own at this hour.’
I find a voice, but it is not my own. It is a little lost mew, disgusting to the calm, strong part of me that is listening inside.
‘My mother is dead.’
Something in the big man’s face changes at that. There is a spasm of pain that crosses it, and his big hand grips my shoulder very tight for a moment. He looks in my eyes, and says quietly, ‘That is a sad thing.’ And just in that instant, I feel he understands me completely.
Then he straightens, and puts his pipe in his pocket. ‘Well, this won’t do, will it? We’ll have to get y
ou home. It’s far too cold for little girls and their dolls to be running around the streets.’
The other man is retrieving his bicycle from where it leans by the wall of the pub. He looks me up and down. His face is not unkind, but there is a detachment in it.
‘Children wander off all the time, Jack. I daresay her father or guardian is around here somewhere. In a pub, I expect. Try the Lamb and Flag.’
‘You’re a cold-blooded reptile at times, Tollers.’
‘I’m a father, and I speak whereof I know. I take it she can look to you to be her Galahad.’
‘She can indeed, since you are so set on being off.’
The thinner man mounts the bicycle. He looks at me, gauging. ‘She’s just become mislaid, that’s all.’ And to me, he smiles suddenly, and his face becomes different, almost mischievous. ‘You’ll be all right with Jack, my girl. He delights in taking on waifs and strays.’
‘A low blow, Tollers,’ Jack protests, but the other is already cycling off, the bicycle tick tick ticking under him.
‘Edith is expecting me. I have my own waifs to see to Jack. Good luck, and I will see you next week, God willing.’ He waves a hand, throws his scarf about his throat, and dings the bell, and then is off down the street, the red glow of his dynamo fading.
The big man called Jack looks down on me. ‘Forgive my friend, my dear,’ he says. ‘He is a Christian, and believes charity begins at home. And often it remains there.’ Then he snorts a laugh, and offers me his big, sweaty hand. And I take it.
3
WE WALK DOWN St Giles, hand in hand. Jack does not ask any more questions for a hundred yards. He has retrieved his pipe from his pocket and is puffing it into life again. Twice he is interrupted by groups of young men walking by, all beery and loud – students I suppose – who suddenly clam up as he approaches, and they utter a chorus of ‘Good evening sir,’ to which he nods, grunts and smiles.
