Far, Far the Mountain Peak

by Arthur Clifford

  ‘Really, Don, did you have to hit that boy? It was assault, and you could get prosecuted, you know!’

  ‘But what else was I supposed to do? Let him beat the living daylights out of little Jonny boy here?’

  ‘It’s violence, Don, violence, the one thing I’m trying so desperately hard to combat.’

  ‘But can’t you see that there’s no other way with people like that?’

  ‘I can’t and, what’s more, I won’t!’

  ‘Really, dear, you’d do better sticking to old ladies and stray cats. Leave the young thugs to me.’

  ‘And let you brutalise them? Never!’

  Stalemate. A frosty silence ensued.

  ‘By the way,’ she eventually said, changing the subject and adopting an anxious tone, ‘Have you seen Jason today? He’s gone all silent and morose. I do hope he’s not going to have another of those dos! I really couldn’t stand it! Not another one!’

  Suddenly she caught sight of John. ‘Oh, John, you have been so brave this afternoon and so helpful! Do tell me: you’re not violent, are you?’

  ‘No! No! I’m not violent. I hate violence!’ But only when I am the victim of it, but don’t muddy the waters by telling the truth. Won’t do any good.

  As a reward he was hugged and allowed to stuff himself with the edible remains of the feast, and was presented with three large bottles of Coke which had somehow managed to survive the afternoon’s holocaust intact.

  A Night to Remember; Wimp or Hero?

  A blissful bath was followed by bed. Having drunk two of the three bottles of Coke, John found it difficult to get to sleep. For a long time he lay tossing and turning, his mind full of the images of yet another weird day. The proven superiority of physical strength. His own abject humiliation at the hands of the skinhead. His fear – nay, terror! – of the mob. How he wished he could be as strong and masterful as the Bishop. Awesome, terrifying, but so unpredictable. That strange tendency to confide in him as if he were an adult companion and not a thirteen-year-old boy.

  When eventually he did doze off the Demon entered him. There he was, naked. There was Danny, naked… He suddenly woke up to find himself in the darkness with the bed all sticky. The Bishop’s bed! The shame of it! Couldn’t it ever stop?

  He got up, knelt by the bed and prayed, ‘Please God, please stop this. I don’t want to be a shit-stabber; sorry about the language, but you know what I mean. Please make me good. Make me dream about girls. Make me normal like the other lads.’

  In the middle of this he suddenly realised that the large intake of Coke had done its worst and that he needed a pee, and pretty damned urgently too! God would have to wait a moment or two.

  Still in his underpants, he switched on the light, unlocked the door and crept out into the darkened passage. Immediately he sensed that something was wrong. There was an unfamiliar acrid smell and a dense fog hurt his eyes and blurred his vision. A dull, flickering glow was coming from the landing. Curiosity made him forget about the need to pee.

  Reaching the landing, he gasped in amazement. Thick smoke was billowing around and made him cough. Bright red flames were licking their way up the curtains on the window and running along the banisters like Christmas streamers. So that’s what it was: fire! Fires just didn’t happen in his world and for a moment he gaped in confusion.

  Suddenly he saw a large figure looming up through the swirling murk. It knelt down and proceeded to sprinkle some liquid from a bottle onto the carpet and then to start flicking a cigarette lighter it held in its other hand. A brilliant yellow flame raced over the carpet like a luminescent snake.

  He crept closer and saw… Jason!

  ‘Jason, what are you doing?’

  Slowly Jason stood up. Through the flickering gloom John could see that he was stark naked; not repulsively naked, but almost noble, like a Greek statue with his muscular, well-built body.

  ‘It’s time,’ he said in a calm, measured voice, ‘Time. The Military Revolutionary Committee has occupied the Peter and Paul Fortress. This time I’m getting it right. Stalin is too rude. He doesn’t know how to use his power properly. Trotsky is too arrogant. There’s nobody, so I’m starting all over again.’

  He emptied more liquid from his bottle, this time on a different bit of the carpet and, bending down, flicked the lighter. Another snake of yellow flame wriggled across the floor.

  ‘Jason, you’re setting the place on fire!’

  ‘Of course I am. This house is part of the old pre-revolutionary world. It’s made of cardboard. It must be burnt down and replaced with a proper stone building.’

  He stood up and faced John. ‘You’re in my way, aren’t you? You’ve come to steal my inheritance. You think you can replace me, don’t you? But you can’t. You, too, are in the dustbin of history. You must burn like the house.’

  Dropping the lighter, he lunged at his shoulder and pulled him down. Then John saw him reach for the lighter and felt a cold liquid run stinging down his bare back. What the hell was this naked weirdo doing?

  Suddenly it hit him. The man was mad – crazy! – and was going to set him on fire! With the strength of sheer terror he struggled frantically, and with his bare foot, aimed a desperate kick at his assailant. It hit its mark – a bull’s eye, straight into Jason’s large, well-developed genitals. With an agonised yell he relaxed his grip and John struggled free.

  Run! Run! Run, rabbit, run! Run where? Down the stairs… into the hall at the bottom.

  Jason was following him. ‘You can’t escape!’ he shrieked. ‘Nobody can escape! It is the Law of History! It is written!’

  Chased by a nightmare monster – was he dreaming all this? – he dithered a bit and then, seeing that the door was open, dashed down the corridor that led to the dining room. The monster was close behind him. Seeing the door of the Bishop’s study open, he dived in there. Had to hide somewhere… The curtains hadn’t been drawn and moonlight flooded in through the windows, enabling him to see the big desk before which he had so abjectly trembled the other morning. On it he saw a telephone. Lucky choice! Salvation. Terror made him lucid. He picked it up and dialled 999.

  Footsteps in the corridor getting nearer… Loud voice: ‘You can’t escape! I’m coming!’

  He knows I’m in here! Oh for fuck’s sake get on and answer the bloody phone!

  A slow, weary voice: ‘Horton Police Station. What is it?’

  Falsetto gabble and high-pitched squeal: ‘It’s the Bishop’s house! The Bishop of Boldonbridge, Fairfield House! It’s on fire. There’s a loony loose! He’s trying to kill me! hurry!’

  The door opened wider. He’s coming in! I’m trapped!

  ‘I know you’re there! You’re trying to kill my father, aren’t you?’

  John dropped the telephone, ran round the desk, dived under the big swivel chair and squeezed into the leg space between the two sets of supporting drawers.

  The light flicked on. Suddenly everything was frighteningly clear. Beyond the big leather armchair, which partially blocked his view, he could see Jason’s big, hairy legs approaching his hiding place. Nearer and nearer…

  ‘I’ve got you now!’

  Nearer still. Heart thumping. Body turning to jelly. Body out of control… Suddenly the pee poured out of him, violently and uncontrollably, down his left leg and out onto the white carpet in front of the desk where it formed a steaming, yellow lake. The shame! The degradation! Little boy messing himself!

  Triumphant voice: ‘There you are! You’ve pissed yourself like Zinoviev before his execution! You are Zinoviev!’

  John leapt up. There before him on the other side of the desk, naked and muscular, was Jason, panting like a savage dog. For a moment they stared at each other. Then Jason lunged towards the left-hand end of the desk. Instinctively John lunged towards the right-hand end. Jason made a grab at him, sending a tray-load of papers flutte
ring over the carpet as he did so. Frantically John dashed for the door, knocking over a big standard lamp in the process, which fell with a crash. By sheer good luck – the hand of God or whatever? – Jason tripped over it and landed on the floor with a thump. That gave him thirty precious seconds – and how each second mattered! – to escape. But where? Where? Outside into the garden where he couldn’t be trapped. French windows of the dining room would be locked, so off to the entrance hall. Run! Run! Run! Down the corridor. Smoke. Flickering red light. Heat. Into the hall. Oh God! Smoke. Bright red flame on stairs. Front door not locked. Footsteps behind him. Loud voice: ‘You can’t escape!’

  Out into the sharp, stabbing cold of the night. Cold air stinging like a whiplash on his wet, piss-soaked legs. Dash over the gravel… hard stones hurting my bare feet. Onto cold, wet lawn… Into the pitch-black tangle of the bushes at the far end. Desperate struggle with the hard, unyielding and spiky branches. Crack! Crunch! Crack! He’s bound to hear! Then down on my knees. Crawl into a dark hollow under the anarchic trellis of branches. Freezing mud chills me. Wriggle round to get a look at the lawn. Huge figure of Jason towering like a statue, silhouetted against the red flames flickering brilliantly out of the landing window, like strobe lights at a disco.

  Lie still. Fierce cold making me shiver. Panting. Gasping for breath. Whole body quivering.

  ‘I know you’re there! You can’t usurp my rightful place. I’m my father’s son. Not you!’

  He’s coming nearer. Body taking over completely! Oh God, I’m shitting myself! Frantic removal of underpants averts total catastrophe. Leaving a pile of crap in the Bishop’s garden: how utterly pathetic! I should be a hero, rescuing the Bishop and his wife and putting the fire out, not leaving turds in the garden!

  He’s nearer now. Oh come quickly, police! Do come!

  Did Guy Gibson shit himself when he led the Dam Busters on their celebrated attack on the Möhne and Eder dams? No, because Guy Gibson was a proper man, a real hero and not a dirty little shit-stabber.

  Oh police, do come! He’s reached the bushes…

  Then lurid pandemonium. Wailing siren. Blazing headlights. Big fire engine roaring up the drive. Police car with blue lights flashing. Deliverance.

  Fire engine into action. Ladders up. Hoses out. Water pouring through landing window. Brilliant flames disappear. Jason running back into the house.

  John ran out onto the lawn, waving his arms furiously. ‘Sorry to disturb you, but there’s a lunatic loose!’ he yelled at the policeman who got out of the car, ‘He’s setting the house on fire. He’s trying to kill me!’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He ran back into the house. The Bishop and his wife are still in there.’

  ‘You’d better sit in the car. Stay there and don’t get out.’

  All this in a crazy, flickering motion, like a video being fast-forwarded.

  He sat down in the front seat of the car. Enormously relieved. As if a painful boil had been lanced. Safe. Alive.

  Then the shame. His pissed underpants were wetting the car seat. If they should notice it…! And when the Bishop found that puddle in his study. Not to mention the pile of turds under the rhododendron bushes. Oh God! Squalid, dirty little shit-stabber!

  A sort of order eventually emerged from the chaotic darkness. Lights went on. Jason emerged form the front door, handcuffed and his nakedness covered by a blanket, escorted by two burly policemen who seemed to be talking to him gently and agreeing with everything he said.

  The big, genial policeman opened the car door. ‘All right, you can come out now.’

  Timorously he followed him back into the house. In the hall he was confronted with an apparition. A huge monster of a man was there, all bulging muscles and quivering hairs – indeed, if you could call it a man. It was more like a towering gorilla on the rampage, the famous ‘missing link’ perhaps, or the eternal caveman of yore; all that was missing was the club and the unconscious wife draped over its shoulder. It was, in fact, the Bishop, reverting it seemed to primordial type or to some previous incarnation deep in prehistory. A pair of ragged pyjama bottoms and a tatty old dressing gown were his meagre concession to civilisation.

  He glowered down at John. ‘Just what have you been getting up to?’

  John cringed and darted behind the protective bulk of the policeman. Oh Lord, what now?

  ‘All right! All right,’ said the policeman, going into his ‘crisis management’ role and relishing the chance to put all those hours of tedium spent on ‘courses’ into action. ‘Don’t go for him. I know it’s all been a great shock to you, but if it hadn’t been for his quick reactions and responsible behaviour there could have been a very nasty fire and fatalities. He’s the one who alerted the Fire Brigade, and in the nick of time, too.’

  ‘Oh? What happened, then?’

  ‘You tell him, young man.’

  John emerged from behind the protective bulk of his defender. ‘Well, I… er…’

  The words wouldn’t come.

  ‘Come on, don’t be frightened.’

  ‘Well, I was walking along the corridor when I saw Jason on the landing. He was all weird and was sprinkling petrol or meths or something all over the place and lighting it. Then he attacked me. So I ran and telephoned the police.’

  ‘And just why were you wandering round the house at night, not even dressed?’ The Bishop seemed to resent his being rescued; adults were so odd! He should have embraced him and hailed him as a saviour; after all, that’s what happened in books and films.

  John blushed bright red. ‘Well, er… I needed the toilet.’

  ‘Oh, come on now! You don’t expect met to swallow that one do you? You don’t need the toilet in the middle of the night at your age! You’re not an old man with diabetes, are you? So what was your little game, then?’

  Another mutation: this time from squalid little retard to evil, scheming juvenile delinquent. This fearsome caveman seemed determined not to believe him.

  ‘But I did need the toilet, honest!’

  Suddenly – and almost on cue – another apparition appeared. Isabel came sweeping down the stairs in a long white nightdress, her long straggle of mousy hair streaming out behind her, her beaky nose protruding from her wild, intense face like the tip of a spear. Boadicea, riding into battle in her chariot of yore.

  ‘Please, Don, do stop it! John’s a hero! He’s saved our house!’

  She embraced and kissed him. Yet another mutation: hero now! What next?

  ‘I suppose you could put that slant on it,’ growled the Bishop aggressively. ‘Pretty unlikely though.’

  Strange man, this! Save souls, help the poor and needy, rescue the drowning. But the drowning weren’t allowed to rescue themselves, let alone rescue him if he fell into a river! By saving the house from burning down he seemed to have annoyed him. What were you supposed to do?

  ‘But Jason!’ exclaimed an anguished Isabel, releasing a red-faced and squirming John. ‘What about him? It’s not his fault, you know. He’s having one of his turns.’

  ‘You can set your mind at rest,’ replied the policeman, relishing his role as the competent professional dealing with the crisis. ‘We won’t charge him. We’re taking him to St Margaret’s Hospital where he’ll get medical attention he needs.’

  ‘He won’t be sent to prison, will he?’

  ‘Of course not, but under the Mental Health Act he’ll have to be detained in a secure unit. Now, we’d better have a proper statement.’

  ‘Well, we can’t give a statement standing here,’ growled the Bishop, eyeing the firemen who were still clunking around with hoses. ‘Come into my study.’

  They filed in. The Bishop switched on the light and angrily surveyed the devastation: the broken lamp, the telephone swinging gently on its cord as it dangled over the edge of the desk, the scatter of papers all over the floor. The e
yebrows tightened threateningly. ‘Strewth!’ he growled. ‘Those are my Sunday sermons I’ll have you know!’

  He turned on John. ‘What have you been doing in here? Playing rugby or something?’

  John could only gape in silence.

  The Bishop marched over to a big brown cupboard from which he extracted an empty bottle of whisky. ‘I see somebody’s been at the whisky!’ he said with a hint of triumph.

  Then he saw the puddle on the carpet, bright yellow and stinking away. Ostentatiously he screwed up his nose. ‘And what’s your explanation of that?’ he said, pointing to it.

  John felt himself shrivel up. Why did he have to draw attention to that, for Heaven’s sake? He seemed determined to humiliate him. Why? To show off to that policeman, perhaps, by parading those interrogation skills he’d learned in Ulster? He was as bad as a small kid.

  ‘It wasn’t me, honest! It was Jason!’

  ‘Don’t lie to me. Look at your drawers.’

  Squashed flat. The insect under the boot.

  The assault continued. ‘You’ve been stringing me along, haven’t you? I’ll tell you what really happened. When you thought we were all safely in bed, you sneaked downstairs didn’t you? Had a little poke round to see what you could steal. Fiddly fingers opened the drinks cupboard, didn’t they? Couldn’t resist a pull at the whisky, could we? Then Jason comes along and you invite him to join your little party on condition that he won’t grass on you. Right? But it all gets out of hand. Can’t hold your drink so you pee on the floor. Then you smoke Jason’s fags, and the whole place catches fire.’

  John felt himself melt. A snowman on a sunny summer’s day, that sinking feeling of despair. This was crazy. How could he convince this great ogre of the truth? And what was the truth anyway? For all his whirling mind could tell, the Bishop’s concoction could well be the truth. Despite himself, he began to snivel.

  ‘Oh, Don, do leave him alone!’ cried Isabel, rushing to his rescue. ‘You’ve got him all upset! You’re not dealing with terrorists in Newry, you know!’ she added vehemently.