Burning Boy (Penguin Award Winning Classics), The

by Gee, Maurice

  ‘I don’t know where mine are.’

  ‘You could find out.’

  ‘I don’t want to. I reckon, what we’ve got is here and now.’ He shone the torch on headstones. ‘Cremation’s best. That’s what I want.’

  ‘Where will your ashes go?’

  ‘Anywhere.’ He was, she thought, trying to get back on top. She took his hand and led him among the trees and he grew more easy out of the graves. They stood still and listened to a branch creaking in the wind. On the tennis court two cats faced each other in the moonlight, until one turned and crept away. Ken shone his torch at the other and the luminescent eyes stared back, not giving way.

  ‘Thank God we’re bigger than they are.’

  They sat on a bench deep in shadow and looked out at the moonlit town.

  ‘I found Saxton by accident,’ he said. ‘I was just wandering round, having a look, and some joker on the ferry asked me if I could drive, he was feeling crook. So I said yes, and drove him here. It’s the only time I’ve ever driven a Jag. I was really heading down to Christchurch.’

  ‘And you stayed?’

  ‘I liked the look of it. It’s been a good place. Until Wayne.’

  ‘Will it always mean that to you? Wayne?’

  ‘What do you think?’ He took her hand. ‘Sorry. It will though. Wayne and Shell. And,’ a shrug, ‘the rest.’ His wife. ‘I’m glad I met you though, at the end.’

  ‘I’m glad too. It was hard, ringing you up.’

  ‘I should’ve done that, rung up.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter who, as long as it happened.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He shone the torch around. ‘It’s good out here.’

  ‘Better than the pictures?’

  ‘I dunno. I could do with a packet of Jaffas.’

  He joked so rarely that she laughed aloud. ‘Oh Ken, have me instead. Any way you want. On top or underneath or back to front.’

  ‘Nice girls don’t talk like that.’

  But back in bed he said, ‘What’s this back to front?’

  ‘Shall we see?’

  He made love to her from behind. After that, for the rest of their time, they had three ways, and no one chose.

  ‘I never knew I could do it as often as this. Or get so hard. It’s like I was sixteen again.’ (That was another thing that made her smile.)

  Every night they walked in the park.

  On Friday the 8th they said goodbye. ‘I guess this is the right time, eh? I guess it would have ended anyway.’

  She knew him fairly well, knew lots of things about him. She knew the ironworks in Hartlepool, and the windy beach at Seaton Carew, the weekend trips to Saltburn and Whitby, and with his yobbo mates to Middlesbrough; and Saturday afternoon on the terraces, grey squalls sweeping over as United, in its blue and white strip, lost again. And Mum and Dad in the little house, worrying. She knew the shock summer heat gave him in Saxton, amazing all day sun, day after day. She knew him well enough to know, yes it would have ended anyway. She had not reached the end of it herself and was never less than pleased by his talk and his behaviour and all the things he knew and could work out; and by his ignorance and narrowness. They were a part of his spoor, a mark of his passing left on her. She found his limits all the time and did not want to teach or change him.

  ‘When will your wife be coming home?’

  ‘They’re not sure. Sometime next week.’

  ‘And is she really better, do you think?’

  ‘It’s hard to tell.’ He looked at her suspiciously.

  ‘I hope so, Ken.’ Felt she’d had to ask, and finished it.

  He went into the living-room, where this time he had left his torch, and she followed him. He turned around slowly, said, ‘All this,’ meaning her books and paintings and records and bits of china. He looked puzzled and ready to be angry, and she saw no need for it, they could say goodbye without widening a gap. She felt a yearning for him, and their touching; a wrenching from the base of her throat to her abdomen.

  ‘I don’t know –’

  ‘Ssh, Ken. Don’t.’

  In the porch he made it all right: looked back at her and put his torch and baseball cap down. He came back to her in the doorway and worked his fingers under her dressing gown cord, pulled it undone. He opened her dressing gown out and looked at her and put his arms inside, round her back. He stepped in close and held her for a moment. Did not kiss her. She felt his prickly skin scratch her cheek. Then he left; sweeping up his cap and torch with one hand, jumping down two steps, grabbing his bike, getting away.

  Norma went inside and closed the door.

  ‘Oh wonderful,’ she said.

  She tied her gown and hugged herself. ‘Wonderful, K.B.’

  She was not so chirpy by Sunday night. Not so very chipper at all – was chipper a pommie word he would have used? She had not loved him, love had had no time, but liked him more than any man she’d known. That did not mean she had never been in love but meant perhaps that liking was a better thing to have. Liking was far better in middle age.

  Norma laughed. She would not feel that way if she was in love, was sensible enough to recognize that; but did not want it ever again, with all its exaggerated joys and dreadful pains. What she wanted was Ken Birtles back, for comfort and pleasure.

  ‘Well,’ she told herself, ‘you can’t have him.’ Their week together had a margin on its near side, it was defined; or would be if she examined it. Which she should do, and see it whole, and make an artefact of it perhaps, of great value, and put it away in her deposit box of memories. ‘Huh,’ Norma said. ‘Arty-farty. Ken had missing teeth and smelled of fish.’

  She thought of him a quarter-hour bike ride away. If I had a bike I could ride round and see … It was then she decided to get out of Saxton for a while. So, on Monday morning, she took the cat to the cattery, and called at the berry farm to see her mother – ‘When I come back, Mum, I’ll help you shift’ – asked Clive to check her house and pick the mail up now and then – ‘It’s still my busy season,’ he complained – and drove over the zigzag ribbon road to Sutherland Bay, where her old teachers’ college friend Audrey Scanlan was married to a mussel farmer. A downturn in that industry had the Scanlans worried but good years had left them with no shortage of good things and Norma was comfortable in her airy room in the big new house – not a Tom Round house but just as good, it sprawled so warm and natural in its paddock up from the beach. She lazed in a swing-couch, drinking long non-alcoholic drinks, and swam in the sea and washed off the salt in a rock basin in the creek behind the house. She did not bother trying to forget K. Birtles. Thought of him often in fact. ‘I’m getting a man out of my system,’ she told Audrey. Audrey wanted to know, was nosey in an almost prurient way, and was disapproving as well. What a matron she had become. Chastity was the rule for unmarried high-school principals. Norma laughed and turned her aside. ‘You need a man now and then,’ she said.

  ‘It sets you up for the winter,’ she said.

  She walked in the bush to the waterfall, she watched the tame eels being fed, and she took a launch trip round the point into the maritime park and ate her lunch of drumsticks and pitta bread on the beach at Pear Tree Bay. A red and yellow fizz-boat came in, crunched its nose into the sand, and Tom Round and Sandra Duff jumped out.

  ‘The Mona Lisa of Pear Tree Bay,’ Tom said.

  ‘What are you two doing here?’

  ‘Exploring the coast,’ Sandra said. ‘I’ve never been up this far. It’s beautiful. Isn’t this the most beautiful beach you’ve ever seen?’

  That was a very naked comment for Sandra. I didn’t know she had that level on her mind, Norma thought. Or was geared for simple happiness. Could Sandra be in love?

  ‘Stephanie’s got the boot,’ Sandra said while Tom went to the boat for the chilli-bin. ‘Poor old Steph’s the past, I’m the future. But it ain’t a future that’s got any future. Not that he knows it, poor old Tom. Every girl,’ she grinned, ‘should have a rich man once in a whil
e. Expensive things are so enjoyable.’

  ‘Are you on this launch, Norma? Where are you staying?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Round the point at Sutherland Bay.’

  ‘Don’t go back on that old tub. We’ll take you in the boat, only take ten minutes.’

  ‘No thanks, I like to putter along.’ Still he hankered after her, and maybe dreamed of threesomes. Sandra winked. Half an hour later, up at the point, they made figure of eights by the launch, with Tom one-handed at the wheel, a long-stemmed wine glass in his other hand, and Sandra in dark glasses and captain’s hat and skimpy togs.

  The launch captain gave Tom the fingers.

  Thank God, Norma thought, mine wasn’t like that. Thank God for Ken Birtles with his baseball cap and missing premolars and lumpy hands.

  After that she seemed to have everything in place and thought of him less frequently.

  The house in the cul-de-sac was spick and span. Daphne had been in to dust and scrub. Daphne had washed the curtains. Clive had repainted the front door for a new beginning and kept the lawn green with a watering-can and hoed and weeded the garden, making sure the flowers stayed alive.

  Mr Schwass’s big chair was gone but there, in its place, was a la-z-boy, a present from Norma. Mrs Schwass sat in it and tried the controls and showed off to neighbours who popped in to welcome her back. Norma stayed for dinner. This first night they had Dial-a-dinner, another present, and Mrs Schwass said, ‘What a wonderful idea. I might do this every night.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Though I must say these’ (spare ribs) ‘are what we fed the dogs with on the farm.’

  They washed the dishes and watched television and Mrs Schwass said she wouldn’t get ready for bed till Norma had gone, she wasn’t going to be supervised through a crack in the door. Norma kissed her goodnight and left. There was going to be a time of frequent attendance that would need to be disguised as dropping in.

  She put her car in the garage and turned to come out, and found Ken Birtles in the door.

  ‘Don’t do that, Ken. You gave me a fright.’

  ‘I’ve got to see you.’

  ‘Was that your car out there?’ Her tone was light but she was angry. ‘I don’t think I like you parking at my gate.’

  ‘Why not? You’re the headmistress.’ He made a placatory gesture with his hands. ‘It’s OK, Norma, I’m not coming back so don’t get jumpy. I’ve got to see you about something else.’

  ‘Oh? What’s that? Come in, Ken. We can’t stand here.’

  In the house he said, ‘Shelley’s records. I heard about what you’re going to do.’

  ‘Records?’ She thought he meant enrolment, examination results. ‘What am I going to do?’

  ‘Wipe them out. That’s what I heard. You’re the boss there, you must know.’

  ‘Well, I don’t. Her running records? Is that what you mean?’

  ‘Yeah, they’re going to wipe them out. I work with this bloke whose wife does cleaning at the Maules’s house. Mrs Maule told her. This guy Maule is chairman of the board or something like that.’

  ‘Chairman of our Board of Governors. What did Mrs Maule say, Ken? Tell me exactly.’

  ‘Just, cross off her records from the books. Make it like she was never there. Jesus Norma, you can’t do that.’

  ‘No, we can’t.’ She was astonished, then pleased, to find herself trembling.

  ‘You know what it’ll do to her? Just when she’s got a chance of coming right?’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘It’s like, I don’t know, hosing down the yard, and Shelley’s some bit of shit in the corner, something like that.’

  ‘Ken.’ He was trembling too. He had to wipe his eyes. ‘Ken. It’s not going to happen. Not while I’m running the school. Ken,’ she made him look at her, ‘I had nothing to do with it. Believe me?’

  ‘I guess I do.’

  ‘Now, listen.’ She went to the phone and rang the Maules’s number, got Mrs Maule, asked for her husband. ‘Yes Mrs Maule, it is important. I’d like to speak to him right now please.’

  She heard his elevated talking-down voice, knew he was angry, but his anger was no match for hers. ‘I’ve got a parent here and I’ve just heard a story that I hope isn’t true. Perhaps you can tell me. You plan to wipe out Shelley Birtles’s running records?’

  ‘I don’t think I’m prepared to discuss –’

  ‘Is it true or isn’t it, Mr Maule?’

  ‘Well some of us –’ she had him rattled – ‘some of us had an informal discussion. This will come up in the normal course of business, Mrs Sangster.’

  ‘No it won’t. It will come up tomorrow. And stop tomorrow. I’d like to see you, and whichever “some of us” are in it with you. I’ll be in my office at nine o’clock, Mr Maule, and if we can’t sort it out and finish with it then I’ll take some action that you will be most unhappy with, I promise you.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Goodnight, Mr Maule.’

  She hung up. She had never spoken to him like that before – had differed and demurred, had smiled, agreed. There had been in her a muted click and whirr, almost sub-aural, and perfect motion, as in a watch; but now something was broken. She felt jagged ugly bits in her.

  ‘Ken, does your wife know about this?’

  ‘No, she doesn’t.’

  ‘Is she home?’

  ‘Yeah, since Friday.’

  ‘Well, don’t tell her. It’ll all be over by tomorrow. Does Hayley know?’

  ‘I told her. She’s hopping mad. I had to talk about it with someone, Norma.’

  ‘Make sure she keeps quiet. The important thing is not to let Shelley hear. It’s only a few people doing it. A few stuffed shirts. Are you still going to Australia?’

  ‘I hope so. Hayley and Shell are going the week after next. She’s out next week. Joanie and me are staying until we sell the house.’

  ‘Ken.’ She wanted to touch him and kiss his cheek, and send him away. ‘Are you all right? Is everything going all right with you?’

  He stood in the middle of the room and looked about as though he had not been there before. ‘It’s – I don’t know – it kind of got away from me a bit. I didn’t think it was going to. I thought, Why not? It’s a bit of fun. But it got so it was … What I’ve got to do, I’ve got to cut it down to size, I guess, and make it so it wasn’t so important.’

  ‘It’s like that too, for me.’ She would not tell him she had managed it, and was going on now, easily.

  ‘I’ll get there. God knows, there’s enough other things to keep me busy.’

  She smiled, relieved, and not the slightest bit hurt, that he was not concerned for her. ‘Shelley’s records will stay, Ken. Don’t you worry. But of course some other girl will come along and beat them soon.’

  ‘That’s OK. I don’t mind that. As long as you don’t make out she didn’t exist. Jesus, that’s …’

  ‘I agree.’ She got him to the back door and he stood on the step with one foot lower down on the mat and his cap, his eternal cap, turning in his hands, and she thought, There may have been only one week, one week in both our lives, that were able to match so perfectly and run together, and what a marvellous piece of luck, a marvellous fluke, we found them. But it’s over now, no more weeks. Even if we had no other troubles, no more weeks. She smiled and touched him lightly on the shoulder.

  ‘Goodnight, Ken. Don’t worry, I’ll fix it. I’ll telephone you.’

  She closed the door.

  I don’t suppose I’ll ever see Ken Birtles again.

  ‘Well, Mr Maule?’ Norma said – but Angus Maule of Sanders, Maule, Perfect and Denton would not be treated in that way.

  ‘I’m not too happy to be summoned here. I can let you have five minutes of my time. You won’t mind being brief, I hope?’

  ‘I think five minutes is all I’ll need.’

  The other two were those she had expected, Mrs Alexander and Mr Whiting – Humpty and Dumpty, she thought of them. Whit
ing though, a wheezer and face-mopper, had never been a joke. Whiting was Moral Right’s hotline to the board.

  ‘Can I ask you first, is what Mr Birtles told me true? You plan to cancel Shelley Birtles’ records.’

  Maule took his moment to consider and made his answer in his tight-lipped way – mouth like the shutter in a camera, contracting to a tiny hole. ‘The idea is afloat, and has, I think, general acceptance.’ He frowned. ‘We thought we’d have your support, bearing in mind recent events.’

  ‘My father is my business, Mr Maule. I don’t need anyone taking revenge for me, so leave that out if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘You don’t have my support. It’s only in Russia, isn’t it, that history gets rewritten by the state?’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Whiting complained.

  Maule knew. Delicate and quick, with the middle finger of each hand, he picked dampness from the corners of his mouth. It was exhilarating, Norma thought, to discover you could dislike a person so much.

  ‘It means that a girl came to our school and turned out to be a champion runner. She broke all the school records and no one has come near to them since. Then she left and got into bad company and committed crimes and went to prison. But we fix that up by pretending she never was. We turn her into a non-person. They do that in Russia and other countries all the time. Change history by decree. It’s a marvellous way of telling lies.’

  ‘Lies?’ Whiting.

  ‘Yes, Mr Whiting. She ran those times. You are getting ready to say that she did not.’

  ‘But Norma dear, she’s been a very bad girl,’ Frances Alexander said. ‘She’s no credit to us. This is more like cleaning up after someone makes a mess. It’s a bit like housekeeping you could say.’

  ‘You mean she’s dirt?’ Why not use Ken? ‘So you hose her out of the yard like something the dog left? Frances, have you thought of the harm you might do? To her? The girl?’

  ‘Well, the girl, surely she’s forfeited –’

  ‘The girl has put herself on the other side,’ Whiting said.

  ‘I didn’t know there were sides, Mr Whiting. I thought we just had pupils and we did our best for them.’