The Haunted Storm

by Philip Pullman

  “Eh? What’s that?”

  “I said I wish they’d leave him alone. They’re always making fun of him. He can’t help it.”

  “Why does he keep going back – oh God, my head’s really bursting open; look at my eyes: are they bloodshot? Can you see them? … Tell me, why does he keep going back, then? He enjoys it, that’s why.” He was mumbling; he spilt some of his beer on his leg.

  “Are you all right? Golly, you don’t look well, Matthew. Do you feel really ill? Do you want to go?”

  Matthew stood up clumsily and began to make his way to the door. Robert followed him nervously, trying to hear what he was saying. Another peal of laughter from Archer drowned it. As they got outside Matthew muttered:

  “God-damn thing. What shall we do, eh? It’s driving me to my knees. Shall we let it? Let’s go a bit further, shall we? Come on, you bastard, I can go further than you can. Let’s go and shake that dance up.”

  Just as Robert and Matthew left the pub, Elizabeth was busy elsewhere in the village. She and her mother were in the village hall. The Women’s Institute was rehearsing a play, and Mrs. Cole had a minor part; Elizabeth was prompting, because someone had been taken ill. It was a silly play and she was bored stiff. She was cold, what was more. It was draughty in the wings; she envied Mrs. Ryder the producer her smart sheepskin coat and the electric fire she’d commandeered. They were having a break for coffee, and Elizabeth sat down listlessly with the others, smoking and thinking about Matthew and Alan.

  What did they mean, each of them? No, that was Matthew’s disease, not hers. Nor was it Alan’s. He’d hardly said a word when she caught up with him on Thursday. And when she’d told him about Matthew he’d only nodded, as if he’d expected it. There had been nothing else to say, and she’d left him after a few minutes, and tried to find Matthew again. But she couldn’t, and nor could she escape from Alan, from his aura; and again she found herself asking, like her new brother: what did it mean? What did it mean?

  The dance was held in ·a building at the far end of the recreation ground. This was a large grassy field along the road out of the village towards Ditton. It had a definite slope, but it was used in the winter for football matches and in the summer for cricket, when the youth club building did duty as a pavilion. At the other end of the field, nearest the village, there was a group of swings and a long slide, together with a wooden roundabout.

  The building itself resembled a large schoolroom, or the type of mess-hut you see sometimes on old RAF stations, and in fact it had been put up in the war for some purpose or other. It had been left unused for a long time, as it didn’t seem to belong to -anyone, or be of much use where it was. Eventually the youth club, an informal organisation run enthusiastically but without great competence by the village schoolmaster, had taken it over and tidied it up. It was now used mainly for dances such as the present one, which attracted youths and girls from a number of villages nearby.

  There were several motor-bikes beside the gate in the hedge next to it. The room was brightly lit; the noise of the guitars and drums was overpowering, and the lead singer was nearly inaudible. Matthew and Robert passed several couples, as they came up to the building, who had come outside for a while. Matthew’s headache was holding off for a while, or at least not getting any worse. He was keeping it at bay, as he thought, by chattering non-stop to Robert in a vein of malevolent nonsense about the world at large; and Robert, thinking that Matthew was playing some game or other, to keep his end up was replying in the same spirit. Near the door Matthew stopped, feeling a sudden sway of dizziness, and put his hand on Robert’s arm and said:

  “Hang on a minute. Will you do something? You’re a good bloke, or I wouldn’t ask you: you’re too good for the world, you know, you misguided humanist. Do you know the worst thing in the world? It’s a stone, or an old tin can, or a blade of grass. But will you do something – Jesus, I’ll get to it in a minute; just – will you keep an eye on me in there? So’s I don’t go berserk, or fall down dead, I mean. I’m not strong; you could haul me outside and sit on me or something; but please, you won’t forget, will you?”

  “Matthew – look – don’t you want to go home and lie down? You don’t want to make it worse, do you –”

  “Yes, of course I do! Come on, let’s get in there.” They pushed open the door and paid twenty-five pence each to the youth sitting at a table just inside it. The floor was crowded, and the group was just coming to the end of a song. Matthew stood indecisively for a moment, fearing that the whole adventure would fall flat; when the music started again he turned to the first girl he saw and said “Dance?” She shrugged, and nodded. The group was playing “The Green, Green Grass of Home”; he held her firmly and moved as carefully .as he could in the rhythm. He saw Robert watching him, and felt a glow of gratitude, but quickly forgot it as the girl said: “I can’t dance like this, it’s too slow.”

  He let go of her and moved away without a word. Who else was there? He could go and look at the group, then.

  “Excuse me! Excuse me! Sorry, can I get by? Thank you very much! Thank you!”

  He barged through the dancers, apologising profusely when he jostled them, grinning, sweating, trying to get to the platform. The lead singer, a stocky fair-haired youth in a flowered shirt, was struggling to make himself heard, but his microphone wasn’t up to it. As Matthew got nearer the platform he heard the singer’s voice unaided by the amplifiers, sounding lost and out of place among the loud electric chords and the crash of drums. The group’s name was painted on the front of the bass drum: the Black Spider, it was called. The platform was only a couple of feet off the floor, and looked frail and unstable. They were applauded wildly when they finished the song, and then they put the guitars down and sat on the edge of the platform, drinking Coke out of tins handed them by some of the girls. Only the drummer stayed where he was. He was wearing dark glasses; he chatted laconically to two or three youths who came up to talk to him.

  Matthew was left in a temporary limbo; with the music ended for a while, he couldn’t pretend to dance, and he didn’t want to speak to Robert, for that would be going backwards. He looked around at the crowd and took stock of them. He felt inhuman: he felt as if he looked like a spectre of a man, chalk white with pain, with red staring eyes. His hair, now that it was short, stood up stiff and straight like a brush, and he kept passing his hand, wet with perspiration, over it so that it stuck together spikily.

  They were young: they looked like schoolchildren, most of them. There were a number of older youths in leather jackets or denims, with long carefully brushed hair and coarse, suspicious faces. The girls were mostly about seventeen. A lot of them – a surprising number – were pretty and vital, and he found himself several times on the verge of addressing them impulsively. He mingled among them as if he were looking for something, and saw Robert, standing at the edge of the room, looking nervous.

  “Oh, hell, where is she? Come on, where is she?” he said aloud. One or two heads turned to look at him, and he heard a girl giggling. No, that was the wrong thing to say: try again, and pick on someone to speak to, this time.

  He turned around sharply and went as swiftly as he could to the other end of the room. Luck! There was an older man there, looking out of place: the schoolmaster.

  “Excuse me – yes, you, can you tell me if they’re going to play again? Are you organising it?”

  The schoolmaster nodded, beaming, searching Matthew’s face to see if he recognised him.

  “Yes, I run the youth club; they’re just having a break now, the boys, they’ll be on again in a minute.”

  “Listen: I don’t know anyone here. Will you introduce me to someone?”

  “Oh!” the schoolmaster sounded surprised; “all right then, come along. Tony! “he called, “Tony!”

  A plump boy of about eighteen with lank brown hair detached himself from a group of friends and came up to him.

  “Tony, this is – er, what’s your name?”

&n
bsp; “Matthew.”

  “This is Matthew – he’s a visitor to the club; would you like to show him around? You know, introduce him to the gang.”

  “Yes, that’s it,” said Matthew, “that’s marvellous. I couldn’t want anything better; thank you so much.”

  He hurried across to the group, his head raging. He had to grit his teeth and clench his fists to avoid stamping his feet or falling to the floor in a faint or crying aloud. He was dismayed to hear himself moaning with pain, uttering a thin, high, humming noise in the back of his throat.

  He got to the group a second before Tony. There were five of them, two boys and three girls. They looked at him with suspicion and, he thought, disgust.

  “This is Matthew,” said Tony. “Mr. Bellamy asked me to introduce him. Terry, and Andy, and Rosemary, and Barbara, and Jillian.”

  “Well, now, I’m drunk,” said Matthew. “Are they selling anything here? Like something to drink, or smoke – by God, I’m thirsty.”

  “They got some Coke over by the door,” said the girl called Rosemary. She was pale and vacuous; probably anxious to be rid of him, he thought.

  “Do you want a fag?” said Terry or Andy, offering a packet of No. 6.

  “Thank you, thank you very much. Yes, I don’t smoke a lot, but when I go out – I haven’t got a light; ah, thanks.” He inhaled deeply, and the smoke got in his eyes and made them water.

  “Damn things – are you at college? What do you do?” he said to the group at large.

  “No, at school,” said the one who’d given him the cigarette; “at least, Barbara’s at college.” He indicated her briefly; she had red hair and was wearing a green trouser suit.

  Matthew gazed at her for a moment, and she stared back at him.

  “Do you know who did the murder?” he said.

  No one said anything; Tony shook his head.

  “It wasn’t a gang, then, and no one’s owning up? Oh Jesus, what a conversation. No, I’m sorry, it’s my fault. What were you talking about before I came?”

  “About the group,” said the third girl.

  Two or three of them looked at each other blankly, and then back at Matthew. It was getting worse. He could feel his knees trembling; he couldn’t see clearly. He could hardly see at all, in fact.

  “Damn me but let’s get to grips with it, yeah? Now I’m going to have a blackout in a minute – oh fuck that. Excuse me –” he nodded politely to the girls – “but, well, fuck it. Are you Christians? Do you go to church?”

  “I do,” said the third girl.

  “Are you Jillian?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No-one else go to church?”

  “Tony does,” said Andy or Terry.

  “So do you,” Tony replied, looking at him.

  “That’s better! Dialogue! I’m sorry, I’m being very rude. I go to church sometimes too. But other times I feel like – blowing everything up with dynamite. Anybody want to do that?”

  “You are drunk,” said Barbara. “What do you want, anyway?”

  “Nothing. Oh yes, I forgot… I want to be a werewolf.”

  Silence.

  “Who are you?” said Tony. “Are you a friend of Mr. Bellamy’s?”

  “Who’s Mr. Bellamy? He’s the teacher, is he?”

  Tony nodded.

  “No. I just came here on the off-chance – oh Christ, talk, for God’s sake talk. I’m not mad, I’m not diseased; I won’t bite you; I just want information. Just come alive, will you? Wake up!”

  “Well, we don’t mind talking,” said the one who’d given him a cigarette, “but we don’t know you, do we?”

  “You can talk all the more freely, then, can’t you? Say what you like. Jesus, Jesus –”

  He pressed his hands to his temples and locked his knees rigid.

  “I think you’re mad,” said Barbara.

  “He’s drunk, that’s all,” said Rosemary.

  “I’ve never been – I’ve never been more sober in my life. I’m deadly serious. If you can find one thing to say between you – if I last out, that is: now God keep me from fainting until I’ve finished – now if you can find one true thing to say I’ll just leave you alone and I won’t destroy you: do you hear? Otherwise I will, I’ll hunt you down and destroy you all, every one of you. Now all – oh, my head, my head! I can’t stand it… all you have to do is look at yourselves and think and then say one true thing, and then I’ll bugger off. Get it?”

  “What’s the matter?” said Jillian. “Are you ill? What is it?”

  He focussed his gaze on her. It was incredibly difficult for a moment, until he realised with a dull shock that his eyes were obeying him well enough: it was her double he was seeing, her soul, her aura… he started babbling to her like a child, aware that his lips weren’t moving, that not a sound was coming from his throat. He was talking mentally to her, and she was answering him.

  “You’ll mother me! You’re kind and compassionate – please look after me – please! I’m lost, I’m falling apart – hold on to me, don’t let me go! Hold me like a baby to your breast…”

  “Hush, my baby! Hush now, don’t say a word. I’ll look after you, come to me and I’ll be kind to you! I love you! I’m generous, and I’m warm; I don’t mind what you say or what you do. You’re safe now! You’re safe!”

  “Oh, my mother – pretend you’re my mother and I’ll pretend too – I’m lost, my head hurts, it hurts so much – can you soothe it, Jillian? Can you stroke it and send me to sleep? Oh, I’m afraid! I’m split open like skin and it’s not blood that pours out, it’s fear! And pain, pain, from my head to my feet…”

  “My breast is wide and soft, my baby, and my love’s as deep as sleep and as kind as a warm night… come to me! Come to me! Bless you, relax and sleep, my baby.”

  All this in one moment’s exchange of glances; and then the voice in Matthew’s head fell silent. He looked around at the others. No one spoke. Matthew felt his knees buckle momentarily, and straightened up, pressing his fists to his head.

  “All right,” he said weakly, “that’s it. You’re saved, the lot of you; Jillian said it. It was true… oh golly, I don’t like it either. I’ll bugger off so’s I won’t embarrass you any more… cheerio.”

  “Bye-bye,” said Jillian.

  Tony raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. Matthew turned away and left them. The musicians were picking up their guitars again. Matthew saw Robert briefly across the room: he was looking at the group.

  On a sudden impulse – everything was an impulse. Like the storm; the world was an impulse in the heart of God. That explained it – on a sudden impulse, he crouched low so that Robert couldn’t see him, and made for the door. He got to it unobserved. He stood up briefly and saw Robert looking anxiously this way and that among the dancers; and then he slipped outside and shut the door.

  Now then, which way could he go? To the left were the gate, the road, and the motor-bikes, where a couple of youths were standing and laughing together. To the right, the dark expanse of the field, and the stars. The pain was blazing: it would only be a matter of moments before he would have to give in.

  “No! No!” he muttered, sobbing, and stumbled off towards the darkness. “I won’t give in. No… question of… that…”

  When he was about a hundred yards away from the building, his knees gave way. He moaned with pain and got up again, and stumbled on for another few yards; but when he reached the top of a little grassy rise and brought his head back to look up at the stars, he felt himself being forced gently but quite implacably to the ground. There was no question of resisting: the force which acted on him was as far out of his reach as the stars themselves. And he had fainted before his head touched the grass.

  “Thank you so much, Elizabeth,” said Mrs. Ryder, buttoning her sheepskin coat; “so sweet of you to come and help.”

  Elizabeth smiled, and said “Goodnight. It’s coming on well.”

  “Would you like a lift, you two?” said Mrs. Ryder. She
opened the door of the Rover and got in.

  “No, don’t worry, Pat, it’s a lovely night. We’ll walk,” said Mrs. Cole.

  “Are you sure? It’s no bother.”

  “No, honestly,” said Elizabeth. “It’s not far.”

  “What’s that ghastly noise? Are they having a rave-up? That’s what they call it, isn’t it?” Mrs. Ryder said, and started the engine. As she slammed the car door she called:

  “Goodnight!”

  “Goodnight,” said Mrs. Cole.

  “What noise?” said Elizabeth.

  As the Rover accelerated down the road they heard the music in the distance. The village hall was situated at the same end of the village as the recreation ground, down a side-road next to the Methodist chapel. It was a little out of the way; there were no houses until the council estate by the road junction. The road back to the village led along beside the recreation ground for two hundred yards or so, with a thick hedge between them. The youth club building was in the corner across from Elizabeth and Mrs. Cole as they set off, and although they could not see it they heard the sound of the music, faint but clear. They said nothing for a minute or two, but walked along in silence, until Mrs. Cole said “What’s the matter, dear? You’re very quiet to night.”

  “Mmm… I’m tired, I expect,” said Elizabeth.

  “I wish you’d talk to me,” said Mrs. Cole after a few moments. “Tell me things, I mean. I know you’re not happy; I wish you’d tell me what the matter was. I might be able to help.”

  Her voice was wistful and lost; and in fact what she said sounded itself like an appeal for help. Elizabeth shrugged involuntarily in the darkness, but said “If ever I need help, mummy, I’ll ask; but honestly you don’t have to worry. I’m a lot stronger than – than you think. Sometimes I think I’m more like daddy than you.”

  “Well, if only you’d meet a nice man… the sooner you get married the better, my girl.”

  “Oh, you don’t really believe that or you wouldn’t joke about it. But as for being happy, no, I suppose you’re right, I’m not. But I don’t really want to be happy. I’d rather be doing something important… oh, women are tyrannised by happiness. We’re brought up to think that happiness is the most important thing there is, and we sacrifice ourselves to it, when we could be changing the world… we sacrifice men to it, we sacrifice our children to it, all quite unconsciously and with the best motives in the world; and the result of all the years of waste is nothing. Things go on as they are, and that’s all we wish for. No, I don’t want to be happy, if it means being nothing else but happy.”