The Standing Water

by David Castleton

  ‘I’ve had plenty!’ Stubbs said, his face seeming to glow with both shame and pride. ‘And I can tell you – a few times – I wondered if that would be it for me!’

  ‘But why?’ I asked.

  ‘When he really gets going, you can’t breathe. He keeps knocking the air out of you before you can get it in. It really feels like you’re gonna choke!’

  Now I thought about it, kids did pant and gasp for a good few minutes following a thrashing.

  ‘Yeah, right, Stubbsy,’ Jonathon said. ‘My dad says a good whacking never did anyone any harm – and my brother’s had enough!’

  ‘Well, you wait till you get your first from Weirton,’ Stubbs said. ‘Reckon that’s what might have happened to Marcus.’

  ‘Marcus drowned, didn’t he?’ I said.

  ‘Well, probably, but you never know. Maybe Weirton whacked him to death then dumped him in the pond to hide the body! Tell you one thing, I’m never going near that pond again – not after what we saw yesterday!’

  ‘Yeah, you’d better be careful Stubbsy!’ I said. ‘Bet Marcus is dead angry with you!’

  Stubbsy shivered then with some effort composed his face.

  ‘Anyway, we gonna give these kids some sweets? I’ll help you chuck them in.’

  Before we could stop him, Stubbs grabbed some candies from our bags. Into the playground went two shrimps, a gobstopper. A cola bottle went into Stubbs’s mouth.

  ‘Oi!’ I said. ‘Those sweets are for the kids, not you!’

  ‘Better get chucking then,’ said Stubbs. ‘I’m doing all the work here!’

  Stubbs’s hand dived into my bag, wrenched out two more sweets: a shrimp – which he hurled into the playground – and a fizzy bear, which found its way straight into his gob. His hand reached to the bag again; I barged him away with an elbow to the stomach.

  ‘Greedy guts!’ I said, as he wheezed, grasped his belly, tottered back. ‘We’ll do the rest.’

  Jonathon and I glanced at each other. Though wary of the ghosts, we stepped up to the lichen-dappled wall. We gingerly leaned our elbows on its upper slabs, nervous fingers tracing the weather-coarsened stone.

  ‘We can give them more of the shrimps and eggs,’ said Jonathon. ‘Bet they’ll be glad to have owt.’

  We chucked a few of those unwanted sweets over the wall. They lay on the yard’s cracked stones, between wet stalks of grass. The little ghostly hands would probably scrabble for them after we’d left.

  ‘But do you think,’ I said, unable to stop my face’s twinge, ‘that it might be nice to give them some better sweets too?’

  ‘Suppose …’ Jonathon’s shoulders shrugged, but his lips shivered.

  My hand reached into my bag, drew out the liquorice bootlace. I twisted it around my fingers, imagining the pleasure in its murky tang. I dangled it above the wall. That string seemed to hover on the border between two worlds – our normal world of the living, in which it would be gobbled by me or Jonathon, and that playground, that enclosure of the dead, where we dared not go. Jonathon saw my hesitation.

  ‘It’s good to be nice and kind,’ he said. ‘In assembly, Mr Weirton’s always telling us to be nice and kind, just like Jesus was.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, as Stubbs still spluttered behind us. ‘I suppose we should be.’

  I flung that length of pungent black into that territory of ghosts. It spiralled in the air, landed on and curled around a tuft of grass. Next was a gobstopper – admittedly less of a wrench. That sphere rolled across cloud as it sailed into that courtyard of spooks. We chucked in the rest of the eggs, flinging them frisby-like. Their yolks glowed in the shattered playground.

  ‘We’d better go,’ I said, ‘maybe the ghosts of the kids are shy. Maybe they won’t come out till we’ve gone.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jonathon said, ‘and we don’t want to see the teacher!’

  We began our trudge away. Stubbs – his breathing back to normal – trotted after us.

  ‘Where are you lads off to?’ he said.

  ‘Should we go to the pond?’ I turned to Jonathon. ‘Maybe Marcus would like some sweets too.’

  ‘If that’s where you’re going, I’m off home,’ Stubbs said. ‘Don’t fancy seeing him again – or him seeing me!’

  Jonathon and I rounded the pub’s stinking corner, walked towards the pool.

  ‘What do you want to see Marcus for?’ Jonathon asked.

  ‘I was just thinking about what Stubbsy said. If Weirton really is dangerous, if he really did kill Marcus and Lucy, we’ll need some pro-tect-ion. Marcus is magic – maybe he can keep us safe from Weirton.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jonathon said. ‘I’d look after someone if they gave me their sweets.’

  But as we got nearer the pond, my heart beat faster. I gulped as I remembered the horrible sight of the day before. I was glad we at least came armed with sweets as offerings.

  ‘Do you know if you suck the top of a cola bottle long enough –’ I fought to keep my voice perky, fought to distract myself ‘– the cola will rise up just like in a real one?’

  ‘It’s not true! Richard Johnson tried it for three hours and it didn’t work!’

  And so we walked – but not too quickly – up the street to our school. That building loomed as we got closer, seeming eerily quiet in its freedom from children’s squawks and Weirton’s shouts. Just before we reached the gates, we turned aside and stood before the pond. The sky was layered with clouds – squiggles of grey, fat-bellied black monsters. The rain had stopped, but everywhere was wet – the dripping bushes, the damp grass, the sodden fields, the clammy feel of the air. Marcus’s pond seemed bigger, as if his empire were expanding. We looked across the silent surface, across its rich earthy brown. No bubbles broke; there were none of the toys or cans I’d seen the previous day. We’d either sent them to watery tombs with our stones or they’d disappeared beneath the rising waters of Marcus’s dominions.

  ‘Imagine,’ I said. ‘If the weather stays rainy, Marcus’s pond could flood the whole of Emberfield!’

  ‘Yeah!’ Jonathon replied.

  We smiled; Jonathon went on.

  ‘Or at least the school! That’d be good – especially if Weirton would be in it! Weirton and my brother!’

  We laughed; the calm pool gave no response. I turned to my friend.

  ‘Hang on a minute … why would you want Marcus to drown your brother?’

  ‘It’s his partly his fault I got all those shrimps! You heard what Davis said!’

  ‘Suppose,’ I said, ‘but then your brother did tell us to say sorry to Marcus.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jonathon’s forehead crinkled. ‘Suppose you’re right. Maybe it’s better if Marcus doesn’t kill him.’

  We stood silently on Marcus’s shore: not too near his waters yet close enough to breathe in the stench of rotten mud. I thought again of our task. My heart wouldn’t stop thudding. After some moments, Jonathon spoke.

  ‘Do you want to start?’

  ‘No, you should.’

  ‘No, you.’

  ‘You.’

  Eventually, I sighed and – with a nervous tread – stepped to where the bank met the shallows.

  ‘Don’t go too close!’ Jonathon called out.

  ‘Marcus –’ I sent my voice, with its slight tremble, over the waters ‘– we came to say sorry, sorry for yesterday … and to ask you to protect us from Mr Weirton.’

  I paused, looked round; Jonathon waved at me to go on.

  ‘And we’ve brought you some presents.’

  Jonathon stepped up to join me. I sombrely took out my bags of ten-penny mixture. I reached into one, tugged out a shrimp and flung it over the pond. That creature flew then plopped somewhere in the middle, sending its ripples out. My hand was raised, gripping another shrimp when Jonathon shouted, ‘Wait! What are you giving him shrimps for?’

  ‘Might as well get rid of them.’ I shrugged.

  ‘That’s not right!’ Jonathon thrust his earnest face at me. ‘No one likes
shrimps – Marcus didn’t when he was alive! You have to give him something better – something you feel sad about giving away.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I said.

  ‘It’s like Mr Weirton was telling us that day in assembly – you know, in the Bible when the He-brews sac-ri-fi-ced …?’

  ‘Sac-ri-ficed,’ I confirmed.

  ‘Yeah, sac-rificed their cows to God, they had to give him the best ones. They couldn’t give him any that were injured or too skinny or anything like that, or God would have got really angry! It’s the same here. If we give Marcus our worst sweets, he’ll be angry with us and get his revenge!’

  I shuddered and looked over the pond. There was no disturbance, but in their deep knowing brown the waters seemed to glower at me. What vengeance could be forming in their lower reaches? You couldn’t be too careful with Marcus – I’d seen how quickly his head had thrust up. My bag rustled as my fingers groped inside. Those fingers gripped a little sphere and pulled out my chocolate football. I gazed at its perfect roundness, its glittering foil. And behind that seductive sparkle was a luscious globe of chocolate. Spit seeped, sweetening my mouth as I imagined my first chomp.

  ‘Throw it in!’ Jonathon said.

  As when gripping my stones the previous afternoon, I readied that football. But my arm trembled. For some seconds, I struggled with myself, having to will my muscles to obey, make myself forget the sugary fluid in my mouth tempting me. I unleashed my treasured orb. It sailed in its sorrowful arc against the cloud-clogged sky then plopped into the water. The pond gulped, swallowed; its surface took on a more contented sheen.

  ‘He liked that.’ Jonathon nodded. ‘He really liked it!’

  ‘We’ve got one more chocolate football,’ I said, ‘yours!’

  ‘I’ll throw it in,’ Jonathon said.

  But for some time he just stood, gawping at the globe he held up between thumb and fingers, watching it gleam in the dull light. He squeezed his eyes, screwed his mouth, whisked his arm and the football was flying. Again it plopped as it met the water, again the pond sent out circles to show satisfied digestion. But I knew I had to give more – I lobbed in one liquorice bootlace, a fizzy cola bottle, the cherry red rope. Jonathon pulled more sweets from his bags and soon we were both throwing. Ripples spread, the slow rings overlapping as the pool gorged itself. In went more cola bottles, fizzy bears. I stilled my arm as Jonathon plucked a real jewel from his bag. He held up his flying saucer. My teeth itched to dent those rice-paper domes. I imagined my mouth sparking that sherbet explosion.

  ‘Are you sure you want to give him that?’

  Jonathon’s chin quivered; he brought his head down.

  ‘Old Davies hardly ever gives out those!’ I said.

  Jonathon glanced at that spaceship then at the waters.

  ‘Marcus might save our lives,’ Jonathon said.

  His arm swooped in a circle as if bowling a cricket ball. But rather than flying, that spacecraft fluttered in a zig-zag to land in the pond’s shallows. It floated near the chocolate slab of the bank in just a few inches of water. The pink of its rice-paper was tinging to grey.

  ‘He’ll never get it there!’ I said. ‘It’s not deep enough!’

  ‘Quick!’ said Jonathon. ‘What can we do?’

  The spacecraft was sinking. Just one of its halves now remained above the water – a darkening soggy dome that looked like it might crumble. My eyes flitted around, fell on a long twig. I grasped it – feeling the rough rub of bark – and prodded the craft out into deeper water. Its roof collapsed, a muddy fountain fizzed, the pond gave another gulp and the saucer vanished into its stagnant stomach.

  ‘Do you think that’s enough?’ I asked.

  ‘Reckon so,’ Jonathon said. ‘He must be full now.’

  We each gave Marcus a wave, exhaled our relief, and – with freer breath – tramped from his pond. We didn’t have much left – just some shrimps, one cola-bottle, the drab mint, but I hoped all those tasty sweets we’d sacrificed would urge Marcus to protect us against Weirton or whoever was bumping kids off. On our plod home, we stopped to look at the witch’s hand, but it chose not to show itself. We trudged on, stuffing our mouths with shrimps. It was like eating sweetened plaster – the way they stuck to the roof of the gob, massed around the gums. As for our cola bottle, we decided – Solomon-like – to split it. Weirton had told us of that great king’s wisdom in assembly, but – rather than the flashing royal sword the teacher had described – Jonathon’s teeth performed the honours. He generously handed me the bottle’s base, the bit with most cola. The mint I saved for my dad. He seemed pleased with it.

  Chapter Six

  And so we drifted through the autumn of our seventh year. Yes, Jonathon, Stubbs and I were seven – a number magical. It was certainly in the Bible a lot, as Weirton and our vicar told us – seven days of Creation, seven years of plenty and seven of famine in the pharaoh’s dream, the seven priests with seven trumpets who brought down the walls of Jericho, the seven deadly sins, the seven bowls of God’s anger that would be poured down upon us when God decided to destroy the whole world! Reaching seven seemed a point we had passed – a kind of opening of some things and closing of others.

  And as we floated through our seventh autumn, fat black clouds came and dumped their waters. Marcus’s pond grew, until his murky kingdom was even lapping at the road. We stayed in our lower juniors’ class – dull days inside, drab weather without; those aeons of childhood time sometimes enlivened by an eruption from Weirton in the next room, by the showmanship of an inventive walloping, which would take its place in our pupil folklore. My hand hovers over my page; I stare at my blank walls as I try to remember how many hidings were dished out in that damp autumn. My mind strains as I force it back across the years and I seem to remember Richard Johnson getting about two whackings, Stubbs around five, Darren Hill perhaps six, and Jonathon’s brother eight! Jonathon and I – despite having trembled under the stormy clouds of Weirton’s wrath at times, despite the finger pointing and the voice booming at us – had still not copped a full thrashing. We hoped this was due to the protection of Marcus and we’d continued our practice of throwing sweets to him. But we did have our doubts – I did wonder if it had been Marcus we’d seen that day. Had his head really thrust up, or had our excitability merely converted something else into that dread legend? And had it really been the bones of Lucy Weirton had shown us or just some dark trick to make us behave better? Could a teacher – even someone with Weirton’s strength and power – really murder his students? When I saw Stubbs or the brother swinging, choking and red-faced, as they received their six of the best and two or three for luck, I did wonder if he might have. But those boys always survived Weirton’s punishments. Though shaken and tearful, a few hours afterwards – in the playground or on their way home – their feet would be running, their fists would be flying, their mouths taunting just like before. And Mr Weirton could be kind – taking the top class on a nature walk to Salton, a couple of times letting us finish our lunches with choc-ices, beaming as he watched us unwrap those frozen treasures. Surely such a person couldn’t be responsible for despatching two pupils. I couldn’t imagine him callously hurling Marcus’s corpse into the pond or stowing poor dead Lucy in his cupboard. But, just in case, we went on feeding Marcus our sweets, went on mumbling thanks and praise to his dark waters for saving us from that swooping hand.

  As that wet autumn went by, Jonathon went on with his set-outs. The one I’d seen on the day Weirton had shown us Lucy met the sad fate of all its predecessors. Jonathon’s city had spread – climbing up empty book shelves, cluttering his windowsill, splurging through his door and onto the landing. From the Bible we’d been learning how the mightiest works of men – the tallest towers, the most magnificent towns – could be levelled with just one act of the Lord: beautiful buildings toppled, dazzling cities reduced to rubble and dust. And so it was with Jonathon’s grand schemes. Mrs Browning had lost patience with his sprawling suburbs an
d endless boulevards, and taken her broom to them. Jonathon had come home to find his floor clean, his furniture dusted, and the blocks and toys that had formed the set-out stacked neatly in a corner. But, tearfully, as always, he’d begun again – placing the modest foundations of his first bricks on the floor, and – in time – his elegant temples had risen, his broad roads had been constructed, his towers had soared until an even greater metropolis stood in place of the older one. But he lived in dread of the day he would come home to find all flattened and his painstaking rebuilding would have to start again. I decided to make sketches of the set-out, to preserve a memory of its magnificence while I had the chance. I spent hours drawing and shading, labouring to get the pinnacles of his towers right, the colours of his different buildings exact. I even made up stories about the people who lived in Jonathon’s creation, weaved labyrinthine plots about their strange lives, which I narrated to my friend.

  The century of that autumn dragged on – the rain beating down without pause like in Noah’s Flood. I wondered if – like Noah – I should make a boat in case the deluge didn’t end. I looked at the old planks and bits of wood in my parents’ garage, even started hammering a few together – thinking out the curve of the hull, which poles to use for masts. I thought I might test my ship in the roadside ditches just outside town: ditches which were swollen with brown water – that sullen liquid threatening to conquer their levies. Perhaps when my vessel was finished, I could try it out on one of those bursting channels – on Marcus’s pond I didn’t dare.