The Standing Water

by David Castleton

  Craig reached out, thrust his fingers into the back of Stubbs’s neck; Stubbs squirmed.

  ‘This idiot really got the lads going then got them to beat me up! Well, now it’s payback time!’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Darren as Craig started compacting an ice-ball, ‘and he is an idiot n’all! You heard what Weirton said – he’s got a brain the size of a pea! Look at this joker, this buffoon!’

  From an incredibly close range, Craig hurled his missile. It thankfully missed Stubbs’s eyes, but bounced from his temple. Stubbs howled higher, louder – bawling as if his little body contained the whole world’s pain. I wondered if Dennis would be able to summon up more water for his weeping, but his tears kept gushing out.

  ‘Leave him alone Craig,’ said Jonathon. ‘He’s really had enough. When he came out of the school, he could hardly walk.’

  ‘Whose side are you on?’ Craig grabbed his brother’s coat, pulled Jonathon towards him. ‘Blood’s thicker than water, you know! And why are you sticking up for Stubbs? I thought you hated him.’

  ‘I do!’ Jonathon said. ‘I really hate him! But … it’s nearly Christmas, and Mr Weirton said at Christmas we should be nice and kind and –’

  ‘Nice and kind?’ Craig snarled, shoved his brother away. ‘I’ll give you nice and kind!’

  A punch hurled itself through the fluttering snow. It slammed into the side of Jonathon’s head. Jonathon crumpled, collapsed onto his knees. Craig unleashed a kick – his foot socked Jonathon’s jaw. Jonathon was hurled back; he landed lying face-up in the snow. He scrabbled to his feet. His gob hanging, he glanced around, blinking his tear-pricked eyes.

  ‘Traitor!’ Craig yelled. ‘Preferring Stubbs to your own brother! Blood’s thicker than water!’

  Craig rushed at his sibling. Jonathon turned, sprinted down the street. Craig chased him then let Jonathon pelt away, flinging a hastily-scooped snowball after him.

  ‘Traitor! I’ll get you at home – just you wait!’

  I’d been standing, rooted in the snow. Darren shoved Stubbs to the ground, strode over to me.

  ‘What you looking at?’ he said.

  I didn’t even see his fist. It flew from nowhere, whacked me just above my ear. I teetered, my legs quaked, but I stayed on my feet. The world rocked – the snowy ground pitching, the flakes falling slantwise.

  ‘Ryan!’ Jonathon shouted. ‘Run!’

  I forced my body into motion, charged down the street. The brother dashed at me, hurled a punch; I ducked. I ran to Jonathon, who stood on the pub’s corner, and the brother jogged back to Dennis. Our attempt to reason with Craig and Darren wouldn’t help Stubbsy. The blows they’d given us had stirred up their bloodlust. Stubbs was still on the ground. Both lads went in hard – their fists pounding as the snow spiralled around them. Stubbs wailed, screamed, begged. I wondered if his cries would alert a teacher in the school, but no one came running out. The lads just went on battering.

  ‘Come on.’ Jonathon jerked his head. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’

  We trudged in the direction of Davis’s shop. The side of my skull stung; my head ached; the world had stopped its rocking, but still sometimes my feet would stumble as if walking across a ship’s deck. I turned to Jonathon.

  ‘Brotherly love, eh? Guess that was Craig’s idea of Christmas kindness.’

  ‘I hate my brother sometimes!’ Jonathon spat those words out, stared ahead, clenched his fists. ‘I hate him!’

  ‘You shouldn’t feel like that.’ I said. ‘Remember what happened to Cain? God says we should love our brothers, not hate them!’

  ‘I bet,’ Jonathon said, ‘God never had a brother like mine!’

  ‘He did give you a bloody good punch and kick!’ I said. ‘What if bruises swell up? What’ll you tell your parents?’

  ‘I’ll just say I fell over while playing in the snow. My dad won’t mind. He says a bit of rough and tumble never did anyone any harm.’

  We reached Davis’s. Jonathon carefully wiped his eyes before we went in. The bell clanged; Davis looked up. We ordered our ten-penny mixtures, and soon Davis was hobbling and chuntering, going through his standard routine – holding his tongs over the jars of our favourite sweets, drinking in the longing on our faces before slamming the jars’ lids back on. All the while, he was celebrating the whacking of Stubbs, which – of course – he already knew about.

  ‘Oh, sounds like Mr Weirton gave out a great one!’ Davis creaked and shuffled in a blissful dance. ‘His best for ages! Ho, ho! An early Christmas present for Dennis and no mistake! Won’t be able to sit down till New Year! That’ll teach him! Lads like him need taking in hand!’

  As Davis waffled, my thoughts slipped away. For some reason, I again got thinking about angels. After seeing Stubbs’s whacking, Weirton’s rage, Dennis’s beating, I’d doubted that such beings could be wandering among us. I’d reckoned they’d prefer to spend their Christmases elsewhere. But now I wondered. Perhaps they really were around us. After all, Stubbs had committed a serious sin. Maybe the angels thought Weirton was right to have given him such a hiding. He’d stolen something, breaking one of the dread laws the vicar had told us God had given Moses. Not only that – he’d nicked decorations from our Christmas tree, a tree we’d put up to celebrate a most sacred festival! And now I thought about it, angels could be strict. There were those ones that guarded the gates of Eden with a flaming sword. I wouldn’t have liked to try to get past them! Maybe angels really did walk and flutter around us. I looked up at Davis – his sagging cheeks, his wrinkled papery hands, the slack flesh under his jaw. He was so old – in such a long life he must have glimpsed some angels. Maybe he’d seen some when he’d been on Noah’s Ark. As he hobbled and muttered, I thought about asking him, but some instinct told me I’d better not. Davis was taking his time, shuffling and teetering, his ancient voice quivering out its endless pleasure at the walloping of Stubbs.

  ‘Always been a rascal that Stubbs. Today’s hiding was just what he needed! Ho, ho – apparently the lad could hardly even walk afterwards. Tottering about on bandy legs like some drunken clown! Shame Mr Weirton can’t give something similar to our young friend here.’ Davis nodded at Jonathon. ‘Stop him ending up like that brother of his!’

  Anger flared in Jonathon’s eyes; his gob fell open. He seemed about to protest, but Davis chuntered on.

  ‘Just what a whole lot of them need – that Darren Hill, Richard Johnson, maybe even young Mr Watson here. Mr Weirton should have lined them all up, given them a Christmas gift they’d never forget! Don’t want them going down the same road as that Lucy or that Marcus Jones …’

  The shopkeeper was taking ages, even longer than normal. I was starting to get twitchy in his deathlike store. I glanced around at the solemn slabs of flesh behind the meat counter, the embalmed flies that were still on the window sill. I kept my breathing shallow, tried to avoid sucking in too much of the confined tomblike air. To distract myself, I let my eyes wander to the counter’s folded newspapers. I could understand a bit more than the last time I’d looked, but still the text was full of strange intriguing words – strikes, inflation, cuts, ri-ots, pov-erty. Perhaps I’d ask my dad what they meant. But somehow I knew such terms must have dread meanings, that they couldn’t be referring to anything good.

  The bell clanged as we left. The snowy air tasted great after the funereal breaths we’d drawn in that store, even if its milky scent had to battle Emberfield’s smoke and dunghill pong. We stopped by the Old School, leant on its wall, untwisted our sweet-stuffed bags. We hadn’t actually done too badly – we’d each got quite a few cola bottles, both normal and fizzy, I’d got a chocolate football and Jonathon had received two – two! – flying saucers. I unwrapped my football, shoved it in my mouth, chucked a shrimp into the playground for the ghostly kids.

  ‘Wow!’ I spoke through the delicious chocolate coating my teeth, tongue. ‘Davis has been quite gen-er-ous for once!’ I proudly pronounced that word I’d learnt recently. ‘Maybe even g
rumpy Davis is feeling some Christmas spirit!’

  ‘Nah,’ said Jonathon, ‘he’s probably just happy about Stubbs’s walloping.’

  I pitched another shrimp into the playground then Jonathon – to my amazement – lobbed in a flying saucer.

  ‘What you giving the ghostly kids that for!?’ I said. ‘They’d be happy with owt!’

  ‘Well –’ Jonathon shrugged ‘– it is Christmas.’

  ‘Suppose,’ I said.

  As well as shrimps, I threw in a couple of cola bottles, a liquorice bootlace. I gazed through the falling flakes, across the snow-draped schoolyard, out over the white fields beyond.

  ‘Jonathon,’ I said, ‘you know what Weirton was saying in assembly about angels. Do you reckon angels might walk round Emberfield?’

  ‘Nah,’ Jonathon said, ‘what’d they want to come here for? If you were an angel and could fly anywhere, why would you come here?’

  ‘Wouldn’t they even come at Christmas?’

  ‘Why should they? If you could spend Christmas anywhere you fancied, what’d you spend it here for?’

  ‘Suppose you’re right,’ I said.

  ‘Come on,’ said Jonathon, ‘we’d better get going – before the ghostly teacher appears!’

  We tramped away. We peered down the school lane, but there was no sign of Stubbs, the brother, Darren. Davis had kept us for so long I guessed that – even after his whacking, even after his pounding from those lads – Stubbs would have had time to stagger home. Still, seeing where his beating had taken place depressed me. How could the angels let such a thing happen? I thought about what I’d read in the papers. It didn’t seem there was a lot of Christmas cheer around. Maybe it wasn’t just Emberfield – maybe the angels had abandoned our whole country, our whole world. Perhaps they were so disgusted with human sin they’d fluttered off, leaving us to our crimes, our violence, our cruelty. I did, though, see something on the way home that gave me some hope. We’d decided to peer down the gap with the witch’s hand. Heads together we stared into that space as far more than the freezing day made us tremble. The hand didn’t show itself. All we could see, when our eyes had got used to the gloom, was the rubbish on the floor, the flaking paint, the snow steadily falling at the end of the crack. Perhaps that evil outline had been scared away by that time of year’s holiness. Maybe it had even been banished by righteous angels, angels who were even then hovering invisibly around us. I could at least hope.

  Chapter Fourteen

  We walked on down the street. I thought more about the knacking in of Stubbs. Maybe Marcus had been beaten in a similar way; perhaps the lads who’d done it had then slipped that dazed boy into the pond so no one would know they were responsible. But I tried to get rid of such awful thoughts, to concentrate on enjoying the approaching festivities. Jonathon turned off to his house and I continued on to mine, tramping through the air that danced with dropping flakes, hearing my shoes crunch the deepening snow. I came to my house, the last in Emberfield. Darkness was coming down fast. After my home, just one streetlight shone down its orange beam, and beyond stretched the marshes and plains, stretched the flatlands beneath the air’s thickening gloom.

  I approached my garden gate. I half-expected to see an angel with a flaming sword barring the way, but I could just walk through it normally. The light from the house illuminated a patch of lawn and a tiny pond – ice-sheaved, snow-coated – above which a gnome perched on a spotted toadstool merrily fishing. He grinned in spite of the darkness and cold, in spite of the ice which had captured his line, making it impossible to hook fish. The only effects of the winter weather seemed to be the two circles of red that glowed on his cheeks. I took off my shoes, coat, gloves and scarf, hung them up in our porch and trudged through our hallway into the lounge. I pressed the button on the TV, flicked on a cartoon, flopped on the sofa as our lounge was filled with bangs, wallops, cracks, surges of music. My sister was running around. She gazed at me with inquisitive eyes, her mouth comically stoppered by a dummy. She was three years old: three – like my age of seven – a most blessed number. Weirton had told us that God was somehow three people in one: something called a Trinity. And with Mary and Joseph, Jesus had also formed a family of three when he’d lived here on earth. And, when Jesus had died, three people had been nailed to three crosses – Christ and the two thieves. And – of course – there were the three wise men and the three gifts they’d carried. I supposed – reluctantly – I thought of my sister as a gift. I watched her perky tottering run around the lounge and failed to understand Cain. How someone could slaughter a sibling was beyond me.

  I lay back on the sofa, glanced around our living room. Holly sprigs spiked the pictures showing old cottages, misty country scenes. I’d often wondered about those – why did my parents put up pictures of stuff we could see around Emberfield anyway, that you could just stroll outside and get an eyeful of? At least the pictures on the wall next to our staircase were a bit more interesting. Every time I trudged to my bedroom, I’d pass those strange paintings of scruffy dogs and ragged beggar boys with weirdly large heads and freakishly huge blue eyes, those eyes gazing beseechingly at all who passed. Those boys held out hopeful tins, making me feel guilty I didn’t have a coin to plop in them. But, anyway, I went on looking around our lounge. More holly massed behind the big mirror that hung over the mantelpiece. The holly bore red berries. I’d heard a legend those berries were there to remind us of Christ’s blood. I supposed it was very thoughtful of the holly plant to make such an effort for us at Christmas. In the corner, our tree twinkled. It shimmered with stars, tinsel, baubles. In front of its pot sat a pixie. He lolled cheekily in his glittery red suit, his pointy hat. And the top of our tree was – of course – crowned with an angel: blond hair, robed in white, tinsel halo. That got me thinking about angels again. Why would we put them on our trees if no one ever saw them? How would we even know what they looked like? Were they more likely to appear to adults than us naughty kids? My eyes wandered from our tree and through the open door into our hallway. Mistletoe dangled there – I’d be forced to kiss my mum if caught under its white berries. But I’d heard a legend that in the Olden Days men had cut the mistletoe from the oak using a golden knife because of its great magic. It could only be cut with gold or else the magic wouldn’t work. I wondered if ours had any magic or if all its enchantment had been lost because Mum had just bought it from Emberfield market, where I doubted they cut it with anything precious. As I was pondering all this, Mum came in, bringing me biscuits and milk. Though curious about the mistletoe, I repeated a question I’d asked many times before.

  ‘Mum, why do we have to take the decorations down on January the sixth?’

  ‘Because its tradition,’ she replied, laying her delicious cargo on a little table near me.

  I wasn’t completely sure what ‘tradition’ meant, but I knew my parents thought it was good. They liked our school because it was ‘traditional’.

  ‘But what would happen if we didn’t take them down?’

  My sister’s mouth twitched her dummy forward and back inquisitively.

  ‘Well,’ Mum said, ‘if they’re not down by the end of the sixth, goblins will attack the house.’

  ‘Really!?’ I mimed shock at the expected answer.

  ‘Yes.’

  Mum scooted round the lounge, picking up here, tidying there, on her way sweeping up my sister. I thought of those goblins – where would they come from, where did they live? Perhaps in the copse of trees behind Jonathon’s house – maybe that was why barbed wire sealed it off. Was there a whole gibbering village of the creatures in that thicket or did they live in ones and twos and small families in the slime of ditches or undersides of hedgerows? Anyway, I could imagine the troll-like rabble spilling from their hiding places and joining in a riotous assault on any dwelling that didn’t take down their trimmings. It was a shame: I liked the decorations, liked the colour they added to Emberfield’s usual greys, greens and browns. I asked another obvious
question.

  ‘Mum, why do you put salt on the fire on New Year’s Eve?’

  ‘To burn the witches out of the chimney.’

  ‘So do witches normally live in the chimney?’

  ‘I suppose they must.’

  I wondered how they’d fit up there. I’d heard legends of children being forced to crawl up chimneys, but surely witches would be bigger than young kids. What did they do with their brooms? I wasn’t sure Mum would know so I asked her something else.

  ‘And why do I have to clean my room up on New Year’s Eve?’

  ‘Because if it’s messy on New Year’s Eve, it’ll be messy for the rest of the year. Whatever something’s like at midnight when the year turns, that’s how it’ll stay.’

  ‘And –’

  Mum stood in the lounge doorway, supporting my sister on the lattice of her arms. Plugged by that rubber teat, my sister’s face still looked comically curious.

  ‘Ryan.’ Mum scowled; she took one hand from under my sister, in a floppy motion flung it up. ‘I’ve a million things to do! Why don’t you just watch TV?’

  ‘But just one more thing, Mum –’ I grasped at the disappearing chance to find out something genuinely new ‘– do lots of people see angels around Christmastime, like the shepherds did?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know Ryan. Now –’

  ‘What about Mr Weirton? I bet he’s seen one!’

  ‘Ryan! I won’t tell you again! Just be quiet and watch TV!’

  Silently cursing my lost chance to gain more knowledge, I returned my gaze to the telly. But my mood soon improved due to the delights of that crate of marvels. As outside the snow still fell – the huge flakes dropping with the descending dark – I thought about that contraption. I’d used to wonder whether little people were contained in that puppet box, and whether they always lived in there and how they managed to change so quickly in size. Then I’d realised that exactly the same programmes were watched by my classmates, so now I longed to know by what strange magic those dancing and shimmering figures were beamed into our TVs. But my mother wasn’t around to answer any more questions.