The Standing Water

by David Castleton

  ‘I’m not joking – I’m gonna do it!’

  ‘Even if you have to become like Cain?’ I whispered, with some furtive glances to make sure no one could overhear.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But how will you actually do it?’

  ‘Dunno – need to think. Maybe Marcus can help. We’ve given him enough sweets and toys, haven’t we?’

  ‘So, drowning?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe we can trick him into getting near the pond.’

  I glanced at the brother, who lolloped ahead with his confident gormless stride. Considering his strength, it wouldn’t be an easy job; Jonathon would need all his cunning. Weirton led us out of the field and onto the path. We trooped by the marker reminding us of the Drummer Boy. I made mental genuflections to soothe his ghost; prayed it wouldn’t go on keeping me awake at night with its patter. Weirton led us back at quite a speed, shouting threats and exhortations to make us keep up. Soon Jonathon was too breathless to continue with his whispered schemes as we had to stride and jog to match the headmaster’s pace. Some of the smaller kids were struggling on their stubby legs. Perkins harried them from behind – herself having some problems tottering on the stilts of her heels. We paced past the fields where the raucous Scots slept, their quilt of undisturbed grass respectfully shrouding them. We passed the Knight Templar lands, which still exhaled their wispy curses into the mist. Up loomed the farmhouse haunted by Henry VIII. Maybe it was fear of all these spooks that so propelled Weirton. After a breathless half hour, the teacher reached the Bunt. The miserable brown river gurgled between its nettle-forested banks. Weirton paused on the bridge, face red against the foggy day. His breath shot out in white puffs. The glasses were slightly steamed; a lock of hard hair – fallen from his cap – drooped across his forehead. Kids gathered silently on the bridge as they waited for the others to catch up. I stared down at the river. It still eddied around the same rocks and obstructions. The dead fish still flashed its silver side; the child’s ball went through the same drab rotations, just its colours were less bright, sullied by its smearing with the mud of that stream. A little downriver, the knight’s breastplate still lay. Who knew how old it was? Perhaps some of its rust dated from Noah’s Deluge. It enticed me with its dirtied jewels, the sullied sparkles that could gift me a different life. But with Weirton’s gaze and the steep stinging sides, there was no chance of hauling it out that day. Instead, I thought of my dreams of following that river, of how those brown waters would broaden, would flow with more vigour, lick the soils of different lands, finally tumble into the vast sea. From the smallest of streams, could such things grow, could they be possible? By now, all the kids had gathered around Weirton; Perkins – panting, stumbling – teetered up last.

  ‘OK,’ Weirton announced, ‘we’ll take a breather here for a few moments.’

  I wasn’t the only one fascinated by the river. A number of kids squatted on the bridge’s edge, staring at the moody water. The brother crouched next to Darren Hill; they jabbed fingers at things down in the flow – the ball, the glistening fish. Jonathon and I, Stubbs, Richard Johnson stood a few steps back.

  ‘Pretty dangerous,’ Johnson said, ‘no wall or railings.’

  ‘Used to be a wall,’ said Stubbs, ‘but it crumbled and fell into the stream – you can still see some of the bricks and blocks down there.’

  ‘Do you think Marcus is in the stream?’ Johnson said.

  ‘Must be,’ said Stubbs. ‘He’s in all water – well, at least all dirty brown water that looks like the pond.’

  ‘Very dangerous, in that case, not having a wall,’ Johnson said, ‘Marcus could drag you down there with his magic. It’s a long drop. You’d have really had your chips if you fell down there!’

  Jonathon darted from our group and in one second stood behind the brother. He drew back his hands, shot his palms forward. They smashed into the brother’s shoulder blades. The brother teetered on the edge – wild-eyed, hanging-mouthed. His arms flapped like the wings of a grounded bird. Then with a fluid, almost graceful movement, he tipped over the bridge’s side. The body fell, executed a half-somersault as it picked up momentum, plummeting at a slight diagonal. The impact was headfirst, the brother’s brow diving onto the knight’s breastplate. The metal squeaked as it buckled, scraped on underwater stones. He seemed to crumple, contort – the body balancing for a second on the ancient armour in a perverse headstand. The body swayed, tipped, fell back towards us, coming to rest sprawled in the stream face-down. There was no sign of breath. A wisp of blood seeped from the head, was carried – a long ribbon – off down the dark river. Breathless seconds – no one moved; all eyes clasped the bleeding boy. The brown waters eddied around and over the brother’s white hands.

  The brother jerked; pressing his palms into the ooze of the riverbed, he levered his torso up, turned his neck to stare at the bridge. I had to stifle the laugh my banging heart tried to hurl out of me. Brown coated the brother’s face, painted his lips; just his eyes were circled by saucers of white. The gob hung open; a gash on his forehead added a streak of maroon. He gawped at the bridge with uncomprehending shock. In their rings of white, the blue eyes bulged, asking in all innocence who could have committed such a deed. The spell that lay over us shattered. A low giggle spread at the ludicrous sight. It infected the crowd; rose to a laugh, a roar. Within seconds, kids were crippled. They rocked on weak knees, clutched stomachs; some tottered dangerously close to the drop. Quivering arms pointed at the brother. Stubbs howled, hanging on Johnson for support. As mirth shuddered through Darren Hill, he bent, picked up a stone, with perhaps the idea of hurling it at Craig to add to the fun. The brother had now turned round; he knelt in the stream, still fixing the bridge with his gormless gaze, unable to take in this mockery. The rich blood flowed from the gash – a determined river which ran down one side of his nose, dropped over open lips then mounted his chin. Weirton and Perkins stood, two statues, as the laughter grew more riotous around them. Weirton breathed heavily – the massive chest bulging out then dropping back. His fallen gob mirrored the brother’s; his eyes were deep ponds of disbelief. A thick bead of sweat inched down his cheek. The huge body jolted from its stupor.

  ‘SILENCE!’

  Weirton’s blast quelled the laughter; nimbly the teacher leapt. In one prance, he was upon Jonathon. The hand shot out, grabbed his pupil’s wrist, hauled Jonathon – face still lit with the afterglow of triumph – high into the air. Weirton held the boy up with one hand like a prize trophy, took two long strides until he stood on the bridge’s edge. His toes jutted over the side; flakes of dislodged masonry flitted down to the river. The arm suspending Jonathon swung out till the boy’s legs kicked over water and blank air. Weirton let his pupil hang. The teacher’s face was deep red; his eyebrows dipped and narrowed behind the glasses. The weighty breath panted more urgently; he stared trancelike at the boy who flapped and dangled like a fish on a line. Weirton let go of his grasp. In a nauseous heartbeat, Jonathon fell, dropped towards the brother, who still gaped from below. In a swift manoeuvre, Weirton’s hand dove down, caught the wrist of the falling boy. The other hand swooped to meet the backside. It crashed onto the buttocks, the noise juddering across the quiet fields. Jonathon swung up, his feet kicking into empty space – just boy, air, river, sullen sky. He started his drop back; the palm rushed to meet him. It collided with the rump; again the noise rang; again Jonathon was pitched. As he flew to an almost horizontal angle, the kneeling brother stared – the white-rimmed eyes flickered at the latest unfolding of his bizarre tale. With his mud-caked coat and jeans, he looked like some strange beggar, some bleeding supplicant. Back Jonathon swooped; Weirton’s hand sped, smashed into the now vertical boy. Jonathon sailed once more, feet so high above the water, the brother, the breastplate. His face white, shock had peeled his lips back. He flew down; the palm raced, slammed onto the rear with even more speed, more force. Jonathon’s eyes flung tears. Drops spattered on the river, the brother, the nettle-stinging bank. A
nother impact, another resounding crack, another shower of tears – the whack flung them from the body; we spectators caught some of the spray. One drop landed on my cheek; another hit my lip, granting a salty tang. Jonathon flew again, legs whizzing over the boggy scene, torso meeting the low clouds. His lips jerked into action, quivering as his mouth tried to suck air. But that hand banged into him – the breath he’d scrabbled for whistled from his teeth; his mouth gulped and quivered as he tried to get it back.

  Only then did I realise Weirton was using his bad hand – his palm tie-bound, the ends of the makeshift bandage flapped in his hand’s wake. At each impact, the teacher winced, but his face was locked into a victorious sneer that each twinge of pain seemed to fuel. Down the hand hurtled, the force loosening the knot of the tie. The wallop wrenched a loud hiccup from Jonathon, splattered us with fresh tears. As Jonathon started his upward sweep, the sobs came – wheezy bawls, throaty gurgles. The hand thudded onto the behind – the loose bandage jerked, unravelled itself, fell into a puddle; up Jonathon went, his sobs’ rhythm punctured by futile grasps at air. His throat wobbled as the sobs pushing up kept out any breath going down. Weirton’s laboured breathing now added to the noise. The sweat-drenched face glowed; it cringed more at each impact of the bad hand yet still the teacher went on; the whacks grew speedier, more powerful. The hand rushed; the bum echoed; tears leaped. Jonathon’s face was now corpse-white. He battled for air, fought his losing war against the strangulation of sobs and wallops. Still the teacher drove his bad hand on as his breath rasped and jolted, as his cheeks flushed to scarlet, as with each whack more pain twisted his face. Weirton’s legs wobbled; the knees shook, looked as if they might give way; the teacher tottered. The feet slipped and skidded on the bridge’s edge; scabs of stone and mortar fell down to the river. Weirton righted himself, didn’t fail to meet the beat of his next whack, but this appeared to jolt the teacher from his trance. He blinked; his face screwed with effort as he seemed to pull at the remains of his strength. He delivered a few more extra-hard blows, slamming his swelling hand onto the behind as Jonathon took his final flights over the stream.

  The whacks ceased. Weirton panted, greedily gulped breath, rested his bad hand on his thigh to support his sagging bulk. Globs of sweat trickled and dropped from his face. The other arm – shaking – still held Jonathon over the water. Weirton allowed the boy to swing to a stop. He propelled his arm in a semi-circle to bring him back to the bridge and lowered him onto the path. Weirton let go; Jonathon’s arm flopped, slapped against his side. His legs buckled and swayed; tears surged; Jonathon’s mouth grasped at the air, trying to suck down lungfulls in spite of the sobs that clogged his windpipe. Weirton’s hankie came out, mopped his face. When his breath had steadied, he turned, stared at the sobbing, hiccupping, bandy-legged boy. In the river, the brother still knelt, still gazed up. The blood running from his gash had slowed, thickened to a sludgy strand. His eyes still blinked, as if he was trying to piece together how he’d ended up in a stream coated in mud. But I was waiting for the real show to begin. Surely it would be like the scene in the booklet the vicar had shown us. At any moment, the clouds were going to part and the vast finger of God appear in judgement. That finger would flash down its lightning bolt, smite Jonathon’s forehead, brand on him the sign that all would know him by and shun him because of. I wondered what the Lord was waiting for, but then it had taken Him a while to notice Abel’s murder. Yet after that thrashing, Jonathon’s sin couldn’t have escaped His holy attention. I looked up at the sky – the dark clouds drifted, slid over one another, but no gap in that sulky covering appeared. Maybe even the Lord was having His difficulties dividing Emberfield’s thick sky. Jonathon went on panting, when he’d got a bit more breath back he struck up a wail. The brother continued to gawp from below. Still there was no rend in the clouds; no thunderbolt streaked. Weirton lowered his heavy gaze, let it rest on the brother.

  ‘For God’s sake!’ Weirton jerked his good arm. ‘Come out of there! Are you going to kneel there all day staring like an imbecile? You’re not badly hurt – are you – despite your brother’s best efforts!?’

  The brother – still in some kind of trance – levered himself to his feet. He laboriously picked his way from the stream, trying to dodge its various obstacles. His clumsy foot kicked the ball, sending it off rolling with the current. His other shoe knocked the fish – allowing the glittering corpse to be borne away. I thought about shouting down to him, asking if he’d bring up the breastplate, but I was afraid of any further provoking of Weirton. Next came the nettle-tangled bank. Weirton’s eyes gripped the boy as he sprinted up the slope. Winces flashed across the brother’s face as he scrambled through that smarting thicket. His feet slipped; he tumbled. We all suppressed a snigger as he landed on his arse back in the stream.

  ‘I won’t tell you again!’ Weirton bellowed. ‘Get a move on!’

  The brother dragged himself up, readied himself. He charged at the bank, scrabbled up it. Agony screwed his features as those evil weeds prodded their barbs at his fingers, neck, face. Near the top, in danger of falling back, he had to grasp a large plant with both hands. I cringed as I imagined an electric throb of pain pulsing through the boy. There was a tearing sound as the brother’s weight ripped at the roots, but the nettle – its wickedness long-entrenched in the soil – held, and Craig was able to haul himself onto level ground and re-join us on the bridge. Weirton led us back to the school. No one spoke; the only noises from our procession were Jonathon’s sobs and howls. I walked next to the brother, who still seemed stupefied. The stench of mud and sewage floated from him. I looked up to heaven. There was no lightning bolt. Still Emberfield’s swollen clouds didn’t part.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The Diary of James Ronald Weirton

  Monday, 9th May, 1983

  And I’d hoped today would be a good one. Pleasant outing to Salton, teach the kids some stuff. All started off OK: gathered outside the school, me in a practical though – I hope – also stylish get-up, appropriate for the rough track, the mud I suspected we’d have to wade through. I sighed when I saw Mrs Perkins in her heels. Totally unsuitable, but that’s Mrs Perkins for you. Got set off, herding the kids through town, in a good mood for a change – nice to get away from that blasted school, from that accursed pond lurking just outside. Have some wider horizons rather than being boxed in that dreary classroom. Quite like it down Salton – air fresher than in smoky Emberfield, history, myth round ever corner, connects you to past ages, your forebears. Might not be quite the pyramids, but it’s the best this dull patch of England can muster. In such a good mood, I didn’t even clobber Jonathon Browning when I caught him acting up – little buffoon had somehow got himself sprawled over the grass verge just before Slaton’s gates. Mistake on my part, it turned out.

  Strode past those copses of trees and over the Bunt. Told the kids a few facts about that drab stream. Hardly a Ganges or Nile, I know, but that trickle of brown water is the most Emberfield can offer us. All sorts of trash in there – bricks, rotting fish corpse, filthy child’s ball, what looked like a rusting part of some tractor. Marched further down the track, told them all the old wives’ tales – the ghost of good old Henry VIII, the Little Drummer Boy, Knights Templars’ curses, the spooks of the slain Scots ready to rise up and haunt the town if anyone dares disturb their lands. Load of old tosh! If I was a ghostly Scot, I wouldn’t hang around in this dismal place – I’d be legging it up towards the border as fast as my phantom legs could go. Still got some real wilderness up there, some real people – not like round here: these tame hemmed-in fields, tame hemmed-in inhabitants. Calling this place the country is a joke – I remember my time in Montana: that was some proper countryside. Anyway, I needed something to entertain the kids so I repeated all those far-fetched legends that spew from the gossips of Emberfield. Funny thing was, as I was narrating all that stuff, I did get a queer feeling. Shiver surged up my backbone as I told them of the Knights Templar curse.
Same happened when I was talking about the Scots. This is going to sound weird, but I could imagine some misty presence coming up from the land, some evil miasma hovering over the town and fields. As if that curse still lingered, as if all those long-buried Scots still breathed up resentful clouds of corpse gas. There is an odd atmosphere round the place, something spooky and melancholic. Never would have admitted it at the time, but I think it was one reason why I chose to live in Goldhill rather than Emberfield. Felt strange later in the church too. All those bodies piled up in the graveyard, those long-weathered stones, that damned gauntlet suspended within – awful thing just hanging there! And yet at the same time, I like all that stuff in a bizarre sort of way, quite fond of the gothic, the macabre. Partly why I keep Lucy. Fine old tradition in times gone by, keeping skulls and bones, momento-mori and all that, not like this squeamish, effeminate modern age. It’s how we’ll all end up, reminds us of what’s what. Thought I’d enjoy our visit to the church, but somehow today … felt those emblems of mortality were a little too close. Have to get to the doctor for a check-up, see if those damned pills are having any effect at all.

  Anyway, Ryan Watson did some cracking drawings – found a fantastic stone to sketch in the graveyard, did a great picture of that white tomb in the church. Pretty much the only decent work produced today. Suzie Green’s pictures were terrible. Enraged me so much, I pulled her from the church, marched her to the graveyard to make her look at a stone she’d sketched, to see how different it was from the appalling mess on her page. Drives me mad that one! Simpering grey creature, nervous of her own shadow, won’t look anyone in the eye. So dense I’m astounded she can murmur her own name, dim even by Emberfield’s standards. Made sure Mrs Perkins gave her a good hiding. Can’t stand that sort – trembling and hesitant, mumbling and fidgety. Got to teach them to talk straight, walk straight, meet people’s gazes. Ashamed to say my boy’s a bit like that. Don’t know what’s the matter with Nick – never comes out straight and says things, and if he does it’s in this infuriating whine. Hovers about the house like some vapid ghost. Maybe it’s that school he goes to – namby-pamby place, no discipline, head reluctant to hit the kids. All too common nowadays, just have to make up for it at home. Often thought about transferring him here, but he’d have a rough time, being the headmaster’s lad. That friend of Suzie’s, that Helen Jacobs – she drives me up the wall too! She’s a smug one and no mistake, sitting there all composed as she gets all her sums correct, as Perkins gushes praises on her. Love to see her over Mrs Perkins’s knee! Her drawings were dreadful – all happy cartoon snails and shiny grey stones, nothing like reality. Would have liked to have seen Perkins beating her backside. Wouldn’t be a good idea – father’s some bigwig on the council, could cause me vast quantities of trouble. Really need to be careful, especially after the Marcus Jones episode.