The Standing Water

by David Castleton

  Tuesday, 2nd August, 1983

  Drove down into Dorset to see another – possibly – ancient site. Day began with the same atmosphere as the one before: Sandra silent and frosty over breakfast, Nick quiet and pale. But as the car took us closer to our destination, our mood lightened. Courtesy of Nick, as it happens. The boy couldn’t help sniggering. Asked, in a friendly tone, what he was laughing about. He giggled elusively before I got it out of him. We were on our way to see the Cerne Abbas Giant – a huge strong chap carved out of another chalk hillside wielding an enormous club. And the club isn’t the only enormous thing about him! What Nick was sniggering over was the same thing that had made me laugh when reading the guidebooks – those phrases describing the giant as ‘remarkably phallic’, ‘renowned for its manhood’ and even as sporting ‘Britain’s most famous phallus’. Apparently, snaps of the giant used to be the only obscene pictures that could be sent through the post! I had wondered how I’d explain that particular ‘feature’ to Nick, but – the lad being almost ten now and having seen a photo – he was left in little doubt about it. He struck up some high-voiced song about what he referred to as the giant’s ‘willy’. Made both me and Sandra smile, brought a bit of cheer into our glum metal box. And why shouldn’t the boy celebrate it? Our society might be getting over-feminised, but the old symbols remain! Nothing wrong with a bit of male pride! Whatever the feminists and modern trendies might reckon, that image of muscular, warlike and – let’s say – unashamed manhood carved by our ancestors lacks all ambiguity.

  We parked up, ‘admired’ the thing from a distance. Some say the giant’s an ancient fertility symbol, others that it was sculpted as recently as the Civil War as a satire on Oliver Cromwell. Have to say, I prefer the first idea. The image has generated all kinds of folklore – that it represents the corpse of a real giant whose tomb’s the massive earthworks that top the hill, that barren women can conceive by sleeping on the figure. And, who knows, it may be true – some manly energy from past times could invigorate their wombs in this effeminate age. Like the White Horse, the thing’s scoured every seven years. Interesting – seven’s a magical number, certainly in the Bible enough.

  We went for a closer look, Nick skipping ahead, yelling out the daft ditty he’d concocted. Had a chat with Sandra. She said she’s not against corporal punishment, she’s in favour of discipline, but she’s scared I might injure or emotionally damage the boy. Admitted I need to watch myself, promised that I would. And for the rest of the day things were great – smiles from Sandra, no whinging from Nick. Suppose I’ve got a lot to thank the giant and his famous ‘attribute’ for.

  If only things could have gone as well last night. Damned nightmares again. Henry VIII wandering around with his axe, some strange hand drifting through my dreams – black, withered, its fingers bent: like the hand of some dreadful old witch. Then I was in the school – Lucy was in her cupboard, her skull staring at me with its awful grin. Tried to close the door, but I couldn’t – not even when I shoved it with all my strength. Some force insisted on holding it open as that skeleton gazed at me. I ran from the building; I sprinted out of the gate, but couldn’t pass the pond. Again there was some force, which drew me to that pool. I had to move towards it in slow strides. Went on with my march right into the water – the filthy liquid was swirling round my ankles then my knees, waist. It was soon up to my neck then bumping against my lips then gushing into my nose. It was up to my eyes, but I had to keep taking those steps. Then all I could see was darkness. Just filth and darkness surrounded me.

  Wednesday, 3rd August, 1983

  Saw Glastonbury today. Blessed place – the town where, according to legend, Joseph of Arimathea established our nation’s first church and brought with him the Grail that had caught Christ’s precious blood as he hung on the cross. All kinds of Grail and Arthurian myths centred on the place. The Tor – a hill rising above the town topped by the remains of an abbey – is linked by some to the Isle of Avalon, where the wounded Arthur was taken by boat to lie not in death but slumber. And the Tor really was an island in those days, the level land around it being flooded. Of course, we had to climb that sacred mount so I led my family up it at a blistering speed – my heart pounding as it struggled to power my legs. Nick struck up the song of his whinging. I gripped my fists, clenched my teeth, but a glance from Sandra reminded me to be patient. Inspected the ruins at the top, wondered if that hill really was the site of Arthur’s sleep, if the great king reposed beneath it. It’s said he’ll reappear if England really needs him. Surely that moment must be now – love to see him and his knights slash their way through those ranks of lefties, union men, peaceniks, immigrants, feminists, perverts and traitors we have to put up with nowadays: hack and trample them down, make this country once more safe for decent people.

  Strode back to town, dodged throngs of blasted hippies as we looked for somewhere to eat. Nick resumed his whining – didn’t like the restaurant we chose, wasn’t keen on the food. Tried to explain there are kids in the world who’d be glad of any food at all, but this didn’t make any impression on him, and his whinging tortured my ears for the rest of the meal. I tightened one hand into a fist, it quivered under the table, but I was able to stay calm and smiling above. I tried to think loftier thoughts in the hope of lessening my anger. It’s said that when Joseph came here, he thrust his staff into the ground and it blossomed into a thorn tree. Descendants of that sacred bush still grow around Glastonbury today, and – incredibly – the experts tell us those thorns are of Middle-Eastern origin! Flower twice a year, including on Christmas Day to herald the birth of our Lord! Wonder what all those smart-arsed sceptics and atheists would say about that! And it was one of those holy thorns we went to see once we’d eaten – on the top of another mount, known as Wearyall Hill. Aptly named, at least as far as Nick was concerned. Lad was soon complaining he was tired. Fearing the outbreak of a tantrum, I tried – despite my struggling breath – to distract the boy by telling him about King Arthur, St Joseph, but couldn’t interest him. When we got to the summit, I gazed at that living monument of our history, thought of how sap, twig and bark had flourished through the ages, right back to that rod driven into the soil by that holy man. Nick asked why we’d climbed all that way ‘just to look at some stupid tree’. I simmered, but breathed deeply and stayed calm. My son’s becoming as much of an ignoramus as his blasted grandfather!

  Still can’t escape the bad dreams. Plenty last night. Kept waking up – maybe sleep deprivation is part of what’s making me so irritable. I was twisting and struggling in filthy water with Marcus, staring at Lucy in her cupboard, hearing the beats of the Drummer Boy, hearing echoing curses floating with the mist over the land. Even here I can only be free from damned Emberfield when awake.

  Sunday, 7th August, 1983

  Cornwall today, Tintagel. Castle ruins crowning a headland, waves rushing, slapping, crashing onto the rocks below. Most dramatically sited, most romantic. Not surprising there are all kinds of legends linked to it. Castle was meant to be the place of King Arthur’s conception. Uther took a fancy to the wife of its owner – by Merlin’s trickery he entered her bedchamber disguised as her husband and the result was our nation’s great king. Some say Arthur was born here too. All sorts of associations – there’s a Merlin’s Cave, an Arthur’s Footprint: an indentation supposedly on the spot where he’d leap from Tintagel’s peninsula – which is almost an islet – back to the mainland.

  We got ourselves onto the headland via the much more prosaic method of a footbridge. Still, it was a long walk up the steep worn steps clinging to the peninsula’s slopes, with the sea rolling and frothing under us. Salt bite on the air mixed with the invigorations of slight vertigo. Along with plenty of other tourists, we plodded that path, occasionally walking with arms out as above us ancient walls rose and seagulls spun. What should have been a magical experience was spoilt by Nick’s whinging. We’d had three difficult days with the boy since leaving Glastonbury. Whining,
complaints, tantrums – even though one day we did just what he wanted and stayed at the beach. Suspected the boy was thinking his old man was getting soft, that he could behave how he liked. A few times – when the pan of my rage was about to boil over – I was seconds away from thrusting my hand out, clasping the lad’s wrist, wrenching him skywards, but a swift look from Sandra made me pull myself back. Anyway, up those stone stairs we trudged – as each step I trod on felt imprinted with eons of history, as the magnificent vista of sea, rocks and coast lay all around. I just tried to tune into the rumble of the surf, block out the higher-pitched sounds of Nick’s laments.

  We had a look round the castle, in which Nick at least stoppered his moaning. But as we were coming back down the steps, he started up once more. He filled the air with his complaints, sending them up to tussle with the cries of squabbling seagulls. As usual, he was bored, hungry, exhausted. He was walking a couple of steps below me; my expert eyes were soon estimating the distance; I was stooping; an efficient swoop of the arm and I had the boy by the wrist. I hauled him up, my other hand swept down and a glorious impact rang – resounding around the rocks, echoing over the sea, even scaring away a group of gulls. I had plenty of anger stored up from my days of restraint and I let it all gush out – every tantrum he’d dared throw, every moaning monologue: each was punished by a good strong strike. Sandra’s face was white; her mouth dropped open. There were other spectators too – their eyes bulging, gobs gaping. In fact, they had little choice but to watch due to the huge beating man and swinging boy that blocked the stairway. But soon, I barely noticed them. I hurled more blows into the ungrateful wretch, and my world narrowed to a kind of tunnel of sky, rocks, sea and boy. A tunnel of sound enclosed me too – the regular thud of my palm, the screech of gulls, Nick’s sobs and gasps, the shocked murmurs from my audience with the occasional voice raised in indignation: this all swirled around me, with some strange hypnotic effect. I beat on and on, pounding him harder, ignoring my booming heart, my struggles for air. That tunnel morphed into a deep well, that well held my anger, and I had to keep going till every drop of rage was gone. And, at that well’s bottom, what did I find? An image of Ronald Weirton braying about me, Nick and Sandra urging him on with their chuckles. You shouldn’t laugh about something you can’t handle yourself, and I doubted Nick would be smirking after all this! I flung down more whacks – Nick flung his tears to land on the rough grass, the boulders, to spiral down to join the spray of the sea. I thrashed and thrashed him, but eventually my holding arm started to shudder, my grasping hand shivered and ached. Spasms jerked through it; my grip loosened; Nick was almost sent sailing over the rocks and down into the sea. That jolted me from my trance. I glanced around, gave the boy a couple more wallops and set him down. My heart was bashing so hard, so ominously, like it never had before, reminding me of that damned bell tolling in my dreams about Salton. Bent over, I rasped and wheezed; my shirt was soaked; sweat dripped from my hot face. People were barging past – I caught some of their comments: ‘Now, finally, we can move on!’ ‘The police should be called about that maniac!’ ‘That child should be taken away!’ ‘What on earth do you mean? The man was only exercising discipline – not enough of it about these days!’

  I was eventually able to straighten up. Nick was being babied by Sandra. The milksop was bawling away, wrapped in his mother’s arms, panting and hiccupping as Sandra’s eyes hurled swords of hate at me.

  ‘You see!’ I shouted, as I realised I still had a bit of an audience. ‘This is the consequence of you not letting me discipline him when the need arises! He gets more and more badly behaved until something like this is necessary!’

  ‘Come on!’ I yelled. ‘We’re going!’

  I strode off down the stairway. After some paces, I turned, sighed to see Sandra and Nick some way behind. I waited for them as Sandra guided the sobbing, stumbling boy, as hiccups leapt from him and sailed up to mingle with the calls of gulls. As I stood there, some grey-haired buffoon came up, started jabbing his finger, calling me a disgrace, telling me how to raise my own boy. I wasn’t having that. I blasted him with a volley of angry words, gave him a good shove in the chest. The old fool staggered back, ended up on his arse on the grass at the path’s side, his idiotic eyes blinking up at me. Well, let me tell you, he picked himself up and was soon scuttling away with the odd fearful glance back, and we heard no more bright ideas spill from his mouth. Nick and Sandra caught up, and we made our slow progress back to Tintagel town, Nick teetering on bouncy legs as he hiccupped and wailed. Ordered Sandra to take the milksop away as his howls were grinding on my nerves – a command with which she readily complied.

  Didn’t see them again till the lad’s bedtime. Rest of the evening, Sandra didn’t utter a sound. I’d imagine that’s it – there’ll be no forgiveness from her, no more chances. To be honest, I’m not sorry about today. Should have never let Sandra influence me with her woman’s ideas about bringing boys up. Don’t think the rest of the holiday will be much fun – four more days of terse silence, of murderous looks from Sandra. Well, let her remember she provoked all this! Four more days then back to dreary Goldhill, back to miserable boggy fields. Then the days will whizz by and before I know it I’ll be in that blasted school. What a life this is!

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Jonathon and I couldn’t get that gauntlet in the last weeks of the summer term – most days were filled with school, and at the weekends our parents seemed to contrive activities, so if one of us was free the other was doing something. It wasn’t through a lack of desire we didn’t get that deadly glove for in those weeks our hatred of the headmaster frothed and rose. Weirton’s hand swooped on plenty of occasions. Jonathon and I both got three wallopings. The brother topped all previous records by receiving ten! Stubbs, Darren Hill and Richard Johnson each copped four. Suzie Green was in trouble too – Weirton would stride into our room, alerted by Perkins’s shrill cries over the girl getting all her sums wrong or producing drawings of appalling quality. He’d really tease the poor mouse, pacing around her as she shook on her seat. Often she’d start sobbing before the first shouts had even jumped from his gob. He’d draw it out – calm phrases would build to furious storms then he’d settle down again before a blast of rage would make Suzie leap on her chair. He’d stand behind her, drill his first finger into her skull as his voice boomed and echoed, shoving it down hard as her grey face turned into a melting mask of pain and tears. As the final part of the punishment, the girl would end up over Perkins’s knee. The slaps she got were nothing compared to Weirton’s wallops; Perkins would limit her spankings to six of the best with one or two for luck, but still the girl would howl, her tears would pour, and her failure to stopper her sobs would often drive Weirton into greater fits of fury.

  Speaking of six, it was a number we heard a lot about. As Weirton and the vicar told us, it was frequently in the Bible. God had sculpted our earth in six days and had chosen the sixth day of His labour to create Mankind. But three sixes in a row was the number of the Devil: the enemy of God and Man. There were six points to the Star of David, and snowflakes – each uniquely crafted by God’s holy fingers – had a sixfold symmetry. There were six strings on a guitar. Henry VIII, who haunted the farmhouse on the way to Salton, had had six wives, one of whom had had six toes on each foot. Perhaps these extra digits had been granted by the Lord as compensation for the head she’d lose. Bodies were buried six feet under – like the sleepers in the churchyard at Salton, the snoozing corpses of the Scots; a person able to see and hear spooks – like I was sometimes – was said to have a sixth sense. There were six directions – if you include up and down as well as the compass points – and, of course, Weirton’s ritualistic six of the best! But the strangest fact I heard concerning the number six was when Weirton told us in assembly that the earth was six-thousand years old. He said if you count back in the Bible, through who begat who – whatever that meant – from Jesus all the way to Adam, you come to that figure. I sat t
here astonished. I could barely believe our planet was so ancient! The black soil, the dew-sprinkled emerald grass had always seemed young to me – I’d reckoned they hadn’t had long to decay since God had conjured them at the Creation. I’d guessed the world went back three-thousand years at the very most. I thought I might have to change my ideas about Mr Davis being one of Noah’s sons. Then again, Noah had lived to 950, so – if Davis was really as old as we thought – I supposed it might be possible. I’d have to ask him.

  The longed-for holidays eventually rolled round. We plunged into those blissful Weirton-free days, those weeks seeming almost an eternity in our childhood time. Freed from the tedious obligation of attending school, we could really learn. I focused on my sketching, drawing things in our house, our garden, sometimes writing stories and poems about the creatures I observed – the martial ants, the unselfish earthworms, the spiders’ functional cruelty. Jonathon and I went on concocting the tales we’d begun at Christmas, going on with our epics of nations and wars, creating characters heroic, hideous and comic, moulding the ancient histories of the peoples we’d dreamt up. Speaking of Jonathon, we spent a lot of time in his house, perching on his lounge floor. If his mother had caught us on the sofa, his father’s belt might have made us reluctant to sit down anywhere. I saw quite a bit of the brother who – much less cautious – would flop onto the settee and gaze down on us with friendly disdain, only to leap from it if he heard his mum’s footsteps. He still had his scar, which was showing no desire to disappear. The pink filmy scab still marked the upper corner of his forehead. And – as the days passed – my amazement grew that the Lord had not branded a mark onto Jonathon. Now it was summer, God wouldn’t even have any problems parting Emberfield’s thick sky as – on some days at least – the glowering banks of cloud were replaced by puffs of white floating over a dome of blue. Still no scorching bolts leapt from the heavens. But I had faith in the Bible and I had faith in the Lord. The vicar had told us that God’s justice could seem slow, that it could work through crooked ways unfathomable to Man, but – we could be sure – such justice would eventually be delivered. I’d no doubt the sign of God’s vengeance would one day be singed onto Jonathon.