by Pauline Fisk
Mad Dog sucked in his breath. Instead of spelling out W-A-O-O-C, as he’d always thought, the word now spelled out W-A-D-D-O-G, or WAD DOG! Or even, if he’d got it wrong about the W –
‘MAD DOG!’
Mad Dog said the words out loud, and a thrill, as powerful as electricity, ran through him. What was it his father had once said about the ffon being there for him when he grew up and wanted to know who he was?
‘This is it,’ he whispered, staring at the word. ‘Who I am, spelt out for me! I can’t believe it, and yet it’s true. All these years it was my name that followed me around and never let me go, always close to hand though I never knew! It was my name that made me feel so safe! That’s what lit up the darkness when Grendel found it on the mountain. And, in that river, when I nearly got swept away, it was my name that steadied me and saved my life!’
He started laughing. It was the simply best laugh of his life, open and pure, with nothing to taint it. He had cracked it at last. The secret code he’d struggled to decipher. The mystery he’d tried so hard to fathom. It wasn’t just a bunch of letters, after all. It had a meaning, and he knew what it was.
It was himself.
He was its meaning.
He, Mad Dog.
Uncle called, ‘You all right out there?’ and Mad Dog called back that he was, oh, yes, he was! He got down from the vardo step, too overwhelmed to stay still, and started walking about the garden, swinging his ffon and feeling his name beneath his hand. Once he’d thought that there were mysteries in life that went deeper than words, but now he knew that nothing could go deeper than the right word understood at exactly the right moment.
Mad Dog did a victor’s lap around the hotel grounds, starting with the lawn that ran down to the road, then crossing the front of the hotel where the guests ate out in the evenings, and then slipping down the side of the building, passing the conservatory on the way, and cutting round the back between the kitchen and the one reminder of the Aged Relative’s old B & B that Aunty had never been able to get rid of – the dripping cliff.
‘You all right?’ called the kitchen ladies as Mad Dog bumped into them, pulling on their jackets, ready to head home.
‘I’m fine,’ Mad Dog called back. ‘Couldn’t be better.’
Ruth turned out the light, and Kathleen closed the kitchen door and said, ‘Well, goodnight then.’ They headed for the car park and were quickly gone.
Mad Dog listened to the sound of their cars fading and watched their lights disappearing. The garden was quiet again, and the night smelt sweet and musky. An owl called from a tree off in the wood somewhere. A little breeze rustled along the ground and Mad Dog shivered at the sound of it. Suddenly he felt lonely out there in the darkness without Aunty, Uncle, Elvis and the sailors. His lap of honour was over and, wanting home, he turned back to the vardo.
‘So, Mad Dog is it?’ a voice said.
Mad Dog spun round. At first he couldn’t see anything, just the back of the hotel and the cliff half-hidden in shadows and glistening with moisture. But then something moved among those shadows, rippling like curtains on a stage before the beginning of a performance when the players are behind it, ready to begin.
‘Who’s there?’ Mad Dog said.
For a moment, no one answered. Then the shadows parted and a figure materialised, followed by a pack of huge, pale dogs. His face was grey and drawn, his eyes as black as wrinkled prunes and he had red tattoos all over his chest. His presence seemed to fill the space between the kitchen and the cliff. Mad Dog caught a glimpse of silver charms around his neck, and knew that he should run.
‘It’s you,’ he said.
The Manager’s smile was tight and cruel. ‘And it’s you,’ he replied. ‘Little Ryan Lewis – who thought he had a secret message passed down by his parents, but it turned out just to be a name! And what a name! I mean, Mad Dog! What sort of name is that?’
He laughed, and Mad Dog shivered. He gripped his ffon but he could feel all his pride in his name and who he was slipping away.
‘Life’s full of disappointments, isn’t it?’ the Manager said. ‘Secrets that aren’t secret after all. Codes that tell you nothing you don’t already know. Who’d have thought it? The things you put your hopes in always let you down. Take parents, for example. One moment they’re all over you – the best parents in the world with stars in their eyes and your life in their hands – and, the next, they’re drunk and in the river, and you’re all alone and fending for yourself. What sort of life is that?’
He laughed again. Threw back his head and laughed – and Mad Dog knew where he’d heard that laugh before.
‘It was you,’ he said. ‘You last night when I went back in time. It was you I called to for help, but you wouldn’t come. You standing on the shore with your armful of bottles. You who got my parents drunk. Got them dancing. Put a spell on them and made them fool about. You who drove them out into the river, and watched them lose their footing and didn’t care. But why? What did they ever do to you? I don’t understand. Who are you?’
The Manager didn’t answer. Instead he took a step towards Mad Dog. His eyes were blacker than ever, and if his tattoos looked any redder they’d have burnt up the night. Mad Dog knew that he should be calling for Uncle, Aunty, the sailors – anybody – because he’d never get another chance.
The Manager smiled. He said that, even if Mad Dog did call, people were never there when you needed them. Didn’t he know that?
‘However full your life may seem, you’re always really alone,’ the Manager said. ‘And when I say alone, this is what I mean …’
Leaning forward, he removed the ffon from under Mad Dog’s arm as easily as taking candy from a baby, then threw it up into the air – and suddenly it wasn’t there any more. It didn’t come down again. It simply disappeared, as if the Manager had conjured it out of existence. And, in its moment of disappearance, Mad Dog suddenly felt as if he too had been conjured out of existence.
‘What’ve you done?’ he gasped.
The Manager laughed. Mad Dog tried to back away from him, but the Manager looked into him with his huge black eyes and Mad Dog felt aloneness soaking into him. In the Manager’s eyes, he could see himself reflected – a pathetic little scrap of a boy who didn’t even have it in him to save a walking cane, let alone his parents when they’d needed him!
For, if his parents were dead, it was all Mad Dog’s fault! When they’d been drowning, he’d been floundering about. And, when they’d been swept away, he’d been saving himself. Instead of drawing on his Trojan blood and performing acts of heroism, he’d been out cold, lying on the riverbank. It wasn’t because of the Manager that his parents were dead.
It was because of him.
The Manager laughed as if he knew exactly what Mad Dog was thinking. His eyes bored into Mad Dog’s, and he felt himself shrinking. He was glad his ffon had gone, because he didn’t deserve it and he certainly didn’t deserve the name on it. Even Ryan Lewis was too good a name for him. And, as for Mad Dog Moonlight – it was light years beyond what he was worth.
Mad Dog shrank before the Manager’s gaze. As the light and life went out of him, he could sense the Manager growing. It was almost as if he was feeding on him. His silver necklace gleamed upon his tattooed chest, which seemed to be growing all the time. Everything about him seemed to be growing, from the hands that gripped Mad Dog to the lines on his tattoos – and there was nothing Mad Dog could do to stop it happening.
He was getting weaker by the minute, everything that made him unique and special coming out. And the Manager was doing it to him, but he didn’t know how. First the newly regained memory of his parents came out, then the memory of his brother Elvis. Then his homes came out, both the vardo and No. 3, then all his memories of Aunty and Uncle. Then the sailors came out, and then Mad Dog’s friends.
And then even Mad Dog’s feelings came out – every last moment of happiness, sadness, tears and joy, as if he’d never had them. And his past, present an
d future came out with them, and then even his name.
Mad Dog’s name – for God’s sake, even that! Once he’d had a ffon to keep it safe for him, but now he couldn’t even remember what it was!
Mad Dog felt what little fight was left in him go out like a light. There might be only one story running through his life, but it had run to its end. The little baby who’d howled because he’d missed seeing a silver river in the sky, and whose mother had said, ‘Don’t you ever let anybody take your name from you, because it’s who you are,’ was dead and gone, and there was nothing Mad Dog could do to bring him back.
The Manager laughed as if he knew that, in this battle of his making, he had won. Mad Dog reached out – but felt nothing there. For a moment he teetered on the brink of darkness. But then, deep within himself, something started rising.
Mad Dog felt it in his gut and he felt it in his heart. It rose in his bones and it rose in his blood. He heard it in his lungs, rising like a howl, and he heard it in his brain. And, like a massive flood, the howl came spilling out.
The sheer force of it drove back the Manager as if before the waters of a mighty flood. Mad Dog slipped from his grasp and there was nothing that could be done to stop it happening. Mad Dog felt himself break free, but that didn’t stop him howling. This is who I am, the howl seemed to say. This is how it is, and the Manager couldn’t stand against it. He couldn’t bear it. He didn’t stand a chance.
Suddenly, like a storm that had spent its force, the Manager went hurtling back into the shadows of the cliff, and his dogs went hurtling after him, and the darkness closed around them and they were gone.
But, even afterwards, standing there alone between the kitchen and the cliff, Mad Dog howled on and on. He didn’t need the Manager to tell him his name. Didn’t need his mother. Didn’t even need a walking cane. So what if it was gone! He knew who he was. It was engraved in his bones. It was engraved in his blood.
‘WAOOC!’ he howled. ‘WADDOG! MADDOG! MAD DOG! MAD DOG! MAD DOG!!!’
29
The Title Deeds of Plynlimon Mountain
Long before Mad Dog finished yelling, half the hotel had come rushing to see what was wrong, including Aunty, Uncle and Elvis. Aunty reassured them all that there was nothing to see, just a boy having a tantrum, and ushered them away. But the sailors refused to be ushered away. They came flying to Mad Dog’s side and closed ranks round him as if – even though they hadn’t been there to witness it – they understood what was going on.
He was safe now, they assured Mad Dog. They were there and nothing could get him. Three were stronger than one – stronger by far, but it was over, anyway.
Over. Safe. They repeated the words loudly to make sure he could hear. But, as if terrified of forgetting again, Mad Dog couldn’t stop calling out his name. It flowed out of him like a river. Mad Dog … Mad Dog … Mad Dog … On and on it flowed until his voice gave out. And, even then, he wouldn’t stop, whispering, ‘Mad Dog … Mad Dog … Mad Dog …’
Nobody quite knew what to do. Uncle tried coaxing Mad Dog back towards the vardo, but got pushed away. Aunty tried to hold him, but got pushed away as well. For the first time ever, she conceded that maybe a doctor would have to get involved. She was out of her depth, she said – and it wasn’t often that Aunty admitted to anything like that.
‘Leave this to us,’ said Phaze II. ‘You won’t need doctors. We can sort this out.’
‘We understand what’s going on, because we’ve been here too,’ said Abren. ‘Trust us.’
And that’s what Aunty and Uncle did. Maybe, at some deep level, they understood that the sailors hadn’t just turned up tonight to return a stick, but for this as well. Or maybe they trusted them because they knew they had no choice. But, either way, they ushered a frightened and crying Elvis back into the vardo, and closed the door, calling to the sailors, ‘You know where we are.’
After that, the night became very still, as if holding its breath. The lights in the hotel went out, then they went out in the vardo and still the sailors stood on either side of Mad Dog, never asking anything, never saying anything, simply being there.
Finally Mad Dog stopped shaking and his name stopped leaking out of him. He looked up at the sailors, as if seeing them for the first time.
‘You told me once that some people leave Plynlimon but never really get away,’ he croaked. ‘I didn’t know then what you meant – but I do now. It’s him, isn’t it? The Manager. He’s the one you can’t get away from. But who is he?’
The sailors glanced at each other as if this was the one question, above all others, that they’d been waiting for, not knowing quite how they were going to answer it. Then Abren took a deep breath and said, ‘It would be easy to tell you that he’s some high elf-lord out of a book – the Red Judge of Plynlimon, or someone like that, and his dogs the c^wn y wbir, the legendary Dogs of the Sky …’
‘Easy to tell you that he’s any of the other names that people have for him,’ Phaze II joined in. ‘And there are plenty of them, believe me – king of conjurors, tricky trickster, king of thieves, mountain man – you name it, he’s been called it …’
‘But, underneath the names that people have for him,’ Abren added, ‘there’s more to it than that. There are truths behind old stories that people rarely see. And the truth behind your Manager is that he’s not that different to you and me. He may be every nightmare that we ever dreamt. But, beyond the lies that roll so easily off his tongue, beyond the cruelty, beyond the games for power and control, is a living, breathing being with hopes and fears, people that he loved once, people that he lost, choices he made and choices that he could have made but never did. And what he is we could all become, sucked in without a whimper – unless we do what you’ve just done.’
‘And what’s that?’ Mad Dog whispered, scarcely daring to speak out loud.
‘Make a stand. Be yourself. Nothing else will do,’ Abren said.
She shivered. Mad Dog shivered too. There were things here that he didn’t understand, and maybe never would. Words like king of conjurors and Red Judge of Plynlimon whirled about his head, but suddenly he could feel autumn blowing up the garden and he found himself prepared to let them go. Another time, he thought. He could think about them then. Think about the Manager, and what he’d done, and about himself and what he’d done as well, defeating him with nothing but a name.
But, just for now, all Mad Dog wanted was ordinary life again – not this talk of living, breathing beings and the choices that they made, but supper and his bed.
‘Let’s go inside,’ he said.
The sailors said that was a good idea and turned towards the vardo. Before they could get to it, however, a long, wispy sheet of what looked like paper came blowing along the ground between the kitchen and the cliff. Mad Dog stooped to pick it up, and saw that it was covered in red lines. He didn’t know what it was but, at the sight of those lines, he shivered and took an instinctive backwards step.
‘What have you got there?’ Abren said.
Phaze II picked up the paper. Abren said she thought it was a map. Phaze II said he knew a thing or two about maps and it wasn’t like any map he’d ever seen. Mad Dog agreed, but Abren insisted that she was right. Look. Here. She’d found the River Severn, she said. Her river, she called it. And then Phaze II pointed out what he thought might be the Wye, and perhaps they both were right because suddenly Mad Dog started seeing things too – roads and contours, woods and villages, towns and bits of ocean, valleys and hills.
It was a map, like Abren had said. Mad Dog picked out Devil’s Bridge. He picked out Aberystwyth. He even found the Rheidol and traced its path through the harbour out to sea, then looked the other way and traced it back up to the place from which everything on the entire piece of paper, parchment, linen or whatever it was, radiated like the hub of a giant wheel.
Plynlimon Mountain.
Somewhere behind him, Mad Dog heard Abren say, ‘What is this thing?’ Thing, she called it this time. Th
ing, not map.
Mad Dog put his face up close to it, looking for a clue. A smell came off, which he’d smelt somewhere before. For a moment, incongruously, it was the smell of boiled cabbage. Sharply Mad Dog found himself drawing in his breath.
‘What’s the matter?’ Phaze II said.
Mad Dog shook his head. ‘It can’t be,’ he said.
‘Can’t be what?’ Phaze II said.
‘It isn’t possible,’ Mad Dog said.
‘What’s not possible?’
Mad Dog stared at the map, and all sorts of memories came into his head, starting with the smell of cabbage and ending in the conservatory with the smell of candlewax and a man at a piano.
‘Of course!’ he cried out. Suddenly it all made sense. Beyond the kitchen, he could see the windows of the conservatory. They were dark now, but once they’d glowed with candlelight and in it the Manager’s tattoos had glistened like a road map drawn in blood. That was what Mad Dog had called it at the time.
‘A road map drawn in blood,’ he said out loud.
The sailors stared as if they didn’t understand. ‘This isn’t a map,’ Mad Dog explained. ‘It’s the Manager’s tattoo.’
‘It’s his what?’ they said.
‘It’s his skin,’ Mad Dog said.
He stepped back, physically repulsed. The sailors stepped back too. The thing on the ground lay between them all, old beyond years; old and yellowing like a piece of parchment, or a snake’s discarded skin.
‘But why?’ Mad Dog said at last, breaking their long silence. ‘Why would anyone do a thing like this – tattoo a mountain and its rivers all over himself? I mean, look! It’s everywhere. And it covers everything. There’s the Gap, and there’s No. 3. And there’s Devil’s Bridge and the Falls Hotel. Look, there’s even Old Hall, where the old ladies live, who rescued me. And the crossroads between valleys, and the ruined cottage where my parents spent the last night of their lives. But why would anyone do a thing like this? Their entire skin, from head to foot, covered in the high roads, low roads and mountain rivers of Plynlimon. And why, having gone to all that trouble, would they leave it behind? It makes no sense.’
