Sufferer's Song

by Savile, Steve

  “Course I buried 'er lad. Didn't wanna 'ave 'er stinkin' up me yard none.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Ower thur, by me bus t'keep 'er in close like.”

  “Can I go and have a look?” Billy's cheek twitched as he spoke. It was a nervous tick Pops had cleansed him of more than once simply because it refused to go away.

  “Aye, if'n yer careful not t'wake 'er up,” Alfie said between taking mouthfuls of rabbit.

  Alfie had buried her nice and simple, using string and two bits of wood to make a headpiece. He'd carved her name into the crosspiece. SASHA. Billy traced the letters with a shaky finger. SASHA. The ground had been cleared away around the cross, the dust and soil freshly turned.

  He crossed himself and muttered the few words of the Lord's Prayer he knew. “Our Father, which art in heaven,” he sniffed and turned back for the fire. “You've done it really nice,” he told Alfie, sitting himself down again.

  “Aye. Diggin' that rock out were a bugger though. Made fer breakin' me back more 'an once I can tell yer. Still, ole dog done me good so's it were the least I could dee for 'er. Like as not she wouldna cared one whit 'bout it if'n she'd ended up in a placky sack wi' the rest o' the rubbish.”

  The greasy meat had him licking his fingers.

  Nuke stepped up to the old man, shaggy, waist-high with jaws that could break a man's leg in three. As if Alfie wasn't there, he pawed the rabbit's remains off the saucepan lid and chowed down heartily.

  Nosey, so called because of the lighter patch of grey around his snout, lay nearly touching Billy's feet. The dogs seemed to be happy enough to ignore Billy so long as he let them eat their fill. Not that one scrawny rabbit was going to go far. Tongues lolled out of loose jowls, they waited at ease.

  “Did you stick any of the fire kids?” Billy asked faintly, and almost hopefully, too.

  Alfie snorted. “You thinkin' I'd be 'ere if'n me old knife 'ad stuck one o'them snufflin' buggers? No, I dain't stick one, did I Nuke?” The big shaggy dog turned his head to look up at him.

  Billy marvelled at the way his friend talked to the dogs. Alfie had explained it once. Said it was feeling the words. Putting them into the dog's heads so they could see what he wanted them to see, hear what he said as he wanted them hear it. Billy didn't understand it, but that didn't mean it wasn't wonderful to watch. Alfie always looked as if he were drifting off on the flow of some memory, like as not he was daydreaming most of it up just to keep Billy amused, and it did that no end. Rosie seemed to grin his way.

  “Been a bit twitchy, ain't we girl. Barkin' at shadows all night since poor ol' Sasha. Jumpy as a virgin's dick. You okay, Billy?”

  Billy avoided looking at him.

  Alfie chuckled. “C'mon, spit it out. The old fella been at yer with 'is strap again, eh?”

  “How. . ?”

  “No mystery, lad. You been itchin' around like a flea since you sat down t'eat.”

  “Oh.”

  “Why don'tcha stay 'ere with us? Let the ol' bugger shit on it a bit?” Alfie offered, picking a bit of rabbit out from under a nail.

  “I don't know, Alfie. Pops would be real mad an' all.”

  “As yer want it, lad. Maybe 'e'll forget 'bout yer alt'gether, an' yer can live with old Alfie an' his friends, eh? That'd be mighty fine, eh?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Y'wanna drink? Got some fizzy back in the bus. Yer can 'elp yerself.”

  Billy knew the bus he meant without having to ask. The red and grey single-decker. The doors had no air left in their hydraulics. Alfie had left one side cracked open as a way into his house. Blankets and bedroll had been spread out over the long backseat, bundled rags for a pillow, while most of the other seats had been ripped free and used to line the metal walls, creating a misleading effect of space. Straw and newspaper made beds for the dogs. Between two such seats he found the old fridge Alfie had rescued from the dump. Without electricity the cooler was little better than a cupboard. Billy took himself a couple of mouthfuls from the plastic bottle of lemonade, recapped it and closed the fridge up. Alfie's place was warm with the sun heating the walls like a cooking pot. A whole passel of odds and sods cluttered the bus. Clothes, a spare pair of boots, a thick shirt worn at the collar, cuffs and elbows, and a bundle of heavy overcoats were piled on the rucked up blankets for extra warmth come night.

  The dogs were picking over the few rabbits bones when he got back to the fire.

  “Best be off,” he said to Alfie.

  “Aye, s'pose yer had be at that. If'n the old fella gets ruff, get yersel' back 'ere an' we'll look after yer, lad. Now yer best get runnin'.”

  Billy hesitated, and then turned slowly, his hands gripped in his pockets tightly. Lying with one of his shoulders propped on a log, Felix nuzzled down. His eyes flicked up to Billy, held, and then darted on as if they had found something they didn't like in his look. Felix bristled. Rosie and Nuke looked up from their pickings. Nosey and Nipper backed off. Tiny aftershocks shuddered through their scraggy fur. Nuke growled low in his throat, lips back.

  “Shush up, boy,” Alfie scolded the big white dog. There was a quiet intensity in that low growl that had Billy scrambling away as fast as his feet would allow.

  He heard more growls. Angry sounds. He only looked back the once, but couldn't read Alfie's expression. His friend had a hand buried in the ruff of Nuke's neck, holding him back.

  He didn't know rightly what he'd done to upset the posse. Alfie said they'd been jumpy since Sasha died. Surely they did not think he had hurt her?

  “I dain't hurt her, no. . .” he mumbled, scrambling up the dirt bank.

  At the top, he turned to wave. Alfie was still holding Nuke back.

  Billy sniffed.

  “Not gonna cry,” he promised himself, then went ahead and broke that promise.

  “It weren't me. . .”

  Alfie didn't wave.

  * * * * *

  The turn off into Garrett's Lane lay just before the Arches. To Billy its gloomy opening looked more like a big, dark tunnel than a road, as it crawled sluggishly up the side of Moses Hill to home.

  Still snuffling, he stepped inside and immediately the sun was gone. Chilly breezes cut down the slope. Above and behind him the trees swayed to the rhythms of winds rushing through empty spaces, their wiry shadows twisting and cavorting like headless clowns, fingers of charcoal nipping out to rat-at-tap-tap around his feet.

  Billy didn't like the tunnel. It scared him sometimes.

  He liked it when there was sunshine and he liked happy places where the grass was green and long and sky was blue all over.

  The tunnel leeched the colours away, as if someone had taken the lid off the sky and let them all escape.

  He started whistling, tunelessly at first just, to break the quiet, until he stumbled over the first few notes of Zippety-do-dah! He ran his fingers through his thinning hair and patted the rolled up bulk of the comic in his back pocket. Unseen birds twittered cheerily, their lilting, Chinese sounding voices a stark contrast to the cheerless gloom.

  Trudging along, whistling and kicking up gravel chips as he went, an icy feeling started to settle in his stomach. A slow, sinking feeling, like a smooth-sided pebble plopping down to the bottom of a deep, stagnant lake. A funny feeling. Not funny ha-ha. Funny strange. Funny scary. . .

  Billy didn't like it one little bit.

  The feeling churned, flattening and solidifying his other fizzy feeling. He was worried about Pops and the way the posse had turned on him like he was some stranger. He always worried about Pops a little bit, but this wasn't a little worry. . . This hurt.

  He continued on up the hill, picking up his pace slightly without knowing why.

  His feet crunched across loose chips, scuffing and scraping stones together.

  Chinese birds whispered secrets.

  He shivered.

  “Just someone walkin' over me grave,” he said softly, feeling silly but suddenly hoping there was no one to hear his whisp
er.

  The eerie canopy provided by the trees started to thin and then broke, letting the sun back in.

  Up ahead, finally, he saw Mike Shelton's caravan, and up a ways beyond it, the farmhouse and the twisted outline of Hangman's Oak. From here the house looked really quiet.

  He peered in at the empty caravan as he passed, feeling cold, not just on the outside, but on the inside, too, and light headed, almost like standing in a winter wind and drinking a thick ice creamy milkshake. His eyes were barely focused. In front of him the tree was blurred and seemed to be surrounded by a halo of fuzzy light.

  Still shook up some, he thought, blinking. When that didn't work, he screwed his eyes up and gently massaged the lids. When he opened them again, the halo was gone, though the ancient oak was still blurred; its bleary edged silhouette looking like the crooked man dragging his way over his crooked stile.

  Billy's stomach clenched up like a powerful fist clamping down as a great big jolter slapped him out of his stride, jerking his legs out from under him so suddenly it seemed he was no longer seated inside his own body, looking out. For a second only he was seeing things from two different perspectives, his perception jack-knifed out from behind his eyes to a point somewhere in front of him. It came from behind the tree (or out of the house?) and whooshed into him, hammering into his stomach, doubling him over in a fierce coughing fit. Inside, he felt the most painful cleansing of his life lash through his system, and heard something that sounded like a long strip of Velcro being torn apart. His heart felt huge inside his heaving chest, pounding so heavily he could hardly catch even a ragged breath. The feeling only lasted for an instant before he felt his second, altered perception snapping back inside his body. Tiny shockwaves charged through his body, as if his hand had closed on a live wire, muscles clenching. He gulped for a breath, his chest tight, cramped, and blinked his eyes closed until the fist clenched around his stomach melted.

  And then it was gone, leaving a funny tingle in his bones. Not funny ha-ha. Funny scary. . . a sense of foreboding shivering through him.

  Behind him, the wind murmured through the trees. Above, the sky looked like the ruins of a burnt out building, smouldering ash and glowing embers. Leftover rain made the grass look wet and soggy, the gravel drive darker than usual, almost black around the foot of Hangman's Oak. In the few puddles he could see the blue sky again, reflected like a face in a mirror.

  He stumbled forward, past the tree, splashing through the gathered puddles like a child at the beach. A blue light flickered through a downstairs window, dancing a waspish dance under the directions of the unseen television. The windows were blank glass, cold and empty. He pressed his forehead against the window, peering in at the darkness. Judy Finnigan and Richard Madeley were on the black and white tube, but, other than his coffee mug and discarded dinner plate with its ring of chips and dried gravy, there was no sign of Pops to be seen.

  Then, pushing away from the window, he noticed the porch door hanging open, drifting an inch or so against its hinges under the weight of the slight, gusting breeze creeping up the porch steps.

  Oh boy. . .

  “Pops?” he called out, then more desperately, “POPS?”

  - 34 -

  The quality of the light filtering through the work room's half open window had changed while he worked, grown brighter. For all its earlier redness, it looked closer to being noonlight now. He checked his watch. Six forty-five. Barely even morning. He could hear Scooby pottering about in the family room. On the stereo, Geddy Lee was plucking a mean bass line and urging people to believe in the freedom of music. A chilly breeze was sneaking in through the open window.

  Ben read through the final sentence again.

  When you get around to burning him, Crohak, throw a few logs on for me. Green ones, still oozing sap if you can find any. They don't burn so fast.

  Pleasantly surprised, he scrolled upward to the start of the chapter, noting with some satisfaction that the bold typeface proclaimed the magic number -- Six -- and started reading back through the long night's work.

  Shivers crawled up each individual vertebrae of his back.

  It wasn't just good, it was. . . right.

  Grinning, he shook his head.

  In the family room the song had moved on and the singer was busy telling him, in that distinctive, high pitched voice of his, that all the fear and suffering was all a big mistake.

  Ben spent another hour working on The Sufferers Song, closing Chapter Six. The writing itself wasn't hard, but his mind refused to focus on the task for any length of time, allowing his thoughts to wander here, there and everywhere. They slipped from the story, torturing him with miserable thoughts of Mike alone with the Demon Drink in that awful caravan.

  With alarming frequency he found his gaze slipping from the computer screen to the red and black spine of Uneasy Streets' dust cover. Reaching for the book, Ben felt that odd, cold, yet strangely familiar sensation congealing within the watery pit of his stomach. Rob Sammelin's photographic illustration of Hammerthal, the clockwork clown, and the puppet master's wooden hands, still looked wonderfully fresh. It was a pity the same couldn't be said for the story behind it.

  He sighed and shook his head.

  And now he was seventy-seven pages into putting himself through it all over again.

  At ten to eight, he decided to call it a day. He saved the work in progress, backing it up on the USB flash drive, and went on upstairs to take a shower.

  He undressed and dumped his clothes in the overflowing laundry basket, fishing around for a fresh towel. Soaps and shampoo gathered on the side of the bathtub. The tub itself was set into a recess and mirrored on all three sides. Ben watched himself in one of the huge, full length mirrors over the bath, seeing three smiling Shelton's reflected in the angle as he stooped to collect shampoo and conditioner. A second wall of mirrors dominated the wall around the hand basin, so wherever he stood in the spacious room, he could see at least two of himself quite plainly.

  Bass heavy music drifted up from downstairs.

  Ben twisted on the mixer taps and in moments steam was drifting out from the shower, steamy air wrapping around him, and misting over the large mirrors. He stepped into the shower, testing the spray with a tentative hand before slipping under the hot rush.

  The water felt wonderful splashing down over him, matting his hair and spraying his face, running stingingly hot down his body; stomach, buttocks, back and thighs. He turned slowly, letting the spray gently massage his neck and stiff shoulders, savouring the languor it seeped into his bones.

  Finally, he forced himself to work the shampoo suds into his heat-tingling scalp, rinsing them out again under the hot spray. Suds- scaled streams cascaded down over his chest as he lathered soap into his skin, clearing his ears with popping fingers. The sound of the fine spray drumming on the plastic floor rushed through the shower. Wrapped in the water's heat, he felt tranquil, lazy, but the water raining down through his matted hair cooled only too rapidly, until its touch stung like iced needles stabbing into his scalp.

  Out of the shower, he shook himself vigorously, like a dog slicking the surface water out of its coat, and started towelling himself down. He dressed in a pair of faded jeans and pulled on a sloppy red-fleece sweatshirt before going downstairs for breakfast.

  In the kitchen, he poured himself a cool glass of milk, and put a couple of rounds of bread under the grill, then added cheese. He took them, along with his drink, through to the family room.

  Scooby, hunkered down on his fireside rug, shifted to watch him settle, his large, saucer brown eyes regarding Ben for a moment before returning to their quiet contemplation of the logs spitting in the grate.

  Ben glanced around the room, as if expecting it to have somehow changed while he showered. Deep-grained hardwood floorboards, which would need polishing again pretty soon, walls lined with shabby looking bookcases and dog-eared paperbacks, a mismatch of garage sale furniture, picture window, and the huge fireplace w
ith its ancient hand-carved facade. He brushed back an errant strand of hair, and chewed on his slice of cheese on toast. The fairies hadn't been in to rearrange it for him. Early morning sun, the colour of honey, poured in through the picture window, throwing one large, unbroken sheet of light across the wooden floor.

  “Come on, Scoob,” he said, finishing his toast and washing it down with a last swallow of milk. He stuffed his feet into a battered pair of red and white Reebok baseball boots, and picked up an apple on the way out of the front door. A few seconds later was strolling down towards the park, enjoying Saturday morning first hand. The sky was a perfect cloudless blue, though the air itself held a crisp chill.

  Munching on the apple, Ben reached the High Street, Scooby padding alongside him, unwilling to make the fifty yard dashes of his youth. The streets on the far side began to slope gently away towards the lake. A few minutes later, they reached the disused railway track that led around to Cotters Ledge, and turned west to walk along it. The tracks were long gone, though the odd sleeper was still lying around here and there, overgrown with scrub and weeds. Scooby ambled a little way into the lead, mincing from one overgrown stand to another, stub of a tail high in the air.

  The track, unused for nigh on thirty seven years, was a spur of the main Newcastle to Carlisle line. Ben stopped to fasten a dragging lace.

  Up ahead, Scooby had stopped and was waiting patiently for him to keep pace.

  Rather than follow the track around to the embankment, they headed off, down into the upper reaches of the park.

  Then they reached the bridge.

  As a boy, the bridge had been one of the few really scary places he visited with Mike. Back then, they both knew a malignant presence hid in dark beneath its steps. He walked purposefully over the bridge. Not so long ago he had shared the secret rules of The Crossing with Mike. No looking down, or back, no speaking, no running, and most importantly, no stopping halfway. But that, as they say, was then. Rickety steps led the way down to a path which curved through thick foliage, which had, seemingly, melted into a single, breathing mass. Soon though, they left the trees behind.