Home Boys

by Beckett, Bernard

  Colin didn’t want to stare and didn’t want to look away. It was as beautiful as it was ugly. As compelling as it was impossible. He waded on through the water and out on to the bank behind her. She still hadn’t heard him. He waited until she had finished and when she stood he coughed, to warn her, but all that did was make her turn quickly, startled. Then she saw it was him and let her arms drop to her side.

  ‘Oh, Colin, you frightened me.’ Colin made no effort to look away. Her small breasts stared back at him, and beneath them her stomach rose gently to the line of her trousers. All Colin could think was how she looked just as she had in the dream.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ She picked up her shirt and pulled it over her shoulders, but she didn’t button it. She bent down and picked up the jersey, which must have still been damp from the night before. Colin watched and didn’t speak. This was a place past his imagination, and for all he knew the language here was different.

  ‘Did you and Dougal decide?’

  ‘Um, not really,’ Colin lied.

  ‘He wants me to go back doesn’t he?’

  ‘I don’t,’ Colin told her, having to look away.

  ‘He’s scared of Ron isn’t he?’ Veronica said. She stepped forward and took his hand in hers, and it felt so normal Colin was almost disappointed.

  ‘He just doesn’t want trouble, that’s all. I don’t either.’

  ‘The cave’s real Colin. I know it is.’

  Colin didn’t want to argue, but even then it was impossible to think of letting Dougal down.

  ‘You haven’t seen it.’

  ‘Why don’t you believe me?’

  Colin swallowed hard and looked to his feet, white and numb with the cold. A bird landed on a rock between them and cocked its head, as if adding to her challenge. Yes, come on. Why don’t you believe her?

  ‘Dougal’s right Veronica. Ron tried to kill me.’

  ‘No he didn’t,’ she replied, without even a blink of doubt. ‘He was just trying to scare you.’

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘He told me.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘I’ve already told you about him. It’s just how he is. It’s why I’m here. It’s why I left.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me that. You didn’t say he could kill me.’

  ‘He didn’t. He wouldn’t. He would have pulled you out. He does it all the time, scares people. It’s how he keeps things the way he wants them. It’s how he keeps control.’

  ‘So what about the others?’

  ‘What others?’

  ‘The three you told us about. You said they went missing.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Dougal thinks, no, we both do. We think that was Ron.’

  Veronica rocked back slightly on her heels then brought her free hand swinging up to his cheek. The crack of the impact split the quiet of the bush and the pain tightened Colin’s sight, so he could only half make out the way her eyes had grown small and certain.

  ‘He would never, ever do that.’

  Colin realised she was still holding his other hand and pulled it free. He raised it to his cheek and felt the slap’s red hot burn. His eyes cleared and he looked at her again, Ron’s daughter, inches from his face, not even blinking. Colin thought back to the time beneath the water. He wanted to believe it. He looked again. Beautiful, certain, dangerous. There was no way of telling which word fitted best.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Dougal won’t believe you. He doesn’t much like to change his mind.’

  ‘I’ll do you a deal then,’ Veronica replied, taking his hand again and pulling him closer, so the back of his forefinger rested against the warm smooth rise of her stomach. The world thickened with excitement, every sense slow and muffled.

  ‘Let me stay just one more day, and I’ll take you to the cave.’

  ‘You don’t know where it is.’

  ‘I do. I just haven’t seen it.’

  ‘Just tell us then.’

  ‘It isn’t that sort of knowing.’

  ‘Why would we want to go there, if it’s so dangerous?’

  ‘To see. Then I’ll go back. I promise. If you want me to.’

  ‘It’s not just up to me. It depends on what Dougal says.’

  ‘Good.’ Her face changed in a moment, as if the other Veronica had never existed. Like the problem was nothing more than a cloud passing quickly across the sky. She buttoned up her shirt with casual speed, as if closing a book at the happy completion of its story. ‘Let’s go and tell him then.’

  Veronica was no more than an inch taller than Colin and the slight turning of her head was enough to bring their lips together. Her mouth was cool and tasted of the stream. Colin felt her arms around his waist and reached out with his own, uncertain how hard to hold her. Then it was finished. She pulled away and smiled, as if it was no more than a game, and for the second time he noticed how he felt so much younger than her, and so much older too.

  ‘Come on then.’

  She led off back through the water and Colin followed close behind, already practising it in his head, the way of convincing Dougal to give them one more day together.

  * * *

  ‘That makes no sense,’ Dougal said, as soon as he had heard the plan. He looked at Colin, who stood with Veronica on the other side of the fire. ‘Does it?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘It doesn’t. She says she came to warn us about the cave, and now she says she’ll take us there.’

  ‘So you’re scared then?’ Veronica challenged.

  ‘I’m not scared of nothing. I’m just not stupid.’

  ‘Just one day,’ Veronica persevered. ‘Aren’t you curious?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what I am curious about shall I? I’m curious why you followed us all this way into the bush. So tell us that and maybe I’ll let you stay.’

  ‘It isn’t just up to you,’ Veronica said, and Colin wished she hadn’t.

  Dougal stared across the smoke at Colin, and the tightening of his mouth spoke of Colin’s treachery plainly enough, before he let the words free. ‘So you’ve already decided have you? You want us to go to this cave of hers?’

  ‘I haven’t decided anything,’ Colin replied.

  Down at the stream, and the whole walk back too, knowing had been easy. Now, with Dougal to face, the sense of it had broken up.

  ‘But you do don’t you? You want to go there.’

  Colin felt Veronica turn to watch as he answered, and he tried to see the truth of it before he spoke. What did he want? For Veronica to stay and for Dougal to be happy. It was simple enough. Two friends in the world now, that wasn’t so many. All he wanted was not to have to choose.

  ‘I want to go there if you do.’

  ‘Why?’ Dougal demanded, not letting him off so easily.

  ‘Because if she’s right, if there’s something there, I want to see it.’

  ‘She says it’s dangerous.’

  ‘We wouldn’t have to go in. It’s your birthday though. You decide.’

  ‘Bloody well will.’

  Dougal stared at them one at a time, taking his time. ‘All right then. These are my rules. We move now, fast as we can, and tonight we don’t put up the fly, even if it rains. And we take turns, keeping watch. And if there’s no cave by tomorrow night, you go. In the dark. We don’t see you again. It’s my birthday and that’s my deal. Do you like it?’

  Veronica didn’t speak her reply. Instead she walked around the fire and took Dougal in her arms.

  ‘Happy birthday,’ she grinned, when he pushed her away.

  ‘Right then,’ he replied. ‘Best we pack up quickly.’

  TEN

  Three

  ‘WHICH way now then?’ Dougal asked. The morning had been overtaken by afternoon, and despite their speed — they’d been going for over two hours — Colin was sure they hadn’t travelled far. Most of that was Dougal’s fault. If he’d let Veronica take the lead, then they wou
ldn’t have had to stop so often, as they did now. But it wasn’t Dougal’s way, to let somebody else make the decisions.

  ‘Um, keep going through there.’

  ‘It’s too thick.’

  ‘Well around it then.’

  ‘Which way around it?’

  The more Dougal let his impatience grow, the more Veronica seemed to pause over her decisions, as if it was a game they were playing. And enjoying it too, that much was plain, and seeing it made Colin happy. Happy that they should be together, all three of them. Happy and together. It should be possible, a thing like that. It had to be possible.

  ‘To the left. No, your left. We’re heading that way.’

  ‘That’s taking us backwards.’

  ‘It’s taking us to the cave.’

  ‘There is no cave.’

  ‘So why do you care which way we’re going then?’

  ‘I don’t. I just don’t like going in circles.’

  ‘You just think we are.’

  ‘I can see where the sun is. That’s not thinking see, that’s knowing. You should learn the difference.’

  Veronica didn’t say any more, just turned back to Colin, who as always was close behind her, and rolled her eyes. That was why she hung back this way, Colin told himself, when she easily could have kept up with Dougal. So she could be with him. So they could share these moments.

  ‘He’s just daft,’ Colin told her, and said no more than that. It was the technique he had settled on, for now. Saying a little but no more. Avoiding anything that might make today wrong, when getting it right had taken so much effort.

  The rain of the day before stayed away and then, teasingly at first, the sun began to shine, heating their backs, their faces, their left sides and then their right; for Colin suspected Dougal was quite right when he said they were going around in circles. And it kept Colin from being happy, or as happy as he should have been, on such a day, with two friends and a direction and only themselves to spoil it. A happiness you could see, watch it take shape in the form of Veronica, the lines of her forearm when she grasped at a branch, the way the smell of the air changed as she passed, but it was a happiness that wouldn’t settle. Because Colin knew Dougal. He knew the fierce stubborness that held Dougal’s mind in place. A deal was a deal was a deal. If there was no cave then there was no them. Veronica would go, and there would be nothing Colin could do about it. Or if there was a cave; if set beneath them, deep down in the damp earth that took the weight of their every step, beneath the shiny-backed beetles and wind-tattered leaves, was a calling only Veronica could hear, then it was enough to keep his mind from happiness too.

  The lower the sun sank the more obvious it was to Colin which way his happiness would stumble. The cave was real. It wasn’t that he believed in it, any more than he believed in his dreams. It wasn’t a matter of belief. It wasn’t believing that made a thing real, in the same way that choosing not to believe could keep a thing from being. Believing had no place here. As Colin walked on he realised he could feel the cave too, and that feeling didn’t come from belief, it came from the place where dreams sat.

  ‘Come on then. Which way?’

  Again Dougal demanded it. Colin looked at him, and noticed how different Dougal looked from the first time they had met. He was taller perhaps, certainly heavier, stronger looking, and his pale skin was hidden by the freckles a life in the wild had drawn upon it. The expressions hadn’t changed though. The same look of certainty, that there would never be a person he’d meet he wouldn’t know more than, and that special look of fear he had, when he didn’t know he was being watched. That hadn’t gone either. In fact, now that they were away from the village, it came more often.

  ‘Wait.’ Veronica paused, but made no show of it. She didn’t close her eyes or sniff the air, or put a hand to ground. Just a moment of uncertainty, a cloud passing over her face, that you’d only see if you were used to watching her. And used to imagining her, when you weren’t.

  ‘That way.’

  ‘It’s real isn’t it? There is a cave,’ Colin said to her, when Dougal had taken his direction and was forging ahead again.

  Veronica stared at him and a smile took her mouth, but the top lip stayed curled under it, like beneath the thought was a sadness that couldn’t be left alone. She nodded and took his hand, and although her grip was strong and she squeezed it hard, Colin still felt the trembling of her fingers. Up ahead Dougal had encountered gorse and was making his displeasure known.

  ‘How can it be your magical powers can see caves but they can’t see gorse?’ his unseen voice demanded.

  ‘The gorse isn’t calling us,’ Veronica shouted back.

  ‘Then why are we in the middle of it?’

  ‘It’s only you who is.’

  ‘I’m only going the way you told me.’

  ‘I didn’t tell you to go with your eyes closed did I? I think you should go left again, up that bank.’

  ‘I’d already worked that out, actually, and I don’t have no magical powers.’

  Veronica turned back to Colin again, and this time there was no part untouched by her smile.

  ‘Your friend’s funny you know. You both are. You make me laugh. Perhaps I’ll take you both with me, and then when I need cheering up, you’ll always be there. What do you say to that?’

  And Colin was so uncertain how that made him feel that he didn’t trust himself to answer, lest the wrong part of him might speak.

  ‘How close are we?’

  ‘Closer than this morning.’

  ‘We will find it though, won’t we?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  What was left of the day took them farther north, mostly following the curve of the narrow central range, and at one stage dropping back to the east where they once again caught a glimpse of the sea. It was then Dougal’s doubt was the loudest, and looking down at the cold grey of waves, foaming white where an evening change in the weather pushed them hard against the shoreline, Colin shared his uncertainty. But then, so did Veronica. She walked on ahead and signalled back with her hand that they should not follow. At a slight rise, still in view but out of earshot, she covered her eyes with her hands and her outline stood motionless in the gusting wind.

  ‘Ah, look at her now,’ Dougal mocked. ‘Playing up to it, like she thinks we’re stupid.’

  ‘We still have to follow her though, ’til tomorrow. That was the rule.’

  ‘I know. Not saying it isn’t. I’m just saying she’s stupider than her mother, and maybe more dangerous than her father. That’s all.’

  ‘You like her,’ Colin said. ‘I can tell.’

  ‘Didn’t say I don’t, did I? Look, she’s decided again.’

  Veronica waved them on and the boys ran shoulder to shoulder to reach her.

  They walked until it was dark, back down into the bush. Proper trees this time, tall and proud, not the thick tangle of regenerating scrub to the south. Dougal chose the sleeping spot and refused to go back on his decision not to put up the fly, even though the air had turned cold and was flecked with misty rain. He also decided which of the food they could afford to eat, cold and not enough, and the order in which they would complete their watches. Veronica suggested a fire and he quashed that too, because he could.

  ‘But we could sit around it and tell stories,’ Veronica argued.

  ‘Perhaps we’ve had enough of your stories,’ he replied.

  ‘It’ll keep us warm while we’re on watch.’

  ‘Cold’ll keep us awake. I’m not going to make it that easy for your father you know. Don’t think I will.’

  ‘He isn’t following us. I’ve already told you.’

  ‘Same as you’ve told us there’s a cave.’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  * * *

  Dougal took first shift, leaving Colin and Veronica to lie together beneath the token protection of a bent fern. Colin waited for Veronica to start the talking, sure that she would, but all he heard was her breathing. And when h
e tried to think of a way of starting it himself, no words came, only pictures. Her hair, her smile, the taste of her kiss, the curve of her breasts, the lift of her step and the sparkle in her eye, when an idea visited. And you can’t build a sentence out of pictures. It was made no easier by how close she lay, so their warmth mingled, even if their thoughts didn’t.

  ‘It’s not like this in London,’ he finally started, when the line of silent seconds grew too long, each one a chance slipping by forever.

  ‘What isn’t?’ Veronica asked. A reasonable question to which he had no answer.

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose it is,’ she replied, puzzled.

  ‘Shut up will you?’ came Dougal’s voice out of the darkness; redundant, for the conversation had expired without him.

  ‘Why?’ Colin shouted back, glad at the chance to stop a new silence from descending.

  ‘You’re supposed to be sleeping.’

  Colin, already angry at himself, had no trouble turning on his friend.

  ‘Excuse me please,’ he whispered to Veronica. ‘There’s things need saying.’

  He stumbled the ten dark yards to Dougal’s vantage point, atop a waist-high rock.

  ‘What are you doing with all your commands?’ Colin demanded of his friend.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘You do. You’re not the only person who can have an idea you know. You can’t tell me when to sleep. I’m not letting you.’

  ‘Someone has to make the decisions. It makes sense doesn’t it? If you talk you don’t sleep. And then you’ll be asleep during your watch, and then there isn’t any point having a watch is there?’