Home Boys

by Beckett, Bernard

  ‘There isn’t any point any way. I don’t know what we’re meant to be watching for.’

  ‘Her father. I’m only trying to protect you. You’re the one he tried to drown.’

  ‘She says he isn’t following us and I believe her. That’s two against one.’

  ‘She doesn’t get to vote. She’s a guest. And we’re blood brothers, so we can’t disagree.’

  ‘Okay, but it isn’t your birthday tomorrow. Remember that.’

  ‘I’ll wake you when it’s your turn.’

  ‘I’ll go, but I’m not sleeping,’ Colin told him. ‘No one can make me sleep.’

  ‘It’s good she’s going tomorrow you know,’ Dougal replied. ‘She’s making you soft in the head.’

  ‘It’s not just me,’ Colin said, and the words didn’t mean anything until he heard them out loud, and the quiet that followed them like an exclamation mark.

  ‘Just go.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Colin whispered, bumping into Veronica’s back with his knee as he lay down, at once certain he wouldn’t be able to find the comfortable position he had left. ‘He just gets a bit funny sometimes. That’s all.’

  Veronica said nothing in return, and Colin grew a little braver. ‘He said you make me soft in the head, but I think he’s just jealous, that you and me can talk like this, and he can’t.’

  Colin stopped and listened for her reply, but none came. Only the rise and fall of sleep. Dougal had won again, the way he always did. Colin wriggled his hip to make a cavity in the dirt, but the stones moved with him and only grew harder. He tried to clear his mind and take dreams of Veronica to sleep with him, but his thoughts remained sharp-edged and agitated. He could imagine Dougal sitting up, alert to his discomfort, smiling.

  Sleep, when it did come, was thick and unimaginative, and when Dougal’s foot found his back two hours later Colin woke feeling tired and grumpy.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Your turn.’ Dougal made no effort to speak quietly.

  ‘Sssh. You’ll wake her.’

  ‘I already am,’ Veronica said, with the false certainty of one who has only just woken. ‘Is it my turn to watch?’

  ‘No, it’s Colin’s.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘No, but I do,’ Dougal told her. ‘You stay sleeping.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ she repeated. ‘Colin, I could do it with you if you like. We can talk and keep each other awake.’

  ‘And keep me awake as well,’ Dougal complained.

  ‘We’ll be quiet,’ Colin told him.

  ‘There’s no point being on watch, if the people you’re watching for can hear you.’

  ‘Get some sleep,’ Veronica told him. ‘So you’re not so miserable in the morning.’

  Colin was glad his friend couldn’t see his smiling.

  ‘What do you want to talk about then?’ Colin whispered, when they had settled into their watching position, sitting close, knees drawn up, each with their forearms rested across them, touching at their hands, and where their backsides splayed against the cold rock. Happiness had returned, warmer than the night was cold, lighter than the darkness was heavy. And it would last until the light came. Morning was his only enemy.

  ‘Remember when we were collecting seaweed, and we told each other secrets? Tell me another one. Let’s both tell each other one more secret.’

  ‘Does it have to be true?’

  ‘Course it does. Otherwise it’s not a secret is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose not.’

  ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘All right then. Let me think.’

  But it wasn’t a time for thinking. It was a time for instincts, for opening his mouth, and trusting the sounds it makes.

  ‘There’s my dad. He’s why I’m out here. He’s not right in the head.’

  ‘Like Mary?’

  ‘No, not like Mary. Different. Like he’s simple. He wasn’t always like that, that’s what Mum said, but then Mum went away, when I was up north. I think it was the war that did it. They met before the war. The Great War, not this one, you know. I came back from up north and there was only Dad, and he wouldn’t tell me where she’d gone, and I don’t think I want to know.’

  ‘So what was it like, up north?’ Veronica asked.

  ‘It was grand. As grand as this almost…’

  And the story floated, the way a good story does. Through the whispers which snagged on the wind, and had to be untangled, through the tears that flowed, and the hand that moved up his arm and squeezed his bicep tight, and later found its way around his back, and pulled him even closer.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ was all she said, when the war had finished and his mother gone and he was on the ship again, ready to dream of Gino, and the story was as finished as it could be. She didn’t ask any more questions, or try to add anything useless.

  ‘Your turn then.’ Colin sniffed and wiped his nose with his sleeve. ‘Tell us another one of your secrets.’

  ‘You have to promise not to tell Dougal.’

  ‘I know that. That’s what a secret is.’

  ‘All right.’ She paused, and in the gap before speaking Colin felt a dread rising inside. That was the price he paid for feeling this good, knowing how quickly it could turn.

  ‘I lied about the cave.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not properly. I didn’t make it all up,’ she quickly corrected. ‘The stories are real. That bit’s true, and people do go missing, and some people believe in it, but not me. I don’t believe any of it, and I don’t know where I’m leading you. I just did all that, so that …’

  She left it hanging there, not good and not bad. Not yet. The silence lasted long enough for Colin to notice a numbness in his legs, and hear a rising breeze disturb the trees.

  ‘So how come …’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You must know. You don’t just make things up.’

  ‘I do, sometimes.’

  ‘You’re not telling the truth. That’s not fair.’

  Colin had his arm round her too, but her shoulders were broad and it stretched him at the chest to do it, making him feel like a child playing a grown-up’s game.

  ‘I was running away, that’s all. I wanted to leave, I wanted to get out of there, but I didn’t want to be by myself did I? And I knew you wouldn’t just let me stay, not without a reason.’

  ‘Well it was a stupid story wasn’t it? Because tomorrow, when we don’t find it, Dougal will make you go.’ And Colin might have felt more tears, but he’d used them all up on his father.

  ‘He might not.’

  ‘Why? Why did you have to run away?’

  ‘You know,’ she replied, and although it wasn’t quite true, Colin left it alone.

  ‘There is a cave,’ he said instead.

  ‘Don’t be so thick.’

  ‘I can feel it.’

  Veronica laughed then, and squeezed him to let him know how good the joke was.

  ‘He feels a lot of things you know.’ It was Dougal’s voice, so close and unexpected Colin jumped at the sound of it, and tumbled forward off the rock. He turned to see Dougal climbing up behind him and taking his place next to Veronica.

  ‘Sorry, I forgot how scared you get.’

  ‘I wasn’t scared.’

  ‘Why did you jump then? Exercise?’

  ‘You’re meant to be asleep.’

  ‘You’re not my mother.’

  ‘You can’t just make rules up. That’s not fair,’ Colin looked up at Dougal’s dark shape, splitting in two the best feeling he had ever felt. The anger was real this time, too strong to be breathed away.

  Colin went straight for Dougal’s feet, grabbing at them and pushing up, toppling his friend, off the rock and into the bush behind. Veronica said something then, but Colin didn’t hear it. Every sense was used up, scrambling onto the rock, searching the darkness ahead of him, launching himself again at Dougal’s shoulders, just as Dougal tried to get back to his feet.
They hadn’t fought this way since becoming blood brothers; twisting and turning in the frantic darkness, kicking and punching, numb to the contact of bone on bone. Colin felt Dougal’s fingers on his face, groping for the cavity of his eyes. The boys were evenly matched now, and it would have been slow to finish, if Veronica hadn’t joined in.

  She didn’t speak. She didn’t tell them to stop or try to prise them apart. She was just there, amongst them, pushing and grabbing and adding her warm weight to the melee, as if it was some sort of game. And then, without a word of discussion or apology, that’s what it was. A game. Punches became pushes, holds loosened, and Colin felt his anger change shape and become that other feeling he had no name for. And it must have been the same for Dougal, because his attack softened too, and the point to the struggle was lost amongst the giggling. It lasted longer than Colin expected, or could understand, and when the movement finally stopped, it was Veronica who pulled herself free first. She stood, breathing heavily, arched her back in a slow stretch, then hauled herself back onto the rock.

  ‘I miss wrestling,’ was all she said. ‘We used to do it all the time, me and David. Come on you two, there’s plenty of room up here.’

  It was a tight fit. Colin moved first and claimed the spot where he had sat earlier, which felt like a small victory. Dougal took his place on the other side, pushing all three closer together.

  Nothing was said; the only sounds were the sound of the wind, and the sound of their breathing returning to normal. And the sound too inside Colin’s head, of the thoughts he was thinking, and trying to turn to words, before Dougal could beat him to it, and say something that would make Veronica laugh. She spoke first.

  ‘Perhaps we should all face a different direction, if we are to keep a proper watch.’

  ‘You two wouldn’t have noticed anything anyway, with all your talking,’ Dougal replied.

  ‘How long were you there?’ Colin asked.

  ‘Long enough.’

  ‘Then you owe us a secret,’ Veronica announced. ‘Come on. If you want to stay you have to tell us one. That’s the price.’

  ‘What sort of secret?’ Dougal asked.

  ‘Doesn’t matter. It just has to be something we don’t know.’

  ‘I don’t have any secrets.’

  ‘Tell us about the fire then,’ Colin challenged. Colin waited for him to say no, say, there’s nothing to tell, the way he had every other time, but instead he said nothing. It was Veronica, warm between them, who was doing it, drawing their stories out.

  ‘All right then. It’s not exactly true Colin, what I told you before.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Don’t interrupt him.’

  Another pause, longer than the first.

  ‘I was born here. And he did own it, the land around here, my Dad. And then we went back to Scotland, just him and me, the way I told you, and Dad sent me out here, to keep an eye on the farm he said. But it wasn’t like I told it after that. After that everything changed.

  ‘See, I’m not like you. I didn’t mind coming here, not at first. I know you say how your dad’s simple and everything, but mine’s not. Mine’s known for how sharp he is, right through the Glen, but I don’t think that’s any better. He’s vicious, sometimes, and the older I was the better I got at bringing it out of him. It’d come up from nowhere, his rage, and disappear again, just as quick. So when he told me I was coming here, all the way to the very end of the world, all I could think was, well I’m going away from you, so it wasn’t such a sad thing.

  ‘He was a manager, that’s what I’d been told. James was his name, and his wife was called Anne, and although they were both well past old enough they didn’t have any children. It was just them and me, and the other people who came and went to clean and cook and help on the farm. James was okay, at first. He was good to me, showed me how to do things and didn’t shout or get angry or hit me when things went wrong. And I liked it, working on the farm. It’s different you know, than back home.

  ‘At first Anne was good as well. She was shy, or nervous, or something like that. She’d often apologise halfway through saying things, or look away if she saw me watching her, but shy’s all right I think. She was kind of pretty and very kind. She cooked our food, and aways asked me questions and made sure I was involved in all the conversations, when we were in the house.

  ‘But, it wasn’t quite right. I knew that from the start. From the very beginning I knew it wasn’t quite right.’

  Dougal spoke the words flatly, and although the pace didn’t alter, Colin felt the story turn. Maybe it was knowing where this was going, maybe it was the dream and the flames and the Grey Man. Or maybe just the wind.

  ‘Perhaps you were just missing home,’ Veronica suggested.

  ‘It wasn’t quite right,’ Dougal continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘I can’t tell it exactly, how it was, because there’s things you can’t explain, and that’s why I don’t always laugh at all your dreaming Colin. Not as much as I might. I could just tell. It was like they were real, and I was real, but me being with them wasn’t real. It was like we were all on our best behaviour all the time, just pretending. And although they were always talking to me, in the most friendly ways, after a while I realised we’d run out of things to say to each other, and all the conversations we had were all the conversations we’d had before.

  ‘When I ran off with you Colin, we could talk forever and never run out of things to say, and I might not tell you everything straight away, but there’s nothing I’d think I’d never tell you. But with them almost everything was like that. They asked me polite things about Scotland, but nothing else. And they didn’t tell me things about themselves. They might tell me the chickens had stopped laying, or they’d ordered a new truck, but they wouldn’t tell me any of their stories.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound so bad,’ Veronica told him, but she was ignored. This story was for Colin.

  ‘I don’t know when I worked it out. I hadn’t worked it out totally, but when I saw it, it didn’t come as a surprise. I realised straight away. I was allowed to wander as much as I liked, and I did, because it was better than being with them. There was a family further down towards the coast, the Jacobs, and I used to talk to them quite a lot. They asked me to dinner a few times and Anne and James didn’t seem to mind too much that I went. Then one Saturday, Mrs Jacobs asked me if I’d like to go to church with them, said they could pick me up in their truck the next morning, and I said yes, mostly because it was a trip away.

  ‘Anne got out my best clothes when she heard, so she can’t have known. I sat up in front, next to Mrs Jacobs, and the children were in the back. It was the same church, the one we went to, but we drove down from the other way. I first got the feeling as we drove up over the rise, and saw the place where everyone parks. It was as if I’d been there before. Everything was so familiar. The white church, the noticeboard, the cemetery. Then I realised. Dad had described it to me. He’s good with descriptions. He’d described the house and the farm and he’d got that right too. But it took me a while to understand why he’d told me so much about the church. I was inside, stuck in the middle of all that praying, and the priest started saying prayers for all the people who had died, and that’s when I remembered. When Mum died, that’s where they buried her. In the cemetery, next to the church. And Dad told me all about the funeral, one time when he’d been drinking, when he wasn’t hating me, and that’s how he’d come to describe the church.

  ‘So as soon as mass finished, and all the people were doing their talking together out the front, I went through the little gate, just to see.’

  Dougal sniffed loudly and gave a long slow breath out before finishing the tale.

  ‘But she wasn’t there. That wasn’t where they’d buried her. They hadn’t buried her there because she isn’t dead. My Mum isn’t dead. She was still as alive as you and me, and living with James and calling herself Mrs Rutherford, when that’s not her name at all. She didn’t get sick
when I was little, she ran off with him and left Dad with me. And I don’t blame him now for hating me, because hating’s easy to do, if you let yourself.

  ‘I asked James first, and he didn’t deny it, or look all that surprised. He told me not to tell my Mum I knew; he said she wanted it that way, and then he went back to the fence he was fixing, like it was nothing important. I didn’t see how it would matter telling her, and I wanted to know stuff. But all she did was break down and cry, and hold me, and that was when James walked in.

  ‘I told you not to tell her,’ was the first thing he said. Then he turned on her and started shouting, and telling her how it was a stupid idea, bringing me over, and how he knew it would only be trouble, digging up the past. I thought he was going to hit her, so I stood up to him, and he hit me instead. After that everything changed. He was a bastard to me, all the time. I got all the worst jobs, there was no more pretending, and at night, when they didn’t know I was listening, they argued. Mostly it was him, telling her I had to go, and her saying no, and him asking why she’d ever left, if that was how she felt, and her never having an answer to that.

  ‘And she’ll think I’m dead now. She’ll think I died in the fire, and that’s neat and tidy isn’t it? That’s exactly the way it should be.’

  ‘You killed him didn’t you?’ Colin asked, even though he didn’t have to. The dream of fire draped itself over his memory.

  ‘He often stayed up late. He liked to read in the study. There was a key to the study door, so one night I took it, and when he was in there I locked him in without him knowing. Then I set the fire going. I woke Anne, pulled her out of bed, saved her life I suppose, but as soon as she was clear I pretended to run back inside, to get James, She called for me not to but it didn’t matter, because I climbed straight back out the first window and then I ran. So no one’s looking for me because they think I’m dead, and that’s a good way to be I figure. So there’s my secret. Now you know it.’

  * * *

  Some time in the night the weather changed. Colin woke to a grey heavy sky; the full round clouds of sweat and thunder gathering overhead, pressing warm thick air all around him. Veronica was still asleep, curled in the same postion she had crawled to, when Dougal’s story had finished and left them with nothing more to say. Dougal was already awake, sitting up on the rock from the night before, although in daylight it looked smaller. Dougal looked smaller too; thinner, paler, less substantial. He heard Colin approaching but didn’t look up. His eyes were set squinting on the eastern horizon. Colin looked, but could see nothing but the weather.