Clay

by David Almond

  We fight again. We fall apart. I’m trembling with the effort of it.

  “You couldn’t do it without me,” I say.

  “Could I not?” He spits. “That’s another thing I told you, wasn’t it? But that’s another lie. I don’t need nobody, Davie. I don’t need you.”

  We watch each other in the moonlight, in this place where I’ve played since I was a kid. Felling sleeps all around us. Our creature huddles beside us on the fringes of life. Stephen Rose smirks and sneers, and he tells me about myself.

  “You,” he says again. “Oh, you! I remember seeing you for the first time. There you were in the graveyard, in your neat cassock and your lovely cotta. Here’s a likely-looking lad, I thought.”

  He giggles. He reaches down into the pond, grabs a lump of clay. He stabs eyes, nostrils, mouth into it with his finger. He wobbles the clay in the air, and the pale face shifts through the darkness before me.

  “Hello,” he squeaks. “Hello, Davie.” And he laughs. “Remember, Davie?” he says. “Remember how you said hello back to it. Oh, what a moment that was. This lad’s been sent to me, I thought. Dead ordinary, dead innocent, dead big imagination. This lad might be just the lad I need.”

  He drops the face back into the pond. He reaches out towards me, as if to hold me. He moves his clay-caked hands like he’s molding me. He laughs.

  “You still don’t get it, do you, Davie?”

  He shuffles a little closer.

  “You’re my creature too,” he says. “Just like Clay is.”

  I swing a fist. It misses him. He catches it, lunges at it, bites it, chews it. I shove his head away with my other hand. We fight again, collapse again.

  “You’ve been my plaything, Davie,” he says. “You’ve been my servant.”

  We crouch like animals, on all fours. We glare at each other through the night.

  “But it’s time to move on,” he says. “Time to leave simple stupid ordinary Felling and simple stupid ordinary you.”

  “Go on, then,” I tell him. “Piss off, then.”

  He wipes his face with his sleeve.

  “I will. But before I go, here’s another truth about a lie. About my mother, and my father. So you know a little bit more of what Stephen Rose can do.”

  I watch him and wait. He grins. He knows I want to know.

  “Your mother…,” I say.

  “Is a bag,” he says. “Is a bitch.”

  “She’s ill.”

  “She’s barmy.”

  “She needs you.”

  “I spit on her,” he says. “Pah!”

  And he spits.

  “Here’s the truth about me mother,” he says. “She never wanted me. She never even expected me. Listen to this—she told me that her and my stupid dad never done nowt together for two years before I was born. She told me there was just a month to go before she looked down at her belly and said, ‘Hell’s teeth, there’s a bliddy bairn in there!’”

  “That can’t be true.”

  “Mebbe not in your world, Davie. But in mine…”

  “It can’t be.”

  “Ha! And then she started seeing what it was that’d slithered out of her and she wanted it gone again. Too late. It was that that sent her barmy. That, and being at the table when I killed my dad.”

  He grins. He dares to crawl closer. His face is almost pressing against mine. I feel his breath on me.

  “Aye, Davie. When I killed him. Killed him! Killed him as sure as if I’d stuck a knife straight into his heart. Remember what I told you last time? He was stuffing steak and kidney pud into his stupid face, and she was goggling at the stupid telly and Look North? Aye, that was true enough. A nice little ordinary family scene. But I was staring at his face in horror, because he was ugly and horrible and I was sick of him, and inside I start going, ‘Die, you cretin. Die.’ And he keeps on stuffing and stuffing, and I start letting the words slip out, dead soft at first, ‘Die, you cretin. Die.’ And I let them get louder and he hears them and stares across his pud and she turns her stupid face round from Look North. ‘Aye,’ I tell them. ‘I’m telling him to die,’ and their faces go all shocked, and she comes for me, but I say it loud, ‘Die, you cretin, die,’ and then he does his gagging and his gurgling and his tumble to the floor.”

  He grins again.

  “Who’d believe it?” he whispers. “Who’d believe there’s a son that’s wicked enough to kill his dad? Why, it’s nearly as daft as believing in a God and angels. It’s nearly as daft as believing in a walking lump of clay.”

  I’m silent. I have no answers.

  “I’m not like you, Davie,” he whispers. “I come out of the darkness and the nowtness and I was sent here by something and there is a purpose to me. I’m different from you. I spit on you.”

  And he spits in my face, and I go at him and we fight again, and I press him to the ground, punch him, kneel on his shoulders. I pick a rock up from the ground. I lift it high. And for a moment, he stops struggling.

  “Aye,” he whispers. “Do it, Davie. Smash my face in. I’m waiting. Go on, put an end to me.”

  I can’t move.

  “Do it!” he says. “Mebbe it’ll be better for you and your world if you get rid of me now. You told me you would kill me. So do it!”

  He waits. I feel the rock in my hand. I know it could easily break his skull. But there’s no way I can do it. I let it fall.

  “That’s my Davie,” says Stephen. “You can’t finish me, so just let me go.”

  I roll off him. I see Clay crawling on all fours away from us into the undergrowth.

  “Clay!” I call.

  “Clay!” echoes Stephen, in a high girly mocking voice.

  Stephen gets up, wipes the dirt off himself.

  “I’ve stopped believing in both of you now,” he says. “You were both just tryouts. You were both just steps on me way.”

  Clay crawls further into the darkness, goes out of sight.

  Stephen’s voice follows him.

  “Die, Clay,” he breathes. “Be still, Clay.”

  I catch my breath. Stephen smiles at me.

  “It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” he says. “Die, Clay. Be still, Clay.” He grins. “Die, you cretin. Die.”

  He passes his hands before my eyes.

  “You think you’re so good, don’t you?” he says. “You, that stole the things you thought were the holiest things in the world. You, that butchered a dog. You, that wanted Mouldy dead. You, that helped to make the thing that helped to kill Mouldy. You, that was about to kill Clay. You, that’s got trapped in all kinds of secrets and lies. Well, there’s goodness for you. There’s an ordinary life for you.”

  I gaze into the darkness of his eyes.

  “That’s how I’ve made you, Davie. I found you, I opened you up, and I put evil like a silver locket in your heart.” He smiles. “And here’s one last thought for you to ponder in your ordinary life,” he whispers. “If you’d not run back like a baby to your bed that night, your Mr. Mouldy could be with us still.”

  He passes his hands before my eyes again.

  “It’s over,” he whispers. “Go back to being a simple stupid soul, Davie.”

  Then he’s gone, and there’s just me, alone in the quarry, in the night.

  twenty-four

  I search for Clay. I whisper his name. I crawl on all fours through the undergrowth. I’m about to give up when I stumble across him. I call his name, but he’s dead and gone. I try to pray for him, but what God can I pray to? What God would recognize Clay? It starts to rain as I crouch over him. The water runs across his skin, already carrying him back into the earth. I open him up and search with my fingers in the depths of him. I find the locket, take it out, and close him up again. The rain intensifies.

  “Goodbye, Clay,” I say.

  I hold my face up to the rain. I let it wash the mud and blood and tears away. Then I hurry home. It’s already turning light. Miserable steel-gray clouds hang over Felling. The rain drums
down. I slip into the house. I stand for a moment on the landing. I hear my parents breathing as they sleep. I open their door and look in on them. I wait for them to wake and to see me there. “I’m here,” I whisper, but they hardly stir. I feel like Clay—stiff, heavy, dull—like I’m something at the very edge of life. I feel that I could be washed away, that I could disappear. “I’m here,” I whisper more loudly. There’s no response. Are they dreaming me as I stand there, as I close their door, as I leave them? I go to my room. I hide my clothes. I hide the locket. I look out into the endless night. Who thinks all this? Who believes all this? Who dreams all this? Then nowtness overcomes me, and I sleep.

  FOUR

  one

  Time moves forward, so we’re told. Day leads to night leads to day leads to night. Past, present, future. Child, teenager, adult. Birth, life, death. But sometimes time gets stuck. We can’t move on.

  After the final night in Braddock’s garden, Stephen Rose wasn’t seen again. But the memories kept coming back at me. They kept on happening in my thoughts and dreams, in a kind of endless present. I thought I caught glimpses of Stephen in the crowds on the High Street or in Felling Square. I thought I saw him in the shadows of the graveyard or Holly Hill park, or beyond the boarded-up gates of Braddock’s garden. But when I looked more closely, I was wrong. It was somebody who looked like him, or it was a shifting shadow, or a cat or a bird or a dog, or just a figment.

  In my dreams, Clay stirred again, started to move for the first time again. Stephen kept on whispering in my ear, his hands kept moving across my eyes. Mouldy kept on falling and falling and falling to his doom. I wanted it all to be finished. But it wouldn’t leave me, and I couldn’t forget, and I became a trapped, stupid, useless thing.

  The day after the final night, Crazy Mary came knocking at our door. She was wild-eyed, wild-haired, with tartan slippers and an ancient overcoat on. “Where’s my boy?” she whispered at me. “You’re his friend. Where’s he gone?” I looked at Mam and spread my hands as if to ask her, “What’s the crazy woman on about?” Mam brought her in, she stroked her arm, she tried to calm her down. But Mary kept on babbling: her boy had gone to bed at night, he’d disappeared in the morning. She clapped her hand across her mouth. “I’m not still sleeping, am I?” she said. “There really was a boy? His name was Stephen Rose? And he was sent to me?” Yes, we told her. Yes. “Then where’s he gone?” she asked me. “You’re his friend. What’s become of him?” I kept on telling her I didn’t know. I kept on telling her I wasn’t his proper friend. I glared at Mam: How was I supposed to know? In the end, they prayed together, and Mam looked over Mary’s shoulder and told me to call the police.

  And Sergeant Fox and PC Ground came, and they filled the room, with their massive shoulders and their badges and helmets and their shiny boots. They sat down this time, and swigged tea.

  “He’s a good pal of yours,” said Sergeant Fox.

  “Not good,” I said.

  “Right. Not good. And the last time you saw him was…”

  He licked his pencil and watched me while my mind raced.

  “Couple of days back,” I said. “I went to Crazy…to Miss Doonan’s house.”

  “And what did you do and what did you talk about?”

  “We were in the shed. He showed me his sculptures. Then Miss Doonan made tea for us. Then I came home.”

  “And did he seem upset in any way? And did he talk about going off somewhere?”

  “No. No.”

  “That’s good.”

  He tapped his head and thought.

  “It’s been a strange week for you, son.”

  “Strange?” I said.

  “One lad dying. Now another disappearing.”

  I lowered my eyes.

  “Yes,” I murmured.

  “But don’t worry. It’s easy to disappear. It’s staying disappeared that’s the hardest trick.”

  “We’re on the trail,” said PC Ground.

  “Do you think they’re related in any way?” said Sergeant Fox.

  “Who?” I said.

  “The dead and the disappeared, son. Do you know of any links?”

  He watched me while I thought. I saw Mouldy’s eyes, glaring through the letter box. I felt Stephen’s kiss on my cheek.

  “Did Stephen Rose know Martin Mould?” said Sergeant Fox.

  “He kept away from him,” I said.

  “Did they ever meet?”

  I saw Mouldy teetering on the quarry edge. I saw Stephen’s outspread hand on Mouldy’s chest.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “They were very different types,” said Dad.

  “Very different types,” said Sergeant Fox as he wrote. “Good.” He looked me in the eye. “Now then, young man. We’ll need you to tell us everything you know about Stephen Rose.”

  “Everything?”

  “Everything. We’ll need to know what he’s like deep inside. Like, what’s his true interests? His…passions.”

  “What drives him?” said PC Ground. “And what is it out there in the world that’s tempted him away from Felling and Miss Doonan’s tender care?”

  The sergeant waited, wide-eyed, pencil poised.

  I stared back at him. I searched for words.

  “I know, son,” said the sergeant. “It’s a very difficult question.”

  “Every one of us is a puzzle,” said PC Ground.

  “An enigma,” said the sergeant. “That’s what this job teaches us. Aye, PC Ground?”

  “Aye,” said PC Ground.

  “Of course,” said the sergeant, “we’ll be looking into the weird tales that came with him.”

  “Aye,” said PC Ground. “The legends, as it were.” He leaned towards me with his brows furrowed. “Tell us, son,” he said. “Did you ever see anything strange in him?”

  “Strange?”

  “You saw nowt…”

  I watched them, their waiting eyes, the pencils in their hands. How could I tell them of the strangeness that I’d seen? How could it be scribbled into a notebook?

  “I saw nowt,” I said. “Stephen Rose is just a kid, just like me. Just like all us kids.”

  Sergeant Fox scribbled that down.

  “He’s nowt special,” I said. “But his dad died, and his mam lost her mind, and he was sent all alone to Felling, and he doesn’t fit in. That’s all.”

  “That’s very perceptive, son,” said the sergeant.

  “He’s good at sculpture,” I said. “He makes little statues. They’re brilliant. It’s almost like they’re alive.”

  “Alive?” said Sergeant Fox. “Is that right, now?”

  “Aye,” I said. “He’s an artist.”

  “With a troubled past and a troubled mind,” said Mam.

  “An artist with a troubled mind,” said Sergeant Fox as he scribbled. “I like that.” He stabbed a full stop onto the page; then he shook his head and looked at us. “There but for the grace of God, eh?”

  We led them to the door. They told us not to worry. They said they’d find our Stephen and bring him home to us again.

  two

  I went to Mouldy’s funeral. I stood under the graveyard trees and watched from a distance. A few other Felling folk were scattered around. The mourners came in a Ford Zephyr and a Transit van. His mam stood weeping into her hands. There were a few bulky relatives in black, and a vicar droning just about the same words as Father O’Mahoney would say. Mouldy’s coffin was lowered into the grave that I’d stood beside with Clay. It disappeared from sight; then flowers and soil and water were thrown in after it. I tried to say a prayer for Mouldy; then I found Geordie at my side.

  “D’you think he’s watching us?” he said.

  “Who?”

  “Mouldy, man. From the afterlife.”

  I shook my head, looked around, half expecting to see Stephen Rose watching from the shadows or from beyond the graveyard gate.

  “Even if he is,” I said, “he couldn�
�t do nowt now.”

  “Except haunt us,” Geordie said.

  We watched the mourners. We were silent and scared for a while.

  “Mebbe Mouldy’s ghost’ll start to walk,” said Geordie. “Mebbe kids’ll start to see a great big bliddy monster by the light of the moon in Braddock’s garden.” He tried to laugh. “I’m going to scare my kids with that one once they’re here.”

  The mourners dispersed. The vicar helped Mrs. Mould back to the car. I shuddered. I imagined myself lying silent and still in the earth while my family walked away from me.

  “Still no sign of Stephen Rose, then?” said Geordie.

  I shook my head.

  “Good riddance, eh?” he said. “Bliddy loony.”

  “Aye,” I said.

  We saw Skinner and Poke coming through the trees towards us.

  “Aye, aye, lads,” said Geordie.

  “How do,” said Poke.

  “Poor bugger, eh?” said Skinner, nodding towards the grave.

  “Aye,” we all said.

  We avoided each other’s eyes. We didn’t dare speak our fright.

  “He did have a good side to him,” said Skinner.

  “Aye,” we said.

  “In fact,” said Geordie, “you could say he was a very nice young man.”

  We stifled our laughs.

  “He’ll be sorely missed,” said Poke.

  And we relaxed.

  “Do you want to make peace?” said Skinner.

  “Aye,” said Geordie.

  “OK,” said Poke.

  They all shook hands. I shook hands as well.

  “That’s done, then,” said Skinner. “No more battling.”

  “That’s right, you Pelaw Proddy gits,” said Geordie.

  “You Felling Catholic prats,” said Poke.

  We all pretended to face up to each other, like we were going to start to fight, but we just started giggling.

  “I’m going up to see my Windy Nook mates,” said Geordie. “Mebbe we’ll ploat some Springwellers. You want to come?”

  “Aye,” said Skinner and Poke.

  They all looked at me.

  “No,” I said. I shrugged. “I cannot,” I said.