Feather Boy

by Nicky Singer

  Creak. Cre-eeak.

  It could be the sound of me, because I’ve started walking again and the bare floorboards are bowed here, so they could be creaking. But they’re not. The creak is in some other part of the house. Or maybe outside. It could well be outside. It’s the sound they put in the movies when someone’s hanging on the gallows and they don’t want to show the body so they just have this creak. Creak. No – that’s just my imagination. It doesn’t sound like that at all. It sounds like feet. Someone moving in the house above me. And… and… I’ve arrived at the hall. A big, spacious entrance hall with a patterned tile floor: red, brown, yellow, terracotta, powder blue. At intervals groups of tiles are broken – not cracked but shattered, as though they’ve been smashed with a sledgehammer.

  Creak.

  Four doors lead off this hall. Three of them are shut. I have to get to the stairs, so I can put my back against the wall. I’m far too exposed standing here. Anyone could come from any direction. So why aren’t I moving any more, why am I standing here completely still, paralysed? Because I’m afraid, because if I step in the wrong place, I’ll send tile shards skidding, then they’ll know from the noise that I’m here, and they’ll come for me…

  Creak.

  It’s definitely upstairs. Up the stairs where I’m going. And I am going now. My feet are moving, skirting the smashed tiles, swiftly, almost silently.

  Creak.

  That was me. First foot on the stair and it creaks. So the other creaking must be the stairs too. Must be a person. I put my back against the wall. It’s hard, bumpy, gritty. All the wallpaper has been ripped off and strewn on the stairs. So much paper it’s difficult to see where the stair treads are. So there can’t be people. If there were people going up and down, then the paper would be trodden flat, wouldn’t it?

  Dream. This is what I dreamed. Wallpaper. White going red. I dreamed that something murderous had happened in the house next door to ours in Grantley Street, and though it had happened many years ago, the house remembered and bled. And, because the house is part of a terrace, the bleeding came through the wall. The wallpaper in my room was soaked red. A spreading crimson stain which got bigger and bigger until…

  Creak.

  Half-landing. Something horrible and white and spongy and I’m treading on it. Wallpaper? No. Can’t be. Wallpaper is not this thick. I lift my foot and put it down again – my shoe sinks in. Deep. What is it? Some plastic-coated giant bandage? No, no – stop panicking – it’s just lagging. Just an abandoned old piece of lagging that used to go round a hot-water tank. Don’t ask why it’s here. You don’t need to know. Turn off your thinking button. Just keep going. Keep your back against the wall. And breathe. Remember to breathe.

  Creak.

  Second floor. Creaks must be outside. Otherwise they’d be getting louder, wouldn’t they? Or different anyway. Besides, if they were really footsteps, someone would appear. You can’t walk round a house indefinitely. Walk, walk, walk, I mean, where would you be going?

  Creak.

  Fire door. Hardened glass door in the middle of the stairs blocking my way to the Top Floor Flat, Chance House. No-Chance House. No chance of getting through the large, shut fire door. Thank God. It’s shutting me out. Shutting Edith’s secret in. I give the door a gentle push. There’s the suck of an air vacuum and it opens.

  A flight of stairs. Twelve small steps, that’s all. And me, with my very small brain, going up them. Thump. Thump. Thump. That’s not my feet on the bare treads, that’s my heart banging in my chest. Bang, bang, bang, all the way up to the top. And at the top another door. The door of the flat itself.

  It’s open.

  “Hello,” I whisper.

  Who am I expecting to answer? The ghost of the boy? A man with a beer can? A guy who has a thing about bricks?

  “I can see you.” Even quieter.

  No-one answers.

  I go in.

  The layout of the hallway is similar to that of the ground floor, only smaller – a central square with doors leading off. Four of the doors are wide open and one half open. Without moving, this is what I can see: to my left the ripped out remains of a kitchen; directly in front of me a bathroom, the white toilet and basin both sledgehammered; to the left of that a totally bare room which might have been a living room; and to the right, a room stripped of everything but flowery wallpaper and a mattress. A bedroom presumably.

  The room with the half-open door is the one that looks over the back of the house, the one I know I have to go into, because it’s from that room that you would have to jump if you were going to land on the concrete. Because of the angle of the door, I can see very little from where I’m standing. But I can see the wallpaper. It’s children’s paper. Babies’ paper even. A jaunty, if faded, mother duck with three little ducklings in tow. The pattern repeated over and over. That room must contain a million mother ducks and her little ducklings.

  What else does it contain?

  I have goosebumps. The hairs on my forearms are standing upright, and those on the back of my neck feel like spikes. It’s not cold but there’s something icy rippling up and down my spine. I think it’s fear. Although it could be terror. There’s also something drumming in my ears. If I had to guess, I’d say it was the muffled panic of my own blood, because my hand is on the door handle of the room and I’m opening it, I’m pushing the whole weight of my body into the room where a boy just my age is supposed to have thrown himself to his death.

  And now I’m in. I’m standing in the room, shaking from head to foot, my teeth knocking together like skittles in a bowling alley. And what’s in the room?

  Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No furniture, no light fittings, no carpet, no bodies. Not a single body. Nothing but the million ducks, the three million ducklings and a window. Yes. A window. A window overlooking the garden. Overlooking the concrete. The window has two large panes. One is smashed. A sharp cut-out star of broken glass.

  And of course I’m going towards it to check if it’s large enough for a boy to have fallen through. Even though I know the idea is absurd, because why not open the window? Eh? Why not, if you want to get out? Why chuck yourself through the glass? What would be the point? And in any case, this can’t be the glass. I mean, first thing you’d do if someone chucked themselves out of your window would be to replace the glass. Yes? Yes. Anybody can see that. And I can see the glass. I’m right up to it now. Looking out – where he must have looked. Out into the garden. And I can tell you this – it’s a long, long way down. The scorched earth is just a dot. Even the concrete looks like you could miss it if you weren’t concentrating on exactly where to throw yourself.

  I want to touch the edge of the glass. To feel its sharpness. But I don’t dare. Because all of a sudden I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust myself not to go too far. You know how it is when you stand on the edge of an underground platform and, just when you hear the train coming, you think, oh – I might just throw myself on to the tracks. And – although you don’t, you can’t stop the thought? Well, that’s what I’m thinking. If I get any closer I might just do it. I might chuck myself out. So I step back. Just like you do on the underground platform. Behind the safety of the white line.

  Only here there isn’t a white line. There’s only the ducks and the door. So I make for the door, and I’m running now and I’m not minding about the noise I’m making and I’m making plenty of noise, panting and whimpering and creaking and clattering, and sponge sinking and tile-shard skidding, down and down, right down to the door with the brick and through that to the stripped kitchen and finally back into the garden where I take lungful after deep lungful of air.

  And it’s all so ordinary. It is bright. The sun is shining and there are birds singing. Twittering in the sky. At least I think it’s ordinary until the slow-motion starts. I see a comb in the grass and then I see all the grass as hair. And beyond that, thick ropes of ivy gripping a fallen tree take the shape of a monkey clinging to its mother’s stomach.
And even the discarded microwave becomes a casket, the condensation on the inside of the screen gathering into opalescent jewels joined by a thread of quicksilver where a snail has trailed.

  It’s as though the world has suddenly decided to let me in on some marvellous secret, and is playing with me, gleeful, delighted. Or maybe it’s me that’s delighted. Me that’s been to the top of Chance House and got away with it! I feel light, airy and full of energy. I could skip, I could dance. Well, I could if I had the co-ordination. As it is I’m just sort of wheeling about, dizzying my way towards the gas works and my first lesson with the divine Miss Raynham.

  “Watch it, you!”

  I almost bump into some gentleman with a bull dog. I smile, I wave at him.

  “Sorry!”

  “Youth of today,” he snarls.

  But I’m spinning away. Me – Norbert No-Bottle, hero of Chance House! I waft across the main road, narrowly missing a double-decker bus. A white van comes to a halt with a screech of brakes, but I don’t think it’s to do with me. Because I’m already on the pavement, whirling through the gates of St Michael and All Angels. Going via the churchyard is not as short a route to school as via the gas works but it is more decorative. There are gravestones and flowers and bag-ladies and surveillance cameras with notices that say whatever you do will be captured on film for ever.

  What I do for the cameras is – fall over. I don’t think it’s on account of a gravestone. I think it’s just my feet getting tangled up in each other. Anyhow, I crash to the ground. The two thousand pigeons which have made St Michael and All Angels their home take to the air in a furious beat of wings. My mouth is full of mud and grass and something hard. Two hard things, in fact. Gravel, I think. I sit up and spit. But I can’t see what I have in my palm because my glasses have gone missing in the fall. I scrabble about. I crawl on my hands and knees among the tombstones and then – hallelujah – my specs. I put them on. They are muddy but not broken. I open my palm. The things in there are small chips of white marble. One is streaked with blood, presumably from the inside of my cheek. They’re the sort of chippings you put round flower containers in graveyards, and, as people get picky about things like this, I decide to replace them.

  There is only one grave with similar chippings. I shuffle back to it and deposit my offerings around a vase of fresh daffodils. Then I squint up to see on whose grave I fell.

  The headstone is grey marble and the black words engraved there are: Our beloved son aged 12 years. The date is 1967 and the name of the child is David Sorrel.

  8

  I’m fine in school. Trust me. I’m cool. You’d never know I wasn’t having an ordinary day. I take an enormous interest in Pythagoras (Mr Brand), the bubonic plague (Mrs Greene) and the correct use of the inverted comma (Miss Raynham). This is what I learn: Pythagoras was a Greek mathematician who invented some theory about right-angled triangles and didn’t eat beans because he thought they had souls; the plague, contrary to popular belief, was not carried by rats but by the fleas who lived on the rats; and inverted commas are the punctuation marks that you use to indicate speech in text.

  Wesley says: “Inverted commas look a bit like beans, don’t they Miss Raynham? Do you think they could have souls?”

  “Wesley Parr,” says Miss Raynham, “you are a buffoon.”

  “High praise,” says Niker.

  I go with the flow. I smile, put my hand up, take notes, whatever’s required. I simply don’t have the time to think about anything else. Or anyone else. Certainly not David Sorrel.

  At lunch I’m really normal. Chatting and grinning. Even though it’s sausage casserole, which I hate.

  “Are you auditioning for the wide-mouth frog joke?” Niker asks.

  Which just leaves Friday afternoon games. I’m looking forward to it. Not, you understand, because I’m any good at football. I’m not. In fact, I’m completely hopeless at football. The only time I touch the ball is when someone mis-hits it and it ricochets off me by mistake. I did save a goal once though. But only, I think, because Niker deliberately aimed the ball at my head. And, as we know, he’s good with his aim, Niker.

  Anyway, the reason I’m looking forward to games is because I really have to concentrate when I’m on the pitch; firstly, to keep my glasses on my nose and, secondly, not to fall over Niker’s feet. He likes to trip me. He even does it when we’re on the same side. I think his theory is that it doesn’t much matter to the flow of play whether I’m standing upright or lying flat on my face. Anyhow, it’s a bit of a blow when Miss Raynham comes into the cloakroom after lunch and announces: “No need to change, children. Games is off.”

  “What!”

  “Mr Burke has been taken ill and, in view of the rain…”

  There are wails and moans. I’m one of the wailers. Wesley looks out of the window.

  “It’s only spitting. Mr Burke makes us play when it’s torrential.”

  “Nil desperandum, Mr Parr,” says Miss Raynham. “We are, despite everything, going to have a most entrancing afternoon. Follow me, please.”

  We follow her. I hope we are making for the gymnasium. Basketball is as much of a trial for me as football, and therefore requires as much concentration. And the floor is harder, if you fall on it. Which I do. But no – Miss Raynham leads us to the Art Room.

  “Find your places everyone. Now – as you know, some children have been attending the Mayfield Rest Home. And some very interesting art works are beginning to emerge from the project, so…”

  “No.”

  “What did you say, Robert?”

  “No. No.”

  “You don’t even know what I’m going to ask, Robert.”

  But I do. She’s going to ask us to do Show and Tell. Miss Raynham is going to ask us to “share” our experiences of Mayfield. She’s going to make me speak about Edith Sorrel. And if I speak about Edith I’m going to speak about Chance House and then…

  “I feel sick.”

  Weasel bangs his fist on the art bench. “Fleas.” He makes a show of picking something up between finger and thumb. “Do you think the fleas have got him, Miss Raynham?”

  “Wesley Parr. Stand out.”

  “But Miss Raynham, look at him.” Weasel points at me. “He doesn’t look too good, does he?”

  “He always looks like that,” says Niker.

  “No, seriously. Pasty face. Boils. Sick. It could be the Black Death, couldn’t it? I mean who’s to say?”

  “Wesley Parr – stand out!”

  Weasel stands up.

  “Over there.”

  Weasel moves slowly if jauntily towards the basins. Miss Raynham waits.

  “Right. Thank you, Wesley.”

  “Miss Raynham…” Kate has her hand up.

  “What is it now?”

  “I don’t think Robert does look very well.”

  “Thank you, Miss Nightingale.” Miss Raynham moves swiftly to my side and sticks a nail under my chin. “Florence is concerned about you,” she says.

  “I don’t want to talk about Chance House,” I say.

  “That’s lucky,” says Miss Raynham, removing her finger so fast my head falls on the desk. “Because, no-one’s asking you to.” She beams. “Now, if we could proceed…” She makes her way to the back of the classroom and fingers some pieces of paper on the map drawers. “What have we here?” She turns a piece of paper over. “Oh yes, Kate. Kate Barber, perhaps you’d like to start? Tell us a bit about your Elder and what you’re doing with her.”

  “Him,” says Kate, getting up and taking the paper.

  “Front of the class, now.”

  Kate goes and stands by Mrs Simpson’s desk. She looks uncomfortable.

  “I’m not asking you to declaim Shakespeare, just tell us a little about your Elder and the work you’re making together. You could start perhaps with the man’s name.”

  “Albert,” says Kate.

  “Good. Now tell us something about him.”

  “Well, he’s eighty-two
and he left school at thirteen.”

  “Lucky,” says Niker.

  “Then he earned sixpence a day working first in the saw-mills and then ‘on the building’. He clocked on at half past six in the morning and finished at six at night, with half an hour off for breakfast and an hour for lunch.”

  “Not so lucky, then, perhaps,” says Miss Raynham, meaningfully.

  “And for the artwork we’re collecting songs. Because Albert really likes singing. And you know the story Catherine told, about the Prince who wouldn’t speak? Well, Albert’s idea is that you can sometimes sing things you can’t speak. So if he was trying to break the spell, he might sing to the Prince. And maybe the Prince would sing back.”

  “Good. Good. Thank you, Kate. Can you show us the work?”

  “Well, I can’t sing it, but this is one of Albert’s favourites.” From the paper she recites:

  “The first time I met you, my darling

  Your cheeks were as red as a rose

  But now they’re old and faded

  They’re as white as the whitest of rose.

  Still I love the white rose in its splendour

  I love the white rose in its bloom

  I love that rose, the sweetest that grows

  It’s the rose that reminds me of you.”

  She holds up the paper for us to see. The poem is written in black ink on a square of grey. Around the edge of the picture are sketches of flowers which have yet to be painted.

  “Why have you drawn it on a gravestone?” asks Niker.

  “It’s not a gravestone. It’s a paving stone. Albert’s idea of the path, remember?”

  “Well, I think it’s wonderful,” says Miss Raynham. “Thank you very much, Kate.”

  “Can I do it now?” asks a voice from the basin.