by Melvyn Bragg
Og had not hit him again and with Annie between them Joe felt safe. Did this mean that it was Annie who had saved him and he was still a coward?
‘I want you two,’ said Annie, again out of some remembered scene, ‘to be friends.’
‘With that canary?’
Joe, whose right hand had obediently begun to curve into the shake position, knew that although it could scarcely be said to have started with Annie Fleming, it was all over.
‘You,’ said Og, jabbing his right index finger at Joe’s face, ‘go. Go now.’
He did not rub the back of his head until he got round the corner. By then, he was shaking.
On the way home he took a deep breath passing the end of Water Street and walked towards Johnston’s shop as if he were on a tightrope. The blinds were up but the large sheets of glass still gave a good reflection. He forced himself to stop. Among the clogs and boots and the shoes and slippers and Wellingtons, there he was, just as he was, intact. He ran the rest of the way.
It happened a few mornings later. And then again. Catch sight of himself, the flight, the what he was bolted out. Avoid windows. Avoid long bike rides alone. But there was no avoiding night.
I’m sorry, Miss Snaith.’
The music teacher looked at the wounded palm without pity. 'It doesn’t seem much more than a scratch to me.’
He knew he should have had the nerve to make the cut deeper. But he thought rubbing dirt in it might make it go septic and make it swell up like his boils and then there could be no questioning his incapacity.
'It’s time we started getting ready for the next exam.’
'I know, Miss Snaith.’
‘This is a very important one for you, Joe. It will take you through.’
Joe looked at the sonata he was supposed to have polished and managed an unconvincing sigh.
‘Let me have another look at that hand.’
Miss Snaith inspected it once more and then she took out a lace- edged handkerchief from the sleeve of her heavy brown cardigan and rubbed his hand, quite hard. It looks nothing when you clean it up,’ she said. ‘I think you can play.’
It was an order. Miss Snaith was cunning enough to say that he played it creditably, she told him where he ought not to rush, she admitted the difficulty of the piece and demonstrated, as she always did and in such a way that made it easier for him.
‘We had a good lesson after all,’ she said, as he left. ‘Just put a dab of Germolene on that scratch and you’ll come to no harm.’
Again he was transparent.
He went down the stairs with the lavender musty smell so particular to the Miss Snaiths and was exultantly goodbyed by the Miss Snaith in the shop, and came on to the lamplit street with a feeling of the music still in his head, but an obstinacy had set in.
The energy had slipped away. Perhaps it had been going for some time - the practice in his aunt Grace’s house was more and more of an imposition and Colin there, not always but often enough, to tempt him out on the motorbike or for a walk upstreet when he really needed to get back or see Alan.
Miss Snaith was very nice, underneath, and he wanted to please her by doing this big exam but he knew that he could not and would not.
Telling his mam would be the hard bit. Especially as Miss Snaith had driven classical into him with attitudes like commandments and notes like nails - so that he was nervous and lacked fluency in front of the popular music his mother wanted him to play.
He would tell her he would keep it up by himself, get some sheet music, learn the new songs, perhaps play in the Singing Room, relieve Jack Ack, they could play together, start a small band, make ten bob a time, instead of spending that money on lessons, it would be far better. Miss Snaith would never let him do that.
First off he would learn ‘Galway Bay’.
After about a fortnight of the new fear he went into the bathroom, locked the door and stood in front of the mirror over the wash-basin. His plan was just to stand there.
It happened soon. The life went out of him. There was this head. In the mirror. A head of someone. It did not belong to him. What was him was not in the mirror. The head was strange to him. Like stone. If he did not stand absolutely still there was no doubt like the light in the corner that an end would come. You were looking at not you. He stood still. Still as he possibly could. No move. The face in the mirror he did not recognise. How long could he last out?
He was bent over the basin. He turned on both taps, filled the basin and submerged his face in the water and held his breath for as long as he could. Then he pulled out, covered his face with a towel and after he had rubbed it very hard, he threw the towel away, did not look in the mirror, went into his room and turned on the wireless to find songs he could sing to.
‘Everybody’s getting together for the Coronation,’ Ellen read from the local paper.
Sam made a political noise, one which signalled that the communication had been received but pointed out that it was not going to disturb his reading. The last hour of the night on a weekday had become book-time not lightly interrupted.
‘Collections are being made house to house of sixpence or a shilling per house. One committee’s already raised forty pounds, another’s got fifty and it doesn’t even happen until next year. It’s marvellous, isn’t it?’
‘They’re starting soon enough, I agree,’ he said, rather drily Ellen thought.
‘There’ll be an interdenominational service,’ she read out, ‘dances, a whist drive, a choral concert and a carnival, free dinners for old people, tea and sports for children, Redmayne’s Social Club and the Townswomen’s Guild and the Rugby Club have all promised assistance. There’ll be six dances and a queen chosen at each and a coronation queen chosen out of the six …’
Ellen spoke aloud, but softly. It was a habit she indulged only occasionally and Sam had no trouble coping with it. It was a habit, though, often as not brought on by a wish to talk which was neutralised by a decision of equal force that talking would not help. The edited extracts from the newspaper satisfied both drives.
While reading aloud she was thinking, unhappily, about the masks of Zorro. Joe had awarded himself a day off after four days out potato-picking. None of his pals had joined him in the work and he felt cut off from their half-term games - set-gaps, bike scrambling, hours of football He had felt like an intruder. Into his own gang. They were not interested in potato-picking adventures however he embroidered them. He told them that his mother had made them all half masks like those worn by Zorro.
He had arrived in the pub in the late afternoon in a frenzy. He demanded that Ellen make him the six black masks. Immediately. Urgently. It was vital. He was whimpering with the fret of It. She could not remember ever seeing him in such a state. There were the blinds, he said, the black blinds they had used in the war, he had seen them in the bottom of a cupboard, surely they could make six masks but it had to be quick. He found the blinds, he got the scissors, he called her upstairs to the barely used parlour. She was alarmed at the state he was in, on his knees, clipping the material clumsily, angrily. She took the scissors and asked him what the Zorro masks looked like exactly and he had begun to shout, as there was knocking at the door, he would not go down, asked her to look out of the window, his friends, she said, his gang, she was pleased at the way they stuck together, all of them, Alan, Paul, Edward, George, Malcolm and John, standing outside, don’t go down, he pleaded, please don’t open the door, please. They knocked again.
She went down. They left. When she came back upstairs the scissors lay open on the cut black blind and Joe was in his bedroom. ‘Don’t come in,’ when she tried to open his door. ‘Please don’t come in,’ There was that in the tone which anguished her but she retreated.
He had lied. He had lied and been caught out. He had lied and been caught out by them and now by her. He had lied and was now in a thrash of misery, trying to do something about it.
The vehemence of it all had shaken her.
“An a
rt exhibition will be staged and all schools will be asked to take part,”‘ she announced. ‘ “Townspeople are also to be asked to lend articles of interest.” Well, I think Wigton’s doing her proud and so it should.’
Why was he so very upset?
‘Another cup of tea?’
Sam moved his head marginally from side to side.
Why such lies for such a thing as masks?
She rustled the paper recklessly but his concentration was rapt.
‘The Quiet Maris on,’ Sam said, without looking up. ‘I was thinking of taking Joe, tomorrow afternoon.’
‘To Carlisle?’
‘It’s been known.’
He appeared to be reading just as intently. A page was turned over.
It’s that film about a boxer. Isn’t it?’
‘That’s why I’m taking him. That and Maureen O’Hara.’ He looked up and grinned. ‘She has a look of you, Maureen O’Hara.’
‘Hm!’ But vanity had been teased. ‘I suppose you might just say that I have a look of her.’
‘No.’ Sam’s smile held and so did his gaze when he had sought out and secured hers. ‘She has a look of you.’
Ellen was warmed. Emboldened she said, ‘Are you worried about him?’
‘Why should I be?’
‘Taking him to the pictures.’
‘Is that not allowed?’
‘It’s unusual, Sam, and I can see you’re not really reading now.’
He looked up. ‘Maybe I should have taken him once or twice before.’
‘So you are worried.’
‘No, not basically.’ Sam frowned. ‘He’s having a bit of a rough ride at present but if he has anything about him - and he has - he’ll get through it on his own and that’s far and away the best thing. It’s no good interfering, Ellen. Makes them soft.’ He tried to keep criticism out of his tone.
‘He won’t be persuaded to keep on with the piano.’
Something in Sam’s attitude made her add, ‘You think I kept on at him too much about it, don’t you?’
‘Sometimes it just sets up a contradiction. Especially as the lad has spirit.’
Ellen was silent, seeing some justice in that.
‘Better to stand aside. There’s hopes I find myself having for him,’ Sam went on, ‘but I think they’re more about me than him: you can’t live somebody else’s life. Sometimes I think I want to sit him down and tell him everything I missed that he could have and all the mistakes he needn’t make and he would listen. But it’s always better to stand aside, Ellen. If he wants anything, he’ll shout out. He’ll always bruise easy.’
She was glad she had not told him about the masks.
‘You think too much is being made about the Coronation, don’t you?’
He was back in his book. One hand went up, a policeman stopping traffic. ‘I’ll not be drawn, Ellen. Good business practice.’
Upstairs she heard the music. She went up. His light was still on. The wireless turned on low. Deep asleep. Unclouded, she thought, looking at the face devoid of animation. Better to let the whole thing pass. Least said, soonest mended. He was looking much more like Sam now, she thought.
He imagined that he was the Man in the Iron Mask. He could feel the cold metal heavy pressed against his face, the nose slits were narrow, the mouth a mere slash; his breathing filled the mask with a constant heavy surge of sound. His head would burst if he did not get out. The metal was melting on to his skin.
He had wanted to sob while he was reading Jane Eyre. He was scared to go into his bedroom at night. He was scared to go past the shop windows. He was scared to bike out of the town alone and beyond the comfort of houses. There were days of freedom and times when he thought he might have been absolved, but it was never long before he was pulled back. There were times when a sentimental song seeped through the floorboards from the pub below and he felt that he might cry his heart out.
Christmas was coming. Maybe if he prayed and prayed on Christmas Eve at the mass, maybe he would be let off. He would go carol singing with Alan, who was not much of a singer but liked the money and it was now unthinkable to go alone. The money would give him enough to buy presents for everybody; good presents, boxes of soap, aftershave, boxes of scent, good biros, a pack of cards, take her the bottle of stout, go with his dad who took miniatures to the workhouse, he would surely be let off.
There was a late afternoon, dark already, Christmas week, alone in his narrow bedroom, wrapping the presents, when he came across a strip of metal. It said J. RICHARDSON. WIGTON. He remembered punching it out, at Silloth, and how pleased he was to use up all the twenty-one chances. GAP J GAP RICHARDSON GAP WIGTON GAP. That’s how it really read.
He looked at the name as if mesmerised by it. It seemed to peel away. The life fell from him the harder he looked. GAP - GAP - GAP -GAP.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
His bedroom resembled a cell. You came in, the single bed was jammed against the wall on the left; about as much space again made up the width of the room. Beyond the bed were three items of furniture: a small chest of drawers, a wardrobe and a three-shelved bookcase. The floor was lino - red and yellow squares. The curtains were yellow and flowery. The wallpaper was also ornamented with flowers. Out of the window he saw Market Hill on which there was always, in daytime, some movement. The buses now used it, which was illegal, said Mr Carrick, Market Hill belonged to the people of Wigton. Beyond the hill he could see the fields behind which lay the baths. There was a telephone box directly across from the pub and a street-light.
Somewhere in his mind he realised - in a fragile, intermittent, all but blind manner - that this room was where he had to fight. If he could not brave being here alone without running out to the stairs or being in a locked terror, if he could not hold his ground here, then there was no hope.
He did not realise this in any worked-out way. There was no plan. Sometimes there were days on end when hostilities ceased. Usually, though, over the next eighteen months to two years, he was, in so far as he was able, fighting it through in that room.
It was easy not to go on long solitary bike rides. It was not hard to avoid windows and mirrors, although even the merest accidental reflection could unbolt him now. His name was still so strange to look at but there were few occasions when he had to.
It was the night which was always waiting for him, the night and that time just before sleep when the attack, if it were on, would begin.
He would come up to the room as late as possible, rush his prayers, still dressed, change in the bathroom, come back and be in bed so fast he would beat it. Sometimes it worked. Or go up very early, with his supper on a tray, put on the wireless, find music, have a book, read until he was heavy-headed, read beyond that, let the story become a world that filled his head, with the music, so he could feed on them when the tiredness forced him to turn to sleep. If he could think about the book and replay the music in his head then that was better than a fortress. The light left on. But there would always be a time when it was turned off.
Spring and summer helped, the curtains left partly open, the window open too so that voices from outside, clear voices outside the room, not the seethe of noise below which was part of the room, helped distract him. But as summer nights lengthened his mother and father would go for walks after closing time and he would always be awake for that and, flat on his back, try to walk with them, to be with them down Burnfoot, into Birdcage Walk, past West Cumberland Farmers, alongside Toppin’s Field and Toppin’s Farm, past the police station, up the long incline of Station Road, round the Blue Bell, back into the High Street towards Market Hill and the Blackamoor, going step by step with them, trying not to rush, trying not to move, untensed only when the key turned in the door and he heard a voice.
As the months went on he made it harder for himself because otherwise he would never win. He said he wanted to do his homework in his room and not in the kitchen where everybody came in and out. Homework was not now the chore that had much t
axed him. He would force himself to sit alone and do it and lock himself in. In the room. He did not have the remotest idea why this action would help but he did it.
Testing himself was good. Not just in straight competition like swimming but seeing if he dared go out of the bathroom window and climb up the steep pitch of roof under which the spirit of the blackamoor boy might still be enraged. Get to the peak. Then sling himself over, let himself slide down the steep pitch, which ended in a long drop on to the concrete front of the pub, see how his nerve held, feel the terror, feel welcome sweat to the palms, begin an insect-like back sprawl upwards, his throat choking.
Testing himself. In the Scouts. In school. Though he had blankings and an overgrasping nervousness that could misfire, he wanted the tests, the tests made his head feel occupied. At the church youth club, to debate harder, dance better, show off more; in rugby to rush with the scrum, disguising the fear of tackling under the puff of effort; how long it took him to do this, go that distance, tests. Save for the choir when testing was pointless, but what reward for that pointlessness! A calm in the mind that made him feel safe, normal, in touch with the heart of whatever he was. Something of the same in reading, particularly when the book’s characters took him into their skins, the story of the book became his story, he twinned with these invented people whose paths were certain sure compared with the amoeba and sludge of his own.
Envy sprouted everywhere. Everyone he liked had more that he liked than he had. And none of the fears he had. How could they be so certain of everything? He tried to drive the gang to feats of cohesion difficult for a mixed bunch of half a dozen boys not even in the same class, different tastes, talents, but they had to be together so that he could feel the solidity. Jealousies came from that, all signs of independence were proofs of betrayal, it was hopeless and endless, above all, it was endless.
Somewhere inside, to meet this perpetual threat that scooped him out, stripped the skin from inside his head, took his soul from him, abducted all but the thing of body, he had to build a redoubt. His father had told him about the redoubt, the final place. Where you had to fight until you dropped but also where you could build to win. He was seeking to build that, or a shell, but inside himself not outside. A shell to seal in that which left him, a place almost independent of his body as the inner flask of a vacuum. Blindly he stumbled towards that.
