Beside the altar lay a word made out of flowers. Ann, it said. Sean was glad he could read it. He read it again.
After the funeral he went to his room and closed the door. He sat on his bed and tried very many times to remember. He tried but he could not remember, not for the policeman, not for God, not for nothing. He remembered being in Gomms Wood and the sound of the leaves, as though they were moving by themselves. He remembered her saying, 'Don't be a twit, Sean Matthews. Why would I want a little spaz like you for a husband?' He hated her for that. For lots of things. He wandered off. He heard her calling him. He saw no one, nothing. No man, no murderer. But the leaves were moving, he remembered that. He kept wandering on. He heard her. 'Sean? Seaner?' He heard her scream. 'Seaner?' She often screamed. He went home.
After that he forgot. He did a good job of forgetting. People arrived and asked what he remembered. But he could not remember and remember is what everyone wanted him to do. Try to remember, they said, try. But he could not. He forgot instead.
He saw her a few days later. She was sitting on a mound of dirt, arms folded. You see what you want to see.
'Spaz! Where'f you been?'
'To your funeral.'
'Ha bloody ha.'
Sean touched her hand. It was warm and as real as his own.
'Are you dead?'
'No, you spaz. Are you?'
He went indoors. His mum was in the kitchen listening to the plughole gurgle. Sean spoke to the back of her head.
'I've seen Ann. She's outside.' And his mum turned and stared at him.
'Don't be silly'
'It's true. She's there. I swear.'
And then she looked towards the window. 'Where?' And he pointed her out on the dirt mound.
'There. She spoke to me.' And his mum turned and walked away. 'Mum?'
And his mum's words. 'There's nobody there, Sean.'
But there was. Now who was the spaz? She was as plain as the nose on your face. Anyone could see. Except no one could.
You're a pie-faced spaz. What are you?
That summer Sean and Ann went to the woods, to the tip, to the pond. Sean went all the way to the bottom with his breathing tube. Together they had looked at Ann's picture in the newspaper. Local Tragedy. They cut it out so that Sean could keep it in his pocket. Then they watched her photograph as it bloomed on the trunks of trees and lamp posts. Now she was everywhere and still no one could see her. I love you do you love me? Beneath her picture was the telephone number to call if you had information for the police. Sean and Ann called the number. 'Spaz,' murmured Ann. 'Spaz,' confirmed Sean. And replaced the receiver.
Ann Hooper was discovered by a local man walking his dog on 5 May 1969. No one could recall anything so dreadful happening in Cryers Hill before. They found her folded in bracken, sparkling with maggots, with leaves in her hair. Her skin was mauve. The policemen came to the woods with their measuring tapes and flash photography. They arrived sombre and determined in short dark coats. They crunched through the undergrowth and put their hands in the earth. They squatted and knelt, while above them the trees whispered shhh, shhh, and the shadows drew back.
Let bygones be bygones. Sean walks away, leaving her talking to herself on the dirt mound. Her hands are on her hips, her mouth is going yap yap yap. You see what you want to see.
He climbs upstairs to the bathroom. He has always liked this bathroom. It has waterproof flower-patterned wallpaper. No amount of splashing will wash those flowers off. If you stare, the flowers curl into faces. The modern world is remarkable. Nothing is what it seems. Except Ty. In the mirror Sean sees he could perhaps do with a quick wash. He looks again and this time he sees an astronaut. Tall, trained, fearless, ready for space. He is so tall in fact he can hardly fit his reflection inside the mirror. He has to bend to include his face. He smiles. Is this the smile of a man who turns steps into leaps? The smile of a space hero, a moonwalker? His suit is white and running with tubes and valves. On his left shoulder is his country's flag, and below that his name. Beneath his arm is his helmet with its dark visor, reflecting a smaller version of himself. You see what you want to see.
Sean and Ann are walking backwards up the hill for something to do. It looks simple, but it is not. The wind arrives from nowhere and lifts the red dust. The machines clatter and roar and the diggers raise their long yellow necks. There is a smell of dog-dirt and tar. Today they will go, same as every day, to the pond, the tip, the woods. Today Sean Matthews will learn to breathe without air, and jump without gravity. He will watch the lone ploughman without realising the horses are all gone, and listen to the birds he cannot name.
He calls this place home though it does not know him. It knows none of the flop-haired tykes on the estate, as smeared and dirty as their jungle ancestors, waiting for the day when, as adults, they will sit in commuter carriages nursing a bout of mild depression, as the empty farmland rushes by. The tykes who do not yet know their mortgages, their miserable marriages, their inability to recognise popular hymns. You could ask Sean to write the name of this place. You could ask.
When the nearly-houses are all complete Sean Matthews will look up at the night sky and wish he was there looking down. From space the earth is blue and white. Here among the diggers it is red and brown. And green. If you know where to walk it is still green. You will find it down narrow paths, over stiles and bursting up suddenly beside the tarmac roads: woodland and parkland and grazing acres, still shaded by the same beech and oak, now giant with age.
It is true that God moves in mysterious ways. The vicar says so. Everybody says so. Sean accepts it must be true. He thinks there is a song which points it out, perhaps by the Beatles. He cannot remember. There is an assortment of things he cannot remember. Assortment is a word by Mrs Roys. He remembers that. Mrs Roys says she ties a knot in her handkerchief if she wants to remember something. A bit loon that, like Debbie Sinclair lying naked in her garden all summer in the hope she will turn a darker colour, and Mr Dewitt walking about with a ticking box inserted in his heart because his heart forgets to beat. Forgets! The box electrocutes him and his heart remembers. He could have just tied a knot.
If Neil Armstrong had thought to write his name in the moon dust it would still be there today, beside his bootprints. He must have kicked himself. He could have done it easily, Sean thinks, with the flag stick. Anyone else would have, surely. There are names all over the estate, in the builders' sand, drying in cement: Big Dave '69. Jef Burn luvs janet. Sod off brian. Sean saw a man write his name on Blackpool beach. If it had been him, not Neil, then Sean knows he would have, yes he would most certainly have written his name on the moon. With smiley faces in the U.
April/May 1944, C.M.F.
My darling,
Your letter was sweet and has made me so happy. Winter is passing here. The women gather water in pitchers from a hillside spate and balance them on their heads. All the ploughs here are drawn by oxen and most people have an ass. The good earth of Italy is really good, soft and crumbly, and gives good and plentiful crops. Have I mentioned that before?
Did you know the Yanks have Spam and fruit and all sorts for their grub. Clearly we have been swindled. They are generous to a fault, however, and always share. Some of the lads hear from their wives that the wives have found someone else. Bill Palmer received one such letter. He cannot take it in.
2nd May '44
I am at this moment sitting on my camp bed at a rest camp writing this letter to you. It has been a change to be out of the line, and I feel much better for the break. We get up in the morning when we like! You would imagine us all in our rooms 'til noon, and yet never in this billet has a man been in bed after 0800 hrs.
We saw a picture called My Sister Eileen, which was quite good, a laugh anyhow. I preferred another show called Melody and Rhythm, which had plenty of kick in it and some girls who were not afraid to show a little leg!
There are heaps of wild red poppies in the camp – and all kinds of wild flowers and trees
in blossom, and there are walnut trees also. Just now clouds of dark blue butterflies appeared and then later on in the day hosts of lizards come out. If you are watching in the twilight you can see the quick-moving bats come out for the insects. So you see it is quite a paradise here! Rest camp, by the way, is another word (among our mob) for cemetery. But don't worry, I keep pinching myself, and I'm definitely not dead. Have to close as grub is up. How does it feel to be the most beautiful girl in the world?
Yours, Walter xx
Fifty-three
MARY HATT WOULD not have heard the news at all except for the fact that she wanted ribbon. Mrs Cleave at Scratch Corner had made a gift to her of some green ribbon when she'd heard about Mary receiving letters from Walter on active service. The airgraphs and letters looked smart tied up in this way and it had given Mary pleasure to see them in their little stack, each clasped to the next in a ladder of careful bows. But the unexpected arrival of Sankey's letter left Mary feeling inexplicably anxious, and she put this down to the absence of a differently coloured ribbon with which to fasten the new addition and the others that would surely follow. Mary was in no position to afford ribbon even if it had been off the ration, and Mrs Cleave's own precious ribbon collection had been tucked carefully away in tissue paper since her wedding day in 1926.
Mary's anxiety increased. She spent the morning with the land girls, outside and in, working, washing, clearing, airing the upstairs rooms while the sun was out. By two o'clock she was unable to think or sit or settle at all. She decided she would have to beg a small bit of ribbon from somebody or go mad with fidgetiness.
She had planned to collect some wild parsley in Gomms Wood for tea, but found herself walking too quickly and so by the time she arrived at Mrs Cleave's house, she was hot and breathless and unable to form a polite sentence or a neighbourly enquiry. Mrs Cleave was kind. She knew all the farming families hereabouts. She knew about Mary's lapses into strangeness. She made a pot of tea and produced a slim piece of red ribbon and Mary was finally able to say, 'Thank you very much, Mrs Cleave.'
Mrs Cleave didn't reply. A tiny clock on the mantelpiece sounded ting ting ting as though it were summoning elves. Mary drank her tea. She allowed the steam to prickle her nose and plaited the red ribbon tightly around her fingers until she felt sufficiently soothed to finish her drink without slurping.
'Walter has been killed, Mary.'
The words fell with the dust on to the sun-baked rug. They continued to fall, dropping out of order, until they began to form their own strange messages. Walter Been has killed Mary. Mary killed Walter Hasbeen. Mary Mary. Quite contrary. How does your garden grow?
'I know it's hard. Try to be brave. I'm very sorry, Mary, very sorry indeed.'
'With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row.'
'Yes. It's hard. I know, Mary. His mother received the news yesterday'
I'm definitely not dead. How does it feel to be the most beautiful girl in the world?
'It was sniper fire, Hilda says.' Mrs Cleave's tears glittered. 'Very quick. They were on the move. They had just left a village and were moving northwards.'
Mrs Cleave stood to allow her tears to fall out from beneath her spectacles.
'I'll fetch you a handkerchief. I'll just go and fetch it.' And though Mary remained dry-eyed, Mrs Cleave rushed out to search for one. When she returned Mrs Cleave was startled to find Mary Hatt gone.
Here where we stood and kissed. Here where we chased. Here where you said my name. Here where we grew, me and you. Mary runs through Gomms Wood and the trees touch her as she goes. The breeze is mild and the trees tell her, Shush, shush, shush. They have seen it all before. Mary can smell blood in the woods, she is certain that is what it is. Farm girls see more blood than soldiers. Above her the clouds roll in the sky while beyond them the stars line up to burn their spoon, chair and bear pictures high in the black. Here (some say) is where your future is written, inside the gassy whirling patterns made by planets and stars. Here is all your bad luck, misfortune and ill gain, all spinning haphazardly in the dark. You don't know nothing about blood and muck. The trees cling and Mary runs. She runs until she hears her own heart bursting in her ears. As she reaches the farm track that leads to the lane she thinks she hears a cuckoo, and at precisely the same moment, Walter's voice. 'Cheerio, then,' he says. 'God bless. PS You're beautiful.'
Mary is not certain how she has slept. Perhaps she has not slept at all. She can feel the cool ground against her temple, grass on her neck. She has been listening to the cuckoo as it moved around the wood, but now there is no trace of it. She remembers a dream filled with shouts and a tall dark tree and a boy on a rock. But perhaps she was not asleep. Mary touches her cheek. It is puffy and hot. Her eyes are swollen and sore.
The pond, Mary sees, has become deeply green, bright-algaed at the edges and turning pewtery grey at the centre. Its soft surface is pinned here and there with sharp little insects. The biggest beech leans over until its towering reflection is returned with flattering watery magnification. A breeze moves quietly across the water; the reeds bow as it passes. Though she stands several feet away Mary can feel the pond's coolness on her hot skin. There is a smell, damp and sharp, the invisible business of disintegration and renewal.
Mary cannot remember the last time she and Walter came here. She can only remember him saying, 'Swim, swim, Mary Hatt, and I shall watch, like the king and the cat.' But she cannot remember how long ago this was. She remembers another time saying to him, 'Daft bugga, you,' because on that occasion, directly after she'd spoken it, he kissed her and she did not stop him.
The giant beech shivers and drops small pieces of itself into the water and waits while these leafy craft set sail. Through the smaller trees the evening sun sends flashes, spangles and bouncing discs of gold.
It is for you the nightingale sings her song. Mary has it still, neatly folded in her pocket, taken long ago from his coat. Poop words; she has kept them just the same. Now it is all that is left of Walter Brown.
Mary watches her foot as it enters the water, impossibly white against the algae, completely disappeared now as the weed regroups over it. She will swim; he liked to watch her swim. The water will hold her and her thoughts will simmer down. Bathing is a tonic for the sick, that's what they say. He said he could watch her swim all day. She can see him; well, he always stood in the same spot, arms folded, squinting against the sun, half smiling. He never sat down for fear of staining his trousers. She looks up at the clouds. If he is gone somewhere on high then perhaps he will see her. Yoohoo.
Her clothes fall on the grass and she doesn't stop to see the dragonfly land on her cardigan. The air is soft and cooling on her skin. She ties her hair with the red ribbon, a bit of luck as otherwise the wetness will ruin the collar of her best blouse. Happenstance. One of Walter's words. He liked to say it: 'Mere happenstance,' as though he were speaking German. She ties her happenstance ribbon. If any living thing other than the giant beech had been watching, they would have witnessed the red flash of that happenstance ribbon as it entered the green pond, and immediately afterwards heard the splash of Mary's strong kick.
5th June 1944, C.M.F.
Darling Mary,
The corn is high, reaching my shoulders. It is being crushed under heavy armoured vehicles. It is possible to sniff rotting flesh. There are fields of vetch here just like the fields of clover in England. It is used as cattle fodder. Enormous fields of sunflowers too and the seeds are used for feeding poultry. Someone swore he saw an Italian milking a large dog – it must have been a goat. Four of our fellows were wounded yesterday.
You know, the fruit trees are lovely; pear, apple, peach, lemon, plum, apricot, and then of course the nuts and olives and vines – this country is blessed.
I had a dip in the Adriatic a few days ago, yes, me! The first sea-bathe for a year. I have no fear of water these days. Gee, kid, won't I be glad when this war is over. We seem never to have been out of the line for the du
ration and we are ready for a long rest. Funny, one lad said he'd be glad to get back to the front – it was too dangerous behind the lines, he said!
I have decided that when I come home I shall try to become a real writer, part-time for starters. I have so many plans. How about you? Will I be included in your plans, Mary? Don't keep me on tenterhooks!
We can have a happy life together, darling, I know that much. I promise you I shall write an excellent book one day, wait and see. We shall grow old together and be peaceful and content, and everything will be lovely and ordinary. I just want to come home and be with you.
I have some lava saved for you that I brought from Vesuvius. By the way, it has just started to rain here, turning the mud quite yellow. If I were to describe it (as a proper writer should) I would have to say it appears like saffroned porridge.
You say you are keeping these letters. What strange reading they will make for somebody one day, and somewhat dull I should say! Will you remember me to people? Frank and Joyce Wattings, I thought of them the other day, and the Deans and John Bain at the Royal and old George Osbourne and John, Ida and Isabel, and Mother of course. Tell them I'll be home soon. I think of Sankey often. I think of you always. You walk beside me, Mary. We are moving. I shall have to close.
In haste, I love you. You are the light in my life.
Yours, Walter xx
Fifty-four
NOWADAYS SEAN HAS a desk with a lamp on it. His fingers touch the keys and the letters appear, one by one, and turn into words before his very eyes. True words these, for this is no liar alphabet.
Chapter Five. This is the first time he has written about where he grew up; the housing estate, the tip, the pond, the woods, Ann. Wuns upon a tiem. He still has the yellowed newspaper story. Local Tragedy. And a photograph of her face before she died. Ann Hooper. First love lost love.
The published novels are on a shelf, smart in their book jackets. He is astonished when he sees his name along the spines. Inside, all the words are correctly spelled. Wur. Though spelling is not his strong point. In fact, he is an apauling speller. The characters who live inside his books, the nearly-people who walk and talk, stare at him from their respective pages. Wotcha, Spaz.
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