“What’s going on?” I asked, annoyed at my voice for wavering so.
They glanced at each other and stiffened as I approached. I saw Morecambe reach down and stroke the baton he had strapped to his side; a reminder.
“Why am I here? What have I been let out for?”
“Exercise,” Wise mumbled.
“What?” I said, shaking my head. I moved closer. The door behind them was slightly ajar.
“Exercise,” he said bluntly. “We let you out to exercise.”
“Is this some kind of a joke? What do you think I am, a bloody horse?”
“It’s up to you,” Morecambe joined, “you either take your exercise or you don’t. We just stand here and wait, then we take you back.”
“Let’s say I don’t want to go back.” I edged even closer. Morecambe’s cheeks were badly pockmarked, I thought as I weighed it all up in my mind. I could rush them; take out the smaller one first, because he looked the weakest, grab his baton and have a go at the other one. Or I could go for Morecambe first; his paunch made a meaty target. Or maybe I could make a dash between them, squeeze through the door and slam it shut behind me. Every one of these ideas was a clutch at straws and I knew it. But the smell of freedom was so close, so pungent, that it overrode any logic; the ideas started to make perfect sense.
They were reading the desperation in my eyes, I was aware of that from their tense bodies, their rock-steady eyes, stiffened jaws. I ran at them before they were too prepared (I believed), the lure of the open door reeling me in and wiping away any thought of personal safety. I was like a salmon scaling a waterfall, throwing itself against jagged rocks, against the solid torrent of water that beat at it like a watery hammer, forcing it back. I had one goal and that goal was freedom. Freedom!
I remember vividly seeing the blue of their uniforms fill my vision, feeling the resistance of soft flesh beneath cotton shirts; feeling my hardened fist striking bone and muscle as I flailed hopelessly, pathetically, with all plans dissipated by my lust to get to the door. I was a blind, screaming mound of instinct, the blue of their shirts the hammering water, their knuckles the jagged rocks. I touched the door, saw it lurch open, saw the corridor and the garden beyond…
Briefly. So briefly. I fell beneath a barrage of blows from their batons; not to the head – never the head – only to the back, to the legs. I cowered on the floor, curling up. That summer day long ago, the day on The Mount, came flooding into my mind as the blows continued to rain down without mercy. “Stop it, Max!” I screamed, or thought I screamed, for I can’t be certain it wasn’t merely in my head. “I didn’t cheat! I didn’t cheat!” I could have sworn I saw him there when I glanced up through the red mist of pain; a young boy, eyes enraged, beating me with his stick. I knew then I must black out.
* * * *
8
Tuesday
I’m not eating at all well lately, and I don’t think I’m going to the toilet as often as I should. It was always a thing with my mother that I should be able to ‘go’ regularly. It worries me that now I can’t; or just don’t need to. I wonder what she’d have to make of it, and I find I have to smile inside, because I never thought I’d become obsessed with the way my intestines operate, but being cooped up here focuses the mind on the most inane things. I have this map drawn out, you see, in my head, of the workings of my bowels; I know each twist and turn. I have this idea, too, where a blockage is most likely to occur.
When I can’t sleep I imagine a little man with a shovel squeezing his way through my internal organs, coming across this solid wall barring his way, and he begins to chip tirelessly away at it. He does this for hours, bagging it up and then labouring his way all the way back out again, returning with another empty bag. I call him Stanley, because my uncle Stanley was a miner before his lungs were choked with coal dust and they finished him. But Stanley is never completely successful, because when morning comes I discover the problem still persists, and so Stanley has to work through the following night as well. When there is movement I let him have a night off.
Not only that, but I’m beginning to suspect there’s something amiss with my urine, thereby signposting the way to something more frightening going on within me. It’s cloudy – a brightish-yellow, slightly lighter than lemon. It’s the cloudiness that bothers me. Ordinarily it’s not so cloudy. It varies in colour, though. But what the hell is healthy urine? I mean, is it clear with hardly a tinge of colour? Is that considered healthier than, say, dark amber? And what does it mean when it clouds? I find I drink lots of water so that I can go to the toilet more and observe longer. Then I let it stand in the toilet bowl so that I can fall to my knees and take a closer look. I smell it, but that offers me little in the way of answers. I’m afraid in the end I can’t make my mind up if there’s something wrong with me or not.
There are times my health bothers me more than others. When black despair sets in I couldn’t give a toss, and will myself to waste away, vowing I will not eat another thing. But then there’s always that little spark of hope and I become obsessed with maintaining my fitness. I look forward to Saturday – to my exercise day. It has become a point to aim for, like the bulls eye on a dartboard. I’m up and waiting before the door lock clicks these days. I used to walk round the courtyard, staying close to the walls, but I soon discovered it was better for me in all respects when I actually ran around it. The energy needed forced away black thoughts, and the coursing of hot blood through my veins afterwards gave me a tiny buzz of elation.
So now I time myself. Not with a watch, at lest not at the beginning, because I was not allowed a watch, just the steady counting in my head. It used to take two minutes or more to run around the entire enclosure. Morecambe, seeing how much it meant to me brought in a stopwatch so that I could time myself better. I could tell it wasn’t allowed, but he did it just the same. I guess he had a kind of soft spot for me, in spite of his job. I saw him as a potential weak link and stored away the thought for a time I might need it. I can currently do the enclosure run in forty-five seconds, which is my target to beat. Yet I remember well when I cut the time down to a minute. A minute! Hell, I was shouting and thumping the air like a madman. Morecambe smiled thinly and even patted me on the back afterwards. “Well done!” he said, and I recall grinning foolishly like a little kid.
I would have been so elated at his tiny act of kindness, if it hadn’t brought back the memories.
My mind sprang immediately back to that day I first met her, First met Ruby.
The early 70s – 1973 to be precise. Secondary school. A teenager – fourteen years old. Lying flat on my back, eyes squeezed shut, chest heaving and feeling as if a tiny bomb had gone off inside it. I couldn’t breathe properly; my throat was aflame. And I was on top of the world!
There was a sprinkling of applause, sounding like tiny Chinese crackers going pop a great distance away. Someone tapped me on the arm. “Well done, Philip!” a youngster’s voice congratulated.
I could only nod my thanks, for my breath was needed to replenish my oxygen-starved body. And my legs! Jesus, they’d all but buckled beneath me! But I’d done it, I’d won. How on earth I’d managed to launch myself through the finishing tape first escaped me, for I was not a born athlete. I had a long, slender body that the teachers assumed must be constructed for running, for it was unsuited, they thought, to many other sports like rugby, football or even cricket; and so they insisted I run for the school on every available opportunity. I admit I undertook the responsibility with little enthusiasm, thinking the feebler my performances the less likely I’d get chosen again. But though I managed with great difficulty to come near enough last on every occasion, they were insistent I try again the next time. I think it was misguided pity on their part, and an unconvincing lame duck on mine. I never spent a single sports day without racing shorts and spiked shoes.
“Are you all right?”
Her voice floated down through a blue haze of pain and euphoria. I gazed up into the sunl
ight through narrowed eyes. A smudged blob of a pink face and dark hair stood out against a searing white-hot sky. “Yeah,” I gasped, rising onto my elbows. I saw one of my teachers applauding me, giving me the thumbs up. Then I noticed the legs. Two slender pillars of smooth flesh disappearing into the tightest white hot-pants I’d ever seen. I followed them up, over wide hips, across a flat stomach topped by two of the sweetest breasts encased in thin cotton I was ever likely to see. They thrust out insistently and precociously beneath a square piece of white numbered card pinned to them. She bore the number twenty-two. Idiotically, I felt the number suited her, belonged on her heavenly bosom, for she’d immediately captivated me. As with any innocent young man confronted by a pretty girl, I was extremely flattered by her attention and immediately lost control of my tongue and the use of English as my native language.
“I ran…better than good…last time…but how I did it, don’t know…great, huh?” I babbled with feigned nonchalance in pidgin.
She chuckled. “You’re ok, though?” she asked. “I mean, can I get you a drink of water or something?”
I shoved away the notion with a wave of my hand. “Fine,” I said, “just fine.” She wore a white armband denoting she’d been one of those the school had chosen to practice first aid, in case of accidents on sports day. I’d heard there’d been little learning and more than a few guffaws as they tried in vain to inflate the chest of a rubber torso called Sid we kept locked in the medical room. I imagined myself instead of Sid lying there, and this beauty bending over me and planting those scarlet cushion-like lips on mine…
“You did very well,” she said.
I must have looked like one of those ventriloquist’s dummies with its grin plastered permanently across its face. “Yeah, I did,” I agreed. Then hurriedly corrected myself when it occurred to me it might sound like boasting. “But I had to run hard,” I said. “Stiff competition.” I glanced at my fellow athletes, gasping for breath like fish out of water on the grass around me. They weren’t what you’d call fine specimens. Joe Blunden on my left was suited more to marathon donut eating than the four-hundred-metres, and Colin Sharp was only just crossing the finishing line with his arms crossed like it was the middle of winter – and at a leisurely walking pace.
“So long as you’re all right,” she said, and turned to walk away.
“Wait,” I called impetuously. When she turned I couldn’t think what to say next. Words crashed around my skull, but failed to fuse in anything resembling a sentence. She cocked her head, prompting a reply. “I like your shorts,” I said hurriedly.
She smiled and strutted away. I like your shorts! What the hell was I thinking? I sat on the grass with my head buried in my hands, cringing at what I’d said. Why didn’t I ask what her name was? Why? Simple enough, wasn’t it?
Max strolled over to me. He looked decidedly better in his sportswear than I. I’d just watched him crush rivals in the javelin event as casually and unemotionally as if he tossed a pebble into a pond. I rose to meet him, waving excitedly. “I’ve just seen the most beautiful…” I stammered.
“Ruby,” he said coldly. “Her name’s Ruby.”
I turned to search her out in the fluid crowd of parents, teachers, pupils and white-clad athletes. There was no sign of her. “You know her?” I asked. “I can’t remember ever seeing her before.”
“Yeah you have, but you just never noticed her.”
Max was scrutinising the crowd as well, again with a fiery intensity only he could bring to bear. It was as if his very life hung on finding her. Absurdly I grew jealous. Part of me had this flaming desire to reveal her to him; another wished to keep her only for myself. There was something in his expression that irked me. “You don’t need her,” he said.
“Who says?”
“She’ll bring trouble.”
These were fresh and powerful feelings I was experiencing. She’d stirred something inside of me, an incredible turgid fusion of excitement and hate, and lust and irrational possessiveness. Was I really jealous? “You mean you’ve got your eyes on her?” I said.
Those very eyes flashed manically for a moment, then dulled a little. “I mean she’ll bring trouble,” he reiterated slowly.
I sighed foolishly. “She’s gorgeous. And if that’s the shape of trouble, let me near it!”
Max grunted. Then we became aware of a voice piercing the din of the crowd. “Max! Max! Yoo-hoo!”
Connie Stone pushed her way through a press of bodies, heads invariably turning, wearing as she was a skirt that did hardly anything to conceal her underwear, and a tight sleeveless top that emphasised all that nature had been generous enough to bestow upon her. She flew in the face of fashion, for long skirts were now becoming the norm, culminating in the full length maxi. It was as if Connie refused to let go of the 60s. Even her hairdo now looked decidedly out of place amongst scores of Suzi Quatro look-alikes. That didn’t bother me - she wore out-of-fashion with style, though I did think that her high stiletto heels were totally unsuited to walking on grass. But she stood out from everyone else like a voluptuous sore thumb, and I loved her for it.
“Oh, Max, how wonderful!” she cried, throwing her arms around him and squeezing him. “I’m so very proud of my son!” she turned to me smiling that familiar affectionate smile that had the effect of making you mirror it with your own. “Did you see him, Collie?” she enthused. I nodded, appreciating the attention she was getting from some of the men there, my feathers puffing up in pride. She imitated the throwing of a javelin. “Whoosh!” she said, nearly overbalancing herself with the effort. “I thought it wasn’t going to come down.” She thumped me on the shoulder. “And look at you too – coming first like that. Like the wind you were, Collie; like the bleedin’ wind!”
Max shrugged her arms away, embarrassed. I realised then how quickly he was changing, how he’d stepped into young manhood without me being fully aware of it. He was almost as tall as his mother now, broadening out, muscle rounding his arms and upper thighs. I was suddenly aware of my own pathetic body with its scrawny legs poking through shorts that flapped with rather too much legroom; with its spindly pale arms and its flat, narrow chest. It would be a few years before I really developed anything resembling a man’s body, and then I would never be truly satisfied with it. I consciously folded my arms across my chest. It was then I noticed the man strolling towards us, reaching out and putting an arm around Connie’s shoulders. He was grinning, and nodded a greeting at me. When I glanced at Max I saw his expression and knew it well. It was the same as the day we first met, on The Mount. If looks could have killed this poor soul would be lying there dismembered, bagged up and on sale for dog meat.
“This is Bernard,” she introduced, and Bernard held out his meaty hand for me to shake. He was a huge house-side of a being, with rather feminine features for a man, but not at all disagreeable.
“I saw your race. Very well done,” he said, flashing me a warm smile, as warm as anything Connie put out. In fact he was positively charming. Which is why I couldn’t understand why Max displayed such obvious dislike for the man. “We’re going to watch Max at the long jump,” he explained with enthusiasm.
“Don’t bother,” Max fired, and stormed off.
Bernard and Connie looked at each other. “He can be a bit of a bastard,” she said and he agreed with raised eyebrows and a shrug.
Max didn’t turn up for the long jump. Nor the discus scheduled for later in the afternoon. He’d abandoned all, including his school uniform and numbered chest card. There was some consternation, not due to concerns for his safety, as far as I could tell from the heated discussions between teachers, but because he was their major hope in gaining a cup for the school in the said events. In truth, he was probably their only hope and hadn’t done himself any favours in going AWOL, particularly when ‘Boo-Boo’ Bingham was chosen as his reluctant substitute for the long jump, and who managed to secure the shortest jump ever achieved in the long and undistinguished sports hist
ory of the school.
I called at Connie’s house later, after school. Max wasn’t there, and hadn’t been home at all as far as she could tell. She was angrier than anything, and told me to tell him when I saw him that he was in for it, because Bernard did so want to see him do the long jump, and now he’d have to wait another bleedin’ year. There was a steady queue growing and baying for Max’s hot blood. But I knew where to find him.
He was sitting on the rock, facing the Sun as it dribbled copper into mauve, his head in his hands, looking incongruous in his shorts, track shoes and running-vest. I was panting after climbing The Mount, and went and sat next to him. He barely gave me a second glance. “What’re you doing here?” I asked nonchalantly enough.
“Waiting for a bleedin’ train,” he said, his voice sounding remarkably like his mother’s.
“I brought home your uniform,” I said.
We sat in silence, watching the sunlight coat the rooftops in a golden metallic sheen. Both of us were perhaps aware that our childhood was sinking into darkness as sure as the heavens above us, that a dust blanket was being pulled over an aspect of our lives that was destined never to see the light of day again, consigned instead to the dim, dusty backroom of our memories. I remember to this day the crushing feelings of melancholy that seemed to whirl around us like a wretched spirit as we sat there on that barren hill of slag and waste. Perhaps I knew even then…
Blood Bonds: A psychological thriller Page 7
