Trey looked back into the two shadow corners of the stable at the twins pressed steadfast like rivets holding up the timber walls and they both turned and nodded.
‘So?’ Trey asked. He was feeling nervous, hot with the possibility of battle.
‘So we can keep you locked up or we can flush you out, just lettin you know where you stand.’
‘On my own two feet is where I stand.’
‘So you int gonna change your mind?’
‘Bout what?’
‘Becomin one of me boys. The others can stay put mind.’
Trey pretended to laugh despite his punching heart and he told him never ever in a million years. It felt good to be doing the right thing now the demon had gone.
‘Well now that’s a real shame cus I know we two got a lot in common.’
‘I int got nothin in common with you,’ said Trey.
‘What your little friends wouldn’t give for a bit of backstory.’
‘Shut it, Wilder.’
‘My dad, your dad, who killed who and all that.’
‘What’s he talkin bout?’ asked Kay.
‘I know the Preacher told you it was an accident or such.’
Trey didn’t know what to say and he kept his mouth closed for thinking time.
‘There int nothin like war between kinfolk, is there, Trey? Two men with some same blood pumpin, battlin, fightin, the one gun goin off and then one’s dead and one’s alive.’
‘What you sayin?’ Trey asked.
‘Must be hard is all.’
‘He said he dint shoot nobody.’
Wilder started to laugh and Trey wanted to bury him where he stood.
‘It’s the Preacher we’re talkin bout. You reckon you’re gonna believe a mean bastard like that?’
‘Just leave us alone, Wilder,’ shouted Kay. ‘Leave us be and we’ll leave you the same.’
Wilder stubbed his fat-foot boots wide in the earth. ‘I would if I could, but there’s one small problem and that’s the chaplain. Maybe if you kept your meddlin noses out last night then maybe this would be a whole different mornin.’
‘You killed him,’ said Kay flatly.
‘He asked for it.’ He started to laugh and he made sure his gang of dumb lads did the same.
‘You’re a liar,’ said Trey and he lifted the harpoon and rubbed his finger against the trigger. ‘How’s this gonna end?’ he asked.
Wilder stood with hands on hips, his knuckles waist-wormed into the sides of his belly and he kicked at the puddle at his feet and he told them that this was in no way over and he looked at Trey and asked him to give his regards to his brother.
‘You int got no right,’ shouted Trey.
‘I’m just helpin you see sense is all. Dad was a liar on most accounts, you can take that as a given.’
Trey passed the harpoon to Kay and unlocked the lower part of the door. The two boys eyed each other with disdain and Trey could feel the blood that was in him turn from simmer to boiling.
‘I thought we’d make somethin of you soon enough,’ continued Wilder as he turned to go. ‘Somethin more’n your daddy’s weaklin boy anyway.’
Trey felt the shame of cowardice steam from him, he couldn’t let the boy speak to him like this, he stepped forward.
‘I int no coward,’ he shouted and he felt his lungs fill with hot air.
‘What’s that?’
He saw Wilder turn on his heels and Trey called him back into the noose of jackal kids and he felt the heat return to his blood and combust into flames. It split open and into that ravine he poured his anger and frustration and he channelled it if not towards the Preacher then his son.
He ran after Wilder and thumped him in the chest and it was a shock to both of them.
They stood for a one-two second, two boys resembling and struggling with their disappointing past. When fighting came it struck with a blur of punches and they slotted neatly into the gaps where words should have been.
Trey knew there was only one place left for saving face and this was it, violence for violence’s sake. He didn’t mind the pain so much; it made him feel closer in some way to those that were dead, closer to Billy. The hurt brought him to them, brought him nearer to what he should have felt. He was lucky, he had lived, but Trey knew there was no luck in lonely.
It felt good to fight in any case, have everything in him that was pent and stifled and bent wrong come out with the burn of power and hurt.
He saw faces circle and the chants of glee stuffed his ears and he was glad to reveal something of himself for the first time.
The damn thing wrong was the fight was over too soon and Trey stood ripped from his prey with blood spilt everywhere about him and he heard himself promise the boy that this was not the end but the start of something big and he realised that by his own tongue he had declared war.
When Kay aimed the harpoon at Wilder and asked him to leave or else, the gang took her threat seriously and despite Wilder’s shouting and threatening he joined the others and made his way back towards the horizon.
‘What’s Wilder talkin bout?’ asked Lamby when they entered the stables. ‘Bout your family and that?’
‘Nothin,’ said Trey and he felt his hands go numb with the squeeze of anger.
‘What’s that bout a brother?’
‘Leave it,’ shouted Kay and she grabbed Lamby’s arm and pulled him away.
Trey felt like he was standing at the edge of battle and then he sat where he stood and the memory of demon filled his ears with screams steeped in hellfire language. He closed his eyes and out of necessity he went back to boy a moment and he crouched inside the cupboard dark and peeping and he set himself a scene and waited. Through pain and suffering he forced memory to seek and search and he saw Mum the way he didn’t like and he saw the Preacher stand over her and he went back to the bang bang and maybe he saw the gun and the stranger, the other man who stood before. Maybe the Preacher was right, maybe definitely he was right.
Trey opened his eyes and pushed the tears dry and he told himself to trust his memory just this once. He got up and went to the others and he told them not to bother asking what he couldn’t explain and he joined them in sitting.
‘Does this mean we won the battle?’ asked Lamby. ‘With you whackin him and all.’
‘No it don’t,’ said Kay. ‘He’ll be back soon enough and he’ll bring some kind of cracked plan with him.’
‘Let him try,’ said Lamby and he flipped his spear from one hand to the next and he smiled at Trey and Trey saw fear buried beneath the bravado.
‘We should be ready for him,’ said Kay. ‘More than ready.’
‘Like how?’ asked Trey. ‘Can’t do much more than tool up and wait.’
David started to draw with a stone on the concrete floor.
‘Set traps,’ shouted Lamby and he pointed to what it was being drawn. ‘We need string or wire and things to tie to it, jingly things and things that clank, whatever.’
They poked about the stable to collect forgotten cans and broken tack and Trey went outside to kick about the perimeter with the harpoon hugging his shoulder. He toed the roundabout rubble and picked over the bones of a discarded engine until the bucket he carried was rim full with the clank of unusable useful things.
They tied the bits and bobs on to rope thinned to string and strung them out like childish clothes lines low to the ground.
‘Put em where you think they’ll come sneakin,’ said Lamby. ‘Not just tracks but between. That’ll catch em out.’
The four boys went about the slow-drying sludge earth while Kay stood guard with the harpoon. She looked tired and beat and Trey felt tired and beat the same. The sun had returned momentarily and it bit hard and Trey could feel the heat push through his T-shirt and burn his eyes as he scanned the horizon for signs of life. He glanced at Kay and went to stand next to her.
‘You all right?’ she asked.
Trey nodded.
‘You don’t have to say n
othin but I’m here in any case.’
‘I know,’ he tried to smile and he thanked her.
‘How long you think?’ he asked.
Kay shrugged and said Wilder and his gang would be back before long. ‘You did punch him.’
‘I mean everythin, how long till we escape or Wilder goes crazy?’
She looked at him and she didn’t answer because what was there to say.
‘It’s like a nightmare,’ he said.
Kay nodded. ‘Just keeps gettin worse.’
‘What they did to the chaplain.’
‘Don’t think about it.’
‘Can’t stop.’
They watched the lads and they were kids out playing on a summer’s day, stringing up the lengths of buckled metal like they were putting up bunting for a party.
‘I feel almost responsible for them three,’ said Trey. ‘Stupid, I know.’
Kay stood close and he could feel the stick of sweat on her arm glue to his. ‘It int stupid,’ she said. ‘Them there are more like kids than us. Maybe they saw more of childhood to know it.’
‘The twins are tryin to tell me somethin,’ shouted Lamby. ‘They’ve got an idea.’
They went into the stables and crouched to the stable floor.
‘Forget that,’ said Kay. ‘Go snap more planks for the fire.’
Trey said he’d get the wood and he noticed Kay had filled one of the metal buckets brimful with water and he watched as she settled it central to the fire and he knew what it might be used for and he hated knowing it.
‘The twins are drawin the camp,’ said Lamby when Trey brought the wood to the fire. ‘Somethin that might be useful, so far we know it’s upstairs of a bunkhouse.’
‘Which one?’ asked Trey.
‘Lynner house, they drew girls.’
‘The chaplain’s office?’
‘Looks like it.’
Trey stood and watched as the brothers fought over the different stones they used to chalk the picture and Kay stopped what she was doing to listen.
‘Somethin with knobs,’ giggled Lamby. ‘Somethin lecko?’
The boys nodded.
‘A radio?’ he shouted.
The boys shrugged. Yes and no.
‘A radio that’s not a radio,’ said Lamby. ‘You got me stumped there, boys. Has it got somethin to do with science?’
John drew a telephone next to the radio and the others asked questions until Kay finally nailed it.
‘A CB radio,’ she said. The boys grinned with delight.
‘Thought they just existed in films,’ said Trey. ‘Dint think they was a thing.’
‘Used em to talk to aliens, dint they?’ asked Lamby. ‘That would be somethin, wouldn’t it?’
‘You know this for sure?’ Kay asked the twins. ‘You seen it?’
The boys nodded and she believed them and she said they saw more than most because people thought them stupid.
‘They’re just dumb,’ said Lamby. ‘No not dumb, just don’t speak.’
They decided that the twins would go and look for the radio because they were unobtrusive. They took the knife and a sack and one of the metal spears and everyone wished them luck.
‘Good boys, int they?’ said Lamby. ‘Our little soldier twins. Best thing is nobody takes much notice of em. Bet Wilder don’t even know their names.’
‘If they find the CB radio and it works that’d be somethin,’ said Kay.
‘What?’ asked Lamby.
‘Maybe we got a chance, contact the Army Police, tell em somebody’s bin killed. They gotta listen then.’
Trey had a little worry scratching at his insides and he picked at his fingers and fiddled with everything and nothing much. He thought about Billy alone out there somewhere and he thought about his funny home-made family and he worried about them all the same and he wondered if things would ever get back to normal.
The three of them took turns to keep watch at the hole in the door and although nobody said it each thought about the passing of time since they’d last seen the boys.
When it was Trey’s turn to stand guard he remembered where the sun had been earlier in the sky and he saw it was now greased in a cloudy midday smear and he guessed that maybe two hours had come and gone. He closed his eyes and walked the twins through the camp, allowing them time for hiding and creeping, and he wondered if one hour there and one hour back was about right. Two hours to make a fifteen-minute round trip, maybe it was about right, it had to be.
He kept guard longer than his allocated shift and drank the last of the tin-cup tea somebody passed to him with his eyes fixed in the direction of camp. He could imagine the twins’ heads bobbing, faces smiling, the hessian sack heavy in their hands, job done. He looked at other things besides and told himself that it didn’t matter what time they returned because it was his understanding that if you didn’t care about something then it happened and if you did then it didn’t.
He finished the tea and flicked the dregs at the ground and still the twins didn’t come.
‘You see anythin?’ shouted Kay. ‘You see the boys yet?’
‘Nothin,’ he said. ‘No change ’cept the rain’s back. You’d think we were the only survivors left out here.’
‘Out here in the middle,’ said Lamby as he stepped up beside him. ‘Hey,’ he shouted, ‘I think I see somethin.’
‘What you see that I dint?’ Trey moved forward.
‘Movement, I swear it.’
‘Don’t say you see somethin if it int true.’
‘Look, someone’s comin.’
‘What you mean, someone?’ Trey pushed him aside and watched as the solitary figure approached.
‘Who is it?’ asked Kay.
‘It’s David, he’s on his own.’
‘What’s he doin?’ asked Lamby.
‘He’s runnin.’
David sped up and over the ridge with a lifetime of pic-’n’-mix words bursting from his mouth. He ran and he fell and he pulled himself up despite his legs that had gone to mush and his shouting was rough and ragged and wrong. They stood with their hearts in their mouths and built the rubble of sounds into words and Kay opened the door for him to aim at.
‘Look behind him,’ shouted Lamby. ‘Whole world’s headin our way.’
Trey jumped from the platform and he passed the harpoon to Lamby and they stood battle ready with the spears fierce in their hands.
The water in the metal bucket boiled in the belly of the fire and they let it pop and hiss as David jumped the traps and sprinted towards the door with the enemy closing in like storm clouds over the horizon.
‘Where’s John?’ shouted Kay when he was in earshot.
David fell through the door and they could see he was rag-soaked from head to toe in blood and mud and the metallic tang made Trey retch. He swallowed and made a cough out of his heaving.
‘Dead,’ said David and the word stuck to the air like gum.
‘They killed a twin,’ shouted Lamby. ‘The twins int twins no more.’
Twenty plus boys and girls came running and when they were close some hit the traps and fell and the rest stood awkward all round.
‘Where’s Wilder?’ shouted Kay.
‘He said to send his apologies,’ shouted an older boy, his mouthpiece.
‘What the hell he do?’ shouted Lamby. ‘What the hell he do to the twins?’
Trey let one hand drop from the spear and he linked it into Lamby’s arm a moment.
‘They was snoopin,’ said the boy. ‘Wilder don’t like snoopers. Found em pokin in the chaplain’s office and int nobody allowed in there.’
‘What happened?’ asked Kay.
The boy shrugged and Trey tried to place him and he thought maybe he worked in the slaughterhouse.
‘Fightin’s what happened.’
Trey could no longer stomach the everyday talking and asking. The fire inside him was so unexpected that it almost pushed him sideways.
‘You kill John?’ he shouted
.
The boy flipped another up-down shrug.
‘You killed one brother and you’re after the other one. Is that how it goes?’ he stepped forward despite Kay telling him to keep back.
‘It was his own fault,’ said the boy.
‘You bastard.’
‘Got himself killed, dint he.’
‘What you talkin bout?’
‘They was snoopin, wouldn’t say why and then some of the lads took up chase and whichever one of em dopey lads got fried.’
‘Ran into the fence,’ shouted some scrag-tag girl. ‘Everybody knows them volts is as high as they can go.’
‘How we know to believe you?’ asked Kay.
‘Cus why lie?’
‘So why you here?’ asked Trey. ‘You plannin on finishin off the other one?’ He closed another five, six steps between them and held the spear close to the boy’s belly.
‘You wouldn’t,’ said the boy, reading Trey’s mind. ‘You just wouldn’t.’
‘How you know that, I mean really?’
‘Cus you int got no guts for blood, lads in butchers told me, you’re a pussy.’
‘Is that right?’
‘No smarts to you either.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Cus if you did you’d be standin on this side of things.’
Trey laughed and he clenched the spear between his fingers. ‘Smart thing is standin gainst you, idiot, not sidlin and runnin with the pack.’
The boy shrugged and said, ‘Whatever.’
Trey would have left things spiking and rattling between them if it wasn’t for that ‘whatever’ and he leant to push the spear just a little into the boy’s stomach.
‘Trey,’ shouted Kay. ‘Actin like them don’t solve nothin, leave it.’
Trey lunged a heartbeat one two into the boy’s belly but when he saw the ring of blood colouring the fabric of his shirt he pulled back.
Trey knew he was shouting, his mouth snapping open and shut like a barking dog, and despite Kay’s arms tightening around his waist he could feel the inner bomb that was fire finally explode.
Kay had him tipped back on to the ground and she was shouting at him and she called him an idiot but he knew this already.
The boy looked at Trey with fear waxed into place like a mannequin, ‘so what’ and ‘whatever’ knitted into his brow.
The Light That Gets Lost (Shakespeare Today) Page 15
