by Emlyn Rees
I get up, throw on my grubby towelling dressing gown and pad into the kitchen. The kite is still on the counter where Joe left it and its packet casts a long shadow on the wall. I know the present hasn’t really worked. I should have taken Fred’s advice and got Joe a computer game, or maybe I shouldn’t have got him anything at all.
Wearily, I crouch down to the broken bottom drawer. This is my junk drawer, stuffed with old hairbrushes, wire freezer tags, a collection of promotional labels that I never sent off, coffee-ring-stained envelopes and a hundred and one other useful items that I can’t bring myself to throw away. I root through the contents, looking for the airline passengers’ kit that Scott, my brother, gave Joe when he last visited. It’s the nearest Joe’s going to get to a holiday and he was thrilled with it. Inside the zipper compartment are some nylon socks, face wipes, a miniature toothpaste and toothbrush, a comb, an eye-mask and what I’m looking for: foam earplugs.
Despite the skull-and-crossbones ‘Keep Out’ sign on Joe’s door, I look in on him. He’s lying on his back under his camouflage duvet cover, sleeping solidly and noiselessly, like a mummy. His face is illuminated by the green glow from the light on his computer monitor and I creep into the room to switch it off. He doesn’t stir as I crouch down and plant an illegal, tender kiss on his forehead. He looks so serious and for a moment I feel terrified.
I run my fingers through Joe’s hair, resisting the urge that I’ve had since he was little to lean in and check he’s still breathing. I want to cry, but I don’t. Instead, I sink to my knees by Joe’s pillow and stare at his face for a long time, taking in every pore of it, memorising his long eyelashes and the shape of his eyebrows, willing time to stand still for a second in the hope of keeping him just the way he is.
I tiptoe back to my room, even though I know Joe won’t wake up, and wedge the foam pads into my ears. As I curl up on my side and listen to the sound of my own breathing whoosh around my head, an orange diagonal of light sweeps up the brown nineteen-fifties wardrobe, across the flaking beige paint on the ceiling and down to the ironing board stacked with a pile of laundry, as another bus passes the window.
Sleep still eludes me, even though I’m exhausted. I lie awake staring at the corner of my pillow. I feel terribly unnerved, as if I’ve tripped and fallen over, and the world is suddenly at a different angle. I’ve spent so much time running in the opposite direction from my past and making promises about the future that I feel giddy and a bit lost. I’ve dismissed everything that happened, shut it out, shunned it, cursed it and pretended that it happened differently, but all the things I haven’t resolved are still there. It’s hard to admit, but I don’t feel like the fearless single mother striding towards a better future, I just feel like a coward.
It’s seeing Fred that’s made me feel like this. The new Fred, with his adult face, looms in my head, at once obscuring and rekindling my memories with the reality of his presence. As if none of the years between had happened, ancient feelings of betrayal and anguish come rushing back and threaten to choke me. Swallowing hard, I replay our meeting over in my head, over and over again, but this time I stand up to him in the toy shop, flinging down the computer game like a gauntlet and asking him why. That’s all I need to know. Why he left so suddenly. Why he didn’t phone or write. Why, after everything that happened, he just stopped caring.
I roll over on to my back and try to get comfortable, but the anger sits on my chest like a growling cat. I don’t know if I’m more angry with Fred or with myself, for having had such a pathetically polite encounter when, actually, I should have beaten him up. Instead, I babbled on and didn’t even let him get a word in edgeways.
But even if I did bump into him again out of the blue, I doubt I’d have the courage to stand up to him. What would I tell him? That I blame him? That in that one defining act of our youth the course of my life changed for ever? Is it really true that everything bad that’s happened to me since I last saw him is somehow Fred’s fault? Or is it more the case that I’m cross because our childhood should have lasted a little bit longer?
I’ve spent all this time resenting the fact that it ended so abruptly, that I’ve forgotten what being young was like. Because, if, like now, I allow myself to think about it, I miss it. I miss it for me, but most of all I miss it for Joe, because once upon a time there was no need for computer games, or hot summer nights alone in a bedroom, because I had Fred. And where there were Fred and me, there was always adventure.
The low grey clouds scudded across the October sky, as I tensed, ready for action. Despite the lack of sunshine I shaded my eyes, squinting up the sharp slope of the field, as I waited for Fred to get into position.
Suddenly I saw him, diagonally opposite, right over the other side of the mud-peaked expanse, his orange cagoule making him stand out against the dark-brown fields beyond. He’d refused to take it off, saying that despite what everyone else said, Miles had told him that bulls were colour blind, and I’d known Fred’s stubborn face well enough to realise that there hadn’t been any point in arguing.
Feeling sweaty, I unzipped my parka and made the agreed signal – flinging my arm up like Olga Korbut about to perform a triple backflip, but feeling a tingle of fear spread across my hairline as a solitary scrawny magpie plunged from the giant oak tree and landed, squawking, on the fence post in front of me. What was the rhyme? One for sorrow, two for joy …
Feeling ominous, I stopped myself looking round for the magpie’s mate and concentrated on the task ahead. This was it, then. The time had come at last. This was war.
‘Okey-dokey,’ I mumbled, rubbing my hands together, kneeling down and pulling at the weak wire patch in the bottom of the fence. It took a lot of wriggling, but finally I was through. Flattening myself against the fence, my heart pounding, I looked up and saw that Fred had clambered on to the stone wall on the other side of the field, holding our weapon aloft against the grey skies. And between us, huge, brutal and hairy, was our enemy: Jimmy Dughead’s bull.
For a moment everything was still, our fear suspended in the soggy air. The only sound I could hear was my own heartbeat and a dog barking in the distance. Soon all the kids in the village would be dressing up in their witches and ghost costumes, and the Hallowe’en celebrations would begin. This was our last chance and it had to work.
The night before we’d both sat in my bedroom racking our brains for a plan, as we listened to records and looked up rude words in the dictionary.
‘I know,’ said Fred, his face lighting up with an idea, but as soon as it had come, his shoulder slumped back down into his familiar slouch. ‘No. No,’ he mumbled.
‘What?’ I asked, flinging the dictionary aside.
‘Nothing. Nothing. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Fred,’ I insisted, swinging my legs off the bed. ‘We’ve got to get the treasure tin. It’s got all our money in it. And if we don’t get the money, we won’t be able to afford any of the tickets for the raffle.’
We’d both been obsessing about the raffle prize which was tickets for the circus in London. Rumour had it that Rushton’s only claim to fame, Andy Buckley, the reclusive magician who lived over in the big house, had donated them to his elderly cleaning lady who was putting them in the Hallowe’en raffle as first prize.
‘But,’ began Fred. Then he sighed heavily. ‘No. We can’t. Well, we could …’
‘Come on,’ I urged.
Fred looked down at the bean bag. ‘Miles has got a –’
But he didn’t have a chance to continue, as my mother suddenly opened my bedroom door. Her hair was obviously in giant rollers, as the shiny headscarf looked lumpy on the top of her head. Her eyes were glazed, as they often were in the evening. She was wearing her blue net dressing gown with fluff around the bottom and she clutched at the neck of it as she looked between Fred and me, her expression blank. ‘Are you hungry?’ she asked unenthusiastically.
I shook my head. ‘We had a sandwich, didn’t we, Fred?’
&nbs
p; I glared at him. The last thing we needed for Mum to start cooking.
‘Um, yes,’ Fred muttered. ‘Thanks anyway, Mrs Maloney.’
She screwed up her mouth, half nodded and, without saying anything else, swung back on the handle and banged the door shut.
‘Miles has got a …’ I hissed excitedly, urging Fred to carry on.
‘A starter pistol.’
‘A what?’
‘You know, like in school. One of those guns they use at the start of a race. They make a huge bang, but they’ve only got blanks in them.’
‘Why has Miles got a starter pistol?’ I asked, surprised.
‘He used to be an athlete,’ Fred said proudly. ‘He told me all about it when I saw him putting it away the other day.’
The record had finished and the needle crackled as it undulated in the blank grooves. I thought for a moment before crossing my legs under me and fiddling idly with my Rubik’s cube as I worked out a plan. ‘I’ve got it,’ I said. ‘One of us could go to the bottom of the field and distract the bull while the other one jumps over the wall, runs in and digs up the treasure. If the bull gets nasty, we could fire the starter pistol to give it a shock –’
‘Mickey, we can’t,’ interrupted Fred, leaning over and pulling the needle off the record.
‘Why not?’
‘Miles would go mad.’
‘He wouldn’t have to find out. We’ll just be borrowing it until we get the treasure back. If we have to use it, we’ll just tell everyone it was a firework. Simple.’
But now, looking at Jimmy Dughead’s bull, its condensed breath firing out of its quivering, evil nostrils like steam, our plan didn’t seem so obviously simple any more. It was far too late to change things, though, so advancing up from the bottom of the muddy field like a matador, I began my distraction routine, yelling out a jumble of words from all the Abba songs I could remember, but Jimmy Dughead’s bull didn’t share my enthusiasm. ‘Come on, come on,’ I muttered, before advancing further, continuing in a louder rendition. ‘Take a chance on me,’ I sang, windmilling my arms and dancing cancan style in my red wellies.
This time I had the bull’s full attention. It snorted and scraped its hoof in the dirt as I hopped up and down to ‘Dancing Queen’. But it didn’t take much more to do the trick. The bull, like a cartoon version of itself, seemed to rear itself up, leaning backwards to give itself more force, then it was off, charging down the field at me.
Behind the bull Fred hopped off the wall and ran into the field, frantically searching for the place where the treasure was buried, trying to align himself in the central spot between the four oak trees.
‘Dancing Queeeeeeeeeeen!’ I half sang, half yelled, as Jimmy Dughead’s bull thundered towards me. Losing my confidence, I ran back to the bottom of the field and threw myself through the gap under the fence.
The bull wasn’t pleased and snorted at me, angrily nudging the piece of the fur from my hood that had caught the fence. I jumped back, trying to keep the bull occupied, but with only the thin fence between us it quickly got bored with my timid advances. Which is when it turned round and noticed Fred, who was now slap-bang in the middle of the field, pacing in the gluey mud, staring intently at the ground.
‘Fred!’ I yelled through cupped hands. ‘Fred, watch out!’
Startled, Fred looked up and saw the bull turning up the field towards him. My heart pounded as he tried to pull the starter pistol out of the front pouch of his cagoule.
‘Fred! Quick!’ I screamed, throwing myself against the fence and watching in horror as the bull hurtled towards him.
Panicked, Fred yanked the starter pistol free. Holding it shakily with both hands, he held it out in front of him and, screwing up his face, turned his head away as he pulled the trigger.
There was a huge, ear-splitting bang.
Open-mouthed, my lungs punched empty, I watched as the bull wobbled for a second, before keeling over on to the ground with a thud. Fred dropped the starter pistol into the mud, his arms hanging by his sides. He stared across the terrifyingly small divide between him and the huge bull.
In a second I was under the fence and squelching through the mud towards him, the echo of the blast ringing in my ears.
‘Fred, Fred, are you all right?’ I said, catching up with him and shaking his arm. His chest heaved up and down inside his cagoule as first he nodded vigorously and then shook his head from side to side in denial.
I looked down at the bull and advanced slowly towards it. Close up, it was massive and its mottled purple skin was covered with thick hair, spiked up with mud. It stank with a swarming buzz of a smell that made my throat sting. I choked, holding the cuff of my parka over my nose as, tentatively, I extended my foot and prodded the beast with my toe. Its skin rucked slightly over the solid mass of muscle underneath and I jumped away, clinging on to Fred.
We stared in silence for a moment, a fuzz of light rain making us blink as our feet started to sink in the mud.
‘It must have had a heart attack,’ I said. ‘Bloody hell. Just like Doctor Lawson.’
We were experts on heart attacks, following the collapse of Rushton’s doctor in the post office a few weeks previously, followed hot on the heels by Mrs Turnball who had collapsed right on to the magazine rack in the local newsagent. At school, we’d all perfected the double-hand-to-chest-knee-buckling death sequence of Rushton’s two seemingly sprightly inhabitants and now, it seemed, we’d scored a hat trick: we’d scared Jimmy Dughead’s bull to death.
‘Come on, quick. Let’s get the treasure. You never know, it might wake up,’ I said, but Fred didn’t move. Still mute with shock, he extended his arm towards the bull and, confused, I followed his trembling finger. Only then did I see what Fred was getting at. In the side of the bull’s head, deep-red blood bubbled out of a small, but nevertheless deadly singed hole.
I could see my shocked face reflected in the black curve of the bull’s open eye, as slowly I picked up the starter pistol from the mud. But I knew, even before I felt the hot barrel. ‘Oh Fred.’ I choked, looking from the gun to his pale face. ‘It’s real. You shot him.’
But neither of us had time to ponder the enormity of what had happened, as the ground started to vibrate like an earthquake. I turned to see Jimmy Dughead careering over the brow of the hill on his huge tractor. When he saw us standing over his prostrate prize bull, he rose up in his seat, shaking his fist in the air like an angry Viking.
‘Run!’ I screamed, grabbing Fred and jamming the gun into my pocket as we raced down the field, scrambling under the fence and sprinting to the stream that separated it from our houses.
‘You little bastards. I’ll get you!’ Jimmy Dughead yelled, his voice reverberating down the hill after us.
I pushed Fred through the brambles and scrambled after him, wading through the knee-deep stream, forgetting all about the stepping stones. Fred pulled me up the muddy bank on the other side and into the garden of our house. We fell panting on to the patch of earth by Dad’s compost heap.
We both knew that Jimmy Dughead had recognised us and we didn’t have much time. If he found us, we’d be made into mincemeat. I pulled off my welly and emptied out a gush of water.
‘Let’s go to the village. He’ll never find us there,’ I said and Fred nodded. Hopping up the path as I pulled my welly back on, I watched Fred race ahead to where my Raleigh Chopper was lying on its side and pull it upright.
‘Quick. Go, Fred,’ I urged, climbing on to the long seat behind him and clinging on.
But Jimmy Dughead must have realised our plan, because the gate to the farm at the top of the road was already open as we wobbled down the gap by Dad’s car. And as we screeched out of the drive, we could hear the tractor bumping over the cattle grid.
‘He’s going to run us down,’ shouted Fred, finding his voice, at last, as he looked over his shoulder. We flew down the centre of the Avenue, whizzing past all the neighbours’ gates, straight over all the potholes we usually a
voided, our cheeks pinned back, our teeth clattering as we gathered speed down the steepest hill in the world and our voices rattled in our chests as the tractor came thundering after us.
As we hurtled into the village, Fred’s feet couldn’t keep up with the pedals and we shouted in unison as they whipped round without us. Like an escaped roller coaster car, the chopper careered over the stone bridge, making us lose our stomachs over the bump. Still faster we went, unable to stop, torn between imminent death and Jimmy Dughead. Out of control, we weaved in and out of parked cars on the high street, flew over the crossing by the school, bounced up on to the grass verge and then, flying through the air, landed in the Memorial Hall car park and smashed head first into the bins, where, finally, we came to a noisy halt.
Groaning and rubbing our heads, we both sat upright. Fred flicked away some chicken bones caught up in his cagoule and rubbed his back, but otherwise we both seemed miraculously unscathed. When we’d untangled ourselves from the tin lids, we salvaged the chopper and leant it up against the wall, before peeking round the corner to have a look at the road. There was no sign of Jimmy Dughead, who must’ve taken the long way round to avoid the narrow stone bridge, but our hearts were still pounding.
‘Let’s get to the pub,’ whispered Fred, still out of breath. ‘Pretend that nothing’s happened. There’ll be loads of people there.’
I nodded and, sticking close, we sneaked along the back wall of the Memorial Hall to the green. Then, squeezing ourselves flat against the pink plaster of the Gordon Arms, we skulked along the wall and, with a quick ‘sh’ to Elsie, the pub’s lame sheepdog, slipped in through the dark wooden doors of the saloon bar.
Inside, the air was warm and smoky, and the crackle of the fire was only just audible over the shunting of furniture, as the ladies from the Memorial Hall set out the tables for the evening’s festivities, covering them with long paper cloths and foil-wrapped dishes.
