Heaven Eyes

by David Almond

  And then she saw Wilson Cairns. He was at his table, facing the wall. He had a bowl of clay and a bowl of water. I led her to him. He had the muddy model of a child in his hands. It stood on the table in front of him.

  “This is Wilson Cairns,” I said.

  I touched his head.

  “Hello, Wilson,” I said. “We came back again, like I said we would.”

  He turned. He looked through his thick glasses into Heaven’s eyes, deep deep into them, as if he saw right into her, to something astonishing a million miles inside her.

  “We kept watching,” I said. “We saw the most amazing things, Wilson. We found our sister Heaven Eyes and brought her home with us.”

  “And you’ll leave again,” he said.

  “Yes. We’ll leave and then come back again. You could leave, as well. You could come with us.”

  He sniffed. He looked down at his huge body. A smile crossed his face.

  “Me?” he said.

  I grinned. I knew he was right. While the rest of us scampered across the earth or drifted away on rafts, he found his own freedom in his way of looking, in his thoughts and dreams, in his way of working clay.

  Heaven Eyes reached down and touched the child of clay.

  “Is this who you did find in all this water and in all this mud?” she said.

  “Yes,” said Wilson.

  “Is lovely,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “And you has found her sisters and her brothers in all this water and in all this mud?”

  “Yes,” said Wilson.

  He showed her the other people he had made today: babies and children, boys and girls, some of them already drying out, some of them still soft and wet.

  She ran her hands across the wet surfaces. She pressed gently with her fingertips. Clay and water ran and trickled through her hands.

  “These is like me,” she said. “My grampa did find Heaven Eyes in the black black water and the black black mud.”

  Wilson ran his pudgy fingers across her silky webs.

  “There is things that is lifted out of the water and the mud that do move and walk like us,” she said.

  “I know that,” said Wilson.

  “We has seen these things. My sister Erin Law and my brothers Janry Carr and Mouse Gullane has seen these things.”

  “I know that,” said Wilson.

  She stood there with Wilson. She took a ball of clay into her hands. She squeezed and shaped and smiled as the mud and water trickled down her arms. Wilson worked along with her. More bodies emerged out of the clay. Heaven Eyes began to hum a low tune. We backed away from them. We gathered around the pool table and told Fingers, Maxie and the others of our adventures. Fat Kev lumbered out. We saw Maureen watching through the window of her office. We went on talking. We told all the believable parts first. We’d leave the unbelievable till later: Grampa’s death, the saint, the full mystery of Heaven Eyes. We went to the window and pointed across the houses of St. Gabriel’s, past the bridges toward hidden Black Middens Quay.

  “It was down there, just before a massive curve in the river.”

  “Where?” said Maxie.

  “Where?” said the others.

  “Just past the Ouseburn,” said Mouse.

  “Where the mudbank is,” said January. “The Black Middens. There’s old warehouses and factories and a huge printing works. A dead old place. Nobody ever goes there.”

  “Till now,” I said.

  “Yes, till now,” said January. “And now they’re knocking it down and building restaurants and things, like in all the other places.”

  They raised their eyebrows. They shrugged.

  “No,” I said. “We didn’t know it was there, either. But it was. An amazing place.” I laughed. “And now they’re knocking it down.”

  We stared out together into the sunlit afternoon, and the room filled with the amazement that we’d done these things and come back again into our ordinary world, and that the girl discovered in the Black Middens hummed and murmured at our side.

  “There’s more,” said Fingers. “Isn’t there?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Much more. We’ll tell you later.”

  “ANNA WHAT?” said Maureen.

  “We don’t know.”

  “And she was living with her grandfather?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he was called?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “And he died?”

  “He died.”

  “And this was in an old building by the river?”

  “A printing works.”

  “You know nothing else?”

  I shrugged and stood there facing her. She’d called me out of the poolroom into the office.

  “Please help me,” she said.

  “I am helping.”

  “Then tell me more. What else do you know?”

  “A few things. But they’re hers. She might not want you to know them.”

  “Oh, Erin.”

  “Oh, Erin what?”

  “I’m here to help her, like I’m here to help all of you.”

  “Help!”

  “You’ve never wanted help, have you? You’ve always thought you were too strong for it. But we all need help, Erin. All of us.”

  I glared.

  “You more than anybody else, eh?” I said.

  She flinched, but kept her eyes on me.

  “Perhaps,” she said.

  I wanted to just turn and get out of the place and get back to Jan and Heaven Eyes and all the others. But I stayed there.

  “You,” I said.

  “Me what?”

  “You. You’re the one that thinks my mother was no good. You’re the one that thinks you could have done better.” I paused while we stared uselessly at each other. “You’re the one that thinks I could have been a daughter for yourself.”

  “That was just dreaming,” she whispered. “Don’t you ever see somebody and think, that could have been my father, my sister, my brother …”

  I clicked my tongue.

  “No!” I spat.

  “Maybe you will, as you grow older.”

  “No, I won’t!”

  I was trembling. I clenched my fists. I wanted to get out but I couldn’t move.

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes I do. Of course I bloody do.”

  She reached across the desk to me but I stepped back.

  She watched me as I cried, as I sat down on the chair facing her.

  “You’re such a brave strong girl,” she said softly. “I know your mother must have been wonderful.”

  “She was.”

  She reached out again and I flinched again.

  “Once upon a time,” she said, “I dreamed of having lots of children. It wasn’t to be. Maybe that’s why I came to work in places like this.”

  “But you’re so cold,” I said. “It’s like you hate us sometimes.”

  “There are many disappointments, Erin. Some of you are so so damaged.” She sighed, and her eyes darkened. “And there are those who simply turn away from your help. Those who simply run away.”

  I felt my anger wanting to rise again.

  “Like me, you mean.”

  “Oh, Erin. Let’s not fight.”

  I rubbed my eyes. I heard the others laughing in the poolroom. My head reeled with the rocking of the raft, the surging of the river.

  “We could work together,” said Maureen.

  “Eh?”

  “We could find out about Heaven Eyes together. We could work out how to care for her. I’ve seen how you love her, Erin … as if she were your sister.”

  I knew how useless it could be. Circle times, questions, counseling, investigations. It would be better to run off with her to the moors, to live up there and run wild and free like vagabonds. Better to make another raft and sail away again toward the sea. There must be other ways to care for children like Heaven Eyes, like myself, like January Carr, like Mouse Gullane.

  “Awful thing
s have happened to her,” I said. “But do you see how happy she is?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you don’t understand that.”

  She met my eyes.

  “No, I don’t. But I could come to understand.”

  She reached across the desk. I let her hand fall on mine.

  “We could work together,” she said.

  I made no answer.

  “I’ll have to make reports. There’ll have to be investigations.”

  “Of course there will,” I said. “You wouldn’t know how to just love her, leave her alone and let her be Heaven Eyes, and let her story come out slow as slow.”

  “I could try,” she said, and she gripped my hand tightly, but I tugged away and left her.

  I CARRIED HEAVEN EYES BOXES upstairs with January. We stashed them in my room, on top of my wardrobe. The day was already fading, evening was coming on. We stood at the open window. January was silent, deep in thoughts or dreams. I rested my hand on his shoulder and grinned.

  “Don’t think we’ll be staying long,” I said. “Got to keep Heaven Eyes out of their clutches, eh?”

  He didn’t move, didn’t speak.

  “What is it?” I said.

  He blinked, shook his head. It was like he spoke from a thousand miles away.

  “Dunno. Nothing.”

  I squeezed his arm.

  “January?”

  “D’you ever feel you’re just dead dead young?” he said. “Like no matter how old you get you’re still a little kid, still a baby?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you get scared,” he said. “Dead scared?”

  “Yes. Dead scared. You’re so small, the world’s so big. You’re like the smallest baby. You’re all alone. You wonder what will become of you. You wonder who’ll care for you.”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  I stood there with him. I held his hand and leaned on him. January Carr, my friend. January Carr, this tall strong boy who built the raft that carried us away. January Carr, this tiny baby in a cardboard box on a stormy winter’s night. I felt him trembling.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Like something’s happening,” he said. “Like there’s something coming that’ll…”

  “That’ll what?”

  “Dunno,” he said. He chewed his lips. “I’m scared, Erin. Dead scared.”

  “I’ll be with you,” I said.

  “I know that. I know you love me.”

  “And that you love me.”

  We stood there, holding each other. And as we stood there, I saw the bird come to the window at his back. It perched on the sill for a second, then flew into the room with a quick fluttering of its wings.

  “A bird,” he said. “Look, a bird!”

  It circled the room above our heads, a small dark bird, maybe the same curious sparrow I’d seen with Mum. January swiveled his head, followed it with his eyes, goggled in astonishment.

  “A bird, Erin!”

  It went back to the sill, hesitated a moment, then flung itself into the coming night. We watched as it disappeared into the empty air over the houses.

  “The bird of life,” I told him.

  “Bird of life?”

  “It’s been before. It comes into the room and out of the room. It spreads its wings and flies about us for a few seconds.”

  “And it’ll come again?”

  “Yes. Mebbe it’ll come again.”

  We held each other and grinned, and our hearts trembled in wonder at everything we’d seen together.

  “Let’s go back down,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said, but he hesitated. He caught his breath. He closed his eyes. I felt how his spirit rushed into a deep silence again. He shook his head, opened his eyes, looked at me like he looked from a thousand miles away.

  “Hell’s teeth, Erin,” he whispered.

  “What is it, Jan?”

  “Dunno, Erin. Dunno.”

  We crossed the landing, went downstairs, went into the poolroom. Wilson and Heaven Eyes still faced the wall, working the clay. They leaned together, the slender girl and the huge boy. Muddy water trickled from their fingers. The falling sunlight slanted in from outside. The children playing pool were dark bowed figures with fragments of dust shimmering around them. As I approached, I heard how Heaven and Wilson breathed together, how their breath was like a song, a low sweet chant. Their heads were tilted forward. They were engrossed in the clay, in their fingers that smoothed and stretched and shaped the clay. January was behind me, standing with Maxie at the pool table. A bird sang in the concrete garden. The distant city roared. I felt the river running through my mind. I felt the swirl and rush of deep dark water and the long slow drag of tides. Heaven giggled as I moved closer. Wilson sighed with joy. I looked down and saw the little figure stretched between their hands. It was the wet sloppy figure of a child. Legs and arms, a glistening body. It trembled. There were tiny spasms in its arms, its legs. Wilson eased it away from his palms and held it with his fingertips. The body arched, the head tilted back, the arms gently rose, a leg stretched forward, just like it was about to dance. Heaven laughed. Wilson sighed. It was joined to their fingers just by a gooey paste, paste like at the edge of the Black Middens, where mud and water mingled, where the most mysterious of creatures—Heaven Eyes, the saint—could be discovered.

  The figure came to rest, and Wilson laid it on the wet surface of the unused clay.

  I reached past him and touched the cold wet clay child. I touched the child that had been conjured out of clay and water and love and hope.

  “You see?” he said.

  “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

  “I WANT HER TO STAY IN MY ROOM TONIGHT,” I said.

  She just shrugged.

  “I’ll put blankets and things on the floor.”

  She just shrugged.

  “Anything,” she said.

  She turned her eyes away.

  “Maybe I’ve always been wrong,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Maybe I could never get to know you all, never get to understand you all.”

  I looked down and shrugged.

  “Maybe it’s time for me to leave,” she said.

  “Maybe.”

  She caught her breath and I heard how such a simple word caused such pain.

  “But I have tried to love you all,” she said. “Not always in the right way, perhaps …”

  I could see she needed reassurance, but I just shrugged again.

  “It’s okay, then?” I said. “About Heaven Eyes.”

  “Anything.”

  We got some blankets and pillows and laid them on the floor beside my bed. We sat together against the wall below the window and the night air flowed over us and the moon shone down on us. We held hands and drifted through our memories and dreams. She gazed into the faces of her lost family. I opened my treasure box and put on the lipstick, the nail polish, the perfume. I gazed at the photograph of the fishy froggy thing inside my mum. “Mum,” we whispered together. “Mum. Mum.” We smiled as our mothers came whispering our names, as they gently touched our skin, as they cradled us in their arms. We drifted away from the little room in Whitegates. I was in the garden filled with flowers and fattening gooseberries. Where was Heaven Eyes? On a sofa on her mother’s knee, perhaps, or on a little sailing boat that danced beneath the sun. We drifted, drifted, drifted. January brought us out of it. He gently opened the door and came in to us. He crouched in front of us, his face lit and shadowed by the moon.

  “Couldn’t settle,” he said. “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Janry Carr,” said Heaven Eyes.

  “Yes?”

  She squeezed my hand.

  “Tell me bout myself.”

  We opened a box and Jan took out a newspaper.

  “What is these things saying?” she said.

  I sighed. One day we would have to tell her everything we knew. We would lead her toward it slowly, slowly.

  “Your name is A
nna May,” said Jan.

  “Anna May?”

  “Yes. Anna May.”

  “Anna May. Is a nice name, Anna May?”

  “Yes,” I told her. “Is a nice name.”

  “I know other things,” said January. “But we’ll tell you slowly.”

  “Yes,” said Heaven Eyes. “Slow as slow.”

  She rolled the name around her lips and tongue and throat.

  “Anna May, Anna May, Anna May …”

  “May is a time of year,” I said. “A time when the world gets stronger and brighter.”

  “Anna May,” she said. “Anna May. Anna May.” She laughed. “Does feel that funny in my mouth.”

  Outside, across the river, the city gently roared. We heard footsteps above us, footsteps on the stairs, footsteps outside my door. A tapping at the door, and Mouse slipped shyly in.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” he said.

  We laughed and he sat beside us. Squeak scuttled across his opened hands.

  “Eek. Eek.”

  “You going away again?” said Mouse.

  “Sometime,” I said.

  “You’ll let me know.”

  “Don’t worry, Mouse. We’ll let you know. You’ll come with us.”

  We sat there. Our heads were filled with the river, the black Black Middens, the printing works, the saint and Grampa stepping down into the tide.

  “Mouth more, Janry Carr,” said Heaven Eyes.

  “More?”

  “More secret things, my brother Janry Carr.”

  “Your mother was called Alison. Your father was called Thomas.”

  “Names,” she said. “Lovely names.”

  I squeezed her hand.

  “Lovely names,” I told her.

  “They is still as still?” she said.

  January sighed.

  “Yes, Heaven. We think they are still as still.”

  Tears trickled on her cheeks.

  “Still as still,” she said. “But they do move and smile and shiver in my thoughts and they is bright as day.”

  She held her hands up and the moonlight streamed through them and they were beautiful.

  “Fishy froggy,” she whispered. “Fishy froggy Anna. Mouth more, mine brother Janry Carr.”

  “Your sister was called Caroline. Your brothers were Anthony and Tom.”

  More tears trickled on her cheeks, splashed into her lap. I held her close.