by David Almond
“There’s no harm in praying, you know,” says Max as we move towards the stage.
“There’s no good in it, either,” I say. “What’s God going to do to get anybody free? And if he can do it, why hasn’t he started by now?”
“It’s better than doing nothing,” Max says. “It’s as good as singing along with that wrinkly lot.”
“Is it?”
I see Kim and Becky are trying to hear what we’re saying. I raise my voice. “Maybe it’s God that’s the problem,” I say. “If there is a God, maybe we should be praying to him to get himself down here right now and explain himself. Because if there is a God, he’s the biggest war criminal of them all.” I check to hear that Becky’s listening. “And anyway, there isn’t a God. He’s dead, he’s gone, there’s only us.”
Greg’s wife’s on the stage. She appeals to his captors. Poets step up and read their poems.
Kids from school carry homemade banners.
SET GREG FREE
GIVE PEACE A CHANCE
TROOPS OUT NOW
We keep clapping our hands and stamping our feet and chanting the words. I yell louder than anyone.
Dad steps up. He reads a page from something he’s working on. Mum and I stare at each other when he quotes her own words.
“We all have the capacity to harm,” he says. “But we have to transcend that capacity. We have to help the angel in us to overcome the beast. Or we are doomed.”
I hold Alison for a while. She smiles and giggles and loves it all. Everyone sings “Blowin’ in the Wind” and she moves in my arms to the rhythm.
Becky slides past Kim. I shift away.
“Are you avoiding me?” she says.
I put a sneer on my face.
“Why would I be avoiding you?” I say.
She tickles the baby’s chin.
“Oh,” she says. “Your big brother is such a toughie, such a weirdo!”
She walks away.
Nattrass passes by with Eddie and Ned. They stand watching the stage, grinning. They link arms, they sway, they start dancing like there’s a barn dance going on, winding and twisting their way through the crowd.
Nattrass chants:
“A-one two three, one two three, Down with evil! A-one two three, one two three, Down with death!”
12
There’s an e-mail from a name I don’t recognize. I want to click it away, but it says For Liam Lynch, the Foundling Kid. I grit my teeth and open it. There’s an attachment. I open that as well. A video begins.
The picture’s blurry. There’s a figure sitting on a chair at the center of a small poorly lit room. He’s wearing jeans and a striped shirt and there’s a black hood covering his head. His head’s tilted forward, like he’s asleep. Music’s playing: a beaten drum, a scratchy squeaky stringed instrument. There’s some chanting. None of the words are recognizable. Three figures walk into view. They’re small, with padded jackets on, with full face masks on, circles for eyeholes, slits for mouth and nose. They stand around the man on the chair—one at his back, one at each side—and they face the camera. They hold the man’s shoulders as if to restrain him. The figure at his back has a piece of paper. He unfolds it and begins to read in a grunty guttural weird voice. Again hardly anything’s recognizable: Jabber jabber jabber God jabber jabber jabber Allah jabber jabber jabber Blair jabber jabber jabber Bush. It goes on for a couple of minutes. The man on the chair doesn’t move. The men at his side stare into the camera. The man at the back closes the paper, drops it. He goes, Jabber jabber jabber death. I click Pause. I can’t go on. Lean back from the computer screen and breathe. Look around my room, my ordinary world. Look out of the window into cold, empty Northumberland. Breathe deeply and click Play again. The man at the back has a long-bladed knife. I lean right back, grit my teeth, hold my head, but I watch. Can it be real? Surely not. It’s just not possible, is it? The man on the chair just sits there. He hardly moves as the man at his back leans over him with the knife. The picture goes all blurry. When the picture clears, the man with the knife is lifting the head free of the body. He takes the hood off it. It’s a pig’s head, staring out of the screen. The body beneath is a scarecrow. The men are teenagers, hooting with the thrill of it. They’re teenagers, just like me. Then they’re gone, the screen’s blank.
I lean back, then I curse.
“Nattrass.”
I pause and play, pause and play. I run it in slow motion. I watch closely, to see the boys behind the masks, the scarecrow behind the clothes, the pig behind the hood. Listen to hear the voices within the mumbo jumbo.
“Nattrass.”
13
When I am happy I am very happy, Liam. I couldn’t imagine being happier. Can you only be fiercely happy when you can also be fiercely sad? And if you can, why is that? Are you ever fiercely sad, Liam? Are you happy? Do you know what I mean by this?
Cx
“Yes,” I whisper back towards the screen.
But do I know? Do I know as deeply as Crystal knows? Do I want to know?
14
Next time I see Nattrass he’s walking through the village with a sledgehammer across his shoulder. He doesn’t say anything at first, just stands and looks at me with his head tilted to one side, like he expects me to speak.
“So?” he says at last.
I don’t answer. He laughs and spits.
“No comment, eh? You watched it, though?”
I shrug.
“You did,” he says. “You couldn’t stop yourself, could you? You watched it all the way to the end, didn’t you. Just like millions all around the world would do?”
He grins.
“It’s funny, isn’t it, brother?”
“What is?”
“Well, even them that say they don’t like the violent stuff—like you, for instance …”
“What about me?”
“You watch it. You can’t stop. You—”
“It was stupid,” I say.
“Stupid? Ah, well. That’s what they say about lots of this modern art, isn’t it?”
“Art?”
“Aye, art. They call it stupid, meaningless. Absolutely shocking, man! Shouldn’t be allowed!”
He swings the hammer down and lets the head thud onto the pavement.
“Some people took it for real, you know,” he says. “Couldn’t tell the difference. They thought it truly was some barmy terrorist thing, that there was some message in the pig’s head. I knew you wouldn’t be fooled. You, with your background. I knew you’d know what’s real and what’s not real. That’s why I was wanting a word with you, Liam. Well, with your mother, really.”
“My mother?”
“Aye. I was thinking of them galleries. The ones she puts them pictures in.”
“What about them?”
“Well, they do that video art these days, don’t they?”
He laughs again.
“And I was thinking. Mebbe I could put some of my stuff in. What do you think?”
I roll my eyes.
“Aye,” I say. “Maybe you should. Maybe you’re a brilliant and talented artist.”
“Exactly what I was thinking, brother. So mebbe I should have a word with her, eh? What do you think she’d say?”
“I think she’d say piss off, Nattrass.”
“Get away. She uses language like that, does she? I’m shocked! Ah, well. Mebbe I should talk to somebody else, then. One of that arty lot at the brat’s christening. They look like they’d know the real stuff if they saw it, eh?”
“Aye,” I say. “Whatever, Nattrass.”
I move on. His laughter follows me.
“Hey, Liam!” he shouts. “Watch out for more. There’s shootings, beatings, stonings, lots more stuff we can get to work on. Did you see that Saddam Whatsisname getting hanged? That’d be easy to do, man! That’d be a piece of cake. That’d be a proper work of art!”
A week later there’s another video. A man walks up some steps in a barn. A hood is put
onto his head. A noose is put around his neck. A trapdoor opens and he plummets to his death.
Then there’s a hand scribbling blood-colored ink onto white paper.
Then Mum’s calling from downstairs.
“Liam! Phone call for you!”
15
A woman’s voice, urgent.
“Is that Liam? Liam Lynch?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a friend of Crystal’s?”
“Yes.”
“Forgive me. I’m Crystal’s foster mum. I’m Marjorie Stone. I’m contacting people she might have been in touch with.”
I know what’s coming. I watch the baby. She’s in a high chair at the table, with a bowl of mashed-up vegetables in front of her.
“She’s disappeared, Liam,” says Mrs. Stone. “Night before last. Wasn’t in her bed yesterday morning.”
Mum’s eyes ask: Who is it? What’s happening?
“And her friend,” says Mrs. Stone. “Oliver, the Liberian boy. Him as well.” Her voice catches. She’s crying. “She hasn’t been with us long. It happens all the time, kids running off from foster homes. But she’s young. Have you …”
I see the police car through the kitchen window. It’s coming down the lane. It pulls up outside the house.
“Have you heard anything?” says Mrs. Stone. “She likes you, she talked about you. Has she been in touch?”
“No. No.”
Mum goes to the door. I watch PC Ball and WPC Jenkins coming, straightening their bulletproof vests.
“But you’ll tell us,” says Mrs. Stone. “If she does get in touch, you’ll let us know.”
“Yes. Of course.”
I put the phone down. The police officers come into the kitchen.
“Hello, son,” says PC Ball. He winks. “Found any bairns recently?”
I ignore his joke.
“That was Crystal’s foster mother,” I say to Mum. “She’s run away. With Oliver.”
“So what do you know?” says Ball.
“Me? Nothing.”
“He hardly knows them,” says Mum.
“Seems they knew him, though,” says Ball. “Very fond of him, they were, by all accounts, so here we are.” He takes a notebook out of his pocket. “So. Where d’you think they might have gone?”
“I’ve no idea.”
He shrugs.
“None at all? They said nothing, talked about nothing?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Ah, well. Worth a try, eh?”
He crouches beside the baby. She coos and smiles. The baby laughs and holds out a fistful of mash. Jenkins laughs.
“Funny how things happen round you,” she says. “Foundling babies, runaway orphans, escaped asylum seekers. What’s next?”
“It’s like that with some folk,” says Ball. “They attract stuff. Other folk—a life of peace and quiet and nothing at all.”
Mum puts a cup of tea into his hand.
“You’ll let us know, if anything turns up?”
“Course he will,” says Mum.
“That’s good.”
They swig their tea. We hear Dad moving about upstairs, hear the printer whirring. Ball raises his eyebrows.
“Writer at work, eh? It must be great, having a dad that’s a famous writer.”
He holds his pen over his notebook, turns his eyes to the sky, pretends to write as if inspired.
“Ahem. I wandered lonely as a … Sorry.” He closes the book. “Mind you, if I do ever get round to writing some of the things we’ve seen …”
“Bestseller stuff,” says Jenkins.
“Aye. Bestseller stuff in ordinary town streets, bestseller stuff in peaceful villages. All looks peaceful and lovey-dovey till …” He pauses, looks at me closely, points to my cheek. “Had an accident, son?”
I touch the faint thin line there.
“A hawthorn tree,” I say.
“Ha. Fun and games, eh? I thought you looked like you’re enjoying the summer. Look how brown he is, eh?”
“Like a berry,” says Jenkins. “And look at that hair. Like a wild boy.”
“It’s great, isn’t it? You be wild while you can, son. The real world’ll be at you soon enough.”
He straightens his vest. They head for the door.
Ball turns and looks at me a last time.
“You won’t keep it to yourself. If there is some news.”
“Course he won’t,” says Jenkins. “He’s a good citizen, this one. Aren’t you, son?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Course he is,” says Ball. “There’s no trouble in a nice young citizen like that.”
They go to the car, drive back towards the village. The sun glints off the little police car with the shapes of bulletproofed police officers hunched inside.
“You’ve really heard nothing?” says Mum.
“Nothing.”
She holds the baby’s hand. She waves it.
“Bye-bye, nice policeman. Bye-bye, nice police lady.”
16
Nothing strange about it. Kids are always running off from children’s homes. Asylum seekers melt away. The world is full of tales of children lost in a big and scary world. They’re the tales we tell to Alison before she sleeps.
Once there was a girl called Little Red Riding Hood….
One day a pretty little girl called Goldilocks set off walking through the trees….
Hansel was the brother and Gretel was the sister and they lived with their mummy and their daddy beside a big dark scary wood….
The news appears on TV for a moment—There’s a girl called Crystal and a boy called Oliver and they disappeared in the night—then it fades, as all news stories fade.
three
1
I climb into the chestnut tree in the field beside the school. I climb higher, higher. I spend an afternoon in it, scanning the countryside that leads to Newcastle. I see the military road and the Roman Wall stretching away towards the west. I see the chapel of St. Michael and All Angels on the ridge above the village. If they come, that’s where they’ll come from. I imagine them coming down through the fields, coming down on the footpath that runs alongside the wall. I’d know them immediately, the white girl, the black boy. I see nothing. Late afternoon I climb down, go home.
Mum’s at the back door smoking a cigarette and swigging a big glass of wine.
“Hello, son,” she says, but her mouth’s all pursed and her eyes are bitter.
“What’s up?” I say.
“Everything! Art.”
“Art?”
Dad’s behind her with a coffee in his hand.
“Your mum’s just back from the gallery,” he says.
A few of her framed photographs are leaning against the kitchen wall.
“I’ve been ditched,” says Mum. “They don’t want my work anymore.”
“Yes, they do,” says Dad. “You’ve still got four or five in there.”
“I don’t want them there! I don’t want our lovely baby and our lovely son—”
“The skin of our lovely son.”
“Whatever. But I don’t want them hanging next door to that …”
Smoke seeps out between her teeth.
“That what?” I say.
“That … filth! That disgusting trashy … Yuck! Yuck yuck yuck!”
She glugs her wine. She drags on her cigarette, then flings it away.
“They have hung the most disgusting stuff on the walls….”
“It’s not even in the main gallery,” says Dad. “It’s that old warehousy place where they put all the weird stuff.”
“Hangings!” says Mum. “Hangings and beheadings and stonings that turn out not to be real hangings and beheadings and stonings. Knives and blood and axes everywhere. Pigs’ heads and beasts’ hearts and snapped bones and crushed skulls … Ugh! Ugh!”
“So is it art?” says Dad.
“It’s filth. What kind of pleasure can you get from watching it? What kind of twisted mi
nd gets pleasure making it?”
Dad sips his coffee.
“Maybe it’s not about pleasure,” he says. “Maybe they’re showing us how horrible the world is. Maybe they’re exploring the nature of reality and illusion, truth and lies.”
“Maybe they’re just getting off on their own sordid tastes.”
Dad shrugs.
“And maybe it’s showing that we’re all just a kind of meat in the end.”
She glares at him.
“I’m not meat! You’re not! Liam’s not! Alison isn’t!”
She glares at him, lights another cigarette. She glares at him again when he says she should put it out. She jabs him in the chest.
“Stop telling me what to do, mister!”
He sighs and looks at his watch. Time to head upstairs again.
“Who they by?” I ask.
“Nobody that’ll put their name to them,” says Mum. “They’re by somebody that goes by the name of the Gnat. The Gnat! And they’ve put warnings about the content on the gallery door.”
“What does whatsisname—Jack Scott—think of them?” says Dad.
She spits breath.
“Jack precious Scott! Oh, he thinks they’re new and strange. He thinks they fit the times. He thinks they’re at the cutting edge!”
“Maybe they are. Maybe they’re exactly what people are looking for.”
“People! Sickos and weirdos and people that like murder and mayhem and that’s got not a clue about art.”
“Maybe that’s most people,” says Dad.
Mum screams, short and sharp. She clamps her hands across her ears.
“I don’t want to think that. I can’t think that.”
“But maybe it has to be thought. Maybe that’s exactly why there’s murder and mayhem. Because we love it. Because the desire for it is deep inside us.”
“It’s not in me!” says Mum. She jabs him hard in the chest again. “It’s not in me!”
2
We all go to see. We leave Alison with little Mrs. Bolton along the lane. We go to the gallery. It’s got corrugated walls and a corrugated roof. The lights are low. There are video screens on the walls. I see the videos I know, or segments of them. The pig’s head, dripping blood, is sawn off time and again.
