Ripped (65 page)

The
lady
and
her
dogs
had
gone
home.
Afternoon
shadows slanted
across
the
grass.

Approaching
the
gates
of
the
park,
after
a
long
silence,
Beltane
stopped
abruptly.
'Maybe
it's
time,'
he
said,
but
so
quietly
Murray
wasn't
sure
of
what
he
heard.
He
watched
as
Beltane
pulled
out
a
thin
pocket
diary,
and
turning
to
the
back
scribbled
three
or
four lines.
'That's
what
you
wanted.'
He
tore
out
the
page
and
started
towards
the
gate.

Murray
glanced
at
the
page;
it
was
an
address.
Catching
up,
he said,
'I
won't
mention
your
name.'

Beltane
stopped
and
fumbled
a
silver
flask
out
of
a
side
pocket.
'It's
not
often
I
arrive
at
the
door
of
a
pub
and
walk
away.'
He
unscrewed
the
cap,
poured,
held
it
out.
'Reinforcements.'
Murray
made
a
gesture
of
refusal.

'Have
you
always
been
teetotal?'
Murray
shook
his
head.

'No.
Billy
said
something
that
made
me
think
you
weren't always
a
teetotaller.
It's
not
a
pleasure
I
could
give
up.
I
can't
imagine
life
without
it.'

Murray
stood
a
step
or
two
ahead
of
him
on
the
path.
He
said impatiently,
'Can't
you?'

Beltane
laughed
and
began
walking
again,
the
flask
open
in
his
hand
.

'Isn't
it
bloody
marvellous,'
he
said,
'how
we
unburden ourselves
to
strangers?'

SUNDAY,
SEPTEMBER
16
TH
1988

'You
live
in
the
past,'
Mother
said
to
Murray,
whose
head
felt
as
if
it
had
been
split
and
packed
in
the
seam
with
pieces
of
burning
coal.
Passing
a
long
watch
one
night
in
an
hotel
outside
Memphis,
just
before
Seidman's
wife
turned
the
key
in
a
car
ignition
and
got
herself
blown
away,
a
black
guy
from
the
Witness
Programme,
a
dapper
young
lawyer
offended
by
the
South,
had
shouted
how
primitive
wasn't
the
same
as
stupid;
and
ruffled,
where
normally
he
was
as
smooth
as
an
FBI
man,
had
given
his
African
examples,
all
kinds
of
ways
of
making
things
with
simple
tools
and
devices
–
like
hollowing
out
canoes
with
fire
–
stuttering
as
the
fleshy
red
faces
split
into
grins.
Thinking
of
that,
he
suffered
the
image
of
a
stripe
of
slow
fire
consuming
the
trunk
of
a
great
felled
tree.
The
wood
was
hard,
remarkably
hard,
but
fire
ate
it
out.

When
he
arrived,
he
had
bent
and
kissed
her
and
she
had
smiled
and
put
her
hand
up
to
his
face.

'Should
you
not
still
be
in
hospital?'

'I
signed
myself
out.
You
couldn't
get
a
decent
cup
of
tea.'

'First
Malcolm
and
now
you.
My
two
wounded
sons.'

'Beds
are
scarce.
They
were
glad
to
get
rid
of
me.'

'I
don't
understand
what's
going
on.'

'There's
nothing
to
understand.
Accidents
go
by
twos.'
No,
he
thought
as
he
said
that,
accidents
go
by
threes;
drawing
her
with him
through
the
tiny
hall.
'Now
that
I'm
here,
I
feel
fine.
I
couldn't
miss
my
Sunday
visit.'

And
it
was
true
that
settled
across
from
her
with
a
cup
of
tea,
he
fell
into
a
disbelieving
kind
of
peace,
fingering
its
presence
like
stolen
jewellery.
The
headache
unclamped
its
bands.

Out
of
a
drifting
unguardedness,
he
told
her,
'There
was
a
dream
I
kept
having
while
I
was
in
hospital.
I
was
in
a
wood
like
the
one
at
Coirvreckan,
only
much
bigger.
It
kept
wakening
me
out
of
my
sleep
.
It
was
a
nuisance.'

'A
wood
at
Coirvreckan,'
Mother
said
dismissively,
'there
wasn't
any
wood
at
Coirvreckan.
It
was
a
bare
place.'

At
once
he
knew
she
was
right.
It
was
a
long
time
ago,
and
he
had
only
been
a
child;
yet
it
was
a
strange
mistake.
The
land
around
that
croft
worked
by
his
father's
three
unmarried
brothers
would
have
challenged
even
the
imagination
of
a
child
to
conjure
up
a
wood
.
There
were
only
a
few
trees
and
what
there
were
all
pulled
to
the
side
by
the
wind
.

'This
was
a
forest
–
even
while
I
was
walking
I
knew
it
would
take
me
days
to
walk
out
of
it.
Then
I'm
lying
on
the
ground
and
there
are
people
looking
down
at
me.
They
–
want
me
to
sing.'

'They
would
be
out
of
luck
there,'
Mother
said.
'You
could never
carry
a
tune.

'The
dream
isn't
too
bad
until
then.
But
then
a
man
pushes
his
way
through
the
crowd
.
He
has
rings
that
flash
in
the
sun
and
he
leans
down
and
puts
his
hands
over
my
eyes.'
The
rings,
dazzling
lights
in
the
sun,
and
then
darkness.
'At
first,
when
he's
pushing
his
way
through
–
I
see
his
hands
first –
I
think
I'll
know
him,
but
when
he
bends
over
I
see
he's
got
no
face – not
a
proper
one.
It's
a
turnip
lantern,
like
Halloween.
The
kid's
stuff
you
get
in
dreams'

The
white
flesh
of
the
turnip
shone
in
silvery
stripes
where
the tough
outer
integument
had
been
hacked
off.
Gouged
rectangles
for
the
eyes,
a
triangular
vacancy
–
a
syphilitic
gap
–
for
the
nose,
the
mouth
an
untidy
gash.
Instead
of
hair
it
wore
a
festal
crown
of
black
spikes,
and
the
light
from
the
candle
inside
shone
out
through
the
mouth
and
nose
socket,
but
not
through
the
eyes.
The
eyes
were
dark.

Mother
said,
looking
at
him
attentively,
'I'm
worried
about
Malcolm.
He
wasn't
looking
well
last
Sunday –
when
you
weren't
here.'