The Tightrope Walkers (12 page)

“Be kind to him,” he said. “Be kind to all the lads. They’re only lads, coming up a little way behind the girls.”

“Lads!” she said.

“I know. What are we to do with them? Sadly, once I was one of them myself.”

He looked sadly at the boys.

“Oh, what it is to be a lad. To wish to be good and be only seen as bad!”

He grinned.

“Who said that? Some minor poet, I fear. Maybe the lads should write the lines about the lads. In the meantime, get practising those proper lines for next time, get them tripping off the tongue. No better words to drum into the brain than those of our great bard! Good night, my brutal boys. Good night, my sweet sweet girls!”

We still went home together that afternoon, but even though she softened, and though she laughed, and though she praised the lessons of Joyce, there was venom in the lines she practised as she crossed the waste. She softly snarled and pointed to the open McAlinden door.

“ ‘O proper stuff!

This is the very painting of your fear.

This is the air-drawn dagger . . .’ ”

Air-drawn dagger!

“Stop it,” I said.

“Stop what?”

“Stop bliddy showing off or whatever it is you think you do.”

“Oh, Dominic Hall, I shame to wear a heart so white.”

A heart so white!

And hurried on, into her house, and left me all alone.

Alone. As the months passed by, I continued to walk the wire with her, and she was at my side, ready to catch me, urging me on. But I told myself that she was false, that she was just indulging me. I imagined her sniggering with her father about me, the clumsy caulker’s son. I imagined her dreaming about the other lads, the ones who were becoming more than lads. I told myself that this had always been true. She’d spent time with me only because there’d been no other in the narrow confines of our pebbledashed estate and in the barbaric classrooms of the Miss O’Kanes. Now everything had changed, now that she was at grammar school with children of her ilk, with teachers of her ilk.

One day I snapped that I had other things to do when she came to walk the wire. I stood in the back doorway and rolled my eyes and said it was a stupid, childish thing to do.

“You don’t mean that,” she said.

“I do.”

“My God, you think it’s beneath you. My God, you think it’s
girly
.”

I shrugged.

“Or it’s just
me
?” she said.

I didn’t answer.

“My God, you think I’ve stunted you and held you back.”

No answer.

“That’s what your dad thinks, isn’t it? The silly Stroud lass, the weird woman’s daughter stopping his lad from being a lad.”

No answer.

“You didn’t think that before. Why are you suddenly thinking what your dad wants you to think?”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“And even if I am, what’s wrong with thinking like my dad?”

“We’re supposed to be moving forward, Dom. We’re supposed to be making our own minds up about things.”

“Like
you
do?” I said.

“Aye!”

“You think exactly what your dad wants
you
to think.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Going to bliddy plays. Doing bliddy art and bliddy CND. Spoutin fuckin stupid Shakespeare.”

“That’s not what he wants. It’s what all of us should want.”

“Is it?”

“Yes! And if you can’t see that you’re getting even boringer and stupider than I thought.”

“Piss off, you freak!” I snapped.

“You piss off too, you boring bliddy git!”

Her mother started singing “Hernando’s Hideaway.”

“That’s how
you’ll
turn out!” I shouted as she turned from me. “A freak, daughter of a bliddy freak.”

She just raised her hands and showed two backward-facing V-signs. She walked to her place across the street a million miles away.

I kicked the outhouse wall. Tiny stones skittered across the concrete. I kicked again. Spat and cursed and spat and cursed. Next day I slung the ship-steel knife at my hip and I went in search of Vincent McAlinden.

He was almost a man. He’d soon be leaving school. The death of Bernard had changed him. We all said that. He’d grown quieter. He didn’t threaten and scoff. The tale was that he’d become more compliant in school. It was the sadness, of course. The grief. The people of the estate had begun to look upon him with sympathy. Vincent McAlinden? He had gone through purification by fire. Tragedy had enriched him, poor lad. We told ourselves that what we hoped was true: that there was a strain of goodness in each of us, even in this troubling son of the McAlindens.

“Thank God for that,” said Mam one evening.

“Aye,” said Dad. “Thank God. I knaa what it is to lose mates. I knaa what it can do to you.”

We looked at him.

“I went through war,” he said.

Mam kissed him.

“And came out safe and sound, thank God,” she said.

“As Vincent will. I always said he was just a lad. He’ll grow up and find his way. God knaas I was hardly an angel meself. God knaas there’s none of us that’s angels.”

It was as if he was expecting me that sunny Saturday morning. He stood leaning in his doorway. I didn’t dare to look at him at first, but I slowed down, and hesitated on the path.

“Aye aye,” he said.

He repeated it. I stopped, turned. He held an open pack of No. 6.

“Smoke?” he said.

I looked back up the street.

“Nobody’ll knaa,” he said.

He stepped towards me, and I took one. I lit it, tried to inhale, coughed.

“Ye’ll learn,” he said. “Your throat gets used to it. So what ye wantin?”

“Nothing,” I replied. “Nowt.”

“That’s easy, then.”

He was taller than me and had grown leaner. His nose was thickening. He had long sideburns now, dark stubble, and the black widow’s peak pointed down towards the space between his grey eyes. The endless fire burned in the house behind.

I felt so young, didn’t know what to say, was about to move on.

“I was ganna walk the dog,” he said.

He lowered his eyes and I saw the shyness that seemed to be in him, too.

“You could come if you like,” he said.

I shrugged.

“Aye,” I said. “OK.”

He got the dog, a black, low-slung thing with bandy legs and wheezing breath. He put a chain on it. It walked between us as we moved down the path alongside the wasteland. Didn’t go far. The dog was snorting, straining on its leash.

“Down, Horror!” said Vincent. “I said get down!”

He jerked on the chain. The dog snarled at him.

“It’s mental, this one,” he said.

Saliva drooled from its open mouth.

“What the hell,” said Vincent. “I’ll let it run.”

He took off the leash and the dog galloped jerkily across the uneven earth. We sat on a pile of stones. Vincent smoked again, said he wouldn’t offer me another one just yet. Didn’t want to rip my throat apart. I saw a black boat far out on the sea, heading northwards, right on the horizon. The dog barked viciously. It snarled into a hole, then rushed down into it.

“Summat’s bit the dust,” laughed Vincent. “Horror! Leave it!”

The dog raged for a while, then trotted back to us, with blood on its mouth and peace in its eyes. It sat with us.

“Ye got nae dogs yourself?” said Vincent. “I love mine, the silly sods. They’re like me mates.”

He let the dog lick his outstretched hand.

I saw that he saw the knife at my hip.

I took it from its sheath and worked the blade into the earth, loosening the close-packed soil, prising out pebbles.

“Ye got plans?” he said.

“Eh?”

“For today. Or are ye fancy free?”

“Dunno.”

He watched me for a moment.

“Want to gan shootin?”

I hesitated.

“You don’t have to,” he said.

“Aye,” I said. “I will.”

He yelled for the dog, put the chain on it again. We went back to his house. He hauled the dog through the gate, tethered it to the clothes post, went inside. I heard shouting. He came back out with an air rifle angled across his shoulder and a canvas sack hanging at his back.

“We’ll gan slaughterin,” he said. “Just jokin.”

We set off uphill through the estate. Horror howled as we walked away.

“I should tell me parents,” I said as we approached our house.

“Aye,” he said. “Good idea. Don’t want them worryin.”

I led him through the gate, past the outhouse, towards the back garden, the back door. Mam was hanging washing on the line.

“Vincent!” she said.

“Howdo, Mrs. Hall.”

Her eyes were on the gun. I wanted to tell her what she’d told me, that we had to care for Vincent, had to include him in what we did.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Hall,” said Vincent. “We’re not gannin murderin. Thought we might do some target practice on the wastelands. If ye approve of course.”

Mam’s shoulders slumped.

“A rifle?” she said to me.

“Air gun, Mrs. Hall,” said Vincent. “Wouldn’t hurt a . . . But mebbe it’s not the thing, eh? Mam sends her regards by the way.”

She thanked him.

Tell him it’s not the thing, I wanted her to say. Tell him you don’t approve. Send the boy and the gun back down again.

Dad came to the door, in his white vest, wiping shaving cream from his face with a white towel.

“Vincent,” he said.

“Aye,” said Vincent. “Your lad brung us up here.”

“Aye?” he asked me.

“Aye,” I said.

He lit a cigarette. He eyed the gun.

“I thought we might get some rats, Mr. Hall,” went on Vincent. “Even some rabbits up on the fields.”

“And mebbe a pigeon or two, eh?”

“Aye,” said Vincent. “Food for free. Just like in the olden days.”

“You’ll not get me eating poor little slaughtered beasts,” Mam said.

Dad grunted.

“What about the lamb that you’ll be chompin on tomorrow?” he said. “What about this mornin’s lovely crispy bacon?”

“That’s different,” she replied.

Dad reached out for the gun. He raised it, looked through the sights, pointed to the sky.

“Everybody likes a gun in their hand,” he said.

“Not everybody!” snapped Mam.

She lifted away a shroud of white washing that blew across her from the washing line.

“You OK these days, Vincent?” he said.

“Aye, thanks. Gettin over things, you know.”

“That’s good. You’ll be workin soon, eh?”

“Soon enough.”

“That’ll help.”

“Aye, that’ll help.”

Dad swung the gun through the air.

“Loaded?” asked Dad.

“No,” said Vincent. “D’you want a pellet in it?”

“No, son.” He clicked the trigger. “Kapow!” he snapped. He clicked again. “Kapow!”

He weighed the gun between his hands.

“Nice,” he said.

“It was me dad’s.”

“They make them good these days. Back in my time they were as dangerous to the shooter as to the thing to be shot.”

He looked at me.

“You ever used one of these afore?”

I shook my head.

He passed it to me. He came close. He moved my hands so that I held the barrel with one hand, had my finger by the trigger with the other. Raised my arms so that the stock rested against my shoulder. Tilted my head so that I could look through the sights.

“How’s it feel?” he murmured.

“Feels OK,” I said.

“Got to be more than that. Got to feel part of you. Got to feel natural when you pull that trigger. Let the gun ease into your body. Let your body ease into the gun.”

“Francis,” murmured Mam.

“I was in the army, remember? I was trained. And in me young days there was a ton of these around. Nobody come to no harm.”

“To no harm,” she scoffed.

“It’s natural,” he said. “Back then, princes and kings was shooting the tigers. Film stars was blasting at elephants. Us kids on the Tyne got rabbits and rats. We got crows and magpies. A few other things. Nowt wrong with it. Normal boys’ stuff, normal men’s stuff.”

He spoke to me again.

“In the army they said that in the real gunman there’s no difference between the gunman and the gun. Not a matter of how to
do
it right, but of how to
feel
it right. And it was the ones that could feel it right become the snipers, the sharpshooters. And even in the jungle they were cold as bliddy ice.”

Mam clicked her tongue.

“Such nonsense,” she said. “Give the gun back, Dominic.”

“If you can’t watch this, then get inside,” he told her. “What d’you think’s going to happen, woman? We’re going to start slaughtering ourselves?”

“Don’t be stupid,” she said.

“Don’t call me stupid. Do as you’re told and go inside.”

She sighed. She went inside.

Dad winked at Vincent, winked at me.

“Women!” he softly said. “They don’t get it.”

I held the gun. I tried to imagine it being part of me. Tried to imagine being cold as ice and firing it at somebody, like the Japanese, or at Vincent McAlinden.

Kapow! I said inside myself.

“Die!” I breathed aloud.

“Try a couple of shots,” said Dad. “Let’s see how you get on and then we’ll know how safe you’ll be. OK, Vincent?”