This River Awakens (39 page)

‘Realistic,’ Barry said. ‘We’re social animals, after all. Equality’s just an ideal. Something to be strived towards, a modern Holy Grail. That doesn’t lessen its value or its importance. But we still have to live in the real world, and it’s full of grit and dirt and messy truths.’

He’d left her breathless with rage, and Marianne’s patronising cynicism was as thick and as foul as the smoke with which she filled the conference room.

Barry walked with her to the lunch room. It had been decided to maintain the detention for Owen, to turn it into an opportunity for Joanne to talk with him one-on-one. Besides, George Lyle didn’t even have a detention test prepared yet.

‘You needn’t be so dismayed,’ Barry told her as they approached the lunch-room doors. ‘It’s only the first day. No one’s settled. All the old familiar routines have been dismantled with this new programme getting into position. Give it some time, Joanne.’

‘Yes, of course I will, Barry.’ But in her mind, Joanne told herself something entirely different.
They’re not little apes. And I believe Lynk Bescher’s story. Jennifer and Owen deserve my utmost attention and understanding, of course. I intend to make them blossom under my guidance. There’re always ones who are late bloomers, just like Mother said about me. They need nurturing, that’s all. And I can begin today, with Owen. Just him and me, out of Jennifer’s domineering influences.

*   *   *

‘What are your favourite subjects, Owen?’

He sat facing her in his chair, looking both nervous and bored. At the far end of the open room, a janitor was vacuuming, the distant drone the only other sound they could hear.

‘I don’t really have a favourite,’ Owen said, looking around.

Joanne sighed. She sat in a chair like his, the student desk between them. ‘I’d prefer it, Owen, if you looked at me while we’re talking, rather than at everything else.’ When he turned his hard blue eyes on her she almost regretted her request. ‘You needn’t be so angry.’

‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘This is how I always look.’

‘I can’t believe that.’

He shrugged.

Joanne sat back, crossing her legs and resting her hands on the desktop. ‘What about English? Do you like that?’

‘Not much.’

‘Why?’

He frowned.

Well, at least I’ve got him thinking.

‘I don’t like,’ he said slowly, ‘people telling me what books to read.’

‘Hmmm. Don’t you think some books are more important than others?’

His frown changed into a belligerent scowl. ‘No.’

‘Well, I’d have to disagree with you there, Owen.’

‘Sure.’

‘Can I explain why I disagree with you?’

‘If you want.’

‘Some books – wonderful, beautifully written books – they show us a part of ourselves. They show us things about, well, about life.’

She was startled as he rounded on her. ‘Ever read
Tarzan of the Apes? War of the Worlds? Father Brown,
or
The Lost World?
I have. They’re a part of me.’

‘But they’re not real life, are they?’

He sat back, looking away. ‘What’s real life?’ he muttered, then snapped her a harsh challenge. ‘Ever read them? Any of them?’

‘That’s not the point—’

‘The first book I ever read was
Before Adam,
by Jack London. How can you talk about books when you haven’t read anything?’

‘But I have. I’ve read many books.’

He looked unconvinced. Joanne sighed. ‘Well, let’s talk about something else. Can you suggest a topic? Something you’d like to talk about?’

‘Atavisms.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Throwbacks. Some people are less human than others. They see a world in red. Like hungry animals, plain and simple. And that’s how they live, too, and everyone else is scared to death of him, of that throwback. He’s a monster, because he’s what we all were, once upon a time. Sometimes he’s just a big black shadow, right on our heels no matter how fast we run. Sometimes he’s all covered in fur, and he goes around killing people, but sometimes he doesn’t do that, he doesn’t do anything at all. He just lies there, and you try and go around him but you can’t because he’s too big. Even when he disappears, his shadow stays behind, and it like whispers in your head. That’s what Gary thinks he is, but he isn’t. Lynk’s afraid. That’s why he lied, plain and simple.’

‘Where on earth did you get all this?’

Owen leaned back, gloating. ‘Jack London’s
Before Adam.
’

V

The huge geared wheel painted on the candle factory’s yellow wall seemed to be turning, ever so slowly, in minute increments like a giant clock. I stared up at it as I approached the building, my conversation with Miss Rhide running through my mind.

She’d run out of things to say to me, questions to ask, not long after I’d talked about the throwback. While
Before Adam
had shown me the bestial character named Red-Eyes, and had taught me the word atavism, I realised, even as I spoke, that Red-Eyes was no different from Grendel, the monster in
Beowulf.
And that, like the body that had come down the river, they were all part of something else, all imperfect reflections of something primal and yet still alive.

Already – after my very first day – I saw Rhide walking among them. I didn’t know why she belonged in that company, but she did. And for me, there was no escaping her. I felt that she would haunt me all my life, the same way the body haunted me, the same way Red-Eyes sometimes stalked my dreams.

The factory’s door was padlocked, the front windows barred. Around the side facing the school, the high grasses and thistles hid a basement window. We’d worked the latch loose once, early in the summer, and it was the factory’s cavernous basement that Roland had suggested as the place to meet.

I pushed through the grasses, paused to look around, then quickly crawled through the opening.

I heard Roland’s voice. ‘He’s here.’

The drop from the window was about seven feet, down along a gritty, damp wall of large cut stone. An inner wall had been bolted to it once, but only the rust-smeared fittings remained. The floor felt gritty under me as I turned to face the others.

Lynk had lit candles, dozens of them, all over the floor, throwing out knee-high yellow light that revealed an ordered forest of wood postings, rising up to a tin ceiling stamped with ornamental patterns. At the far end of the room – which reached across the entire building – rose a steel staircase, powdered with rust where the black paint had flaked off.

Lynk paced, not meeting my eye as I entered the shadow-webbed light. Carl sat with his back against one of the posts, holding a lit candle and letting the wax drip on to his other hand.

I felt myself getting tense. ‘Okay,’ I said, eyeing Roland who stood opposite me. ‘Not so bad. Not even an hour. Rhide talked and talked. Big deal.’

‘What is this?’ Lynk demanded. ‘We’ve got nothing to meet about. For fuck sake.’

‘That’s not true,’ Roland said. ‘We’ve got to decide.’

‘Decide what?’ I asked.

‘What to do. About the body. I think we should tell the cops.’

Lynk walked up to Roland. ‘What body?’ He pushed Roland back a step with a straight arm to his chest. ‘It’s fucking gone,’ he said, pushing again.

‘We don’t know that,’ I said, watching Roland. ‘We haven’t been back. We haven’t checked.’ Roland had been needed on the farm that day we’d agreed to go, and I think we were both relieved. At any rate, we didn’t talk about it again.

Lynk pushed Roland again. ‘No fucking body. Probably wasn’t real in the first place.’

‘Oh, come off it, Lynk. Me and Roland took a good long look. He’s real, and he’s still there.’

‘How the fuck do you know?’

‘Where else would it be? The water level stayed down. That beaver lodge is high and dry. It’s still there.’

‘Have you looked, Owen?’ Roland asked.

‘No. Don’t have to.’

Lynk shoved Roland hard with both hands. Roland staggered, his foot rolling on a candle. He fell heavily.

I waited for him to get up, to beat the shit out of Lynk. Instead, he slowly climbed to his feet and brushed the dust from his pants.

Lynk approached Carl. ‘What about you, Carlie?’

Carl dropped his gaze. ‘Nothing,’ he mumbled.

Lynk pushed his palm against Carl’s forehead. The back of the boy’s head thumped loudly on the wood post. Carl rolled away.

Lynk laughed. ‘Hear that sound? Hah, fucking great – Carlie’s got a hollow head.’

I sighed, leaned against a post. ‘Well, you’ve had a fun day, Lynk. Lying to Thompson, kissing Rhide’s ass, trying to get me and Jennifer into shit. So what’s got you so scared?’

‘I ain’t. I ain’t fucking scared, not of you. Gonna kick me in the balls? Come and try it.’

‘I was thinking about it,’ I said.

He went still, facing me for the first time. His thin face twisted into a sneer. ‘Me and Gary and Dennis – we’re gonna beat the fuck out of you.’

‘Three against one?’ I laughed, though my heart was hammering. ‘Real tough, you guys.’

‘You fight dirty. That’s what we do to pricks like you.’

I wondered if my expression showed my fear. I gave him a grin. ‘I’ll take you on. Any time. Gary and Dennis can pound away – I’ll go for you, Lynk. Just you. You’ll find out how dirty I am. Guaranteed. You know how easy it is to dig an eye out with a finger? It just pops out, just like that.’

‘Fuck you.’

Roland’s punch caught Lynk – and me – completely off guard. The knuckles cracked hard against Lynk’s cheek. He reeled back, hands thrown up to his face, then bent over and leaned on the wall.

Roland sounded apologetic as he said, ‘I don’t like being pushed.’

I smiled when he turned to me, but there was no response, the eyes flat. ‘I think we should go back and look. To make sure. Then call the cops. What do you want to do?’

‘Don’t know,’ I said, watching Lynk slowly straightening, tears running down his face, probing the split cheek under his right eye. He was going to have a shiner, a nice dark one. ‘We can go look, sure. But I don’t know about the cops.’

‘How come?’

I shrugged. ‘Not sure. They’ll probably tear up the beaver lodge. The beavers never did anything. And muskrats live there, too.’

Roland studied me. I knew my reason sounded lame, but it was the truth. It was autumn already. The beavers needed a place before winter arrived. Same for the muskrats.

‘Didn’t think of that,’ Roland said. ‘It’s like the bear, isn’t it? Like when my dad wouldn’t shoot it. It’s like that, I think.’

‘How?’

‘Don’t know. But it feels the same.’

‘You’re all fucking shits,’ Lynk rasped. ‘Fighting dirty, like a buncha fags. You’re all fags. The body’s gone, you won’t find nothing. I took it. All the bones. I hid them, so fuck you.’

Carl jumped to his feet. He opened his mouth to say something, then shut it.

I felt something cold seep through me. ‘Where the fuck is it?’ I asked, my voice sounding brittle. ‘Come on, you piece of turd, Lynk.’ I stepped closer. ‘Where the fuck is it?’

Carl moved back, his eyes flicking from me to Lynk and back again, something eager in his face.

‘He’s lying,’ Roland said. ‘We’ll go look. He just doesn’t want us to go look. Lynk’s a liar.’

‘Go ahead!’ he shouted, one hand to his cheek. ‘You won’t find it! It’s mine, now.’

I took another step in his direction. Lynk flinched back, then went to the window. He pulled up the wood crate we used as a step. ‘You’re all fucking losers.’

I moved to stop him. I wanted to pull him down, fling him to the floor. I wanted to beat on him until the truth came out. My thoughts all seemed natural, cool and logical. Lynk was lying. I’d beat the truth out, so he’d learn what lying meant. No more uncertainty, about anything.

‘Let him go,’ Roland said.

I wheeled around. ‘Why?’

‘He’s lying.’

‘I know!’ I shouted.

‘Well,’ Roland drew the word out, ‘it won’t work. All we have to do to prove it is go there, to the body. Let him go.’

Lynk pulled himself up through the opening, his feet kicking as he squirmed through. A moment later he was gone.

Carl reached down for a candle. ‘He’s lying,’ he said.

‘Let’s go look,’ I said.

‘Tomorrow,’ Roland said. ‘It’s supper-time.’

‘All right. I’ll try not to get detention.’

‘Good luck,’ Roland said. ‘Rhide’s picked you out. You and Jennifer. Jennifer always gets picked. She grew up too fast.’

It was an odd thing to say, but as soon as he said it, I knew it was true. ‘I’m meeting her after supper,’ I said. ‘We should get going. Fuck, what a day.’

*   *   *

He’d been reassembling it. Piece by piece, it grew each evening, gleaming and perfect. The machine looked bigger than ever, there in front of the garage. There was still enough light from the dying day to make its ancient lines and shapes visible, a machine that belonged to this hour, to the gloom and the quiet evening air, as if it were made to manufacture twilight.

I circled it, my footfalls as quiet as I could make them on the oil-soaked asphalt. My breaths came slow and deep, inhaling its steel scent, pulling it far into me.

My old Sunday school teacher once told me how I was supposed to feel when going into a church. What she’d described had just been words – for me, churches had always felt emptied out, like a husk of something long dead. But those words, of awe and quiet wonder, returned to me now, as if they were what I was feeling, here in front of the machine in our yard’s treed cathedral.

Father emerged from the garage. ‘Long day, eh?’ he said, studying me a moment before continuing, ‘Got a call from your teacher.’

I rested a hand on the machine. ‘Miss Rhide.’

‘Yeah. Your mother took the call. We were expecting you a half-hour ago.’

‘Sorry.’

He hesitated, his hands on his hips, his face looking chalky and gaunt in the failing light. ‘Seems there’s a pattern here, Owen.’

I nodded, running my hand along the cowling. ‘Patterns, lots of them.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, it’s always a new school, isn’t it? Every year. What am I supposed to do, get beaten up?’