Turquoiselle (10 page)

Nothing was
special about Sackville, it was an ordinary secondary school. A modernish, many-celled
glassy building, with yards outside and ‘playing’ fields, where organised
compulsory unplayful games took place. Andy attended sometimes, and sometimes
did not, as before. As before also, if more lavishly and sharply, he was
warned, and told that his mother would be requested to explain his absences.
Andy paid no true attention, simply politely nodded. The attempted control of
the Young was already toughening, but stayed sporadic, and, initially, without
full back-up at Sucks. The teachers here seemed especially harassed and
incompetent, at least to Andy.

That
Heavy also appeared at Sackville-Sucks never suggested itself as an oddity.
Heavy was, the general opinion had it, sub-basement-normal. But Sucks was not
exactly an educational paradigm. It took what it was given, and tried to
drone, yell, mock or coerce fragments of knowledge into it. And where presented
with slippery and non-absorbent subjects such as Andy, at one extreme, and the ‘moronical’
Heavy at the other, gave up. Only legal punishments were allocated – extra
work, enclosures, reviews, and tirades promising parent-victimisation in lieu of
pupil-torture. These were not absorbed, either, and rarely gone along with.

When
Andy first noticed Heavy, slowly wandering over a games field where he had been
told to “Run, boy, for Christ’s sake –” Andy was not unduly astounded.

Heavy,
by then, kept turning up in Andy’s vicinity. Most frequently since their last
days at the primary.

It
went without saying, Andy, back then, always attempted – and as a rule
succeeded in – getting away. This became a sort of tiresome game, pointless and
stupid, for Andy. Just as were the organised rugger, cricket and football
later, at Sucks. Yet Heavy still morphed into a fixture, meandering along
behind Andy, or at his side, until sloughed. Oblivious to insult or the waves
of hatred Andy expelled in his direction: conceivably Heavy had become
accomplished at such a thickening of emotional skin. He took no notice of Andy’s
gibes, though when Andy ran Heavy let him go – maybe because physically, Heavy
was not equipped to pursue. While they were ‘together’ Heavy would offer his
curious observations, mis-takes, musings. And sometimes, as partially with the
ginger cat, and fully the
flying
, Heavy would, at last, now and then
himself leave Andy.

Why
Andy never physically went for Heavy remained unsure. Andy suspected it would
be useless. Like the push-induced fall. Heavy would simply once more rise up.
Possibly, too, Andy pitied him. Though it did not seem like that.

And
then the other thing happened.

It
was on the final day when he finished at the primary school. Andy had gone in
mainly to see what he could steal, since thereafter these venues could be off-limits,
short of breaking in. And that Andy never did. Had never had to.

“There
was a wolve in the garden,” said Heavy.

Andy
going home – had been, and now they jointly were – walking along Hawthorne
Road.

“Fox,”
Andy corrected.

“No,
it was a wolve,” said Heavy gently, prepared to be patient with such ignorance.

“You
don’t get fucking wolves here,” said Andy. But without real anger. It even
crossed his mind that a wolf had got out from somewhere, and with luck would
kill and eat Heavy.

“You
get wolfs,” said Heavy. “Just people lie about it.”

Two
women were walking towards them down the sloping street. One had a small black
puppy on a lead, eager and intrigued, even it seemed by the noisy, reeking flow
of traffic.

Andy
thought it was best if he just kept quiet and let cracked fucking Heavy ramble
on. Andy could make his own getaway in the usual place. (Andy’s pockets were
lined with little thieved bits and pieces. Nothing needful. Nothing really of
value . His.)

Sara
might already be home. Her cleaning work had been rather sketchy in the past
seven months. Some regular clients had moved. Others were economising, (or had
sacked her). She would not though, even if in, stay long. It would be a ‘girls’
night out’, like all evenings when she washed her hair the previous morning,
as she had today.

They
were almost level with the two women and the dog. Heavy, Andy saw, was staring
at the dog, yet not with his usual mesmerised-by-animal pleasure. Heavy looked –
concerned –

“Oh,
Joan,” said one woman to the other who held the dog’s lead, “your –”

“Fuck
–” said Andy.

Rush,
grunt and roar said the traffic, breaking open, leaving a space, as someone
turned off into a driveway – with oncoming vehicles speeding adjacently forward
from each side –

And
the eager, intrigued puppy-dog, which had, with its antics, somehow snapped its
lead, went bounding forward –

Hurling
itself out –

On
to the mindless, lethal, hungry road.

What
happened then remained for Andy a puzzle, its images kaleidoscopic, only really
assimilated afterwards, and perhaps incorrectly.

The
dog had managed to gallop across half the road, due to the brief gap caused by
a single car leaving the stream; a bus ran along behind it, moving rather more
slowly.

But
the traffic on the far side, pouring left to right, was at full charge.

And
now once more, as the bus hove forward, the near side – right to left – was
also congesting and pouring, an urgent glittering snot of vehicles.

In
the split second that followed the dog’s dive into this murdering sandwich,
something else had shot forward, off the pavement and into the river of death.

The
motion of this second springing thing was lumbering and big, was a senseless
rubbery tumble. But also – it was swift, honed, imperious, coordinate. A
leopard springing that was, too, a jelly-lead balloon.

Sounds
altered.

Screeching
and bumping, tinkle of tiny things that shattered, horns, psychopathic shouts.

And
at the centre of the sounds, a scene. A bundle was curled up on the road,
somehow glimpsed, seen
fully
,
in the middle of a formless chaos where speed became stasis, a stopped frame, a
still
.

Huge
and incongruous, Heavy curled up on the ground in a ball, with motionless
traffic inches from him.

The
two women who had been with the dog were crying. One had screamed, yes, Andy
could hear the scream even now, hung up, snagged in the air, with the new
voices crashing about below it.

Drivers
were gabbling in their cars, some getting out.

Both
traffic lanes had been stalled by the stop-frame, but they remained animate.
How odd, no one seemed hurt, only unnerved and made feral by rage.

Heavy,
of course, was dead. At least one car must have struck him. The dog would be
dead too, somewhere under or furled into his bulk, when he tried to save it –

And
then Heavy unfolded himself, again with that ungainly, ugly, and somehow
perfect physical connectedness. Up he stood, holding the small black dog in his
arms. And the dog was wagging its tail – Andy could see it clearly, waggling, a
tiny black penis of joy. It was licking Heavy’s face, joyously. Rather than
minced, it had apparently just had the best thrill of its immature life.

With
his usual shamble Heavy clumbered off the road on to the the pavement, ignoring
the bluster of the various drivers, none of whom really anyway seemed to
register Heavy completely, so busy were they inspecting wing mirrors from which
the glass had fallen out, or bumpers and fenders scraped by fellow motorists’
motors. The line of stalled left to right traffic stretched quite a way. People
were crowding on to the pavements farther along, craning to see what the fuss
was about. The near side had resumed its forward momentum.

Without
any bother at all Heavy came over, and presented the laughing puppy to its
weeping owner.

“Here,
Mrs Joan,” said Heavy, kindly.

Presently
stunned, reason switched off, all she said was, “Thank you.” And held the puppy
tight.

Heavy
came nextly to Andy, and they walked on up the road.

Nobody
thundered after Heavy. Nobody called out to him, tried to assault or arrest or
congratulate him. Nobody seemed to know quite what had occurred. Andy included
himself in that.

When
they reached the turn-off, Andy stopped.

“Heavy,
how did you do that?”

“What?”
Heavy asked amiably.

“That
dog. How did you –?”

“Didn’t
want him squashed,” said Heavy. “I’ve got money for an ice-chrome. You want
one?”

“He’s not
supposed to run,” Andy said now, standing on the grass field at Sucks, as the
sturdy games teacher pounded up, red as any London bus and scowling with
entirely extraneous wrath.

“Who
are
you
?” he snarled.
He was breathless after all despite his own constant work-outs and joggings. “Why
aren’t you in your class?”

“Free
period, sir,” lied Andy. The second lie. “But this boy isn’t supposed to run.”
Andy nodded at Heavy, who waited, smiling cordially, as if none of this was
other than a civil discussion between civilised men, or had anything directly
to do with him.

“Why
not?”

“His
chest, sir.”

“I
see,” said the teacher, furious to be cheated of his prey. “Then why didn’t he
say so himself?”

“Well,
sir, he’s... a bit – er. You know.”

“Mental,”
supplied the games teacher, his utter scorn and irritation precluding any sop
to the PC views that were not yet properly in place. Let alone to mere decency.
“Go for a
walk
then,” he scowl-snarled
at Heavy. “Brisk as you can. The size of you, you need to lose some of that
blubber. You, what’s your name?”

“Peter
Coombs,” said Andy promptly. Lucky Lie Three.

“OK,
Coombs, you go with him. Try to wake him up.”

“Yes,
sir.”

The
red bus went sprinting off, thumping down its human wheels, as if redundantly
to make the point. Failing to make it.

“Isn’t
the sky blue?” asked Heavy.

“Yes,”
Andy said.

Nine

When he and Sara
lived in the flat above the off-licence, regularly there had been a rising
smell of alcohol. It had its origins less in the shop than in the carelessness
of some customers who, having bought their cans of lager or bottles of cheap
wine, opened them instantly once outside, and generally spilled some in their
haste. Or else to honour the gods.

Their
very first flats had stunk of stale alcohol spills too, and more intimately,
from drink detonated on the premises. Or projectiled or urinated out later on:
his father’s offerings.

Carver
did not really like alcohol, or its smell, that much. It had near associations
with violence and claustrophobia.

To
smell it now, so strongly, as gradually he drifted
back
from
wherever he had been, was disorientating. Nauseating.

Carver
did not move. He did not open his eyes. It was dark, he could tell easily
enough without doing so. He must have gone to bed and fallen asleep, although
he did not recall this. Had he been untypically drinking – knocked over the
glass – not cared to clear up the mess?

Something
was wrong with him, then. He must have felt ill. Why had that been? The lack of
sleep, the phone calls (Donna, the persistent messageless robot, the male
voice that said
Silvia
...) Or was it
something to do with the decoy drive and the grey man on the train. Or the
other man – the man by the –
shed
–

Despite
himself, Carver’s lids flicked back.

And,
as he had suspected, it was pitch black; he could see nothing.

Where
were the windows?

There
were no windows.

He
was not out on the concrete at the garden’s end, by the shed. He was not in a
familiar house off a lane in a wood beyond a village. He was somewhere else.
Somewhere that blared with the stench of stale beer and wine and whisky, that
had neither a soundtrack nor a helpful visual. Hear no evil, see no evil: he
could only
smell
evil. And
feel
it, under his
back, his head. His hands, which he could not move since his wrists, like his
ankles, were intransigently fastened down.

Automatically
he stopped holding his breath. He heard himself breathe, ragged and needy. Then
he heard himself speak, in a soft, rational tone. “Hello.”

But
the pitch-black did not answer. It was cold, and the cold did not answer
either. Only the stink, stinking.

Carver
lay still. His head thrummed, not painful, too hollow to conjure that. When he
fell he had hit his head on the hard concreted earth. Just as Cox did, and
Ebony, when Heavy pushed them. Had somebody pushed Carver? Somebody had done
something
to Carver. Done
it in that second, that split second that Heavy rose up from death on the road
with the living dog in his arms and Andy finally saw the unknown man standing
outside the shed, lit by its turquoise radiance, was none other than Robby
Johnston in an adapted rubbery diving suit.

Scar
,
he thought.

I
have reached the Third Scar.

My
mother was a scar and my monstrous father was a scar. I am the third scar.

And
I am
on
the scar, the rocky outcrop, in some high lightless cave, where
once contraband booze was stored, and has leaked. Locked from the sun and the
moon and the stars. But not the scars.

I
also am scarred.

By
birth, by living. My Third Scar will be death.

Or
add an ‘e’, he thought. Scare.
I was scared as a kid
.

Again
he drifted. Calmly he thought
And am I scared now
?