Flood (8 page)

'I promise,' he said, 'if you'll kiss me.' It was easily said, as if he were dreaming. He felt like running away or making a joke of it, but something made him hold his ground. She looked at him and he could feel her eyes as they overwhelmed him. Everything he was, everything he had

decided he would be in life, it all went out of the window in one easy fall. She kissed him. It was a slow, steady kiss, breathy. She seemed at ease, which unnerved Sandy slightly. He opened his eyes for a peek and saw that hers were open and rigidly upon him, studying him coldly. He closed his again quickly. It was as if his mother had found him to be feigning sleep. Her lips tasted of soap. He shrugged off the comparison and tried to enjoy himself. He should have been enjoying himself. It should have been heaven. Later it would seem as though it had been, but the moment itself was too curious and strained to be anything other than strange. He accepted its strangeness. He accepted everything. She breathed in his ear.

'Oh, Sandy,' she said. Then she pulled away from him, looking into his eyes as if uncertain of something. Eventually she forced herself to smile, and Sandy felt that she was depending on him for something profound, something beyond his immediate grasp. He felt a tiny weight of responsibility being shifted on to his shoulders. Did Robbie feel it too, inversely?

He watched her as she turned from him and began climbing the drainpipe. She was a small, brittle-boned monkey. He admired her long arms, the way her feet dug into what purchase the wall would afford. Her hair swung in rhythm with her body. Her skirt was flailing too, and suddenly, as he had not dared to hope, he was looking up inside it. She was calling something to him, but it was lost, like a distant voice calling across a swelling tide. Up inside it. The pants soiled but feminine. The tuft of hair crawling from beneath the cotton. A flush went through his whole body. He tried to control it. Useless; he had come. Oh God, he had never done that before, not standing up, not in his denims. His legs were as weak as if he had been swimming.

He watched the boards appear in the window, covering that doorway. The house was closed again, dark, apparently lifeless. He trotted gingerly across the lawn and climbed his wall. The wet smell was all around him. He would have to take the quiet way home, and he hoped that he would meet no one. That kiss. Her saliva was still in his mouth. It was turning cold now. He had to get home, had to rush upstairs, ignoring his mother's call from the living room, and change into clean clothes. Perhaps he could have a bath. No, this was not his regular bath night. The water would not be warm, and his mother would suspect something. He would have to wash his trousers in the bath tomorrow morning while his mother cooked the breakfast. And his pants. Her pants. That kiss. It went home with him, becoming more than it had been at the time with every step as the imagination took over. For once he hoped that Mr Wallace would be there. That would keep his mother occupied while he ran upstairs. Rian. He would watch Robbie. He would listen closely to any accusation, and would challenge any lie.

Rian was his girlfriend after all. He had to protect her. She was depending on him.

Dear Mary,

Sorry I've been so long in replying. The job is as hectic as ever. That's the only excuse I can offer, and I don't suppose it's a very good one at that, but I hope you will forgive me as ever! I'm glad to hear that you are winning the Adolescent War with young Sandy. Give him my best wishes, will you? He must be real man-sized by now.

Could you maybe send me a photo of the two of you? I keep meaning to find a recent photograph of myself to send on, but you know what it's like. I think I've changed a bit since the last photo I sent you. That was Christmas 1980 if my memory serves me right. Or was it '79? The brain cells have given up the battle! Only the body soldiers bravely on. There are few new victories. I sit behind my desk all day signing my name to scraps of paper.

Sometimes I am allowed out of my chair to walk around one of the sites. You would think I have an important job, huh? Sometimes I even fool myself that I do have an important job. Truth is, I'm no more than a glorified clerk.

I wish I was out on the sites again, running things out there rather than in this little box. (Yes, I'm writing to you from my place of work. This is the company's stationery.) Old Emerson himself was in to see me last week. That's the first time I've seen him since they promoted me, which apparently means that I'm doing fine, or at least making no visible botches. Emerson nodded his head a few times and grunted and then asked if I was getting married yet.

He's been asking me that for four goddamn years! One day I'll maybe surprise him, but I think not. I'm a born bachelor, I guess, so it's no use you hounding me to get hitched either!

This schoolteacher guy sounds okay. You have my blessing, sis, whatever you decide. I suppose you feel you have to think of Sandy just now, but he'll soon be flying the roost himself. You're only thirty-one, Mary. In your last letter you sounded like some fifty-year-old. Get out there and grab some guy! Enjoy yourself while you're young. Look at me, I'm all of thirty-three, still single, still having an okay time with my decreasing band of merry bachelor men. There are lots of nice men around, Mary, so there's no excuse for you. If I could I'd swim the Atlantic and marry you myself .. . but of course I don't have the time! (Just joking, sis!)

Have you asked Sandy about his coming over to Canada for a holiday this year? I still think it would be a good idea - and no, I'm not trying to steal him! But maybe he could strike it lucky here like his Uncle Tom did. (Okay, so I'm no Howard Hughes.) Anyway, it would do him good to have a break after his exams. He needs time to think over his future, don't you think? And it would also give The Teacher and you some well-earned time by yourselves.

Please think it over. For this year only! Super special offer. Much reduced prices. Hell, we're giving the stuff away. Canada doesn't have an incredible amount going for it as a holiday centre, but there are parts of it I'd still like to see myself, parts I'm sure Sandy would enjoy. Way up north. Remember I went lumberjacking up that way when I first arrived here? What an experience that was. I only lasted four days! And I promise to keep Sandy out of mischief if he comes. You have a bachelor's word on that!

(Worth a grand total of not much.)

How's the money working out? Don't take any nonsense from that bloody bank manager, and please remember that you have my money in the account as a standby. I would be really grateful if you would feel that you can freely use it. I told you. It has been arranged with the bank for ages. I'll never touch that money, I don't need it, and I'm sure Mum and Dad would have wanted you to take it. I know they would. Please.

Well, Mary, I'm being allowed out of doors for a breath of fresh construction-site air in five minutes, so I better finish this. It was real nice to get your letter, Mary.

Thanks. And keep them coming. Also, tell Sandy that if he doesn't write to me soon I will do something drastic to him while he sleeps! And all my love to him as well as to your good, good self. Closing for now.

All my love, Tom.

XXX

The daytimes glazed through the rest of the spring, blowing warm winds and the smell of grass into the nostrils of those still aware enough to appreciate such things. Everything opened up into the transient summer. Sandy would rise early, afraid of oversleeping for his exams. He took them seriously, and did an hour's revision before breakfast. Then, leaving his mother at the door, he would choose a stone to kick all the way to school.

The examination hall was stuffy and full of smiling, unserious contenders. He feared to look up in case his attention should be distracted and his crammed memory evaporate entirely. He had been storing rote answers for weeks. It needed only one of Belly Martin's funny faces to knock a dozen equations from his head. So he kept his eyes on the desk, though the air near the wood was dank and overpowering. Here was his school career: scrawls on a scratched desktop; a rickety chair; a list of multiple-choice questions; a one-in-five chance; feet sliding over the dusty tiled floor. One teacher sat at the front of the hall reading his newspaper. Another stared out of a window as he paced the rows of desks. This was it. Everything. It was ludicrous.

Nothing about it equated with ten years of schooling. Sandy was suddenly glad that he had swotted - not that he meant to stay on, but grades mattered. It had been drummed into him until it had seemed as casual a knowledge as the gospel stories he had known as a child, and like them this new knowledge - not knowledge, but facts pure and simple would be forgotten in time.

The examinations weren't too difficult. Between them there were days of nothing, a time to laze and to taste freedom and to study the few sentences which constituted a distillation of several years' teaching. Sandy carried his lists of important sentences and equations around with him. He would take a list from his pocket and study it at random moments. These nuggets replaced, for a few weeks, his collection of good stones.

After each exam he was pleasantly surprised to feel himself drained and in need of sleep. He would go home and

doze in the chair until tea-time. On waking, he would be unable to recall many of the exam questions. He would delete from his lists the information no longer needed, then would take the examination paper from his pocket and examine it as if it were an alien object. He could not have answered it. It would not seem the same paper that he had so recently sat. Even the words would be unfamiliar. It was a curious sensation, and one which others experienced. Belly Martin laughed at them when they discussed it one day.

'You're fucked then, aren't you? When that happens it means you haven't been concentrating. You might have written anything down. Serves you right, you fucking swots.

What good will it do you when we leave? There's no jobs anyway. Why bother?'

Belly Martin's stomach sagged obscenely over his waistband, and his pudgy fingers would lift leftovers from a neighbour's school-dinner plate straight into his gaping mouth. Fat boys are usually ridiculed at school, both in comics and in reality, but Belly was too ghastly to have even that fate befall him. He was not the archetypal fat boy.

Indeed, Sandy often shuddered when he contemplated the differences. Belly was vicious. He would hug you to him in a clinch and would crush your face against his chest, smothering you. His shirt smelled of vinegar, as if he had not washed for a long time. He lied and stole and cheated, and if confronted by a teacher would retreat into the guise of typical fat boy - picked on, unloved, unwanted, innocent. To the frustration of his classmates, it was a part he played to perfection. He would spread his arms wide plaintively, and his eyes and mouth would open in astonishment, then he would blurt out his controlled acting until the teacher frowned and looked again for a culprit. Belly would soon be grinning, and would reach a hand deep into his trouser pocket, wriggling it around until he found some ancient paper-covered sweet. This he would crunch into tiny pieces, still laughing and slavering mild taunts at those who had informed on him.

'Ha! Better luck next time, clipes. Go tell fucking teacher.

Ha!'

Sandy was revolted by the boy and always had been. He seemed impervious to pain, either mental or physical, like a lumbering dinosaur. That was the frustrating thing. Sandy tried not to be sitting near him in the examination hall.

Belly scratched his bemused face with a rasping sound like the unwrapping of a difficult toffee and made life unbearable for those around him.

Revenges, often colossal in intent, were planned against him, but were never carried through with any degree of success. Sandy had planned several of his own. The simplest was the braining of Belly with an empty bottle in a dark alley. The most complex involved pieces of machinery, a trifle containing ground glass, and a nest of rats. Sandy used to keep these plans in a stolen jotter in his secret drawer at home, but he had guiltily torn them up just before his exams in case there was a God and it or he or she decided to spite him with low marks. It had been childish anyway. Any worthwhile revenge would be simple and short-winded. But what? That was the problem.

After the final examination, Economics, a few of them went down to the park with a carry-out filched from Colin's

father's drinks cabinet. They leapt what had once been the hot burn - now a sorry old thing, dehydrated, its clay a raw, rusty colour - and jogged across the playing field in the direction of a small pond in the Wilderness. They carried the cans of warm lager inside their rolled-up jackets. They were so nearly men, only weeks away from the dole and the free money that came with it.

All except Sandy.

'Christmas!' yelled Colin. 'Christ's Mass! Sandy's got to stay on till Christmas!' As Sandy wiped his damp forehead he found it impossibly difficult to envisage snow and being wrapped up in layers of clothes and rushing to the fireside.

It seemed too ludicrous an idea to have any grounding in the real world. He became disorientated, and almost asked his companions if they really believed in something as alien as snow. Then his head cleared a little, just in time for him to realise that they were crossing the pipeline over the river.

He watched the others playing at being acrobats as they walked over the slender cylinder, then walked across himself, his legs trembling. They were waiting on the other side, laughing and pleading with him to fall off. He tried to smile, but kept looking down at the long green tendrils of weed in the water below. Once over, he leapt from the pipe on to crumbly brown earth. It was a good feeling. They jogged the rest of the way through the field to a pool of algae covered water. Immediately one of them, Clark, stripped, and penis waving like a comedian's wand ran into the pond.

He shrieked, but no one told him to be quiet. They were truly in the wilds here. No one would hear them shout or laugh or scream. Clark splashed out of the pool, green tapioca clinging to his white body. He scratched it away with a look of disgust.