Lamb (10 page)

‘Naw. It looks good. Makes you look like a baddie.'

‘A baddie?'

‘Yeah, like a baddie in a cowboy film.' He shot Michael several times from behind the cover of the dressing table with pinging ricochet sounds. With a groan Michael rolled off the bed and was dead before he hit the floor. Not quite dead because he had just enough breath left to raise himself up and gasp,

‘You done me wrong . . . ' and then fall truly dead.

Owen grinned from behind the outcrop of rock, then walked slowly across to where the body lay. He turned it callously with his toe. The body's tongue was protruding grotesquely and his mouth was all slanted. The eyes bulged white and the pupils rolled back into the head.

‘Yo'r dirt, man, jest dirt.'

Michael said, ‘Quit the clowning,' and got up to look at the books on the shelf. Owen still wanted to play and began slow motion punches at the small of Michael's back, saying ‘wham' and ‘splatt'.

‘Cut it out,' said Michael. ‘It's time you were doing some work.'

‘What kind of work?'

‘School work. That's what.'

‘Aw come on, Mick.'

The books on the shelf looked as if they'd been left by guests over the years, or bought at a jumble sale to fill a shelf. There were some detective stories, a gardening book, romantic novels, two handbooks for different makes of cars, and a clutter of other stuff. Michael pulled out a Ladybird reader and flung it on the bed.

‘Let me hear you reading that,' he said. Owen opened the book and began,

‘“Peter is here. Jane is here and Pat is here. Here they are. Here they are in the water. They like the water.”' Owen began to make fun of it, reading in a singsong voice ‘“Pat likes the water. Pat likes
FUN
. Come in
PAT
. It is fun. It is fun in the wat-ter. Come in the wat-ter. Come, come,
KUM
.”'

‘O.K.,' said Michael. ‘Cut it out. So you're a genius.'

‘It's crap,' said Owen.

‘All right, Mister Smart-ass. Let's find something a bit harder. Except for the Home you weren't at school long enough to know the teacher's name.'

‘Miss McGuckin.'

‘Let me see . . . ' he said scanning the books on the shelf. ‘Ah, a children's book. It says “For young people”.'

The book was
The Age of the Fable
by Thomas Bulfinch, an Everyman copy with a faded brown cover. He looked at a page and saw how difficult it was.

‘Have a go at that, Smart-ass.'

Owen opened the book.

‘What's that word?' he said, pointing.

‘Daedalus,' said Michael. Owen began to read haltingly.

‘“Daedalus built the . . .” what's that word?'

‘Labyrinth.'

‘“Daedalus built the labyrinth for King Minos, but afterwards lost the – favour – of the King and was shut up in a – tower. He con-con-contrived to make his – escape from his prison, but could not leave the iz land by sea . . .”'

‘Island.'

‘“ . . . As the King kept watch on all the ves-ves –” what's that?'

‘Vessels,' said Michael without looking.

‘How did you know? You couldn't see.'

‘It couldn't have been anything else, could it? Vests?'

Owen read with painful slowness down the page.

‘“ . . . so he set to work to make wings for himself and his young son Icarus. He rouched feathers together, the larger . . .”'

‘He what?'

‘He rouched.'

Michael looked over his shoulder and laughed.

‘Wrought,' he said. ‘It means to work.'

‘“ . . . and the smaller ones with wax and gave the . . .”'

He stammered to a halt. Michael took the book off him and began to read it aloud.

‘“Icarus the boy stood and looked on. When at last the work was done the most skilful artificer, waving his wings, found himself buoyed upward and suspended on the beaten air. He next equipped his son in the same manner and taught him how to fly. He said, ‘Icarus, my son, I charge you to keep at a moderate height, for if you fly too low the damp will clog your wings, and if too high the heat will melt them. Keep near me and you will be safe.' As he said these words the face of the father was wet with tears and his hands trembled. He kissed the boy, not knowing it was for the last time. Then he flew off, encouraging him to follow. As they flew a ploughman stopped his work to gaze, and a shepherd leaned on his staff and watched them, astonished at the sight and thinking they were gods who could thus cleave the air.

‘“The boy began to soar upward as if to reach heaven. The nearness of the blazing sun softened the wax which held the feathers together and they came off. He fluttered with his arms, but no feathers remained to hold the air and as his mouth uttered cries to his father it was submerged in the blue waters of the sea.”'

Michael stopped reading. He set the book quietly on the bed between them and they were both silent. The rain gusted and rattled at the window. Michael sat with his head in his hands. The playful mood of a moment ago had disappeared completely and they sat, each knowing the other was depressed. The hotel plumbing sang in the pipes as someone used the bathroom at the end of the corridor.

‘This has happened before,' said Owen.

‘What? Déjà-vu?'

Owen nodded. ‘Yes, the story of the boy falling into the sea, the noise of the pipes, you sitting with your head in your hands.'

Michael got up, concerned.

‘You'd better lie down. You're not going to have an attack are you?'

‘No. If it doesn't happen right away it doesn't come.'

‘Are you sure? Lie down anyway.'

The boy lay on the bed. He looked paler than usual and Michael was worried.

‘Do you want me to read some more?'

‘Naw, it's crap.'

Michael lay down on the bed beside him and put his arm round his shoulder.

‘You say that about everything. Like it or not, you're going to have to be able to read and write. You're an intelligent lad who never went to school.'

‘I did so.'

‘Aye, about as many times as I went to dances. Do you feel O.K. now?'

‘Yes.'

‘What do you want to be? Still a footballer?'

Owen nodded and Michael felt the nod in the crook of his arm. He said,

‘And you don't have to be able to read for that.'

‘Is it still the Arsenal?'

‘Yes.'

‘How'd you like to go to a game?'

‘A match?'

‘Yes. Highbury isn't too far from here. We'll go on Saturday.'

The boy's eyes were wide with astonishment. It seemed to Michael that the boy had never associated Arsenal with reality. The wall above his bed had been covered with cut-out pictures of the team, red and white against the hospital green. He had drawn a crudely lettered sign for ‘The Gunners' in red felt-tip pen. The idea that he could actually go and see them in the flesh seemed to amaze him.

‘Maybe they'll give you a trial,' said Michael.

‘I'm too young for a . . . ' Then he saw Michael laughing and he began to punch him as he lay on the bed. He stopped.

‘Will all the Irish players be on? Liam Brady?'

‘I'm sure. If he can make the first team.'

Owen in his excitement ignored the taunt at his favourite player.

‘And Jennings? And Pat Rice?'

It was as if the team he was to see on Saturday couldn't possibly be the same team he had adored for years. There would be some cheat in the end. For Owen there always was.

When Michael told him that Arsenal were playing
away
the next day, Owen shrugged and his face said, ‘I might have known.' Michael promised him that if they were still around, Arsenal were playing Manchester City the next week and they could go to that.

The days passed quickly, each day in itself long and full, yet when it was over it seemed barely to have happened. Having got over their curiosity about the Underground, and having got lost several more times, they began to take black taxis everywhere. It was expensive but it had the advantage of not being a journey to nowhere.

They went to all the places that the tourist guide recommended, Madame Tussaud's, St Paul's, the Tower, sailed up the Thames and spent two hours, which was two hours too many for Owen, in the British Museum. They came out footsore and weary.

One day they went to the Zoo. Birds in cages turned glittering yellow eyes on them as they passed. Owen was wary of them, remembering the seagull. The smaller birds all seemed regimented, standing in rows making electric noises, continuously sharpening their beaks on the branches where they perched. When they came to the Aquarium, Owen liked it immediately. Tanks of slow languid fish trailing lengthy skirts of tail and vivid lightning shoals which could disappear in an instant and reappear just as quickly with a change in direction. Unlike the birds in their cages, they seemed free, in their element, and gave no sense of doing laps around their tank. Each swim was a new journey.

A uniformed attendant clicked his way down the hall, his hands behind his back.

‘Hey, Mister, have you any flying fish?' Owen asked.

‘No, sonny.' He walked on a little, stopped and came back. ‘I believe,' he said, as if he knew all about it, bending forward from the waist, ‘that they are difficult to keep. Bang themselves offa the glass all the time. Kill 'emselves, they do.' He winked at Michael over the boy's shoulder and said, ‘It's a better question than the one about fish fingers,' and clicked his way up the hall, leaving Owen staring after him.

‘Smart cunt,' said Owen.

The boy agreed to most of these trips provided that they could go back eventually to Piccadilly and have an hour on the slot machines. He never came out winning but when he was there Michael could see the delight and excitement on his face. Michael too, although pretending reluctance, enjoyed it when he had to join in some of the games, table football, T.V. tennis, shooting. He never consciously let the boy beat him and, once he had agreed, he took part as if it was a real competition. Owen always beat him at football. The plastic doll players, somersaulting in unison, always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time for Michael, and the ball would slam into his goal.

Owen loved too to play the pinball machines. Michael watched him pull back the spring-loaded piston and send the steel ball racing among the glittering obstacles, springing back and forth to the clink of bells and flashing lights and the buzzing and clicking of the counter as the score mounted to incredible thousands. And yet every game, no matter how nimbly the boy operated the small rubbers which batted the ball back for another score, Michael knew that eventually the ball would trundle out, rattling hollowly in the dark guts of the machine and the score would return to zero. That was luck – his luck. He knew it and knowing it did not reduce his disappointment every time it happened.

Once they went back to the big toy shop in Regent Street and saw a machine for stamping T-shirts with a photograph. Owen said he wanted one with Michael's picture on it. Michael stood smiling into the camera with his ten-day-old beard bristling and a look of disbelief on his face. Then Michael said he wanted one with Owen on it. The machine clattered and typed across the plain surface of the two shirts and came out the other side with their photographs on. That night they wore them to dinner in the hotel and for once the waitress smiled.

The conversation between them grew, the boy contributing more, Michael feeling more relaxed in the inevitable silences. They laughed a lot, the boy's childish sense of humour not being so far from Michael's own.

One of the best laughs they had was the morning Owen woke up, having wet the bed. Michael was loath to move hotels yet again and after a thinking breakfast they went back to their room. Michael went out into the corridor with Owen at his elbow. He knocked on the door opposite but got no reply. He tried the door but it was locked.

‘Damn,' he said. He moved down the corridor, knocking quietly on doors and when there was no response trying the handle. Then he found one open. He tiptoed in and called,

‘Anyone at home?' There was no reply. ‘Quick,' he said to Owen and they rushed back to their room and stripped the soaking sheet off the bed. It had elasticated sides. Michael bundled it up and they ran on tiptoe back down the corridor laughing.

‘It stinks,' he said. They quickly pulled back the clothes from the other bed and stripped the sheet off.

‘You keep an eye out,' hissed Michael. Owen went to the door with a suppressed wheezy laugh. Michael lifted each corner of the mattress and inserted it into the shape of the wet sheet. Then he made the bed quickly over the top of it. He lifted the dry sheet and ran.

Back in their own room they laughed at the thought of some Lady Muck sleeping in the bed.

‘Oh, Rodney, this bed's ever-so-damp,' said Owen. He was useless at an English accent and this made it even funnier.

‘Kane the Stain strikes again,' said Michael. He turned over Owen's mattress, stained with a dark jagged outline, and put on the dry sheet.

‘You're a crafty bugger, Sebastian.'

‘Just don't piss the bed every night, that's all,' and they rolled about laughing on the newly made bed.

In public places, where they could be overhead, Owen called him Dad and gradually Michael began to accept this, not as a game but as reality, and because he was beginning to accept the father role as real he made other attempts to teach the boy some lessons, but they ended in frustration and angry words.