Lamb (19 page)

‘If you run like this – fast – and look over your shoulder, you think somebody's splashing after you,' screamed Owen. ‘He's catching up. He's catching up.' He was running full tilt, looking behind him. Then he must have planted his leading foot badly for he went sprawling in an inch of water and sand. Michael ran to him and picked him up.

‘Oh, fyeuch,' said the boy. An emulsion of brown sand and water covered his bony chest and thighs. Michael washed him down with handfuls of sea water, the boy screaming at the cold, and he ran him, all angles and bones, back to the warmth of the sand dune. Through his uncontrollable shiverings Owen said shakily,

‘I haven't missed much. What the hell was everybody talking about?'

Michael noticed that he had got some black oil on his fingers and he tried to rub it off on the sand. He used his shirt to dry the boy and told him to take off his drawers and leave them to dry in the sun. Owen turned his back to pull on his jeans and again Michael saw the scar marks, now red with cold, across the backs of his legs, the tiny buttocks like eggs. It was as if he saw everything now in a fit of stunned awareness. The helpless, most vivid-of-all moments before a car smash, etched in adrenaline, the slowness. The ability to tease out afterwards each strand of the event. He knew he would not forget an instant of this day, these hours. For some reason he recalled his dread of the steel ball thumping hollowly into the depths of the pinball machine, the inevitability of it despite the frantic flicking of the small rubber wings unable to reach. He felt himself funnelled towards the act he had decided upon, but prayed to God that something would arrest it – even at the last moment.

They had their picnic and Owen drank some wine to warm him. Michael had most of it. He watched the boy closely as he ate, the bitten fingernails pulling the bread into pieces, the half-open mouth as he chewed. Since they had left the bed and breakfast place he had had a great urge to weep, to tell the boy how much he meant to him. Several times, when they brushed together, especially at the water's edge after he had fallen, he nearly did so, but he controlled himself for the boy's sake. He must know nothing, suspect nothing if it was to be perfect; if the ecstasy was to be there. So Michael held back because it would be selfish not to. He reminded Owen it was tablet time again and the boy took one, washing it down with wine, making a face. The sun disappeared into a cloud and the whole sky began to cover over. The cloud was low, cutting off the tops of the mountains. Crushing down. Michael suggested they go for a walk to warm themselves, so they put on shoes. Leaning back on their heels, they walked down the steepness of the slope to the flat beach. Michael put his arm around Owen's shoulders and for the length of the walk neither of them spoke. Several times Michael looked over his shoulder and scanned the length of the horizon, but nothing moved. They sat in the lee of a dune for a rest.

He sat facing the boy, watching him, trying to take in every detail of him. The boy's hair had grown blonder and he wondered why he had not noticed it before. He wanted to reach out and touch him but he could think of no excuse for doing so. Out of the corner of his eye something flickered. He turned but there was nothing. The clouds had darkened to the colour of slate and now covered the whole sky. It had become warmer and Michael felt his hand damp where it had lain on the boy's shoulder. Something flickered again and this time he definitely knew what it was. He drew Owen's attention to the lightning. But the boy seemed not to care, had lost interest; saying that he was tired now, he lay back in the sand. The lightning flashed but there was no thunder. Summer lightning. Michael joked that he shouldn't take so much out of himself in future, but Owen did not hear what he said. His eyes were fixed in front of him. His body went still, then rigid. His left arm gave two little flicks, then his left foot began to quiver. Michael closed his eyes, almost in relief that it had finally happened, and went to him. He put his arms around him and held him tight. In his convulsions the boy churned up the sand and Michael held him as best he could. Then he lifted him, one arm behind his neck, the other in the crook of his knees, and carried him, jerking and flapping and awkward, to the sea where the rocks jagged out to form pools. Michael waded in between the rocks, knelt down and lowered Owen into the water. The child threshed to the surface and Michael had to put his hand on his forehead to keep it under. His wedding ring glinted yellow in the water. The boy's clothes ballooned out, full of air. His own face stared at him from the boy's T-shirt with a look of disbelief. Big bubbles wobbled out of Owen's mouth. His face was blue from the fit. ‘Oh Jesus, if you are there, help me.' Michael looked away and up to the sky, away from the boy's face, and saw the lightning flash from clouds rumpled and coloured like brains. His wrists were frozen and a wave almost overbalanced him. He closed his eyes and remembered his teeth refracted in the glass, the old priest's phlegmy cough bubbling in his chest, Benedict drying between his toes. In his gripping fingers he could feel the throb of the boy's life still and he gritted his teeth, willing himself to complete what he had started. He dared to look at Owen's face again. Gradually his fit stopped until there was no movement. The child's hair unfurled, flowing outwards and upwards. He lifted him out of the water dripping and cold and pressed his head to his face. Their skins slid together. He asked the boy to forgive him and told him how much he loved him. Suddenly there was a gasp of breath torn from the bottom of the child's lungs, a ripped-out exhalation of a harshness that was almost a shout and Michael bit blood into his lips as he lowered him into the water again. He began to cry and did not know whether the shudder was his crying or the life of the boy. ‘Dear Jesus, make it now.' Again he held him under, amazed at the strange flatness of his white hands and fingers pressing on the underwater flatness of Owen's body. Tiny bubbles had gathered in the child's hair, making it seem like glass or silver, making it rise to the surface. He willed him to die. His neck was thin to the touch, like a wrist, his eyes wide beneath the water with gasping. He realized that the noise which he heard he was making himself, grunting and panting with effort, a strange inarticulate and uninterrupted groaning, too high-pitched, he thought, to be coming from himself. He stopped it and there was silence except for the sea and the gulls. Owen was stilled completely and began to slew back and forth with the waves. Again Michael lifted him out and crushed his head to his own. The child's hands dangled limp from his wrist. His mouth hung open. Michael carried him up the beach away from the tide and laid him on the sand. He pulled his T-shirt straight and put his feet together. With one finger and the palm of his hand he combed the child's yellow hair into place, flattening it, making it look better.

‘O.K.,' he said, still crying. ‘O.K.'

Then he ran stumbling back to the water, in a strange high-stepping gait so that the water would not impede him. Waist-deep he waded, moving his shoulders like Owen's cowboy walk. He closed his eyes, remembering, and flung himself face forward into the water, but it was too shallow, his trailing hands knuckled the sandy bottom and he stood up again spluttering, wiping his mouth, brushing water from his beard and waded out further. But the incline of the beach was too shallow. He knew it was ludicrous and inappropriate to feel so, but what he felt was foolishness. After the first plunge, when he arose he looked around to see if anyone had seen him. He stood stirring the icy water with his hands and then he closed his eyes and again fell forward on his face, the water enveloping him. It gurgled in his ears and he held his breath. He began to count but did not want to count; seven, eight, nine, ten; he opened his mouth, eleven, twelve, and inhaled through his nose and immediately began to splutter and regurgitate what he had swallowed. At the same time he floundered and a wave caught him and carried him shoreward and he splashed to his feet again, his hands clawing and springing back off the sand, and he came out of the water in a thresh of foam, coughing and spitting. He was on his knees, chest-deep. His hair covered his eyes and was stuck flat. He remained like that for some time, listening to the water around him. Eventually he pushed his hair back, stood up and walked back, retching, to ankle-depth. His clothes clung to him, heavy and dark with the water, and with his head bowed he moved away from the water's edge – past the place where Owen lay. Water bubbled from the lace holes in his shoes with the pressure of each step. He could not bear to look at the boy again. In the sandhills he crouched, his arms encircling his knees to stop them shivering. He did not know how long for. His flesh was goose-flesh. Long enough for him to dry. He had no luck. No faith. And now, no love. He had started with a pure loving simple ideal but it had gone foul on him, turned inevitably into something evil. It had been like this all his life, with the Brothers, with the very country he came from. The beautiful fly with the hook embedded. It was engrained like oil into the whorls and loops of his fingertips. The good that I do is the evil that results. He tasted the bitterness in his mouth. Whether it was the blood of his lips or the salt of the sea or the tears he was crying, he did not know or care. Owen was dead. He had killed him to save him, although he loved him more than anyone else in his life. He felt gutted. It was as if his insides and his soul had been burned out. There was nothing left of him but the sound of his crying. He looked up, even though he did not want to look up, even though he could not bear to look, and saw the child in the distance like a flaw on the sand and about him cruising and hovering he saw three gulls, their yellow beaks angled with screeching, descending slowly, with meticulous care.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Epub ISBN: 9781446444597

Version 1.0

VINTAGE
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA

Vintage Digital is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose
addresses can be found at
global.penguinrandomhouse.com
.

Copyright © Bernard MacLaverty 1980

First published in Great Britain in 1980 by

Jonathan Cape

Published by Vintage 2000

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library