Treacle Walker, page 4
He looked down at the slope to the gate. There were marks in the ground; hoof marks; silver on the grass and cobbles. He stood up. The line of them went to the gate. Joe followed into the field, stepping on each silver hoof. The hooves turned at the hedge and out across the top of Big Meadow onto House Field and down to the brook. They went towards the railway and the tunnel to Common Dean. Joe followed.
The tunnel was high and dark. The hoof marks glowed on bare earth. The arch of the far end showed. Noony rattled by overhead, and the tunnel boomed.
Brambles hung in a curtain from the embankment. He pushed his way through the sharp strands and came out into Common Dean. It was moonlight. The path passed flooded marl pits on either side among alders. The hoof marks were brighter. He followed them between the waters.
They went into Rough Hollow and crossed the brook by a plank bridge to Well Meadow, up into Big Sand Field and Little Sand Field to Round Meadow. Round Meadow was three-sided, and in it was a hillock. And at the foot of the hillock the hoof marks stopped.
Joe walked about the hillock, thinking to himself what it might be. Then he went and sat on its top and looked over the land in the moonlight. And as he sat, beneath him, under the ground, there was music. A pipe played. It was a tune he had never heard, yet he knew it. It played on bone.
‘You!’
His shout woke him. He woke from the drowse of the dream in the dream. He was not in his bed on the cupboard by the chimney but at the hillock in Round Meadow. The sun was bright. And the hooves were lost.
‘Wait! Wait for us! Wait! Wait! Wait on!’
Nothing. No one. Only loss.
Joe went about the hillock again. It was all smooth turf. He climbed to the top. There was nobody.
He went back down, by Little Sand Field and Big Sand Field, Well Meadow, over the plank bridge into Rough Hollow to Common Dean, along the path between the marl pits’ black and flat waters without life.
He parted the brambles at the tunnel and walked on the bare earth. Noony rattled overhead and the tunnel boomed.
Then he went up House Field, along Big Meadow and into the yard.
The white pony and the cart were under the pear tree. Joe ran to them and took hold of the bridle. ‘What are you doing? Where is he? Where?’ The pony snorted. ‘Is he here? Has he come? He must have.’ The pony whisked its tail and put its head down to graze. It shook its ears against flies. ‘I bet he is. Inside. Cheeky beggar. He knows he should’ve asked first. It’s that chimney. That chimney. He can’t get enough of it.’
Joe set off across the yard towards the house. Down in the alder bog a cuckoo called. He reached the door. Inside he heard Treacle Walker’s voice, but he could not catch what he was saying.
Joe turned the handle, lifted the latch, and opened the door. He crossed the step.
Treacle Walker was sitting in the chimney, and there was someone else there, opposite, but until he was further into the room Joe could not see who it was. And then he could. It was himself.
XIII
Both Joes yelled. Treacle Walker moved from the sill and put himself between them.
‘Stand apart.’
He gripped one in each hand by the neck, his arms wide, and hefted them into the chimney. From the alders a cuckoo called, over and over.
Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo.
He sat the two of them across from each other with the fire basket between.
‘Do not touch. Do not speak. Do not look in the eyes.’
He took the bone from his bag, and he played.
It was a tune with wings, trampling things, tightened strings, boggarts and bogles and brags on their feet; the man in the oak, sickness and fever, that set in long, lasting sleep the whole great world with the sweetness of sound the bone did play.
‘What the heck was all that about?’ said Joe. He swung his feet round on the settle, put his head in his hands.
‘Tell me,’ said Treacle Walker.
‘I can’t –’
‘Tell me.’
‘I – can’t.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I’m – asleep,’ said Joe. ‘And I’m dreaming. I know I am. There’s hoof prints in the yard. Silver. All silver. I follow them. Through the tunnel. To Common Dean. It’s moonlight of a sudden. I follow them. Every step. To Round Meadow. Then they go. I can’t see them. Then I hear you playing that bone thingy. Under the ground. It wakes me. But I’m not in bed. I’m at Round Meadow still. And it’s day. I come back. You’re sat in the chimney. We’ve been talking. About Noony. And a doings. And Stonehenge Kit. And Knockout. And this house. You, going on about ragbone and stars. Then door opens. And it’s me. Stood there and sat in chimney. There’s two of us. Him and me. The same. And I’m frit. More than I’ve ever been. Then there’s two of you. Catching hold. One on either side. Then I hear cuckoo. Then you’re playing thingy again. I’m being dollied and mangled. Then I’m on the settle. I’ve got a sick headache. Where’s Whizzy?’
‘Come to the chimney,’ said Treacle Walker. He sat back on the sill and picked up the Knockout.
‘Why?’ said Joe.
‘It is better.’
Joe got up from the settle and went to sit opposite Treacle Walker.
Treacle Walker reached into his bag and took something and put it by him on the sill.
‘What have you got in there?’ said Joe.
‘My Corr Bolg?’ said Treacle Walker. ‘This and that. The other and which. Now consider yet again.’ He opened the Knockout. ‘I hold in my hand a semblance of the house, where Whizzy is depicted. But we are in the actual house, in the chimney, looking at that semblance. And here there is no Whizzy.’
‘So we’re all right,’ said Joe.
‘Are we?’ said Treacle Walker.
‘He can’t get in,’ said Joe. ‘The Brit Basher can’t cross the step. I stoned it. See.’
‘There, in the semblance, he cannot,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘Where did you first meet him?’
‘He came down a pole with Whizzy. Onto my bed. Then they were in the room, chasing Kit. He’d run into the mirror, and they went after him.’
‘Into the looking-glass?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did the glass not break?’
‘No. I felt it. After. It’s hard.’
‘Yet they passed through.’
‘Somehow.’
‘Some how,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘Some how. Joseph Coppock. What was in is out. And what was out is in.’
‘I stoned the step! You told me to!’
‘I did,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘They cannot cross. Either way. Therefore if they were to come from the glass the step would bar them.’
‘But in Knockout they can’t get in.’
‘And here, where the glass is, they cannot leave. There is the crux.’
‘So what must we do?’ said Joe.
‘ “We”? The burden is yours.’
‘Why me?’
‘It is you that dreams.’
‘I’m not dreaming! I’m awake! I am!’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I do know! I knew I was dreaming when I went to Round Meadow!’
‘And then you woke. And where were you but in your dream?’
‘You’re set on flummoxing me!’
‘And if I am not?’
‘You are! You! You! You big soft Nelly!’
‘That is an appellation new to me,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘How may it be construed?’
‘Sod off!’
Treacle Walker stood and ducked under the mantel beam.
‘Where are you going?’ said Joe.
‘To observe the imperative,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘If I may.’ He went to the door and out into the yard.
‘Hang on!’
Treacle Walker sat at the front corner of the cart and took up the reins. Joe ran to him.
‘I didn’t mean it.’ He held the bridle. ‘Don’t leave us.’
‘Come up, then, Joseph Coppock.’
Joe climbed onto the cart and sat next to Treacle Walker.
‘Can I have a go?’
‘Do as you will.’
Joe took the reins.
‘What’s her name?’
‘She has no name,’ said Treacle Walker.
‘Why not?’
‘She has no need.’
‘That’s daft.’ Joe slapped the reins. ‘Gee up!’
The pony put its head down to graze.
‘Gee up!’
It flicked its ears again.
‘Gee up! Gee up!’
The pony did not even look.
‘What’s to do with her?’
‘Nothing,’ said Treacle Walker.
‘Then why won’t she shift?’
‘You do not have the Words.’
‘What words?’
‘The Words that give you leave.’
‘What “leave”?’
‘To command,’ said Treacle Walker.
‘What are they?’
‘Who knows?’
‘Oh, we’re on that game, are we?’ said Joe. ‘Well, I’m not playing.’
‘As you wish,’ said Treacle Walker.
Joe dropped the reins and looked behind him.
‘You’ve still got that box.’
‘True,’ said Treacle Walker.
‘Can I have another see at it?’
‘You may.’
Joe went to the back of the cart.
‘It’s not the same.’
‘How is it not?’ said Treacle Walker.
‘There’s no name on the plate,’ said Joe. ‘There’s no nothing.’
‘Why should it hold a name?’ said Treacle Walker.
‘I saw it. It was my name.’
Joe lifted the lid. The chest was empty.
‘There’s nowt there! Where’ve they gone?’
‘Where have what gone?’ said Treacle Walker.
‘All them jugs and plates.’
‘There was one,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘You took it.’
‘There was lots! It was full!’
‘They were shimmerings. You chose the true.’
‘I don’t get you,’ said Joe.
‘A rainbow is not the light.’
‘I could have taken summat else.’
‘And you would have held nothing.’
‘Flipping heck.’ Joe shut the lid.
‘There are more matters than philosophy,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘Go down. I’m to my sod.’
Joe climbed off the cart and stood in the yard. Treacle Walker took the reins, and the pony lifted its head and walked to the gate.
‘Then what about my jamas? What did you want them for?’
The pony turned along Big Meadow.
‘They are against the day,’ said Treacle Walker from beyond the hedge.
‘And the lamb!’
‘Delectable.’
XIV
‘Against the day’? What day?
Joe went back to the house and shut the door.
He’s left summat.
On the sill of the chimney, next to where Treacle Walker had been sitting, were Joe’s old pyjamas, folded, and a rolled-up comic.
He lifted the pyjamas, and put them down again. The smell, even his own, was too much, and there was another, sweet sickly sour, like the inside of Treacle Walker’s coat.
He took the comic to the other side of the fire basket and opened it. It was a Knockout he had not read.
He saw Kiddo the Boy King, and Daffy the Cowboy ’Tec, and Handy Andy the Odd Job Man, and Deed-a-Day Danny, and Daddy Dolittle; and Our Ernie came home and said WHAT’S FOR TEA, MA? and his Pa said DAFT, I CALL IT. and Charlie the caterpillar said IT IS AND ALL. Then he turned the page to Stonehenge Kit the Ancient Brit. At the side was OO-ER, CHUMS. WHIZZY’S LOOSE. HOW WILL OUR HERO GET OUT OF THIS ONE? But the story squares for the pictures were all empty, blank, nothing inside.
He looked at the rest of the comic. Everything else was there.
What the heck?
Joe put the Knockout down.
But I’ll reckon him up. Rump and stump, I shall. Rump and stump. I shall that.
Joe went to his room and stood in front of the mirror.
He felt the glass. It was smooth, without flaw. He could see himself and the room, the cupboard and his bed, the chimney and the door beside, the window and the sky. He went round to the back. It was one piece of black, hard wood; no nails, no screws. He went to the front. The glass had no framing. There were no sides, nowhere that joined, nothing that could be prised apart.
Joe ran downstairs. He took his knife and hacked and snapped and tugged a branch from the pear tree and levered a granite cobble from the paving of the yard and carried it up to the room in both hands. He stood a step away from the glass and held the cobble above his head.
‘Right! You great nowt! Cop this!’
With all his strength Joe threw the cobble at the glass.
It hit, and dropped to the floor. The glass did not break. The mirror sang.
He still had the pebbles in his pockets. He took his catapult, put a pebble in the leather pouch, drew back the elastic and fired. The pebble skipped and whined off the glint. He took another. He fired harder. And harder. And harder, harder, harder.
Then there were no pebbles left. His wrists ached and were unsteady. His thumbs had no feeling.
He took his marbles and shot them, faster and faster, even his blood alley, until the floor ran with marbles and pebbles. The mirror was unmarked.
He had only his dobber, the biggest alley with the coloured fire twisting inside. But he could not. Not the dobber.
He put the dobber and his catapult in his pocket and felt for the donkey stone. The roughness was firm on his palm. He weighed the balance, gripped, and smashed the donkey stone onto the glass.
There was no sound. His hand went into the mirror, and the blow dragged him after. He flowed through the mirror. The cold of the passing was none he had ever known.
He stumbled onto the floor of the room. He turned to the mirror. The mirror was not there; only a box of darkness, without surface, without depth. The chimney was in front of him; the door to one side; the cupboard and his bed on the other; the window; but all were the wrong way about. He went to the window.
There was the yard; and the valley; but the gate was to the right, not the left; and so were Barn Croft and Pool Field and Big Meadow and the track. And the track bent the wrong way down to the brook and up to the heath.
He looked back into the room. There was a mirror in the corner.
XV
Joe went into the next room. It was the wrong way. And the stairs turned wrong.
He went down to the chimney. Again the same, with the folded pyjamas and the Knockout on the other side of the fire basket. He looked at the Knockout. The letters and pictures were back to front. And the squares for Stonehenge Kit were blank.
Joe searched the house. It was empty. He opened the door hung wrong and looked across the wrong way yard. The step shone white. He shut the door and went upstairs again.
He stood before the mirror. The reflection showed the room as it should be. He lifted the donkey stone and held it at the glass and pressed gently. The donkey stone passed through, and he saw it and his hand on the other side, as if they had gone into the water of the brook. The cold clamped him.
Joe took a breath and slipped into the room. From the big window the yard and the fields were in their proper place. And there was the same box of dark, and in the corner a mirror.
He went down to the chimney and searched again. Nobody. But the letters of the Knockout were right. He went back to the room and the mirror.
He pressed the donkey stone to the glass and followed it. The cold made him shout, but he ran across the floor and into the next mirror; and on and on, glass after glass, and the rooms flickered and switched with each passing, and the cold grew worse. He ran through eight rooms, but in the ninth the cold made him pause for the pain of his breath. He stood, gasping, before the mirror. The room was the right way, and there was banging in his ears.
He lifted his hand. And stopped. The opposite hand in the mirror had not moved to match; the other had. He pressed the stone against the glass, but it was the other hand that had the donkey stone, and they did not meet. And the room reflected was the same as the one he was in.
He changed hands with the donkey stone. The other did the same. He could not get them to meet. He tapped the stone on the glass. The glass was hard.
He pulled back and hit. The glass shattered, and he was looking at emptiness. There was no further to go.
And the banging was not in his head. It was in the cupboard below his mattress. The door quivered under blows and the wood had splintered.
PSST!
He saw the letters in a bubble come from his blankets, and then a face bobbed out. It was Stonehenge Kit.
Kit threw off the blankets and jumped down.
THIS WAY, CHUM!
Kit pointed to the box of dark.
QUICK!
He grabbed Joe’s hand. Joe felt a sharp papery grip as he was dragged into the black.
He was running in a tunnel, pulled by a hand he could not see; a black tunnel, turning and lined with stars, so that he could not tell up from down; only the turning; but he ran.
Then light. He was in the room, but a wrong way room, and Kit was holding and running to the next dark.
Again the tunnel, the turning, the stars; and the room; but a right one. Kit let go of his hand and grinned.
FETCH KNOCKOUT AND JAMAS. DON’T DALLY.
Joe ran to the stairs, nearly falling, and to the chimney. He lifted the Knockout and the pyjamas and scrambled back to Kit. Kit took the pyjamas.
Kit said WHIZZY THOUGHT HE HAD US IN THE CUPBOARD, BUT I WAS ON TOP AND SHUT ’EM IN. THEY’LL BE THROUGH IN A JIFF. TAKE KNOCKOUT AND DO A BUNK.
‘Where?’
WHEN YOU SEE US, COP US. EH UP! THEY’RE OUT!
Kit took Joe’s hand.
RUN, CHUM!
He swung him into the next dark.
Joe was alone in the tunnel, running with the Knockout among the stars, turning, turning, back through flickering rooms, always turning; and he tripped.
