Treacle Walker, page 5
He was on his knees, on a floor with pebbles and marbles and granite.
He looked up. In front of him was the chimney. He saw the doorway; he saw the cupboard. There was no box of dark. It was his own room. The Knockout was in his hand.
Joe got to his feet. He was standing in front of the mirror, but he did not see himself. He saw a nest of mirrors, going back and back, and in them Kit was running towards him, and behind were Whizzy and the Brit Basher. The Brit Basher caught up with Kit and lifted his club; but Kit dropped the pyjamas and ran on.
The Brit Basher said GOTCHA! And he started to wallop the pyjamas BIFF! BAM! THWACK!
OAF! LUMMOX! AND CLOD! THAT’S NOT HIM! said Whizzy.
IT IS, GUV! SNIFF THE WHIFF!
And the Brit Basher went on walloping the pyjamas. Of course, this let Kit off, and he ran.
He ran through mirrors and mirrors, growing bigger, getting nearer, until he was one mirror away and the Brit Basher and Whizzy were catching up right behind him. And Kit shouted KNOCKOUT!
Joe opened the Knockout and pressed it to the glass.
He felt the paper squirm under his palms. He leaned with all his force. The paper writhed, twitched. He kept his weight against the glass until pain made him drop the comic. He looked in the mirror and saw himself.
The Knockout lay splayed on the floor. He picked it up. It was open at the squares of Stonehenge Kit; but the squares were not empty. In the first was the room with the cupboard and the chimney. The cupboard door was smashed and Whizzy and the Brit Basher were coming out. Whizzy said AFTER ’EM! BIFF HIM FOR THAT BRICK! AND GET THAT POT HE’S GOT!
The next picture was Kit running through a wrong way room and being chased by Whizzy and the Brit Basher,
Next was Kit with his thumbs in his ears, wiggling his fingers and saying HA HA HA! HEE HEE HEE! CAN’T CATCH ME FOR A PENNY CUP OF TEA!
Next was a right way room, and Kit was opening the big window.
Next he was climbing out of the window, and the next he was swinging on a gutter and reaching for a drainpipe.
Next he was shinning down the drainpipe into the yard.
Next he was running across the yard and Whizzy was leaning out of the window and saying FUME! AND BAH!
Next Whizzy was on the drainpipe and the Brit Basher had his club between his teeth and was reaching for the gutter and Kit was running through the gateway.
Next the Brit Basher had hold of the drainpipe and let go of the gutter; but he was so heavy he pulled the drainpipe off the wall and fell OOF! ZONK! KER-POW! SPLAT! on Whizzy, and Kit was running down the track between Big Meadow and Barn Croft. And at the side it said PHEW! THAT WAS CLOSE! BUT WHIZZY’s OUT OF THE HOUSE AND HE CAN’T GET BACK IN! WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT, CHUMS?
XVI
Joe went down to the well and pumped a bucket of water and carried it back up to his room and stood before the mirror. He dipped the donkey stone in the bucket and held it to the glass. But before it touched he stopped.
He pulled out his handkerchief and sloshed it in the water and rubbed it on the donkey stone until the handkerchief was covered in grey. Then he rubbed the handkerchief lightly over the glass, not pressing, down and up and round and across, until none of the glass showed and there was only a panel of grit.
He rinsed the handkerchief, took the bucket downstairs and emptied it onto the yard.
‘And that,’ said Joe, ‘is that.’
XVII
‘Would that it were,’ said Treacle Walker.
He was under the pear tree. The pony grazed.
‘What the heck!’ said Joe. ‘Just when I’ve got things straight, you have to turn up like a bad penny!’
‘Wae’s me,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘Yet I am no coin of Luxembourg.’ He went towards the house. Joe followed.
Treacle Walker stood at the step. ‘May I pass?’
‘Don’t be daft. Course you can.’
Treacle Walker went to the chimney and sat on the sill. Joe ran upstairs and fetched the Knockout. He handed it to Treacle Walker.
‘See? Everything’s right now.’
‘That is done,’ said Treacle Walker.
‘Yes. It is.’
‘Done; but not over.’
‘Oh, give it a rest,’ said Joe. ‘I’ve had enough.’
‘Indeed?’
‘Yes, I blooming well have. Look. Whizzy and them are back in Knockout. I did what you said. What more do you want?’
‘I? Nothing.’
‘Then we’re quits.’
Treacle Walker did not answer. Joe stared at the ashes of the fire.
‘Treacle Walker.’
‘Joseph Coppock.’
‘You say you make people better.’
‘I heal all things; save jealousy.’
‘Can you make me better?’
‘Are you not well?’
‘Can you make my eyes proper?’
‘ “Proper”?’
‘I can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t.’
‘What is “real”, Joseph Coppock?’
‘Don’t start that.’
‘You chose the glamourie.’
‘I never.’
‘But you did choose. The choice was yours. You could have chosen shimmerings. You did not.’
‘How was I to know? Anyroad, what use is it?’
‘I can give you back your blindness,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘Be a doings, if you will.’
Joe stared at the ashes. For a moment his name glowed silver embers.
XVIII
‘Come up, Joseph Coppock,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘It is time to make an end.’
‘End of what?’ said Joe.
‘Of what you began.’
‘Me? I never began nowt.’
‘Bring your knife, the stone, the dobber and Poor Mans Friend.’
They left the house and crossed the yard.
‘Where are we for?’ said Joe.
‘Not far.’
Treacle Walker went into Big Meadow and down to the bog. He stopped at the bank.
‘Take an alder young enough for your knife and cut five green branches the length of your arm, and bring them here.’
‘Why?’
‘Do it.’
‘Show us how.’
‘I will not enter.’
‘I need my wellies,’ said Joe.
‘Go,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘And cover the eye, lest you be lost.’
‘He told me not to. I mustn’t use my patch. He said.’
‘I tell you. Go.’
‘It’s sopping wet in there. I’ll be back in a sec.’
‘Go.’
‘You’re in a right bate, you are.’
Joe took out his patch, put it over his good eye, and stepped onto the bog.
At first there were tussocks of grass, but soon everywhere was the water, slutch and roots. He sank to his shins, each step a heave and suck.
He found a sapling in a clear space, with branches he could reach and hack.
‘How many?’
‘Five.’
‘Why?’
‘They are enough.’
Joe cut five green branches.
‘Will these do?’
‘They must,’ said Treacle Walker.
Joe worked his way back to the bank. ‘I’m soaked. Them midges are killing me.’
‘Strip the branches,’ said Treacle Walker.
Joe lopped off the spurs and leaves.
‘Make sharp the ends,’ said Treacle Walker.
Joe whittled the wood to a point. The sap turned red.
‘Lay them on the bank, and stand by me.’
Joe put the branches down, stepped over the bank and stood next to Treacle Walker.
Treacle Walker spoke into the bog. ‘Thin Amren. Thin Amren. Come from the mools. I want thee.’
He waited. Only the wings of insects could be heard.
Treacle Walker spoke again. ‘Thin Amren. Thin Amren. Come from the mools. I want thee.’
The sound of a wind stirred; but the leaves of the alders were quiet, and Joe felt no wind on his face.
‘Thin Amren. Thin Amren. Come from the mools. I want thee.’
The sound of wind grew louder, but Joe felt nothing. Then the air and the whole land trembled. The alder trunks rippled as rope, and the bog heaved without moving. Joe grabbed Treacle Walker’s coat.
‘Are you here, Treacle Walker?’ The voice was in the trees.
‘I am here,’ said Treacle Walker.
‘And why are you here?’
‘You know what must be,’ said Treacle Walker.
‘And what must be?’ The voice was all around.
‘Thin Amren sleeps.’
‘And if he will not?’
‘There is no dreaming.’
The sky was a blare of sick headache.
‘I do not dream.’
‘Joseph Coppock,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘Move the patch. You have cause for all glamourie.’
Joe swivelled the patch across to cover his weak eye. The bog opened before him further than he could tell.
Treacle Walker spoke. ‘Thin Amren, why do you not sleep?’
‘I am alone.’
‘What do you lack?’
‘Whirligig.’
‘He is mine,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘As I am his.’
‘I laugh with Whirligig,’ said the voice. ‘Laugh truly. Give me Whirligig.’
‘It cannot be.’
‘Till I have Whirligig, I will not sleep.’
‘Then cuckoo shall rule over nothingness.’
‘Let cuckoo rule. I will not dream.’
The bog was silent.
Joe clutched the coat more. ‘What’s he on about? Whirligig. Cuckoo. Dream. What’s he on at?’
‘Thin Amren dreams all that is and is not,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘He dreams Thin Amren. We are his dreams.’
The alders swung and the land lurched. Above the house, the sky cracked. And in the crack was a claw. The claw rent down, and the gap was blackness moving, mirror cold, with snow.
‘Hold fast,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘This is no hurlothrumbo. No lomperhomock, this. This is Winter. This is Night.’
Again the sky was torn. And in the gap was a bird; huge, wings spread, claws open to clench the house. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo.
The blackness surged. It flowed from the sky, across the embankment, into the yard. It seethed up the house, the roof, the walls, the windows and the door. It was an ivy of black climbing the pear tree. It bulged against the hedge and spilled out onto Big Meadow and down the field towards Treacle Walker and Joe.
And thunder with no pause. Joe shut his eye against the lightnings and the dark.
Across the purple swirl on his lids, he saw a bubble, and in the bubble DOBBER NOW ELSE WHIZZY WINS! T’RA, JOE!
Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo.
Joe opened his eye and fumbled in his pocket for his catapult and dobber. He put the dobber in the pouch, drew, and shot without aim. The dobber flew straight and hit the bird square on the breast. There was a flash that was not from thunder, and the bird went up in a flame of fire. It devoured the dark, burnt the blackness. It cleansed house, pear, yard, field, land and air with light, and blinded Joe. But when his eye cleared, the bird, night, and thunder were gone.
‘Stone the sky,’ said Treacle Walker.
Joe took the donkey stone and dipped it in the waters of the bog and reached up to the sky and rubbed. He drew the gaps together with the stone and closed them, smooth, without seam. But still the trees rippled and the ground quaked.
‘Go to him,’ said Treacle Walker.
Joe picked up the sharpened branches and went out onto the bog. He passed over the mire without sinking, into the endless copse.
Thin Amren lay by an alder stool. He smiled. ‘I dreamed Whirligig would come,’ he said. ‘I dreamed he would.’ He looked older. His limbs were slack, his belly hollowed and swollen, and his bones showed through the skin. ‘But I was away from the wet too long, so I was.’
‘Course I’ve come,’ said Joe. ‘Did you ever think I’d not?’
‘I see what Whirligig has fetched.’
‘You must sleep,’ said Joe. ‘You’ve got to.’
‘I’m weary. Weary of dreaming, Whirligig. I’m a shadow in a bottle with the weight of it. Whirligig shall stay; and together we shall laugh the sky.’
‘We can’t.’
‘ “Can’t never did.” I tellt at the start. Has that carnaptious coptank snatched Whirligig in his Corr Bolg, then?’
‘If you won’t dream,’ said Joe, ‘I can’t be. Ever. At all. But if you dream, I can. Happen we’ll meet. Happen we’ll not. But we’ll remember. “Cut my throat and hope to die.” We’ll not forget.’
‘That’s the skewer,’ said Thin Amren. ‘The skewer. So it is. The stab. Yet Whirligig has wisdom on him. He has the wisdom. He has it. Whirligig. Well, well. What larks. But will he be giving a body a drink? For I’m thirsty dry.’
Joe took the jar and filled it from a clean pool between the roots of the alder and held it to Thin Amren’s lips. Thin Amren drank, gulping.
He lay back on the bog.
‘What larks, eh? Whirligig?’
‘What larks.’
‘Thrust me deep and stake me quick.’
Joe cradled Thin Amren and dragged him onto open bog and, both hands flat on his chest, with all his weight he pressed him down. Thin Amren sank into the water. His face showed; then leaves and mud ran over and covered it. Joe could feel him as he pressed. Thin Amren moved, settled, and was still. Joe wept, and, weeping, pressed him further, until Thin Amren was at the end of Joe’s reach. Then he took one of the alder branches, felt for Thin Amren’s neck, and bent the branch across, and drove the sharp ends into the bog on either side of the flesh. He took another and felt for an arm and pinned it at the elbow. He sobbed and swore with every thrust. Then he took a branch for the other arm; then another and another for the two legs.
His face was slutched, and his tears mingled with leaves and water. He knelt in the mire.
‘Thin Amren. Sleep you on.’
Joe stood, lifted his patch, and waded back over the bog. It lost its endlessness and he saw the bank and crossed over to where Treacle Walker was. He could not stop the tears. He fell and held on to Treacle Walker. ‘I’m only little. I’m only little.’
Treacle Walker helped Joe up, and they went to the house. Joe nodded when they came to the doorstep. They sat in the chimney, facing each other across the fire basket. Treacle Walker put the Corr Bolg on the floor.
In the middle of the ashes lay a speckled egg.
‘It’s cuckoo’s,’ said Joe.
He reached out and lifted the egg. He opened his hand to look. He was holding the dobber, its flames clear in the glass.
‘Just like that.’
He brought kindling of oak twigs and holly bark and laid them in the basket with twists of a scrumpled Knockout under, and lit the fire. The twigs crackled. The holly bark caught, and white billows lifted into the stack. Treacle Walker watched them rise.
They sat and listened to the fire.
‘Treacle Walker?’
‘Joseph Coppock.’
‘I hadn’t seen.’
‘What had you not seen, Joseph Coppock?’
‘It was me. I started it. I fetched cuckoo. With yon thingy. First off.’
‘It was the man that sang in the marrow bone.’
‘No. It was me. I did it.’
Joe watched the flames, bright as the dobber; listened to them.
‘To heck with that caper. To heck with it all.’ He put thorn logs on the fire. Sparks climbed in the smoke. ‘Eh. Treacle Walker.’
‘Joseph Coppock.’
‘I know what’s the titchiest thing there is. Do you?’
‘I do not. What is the titchiest thing there is?’
‘A dimple on a pimple on a money spider’s knee.’
‘A dimple on a pimple on a patella of Linyphia. That would be minuscule, I must allow,’ said Treacle Walker.
‘And can you tell me this?’ said Joe. ‘What goes up a chimney down but not down a chimney up?’
‘I cannot.’
‘It’s a riddle,’ said Joe.
‘For ashes.’
‘No. A joke. See?’
‘Ah,’ said Treacle Walker. ‘But alas. What goes up a chimney down though not down a chimney up is beyond my thought. I have no badinage.’
‘Guess! Go on!’
‘I cannot. I concede.’
‘It’s an umberella!’ said Joe. ‘Get it?’
‘Joseph Coppock, you are quite the droll.’
‘If you open an umberella,’ said Joe, ‘you can’t shove it either road. But if you shut it you can.’
‘That is true. Your knowledge eclipses mine.’
They sat.
‘You really are daft,’ said Joe. He moved the logs. ‘Treacle Walker?’
‘Joseph Coppock.’
‘Treacle Walker, am I dead?’
‘I will not say that you are dead. Rather, in this world you have changed your life, and are got into another place.’
Joe watched the flames.
‘Fair do’s. Treacle Walker?’
‘Joseph Coppock.’
‘What is it you want for you? What is it you want most? For you. Not some wazzock else.’
‘Never has a soul asked that of me.’
‘What’s the answer?’
Treacle Walker leaned his head against the timber behind him and looked up into the stack.
‘To hear no more the beat of Time. To have no morrow and no yesterday. To be free of years.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Oblivion. Home.’
‘That’s not daft.’
‘It is everything.’
‘You’re shent,’ said Joe. He reached round the fire and picked up the Corr Bolg. ‘Come on. Let’s be having you.’ He took his dobber, the Poor Mans Friend, the donkey stone from his pocket, laid them together beside the bone, and slung the Corr Bolg about his shoulder. ‘Buck up, Treacle Walker.’ He bent forward. ‘And bugger off to summer stars.’
He freed his patch and dropped it on the fire. It flared and was gone. He left the chimney and opened the door; crossed the shining step. He ran to the pear tree, jumped onto the cart, stood at the front edge. He slapped the reins.
