Blackberry Wine Part 16

It was only later, much later, that the unease resurfaced.

Oh, Marise was charming. Clever, too, in the way she had led him to talk about himself whilst evading all mention of her own background. By the end of the afternoon she knew everything about him. But even so there was something more. Something about Rosa. He considered Rosa. Mireille was convinced she was being ill-treated, but there were no signs of that. On the contrary, the love between mother and daughter was clear. Jay remembered the time he had seen them together by the hedge. That unspoken rapport. Unspoken.

That was it. But Rosa could talk, spontaneously and with ease. The way she had shouted at the goat in the kitchen proved it, that quick, excited outburst. CJopette, non! Pas clans Ja cuisine? As if she talked to the goat habitually. And the way Marise looked at her, as if warning her to be quiet.

Why should she warn her? He went over the question again and again. Was it something Marise didn't want him 'to hear? And the child - hadn't she been sitting with her ^back to the door when the goat made its entrance? m So how could she have known it was there?

46.Nether Edge, Summer 1977 AFTER HE LEFT GILLY, JAY SAT BY THE BRIDGE FOR A WHILE,.

feeling angry and guilty and certain she would come after him. When she didn't appear, he lay in the wet gra.s.s for a while, relis.h.i.+ng the bitter smells of earth and weeds, and looked into the sky until the falling drizzle made him dizzy.

He began to feel cold, so he got up and began to make his way back to Pog Hill along the disused railbed, stopping every now and then to examine something by the side of the tracks, more out of habit than real interest. He was so lost in his brooding that he completely failed to hear, or see, the four figures which emerged silently from the trees at his back and fanned out behind him in pursuit.

By the time he saw them it was too late. Glenda was there, and two of her mates: the skinny blonde - he thought her name was Karen - and a younger girl, Paula - or was it Patty? -ten or eleven, maybe, with pierced ears and a mean, sulky mouth. They were already moving across his path to cut him off, Glenda to one side, Karen and Paula to the other. Their faces shone with rain and eagerness. Glenda's eyes met his across the track and they were gleaming. For a moment she looked almost pretty.

Worse still, Zeth was with her.

236.

For a second or two Jay froze. The girls were nothing special. He had outrun, outtalked and outbluffed them before, and there were only three of them. They were familiar, part of the Edge, like the open-cast mine or the scree above the ca.n.a.l lock; a natural hazard, like the wasps - something to be treated with caution but not fear.

Zeth was another matter.

He was wearing a Status Quo T-s.h.i.+rt with the sleeves rolled up. A pack of Winstons was tucked in one sleeve. His hair was long, flapping around his thin, clever face. His acne had cleared up, but there were deep marks on his cheeks where it had been - initiation scars, channels for crocodile ^tears. He was grinning. * I 'Astha been pickin on my sister?' j s. Jay was already running before he finished his sentence. ; Ht was the worst possible place to be cornered; high above '' he ca.n.a.l and its many hiding places, the straight, open ; pailbed lay in front of him like a desert. The bushes on , ' 'Aer side were too thick to squeeze through, too small to Eer protection. A deep ditch and a screen of bushes hid m from even the closest houses. His sneakers skidded ingerously on the gravel. Glenda and her mates were in int of him, Zeth was a heartbeat behind. Jay took the best rtion, dodging the two girls and making straight for ienda. She stepped out to intercept him, her meaty arms Id out as if fielding a wide ball, but he pushed her with all s strength, shouldering her aside like an American foot- iller, and hurtled free down the abandoned tracks. Behind iim he heard Glenda wail. Zeth's voice pursued him, Mninously close: Tha little b.a.s.t.a.r.d!'

I" Jay didn't look round. There was a railway bridge and a i-'eutting about a quarter of a mile from Pog Hill, with a path pleading up onto the street. There would be other paths, too, leading to the cutaway and waste ground beyond. If he Could only get there . . . The bridge wasn't far. He was younger than Zeth, and lighter. He could outrun him. If he could reach the bridge there would be places to hide.

He glanced over his shoulder. The gap between them had widened. Thirty or forty yards separated them. Glenda was back on her feet and running, but in spite of her size Jay wasn't worried about her. She looked out of breath already, her overlarge b.r.e.a.s.t.s bobbing ludicrously under her straining s.h.i.+rt. Zeth was jogging quite slowly next to her, but as Jay looked round he put on a sudden, terrifying burst of speed, his arms pumping, gravel spraying up fiercely around his ankles.

Jay was beginning to feel dizzy now, his breath a hot stone. He could see the bridge just around the curve of the line, and the row of poplars which marked the abandoned points. Five hundred yards would do it.

Joe's talisman was still in his pocket. He could feel it against his hip as he ran, and he felt dim relief that he'd brought it along. He could just as easily have forgotten it.

He had been too busy that summer, too snarled up in himself to think very much about magic.

He just hoped it still worked.

He reached the bridge, with the gap between them widening, and cast about for somewhere to hide. Too risky to try the steep path up towards the road. Jay was winded by now, and there was maybe fifty feet of twisting dirt path before the road and safety. He clenched his fist over Joe's talisman and took the opposite direction, the one they wouldn't expect him to take, under the bridge and behind, towards Pog Hill. There was a swathe of willowherb gone to seed behind the rail arch, and he bobbed down in it, head pounding, heart tight with dark exaltation.

He was safe.

From his hideout he could hear voices. Zeth's sounded close, Glenda's more remote, thickened by distance, rebounding over the empty s.p.a.ce between the bridge and the cutaway.

'Wheer the bleedinell izzy?'

Jay could hear him on the other side of the arch, imagined him checking the path, measuring distances. He made 238.

himself small under the waving white heads of the willow- herb.

Glenda's voice, breathy with running.

Thaz lost 'im, tha beggar!'

' 'Ave not. He's here somewhere. He can't have gone far.'

Minutes pa.s.sed. Jay clung to the talisman as they went over the area. Joe's talisman. It had worked before. He had not fully believed in it then, but he knew better now. He believed in magic. He truly believed in magic. He heard a sound as someone crunched over the acc.u.mulated litter in the s.p.a.ce underneath the bridge. Footsteps crossed the gravel. But he was safe. He was invisible. He believed.

^ 'Iz ere!'

i^ It was the ten-year-old, Paula-or-Patty, standing waist- K^eep in the foamy weeds.

; 'Quick, Zeth, gettim! Gettim!'

Jay began to back off towards the bridge, clouds of white eeds puffing away with every move he made. The talisman angled loosely from his fingers. Glenda and Karen Bunded the curve of the arch, faces sweaty. There was 'deep ditch just beyond the arch, ripe with late-summer iBttles. No escape that way. Then Zeth came from under the sridge, took his arm, drew Jay towards him by the boulders in a dreadfully matey, not-to-be-refused gesture I welcome, and smiled.

'Gotcha.'

The magic had finally run out.

Jay didn't like to think about what happened after that. It existed in a curious silence, like some dreams. First they jlpulled off his T-s.h.i.+rt and pushed him, kicking and scream- King, into the ditch where the nettles bloomed. He tried to '"climb out, but Zeth kept pus.h.i.+ng him back, the leaves praising welts which would itch and burn for days. Jay put I his arms up to cover his face, thinking remotely, How come pi; this never happens to Ch'nt, before someone yanked him up by the hair and Zeth's voice said, very gently, 'Now it's my ; turn, yer b.a.s.t.a.r.d.'

239.

In a story he would have fought back. He didn't. He would at least have shown defiance, some hint of desperado swagger. His heroes all did.

Jay was no hero.

He began to scream before he felt the first blow. Perhaps that was how he escaped a serious beating. It could have been worse, he thought as he a.s.sessed the damage later. A b.l.o.o.d.y nose, some bruises, both the knees of his jeans taken out from a skid across the railbed. The only thing broken was his watch. Later he came to understand that there had been something more, something more serious, more permanent than a watch, or even a bone broken that day. It was to do with faith, he thought dimly. Something inside had been broken and could not be mended.

As Joe might have said, the art was gone.

He told his mother he'd fallen off his bike. It was a plausible lie - plausible enough, anyway, to explain his shredded jeans and swollen nose. She didn't fuss as much as Jay had feared; it was late, and everyone was watching a rerun of Blue Hawaii, part of the Elvis post-mortem season.

Slowly he put his bike away. He made himself a sandwich and took a can of c.o.ke from the fridge, then he went to his room and listened to the radio. Everything seemed speciously normal, as if Gilly, Zeth and Pog Hill were already a long time in the past. The Stranglers were playing 'Straighten Out'.

Jay and his mother left that weekend. He didn't say goodbye.

240.

47.Lansquenet, May 1999 jfcY WAS AT WORK IN THE GARDEN WHEN POPOTTE ARRIVED Nth her postbag. She was a little, round, pansy-faced roman in a scarlet jumper. She always left her ancient cycle at the side of the road and brought any mail along he footpath.

^ *Heh, Monsieur Jay,' she sighed, handing over a packet of liters. "If only you lived a little closer to the road! My Bmrnee is always half an hour longer when there's some- ling for you. I lose ten kilos every time I come over here. It Hn't go on! You must put up a postbox!'

''Jay grinned. 'Come in and have one of Poitou's fresh feoussons oux pommes. I have some coffee on the stove. I BBS just going to have some myself.'

Popotte looked as severe as her merry face would allow. re you trying to bribe me, Rosbif?'

'No, madame.' He grinned. "Just lead you astray.'

She laughed. 'Maybe one. I need the calories.'

Jay opened the letters as she ate her pastry. An electricity 'ill; a questionnaire from the town hall in Agen; a small flat package , wrapped in brown paper, addressed to him in mall, careful, almost-familiar script.

It was postmarked Kirby Monckton.

241.

Jay's hands began to tremble.

'I hope they're not all bills,' said Popotte, finis.h.i.+ng her pastry and taking another. 'Don't want to wear myself out bringing you unwanted post.'

Jay opened the packet with difficulty.

He had to pause twice for his hands to stop shaking. The wrapping paper was thick and stiffened with a sheet of card.

There was no note inside. Instead there was a piece of yellow paper carefully folded over a small quant.i.ty of tiny black seeds. One word was inscribed in pencil on the paper.

'Specials.'

'Are you all right?' Popotte seemed concerned. He must have looked strange, the seeds in one hand, the paper in the other, gaping.

"Just some seeds I was expecting from England,' said Jay with an effort. 'I ... I'd forgotten.'

His mind was dizzied with possibilities. He felt numbed, shut down by the enormity of that tiny packet of seeds. He took a mouthful of coffee, then laid the seeds out on the yellow paper and examined them.

'They don't look like much,' observed Popotte.

'No, they don't, do they?' There were maybe a hundred of them, barely enough to cover the palm of his hand.

'For G.o.d's sake, don't sneeze,' said Joe behind him, and Jay nearly dropped the lot. The old man was standing against the kitchen cupboard, as casually as if he had never left, wearing improbable madras shorts and a Springsteen 'Born to Run' T-s.h.i.+rt with his pit boots and cap. He looked absolutely real standing there, but Popotte's gaze never flickered, even though she seemed to be staring right at-him. Joe grinned and lifted a finger to his lips.

'Take your time, lad,' he advised kindly. Think I'll go and have a look at the garden while I'm waiting.'

Jay watched helplessly as he sauntered out of the kitchen and into the garden, fighting back an almost uncontrollable urge to run after him. Popotte put down her coffee mug and looked at him curiously.

242.

'Have you been making jam today. Monsieur Jay?'

He shook his head. Behind her, through the kitchen indow, he could see Joe leaning over the makes.h.i.+ft cold ame.

'Oh.' Popotte still looked doubtful, sniffing the air. 'I lought I could smell something. Blackcurrants. Burning igar.'

So she too could sense his presence. Pog Hill Lane had ways had that scent of yeast and fruit and caramelized igar, whether or not Joe was making wine. It was steeped i the carpets, the curtains, the wood. The scent followed an around, clinging to his clothes, even permeating the fug I cigarette smoke which so often surrounded him.

'I should really get back to work,' said Jay, trying to keep i8 voice level. "I want to get these seeds into the ground as (on as I can.'

*0h?' She peered at the seeds again. 'Something special, ' they?'

'That's right,' he told her. 'Something special.'

243.

Pog Hill, Autumn 1977 SEPTEMBER WAS NO BETTER. ELVIS WAS IN THE CHARTS AGAIN.

with 'Way Down'. Jay studied listlessly for next year's 0 levels. Normality seemed restored. But that sense of doom was still there, accentuated, if anything, by the humdrum continuation of things. He heard from neither Joe nor Gilly, which surprised him, even though it was unsurprising, given that he'd left Kirby Monckton without saying goodbye to either of them. His mother was snapped by Sun photographers on the arm of a twenty-four-year-old fitness instructor outside a Soho nightclub. Marc Bolan died in a car accident, then, only a few weeks later, Ronnie Van Zant and Steve Gaines of Lynyrd Skynyrd were wiped out in a plane crash.

It seemed suddenly as if everything and everyone around him was dying, coming apart. No-one else seemed to notice.

His friends smoked illicit cigarettes and sneaked off to the pictures after hours. Jay watched them with contempt. He'd practically stopped smoking. It seemed so pointless, almost childish. The gulf between himself and his cla.s.smates broadened. On some days he felt ten years older.

Bonfire night came. The others lit a bonfire and roasted potatoes in the quad. Jay stayed in the dorm and watched from a distance. The scent of the air was bitter, nostalgic.

[lowers of sparks puffed up from the bonfire into the noke and the mild sky. He could smell the hot scent of ease frying and the cigarette-paper reek of bangers. For ie first time he realized how much he missed Joe.

In December he ran away.

He took his coat and his sleeping bag, his radio and some oney, which he stuffed into his sports' bag. He forged his ceat and left school just after breakfast, to give himself [enty of time to get as far as possible. He hitched a lift from iwn to the motorway, then another down the Ml towards lieffield. He knew exactly where he was going.

It took him two days to reach Kirby Monckton. He alked most of the way after leaving the motorway, cutting 3'oss fields onto the higher ground of the moor. He slept in bus shelter until a police patrol car drew up, then lost his Srve and dared not stop again in case he was picked up. It as cold but not snowing, the sky sullen, and Jay put on all ie spare clothing he had brought, without managing to feel y warmer. His feet were blistered, his boots clotted with Xid, but throughout it all he clung to the memory of Pog I'll Lane, to the knowledge that Joe was waiting for him tere. Joe's house, with its warm kitchen and the scent of it jam and oven-dried apples and the radio playing on the indow ledge above the tomato plants.

it was late afternoon when he arrived. He pulled himself p the last few feet to the back of Pog Hill Lane, slung his torts bag over Joe's wall and himself after it. The yard was iserted.

Beyond it the allotment looked bare, abandoned. Joe had srtainly done a fine camouflage job on it. Even from the ird it looked as if no-one had lived there for months. ^eeds had sprouted between the flagstones and died there the cold, silvered with frost. The windows were nailed tut. The door was locked.

'Joe!' He knocked on the door. 'Joe? Open up, will you?'

Silence. The house looked blind, stolid beneath its winter leen. Under Jay's fist the door handle rattled meaning245 lessly. From inside his voice returned to him, a dim echo in a hollow chamber.

'Joe!'

'It's empty, lad.'

The old woman was peering over the wall, black eyes curious beneath a yellow headscarf. Jay recognized her vaguely; she had been a frequent visitor that first summer, and she would sometimes make strawberry pies, which she brought to Joe in exchange for allotment produce.

'Mrs Simmonds?'

"Aye, that's right. You'll be wantin Mester c.o.x, will yer?'

Jay nodded.

"Well, iz gone. Thought he'd pa.s.sed on, like, but our Janice sez he just upped an left one day. Upped an left,' she repeated. 'You'll not find im ere now,'

Jay stared at her. It wasn't possible. Joe hadn't gone. Joe had promised-- 'They're knockin down Pog Hill Lane, you know,' said Mrs Simmonds conversationally. 'Goin to build some luxury flats. Could do with a bit of luxury after everythin we've bin through.'

Jay ignored her. 'I know you're in there, Joe! Come out!

b.l.o.o.d.y come out!'