Cover
Other books by Melvin Burgess
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
A boy ran up the hill. Halfway up he began to cry but he didn’t stop running. At the ridge just above the hidden valley he paused and turned a tear-stained face back down. He could see his house from here. It stood at the edge of the town and gazed blandly at him over the cricket pitch and the allotments where his dad used to grow vegetables and strawberries. Tam stuck out his tongue at it, made the V-sign, stuck his backside out and made a rude noise, but none of it expressed how he felt. Finally he shouted, ‘Bloody old bag!’
A few sheep looked up at him in surprise. One ran off with a lamb. They stopped a few metres further on and stood looking over their shoulders at him to see what he would do next.
‘Maa-a!’ shouted Tam. The sheep began tearing at the rough grass. Tam felt foolish. He imagined that his mother was standing grimly at the window watching him. Or was she curled up in the armchair in the corner of the sitting room, crying again with her black eyes?
Tam would have preferred to live with his father anytime, although he knew the flat in Bradford wasn’t half the place Cawldale was. His dad said it was too small for Tam to come and live with him and Julia, but Tam knew the real reason. The flat was full of Julia’s children. His dad had another family. He was left behind to cope with his miserable mother.
Tam jumped from the crest of the ridge and ran down towards the ruined farmhouse that crouched in the hidden valley. Low walls and scattered stone were all that remained, but at one end half the chimney stack still stood. You could light a fire and it still worked. The local people knew the ruins by their old name, Thowt It – short for Who’d-a-thowt-it Farm, because who would have thought it, finding a farm hidden away up there, when there seemed to be nothing but that long hill and the sheep …
The wind was beginning to whip up hard, icy drops of rain that stung his face. Tam had run out with no coat and he was frozen already but he wasn’t going home, not yet, not now – not ever, the way he felt just then. He’d catch cold first and die out here where the coarse grass began to give way to the heather from the moor above. One day someone would find his skull staring down at the town, just as he had once found a sheep’s skull, and they’d wonder who he was and how he’d got there. Tam felt that he could do anything to hurt his mother.
As he dropped down into the secret valley the wind softened. It was still hard enough. A line of Scots pines that had once been a windbreak flickered and bent in it. Now that the sheep roamed freely over the wrecked homestead they ate any young seedlings that sprouted up and the colony of trees was dying out. The line stood against the open moorland above like shattered posts. Some trees were broken off, some were still in their prime. But there were no saplings. The sheep ate everything.
If you had to be miserable the old farm was a good place to do it. There was no one there to see you except a few untidy sheep and the little brown and grey birds that flicked and chirruped over these low moorland fields.
Tam sat down in a corner of one of the rooms. The noises of the moor – the wind, a curlew calling some way off, a little bird chittering nearby – carried on above his head. It was a strange feeling, sitting in a room with the rain still speckling your skin and the wind in your hair. To one side of him was the tall wall with the chimney in it. People had come for picnics and lit fires there. A circle of stones had been laid out in front of it and at night, staring at a blaze, you could imagine that this was still a home and that behind your back the rooms still stood and people slept and talked and lived. Perhaps they did.
There was a noise beside him. Tam looked across and almost jumped out of his skin because there was a dog sitting next to him. He hadn’t heard a thing – not a breath, not a crumple of grass underfoot. The dog looked at him and thumped its tail.
‘Good dog,’ said Tam cautiously. It seemed like a nice dog, but it was a bit close. It was a sheep dog mongrel, one of those dogs with lots of hair and a fringe that looked intelligent and foolish at the same time.
The dog was delighted and tried to lick his face. Tam squirmed. ‘Gerrof!’ he exclaimed. But the dog thought it was a game and began huffing and licking and then it growled and tried to pull at his clothes with its teeth, but ever so gently.
Tam was a bit nervous of strange dogs, but this was a good dog. They had hardly met for a minute and here they were, wrestling on the grass. It was impossible to be cross, the dog was so good natured. Tam had a peek and saw the dog was female.
‘What are you doing out here, girl?’ asked Tam. He looked around for the owner. There was no one in sight. Probably they were not far off, though.
Now the dog got up and began snuffling around the wall. Rabbits, thought Tam. He wanted the dog to catch one. The dog snuffled and scratched busily away at the turf. She got terribly excited at a hole in the wall and began barking at it. Tam laughed. She was making far too much noise to catch anything. But she was a good dog. She knew enough to leave the sheep alone, and she was so full of bounce.
Now the funny old thing gave up the rabbits, had a pee by the hole in the wall, scratched a few times and came up to Tam to be patted. She sat up on her legs begging and began nodding her head up and down, just as if she were talking. ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes …’ she seemed to say. Someone must have taught her.
‘I haven’t got anything for you,’ laughed Tam. But the dog just wanted to play.
Tam ran up above the ruin to see if he could spot the owner, but although he got a view right up and down the path he saw no one. Perhaps the dog was a stray. She had run on ahead and now she came rushing back, hair flowing all over her face. She had a stick in her mouth – a small branch, really; it was much too big, she could barely lift it off the ground. Tam broke a bit off. When the dog tried to snatch it, he felt at her neck. There was a worn leather collar; the dog was no stray. It was stupid, anyway. His mother would never let him have a dog.
Tam waggled the stick in the air. The dog barked delightedly, pranced around, whining and yelping. She was off as if she’d been fired out of a gun when Tam finally threw it. Then she came running back and dropped it on his feet for a repeat.
Quite suddenly it began to rain hard. The hills and the town below them and even the ruined buildings nearby turned grey. Tam ran as fast as he could to shelter behind one of the farmhouse walls. By the time he was halfway there he stopped running. There was no way he could get any wetter. It was a downpour. Now he’d get into more trouble, but he didn’t care.
The rain seemed to be coming from every direction at once. The only place where he could get out of it was actually under the chimney. It was filthy with mud and wet ashes but Tam crawled deliberately right into them. His school clothes, already sodden and muddy where he had fallen playing with the dog, got black with the ash. It was school again tomorrow; his mother would have to wash them for him overnight.
The wind blew the rain onto him even here. As soon as the dog crept beside him she shook herself violently.
‘Hey, you idiot!’ Tam shouted. It was horrible – worse than the rain. She looked at him in surprise, wagged her tail and tried to lick his face. Really, it was quite impossible to be cross with her for more than a moment.
The boy and the dog sat in the wet ashes together and looked out at the rain falling in sheets. They could hear the soft sound of it as it struck the fields and stones outside. The dog had begun to smell with the wet and Tam was soaked through and cold to the bone and filthy. But for all that he felt cosy, snuggled up in the chimney with this friendly dog – as if he were warm and dry at home with a wet blowy day outside and a roaring fire to stare at, instead of these sheets and sheets of rain.
As Tam sat tucked away behind the curtain of rain, something strange began with a smell. He sniffed the air and it took him a moment to recognise it because it was so out of place. Tam smelled toast. He laughed out loud. Everything was sodden and dripping, there wasn’t a spark of fire for miles. But there it was, the smell of nice brown toast just come out of the grill and ready for the butter to go on it. Suddenly it was so real he was certain someone was near with toast and his mouth began to water. The dog seemed to smell it as well because she began dribbling and wagging her tail. Tam peered out through the layers of rain wondering who could be cooking toast out in that lot. And he saw the girl.
She was sitting directly in front of him. There was a fire between them – in fact Tam was sitting in the fire but he could only feel a soft heat from it. The fire was low, no flames; a bright red glow. Behind the girl was a long room with carpets and rugs on the boards. The room was very bare and strange. A big pendulum clock ticked heavily on the wall. The girl was kneeling in front of him – in front of the fire. She had a long brass fork in her hand with a piece of toast on the end of it. She was making toast by the fire, and Tam and the dog were sitting in the fireplace.
The girl was looking directly at him and Tam knew that she could see him too. The dog began nodding her head again – yes, yes, yes. The girl frowned. She said, ‘Winnie?’ in a strange, flat voice.
The dog wagged her tail. She seemed quite at home. She suddenly leaned forward and tried to take the piece of toast off the end of the fork with her teeth.
‘Hey!’ cried the girl. Tam could hear her shout as he could feel the soft warmth of the fire – distantly. She jumped back a little and the toast fell off the fork, through the dog’s nose and into the fire where it began to burn. Tam laughed out loud; the girl looked at him crossly.
‘Go away!’ she shouted. ‘Bad dog!’ she added. The dog whined and lay down. And then the wind blew in on him, right in with a gust of rain and it all vanished as suddenly as it had come. Tam was sitting with a dog in the old fireplace, getting his school trousers filthy with wet charcoal and mud and there was nothing but a vague smell in the air. The dog slobbered and licked her chops. Tam sniffed again, and it was gone.
What had he seen? The vile rain poured down where there had been a snug household. There was a low dip in the wall to his left where a vase of daisies and a photograph on a stand had stood on the window-sill a few seconds ago. Had he seen ghosts – or had he been a ghost himself?
The dog whined and crouched into the mud by his leg. The girl had known her. Suddenly Tam wanted to go home. He said, ‘Winnie?’ and she looked up and wagged her tail. She jumped up and began licking his face again.
‘Down!’ Winnie crouched again. Cautiously Tam thumped her sides and her ribs thudded hollowly. She was a real dog all right.
The rain seemed to have fallen off only slightly; it looked set solid for hours yet, falling violently out of the sky in the wind. Tam peered anxiously out to make sure that all traces of the vision were gone. There was a figure standing in the rain.
Now Tam really was frightened, because that was no human figure. He couldn’t make it out properly in the thick rain, but it stood slouched and crooked, and there seemed to be a horrid lump on its neck. The figure was just standing there not even trying to get out of the downpour. Everything about it was wrong – the shape of the head, the way it stood, everything.
But Winnie gave a little yelp of delight and ran out, tail wagging furiously. She ran right up and jumped up at the person to say hello. The figure never moved. The dog grabbed hold of its sleeve and pulled it towards the chimney.
Tam watched in horror as they got close. It was a woman. She was dressed in an old overcoat with a string around the middle and rags tied round her under the coat. The big lump on her neck was a felted blob of greasy grey hair, a great lump of hair that looked as if it had never been washed or combed and which seemed to be part of her flesh. All down one side of her face the flesh was twisted and malformed with scars from some injury long ago. Her head hung to one side like a dead thing, her eyes stared – at the stones, at the ground, at the dog, at the sky, as if it was all the same. Her eyes were vacant, but Tam sensed that her whole being was aware of him standing before her, and that he would die of fear if she looked straight at him.
This was no ghost. It was a tramp, a mad woman. An old bag lady.
The dog led her right up to Tam and stood there proudly, tail wagging. She seemed to be trying to introduce the two. Tam was disgusted. What a horrible old woman – he couldn’t believe that she was anything to do with this bright dog. He pushed past her and ran out into the rain.
‘Come on, girl, come on!’ he shouted, clapping his hands. The dog just stood and looked at him. ‘Come on, Winnie, come on – quick!’ he shouted again. The dog glanced up at the old woman, licked her lips, turned in a circle – and sat down at her feet.
Tam was furious. How could the dog prefer that old creature to him? He ran halfway up the slope and turned back to look. The dog had forgotten him already. She was pulling the old woman into the chimney by the sleeve as if she were the pet and the dog her owner.
Tam was full of hatred for that old woman who had taken the dog away from him. She was barely human, she stank, she couldn’t even dress herself properly. She was useless and old and horrible, but the dog wanted her and Tam hated her for it.
He screamed at her through the rain, ‘Go away!’ She turned. She seemed to be looking along the valley but Tam was sure she had her eyes secretly on him.
‘We don’t want you here!’ he shouted. The old woman’s attention wandered and she began to turn away. The dog was looking curiously at him, her head cocked to one side.
Tam reached down and picked up a stone. He didn’t know at whom he was throwing it, but his arm swung back and he sent the stone through the air towards them. It clattered in the chimney breast and bounced harmlessly onto the ground. The old woman turned towards the noise.
But the dog minded. Her lips went back. There was a choked noise – half bark, half growl. She ran swiftly across the fields straight at Tam.
Tam screamed and fled. He slithered up the slope, rushing and falling in the mud. He was halfway up the stone wall of the next field before he dared look back. The dog stood to attention in the rain staring after him twenty metres away. As Tam stood gasping for breath she turned her back on him and returned to the ruins where the old woman crouched under the chimney breast. Tam began to trudge slowly across the sodden fields back home.
Half an hour later he stood dripping on the kitchen floor. He didn’t dare go right inside. He was in such a mess he felt proud of it and stood there leaking black water onto the clean kitchen floor.
‘This is for me, is it?’ demanded his mother. Tam grimaced and looked out of the window. It wasn’t like that – was it?
‘Take off your clothes and go up and have a bath.’ Tam sullenly began to undress. She watched him for a moment and then went up. He heard the bath being run. Then she came down and flung him an old towel.
‘Well, don’t just leave them there, put them in the machine,’ she said as he stepped out of the pile of dirty clothes.
‘You don’t want to help, do you?’ demanded his mother as he left the room. Tam said nothing.
Thowt It had been a private place for him but now Tam felt like an intruder. It was the little girl who belonged there; he was a ghost who spoiled her evenings by the fire. And there was the mad woman and her fierce, faithful dog. Where did they belong? Tam began to see the old woman about the town, standing in corners, picking through waste bins and rubbish, or just drifting along the streets. Her eyes were always down, in the gutter, unfocused, but she may have cast him one of those odd sideways glances when he looked away. Once he turned round and she was smiling at him – a toothless idiot’s grin. It didn’t seem to matter to her that she filled him with disgust. She didn’t even seem to know.
*
A couple of days after he had appeared dripping on his mother’s kitchen floor, Mrs Caradine collared him for one of her ‘little chats’. She was a Health Visitor and had been friends with Tam’s mother for a while on and off. Since his father went away she had been round all the time. It wasn’t just friendship. Mrs Caradine loved doing good.
Tam was on his way home from school when she passed him in her car. She pulled over, wound down the window and gave him a big toothy smile.
‘Fancy a lift, Tam? I’m going your way.’
‘Thanks, it’s all right.’
‘I want to have a little chat. Come on – jump in …’
He only lived a minute away. She wasn’t an aunt or anything, not even a very good friend. She didn’t start the car when he climbed in but got stuck straight in.
‘I know it’s none of my business,’ she began – that’s what she always said.
‘I know,’ Tam interrupted. ‘My mum.’
‘You could help a little more.’
He shrugged. ‘I do my chores.’
‘She says …’ Mrs Caradine stopped short when she saw Tam pull a face.
‘Well, what does she say?’ he demanded.
‘She wouldn’t want me telling tales,’ said Mrs Caradine, smiling cautiously. ‘I know things aren’t so easy at home. It’s hard for her, Tam – holding down a morning job, looking after the house – and you. She hasn’t got a lot of time but it’s not her fault. It happens – families split up. She didn’t want it, you know…’
Tam knew that. He’d heard them downstairs going over it, and over and over it. She hadn’t wanted it.
‘You could help a bit more,’ repeated Mrs Caradine. ‘And there’s school. You keep getting into trouble.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘They’ve been ringing up home. Didn’t you know?’
Tam didn’t know and Mrs Caradine got all flustered. ‘Me and my big mouth,’ she moaned.
‘I’d just prefer to live with my dad, that’s all,’ said Tam.
‘Would you? Why don’t you?’
Tam began to explain about the little flat in Bradford with Julia’s children all over the place and no room for him. Mrs Caradine listened sympathetically.
‘And there you are stuck with your poor old mum while your dad’s off having a good time, is that it?’
Tam grinned and nodded. That’s how it felt, but it wasn’t like that. He’d spent a couple of weekends in Bradford and even he had to admit it was better at home.
‘I can’t see what’s so great about Julia and her family,’ complained Tam.
‘It sounds as if it’s your dad you’re angry at,’ remarked Mrs Caradine, ‘and your mum just gets in the neck – right?’
That was about it.
She started up the car and drove off, talking about working it out together and new routines now his dad was gone and so on. Tam nodded and looked out of the window. He’d heard it before.
Tam had already had enough. He was fed up with being in trouble, fed up with arguments no one could win. In his heart he wasn’t even sure he’d prefer to live with his dad. He certainly didn’t want to live in Bradford.
Mrs Caradine was still rattling away as she pulled up outside his house, but she stopped in mid-flow.
‘Look,’ she said.
It was the beggar woman. She was standing by the entrance to the cricket club, a hunched bundle of rags with two swollen polythene bags in her hands. A small band of kids were standing around jeering.
Mrs Caradine leaped into action. ‘What are you doing? Why can’t you be nice to her? Can’t you see she needs help?’ she shouted. She climbed out of the car and ran across the road. The kids scattered and stopped to watch from a safe distance. Mrs Caradine went up to the old woman and bent down, holding her arm and talking to her. The old woman looked anxious. Her gaze drifted up and down the road as if she were trapped in some deep, unhappy thought. But Tam could see the whites of her eyes as she glanced towards him. Mrs Caradine was gesturing towards the house and she began to pull at her sleeves. The old woman let herself be pulled by the arm across the road.
‘What’re you doing to her?’ said Tam. It seemed so unfair; the old woman was miserable enough and now Mrs Caradine was frightening her.
‘A cup of tea and a bite to eat, I’m sure your mum won’t mind,’ beamed Mrs Caradine, as happy as a hamster in a wheel now that she had a good deed to do.
Tam hurried across the pavement to open the door. The last thing he wanted was that old hag in his house.
‘Mum!’ She came along the corridor and peered round the door. Tam pointed and rolled his eyes.
‘Good grief, who’s she got this time – her grandmother?’ hissed his mother. Tam grinned. But his mother was waving to Mrs Caradine.
‘Hello, Helen – I’ve brought a visitor for you,’ called Mrs Caradine.
‘But she stinks,’ whispered Tam. ‘She’ll have fleas and things. We could catch something.’
‘I can’t stop her, you know what she’s like,’ whispered his mother back, still smiling away. ‘Go and put the kettle on. And put newspapers on the armchairs in case she wants to sit down. It’s a good job we haven’t got any family silver,’ she added, and she stepped out to give Mrs Caradine a hand.
Close up, perched on a piece of newspaper on the edge of one of the armchairs in the clean sitting room, the old woman looked filthier and more pitiful than ever. She was unwashed, uncombed, unloved. The scar on her face looked raw and red under the dirt. To Tam it was as if a disease had come to sit in his living room. She had black, greasy lines around her eyes and mouth and her eyes looked sore and red against her filthy skin. Her hair hung in wads, like felted cloth down to her shoulders. She gazed down at the carpet, but every muscle in her was tight. She didn’t seem to be aware of anything, least of all Mrs Caradine.