A story by Bard Boy [bard_boy(at)protonmail(dot)com]
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanciful fiction set in the future. None of this is real, nor an endorsement, nor a meaningful prediction. This isn’t futurism. This isn’t a manifesto. If it’s illegal for you to read material that involves descriptions of sex between adult men, sex between young boys, sexual exploration amongst children, and sex between adult men and teenagers, this is not the place for you. Don’t read on if that is the case.
Explainer: This is a (sort of) continuation – or rather, expansion – of the story left behind in Solstice. I wasn’t sure exactly how to categorise it on this site, so here it is. Readers of the Adult Friends, Adult-Youth, Incest, and Young Friends categories may find themes of interest here, though categorising it purely as any of the above would only disappoint or offend some readers of those categories. This isn’t a quick jerk-off story. If that’s what you’re looking for, I wrote one of those here. In fact, this story isn’t even that sexy. But it does contain sex – implied, mentioned in passing, reminisced about, and sometimes described in graphic detail.
A note on language use for non-UK readers: This story is largely set in the northeast of England, and many characters use vocabulary, phrases, and pronunciation which reflect patterns of speech in that part of the world. The most obvious example is in characters’ use of ‘mam’ to mean mother. Think Billy Elliot. James grew up almost entirely around Jake and Manny, speakers of West Midland English, whose patterns of speech, pronunciation, word choice, and idioms are markedly different from North East English. This is why James and Manny go for ‘mom’ over ‘mum’, use words like ‘scrage’ to mean a graze or cut to the skin, and drop phrases like ‘fart in a colander’, all while expecting other characters to understand what they mean.
Setting: The locations used in this story are all – with the exception of James & Manny’s old houses – absolutely real. I’d encourage readers to explore Google’s Street View if they want a better impression of how to see the world through James & Manny’s eyes.
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Records of Events of the City of Durham
Thursday 8th July 2055
Weather: cloudy, muggy, windy, 33°C (the man is out of the weather house)
The funeral of Angelika Wojnowski will go ahead at midday today. The cathedral bell will be sounded to indicate the beginning of the procession from the cathedral to Whinney Hill.
A dinner will be held in honour of the family alongside the usual evening meal prepared at the castle.
Assessments and interviews of Archie Stephens by Emmanuel Kwame Addo and James Martin remain ongoing.
City Recorder: Mr James Martin
**
Manny was halfway inside the door of his office when James caught up with him. They both looked tired when they smiled at each other. James gave Manny a hug. Manny rubbed James’ back.
“Thanks for last night,” said James.
“That’s what families do,” said Manny. “We’ll always stick together.”
“Is Tracey really going to fix Harmonie’s door today, or was that just the rum talking?”
“She’s taking Theo up there this afternoon. After the funeral, so it’ll be quiet and nobody will say anything. Even if they do, they can hardly justify leaving a woman and her kid there with a broken door.”
“Me causing trouble again,” sighed James.
“We didn’t make this happen,” said Manny. “We’ve just been left trying to make sense of the mess.”
“Oh, I forgot to ask yesterday,” said James. “Do you know anything about Archie’s toy boat?”
“You mean this boat?” said Manny, walking over to his desk and picking up a wooden toy, about half the size of his forearm. “It must have broken when he dropped it. I found it on the riverbank where he was picked up.”
James accepted the handmade boat from Manny, weighing it in his hands and turning it around. “No, I heard about it from Dan,” he said. “Apparently Archie was trying to fix it when he found him; it was broken already.”
“I have the rest of it here,” said Manny. “The mast has snapped off with the little cabin underneath.”
“I wonder how this happened?” said James, handing the boat back to Manny. “Can I borrow it as a prompt for Archie this morning?”
“No problem,” said Manny. “He’s more likely to want to talk to you about it than me.”
“We should go and get him,” said James. “Dunno about you, but I’m famished this morning.”
“Yeah,” smiled Manny. “I wonder why that is?”
They made their way down the corridor to Archie’s little room. When they opened the door, they found Shelley curled up in the bed with Archie, who was stroking her head and shoulders gently.
“Me mam spent all last night with me,” he chirped happily. “She even put us to bed. Then Shelley came in the window in the night. D’you think she likes me?”
**
Archie was in a good mood. He chatted away endlessly to James. It was hard to keep the focus on what they were meant to be doing. Eventually, James had to play his trump card. He pulled the bottom half of the broken boat from his drawer.
“Is this yours, Archie?”
“Yeah!” the boy squeaked. “Give it to me! That’s me boat me granddad made for me mam!”
“Here you go,” said James, passing the boat into Archie’s outstretched hands. “Do you want to tell me a bit about it?”
“This is my favourite toy,” beamed Archie, turning the boat in his hands. “Me mam says her dad made it for her when she was just a bairn, and she kept it all that time. I never knew me granddad, but me mam gave it to me when I was small, so I got to play with it, like I was playing with me granddad even though he weren’t there, like. I kept it with me, even when we had to move about.”
“You were playing with it on Monday, weren’t you, Arch?”
“Aye?”
“How did it get broken?”
“Do I have to talk about it, James?” sighed Archie. “I just wanna forget about it all, like. It hurts my head to think about it.”
James watched Archie carefully. Archie had caught his eye meaningfully, then let his shoulders slump and head drop, and curled into the side of the chair. He was still wearing his Pikachu tee-shirt and threadbare white sports shorts. James recognised the socks on his feet as the same ones he’d unpacked for Archie on Monday night. Archie pulled his legs up and drew his legs into his chest, making himself as small as possible in a corner of the geriatric green armchair. He looked tired, and pale. His arms and legs were tanned – he was a boy who spent all the summer outdoors – but, in the pallid light of the moody, overcast morning, James could begin to make out the patterns of powder blue and purple veins on Archie’s plaster-smooth skin, intricate and delicate as artisan embroidery.
“You want this all to end, don’t you Arch,” said James.
Archie nodded into the side of the chair. James could see confirmation that Archie was head to toe in the same clothes he’d had on for two-and-a-half days as his balled-up form stretched the thin fabric of his white shorts tight around his bottom, revealing the tight white briefs beneath sporting skid marks where they tunnelled into his cleft.
“I’d like this to be over, too,” said James. “I like spending time with you, Arch, but it’s not nice to have to keep going over bad things together, is it?”
“No,” Archie whimpered into his chest. The boat sat beside him on the empty half of the armchair. Marooned.
“You know how we can make this all end, Archie?”
He shrugged and shook his head.
“All I need is for you to tell me the truth about what happened on Monday between you and Angelika. Then we can start to work out how to make things better for you and for everyone else, you understand, Archie? I know it’s hard, but I also know you’re a very, very brave boy. Please tell me, Archie. I’m here to help you.”
Archie quivered in the armchair. He opened his mouth as if to speak on a couple of occasions, but no sound came out. He drew his knees closer into his chest; so close it seemed his undersized clothing might rip down the middle.
James reached out and squeezed Archie’s bare knee. It felt oddly lukewarm despite the oppressive weather of the morning. He gently rubbed the top of Archie’s thigh.
“Take your time, brave lad. We’ve got all morning if you need it. I’ll be here for you. I just want to understand.”
“Angelika broke the boat,” Archie mumbled. “But I didn’t mean for anything bad to happen.”
**
The sunlight had parted the cloudy sky for a brief period as Archie, tummy full from his lunch, made his way along the riverbank with his boat in hand. He skipped along the path a little way before catching himself and returning to his usual bouncy walk. Skipping was far too girly; he didn’t need to give the other lads any more ammunition if he was to run into them again.
The summer birds filled the air with their melodic territorial squabbling while Archie settled himself down at a little indent, the bank close to the river level, where the slow water pooled on the inside of the approaching bend and got caught in his small pocket, perfect for floating his wooden boat on. Above him, the riverside path branched, one fork spindle taking the high route up to the south end of the Bailey, and the broken down stone bridge, the other following the bank as it looped back on itself to contain the cathedral city in its tight embrace. Archie lay on his front, occasionally bothered by hoverflies interested in the way his dirty-blond hair reflected the passing sunlight, as he chatted away to himself, imagining stories and adventures for he and his granddad to live out on the wooden boat on the river. An electric blue dragonfly zipped expertly above it; a dragon over a mythical sea where Archie and granddad were pioneering explorers, boldly defying any of the forces sent to break their resolve.
Angelika approached from behind unseen and unheard. Seeing Archie spread-eagled on his front, she took the chance to do something she’d recently learned that boys hated. She couldn’t kick Archie in the groin like this, so she snuck in between his legs and carefully lowered the toe of her shoe onto the spot right in between his legs where his little balls must’ve been; the tip separating his cheeks and prodding his anus at the same time for good measure.
“Yeow!” yelped Archie, the skin of the bottom of his scrotum getting pinched into the ground. He flipped over quickly, propping himself up on his elbows and bottom. “How man! What’ya do that for?”
“Boys don’t like that,” sniggered Angelika.
“No, we don’t! You could’ve crushed me nuts, man!”
“What are you playing?”
“Just playing with me boat, like. Leave us in peace. I don’t wanna play with you.”
“That’s mean,” said Angelika. She was wearing blue denim short-legged dungarees, grass stains on her bare knees. “No wonder none of the boys like you.”
Archie smarted. He felt vulnerable, lain on his back with Angelika still planted between his legs, towering over him.
“What’s the matter with you?” she said. “Cat got your tongue, tramp boy?”
“Why you calling us that?” whined Archie. “I thought you were nice, like.”
“I am nice!” squeaked Angelika. “You’re the nasty one.”
“Why?” said Archie. “I’m just trying to play by meself. You came over and trod on me.”
A breeze whipped through the eaves, making them rustle like fine-grained maracas. Archie was worried his boat might start floating away, but he didn’t want to turn away from Angelika in case she took a swipe at him again. Her auburn hair played across her face in the breeze, strands sticking to her lips.
“Me mam and dad say it was you who was getting those sheep on Whinney Hill,” said Angelika. “They say you like hurting things.”
“I don’t!” protested Archie, his heart thumping. “I like animals. We’ve got piglets at our place!”
“I’m telling me dad,” sang Angelika. “He’ll get them pigs took off you before you kill ’em.”
“I’m not a killer,” mumbled Archie, turning around and crawling away to gather up his boat from the water. “Leave me alone. I’ve done nowt to you.”
“Where’d you get that boat toy from, tramp boy?” teased Angelika. “Everyone says you’re a pikey and you steal stuff. Did you nick that boat?”
“It’s mine! Me granddad made it for me mam when she was just a bairn!”
“Liar!” grinned Angelika, wickedly. “You don’t have a granddad. You don’t even have a normal dad, do you?”
“Fuck off,” spat Archie.
“Oooooh!” giggled Angelika. “Now the pikey boy is swearing. You better behave yourself, tramp boy, or me mam and dad’ll get the sheriff on you.”
“I’ve not done nowt,” huffed Archie, getting up and pushing past Angelika. “Leave us alone, stupid cow.”
“Where you going, Archie?” Angelika said. “Off to hide what you’ve robbed? I’m telling me dad you’ve been nicking toys.”
“Me granddad made it!” squealed Archie. “Look! It’s made from wood!”
Archie held out the toy for Angelika to see it close up. She broke into a silly, gap-toothed grin, and snatched the boat from his hands.
“I’ve got trampy’s boat! I’ve got trampy’s boat!” squealed Angelika, running off down the bank.
“Come back,” shouted Archie, face prickling with red heat and tears rushing to his eyes. “That’s mine! It’s mine!”
“Where’s your dad gone, pikey boy?” Angelika sang, skipping away with the wet boat in her arms. “You’ve not got one! You don’t know who he is, cos your mam’s a slapper! Archie’s mam’s a slapper!”
“Stop!” roared Archie, drawing up behind Angelika and grabbing her roughly by the waist, a stray fist pounding into her stomach. He pulled her to him and stopped their running dead, stumbling and very nearly sending them both tumbling to the floor. The sun had been hidden again behind the carpet of cloud; their shouting and running had silenced the birds.
“Let go of me, stupid freak!” growled Angelika, fighting to escape Archie’s grip. Archie wouldn’t let up. He grabbed for his boat. Angelika drew it closer into her chest and dodged away from him as best she could.
“Give it back!” grunted Archie. “It’s mine! It was made for me mam, not for you!”
“Your mam’s a tramp too!” Angelika shot back, thrusting her hand back into Archie’s face to claw him away, searing a deep scratch into his nose.
“Aargh!” shouted Archie. He spun around to tackle Angelika from the front. He had his arms locked around the little boat too, trying to prise it from her grip.
“Ow!” complained Angelika. “Archie, you’re hurting me, you little thief!”
“Give me the boat!” panted Archie, heaving hard and almost pulling it clear. He stumbled backwards, tripping over his heels and landing heavily on his bum. He coughed out a pathetic sob.
Angelika was laughing, juggling the boat in her hands as she tried to regain control of it from Archie’s full-body yank. Through her laughter, it slipped her fingers, dropping to the gravel path with a high-pitched crack.
“Ooops!” giggled Angelika.
Archie scrambled over to the boat on all fours. Tears dribbled down his face. “No!” he whimpered. “No, no! You broke it! You broke me granddad’s boat!” He held the snapped upper piece in his hand and tried desperately to slot it back into place where it should have been.
“Aww, tramp boy’s sad,” said Angelika. “He’s lost his only toy in the whole world!”
Archie ignored her. He was on all fours, eyes and nose streaming, trying in vain to get his boat to fit back together. Angelika skipped away. Seeing Archie hadn’t followed, she came trotting back.
“What are you doing, Archie?” she said, hands on hips. “It’s broken. You’ll have to get another one.”
“There is no other one,” hacked Archie. “I gotta fix it.”
“You’re boring,” snapped Angelika. “You’re boring, and you’re stupid, and you’re smelly. And you’re a tramp, just like your mam.”
Archie remained focused on his boat. The bits just wouldn’t click back together. They were snapped too awkwardly.
“Ain’t you gonna say owt?” sighed Angelika. “Archie!”
Archie fumbled and focused, furrowing his brow and sweeping the candles of snot from his lip with the tip of his tongue, but the two pieces of boat simply wouldn’t go back together. He growled. Then, swift as you like, Angelika landed another kick, right into the midriff of his left shoulder and upper chest.
“Now you’re looking,” smirked Angelika. “Leave it alone, poo-head. It won’t fix.”
Archie roared and scrambled to his feet in pursuit of Angelika, reaching for her ankles and knees as he rose. She squealed and made off down the bank again. She was fast for her age. Archie wasn’t.
“Pikey’s gone barmy!” she squealed. “Help! Help! Sheriff!” Her body rocked with laughter as she sprinted away.
Archie caught her as she galloped up a shallow incline, where the bankside path made its way up to weave between the collapsed pillars of the old stone bridge. There was a big tree, an oak. He pushed Angelika towards it. She pushed him back, nails drawn. The sweat from his face stung the gash she’d made in his nose, and as she grabbed at his arms, more salty, stinging scratches appeared. Archie ducked back. Angelika swung them around. The mighty feet of the oak made the ground rippled and uneven around them. They stumbled to one side. Tall grass bearded the ridge of a bluff of bank, atop which the oak tree stood, a muddy slipway down the middle to the water below having been worn in by generations of mallards. White and light brown pebbles were visible under the very lapping edge of the water, before it all turned the same caramel brown and all beneath was hidden. Bees buzzed by, disturbed from the riverbank foliage by the fighting children. Angelika swung them again. Archie grabbed at her arms and twisted them away, twisting the two of them around once more. He was dizzy. His heart pounded so much it hurt. His head felt like it was about to split.
“Just stop!” he barked at Angelika. “Why d’you have to call me names and kick me about?”
Angelika laughed again. She pawed at Archie’s face, raking down the side of his cheek. He grunted at the stinging again. He’d had enough. Reflexively, he pistoned his fist at Angelika’s face. One! Two! There was a crack and a spurt of blood as he hit the bridge of her nose, splitting his middle knuckle. The second blow hit the outside of her left eye, just as it bent into the side of her auburn-haired head.
Angelika’s arms went limp. She cocked her head at Archie, eyes wide; glazing over. She stumbled backwards. The tree roots took her, sent her sprawling, rapidly horizontal. She slipped down the steep, muddy bank, her shoes uselessly dragging at the soil as her body followed the duckway down. She hit the river with more of a thud than a splash. Her head was hidden under the caramel water.
“Angelika?” panted Archie. “Angelika? Angelika!”
“So, she just sort of fell backwards, and she slipped down the gully where the ducks go in and out,” Archie mumble-whispered, his cheeks waterfalls of silent tears. “I couldn’t reach her from up there. Not at first, like. Not without falling in meself. And I can’t swim. I tried to grab her. Eventually I got hold of her ankle and was able to drag her along, a fair bit down to where the bank was low enough for me to pull her out proper, like. But it was way too late. She drowned because of me. Because I lost me temper and I hurt her. I never meant it, James! I promise I never meant it! It were an accident. I swear it! I swear it, I swear it, I swear it! On me mam, and on Bella, and on me granddad’s grave, I swear it’s true!”
James could only nod along. His insides were missing; hollowed out. His vision swam with unspent tears; his head throbbed rhythmically. One! Two! One! Two! He rubbed his eyes and made to write another note down, but what was there to write? He put his pen down and poured them both a glass of water. He took a big gulp of his and set the glass back down with a clunk in the still office. He nodded again at Archie. “I understand,” he said. “I understand.”
Archie heaved to drag Angelika’s sodden body out of the water. In the silence, the birds had started back up again. They sang and whistled for dear life in the energy-sapping damp heat of the afternoon. The sky shone white and wolfeye silver. The shiny blue dragonfly was back, searching out skimmers on the surface of the water.
“Angelika?” panted Archie, his entire body leaden with panic. “Angelika? Please wake up, Angelika!”
He slapped at her face, pale and wet and discoloured with blood and bruising. No answer. He pushed on her chest. Nothing. No breathing. No heartbeat. Archie fought back his disgust and pressed his lips to Angelika’s fading pink mouth. It was warm and wet and rubbery. She didn’t wake like any Sleeping Beauty. Archie blew into her mouth. He slapped at her chest, and tummy, and face. He pinched her nose and felt the bone and gristle grind around underneath. He let go in revulsion. He could taste water and Angelika’s lunch. It was no use. And we all know whose fault it was.
“No, no, no, no!” whimpered Archie, kneeling over the battered, drowned body of Angelika Wojnowski. “Please, Angelika! Please wake up. I won’t tell them what you said. I’ll say it was all my fault. Please just wake up. Wake up! Wake up! WAKE UP!”
The scream rattled of the stone of the fallen bridge and the city walls. It sent all the birds rushing from the trees in a cacophony of alarm calls and beating wings; a rain of feathers. Someone would be down here soon. They’d see what he’d done.
“Angelika…” Archie sobbed over the body. He flopped back onto his bum, sniffed, and wiped his eyes as best as he could. Then he got to his feet and ran. He gathered up his broken boat from the bank and sprinted for his imagined adventure cove as fast as his jelly legs would carry him. His insides burned and churned. He couldn’t decide whether he needed to piss, shit, or throw up. His body decided for him. He reached his shallow bank and doubled over, puking headlong into the river. Big chunks of potato and leek and yellow-orange mess and stringy saliva. The bitter taste of bile all around his mouth. He heaved and heaved until he was dry. He crawled up against a tree and dropped his shorts and undies as quickly as he could. He was still wrestling them down when a torrent of brown water flooded the trunk he sat against, red hot urine coating the insides of his thighs. He heaved again. He shook. His body was fully vacant. He crawled for a riverbank plant with broad, furry leaves, hoping to clean himself up. He didn’t care that he’d be mooning anyone who walked past, showing off his bruised testicles and shitty brown hole. He was barely even aware. He simply rolled onto his side next to the plant, barely in control of his arms, and wiped down his thighs and his crack until he was clean, abandoning the dirtied leaves to the water. Up came his shorts and undies and he crawled back to his boat. Aimlessly touching the broken pieces together until a grown-up would inevitably come to get him.
**
Once he’d finished his account, Archie had sat silent but for his breathing, staring into his lap and kicking his legs as they dangled just above the office floor. James, feeling his feet were made of lead but his body light as a feather, made a couple of notes on a piece of paper, but otherwise barely took his eyes off the boy, waiting for him to make the next move.
“Do you believe me?” Archie eventually managed to croak out.
“Do you think I’ve lied to you?” countered James. He tried to keep his voice and his body language as calm and neutral as possible, though his head pounded, and his body was drenched with the acid sweat of anxiety beneath his tee-shirt.
“No!” said Archie. “Course not!”
“I told you I had a lion cub when I was a boy.”
“You had it all written down, though. You told us as much.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t bother reading what I’d actually written,” said James, a hollow smile playing across his face. “How do you know I was telling the truth?”
Archie sighed. He looked confused. Frustrated even. Like a constipated baby. Frustipated. James laughed mirthlessly to himself internally.
“Dunno,” mumbled Archie. “I just do. I trust you, like. I believe what you was saying.”
“I believe you too, Archie,” said James.
Archie allowed himself a little smile. James thought he looked a little teary-eyed. “Thanks,” the boy said, and blushed and looked away.
“You know, Archie, the things we remember aren’t always what actually happened,” said James. “Sometimes we remember things differently by accident. We can’t help it. Sometimes very little things, but other times very big things.”
Archie looked at James with a furrowed brow, swizzling his mouth around his face.
“That’s why I like to write things down. Because it’s even worse years later, after you’ve been keeping memories bottled up for all that time. If you don’t let them out when they’re fresh, you might never understand how you really felt at the time. Someone very special to me taught me that. That’s why I’ve written down little things ever since. You get that, Archie?”
“I think so,” he said, looking slightly uncertain. “You mean I should write down the story of what happened? So I don’t forget it all wrong?”
“Pretty much,” said James. “Here, let’s take you back to your room with a pen and paper. You can get started if you want.”
James rose from his seat and grabbed a small notepad and a tiny blue pen from his desk. He could only imagine that such little, flimsy pens had been designed for little boys. There was no other apparent purpose. This one had ‘Coral’ embossed into the plastic, which James assumed was something to do with the sea-blue colour. As he took a couple of steps towards Archie, he had an afterthought.
“You know, a story doesn’t actually have to have happened to be true,” said James, with a wink. Archie looked back at him with what James originally thought was an unreadable, wide-eyed expression. It took him a second to process and realise it was respect.
He smiled to himself again, but it made him feel no better. He was playing a game that Jake played; toying with the boy’s sense of perception, forcing him to question. Good. It had worked for him, after all.
“Come on, stinker,” smiled James, ruffling Archie’s hair to encourage him out of his chair, and handing over the pen and paper.
“Will we still get to talk and that after today?” asked Archie, filing out of the office door ahead of James.
“I hope so,” James replied. “I hope so.”
**
James rushed for Manny’s office. His body seemed to be operating on different circuitry from his mind. Everything was happening with a delay, and the centre of his perception was planted thirty centimetres behind the back of his head, so he watched himself moving and only vaguely worked out what it was he was doing half a second after it had already happened. He bundled through Manny’s office door without knocking.
“Hi, James,” said Manny, barely looking up from what he was doing. “It’s a bit black over Bill’s mother’s. I hope the storm holds off until after this funeral.”
“Manny, we have to get down to the riverbank now, before it rains!” cried James.
“Why?” said Manny. He looked up and saw James clinging to his door, quakes and wobbles cascading through his body, skin drawn and pale. “James, what’s happened? Are you alright?”
“Archie told me what happened. Angelika didn’t die where she was found. It was an accident. They had a fight and Archie punched her and she fell headfirst into the river of a steep bit of bank. He didn’t batter her to death; she drowned. He tried to save her, but he was too slow because he was too little.”
“James, slow down,” said Manny, with cavernous eyes. “Sit down. Take a rest. Take a drink. Breathe and tell me, calmly, exactly what Archie told you.”
“There’s no time!” said James. “It could rain any second and then the proof will be gone!”
“Come on James, man, you’ve gotta clue me in here,” said Manny. “What is Archie saying happened?”
“Angelika was bullying Archie,” said James. “Apparently a lot of people have a problem with the Stephens. They think they’re scroungers and interlopers because of what they’ve got away from. The Wojnowskis were round at Archie’s house shouting the odds, on Sunday night. Angelika must’ve picked up on it. Archie was minding his own business playing with that boat toy. She came and teased him and hurt him; said things about his family and nicked the boat. She broke it and hurt him and teased him more. That’s why he’s covered in scratches – not because she was defending herself from a brutal attack, but because she was going after him! She kept going on about him, his mother, his family, his parentage, the broken boat – everything – until he snapped and lamped her one. That’s what he meant to his mom when he said I did it for you – he was just responding to all the abuse they were getting! But he must have concussed her, or something, and she stumbled into the water and didn’t come out. He didn’t murder her! He dragged her out and tried to save her!”
“Okay,” said Manny, getting to his feet and pacing around the office. “Okay, okay. You believe him, James?”
“Of course I fucking believe him!” James exhorted. He was on the brink of meltdown. Tears prickled behind his eyeballs.
“Alright,” said Manny. “Sorry. Stupid question. Right. What can we do? How can we prove this?”
“We should be able to find the place where it all happened, if Archie’s telling the truth,” said James. “Maybe there’ll be something there that can prove he’s innocent.”
Manny embraced James. He kissed him on the forehead. “One step at a time,” he said. “We can prove he’s not a murderer, first of all; what are we waiting for?”
**
The sky was heavy as James and Manny rushed down to the banks of the river the back way, between the cathedral and the old medieval library, jogging along the path until they reached the ruined bridge. The river ran brown; the birds and the bees were active. The green of the trees and the bushes billowed as the wind whipped by.
“There!” pointed James. “That must be the tree Archie meant; the bank rises up to meet the pillar of the bridge!”
They skidded to a halt on the pathway next to the tree. Ducks scattered into the water down a slipway worn into the steep bank. Score one for Archie.
“It’s here,” said James. “It must be. What are we looking for?”
“I don’t know!” said Manny. “You tell me! You’re the one he explained it to!”
“You’re the sheriff!”
“God,” said Manny. “We sound like we did when we were kids. Let’s not start fighting now.”
“Genius!” said James. “They were fighting. Kids get tangled up and roll around when they fight. There has to be footprints and tracks and stuff still here.”
“That’s what I would have suggested,” said Manny.
“Bloody look then!”
They gently approached the scene of the crime, trying to disturb it as little as possible. They craned their necks. Manny got down on his knees.
“Look at these footprints,” he said, pointing at the soggy riverbank. “They must be a couple of days old; the ducks have shit on them a bit since then.”
“They’re all stepped over each other and tangled,” said James. “This is where they were fighting.”
“Grappling with each other by the looks of it,” said Manny. “Is that what Archie said?”
“It is,” nodded James. “That means… maybe there are footprints over here, too?”
James stretched a large step over the site of the fight footprints. He knelt down at the duck runway.
“What do you see?” asked Manny. He was quickly sketching the prints from the struggle on a bit of paper.
“Two heavy, smudged footprints backwards,” said James. “Same shoe tread as from over there; the smaller shoe. This must be Angelika stumbling backwards after Archie smacks her.”
“Coming,” said Manny. He tiptoed over the long way around, avoiding the fight scene. “Oh, God, yeah. And look at that scrape on the bank, too. Like someone’s fallen backwards and their heel has dragged through the mud.”
Manny began sketching again. James studied the muddy slope where the ducks came up and down. He felt he could almost touch Angelika; catch her in mid-air as she fell.
“Hey,” said James. “What’s that, there?”
“What?” said Manny, taking his eyes off his latest sketch. “Where?”
“This,” said James, reaching down to release a little metal stud from the mud with his fingernails.
“Looks like a metal stud from jeans,” observed Manny.
“What was Angelika wearing?” said James.
“What?” said Manny, returning to his sketch of the backwards footprints.
“What was Angelika Wojnowski wearing when she died?”
“Denim dungarees…” said Manny. “The back pocket had come loose. I assumed it was in the fight. It’s one of the reasons why I had to make sure Archie hadn’t done anything sexual.”
“This is from her back pocket, then.”
“Must be… When she fell backwards, she must have slid down the bank and it yanked the corner stud off and make the pocket come loose.”
“So not Archie at all,” said James, with some satisfaction. Where before he’d felt hollow, now he rippled with excitement. His instincts about Archie must have been correct after all!
“No…” said Manny, putting the little stud in his pocket for safekeeping.
“What about these footprints, along here?” said James, pouncing forward with renewed energy. All along the bank were the remains of confused footprints from the larger of the two feet, always facing towards the water. “These are Archie’s!”
“Well, I’m pretty sure if we compared them to the tread on Archie’s shoe, they’d be the same,” said Manny, squatting down. “He’s gone all along the bank, in a bit of a panic, by the looks of it.”
“Look at those depressions in the long grass!”
“Is that not where ducks have been sitting?” said Manny, scratching his head with his pencil.
“No, duck bodies are much longer and fatter!” said James. “These are like little… little boy’s knee prints!”
“So he was kneeling to do something?”
“To pull her out of the water!” James exclaimed. “He was telling the truth! It’s all true! He didn’t do it; he was trying to save her!”
“So he was…” said Manny, scribbling it all down on paper as quick as he could.
“So, you have to let him go!” grinned James. “He’s innocent!”
“James…” sighed Manny. He got to his feet and put an arm around his brother’s shoulder. “James, mate… All this proves is that he didn’t beat her to death or hold her down in the shallows to drown her. He still admitted they had a fight. He might have deliberately pushed her in and then thought better of it, but too late.”
“What?!” barked James. “You know that isn’t true, Manny! Everything here is exactly as he described it! Like… how hard would a kid his size have to push another kid of a similar size to make them stumble back that far and that hard that they fall headfirst into the river? Tell me that, Sherlock!”
“Everything here looks as if it could fit with what he told you,” said Manny. “But, James, please listen… you understand that sometimes we can be persuaded to see what we want to see. This could still be the scene of a boy shoving a girl down the bank, and only trying to get her back as a second thought. Or even, though I don’t think he could’ve reached from here, preventing her from getting herself back out. At worst, it’s still manslaughter.”
“I don’t believe this!” growled James. “How can you say that? He isn’t a killer, Manny. He’s been through hell! You said it yourself! How can it be manslaughter?! Manslaughter’s, like… like if you kill someone after actively intending to do them serious harm, or accidentally through irresponsible actions! Archie’s ten. He can’t have intended to do serious harm in a kids’ fight or understood the full consequences of what could happen!”
“Right, James. And I agree with you. But I have to report back on what my investigation shows. He admitted they had a fight, he hit her, and she fell in and drowned. We can see that here. So, I report back manslaughter. Then it’s up to you to argue all the mitigating stuff and convince people you can’t do a ten-year-old kid for an accident caused by a fight. Isn’t that your job?”
“I thought we were in this together!” whined James. “I trusted you, Manny. But I bet you’re just like everyone else. You all think I’m being soft because it’s a young boy. You think I’ve got a problem. But I’m not the problem! Everyone else is the problem! Constantly telling me what I should do and how I should feel! No wonder I sympathise with Archie! No wonder I find him easier to get on with than half the fucking two-faced yokels in this city. I’m sick of it, Manny!”
“James,” said Manny, trying to regather his thoughts and find the right thing to calm James down, but registering only hurt and panic, “I don’t think you have a problem, okay? I love you. For who you are. Who you always have been. I respect you more than anyone else on this Earth. This isn’t about us, okay? We’ve just been dropped in the middle of it and expected to make it all better. But we can’t.”
James shook and pulsed. He wanted to throw Manny’s hand off his shoulder, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. There they were, in the eye of the storm, and what did they do – typical siblings – but brew one of their own.
“You think I’m damaged because of Jake,” mumbled James, simply.
“Why the hell would I think that?” snapped Manny.
“Why does Tracey think that, then?”
“She doesn’t!”
“Really?”
“Look,” sighed Manny. “Tracey didn’t live our lives. She hasn’t a fucking scooby what happened or what Jake was really like. She gets the wrong end of the stick. She’s just trying to protect us.”
“So you don’t think Jake molested us then?”
“Of course he fucking did,” said Manny. “But that doesn’t mean he hurt us. It doesn’t make it a problem. It doesn’t mean we’re wrong or changed because of it.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” James huffed.
“Could we consent at the age of thirteen to having a grown man stuff his dick in our arses, when he was the one thing keeping us not just alive, but happy to be? Of course we couldn’t. But he didn’t put a gun to our heads and rape us. You can’t steal a normal, happy childhood away from two sad orphans. He didn’t force us into anything we regret, we remember it fondly, we loved him to death, and him us. James, there is no problem here.”
“I know that.”
“Why are you asking then?”
James was silent. No answer.
“Jake was our father, James. That’s a fact. He loved us unconditionally. You especially. He brought us up to be – I think – pretty amazing guys…” Manny cracked a grin. James laughed, through tears in his eyes and saliva blocking his throat. “So, he wasn’t perfect. He was a moody, self-obsessed, boy-bothering old intellectual, not the fucking messiah. I know what you’re like. I know what all these different processes of thinking and talking and thinking and going around in circles do to you. Stop trying to find perfect straight answers. Maybe Jake was guilty. Maybe Archie is guilty. It doesn’t mean you can’t like them as people. It doesn’t mean it’s wrong for you to want to go in to bat for them.”
James looked at Manny through teary eyes. His mouth was pulled to one side in a watery smile, lips pulled trademark-tight over his crooked tooth.
“Please, James,” said Manny, rubbing James’ elbow. “Don’t make me have to tell you just how much I love you. You’ll get me blarting too.”
“I love you, Manny,” said James. “You’re so clever.”
Manny chuckled and pulled James into a hug. “Not so much as you. Too clever for your own good, smartipants.” He rubbed James’ back roughly. “Forget about all the rest of that stuff. What other people think is their problem, not yours. You know what you know. That’s what’s important.”
“You sound like someone I know,” sniffled James.
“Yeah,” said Manny. “Rubs off, don’t it?”
“I miss him so much.”
“I know, James. I know.”
The cathedral bell rang out. The funeral procession was about to begin.
“Shit!” said Manny. “We need to get across to Whinney Hill. If we’re quick, we can head them off at the bridge.”
“I can’t face this,” said James, setting off after Manny at a trot.
“I’ll be there with you,” said Manny. “We are in this together. I promise.”
“At least I’ll look sad,” joked James, darkly.
“One less thing to worry about,” Manny replied.
“Slow down,” panted James. “We’ll have to go up all those steps as it is, let alone wearing ourselves out first.”
“Typical James,” laughed Manny. “Ugh! What’s that on that tree?”
James stopped dead. Manny was caught out and had to jog back to him.
“What is it?” said Manny.
“It’s where Archie went into shock and nearly crapped himself,” said James. “I told you; he’s telling the truth about everything.”
**
James and Manny caught up with Angelika’s funeral procession as it made a slow, vibrating plod across the high concrete bridge. The sky had darkened to a midday flint, breeze whipping up around the party’s heels as they marched their way across the river. There was no sound but footsteps and dull shudders on the bridge, birdsong and waterflow above and below. It was a claustrophobic affair; the grim reaper himself seemed to be haunting them around every corner, wreathed in the static of the short midday shadows.
Angelika was carried aloft in her purpose-built coffin, the lid still yet to be attached. Onward the grey party marched through the ghostly pale noon, past empty, soulless buildings, staring with their great lidless eyes; the empty streets their Hadean piste. Onwards, down the middle of Hallgarth Street, with its piggy pink fragments of stone buried into the dark, dusty surface. James succumbed to the rhythm and the silence. He felt like he’d slipped into another time, rootless and unencumbered as the wind.
Onward they marched, following the winding path of The Hallgarth, the prison walls a cliff face looming over them, cold and unrelenting, funnelling their passage onward, onwards and upwards, ascending the hill. Archie’s yellow-haired chalk boy ignored them. He raised his bow for himself and fired its arrows at the great dark monster, though the sun was now wreathed under a smothering grey veil, woollen and abrasive as the sheep atop the grassy hill. They approached the junction of The Hallgarth and Whinney Hill. An older teen just ahead of James and Manny, whom both recognised only by face rather than name, picked up a fragment of house brick lying at the wallside, arm cocked ready to launch it at the Stephens’ house. Manny jabbed him sharply in the shoulder, causing the lad to turn his head in surprise. Manny shook his head darkly. The boy dropped the shard of brick. James watched the Stephens’ house closely. It looked dead.
They slipped around the back; they were on the grassy hilltop of Whinney Hill, looking down over the city ten minutes’ walk away. James had never bothered taking in the view up here before. What surprised him the most was how the prison, which seemed so dominant at ground level, with its high walls imposing themselves on pedestrians below, disappeared into irrelevance behind rooftops and foliage. It was the more distant view of the monumental structure of the cathedral, so enormous it seemed to have been dropped in from the heavens in one, huge plop, that dominated the skyline. The next biggest landmark, the castle, looked pathetic by comparison.
“Perspective,” James mumbled to himself. Manny looked at him, as if asking him to repeat in case he was being spoken to, but James just shook his head.
They stood at the back. A hole had been dug in the middle of the field atop the hill, disturbing the sheep and a couple of hairy ponies, which wandered gruffly away from the assembling humans. The family followed the coffin to the front, as it was placed on the ground beside the freshly carved hole. James and Manny caught their first sight of the grieving parents, mother and father knelt over the open coffin of their baby girl, cuddling and snuggling her lifeless body one last time.
“I’m glad you made it,” stage whispered Kenzie incongruously, nodding along the line of assembled council members.
The girl’s uncle, looking haggard and bereft, helped the parents to their feet, and stood beside them, preparing to say a few words and begin proceedings. The three of them gazed foggily out amongst the assembled crowd, eventually all seeming to catch James’ eye at once, each looking away in turn, one by one. The uncle’s voice crackled across the hilltop. He spoke of a beautiful, loving girl, stolen in only the ninth year of her life; the joy she had brought her family; the love they had shared. There were tears. The words ground the air around the ceremony to piggy pink brick dust; ash scattered in drifts haphazardly across the hilltop, like a dusting of caustic snow across the peak. Manny reached to grab James by the hand.
But James was gone.
**
The storm broke just as James arrived at the lane leading to the farm. He’d been walking west for five hours to meet it head on. He ran under the dense canopy covering the path, thinking it scant cover for the pounding rain until he reached the open farm courtyard and a wall of water. He was painfully out of breath – and soaked – when he reached the front door with his overhanging rooftop. A board sat over the window set into the upper portion of the door. Gone to the city. Not that anyone would be likely to come calling for them. He fished the key out of his pocket. Even locking up seemed pointless. Nobody was going to stumble across this place, so far out in the sticks. And even if they did, there was nothing in the house worth stealing; only memories in musty old clothes, dirty bedding, and childhood mementos. There were no chickens, no goats, no lions, and no people. Even all the plants that survived had gone feral. Still, this was his house. He kept a keyring with three keys; the ridged, cylindrical key to the farmhouse, and two modern keys, for the front door of the winter house; one brass-coloured, the other silver.
His home greeted him with the musty embrace of an elderly grandparent. It took him by the hand and led him to the living room sofa, right to his place where he always sat, and set him down. It promised him a biscuit; pinched his cheek and told him just how much he’d grown. James lay back against the settee, letting his head loll over the top of the seat, his vision focused onto the ceiling until he closed his eyes and blacked it all out. He listened to the rain hammer the rooftiles and rafters, and the stones of the yard. He was home; the home of games with toy cars, and bathtime singalongs with Mommy in the winter next to the fire, and skinned knees and elbows, and goats and chickens; and dark, endless winter days, cuddled under three blankets in front of the fire with Jake, hunger twisting his stomach like a schoolboy’s tie yanked tight, being told stories, and roleplaying endless fantasies, all just to keep his ebbing spirits alive. How he needed that escape now. The rain beat down in all directions, flooding his perception. Eyes closed; just the sound and the vibrations of the rain and thunder crackling across the sky, the smell of home, and the support of familiar cushions beneath his body. There was no world. There had been no other life. All there was was James, and this house, and this room, in this place. Everything else was a roleplay with Jake in front of the fire.
He lolled; nodded off. His feet were glad of the rest, and his mind swam, unmoored. It bathed in the beck over in the woods with two happy, cheeky little boys; followed the flow down as the stream thickened. It joined the river, bobbing along as it rushed through the uplands and moors, bubbling away like Tracey’s dinner saucepan. On he flowed. Two boys and a man on a tiny riverboat, finding their fortune amongst the reeds. Goats foraging and children playing by the riverside as the river wended its way downstream, looping around a promontory. Children bathing in the shallows. A little toy boat; mallards and moorhens. Two brothers joking by the riverside as it widened and ran its course, off on another adventure. A single, final, rowing boat, drifting out alone to sea, a gift to the waves forever.
When James opened his eyes, the storm had passed. There was no sound but the birds outside in the trees and scuttling about on the roof. The air smelt much fresher. The sun had slipped a fair few ticks down the sky. It was visible, again, dragging wisps of yellow and grey cloud west with it.
James was thirsty. He started a fire in the hearth with abandoned firewood and matches. He stepped outside into the cleansed air and drew water from the well. He brought it inside to boil it, safe and ready to drink. He thought about dinner. Everything was simpler here. He knew the tasks in order, and what he must do to fulfil them. He’d watched the adults doing it since before he had the vocabulary for what was going on. He strode into the kitchen and opened the window a crack. Ducks were bathing in puddles where the old chicken coop used to be. He went to his bedroom and picked up his childhood bow. It seemed small now. He tested the weight and fingered his arrows. He returned to the window. The ducks bathed happily. James picked a target. Thirty seconds later he was on the other side of the wall, the coop deserted but for feathers, collecting his dinner.
He picked some herbs from the garden. They’d gone feral. There were some edible onions and potatoes. He kept at his task. It made him content; zen-like. The sun wound down a few ticks more. Eventually, James had his dinner. Roast duck in herb and onion dressing with roast potatoes. It was a triumph. He sat at the table and gorged, washing it down with good old farm water. Martin water, boiled and jugged by the householder. It was wonderful. The dinner reminded him of childhood.
The dinner reminded him of childhood.
James ate and ate and finished his plate. What a big boy you are, Jamey. It never touched the sides.
The dinner reminded him of childhood.
The sun was creeping beneath the hills and trees behind the farm. James couldn’t hold on anymore. There was nothing left to blank his mind. No homestead task; no journey to make; no nothing. No escape. No answer. James found his way to the living room armchair. He’d put the fire out soon after the water had boiled. It was dark. It was comfortable. It was familiar. He leant back and drew up his legs. He pulled them to his chest. He bawled. He bawled like a nine-year-old boy.
**
Hours passed.
James finally roused himself from the farmhouse armchair, tears still streaking his vision in the greyscale dark of the house. He stumbled across the fireplace rug, where he used to sit in the old tin bath as a child, to play with the photographs of his parents on the mantlepiece, moving them this way and that; just fingering them absentmindedly. He looked up at the door to Jake’s room, hanging slightly ajar. He had finally clocked that the house had the musty smell of abandonment; it hung in the air heavily, exerting an invisible pressure on his body. It made him have to breathe harder; made his heart beat faster. He pushed off the mantlepiece above the fireplace and turned towards Jake’s room, leaning tenderly against the door as if he was afraid it would turn to dust on contact; caressing it like a lost lover. The scent of sleeping Jake hit him like a kidney punch, his senses reeling his memory in a hundred different directions at once; repeated images of childhood and adolescence assailed him from all sides. He stumbled to the desk, feeling the lumps and bumps of the varnished wood underneath his thumb and forefingertip. His hand wandered to a box of matches lain idly on the tabletop, and he struck one, finding a half-alive candle to revive, bursting through the sepia darkness of his childhood home like sacred fire. Papers and photographs were scattered on the desk. He took a couple of the pictures in his hand and picked up a CD case that had been lying alongside them. Then he took the candle and turned back to the door, unable to stand the smell of Jake any longer, and petrified of inhaling so much of it that it would disappear, like some precious finite resource, never to be renewed again.
Sat on his old bed, shrouded in planet bedcovers and lit only by the dancing light of some candle donated from the distant past, James clicked open the cover of his battery-operated CD Walkman. The hinge no longer worked; the entire top of the CD player hung off by a plastic ribbon of electronic connections, strung fat and narrow along the straight edge at the top-middle of the plastic casing. He placed in the album from Jake’s desk. When I Have Fears. He placed the buds of his battered old headphones in his ears, and he hit play. There was enough juice left for the CD to begin spinning, and the sound to open up somewhere in the middle of his skull.
First, the eerie, distant caw of an electric guitar being bowed. Then, the sound refracted and reverberated off itself, reversed and reverberated again, with tremolo, wobbling and vibrating in the manner of a wolf howling in the forest. Out of nowhere, the bass and drums broke like a wave over the warble of refraction, with the intense energy of a nightmarish, full-pace escape from a pitch-dark jungle, lifting hairs all over James’ body. The guitar cut back in like a panic alarm, screaming over everything; the sleeper desperate to wake but making no sound, paralysed in their slumber. It broke over itself, sliding and crashing in a desperate breakdown, before the bass and drums were left to themselves again, insistent as a pampered only child. One and three-quarters of a minute in, a manic voice cut across everything. Frantic, Irish, pugilistic.
I am a blissless star, corroded through the core…
James had closed his eyes. He reopened them to the dancing of the candle wick, incongruously in rhythm with the beat filling his skull, drawing his eyes back to the photographs in his hands.
I am a weightless diver, terrified and free. The possibility of symphony within my tragedy…
Running his hand over the first, there he saw himself, aged eleven, grinning to himself distracted on the comfy grey corner sofa at the winter house, football shirt clinging to his torso, naked from the hips down. His limp willy sat clumsily against his floating balls, the tail of his foreskin bending slightly as it brushed the surface of the seat cushion, his thighs spread.
I am the underworld; the one you want to leave; a frail democracy, benign treaty, courageously foreseen…
He felt his penis grow and twitch in the confines of his trousers. He had been such a cute, sweet little boy; innocent, and yet profoundly guilty time and again. James reached to release the head of his penis to sit underneath his waistband, stretching up from the depths for air. He flipped over to the next photograph. Drums and guitars spasmed and caterwauled. He and Manny were twelve and eleven, respectively. Naked as the days they were born. Captured in a moment, out in the courtyard, on a blisteringly sunny afternoon, they split their faces squealing and laughing as Jake, out of shot, taking the photo, fired ice-cold water at them from the water gun, their bodies side-on and hands up to protect their overjoyed faces, genitals flying in the turbulence of summer fun. The music broke through its anxiety; one of the guitars relaxed into a more gentle, melodic partnership with its overawed brother, and the bass and drums eventually followed, drawn by the siren song.
Not at all; not for everything. It’s not for everything at all. Not for everyone; it’s not for anyone at all.
James had slid his trousers and pants down around his thighs. He sat on his childhood bed, his ever-so-slightly hairy adult buttocks against the cool sheets. He looked back into his past, at himself and Manny, and pumped his hard cock to the beat. He and Manny were beautiful. Perfect. Exact miniatures of the men they were to become. So what if Jake was a pervert? He was their pervert. So what if he shouldn’t have been doing sexual things with them? He was their only parent and provider. He made their lives normal. Made their lives fun. Worth living. He made them who they were.
For everything.
For nothing.
For everything.
For nothing.
For everything.
For nothing.
James was pounding at his stiff prick, sliding his skin back and forth with the grace and precision of decades of practice; choking his shaft with all the pressure and urgency he’d applied to Mrs Williams’ teats, all those years earlier, to harvest that precious milk for Nuala. He fixed his eyes alternately on his splayed eleven-year-old form on one side, and he and Manny, twelve and eleven, throwing their naked bodies about on the other. He felt the moment coming.
For everything.
For nothing.
For everything.
Is for nothing.
For everything.
For nothing.
For everything we have.
James sprayed reckless volleys of cum across his boyhood bedspread; across the CD player; across the photographs; all over his hand and with the occasional stray splash on his legs. As the next song began, he lay back against the pillow, panting heavily, feeling his jism cool as it pooled on his skin, mirroring the cooling and unclenching of his body. Everything felt relaxed. He breathed deeply; smelled himself on the fabrics and in the air around him; subtly different shades between younger boy and slightly older man. He felt he almost knew what to do, if only he could wait and let it come to him more concretely. His bed was comfortable and familiar. As the next song bobbed and rocked, caught in a Rockall squall, James felt his eyelids grow heavier. His breathing softened. The wet patches on his hand, his crotch, and wherever else across his outstretched body, set sticky in the gloom. The candle burnt itself down. The photographs adhered to his steadily settling chest. His shoulders turned to jelly, and James’ head lolled to one side on his pillow. He smiled as a single image of his mother, laughing to him in springtime, flashed across his head, just as rumbling and rolling drums signalled the start of another track, driving bass his carriage to a slumber he’d booked years in advance.
**
“My whole life I had people telling me I was getting it wrong. I was made to feel like I was constantly doing the wrong thing. But I’ve never understood how else to be. I’ve been off the boil so long I can barely conceive of how it would feel to whistle.”
“I love how clever you are. How you think. How you speak. How you do things. I always have. I loved everything about you from the first minute; I wanted to be you. Please, don’t. Don’t leave us.”
“We’re both being set free, James. You have your own life to live. I’ve lived mine.”
“But I don’t want to be free. That’s never what I wanted. I want us to be together.”
“We were together, James. We always will be.”