Sing Like You Know the Words (2 page)

For some reason all of this
seemed perfectly natural to him, and his thoughts turned to
practical matters.

He pushed the ruined door aside
and stumbled out of the cottage; then he scaled the wall on the far
side of the track. As he stood on top of the wall, in the moonlight
he could make out the line that the path followed ahead. It wound
down the hill between double walls of high rough stone. He did not
know where he was right now, but the route he must follow was clear
enough.

The boy set off down the path,
which now seemed to descend with some purpose. His spirits rose
gradually, until he found that he was even enjoying the empty
serenity of the night. Soon he spotted the distant lights of a
settlement not far below him.

For a time, the boy was in dread
of what he would have to say when he finally reached whatever
village this might be. How to explain his stupidity to a stranger,
let alone anything else that had happened? But then somehow or
other, as he descended, the unknown path that he was travelling
joined with and crossed other paths, that seemed more familiar,
until eventually, without knowing quite where he had been, he knew
where he was. It was the village where they were staying, and now
he could even make out their cottage, at the far edge of the
hill.

For a moment he paused,
realizing that there would be no end of trouble at the end of this
night, but there was nothing to be done.

When he first arrived, only his
aunt remained in the house. The others were out looking for him,
though they returned quickly enough. At first, the only mood in the
house was relief, but soon enough that gave way to anger and
recrimination; and of course his father was the most angry. The boy
could not say anything to explain himself. His only defence was to
plead, truthfully, that he was exhausted. Eventually, his aunt
insisted that they allow him a hot bath and then sleep.

There were more questions and
harsh words in the following days. Still the boy had no answers for
his father, and still he said nothing about the time in the
derelict cottage: not to his aunt or his father or anyone else. It
was almost a relief for the boy when he found that he’d caught a
serious chill; exposure his aunt called it. Finally, he was able to
claim the privilege of an invalid to be left in relative peace.

The boy was strong enough and
before the end of the holiday he’d recovered well enough to be up
and about. He spent his time looking for a way back to the cottage,
but he could never find it, nor even a path that fit his memory of
that night.

As the years passed he returned
to the valley more than once, alone or with friends. Always he
would find time to search for his hidden cottage and always his
search would be in vain.

The man who had been that boy
eventually told some members of the family his story, but in a
joking, light-hearted way as if he didn’t believe it had all really
happened. That tone didn’t match his true memory though. All
families have their minor histories and myths; tales that don’t
demand literal belief to take their place in the shared discourse;
and so the boy’s experience passed as unremarkable.

Strangely, the story was never
once told to the father, and perhaps that was a good thing. The old
man would not have been much impressed. He was a practical man;
skilled with his hands and holding a serious regard for the plain
truth. There was not much room in his view of the world for
fanciful nonsense. The father and son were very different in their
natures. They both grieved deeply for the lost wife and mother, but
each grieved in his own way and their sorrow did not bring them
closer.

Growing older, a continuing
reticence about sharing his secrets with his own family did not
prevent the young man from telling the story to relative strangers;
at dinner parties or over drinks with friends. The tale was told so
many times that it changed in the telling. Perhaps details were
exaggerated or lost, or layers of meaning became polished away.
Memory is always shifting, and the one who remembers is blind to
the changes. What stayed constant always was the boy’s firm belief
that this story was true and that it in a way that had yet to be
defined it would shape the man he was to become.

In those later years, a friend,
who had heard the story more than once and might have been tired of
it, asked the man to explain its point. Was the storyteller
suggesting that he believed in ghosts? The man only answered that
he had to believe what he had seen and felt, and what he
remembered. For him, it was inarguable that something extraordinary
had happened in his life, and whatever it was had saved him.

The friend wasn’t sure what the
explanation meant, or if it was intended to mean anything. The man
would often say things that were puzzling or infuriating when you
thought about them afterwards, even though he spoke with such
confident charm that at the time every word seemed reasonable.
Perhaps he simply enjoyed being enigmatic. He loved telling stories
of all kinds and he never seemed to be without a circle of willing
listeners.

The friend came to believe that,
for the man, what was important about this story, or at least, what
had become important to him, was not so much the supernatural part,
which he seemed to take for granted, as the notion that he had been
chosen to be saved. He had been the beneficiary of an intervention
that was so extraordinary, so far from the everyday, that it must
have happened for an important reason. Whatever the truth was about
what happened on the hill, that night, all those years ago, the
undeniable outcome was that the boy passed on to his adult self a
rare and terrible thing; the sense that he had been chosen for a
purpose and carried a destiny to be fulfilled.

***

Tim Price stirred unwillingly,
conscious that most of the morning was already gone, but unwilling
to confront the remainder of it. It must be close to midday, he
thought, judging by the light. The bed creaked as he moved; the
springs were exhausted and uneven.

He was alone. Good.

He closed his eyes again and
listened for movement elsewhere in the house. There was none. He
guessed there would be someone sleeping on the couch. There always
was. Probably someone else on the floor too.

All things considered, he didn´t
feel too bad. At least he’d made it to bed. He had undressed at
least partly; and taken his shoes off. Also he´d remembered to take
out his contact lenses. The inside of his mouth was coated with
something disgusting, though. He wondered if he’d been smoking
again.

The best thing would be to lie
still and wait for David to get up, or better still Matthew. Once
Matthew was up he would start to clean up the mess, in spite of
himself. Then later he’d complain like a girl that no one had
helped him. Anyway Matthew and David could deal with any guests and
then Tim wouldn´t need to talk to anyone. Afterwards maybe he could
persuade one of them to go to the Uni bar with him. A stale pie and
a pint of beer would be the best cure for this head, and for the
horrible taste in his mouth.

He raised himself on his elbows
and moved his head, experimentally, from side to side. Until you
started to move about, you never knew how bad it was.

Quite bad.

He still couldn’t hear any
sounds in the house, but now his bladder was demanding relief.
Perhaps he could get to the toilet and back without disturbing
anyone. Maybe sneak a mug of tea as well.

Thank god the girl wasn´t here
with him. What was her name? The girl would have been a mistake. It
wasn´t so much that Tim was still supposed to be going out with
Sue, his sixth form sweetheart. She was in Lancaster, wherever that
was, studying computing. Both he and Sue knew, or at least Tim
assumed they did, though nothing had been said, that their
relationship wasn’t serious anymore.

No, it hadn’t been because of
Sue at all; it was the girl herself. Good looking, but you could
tell in a minute that she would be a nightmare. High maintenance;
takes everything too seriously; get´s too involved too quickly.
Written all over her face. Unusual for a posh girl to be the type
that wants to get serious, but maybe she wasn´t as posh as she
seemed. Though she had that voice all right.

Anyway she was gone and just as
well. He didn´t know what David had been thinking of, trying to set
them up with each other. He’d been going on about her before the
party and supposedly he’d been telling her how well she would get
on with Tim. She was from David´s faculty, reading law. She seemed
to take that seriously too, unlike David. That should have been
enough for him to know: Tim liked girls who enjoyed having a laugh,
not the ones who spent their days in the library. It had been
stupid for David to drag her out here to meet Tim. Waste of time
for both of them.

Now he was on his feet, putting
on whatever clothes were to hand. The house was always cold, even
in the spring. He felt dizzy, and weak, as if he was recovering
from having been poisoned; which of course he was. The sensation
was strangely pleasant. Tim knew that feeling like this; he would
be content to do nothing for most of the rest of the day. If only
someone else would clean up the mess from last night.

Whoever was on or in the sofa
stayed buried under a duvet as he passed. On the floor there was a
turntable and an amplifier, and the remains of a shelf that had
detached itself from the wall at around three in the morning,
spilling the equipment and a pile of records. The shelving was
cheap do-it-yourself aluminium and chipboard. Clearly whoever had
done it themselves had made a poor job of it. The lower part of the
upright section was still attached to the wall. The upper part bent
inwards with screws hanging uselessly in the plastic plugs that had
fallen away, leaving worryingly large holes in the wall plaster.
There were small piles of plaster dust on the floor soaking up the
spilled beer in the carpet.

Tim supposed that the landlord
would not be happy, but just now it was more interesting to ponder
why shelves which sat in place for months without shifting should
suddenly give way at three in the morning. There wasn’t any more
weight on them than before, but they had been playing music at high
volume for what, eight hours? Maybe it was the vibration of the
bass that had caused it: the power of music.

The house reeked of old beer and
cigarettes. How did the smell of beer become stale so quickly?
Everything was a mystery to him this morning. Empty cans topped
with cigarette ash and half empty glasses with butts floating in
them. Bits of food on the carpet. Had they ordered pizza? When? Tim
passed as quickly and as silently as he could into the kitchen.

Patricia was already there: that
was her name, he remembered now. Okay, no problem: don´t let on you
can´t remember anything, just go with the flow and she´s bound to
give you some clues. Looks good in that long T-shirt, nice legs.
Bare feet not such a good idea in this kitchen though. Bit sticky
underfoot.

-Hi.

-Hi you.

That´s no good. Give me a bit
more to work with. How about, did we sleep together last night and
if so did I enjoy it? Sounds like a simple enough question.

-Tea? I´m already making.

-Yes. Thanks.

The kettle was taking a long
time to boil and he felt that maybe he should say something. At
least she had smiled at him, but that could mean anything. Now she
was busying herself with the mugs and spoons. He hoped that she
wasn´t paying too much attention to how clean they were. Three
mugs. She handed him one, then removed the tea bags from the other
two, squeezing them dry against the spoon.

-See you later.

She smiled again and was on her
way.

To David´s room. Sly bastard, so
that was it.

***

David Thomas was the boy who had
been lost on the hill. Almost five years had passed. Now, it was
the end of the nineteen seventies. He and two friends were sharing
a rented house in the north of the city, close to the
University.

The house was part of a terrace
in one of many rows of identical terraces that spread across that
part of town; all of them old and unloved, coated with the grime of
years and sagging resigned and weary under the weight of
neglect.

This particular dwelling had
been too many years let to students. It had large sash windows with
frames that had worn loose to the point that the draft which blew
in when the wind gusted made them rattle. There was a little space
at the front of the house, behind a low wall, where weeds grew up
through cracked concrete. The only other growing thing visible from
the outside of the property was the hybrid of grass and damp moss
that seemed to flourish in the ancient wooden guttering. Rainwater
flowing into the gutter down the brittle cracked roof tiles was
absorbed rather than draining away. Other, indeterminate forms of
wetness percolate into the interior.

The inside walls were almost
completely dry most of the time, but discoloured here and there by
the dark efflorescence of some organic matter that seemed to bloom
in random locations. In the living room, there was a gas fire set
in the hearth. The flame of it heated three studded plates made of
some grey substance (they hoped it wasn’t asbestos) until the
plates glowed pink and gave a cosy warmth, but only if you were
within three feet of the fire. Otherwise it would at least provide
an illusion of heat. In their bedrooms, each of the tenants kept a
plug in fan heater, brought from home to add noise and expense to
their lives. Common areas like kitchen and toilet were not to be
entered without appropriate layers of clothing during the winter
months. The bath was best avoided throughout the year.