Small Circle of Beings (16 page)

We’re moving quite fast on the downhill, so we don’t have to pedal anymore. Ahead of me, I see Robert break from the cut in the road and emerge again into the flat path that runs
across the floor of the forest. A moment later I do so too, whizzing into the heavy layers of shadows as if they are solid. The momentum is wonderful, full of danger, as if we’re close to
breaking free of gravity. But it only lasts a moment. Then we’re slowing again, dragged back by the even surface of the road and the sand on the wheels.

The turnoff is here. I catch up with Robert and we turn off side by side, pedalling again to keep moving. Ahead of us the surface of the lake is between the trees, stretched out greenly in the
dark. The trees thin out, there’s a bare strip along the edge of the water.

We stop here. The path we were riding on goes, straight and even, into the water. That’s because it used to lead somewhere before they flooded the valley to make the lake. They say that
under the water there are houses and gardens, standing empty and silent in the currents below. I think of them and shiver. It’s always night down there at the bottom of the lake; the moon
never shines.

But we’ve stopped far from where the path disappears. We’re still side by side, straddling the bikes, looking out. The dogs have also stopped, stock-still, as if they can smell
something in the air. There’s a faint wind coming in off the water, more of a breeze really. On the far side of the lake we can see the lights of houses. Far off to the right, at the furthest
corner of the water, are the lights of my house. I glance towards it and try to imagine them: my father and mother, sitting out on the front veranda, looking across the water to us. But there are
no lights where we are.

‘There,’ says Robert.

He’s pointing. I follow his finger and I also see it: the moon, clear of the trees on the other side. It really is huge tonight, as if it’s been swollen with water. If you stare at
it for long enough you can make out the craters on its surface, faint and blue, like shadows. Its light comes down softly like rain and I see I was wrong – it makes the water silver, not
green.

‘We’ve got a view of it,’ I say.

But Robert is moving away already. ‘Come,’ he says. ‘Let’s make a fire.’

We leave the bikes leaning together against the trunk of a tree and set out to look for firewood. We separate and walk out by ourselves into the forest. But I can still see Robert a little
distance away as he wanders around, bending now and then to pick up bits of wood. The dogs are with him. It isn’t dense or overgrown down here. The floor of the forest is smooth. Apart from
the sound of our feet and the lapping of the lake, it’s quiet here.

There isn’t much dead wood around. I pick up a few branches, some chunks of log. I carry them down to where the bikes are. Robert has already made one trip here, I see from a small pile of
twigs. I don’t much feel like this hunting in the dark, so I delay a while, wiping my hands on my pants. I look out over the water again. I feel so calm and happy as I stand, as if the rest
of my life will be made up of evenings like this. I hear Robert’s whistling coming down to me out of the dark behind. It’s a tune I almost recognise. I start to hum along.

As I do I can see Robert in my mind’s eye, the way he must be. When he whistles, small creases appear round his lips. He has a look of severe concentration on his face. The image of him
comes often to me in this way, even when I’m alone. Sometimes late at night as I lie trying to sleep, a shadow cast in from outside will move against the wall and then he breaks through me in
a pang, quick and deep. We’ve been friends for years now, since I started high school. It’s often as if I have no other friends.
He
has, though. I see him sometimes with other
boys from the school, riding past my house in a swirling khaki pack down to the lake. It hurts me when this happens. I don’t know what they speak about, whether they talk of things that I
could understand. I wonder sometimes if they mention me. I wonder if they mock me when I’m not there and if Robert laughs at me with the rest of them.

He comes down now, carrying a load of wood in his arms. ‘Is that all?’ he says, looking at what I collected. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

‘Nothing,’ I say, and smile.

He drops his wood along with the rest and turns. He’s grinning at me: a big skew grin, little bits of bark stuck to his hair and the front of his shirt.

‘Do we need any more?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘That should do fine.’

We build a fire. Rather – he builds the fire and I sit against a tree to watch. It always seems to be this way: him doing the work, me watching. But it’s a comfortable arrangement,
he doesn’t mind. I like the way he moves. He’s a skinny boy, Robert, his clothes are always slightly loose on him. Now as I watch, my eye is on his hands as they reach for the wood and
stack it. His hands are slender and brown. He’s brought a wad of newspaper on his bike. He twists rolls of paper into the openings between the logs.

Like me, the dogs are sitting still and watching. They stare at him with quiet attention, obedient and dumb.

He lights the fire. He holds the burning match and I’m looking for a moment at this white-haired boy with flame in his hand. Then he leans and touches it to the paper. Smoke. He shakes out
the match.

The fire burns, the flames go up. In a minute or two there’s a nice blaze going. We’re making our own light to send across the water. I think of my parents on the wooden veranda,
looking across to the spark that’s started up in the darkness. They point. ‘There,’ they say. ‘That’s where they are.’ I smile. The fire burns. The flames go up.
The heat wraps over my face like a second skin. The dogs get up and move away, back into the dark where they shift restlessly, mewing like kittens.

In a little time the fire burns down to a heap of coals. They glow and pulse, sending up tiny spurts of flame. We only have to throw on a stick now and then. Sitting and staring into the ring of
heat, it would be easy to be quiet, but we talk, though our voices are soft.

‘We should camp out here sometime,’ he says. ‘It’s so still.’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘We should do that.’

‘It’s great to be away,’ he says. ‘From them.’

He’s speaking of his family; his home. He often speaks of them this way. I don’t know what he means by this: they all seem nice enough. They live in a huge, two-storeyed house made
out of wood, about half an hour’s ride from us. They’re further up the valley, though, out of sight of the lake. There are five of them: Robert, his parents, his two brothers. I’m
alone in my home, I have no brothers. Perhaps it’s this that makes their house a beautiful place to me. Perhaps there really is something ugly in it that I haven’t seen. Either way, we
don’t spend much time there. It’s to my home that Robert likes to come in the afternoons when school is done. He’s familiar to us all. He comes straight up to my room, I know the
way he knocks on my door. Bang-bang, thud.

My mother has spoken to me about him. At least twice that I can remember she’s sat on my bed, smiling at me and playing with her hands.

‘But what’s wrong with it?’ I say. ‘Everyone has friends.’

‘But lots,’ she says. ‘Lots of friends. You do nothing else, you see no one else …’

‘There’s nothing else to do,’ I say. ‘Other people bore me.’

‘There’s sport,’ she says. ‘I’ve seen them at the school, every afternoon. Why don’t you play sport like other boys? You’re becoming thinner and
thinner.’

It’s true. I am. When I look at myself in the mirror I’m surprised at how thin I am. But I’m not unhealthy, my skin is dark, I’m fit. We ride for miles together, Robert
and me, along the dust roads that go around the lake.

‘It’s him,’ I say. ‘Isn’t it? It’s him you don’t like.’

‘No,’ she says. ‘It isn’t that. I like him well enough. It’s you, you that’s the matter.’

I don’t want to upset them, my parents. I want to be a good son to them. But I don’t know any way to be fatter than I am, to please them. I do my best.

‘I’ll try,’ I say. ‘I’ll try to see less of him.’

But it doesn’t help. Most afternoons I hear his knock at my door and I’m glad at the sound. We go out on our bikes. This happens at night too, from time to time. As now – when
we find ourselves at the edge of the lake, staring at the moon.

‘D’you want a smoke?’ he says.

I don’t answer. But he takes one out of the box anyway, leaning forward to light it in the fire. He puffs. Then he hands it to me. I take a drag, trying to be casual. But I’ve never
felt as easy about it as Robert seems to. The smoke is rough in my throat, it makes my tongue go sour. I don’t enjoy it. But for the sake of Robert I allow this exchange to take place, this
wordless passing back and forth, this puffing in the dark. I touch his hand as I give it back to him.

‘Are you bored?’ he asks. ‘Why’re you so quiet?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m fine.’ I think for a while, then ask, ‘Are you?’

‘No,’ he says.

But I wonder if he is. In sudden alarm I think of the places he might rather be, the people he might rather be with. To confirm my fear, he mutters just then:

‘Emma Brown – ’

‘Why are you thinking about Emma Brown?’ I say. ‘What made you think of her now?’

He’s looking at me, surprised. He takes the cigarette out of his mouth. ‘I was just wondering,’ he says. ‘I was just wondering where she is.’

‘Why?’ I say.

‘I just wondered if she was also watching the moon.’

‘Oh,’ I say, and smile bitterly into the fire. I don’t know what’s going through his head, but mine is full of thoughts of her: of silly little Emma Brown, just a bit
plump, with her brown hair and short white socks. I remember a few times lately that I’ve seen her talking to Robert; I remember him smiling at her as she came late to class.

‘I was just thinking,’ he says, and shrugs.

I finish the cigarette. I throw the butt into the fire. We don’t talk for a long time after that. I can hear the dogs licking each other, the rasping noise of their tongues. I begin to
feel sad. I think of my anger and something in me slides, as if my heart is displaced.

He reaches out a hand and grazes my arm. It’s just a brief touch, a tingle of fingers, but it goes into me like a coal. ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘What’s the
matter?’

‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Nothing.’ I want to say more, but I don’t like to lie. Instead I say again, ‘Nothing.’ I feel stupid.

The fire burns down to a red smear on the ground. Across the water the lights have started to go out. Only a few are left. I look off to the right: the lights in my house are still on. My
parents keep watch.

When I look back, Robert is on his feet. His head is thrown back. I don’t stand, but I gaze over his shoulder at what he’s watching: the white disc of the moon, from which a piece
has been broken. While we were talking, the great shadow of the earth has started to cover the moon. If you look hard enough, the dark piece can still be seen, but only in outline, as if it’s
been sketched with chalk.

We stare for a long time. As we do, the shadow creeps on perceptibly. You can actually see it move.

‘Wow,’ he says.

Sensing something, one of the dogs throws back its head in imitation of us and begins to howl. The noise goes up, wobbling on the air like smoke.

‘Sheba,’ says Robert. ‘Be quiet.’

We watch the moon as it sinks slowly out of sight. Its light is still coming down, but more faintly than before. On the whole valley, lit weirdly in the strange blue glow, a kind of quiet has
fallen. There is nothing to say. I lower my eyes and look out over the water. Robert sits down next to me on his heels, hugging his knees. ‘You know,’ he says, ‘there’s
times when everything feels … feels …’

He doesn’t finish.

‘I know,’ I say.

We sit and watch. Time goes by. The trees are behind us, black and big. I look across to my home again and see that the lights have gone out. All along the far shore there is dark. We’re
alone.

‘It’s taking a long time,’ he says. ‘Don’t you think?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘It is.’

It’s hot. The dogs are panting like cattle in the gloom. I feel him along my arm. A warmth. I spring up, away. ‘I’m going to swim,’ I say, unbuttoning my shirt.

I take off my clothes, and drop them on the sand. The dogs are standing, staring at me. Robert also watches, still crouched on his heels, biting his arm. When I’m naked I turn my back on
him and walk into the lake. I stop when the water reaches my knees and stand, arms folded across my chest, hands clinging to my ribs as if they don’t belong to me. It isn’t cold, but my
skin goes tight as if it is. One of the dogs lets out a bark. I walk on, hands at my sides now, while the water gets higher and higher. When it reaches my hips I dive. It covers my head like a
blanket. I come up, spluttering. ‘It’s warm,’ I say, ‘as blood.’

‘Hold on,’ he calls. ‘I’m –’

As I turn he’s already running. I catch a glimpse of his body, long and bright as a blade, before he also dives. When he comes up, next to me, the air is suddenly full of noise: the
barking of the dogs as they run along the edge of the lake, the splashing of water, the shouts of our voices. It is our voices I hear, I’m surprised at the sound. I’m laughing.
I’m calling out.

‘Don’t you,’ I say, ‘don’t you
try
–’

We’re pushing at each other, and pulling. Water flies. The bottom of the lake is slippery to my feet, I feel stones turn. I have hold of Robert’s shoulder. I have a hand in his hair.
I’m trying to push him under, wrenching at him while he does the same to me. He laughs.

Nothing like this has taken place between us before. I feel his skin against me, I feel the shape of his bones as we wrestle and lunge. We’re touching each other. Then I slide, the water
hits my face. I go under, pulling him with me, and for a moment we’re tangled below the surface, leg to leg, neck to neck, furry with bubbles, as if we’ll never pull free.

We come up together into quiet. The laughter has been doused. We still clutch to each other, but his fingers are hurting me. We stand, face to face. While we were below, the last sliver of moon
has been blotted out. A total dark has fallen on the valley, so that the trees are invisible against the sky. The moon is a faint red outline overhead. I can’t see Robert’s face, though
I can feel his breath against my nose. We gasp for air. The only sound to be heard is the howling of the dogs that drifts in from the shore: an awful noise, bereaved and bestial.