Silent Voices

TWENTY YEARS AGO, WHEN THE WORLD WAS SO MUCH SMALLER…

THE SUN IS a bronze penny hanging motionless in the sky as the boys toil beneath its hazy glare, laughing and sweating and having fun. The kind of fun that they will never have again, once they go beyond a certain age: kid fun, all happiness and innocence and mercifully free of the sharp edges adults develop, even in their play.

It’s been a long day for the Three Amigos — a typical English summer day, filled with running and play-fighting and sweet, long bike rides along the old railway line that runs along the bottom of the Embankment, with the gang pretending they are on their way to somewhere special — a place other than this one, with its embittered people and grey concrete promises.

But now, late in the afternoon, the bikes have been put away and the three boys are planning to build something in the trees at the north edge of Beacon Green, just up the hill from the old Near Grove railway station: a high platform, the beginnings of a proposed tree house.

Marty brought back the necessary tools from the drawers in the garage when he returned from a tense lunch with his perpetually warring parents, and Brendan stayed behind while the others returned home to eat so that he could gather enough wood for the project. Brendan never goes home for lunch: his father is dead and his mother drinks too much, even during the day. Especially during the day. Simon, the third member of the group, often feels guilty that he never invites his friend home for a meal, but the tension between his own parents is too uncomfortable to inflict upon anyone else. They are going through a ‘bad spell’; that’s what they call it, as if it’s the result of some kind of dark magic. As far as he can tell, he once told Brendan, their entire marriage is a bad spell — one that’s been going on since before he was born.

“Get that bit over there,” says Marty, the muscle of the gang. He points towards the splintered remains of a timber pallet and waits for the other two to walk over, drag it from where it lies half-hidden under the bushes, and then carry it over to the site of their construction project.

“Jesus, it’s heavy.” Brendan is very thin; his elbow bones jut out like twigs and his face always looks starved.

“Yeah, but that’s because you’re a wimp.” Simon laughs at his friend and gives a tug on his end of the wooden pallet, causing Brendan to stumble. Brendan sticks out his tongue; it is a child’s riposte, lacking sophistication even for a ten-year-old.

“Come on, then. Let’s get this thing built!” Marty is standing with one foot resting on the mouldy trunk of a fallen tree. He has his hands on his hips, and he pouts as if he is waiting to be kissed. To the other boys, he looks strangely alluring: like an asexual being that’s been trapped somewhere between childhood and the great unexplored country of adulthood. A tree nymph or a woodland elf: some mythical being from a story book, rather than the streets of a northeastern council estate.

“Yes, Miss!” Brendan’s voice carries through the silent trees, disturbing a ground-dwelling bird or a small mammal from its hiding place. The animal darts through the undergrowth, rustling the leaves and branches, as Brendan and Simon let loose with a brace of laughter.

Marty shakes his head and slowly lets his arms drop to his sides, abandoning the pose. “Piss off!” he shouts, much too late to salvage his dignity.

The boys fall quiet for a while, occupied by the simple task of sorting out pieces of wood. They discard ruined, shattered pieces of timber and form a pile of decent material that can be re-used. The sun moves slowly down the sky, tracing the day’s journey towards early evening. The sky seems to shimmer above the scene, like the underside of a distant body of water.

Brendan stops for a rest. He walks across to the nearest tree and sits down at the base of its trunk, retrieving a can of pop from his jacket, which lies grubby and creased on the ground. He opens the tab and drinks deeply, his eyes closed and his head tilted upwards. His fringe falls back to reveal a forehead pocked with livid acne and absently he scratches his thigh with his free hand. It’s a displacement trick he learned long ago — scratch another part of your body rather than the place you really want to scratch, and pretend that you’ve eased the discomfort.

Brendan opens his eyes as he lowers the can, scanning for a moment the green expanse of Beacon Green which lies beyond the line of the trees. He narrows his eyes, leaning forward with an intent look on his face. He licks his lips, stray droplets of pop making them sticky and sweet. Close to his position, gouged into the bole of the nearest tree, someone has used a penknife to write a single nonsense word: Loculus.

Brendan studies the hand-carved word. It means nothing to him, yet something inside him stirs. The spotty skin on his back crawls, as if tiny feet are walking between his shoulder blades. His forehead begins to itch.

His eyes widen. He has seen something, some kind of movement, way behind the carved tree; an image that he believes does not belong here. He begins to stand but pauses partway to his feet, staring at a point beyond the trees. What was it? Did he even see anything at all, or is he just tired?

Staring in wonder, he watches a tall, dark figure as it passes between the final row of trees, taking short, dainty strides — almost skipping along — and facing forward. The figure is wearing a long black overcoat that reaches down to its ankles. On its head is perched a strange black cap — like a flattened top hat, but with a wider, floppier brim. Beneath the hat is a sort of black snood or cowl that falls down the back of the head, protecting the rear of the neck.

Brendan wants to call out to his friends, but something has robbed him of his voice. He crouches there, with one hand pressed flat against the base of the nearest tree, supporting him, and the other still gripping the empty pop can. He watches the figure as it passes from tree to tree, visible for seconds at a time as it dances gaily between the broad dark trunks.

The figure is either hideously deformed or wearing some kind of mask. The bone-white face is pinched forward and outward to form a long beak with a sharpened end. The large, bulbous eyes look like swimming goggles, but with black frames and lenses.

The figure is terrifying. Fear has taken Brendan’s voice, and only when he realises this does he regain the ability to communicate.

“Lads!” He turns and glances towards his friends, and then back again to where he saw the figure. It has stopped and turned towards him in the short time when his attention was elsewhere; he feels its gaze, even through the absurd goggles. There is a thin walking stick in the figure’s yellow-gloved right hand, and it raises it, like a weapon or a magician’s wand, pointing it in Brendan’s direction. The other hand, also covered by a dull yellow glove, makes abstract shapes and patterns in the air, the fingers moving in intricate contortions, as if they are tying knots out of nothing. He knows that he should not be able to pick out such minor details at this distance, but somehow he can. It is as if the figure has grown more vital in his perspective, like an embossed image standing proud from a flat background. The effect is disorienting: he feels sick, his head begins to pound; his eyes water as the figure looms in his vision, drawing closer and increasing in definition without taking even a single step towards him. It must be an optical illusion… a trick of the light.

Then he begins to hear the clicking sound, like fingers snapping along to some otherworldly tune.

Brendan opens his mouth, but no words come out. He stares at the figure, at the way its coat flaps about the thin body even though there is no wind to cause the motion; the way the material bulges and rises slightly in front, as if a rogue gust is trapped under there, between the figure’s long, thin legs. Then, one by one, what looks like several additional limbs seem to emerge from beneath the hem of the coat, their small, bare, two-toed feet kicking and flapping as they descend awkwardly to the ground.

“Quick, lads! Come here!” His voice sounds raw, as if his throat has been damaged, his mouth parched. But at least he has found the strength to speak.

He glances away and then back again. The figure is no longer there. A beam of sunlight blazes in the spot between the trees where the figure had stood, making the air look as if it has caught fire. The two trees that had framed the figure seem to bend fractionally outwards, making the space bigger than before and straining beneath the pressure of reality.

“What’s up?” Simon is standing beside him, reaching down to help him complete the journey from sitting to standing. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Brendan turns his head and stares at his friend, at his wide, amused eyes. He feels the small pimples on his forehead tighten; the larger ones clustered across his back and shoulders begin to pop, covering his flesh in a warm, sticky excretion. He doesn’t quite know if he’s still afraid or simply relieved that he was just seeing things out there, beyond the trees.

Should he be glad that his imagination is creating phantoms, or should he be afraid that it has done so to fill some kind of gap in his brain?

“I think I did,” he says, shaking now, unable to hold back either a scream or a laugh — he’s not sure which — for much longer. “A ghost… or a monster.”