Rupert Thomson - Divided Kingdom

The man reached a junction and seemed to hesitate. To his left the road angled back into the centre of Iron Vale, while to the right it ran out into the country, passing through the village with its graveyard and then on towards towns that were famous for their racecourses. On the far side of the road was a thinly wooded area, the treacly blackness of the river just visible beyond. Although it was still early, not even eight o’clock, very few cars were travelling in either direction, and there was nobody out walking — nobody except us, that is. I hoped he wasn’t thinking of meeting up with others like him. My plan would only work if he was on his own. Instead of making for the graveyard, though, as I had feared he might, he crossed the road and disappeared into the old dark trees that lined the pavement.

I stood on the kerb, exactly as he had done. If I kept quite still, I could hear people weeping. I wanted to dismiss it as my imagination, but then it occurred to me that the sound might be happening inside my head. It might be my own grieving that I could hear — for those who had been unable to protect me, and those I myself, in turn, had been unable to protect. The sorrow I had always known about was more in evidence these days. It was as if I lived in a house that had a stream running under it. There wasn’t a moment when I didn’t feel the damp. At the same time, high in the air above me, traffic-lights were swaying on their slender wires, and I knew that it might just have been the wind. It might have been the wind all along. Maybe the man in the cloak had heard it too. Maybe that sound, and nothing more than that, was what had held him on the pavement for so long.

Once across the road, I found a narrow lane that led through a picnic area and then on down a gentle, curving incline to the river. Tables and benches, all built out of wooden slats, had been arranged among the trees. The moon had risen, bright and swollen, gleaming like an heirloom, and the short grass was crazed with the shadows of bare branches, shadows so black that the ground seemed to have cracked wide open. I glanced up. There he was, ahead of me, unmistakable in white, and quite alone. He followed the lane to where it became a car-park. Though he wasn’t hurrying, he appeared determined, as if he had a purpose. They weren’t supposed to be capable of that. I dropped back, allowing a distance to open up between us. It didn’t seem likely that I would lose him, not here.

Beyond the car-park was a concrete embankment that overlooked a weir. The man stood at the railings, staring out over the river. Above the weir the water was smooth and dark. A notice warned of strong currents, hidden dangers. Further down, the river narrowed a little, its surface becoming ruffled. Part of the river bed on our side had been exposed, forming a beach made up of grassy banks, stretches of mud, and big white stones. After a few minutes the man clambered down off the embankment and on to the river bed. I was still standing at the edge of the carpark, beneath the trees. The wind lifted. The branches’ shadows swung and shuddered on the ground before me, which made me feel unsteady on my feet. To my right, where the railings were, something knocked and clanked. I watched the man pick his way across the stones. I decided to wait under the trees until I discovered what his intentions were. There would be nowhere for me to hide down there.

At last he arrived at the water’s edge, a ghostly shape against the river’s glinting blackness. He started to undo the buttons on his cloak. This was better than I could have hoped for. I kept my eyes on him, watching his every movement. The wind slackened again. I realised that I was breathing through my mouth. Under his cloak he was wearing a collarless shirt, split open down the front, and a pair of long johns. He stooped to untie his laces. There was something infinitely touching about the way he conscientiously pushed each of his socks into the appropriate boot, as if somebody had taught him how to get undressed, as if, once upon a time, somebody had cared for him. You rarely thought of childhood or upbringing when confronted with the White People; they appeared to have emerged, fully fledged and yet unformed, into the world. Removing his undershirt and then a vest, he placed them on top of the cloak. Finally he peeled off the long johns. He stood on the mud in his underpants, his body wide and solid, hands dangling on a level with his thighs, and once again he seemed to be debating something inside himself, then he began to wade into the water. In that moment he became the same as anybody else, waving both arms in the air as he struggled to stay upright. When the blackness reached his knees, he crouched quickly and slid forwards, chin raised, moonlight silvering the flat plane of his forehead.

Leaving the cover of the trees, I crept out along the embankment and then climbed down to the river bed. At the pressure of my foot the mud belched softly, and a smell lifted past my face, a cloud of something rank, primeval. I started to move gingerly towards the place where the man had left his clothing. Once, I stopped, looked up. The river ran from right to left, all kinds of notches cut into its shiny surface, and the man’s head bobbed there, among the reflections, a small pale globe with careless dabs of black for hair and mouth and eyes. Then he began to swim in my direction. He must have noticed me at last. His arms beat fiercely at the water, white splashes showing in the darkness like matches being struck repeatedly against the side of a matchbox but never bursting into flame. I undid my jacket, took it off.

The man hauled himself to his feet, then staggered out of the water. His chest heaved with the exertion of his dash to the shore, and his underpants had slipped low on his left hip, revealing a smudge of pubic hair. By the time he reached me, I too had stripped down to my underwear. My shoes stood on a rock, the contents of my pockets placed near by. The man had come to a halt in front of me, no more than a few feet away, his chest still rising and falling.

‘I want you to take my clothes,’ I said.

The man tipped his head to one side, as if intrigued, or charmed.

I offered him the clothes I was holding. He stepped back. One of his feet sank deep into the mud, and he almost lost his balance. When I took his arm so as to steady him, his features seemed to scatter on his face. Air whistled past his teeth. His arm was cold and heavy.

‘I don’t mean you any harm,’ I told him.

Looking down, he lifted his foot out of the mud. An extravagant sucking sound accompanied the movement, and he grinned at me, a wide gap showing between his two front teeth. The strangest smell came off him. Bitter, like the milky sap in the stalks of bluebells.

‘There,’ I said.

I looked over my shoulder, scanning the embankment for signs of life. I saw nothing, no one. All the same, I couldn’t afford to waste any time, not if my plan was going to succeed.

I pushed my clothes against his chest. ‘Take them. Your life will be much easier.’ Bending swiftly, I picked up his vest and put it on.

The man was clutching my clothes now, but he hadn’t looked at them at all. He was still staring at me, transfixed. His mouth had fallen open, and his eyes had the dull flat shine of porcelain. A single drop of water hung from the lobe of his left ear like a pearl. Hung and hung. Then fell.

I slipped his undershirt over my head and pulled on the long johns, then I reached for the cloak. Fingers stumbling, I did up the buttons. The cloak weighed more than I had anticipated, and it was damp from lying on the river bed. That odour of bluebell sap again. I dropped my few possessions into the pocket at the front, then slid my feet into the man’s boots and tied the laces. I kept thinking that he would intervene, but he seemed paralysed. Then, as I turned away, a hoarse bellow came out of him. He had flung my clothes to the ground. I began to run. The boots were a size too big and the cloak swirled around my ankles. I floundered in the mud, expecting to be brought down from behind at any moment.