The Tightrope Walkers

  Pebbledash

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  The Mask

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Ultima Thule

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  on the banks of the Tyne, as so many of us were back then. It was a three-room dilapidated upstairs flat, in the same terraced row where Dad had been born, and just upriver from Simpson’s Shipyard. Rats slunk under the floorboards, mice scuttled in the walls. The bath hung on a nail on the wall, the toilet was at the foot of steep steps outside. The river slopped against the banks and stank when the tide was low. There was the groan of engines and cranes from the yard, the din of riveters and caulkers. Sirens blared at the start and end of shifts. Gulls screamed, children laughed, dogs barked, parents yelled.

  All hackneyed, all true.

  By the time I remember anything clear, the slums were gone and we’d moved uphill into our pebbledashed estate built on a wilderness just above town.

  It’s said we travelled there like refugees. We came from crumbling terraces with tiny yards, from riverside shacks, from tumbledown cottages next to long-abandoned mines.

  They were still completing it all when we arrived. There were trenches in the earth for pipes and cables. White markers showed where the pavements and roads would be. There were half-built garden walls and gateposts. Our dads roped furniture to their backs or pushed it there on handcarts. Our mams lugged rolled-up sheets and blankets. Retired pit ponies were used as cargo-carriers, Alsatians hauled pallets of boxes and bags. What did we have to bring anyway? A few sticks of furniture, enough clothes to dangle loosely in little wardrobes. Some brought beasts on leads and in boxes or baskets: chickens and ferrets to house in back gardens. Ponies and pigeons and rabbits and dogs.

  I was one year old when we arrived. Dad carried me there in a wooden box. The box became a cradle, then my bed in which I slept until I was three years old.

  Men closed the holes and chasms in the earth as we settled in and as I grew. They laid kerbstones and paving stones. They raised lampposts and telegraph poles. Men with scorched faces and with holes burned into their clothes tended fiery engines, braziers and steamrollers. They spread asphalt and tarmacadam with huge black brooms and great black shovels. Men in white overalls painted the doors and window frames. And kind men in brown with soft green caps stood on scaffolding by our walls and brought us pebbledash.

  “True artists,” Mam murmured, as we stood in the rubble garden to watch them work. I must have just begun to walk, but I believe I recall these things.

  The pebbledashers laid tarpaulins beneath the wall. Then brought wet plaster in buckets and spread it on the wall. Then dug their trowels into sacks of tiny stones and flicked the stones towards the plaster. Beautiful sounds: the ring of the trowel, the chink of the flick, the dash of the stones against the wall, the scatter upon the tarpaulin of those that fell. Time and again and time and again they plastered, flicked, and dashed, then gathered up the stones and began again until the wall was covered and they moved to other walls.

  They kept turning, winking at me, proud of what they did.

  I remember one of the men who came to me and tweaked my cheek.

  “What do you think of that then, kidder?” he said.

  “He thinks it is just marvellous,” Mam answered. “Don’t you, son?”

  “Yes,” I think I whispered as I turned my face into her skirt.

  When I was small, I loved to press my palms against the walls, to feel the points and edges against my skin. I’d press until it was almost painful, then lift my hand to see the pattern of the stones on me, to see it slowly fade, then press again to bring it back. I’d touch tenderly with my fingertips to feel the tiny smooth and gleaming surfaces. The rectangles of the walls were lovely, with the flaring-outward at the foot of each one, the three-inch gap left between the pebbledash and the earth as protection from the damp.

  It seemed so finished, so perfect, so modern, once the earth was closed, once the roads were laid, once the heaps of waste had disappeared, once all the men had gone away and we were left alone, to be ourselves, to grow together in our bright new world.

  This is where these things happened, to me, to Holly Stroud, to Vincent McAlinden, in a time and place that seem so long ago but are not so long ago, in a time and place that lay halfway between the river and the sky.

  McAlinden made his first mark when I was five years old. It was a bright spring day and I was with Holly Stroud. She lived across the narrow street, in a house that was a reflection of our own. We were walking on the garden walls. Her dad, Bill Stroud, was at our side, ready to catch us if we fell.

  Holly high-stepped, danced and spread her arms like wings. I followed her, less certain.

  At the two-foot gap between the gateposts, Bill lifted her up and carried her high in a perfect arc and put her down again.

  She bowed to him, to the estate and to the sky.

  Two kids trundled by on homemade stilts. A bunch of girls played hospitals, their orange boxes arranged against a garden wall.

  “Now your turn, Dom,” said Holly.

  Bill helped me onto the gatepost. Invisible boys were yelling, playing football up on the high fields.

  “Back straight,” said Holly. “Pointed toes, head held high.”

  Bill held his palm against my back to help me understand.

  “Like you’re dancing, Dom!” cried Holly. “Yes, nearly right!”

  She turned to the half-open first-floor window of the house. Dark curtains wafted on the breeze there.

  “Mam!” she called. “I’m with Dominic Hall, Mam!”

  “Wonderful!” replied her mother’s voice.

  “He’s doing great, Mam!”

  “Marvellous!”

  Mrs. Stroud began to sing: “ ‘O for the wings, for the wings of a dove . . .’ ”

  Bill lifted me and swung me, and held me high and steady in the air. A bunch of boys ran past, screaming that they were off to bomb Berlin. A pony whinnied and a cockerel called. I stretched my ar
ms and tried to lose myself in weightlessness.

  The stone came spinning through the air and hit my brow. I flopped. Bill laid me down. He dabbed the blood with his handkerchief.

  “What’s your name?” he said.

  “Vincent McAlinden!” yelled Holly.

  “Dominic,” I murmured to Bill Stroud.

  “What on earth d’you think you’re doing?” yelled Holly.

  Vincent stood further down the street. He’d moved here just a few days ago. Squat, black-haired and filthy. He had his hands turned upward in regret.

  “I didn’t mean it!” he shouted. “I aimed to miss!”

  “Get back home,” snapped Bill.

  He held Holly back from running to him.

  “Leave him,” he said. “He’s just a daft tinker.”

  His white handkerchief reddened with my blood. He spread his hand before my face.

  “How many fingers?”

  “Three.”

  “What month is it?”

  “March.”

  “Good lad. Lie still.”

  Kids were gathering. He’s bust his skull. Is his eye out? He could’ve had his bliddy eye out. Then Mam was here, reaching down to me.

  “We’ll have the bliddy polis on you!” someone called.

  “Bugger off out of this estate, ye little sod!”

  “How many fingers now?” said Bill.

  “Two.”

  Mam held me and I sobbed.

  “He needs a cuddle,” said Bill. “And an Elastoplast, and a nice sweet cup of tea.”

  He stroked my brow.

  “You’ll be all right, son. You’ll survive.”

  Then here was Dad in his black work clothes, with his knapsack hanging from his back.

  “It was the new kid, Mr. Hall,” said some child.

  “Him that just moved in the other day.”

  “Vincent McAlinden, Mr. Hall.”

  “He threw a stone,” said Bill. “The little sod.”

  “Are ye aal reet?” Dad said to me.

  “Aye, Dad.”

  “And ye done nowt about it?” said Dad to Bill.

  “Not yet,” said Bill. “He’s been . . .”

  Dad took me from Mam and stood me up. He took the handkerchief from Bill and pressed it to the wound. He set off down the street with me. I could smell the shipyard on him, the oil, the grease, the river, the filth. He drew furiously on a cigarette.

  “What were ye up to?” he said.

  “Just playing, Dad.”

  “With the Stroud lass?”

  “Aye.”

  “Diyin what?”

  “Walkin on the walls, Dad.”

  “Walkin on the bliddy walls?”

  We came to the house at the foot of the estate. The rocky pathway that led out of the estate ran right beside it. A pair of dogs snarled through the fence. The back door of the house was open, a fire blazed in the grate inside.

  “Where’s that lad!” shouted Dad.

  Mrs. McAlinden came to the door. She wiped her hands on a piece of cloth. She lit a cigarette and drew on it.

  “Look at this!” snapped Dad.

  I lifted the handkerchief away.

  She came to the fence and looked down at me. She yelled at the dogs to stop their bliddy snarling. Kids wailed inside the house, and she yelled at them to stop as well.

  “Vincent?” she said.

  “If that’s his name, that’s him,” said Dad.

  I could smell the sweat on her. Could see the grease in her hair shining in the sun.

  “Is it sore?” she said.

  I squeezed back my tears and nodded. Yes. The blood was trickling down past my eyes now.

  “The lad’s a terror,” she said.

  “Get him here.”

  “Vincent!” she yelled at the house.

  “Keep down!” she yelled at the dogs. “I dunno what to do with him,” she said to Dad. “Be different if I had a man like you to give him a proper thrashin now and then.”

  “Get him out and I’ll diy it now,” said Dad. “At least I’ll scare the little sod.”

  “I doubt it,” she said. “Vincent! Vincent!”

  She leaned closer and her huge breasts swung inside her loose black blouse.

  “Would you like a cup of nice warm milk, son?” she said.

  “No!” I gasped.

  She looked at me fondly. Wiped blood from my cheek with her fingertips, then wiped them on her skirt.

  “How d’ye get them to be so nice?” she said.

  Dad threw the stub of his cigarette away. She gave him another and for a few seconds they just smoked, watching the fumes rise from their lips and towards the bright sky.

  “Vincent!” she yelled.

  He came to the door at last and stood just inside.

  “It was just a bit of carry-on,” he said. “I aimed to miss.”

  “Well bliddy miss better next time,” she said. “Now howay here and say sorry to this bairn.”

  “Not while that bugger’s standin there.”

  Dad snarled.

  “Get here now!” he said. “Or I’ll come and get ye and I’ll bliddy swing for ye!”

  Vincent shuffled out. He took one of the dogs by its collar and held it at his side.

  “Have ye seen what ye’ve done?” said his mother.

  “Aye,” said Vincent.

  “Just look at that bliddy blood,” she said. “He’s just a little lad. Ye should be lookin after him, not hoyin bliddy rocks at him.”

  “I aimed to miss!”

  “Say yer sorry.”

  His shoulders slumped. He curled his lip and looked down at the ground.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Dad grabbed his collar and dragged him close. The woman kicked the growling dog away. Dad hauled Vincent till he stood on tiptoe.

  “Say it like ye mean it,” he said.

  “I diy mean it. I’m really sorry. What’s yer name, kid?”

  Dad elbowed me.

  “Speak up for yerself. Tell him your name.”

  I looked into Vincent’s eyes, looked down again.

  “Dominic,” I said.

  “I’m really, really sorry, Dominic.”

  “Are ye?” said Dad.

  “Aye! Really. Aye!”

  “So it won’t happen again, will it?”

  “No, mister.”

  “Cos if it does I swear I’ll bliddy swing for ye. Do ye knaa what that means?”

  “Aye, mister! Aye!”

  “Good.” He shoved Vincent away from us. “Now bugger off back into the house and diy something to help yer mother.”

  “Aye, mister. I will right now.”

  He scuttled back into the house.

  Dad put his hand tenderly on my shoulder at last.

  “Look at you,” he said. “You’d think you’d been to bliddy war.” He dabbed the tears and blood. “Ye’ll need to toughen up, eh?”

  “He’ll learn,” said Mrs. McAlinden.

  “Will he?” said Dad.

  Mrs. McAlinden shrugged. She shook her head.

  “Kids!” she said.

  We went back up through the estate. Holly and Bill and Mam were still standing there. Mrs. Stroud still sang.

  “That bugger there,” Dad said softly. “That Stroud bloke. He’s a conchie. You know what that means, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  “So he’ll not be much use to you, will he? And just listen to the lunatic upstairs.”

  “ ‘Morning has broken, like the first mo-o-o-orning . . .’ ”

  “You ever heard owt like that?”

  “No, Dad.”

  “No. Anyway they’ll not be stayin much longer. This is a place for the likes of us and not the likes of them.”

  Mam came to us and cuddled me.

  “Better now?” she said.

  “Aye, Mam.”

  I lifted the handkerchief away.

  “What a mess,” she said. “But look, it’s stopping now. Soon there’l
l be a scab and then a little scar, then it’ll be like nothing happened at all.”

  “Better now?” said Bill.

  I nodded.

  “Brave lad,” said Bill.

  “Come out again soon,” said Holly.

  We went inside. Mam cleaned me up with Dettol and cotton wool and put an Elastoplast on me. Dad went upstairs and changed his clothes, and came back smelling of toothpaste and Old Spice. We had pork pie and chips and peas. We all sat together on the sofa and Dad smoked and Mam waved his smoke away.

  Dad laughed at her, cuddled her, kissed her and sighed.

  We watched The Lone Ranger and the picture fuzzed and faded and crackled in and out of view. Dad imitated the voices of the Indians and of Tonto.

  “Kemosabe!” he said. “Ungawa!”

  Mam clicked her tongue and laughed.

  “That’s from Tarzan!” she said.

  “What is?”

  “Ungawa. Isn’t it, Dominic?”

  “Aye,” I said. “It means, Cheetah, go and get an elephant!”

  Dad snorted and stood up, ready to go to the Iona Club. He kissed Mam, he stroked my hair.

  “Hoy the rock back at him next time,” he said.

  “Don’t say that!” said Mam.

  He stood with his back to the fire and pondered.

  “Why not?” he said. “Seems to me there should be a bit more of that Vincent McAlinden in him, and a little bit less of that Holly bliddy Stroud.”

  Mam rolled her eyes and he went away.

  “More of Vincent McAlinden!” she scoffed.

  We stayed together on the sofa. She clicked her tongue, for there was blood again, showing through the Elastoplast. She peeled it free.

  “The skin’s that thin,” she said. “That’s the trouble.”

  She tried dressing it again, and soon put me to bed.

  “Don’t forget your prayers,” she said.

  She kissed me and left me. I lay and listened to the night. Listened for the ghosts and monsters that all we children dreaded in this place. And then I slept, and Dad woke me: his footsteps, the click of the gate, the click and clash of the front door. I heard my parents talking softly together, then coming up the stairs.

  I touched my brow, licked my fingers. Blood again. I imagined it bleeding forever, all the blood in me draining away through this narrow opening.

  I slept again, woke again, heard more footsteps, rapid, soft.

  Dared to go to the window and look out through my hands.

  It was no ghost, no monster.

  It was the tramp Jack Law. He leaned forward as he passed quickly beneath the orange streetlights, heading towards the upper wasteland and the fields. His long fair hair, pale as the pebbledash, glinted in the moonlight, then he was just a shadow and then he was gone.