Dancing Towards the Blade and Other Stories by Mark Billingham Page B

have lots of drummers!’
    And on and on, deep into the night, arguing and getting drunker while the boy listened from his bedroom. Though he didn’t understand everything, the passion in the voices of these men had caused excitement to swell in his chest. Yes, and an equal measure of dread to press down on it, like one of the huge flat stones that lay along the river bed at the bottom of the valley. He’d lain awake most of that night thinking of his friends, his age-mates in the other villages, wondering if they were feeling the same thing.
    ‘All set, boy,’ Uncle Joseph said.
    Uncle Francis handed him the head-dress, rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Feeling fit?’
    Outside, he was greeted with cheers and whoops. This was the last day of gathering and there was more noise, more gaiety than there had been on any day previously. This was the eve of it all; the final, glorious push.
    He took his place in the middle of the group, acknowledged the greetings of his brothers, of uncles, and cousins whose names he could never remember. Though no one was dressed as extravagantly as he was, everyone had made the necessary effort. No man or boy was without beads or bells. The older ones were all draped in animal skins – monkey, zebra and lion. All had painted faces and strips of brightly coloured cloth attached to the edges of their leather vests.
    A huge roar went up as the first drum was struck. A massive bass drum, its rhythm like a giant’s heartbeat. The smaller drums joined then, and the whistles, and the yelps of the women and children, watching from the doorways of houses, waving the gatherers goodbye.
    The boy cleared his throat and spat into the dirt. He let out a long, high note, listened to it roll away across the valley. The rhythm became more complex, more frantic, and he picked up his knees in time to it, the beads rattling on his legs and the shells clattering against the belt around his waist.
    He began to dance.
    The procession started to move. A carnival, a travelling circus, a hundred or more bare feet slapping into the dirt in time to the drummers. A cloud of dust rose up behind them as they picked up speed, moving away along the hard, brown track that snaked out of the village.
    The mottled grey of the slabs was broken only by the splotches of dog-shit brown and dandelion yellow.
    Vincent looked up from the floor of the walkway.
    The eyes of the two taller boys darted between his face and that of their friend. It seemed to Vincent that they were waiting to be told what to do. They were looking for some sort of signal.
    The boy in the cap raised his eyes up to Vincent’s. He took a long, slow swig from his bottle, his gaze not shifting from Vincent’s face. Then, he snatched the bottle from his lips, wiped a hand across his mouth and glared, as if suddenly affronted.
    ‘ What? ’
    Vincent smiled, shook his head. ‘I didn’t say anything.’
    ‘Yes, you fucking did.’
    The boy with the shaved head took a step forward. ‘What did you say, you cheeky black fucker?’
    The smaller boy nodded, pleased, and took another swig. Vincent shrugged, feeling the tremble in his right leg, pressing a straight arm hard against it.
    ‘Listen, I don’t want any trouble. I’m just trying to get home.’
    Home.
    Vincent blinked and saw his brother’s face, the skin taken off his cheek and one eye swollen shut. He saw his mother’s face as she stood at the window all the next afternoon, staring out across the dual carriageway towards the lorry park and the floodlights beyond. He saw her face when she turned finally, and spoke.
    ‘We’re moving,’ she’d said.
    One more blink and he saw the resignation that had returned to her face after a day doing the maths; scanning newspapers, and estate agents’ details from Greenwich and Blackheath. As the idea of moving anywhere was quickly forgotten.
    ‘I’ve already told you,’ the boy with the bottle said. ‘If you’re so desperate, just go round.’
    Vincent