have thought about it, perhaps thought it through more clearly …’
‘You wanted it too much. I didn’t know how to say what I felt without causing you pain.’
‘Terrific.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Me too. But you have to live with our decision, Richard. You can’t just cut the boy out. You have to try. Hard. Harder. Endlessly. He’s not a computer game! You can’t save the score and turn off the machine in the evening, then come back to it as if nothing had changed.’
Pretty. Pretty …
He stared at the ceiling. There was a glimmer in his mind’s eye, something gleaming, something pretty. But it slipped away again, and shadows flexed and shifted in the room, the past still urgent to be remembered – shadows: his father’s shape looming past him as he sat and drew, years ago …
A fine summer’s day. The air was still and heavy with the scent of grass. There had been visitors, and from the kitchen came the sound of washing up, glasses clinking, laughter from his parents.
Michael sat at his table below the apple tree, drawing Castle Limbo and the wide beach. Carol was toddling down the lawn towards her tricycle. Michael raised his face and watched her, then glanced down as his father left the kitchen, ran towards the toddling child and swung her high, pretending to toss her, but not quite letting go.
Carol giggled. The two of them walked down to the hedge maze and vanished for a while.
Michael drew.
He was startled by the suddenshadow over his shoulder. He had been so absorbed in the drawing of the castle that he hadn’t heard his father come up behind him. He and Carol stood there, dark against the bright sky. Michael felt nervous. He was aware that his drawing was being scrutinized critically.
Carol watched him, one hand tangled in her father’s long hair. She wanted to be put down and her father let her go. The man walked away, a broad shape, clad in jeans and a dark shirt. Michael heard him say, ‘More bloody spirals. Doesn’t he ever draw anything else?’
‘It’s my castle,’ he whispered.
He drew himself into the picture, a small, yellow-haired figure, and placed his shadow perfectly considering the position of the bright sun at the top corner of the drawing. He drew his mother, standing at the edge of the garden, just outside the zones of his castle. He drew Carol and gave her a big smile, because he always wanted Carol to smile when she felt sad. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he drew his father. He drew a huge open mouth with teeth around the figure of the man.
After a while, after staring at the page for a few minutes, he found a darker crayon.
And with a quick, angry smile, he closed the monster’s mouth.
Pretty?
He reached for it, but it slipped away. This was the wrong place. He needed Chalk Boy, he needed the sea. He needed to be able to reach through the tunnel, to fetch the pretty glimmering things that sometimes sparkled in the castle, by the sea shore, by the great chalk sea.
Michael stood by his bedroom window and stared out through the summer night, at the dark woods that huddled round the quarry.
Beyond them, a strange light, aneerie tinge of blue in the darkness, was the ocean, the Channel. It was not the same sea, not the sea that bordered Castle Limbo, but it was a place he could visit, and he hungered for that cold water now, for the pebbles that jarred and jabbed at naked feet, for the rush and swirl, the suck and flow of the ice-cold sea, dragging down into the lost depths of the old land bridge between England and the Continent.
He had read about it all, how below the sea were great mountains of chalk, some of them nearly reaching the surface of the ocean. Millions of years had eroded the chalk hills into these spires and fingers of chalk, part of the downlands. And when land had filled between them, people had walked there, and lived there.
Their bones, their weapons, their spirits still swam in the shallow depths, in the chalk depths.
But it was
‘You wanted it too much. I didn’t know how to say what I felt without causing you pain.’
‘Terrific.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Me too. But you have to live with our decision, Richard. You can’t just cut the boy out. You have to try. Hard. Harder. Endlessly. He’s not a computer game! You can’t save the score and turn off the machine in the evening, then come back to it as if nothing had changed.’
Pretty. Pretty …
He stared at the ceiling. There was a glimmer in his mind’s eye, something gleaming, something pretty. But it slipped away again, and shadows flexed and shifted in the room, the past still urgent to be remembered – shadows: his father’s shape looming past him as he sat and drew, years ago …
A fine summer’s day. The air was still and heavy with the scent of grass. There had been visitors, and from the kitchen came the sound of washing up, glasses clinking, laughter from his parents.
Michael sat at his table below the apple tree, drawing Castle Limbo and the wide beach. Carol was toddling down the lawn towards her tricycle. Michael raised his face and watched her, then glanced down as his father left the kitchen, ran towards the toddling child and swung her high, pretending to toss her, but not quite letting go.
Carol giggled. The two of them walked down to the hedge maze and vanished for a while.
Michael drew.
He was startled by the suddenshadow over his shoulder. He had been so absorbed in the drawing of the castle that he hadn’t heard his father come up behind him. He and Carol stood there, dark against the bright sky. Michael felt nervous. He was aware that his drawing was being scrutinized critically.
Carol watched him, one hand tangled in her father’s long hair. She wanted to be put down and her father let her go. The man walked away, a broad shape, clad in jeans and a dark shirt. Michael heard him say, ‘More bloody spirals. Doesn’t he ever draw anything else?’
‘It’s my castle,’ he whispered.
He drew himself into the picture, a small, yellow-haired figure, and placed his shadow perfectly considering the position of the bright sun at the top corner of the drawing. He drew his mother, standing at the edge of the garden, just outside the zones of his castle. He drew Carol and gave her a big smile, because he always wanted Carol to smile when she felt sad. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he drew his father. He drew a huge open mouth with teeth around the figure of the man.
After a while, after staring at the page for a few minutes, he found a darker crayon.
And with a quick, angry smile, he closed the monster’s mouth.
Pretty?
He reached for it, but it slipped away. This was the wrong place. He needed Chalk Boy, he needed the sea. He needed to be able to reach through the tunnel, to fetch the pretty glimmering things that sometimes sparkled in the castle, by the sea shore, by the great chalk sea.
Michael stood by his bedroom window and stared out through the summer night, at the dark woods that huddled round the quarry.
Beyond them, a strange light, aneerie tinge of blue in the darkness, was the ocean, the Channel. It was not the same sea, not the sea that bordered Castle Limbo, but it was a place he could visit, and he hungered for that cold water now, for the pebbles that jarred and jabbed at naked feet, for the rush and swirl, the suck and flow of the ice-cold sea, dragging down into the lost depths of the old land bridge between England and the Continent.
He had read about it all, how below the sea were great mountains of chalk, some of them nearly reaching the surface of the ocean. Millions of years had eroded the chalk hills into these spires and fingers of chalk, part of the downlands. And when land had filled between them, people had walked there, and lived there.
Their bones, their weapons, their spirits still swam in the shallow depths, in the chalk depths.
But it was
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