Bigot Hall

HAZE

‘Remember a chap who played the petal-pulling game with the pin of a grenade. Got as far as “She loves me” and blew to pieces like a dandelion head. That’s the way to go, laughing boy.’

‘Yes, Father.’

There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house and some of us were examining a meal. The tree had thrown branches in all directions with a vigorous irregularity. Uncle Snap said he could shoot the cloth out from under the tableware. I had to stand up to laugh.

‘The Dodger there,’ muttered Snap to Father, nodding in my direction. ‘I can’t stand him.’

This veiled utterance signalled the start of the morning argument. ‘Rattling your chains,’ rumbled Snapper, ‘untroubled by the snares of reality and expecting it all. You and your infantile aggrandisement have buried the rest of us in steaming bullshit.’

‘Beg pardon, Uncle?’ I asked, turning to him. ‘Miles away.’ A vein in his temple bulged like an inner tube. ‘Don’t look at me that way, Uncle — not without pupils.’

Snap turned to Father. ‘The boy’s beyond everything,’ he said, voice shrill with incredulity. ‘Feed him poison and he’ll grow fat on it, laughing in your face!’

‘Fine words,’ I stated after a considered silence, ‘from a man who has a vestigial tail in the shape of a Cluedo character. Tell it to a court-appointed psychiatrist, Snapper. You contain enough hot air to fire a cob across a ten acre field.’

I knew I was punching him in the head, an activity I have never been able to control — but my thoughts were elsewhere. I pondered the way a manta ray will filter plankton and small fish from water passing over its gill arches. There’s efficiency for you.

My attention returned to Snapper. ‘That’s another time he’s punched me!’ he complained each time I punched him.

‘More in sorrow than in anger,’ I lied. I was so angry I could barely maintain my own accent.

But I had forgotten the Duel Rule. As teenagers Father and Snap had argued. Father had set fire to the bill of his brother’s hat and shoved him through a plate glass window. To settle the rip they had a handgun duel which went wide. This tradition had been preserved like a tequila worm. At thirteen — an age I had never thought to see — I was ripe for the consequences of my belligerence.

I’d done it now.

As the day grew hotter my hopes of survival turned to mist. Leap was painting a starter mark on the lawn. ‘It’s about that time,’ said Mr Mandible, regarding his watch. ‘Thought I’d tell you before the appropriate moment’s past — your head, it looks like a spud.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Ah, don’t thank me,’ he said and wandered off, cheerful and vague.

Snapper climbed down from his treehouse dressed in combat gear and a ninja hood. Ignoring me, he began a preparatory breathing exercise.

‘Laughing boy,’ said Leap, startling me — I spun to face him. ‘A word in your bell-like. Your lethargy has wrought the havoc we are used to. Even the flowers have ceased functioning as a result of your leering hatred. You’ve contributed more than anyone to the hellish incineration of human understanding. I feel a raw bleeding wonder when I see you lacking expression from ear to ear. I’d split my own meat to know what you’re up to. Watch your back.’

‘Better get over there, laughing boy,’ said Father, striding up.

‘I seem not to have any choice in the matter,’ I said morosely.

‘The darkest hour’s just before the dawn.’

‘So are the majority of bed deaths, Father.’

‘You a man or a mouse?’

‘I appear to be allowed the understanding of the latter.’

‘Well your Mother, Nan, Adrienne and I, we’re all right behind you — isn’t that right — ? Ah they’re talking to Snap. Well, off you go.’

‘Au revoir.’

‘Indeed — and the best of British luck to you.’

‘Then it’s goodbye.’

I started across the heat-blurred lawn toward the sentry figures of Snap and the Verger. I felt as if I was walking to the circus and clung to the hope of a sudden, distracting haemorrhage. Everything felt obscenely real as I reached the starter mark. ‘Your damnation’s on the cards, laughing boy,’ stated the Verger, opening the gun box to reveal two machine pistols. Snap took his and slapped in a magazine, braying with laughter. My mouth was too dry to tell the Verger what I thought of him, my mind too ripped to think it. I took the other gun, which was as heavy as a crowbar, and pushed in a magazine uncertainly. The Verger placed the box aside. ‘Thirty paces and no pausing to poison the well — agreed?’

Snapper nodded formally. I licked my lips and said thickly, ‘You have my sacred word for it.’

‘Your sacred word,’ said the Verger in disgust. He turned and walked away.

‘This monkey’s gone to heaven, laughing boy,’ whispered Snapper. ‘Time to snog god in the eye.’

‘I daresay.’

I was quite prepared to lie expiring in a bloodpuddle the shape of the British Isles, slick with acceptance. Goodbye to a world of re-run conversation and louts who swear blind that sand is yellow.

A way off, everyone stood blank-faced and shimmering in the rising heat. Adrienne was wearing the slave bracelet I had given her. Life rammed me between the eyes.

The Verger raised a signal cloth. Snap and I stood back to back, and at the drop of the cloth we were off.

It was just like a stroll in the garden, except that I was about to die. Details were blazing up pell mell. There were useless golden bees and other hilarious insects. Cornflower skies over burnt lawns, bleaching bones and the whiskers of flowers. Copper leaves surrounded trees like happy, fairy-tale blood. The fathomless lake floated like a mirage. The shed was a bronzed pagoda brimming with smug, infuriating sages. The sun was dripping like an ingot. I saw the sap sweating from a tree, heard the tickle of every leaf upon every other leaf.

Preoccupied with these sensations, I collided with an ornamental concrete leper. Realising my situation, I wheeled about. Snap was in position with a raised gun. This was it. But my mind was still off the hook. I didn’t feel worried.

He fired wide.

Who was I trying to fool? I felt such a damburst of relief I started singing discordant gibberish and eating grass and soil, sobbing with hilarity as I strutted like an untried matador. I heard distant applause from the onlookers. The gun lay forgotten nearby, full of blanks. Father would explain that firing wide was part of the tradition — as was being scared shitless.

I knelt on the lawn, peacefully chewing grass and earth. Immense fluxes of heat were rippling the air. The Hall was blurring and warping like a pious motive.

The following day was chilly and damp. The Hall continued to warp.