To the Top of the Mountain

10

THEY’RE LYING IN bed. The sunset is reflected on their young bodies, still damp with sweat. It’s the calm after the storm. The desire has subsided but it will wake again soon, it’s never far away. It will always be there. Not even death can keep them apart.

But it’s also the calm before the storm. That’s how the saying really goes. And now, for them, the storm really is approaching.

The hurricane.

That’s the insight that slowly begins to spread through them. The calm, the always temporary calm, gives way.

Trembles of unease ripple through their nakedness.

He sits up on the edge of the bed. He is pale, she is dark, and she can see, at that moment she can see where his mind has gone. Again. She leans over to him, her breasts softly grazing his back. Slowly and carefully, she pulls him back from the shadow of death. Like he has done so many times for her.

She knows that he can see the school playground. She knows that he has stepped out of himself. She knows that he can see a boy, a young, pale boy, lying on the desolate football field. She knows that he can hear ‘If you get up, we’ll hit you.’ One after another, they go forward. Stand there a moment. Peering down at him. Then they piss on him. One by one. Only the boys at first. The girls are in the background, giggling, thrilled. The brave ones leave, though none of them are brave enough to tell. It’ll just keep going on. And on. Still, no girl has done it yet. A comfort in his distress. Then the last floodgate opens. A girl comes forward. She is wearing a skirt. She has already taken her knickers off, she is holding them in her hand. She squats over him, carefully. Slowly pisses on his body. She is dark.

He feels something soft against his back, and it brings him to his senses. He lifts off, floats, soars ahead. He is sitting on the edge of a bed, flying. He puts his hand behind his head and reaches her. Lets his hand move through her dark hair.

And she can smile again.

‘I was hurt,’ she says, trying to stop herself from crying. ‘I was dead. You brought me back. You know that.’

They sit there, their limbs strangely twisted. They’re a sculpture. For ever united. By an eternal love.

‘What do you want?’ she asks.

It’s a ritual. Neither can depart from it. He smiles, and says: ‘I want to sit on a veranda, reading. It’ll be warm, but raining gently. The rain’ll be pattering nicely on the roof of the veranda, and when I look up from the book, I’ll see the steam rising between the raindrops.’

She smiles. She knows it so well. She says: ‘D’you know what I want?’

He laughs. ‘No idea.’

‘I want to hear the dolphins singing. I want to see the foam along the edge of the pale blue water. I want to see the dolphins playing in freedom. I want to hear them talk to one another when there’s no trainer there to drill them.’

He turns round and gives her one last big embrace, stands up, pulls on his clothes and walks over to the backpack lying on the floor. He looks down into it.

She stands up too, slowly pulling on her clothes, going over to him and wrapping her arms around him. She too looks down into the bag.

Inside, there are two black, knitted balaclavas and two black pistols.

He bends down and pulls the zip shut.

Then he takes the car key from the desk, throws it up into the air, catches it and looks into her eyes.

‘Let’s go and arrange that, then,’ he says.