Beast Read online

  From the chair I could just reach out and open the cupboard. In the cupboard I found a cracked china bowl of soft potatoes some dried beans in a plastic bag a loaf of bread a pile of teabags a packet of painkillers and two big bars of chocolate. When I saw the chocolate my heart leaped. Sugar and water I wanted sugar and water so much. I took out the bars of chocolate and the pills. I dragged the jerry can of water over to the table and opened it and poured water into an old blue mug on the tabletop. I drank and drank four or five or six mugfuls. I took four painkillers and then I unwrapped one of the bars of chocolate. I ate it deliberately slowly. I felt the sugar slide across my tongue and down my throat and set my body running. Then I drank two more mugs of water and sat in the chair at the table and breathed steadily and gently.

  After a while the pain in my head began to subside and the throbbing died down a bit. The pains in my knee and my chest didn’t change but they were less of a problem if I sat still. I decided that my chest would heal itself if I just left it alone. I didn’t know if that was true but I had nothing else to tell myself. There was nobody here to help me and I could not go looking for help. Where would I go? I didn’t know anything about that. Nothing was clear. I was here and this was my problem and that was all.

  But I knew I would have to do something about my leg if I was going to be able to walk properly. A splint was the only thing I could think of. I sat at the table and looked through the window at the sky in the yard. It was pure white. The air was hot and muggy as if a storm was coming. Everything was still and quiet. I sat and thought about splints. What was a splint exactly and how did it work? As far as I knew I needed a stick. I supposed I needed a stick as long as my leg and something to strap it to my leg with. Some rope. That sounded right. There was clearly nothing like that in this room. If I wanted a stick and some rope I would have to go outside.

  When I found the strength and inclination I hauled myself to my feet again and I got myself to the door the same way I had got myself to the table. I was mastering this slow and strange way of walking already. A body will adapt to anything. I got myself to the door and I swung it open and hobbled out into the yard outside. There was an impression of whiteness and stillness. It was hot out here as well. Hot and muggy and still and the sky was a uniform white across the farmyard and over the top of the silent ash trees and up to the moor. A ripped tarpaulin a steel ladder and several plastic bags lay in the centre of the yard. I turned myself around and looked up at the roof of the house I had been sleeping in. A sheet of corrugated iron was hanging off. There was a big gap in the roof.

  It was so still. I stood in the warmth in the white warmth breathing. I had worked out just how much breath I could take in and ease out without my chest screaming. My breath was all I could hear. I stood in the centre of the yard breathing slowly and steadily surrounded by ripped tarpaulin and plastic bags. The door of the house was open and the sky was white. There was white everywhere. Things drifted into my head and out again. Words and offerings cravings and needs all of them tugging me around demanding that I follow them. I let them come in and roll out again roll on into the whiteness without me. I didn’t know what any of this was. I stood breathing in breathing out watching it all come in and all roll out in the silence of the still trees and the empty weight of the stone beneath and around me.

  In the barn on the other side of the farmyard I found a frayed stretch of blue nylon rope and a broken handle from an old broom or rake. I used the handle as a walking stick on my way back to the house and found it made the journey easier. Inside I leaned on the door until it closed and then I sat down on the edge of the bed. I wondered what I should do. Did I just strap the handle to my leg? I supposed it was that simple. It was slightly shorter than my leg and that seemed to be about right. But my leg would not straighten. It bent outwards at the knee and the knee would not bend without terrible pain.

  It was agony. I tied the blue rope tight around the top of my thigh and then I wound it in a spiral down both my leg and the stick pulling it tight as I did so. I thought I was going to die it was so painful but I would not scream. This was my mission this was my pride I would not scream I would do this without screaming. By the time it was done I was sweating and shaking. I lay back down on the bed and hauled my splinted leg up onto the mattress. The leg was shaking and my hands were shaking but I felt heroic. Was I supposed to sleep with it on? I wondered. How long should it be on for? Was this right? Had I made things worse? I didn’t know anything. But I looked at my leg and through the pain I could see that it was straighter than it had been. I hoped that was right. It was too late now.

  I lay there letting the pain and the shaking subside letting the sugar run through me and the water do its work. It felt like morning. I had images in my head. Shapes but no names. People feelings fear and anger and shame and purity and wonder all of them making shapes inside me. The shapes came the shapes come the people come and go. I am coming and going rising and falling with all of it around me. I know so little here I know nothing. My name is Edward my name is Edward Buckmaster there are circles around me I am a stone dropped into a pool. Something has happened I am in pain I am still in pain. Someone is waiting for me where the moor ends. I think there is much that I do not see.

  It would be impossible for me to guess how much time passed in this way. Every day was the same and this was how it had always been. Every day in this stone room with the table and chair with the cupboard and the window with the white heat outside and around me. I was here and perhaps had always been here or perhaps had never been here before but I didn’t think much about it. I had my body to think about I had to rebuild I was being born again in the world retraining my muscles understanding my pain.

  In time I developed a daily routine. I would wake in the morning or what I presumed was the morning because when I began to think about it I saw that it was impossible to tell what time of day it was. It always seemed to be hot and light I never saw the darkness come or go and I had no watch so I simply told myself that it was morning when I woke. Every morning then I would lever myself stiffly out of bed. Every morning I would pay attention to the level of pain in my leg and in my chest and in my body as a whole. Every day on waking I was seized with a panic a kind of fear that the pain would be worse that something would have gone wrong in the night that I would not be able to move because if this happened it would be the end. But in fact every day the pain was either the same or a little better. I would lever myself out of bed and I would lie on the floor and slowly I would stretch and flex every part of my body until I felt I was ready to move.

  Then I would open the door and I would go outside into the white heat. Every morning after I had stretched and flexed life back into my body I would step out into the air to remind me where I was to remind me of my life. I would take the jerry can with me and slowly I would hobble and shuffle on my splinted leg across the yard and through the wooden gate. As my confidence had grown and my body had come back to me I had begun to explore the place. The first priority had been to find water and beyond the gate and down the track I had found a place where a small stream pooled and the water seemed clean and fresh. Every day I would fill the can with as much water as I could carry. Then I would hobble and shuffle back up to the house dragging the can behind me and pour myself several mugs of it and sit at the table and drink slowly and feel the water echo down my throat and into my stomach because this was life. After that I would light a fire and heat water for tea even if I didn’t want any. I would eat a little bread though not too much because I needed to ration it. I had no idea where to find any more food or how I would get there even if I knew. While it lasted I ate chocolate and every other day I would allow myself some painkillers if I needed them.

  I would sit by the fire as it warmed willing it into my body holding my hands over it feeling the heat rise. I would make tea and drink it at its hottest feel it scald my lips my tongue my throat feel the life burning down into me. I would stand and walk around the room. A
ll day I would try not to sit or lie still for too long. I had decided that I must train my body back into working shape. Making a fire tending the fire drinking water collecting water moving through the door out of the house back into the house in the white heat of the day and the white heat of the night. There was nothing else. Nothing seemed to change nothing seemed to move but every day I was sure my head was clearer every day I was sure the pain was less and less.

  At first I started counting the days but I soon gave up. Perhaps it has been about three weeks since I opened my eyes out in the yard. This is my best guess. Three weeks of sleeping eating drinking collecting water walking slowly around the stone. Three weeks of the white heat that is everywhere three weeks of the silence. Three weeks of slowly gathering strength. I am lying here now on the bed but the splint is gone. I untied the rope and unwound it a few days ago. It was a risk but I think it has paid off. I can put a little weight on the leg now and the knee looks more like a knee again. I have been using the former splint as a walking stick because I still can’t walk properly though I have come a long way. My leg is straighter though still not as straight as I think it should be. I still get headaches. It is still hot and white and quiet. There are no birds no sounds outside I hear nothing. I am sweating again as I lie here but that is because of what has just happened. I need sleep. I’m sweating and exhausted and the pain is beating inside my skull it is clawing at me trying to break free. I almost feel like I have relapsed. But it was worth it. Because today I found what I went looking for.

  Let me go back. Six days ago I think it was six days ago I woke with what I supposed was the morning light. I got up slowly and eased my stiff body out of bed. I still seized up in my sleep and I still felt like a corpse every morning. I walked around the room a couple of times and I began to unwind. Then I walked to the stove and lit a fire to make tea. I went over to the door and opened it and hobbled stiffly out into the yard as I did every morning. The pain down the left side of my body was still constant. My knee bent in the wrong direction but at least it bent now. I thought my ribs must be healing. At any rate I was still alive. I stood in the yard and I faced the four directions in turn. The sky was still white it was still hot and the ash trees were silent. Above the farmyard loomed the great brown slopes of a moor. Some mornings I would stand in the yard and look up at the moor and feel it was my protector. Other mornings I would feel it was my jailer. Some days I refused to look at it at all.

  The moor was an enemy this morning. It was watching me whether I stood in the yard or hid inside my room and closed the door. It was a great presence which held me down and I would not be held down anymore. I had been in this small world for so long circling the table circling the yard drinking sitting walking up and down. Everything was white and split apart and nothing was known. For me to be here. I could not stay here a moment longer. I had to go. Broken in this broken place I had to walk into the whiteness. I needed to see beyond. I needed answers I wanted words put to shapes I wanted a history. I wanted to name this place and all the things in it. It was enough now. There could be no more.

  I decided I would walk away. I would walk to the town. I was sure there was a town somewhere and that it was not so far I felt I remembered this and I thought that maybe I knew how to reach it. I felt that if I left and headed down the track and just kept walking then my body would remember where to go. When I got to the town I felt that something would happen. There would be answers there. Things would become clear in the town there would be other people and questions could be asked. I would see familiar things for I had been to the town before I was sure of that. There were images there were notions of it. This place now it was caging me it was tightening around me there was no breathing here. Something would happen in the town. And even if there were no town even if I got lost on the moor then at least I would be away from here. At least things would open up and begin to happen again.

  I went back inside and made tea and drank it slowly. I ate the last of the very stale bread. The chocolate had run out weeks ago but I hadn’t been hungry recently I just wanted to drink. My body craved water. I drank some and took the last of the painkillers. My headache ebbed and flowed but it never went away. Then I packed a jacket and a bottle of water into a rucksack that had been hanging above the bed and I strapped my boots on slowly and painfully. I couldn’t tie my left boot tightly. I picked up the stick that I’d used as a splint and I walked out of the door into the whiteness.

  Everything was white. It wasn’t just the sky everything was white and new and washed clean. A new energy flooded through me new life came into me as I moved as I headed for the beyond. I went out through the farm gate and closed it and made my way slowly down the track outside. The muggy white heat pressed in on me as I walked. I stopped within a few hundred yards and took my shirt off and walked in my T-shirt. I continued downhill along the track. This was a test for me. I felt it was a long way to the town but a sense of direction was coming to me now a sense of where I was what this place was. Yes. I would have to climb the crest of the moor and trudge through rough heather. Up and over and down. I didn’t know if my body could carry me but I would try this because the only other thing was to return to the stone room and I would not return there.

  As I walked I felt the strange and awkward rhythm of my crippled frame. I was lurching down onto my left leg and supporting it with the stick then loping ahead with my right. I felt like a beggar on a slow pilgrimage but the result was an intense awareness of what I was. I could feel my body working or trying to work I could feel the muscles straining and how the bones knitted together and moved with the tendons. When I got to the stream I turned right and followed it up towards the shoulder of the moor. The climb was hard work. I had to stop and drink regularly. The heat didn’t help. Halfway up the climb I stumbled over a rock by the stream and sat down heavily on it. I decided to rest. The sound of the stream was the only sound I heard. I had already got through half of my water and I was only a mile or so from the farm.

  I continued slowly up to the tops and then I followed a peaty track through the heather. I was on a huge expanse of open heather moor now wide and brown and green under the close sky. On the horizon to my right I could see the moor climbing upwards and peaking in a high rocky tor. To the left of the tor the land sloped down and slid into a deep stone gully. I walked now in the rhythm and I didn’t stop. I didn’t want to break the spell. I could feel my head emptying but I didn’t will it. I just walked and breathed and felt my legs jerking over the black track as I headed slowly towards where the other people were.

  It must have taken a couple of hours for me to walk across the top of the moor following the black track and keeping to my rhythm. When I reached the point where the track began to descend I knew that I would make it to the town. I didn’t know how I felt about that now. All of my questions seemed to have been swallowed by the heather and the sky but I kept walking because there was nothing else. Soon I arrived at a wooden gate where the rough footpath became a lane that headed down into the valley where the town was. I remembered it all now. I went through the gate and began to walk down the lane. Hedges of elder and ash and thorn grew up on either side of me and beyond them the heather and broom of the moor began to give way to fields of grass dotted with patches of bracken and bent, gnarled trees.

  It was then that the silence really hit me. It had been quiet in the house and in the farmyard and up on the moor but this lane was stiller surely than a lane should be. There were no rustlings in the undergrowth there was no noise in the hedges or the trees. No cows no dogs no sheep no cars no voices close or distant. No animals at all and no birds either. I realised then that I had not seen or heard any birds since the accident. There was no life here at all. Nothing moved except me.

  I kept walking. I felt it was perhaps a couple of miles now to the edge of the town. I passed an old church which I knew I had seen before. It was a squat medieval church with a square tower and a giant yew tree in its graveyard. I felt it
was early afternoon though I couldn’t see the sun to make any judgement. I wondered what would happen when I got to the town. I didn’t know what I wanted. Suddenly I felt the need to explain myself. Perhaps I wanted to go shopping. I probably needed food though I wasn’t hungry. Or perhaps I wanted to go to a doctor. There would be a doctor there. Perhaps I should show somebody my knee and my ribs and the scratches on my chest perhaps I should talk to somebody about everything that had happened. I kept walking. When I got there I would know what to do.

  And then I found myself outside the church again. I found myself coming down the lane to the church again. I found myself coming down the lane from the moor to the exact same point where I had been perhaps twenty minutes before. I stopped and looked around me. I didn’t understand what had happened. As far as I could remember you just followed this lane down and it went to the edge of the town. But here I was outside the church again and I was sure I had passed this way already. I sat down and drank some water. It was still hot. I didn’t know how I had managed to get lost. Perhaps I had remembered wrong. Everything was still so unclear. I had probably got it wrong taken a wrong turning. I set off again down the lane towards the town paying attention this time to where I was.

  It happened again. After another twenty minutes or so I found myself coming back down the lane towards the church. I was puzzled now and angry too. What the hell was happening? I was angry with myself. I had thought I would manage this trip. Now it looked like my legs could do it but my mind could not. What was going wrong? Where was the wrong turning I was taking? I couldn’t remember taking any turning at all. Up the lane was the moor and down the lane was the town. It seemed straightforward. Surely it was straightforward.