The Devil's Music Read online

  From where you’re sitting, you can just make out hats, hundreds of bowler hats and trilbies filling the street between two rows of tall buildings.

  ‘Will ye look at this!’ Ian holds the book up for you.

  There are ropes and pulleys. A bundle hangs from the side of one of the tall buildings, high above the upturned faces. You peer at the bundle. Yes, it’s a human form, upside down, wrists tied behind. The hairs on the back of your neck prickle. You imagine the rush of blood to the head, the grind of wrist and ankle bones. There’s white handwriting across the photograph: Straight jacket escape. You laugh, handing the book back to Ian. ‘Someone can’t spell straitjacket.’

  It’s Andy that takes the book from you, smoothing the page with the palm of his hand. ‘Grampy got it from the library for me.’

  ‘Lucky old you! How is he today? Did he give you a drink?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ian looks at his watch.

  ‘How’s your brother?’ A clumsy attempt to distract him from the time, keep him here in the hot garden with the smell of creosote rising up from the fence.

  ‘I’m awa tae pay him a visit. Take him to the pairk.’

  ‘To see the horses?’ Andy’s face lights up.

  ‘Ay, the horses. Ye cud come. Whit wid ye say tae that?’

  Already Andy is on his feet.

  ‘Andrew, no, you’ve just got in. It’s far too hot.’ Your voice trails off because Susie slides from your lap, stripy summer dress riding up over her bottom.

  ‘And me,’ she says.

  Three expectant faces look at you.

  Ian pushes the wheelchair, while you have Elaine in the pushchair with the canopy to give her some shade. Other couples in the park have small babies in perambulators and pushchairs.

  Andy and Susie race in and out of the rhododendron bushes playing hide and seek as Ian explains that he takes his brother out two or three times a week. His mother, who is quite elderly, can have a nap, or just put her feet up.

  Jamie stares at the sky, hands plucking at his trousers, his face still at last. When you first arrived at Ian’s parents’ house and went into the sitting room where he lay on a sofa, you’d been shocked to see Jamie was a man, not the boy you’d imagined. Only sixteen but already broad-shouldered, like Ian, with muscular, hairy arms. His jaw, working furiously as soon as Ian stepped in the room, was dark with a five o’clock shadow. His tongue twisted and toiled, his mouth opening and closing and stretching into a grin, as he grunted and yelped in greeting. Appalled, you’d halted in the doorway with the children, struggling to regain control of your emotions as Ian embraced his brother.

  You stop by the pond and pull out the bread. Ducks appear, flapping and quacking, from all directions. Some stagger out of the water and putter at your feet with their beaks.

  Heat rises from the tarmac path. It won’t be long before Susie and Andy demand a drink or an ice cream. Jamie’s head rolls as if too heavy for his neck, but he rests his chin on his chest and carefully cups his hands together as you give him some torn-up bread. As he flings the bread towards the ducks with both hands, crumbs and chunks scatter on his lap. When the bread is gone, you stroll together around the boating lake, where the boats are bottoms up because it’s getting near to closing time for the day. One or two of the boats need repainting. The ticket hut is already shuttered and bolted. The park is emptying out now, people moving towards the exits. Soon the big iron gates will be locked.

  As you walk on, past the striped bowling green, past the tennis courts where people are zipping racquets into covers and collecting up balls, and past the crowds of damp-haired children smelling of chlorine gathered at the entrance to the open-air swimming pool, Jamie hums and points and rocks his head. Ian bends down to him every now and then. Andy and Susie run around the empty bandstand ahead and duck down, ready to leap out when you walk past. The sky is blue, cloudless.

  ‘Real June weather today.’ You want to break the silence.

  Ian stops, cranes his head backwards, looking up at the sky. Below his beard the hair on his neck grows upwards, like lush grass against the foot of a fencepost. His Adam’s apple slides when he speaks. ‘Gey near noo. One of Jamie’s favourite places.’ He points to the top of a Witch’s Hat roundabout a little further on, just visible above the shrubs. He looks ahead and walks quickly. ‘I hae a commission – weans in a playground, for a charity Christmas card, to go on sale next year.’

  ‘Goodness.’ You do a little skip to keep up with Ian and the wheelchair. ‘How wonderful!’

  ‘Only a commission.’

  ‘Yes, but ...’

  As you round the bushes, Susie and Andy are already there, fingers and noses through the wire mesh fence, eyes on the two rows of rocking horses. There are about fifteen in the enclosure, their painted flanks gleaming in the sun. These are not traditional rocking horses, legs tidied into symmetrical curves, but individually carved. Every leg has been given a different angle, stretch or lift or flick of a hoof. The horses are assorted sizes, some piebald, some brown or black, some white. They’re beautiful.

  Jamie is gurning again at the sight of the riderless horses, his face contorted with smiles. The playground is empty, no other children anywhere to be seen.

  ‘I’d love to know who made them.’ You gaze through the fence. ‘They’ve been crafted so lovingly.’

  ‘Ay.’ Ian puts the brake on the wheelchair and rattles the gate to the enclosure. ‘Do ye no think we should mebbe try to get in?’

  ‘Oh. Is Jamie all right?’

  ‘He’s no complaining.’

  Jamie’s face moves between grimace to grin, his tongue twisting as he nods vigorously. Elaine stares ahead placidly. You push a damp curl from her face. ‘Look at the lovely horses, sweetheart.’

  ‘Mummy, it’s shut, it’s shut,’ Susie whines. The gate is padlocked. Andy has a toe in the wire mesh ready to attempt to climb the six-foot fence, waiting for a signal from Ian.

  Ian lifts the padlock, twists the metal hoop and it drops open. ‘There we are noo!’

  The children cheer and barge through. Ian manoeuvres Jamie’s wheelchair through the narrow gateway. Jamie’s grin is lopsided, gummy, but the sparkle in his eyes gives you a jolt; it’s the first time you’ve looked him in the eye.

  ‘Look see!’ Ian says, a hand on your arm. ‘Close your eyes and open them – they’re galloping.’ He laughs and whistles ‘Hop-along Cassidy’ as he walks down the row, running his hand over the horses’ rumps.

  You put a hand on the arching neck of the largest black horse and stroke the horsehair mane. The eyes are glass, shining and dark, with both pupil and iris. ‘Are you going to paint these?’

  ‘For starters, I’m gonny ride one.’ He’s gathered the leather reins of one horse into his large hand. His fingers still have white paint on them.

  ‘What?’

  Andy and Susie are already shrieking and waving, rocking to and fro.

  ‘Think I’m jesting?’ He strides back up the row towards you, putting the palm of his hand under each horse’s nostrils as if they are breathing creatures, his face glowing as if he’s caught the sun. ‘I havnae ridden a real one. You?’

  You shake your head.

  He comes to where you’re standing by the big black horse. ‘This one’s biggest. It’ll take my weight, for sure. For sure.’ He grips the worn leather saddle with both hands and glances over his shoulder. There’s no one around. ‘Aye, gie it a whirl!’

  He grunts as he mounts. ‘Come on!’ His voice holds such urgency that, before you know it, your foot’s in the stirrup and you’ve thrown a leg over a horse’s back. The horse responds to the forward thrust of your hips; you and Ian move forward and back in unison. You smile at his smile, the exhilaration and the children’s ecstatic whoops. Jamie’s head nods to and fro with the movement, smiling broadly, his eyes wide beneath raised eyebrows. He whoops too, lifting a hand. Elaine sits motionless in the pushchair, her face shaded, but her eyes slide, following yo
u, forward and back.

  Ian shouts to Jamie, ‘Will you take a look at us!’ Jamie lifts his twisted hands from his lap and carefully brings them together and apart again. He’s clapping. ‘Uh Huh! Uh Huh! Uh Huh!’ he repeats with each clap. But it brings a lump to your throat when you look back at Elaine, silent, her face devoid of emotion.

  Ian throws his head back, laughing again. ‘A posse!’

  ‘We’re a posse!’ Susie and Andy shout. ‘Yahoo!’

  You lean back too, blinking back tears. The sky is open and blue. Yes, you think to yourself, a posse.

  You will save this memory, preserve it clear as crab apple jelly so that you can look back and wonder at your childish excitement, the blue brilliance of the June sky.

  Chapter 7

  I look at my new Timex wristwatch. There’s time to go and see Grampy on the way home from school. I take Susie’s satchel and pick up her hand to make her walk faster.

  Grampy’s house smells of kippers today. So do his hands. Grampy’s fingers are big and lumpy. There is dirt from gardening down behind his fingernails. He makes sss-sss-sss noises between his teeth while he’s winding the seaming twine around the rope.

  ‘Do you see?’ he says, and holds the end of the rope up for me to look at the whipping turns. Then he shows me the other end of the rope, with the strands coming undone so that the rope is fuzzy instead of smooth.

  ‘This,’ he waves the untwisted end under my nose, ‘this is what happens if ropes or cables are left with their ends uncared for. They become unmanageable. So, my Treasure, which knot could we use on this end?’

  I scratch my heel and pretend to think hard about his question but I decided, as soon as I saw it was a four-stranded rope, I would show Grampy I can do a Royal Crown by myself.

  ‘Can I do a Royal Crown?’

  ‘Mmm. We’ll see whether you can or whether you can’t, shall we?’ Grampy hands me the ball of waxed seaming twine and sits back with his arms crossed over his chest and his hands tucked into his armpits.

  Susie comes in from the garden with a daisy. She gives it to Grampy and then holds her arms up to be lifted on to Grampy’s lap. She leans her head against his chest and sucks her thumb.

  Grampy holds up the daisy and swirls it between his finger and thumb. ‘If you can find me a few more of these, duck, I might be able to make you a daisy chain.’

  Susie takes her thumb out of her mouth and smiles and nods as she slides off his lap and runs back outside. It’s just me and Grampy, which is best. I check my new Timex again. Ten more minutes or Mummy will start to worry.

  Back home, I stand in just my underpants in front of the wardrobe mirror in Mummy’s room. I have my handcuffs on, like Houdini in the photograph on page 24 of Grampy’s book. Houdini has loads more muscle. In the mirror my legs are white and thin. There is Elastoplast on one knee. My hair is a bit the same as Houdini’s, sort of thick and wavy and with a parting to one side, but otherwise I don’t look much like him yet. I squeeze the muscles in my legs really hard. My kneecaps move up.

  In the photograph, Houdini is behind bars like a prison door, but they are not real bars. The bars, Grampy told me, have been drawn on with a pen. The photograph is a fake, a make-pretend picture of Houdini in a cage. Even Houdini’s swimming trunks are drawn on.

  Houdini’s name wasn’t really Harry Houdini. It was Erich Weiss. His old name sounds wrong.

  When I can swim a length of the swimming pool by myself, I will get a yellow cloth band for Mummy to sew on to my swimming trunks. I’ve already got a white one for swimming a width. There are other things I must learn if I am going to be an escapologist, like holding my breath for a long time and treading water.

  Houdini was very good at treading water without using his hands to help keep him afloat. He needed his hands to untie the knots under water. He could hold his breath under water for three minutes. I practise this part in the bath. I push the bolt on the bathroom door across and put my new Timex on the edge of the bath. My ribs go up and my tummy sucks in and I practise untying knots with my hands under water, holding my breath.

  Mummy raps on the door. ‘Andy, do hurry up in there. It’s time for Susie’s bath.’

  Houdini practised all the time to get good. He knew about lots of knots. And my book says he listened for The Voice. It was only in his head. But he never jumped off a bridge or went under water until he heard The Voice. I want to know if The Voice was big and loud, or soft and quiet.

  With my black wax crayon I draw thick bars on the wardrobe mirror. Grampy tells me that in ancient times, the art of knot tying was held in great esteem because knots kept treasures safe.

  Chapter 8

  Rubbing flour and sugar and margarine for tonight’s rhubarb crumble between your fingertips, you decide to bake rock buns, something different to offer Ian tomorrow.

  Showery rain hits the kitchen window like gravel and Michael’s key turns in the lock. While he’s in the hall shaking the water off his mackintosh, you slip Andy’s TOP SECRET notepad back into the drawer under the tea towels. The potatoes have just come to the boil. You’re reaching for the matches to light the gas under the peas, have the match ready, about to strike it, when Michael turns swiftly in the kitchen doorway and closes the door. He leans back against it, knocking the peg bag from its hook.

  ‘What ...?’

  A muscle is working in his jaw. There’s something ...

  ‘It’s Andrew.’ Michael’s back is pressed against the door. ‘Don’t go out there.’

  ‘Michael, I ...’ Your hand, still holding the match, shakes. Focus on sliding the match box open and laying the match beside the others, the round brown heads clustered neatly together. Close the box. Place it beside Susie’s empty glass. Take a breath.

  ‘Michael, you’re being very melodramatic. What on earth’s going on?’

  Another step and you reach for the door handle. Michael grabs your wrist, pulling your body to his. You can smell hospital on him, stale antiseptic. His eyes flick from side to side as he looks into yours, his pupils like pinpricks.

  ‘Andrew’s playing some damn fool trick, hanging himself upside down from the banisters.’

  As if lit by a flash bulb, you see it: the black-and-white image of Houdini wrapped in a straitjacket, hanging from his ankles above a street thronged with hats and upturned faces.

  ‘No!’

  Michael has his arms across your back, his mouth at your ear, hissing, ‘You mustn’t. Ignore it. Think about why he does these things!’

  ‘My God, Michael!’ Every muscle is straining. ‘He could kill himself.’ Willing your body free from Michael’s hold – teeth clenched – grunts of exertion come from deep in your throat. He’s got both your wrists now, and holds them at shoulder height so your arms cannot move. The lid over the potatoes rattles; water spurts out, hissing on the hot stove. Michael’s body is rigid, his neck flushed and swollen against the collar and tie tight at his throat, his breathing hot against the side of your face. He’s so much stronger than you are.

  Your body flops, your head droops, eyes following the line of the crease in Michael’s trousers down to his polished shoes, dark with damp. Beyond the shut kitchen door, Andy hangs in the hallway, a rope around his ankles. Arms limp now, you sway a little, towards Michael’s chest. His shirt is coming untucked. He licks his lips and begins to lower your arms, his fingers loosening their grasp on your wrists. He frees one wrist to sweep the flop of hair from his eyes and that’s when you bring your knee up, hard, into his groin so that he groans and bends double, staggering forward just enough to let you pull the door open a little and wriggle past him into the hallway.

  Andy is hauling himself hand over hand back up a rope tied to the banisters. He can’t use his feet to take his weight, because they’re tied together at the ankles.

  ‘Andy!’

  You run up to the half landing and lean over the handrail to grasp the rope and heave him up. Once the weight of the top half of his body is over the han
drail his legs slither over and he falls into you. You both end up on the floor. You wrap your arms around his shoulders and rock. Andy rubs the palms of his hands. From the kitchen comes a strong smell of burning; the potatoes must be sticking. You’re just about to call out to Michael when you hear an almighty clang. Something metallic rolls: a saucepan lid. The back door slams. The painting of the ship at sea above your head rocks on its wires. Susie appears in the sitting-room doorway, thumb in mouth, and looks up at you both.

  At first Andy resists your enclosing arms, rubbing his ankles and then his palms again, but you hold him, rocking to and fro, to and fro, until your heart slows down and you can get to your feet.

  Michael has flung the potato pan into the sink with such force bits of potato are spattered over the floor, the walls and the curtains. You fill the bucket and mop the floor, squeeze out a cloth, dab at the curtains and wipe drying lumps from the Formica surfaces. By the time you’ve finished, both children are at the kitchen table squabbling over crayons and you must feed them before they are too tired to eat.

  Once they are in bed you take the notepad from its hiding place under the tea towels and rip it apart, feeding page after page to the boiler. Bone weary, you dial her number and, even as you begin to recount the evening’s events, you know Hoggie will get on her bicycle and be with you before ten minutes have passed.

  At the front door, her mass of red hair is haloed by the setting sun and the relief reduces you to tears. She puts her arms round you, hugs you close, palms rubbing your back in comforting circles. You talk into the red hair. It smells faintly of the hospital kitchens.

  ‘I’m worried he will have gone to Dad’s. He was so – furious. And he’ll blame Dad for this whole Houdini thing. And ... do you think I hurt him badly?’

  ‘Go.’ She gives your back a final dismissive pat. ‘Go and find him. I’ll stay here with the children.’

  Because you’ve forgotten to lift before you push, your father’s metal front gate grinds to a halt on the uneven crazy paving slabs. You struggle frantically to force it wide enough to squeeze through. The house is quiet – no lights blazing, no raised voices clamouring through the open windows. You’re wrong; Michael hasn’t come here after all.