THE MEANDER

Alan Dent

            Josh emerged from his scratcher at two in the afternoon having spent the previous few hours on his mobile. At once, he instructed Alexa to play Kendrick Lamar, took the black brick Bluetooth into the bathroom and ran the shower to hot. Loudly accompanying his favourite song, he shampooed and gelled. It was four by the time he was groomed and dressed to his satisfaction. Ten minutes later, his friend Leon arrived in his mother-bought ten-year-old Seat: reward for passing and securing an apprenticeship in plumbing.

                                    “You drive like my grandad,” said Josh, as they took the busy road out of town.

                                    “If I crash, I’m fucked.”

                                    “Your mum will buy you another.”

                                    “She won’t. She’s not loaded like your grandma.”

 

Josh laughed and pushed the seat back to accommodate his lamppost legs.

            They were soon on the B road to Ridgeton, the little town in the valley where their friend Sam lived. Unlit, winding between hedges, spare of houses and pubs, it was ideal for testing the car and driving skills.

                                    “Give it some oomph,” said Josh.

                                    “You drive your fucking car and I’ll drive mine.”

            The woman who answered the door was in her mid-forties and though her face betrayed a degree of wear, her smile was welcoming and her tone of voice embracing.

                                    “Hello, boys. He’s in the kitchen, just finishing his tea. Ooo, it’s got colder hasn’t it?”

The visitors towered over her by sixteen centimetres. She watched their backs as she closed the door. Sam was her eldest and his forays to she-didn’t-know-where, in his friends’ cars and his return long after she was in bed, evoked the usual ambivalence between granting independence and fear of multiple risks. They were decent boys, though their willingness to use language she still wouldn’t employ in front of her eighty-one year-old mother, she couldn’t get used to.

                                    “Sam,” she would say, restraining herself from harshness, “is there really any need?”

And as they bounced upstairs, she’d hear them laugh and one of them mock:

                                    “Yeah, Sam. Is there any fucking need?”

They were out of the door before she had time to ask where they were going or when he would be back.

                                    “Drive carefully!”

But they were already enclosed and the music blaring.

            Though it was a nothing-doing place, with three pubs frequented mostly by ageing couples or old men who had worked fifty years as agricultural labourers and brought their sheepdogs to lie at their feet as they sipped two pints in four hours, it was good for weed.  Sam sent a text.

                                    “Behind Bessie’s tea shop.”

                                    “Which way?” said Leon as they approached a roundabout.

                                    “Straight over, keep going, first on the left. It’s a narrow alleyway.”

                                    “Am I going to get stuck?”

                                    “No, out the other end and we’re away.”      

            Leon turned cautiously into the unlit passage.

                                    “Where is he?” he said.

            A figure stepped out of doorway, clad from head to toe in black, a balaclava pulled tight. Leon hit the brakes and lowered his window. The dealer had the stuff in a cute, little, transparent, plastic pocket.

                                    “How much?” called Josh from the passenger seat.

                                    “Sixty.”

                                    “Fuck off,” said Josh.

                                    “Not want it?” said the entrepreneur.

                                    “Sixty? Forty.”

                                    “Fifty.”

                                    “Forty-five.”

                                    “Forty-seven.”

                                    “Oh, fuckin’ give it ‘ere,” and Josh proffered two twenties and a ten.

            The window closed, the car pulled away gently.

                                    “Left or right?”

                                    “Right,” said Sam, “to the traffic lights then right again and we’re on the road to town.”

            As they rolled along at a steady forty, Josh rolled the first spliff, lit up, puffed and passed it to Sam.

                                    “Want a drag?” he said to Leon.

                                    “I’m fucking driving.”

                                    “So what?” said Josh. “A bit of weed isn’t gonna do any harm.”

                                    “If the fucking police stop me is that what I’m going to say? It’s just a bit of weed officer, want a puff?”

                                    “See a cop car, put your foot down,” said Josh.

                                    “This is good weed your gran buys,” said Sam, handing the spliff to Josh.

                                    “How much did she give you today?” said Leon.

                                    “Fifty.”

                                    “So you’re skint,” said Sam.

                                    “I’ll ask her for some more.”

            Josh brought up her contact, touched the screen and when she answered said without ceremony:

                                    “Can I have twenty for some food?”

                                    “I gave you fifty. What have you done with it?”

                                    “I had to put some petrol in my car.”

                                    “Your car’s outside the house.”

                                    “I know. I went to the garage before we set off.”

                                    “Fifty quid for petrol.”

                                    “Yeah. I’m starvin’.”

                                    “All right. I’ll transfer it now.”

                                    “Thanks.”

            Sam and Leon laughed.

                                    “She’s all right, your gran,” said Sam.

                                    “If she knew,” said Leon.

                                    “She wouldn’t do anything,” said Josh.

            A disturbing memory came to him. About a year and a half earlier, his grandmother had given him her credit card when he’d asked for twenty, and showing it to his mates they’d slapped him on the back:

                                    “You can buy what you like, mate.”

                                    “Yeah,” said Dylan, “I need some new trainers.”

                                    “I’ll buy y’a pair.”

He treated his crew to food in Nando’s, went with Dylan to JD and saw him kitted with a two hundred quid pair, white and cool. Unsure of how much he’d notched, he hoped his gran wouldn’t notice, that she’d see the items on her statement and be unable to remember. But she was devastated. There was a horrible little family crisis. His dad was told and turned up to give him an ineffective tongue-whipping; his gran was in tears and asked him why he’d done it. His mother ranted and threatened. His grandad shook his head and said, it was done, it mustn’t happen again. The incident overthrew his internal balance. He wept and was lost to himself. He had no idea why he’d done it, but he was distraught at the pain caused to his grandmother and the family’s universal disapproval. In the desolate mood which haunted him for a few days, he was unsure what would happen next: would his grandmother’s largesse cease? Would he be left without spends? Would he have to find some part-time work? But things settled down, and a few days after the peak of the crisis, leaving the house to go to town with mates, his grandmother held the door open and as he passed said in the low, conspiratorial tone she often employed;

                                    “Do you need some money?”

                                    “Yeah.”

                                    “Here,” she said, “don’t spend more than thirty,” and she handed him the card.

            Though the wise course was probably not to mention it to Sam, Leon and Dylan, he couldn’t help himself. They occupied a table in McDonalds. He’d paid last and discreetly.

                                    “Look.”

                                    “She’s given it you again?” said Dylan with a high laugh.

                                    “Yeah, but I can only spend thirty.”

                                    “Thirty hundred,” said Sam.

                                    “No, I’m not fucking doing that again.”

            Yet the temptation was present. The little oblong of plastic was in his pocket. If he exceeded the limit by five or ten, would she protest? Or twenty?

                                    “Well, she gave it ya,” said Dylan.

After McDonald’s they wandered. In HMV Dylan found  Honestly, Nevermind.

                                    “Fuck. That’s sick.”

                                    “How much?” said Josh.

                                    “Eleven eighty-seven.”

                                    “Gonna get it?”

                                    “I ain’t got the money, bro.”

                                    “Give it ‘ere.”

They wandered some more. In the white-light shopping mall, in the middle of the garish  walkway, was a long stall decorated in primary colours selling an array of sweets. Piled in compartments, coated in sugar or chocolate, pink, white, purple, blue, red, they were an invitation to regression.

                                    “Fuck me,” said Sam, “look at those. I love ‘em.”

Josh flashed the card and they walked away with their blue and white striped paper bags bulging.

            He pushed a few pounds beyond the thirty limit, but his grandma said nothing. Time went by. If he asked her for twenty, she provided. If he requested thirty, likewise. Fifty and she would protest for two seconds and relent. Little by little he settled into the sense of it being his right. His friends had jobs, dull, routine work in fast food places, paying less then ten an hour. He found a post in a pub kitchen where he had to prepare pizzas. The training took an afternoon. The work was thoroughly boring. Eight hours on his feet spreading tomato puree, grated cheese, placing pepperoni or bits of chicken and he came home not so much exhausted as dispirited. Alexa found one of his favourite rappers. Lying on his bed, his mood improved. These dudes didn’t have to slide pizzas into ovens for barely enough to pay the to-and-from bus fare. They were millionaires. Their names were known across the globe. Listening to the lyrics, I’ve got murder on my mind…”, made him feel at one with himself. He was cool. He could dress like his heroes, talk like them, adopt an emotionally distant demeanour as they did. After three weeks he gave up the job.

            Empty pockets meant more requests, but they weren’t turned down.

                                    “Applied for your test?” said Leon as they drove into town.

                                    “Got it. Two and a bit weeks.”

                                    “Gettin’ a car.”

                                    “Yeah. I reckon. My gran’ll buy me one.”

                                    “Whose gonna insure it?”

                                    “She will.”

                                    “Fuck, you’re a lucky dude.”

            He slipped twice, both times for failing to make adequate progress to meet varying traffic conditions.

                                    “Same as me, nearly sixty years ago,” said his grandad, “You’ll get it next time.”

The old man looked after the boy almost single-handedly for his first ten years. His wife was busy with her career, and his daughter, discovering when the baby was a few months old that child-rearing alone requires courage, resilience, energy, patience and sacrifice in great measure, reverted to her hither-and-thither ways and left him to it. He knew the lad well and  understood the lack of confidence at his core. Where was the surprise? His mother was mostly absent, his father intermittently present, his grandmother bought his adherence which she mistook for affection. He had never given him any trouble, but that was because he was sure of him. He was always there, and he stayed calm almost permanently. The few occasions he’d succumbed to bad temper, he regretted. But the boy had difficulty with less secure relations. He baulked at nursery. School grated. His behaviour could be wayward. But never for his grandfather.

            Now, he was lost to him. They barely had a conversation. That was teenagers. But his wife’s money and his daughter’s reassertion of her rights when the lad was beyond heavy dependency came between them. He knew he’d failed through nervousness. He’d been the same. And he knew the risk of compensation, which he’d avoided. He stuck to the limit, stayed in the inside lane on the motorway. His grandson wasn’t the same.

            Third time lucky and the car was bought. His grandad tried to direct them to a little runabout, a Nissan Micra or a Volkswagen Polo but the lad insisted on a Fiesta turbo. His mother and grandma acceded. The insurance was almost three thousand. In his first week he covered a thousand miles. His grandmother covered the petrol.

            He and Leon were the car owners. Dylan and Sam were having lessons. It was great fun, picking up his mates, taking them from one end of the town to the other, or deciding on a whim to hit the motorway and visit the fifty miles distant city. He got his first speeding fine for thirty-nine in a thirty limit. Every day, when he woke at midday or so, his first thought was his car and the road. Freedom.

            College no longer appealed. His dog-eared papers were shoved in the bottom drawer of his melamine unit. Most of his mates were thinking of university, but the idea had guttered and died like a snuffed candle. What was he going to do? Drive, smoke, listen to rap, find some nice girls, play a bit of football. Who cares?

            The summer brought a spell of near-unbearable heat. For days the waking temperature didn’t fall below thirty-seven.

                                    “Let’s go to The Meander,” said Dylan.

                                    “The what?” said Josh.

                                    “It’s on the river, way out, towards the hills where its source is. I went there as a kid. You can swim. The water is super-cold.”

            They were five up, Josh driving, Sam beside him, Dylan, Emmy and Laura in the back.

                                    “Got your cossies, girls?” said Dylan.

                                    “Think we’re going in naked?” said Laura.

                                    “I’m up for it,” said Dylan.

            It was a beautiful spot, the river bending back on itself spectacularly and a neat little access down the bank to a silty pad from which you could paddle in and then push out into the deeper, cooling water.

                                    “Oh, that was sick,” said Dylan as they dried off in the sun.

                                    “Didn’t you bring towels?” said Emmy.

                                    “Who needs ‘em when it’s this hot?”

            Josh had the football that lived in his hatchback. They kicked around on the grass. Laura tried a heavy shot and held her foot.

                                    “I need my shoes.”

                                    “Let’s walk up this way,” said Dylan. “It’s cool, there’s sandbanks and not so many people.”

            They headed across the tussocky, uneven fields, keeping the river on their left. There were two stiles and then a fence bearing a no access sign.

                                    “Oh, fuck that,” said Josh.

He hooked his telescope leg over the barbed wire, flicked the other to follow and held the top line down for the girls.

                                    “’Ere,” said Dylan, “climb on me back.”

Laura, the taller and heavier, went first. Dylan bent with his hands on his knees for rigidity. She mounted him like a horse, pushed up onto her knees, rose unsteadily to her dainty feet and jumped with a little scream of alarm. Josh broke her fall with his free arm.

                                    “Oh, my god !”

Emmy, compact and gymnastic, was quicker to her feet and spreading her arms for balance landed with bent knees as if on a gym mat.

As they left the popular local behind, they had the open space to themselves.

                                    “Who does all this belong to, then?” said Dylan.

                                    “Some farmer, I reckon,” said Sam.

                                    “What, all this?” said Dylan. “It goes on for fucking miles.”

                                    “The sheep must belong to someone,” said Emmy.

                                    “Yeah,” said Dylan, and chasing after a nearby ewe began shouting, “mint sauce, mint sauce.”

The others leaned back with laughter.

                                    “Shall I catch one?”

                                    “You need a lamb, you idiot,” said Laura.

            Presently, they were isolated from the urban. The town, five miles distant, might have been in another solar system. The bank down to the river was sheer. Dylan looked over.

                                    “You can get to the water. It must be further on.”

Josh lashed the ball with his right foot. It flew high and veered towards the little precipice.

                                    “It’ll land in the water,” shouted Laura.

Dylan’s memory proved reliable, the path descended gradually till there was no more than a metre drop, but the water was low and the grey, muddy side uninviting and potentially perilous.

                                    “Is it quicksand?” said Emmy.

                                    “Nah,” said Josh.

                                    “Jump in it,” said Dylan.

                                    “Fuck off,” said Josh.

                                    “Why is it so shallow here?” said Laura.

                                    “Tide’s gone out,” said Dylan.

                                    “Can’t’ve gone out that fast,” said Sam.

                                    “The water must pool by the Meander,” said Emmy. “It’s called an Oxbow lake. We did it in geog.”

                                    “Oh, did we?” said Dylan. “’Ark at Miss fucking smarty pants.”

            Josh ran with the ball over a stretch of relatively flat land, Sam chasing and trying to tackle.

                                    “’Ere, Emmy,” shouted Josh and passed ball.

She gave it a toe poke and it sailed over the edge and plopped into the ooze with a short sucking sound which left it half buried.

                                    “Oh, fuck,” said Dylan, “that’s your ball gone, Josh mate.”

                                    “Like fuck it is, twenty quid that ball,” and he ran to the border, sat down and began to lower himself.

                                    “Josh, don’t,” said Laura. “You’ll sink.”

                                    “I won’t.”

            They watched as his feet touched the ground and it stayed solid. He let go of the tufts he’d steadied himself with.

                                    “See, it’s fine.”

The ball was five metres away, towards the water. He took a step and left a hollow footprint, but his leg lifted easily. He brought the other forward and let it take his weight, it disappeared and mud grabbed him up to the knee.

                                    “Fuck !”

            Panic made him try to push off with his free leg but too sank and was gripped.

                                    “I can’t fuckin’ move !”

                                    “Get him out !” shouted Emmy.

            Sam lowered himself as his friend had done.

                                    “You’ve got to lie flat,” he called. “Throw yourself forward.”

                                    “I can’t.”

                                    “You can, mate. Here, grab my hand, Spread your weight. If you don’t you’ll go under.”

            The trapped boy whose young face was showing the fear of death which terrified his friends let his upper body fall forward, but couldn’t release the hold on his legs. He reached desperately for Sam’s  hand, seized it and in its warm strength was curiously reminded of the security he knew as a child, nestling by his grandad on the sofa.

                                    “You’ve got it,” said Sam, “now pull like fuck.”

            Alive with the sense his friend’s life depended on him, Sam exerted the strength he didn’t know he had while Josh clawed at the slob, seeking for solidity. At a certain point he felt the hold on his right leg slacken, yanked it, brought it hooked onto the surface. Sam moved forward to grab his shirt with his free hand, fearing every instant his own feet were going to be absorbed. The victim was almost swimming on the surface of the slough. A supreme effort let Sam feel Josh’s left leg release. He reached for the waist of the wallower’s jeans, hooked his fingers in the belt and strained, but as Josh lurched forward, dug his fingers into the firm earth pulled himself close enough to get his right foot on minimal hardness, Sam stumbled, couldn’t prevent himself taking a step forward and his right foot hitting the loosened sludge, his leg was eaten by the mire, up to the groin. He fell forward, tried to spread his weight, but the disturbed surface was more accommodating and his torso disappeared beneath the grey.

                                    “Get him, Josh!” screamed Emmy, but clinging to the little cliff, still in terror at death’s near miss, he was frozen.

                                    “Dylan, do something. For fuck’s sake, Dylan,” said Laura.

                                    “What the fuck can I do?”

            The four watched as the boy struggled madly with the morass, which seemed to have an intent, but the more he thrashed and tried to do what he knew he must, the more he sank, the less of him was visible, till in what seemed to them an hour but which had been no more than minutes, the fight subsided and nothing could be seen.

            Six hours of expert rescue services effort slid the cold, limp corpse from the sludge. From the same school as Sam, the undertaker, who normally left his assistant to such work, stripped and cleaned. The young body on the steel surface, sprayed with the cold shower head and scrubbed white, showed no signs of distress. The professional went through his forty-minute routine, all the while thinking of his school days, of lads like Sam. Preparing an old body for cremation or the grave was to be in keeping with nature. The slow ebbing of life was visible in the wasted muscles, the sagging skin, the thinning or absence of hair. Here was life not yet fully achieved and yet curtailed. It was the first time he’d tended a young body. He slid in the eye caps, sutured the mouth. Sam’s mother had brought clothes. Dressed, the boy looked fit for a night out with his pals.

            The wind from the west blew the rain horizontal. Sixty people crowded beneath the overhanging roof of the crematorium. The hearse proceeded slowly along the winding drive. Josh, Dylan, Leon, his brother, his neighbour and his cousin carried Sam’s coffin. As Sam’s mum delivered her Tribute to My Son, on the second row, to the right, Josh’s grandmother dabbed her eyes and her nose with a thick pad of tissues.