hammering, runs the back of his hand across his forehead — it is a studied move, one he’s probably seen in a film — and looks down at the others from his perch.
“You ready for this bit?” Simon peers upwards as his friend’s shape becomes a dark outline against the darkening sky.
“Yeah.” Marty nods. “I don’t know how we’ll get it up here, though.”
“I do.” Brendan takes a step closer to the base of the tree. “We can set up a pulley system. I saw it in a book. All we need is that load of old rope over there and some well-tied knots.” He crosses the ground and bends over, sorting through the bits and pieces of rope they found in the tumbled remains of another den — this one abandoned, with its fabric door hanging in tatters and the old lino, used as a floor covering, all torn and coated with mud. “Yep,” says Brendan, turning to glance at his friends. “This’ll do fine. We can have the platform raised before we have to go home for dinner.”
The lowering sun shivers behind him, causing a strange rippling effect in the sky. For a moment it seems to Simon that Brendan’s form becomes unstable, that it might break in half at any moment and the two separate pieces — like conjoined twins suddenly given their freedom — will drift off into the landscape, becoming parts of the patchy sliver of nature in which the boys are standing.
The illusion lasts only a fraction of a second, but it resonates deep within Simon’s consciousness. He feels that he has been given a glimpse of something, has looked through a window into another place that exists alongside this one. Perhaps even another world.
Marty drops from the branches above and lands gracefully at Simon’s side. He is an athletic kid; he plays football for the school team and has never lost a fight in his life. Marty is a born battler. Everybody says so, even the boy himself. Fighting is all he knows. He has been battling his father, and his father’s rages, since he was old enough to understand the true nature of violence. He learned young. They were lessons he learned in the cot.
Standing there, with his friends, Simon has another flash: a brief image of the three of them as grown men, standing hand-in-hand on the grass. They are bright, energetic boys, and in his mind this translates to success in the grown-up versions of the Three Amigos. He smiles; the vision makes him happy, despite the questionable truth of what he sees. Then he notices that the adult Marty is clutching at his side, and the adult Brendan is wearing clothes that are covered in dark stains. His own grown-up counterpart stands at the centre of this fading frieze, his face lean and angry.
“Let’s get cracking,” says Marty, keen to keep active, as if labour enables him to forget about the rest of his life. His hands are bunched into fists and the muscles in his neck stand out like thick wires. His cheeks are flushed from the physical labour and his forehead gleams with sweat.
“Right,” says Brendan, seeming older than his ten years. “I’ve seen this before. All we need to do is tie these ropes together and attach it to the wood, and then we loop one end over that fat branch there and tug on the other end so the wood gets lifted up. One of us can stay in the tree, and guide it onto the frame. The other two will need to pull on the rope as hard as they can.”
“Sounds easy enough,” says Marty.
“Yeah, if you’re a gorilla.” Simon smiles.
“No, really. It’s easy-peasy. I saw it on a film. It worked in the film, so it’ll work now.”
The other two boys nod, convinced by the cinematic precedent. Whatever doubts Simon might have had are pushed aside by the thought of the three boys acting out their own little movie, right here on Beacon Green.
“Can anyone, like, tie a proper knot? A pirate knot or something?” Marty steps forward and picks up a short length of rope. “Some of these are a bit small. We’ll have to tie them all together to make one long piece.”
“Just tie them really, really tight. It’ll be okay.” Simon takes the length of rope from Marty’s hands as he speaks. He pulls on the rope, testing it. “It’s pretty strong. If we double and triple tie the knots, it should hold when we pull the wood up into the tree. Trust me. Brendan’s idea’s going to work.”
And that is all they need to go ahead with the plan: Simon’s word, his blessing. Despite the fact that there is no official leader of the Three Amigos, and each boy brings his own strength to the table, it is always Simon who has the last word. The other two members of the small gang look up to him in a way that can never be spoken of; they defer to his superior intellect, his quiet presence. It has always been this way, even when the boys were infants. Simon was always the silent leader; he is in command, whether or not he wants the job. He is the one who pushes the others forward, giving the group momentum.
They work in silence for a while as the day slips away and the long shadows crawl like living things around Beacon Green, clustering at the bases of the trees and in the dense foliage of the small overgrown area the boys have played in since they were first allowed out of the house alone. It is their place, where they feel most at ease. There is nothing to fear on the small patch of waste ground, and their parents would not even pause for thought at the prospect of giving the boys free rein, to come and go as they please on this part of the estate.
Before long the separate pieces of rope have begun to form a single long rope. The knots are firm; overdone, if anything, but at least they will hold when the real work starts.
“So what do we do after?” Simon looks up at his friends. “I mean, when we’ve done this? If we leave it here, unguarded, some other kids will come along and wreck it.”
There is a brief pause when the boys stop working, glance at each other, and wait for someone to say what they are all thinking.
Simon continues: “We need to guard the den,” he says, once again assuming his role as the leader, the member of the group whose responsibility it is to say such things aloud, to give voice to the collective consciousness of the Three Amigos. “Like army blokes. Like soldiers, yeah? We need to stand guard and protect what we’ve built.”
Marty nods. Brendan squints, blinks, and then finally nods his own assent.
“Me and Bren will go back to mine and tell my mum and dad that I’m sleeping at his. Then we’ll go to his and say to his mum that we’re sleeping at mine. They won’t check. They never do. They don’t care.” Silence again, but this one tense and filled with things that can never be discussed: the unfeeling attitude of both sets of parents; the fact that even at ten years old, the boys know that their mothers and fathers should take more care with their offspring. They all know that Simon’s mother and father will be caught up in their own private war, and that Brendan’s mother will be so far into the bottle of gin she keeps in the magazine rack at the side of her chair that she won’t even remember the conversation.
“I’ll climb out of the window after I’m supposed to be in bed.” Marty’s eyes are hard, cold. Behind them, just about visible through the tears that he always manages to keep at bay, are the images of violence that dwell in his own home. The father that hates everyone, including himself, and takes out those feelings of rage and helplessness on his own son. The bruises hidden beneath Marty’s shirt. The cigarette burns on his upper arms.
“We’ll meet back here, then.” Simon raises his left hand, palm facing outward, splays his fingers, and then slowly makes a fist, one finger at a time folding in towards the palm, little one first and the thumb last: the secret salute of the Three Amigos. The other two boys follow suit, making their own slow-motion fists. Brendan does it with his eyes closed. Marty stares at Simon’s face, his jaw clenched tight and his cheekbones as sharp as blades.
Without another word on the subject, the boys continue their work, knotting the ropes, making their primitive pulley.
Soon the job is done. The boys stand and admire what they have made. Brendan holds the rope in his hands and tests the joints, pulling at them, trying to tug them apart. “This is good,” he says. “This’ll definitely work.”
Brendan kneels beside the sheet of plywood. There are already holes drilled along one edge, perhaps construction joints for the piece of furniture the wooden panel was built to be part of. He threads one end of the rope through two of the holes, and then loops the rope over itself, securing it tightly. He tests this knot, too, second-guessing his own work. The knot holds.
“Who’s going up there?” Simon looks up, at the rickety structure they’ve created across two sturdy branches.
Brendan drops the plywood onto the ground. “I think the strongest one should climb up there. Marty, you’re easily stronger than us two, so you can go up. You’ll need to grab the edge of the wood and try to push it into place on the frame. It’ll be really hard, but me or Simon wouldn’t have a chance of doing it.” He holds out his skinny arms, as if to underline his point.
“Okay.” Marty runs to the base of the tree and leaps up, catching hold of a low branch. He seems happy to be physical again.
