Blackberry Wine

‘Gotcha.’

The magic had finally run out.

Jay didn’t like to think about what happened after that. It existed in a curious silence, like some dreams. First they pulled off his T-shirt and pushed him, kicking and screaming, into the ditch where the nettles bloomed. He tried to climb out, but Zeth kept pushing him back, the leaves raising welts which would itch and burn for days. Jay put his arms up to cover his face, thinking remotely, How come this never happens to Clint, before someone yanked him up by the hair and Zeth’s voice said, very gently, ‘Now it’s my turn, yer bastard.’

In a story he would have fought back. He didn’t. He would at least have shown defiance, some hint of desperado swagger. His heroes all did.

Jay was no hero.

He began to scream before he felt the first blow. Perhaps that was how he escaped a serious beating. It could have been worse, he thought as he assessed the damage later. A bloody nose, some bruises, both the knees of his jeans taken out from a skid across the railbed. The only thing broken was his watch. Later he came to understand that there had been something more, something more serious, more permanent than a watch, or even a bone broken that day. It was to do with faith, he thought dimly. Something inside had been broken and could not be mended.

As Joe might have said, the art was gone.

He told his mother he’d fallen off his bike. It was a plausible lie – plausible enough, anyway, to explain his shredded jeans and swollen nose. She didn’t fuss as much as Jay had feared; it was late, and everyone was watching a rerun of Blue Hawaii, part of the Elvis post-mortem season.

Slowly he put his bike away. He made himself a sandwich and took a can of Coke from the fridge, then he went to his room and listened to the radio. Everything seemed speciously normal, as if Gilly, Zeth and Pog Hill were already a long time in the past. The Stranglers were playing ‘Straighten Out’.

Jay and his mother left that weekend. He didn’t say goodbye.

47

Lansquenet, May 1999

JAY WAS AT WORK IN THE GARDEN WHEN POPOTTE ARRIVED with her postbag. She was a little, round, pansy-faced woman in a scarlet jumper. She always left her ancient bicycle at the side of the road and brought any mail along the footpath.

‘Heh, Monsieur Jay,’ she sighed, handing over a packet of letters. ‘If only you lived a little closer to the road! My tournee is always half an hour longer when there’s something for you. I lose ten kilos every time I come over here. It can’t go on! You must put up a postbox!’

Jay grinned. ‘Come in and have one of Poitou’s fresh chaussons aux pommes. I have some coffee on the stove. I was just going to have some myself.’

Popotte looked as severe as her merry face would allow. ‘Are you trying to bribe me, Rosbif?’

‘No, madame.’ He grinned. ‘Just lead you astray.’

She laughed. ‘Maybe one. I need the calories.’

Jay opened the letters as she ate her pastry. An electricity bill; a questionnaire from the town hall in Agen; a small flat package, wrapped in brown paper, addressed to him in small, careful, almost-familiar script.

It was postmarked Kirby Monckton.

Jay’s hands began to tremble.

‘I hope they’re not all bills,’ said Popotte, finishing her pastry and taking another. ‘Don’t want to wear myself out bringing you unwanted post.’

Jay opened the packet with difficulty.

He had to pause twice for his hands to stop shaking. The wrapping paper was thick and stiffened with a sheet of card. There was no note inside. Instead there was a piece of yellow paper carefully folded over a small quantity of tiny black seeds. One word was inscribed in pencil on the paper.

‘Specials.’

‘Are you all right?’ Popotte seemed concerned. He must have looked strange, the seeds in one hand, the paper in the other, gaping.

‘Just some seeds I was expecting from England,’ said Jay with an effort. ‘I… I’d forgotten.’

His mind was dizzied with possibilities. He felt numbed, shut down by the enormity of that tiny packet of seeds. He took a mouthful of coffee, then laid the seeds out on the yellow paper and examined them.

‘They don’t look like much,’ observed Popotte.

‘No, they don’t, do they?’ There were maybe a hundred of them, barely enough to cover the palm of his hand.

‘For God’s sake, don’t sneeze,’ said Joe behind him, and Jay nearly dropped the lot. The old man was standing against the kitchen cupboard, as casually as if he had never left, wearing improbable madras shorts and a Springsteen ‘Born to Run’ T-shirt with his pit boots and cap. He looked absolutely real standing there, but Popotte’s gaze never flickered, even though she seemed to be staring right at him. Joe grinned and lifted a finger to his lips.

‘Take your time, lad,’ he advised kindly. ‘Think I’ll go and have a look at the garden while I’m waiting.’

Jay watched helplessly as he sauntered out of the kitchen and into the garden, fighting back an almost uncontrollable urge to run after him. Popotte put down her coffee mug and looked at him curiously.

‘Have you been making jam today, Monsieur Jay?’

He shook his head. Behind her, through the kitchen window, he could see Joe leaning over the makeshift cold frame.

‘Oh.’ Popotte still looked doubtful, sniffing the air. ‘I thought I could smell something. Blackcurrants. Burning sugar.’

So she too could sense his presence. Pog Hill Lane had always had that scent of yeast and fruit and caramelized sugar, whether or not Joe was making wine. It was steeped in the carpets, the curtains, the wood. The scent followed him around, clinging to his clothes, even permeating the fug of cigarette smoke which so often surrounded him.

‘I should really get back to work,’ said Jay, trying to keep his voice level. ‘I want to get these seeds into the ground as soon as I can.’

‘Oh?’ She peered at the seeds again. ‘Something special, are they?’

‘That’s right,’ he told her. ‘Something special.’

48

Pog Hill, Autumn 1977

SEPTEMBER WAS NO BETTER. ELVIS WAS IN THE CHARTS AGAIN with ‘Way Down’. Jay studied listlessly for next year’s O levels. Normality seemed restored. But that sense of doom was still there, accentuated, if anything, by the humdrum continuation of things. He heard from neither Joe nor Gilly, which surprised him, even though it was unsurprising, given that he’d left Kirby Monckton without saying goodbye to either of them. His mother was snapped by Sun photographers on the arm of a twenty-four-year-old fitness instructor outside a Soho nightclub. Marc Bolan died in a car accident, then, only a few weeks later, Ronnie Van Zant and Steve Gaines of Lynyrd Skynyrd were wiped out in a plane crash. It seemed suddenly as if everything and everyone around him was dying, coming apart. No-one else seemed to notice. His friends smoked illicit cigarettes and sneaked off to the pictures after hours. Jay watched them with contempt. He’d practically stopped smoking. It seemed so pointless, almost childish. The gulf between himself and his classmates broadened. On some days he felt ten years older.