Read Online The Electric Michelangelo by Sarah Hall - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Sarah Hall
Ads: Link
was now half-wearing the beach.
Morris Gibbs bent suddenly and put a hand over Cy’s mouth.
– Shut up, you idiot. Undo your trews. Quick sharp, eh.
– What? It’s not funny Morris, it’s not –
– Aye, go on and do it. No time to explain. Cy … Cyril. It’s all right.
Cy fumbled with his buttons and pulled his breeches down until they met the wet sand.
– Now. Try to point your feet down. Like standing on your tippy-toes.
Morris’s instructions were surprisingly calm. Cy looked up and found that the eyes regarding him were utterly placid. His friend was wearing an expression that Cy had seen before somewhere, on a face under a moustache, in an old photograph on the Trawlers’ Cooperative Society building wall. It was the look of knowing the sea, come what may. And it suddenly gave him comfort. So he pushed as hard as he could without really feeling his ankles move and took a deep breath.
Morris was counting.
– One, two …
On three the two boys heaved and wrenched and Cy slowly came up, peeling out of his trousers and his shoes as he did so with a loud sucking sound. The boys landed together in an untidy heap. They stood up quickly and looked back at the puddle of sand with the shed clothing inside. The vacated legs were squeezing together, shrinking in, and were full of mucky-looking water that was being displaced upwards, outwards, and filtering back through the sand like awful digestive juices in a stomach. Cy blew out a great lungful of air.
– Well. Bugger me sideways.
– Not on your nelly.
They walked back over the beach towards town, laughing about the predicament they had escaped. Cy’s bare legs were cold in the fresh breeze, he was careful to tread lightly as he walked, pulling his feet up quickly from the sand, for the sensation of his toes sinking down even a little, that closeness of damp pressure to his skin, was sickening now and made him feel light-headed. It was an anxiety that would never quite leave him. After the quicksands he could no longer sleep with the blankets close about him, boggarts under the bed or not. And if he happened to saturate his garments in the rain or the river or when he was dropped off the pier by the boys at full tide, it would never remain on his body long enough to dry and release the flesh beneath it from its clasp. He’d rather go stark bollock naked through the town than feel that terrible tight claustrophobia again. Morris Gibbs and Jonty Preston, though, were quick-thinking devils, and friends for life.
It was when the war was pulling its hardest on the continent, when Europeans were streaming hither and thither from their smashed-open homes and villages and fields like ants from a disturbed hill-nest, and official letters to mothers and wives were flowing with regularity through the letter boxes around the bay, that another wonder was bestowed upon Morecambe. If not for harmony’s sake then for counterplay. The pavilion fire of that same year was all but eclipsed by this new and celestial beauty. Aurora Borealis. The northern bloodlights.
It was not the crowded spectacle of the fire, nor an occasion of mass mesmerism, with all seats sold out for the performance. It was to be a private show. The town had long since known that it held one of the best positions in the country for observing this display, the tourist leaflets listing local attractions and entertainments made great mention of it, it was almost as compulsory a feature as leaving Blackpool off every local map and out of every visitor handbook. Aurora was not a stranger to the bay, for all her being the classiest act around. She was not the rarest sight, though many may have missed her that night, coming unannounced and under a dark cloak as she always did. Cy was almost sleeping when his mother knocked softly on his door and entered. Her face was softer than he had ever seen it, her eyes contained light stolen from every scrap and corner of the room it seemed, so it was dim
Morris Gibbs bent suddenly and put a hand over Cy’s mouth.
– Shut up, you idiot. Undo your trews. Quick sharp, eh.
– What? It’s not funny Morris, it’s not –
– Aye, go on and do it. No time to explain. Cy … Cyril. It’s all right.
Cy fumbled with his buttons and pulled his breeches down until they met the wet sand.
– Now. Try to point your feet down. Like standing on your tippy-toes.
Morris’s instructions were surprisingly calm. Cy looked up and found that the eyes regarding him were utterly placid. His friend was wearing an expression that Cy had seen before somewhere, on a face under a moustache, in an old photograph on the Trawlers’ Cooperative Society building wall. It was the look of knowing the sea, come what may. And it suddenly gave him comfort. So he pushed as hard as he could without really feeling his ankles move and took a deep breath.
Morris was counting.
– One, two …
On three the two boys heaved and wrenched and Cy slowly came up, peeling out of his trousers and his shoes as he did so with a loud sucking sound. The boys landed together in an untidy heap. They stood up quickly and looked back at the puddle of sand with the shed clothing inside. The vacated legs were squeezing together, shrinking in, and were full of mucky-looking water that was being displaced upwards, outwards, and filtering back through the sand like awful digestive juices in a stomach. Cy blew out a great lungful of air.
– Well. Bugger me sideways.
– Not on your nelly.
They walked back over the beach towards town, laughing about the predicament they had escaped. Cy’s bare legs were cold in the fresh breeze, he was careful to tread lightly as he walked, pulling his feet up quickly from the sand, for the sensation of his toes sinking down even a little, that closeness of damp pressure to his skin, was sickening now and made him feel light-headed. It was an anxiety that would never quite leave him. After the quicksands he could no longer sleep with the blankets close about him, boggarts under the bed or not. And if he happened to saturate his garments in the rain or the river or when he was dropped off the pier by the boys at full tide, it would never remain on his body long enough to dry and release the flesh beneath it from its clasp. He’d rather go stark bollock naked through the town than feel that terrible tight claustrophobia again. Morris Gibbs and Jonty Preston, though, were quick-thinking devils, and friends for life.
It was when the war was pulling its hardest on the continent, when Europeans were streaming hither and thither from their smashed-open homes and villages and fields like ants from a disturbed hill-nest, and official letters to mothers and wives were flowing with regularity through the letter boxes around the bay, that another wonder was bestowed upon Morecambe. If not for harmony’s sake then for counterplay. The pavilion fire of that same year was all but eclipsed by this new and celestial beauty. Aurora Borealis. The northern bloodlights.
It was not the crowded spectacle of the fire, nor an occasion of mass mesmerism, with all seats sold out for the performance. It was to be a private show. The town had long since known that it held one of the best positions in the country for observing this display, the tourist leaflets listing local attractions and entertainments made great mention of it, it was almost as compulsory a feature as leaving Blackpool off every local map and out of every visitor handbook. Aurora was not a stranger to the bay, for all her being the classiest act around. She was not the rarest sight, though many may have missed her that night, coming unannounced and under a dark cloak as she always did. Cy was almost sleeping when his mother knocked softly on his door and entered. Her face was softer than he had ever seen it, her eyes contained light stolen from every scrap and corner of the room it seemed, so it was dim
Similar Books
