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But Ben has an idea. ‘Drop it.’
Jake laughs.
On the box, in the corner, Joseph sits and shakes his head. ‘Don’t be daft.’
Ben picks his nose and flicks something at Jake. ‘Go on, twerp. Drop it. I dare you.’
Jake is giggling uncontrollably. Two chubby cheeks flecked with grime wobble up and down.
Barrel-shaped Ben jumps on the spot. ‘Go on, go on!’
They won’t do it. They’re not that stupid. Joseph fiddles with the edge of the box, head down, and stares, working his way up from the undone shoelaces to the big hole in his trousers. A bony kneecap sticks through. He’s hungry.
‘Go on, baby face.’ Ben pokes Jake’s back.
Jake spins on the spot. ‘Get off me.’ He lifts the brick onto the top of the balcony wall.
Too close to the edge! Joseph stands, then sits. Jake’s just teasing. The pair of them do it all the time.
‘Coward.’ Ben’s piggy eyes sparkle.
‘I’m not!’
Jake pushes the brick with both plump hands. The brick tilts, wobbles on its edge, then it’s gone.
‘Kowpow!’ shrieks Ben, like Batman.
Joseph leaps to his feet, pushes aside the exuberant twins, and leans over and looks down, daring himself, hoping that the only thing there is a smashed brick.
The screams rise up the side of the building. Such wretched sounds, the unforgettable cries of distress.
So high up, his eyes need to be like a hawk’s. Down below, little figures surround an overturned pram. The mother is on her knees, grasping at something. The ground spins, circling upwards, bringing everything closer.
A door slams shut behind him. He’s stuck on the balcony, alone, and the world is turning and turning…
?
The dizziness was overwhelming, and I nearly vomited onto the pavement. As I retched, my connection to Joseph was broken. I had found him here, but not today. I had found an echo of him from long ago haunting his own grey castle, one that rose high to the sky and trapped his memories inside, out of sight for eternity. The visceral emotions I felt weren’t mine but his. This daydream wasn’t bound to an urban myth, and how I wished it had been. What I had done was force together Joseph’s traumatic memories and my lurid imagination. It was horribly gratuitous and cruel of me to come here. While I had hankered for excitement, he ran away from it, seeking quiet places. This wasn’t where he lived now; I hadn’t found him. Instead, in visiting this waking, vicarious nightmare, I had discovered a relic of him.
And thinking back, there had been other echoes of Joseph throughout the summer of the castles. Unknown to me, they had been the macabre pattern of my visions since Bamburgh. All those vivid daydreams were like hauntings, reflections of Joseph’s subconscious, drawing on the legends I assumed them to be. The Pink Lady, who fell to her death, so similar to the ghostly tale at Spofforth where I had nearly succumbed to a vision, was a manifestation of Joseph’s fear of falling. I encountered, at Dunstanburgh, the knight who called for help with his horn instead of fighting back – Joseph, like the knight, ended up trapped by his past, and not rescued. When I thought I saw a bouncing ball, tumbling down the stairs, it was not the brick, but it might have been something thrown, carelessly. At Middleham, I had heard the mourning mother crying for her dead child, and I wondered in hindsight, that high up there Joseph had felt something too. He had been terrified. What was worse was the repeating themes of bombardment at Bamburgh, Bowes and Whitby, even the sickly smell of death at Helmsley. They seemed to mirror the torments Joseph suffered, as if in the aftermath of the baby’s death, when all he wanted was peace from those who hounded him, he was surrounded by the echo of other tragedies. Even in the most tranquil of abbeys, Rievaulx, I had unearthed a dark place, the charcoal store, where no man wanted to dwell for long, and witnessed one man dragging his burden into the shadows, out of sight. Was it possible that before I had even met Joseph, at Kenilworth, the corruption of my dreams had begun when the frenzied antics of the riotous guests had nauseated me? I might not have met him, but Loretta knew his story, and she had communicated with me, somehow.
And, somehow, I had broken through his defensives and unearthed the ruins of his childhood. This grotesque tower block vision had to be the last, my visions were no longer benign excursions.
My phone rang and I took cover from the rain under a nearby bus shelter. The caller was Polly, another receptionist at my old job and somebody I trusted enough to have my mobile number. Wiping my face with the back of my hand, I wondered if I wanted to hear the latest hotel gossip, but then I remembered Polly was one of the sensible ones, so I pressed the phone to my ear.
‘Hi,’ Polly said, breathlessly. ‘I know this is going to sound strange. But I’ve just had this man turn up with a sketch of you, you know, like the police use for identification. He was dressed pretty smartly. You’re not in trouble are you? I was too scared to give him your number, thought he might be a stalker. Did I do the right thing?’
The phone nearly slipped out of my wet fingers. Was it David? No, that made no sense, he had my number. ‘Is he still there?’
‘Oh, no. He’s gone. But he left…’
Her voice broke into unintelligible monosyllables.
‘What?’ I nearly shouted.
‘And his address. Do you want his phone number and address? The card says his name is Joseph Smith, freelance artist.’
I had to ask her twice for the address. I had thought she was joking the first time.
