August 2. 4pm:
Billy raised the air pistol from seven yards away, sighted down the barrel. He squeezed the trigger and the gun coughed a sound like a thin branch breaking. The slug smacked Doug in the left buttock and he let out a howl, more of surprise than pain.
"Great shot from dead-eye Harrison" Billy bragged. "Runs in the family." They'd been firing at the can again, trying to knock it off the rock, taking shots each while the potatoes and carrots boiled in the blackened pot. Billy and Doug had been niggling each other as usual and when the can tumbled from the stone, moved by a chance eddy of wind and not by any sharp shooting, Doug bent to re-set it. Billy aimed and fired at his skinny buttocks then laughed like a donkey while Doug did a skittery little dance.
"Christ sake," Doug said angrily. "Would you get a grip of yourself, you crazy fucker." He was rubbing the patched seat of his old jeans. "Swear to god, you should be in special school for retardos, you loony."
"First kill to the Commandos," Billy crowed. Corky looked at him sideways. Billy was jumping up and down, the airgun heavy, black and sharp-edged like a German Luger clenched in his hand. Even with the spring slack and useless, he should never have fired the gun at anybody, they all knew that. It was one of the rules.
"That's enough," Corky said. "Give me that before you put somebody's eye out." He held out his hand towards Billy.
"It's not yours."
"No, it's my brother's, and that makes it mine for now."
"And he stole it from somebody, didn't he?" Billy's voice was rising. "So it's not his."
Doug picked up a stone and lobbed it at Billy with a quick overarm flick. It hit him on the knee with a resounding crack. Billy dropped the gun and started hopping around on one foot, holding his knee with both hands and howling loudly. Corky snatched the pistol up from the ground and jammed the barrel into his pocket.
"Serves you right, fatso" Doug jeered. "That's the brave commando wounded. Hopping wounded, and crying like a baby."
"I'll get you for that," Billy bellowed, trying gingerly to put his foot down.
"You and your old man, eh? The big war hero?"
"You leave him out of it Bugsylugs." Billy said through clenched teeth and the pair of them were off again. "He did more than your old man, that's for sure. Fought the Japs and Jerries."
"So how come mine's got medals?" Doug demanded, grinning toothily. "Real medals." His ears had gone bright red again which was a sure indicator of his excitement and anger.
"My Dad won dozens of them," Billy retorted, still rubbing his knee, his face now as red as Doug's ears. "That's what my Mam says and you better not be calling her a liar if you know what's good for you. My Dad was a hero in the war."
"That's where you're wrong," Doug countered, his lip curling now into a sneer. "A hundred percent dead wrong on that."
Danny came wandering up from the stream, only half listening to the bickering voices. Doug and Billy were always at it, rubbing each other's fur up the wrong way. Next minute they'd usually have their arms round each other's shoulders, just like last time, digging each other in the ribs. They both had short fuses, but generally, as compensation they had even shorter spans of concentration.
"What are they on about now?" he asked innocently.
"Just telling this fat bastard his old man couldn't have died in the war," Doug snorted.
Everybody froze.
"Come on, Doug...." Corky broke in. His voice trailed away.
"What do you mean?" Billy finally asked. His voice had gone cold.
"Think about it, stupid-features. Can't you count?"
" 'course I can count. And multiply and subtract. Better than you any day of the week, Bugs."
"That should make it easy for you, then." Doug's face was red and his lips drawn back from his big rabbit teeth in an angry snarl. Danny had never seen him look so much out of control and suddenly he knew with absolute certainty that Doug was going to let it slip; say what everybody except Billy himself knew as a fact.
"Okay. Try this one," Doug's voice was all tight and grating. "See if you can do it in that thick skull of yours. Mental arithmetic, if you can that is." Doug stopped. Corky took a step forward, trying to get in between them. Both Billy and Doug each held up a forestalling hand, telling him to keep out of it, that this was between the two of them, something they could sort out without interference. Corky looked at Danny, eyebrows raised in question, but there was nothing Danny could say. Everybody teetered on the sharp edge of the moment.
"When were you born," Doug demanded. "What year?"
"Nineteen fifty two. Same as you, why? You forget?"
"And when did the war end?" Doug kept it going.
"Nineteen forty five. Everybody knows that."
"And your old man died in the war! Seven years before you were born? Has nobody told you the facts of life?"
"Stone the crows," Corky whispered, shaking his head.
Billy stood there, fists clenched, lips just forming around his reply. His mouth tried to work, but no sound came out. Danny and Corky held their breath. Doug stood stock still, eyes wide, hands trembling. They could see Billy's mind, not especially fast at the best of times, but he wasn't stupid either, seizing the problem and working it over.
The silence stretched a few seconds longer. Finally Billy spoke.
"That doesn't mean..." he floundered to a stop, tried again. "Just because he...." The three of them on the sidelines could see that Billy had never really considered this glaring anomaly, or if he had, he had slung it to the back of his mind. Everybody in Corrieside knew that Maggie Harrison had got pregnant to a big American sailor from the NATO Base at Dunoon, from whom Billy had inherited his thick blue-black hair and his height. The Yank had finished his tour of duty and gone back to Arkansas and never written once.
Billy backed away from them and almost knocked Tom over.
"That's pure shite. It's all a load of crap." Real distress twisted his face. "I mean he was in the Commandos..." His voice sounded as if it was cracking. "And he fought the Japs and all."
Doug stood facing him, anger still suffusing his face. "Did he hell."
"That's enough Doug," Corky said quietly. "Quit it now."
"Well he shouldn't have called me that. He's always going on and on and he shouldn't have shot me either. It's about time he wizened up. Somebody should wring his bloody neck. He's always bumming and bragging as if he's better than the rest of us. He thinks he's a big shot."
"Bigger than you are, you ragged bag of bones. And better." Billy was obviously still trying to digest the enormous truth of it, but his temper was still up and fighting. "At least my mother feeds me. Not like yours."
"Stop them Corky," Danny said, almost pleading. "This isn't any good." He could see it coming, rushing towards them like the great truth express, nobody at the brake. There were no real secrets in the street in Corrieside where they all lived.
"And at least my mother buys me decent clothes," Billy snarled. "Not rags like you get to wear all the time. You're like a tinker. She dresses me proper."
"From the money your uncles give her? Some uncles. Uncles my arse!"
"Jeez Doug, quit it." Danny begged in a futile attempt to prevent the head-on crash.
"Don't you start on my mother, Doug Nicol. Don't you bloody dare." Billy took two steps forward and raised his fist. Doug flinched back. The anger and fear was evident in his eyes and in the tightness of his voice and the taught hunch of his shoulders.
"Well it's true," he insisted. "You've got more uncles than I've had hot dinners."
"And what about your mother? Eh? Tell me that?"
Danny put his head in his hands. Corky stood transfixed. He held both of his hands up, like a referee in a boxing ring trying to keep the protagonists apart. But they were like fighting cocks now, angry roosters. They didn't even seem to notice his presence.
"Why is your old man in Toronto? And how come your wee brother's got ginger hair and freckles? Everybody else knows why."
"What are you trying to say?"
"Because he isn't your brother at all. Everybody knows about your Mam and that tallyman from the Housemarket Company, the one that used to come round for the money on a Friday. That's why your Da's gone to Canada. He's too ashamed to show his face in the town."
Billy's words hit like blows, worse than blows. Doug reeled back. The others could see his mind working the way Billy's had done. His big teeth were clenched together hard enough to crack. A spittle dribbled from his lip.
"That's not true," he finally gabbled, spitting the words out like bullets. "You're a fuckin' liar. You're just a big fuckin' bastard.
But they could all see the dawning realisation on his face. The signs that he'd missed. His father's withdrawn silence, the raised voices in the living room late at night. The sounds of crying in the dark. And little Terry, red-haired and freckled, a dozen years his junior.
His mouth opened and closed, much as Billy's had done.
Corky moved right between them.
"That's enough," he said flatly.
"Piss off, Corcoran," Billy snarled. He tried to shove past him. "I'm not finished with that bugsy bastard."
"Yes you are " Corky told him in a soft voice that had suddenly gone very cold. He was a head shorter than Billy, but he stood with his feet planted apart and his back straight, body all set. Danny could sense that Corky knew he should have stepped in before, but hadn't known how. The moment had gone too quickly. Now Corky looked Billy straight in the eye, his own green-brown eyes bright and unblinking.
"It's finished." Danny could sense the quiet threat there. Billy was too far gone to hear it. He pushed at Corky's shoulder and the other boy simply held himself tight, not letting himself be moved. Doug's skinny chest was heaving with anger.
"It's over," Corky said. "I mean it." He took a hold of Billy's hand and dragged it down from his shoulder. He stared into the bigger boy's eyes for a long moment, forcing him to back down. Corky had that ability. He held the gaze until Billy dropped his and for a while before Billy conceded Danny thought he might even try to have a go at Corky. Finally he took a step backwards and Corky then turned to Doug.
"What are we trying to do? Kill ourselves? Haven't we all got enough problems?"
The man watched them coming back to the camp. The boys stopped up on the narrow gully side where a rivulet had cut the ground into a deep and narrow chasm. They were out of sight round a dog-leg bend, but he could hear them yelling gleefully, the way they had when they had swum in the backed-up pool. Every now and again, one of them would yell bombs away and the rest of them would whoop and cheer. He could hear the heavy thuds of something falling on to the shale. After a while, they came on down the shoulder of the hill where the two streams met, carefully negotiating the narrow rocky point to descend into the valley. The biggest boy was in the lead, holding his long stick over his head. The bones of the ram's skull were stark white against the grey of the rock. He sat quietly, stock still, in the shadow of the hollow where the setting sun could not pick him out. One of the boys stopped dead and looked across the valley, seeming to look right into his eyes. He held the pose for ten seconds, maybe more, raised his hand over his brow to cut out the light. The man leaned further back into the shadows. The boy shook his head and continued down the ridge.
They arrived at the tent and the dark haired boy clambered into the natural amphitheatre below the steep face and spent several minutes fixing the sheep's skull into the hawthorn branches beside the deer's head and the pointed heron's beak. This done, he did a little Indian dance, and his whooping shouts echoed from the valley sides. The man watched, interest quickened. The flies erupted from the stag's face in a visible cloud, disturbed by the death dance.
The others lit the fire and the thin one balanced the blackened pot on the stones surrounding the flames. The sky was clear except for some long, pink clouds way out to the west, far beyond Blackwood Farm. The moon would be full tonight, pale and yawning. He watched them for a while more until he was satisfied that they would be here for the night and then, very slowly, he eased back into the bracken and silently followed the sheep track back up the hill.
At Blackwood Farm he ate some more of the dry meat and finished the hard bread. There were some jars in the pantry with fruit in syrup and there were eggs in the coop. He ate them in silence, listening to the buzzing of the flies as they whirled around the woman. The smell was thick and choking, but he was used to that. He had got used to that. When he finished eating, he went out to the manure heap and talked to the head. It buzzed back at him incomprehensibly. After a while, the moon rose and Conboy whispered to him from a velvet sky.
It had been a magical day right up until the fight and then the magic had snuffed right out.
They had borne the bombs back to the camp on the plank litter, carrying three of them, taking turns as pall-bearers and Billy trying to avoid his share of the work by claiming to be standard bearer. It took them two hours to get back, though the going, downstream when they got past the smelly and stagnant bog, was much easier than the trip up to the Dummy Village. They had been elated and excited with their find, their own discovery of the fabled place. The fact that it was dilapidated and derelict had done nothing to diminish their sense of discovery and achievement, or detract from its fabled status. On the way back to the camp, they had agreed to start out as early as they could the next morning so they could explore the whole of it, right to the far end of the blasted moorland. Tom had said he'd rather go home, but again he was outvoted and he went along with it. It was a long walk back home and he didn't want to travel over the hill and down the other valley on his own, and besides, if he arrived without them, his mother would know he hadn't been with the scouts and he'd have hell to pay. Tom's mother was living on the edge of her own grief. She could not use any more. Apart from that consideration for his mother, and it was a real one in Tom's mind, the trees were thick and crowded and anybody could get lost on their own if they didn't know the place so well.
They followed the lip of the valley where sheep had worn a beaten track through the turf, staying up on the far side until they came level with the camp on the ridge which separated the stream from the tributary. Doug and Corky let down the plank with the three bombs and rubbed the stiffness out of their hands. Billy stuck his stave in the turf, letting the ram's skull gaze out over the gully.
"Let's try them now," he said.
"They won't work," Doug said. "If they'd have worked, they'd have gone off when they fell."
"You don't know that," Billy countered. "We could at least try one, and if it works, we could sell the others for a fortune."
"Who'd buy bombs?" Danny asked.
"The army, for one," Billy avowed. "Their bomb disposal squad take them away and defuses them. And gangsters. They could use them to blow up bank safes."
Doug laughed derisively at the notion, but Billy ignored him. He bent down and unwound the rusty wire which had strapped the nearest bomb to the plank. He worked at it, twisting the thin metal back and forth until it weakened and broke. The bomb slid free and began to roll down into the chasm. Billy lunged and stopped it with his foot. He grabbed the tail fin and hauled it back up, managed to lift it from the ground and raised it above his head. For a moment he looked as if he was making an offering to an unseen god on high.
"What if it does go off?" Danny asked.
"It'll go bang," Doug said. Danny looked at him. There was a moment's silence while Billy still stood with the bomb held over his head and then everybody just fell about laughing.
"Of course it'll go bang," Danny said when he got his breath back. Billy was trying to keep the heavy weight up, but the laughter had taken all the strength from his arms. He was giggling uncontrollably.
"But won't it be dangerous?"
They had all seen bombs explode in films. They went off like enormous firecrackers. People threw their hands up and somersaulted into the air. There was always a flash and a lot of dust thrown up in a black cloud. In Billy's Commando comics, the bombed Nazis cried Himmel and Donner Und Blitzen. They put their hands up in the air and were marched off as prisoners of war.
"No," Doug assured him. "It'll be great."
"I think we should move back a bit."
"What for?"
By now Billy's arms were sagging. He tried to hold the weight, but failed. The bomb tumbled out. Doug tried to grab it but only succeeded pushing it to the left. It thudded against Billy's thigh. Billy howled like a banshee. The bomb tumbled, hit the ground right at the edge of the ridge, landing tail first. For a second it seemed to balance on its own, like a miniature space rocket, teetering on the edge, and then it slipped over. Billy was still bawling and cursing Doug who was trying to explain that it was an accident. The others watched the bomb roll down the steep few feet of shale where the edge had eroded away. Below that there was a ledge of mudstone which stuck out two or three feet and overhung the much steeper drop to the trickling rivulet meandering through tumble of water-smoothed boulders below. It skidded down the shale, rolled on the ledge and paused again as if considering the next move.
"I'll get you for that," Billy was promising Doug.
"It's going," Corky said, voice rising.
"I think we better get back up," Tom advised, now apprehensive. The bomb flipped over and then it dropped. Billy caught the motion out of the corner of his eye and his cursing stopped. Everybody turned to watch. The black shape fell. It rolled several feet and then seemed to flip up and out. The tail fins wobbled and then the thing plummeted straight down.
"I'm getting out of here," Tom yelled. He turned and headed up the slope of the ridge, but his eyes were still glued to the bomb. His heels treaded at the slope, digging the shale away in small grooves, going nowhere.
Nobody else moved or said a word. They watched as the bomb went plummeting. Its fall took only a few seconds and for an instant, from up on the edge, it looked as if it would slam straight onto the rocks below. It missed by a good twenty feet and thumped onto the soft gravel with an almost silent thud. A cloud of dry dust and sand spewed up, leaving a small, shallow crater from which the bomb's tail stuck up straight in the centre.
"Damn and blast," Doug said.
"Damn and no blast," Billy corrected. "It didn't even go off. Must be a dud."
Tom breathed out slowly, relief written all over his thin, freckled face.
"There's somebody here," Danny said later when they were heating the can of soup on the fire. "I'm sure of it. I thought I saw somebody in the bushes from up on the side when we were coming back from the village."
"Me too," Tom agreed. "Honest. When we were collecting wood."
"That's just your imagination," Billy said dismissively. His face was still tight with emotion.
"What if it's a guard?" Doug said. "Somebody from the Dummy Village. Maybe he saw us taking the bombs. We could get into big trouble."
"If there had been a guard he'd have kicked our arses and chased us," Corky said. "But there was nobody up there, unless there was a tinker sleeping rough. Can't see anybody staying up here, though, can you?"
"I still think there's somebody here," Danny said. "It gives me the creeps."
They had all calmed down to an uneasy truce after Billy and Doug's dreadful confrontation. That had been hours ago and still neither of them would look each other in the eye. The whole campsite was tense with the undercurrent of conflict. It had not gone away. It pulled and tugged at them with its own gravity. Billy and Doug needed to get away from each other, to get away from everybody. They had momentous things to consider. But it had been too late. Corky had used the force of his personality to cap it all, but it had been too late. The sizzling, almost palpable tension sparked from one to another.
They were all round the fire and Tom had stoked it up with pine logs so that it burned bright enough to force them all to sit on one side. Corky had used a long stick to get the soup on to the heat and then he'd poured it out onto the tin plates. The bread was hard and stale, but dipped in the thick broth, it tasted just fine. Even Billy ate hungrily. Doug stayed at the far side, looking down into his plate and eating steadily.
"We can explode them tomorrow," Danny ventured, trying to do something to remove the pressure. If they could get back to where they'd been in the morning, that would do fine with him. Nothing was perfect. Billy was changing and Danny did not know that this was a normal thing. Billy had hair on his balls and the beginning of bum-fluff turning dark on his top lip and he was becoming increasingly aggressive. He'd grown a head or more taller than everybody except Doug who had always been lanky and thin, and he was pretty powerful now, even if much of it was spare baggage. Danny did not know how long it would be before Billy put out a real challenge to Corky. He hoped that would not happen, though if Corky was aware of it, he didn't show it and seemed not to be concerned. It wasn't as if he'd put up a case for being the natural leader. That was just the way of it. He had nothing to prove.
"Yeah, we could maybe rig up a catapult up there on one of the trees, just like the Vikings," Tom came in, speaking fast, as if he too had the same notion.
"That was the Romans. The Vikings used a battering ram."
"Was that Kirk Douglas?"
"Who cares," Doug said from the edge. His head was still down. Above them, the moon was just peering over the top of the hill, as close to full as possible. It reflected on the burbling stream and gave everything a magical limning that only Danny and Corky noticed. The rest of them were wrapped up in their own thoughts. "Who gives a damn? Eh? It was just a film. Just make up."
"It was a good movie," Tom said. "I liked it. Especially at the end when him and Tony Curtis had the big fight."
"And remember them skipping along on the oars?" Danny came in. "That was a hoot."
Doug sniffed and slung his plate down to the grass. "Want some more?" Corky offered. Doug sniffed again and shook his head. Billy sat on the other edge, half turned away. He was looking at the ram's skull in the corner where the bush butted against the rock. The moonlight and firelight combined to light it up, making it seem to float ghostly in the dark, eye sockets staring out at them. The flies were humming still.
"I wouldn't waste it on the likes of him," Billy said sneeringly and Corky finally exploded.
"Bloody hell," he spat and even Danny jumped. "Look at the pair of you, would you? Just a couple of bloody morons, a couple of selfish, bloody bastards."
Tom and Danny looked at each other. Corky was tough as old boots, but despite his background he hardly ever swore. When he did, it was a real serious matter. Danny recalled him saying that to get on, you had to speak with a gobstopper in your mouth. Corky made an effort not to sound like his crazy brother Phil who would end up in Drumbain Prison for sure, or like Paddy Corcoran who was pretty guttural at the best of times. When Corky said bastard he was up and running, firing on all four.
He suddenly jumped to his feet and slammed his plate down on the stone at the edge of the fire. The thick soup gouted out and sizzled on the hot rock with a vicious cat-hiss. Everybody jerked back. Billy spun round, startled and Doug twisted in alarm.
"You keep your mouth shut, just for once," Corky said, his finger right up against Billy's face. Billy's mouth snapped closed. "And you," Corky rounded on Doug. His back was to the fire and they could all see the red in his face, made ruddier by the heat and the reflection of the flames.
"Don't you ever think?" he said, almost snarling, finger tapping his temple for emphasis. Danny heard the catch in his voice.
"Don't any of you ever think? Jees." He reached out both hands and held them up, palms open almost in supplication, and exasperation too. Danny put his plate down on the grass. Right at that moment, the air in the valley seemed suddenly even more charged than before. Corky took two steps forward, away from the fire, up onto the small grassy lip and walked out beyond them all before he turned. The flames danced on his face.
When he started speaking, his voice could hardly be heard over the cackle and hiss of the pinewood fire, but they never missed a word.
"Look at us," he said and in that moment he sounded achingly desolate. "Just look at us."
"You'd think it was tough enough, but no. Somebody's got to go and rip it all up and tear it all, and spoil it."
"But I didn't..." Billy spluttered. Corky turned his eyes on him, blazing in the red flamelight and Billy shut up. Doug thought better of whatever he was about to interject.
"It's not just you. Or Doug neither." Corky said. "Listen!. This is the first time we've been out for months. Really out. The whole summer, we've been stuck in, while they all shit themselves. Sometimes I think I'm going to get bored crazy. The whole summer! So we come up here for some fun and find the village and it should be great. But what happens? We start ripping it apart.
He held his hands up again. "This is all we've got. It's the only adventure some of us are going to get, ever."
He turned to Billy. "You think you've got it bad? Maybe. Tough. Same as me and Danny and Doug and Tom. We're all screwed. All of us. We've got damn all, we've got nothin'. If we all chipped together we couldn't buy a packet of smokes and Billy's the only one without a patch on the arse of his pants.
"We're jiggered."
They could hear the crack in his voice, ready to break. Corky's chest hitched and the fire blazed in his eyes as if he was burning up inside. He came walking slowly back towards the fire so they were all turned to face him.
"We're all up the same creek, aren't we? So there's no need to go picking each other off. That crazy shit's done enough of that with Mole Hopkirk and Don Whalen and that wee kid. If we can't back each other up, what the hell's the point?" He paused just enough for a breath and ploughed on.
"So who's got it bad?" He turned quickly, swinging to face Billy. "You Billy-O? Doug? Look at Tom. Shit, if I'd a wee sister and she died, I'd be half crazy, that's for sure. I'd be pure mental."
Tom flinched back as if stung. Corky had reached down into the taboo, Tom's private thing, and touched it. It was as if he'd scraped on raw flesh and Corky realised that immediately. He looked over at Tom, and gave him a look of such compassion, such fierce and honest sorrow, that Danny felt a dry lump swell hard his own throat.
"Sorry Tommy, just trying to say, okay?"
Tom had no words, not then, Corky turned away. "I know he must be all screwed up about it, really ripped open. So us, we got to give him a hand, give him back-up, because he's our pal, isn't he? Our mate. So we got to back him up. Us."
He stopped and then added for emphasis: "All of us."
Billy nodded guiltily, remembering how he'd chased Tom across the bog.
"And you Billy. So what? Your engine's all seized because your old man wasn't a great hero, or whatever he was who the hell knows? I'm sorry. We're all sorry, even Doug with his big mouth, he's sorry too. Sure youb are Doug?"
Doug looked up, opened his big mouth then thought better of it. He did look sorry. He looked wretched, blinking shiny eyes.
"You'll get over it. Believe me, fathers aren't all they're cracked up to be. We know that, don't we Dan? Look at me. My old man's up for swiping the pigeon club money. I've got to live with that, and so's my Ma. You can have a Da like mine if you really want. When he gets out he'll knock me arse for tit. You got worries? Shite on a bike, we've all got worries! Every one of us."
Corky was up now, going hell for leather, unable to pull back on the reins.
"You want to be like Tom, or me? How about Danny-boy? Jesus, he can't even open his mouth in his own house. Prayers all the time."
Danny cringed, feeling the other faces on him. He was suddenly exposed.
"You ever think about what that's like? Jesus bloody-H. Every time Dan farts they've got the priest round to him, that creep Father Fingers. Dan hardly ever gets out and when he's in, his old man's got him doing schoolwork all the time non-stop."
Corky's voice was tight with the pressure now and there was no stopping him. "We're all jiggered. Okay Doug, it's rough on you, but wee Terry's still your brother you've got nothing to be ashamed of. You'll be away in Toronto. At least you're getting to go someplace new where nobody knows you or where you're from. And Tom going to Australia. That's a chance. That's a real big chance."
He paused once more, and his voice went quiet, as if he was suddenly scared it would catch and stumble and throw him; as if he had come galloping along the edge to where it fell in a long sheer drop and he had to pull back hard.
"We won't get that chance, me and Dan and Billy, so we got to stay here and get on with it. But that's just it." His hands were right out in front of him, balled into fists. He looked as if he wanted to punch. "It's bad enough as it is without giving ourselves a bad time. So why should we be fighting over what we can't help?"
He paused and looked at them all, his eyes fixing each in turn.
"But up here, we're away from it all, just for a couple of days. It could be the last time. Probably is, and I don't want to remember it because we all blew apart. That's going to happen anyway, no matter what we do, so at least, just for now, we can stick together. It's us against the flamin' world, know what I mean? We're all in the shit."
He turned towards the fire, head down, shoulders shaking.
"After this summer, it's all going to break up. I want to remember this time. We came up here for a last chance and we found the Dummy Village and that's special. It's what I want to remember, because we don't have enough good things to remember. None of us."
He stopped talking and his shoulders slackened as if the tendons had been cut. The four of them sat there in silence, looking at Corky, stunned by the force of what he had said. He had touched them all, right inside of them. He'd been aware of everything, known all the dark secrets and until now he'd never said anything, not a word.
Danny looked from Billy to Doug to Tom. They were all sitting there on the short grass while the flames sent colour flickering on their faces. All of them were looking at John Corcoran, if waiting for him to say something else. None of them seemed capable of speech.. He had stunned them all.
Corky's shoulders heaved and his head went down into his hands and Danny felt a powerful ripple of shock. Corky was crying, standing in front of them all and he was crying, and that was something that had never happened before. He wanted to reach out and touch him.
Yet it was Tom Tannahill who stood up and walked forward, closer to the fire.
"Don't," he said. He reached up and put a hand on Corky's shoulder. "Please Corky."