superficially straightforward child’s developmental progress was rarely – if ever – entirely linear) but the next thing he knew, Fleet was experimenting with the idea of making objects ‘from scratch’. They’d messed around with clay (Fleet had screwed up his face; the clay was too gloopy, too glutinous, he was far too fastidious), then wood (Elen had stepped in and insisted – much to Fleet’s irritation – that the boy was too small to handle sharp tools responsibly).
Then, finally, on an especially boring Sunday morning, Isidore had grabbed hold of a box of kitchen matches, rattled it, speculatively, tipped the matches out on to the table-top, unearthed a stray tube of glue in a nearby drawer, and quickly built a sentry box for one of Fleet’s highly prized, enamelled Beefeaters.
That was it.
Fleet dived straight on in (not a whiff of uncertainty, no whining or faltering) and carefully began constructing a long, formal, looping creation (like an early piece of lace or crochet, or a dramatically enlarged chromosome – a cell, or a gene – cut open, stretched out, unwound). It was flat-topped, 2 inches wide, several feet long. It was beautiful.
‘The Bridge’, he called it. His parents watched on in quiet bewilderment.
Elen immediately divined (it was a curious feeling, a familiar feeling) that something primal was connecting within him. She didn’t know what or why. But she could see that he was spanning some kind of a divide (mentally, physically, symbolically), that this behaviour was unusual, that it was out of the ordinary.
Suddenly, without warning, ‘The Bridge’ was quietly placed aside and superseded (no fuss, no fanfare) by a menacing, fortress-style basilica. And with the arrival of this ‘cathedral’ it became patently obvious that parental participation was no longer an issue.
Isidore wasn’t entirely certain (as a play-mate, or as a father) just how much of an influence he’d actually been on his son; whether Fleet’s obsession reflected well (or badly) on him. He had a nagging – an uncomfortable – feeling about the whole affair. Had he led the boy, or had the boy – somehow, ineluctably – led him?
Fleet seemed happy (at least, to start off with), and that (they told themselves) was the important part. He seemed more confident, more at ease, was ‘opening up’ (asking for things, making lists, barking out instructions if anyone dared to try and join in).
As parents (as guardians, even, with a vested interest in his welfare) their enthusiasm had waned marginally when he’d expanded his architectural portfolio to include not only ‘The Bridge’ and ‘The Cathedral’, but a cluster of brand-new, subsidiary properties (a large, secondary building – down what was now ‘The Hill’ a-way – which he described as ‘The Palace’, then, shortly after, another structure, which he casually referred to as ‘The Dungeon Tower’. He’d even commenced work on a water mill, whose connection to the other buildings seemed, at best, entirely marginal).
And everything (Elen quietly observed – although she didn’t – for her own good reasons – confide in Isidore) was now suddenly on-going (happening all-at-once, burgeoning uncontrollably…like a…how to express it? Like the frantic, shifting interior of one of those toy kaleidoscopes, or a hall of mirrors, or a…a –
God help him
– some kind of a disease, maybe).
She tried to quell her increasing agitation by telling herself that Fleet’d seen development all around him (they were in a new-build property in a newly built area); the builder, the digger, the lorry, were all part of his locality; change was part of the milieu in which he lived and breathed and grew…
But it didn’t work. It didn’t mesh. It didn’t entirely ring true.
Space was increasingly at a premium (the inside mirroring the outside in an funny kind of way). Everything – Elen observed, with an encroaching sense of terror –
Oh no…
I’m…
Can’t…
Can’t breathe
– was now thuddingly equal (Flat. Reduced. Like a beautiful, five-course meal, tossed into a large bowl and then devoured all in one go). Nothing took precedence. Nothing was ever rounded off (finished, honed). There was no sense of an end to it, of a neat conclusion. Of curtailment. Of release.
Elen knew all about the brochure in the kitchen drawer. She’d found it, looking for a tea-towel, and had made the connection. Its placement, she presumed, indicated something – she wasn’t sure what – about Fleet’s unconscious desire to involve her (she was, after all, the only person in the house to do the drying up; Isidore, in general, preferred to wash).
She’d kept it a secret. Isidore still firmly believed that ‘The Cathedral’ was just part of some magical ‘dream landscape’, that it was simply another perplexing facet of the boy’s highly developed – if distinctly wayward – imagination (he needed to believe this, and Elen responded, automatically – as any considerate partner would – to whatever his needs were).
But she knew better. She’d been to the library and had looked up Sainte-Cecile in a Rough Guide travel book. She’d expanded her search on to the internet. There she’d seen a series of modern, photographic images of Albi, in all its glory (clinging to its hill, surrounded by water); then (with an increasing sense of claustrophobia) the Cathedral Basilica, the adjacent La Berbie Palace, the dramatic Dungeon Tower, the hooped colonnades of the St Salvy Cloister. Even the mill, sitting quietly downstream on the River Tarn.
And the bridge.
The link –
Oh God –
There it was
She traced its familiar, looping grandeur on the glaring screen with her index finger –
Yes
But of course –
Her wait was over. The worst had finally happened. This was the beginning.
This was the crossing.
They’d pushed the two boys together in class (what else to do?). They were both a little dippy. Steven Bradley had a Gameboy and a registered learning disability – dyspraxia; but very mild (words spilled out of his mouth in entirely the wrong order; he made regular trips to see the speech therapist in Canterbury). He could be clumsy –
Bless him
Came from a family of ten, so it was difficult, sometimes, for his parents (who were extremely well-meaning) to give him all the attention he so desperately required. He could be slow on the uptake, obdurate, even, but he was fundamentally a solid, sweet-natured boy.
Fleet on the other hand…
Hmmn
Fleet
