Julia had no desire to accompany them. Then her gaze softened. Sam’s eyes shone, he wanted to take it all in, the child laying claim to the adult’s past. Quite understandable really. Their sugar-coated past was a safe place for Sam. She remembered a day not long after he had started school: she had stood beside him while they waited in the playground for the bell to toll him into class; he stood still, gazing into space while other boys brushed against him and urged him into play with elbow nudges and little inoffensive kicks, and she had realized that he was pretending to daydream, pretending to be fixated on some distant bush or other, but his legs were trembling. This was his defence. He had caught her eye and his own widened, imperceptible to another, but she had caught the little flash – he was warning her off. Then suddenly, his body jerked into action. His legs carried him away to the boys amongst whom he wrestled, kicked, elbowed and asserted himself. And she had smiled to herself in confusion, glad that he was finding his way, glad too that he was able to interpret a language which was alien to her.
‘I’m going to pull in up here,’ Brian was saying. He pointed to a spot where the road widened and a castle stood on the left behind a smooth green park with trees protected by wooden slats arranged in circles.
‘T-t-this is where I thought we might stop,’ Edward said.
They got out and stood with the castle as a backdrop for photographs. Julia craned around and stared at the severely grey stone building. It was most definitely a castle, with square, serrated turrets, scratch-like windows scoring the bleached stone in linear sets of three, and narrow rectangular minarets with blunted tops scraping the blue-white sky behind. It stood on a hill, surrounded by evergreens and straw spires of naked poplars. It was at once ugly and beautiful. She sighed and felt glad that Edward had proposed this tour. She felt her body begin to relax. Her toes curled in her boots. She laid her cheek flat against Brian’s shoulder for another picture. The air in her nostrils felt crisp and spicy, full of rotting leaves, river and implacable grey stone.
Brian and Sam found an empty can for a football. Julia strolled behind with Edward. ‘Sam loves listening to you and Brian going on about your childhood,’ she said.
‘He d-does?’
‘Brian makes it sound like some sort of childhood Eden,’ Julia continued. ‘Was it like that for you too?’
She had only been making idle conversation so the vehemence of his ‘no’ took her by surprise. Edward would not meet her eyes, his shoes scuffed the kerbside.
‘I d-didn’t mean to sound so …’ His voice lowered, as though he were afraid that Brian might hear. ‘S-some of it was OK, I s-suppose, but m-mostly I remember b-being c-cold and hungry and …’ He shrugged, made to move on, but Julia’s outstretched hand prevented him.
‘And what?’ she asked.
‘Af-Afraid, I suppose.’ Edward smiled self-deprecatingly. He looked ahead to Brian. ‘He w-wasn’t though.’
Julia was curious but her gaze had followed Edward’s to where Brian was allowing Sam to cross the wide main road on his own. ‘Brian …?’ She called and broke into a trot after them.
They all headed toward the stone hump-backed bridge which crossed the river, with Sam trotting in front. A sharp cathedral spire pierced the sky to the left. Julia bunched her fists and placed them on the stone ramparts of the bridge. Below, the Blackwater bisected the park in front of the castle. Willows, birch and drooping alders leaned their denuded branches down to the swirling waters. The valley stretched ahead, tree-filled, green, curvaceous. She sighed again. There were signs of life in the castle: mellowed light emanating through latticed panes from one wing only. The sight was somehow reassuring. Black crows circled overhead, but the River Blackwater was not black at all. It was multicoloured, purple and green and silver where the sunlight grazed across its eddying surface.
Edward leaned sideways across the stone wall to take a picture of the castle. He turned to her and she knew from the expression on his face that she was about to receive a discourse on local history. She quickly bypassed him and plunged her hands into her coat pockets. Edward signalled with a jerk of his head forward that they were to walk on across the river and up the winding road to the village. Julia turned to urge Brian along too. And her knees nearly gave way beneath her when she saw what he was doing. She opened her mouth to bark a command, then, fearful of momentarily distracting him, she swallowed the rocks in her throat and uttered her words in one strangulated gasp: ‘Brian, for Christ’s sake, Brian …’
Sam was standing on the bridge wall. Brian had one arm wrapped around his son’s knees. Sam took a step forward, smiling at the horrified expression on Julia’s face. She quickly glanced down at the river – it was at least a forty-foot drop – then up at Brian and Sam again. She wanted to jump forward, she wanted to scream, but she was terrified that any sudden movements, any sudden sounds might sway their concentration. ‘Get – him – down,’ she hissed.
‘It’s all right.’ Brian waved his free arm. ‘Look, I’ve got a hold of him …’
‘Down. Now!’ Her voice was rising inexorably, she was still too petrified to move.
Sam took another step forward. Brian was holding on to the leg of his son’s jeans.
‘Relax,’ Brian urged. He cast a look toward his brother and she saw his eyes roll slightly backwards in their sockets. ‘It’s all right,’ he repeated.
‘Jesus, Brian,’ a pale-faced Edward interjected, ‘it’s not all right, boy, it’s not all right … Get him down, in the name of God …’
Julia took a tentative step forward. Sam giggled. He took another step. She raised her arms towards him. He took another step. Instinctively his arms widened in response to hers. Her fingertips tingled, they summoned him to her, she could feel his body already, her arms ached, she took another step.
At that moment, a van came across the bridge too quickly from the village side. The driver braked suddenly on his approach to the bridge but was forced to coast through on a wing and a prayer. Julia leaped forward. Brian blinked rapidly. Sam’s arms were still outstretched. She saw him take a step backwards. She saw Brian’s shocked face. She saw his hands grapple with air. She saw the pinchful of jeans between his thumb and forefinger which was all that remained of his hold on Sam. She saw Sam waver as the soles of his sneakers rocked back and forth for an instant against the stone of the bridge; his outstretched arms flapped wildly, pushing back the air behind him. She saw Brian’s white bloodless thumb slide along denim until his fingers pinched together, holding – nothing. Sam’s mouth formed a soundless O, his widened, terrified eyes held hers as he sailed back into empty space. He fell with his mouth open, looking up at her. He was silent. Until a sound, like no other, indicated that he had reached the end of his journey. Brian froze. Julia straddled the bridge and gazed below. Edward restrained her. Sam lay spreadeagled, his lifeless eyes gazing directly into hers, his mouth in a perfect circle, his legs already being pulled by the current of the river while his torso grazed the ground. A thin trickle of blood seeped out from behind his head where it had hit a jagged rock. The river tugged at him, pulled him to it. Inch by inch his body succumbed until, with arms outspread and his eyes and mouth still open, he was swept along, a bobbing, inconsequential twig.
And then, someone started screaming.
Her thoughts naturally inclined toward gravity and the human propensity for making the inconceivably huge, small as – apples, say. The apple had represented
