The Bone Clocks

  THE FIRST TIME I saw Jacko, he was in an incubator ’cause he was born too soon. That was in Gravesend General Hospital, too, though the maternity wing’s in a different building. Mam, who’d just had a C-section, looked tireder than I’d ever seen her, but happier, too, and told us to say hi to our new brother, Jack. Dad had been at the hospital all the previous day; he looked and smelt like he’d been sleeping in a car park for a week. Sharon, I remember, was most dischuffed at losing her cutest-thing-at-the-Captain-Marlow crown, specially to this monkey-shrimp in a nappy with tubes coming off of him. Brendan was fifteen and spooked by all the bawling, breast-feeding, sick and poo in the ward. I tapped on the glass and said, “Hi, Jacko, I’m your big sister,” and his fingers waggled, just a tiny, tiny bit, like he was waving. The God’s honest truth, that; nobody else saw but I felt a tickle in my heart and I felt willing and able to kill to protect him, if I had to. I still feel it, when some twat talks ’bout the “weirdo” or the “freak” or the “premature one.” People can be so crap. Why’s it okay to draw spaceships if you’re seven, but not okay to draw diabolical mazes? Who decides that spending money on Space Invaders is fine, but if you buy a calculator with loads of symbols you’re asking to be picked on? Why’s it okay to listen to the Top 40 on Radio 1 but not okay to listen to stations in other languages? Mam and Dad sometimes decide Jacko needs to read less and play footy more, and for a bit he’ll act more like a normal seven-year-old kid, but it’s only acting, and we all know it. Just now and then who he really is smiles out at me through the blacks of Jacko’s eyes, like someone watching you from a train zipping past. At those times, I almost want to wave, even though he’s just across the table, or we’re passing on the stairs.

  • • •

  HALLUCINATIONS OR NOT, I can’t just sit on my arse all day. I need food and a plan. So off I walk, and after a roundabout, the fields stop and I’m back in the world of garden fences, billboards, and zebra crossings. The sky’s hazing over a bit and I’m thirsty again. I haven’t had a proper drink since me and Brubeck got some water from a tap in the church, and the rules say that you can’t knock on a door and ask for a glass of water in a town the way you can in the middle of nowhere. A park with a water fountain’d be perfect, or even a public toilet, but there’s no sign of either. I’d like to brush my teeth, too; they’re all scaly like the inside of kettles. I smell bacon from a window and stomach pangs wake up, and here comes a bus with GRAVESEND written on it. Hop aboard, I could be home in forty-five minutes …

  Sure, but picture Mam’s face when she opens the side door. The bus wafts by, and on I trog under a railway bridge. Up ahead there’s a row of shops and a newsagent where I can buy a can of drink and a pack of biscuits. There’s a Christian bookshop, a knitting shop, a betting shop, a shop that just sells Airfix models and stuff, and a pet shop, with scabby hamsters in cages. Everything’s mostly closed and a bit sad. Okay, so I’m arriving in Rochester. Now what?

  Here’s a phone box, strawberry red.

  Strawberries. That’s an idea.

  THE DIRECTORY ENQUIRIES woman finds Gabriel Harty and Black Elm Farm on the Isle of Sheppey, no bother, and asks if I want to be put straight through. I say yes, and a moment later the ringing tone rings. My watch says 08:57. Surely not too early for a farm, even on a Sunday. Nobody’s answering. I don’t know why I’m so nervous but I am. If it rings ten times and no one answers, I’ll hang up and assume this wasn’t meant to be.

  On the ninth ring the phone’s picked up. “Ye-es?”

  I ram in my ten pence. “Hi. Is that Black Elm Farm?”

  “It was when last I looked, ye-es.” A rusty drawl.

  “Are you Mr. Harty?”

  “When I last looked I was, ye-es.”

  “I’m phoning to ask if you’re hiring pickers.”

  “Are we hiring pickers?” In the background a dog’s going mental and a woman yells, Boris, shut your cake-hole! “Ye-es.”

  “A friend worked on your farm a couple of summers back, and if you’re hiring, I’d like to come and pick fruit for a bit. Please.”

  “Done picking before, have you?”

  “Not on an actual farm, but I’m used to hard work, and”—I think of my great-aunt Eilísh in Ireland—“I’ve helped my aunt with her vegetable garden, which is massive, so I’m used to getting my hands dirty.”

  “So all us farmers have dirty hands, have we?”

  “I just meant I’m not afraid of hard work, and I can start today, even.” There’s a pause. A very long pause. Very, very long. I’m worried I’ll have to put more money in. “Mr. Harty? Hello?”

  “Ye-es. No picking on a Sunday. Not at Black Elm Farm. We let the fruit grow on a Sunday. We’ll start tomorrow at six sharp. There’s dorms for pickers, but we’re not the Ritz. No room service.”

  Brilliant. “That’s fine. So … have I got a job?”

  “Thirty-five pence a tray. Full punnets, no rotten fruit, or you’ll be picking the whole tray again. No stones, or you’re out.”

  “That’s fine. Can I turn up this afternoon?”

  “Ye-es. Do you have a name?”

  I’m so relieved I blurt out, “Holly,” even as I realize giving a false name might be cleverer. There’s a poster by the railway bridge advertising Rothmans cigarettes so I say, “Holly Rothmans,” and regret it straightaway. Should have chosen something forgettable like Tracy Smith, but I’m stuck with it now.

  “Holly Bossman, is it?”

  “Holly Rothmans. Like the cigarettes.”

  “Cigarettes, is it? I smoke a pipe, me.”

  “How do I get to your farm?”

  “Our pickers make their own way here. We’re no taxi service.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m asking you directions.”

  “It’s very simple.”

  I bloody hope so, ’cause at this rate I’ll run out of coins. “Okay.”

  “First you cross the bridge onto the Isle of Sheppey. Then you ask for Black Elm Farm.” With that, Gabriel Harty hangs up.

  ROCHESTER CASTLE SITS by the Medway River like a giant model, and a big black lion guards the iron bridge. I pat its paw for good luck as I pass. The girders groan as trucks go over and my feet are aching, but I’m pretty pleased with myself; only twenty-four hours ago I was a weeping bruise, but I just passed my first-ever job interview and next week’s sorted, at least. Black Elm Farm’ll be a place to lie low and get some money together. I think of small bombs going off in Gravesend, one by one. Dad’ll go round to Vinny’s later, I reckon: “Oh, morning, I believe you’ve been sleeping with my underage daughter; I’m not leaving till I’ve spoken with her.” Ka-booom! Vinny’s ferrety face. Ka-boom! Dad’ll rush back to tell Mam I’m not there either. Ka-boom! Mam’ll start replaying that slap, over and over. Then she’ll march round to Vinny’s. Shit, meet Fan. Fan, this is Shit. Mam’ll leave Vinny splattered down the hallway and hurry to Brendan and Ruth’s to see if I’m there. Brendan’ll report I was on my way to Stella Yearwood’s yesterday morning, so he and Mam’ll stomp off there. Stella’ll be all, “No, Mrs. Sykes, she was never here, actually I was out, I’ve got no idea,” but she knows a heat-seeker missile’s heading her way. Monday comes and goes, and Tuesday, then on Wednesday school’ll phone ’cause I’m missing exams. Mr. Nixon’ll say to her, “So let me get this straight, Mrs. Sykes. Your daughter’s been missing since Saturday morning?” Mam’ll mumble ’bout a small disagreement. Dad’ll start wanting details, like what she said to me, and what she means by “a little slap.” How little? Ka-boom, ka-boom, ka-boom. She’ll lose it and and snap, “I already feckin’ told you, Dave!” and go upstairs to the kitchen, and as she’s looking out over the river, she’ll be thinking, She’s only fifteen, anything could’ve happened … Serve her bloody right.

  Gulls kick up a racket on the river, below.

  A police boat buzzes under the bridge. I walk on.

  Up ahead, there’s a Texaco garage—it’s open.

  “WHERE’S THE BEST
place to hitch a ride to Sheppey from?” I ask the bloke at the till, after he’s handed me change and my two cans of Tizer, my Double Decker, and pack of Ritz biscuits. My £13.85 is down to £12.17.

  “I never hitch,” he says, “but if I did, I’d try the A2 roundabout, the top of Chatham Hill.”

  “How do I get to the top of Chatham Hill?”

  But before he answers, a woman with raspberry-red hair comes in and the Texaco bloke just drinks her in.

  I have to remind him I’m there. “ ’Scuse me? How do I get to the top of Chatham Hill?”

  “Head left out of the forecourt, over the first set of traffic lights, past the Star Inn, and up the hill to the clock tower. Take the left turn to Chatham and follow your nose a bit further, past Saint Bart’s Hospital. Keep going till you get to an Austin Rover dealer and you’re at the Chatham roundabout. Stick your thumb out there, wait for a knight in a shining Jag to stop.” He deliberately said it all too quick for me to take in. “You might get lucky, or you might be waiting hours. You never know with hitching. Make sure you’re dropped at the turnoff to Sheerness—if you find yourself in Faversham, you’ve gone too far.” He readjusts his crotch and turns to the woman. “Now, what can I do for you, sweetheart?”

  “Not calling me ‘sweetheart’ would be a good start.”

  I don’t hide my laugh. The guy stares daggers at me.

  • • •

  LESS THAN A hundred yards later this knackered Ford Escort van pulls over. It might’ve been orange once, or perhaps that’s just rust. The passenger winds down the window. “Hi.” I’ve got a gobful of Ritz biscuit and must look like a total spaz, but I recognize who it is straight off. “It’s not quite a shiny Jaguar,” the woman with the raspberry-red hair slaps the door cheerfully, “and Ian here definitely isn’t a knight,” the guy driving does a little lean-over and a wave, “but if you’re after a lift to Sheppey, we’re going nearly to the bridge. Guide’s honor, we’re not axe murderers or chainsaw killers, and it’s got to beat standing on a slip road for six hours waiting for someone like that”—she cocks her head towards the Texaco garage—“to stop and ‘What can I do for you, sweetheart?’ all over you.”

  My feet are killing me, and a lift off a couple’s safer than a single man, she’s right. “That’d be brill, thanks.”

  She opens the back of the van and shunts some boxes to make space. I wedge myself in, but there’s windows on all sides so I’ve got a nice enough view. Ian, who’s midtwenties, baldish, and has a nose as big as a Concorde, asks, “Not too crushed back there, I hope?”

  “Not at all,” I say. “It’s dead cozy.”

  “It’ll only be twenty-five minutes,” Ian says, and we move off.

  “I was saying to Ian,” the woman tells me, “if we didn’t give you a lift, I’d spend all day worrying. I’m Heidi, anyway. Who are you?”

  “Tracy,” I answer. “Tracy Corcoran.”

  “You know, I never met a Tracy I didn’t like.”

  “I could find you one or two,” I say, and Ian and Heidi laugh, like that was pretty witty, and I s’pose it was, yeah. “Heidi’s a nice name, too.”

  Ian does a dubious mmm, and Heidi gives him a poke in the ribs. “Stop interfering with the driver,” he says.

  We pass a school ordered from the same catalogue as Windmill Hill Comprehensive—same big windows, same flat roofs, same muddy football pitch. I’m actually starting to believe I’ve left school: It’s like old Mr. Sharkey says, “Life’s a matter of Who Dares Wins.”

  Heidi asks, “Do you live on Sheppey, Tracy?”

  “No. I’m going there to work on a fruit farm.”

  Ian asks, “Gabriel Harty’s place, would that be?”

  “That’s right. D’you know him?”

  “Not personally, but he’s known for having a subjective grasp of arithmetic when it comes to totting up your pay, so keep your wits about you. Errors are likely to be in his favor.”

  “Thanks, I will. But it should be okay. A friend at school was there last summer.” I find myself gabbling to make myself more believable. “I’ve just done my O levels ’cause I’m sixteen, and I’m saving for an InterRail in August.”

  That all sounded like I read it off a card.

  “InterRails look great fun,” says Heidi. “Europe’s your oyster. So where’s home, Tracy?”

  Where would I like home to be? “London.”

  The lights are red. A blind man and his guide dog step out.

  “Big city, London,” says Ian. “Whereabouts, exactly?”

  Now I panic a bit. “In Hyde Park.”

  “What—in Hyde Park? Up a tree, with the squirrels?”

  “No. Our actual house is closer to, uh, Camden Town.”

  Heidi and Ian don’t answer at first—have I said something stupid?—but then Ian says, “I’m with you,” so it’s okay. The blind man reaches the other side of the road, and Ian struggles with the gearbox before we move off. “I stayed in Camden Town when I first went to London,” he says, “sleeping on a mate’s sofa. In Rowntree Square, by the cricket ground next to the Tube station. Know it?”

  “Sure,” I lie. “I go past there, like, all the time.”

  Heidi asks, “Have you hitched from Camden this morning?”

  “Yes. I got a lift off a truck driver to Gravesend, then a German tourist brought me to Rochester Bridge, and then you pulled up. Jammy or what?” I look for a way to change the subject. “What’s in all these boxes, then? Are you moving house?”

  “No, it’s this week’s Socialist Worker,” says Heidi.

  “They sell that in Queen Street,” I say. “In Camden.”

  “We’re with the Central London branch,” says Ian. “Me and Heidi are postgrads at the LSE, but we spend our weekends near Faversham so we’re a sort of distribution hub. Hence all the boxes.”

  I pick up a copy of the Socialist Worker. “Good read, is it?”

  “Every other British newspaper is a propaganda sheet,” replies Ian. “Even The Guardian. Take one.”

  It seems rude to refuse, so I say “Thanks” and study the front page: the headline is WORKERS UNITE NOW! over a photo of striking miners. “So do you, like … agree with Russia?”

  “Not at all,” says Ian. “Stalin butchered Russian communism in its cradle, Khrushchev was a shameless revisionist, and Brezhnev built luxury stores for Party sycophants while the workers queued for stale bread. Soviet imperialism’s as bad as American capitalism.”

  Houses loop past, like the background on cheap cartoons.

  Heidi asks, “What do your parents do for a living, Tracy?”

  “They own a pub. The King’s Head. Near Camden.”

  “Pub landlords,” says Ian, “get bled white by the big breweries. Same old story, I’m afraid. The worker makes the profit and the bosses cream it off. Hello-hello, what’s all this about?”

  The traffic ahead’s come to a standstill, halfway up a hill.

  “An invisible war’s going on,” says Heidi, which confuses me till I realize she doesn’t mean the slow traffic, “all through history—the class war. Owners versus slaves, nobles versus serfs, the bloated bosses versus workers, the haves versus the have-nots. The working classes are kept in a state of repression by a mixture of force and lies.”

  So I ask, “What sort of lies?”

  “The lie that happiness is about borrowing money you haven’t got to buy crap you don’t need,” says Ian. “The lie that we live in a democratic state. And the most weaselly lie of all, that there is no class war. That’s why the Establishment keeps such an iron grip on what’s taught in schools, specially in history. Once the workers wise up, the revolution will kick off. And, as Gil Scott-Heron tells us, it will not be televised.”

  I don’t know who the heron is, but it’s hard to think of our history teacher Mr. Simms as a cog in a vast plot to keep the workers down. I wonder if Dad’s a bloated boss for employing Glenda. I ask, “Don’t revolutions often end up making things even worse?”
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  “Fair point,” says Heidi. “Revolutions do attract the Napoleons, the Maos, the Pol Pots. But that’s where the Party comes in. When the British revolution kicks off, we’ll be here with our structure in place, to protect it from Fascists and hijackers.”

  The traffic inches forward; Ian’s van rumbles on.

  I ask, “D’you think the revolution’ll be soon, then?”

  “The miners’ strike could be the match in the gas tank,” says Ian. “When workers see the unions being gunned down—first with laws, then bullets—it’ll be clear that a class-based revolution isn’t some pie-in-the-sky lefty dream, but a matter of survival.”

  “Karl Marx,” says Heidi, “proved how capitalism eats itself. When it can’t feed the millions it spits out, no amount of lies or brutality will save it. Sure, the Americans will go for our jugular—they’ll want to keep their fifty-first state—and Moscow will try to grab the reins, but when the soldiers join in, as they did in 1917 in Russia, then we’ll be unstoppable.” She and Ian are so sure of everything, like Jehovah’s Witnesses. Heidi leans out to look ahead: “Police.”

  Ian mutters about Thatcher’s pigs and attack dogs, and we reach a roundabout where a lorry’s lying on its side. Bits of windscreen are scattered across the tarmac, and a policewoman’s merging three lanes of traffic into one. She looks calm and in control—not piggish or wolfish or on the lookout for a runaway teenager at all, so far as I can see.