Caroline was pegging out washing under the house. Although she welcomed Joseph warmly, she insisted on a brief visit.
‘I won’t be long, I promise – I just want to tell him something.’
Caroline raised her eyebrows with interest. ‘You two keeping secrets from me now?’ she asked jokingly.
The embarrassed silence that followed confirmed her suspicions.
‘I see … oh well, I guess it’s just a boys’ club. Up you go then. I’ve just taken him in a cup of tea, so you’ve called at a good time.’
‘Thanks.’
Joseph bounded up the back steps to the open door of Tom Leyton’s room. ‘I think I know why the Running Man runs!’ Joseph burst out breathlessly, before realising that Tom Leyton was lying on his bed propped up with pillows. ‘Sorry … I … are you feeling better?’ Joseph muttered.
‘A little tired.’ Tom Leyton replied automatically, but his eyes were locked firmly on the old scrapbook that Joseph carried.
‘Caroline showed me this yesterday. There’s a photo of you in it … a newspaper article … about going to Vietnam. Look.’
Joseph fumbled through the pages before awkwardly placing the open scrapbook on Tom Leyton’s lap. He watched as Tom Leyton pulled it closer and tilted it slowly upwards. His gaze fell on the photograph taken over thirty years ago, and he appeared to harden into rock. Only his eyes continued to shift a moment longer before they too set in a rigid stare.
From the page, Tom Leyton’s boyish face beamed up disarmingly, but it was met by a cold dark visage that admitted no light and shunned all contact. The two faces appeared locked in a battle of wills, until the man’s hand slid slowly from the edges of the scrapbook and it dropped to his lap. A taut voice rasped through the silence. ‘You said something about your Running Man.’
Joseph leant forward and pulled a handful of pages towards him. As they flopped over, a roughly torn strip of paper that Joseph had used as a marker slid to the floor. Joseph pointed to a photograph. ‘That’s him. That’s the Running Man.’
Joseph followed Tom Leyton’s eyes to the picture that by now was so familiar to him. The date printed neatly beside the article in pencil was April 22nd 1979. The Running Man’s face was much younger, of course, and slightly fuller, the features less sharp and gaunt. His hair was shorter and he wore a long sleeved shirt and tie. In fact, Joseph could easily have passed over the photo without making a connection if it hadn’t been for one thing – the familiar look of torment and suffering that strained achingly on the Running Man’s face.
In the photograph the Running Man was seated on the edge of a footpath with his feet splayed out in the gutter. In front of him was someone in uniform – a fireman or ambulance man – with his hand against the Running Man’s chest. Beside him was another man with his back to the camera. The second man was holding on to his left shoulder. The Running Man was straining forward, his anguished face bleached to a ghostly white by the camera’s flash. The three figures were surrounded by darkness. The headline read Mother and Babes Lost in Blaze.
Joseph had read the article many times and the details came automatically to mind. The Running Man’s real name was Simon Jamieson. He worked in a bookstore in the city. The cause of the fire was unknown, probably an electrical fault. By the time neighbours were alerted, the old timber house was ablaze and attempts to rescue anyone inside were repelled by the thick smoke and flames. Mr Jamieson, arriving home late from work, was reported as having desperately tried to fight his way into the house but was restrained by firemen and onlookers. Three bodies were located in the nursery: Mrs Jamieson aged 23 and twin daughters Amy and Jessica aged 11 months. The girls were in their mother’s arms.
The previous night Joseph had lain awake trying to comprehend the awful nightmare that had confronted the Running Man. He imagined him stepping from a bus – just another day of work over. Perhaps he caught a fleeting scent of woody smoke or sparks rising in the night sky. In his imagination Joseph saw him walking with growing urgency, faster and faster, as, in the distance, the orange glow of flames and the mad circling flashes of fire engine lights plunged a dagger of dread through his heart. At some terrible moment in time, Joseph thought, that dread would have turned to horror and he would have known. Then the running, the mad, hopeless running, would have begun. Oh my God no! Run. Please, please, Jesus – no! Run – just run. No, no, dear God, no! Keep running. Run. Don’t stop or it’s over. Run. Keep running …
When Tom Leyton finished reading the article his eyes moved back to the photograph and he gave his head a slow shake. ‘It’s a wonder he survived the fire.’
Joseph frowned and thought Tom Leyton must have misread the article. ‘But he wasn’t in the house. He was at work, and when he got home they wouldn’t let him inside. He was never in the fire.’
‘No, not that night,’ Tom Leyton agreed readily, ‘but every moment since I would imagine, every awful moment since.’
A wave of sadness swept over Joseph. ‘Do you think he wishes he’d died that night as well?’ he asked.
‘Wouldn’t anyone?’
Tom Leyton noticed the boy’s head drop a little at his harsh reply and added, ‘But he survives … in his own way.’
‘Carrying his baggage?’
Tom Leyton was surprised to hear his own words come back at him. ‘Yes. Sometimes what people carry with them through life is barely noticeable. Sometimes, like the Running Man, it drags them down. It pulls and twists them out of shape.’
‘Can’t you ever get rid of it?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Tom Leyton replied wretchedly. ‘You try to leave it behind, but it is always there with you. It becomes part of you. Either you find a way to carry it or it crushes you.’
A wavering desperation had entered Tom Leyton’s voice, and Joseph sensed that the conversation had tilted away from the Running Man and towards Tom Leyton himself.
‘Perhaps,’ Joseph began tentatively, ‘someone could help get rid of it … help carry it?’
Tom Leyton looked into the eyes of the young boy seated on the edge of his bed. ‘But what if it is more than that person expected … more than they can bear?’ he asked almost fearfully. ‘What if it crushes them as well?’
The intensity of emotion that was building in Tom Leyton made Joseph uneasy, and he tried to move the conversation back to safer ground. ‘I don’t know … I’ve always been … scared of him, I guess … but now … I feel sorry for him … but I still wouldn’t know what to say to him.’
Tom Leyton lifted the scrapbook back up and looked again at the old newspaper clipping. He spoke with a gentleness and longing that Joseph had not heard from him before. ‘I used to believe that words were so important. I don’t believe that now. Even if you were the greatest poet who ever lived, I don’t think that any words you could say would be as important to this man as you simply being there and for him to know that you were not afraid, and that you could actually see him, see Simon Jamieson still living and breathing and not just the Running Man.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
Following the doctor’s advice Caroline was adamant that her brother should rest for a few days to regain his strength, and so Joseph didn’t call in again until Friday afternoon. By then Tom Leyton seemed back to normal and Caroline was happy to arrange for Joseph to come over the following morning. The main purpose of the visit was to help organise and shelve the books that still remained in boxes or stacked in the corner of his room.
The morning passed quickly and productively. Joseph helped Tom Leyton divide the books into three piles: poetry, novels, and short stories. Then they began to arrange the books alphabetically by author on the shelves.
Joseph enjoyed sliding the books into place and gradually building the tight, solid rows. He felt as if somehow he was putting something back together, rebuilding a part of Tom Leyton that had lain in the musty darkness far too long. From time to time Joseph would hold up a book that he had recognised or one that had raised his cur
iosity in some way and Tom Leyton would explain a little about the author or the story. Once or twice Tom Leyton read a passage from a novel or recited a line or verse from a poem and little by little Joseph saw a change in the hard, bleak exterior of the man, as if something long buried was finally pushing through.
Joseph had promised his mother that he would be home early for lunch, but when the time arrived for him to depart there were still two large cartons of books left untouched. Caroline chastised both of them for too much talking and not enough working, but she couldn’t hide her pleasure at what she was witnessing.
The next day when Joseph returned to help finish the job, Tom Leyton pointed to the desk.
‘I’ve got something to show you.’
Joseph moved to inspect the cocoons. One had a neat round hole in the end, and beside it sat a plump white moth, with its wings still small and crumpled from its confinement.
‘One’s hatched!’
‘Yes. Just this morning. It’s a female. The males are smaller. She’s full of eggs.’
Joseph turned back to the powdery moth. Its body was fat and banded like a cartoon beehive and two large black feelers arched like feathers above its eyes. Tom Leyton moved beside Joseph and spoke softly.
‘Now is their hour, when they wake from that long swoon;
Their pale curved wings are marked in a pattern of leaves,
Shadowy for trees, white for the dance of the moon;’
Joseph listened to Tom Leyton’s voice, as soothing as a lullaby, and watched as the words of the poem found perfect shape in the gentle fragile creature before him.
‘I’ve still got your copy of the poem. I meant to bring it back.’
‘You can keep it,’ Tom Leyton said, picking up a novel from the top of the bookcase and turning it over in his hands.
‘I could type you up a new copy if you like … on the computer.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘I don’t mind. It’s no trouble. Then you’d have a copy for your noticeboard.’
Tom Leyton fiddled with the book in his hands and flicked the pages aimlessly. ‘Thank you,’ he said before turning his back.
Just then Joseph heard a soft drone and looked down. The silkworm moth had moved away from the cocoon and had climbed up the side of its small compartment. While he watched, it shuffled slowly to the edge, where it stopped and hummed its fragile wings.
In the week that followed, if Caroline wasn’t working, Joseph called in most days after school. With each visit more moths were hatched from their cocoons, and sometimes Joseph would help place the new arrivals into the box Tom Leyton had prepared for the egg-laying. There, with a whirr of wings like a motor, the moths would manoeuvre around like squat jumbos taxiing on a runway, and find a mate.
By the time the weekend came, all the moths had hatched and sprays of yellow and grey eggs speckled the bottom and sides of the cardboard box like sesame seeds. Joseph called over after lunch on the Saturday and added the last of the cocoons to the hundreds of others in the drawers of Tom Leyton’s desk. Then he pulled up a stool and, as he had done many times before, peered happily into the box of silkworm moths.
Inside, some of the creatures rested peacefully, others were joined silently in the act of mating, and others still crept with buzzing wings in search of a partner. Joseph felt almost envious of their gentle, uncomplicated lives. Familiar words came into his mind, and without realising he said them aloud.
‘They are gentle and kind together, they are safe for ever,’
As if drawn by his voice, Tom Leyton moved beside Joseph and also gazed into the box as he spoke.
‘And all shall be answered at last when they embrace.
White moth moves closer to moth, lover to lover.’
Tom Leyton shifted his eyes to Joseph and waited. Joseph glanced up at him and accepted the unspoken challenge by reciting his favourite lines confidently,
‘There is that pang of joy on the edge of dying –
Their soft wings whirr, they dream that they are flying.’
Joseph looked into the familiar brooding face of Tom Leyton and watched in amazement as the ghost of a smile fought its way on to his stony features. For a few seconds, as the skin wrinkled around his eyes, some faint ember of light within them glowed dully. Tom Leyton raised his hand and for a moment before it fell back to his side, it hovered near Joseph’s shoulder.
‘Thank you, Joseph … for everything.’
When he left the Leytons’ house that afternoon, Joseph could scarcely contain his happiness. On his way across their lawn he grabbed a fistful of mulberry leaves and tossed them carelessly into the air. But when he scrambled up the back stairs and swung around the doorway into the kitchen, the smile dissolved from Joseph’s face. Mrs Mossop sat, perched like a judge, at the kitchen table. Beside her was his mother, looking small and helpless – her face distorted with worry.
‘It’s not true!’ Joseph cried defiantly.
‘I know it’s hard for you, but please, just listen to what Mrs Mossop has to say,’ his mother said.
Joseph was seated opposite the two women like a prisoner under interrogation. He stared blankly at the table as Mrs Mossop spoke in a slow patronising voice.
‘Joseph, I don’t want to upset you – I’m trying to help you. I know with your father being away you must get lonely. You must miss him terribly. A boy needs his father, but this man, Tom Leyton, is … not what he might seem.’
‘You know nothing about him. You’ve never even talked to him,’ Joseph fired back, bristling with anger and guilt at the mention of his father.
‘Yes, you’re right, dear, I haven’t spoken with him,’ Mrs Mossop continued calmly, ‘but I do know something about him, something I’m sure he would prefer to keep hidden.’
Mrs Mossop looked across at Joseph’s mother, who nodded grimly for her to continue.
‘Tom Leyton was a teacher at a small country school. He was only there a few months before he was forced to leave.’
‘I know all about that. He told me himself,’ Joseph countered boldly.
‘Did he tell you why he had to leave?’ Mrs Mossop asked.
‘Yes, he wasn’t well. He fought in Vietnam. His best mate was killed. He thought he was well enough to teach but he wasn’t ready. It was too much for him.’
‘If that is what he told you, I’m afraid he was lying,’ Mrs Mossop said, angering Joseph with her condescending tone.
‘He’s not lying. Terrible things happened to him in Vietnam. It’s true. He was there. I’ve seen photos.’
Mrs Mossop’s mouth became a thin line and she continued more sternly than before. ‘I don’t know what stories he has told you about Vietnam – they may even be true for all I know. But the reason Tom Leyton was forced to leave teaching had nothing whatsoever to do with Vietnam. It was because of inappropriate behaviour with one of his pupils.’
A coldness came over Joseph, and he felt as if his heart was being squeezed inside his chest. He turned to his mother for support, but her eyes fluttered down to where her hands twisted in her lap.
‘It’s not true,’ he said, more in desperation than defiance. ‘He wouldn’t hurt anyone. Anyway, how would you know what happened? You weren’t there.’
‘No, but I’ve spoken to someone who was.’
Mrs Mossop paused to let her words sink in before she continued. ‘Before, I had only heard rumours, strong rumours mind you, but when you started becoming … involved … with the man I felt I had to do some investigating. You see I have a cousin who lives in the district where Tom Leyton taught. I explained why I was interested in him and she agreed to make some discreet enquiries for me. Well, that was a few weeks back. Last night, as I’ve already told your mother, I had a phone call from a man who taught with Tom Leyton at that school. He’s retired now but still lives in the local area. My cousin had made contact with him and explained my concerns. As soon as he heard what my cousin had to say, he rang me straightaway.’
/> Mrs Mossop looked up at the boy as if she regretted what she was about to say. ‘You were quite right, Joseph. I wasn’t there, but this man was – and not just at the school. He was in the classroom when it happened. He saw it.’
‘Perhaps he’s lying,’ Joseph said feebly.
‘Why would he lie?’
‘Well … maybe he made a mistake.’
‘He wasn’t alone, Joseph. The man who phoned said he was passing Tom Leyton’s classroom with the principal. It was lunchtime. They heard the sound of a boy’s voice crying to be let go. When they looked in the classroom they saw Tom Leyton with his arms wrapped around the boy weeping and saying over and over that he was sorry and pleading with the boy to forgive him. The child was younger than you, Joseph, and he was terrified and hysterical. Within a week Tom Leyton was gone. Somehow the incident was covered up and it wasn’t taken any further.’
‘But it doesn’t prove …’ Joseph whispered weakly.
‘No, not if you refuse to look,’ Mrs Mossop replied.
Joseph had lost the strength to argue. In his head he kept hearing Caroline’s words, ‘He hates himself, Joseph,’ and Tom Leyton’s own warning tolled out like a death knell, ‘There’s always something worse.’
‘I’m sorry, Joseph. But I couldn’t sit by and let him harm you.’
With that, the hurt and anger surged through Joseph’s body and he spat his words out brashly as if trying to convince himself of their truth. ‘He would never hurt me! He just wouldn’t. He showed me his books. We put them back into his room. He told me things, about Vietnam, about silkworms. We talk about lots of things. You wouldn’t understand. He’s not a monster. He likes me. He would never do anything like that. You don’t know him. You’re just a stupid old lady. You don’t know anything!’