Lammastide Dancers, The

THE LAMMASTIDE DANCERS

"Tell me again," she says.

As if I had not been through the whole thing a hundred times already.
To his parents the day after. To the police. Not that I'd told them
what really happened. They were suspicious enough as it was. I don't
know what they thought; that I'd bashed his head in and stuffed him
down a rabbit hole, maybe. One hint of the truth and they would have
had me straight in the nick, either that or the loony bin. No, the only
one I've told is Kelly, and I'm not sure why I told her, except she
reminds me a bit of Daz, being his kid sister, like.

I miss old Daz. We'd been mates all through school; wagged off
together, messed around empty buildings, nicked stuff from shops.
Some nights we'd pinch a couple of cars and go racing, screaming round
the streets on two wheels. You have to have some excitement.

There were four or five of us in those days. Funny to think I'm the
only one left. Pete gone to join the army, Dave dead in a car smash,
Carl doing five years for arson and Daz --

Daz is off dancing with the fairies.

Do you wonder I don't want to talk about it? I never meant to tell
Kelly only she kept on at me, and then she's a bit weird herself. You
know, wears amulets and tattoos and paints her nails black. And I'd
have gone nuts if I hadn't told someone.

But it was alright. she just said, "I knew he wasn't dead, he would
have told me."

I said she was weird.

Still. she's helped me make some sense of it all, being into ley lines
and earth forces and that sort of thing. She says that the night he
went was some sort of big pagan festival,
Lammas or Lugh-mass or some such name, when you might expect sprites
and goblins to be about. I thought that was just Hallowe'en. And she
came up with the plan to get him back.

Which is why we're out here on the moor in the middle of the night,
exactly a year after he disappeared.

"Please, Jed. Tell me what happened," she says again.

Only I can't remember what happened, not clearly anyway. It's all
muddled up. I can remember the first part well enough. We'd been for a
drink to the 'Lion' over in Aldburrow. They had a band there Sunday
nights. It was when I had that job delivering,
so we borrowed the van. It made a change, getting out of town.

Then on the way back, as we were crossing the moor, right in the middle
of the loneliest stretch of road, the engine died on us. Well, neither
of us could fix it, and as for anyone stopping to help - forget
it.

I don't remember who first thought of walking back across the moor.
Daz, probably. Alright, we knew the moor could be dangerous, bogs and
old mineshafts and suchlike, but it didn't seem such a bad idea at the
time. We weren't that drunk, either; I mean we'd had a few but we
weren't paralytic like they tried to make out.

I can even remember what we talked about. Daz had one of his brilliant
ideas, he was going to build himself a boat and sail off round the
world. The only thing he ever built in his
life was a sort of box thing in woodwork - and that wouldn't shut. But
he was like that. When we were kids he was the one who was going to be
an astronaut. Me, I'd settle for a decent
job and enough money to move out from my mum's, but I've as much chance
of that round here as Daz had of getting to the moon. So
perhaps he was right. If all you've got is dreams you may as well make
them good ones.

It was a beautiful night. Bright moonlight, just like tonight. I don't
think I'd ever seen proper moonlight before. Well, you don't, do you?
It's all drowned out by street lights. I never knew it could be that
bright. The whole moor
was like a great silver bowl with me and Daz two flies crawling across
it. And then, as we got up by Thyrs' Knob, we heard the music.

It's no use, I can't remember. There were lights, and people there,
and dancing, I'm sure of that, but I can't say what happened.
There's just - a bright place in my mind, a tune . . . I wake up
sometimes with it going through my head, but it's gone before I can
catch it. All I know is, it was morning, and I was lying on the side of
the hill. and Daz was gone.

I feel her touch my arm. "Are you sure this is the place?"

Of course I'm sure. Thyrs' Knob looms over us. "A prehistoric burial
mound" they called it in school.

"We must be careful," she says. "If they come, if we see him, just grab
him and hold on, whatever they do. And don't join the dance. If we do
that we'll be lost as well."

I nod. My mouth feels dry, though whether I'm afraid of something
happening or nothing happening I wouldn't like to say. We stand there,
too nervous to talk. The moon comes out from behind a cloud, goes back
in again. After hours, or minutes, I don't know, I feel her stiffen,
and then I hear it too. The music. We creep round the base of the hill
till we can see -

The mound has a great wedge cut out of it, like a cake with a slice
missing, and out of the hole pour the dancers, so beautiful, nothing
has ever been so beautiful; and the light comes with them. it's part of
them, it hangs around them like a golden mist; and the music says
dance, dance, you must dance.

Only I can't dance. I never could.

Kelly wants to, I can see her swaying, her feet tapping, reaching out
her hands to the other hands waiting to draw her in. As I catch her arm
and drag her back I can see that her eyes are shining, and I have to
shake her, hard, before she wakes up and glares at me. All the time the
music surrounds us, fills us. How could I have forgotten that tune, how
could I?

And then we see him among the dancers. We dare not move, but stand
waiting until the pattern of the dance brings him close to us, as it
surely must. Closer he comes, and closer, until I am looking straight
into his face, and yet he doesn't see me or know me. I reach out to
snatch him away -

- only to find my own arms grabbed from behind and held firmly.

"No!" cries Kelly. "NO!"

Darkness. Silence. All the joy, the beauty, all vanished.

Can you cry for losing somethng you never had? I can. I do. I would be
ashamed, but only Kelly is there to see, and she doesn't
care. She is crying herself anyway.

It's a long walk back into town. We don't talk much. What is there to
say? Finally we reach the outskirts of the estate, and before she goes
off to her own place I grab her arm.

"Why, Kelly? Why did you do it? Didn't you want him back? Your own
brother!"

Kelly stops to look around her. "You think he'd want to come back? To
this?"

It's getting light by now. You can make out the shapes of the tower
blocks, the boarded-up shops, the torched car in the kid's playground,
the needles in the gutter. The only colour isthe graffiti sprayed on
the walls. A chill wind blows chip papers round our ankles.

She laughs. "You remember the look on his face? Maybe you didn't
recognise it, it's not something you see a lot of round here. They call
it happiness." She turned to go, then looked back. "If I'd had the
sense I was born with I'd have stayed with him."

I watch her walk away, a small blot of black disappearing into the
gray. I should go home. They'll all be getting up soon. Mum will be
screaming at my sister, the twins will be fighting, the baby yelling
its head off . . . I don't think I can face it, not yet.

The sun is out, showing up the stained concrete, glinting on the broken
glass. Even the sunlight has a faded look, as if it's been in the wash
too often. I don't belong here any more. Perhaps I should get out, go
down south, London maybe? But what's the point, it will be the same
wherever I go.

I wish I had learned to dance.

I keep hearing that tune going round in my head all the time. Round and
round and round. I just can't seem to get rid of it.