J) The Black Marble

Maisy couldn't wait to get her pocket money. It was Saturday, she
had done her chores all week, and she knew exactly what she was going
to spend her money on. Recently a new craze had rattled through town
like brushwood on a desert breeze. It was new to the local kids, but
their parents and past generations would have fond memories of playing
in back streets when they were young. Marbles had come to town, and in
a frenzy of anticipation the local shop owners had bulk ordered
thousands of the little red plastic, net bags. They hung in rows from
virtually every newsagents and sweet shop around. The kids couldn't get
enough of them and confectionery sales had plummeted
dramatically.

Maisy had a shiny pound coin. It felt warm in her palm, she was aware
of its weight and could feel the little ridges along its edge digging
into her hand, as she clenched her fist ever more tightly round the
money as insurance against loss or theft. She was still getting used to
the new coins that had replaced pound notes, and marvelled at the feel
of its comfortable weight. All week she had looked forward to the
moment when she could rush down to Brockkies and make her purchase. She
had enough money to buy two bags of marbles and two-penny sweets and
she was very excited. As she walked towards the park where she was
meeting some of the local kids for a huge battle of marble supremacy,
the two net bags in her hand clacked together in time with her steps.
Although she knew exactly how many marbles she had, she couldn't wait
to open the bags and count out her glass treasure. Maisy had one
hundred and forty six marbles in her special box at home, the pride of
this a beautiful, big fifty-er. She hoped that she would never have to
play it, because if she was beaten, she couldn't bear the thought of
its loss. Today she had only brought out her two new bags so that if
she suffered defeat, she wouldn't be tempted to dip into the ones she
had already amassed. Last week she had barely broken even, and came
home with only five new marbles after her morning's fierce battling.
One of them had been a five-er with a green flash in the otherwise
clear glass, the other four had only been basic one-ers such as she had
just bought. She hoped to have a better day this time.

A travelling circus had come to town, a mixed band of foreign people
who spoke broken English with arrogance as though the language was
beneath them. The circus people always walked very tall, their postures
erect and elegant despite the underlying traces of grime and poverty
about them. Maisy was a little bit scared of these people who seemed so
very different from her own. She had to walk past the circus ground to
get to the park, and although the circus dwellers smiled with wide
mouths, their eyes invariably remained black and expressionless as they
glanced down upon her. Maisy was eleven years old, but she knew enough
of the world to know that she lacked confidence and self esteem, how
she yearned to be like the brash circus girls who practised their acts
around the grassed area outside the tent with such balletic
sophistication.

Maisy hurried past the circus encampment and then slowed to a dawdle.
For the moment her precious marbles were forgotten and in her mind she
was Maisetta the world famous Hungarian trapeze artists who flew
gracefully hundreds of feet above her adoring fans without the
precaution of a safety net. She became so engrossed in her fantasy that
she could almost hear the applause ringing in her ears. Her previously
timid expression changed into a wide smile as in her mind she descended
the ladder effortlessly to earth and took her bows.

She was so involved with her thoughts that she never saw the boy
leaning on the park gate and almost bumped right into him. She reddened
instantly and began to mumble a self-conscious apology with her head
and eyes lowered.

He was tall and slim, and even though he couldn't have been so very
much older than Maisy, his upper arms swelled with defined muscle.
Maisy had walked several streets from the circus ground now, but she
knew instantly that he was one of the travellers. His skin was dark,
not coloured exactly, but certainly darker than any of the English boys
she knew. Both his eyes and his hair were jet black; he would have been
good looking enough to take her breath away had he not been scowling at
her so fiercely. Maisy despised herself for feeling so scared and
intimidated.

"Eeey you watcha where you go eh?"

Again she repeated her mumbled and incoherent apology.

"You likea da Marbel eh leetle girl?"

Maisy bristled at being called a little girl, when he was no more than
about a year or two older. She willed her cheeks to fade from furious
red to a more acceptable colour but they only deepened in their
intensity the more she focussed on cooling them.

"I have special Marbel, you wanna buy?"

"Er no thanks" muttered Maisy. "I've just spent the last of my money on
these." She clutched the bags of marbles protectively to her side in
case the boy should decide to take them from her.

"Hey, I not steal Marbel, why you think Maurio wanna steal
Marbel?"

"Er, um, er" said Maisy non-commitaly.

Maurio didn't seem to be waiting for an answer so she let her reply
dwindle away on the gentle autumn wind.

He reached into his trouser pocket and with exaggerated showmanship,
brought out an enormous black Marble.

Maisy gasped in appreciation, not only was it the biggest marble she
had seen, but it was not made of glass, and it shone with an opaque
purlescence that was different from any other in town. It was the most
beautiful marble she had ever seen and she longed to own it. Maurio
held it up to the light and Maisy saw that it was not as she thought.
At first glance it appeared to be a dense black all the way through to
its core, only when it caught in the sunlight did she see that it had
what looked like a coiling black embryo in its centre.

Maurio turned the marble slowly in his hands and Maisy became
transfixed, she found that although she wanted to, she couldn't pull
her eyes from the rotating sphere. It turned and turned like a small
planet between his fingers until Maisy began to feel dizzy, it had
become hot, very hot, and suddenly humid, she felt moisture under her
arms and her shirt stuck to the damp skin of her back. Again she tried
to disengage her focus from the marble but could not. The world had
disappeared and all eternity and matter had become concentrated into
that small ball of black light that spun in front of her gaze. Her
thoughts refused to align themselves into any semblance of order and
she was simultaneously awed and repulsed by the marble. She felt that
she must have it, but at the same time felt an irrational fear building
within her.

As abruptly as she had become transfixed the spell was broken. Maurio
flicked the marble high up into the air and caught it deftly before he
flicked it back into his pocket.

"You wanna buy, I let you have for only one pound."

The Marble must have had the value of being a ton-er at the very least,
maybe even more; she would be the envy of everyone at the park. They
would all want to fight for the beautiful black marble, but if she
owned it, she would never put it into battle, it would be her special
treasure, something that they would all want but that only she had
possession of. The black marble was a symbol of power, a bartering
token of the greatest magnitude, one that she knew she could never use
in trade, battle, or bribe. There was something about the marble that
terrified and repulsed her.

"I already told you I don't have any money. I only get a pound a week
and I've just spent it."

"You borrow?"

"No I have no one that I could borrow off."

"You get from Mamma's purse?"

Maisy was horrified..

"I could never do that. I don't steal."

Maurio shrugged, her disdain did not seem to bother him.

She tried to push past, but he held out a strong arm to bar her
way.

"You must get money. Marbel has spoken. It will be yours. Maurio tells
you now; the marbel will go where it wants to go and if you do not pay
the fee, eet will come with the bad blood, then you will be sorry. I
can not be responsible for what Marbel will do"

Maisy had heard enough of this rubbish, she turned and ran in the
direction that she had just come and heard Maurio's laughter behind
her, chasing her up the street as her feet pounded faster with each
heavy step along the pavement. He was ridiculing her, and she felt
ridiculous for taking flight.

Maisy avoided the circus ground on her way home. She took the much
longer route and arrived home breathless and feeling as though she had
been bullied, when in fact it had been an attack of mild intimidation
at most.

She flung herself on the bed and wondered how long the horrible boy
would be hanging around the park. Maisy reached for her new marbles,
still hopeful that soon she would be able to go out and play the game.
Her hand fell onto the material of her corduroy trousers; there were no
net bags between her and them. She had not heard the marbles fall to
the ground as she had run from the park. The circus boy must have
cleverly taken them from her without her even noticing. No doubt by now
he would have sold them to one of the local kids along with the
horrible black marble that she wanted so badly. What an awful morning
it had been, all her precious marbles were gone and it would be a whole
week before she had the money to buy some more.

Maisy had a decision to make, should she wait until the games the
following week to play? Or should she gamble some of her 'safe'
marbles? She decided to go through her box and choose which ones she
was prepared to lose should she not fare well.

She lifted the large wooden carved box from her bookshelf, it was heavy
and the shelf was high and it was quite a feat of precision and balance
to get the box safely onto the bed without spilling its contents. The
box itself made a wonderful treasure chest, she had bought it for one
pound at an auction. Her mother had let her bid for it herself and she
glowed pink with pleasure as the hammer had fallen in her favour.

She opened the lid, relishing the sight of all the marbles that covered
the bottom of the box. The red, velvet interior set them off to
perfection and made them look like sparkling jewels. This time when she
opened the box, her eyes widened in a mixture of pleasure and
revulsion. There, nestling in the centre of the other marbles, like a
stampeding hooligan trampling his peers underfoot, was the enormous
black marble.

Maisy felt the breath leaving her body with a whoosh. The boy must have
broken in to her house, worse into her bedroom, the very place that was
her own, that was private. He could come back anytime and spy on her as
she slept. Maisy was frightened. How had he found out where she lived?
How had he known where she kept her marble collection? And how had he
got past her parents and brother without being heard? She didn't have
the answers to any of the questions. She certainly didn't tell him
where she lived, and she was almost sure she hadn't been
followed.

Why had he broken in and left the marble? Nothing seemed to have been
taken, it didn't make sense to her. The best solution that she could
come up with was that he had felt guilty about robbing her of her own
marbles and had been pricked by some form of gypsy code of conduct that
said that it was not good sport to steal marbles from pathetic little
girls.

The mystery of the black Marble puzzled Maisy for some time. So much so
that she didn't show the marble to anyone, she took it out of her
collection, wrapped it in toilet paper, and put it in an old chocolate
orange box. She hid the box at the back of the shoe cupboard under the
stairs. On the rare occasions when she did unwrap it, she always felt
apprehensive and troubled. No matter what the season the marble always
felt warm to the touch. If Maisy had been able to put her feelings into
words she would have said that she was scared of the marble because it
seemed to pulse with an imperceptible energy of its own. She never
threw it away and as time passed it gathered dust in the bottom of the
cupboard. Once or twice over the next few years, she thought about the
mystery of how she came to own the marble, but for the most part it was
forgotten.

Marbles came and left town, once again consigned to the pages of 'The
Way We Were' history books. They were replaced by jacks, which were
replaced by space-hoppers, which were replaced by klackers. Maisy grew
and married and moved. She had no idea what happened to the black
marble, just as she had no idea how it had come into her possession in
the first place. Her head was full of confetti and bouquets, then later
of library books and PE kits and the trivialities of her childhood
faded into that denim-tinged-sky that all the best memories are made
of.

These days the innocent problems of childhood seemed a very long way
away. Maisy had problems on her mind of a far weightier substance. She
was sitting in a sterile examination room with a bubble wrap film of
goosepimples mottling her skin. The split-back gown was thin and her
nipples protruded rudely through the washed out blue cotton.

She was looking at her liver, or more precisely, at an ultrasound scan
of her liver. A bone scan and liver biopsy had already been performed.
The diagnosis was conclusive and this last performance was just a case
of dotting the I's and crossing the T's.

In the detached manner characteristic of the medically shocked, Maisy
marvelled at the technological advances that had been made in the last
fifteen or so years. Her insides were clearly visible on a
three-dimensional monitor screen. The consultant pointed her liver out
to her in a voice reverent with pride. Maisy wondered if he believed he
had personally conceived the malignant organ.

The biopsy had shown it to be grey and poisoned, that had been
startling enough, but here it was displayed rotating on a screen like a
prize exhibit at an alternative art gallery. The mass of her liver
showed as a grey mottled density to the top left of the screen. The
large black blotch that swarmed over its surface was the tumour that
was eating her alive.

Maisy tilted her head slightly to look at it. She didn't feel anything
except a mild irritation that she would never finish the galloping
horses tapestry that was two-thirds done. As the liver and its
offending appendage rotated slowly on the screen something niggled at
Maisies memory. She fixed her gaze on the black object that was
turning, turning, turning. At first she was only aware of the opaque
fuzziness of its mass, but as she became more focused on the monitor,
an embryonic tadpole of almost fluid blackness coiled in the middle of
the tumour, made itself visible to her.

She was eleven years old, standing transfixed, as a black tadpole
turned in a translucent planet. Words came to her from the fringes of
her memory.

If you don't pay the fee, it will come to you with bad blood and then
you'll be sorry.

Maisy was sorry. She was sorry that she had bad blood, and bad liver,
and bad bones. She was sorry that her youngest child was only seven
years old. She was sorry that she had only a few weeks left to
live.

Other words were coming at her through a haze. Innoperable, comfortable
as possible, chemotherapy not much point, pain relief.

In her mind she was playing the big black marble. She heard the clunk
as her marble smashed into the throng of all the others just like
it.

She'd won! She'd won!

Maisy scooped her cache of black marbles towards her, beaming in her
victory.

In the real world the doctor was still talking.

You see it's not the only one, there are secondary, multiple tumours
just like it. Not yet as large as this one, but they are multiplying
all the time.