Graham Joyce - Under the Pylon

After school or during the long summer holidays we used to meet down by the electricity pylon. Though we never went there when the weather was wet because obviously there was no cover. Apart from that the wet power lines would vibrate and hum and throb and it would be.. . well, I'm not saying I was scared but it would give you a bad feeling.

Wet or dry, we'd all been told not to play under the pylon. Our folks had lectured us time and again to keep away; and an Electricity Board disc fixed about nine feet up on the thing spelled out DANGER in red and white lettering. Two lightning shocks either side of the word set it in zigzag speech marks.

'Danger!'

I imagined the voice of the pylon would sound like a robot's speech-box from a science-fiction film, because that's what the pylon looked like, a colossal robot. Four skeletal steel legs straddled the ground, tapering up to a pointed head nudging the clouds. The struts bearing the massive power cables reached over like arms, adding a note of severity and anthropomorphism to the thing. Like someone standing with their hands on their hips. The power cables themselves drooped slightly until picked up by the next giant robot in the field beyond, and then to the next. Marching into the infinite distance, an army of obstinate robots.

But the pylon was situated on a large patch of waste ground between the houses, and when it came down to it, there was nowhere else for us kids to go. It was a green and overgrown little escape-hatch from suburbia. It smelled of wild grass and giant stalks of cow parsley, and of nettles and foxgloves and dumped house-bricks. You could bash down a section to make a lair hidden from everything but the butterflies. Anyway, it wasn't the danger of electricity giving rise to any nervousness under the pylon. It was something else. Old Mrs Nantwich called it a shadow.

Joy Astley was eleven, and already wearing lipstick and make-up you could have peeled off like a mask. Her parents had big mouths and were always bawling. 'The Nantwiches,' she said airily, 'could only afford to buy this house because it's under the pylon. No one wants a house under the pylon.'

'Why not?' said Clive Mann. It was all he ever said. Clive had a metal brace across his teeth. He was odd; he stared at things..

'Because you don't,' said Joy, 'that's why.'

Tania Brown was in my class at school (she used to pronounce her name 'Tarnia' because of the sunshine jokes) and she agreed with Joy. Kev Duffy burped and said, 'Crap!' It was Kev's word for the month. He would use it repeatedly up until the end of August. Joy just looked at Kev and wiggled her head from side to side, as if that somehow dealt with his remark.

The Nantwiches Joy was being so snobbish about were retired barge people. Why anyone would want to rub two pennies together I've never understood, but they were always described as looking as though they couldn't accomplish this dubious feat; and then in the same breath people would always add 'yet they're the people who have got it'.

I doubted it somehow. They'd lived a hard life transporting coal on the barges, and it showed. Their faces had more channels and ruts than the waterways of the Grand Union.

'They're illiterate,' Joy always pointed out whenever they were mentioned. And then she'd add, 'Can't read or write.'

The Nantwiches' house did indeed stand under the shadow of the giant pylon. Mr Nantwich was one of those old guys with a red face and white hair, forever forking over the earth in his backyard. Their garden backed up to the pylon. A creosoted wooden fence closed off one side of the square defined by the structure's four legs. One day when I was there alone old Mrs Nantwich had scared me by popping her head over the fence and saying, 'You don't wanna play there.'

Her face looked as old and green and lichen-ridden as a church gate. Fine bristles sprouted from her chin. Her hair was always drawn back under a headscarf and she wore spectacles with plastic frames and lenses like magnifying glasses. They made her eyes huge, swimming.

She threw her bead back slowly and pointed her chin towards the top of the pylon. 'Then she looked at me and did it again. 'There's a shadow orf of it.'

I felt embarrassed as she stared. She was waiting for me to speak, so I said, 'What do you mean?'

Before she answered another head popped alongside her own. It was her daughter Olive. Olive looked as old as her mother. She had wild, iron-grey hair. Her teeth were terribly blackened and crooked. The thing about Olive was she never uttered a word. She hadn't spoken, according to my mother, since a man had 'jumped out at her from behind a bush'. I didn't see how that could make someone dumb for the rest of their life, but then I didn't understand what my mother meant by that deceptively careful phrase either.

'Wasn't me,' said Mrs Nantwich a little fiercely, 'as decided to come 'ere.' And then her head disappeared back behind the fence, leaving Olive to stare beadily at me as if I'd done something wrong. Then her head too popped out of sight.

I looked up at the wires and they seemed to hum with spiteful merriment.

Another day I came across Clive Mann, crouched under the pylon, and listening. At that time, the three sides of the pylon had been closed off. We'd found some rusty corrugated sheeting to lean against one end, and a few lengths of torn curtain to screen off another. The third side, running up to the Nantwiches' creosoted fence, was shielded by an impenetrable jungle of five-foot-high stinging nettles.

It had been raining, and the curtains sagged badly. I ducked through the gap between them to find Clive crouched and staring directly up into the tower of the pylon. He said nothing.

'What are you doing?'

'You can hear,' he said. 'You can hear what they're saying.'

I looked up and listened. The lines always made an eerie hissing after rain, but there was no other sound.

'Hear what?'

'No! The people. On the telephones. Mrs Astley is talking to the landlord of the Dog and Trumpet. He's knocking her off.'

I looked up again and listened. I knew he wasn't joking because Clive had no sense of humour. Like I said, he just stared at things. I was about to protest that the cables were power lines, not telephone wires, when the curtains parted and Joy Astley came in.

'What are you two doing?'

We didn't answer.

'My Dad says these curtains and things have got to come down,' said Joy.

'Why?'

'He says he doesn't like the idea.'

'What's it got to do with him?'

'He thinks,' Joy said, closing her eyes, 'things go on here.'

'You mean he's worried about what his angelic daughter gets up to,' I said.

Joy turned around, flicked up her skirt and wiggled her bottom at us. It was a gesture too familiar to be of any interest. At least that day she was wearing panties.

I had to pass by the Dog and Trumpet as I walked home later that afternoon. I noticed Mrs Astley going in by the back door, which was odd because the pub was closed in the afternoons. But I thought little of it at the time.

Just as we became accustomed to Joy flashing her bottom at us, we were well inured to the vague parental unease about us playing under the pylon. None of our parents ever defined the exact nature of their anxieties. They would mention things about electricity and generators, but these didn't add up to much more than old Mrs Nantwich's dark mutterings about a shadow. I got my physics and my science all mixed up as usual, and managed to infect the rest of the group with my store of misapprehensions.

'Radiation,' I announced. 'The reason they're scared is because if there was an accidental power surge feedback...' (I was improvising like mad) ' then we'd all get radiated.'

Radiated. It was a great word. Radiated. It got everyone going.

'There was a woman in the newspaper,' said Joy. 'Her microwave oven went wrong and she was radiated. Her bones all turned to jelly.'

Tania could cap that. 'There was one on television. A woman. She gave birth to a cow with two heads. After being radiated' The girls were always better at horror stories.

Kev Duffy said, 'Crap!' Then he looked up into the pyramid of the tower and said, 'What's the chances of it happening?'

'Eighteen hundred to one,' I said. With that talent for tossing out utterly bogus statistics I should have gone on to become a politician.

Then they were all looking up, and in the silence you could hear the abacus beads whizzing and clacking in their brains.

Joy's parents needn't have worried. Not much went on behind the pylon screens of which they could disapprove. Well, that's not entirely true, since one or two efforts were made seriously to misbehave, but they never amounted to much. Communal cigarettes were sucked down to their filters, bottles of cider were shared round. Clive and I once tried sniffing Airfix but it made us sick as dogs and we were never attracted to the idea again. We once persuaded Joy to take off her clothes for a dare, which she did; but then she immediately put them back on again, so it all seemed a bit pointless and no more erotic than the episode of solvent abuse.

It was the last summer holiday before we were due to be dispatched to what we all called the Big Schools. It all depended on which side of the waste ground you lived. Joy and Kev were to go to President Kennedy, where you didn't have to wear a school uniform; Clive and I were off to Cardinal Wiseman, where you did. It all seemed so unfair. Tania was being sent to some snooty private school where they wore straw hats in the summer. She hated the idea, but her father was what my old man called one of the nobs.

Once, Tania and I were on our own under the pylon. Tania had long blond hair, and was pretty in a willowy sort of way. Her green eyes always seemed wide open with amazement at the things we'd talk about or at what we'd getup to. She spoke quietly in her rather posh accent, and she always seemed desperately grateful that we didn't exclude her from our activities.

Out of the blue she asked me if I'd ever kissed a girl.

'Loads,' I lied. 'Why?'

'I've never kissed anyone. And now I'm going to a girls' school I'll probably never get the chance.'

We sat on an old door elevated from the grass by a few housebricks. I looked away. The seconds thrummed by. I imagined I heard the wires overhead going chock chock chock.

'Would you like to?' she said softly.

'Like to what?'

'To kiss me?'

I shrugged. 'If you want.' My muscles went as stiff as the board on which we perched.

She moved closer, put her head at an angle and closed her eyes. I looked at her thin lips, leaned over and rested my mouth against hers. We stayed like that for some time, stock-still. The power lines overhead vibrated with noisy impatience. Eventually she opened her eyes and pulled back, blinking at me and licking her lips. I realised my hands were clenched to the side of the board as if it had been a magic carpet hurtling across the sky.

So Tania and I were 'going out'. Our kissing improved slightly, and we got a lot of ribbing from the others, but beyond that, nothing had changed. Because I was going out with Tania, Kev Duffy was considered to be 'going out' with Joy, at least nominally; though to be fair to him, he was elected to this position only because Clive was beyond the pale. Kev resented this status as something of an imposition, though he did go along with the occasional bout of simulated kissing. But when Joy appeared one day sporting livid, gash-crimson lipstick and calling him 'darling' at every turn, he got mad and smudged the stuff all round her face with the ball of his hand. The others pretended not to notice, but I could see she was hurt by it.

Another time I'd been reading something about hypnotism, and Joy decided she wanted to be hypnotised. I'd decided I had a talent for this, so I sat her on the grass inside the pylon while the other three watched. I did all that 'you're feeling very relaxed' stuff and she went under easily; too easily. Then I didn't know what to ask her to do. There was no point asking her to take off her clothes, since she hardly needed prompting to do that.

'Get 'er to run around like a 'eadless chicken,' was Kev's inspirational idea.

'Tell 'er to describe life on Jupiter,' Clive said obscurely.

'Ask her to go back to a past life,' said Tania.

That seemed the most intelligent suggestion, so I offered a few cliched phrases and took her back, back into the mists of time. I was about to ask her what she could see when I felt a thrum of energy. It distracted me for a moment, and I looked up into the apex of the pylon. There was nothing to see, but I remembered I'd felt it before. Once, when I'd first kissed Tania.

When I looked back, there were tears streaming down Joy's face. She was trembling and sobbing in silence.

'Bring her out of it,' said Tania.

'Why?' Give protested.

'Yer,' said Kev. 'Better stop it now.'

I couldn't. I did all that finger clicking rubbish and barked various commands. But she just sat there shaking and sobbing. I was terrified. Tania took hold of her hands and, thankfully, after a while Joy just seemed to come out of it on her own. She was none the worse for the experience, and laughed it off; but she wouldn't tell us what she saw.

They all had a go. Kev wouldn't take it seriously, however, and insisted on staggering around like a stage drunk. Clive claimed to have gone under but we all agreed we couldn't tell the difference.

Finally it was Tania's turn. She was afraid, but Joy dared her. Tania made me promise not to make her experience a past life. I'd read enough about hypnotism to know you can't make people do anything they don't already want to do, but convincing folk of that is another thing. Tania had been frightened by what happened to Joy, so I had to swear on my grandmother's soul and hope to be struck by lightning and so on before she'd let me do it.

Tania went under with equal ease, a feat I've never been able to accomplish since.

'What are you going to get her to do?' Joy wanted to know.

'Pretend to ride a bike?' I suggested lamely.

'Crap,' said Kev. 'Tell her she's the sexiest woman in the world and she wants to make mad passionate love to you.'

Naturally Joy thought this was a good idea, so I put it to Tania. She opened her eyes in a way that made me think she'd just been stringing us along. She smiled at me serenely and shook her head. Then there was a thrum of electrical activity from the wires overhead. I looked up and before I knew what was happening, Tania had jumped on me and locked her legs behind my back. I staggered and fell backwards onto the grass. Tania had her tongue halfway down my throat. I'd heard of French kissing, but it had never appealed. Joy and Kev were laughing, cheering her on.

Tania came up for air, and she was making a weird growling from the back of her throat. Then she power-kissed me again.

'This is great!' whooped Kev.

'Hey!' went Clive. 'Hey!'

'Tiger tiger!' shouted Joy.

I was still pinned under Tania's knees when she sat up and stripped off her white T-shirt in one deft move.

'Bloody hell!' Kev couldn't believe it any more than I could. 'This is brilliant!'

'Gerrem off' screamed Joy.

Tania stood up quickly and hooked her thumbs inside the waist of her denims and her panties, slipping them off. Before I'd had time to blink she was naked. She was breathing hard. Then she was fumbling at my jeans.

'Bloody fucking hell!' Joy shouted. 'Bloody fucking hell!'

The lines overhead thrummed again. Tania had twice my strength. I had this crazy idea she was drawing it from the pylon. She had my pants halfway down my legs.

Then everything was interrupted by a high-pitched screaming.

At first I thought it was Tania, but it was coming from behind her. The screaming brought Tania to her senses. It was Olive, the Nantwiches' deranged daughter. Her head had appeared over the fence and she was screaming and pointing at something. What she pointed at was my semi-erect penis; half-erect from Tania's brutal stimulation; half-flaccid from terror at her ferocious strength.

Olive continued to point and shriek. Then she was joined at the fence by Mrs Nantwich. Filthy buggers,' said the old woman. 'Get on with yer! Filthy buggers!'

A third head appeared. Red-faced Mr Nantwich. He was just laughing. 'Look at that!' he shouted. 'Look at that.'

Tania wasn't laughing. She looked at me with disgust. 'Bastard,' she spat, climbing quickly back into her clothes. 'Bastard.'

I ran after her. 'You can't make anyone do what they don't want to,' I tried. She shrugged me off tearfully. I let her go.

'Filthy buggers!' Mrs Nantwich muttered.

'You can't make anyone!' I screamed at her.

'Look at that!' laughed Joe Nantwich.

Olive was still shrieking. The power lines were still throbbing. Clive was trying to tell me something, but I wasn't listening. 'It wasn't you,' he was saying. He was pointing up at the pylon. 'It were that.'

I never spoke another word to Tania, and she never came near the pylon again. I was terrified the story would get back to my folks I didn't see why exactly, but I had the feeling I'd reap all the blame. But a few days later something happened which overshadowed the entire incident.

And it happened to Clive.

One afternoon he and I had been sharing a bottle of Woodpecker. He'd been listening again.

'Old man Astley's found out.'

'Eh? How do you know?'

He looked up at the overhead wires. 'She's been on the phone to the Dog and Trumpet.'

He was always reporting what he'd 'heard' on the wires. We all knew he was completely cracked, but it was best to ignore him. I changed the subject. I started regaling him with some nonsense I'd heard about a burglar's fingers bitten clean off by an Alsatian, when Clive took it into his head to start climbing the pylon. I didn't think it was a sensible thing to do but it was pointless saying anything.

'Not a good idea, that.'

'Why?'

Climbing the pylon wasn't easy. The inspection ladder didn't start until a height of nine feet - obviously with schoolboys in mind - but that didn't stop Clive. He lifted the door we used as a bench and leaned it against the struts of one of the pylon's legs. Climbing on the struts, he pulled himself to the top of the door, and standing on its top edge he was able to haul himself up to the inspection ladder. He ascended a few rungs and seemed happy to hang there for awhile. I got bored watching him.

It was late afternoon and the sky had gone a dark, a cobalt shade of blue. I finished off the cider, unzipped my trousers and stuck my dick outside the curtains to empty my bladder. A kind of spasm shot through me before I'd finished, stronger even than those I'd felt before. I ignored it. 'So the burglar,' I was telling Clive, 'knew the key was on a string inside the letter box. So when the owners came home they got into the hallway and found,' I finished pissing, zipped up and turned to complete the story. But my words tailed off, 'two fingers still holding the string...'

I looked up the inspection ladder to the top of the pylon. I looked at the grey metal struts. I looked everywhere. Clive had vanished.

'Clive?'

I checked all around. Then I went outside. I thought he might have jumped down, or fallen. He wasn't there. I went back inside. Then I went outside again.

Spots of rain started to appear. I looked up at the wires and they seemed to hum contentedly. I waited for a while until the rain came more heavily, and then I went home.

That night while I lay in bed, I heard the telephone ring. I knew what time it was because I could hear the television signature blaring from the lounge. It was the end of the late night news. Then my mother came upstairs. Had I seen Clive? His mother had phoned. She was worried.

The next day I was interviewed by a policewoman. I explained we were playing under the pylon. I turned my back and he'd disappeared. She made a note and left.

A few days later the police were out like blackberries in September. Half the neighbourhood joined in the fine-toothcomb search of the waste ground and the nearby fields. They found nothing. Not a hair from his head.

While the searches went on, I started to have a recurring nightmare. I'd be back under the pylon, pissing and happily talking away to Clive. Only it wasn't urine coming out, it was painful fat blue and white sparks of electricity. I'd turn to Clive in surprise, who would be descending the inspection ladder wearing fluorescent blue overalls, his face out of view. And his entire body would be rippling with eels of electricity, gold sparks arcing wildly. Then slowly his head would begin to rotate towards me and I'd start screaming; but before I ever got to see his awful face I'd wake up.

We stopped playing under the pylon after that. No one had to say anything, we just stopped going there. I did go back once, to satisfy my own curiosity. The screens had been ripped away in the failed search, but the nettles bashed down by the police were already springing up again.

I looked up into the tower of the pylon, and although there was nothing to see, I felt a terrible sense of dread. Then a face appeared over the Nantwich's' fence. It was Olive. She'd seen me looking.

'Gone,' she said. It was the only word l ever heard her say. 'Gone.'

Summer came to an end and we went off to our respective schools. I saw Tania once or twice in her straw boater, but she passed me with her nose in the air. Eventually she married a Tory MP. I often wonder if she's happy.

Inevitably Kev and I stopped hanging around together, but not before there was a murder in the district. The landlord of the Dog and Trumpet was stabbed to death. They never found who did it. Joy moved out of the area when her parents split up. She went to live with her mother.

Joy went on to become a rock and roll singer. A star. Well, not a star exactly, but I did once see her on Top of the Pops. She had a kind of trade mark, turning her back on the cameras to wiggle her bottom. I felt pleased for her that she'd managed to put the habit to good use.

Just occasionally I bump into Kev in this pub or that but we never really know what to say to each other. After a while Kev always says, 'Do you remember the time you hypnotised Tania Brown and...' and I always say 'Yes' before he gets to the end of the story. Then we look at the floor for a while until one of us says, 'Anyway, good to see you, all the best.' It's that anyway that gets me.

Clive Mann is never mentioned.

Occasionally I make myself walk past the old place. A new group of kids has started playing there, including Kev Duffy's oldest girl. Yesterday as I passed by that way there were no children around because an Electricity Board operative was servicing the pylon. He was halfway up the inspection ladder, and he wore blue overalls exactly like Clive in my dream. It stopped me with a jolt. I had to stare, even though I could sense the man's irritation at being watched.

Then came that singular, familiar thrum of energy. The maintenance man let his arm drop and turned to face me, challenging me to go away. But I was transfixed. Because it was Clive's face I saw in that man's body. He smiled at me, but tiny white sparks of electricity were leaking from his eyes like tears. Then he made to speak, but all I heard or saw was a fizz of electricity arcing across the metal brace on his teeth. Then he was the maintenance man again, meeting my desolate gaze with an expression of contempt.

I left hurriedly, and I resolved, after all, not to pass by the pylon again.