Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.
- Dylan Thomas, Fern Hill
12th July, 1971
They were behind him now, he could hear them. Their boots thumped the earth of the woods, sickly cracks and crunches against broken branches the dizzying reminder of what they'd to do his neck if they caught him.
"Run, fucking run!" The voice came faint but fierce, urged him, made laughter splutter up from his chest as he balled his hands into fists and surged forward, ankle threatening to go over on a stone jutting from the ground. Blood shrieked in his head, in his heart, his legs while they burned, but so far he'd run a hundred miles and he wasn't stopping now.
His heart jumped as first his feet, growing ever graceless, tripped over the snaking trap of an overgrown tree stump, and his ankle gave as he lunged for his goal, the rocky edge up ahead that signalled ultimate safety. They were so close behind he could hear them, panting like dogs, and for one moment the startling notion that they might actually catch him and grab the back of his t-shirt gripped him, sent sudden sickness to the pit of his stomach.
He saw it, saw the dip of the creek in the distance, the rope quivering in the breeze, beckoning him, and just beyond that three figures: one jumping up and down, one crouching with frantic fists, the last with his hands, as if frozen, up above his head. They became stuck in their positions like the tiny green soldiers he kept on his windowsill.
"Come on!"
The voice met him with the breeze, laced with panicked laughter as it echoed across the creek, and hearing the command he jumped - one, two, three times - over the final branches and ran, ran, ran against the pain shooting from leg to ankle to knee and throwing his body on to the rope and kicking from the ground harder than he had all spring and all summer.
Suddenly he was bird and pterodactyl, vampire and Peter Pan, airborne, gliding across the water and the rocks, hair blindfolding him, wind a welcome sooth to burning skin.
He landed with a thud. His body rolled against the dusty hardness of the gravel, and three bodies threw themselves on top of him. They grabbed for him; he could feel hands in his hair, hands on his knees, hands searching his face.
"Shit!" someone was laughing in his ear as they jostled him. "You got it!"
"That was brilliant, totally fucking brilliant. Honestly, mate, I thought you might die, I thought you might honestly die."
"Give 'em here, give 'em here!"
"Calm yourself, you mad man!" He grabbed the treasure from his pocket, still panting, sweating, free hand on the rope, and lobbed it at the bespectacled boy standing wildly over him.
Their laughter sank into fixed smiles, and he was glancing up into another pair of eyes, hazel and very proud.
"Bloody good," was the approval. "Amazing."
A roar in the distance interrupted them. He turned to see the dogs jumping up and down across the creek, barking their rage at the rope still firmly encased in his hand, away from them.
"We'll break your fucking neck for this!" came the war cry.
He lay down on his back on the floor of the woods and laughed and laughed and laughed.
20th July, 1985
James calls, out of the blue. The idea he pitches leaves Sirius little opportunity to say no. At three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, he is driving steadily along the M5 towards Dittisham, The Beach Boys and service station coffee keeping him alert.
He's been up all night, up all night with mess, and he didn't fall into bed until five. Even then it was with a stomach roiling with gin and one cup of tea, coughing and dry-mouthed from nervous smoking. A man snored grubbily beside him.
He isn't sure he wants to be doing this but somehow it feels he doesn't have a choice. In the empty passenger seat - a reminder of James' optimistic "bring whoever you want!" - are two styrofoam cups, four packets of Benson & Hedges, and a 1964 map.
Sirius has been convinced, several times so far, that he's taken a wrong turning. He's almost ashamed at the relief that peeps its head through his irritation. Wouldn't that be perfect? Sorry, mate, took a wrong turn, before I knew what was happening I'd ended up in Bristol. No, no, you go on without me. Sorry, I'm sorry. Another time.
It's a bit pathetic. It's also nothing to do with James. Or Peter. Or even Remus.
He drives on with dwindling determination. As the trees around the motorway begin to double and triple, he's drawn further into the memory of a day, fourteen years ago, on the warm floor of the woods near Mill Creek. It's a picture sharp in his mind, a strange thing really since he has trouble remembering even the tiniest of details these days; names, places, dates. There's so much more to have to remember now.
Or perhaps his mind has unearthed that day because it was the beginning of the first summer the four of them spent together. It was also his birthday, and it was the day that Moony had propped up Sirius' sore ankle in his bedroom and they'd chewed Anglo Bubbly lying face to face, not talking.
Moony. The name flashes in his mind as vividly as the high sun up ahead. He hasn't thought of that nickname in years. Whenever, if ever, he allows himself to reminisce, it's always -
It strikes him then that, although he remembers even the specific date, the breaking of branches, the wind as it hit his face, the certainty that he was flying, he doesn't remember why he was running. Who he was running from is clear, because it was always Fenwick's lot, who hated them for no discernible reason. But their particular motive on that day? The treasure, so lovingly stashed in his pocket and thrust to James upon demand? He has a vague image in his mind; some toy, some junk.
Sirius plucks his third coffee from the cup holder, finishes it off, chucks the empty cup on to the pile on the passenger seat. A small puddle still inside it slops out and stains a portion of the map. Maybe that would be a better excuse. Coffee all over my map - I got lost. Another time.
Dittisham is quiet when Sirius rolls in around five o'clock that afternoon. Dittisham has always been quiet, so he registers no immediate change.
Then he drives further in, and there are more houses. Quite pretty ones, but new, in stark contrast to the old. He spots Peter's old house straight away. It's on the edge of the village, closest to the woods, the home they'd always set off from on bike rides. It's been painted beige now, with little white latticed windows. Sirius' first thought is that Peter's parents must have moved. It had been carnation pink seven years ago, and Mrs Pettigrew would never have allowed it to be anything else while she was living there.
Remus' house next, not too far from Peter's. Sirius doesn't linger too long. The curtains are drawn, but Remus' mother can't still live there.
Driving a little further, he goes by the post office, the old sweet shop and Perry's Barber's and then, before turning into James' street, Sirius looks to his left, out of the passenger window, and stops his car right there in the middle of the quiet road.
There's the old garage. The crumbling, decrepit old garage where they wiled away summer after lazy summer. The old, corroding cars are gone, replaced with brand new models. Not a garage, a dealership. The walls have been painted a brilliant white. 'Prewetts'' has been replaced with 'Potters'', and 'Motors' remains.
Sirius lets go of the steering wheel and stares, and absent-mindedly gnaws on his thumbnail for a moment. The clever bastard actually did it. His eyes fix back on 'Potters'' and he wonders what happened to Gideon. Then a van appears in the overhead mirror, and Sirius starts up the engine again and continues to drive over the silent road that stretches along the sea until he reaches the turn-off for Forest End.
He sees the house as soon as he turns in. Number twenty-eight, exactly as he remembers it: silly shutters, red front door, honeysuckle arch. He's late. Three cars sit impatiently outside already, and he parks up behind the silver Honda Civic he can already guess belongs to Pete. He turns off the engine, unbuckles his seatbelt, with the feeling, somewhat inexplicable, that he's expected to make this trip many more times in years to come.
12th July, 1978
"Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me!" He heard the pounding of footsteps drawing closer as he sang, deliberately off-key, and upped the volume. "Happy birthday -"
The red door swung open and Sirius' chest was greeted by three hard thumps, accompanied with three gritted words: "World's - worst - singer..."
"Happy birthday to me!" Sirius finished with a flourishing ring of the bell on his bike. "Right, present please. Then you can fuck off back to bed."
James pushed him again so that Sirius' bike rolled backwards.
"Present? Yeah, right," he scoffed. Sirius gave him a lazy, feeble kick from his bike, and James' eyes rolled behind their specs. He patted the bag slung over his shoulder and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his finger. "Yeah, no bloody fear. Like I'd risk not getting a spoilt bastard like you a gift. Anyone'd think you didn't have enough junk."
Sirius rode his bike slowly about the Potters' front drive as James unlocked the chain from his own prized crimson Stingray.
"You know me, Jamie," he said cheerfully, attempting a few lacklustre bunny hops, "I'm like a magpie. I always want things." He lunged forward, grabbing for James' backpack, attempting to feel its contents before being batted away.
"You certainly peck like a bloody bird. Sirius, get off! Not till we're at Remus', you'll ruin the surprise."
"Are we going now?" Sirius asked hopefully as James slung a leg over his bike and kicked off from the ground.
"Nope," he said, "Gid's first. Check on my girl."
Sirius groaned. "But it's my birthday -"
"Come on. Five - ten minutes max. It's only Gideon, Sirius. I want to see how he's getting on with Bess!" He rocketed off up the sunny street before Sirius could protest, looking back only once to shout over his shoulder, "Oh, and happy birthday by the way, you sulky git!"
The Prewetts lived at the top of Forest End, and Gideon and his twin brother Fabian owned the old garage not a mile away. Their sister, Molly, once had a share in it too but she was nineteen now and she'd just got engaged to the fish and chip shop boy, so she wasn't around much anymore. Sirius and James were glad. Truth be told, they always found her to be a bit of a bossy cow. The garage itself was never in a pretty state, but Gideon was a decent mechanic and Fabian did wicked paintwork and anyway, it was the only garage in Dittisham.
An unusually hot day, even for July, Sirius and James wiped the sweat from their foreheads as they abandoned their bikes outside of the garage, safe in the knowledge that no one would dare steal from them, and went inside.
"Gideon?" James called out, striding through the room, backpack swinging.
They could hear loud rock 'n roll blaring from a transistor and the scream of a drill as they wandered in. The drilling stopped only when a mask was lifted, revealing an oil-smeared face, red hair, a big gappy grin.
"Hello, little marauders," Gideon greeted them, standing with the mask pulled back on the top of his head.
"Alright, Gid?" said James, doing his best to sound gruff and casual. He always did when he was around the twins. "Where's Bess at?"
Still smiling, Gideon turned and pointed to a bleak corner of the garage where the Ford Pinto sat. If cars could look tired, Sirius thought, then Bess would be passed out. James was paying the twins a fortune and she didn't look to have changed at all.
"What was going on with the vibration, then?" James wanted to know. He was already at the car's side, stroking it with a careful hand. It was lime green and very ugly.
"There was a misfire in one of the cylinders. I replaced the ignition coil, though. Should be good to go again soon."
James looked up, ecstatic.
"Brilliant!" he burbled, before remembering Sirius was there and motioning with his head. "It's Sirius' birthday today, by the way."
Gideon turned back to Sirius with his hands in the pockets of his grubby old overalls. He was very tall, and always seemed to tower over people.
"Is it?" he said pleasantly. "Happy birthday, Sirius. How old are you now, then?"
"Eighteen," said Sirius, adjusting the collar of his denim jacket.
"Eighteen, eh? So what does that mean you can do? Vote? Gamble? Buy fags?" He thought and waggled his eyebrows. "Check out a strip club?"
Sirius snorted, turning away. He picked at a loose strip of wood on a work top.
"Me and Fab'll take you," Gideon offered. "Torquay's the place. Great tit bars in Torquay." He accompanied this with lewd hand gestures that caught James' eye.
"What?" He hurried back over. "You didn't offer to take me to tit bars in Torquay when I turned eighteen."
"Yes well, Sirius here actually looks his age, four-eyes." Gideon took two gloved fingers and prodded James, hard, on the bridge of his nose, just above his glasses. Smirking, he turned back to Sirius. "What say you, boyo?"
"No, thanks." One final pick at the strip of wood and it peeled off completely.
There was something so off about Gideon Prewett. He could be alright for a laugh, and he did James' car at a very slightly cut price because their mums knew each other, but he was sort of smarmy too. A lot of girls in the village fancied him like mad, as though they didn't notice how he was always leering at people. Or maybe they did, and that was the sort of thing they liked. Sirius couldn't tell.
"Your loss, mate, you'd love it. No? Alright, have a birthday present instead."
Gideon turned and rifled around on the workbench, picking up a few things here and there before dropping them again, looking relatively thoughtful.
"Ah! Here we go!" He turned and pressed something hard and cold into Sirius' hand. Looking down, Sirius found in his palm a dull red stanley knife, stained all over with white paint and oil. He flicked the catch with his thumb, revealing the sharp blade.
"Cheers," he said, actually rather pleased.
"Yeah, careful though. Sharp as sin, those things." Gideon winked. "Don't want bleeding fingers on top of grazed knees, now do we, lad?"
Sirius pocketed the knife and managed a grin for the teasing freckled face.
"It's a cool present, Gid. Thanks."
"Speech! Speech!"
"Give it a rest, Jamie. Already given a speech, haven't I?"
"That wasn't a speech, it wasn't a - a heartfelt oration, it was you gushing over Peter's little cakes and things."
"They were good cakes."
"You were practically weeping."
"They were good cakes."
"Anyway," James continued, stretching his legs out, swinging his beer bottle up from beside him, "it's your eighteenth birthday. Lots of speeches required."
Relaxed against one of four padded floral benches in Remus' summer house, Sirius smiled patiently at James. He swirled the remains of his drink around in its glass bottle, smiling then at Peter and Remus sitting opposite.
"Hm," he said, mind slightly foggy, limbs all tired. "All I can really say is that it's really been something being in the company of the three of you for the past seven years. We've been through a lot together, lads."
The others grinned. James tried to knock back the last of his beer and a little went down his chin.
"But more than anything," Sirius continued softly, "I'm immensely proud of myself for having managed to put up with three such massive wankers for the best part of a decade."
"I'll drink to that!" Peter declared, throwing his bottle into the air, and James shoved Sirius hard.
"Who's the wanker?" he demanded, knocking over several empty bottles in their scuffle.
"You are, I thought I said that. Here, get off," Sirius laughed, blocking James' weak jabs with his free hand. "Alright, in all honesty - in all honesty - I've had a cracking day." To accompany this, Sirius lifted his bottle into the air whereupon it was promptly and clumsily clinked with three others. He caught Remus' eye and smiled. "We've had a proper feast," he added, casting a hand over Peter's homemade cakes and the plethora of empty bottles, smuggled in courtesy of James.
"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself, mate," said James.
"I did. I don't know what I'd do without you lot! It'd be a sad old day otherwise, wouldn't it?"
"Didn't your parents have anything planned for you?" Peter asked tactlessly between hiccoughs.
Sirius pulled a face. "They said they'd take me out this weekend. My father had a dinner arranged with some company suck-up from Quebec that he couldn't possibly have torn himself away from."
"Didn't they get you any presents?" Peter pressed. He ignored, in his genuine obliviousness, the sharp looks Sirius noticed James and Remus give him.
"Money. In the bank. Oh, and a card from Reg."
The others looked at him. James looked angry, but foggy in his drunkenness. Peter leaned towards awkwardness, as was common. Remus looked straight at him, tapping his nails very gently against his half-full bottle. Maybe he felt uncomfortable too, but he smiled when Sirius met his eye. Sirius didn't require sympathy. He didn't especially mind, he didn't think. His family were very well-off, and it wasn't as though he ever went without things or that he'd ever received something sentimental from them before.
The only thought that kept niggling at him was that it was his eighteenth. Ridiculously, he'd been expecting something tangible from his parents this year. Even something small. A house key, a tiny mascot, a diary, any of them would have been enough. His uncle had sent a basket of expensive glacé fruits and chestnuts Sirius would probably give to Remus to give to his mother. His grandmother sent expensive shoes too small for him. Birthdays with his family were always so impersonal.
"But never mind! You boys got me brilliant presents. I mean, look..." He reached, slightly clumsily, to grab at the cake tin sitting in the middle of their circle. "We've our very own Graham Kerr over here. Pete, these are fucking amazing, mate. And James, Jamie, look! A transistor for my bike! Which is just... brilliant."
He picked up the small orange box playing Blue Oyster Cult, and moved his fingers over the smooth controls. It was the most expensive present of them all. Peter's family had no money at all. Sirius glanced up and saw Remus looking at him, with a strange, slightly concerned expression on his face which Sirius chose to ignore.
"And of course, none of our birthdays would be complete without Moony's music, now, isn't that right?" He quickly swapped the radio for the vinyl record placed beside him, twirling The Hollies' Greatest Hits between his fingers. "You're determined to convert me to this hippy dippy stuff, aren't you?"
"I feel sick," Peter suddenly announced, causing Sirius and Remus to look away from one another and at Peter who, indeed, had turned an alarming shade of grey.
"Don't chuck up in Remus' summer house, Pete," Sirius warned, though he made no move to stand.
"I wholeheartedly second this," said Remus. "Mum'd have kittens."
"You're a mess, Petey, do you know that?" James said fondly, standing up. "A bloody mess. Come on, let's get you back to your ma. I need to be getting back, too. It's past midnight, I hadn't realised. My mum'll go spare."
"You're eighteen," Sirius chuckled.
"Yeah, and she's my mum. Come on, Pete lad."
Peter gurgled out his indignation, leaning over and with two arms about his belly until James took hold of him, coaxing him up slowly and wrapping a steady arm around Peter's plump shoulder.
"Here, happy birthday, you," James said, reaching with his free arm to give Sirius a friendly scrub on the back. He bent to do the same to Remus, then stood up straight again. "I'll see you tomorrow. At the match, yeah? Don't be late, either of you. We need our cheerleaders as much as our players, Moony!" Trudging out of the door, movements awkward with Peter hanging off him like a limpet, James called back, "Can't wait to squash that Malfoy prat's smug, bastarding face!"
Sirius and Remus laughed as the two boys went out into the very warm summer night, stars twinkling their path down the slope of Remus' back garden. They left in their wake the chirping of country crickets and the low hum of the transistor radio.
"Won't your mum go spare too?" Sirius asked, prodding Remus gently in the side as they turned to face each other.
"She's asleep," Remus told him. He paused, glancing down at his fingers, flexing them. "She's been asleep all day really."
"Sorry."
"Oh, that's alright. I didn't mean - I just meant she has." He shrugged. "Tired, that's all."
Sirius made himself smile, fingers reaching out to briefly touch Remus' shoulder through the thin material of his t-shirt. Tactfully, he turned his attention back to the transistor. Kate Bush, 'The Man with the Child in his Eyes' began to play.
"Been in the charts ages, this," Sirius moaned. "Your kind of thing, isn't it?"
"Piss off," said Remus. He paused. "Yeah, it's alright."
They both laughed.
"Actually, I don't mind it," Sirius said softly, nudging Remus' knee with his own. "But don't tell anyone I told you that."
Remus grinned. "Afraid of denting your gallant reputation, eh?"
"Mm, something like that." Sirius' gaze flicked from Remus' large brown eyes to his lips, which were, Sirius always thought, quite a nice size. He turned to glance out of the double doors but, spotting nothing outside bar the large, tilting crack willow, he turned back to Remus with a soft smile. "Hey, come here."
His hands encircled Remus' waist, very small, and Sirius pulled Remus towards him to drop a gentle kiss on his lips. Remus smiled against his mouth; Sirius felt the movement of it.
"Happy birthday," Remus said.
He traced a path from Sirius' face, down and around his neck to pull him close again, into another kiss. They sat quite still in the darkness like this for some time.
And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.