by Frazer Lee
Alex rushed over and, leaning over Helen and Kay, lifted the largest of the roots, creating enough of a gap through which – with Helen’s help – Kay managed to wriggle her foot.
“Wow, these trees look ancient,” Helen said as she and Alex helped Kay to her feet.
“They are,” Meggie said.
Mike looked around at the surrounding trees. They were so established that he could scarcely make out where one branch began and another ended. It was as though the forest had fused into one continuous, arboreal organism.
“Careful,” Meggie said, seeing Helen pick up a length of broken branch from where Kay had fallen. “Like the spindle berries, the needles of a yew tree can be harmful.”
“Really? I never knew they were poisonous.” A worried look passed over Helen’s face. “Are they diseased or something?” She threw the broken branch to the ground.
“Not diseased, no,” Meggie said. “The yew is a powerful symbol in the folklore of the Highlands. To our ancestors, the trees represented the cycle of death and resurrection. The branches drop off and die so that new life can spring up in their place.”
Meggie pointed out a young yew sapling and smiled at Helen.
Mike saw Helen absentmindedly run her hand over her belly. He knew his girlfriend was making a connection between Meggie’s folktale and the new life growing inside of her. He also saw a clear flash of jealousy in Kay’s eyes as Helen did so. Mike wondered if Kay and Alex had talked about marriage, about settling down and starting a family. He doubted that his stoic friend would tell Mike even if they had. The truth was that Alex was much more the settling down type. He didn’t smoke dope, and on those occasions when he did have a skinful, he was still the early-morning type – first off the mark to be cooking and/or devouring a cooked breakfast after a big night. Alex was more like his father than Mike reckoned he was aware. He was driven, and that drive made him more serious than Mike, somehow. A contender for inheriting his father’s mantle of successful lawyer and breadwinner. Mike tried to ignore the dawning realization that he and Alex really were becoming like their fathers.
Mike’s dad had married young, and he had overheard him – on more than one occasion – complaining that he was trapped in a never-ending cycle of mortgage payments and university fees. His dad always cut loose over Skype with his work buddies when he’d had a couple of beers—
“When I’m reincarnated I want to come back as a bloody housewife; I swear to god, all I’ll have to do is spread my legs every now and then, squeeze out another fucking mouth to feed and boom! Hubby darling can do yet more fuck-bollocking overtime.”
—and he always seemed to go on a lengthy business trip soon after. Mike had stumbled across the webpage for a lap-dance club in Central London in his father’s browser history one day when he had borrowed his iPad. He remembered how tempted he had been to casually ask his dad about it over breakfast – in front of his mother. That would have rocked the boat for sure. But after giving it some careful consideration, Mike had remembered the not insignificant matter of his allowance, not to mention his tuition fees and rent, and had decided to give the old bastard a break. Mike had cleared the browser history and kept quiet about it. Though, he did wonder if his dad detected anything in Mike’s knowing smile when his father had returned from that business trip looking particularly relaxed and with his suitcase filled with gifts for Mike’s mother.
Mike’s memories stayed with him as they followed the winding path through the forest and down to the lochside. Each of them hardly spoke a word on the return walk to the cottage. Mike felt nervous all the time they were among the trees, finding himself glancing between them and searching out that black shape and those yellow eyes. But he saw nothing out of the ordinary, and it wasn’t until they had reached the shore of the lake that anyone thought to mention Oscar. Mike let Alex do the talking and pretended to be half-listening as his friend described in detail the route they had taken in search of the dog, and that they had found nothing. In reality, he was taking mental notes of everything Alex said, in case the subject came up again later – they would have to get their story straight to avoid arousing any suspicion from Meggie.
Meggie fell completely silent on the final approach to the cottage. Even she had given up on calling out Oscar’s name. Mike felt a knot of guilt coiling in his stomach as he saw the dirt beneath his fingernails from when he and Alex had buried the dead dog. He held the gate open for Meggie as they reached the cottage and noticed she was carrying a broken length of yew branch in her right hand.
It looked like the one Helen had thrown away.
Chapter Nine
Mike awoke to a welcome cup of tea from Helen. She placed the steaming mug on the bedside table, then threw open the curtains to let the morning light in. Mike rubbed his eyes and sat up in bed, propping himself up against his pillows. The night before had been more subdued than their first boozy gathering at the cottage. Mike supposed they were all feeling pretty tired after their lengthy walk in search of Oscar—
And the hour you spent burying him.
—and Helen’s self-enforced sobriety seemed to be putting a bit of a dampener on things, too. Mike sipped hot tea from his mug and watched Helen as she folded clothes, tutting loudly at the discarded underwear he had seen fit to leave abandoned on the bedroom floor.
“How are you…? How are you, you know, feeling?” Mike asked.
“Disturbingly like I’m seeing into our future, Mike. That’s how I’m feeling.”
What the bloody hell did that mean? “I don’t follow,” he said cautiously.
“No, I don’t suppose you do,” Helen sighed.
“My mind reading isn’t so good, you know that, babe. You’ll need a clairvoyant for that.”
Helen glared at him.
“If you think I’m picking up after you all week? Think again,” she said and threw his underwear at him. “Does that make it any clearer for you?”
Mike recoiled and spilled some of the tea on his bare chest.
“Ouch!” he exclaimed. “Watch it, woman!”
“Don’t woman me,” Helen replied, “or else I’ll tip the whole bloody mug over you, just see if I don’t.”
“Bit early for your hormones to be kicking in quite so badly,” he muttered.
“What?”
Mike laughed but noticed that Helen wasn’t laughing.
“What did you just say?”
Mike sipped his tea, feeling suddenly vulnerable in bed.
Helen glared at him. “Sounded like everyday sexism to me.”
It was a bit early for her hormones to be kicking in, he thought, feeling suddenly uncomfortable at the prospect of the great unknown of her pregnancy. Mike had no idea how to broach the subject with her without it coming off as yet more everyday sexism, so he decided to keep his mouth shut.
“Sorry, babe,” he said, “I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just.…” He faltered, hyperaware that anything he said might be taken down and used against him as evidence in a court of law with his legal graduate girlfriend.
“Just what?” she snapped.
“You’ve always known me to be a bit messy. I thought you found it endearing?”
She rolled her eyes. “For your information, I only told you once that I envied how you can amble through life with that devil-may-care attitude of yours.”
“And now you’re using it as an excuse to hurl dirty boxers at me. No fair.”
Mike’s blood ran cold. What might she be like when she was six months pregnant? Or after she’d had the baby? She’d be hassling him to do laundry, go to the shops, maybe even change nappies. He shuddered at the merest thought. Mike decided to try a different strategy. Hangovers always made him feel horny, and the best cure was becoming pretty obvious to him as he watched Helen selecting a cardigan from the drawer.
“Why don’t you climb under the covers w
ith me? We can kiss and make up.”
“Not bloody likely, with your booze breath.” She pulled a face. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
He watched her pulling on the cardigan and wondered how she might look when she was further along. Mike loved Helen’s tight body and felt a pang of regret that it might change for the worse if she decided to keep the baby. He would definitely keep that thought to himself. His honest fears would only be taken by Helen as criticism – more everyday sexism. Mike felt ashamed that he was even having such thoughts. He tried to push them aside, forget about them. Much better to focus on the now rather than what might happen in the future. Besides, he’d much rather drink his tea than bathe in it.
But his thoughts kept circling back to that pivotal point. If she decided to keep the baby. Who was he trying to kid? Ever since she’d told him, she’d been acting like a Mother Teresa of the Highlands, refusing a single sip of wine and even rejecting a bacon sarnie for breakfast in favor of some probiotic muesli concoction that Kay had mixed for her. He sipped more tea and sighed, thinking how much better it would taste with a roll-up. He began planning when he could have a crafty smoke. That was it, he had the perfect cover.
“Thought I might head out again to look for Oscar,” Mike said, his voice trailing off into an almighty yawn.
“No need,” Helen said, sounding clipped. “Alex’s sister has a plan for us all today.”
Mike tried to hide his disappointment that his illicit smoking plan had failed at the first hurdle. He pictured himself smoking a fat one behind a tree next to the lake. He imagined the smoke billowing up into the branches. Trees could keep secrets. Then he recalled the yellow eyes he’d seen watching him the day before, and the black shape darting between the tree trunks. Maybe he’d just risk smoking out of the bathroom window like he used to at home when he was a kid.
“Bit annoying really,” Helen continued. “I mean, it’s our holiday. I understand she’s worried about Oscar, but does she have to monopolize our entire stay looking for him?”
Mike gulped down a mouthful of tea. It had cooled down, and, in lieu of a smoke, he felt ready for his second mug. Helen struggled with the sticky drawer in the chest housing their clean clothes. It took her a couple of attempts to slide it shut. Mike knew that if she said something was a bit annoying, it really meant she was absolutely steaming about it. He would have to proceed with caution.
“What’s going on then?” Mike said.
“Come downstairs and see for yourself,” Helen said. “And tidy up your bloody underpants before you do.”
“I was going to. Honest, I was,” he said without really even convincing himself.
“Let’s just not succumb to the tiresome, bloody gender stereotypes before I’ve even had a scan,” Helen replied. “Tomorrow, you can bring me tea in bed while I have a lie in, work off that burgeoning dad-bod.”
“Sure thing,” Mike chuckled, blowing her a kiss. “Watch that everyday sexism, though, babe.”
She rolled her eyes and left the room.
Some holiday this is turning out to be, thought Mike.
He glanced at the mess of clothes on the floor. He really had better tidy them up. But first he’d sit back and enjoy the rest of his tea.
* * *
“How many of those have you made?” Mike asked.
“A few,” Meggie replied.
It was an understatement. The kitchen was a mess of painted sheets of paper of all sizes. Meggie had apparently been up since the break of dawn, working on them. The table was completely obscured by a haphazard gallery of makeshift posters. Mike picked one up at random. It was emblazoned with the words ‘MISSING DOG’ above a – admittedly rather cute – sketch of Oscar and the address for Hearthstone Cottage.
“What are you going to do with them?”
“We,” Meggie corrected, “are going to distribute them around the village.”
Mike glanced at Helen, who made a ‘told you so’ face. He looked away quickly so he wouldn’t laugh inappropriately.
“But we won’t all fit in the car,” Mike said.
“You can go in the boot,” Alex chuckled dryly.
“Not bloody likely,” Mike said.
“Meggie and Alex will go into the village with Kay first, then Alex will come back for me and you,” Helen said helpfully.
Alex pulled a face. “Thanks, Helen, but I was going to string soft lad here along a wee bit more.” Alex raised his eyebrows at Mike’s disheveled appearance. “Good of you to join us, by the way. Enjoy your cryogenic sleep, slacker?”
“Bugger off and make me a coffee, mate,” Mike said. “It’s your fault I’m tired anyway, dragging me halfway across the mountains yesterday in search of some d—”
He had almost said ‘dead dog’.
Alex shot Mike a stern look. Luckily, Meggie didn’t seem to have heard him. She had started rolling up the posters that had dried, and was placing them carefully inside a plastic poster tube.
Mike put his hand over his mouth and widened his eyes.
Alex rolled his. “Get your own bloody coffee. If there’s any left.”
Thankfully, there was. Mike poured the dregs from the filter carafe into a clean mug, which was decorated in garish tartan with the legend ‘I LOVE BONNIE SCOTLAND’ in metallic gold script. A real tourist-trap item. Mike guessed it must have come from one of the tacky gift shops in the village. He had only visited Drinton once, during his first stay months ago, and then he and Alex had only made it as far as the local pub. He sipped his lukewarm coffee and started to feel a yearning for something stronger to drink. He hoped the pub was still open. A lot of local watering holes were closing down all across the country. There had been a campaign at his university in Edinburgh, encouraging students to drink in the union bar. So many undergrads did their pre-drinking from cheaper supermarket bottles of cider and spirits – and their actual drinking from cans on the quad – that the bar had been threatened with closure. Happy hour at the bar had been extended to a full three hours, which helped, but even then it was still cheaper to load up your shopping trolley with booze than it was to get a round in at the local boozer. Mike hoped he could entice Alex away from teetotal Helen and the girls for a game of pool and a couple of pints while they were in the village.
The opportunity presented itself in the form of Meggie’s posters. By the time Mike and Helen had arrived, with Alex at the wheel of Meggie’s cranky old car, Kay had already volunteered to take some to the post office and general stores so she could ask the proprietor to put some up in the window. Meggie handed a stack to Alex and instructed him to go off with Mike and knock on a few doors down toward the church. Mike did a mental fist pump hearing that – the church was not too far away from the pub, from what he remembered. Helen paired up with Meggie, who was intent on attaching some posters to telegraph posts at strategic locations around the village high street where there would be the most foot traffic. She had made it sound like she was launching some kind of major advertising campaign, but, glancing up toward the main thoroughfare of the village, Mike could not see a single soul out on foot. He kept this observation to himself, fully aware that the only real purpose of the exercise was to give Meggie some peace of mind that she was doing something about Oscar’s disappearance.
“Try and get a couple on the church noticeboard,” Meggie said to Alex and Mike.
“Will do,” Alex said.
“Fancy a pub lunch when we’re done?” Mike asked.
“Sounds good,” Meggie said.
“Just so long as there are actual solids involved,” Helen said. “Your reputation for having liquid lunches precedes you.”
“Spoken like a true lawyer,” Mike said before turning to Meggie. “Don’t worry, with these up all over the village, someone will have seen him.”
Meggie flushed a little, looking hopeful.
Alex passed half
the posters to Mike, urging him along, as if sensing that he might say the wrong thing at any given moment. They were halfway to the church when Alex made it clear to Mike that he already had.
“Why are you getting her hopes up like that?”
“What do you expect me to say? ‘We may as well bin these’”—he fanned the posters around in the air—“‘because sorry to say but we buried your dog yesterday’?”
“Pipe down, man,” Alex said, looking over his shoulder.
“No one can hear. Because there’s no one in this bloody village. It’s a ghost town. I just hope the bloody landlord is out of bed. I could murder a pint.”
“Ah, I see why you were so keen now, mate,” Alex scoffed.
“Well, we are supposed to be on holiday. Celebrating our graduation – remember that? Only there hasn’t been much celebrating, has there?”
Alex chuckled. “If you will get your missus knocked up, old chum.”
“You say that like it’s my fault.”
“It takes two to— You know what I mean. If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were freaking out at the prospect of being a young father and seeking to hide it from those around you by rushing to the pub before lunchtime.”
Mike glanced down at Meggie’s cartoon image of Oscar. She had painted a little pink tongue poking out of the dog’s mouth. Mike shuddered at the thought of flies landing on the poor animal’s open, dead eyes.
“Let’s just get these posters done and the first round’s on me.”
“All right then,” Alex said, laughing at his friend’s expense.
“Do you think we should bother posting them, though? I mean, it’s not as if.…”
“Don’t even go there. If my sister finds a stack of missing pup posters in the bin, don’t you think she’ll be able to figure out who binned them? We have to go through the motions, keep up appearances. Just like you did in your finals, remember?”
“Okay, okay. No need to be such a complete and utter bastard about it.”