Wyld Dreamers

by Pamela Holmes

  ‘How can you talk such rubbish?’ she roars back.

  ‘Don’t spoil everything. Mum loved you. That should be enough. There were the three of us, our family and that’s just the way it should stay.’

  Her father shakes his head. He tears at the envelope and opens the birthday card. A picture of a fried egg and across the yellow yolk are written the words ‘Dad, you’re a good egg’ is written across the bottom.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ he says quietly.

  Her lips buzz like they’d been stung by a thousand bees. The room, once blurry round the edges, comes into such sharp focus that she jumps.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he repeats dully, his face in his hands.

  Amy begins to hum fiercely. Outside the window, she senses the world has not stopped, for a car drives by and a skipping child flashes by the window. Through her finger-clamped ears, her father is talking.

  Amy lurches from the room. She runs upstairs, flings herself on to the bed and screams into the pillow.

  Lynn has finished the milking. She takes the pail of milk to cool on the larder shelf. She likes being in the farmhouse. Amy asked her to do the milking. The cow is awkward, Amy explained, won’t let down her milk for a man.

  ‘Don’t blame her, men are all fingers and thumbs. I’ll do it for you,’ Lynn had said. ‘She’ll get mastitis if it’s not done proper. Then you’ll need a visit from the vet and that costs a bomb. Mr Stratton won’t like that, will he? Not on his economy drive.’

  Lynn heard someone moving about behind the half-open door of the sitting room. Some might think it inappropriate for her to have peeked inside. She did not. And if the person in the room asked Lynn to come and join him, what earthly reason would there be for her to refuse? Music, wine and a little conversation are ways to fill a long lonely evening. Some might ask why Lynn was in the farmhouse for so long, returning to the cottage after her mother, assuming her daughter was asleep upstairs, turned out the cottage lights. But who was there to ask?

  23

  Amy counts again on her fingers. The bleeding should have started five days ago. She winds the mechanism on her jewellery box; the ballerina pirouettes but the music does not play. She will call Seymour after six pm when calls are cheaper and before her father returns from work. She wonders what Seymour will say.

  The assistant drops the light diffusor umbrella and picks up the ringing phone. ‘Reception says it’s Naresh Rao for you on line two,’ he says.

  Seymour points to the sleeve of the model’s jumper. ‘It’s in shadow,’ he hisses, then beams at the model. ‘Give me a mo’, darling, I must take this call. Don’t move, you’re looking wonderful. Hallo, Naresh. How are you? Yes, in the middle of this and that. Sunil passed his exams? That’s fantastic news.’ He winks at the model. ‘Naresh, I have a friend with a law practice in Norwich. Not talked to him in a while but I’m sure he can help, perhaps get Sunil articles in his practice. I’ll call him later, alright? Good. No hassle. Now, sorry about that, love. Turn to the camera. Smile…’

  Dart pulled tourists in a carriage around Bath for years. But when the black gelding could no longer manage the hills, his owner abandoned him. The half-starved horse was found by the RSPCA. It took almost a year at the animal sanctuary for Dart’s belly to round and the sores from the ill-fitting harness to heal. His mood, however, remained unpredictable. If another animal was offered a treat, the horse became envious.

  So when he sees Kelpie being given a carrot, he retaliates. His kick lands with such a thump that the human holding the treat is flung backwards. The horse rears up, remembering from his past that aggression such as this is followed by a lash.

  His front hoof catches the human, even as it is falling. The crack of a bone, the body twisting as it falls. A whimper. The human lies without moving.

  Dart gallops away down the field.

  When the shop manager calls to say the parts are ready for collection, Simon and Julian drive into town to pick them up. As they walk back to the car, Simon says: ‘You’re l-l-low Julian, what’s up?’

  ‘It’s Seymour. It freaked me out the other night, him talking to you all like that. I can’t work out what’s eating him. My father does my head in. Let’s not go back just yet, man. Cool?’

  Simon has rarely heard Julian criticise his father. He follows him into a newsagent’s. ‘It was a bit w-w-weird, him saying all that. L-L-L-ike we’d done something w-w-wrong.’

  ‘He’s uptight, that’s all.’

  Julian greets the man behind the counter by name, then charges crisps and chocolate to his father’s account. Simon wonders if Seymour minds.

  ‘Bye Mr Rao, nice to see you again,’ Julian says as they leave the shop. ‘My father needs to get himself together, work out what he wants.’

  A short distance down the canal path, they see the gang, boys with shaved heads and heavy boots clustered like flies on rotting flesh around a person which they are thrusting between them. Julian recognises Sunil Rao, the twenty-year-old shop owner’s son. Hemmed in between the canal and the bank, the young man is trapped. His cry for help is smothered when one of the skinheads leaps on his head. He crumples to the ground. The gang screech triumphantly.

  ‘We’ve got to help him!’ Simon shouts and hurtles down the path. He is not aware that Julian is hanging back.

  Gravel ricochets off the path as the gang’s boots thud into the victim’s body. As Simon approaches they scatter briefly and Sunil, taking his chance, scrambles up on to the bank and vanishes into the undergrowth.

  The skinheads see Simon is alone. Fanning out across the canal path, they form a wall of flesh and start to move towards him. He isn’t aware that Julian is watching from a distance.

  ‘What’s your problem, mate?’ calls a skinhead who moves to the front like a general with his troops. ‘What you looking for? Your darkie friend? Scarpered off, has he? Like your hippy friend wants to do.’

  The boy grins without smiling. He’s so close Simon can see each spot on his face.

  ‘I j-j-just wanted you to stop b-b-beating up that b-b-boy,’ says Simon.

  ‘Coo, don’t he speak posh! But he can’t say nuffing r-r-right,’ mocks a tall boy with narrow eyes. ‘What’s your problem? Gotta s-s-stammer, have ya?’’

  The boys skirt around Simon, blocking his escape.

  When a woman starts walking her dog down the canal, she sees what is happening, whistles for her animal and disappears.

  A bird lands clumsily on the verge. A boy lashes out with his boot; the bird flaps away, indifferent and lazy, and settles a little farther away. A cloud covers the sun.

  Simon says: ‘Get out of my way, p-p-please.’

  The boys are fifteen or sixteen years old; one gangly from a growth spurt, the rest retain remnants of boyhood. Their fathers could probably make them cry but here the boys bounce with bravado.

  ‘I sees you going into that Paki’s shop. You got a big motor, ain’t ya? Giss the keys then.’

  The tall boy grabs Simon’s sleeve with one hand and thrusts out the other. Tattoos decorate his knuckles.

  ‘Leave him alone!’ Julian voice is faint.

  ‘Come on, h-h-hippy boy. Your boyfriend over there ain’t going to defend you. Your wimpy f-f-friend is leaving you to us.’ He stamps fiercely and hoots when Simon jumps.

  There’s ringing in Simon’s ears. Everything is slowing down. ‘I’m taking the keys, mate. I’m finding them for meself and you can’t stop me.’

  ‘Get off me!’ Three boys pin Simon’s arms to his body while a fourth digs in his pockets, thudding his boots into his shins as he does. He grunts with pain.

  The fifth boy jigs about on tiptoes taking dainty dashes like a nervous ballerina rehearsing her entry.

  The leader crows: ‘We’re going to get your motor, mate…Got ’em!’ He dangles the keys above his head.

  A yowl of triumph.

  Almost as an afterthought, the spotty boy smacks Simon in the face. Blood spra
ys from his nose. Simon keels slowly backwards. There’s a flash image of Julian standing near the canal entrance, his inhaler clamped to his mouth, before canal water closes over his head.

  Screaming, the skinheads race past Julian and send him spiraling backwards into the undergrowth.

  By the time he’s struggled to his feet, Simon is sprawled on the canal edge.

  ‘Fuck, fuck,’ he groans, spitting out green slime and blood. ‘They’re g-g-going to n-n-nick the Land Rover. What’s Seymour g-g-going to say, oh C-C-Christ…’

  ‘Who fucking cares?’ Julian gasps.

  Saliva pours into his mouth. The last time he witnessed overt violence was in the psychiatric hospital where he spent a month in the last term of university. A patient flipped when someone used his towel and attacked one of the nurses. He has never told his friends about his problems; it’s too private.

  Julian’s body has gone into overdrive. Sweaty and faint, he can only think of running away yet he’s faint with anxiety. The canal, once a verdant place of peace, has become terrifying.

  ‘I’ve got to get away,’ he whispers, ‘please help me.’ Both he and Simon are panting.

  ‘Okay Julian, we’re safe. They’ve g-g-gone. C-C-Can you walk?’ They stumble towards where they parked the Land Rover. No sign of the boys. Then they see the vehicle and by it Naresh waving what looks to be a set of keys.

  Next to him are two policemen.

  Like a shot, Julian takes off across the green. Anxiety fuels his feet. The policemen, perhaps suspecting the fleeing figure is one of the skinheads, give chase. They split up, driving the suspected criminal towards a cul-de-sac.

  Julian does not spot the trap. Hemmed in by houses and neat front gardens, he’s cornered. He becomes hysterical, gasping for breath, mucus bubbling from his mouth. When he won’t respond to the policemen’s request for identification, they search his pockets. They find a small piece of hashish wrapped in silver paper. Simon watches his friend being marched back across the green and bundled into the police car. His last glimpse of Julian is of his white terrified face.

  The shopkeeper tugs at his arm. ‘We must call Seymour.’

  ‘I don’t have his number…’

  ‘Come with me,’ says Naresh.

  On the train to London, her period starts. Amy feels both relief and disappointment when she sees the blood in her knickers. Last night, she’d been unable to reach Seymour on the phone. After trying his studio number and finding it engaged, her father arrived home from work. Half an hour later when John left to meet his fiancé for a drink, Amy tried again. Only an answer machine message.

  Amy fetches a sanitary towel from her suitcase and sorts herself out, stuffs the bloodied pants in the bin. She’d slept poorly, alternatively fretting about pregnancy and fantasising about motherhood and life with Seymour. Leaning against the carriage window, she falls asleep clutching the scrap of paper on which is written the address of Seymour’s studio that the helpful woman from Directory Enquiries gave her.

  It takes Malcolm back to see nurses rushing about the ward in their white caps and sensible shoes. He is shown into the day room of the ward; the nurse says he can see ‘his wife’ once she’s settled in bed.

  ‘She’s not my wife,’ he replies but the nurse has gone. It was an odd morning, finding Maggie lying unconscious in the field with a bloodied slash across her jaw and her eye all puffed up. He called the ambulance. By the time it arrived, the lower part of her face had swelled too; she didn’t look pretty any more.

  He slipped into the back of the ambulance so got a free ride to the hospital. Though the girl seemed to regain consciousness, she was babbling nonsense. He didn’t bother to ask her if there was anyone he should phone, the nurses would find out soon enough. You have to take the rough with the smooth when you work with horses, he thought. Accidents happen. Perhaps the tea trolley will be around soon, he could do with a cup.

  Julian tries to recall what the nurses taught him in hospital; to release his breath as slowly as possible as a way of controlling panic. He knows it helps as it has done before. As long as he can keep his eyes closed, he won’t see the holding cell into which the custody sergeant marched him.

  It’s not the emptiness of the room, cold and smelling faintly of disinfectant or the bars on the high window which makes his stomach clench; it’s knowing that the door of the room is locked. A locked door reminds him of the secure wing of the psychiatric hospital where he spent one long traumatic and terrifying week. He buries his head in his arms.

  Hanging on to every atom of the air for as long as he possibly can, he exhales. Simon will find a way to contact Seymour, to contact Seymour, to contact Seymour… he murmurs.

  David is bundled up in a coat and wears fingerless gloves. The sun warms the farmhouse steps where he’s sitting, strumming his guitar. He’s feeling good. The bridge of a song he’s been tussling with for ages finally works. The lyrics will need changing but that’s fine. The phone rings. There is no way he’s going to answer it. He is focused, just as Seymour directed.

  The stairwell smells of disinfectant. Amy climbs two floors. An engraved sign on a metal-studded bright-red door says Seymour Stratton, Photographer. Someone from an office or flat above rushes past; their footsteps crescendo, then fade. For a moment, Amy waits, not daring to knock. She is in half a mind to leave; will he mind her turning up unannounced?

  But she cannot resist the chance to see him. To tell Seymour everything: about her father’s planned marriage, the whole terrible business. He will understand. She knocks on the door. Her knuckles make no impression on the shiny surface. She presses on the buzzer.

  ‘Who is it?’ says a voice she recognises but cannot place. Other voices, too.

  ‘Who is it?’ the woman says again and Amy realises it is Eleanor. The door flies opens. Amy steps aside as a tall girl with a high-cut fringe and an orange coat bowls by. ‘Go on in,’ she says, dipping her head, and runs lightly down the stairs.

  Low-slung grey sofas and tubular chairs in bright colours cluster around a glass table. A lamp like a long-necked insect arches from one corner to hang over a tower of shiny magazines. Amy sees Eleanor slip through a gap between two partition walls. On it are displayed black and white fashion photographs. And a huge portrait of Seymour.

  When Eleanor materializes in a different doorway; her expression is not friendly.

  ‘Amy! It’s you. What a surprise.’ She does not sound surprised, she sounds annoyed.

  Amy nods.

  ‘Is Seymour expecting you? He’s in the middle of a shoot.’

  A woman’s voice rises over the partition wall. ‘Phone call for Seymour, Eleanor.’

  ‘Who is it?’ Eleanor replies sharply. She examines Amy coldly, up and down, moving only her eyes.

  ‘The man wouldn’t give his name, says it’s private,’ calls the woman, ‘says he must talk directly to Mr Stratton.’

  ‘Let me take it.’

  ‘You can try,’ said the woman who sounds exasperated. ‘I’ll put the call through on line two’.

  Eleanor turns away. ‘Wait here,’ she says over her shoulder.

  Amy is desperate to pee. When a girl rushes past, Amy taps her on the arm and asks where the loo is. The girl indicates with a flick of green-painted nails at the gap through which Eleanor went.

  Amy follows a corridor past filing cabinets, girls at desks and racks of equipment. Eleanor is stretched out on a white leather recliner talking on the phone. She does not see Amy. On the other side of the vast studio, a girl stands under brilliant lights. Several people dressed in black fuss around her. Seymour is bent over a camera on a tripod.

  ‘Seymour! Sorry, darling but you have to take this call, he won’t talk to me!’ barks Eleanor.

  As Amy slides into a bathroom, she sees Seymour shake his shoulders in annoyance.

  David looks up. A police car is pulling into the front yard. He stands, then sits down.

  ‘Is this the property of Mr Seymour Stratton?’
says one of the three policemen getting out of the car.

  ‘It is,’ replies David strumming a chord, ‘but Mr Stratton is not here.’

  ‘We have a warrant to search the property,’ says a second policemen. ‘Is there anyone else living here at present?’

  For the next hour, two policeman search the farmhouse, cottage and outbuildings. A third man stands near David; it’s unnerving that he looks younger than him.

  The sun has moved and David sits in shadow. He is cold. When the phone rings again, David does not move.

  ‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ asks the policeman.

  The phone stops ringing, then starts again almost immediately. ‘Is there someone you don’t want to talk to?’

  ‘No, not at all.’ David jumps up guiltily. As coolly as he can, walks to the office followed by the policeman. ‘Hallo?’

  ‘Hallo. Am I speaking to David Bond?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me. Who’s this, please?’

  ‘This is Sister Sarah. It’s about Maggie Bond who is your sister, I understand?’

  ‘Yes, she is. Why, what’s happened?’

  ‘Your sister was involved in an accident this morning. A horse kicked her in the face. She’s been to X-ray and now she’s in my ward with concussion and a badly-fractured jaw. She’s comfortable, not quite awake yet but coming round. You can visit tomorrow afternoon between two and four o’clock.’

  ‘I see. Oh my God, this is an awful shock…You say she’s alright? I must phone our mother. What ward number is it? Please send Maggie my love. Say I’ll call Mum and I’ll be in to see her tomorrow.’

  When David comes off the phone, he sees the policeman has been listening.

  ‘It’s my sister,’ he says. ‘She was kicked by a horse and is in hospital with a broken jaw.’