by Kevin Brooks
Dad bought the cottage about six or seven years ago, which surprised us all at the time. Even Mum didn’t know about it. He just came home one day, told us all to get in the car, then drove out to Orwold and proudly showed us the cottage.
“There,” he’d said. “What do you think of that?”
“What?” Mum had said.
“The cottage. It’s ours. I bought it.”
“You what?”
“I bought it.”
“You bought it?” she’d said incredulously. “What the hell for? What are we going to do with a cottage?”
After Dad had explained its numerous uses—as a family home for weekends away, a quiet place to work without interruptions, or just somewhere to go to get away from it all—Mum began to calm down, and gradually she came around to his way of thinking. We all did, I think—imagining lazy days in the sun, woodland nights, log fires crackling in winter…
It never really worked out like that, though. At first we used to go there almost every weekend. Friday night, we’d pack our bags and jump in the car and drive off to Suffolk for a quiet weekend…and it was fine, for a while. We had our lazy days and our quiet nights—walking in the woods, collecting logs for the fire, or strolling along the estuary and watching the boats in the evening sun…then we’d all get starving hungry and head back to the cottage for toasted crumpets and big mugs of steaming hot chocolate…
Yeah, it was OK.
We even spent a whole week there one summer. I was about twelve then, and Gina was seventeen. I remember when she met this boy in the village. I got really upset when she wouldn’t let me come with her when she was going out for a walk, and I ended up following her into the woods…and getting a big surprise when I saw her kissing this boy. And then afterward, when I asked her who he was and she realized I’d been spying on her, she threatened to beat me up. But I told her that if she did, I’d tell Mum and Dad what she’d been doing, so instead of getting beaten up I got £5 for promising to keep my mouth shut. I took the money, of course, but for some weird reason I never spent it. In fact, it’s still hidden away in my room somewhere, all dirty and creased and faded, like some kind of useless reminder…
Anyway, I think that was probably the last time we were all at the cottage together. I don’t know why, but as the years went by, the weekends away became less and less frequent, until it reached a point when we were hardly going to Orwold at all. Even when we did make the effort, there always seemed to be someone missing. Either Gina couldn’t make it, or Mum was working, or Dad was away at a conference somewhere. And, without all four of us, it never felt quite the same. Everything felt false—empty and forced—as if we were trying to revive what used to be there, trying to remember the enjoyment, trying to have a good time. But it just wasn’t there anymore. In the end, I think we all realized that it wasn’t just pointless trying to find it, it was painful, too.
So we gave up.
By the time Mum and Dad were divorced, the cottage—to me—had faded into the past. It was just somewhere we used to go. A place in my mind. A memory.
But now I was back.
And it was real again.
The village, the woods, the estuary, the cottage…
Taking us into its sanctuary.
We didn’t talk much on the way there. We were both too tired, I think, and maybe a bit too wired as well. I couldn’t get comfortable on the train. My body felt strange, all tight and grainy, as if my flesh was made of sandpaper. My head was cramped and dull with fatigue, and my eyes were heavy and thick.
Candy wasn’t doing much better. She’d drugged herself up in the restroom again, but this time it didn’t seem to relax her. She kept fidgeting, sniffing, wiping her nose, licking her lips, tapping her fingers on the table. Smoking too much. Coughing too much. Breathing too fast, then too slow, then too fast again…
I didn’t get it.
I didn’t understand it.
But I was too tired to do anything about it, and Candy was too wired to care. So we both kept our sufferings to ourselves and endured the long journey in fitful silence—half-dozing, half-awake, occasionally muttering halfhearted nothings…
The time passed neither slowly nor quickly: It just passed.
Forty minutes to Ipswich, across the platform onto the branch line, then a bone-numbing hour-and-a-half grind to Lowestoft, a freezing-cold wait for a taxi, and finally a twenty-minute drive to Orwold.
“Is this it?” Candy asked hopefully as the taxi pulled up at the side of the road by the woods.
“Nearly,” I said. “Just another few minutes or so.”
But it turned out to be a bit longer than that, because the driver refused to take us down the track into the woods.
“I ‘in’t going down there, mate. No chance.”
“It’s only about half a mile,” I told him.
He shook his head. “Sorry, mate—this car’s my livelihood. I can’t afford to wreck it.”
I tried telling him that the track was OK, that he wouldn’t have any trouble, but he didn’t want to know. So we had to walk through the woods, at one-thirty in the morning, shivering and stumbling and cursing our way through the darkness. It was hard going, and a bit scary at first. I kept worrying that we’d lose sight of the track and wander off into the woods and get lost…but after a while, as my eyes adjusted to the dark and we moved on into the heart of the woods without getting lost, I began to feel a lot better.
The moon was almost full, shining down and glazing the woods with a delicate silvery light, and as I breathed in the crystal-clear air, I could feel myself coming alive again. I could feel the night’s silence, the rustling trees, the smell of the pines, the distant drift of sand and seaweed from the estuary…
It felt good—pure and fresh and energizing.
I almost wished I was on my own.
But I wasn’t.
And Candy was still struggling…
“Joe? Joe…where are you?”
“Here…I’m right next to you.”
“Christ—it’s so dark.”
I took hold of her hand. “It’s all right, we’re nearly there now.”
“Shit,” she muttered. “I can’t see where I’m going.”
“Try closing your eyes,” I suggested, “then opening them again.” I smiled at her. “Someone once told me that it lets more light in.”
“Yeah?” she said. “And you believed them, did you?”
“I’m gullible.”
We kept on down the track, hand in hand, and after a while I started to recognize one or two things—a fallen tree, a curious bend in the path, the shape of the skyline shimmering in the moonlight…
“It should be just down here,” I said.
“Should be?”
“Well, it’s been a long time…Hold on—there it is.”
“Where?”
I stopped and pointed straight ahead. “There…just to the right of those pines…the two tall ones…see?”
Candy squinted into the darkness, shaking her head. “I can’t see anything.”
“That dark shape,” I explained, “beneath the trees. You can see the roof—”
“It’s all dark shapes.”
“You’ll see it in a minute,” I said, moving off again. “Come on…give me your hand.”
And she’d taken my hand, and I’d led her down the final few meters of the track, and now here we were—standing outside the cottage, shadowed in the light of the moon, exhausted and cold and relieved.
“I can see it now,” Candy said, smiling at the cottage.
“Sure?”
“Yeah…it looks really nice.”
“It could do with a few repairs,” I said, looking it over. “The veranda needs fixing for a start—”
“Let’s just go inside, eh?”
I looked at her.
She said, “I mean, this is all very nice and everything, but I’m freezing cold and I need a wee.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I was just having a
quick look, that’s all. I’ll check it out properly tomorrow. It should be all right—”
“Joe?”
“What?”
“Will you please shut up and open the door?”
“Yeah, sorry.”
I got the key out of my pocket and unlocked the door. It was a little stiff—probably warped by the rain—but a couple of good shoves got it open, and then we were looking inside, seeing nothing but a pitch-black darkness.
“Any lights?” asked Candy.
“Just a second.”
I put my hand around the door and flicked the light switch. Nothing happened. I flicked it again. Still nothing.
“What’s the matter?” asked Candy.
“It’s probably turned off at the mains,” I replied. “Don’t worry, there should be some candles somewhere. Let me have your lighter.”
Candy passed me her cigarette lighter.
I clicked it, testing the flame, then started through the doorway. “I won’t be a minute—”
“I’m right behind you,” she said. “I’m not staying out here on my own.”
“All right…but watch your step.”
I moved inside, holding the lighter at arm’s length, and began inching my way across the room. Candy stayed close behind me. As we edged farther into the darkness, weird shadows began flickering around the walls—shadows of Candy, shadows of me. When I paused for a moment and held up the lighter, the shadows of our figures fused together in a macabre mutation—an ethereal beast with two stooped backs and two large heads and dozens of ghostly limbs…
I raised my hand to the light and made a shape with my fingers.
“What are you doing?” Candy whispered.
“Look,” I said, indicating the shadow I’d made on the wall.
Candy turned her head. “What’s it supposed to be?”
“A duck,” I said, waggling my fingers, opening and closing its beak. “See? Quack, quack…quack, quack. That’s the beak, there’s its head—”
“Just find the candles, Joe.”
I crossed over to the far wall and felt my way along the kitchen counter until I came to the sink. I crouched down, opened the cupboard under the sink, and held the lighter inside. The candles were in a box at the back. I took one out and lit it, passed it to Candy, then grabbed a few more and stood up again, joining Candy in the fluttering light.
“That’s better,” she said, placing the candle on the counter. “Now, where’s the bathroom?”
I lit another candle for her and directed her to the bathroom. As she wandered off across the room, I quickly called Gina to let her know we’d arrived, then I set about lighting more candles and positioning them around the cottage. When I’d finished, and the whole place was bathed in the shimmering light of the naked flames, it looked almost spiritual—like the sacred interior of a small wooden chapel, or some kind of godless shrine.
I wasn’t sure if it was that or just the cold that was making me shiver.
“I’ll get the fire going,” I said to Candy as she came out of the bathroom. “Why don’t you make some tea?”
I showed her the gas stove, checked it was still connected, got it going, then left her to it. While she clattered around looking for something to boil the water in, I started making the fire. Everything I needed was there: old newspapers, fire lighters, kindling, logs.
“How come this place doesn’t get vandalized?” Candy asked from across the room.
“It does sometimes,” I said, “but there isn’t much worth stealing, and Dad pays an old couple from the village to keep an eye on things, which helps. Kids still break in now and again, but they don’t usually do much damage.” I’d laid the base of the fire now and was starting to build up the logs. “We had squatters once,” I told Candy. “A family of them broke in and stayed here for a month. Kids, dogs—the lot. Dad had to call the police to get them out.”
“You ought to rent it out,” she suggested. “That way you wouldn’t have to worry about kids breaking in, plus you’d make some extra cash.”
“Yeah, I suppose…”
I lit the fire, waited to make sure it was going, then sat back and gazed into the flames. Behind me, I could hear the gas stove hissing and water boiling and Candy shuffling around—opening cupboards, looking in drawers, rattling cups and cutlery—and it all sounded so normal. She was making some tea. I was sitting in front of the fire. We were talking…
And that was OK…
Wasn’t it?
Being normal…
What’s wrong with that?
Nothing, I told myself. Nothing at all…
But I wasn’t so sure. Firstly, because I knew that things weren’t normal and all we were doing by pretending they were was avoiding the inevitable truth. And secondly—and this is the thing that bothered me most—I wasn’t so sure I wanted us to be normal. I didn’t want us to be abnormal. I didn’t want all this chaos and underworld crap…but that’s where we’d come from. The chaos was part of us. Part of what we were. And I was afraid if we lost it completely, we might lose part of ourselves…
I think that’s what I was thinking, anyway.
I was tired, remember? It was nearly two o’clock in the morning and I was staring dead-eyed into a blazing fire…entranced by the flames…not really there…not really conscious of anything. The thoughts in my head were nothing to do with me. They were just scraps of things—images, words, memories, feelings—floating around without any purpose, like bits of dust in the wind.
“Here’s your tea,” Candy said, sitting down beside me and breaking into my trance. She passed me a mug of dreggy black liquid.
“Thanks,” I said.
“There’s no milk, I’m afraid, and I couldn’t find any sugar.”
I took a sip—it tasted foul.
“Great,” I said.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Liar,” she smiled. “It’s horrible, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely disgusting.”
We both put down our mugs and stared at the fire. Candy lit a cigarette and smoked it thoughtfully for a while, blowing long streams of smoke into the heat of the flames, then she turned to me and said, “You know that song you played at The Black Room…the one you sang at the end?”
“Yeah…”
“Did you write that?”
“Mostly, yeah…I mean, we worked it out together—”
“But you wrote it?”
“Yeah.”
“Is it about who I think it’s about?”
“I don’t know,” I grinned. “Who do you think it’s about?”
“Come on, Joe—don’t mess around. It’s embarrassing…”
“What is?”
“You know…if I told you that I thought it was about me and it turned out that it wasn’t… God, imagine how that’d make me feel.”
“You think it’s about you?”
She glared at me.
“Yeah, all right,” I admitted. “I wrote it the night I first met you. I didn’t really know you then, so I’m not sure it means very much—”
“It does to me. God, when I heard you singing it…and the way you were singing it…Christ, Joe…I can’t tell you what it did to me.”
“You looked good dancing to it.”
“I felt good.”
“Me, too…”
Neither of us spoke for a while. We both just sat there, staring into the fire, thinking our thoughts. The room was quiet. The candles burned…the flame light flickered…silent colors played on the walls…yellow, red, blue, orange…
“I’m sorry,” Candy said. “It should have been better than this.”
I looked at her. “There’s plenty of time yet.”
“Yeah…” she said, lowering her eyes. “I wanted to say thanks…”
“What for?”
“The song…everything. What you’ve done…what you’re trying to do…I don’t know—just everything, I suppose. I’m sorry. I’m not very good at saying
what I mean.”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
She looked at me for a moment, her eyes dimmed with sadness, then she reached out and brushed my cheek with her finger. “You’re sitting too close to the fire,” she said. “Your face is all red…”
I held her gaze. “You’re changing the subject.”
“I know.”
“We need to talk about things.”
“I know.”
“Look,” I said hesitantly. “It’s up to you what you do. It’s your life…I’m not trying to get you to do anything you don’t want to do…” I sighed, wishing I could just say what I meant instead of talking around things all the time. I looked at Candy. She was staring into the fire again. I said, “I can’t do this on my own. You have to help me to help you.”
“How?” she asked.
“I don’t know…Just tell me things. I don’t know what you’re thinking. I don’t know how you feel about anything. I don’t know where you are.”
“Neither do I,” she said quietly. “I’ve never had to think about this before. I’ve never had to talk to anyone about it.”
“About what?”
“Drugs,” she said slowly, looking at me. “Heroin…I don’t think about it…As long as I’ve got it, there’s nothing to think about. It’s just a requirement, like oxygen. You don’t think about breathing, do you? You just do it. It’s only when you can’t do it that you realize you can’t do without it. That’s why it’s so hard to talk about, Joe. I can’t imagine not doing it, just as you can’t imagine not breathing. But I know I have to…I have to stop doing it. There’s nothing left for me if I don’t.” She was sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms clamped tightly around her legs, and she was rocking slightly, backward and forward, trying not to cry. “I’m scared, Joe,” she whispered. “I’m so scared. I don’t know if I can do it…”
“It’s all right,” I said, moving over to her. “It’ll be all right…”
“No, it won’t,” she said. “It’s going to be really bad—”
“Yeah, but once it’s over…once you’re all right again…”
She was crying now, really bawling. I moved closer and put my arms around her. Her head was buried in her knees and her shoulders were heaving and she was gulping out words in breathless sobs.