by Guy Sheppard
Slowly the beast begins to breathe.
It stamps its hooves.
Snorts and squeals.
This is a creature that can use its internal sense of direction to orient itself using the Earth’s magnetic compass.
But how to make its white bristles shine in the dark? He has not yet mastered any of that because that is magic. But he’s hopeful – he wants to conjure up from the surrounding trees his very own battle-swine.
Once he has his enchanted boar he’ll do what the goddess Freya did and fly across the sky or swim the ocean. He’ll use his magic mount to shine a light wherever he goes. He’ll cling to its razorback mane and run at tremendous speed. He’ll overtake his enemies, or he’ll lure them forever deeper into the Forest and then round on them to take them by surprise.
He sits back and regards all versions of his creation that litter the floor so far. Seen together, the pages are quite something.
This is as much about his own feelings as the boar’s.
He has to be that brutish and stubborn.
He must be furious but also courageous.
He must spit fire from his jaws.
The object of his ire is someone who has forfeited the right to call himself either a father or a husband. No excuses. No mitigating circumstances. Patriarchy means nothing. Filial loyalty must be overcome.
The longer he regards his artist’s savage impression, the more he feels compelled to act to make it real.
It falls to the son to avenge the mother against the father.
He knows now what must be done.
Come boar, be me.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Freya peered harder through the kitchen window at the white wall of woodland that surrounded Beech Tree Grange. Was it only the morning mist among the ancient oaks and beeches playing tricks on her? The fact that she couldn’t see over the foggy treetops, no matter how high she teetered on her toes, brought to the surface hitherto suppressed reservations. She and James had finally moved into their new home – hence the smell of fresh paint in her nostrils – but already the very air she breathed felt leaden and stuck in her throat.
The Forest’s silence was an exact mirror of her own. Storms might break branches, rains might lash leaves, birds might scream, but the inscrutable trees stayed mute. A shiver licked her limbs. To stand here stock-still was to stand in almost total seclusion, not just physically but mentally. She wanted to curl like a foetus in this dark, cold, cheerless place. Yet she was intrigued by the uncanny suggestion of a constant presence. In the Forest’s wilful taciturnity, in the fact of not mentioning a thing and non-betrayal of its own secrets, there lurked a mysterious invitation.
How could it possibly know so much about her, so soon? The gently swaying trees would have her ask herself previously unimaginable questions.
What do you most want from your life?
Time to myself.
Why is that?
Time equals freedom.
Freedom for what?
To do what I want.
Next minute James entered the kitchen directly behind her – she could tell at once that he was in the mood to make demands.
Always he had to psych himself up to get what he wanted. It was the same in bed. Everything had to be done his way. In brutal silence.
‘I’ve decided that Sam should definitely undergo electroconvulsive therapy.’
Freya froze. She thought they’d already settled this once and for all.
‘You talk as if he has some great affliction.’
‘I’m only thinking of what’s best for our son.’
‘Or it’s your way of avoiding responsibility for who he really is.’
James’s face fell. Working late had left his eyelids redder than usual. He never liked it when she pushed back, not even slightly, but he was a reasonable man and he’d give her a second chance today.
‘What exactly are you trying to say, Freya?’
‘Just because Sam occasionally skips school to watch trains doesn’t make him ill.’
‘What else can it be?’
‘Consider this then. I’ve met parents at his school who are almost glad that their child has been diagnosed as mildly autistic. They boast about it.’
‘I’ll never crow about my son’s self-destructive, anti-social behaviour.’
‘Don’t you get it, James? Some mums and dads are happy to say that their children may be a bit on the odd side but are really quite brainy. They see some kudos in it.’
‘I don’t care what you say, Sam is going to America.’
‘No, he isn’t.’
‘He’s my son, I’ll decide what’s best for him.’
‘You can’t send him. It’s too dangerous. German U-boats prowl the Atlantic. He could end up at the bottom of the ocean.’
James began to perspire. He stretched his fingers. Tapped his toe. His attention wandered as he found it hard to keep still.
Why couldn’t she just accept what he said?
What had got into her?
Why did she have to disagree?
She knew he hated it when they argued.
‘Isn’t it obvious Sam needs help?’ said James. ‘It’s very difficult to have a proper conversation with him. He simply goes off at a tangent. For instance, he talks endlessly about his own train set but won’t play trains with any other children. At school he can’t even follow simple instructions.’
‘That’s because he finds it hard to interact with the teachers.’
‘So he falls behind with his work.’
‘That doesn’t make him stupid.’
‘Only socially inept.’
‘Teachers have to learn how to handle him, that’s all.’
‘Meanwhile he’s a total loner. He shows absolutely no interest in games with his fellow pupils.’
‘So what if he can’t see the point, I never could either.’
There she went again, resisting him. On a scale of one to ten the danger level was fast approaching eight or nine. James stared out the window and the silent Forest stared straight back at him. He hunched his shoulders and scratched his bristly white hair.
‘Here’s what we’ll do, Freya. We’ll try one course of treatment and see if he benefits.’
‘What do you mean by ‘benefits’?’
‘Electric shocks might make him more normal.’
‘Normal? What’s that?’
‘Conforming to a standard. Regular. Usual.’
‘Is that even a good thing?’
James rolled his great, square head at her.
‘What else could it be?’
‘No,’ said Freya, ‘I won’t allow it.’
‘You won’t allow it?’
‘How can we be sure that such a treatment is even suitable for children with very mild behavioural difficulties? Might they not be mistaken for something else?’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I’m his mother.’
‘Never mind that you’re acting irrationally?’
‘I’m trying to give Sam a say in his own life, that’s all. I’m trying to be rational about it.’
‘That’s strange, because we both know that you haven’t exactly been yourself lately, have you?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘You tried to go behind my back. You believed a lot of lies from that so-called friend of yours. I warned you to stay clear of her, but no, you wouldn’t listen. She’s better off dead. Thank your lucky stars that you’re not too.’
Freya stepped away from the window. He wouldn’t take her seriously now because this was no longer about Sam but about her. That’s what happened when he couldn’t get his own way, he tried to discredit her. Question her sanity. Instinct kicked in and she shut down. She was that foetus again protected by tall trees. The only real safety lay in quiescence.
‘If it wasn’t for me you’d have gone totally off the rails,’ said J
ames, jabbing his finger in her face. ‘You didn’t think of Sam then, did you?’
That much was true. The world for a while had opened up. She had seen great possibilities. It was like finding a way clear through the Forest.
But that wasn’t why James mentioned it. He said it to hurt her. Probe a festering wound.
Of pain and grief.
Of loss.
A few weeks ago she’d had a dear friend to help her, but not any more.
‘Don’t give me that sullen look,’ cried James. ‘Don’t be so damned cold.’
Still Freya said nothing because she knew what was coming.
‘Repeat after me,’ yelled James, ‘so cold.’
Beyond the window that bothersome wall of hitherto mute oaks and beeches suddenly began to swish and sway more violently – grew agitated. She could only say that it was like a rip tide in an otherwise calm sea of bare branches.
‘Thanks, but I’d rather make up my own mind about Sam.’
James sucked air through his teeth. This surge of fury that he felt not only buoyed his whole body, but impelled it forwards – drove it so hard that he did not look where he was going. Meanwhile Ruby leapt from her basket and began yapping at him very loudly. For a Chihuahua to take him on like that had to be either comical or suicidal. It had the odd effect of prolonging the moment. He seemed to fly through the air in slow motion. There was a mad spinning in his head. His chest felt ready to rupture. His heart pounded. He had to wonder if this was him or if he was in another place and time altogether.
His knuckles slammed into Freya with a sickening crump.
The thud hit home between breasts and pelvis.
She doubled up and clutched the windowsill before she went down.
A second blow caught her on the cheek.
It broke her hold and sent her flying.
‘Stop coming between me and Sam,’ James screamed in her face. All he could think about was how to vent his frustration and impatience via his rage. He had to burn it like fuel until it was expended. Still Ruby kept yapping at his ankles. His ears burst. His lungs could not breathe quickly enough. He was gasping. The blows were nothing to him, but he was exhausted. Drained. He stood over Freya and panted. What he most wanted in those first few seconds was for her to fight back so that he could finish her off, but it was a perilous moment when he might overstep the mark.
He had to pull back from the edge and withdraw his fists because she was too smart for him. She wouldn’t give him the excuse he needed; she wouldn’t provide him with a ghost of a reason to give in to his bad temper.
‘Why do you do it?’ cried James. ‘Why do you deliberately provoke me so?’
‘….’
‘I just want to do what’s best for our son,’ he continued, his chest heaving.
Hitting someone was like running a marathon.
‘Damn it, Freya, this isn’t what I intended.’
‘….’
Freya hugged herself to halve the pain. That gut-pummelling punch to the stomach made her want to vomit – that blow on the mouth saw her taste blood.
Meanwhile Ruby was still trying to come between man and woman. James landed her his best kick; he sent her rolling like a football into a corner where she lay very still.
Freya gave a scream.
‘Not my dog!’
‘You’re fucking insane, you bitch. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be dead on the street.’
So that’s what he was referring to, thought Freya, crawling towards the limp Chihuahua. There had been a time when she had needed his help, just after she’d learnt that her brother had burned to death on that bus in Gloucester. But she wasn’t clinically depressed now. It only suited him to discredit the past to own the future.
He came at her again with fists flailing, then stopped dead in his tracks. After all, she was down already. Instead he felt the wilful need to stand right over her. Intentionally, deliberately, he had to teach her a lesson due to her sheer perversity. He forgot about his own mad compulsion for which there could be no excuse. Next minute the muscles in his face grew slacker. That twisted, ugly look – that animality – resumed a guise more human.
Freya waited.
For the reaction.
Sure enough, James let his arms slump by his side, then squinted at her as if he were somehow ignorant of her ‘accident’. It was his turn to be shocked, outraged and speechless; his face filled with horror; he despaired to see how hurt she was.
It was always the same. Already he had forgotten why he hit her. Had there ever been a reason?
‘Oh Freya, what have you done?’
Flowers would surely arrive in the next few days. Perhaps new shoes, too. She already had a cupboard lined with the best Oxfords, pumps and sandals, most of which she rarely ever wore nowadays. She’d rather go barefoot than be seen in one of his ‘presents’.
His fists were free, but the gifts weren’t.
‘Oh God, I’m so terribly sorry, Freya. I don’t know how it happened.’
Yes, you do.
‘Oh God, let me help you. You know how I hate to see you hurt.’
No you don’t.
Her head still swam from that sideswipe to her solar plexus. But she didn’t cry tears any more – they literally filled her eyes with pain, but she didn’t consciously shed them. She would no longer give him that satisfaction. He was weaker than she was, which was why he had to resort to violence. She realised that now.
He paced to and fro as he tried to work out what best to do next, though she was not about to discuss it. Her steely reticence came to his rescue. To thwart him was forever to be his enemy. Instead she nursed Ruby back to life with numerous kisses.
It gave James his cue to make a hurried exit.
He’d make it up to her because today had only been a lapse on his part.
Like all the other times.
She would come round again soon enough, since she knew how much he loved her.
*
Sam slid down the oak tree from which he kept regular vigil in the garden. He tracked his father via the kitchen past the patio door and followed him to the edge of the terrace. If he had not heard much, then he had seen it all. On his way by the window he watched Freya stagger to the sink and reach for a glass of water.
Clearly she needed to drink something in a great hurry. James’s apologies had not been as profuse as usual. Even his father could grow ashamed of his own excuses?
She raised the tumbler shakily to her blood-soaked lip, whereupon its contents clouded pink with her first sip.
Which was when she caught sight of him under the window.
She shook her head twice, quite violently.
Sam frowned.
Freya was turning her head from side to side, there could be no doubt about it.
She’d seen the hatchet clenched in his fist.
Which was when his eyes narrowed.
He snorted.
He stamped his feet.
He ground his teeth up and down.
His mouth frothed a few white bubbles and scum.
But it was no use.
She was telling him very firmly that now was not the right time.
THIRTY-NINE
Just to look at so much whiteness was totally exhausting. His eyeballs ached. He felt sick. Thibaut literally thought he might go blind any minute. Each step across the snowy Forest floor almost failed him as he dared to walk on the crusty, milky-coloured tundra. His worn out army boots cracked the icy carpet underfoot like glass.
It was not as if heavy snow did not fall where he came from in France, but he had never before been so lost in it. His lungs felt on fire. The very air he breathed filled with needle-like crystals.
Nora picked up the pace. To her, this bewildering wilderness seemed less of a hindrance?
‘There’s not a minute to lose.’
‘Where are we going, exactly?’
‘Can’t
answer that right now.’
‘What if someone saw us leave the caravan site?’
‘We didn’t have a choice.’
‘You’re the one who said we need a plan.’
‘Keep your voice down, will you? Sound travels a long way in these woods.’
Thibaut stopped short suddenly and listened to the night. They should never have left Raoul behind and he was feeling guilty.
‘What’s that?’
‘The hell if I know.’
‘I thought I heard a vehicle or something.’
‘Might be nothing.’
Didn’t he realise they could both freeze to death out here, thought Nora, hurrying on. The raw air deadened her face and fingers while her shoes no longer even pretended to protect her wet toes. Suddenly the trees trembled. Something stirred. Icicles rained down from snow-laden boughs. The whole Forest had just whispered to them.
Thibaut shuddered. Someone was coming after them, all right. The White Lady, supernatural guardian of the trees, was breathing her frost-wind? They would have to dance with her and do her bidding in order to pass.
Or she had sent her hobgoblin in the guise of a spotted pig, to torment them for thinking only of themselves?
But it was one owl greeting another high in the branches.
‘You all right?’ asked Nora, laughing.
‘This moon is bad news.’
‘At least we’re able to see where we’re going.’
‘If we can see, so can others. They’ll follow our tracks in the snow for sure.’
‘Whatever happens I’m with you, Thibaut.’
‘Better keep moving, as you say.’
On they went over the glade’s silvery surface; the Forest floor was littered with treasure for them to tread. Each sparkling jewel promised objects of great beauty and worth. They scooped up handfuls of precious stones as they passed; they saw them dance and dim at their toes, even if it was only hoar frost.
The confusion of rimy trunks did more than mislead them, it mixed things up in their minds. Shadows assumed the shapes of assassins and goggled at them like ghouls. Thibaut was deeply afraid of this primeval place where the worst of men’s instincts could be given free rein. If the cold didn’t kill them tonight, their pursuers would.