The day did resolve one thing, however: as she waited for her bus home again she decided that if nothing else she was going to bloody well start driving again. She didn’t know how much difference the amputation would make – or even if the authorities would let her get behind the wheel at all – but she needed to regain as much control over her life as she possibly could.
‘Mary in the oak tree,
Cold as cold can be.
Waiting for the sky to fall,
Who will dance with me?’
The children sing as they dance, holding hands, in a circle around the hollow oak. A woman’s hand stretches out from a fissure in the trunk, beseeching, pleading for help, but the children laugh as they skip past just out of reach of her trembling fingers.
‘Help her,’ Rachel murmurs, lost deeply in her dream. ‘She’s not dead. Not dead.’
8
SMOKY
A DOZEN MILES SOUTH OF BIRMINGHAM, OVER THE Lickey Hills, past the affluent green-belt properties of entrepreneurs, football players and B-list celebrities, and on the outskirts of the dozing market town of Bromsgrove was a nineteen-acre pocket of Worcestershire countryside, which hid the Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings. The open-air space was landscaped to contain over two dozen buildings from all over the country and spanning seven hundred years, rescued from demolition, deconstructed, transported and rebuilt on the site. It made for odd juxtapositions, with a half-timbered Elizabethan merchant’s house sharing its lawn with a group of Viking re-enactors, only a stone’s throw from a working blacksmith’s forge, a medieval barn, a windmill and a Second World War prefabricated house complete with vegetable patch and Anderson shelter.
It was here that Rachel’s great-grandmother Caroline, known to all and sundry as Gigi, celebrated her ninety-sixth birthday on a fine August morning, surrounded by the chattering chaos of her extended brood. While Rachel may have been an only child, the same was definitely not true for the other offshoots of her family. Aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews – many of whom she didn’t recognise or even know the names – travelled from as far away as Sweden to pay court to the elderly matriarch at lunch in a large free-standing function hall beneath an ornately carved fourteenth-century wooden ceiling which had once been part of Worcester Cathedral.
Rachel found herself sitting next to twelve-year-old Alfie, the son of her second cousin Vicky. He was on her right-hand side, and making no attempt whatsoever to hide the way he kept trying to peer around her to catch a glimpse of her left arm. She’d chosen to wear a stump sock with a subtle flower print to match the colour of her blouse rather than her more obtrusive hook, even though her mother had asked if there was any chance she could get hold of a cosmetic fake hand so that it didn’t ‘distract’ anyone. ‘This is what I am, Mum,’ she’d said. ‘I’m not going in fancy dress.’ The way Alfie was goggling, he’d have been distracted no matter what was on her wrist.
‘I saw this really old film once,’ he said to her out of the blue. ‘Dad showed it to me. It was about this guy who gets shrunk in a spaceship and injected into some other guy’s bum. And there was a bad guy with a robot hand that had all these attachments that he took off and stuck on. He had, like, one with a gun in the finger.’ Alfie looked at her expectantly.
‘I don’t have attachments,’ she told him. ‘I have a hook, but not like a pirate’s. Sorry.’
Alfie’s face fell.
‘I do have an unbelievably gross scar, though,’ she added.
Alfie’s eyes lit up.
‘I can show it to you if you like, but you have to promise not to throw up.’
‘Cool!’
‘Rachel!’ her mum admonished from the other side of the table. ‘I don’t really think that’s appropriate, do you?’
‘Sorry, Mum.’ She smiled apologetically, and as polite conversation resumed across from her she leaned in closer to Alfie and murmured, ‘Really, really gross. I’ll show you afterwards.’
She showed him after lunch, outside on the garden lawn, but he wasn’t impressed. ‘That’s it?’ he said. ‘That’s just, like, a line.’
‘Oh,’ she said, looking at her stump in disappointment. ‘So there’s no danger of you throwing up, then?’
He made a pfft! noise.
‘Right then.’ She made a show of thinking hard, looking around at the buildings and tapping her chin with her forefinger. Gigi was being led along one of the gravel paths by Mum and Cousin Vicky, doing a slow tour of the site in the sun, pointing out the flowers. Meanwhile the smaller spawn had been taken by their parents and some of the older children to play on blankets in the middle of the wide central lawn. ‘Tell you what,’ Rachel said to Alfie. ‘How would you like to see a mummified cat instead?’
Alfie looked sceptical; he’d been burned by her false promises once already.
‘Seriously,’ she said. ‘An actual dead cat, dried out and mummified, in a wall of one of these buildings.’
At the end of the day, Alfie was a twelve-year-old boy, and the lure of a dead cat was simply too strong to resist.
She took him to the Merchant’s House, a large Elizabethan town house two storeys high, with a sway-backed roof, half-timbered walls and slatted oak louvres for windows. It was open to the public, and often used on bank holidays by groups of historical re-enactors who would live in it over the weekend, cooking over the wide open fireplace and staging mock duels on the lawn outside. Rachel liked that it was still a working building; it smelled of smoke and was equipped with simple furniture which people actually used.
It was while the house was being disassembled for transportation to the site that workmen had discovered the mummified body of a cat inside the wall of one of the upstairs rooms, and when the house had been reconstructed the cat had been incorporated as a feature, in a glass case embedded in the wall with an interpretation board below.
Alfie stood with his nose literally pressed against the glass, staring. The unfortunate creature had been walled up alive and starved to death stretched out on its side, and having been propped up for better display gave the impression that it was lying sphinx-like, with its paws crossed serenely and its empty eye sockets staring at the ceiling.
‘It’s said that people used to do this for luck,’ said Rachel. ‘Nobody really knows why. Maybe the idea was that the ghost of the cat would keep away rats and mice. Maybe so it could keep away darker spirits like the Devil himself.’
‘Is it cursed? Like in the film?’
‘No. There are no such things as curses. There are only ignorant people and the cruel things they do. Come on, enough of this. Let’s go get an ice cream.’
She let him go first down the steep, uneven staircase to the ground floor. It was when she was halfway down herself that she felt something furry slip past her fingers.
She stopped, and looked back. No animal had passed her. Even if it had, her dead hand had been the one to feel the contact; she’d left her stump sock off after showing Alfie her scar, to give it some fresh air, and hadn’t bothered to put it back on again. It had felt just like a cat arching its back to rub against her in greeting.
Leaves. Broken glass and nails. Beetles. And if insects, why not larger creatures?
Rachel found herself alone; Alfie had run out of the house without stopping to see if she was following. The laughter outside was muted by the building’s thick walls. The room above her was bright with sunlight spilling through the slatted windows while below her the main living space and kitchen were dim in smoky darkness. Halfway up the stairs, she knelt and offered her ghost hand to the shadows.
‘Puss-puss-puss?’ she murmured. ‘Are you there, puss?’
For a long time there was nothing, and then the barest whisper of fur against her dead fingertips.
‘Hey there, puss-puss. I’m not going to hurt you. Good puss.’
It came back more confidently, and she was able to follow the arch of its back, discovering a knobbled row of vertebrae and cage of ribs beneath the fur, th
en a whip-like tail.
‘Oh my god, you poor thing, you’re starving, aren’t you?’
Its head butted her hand, the skull prominent. It was a friendly little thing, though that was likely because it was so obviously hungry. How many people must have passed it by every day, unseeing, while it tried to rub against their legs and coax titbits that never came? How could she leave it now?
‘You’re coming home with me,’ she decided, and the next time its tail slithered through her left hand she reached across with her right and in the pivot moment between them she brought it through.
The cat looked as starved and pathetic as it had felt, its fur cloud-grey and matted. As a consequence its ears seemed as large as a bat’s. When it meowed at her the sound was more of a thin, parched scratching, but as if in compensation its purr was that of a traction engine. She held her breath and waited for the world’s reaction to her interference – for some part of the building to split or collapse, but nothing did. Meanwhile the cat twined its way back and forth between her ankles, producing its dry meow.
‘Smoky, that’s what I’m calling you. Okay, Smoky?’
Judging by the way Smoky butted against her legs like a small but determined head-banger, this seemed just fine. She checked between Smoky’s back legs. Definitely a boy.
‘So here’s the upshot, dude,’ she said, sitting on the stairs as he clambered all over her. ‘You get life and food and fussing, but you’re going to get stuck full of needles and those fluffy dice of yours have to go.’ She tried to pick him up but he wasn’t having any of it, squirming out of her arms like a fish and making for the front door. He paused at the threshold, sniffing the outside world.
‘You sure?’ she asked him. ‘It’s a jungle out there.’
He trotted out into the sun, then shot off across the grass in a grey streak to disappear into the bushes.
‘That’s gratitude for you.’
As Rachel was heading back to the party she saw Tom coming out of the ride-on miniature railway, which ran a wide loop of track through trees and bushes next to the site. He angled to meet her.
‘I saw you hanging out with young Alfie just now,’ he said.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not about to ditch you for a younger man,’ she replied, taking his arm.
‘I don’t know why you always say you’re no good with kids,’ he said. ‘He’s been raving on about how cool you are.’
She sighed. ‘Let’s not have this discussion again, huh? Not today. It’s too nice. Besides,’ she said, ‘why do I need a child when I have you to look after?’
* * *
At the end of the day, after Gigi had been chauffeured away like departing royalty, Tom was getting into the driver’s side of the van when a thin grey shadow detached itself from the undergrowth and hurtled towards them. Before either of them could react, Smoky sprang onto Tom’s lap, over his shoulder, and disappeared into the back of the van.
‘What the hell was that?’ yelped Tom.
‘Hello, you,’ said Rachel, turning around to look at the cat. He was crouched warily behind a pair of wellington boots. ‘Decided which side of your bread is buttered, did you?’
Smoky narrowed his eyes at her.
‘Oi!’ Tom yelled. ‘Out of my van! Bloody stray…’ He opened his door again but Rachel put a hand on his arm.
‘Tom, please. This is Smoky. Smoky, this is Tom. Play nicely together.’
‘You mean it’s following you?’
‘I’m keeping him. Look at him, the poor love. He needs a home.’
‘He needs shaving. He looks like a toilet brush! He’ll be crawling with fleas and God knows what else!’
‘I’ll take him to the vet first thing. Tom,’ she looked at him directly and made it clear that she was being serious. ‘I need this.’
Tom sighed. ‘All right – but your guest, your mess.’
‘Of course!’ she smiled. ‘Buckle up, handsome,’ she added, as Tom started the van.
‘Don’t worry, I am,’ he replied, reaching for his seat belt.
‘I wasn’t talking to you.’
* * *
Smoky quickly put on weight and acquired a healthy sleekness. He was fitted with an ID microchip, given a full range of vaccinations and treated for fleas, a bad case of worms, and a bacterial infection in one ear; the bill for all of which was eye-watering. He was confined to the kitchen with a litter tray for the first week, while Tom fitted an electronic cat flap to the back door that opened only to his chip. On the first night he was allowed to have access to the outside, Rachel lay awake for a long time, worried that he would run away or fall foul of neighbourhood dogs, urban foxes, or any one of a dozen threats.
‘Don’t know what you’re so worried about,’ grumped Tom. ‘Cat leads the bloody life of Riley. He’s healthier than I am.’
* * *
The oak was hollow but not empty, she knew that well enough by now, but this time the dream was different. Something was raking in the leaf mould amongst the roots; something with a low-slung body and long digging claws. Something that raised its head…
* * *
Rachel was woken by an unholy row from the back garden. It sounded like a hyena attacking a coyote in a rubbish bin: high-pitched yipping and yowling followed by the crashing sound of garden furniture being knocked over and the violent flapping of the plastic cat flap as Smoky, presumably, threw himself inside without his feet touching the ground.
‘Christ…’ muttered Tom.
Rachel put on her robe and hurried downstairs. Opening the door to the kitchen, she found Smoky on top of the stove’s smoke hood, growling with terror, and every hair on his body rigid. As soon as he saw the open doorway he leapt to the floor and fled past her into the living room.
‘What the…’
There was movement on the other side of the cat flap. The plastic was transparent so that its user could check that the coast was clear, and through it she saw a pair of eyes. They glowed green in the light from the cat flap, slitted and wide enough apart for her to know that their owner was much larger than a domestic cat.
Whatever was out there suddenly threw itself at the door so hard that she actually saw it shudder, and she heard claws raking the wood.
Brooms and mops were clipped to the wall beside the door; she grabbed one, then the back door keys off their hook, unlocked the door, yanked it open and stepped outside, brandishing a broom like a baseball bat and yelling, ‘Piss off!’
There was nothing outside – just a suggestion of movement further down the garden. Something long and low and incredibly fast disappearing into the bushes by the back fence.
* * *
Come the morning, Tom surveyed the damage to the back door with incredulity. ‘What was out here last night?’ he said, scratching his head. ‘A fucking wolverine?’
The door surrounding the cat flap was scored with deep gashes, some severe enough to have torn away chunks of wood.
‘I don’t know,’ said Rachel. ‘A fox, maybe?’ She didn’t really believe that – the thing that had vanished down their garden had been too much like the animal in her dream, grubbing around the roots of the oak as if looking for bones. Smoky was upstairs on their bed, having refused to leave all night.
‘I’ve never heard of a fox doing this kind of damage before. They’re scavengers.’
‘Maybe it was rabid.’
‘Great. That’s all we need. Rabid bloody urban foxes.’
* * *
Over the next week there were two more attacks. In both cases there was a loud and violent struggle in the back garden between Smoky and his enemy, and in both cases his enemy tried to get into the house after him, causing more damage to the back door but escaping by the time Rachel got downstairs to confront it. Smoky became skittish and nervous about going outside, venturing only just as far as necessary to check his territory and have a crap before hurrying back to the safety of the house. On the second attack he suffered a long claw wound on his right hind leg,
which required stitches at the vet.
‘This is ridiculous!’ Rachel protested to Tom. ‘And it’s not some random fox – this thing has got it in for him. It’s deliberately hunting him.’
‘In that case we’re going to have to get rid of it, aren’t we?’ said Tom. ‘The question is, how hard are we prepared to try?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, we could call in an exterminator and have them set traps. It would take a long time and cost a lot of money – and it has to be said that this cat of yours has not been cheap so far – and it might not even work. It might even hurt Smoky by mistake.’
‘We can’t do nothing, Tom. The poor cat’s a nervous wreck.’
‘So back to the question: how hard are we prepared to try? How much do you want this thing gone? Enough to kill it?’
‘I’d rather not,’ she said. ‘But if it came to it? Yes, probably, only as a last resort, though.’
‘Well then, here’s an idea I’m just going to throw out there for the sake of argument: one of the lads who my dad employs is a bit of a survivalist; likes his bushcraft and his Bear Grylls programmes, and he’s always telling us stories about his adventures. We’re pretty sure a lot of it is bullshit, but what is true is that he owns a crossbow. He brought it in one day to show us. Says he goes hunting up in Scotland. Massively illegal of course, but there it is.’
‘Oh no, no, Tom, I couldn’t. That’s going too far. A crossbow? What is he preparing for, The Walking Dead to come true? No. I mean what if it’s somebody’s pet?’
Tom shrugged. ‘There’s the line then.’
Despite her misgivings, Rachel found herself seriously considering the idea, but the next attack took the decision out of her hand.
They snapped awake in the middle of the night to the familiar crashing and screeching, only this time it seemed louder, taking on a higher pitch and a more desperate cadence. Running downstairs with Tom close behind, Rachel flicked on the kitchen light and soon saw why. The thing that had been terrorising Smoky had finally succeeded in jamming its head right through the cat flap, where it was now stuck. It had torn the cat flap from its mounting and was wearing it like a collar as it snarled and thrashed and snapped at the empty air. Its head was long and narrow like a weasel, if a weasel had a wildcat’s markings and had grown to the size of a badger. And no weasel, cat or badger had ever sported teeth like this.
The Hollow Tree Page 6