Ravens Gathering
Page 1
Ravens Gathering
Graeme Cumming
Published by Graeme Cumming
Copyright © Graeme Cumming 2012
The right of Graeme Cumming to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
All rights reserved. This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
ISBN 978-0-9575107-0-8
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank:
Tony Fyler of Jefferson Franklin Editing – for his help and guidance. Out of sheer stubbornness, I didn’t follow all of his suggestions, so I’ll take the rap for any remaining errors.
Torrie Cooney – for her patience and creativity in designing the cover
For
Lizzie, who left me in peace to do my own thing
and
Christine Tubb, who encouraged me all those years ago. I don’t know where you are now, but you’re often in my thoughts
Table of Contents
Prologue
Part One - How to Win Friends
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty One
Twenty Two
Part Two - Feel the Fear
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Part Three - A Brief History
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Part Four - Families and How to Survive
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Part Five - Men Are From Mars
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Epilogue
Prologue
Drums were beating. They drew him upwards, towards them. His ascent felt slow, laborious. Like swimming through treacle. At times he wondered whether the effort was worth it. But the drums called to him, so he kept on.
Perhaps this was like being born. It seemed strange that he couldn’t remember that experience. But he knew pushing was involved. He’d seen enough films and TV programmes to know that. Had it been like that when he was a baby? Did he have to push his way out?
Or was it more like swimming against the tide? He could relate to that. More so than the treacle thing. He must have picked that idea up from somewhere else because, God knows, he’d never had that experience. Swimming in the sea when he shouldn’t have, well, that was a different story.
Yes, swimming against the tide. That was more like it. He realised his thoughts were becoming more lucid. Which meant he must nearly be there. He was swimming upwards now, the surface close by, the drums growing louder.
And then he broke through. He was awake.
Oddly, the beating had stopped. In the darkness of his bedroom, he wondered for a moment whether the drums had just been part of a dream. Then he heard something familiar from downstairs. The rhythmic rattle of a latch hitting a strike plate. It was the sound his mother regularly complained about when he came in from playing and didn’t close the door properly. Someone had left a door open, and it was swinging back and forth in the night air.
Sitting up in bed, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. In truth, the sleep was illusory. The pause was an unconscious effort to give him a moment to rein in his emotions. And those were wide and varied, covering a range that ran from puzzlement to fear. He realised it must be the middle of the night. The only illumination was the faint glow of a nearby streetlamp through his curtains. So why would his parents leave a door open?
His bed was close to the window. He pushed the bedclothes back and knelt up, leaning forward to lift a curtain to one side. The street was deserted. Looking to the left, he saw no sign of life. To the right, there was barely enough light to see anything. Just one streetlamp about 50 yards away, then nothing.
He had hoped a quick look outside might explain everything, but it didn’t. Now he had to face the prospect of getting out of bed and negotiating the darkness of the house. And the first thing he had to concern himself with was the crocodile under the bed.
Of course, he knew there wasn’t a crocodile there. How could there be? He’d seen them on TV. There was no way they could get upstairs for a start. And they lived in and around water – a lot more than they’d find around here. He only got a bath once a week. In addition to that, though, he’d checked under the bed before he got in it. And the door was closed. Crocodiles weren’t noted for their skills in silently opening and closing bedroom doors so they wouldn’t disturb sleeping children. So there couldn’t be a crocodile under the bed, could there? But logic and rational thought aren’t always dominant when your companions are darkness and shadows.
Assuming he managed to outrun the crocodile to his bedroom door, who knew what other terrors lurked in the rest of the house? But he certainly couldn’t just stay where he was. His mum and dad would kill him if they were burgled, and then found out he’d known a door was open all the time.
Reluctantly, he began to pull away from the window. Just as the curtain started to fall back into place, he glimpsed something moving at the edge of the darkness. He held the curtain and leaned back to the window. A fragment of colour drifted towards him, blown gently along by a light breeze. He watched it for a long moment as it drew nearer. It was only when it passed directly under the streetlamp that he recognised it. A checked handkerchief. It belonged to his dad.
His father was outside. He knew it instinctively. And so was his mum. Crocodile forgotten, he leapt off the bed and raced on to the landing. He didn’t stop to check the other bedrooms. He knew he was alone in the house. The door was still slamming
, the sound getting louder as he ran down the stairs. His bare feet hardly registered the coldness of the wooden floor as he entered the living room. The front door was at the end of a hallway that opened into the room. As it swung open in the breeze, he caught a glimpse of the street outside before it threw itself frantically at the frame, desperate to close properly.
Before leaving the house, he paused for a second to make sure the snib was up. Obviously he wanted to close the door, but he wasn’t going to be stupid enough to lock himself out. Then he was on the pavement, running towards the hankie, which had landed on a hedge and was trapped there now. He lifted the hankie, careful not to tear it. His dad could fly off the handle at the slightest thing. He wanted to put things right now, not make them worse.
When he had freed it, he realised his pyjamas had no pockets, so he tucked the hankie in the waistband of his trousers. That done, he began to run again, heading towards the edge of the light from the streetlamp. There may even have been crocodiles out there, but already he was aware of bigger fears coursing through him.
Into the darkness. In a sense, it was like the complete reverse of how he had felt when he was waking up. It was like being plunged into cold water. He slowed for a moment, but wasn’t prepared to stop. He wasn’t prepared to, but that didn’t prevent it happening. His foot pushed into something soft and cold and coarse, and it met resistance, causing him to lose balance. He put his hands out as he fell. The slap of his palms on tarmac left them stinging. The impact on his knees left a tear in his trousers, and the knowledge that he was going to be in big trouble for ruining them.
He reached down to pull the thing off his foot. As his fingers ran over it, he knew the fabric was familiar. It was a jacket his dad wore. It had been lying on the road, and his foot had slipped in under one of the lapels, catching in the opening to the sleeve. Why had his dad’s jacket been abandoned? Though underneath that question, he suspected he knew the answer. He realised that the apprehension he was feeling now was very strong. He also realised that it was an apprehension that had started even while he was asleep. Which didn’t really make sense, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it now.
His eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness, and he could make out the outline of the hedge that ran alongside the road. A little further on, the shape changed and there was blackness instead. He recognised the opening, and knew the track that lay there would take him up into the woods. Strangely, he felt as if he should have predicted that. He put the jacket down carefully under the hedge. It would be too heavy for him to carry, but he wanted it in a safe place, where he could find it later.
When he first started up the track, he could see nothing ahead of him. The only light was a small glimmer that came from the road behind him. But his eyesight adjusted surprisingly quickly.
The next item of clothing was his mother’s. A headscarf, it was caught on a low branch of a tree at the side of the track. Further along, he came across her cardigan. Then a shirt, another coat, some shoes, his dad’s trousers. Intermittently at first, and then more regularly. Some he recognised, some he didn’t. And all the time, he was getting closer to them.
Gradually, he became aware of firelight up ahead. He was well into the woods now, and flames flickered among the gaps between the trees. There were brief glimpses of movement. Shadowy silhouettes.
The apprehension he had felt on the road had grown even more. Oddly, he knew he wasn’t in any physical danger. And yet there was a part of him that expected whatever lay before him to be far worse. In spite of this, he went on, drawn relentlessly forward.
Sounds were beginning to carry now. He could hear voices. The words were indistinct, but the tone suggested a mixture of different emotions. Anger was a strong one. He was reminded of his dad shouting at him when he came home a few weeks earlier. He had been playing with his mates in the stream, and had fallen over. By the time he made it to the house, he was soaked through, and Dad had been furious with him. The anger in the woods reminded him of his dad, but it wasn’t his voice he could hear.
Fear was another emotion he picked up. And shame.
The gaps between the trees were getting wider now as he drew nearer. More clothes lay scattered in his path. And not just outerwear. He’d passed at least two bras and several pairs of underpants – both men’s and women’s.
Bare skin flashed in the firelight. A part of him wanted to turn and run. A part of him wanted to discover what was happening. And the biggest part of him knew that he had no say in the matter. He had slowed down now, but still he walked forward, heading inexorably towards the fire.
Overhead, he heard the rustle of wings, and looked up in time to see a large dark bird settle on to a branch in a nearby tree. Its eyes were looking in the direction of the fire. Sitting on the same branch were two more birds. He looked into other trees, and saw the outlines of birds in each and every one of them. Their presence was more unsettling than the idea of a crocodile under his bed.
He was close enough now to recognise where he was. At last he stopped moving. The clearing was only three trees away from him. Near enough for him to be able to see everything that was happening in it, but far enough back that he was still concealed by shadows. No one in the clearing would be able to see him.
On the far side of the fire, he could see his dad. Standing beside him was a tall man he didn’t recognise. Long black hair, and a long pale face that seemed to reflect the firelight. As he watched, he saw the long-haired man smile and nod at his dad. His dad’s tormented face should have been sufficient warning for him to turn and run. Perhaps he would have done if he hadn’t suddenly spotted his mum lying on the ground to his left. He recognised the figure kneeling down in front of her. Not understanding what he was seeing, he glanced back towards his dad.
Dark eyes stared back at him from a pale face.
* * *
He sat up, panting. His chest heaved as his lungs pumped frantically. Reaching up with trembling hands, he wiped the sweat out of his eyes. Then he hugged himself, holding on tightly until the tremors subsided, and his breathing returned to something approaching normal.
The nightmares were becoming more frequent, more intense. He had no choice now. It was time to do something about them.
Part One - How to Win Friends
One
Farming had been in the family for generations. There were rumours that a great great-grandfather had even had his own land at some point. But that was long before Peter or his father had come into the world. He had been born into a heritage of working for other farmers. It wasn’t a source of great pride, but it put food on the table.
Nigel Salthouse had worked on Lodge Farm since he was a child. His only break from that had been during the war. He could have worked the land, but he chose to fight for his country. In the process, he saw parts of the world he would never have dreamt possible. Africa had been where Tarzan came from, though he couldn’t recall Johnny Weissmuller spending time in the desert. Burma had felt more like Tarzan’s home. Like many old soldiers, Nigel didn’t talk about his experiences. But he did come back talking about the opportunities there were, beyond the life he had been brought up to expect. Mixing with so many different men from so many different backgrounds had opened his eyes to the chances there were in life.
When he finally returned home at the end of 1945, he had great plans. The celebrations that followed his homecoming put paid to them. A hasty marriage didn’t cover their tracks, but the miscarriage did. By then it was too late. Nigel had a young wife to support, and that meant working at the only thing he knew how to do. When the children did come along later, he had felt even more trapped.
He didn’t rail against it. The things he didn’t talk about were reminder enough that he was lucky to have the life he did. But he was determined to provide his own children with the opportunities he had missed. And he did. The first three were encouraged to look beyond the farm, beyond the village, even beyond the area for their futures. One of them even wen
t to university. Unheard of in the community, let alone the family. But Peter wasn’t cut out for that. Not by a long chalk.
Peter was the youngest, by fifteen years. Some might have referred to him as an afterthought, others as an accident. Nigel and his wife were in no doubt that it was an unmitigated disaster. They had been approaching a time when their children would have become more independent. In a few years’ time, Nigel and Katherine would be able to enjoy more time on their own and doing the things they wanted to do, without having to consider the children first and foremost. After seventeen years of giving priority to others, they were looking forward to being just a little more selfish.
Even so, if that had been the sole issue, they would have been more forgiving. Instead they had been blessed – they used the word ironically, though only between themselves – with a crippled child. Nothing too dramatic. One leg three inches shorter than the other, so he would spend the whole of his life limping or wearing specially adapted footwear. It was also safe to say that Peter was never going to scale the heights of academic life. The boy’s options were limited. And, although he cursed his son’s conception, Nigel still loved him all the same. So when he was old enough to work, he knew the safest place for Peter to be was where he could keep an eye on him. And so another generation of Salthouses came to work the land.
Peter had been working on Lodge Farm since he was sixteen, and Nigel had taught him everything he knew. Which was good, because Nigel had been due to retire and the current owners of the farm needed some continuity. But from Nigel’s point of view, it also meant he could teach his son the safest way to do all the jobs.
Like ploughing. Ploughing involved using some very dangerous equipment. It was safe if it was handled correctly, but deadly if it wasn’t treated with respect. Peter knew his own limitations, and he was always very careful.
As he drove the tractor up and down the field, he kept a watch all around him. In the past, he had spotted bricks in the ground that might have damaged the blades of the plough. Where the bricks had come from was anyone’s guess. Out here in the country all kinds of things could be dumped in odd places. Apart from potential harm to the tractor or plough, he had also found children playing in the fields, sometimes as young as five. What their parents were thinking letting them off on their own like that, he didn’t know. But he’d made sure they were out of harm’s way before he carried on. That was how his dad had taught him to plough, and that was the way he did it today, as he did every time.