‘Wheatsheaf?’
‘Yes.’
‘His second home.’
‘Many a true word,’ said Sheila. ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t become his only home.’
*
As Robbie was walking past the village store Mags came out.
‘I’m going to spring Dad from the pub,’ he said. ‘You coming? And could you get your dad to bring his tractor and some chains? I’ll probably need some help.’
‘I’m not going in there,’ she replied.
‘Come on, Mags, it’s not far, haven’t seen you for a bit.’
She looked away.
‘You go,’ she said. ‘Have a nice time.’
‘Something wrong?’
‘I don’t like the people who drink there.’
‘Well, can you wait? I’ll put the fear of Sheila into him, that should do it.’
‘I haven’t got all day.’
‘Why don’t you go and sit in the churchyard? Bit shadier there.’ She was wearing wellies and her green jacket; no wonder she was unhappy in that heat, it was burning hot and had been all week. There was a thin film of perspiration on her forehead.
‘Okay, but don’t be long.’
Colecombe lay in a small valley. To Robbie, it was a place of uncertain mood, its home and shops clustering together for company along the road. It had a green in the middle and another at the far end, a long pond with a war memorial at one side, and a church called St Paul’s standing halfway up the valley side. Sometimes it was a sunny, happy place, and sometimes it seemed to be brooding and ill at ease, dwelling upon its own secrets.
Winkling his dad out of the Wheatsheaf was never going to be the easiest job in the world. The trouble was, thought Robbie, he was going native. He must have been about twenty when he left, saying he’d never return, but he had an amazing memory for who lived where, and who they were related to, and what they did for a living, and who owned what, going back decades. He liked a gossip, and people seemed to like him, well, he could be a charmer when he wanted to be. Perhaps it was helping him to make sense of what had happened to him in his life too.
Robbie stood waiting for his dad, but the banter went on and on, and he noticed a bunch of guys in the corner who kept throwing glances his way. Two of them were obviously brothers – they had the same black curly hair that straggled down to their shoulders – one had bushier eyebrows and a long nose and kind of pretty lips and a dimple. The other one, younger, was not so Johnny Depp, but Robbie could tell they both fancied themselves. They’d got leathers on that must have cost a packet.
‘All right, coming,’ said his dad. Sunny smiles all round, but not, Robbie noticed, in the direction of his new friends.
‘Who are the top boys, then?’ Robbie asked.
‘Uh?’ He’d obviously had a few.
‘The retards in the corner.’
His dad was doing up his jacket and he turned in the direction Robbie was facing, then looked as if he wished he hadn’t.
‘Let’s go,’ he said.
‘Come on, Dad,’ Robbie said outside. ‘Who are they? They didn’t like me much.’
‘Don’t go near them, mate. They’re not very pleasant.’
‘I could guess that.’
‘Heartbreakers, those two. Runs in the family.’
He shook his head and started walking home, not even noticing that Robbie wasn’t following.
*
The road up to the church was white and dusty. When Robbie got there, Mags was sitting on a bench in the shade of the big sycamores, her feet tucked under her, chin in her hand.
‘’S’up?’
She pulled a face and shrugged. ‘Mum’s being really irritating.’
Mags seemed to be permanently at war with her mum, who was always criticizing her clothes and the way she looked. She didn’t glam herself up, Mags, but her mum always tried to be ten years younger than she actually was.
‘Shall we go and look in the church?’ He liked churches; they made him feel calm, his anger and anxiety absorbed into that still echo of space. This church had a square tower rather than a spire, which his dad said made it Norman, and inside he could smell the quietness, how, for hundreds of years, people had gone there to get away from their lives.
‘Not really my thing, churches.’
‘Why not?’
She glanced over to where the church sat serene, queenly among the trees. That face again, turned-down mouth, wrinkle of the nose.
‘My aunt’s a big believer. She’s so not like Mum, she thinks Mum’s a terrible sinner. She always made me come here on Sundays, forced me to, Mum and Dad just let her. I think they thought it was good for me.’
‘When did you stop?’
‘I was about twelve. I was going to be confirmed. I suddenly didn’t want to go through with it. It’s not for me, Robbie. Not for me.’
‘Come on.’
Her eyes fixed on him, set hard.
‘You don’t get it, do you? Some things work one way, some things work another. This is not my way.’ Then she smiled unexpectedly. ‘But as it’s for you.’
Inside, Mags cast looks around her nervously, but eventually she relaxed. She knew her way around the church, that was for sure. She knew all the saints in the stained glass and their stories. She told Robbie about the colours of the cloths over the altar and what they meant. She ran her hand over the plain dark wood of the pulpit, gently as if it might be hot, then opened the door to the vestry.
In the corner of the room the priest’s robes hung on a long mirror, angled in a wooden frame. And there was Mags, illuminated by the light breaking through the window, pale and white like a ghost, but crossed with a stripe of fiery redness from the stained glass above and reflected in the mirror against the cool dark. With a surprising strange solemnity Robbie thought, this is how I shall always remember her.
‘I’m going to read,’ she said. Maybe her childhood was reclaiming her. Maybe that’s what she was afraid of.
She went to the pulpit and ran her fingers through the pages of the huge Bible, then stopped.
‘To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven …’
Her voice was light and clear.
‘A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance …’
She raised her hand, palm outwards. She looked as if she was blessing something, or pushing something away.
‘A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing …
A time to love …’
She peered up at the ceiling for a moment and twisted her head, trying to make something out.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Look, Robbie.’ She pointed.
Above them was a wooden carving. Three hares running in a circle.
‘I remember,’ said Mags. ‘In Dorset they’re called the Tinners’ Rabbits. Lots of churches have them. Only they’re not rabbits, they’re hares. Look at their ears.’
It was a kind of optical illusion, because there were only three ears in the carving, but each hare seemed to have two.
‘I wonder what it means.’
‘The Trinity,’ said Mags. ‘Father, Son and Holy Ghost. “A three-fold chord is not quickly broken.” That’s one of my aunt’s favourites. It’s like the feeding of the five thousand. There are more ears to go round than there really are.’
‘The holy hares,’ said Robbie.
‘The holy hares,’ repeated Mags.
‘They get everywhere, don’t they?’
‘They do. That’s their nature. Those beautiful creatures.’
‘Beautiful.’ He nodded. ‘Like your reading.’
She smiled.
‘I always loved those words.’
*
Jess was sitting on his bed, trying her best to annoy him and stop him doing his homework.
‘So,’ she said, hugging her knees. ‘You like Alice? Floats your boat, does she?’
‘Not the way you mean.’
She
frowned. ‘Mags?’
‘Definitely no.’
‘Why do you hang out with them?’
‘Because I want to. You don’t get anything, do you?’
‘They’re losers.’
‘Whatever.’
They stared at each other. Then Jess put a big false smile on her face and batted her eyelashes at him.
‘Anyway, me and Dad were in the Wheatsheaf and there were these chumps in there who really fancied themselves and Dad said not to go near them. Know what that’s about?’
‘Might be the Strickland brothers. Tommy’s the older one, Billy’s the younger. They’re always in there. I’ve heard Luce talk about them. Really fit? Leathers?’
‘That’s them. How does Luce know about them? She doesn’t go near the place.’
‘She gets all that stuff from Mrs Allardyce.’
‘She doesn’t go near the place, either.’
‘No, but she knows everything. Nothing moves here without Mrs A knowing about it. And she and Luce are like that.’
‘Yeah, she’s always there, isn’t she? Must be how she knows Mags doesn’t have a boyfriend.’
Jess gave him a look. ‘You were so angry.’
‘Anyway, the Stricklands. What do we know about them?’
‘They’ve got a farm over there somewhere.’ She waved her arm.
‘Could you be a bit less blonde and fill in the detail, Jess?’
‘I’m not blonde. Don’t be so rude. I’m the least blonde person you know.’
‘Sorry.’
‘You want to be mates with them? I think your dad might be right about that.’
‘Just curious.’
‘It’s at the end of that lane with the funny name.’
‘That’s not much help.’
‘Dancing Lane. Brading Wood Farm, I think it’s called.’
The place Mags wouldn’t talk about, where the Land Rover was going.
‘Thanks. And Jess?’
‘Yes?’
‘You may leave my room, now, thank you. I have all this lovely homework to do.’
11
ROBBIE COULDN’T get the Strickland brothers out of his head. It was because of Mags, of course it was. He wanted to know what she’d got to do with them. So it was not that long before he was running through the wood near where they lived. Brading Wood, he supposed.
It was a warm Sunday afternoon. He hadn’t seen Mags for a while, but he’d been dreaming and it had been bringing him down a bit. In his dreams Mum was smiling at him, but that just made it worse. Sometimes she was sitting by his bed, not saying anything. Or walking down a street on her own, looking for something or someone, maybe him. Or staring out of a window, the light sharp, white, intense on her face. Or sitting in her chair, reading, slowly turning pages. And sometimes she was pulling at something, something on the wall, and she didn’t get hold of it properly. Then when she did, it flew through the air in a blur, and he couldn’t make it out. Maybe it was a bird or a big moth; there was a lot of fluttering and flapping going on. He was thinking about her lots right now.
The path through the wood was hard to follow, and it wasn’t long before he didn’t know where he was. So far it had been okay because the trees were spaced evenly. There were lots of oaks, and some beeches, the tall ones with smooth trunks that go way up before the branches start. His mum’s favourite tree.
The trees fell away and he came to a clearing. The ground shelved into a shallow hollow like a big empty swimming pool, full of brown twisted dry leaves from last autumn. It felt like the sort of place to stop and rest, for lying on his back and looking up at the sky through the beech leaves and the oak leaves and daydreaming about things, about Mum, about life so far, about friends, about the future, even though Robbie couldn’t even begin to imagine that.
So that’s what he did, stretching out on the bank of the hollow, his soul emptying into the generous earth beneath and the calm woods around and the distant sky.
Then, like a burst of flame inside, a feeling came to him, a realization.
As the shock went through him, he sat bolt upright.
Aware.
Something had happened here. The quiet was not real quiet, it was different. He didn’t know what it was, but soon he was thinking, it’s sad, so sad, the silence is full of it, this wasn’t the good place he’d thought it was. This was a place of anger and hatred and unhappiness.
The leaves, the earth, the trees were full of it too, and he felt as if he was inside a moment, but he didn’t know when or what that moment was.
He got up and walked further into the hollow, leaves deep and dragging at his ankles, and up the other side. Tied to an oak about ten metres away were some old sticks. As he got closer he saw they were the stems of flowers, some with the heads still on them, most without. They had been left the way people leave flowers by the road when there’s been an accident and someone’s died. He backed away.
But however hard he tried he couldn’t run, he couldn’t even walk fast. He felt as though he was wading through a marsh, though nothing had changed around him, the leaves were still dry and rustling. It was as if his body was no longer his own, and he knew it would be hard to escape the hollow. It was holding on to him, this fierce sadness he could feel all around beginning to work its way into his head.
And then he had to look back. He couldn’t help himself.
A body was hanging from a branch of the oak where the bunches of flowers were. It was a girl, a girl with long blonde hair wearing a white dress.
He shut his eyes. It made no difference.
She was still there. He could still see her.
Still, still.
She was suddenly closer, her head on one side, the rope biting into her neck.
Then her eyes opened, deep blue, staring directly into his.
He wanted to move, but he couldn’t. He wanted to speak, he wanted to run, run very fast, the fastest he’d ever run, but he couldn’t.
Terror rose in waves, and there were other feelings, not his, he didn’t know them or where they came from.
He felt as if he was going to crack into pieces. He felt as if those pieces would fly apart, to the opposite ends of the universe.
Then he’d have peace.
Tears were on her cheeks, and on his.
Nothing moved.
*
He was lying in the leaves, nearly buried.
She had gone. And he could run now.
Away from here, down the path, any path. He had to get somewhere, find someone. Past trees, ditches, hills, bracken, round a shoulder of hill to a road and a gate and then up the road between high hedges full of flowers, pink and white.
On and on, pounding the earth.
Another gate. A farm.
Their farm.
Where he knew he was meant to come, but now he was here, he didn’t know why or what to do. As he leaned, sobbing, over the gate, whether from running or something else, he wasn’t sure, except he felt that he’d been compelled to run this way and only now had that moment abandoned him.
Dogs started to bark. They didn’t sound happy.
Dogs.
The sound brought him back to his senses.
It was late. He was shaking. Some kind of out of body experience, was that what it had been? He could feel himself returning, a bit shy and a bit bruised and a bit resentful at being left behind, as if he was saying to himself, ‘What was that all about? Where’d you go, Robbie?’
The Alsatians were coming along the drive to the gate, making a ferocious row. The drive went into a yard past some buildings packed with hay on one side and a barn with its doors open. He could see an old tractor and a Land Rover inside. On the other side of the yard was a farmhouse, its bricks glowing orange in the light of the sinking sun. Someone was coming out of the front door with a shotgun under his arm.
‘Hey!’
He was too wrecked to respond. His chest was still heaving.
‘What are you doing here?’
the figure shouted.
He was walking towards Robbie and straightening his gun.
‘I’m lost.’
‘Well, stop leaning on the gate for a start. Go on, get out of here.’
He was close, his eyes squinting in the sun, narrow like razor blades. His younger brother had come out of the front door too, and was standing, hands on his hips, watching.
‘Sorry, mister.’
Tommy Strickland looked back at his brother, then at Robbie.
‘You’re Maggie Carr’s toerag little friend, aren’t you?’
‘Yeah, I know her.’
‘A bit more than that, mate. You’re always hanging round her.’
‘She’s all right.’
He sneered. ‘All right?’
‘I mean, she’s a friend, like you said.’
‘You’re not from round here, are you?’
What are they like? thought Robbie. People were always saying that to him, it was like the gangs back home, except they just knew he wasn’t from their manor and he knew what to expect.
‘If I ever see you with Mags, I’ll kill you, mate. You stay away from her, right?’ He spat. A big gob landed at Robbie’s feet. Charming.
‘We’re watching you. Now go on. Run.’ He shifted the gun in his arms.
You’ve got to be practical.
He walked, though. He didn’t run.
12
IT WAS dark by the time Robbie got back, and Sheila was cooking. He texted Mags to say he needed to see her. He had a feeling she would know something. About the girl in the wood, about the Stricklands.
Jess came out of the kitchen and gave him her look.
‘Problems?’
‘Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble,’ she said. ‘Like, I mean, you’re not in trouble.’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
‘Why, what’s happened?’
‘Never mind. What are we eating?’
‘Salmon. With that sauce you like.’
‘Great.’
‘If Sheila doesn’t throw it at your dad first.’
The White Hare Page 5