There wasn’t much room in the beer tent. Everyone had piled in, laughing and excited. The roof thrummed to the rain. Robbie pulled at Mags’s hand, but she wouldn’t come in. She broke away and headed for one of the other tents.
‘Right, everybody,’ someone was shouting. ‘Can you all hear me?’ Everyone said yes in fake gloomy voices, and then they started laughing again at how funny they were. A little girl shouted no, and got another laugh of her own.
‘I’m sure the rain won’t last long, but while it does, why don’t we have the raffle?’ It was a tall thin woman who was just taking off her hat and rearranging her pile of grey hair. Her dark brown jacket was wet and glinted in the light. The earth was turning to mud outside, but it was dry in the tent, or dryish, given how much water people had brought in with them. There was, naturally, a huddle around the beer stall.
‘Where’s the tombola? Jacob, do you know where it is?’
‘In the other tent,’ someone shouted.
‘Well, can someone please go and retrieve it?’ Nobody moved. ‘We can’t have a raffle without the tombola, now, can we?’ There was some asperity in her voice, as if she felt she was addressing a crowd of dim schoolchildren. ‘Come on, someone, buck up.’ In the end Robbie’s dad took a plastic sheet from one of the tables, put it over his head and stepped out into the rain. Everyone cheered, and for a moment Robbie felt quite proud.
When his dad returned Mags was with him, and he was carrying a big brown wooden barrel. It was obvious she didn’t want to be there.
‘What’s the matter?’ Robbie asked.
‘No room,’ she said, which wasn’t quite the reply he was looking for. She was completely drenched.
‘She was standing in the rain,’ his dad whispered to him. ‘Mad.’
‘Let me through, everybody.’ It was the grey-haired woman, making her way through the crowd. She had a long face with beautiful lips, fine skin, sweeping eyebrows and penetrating eyes. She glanced carelessly at Robbie, but when she saw Mags her expression changed to one of anger and disdain. She looked as if she was going to say something, then swiftly turned away.
‘Who’s she?’ Robbie asked Mags.
‘Eliza Strickland.’ She muttered the name as if someone was pulling the words out of her mouth, but there was a grudging respect in her voice.
She squatted down, looking at her shoes and hugging herself, trying to make herself as small as possible. Maybe Dad’s right, thought Robbie. Maybe it’s not me who’s losing it.
His dad was turning the tombola. He seemed absurdly pleased with himself, especially since Eliza Strickland apparently made his blood freeze.
‘A hundred and thirty-one on the blue.’
Mrs Strickland had pulled a blue ticket from the barrel and was holding it up.
‘A hundred and thirty-one on the blue,’ she repeated.
‘That’s me.’
Someone was waving the matching ticket. Robbie strained to see. It was an old man wearing a moth-eaten cardigan.
‘What have I won, then, Mrs Strickland?’
‘I’m afraid the prizes are in the other tent, but I’ve got a list here so I can tell you what the spoils are. Let’s see. First prize is a bottle of champagne, Mr Boswell.’
A big cheer went up. Someone near Robbie said John Boswell had never drunk champagne in his life.
‘You’ll have to show him how to open it.’
The winner mimed popping the cork and squinting through his glasses at the label.
‘My favourite year!’ he shouted.
‘Number three on the red.’
‘Yes!’ It was Mags’s mum, swinging her hips in her leather skirt as if she was in a girl band, grinning and nodding at everyone.
‘A bottle of amontillado sherry.’
‘Oh, how lovely.’
‘Number fifty-seven on the red.’
Everyone looked at each other. No one was claiming.
Then someone stepped out from the crowd at the beer stall, and everyone started to groan.
‘You can’t give a prize to your own son!’
Robbie’s friend from the farm came up and took his ticket with a smirk on his face. Robbie stepped back and almost fell over Mags, crouching behind him, holding herself tighter than ever. Outside it was still raining hard.
‘Oh, can’t I? You just watch!’
‘I won it fair and square, didn’t I?’
Mrs Strickland looked at her son fiercely as if she owned him, and when he looked at her, Robbie thought, you could tell he knew she was his number-one fan. Robbie felt shaky. His mum used to look at him like that. Didn’t she? It was getting hard to remember. He was sure she’d looked at him like that.
The Strickland boy put his hands in the air like a politician, looked round at everyone, and saw Robbie.
He looked surprised, then grinned in a way that wasn’t funny. He immediately started scanning the crowd, and Robbie knew it was for Mags, and understood why she was making herself inconspicuous. She must have seen him earlier, and that was why she hadn’t wanted to come in.
As ever, there was only one way to deal with this. Robbie went straight up to him.
‘Hello, Mr Strickland.’
‘What’s he won, then?’ someone shouted.
His mother was looking at the prize list, pondering. Robbie could see her eyes were running up and down the paper, looking for the best one. Either that or he’d won a bottle of perfume. Suddenly she made up her mind.
‘A day for two at the races,’ she said.
Cool as a cucumber, thought Robbie.
‘Brilliant, Mr Strickland,’ he said. ‘I’ll come with you. Bad Boy, ten to one on. Well Butters, three to two favourite.’
‘That’s the best prize,’ said someone. They didn’t sound happy.
‘It’s not the best prize,’ said Mrs Strickland quickly.
It had to be close, though. Tommy Strickland was smirking, and his mother was looking at him lovingly again.
‘That’s a bit much,’ Robbie heard someone saying.
‘Got a problem with it, mate?’ said Tommy.
‘He’s just pleased for you, Mr Strickland. Probably hoped he was getting that one himself. Aren’t people selfish?’
Tommy swivelled.
‘Where’s Mags? You know what I said.’
‘Haven’t seen her all day, Mr Strickland.’
‘She was around, I saw her.’
‘Thought you’d been in here all day, Mr Strickland.’
‘Don’t give me that. I know she was around somewhere. Where is she?’
He was looking over people’s heads towards the entrance. Robbie was thinking, these guys do think they own people. It’s the way they are. Mothers own sons, sons own their lovers.
Robbie decided it was time to change the subject.
‘The rain’s nearly over,’ he said. ‘Can I buy you a beer? Not that it’s allowed, of course. I can just give you the money and, you know, you can buy it yourself.’
But it was okay. Mags had gone.
‘Number two hundred and eleven on the blue!’
‘Over here!’
The Strickland boy looked him over one last time, lost interest and disappeared back into the throng.
Robbie went to find Mags. With the rain clearing, people were gingerly beginning to pick their way over the watery field.
There was a small figure near the exit gate, about a hundred metres away, running. The sun was out now, strong and bright, and Mags’s t-shirt flared white. I didn’t know she could run so fast, thought Robbie.
14
‘I WANT you to help me in the garden.’
‘What, just me, Dad? What about the girls?’
‘It’s man’s work, Robbie,’ said Jess. ‘Anyway, we’re going shopping with Mum.’
‘You’re going shopping, and I’m helping Dad?’ But it was no use.
The garden had become his dad’s new obsession. He was finally tackling the long grass, hoeing it first and then mo
wing it fine, and he was buying books about garden practice and design that were beginning to fill the gaps left in the bookshelves by Sheila’s raids for her stall. The beds were being dug over and manure applied. His dad had found a favourite nursery where he bought car-bootfuls of new plants, and old ones were uprooted and thrown on the bonfire. Robbie thought this was probably a good thing, though he wasn’t sure about the way his dad seemed to want him to share it all.
So he cut grass and dug holes in a border along the hedge by the road that his dad had cleared for roses, singing to himself to keep his spirits up. The roses were going to be underplanted by lots of other things, Robbie lost track of the names.
And it was hot. The clouds were low and grey and dry, and he felt stifled, as if his breath was being sucked out of him. He didn’t say anything to his dad all day if he didn’t have to, but his dad didn’t seem to notice.
When the girls and Sheila got back they were carrying enormous carrier bags. They had been to a big shopping centre in Yeovil and were very cheerful about their purchases, the air suddenly full of their delight. Robbie kept mutinously silent, aware of their nervous, irritated glances, as if they were worried his sulking might lead to something worse.
‘Dinner, Robbie,’ called Sheila later.
‘I’m not hungry,’ he replied.
‘You’ve got to eat something.’
‘No, I don’t. I don’t have to.’ Then he relented, but not entirely. ‘Okay. But I’ll have mine in the other room.’
Sheila opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind.
Robbie sat eating quietly, trying not to seethe too much, listening to the murmur of voices next door. Jess was laughing.
Books were lying on the floor. Robbie remembered his dream about his mum, and the books flying off the shelves, and it came into his head to look at his dad’s maps, to see if he could find the one they had been looking at, the one with the Strickland farm on it.
The maps were jammed so tight he had to pull hard to get them out, and when they did they came with a rush and a couple of books flew out with them, falling to the floor, just like in the dream.
One of them lay open, revealing something long and lean tucked into its pages. A letter. He stooped closer. The book was old, with faded colour photographs of animals and birds and their descriptions. He looked at the pages the letter had been nestling between. Then he picked the book up and read more closely.
‘The mountain hare is reputed to moult three times a year, its coat changing from white to brown in the spring. Because the coat often takes on a blue hue when this happens it is also known as the blue hare. In winter the coat turns white again. As the seasons turn the hare is naturally vulnerable, for it may be white against the hillside or brown against the snow.’
Lepus timidus scoticus. The mountain or blue hare. It lives in Scotland and the Lake District and the Peak District.
Not from round here, then.
So was that all it was, a mountain hare, a long way from home, at the end of the season, fearful and lost?
He picked up the letter, and turned it over. ‘For Robbie,’ it said. He recognized the handwriting. His heart skipped a beat. For a moment or two he couldn’t understand what was happening.
He opened it. He was right. It was from his mum.
Words flung themselves off the paper at him like a driving blizzard.
Five stood out.
‘I know all about Sheila.’
And then he ran.
Into the dining room, where they were all sitting.
‘Why did you hide it?’
His voice was quiet and controlled, masking his mounting fury.
Bewilderment crowded his dad’s face, and he half-turned, as if he had been hit, his eyes fixed on the letter in Robbie’s hand.
‘Robbie, I …’ he began.
‘I said, why did you hide it?’ Robbie’s voice was louder now, steelier. ‘Don’t move,’ he said to the others, as they began to push their chairs back from the table.
‘I … wasn’t sure what to do with it.’ His dad’s voice was faint, as if he was desperately searching for an answer. Then something in him changed. He turned back, and looked steadily at his son. ‘Robbie, I’m sorry. Some things just aren’t that easy to work out.’
‘You were scared, weren’t you? You’re pathetic. Just because you didn’t know what she wrote, you hid it. I’m surprised you didn’t burn it, though even you wouldn’t do that. But it wasn’t yours, was it? It was mine, mine from Mum when she knew she was dying.’
His dad stood. His face had turned crimson, though there was determination in him too. ‘Please don’t talk to me like that, Robbie. Life may not have turned out the way you wanted it to, but you’re not the only one in this. Yes, I put that letter out of reach. Maybe I should have put it further out of reach, or maybe some part of me wanted you to find it. But we were going through enough, you and me both, and then what happened with you … I mean, what might that letter have sparked off in you? She asked me to give it to you, and with everything that was going on, I guess I forgot. And then I came across it again and remembered, but by then you were in no condition to be reading letters from your mum who was no longer there.’
‘You forgot! This was for me. How could you forget?’
‘Robbie, you’re getting hysterical. You see, I was right. You’ve got to move on, you’ve got to put it all behind you.’
‘Stop talking in clichés.’
‘I’m not, I mean it. Look at what it’s doing to you.’
‘You don’t understand.’ Robbie shook his head slowly. ‘You’re so stupid.’
He turned, still clutching the letter, ran out of the house, and kept on running.
I’m not going back, he thought.
Never.
Running through the village, running up into the hills.
Leaving them, leaving everything behind.
Never going back.
15
IT’S WARM in here, thought Robbie. He didn’t know what time it was, or how long he’d been there, or how long he’d stay. But at least it was warm.
The moon was full, big and bright and pearly and solid. Robbie liked full moons. He liked how they made him feel, whole and ready. Now it filled the chamber with light.
Earlier, he’d been sitting outside. Moonlight was everywhere, and the air was clear, and all the lights in the villages and towns on the Levels glittered. He couldn’t see the stars so much because of the moonlight, you’d think they’d all fallen to earth, a little galaxy of orange streetlights sprinkled over the plain. Robbie wondered what was going on in those lives down there. Up on the beacon he didn’t need anything; it was just him and the sky.
He had been thinking about Mags and how they’d lain here, talking about their lives. This time he was thinking about who might have lived here, long ago. Families huddling together and digging up whatever it was they dug up. He wondered if it made them rich. No phones, no internet, no TVs, no stepmothers. Every day when they woke they’d be looking out over the whole world. And people would have died, and married, and lied and hidden things. So, much like our own world today, then, he thought. He could imagine himself as a TV archaeologist, saying that. His catchphrase. So, much like our own world today, then. People don’t change. Things just happen faster.
He wasn’t going back. Not after this. He didn’t care what anyone said. He’d get Mags to buy him some food and blankets and things he needed. He’d stay here for the rest of his days, a hermit, the hermit of the beacon. People would come and see him for advice on how to live their lives better. Robbie, what do you do if your mum’s dying of cancer? Robbie, what do you do if someone wants to beat you up for no reason? Robbie, what do you do if your dad’s a total loser?
His head nodded and he drifted.
*
Suddenly he was awake. The chamber was still moonlit, but the moon had moved in the sky.
There was someone out there.
He coul
d hear the whisper from the ribbon of road far below. He hadn’t noticed that before, there must have been a change in the air currents, carrying the faint sound towards him.
Someone was singing. He recognized that voice, that tune.
He listened hard. All his senses were tight like strings on a violin or a guitar. He didn’t feel afraid. Where was it he had heard it before?
Now there were words. He couldn’t catch them clearly yet.
Then he could.
Words he knew.
‘The friendless one, the cat of the wood,
The starer with wide eyes.’
It was coming closer.
‘The animal that all men scorn,
The animal that no one dare name.’
She was outside. And he knew who she was. He was beginning to understand.
There was a figure in the doorway, a little indistinct in a halo of moon brightness. She was coming in.
The cat of the wood. The starer with wide eyes.
She didn’t seem to see him. She was looking for something, hands searching among the stones of the wall. She looked confused, then angry, and she was muttering softly to herself, ‘Somewhere here, somewhere here.’ She was wearing black tights and boots, a short grey skirt and a denim jacket. She was older than Robbie. Her hair shone in the moonlight, but he couldn’t work the light out, there seemed to be more of it where she was. She stooped to a stone in the wall, which moved at her touch.
Then she stopped. She turned slowly and looked at Robbie. There was a peaceful look about her.
‘I am Fleet.’
She was gone. He didn’t even see her go, but he could hear her singing again outside, fuller and stronger than before.
‘The animal that all men scorn,
The animal that no one dare name.’
*
It was morning.
The sun was behind the hills, and the Levels were in shadow, covered by mist like layers of silk. It was cold.
He was stiff and hungry. He texted Mags to tell her where he was, hoping she would bring him something to eat. She had texted him twice already, she didn’t seem surprised. She asked him what he wanted. A bowl of honeynut flakes, a bacon sandwich and a pint of orange juice should do the trick. She said he was mental.
The White Hare Page 7