by Gary Fry
I: So did people believe the legend was true?
P: I’m certain some did – you know, superstitious types. But I’m not sure everyone did. The thing was, at the time – just as it’s been ever since, now I think about it – mothers and grandparents didn’t talk much about…well, about personal issues to children. So the Deere legend became a way of safely warning us girls about the dangers of going off with strange men, without actually spelling out those dangers, if you know what I mean. You see, everyone knew about what Donald was supposed to do to women – seduce them in the woods using a magic potion he’d made himself – and so mentioning the man at all became a kind of code between adults and their female offspring. It basically said: be wary of predators because they’re not likely to have much nice to offer you.
I: All that’s really interesting. It already answers a few issues my research has come up with so far. But there’s another thing I discovered in a survey I carried out with village residents. I found that although a lot of…well, a lot of…
P: Old people? Like me? [laughs]
I: [laughs] Respectable elders, I was going to say.
[both laugh]
I: Yes, although a lot of people of your own age had heard of the legend, the only other group to have done so was younger girls nowadays. That is, women in their thirties, forties and fifties were less likely to be familiar with Donald Deere. Do you have any idea why this might be?
P: Well… [lengthy pause] Well, I’m just guessing, love, but I wonder if it’s anything to do with the fact that us old folk have been telling the youngsters about similar threats to their safety, using a code like we did back in the day?
I: Okay, but how does that explain why you didn’t tell your own children – I mean, the women who are now your granddaughters’ mothers?
P: Yes, I see what you mean. [lengthy pause] Well, now I think, I wonder if our current times play a part, too. I mean, these days, it’s hard for young people all over the world, but particularly for women, I’d say. We hear it on the news all the time, don’t we, love? You know – rape, abduction, even murder.
I: Yes, I guess that’s true.
P: Now I don’t know whether this is because there’s actually more violent crime against women or whether it’s because it’s reported more in the media. But either way, I think people in the last few generations talked less about that kind of thing. Parents at that time may have been embarrassed or – who knows? – possibly even sceptical about referring to such a…well, such a silly story.
I: Ah, yes, I see what you mean.
P: Whereas we oldies nowadays don’t care what we say! Embarrassment is for pretty young things, like yourself, dear – those who have stuff to feel embarrassed about!
[pause]
P: And as for believing in old stories, well, you know, sometimes, love, I think such things are truest of all.
I: That’s how they survive, I guess. Because they say something important about aspects of life that always remain an issue, whatever generation is involved. And so the more things change –
P: – the more they stay the same. [laughs] You’ll do well, my dear. You have a wise head –
I: – on young shoulders. Thanks. [lengthy pause] Can we also talk a bit about your knowledge of the Donald Deere legend? I mean, do you…well, are you aware of anyone who claims to have actually seen him?
P: Good God, no, love! Let me be clear. Although I’ve told my two granddaughters about him – for all the reasons we’ve just discussed: mainly concern about their safety in the village, especially at night – it was always treated as tongue-in-cheek and always with that…that – what’s the word? – that euphemistic code in mind. Basically, it’s a way of conveying to the girls the importance of being careful, without making them blush.
I: But that man – what he does – it’s all quite horrific, really.
P: That’s true, but isn’t that the way of the world, my dear? Young women have to learn that. Otherwise before long they could end up…well, you know, in the family way, only without any family to rely on except their own.
I: Yes, that brings me to another point. Do you have any idea what the significance of Donald stealing his victims’ babies is about? I’ve looked at what few materials I can find about the legend – there isn’t much available, to be honest – but haven’t been able to locate anything about this.
P: There used to be a joke in these parts about why people bother paying staff to help keep up with their households when you can have children for free and train them to do the same. It’s a very Yorkshire sentiment, isn’t it? Anyway, the rumour went that whenever Donald had actually lived in those woods –
I: It’s thought to be in the sixteenth century.
P: Just before I was born, then!
[both laugh]
P: Yes, the rumour went that Donald, too lazy and preoccupied by other matters – all that perverse magic, no doubt – went about turning his unspeakable crime – drugging and seducing all those poor women – to his advantage. As father to so many children, he believed he had a right to own them, and that was how he ended up doing so. I heard that he got them to do all his dirty work, maybe feed him and deal with his clothing and whatnot.
I: That sounds like most men, to be honest. [laughs]
P: [laughs] Yes, but this one was obviously so pathetic that he needed absolute power over his helpers to make them do whatever he wished. Women answer back, but children don’t have to.
I: Those poor kids. And the poor mothers who had them stolen.
P: [pause] I don’t know so much about that last point, love.
I: How do you mean?
P: Well, I understand that some of the mothers – or so I heard, but only from an old aunt who used to drink a lot and couldn’t always be trusted – some of the mothers weren’t bothered by the fact that their children were taken, because when the kids were born, they…they…
[lengthy pause]
I: Are you okay, Judy? We’ve been talking quite a long time. Do you want to take a break?
[pause]
P: I’ll be okay, love. Just went dizzy for a moment – it happens sometimes. Anyway, where was I?
I: You were about to tell me about Donald’s chil–
P: Oh yes, the children. Well, judging by what I heard, apparently every child he fathered didn’t look quite right.
I: Not right? How do you mean?
P: Just what I say, but I’m afraid I don’t have any details. That’s all I ever heard my aunt mention: that his children never looked quite right.
[lengthy pause]
I: Okay, one final question. What do you think it is about Pasturn’s residents which make them likely to uphold such a rural legend?
P: [pause] We’re a tradition lot, I guess. And despite the fact that so many new understandings of the world have come to pass lately, we’re quite superstitious. A lot of us are churchgoers, including me, and also believe in the family, in taking care of each other and making sure none of us come to harm. We’re also, I think…
[lengthy pause]
I: Yes, Judy?
P: I was just about to say, we’re also quite…well, prudish, I guess you’d call it. I mean, few of us talk openly about…about personal matters. I’ve mentioned some of this earlier. It goes back into our pasts, maybe because we’re so isolated out here from the city and all its animal ways. We keep ourselves to ourselves, and often our private passions and whatnot remain held firmly inside. After all, I guess we must reason, what might happen if we let all that dark stuff out? Might we even become a bit like Donald Deere?
I: It’s an intriguing thought, but I’m sure most of us needn’t worry. I’m pretty certain most of us are just good people trying to get along in life.
P: Yes, that’s probably true. [pause] Do you have a boyfriend, my dear?
I: Do I…I… Ah, well, not just at the moment. But…I’m working on it.
P: Then, as we’ve been saying here, just be careful who you ge
t involved with. You don’t want to end up with someone who’ll take advantage of you?
I: Someone like Donald Deere, you mean?
P: [laughs] Well, no, but I’m thinking of the people who I think Donald is supposed to represent. You know, maybe creeps in cars who come visiting the village, just parking up and waiting, watching.
I: I’ll be sure to keep a keen eye out for such men.
P: You make sure you do that, love. They’re trouble with a capital T. Dangerous.
I: Yeah, I know that. [pause] Anyway, thanks for the interview. It’s been really useful.
P: You’re welcome, my dear.
[interview ends]
I closed the file, feeling scared – really scared. But of what, I no longer knew…if indeed I ever had.
11
I had to put an end to this – whatever this was.
After waking on the day of my next meeting with Chloe, I leaned across to kiss my wife, who still slept after finally submitting her latest novel, a book I regret to say – unlike most of her others during development – I’d yet to read. To excuse this, I’d claimed to have been unusually busy at work, which was only half-true. The fact was that I’d been neglecting Rose, along with her escapist fiction, an exaggeratedly twee world she depicted in prose which was at best florid and at worst garishly unrealistic.
But I loved her for that, and while leaving that morning, my heart ached for her – for the warmth and comfort she’d always provided, as well as all the safety and reliability in my life. The fact that she’d recently considered having a child, merely adding to our quiet complications, mightn’t be so bad, after all. It would at least commit me to our marriage, as respectability had always been as important to me as personal freedom, a desire to be valued by my community, by friends, family and all newcomers. Compared to this, passion was little more than an irrational force, a destroyer of our respectively small worlds.
Indeed, however much I now had to admit that what I’d begun feeling for my student – for Chloe Linton, a woman outrageously half my age – might border on desire, lust, or even possibly nascent love, I simply couldn’t act on this. It could never work out well. As revealed inadvertently by my supervisee’s latest piece of research output, the situation had already transformed me from being an honourable, trustworthy academic into some kind of seedy street-stalker, the kind of man residents of a whole village often warned their young female members about. It was simply all wrong, and whether my impressions about the student’s feelings for me were genuine or merely imagined by my ageing, repressed psyche, none of this could go any further. In fact, I’d see to that today, just as soon as Chloe reached my office.
For the second time during our meeting schedule, she arrived late, on this occasion at least forty minutes after the appointed time. Even though I suspected that a bus from Pasturn had been delayed, I couldn’t help feeling that she was now playing games with me, possibly having spotted me that day, during the previous weekend, lurking at the end of her street, just waiting and watching. Worst yet, she might have even doctored that transcript, shaping it in a specific way to communicate an ambiguous message to me. Indeed, I had only her account of the first interview, didn’t I? I hadn’t heard the original recording, which Chloe must keep confidential anyway. The young woman might easily have invented any part of the discussion…but now, as a knock came at my office door, I realised just how paranoiac I’d grown.
I responded at once in a casual voice – “Come in,” – and then settled back in my usual chair, away from my desk. When Chloe entered, I spotted the audacious outfit in which she was dressed, a kind of all-in-one skirt with braces and thin material covering her modestly sized breasts. She wore a white blouse beneath, the colour of inarguable innocence, and her legs were bare, supported by a pair of wooden high-heeled shoes. She came immediately across to me, smiling a little reservedly, I felt. When she sat and started removing paperwork from her familiar handbag, it was as much as I could do to get myself under control before speaking again.
“I…I think this will be our last meeting in a while, so I guess we have a few things to get through.”
My hands were actually shaking, and the last thing I thought I should do was reach across to steady them by grabbing any of the cups on the table placed defensively between us. I hadn’t even washed them since our last meeting, anyway, but there’d be no herbal tea today made by either of us. Indeed, there’d been quite enough potions brewed and spells cast during previous sessions, even if in only a metaphorical sense. And these latest proceedings must be conducted with stone-cold sobriety.
In response to what I’d hoped would be taken as a subtle distancing statement, Chloe glanced up over some written notes and printed documents, her eyes looking empty and troubled.
“Oh, okay,” she said, but then seemed to recall a critical detail, something that immediately made my comment seem less dismissive. “Ah, right, of course. What with Christmas coming up, you mean? We won’t see each other again until the new year?”
I reacted at once, refusing to miss any opportunities to achieve what I knew must now happen. “Well, as you’re doing so well with data collection and your research skills seem solid, I’m not sure it’s important for us to engage over trivial matters much more than by email in the near-future. It’s…well, it’s full steam ahead for you, I believe. I mean, you can do a lot of this alone now – you don’t need my assistance.”
In fact, this wasn’t particularly true. Despite all the alarming, self-revealing knowledge I’d acquired from that interview transcript, I thought that Chloe had conducted the fieldwork only half-professionally. Yes, she’d acquired some interesting insights into why the Donald Deere legend might have taken root in the village at a particular time after the Second World War, as well as the reason why it had been reactivated in recent years, but she’d also pursued a number of enquiries that were irrelevant to her project’s central focus. For instance, she’d asked Judy, her aged participant, a potentially troubling question about whether she’d been aware of anyone who’d claimed to have met the legendary character occupying those dark woods. That had absolutely nothing to do with Chloe’s research question, which must, as she and I had previously discussed, stick to the impact this myth had on the community in a psychological way. Whether it had ever had any basis in fact, let alone whether it continued to do so, was not her concern here. These issues could be left to the world’s many cranks, those who established the likes of web-resources documenting such unlikely information, and posting up pictures of…of…
I was unable to pursue this line of desperate reasoning, and so quickly pressed on, hoping we could race through the few issues my supervisee needed to remain mindful of while completing the rest of her dissertation. If this, along with my unwillingness to allude to her recent transcript (let alone correct her interview technique), threw into question my ability to supervise her, it would simply have to stand. She was certain to achieve a good grade anyway, regardless of a few amateurish errors while gathering evidence. The worst that this could lead to was the difference between an A-plus and an A-minus.
The rest of the meeting involved some discussion – conducted quite awkwardly, it had to be said – about Chloe’s first hand-in date just after Christmas. This was when students had an opportunity – not compulsory, though certainly helpful if pursued – to deliver selected sections of their dissertations in order to receive written comments from their supervisors. Following this date, only spoken communication about newer work could occur, and the advantage for me in the current circumstances was that was I needn’t be present when this was submitted. Chapter drafts could be emailed and any supplementary materials left in my pigeon-hole mailbox in the School office.
Chloe seemed happy with all these arrangements and said she had a bunch of materials already prepared to hand in. None of that surprised me, but when she requested another meeting early in January, I quickly resisted, claiming to have booked some additional Annual Le
ave after the Christmas holiday period and even checking my diary to make this bogus claim look more convincing.
“So…we won’t meet again until February?”
I couldn’t push this back further; I’d violate my professional responsibilities and leave myself exposed to a formal complaint if I so much as tried.
“As I say, Chloe, we can exchange emails whenever you need to, even while I’m away on Leave, if you like.” At once I regretted saying this, now believing it was probably my irresponsible tendency to reply to out-of-office-hours communications that had encouraged her to believe there was more to our relationship than mere student and tutor. Indeed, I promptly added, “But that would have to relate to an urgent matter, of course.”
Chloe crossed her legs, her skirt revealing a length of heart-accelerating thigh. I had no idea how aware she was of this manoeuvre, the arousing sight it offered me; she kept her eyes averted all along. But moments later, holding up incomplete parts of her promising research, she said, “I’m just beginning to get a bit concerned about relating my findings to existing literature. Is that urgent enough?”