Sal

by Mick Kitson

  I went into another kind of dream staring at the fire and saw the little lights and felt the tapping feeling at the base of my neck and I couldn’t feel my body again and felt like I was peering out of a big black space at the fire and I stayed like that for ages.

  The sun started to come up and the sky in the east through the trees got a thin strip of gold along the horizon and then it went bright pink and then silver and the frost sparkled all around the wood.

  Then I heard rustling and feet stamping along from up above us, twigs were cracking and I felt my heart start racing. She appeared from round the back of the bender and she peered in under the umbrella at me sitting by the fire and said ‘Guten Morgen Kinder.’

  She did look like a witch and she had a big tartan shawl wrapped around her head like an African woman and her coat was long and black. She had scarves and bits of bright silk round her neck and she was wearing sheepskin gloves and carrying a walking stick. Just below her eye the scar was like a wee bit of white spaghetti stuck to her cheek. She smiled and she had big white teeth and her lips were red with lipstick.

  I said ‘Is it true you’re a doctor? Peppa’s ill. She got bitten by a Pike and it’s got infected and she’s had fever and diarrhoea.’

  She looked into the bender and went ‘Ach so. The little girl with red hair? And you are the sister.’

  And I said aye and then she said ‘I am a doctor. I am an immunologist and I specialise in diseases of the immune system. I was trained in the German Democratic Republic, the DDR – do you know this?’

  I said ‘Can you make her better?’

  And she said yes.

  She went into the bender and crouched down next to Peppa who started to wake up and when she saw Ingrid said ‘Hello Ingrid. I got bit by a Pike.’

  Ingrid smiled and pulled off her gloves and stroked Peppa’s head and said ‘I am going to treat you.’ Ingrid’s hands were big and she had long nails with red nail polish on them. And her hands were really clean too.

  She turned to me and said ‘Tell me about the treatment so far please.’

  And I told her about washing the cuts and the Amoxicillin and the painkillers and making Peppa drink a lot and the pine needle tea. I told her the cuts kept oozing and bleeding and about the red lines up Peppa’s arm. And she listened and kept going ‘Gut . . . gut . . . gut’ and then she said ‘Excellent, you are a very intelligent young person.’

  Then she said ‘Boil water please and please hand me the headlight.’ And she started undoing the bandage with her big hands and put on the head torch over her big tartan thing and switched it on. I got the kettle going again and poured her a cup of hot almost boiling water. She got it and emptied it over her hands and rubbed them together. It must’ve burned but she didn’t look bothered. Then she shook her hands till they were nearly dry and there was steam coming off them. She opened up the bandage and looked at all the cuts and all the swelling. She ran her finger along one cut and Peppa went ‘Ow!’ and then she pressed on the swollen bit and then she sniffed the cut.

  Then she looked into Peppa’s eyes very hard with the lamp, then she felt all round the back of Peppa’s head and then under her neck and chin. Then she said ‘Put the arms up’ to Peppa and Peppa held her arms up like a diver. Ingrid felt all in under her armpits. Then she pulled back the sleeping bag and blanket and felt all down and around the tops of Peppa’s legs and around her belly. While she was doing this I was watching and Peppa looked at me and grinned and held her eyes wide open and mouthed ‘Lezza!’ and pointed at Ingrid, and I laughed.

  Ingrid made Peppa lie back down and covered her but kept her left arm out over the covers. Then she turned around and said ‘The wound is getting further infected from foreign bodies that are still in it, which is why it has not begun to heal or form a scab and is still creating pus. It is also why she is feverish as her immune system is starting to react as if she has sepsis. The red track marks are immune responses to the foreign infection source.’

  I said ‘I cleaned it all with iodine.’

  Ingrid said ‘If there was further infection sources in the wound itself it would have made no difference. So. Do you know what sphagnum moss is?’

  I nodded and Ingrid told me to go and get a big armful of it and wash any dirt or leaves off in the burn. I ran down to a flat bit just along the burn where the trees are thinner and there is a thick bed of moss growing alongside the water. I peeled a big slab of it up and it cracked where there was frost on the top. It was heavy and drippy and I squeezed it to get it drier then I washed it in the fast bit of the burn. My hands were icy and red while I washed it and I squeezed the water out and made sure there was no bits or twigs or dirt. Then I ran back and Ingrid was by the fire and she had a little zipper case in front of her. She was holding long tweezers in the flame of the fire. She let the ends glow red and then she laid them on a rock.

  When she saw the moss she said ‘Gut’ and then said ‘Do you have a cord?’ I got her the roll of paracord and she took off a scarf from round her neck that was off white and looked like silk. She spread it out on the rock and then put all the moss into the middle of it and then tied the corners up into a kind of bag. She got out a folding knife and cut a length of paracord and then tied up the bag round the knot and made a loop in the top. Then she hung the bag over the fire from the umbrella and then put the kettle under it sitting so the spout was under the bag. The kettle soon started boiling and the steam was pumping out and up into the bag of moss. Ingrid hung the tweezers off the paracord bit so they were in the steam too.

  ‘Make sterile’ she said.

  I sat on a rock on the other side of the fire and watched the steam billowing around the bag of moss.

  I said ‘What’s in her cut?’

  She said ‘If I guess I will say teeth.’ ‘Teeth?’

  ‘Pike teeth.They are quite fragile and thin and they snap off in prey. I have treated a Pike bite before many years ago on a fisherman in Germany. Do you have a mother?’

  I said ‘Aye.’ But I didn’t want to tell her anything about us.

  She was looking at me and she smiled again. ‘You are very tall and very beautiful’ she said. ‘Is your mother here?’

  I said ‘No. We’re on our own. I look after Peppa. We’ve been hunting and snaring rabbits and fishing for food.’

  Ingrid smiled again.When she smiled her eyes went thin and even more Chinese and all round her eyes wrinkled up into little ridges. Her skin looked like it was all covered in tiny little cuts and it was the same colour as her silk scarf. She wore really red lipstick and she had dark eye shadow and mascara.

  She said ‘I live in a bender. Mine is bigger than this. I also have a drying rack for wood and a food store.’

  ‘Where is it?’ I said.

  ‘About five kilometres over . . .’ She pointed north towards Magna Bra. ‘On the other side of the stones in a little valley with a stream.’

  ‘How long have you lived there?’

  ‘I have been here for four years. And before I was further down my valley nearer to the town and the main road. But I don’t like to see people too much.’

  Then I wanted to tell her about us and Robert and the police and the social after us. And see if she said she’d tell, but Peppa shouted ‘I need a wee!’ from the bender, and I went and got her and walked her over to the latrine.

  When we got back Ingrid asked if we had soap and I got it from the backpack and she poured a tiny bit of boiling water onto her hands and then washed them with the soap and kept rubbing and rubbing and holding them over the steam. Then she shook them again in the heat off the fire. She said ‘Please can you give two of the painkillers now. And Peppa sit on the bed.’ I got two ibuprofen and codeine and gave them to Peppa who swallowed them and made a face. She sat on the bed with her arm out on her lap. Ingrid took the bag of moss and opened it and it was steaming and she got the tweezers and wiped them on the silk.

  Wearing the head torch she knelt in front of Peppa and said ‘S
o . . . this will sting you’ and I held Peppa’s other hand. First Ingrid squeezed some of the moss a bit drier and then laid it all over the cuts. It was still steaming and Peppa just said ‘Hot’ but she didn’t flinch. Ingrid made sure it was all over the cuts and then she said ‘We wait.’

  We sat there and then Peppa said ‘You can’t tell anyone we’re here Ingrid.’

  Ingrid said ‘Who is looking for you?’

  I said ‘Peppa don’t say . . .’ but Peppa said ‘The police and social workers. We ran away. If they catch us they’ll split us up and Sal will get put in the jail.’

  Ingrid sat back. She closed her eyes and said ‘I will never inform on anyone. When I was young I lived in DDR and there were informants everywhere who told the authorities everything they wanted to know about you. I had very good friends, I thought good friends, who told the government about things I had said or people I had been with or places I wanted to go. And my life was made very bad for a time. One informer was a man who I loved. I do not trust anyone who informs Peppa.’

  Peppa said ‘What’s DDR?’

  I said ‘Is it in Germany?’

  Ingrid opened her eyes and held her finger up. She leant forward and pulled all the moss off Peppa’s hand and wrist. She threw it back out of the door of the bender. The cuts were really clean with no pus or blood and the edges were white. Peppa’s skin looked whiter where the moss had been. Ingrid bent forwards with the tweezers and put the torchlight onto the cuts and said ‘Hold’ and I held Peppa’s hand and she squeezed her eyes shut and so did I.

  I felt Peppa flinch once and Ingrid go ‘Ach so. Gut. Einer. Ah. So. Und noch einer. Und. Noch einer. So.’

  I opened my eyes and so did Peppa and Ingrid said ‘Good. Look.’ And she held out her hand with the light on it and there were three little triangle shapes that looked like they were made of plastic. They had sharp edges on two sides and a thicker edge on the other. I said ‘Are they Pike teeth?’ and Ingrid said ‘They are. And now they are out and so the infection will go.’

  Peppa looked at them for ages and then said ‘What a bastard he was.’

  Ingrid laid more moss on the wound and then bandaged it. She made Peppa wriggle her fingers and then she put her hand on Peppa’s head and said ‘Now you will be okay pretty girl.’

  I knew that I liked Ingrid then and I thought I could maybe even tell her about killing Robert. I made tea and I got the cake out and we had belVitas and nuts and raisins. Ingrid asked about how much food we had and if we filtered the water. I told her we boiled it and we had corned beef and some beans and belVitas and cake and some raisins and nuts and a bit of bread. I said I was going to check the snares and she said ‘Rabbit is good meat. But now I go. I will go to the stones and then to my bender. I will return tomorrow. You must give the last two antibiotics now and Peppa rest and drink fluids.’

  She stood and pulled on her gloves and got her stick. Peppa said ‘Thank you Ingrid. You’re nice. Will you teach me to speak German tomorrow?’

  And I said ‘Yes, you are nice.’

  Ingrid smiled at us both and said ‘And you are both nice. And tomorrow I will teach you German and bring you some dried mushrooms.’ And then she went striding off into the woods.

  Peppa rested and slept and I went out and checked the snares and we’d got a rabbit and I felt brilliant that Peppa was going to be better and we had a rabbit for our tea. It was sunny and cold on the big slope down to the loch and I thought about Ingrid and thought it was good for us we had met her because she wouldn’t tell and she was a doctor. I wanted to know about DDR too so I was going to ask her a lot of questions when she came back.

  Chapter Nine

  Mushrooms

  The next day Peppa was better and she got up and went running around the forest for an hour in the morning. I changed the bandage on her arm the night before and the swelling was going down and I put more moss on and bandaged it up again.

  When Peppa got back we went to the burn and washed socks and knickers and I washed the bandages. Then we boiled the kettle and we both washed again with soap and a wet T-shirt for a flannel. It was still cold but I got the fire going well and even nude it was okay by the fire, and Peppa went on about pubes again.

  We hung all the washing over the umbrella to dry and then I went out with the airgun over the warrens and sat still by the rocks and watched for rabbits. Peppa stayed in the bender reading Kidnapped which she said was slow and had a lot of old-fashioned words in it, but it was about a boy whose uncle was trying to kill him for an inheritance so far as she had got. And the old man uncle only ate porridge and he called it ‘parritch’.

  I stayed as still as I could and the wind was coming northeast but only a little breeze along the loch and my scent would be away from the rabbits. I pumped the gun eight times and put a pellet in and lined up the sight on some ferns next to where I could see a run. And waited.

  The ground under my bum was damp and cold. I leant against the rock with the gun propped along it. In front of me I could see the bracken and grassy slope with the trees behind. The sun was out but it was cold and my hands started feeling smooth like they do in cold wind.

  I sat and watched the grass and ferns where the warrens were. Nothing moved apart from the ferns waving in the breeze. Further down three crows were flying around and around at the edge where the trees started. At the bottom the loch glinted in the sun. Above me the slope ran up and there were more trees, big Scots pines and larch, and above them you could see the top of the rocky ridge and over that was the moor and Magna Bra. It was nice knowing where I was and knowing Peppa was in the shelter reading.

  I heard the rumble of a car before I saw it. Then two 4x4s came along the edge of the loch on our side. One was a green ranger’s truck and the other was polis with an orange and yellow strip down the side.They were going slow driving along the loch shore where it was flat and stony.

  I froze and watched, pulling back from the edge of the rock so I could just see them with one eye peeping round. I breathed slow and knew not to make any sudden emotional decision but to stop and pause and assess the situation.

  The two trucks came slowly along almost to the beach where Peppa and I fished and stopped. The polis one pulled up onto the bank and two coppers got out. A ranger in a dark green shirt got out of the other truck and they walked up the slope a bit and stopped.The ranger was pointing and the coppers were both looking at phones. I could see one copper showing the ranger a phone and then he pointed the other way over towards the far side of the loch and they turned and looked across.

  I turned round really slowly to see if there was any smoke coming up out of our woods from our fire. There wasn’t and I knew most of it was being blown away off into the woods behind us in the breeze and there wouldn’t be much anyway because we had really dry wood. I turned back slow and got by the edge of the rock and watched again.

  They were all standing by the polis car now and talking and one was still looking at his phone. I waited and watched and breathed slow. Then the two coppers got back in their truck and the ranger got in his and they started again going along the loch towards the end. I waited till they were out of my sight and I couldn’t hear the rumble of their engines. I guessed they would go to the far side and then try to get up the bank alongside the other burn and up towards the plantations and the forestry road we used.

  If they were looking for us they weren’t looking very hard, I thought. They didn’t drive up towards our woods. Maybe they weren’t looking for us. But two coppers. And a ranger. And they had the CCTV from the station and maybe even from on the train so they’d know which direction we went in.

  I got up and crept back along and into the trees and then ran all the way back to our bender.

  Ingrid was there when I got back and she had brought a Tupperware box full of dried mushrooms and another with butter in it, and bread and a frying pan.

  Peppa said ‘Did ye get a rabbit Sal?’

  I said ‘No’ and then I said
‘There’s coppers down by the loch with a ranger in four by fours.’

  Peppa said ‘Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.’

  Ingrid said ‘They look for you?’

  ‘I don’t know but why would they be up here?’

  ‘Maybe they find a crime here’ said Ingrid.

  Peppa said ‘Did they see you?’

  ‘No. They went along the loch all the way up to the end. They stopped at our fishing place and got out and looked about.’

  Peppa said ‘We should move Sal. Go further up, go further into the woods at the top.’

  Ingrid said ‘Come to my camp. I am a long way from here and it is a little valley and I see nobody. I can make a bender for you. You bring your tarp.’

  I needed to think so I wandered off into the wood for a bit. If they had come this near they might come further, they might even try to make it up to the other side of our wood and then if they came in they might find trails we’d left.

  I went back and Ingrid was frying the mushrooms in butter and they smelled lovely. She got a tin of our corned beef and broke it all up into the pan with the mushrooms and fried it all.

  Peppa said ‘Let’s go to Ingrid’s bit Sal. It’s further away and there’s nobody there. We can make a new bender.’

  ‘And you can get wood for me’ Ingrid said. ‘I am old and my back hurts sometimes.’

  I said ‘Don’t you want to be on your own?’

  Ingrid said ‘No. I am on my own for many, many years. I would like to have two girls there.’

  We ate the corned beef and mushrooms out of the pan and it was really nice and Peppa danced about going ‘Nice food Ingrid!’

  Ingrid didn’t want to know why the polis were after us or why we didn’t want to see anyone else. I think that was why I decided we should go and stay at her bender. Maybe only for a bit and then come back this way. I could snare and hunt over there for all of us.