by Joe Treasure
Then I led him quietly out into the yard, climbed on his back, turned once to see Sarah standing in the shadow of the Hall, then rode up into the High Wood to skirt the village. The sky was clear. There was a sweet smell of garlic as I reached the trees, and moonlight enough to wash the colour from the bluebells. I heard a noise of laughter and running and wondered who would be out so late. I slid to the ground, ducked in between low branches, until I could hear nothing but Gideon grazing and the sounds of the wood.
Then something else, close by. A twig cracking and an intake of breath. I was ready to run, to climb on Gideon’s back and kick him to a gallop. I wouldn’t be locked away again. But someone spoke my name and I knew at once who it was.
‘Annie,’ I said, ‘why are you here. Isn’t it late?’
I heard the branches moving as she stepped towards me. ‘The men have tied Roland in the wood. We have to know where, so we can help Megan find him in the morning. And then we can prepare for the wedding day. Oh Agnes, I’m so glad they let you out. What a fool Roland is. He should have waited.’
‘Roland and Megan. So that’s settled then.’
‘I must go to Megan’s cottage to sleep with the others outside her window. Will you come?’ She turned her face towards me in the moonlight and rested her hand gently on my neck. I could see she had more to say and was afraid. ‘I spoke tonight at the Grace Pool. ‘
‘Yes, I heard you.’
‘So it’s true what Bessie said.’
‘They didn’t let me out, Annie. I tricked them and took their key.’
‘I don’t understand. It was only for a month.’
‘I was to stay until I bleed, but I won’t bleed until my baby is born.
‘A baby? Oh Agnes.’ She pulled me against her and I felt how firm and round her belly was. ‘Is it Roland’s?’
‘No. Of course not.’
I thought her next question would be about Brendan. I wouldn’t tell but I didn’t want to lie. So before she could ask, I said, ‘Tell me about Daniel. Is he kind to you, Annie?’
‘He loves me.’
‘And do you love him?’
‘I love not sleeping under my father’s roof. I must cook and clean for him still, as I have done since my mother died, and see him at work in the fields, but I go home to my own cottage with Daniel who has never once hurt me.’
I didn’t want to think about Uncle Morton. So I asked instead about the geese. ‘Do they grow?’ I said. ‘Are they fat and happy?
That made her smile. ‘They’re fierce. They strain their necks when anyone comes in the yard, and run towards them screaming and flapping. When you let them out tomorrow, they’ll be sweet and calm, and you’ll see how they love you.’
‘I’ll never see the geese again, Annie. Someone else will have to feed them, and wring their necks and pluck them for the pot. I can’t go with you to Megan’s cottage. I have to be miles from here before the sun rises.’
She didn’t say anything but stood silently in the mottled shadows, with her arms hanging. Then I heard her sobbing, tight little bleats of grief high in her throat. I took her in my arms and she let herself be held. Her sadness was more than I could bear. So I left her there, stiff and shaking. I climbed on Gideon’s back and set off alone through the wood.
I was not far along the track when I saw Roland. I pulled again on Gideon’s rope and held still. Roland sat on the ground, bound to the trunk of a tree with sacking and bindweed. I watched him from a distance of forty steps, as a cottager might stand in her doorway to watch her neighbour across the street. And I saw that he saw me too. He was there for his calling, tied by the young men of the village to sit out the night, and at first dawn to call to Megan – his soul calling to hers. And from her bedroom she would hear him. She would know, anyway, that it was time, having sat awake all night. And her friends would be there already outside her window to help her down from the sill, and to run with her through the wood. Not finding him, not at first, for all the men whistling and barking from other trees, but moving at last to where they knew he waited, so that Megan might be drawn to claim him, and everyone could start in wonder, and laugh and tell whoever would listen that she had come to his calling. And then such kissing. And the pair of them to be left to make their promises and enjoy each other and watched only later in sleep, and not to be flogged for it either since a wedding was sure to follow.
What children we are, I thought, to play these games. Running in the woods like children. The endtimers knew how to call to each other, but the knowledge is lost to us. We should do what we know how to do, feed and clothe ourselves, and leave these longings. This reaching for what we will never grasp makes us pine uselessly. We are all of us in the red room and the housework neglected.
Gideon flicked his tail and ducked from the flies that settled on him. Then he stooped his head to eat, stirring his flanks, content to have grass to pull on. If I were a horse, I thought, I would graze and nothing more. But always I’ve longed for what I can’t have. Since my father died I’ve lived half in a dream.
I watched Roland and he watched me, both thinking our own thoughts. I felt sorry for him that he must wait for Megan and would rather wait for me. Sorrier for myself, sent away forever from everything I’ve ever known. I feared he might shout my name and so draw others to find me whether he meant to or not, so I put my finger to my lip and watched him fiercely, while I roused the horse. As I passed, his eyes widened to see me so brazen, but he made no sound. And so I left the village.
It hurts me now to think of what I’ve left and might never see again. I think of the geese trailing from the stable yard and over the lawn. I think of the trees – the gnarly orchard branches that will soon bend under the weight of plums and apples, the aspens and the willows by the river, the ancient oaks in the High Wood. And I think of the words I might have spoken to Roland. ‘Forget Megan. Come with me and live among the scroungers. I’ll make you happier than she ever could.’ I should have dropped to the ground, crawled on my knees to kiss his feet. ‘I’m bad and I don’t deserve you, but if Daniel can love Annie’s baby you can learn to love mine. Everything will be all right if you’ll only come.’ Words I couldn’t speak because I was too proud. And too angry. And because I don’t believe them and wouldn’t have meant them. Because they aren’t true. Too good for me? What has Roland done to earn my love? To make himself worthy of me? I should have spat in his face and called him a weakling to be snared by Megan’s sly smiles and straying fingers.
And yet I might have said those things, and I might have meant them, true or not.
I make slower progress than when I sat behind with Brendan. Though I am no weight on his back, I let Gideon stop more often and haven’t Brendan’s skill at driving him on. The night is warm still and he breathes heavily.
I wait now while he rests by a stream. Or he waits for me to write these sad things in my book.
Jason
Django’s lurking in his room. Abigail says he might be sick but she doesn’t think it’s serious. So he’ll be back to his old self again soon enough, worse luck. Meanwhile he gets to lie around in my house without even pretending to contribute.
There was a time when I would have known how to put a stop to it. Dealing with squatters could be ugly but someone had to do it. You bought some property. It stood empty while you were putting a deal together, fixing someone on the planning committee, waiting for the last neighbour to see sense and sell up – all that. Some squatters were sneaky about it – broke in the back way and kept a low profile. Others were on a mission, championing the cause of the underclass, going on as though you were the criminal for having shelled out good money for the place. Either way the police were wary of getting involved. You could apply for a court order and wait until it got messy. Quicker and easier to get round there yourself and sort it. You needed to know where to apply pressure, how hard to lean. A couple of apes and a crowbar would usually do it. No harm done except to the door, which the squatters had usually nai
led up anyway or otherwise brutalised. The apes were mainly for show.
There was this stub of a backstreet near the Elephant. It was a run-down terrace – a lot of student bedsits and short term lets, and the odd old timer watching telly behind threadbare curtains and shuffling out once a week for the pension and some cat food from Tesco’s. But someone had opened a creperie on the corner. At the other end was a tapas bar with seats on the pavement and a glazed frontage that opened up on warm summer evenings. The street had gentrification written all over it. It didn’t take me long to acquire vacant possession of three adjacent houses and I was ready to make my mark. And then came the padlock on the door and the posters in the windows announcing the death of capitalism and advertising cooperative vegetables.
When I broke in I wasn’t expecting to surprise my kid sister in her underwear. In all the empty houses in all the towns in all the world she had to squat in mine. She was high on something and there was a boy beside her on the mattress so out of it he could hardly stand. The place stank of skunk, stale pizza and piss.
I never told you, Caroline. You were my new life. You didn’t need to know any of this. I’d put it behind me, mostly, by the time we met. I was going legit. This was the fag end of an old way of doing business. I was moving into luxury new build. There were grants for transforming brown field sites. I was getting into steel and glass with balconies and river views, 24-hour concierge services, underground parking, onsite gym facilities. London was booming and I was going to be part of it. People would be a problem I’d leave to estate agents. This wasn’t the moment to come face to face with my past.
It wasn’t just the Jesus bus I’d left behind. I was fourteen when I cycled away from Lloyd’s farm. I thought I’d get odd jobs like Derek but no one hires a kid to fix their plumbing. I scrounged my way to London and lived rough with the piss-artists and glue-sniffers. On the street, everyone’s got a story, and most of the stories are bullshit. You could drown in the steady drip of self-pity. I was moving up and didn’t much care how. I did my share of begging, scrounging the fare for the last bus home to nowhere. And there are things men will pay you to do in cars and doorways that aren’t easy to forget. But I had my eye on the future. Finally I talked my way on to a building site and started earning regular money. Some people are proud of the rags to riches thing. I just wanted the stink of rags out of my nostrils.
The last thing I needed was Penny showing up as my long-lost family, drug-addled and high on Jesus. You were my life now, Caro. I wasn’t ready to introduce you to the memory of Flo and Derek. Penny reminded me of myself and I didn’t want to look. She wept and clung to me and I thought of her at the mouth of Lloyd’s farm, pleading not to be left behind. I peeled her off and the boy got up off the mattress to take a swing at me. Jack, she called him, or Zak. He called me a Tory wanker. I told him how I voted was none of his fucking business and gave him a smack. It wasn’t for calling me a name. It was for dragging Penny down to his level. And it was for all the crap I’d taken over the years from crackheads.
Penny swore at me and called me a bully. She was dressing herself, pulling her clothes on as if she had to be somewhere in a hurry. ‘All those years in Hebron,’ she said, ‘I stood up for you. And everyone said forget him, he’s no good. And they were right.’
I said I was sorry. Jack or Zak was crouched at her feet, bleeding from his nose. I told the guys I could handle it from here and they should wait outside.
‘We weren’t supposed to talk about you,’ Penny said, ‘me and mum. Caleb would go mental if he heard your name.’
‘Caleb?’
‘He’d have me stand in the field for everyone to pray over.’
‘Derek, you mean.’
‘Then he’d have Lloyd give me an extra job – mucking out the pigs or weeding the vegetables.’
‘But you got away. I’m glad, Pen. Really I am. How long have you been in London?’
‘I left when Mum died. Sorry, I don’t suppose anyone told you.’
It was a shock. I was upset and I knew I had no right to be. I suppose I’d thought there’d always be time to think about all that later. ‘What did she die of?’
‘I don’t know.’ Penny was busy gathering things from around the room, stuffing them into a bag. ‘Cancer maybe. She stopped eating. Lost a lot of weight. She was in pain but pretended not to be. It took months.’
‘Christ. You don’t even know? What did the doctors say? Was she in hospital?’
‘They examined her afterwards, I think. I’m not sure. Caleb dealt with all that.’
‘She wasn’t seeing a doctor? No one was treating her?’
‘She was dying, Jason. What good’s a doctor when you’re dying?’
‘I don’t know! What kind of a question is that? Someone should’ve been taking care of her.’
‘Well you weren’t. You were long gone.’
‘Because Derek was a lunatic. He would have done me in if I’d stayed.’
‘You can’t talk about him like that. Not to me.’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘Because he chose me.’ She looked surprised as she said it, like someone remembering the weird part of a dream. She stopped packing and just stared at the floor. ‘Caleb chose me as his wife.’
I was stunned. It was something I hadn’t thought of, a whole other dimension of madness. ‘And that’s why you left.’
‘I married him. Mum died and we gathered next day in the lower corner of Hebron under the willows and Lloyd said the words from the book. That’s the way Caleb said it had to be done – life flowing on like the river.’
‘And you didn’t mind?’
‘I thought it’d be better, anyway, than mucking out the pigs.’
‘Jesus Christ, Penny. What did they do to you?’
‘It wasn’t their fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but mine.’ She was on the move again. She’d found her boots and was busy putting them on, tugging at the laces. ‘I should have been stronger. I didn’t know what it would be like. I was prepared for pain. I thought I’d just lie there and it and would be over with, and then the others would treat me with respect. I didn’t know it would be worse than that. When it came to it, it was more than I could handle.’
‘So how did you get away?’
‘I went to the village with Lloyd and left him in the shop. There was a delivery van outside and I hid in the back. When the driver found me I waved down a car.’
‘I wish…’
‘What do you wish, Jase?’
‘I wish I’d come for you. As soon as I could drive. As soon as I was earning.’
‘Well I wish you’d never left and mum had never died and everything had stayed just the way it was, that’s what I wish.’
I very nearly said, come home with me then – we can’t have mum back, but you don’t have to live like this. I’ve thought since that that’s what I should have said.
Jack or Zak was on this knees in the corner, retching. Penny went over and rubbed his shoulders and told him he’d be all right.
‘Does he have to do that there?’ I said. ‘There’s a bathroom.’
‘Yeah,’ the boy said, ‘but you’ve turned the water off, haven’t you, you Tory wanker.’
‘There’s a stopcock in the street – or didn’t that occur to you?’ It made me angry. And not just because it was my house. It wasn’t about ownership. That’s what people like him never understood. It was about making things better. It was about preserving something of value. A house like this that had been constructed by skilled working men, bricklayers and plasterers and carpenters, and had stood for a hundred and fifty years, shifting and breathing like a living thing.
I gave Penny a few hundred quid, which was everything I had on me. She said she didn’t want my money but she took it anyway. And I gave her my number and told her to phone if she needed anything. I was ready to find her a job and somewhere to live, but she never called. I think I hoped she wouldn’t. Either she lost my number or sh
e didn’t need any help or she knew me better than I knew myself.
I didn’t see her again for seven years. A lot had happened, including a recession that left us all staring into the abyss. With most of my money in London property I’d come out of it OK. Some sales had fallen through and I was stretched on a couple of projects, but I wasn’t hurting like some. I was doing up that house in Kensington. Big beautiful windows opening on to a square full of trees. The painters had covered the glass with newspapers and masking tape. It was a cold day but the afternoon sun came in low and bright, lifting the headlines and making silhouettes of the faces. I was in and out checking the work. The sky darkened and there were only the naked bulbs where the light fittings would be. And I saw Penny on the arm of this bloke. There were other faces behind them, all smiles, and another picture next to it of the same bloke with some other woman having a set-to. RANDOMESTIC the headline said. Meant nothing to me. But Penny’s face was unmistakable even with short hair.
The boys were cleaning their brushes and hammering the lids on the paint tins. There was that sharp clean smell of fresh paint that always reminded me of my dad.
‘Hey, Kevin. What paper’s this?’
Kevin shrugged.
‘Where d’you get it? Is it today’s, I mean, or what?’
Kevin was ready to defend himself, as if I’d accused him of something. I was up the stepladder peeling the page off the glass.
‘Christ, boss, it’s only a paper.’
It was the Evening Standard, two days old.
‘Who is this bloke then?’ I asked.
‘I dunno. Some twat?’
His name was Random, a South London boy, a singer. He’d made a big splash the year before with an album called Randometrix. Now he was in trouble with his live-in girlfriend because he’d been celebrating the release of Randomocracy and had been photographed coming out of a nightclub with some other bird. Band member Penny Farthing, the paper called her.