“They’re here!” screams Katy. Barefoot, she runs from the barn in a little blue swimsuit, her pigtails flying behind her, free.
“Bienvenue!” Aunt Rachel shouts over, as she beckons us to drive closer to the barn and park in the shade. She’s wearing faded black shorts and a bikini top, with her hair piled up under a scruffy straw hat. Her skin is deep nut brown, and she’s so skinny; not in a weak way, but in a lean, busy sort of way. She reminds me of Jane Fonda in those old Vietnam photos of her.
“Wow,” says Mum as she gets out of the car. “You said it was in the middle of nowhere. But this – this is beautiful!”
Rachel hugs Mum, then me and Andy. She pecks Dad on the cheek. “How are you, Billy? Good to see you.”
Dad smiles, then busies himself immediately, unloading the boot of the car and laying it all out across the dry grass with a concentrated look on his face.
“So, you’ll want the grand tour then?” Aunt Rachel puts her arm round my shoulder and gives me a squeeze as we walk towards the earthy ledge that leads down to the fields and valleys surrounding the barn.
We stand in the heavy, dry heat, looking across the landscape of scrub and plain.
Aunt Rachel cups her hands around her mouth. “Cuckoo!” she calls out in a sing-song voice, her eyes surveying the land. “Cuckoo!” We all pause, watching her face, as her eyes scan the valley. “Cuckoo!” Her voice bounces across the land, echoing perfectly as it drifts through the sunlight.
Then, in the distance, we see a little dot plop out of a tree, creating a dust billow as it lands. “Cuckoo!” it calls back, and it starts to run towards us, leaping over dried up streams, and sprinting through fields, in and out of view until it becomes clearly visible as George. “Cuckoo!” he calls out again, closer still.
Before he’s got as close as a field away, I’m running down through the gorsy earth to meet him. I approach the wire fence that separates us and he’s smiling widely, waving both his arms in the air, looking like a marooned sailor giving an SOS signal.
“Jake, mate! Don’t …”
I grab the wire to leap over it, and bang, I’m on my backside in the dust, feeling like someone’s just whacked both my hands with a rounders bat.
George has caught up with me on the other side, and now he’s hunched on his heels laughing between gasping sobs as he catches his breath from the run. “It’s electric,” he eventually manages to say. “The fence, you idiot. It’s electric.”
I stare at him; I can’t believe he’s laughing so much. I’ve just been electrocuted. When I don’t say anything, he looks suddenly worried.
“Jake, mate? Are you alright? Jake?”
He looks so terrified that I snap out of my shock and start to chuckle nervously. He frowns at me, like I’ve got brain damage. I laugh even more, get up, brush myself down, still shaking. “George, mate! Your face!”
“Bastard,” he says, and he puts his ear up close to the fence, concentrates for a moment, then grabs the wire and jumps over it in one swift movement.
“How’d you do that?” I ask. “You didn’t get a shock.”
“Special knack. You’ve gotta know how to listen for the wave to pass. I’ll show you later if you want.”
George holds out his hand and we shake, and slap each other’s backs like men.
“You’re gonna love it here,” he says.
Inside the converted part of the barn there are two rooms, the kitchen and the bedroom, with the bedroom split in two by a sunflower yellow curtain. Aunt Rachel sleeps on one side of the curtain, with George and Katy in the two narrow beds on the other side. Until the others leave in a few days, our family will be sleeping outside in the tents. Dad has already started putting the larger tent up, sorting out the poles and pegs, quietly laying them out in order. His T-shirt is in a crumpled bundle by the peg bag, and he looks strong and serious as he paces around the grass, in his faded shorts and bare feet. He runs a hand through his hair, and it sticks up at the front where the sweat slicks through it. Normally, he’d be shouting for Mum to come and help out by now. George and I start to pitch the smaller two-man tent a few yards from Dad’s spot. We strip off our T-shirts too, and our brown bodies seem smooth and unnatural in the washed out landscape. As I bend over for the peg bag, I have to grab at my shorts as they slip down at the back.
“Oh my God!” screams George. He chucks his T-shirt past me where it lands on a prickle bush. “Your white arse! I – I – I think I’ve gone blind! The light! It’s – so – white!”
“Bet yours is no better,” I laugh, and I lunge at him, to flick his nipple and poke him in the ribs.
“You gay-boy!” he shouts. “Nipple twitcher!”
“If I did fancy you it’d only be cos I thought you were a girl!” I shout after him, swiping at him as he comes back at me.
We’re too hot to carry on larking about, so we get on with the tent. After half an hour, it’s up, and Dad is cursing his poles as he unscrews them again and wipes the sweat from his brow.
“Bloody poles. They should label them or something. Bloody things.”
Me and George offer to help Dad with the poles. He looks a bit pissed off, but I can tell he’s glad of the help. Even though it’s late afternoon now, the sun’s still beating down on our backs, and the moisture seeps up through my scalp and down my neck as I bend and twist the metal tubes into place. I’ve done this a couple of times now, and soon the frame is up, ready for the canvas to be dragged over and pegged down. Aunt Rachel brings out a tray of drinks: clear lemonade and a bottled beer.
“It’s not fridge cold, but you’ll get used to it,” she says, handing the beer to Dad.
“Nice spot you’ve got here, Rach,” he says, nodding to the barns and the land beyond.
Aunt Rachel stands balancing the empty tray on her hip, taking in a deep breath as she smiles at her countryside with a face of quiet happiness. The gaps between her toes are bright white against the conker brown of her feet. “It’s Robert’s place really.”
Dad looks at the ground, silent for a moment.
“I know I only met him the once, but I could see he was a good man.” He turns his eyes up to Aunt Rachel now, who continues to survey the valley. “And I’m sorry we lost contact, Rach. I know it broke Mary’s heart. I can’t tell you how happy she is to be here.”
Aunt Rachel shakes the drips off the drinks tray, reaches out and squeezes Dad’s shoulder gently, then ambles back to the barn as we grapple with the canvas to finish the tent. We’ve done a good job, with the tent doors opening on to the best view. We’re close enough to the barn, but far enough from the stinking chemical loo that sits in the stone woodshed a few yards from the kitchen door.
“Piss in the bushes, unless you can face the Chamber of Horrors,” George says, pointing over to the toilet shed. “But keep an eye out. You wouldn’t believe the wildlife here. A viper slithered right across my feet yesterday. No lie! Right across my feet. I was mid-piss, so there was nothing I could do but carry on. Mum said that’s probably what saved me – if I’d panicked it might have reared up and bitten me. Urghh.”
Over at the opening to the woods, George shows me the standpipe, sticking up out of a cement box built into the earth.
“This is where we get water from. Not for drinking though – you’ll get the squits. For washing and cooking with only. We keep a trough filled up by the shit-pit, so you can use that to wash your hands and face in.”
“What about having a bath?”
“You can either stand under the tap here, or we fill up a tin bath and leave it out in the sun to heat up through the day.”
“What, you think I’m gonna get my kit off and stand under a tap in the middle of a wood? No chance!”
George laughs. “There’s no one here! This is it – just us. It’s miles to the nearest town, mate. The only living creatures likely to get a flash of your skinny knob are the snakes in the wood. And I know which one I’d be most scared of.”
He turns the sti
ff faucet between his two hands, and a gush of cold water spurts out. We duck our heads under it, feeling the shock of the cool stream pouring down our hot, sweaty backs. Refreshed, we sprint back towards the house to add the finishing touches to our tent. As we pass the toilet shed, a tiny green lizard darts up the pale stonework.
“Lézard vert,” says George. “They’re impossible to catch. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
My head feels weightless, and my eyes drift to the heat haze shimmering between us and the two women who stand beside the door to the kitchen. It’s like a mirage in the desert. As my heart slows to a steady thump-thump, I see Mum raise her hand to us as she smiles and blinks against the glare of the sun. My hearing is swallowed up inside a vacuum of fuzz and I’m aware of my knees crashing to the dusty ground, as my body follows.
Mary, New Year 1985
The smell is all wrong. Before I even realise I’m in someone else’s bed, the smell is wrong. My breath grows shallow as I rise up from the darkness of sleep, and I feel the unwelcome warmth of a strange body next to mine. Stu rolls over and flops his arms above his head, releasing a musky tone into the room.
“Morning, tiger,” he says, with a self-satisfied expression. Like the cat that got the cream, my mother would have said. “Sleep well? I did,” he chuckles, noisily rubbing his chin with his knuckles.
I pull the sheets up under my chin and stare at the ceiling. My heart’s trembling, as I grasp at piecing together the events of last night. I remember stumbling through Stu’s front door, laughing, his hand on the small of my back, urging me up the stairs. “How long have you known Billy?” I ask, searching for common ground.
“Years, on and off,” he says. “But we’ve only really been mates since I moved down the road a few months back.” Stu shifts in the bed, wafting his stale scent over me again.
“Oh,” I say, trying not to touch his naked body under the sheets.
“He’d be alright about this though, wouldn’t he? I mean it’s not as if you’re together any more, are you?”
“No. I suppose not.”
Stu scratches his armpit and yawns. “Anyway. Don’t suppose he needs to know about it at all, does he?”
I turn back to the ceiling, noticing the greying damp patches in the two corners near the window. “So, where did you live before?”
He swings his legs out of bed, and sits on the edge trying to step into his boxer shorts. “Southsea. But me and the missus split up and she got to keep the house – and the kid. So I get to live in this shithole. Not for long though. I’m looking for something else. Something a bit classier, if you know what I mean. Tell you what – give me ten years, and I’ll have made my first million!” He laughs raucously, and leaves the room without looking back. I hear him peeing loudly in the bathroom down the hall. He clears his throat and flushes the loo.
“Ah, my fuckin’ ’ead,” I hear him say. “Wanna coffee?”
“OK,” I call back. I’m horrified that I’m here, with this stranger who means nothing to me, and cares nothing for me. I gasp at the thought of Billy knowing, of the boys finding out, of this horrible secret. I ease myself out of bed and start to dress. From the hallway, Stu breaks wind and applauds himself, and the bile rises in the back of my throat.
In the kitchen, Stu and I stand at an awkward distance. There’s a picture of a tubby boy stuck to the fridge. He’s got Stu’s small chin.
The coffee is too strong and it clings to my unbrushed teeth. “Is that your son?” I ask.
Stu nods proudly. “Yup, that’s my Malc. Chip off the old block. Or he will be if his mother and her idiot feller don’t end up spoiling him rotten. He comes here once a fortnight. Your Jake’s met him once or twice.”
Jake.
“What time is it?” I ask, looking round the kitchen for a clock.
“Ten thirty,” he says, pulling back his sleeve to reveal a huge digital watch. “Shit! You’d better go. Malcolm’s due here any minute, and I don’t want him to see you here. He wouldn’t get it.”
I think Stu must think I’m disappointed, because now he leans in and kisses me on the cheek and pats me on the back. “It was a laugh, Mary. Thanks for spending New Year with me. Honest, I mean it.” He belches under his breath. “Christ, I can still taste that bloody awful punch of Sandy’s. Repeats something rotten. So we’re agreed that Bill doesn’t need to know?”
I nod, then he’s steering me towards the door with my coat and bag, and I’m outside. I stand rigid on the icy doorstep, looking up and down the deserted street. A drink can rattles at the far end of the road, blown along by a cold wind. I shiver. When I look back up the other end of the street, a blue Cortina is driving this way, eventually coming to halt a couple of doors down. A boy jumps out of the car, clutching a rucksack. He’s plump, with black hair cut in an odd bowly style. The car pulls away, and as the boy gets closer I realise it’s Stu’s son, Malcolm.
I pull my coat in tight, and hurry off with my head down. I run and run, along the sleepy streets towards home. At the Royal Oak, I perch on the pub bench and try to slow my thoughts. The boys must still be with Sandy, and Billy will be asleep in his bed-sit. And my house will be empty. Nobody home. I wonder where in the world my Matthew has gone. My first baby, out in the wilderness. How can I protect him, when I don’t even know where he is?
A car passes, beeping its horn. “Happy New Year!” the passenger shouts from the window, and the car slows briefly as they throw out a ball of party streamers. It lands in a sad pile at my feet. I watch as its acid colours grow darker, sucking up the damp of the pavement. The sudden clatter of the pub doors makes me jump, and I turn to see Eric the Landlord, up and about as if today’s any old day.
He puts his hand up, as he starts to sweep up the fallen leaves that litter the forecourt. “You just off home, Mary?” he jokes.
I smile, standing and brushing the frost from the seat of my coat. “No. I’m off to fetch a pint of milk,” I lie, and I scurry off towards my street.
“Happy New Year, love,” Eric calls after me.
Outside my house, I stand and stare for a moment, looking along the row of doors, all closed up against the New Year. Ours is the only one without a Christmas wreath. As I open the door to my cold, empty home, I see Andy’s tatty slippers, still where he kicked them off last night, before we left for the party. The little Christmas tree stands limply in the corner, its lights off and most of its needles lying on the carpet. The house is silent and grey, and shame falls over me like mist.
Jake, August 1985
There’s a massive rope hammock hanging in the corner of the cool, dark kitchen, and after she’s given me a glass of water, Aunt Rachel helps me into it and tells me to rest there for a little while. Outside the front door, I hear Rachel telling George to show everyone around the fields and woods, to give me a bit of space. Mum strokes my head and goes off to join the others.
I sway gently, gazing at the beamed ceiling above me. I feel fine, but it’s nice being here, alone with Aunt Rachel as she potters about the room, placing plates and pots on the table in preparation for supper. The table is huge, and it looks like a great slice of a tree, because it has the wobbly bark edge still attached. It looks bruised and scarred from years and years of use.
“I know it sounds mad, but I think I’ll light a fire ready for tonight. We haven’t had one yet, but it gets so cold in the evenings. I hope you’ll all be warm enough in the tents.” Aunt Rachel starts to roll up newspaper for firelighters. She doesn’t do big, quick, bunchy ones like Mum does. She settles herself at the table and lays a sheet of paper in front of her. Then she begins rolling the paper tightly, as thin as a cigarette, until she gets to the end and has a long thin stick to curl up and place in the grate. She repeats this action again and again, as I swing slowly in my hammock, hypnotised.
“I think the heat got to you,” she says, still rolling.
“Yeah, I think so,” I reply.
“How’s it been having your dad back?” Rachel lo
oks up from her sheet of newspaper and pauses.
“It’s good, really good,” I say.
“What about Mum? How’s she been recently?”
I frown at Aunt Rachel. “How d’you mean?”
“I’m her sister, Jake. I know the signs.”
I turn my face back to the ceiling, not answering.
“She used to get, well, I suppose you’d call it low, when we were youngsters. Her moods – she’d get high, then low. Do you know what I mean, Jake?”
I nod, without looking down from the ceiling.
“I saw that in her at Christmas. And at Easter when you came over. I recognise the signs, even after all this time. It can’t always be easy for you boys. And it’s hard work being a mum too. I know that.”
I look at her now, and she’s watching me, her hands folded in front of her with a pile of finely rolled firelighters littering the tabletop. I nod again. Aunt Rachel looks at me for a long time, and I don’t turn away.
“I think you all need a break,” she says. “You’ll rest here, because there’s nothing to do except walk and eat and rest. It’ll do you all a lot of good.” She bends into the large fireplace, arranging the firelighters underneath twigs and sticks and small branches. “If you ever need to get away from it all, when you’re back home, just let me know, Jake. You’re welcome at Manningly any time.”
She lights the paper, and we watch as the smoke spirals up the blackened fireplace. Spiders and beetles start dropping out of the chimney, smoked out for the first time in months. Some of them fall straight into the rising flames, but others bounce and fall short of the fire, scrabbling and scuttling for shelter in the corners of the room. Rachel lets out a little shriek, and looks back at me wide-eyed. We both laugh, then she darts over to where I’m hanging, tells me to budge up and climbs up next to me in the hammock.
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