by Jane Cable
It didn’t even cross my mind to run away; she had told me to stay and so I did, watching the fox lick the open wound. At least it would be put out of its misery soon.
When Jennifer came back she told me to climb the slope and stand next to her.
“I’d hate to smatter you with shot too,” she told me. Once again I did as she asked and she dispatched the fox with startling efficiency before turning back to me. “I wondered who was living in the woods when I saw the corrugated roof. It’s Robin, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“Well I have to say that you look very cold and wet, and if you were hoping to catch some breakfast in that snare you’re probably hungry too. Come up to the house, get yourself and your kit dry, and have something to eat.”
“I can’t,” I stammered. “It’s too much.”
“Nonsense. It’s the very least I can do for you.”
I was wet, cold and hungry and satisfying those basic instincts had almost taken over, but still I hesitated. She gave me a little push.
“Go on then – get your stuff – all of it, mind, but don’t take all day because I don’t want to catch my death waiting for you.”
I scrambled down the slope and crawled into my lair. I had some dry clothes in a bag at the bottom of my rucksack and I rolled up my tent, sleeping bag and groundsheet and stuffed them on top, grabbed my billycan and raced back to where Jennifer was waiting.
She nodded her approval. “Come on then,” she said, and tucking her gun underneath her arm led me to the top of the wood and out over the field towards her house. I followed in silence.
Once we were inside she showed me to the same bathroom I’d used that day with Izzie. Reluctant to go in, I waited while Jennifer fetched shampoo, conditioner, soap, towels and a dressing gown.
“Do you have clean clothes?” she asked, and when I nodded she told me to give them to her. “They’re probably damp. I’ll put them around the Aga to air while you get cleaned up. Then we’ll put everything else in the washing machine.”
I showered as quickly as I could then put on the dressing gown before going downstairs. I stopped at the closed door of the kitchen. On the other side I could hear Jennifer moving around and smell onions cooking. I felt frozen to the spot.
We both jumped when she opened the door and saw me standing there.
“Robin – are you alright?”
I managed a ‘yes’ and propelled myself past her. My clothes hung on the rail above the Aga. I tried to work out the possibility of grabbing them and making a dash for the door.
“Right then,” said Jennifer, “we’ll have some soup. I hope you don’t think I’m being mean but it’s not a good idea if you eat too much – your tummy’s probably not used to it. So we’ll have a proper meal later on. Go on – sit yourself down while I dish up.”
I perched on the edge of a chair and watched while she ladled out the soup. Onions and herbs filled the air, making my mouth water. When she put a bowl in front of me it was all I could do to stop myself from falling on it like some sort of animal, but I waited while she cut us both a chunk of bread and sat down herself.
“It’s OK, Robin, you can start,” she told me. But instead of eating I put my head on the table and wept.
I heard her chair scrape back and felt her hand on my shoulder.
“Oh you poor boy,” she murmured, and that made me cry all the more. She moved my bowl away. “Don’t you worry,” she told me. “You get it out of your system and we’ll eat when you’re ready.”
Eventually I did stop, but I didn’t know how to lift my head. It was Jennifer who told me to go and wash my face while she re-heated the soup, and this time I did eat it, sipping it slowly through chattering teeth.
When I had finished she made a pot of tea while I rescued my clothes from the rail and got dressed. Jennifer emptied the washing machine and once again the space above the Aga was festooned with my belongings. Then she rooted around in my rucksack and pulled out my sleeping bag.
“This next.”
I found my voice. “I need it tonight,” I told her.
“I think you should stay here tonight.”
“No way. You don’t know me.” I stared at the knots in the table.
“Well you’re not going back into the woods so we’ll just have to think of a compromise.”
The compromise was the summerhouse. Jennifer led me down the path towards the end of the lawn to a wooden building with a small veranda on the front. It had a gabled roof, a door in the centre and a window either side, rather like a child’s drawing. Inside it was full of cobwebs. Jennifer gave me a broom and a duster while she went up to the loft to look for a camp bed and an electric heater.
Chapter Twenty-Six
You would have thought with a full belly and a roof over my head that I would have slept like a log, but I didn’t. I was probably too tired. I lay awake most of the night wondering why I felt so completely devoid of any emotion. I knew nothing about depression then – it didn’t cross my mind I was ill – I just thought I was being pathetic.
Next morning I stayed in bed until Jennifer knocked on the door.
“I’m off to feed the chickens and collect the eggs. Want to help?”
To be honest I didn’t; I just wanted to lie where I was. But I knew I should do everything I could to be useful so I crawled out from under the blankets, pulled on my jumper and the anorak Jennifer had lent me while mine dried, and followed her across the lawn.
I watched while she released thirty or so chickens from their coops. Then she explained how much corn they were given and sent me to the outside tap to fetch some water. I broke the ice on top of the two enamel basins they drank from, emptied out the dirty stuff and filled them with fresh. I spilt some of it on my trousers and the chill seeped through to my legs.
Last of all we collected the eggs. Jennifer looked at me.
“Guess what’s for breakfast?” she smiled.
It was as I watched her cut her toast into soldiers that I started to cry again. It was what Mum and I had always done and the memory sliced through me.
Jennifer made no comment until I was calmer. “You seem very sad, Robin,” she said.
I shook my head. “No – I don’t feel anything and then I cry.”
“Have you always felt that way?”
“Never.”
She dusted the crumbs from her hands onto her plate. “Then what happened to change you?”
What, indeed? I turned my egg cup around on the table again and again, before I finally picked up my spoon and cracked the top open.
After breakfast I went to the utility room to look for my tent and rucksack – it was time I was moving on. But they were missing.
“Oh, I’m drying them out upstairs,” Jennifer said. “Anyway, you don’t need them just yet. I was rather hoping you could help me clear some wood. That dreadful wind knocked down a couple of my apple trees and it’s a shame to waste such good fuel.”
My labour was the only means I had of thanking Jennifer for her kindness. I wielded her ancient petrol driven chainsaw while she stripped away the remains of the leaves and the tiniest twigs and took them off to the compost heap.
Jennifer’s land amounted to almost two acres. The chickens had a substantial wire-fenced run but very often escaped into the rest of the garden, scratching around on the lawn and sometimes leaving their eggs in the overgrown shrubbery. All this was on the Hamble side of the house, facing the woods. Most of the rest of the land was to the left as you looked towards the river and half of it was covered with fruit trees. Nearer the house itself was a huge vegetable plot and further away a neglected paddock.
Apart from the vegetables the only part of the garden which was in any way well looked after was the relatively narrow strip between the front of the house and the road. Behind high beech hedges were a neat lawn and a long rose border. Roses, I was to discover, were one of Jennifer’s passions. But back then, in those short November days, I knew as little about
her and she did about me.
It took us quite a while to deal with the apple trees. I still felt numb but at least I didn’t cry again. Then while we were having lunch on the third day Jennifer’s phone rang and it was one of the neighbours who’d noticed our tree clearing and wanted to know if I could do some for him too.
“What do you think, Robin?”
“Of course I’ll help out.” I didn’t have anything else to do anyway.
“How much will you charge?” I was stumped. I had no idea and I told her so. “Alright,” she said, “I’ll tell him £5 an hour.”
“That’s way too much.”
“No it isn’t; getting people to clear wood at the moment is like hen’s teeth, you’re a hard worker, and he’s a pretty wealthy man.”
I knew I wasn’t worth such a princely sum but the neighbour seemed happy to pay it so I set off up the street with Jennifer’s chainsaw. I spent four long days sorting out the mess two pine trees had made of his shrubbery and came away with £160 in cash. I passed it straight across the table to Jennifer.
“For the use of your chainsaw and my keep.”
Carefully she counted out £40 and gave the rest back to me. “I think perhaps 25% of what you earn is about the right amount.”
I shook my head. “This might be all I earn. You take it – you’ve been so kind.”
“I doubt it. Two more people phoned this afternoon. News of a man with a chainsaw gets around.”
I felt myself smiling although I couldn’t have said why.
“It’s amazing what the ability to earn does for a man’s self respect, Robin. But I suspect the actual working also makes him hungry. Go and wash your hands and I’ll dish up our tea.”
Over the next few weeks my tangled emotions started to settle down. I felt flat, but it also brought a sort of calm – or perhaps that emanated from Jennifer. Although as I was to find out, she had troubles of her own.
It was as Jennifer was opening the first of the Christmas cards to tumble through the letter box that I asked her if she would be seeing her family over the festive season. She set down her paper knife and looked across the table at me, shaking her head.
“No, not anymore.” There was such sadness in her voice that I put my toast back on my plate and gave her my full attention.
“Why, what happened?”
“It was after you rescued the boys from the river. Susan was furious with me – said I wasn’t fit to be a grandmother and she wasn’t going to let me near her children again.”
“But surely that was just the heat of the moment – she couldn’t really mean it.”
Jennifer’s voice was even. “She did. Every time I tried to phone she hung up on me.”
“That’s awful. Doesn’t she realise she’ll only ever have one mother? It’s not worth splitting a family apart for – the boys were OK, it was just a bit of mischief.”
“It wasn’t just that, Robin – although it was the final straw. Susan and I weren’t close anyway and then when her father died I did something she found it very hard to forgive.” Her long fingers reached for the paper knife but she quickly put it down again.
“Am I allowed to ask what it was?”
“I sold most of our land. We had quite a sizeable smallholding and I couldn’t cope with it on my own. But Susan said it had development potential and I’d done the family out of millions of pounds by my stupidity. I hadn’t; although she never listened long enough to find that out. But there’s no chance of the land going for houses anyway – not this close to a protected wood.”
“Falling out over money – that’s even worse.”
Jennifer shrugged. “That’s Susan.”
“But what about the boys?”
“They’re too young to understand. But I miss them dreadfully. They’ll forget all about me in time – she’ll demonise me, and that will be that.” She started to stand.
“Then don’t let her.”
Her fingers gripped the back of her chair. “How can I not?”
“Write to them – send them cards and pictures and letters about your life. Perhaps she’ll stop them reading them, but maybe she won’t – maybe they’ll get to watch for the post – you never know…”
“Do you really think so?”
I wasn’t completely sure but I wanted to give her hope. “It’s worth a try,” I said. And then I got up and walked around the table and gave her a great big hug. It was the moment we started to become close. Never quite a mother and son relationship, but all the same…
I had talked myself to a standstill.
“Izzie,” I faltered. “I really am much too tired to carry on. Anyway, I must be boring you rigid.”
“No – it’s fascinating – but it will keep.” Her eyes were full of sympathy. It wasn’t what I wanted to see.
I hauled myself up from my chair and shuffled out of the kitchen like an old man.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It made no sense. The trees were bare, a chill mist hanging between them, yet the fleeting glances of Izzie I caught against the milky sun were yellow; she must be wearing her summer dress. I wanted to catch her; no, I needed to catch her, but in the way of dreams I couldn’t, my legs heavy and lumbering as though they were encased in mud. But I had to reach her; had to stop her. I started to shout her name.
Then her hands were in mine, her voice low and urgent. “Robin – are you alright?”
The strip of light from the landing beat a path to my bed, and sitting on it was Izzie, wearing a pale blue dressing gown. I couldn’t work out why.
“Robin – what’s wrong? You were calling me.”
“It was a dream,” I gasped between breaths which were every bit as laboured as if I had actually been running. “Give me a moment, I’ll be OK.” But I didn’t let go of her hands; I wanted to remember the small coolness of them.
She didn’t withdraw either, holding my fingers in hers as I struggled to control my breathing. In the end I started to cough and I had to let go to cover my mouth.
When I recovered myself I apologised for waking her.
“It must have been some dream.” It was a question rather than a statement.
“I can’t remember. Probably just as well.”
A car drew up outside and we heard Claire call her goodnights. Izzie jumped from the bed.
“I’m fine now – sleep well, Izzie – and thank you.”
“And you.”
She shut the door behind her and I heard her scurry along the landing.
I listened as the front door opened and shut. Claire took two steps across the parquet floor of the hall then there was silence until the tap started running in the kitchen beneath me; she must have taken off her shoes. After a little while I heard a creak on the stairs and a click as the strip of light disappeared from underneath my door.
I lay awake for a long while, remembering Izzie’s hands in mine and wondering how such strong feelings could survive, untended and largely ignored, for almost half my life. The whole of my life with Jennifer. Talking to Izzie about the early days had been like stirring a muddy pool then watching the silt shift beneath the surface. Shadows and leaves… golden and russet oak leaves… jewels of colour in an otherwise murky world.
I don’t remember the date Jennifer took me to find our first Yule log but I would wager it was the 21st of December. It was a bright, frosty morning and I was splitting firewood. The chickens scratched nearby, pecking in the sawdust for the grubs and bugs my work occasionally released. They were undemanding companions.
I stopped to stretch my back and saw Jennifer approaching across the lawn, carrying a garden trug.
“Fancy a break, Robin? I thought we could walk down to the wood and see if we can find a Yule log.”
“Of course, Jennifer. That would be nice,” I replied. There was no enthusiasm in my voice but I expect she had become used to that.
As we walked around the edge of the field I asked her what sort of log we were looking for.
> “Oak is the best,” she told me, “but ash would do nicely as well. The most important thing is that it fits in the fireplace. We’ll know it when we see it.”
I remember thinking it didn’t really matter what size it was; one swift blow with my axe would make it fit anyway.
At the corner of the field where the track led down to the Hamble was a holly bush and Jennifer took her secateurs and cut half a dozen pieces, mainly without berries.
“I know people think they’re pretty, but they’re for the birds really, not for us.”
We wandered on towards the Hamble past a mass of fallen trees.
“There were a couple of big old oaks near here,” Jennifer told me. “When they fell their top branches ended up in the river so I suspect some of them have been washed away.”
The tide was on the half and the mud golden with oak leaves. It shimmered in the sun and I turned my eyes skywards, seeing only blue. The white of a heron’s wing flashed across the river and as it called something began to resonate inside me.
Jennifer led me between the fallen branches, weaving our way beyond the high water mark. She prodded one piece of wood after another.
“That one looks about the right size,” I offered.
She shook her head. “I’ll know it when I see it.”
She hunted for a little longer while I stared up, up, into the amazing blue, only coming back to earth when she exclaimed “Robin – that’s the one – the one sticking up with mistletoe on the end.”
I looked – it was some yards ahead of her, pointing proud towards the sky, a trail of berries wrapped around it like Orion’s belt.
I moved forwards. “It’ll be easier for me to reach it than you.”
“No, Robin – stop a moment. We have to ask the tree first.”
I looked at the devastation around me. “It doesn’t look as though it’s in much of a position to refuse.”
Jennifer’s head jerked up, and then she began to laugh. Underneath my beard I felt my facial muscles contorting into an unfamiliar pattern.
Jennifer looked at me for a long moment then touched my arm. “I have always believed that human beings are better off when they are in tune with the turning of the earth.”