Cold Boy's Wood

by Carol Birch

  ‘Course not. I’m getting a bun.’

  She gave him a fiver and he strolled away.

  ‘I can’t stand the queues,’ she said, gazing after him, ‘look at them, it’s always like that.’ He looked at her, somehow worried, not knowing why. ‘Did you know,’ she said, ‘I got let down by the Examiner?’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘I did,’ she said. ‘They wanted me to write a piece about when I gave that man a lift because it was around the time when that body was found, so I worked really hard at it, you know – it was like a local reader’s story sort of thing – they said they wanted it by Wednesday morning so I worked really hard to get it to them on time, and then you know what? Can you believe? They went and pulled it at the last minute because of some stupid thing about brass bands.’

  ‘Ha,’ he said, smiling faintly. ‘Did they pay you?’

  ‘No, they did not. They weren’t paying me anything anyway.’

  He opened a pack of cigarettes, offered. She shook her head then said, ‘Oh, go on then.’

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘that was ages ago. It’s not news any more.’

  ‘I know.’

  He lit her cigarette and she smoked awkwardly. ‘I suppose it wasn’t important. No one took any notice of it even when I first told the police. They made me feel a bit of a fool. I just thought it might be important, you never know, with this happening round about the same time as the body, you know, and this man with blood on his face…’

  The boys got off the fence. ‘Nan,’ said one, peering up at her, ‘where’s Ellie?’

  ‘Somewhere over there,’ she said vaguely.

  ‘You think it had something to do with the body?’ said Dan.

  ‘Oh, probably not,’ she said breezily, ‘I just got a bit fixated on it for a while.’ She hoisted the bag, adjusted her scarf. ‘That’s it then, boys,’ she said briskly, ‘come on now, let’s go to the race track and see what’s happening.’

  The other boy hurled himself backwards off the gate. She caught him under the arms, swung him around. ‘It was funny really,’ she said, deftly setting him on his feet, ‘I never give lifts to lone men, you know, not as a rule. But this one I felt sorry for. I just got a feeling he was OK. But then when he got in I saw the blood on his face and I thought, whoops!’

  ‘Where was the blood?’ he asked.

  ‘It was on his face. It was in his hairline by the looks of it and it looked as if it had trickled down past the corner of his eye and down the side of his face and dried. He might not even have been aware of it.’

  ‘Where’d you pick him up?’

  ‘It was all in the paper,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you see it?’

  ‘Probably. Can’t remember the details.’

  ‘Where the road comes down from the Wights. He said he’d been to see the stones. He thought they were wonderful. And I dropped him the other side of the village. Do you know?’ She grabbed the lads, one on either side. ‘I could swear it’ll rain later.’

  *

  That night, Saturday night. He walked through the kitchen singing: Saturday night at the movies, who cares what picture you see?

  Face of a horse. Poor Madeleine. Never harmed a soul. All she ever wanted to do was help. His mum could be a real cow.

  Weeks. God knows. Poor old Mum. She couldn’t help it.

  The way she used to walk about, after his gran died, that look on her face. Big wide suffering eyes and a pendulous lower lip. Even when you couldn’t see her, you’d hear her, that soft martyred cough in another room, a small stern clearing of the throat that served no other purpose than to say: I’m not happy, it’s your fault. She looked at him like the Magdalen, Cassandra, Joan of Arc. Such suffering passion. He shouldn’t have had to deal with all that. Obvious now.

  God knows it can’t all have been bad, how could it? The thought of how she’d feel to see him like this, all her love and expectations, every hope, to end up in him, here.

  ‘Sorry, Ma,’ he said, and laughed.

  He stuck a pie in the microwave, ate it, poured a tot and turned on the telly. He wanted a film. Netflix. He’d seen all the good ones. Pete Wheeler’s kid knew how to get any film you wanted off the internet, God knows how, God knows if it was legal. The boy was a genius. Just say the film you fancied and he’d get it for you, just like that. He didn’t know what he wanted to watch, kept starting things and getting bored. He imagined Madeleine’s house, all trendy and correct. It would be something like that house in Outnumbered only tidier. Ended up watching some courtroom thing and losing track because his mind wasn’t there. He kept thinking about how gross and embarrassing his mum had been, those horrible dinners. It wasn’t fair.

  She could say, ‘Well, you look nice, Madeleine,’ and make it sound like an insult.

  ‘How long have you been wearing your hair like that?’

  Just that. Nothing more.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know!’ says Madeleine, quiet, a bit awkward. ‘It’s always been like this,’ and then a silly laugh. ‘I’ve never been able to do a thing with it.’

  Then his mum would give that tiny snort of a laugh and look away with a sly almost-smile.

  And even later, when there’d been that ridiculous marriage talk (he could hardly believe it even now) and she’d got the idea it might actually happen, she’d still been horrible to Madeleine, even when she was freaking her out with all that stupid crap about them both coming to live here with her and having a baby, started talking about where it could sleep, in your gran’s old room, till it all made him feel sick. The whole idea of it, that horrible room full of old age and death, the chaise longue and those heavy dusty curtains, the slightly off smell of old ladies who never leave their rooms.

  ‘Here we are, a little sherry. Madeleine? Go on.’

  Skipping out for the cake.

  Madeleine’s face, upset but holding it in. Whispering fiercely. ‘She’s not serious, is she? Can’t you say something to her? I mean, we’re not even…’

  ‘Yeah, I will, I will. Later.’

  Bloody hopeless.

  ‘It just wouldn’t work, Mum.’

  ‘This is a big house, Danny.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter! It’s just not a good idea. People don’t live with their parents when they get married.’

  ‘Yes they do!’ She started listing examples then started crying. ‘I can’t live on my own, you know.’ Her eyes filling up with heroic tears. ‘I can’t help it, Dan-Dan, I just can’t. I’m sensitive. And anyway, what about you? I’m thinking about what’s best for you, after all.’

  ‘Me? Best for me?’ he’d said. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Well, think about it! You’re young. What if things don’t work out and you’re somewhere far away all on your own?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Mother, if you could hear yourself. You sound crazy.’

  ‘Oh, thank you! That’s nice! Oh, that’s a really nice thing to say to me!’

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’ Into his room. Slam the door. Oh, he was the tough one then!

  Should have just gone then, made her get used to it.

  17

  I had to move.

  Shame but it was necessary. Kids hanging round, couple of little toughies. Nearly came face to face with them coming back from town one day. I was off the path, wading through the marshy bit, and there they were, bashing the bushes with their sticks. So I got down low. Got myself all wet hiding, and I think they heard me because they went all quiet, and when I peeked out, there they were, still as statues, listening. Boys with little scared faces, holding their sticks like weapons. A squirrel jumped from one tree to the next, shaking the branches over their heads, and they crashed away like panicked baby elephants.

  Highly unlikely they’d ever get near my place, but you can’t be too careful. I spent the next few days getting my Bower Number Two ready. I’d had it sussed out for a while. I’d decided I’d always keep at least one other little bolthole ready. I could have two or thre
e. Then I could just keep moving about whenever I wanted to.

  My new place is nicer than the old one in some ways – higher up, airier. More of the light gets through, and I’m further up the stream. It’s bigger. I had to get a new tarpaulin from town, but I’m all snug again now. And I didn’t leave a trace back there. It’s like when you move in a town really, just the same: you have to get used to all the new landmarks, the shapes of trees, particular plants, murky patches. It’s all falling into place now. Ah here we are: dead fox gully, toadstools, fernyfronds, big bear rock.

  When the rain returned I found it to be snug and almost watertight. A little more work and it would be perfect. It’s essential that I hone my needlework skills, which were never up to much. Two nights of gentle rain, pleasant enough, but on the third day the wind got up again, and again it spoke in voices, which eventually separated and became two voices arguing back and forth till finally they were screaming at one another. Rain came down again and there was no doing anything with the day, till the next darkness fell, and with it rose the next storm, madder, more spiteful than the last.

  *

  A horrible night, trees falling.

  The weather these days, thought Dan. Not normal, is it? He took the flashlight and went and stood at the edge of the wood. He even went a little way along the path, shone the light and shouted through the sound of the wind in the trees.

  Next day he went looking but had no idea where she was holed up. A few trees were down, their exposed roots raw and stark, writhing at air. The woman’s mad, he thought. This is a wild wood. It’s not like some little kiddie play area, this is an old wild wood. He hadn’t minded for a while, it was even kind of interesting, but now the weather was turning he was starting to worry a bit. What if she was dead in there?

  Oh well, he thought, that was her lookout.

  It rained all that day and all the next.

  There but for the grace, he thought. He could imagine sometimes how he could have quite easily gone off the rails. Sometimes he thought he had, when he was doing the whole middle-of-the-night fear thing, or waking up from a knocked-out drink-sleep. But the bottle kept him handy. There was no way he was ever going to do without it.

  Couldn’t even remember how long he’d been sitting there holding this bottle neck. Fancy ending up like this, he thought. There’s that orange cat again. There was about an inch left in the bottle. He wasn’t sure of the time. It was all crashing about out there, and the buckets on the landing were filling. He should go and empty them. The worst night yet. That’s why the cats have all come in, look at them, taking over. Think they own the place. Christ! Thor’s bolt. Something came down outside. He should go and look. He groaned getting into his wellies, dragged on his waterproof, grabbed the torch and stomped out. Puddles glittered all across the yard. Slippery leaves waved. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ he said, hunching his way across the yard. The hives were safe, nothing amiss that he could see. He went round the front. Aha. The bonnet had flown off his gran’s old car. Right into the wall – that must have been the noise.

  He got back in and built up the fire good and high. Christ, he thought, that woman in the wood. She’ll be dead. No one could live out there in this.

  Bit grim. Dead in there and nobody knowing. Like the body all over again.

  Well, that’s her silly lookout, isn’t it?

  He swore roundly putting the guard on the fire which was blazing up nicely, getting back into his freezing wellies and his wet stuff, hurling himself out into the madness once more, swore himself into the edge of the wood and walked a little way towards the ruin. He was pretty certain that was her patch. He thought she might have mentioned a rock. He could think of a couple, big things near water. ‘Hello-o-o!’ he shouted. She’d never hear that.

  This was stupid but at least when she turned up dead he could say he tried. The flashlight was lurid, the dark terrifying. Any minute there’d be something horrible, a face or something. The wood thrashed its long arms, chattering like a host of spirits, and he cursed the woman. Not his responsibility. The size of this fucking wood, needle in a haystack, crazy. ‘Hello-o-o-o –’

  He stood still, dripping, turned the light off for a moment just to see what it was like and found it oddly better. Fumbling on for a while like this he clonked his head on a branch, and when he flicked the light back on and shone it round, realised he didn’t know which direction he was facing.

  ‘Hell-o-o-o!’ he cried. ‘Hell-o-o-o-o-o –’

  *

  I thought, what the fuck, is it a wild boar or something? What is it? On a night like this? I couldn’t sleep because of the storm, I was reading, then all of a sudden this awful bellowing, just vaguely audible under the ai-weeeee and ai-weeeeeeeeee… and I thought it might be a deer or a cow that was stuck, so I poked my head out of the flap to hear better, but it made no difference. It stopped and started and then came closer, and I thought, that’s a voice. Someone’s in trouble. Oh go away please, go away, but I was all dressed anyway, so I had to put my boots on and stick a tarp over my head and go out with my torch, not far. There was a light bouncing around, more powerful than mine. I went towards it and the voice roared again. Oh no, I thought, then there was a great flash far above in the sky, and a terrible rushing swept through the wood; then a sound like a monster sighing, and a detonation. Another.

  Trees, falling, one so close I felt it in the earth under my feet.

  The light bobbed towards me. I saw a big bewildered face staring out of a hood, a fierce kind of a stare as if someone had just said something very shocking, or a portal into the ultimate had just opened up before his eyes. The cat man.

  ‘This way!’ he yelled, and he grabbed my arm.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Come on!’

  There was such urgency that I just went with him. He was like Lassie leading me to the injured child. But he was hopeless, blundering about like a bear, and I realised we were going deeper and deeper into the wood.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I shouted.

  ‘My house!’ he yelled.

  ‘Stop!’

  He pulled me.

  ‘Stop! Stop!’

  He stopped.

  ‘It’s that way,’ I said, and we turned round.

  There was a huge roaring fire, and all these cats sitting in front of it out of the storm.

  ‘Sit there!’ he said, pointing to the settee.

  It was as if he was telling me off for something and I didn’t know what I’d done or why I was here. ‘What?’ I said.

  He got out of his wellies, scowling down. His hair was on end.

  ‘Stay on there,’ he said. ‘Don’t go messing about with anything.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘Why am I here?’

  He went out. I squeezed onto the end of the settee, leaving a safe distance between me and a big spiky tabby that didn’t look too friendly. The cat ignored me. Cat man shambled back in and tossed me a blanket. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said, ‘wait out the storm. That’s no night to be out. Keep an eye on the fire. Keep the guard on.’

  With that, he stomped off upstairs and turned off all the lights. A door closed.

  I didn’t even hear him moving about upstairs, just silence.

  I felt uneasy, scared. Of him. He was grim, unpredictable. What if he tried anything on? Stay on there? Don’t go messing about with anything? As if I just barged in on him. I was kidnapped. Doesn’t want me poking around, fair enough, but surely I’m allowed to get myself a drink of water? What’s he on about? I could just go straight back home now. But the fire and the cats – but is he OK? I mean, is he all there? The tarp had kept me pretty dry but I was freezing and it took a while to thaw out. I listened for a long time but there was no sound of movement. The coffee table had a patina of round overlapping coffee circles in every shade of brown. On it stood a dead candle without a wick, a mega box of matches, a Coney Island coaster and a lump of pitted black rock the size of a misshapen tennis ball. I gave him another half
hour then sneaked over to the sparse, cold, strictly functional kitchen. I rinsed a mug from the draining board, a big brown-stained thing with a fifties-style cowboy twirling a yellow lasso on its side, tried to clean up the inside a bit but the staining was indelible. The water was tepid because I didn’t leave the tap running long enough so as not to make a noise. I’d have loved a cup of tea but I couldn’t risk the noise of that either, kettles and all and having to look for a spoon, so I stood in the hall drinking tepid water and feeling the stone cold radiators for qualms of heat. The house was freezing except for where the fire was. I wanted to have another look at the room with all the old stuff I’d seen before. I tiptoed to the back of the house, the door was ajar, and I found the light straight away. The switch clicked loudly. I froze. The big bad wolf did not stir. I opened a drawer in a sideboard and saw again the little kid gloves, the spindly gilt brooch and the old binoculars. The drawer underneath held a huge fat brown envelope full of snapshots, black and white and colour. Warily, I withdrew a handful. That woman must be his mother. My God, is that him, surely not. Children. Who? A Present From Whitby. And here, I think it’s him, something of the look of him there only all smoothed out and fresh? Not smiling, not looking at the camera, young, nice-looking, surely not, because he isn’t now. The jacket faded to grey. Two men on a ship, in uniform. Mountains. The sea. The sea. Snowy plains with far mountains. Him? Maybe. At the bottom of the sideboard, a great brown heavy thing with rounded sides that gave an elephantine impression, was a little door that opened onto a peculiar segmented storage area full of ancient records in scruffy old sleeves, LPs, Johnny Mathis, Jim Reeves, Bobby Darin, Roger Miller, The New Seekers, Rockin rollin ridin all along the bay, I said Hello Mary-Lou, goodbye heart, put your sweet lips a little closer to the foam.

  That’s what I thought it was.

  Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone.

  But for years I thought it was closer to the foam. I was quite young and it seemed quite logical really, she was drinking a foamy drink, a milkshake with a foamy top or something, creamola foam, and they were sitting in some mythical thing, a soda bar, in mythical America. I listened to it one night in town, in a little snack bar where I sat with my first boyfriend, the woody smell of his hair, lights outside the window and a wide street, a young girl with thin dirty bare legs sitting alone at one of the tables. Two men in suits came in and sat down with her. One of them was tall and plump and wore yellow socks. He bought her a coffee. The dirt encrusted round her ankles was speckled black.