Cold Boy's Wood

by Carol Birch

  Moved on by now surely. Ring in the morning. Ring Madeleine.

  So he did. He got her husband.

  ‘Oh, hi, Dan!’ he said enthusiastically, and Dan realised he’d forgotten his name again.

  ‘Is Madeleine there?’

  ‘I think she’s around here somewhere – yes – yes – no. Oh! There she is. Maddy! Mads!’

  And her talking in the background to someone.

  He was being sensible. It stops here, he said to himself. It has to stop here.

  ‘Dan!’ She sounded warm and curious.

  ‘That woman in the wood,’ he said, ‘I don’t think she should stay there through winter.’

  He told her everything, the exact location, gave her the name of the daughter and her number.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ she said, ‘and she’s been in there how long? Oh, it must be desperately hard, that.’

  ‘Well anyway,’ he said, ‘I’ll leave it to you then, shall I?’

  He could hear the husband talking in the background, or maybe it was the radio.

  ‘Poor woman! Has she got mental health problems?’

  It sounded so simple when she put it like that. Gary, that was his name.

  ‘I don’t know. Yes, I’m sure she has.’

  ‘And how did you get the number? For the daughter? I’m writing this down.’

  He sensed officialdom down the line, swinging into action.

  ‘I took it out of her pocket.’

  ‘You took it out of her pocket?’ She laughed. ‘How?’

  ‘I gave her a cup of tea.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘She took her coat off. I went in her pocket when she wasn’t looking.’

  Another little pause, then she said quietly, as if she didn’t want the people at her end to hear, ‘You are such a nice man.’

  ‘Anyway,’ he said.

  ‘Do you think you could show me where she lives?’

  Oh fuck, he thought, what have I done?

  ‘Might be good for you to introduce me.’

  ‘No, wait a minute,’ he said, and his words started stumbling. ‘I’ll go first,’ he said, ‘I’ll go in first so as not to take her by surprise, then you can come in after.’

  ‘Is she volatile?’

  ‘Volatile?’

  ‘Yes, do you think she’s likely to get very upset, do you think we should bring somebody else along to…’

  ‘Oh no, I don’t think so,’ he said, ‘she’s not dangerous or anything.’

  He heard her tap her teeth. ‘Can’t do a thing today,’ she said. ‘Chocca. Just on my way out. Listen. If I come round your place tomorrow about nine, would that be OK?’

  Oh Christ, he thought, it’s not going away. I’m still involved.

  ‘OK,’ he said, then walked round and round the kitchen saying shit shit shit and thumping his head.

  29

  Terry was there for eight days. Lily and he didn’t seem to take much notice of each other, and he was very polite and kept out of the way. He spent a lot of time in the yard at the back of the co-op polishing his beloved car. He ate everything I put in front of him gratefully, stuffing it away as if it was a mechanical process. Lily stayed out a lot at Sage’s or Jude’s or at Drama. Terry made a lot of mess very quietly. Once I said he could put some of his washing in with ours and after that he just shoved all his stuff in our laundry basket and left it there, and he had loads every day because he seemed to have a one-wear policy for everything. I kept finding myself draping his boxers over the radiator. ‘This isn’t fair,’ I said to Lily, ‘you’ve got to help more.’

  ‘I didn’t invite him in, did I?’

  The rubbish bin filled up too quickly. I was taking it down to the bins one evening and some sharp-cornered thing cut through the plastic and split the bag and the rubbish went down the last flight of stairs, split teabags, coffee grounds and all. The thing that had split the bag was the sharp plastic corner of a discarded package that had contained a spanner. Who was buying spanners? Damn Terry, can’t be anyone else. It was from a place on the Uxbridge Road. I’d have to come back with a dustpan and cloth and clean all this up. Bloody Terry, I thought, you’ve moved in all right.

  ‘You should see the amount of rubbish since Terry moved in,’ I said to Johnny, getting the cloth and the dustpan and brush.

  ‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘won’t be for long.’

  ‘And the washing.’

  ‘I feel sorry for him,’ Johnny said.

  ‘You like Terry now, don’t you?’ I said.

  ‘I quite like him,’ he replied guardedly, ‘but I don’t respect him.’

  *

  One day Lily came into the kitchen and whispered to me, ‘Mum, he’s driving Phoebe Twist to her son’s tomorrow. Johnny’s at Hatchet all day, so I said Mark could come round with a video. Is that OK?’

  Damn. My day off work. Never any peace.

  ‘I suppose so,’ I said. I’d like my own room. Just a little room where I could go. Johnny went out later, he took his guitar with him. He didn’t come back. I went to bed at one, slept till four and thought he might have come in and be sitting up reading or something, but he was not in the flat. I worried then. It had happened once or twice before but it wasn’t usual. About six the phone rang.

  ‘It’s me,’ he said, ‘sorry I didn’t call earlier. It was an all-nighter. You know what it’s like when there’s a lot going on.’

  ‘No I don’t. You should have rung.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be like that. I’ve got to go to work now.’

  ‘Oh, you have, have you?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s OK. I’ll have a good sleep later.’

  ‘Fuck off, Johnny,’ I said.

  ‘Fuck off, you too.’

  I rang off.

  I slept again and when I woke I could hear Terry already up and making himself some toast, so I got up and put on my dressing gown and went in to make coffee.

  ‘What time are you off?’ I asked.

  ‘Picking her up at half nine.’

  He’ll be gone soon, I thought, on his way to Dorset. Yawned. The phone rang. Terry was next to it. ‘Bet you anything that’s her,’ he said, picking it up with his buttery hands.

  His end of the conversation was all oh, yeah, uh, OK, thanks.

  ‘She’s got a cold,’ he said when he hung up. ‘She don’t wanna go. I knew this would happen. I don’t think she ever meant to. ’S’OK though. She’s still paying me.’

  ‘Well, that’s good.’ Christ, I thought, Mark’s coming round with a video at one.

  Harriet came out in her pyjamas with her hamster in her hands, sat down on the settee and turned on the telly. Lily was still in bed.

  ‘So you’ve got a whole free day,’ I said brightly.

  ‘Yeah.’ Terry grinned and sat down next to Harriet, another big kid.

  I knocked on Lily’s door, went in and closed it behind me. ‘Lily!’ I hissed. ‘Terry’s not going! She’s cancelled.’

  ‘What?’ She was sitting up in bed reading The Rats by James Herbert and looked grumpy at my intrusion.

  ‘Terry’s not going. Phoebe Twist rang up and cancelled. She said she’s got a cold.’

  ‘U-u-urh!’ she said, but she didn’t look too bothered.

  ‘Hadn’t you better call him?’

  ‘I’ll sort it out,’ she said.

  By the time she’d got up and had a bowl of Fruit ’n Fibre, Terry was bobbing about restlessly between the window and the table. I went into our bedroom and pulled open the drawer where I kept all my jewellery stuff. I’ll just stay in here, I thought. This should be my day off. The door was open. Terry said, ‘I’d have been well on the way by now.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘it’s a shame.’

  ‘I’ve got this money,’ he said.

  ‘Have you? What money?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t got it yet, but if I go round she’ll give it me. She’s payin
g me anyway, she said.’

  ‘Great!’

  ‘I was all looking forward to a drive out in the country,’ he said.

  ‘Aw!’

  ‘We could go somewhere anyway,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah? Where?’

  ‘Dunno. Get out the map and just go.’

  And she, the little bugger, the horrible thoughtless infuriating little bugger, called out casually, not hiding anything from anyone, ‘Mum! Will you tell Mark I’ve had to go somewhere? Tell him I’ll give him a call midweek.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ I said, rushing out of the bedroom. ‘That’s not fair, Lily, you tell him.’

  They were half out the door. She looked back once and giggled then she just went, hair all a mess, sleep still in her eyes, in old jeans and a purple sweatshirt. I looked at the phone and thought about calling Mark. Terry had left it all slimy with butter. I didn’t have Mark’s number to call and let him know, make some excuse, save his feelings. Sorry, Mark, she’s not feeling well. I threw everything in the bowl, all the mess they’d left from breakfast, cursing them all for the inconsiderate bastards they were, all of them, all of them. Harriet went downstairs to play with Eve and Steve’s little boy, who was two now, and at last I had the place to myself. Oh blessed, blessed solitude. I was so tired, I went in and drew the curtains across, lay down on my bed and fell asleep very quickly.

  *

  The car went off the road in a very pretty part of Surrey, by a pond that swallowed up Lily and Terry and his wonderful car. There was no other traffic, no one else around, just one of those senseless things.

  And after that, with breath-taking speed, everything else fell apart too.

  When the news came, Mark was in our house, drinking a cup of tea, smiling at Harriet’s hamster as it scurried round and round the table, big black beady eyes like berries. He didn’t know where to look, what to say. The policewoman said, ‘Shall I call your husband?’ I looked over and saw this pale stranger boy looking at me with a face full of fear, as if instead of the deaths of two small people the great day of wrath had been announced, the chasm gaped, the veil of the heavens rent. I don’t remember what was said, how he left. I remember going into the girls’ room and seeing Lily’s unmade bed, with a scrunched-up tissue sticking out from under the pillow and her James Herbert book, a quarter read, lying face down on the floor with its spine bent down the middle. I remember the policewoman. She was lovely. She held my hand. Then Johnny was there, and Harriet was on his knee, her arms around his neck, him with his eyes aflame, and I finally cried, in a weird way, politely, apologetically, a sad slow drip, because it was that or scream. Eve came in and made us all some tea. Steve looked in. Scared blank faces. The police had gone to tell Wilf. It was unbearable, it was endless. How time played, how it stretched and spun and contracted.

  30

  Dan went upstairs, into the bathroom. He felt awful. Can’t believe this. You dig a hole, it just keeps getting bigger. In the mirror the skin round his neck was all scraggy. He should have felt relieved getting this thing off his hands at last, or at least starting to, but somehow he didn’t.

  And what exactly, he thought, was the point of it? What would they do? The great they. They can’t put her away. Not a crime now to be sleeping rough, millions of them. Just get her out of the elements before winter. Some kind of hostel maybe? And if she won’t, she won’t. Least I tried. Least I know I tried, then if they find her one day frozen solid it’s not my fault.

  He felt terrible. She’ll go mad. Thinks I’m a cunt already. Still, get her daughter in. She can sort it out. Fuck it. He went down and sat on the back step. It was some time after ten, he thought. A big starry frosty sky. The occasional swish of a tail, a cough, soft movement from the cows over by the hedge. He talking to the owls, a thing he did sometimes. They’d go: Woo-woo! And he’d reply, cupping his big knotty hands in front of his mouth and blowing. Whoo whoo! He’d been doing that for some time when he suddenly got scared so he went out into the middle of Gallinger’s wide meadow and sat down and waited there to feel normal again. It was midnight by the time he felt like returning to the house, which lately had taken on what he could only describe as a crowded feeling. He felt it as he crossed the threshold, as if the rooms he could not see were occupied, as if the faces on the old photographs in the cats’ room were moving, talking to one another. I’ll get rid of them, he thought, once and for all. The room stank of cat pee. He yanked open the two top drawers on the sideboard and pulled stuff out, piled it up on top. Photographs, ancient yellowing documents that hadn’t been important for decades. Just chuck the lot. When did he ever look at any of these pictures anyway? What did they mean? People made much out of these things. What’s the point when things are gone? All they do is make you feel bad. A sheaf of pictures spread out on the filthy old table top. His dad he never knew. Died in an accident, something horrible involving steel and machines and negligence at work. She’d got money from the accident and came back here. There were no wedding photos of his mum and dad and none of them together. No pictures of the Brooms, his father’s people, at all. Just these. It used to mean something but it didn’t any more. His dad on a long flat grey and white beach with a bilious sky and the sea line in the distance. Just a bloke.

  She used to say: your dad –

  your dad used to say

  your dad had one of those

  your dad loved kippers

  He pushed his dad aside. There was his mum all smiling and blowsy in very bright sunshine, a girl. Then a couple of really ancient snaps of the back steps with him an unimaginable serious semi-baby, a monstrosity, he thought, almost afraid to think that that thing had been him. Fair hair (that didn’t last), frowning brow and a silly little white collar. Gran. Never looked at these things. Couldn’t say he enjoyed it when he did. They just mouldered away in these drawers occupying stale space and not affecting him in any way. He scooped the lot into a pile on the table and left them, thinking: there, I’ve made a good start.

  Is she still up, I wonder? That woman?

  What’s the time? Past midnight.

  He opened the back door and looked out. Dark as hell. Not going out in that.

  Next morning, nine sharp, his phone blared out something that sounded like ‘Where Did You Get That Hat?’ played on a xylophone. It had been on the phone when he bought it off Eric and he hadn’t got round to changing it yet.

  It was Madeleine. ‘I talked to the daughter,’ she said. ‘I think she’s quite nice. The mother should be taking medication, that’s what she’s worried about. She said she’s all right as long as she stays on that.’

  He wished he’d never got involved.

  ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘it was really interesting. I found out a lot. The poor woman’s off her head. Awful story.’

  What was he supposed to say?

  ‘Dan?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So anyway she’s coming up from Birmingham tomorrow, and she’s bringing some of her mother’s medication with her.’

  Oh God, he thought.

  ‘So could you take us and show us where she is?’

  ‘I’ve got a lot on,’ he said.

  He could hear her thinking on the other end of the line.

  ‘It won’t take a minute,’ she said. ‘Say, twenty minutes of your time.’

  Cats. Fucking cats, scratching at the window, scratching at the door. Fuck off, he wanted to say. I’ve done my bit. No more.

  ‘Well, you can’t just go barging in,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to go in first. She knows me.’

  ‘Of course. If you think that’s best.’

  ‘Is it just you and her? The daughter? No one else?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Oh Christ oh Christ oh Christ. Confrontation. Scenes. People getting all het up. No.

  ‘OK,’ he said.

  ‘Good. Look, I’ll check back with her and give you a definite time later. Probably sometime late afternoon. Is that OK?’

  ‘
Yeah.’

  Fuck.

  *

  A woman with heavy eye makeup, sitting on his sofa drinking a mug of tea. The heavy eye makeup out of place on her. She had a soft round face with a thin turned-up nose and a curved smile, long grey hair falling over her breasts. Her clothes were dark, plain and forgettable, her shoes sensible. She sat with her hands loosely linked and comfortably resting in the place beneath the roll of her waist.

  ‘She’s off her meds,’ she said calmly.

  Oh yes, this one would take charge now, he thought. Rain thrummed down outside, pinged up from the windowsill in bursts of silver.

  ‘It’s not that I mind people being able to do what they want,’ she said, ‘live any way they want. But what do you do when someone’s a danger to themselves? And she is, or may be. There’s the fire risk, for a start. It’s a potential furnace in summer round here. And what if she fell or had an accident all alone out there, a woman of her age? I mean, think about it.’

  They talked away, her and Madeleine. It seemed to be going on for ages and he just wanted them to go. Fuck off please, the pair of you, just go.

  ‘Don’t you get driven mad by all these cats?’ said Madeleine.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said.

  ‘You know, if you’re going to have them all around, you really ought to get them seen to. If you ring Animal Rescue they’ll come and check them out. They’ll do it for free.’

  ‘No, they won’t,’ he said.

  ‘They will!’

  ‘Oh, this rain!’ said Harriet. ‘I don’t think it’s letting up.’

  ‘What does she do when the weather’s like this?’ asked Madeleine.

  ‘No idea,’ he said.

  ‘I mean, what’s she actually got out there? Do you know? What sort of a set-up?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s got a tent. Tarpaulin and stuff.’