Cold Boy's Wood

by Carol Birch

  ‘I see,’ he said.

  ‘Thank God. Because the man they found wasn’t that big. Five foot six, they said. So I could confidently say, that was not your father, Harriet, that man was definitely no more than five foot six. Thank God for that. But do you know what she said after that? I think this is really sad. She said, “In a way I wish it was him, because at least then I wouldn’t always have to wonder why he went away. At least then I’d know.” Can you imagine that? How awful that must be?’

  Harriet came out into the hall.

  ‘I suppose we ought to get going,’ Madeleine said brightly.

  This is stupid, he thought, this is ridiculous, as they all trooped off through the trees with him in the lead. Last of the Mohicans, he thought. Pathfinders to Mars. How did I get into this? Nobody spoke. He went the wrong way and had to backtrack. At last he folded back the thick growth and revealed the canvas bedecked with strands of beads. He called out, then went in headfirst. She wasn’t there.

  ‘She’s not there,’ he said, backing out.

  ‘Let me see.’ Harriet bent down, lifted the flap and went in. Madeleine got down on her hands and knees and crawled in after. He could hear them mumbling together.

  ‘I know,’ he heard Madeleine say, ‘I’m not sure that that’s safe.’

  Dan stood with rain dripping down from his eyebrows into his eyes. He thought he might be coming down with a cold.

  ‘Awful,’ said Madeleine, coming out with a rueful smile. Her padded coat shone with rain. She pulled the cords on its hood sharply so that it tightened round her face and made her look suddenly old and plain without her hair.

  ‘Awful,’ echoed Harriet, crawling clumsily out and jerking to her feet. ‘I don’t know, just do not know, how anyone can live like that.’

  ‘She’s vulnerable,’ said Madeleine. ‘I’m not quite sure what to do next.’

  Get rid of them, he thought, and said, ‘Look. She’s survived in these woods all this time, she’ll stick it out a bit longer.’ Can’t argue with that.

  There was nothing for it but to tramp back.

  ‘It’s really quite disgusting,’ Harriet said as they walked along. ‘I’ve kind of had enough of this. I mean, what is she becoming now? A horrible old vagrant. Did you see the bottles? And the sleeping bag?’

  The rain eased up as they reached his house.

  They shook the rain out of their coats. He put the kettle on, that’s what he was supposed to do. Soon, he was thinking, they will be gone and it will all be over. A new cat, one he’d never seen before, eyed him from the windowsill outside. White sunken cat face, arched brown eyebrows. Why that urgency in the eyes? Where do they all come from? Madeleine and Harriet came into the kitchen after him, he hadn’t wanted them to. They sat down at his kitchen table and started talking away as if they were in a café waiting to be served.

  ‘I’m sorry about all this bother you’ve had,’ Harriet said with a kind of defeated resilience, turning in her chair and watching as he rinsed a mug. ‘It must have been awful.’

  ‘Well no,’ said Dan, ‘she hasn’t actually been that much bother.’

  ‘How long has she had mental health problems for?’ asked Madeleine.

  Harriet thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I only became aware of it after my sister died. My half-sister. She went a bit funny then, but of course it was a very bad time, and my dad went as well.’

  He put sugar on the table, milk.

  ‘He went,’ she said, ‘he just went. Gone like that.’

  She opened her bag.

  ‘I remember my dad,’ she said. ‘I loved my dad. I always knew him really well, even without words or anything. My dad. I’ve got pictures, look.’ She pulled a couple of small snapshots out of her bag. ‘Look how handsome he was when he was young. Look at his hair. My dad. And I suppose it was all understandable, I mean that she should lose track a bit, a lot had happened, but really, she was never the same as far as I was concerned. She used to have jobs one time. You know, she did this and that, she had a waitress job and a thing in a print room and some other things, and the jewellery thing. But she just got worse. You know? And then it all sort of fell apart. After the crash. After my dad went. It was all bad news.’

  ‘Tea,’ he said.

  ‘Actually, Dan.’ Madeleine smiled. ‘Do you mind if I make a coffee?’

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘It’s ages ago,’ Harriet said.

  He put the kettle on again. The cat on the windowsill stared in with a look of outrage. You and me, cat, he thought.

  ‘What I want to know is’ – Harriet picked up her tea – ‘what I don’t think people realise is that I actually left home when I was seventeen. So I don’t really know a lot about what went on after that, you know. We were never that close. It wasn’t just me, it was her too, she was weird. She wouldn’t ring you up like other mothers. She wouldn’t be normal. She really just wasn’t very good, you know, as a mother. She just wasn’t. She had no fucking idea, if you’ll excuse the language. Even with my sister. Much too soft with her. Ridiculous. Now, that’s not good.’

  ‘No,’ said Madeleine.

  ‘It’s very difficult.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So all those years when she doesn’t get in touch and we just don’t have anything in common, it’s just like, I feel like, you know, as if we’re just completely separate people. You know? They say you can’t choose your family. Well, you can’t.’

  ‘Of course you can’t.’

  ‘And it’s like there’s this stranger out there who I don’t really know, could be anyone, and then whenever something awful happens like this, it’s me they get in touch with, and what am I supposed to do? I’ve brought her the meds. What can I do? What do they think? Am I expected to take her into my house? I have a partner. What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘I do understand, of course,’ Madeleine said, ‘but we do at least have to keep you informed. No one’s going to make you take her into your house or anything like that obviously, but you do see that your opinion counts in this.’

  Harriet shook her head and held up her hands in a strange supplicating way. ‘She had a place,’ she said, ‘she was OK. They closed it down. Care in the community! Hah, that’s a joke.’

  ‘I know,’ said Madeleine. ‘They put them in horrible B&Bs in grotty seaside towns and leave them to flounder and then wonder why they have problems.’

  ‘Exactly. This is the problem. Whose responsibility is she? Whose actual responsibility?’

  ‘Is there absolutely nobody else? No other relations?’

  ‘She’s got a brother,’ said Harriet. ‘He’s in Australia. He’s a solicitor.’

  ‘Well, in the end,’ said Madeleine, ‘if she’s not a danger to herself or anyone else…’

  ‘I’ve got no other family to share this with,’ said Harriet. ‘It’s not really fair to lumber my partner with all this.’

  And on and on they went, discussing law and morality and the practicalities of the situation, and as he poured hot water onto instant coffee, he looked out of the window and saw Lorna lift the latch on the gate coming in from the wood.

  ‘She’s here,’ he said.

  Harriet put her head in her hands. ‘Oh fu-u-uck!’ she crooned.

  Madeleine stood up.

  ‘No no,’ she said, ‘this is good, this is what we came for.’ She went to the door.

  ‘Some ways,’ said Harriet to Dan quietly when she’d gone out, ‘I wish this stupid woman hadn’t dug this whole thing up. They could have just left her buried out there, who fucking cares?’

  Oh, this was all just such a nuisance to her. He knew how she felt.

  ‘Can’t do it though,’ he said apologetically.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what to do about any of it. I need to know whether I can go home.’

  33

  Up on the heights, I kept thinking there was someone there with me, and if I could only hear, tune
in like a radio, but when I did I wished I hadn’t because it was just all the same old crap from the whisperers, about the fool I am and all the stupid things I’ve ever said or done when I make a fool of myself. But then it stopped raining and I saw the car and knew, just knew, that’s Harriet. And I had to run down, didn’t think, just did it, couldn’t pass up the chance for another look at her.

  The ginger-hair woman met me at the door.

  ‘You must be Lorna,’ she said. She was very nice, one of those sweet genuine smiles that illuminates the face and doesn’t give a toss about the wrinkles. ‘I’m Madeleine. Hello!’ A funny greeting, as if we’ve met before perhaps by telephone or email or whatever, and already know each other. But we don’t, not at all.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  ‘Your daughter’s inside,’ she said.

  ‘Harriet.’ What could I say?

  ‘Yes. She’s in the kitchen. Are you cold?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Anyway, come in and have some coffee. Are you hungry?’

  ‘Not really,’ I said.

  ‘OK.’ Smile smile. ‘Well, come in.’ As if it’s her house.

  Dan was leaning on the sink, glowering. Harriet standing, facing the door.

  ‘Look now, why don’t you sit down, Lorna,’ the woman said. ‘Would you like some coffee? Tea?’

  You know the way they made me feel? Like I wanted to say, no, fuck it, give me whisky, give me dope, give me anything but you lot. Let me go.

  ‘Tea,’ I said.

  ‘Tea.’ She moved towards the kettle but Dan gestured her away and set to with cups and spoons and things. I sat down, and Harriet sat down on the other side of the table, and we looked at each other in hopeless stalemate. I looked and looked, she was so fundamentally of my life, so rooted. Couldn’t see that child, the gap tooth, the anxious little face. Looked in her brown eyes for a sign. God knows what she saw, I hate to think. And before anyone had a chance to breathe she said, ‘Well, Mother, here we go again.’

  ‘Hello, Harry.’

  Looking at me like I’m trash.

  ‘It’s me,’ I said.

  ‘I know,’ she said and almost smiled. ‘That’s the trouble.’

  A mug of tea appeared on the table and the ginger woman said pleasantly, ‘Now, you two just have a talk. We’ll leave you to catch up for a bit, then we can all…’ She had a deep tote bag into which she delved and brought out a packet of Hobnobs. ‘Have you got a plate, Dan?’

  He opened doors, clanked about. A plate appeared on the table and Madeleine offloaded a mound of biscuits from the packet. ‘There,’ she said. I looked at Dan. His eyes were bleak and old and angry. They left us somehow, closed the door softly.

  ‘They called me,’ she said eventually. ‘It was kind of a relief. I knew you were off the grid, of course. I got a call from Marion.’

  Which one was Marion? Those people. Always calling. Strangers, sizing me up, part of their working day. Kindly, unwanted, troublesome. All on first name terms with me though I could never remember theirs.

  ‘Have I broken the law?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, you tell me, Mother.’

  ‘I don’t think I have.’

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘this is just trouble for an awful lot of people.’

  I’d forgotten how pointless it always was to talk to her.

  ‘All these good people having to run round after you.’

  ‘They don’t have to,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, come on! You know they do. This is the real world, Mother.’

  I couldn’t look at her enough but it would never work, she and I just couldn’t cope with one another. There was a time she wouldn’t bring her friends home because of me. Before she left. And she blamed me, she always blamed me for what happened. It must have been horrible for her.

  ‘I don’t know what to do about you any more,’ she said, ‘you’re getting older now, you can’t just carry on…’

  ‘You don’t have to do anything.’

  ‘I do. They ring me up. They hassle.’

  ‘Well, I don’t ask them to.’

  ‘But they do.’

  ‘Fuck ’em,’ I said.

  That didn’t help at all. She took a long drink of her tea and put her mug down with a bang. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘now’s the time to get sensible.’

  I picked up a biscuit and thought about taking a bite. I can’t eat. I keep trying but everything tastes bad. I put it back on the plate. I didn’t know what to do and my throat felt as if it was going to cry. So I stood up without drinking any of my tea, and went round the table because all I wanted to do was give her a hug, I just wanted to touch her and get an echo of the way it used to be, years and years and years ago when I’d put her to bed and give her a cuddle. But she wasn’t having any of it.

  ‘No!’ she said. ‘Mum, you can’t just do that!’

  ‘OK,’ I said, ‘OK, but don’t worry. I’m going now. I’m OK. Don’t you worry,’ and I walked out.

  Her voice followed me, angry and hard: ‘Don’t just walk off like that! That’s just typical!’

  The back door was open. Through the sitting room door I saw Madeleine sitting by the ashy fireplace, turning the pages of a notebook. I’m notes. I’m words. On a page. My head’s light. I used to feel like that before I fainted. I fainted a lot when I was a child. That’s just another of the things written down. Quite a little story. That’s funny, I haven’t fainted for years, and it was once so common. Where did that go? All those funny head things. I’d say to someone, some friend at school, ‘Do you ever get that thing like when your head feels as if it’s…’ and then I’d try to explain the ineffable, and they’d say, ‘No. I’ve never had anything like that.’

  Out the back door. Dan was standing smoking in the yard in the after-rain, two cats at his feet, looking up at him as if expecting something. No one followed me.

  ‘I’m going,’ I said.

  He took the cigarette out of his mouth and nodded.

  No one followed.

  34

  He thought they’d never leave. Sat there yakking away at his table for at least another hour and decided nothing.

  ‘Basically,’ said Madeleine in the end, ‘we can’t drag her kicking and screaming out of there as long as she doesn’t cause trouble. I’m inclined to just send a report to her last social worker or whoever, tell them where she is and leave them to it for now. We can keep in touch. Keep an eye on things. You’ll let us know, won’t you, Dan, if you notice anything…’

  ‘Sure.’ Oh great, he thought, dump it all back on me then. ‘So what about winter?’ he asked.

  Madeleine looked at her watch as if that would tell her how long they had before it got really cold. ‘I think we have a little leeway,’ she said.

  ‘One thing I have to make clear.’ Harriet was up, buttoning her jacket over her large breasts and faffing about with her scarf. ‘She can’t come and live with me. It just isn’t viable. This is about the worst possible time for this—’

  ‘Fuck sake,’ he said, suddenly sick of it all, ‘I wish I’d never said anything at all. Just leave her there, for God’s sake. Tough old bat, just leave her.’

  They both looked at him, surprised. He started picking up the half-empty mugs from the table and sticking them in the sink. Fuck off, his back said.

  ‘OK, so…’

  Madeleine said they’d be in touch but it didn’t look like there was really very much they could do for the moment. ‘Let’s wait and see,’ she said. ‘She may move on, or go back. Anything could happen.’

  So they mumbled themselves out of the back door and into their separate cars and thank God were gone.

  *

  It was late afternoon. He was hungry and the cupboard was bare. He went down to the pub and had a ham sandwich with crisps and a couple of pints, then went home and tried to feel normal again, but it was all just a mess in his head. He put on music in the kitchen, bang bang bang sadness and pining. Turned it off. TV. Whisky. Sm
oke. Light a fire, though it’s not really cold. Nice evening. Stood at the back door, the night bright with a moon coming up over the trees. The owls were beginning to call. One deep in the wood, one closer. Fuck it, he thought, leaving the back door open and heading off through the little side gate into the wood, the bottle swinging from his hand. He swigged from the neck as he walked. He’d forgotten the torch but it was light enough to see and he wasn’t thinking ahead.

  She was in but she was packing up her things. The canvas was up, and the Tilley lamp hung from a branch just outside the doorway. She’d rolled up the old red and brown rug and was stuffing a scruffy old backpack with clothes.

  ‘What’ll you do?’ he asked, crouching awkwardly.

  ‘I don’t know. Pack up first. Set off.’ She looked at the bottle and laughed. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I got one too.’

  He held his up, settling on the floor. ‘I’ve got more.’

  ‘I know what I’m not going to do,’ she said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’m not going back to that place in Crawley.’ She laughed, and told him again all about that road and said, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to do that, to live with BetFred and squashed food and a triple-layered concrete car park where pale youths drove cars too fast round and round and round. And to find there, I don’t know, content or fulfilment or one of those things, and not always be wondering why the hell it all was, and realising nobody else felt like that.

  ‘Oh, everyone feels like that,’ he said knowledgeably.

  ‘I don’t think they do.’

  ‘Of course they do. That’s just what it’s like for everyone.’

  She went on packing for a while and he grew stiff sitting on his haunches in this little space. ‘Christ’s sake,’ he said, ‘you know you’ll get arthritis and rheumatism and sciatica and everything else too living like this.’

  ‘I know,’ she said.

  She pumped the Tilley lamp and it glowed a bit brighter. The drink slid down and down, warm and freeing. And the night grew dark outside, and the ghost of a possibility failed to manifest. It wasn’t on. No no no. Come off it, I couldn’t let anyone see my stomach now. Sod all that pride in what you are crap, no one’s ever getting a look at my stomach from now on, not unless it’s a doctor and absolutely necessary. Not for me. Not for you. Not even in the dark. Men don’t care as much. Maybe in the dark. And the well is dry. I’ve reached some place, she thought, where I can see things whole, the young boy in the gross old man, the baby in the waste-of-space, the bullied in the brute. This man in his awful bathos, this morphed clay thing blooped out of soft-eyed youth. My flabby belly, his paunch. Never going to happen.