Kate looked at her blankly. “Why on earth wouldn’t we be? We saved you some dinner, did you want some? And is there a reason you’re barricading us inside?”
“We, um - ” Davey had no idea how to begin.
“Don’t shut Tom and Isaac out, though, will you? Oh, there you are. Priss and Davey are sealing off the exits. I almost don’t want to ask what’s going on. It’s bound to be a disappointment.”
“We n-n-n-n-need to tell you something,” said Davey.
“What’s the matter?”
“We, we saw a, a p-p-p - ” Davey hit the table in frustration. “Sorry, sorry we saw a p-p-p - ”
“It’s okay,” said Kate, warm and reassuring. “Deep breath.”
“Oh, for fuch’s sake,” said Priss wearily. “He’s trying to tell you we saw a panther in the woods.”
Davey was appalled by Kate’s reaction. The colour drained out of her face, turning it milky white, then grey. She swayed on her feet and put out a helpless hand into space. Tom led her to a chair. She smiled gratefully at him, but her eyes were wild with shock.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. “No, no, no, it can’t be. Isaac, it can’t be, can it?”
Isaac came to sit opposite her at the table. After a minute, he took her hand and held it.
“It must be a mistake,” she whispered. “It can’t be. How long do they live, anyway?” she shivered. “And what is there for a panther to eat?”
“Well, there’s us, for a start,” said Priss. Tom frowned and shook his head. “What? I’m just saying.”
Davey remembered the sheep’s skull he had found. The animal he had seen in the enclosure was sleek and well-fed, gleaming like polished jet. It could roam for miles across the open moors; it could easily take a sheep, perhaps even a cow. The omnipresent rabbits as a little amuse-bouche, perhaps? The occasional unwary walker, dreamy or drunk or both, stumbling across the grass.
“Are you sure that’s what it was?” Kate asked. “Oh, Priss, I’m sorry, but - there’s no way it could have been a cat, or something?”
Priss snorted. “If I ever meet a cat that size,” she said with feeling, “I’ll give up cursing and join a fuchin’ nunnery.”
Kate buried her face in her hands.
Evening melted into night. Rainclouds came scudding in across the moors and drenched the garden in dampness. By unspoken consent, they huddled gratefully in the library. Priss chewed furiously on the end of a pen. As Davey watched her, she bit right through the end and spilled ink out onto her tongue. She spat into her hand and swore, then wiped it on her jeans. Kate grimaced, reached into her sleeve and passed her a tissue. Unexpectedly, Davey felt his heart contract with longing for his mother. He really ought to write, properly this time. Let her know he was alright, tell her he was sorry.
The rain rattled against the window, and he felt the cold deep in his bones. The light that morning had begun to take on that slanted, smoky quality he associated with autumn and bonfires.
What would this house be like in the winter?
Tom, Kate and Isaac were conducting a low, eloquent argument that grew gradually louder. Priss scooched herself along the steps and leant against him.
“I’m freezing,” she told him. She picked up his arm and draped it across her shoulders, then snuggled into his armpit. “That’s better. Why are men always warmer than women?”
Every inch of Davey’s skin tingled. He didn’t dare move. “It’s going to be really cold here in winter,” he said, and swallowed. His voice sounded unnaturally loud. Was it okay to kiss someone with other people in the room? Was it expected? What if he did it wrong? Please God don’t let him start sweating, she was right under his arm -
“It’ll be fuckin’ awful,” said Priss gloomily. “If we’re both still here we should bunk up together.”
Davey’s palms were damp. He was older than her, she’d expect him to be experienced. D-d-d-Davey, never had a g-g-g-girlfriend -
“Hey, no need to panic, soft lad.” Priss sounded amused. “I wasn’t asking you to shag me. Just keep me warm.”
“Um - ”
On the other side of the hearth, the argument was growing louder and angrier.
“I’m not letting you,” said Kate. She was standing up now, her brown eyes flashing in the firelight. “Do you hear me, Isaac? We’ve got to think of - well, of everyone.”
Isaac was on his feet too, inches away from Kate. His back was to Davey and Priss, but they could see his anger in his shoulders and fists. Davey wondered if Isaac was going to hit Kate, but she didn’t seem intimidated.
“This isn’t helping,” said Tom. He wasn’t shouting, but his voice drowned out every other sound in the room, and brought Kate to a stuttering halt. “Isaac, Kate’s sorry.”
“Don’t you dare try and speak for me.”
“I know we’re all angry,” said Tom, although he sounded almost unnaturally calm, “but that’s because we’re scared. Well, that’s reasonable. But we can’t start tearing into each other. We can’t afford that. Okay? None of us can.”
Kate and Isaac were glaring at Tom. He looked back at them, totally unafraid. After a minute, they nodded wearily and sat back down.
“Is he going to make them do a group hug, do you think?” Priss whispered.
“Okay.” Tom sighed. “Priss, Davey, come over here, you need to be part of this too. What are we going to do? Are there any guns here, do you know?”
“You’re going to shoot it?” Davey was appalled.
“We can’t leave it hanging around,” said Tom.
“But - do you, um, know how to use a gun?”
Isaac cleared his throat, and passed Tom a small slip of paper. It showed a stick-man standing beneath a tree. On the branch above, a panther lay waiting to pounce.
“He’s got a point,” said Kate. “You can’t go yomping off into the woods like Davey Crockett, Tom. You’d be, oh God, you’d be on its territory. It’d know you were there long before you saw it.”
They stared at each other in gloomy silence.
“Maybe it’s just passing through,” said Tom.
Priss looked sceptical. “It was poking around that enclosure like it was right at home.” She was watching Kate as she spoke. “You know, like maybe it had lived here before or something.”
“You said.” Kate stroked Priss’ hair. “You must have both been terrified.”
“Do you think it might have lived here before?” asked Priss. She wasn’t resisting Kate’s caress, but she wasn’t relaxing into it either.
“I’m not sure that matters, Priss,” said Tom. “The point is, what are we going to do?”
We could call someone. The words hovered on the end of Davey’s tongue. Normal people would close the doors, alert the neighbours and phone the police. If they were brave, or possibly stupid, they would creep out to try and get photos, maybe even a video clip. Perhaps they would leave a joint of meat on the lawn to entice the creature closer. Perhaps they might call the press and wait for the junior reporter, eager and cynical, trailing a soundman and camera operator. In no sane, normal universe would the occupants of this house huddle inside and wonder whether they had access to firearms, and if they had a realistic chance of creeping up on a large predator and shooting it dead before it dropped down from a branch and broke their neck with its powerful jaws.
Davey knew how desperately he himself wanted to stay hidden. It simply hadn’t occurred to him until now how desperate everyone else was to stay hidden too.
“Have we even got any guns?” asked Priss.
“What?” Kate looked at her blankly.
“Have we got any?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Even by the kindly firelight, Kate looked tired. Davey could see the deep lines around her eyes, the beginnings of tiny vertical pleats around her mouth. This was how she would look when she was old and papery.
“So can we, like, build a trap or something?”
“And then what?”
“I don’
t know.” Priss was prowling around the floor. “Drop a rock on its head.”
“Were you always this violent?” asked Kate, with a faint smile.
“Someone’s got to be.”
“Could we take it somewhere and release it?” suggested Davey.
Priss snorted. “In what? We haven’t got a truck, soft lad. Besides, it probably weighs, like, half a fuckin’ ton. And it’ll be awake. And it’ll just come straight back. My uncle took a cat twenty miles once, and three days later it was back on his doorstep like nothing ever happened.”
“Why did he take it?” asked Tom.
“It was his girlfriend’s cat and it hated him. It used to piss in his shoes and jump off the wardrobe. If we catch it, we’ll have to kill it.”
Davey winced. “I don’t think I c-c-c-could. It’s so beautiful. How could you hurt something so beautiful?”
“It’s a man-eater!”
“You don’t know that, it m-m-might not - ”
“So why the fuck were you running?”
“It’s a hunter, that’s what it’s meant to do. We’re supposed to be civilised.”
“You want to take the moral high ground with a big cat?”
“I just don’t think it’s alright to kill something just because it might want to kill you!”
“You’re a waste of carbon,” said Priss.
“Look, we can’t build a trap,” said Tom, cutting across the squabble. “No, really, Priss, we can’t. Even if we managed to catch it we’ve got no idea what we’d do with it afterwards. I know you think you could kill it, but we’re not taking the chance. Okay? Okay.”
“Sorry,” muttered Priss, looking ashamed.
Tom smiled. “That’s alright. We’re used to you. But thank you.”
“So what are we going to do?” asked Kate. She stood up cautiously, as if her bones ached.
“Shall I make a cup of tea?” suggested Davey.
“Oh, that’ll fix everything,” said Priss. “Okay, I’m sorry, I’m just wound up - ”
“That sounds lovely,” said Kate, and took Davey’s hand as he passed her. Her fingers felt very cold. He held her hand tightly for a minute to try and warm it up. When he turned away to go to the kitchen, he found Isaac was watching him.
chapter ten (then)
Davey had always been aware of the dramatic fissure in his mother’s life. Photos of her in her early twenties showed a complete stranger. The woman in the photographs had long hair, changed jobs every six months, laughed, smoked, got stoned, drank herself stupid then danced herself sober. His mother wore her hair short and sleek, ate healthily, drank moderately, kept a lovely home, thought before she spoke. Loved her son fiercely. He knew she loved him. It was this knowledge that made everything else so difficult.
Most people presumed Davey’s birth had triggered her transformation. “Having Davey was the making of Helen,” her parents told their friends, still defiantly proud of their daughter and her love-child even though almost everyone who knew them presumed Davey was James’ son. Davey was possibly the only person in the world who knew that it was James who had carefully, patiently, tenderly groomed a struggling single mother into the beautiful wife he had always wanted.
He had a few vague impressions of the three years before James entered their lives (playing with saucepans on a dirty floor; staying with his grandparents; a new bedroom with a strip of peeling wallpaper that cast a frightening shadow), but his first coherent memory was the day they met.
They were in a café, having lunch and waiting for someone to arrive. Helen had explained they were going to meet someone special, but Davey was far more interested in his sausage roll. He was picking the pastry off it to get to the tender pink meat inside. Flakes of pastry littered the floor around him.
“Davey,” said Helen, patting his shoulder. “This is James. Mummy’s friend. Put that down and say hello, please.”
Davey put down the sausage roll and looked at the man. He wore a pink and white striped shirt beneath a dark grey suit. When he hung the jacket on the back of the chair, he revealed red braces, which Davey admired.
“Hi,” said the man. “I’m James.” He held out a hand. Davey looked, but there was no sweet in it.
“Hello,” he said, and went back to peeling his sausage roll.
“Doesn’t he know how to introduce himself?” James demanded.
“He’s only three,” said Helen.
“Time he learned,” said James.
Davey didn’t like the threat in his voice. He didn’t want to learn anything from this man.
“Put that sausage roll down,” said James.
Davey stuck his lip out mutinously, and continued to peel it.
“Stop it. You’re making a mess. Someone’s got to pick that up later.”
“Davey,” said Helen warningly.
Davey looked at her in surprise. This was how he always ate sausage rolls. What was the problem? “Do as he says,” she said.
Davey looked at the long, half-peeled column of pink meat clutched in his hand. He knew he should let go, but he couldn’t make his hand obey. James’ hands were coming across the table. The fingers of his left hand engulfed Davey’s wrist. The fingers of the right made a flat paddle shape. They went up into the air. Then they came down in a sharp smack on the back of Davey’s hand.
“Put it down,” said James.
Davey stared at James in hurt and disbelief. A grown-up had hit him. Hitting was wrong. His mother said it, his grandmother said it, Mrs Milligan at playgroup said it. Hitting was wrong. As he remembered this, his disbelief dissolved into a slow triumph. Now his mother would tell the man off. He waited expectantly.
“You should have put it down when he told you to,” she said, her voice crisp and severe.
Davey felt dizzy.
“And pick up those bits off the floor as well,” said James, pressing home his advantage. “Go on. Get down.”
Davey glanced at his mother, certain that this time, she would defend him.
“Do as you’re told,” she said.
And when Davey began to protest, his voice high and panicked, tears spilling over his cheeks, James took him by the arm, lifted him off the chair and dropped him on the floor.
“Do what your mother told you,” he said.
Davey glanced wildly around the café. The few grown-ups watching were nodding approvingly, telling James that he was doing the right thing, making the little boy clean up the mess he’d made, teaching him some manners.
Sobbing, Davey picked up shards of pastry and piled them onto his plate.
“Now sit down and eat the rest like a civilised person,” said James.
His voice was cold and reasonable, but for a moment they made eye contact, and Davey understood that this man – James – was enjoying this, that he was taking a great and horrible pleasure in forcing Davey to do his will. He was too young to know the word bully, but when he was older, he would look back on this incident and understand. He’d been hungry when he arrived at the café, but now he felt sick. He noticed that James and his mother were holding hands.
He spent the rest of the meal ingeniously peeling off minute quantities of the sausage-meat and concealing them in the paper napkin, praying his mother would come to her senses and never, ever see this man again.
“I’ve got something exciting to tell you,” his mother said a few weeks later. She took him onto her lap and put her left hand on his knee. She was wearing a new ring, a blue-black stone flanked by two more stones like chunks of glass. Her hair had changed too. It used to be fair and wavy, long enough for him to twirl around his finger at bedtime. Now it was coppery brown and hung in a tidy, polished bell-shape just below her ears. He put his finger on the ring. It felt hard and sharp.
“James and I are getting married,” she told him.
James had been his mother’s boss. This, like Davey’s illegitimacy, was another inconvenient fact that his grandparents continued to take out of the closet long after its rele
vance had passed away. James himself liked to joke that he’d first seen Helen crawling out from beneath his desk, where she’d frantically been mopping up the coffee she’d just spilled. “I came back from a meeting,” he said, “gasping for a coffee, and instead I found this daft wench with a handful of paper towels and my favourite mug in two pieces.” A pause. “Fortunately she was a gorgeous daft wench.”
James was seventeen years older than Helen, something Davey didn’t realise until he was much older. All grownups looked roughly the same age to him, and besides, James kept himself in shape, working hard at the gym and choosing clothes designed for young, sharp-dressing men. James was also unable to have children of his own. This was something he’d never officially been told, but had slowly absorbed over years of overheard fragments of conversations.
More than once, people said how fortunate it was that Helen already had a child when she and James met. “He’s adopted him as his own,” his grandmother told a friend. “And there’s not many men would do that.” The friend made approving noises. “And he’s paying for Davey to be privately educated.” This said with a strange, pursed-lipped expression, the words escaping around the edges.
“Well,” said the friend. “That’s a very generous gesture.”
“James likes to spend money on the best.” Her tone conveyed both admiration and disapproval.
Davey resisted school with all the force in his seven year old soul. How could anyone not come home at night and sleep in their own bed, in their own house, with their own family? But apparently it was not only possible, but desirable, to spend four nights out of seven in a strange building with only other boys and teachers for company.
He begged his mother not to send him away. She insisted it was for the best. He told her he would die without her. She told him not to be ridiculous; he was a big boy and would have a lovely time. He cried and cried, provoking James to exasperation and finally fury.
The blow had seemed to come literally from nowhere, knocking him across the room and against the wall without any visible sign that James had delivered it. Davey, dazed and bleeding from a hard landing against an antique desk, thought for a moment he’d been the victim of an earthquake. He could only reconstruct the event from its aftermath, from his own injuries, and the bruises on James’ knuckles. The sight of his stepson’s blood on the carpet provoked an even greater rage. Davey was called an ungrateful little shit and banished to his room, before James did something he regretted. His mother came a few minutes later, bringing water and plasters.
The Summer We All Ran Away Page 14