by Ali Shaw
‘I didn’t mean like that. I just meant . . . you know . . . I meant . . . that if Mother Nature had servants, what would they be? And I thought they might live in a wood like this.’
Zach mulled it over for a minute, then said, ‘There are already such things, Hannah. Right here.’
He pointed to the ground, then swept his hand away to their left, where against a tree an ants’ nest was stacked. Back and forth from it ran a trail of the tiny insects, oblivious to Hannah and Zach’s shoes in their path.
‘Ants,’ said Hannah, disappointed.
‘These and the worms,’ said Zach. ‘And the bees and the spiders and all the other bugs. Servants, just like you said.’
Those words of her brother’s had stuck with Hannah down the years, although she’d never really known why. Perhaps, like so many memories of that fortnight with her family, it had wedged in her mind because that holiday had been their last. During the December that followed, Hannah’s mother was murdered.
All these years later it was still hard to even think it. Murdered. Hannah’s mother was still the bravest and most confident woman Hannah had ever known. After spending the first half of her career rising up through the ranks of a shipping company, she had ended up well paid but dissatisfied. Never one to sit back and indulge her frustrations, she had quit her job and become an aid worker, and brought her logistical expertise to bear on delivering help wherever it was needed. That December she had been abroad, travelling with a mobile vaccination station. She was due home on the twenty-third, the day after the Yuletide concert in which Hannah’s father always played. When that concert came around, Hannah and Zach sat in the audience unaccompanied by any adult, feeling terribly grown up for doing so. They applauded the hardest in the hall when their father took his bows, for they knew how nervous he had always been about performing, and how only their mother could calm him.
The news came when they arrived home that night. The telephone was ringing when they opened the front door, and their father picked up the receiver with his bow tie undone and a smile still on his face. Then the smile faded, and faded further, and never truly reappeared.
The leaves of the brand-new forest fanned in a roving breeze. Hannah roved too, wandering through the woodland, the magic of its sudden appearance tempered only by the long distance between her and her brother. Even though she felt guilty for admitting it, she would have loved to be sharing these days with Zach instead of Seb. Zach would see the good in it and delight in being at her side, whereas her son just wanted to hide in the shell of their house. Hannah had run out of energy trying to persuade Seb of the forest’s grandeur. Even as a small boy, when she had painted his room into a jungle the envy of his peers, he had sought out only the nearest screen. On every camping trip he’d treated every hike, every firefly she’d helped him capture in a jar, every tree she’d cajoled him to climb, every wild animal she’d performed her impression of, as she might treat a night in front of the computer. He had politely pretended that he did not find it all a colossal waste of time.
She worried about him often, especially when rising waters were mentioned on the news, or the death of a species announced, or noises made about ice caps slipping into oceans. She thought of Seb leaning over his laptop, and what kind of world he was growing himself up in. And when the news brought tales of louder disasters, and to her shame Hannah found them easy to forget in her day-to-day rush, she feared a flood or a tidal wave of heart-stopping magnitude sweeping through the landscapes of Seb’s future, and him having simply no idea of how to cope.
And that was why she could not help but see some hope in the coming of the trees. They were as much a promise as they were an apocalypse, and she had the means to show Seb how to live amongst them.
Hannah had been letting her feet lead her, and in so doing had wandered into a building that until two days before had been a post office. Larches queued in it now, their crowns ruffling full of envelopes. Occasionally a letter, sparrow-brown or white as a dove, flapped free of the twigs that held it and sped off on the breeze, while beneath it on the forest floor the parcels and bubble-wrapped packages sat in flightless heaps. The tills had been smashed open, but other than that it didn’t look as if anyone had been in here since the trees came. Anyone human, that was . . .
Three portly forest hogs were nosing through the mounds of parcels to get to the soil beneath. Hannah could not help but clasp her hands and grin as she watched them, laughing ‘Pignuts!’ when she saw what they were unearthing. As if to prove her right, one hog looked up at her with a joyful squeal, and she saw white kernels mushed across its tusks.
For years now, Zach had kept pigs outside his lodge in the forest. Hannah had greedily learned all she could about them, wishing she had a way to tend her own. These three were of a smaller species than his, coloured and patterned like fat little fawns, and Hannah supposed they were escapees from someone’s private paddock, since they were nothing like large enough to be livestock. For a happy moment she entertained the notion that they were some wilder breed, restored just like the elms from a bygone era.
Holding her breath, she crept closer to the pigs, who continued to dig unheeding. Soon she was within touching distance where, resisting the urge to reach out to stroke, she crouched alongside them. A burping sow was to her left and a squealer to her right, and she joined in as they combed the soil. Her fingers passed through soft dirt already raked by the animals, until simultaneously she found a pignut in her left hand and a roll of posting tape in her right. The pignut must have been overlooked by the hogs, so she offered it to the nearest one as a thank you for letting her take part in its sport. As if there were no reason on earth to be fearful of humans, the hog grubbed it off her palm. Its damp, tickling whiskers sent a thrill shooting up her arm.
When, eventually, Hannah left the hogs and strode onward through the town, she didn’t wipe her hand clean. She let the strands of the hog’s slobber dry against her skin, thickening as they cooled, reminders of the curly-tailed friends she had made that morning. She was in no hurry, and often paused at the sound of some other animal passing through the undergrowth or shaking the branches. She called out hellos to squirrels and birds aplenty, and one time when she thought she saw something thinner passing overhead, stopped to try to see it better. After five quiet minutes there had been no further sign of it. She didn’t think she’d imagined it, although she’d also thought it had moved on two legs, and that had to have been imagination. She had the suspicion that, whatever it was, it was still up there, camouflaged and watching, but she left it to its privacy and walked on beneath evergreens and birches, limes and oaks, until she came to Bank Street, where Adrien lived.
‘Oh,’ Adrien gasped, when he answered his door. ‘Hannah, it’s you!’
He had a breadknife clenched in his fist, bags under his eyes, and was wearing a shirt creased as crepe paper, which nevertheless he had buttoned all the way up to his collar and tucked into his trousers. Hannah did her best not to laugh. ‘I’ve not come to mug you,’ she said. ‘I found your house number in the address book. Actually I’ve come to apologise.’
Adrien looked confused. ‘For what?’
‘For pissing you off yesterday. I sometimes let my enthusiasm get the better of me.’
Adrien shook his head, and laid down the knife. ‘Forget about it, honestly. I sometimes let my lack of enthusiasm get the better of me. Do come in. Please come in.’
His house was not quite as wrecked as her own, but his efforts to repair it seemed to have made matters worse. After Hannah had followed him inside, he pushed shut the door and turned the key in the lock. Again Hannah suppressed a smile, although Adrien would never have noticed it, mesmerised as he was by the contents of the paper bag she was carrying.
‘I brought you some food,’ she said, and offered it to him.
The bag was full of knobbly apples that had dropped from a tree in her garden. They were some of the best Hannah had ever tasted, with a crisp flavour like a
glass of white wine. Along with them was a piece of cake wrapped in film, which Adrien lifted out in trembling grip.
‘This is . . . this is all for me?’ he asked.
‘Of course. Actually, only the apples are from me. The cake is really from Seb.’
He stared at her for a moment as if she were playing some trick. ‘Seb baked this?’
‘Is that surprising? It’s a few days old, but it should still taste alright.’
‘No, it’s just . . .’
‘Seb’s not an obvious baker, I suppose.’ She felt a pang of pride over her son. ‘He’s actually really good at lots of things, once he gets away from the bloody Internet.’
Adrien licked his lips, and Hannah could hear his stomach growling.
‘Do you mind if I . . . ?’ he began.
Hannah grinned and nodded. Adrien tore off the film, beneath which the cake glistened with buttery moisture. He shoved it towards his mouth as if to eat the whole slice in one bite, then instead restrained himself to make it last, chewing with his eyes closed and relief wrinkling his forehead.
When he had finished (and picked every crumb off the film, and licked each finger) he selected an apple and gazed at it as if it were an orb of gold.
‘I know,’ she laughed. ‘Can you believe it?’
‘In what?’
‘These apples!’
‘Er . . . I suppose I can, yes. Why is that so strange?’ He looked at the apple with sudden distrust. ‘Wait . . . what are you saying? That these apples are . . . new?’
‘If by that you’re asking me whether the apple tree that dropped them wasn’t in my garden before yesterday, then yes, they’re new. But what’s amazing is that the trees don’t seem to know what season it is. Coming here I’ve seen some in blossom and some in fruit! I guess you can hardly blame them. They’ve not been around long enough to know any better.’
‘I think I do, actually. Do blame them. For plenty of things already. But, umm . . . thank you. For thinking of me. I suppose you’re wondering what happened to all that food I said I had?’
She shrugged. She had her suspicions.
‘Umm . . .’ he said, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘The thing is . . . urrrh . . . I sort of . . . miscalculated. Turned out I had less than I thought I had. Turned out that I, actually . . . that I lied. Sorry.’
She laughed. ‘You’ve no need to apologise. We all want to be self-sufficient.’
‘Well . . . yes, I suppose . . . I suppose that’s one way of looking at it, yes. All the same, it’s very kind of you to bring me this. Especially now that food is going to be so hard to come by.’
‘We’ve a whole forest’s worth of food to eat now. Don’t worry so much. Nature will provide.’
She was about to mention the cluster of mushrooms that had already bulged up through the cracks in Adrien’s floorboards, but he followed her glance, and the sight of them made him look queasy. ‘Well then,’ she said, ‘are you going to the police station again today?’
‘I guess so. The officer said he’d be back. Perhaps he’ll tell us what to do.’
‘Bet you he’s not going to be there.’
Adrien looked alarmed. ‘But he said he would be!’
‘He won’t. People are going to realise that they can’t use telephones or emails or anything like that to reach their loved ones. They’re going to have to go and find them. That’s what Seb and I will be doing, anyway.’
‘You . . . you’re leaving town?’ There was a forlorn tinge to his voice.
‘You’re sweet, Adrien. And yes, we’re leaving.’
‘Where for?’
‘My brother’s house. It’s something like a fortnight’s walk west of here. Zach’s a forester. He’ll have taken all this in his stride.’
Adrien nodded grimly. ‘So . . . this is goodbye, I suppose. And . . . and all the best. Although I’m sure you’ll fare far better than me. I’m quite certain I shall be eaten alive.’
She watched him for a moment. ‘Forgive me for bringing this back up, but . . . it doesn’t have to be such a disaster.’
This time Adrien didn’t bite back. He only looked grey with worry and reminded her, in doing so, of her fraught-hearted father. Perhaps that was why she felt so sorry for him.
‘Adrien, how about . . . how about I give you a field guide? I’ve got loads, and I’d only be leaving them to rot on my bookshelves. It’ll show you what you can eat and what’s poisonous.’
‘That would be very kind of you,’ Adrien said glumly. ‘Books are something I can understand.’
‘I could give it to you tonight.’
‘But you said you were leaving for your brother’s house.’
‘That’s tomorrow. Today we’ve got a few goodbyes to try to say, and bags to pack, then tonight we’re going to cook whatever food we can’t take with us. Should be quite a feast. I built a clay oven in the garden last summer and have barely had the time to use it. Somehow it’s survived, so . . . what do you say? Would you come over for dinner, to wish us on our way?’
When Adrien arrived at Hannah’s house that evening, wearing a tie along with his creased shirt, Hannah covered her mouth with the back of her hand, and bit hard on her lip to stop herself from giggling. ‘Hello,’ she said, ‘come inside. Wow! You have turned out smartly!’
‘Well, you know,’ Adrien huffed, ‘you didn’t specify a dress code. I didn’t want to look out of place. And I’m sorry I couldn’t bring you a bottle of wine or anything. I got you this instead.’
It was a tiny sapling, inexpertly dug up and replanted so that it leaned from the pot at a wonky angle. ‘I saved it,’ said Adrien, ‘from my neighbour’s garden. She . . . wasn’t going to miss it.’
‘An apple tree!’ Hannah took it from him. ‘That’s very sweet of you. Come through and I’ll show you its new big sister.’
He followed her across the remains of the ground floor, which she had enjoyed clearing of all her smashed furniture. When she looked back at him he blushed, caught in the act of loosening his collar and untucking his shirt. She suspected that he actually rather liked wearing a tie, just as her father had used to. Her father had always said that it helped him feel held together.
Seb greeted them in the back garden, and Adrien met him with a grimacing sort of smile and mumbled, ‘Thanks, uhh . . . for the cake.’
‘Glad you liked it,’ said Seb, then gestured to a picnic rug laid out on the ground. ‘Have a seat.’
Adrien hesitated, then did as he’d been asked, while over them all the giant apple tree held court, its limbs ample and wide, as if it were the true host there that evening. While Adrien settled beneath it, Hannah opened a box of matches and struck one into life. With this she lit a candle, then drifted between several glass lanterns she’d already hung from the surrounding branches. In each was another candle, soon winking with light and kindling the yellow out of the apples hanging on the tree. She stepped back and admired the effect, which befitted a warm evening that smelled of sugar and charcoal. Only when she turned back to the others did she see Adrien fidgeting and glancing from flame to flame, and Seb inspecting his knuckles, absolutely unenchanted by the lights.
‘Er . . .’ Adrien began, ‘er . . . is that safe? I mean, might not those candles cause a forest fire?’
Hannah laughed. ‘This is a temperate forest, Adrien. You could attack these trees with a flamethrower and they wouldn’t burn down. They’re full of water.’
Adrien arched his neck to look at the surrounding plant life. ‘Michelle always used to insist on having candles at dinner,’ he said. ‘I had to blow them out when she wasn’t looking.’
‘Michelle was your wife, wasn’t she?’ asked Seb, suddenly gaining some interest.
‘Still is,’ said Adrien, frowning.
‘Oh . . . sorry. Something about the way you said it made me think you two were—’
Adrien shook his head quickly. ‘Still is.’
‘Well I can promise you,’ said Hannah, ‘that there�
��ll be no raging infernos this evening. The closest thing you’ll get to that is in my cooker.’
Nearer to the house stood the clay oven Hannah had built. When she opened it, out shone a rosy glow that played across the roots and scattered leaves. From amid this heat, she removed char-cooked sweetcorn, and kebabs of aubergine and marrow, bracketed with roasted peppers and red onions.
‘We’re vegetarians,’ explained Hannah, ‘did I mention that before?’
‘Er . . . no,’ said Adrien, a carnivore’s disappointment writ large across his face. ‘But of course you are, of course. And that’s fine. Of course it is.’
Hannah allowed herself a private smile, having seen expressions such as his a thousand times before. She would let her recipes do the persuading.
Seb served up, and while they ate, Hannah kept sneaking looks at Adrien, who was evidently astounded. The molten flesh beneath the black blistered skin of the vegetables tasted too good to leave room for any talking. Adrien finished first, almost gasping for more.
‘Help yourself,’ laughed Hannah. ‘There’s no need to go hungry.’
Adrien did just that, and after he had eaten another portion as large as his first, they all reclined satisfied in the flickering light. Adrien asked what Hannah had done for a living, and she told him about the nursery, five miles south of the town, where she’d tended the contents of plots and greenhouses and helped grow bright flowers to supply to florists.
‘So that’s why you’re so at ease with all this,’ he remarked. ‘You had green fingers, all along.’
‘Maybe,’ Hannah said, ‘although I suppose I have felt, for a long time, like I’ve been . . . waiting for something. And now . . . here we are. A restart. All we have to do is make the best of it.’
Adrien looked unconvinced but, before Hannah could try to reassure him, Seb changed the subject.
‘So,’ began the boy, ‘are you going to tell us where she is?’
‘Where who is?’ asked Adrien.
‘Michelle.’
‘Oh.’ His face fell. ‘Michelle is in Ireland.’
‘Ouch. That must be tough.’