The Trees

by Ali Shaw

  4

  Hotel

  In the morning Leonard told them that, if they put on a good march, they would be at the hotel by late afternoon the next day. They did their best to match his pace, under swaying giants already turned to their brownest colours, and through other patches of the forest that were even further ahead with their changing. Stretches of orange and burgundy rustled overhead and underfoot, and when Adrien caught a falling leaf it felt as dry as snakeskin. He turned it over in his hand and, for a confused moment, could remember having skin as papery as the leaf’s.

  They ate lunch beside a small pond, whose water was opaque and lifeless and whose surface was stickered with faded lilypads, then pressed on. In some rare places, green islets remained among the trees, while in others winter’s bareness had arrived early, punching gaps in the foliage through which the sky looked murky and near. What leaves were yet to fall rubbed together like cold palms, and reminded Adrien of the frosts and snows to come.

  ‘Stop,’ said Leonard, and whistled his dog to a halt. They all obeyed his command, and Adrien held his breath and waited to find out what had stopped the big man in his tracks.

  ‘All of you should look at this,’ he said, striding forward and squatting down to point to something in the leaf litter. They gathered around expectantly, Adrien preparing to see something horrible, some human bone or piece of meat that had tickled Leonard’s fancy.

  ‘Hang on a minute . . .’ said Hannah, crouching opposite Leonard and staring at the same thing he was.

  ‘It looks like a pinkgill,’ said Leonard, stroking his beard, ‘but I don’t think I’ve ever . . .’

  ‘Seen one quite like this,’ said Hannah. ‘Me neither. Not first-hand, at least.’

  ‘I’m right, then. This is a rare one.’

  ‘Zach,’ began Hannah, eyes still locked on what they’d found, ‘took me on holiday to France. A long time ago, before Seb was born. The rare ones were what we went looking for. There are some so scarce they haven’t even got names.’

  ‘This is one of those,’ said Leonard. ‘I’m certain of it.’

  It was a mushroom, a single slender stalk with a blue-grey cap. There was nothing flamboyant about it, but there was something enchanting about its colour. It was the hue of a still pool at dusk, or a bluebell fading into mist. As if on the same sudden impulse, both Hannah and Leonard reached out to touch it. Then, each seeing the other’s hand moving, they drew their own back.

  ‘After you,’ said Leonard.

  Hannah carefully tilted the mushroom to see its underside. The gills were pronounced, their shadows a deeper tint of that alluring blue, but the spores that speckled the ground in its shade were a fine and dusty pink.

  ‘I know it sounds crazy,’ said Hannah, ‘after everything that’s happened. But I’m actually kind of stunned to see this.’

  She and Leonard looked up at each other and simultaneously beamed with childish glee. Then Hannah’s face fell, and she folded her arms.

  Now it was Leonard’s turn to touch the mushroom. He moved it from side to side between finger and thumb. ‘Do you want to pick it, or can I?’

  Hannah’s intake of breath was so loud it made Adrien jump. ‘You’re not serious.’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  ‘We just agreed . . . this is so rare it doesn’t even have a name.’

  ‘Doesn’t that make you all the more tempted?’

  ‘To pick it? No!’

  He watched her for a moment. ‘It’s a mushroom. It will be gone by itself in no time’

  ‘No reason to hurry it along.’

  ‘You must have picked a thousand mushrooms in your life.’

  Hannah shrugged tightly.

  ‘I get it,’ said Leonard, lowering his voice. ‘You’re the only one who gets to decide. If you say it’s special, we all have to agree or be damned. It’s just like with that big dumb animal I shot. But you should try taking something as a trophy some time.’

  Hannah looked too red-hot with anger to respond, so Leonard only laughed and reached to pick the mushroom.

  There was the sound of rubber straining.

  ‘Don’t touch it,’ said Hiroko, aiming her slingshot at Leonard.

  The big man’s face darkened. A growl began in his Alsatian’s throat. ‘Or what? You’re going to shoot me? Over a mushroom?’ He jostled the rifle on his shoulder. ‘I’m not exactly outgunned.’

  ‘Don’t fuck with me,’ said Hiroko.

  Leonard smiled sweetly at her, and the Alsatian squared off and stared with hungry eyes. ‘Don’t fuck with me,’ he said, and made again to pick.

  The stone struck his hand and he leapt back with a howl. A red mark like lipstick showed on his knuckle, and he sucked it as he rounded on Hiroko. His Alsatian bounded forward eagerly, and was barking at once, and Yasuo hissed back from Hiroko’s hood.

  ‘You little bitch!’ roared Leonard. ‘How dare you?’

  Hiroko stood her ground, another stone readied in an instant. ‘I can hurt you a lot more if I actually try.’

  With a growl, Leonard pulled his dog to heel. He shook his hand as if the pain were drops of water. ‘Enough!’ he spat, and turned away, leaving the pretty blue mushroom untouched behind him.

  The next day, just as the afternoon was stretching thin and it looked as if they might need to make one more night’s camp before arriving at the hotel, Leonard’s Alsatian rushed off ahead of them, barking as it ran. The big man smiled and led them up a hill, but it was not long before the forest floor plateaued out in front of them. A minute later, the ground dropped away again, and then they stepped out of the woods.

  They stood looking down into a broad-bottomed valley. They could see all the way across to its far slopes, because almost all of the trees that had grown in it had been felled.

  Leonard spread his arms. ‘You’ve arrived,’ he proclaimed. ‘Down there is the Caisleán Hotel.’

  Adrien held his breath. After the claustrophobia of the woods, the deforested land seemed as wide open as a desert. The earth was stump-stubbled and scorched black by burnings. Weeds grew here and there, but they were bedraggled explorers lost in an expanse. A shrill wind dashed up and down the slopes, and high up in the exposed sky, trails of cloud hurried east to west.

  ‘Is that really it?’ asked Adrien at last.

  At the bottom of the valley stood the Caisleán Hotel. Once upon a time, it must have been as imposing as a French chateau, but now, like every building they had seen on their journey, it had been demolished by trees. Despite that, it was the greenest thing in the valley. The trees that had destroyed it were the only ones that had not been chopped down, and that was no doubt because their trunks had fused with the building itself. Their crowns were entwined with the chimney stacks and eaves, and with the decorative turrets they had snapped from the roof. Their branches wove in and out of the walls and the dainty ornamented balconies. They held up the remains of windows to the light, and the glass shone like gold foil.

  ‘We don’t know what to do with the place,’ said Leonard. ‘One of these days, it will all just fall down.’

  Even as he spoke, a handful of bricks came loose from one wall of the hotel and showered to the ground, trailing dust.

  ‘Like I said,’ continued Leonard, ‘no five-star bedrooms for you.’ He pointed to a different part of the valley bottom, one at a safe distance from the hotel. ‘That little shithole is the place where we’re heading.’

  It was a settlement of sorts, thirty or forty crude shelters constructed along a grid of muddy tracks. Mud, in fact, floored the entirety of the valley and glistened in the sunlight.

  ‘Wow,’ said Seb, puffing out his cheeks. ‘You’ve turned this whole valley into a wasteland.’

  ‘Disappointed?’ chuckled Leonard, as he led them downhill towards the settlement. ‘I told you not to get your hopes up.’

  Adrien kept silent as they followed, wondering what lay in wait for him ahead. He had hoped, in the early days of their journey, tha
t somehow the very act of travelling might solve him, and that he would arrive a new proposition, a better man than the one Michelle had left grouchy on the sofa that morning. He had hoped to learn to live in the woods as had Zach, to grow strong and carry an axe like some hero forester in a fairy story. He had hoped to become charismatic like Eoin, to spellbind his many admirers with tales of his derring-do. He would have liked to learn some predatory toughness from Hiroko, or to have faith in things like Hannah did. He would have settled, even, for some of Seb’s level-headed perceptiveness, but the truth was that he was the same tormented Adrien Thomas that he’d been when he’d left his house in England.

  The charred slopes crunched underfoot like a beach, releasing smells of ash and tar and the burned sugars of incinerated resin. Further downhill the mud began, swamping the stumps in brown. Occasionally some grimy and bedraggled weed raised a flag of green above the filth, but more commonly the only other colour was of flesh, for there were earthworms aplenty dragging themselves about on the slopes. For an ugly moment Adrien could recall being stretched and oozing, and having no sight and craving the best leaves, dragging them below ground along with himself to massage his body between papery sheets.

  He shuddered, and hoped his mind was not bound for the same fate as that of the man they had found in the pharmacy.

  Already they were close enough to see some thirty or forty people busying themselves around the settlement, and the shelters looked like they could house at least twice that many. Heaps of logs were everywhere, the surplus from chopping down so many trees. Some had been cut into a heavy-set fence, used to demarcate a field of sorts, although that was even muddier than the ground surrounding it. Five emaciated cattle stood in the enclosure, their snouts smattered with mud and their ribs pronounced along their flanks. Chickens roamed around their hooves, beaks plunging in and out of the dirt. At the scent of them, Yasuo sat up with a purr, and almost immediately Leonard’s Alsatian reappeared, bounding towards them with its ears back and its tongue flapping out of its jaws. Hiroko held her fox tight, and whisked him safely into the hood of her top.

  They reached the first of the shelters and stepped on to a path of planks that had been laid between them, this too sticky with mud. Still they followed it, turning past a wide yard full of scrap. Every conceivable detritus had been heaped up there: pieces of car, pieces of engine, posts and plinths and gutters, chairs, tables, microwaves and fridge-freezers. A team of people were dragging even more salvage down from the woods, to dump it on a mountainous pile. Other folk crawled over this with spanners, pliers or simple crowbars made from branches, dismantling it and dividing it into smaller collections of useful parts. A smell of spoiled fuel and left-over bins hung over the place, despite the wind that raced back and forth as fast as the Alsatian. Likewise a gang of children were stomping through the scrapheap, filthy and laughing, and elsewhere a trio of elderly women watched them play, nattering to each other in their frail old murmurs.

  Adrien supposed that all of them were so grateful to have left the woods that they were prepared to tolerate the lifelessness of such a place as this. He, however, could not so easily stomach it. The sheer barrenness of the valley made every tiny flash of life seem bright. Among the buildings and the paths the countless stumps lay forgotten and taken for dead, but if Adrien stooped closer and reached out a hand (he wished he had not done so, even as he did), he could see the cracks in the bark and the new growth mustering within. Despite losing their trunks, the roots would remain, and their appetites along with them. He wondered how deep they sank. He had to take off his glasses for a moment and press his wrists against his eyes, to try to silence his sudden underground thoughts. How thirsty life was, down there! He remembered forcing himself in, through the soil, and spreading out and sucking all the water into himself . . .

  Seb crouched and put his arms around him. ‘It’s okay, Adrien. I can’t imagine how nervous you must be, but just remember . . . whatever happens with Michelle, the three of us will be behind you.’

  Adrien’s tongue felt too parched to reply, but he stood up with the boy’s help. Michelle. Of course. He tried to worry solely about Michelle.

  Seb held on to him as they followed Leonard the final distance, towards the biggest of the wooden buildings. It was a sort of headquarters, with people coming and going through its several entrances. ‘This,’ announced Leonard, when they had nearly reached it, ‘is where our man in charge will be. This is where you’ll get your answers.’

  Seb let go of Adrien then, but Hannah reached out and squeezed his hand, and her fingers were as rough and warm as they’d been on the day he’d first met her. ‘Good luck,’ she said.

  Adrien nodded, sucked in all the air his lungs could carry, and went with them all into the big building.

  It was a simple structure, a long hall full of more stored timber and several huddles of people. Adrien didn’t know whether he was more relieved or upset to see no Michelle among any of them. Some gazed up with disinterest at the newcomers, but they clearly all recognised Leonard as someone to be wary of, and made sure not to be found in his path when he led Adrien and the others across the room.

  At the far end of the hall were a table and chairs that looked like they’d been rescued from the hotel, since they were incongruously antique. Sitting in the largest and finest of them, issuing instructions to those seated in the others, was a handsome man who had somehow managed to stay shaved, groomed and scrubbed. He had dark eyes, dark hair, and a bass voice that he accompanied with smiles and sweeping gestures. The expensive shirt he wore bore none of the rips and blemishes that all other clothes had suffered. Likewise his trousers were clean chinos, without grass stains or holes in the knees.

  ‘Wait for him to finish,’ Leonard whispered, holding out an arm to keep Adrien and the others at a respectful distance. The people in the smaller chairs surrounding the man nodded and listened intently, and one even noted down the things he was saying. Then the man clapped his hands and they all pushed back their chairs and stood. He shared a few brief jokes with some of them, before they each went on their way.

  Alone now, the man turned to Leonard and flashed him a brother-ly grin. He strode down from his chair and the two of them shook hands firmly, after which Leonard held high his bag of kirin meat.

  ‘Wonderful!’ exclaimed the man, rubbing his hands. ‘You always come back trumps, Leonard, but this is really excelling yourself.’

  He turned to the others, as if noticing them for the first time. His smile was bright and sweeping as a searchlight. ‘And I don’t believe we’ve met . . . You must be newcomers, and you’re all very much welcome, so long as you’re happy to chip in. Welcome, welcome, welll . . .’

  In an instant his charm and confidence staled. His lips curled.

  He had become as inert, in fact, as Adrien had been ever since he’d set eyes on him.

  ‘How on earth . . .’ said the man.

  ‘Hello, Roland,’ said Adrien.

  5

  Michelle

  ‘Adrien?’

  Nothing was ever so cruelly surprising as real life. Since arriving in Ireland, Adrien had imagined all manner of disastrous endings to their journey, many of which featured Roland prominently. Yet he had never gone so far as to picture this: Roland the king of a castle, issuing orders to his countless subjects.

  Of the two men, Roland was of course the quickest to recover his cool. ‘It is you, Adrien. Well, well, well.’

  ‘Yes . . . me,’ said Adrien, who didn’t suppose he’d had any cool to recover in the first place. He couldn’t stop staring at Roland. He had always felt a resentful sort of admiration for men like him, men who radiated such self-assuredness, but today Roland seemed doubly bright. Every stranger in the hall seemed to admire him, too. Even Leonard stood alongside him with the same satisfied air as the Alsatian did at his own side.

  Roland shook his head and laughed. ‘As tongue-tied as ever, Adrien? You’re not going to tell me what on earth you’r
e doing here?’

  Adrien opened his mouth to reply, but could not find the words to do so. He felt as if he had been pushed out in front of a class again, although this time it was full of all the bullies of his childhood, grown up tougher and surer of themselves than ever before.

  Roland raised one eyebrow. ‘Perhaps it’s obvious,’ he mused. ‘Although I fear it may have been a fool’s errand.’

  ‘They say they walked all the way from England,’ Leonard said, ‘and took a boat across the sea. But when I heard they were looking for Michelle, I thought it best to save them for you.’

  Again Roland laughed. It was a rich laugh, a fireside laugh, and as hard as a stone hearth. ‘You really came all this way to find her?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Adrien in a strangled voice.

  ‘Isn’t it a bit late for grand gestures?’

  Adrien looked down at his toes and tried not to listen to his own incredulous mind, which was leaping to agree with Roland. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘I don’t know.’

  But yes. Hadn’t it felt like a fool’s errand, right from the start? To have got here at all was such a great achievement, for someone like Adrien Thomas. He should be satisfied with that, and hold his head high, and get the hell out of here and let Roland continue whatever important business he was conducting. Could he even say, for certain, that he had come here because of Michelle? Or had he simply arrived by accident, blown here by the needs of Hannah and the others like some puffed-up carrier bag flapped by the wind?

  ‘Enough,’ announced Hiroko. ‘You tell him whether Michelle’s here or not. Stop being such an asshole about it.’

  ‘Watch out for this one,’ advised Leonard. ‘She thinks she’s bloody Tarzan.’

  The girl and her fox stepped forward and stood at Adrien’s shoulder, and no sooner had she done so than it seemed to Adrien as if the air had changed in the hall and he was able to stand up straighter. It might have been more like a sapling’s straightness than the strength of a full-grown trunk, but it was enough to look up at Roland again.