The Trees

by Ali Shaw

  Michelle wiped her eyes.

  He ran a hand back through what remained of his hair. ‘Michelle, I . . . I took and took from you, I know. I owe you so much more than I can ever offer back.’

  ‘It was given. All of it was. It never had a price.’

  He pursed his lips. Stared at the knot in the timber.

  Michelle took a deep breath and held it in for a moment, then nodded and exhaled and said, ‘I don’t think I love you any more, either. I don’t think either of us loves the other. But I still wish you could be happy.’

  All of a sudden Adrien longed with all his heart for those honeymoon days on the Côte de Granit Rose, or their earliest weeks when he’d lied to her night after night about art. Things had seemed more open, then. There had been time in their future, and he supposed he had expected time to smooth over the cracks in himself. Now he felt a kind of postponed grief, as if he had heard certain news of the demise of some long-lost friend, the hope for whom had slowly dwindled over the years.

  ‘I suppose,’ said Michelle, after a pause, ‘I still just can’t understand why, if it wasn’t to save our marriage, you came all this way.’

  ‘I think I was made to,’ said Adrien, although he knew that wouldn’t satisfy her. He had never been able to explain that he was not like her or Roland. He could not just decide on a thing and impose it. Life imposed itself on him, and he did what he could to accept it. And so he had come here.

  ‘By who?’ Michelle asked. ‘Those people outside?’

  He would have done his best to answer, had he not just then seen the wolf spider once again, crouched on the floor not far from Michelle’s feet. It was facing the two of them, watching them. The world looked different, Adrien knew, when you had eight eyes on the top of your head. He shivered and touched his scalp, finding for once his thinning hair and bald spot reassuring.

  ‘There’s something you haven’t told me, isn’t there?’ Michelle asked. ‘Something on your mind.’

  He waved a hand dismissively. ‘Now really isn’t the time to go into it.’

  ‘It is. It’s important. I can see that.’

  For a moment he thought about blurting it all out, the story of the whisperers and the throne tree and Gweneth on the beach and the man in the pharmacy and the creature that had spun his mind full of things he kept remembering.

  ‘Something for another day,’ he said.

  Michelle stood up. ‘I don’t know whether there’s going to be another day for us.’

  Adrien stood up too. ‘Is . . . is this it, then?’

  She shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘So how . . . how do we end it?’

  Her voice was fraying at the edges. ‘We try to remember the best bits,’ she said. Then she wiped her eyes and departed the hall in a stumbling hurry.

  Adrien opened his mouth to call after her, but no sound would come. He heard Michelle gasp for breath as she exited the room, as if she had just pulled herself clear of a freezing lake. For a few long minutes he remained as motionless as the wolf spider still crouched on the floor. Then he took a step and the spider rippled away. He drifted towards the exit his wife had taken, and his fingers brushed against the doorframe as he took it. Adrien wished there was something, anything, he could do to serve Michelle better than this. He felt like he had stolen a chunk of her life, one of the best parts of it, and tossed it to the dogs.

  He stepped outside into the drab open space of the valley, and saw his friends and fellow travellers waiting for him just ahead. Hiroko had her fox on her shoulder, nuzzling her hair. Seb had filled out since leaving his home in England, and his new nose made him seem years older. Hannah looked exhausted by guilt and sleeplessness but was, just like the teenagers, still full of concern for Adrien.

  His steps dragged and it seemed to take him an age to cross the mud to where his friends stood. He wondered how much longer it would take him to complete that simple favour his wife (his ex-wife, he now supposed) had asked of him. Work out what you really want from life.

  A lowing creak came from the distant forest, and Adrien paused and looked up at the trees atop the valley’s slopes. The sound could have been a braying stag, or that of falling timber, but he suspected it was nothing so ordinary. A flock of crows took nervous flight from out of the canopy, and were a black scatter rising through a murky sky.

  He had a feeling that the woods had not yet finished with him.

  6

  Forest Law

  Hannah knew things had not gone well when she and the teenagers watched Michelle leave the building, crying and alone. Michelle looked in their direction for a moment as she departed, and Hannah’s heart went out to her. She had not expected to like Adrien’s wife, for in all of his anecdotes she had sounded too beautiful and strong, too perfect to be somebody to care about. But here she was looking as lost as Hannah herself had done on the slopes above Zach’s lodge.

  After Michelle had hurried away, Hannah braced herself and waited for Adrien. She resolved that she would take him away from this lifeless valley as soon as possible. She would lead him miles and miles from Leonard, and there gladly do whatever it took to support him in moving on with his life.

  When Adrien finally stepped out of the building, he looked as if he hadn’t slept in months. He dragged himself the short distance to where they stood, pausing once to glance towards the woods, then looked so unbalanced that Hannah darted forward and grabbed him. He stood like that for a while, eyes on the dirt, before he spoke.

  ‘I suppose you can tell how that ended,’ he said.

  After another silence, Hiroko was the first to respond. ‘What a bitch.’

  Adrien frowned. ‘No, Hiroko. Please don’t call her that. I don’t think things could have turned out any other way.’

  ‘But what did she say to you?’ asked Seb. ‘Is she really with Roland?’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  Hannah shook her head. ‘That bastard Leonard must have known all along.’

  ‘She isn’t happy, though,’ said Adrien, rubbing his eyes. ‘Things certainly aren’t perfect.’

  ‘So what now?’ asked Seb, sounding almost as defeated as Adrien. ‘Is this really what we’ve come all this way for?’

  They all waited for Adrien’s response, but he didn’t look up from the floor. In the mud there were bits of trampled litter. There was a ring pull. There were flattened cardboard boxes that might have been laid as a path before the dirt had subsumed them.

  ‘She isn’t happy,’ said Adrien again.

  ‘If she’s chosen Roland,’ said Hiroko, ‘then her happiness is none of your concern.’

  ‘But I owe her . . .’

  Hiroko folded her arms. ‘Owe her what?’

  ‘Happiness. I’m the reason she doesn’t have it. I want to be the reason she gets it back. And that’s why . . . I’m going to stay here until I’ve figured it out.’

  Hannah sighed, and thought of Leonard and his Alsatian patrolling the valley.

  ‘Is it too early,’ began Adrien, ‘to ask what you three plan to do?’

  Hannah looked at Seb and Hiroko, and they both nodded.

  ‘Stay with you,’ said Hannah, ‘until you’ve done whatever it is you need to do.’

  Hannah had to wait in a kind of queue to speak to Roland. When finally she received her audience, he informed her with a great show of magnanimity that she, Adrien, Hiroko and Seb were permitted to remain in the valley for as long or as short a time as they desired. They would be entitled to a share of what he called the place’s luxur-ies, so long as they earned them by working each day for the good of the community, and so long as Adrien did not harass Michelle.

  ‘This place is big enough for two people to avoid one another,’ smiled Roland. ‘So make sure he doesn’t step on our toes.’

  To such an end, the four of them were shown to a corner of a timber shelter on the edge of the settlement. There they were told they could sleep, along with seven or eight strangers, and were offered bedding made out
of curtains, and a share of the broth being stewed in a huge tin pot over one of that night’s campfires. The morning came grey as a gull, and they were given another bowl of the evening’s broth for their breakfast, on the cold surface of which a thick skin had congealed. Then it was time to repay these luxuries with work.

  It had become natural for the teenagers to go out hunting, but Hannah had no desire to forage. In the cold first light she’d seen Leonard striding off towards the woods, his rifle over his shoulder and his Alsatian skulking at his heels. She had turned away and hoped some wolf or bear would get him, for that would be his comeuppance in any just world.

  Foraging would have been thankless work, regardless. The woodfringe had been so scorched and trampled by lumberjack teams that no good food would be found growing there. Hannah would rather take on some other job, be it building the newest shelters, joining the kitchen tent’s skivvies, salvaging on the scrapheap, or (and this was what she decided to do) helping with the livestock.

  It transpired that Michelle was the one in charge of that duty, and Hannah found her gathering eggs from the chicken coop. ‘Hey,’ she hailed her over the fence, ‘do you need any help in there?’

  Michelle turned and looked up at her with red cheeks and her hair tangled. For an unguarded moment she looked suspicious, even jealous, then she stood up straight and smiled politely. ‘Hello,’ she said, ‘I suppose I could always use another pair of hands.’

  The coop stood in the corner of a large enclosure marked out by a fence. If it had ever had grass in it, none grew now. On the far side of the field, the five sorry cattle rubbed themselves against the fence. Behind them in the mud, eight hens and a cockerel squawked and strutted about in proud contrast. The cockerel was tall with resplendent plumage, and the hens golden-feathered with bright orange beaks.

  ‘Where do you find feed for the chickens?’ asked Hannah, climbing over the fence.

  ‘We don’t. We don’t need it. Just look at the soil.’

  The enclosure was a rectangle of mud, varied only by the pats of the cows and the dust baths the chickens had rolled in the drier places. But when Hannah looked for just a moment longer at the dirt, she found it to be crawling with movement. Worm after worm, squirming to the surface, and the hens happily pecking them up as they came, clucking with pleasure as they shook them down their beaks.

  ‘I don’t think they could go hungry if they tried,’ said Michelle, putting her hands on her hips. ‘These must be the most carnivorous chickens in all of Ireland.’

  Hannah didn’t mention how unfair she thought that was. Along with the worms she could see millipedes, beetles and crawling lice, but chickens needed more than just meat to stay healthy. ‘Are you giving them any grit for their stomachs? You can even feed them their own egg shells, if you crush them.’

  ‘Really? I’d have never thought of that.’

  ‘A long time ago, I used to help keep some chickens. And cows, in fact.’

  That had been at Handel’s Wood, where they’d had more poultry but fewer cattle, and goats and a grand old pig called Ringo.

  ‘That’s going to be useful here, then,’ said Michelle, although she still sounded wary.

  Hannah thought it best to tackle the elephant in the field. ‘Is it too weird? That I’m friends with Adrien, and . . . and . . . I mean, I could go and do some other sort of work.’

  Michelle shook her head. ‘Sorry, Hannah. It is Hannah, isn’t it? I’m just being oversensitive. When I saw that you’d come all this way with Adrien, I thought that the two of you must be . . . must be . . . but he assures me you’re not. It’s just still a bit overwhelming that he’s come here at all. Especially now that he’s sulking.’

  Hannah frowned. ‘I don’t think he’s sulking. Believe me, I do know what it’s like when he does.’

  Michelle pointed across the valley. ‘Look up there.’

  On the opposite slope, made small by the distance, Adrien sat facing the woods. ‘He was supposed to be helping in the kitchen tent this morning,’ said Michelle, ‘but apparently he just wandered off and plonked himself down on that stump. Roland isn’t going to take it kindly. There’s work to be done, and no time for sitting around and moping.’

  ‘I’ll talk to him,’ said Hannah, ‘but I don’t think he’s moping, not this time. He’s been having . . . strange episodes, lately.’

  Michelle smiled sadly. ‘He’s always had strange episodes. But maybe I am being hard . . . I don’t really know whether I want to see him again.’

  Hannah wondered if she should cross the valley and try to comfort Adrien. ‘He’s got a lot on his mind,’ she said, deciding against it. ‘I think he needs some time to work things out.’

  Michelle sighed. ‘That’s what I told him. Over a year ago.’ She gestured to the chickens loping around in the dirt. ‘I always wanted to keep some of these, I thought it would be wonderful to have fresh eggs sometimes in the mornings. I’m sure you can guess what Adrien thought of that.’ She put on a grumbling voice that was a perfect impression of her husband. ‘They’ll wake me up at some godawful hour. And even if I learn to like them, then they’ll have put me off my roast dinner!’

  Hannah laughed. ‘It’s probably true that a chicken would get the better of him. He does have a habit of making himself inferior to everything.’

  Michelle laughed too, then looked sad again and folded her arms. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I keep going up and down.’

  ‘That’s understandable.’

  Michelle nodded. ‘What was it like? Coming all this way with him. Did you find a way to put up with those episodes of his?’

  ‘He did infuriate me at times, I can’t deny it. But other times just having him there was a support. I always knew he cared, that he wanted to help, even if he struggled over how to express it. Some . . . bad things happened to me along the way. I needed that help. There was . . . one thing, something I did, that other people might have shunned me for. But Adrien didn’t, and he gave me something new to head for.’

  Hannah watched Michelle’s reaction closely, wondering how she might respond should she tell her about the gunman. But she felt as if Michelle was owed honesty, and a chance to make sense of her husband’s actions, no matter what she might think about Hannah afterwards.

  ‘What was the bad thing?’ asked Michelle. ‘What did he help with?’

  Hannah took a deep breath. ‘To begin with, Seb and I were only heading to my brother’s house. We never intended to come all this way. But, when we got there . . . my brother had been shot.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. Was he . . . dead?’

  Hannah nodded briskly. ‘Yes. And so . . . and so . . . I killed the man who did it.’

  At first the words seemed to fly past Michelle’s ears. She looked puzzled, as if she had misheard them. Then she became serious. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘He ambushed Adrien in the woods near my brother’s house. Hiroko caught him and tied him up inside. I was all over the place. I didn’t want any of it to be happening. And he was taunting us . . . saying all kinds of stuff, none of which showed a drop of humanity inside. I went for a walk.’ Hannah took another deep breath. ‘Saw some things in the forest. Got angry. Stormed back to the lodge. Took up his gun. Then . . . and then . . . I don’t know what I would have done if I’d been thinking straight. Maybe I would have just done it anyway. Maybe I wouldn’t have, if he hadn’t told me that I didn’t have it in me.’

  Michelle pursed her lips. She was shifting her weight ever so slightly from foot to foot. ‘Jesus,’ she said, after a minute. ‘That’s . . . big.’

  ‘There’s a reason I’m telling you this,’ said Hannah hurriedly. ‘Believe me, I don’t enjoy talking about it. Adrien was probably already planning to head home after that, but because of what happened, I needed some sort of direction. And so he kept pretending he was brave enough to come here, for my sake. To give me some sort of purpose.’

  ‘Me?’ asked Michelle. ‘He gave you me
as your purpose?’

  ‘I suppose you could put it like that. Yes.’ Hannah chewed her lip.

  ‘You were brave, to tell me all that stuff,’ said Michelle eventually. ‘It can’t be easy, and you have my condolences for what happened to your brother. I’m sorry I didn’t say so right away, but it’s hard to process everything right now. I think . . . I think I can trust you. Adrien obviously does.’

  ‘That’s kind of you to say.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Michelle, turning away. ‘We have to fill the troughs up.’

  They topped up, using rainwater collected in buckets, the animals’ troughs. Then they had to go up to the forest to gather foliage for the cows to eat. With nothing but mud in their field, they needed sacks of leaves and grasses brought down to them to chew on. It seemed to Hannah a remarkably inefficient way of doing things. ‘Why don’t you just bring them up here to the woods and let them graze?’

  ‘To tell you the truth,’ said Michelle, ‘no one here knows very much about keeping cattle. So Roland is worried they’ll escape. Wouldn’t you, if you were faced with a choice between a square of mud and all the leaves you’d ever wanted?’

  Yes, thought Hannah, if I didn’t have a friend here who needed my help. She smiled, and tried to sound as friendly as possible. She didn’t want Michelle to think her too pushy. ‘With all due respect to Roland . . . the problem is that the cows can see the trees from where they’re standing. They’re pining for them. If they had bigger brains they’d realise that they’re strong enough to smash the fence down and escape, but they’re not that bright. They’ll settle for rubbing their bodies against it all day long.’

  ‘I know . . . I know, it’s sad to see. But we still do our best for them. Even if gathering the leaves ourselves isn’t exactly labour-efficient. The cows are well looked after, I promise.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt about it. I wasn’t criticising you for it. I just meant that they’re weakening the fence.’

  ‘Well, if they weaken it too much we’ll repair it.’

  ‘They only have to weaken it a little. I can see places where they already have.’