by Julia Green
Simon hears his footsteps come closer to the wall.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? Are you crazy? You could’ve killed her with that bloody gun. Or me. Is that what you wanted?’
‘It’s that mad bloke!’ Leah sobs. ‘He’s a bloody nutter! Call the police! He’s going to kill you!’ She’s getting hysterical again, crying so much Simon can hardly make out what she’s saying. He hears the words ‘pervert’ and ‘stalker’.
‘Get away from here!’ Matt says. ‘Don’t let me ever see you anywhere near here again. And lock that bloody gun up. You haven’t heard the end of this. I’m calling the police right now.’
The door bangs shut. The garden goes dark, then almost immediately the door opens again and light floods the garden. Simon hears footsteps, the slam of two car doors, the engine stuttering into life. The car moves slowly away up the track.
He must be driving her home. Or to the hospital. How badly is she hurt?
The cold and damp have seeped right through Simon’s clothes to his skin. He’s stiff and cold from lying cramped up, his arms round his body, in the narrow ditch. He lies there, straining after sounds.
Silence.
Now what? He is lying in a ditch in the dark, and just beside him is a mad man. A mad man with a gun, who for his own twisted, muddled reasons, has just taken the blame for the terrible thing Simon’s done, without saying a single word in his own defence. What the hell’s he going to do now?
What’s even worse, absolutely no one else knows that Simon is here.
27
The feet shuffle a little further away.
Simon makes himself open his eyes. Mad Ed seems to tower over him as he cowers in the ditch. He’s holding the shotgun in one hand, muzzle down. Is this it, then? The place where all this has been leading?
Perhaps if Simon looks him in the eye it will help Mad Ed see who he really is. Simon. Only a boy. Not a soldier, or an enemy sniper, or even a fox.
Mad Ed in the farmhouse kitchen. The photograph. Two young men in khaki.
Not his brother, either.
Mad Ed’s eyes look empty. Then they seem to focus for a moment, as if seeing Simon again.
I should say something, Simon thinks. Thank him, even, for taking the blame. But his mouth is dried up. He can’t do it.
Mad Ed turns away abruptly, starts shambling away towards the cliff, his feet brushing through the wet grass leaving a silver trail. The darkness and mist swallow him up.
Simon lies in the ditch, shaking all over, for a long, long time. He can hear a strange muffled whimpering sound. It takes him ages to realize it’s coming from himself.
When he’s sure it’s completely quiet, he crawls out. He’s so cold and stiff from being curled up without moving for so long he nearly keels over. He rubs his legs, feels the blood begin to flow back. When he’s eased up enough, he creeps back along the wall, up the track, and retrieves his bike from the hedge.
All the way home, mostly downhill, fast on the bike, he tries to make sense of what’s just happened. Why didn’t Mad Ed say anything, if he thought in his crazy way that Simon was his brother? And if it wasn’t like that, if he knew all along it was Simon, why would he protect him like that, and not say anything afterwards? What the hell’s going on? How come he knew Simon was there? Is he watching him all the time now? Watching his house? Watching and following.
Simon thinks again about the lost catapult and the circle of stones, when they were camping that night. The heart of stones, on the rope cliff when he and Leah were there. His camping stuff, saved from Rick and his mate. The oyster shells.
All those times Simon’s glimpsed him, just at the edge of his vision, always just moving off, away. The loner, the wild man, the headcase. And something more sinister: the madman for whom the fighting has never stopped.
And then that time at the farmhouse, when he saw something more. The muddle and the sadness, the photograph, and the wounded bird. And something else too close to himself to even think about…
He cycles on. He has to slow down; the mist is thicker here, rolling in over the fields either side of the road.
Maybe, he thinks, maybe I’ve had it all totally the wrong way round. Maybe, just maybe, he’s never been dangerous at all. What if he’s been watching out for me, trying to keep me safe all along? In his own, mad way… And the stones, the shells, were not warnings, but gifts, offerings… He stopped Rick, didn’t he?
He starts to think what will happen when the police arrive. They’ll probably wait till morning; there won’t be anyone manning the local police station till nine. And they’ll start with questions and then they’ll look for evidence, and at some point someone will realize that Leah’s leg and Matt Davies’s stone sculpture have not been shot with Mad Ed’s shotgun after all, but with an air rifle. It won’t take much to work out the difference.
It floods Simon with panic all over again. How can he possibly take the air rifle home now? It’ll do his mother in completely if all this comes out. Supposing Leah is really badly injured? He’ll have to hide it somewhere. Chuck it over the cliff. Bury it. Something.
It comes to him in a flash of inspiration. The burial chamber. It’s so deep and dark and out of the way, no one will find it there. And even if they do, they’ll think it was Mad Ed who hid it there all along. Matt Davies won’t have seen the gun in Mad Ed’s hand, behind the wall, will he? It might just as easily have been an air rifle. Months later, when all this has blown over, when everyone’s forgotten, Simon can go back and find it again and everything will be all right.
He cuts down the track he took ages ago, when he first found the Coffin Path. He leaves the bike at the stile and crosses the field on foot, then cuts across to the cliff. It’s hard to find his way in the thick fog. The rifle feels heavy on his back, and getting heavier all the time. It must be really late. He’s exhausted. He thinks he hears a car back on the road he’s come off, but the sound is muffled. He hears the foghorn from the lighthouse. No light. The moon’s disappeared.
He moves slowly now; the air changes. He might be near the cliff edge. You’d never see in these conditions. The sensible thing would be to stop right now, stay in one place, wait for the fog to lift or for daylight to dawn.
Now he can see something dark within the darkness. He edges forward, hands outstretched. He feels the living, breathing stone, the guard stones at the entrance of the chamber, rough against his palms. He takes a deep breath and plunges in.
His ears are ringing. He puts his hands over them. They feel cold, but the air in the chamber seems warm. When he takes his hands away he hears another sound, like a deep sigh. He can see nothing.
Deep breath. Don’t think.
He edges forward. It’s hard to know where the ceiling is; twice he bangs his head. He ends up dropping to his knees and crawling, one hand pushing out ahead so he doesn’t hit anything. Bit by bit he feels his way through the series of chambers, deeper into the earth, it feels like. When he’s as far back as he can go, with bare rock ahead and on both sides, a space only just big enough for his body, he feels along the rock, searching for a crack or a fault line or a gap between stones where he can shove the air rifle. And it’s there, waiting: a smallish gap, just above his head, and he carefully takes off the gun and slides it into the space. It nestles there, safe. He can find it again, when the time is right. And so he edges back and finds a space big enough to turn his body, and then crawls back the way he came, feeling his way slowly, breathing deeply, focused entirely on his own movement. Don’t think. Don’t think.
He inches towards the grey light which must be sky. His hand touches something hard and cold; he flinches, then lets his fingers find the shape: a bracelet? Leah’s, of course! She lost it here when…
Leah, who he has just shot.
He almost crumples.
No, keep crawling towards the light.
He makes himself do it.
He shoves the silver bracelet deep in his pocket and crawls
forward.
A strip of light shines under Nina’s door. Still awake, then. He tiptoes past.
‘Simon?’
Oh no! She’s heard him.
She opens the door. She looks awful.
‘Where on earth have you been? It’s so late, Simon. I can’t go on like this, not knowing where you are half the time. You’re only fourteen, for heaven’s sake.’
‘Sorry.’
‘I missed you tonight. Feeling a bit lonely.’
Simon stares at his muddy feet.
‘Mart’s a bit preoccupied. His new stone carving. His new model.’ She gives a wry, sad smile.
‘She’s much too young for him,’ Simon blurts out. ‘You’re much better than her!’
‘Oh, Si!’ She gives a little sob.
He lets her hug him, briefly. She feels soft and small.
‘You’re wet through!’ she says. ‘What have you been doing?’
‘I went in the fields,’ Simon says. ‘I went to look at the burial chamber in the moonlight. Only the mist came down.’
‘It’s not safe,’ she says under her breath. ‘The mist, the cliffs…’
‘I know,’ he says, almost in tears. ‘But I’m here now, and safe, aren’t I?’
He lies awake for ages. His body is damp with sweat. The window rattles. The wind’s got up. It will blow away the mist by morning. Far out in the Atlantic, huge waves will be whipping up, starting the long roll in towards the shore.
28
The stone in his belly has got heavier. His headache’s worse. In the morning, Nina takes him down to the Surfing Shack to get his new wetsuit, and he has to pretend to be really pleased – it’s her peace offering to him, after all. He is pleased really, but there’s a shadow over everything now. He can’t stop thinking about last night.
He dozes all afternoon while Nina and Ellie go over to Matt’s house.
She’s full of the news when she gets back. It’s unbearable, pretending to know nothing, feigning interest, surprise. Covering his own tracks.
‘Didn’t Leah say that man had followed her once?’ Nina asks him. ‘And he’s been hanging around when you and the boys are in the fields, hasn’t he? Perhaps we ought to tell the police about that too?’
‘No.’ Simon feels the sweat beading along his hairline. ‘I mean, it’s like you said – he’s a bit weird, a loner, but he doesn’t mean any harm.’
‘Simon! How can you say that now? Look at poor Leah. She’s got a great gash in her leg! And what he’s got against Mart’s sculpture I can’t imagine! But I suppose that’s the point – it’s not a rational, thought-out thing. When I think of you wandering out on those cliffs – with him out there – last night even! Well, not any longer.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The police are after him now. Leah and Matt can press charges… There’s a history too, of other things. Police record. There are lots of rumours… not that I like to listen to that sort of gossip. Anyway, until they’ve got him, you take care, OK? No going off by yourself. Have you seen Leah yet?’
‘No,’ Simon says.
‘You haven’t fallen out, you two?’
‘Shut up, Mum. It’s not like that. Stop looking at me like that!’
Secrets..
Lies.
Growing up.
He wishes there was someone he could tell about what really happened, up at Matt’s place. What he did. But there’s no one. How can he possibly own up now? What would happen to him? And to his mother. It would ruin everything for her. And now someone else is in serious trouble, and it’s all his fault. And each hour he doesn’t tell, it gets worse.
The wind keeps blowing all day and all evening. The weather is changing. Huge storm clouds are building out to sea. It’ll be raining by morning.
The knot of fear in his stomach gets tighter.
He feels like he’s waiting for something. In suspended animation.
He offers to babysit Ellie so Nina can go out with Matt Davies. He still hasn’t seen Leah.
Over and over he thinks about what he did. Shooting for real. What it felt like. How easy it was to lose it completely, become a sort of machine. It’s terrifying. He could have killed someone.
Should he just go straight to the police and own up what really happened? Whatever the consequences? So that Mad Ed doesn’t get into deeper trouble?
Leah, he realizes, is the one person who knows about his air rifle. But she also knows that it’s a secret, that Nina mustn’t find out. There’s no reason for her to make any connection between him and the shooting. Not when she saw Mad Ed right there with her own eyes. Is there?
He reads Ellie her bedtime story. She’s moved on from the selkie story now, to one about a pioneer family living in the big woods. There’s a description of a pig being butchered which makes Ellie squeal and cover her ears. When she’s fallen asleep, he finds himself reading on, even though it’s a children’s book. It’s strangely comforting.
He has a bath. He spends ages in there, submerged almost completely. He practises holding his breath underwater. He can do over a minute.
When he goes down to the kitchen to find something to eat, he hears the first squall of heavy rain hitting the window.
He switches on the telly. The local news comes on at ten twenty. There’s something about a missing person.
Much later, lying in bed, he hears snatches of the shipping forecast from the radio in Nina’s room. ‘Storm force eight, rising, heavy rain; visibility poor.’
Tomorrow I’ll go and see Leah.
That night, he dreams he’s climbing the tall black stack just off the cliff, higher and higher, and it’s raining, and his foot slips, and he starts to fall. He keeps on falling, down, down towards the deep black sea. It’s so far, he wakes up before he hits the water.
Lying awake in the darkness, he listens to the rain and wind buffeting the house. He imagines the sea crashing against the cliffs. He imagines a huge tidal wave rising up and engulfing the whole spit of land that makes up this place, this almost-an-island.
29
The weight is still in his belly when he wakes up the next morning, and all through the next day, getting worse. He can’t eat.
‘You’re sickening for something,’ Nina says. ‘I can tell.’
He longs to lay his head in her lap and tell her what happened, like he’d tell her things when he was a small boy, and she’d stroke his hair and make everything better again.
That’s all over now.
A police car draws up outside Leah’s house. A man and a woman get out. Simon watches Leah’s door open to let them in. She can stand, then. Walk about. Not badly hurt. Nina joins him at the window. He flinches when she strokes his arm.
‘Why don’t you go over and see how she is? When the police have gone. Don’t be mad with her over Matt Davies, Simon. There isn’t anything going on between them, you know. A mild flirtation, that’s all. I asked him.’
He hunches his shoulders, digs his hands deeper in his jeans’ pockets. His fingers brush against the cool metal of Leah’s bracelet.
‘Look!’ Ellie thrusts a card in front of him. ‘For Leah. I made it.’ It’s all vivid felt-tip colours, a jazzy mess. ‘It’s a picture of her,’ Ellie says.
Simon almost smiles. Yes, he thinks, that’s Leah.
Ellie goes with him over the road. It’s easier, having Ellie there. Leah looks pleased to see them. It’s the first time, he realizes, that he’s been inside Leah’s house. It’s weird, the way it’s the same as theirs, but completely different because of the heavy old furniture, the swirly carpets. Ellie runs about, opening doors and poking into things.
Simon sits on the edge of a chair in the sitting room opposite Leah, who has stretched herself out on the sofa with her leg propped up on a cushion. This is impossible, he thinks.
Ellie runs back in and stands right in front of Leah. ‘Where’s your mum?’ she asks Leah. ‘Who’s looking after you?’
‘No one!’ Leah laugh
s. ‘I look after myself. My mum’s in a sort of hospital.’
‘Is she sick?’
‘Getting better. She’ll be home soon.’
‘You were in hospital,’ Ellie says.
‘Yes, but not to stay. Just so they could bandage my leg up properly. Lovely card, Ellie, thank you! Put it on the mantelpiece for me.’
There’s a vase of flowers there already, with a florist’s card. Simon recognizes the handwriting. Art teacher italics.
Ellie sits down next to Leah and strokes her foot. ‘Does your leg hurt?’
‘Yes, but not as much as it did.’
‘What did the police want?’ Simon asks.
‘Just had to go over what happened again,’ Leah says. ‘The man – Mad Ed – they can’t find him. He’s disappeared. No one’s seen him.’
Simon’s heart is thudding wildly again. He feels sick.
Leah’s giving him a funny look.
What does she know? Can she tell how agitated he is?
Ellie gets up again and fidgets with the row of china birds on the shelf above the fireplace. Then she sits on her hands, watching him and Leah.
Silence.
He keeps glancing at her leg. It’s bandaged from the knee down. She’s wearing that short denim skirt. And her turquoise top, and her hair twisted like a rope over one shoulder.
‘I saw you with Nina yesterday,’ Leah says. ‘Got your new wetsuit, then.’
‘Yes.’
‘So you’re going to do that surfing school?’
‘Yes.’
‘Lucky you. Wish I could. Not with this leg, though.’
‘How do they know it was him?’ Simon blurts out.
‘Mad Ed? We saw him! Right by the wall.’
‘What if… what if he just happened to be there, but it was really someone else?’
Leah laughs. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! Like who?’
For a wild moment Simon thinks he’s going to tell her. But Ellie comes and leans against his legs. ‘Can we go now?’ she wheedles. The moment’s gone.