Winter Damage

by Natasha Carthew

  He looked at her and smiled and she smiled too. Something akin to honesty was sitting there between them and it felt like the return of a missing link. A link they’d lost on the way growing from run-around kids up until now.

  Sonny and Trip were bringing the wood over to their corner camp and Ennor remembered she had a little of the dried gorse left for tinder and it wasn’t long before they were gathered around a growing fire.

  Butch’s wheezing had lessened to a crackling bubble and he thanked them in a roundabout way and Ennor could see he felt stupid being the boy and everything and perhaps a little useless and she volunteered him to cook the rice and the beans.

  Ennor told him about Bude and they sat with the map between them and traced the next step in their journey and made it quick by deciding they would go by road.

  ‘I’m not goin by road. There’s danger everywhere,’ said Sonny.

  ‘Like what?’ asked Trip.

  ‘Like everythin you could imagine.’

  ‘I want to go with Sonny,’ he said.

  ‘You’re welcome, boy, and the dog can come. And we got rice and beans and hot chocolate, and the biscuits will go far between us.’

  ‘What biscuits?’ asked Ennor.

  Sonny produced two packets of custard creams from inside her jacket pocket and everyone fell silent with flashing greed.

  When the rice was cooked and the beans heated through in the can Butch spooned the food out equally plus rice for the dog and they ate like wild animals and licked their plates clean.

  They washed the dishes by scrubbing them in the snow and Sonny heated all the hot chocolate together with snow water and counted out one pack of biscuits five ways.

  The fog returned and thickened with the fall of evening and it snagged itself in the corner hedges like a canopy roof and the warmth of the fire bounced against and all around.

  Rapture had returned with the eating of food and the sugar of biscuits and chocolate combined had turned everyone hot and frenzied about the fire.

  They sang loud and clapped rhythms on each other’s knees and legends were told and made in the running and each story was more elaborate than the last.

  Trip taught the dog to dance and Sonny made ribbon strips from the food wrappers and tied them to his collar.

  ‘We’ll be headin to the circus at this rate,’ she laughed, and the dog danced and showed his teeth because he too was in rapture and they sang and cheered long into the night.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  With the passing of the fog came the exposed gape of morning and Ennor lay on her back and looked briefly at heaven through a gash in the clouds that healed like a miracle before her eyes.

  It didn’t seem like long ago that they had settled down to sleep and it probably wasn’t because the fire still pushed out a little heat from hidden embers.

  She rolled towards Trip to wake him and then to Sonny and laughed when they complained in unison.

  ‘You missed it.’

  ‘What?’ said Trip.

  ‘A sign.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Not sure but somethin good’s headin our way.’

  She sat huddled to the fire and coaxed it back into being, boiling snow and adding the last of the tea bags, and when Butch woke up she poured it and shared out the second pack of custard creams, taking comfort in the counting of things.

  ‘Ennor’s had one of her signs,’ said Sonny. ‘Somethin good’s headin apparently.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll stay off the moor for ever,’ wheezed Butch. ‘That would be a somethin.’

  He swallowed down the hot tea and Ennor knew not to make a big thing about it but she couldn’t help but wonder if he should see a doctor and she said as much.

  ‘I’m fine. It’s just a cold type cough.’

  ‘Leave him, Ennor. He said he’s fine so maybe he’s fine.’ Sonny looked at him and shrugged. ‘He’ll either get worse or he’ll get better.’

  The decision to walk to Bude by road had been made and Ennor could tell Sonny was still brooding about it but with Butch ill and her mum so close she couldn’t imagine trekking cross country any more than they had to.

  They packed up camp and kicked the fire with snow and followed the lane down to the village and past the half-cocked cottages and the chapel with the man standing guard and Sonny bid him good morning and she smiled and waved like it was any normal day in any normal Cornish village. She walked up ahead with Trip and the dog with the wrapper ribbons still attached to his string lead and she let Trip hold the map so he could follow the thin blue line of the lane.

  Ennor knew they had become close and Trip looked up to Sonny in a way that was different to his life elsewhere. She was strong and resourceful and she made him laugh with a sarcastic tongue that was beyond humour and because of his ways he wasn’t supposed to get sarcasm but he did.

  ‘Road gets wider soon,’ he shouted back to them. ‘The blue line gets wider on the paper.’

  ‘I wonder if we’ll see any cars to cadge a lift,’ said Ennor.

  ‘Like anyone’s goin to lift us?’ shouted Sonny from further up the lane. ‘We’re black from the fire and blue from the cold and we stink a whole rainbow of colours.’

  They walked slowly because the cold split Butch’s chest occasionally and they stopped and started with a hundred niggling problems and concerns but still Ennor told herself they would be entering the town by sundown.

  Hours slipped by unnoticed and at lunchtime they passed around a can of beans between them to ease the burn of hunger and they discussed their favourite meals in such detail that they were soon starving all over again.

  With their minds taken up with food and the taste and memory of better times they didn’t hear the shouting in the road up ahead until it was almost too late.

  Sonny pulled Trip to the ground and she waved behind to the others to do the same. Two men were jousting and spearing threats and all ears knew there was only one way to settle the thing.

  Sonny gathered Trip into her arms and sprinted as fast as she could towards Butch and Ennor and they ran with their thighs burning back down the lane and into a field far enough away so they could whisper and as they went a lonely burst of gunfire carried with them on the wind.

  ‘Now what?’ panted Butch.

  ‘We gotta stay calm,’ said Ennor. ‘Calm and quiet.’

  ‘We gotta get goin quick,’ said Sonny. ‘ Take a wide chunk out of these fields, skirt um or head cross to the moor.’

  ‘Whatever we do, let’s just get goin,’ said Butch and they backed up into the field and followed a wall, high and half crippled with weather, that wound and tumbled this way and that and they were about to look for other routes when it finally gave way and they headed west once more.

  The top line of the moor was near and a step back into the open plains was welcomed.

  Occasionally the edge of moorland traced villages and roads and such was their fear of the unknown they backtracked more and more until they were deep in the wild again.

  ‘I don’t care how long it takes to get from A to B long as I dodge a bullet in the process,’ said Sonny and she wondered if they thought everyone had gone bad.

  ‘Can’t have,’ answered Ennor. ‘Must be people same as us roamin round.’

  Butch agreed but decided they weren’t as stupid because they were sat with some comfort at least in their boarded-up houses riding out the storm.

  Trip startled them by saying maybe this was the end of the world and they all nodded and felt the cold air twice over and doubled with added doom because maybe he was right.

  Ennor counted the clouds in the sky for a good number and sighed and she looked on as Sonny and Trip passed the telescope between them.

  ‘What now?’ she said to Butch when she saw Sonny pointing towards the horizon. ‘Int there always somethin to follow somethin?’

  ‘We got horse wranglers up ahead. Them poor buggers don’t stand a chance.’ Sonny passed the telescope to Ennor and she adj
usted it and changed eyes until she saw the dance of two men on horseback chasing and roping wild ponies and banking them into a makeshift corral.

  ‘Are they the same men from earlier?’ asked Trip. ‘The fightin men?’

  ‘No,’ said Sonny. ‘Don’t worry. They might not be so bad.’

  ‘What do they want with the horses? Practically skin and bone,’ said Ennor.

  ‘Meat.’ Sonny nodded to herself. ‘I bet you. Cheap meat but they’ll offload it for somethin better.’

  They walked a little closer and Ennor didn’t notice the look twisting across Trip’s face until it was too late and he bent to the ground and ran towards the men at full tilt.

  Ennor ditched her rucksack and ran to catch him but it was too late because the men had seen them.

  ‘Don’t you dare touch him!’ she screamed. ‘He’s just a kid!’

  The men sat back in their saddles and watched the riotous children with amusement. One of them held his hands in the air when he saw Sonny point the gun, but soon started laughing so hard he had to pull the baseball cap he was wearing off his head to fan himself.

  ‘I’ve seen it all now,’ he shouted. ‘And I’ve seen some crazy things I can tell you.’

  He jumped from the horse and told Sonny to put down the gun and he ruffled the dog’s head and called it ‘mutt’ when it ran over.

  ‘He int mutt, he’s buddy dog,’ cried Trip.

  ‘All right, boy, don’t wet your Y-fronts.’

  ‘You’re gonna eat horses. You’re gonna kill um and then eat um.’

  The two men stood side by side with their horses behind them and they held straight faces long enough to put some explaining out there and the man with the cap said they were animal activists and were saving them from death.

  ‘How?’ asked Trip.

  ‘By takin um to the barn we got lined up. Warm and cosy with hay and everythin.’

  Everyone knew this was a lie except Trip and they waited for him to accept what was said. The men talked of other things to sweep the situation over and they invited the five of them to their camp beside the stick-fence corral.

  ‘What are we doin wastin time with strangers?’ whispered Ennor to Sonny .‘I don’t trust um.’

  ‘I’ve got a sudden plan.’

  Every time Sonny had a plan it ended in a maze of complication but there was something in her eyes that seemed set.

  ‘I don’t like um,’ said Butch as they circled to a dying fire, but Sonny told him to trust her and she gave him the gun to cradle in his lap.

  The men refuelled the fire and Sonny offered them the remaining rice and the two tins of beans and they were grateful and cooked them with some kind of stew that looked like it was on its tenth reheating and they passed around a large earthen pot of cider.

  ‘You kids look like you could do with some lookin after,’ the man with the baseball cap said and he smiled and nodded towards the snow.

  ‘It’s a regular badlands out here, int it? Gotta keep movin just to keep from freezin to death.’

  ‘And not get shot,’ added the other man.

  They questioned each of the men in turn regarding their comings and goings. Sonny did the talking and answered their questions with more questions to keep from revealing anything much. The tough skin she had worn when she first met Ennor was zipped tight and her friends sat back and enjoyed the interrogation because it was not aimed at them.

  The cider was strong and warm and wonderful and Ennor listened to the banter with an ounce of comfort in her heart; it was something just to listen to words other than her thoughts. The men talked of losing jobs at Falmouth docks, which had led to government handouts and then no handouts and finally each and every man for himself. They’d travelled the three corners of Cornwall and had a go at getting to Devon but the bridge had been blocked with abandoned trucks and guarded by tooled-up truckers asking for levy to pass and the man with the cap said he wished they had a boat again but they had swapped it for the horses.

  Sonny gleaned that they were brothers with only a year between and they had a younger sister back in Falmouth with a baby. ‘She spends all hours walkin the streets for food enough for one more day walkin. What’s the point in that?’

  When the food was ready Ennor was half drunk and the food was the best she’d ever tasted because the men had added salt and the flavours mixed and sprang to life in one square meal.

  The men had stretched a square of plastic sheeting between three stick trees and pulled it tight above them and said they were welcome to spend the night there.

  Ennor snuggled Trip into a blanket where they were to sleep and he soon fell asleep with the dog as a pillow and Butch settled close by. She guessed that they would be staying the night and thought how short and passing the days had become.

  Another jug circled the group and snowflakes became stars on the night air and licked the old snow with a fresh coat of brilliant white.

  The strong drink and fresh snow had Ennor thinking of new beginnings and she asked if Christmas had come and gone and nobody could say for sure.

  She walked her memory past every day and every night since she’d met Sonny and she confirmed that they had missed it altogether. Everyone laughed and those who had tin mugs raised them towards the fire and a somewhere someplace New Year.

  The man in the cap had an eye for Sonny and Ennor hoped his brother didn’t plan to slink her way because she would have to make some kind of a scene and then they’d all be back walking in the black and white.

  She watched Sonny and caught her eye with a question in hers and Sonny shook her head a little to stop her worrying but still she wanted to distract the man away from her friend.

  Words stuck in her throat and she wanted to say something to smack him back but strong words didn’t belong to her and when his eyes and hands roamed further she got up and sat next to Sonny. There was a green streak cracking inside her that she was not used to. She wanted to tell the man that Sonny belonged to her in some way, but instead she said it was time to get some rest.

  ‘You her mother?’ asked his brother and both men laughed.

  ‘More than, actually.’ Ennor stood up and steadied herself against a tree. ‘She’s my best friend.’

  They continued to laugh and Sonny thanked them for the drink and said something about an early start. The two girls left the men drunk and laughing by the fire and went to join Butch and Trip.

  ‘Hell,’ laughed Sonny. ‘Dint know you cared.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘So why with the best friend act?’

  ‘Had to think of somethin to get that sleaze off you. He was probably three times your age.’

  They sat rested against a jut of granite and pulled one of the blankets over and up to their chins.

  ‘I was loosenin him up, makin sure he drank his fill. I got a plan, remember?’

  ‘What plan? Better be good cus most so far bin otherwise.’

  ‘You’ll see in the mornin.’

  ‘You playin complex again?’ asked Ennor.

  ‘No, just normal.’

  They nestled down into the blanket and Ennor said there was nothing normal about her and she agreed. ‘That’s why you like me.’ She smiled. ‘Everyone likes Sonny Pengelly.’

  ‘OK, you keep dreamin if that’s what makes you happy.’

  They listened to the crackle of the fire as it slowed in its tracks and Ennor checked to see if the men were making any moves towards sleep and they looked settled enough where they were.

  ‘Dint think I was goin off with him, did you?’

  ‘Guess not.’

  ‘What you take me for?’

  Ennor didn’t know how to say what she was feeling just now. She told Sonny she was worried and asked her friend what she might do once they reached Bude.

  ‘Just see you right, I guess. Did promise, I think.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Dunno, I int thought that far ahead. Just keep walkin. Maybe go back to camp, ma
ybe not.’

  ‘Sonny.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You scared?’

  ‘Bout what?’

  ‘Everythin.’

  ‘Nope. Don’t do scared.’

  ‘Don’t lie. Everyone gets scared.’

  ‘Bout what?’

  ‘You know what, the future and stuff.’

  Sonny thought for a minute and Ennor knew talking candid was not one of Sonny’s strong points and was going to tell her to leave it when she said she was scared of being scared.

  ‘I guess that sounds as stupid as.’

  ‘No it don’t.’

  ‘Sure? Cus I can try and make it make sense.’

  ‘It makes enough sense to me.’

  ‘Sure?’

  Ennor poked her in the back. ‘You can go to sleep now. I’m done quizzin.’

  ‘You know what you said bout best friends?’ asked Sonny.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You mean it, kind of?’

  ‘I mean it proper. Said it, dint I?’

  ‘That’s funny.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Cus you’re my best friend too.’

  ‘I’m glad that’s established,’ wheezed Butch from beneath his blanket.

  They laughed and Ennor remarked on what a ragtag family they made and her words brought comfort to the others because that was what they had become. No matter what the future held, they would have that for ever and always stitched between them.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Early morning and the fog had returned and had staked the snow thick and heavy to the ground.

  Ennor could hear Sonny whispering her name behind her but she stayed drifting in that loose space in time that was the edge of dreams in the hope that she could fall back to sleep.

  ‘Ennor, wake up. We gotta get goin.’

  She opened her eyes to see Sonny squatting in front of her with her boots on.

  ‘I’m doin my plan. Wake the others but keep it quiet.’

  ‘What’s goin on, Sonny?’

  ‘We’re out of here, that’s what.’ Sonny pointed to the two horses she had saddled and coupled to a tree and told her to hurry up.

  They crept from the moorland camp with Sonny leading the horses ahead of the others. She watched her whispering to the horses and smiled because she knew her friend was telling them to be quiet. Trip walked with his hand cupped over his mouth because he didn’t trust himself not to blurt out words and Butch coughed into his scarf and his eyes watered with restraint.