by Laura Beatty
Anne had no idea who Mr Stallard was.
♦
One morning, when the sun was warm, she got up because she was hungry. She took the last of the woodland apples from last year, to eat by the pool. Shrivelled things they were and still sour. She laughed. What a face, reflected in the water. Think if she had any sloes to eat. But even eating she did differently now. Before, when she found apples, she never messed around; she would eat the whole thing, crunching it up like a horse, core, stalk and all. Now she nibbled round it, feeling superstitious about the pips. She picked them out with a fingernail, holding them in her palm until she’d finished. Then she swallowed them whole, like her mum used to take tablets.
That way, she thought, at least where she shat, would spring up a grove; blossom in springtime, apples in autumn, all with the flavour and stamp of herself, trees with her rhythm this time. They’d carry the boom of her blood flow under their bark. That was one solution. When she walked the wood that day she thought of the seed cradled, hot and dark, readying itself to be eased out again into the world – when? – and supported on her excreta. She comforted herself with the mystery of it. It was a motherhood of sorts after all. She should be happy-ish with that.
But a grove is slow. When she got tired of imagining its invisible growth, Anne went back to sitting like a boulder by her pool, where she watched her aquatic community and hungered for small things, or else she clumped through the woods. Most of the time, walking or sitting, she watched other things live. So, it was natural, when the boy came, for her to watch him too.
Fauna
Sitting with her knees to her chin in the ferns that fringed her pool, Anne heard him before she saw him. He was jumping along the brook behind her chanting something as he went, but she didn’t look round. Say what you wanna say be what you wanna be Addams Familee. Addams Familee. Nothing in the wood so far had noticed her watching, so she sat still and he jumped, intent on his rhythm, right past her and up to the pool. Out of the shade and into the sun of the clearing. Addams Familee. Anne swallowed. Something she had forgotten pushed up through the mould of her mind, blossomed. A boy. She couldn’t stop herself staring. She thought he was nimble, slippery, a trout of a thing. He made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck.
He was squatting at the edge of the pool. He must have seen the water shrimps. She saw his lips move, whispering something to himself. Wicked. And he stirred at the pool with a finger, flicked at the water boatmen. He was a fidget, never still. What’s he at? He wouldn’t catch anything like that. They were quicker than thoughts, the pond creatures; so quick that sometimes you thought you’d only imagined them, the fat little brown fish or the flatheads. You had to pretend you weren’t looking, sit like a stone or they’d be gone. She could teach him. Hop, hop, like a bird now, balance and peer, making noises of encouragement to the shrimps in each new place.
Anne wondered whether to tell him, Oi! Get out of it. He wasn’t being that careful. He shouldn’t have been there. She didn’t want people finding her clearing. But the watching got the better of her. This was rare. She watched his different parts and then she watched him whole. She saw how delight animated his hands into little flicks and flutters. He had nice hands, for instance, live like Suzie’s only not precious, not hard, and he took no notice of them. He used them, like she used hers, Anne thought. Little pink nails like shells.
He had a nice head too. Fuzzed gold and bullet-round like one of her cabbages. She saw how the pulse of his concentration beat in his temple, how his pink lizard tongue darted in and out when he did something difficult, how his lashes were like the deer’s, when she’d seen them resting in the sun with their fawns. She marvelled at his feet, which flashed with red lights when he jumped from stone to stone. When he took off his shoes to paddle, they were dead without him. She watched the breeze come across the water to ruffle his hair and she watched what the sun did on his head and the flat tops of his knees when he hunkered between them.
Every now and then he seemed to look at her, but he never said anything. He was too busy for that. He did things that he shouldn’t have done. It wasn’t his pool. He puddled out little harbours at the water’s edge. He scooped out handfuls of mud and threw them at the water shrimps. She didn’t know why she let him do it.
Later he stood back, took a rock and, raising it behind his head with both hands, hurled it down into the water. He wheeled his arms and made noises of explosion. Take that, suckers. Then he glanced sideways and quick at Anne and bent over the surface of the water again.
Excuse me, what’s these things? These wigglers? He was greedy for the water shrimps. Can you catch them?
But Anne was still trying to understand the sudden violence of the rock-throwing. The new stone on the smooth bottom of her pool lodged itself in her head. She couldn’t get her thoughts round it, so she said nothing. Just went on sitting with her knees under her chin.
Are you deaf or something? He straightened up and looked at her. He had his hands on his hips like a man. He made big eyes at her, put his hands either side of his face, the fingers starred, I been told bad things happen to little boys who talk to strange men in the woods. What are you…a man or a lady? I need to know.
Anne thought the way he talked wasn’t how he looked. His attention made her awkward. Instinctively her eyes slid sideways and away. But she wanted to talk to him. Talking would keep him there longer. She knew that. She swallowed again. She wanted to talk to him so much it was like a stone in her throat. Lady, was all she could manage for the moment. He didn’t have to be rude.
He went back to the water shrimps and she went back to watching, drinking him up with a giant thirst.
So, is your beard real or did you get it from a joke shop?
He was turning over the stones, looking for things underneath. Was he talking to her? Anne put a hand to her face. Was her beard real? It wasn’t a beard. She had studied it in the surface of the pool. It was a reddish down – just down like you found on the stems of the ferns, not a beard at all.
She found her voice at last.
Don’t you go to school?
He didn’t think much to school. They only done Chinese New Year and Diwali. What’s the point of that? And spellings. They did spellings every Monday.
Anne couldn’t remember when Monday was.
It didn’t seem to matter. He went back to his stone-throwing and his harbour-making, wading backwards and forwards, till the pond was all swirled up in a mud soup. Anne thought of what to say. She thought, Please don’t muddy the water. Please take the rock out of the pool and put it back. She thought, I live here, did you know that? Would you like to see my hut? I have many things. I could catch you some water shrimps. But her tongue was dead in her mouth, bloated like a drowned thing.
Then he sat on the ground to put his shoes on. They woke up and flashed. He could wake anything up, Anne thought. He stood up, flicked back the one long bit of hair he had at the front; then, as she knew he would, he went.
♦
When he’d gone she sat where she was, in front of the pool, and the wood was nothing but a wood. The trees shot up and away from her, like the first time. They were only trees after all. The bats dipped and flicked about her head in silence and all the things that were busy at night went about their business. Above her head, white in the moonlight, the barn owl coughed up his black babies, dropped them at her feet, sad little stillborns of sticks and jawbones, papoosed in fur. Through the leaves and grass around her a shrew fussed and rustled.
Anne had nothing to do except breathe, whether she liked it or not. Did it matter that she’d been found a second time? Would other people come? She thought of the silt he’d stirred up, suspended in the pool, still settling to a changed place. She felt the water bothered round the rock, uncomfortable. She drew no conclusions. But over and over again, like a video recording, she replayed his golden jump into the clearing.
At midday he came back. He was wearing a false moustache so large that
it reached his jaw on either side. He was walking very delicately with his head held slightly back so as not to move the glue. He stopped in front of her, put his hand on his hip. Was he laughing at her?
We are ladies.
He said it in a falsetto. Anne just stared. He peeled the moustache off, shaking his head.
You are one fucking geek.
He had bad language then, like Suzie.
What was her name anyway? he wanted to know. Had she sat there all night?
Her name was Anne.
He put the moustache on a stone. Keep an eye on that. He was going to hunt for shrimps. He had brought a jam jar with him, a series of holes punched into its lid. He never asked, he just waded in, and all the silt that had spent the night settling, got up and stirred around again.
Knock, knock…he called to her from the middle of the pool. You say, who’s there?
Who’s there?
Anne. She remembered this now, from before.
Anne who?
Anne ant.
She knew to laugh but she laughed too much. It was embarrassing the noise she made, the size of her pleasure. She was laughing because he’d coupled her with something so very tiny.
What was his name? She tried not to sound greedy. He considered her sidelong. Peter Parker. Then he crouched down, his arms up and bent at the elbow, his fingers pointing curiously.
She didn’t know how to respond but she absorbed the information gravely, murmured the name over to herself. Peter Parker. Thank you.
Watching him again, only out of the corner of her eye this time, Anne thought that he fitted the wood better than she did. The sun treated his hair the same as it treated the leaves. He was fresh. He was made without awkwardnesses. Nothing missed, nothing skimped, a miracle of exactness. He fitted himself like a glove. Wow, Anne thought, as she forced her gaze away. And already, the little things that she actually disliked about him, tickled and caught in her neck, as though she had swallowed thistledown.
He put his head in through her door uninvited. He made faces and coughed and backed away waving his hand in front of his nose. That is rank, he told her. You want to clean your house. Don’t you wash? He could sell her some soap if she wanted. He could get some out of his mum’s cupboard. She wouldn’t notice. Anne could have it for like fifty pee.
Are you a caveman?
He was chattier this time. She was well weird. Did she live there? He wanted to see everything, her house, her garden. He wanted to know how she cooked her food, where she went to the toilet. Did she get letters, and who looked after her if she got ill – did she go to the Doctor’s?
Are you a bag lady?
She hadn’t half got some stuff.
Anne wasn’t used to conversation. She couldn’t always think of the answer to one question before he was on to the next. She was dull, dazzled. It was as if a bee had got stuck inside her head.
They were standing at her back door. He had inspected everything, admiring, running his small hand over the stockade like a professional. You’re like Robinson Crusoe, you are. Don’t you get lonely?
He looked at her, perhaps for the first time, perhaps not. Either way, it was the moment she couldn’t forget, afterwards. He looked at her right out of himself and his eyes opened through her like a sky. There was a weasel once, had sat up on its hind legs, its white front showing, and hooked its gaze into hers out of its separate world. It was so small, so fiercely itself, though the connection that opened between them seemed to say otherwise. Impossible. She had to look away.
As if to cover Anne’s silence, the boy laughed, shook his head at her. He checked in a professional way for overhead wires, obviously she couldn’t have a telly. Hadn’t she even got any music? She should think about getting a soundbox. He had one. They ran on batteries so they would work in the wood. He was getting a new one soon. He could let her have the old one for like fifty quid. Anne said nothing. OK, thirty. Thirty was fair.
After all, he was so stupid. She didn’t have any money, did she? And Anne raised her hands empty. He irritated her.
♦
Ranger arrived. As if things needed complicating. Anne heard the truck pull up on the other side of the clearing, heard the woodpecker sound of his handbrake and the door slam.
There wasn’t time to adjust, to think anything out. What did he want? He already had a boy. He didn’t need another. She put her hand out to push the boy into the hut, hesitated, turned. Then she thought it would be better if she distracted Ranger with something else. She left Peter Parker and set off across the clearing, calling out as she went, arms wheeling. I can make those hurdles for you by this afternoon, I can. Stall him, that’s what. Maybe he hadn’t seen. Give her time to work it out. She was moving uncharacteristically fast.
From opposite sides of the clearing the boy and the Ranger watched her in surprise.
Who have we got here? Ranger wanted to know, when Anne got up to him. He jerked his head in the direction of the boy. You never had a visitor before.
Anne stood in front of him, shielding the boy, hoping. Make him mind his own business.
Peter Parker. He’s called Peter Parker. You got a boy, haven’t you?
Ranger had his hands on his hips. I’ve got a boy alright. He smiled out of the side of his mouth, nodded. Oh yes. Peter Parker, is it? I got one of them at home.
The boy looked uneasy but Anne didn’t notice. She was flooded with relief. She smiled from one to the other. Too good to be true. For a moment she almost liked Ranger.
Well, Peter Parker, does your mum know you’re here?
He seemed smaller now, with Ranger asking questions, smaller and keener to please. His mum knew where he was, of course she did. She didn’t mind anyway, if he went out. He was allowed down the bomb hole on his bike only his bike had a puncture yesterday so he left it and thought he’d have a little look around and his sister’s boyfriend was meant to fix it but he hadn’t yet.
Anne caught the note of anxiety in his voice. She made a little helpless gesture with her hands. That was alright, wasn’t it? He was safe here. Anne was good at looking after.
But Ranger thought his mum would want him back for his tea. He kept his hands on his hips, his legs slightly apart. Mums worried, that was their job. They even worried about super-heroes. Anne wouldn’t know, she wasn’t a mother, was she?
And tea – oh obviously he was going to be back for tea. He’d be well back for tea, Peter Parker said.
You’d better hop in the truck, then, or you won’t make it, unless you were planning to fly.
But Peter Parker held his small hands up and flicked back his hair. No way. No way was he going anywhere with a stranger. He wasn’t daft. He wasn’t going in no truck, even a flash one like that. Is that your own? Bet that cost a lot.
Ranger laughed. It most certainly was his truck but Peter Parker could dream on because it was unnickable. It had the latest immobilisers. Or are you a bit young to be nicking cars yet?
Get lost. Peter Parker had his face pressed to his cupped hands against the driver’s window. I don’t nick anything. How fast does it go? Does it go over all terrains?
You could go over the Atlas Mountains in that, if you knew where the Atlas Mountains were, that is. Now get going if you’re not taking a lift. As it happened, Ranger said, he was effectively the woodland policeman, so it was perfectly safe, but it was quite right to refuse. Go on, get running. You don’t want to be seen in broad daylight in a shirt like that anyway.
Peter Parker looked down at his shirt, lifted his hands in a gesture of supplication. Milan Baros, my main man. Who do you support then?
Who did he think? Newcastle obviously. Now get lost.
The boy raised a hand, Cheers then, and started running. From the other side of the clearing he called back – Bunch of divers – and then he was off again, trotting between the trees, jumping the ferns, the sun spotting his back.
Ranger turned back to Anne, who hadn’t moved. Where did she find him? Scamp. H
e’d be back for the hurdles in the evening, when he’d had his own tea.
So Anne was left alone among her slow uprights, with the print of their conversation still on the air. Too many horizontals, jagging about – that was how they talked. Something tricky and deft, like a ball bounced to and fro, a silly game of catch and where did that get you? Anne thought, cross because she couldn’t do it. Just the breeze now and the little birds that flicked by of their own accord, faster than a throw, more effortless. They sang, coo co co roo ro ro; it’s a stranger. That was fast too, how they trilled it out. Faster than you could move your slug tongue, mister. Anne stood and listened to them draw their maps of sound. They sang more in the evening, same as the morning; singing against the dark, as though the dark erased everything that their songs affirmed, their place, their identity, the condition of that part of the wood. That was something to say. That was important. I am chaffinch, robin, mistle thrush. This is my nest. This is my tree. This is me. Now. Watch me watch me. Too bad. Got it. Lost lost lost. Look out! They were unseen, inexplicably varied, the songs, and always upwards, like bubbles through the wood’s green water.
So all was more or less as it had been. More or less. She began to feel the tiredness of her night’s sleeplessness steal over her. Forget about it, that’s what. Put it right out of your head. Start again.
When the Ranger came back for his hurdles, he found her on her back in the hut, snoring.
♦
She didn’t forget, of course, but she didn’t bother either. Just that it took her mind off Ranger and it was nice, going about the wood as usual, to think that Peter Parker was probably there somewhere, on his bike down the bomb hole with his friends, and that he might turn up again, with a joke for her, or some new fancy, a beard, who knows, the moustache maybe, and irradiate the clearing with his lightness of hair and step – because he could do that, lighten things. The wood felt different to Anne in the days that followed, just because of him.