Chapter 5
Luckily, Mother has fallen asleep in a chair during the late film and the small lie I’m forced to tell her about the time I got home is accepted with no questions. I manage to get through the weekend but find my normal routine constantly interrupted by thoughts of the irksome Danny Marsden. Just what was he trying to prove with his forceful goodnight kiss?
The ensuing week isn’t much better. I’m supposed to be resting my legs and mentally preparing myself for the long hard slog I know I face at University but my mind is filled only with saving Becmead Woods from Danny’s bulldozers. The summer weather has vanished to be replaced by a darker reminder of winter and we’ve had rain, fog and more rain until at last, Saturday morning arrives. It’s one of my duty days at the ARC and I wake early, glad to be free of fitful dreams I’m sure have been triggered by the megalomaniac property developer.
I wash quickly and pull on my aged jeans and a tatty jumper. The ARC is the last place to be when wearing decent clothes. Amanda’s clothing is now washed and ironed carefully, sitting on my chest of drawers in a carrier bag and looking over at them for the umpteenth time, I again feel an odd curiosity about the girl before shrugging off the thoughts. I know and hate the fact that I will have to return the items sooner or later and letting them lie much longer will appear rude and ungrateful. They’re expensive and will surely be missed, no matter how much quality gear Amanda has at her disposal.
What would Danny say if I were to run into him again? He wouldn’t be the type to be embarrassed about anything, least of all his clumsy lunge at me the previous week. He’d likely have forgotten all about it by now. Had the move been intended to show affection? Perhaps it was his nasty way of showing me I’m just a silly confused girl, with no real idea of the world. No, it was an odious rebuke and nothing more, designed to put me firmly in my place. That curious feeling spreads through me again as it always does when I think of him, until I shake it off and creep downstairs, pausing on the landing to listen at my Mother’s bedroom door. But all is still inside and once in the kitchen with the door closed, I nibble at a slice of toast and wash it down with a cup of sweet tea and as I stare idly out of the window. The Sun’s rays cut through the tops of the apple trees at the bottom of the garden and I can see Becmead Woods on a distant hill a little over three miles away. Just what that skyline might look like in another year or so drags me back down to earth and the depressing thoughts that constantly assail me, crowd back into my head, right on cue, as if to remind me yet again of the battle I will have to face with Danny and the faceless people who work for him if I was to make my voice heard. It will be like trying to climb the sheerest cliff face of all.
The local radio weather report confirms my hopes for a dry day but it’s still chilly as I leave the house via the back door. That golden sun hasn’t had a chance to raise the night’s temperature and the air is still cold and sharp as I straddle my bike. The thin ghost-like mist that rolls in off the sea after dark, even during high summer gives everything a surreal mystical look as I speed along the deserted lanes towards the Animal Rescue Centre. A few minutes of furious pedalling is all it takes to chase the cold and the night’s demons away and I’m soon smiling broadly as birdsong erupts all around me. A thousand feathered voices arguing fiercely over their territorial rights.
In a way, Danny is right. Approaching the ARC I can appreciate just how ramshackle the place looks. The building really is little more than a crumbling ruin. An over sized shack with oddly shaped extensions added to it over the years that were never intended to last the test of time, but had simply had to make do through lack of funds. What cash we do manage to raise comes mainly from tourists, who often stop for impromptu visits at the insistence of their children whilst on their way to more exotic landmarks along the west coast. Even then the money doesn’t go far and it’s often as much as we can do to keep the animals fed and warm, especially during the harsh winter months, which is the worst time of the year.
As the number of tourists drop away, so the donations fall and the running costs go up. Then it’s a case of quickly organising another jumble sale or other fund raising event to tide us over until the next crisis crops up that often needs a laughably small amount of money to put right.
Molly Preston is already at work, feeding three ageing hens that have lodged with us forever. She’s wearing her habitual cold weather outfit; an old brown woollen coat sporting a belt from another garment tied in a tight knot around her middle and a pair of green Wellingtons. Tousled steel grey hair tops a hard, almost masculine face. She hums an old Irish song as she tosses the corn, oblivious to my approach until she turns, soft grey eyes set into her weather beaten face, betraying her inner nature. Molly is a woman with no time for social niceties. I have not heard her say hello or goodbye to anyone in the two years I’ve known her. This is her world. A world in which she has lived since her husband was killed in a road accident years earlier. Molly has never fully forgiven any driver or indeed any man for that loss in her life and animals are her only love now.
“I doubt we’ll ever be rid of these three,” she drawls by way of greeting as she eyes the three bristling feathered bodies as they fight for control of the best place to stand. I lean the bike against the back fence.
“Of course you’ll never get rid of them.” I say. “They’re better fed here than they were before.”
Molly grins.
“Besides,” I add, “It will break your heart to see them go now.”
I regret the remark as I watch Molly’s smile fade. The threat of extinction hangs over the place like some unseen black cloud ready to rain on her without warning. “Come on inside, I’ll make us all a brew.” I add quickly.
The regime is always the same. The first job of the morning is to make tea for the two women who’ve been here since first light and while I wait for the kettle to roar, I scan the steel cages standing three high along one wall. They contain the cuties as Molly calls them. Hedgehogs, mice, voles and squirrels too. Injured birds are kept in the other room next door and larger animals, like foxes and badgers stay in a large shed beside the main building in wooden pens. I smile in at a sorry looking mole as the kettle began to bubble. He seems to be covered entirely in bandages but his beady eyes are black and bright as he studies me intently. The few soft words of comfort I offer only succeed in sending him struggling to get out of sight within his mountain of wood shavings and waste paper piled up in the back corner of the cage.
Sheglah Corrigan, one of the vets who regularly does a stint at the centre appears as if able to smell the tea. She sits down at the fifties style kitchen table someone has donated years earlier.
“Tea at last.” She gasps, as I pass her the mug. “Thanks.”
“Been busy?”
Molly scowls as she bowls inside. “Some chap brought in a big dog he’d run over. Said he didn’t have a chance to stop. Huh. If he hadn’t been going at sixty miles an hour maybe he could have stopped.”
I exchange glances with Sheglah. Molly tends to get carried away by her own emotional nature sometimes. “Is he going to...?” I ask.
“No.” Sheglah grins. “He’ll be o.k. but there’s a fracture in his hind leg though. At least his keeper had the sense to give him a collar with a name and address plate on it for a change, so I’ll stop by on my way home and give him the bad news. I might even be able to squeeze a donation out of someone.”
Molly bustles out carrying a dish of finely chopped mince and water for two baby owls who’s Mother has been killed when the tree they’d been nesting in had been cut down.
“Poor Molly.” Sheglah whispered. “She’s getting bloody worse. I reckon they’ll have to carry her out of here when they pull it all down.”
I sit down beside her. “It might not come to that.”
Sheglah glances up at the peeling whitewash caused by the dampness seeping in slowly from the roof and her intelligent brown eyes tell the story
plain enough. If only we had the money to do something about the place, I think to myself. All the council have seen on previous visits was a hazard that would be best out of the way.
“They won’t need to pull this place down.” She sighs. “It’ll fall down itself soon.”
“Cheer up Sheglah for heaven’s sake.” I say. “We haven’t lost yet.”
Sheglah shakes her head sadly. “Haven’t we? The final meeting’s on Tuesday evening.”
“Tuesday.” I gasp, my throat tightening. “They kept that quiet didn’t they?”
“They had to.” She replies. “They don’t want the mass protest they had to contend with last time. This time they’re drafting in extra police and private security guards too. So it looks as though it’ll be the last roundup for us.”
I shudder. The finality of the statement makes me feel sick and it ruins an otherwise good start to a bright day bursting with life and energy. At this moment, I feel close to hating Danny Marsden with a passion I can barely control and it’s a feeling totally alien to my normal way of thinking. “There’s still a chance.” I offer lamely. “I just know something will come up.”
Sheglah turns to face me, eyes wide, waiting to hear about some wonderful scheme but I can offer her nothing more than a sickly smile, my mind awash with a mass of half-baked schemes guaranteed to fail.
Molly’s return breaks up the uneasy silence and after taking another look at our newest arrival she seems a little happier. “He’ll live.” She says, eyeing a trickle of blood on the back of her hand. “Just gave me a hell of a bite.”
“Here, let me see to that,” I fuss, but knowing the response before it comes.
“Away with you, it’s only a scratch.” The old woman’s already reaching for the plasters and that will be her lot as far as medical treatment’s concerned. Sheglah giggles as Molly fixes her with one of her fake black stares. “And what are you laughing at?”
“You’re a darn sight better to these animals than you are to yourself.”
“Ahh well, what a sorry place this world would be if all we had to look at were two legged creatures.” Molly means what she says we both know it.
“So young Madam, maybe you’d like to give me a hand clearing out some of these cages while I go and attend to the rest of the birds.” She says.
“Yes sir.” I grin.
The rest of the day passes quickly enough. It’s been a quiet one by normal standards. The only other casualty brought in is an injured fox cub who’s caused himself superficial damage by getting entangled in a barbed wire fence, until his lucky rescue by two young teenage girls walking home to the village. Sheglah speaks to him softly as the venomous mistrustful green eyes bore into her.
“Lucky the farmer didn’t get to you first aren’t you?”
When he’s fixed up and forced into his new home for the next few days, he glares out at his perceived persecutors. With Molly and Sheglah in his corner I know he won’t fail to make a complete recovery.
The pair of us left the centre together, leaving Molly to do the last two hours and lock up. I watch Sheglah climb into her small hatchback parked on the grass verge just off the lane.
“Are you going to the meeting Cath?”
“Of course I’ll be there.” I replied. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
The woman forces a sad smile as she drove away and I decide to take a walk through the wood, telling myself it was to look for any injured animals that might need my help. But I knew deep down in my heart it will probably be more of a last look around. The overpowering feeling of doom seems to pervade the whole area but I throw off the notion as being nothing more than an overactive imagination. It always comes down to money, I think sadly. Everything generally does. If the council had given us the grant we had so badly needed, fixing the old place up would have proved no problem. Most of the councillors are so afraid of Molly and what she might do to them they’ve never dared make a decision on the place sooner. None of them ever wanted to take the responsibility of signing the necessary paper work.
But that state of affairs was never going to last. Danny Marsden is pulling the strings now and it won’t be long before things start to happen and God help poor Molly when they do. Would both Sheglah and I be strong enough to pick up the pieces of the woman’s shattered life when the time comes?
Within ten minutes I make it to the oldest part of the wood where the most mature trees are densely packed together in a rough circle, their leaves allowing literally no light to reach the ground during the summer months. This was the place my Father had called the fairy dell. Its gloomy interior is dank and lifeless until the sun is directly overhead in the summer at around one PM. Then the place takes on a magical quality as thin sunbeams wink on and off like laser beams from heaven as the leaves above sway in a light breeze. I’ve visited the place many times as a child and the fairy dell tag has stuck. Thanks to my Father, even some of the locals started using the silly title he’d conjured up one Sunday afternoon we’d both witnessed the staggering natural light show within for the first time. From that moment on he’d done all he could to promote the idea among local children that fairies really lived there. Telling me and any others willing to sit still for long enough, ridiculous but heart-warming stories about the little people and their good deeds. There was a tear in my eye as I remembered those magic moments and how I wished those hard to spot little folk were around to help me now.
Not wishing to prolong the self imposed agony, I leave the place and begin the winding, mile long walk back down to the ARC. But I’m shaken out of my dreamy state by a sudden movement over to my left and I wheel around, unsure if it’s the result of my overtired brain or some trick of the light. About to walk on, I see something in the trees and for the first time in my life I feel slightly afraid in this place. My adult brain is now more aware of the possible dangers that lurk in the shadows of lonely places than my childish one and I scan the trees to the left, mentally preparing myself for flight until I’m sure someone is directly behind me, watching. The feeling reminds me of blundering about in the grounds of the manor a week earlier and I wheel around fast, ready for a fast sprint at the fist sign of trouble.
“What on earth are you doing here?” I demand, as if the place had been sullied by the most unwelcome intruder on the planet. Danny Marsden breaks cover. Wearing an expensive dark green waxed jacket and Wellingtons, he looks every inch the country squire. His thick dark hair is tousled untidily where he’s been snagged on some low bough, but he doesn’t seem to mind. A disconcerting warm glow spreads through me as he approaches and I fold my arms determined to shut it out. He’s grinning broadly.
“Good morning.” He says, moving in closer. Too close.
He lets the silence drag on until I’m forced to speak to him. “Don’t tell me you enjoy taking the air through this part of the woods.” I scowl. “Is nothing sacred?”
His expression remains cool. “Actually I was taking vital measurements for when we have to bring the heavy plant up from the road. I don’t want to go to all the trouble of hiring expensive earth movers, only to discover I can’t get them onto the site.” He looks around him before going on. “I can’t believe how densely packed the trees are around these parts.”
“Hardly a problem is it?” I glower. “Just cut them all down. It’s not as if they can complain is it?”
He moves closer, as close as the night he’d run me home from the hospital before making his lunge at me. But this time I’m ready and I step away to circle around him.
“So that’s it?” He says, indicating the Fairy Dell with a nod of his head. “Your private little place, where all the magic is supposed to happen?”
“I never said there was any magic in there Danny.” I say. “How did you find that out anyway?”
He ignores the question and I’m determined not to give him the satisfaction of asking again. Obviously he’s been asking questions of the friendlier l
ocals.
“The magic fairy dell eh.” He laughs cruelly. “It’s not quite what I was expecting. It all looks a bit damp and decayed in there.”
I struggle to keep an even tone. “I doubt if you’d feel any magic in this place or any place come to that. You have no imagination. In fact I doubt you were ever a child at all. Probably born with a mobile phone in one hand and a business diary in the other.”
His hard features reveal nothing and he continues surveying the surroundings with a shark’s interest. This is my world. He is the trespasser and I want him to leave. People like Danny Marsden can never be welcome here.
“Now that you’re here, maybe you could give me a guided tour of the area?” He says. “I’m afraid I haven’t got my bearings yet. Could you show me exactly where the Devil’s Punchbowl is?”
He certainly has some cheek. I frown at him before eyeing the hand drawn map he holds out for me to look at. To see it properly I have to stand with my arm touching his and again I fight the odd sensations pulsing through my body like some malevolent force, just waiting to sabotage my good intentions. Concentrating on the confusing pencil lines is nigh on impossible and I squint at them until my head swims. It’s only when I look up into his face that I realise he’s not looking down at the map at all and keeping my expression neutral, determined not to ape his silly grin, I point over to the north.
“I don’t know why I’m trying to read this.” I say. “The Devil’s Punchbowl is just a few hundred yards over there, beyond the ridge. Why I’m even talking to the man I don’t know. But something I read a long time ago flashes through my mind. What was it? Know your friends, but know your enemies better. It seems good advice right now and at least staying close to him for a while will allow me to learn his plans in greater detail. The move can only make my job of sabotaging them that much easier when the time comes.
“Will you show me, Cathy?” The sudden softness in his voice catches me unawares and I look at carefully to satisfy myself that he isn’t taking the rise out of me again. But he seems serious and the grin has vanished leaving only a genuine, lovely smile I’m more terrified of than the scowl.
“If you like.” I reply.
We walk slowly, Danny avidly taking in the sights and sounds of the wood that seems so dead at first glance, yet on closer inspection, is teeming with life. The quickest way to the Punchbowl is through the back end of the fairy dell but I hesitate, considering walking him the long way round. He peers at the natural entrance made up of centuries of gnarled and for the most part, long dead branches.
“I’ll take a look in here too.” he announces.
I bite my lip and force myself to follow him as he ducks down and slips inside. It doesn’t seem right his being here at all and I ache to tell him to come away, but I can’t and all I can do is follow him, mindful of my new strategy of keeping close tabs on him from now on. He walks around inside the ring of trees, taking in the natural amphitheatre, openly impressed as I’d been the first time I had seen it as a child. He pauses to study the odd shaped stones laid out at the dell’s centre, like some long forgotten primeval altar. No one knows how or when they got here or what purpose they once served, but one thing is sure. They have lain undisturbed for hundreds of years and are luckily too big to be carried off by some mindless vandal to act as a talking point in his garden.
“It’s so strange.” Danny drawls, more to himself than me. “It has got a kind of deep peace about it.”
“You mean you actually feel something strange and unfathomable in here?” I reply, forcing my eyes back into their sockets before he saw them.
“Yes.” He replies, craning his head back to look at the tree tops, the tallest in the wood. “It reminds me of an old church.”
The place had struck me the same way, but I strangle the urge to share it with him. Having anything in common with Danny Marsden, no matter how small, is just plain wrong.
“I wonder who originally planted these trees.” He drawls, walking on a little further.
“Why do you ask that?”
“They’re in an almost perfect circle. I just wonder why they bothered that’s all.”
“It’s a magical place, I told you.” I reply. “Even you must be able to see that. The origins of it are lost in the mists of time. You know, if you destroy this area you’ll have nothing but bad luck for the rest of your life.”
He turns and starts to laugh and I glare up at him, again overwhelmed by the urge to punch him in that smart mouth of his.
“What book of fairy tales did you get that one from?” He smirks.
“It’s not a fairytale. I just happen to know it, that’s all.”
“Is there any Gypsy in you?” He says, still trembling with barely disguised mirth.
“Mock all you like Danny Marsden.” I say. “You won’t be laughing in the end. Mark my words.” It’s hard trying to sound mysterious when I know that warnings of dark forces will be wasted on him. One look at the sneer on his face as he saunters on past the stones and out into the hazy sunshine beyond tells me he takes it all as seriously as a long-range weather forecast.
I pointed down the hill to the left. “The Punchbowl’s over there.” I say. “Do you want to go take a look or can you manage a good laugh at it from here?”
“No.” He sighs. “I think I’ve seen everything I needed to. I’d really like to have a proper look at the ARC too. I didn’t get a chance last time with all the shouting and threats being made.”
I smirked, remembering the explosive incident. “Do you really want to get yourself murdered just to take a couple of measurements in a place that’s about to fall down anyway?”
He shrugged. “I take it your awful boss lady is there?”
“Yes.” I reply.
“Never mind then.” He says. “We’ll deal with that problem when it comes.”
As he makes to walk away, I grip him by the arm. I don’t have the strength to pull him around as he had done to me with such ease, but the move at least has the desired effect of grabbing his attention.
“You do realise, it will kill Molly when that place comes down don’t you? I mean really kill her. She has a weak heart.”
He pulled my hand away gently before taking it in his.
“Try to understand Cathy. I’m a business man. If Molly gets herself into the kind of state where she has heart failure through something I’m doing then I feel sorry for her, but really it’s none of my concern.”
“You are so heartless.”
“If everyone threatened to fall down and die every time something had to be changed we’d never get anything built would we?”
I pull my hand away as he goes on. “Try just this once to see someone else’s point of view. You might become a better person for it.”
“It’s you who has problem dealing with your fellow man, not me.” I snap. My blood’s beginning to boil and he senses it too.
“Let’s not fight again.” He sighs. “We could put our differences behind us for a while. Come and have lunch with me?”
“No.” I reply flatly, not letting the invite hang in the air for one second.
“It’s a great pity you feel so strongly about this. I can’t help but feel you and I could have been good mates had it not been for this one silly little project.”
I glare off into the distance. In a way he’s right as much as I hate to admit it. In different circumstances I would be strongly attracted to Danny Marsden, despite the five year age gap between us. But the other gap is just too wide to bridge and every time I look at him I see him ripping the guts out of the wood and the ARC all over again and it hurts like hell.
“Are you walking back to the shelter then?” He asks softly.
“Yes, I’ve got my bike there.”
“Then we can walk back to the road together.”
I shrug non-commitally, knowing it will appear childish to refuse and we walk around the dell and down the gentl
e slope in something less than companionable silence until his voice cuts through the still.
“You know about Tuesday’s meeting?”
“Yes.”
“Will you be at there?”
“I suppose so.”
“There’s little point in carrying on the hostility you know?” He adds. “Final planning permission will be granted.”
“I know.” I reply as lightly as I can manage. The end of Becmead Woods is just days away.
Make a Wish Page 5