Darkly Wood

by Power, Max

  “I’ve got to go” he announced quite suddenly.

  Daisy was lost for words. She felt odd. The moment was awkward and she really wanted to say something but the words were nowhere to be found. She didn’t want him to go, but she didn’t know how to stop him.

  “I’ll see you around.” Benjamin said and lightly touched her arm, which gave her goose bumps, before he simply turned and walked away.

  Daisy watched him go. He walked up the street a little with a confident strut and turned left, disappearing into the darkening twilight. Daisy desperately wanted him to look back and he did. Benjamin glanced back over his shoulder just before he turned the corner and gave her a little wiggly-fingered wave. She returned the wiggly-finger wave back. Much to her surprise Daisy suddenly felt quite sad and yet was filled with a rush of delight all at the same time. The conflict was dreadful. There she stood for quite some time, completely unable to move. Every thought that made sense left her and Daisy had even forgotten the purpose of her trip out that evening. It was only when the door of the chip-shop opened that she came to her senses. An elderly man excused himself to get past her, leaving the shop door open and she went inside to get some chips.

  Twenty minutes later, she arrived home and put the food that she had bought on the kitchen table. Somehow she had managed to order food and make her way home without having any memory of doing so. Her head was filled with one thing and one thing only. Benjamin. How he looked, his eyes, his hair, the fresh scent that he exuded and his touch. More than anything, she could not forget the touch of his hand on her arm. It was all she could think about and when her mother asked her what she had bought, Daisy quite literally had no idea.

  “Chips,” she answered and rushed upstairs.

  “Where are you going!” her mum called after her.

  “To the toilet.” she shouted back and she scurried into the bathroom, closing the door behind her and turning the key.

  She spun around and ran the tap in the basin. It made no sense but she did it nonetheless. The mirror above the sink was filled with a red smiling face. Daisy looked at the rosy cheeked smiling reflection and barely recognised herself. She didn’t even know that she had been smiling. Immediately she stopped smiling and then realised that she was panting heavily. It was as though she had run the whole way home and was out of breath. Perhaps she had. Daisy really couldn’t remember.

  “Daisy May!”

  It was her mother again. Full title meant hurry up.

  “COMING!” was her reply.

  She ran her fingers beneath the tap and cupped her hands under the steady flow of cold water. Bending forward, she scooped up a handful and splashed it onto her face. The water was cool and it calmed her. When she looked at her reflection again, she was no longer smiling. Something had changed about her but she could not quite put her finger on it. One thing was for certain. Daisy May Coppertop had changed. She had changed the moment that Benjamin Blood bumped into her outside her front door and she would never be the same again.

  CHAPTER FOUR – BOBBY BUNKER

  The terrible war that had been given the auspicious honour of being called the First World War and the Great War, touched so many lives that it seems almost insignificant to pick out one individual and tell his story. It would be thus perhaps in this instance, were it not for the fact that the most significant thing to happen to Bobby Bunker had nothing to do with the war despite what people said.

  It was true that young Bobby had fought somewhere in Belgium or France, (story tellers used whatever came to mind in recounting his tale) against the dreaded Hun and that he had returned home somewhat damaged. Before he went to fight, whistling war songs with his class mates as they marched to war, Bobby was a happy-go-lucky, pleasant soul. He always wore a smile on his face and never stopped talking. Bobby was in love with life. He liked pretty much everyone he met and everyone liked Bobby in return. It was hard not to like him.

  When he came back from that place and left behind the things that he had seen there, the old Bobby was gone. He had aged more than the two years that had passed since his departure and he carried melancholy around with him as a constant companion. But it was more than that. Some said it was shell shock. Others gossiped that he wasn’t man enough to cope with the trauma of war. Such are the machinations of the minds made by those that gossip. There were many notions speculated upon, but no one really knew the truth of what had happened. No one knew what it was that changed Bobby Bunker.

  There was however, no great mystery. The truth was there, for those who had been to war to see and for those that hadn’t; they should have at least had the sensitivity to try to understand. Sadly for Bobby, he alone of the forty men that had left to fight from Cranby and the surrounding town lands, returned alive. Perhaps it was in part that very fact, which lay at the heart of the gossip and growing dislike for the young man after his return. His extended stay in hospital despite the absence of any real physical injury, added slightly to the speculation about Bobby, but there was no real sense to the growing negative sentiment towards him. He should have been hailed for his efforts in fighting for his country and indeed, for surviving the dreadful colossus that is war. Unfortunately for young Bobby, because of his unwillingness to talk about his ordeal, a growing bitterness crept in among those who had not seen their loved ones return alive as he had done.

  They wanted tales and ribald stories of how heroic he had been, or even fearful tear filled chats, recounting the sorrow he had felt, or intriguing descriptions of the terrible fearful sights that he had witnessed. Importantly, as the only local survivor, people wanted to know if he had seen their son or brother, father, uncle, cousin or nephew. How had he managed to make it back alive and not their loved ones? In some way, at least in the early stages of their confusion, it might have been possible to understand their anger in their grief, but sadly there was more to it than that.

  It would certainly have been unfair to blame those who wanted to know, who needed to know. Loved ones lost are lost, but carried with you forever and there is a desperate need for closure when the loss happens out of sight. They badgered poor Bobby in some instances, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t tell them anything to ease their pain and so bit by bit, one by one, they turned on him. At first it might have been hard to accuse them for what they did, after all they had lost so much and there is no need to explain the hurt to their feelings, but eventually what they did was truly unforgivable.

  As time passed, the wounds did not heal and for whatever reason, the collective of Cranby and its surrounds, began to despise Bobby Bunker. They turned on him without any real reason and it was most unfair. It was a harsh rebuke for a man who carried no blame for what happed to their lost ones. He could find no work on any farm or in the Market. People began to snub him in the street and pretty soon he found himself all but ostracised from nearly the entire community. I say nearly, because there was one spectacular exception. Her name was Gabby Waddock.

  Gabby had always been fond of Bobby. Before the war, they had played together in her younger years with a group of friends that included Bobby. There had been Vanessa Grey, Maggie Swift, Jack Mandrake, Tommy Butcher and little Amy Corkery. They had hung around together all through their childhood, living close to each other as they did and all within two years in age of each other. Everyone knew that Bobby, who wasn’t the catch of the bunch by any means, (that honour fell to Jack) had a sweetening for Maggie. In fairness all the boys did. They couldn’t help themselves. She was gorgeous. The only problem was that she knew it.

  Gabby tried to convince Bobby ever so discreetly, that Maggie wouldn’t be good girlfriend material for any self- respecting boy, but when it came to Maggie all of the boys were blind. Rather they were blinded by her luscious fulsome hair and her shiny red lips. She had a smile so sweet, that it could almost distract the boys from her eyes and they had the power to hypnotize. As she matured into teenage years, she developed even more interesting distractions for the boys and none of the oth
er girls could keep up. Nonetheless, Gabby still hoped that someday, Bobby would see her for what she really was. Perhaps then he might divert his attentions in her direction. He never did but she never gave up hope.

  Poor Gabby. She cried for days when Bobby went to war. All the time he was away, she prayed for him each night and asked God to bring him back safely. She never dared to ask God to have him all to herself, for that would be a selfish prayer and would surely lead to bad things. Gabby prayed and hoped, wished and dreamed and two years later, almost to the day, Bobby returned all in one piece. Her prayers had been answered.

  She had become used to the church services for the ones who had been lost, and always half expected that he would be next, but much to her relief, he never was. When he finally returned home, Gabby went to visit him in the little cottage where his mother had waited for so long for him to return home, only to pass away one month before his ultimate return. Such irony was not lost on the already deeply damaged Bobby. Gabby could see it in his face when she visited him. It was truly, a sad reunion.

  The Bobby that she visited was not the Bobby she had waved off to war and although Gabby made a great effort, babbling on and on about all that had happened while he had been away, she couldn’t take the sting out of his sorrow. At first she thought that he was grieving for his dear departed mother, but she soon came to sense there was something else. It was something unspoken and very dark. Although she desperately wanted to hug him and hold him and kiss his sorrow away, she daren’t. Gabby knew better. She had waited all this time and she could wait a little longer. Bobby just wasn’t ready, she decided. He would be ready soon though, or at least that is what she wanted to believe and when the time was right, Gabby would be his shoulder to cry on.

  She waited patiently and saw the initial sympathy from the people of the town gradually subside. For her it was impossible not to empathise with the man she loved and she did understand that others might wane in their understanding. But then the hatred started and that was something she could not accept or understand. It angered her. How could they be so mean to her Bobby?

  Gabby fought with anyone who would listen and more that would not. She stood up for the boy she had loved, who had grown into a man through war and was now a poor pained soul in crises. He seemed unable or unwilling to do so himself. Once in the street, she overheard Maggie Swift talking loudly to a small gathering about how she always knew that ‘he was a little weird!’ Gabby almost exploded.

  “How dare you!” she screeched the words and Maggie actually jumped back.

  “You wicked, selfish, stupid trollop!”

  Gabby stomped right up to her and grabbed Maggie by the scruff of the neck. Such an action was completely uncharacteristic of Gabby. Normally she barely spoke up for herself. The small crowd stood back, startled at Gabby’s aggression. Gabby wanted to slap Maggie and scream abuse in her face but when she looked into those beautiful eyes, those big, stupid, beautiful empty eyes, Gabby could see she was wasting her time.

  “Aaaaggggghhh!” She exclaimed and shoved Maggie back so hard that she landed flat on her bottom in the middle of the road. Gabby stormed off, fully aware that now the whole town would be talking about her. She didn’t care. Gabby knew in that moment, just how much she loved Bobby Bunker and if anyone else in Cranby had their doubts, her actions that day, dispelled them once and for all.

  From that day on, most people steered clear of Gabby. Although they didn’t shun her as they did Bobby, they did avoid her and the coldness was palpable. She had become like Bobby, an undesirable in many ways. Gabby would be stained by association and in a place like Cranby that could be a lifetime of disaffection. She was thus treated and not one person had a good word to say about her subsequently, but that was of course, until the day a local farmer called Charlie Hanson, came across young Gabby in Darkly Wood.

  It was Charlie Hanson’s dog that found her to be more precise. The hyper little terrier had gone into a thicket chasing a rabbit. He disappeared and refused to come back out. He barked like a crazed creature. Charlie was forced to go in after him. The sight that greeted him, would have turned his hair grey had he any left.

  There, completely naked, her body bent and twisted and covered in bloody scratches, was Gabby Waddock. Whoever had done what had been done to her, must have been a vile and evil soul. That was at least, what the old man told those that would listen. Everyone was shocked and frightened at first, but their fear and shock soon turned into something altogether different. It was something more sinister and it was unbelievable how a girl that no-one in the village had any time for one day, was suddenly a friend in memory to all, the very next day.

  The police had to be called and as there was no local station in Cranby, they had to come all the way from out of Wickby. That was not a common occurrence and it added to the gravity of the situation. Who could have done such a thing? Had there been any strangers in the area? Who had seen her last and did she have any enemies? Such were the questions that the police asked and out of shame, no one dared tell of how they had all snubbed and mistreated young Gabby. Not one person dared speak of their dislike for the poor young girl, nor the petty reasons that lay behind their feelings for her. Oh no! Now she had become, ‘that poor sweet innocent thing.’

  The funeral was held three weeks later and the pastor spoke about a pure innocent soul lost and how Gabby had been a valuable member of their community. They all stood when asked and sang when they should, to mourn the object of their scorn with great enthusiasm for all to see. Guilty voices sing the loudest. Bobby turned up for the service. He wore his uniform as he had done every day since his return from the war and not one person spoke to him. He sat quietly at the back of the chapel throughout the proceedings, seemingly unmoved but with a sorrowful look on his face. It was the same one that he always wore.

  At the grave yard, Bobby stood back a ways knowing he was an outsider and feeling very much the part, more so now that Gabby had been lost to him. Bobby was not, as they all thought, cold and unfeeling. He wasn’t completely lost. Inside, he was a boiling mass of emotions and they tormented him from the moment he woke each morning, until he eventually drifted to sleep deep into the night. The turmoil was too great to cope with. He could not tell anyone, not even Gabby what was going on in his head. If he let it out, even a peek, Bobby just knew he would go crazy. So he wrapped it up tightly, keeping his mouth shut and his emotions shrouded in a veil of outward misery. It was the only way although as they lowered Gabby into the ground, he thought that he might scream. He didn’t, at least not out loud.

  As he turned to leave the graveyard, Bobby was confronted by two large plain clothes policemen. They showed Bobby their identification although there really was no need. They were strangers in town and more importantly, they were simply and unmistakably policemen. The other mourners didn’t seem too surprised and stood together watching him, a collective look of disdain on their faces as he was carefully man-handled into the policemen’s rather large black car. There were no cars in Cranby back then and on any other day it would have been the centre of attention. On the day of Gabby Waddock’s funeral however, Cranby folk had other things on their minds.

  It was hard to justify the things that they had told the police about poor young Bobby Bunker. Insinuations and lies barely concealed their developing sense of loathing as they began to believe the lie they had themselves created. It had started with the owner of the local grocery store Mabel Beak.

  A policeman, Detective Sergeant Noble had called in to Mabel’s store on a door-to-door enquiry, trying to establish if anyone had seen anything suspicious or indeed if there was anything they could tell him about Gabby’s last movements. Mabel had plenty to say. The first thing she dropped was a hint.

  “Oh she was always hanging around with that Bobby Bunker,” she told the detective and it sounded innocent enough. Sergeant Nobel wrote everything down in his little black notebook with his red pencil, but Mabel didn’t think she had perhaps been sp
ecific enough.

  “Bit strange that lad,” she added, “never been right since he came back from the war.”

  She watched the policeman for a reaction, but he just took a few more notes and when he asked her when she had last seen Gabby. Mabel thought he must be slow, and wondered what type of training they gave in police school.

  “Never seemed,” and here she paused for effect, ignoring his question, trying to catch the detective’s eye when he looked at her to finish her sentence, “never seemed, appropriate if you ask me,” again she paused for effect before finishing with, “their relationship.”

  “In what way?” the suddenly curious detective asked, finally getting the message. So Mabel volunteered as much vagueness as she could muster about poor Bobby. She told the Sergeant about how he was always a little strange as a child and that Bobby was always a bit too interested in Gabby, if the detective knew what she meant. He did unfortunately and from that point on, he inclined his questions in that very direction.

  Once someone like Sergeant Nobel has the bit between their teeth as it were, it can be difficult for them to focus on anything else. Having established Bobby as a likely suspect, there seemed little point in maintaining any semblance of fairness. It was important that someone should pay for this heinous crime and if someone fit the bill closely enough, well then there was no point in making more work for yourself now was there? Once he started to dig it appeared that half the village seemed to share Mabel’s misgivings about Bobby Bunker.

  They didn’t need much encouragement and the more they spoke of him, the more likely he seemed to be the perfect suspect. Gradually, the rumours took hold and they seemed the most plausible of truths that were ever created from fiction. So much so, that shortly after Gabby’s funeral, Bobby found himself sitting in a green walled room at the police station in Wickby.