Escape and Evasion

by Christopher Wakling

  Still does.

  When awake, that is.

  66

  Just as he realises he’s nodded off, Joseph snaps to in a confused panic, with the same Christ-where-am-I? feeling he’s had a few times on the motorway, driving when tired. That can kill you: read the signs! Best wind the window down and sing at the top of your voice or possibly bite the inside of your cheek. No need for that here. He’s pretty safe sitting against this wall at zero miles an hour. But he’s thirsty again, and hungry, admit it. Well, there’ll be a shop in the village, and he’s going to have to risk swinging by for a few provisions en route.

  En route to where?

  He knows. It’ll be perfect! Of course it will. They think he’s in France, or at the bottom of the Channel, so the last place they’ll look will be …

  Anyway, he should get started if he’s going to make it to the shop, shouldn’t he?

  Yes.

  Right, then, repack this kit properly, and scuff up the brambles again to give the ruin back its rural ruinousness. And let’s head out, making like a rambler, yes, a heavily equipped rambler taking an early summer break through the beautiful Surrey hills: rambling!

  Ha.

  Because he is rambling on, thought-wise, isn’t he?

  Rambling among the brambles, a right shambles.

  Stop it.

  Since when did he, Joseph Ashcroft, Big Beast of linear decision-making in matters of war and wealth, get so … sideways, off-kilter, diagonal, in terms of head space? Is it a sign? Like the missing words.

  Just open the letter: find out for sure.

  No!

  Why?

  Because not opening it is his only defence.

  That gummed-down St Thomas’ envelope flap is holding back the tide.

  And anyway, he’s misremembering things. The inside of his head has always been a scrambled sort of place. Sure, it made decisions, choices which he acted on by doing things, things which, looking back, seem pretty authoritative and organised, but who is he kidding, the actual thinking bit behind the decisions was always a mess of noise and light.

  Because all heads are full of that!

  We get on despite it, don’t we?

  Yes we do, and right now Joseph must get on, as in make his way along this here yellow-green hedgerow, pick up the footpath and head down into the village, in search of the shop. The first houses he passes, a pair of Edwardian stacks-of-bricks, are set back behind nine-foot evergreen hedges. Very reassuring. And what’s that up ahead? It is indeed a shop, but sadly not the right sort: all it sells are four-by-fours. Joseph actually bought one a while back, because he just did. No, not to spite Naomi. They make hybrid versions now anyway. ‘Treacherous school-run driving conditions, here in Surrey,’ she’d said. He backed off, then backed back on and bought one. And in a way that was lucky, because if he remembers rightly he’d made the suggestion at the end of quite a frosty month.

  Further on into the village proper is a pub festooned with hanging baskets, behind which there’s a lovely garden. He remembers drinking cold white wine in it with Naomi one sunny July afternoon when the kids were small, Zac strapped asleep in his stroller, Lara off ferreting in the flowerbed, and the wine going down a treat, neither he nor Naomi saying much, but both – he was sure of it – feeling the same warm perfect shiver when he reached out and covered the back of her hand with his own.

  Ah, lovely moment!

  Lucky man!

  Cut short, sadly.

  No, not by that. He didn’t do that until much later.

  By the wasp. Remember? Of course he does. Poor Lara suddenly started screaming among the hollyhocks, catapulting Naomi – and Joseph, just a second or two later – up off the wooden bench to help her get the damn thing out of her hair. It had stung her three times: shoulder, neck, ear. He dug some ice out of the cooler bucket but Naomi waved it away and off they went back home to find the antihistamine cream.

  There’s the shop, look.

  ‘Shoppe’, actually.

  Ha.

  He’s never been in it, has he? Never stopped here while driving through? No, because there was one closer, run by that chap from Poland with the glass eye, and between him and Ocado they, meaning Naomi really, had the household bases covered.

  Look at all these little advertisements in the window. Here’s one for a ‘dog companion’.

  As in, a companionable dog?

  No, someone to look after yours.

  Possibly that’s who Naomi leaves Gordon with during the day.

  Because of course, as well as keeping the kids, she also managed to hang on to the Labrador–lurcher cross, even though it was Joseph who bought the dog in the first place, for Christmas, for Lara and Zac, and yes, Naomi, he was fully aware of the ‘for life, not just for Christmas’ slogan, meaning this was not some impulse purchase prompted by his having missed both their carol concerts.

  Joseph’s eye snags on another advertisement.

  ‘For sale: trampoline.’

  Surely Naomi hasn’t?

  No, it’s a different number entirely.

  What’s this other notice here, then? Neighbourhood Watch: keep alert. It seems some poor pensioner disturbed an intruder and won himself a right hook. Well, he was lucky it wasn’t worse.

  Joseph takes his hat out of his pocket and pulls it on. His face hangs before him in the glass front door. Properly bristled! Just be swift in here, fetch the necessities, a rambler rambling subtly through.

  He opens the door softly but a bell tinkles anyway, announcing his arrival, and suddenly the backpack is very large in the confines of the shoppe, as if he’d ridden inside on a horse. Should have dismounted. Tries to do so now, but clatters a stand of postcards with the backpack in the process.

  ‘Pop that down there if you like,’ says a voice very close by.

  Joseph flinches, turns, sees a pleasant-looking woman, albeit with wonky teeth. She is leaning forward on her countertop, smiling at him and indicating a spot just to the left of the door where she’s suggesting he rests the damn—

  ‘Thank you.’

  And damn again! Straightening, Joseph sees that they were serious about the Ye Olde bit of the Shoppe: beyond the rack of vintage postcards the place appears to sell mostly retro sweets in big jars ranged behind the woman’s counter and down that far wall. Black Jacks, Sherbet Lemons, Liquorice Allsorts, Kola Cubes, et cetera. At least there’s a drinks fridge, although that too is full of ginger beer and cloudy lemonade. Not quite: there are bottles of sparkling water on that bottom shelf, and yes, as he tracks down the far side of the central aisle he’s relieved to find a small selection of actual food, chosen mostly it seems for the famous labels. Heinz baked beans, Fray Bentos pies, Colman’s mustard, Del Monte pineapple slices. Christ, his mouth is watering. He starts gathering up a few tins, then realises he’ll need a basket, and has to retrieve one from beside the counter. Actual wicker!

  ‘Shout if I can help with anything,’ the woman says. It’s not just her teeth that are wonky, her smile is as well. In fact her whole face is a genial Picasso, off kilter and … amused.

  Joseph’s eyes slide to one side.

  ‘I’ll take a pound of sugared almonds,’ he says, spotting the jar.

  (Lots of calories in nuts, see.)

  ‘A whole pound?’

  ‘Make it two,’ he says, and while the woman is sorting that he heads off to fill his basket with Gentleman’s Relish and Piccadilly Piccalilli, as well as the Heinz beans and so forth he already spotted. Oh, for a few packets of just-add-water rations to keep the weight down: the little basket, solid with jars and tins, is ridiculously heavy given their combined nutritional value. In fact, it’s ridiculous all round: looks like he’s about to go native with some sort of knock-off Fortnum & Mason hamper.

  Ha.

  Look, the empty jars may come in handy, at least.

  He adds a couple of bottles of Malvern mineral water to his hamper and waits patiently while the wonky woman rings them throu
gh her vintage till. No barcode scanner here. Joseph eyes his rucksack, resting against the wall. There’s not much room in it. And anyway, he doesn’t fancy opening the top up here, so he accepts the offer of a bag. Inevitably, it’s a paper one with the Shoppe’s logo on the side, and he needs two of them, and it seems he’s spent some ninety-six pounds on these bits and pieces, which is notable mostly because of what he realises as he receives his change, namely: that’s it money-wise. As in, those five twenties were his last notes. And that’s as it should be. He’s timed it well. From here on in he’ll have to make do without the green stuff.

  Exiting the shop with both paper bags and his rucksack necessitates a bit of a kerfuffle, because, Christ, this thing here is done up too tight, and the postcard rack …

  The woman, keen to assist, comes out from behind the till to help him heft himself in, strap-speaking.

  She’s still smiling.

  Short of actually holding up the place with a gun, could he have made himself any more obvious?

  ‘Wow,’ she says, when he’s finally sorted.

  ‘We’re off on holiday,’ he replies, as he picks up the paper bags.

  She opens the tinkling door wide. ‘Well, enjoy!’

  And out he goes, blinking into the sun, which is in his face, coming as it is through the tops of those trees.

  That’s not why his cheeks are burning, though.

  Ignore it!

  Concentrate instead on that beautiful hillside, the low sunlight turning up an extra dimension of purple shadows among the bursting leaves. Look at that red kite or possibly buzzard soaring above the hilltop. Tremendous.

  That’s the way he’s headed now, quickly over this patch of village green and out along the lane towards the footpath, trying not to worry about the children on the slide over there, with their mother or nanny or au pair glancing up at him, freighted rambler, trudging on.

  67

  Remember nanny-gate?

  Ha.

  He was only trying to help.

  Naomi started it, sort of, by sitting beneath that cruel light. She was reading an Amnesty update at the kitchen table one February evening and the standard lamp made her look suddenly older, more careworn.

  ‘Tough day?’ he asked.

  She looked up and frowned. Wow, creases.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it started with Zac throwing his porridge at the wall and Lara refused to go to school again, but it’s only a stage.’

  ‘We could get some help.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Someone to mind the kids. An au pair or whatever. So you can …’

  Because the fact was, everyone at work had at least one nanny, some of them two, a spare for when the main one had to sleep and so forth. Bankers’ wives expected it. The few who had their own careers to go back to did, and the many more – younger, often Russian ones, it seemed, for whom work meant choosing a marble floor or fundraising with a champagne glass in one hand – spent their time doing that and keeping up appearances. Joseph could afford a nanny. He said so. Why was Naomi, crumply, looking at him like that?

  ‘It’s not the money,’ she said. ‘Though why waste it?’

  ‘Would it be a waste?’

  ‘They’re our children. I don’t see the point in someone else looking after them when we can. Kids can be hard to take even when you love them. I mean today … without the love … an au pair or nanny wouldn’t do as good a job.’

  ‘Yes but, you know,’ he nodded at the magazine. ‘You could do a bit more of what you want.’

  She’d always planned to go back to work part-time. She’d said as much, and eventually did! Other wives were happy enough giving to local charities; Joseph’s would help run a global one. He was proud of that. He poured her a glass of wine and told her so. She thanked him, agreed that yes, she still wanted to go back when both kids were properly settled in school, and went on, ‘But for now nobody else can look after them as well as I can.’

  I? We!

  It was all the fault of that damn light, which was too bright.

  Unforgivably unforgiving.

  It made him factual. ‘Yes, but they’re wearing you out.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  He looked at her evenly. ‘It’s obvious.’

  She stood up and went to the sink. It was the same ropey kitchen that had been there when they bought the house. Why she didn’t want to improve it with solid wood cabinets, granite work surfaces, plus possibly add an Aga and one of those special pure-water taps, he didn’t know. When he hosted the poker evening James Lassiter had mentioned the name of an Italian design firm. And, technically, he was Lassiter’s boss. Sort of.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ said Naomi.

  ‘But your wine.’

  ‘You finish it. I need my beauty sleep. Evidently.’

  ‘Naomi,’ he said, but couldn’t quite bring himself to deny it. Why? Not because he didn’t love her, but possibly because he didn’t in that moment love her enough.

  68

  Damn au pair. She’s not even watching the kids on the slide, although what could she do, realistically, if one of them fell?

  Catch him!

  From that height, it’d hurt.

  Yes, but exactly: for Lara and Zac, Naomi would throw herself under a bus.

  So would he!

  Damn lamp.

  All he had to do was swap in a gentler bulb.

  A little job.

  Right now, though, the job is lumping himself and his kit into the woods. The school is still there, he knows it is. Down through this sweep of mostly pine trees, which by the way smell terrific this evening, he can even see an edge of the far games pitches. But he’s not going anywhere near the grounds. He’s skirting them, going beyond, heading for the stretch of Forestry Commission land on the other side.

  It’s quite steep here.

  He’s puffing hard.

  Why not stop for a rest and crack open one of the water bottles? Good idea. Joseph wipes his brow and takes a long swig. As soon as the coldness hits his stomach he feels cavernously empty, so he digs out the sugared almonds and eats a handful. Lord, they’re tasty: the crunch of the coating, the fibrous goodness within! Joseph tips a few into his pocket and savours them as he works his way deeper into the woods.

  It’s around here somewhere.

  Handy if he found it before sundown.

  But wow, these rhododendrons, even thicker than he remembered, or imagined, make searching tricky. A system would help. Instate one! Track down the slope towards where the fence hits the field. That takes a good quarter of an hour. Walk twenty paces along the field-facing edge of the woods. And search back in up the wooded hill. Harder work still. Push on, keeping a keen eye in and around and beneath the trees and bloody rhododendrons. Look, they’ll be helpful when he’s settled: put up with them for now. Just keep going! What’s it called when gun dogs search a thicket for birds? Quartering? Searching methodically from side to side, into the wind. Something like that. He just has to quarter this here woodland in search of a bomb-hole crater he last saw thirty-three years ago, because … because it will be ideal.

  But damn, the light is failing.

  Darker in the woods than by the field, obviously.

  It is, particularly in the purple dusk, pretty tangly.

  He thinks of alveoli. Those tiny end-of-the-line sub-branches of lung. This here is proper oxygen-producing green belt. Untouched for …

  It’s amazing the way the eyes adapt to the encroaching darkness. He’s been going for what seems like an age when he reaches – and remembers – the drop-off ledge. Of course. A spine in the landscape, raised three or four feet, with a gully running down one side which, if he’s right, leads up to … yes … just up there, where the backbone gives out onto a little rise, within that deeper darkness, the tree tunnel folding in all around, bushes beneath, ram on through them, find the hole within.

  Joseph pushes through the thicket to the rim of the crater. It’s hard t
o make out where the slope starts, and the weight of the pack puts him off balance. He lurches, slips, drops to one knee, and sort of topples into the bramble-filled hole.

  Ow.

  At least it’s here!

  Of course it is: holes don’t move.

  Just get yourself out of these straps, man.

  Lord, there’s enough undergrowth down here. He can’t really see through it, or pull himself free. As soon as he moves, a cord of something thorny scratches his neck. But once the pack is off he’s able to squirrel himself sideways more or less, reversing up the angled side of the crater, dragging the bag with him.

  Really, it’s dark.

  No point starting now: he’d just have to redo the whole thing in the morning.

  At least it’s not a cold night.

  Although, having stopped moving, and with the sun down, it’s hardly warm.

  He’s lying on his back, looking up through brambles and branches to the sky, and seeing more or less none of it, just charcoal abstractions.

  Kip here.

  It’s not ideal, but.

  Just … start in the morning.

  Moving slowly, a man underwater, Joseph finds his bedroll, the sleeping bag, and one of the tarps in his pack. He sweeps from side to side to test for big lumps in the ground. When he finds a flat enough spot he spreads out the tarp and bedroll, shimmies into his sleeping bag, and pulls the flap of tarp he’s not lying on over the top of him.

  There, a draughty Joseph sandwich.

  It’ll do until first light.

  Which will come eventually.

  Much faster if he actually falls asleep.

  There are still a few sugared almonds in his trouser pocket: he can feel them pressing into his thigh. Dig them out. Do a bit of nibbling.

  This is much worse than the ruin, despite its holed roof. Yes, but imagine how fine the shelter he’ll build tomorrow will be by comparison. At least he’s safe here, tonight, for now.

  That’s right, ___ half full.

  Glass.

  If you’re going to stay awake, at least do a bit of planning.