The head is bowed, arms folded across the body. The cloak brushes the ground so that I can’t see the feet. He stops. Stands stock still, as though listening.
I’ve got goosebumps.
‘Hello?’ I say again, less confidently.
Slowly, the figure turns to look at me.
It has no face.
Chapter Thirty-One
In the Deep Woods
Halfway up the drive, I burst into tears. I’m zonked, and frustrated with myself for being so jelly-kneed that I’ve actually started hallucinating, and it’s as dark as it could be and as cold as a witch’s tit, and my husband hasn’t even noticed I’m missing, and to cap it all, it’s coming back on to rain – a sort of misty, sleety sideways rain that turns my lips blue and cakes my eyelashes – and I’m suddenly fully aware of why the snotty-arsed inhabitants of this shonky bloody country wear anoraks. And yes, I’ll admit it: I am scared. I am jangling with it.
I don’t believe in ghosts. Any more than I believe in angels or demons or mischievous pixies. But I saw something and the brief glimpse of the blank nothingness under that hood before it whisked away into the shrubbery was enough to leave me jittery.
So now I’ve got bush oysters coming out of my nose, double-wet all over my face and my feet are killing me as I haul butt up the hill in shoes made for swanning about city pavements in. And for some reason, in my head I’m singing a little song to the tune of ‘Camptown Races’, only it goes ‘Who-the-fuck-do-you-think-you-are? Do-dah, do-dah …’ I’m going to kill Rufus, if I survive long enough to get hold of him.
The anger, at least, is a source of warmth. I could swear the drive has doubled in length since I came down it. By the time I reach the top, sweating inside sopping clothes, it’s nine o’clock. The woods, which just seemed raggedy and unloved when we were going down, have taken on an altogether more menacing flavour now that I can’t see more than a couple of metres.
Over the soft-shoe shush of my feet on the pitted road, I hear vague rustlings to my left: furtive, creeping, chasing-and-fleeing sounds. Snuffles and lolloping. The crackle of breaking undergrowth.
I’m a hundred metres in, and I don’t know what to do.
It gets darker with every step. I have to take it slowly, though my instinct is to bail at speed. But I’m mindful of the fact that every time we’ve come down this way, the Land Rover has bounced through potholes like a fairground ride. The last thing I need on top of my current miseries is a sprained ankle.
Something shrieks over in the forest to my left, and I have a momentary out-of-body experience. When spirit finally reunites with flesh, I am shaking, my heart scrabbling to escape my ribcage, and I seem to have got a good fifty metres further down the road. In fact, I seem to be running, though I have no memory of having started to do so. The edge of my foot hits a hole, and I stumble, stagger, regain – just – my footing and force myself to slow down. It’s an effort of pure will. And once again, I’m cursing myself for a sook, because it’s not like we don’t have owls in Australia.
I walk on, try to keep my thoughts under control, but my pulse still tells me that I’m being stalked by something three metres high with teeth made of old tin cans. I can feel its eyes on my back in the dark. I can feel its breath on my neck. I wish I’d never come here. I’m going to die thousands of miles from home and no-one will ever know. It’ll drag me into its lair and make merry with my intestines, and all they’ll think is that I took off at the first sign of pressure, probably open a surreptitious bottle of champagne to toast my defeat.
A crash of undergrowth to the right. This time, I know I’m not imagining it. Something burls through the woods at a rate of knots, and it’s large enough to break everything it brushes up against. It makes terrible, golloping, slurruping noises as it goes.
I’m not hanging around to see what it is. Belt up the road like greased lightning, don’t care if I hit a bump or a hole, because I’ve got so much adrenalin in my system I could break a leg and not notice till I’d worn the bloody stump all the way to the hip. My vision, suddenly acute despite the gloom, makes out flashes of white keeping pace with me between tree trunks and behind bushes. My tongue is dry and clouds of fog burst from my lips. And the whatever-it-is in the woods is going gloffle-gloffle-ploff-ploff-ploff as it lollops along, demolishing saplings and spraying toadstools in its wake. It seems like a million years till I reach the broken-down gate, bolt through it and scream round the corner into the village.
But there’s no salvation here. Bourton Allhallows is a ghost town. The empty-looking houses we passed on the way down are still empty. My pace slows involuntarily as I take in the fact that I’m in a village with no villagers. My pursuer seems to have dropped back when I left the estate, but I’m not out of the woods yet.
I’ve never been somewhere so quiet. What the hell is going on here?
My ankle hurts where I twisted it on the pothole, and I limp gingerly along the road towards the green. On either side: sightless windows, sagging thatch, stones tumbled from walls left lying at their bases, little plots of front garden strangled by ivy and weeds. I feel like I’ve been written in to The Day of the Triffids.
Another shriek from the woods – a different tone, this time: more panicky, more desperate – cuts off suddenly, encouraging me to step my pace up once again.
There’s a light on in the pub. I feel the breath slip from me in a great gush of relief. It’s not much of a light, just a single-bulbed lamp in the window of the downstairs bar, but in this lonely gloom, it’s as welcome to me as Liberty Island must have been to a zillion refugees.
And then my heavy-breathing woodland pursuer is coming up fast behind, the sound of beastly claws on tarmac, clittering towards me at high speed.
I don’t wait to look round. Just take off across the green towards safety. Whatever it is, it’s close, now: ghastly, rasping, drool-laden breaths, great slobbering grunts, heavy footfalls on the grass. I don’t even stop to think when I get to the creek, just launch myself out over the water, slip as I land and fall in the mud. Push myself up and scarper, soaking and filthy, up the far bank. Gain a couple of seconds as I hear my stalker pause on the other side. Then there’s the heaving groan of muscular exertion, and I catch the splash as he – it – lands in my footsteps.
Ten paces away, now. It’s gaining on me. I find reserves, deep down, where the bad things are, and put on a final surge. Burst through the door, arms outstretched as it bangs back and bounces off the wall, and tumble into the dark haven of the bar.
Chapter Thirty-Two
No Dogs
Three men sit on high stools under a string of horse brasses, almost brushing the dust from the low beams above their heads. They stop talking as I appear, turn and look at me. And the barman, slowly polishing a pint glass with a piece of grey cloth, says, in a kindly enough tone of voice, ‘Sorry, love. We don’t allow dogs in the bar, I’m afraid.’
It takes me a moment, through my panic, to make out what he’s saying, partly because I don’t know what he’s talking about, but mostly because I’ve never heard anyone speak in such a songlike, fifteenth-century way before. This is my first real rural accent. Matthew was Prince Charles in comparison. It’s a combination of glottal stops and vowels that manage to be both long and clipped all in one go. It’s sort of ‘Surryluv. We dow’mer leaw dugs inder baaarrr, Oimer frayed.’
A voice speaks up from a darkened corner, under a display of dust-covered plastic carnations. ‘Zpashly no’ thapwom,’ it says. It belongs to a wizened little goblin with a silver skull dangling from his ear. He cradles a pewter tankard, and has a damp-looking durrey dangling from his lower lip. He gives me a friendly nod.
‘Zpashly no’ thapwom,’ echoes the barman. ‘Keeps bringing vermin in. And that don’t go down too well with the ’Elf’m’Safety.’
The three bar drinkers are still transfixed, staring at me. One takes a long draught of dark brown beer from a mug, and leaps to his feet.
‘G’waa
aarn!’ he shouts, jerking a hand in the air in my direction. ‘Geddewt, y’bugger! And take that with you!’
I start backward. ‘Jesus, I’m sorry,’ I say.
He bursts out laughing. ‘No, not you, darling,’ he tell me. ‘That bloody dog.’
I look over my shoulder, and find that Fifi is squatting on the stone floor behind me, front paws straddling the bloodied corpse of a rabbit. ‘Gloof,’ he says, and opens his mouth in a big slobbery grin. I’m so relieved to see that this is my ogre, that I burst out laughing in turn.
‘Oh, shit,’ I say, ‘I’m sorry. He must have followed me.’
‘Yeah, he does that,’ says the barman. ‘He’s a friendly old sod, but he dudden half scare the lights out of the tourists.’
‘Scared the lights out of me, actually,’ I tell him. ‘Thought I was being tracked by a werewolf. Fell in that creek out there, trying to get in here before he got me.’
‘You’re Australian,’ says the man in the corner. No shit, Sherlock.
‘You’re covered in mud,’ says one of the men at the bar. I guess stating the obvious is another of those English things I’m going to have to get used to.
I grab Fifi by the collar and drag him, bodily, towards the door. He doesn’t resist, but he doesn’t co-operate either. You’d never credit how much a full-sized bulldog can weigh until you try to pick one up. There’s a metal draught-excluding strip let into the concrete door-sill, and I have to lift him, grunting, over it, limb by limb. As I turn back to collect the rabbit, I hear the clitter of claws, and look round to find that he’s back inside the room. Sits, back feet out in front of him, with a big doggy grin on his face like a Chinese Buddha.
‘Throw the rabbit,’ says the barman. ‘He’ll go arter it.’
The rabbit, eyes wide open, lies in a small pool of blood, mud and saliva at my feet. ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ I say.
‘She’s squeamish,’ says a voice from behind me. ‘Don’t they have rabbits in Australia?’
‘One or two,’ I say slowly, eyeing the smudgy fur for a spot where I might get a handhold, ‘but we haven’t made throwing them into a competitive discipline yet. We tend to stick to dwarves.’
‘Just pick ’im up. ’E’s dead, inn’e? ’E ent gonna bite you.’
Fifi watches me speculatively. Goes back further on his haunches as I bend closer to the object of our discussion.
‘’F’you don’t want to touch him,’ suggests another voice, ‘just get ’im by his hind leg and flip ’im.’
‘Thad’ll do it,’ agrees someone.
I try the charm that seemed to work on Edmund. ‘Can’t one of you guys do it?’ I ask, and bat my eyelashes till I think they’re going to take off.
‘’Snot my rabbit.’
‘Well, technically speaking, it’s not mine either.’
‘You brought it in with you. Just chuck ’im out and get that door closed.’
I swear I’m going to tear Rufus’s arm off and beat him to death with it.
I do as I’m told, grab the limp body by one sad little rear paw and hoick it out into the night. Fifi grunts his pleasure, lumbers to his feet and trots off in pursuit. I get the door shut as fast as I can.
I turn back to see three smirks buried behind the rims of beer glasses. All the men at the bar look remarkably alike. Each sports sideburns you could sweep a floor with, and each has hair that curls just below the collar of his leather car coat and a single gold earring, the ring type.
‘Sorry about that,’ I say.
‘’Sorlroight,’ says the barman. ‘What can I get you?’
‘Ah,’ I say, ‘I was rather hoping you might let me use your telephone.’
‘Sure,’ he says. ‘You can use my phone once you’ve bought a drink.’
‘Yeah, look, I’m in a bit of trouble, here.’
All five members of my audience sit forward, eagerly. This is probably the most exciting thing that’s happened here all year.
‘Thing is,’ I continue, ‘I’ve got split up from my husband, and I’ve got no English money on me.’
‘Got split up from your husband?’ asks the barman.
‘It’s a long story. I’ve got a hundred-dollar bill, if that’s any good …’ I always keep it, folded inside the lining of my bag, against emergencies.
‘This is a pub,’ says the old bloke in the corner, ‘not a bank. You want a bank, go up Moreton.’
‘Only it’ll be closed by now,’ says the man in the footie shirt. ‘They ent open all night.’
‘I understand that. You see, if I could just borrow the phone and call my husband, he could come and get me, and he could pay you back.’
‘How,’ asks the man in the stripes, ‘do we know you’ve really got an ’usband?’
I’m not quite sure how to answer this.
‘Why have you got American money if you’re Australian?’ he continues.
‘It’s easier to change.’
He bellows with laughter. ‘Not here it isn’t,’ he says. ‘Looks like you’ve not been as bright as you think.’
I put my bag down.
‘Thing is,’ says the barman, ‘I’ve got a business to run here. And I’m not going to be paying the rent if everyone who comes in just uses the phone.’
‘I know,’ I tell him. ‘I’m sorry. But I don’t know what else to do.’
Unfriendly bastards. They all just carry on looking at me. ‘At this juncture,’ I say, ‘I’ll happily give you all the money I’ve got if you’ll just let me make a call and sit in a corner.’
‘Thing is,’ says the barman, ‘how do I know they’d be real dollars? They could be fakes, for all I know.’
‘Yank money,’ says Lacoste man wisely. ‘Easy to counterfeit.’
I’m gobsmacked.
‘See, you can’t be too trusting these days,’ says striped shirt. ‘Asylum seekers and that. For all he knows, you’ve got some international campaign of terror up your sleeve and he’s going to end up chained up blindfold in a Cuban prison camp. Aiding and abetting.’
‘That hundred-dollar bill,’ says OUFC, ‘could be impregnated with deadly spores.’
‘Yes,’ says Lacoste. ‘You could be trying to bring Bourton Allhallows to its knees.’
‘I’m not a terrorist. I’m an Australian, for fuck’s sake.’
‘Ah.’ Lacoste wags a knowing finger at me. ‘You say you’re Australian, but for all we know you’re fresh from the Osama bin Laden accent school in Afghanistan.’
‘Probly,’ says OUFC, ‘got one of them bourqas on under your jeans.’
‘Probly ought to call the police right now,’ says the barman. ‘Get it over with.’
‘Now, hold on,’ I begin to protest. Then I notice that all three drinkers have once again buried their faces in their glasses. I relax. Put my bag down. ‘Oh, I get it. You’re shitting me, right?’
‘I thought,’ says Lacoste, ‘you Australians were meant to have a sense of humour.’
‘And I thought,’ I put my hands on my hips, ‘you poms were meant to have manners.’
‘Don’t know what gave you that impression.’ Soccer man puts down his glass, digs in his pocket and produces a crumpled five-pound note. ‘Landlord, a draught of your finest nut-brown ale for the young lady.’
They all snigger. A running gag, evidently.
‘Very nice of you, Gary,’ says the landlord. He must be in his mid-forties, wears a yellow V-necked pullover. ‘What’ll it be, young lady?’
‘Jeez,’ I ham up peering into the gloom around the room. ‘I didn’t realise you were talking to me.’
They like this. Shift on their bar stools and chortle.
‘Thanks, Gary,’ I say, ‘I’ll have a fourex, if you don’t mind.’
A hiss of insucked breath. As a man, they point to a plaque screwed on to a vertical beam alongside a list of bar snacks. They do something called Scotch eggs. Sounds tasty. The plaque has the word ‘camera’ on it, spelled wrong. Which obviously means something.
‘Only real ale here,’ the landlord informs me. ‘None of your fizzy pop.’
‘Famous for it,’ pipes up the man in the corner. ‘Get coach parties coming in the summer. Forty, fifty people, and every single one with a beard like bindweed.’
‘OK,’ I say, having no idea what the difference between ‘real’ and – what? virtual? – ale is. ‘What have you got?’
He reels off a list. ‘Hooky, Dirty, Manky, IPA, Partlington’s Old Cock Crow, Badger’s Snatch, Wooky, Old Cheeseparer, Chadlington Red, Speckled Beauty, Burpitt and Lurker’s Murk. Only that’s a porter, which is good on a winter night like this one, only I don’t s’pose you’d like it, given that you’re used to …’ He raises an eyebrow at me and enunciates the next word as though throwing down some sort of challenge. ‘… lager.’
‘Gets in folk singers and all,’ continues the man in the corner. ‘Hey nonny haystack and that. Cheesecloth. Can’t tell Eve from Steve, as they’ve all got beards. And Morris dancers. Out on the green. Kickin’ their heels up and making arses of theirselves.’
‘Don’t confuse the girl, Ian,’ says Gary. ‘Give her a Hooky and let her get on.’
‘Hooky’s a bit lively tonight,’ says Ian. ‘Phone’s over there. Why don’t you go and call your hubby, and I should have it poured by the time you’re done.’
‘She’ll need 10p,’ says Gary.
‘So you will.’
He tings open the till and gives me a coin. I duck beneath a collection of dusty thistles and have a go at dialling Rufus. On the third go, after I’ve taken off some fours and added in some zeros, I get through to his voicemail. Suddenly, instead of sounding mondain and sexy, like it sounded to me in Gozo, his voice sounds dismissive, exclusive, superior. I bite back a rush of misgiving, speak after the tone.
‘Yeh, hi, it’s me,’ I say. ‘While you’re enjoying yourself, I’m in the pub with a load of blokes in leather jackets. If you want to know why, maybe you’d better ask your mother. I’ve got no fucking money, and I’m pretty pissed at you, and if you don’t come and get me soon I’m giving the landlord my engagement ring in exchange for a lift to the station. OK? Just thought I’d let you know.’
Simply Heaven Page 20
