Wildwood

by Janine Ashbless

  It wasn’t just that I wanted to make a good impression on the man who’d given me a job, although I could hardly imagine a job that I’d want more. It had been a difficult decision leaving the National Trust just when I’d got my foot on the ladder, but there I’d only been one in a large tree gang while here I was in charge of my own, with two other full-time gardeners and carte blanche to engage casual labour when I thought it necessary. I had been given almost free rein to do to the gardens what I thought fit, a generous budget, no deadline and, on top of that, a wage rise and a rent-free house of my own on site: the former head gardener’s cottage. Thankfully that building was in better condition than Kester Grange itself, boasting such necessities as electricity and an immersion heater. Plus I was close enough to Cornwall to get to the surfing beaches early on my weekends off.

  I’d fallen on my feet here.

  What worried me was the way I’d got the job. I hadn’t applied for it, or seen it advertised anywhere; the invitation to interview had simply arrived by post. There’d been no sign of any other candidates and my interview had consisted of a check of my certificates and a walk around the gardens with the project manager. It was as if it had already been decided that I would do fine. And what sort of man would employ anyone after the kind of debacle Deverick had witnessed at the hotel?

  A creep, that’s who, said my better judgement. But had I listened?

  He was there at the front entrance of the house as I approached, leaning against the bonnet of his black Range Rover to look over some plans. The building manager was with him talking earnestly so I hovered, my gaze casually sweeping the Portakabins and the scaffolding and the pallets of bricks, resting anywhere but on Michael Deverick, who was tieless but wearing a blinding white shirt. Without his jacket on the trim shape of his torso was obvious. He probably went to the gym three times a week and had a personal trainer and a masseur and a Swedish dietician, I told myself with a secret smile.

  He didn’t keep me waiting, calling me over almost at once. ‘Avril. How are you settling in?’

  I made myself meet his eyes confidently. ‘Great, thanks. We’ve nearly finished on the lime avenue.’

  ‘I read your management plan for the garden. It looks excellent, though I have a few questions.’

  ‘It’s just a preliminary document,’ I said, then cursed myself silently for being so defensive. ‘I’d be happy to talk it through.’

  ‘Perhaps we should go round to the rockery. I think there’s a bench there.’ He waved me on, steering us out of the bustle of human traffic that was constantly passing before the front door. I sneaked a sideways look at the crisp cotton of his shirt, the clean leather of his shoes. He made me feel hot and grubby. In more ways than one.

  ‘What do you think of what I’m doing to the Grange?’ he asked as we walked.

  I looked up at the red-brick bulk towering over us. The original Victorian construction, all gables and chimneys and turrets, had been stripped back to a shell, and within that the builders seemed to be filling the space with glass and stainless steel so that the new oozed out from the old like flesh from a tightened corset. ‘It’s radical,’ I said, not wanting to commit yet.

  ‘You think so? Nothing is constant but change, Avril.’

  We entered the overgrown ruins of the old rockery, but the bench we sought was buried beneath a pile of lumber so we had to remain standing. Deverick flicked through my management plan. ‘You mean to drain the lake?’

  ‘Not completely. But originally it was only about a third the size. The outlet’s been blocked by fallen trees, so I think if we remove those the water level will fall back to its original boundary. And then we’ll have a lot of mud to plant over.’

  ‘Fine. And the lawn needs returfing completely?’

  ‘Well, it’s too late for mowing to restore it. But what I’m suggesting is that we keep the far stretch there long for the moment, and manage it as a wildflower meadow, see …’

  ‘Fine.’ He flicked the file shut. ‘Whatever you feel is appropriate. As long as it looks good from the house.’

  I got the impression he really wasn’t interested in the landscape, but I was to be surprised.

  ‘Have you been into Grange Wood yet?’

  ‘Uh, no.’ I blinked. ‘I mean, I went as far as the old gate on my first walk-through, but not beyond. It looks very overgrown. There were no conifers that I could see, so I guess it’s probably ancient oak coppice. I haven’t had a proper look.’

  ‘It’s certainly old.’

  ‘I assume it’s not urgent. I’ve been prioritising the areas nearest the house, mostly safety work so far. We had a couple of wind-broken cedars round the terrace at the back …’

  He held up his hand and I fell silent. ‘I’m afraid I’m changing your priorities,’ he said, blue eyes fixing me. ‘I want you to get into the wood and do me a proper survey. I’m intending to have the place under a management regime within the year. I want footpaths, I want the undergrowth cleared, I want any features mapped – you know, follies and the like. Caves. Extra big trees. You can take a first look this afternoon.’

  I was stunned. ‘OK,’ I said slowly. ‘What’s this in aid … I mean, what’s it for? You have plans?’

  At once he switched off, indifferent again. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Paintballing maybe. There would be plenty of room for a paint-balling area. Do you think conference attendees would enjoy that?’

  My knowledge of business conferences is about equivalent to my knowledge of the far side of the moon. I puffed out my cheeks and blew a sigh of helpless incomprehension. ‘Well. Yes. Maybe.’

  ‘That’s fine then. You can get started. And I want you to report back to me about anything unusual that you find. Anything.’ Once again his eyes were on me, cold and commanding.

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  Suddenly he smiled and his face lit up with the sparkle of it. He was the sort who could charm the birds out of the trees, my gran would have said. I wasn’t exactly immune. ‘I don’t know,’ he said ruefully, as if confessing a terrible lack. ‘Anything.’

  ‘OK.’ You’re the boss, I thought.

  ‘Thank you.’ Then he changed tack abruptly: ‘Do you know what this plant is?’

  I glanced at the one he indicated, with the splayed leaves and the hooded purple flowers in tiers. ‘Monkshood. That one’s flowering early. And it doesn’t belong in the rockery – it must have self-seeded.’

  ‘It’s very attractive. I think we should have a bed of it by the front door of the Grange.’ He snapped the top off a spike of flowers, and I winced.

  ‘Don’t! It’s poisonous – I mean, really poisonous. You should wash your hands.’

  He seemed amused by my reaction. ‘Oops,’ he said without a hint of dismay. ‘How unfortunate.’ He tucked the flower into the breast pocket of my open jacket and I froze like a rabbit in the headlights. His fingers strayed close but never quite brushed against me; I could not mistake the threat though. My nipples, ever traitors, tightened. ‘It’s a good thing you know your stuff, Avril,’ he said, stepping back to admire his work.

  I could feel myself colouring. I’ve never reacted well to being teased.

  ‘And how are you finding your new house?’

  ‘Oh … fine, thanks. I mean, it’s small, but then I haven’t got a lot of stuff.’

  ‘It doesn’t bother you, being alone on site at night?’

  ‘Not at all. I like the quiet.’

  ‘Most women would be afraid to be so isolated,’ he said, watching my face. I shrugged: what could I say to that? ‘But then, you’re not like most women, are you Avril?’

  I decided that this was meant as a compliment, or at least to take it that way. ‘Uh, thanks.’

  ‘And I suppose having the place to yourself might have its attractions. You can run naked round the whole site if you like.’

  Oh, now he was definitely teasing. ‘Um,’ I said witlessly, scratching my hair and unable to meet his gaze.

&nbs
p; ‘It must be a little lonely though,’ he concluded, ‘even for you. Perhaps you’d like to join me for dinner this evening? I’m staying at the County Hotel on the main road.’

  I’d sort of braced myself for this. He’d steered me away from the builders so we wouldn’t be overheard. ‘That’s very kind of you …’ I began.

  ‘It’s not exactly lively there either, so I’d appreciate the company.’

  ‘Listen,’ I said brightly, ‘if you’re bored, there’s a pub in the village. The Red Knight. It’s nice, not rough or anything. Tony and Owen and the local boys drink there. You could join us. We’d be happy to see you.’

  He wasn’t fooled, not for a moment. ‘Safety in numbers, Avril?’

  What was I supposed to say? ‘The County’s not really my sort of place,’ I hedged. ‘I mean, cut-glass decanters and fancy food, it’s not my thing. I haven’t even got anything suitable to wear for dinner.’

  ‘I seem to remember a rather fetching pink dress,’ he said, deadpan.

  ‘I threw it out,’ I growled. ‘It was ruined by the water.’

  We glared at each other. I was trying not to bite my lip, or show the dread I was feeling.

  ‘You seem a little nervous, Avril.’

  I’m just useless at this pussyfooting around. Fools rush in, as they say. ‘Can we be honest for a moment?’

  ‘Feel free.’

  ‘I’d like to know why you hired me. I mean, I’m good at my job, don’t get me wrong, but you know, given the circumstances …’

  He smiled. ‘I hired you because I like what I saw.’

  I gritted my teeth.

  ‘But on the other hand, what I see is not always what others see. Does that make you feel better?’

  I was perplexed. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, Avril, since you’re keen on honesty perhaps I might clarify a couple of points. First, I need someone to do your job. If you want to do it, and I want you to do it, I can’t see that we have a problem.’

  I nodded, waiting for the caveat.

  ‘Second, if you’re implying, which I think you are, that I might be considering using our professional relationship as leverage to get you into bed with me –’

  I winced.

  ‘– then I’m rather insulted.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why should I need to resort to methods that crude?’

  I’d been on the verge of feeling relieved, but those last words kicked the rug out from under me. I searched his face for signs of humour but found only amusement, which was not the same thing at all. There it was again, that enigmatic arrogance. That absolute certainty. And, undisguised this time, a promise. ‘I see,’ I said.

  ‘Good. I’m glad we understand each other.’

  ‘I have a rule,’ I said in a low flat voice. ‘I don’t get involved with people I work with.’

  ‘Ever?’

  ‘Ever. That’s the rule.’

  ‘Sounds like that one came from bitter experience.’

  I shrugged, but my mettle was up. ‘You live, you learn.’

  ‘And yet,’ he said, breaking into a slow, sweet, chilling smile, ‘even though you suspected me of the lowest motives, still you took the job.’

  I had no answer to that one.

  ‘Hh.’ He nodded, satisfied. ‘Well, I’ll be getting back. I’m sure you’ve plenty to be getting on with.’ He was doing it again, I realised: walking away and leaving me thrown completely off balance. ‘Think, Avril,’ he advised as his parting shot. ‘Rules are for the weak, to keep them safe. Is that what you are?’

  I waited till he was out of earshot, then I ran my hands through my hair and swore a blue streak.

  After lunch, as instructed, I left the others trimming a laurel hedge and set out to explore Grange Wood. I took with me only a clipboard and pencil, intending to sketch a map and make a few notes. I knew the wood was walled and that it blanketed a low hill and dropped away to the river valley and public road beyond, but that was about all. I was still wearing my chainsaw trousers and my helmet, since the padding of the former gave good protection should I have to wade through brambles and the latter was useful when ducking under branches. Passing through the old orchard, with a pause to shake my head wistfully at the cankered apple trees so shamefully left to waste over the last decade, I climbed over the gate in the stone wall and entered the wood. Within ten minutes I was in love.

  Woods, like people, vary in character, from lofty cathedral-like beech woods to grim, pitch-black western hemlock plantations. But Grange Wood was one of those western-seaboard oak forests that seem to have been crafted by goblins, purely to enchant. Overhead, the first flush of leaves was turning from salmon pink to light green. Beneath my feet the spring flora was in full surge, seizing every last hour of sunshine before the shade grew too dense. Pink spires of foxglove were in flower and, in the middle distance, a mist of bluebells hung over the ground. Unlike the main garden where the earth was deep and rich, here the ground was rocky and the boulders covered in moss, and ferns grew in abundance. The trees themselves, twisted oaks bearing great twiggy burrs and piebald birches grown fat on the wet soil till their swollen boles seemed ready to burst, were splotched in lichens and mosses. Many of the trees had fallen. Some of these had died and their rotting trunks provided new footing for the ferns, their former places now clear patches where saplings had sprung up and were engaged in a furious race for the light. Others of the fallen trees were still alive even with half their roots jutting into the air and from a recumbent position were reaching up branches of their own. There was dead wood everywhere, underfoot and hanging overhead and poking up from banks of bracken. There wasn’t a tree in sight with a straight trunk. From a forester’s point of view it was a horrible, mismanaged mess. I couldn’t help think it was beautiful.

  There were some faint paths, tracks made by rabbits perhaps. I followed one winding between the boulders and the tree trunks, hoping it would take me to the crown of the hill, but it soon peeled away and began to circle the flank. There were birds singing all around, though I couldn’t see many, only little flickers of movement at the periphery of my vision. A grey squirrel hung head down on the bole of a tree and stared at me until I pointed a warning finger and mouthed a silent gunshot, at which it fled and I grinned. The smell of damp wood and moss was intoxicating, overlaid with the very faint sweet smell of the bluebells. I didn’t write anything on my paper after ‘acid oak–birch woodland’. I just let it all sink in, in a daze. It wasn’t as if there were any of the noteworthy features Michael Deverick had been looking for, not even any very tall trees. From a timber point of view this place was a dud, and in fact anyone trying a paintball game here was likely to break a leg.

  ‘Wow,’ I said to myself.

  Something shiny hanging from a branch caught my eye. I left the path and crossed down towards it. To my surprise, I found it was a glass ball, crimson coloured and as big as my two fists, strung up and spinning slowly on a length of fishing line that was almost invisible. I frowned and tapped it. A strange thing to find in a wood, I thought. Like a giant Christmas bauble.

  It wasn’t the last. As I switched to another path and resumed my same general drift northwards I caught sight of others glinting in the sunlight, some red but others blue or yellow or green. And there were other decorations too: little bundles of twigs tied with red wool. The more I looked, the more of them there were.

  ‘Someone’s been watching Blair Witch,’ I muttered. Those signs of human presence made me feel less comfortable, though not because they were sinister in themselves. There shouldn’t have been anyone in these woods, that was all. Nobody had lived in Kester Grange in years. When Michael Deverick bought it the house had been near-derelict and the estate gone halfway to wilderness.

  I crossed the rocky bed of a stream. There was a big boulder in the centre of the course, and straddling that a hawthorn bush. Multicoloured rags had been tied to its twigs and hung, some faded and some still fresh, among the
last of its white blossom. I gnawed my lip, hands on hips. Then I turned to follow the clearest path, down beside the water, away from the hill. I marked the stream tentatively on my sketch map, but I had no idea where it was flowing from, or to, and was beginning to think I’d have to buy a compass. I made an attempt to scramble up the bank but a branch of sallow I was pushing back slipped from my hand to smack me hard across the top of the thighs and I slid back down and decided to continue downstream to a clearer patch. If I’d not been wearing padded leggings, or if I’d been a bloke, the blow would have been really painful.

  I remembered the slap of the plastic ruler on Scott’s skin as I rubbed my stinging legs.

  God, it was long time since I’d given my ex much thought, at least by daylight. I didn’t miss him and our break-up hadn’t been particularly painful as these things go – or at least not for me. I grinned at the thought.

  I’d driven down to the house he shared in Norwich as usual that Friday, except that after three weeks of serious overtime clearing windthrow I’d wangled an early departure and I got to Scott’s place a couple of hours early. When no one answered the doorbell I wandered through into the overgrown back garden, where I half-expected to find him and Alex and Stacy knocking back beers and contemplating the algae scum on their pond. No one was there, but I did notice that lights were on in the high windows of the detached garage where they all kept the wetsuits and boards ready for the weekend. The side door was unlocked. They’d be packing the car, I assumed, and called, ‘Scott?’ as I entered.

  No one replied. The smell of board wax and seaweed was strong and comfortable. I looked down the garage and there was Scott all right – about two-thirds of the way down, stark naked, his arms and legs spread wide. His wrists were roped to the metal brackets on either wall that held the surfboards. His ankles were held apart by the broom pole taped between them.

  My first thought was that he hadn’t got himself into that position.