A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better

by Benjamin Wood

  My father let the music play until the lake vanished from sight. He slowed for a cattle grid, shut off the stereo. ‘Do that again and you’re going in the back with them,’ he said. The last word was emphatic, meant to frighten me.

  The fells were bunched together now in the windscreen. A line of static cars revealed themselves—makeshift parking spaces on the gravelled fringes of the road—but no people. Here, we took a right, crossed an iron bridge over the rocky river. The surface of the track became less certain. The lake spread out again before us, lapping at the scree. My father arced around it, down a lane almost too slender for the car—it was less a road than two long tyre-tracks worn into the grass.

  A farmhouse sat low on the hillside ahead, its chimney funnelling smoke. There were several buildings in fact: a set of crooked outhouses with rusting farm machinery, a hay barn stuffed with yellow bales. We approached them at a crawl. The car bounced over ruts of hardened mud impressed by tractors. I heard QC bucking on the backseat, his nostrils wheezing.

  My father turned into the driveway, where a carved wooden plate on the gatepost said: CAMPION GHYLL. ‘Stop whinging back there, Barnie. No one’s listening,’ he said. The farmhouse faced uphill. He pulled up close enough so that whoever was inside could see us walking up the yard from the rear windows, and far enough that no one could survey the human mess on our backseat.

  I found the voice to ask, ‘Where are we?’ It was confirmation I was seeking, not an explanation.

  He gave me an agitated look. ‘Don’t ask questions you already know the answers to. It makes you sound needy.’ He yanked the key from the ignition and stepped out the car. There was an instant smell of fresh air spoiled with sheep shit. Dogs were yapping nearby.

  He came around and opened my door. ‘Keep still while I do this,’ he said, and leaned in with his Stanley knife to slice the duct tape from the seat. I felt some warmth returning to my arms. ‘You’re going to do exactly what I tell you to in there.’ He ripped off the tape and let it hang. ‘Kick up any sort of fuss and all you’re going to do is make it easier for me. I don’t need a good excuse to hurt your granddad. Do you get what I’m telling you?’

  I nodded.

  ‘And no crying either. You’re as bad as he is.’ He motioned at QC.

  I wiped my eyes and sucked my lip.

  As I got out, an old black dog came limping at us, growling, baying, followed by another. My father made a hoop with his fingers, took it in his mouth and whistled—a wavering toot like a birdcall. The dogs paused, queried him a moment, then sat down. ‘See,’ he said. ‘Just act like them and you’ll be fine.’

  We didn’t use the front door. He led me through a gate to a back porch where every window pane was gunged. The rubber doormat looked as though it could have lain there for a century. Lifting its corner with his shoe, he exposed an imprint in the dirt where a key should’ve been. He tried the door anyway, found it locked. ‘All right, let’s think about this,’ he said. The dogs had followed us. They were sniffing at my heels. When I patted them, he told me not to. ‘I wouldn’t, if I were you.’ Then something occurred to him. He wagged his finger at the thought. He stood on the crumbling timber of the window ledge at one side of the porch and reached up to dislodge a roof tile. Jumping down, he had the key. It slotted neatly in the lock and turned. He pushed the door back. ‘After you,’ he said, thumbing at the space.

  It was clear no one had used this back entrance in a while. I had to trample over strung-up stacks of newspapers, cardboard boxes full of empty cans, dismantled fishing rods and wicker baskets. The door on the other side was open to a dingy kitchen. The range was radiating heat, but the only light came from the corridor. A loaf of bread lay part-sliced on the table with a jar of pickle and a hard nub of white cheese. There was a portable radio, a half-finished crossword, and an unguarded tin of Wintermans. The dogs were scratching at the porch door, whimpering.

  My father came in behind me, sizing up the room. ‘Stay there. And I mean there.’ He brushed past, striding to a pantry at the far end of the kitchen. A lightbulb stuttered on when he pulled the cord. He collected a bag of dry dog food and a big metal dish from the floor, which he filled with pale kibble till it ran off the sides. From a high shelf, he took a bottle of Old Navy rum and poured most of it into the dish; the dry pellets soaked it up, grew plump with the booze. His shoes crunched on spilled kibble as he went back through the kitchen, passing me without a word, and out again through the porch door, marshalling the dogs with one outstretched leg, laying the food down. ‘What d’you think of the place?’ he said, coming by me again. When I didn’t reply, he said, ‘Yeah, it used to look a lot nicer. Cleaner, anyway.’ He went back to the pantry, shoved a wooden step-stool out from underneath a shelf, and stood on it. Fumbling at a panel in the ceiling, he unhitched it, slid it back. He stretched an arm into the recess, rummaging inside the way someone might explore behind the cushions of a couch: eyes down, groping blind. As soon as his hand found what he wanted, his expression changed. Not a grin as such; more like a tweak of satisfaction. I thought I heard the rattle of loose screws. But when his arm came out it held a long leather pouch with carry-handles, like the case for a snooker cue.

  ‘Who the fuck are you, you little toerag?’ said a gruff voice behind me. ‘Get out of here before I fucking skin you.’

  I turned to find an old man in a tattered, baggy jumper. The wool around the collar had a scattering of bread crust. He was coming at me, wielding the crook of his walking stick. ‘There’s no money here, if that’s what you’re after. What’ve you done to my dogs? Where are they?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m just—I’m—’ I staggered back against the worktop.

  ‘Whose kid are you, Aiden’s?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You are. I’ve seen you before. You’re one of the step-kids. You can fuck right off.’

  My father stepped out of the pantry. ‘Leave him alone, you old fool. That’s your grandson. That’s Daniel.’ He was carrying the cue-case over his left shoulder as though it were a spade he was about to dig with. A canvas satchel hung from his right. ‘Where are you keeping the cartridges now? There were only two left in the bag. You must’ve done for a few grouse since I was here last.’

  ‘Fran. I had a feeling it was you.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘Yeah, I had that nasty taste come over me when I was eating.’

  ‘Ah, it’s so nice to be home,’ said my father.

  The old man seemed to lose his balance. He lowered the stick and leaned on it with both hands. ‘Waste of breath telling you not to come back again, isn’t it? Might as well be talking to the ewes.’

  ‘Yeah, but this time I’ve brought Daniel as a sweetener.’ My father laid his palm on my head and gave my hair a gentle tug. ‘An awful lot of Hardesty in him, don’t you reckon? He’s got your scowl, look. Poor lad. We’re hoping he’ll grow out of it.’ He set the cue case down on the worktop. ‘Say hello to him, then. Give him that warm embrace you’re famous for.’

  The old man peered at me, not unkindly. ‘Hello, son.’ Then he said to my father: ‘You’re in above your head with something. I can tell.’

  ‘Nothing gets by you, Dad.’

  ‘Your arm’s in pieces, and you’re lugging that thing like you’re planning on using it—doesn’t take much adding up.’ My granddad turned to me, his face tormented. This was the first time I had ever seen him outside of a photograph—at home, there was a single faded print of him in a water-stained album, posed by a fireplace with my father as a teen. I had been told at least three times that he was dead, so his heavy presence in the kitchen was unsettling and miraculous to me. I didn’t even know his name—Paul Martin Hardesty—until I came to read it in the paper. He was a frail and weather-beaten version of the man in the picture, hardly recognisable. His skin was dry and dulled-out at the cheekbones, and the patchy brownness of his neck was baked on by a life of summers on the fells. ‘What’s he up to?’ the old man asked me. Ther
e was a murmur in his tone not dissimilar to my father’s. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve come to see me.’ He spat out a chiding laugh.

  ‘We were meant to be in Leeds,’ I said.

  My father glared at me. ‘Oi. What did I tell you in the car?’

  ‘What’s in Leeds?’ said the old man.

  ‘Nothing you’d be interested in.’

  ‘I asked him.’

  ‘Well, did you hear me say it was all right to start a conversation? No. Sit down.’ My father heaved a chair from the table, pushed it across the tiles. ‘You’re looking a bit wobbly these days, Dad. Your knees finally give up on you, or what?’

  The old man just stared at him. ‘What are you doing here, Francis?’

  ‘Either sit or be sat. Up to you.’

  After a moment’s thought, my granddad sank into the chair: a slow, indignant movement.

  My father went about unzipping the lower end of the cue-case. ‘You didn’t answer my question about the cartridges.’ From the guts of the case, he slid out a shotgun as shined and brown as a horse chestnut. I gasped at the sight of it, but my granddad hardly blinked. ‘You do keep all your things in decent order, Dad, I’ll give you that,’ my father said. He admired the dark varnished stock before snapping it open. The barrel swung down. He took two orange shells out of the satchel and slotted them into the gun with the indifference of a man loading new batteries into a remote, then hasped it shut. Aiming it right at the old man’s forehead, he said: ‘Cartridges?’

  ‘You’re going to have to shoot me for them.’

  ‘If that’s how you want it.’

  The old man lifted his chin. He extended his arm across the table, grasped for the Wintermans tin and the lighter. The way he flipped back the lid with his thumbnail was so familiar. The way he lit the cigarillo with his hand cupped round the lighter flame was not. A cloud engulfed his head, the fragrance like a coffee pot boiled dry. ‘Want one?’ he said.

  My father lowered the gun, placed the butt against his toes. He snatched the whole tin and pocketed it, then took the cigarillo from my granddad’s smoking mouth and dragged on it. ‘Cartridges,’ he said again, snorting out fumes.

  The old man regarded me with an obvious pity. ‘At some point,’ he said, edging forward on his chair, ‘at some point I hope you and me get a chance to do this properly. So much of life is better when your dad’s not in the room, in my experience.’

  ‘Can’t disagree with you on that one,’ my father said. ‘Are you going to tell me where they are, or am I going to have to turn this place completely upside down?’ He lifted the gun again, trapping the cigarillo in his scabby knuckles. The muzzle was almost touching the old man’s cheek.

  I sputtered, snivelled.

  ‘Are you going to tell me why you need them?’ said my granddad. ‘Two isn’t enough, I take it.’

  My father dragged serenely.

  ‘That’s always been the problem with you, Fran. You think every plan you make’s a good ’un.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Seems to me.’

  ‘I’m not sure you’ve picked the right time to lecture me, Dad. You comfortable in that chair?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Well, I’d start making friends with it, if I were you.’

  The old man sneered, canted his head at me. ‘What happened to his arm?’

  ‘He sliced me open with a Stanley knife,’ my father said.

  ‘That true?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Must’ve had your reasons,’ said the old man. ‘You don’t seem like a lad who goes round cutting people up. I’ve known a few bad seeds and you’re not even half of one.’

  ‘Cartridges,’ my father said. ‘Now.’

  ‘He never even told us you were born, you know. Nine years, it took. Nine years. He let his mother die without her knowing. What sort of man does that?’

  My father paced towards him with the shotgun. ‘I want those fucking cartridges.’

  At this, Paul Hardesty grew irritated. ‘How’d you know I haven’t run out of them?’

  ‘You wouldn’t let that happen.’

  ‘I’m seventy-four years old. I’ve forgotten more than you remember.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ My father must’ve noticed some brief shift of the old man’s eyes, then, because he lowered the gun and turned to scan the space above the corner kitchen cabinet. ‘What? Up there, are they? That’s a new spot.’ Gripping the shotgun, he knelt on the counter, swiped his arm over the top edge of the cabinet. ‘Christ, it’s lucky those Germans never caught up with you, eh? You’d spill the national secrets in ten minutes, you would.’ I heard him shake the box. ‘That’ll do it.’ He sprang down, upturned the brass-capped cartridges onto the worktop, and stuffed fistfuls of them into the satchel.

  ‘You’ve blood all down your trousers,’ my granddad said to me.

  I bowed to check them. ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘So does he.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘All right, enough,’ my father said. He came and grabbed me underneath the armpit. ‘We’re going to ring your mother.’ My heart brightened at the thought. He nudged the old man. ‘You still got that ancient thing in the hall?’

  ‘No, I put in a cordless.’

  ‘Look at you, embracing the twentieth century.’

  ‘Well, I can’t be going up and down the stairs for it all day. Ground like this’ll do for you eventually—you wouldn’t understand what that feels like.’

  My father jerked me forwards. ‘Go and fetch it.’

  I hurried off, then stopped. ‘Where from?’

  ‘It’s in the front room, son,’ said Paul Hardesty. ‘On the settee.’

  ‘What’s a settee?’

  ‘Are you joking?’

  ‘He’s a pure-bred, this one.’ My father laughed, and called to me: ‘The sofa.’ He hopped up on the worktop, knocking his heels against the cabinets below. A grey maggot of ash dropped to the tiles. And bringing the sights of the gun up to his eye, squaring it at my granddad, he said in the weightiest tone: ‘No insubordination, Dan. Remember?’

  I went through the hallway, not sure of my direction. There was a lamp on the sideboard with scorch stains on its shade and, on the peeling olive wallpaper above it, a gallery of small oil paintings of the lake and fells in basic wood frames; in among them was a picture of a black-haired woman in square glasses I assumed to be my grandmother. She had the same bony nose as my father. I reached a junction of two doorways and went right, into the living room. A modest fire was burning in the hearth. The little TV set had shaky reception and the sound was turned down low: I could make out a uniformed vet on the screen, examining a hedgehog on a padded table. I collected the phone from the arm of the couch and went back.

  My father didn’t move from his perch on the worktop, just held out his hand for the phone and told me to sit. He had prepared a chair for me beside his father. As he dialled, beeping the numbers, my granddad whispered to me: ‘How much trouble is he in?’

  I flashed him all ten of my fingers and he nodded gravely.

  ‘It’s ringing,’ my father said, setting the phone to his ear. The gun was pointed somewhere in the hinterland between my granddad’s chair and mine. ‘Kath, it’s Fran, just checking in. Before you go off on one, I—oh, then who am I speaking to?’ He pursed his lips, listening. ‘Look, you need to calm down for me, Janet, okay? You’ve not even heard what I’ve got to . . . Hang on, is this really necessary?’ He was laughing now. ‘I mean your attitude. Relax. You don’t even know me, love. I’m just trying to reach Kathleen and you’re giving me an earful. Where is she?’

  She was in pursuit of us—I was cheered by this thought until I remembered the message I had left for her. My father would not be pleased to learn about it.

  ‘No, just tell her I rang, Janet, okay? I’m not calling that thing, it’ll cost me the earth. I’ll phone back again later . . . No, we’re not staying here long. There’s no point. She’s getting wo
rked up over nothing, as usual.’ There was a backlash in the receiver; he pulled it away from his ear, letting her shriek at him. Then: ‘What are you on about? Daniel’s here with me. We’re having a great old time.’ His eyes narrowed at the reaction. ‘Did he now? I see. Well. That was a while ago. D’you have kids, Janet? It’s hard to keep up with their moods sometimes . . .’ He threw the stub of his Wintermans into the sink and it fizzled in the washing-up bowl. ‘Tell you what, let’s put him on now. You can ask him yourself.’ His arm was flapping, beckoning me.

  ‘Just do what he says,’ Paul Hardesty instructed. ‘Don’t worry.’

  I walked over. My father dropped from the worktop and kneeled to hold the phone against my left ear, his dry lips itching my right. The bitter cigarillo smell was fresh on him. Janet had a tendency to talk to children as though all of them were deaf or slow-witted—she was a close but fairly new friend of my mother’s who would turn up at our house sometimes around six thirty with red wine and a video, her hairstyle as intricate as sugarwork, her bassy laugh resounding—and this only made it simpler for my father to direct our conversation. Extemporising lies over the telephone was his speciality. He murmured the script into my ear, and I followed it.

  HIM:

  Say hello.

  ME:

  Hello.

  HER:

  Dan? Are you all right?

  HIM:

  You’re fine. Why?

  ME:

  I’m fine. Why?

  HER:

  ’Cause your mum’s been frantic. She’ll be so relieved you called.

  HIM:

  Tell her not to worry, you’re all right.

  ME:

  Don’t worry. I’m all right.

  HER:

  There’s a bit of a delay, Dan. Is your dad on the line with us?

  ME: