TAINTED LOVE

by Anna Chilvers

  Tainted Love

  A novel by Anna Chilvers

  Imprint

  Copyright © Anna Chilvers 2016

  First published in 2016 by Bluemoose Books Ltd 25 Sackville Street Hebden Bridge West Yorkshire HX7 7DJ

  www.bluemoosebooks.com

  All rights reserved Unauthorised duplication contravenes existing laws

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-910422-16-8

  Printed and bound in the UK by Short Run Press

  Dedication

  For Poppy and Izzy

  Prologue

  It was the end of the summer, a hot spell when the days burned up the grass on the hillside and the nights had us sweating in our stone houses as though they were stacks of glass boxes. I turned and turned, unable to sleep, and the cotton sheets stuck to my body and bound my legs. I thought of Peter sleeping in the open, of him and his dad night-running under the stars, creating coolness in their wake, a coolness that would have dissipated by the time the coffee was on and the bus passed the end of our street taking folk to work.

  I wished I could run like Peter.

  I closed my eyes and fell into an uneasy sleep.

  In my sleep I was visited by a man and a boy. The boy was tall and good-looking, about my age or older. He sat on the end of my bed and looked at me, but said nothing.

  The man roamed about the room. Neither seemed aware of the presence of the other. The man had brown trousers fastened with a belt and a short sleeved check shirt which only just stretched across his belly and left a triangle of exposed flesh. He seemed agitated.

  I lay in bed and looked from one to the other.

  ‘Who are you?’ I said.

  The boy still said nothing. His eyes were dark and glinted with reflections of the street light outside my window.

  The man stopped next to my bed and stood over me. He said ‘I just want you to know, it’s not what I wanted. I didn’t choose this.’

  ‘What?’ I was alarmed and struggled in to a sitting position. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m your mother’s nightmare. But it’s not my choice or hers. If we could, we would separate. She would come back to you.’

  ‘My mother?’ I was fully awake now. ‘What have you got to do with my mother? Why are you here?’

  ‘She sends a message,’ said the man. ‘She wants you to know that she loves you.’

  I leaped out of bed and flew at him, beating against his chest with my fists.

  ‘Get out! Get out of my room. Get out of this house and don’t ever come back.’

  His chest was huge and solid and I felt like a child.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Truly.’

  He turned and walked out of the room.

  The boy hadn’t moved.

  ‘Well?’ I said.

  He smiled and I felt pain rush through me. I ran to the window and threw it open wide. In the garden the night stocks were trembling and the hawthorn tree whispered a warning.

  I looked back and he had gone.

  Part One: THE RETURN

  1. Lauren

  When I got home on the first day of term, Mr Lion was in the kitchen stuffing a chicken with chilli and apricots, and listening to Jackie Wilson. He’d dyed his mane black and straightened it, and strands kept falling across his face. The table was littered with bottles and jars – olive oil, tabasco, coriander seeds, black pepper, ginger, nutmegs, lemons and limes. When Mr Lion cooked, the dinner was never short on flavour. He had a mound of vegetables on the chair next to him. The mortar and pestle were stained red with juice from the chillies.

  ‘Did you borrow my straighteners again?’

  ‘Hi Lauren, good day at college?’

  ‘You really should get your own, you know. Your mane is too wiry for mine. You’ll burn them out.’

  Mr Lion tossed his head and the silky hair fell black, heavy and long over his shoulder. He did look pretty cool. Jackie was singing The Who Who Song.

  ‘What you cooking?’

  ‘Roast chicken and vegetable stew. You want some?’

  ‘Maybe. I’m going up to see Peter. Can I bring him back for dinner?’

  Mr Lion snorted. ‘If you can drag him down off those hills. I haven’t seen him in town for months.’

  ‘I know, he’s getting worse. He’s hardly been into town all summer. He was in college today, but he came in the back way from the woods. And he’s started wearing a hat.’

  ‘Poor lad. Yes, bring him down and we’ll put a bit of fire in his belly. He can’t hide in the woods forever.’

  Hiding in the woods is what Peter does. I looked in the fridge and found a bowl of tuna and pepper salad.

  ‘Can I eat this?’

  ‘I don’t know, it’s Andy’s not mine.’

  ‘Dad won’t mind.’

  There were no clean forks in the cutlery drawer. I looked in the drainer on the sink.

  ‘What time will dinner be?

  I shovelled in a mouthful of tuna, pepper and mayonnaise. It was too cold, it could have done with half an hour out of the fridge first. But I really wanted to get up to Peter, so I ate it anyway. I’d kind of got used to the shoes he’d had made, although I didn’t like them, but the hat was really bothering me.

  ‘Seven thirty. If you’re not here, we won’t wait.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be here, and so will Peter.’

  Even though it was a hot day, it was cool in the woods. The trees littered their shadows across the path and the air danced with coins of sunlight. The woods here hang onto the sides of a steep valley, the trees holding tight with woody fingers to the constantly eroding soil. I followed the path which winds in halfway up the slope. In places it’s crumbling and at one point a tiny stream crosses it, drawing at the edges and washing them down the hill. A couple of boulders pin the path down and make it possible to pass in winter when the stream has grown after rainfall. Today the stream was just a layer of shimmering sweat darkening the mud.

  The path widens when you reach the old millpond. The water was still and the trees were silent, thick-leaved, keeping out the sunlight. There’s a tiny path heading off to the left, barely noticeable, especially when the brambles have been growing. Like someone’s drawn a stick through, and it hasn’t quite closed back on itself yet. The sort of path animals make. This is Peter’s path.

  I first met Peter here in the woods when I was six years old. My dad and Mr Lion had decided to take me walking up on the tops and I didn’t want to go. I was lagging behind, making a nuisance of myself in the hope that if we got off to a bad start they’d call it off. But they were used to my tactics. They strode ahead, knowing that as soon as they went out of sight and left me alone amongst the towering trees I’d run to catch up. This time, though, just as the panic grasped me, I heard something moving in the brambles and stopped to look.

  Whatever it was stopped too. I stared at the thicket, peering between the leaves into the dark spaces underneath. Dad and Mr Lion were nowhere to be seen and the wood was full of a quiet stillness which teemed with non-human life. I could hear sap pushing against cell walls, leaves and stalks thrusting out from trees, from the ground, the hum of flowers turning to the sun. Insects swarmed in pools of sunlight. There were damp scurryings in the undergrowth. I felt very small.

  ‘Is someone there?’

  Speaking felt better – a normal, human sound. A question no one would answer because no one was there. I rocked back a little on my heels, ready to run off and find the grown ups.


  But then someone did answer.

  ‘Hello.’

  I couldn’t see anyone. There was no movement.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Peter.’

  ‘Who’s Peter?’

  ‘I am. Who are you?’

  ‘I can’t see you.’

  ‘I’m hiding.’

  ‘I’m Lauren. Come out here.’

  There was a rustling, a sound which moved beneath the brambles. I tried to follow it with my eyes, but the leaves on the surface didn’t move. Then suddenly he popped out on the path beside me.

  We stared at each other. Then he touched my hair.

  ‘Yellow,’ he said.

  ‘Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?’

  He looked down at himself as if he hadn’t thought about it before.

  ‘I don’t need any.’

  Just then my dad came walking back up the path, wondering why I was taking so long, and when he saw Peter he stopped. Slowly a smile spread across his face.

  ‘Where’s the old goat been hiding you then?’ he said to Peter.

  ‘This is Peter. Can he come with us, Dad? Please.’

  ‘If he wants to.’

  So Peter came with us on our walk, and I had more fun than I’d ever had. Peter knew where to find toads and beetles, the best places to cross the rushing streams, which trees were easy to climb, and how to hide even where nothing was growing. After that I played with him whenever I could. He didn’t go to school back then and, same as me, he didn’t have a mother. My Dad trusted me with Peter because he and his dad knew the woods and the hills better than anyone alive.

  Above the bramble thickets at the top of the woods, the path ends where the stream comes out from under a big stone. I put my fingers in my mouth and blew three short blasts.

  Then I sat on the stone and waited. The sun shone through a gap in the trees and I dangled my feet above the stream. The trees were singing quietly and the brambles were silent. Peter would come. Even if he was far away he would hear my whistle, and before long he would come. That’s the way it always was.

  Sometimes he liked to creep up on me, appearing suddenly at my side before I’d heard a thing. Today he came bounding down the hillside, his hooves barely touching the rocks and the grass, and flung himself down beside me. He wasn’t wearing the hat now, nor shoes or trousers.

  ‘Lauren!’ he said in an outrush of breath.

  And we kissed. The sun warmed our cheeks and I breathed his animal smell. The woods smelled of honeysuckle and wet stones.

  ‘Why didn’t you speak to me at college today?’ I asked him when we stopped for breath.

  He shifted his bum and looked down.

  ‘I dunno. You were hanging around with that crowd. They’re idiots.’

  ‘They’re not idiots. They’re my friends.’

  ‘Joel Wetherby wants to go out with you.’

  ‘That doesn’t make him an idiot, just because he likes me.’ I shot a glance at him, but he was still looking at the floor. ‘Maybe I will go out with him.’

  ‘He calls me Goat Boy.’

  I put my hands on Peter’s head and smoothed back his hair. I could feel the bumps, the nub of them hard against my palms. When I parted his hair I could see the skin stretched tight. It wouldn’t be long before they burst through.

  ‘You’re going to have to get used to it.’

  ‘I am used to it. But why do I have to go to the stupid place anyway? Why can’t I just stay here in the woods?’

  I shook my head and kissed him on the nose. ‘Mr Lion’s cooking. Will you come back with me?’

  Peter shrugged.

  ‘Roast chicken. The kitchen smells amazing.’

  ‘Maybe later, when it’s dark.’

  ‘No. Come back with me now and be a proper guest. Mr Lion’s invited you.’

  Peter put his hand on the back of my neck, wrapped my hair around his fingers and tugged gently. I could feel the tingles going through my body into my hands and feet. I stretched my palms.

  ‘Soft as thistledown,’ he said, ‘and sunshine.’

  ‘Say yes. Say you’ll come.’

  He put his other hand on my knee and started to slide it upwards. I pushed it back down.

  ‘Peter! Say you’ll come to eat with us.’

  He put his lips right up close to my ear.

  ‘Ok,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll come.’ I turned my head so my lips met his. ‘But first come with me, there’s something I want to show you.’

  He took me up to Hough Dean. I hadn’t been there in ages. When we were little we used to go and play in the deserted farm yard and dare each other to go inside the house. The door was nailed shut and most of the windows were boarded up, but there was a little one at the back which had been missed and the glass was broken. If you were careful you could get your hand in and lift the latch. Once the window was open there was room for a small person to squeeze through.

  I’d got my body halfway in once but, just as I was about to wriggle my legs through, the smell hit me. It was thick and strong, like something rotting, and I gagged. You couldn’t see anything in the dark, but there was no way I could breathe that air for even a minute. I pushed back out and nearly knocked Peter over.

  Peter said it was probably bats. I wasn’t going back in to check, and Peter didn’t much like houses at the best of times.

  The easiest way to get there is to take the mile-long track up from the Craggs car park, but that way you approach the farm straight on. Peter wanted to watch without being seen, so we went along the valley and climbed over the hill behind the farmhouse.

  There was a van parked in the yard, and a black Porsche. The boards had been removed from the windows and the doors were open. There were a couple of men up ladders painting the newly stripped window frames, and the noise of a drill coming from inside.

  ‘Someone’s moving in?’

  Just then a woman walked out of the house. She was wearing a red mini dress, black high heels and shades. Her hair was blonde and very expensive. She crossed the yard to the Porsche, opened the door and bent in, looking for something.

  ‘Is that the new owner?

  Peter nodded.

  ‘Why would someone like that buy Hough Dean?’

  ‘I dunno. They started work about a week ago. They’re working really fast.’

  The woman straightened up, a mobile in her hand. She dialled a number and leaned back against the hot black metal of the car, the phone to her ear.

  ‘There’s a boy too,’ Peter said.

  ‘What, a little boy?’ It was hard to tell what age the woman might be from this distance.

  ‘No. About our age. Maybe eighteen or twenty.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘No. I’ve only seen the two of them.

  The lane up to the farm is full of potholes. I wondered how the Porsche managed it. The woman would have to get the track repaired.

  ‘Another thing,’ he said. ‘I don’t think she bought it. My dad always told me that the owners of this place had gone away, but that they’d return one day. I think she’s the owner. I think she’s come back.’

  The woman finished her phone call and walked back across the yard into the house.

  ‘Come on,’ Peter nudged me. ‘Let’s go and have some of Mr Lion’s chicken.’

  As we got near to town Peter became quiet. When we reached the top of the stream, he asked me to wait while he fetched his clothes. He was gone for ten minutes and returned wearing a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and some trainers. I didn’t say anything. We walked down the hill holding hands, but Peter let go when we got to the square.

  Joel Wetherby was there with a gang of his friends. He called out as we walked past. ‘How do you keep those trainers on, Goat Boy, when you’ve got no feet?’

&
nbsp; Peter didn’t respond. He kept on walking.

  I called back over my shoulder, ‘Don’t be a dick, Joel.’

  They all started laughing, and I heard one of them say, ‘You’re in there, mate.’

  We were just in time. Mr Lion was serving up the chicken and it smelled fantastic. Dad was home from work and we all sat around the kitchen table together to eat. Peter hadn’t said anything about the lads in the square, and I didn’t feel like bringing it up. I wish he would stand up for himself and answer back sometimes.

  Mr Lion is a DJ. He plays Northern Soul nights at clubs all over the north of England and he has thousands of records. He’s also a brilliant cook. He could be a chef in a really swanky restaurant, probably have his own TV show and everything. But most of the time he can’t be bothered, so when he decides to make something it’s just us that get to eat it. Me and my dad and anyone else who happens to be visiting. Today he’d excelled himself. You’d think a roast chicken was just a roast chicken, but Mr Lion can create magic. It was so good that we all forgot to talk and just concentrated on eating.

  After, when the dishes were cleared away, Dad got a bottle of wine out and poured us all a glass. Mr Lion lit a fag and his little white dog, Beauty, curled up in his lap.

  I said, ‘We went up to Hough Dean. There’s someone moving in.’

  Dad and Mr Lion both seemed to freeze. Then Mr Lion lowered his arm and tapped his ash in the ash tray. Dad took a sip from his wine glass like he was trying to look normal, but his arm and his face were as stiff as a puppet’s.

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Mr Lion.

  ‘Yes. A blonde woman with a Porsche. Looks like she’s loaded.’

  ‘Meg,’ said Dad. His wine glass wobbled and he put it on the table.

  ‘Who’s Meg?’ I said

  Mr Lion took another drag on his cigarette. ‘How old did she look, this woman?’

  I shrugged. ‘Thirty maybe. Forty. We weren’t very near.’

  ‘Well, probably best to leave her be. She won’t want kids hanging around bothering her.’

  ‘We weren’t hanging about. We were up the hill. She couldn’t see us.’