‘I’ll take these,’ I said to the lady, a bit too loudly.
She picked up the hook and the wool and looked at them.
‘This is a quite a chunky yarn,’ she said to me, ‘You might want to get a larger hook.’
I hadn’t realised they came in sizes. She came over with me and looked at the different hooks, and held out a piece of the wool and helped me to choose the right size. The wool and the crochet hook together came to £5.15.
Just as I was about to pay, I picked up one of the horse scarves and said, ‘Oh, I’ll have this as well.’
She folded it and put it in a brown paper bag with the wool and the crochet hook, and I paid her most of the money I had in the world. There was enough left over for a bag of chips. I didn’t want to leave.
She said, ‘Good luck dearie. Do you know how to crochet?’
And I said ‘Yes, my Gran taught me.’
She smiled at that, and I found myself saying, ‘But she’s dead now.’
‘That’s a shame, love,’ she said. ‘But do come and show me what you make won’t you.’
I said I would and felt awful for lying.
The wool and the crochet hook were still in my backpack which was now sitting in my bedroom at Sally’s house on the other side of these woods. There was a breeze getting up, blowing gusts through the trees, making everything shake. Then I heard a crunching noise that might have been a footstep on gravel and every part of me went still. I didn’t even breathe as I listened. If I didn’t move, would they walk past without noticing me? Did I want them to?
After a couple of minutes I relaxed. There were no more footsteps. Maybe it had been a tree knocking its branches or something falling over.
I thought about crocheting. I imagined the hook in my right hand and the yarn in my left and the warm feel of the ball of wool sitting in my lap, turning and twisting as I worked. I imagined my hands making the movements, the hook grasping the stitches it wanted, letting the others slide over its round end, creating a pattern of rosettes and holes. I watched it grow.
After the Haberdashers I went straight to the police station. On the way I removed the horse scarf from the paper bag and dropped it in a puddle. I picked it up, wrung it out and screwed it up tight into a ball in my fist, then shook it open. It was now creased, dirty and damp, which was just what I wanted.
At the police station I told them I knew they were looking for Smith and Jeannie and that I knew where they were. They looked at me suspiciously, wondering why I’d tell them, what was in it for me.
‘They’ve stolen something of mine,’ I said, ‘and I want to get it back.’
The desk officer made a phone call and some other policemen took me to an office where they asked me questions. I showed them the horse scarf and said it was Jeannie’s and that I’d found it in the garden of the house where they were hiding, that it must have fallen out of her hair.
‘She always wears it. I expect she’d not tied it very tightly because she had to get out quick in the raid.’
One of the policemen took the scarf out of the office and a few minutes later he came back. He and the other man exchanged glances and the one who’d been out gave a tight little nod. After that it wasn’t long before I was being put in a police car and we were driving across the city with a police van following behind.
The house looked just the same as when I’d left it earlier. The blinds were all down and both the cars were still missing. The policemen looked at me.
‘You’re sure this is the house?’
I nodded
They told me to stay in the car. There were seven of them, all dressed in black police uniforms with truncheons in their belts. A couple of them had their hands on their truncheons, ready, and I felt a bit sorry for Smith and Jeannie, who’d always been kind to me. But then I remembered Gran’s ring and my thoughts went hard again.
First the police knocked on the door really loud and shouted, ‘This is the Police, open up.’ Curtains twitched in other houses, but this one stayed silent and still. After a couple of minutes they kicked the door in. Just like that.
Thirty seconds later Smith and Jeannie jumped out of a window. They’d obviously been in bed. He was only wearing a pair of jeans, and she was wearing a green vest top and black leggings, Gran’s ring on its thong around her neck, Smith’s shoes in her hand. I was out of the car before I could think. I dived on her and we both fell to the ground.
All I was bothered about was the ring. I grabbed at the thong. She was underneath me and she was twisting and turning like an animal, scratching and biting at me. I tried to avoid her teeth, but the main thing was the ring, and as soon as I had a good purchase I gave a yank and the thong snapped. She yelled because it dug into her neck and hurt her. Then someone was lifting me from behind, and a police officer took hold of Jeannie and snapped some handcuffs on her. I didn’t know what would happen next, but I didn’t really care because I had Gran’s ring held tightly in my fist.
There it was again, slower this time, like someone putting their foot down very slowly, heel first. I held my breath, and there was the other foot. It was definitely a person. Then the attempt at silence was abandoned and they were walking quickly along the track towards me.
I squeezed myself back against the wall, closed my eyes and waited.
The footsteps drew level with me, went past, and stopped. Silence again. Except this time I knew there was someone there just a few feet away standing still and waiting like me. I could hear the music from the party down in the valley and I almost wished I was there where the danger was known and understood. An animal scuttled further up the slope and knocked a stone that came bouncing down the hill and onto the track, landing somewhere between us.
There was the sound of shuffling feet, movement.
‘Hello?’
They might be as scared as me. But the voice didn’t sound scared. I tried to breathe as quietly as I could. Water from the moss on the wall was trickling down my back, but I didn’t move.
‘It’s me, Richard. Is that you?’
And suddenly I was laughing and I was on my feet and I couldn’t stop talking.
‘Oh god, I’m so glad it’s you. I was terrified. I didn’t know who you were but I couldn’t see a thing and I walked into the wall at the side of the path because I couldn’t see which way the path went and then I thought what if I’d done that on the other side and fallen down the cliff so I couldn’t move and I didn’t know what to do and I was so scared.’
I started crying and Richard put his arms and his coat around me and he was stroking my hair and it felt really comforting.
‘It’s ok,’ he said.
I cried a bit more and realised that his shirt was getting wet, so I straightened myself up and he dropped his arms so that we were standing close but not touching any more.
‘I’ve brought you that beer,’ he said. He took a can out of the pocket of his coat and handed it to me.
I took it and laughed again.
‘Thank you,’ I snapped the can open and took a swig. ‘Sorry I disappeared. I didn’t know anyone there and I felt a bit uncomfortable.’
‘Nothing to do with those two standing over by the bridge then, watching everyone like hawks?’
‘Oh. Did you see them?’
‘Yes. But they didn’t see you, so don’t worry.’
‘Well, we have some history.’
‘They don’t look like the sort of people you want coming after you.’
‘No. That’s why I left. But then I got a bit… well, stuck.’
‘Shall I walk you home?’
I looked up at where his face might be. ‘Would you mind? I mean, won’t you miss the party?’
‘The party will keep going for hours. I can go back. Where are you staying?’
‘Up the valley, at Old Barn.’
He took my arm and started walking up the hill, and I found that walking up the track in the dark was really fun. I had the beer in my right hand and Richard on the left, and he seemed to know exactly where he was going and didn’t falter at all, and when I stumbled over a boulder in the path it was funny, not scary. He told me about the circus act that they’d had earlier at the party and what fantastic performers they were.
‘Jimmy, the fire eater Pyrotastic, he’s working for my mum doing some work in our house. It’s amazing that someone who can do that sort of thing has to have an ordinary job as well. He should be on the telly. He should be world famous.’
‘I suppose there’s not that much demand for fire eaters. Not like every night.’
‘I’d watch him every night.’
He started telling me about different circus acts he’d seen and which were his favourites, and suddenly we were out above the trees and I could see the stars and I could see Richard walking along beside me and the track winding up through the fields.
‘I’ll be ok from here,’ I said.
‘Are you sure?’
I nodded and he smiled at me and fished another beer out of his enormous coat pocket.
‘Here you can have mine too.’
He kissed me on the cheek, turned and vanished back into the trees leaving me with a can of beer in each hand. One was warmed by my body heat, but the other was as cold as the earth.
11. Lauren
Around midnight I realised Peter wasn’t coming back to the party and I decided to go and look for him. People were starting to dance and others settled in groups, chatting and smoking. Richard was down by the bridge talking to a couple I didn’t know. I didn’t think anyone would miss me.
I thought I’d head up to the woods where we’d seen the heron. That was only this morning, but it seemed like a lifetime ago. The woods were on the other side of town from the canal, and I was walking quite quickly past the end of our street, when I thought I heard someone say my name. I looked round but there was no one about, and the trees were silent. I decided to pop home first.
The garden was quiet. Most of the flowers were over, now that summer was gone. The Japanese anemones were bobbing their sleepy heads, and in the herb garden purple Echinacea preened itself in the starlight. I touched its petals, rubbed wormwood leaves between my fingers and smelled the sharp sap on my skin. Before long most of these plants would have died back, leaving only their roots, some seeds and bare twigs scattered through the soil to await the spring. The lemon verbena brushed against my legs, marking me with its scent, telling me someone had passed by.
Mr Lion keeps a spare key under a stone in the rockery. It wasn’t there and the back door was open.
I didn’t turn on any lights. I tiptoed up the stairs and into my room.
Peter was sitting on the floor next to my bed. I could just make out his silhouette, chin on his knees, hands on his head. He was silent, but I could tell he was breathing deeply from the way his shoulders were moving.
I sat down next to him.
‘Peter?’
He didn’t move, so I put my arms across his shoulders. He wasn’t wearing anything and his skin was damp and sticky. I cupped the point of his shoulder in my palm and pulled him towards me.
‘Are you ok?’
He lifted his head and looked at me and the light from the window shone on his face. He was streaked with dirt and something else. I touched his cheeks. They were wet and warm. I put my finger in my mouth and tasted blood.
Everything in the room was very still. I could barely hear us breathing.
Peter took hold of my wrist, lifted it and placed my hand on the top of his head. At first I was only aware of the blood, thickly matted in his hair and oozing between my fingers. It was cold and slimy and I wanted to pull my hand away. But as I moved my fingers I felt something else. The warm hardness of bone, a round base attached to his skull narrowing to a sharp point a quarter of an inch higher. I lifted my other hand and felt both sides of his head, rolling my fingertips across the points of the newly emerged horns.
‘Peter!’ I whispered.
He pulled me hard against him and I could taste the salt of sweat and blood in his kiss.
It was different this time. This morning we had talked to each other about what we were doing and laughed in the mist. This time was wordless, fierce and completely thrilling. My fingers grasped at the hair on his thighs and I tasted blood when he kissed me, felt the hard knock of his horns against my neck when he lowered his head. I arched my body against him and shouted out and it was a good thing that everyone else was down at the canal bank and we were alone.
Afterwards he fell limp on top of me and after a few minutes he rolled to one side. One of his hands lay on my right breast.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice muffled by my hair.
I kissed him on the lips.
‘I’m not sorry,’ I said.
We lay like that for a long time with the light from outside making shadows on our skin. There was no sound except for the intermittent cry of an owl. I don’t think either of us slept, but we lay still and didn’t move, and I could feel the sweat and blood drying on my skin, the wetness between my legs.
I got cold. I sat up and put my hand on his hindquarters where the hair was damp and gritty.
‘Let’s have a bath,’ I said.
He didn’t move while I ran the hot water and dripped in oil of vetiver and rosemary. But when the bath was good and deep, I took his hands and he let me pull him up and lead him to the bathroom. He stepped into the hot water and his hooves slipped on the enamel. I grabbed hold of him to steady him and we both laughed.
The water was soon deep red with his blood. I rubbed shampoo into his hair and it covered my hands in red foam. I took the plug out, pulled the shower curtain around the bath and turned the hot jet of clean water onto him. Soon his hair was free of blood, and I could rub at the dried crusts that had formed around his ears and forehead and at the base of his horns. When the water was running clear again, we refilled the bath and lay back in the hot water, his legs either side of me, my toes in his fur. We looked into each other’s eyes and my toes moved up his thighs. Before long he came up to my end of the bath and we did it again, slowly this time, trying not to make the water slosh over the side of the bath.
Then we washed and dried ourselves and wrapped ourselves up in a couple of Mr Lion’s enormous white towels and went downstairs.
Peter built a fire in the grate and I went to the kitchen and found half a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses.
An hour or so later Mr Lion came home and found us curled up under a blanket in front of the fire, watching patterns of light dance across the room and get lost in the shadows. He fetched some brandy and sat down in his armchair to roll another spliff. He said he’d left when the party was in full flow.
The three of us sat in silence and Mr Lion’s smoke curled into the room, its smell mingling with the apple smoke from the fire. My limbs felt heavy and warm and I sank against Peter who had his arm around my shoulders.
‘Is Dad still at the party?’
Mr Lion nodded. ‘He was talking to Jimmy when I left.’ He took another drag and slowly exhaled. ‘I don’t suppose he’ll be long, though.’
He was staring at the photo of my mother on the mantelpiece.
The first time I remember asking about her I must have been four years old. I’d fallen over at nursery school and grazed my knee. I’d fallen so many times before, in the woods, in the back garden, in the street, but this was different. My dad wasn’t there. He’d left me in this place with strangers. The other children had snotty noses and mothers who tucked their hair behind their ears. It seemed like a personal affront.
When Dad came to pick me up at lunchtime I was angry and red-faced, but he wasn’t as guilt-stricken as I’d expected. He didn’t promise to
never leave me there again. He laughed and said, ‘Been in the wars, Lauren?’
So when we got home I said it, the thing nobody ever said. He sat me on a tall chair while he dabbed at the wound with damp cotton wool, and I said, ‘Why haven’t I got a mummy?’
He carried on wiping my knee, threw the cotton wool in the bin and said, ‘You do have a mummy, Lauren.’
‘Well, where is she then?’
‘She had to go.’
‘Did she love me like the other mummies? Did she buy me a pink lunchbox?’
‘Yes, she loved you.’
‘Well why did she have to go? I think she’d still be here if she loved me. I think she must hate us.’
‘Do you want a pink lunchbox? We could go to town on Saturday and look.’
‘Is she dead?’
‘No, she’s not dead.’
‘What does she look like?’
So he showed me the photograph of Cassie, my mother. It was always there, on the mantelpiece, and I must have seen it a thousand times, but never realised it was any more important than the poster of James Brown on the kitchen wall or the painting of a naked woman crouching at the bottom of the stairs, or the photos of African children in the bathroom.
I looked at it now like I had that day.
She was smiling. No, laughing. She was outside, wearing a raincoat, looking at the camera, and her hair had blown into her face. Her eyes were the same colour blue as mine and she looked happy.
‘Peter wants me to go to Greece with him in the summer,’ I told Mr Lion, ‘to meet his mum.’
Mr Lion nodded his head and the light from the fire glinted on his mane. He offered me the spliff and I took it. I don’t often, because I hate the taste of the tobacco, but it seemed like a good moment, with the soft heat of Peter’s legs against mine beneath the blanket. The only light came from the fire. I breathed and felt my muscles relaxing. I felt like warm wax. I passed the spliff on to Peter.
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