The Hiding Places

by Catherine Robertson

  In the woods, she recognised violets, but not the heavy-headed clumps of bright yellow-green, a match for the new leaves overhead, or the delicate white flowers with yellow centres that would droop and close up, April observed, if the temperature cooled. The bluebells were still green, but there were bud heads pushing up in the middle of the slender leaves. At least another three weeks, Oran had told her, before they’d flower. He said it would be a good time to mow Empyrean’s front lawn before the grass got too thick; he knew where he could get hold of a mower. The lawn had transformed from a slimy bog into a green sea foamy with daisies. April rather hoped he might forget.

  And that is the danger of spring, right there, thought April. Things underground began to stir, began to intrude and insinuate like the scent of lilac. Winter, grey and dead, dulled your senses and stilled your memories, so that any unwanted voices were muffled, any wrongful desires kept down. In spring, surrounded by daisies and lilac and apple blossom, it was easy to be beguiled into the idea of a new start, of shedding your cocoon and emerging jewel-bright and ready again to fly.

  It was spring, April was convinced, which had dialled up the restlessness that had been with her since she arrived. Where before, the sensation had been an occasional snake’s-tongue flicker, now it was more like a constant swarm of bees that made her mind hum and filled her limbs with a tingling, busy energy. In her old life, that energy had come from being with her son and her husband, from everything they did together that gave her joy. The tingle had been both in the experience and in the anticipation of that joy, and April had felt it like a circuit — she took energy in so she could put it out, into actions big and small that kept love alive, and made her heart sing. But this life allowed none of those pleasurable outlets for energy, and all recent attempts to will it into stillness had failed. April was at a loss.

  During the week, she had the practical and acceptable release of working on the house. She and Oran had moved on from the kitchen to what Edward called the drawing room and Oran the parlour. They chose it because it had more light than the dining room, and moulded plasterwork still intact on the ceiling and walls that would need only new paint to bring it back to life. Oran and April had tossed a coin to see who would take on the white ceiling, and who the less neck-cricking walls, which unlike most of the other rooms had never been papered but painted a Wedgwood Jasperware green. April had lost the coin toss, but could not get Oran to admit that he’d used sleight of hand.

  The drawing room fireplace had not been as lucky as the walls. Every part of it was dented, splintered or cracked. In its perfect state, it would have been imposing; Mr Potts’s taste, this time, April guessed. Very Baronial. It had a wooden lintel six feet wide and nearly a foot deep, once an oak beam, Oran said. On it, in low relief, had been carved two sinuous heraldic beasts, salamanders or dragons, their heads meeting at a shield bearing the head of a spiral-horned goat. The lintel rested on two solid pieces of marble, each shaped to look like a Roman column. The fireplace itself was exposed brick and the grate was cast iron that had once been polished black. The surround was tiled, dark green and white, and still had most of a brass rail. Oran thought he would be able to restore the woodwork, and do some repairs to the marble, enough to disguise the worst damage in any case. He would scout around for a replacement grate, tiles and railing; he didn’t feel they would be hard to come by.

  The old fitted carpet, grey-green and dark brown on a pale background, was threadbare and would have to be pulled up. Edward had told them that fitted carpet post-dated the 1920s; he was hoping for wooden or even parquet floors beneath that they could polish. The green and gold silk curtains had rotted to shreds. Curtains and carpet would join the pile of rubbish Oran had stashed away in the disused garage. In a couple of weeks, he’d said, it would be May Day. Perfect time to light a bonfire. And he’d sung a song about a fire on a ship that did not end well.

  But today was Saturday, and Oran did not work on the weekend, and there was not much April felt confident in tackling without him.

  The idea of the garden came to her, and this time she did not push it immediately away. But the list for her namesake month in The Popular Encyclopaedia of Gardening was almost as long as the one for March, and most of the tasks outstretched her level of understanding or capability: Plant Gladioli, Montbretias and Tigridias … harden off early flowering Chrysanthemums … sow Long Beet, Salsify and Early Milan Turnip … in sunny weather, syringe peach trees at mid-day.

  April could not visit Sunny because she was in Greece, visiting her middle daughter, Connie, who had married a rich Athenian merchant, and who lived — April had seen photographs — in a white villa on an island surrounded by azure sea. April imagined Sunny would be working on Connie right now. If she could get one of her children to agree to come for her birthday, then, like dominoes, the others should surely follow. Edward was in London, meeting with the estate agents who were managing the letting of his city properties — badly, according to Edward, hence the need for a meeting. He was staying overnight to catch a performance of Macbeth, featuring an actor who’d recently been beheaded on some fantasy television programme. Edward doubted the actor had the necessary range, but the ticket had been a gift from a client and, besides, the actor was very handsome, so with luck that would compensate.

  No Oran, Sunny or Edward, thought April. No outlet in the house, and none in the garden.

  There was nothing for it. She would have to go for a walk. One that would, if she judged it correctly, take her all day. She filled Kit’s old water canteen and packed a bread and butter sandwich in the pocket of a jacket she suspected she wouldn’t need. The mornings were still crisp but the sun heated the day quickly, and had shone steadily for the last week, which accounted for the surge in chlorophyll, all the greenery shooting upwards and new flowers showing their faces to the sky.

  The woods were cool, if brighter than before, the light now being filtered through a fresh green canopy. More birdsong, tseeps, trills and tremolos. A little round brown bird flitted across above her, its tail dipping and slewing sideways.

  April remembered the robin. Remembered the dark man telling her that if she’d waited, it would have come to her. Remembered also a singsong rhyme that Ben’s father used to recite, a game he’d play with his fingers, making the robin pop up and then fly away, delighting his small audience every time. Little robin redbreast, sat upon a tree, up went the pussycat, and down went he.

  Ben’s father had an alternative rhyme that he swore was the original, from the seventeenth century, before the bowdlerising Victorians got hold of it. Little robin redbreast, sat upon a pole. Niddle, noddle went his head and poop went his hole.

  Ben would laugh in that way only small children can — a gleeful deep gurgle that came right from his gut, so infectious that even the flintiest-hearted person would have to smile.

  Memories. Over time they hurt less and comforted more. April walked faster, to make the crunch of her steps drown out the voices in her head.

  She came upon a clearing. It took her a moment to recognise the hollow tree, and when she did, she cursed the memory trail of crumbs that had led her back there. Says little robin redbreast: ‘Catch me if you can.’

  The clearing, though, was empty. No robin, no dog, no man. But what was that in the air? A smell, faint but distinct, of smoke.

  April knew it was not a wildfire, because the smoke carried with it a hint of meatiness, as if someone was cooking on a campfire. It was hard to tell where it was coming from, but April decided the fire must be behind the hollow tree, deeper still into the woods. She walked on, in what she hoped was the right direction. She was curious — it was an unusual place for anyone to be making camp — but expected to find nothing more interesting than a forest ranger burning dead wood. After all, it was hardly likely to be a jolly swagman, left in peace this time to roast his jumbuck by troopers one, two and three.

  The woods thickened, became treacherous underfoot. April was battling to find a pa
th through. Just as she was about to give up and turn back, the trees thinned out again, and she found herself in another clearing. It was small, hemmed in by trees on three sides and on the fourth by a short scrubby knoll that led up to where the woods restarted. The campfire was to one side of the knoll. It was crackling away, a black, lidded pot suspended above it on an iron hook — a sight that made April revisit the possibility of the swagman, and which distracted her from the most interesting feature of the whole scene. When she did notice it, April thought she must be dreaming. There was a door in the knoll. It was made of bound branches and was rough and uneven, but undeniably a door. Surely, thought April, somebody couldn’t be living there?

  The door opened. Somebody emerged. Stopped, stared, but did not look in the least surprised.

  ‘You found me,’ he said.

  ‘Where’s Gabe?’ was all April could think of to say.

  The man looked past her, into the woods. Whistled. Seconds later, the dog bustled into the clearing, circled the fire, sat obediently at his master’s feet.

  A log on the fire crackled. Whatever was in the pot quietly bubbled.

  ‘I could smell that all the way back by the hollow tree,’ said April. ‘If you’re hiding, it’s a bit of a giveaway.’

  The man stepped over to the pot. Tugged a cloth from his waistband, wrapped his hand and lifted the lid. The contents bubbled louder, a waft of meaty steam rose. The lid was replaced with a gritty clunk.

  ‘I’m not hiding,’ he said.

  ‘What are you doing here, then?’

  ‘Living.’

  ‘How long?’

  The man looked upwards, as if trying to remember.

  ‘Hard to say.’

  ‘But why?’ said April.

  ‘Because I choose to,’ he said.

  April was overwhelmed by a sense of wrongness. Who believed they could live entirely free to do what they liked, immune to the laws of action and consequence?

  ‘Normal people,’ she said, ‘don’t live all alone in the woods.’

  ‘You do,’ he said. ‘You don’t even have a dog.’

  He clicked his fingers. Gabe was to him in an instant.

  ‘I have people around me.’ She was unwilling to admit he had a point.

  He laid his hand on the dog’s head, smiled. ‘And who says I don’t?’

  ‘Name three.’

  ‘Puck, the Green Knight and Herne the Hunter.’ He wrapped the cloth around his fingers again, stepped back to the fire. ‘Want something to eat?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Rabbit stew.’ He lifted the pot from the hook and placed it on the ground. ‘I thought you’d prefer it to weeds.’

  ‘You didn’t cook it for me. You didn’t even know I would come!’

  He was crouching, his hand half lifting the lid, letting steam escape. ‘Do you want some or not?’

  It smelled delicious. More delicious than a bread and butter sandwich. For that very reason, April should refuse. But he was offering to share the food he’d made when food for him must be hard to come by. It did not matter that she didn’t believe he’d cooked it for her. The offer was generous.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

  They ate outside, sitting on a log that had been smoothed out on top for exactly that purpose. They ate from hand-carved wooden bowls, with forks that looked about the same vintage as the teaspoons April had bought from the car boot sale. Briefly, she wondered if they’d once been part of the same set before someone had split it up and sold it piece by piece.

  There had not been much light in the garden when they’d last met. Here, in full sun, April could finally get a good look at him. His clothing — white, almost blousy, shirt and brown corduroy trousers — seemed very old-fashioned. April guessed he had acquired them from a thrift shop, probably been packed away for decades, pulled out and donated when their owner had died. His sleeves were rolled up, his forearms brown and sinewy. He had boots on, brown leather with leather thong laces, creased and scuffed with age but not overly dirty. His clothes looked clean, too, and he did not smell unwashed. April assumed there was a stream nearby. Kit’s cottage had hot and cold running water, a shower and an indoor lavatory. Once upon a time, and not that long ago, it would have had none of those. She was suddenly grateful to Kit for not being averse to modern comforts.

  He did not seem to notice her studying him, mainly because he ate fast and intently, as if the food were about to leap out of the bowl and run away. So April stared some more, trying to capture him, seal his image in her mind. His profile was strong, his colouring dark. His origins could be Mediterranean, or Gypsy, or even Welsh. His accent was no help. No dialectic burr or twang to place him. It was not cultured but also neither common nor uneducated. He could have been from anywhere.

  ‘What’s your last name?’ said April.

  He paused, swallowed. ‘Acomb.’

  ‘That’s not a common name. Not as common as Jack, anyway.’

  ‘No. It’s Old English, I think. Something to do with oak trees.’

  ‘Is that what these bowls are made of?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Did you carve them?’ said April.

  ‘I was given them.’ He scraped up the last of his stew and set his bowl on the ground. Whistled Gabe over and let him lick the last smears clean. ‘By a friend.’

  He was studying her now, staring as she ate. April regretted that she’d asked him personal questions. Now he could consider it to be his turn.

  But he said nothing. She finished eating, kept her bowl on her lap, hugged between both hands.

  ‘Was it all right?’ he said. ‘To eat?’

  April was surprised. She’d pegged him as more of a take-it-or-leave-it man. Put on the spot, she almost blurted out the truth. Contrary to Oran’s opinion, April did not starve herself, but eating this had made her feel like a drug addict deprived of a fix. The flavour of it, the full meaty richness, had sent an opiate rush to every part of her body, so intense that she’d felt close to tears.

  But she could not tell him that.

  ‘It was very good. I’ve not eaten rabbit before.’

  ‘Do they not have them where you’re from?’

  The question had an odd tone to it, as if where she was from could have been as far as it was, on the other side of the world, or only a few miles beyond the woods. As if he knew nothing about the world outside the places where he lived, walked and foraged. But that would mean he’s been here all his life, April thought. And that simply could not be possible.

  ‘We do have rabbits at home,’ she said. ‘Too many of them, in some places. The farmers smuggled in a virus a few years back, to kill them. But I’m not sure it’s made a huge difference.’

  ‘Kinder to shoot them.’

  ‘They do that, too. Have culling days, where they pile them up dead in their hundreds.’

  ‘Vermin control,’ he said. ‘Sometimes necessary. Sometimes not. Men have always liked to shoot things.’

  ‘Do you have a gun?’ said April.

  ‘I don’t need to shoot anything.’

  ‘How do you catch rabbits, then? Trap them?’

  ‘I call to them,’ he said. ‘They come right to me.’

  ‘I suppose you can whistle the birds from the sky, too?’

  He was amused by her irritation. ‘Want me to show you?’

  ‘No,’ said April, after a moment. ‘Because part of me would like to believe you.’

  He reached out and took her bowl. Set it by his and let the dog lick it also.

  ‘Is that the washing up done?’ said April.

  ‘Good not to waste anything. If you weren’t here, I’d lick it myself.’

  April glanced back over her shoulder, at the door in the knoll.

  ‘Did you make this place?’

  He shook his head. ‘Charcoal burners. There would have been a hollow in the hill, which they widened out. I found their old wood pole supports. Most broken. I made new ones. Made the
door. They would have burned charcoal under a clamp, out here, where we’re sitting.’

  ‘A clamp?’

  ‘Big pile of logs. Covered in dirt to keep it airtight. Wooden chimney to let smoke out. Charcoal burned slow, over a few days, with a day or two to cool.’

  April remembered what Sunny had told her. ‘That’s how they made a living.’

  ‘A poor one.’

  ‘You don’t, though, do you? Make even a poor living here?’

  ‘I get by.’

  ‘How do you survive in winter?’ April could not imagine living here in the freezing cold.

  He was amused again. ‘Who says I do?’

  ‘You’re winding me up again,’ said April.

  ‘Maybe I hibernate. Like a hedgehog. In a hole in the ground.’

  Gabe had begun to dig near the edge of the woods, April saw. Were there bones there that he’d buried? Or that his master had buried? All that remained of the small corpses of eaten animals, planted like tubers to sprout again.

  A bird sang, loudly and close by, its chirruping warble inset with an urgent one-note whistle.

  ‘Nightingale,’ said Jack. ‘In the hazel.’

  ‘How can you possibly know it’s in the hazel?’

  He stared at her, head tilted to one side, in his own oddly bird-like way. A quicksilver notion that he was part bird, or part wild creature of some kind, slipped through her mind.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘For your loss.’

  Her brain ordered her to breathe, but she could not.

  ‘You’re surprised,’ he said. ‘Don’t be. My life depends on being able to read the world around me. I need to see and listen and know what’s happening every moment. What will help me, what will hurt or kill me — sometimes they appear one and the same, and I need to be able to spot the tiny differences, for they make all the difference. After a while, you can see it, the glow or the adumbration, you can feel the warmth or the creeping of your flesh, and you know. You know where there’s life, and where there’s death, and you know where death has been and may very well come again. You can see the after-image of it, hear its echo, feel the imprint of its touch. That’s why you shouldn’t be surprised — that I can see your loss in you.’