by Jenny Harper
‘Lisa?’ Kate snatched the mobile before it could waken Andrew. ‘Is something up?’
‘You could say. I just drove along that road through Bonny Brae Woods.’
Kate knew what she was going to say before she even said it. ‘Don’t tell me.’
‘They’re setting up a protest camp there.’
‘I knew it. I told Jack!’
‘There’s a couple of guys slinging ropes up the trees, I think they’re going to hoist some kind of shelter up in the branches. There’s tents going up too. It looks serious, Kate.’
‘It is serious.’
‘But that isn’t all. I’m sorry.’
‘What? There’s worse?’
‘Kate, I’m sure I saw your son there.’
‘Ninian?’
‘Yes.’
‘But he’s here. In bed.’
‘Oh, that’s all right then.’ Lisa sounded thankful. ‘Must be someone else. What do we do about the camp?’
‘I’ll get in to work, then we can decide. I’ll be in shortly. I’ll just nip up and take a look for myself. Thanks for phoning.’
‘Okay. See you soon, then.’
Kate glanced at her watch. It was exactly eight o’clock.
She checked on Ninian. The death notice was still on the door. She grimaced at it and knocked, but there was no response, not even the anticipated growl. She knocked again. Silence.
‘Ninian?’ She opened the door and poked her head round it. The floor was the familiar obstacle course of discarded clothing, dropped biscuit wrappers and abandoned shoes, but the room felt uninhabited. There was no warmth, no slight odour of ready-to-be-showered body, no quiet snuffling. The bed was flat – there was no familiar Ninian hump under the duvet either.
She didn’t stop to think, she was white-hot with anger. Ninian must have sneaked off after they were asleep. If her son wanted to punish her for all the days she’d come home late, all the weekends she had worked instead of watching him play football for the school, all the times she’d sent him down to Devon instead of going on holiday with him, he had certainly calculated the most effective way to do it. The eco protest camp at Bonny Brae was going to damage her reputation at AeGen: her son participating in the protest made matters even worse.
Bonny Brae Woods was bisected by a single-track road. The larger part of the wood comprised several acres of mixed deciduous forest, the smaller was little more than a couple of dozen trees. A burn tumbled through the woods, just a trickle in high summer, a torrent after heavy rain or snow melt. Mosses and ferns thrived in the moist spray on its banks and there was a network of paths in and around the trees that offered pretty walks. In the spring, snowdrops heralded the season of growth. Later, the woods were a carpet of bluebells. Now, though, autumn was nearing, and the forest would be thick with velvety carpet moss, mushrooms like golden chanterelles or tawny milk-caps, and pretty lady ferns. Dog-lovers adored Bonny Brae Woods. Human lovers liked them too, because of the secluded glades and private clearings.
Kate had always known that hell would be unleashed if AeGen tried to fell any of the trees and if they used this route for access they’d have to double its width. Construction traffic was heavy enough, but they’d have to bring the huge turbine towers and blades this way too. Frank would find it unthinkable. Karen Cousins would certainly be up in arms. Kate could picture the scene already.
She rounded the bend in the road and for a moment it felt as though she’d stumbled into a film set. A tentative sun was just emerging from behind the hill to commence its work of burning off the early morning mist. Trees loomed spookily out of the swirling vapour and she could just make out the shapes of figures scurrying through the haze.
‘What the—?’ She lurched to a stop as a black Labrador dashed out in front of her car so that she was forced to pull it onto the grassy shoulder. She jumped out, shaken by the near miss, and called angrily at whoever might be listening behind the vapour screen, ‘Can’t you control your dog?’
The operation had clearly been meticulously planned. Overnight, this peaceful spot had been transformed into something resembling an army base. Dozens of people, mostly dressed in combat gear, swarmed around busily. Some were pitching tents, others lashing ropes around trees to secure platforms and shelters higher in the branches. Women passed provisions along a line from a beaten-up old Land Rover to what seemed to be a kitchen tent. Three men, one shaven-headed and two with lank, shoulder-length hair, clustered together smoking and gesticulating. The Labrador she’d almost clipped trotted up unconcerned and dropped at their feet. A few yards further on, two Alsatians struck up an argument and started to circle round and bark at each other. Two youths braved the cold bare-chested, protected only by an astonishing tangle of tattoos. They were wiring crudely painted signs to some of the trees:
Save Bonny Brae Woods
No to Summerfield Wind Farm
Trees are Sacred
She couldn’t see Ninian. She drew a deep breath. However angry she was, nothing would be served by losing her temper at this point. She marched up to the group of men who were smoking and said cheerfully, ‘Good morning! I see you’ve been busy.’
One of them responded to her smile. ‘Morning missus. Come to join us?’
Before she could reply, the shaven-headed one glowered at her, ‘Jesus, Mickey, look at her, does she look like one of us?’
‘I’m interested in what you’re doing here.’
‘You a cop?’ The third peered at her suspiciously.
‘I’m not a cop.’
‘So if you’re not a cop and you’re not here for the cause, what in the name are you doing snooping—’
‘It’s all right, Seth.’ Frank Griffiths emerged from the mist. ‘Morning Kate. I didn’t expect you quite yet.’
‘I suppose not. It would have been courteous to have talked to me though, before setting all this in motion.’ She waved her hand at the activity.
‘Not my doing, actually. I only found out myself yesterday.’
‘Oh, really?’ She found this hard to believe.
Frank took her elbow and eased her away from the circle of men. ‘You’d be best clearing off, Kate, to be honest. Some of these guys mean business.’
‘By “business” you’re implying—?’
‘Kate, you know I’m opposed to this wind farm, but this isn’t my scene. I find it a little alarming, in fact.’
‘What I don’t understand,’ she said, planting her feet squarely on the turf and her hands on her hips, ‘is why they’re here at all. The road isn’t going to come this way. I made that abundantly clear to you.’
‘The newspaper said—’
‘Frank, you were there. I briefed the reporter very clearly. Her report was pure mischief-making.’
‘I did suggest that, but this lot is convinced that there’s no smoke without fire, so to speak. And anyway,’ he paused, then said with an apologetic smile, ‘it is good publicity for our campaign, Kate. It’s regrettable that you’re in the sniping sights, but there you go.’
She looked around. ‘Are you going to be staying here?’
‘At my age? I need to be in a warm bed at night. But I’ll be spending quite a lot of time here, yes. No-one wants these trees cut down.’
‘Including AeGen,’ she reminded him.
The gloom brightened suddenly. A shaft of sunlight had found a hole in the blanket of mist and was spotlighting a mossy green clearing beside the main encampment. The tiny rise in temperature brought with it a whiff of dank autumn, earthy and musty. Two men, deep in conversation, wandered out of the trees and into her consciousness. Men? One man, rather, and a boy. Her son, his sandy hair familiarly tousled and his gangly limbs clad in joggers and a hooded sports top,
‘Ninian!’ she shouted, moving towards him, fast.
He glanced up, startled. Even at this distance, she could see the look of guilt that flashed across his face before his chin set defiantly.
Then she saw who he was with. I
bsen.
She stopped dead, assaulted by the memory of soft lips and strong arms and overpowering desire.
‘Don’t jump to conclusions,’ he said, clearly reading her face.
‘What is it then?’ The anger she’d felt when she’d realised that Ninian had gone to the protest surged back. ‘What is it, Ibsen? A tribute to my beliefs and expertise?’
‘Mum—’
‘As for you—’ she rounded on Ninian, ‘this is completely out of order. For a start, you should be in school. And besides, it’s not only inappropriate and unnecessary, it’s just bloody stupid. You’re being stupid! Can’t you see?’ She waved a furious arm at the encampment, ‘You’re all idiots! Misinformed, misguided, gullible, bigoted, sodding delinquents!’
Diplomacy and negotiation flew to the skies and beyond reach. She was doubly betrayed, by Ibsen and by Ninian, and she didn’t know which disloyalty hurt her more.
‘Kate—’
‘Mum—’
‘Hey, missus!’
Suddenly she was in the middle of a mêlée. Everyone was shouting, arms were grabbing at her, something tripped her up and she sprawled to the ground. She grazed her face on the root of a tree and could feel blood on her forehead, warm and sticky. Her anger turned to alarm as the brawl above her turned into a full-scale skirmish.
‘This way!’ Strong arms hauled her to her feet and she half stumbled, was half carried out of the scrap and into the cover of the mist. ‘You’re a fucking idiot, Kate, do you know that?’ Ibsen hissed at her, his normal amusement replaced by exasperation.
She tried to shake herself free. ‘I didn’t—’
‘You didn’t think, you fool, you jumped to conclusions and now look what you’ve—’
‘Don’t you dare criticise me! I had every right to say what I did, this protest is entirely unwarranted and—’
‘And now it will be on the front page of every newspaper in Scotland.’
She stopped dead and stared at Ibsen. ‘What?’
‘You don’t think this won’t get reported, do you? Kate, can’t you see that this is meat and drink to these people? As soon as they know who you are, which will take approximately ten seconds because Karen Cousins and Stephen are both here, they’ll be onto the press. I wouldn’t be surprised if some bright spark didn’t film the whole thing on a mobile.’
‘Oh my God,’ she whispered, appalled. Her head was throbbing and she put a hand up to her face and looked at the mess on her fingers.
‘Go home, Kate. Clean up. Stop worrying about Ninian, or at least, find another way of persuading him this is a bad idea.’
Someone had realised that the cause of the punch-up was no longer at the scene and they could hear shouts through the mist, coming closer.
‘Where’s the bitch?’
‘Corporate fucking greed—’
‘Snooping around—’
‘Let’s get her!’
‘Go!’ Ibsen bundled her into her car and she skidded away, wheels spinning on the grass, just as the pack burst out of the wood and into view.
She was trembling from head to toe and it was all she could do to keep the car on the road. There was obviously no way she could turn and go the direct route back to Willow Corner, so she drove the five miles through Hailesbank and back along the coast road.
It seemed like an eternity, but in fact she’d been away less than an hour. By the time she got home, Andrew was enjoying a leisurely coffee in the kitchen with the morning paper for company. She stood shakily in the doorway and could see that he had filled in about half the crossword. It felt like a parallel universe.
‘Back already?’ he said, without looking up. ‘Wish my working days were as short as that.’
She ignored the sarcasm. ‘Seen Ninian this morning?’
‘Nope.’
‘Still in bed, is he?’
‘Yup.’
‘You sure about that?’
He looked up and Kate experienced a brief moment of pleasure at the expression on his face as the sight of her bruised and bleeding face registered. Andrew had taunted her with her alleged failures of motherhood too often recently. On this occasion, he was not even aware of his son’s whereabouts, whereas she had been hurt in an attempt to rescue him from the clutches of maniacs.
‘Kate?’ There was a harsh scraping noise as he shoved back his chair and half stood, gawping. ‘Are you all right?’
The pleasure was over. Her legs felt desperately weak and she thought for a moment that she was going to faint. Andrew caught her and pulled out a chair. ‘Sit down. Put your head between your knees.’
Through the swaying half-darkness, she was dimly aware that she rather liked his concern. Recently, her feelings had been of little interest to Andrew Courtenay.
‘Here. Drink this.’
A glass of water was held to her lips and she raised her head a fraction and sipped it cautiously. Her hands were trembling with delayed shock.
‘What happened?’ Andrew perched on a chair in front of her and she allowed him to capture her hands in his. ‘You’re shaking.’
‘There’s a protest up at the Woods. Ninian’s there.’
‘What?’
‘I think he’s been egged on by Karen Cousins and Stephen.’ She couldn’t bring herself to mention Ibsen.
‘What kind of protest?’
‘Oh, full-scale. Tree houses, rope webs, an encampment, banners and slogans, eco warriors, the lot.’
‘What the hell does Ninian think he’s playing at? What about school?’
Kate took a deep breath to steady herself because the room was still spinning. ‘I’m afraid I rather lost the rag.’ Goaded by Ibsen’s presence, the whisper in her head reminded her. ‘I shouted at him, then some men got a bit aggressive and I fell.’ She freed a hand and touched her forehead gingerly. ‘There was a real punch-up, I think they’re spoiling for some kind of fight. I was lucky to get away.’
‘But he’s still there?’
‘Yes.’ She was deeply exhausted. All her energy had been sapped by the drain of adrenalin from her system.
‘Right.’ He stood up purposefully.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Go and get him, of course.’
‘You can’t, it’s too dangerous. As soon as they know who you are— It’s no time for heroism. Don’t go, not yet anyway. He won’t come to any harm there. Let’s just think about this.’ When he hesitated, she said, ‘Will you clean up my face? Please?’
He dabbed on antiseptic, peering short-sightedly through his half-frame glasses. The tenderness of his ministrations touched her. Could they recover their old closeness? She caught his wrist and looked at him, hoping that a corner might be turned. ‘Andrew?’
She thought for a moment he might kiss her, but he drew away, stiffly. ‘There. Done. You go and shower. I’ll make fresh coffee.’
An opportunity had slipped away.
Whoever built Willow Corner had an eye for location. It was one of the first houses to be built in Forgie, it sat high on the hill so the views, particularly from the upper floor windows, rolled out for ever – south towards the Borders, north across the Forth to Fife, west to Edinburgh. Kate loved Willow Corner, but what she liked most was the way it inhabited the space in which it sat. A small burn ran across the northern reaches of the garden, then disappeared through a narrow culvert under the high stone boundary wall. A hundred yards further on, the little stream swelled in importance by flowing in the River Hailes, on its way to the sea. It was this stream – Forgie Burn – that nourished the willow trees after which the house had been named.
There were two willows – Salix alba ‘tristis’ – literally, ‘sad white willow’. She’d never thought of them as sad. She considered them beautiful. Ibsen, who knew every tree in the neighbourhood, once told her that willows were short-lived – by which, apparently, he meant around fifty years.
‘One of your trees must be a lot older than that, maybe eighty years,’ he’d infor
med her as they chatted over spades and forks down at the community garden, ‘It’ll need to be replanted some time, maybe even soon.’
The thought dismayed her, because the willows defined the house, but she could see what he meant. One tree drooped and spread magnificently, the older one was threadbare and shabby.
Sad white willows. After she’d showered, she walked down to the trees with a mug of coffee in her hand. The sun was bright now and there was a spot between the two trees that she really loved. Years ago, some previous owner had thrown together a seat here, rough-hewn but so perfectly suited to its environment that you almost didn’t notice it. The bench took advantage of a rise in the contours of the bank so that, even seated, it was just possible to glimpse the sea over the wall. But it was the view the other way that Kate liked best, back to the house. From here, its angles and corners jutted out with the confident assertion of ownership. This is our space, this is our land, they said, you are merely our caretaker.
A car turned into the drive and began a spluttering, crunching kind of progress up the gravel. She turned at the sound of the cough, and saw Ibsen’s rusting black estate car come to an apologetic halt by the front door.
Chapter Twenty
Ibsen had anticipated some kind of confrontation with Kate, he just hadn’t expected it would come so soon. Mind you, he should have known as soon as Ninian Courtenay rolled up with his pal Cuzzer, that there would be trouble.
Kids. Thought it would be cool to be in a protest.
‘Shouldn’t you two be at school?’ he asked as they appeared at daybreak with backpacks and sleeping bags, yawning.
‘Chill, Ibsen,’ said Cuzzer’s mother, Karen, the hippy-type Ibsen had seen at the meeting in Frank Griffiths’s house. ‘This will be an education for them. There aren’t many chances round here to get involved in something like this.’
Thanks goodness, Ibsen thought, swinging away.
Then Kate had appeared, swinging metaphorical nunchaku left, right and every which way and getting everyone inflamed.
He had to admire her – five foot three of utter fearlessness and complete conviction – but when she’d tripped and fallen, he’d experienced a surge of adrenalin like he hadn’t known for years.
