‘No, and even if it was offered, he’d resist it at this stage. He’s very shy and suspicious, you see. But Blue always takes his time. He won’t force himself on people, but waits until they’re ready. And anyway, there are others here who need him more than Rick does. Take Doris, for example. She’s got MS, but she hasn’t had a session either. You just have to be patient. It’s all part of accepting things, and acceptance is really crucial. He’s taught me that already.’
Daniel resisted the temptation to argue the point that if acceptance of one’s ills was healing, then all and sundry could set themselves up as Magic Men. He had taken an instant liking to this woman, despite her simplistic views, and had no wish to upset her. In appearance she was plain and rather gawky – not the sort of female he would normally look at twice. She was an inch or two taller than he was, and although she stooped to disguise her height, her apologetic posture only emphasized it more. Her hips were narrow, boyish; her breasts indiscernible beneath the baggy shirt. She wore glasses which seemed frivolous and completely out of character – magenta-coloured frames with little specks of glitter on them – as if she had allowed herself just one stab at glamour, and then settled for drab clothes and lank straight hair. But the eyes behind the spectacles were sensitive and trusting, and her warm outgoing manner put him at his ease.
‘Are you Welsh?’ he asked, moving to a less contentious topic.
‘No, but my husband is – or ex-husband, I should say. It’s stupid, I suppose, but I can’t bring myself to use the word.’ She swallowed, made a pretence of re-arranging the forks. ‘He walked out three months ago.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay. And oddly enough, I really mean that now. Blue’s helped me to see that it is okay to be depressed. He says depression’s simply part of life – the shadow side or dark side. We shouldn’t call it an illness, or suppress it with electric shocks or pills, but actually try to welcome it instead, because it teaches us compassion and develops what he calls our soul. Not soul in the religious sense, but …’
‘Mum!’
‘What?’ Claire turned to see her son approaching, cradling something in his hands.
‘Look! I’ve found a sheep’s skull. Isn’t it fantastic? It’s still got all the teeth in.’
‘So it has.’ She took it from him, stroked a careful finger around the hollow of the eye-socket. ‘It must be pretty old. it’s completely smooth and clean.’
Picked clean by the crows, thought Daniel. He could picture the cruel birds circling; the foxes tearing flesh from bone. It disturbed him somehow – this reminder of clean death. ‘Where did you find it?’ he asked.
‘Just in the next field. I’m going back there now to take another look. There might be other bones and things, to add to my collection.’
‘Quite the little ghoul, isn’t he?’ Claire grabbed Rick’s sleeve before he could dash off again. ‘You’re not going anywhere, my lad, until you’ve had your medicine.’
‘Oh, not again!’ Rick groaned. ‘It’s absolutely foul.’
‘That’s as may be, but Blue says it’s doing you good, and he wants you to take it every two hours.’
Daniel returned to his improvised sink: a battered plastic bowl perched precariously on two upturned crates. ‘I thought you said Blue didn’t believe in drugs?’
‘He doesn’t. This is based on plants. In fact, I collect them myself each morning, now he’s shown me which ones to use – comfrey, and burdock, and red valerian, when I can find it.’
‘And deadly nightshade,’ Rick muttered, ‘and great big flabby toadstools.’
Daniel laughed. He felt a certain sympathy with Rick. The boy was tall and gangling, as he’d been in his teens, and seemed constitutionally unable to keep still; continually shuffling his feet, flicking back his hair or gnawing at his thumbnail. He remembered his own restlessness at school; being forced to sit quietly at his desk while inwardly he was exploding through the roof, streaking to the nearest airport and hurtling back to Zambia. The change from prep-school to senior school hadn’t ended his unhappiness. It was still the dreaded Greystone Court – just a transfer to another building (bigger, colder, greyer than the Junior House). As if prompted by the move, he had grown six inches in as many months, shooting up from dwarf to beanpole; wrists protruding from his blazer sleeves; trouser-legs embarrassingly short. He recalled the hated nicknames: ‘Stick Insect’ and ‘Broomstick’, even ‘Twiggy’, worst of all. If Rick was suffering similar taunts, then it was quite possible his pains were psychosomatic. Being so much taller than your classmates could prove a heavy cross to bear, especially if you were the shy type and longed to be invisible – not exactly easy when there was so much of you to hide.
‘It’s amazing,’ Claire was saying as she poured some murky greenish liquid from a Thermos flask into a glass, ‘how Blue’s changed my attitude to things. Even gathering these plants is a sort of sacred task. You have to speak to them first, not just grab the leaves or flowers as if they’re your natural God-given right. He says we need to respect them, ask their permission before we help ourselves.’
‘Well, I wish they’d said no,’ groaned Rick, as she pushed the glass into his hand.
‘Go on – be brave!’ she urged. ‘Remember what Blue said: “Close your eyes and down it in one go!” ’
‘You must be joking.’ He took a tiny sip and gave an extravagant grimace, clutching at his throat and pretending to gag. ‘I refuse to drink another drop of this vile stuff unless I can have a sweet or something, to take the taste away.’
‘Blue doesn’t approve of sweets, Rick. You know that perfectly well.’
Rick aimed a kick at the cutlery box. ‘He doesn’t approve of anything, if you ask me. No crisps or Coke or telly – not even a flipping biscuit. This place is worse than a prison camp.’
‘Well, you could have a piece of carrot cake. Or there may be a bran muffin left. I’ll go and check the tin.’
‘I don’t want that muck, Mum! I want some proper sweets.’
‘I’ve got some toffees in the car,’ Daniel admitted, giving the word ‘toffees’ a whispered emphasis, to stress their status as contraband. ‘Almost a full packet. You’re welcome to them, Rick, so long as your mother doesn’t object.’
‘Well, I do,’ retorted Claire. ‘They’ll undo all the good Blue’s done, and it’s going behind his back. I just don’t think that’s fair.’
‘You’re such a fuss-arse, Mum! One little sweet can’t hurt. And anyway I reckon I deserve one. I’m stuck here with nothing to do, the food’s disgusting and you keep shoving that shitty medicine down my throat. No one in their right mind would come here in a thousand years. Can you imagine what my friends would say? They’re all away on proper holidays stuffing themselves with burgers and chips, and probably beer and fags as well.’
Much the same as my friends, Daniel thought wryly. Except with them it would be entrecote and pommes dauphinoises, washed down with a good claret and perhaps followed by a cigar. He could already smell the whiff of the cigar, taste it in his mouth. The mention of ‘fags’ had roused in him a sudden intense desire to smoke.
‘Don’t be silly, Rick,’ said Claire. ‘I’m sure your friends don’t drink. Their parents wouldn’t allow it.’
‘Get a grip, Mum! You really are pathetic! Pete and Darren have been swilling lager since they were ten, and Barry often helps himself to his dad’s whisky.’
The argument continued, until Claire reluctantly gave in, though probably more to spare Daniel the embarrassment of a protracted family tussle than from any real conviction that a bag of Creamline toffees was any less heinous than cigarettes and Scotch.
‘Okay,’ said Rick to Daniel. ‘Let’s go.’
Claire took over with the scouring pad, tackling the last cooking-pot – a heavy iron contraption even more charred than the previous ones – while Rick and Daniel strode off to find the car. All the vehicles had been moved to higher ground to prevent any further mishaps. Geor
ge and Margot had told him that when they first arrived, their spanking new Cortina had stuck chassis-deep in the mud, and could only be hauled out with a tow-rope. He was surprised that they had actually stayed the course, rather than turning tail for home, or swapping the healer’s ministrations for those of Thomas Cook. He was sure they would be far happier in a nice hotel in the Algarve, with all mod cons and a courier on hand.
His thoughts returned to Rick. He wondered if his truculence was a reaction to his father walking out. Away from his mother, he seemed far less outspoken, retreating behind a façade of glum reserve. Was it worse to lose your father in your teens, or when you were only four, as Pippa had been?
‘How old are you, Rick?’ he asked, instantly regretting the question. He had hated it when grown-ups asked his age. Whatever answer you gave, it was invariably the wrong one, and you’d be judged too big, too small, too old, too young, too something.
Rick evidently felt the same. ‘Nearly fourteen,’ he mumbled, picking up a stick from the ditch and slashing at the grass with it.
Daniel refrained from comment. He’d have guessed fifteen at least, but he suppressed his exclamation of surprise. So the boy was little older than Pippa. Perhaps the two could be friends – both silent types and both deprived of their fathers. He hadn’t seen Pippa since last night, and was struck with new guilt about how little he’d actually thought of her. They were only here for her sake, yet he had no idea how she was. Had she opened up and blossomed now that she had new responsibilities, or was she feeling still more miserable? She had said very little yesterday, but that was hardly surprising in such unconventional surroundings. He really ought to find her; reassure himself that she was not at any risk from either the healer or the injured dog.
‘Hey, look!’ said Rick, nudging him as they crossed the muddy ditch.
Daniel glanced in the direction Rick was pointing. A girl appeared to be making love to a tree – the girl who’d talked to him at lunch about her therapy. Well, it had certainly succeeded in removing her inhibitions, since her arms were flung tightly round the tree-trunk, her face pressed against its bark, eyes closed in ecstasy. She was crooning to the tree – a stunted blackthorn with several dead or broken branches and a scattering of sickly leaves.
‘I offer you my love,’ they heard her whisper. ‘And I ask for yours in return.’
Rick caught Daniel’s eye and tapped his forehead with his finger. ‘Another nutter,’ he mouthed.
Daniel nodded in complicity. If he found this place hard to take, especially its lunatic fringe, then it must be even worse for an adolescent boy deprived of Neighbours, Nintendo, and his normal high-tech life. The two of them were standing only a few feet from the girl, yet she was oblivious of anything beyond her wounded lover.
‘May you and I be at one in the sacred circle of life,’ she confided to the tree. ‘I feel your sap rising in me. I feel my roots growing as deep and strong as yours.’
Daniel gave her a wide berth, shepherding Rick past. It was easy to scoff, dismiss the woman as mad, but her utter concentration, the solemnity in her voice, was somehow most unnerving. And anyway suppose such things were catching? Would he be able to return to the real world, to do his job administering scarce resources for deprived and suffering Africa, without being affected in some fundamental way?
He quickened his pace, half-running to the car, fighting a sudden urge to get in and slam the door, drive away from the whole crazy bunch – tree-amorists, and healers, and gullible depressives developing their souls. Instead he hunted for the toffees, eventually locating them underneath the front passenger seat. He helped himself before passing them to Rick, deciding to join him in the crime, if only to douse his craving for a smoke.
‘I’ve got a crate of apples here as well,’ he said, remembering Claire’s reference to the campers pooling food. He was probably breaking another rule by hoarding all this fruit, when the principle was share and share alike. ‘If I dig you out a carrier, perhaps you’d like to take some?’
‘Thanks,’ said Rick, tearing the wrappers off two toffees and cramming both sweets in his mouth at once.
Daniel unwrapped his own more slowly. ‘They look a bit squashed,’ he observed.
‘I’m not complaining!’ Rick handed back the bag. ‘Here, have another. They’re nicer two at a time.’
Daniel complied. At least it solved the problem of any further conversation. He locked the car and they set off again, cheeks bulging, chomping in a companionable sort of harmony. It did feel truly wicked to be guzzling sweets like this, imbibing banned white sugar. He had rarely broken the rules at school – he’d been too frightened of letting his parents down, when they continually impressed on him how fortunate he was compared with the poor African children. He had never really understood that ‘fortunate’. The ‘poor African children’ weren’t parted from their families for three-quarters of the year, nor did they get chilblains or detentions, and certainly nobody dinned into them what fearfully bad form it was to cry, or whinge, or admit you missed your mother.
They skirted the blackthorn votary, who was now lying at the base of the tree, fondling its sinuous roots. There was something overtly sexual about the way she touched those roots; her bare arms stretched along them, her lips murmuring endearments. Daniel felt strangely threatened. Supposing Penny left him for a tree? Oh, he knew the thought was ludicrous, but his confidence had hit rock bottom after his recent potency problems, and there was no way he could compete with the phallic might and majesty of some vigorous young oak.
He picked his way despondently between ruts and bramble-bushes, Rick following at his heels. As they approached the huddle of tents, the boy stuffed the bag of toffees right down inside the carrier, covering it with apples. ‘Gotta be careful the Mega-Wanker doesn’t see!’
‘The Mega-Wanker?’
‘Well, Blue, if you prefer. If Mum has to call him a colour, I think slime-green suits him better. He’s such a creepy toad.’
Daniel dislodged a lump of toffee from his teeth. Yes, Mega-Wanker was bloody good! He amplified JB to JBMW, deriving a definite satisfaction from putting the healer down. He needed to get his own back for the way the fellow had undermined his defences, infiltrated his mind.
He sidestepped a coil of dog-shit, stopping abruptly as his wife’s flamboyant hair flashed into view. She and Corinna were about fifty yards ahead, both crouching on the ground, examining a plant. Perhaps Penny had been instructed to gather herbs, like Claire, to make some vile concoction for poor Pippa. He was about to call out to her and ask what she was doing, when suddenly he froze. Corinna had put an arm around her and was giving her a kiss – not a sisterly or friendly kiss, but a fervently erotic one, full on the lips. And Penny appeared to be responding, kissing Corinna back no less eagerly. He stared in disbelief. He had considered semi-seriously the risk of losing his wife’s affections to a tree, but this was even worse – more immediate and more real. Corinna must be lesbian. No, that was hardly likely when he’d seen her in a clinch with JB, and when Claire had told him (not without a hint of jealousy) that Corinna had a crush on Blue and wore a snippet of his hair in a locket round her neck. But perhaps Penny had made the overtures; encouraged Corinna somehow. Now he came to think of it, everyone she met, regardless of their gender or sexual proclivities, appeared compelled to grope her: first the healer, then Dylan, and now this wretched woman. Only he was excluded – the legal wedded husband ousted from her tent.
He felt the more humiliated because Rick was watching avidly, and would be adding Penny to his list of nutters and/or nymphos. He expelled his breath in relief as the two women disengaged; Penny blithely unaware not only of his presence but of the turmoil she had wreaked in him. She and Corinna ambled off together, arms entwined, like lovers. He followed at a distance, still shaken and suspicious, watching as they stopped to talk to various of the campers – laughing, joking, exchanging hugs – utterly relaxed and so … so physical. It was years since he’d seen his wife like
this: radiant and carefree, as if released from her normal worries and concerns. He realized with a surge of guilt that here in the camp she had regained the things she’d lost when she had married him and left the Streatham madhouse – the company, community, the dogs and kids and mucking in, the chatter and the sharing. Without intending to, he had imposed restrictions on her life, and now she was retaliating – ignoring him, in short; far more interested in a female she had known a mere two days. And she was probably neglecting Pippa too – so blissfully absorbed in seducing her new playmate that she had neither time nor energy to bother with her daughter.
Well, if that was the case, he’d better go and sort Pippa out himself. He’d take Rick with him (once he’d had his medicine), so he could introduce the pair, and perhaps Claire would come as well, to provide some moral support. Pippa had gone to the Healing Dome to find some ointment for the dog – or so he’d been told by Len – and the Healing Dome always made him nervous. The few times he’d ventured in there, he’d been frightfully embarrassed – unfamiliar faces smiling at him as he entered the green gloom; unfamiliar bodies in various stages of undress; worthy people offering him weird things he didn’t want: nettle tea or carrot juice, or lumps of different coloured crystals which apparently could affect your state of mind. He had forgotten now which one promised peace – amethyst, was it, or rose quartz, perhaps? – but anyway, whatever, he shouldn’t have been so quick to refuse. He could do with some inner serenity to cope with this new shock.
Rick had run on ahead to rejoin his mother, and was craftily brandishing an apple, whilst concealing the criminal sweets. She had finished the washing up and everything was shipshape, Daniel noted approvingly – plates stacked in one box, beakers in another, the dirty water emptied, mops and cloths wrung out. A woman after his own heart, at least as far as domestic order was concerned.
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