Cold Boy's Wood

by Carol Birch

  ‘I used to be in this place,’ she said, ‘it was an institution, I was there for six months. And the first thing I saw when I walked in was this big sign that said: Stop Making Sense. That’s from Talking Heads.’

  ‘So you took it to heart.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not making sense. You took it to heart.’

  ‘I suppose so. Don’t you believe in ghosts?’

  ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘Don’t let’s start on about ghosts, no wonder you’re scared. You’re out there all on your own. I don’t mind telling you, I couldn’t do it, you start thinking about all these things and next thing you know…’

  She stood and paced, straight-backed, hugging her coat round herself. ‘We’re all here,’ she said, ‘wandering around in this place, the cold boy, the baron, your mum, and that other one, the one that got washed down. What d’you think about that?’

  ‘What are you fucking talking about?’

  ‘The man that got washed down. You know. All that rain.’

  ‘I think it’s a shame,’ he said.

  ‘It is. It’s dreadful.’

  ‘And perhaps we’ll end up here too, why not? All of us ghosts, wandering around together wondering what to do, wandering and wondering.’

  She laughed. ‘Still, we won’t be lonely,’ she said. ‘The Lord is in this place. How crowded is this place.’

  ‘I think you ought to shut up,’ he said. ‘I think if I was living out there in those woods I’m damn certain I wouldn’t want to be thinking about things like that. It’ll drive you mad.’

  ‘Me?’ she said. ‘Mad?’

  Both laughed.

  She drank more. She demanded it, my God, she was worse than him. He even went out and got another bottle from the village. The pub was open and Mary gave him a bottle and said he could pay her tomorrow because she knew he was good for it. ‘Go on, Dan,’ she said and winked at him and smiled. She was quite fond of him, Mary was. For a moment he stood and looked at her with his big moist blue eyes, and she looked back and smiled and he thought about telling her about this woman and how she was bloody mad and it was beyond him, he didn’t know what to do. A bottle of Talisker. Good stuff. He just paid and went, and walked back down the lane.

  She was singing when he got back. He heard her from the yard. She sang liltingly and vaguely out of tune but just about OK, something he didn’t recognise.

  ‘Here.’ He put the bottle down.

  ‘Oh lovely!’ she said with a big smile.

  Oh fuck it, just fuck it, he thought, and poured himself a good shot and downed it and poured again.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘that woman who was looking for you? Madeleine? She’s OK. Why don’t you at least talk to her?’

  She looked away and her eyes glassed over.

  ‘She’s OK. She means no harm.’

  Poor bugger, he thought.

  ‘Oh, people never do mean harm, do they? Everyone thinks they’re doing the right thing but they’re all doing harm anyway, aren’t they?’

  ‘She’s a good person,’ he found himself saying, suddenly loyal to Madeleine. ‘She’d help anyone, she would, and not think about herself. She’s just like that.’

  The woman was looking into the unlit fire as if it was ablaze.

  She smiled. ‘What if it was me?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he said.

  ‘What if it was me and I lost my memory.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  She laughed and lit a cigarette. ‘I feel so much better now. I don’t know if it’s the paracetamol or this.’ Picking up the bottle and sloshing it about. Then she said, ‘What if I was a murderer? What if I’m a serial killer and you don’t know?’

  He shot her a disgusted look.

  ‘I used to put my victims down the old mines.’

  ‘If you’re going to start talking weird, you can go,’ he said.

  He got down on his knees and flicked a thumb across the lighter and held a flame to an edge of paper. Whoosh it went, the yellow fire running, and the whole thing went up beautifully. He’d always been good at lighting fires. Some real skill there, even in that stupid moment he recognised that and felt proud.

  ‘Did your mother die in this house?’ she asked.

  The wood was catching, the kindle crackling away, heat pushing out at his face.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘hanged herself,’ sitting back and watching for her reaction. It was strange. She was looking into the fire and letting it burn her eyes till they watered.

  ‘Not in the actual house,’ he said, already wishing he hadn’t told her and wondering why he had. ‘It was round the back where the hives are.’

  ‘It’s awful when things go mad,’ she said and looked up at him.

  He went out just to get away from her, stood in the kitchen pointlessly, not knowing what to do. He didn’t want to go back in but soon he realised if he didn’t go back it would only make things worse. Must tell her to go.

  ‘By the way,’ she said, when he went back in, ‘what happened about the body?’

  He felt tired when he looked at her.

  ‘The one that came down.’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said.

  ‘Nothing at all?’

  ‘Buried, I believe.’

  ‘No one claimed him then?’

  ‘No.’

  She looked at the fire again. ‘To think of that!’

  Then she was off crying and it was awful.

  ‘Come on now,’ he said, but she went on. Fuck sake, on and on. She was having a full-blown nervous breakdown in his house and he couldn’t handle it.

  ‘You shouldn’t be in there in the wood in this state,’ he barked.

  ‘I’m not in any state.’ Her voice was steady.

  ‘Of course you are.’

  She pulled herself together visibly.

  Thank God for that, he thought, but she had to go and ruin it by saying ‘My head hurts.’ She stood up and held her head as if trying to keep it on.

  ‘You’ve drunk too much,’ he said. ‘Stop now.’

  She sat down again. ‘It’s like waves inside my head.’

  ‘Are you going to be sick?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I think what I’m going to do is this – I think I’m going to ring Madeleine – I think I’m going to ask her what I should do.’

  ‘No!’

  She jumped up and ran out all woozy as she was, leaving the back door open. He pulled a face: oh what now, get up, close it, don’t let her in again. It was going dark. He was glad she’d gone, so fucking glad, she was no responsibility of his, but what if she fell over in the dark and died, would that make him guilty? Was it too late to call Madeleine? He closed the door, sat down, turned on the telly then lowered the volume right down and went out after her just to make sure she actually got back. She hadn’t gone that far, and she was making a racket, crashing about. She moved ahead, always just in sight through the trees, never getting the way wrong or having to retrace her footsteps. Walking fine, seemed OK. She came to a thick green overhang of ivy and ducked under.

  If he followed she’d hear, so he got as close as he could and listened, and after a while lifted up a strand of foliage – a little more, a little more – and a little more. There was a trail inside, a burrow, the kind an animal would make.

  So now he knew exactly where she lived.

  Somewhere deep inside a light glowed through the leaves. She’s a tough bugger anyway, he thought, letting the thick ivy fall. September coming. Then winter. She can’t be in there when it snows. When he was as sure as he could be that she was safe he set off home. Once he looked back but there was no sign of the light, so he walked on, and the next time he looked back the wood was just as it had always been.

  27

  Feels like the true depth of night, three o’clock, the strangest time of all. That’s when I often wake up and feel everything sharper than ever. It’
s going strange again. Anything could happen. And my heart starts hammering like crazy. Three o’clock in the morning, dead of night in the middle of the forest. That’s when you drink your own soul to the last drop. That’s when you get up – ouch! – here at this silly infirm side of life, back and legs aching – and find – strange! – moonlight filtering through even here, making the wood black, soft silver, deep blue. What wouldn’t I give for one second of sweet repose? I carry a lidded basket of souls sleeping in swan’s down. That’s where I put them. Lily in her red dress with a red paper flower at the side of her cloudy black hair. Her dark hair, the red dress. I put us all in. The cold boy’s gone in there too now, no matter if he’s a ghost or a glitch in the brain. That old memory, that known thing that ached your heart and made you cry in your sleep, the light in the eye, the lost one.

  I set off with the basket over my arm into the darknesses where I dare not go.

  *

  I could see Lily through the open kitchen door, fridge open, swigging something out of a carton. ‘Tuesday,’ she called. ‘Next week.’

  ‘Tuesday? Wait – no – oh, OK. Hang on.’ Terry, fixing up a date with Lily, got out a diary, one of those tiny pocket things, and consulted it with all the seriousness of a businessman with a heavy schedule.

  ‘Busy man,’ said Johnny, lying on the settee peeling an orange for Harriet.

  ‘Can we do Thursday instead?’

  ‘Oh Terry! Tuesday’s ideal for me.’

  ‘Can’t do that,’ he said. ‘Let’s make it Thursday, yeah? Thursday next week OK. Is that OK?’

  ‘Why?’ she said pettishly.

  ‘Doing a job for the old girl.’

  ‘Twist?’ said Johnny.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Lily heaved an exaggerated sigh.

  ‘I’m driving her to Dorset next month,’ Terry said.

  ‘Oh really?’ Johnny tossed the orange over to Harriet, sat up and wiped his fingers on the cushion, then picked up his guitar. ‘What’s in Dorset?’

  ‘Her son. I have to drive her down and then go and pick her up a week later.’

  Johnny burst out laughing. It was funny, Terry the chauffeur.

  ‘The son!’ said Johnny. ‘Another scrounger. And she’s letting you drive her?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m a good driver.’

  ‘He is, you know,’ said Lily.

  ‘Anyway, she knows me now, so I’m all right.’

  ‘Can’t she get the train?’

  ‘Doesn’t like ’em.’

  ‘I thought she never went anywhere,’ I said.

  ‘She doesn’t. Hardly ever. Anyway she’s paying loads, so I’m OK. I do a good job.’ He laughed. ‘She doesn’t like him. Her son. He’s called Douglas. Oh him! she says. I know what he’s after!’

  *

  … but I… do go anyway alone through the trees. Follow the silver trails, which cross and turn. To the ruins where the cold boy lives. I sit still, alert for whatever may come, angel or demon. Nothing comes. I have come to these trees to die, I thought. My trees, my trees, clinging to my trees. I’ll be a ghost here with all the others. Just before dawn I looked up and saw no roof at all but walls everywhere, all pink and black and orange, all open to the sky. At the top of the crumbling heights, little steps ended in nowhere. A great entrance opened up in front, then stairways, passages, ovens, fireplaces, garderobes, all rising and falling as if a wave of heat was passing over them, as if I was sick and in a fever dream. There was a courtyard, and small busy figures dressed in long clothes moving around in the background. There was a great height above my head, and voices coming to me from far away in the wood, but no words could be distinguished. They were for me, though. I knew that because my name ran through them like a refrain.

  The moment peaked and reversed. Time weathered it all back down to stumps in a few seconds. It was early daylight and I was sitting with my back against a wall in among the ruins, smoking a cigarette. It had been raining.

  Sometimes the rain in the woods makes me so happy it’s more than I can stand, it’s holy fucking joy.

  *

  There’s Terry’s knock on the door, dum da dum da dum dum dum. I was working away at some new leaf earrings with my diamond file and Harriet was playing with her hamster on the rug. Johnny was in the kitchen making tea.

  ‘That’s Terry,’ I said, ‘get the door, Harry.’

  He ruffled her head as he came in.

  ‘Hi, Terry,’ I said, ‘she’s not in.’

  ‘Oh.’ He hulked by the door.

  ‘Well, come on in,’ I said after an awkward pause. ‘I’ve no idea when she’ll be back, she’s off somewhere with Sage.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said uncertainly.

  ‘Wanna cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  ‘Sit down.’

  He sat leaning forward with his arms hanging over his big square knees. His eyes followed the scurryings of the fat golden hamster.

  ‘Terry!’ Johnny sounded positively friendly, coming in from the kitchen. ‘Kettle’s just boiled.’

  That’s nice, isn’t it? Nice as pie. And he’s been a right fucking pain all week, moody as hell even with Harriet, head down staring at the floor, grunting if he’s spoken to. Occasionally casting a thoughtfully reproachful glance at me but looking away as soon as I noticed. My diamond file slid smoothly along a leaf vein.

  ‘So when are you off to Dorset?’ Johnny asked, all hail fellow, well met.

  ‘A week on Friday.’

  ‘Huh.’ He grinned. ‘Driving Phoebe round the twist.’ He went to get the tea and called back, ‘Imagine being stuck in a car with that all the way to Dorset and back.’

  Terry sniggered nervously. ‘I’ve been chucked out,’ he said.

  ‘Chucked out?’

  ‘Who’s chucked you out?’ I blew on the leaf.

  ‘My uncle.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  A long pause.

  ‘That’s awful,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Can’t you go to your mum and dad’s? I nearly said that, then realised I knew nothing about them, had never even asked, and that as he’d been living at his uncle’s ever since we’d known him there was probably some good reason why he never mentioned them. ‘So what happened?’ I asked instead.

  His eyes moved slowly. His cheeks were square and flat like his knees. ‘We don’t really get on,’ he said blankly, and after a moment, under his breath, ‘We used to.’

  ‘So where are you sleeping?’

  ‘At me mate’s.’

  ‘Oh right. Is that OK?’ Johnny brought the tea in. ‘Sleeping on the couch, are you?’

  ‘In the bath,’ he said.

  I made sympathetic noises.

  ‘Kip here for a bit if you want,’ Johnny said.

  Oh no no no no. Terry here all the time, lolloping about and getting in the way. His open mouth.

  ‘That’s OK, isn’t it?’ Johnny turned to me.

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said cheerfully, ‘till you get sorted.’

  ‘Only be for a few days,’ said Terry.

  ‘That’s OK,’ I said.

  ‘Sleep on this.’ Johnny indicated our messy settee. It was not quite long enough but if he curled up or put his feet over the edge he’d be OK. ‘You can park your car in the yard at the back of the co-op. I’ll show you where.’

  What had got into him?

  Still, Terry would be working, wouldn’t he? But then I remembered that a lot of his work came from his uncle, and now it would probably all dry up and we might just have him sitting around all day. And what about Lily? What if she wanted to bring Mark home? She’d go mad. I looked at the poor boy, bashfully smiling as he drank his tea, feeling mean and guilty for my ungenerous thoughts. ‘I wish you hadn’t done that,’ I said, after he’d gone off to fetch his stuff. ‘Don’t you ever think about consulting other people?’

  ‘Oh, it’s all right,’ said Johnny, grinning, energised, but when Lily came h
ome and found out what he’d done she threw herself dramatically about the place: ‘You haven’t! No! You haven’t! Oh, you idiot!’

  ‘Who the fuck are you talking to?’ he said, strumming his guitar. ‘What’s the big deal? He won’t be here long.’

  ‘This is awful. Awful!’

  She actually screamed and flew into her bedroom.

  ‘God sake,’ he said.

  ‘Well, you can’t blame her. You could at least have—’

  ‘Sorry sorry sorry,’ he said, his eyes suddenly moistening. ‘I only do what I think is best, and I don’t always get it right.’

  His good humour evaporated as if someone had pulled out a bung. He played his guitar doggedly and loudly, gazing fixedly at the hamster running between Harriet’s constantly moving hands. After a while she put the hamster on her shoulder and sat on the rug listening, staring back at him. I was dreading the knock on the door. When it came it wasn’t so bad. ‘Bloody hell,’ Lily said roughly, ‘stuck with you, are we?’ and bopped him on the nose with the hairband she’d just pulled out of her hair. He hardly spoke a word that first night. Whispered awkwardly a couple of times to Lily. Made up his bed on the sofa good as gold as soon as I told him to, and in the morning had it all neatly put away by nine o’clock, which, in our household, was pretty good.

  28

  So that’s that then. Decided. No way was he getting lumbered with another miserable mad woman. Enough of all that with his stupid mother. Still, he thought, in a funny sort of way she’s not a bad drinking companion.

  It was the weather that made a difference. After that long spell of hot weather, back to cold nights, only this time there was more of a settled feel of winter in the air, and it was only September. A few days passed, he did nothing, the woman stayed hidden. Maybe she’d moved on. Can only hope. Or maybe she’d gone to another part of the woods, covering her tracks.

  He took the scrap of paper out of the drawer in the kitchen table and read the name on it: Harriet Gilder. A number. Tried to think what he’d say. Hello, am I speaking to Harriet Gilder? Do you have a mother called Lorna Gilder? Well, I just thought I should let you know…

  I mean really, what’ll she do when it snows? What does she eat? Must be tough. Madeleine had allergies. Allergies! his mum said. She’s just a picky eater. Couldn’t eat tomatoes and potatoes and cheese. Pizza and chips was out. Madeleine. Let her handle it. Pass it all over. He put the piece of paper on the bedside table and lay in the dim room with the light from the landing slanting in by the far wall and the wind out there shrieking.