Kyle offered a stoic ‘Well done’. His mother kissed his forehead. ‘It’s the right decision, Adam. In the long run. You’ll see.’
His life during the next eight months altered completely. Each day between operations, he went from school to the room on the ground floor of the hospital to undergo physio. He grew to hate the final walk on crutches down the long corridor with its green walls and brown polished tile floor. He passed eighteen doors along the way. Ten on one side and eight on the other. The rubber tips of his crutches made a squeaking sound with every laboured step he made. His physiotherapist was a woman from Glasgow called Amy. She began every session by ordering him to lie on the rubber mat where she manipulated his leg in a series of bends and stretches that lasted for twenty minutes. He had to clench his jaw against the pain. All the time she talked in a matter-of-fact manner about what they were doing. Now and then she glanced at his face and if she saw beads of perspiration on his forehead and tears in his eyes she offered soft words of encouragement, but she never, ever felt sorry for him or allowed him to feel sorry for himself. She asked him once how the accident had happened, though she must have known. After that she never mentioned it again.
After the stretches came the parallel bars, where he tried to walk their length while taking some of the weight on his arms. And then there were machines designed for resistance training to strengthen his muscles. Progress was achingly slow and by the end of every session he was exhausted from the effort of both the exercise and trying not to give into the pain.
‘That’s good,’ Amy used to say. ‘I think we’ve made a wee bit of progress today, Adam.’ Then she’d smile and say she would see him again the next day. And so it went on, day in day out. School and then physio, and then back to the flat where he and his mother were living for something to eat, followed by more schoolwork and another hour of exercise before bed and an exhausted sleep.
Sunday was his only day off and the day when Angela came to visit. She came alone. David came during the week, though his visits grew steadily more infrequent.
In the spring Adam took his exams at school. In July Amy told him his physio sessions were finished. She advised him to walk as much as possible. He still needed a cane, but in time, if he kept up the stretches and walked every day, his leg would heal. A week later he and his mother moved back to the Forge.
He’d been home for three weeks when Kyle said that he had to go into town for a few things and suggested Adam go with him. They were in the kitchen, sitting at the breakfast table on a Saturday morning. Kyle was looking over the top of his paper, while Adam’s mother cleared the table.
‘Yes, why don’t you, Adam?’ she said.
‘I don’t think so. Thanks anyway.’ He saw the glances they exchanged, though they didn’t press the issue. He hadn’t seen David for weeks.
Angela came the following day after she’d finished at the shop. He walked along the road to meet her, partly for the exercise and partly because he wanted to be away from the house. He was sitting on the fence when she came riding her bike between the rows of chestnuts that flanked the road through the estate. She didn’t see him at first and as he watched her he was reminded of the day two years earlier when he’d sat on the bank of the river as she walked barefoot in the water.
She smiled and waved when she finally saw him. ‘I didn’t see you there.’
‘I was waiting for you.’
As they looked at one another, her smile faltered uncertainly. He suggested they go for a walk.
‘Alright.’
They climbed the fence and walked through the wood towards one of the main paths. He spent a lot of his time walking there now. He’d learnt to recognize the trees. The smooth grey trunks of the beech, the gnarled oaks and huge spreading limes along with alder, holly and elm.
They chatted for a while, and then fell silent. The wood was full of the sound of twittering birds and sunlight filtered through the leaves and splashed on the ground in grassy glades.
‘I’ve been accepted at Warwick University,’ Adam said eventually.
Angela was quiet, thinking about this. ‘When do you go?’ she said at last.
‘In a few weeks.’
She looked at him in surprise. She must have realized that he’d known for months.
‘There are facilities there I can use. A pool and gym,’ he explained.
He stopped, and as they faced one another he sensed that she was struggling with something she wanted to say. He went on quickly with what he’d rehearsed earlier. ‘Listen, we might as well accept that it isn’t meant to be, don’t you think? Between us, I mean.’
Her eyes widened. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I’ll be at Warwick and you’ll be here. And afterwards I’ll probably try for a job in London.’ He shrugged. ‘Not a great basis for a relationship is it?’
He looked into her eyes, trying to gauge her reaction. He still harboured a faint hope that he was wrong. He saw confusion, and surprise. Though he hadn’t planned what he said next, he couldn’t let her go without being certain.
‘Unless you’ve changed your mind about staying here for ever that is.’
She smiled sadly. ‘Adam …’ she began.
He cut her off. ‘It’s alright. I didn’t really think you would. Do you mind if we go back? My knee’s starting to hurt and I haven’t got any pills with me.’ Before she could object he turned and started back the way they’d come.
A week later he was out walking when he stopped to sit in the grass near the river. His knee was aching and he leaned with his back against a tree and massaged it the way Amy had taught him, listening to the faint sound of gurgling water. After a while he must have dozed off and when he woke it was to the murmur of voices. On the far bank Angela and David came into view, walking hand in hand. He couldn’t hear what they were saying but he was struck by how at ease they appeared together. As he watched them, Angela laughed at something David said and punched his arm. He caught her hand, and pulled her around to face him. His hands slipped to her waist and he pulled her close.
Adam didn’t move until they had passed by and were lost from sight. By the time he got home his knee was swollen and he was in severe pain. His mother took one look at him and ushered him into a chair.
‘Adam, you’re pale. What is it?’
‘Nothing. I just overdid it a little.’
She fetched his pills but he shook his head.
‘I don’t want any.’
‘But they’ll help you.’
‘No. I’ll be fine, I just need to rest,’ he insisted.
Upstairs in his room he lay down. The pain in his knee grew worse, so that it felt like a hot blade cutting through flesh and bone. It filled his mind, mercifully preventing him from thinking about anything else.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
In the morning Adam was up early and for once he didn’t eat alone. John Shields and his wife and friends were already sitting at a table that was practically groaning under the weight of enormous cooked breakfasts.
‘Grand day,’ Shields said, forking half a sausage into his mouth, which he washed down with a gulp of tea.
Outside it was, as he’d said, a grand day. The sun was rising into a pale clear blue sky, and a light frost dusted the grass. Adam chatted with the four over coffee and toast, offering the occasional comment as they discussed the local scenery and fishing. When they rose to leave he wished them luck. ‘Try the southern end,’ he advised when Shields said they were heading for the lake. ‘There’s a kind of rocky promontory that sticks out from the shore. You can’t miss it. It used to be a good spot.’
‘Right then. Southern end you say? We’ll give that a try.’
After breakfast Adam phoned the district council offices in Brampton. Neither George Hunt nor Carol Fraser was available, their council roles being part time, however, the woman he spoke to gave him a contact number for each of them. He tried Hunt first, who agreed to see him the following morning if he could arriv
e early, but when he spoke to Carol Fraser she told him she would be in the council offices that morning and if he could be there by nine-thirty she could spare him half an hour. Before he left he looked up Angela’s number and called her. After his run-in with David the night before he was half expecting her to hang up on him, but in fact she sounded pleased to hear from him.
‘Adam, I was just thinking about you. I still feel bad about dinner the other night.’
‘Well, you could make it up to me if you like.’
‘Oh, how?’
‘You could let me take you to lunch somewhere today.’ Though he tried to make the invitation sound as casual as possible, just one old friend to another, he wasn’t sure either of them entirely believed it. She hesitated before she agreed.
‘Great, I’ll pick you up around one.’
The district council was housed in a red sandstone building behind the main street of Brampton. Adam asked for Carol Fraser at the desk and when she appeared a few minutes later his first impression was that she was younger than he’d expected. He put her at around his own age, somewhere in her mid-thirties. When they shook hands her smile was friendly and direct.
‘Thanks for seeing me at such short notice,’ he said.
‘I’m normally in for an hour or two, so it’s no problem. Easier to meet here than for you to come all the way out to the farm.’
‘You live on a farm?’
She opened the door to an office and flipped on a light switch. ‘My husband and I.’ She pulled a face. ‘Not that we have much to do these days. We lost our herd in a foot-and-mouth outbreak two years ago.’
‘I’m sorry. That must have been tough.’
‘You could say that. It’s not an uncommon story around here I’m afraid, but we’re luckier than some. I know of people who’d begun to restock only to lose their herd again. At least that hasn’t happened to us. But of course without animals we’re not much of a dairy farm.’
‘How long before you can start again?’
She shrugged. ‘Perhaps another year. Of course we were compensated, but the money doesn’t last for ever.’
She gestured for him to take a seat and she went around one of two desks in the room. ‘Sorry it’s a bit crowded. We share offices. So, how can I help you? On the phone you mentioned the development at Castleton Wood.’
Briefly he explained that he was a journalist and he was doing a story on the protest. ‘I’m interested in the background to the original proposal. I understand that prior to planning permission approval being granted you were opposed to it?’
‘Initially, yes,’ she agreed.
‘But you changed your mind?’
She regarded him with faint suspicion. ‘If you mean did I wake up one morning and simply switch horses on a whim, Mr Turner, then the answer to your question is no.’
‘But you did change your mind,’ he said, unbowed by the reproof in her tone. ‘In fact, didn’t you become an outspoken supporter of the plan?’
‘Yes, and that was because I eventually realized that to vote against it would not be in the best interests of the community.’
‘But you didn’t feel that way initially?’ he insisted.
‘Look, Mr Turner, I was never opposed to the plan per se. How could I object to something that would create jobs and indirect employment in an area that’s quite frankly had the arse kicked out of it in recent years? I had hoped that Forest Havens could be persuaded to amend their plans to exclude building cabins within Castleton Wood. I argued strenuously for that change, unfortunately I was not successful.’
‘So, that’s when you decided to support the plan?’
‘It is. Much as I deplore the destruction of part of the wood, sometimes it’s necessary to compromise.’
‘And no doubt the people lobbying for Forest Havens put their case strongly.’
‘Of course.’
‘And you met with these people?’
‘Naturally.’
‘Was David Johnson one of them?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact.’
Up until that point Adam would have gone along with Janice Munroe’s assessment of Carol Fraser. She had a direct and open manner that he liked, and nothing she’d said had carried even the suggestion of a false note. But at the mention of David’s name he sensed a reaction. Maybe it had been nothing more than a fractional narrowing of her eyes that made her seem at once more guarded, though in an instant it was gone.
‘Councillor, are you aware of rumours that were circulating earlier this year that certain members of the planning committee may have had a personal interest in wishing to see this development go ahead?’
Adam watched her carefully, but she only offered a wry smile. ‘There are always those kinds of rumours in local politics, Mr Turner.’
‘Do you give them credence in this case?’
‘In terms of brown paper envelopes stuffed with cash? I don’t think so.’
‘In some other way then?’
‘These situations aren’t always black and white,’ she said. ‘Who’s to say that two people sitting side by side at a masonic dinner don’t discuss a particular issue, and without anything being said, a kind of understanding is reached.’
‘Are you saying that happened?’
‘I’m saying that I’m sure it does happen. I doubt that anyone could be so naïve as to think it doesn’t. As to whether it’s corruption or not, who can say?’ She shrugged philosophically. ‘I can tell you one thing though.’
‘Which is?’
‘I’m not a freemason.’ She smiled disarmingly. ‘You know the media have tended to take the side of the protesters, but I think it’s a little unfair. The people in this district are used to tough times but there’s a limit to anyone’s endurance. I sympathize with the protesters but believe me, local people care about the environment in a way that many city people never seem to be able to understand. After all, the countryside is their way of life.’
In other circumstances, Adam thought, he might have taken exception to this rosy view of country folk. If they cared so much, he wondered privately, how come that prior to foot-and-mouth wiping out their stock some of them had no qualms about chronically overgrazing the fells in pursuit of European subsidies. But he kept his mouth shut and a smile on his face, and when the councillor asked if he had seen a model of the planned development he said he hadn’t but that he would like to.
Carol Fraser led the way up the stairs and into a large room dominated by a long table surrounded by chairs. The model stood on a separate table at one end of the room. It had been commissioned by Forest Havens, she explained. It depicted Castelton Wood much as it had always looked, except that in the northern part where the protest camp currently was there was a series of rustic buildings and cabins nestled snugly among the trees. To the east the Hall stood in pristine grounds, and much of the farmland was converted to rolling fairways and an artificial lake. What remained was depicted as petting farms with sheep and goats and rabbits. Carol Fraser pointed to another cluster of buildings.
‘This will be a working dairy farm where people can spend their holidays learning what it’s like to really live in the country.’
Her eyes danced merrily with sharp-edged amusement. Small figures in the farmyard created a sunny, idyllic scene. There were people forking hay, having picnics in the grass, bringing in the cows for milking. Even the animals seemed to be smiling. There wasn’t a speck of cow shit in sight.
‘Very impressive,’ Adam commented drolly.
‘Compromise, Mr Turner. Life is all about compromise.’
He thought he detected a faint wistful note in her tone. He looked at the model again. At the northern edge of the wood where it ran close to the river something struck him as wrong. It took him a moment to realize what it was. The boundary of the development appeared to be marked by the river itself, separating it from a copse and the bottom end of town. The cottages where Nick had once lived and where he’d encountered the strange
girl the day before were missing. In their place another rustic-type building stood by the river and small model boats were tied up against a jetty.
‘What’s this?’ he asked.
‘The boathouse. The plan is to have canoes and rowing boats for the holiday-makers to take on the river.’
‘But that land isn’t part of the estate is it?’
‘No, the company negotiated separately to buy that, I believe.’
‘Do you know who the owner was?’
‘A local man I think. I don’t remember his name.’
‘Allen? Nick Allen?’
‘Actually I think that was it.’ She looked at him questioningly. ‘Does it matter?’
‘It might,’ he answered, but despite her evident curiosity, he didn’t elaborate.
When they left, Councillor Fraser walked with him down the stairs. He thanked her for her time and she told him that if he needed anything else he should contact her.
‘There is one other thing I wanted to ask you,’ he said. ‘Have you ever met somebody called Jane Hanson? She was at the protest camp during the summer.’
She creased her brow in thought. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
She held his gaze, and shook his hand, but she couldn’t conceal a subtle change in her eyes. He left with the definite feeling that Jane’s name had struck some chord with her, though evidently it was something she preferred to keep to herself.
He drove the long way back from Brampton taking the Geltsdale road, which cut through part of the forest above the valley before descending towards Castleton. He’d vaguely recognized a description of the spot where the accident had happened from the police report. It was at the bottom of a hill that ended in a deceptive curve. The road had originally been built by cutting into the hillside, and later the forestry commission had bought the land. Now, pines towered over the road on one side while on the other there was a steep drop.
He parked and got out where the car had left the edge. A trail of broken saplings marked its passage down the hill and further on a mature tree bore a deep gouge in its trunk and beyond that, perhaps a hundred feet further, he thought he could see where the wreck had finally come to rest.
Lost Summer Page 16
