Winter Damage

by Natasha Carthew

  ‘You dead?’

  Ennor closed her eyes to the early morning rise and hoped the voice was in her imagination.

  ‘Hey, I’m talkin to you.’

  A sharp kick against her shin made Ennor lurch forward and she opened her eyes to a pair of split and restitched biker boots.

  ‘That hurt.’

  ‘It was meant to. Good to see you alive and not the other. Thought I’d have to spear you and roast you cross the fire.’

  Ennor sat up and rubbed her leg as she looked at the dark-eyed girl squatting beside her.

  ‘You’re not a spy, are you?’

  Ennor hugged her rucksack into her arms away from the girl.

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘Why the hell? You’re on my property. What you got in your precious big bag?’

  ‘Nothin, I gotta go.’

  ‘That’s a whole lot of nothin.’ The girl started to laugh and she told Ennor she’d have to bring her in on account that she was trespassing. When she stood up straight, Ennor noticed she was a way big girl and not with fat but big with muscle and bone.

  Ennor gathered up her blanket and tied her boots as fast as she was able because the girl was everything that meant trouble and more.

  ‘Don’t worry, I int gonna steal your crap. Not just yet anyway, hell.’

  She sat down on the snow beside Ennor and was close enough for malice if she tried to run.

  ‘You see a gypsy girl and what you think? You think criminal intent.’

  ‘Dint say that.’

  ‘You don’t have to say somethin to think it.’

  Ennor prepared herself for some shape of a beating and she asked God if he was punishing her for killing the boy. She clenched her teeth to a bite and counted seconds. One, two, three . . .

  ‘I’m Sunshine.’ The girl slapped her hands to Ennor’s cheeks and searched her eyes for fear and she gave her chin a little pinch and laughed. ‘Pleased to meet you. My friends call me Sonny and so can you for starters but madden me and we’re back to Sunshine and a whole lot of whip-ass.’

  Ennor told the girl her name and Sonny laughed some more and got up again and headed towards last night’s fire and shouted for Ennor to follow if she was hungry.

  ‘Where we goin?’

  ‘To meet the others. You’re mine now.’

  Ennor followed the girl out of the forest and past the smoking embers and she shouted that she really had to be on her way.

  As they walked through the camp the gypsy girl shouted to everyone who might be listening that they had a visitor and she spat out Ennor’s name like it was poison.

  Some faces looked up from their doings but most did not. Ennor smiled just in case but nobody paid her much attention.

  She looked skyward and a lone magpie caught her eye and she counted it, one, as it flew against the snow clouds and settled on the roof of one of the trailers.

  ‘That’s bad luck.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘That magpie.’

  ‘It’s just a dumb bird. There int no such thing as luck and bad luck. Nobody ever tell you that?’

  Sonny led her to a stack of upturned crates that circled another smouldering fire and told her to sit.

  ‘What if I don’t?’

  Sonny laughed and shook her head to indicate she thought her crazy and she set about refuelling the fire with pine branches that were stored beneath a plastic sheet.

  Sonny sat back and nodded into the flames with a satisfying grin. ‘You like coffee? I could murder a cup of coffee.’

  Ennor nodded.

  ‘Well that’s tough for the both of us cus all we got is tea.’

  She disappeared into the trailer with the magpie glaring down from the roof and Ennor took a moment to take in the higgledy camp.

  Some of the trailers were without wheels and bracken had fingered its way into hub spirals and cracks and holes where things used to be useful out on the road.

  Paths had been railroaded through the snow to connect the homes to where Ennor sat. The surplus snow was banked into ice walls for both privacy and orderly living.

  She reckoned people had been settled there a long time. They had grown into the fabric of the moor as if patchworked into place with remnants of a forgotten land.

  Their lives looked as though they hadn’t changed in for ever and the end of the world had not hit them because they were self-sufficient and lived close enough to poverty in any case. Like Ennor they didn’t have so far to fall and there was comfort in that.

  Sonny appeared behind her and she splashed a mug of tea into her lap and sat with a bounce on the crate beside her.

  ‘My dad wants to know if you’re from the fascist forestry commission, one of their kids or somethin.’

  The girl stared at Ennor. Her skin and eyes and hair were like Ennor’s own only darker, and her accent thicker with a hundred other accents mixed and spiced within.

  ‘Cat chewin on your tongue?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No what?’

  ‘No I’m not with the forestry and there’s no cat eatin my tongue.’ She gulped at the tea and it was sweet and strong and tasted like the fruitcake once made backalong.

  ‘My dad thinks you’re a spy.’

  ‘Well if I see him, I’ll tell him I int.’

  ‘Dad?’ Sonny shouted ‘The forestry spy wants to talk to you.’

  ‘Not got time for your games right now, girl,’ he shouted from inside the trailer and Ennor couldn’t help herself and started to laugh.

  ‘Lucky for you,’ Sonny snapped. ‘Personally I think you’re guilty in some way all right. Like you got somethin to hide.’

  Ennor glanced at the woodpile and Sonny followed her look.

  ‘That’s all found wood sittin there, so mind you don’t think otherwise.’

  ‘I’m not. Just lookin round.’

  They drank their tea and looked about and into the fire and Sonny peppered Ennor with friendly fire questions and with every answer given she laughed and declared it nonsense.

  ‘No way you out on a nature walk. Got a lump on your back like a snail movin home. I think you’re a pathological liar, is what I think. A regular bar of fruit and nut.’

  Ennor didn’t know what ‘pathological’ meant and wasn’t about to get into an argument over it and she told the girl to believe what she wanted.

  ‘I gotta go in any case.’ She drank the tea down fast, then flicked the tea leaves into the fire and set the mug down on the crate where she’d been sitting.

  ‘No you int. Where to?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘You’ll miss the party tonight.’ She got up to block Ennor’s path and the look on her face suggested a fight hug mix-match.

  ‘Looked like a good enough party you had here last night.’

  ‘That was impromptu. Today is the shortest day party, the twenty-first. The proper one.’ She put her hands on her hips and looked Ennor up and down. ‘There’s a storm comin back, worse than before, they say.’

  Ennor thought about the storm and she counted out the four days remaining. Four days to find Mum and get back to Dad and Trip. She looked at the girl with the non-stop chat.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘I said even spies have one day off occasionally. You hungry?’

  Ennor shrugged. ‘A little.’

  ‘I got Coco Pops. You like Coco Pops?’

  ‘Never had um.’

  ‘They’re mine. I nicked a box from the village shop before the wire mesh went up, hell.’

  She grabbed Ennor’s hand and pulled her towards the trailer and into the kitchen.

  ‘Wow,’ said Ennor.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s like a proper kitchen. Like in a house, I mean.’

  ‘Of course it is. Well it would be if we had the gas to work anythin. Sit down, would you?’

  Sonny stomped about the kitchen opening and closing cupboard doors. Ennor sat quiet and rocking and secretly cove
ting the full-size cooker and the washing machine alongside it.

  ‘I do all the washin by hand.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘At home I do all the washin by hand.’

  ‘The dishes?’

  ‘No the clothes. Out the back of our trailer we got an old tin bath. I do it there.’

  Sonny laughed and pushed a huge bowl of cereal on to the table. ‘Milk’s fresh from the goat, none of your shop-bought swill.’

  ‘You got cows too?’

  ‘Nope.’ Sonny sat across from her and watched her eat with the excitement that a new toy brought, excitement and devilment gleaming in her eyes.

  ‘We got cows. Used to have Simmentals but Dad lost those to foot-and-mouth and now we got a half-dozen Friesians.’

  Sonny nodded and made a face to pretend she was interested while indicating she wasn’t in the least. ‘Foot-and-mouth was a bummer. There were fires all cross the moor. Mountains of cows with their feet pokin up and out like sticks. We had to keep movin sites to keep from the stench.’ She sat back and smiled at her new friend and Ennor thought it was her, if anyone, who was crazy.

  ‘Enjoyin the Coco Pops? The best, int they?’

  Ennor nodded.

  ‘Well don’t go wild after um, hellfire.’

  ‘They’re nice, really.’

  ‘They are, int they? That’s the last of um. I’ll have to go shoppin someplace else after Christmas.’

  ‘What village you go to?’

  ‘Minions.’

  ‘Don’t they recognise you?’

  ‘Ha, now that’s the fun of it. Go in disguise, don’t I. Got wigs and hats and all sorts. You can come with me next time if you’re that intrigued.’

  ‘So you’re the spy.’

  They both laughed and Ennor finished the cereal and drank the chocolate milk from the bowl and when she had finished she wiped her finger around it to mop up every last drop.

  ‘That’s it, girl. Get it down you.’

  The two girls sat steady and looked at each other with suspicious curiosity and it was Ennor’s turn to ask the questions.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Fourteen.’ She smiled.

  ‘You don’t look fourteen.’

  ‘What can I say? I’m mature for my age unlike some. Next question.’

  Ennor tried to think of something clever to ask because the girl thought her stupid and green. ‘Have you always travelled?’

  ‘What kind of a question is that? I’m a gypsy, int I?’

  ‘Some of your trailers don’t look like they seen tarmac in a while.’

  ‘Well they int my trailer. What else you got?’

  ‘Any brothers and sisters?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘You go to school?’

  ‘Borin, nope.’

  ‘Ever bin another country?’

  Sonny thought for a minute. ‘No but I’m plannin on it, once my career takes off. You?’

  ‘I’ve never bin cross the bridge.’

  ‘Never bin out of Cornwall? Hell.’ Sonny started to laugh and she held her sides for added effect. ‘Call the doctor. Gonna bust a gut here,’ she screamed.

  Ennor shifted in her seat and decided she wanted to get going. She wondered how to say it without the girl bullying her to stay.

  ‘What career you plannin? World’s on the brink or dint you notice?’

  ‘Bare knuckle fightin. Look at these.’ She smacked her hands down on the table and Ennor leant forward to look at her scabs and scars. ‘Want a demo?’

  Ennor shook her head. ‘What’s the money like?’

  ‘Good. Just cockfightin with kids really.’

  ‘Who d’you fight?’

  ‘Townies, travellers, used to fight emmets till they stopped comin and I fight boys as well as girls. I int no baby.’

  Ennor was unexpectedly impressed and she found herself saying as much and she swallowed what she was going to say about leaving back down into her belly.

  The girl scared her as it was and she was now showing off her arm muscles.

  ‘What you think of these?’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘Nice? Is that all the word you got?’

  ‘No. I’ve also got thank you and goodbye.’

  ‘Well that’s just great. After you troughed the last of me Pops.’

  ‘You gave um to me.’

  ‘Dint hear you complainin.’ She got up and settled herself into a wide stance and was about to say more when a woman’s voice from elsewhere in the trailer shouted for Sonny to keep the noise down because they were filming.

  ‘Filmin what?’ asked Ennor.

  ‘A film. Don’t mind um. Most days there’s somethin or other goin on. Where’d you think this fancy kitchen come from?’

  Ennor got up and she put the empty bowl and spoon into the sink. ‘How’d they let you fight?’

  ‘It’s all money, int it? Don’t worry, they make a pretty penny off me out on the ropes. I’ll teach you some moves if you want.’

  ‘I really got to get goin. Got to get somewhere and back before Christmas.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘Secret, is it? You know my life story. All I know bout you is cows and not much else besides.’

  ‘I don’t know where I’m goin exactly.’

  Sonny shrugged. ‘So how do you know where you’re goin if you don’t know where you’re goin? Don’t go yet. We’re havin fun, int we? I could teach you to wrestle, self-defence and all that, and we got the party tonight.’

  Ennor was under the impression that there hadn’t been much jollity at all and she asked why she wanted her to stay.

  ‘Are you kiddin? Hell, look at this place. It’s Boresville with a capital bore.’

  Ennor went outside and lifted her rucksack up on to one of the crates. She wanted to go and she wanted to stay just the same. The camp swung an invisible cape around her shoulders that was safe and warm, a womb. She thought of Mum. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Don’t say that. Stay for the party, we’ll get up to pranks and all sorts. Please?’

  Ennor thought the idea of doing things for the sake of it was strange and wasteful in time and purpose, but she was fourteen and could count fun times on the fingers of just one hand.

  ‘Well?’ asked Sonny. ‘Only I int got all day.’

  ‘OK. I’ll stay. For one night and that’s it and I’ve got to get up early in the mornin.’

  ‘I know,’ Sonny laughed. ‘You gotta get somewhere and back before sundown or somethin. We’ll go nick some booze from the other trailers later.’

  She threw Ennor’s rucksack into the door of her bedroom and told her to follow and not to worry about anyone because they were either busy or sleeping.

  ‘You gotta help me out.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Ennor.

  ‘I’m in a fix. Bin given the task of settin traps all over the place and I can’t remember where I put the buggers.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with me?’

  ‘You want to eat tonight, don’t you?’

  Ennor shrugged. ‘I guess. What you usually catch?’

  ‘Nothin,’ she laughed. ‘This is my first time. I begged Dad to give me somethin worthy to do and now can’t remember where I put um. Not all of um anyway.’

  ‘That’s dangerous. Could catch a kid, maim um even.’

  ‘Know that, don’t I? Hell, I’m lookin for support here.’

  Ennor said she’d help Sonny find the traps. The camp was a safe hole in which to hide for a day and night, a place the police would hopefully avoid to keep the peace. She could forget about the boy, if only for a little while.

  ‘Come on, girl,’ shouted Sonny as she set off down the track. ‘We gotta do this while it’s light, you know.’

  Ennor ran alongside her and the faster she went the more the snow clumped to her feet and stumped her in her tracks.

  ‘Where d’you think you put um?’ she asked.

  ‘
Mostly in the forest but, hell, maybe I got carried away a little. I remember thinkin and plottin all sorts of ways.’

  ‘How many you put out?’

  Sonny shrugged. ‘Ten of um, roundabout.’

  ‘Ten? What they look like, the traps.’

  ‘You a farm girl and you don’t know what traps look like?’

  ‘I know they’re all evil and snappin, but there’s all kinds, int there?’

  ‘How the hell do I know? You ask some dumb uns, don’t you?’

  Ennor looked across at Sonny and shook her head. There was something scary and something striking about her, the way she looked and the way she spoke, with arrogance and swagger kicking out from under her badly fitting clothes.

  They entered the forest from a low split in the track and it was a clamber to get to the ridge without sliding backwards. Ennor wanted to ask why they hadn’t just walked through the woods by the camp and when she fell headlong and frozen into the snow for the third time she shouted out the question.

  ‘Why d’you think?’ asked Sonny.

  Ennor lay on her back and she stared up at the nothing sky. ‘Surprise me.’

  ‘Cus this is where I put the first one. I remember this one.’

  Ennor rolled on to her side and got to her feet. ‘Let’s go back to camp.’

  ‘Hell, you got a right moan runnin through you. Where’s your sense of fun? You’re like an old bird squabblin and squallin. Now come on.’

  The forest was familiar to Ennor from wandering through it yesterday, but only in the way of smell and form and the way it made her feel. The pine trees in this part of the forest were freakish tall and their trunks were thick and good for hugging. Living, breathing things, they had even guided her to the gypsy camp last night, she believed that.

  The girl up ahead was going on and roundabout, her mouth beaking like a baby bird and her eyes bursting with all the things she wished and thought she’d seen. The world to Sonny was a sudden pleasant surprise, a constant revelation.

  To Ennor it was a rope-tie of let-downs, knot upon knot of confusion and restraint and fear.