Winter Damage

by Natasha Carthew

  Ennor knew if she could just get out of the woods, jump the ring fire fence and run home to wash the blood from her hands, everything would be OK. The snow melted and the fire dampened and green shoots returned to the forest floor. Little green shoots of hope to cover up the fear.

  ‘It’ll be better then,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘After the snow and the fire.’

  ‘What you talkin bout? Ennor?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You dreamin?’

  Ennor opened her eyes and there was fire and snow but she was not in the forest next to home.

  She rubbed her face. ‘I was dreamin.’

  ‘What about?’ asked Sonny.

  Ennor shook her head. ‘Can’t say I know what about.’

  ‘You were sayin bout things gettin better.’

  Ennor laughed. ‘Can’t get any worse now, can they?’

  ‘Not by my reckonin.’

  ‘How’d it get so bad?’

  Sonny shrugged. ‘You should of gone mother huntin in the summer months.’

  They both laughed.

  ‘Can you imagine?’ said Ennor. ‘It would be easy as, wouldn’t it? Hot days and swimmin and bathin in the sun.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll do it sometime. Go back to Siblyback where we got that fish and swim with his rellies.’

  ‘We could get a boat. That would be somethin, wouldn’t it? The two of us bobbin and fishin with no cares in the world.’

  They snuggled deep into the front seats and were warmed by the idling fantasy of being kids closer to their age, and Ennor soon fell back to dreaming and in this dream the snow had fully gone and the sun was high and blasting in the sky. She was sitting in the car with her mother sat next to her and she was singing and clapping mad on the steering wheel.

  ‘Come on, Ennor girl,’ she shouted above the blast of choral music. ‘You remember this one, don’t you?’

  Ennor pretended to sing along but the words escaped her and there was a part of her that wondered if she was singing outside the dream.

  ‘Louder,’ Mum shouted.

  ‘I can’t remember it.’

  ‘Yes you do. I used to sing it to you to keep the wind from out your ears.’

  She looked across at her daughter. ‘Don’t you remember anythin bout me?’

  ‘Course.’ Ennor smiled. ‘You’re my mum.’

  Her mother turned off the music and they sat in silence. From the passenger seat Ennor watched the A30 slice the moor and she wondered when exactly they had crossed it in her other life, the life without weather except for snow and nothing but friends for family.

  ‘Where we goin?’ she asked.

  ‘What you mean where we goin?’

  Ennor shrugged.

  ‘We’re goin for a ride, silly.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Round the bend and back again.’ She looked at Ennor and laughed and she dug her fingers into Ennor’s ribs until she laughed too.

  They were driving fast, too fast, and Ennor felt the rise and rinse of cloying sick in her throat and she clenched her jaw shut.

  ‘Right little quiet bird, you are. What’s that father bin sayin bout me, eh? Tellin lies as usual? I’ll stop you seein him if he’s got your ear.’

  Ennor was confused. She waited until the sick settled back in her stomach and then asked her mother where she lived.

  ‘With me, you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Where with you?’

  ‘Bude of course. I bin visitin Nana Burley and you bin to that dump truck your dad calls home.’

  ‘The trailer?’

  ‘Tin shack, more like it.’

  Ennor wanted to ask about Trip but the car was getting faster and her head thumped with confusion.

  ‘You gotta slow down,’ she shouted. ‘Please, Mum, I can’t bear it.’

  ‘Quit your whinin, girl. Gotta get home. Time’s passin us by.’ She turned to Ennor and took her hands off the steering wheel. ‘Tick-tock, tick-tock.’

  She put her foot flat smack to the floor and screamed up a storm that had sleet back in the sky and ice on the road. Ennor reached to take the wheel but it wouldn’t move and she shouted at her mum to stop from racing but it was too late. She was gone and Ennor was left spinning out on the ice.

  The car turned somersaults and skidded and raced some more and crashed into a spiralling burn.

  Ennor sat and looked the road over and up and down. There were no signs to guide her north or south and nothing of any significance except she was still alive. She glanced over at the driver’s seat and watched Sonny sleeping wide-mouthed and peaceful and she sighed. It was morning and she was pleased to be there.

  Behind them bundled on the back seat Butch and Trip and buddy dog slept happy and she thought to pick over her dreams like scavenged bones and then wondered why bother. She leant over Sonny and tapped her on the leg.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Wake up.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s mornin.’

  ‘Big whoopee-do, I’m sleepin.’

  Ennor huffed and folded her arms.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ said Sonny. ‘You gotta feelin that this is the day.’ She sat up and stretched and looked behind at Butch. ‘He’s still breathin then.’

  Ennor nodded. ‘I hope we find a doctor; more than Mum, I hope to find one.’

  ‘Maybe he just needs a bit of civilised livin, drag him back to normal.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ coughed Butch.

  Ennor turned and stretched out a hand to pat him and she patted Trip too. ‘How you feelin this mornin?’

  Butch shrugged and stretched out. ‘Bit better spose. Chest don’t hurt so much.’

  ‘That’s good.’ She smiled and she asked Trip how he was.

  ‘Hungry.’

  ‘After last night’s feast?’ asked Sonny. ‘Where you hidin it?’

  Trip sat up. ‘Not hidin nothin.Where’s the horses?’

  They looked out of the side windows and Sonny got out of the car and went looking. ‘They’re here,’ she shouted. ‘They’d be stupid to wander far.’ She walked them back to the car and she tied their reins together and got back into the driver’s seat and put her hands on the steering wheel. ‘Where we goin today then?’

  ‘Where we goin, sister?’ asked Trip.

  ‘Bude.’ She nodded. ‘We’re goin to Bude.’

  ‘Finally,’ he shouted and they all laughed.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  They travelled north-west by the compass and when they saw the fat dark line of a hedge or wall appear in the fog they dropped back a little to keep from being seen because they were riding commodities and food all wrapped up into one.

  ‘Nobody’s goin to see us,’ whispered Butch. ‘We can barely see each other.’

  ‘Just concentrate on preservin your energy,’ said Ennor. ‘It wouldn’t hurt to pray that there’s a doctor in the town either.’

  ‘I’m all out of prayers.’

  ‘Shame you’re not all out of moanin,’ said Sonny. ‘We could leave you out here for the buzzards and kestrels if you’d like.’

  They bickered through the snow and fog like it was a regular family day trip to the sea and arguments were peppered with nervous songs and jokes and long sombre silences.

  ‘Is it Christmas yet?’ asked Trip.

  ‘We’ll talk bout it later, buddy,’ said Ennor.

  ‘Christmas has been and gone,’ said Sonny.

  ‘Don’t tell him that.’

  ‘Well it’s the truth, int it? And while we’re at it there’s no Father Christmas either.’

  ‘Sonny!’

  ‘Dint think so,’ said Trip. ‘What about the piskies?’

  ‘Definitely piskies exist. They’re all around if you know where to look.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Roundabout, but they don’t like snow so don’t go botherin just yet.’

  ‘What bout the Easter Bunny?’ he asked.

  ‘What bou
t him?’

  ‘He exist?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, course not. Whoever heard of a ten-foot bunny hidin chocolate eggs for piggy kids? It’s rubbish.’

  The moment chocolate was mentioned the riders became children and Ennor started off a list of the top ten chocolate bars to keep from worrying. For the first time since journeying from home, moor time was running as it should be. The horses stood side by side and along with their riders and the dog they looked on towards the silent road and all waited for someone to take the first step.

  ‘This is us,’ said Sonny. ‘This is our road if we’re headin to Bude.’

  ‘How far?’ asked Ennor.

  ‘Few miles but ridin on roads shouldn’t take long if we’re goin. We still got the gun.’

  ‘There’s no way round, is there?’ asked Ennor. ‘So we just gotta head, bandits or no bandits.’

  They all agreed but there was apprehension settling among them up there on the horses; they were near the end of the journey and they sat and thought out the possibilities of a future they could not control.

  In the end it was the dog with the colourful wrapper bows that stepped out into the road and the horses followed without a word.

  Ennor’s horse led the way with Butch holding the rifle and they set a single-file trail down the lane that fingered its way on to bigger roads and the fog hid them from danger and carried them safely to the north coast.

  They came into the town with the tide drawing and sketching like normal and they stopped to watch it smack against the shore and each one greeted it like an old friend.

  The town lay spewed and spent as they rode along the front. The buildings crouched crumpled and low to the sea, and everything was washed pure grey or thereabouts.

  ‘Nothin but a ghost town,’ said Sonny. ‘Used to come up here most summers backalong, spose it’s a shame.’

  They looked about them, at the wild ocean crashing and the boarded-up arcades and surf stores half lifted with snow, a prophetic frontier town.

  Signposts were graffiti-tagged with codes and pointers hinting at underground factions and the boarded windows were flyer thick with faces lost and forgotten names and everything melted with the cold and the wet.

  ‘Now what?’ asked Sonny.

  Ennor shook her head and said she didn’t know and she turned and asked Butch how he was feeling. He didn’t answer.

  His wheezing was back and he whispered to save himself from coughing.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ asked Sonny. ‘Hello? Anyone?’

  ‘Shush, we don’t want to draw attention.’

  ‘Yeah we do. Hello? Got a two-litre of scrumpy for anyone willin to talk.’

  She sat back and looked over at Ennor with a smile. ‘Best way is the loud way.’

  ‘Did you nick them men’s cider?’

  ‘Among other things, why?’

  ‘You’re somethin else.’

  ‘I know. Might just have that written on me grave.’

  They about-turned the horses and were going to risk riding through the main part of town when Trip said he thought he saw someone in the bus shelter.

  ‘Let’s look,’ said Sonny and she clipped the horse into a wide circle that skirted the half-cut building.

  ‘You!’ she shouted. ‘Stop or we’ll shoot.’

  ‘No you won’t,’ came a dry raspy voice.

  ‘How do you know I won’t?’

  ‘Cus you int got a gun.’

  ‘My man over there does.’

  A face chewed and spat, peeked through the square of light where the glass used to be and opened wide into a toothless laugh.

  ‘What you laughin at, old boy?’ demanded Sonny.

  ‘Can he even lift the damn thing? Cus from where I’m standin I doubt it.’

  ‘You want him to try?’ asked Sonny and she reminded him he was the one sitting.

  The old man got to his feet and stretched in a snap.

  Sonny pulled the plastic milk carton filled with orange-coloured liquid and sat up to the pommel of the saddle.

  ‘How much?’ he asked. ‘Only I int got much.’

  ‘Not askin for much ’cept what you might know.’

  ‘How’d you know if what I know is what you want to know?’

  ‘Well try shuttin the hell up and I’ll ask you.’

  ‘How’d I know that there int just pee?’

  ‘I’ll splash you a mouthful, how bout that?’

  The old man shrugged and sat down on the stone plinth that was part home and said he’d answer the questions if he knew the answers.

  As it turned out the old man lived his life just as it was and how it had always been, out of bins and on a bench by the sea. He’d seen everything that turned and changed in the town and knew everything that was about to.

  With every answer given Sonny cupped a sip of cider into her dirt-black hand and reached down from the horse so he could lap at it like a dog and it was soon Ennor’s turn to ask questions and she asked first about a doctor and then about her mother.

  ‘There int no doctor willin for anythin, not by my reckonin. All rich bastards without conscience and Boots have been cleared of supplies so don’t bother askin bout them.’

  He told them there were groups of all persuasions forming allegiances about the town and he agreed that religious groups were very popular on account of the end-of-the-world talk.

  ‘You heard of a group called the Sevens?’ asked Ennor. ‘A woman called Eleanor Carne?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ He grinned. ‘Oh yes indeed.’

  He danced about on the spot and whooped a little because he knew the drink would be his. ‘Crazy bunch, am I right? Hard-core fanatics takin in all sorts, crackheads, rednecks, voodoo worshipers all mixed and crazy as a stew.’ He told them they used to come through the town every few days on some kind of recruitment drive but not recently because everyone was gone.

  ‘Where they gone?’ asked Sonny.

  ‘Behind closed doors just, or in their little groups hidin out. There’s only a few of us out on the street and mostly we’re left alone, same as always.’

  ‘You know where the Sevens are based?’ asked Ennor and she felt the number fizz on her lips with pleasure because it belonged to Mum and it belonged to her, a lucky number.

  ‘The castle heritage place on the hill. I know that definite.’

  Ennor’s heart beat hard with a flash of fear and excitement and she told Sonny to give the man his drink because she had heard all she needed to know.

  ‘You better not be sellin fibs,’ shouted Sonny as she tossed the carton into his arms. ‘We’ll be back else.’

  Ennor thanked him and they rode on towards where he had pointed.

  ‘We goin to see Mother?’ asked Trip.

  ‘We’ll see. Don’t put your hopes too high.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘For a million reasons.’

  Sonny took the gun from Butch and she told him they’d find a doctor soon enough and they followed the signs for the castle.

  There were bags of rubbish built up in the street and the contents were strewn into a stinking carpet of colours where dogs and foxes had been.

  They rode through the stench with their backs to the wind and when they neared the castle they dismounted out in the road and waited. Dumb kids with hope dangling and falling from their hearts like ticker-tape.

  ‘You here to convert?’ asked a teenage boy through the bars of the front gate.

  ‘Nope,’ shouted Sonny. ‘We’re here to see the boss lady.’

  ‘Don’t say it like that,’ snapped Ennor .‘We’re here to see my mum,’ and she said her name and the boy went away and then came back.

  ‘The boss lady is busy.’ He smiled.

  ‘But she’s my mother. I’ve spent weeks lookin for her.’

  ‘She’s everyone’s mother, if you want to convert to the Sevens, that is. Otherwise go swing.’

  ‘OK, we’ll convert,’ grinned Sonny. ‘I’ve come over all holy all
of a sudden.’

  ‘Well now I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Believe what you want.’

  ‘You got a big mouth, int you?’

  ‘They let you in, dint they? Just let us in or I’ll blow your smug mug to bits.’

  Sonny took the gun from Butch and raised it and fixed the cross hairs to his head and winked.

  ‘No need for violence,’ called a woman’s voice. ‘God made us equal and all that.’

  The voice became a face and Ennor stared into the dull arched corridor to search the woman’s features for something that might resemble her own.

  ‘Mum?’ she asked, her heart a plump stifling pillow in her mouth.

  ‘Don’t think so, dear.’

  ‘It’s me, Ennor.’

  ‘Never heard of you. Who’s these?’

  ‘My friends and this here is Trip. You remember him? He was just a baby but –’

  ‘What do you want? I’m busy.’

  Ennor thought it a funny thing to ask because what was it all children wanted from their parents.

  ‘Are you Mother?’ asked Trip.

  ‘Only to my flock. You talk funny, boy. Are you joinin us? Cus like I said . . .’

  Ennor passed the horse’s reins to Butch and she wanted to shout out her confusion and ask the list of questions for ever but instead she approached in silence and stood with heavy hands swinging and a mouth full of feathers. The questions she had carried across the moor had deserted her.

  ‘I got a photo.’

  ‘Tell your friend there to lower her gun.’

  Sonny nodded and swung the rifle on its strap so that it hung from her shoulder and they all watched maybe daughter and maybe mother stand face to face and silent. Ennor took the picture frame from the saddle bag and she held it up to the gate.

  The woman shook her head. ‘Who is it you’re lookin for, kid?’

  ‘Eleanor Carne.’

  ‘She’s gone.’

  ‘Where.’

  ‘Search me. People come and go and she’s gone for ever, I’d say.’

  Ennor wondered if she’d gone in the physical sense or perhaps the spiritual and she gave the woman a good looking over and recognised nothing but glimmers like shockwaves through and part was voice and part was something else. She stepped forward.

  ‘So you convertin or no? Come on, girl, tick-tock.’

  Ennor looked at the photo and then at the woman and she searched for the cogs of recognition to turn sparks into fire but anything that might once have burnt there had died long ago. She thought about showing the ring and decided against.