by Laura Beatty
The pollard just rustled, inscrutable.
A squirrel crossed above Anne’s head and the leaves shook. Look how I’m cut. The pollard held up its thick arms. It’s no big deal, cutting in a wood. It’s part of the cycle. The stump either rots or springs; both ways are life.
And still, on the other side of the wood, the saws whined and overlapped and stopped, and stuttered into action again.
What’s the worry? Leaves shifting in the updraught. Haven’t you the strength for what is asked of you?
And small things dropped to the floor, in the stillness. Seeds. Twigs. Rot. The white rot, the brown rot, the soft rot. The trees’ close relation to the soil, which for most people is a dirty word.
Decay is not the end. Collapse or felling, breakdown, re-absorption. Trees take a longer view. They are intimate with the constituents of their ancestors, feeling with fine-haired fingers through the mould and matter. The bark gaping black on that veteran, frilled with fungus. How much longer have you got? Do you know?
Why so accepting, Anne asked the quiet trunks – why does nothing register or protest?
The circle must close somewhere. Trees practise dying every year.
Anne put her head back against the boll of the tree and looked up and watched the river of bark flow over her head and out into the branches. The scale of that. You’re a monster, she said to it. She put her hands down among the roots and the mulch. I could root here. I could put my feet down and anchor my bulk here and reach up for the light. I’m bark-coloured. I’m slow. I could adapt if they’d leave me alone.
The distant vibration of the saws. Did she imagine it, or did the leaves tremble on the still air? She pushed her fingers as far as they’d go. Roots are busy. Skirting the systems of the other trees. Metering change, in temperature, in water. Registering the pulse of life, the minute shock waves of the burrower, the walker, the unthinking driver on the road the other side.
Shock travels miles if you know how to listen, say the leaves on the trees.
But trees are absorbed and dismissive. Anne gave up trying, put her hands in her lap and closed her eyes. And in the dark, unseen, the trees went on, catching water in the net of their roots. Working with the most disregarded of the elements. Water’s ugly, commonplace, sister. The most heaped up, pushed aside, taken for granted element. Mud.
It isn’t all the glamour of the wind in your branches.
♦
Anne got up and moved across the clearing. I need a bike now, she thought, still listening to the saws. It won’t be long now and I really need a bike.
On her way past, she looked at the woodwasp’s ball of spit and paper, hanging like a lantern in the dogwood there, went round it on quiet feet, admiring. The wasps were in and out endlessly. They were too near her hut and they stung without provocation. She should have smoked them out maybe, but she left it. It took a long time to build that after all. She’d become so careful now, of all the wood’s creatures, of the billion things, with feet, that live in the bark, the holes, the mulch of leaf and decay, the things that were nameless and pale, jointed like plumbing, the scurriers, the biters, the still things waiting for change.
She could borrow her dad’s bike, if she could get into the shed, or she could ask him, one morning. He didn’t work Saturdays or Sundays, if she could find out when they were. Almost without thinking, she bent down, picked up a bag caught among the nettles and moved on, gently along a winding path, collecting the unwanted things, the wrappers, the cans, the bits and bobs. I’ll look after you, she said to the wood, cleaning it, tending it. I’m good at looking after.
♦
Even so, Anne felt uneasy. For a couple of days. She worked harder, whether Ranger came or not. She sang constantly, to keep her spirits up, to drown out the saws and stay positive. But still, something else, some other change. She couldn’t put her finger on it. There was an emptiness, a loss somewhere in the noise and muddle.
She stopped working one day. Just put down her hoe and stood with her mouth open which helps your hearing. Pricked, alert. But there was nothing. Nothing unusual, except this unease.
And she left the clearing and set out, she didn’t know where. Walking the wood wondering. And the wood seemed dead…
Where were the deer?
She hurried everything, in the days that followed. Hurried her most necessary jobs, hurried her garden, hurried her milking, to look for them, like she had before, in her first winter. She went to all their favourite places, too early for beech mast, too late for the thickest fawn-protecting cover.
Panic.
In and out of the old dells and glades, into the fields where they grazed or played. But each place she went was empty and the wood so full. Noise and dogs and people. Everywhere she went, it seemed, dogs bounced out at her. Everywhere, she heard people calling them back. Bonnie! Bonnie! Come here. Carter! Lola! Gypsy! Buzz! Cheerful morning walkers, who stride out and talk while their dogs sniff each other or yap. You couldn’t breathe. Everywhere signs that needed reading. Bicycles, horses, runners. And on the far side, one evening, two boys on scramblers, ripping through the undergrowth, illegal.
♦
Days of looking.
♦
Then tired and dusty from wandering so long, Anne gave up. Early dusk, by the boys’ dell, and she dropped her shoulders, sagged back to lean against one of the overhanging trees. Gone then. She knew that. That’s what deer did. Select a place, pass on, like mist or wind. They would be in the corner of someone else’s eye now, flickering between other trees. Anne thought of them in new feeding grounds, browsing, necks extended, doing their delicate damage, rooting, stripping the green bark, leaping other bounds. I hope it’s nice.
A silent autumn without rutting stags, what a thought.
And what about the rest of them – her old familiars? Would they still find space for themselves – the fox, the barn owl, the woodcock odd and still on the wood floor, the flinging kestrel outside, that mad buzzard. Anne thought of an exodus huge and slow, like the ark only one after another. Soon there will only be me left.
In the days that followed, she moved like lead around the confines of her clearing, corralled into smaller and smaller spaces, and felt jittery in her head.
♦
Peter Parker came back, dull, stale. He’d climbed out of the window again. When dusk fell, he didn’t go back, just sat on the ground, outside the hut, throwing stones. His stepbrother was coming to live with them. It was going to be really bad. Anne went about her twilight jobs, not knowing what to say to him.
Later, they lay on their backs, in the first real dark, smoking and making wild plans.
Come on, we’ve got to work out how to steal the duck.
She’d been horrified the first time he’d mentioned it. I’ve never stolen anything. Propped on one elbow, looking at him as he lay outlined, knees up, one leg crossed over, resting on the other.
Yeah right, he said without looking at her. So old Smarty said you could just like help yourself to all that milk and hay and oat stuff or whatever?
Then he turned and she could see his eyes glinting and the third red eye of his cigarette, which he liked to wear now clamped in the corner of his mouth because he thought it made him look hard. That’s what he thought anyway.
And the wood for this hut, he was saying, and the rabbits and all the rest of it most like. You’ve been stealing all your life. You’re like a total burglar you are. One duck – what’s the big deal?
He was getting hard to manage. Come on, Anne said, forget the duck. I’ll teach you Roadkill.
♦
They lay in the ditch. You stay there, she told him. Watch this.
To do Roadkill you went on the uphill side. Rabbit or squirrel? she shouted at him.
What? You’re mad, you are.
Rabbit or squirrel. You have to choose.
I dunno, squirrel, whatever.
Anne lay down on the road like she’d seen the squirrels, not cuddled in death li
ke a rabbit but spreadeagled like you don’t care, neck twisted, parts on show.
Oh man, get up can’t you? Then, when Anne didn’t move, What the fuck are you doing? He made to get up and go himself, only he didn’t because he was scared of the dark.
Anne knew that. The road giving back the heat of the day, thrumming while the car was still unseen.
There’s a car coming! He was standing now, shouting at her, pointing. No way! You’re crazy!
Anne lay staring at him as if she was deaf. She could feel the car vibrating in her own body. Sweeping round the bend, intent, its headlights fingering the road ahead.
Get the fuck out of it! He was screaming at her.
Anne thought, watching him from the tarmac, he must have cared after all.
He didn’t realise that the car sees you. You’re lying uphill, so it slows, doesn’t it? It was power, making them slow down and look in the night, shocking them. He was nearly crying. Please Anne please. The car was almost on her. Anne held her breath an extra second for bravado.
Sudden and animal she rolled into the ditch. The car swerved, crawled past and was gone.
Peter Parker was hysterical, holding his head, his eyes like plates in the moon. You’re crazy. That is so bad. You’re mental.
She thought if she touched him she’d get a shock like off the stock fences. She lay on her back in the ditch.
Look at the moon go.
He was shivering. It’s not the moon. He snapped at her. Stupid. It’s a barn owl. You told me that.
Anne smiled her yellow smile in the dark. She felt invincible. He didn’t know anything.
It’s the moon.
♦
But the question of the duck wouldn’t go away. They played Roadkill a couple more times, although it lost its power to hold, after that first unrepeatable success. So Anne gave in and took Steve’s old chicken basket and they set off for the pond, which was in the old village beyond the estate. Too far to walk, desultory in the dark. Neither of them really interested in the project anyway. She didn’t know why he’d been so insistent and she didn’t need a duck. So they walked in silence mostly. A grim last rite. Till they came to a small pond, odd under the sodium lights, with the ducks round it, some asleep on one leg, some on the ground and the pond oozing its compromised smell and looking thick like jelly. Why did they have to be so obvious, the ducks? You didn’t even have to try to find them. No challenge. And something decadent about them not hiding away to sleep. Like drunks on a park bench. Duck are muffins to catch. Tame ones are anyway, if you leave it till night. They put their heads under their wings and you just pick them up like a loaf of bread. There was no quacking, no drama. The one she chose didn’t even flap, just gave a sort of squeak of puzzlement, the sort of noise that might come from a piglet. Anne plopped it in the old chicken basket. It panicked its neck forward once and hissed at the corners of the basket, but that was all. She soothed the feathers on its back with one finger and shut the lid. I’m taking you to a better place, she told it doubtfully in her mind.
Peter Parker was disappointed and scornful, dragging along, kicking things into the gutter. He’d expected something, tension, a police chase, Anne didn’t know what. They didn’t talk, but she could tell from his walk. Halfway across the estate he said he was going home. See you. And he left her there, alone under the lights, with a duck in a basket.
She took a wrong turning somewhere, up or down one of the endless rises. The roads so unfamiliar. Looking at the sky to tell which way she was heading. Haywain Close. Fieldgate Close. Dainty Grove. Hilldrop Rise. So many houses carefully built to look different and they watched her pass with artfully dead faces. Cars parked in driveways with their meaty backsides turned. This is our place.
It was far into the night when she reached her clearing.
She let the duck out in the morning and fed it corn. It fed, greedily as if nothing had happened, and took to the water. Anne watched it white and alien on her pond, swimming round and round. Little rushes here and there. Slow, dim puzzlement.
Do you know anything? Anne asked it. It had so little feral sense. She called it Peter Parker in punishment.
♦
He came round in the day this time. The grounding was over. Anne hadn’t seen him in daylight for so long she almost forgave him. He watched the duck with pride, hand on hip; made like it was his achievement.
I think I’ll call it Triss.
It’s already got a name. It’s called Peter Parker.
He looked at her, put out. Could of waited till I came.
Still, it was called after him, and that was kind of pleasing. You could see that. He walked round the pond considering. Anne couldn’t resist rubbing it in.
Well, she’s good for nothing without a drake. She might not even last the winter anyway.
She?
Anne just smiled. He deserved it.
How do you know it’s a her anyway? Could be a him. Could be a boy.
Oh for goodness’ sake.
♦
Peter Parker’s stepbrother was called Joe. He was alright, as it happened. Anne didn’t know if it was Joe or the duck, but Peter Parker had pretty much stopped coming to the clearing. She saw him around sometimes, with a new crowd, older. They were loud and they smoked openly. He looked fragile and different from them, though he didn’t seem to notice. She didn’t mind. So far.
Nothing stopped Ranger though. He still came with his presents and made conversation about the world outside the wood. Had she ever been into town?
Now what on earth would she want with going into town? Sometimes he was so stupid, she didn’t even bother answering him. It was as if their roles had changed, as if he wasn’t in charge any more. As if he respected her, her strength, her expertise, moving deftly round the clearing in the heat, burnt dark brown, wearing her clothes loose. He watched her all the time. How long you been here? he asked her once. And that was another stupid question.
Only the duck – the duck nearly brought back the old dynamic.
Where’d you get that from?
Anne stared him right out. It dropped out of the sky. She made an arc with one arm that embraced the staring blue above the clearing. It was Christmas time.
It will be bloody Christmas and Easter and all for Mr Stallard if you start nicking stuff. I’m telling you. You’re not a pikey, are you?
Anne turned away making a snorting noise. Ranger was no substitute for Peter Parker. He really irritated her sometimes. What about your deer? she wanted to say. Where are your deer then? Shot, by the looks of things, or chased away by all your halfwit visitors and their dogs. You don’t know anything. But she kept her mouth shut. She just walked into the pool in her clothes and lay down till she was soaked. Then she waded back out again with the water streaming off her, to sit at the foot of the pollard whittling pegs for snares. Not even the whisper of a breeze today. Above their heads, even the trees, who moved so little, were shocked into absolute stillness. Leaves held up rigid, conserving everything. How soon before we can drop them? they seemed to be asking. Snick, snick, snick, said Anne’s knife in response.
You see that little mate of yours?
Anne looked up, wary now. Not for a while, why?
He’s going to get himself in a bit of bother and all, if he’s not careful. Messing around on the machinery at the walkway site – him and his new crowd.
That’s his stepbrother, I think. Anne was interested in this at least. Joe.
I know what his name is. He’s a right little so-and-so that one. He’s on a warning from the police already. That’s why he’s come to live with his dad. You want to tell your friend, if you’re seeing him. Stay away from that lot. They’re a bad bunch. Driver only got out to have a slash and they were in the cab, weren’t they. Drove it into a bloody tree.
Anne couldn’t help laughing.
But it wasn’t a laughing matter, apparently. I tell you what, this isn’t the job it used to be. Bloody kids everywhere. Bloody complaint
s. Dogfights, litter-picking. D’you know how many times I’m emptying them toilets at the Woodpecker café? Anne looked up from her pile of pegs and shavings, shook her head. Twice a day. Twice a day. He was standing with his hands on his hips now. Ranger? Bloody toilet attendant, that’s what.
Anne was sorry for him in a way. A dog jogged into the clearing, found the pool and stood in it, slurping up the precious water, drool hanging down from its muzzle when it raised its head. Anne picked up a stone and threw it from where she was sitting. She had a good aim. It caught the dog square on the hindquarters. The dog yelped and ran off. Ranger put his hands to his head. He looked every which way to see whether the owner had spotted them.
You can’t do that.
Anne grinned.
They’ll have you for that if they catch you. Cruelty to animals. You’re a liability, you are.
But it worked. He didn’t hang around after that.
♦
Sue had been kind recently. She’d been giving Anne ice when she went down to the café, a whole glass of it for no charge. Anne really appreciated that. She took Sue some eggs in return, in a little basket made of willow. Ooh, Sue said, don’t they look the real thing. Are they safe to eat?
Nigel sat at another table, grey and sweating. He waved a hand at Anne and gave a picturesque sort of bow. Sue whispered that he mustn’t be disturbed. He was writing something for the local newspaper. He’s a real one-off. Like you. Sue wanted to be kind, although it was difficult for her to hide her distaste of Anne. He’s got such a way with words.
Peter Parker and the new boys swaggered into the car park. They were loud. About nothing. One of them went up to the counter, where a new girl was serving. Sue bustled inside. I’ve told you, she was shouting, could you please leave? We are not serving you here. Could you please leave? There was a mild ruckus. The boy opening his hands. What have I done? Alright? I haven’t done nothing.
