A cat with a big white face jumped up on the arm of the sofa. The stupid ginger one clawed away at the dark red swathes and cataracts of the armchair’s side, a magnificent shredding like the hangings of moss in the wood.
In the kitchen he put the kettle on, stood in the big bright space and sang along to the music, distorting his face, ‘In the beginning –’
sweep of strings –
‘you really loved me… but I was too blind, too bli-ind… to really see-ee-ee…’
The room was like a castle kitchen, with a massive central table and an old doorless pantry painted fifteen shades of dirty cream.
‘Which one do you like?’
‘They’re all fine.’
‘Oh come on, you must have a preference.’
‘No really.’
His mum obsessing over a colour chart. Every little rectangle looked exactly the same. Cream. Cream. Cream. She was bonkers. She’d go on and on and on till he said ‘That one’ randomly to shut her up.
‘That one?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah.’
She’d keep coming back at it.
‘What about that one?’
Cream. Cream. Cream.
‘Yeah, that one, fine.’
‘But do you really like that one better?’
‘Honestly, I like them both, I don’t mind.’
Then she’d stand back with a look of profound concern on her face and he’d lose his rag and walk out and if she followed him, he’d say, ‘For God’s sake! What the fuck’s the matter with you?’ and slam his door. Sometimes he’d get a horrible feeling he was going to hit his mum. She just went on and on. On on on. Couldn’t block her out. Falling back again on how unlucky she was and how horrible it was being a widow. Widow. The way she said it was loaded. She seemed to always wear an invisible set of black widow’s weeds, complete with a long black veil.
The kettle boiled and clicked off. He poured water on a teabag. The kitchen windows all down one side were dark. Here and there green eyes peered in. Always a few cats round the windows. He stirred his tea, mushed the bag against the side of the cup. The music in the other room stopped. As if commanded, he stopped too, and just stood there. The following silence felt like something physical slowly pouring into his ears. Beat beat beat, blood in his head. He heard a sound. Outside, neither near nor far.
Click.
His head jerked up. Bastards. The gate at the back of his garden, the one that opened right into the woods.
Quietly he went to the back door and opened it. The woods and the dark night delivered a sudden eerie shiver. Damned if I’m going out there, he thought. The supernatural scared him stiff, he couldn’t watch horror films. So he closed the door and locked up, went back into the kitchen and got milk from the fridge for his tea, ignoring the gaping blackness of the windows.
5
Took a walk up to the Wights this morning.
It was such a nice day and the woods woke me up early. Funny, I never used to be able to get out of bed and now I’m up before first light. The birds get going in the dark, the few little whisperers, then the chatty ones; and I lie listening, waiting for the moment when the full chorus begins. It comes along with the light, and suddenly everything’s alive. Another night. Got through, I should say, but that makes it sound like an ordeal and it’s not, though it doesn’t always go easy. But my God, my head’s so full! Or rather, the fullness is out there. My head just lives in it.
I got up to the Wights, and sat against one of the biggest stones, and it felt cold against my back. I thought: Fuck you, Long Wights, you never deliver. All that crap about vibrations and earth energies and currents and how you can feel it, well, I never do. Put your hands on the stone and you’ll feel a tingling. Some may experience it as a kind of heat. Bollocks. I’ve tried. Nothing. The stones draw down thunder and lightning though, that I know. Wouldn’t want to be up here in a storm. This place is full of stories. This is where they brought the nasty old baron and killed him for what he did, boiled him alive or something vile like that. Didn’t happen. He lived to a ripe old age. Those old stories, you know, you can bet something really happened but it got garbled. She’d be a lovely fair maid in the ballad – oh the baron’s fair daughter was walking one day – and the serving lad, the lovely boy, he’s bonny and he’s rough, well, who could resist? Probably had acne and adenoids, poor love, but was the only one who was ever kind to her. She, a pasty plump stammering girl, fourteen, greasy-haired, knicker-wetting. And she got a massive crush on him and couldn’t help it. Neither could he.
There were cattle in the meadow and a few sheep nibbled below me. Creatures
