‘Well, think about it! You’re young. What if things don’t work out and you’re somewhere far away all on your own?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Mother, if you could hear yourself. You sound crazy.’
‘Oh, thank you! That’s nice! Oh, that’s a really nice thing to say to me!’
‘For fuck’s sake!’ Into his room. Slam the door. Oh, he was the tough one then!
Should have just gone then, made her get used to it.
17
I had to move.
Shame but it was necessary. Kids hanging round, couple of little toughies. Nearly came face to face with them coming back from town one day. I was off the path, wading through the marshy bit, and there they were, bashing the bushes with their sticks. So I got down low. Got myself all wet hiding, and I think they heard me because they went all quiet, and when I peeked out, there they were, still as statues, listening. Boys with little scared faces, holding their sticks like weapons. A squirrel jumped from one tree to the next, shaking the branches over their heads, and they crashed away like panicked baby elephants.
Highly unlikely they’d ever get near my place, but you can’t be too careful. I spent the next few days getting my Bower Number Two ready. I’d had it sussed out for a while. I’d decided I’d always keep at least one other little bolthole ready. I could have two or three. Then I could just keep moving about whenever I wanted to.
My new place is nicer than the old one in some ways – higher up, airier. More of the light gets through, and I’m further up the stream. It’s bigger. I had to get a new tarpaulin from town, but I’m all snug again now. And I didn’t leave a trace back there. It’s like when you move in a town really, just the same: you have to get used to all the new landmarks, the shapes of trees, particular plants, murky patches. It’s all falling into place now. Ah here we are: dead fox gully, toadstools, fernyfronds, big bear rock.
When the rain returned I found it to be snug and almost watertight. A little more work and it would be perfect. It’s essential that I hone my needlework skills, which were never up to much. Two nights of gentle rain, pleasant enough, but on the third day the wind got up again, and again it spoke in voices, which eventually separated and became two voices arguing back and forth till finally they were screaming at one another. Rain came down again and there was no doing anything with the day, till the next darkness fell, and with it rose the next storm, madder, more spiteful than the last.
*
A horrible night, trees falling.
The weather these days, thought Dan. Not normal, is it? He took the flashlight and went and stood at the edge of the wood. He even went a little way along the path, shone the light and shouted through the sound of the wind in the trees.
Next day he went looking but had no idea where she was holed up. A few trees were down, their exposed roots raw and stark, writhing at air. The woman’s mad, he thought. This is a wild wood. It’s not like some little kiddie play area, this is an old wild wood. He hadn’t minded for a while, it was even kind of interesting, but now the weather was turning he was starting to worry a bit. What if she was dead in there?
Oh well, he thought, that was her lookout.
It rained all that day and all the next.
There but for the grace, he thought. He could imagine sometimes how he could have quite easily gone off the rails. Sometimes he thought he had, when he was doing the whole middle-of-the-night fear thing, or waking up from a knocked-out drink-sleep. But the bottle kept him handy. There was no way he was ever going to do without it.
Couldn’t even remember how long he’d been sitting there holding this bottle neck. Fancy ending up like this, he thought. There’s that orange cat again. There was about an inch left in the bottle. He wasn’t sure of the time. It was all crashing about out there, and the buckets on the landing were filling. He should go and empty them. The worst night yet. That’s why the cats have all come in, look at them, taking over. Think they own the place. Christ! Thor’s bolt. Something came down outside. He should go and look. He groaned getting into his wellies, dragged on his waterproof, grabbed the torch and stomped out. Puddles glittered all across the yard. Slippery leaves waved. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ he said, hunching his way across the yard. The hives were safe, nothing amiss that he could see. He went round the front. Aha. The bonnet had flown off his gran’s old car. Right into the wall – that must have been the noise.
He got back in and built up the fire good and high. Christ, he thought, that woman in the wood. She’ll be dead. No one could live out there in this.
Bit grim. Dead in there and nobody knowing. Like the body all over again.
Well, that’s her silly lookout, isn’t it?
He swore roundly putting the guard on the fire which was blazing up nicely, getting back into his freezing wellies and his wet stuff, hurling himself out into the madness once more, swore himself into the edge of the wood and walked a little way towards the ruin. He was pretty certain that was her patch. He thought she might have mentioned a rock. He could think of a couple, big things near water. ‘Hello-o-o!’ he shouted. She’d never hear that.
This was stupid but at least when she turned up dead he could say he tried. The flashlight was lurid, the dark terrifying. Any minute there’d be something horrible, a face or something. The wood
