‘My place,’ he said. ‘The best blueberries are on my patch.’ He turned up the music he was playing on the car radio through his iPhone. It was the Smiths’ ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out’. ‘Remember?’ he said.
She gazed at him and nodded. It had been their song.
They roared on up over the mountain, Stephen and Lara singing about double-decker buses crashing into them and dying by each other’s side.
‘I love that house,’ she said as they passed the pristine white farmhouse with the view.
‘Too exposed for me,’ Stephen said. ‘I need to be tucked away.’
They plunged again into the forest, until they got to his driveway. He reached into the side pocket of the car door and held out a button device. The locked gate whirred open, letting them pass, and clanged shut behind them.
‘It’s so beautiful here,’ Lara sighed as they drew up in the clearing by his house.
‘Yes.’ He looked over at her.
Lara stood to help Jack out of his seat. ‘Snakes!’ he said, wriggling out of her arms and making for the woodpile. Unseen by Jack, Stephen put his arm around Lara and kissed her hair.
‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ he said.
‘I’m glad I’m here, too. I’m so happy to have found you again. I thought—’
‘Stephen! Come and find snakes with me!’ Jack bowled back round the corner and they moved apart.
‘I’m going in to get the blueberry picking things,’ Stephen said. ‘Your mum’ll come and help you.’
‘All right. But you must have a stick, Mummy,’ Jack said.
They were poking in the woodpile when Lara felt Stephen’s hand on her shoulder.
‘There you go,’ he said, handing a small wicker basket to each of them.
‘Carry me,’ Jack said, holding his hands up to Stephen.
They wandered off along the path into the forest at the back of the house.
‘We could take the Wrangler, but it’s not too far and it’s a lovely day,’ Stephen said.
‘That’s fine by me,’ Lara said as they climbed steeply up through dappled woodland, away from the house. As they walked, Stephen told Lara and Jack how there had once been a settlement up there, how, a hundred years ago, these hills, which were now completely wooded, were bare and cultivated, populated by smallholders trying to etch a living out of the shallow, stony soil. But the demise of the railway, which used to pass within ten miles, and the difficulties the land and the bitter winters presented for farmers, forced people away from the area. Within a couple of decades the trees and undergrowth had taken over. Lara thought of the trouble she had keeping weeds at bay in her little back garden in Brighton. How quickly the native plants must grow out in this hot, wet environment. She could practically see the ground-hugging vines creeping along the rocky ground, an inch at a time, reclaiming the path from the humans.
With every step, Lara felt herself recovering from the past couple of days. The three of them were striding out into the future, the binding strands of history and duty breaking as they moved forward.
‘If you keep your eyes open, the remains of those settlers are everywhere,’ Stephen said. ‘See.’ He pointed to an ivy-choked wall running up the hill, perpendicular to the path. ‘That’s an old boundary wall. If you follow it up over the top and down again, it leads to a tumbledown house. I’ll take you there after we’ve picked the blueberries.’
‘Sounds good, eh, Jack?’ Lara said. The little boy, his head held high, his arms clasped around the tall man’s neck, nodded. Stephen held him firmly with one arm and, using a stick he had picked up, cleared an overgrown section of path by slashing at the long, green leafy stems of some sort of willowherb. With the boy and the stick and the forest, Stephen looked as complete as he did in the Dover’s Hill photograph he kept in his bedside table.
‘And here we are!’ Stephen said, as they reached the top of the slope and the dark green light behind the trees turned lime then blue with the sky. One more step, and they were on a grassy hilltop, bunched around with large shrubs that stood taller than Lara. Narrow pathways wound into the bushes, which were thick with dusty, blue-purple berries crying out to be picked.
Jack wriggled out of Stephen’s arms and ran to the bushes.
‘But look at the view,’ Lara said, climbing on to a tussocky mound and turning. For a full 360 degrees, wooded hills folded into each other, fading out into the purple distance. If it weren’t for five distant power lines cutting across the land on looming pylons, there would have been no sign of human intervention. For the first time for a while, Lara didn’t feel as if she were being overseen.
‘Pretty good, eh?’ Stephen said, placing his hand on her shoulder and pointing. ‘We’ve come from all the way down there.’
Lara closed her eyes and rested her cheek on his fingers. ‘I—’
‘Shh,’ he said, moving his finger to her mouth. ‘Come on, Jacko, let’s fill these baskets up for Mum to make you pancakes.’ Taking Jack by the hand, he led him off along one of the pathways, deep into the blueberry patch.
In a daze, Lara set to work on a bush, absent-mindedly filling her basket and popping the odd blueberry into her mouth, pressing its dull-sharp sweetness against her tongue. A low buzzing of flying insects joined the clatter of crickets and she prayed to be allowed to stay here, in this blueberry patch, for ever.
‘Look Mummy!’ Jack burst into her daydream from behind her bush, his basket full of berries.
‘That was quick,’ she said, squatting down to inspect his harvest.
‘He had a tiny bit of help.’ Lara looked up to see Stephen peering down at her. She stood to break the odd intimacy of the moment.
‘I reckon we’ve got enough for breakfast tomorrow and maybe a pie,’ Stephen said. ‘Although I think Mummy’s eaten more then she’s put in her basket.’ He licked his thumb and wiped a stain of juice from her lips.
‘Naughty Mummy,’ Jack giggled. ‘Can I—?’
A sudden crashing in the bushes behind them swamped his words and made Lara and Stephen wheel round. About a hundred feet from them, a six-foot black bear stood on its hind legs, staring at them with an outraged expression. It seemed to be as startled to find them as they were to see it.
Jack grabbed Lara’s legs.
‘Don’t make any sudden movements,’ Stephen whispered, standing tall. ‘Get behind me and whatever you do, don’t look it in the eyes.’
‘It’s all right, Jacko. It’s going to be just fine,’ Lara said, bundling Jack behind her and trying to hold him still.
As instructed, she looked towards, but not at, the bear, keeping it in her peripheral vision. She could tell, though, that it had its hungry eyes firmly set on them. The insect life around them had stilled into silence, as if sensing the tension that stretched between the people and the beast. Although it was quite far away, the fruited stable-smell of the bear wafted towards them in the hot afternoon air. For what seemed like an eternity, nothing happened.
‘Hey bear,’ Stephen said, holding his hand out low, palm down. ‘I’m going to talk now, Lara,’ he said in a low, slow voice. ‘Keep upright and stand tall. Remember, don’t look it in the eyes, but don’t look away, either.’ He waved his arms slowly up and down and drew himself up to his full height. ‘This fellow,’ he said of the bear, ‘probably thinks we’re on his personal berry patch. We’re going to show him we mean no harm and we’re going to let him have what we picked to tell him sorry.’
‘No!’ Jack yelled. At this sudden sound, the bear began to move, looping its heavy, furred body from side to side, rotating its head and grunting.
‘Quiet, Jack,’ Lara said, holding him firmly behind her, pressed into her legs. ‘We can get some more berries.’
‘Have the berries, bear,’ Stephen said, emptying his basket on to the grass beneath them. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘we back away.’ Still waving his arms and looking in the direction of the bear, he shuffled backwards, steering Lara and Jack towards the path back to the house. After they had moved about twenty yards, the bear made a move towards them.
‘Stop,’ Stephen said, grasping her hand. She felt his blood pulsing through his body. A bead of sweat rolled from his hair down the back of his neck. ‘We’re going to have to hold our ground. Get behind me.’
Lara pressed her face into Stephen’s back, holding Jack tight behind her. The bear began to lope towards them, picking up speed as it went. Stephen quickly lifted his arms right up, spread his legs wide and roared so loud that the trees around them seemed to shudder. Jack shivered into Lara’s legs.
To die by your side …
Stephen’s roar stopped the bear in its tracks. It froze on its hind legs while Stephen stood his ground, his arms up, looking as big as possible. Time stretched as man and bear regarded each other. At last, the bear dropped on its front paws to nose at the spilled blueberries, as if the three humans had disappeared.
‘He’s met his match,’ Stephen said, a small smile playing on his lips. ‘He’s met his bloody match.’
They backed into the forest. Only when they were out of sight of the bear did they turn round. Stephen hoisted Jack up into his arms.
‘Well done, my brave little man,’ he said. ‘Now we have to make as much noise as possible so that if he’s got any mates nearby we won’t surprise them. But don’t run, whatever you do.’
They climbed down to the house, shouting, clapping and yelling. By the time they got to the deck by the back door, Lara’s throat was hoarse. But the adrenaline that had seized her when she was scared now mingled with the deeper thrill of having survived. Stephen unlocked the doors and let them in.
‘I thought we were done for, back then.’ He turned and grinned at her. She flung her arms around him and Jack and for a moment the three of them stood there, holding on to each other. After a short while. Jack started wriggling, worming his way out from between them.
‘Snakes!’ he said.
An hour of hunting in the back meadow yielded great treasure – a four-foot-long black rat snake, which Stephen said was extremely rare that far north. Jack clapped his hands in delight as the thing attempted to constrict the stick Stephen had looped it around.
All too soon it was time for Lara to return, Cinderella-like, to the horrible house in Trout Island, where she was expected to cook and clean for everyone else.
On the way down the mountain, Lara made use of the noisy Wrangler engine and the wind rushing through their hair to tell Stephen about the two free hours she had the following evening.
‘Perhaps I could come up and pay you a visit?’ she said.
He smiled, looking ahead, his hand on the wheel. ‘That would be very nice indeed.’
‘Wait,’ he said as she jumped out of the jeep back at the house. He pressed a key into her hand. ‘Back door,’ he said. Then he took her arm and, using a pen from the dashboard, wrote five numbers on her skin.
‘That’s the code I’ll set for the gate tomorrow. Just come when you can and let yourself in.’
Lara waved goodbye, then carried Jack and the car seat inside. The house was as empty as it had been when they had left, earlier in the day, before they had been chased by a bear and saved by a hero.
BELLA HEARD THE WRANGLER PULL UP AND HER MOTHER SAYING
goodbye to Stephen, that she would see him tomorrow. The fly screens smashed open and shut and then there was the shout as her mother called up the stairs for her and Olly, who Bella knew, thankfully, wasn’t in.
She sighed and pulled the bedcovers further over her head. She wanted to go back to Brighton. Or, rather, she wanted to run away. She didn’t want to see her monster of a brother ever again. She hoped that no one would guess she was up here, in her bedroom.
She remembered Sean running to the car, his hands clamped over his front, his buttocks pale where his swimming shorts had been all summer, and she groaned at his humiliation and her shame for bringing it down on him. How could she face him again, after what Olly had done?
She was worried about how he was doing, but when, knowing the house to be empty, she had slunk out of her room to phone him, his mother had answered.
‘Yes? Who is this please?’ she had said, her voice cold, echoing like an admonishment in what Bella imagined to be a bare wooden hallway. Bella hung up without saying anything. Of course she couldn’t speak to Sean again. However much it hurt her, she had to stay away from him, because who knew what Olly would wreak on him if she didn’t? He was far, far better off without her.
So that was why, when the phone had rung on four different occasions, and on four different occasions her mother or her father had called up the stairs for her, she ignored them completely, pretending not to be there.
She was utterly alone, then. She had no one to turn to. Olly held the photos over her, so public humiliation stood in her way if she told anyone. And, even if she did speak out, where would her revelations stop? Whatever she said would get her into trouble herself, Marcus wouldn’t believe any of it anyway, and her mother seemed to be far too preoccupied with running around the countryside with Stephen Molloy to take any notice of what Bella was up to.
Starfucker mother.
Bella turned over and sighed again. That was it. She was done with her family. And she was done with love. Perhaps it was her own fault for letting things get out of hand with her brother when they were younger. Because now, in the face of everything that had happened, her shame hung on her in all this heat like a military greatcoat.
She thought about running away. She thought about taking one of Olly’s cronies’ guns and blasting his brains out. That would be the only way she would be truly free of him.
But then, she thought, wouldn’t it be easier just to curl up and die herself, here alone in this stinking bed?
AS LARA POUNDED THE RIVER ROAD, THE MORNING MIST CURLING
around her feet, she found she had a companion. Dog had popped up and was loping along beside her.
‘Hello boy,’ she said. ‘Come to save me from the beasts and bears and nutters?’
Dog looked from side to side, as if to confirm that he was, indeed, on lookout duty. Everything this animal did seemed to be designed to prove he was a good boy, but a part of Lara remained suspicious that he would, given half a chance, snack on her shins.