Mythago Wood - 1 (2 page)

Mythago Wood

In May 1944 I received my call-up papers and went reluctantly away to war,
training at first in the Lake District, then shipping over to France with the
7th Infantry.

On the eve of my final departure I felt so resentful of my father's apparent
lack of concern for my safety that, when he was asleep, I went quietly to his
desk and tore a page out of his notebook, the diary in which his silent,
obsessive work was recorded. The fragment was dated simply 'August 34', and I
read it many times, dismayed by its incomprehensibility, but content that I had
stolen at least a tiny part of his life with which to support myself through
those painful, lonely times.

The entry began with a bitter comment on the distractions in his life - the
running of Oak Lodge, our family home, the demands of his two sons, and the
difficult relationship with his wife, Jennifer. (By then, I remember, my mother
was desperately ill.) It closed with a passage quite memorable for its
incoherence:

A letter from Watkins - agrees with me that at certain times of the year the
aura around the woodland could reach as far as the house. Must think through the
implications of this. He is keen to know the power of the oak vortex that I have
measured. What to tell him? Certainly not of the first mythago. Have noticed too
that the enrichment of the pre-mythago zone is more persistent, but concomitant
with this, am distinctly losing my sense of time.

I treasured this piece of paper for many reasons, but particularly for the
moment or two of my father's passionate interest that it represented - and yet,
it locked me out

of its understanding, as he had locked me out at home. Everything he loved,
everything I hated.

I was wounded in early 1945 and when the war finished I managed to stay in
France, travelling south to convalesce in a village in the hills behind
Marseilles, where I lived with old friends of my father. It was a hot, dry
place, very still, very slow; I spent my time sitting in the village square and
quickly became a part of the tiny community.

Letters from my brother Christian, who had returned to Oak Lodge after the
war, arrived every month throughout the long year of 1946. They were chatty,
informative letters, but there was an increasing note of tension in them, and it
was clear that Christian's relationship with our father was deteriorating
rapidly. I never heard a word from the old man himself, but then I never
expected to; I had long since resigned myself to the fact that, even at best, he
regarded me with total indifference. All his family had been an intrusion in his
work, and his guilt at neglecting us, and especially at driving our mother to
taking her own life, had blossomed rapidly, during the early years of the war,
into an hysterical madness that could be truly frightening. Which is not to say
that he was perpetually shouting; on the contrary, most of his life was spent in
silent, absorbed contemplation of the oak woodland that bordered our home. At
first infuriating, because of the distance it put between him and his family,
soon those long periods of quiet became blessed, earnestly welcomed.

He died in November 1946, of an illness that had afflicted him for years.
When I heard the news I was torn between my unwillingness to return to Oak
Lodge, at the edge of the Ryhope estate in Herefordshire, and my awareness of
Christian's obvious distress. He was alone now, in the house where we had lived
through our childhood together. I could imagine him prowling the empty rooms,
perhaps sitting in father's dank and unwholesome study and remembering the hours
of denial, the smell of wood and compost that the old man had trudged in through
the glass-pannelled doors after his week-long sorties into the deep woodlands.
The forest had spread into that room as if my father could not bear to be away
from the rank undergrowth and the cool, moist oak glades, even when making token
acknowledgement of his family. He made that acknowledgement in the only way he
knew: by telling us - and mainly telling my brother -stories of the ancient
forestlands beyond the house, the primary woodland of oak, ash, beech and the
like, in whose dark interior (he once said) wild boar could still be heard, and
smelled, and tracked by their spoor.

I doubt if he had ever seen such a creature, but that evening, as I sat in my
room overlooking the tiny village in the hills (Christian's letter a crushed
ball still held in my hand) I vividly recalled how I had listened to the muffled
grunting of some woodland animal, and heard the heavy, unhurried crashing of
something bulky moving inwards, towards the winding pathway that we called Deep
Track, a route that led spirally towards the very heartwoods of the forest.

I knew I would have to go home, and yet I delayed my departure for nearly
another year. During that time Christian's letters ceased abruptly. In his last
letter, dated April 10th, he wrote of Guiwenneth, of his unusual marriage, and
hinted that I would be surprised by the lovely girl to whom he had lost his
'heart, mind, soul, reason, cooking ability and just about everything else,
Steve'. I wrote to congratulate him, of course, but there was no further
communication between us for months.

Eventually I wrote to say I was coming home, that I would stay at Oak Lodge
for a few weeks, and then find accommodation in one of the nearby towns. I said
goodbye to France, and to the community that had become so much a part of my
life. I travelled to England by bus and

train, by ferry, and then by train again. On August 20th I arrived by pony
and trap at the disused railway line that skirted the edge of the extensive
estate. Oak Lodge lay on the far side of the grounds, four miles further round
the road, but accessible via the right of way through the estate's fields and
woodlands. I intended to take an intermediate route and so, lugging my single,
crammed suitcase as best I could, I began to walk along the grass-covered
railway track, peering on occasion over the high, red-brick wall that marked the
limit of the estate, trying to see through the gloom of the pungent pinewoods.

Soon this woodland, and the wall, vanished, and the land opened into tight,
tree-bordered fields, to which I gained access across a rickety wooden stile,
almost lost beneath briar and full-fruited blackberry bushes. I had to trample
my way out of the public domain and so on to the south trackway that wound,
skirting patchy woodland and the stream called 'sticklebrook', up to the
ivy-covered house that was my home.

It was late morning, and very hot, as I came in distant sight of Oak Lodge.
Somewhere off to my left I could hear the drone of a tractor. I thought of old
Alphonse Jeffries, the estate's farm supervisor, and with the memory of his
weather-tanned, smiling face came images of the mill-pond, and fishing for pike
from his tiny rowing boat.

'A couple of sticks and a bit of string . . . that's all it takes.'

Christian's voice startled me. He must have walked along a beaten track from
the Lodge, hidden from my view by the shed. Delighted, I jumped to my feet and
turned to face him. The shock of his appearance was like a physical blow to me,
and I think he noticed, even though I threw my arms about him and gave him a
powerful brotherly bear-hug.

'I had to see this place again,' I said.

'I know what you mean,' he said, as we broke our embrace. 'I often walk here
myself.' There was a moment's awkward silence as we stared at each other. I
felt, distinctly, that he was not pleased to see me. 'You're looking brown,' he
said. 'And very drawn. Healthy and ill together

'Mediterranean sun, grape-picking, and shrapnel. I'm still not one hundred
percent fit.' I smiled. 'But it
is
good to be back, to see you again.'

'Yes,' he said dully. 'I'm glad you've come, Steve. Very glad. I'm afraid the
place . . . well, a bit of a mess. I only got your letter yesterday and I
haven't had a chance to do anything. Things have changed quite a bit, you'll
find.'

And he more than anything. I could hardly believe that this was the chipper,
perky young man who had left with his army unit in 1942. He had aged incredibly,
his hair quite streaked with grey, more noticeable for his having allowed it to
grow long and untidy at the back and sides. He reminded me very much of father:
the same distant, distracted look, the same hollow cheeks and deeply wrinkled
face. But it was his whole demeanour that had shocked me. He had always been a
stocky muscular chap; now he was like the proverbial scarecrow, wiry, ungainly,
on edge all the time. His gaze darted about, but never seemed to focus upon me.
And he smelled. Of mothballs, as if the crisp white shirt and grey flannels that
he wore had been dragged out of storage; and another smell beyond the naphtha
... the hint of woodland and grass. There was dirt under his fingernails, and in
his hair, and his teeth were yellowing.

He seemed to relax slightly as the minutes ticked by. We sparred a bit,
laughed a bit, and walked around the pond, whacking at the rushes with sticks. I
could not shake off the feeling that I had arrived home at a bad time.

'Was it difficult. . . with the old man, I mean? The last days.'

He shook his head. 'There was a nurse here for the final two weeks or so. I
can't exactly say that he went peacefully, but she managed to stop him damaging
himself . . . or me, for that matter.'

'I was going to ask you about that. Your letters suggested hostility between
the two of you.'

Christian smiled quite grimly, and glanced at me with a curious expression,
somewhere between agreement and suspicion. 'More like open warfare. Soon after I
got back from France, he went quite mad. You should have seen the place, Steve.
You should have seen him. I don't think he'd washed for months. I wondered what
he'd been eating . . . certainly nothing as simple as eggs and meat. In all
honesty, for a few months I think he'd been eating wood and leaves. He was in a
wretched state. Although he let me help him with his work, he quickly began to
resent me. He tried to kill me on several occasions, Steve. And I mean that,
really desperate attempts on my life. There was a reason for it, I suppose . .
.'

I was astonished by what Christian was telling me. The image of my father had
changed from that of a cold, resentful man into a crazed figure, ranting at
Christian and beating at him with his fists.

'I always thought he had a touch of affection for you; he always told
you
the
stories of the wood; I listened, but it was you who sat on his knee. Why would
he try to kill you?'

'I became too involved,' was all Christian said. He was keeping something
back, something of critical importance. I could tell from his tone, from his
sullen, almost resentful expression. Did I push the point or not? It was hard to
make the decision. I had never before felt so distant from my own brother. I
wondered if his behaviour was having an effect on Guiwenneth, the girl he had
married. I wondered what sort of atmosphere she was living in up at Oak Lodge.

Tentatively, I broached the subject of the girl.

Christian struck angrily at the rushes by the pond. 'Guiwenneth's gone,' he
said simply, and I stopped, startled.

'What does that mean, Chris? Gone where?'

'She's just gone, Steve,' he snapped, angry and cornered. 'She was father's
girl, and she's gone, and that's all there is to it.'

'I don't understand what you mean. Where's she gone
to?
In your letter
you sounded so happy . . .'

'I shouldn't have written about her. That was a mistake. Now let it drop,
will you?'

After that outburst, my unease with Christian grew stronger by the minute.
There was something very wrong with him indeed, and clearly Guiwenneth's leaving
had contributed greatly to the terrible change I could see; but I sensed there
was something more. Unless he spoke about it, however, there was no way through
to him. I could find only the words, 'I'm sorry.' . 'Don't be.'

We walked on, almost to the woods, where the ground became marshy and unsafe
for a few yards before vanishing into a musty deepness of stone and root and
rotting wood. It was cool here, the sun being beyond the thickly foliaged trees.
The dense stands of rush moved in the breeze and I watched the rotting boat as
it shifted slightly on its mooring.

Christian followed my gaze, but he was not looking at the boat or the pond;
he was lost, somewhere in his own thoughts. For a brief moment I experienced a
jarring sadness at the sight of my brother so ruined in appearance and attitude.
I wanted desperately to touch his arm, to hug him, and I could hardly bear the
knowledge that I was afraid to do so.

Quite quietly I asked him, 'What on earth has happened to you, Chris? Are you
ill?'

He didn't answer for a moment, then said, 'I'm not ill,' and struck hard at a
puffball, which shattered and spread on the breeze. He looked at me, something
of resignation in his haunted face. 'I've been going through a few changes,
that's all. I've been picking up on the old man's work. Perhaps a bit of his
reclusiveness is rubbing off on me, a bit of his detachment.'

'If that's true, then perhaps you should give up for a while.'

'Why?'

'Because the old man's obsession with the oak forest eventually killed him.
And from the look of you, you're going the same way.'

Christian smiled thinly and chucked his reedwhacker out into the pond, where
it made a dull splash and floated in a patch of scummy green algae. 'It might
even be worth dying to achieve what he tried to achieve . . . and failed.'

I didn't understand the dramatic overtone in Christian's statement. The work
that had so obsessed our father had been concerned with mapping the woodland,
and searching for evidence of old forest settlements. He had invented a whole
new jargon for himself, and effectively isolated me from any deeper
understanding of his work. I said this to Christian, and added, 'Which is all
very interesting, but hardly
that
interesting.'

'He was doing much more than that, much more than just mapping. But do you
remember those maps, Steve? Incredibly detailed . . .'

I could remember one quite clearly, the largest map, showing carefully marked
trackways and easy routes through the tangle of trees and stony outcrops; it
showed clearings drawn with almost obsessive precision, each glade numbered and
identified, and the whole forest divided into zones, and given names. We had
made a camp in one of the clearings close to the woodland edge. 'We often tried
to get deeper into the heartwoods, remember those expeditions, Chris? But the
deep track just ends, and we always managed to get lost; and very scared.'

'That's true,' Christian said quietly, looking at me quizzically; and added,
'What if I told you the forest had
stopped
us entering? Would you believe
me?'

I peered into the tangle of brush, tree and gloom, to where a sunlit clearing
was visible. 'In a way I suppose it did,' I said. 'It stopped us penetrating
very deeply because it made us scared, because there are few trackways through,
and the ground is choked with stone and briar. . . very difficult walking. Is
that what you meant? Or did you mean something a little more sinister?'

'Sinister isn't the word I'd use,' said Christian, but added nothing more for
a moment; he reached up to pluck a leaf from a small, immature oak, and rubbed
it between thumb and forefinger before crushing it in his palm. All the time he
stared into the deep woods. 'This is primary oak woodland, Steve, untouched
forest from a time when all of the country was covered with deciduous forests of
oak and ash and elder and rowan and hawthorn . . .'

'And all the rest,' I said with a smile. 'I remember the old man listing them
for us.'

'That's right, he did. And there's more than three square miles of such
forest stretching from here to well beyond Grimley. Three square miles of
original, post-Ice Age forestland. Untouched, uninvaded for thousands of years.'
He broke off and looked at me hard, before adding, 'Resistant to change.'

I said, 'He always thought there were boars alive in there. I remember
hearing something one night, and he convinced me that it was a great big old
bull boar, skirting the edge of the woods, looking for a mate.'

Christian led the way back towards the boathouse. 'He was probably right. If
boars
had
survived from mediaeval times, this is just the sort of
woodland they'd be found in.'

With my mind opened to those events of years ago, memory inched back, images
of childhood - the burning touch of sun on bramble-grazed skin; fishing trips to
the mill-pond; tree camps, games, explorations . . . and instantly I recalled
the Twigling.