Woodhill Wood (21 page)

"Go to bed, Ben." she said gently.

"But Mum. I can't sleep."

"Why's that dear?"

"I just... can't..."

"Come on then. I'll take you upstairs."

She got to her feet and stood waiting for the father to react. He drew again on his cigarette and made a gesture with his hand. The mother immediately took her signal and shepherded Ben back up the flights of stairs with encouraging words.

The father took a long gulp of beer from his glass and swallowed it down. Gurde sat on the floor, clutching his knees, feeling tiny.

"Why did you do it, son?"

"I had to, Dad."

"Did you think I would never send it? Has she convinced you that I'm so stupid that I wouldn't know when the time was right?"

Gurde tried to plan his words. "No. I know you would have sent it in the end. It's just that..."

"What, son? Go on."

"...if I told you, you wouldn't believe me."

"What did she offer you? You know she's always been out to get me. For years she's been trying to ruin everything that I have worked for. What did she promise you? It's all right Matt, I feel better now. You can tell me. I won't be angry with you."

"Nothing, Dad. She didn't even know."

The father shook his head in disdain. "Why won't you tell me the truth?"

"That is the truth. She didn't know."

"And you expect me to believe that?"

"It's the truth."

"Do you know how many times she's tried to make me send that book? Do you know how often I've caught her sneaking into the drawer to paw over it? Do you really expect me to believe that she wasn't behind this? Come on, son. I won't be angry. Just tell me what happened."

Gurde stared at the floor. "I thought they'd accept it. I thought it was finished."

"Well, they didn't, did they? There was no way they would, not now. It just wasn't ready. She knew it wasn't ready. Like a fool I told her it wasn't ready and now she's done this. If only I... I just can't believe that it's gone. I just can't believe it. All that work, all those ideas. All gone. I'm surprised at you, Matt; I really am. I thought you were made of stronger stuff than this. Ben's young, but you? Go on, what did she tell you?"

"Nothing, Dad, honest."

The father sipped from his glass. "Gone. All those years..."

"Dad? I'm... I... "

"Why? Why would she do this to me? Why? I just don't understand. She seems to enjoy it. Really. She seems to actually enjoy making me suffer."

"I'm... sorry Dad. I... "

"It's not you, son. It's not you. You've just been used."

"Can't you... fix it or something?"

The father shook his head slowly. "No. No, that's not possible. I don't even think I can go on..." He hesitated and looked away, wondering whether he should continue. Gurde wanted him to tell me it all, let him in, but the father seemed unsure.

"Go on with what, Dad?"

"I... I don't think I can go on with my work, not after this. The ideas weren't right. It's that... It's that people have seen it now, important people, and what I was saying will make them think I'm mad because it wasn't ready. It was just ideas, just a draft. I don't think I can go on with the practice after this, Matt. I really don't think I can. Your mother said I was being ridiculous, but she just doesn't understand, does she? They'll be laughing at me now. Laughing at me. Me? You know what that's like, don't you? You know how hard that is. I'll have to leave the practice, and the Society. I'll have to leave it all. How can I show my face in there now? They'll be sitting around sniggering about it. I just can't believe she could do this to me. No, that's not true, I can believe it, I just never thought she would go this far."

"Dad?"

"Yes son? Tell me.."

"Mum didn't.... "

"Mum didn't what?"

"She didn't know."

The father smiled sadly. "No. Of course she knew. She's been waiting for this for years."

"No, you don't understand. I had to send it. Well.. I thought I had to. I thought it would be accepted. I thought it would make you happy."

"It wasn't ready, son."

"I'm sorry, Dad. I'm really sorry.. I.. "

"I'm sorry too," the father replied. His hopeless look brought tears to Gurde's eyes. "Sorry that I hit you like that. It was all just too much. I never thought I could do that. Are you all right? Did I hurt you?"

"I'm all right."

"I'm sorry you saw me like that. I said some things that..."

"I... "

"...you shouldn't have heard those things. It's not right."

Gurde stared back at the floor between his knees not knowing what to say. The father walked across the room and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on the mantelpiece then turned and walked out of the room, leaving Gurde sitting in the sudden quiet.

The mother came down the stairs, seven steps, then three, then a long pause before the final eleven. Gurde rose from the floor and sat on the piano stool, waiting to see the look on her face as she appeared. She looked nervously into the room.

"Where is he?"

Gurde shrugged.

"Are you OK?"

"It didn't hurt really."

"He's gone quite mad. I'm scared, Matty. What's he going to do next?"

"He's all right now. He's calmed down."

Her voice dropped to a whisper. "He hit me, Matty. I can't believe he hit me. I... I don't think it's safe for you and Ben here any more. I thought things were getting better, he seemed to be getting more reasonable, but now this. I don't think we should stay here any more. I just can't stand it any more. Those things he said, I... I can't believe he said all those things. They aren't true, Matty. They aren't true. You must believe me. He's cracking up. He's been working too hard, and things haven't been going too well for him, I know that, and I know he cared about his book, but this..."

"You're not leaving are you?"

"I... I don't know. I think I might go and stay with Margaret for a while, until things get better. I think you should come as well. I'll take Ben with me. Poor Ben was shaking like a leaf upstairs. He heard everything. He was sitting on the stairs frightened out of his wits. I don't want him to hear those sorts of things. Your father needs some time by himself to think, to calm down and decide whether he wants us with him or not."

"When will you go?"

"If he doesn't apologise then I'm not staying in this house tonight. Not after that."

"Tonight?"

"I don't know what'll happen. If he apologises, if he calms down, then we'll see. I just don't know at the moment."

The sound of the father's fist banging against the open door made them both jump. "What are you saying to him!"

"Nothing, Dad," Gurde said quickly, "she was just asking how I was."

"What were you saying to him! Telling him that I can't be trusted? You never stop do you? You just can't leave things be!"

"You hit me. I'll never forgive you for that. Never. And look what you've done to my son! Look at his face! You need help..."

"I need help? Is that it? Is that what you think? Or are you trying to make Matt hate me? What was she saying, Matt? More lies?"

"No, she was..."

"Don't try and cover for her. I know what she was saying. She was saying that it was all my fault. That nothing I said was true, wasn't she? Wasn't she!"

"No, Dad, she was saying that..."

"Come on, son. You can do better than that."

The mother took a deep breath. "I was... I was telling Matty that I was leaving you!"

"Oh... Is that all? Well, good! Get out! I don't need this."

"Right! I'm leaving, and I'm taking Ben with me."

"Oh no. You can go but my sons stay!"

"You need help. It's not safe for children in this house. Look at Matty's face. Look what you did to him? What kind of father would do that?"

"All right. You do what the fuck you like! Get out!"

"Come on, Matty."

"I'm staying here, Mum."

"What? No you don't! You're coming with me!"

"I'm staying."

"You heard the boy!"

"Why, Matty? Please come."

"I have to stay."

"No you don't. You don't have to stay."

"I have to stay."

The father beckoned to her. "Go on, then! What are you waiting for? Pack your bags! Go and stay with your little friends and tell them how perfect you are! Where are you going? Margaret's? Yes, I bet you are, you can all sit and hate men together!"

"That's unfair."

"Fair? She talks about fair!"

"Come on, Matty."

Gurde shook his head. "I told you... "

"Right. You stay," the mother hissed. "Ben comes with me!"

The father stormed into the study, slamming the door behind him, and didn't come out until they had gone. The mother's tears rolled on as she got Ben back out of the bed he had just been tucked into and got him dressed.

"Are you coming, Matty?" Ben asked on the landing.

"No. I'll be staying."

"Will you still be my brother?"

"Yes," Gurde said, "for as long as I can."

"Good," he said and ran down the stairs, obviously quite enjoying the late night adventure.

Gurde peered around the bedroom door to see the mother tearing clothes out of the drawers against the far wall, and slapping them into a little white suitcase.

"What do you want?" she said.

"Nothing."

"Do you mind going away, please. I don't really want to see you right at the moment. Thank you."

"I'll be in my room," Gurde said.

"You do that."

Gurde lay on the bed, still unable to accept that they had refused the book. He hadn't even considered the possibility and the price was being paid all around. A knock came on the door but it didn't open.

"We're going now," she said through the keyhole. "Tell your father... tell your father we've gone. I wish you'd... I'll come back at the weekend. I'll see you then."

"OK, Mum. Bye." Gurde listened to each door bang as she left the house.

Gurde stopped going to school. The return of the book had changed too many things. He needed time to think. With the mother leaving he had a good excuse. He remained under the covers until mid-morning, trying to accept the new world and waiting for the guilt to come.

With the mother gone there were none of the familiar morning sounds in the house; nobody throwing open the curtains to force him from under the covers, no banging of doors, no whine from the kettle, no muffled conversations, none of Ben's complaints of sudden illness. Just the wind rattling the bedroom windows.

The house was too full of the stains and smells of leaving. He had to get out. There was only one place left where he could think clearly.

He rolled out on to the cold carpet and pulled on the muddy clothes that were lying in a heap in the corner. The room was a mess, comics and clothes strewn all around where they had been thrown over the weeks. He gathered up the various pieces of school uniform and was about to put them in the washing bin by the bathroom door when he realised he would have to wash them himself now.

He carried the uniform downstairs into the kitchen and dumped it on top of the smelly heap by the washing machine. The kitchen seemed fresh and untouched, the air still crisp without the smell of burnt toast, as it had on the rare occasions when he had got up before her. The dinner plates still lay in the oily water in the sink.

Gurde looked around for something to eat. It was the day that the mother did the shopping at the supermarket on her way home from work. The cupboards along the kitchen walls were bare; a tin here, a tea bag there. He dug out the last two pieces of Weetabix, but there was no milk in the fridge, so he crumbled them back into the packet and put the last slices of bread into the toaster.

He thought the house was empty, but just to make sure he peered around the study door to check that the father had gone to work. The heavy brown curtains were closed keeping out most of the morning light. A few paths of brightness lay across the floor. The father was sitting so still that Gurde didn't see him at first.

"Dad?"

He was sitting in the armchair chair by the blackened fireplace, his hands gripping the frayed arms, a look of absolute calm on his face. Gurde wondered if he'd been to bed at all. It certainly smelt like he'd been there all night.

"Dad?"

There was no reaction. The only movements were the blinking of his eyes and the slow rise and fall of his chest.

"Dad? It's me. Do you want some tea?"

The father's eyes remained fixed on a spot on the wall, caught in an intense train of thought and not prepared to interrupt it.

Gurde decided it was best not to force him into making a reply. He left the father alone in the gloom. 

Despite the wind it was warm for early December. A thick layer of grey cloud covered the sky, dulling the colours. A fine mist hung in the air. Gurde stood outside the back door and took in a chestful of the dampness, then hurried down to the road. The father would probably have recovered by the time he got back.

Gurde wondered if the mother had gone to work, staring across her class of uniform children, struggling to keep her mind off all that had happened in the sitting room. Gurde imagined her shouting at the nervous children and pulling the rolled black leather belt from her desk and threatening the class with it as some teachers did. She had always said that the belt was wrong, and vowed never to use it, and yet it seemed appropriate to imagine her clutching it now.

The high wall at the bottom of the garden caught Gurde's attention. It was no longer important.

Gurde headed for the Woodhill, the one place where he would feel content. Mr Gunn and Spike might be waiting to see him despite what the old man had said as Gurde left to chase the father through the trees.

He walked past the silent church. As he dug his hands into his trouser pockets, he felt the silver nugget in the darkest corner where it had been slipped out of sight over a week before.

It had lain there forgotten among the pile of clothes on the bedroom floor. Gurde stopped in the middle of the road and lifted the pure metal in the light. He inspected it before slipping it back into his pocket.

There were no longer any leaves to shield the path through the Woodhill. All the soft colours that had brought the casual strollers had gone, leaving only stark lines curving up towards the bare branches. The rain could now fall unhindered. Over the days, the water had turned the golden carpet into a soggy mass that squelched underfoot. The mist that clung to the slopes made the trees drift out of focus as they stretched away, until the silver trunks became one with the distant greyness.

He followed the familiar twists and turns, heading for a place that he knew would be obvious when he found it. The damp smells that filled him were like a drug, deepening his breathing, clearing his head, separating him from all that had happened in the house. Gurde looked back to see the mist behind him shutting its hazy doors. But he still had not managed to change the place and make it truly his own.

The pole was back in position. The Wizard was waiting. The next time there would be no escape but there was no urge to climb up to the cliff. There was no desire to add to the changes that had flooded in to his world like water over a dam.

He walked along the path towards Gunn's log, hoping to see Spike bouncing out of control through the mist. Mr Gunn would be able to explain what had gone wrong. He would know whether Gurde was to blame. The old man's words were not checked to see if they would offend or amuse. His words were his own. They were the words of the Woodhill.

Gurde reached the log and found it empty. Without the old man it looked just like any other piece of rotting timber. He sat down on the soft wet wood. The fields below were faint through the naked trees. He leaned forward, trying to see what it was that the old man had always seemed to be staring at.

The Woodhill was silent apart from the distant rumble from the cars on the main road below.

The mother had never been there. She had never walked those paths or smelt that air. She would not have understood why the Wizard's Skull had to fall.

As the arrested man sat in his prison cell with his green eyes glaring at the walls, he could not know that good had come of what he had done. Gurde could bring friends to the house. He could play football in the garden without her watching from the windows. The man had drawn the pattern and the rest had followed as it was meant to do. Gurde was not crazy. Anyone that had seen the pattern would have done the same.

Matthew was rising again. It was Gurde that had chosen to send the book as the way to drive her out. He had always believed that it would be accepted, that the father would be angry but pleased and might die happy in the knowledge that he had left his mark on the world. He should have guessed that the father would blame her for sending the book. It was obvious now. He blamed her for everything else so why not that as well. Matt was worried but it was not Gurde's fault. The father’s depression would pass. Gurde could not have known that he would abandon the work. If the father had been a stronger man then the rejection would have been less serious. He would have blamed her, told the publishers his wife was mad, apologised for the inconvenience and sent the finished copy when it was ready.

Gurde had no need to feel guilty. There was nothing to apologise for. She had gone and things would improve. The father would be happier, freed of the woman that he claimed to hate, and Gurde could get on with changing Matt's world.

He surveyed the Woodhill. He was sure that the nightmares would fade. Matt was afraid that too much had been done and there would a price to pay. Gurde knew that the green eyes would soon cease their staring and leave him to sleep in a house that had been cleansed of the past.

He rose from the log, disappointed that Mr Gunn hadn't appeared to agree with his reasoning. The old man would have understood. Gurde walked back along the path, straining to hear the yap calling across the hillside, and watching for any sign of movement in the mist.

It wasn't long before Gurde reached the edge of the trees. The line where Mr Gunn's father had decided that further planting was fruitless. He stepped out of the protected world into a place where the breeze had driven the mists away to reveal a barren land. He hurried down the slope to the burn and crossed the rushing water.

Looking back through the mist he could just make out the gnarled silhouette of The Loner standing on the crest. It had been months since he had climbed that high. He closed his eyes, feeling the soft rain on his face, and tried to read whether he should go there. He turned around on the spot and listened for a signal.

When Gurde reopened his eyes he was facing the town. The Woodhill and The Loner were behind him. He had felt nothing, so he continued the journey down, following the slippery path that wound through the gorse bushes to the wall at the bottom.

The back door was open when he got back to the house, which was surprising. Gurde slammed it shut behind him and walked into the empty kitchen. Things were exactly as he had left them: the packet of white bread lying open on the fitment, the cold cup of coffee sitting by the sink. He rinsed out the cup and put it back on to its hook.

The study door was locked.

"Dad?" he called through the keyhole. "Dad? Are you there?" There was no reply so he wandered upstairs expecting to find the father resting but the bedroom and bathroom were empty too. "Dad?" His call rang through the house as he hurried back down to the study, wondering if the father was still sitting with his fingers gripping the arms of his chair. The study door rattled against the lock but there was no answer. He checked the television but that was standing silently in the corner of the living room, so he returned to the study for a third time and thumped on the door with the end of his fist. "Dad. Are you in there? Hello?" He decided to run outside and look in through the windows. Stepping through the back door Gurde saw that the father's car was still parked at the top of the drive. It was getting dark.

Gurde peered into the corners of the garden as he hurried around the side of the house to stand outside the study windows. The heavy brown curtains were still drawn and, though he looked for gaps, there was no way of seeing past them. No light came from within. He ran back into the house, making sure that he locked the back door behind him.

The mother always left a note if she was going out unexpectedly. Perhaps she would know where he was. Perhaps he had gone to find her. Gurde could call and ask her but the telephone was behind the locked door.

The study door hadn't been locked for years; the key was too big to carry around in a pocket. It had always sat unused in the far side of the door. Gurde squatted down and peered through the keyhole. The key was missing. The back door juddered and crashed open and footsteps rattled into the kitchen.

A sudden feeling of isolation took hold and he scampered down the hall into the sitting room. He hid behind the door, holding it closed, leaving a tiny crack to let any important sounds reach him. He checked the room over his shoulder, deciding to hide behind the sofa if he had to.

The door into the hall creaked open and shoes clicked out on to the tiled floor. Gurde counted four purposeful steps. They stopped. He could hear slow breathing, the ruffling of clothes and the tinkling of loose change as something was searched for in pockets. The key thumped into the lock and turned with a slow clunk. Gurde recognised the father's sniff and threw his head back in relief. 

"Dad?"

"Hello, son."

Gurde followed him into the darkened room. The father didn't turn the light on. There was a strong smell of burnt wood in the room but the fire was out.

"Are you all right, son? You look pale." His voice was slow and deliberate.

"I thought... "

He unwrapped the large bottle of whisky from its white tissue paper and placed it on his desk.

"Just been down to town," he said. "Running a bit low on the good stuff." He patted the bottle and Gurde realised he was drunk. "You seen your mother?"

"No."

"I want... I want you to tell her... She can have whatever she wants but everything in here is mine." He cast a wide, wavering gesture around the room with his right arm. "All this is mine. Remember."

"You going to keep it locked then?"

"Certainly am."

"Dad... "

"I don't blame you, son. I don't. Really. You mustn't let her get in here."

"OK."

"Good. Good."

He sat down in his chair with a sigh.

"Dad... I think...

"I got a 'phone call today Matt. They were asking where I was... pretending... pretending they didn't know, asking me if I... was going in today. Askin' if I was going in. But I could hear... the pity in Jane's voice. You can tell... you can tell when people are doing that, can't you son? She was pitying me. I can tell. I know what they're thinkin'. They're laughin' at me, you know that? It wasn't ready. The book wasn't ready. How could she have done that? Ten years and she... she couldn't leave it alone, could she? I always knew she would do it in the end. First she turned my sons... then she digs the knife in..."