Pollard Read online

  Of course, Nigel said, of course they have.

  I walked right through it. Anne talked with her eyes on the cake, she couldn’t help herself.

  Nigel stood, he’d seen someone approach, but he looked at Anne in surprise, when she spoke, his mouth open so she could see all the pinkness and spit. Good on you, Anne. He raised a fist. I didn’t think of that. Civil disobedience. Why didn’t I think of that? Civil disobedience is the way forward. It’s obvious. The more we cut it the slower they’ll be to start. I’m relying on you, Anne. Cut, cut, cut.

  He gathered his tattered papers. Ah well, bloodied but unbowed, he said, making for the new arrival. How was it he never noticed people step back from him as he approached? No one ever wanted to talk to him. That was obvious. Anne watched him go through his patter. Nigel was a nutter. She thought about taking a bite of his cake, but he was coming back already. It hadn’t gone well by the looks of things.

  He sat back down sighing and ate the cake in two mouthfuls. He hadn’t lost his appetite after all. Ranger crossed from the car park, clean and brisk, sleeves rolled up, sandy hair bright in the sun. Morning, Ranger, Sue said, like he was something special. Anne goggled at him. I know what you’re at, she said to him in her head. He held the door open for a lady with a tray. With more than half of herself Anne admired him. She hadn’t known that he could shoot. How much do you get for a carcass? she wanted to ask. I’ll bet you’re making a tidy bit on the side.

  He never acknowledged Anne when he saw her at the café. She didn’t fit with his clean and tidy image. He was a tosser after all, Anne told herself in Peter Parker’s voice. She got up and went to look for bicycles in the new skip. But she brushed past him, as she went, on purpose and uncomfortably close. She thought he ought to know that she knew. Ranger looked surprised. She usually kept her distance. You want to look where you’re going.

  Anne gave him a little smile and kept her mouth shut. I’ve seen you. I know what you’re at.

  ♦

  The skip was like a mini dump. All kinds of people pulled into the lay-by in the early evenings, men mostly. They’d get out, looking a bit shifty, and put something quickly in and drive on. Anne checked regularly, hoping for bicycles. It was electrical stuff mostly, useless, plus some kids’ stuff, an old pushchair once and a giant glittery teddy with staring eyes. She did find a telly, but that was elsewhere, among a load that had been fly-tipped on the other side. She went and fetched the wheelbarrow and wheeled it back. She knew it wouldn’t work but it was something to look at and she could imagine.

  What the heck use is that? Peter Parker asked when he saw it.

  Anne shrugged. She didn’t have to explain everything to him. Do you have a TV?

  He stared at her. Like. No. And we cook our food on a fire.

  He’d skipped school again. It was well boring. He took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket. Want one?

  Anne was mocking. I’ve seen you, coughing with your little mates. What d’you want to smoke for?

  Now it was his turn to shrug. He pushed the cigarettes back into his pocket. I nicked them off of my stepdad.

  Anne went and sat by him. He’d seemed quieter recently, moody. Maybe it was just since the rabbit, she couldn’t tell. Go on then, she said. I’ll have one with you. My mum used to smoke. He looked up, flashing a smile. Why? Why should it matter to him if she smoked with him or not?

  He took the cigarettes out again, old hand. Got a light?

  Anne went in and fetched one of Steve’s lighters. Well, it was a special occasion of sorts. She’d never had a cigarette before. The smoke looked blue and alien in the clearing. It made curious patterns before the air got it. Anne didn’t breathe it in much.

  You’ve got a bike, haven’t you? she asked him after a bit.

  And? Peter Parker said. You’re not borrowing it if that’s what you’re after. I’m not having you trash my bike. Your weight.

  It came out rude but he didn’t mean it like that. Anne smiled to herself and blew smoke. She wasn’t telling him. It was a surprise. For when the walkway was up.

  Are you inhaling? Peter Parker watched the smoke out of Anne’s mouth. He was sitting with his elbows looped on his knees, old tracksuit bottoms and a football shirt. It makes holes in your clothes if you drop it on you by mistake. You’re not smoking unless you breathe it in. Look. He squinted his eyes when he sucked. He looked hard and soft all at the same time.

  Anne inhaled and he watched her. Her eyes swam.

  Makes your head buzz, don’t it?

  They lay on their backs with their heads buzzing and felt ill side by side. Anne said the names of the birds as they crossed, so he’d know. Jay, blackbird, tit, tit.

  Peter Parker rolled onto his side giggling. Oh man.

  Flycatcher.

  Alright, alright. He was hungry. He wasn’t going to eat her food. He wanted to go to the café. He’d got some pennies. Get me some crisps or something. I don’t want no one to see me. On the way they passed wild raspberries. Anne picked a handful. You don’t eat the red ones, he told her. The red ones aren’t ripe. I know that, my nan told me.

  He didn’t know anything. He wouldn’t survive for five minutes. Anne crammed the handful into her mouth. She was grinning at him all the time.

  You’re crazy. He looked at her slantwise, like he always did, his lips slightly curled. You’re probably going to die, one of these days, you know that?

  They’re raspberries. Don’t you even eat raspberries?

  I don’t eat nothing out of the woods. I told you. I’m not an animal. Sometimes he didn’t find her funny. Come on, I want my crisps.

  When they got near the café he gave her the money. Don’t take none, mind. I want to know what it costs and I want the change, alright? If there’s enough, get me a Mars and all. He ducked down in the undergrowth.

  Anne went on a little way into the Woodpecker clearing. She hadn’t shopped for ages. She opened her palm and looked at the money that was strange to her. She looked across at the café. What had he asked her to do? She couldn’t shop. She couldn’t remember what any of the coins were. She couldn’t do it. She turned and looked back at where she’d left him. No sign. And then there he was, head up and signalling. He was so obvious in the light. Anne looked quickly over her shoulder to see if anyone else had noticed. He was frantic. Get on with it, his hands were saying. I can’t wait all day.

  Alright, alright, Anne thought, in his own words and turned and went into the café. The things I do for you.

  But it was easier than she’d thought. It wasn’t Sue, it was one of the young girls. She didn’t even look at Anne when she served her. One thirty-seven thank you. And, although Anne was sweating and shaking, and although she dropped a coin on the floor and someone else bought a drink over her while she looked for it, she managed. Then she nearly bumped into Sue on the way out.

  Oops. Takes two to bump. Won the lottery, have we? Never seen you buying before.

  Anne mumbled and scuttled. I’ve got a friend.

  That’s nice, Sue said at her back. Enjoy.

  She didn’t care if Sue raised her eyebrows at someone at a nearby table. She didn’t see or want to see. She did a funny lolloping walk, only just managing to stop herself from running in triumph across the clearing and back to Peter Parker’s head in the bushes.

  He put his thumbs up at her and grinned. Worcestershire sauce flavour? Yess. He kissed the packet. He gave her two crisps for going to get them and a bite of his Mars bar.

  They walked back down one of the quieter rides.

  What do you want me to do then? Go on. Shall I climb up that tree? I bet you I can get as high as that nest.

  That was how he was nowadays, buzzing one minute, taking risks, gooning about for her, and then for no reason he’d be quiet, like she was invisible. It made her cross sometimes because she’d want to say, What do you come all this way for if it’s just to be mardy? Spoiling a sunny day with one of his sulks. Anne never asked, but she could see
. She was no fool. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist.

  Don’t go that way. I’ll be for it if anyone sees me.

  For what?

  If they find out I’m here again. You know. I’ll be for it.

  So, trouble, obviously.

  What do you come for then, if you get yourself in the bad books?

  Peter Parker rubbed his hands and took a jump at a low branch, swinging upside down like a monkey, then up and crouching on it on his toes. He wasn’t even holding on.

  But it was a stupid question. Why had she asked him? She’d come, hadn’t she, all that time ago; she knew. She could remember.

  I came to the wood once. Her voice was anxious and appealing. Come down off that branch, was what she wanted to say.

  He flicked his hair back. You’re still here, he said. In case you hadn’t noticed. He jumped down beside her. Sometimes you’re so lame.

  Anne just laughed.

  ♦

  He didn’t always come. Sometimes there’d be days between visits, when Anne would enjoy the solitude, wondering about his separate life, as she busied herself about the clearing, patching, making, putting things in order. Or she’d feel well and bursting with it, because it was summer maybe, or because she knew her place and she wasn’t alone. Then she’d walk just for the sake of it, with some slight errand in mind, wide of the wood, at dusk usually, at the changeover from swifts to bats, the moths bumping about and the smells leaking from hedgerow, from cut grass, tree, track, barn or abandoned machine, as if everything, so distinctly itself, waited until evening to give up its identity. Did she smell more at this time of day? Anne wondered.

  There was hay several fields down; that’s where she was going. She had string looped over one shoulder and a bag tied on at her waist. She was going to see if the field had been tedded. Hay was her luxury in summer, new hay for a mattress. It made the hut smell lovely. But you had to be patient. You had to wait for the tedding for two reasons. It was easier to take then, without it being obvious, and you didn’t want it before it was properly dry. They baled usually a day or two after tedding. You had to be quick. You took a line, somewhere near the middle of the field and just rolled it off the top. The tighter you rolled the more hay you got and then you tied it and lumped it back. Two or three journeys Anne usually made, depending on how much she wanted and how much energy she had. Sometimes at the edges or where the tractor had turned quickly, there was grass still standing. Anne pulled at the heads absendy, identifying them in the dusk just by the feel of them, and even without Peter Parker, she said the names to herself out of habit. Timothy. Burnet. Rye. If there were wild oats she picked them carefully and put them into the separate bag.

  Quiet. And the smell of hay. And one car sweeping past on a road on its way home.

  Then, walking back, bent under the first load, Anne glanced up to see her barn owl, ghosting out of the ditch with his own burden, something small and bulky in his foot. He raised his eyebrows in recognition and surprise. Fancy seeing you too, Anne told him, light-hearted, and she watched him away. It was a field mouse. She could tell that by the length of its tail. She was thinking of what the owl never considered, that rushing exchange. Changing the thick, known world of grass and earth, for the horror of air.

  She rubbed her back, sore from the bending. The light dark of a summer night. The first bats stunting overhead and the mouse with new noises in its ears, over the hedge now, in its last confusion of flight and death. A black silhouette, just the small J of the tail hanging down in a curl, while the great wings beat above it. Anne turned to the outline of the wood. And that happens every night, she told herself.

  She thought she’d go for one more load, though the dark was fallen. She wasn’t ready to sleep. Might as well. She went through the gate and round to the housing estate field. All the lights were on in the estate and as she came through the hedge she was in time to see a car, on Steve’s old track, explode into flame. What Ranger called a take-and-bake. There were boys on the haylage bales, dancing about, effing and blinding, watching. She could see them frenetic against the sky. Bad boys. Then the breeze shifted and the noise of the flames and a great plume of smoke, thicker than the night and blacker, reached towards the edge of the wood. Acrid stink in the summer branches, catching in Anne’s throat. Something horrible burning. She got up to move on round, still watching the fire and now, at the edge of the estate, the blue lights of the police pulsed.

  The boys’ heads turned.

  Fucking lose yourselves.

  They were smaller, more runtish, than they’d looked on the bales. Slithering down the sides, falling and stumbling. I’m out of here. One of them kept tripping over, pushing at the backs of the ones in front, waiting to go through the hole in the hedge. Across the hayfield now, their movements jerky and inadequate. This way and that. Their high, half-broken voices floating back to her through the darkness, panicky and foul-mouthed.

  Anne waited a while, to watch the police talk into their walkie-talkies by the car. They looked around a bit but they either didn’t see the boys, or didn’t bother going after them.

  In the distance Anne heard a fire engine wail. She turned to go into the wood.

  ♦

  Anne had carted the hay. She had unrolled it in her clearing, to dry off the evening dew that would have been on it in the field. And still Peter Parker stayed away. She had rolled the hay up again, but looser, and dropped it into the box sides of her bed. She had slept on it for two fragrant nights. And now she began to feel restless. She wandered about in the wood during the day, hoping to bump into him, wondering where he was. She would have gone to look for him but she had no idea where to start. How many days, four? Five?

  So, now, without thinking, down the path towards the new area, and it was pretty noisy, Anne noticed. There was another new road, at the intersection of two coppices, an old ride that she remembered as a scooped green lane. It had been soft almost all year round, with the trees arcing over. Walking down it used to be like walking through a loop of green light.

  Anne stepped out onto the road. It was lumped up for drainage. Very clean, very hard. Grey granite chippings, with new posts along the way to sign you in case – what? What could happen in the thirty yards between that post and this? Anne had no idea. She stood on the road and looked at the posts. She missed the green shape of it before. She thought, like she always did, of the earth under the road, under her feet – useless now. Never grow anything any more, and the worms struggling through tlie sterile dark, puzzling at compaction.

  And as she stood there, Peter Parker forgotten for a moment, many people passed her. People buzzing along, in tight clothes, on bikes, running, and two women in particular, walking in a funny way, talking, with their elbows bent, fists pumping. They all travelled fast, as if they were going down a tunnel, hardly a glance to left or right. You walk differently on a road, clearly. They skirted Anne briskly, as though she was invisible, until a woman with two Labradors, they bounding and she wheezing behind, saw Anne and said, Good morning, and, What a privilege to be in the woods on a day like this.

  Anne said, Yes. Absently. But in? In? she thought. She looked down at the clean granite surface, holding back the trees, stretching away and away, wider than need be, separating you from the trees, the ruts, the snatching undergrowth laced across with threads of cobweb, the hanging caterpillars spinning themselves down from the trees and into your face by mistake. This isn’t in anything. This is on. She walked away down its grey length, her queer and rolling walk out of sync with the road, moving at wood pace, flexing at the knees and lifting her feet because of the habit of mud. Why do you walk funny? Peter Parker had asked her once. You look daft like that.

  Where was Peter Parker, and where had all these people come from suddenly? How had this side of the wood filled up so quickly without her noticing?

  Anne walked as far as the tape at the poaching grounds. There was a mess. There were big Portakabins with fat men in and out of them i
n hard hats carrying cups. Their trousers were falling down. There were machines the size of Portakabins parked about and piles of treated wood on the ground. But the trees were still standing. No sign of a walkway yet. In front of Anne, on the tape, was a yellow sign with a black hand in its centre. Woodland operations in progress. Keep out!

  Anne went back to the clearing and waited for Peter Parker. How many days now? She notched sticks, lost count, notched twice in one day by mistake. Was he alright?

  ♦

  When he did come at last, it was late for him. Dusk. Anne had been sewing her rabbit-skin blanket, had given up with the light and was sitting watching nothing in particular. He was so unexpected, now, at this time of day, Anne thought she was imagining him. Only he looked different. His hair was shaved like the hayfields.

  She jumped up, unable to disguise her pleasure and relief. Then she felt a fool, and sat down again and went back to her sewing like she didn’t care.

  What have they done to your head?

  Peter Parker ran his hand over the stubble. Number one. Me stepdad done it. It’s discipline.

  Three syllables to that word. Anne rolled it round thoughtfully. Discipline.

  He was in the army. I wish he still was.

  Anne looked up at him standing there, stick in hand like usual, thin. It’s nice to see you, Peter Parker, she was thinking but she didn’t say it. She would have put her hand out to touch him but she didn’t do that either. It looked like it was going to be one of his angry times. Talking was all she had to offer, to soothe him, to keep him there. Steve was in the army, she thought. Then, I’ve got an army coat, she told him, to keep the conversation going.

  Peter Parker hit his shoe with the stick. Fuckin squaddie. I hate him. He came and sat down. Got anything normal to eat?

  Anne had an egg. Would an egg do? That was normal wasn’t it?

  He looked doubtful. What kind of an egg?

  Fried? I don’t know, boiled?

  He’d have a fried egg then. But mind it was clean. He wasn’t eating no forest muck.