Cold Boy's Wood by Carol Birch (if you liked this book TXT) 📗

‘Campers,’ Dan said.

‘So long as they’re careful.’

‘I’ll keep an eye out,’ said Dan.

*

He could have laid in wait, got the police, whatever, but when he’d thought about actually doing anything, a great torpor had come over him, and now a kind of routine had set in. He didn’t see her, but he knew she came and went, once, twice a week, maybe more, who knows, she was stealthy. And once he saw her stalking in the field, acting crazy, gesturing with her arms as if she was talking to someone. When she turned towards him, he hid behind a tree.

That was it.

Poor bugger, he thought.

She always came when he was out, but one day in the very early morning while he was lying on the settee with a headache crowding his eyes, drinking cold tea from his cowboy mug, having not been to bed, he heard the click of the gate and knew she was coming in from the woods. Still creepy, he thought. Creep creep creep when everything’s quiet.

She wasn’t there long, couple of minutes. Then he heard the click again when she left. It was only just light. He got up, went to the back door and opened it, looked out. She was walking just this side of the trees on the other side of the stone wall. She froze. He didn’t know why he’d opened the door. They looked at each other nervously.

‘You’re up early,’ she said.

He didn’t say anything for a moment then, ‘Thought you might like to know, someone saw your fire. Smoke.’

‘Oh,’ she said, and her heart sank. She’d been worrying about that.

‘What’s it like out there?’ he said.

‘I like it,’ she said, and he went back inside, and she walked on, thinking, funny how it all turned out. He’s OK. First I thought I fooled him, didn’t want him knowing I came from the woods. But of course he knows.

She went back in the evening to listen to the music. Poor man with his old music. Pathetic, aren’t we? All living in the past. What’s he playing now? Bob Marley and the Wailers. Not his usual. Oh God, doesn’t this take me back! Oh but doesn’t it? Twenty-four years old, hearing it for the first time.

She didn’t know but he could see her from the upstairs window, had been uneasily watching her listening for several minutes. She was wearing a woolly hat, leaning back against the outside wall of the garden, smoking a roll-up with her eyes closed. It was threatening rain. After a while he went down and approached, making sure she heard him as he crossed the yard.

‘What the hell are you fucking doing sitting there?’ he said. ‘Are you mad?’

‘I love this,’ she said, not opening her eyes. ‘This track.’

Stir It Up.

‘For Christ’s sake!’ he muttered, and she opened her eyes and looked up at him. He was a very angry-looking man. She is completely stark staring mad, he thought. ‘What are you doing living out there anyway?’ he said.

She thought, then said, ‘I don’t know. Same as anyone else, I suppose.’

‘How long you been out there?’ he asked, as if she was at the South Pole.

A shrug.

‘You drunk or something?’ he said, and she gave a short laugh.

Inside, the music changed.

He felt stupid standing there. ‘Do you get scared?’ he said for something to say.

She thought again. ‘Sometimes.’

The first bat jerked across the sky.

‘Fancy a drink?’ He looked away.

She thought again, and this time it irritated him that she didn’t answer immediately after he’d made the effort to speak.

‘Yeah,’ she said finally, ‘wouldn’t mind.’

He jerked his head at the back door and she followed him to the back steps. ‘Stay here,’ he said, and went in for the bottle. Fuck, bad move, he thought, getting down a couple of shot glasses. When he went out she was sitting on the top step, holding out one hand to see if it was raining. ‘It’s that funny kind of moist weather,’ she said, ‘when it’s so fine you don’t know if it’s there or not.’

He sat on the other end of the step, and put the bottle of Jameson’s and the two glasses between them. Leaning on the door frame, he poured. The more sociable among the cats came round.

She knocked it back pretty quickly.

‘Smoke?’ He offered a pack of cigarettes, though she’d just put out her roll-up.

‘Thanks,’ she said, taking one, and they lit up.

‘How many cats have you got?’ she asked, smoke flowing from her nostrils.

‘They’re not mine.’

‘Of course they are.’

‘They’re wild,’ he said. ‘Not mine.’

‘Well, you feed them,’ she said, ‘and they come in and out of your house whenever they want, so they’re your cats.’

A few spots of rain appeared on the steps. Ginger Tom came stalking from the woods, mouthing a silent snarl as he passed en route to the old cars out front.

‘Cats aren’t like that,’ he said.

They sat smoking and drinking in silence for five minutes.

‘Better go,’ she said.

She stood, brushing herself down as if she was wearing fine clothes.

He stood too. ‘You want some runner beans?’ he asked.

She pulled the hat more firmly down over her ears. ‘Can you spare them?’

‘I wouldn’t ask if I couldn’t.’

‘OK,’ she said.

He went in and she followed, just inside the entryway, and stood in the hall while he pushed through a door on the right. She could hear him in there opening cupboards and poking around. The hall was wide, a staircase running up into darkness. A coat stand was buried under old coats and macs, and there were a few pictures on the dirty white walls, flowers, dogs, birds, old things that looked as if they’d lived there for years. If you lifted one, you’d see clean white underneath. Where the stairs began, the hall turned a corner. A black cat appeared, saw her and turned back.

‘Puss,’ she said, tiptoeing after. Round the corner was the original front door of the house with a never-opened look, and another