Cold Boy's Wood by Carol Birch (best books to read for students txt) 📕

‘I’m going to make soup,’ I said. ‘You come and help me.’

So fucking up themselves! Peeling carrots.

And then one day while I was rambling around down here in the woods (after the bees this would have been) I turned into a mole and tunnelled. I was just thinking, what if you just go deeper and deeper in, under the bushes, under where the swathes of ivy and curtains of moss fall, if you cross the forest in its least accessible places, burrowing – as a mountaineer fathoms height or a spelunker depth. And I just went off the path to a track, off the track to a smaller one and then one smaller still; till I was off into the deepest parts of the wood where no one else goes. I lay down and tunnelled, and I was fourteen again, standing in the rain in the woods that first time. Exactly the same. Deeper and deeper I moved into the beautiful depths, darker and more pure, and the depths said, well, my little dear, come in and play with us. We’re all here and we know all about you. I sat in the green darkness and thought, I can always come here. It stayed with me like a comfort blanket.

4

On the way home Dan detoured into the village to get a paper. Madeleine was in Ollerenshaw’s, and by the time he saw her she’d noticed him and it was too late to get out.

‘Hello, Dan.’ She smiled fondly.

‘Hi.’

Must have been about five years, he thought. She wore a green floaty thing and a pink cardigan and her chest was freckled. She’d caught the sun. The lines on her forehead were deep and amiable, and her hair, long and loose round her shoulders, was no longer red but light brown and fuzzy at the ends. Human Remains Found In Mudslide Chaos, said the headline on the front of the Examiner. Outside, a truck started reversing. ‘Danger!’ it said in a loud irritating voice, then a load of jumbly stuff meaning get out of the way. Something had gone wrong with the sound system so it sounded like Donald Duck.

‘And how are you?’

Years of running around sorting out other people’s problems had given her the capable, approachable air of a popular teacher. When she bundled up against him to let someone get to the door, a mutual shrinking of the flesh occurred.

‘Fine,’ he said, turning away to read the paper. Male, cause of death unknown. Identity unknown.

‘Now that is really quite creepy,’ she said, putting a packet of cherry flapjacks and a carton of eggs down on the counter. He should ask how she was but the words didn’t make it as far as his mouth.

‘It’ll be some idiot potholer,’ said the small grey man behind the counter.

‘Could well be,’ said the woman in the purple coat.

‘I was over seeing someone at Hothemby,’ said Madeleine, getting her purse out of a shoulder bag with a bright tropical forest pattern. ‘And I saw all these cars.’ Her face was large and sensible and big-nosed with high wide rosy cheekbones and a Slavic cast. The creases at the outer corners of her eyes were symmetrical and intricate like tiger markings. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘the word on the street says it’s foul play.’

The word on the street. Something about that really irritated him, as if she thinks she’s a fucking Brooklyn gumshoe or something.

‘Danger!’ quacked the truck.

‘God knows how they know these things.’ Madeleine paid for her stuff. ‘I mean, there can’t be much left.’

He wished she’d go, but she hung about while he bought his paper and then walked out with him. ‘It’s a terrible thing to say,’ she said as they walked towards the green, ‘but there’s a kind of horrible excitement about it. This body. You know, like something’s actually happening round here for once.’

She was all excited about it, wanted to talk about it, wanted him to see how savvy she was, her phone bingbonging some stupid tune, and yap, yap, sure will, be in touch, sorry, I’m on a job, can’t speak to you now. Later. Bye!

They reached her car and stood for an awkward moment looking at one another. Oh look at him, God bless, she thought. Poor old Dan. The idea of people knowing she’d ever been involved with him in any way was now terrible. Simply awful. And the physical thing, oh God, what the hell was I thinking? And his horrible mother! When you think of how he was, though. Poor Dan! What an embarrassment he was, she thought, and always had been. She’d thought he was sweet. Well, he was in a way in those days. She’d had a lucky escape. Thank God she got away.

Ach, too horrible to think of.

We all make terrible mistakes when we’re young.

‘Well, Madeleine,’ he said.

She remembered how irritating he could be.

And how he could turn, the temper on him.

Her eyes were noticeably narrower. They’d been pale blue and very wide. Still nice though.

He turned to go and realised he was blushing. It had been ridiculous when he was sixteen but now it was just pathetic.

Half-way home he realised he hadn’t got milk for the morning, swore, plodded back, and returned by the track along the back of Gallinger’s field. On the dark stretch where the trees joined arms above, and along this lonely track he realised someone was on the other side of the hedge.

He stopped. Stared at the bushes with his big fierce look. Don’t you mess with me, I’ll split your fucking skull. But it was nothing.

Pete Wheeler’s kid, Sam, an affable lad with spiky yellow hair and a pierced lower lip, picked up the car, and after that Dan put his boots over his trousers and went to check on the bees. He never bothered with all the gear, the smoke, all that, never had. It was OK as long as you kept it all