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

and his swivel chair went this way and that way, a wall of books behind him. The music was low and sinuous. ‘What if a terrible act served a deep historical purpose?’

They were talking about bombs. Not to hurt anyone, but property was fair game.

Barry the ferret wasn’t so sure about the property only clause. Depended on the target.

‘Where did love and peace get the hippies?’ said Barry. ‘Look what they did to Wally Hope.’

‘Face it,’ said Els, ‘who wouldn’t have given a secret sly little snigger if they’d got Maggie in Brighton? I’m being honest, I can’t find it in me to shed a tear for some people, I really can’t.’

‘But what about the hotel staff?’ Keyvan was opening another bottle of wine.

‘Aye,’ said Maurice, ‘there’s the rub.’

Johnny said it wasn’t simple.

‘Sure ain’t.’ I laughed.

Maybe my tone was harsh because he shot me a nasty look. ‘All I’m saying is,’ he said, ‘there’s always a bigger picture.’

‘Well, of course there is.’ Maurice stopped swivelling and leaned forward in his chair with his toes turned in. ‘A question, Lorna. Can you imagine one single circumstance in which violence might be justified?’

‘Of course. If a madman was threatening my kids with an axe…’

‘No no, that’s too obvious. Let’s say there was some situation where, say, by taking the life of one innocent person thousands more could be saved. And it was your decision, what would you do?’

‘I have no idea. It’s a stupid question because there are a million million other things to take into account like who is it, why is this, what if it’s a child, a baby, what if a million things, how can you…’

I got all flustered. I couldn’t argue like they could. I’d think of the right answers later. Instead of some reasoned philosophical response, I said, ‘Fuck off and blow something up then.’

I often remember that moment.

Maurice laughed. ‘Not me, Lorna,’ he said.

‘You’re all just wanking,’ I said, sitting up, ‘you realise that, don’t you? You’d piss yourselves if it came to it.’

Polly and Shiv laughed, but Johnny gave me a hurt look. I laughed too. ‘Come off it,’ I said, ‘you know damn well we’re all much too nice for all that. We just like wanking off on it.’

I said ‘we’ but I meant ‘you’.

We didn’t talk much driving home. Johnny was totally sober as always and me a silly stoned fool in the passenger seat. A well yawned between us. Somewhere around Vauxhall he started mumbling in the tone of someone delivering an ancient curse. ‘We talk,’ he said, ‘and we stick up a few flyers and print our little rag and paint a few words on a few walls and stand around chanting and throwing eggs, and no one takes a blind bit of notice. Everything still goes on the same for ever and ever and ever.’ I thought about dear old Wilf and how he didn’t give a fuck about politics. Never voted. They’re all the same. This old fart or that old fart. Who cares? No wonder he and Johnny never really hit it off. Civil, but that’s about it. I put my hand on Johnny’s knee as he drove and said, ‘Ssh.’ I didn’t want to have a row, and there was a lump in my throat because everything felt wrong, not just me and him but the whole world. A thought of the woods at Andwiston passed through my mind. To be out of the city, quiet, away from strife. He looked so forlorn and like his old self when we got home that I tried to give him a cuddle, but he wasn’t in a cuddly mood. That all seemed to have gone by the wayside. I went into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I wasn’t going to cry. It was never going to go back to how it was. I went to bed and he sat up alone reading and listening to music, some kind of twitchy jazz, doodly-doodly-doodly-doo. More and more these days, his music was Maurice’s music. When I woke up at about half past two he hadn’t come to bed. He’d gone off somewhere with his guitar to some open mic club. He could easily get someone else, I thought. Guitar, nice mouth, deep eyes.

23

A long low moan very very close. Half cat, half dog. Fox?

Not a cat. My goodness, what is that?

Again. Smooth-throated, sustained, rising into a mournful ululation that faded and hung on the silence. The cats don’t come here. Whatever it is it’s right outside. I sat up and listened. Nothing. Unless it still sat, motionless with crossed cloven feet outside my outer doorway. How could I sleep after that? Must be close to morning, I’ll wait it out.

Hours later I woke up to the sounds of people echoing through the woods, got up and crawled out through the leaves. Nice day, they were all out – shrill-voiced kids, steel-haired women with walking poles, barking dogs, knobbly knees in shorts. Backpacks galore, all seeking shade. Litter louts. People are the strangest beasts. They’re so irritating and ugly. I remember once Johnny looking out of the window in that place we had when we first got together, watching the people going up and down and saying, ‘Sometimes you know, I despise them, each and every one, each of their pathetically accepted little existences, every one of them squandering this single chance to actually live.’ It was horrible but I knew what he meant. In Crawley, that last place, I found myself doing the same thing, looking out of my window, thinking how horrible we really all were. I am. Things just pop into my head, nasty mean things. State of that, I think. I wouldn’t go out with that on if I had an arse like that. Listen to their stupid laughs. Look at their fat chins. God he’s put weight on. Christ she’s aged. Don’t we all just get uglier and uglier. Don’t we