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

I don’t want them near.

A woman’s voice kept recurring, quite close in the end, calling out, ‘Hello! Hello! Where are you?’

Thought I was going mad. Surely, I thought, I’m imagining it, she’s not after me. Going mad, ha ha, that’s a laugh.

I crept further out, slithered through the leaves and the ferns and saw her on the path, just standing still, cupping her mouth, calling again. For a moment more she stood there before striding suddenly away in her walking shoes, the tops of her socks folded over, eminently sensible with her bottle of water and cardigan tied round her waist. She carried a stick, not one of those professional ones, just some old stick she’d picked up.

Cat man told. He must have told or why is that woman here?

I went back, drank some tea, ate some bread and said, yes, I’m up to it, get away from here, go high up, right up past the stones. High as I could go. I got away from them all, there was no one up here, though I could see them down below occasionally passing along the track. I was breathless. My nose was all stuffed up again and my eyes ran. Shouldn’t have done that, stupid going so fast, it’s much too hot, I’m drenched. Stink.

This place is full of holes. They’re pretty much all fenced off and made safe now, but back then it was all open. All kinds of things got chucked down there. In fact, right underneath me, I know, is a great cavern. I know because I was in there once before the rise of health and safety. I lay down and closed my eyes. A little warm breeze ran across my face. I was kind of scraping away at a feeling, not quite knowing what it was. I thought I was still dreaming, that I was really still down there in my nest, then other places flashed through, the places where I go sometimes when I dream, a long high shoreline, the sea far below on the left, an old croft with tall grey houses all round, the bombsite filled with heaps of masonry rubble, some higher than the height of a man, and the alleys and cobbles, and a house like a tower where someone lived, set back from a green country road that went down and then up, a switchback through a beautiful valley by the side of the sea. But I couldn’t stay there too long and when I opened my eyes I wasn’t sure what I’d see when I sat up and looked around. I thought those other places were real because they seemed so.

But I was only on the heights, same as ever, and my head burned so much I thought I must have a fever.

I felt awful when I came back down, so I got back in my sleeping bag and gave up on the day.

*

‘What’s going on with you, Lily?’ I said. ‘Is it fair on them both?’

‘Who?’ She got up and sauntered to the open window, tossing her keys up and down in her hand. Terry was due but she was supposed to be going out with Mark tonight. ‘God’s sake, I’m not marrying them, Mother, they’re just boys…’

Terry still came round and they played music in her room with the door shut and wouldn’t let Harriet in. But Mark was the one whose name she wrote in various elaborate scripts on her school books. After that first time we only ever saw his pale face when he dropped her off at the door or called for her sometimes and waited silently on the settee if she wasn’t ready.

‘Does he still do jobs for the old bag?’ asked Johnny.

‘Oh yes. Now and again. Her toilet’s always getting blocked up. She puts things down it.’

‘Things? What kind of things?’

‘Horrible things. Clumps of hair. Mouldy food.’

‘Do they even know about each other?’

‘Shut up, Mum. Don’t say anything stupid, he’s here. Tes! Here!’ She leaned out and threw down the keys. Soon we heard the familiar tread on the stairs.

‘Did you bring it, did you bring it?’ she cried as soon as he came in.

He had been summoned. A CD he had that she wanted and must have now. Fool of a boy. ‘Great,’ she said, grabbing it, not looking at him.

‘Sit down, boy,’ Johnny said, ‘have a cup of coffee. And while you’re at it, Lily, make a whole pot.’

‘Ha!’ said Lily but did as he said.

These days you could almost have believed he liked Terry but actually the main attraction was Phoebe Twist. Johnny was still fascinated by her. ‘Seen anything of Irma Grese?’ he asked.

Terry didn’t know who Irma Grese was but knew it meant Phoebe Twist, along with Cruella de Vil. He had mentioned that she watched TV in the afternoon. ‘So, go on,’ Johnny would say, ‘what does she watch?’

‘Quiz shows and things. You know. Those talk things.’

‘And she smells?’

‘Well, she’s got a sore on her leg. That’s what smells.’

‘Ugh!’

‘A big ulcer.’

‘Doesn’t she get it seen to?’ I asked.

‘She’s got this nurse or someone who comes round sometimes and changes the dressing.’

‘Must be awful to be old,’ I said.

‘The fridge is the worst,’ said Terry, ‘and the utility room. She’s got all sorts round the back of her washing machine.’

‘See what I mean?’ said Johnny. ‘These posh fuckers. Filthy.’

‘When you open the fridge,’ Terry said, ‘you have to hold your nose. Smells like someone farted.’

‘Please God she’ll get food poisoning one of these days,’ Johnny said.

‘And she drinks sherry all day,’ Lily said, ‘all day.’

‘You’d think someone like her would have a cleaner,’ I said. ‘Money she’s got.’

‘Ah but she’s not right in the head,’ Terry said with a faint grin. ‘She does have a cleaner but she won’t let her in. Says she wants to rob her.’

‘Ha!’ said Johnny. ‘And you don’t?’

‘No,’ Terry said. ‘I don’t.’

‘So why does she let you in? What’s so special about you?’

‘Well, it’s only when she needs something doing.