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

She blocks everything up all the time, see. Toilet. Sink in the utility room. Honest, she’s bonkers. Anyway, she’s used to me. She likes me.’

‘You?’

‘Yeah, me. And I sort her telly out for her.’

‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘Nothing. She just fucks it up all the time by pressing all the wrong buttons. Honest, she’s mad.’

‘Anyway,’ said Lily, ‘enough. I’ve got to get ready. You’d better go now, Tes.’ Without a further glance at him she headed off into her room to start the long process of dolling herself up for tonight. She was going out with Mark. Poor old Terry. No idea what he was up against. I felt sorry for him sitting there with his flushed cheeks and slow blue eyes. He stayed a bit longer looking superfluous, then got up heavily.

‘See ya,’ he said.

‘Bye, Terry.’

‘Bye bye, Terry,’ said Harriet.

Johnny ignored him. ‘No self-respect, that kid,’ he said when he’d gone. ‘Christ, she can pick ’em.’

24

When I was down to a crust I got up. I looked in the mirror. God, is that me? Those hollow cheeks. Those vacant eyes. The skin all softening and the hairs all grey. The dirt.

Strange me.

Something told me I had to go and talk to that man. So I went. It was about eleven in the morning, nice weather. I waited in the woods for a while first, making sure no one else was there, watched him lumbering about in the yard, big shoulders, graceless. He wore a cap and what was left of his hair had grown shaggy under it. The cats were sitting about like mandarins. After a while he went to work on a grey car that was parked by the shed, hanging over the engine in his baggy old overalls. He didn’t see me till I was right there, and ‘Hello,’ I said. He jerked up as if he’d been shot.

‘There’s a woman walking round in the woods,’ I said.

And the fear or whatever I thought I saw was gone and he was just the grumpy old sod he always was.

‘I’m sure there’s lots,’ he said, sticking his head back into the engine.

‘She was just standing in the same place for ages calling out. She knew. I’m sure she was looking for me. Did you tell someone?’

‘Of course I didn’t.’ He sounded indignant.

‘How else could she know?’

‘Are you thick?’ he said. ‘You leave signs. There’s smoke. You’re not in the wilderness, you’re in a wood. There’s people all around. What do you expect?’

I hated that. I could have killed him. Till then I’d been living in my faery realm. It vanished with a horrible sound like a deflating balloon and the terrifying world rushed in, flicking from grey to technicolour in a fraction of a second.

‘I know her,’ he said then.

‘Who is she?’

‘She’s a social worker. She’d already heard about you.’

Why was he angry? Some people just were. He was like a big bull, breathing heavily down his nostrils.

‘You told her about me.’

‘I did not.’

‘You must have done. How else would she know? That part of the wood? That particular direction she was looking in.’

‘Oh,’ he said, chucking something, some tool or other, maybe a wrench, up onto the roof of the car, ‘she doesn’t mean you any harm.’

It was a horrible moment. Everything changed like a light turning on or off, I couldn’t say whether it brought darkness or light. Like a sound starting up in your inner ear.

‘So you did tell her,’ I said, betrayed. ‘You said you wouldn’t.’

It was horrible and bizarre because from the corner of my left eye I saw things starting up, scarcely even aware of themselves, things from the other place.

This other place, Lorna, this other place. Can you tell me some more about that? Can you tell me where, for example, it exists?

Oh Dr Walse here you are after so many years. One of the many. Dr Semple, Miss Farrell, and you, Dr Walse, you used to pluck at your wattles, pull them out like bubble gum and twang them back into place. Again and again. I suppose it was like biting your nails. And you wore bottle-top glasses and everyone made fun of you behind your back, did you know, I wonder? I smiled.

‘Oh, not at all,’ said Dan, though by this time I’d forgotten what he was referring to.

He gave me a funny look.

‘Are you all right?’ he said.

Of course.

‘Have you got a cigarette?’ I asked, knowing I shouldn’t but craving one. I hadn’t had one for nearly four days. Just goes to show I could do it.

‘I didn’t tell her where you were.’ He scooped out three cigarettes and handed them to me. I have to give him that: he wasn’t a mean man. ‘What makes you think she couldn’t work it out for herself?’ he said. ‘She’s not stupid.’

Sounded like he really knew her well.

‘Can I have a light?’

He got out a lighter and handed it to me, seeming annoyed.

‘So you know her,’ I said, lighting up, ‘and you said something to her.’

He sighed. ‘If you insist.’

‘What did you tell her?’

He slammed the hood down and snatched back his lighter. ‘Oh, for God’s sake! No more than she already knew. She said is there someone living in there and all I said was I don’t know, there might be.’ He grabbed the wrench from the roof of the car and started walking back to the house and I followed. Like a dog, the big orange cat came too. That beast needed a good grooming. Full of fleas, the lot of them.

‘So I have to go,’ I said.

He turned and gave me a sour look. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘she only wants to help. What are you worried about?’

‘I told you.’

He was at the door by now. The cigarette tasted good and pure and fresh and rushed into my lungs.

‘I don’t want anyone hanging round,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to be moved on. I’m not doing any harm.’ I was all shaky. I couldn’t help it, I