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

*

I did go back to Maurice’s once or twice more. Both times I noticed something that must have been happening for a while now but that I’d never been aware of. Maurice sidelined Johnny. All his great thoughts were addressed to the others, and when Johnny spoke, Maurice just went on talking over the top of him. Poor Johnny. Too emotional, loose cannon, a drain on energy. And after all, what had he done wrong? Nothing. He’d just become a different person and it was noticed. This is it, I thought, this is why he seethes and sulks, why we are falling to pieces. ‘What a bunch of silly little jumped-up revolutionaries,’ I said when we got home. ‘Who are they? No one. Words words words. They are not your real life, Johnny.’ You should have seen the way he looked at me. Traitor. Apostate.

‘Lor… I really want to understand… is it me?… I just want to understand.’ Pained eyes, but the hardness gleamed through. ‘What is it I’m not getting? Don’t you accept that there are terrible injustices in the world?’

‘Of course I do. Why are you saying this?’

‘I’d die for this cause.’

I looked at him and wanted to laugh.

‘Saint Sebastian,’ I said.

‘I’d kill for it.’ His eyes were very serious. ‘There are some totally hateful people. I mean, really bad people. People who’ve really hurt people and done dreadful things.’

‘You’re not Saint Sebastian,’ I said, ‘you’re the good Samaritan. That’s what you were when I met you.’

‘Don’t worry, Lor,’ he said, smiling. ‘I wouldn’t kill you. Anyway, what are you on about? Why are you bringing the Bible into it? What have those old fairy stories got to do with anything?’

‘Have you read the fairy stories?’ I said. ‘The real ones? Horror shows.’

‘Exactly!’ he said. ‘And what happens to the wicked? They dance in red-hot shoes forever.’

‘Just think of those people at the wedding feast,’ I said, ‘eating their dinner while this woman dances herself to death in red-hot shoes.’

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘but she was a nasty piece of work, that old queen. Think about it. She had to be stopped.’

26

She was there again. ‘I’ve got some chocolate,’ she said, ‘would you like some?’

She didn’t look right. She was keeping her eyes on the ground.

‘I can get my own chocolate if I want any.’ He stood at the top of the steps looking down at her standing in the yard with a carrier bag in which it looked as if there was a bottle. ‘I’ve got things to do.’

She looked off to the side with her mouth open.

‘Did you hear me?’

‘Oh sorry,’ she said dreamily, ‘bad time, is it?’

‘Look,’ he said, raising a hand as if to ward her off, ‘you can’t just keep turning up here.’

‘I know. I just wanted to find out if you’d seen that woman again.’

‘Madeleine.’

‘Is that her name?’

‘Yes. No, I haven’t seen her. So now you know. So now you can go. Why are you looking down all the time?’

She looked up. ‘Am I?’

‘Yes, you are, you’re looking really weird.’

‘I’m feeling a bit scared,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to get out of the wood for a bit.’

‘Oh,’ he said derisively, ‘back to nature’s wearing a bit thin, is it?’

‘Just need to let the feeling pass,’ she said, turning to go, ‘that’s all.’

‘What’s in the bag?’

She turned back. ‘Just wine,’ she said.

Pathetic, she was. Worse than me, he thought. It was a funny feeling being stronger than someone. ‘OK then,’ he said and motioned her in with his head. The fire was all laid and ready to be lit. He grabbed the matches from the mantelpiece for something to do but it was too early to light the fire so he put them back. When he turned she was sitting on the settee. Won’t be able to get rid of her, he thought. The woman’s completely mad. He didn’t know what to do so he got his own bottle of whisky from the kitchen and set it down on the low table. Each recognising in the other a fellow piss-artist, they sat in grudging tranquillity till she’d polished off the best part of the wine, then she started rambling like a maniac. She said there was a ghost boy in the fields. As if he wanted to hear that, what with all the shit he was already putting up with. Then she held out her arm and said, ‘Look. See how it moves under the skin?’

He couldn’t see anything.

She said she’d seen this boy all her life and before that even.

‘You’re not making sense,’ he said.

‘I used to be in this place,’ she said, ‘it was an institution, I was there for six months. And the first thing I saw when I walked in was this big sign that said: Stop Making Sense. That’s from Talking Heads.’

‘So you took it to heart.’

‘What?’

‘Not making sense. You took it to heart.’

‘I suppose so. Don’t you believe in ghosts?’

‘No idea,’ he said. ‘Don’t let’s start on about ghosts, no wonder you’re scared. You’re out there all on your own. I don’t mind telling you, I couldn’t do it, you start thinking about all these things and next thing you know…’

She stood and paced, straight-backed, hugging her coat round herself. ‘We’re all here,’ she said, ‘wandering around in this place, the cold boy, the baron, your mum, and that other one, the one that got washed down. What d’you think about that?’

‘What are you fucking talking about?’

‘The man that got washed down. You know. All that rain.’

‘I think it’s a shame,’ he said.

‘It is. It’s dreadful.’

‘And perhaps we’ll end up here too, why not? All of us ghosts, wandering around together wondering what to do, wandering and wondering.’

She laughed. ‘Still, we won’t be lonely,’ she said. ‘The Lord is in this place. How crowded is this place.’

‘I think you ought to shut up,’ he said. ‘I think if I was living out there in those woods I’m damn certain I wouldn’t want to be