Running Page 4
When I heard the sound of the ambulance siren in the distance, a relief swept over me. It’s out of my hands now. At least the thought was there, a small gesture of goodwill that lasted for a few minutes. It evaporated when the ambulance arrived, and the man on the street lay still. He’s dead, I thought. I was ashamed to take a little comfort in the knowledge.
I’d walked past the man a dozen times, though I couldn’t say what the colour of his eyes were or the colour of his hair. I couldn’t hazard a guess as to his age, but I do know he wrapped himself in a washed-out grey blanket and carried a plastic cup and sign which read, “HOMELESS. Please spare some change. Thank you”.
If I had some change to spare I would drop it in, I’d tell myself every time I glimpsed the cup and the cardboard sign. Most of the time my pockets were empty. At least the thought was there. Others wouldn’t have bothered to give him the time of day.
Tosh once dropped his sweet money, a penny piece, into the man’s plastic cup. When the man mouthed ‘thank you’, Tosh looked up at me proud and beaming and I beamed back at him to show my approval.
A smartly dressed couple came towards us, walking hand-in-hand. The woman wore a long brown fox fur coat; and the man, a black and white pinned stripped suit. The woman pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. The man shook his head.
‘You shouldn’t go giving your money to tramps,’ said the man, waving his umbrella in Tosh’s face.
‘Haven’t your parents ever told you not to give money to those sorts of people?’ asked the woman.
Tosh’s smile quickly vanished. He looked on the verge of tears.
How could he say that? How could he make Tosh believe he was doing something wrong?
I was so angry, I swore at the man. I told him he was an idiot and that his girlfriend was an animal killer. They both went red in the face and the man steered his wife quickly away from me, muttering something under his breath about street savages and loonies.
Of course, I never imagined I’d wind up homeless.
I’m just a girl.
Mannis says a man living on the streets isn’t a tramp, he’s homeless and a child living rough on the streets isn’t homeless, he’s a runaway.
I can’t say Tosh and I were ever runaways and thanks to Mannis we’re no longer homeless.
The bungalow is our home: Mannis’s, Saul’s, Dock’s, Tosh’s, Ellie’s and mine.
* * *
Chapter 15
Zigzagging
Later, Mannis comes to tell me he’s going with Rick and Saul.
Tosh and I are standing idly at the front door when Rick rolls up in a gleaming silver motor.
Saul hops in the back seat of the car. Mannis climbs awkwardly into the front, his trousers rolling down to expose half of his pasty white bottom as he struggles to get in. The car, a little on the small size, is not Mannis-friendly.
I wave at Saul. He doesn’t see me. His hair hangs like a curtain in front of his eyes. He’s hunched over in the car seat, scratching his hand.
Rick starts up the engine. And Tosh and I watch the car bounce down the hill towards the road.
‘Let’s go check on Dock,’ I tell him once the car’s out of sight.
We find Dock asleep in the kitchen with his hands wedged between his knees and a wry smile on his lips. He’s inhabited Saul’s space next to the stove.
Dock has a grey stumble on his chin, but he hasn’t one strand of grey on the thatch of dark copper hair on his head. He’s tucked his moth-eaten shirt into his oversized trousers, secured with a piece of rope to stop them from falling down.
I cover him up in an old dust sheet I find in one the cupboards and stride back out the room with Tosh trailing behind me.
‘Mannis and Saul won’t be back for ages,’ I say, forgetting what I’ve said about clearing out one of rooms. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’
I steer him out of the kitchen back door, across the concrete and onto the lawn.
I don’t know what it is. Something inside me has changed. Suddenly, I want more than anything to cross the lawn and go into the woods. I’m not afraid and there’s no one here to stop me.
Tosh goes rigid. I swear I can hear his bones cracking as they turn to ice.
‘Where are we going?’ he cries.
His bottom lip begins to tremble. I know he’s thinking of the graves. There are patches on the lawn where the soil has been disturbed. Ellie’s not the only one buried beneath the lawn. A few have died here over the years. Mannis told me, “They die in their sleep.”
‘It’s all right, Tosh. We’ll walk on the flat bits.’ I give his hand a light squeeze. ‘Come on.’
He doesn’t move. Eyes wide, he looks out across the great lawn and into the woods.
‘I’m not going into the woods,’ he says shakily. ‘What if we get lost?’
‘We won’t,’ I tell him. ‘We don’t have to go right in, just to the tip.’
‘There’s no tip to those woods; walk in, turn a full circle and you’re lost.’
I arch my eyebrows. ‘Who told you that?’
‘Dock,’ Tosh replies, absently wiping his nose with the back of his hand.
‘Dock talks rubbish, you know that. We’re smarter than him Tosh. If he went in, of course he’d get lost. Course, we’d find him easy enough cause of his snoring.’
Tosh smiles, not a great whacking smile, but a smile big enough to warm my heart. I give him a bear hug. He tries to wriggle free and I hug him even harder.
‘Let go of me,’ he cries, ‘or you can go to the woods on your own!’
I let him go and we amble across the lawn without looking back.
I can’t see or hear the woodcutter today. The sun’s out and the white candy floss clouds streak across the sky. The fragrant smell of spring flowers and moist grass wafts in the breeze.
We reach the heavily shaded woods. The tree barks soar high above us. Patches of weeds and wispy tufts of grass break through the soil’s surface. Large flat mushrooms sprout from the bases of the moss covered trees.
‘There’s no one here. Let’s go back,’ he pleads, tugging at my sweater.
‘Let’s go in a bit more.’
‘No. I don’t like it. Let’s go back the bungalow. It’s safe there. We’re the Junk Kids remember?’
I don’t remember. I don’t listen and I don’t care. I’m feeling brave. I steal into the forest like a crook in the night, hopping from one tree to the next. Some of the trees are so close together, their leaves and branches intertwine. I can’t tell where one tree ends and another begins.
I drag Tosh behind me, clutching his hand tightly in mine.
‘We should leave a trail so we don’t get lost,’ says Tosh after a while.
‘We won’t get lost,’ I reply. ‘I’m walking in a straight line.’
‘No you’re not; you’re zigzagging all over the place.’
‘Am not.’
‘Am too…’
* * *
Chapter 16
A Cabin in the Woods
We venture deep into the woods, pushing back outstretched tree limbs and colliding with age-long tree stumps. Tosh lets go of my hand, jumps up onto the tree stumps, counts to ten, and then jumps off again.
I stoop to lace up my trainer and find a wild mushroom, resembling an oversized drawing pin. I wrench it free from the soil and take its head off with my teeth. I spit it out at once. It tastes as bitter as lemon skin.
‘Stupid girl. It could be poisonous,’ I mutter to myself, tossing the stalk away.
Rising, I see something that makes my heart race.
A cabin in the woods!
‘Tosh!’ I say, pointing to the cabin. ‘Look.’
Tosh leaps from the stump and onto the ground. He stands motionless staring at the cabin. For there, leaning under the cabin window sits the woodcutter’s axe, oiled and gleaming.
‘Come on Tosh,’ I say, determinedly.
Tosh trails reluctantly behind me, sniff, sniff, sniffing.
No answer. That should tell me something; it should tell me to turn around and go back. Instead, I start thinking about how I’m going to get past the door.
Tosh stares up at me with eyes like giant saucepans.
‘We should go,’ he says hoarsely. ‘There’s no one home.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I reply, not to brother, but to myself.
I peer through a tatty net curtain hanging in one of the two front windows. My eyes penetrate the dark and shabby interior. I’m able to make out the angular lines of some furniture and an unlit fireplace. I grip the door handle, bracing myself. A part of me wants the door to be open. The sane part of me hopes it’s locked. I slowly turn the handle.
‘No Kate, don’t,’ whispers Tosh. ‘Please.’
No amount of pleading will make me turn back. The door groans as I push it open and my stomach gives a little lurch.
A soft gasp escapes Tosh’s lips. He huddles against me, pressing his palms into the small of my back.
I step into the cabin not knowing what to expect. It seems bigger on the inside and brighter. The fire’s not long been snuffed out. I can still smell the burning wood in the fireplace. A beaten green rug lies on the floor. A red leather chair stands, like a proud man, near the fireplace. A red leather footstool sits at its heels.
‘This is cosy.’ I run my hand along the high back of the armchair. ‘This would look nice in the bungalow, don’t you think?’
Tosh fails to reply. He stares up at the ceiling, goggle-eyed and quaking. I follow his gaze. Two stuffed birds hang from a hook on the ceiling.
One of the birds is a raven with eyes like black pearls and black tarry wings. I think the other bird’s a Mallard duck. It’s grey-winged and has a brown breast. The duck’s head is dark green; its beak the colour of egg yolk. I learnt a bit about birds in school. Dead birds don’t scare me, live ones do.
‘They’re dead Tosh.’ My eyes sweep the cabin again. Running along one side of the wall is a cupboard. On top of the cupboard lies, a bible and an hourglass filled with sand.
The woodcutter’s wide brimmed hat hangs from a peg on the door. I always thought it was black. As it happens it’s dark brown.
Tosh continues to stare up at the ceiling.
‘Do people look different when they die?’ he asks.
‘No.’
Tosh didn’t see Ellie’s body. He didn’t see the way the light scampered from her eyes in her final moments, leaving them hollow and empty, nor did he cradle her stiff icy body before Mannis wrapped it in the stinking rotten sheet.
‘People look beautiful when they die, if they’re beautiful inside,’ I reply calmly.
He looks at me, frowning.
‘Sometimes you talk rubbish Kate,’ he snaps. ‘I’ve seen dead bodies on the telly.’
‘Not real ones?’
‘Yeah, real ones.’
‘Why’d you ask me then?’ I pick up the hourglass and turn it over.
‘Never mind,’ he mumbles. He kneels down on the rug.
I watch the tiny specs of golden sand trickle through the hourglass. It reminds me of the sand-filled, plastic egg timer mum used to have on the mantle top. It made a good ornament. It was useless for timing boiling eggs.
‘What if the person who lives here comes back?’ asks Tosh, plucking a metal rod from beside the fireplace.
‘Then we’ll dodge ‘em and run.’
I set the hourglass down.
Three pictures hang on the wall: one on the left hand side and two on the right. I inspect the two photographs, framed in black, on the left wall. They’re photographs of the woods, these woods. One has been taken on a late winter’s evening. The trees look like black unearthly shadows and there is a white mist billowing up from the ground. The other photo looks as if it was taken in late spring or early summer. The ground’s frosty. The sky’s burnt orange. The birds dip and weave amongst the flourishing trees.
A dusty blank-faced clock, made out of tree bark, sits above the fireplace. It has one rusty hand pointing to the unseen fourth hour. I turn my attention to the old black and white photo on my right.
Grim-faces stare out from the yellow-stained photo. The inhabitants stand like skittles in front of a stone building. Three chimneys, puffing black smoke, extend from the slated roof. The men and boys wear flat caps on their heads, ankle-length boots, trousers with braces and collarless shirts. The women and girls have on full-length skirts and aprons tied at their waists. Their hair is piled high on top of their heads.
‘Come on Kate, let’s go!’ Tosh leaps to his feet, swinging the metal rod in his hand. He has ash all over his clothes and face. However, his chimney sweep appearance doesn’t bother me. My eyes are fixed on the black blotches he’s made on the rug.
‘Drop it!’ I point to the rod.
‘We should have left when I said,’ he replies in defiance. ‘Then I wouldn’t have time to get all messy.’
At this moment, the door groans open. Tosh drops the metal rod and screams.
The woodcutter has returned.
* * *
Chapter 17
The Woodcutter
Tosh breathing hard and fast, gapes at the newly honed axe swung over the woodcutter’s brawny shoulder. His eyes move to the woodcutter’s craggy square-jawed face. He starts to tremble.
The woodcutter’s at least two heads taller than Saul. His ash blonde hair is pulled back into a ponytail. An ugly red scar stretches from the bridge of his nose to his left cheekbone.
He stares at his ash-stained rug. He then looks from me to Tosh.
‘I suppose I should ask what you’re doing here,’ he says in a deep rumbling voice.
I wrap my arm protectively around Tosh’s shoulder.
The woodcutter leans his axe up against the wall and slings the green bag, hooked on his shoulder, onto the floor. He looks like a regular lumberjack, dressed in a red and black checked shirt, oilskin coated trousers and huge brown boots.
I shuffle backwards. My tongue’s caught in my throat.
‘You shouldn’t be here by rights,’ he says, closing the door behind him. ‘Don’t you know this is private property?’
He eases himself into the red chair and props his feet up on the footstool, his gaze lingers on me.
‘We didn’t take anything,’ I blurt out. ‘The door was open. We were just-’
‘I know…being nosy,’ the woodcutter interrupts. He closes his pale blue eyes and snaps them open again.
‘We’re sorry,’ I say, in a rush.
I notice for the first time, silver strands in his hair and the scent of spiced cologne, mingled with wood hanging in the air.
‘So what brings you all the way out here?’ he asks. ‘I’ve seen you lot up at the house. I didn’t think you had legs to walk further than your own backyard until now.’
‘You can see us?’ Tosh croaks. He stops trembling. His mouth hangs open in amazement.
‘Course. Why can’t you see me?’
‘No it’s too far,’ Tosh replies, his eyes flitting tentatively between the axe on the floor and the woodcutter in the chair.
‘Kate’s seen me, haven’t you Kate?’
I feel as if the Invisible Man’s sliding an ice cube down by back! It never occurred to me that he could see me. It never occurred to me that he knew my name.
‘How do you know my name?’ I ask, hardly hearing my own voice.
‘I’ve got ripe hearing. I know all your names,’ he says, addressing Tosh.
Tosh gazes back at me in terror. I take another tiny step backwards and Tosh steps with me. If we go back any further, we’ll be sitting in the fireplace.
‘I hear the big fella calling you, er…wotsitsname, Mannis. And there’s the thin one, Dock, who can’t walk in a straight line to save his life. I see a few of you up there, coming and going. What happened to the little girl, Ellie? I
haven’t seen her around for a while.’
I feel rage welling up inside me. I bite my lip. How dare he say her name. How dare he know all about us. We’re none of his business. I stare at him coldly.
‘She’s gone away,’ I reply, straightening my spine and raising my chin..
I’m struck by his blank expression and the way in which he rests his hands, casually on his lap.
He has nothing to hide. We have everything. My mind races.
What if he’s been on the lawn or in the bungalow? No. He couldn’t, one of us would have seen. What if he saw me digging Ellie’s grave? What if he saw Mannis putting Ellie’s body in the ground. He must have been spying on us all this time.
‘Mind-your-own, that’s what you’re thinking isn’t it?,’ the woodcutter says. ‘Except you can’t say that when you’ve been snooping around under my roof.’
He rises stiffly from the chair, wringing his hands together and cracking a few of his calloused fingers. I notice a wedding ring on his index finger.
He pulls a red flask from his bag, and then goes to the cupboard and takes from it three enamel mugs: two purple, one green. ‘Want a brew?’ he says, holding up the flask.
‘No thank you,’ I say tightly, without loosening my grip on Tosh or moving away from the fireplace.
He shrugs and pours the steaming hot tea into all three mugs.
‘You don’t want tea, Tosh?’ he asks. ‘I’ve already put milk and sugar in it.’
‘No, he doesn’t want any,’ I reply curtly.
He raises his silvery-blonde eyebrows. ‘Mute is he? Can’t speak for himself?’ he asks, setting down the flask.
To my astonishment, Tosh wriggles free of my grasp, coughing and gasping for air. I realise that I’ve had him in headlock all this time. I was literally squeezing the life out of him. I feel myself grow hot with embarrassment.
Tosh quickly recovers from his coughing fit. He totters over to the cupboard, and helps himself to a purple mug.
I frown with disappointment. He knows better than to accept food or drink from strangers without my permission.