Coombe's Wood (17 page)

Connor ran off, hesitating after he swung open the front door, she imagined him leaping over the dead rabbit. Seconds passed, and he was jumping back through the door.

“Here.”

Feathers unscrewed the top and smeared a drop of liquid under her nose. Her eyes popped opened. The smell was brutal, a mix of fresh and wake-up-now scents. Connor and Feathers crouched low over her, Feathers threatening another drop. But the velvet black of her faint had receded.

“I’m awake.”

Connor’s eyes clouded, he blinked hard and ran the back of his sleeve over his face.

Feathers
helped I
zzy up off the hall floor, took her back to bed and tucked her in. Connor appeared with the tea, still surprisingly warm. He sat, at the end of her bed. Her son. Scared into biting his nails. His eyes fixed to the ground and unable to look up at her.

At the end of the hall, Feathers sprayed disinfectant,
and the tang of
lemon drifted into her bedroom. Wet sounds and the rustle of a plastic bag, throwing away the mat, the newspaper – the rabbit. A whispered conversation between Feathers and the neighbours trickled along the hall. She couldn’t make out the words, only the occasional syllable amongst the
wsh wsh
sounds. Her imagination took a stab, hearing talk of insanity, a discussion of how to be rid of Izzy and her son, and the problems they carried with them.

Someone had parted the curtains and the sun lit the room, motes of dust dancing in nonsensical patterns. The heavy jeans and fleece shirt from the night before lay piled on the floor next to a metal rail where her clothes hung. Empty hangers jutted out at odd angles. Her bedside table, so ordinary, her mug with its images of cats, next to a copy of ‘Portuguese Soups’ from the library, and her old watch. Curtains from a boot sale, purchased for a pound – beautiful crimson velvet, the colour of rabbit blood.

When Connor finally looked up from the floorboards, she stared back unblinking.

“Connor,” she said, “I’ve had time to think about it. I don’t think those boys were camping in a storm. Nobody would do that. You shouldn’t believe them.”

“I don’t, I’m not silly. They’re always just showing off. Mum?”

She didn’t answer.

Connor shifted position, trying to break her stare. Seconds later he got up and left the room.

Feathers stood in the doorway.

“I used to live in a house, you know” Izzy said, and plumped up the pillows. The bed creaked as she leaned back. “Not in a crummy first floor flat.” She sighed, and pulled the covers over her legs.

Feathers shrugged, and came into the room. He sat on the edge of the bed, and waited for her to continue.

“My house was minutes out of Chester city centre, in Upton, and up this pretty tree lined avenue, next to a park. My parents left it to me when they moved back to Portugal. I only had to finish off the last ten years of mortgage payments.”

“That’s a good deal.”

“I worked in Morrison’s. It was Safeway’s when I started
…
eventually they promoted me to a manager’s position. I met George there, on my second day as floor manager. I had schedules, all the names of the people working the tills, and I was getting in a flap trying to organise breaks and lunches, when George stopped beside my little desk.

“He said, ‘Hi Isabel, remember me?’ I must have looked blank, so he said he knew Marion, and he’d met me at her party last year. Said, ‘You’ve got a little one.’

“I couldn’t remember any get-together, or anything, Connor was only five, and I simply didn’t go to parties. He asked me out for a coffee, at the little restaurant at the front of the shop, and I’ve never been very good at saying no.”

Izzy stopped and grabbed a tissue, then dabbed at her eyes.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Feathers said.

“I know, I want to
…
I need to, I suppose. It’s not like he was even my type, he looked
…
funny, strange, his hair receding in that hole-on-the-crown way. The shop lights reflected off the skin, and I felt unsure about him, with his scalp winking at me, right from the start. After we’d been together for a year, and my life had turned inside out, I realised his story had to be fake. No one calls me Isabel.” She sniffed, blew her nose, and said, “I tried to kill myself.”

Feathers drew back, his eyes wide.

“I did. Swallowed all these calming pills. Sat back and let sleep take me. I waited for death. George and I’d been together for six years, and I’d had enough. Over time, he grew increasingly violent, sadistic
…
beating me up turned him on.” She shuddered. “I wanted the world to go away, and it did, everything went black. I thought
…
no, I didn’t think, life for me ended, but then he bloody found me, got me to a hospital. I woke up as they pumped my stomach. I passed out, and then came round to him talking away, convincing the doctors to let me come home. Swore to take me to my GP. God, he was smooth as butter.

“When we got home, he made me take these big pink pills, three a day, every day. I never found out what they were but I called them my zombie pills. Taking them made life with George easier. I became compliant. Then I missed my period.”

“Pregnant?”

“Yup. I didn’t know what these pills would do to the baby, so I started flushing them. George didn’t suspect a thing. Then clarity hit. I’d been under the influence for such a long time. Seeing life in full colour made me realise how I couldn’t live in fear any more. And there was Connor, receding into a shell, not even letting me in.

“He’d come back from school with these salty marks on the inside of his glasses – slug trails, I called them. I could tell how bad his day had been by how dirty the lenses were. But they were never clean at the end of a day. Children aren’t supposed to cry that much.

“Eventually, I had to tell George about the baby, I was growing a bump. And boy, did he get angry. He yelled and screamed at me, when he picked up a chair and took aim, I ran to the garden. No one helps screaming women. Should have yelled “fire”. Isn’t that what they say to do in New York, and other big cities? I read it somewhere.”

Feathers moved closer, and took one of her hands between his.

“He remained so calm, dragging me back in the house, landing punches all over me. Kept saying that he ‘
only wanted to talk to me
,’ in this strange, calm voice.

“He took me to the hospital when he was finished, drove to the A&E Unit, and pushed me out by the entrance. I was bleeding by this time.”

“From the cuts?” Feathers asked.

“No
…
between my legs.”

“Oh God. I’m sorry.”

She nodded, and went on, “I gave birth that evening to a little scrap of a baby. I’d been pregnant for twenty-two weeks, and he was surprisingly big. Babies can survive at such an early age, but he couldn’t be resuscitated. Didn’t want to breathe. Can’t blame him. They say in Portugal, that the spirit of an unborn child floats around the mother during the pregnancy, and only enters as it’s born. I don’t think he liked what he’d seen.

“They placed him in my arms, wrapped in a blue blanket, his little face peaceful, like he was asleep. He was perfect, even had tiny fingernails, his skin paper-thin and soft, I spent the evening caressing him.

“I released myself the next morning. The hospital didn’t want me to, but I hadn’t heard from Connor, and I was terrified about what I’d find when I got home.”

“Why not call the police?” Feathers said.

“Don’t know
…
just needed to do it all myself. I called a taxi, considered asking him to wait, like they do in the movies, in case I needed to leave, fast. But I didn’t have the cash. The driver was this burly,
thick-moustached Jewish man.
He’d spent the journey saying he was sorry about the bruises on my face. Men seem to need to apologise for the misdoings of other males. I’ve found that.

“I stayed in the road while the taxi pulled away, waited while he turned into the next street before I walked up the path.

“The door wasn’t locked, so I tiptoed inside and explored the downstairs. He wasn’t on the ground floor, and I went upstairs. I was getting scared now, real heart in my mouth, my blood pounding through my veins so hard I became almost blind. I wanted to grab some things, get Connor as he came back from school, and disappear. But I still didn’t know where George was.

“I searched my bedroom first, then the bathroom. I expected him to jump out from behind the doors, attack me. I kept turning around; so he couldn’t sneak up, catch me unawares. I went to Connor’s room last, thinking I’d pack some of his clothes.

“But he wasn’t at school. He was lying in his bed, hidden under the covers. The duvet
shook
as I closed the door. I avoided the floorboard that always creaked, and went to his bed.

“I whispered, ‘It’s me,’ and sat on the floor. I told him I’d lost the baby, and he started crying, and all I could think about was whether he had slug trails on his glasses yet.” Izzy gazed at the curtains, and wished they were pulled closed against the day.

“I asked him why he’d stayed home. I realised the answer as I said the words, understood why he remained hidden under the covers, but I couldn’t take it back. It was said. But Connor didn’t reply, so I asked where George was. He held his breath for a moment, and then spoke abruptly from under the covers, blasting the words out. ‘I don’t know,’ he shouted. He was terrified, truly.”

Izzy fell silent, she’d been leaning against Connor’s bed, her back to him. She turned, in slow motion, one hand clenched over the sharp ache in her stomach, her other hand stretched out – reaching for the duvet, pulling it back and exposing Connor. Simultaneously, a glob of blood fell onto the pad between her legs, her milk came in, squirting warm liquid into her bra, and she rested her eyes on the battered face of her son.

“I told him we were leaving.”

“Jesus.” Feathers sat cross-legged at the edge of the bed.

She curled away from him and stared blankly at the wall.

“That’s how I got here. Went to a shelter. Picked Reading with a map and a pin. Single women and their kids
…
the lengths they’ll go to,” she said ruefully. “So how’d you get a flat?” she asked.

“Well
…
I didn’t go to such lengths.”

He smiled, humourlessly, his face sad, honest. With great gulping sobs, Izzy remembered her lost boy. She might have called him William. He would have had auburn hair and green eyes. He would have looked like her father, because she couldn’t live with a child that reminded her of George.

Feathers stretched across the bed, beside Izzy, wrapped her in strong gentle arms and a scent of lilac. His fingers caressed her back, kneading tight muscles.

“Are you sure George killed the rabbit?” Feathers asked.

“Yes.”

“But
…
why?”

“Control. He has a need to control. I just can’t believe he’s found me.” She pulled away from Feathers and held her hands out.

“I called the police,” Feathers said. “Apparently I shouldn’t have cleaned up. Sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter. Thanks for cleaning.” She remembered something, turned to him, her face pale. “Did you see the words?”

“Words?” Feathers grasped her hands.

“Yes. The words? Did you see them?” She pushed at him, wanting to run to the door, but he’d cleaned the rabbit up. “There were words, one on the floor written in blood. The other was
…
written with the intestines.”

Feathers sat thinking, his hands dropping to his lap. “Words?” he finally repeated.

“George wrote ‘
You’re dead.
’”

“With rabbit blood and intestines?”

“Yes.”

His eyes drifted away from her face.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t notice anything.” He shook his head. He’d tied back his hair, and the ponytail flopped back and forth. “That’s scary.”

Izzy clambered off the bed, walked over to the window, closed the curtains until they were only slightly apart, and peeked out. She shivered and pulled her rabbit-blood curtains closed.

“Oh sweetheart.” Cathy stepped over the threshold, and gave Izzy a hug. “When are the police coming?”

“Soon, I suppose,” Izzy said, walking off to the living room. “You’d think someone spray painted my front door, for the speed of the response.” She flopped down on the sofa.

“Oh poppet. Don’t say that.” Cathy turned away as the doorbell buzzed. “Bet that’s them now. I probably shouldn’t stay – but I’ll come back later?”

Izzy nodded. “Yes
…
please. I need all the comfort I can get.”

“Fine, that’s a date then.” The doorbell rang out again. “I’ll get it on my way out.”

“Cheers, Cath.”

Cathy strode off, seconds later opening the front door. Izzy listened to a brief, but muffled conversation. A policeman walked into the living room.