Torn (4 page)

Weavers Cottage could feel claustrophobic after the bright airiness of the London flat. The ceilings were low, the furniture dark and bulky, the windows small. They'd only lived there since September but even in high summer it was unlikely the cottages would ever be really light. The hill behind them rose so steeply there was little chance of seeing much of the sun whatever time of year. It was good out here and she wanted to stay, just for a little longer, where the day was still bright, and the air sharp, cold, and peaty.

She had always done her maternal duty. She'd taken Rory to Greenwich Park, to the Royal Observatory, where he'd listened bemused to her explanation of the meridian line. She'd taken him to playgrounds and for strolls along the Thames' waterfront, past the Cutty Sark, still being renovated behind its hoardings, and past the Maritime Museum and the graceful buildings of the Royal Naval College. They'd been on pleasure boats packed in with the other tourists. But ‘going out for a walk' had never been an activity she chose for her own pleasure.

‘Come on, let's climb the hill,' she decided suddenly. ‘See what's on the other side?' She might have expected a grumbling response along the lines of ‘my legs hurt' or ‘I'm tired.' but Rory simply accepted her suggestion and began to scramble with her up the scrubby footpath. The climb was steep.

‘Phew!' Rory said after a while. ‘This is a hard hill to climb.' Jess paused; no doubt there was an easier path to the top than the one they'd chosen, but he ignored her proffered hand and pressed on, shouldering his way past branches and snagging bramble without mum's help. The higher they climbed the more the trees crowded in.

‘It's dark too.' The tough man pose was forgotten as he turned to Mum for reassurance. ‘Do you think dragons live here?'

‘There are no dragons …' It was the adult's automatic response to the child's anxiety and yet Jessica did not want to strip Rory's imagination of magic and mystery too soon. Time enough for the world to become ordinary and prosaic. ‘… any more. But this is just the kind of wood where they might have lived when there were still dragons. Shall we see if we can find a dragon's lair?'

For some time they scuffed about among the dead leaves and fallen trunks and branches, and eventually came upon a depression partially enclosed by the broken down remains of a stone wall, smothered with ivy, moss, and bramble. Hard to imagine what this might have been on the apex of such a steep hill. No matter, it was the best they could come up with as a potential lair for dragons and Rory at least seemed satisfied. He patrolled its margins striking at the tumbled walls with the stick he'd found to use as a sword or a spear – just in case of dragon attack.

For a while they romped about, wading knee deep through the leaf-filled hollow, scrabbling over the rubble of mossy stone, hiding behind tree trunks. Jessica roared and chased Rory. Rory squealed and ran, then squared up to her, stick raised in best Excalibur fashion. After a while Jess wearied; they'd laughed so much that Rory had started coughing but he was at first unwilling to give up the game and quit the dragon's lair. At last he was diverted by the prospect of finding out what they'd be able to see from the other side of the hill.

His cough calmed as they walked on. Jessica breathed in deeply. This was a good swap, wasn't it? Far better for her son to grow up with these smells of earth and leaf mould and sweet country air, rather than the grit and dirt and chemical fallout from bumper to bumper traffic. He already had asthma but here, surely, he had the best chance of growing out of it.

As they crested the hill and walked on a few yards down the far slope, the trees and undergrowth thinned until they were awarded the expected view to the south. Here the immediate landscape was again agricultural and undulating. At the foot of the steep descent was a lane, then the silver trail of a narrow river drew a meandering line. In one of the fields beyond the river there were sheep; a figure moved amongst them. Despite the bucolic serenity of the scene, the country on this side of the high, ridged hill was more populated, more intersected by roads. Even from this distance the new estates were easily picked out with the regular grid patterns and uniform red brick and roof tiles. The accretions of habitation grew denser and more irregular until, two or three miles further on, they coalesced into the small market town of Warford, where Sean had jumped her on Friday night. A chill frisson scampered down her spine.

Mother and son sat awhile on a log but Rory's tolerance of staying in one place and ‘just looking' was strictly limited without a picnic to consume, a kite to fly, or a story to listen to on his MP3 player.

‘OK. Home then, James,' Jess said.

‘Mummy, why do you always call me James when it's time to go home?'

Jessica laughed and ruffled his hair. ‘It's a kind of joke,' she said eventually.

‘It doesn't make me laugh.' Rory then ran on ahead and, thankful that he seemed to require no further enlightenment, Jess reflected upon the cliché. The name, at once short hand for the rich man's chauffeur was just as likely to belong to the rich man himself.

‘This wood is private property!' an angry male voice suddenly bellowed.

Chapter Three

Rory's blanched little face popped up from behind one of the broken walls. A black dog ran straight at Jess; it barked and rearing up, planted its paws on her chest, before dropping back to the ground. Rory's face disappeared abruptly; he was frightened of dogs. The possibility of the dragon returning to his lair was evidently less worrying than the sudden appearance of a barking dog and a shouting man.

The effect of the angry male voice was like a douse of icy water, galvanising her fear of Sean's re-emergence into her life. A consuming rage flashed through her body and brain in one explosive moment. Her heart pumped hard and fast. She'd had enough of aggressive men; men pushing their weight about; men shouting at her and her child. Men with stupid, lolloping, drooling, out of control dogs.

‘How dare you! How dare you!' Jess screeched, beside herself with fury at the man who'd waved a branch at them, a branch he still gripped.

‘How dare I?' the man roared in response, his voice threatening to go off the Richter scale. The dog bounded back to him and then returned in a sudden dash towards Jess, highly excited, apparently convinced this shouting match was part of some incomprehensible human game.

‘Get that stupid, bloody Rottweiler under control! Yes! How dare you shout at me and my child out of the blue!'

‘I dare because you're bloody trespassers, that's why!' There was still anger in his voice but his tone moderated a little as he neared her, now using the branch as a walking stick not a weapon.

‘Trespassers? Trespassers?' Aware she was repeating herself, her brain was taking its time to come up with a better response. ‘… There were no fences, no signs! How are we supposed to know? Anyway, we came up a footpath.'

‘Not an official footpath!'

‘What about the right to roam?'

‘The what …?' His already glowering expression darkened to disgust. ‘I'm afraid you're displaying the typical bloody ignorance of the public. For all its faults, that piece of stupidly misguided and interfering legislation only applies to designated areas of open uncultivated countryside, like mountainsides or moorland. Not here. And I can do without you and your bloody hippy friends crashing around in these woods.'

Hippy …? Was that how he saw her? She might favour the more eccentric end of the spectrum, but her clothes were still designer. Obviously this turnip head had no eye for fashion. Perhaps he'd made the assumption because of her ultra-short hair and nose stud. Even so, how dare he adopt that imperious tone with her? That he made such sweeping judgements on appearance alone condemned him not only as prejudiced, but superficial. Two could play at that game, though she disdained to do so. What did he think
he
looked like? His swarthy complexion was decidedly suspect, and his Romany dark hair had seen neither scissors nor comb for longer than was respectable. It was hardly lunchtime yet the heavy roll of a sweater was up around a jaw on which shadows far later than five o'clock had gathered. His Barbour was completely worn out, cracked and filthy, as were the jeans tucked into his muddy Wellingtons.

‘What are you planning to do?' he continued. ‘Bring your benders up here so you can hug the trees? Bleat that property is theft? The earth's the rightful inheritance of the many not the few? And all landowners are greedy grasping bastards whose primary aim is to murder birds, foxes, and fluffy bunnies?'

Fluffy bunnies? The man was seriously deranged. ‘I do happen to think that blood sports are fairly repellent …'

‘Have you ever seen a lamb savaged and left to die by a fox? They don't just kill to eat you know, they kill for fun!'

‘And why do humans hunt, if not for sport?' Jess flashed back. ‘Anyway … I didn't start this argument. You raised the subject. I'm new to the area. How was I supposed to know this is a private wood? My three-year-old son and I came up the footpath to look at the view. He's now cowering behind that wall scared to death! We're not vandals. We've done no damage, we were only walking …'

‘You'd think it was OK if I decided to walk around on your land, would you?'

‘My land?' Jess was almost lost for words. ‘I've a tiny postage stamp at the front. Three paces in any direction and you'd be at the boundary. And the back garden rises so steeply you couldn't walk its length without crampons.'

Abruptly he asked, ‘Are you in one of the cottages?'

‘Weavers.'

‘Well … just don't trespass. We've had all sorts of trouble up here. Wanton destruction. Illegal bonfires. Theft.'

‘Theft?' Jess looked around, spreading out her arms, gloved hands splayed. ‘Of what?'

‘You'd be surprised. People come up here to steal wood for their fires.'

She stared at him. ‘You're right. I am surprised. Surprised you begrudge a bit of kindling. How do you know it's missing? Do you come up here and count the fallen twigs? Bloody hell! I didn't know people like you still existed. OK, so you've obviously a fine notion of the value of everything … how about compensating me?'

‘You?' She had obviously astounded him. ‘For what?'

‘For the damage done by your bloody Rottweiler.'

‘She's a Labrador Border Collie cross. And she's only a puppy!'

The dog's coat was a bit fluffy, Jess now noticed, and there were irregular white patches on its shaggy hind legs.

‘And a puppy can't do damage?' Pointedly she looked down at her Noa Noa jacket and trousers, streaked with mud and drool. ‘Cleaning bill!'

‘Mummy, Mummy! I want to go home now! I want to see Tubs,' whimpered a small voice. Rory raised his arms in mute appeal to be carried.

When Jessica and Rory arrived home the mature tabby cat was under the car – a dark blue, BMW convertible – parked directly outside the cottage. As they turned in at the gate he loped to the front door. Given his age and waistline he performed a surprisingly sinuous and rapid slalom between their legs en-route.

‘Hello, Tubs! Lovely Tubs!' Rory exclaimed, throwing himself onto his knees on the doorstep and hugging the flea-bitten old cat with the tattered ear. Jess recalled Sheila's recent injunction to make sure she checked Rory's hair regularly for nits. She shuddered as she looked down at her son's dark head pressed against the cat's fur. Just what I need. Both of them crawling. But there was no way she was going to intervene. He'd had enough to cope with today without her breaking up the embrace, however unhygienic it might be.

Although she'd no intention of lumbering herself with a pet, Rory, Mrs Dell next door, and the cat himself, had all conspired against her. The cat, then named Tiggy, belonged to the previous tenant, an old lady who'd gone into a nursing home in the spring, entrusting his care to her neighbour. But Mrs Dell already had a black tom of her own, unaccountably called Bob, and Bob and Tiggy did not get on it. As soon as the new tenants arrived Tiggy had begun to insinuate his way back into ‘his house'.

No matter how often Jess had shooed him from the doorstep, ignoring his plaintive appeals for food – food he'd doubtless already consumed next door – or how she'd tried to stiffen her resolve against his reproachful gaze through the window, he still came back. It was when he began to knock on the front door that the die was cast. He would leap up and patter his paws against the letter flap, and unable to see whether or not this was a bona fide caller, Jess would open the door. A snake of grey, white, and mink fur would slither rapidly between her legs and by the time she got to him, he would already be curled-up, purring defiantly by the wood-burning stove.

Anyway, Rory had loved him instantly; and there had already been too much upheaval in Rory's little life to force him to part with someone else he loved – albeit a mangy cat. Jess was doubtful the cat loved either of them back; Tiggy was simply willing to put up with Rory's constant maulings, even allowing himself to be re-christened Tubs, rather than give up Top Cat status in the place he regarded as his own domain.

Now Tubs wound figures of eight around her ankles. She sighed and even before taking off her coat picked up the saucers from the kitchen floor, one encrusted with dark scabs of uneaten cat food, the other still wet with separating milk, and put them in the sink. The kitchen had a sour, cheesy, fishy smell; she wrinkled her nose while washing the saucers and made a mental note to get the cat checked out at the vet's.

All the nursery helpers had arrived well in advance of the children to set up for the nativity play. Now, with half an hour before the young actors and their proud families were due, they were talking about their plans for Christmas with varying degrees of optimism and anticipation. Sheila was going to Barcelona with a friend.