Winter Damage (11 page)

Ennor shrugged. ‘Int you got things to do? Other things beside.’

‘Nope. Everyone tells me I’m just a kid so here I am bein just a kid.’

Ennor wondered about the ‘just a kid’ bit and thought about her own life. She supposed there was something comforting about the routine drudge no matter how hard the work and she wondered whose life was better and whose was worse. Hands worn from fiddling as opposed to idling made more sense to her; there was point to it, a reason. Maybe she herself wasn’t such a dumb kid after all.

‘So what you think of the view?’

Ennor looked down into the cavity and her stomach lurched. She was no longer a lifting bird but a tumbling rock, fear rolling her all ways towards lower ground.

She looked at the falling fire, a crucible of scolding heat bubbling within the void as it tried to lure her in. It would put her into the ground and into hell, for ever buried and burning with the grizzly toothed boy.

‘Hellfire,’ said Sonny. ‘Some view, int it?’

‘I feel dizzy.’

‘No you don’t.’

‘I do. I feel dizzy and I can’t breathe.’

Sonny laughed and she punched her in the arm. ‘I knew you’d like it.’

‘I did but not so much now. I feel sick.’

‘Lay back a bit then. You scared of heights or somethin?’

Ennor sat with her back against the woodpile and she tried to focus on something solid, then she closed her eyes but that was worse. The light of fire danced before her and she opened them again quick snap.

‘You gonna get sick?’ asked Sonny. ‘Hell, if I knew you were a scaredy cat at heights, I’d have come on me own.’

‘I just don’t feel so good.’

‘Well whatever. Show you my secret hideout and this is what I get.’

The fire sent sparks into the sky and Ennor watched holes burn dark in the grey that threw down snowflakes in return. She had killed a boy. She really had killed a boy.

All around flashes of white circled the girls and landed on their faces and Ennor caught them on her tongue and licked the ice gone.

‘It’s snowin,’ she said. ‘It’s snowin and everythin’s gone wrong.’ She started to giggle.

Sonny looked at her and shook her head. ‘Maybe we should get goin after all. In a minute we’ll be in a snow cave and not of our choosin.’

Ennor looked at the fire and watched Sonny kick it over and she looked at the view as it filled with white fuzz.

‘It’s snowin,’ she said again.

‘Really? You don’t say!’

‘I gotta find my mum before the snow comes back.’

‘Snow’s back.’ Sonny pulled her to her feet and started to walk towards the forest and Ennor followed.

They walked for what seemed like the longest time and Ennor looked at her wrist and wondered again where her watch was. ‘What time is it?’ she asked.

Sonny shrugged. ‘Afternoon maybe.’

The forest echoed a dim light that was both night and day. Shadows were slow to disappear but movement of some kind sloped between the slats of trees and Ennor’s eyes were caught and pinched between them. She looked down at her feet and saw them walking, one and two, and she tried to count her footsteps to keep her mind off the shadows but fear was everywhere.

Snipers watched her from the trees and she gripped on to Sonny’s arm and speeded up to keep the target moving.

‘You OK?’ asked Sonny.

She nodded.

‘You don’t look so good.’

Ennor ignored her, not because of reasons but because fear had bitten her tongue and scabbed her mouth shut. The dead boy was everywhere.

‘You can have a rest back at the trailer. I don’t mind.’

Ennor nodded again.

‘You can have the bed if you want. Just till you settle some. Spose sleepin rough int the best for spirit. Still feelin dizzy?’

Ennor shook her head. ‘Not so much. What you gonna tell your dad bout the traps?’

‘I told you, nothin much. Just zip it.’

When they got to the trailer Ennor lay on Sonny’s bed and she listened out for anything that resembled argument but there was nothing but the whirr of campsite laughter and she slept with the comforting cloak of another world wrapped tight around her.

CHAPTER SIX

The two girls sat on the bed and emptied the rucksack of Ennor’s worldly goods and they replaced them with cartons of homebrew.

‘You feelin better?’ asked Sonny.

Ennor nodded. She supposed so; an hour of sleep had her numbed a little. ‘You carryin that on your back?’ she asked, pointing to the rucksack.

‘Why not?’

‘Looks heavy.’

‘Well it int. Hell, anyway we won’t be luggin it for long, will we?’

Sonny looked over Ennor’s things and laughed and she picked up the gun with a shrug.

‘Spose this is quite a fun thing for a girl like you to be carryin.’

Ennor stood up. ‘Give it here.’

‘Quite a strange thing in fact.’

‘Just pass it.’

‘What’s it for? Or shouldn’t I ask?’

‘Huntin, whatever. Give it.’

Sonny tossed it on to the bed and narrowed her eyes towards thinking something.

‘I thought you said the party was out of camp?’ said Ennor.

‘It is. The stone circle other side of the site.’ She picked up the photo of Ennor’s parents and weighed the frame in her hands. ‘This is worth a few bob, I reckon, without the borin photo obviously.’

‘Give it back.’ Ennor snatched it from her hand and put it with her other things on the table by the bed and she warned Sonny she’d better not touch anything because if she did she’d be dead meat and she meant it.

‘Big arms or no, just leave my home stuff alone.’

‘Calm down, little one. Just lookin.’

Ennor thought about Trip and she suddenly felt sick to her sides with worry. She hoped Butch was doing OK. Trip’s autism was mostly under control but he had his colourful days.

She pictured his face when she had said goodbye. He had tried to be strong because that was what she had asked of him; his mouth had turned down and his eyes filled with tears but still he smiled, his sister’s brave little boy.

Sonny told her to snap out of wherever she was drifting because she’d volunteered to help with taking wood down to the party site and she was now volunteering Ennor.

‘Means we get on the men’s side.’ She jammed the stuffed rucksack under the bed and pulled Ennor outside when her mother appeared in the hallway in her dressing gown.

‘You int got much respect for your mother, have you?’ Ennor said.

‘I give her plenty, girl, but it’s a two-way street and, besides, there’s no way I’m goin into the family movie business so, hell, I’m forever dodgin bullets one way or other.’

‘She looks nice.’

‘Yeah, well, looks can be deceivin.’

They walked up towards the forest and Sonny made Ennor promise that what she might see she’d keep to herself.

‘Don’t want the forestry on us. Aggressive sods, they is.’

‘You cuttin down trees then?’

Sonny smiled. ‘We like to call it thinnin. Trimmin and thinnin.’

‘What if I was a forestry spy?’

Sonny shrugged. ‘I’d have to kill you I spose.’

Some of the men were pleased to see Sonny and they tussled her hair and pretended to fight and she introduced Ennor and told them she could be trusted.

‘She’s good, I promise. Not from any rivals or nothing. She’s on her own, int you, girl?’

A dark leathered man beckoned Ennor towards a clearing where they were sawing trunks into great wedged logs with a giant two-man handsaw. He asked her name and her father’s name and when she told him he nodded as if the name meant something to him and she wondered if he’d ever kept Simmentals.

‘What’s a pretty girl like you doin walkin the moor alone?’ he asked and Ennor tried to tell him in a roundabout way and it came out like a car-crash lie and he told her to be mindful travelling alone because things had gotten worse about the county and some places were turning into war zones.

Ennor went to answer but he’d turned his back and was shouting for them to load the wheelbarrows.

‘He’s one of the bosses. He likes you.’ Sonny grinned. ‘Pretty girl like you. Int that sweet?’

They loaded the logs into two corroded wheelbarrows and followed others carrying wood down to the stone circle.

‘It’s gonna be great. Dad got us a pig from somewhere and we’re gonna roast it over the fire, like a ram roast but with pig. You eat pig?’

‘Course.’

‘Not a Jew or Muslim then? Only you got a bit of somethin holy flashin hot in your eyes.’

‘I’m Methodist, was brought up Methodist.’

‘Knew it. Makes you mad, don’t it? All that gotta do this, gotta do that.’

‘Not really.’

‘Yeah really.’

They walked in single file with Sonny leading the way through the newly settled snow.

Occasionally Ennor’s wheel got stuck in a drift and Sonny laughed and said maybe she should ask God for help. ‘Loads of people have gone holy recent with the country fallin apart. They think cus you believe somethin all a sudden it’s gonna save you. I tell you somethin, prayin won’t put food on the table. Won’t rid us of snow either.’

Ennor watched the girl push ahead with the barrow, her long dark hair knotted in the wind and her mouth shouting and singing and going on, and she wondered if she ever shut up. If she was honest, there was something she liked about Sonny; she was everything that Ennor wasn’t.

‘Come on, slowcoach, hell! Or shouldn’t I say that?’

‘You say it all the time. Why should I care?’ Ennor gave the barrow an almighty push and its contents veered into the snow and she fell after it.

‘There is a God,’ laughed Sonny as she pulled Ennor to her feet. ‘You’re a regular disaster zone, int you?’

Down at the stone circle the women were arranging crates and car seats in among the standing stones and the girls handed over the wood.

‘Cigarette?’ asked Sonny.

‘Hey, that’s mine.’

‘Mine now. Let’s say it’s payment for the Coco Pops.’

Ennor couldn’t be bothered to argue. Her bum hurt from falling and she was trying not to think about all the grown-up things she should be putting her mind to. She wished she had some of Sonny’s bouncy madness. The girl didn’t seem to have one care in the world and she hoped a little of the fizz would rub off on her. Ennor nudged her and told her she needed a drink.

They returned to camp to collect the drinks stash and they got themselves ready by sharing a two-pint carton of scrumpy and rolling the last of the tobacco into as many cigarettes as it would stretch.

‘Seven each.’ Sonny nodded to herself. ‘Plenty and don’t go offerin them to nobody.’

‘Like who? I don’t know anybody.’

‘You’ll see. Smoke um sneaky so you don’t get asked.’

They stepped out into the hard-bitten twilight and listened to the singing that spiked and carried on the wind and they followed it down to the party.

‘We’ll sit high so nobody can see the booze. You need to be sneaky with that as well.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll drink it quick enough.’

‘Thought Methodists dint drink.’

Ennor ignored her and held on to the rucksack that was pinned to Sonny’s back and she followed her into the black-and-white night. ‘What we celebratin anyway?’

‘The shortest day.’

‘Why’s that worth celebratin?’

‘I dunno, it’s pagan or somethin. You can stop with the questions now, you’re borin me.’ She sped up and Ennor nearly fell and she shouted for her to slow down because she couldn’t see through the falling snow.

‘I can’t. The bag’s dictatin.’

The two girls slipped and slid down the hill into the crowd and they fell laughing head over heels to the ground.

Ennor lay for a moment and turned to watch the flames of the fire lick and snip at the dancing feet and she felt its warmth soak into her veins.

Sonny was shouting something to her and she realised she was still holding on to the bag and this made her laugh even more.

‘Get up!’ Sonny pulled her to her feet and she shouted above the noise of singing and drums to follow her.

‘We need to find a high point away from everyone. Stop draggin your heels.’

They climbed the other side of the scoop of land that surrounded the stone circle and the gigantic fire within and sat on a bumped slab of granite and dug their boots into the ground.

‘Scrumpy or beer?’

‘Scrumpy.’

Sonny opened the rucksack between her knees and she glanced about to check for eyes and then asked Ennor what was wrong with the beer.

‘Nothin, just a bit soapy.’

‘Beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to homebrew. Anyway the boys are only makin scrumpy now cus of the apples we bin storin.’

She passed one of the plastic milk cartons to Ennor and watched her drink.