Winter Damage (29 page)

One of them laughed. It was the mouthy one from earlier, the one Sonny had knocked out.

‘Just lookin to share your fire,’ he shouted. ‘What’s your problem?’

‘You is.’

‘That’s not so nice. You got that pretty one with you?’

‘What’s it to you?’

‘I’m here,’ said Ennor. ‘What you want?’

‘Well let me see, for starters a hello would be nice.’ His voice was irritating and loaded with connotations and he made the others laugh.

‘Hello,’ said Ennor, moving forward. ‘Now go back to whatever rock you climbed out from.’

‘That’s not very nice.’

‘It weren’t meant nice.’

‘Weren’t nice how your friend here whacked me cross the face for nothin.’

‘You asked for it.’ Ennor could see Sonny looking at her from out the corner of her eye, but it was too late now, she was rolling. She let down the hammer on the gun and pointed it at him, Ennor Carne had killed once and she could kill again.

‘I reckon you should probably stop walkin roundabout now and tell your boys to get from circlin. We int stupid.’

The boy smiled, said something about starting over, but Ennor wasn’t for starting over any more. Not with anyone or anything.

‘You seen them pack of dogs runnin mad in the town down there? Abandoned, unloved, homeless? Well that’s us, see?’ She waved the barrel of the gun in his face. ‘That’s us.’

The boy put his hands into his jacket pocket and nodded. ‘That’s us and all,’ he said.

Ennor kept hold of the gun and she screamed that she had killed a boy and could kill another and she shook so hard the barrel swung out into the darkness.

‘Give me the gun,’ said Sonny and she lifted the rifle over Ennor’s head.

Ennor heard her say that it would be OK, that they would all be OK, but the flood of tears that engulfed her indicated it was anything but.

Sonny walked her back to the fire and she shouted to the lads that they were welcome to join them if first they scouted the hedges for firewood.

‘What you say that for?’ said Ennor.

Sonny shrugged. ‘All the same, int we? Pack of mad dogs.’ She sat Ennor close to the fire and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. ‘Besides, might get um to dig the grave for us.’

‘How’d you do that?’

‘Payment somehow, I still got saleables in me bumbag.’

‘Like what?’

‘Jewellery mostly, gold and stuff.’

‘Where from?’

‘Home, ’cept it int home no more.’

‘What you mean?’

‘Went round nickin before I came after you, dint I? Thought it would be useful and it is.’

Ennor started to laugh. ‘That’s why you can’t go back?’

Sonny nodded. ‘Dint want to anyhow. Don’t matter.’

The four lads went out into the dark and soon returned with roots of bracken and the occasional rotten branch and they seemed happy to be working, like they needed something to do and someone to tell them to do it.

‘You can have some biscuits for your trouble,’ said Sonny. ‘Half a pack is all we got left.’

The boys were overjoyed, like light and life had come back into their lives in an instant.

The seven of them sat hunched to the fire eating biscuits and sharing stories and Ennor felt like she was back at school, hanging and idling with the villagers. Seven kids the same, a brotherhood, and she counted them over for the pleasure that was the number seven forming on her lips. Luck perhaps.

‘You got no home to go to?’ asked Lee, the big mouth one.

Ennor shook her head.

‘Me neither. Only had a mother anyways.’

‘What happened to her?’

‘Knocked down.’

‘Hit-and-run,’ added a younger boy. ‘She was my mum un all. What happened to your friend?’

‘He died,’ said Trip.

‘What of? The cold?’

‘Kind of,’ said Ennor. ‘Amongst other things.’

‘The cold finished him,’ added Sonny and she took the chance to ask if they would help dig the grave later and they said they would without her having to open the bumbag.

‘Where you bin livin?’ asked Lee through a mouthful of biscuit.

‘The moor,’ said Ennor. ‘Can’t say how long, a week, maybe two.’

‘Why’d you wanna stay up there in this weather?’

Ennor smiled. ‘I forget.’

‘And you?’ he asked Sonny.

‘Live up there. Used to anyway. Everythin’s changed now, we’re all on the road same as.’

Ennor could tell there was more the boy wanted to ask and she said as much.

‘You killed a boy?’ he asked.

She shrugged.

‘He was a rum un so it don’t count,’ said Sonny. ‘A bunny boy by all accounts.’

‘He had a name?’

‘Rabbit,’ said Ennor and she wondered if she should feel guilty, she didn’t.

‘Rabbit?’ asked the boy. ‘Funny looker with teeth like daggers?’

Ennor nodded.

‘Nothin wrong with Rabbit, saw him few days back. Wanted to join up and we told him to go hang. Right odd one off the moor.’ He laughed and the others joined in. ‘We’ll crack on with that diggin if you want. Keep us warm, won’t it.’

Sonny walked them down to the grave.

‘You killed a rabbit?’ asked Trip.

Ennor petted his head and said they were just joking and she closed her eyes briefly to allow herself to be released from damnation. She did not kill the boy and she wanted to scream and she wanted to cry relief but instead she looked at Trip and smiled.

‘Funny boys,’ said Trip.

‘You like um?’

‘No. Are they comin on the boat?’

‘Doubt it. They int got nothin to barter for the ride.’

Trip smiled. ‘We do. We got horses, int we, and Sonny’s gold.’

‘How you know bout Sonny’s gold?’

‘She showed me.’

‘She got a lot?’

‘Loads, she gave me this.’ He unbuttoned the collar of his coat and showed her the small gold pendant hanging on a chain around his neck.

‘It’s a Saint Christopher,’ she said.

‘I know.’ He grinned, delighted with himself. ‘Saint of travellers. Sonny said he’d look after me in the boat and all my life. She got one too cus she’s a traveller.’

Ennor put an arm around him and pulled him close. ‘When she give it to you?’

‘Earlier, when you were sad.’ He turned abruptly and looked up at her. ‘You int sad no more, are you?’

Ennor shook her head. ‘Not any more.’ She smiled.

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

She watched Sonny boss the boys and a great ache lifted and wedged itself crossways inside her belly. Sonny had given Trip the pendant to keep him safe because she wouldn’t be there to do it herself.

Ennor snuggled Trip into his blanket with the dog close by and she told him to get some sleep, they had a big day ahead of them tomorrow, a great adventure.

She sat with a burning twig between her fingers and when the flame died to smoke she put it to her mouth for familiarity and thought about the dead boy that was no longer dead. A bit of history that belonged to her with the good and the bad reversed.

At the bottom of the field Sonny and the boys were putting their backs into digging Butch’s grave and they would soon have it ready. She looked out and deep into the night’s sky and wondered if heaven was waiting to accept him, settling a little corner among the righteous and the concealed stars.

Ennor hadn’t seen much of stars or the moon or the sun since her first day walking out on to the moor and she wondered if beneath the grub they were all pale as clean sheets.

Ghosts from out of the woodwork and beneath the snow shelf, poor imitations of their even poorer selves.

The whole of Cornwall could have been sky but for the buttons of fire that studded the black horizon. Tiny fires in the snow built for doing or saying something same as their own.

She turned an ear towards the others and they were laughing, getting on and she listened to the night air and heard shouts and the racket of street life in a country gone wrong.

The clatter and smack of people getting used to doing what they pleased.

She thought about her mother and father. Separate except in the making of her and Trip, and she reached for the rucksack and felt for the cold metal of the picture frame. In the firelight she cradled the photo in her lap, Mum and Dad. She didn’t even recognise them.

She wondered about the boat ride tomorrow and their future as usual uncertain in the hands of destiny and she bent to kiss Trip’s sleepy head and settled in behind him and closed her eyes. They were sore from crying and blinking in the acrid smoke and although it hurt to keep them shut she told herself to rest. Butch was dead, Dad was dead, but Ennor would be strong and go on.

Sometime in the night or maybe it was morning she woke to find Sonny’s hand against her cheek and she told her they had put Butch in the ground.

‘Do you want to say somethin? Prayers and stuff?’

Ennor nodded and she sat up and pulled Sonny close.

‘I know,’ whispered Sonny.

‘What?’

‘Just that, I know.’

‘Sonny?’

‘Don’t.’

‘What?’

‘Ask me bout comin, it’s hard enough.’

They stood and held on to each other as if they were at the edge of some precipice and in a way they were, and there was so much Ennor wanted to say that there were no words to say it.

‘Why you huggin?’ asked Trip. ‘Why you whisperin?’

‘We’re goin to say goodbye to Butch,’ said Ennor.

‘In the grave and off to heaven?’

Sonny smiled. ‘Somethin like that.’

They walked down the field and the boys took off their hats and held them in their hands out of respect. Ennor stood at the head of the grave and she closed her eyes and prayed.

She said words from the Bible that she didn’t believe and words from her heart that she did and everyone was quiet and nodding. There was something about the occasion that was everyday ridiculous and it made her smile and then she laughed. The others joined in and they kicked the rock earth back into the ground with smiles on their faces, everything everyday and normal.

‘He’s gone now,’ said Trip. ‘Can I go back to sleep?’

Ennor nodded. ‘Course you can, buddy. You can sleep as long as you like.’

The boys finished off the shovelling and Ennor and Sonny walked back to the dying fire.

They watched dawn break to the east of the sea and saw it blow colour in a bleed of reds and pinks across the horizon.

‘You know what that is?’ asked Sonny.

‘What?’

‘That’s a good sign.’

Ennor smiled. ‘How’d you know?’

‘Cus I know everythin and I know a good sign when I see one.’

‘Thought you dint believe in um.’

‘This one’s different. It’s real.’

They sat and watched the world come anew and when it was time to go they rode down to the harbour in silence with the ragtag boys in tow.

The harbour was quiet apart from a family of four and they gave away the horses and sat near to the strangers, waiting for the boat to arrive.

‘I saw that necklace you gave Trip,’ said Ennor.

‘I know, kind, int I?’

‘Can’t sway you to come, can I.’

Sonny shook her head. ‘All that confinement and kids and the boat trip will takes days, maybe weeks, hell.’

‘What you gonna do?’

Sonny shrugged. ‘Hang with the lads. See if we can’t reclaim our future somehow.’

‘Don’t get into trouble.’

Sonny raised her eyebrows and this made Ennor laugh. ‘OK, don’t get into
too much
trouble.’

‘I won’t.’

‘Promise?’

‘I promise.’

‘I got somethin for you.’ She reached under her scarf and lifted her necklace over her head.

‘Your lucky fishbone,’ laughed Sonny.

‘You might need the luck more than me.’

Sonny nodded and she let Ennor tie it around her neck.

‘I just wanna say thank you,’ said Ennor.

‘For what?’

‘Everythin.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘More than that.’

‘More than everythin? Hell.’

Ennor sighed. ‘For teachin me stuff, bout life. You taught me to love life. I’ll miss that, I’ll miss you.’

Sonny smiled. ‘It’s true you don’t make lists any more and you don’t count half as much.’

Ennor agreed and she looked out to sea to watch the boat drifting towards the shore.

‘This is goodbye then,’ she said.

‘Until the next time,’ said Sonny. ‘You’ll see me along the line. Don’t worry bout that, greenhorn.’