Winter Wood (19 page)

‘Where shall us go?' said Little-Marten. The vastness of what lay out there was overwhelming, and he hadn't given the first thought to what they might do beyond the act of escaping.

‘Down to the Gorji settlement – where we were before. 'Tis dangerous, but 'tis the only place we know. We can sleep in one of the byres till night comes again. Then we can plan to find somewhere safer. And if the Gorji childer do find us, then I don't reckon they'd bring us harm.'

Henty obviously had given the matter some thought, and Little-Marten nodded as he considered the idea. It
was
dangerous, but it couldn't be any worse than the last time they'd been on Gorji territory together. At least they wouldn't have Scurl to contend with – or that great felix. Little-Marten shuddered at the memory of the beast, and of how he and Henty had stood side by side in order to fend it off.

The Gorji byres . . . aye, perhaps they could stay there safe for a night or two. He put his arm about Henty's shoulder, happy as long as she was happy, ready to face anything that might come if they could only face it as one. They were well used to danger – had lived each day of their lives in the shadow of it, and likely always would. And if they were now putting themselves in even greater danger, it seemed worth the risk. A single season together, if they could survive so long, would surely be better than a lifetime apart.

He could just see her face now, and so realized that dawn was beginning to break.

‘We'd best go down, then,' he said.

‘Aye.' Henty shivered and put her arm around his waist, tucking it beneath the bindle-wrap that he carried. ‘What did you bring? Anything to eat?'

‘Load o' cobnuts,' said Little-Marten. ‘Some flatbread. Bit o' baked meat – squirrel . . .' They began to make their way down the hillside. ‘Couple o' tiddies I got from the Naiad – cooked. A smoked eel . . . dried crab-apple . . . some honey-root . . .'

Henty laughed. ‘We shan't starve, then.'

‘No,' said Little-Marten. ‘We shan't starve. Not this day.'

‘
WE MUST MAKE
the effort, though,' said Mum, ‘now that Midge has actually managed to find her. It's only right that we go over and say hello. Oldest living relative and all that.'

But Katie didn't want to go, and George couldn't – he was off on a weekend school trip – so the planned family visit to meet Aunt Celandine was a bit depleted: just Uncle Brian, Midge and Mum.

Perhaps it was just as well. Carol Reeve, the manager at Mount Pleasant, had been enthusiastic about a get-together, but had warned that Miss Howard was uncomfortable amongst crowds of people – disliked the fuss of birthdays and social gatherings, or any situation where she was the centre of attention.

And so it turned out to be. Friday afternoon tea at the retirement home was a brief and awkward affair, Aunt Celandine so vague and distant that she seemed hardly to be there at all. She obviously remembered Midge, and was glad to see her again, but showed no more than polite interest in Uncle Brian and Christine, or in their inevitable talk of family history.
She became a bit more engaged when questioned on her work at the Tone Valley clinic, but even so her replies were short. Dismissive almost. It was a relief when Elaine came to clear the teacups away and it was time to leave.

Midge had felt embarrassed throughout this non-event, and yet, just as they were saying goodbye, there was again that fierce squeeze of the hand, and the sense of something being communicated. She thought she understood, and when Aunt Celandine said, ‘You'll come again?' she said yes, she would try.

‘Amazing woman,' said Uncle Brian, on the car journey home.

‘Wouldn't want the job of looking after her, though,' said Mum. ‘Did you see how she gave that Elaine the runaround? Still, she seems well cared for, and that's a blessing. Must have money, I suppose. Places like that don't come cheap. Anyway, at least we don't have to worry about her. Not sure I'd bother going again.'

‘I wouldn't mind going again.' Midge spoke up from the back seat. ‘I think she's really interesting. I like her.'

‘Do you? I thought she was a bit . . .' Mum's voice trailed off. ‘Well, we'll see. I don't know how you'd get over here, though. It's a bit of a trek.'

There was a pause. Then Uncle Brian cleared his throat and said, ‘Er . . . I might be able to bring you across, if you like, Midge. I'm coming back over this
way again on Sunday, and probably a couple more times during the next few weeks.'

It seemed like a loaded remark, and Mum said, ‘Oh? Why's that then?'

‘Cliff Maybank,' said Uncle Brian. ‘I'm doing a spot of business with him. He's got this shop on ebay and he's going to help me shift all the farm gear out of the Stick House. Should make something on it.'

‘What? Haven't we got enough to do without messing around with auctions? And is this guy really a businessman, or just some old school chum?' Mum wasn't ready to let go of this yet.

‘No. He's a friend of Pat's – well, a former employer, really. She still does a bit of work for him here and there. Accounts and whatnot. In fact she sometimes pops across to the bookshop herself on a Sunday, so I gather. Just to keep the paperwork up to date. I shouldn't be surprised if we bump into one another.'

‘Really? Pat knows him? Oh. Oh well. I suppose we
do
have to get rid of all that junk somehow . . .'

Midge heard the instant change of tone in her mum's voice at the mention of Auntie Pat. If there was the slightest chance of Uncle Brian getting back together with sensible Auntie Pat, then Mum would be all for it. Most definitely. And so that meant that Uncle Brian would get his way. He'd be driving over to Almbury Mills on Sunday afternoons – he could drop her off and pick her up again. Good.

Midge tried to deflect any possible argument about this by going off on another tack.

‘Why do we call it the Stick House?'

The ramshackle lean-to that was tacked onto the back of the cider barn was hardly a ‘house'. Nor was it made of sticks.

Uncle Brian laughed. ‘It was where we used to store the winter kindling for the old stove. We kept sticks in it. So we called it the Stick House.'

‘Oh.'

‘This used to be the sixth-form study when I was a girl. They were allowed to make their own toast, on this very fire. It was a
proper
fire then, of course. I was very envious.'

Aunt Celandine seemed more relaxed this time, happy to chat as Midge wandered about the neat little apartment, looking at all her odds and ends. And it was nicer here than down in the day room. She liked the ticking clock on the mantelpiece, and the bamboo plant that stood in the corner. That was pretty.

‘Who's this?' she said. ‘Your husband?' There was a photograph on top of the television, of a soldier, very smart and proud in his uniform. A bit young, though, surely. Perhaps he was only a cadet.

‘No, I never married. That's my brother Freddie. Just sixteen when that was taken. He died in the Great War.'

‘Oh. Sorry . . .'

‘Stupid . . .
stupid
business.' Aunt Celandine was looking down into her lap and shaking her head. ‘All those poor boys . . .' She stopped talking and stared into the fire.

‘Sorry,' said Midge. Again.

She continued her tour of the room. There were a couple of other photographs – one of a middle-aged Aunt Celandine sitting at a huge wooden desk, with lots of medicine bottles arranged on shelves behind her. Presumably this was taken at the clinic. And there was another of two young women on a beach, arm in arm, each holding onto their hats and laughing. There were donkeys in the background, and a pier. Weston-super-Mare?

Some of the objects in the room seemed slightly out of place: a glass case containing a dusty and faded collection of birds' eggs; a very old-looking cricket ball perched on the end of a shelf; a rusty penknife . . .

It was interesting, but Midge reminded herself that she wasn't here just to look at birds' eggs. She needed somehow to re-introduce the subject of the Various.

Aunt Celandine was still staring into the fire, her mouth moving as though she were chewing on something, or talking to herself. Midge sat down opposite, in the wing-backed chair, and looked at the plate of toast that lay on the little table between them. She hadn't yet been offered anything to eat, but she really wasn't hungry. Elaine had been present to oversee the making of the toast, and Midge had got the impression that this was some sort of daily ritual. Perhaps the new jar of jam had been brought out in her honour – or perhaps it was placed there every day, the paper seal remaining unbroken.

‘Aunt Celandine – how old were you when you were at school here?'

‘Hm? Oh . . . thirteen, I would think. Twelve or
thirteen. It was a
horrible
place. I ran away, you know.'

‘No! Did you? What, properly ran away?'

‘Oh yes. Ran away and never came back. There was a lot of trouble.'

Midge remembered the letters she had seen, detailing the damage to school property, and the bills for expenses. Had that been connected to this running away episode?

‘Did you do something wrong?' she said. ‘I mean, were you caught . . . I don't know . . . caught smoking or something?'

‘Smoking? No, I've never smoked. I did light a cigarette once, but only once. Dreadful. It was for someone else.'

‘So why
did
you run away?'

‘I poured paint everywhere, you see. I was so upset. All around the dormitory, over people's clothes and into their shoes. On the bed linen . . . oh, it was a mess. Two bucketfuls that the decorators had left behind.'

‘What? You poured paint . . .?' Midge was struggling to grasp this picture.

‘Round and round.
All
up the walls . . .
all
over the floor' – Aunt Celandine was rocking from side to side, her voice a little sing-song of remembrance – ‘
in
the laundry bag,
in
the locker drawers. Ooh no. I haven't forgotten that, dear. Do you know – I never got a splash on me.'

‘Blimey. So . . . then you ran away?' Midge felt a little surge of glee, envy almost, at the thought of performing such an act of outrage.

‘Oh yes. Never came back. Well, I did come back years later. To live here. Isn't that funny?'

‘So when you ran away, where did you go?' Midge tried to keep her voice calm. She was beginning to think that perhaps she could guess the answer to this.

But Aunt Celandine was silent then. She turned back towards the fire, and shook her head. After a while she said, ‘I told Mama about how I'd gone to Burnham Common, to stay with the gypsies, and how they'd looked after me. Kind people, who never did me any harm. They come there every year, for the fruit picking. They used to.'

‘Oh.' Midge was disappointed that she'd apparently guessed wrong, but she continued to be intrigued – it was such an amazing story. She backtracked a little, and said, ‘What were you so upset about that made you do all that damage?'

‘I had a letter from my father. It was about my brother, Freddie. How he'd been killed in France. I don't think I
knew
what I was doing – but I knew I couldn't go home. They'd have just sent me back again. And I hated it here.'

‘Oh. And so' – Midge could see it then, could almost feel what that lonely schoolgirl might have felt, all those years ago – ‘so you ran away, and stayed with some gypsies. Were they friends of yours? Did you already know them?'

‘Eh? Know who, dear?'

‘The gypsies.'

‘Gypsies? There were never any gypsies. That was
just a story I told my mother. She was so worried about what had happened to me. Didn't know
where
I was, poor woman.'

Midge's head was going round and round. ‘But you said . . .' She tried again. ‘Then where did you go?'

‘I don't
know
.' The words were out almost before Midge had asked the question, and there was exasperation in Aunt Celandine's voice. Anger even. ‘I don't know.' She said it again, a little more softly. ‘And that's the trouble. I've tried to remember, but it's all gone now. Disappeared years ago. The silly thing is, I
used
to know. That's what makes me so cross. I remember that it was all a secret, something that I wasn't supposed to tell, and so I never did. I never even told my dearest friend. But I think I must have kept it a secret for so long that in the end it became a secret from me too.' Aunt Celandine gazed over Midge's shoulder, the light from the window reflected in her watery eyes. ‘I had my work, I suppose, and a new life once I'd left home. I tried to forget about the war, and school, and Freddie and, oh . . . all the unhappy things. I
had
to put everything behind me, and I did just that. But now there are bits that won't come back, even though I want them to.'