Mischief Acts, page 22
Something scurries over his feet and up his shin. Sol bats about and feels a soft body, the fluff of a whisking tail.
‘Come in!’ he laughs. ‘One night only, mind.’
Squirrels have chewed through his precious Tupperware before, devouring whole packets of chocolate digestives before he found them. But the frantic creature has gone, off into the pitch-black. Sol lies back and tries to let the muffled roar lull him. In the dreams that follow, he will fly a plane through a jungle, be pursued by invisible sirens, and watch as cliffs crack and judder down into the sea.
*
Rachel is sleeping too, nestled in beside her snoring house-mate, Darren. If Pete were here, he would not be huddled under a duvet. He’d be out there, whooping with delight, shouting, ‘You beaut!’, not at her, but at the crazy wind. He wouldn’t be worrying about lost telephones. She pictures him waving his surfboard in the air, leaping into his rusty van to head for the coast, trees falling like spillikins across the empty road behind him.
When she falls asleep, her dreams are not unlike reality. Tattered butterflies litter the undergrowth of Syon Park, their iridescence smudged away, their bodies damp and cold. The next day, children tugged along by their forlorn parents will pick the butterflies up and ask how to make them work, how to throw them just right so they fly.
What she does not dream is the two that have escaped the park and are sheltering in a back garden on Epworth Road – a zebra longwing, and a blue moon. They have dodged the crab apples hurtling from the tree that has held its ground there, and, in the refuge of a brick-built barbecue stand, are feasting on fallen fruit. The yellowed apples are partly rotten, and the butterflies are getting drunk.
*
Herne is power-crazed. From the wood to the sea, energy crackles and fights.
The storm itself has no desire, no dominion. It is only the henchman in this affray.
At Capel-le-Ferne, live electric cables snake across the main road, sparking and snapping at car tyres as they pass.
In Orpington, the electricity substation puts on a firework display as it blows, sending flashes of red, green and blue into the sky.
Near Southfleet, staff at Castlebar Care Home finally coax the generator into life, then sprint from room to room as televisions explode, fish cook in their tanks, and electric blankets in beds begin to smoke.
On a hill above Clayton, a lovingly restored windmill turns its blades in the gale despite a chocked brakewheel. The mill fills with smoke and sparks fly up like comets against the dark.
In a Portakabin by Dover harbour, the fluorescent light flickers with distress. Beneath it, either side of a grey desk, sit Deep’s brother, Roshan, and Carl, immigration officer. They are both weary, though Roshan more so. As Carl asks Roshan again where he plans to be staying, for an actual address, please, the door is flicked open by an immense wave of seawater. It fills the Portakabin and sucks both men back out with it. Carl manages to stand and flee from the next wave. He turns once, to look for Roshan, but there is only swarming, spitting water.
*
When Deep wakes, he is covered in detritus: bits of broken things he cannot identify, scraps of clothing, an acrylic cushion. He pats himself all over, tests his painful limbs, then begins to shout for Sara. He does not stop calling her name as he crawls around the dark space, feeling for a window, a door, something to tell him which way up they are. She doesn’t answer. The apple she gave him is gone from his coat pocket.
He remembers the keyring torch he had attached to his belt loop, and tests the button. It works. It works! He dreads what he might see now, by its measly light, but though he shines it in every direction, opening cupboards and lifting cushions, there is no sign of his wife.
The caravan is upside down. The door has broken from its hinges. How he has survived this, Deep cannot begin to wonder. Still shouting for Sara, he climbs out and begins to stumble over the lumpy ground. The torch only shows him a few feet ahead. He works his way round the caravan, then begins to walk wider circles.
The wind is still roaring. Deep cannot see, with his keyring torch, that nearly two hundred caravans have broken their chains and rolled across the Peacehaven park, jumbling together like beer cans tossed down an embankment.
An hour later, Deep finally hears his own name, howled as if in mourning. He turns his torch upon Sara, crouched beside a flattened caravan, beating the ground with her bloodied fist.
*
Someone is shouting. Sol opens his eyes to see the trees flashing blue, on and off, taking up a new pose with each flare. It’s like the strobe lights at Cosy’s Cellar, the trees writhing to a silent beat. Sol pulls the wine gums from his ears and the shouting resolves itself.
‘Mr Payne! Mr Payne.’
Well, that’s his name. He’s an institution round here, but everyone calls him Sol. As he struggles out of his sleeping bag he sees, in the sweep of blue light, that a trunk lies lengthways either side of him. They make it tricky to clamber from the hollow, so he stands and turns, waving his arms. Torchlights shine through the railings. Two policemen are on the pavement beyond.
‘Hey, man,’ Sol calls. ‘I was sleeping.’
They stop waving their torches. One of them laughs. The other one swears. ‘You want some help to get out of there, Mr Payne?’
‘No, sir. I’ll be just about fine.’
Their heads bend towards one another. Sol can’t hear what they’re saying. Then one yells, ‘Sure we can’t take you somewhere safe, out the way of them trees?’
Sol remembers the cells at the station, hard and grey and bleach-stinking. One night in there was more than enough. He turns back to look at the blue-lit wood. True, it doesn’t look quite like it did yesterday, the trees are still dancing in frantic jumps, and he’s got two hornbeams out cold in his camp. But it is home. He shakes his head. ‘It’s not raining,’ he says, ‘I’ll be just about fine.’
A police radio crackles from a belt, and a siren sounds somewhere to the east. Car doors slam. It’s a relief when all the lights retreat. Sol can see the beginnings of dawn now, creeping up the sky. ‘Lord,’ he says, as he settles back into his sleeping bag, ‘thank you for this day.’
*
Herne is many things: bale-worker, frenzy-maker, trickster, trembler.
He is hunter, and lord of the hanged.
The storm itself has no calling. Life and death, freedom and captivity are all the same in its roving eye.
On the North Downs, between Bishopsbourne and Lower Hardres, a snow leopard drops its head against the gale. The air is full of new and disturbing scents: salt, seaweed, birds and insects, bitter smoke and freshly turned earth. It sniffs, awaiting the draw of something warm, something flesh. At Howletts Zoo, a few miles away, the fence of its enclosure lies crushed by a fallen beech.
On the coast at Shoreham, a seagull hangs, impaled on railings that stand guard on the seafront.
In a garden near Dartford, an Alsatian has managed to keep only two of her puppies inside their ragged kennel. Two are wedged between a struggling tree and the garden wall, mewling. Three more lie in the flower bed, cold. Their owner weeps under her kitchen table, too afraid to go out and help, or even look.
At Morghew Park near Tenterden, five wild boars have plunged out through torn fencing and are snuffling into the woods. They squeal and scramble when an ash tree crashes down behind them. They are twelve miles from the prowling snow leopard; far enough for now. Hundreds of thousands of acorns have skittered to the ground in the storm, and they gorge themselves, in readiness for freedom.
*
Rachel will have to walk. Her Ford Escort is imprisoned in the line of parked cars that have somehow jammed together during the night. One of them is trapped under a lime tree that leans at a 45-degree angle. The dawn streets feel unbearably mournful without their warm yellow lights. Traumatised, is how they look. Wrecked. She tries not to stop and gawp at every bent traffic light, every broken fence. Roof tiles and bikes and a thousand shredded rubbish bags litter the tarmac, their contents decorating front gardens and bushes. The wind is still whipping the smaller bits about. A baked-bean can scuttles down the street ahead of her, never quite making it to the gutter. The sound irritates her until she runs and kicks it under a hedge. After a while, exhausted by bearing witness to this wasteland, she pulls up her hood and walks with her eyes fixed on the pavement.
From the staff gate at Syon Park, she can already see the fallen oak, its branches akimbo where the curve of the butterfly house roof should be. She hurries towards the office, hoping someone else got there first.
She can hear the phone ringing as she struggles with the stiff lock, and when the door finally gives she hurls herself towards it.
‘Pete?’ she says.
‘Am I through to Syon Park, London?’ asks an imperious voice.
Rachel’s heart sinks.
The man clears his throat. ‘I think I may have something that belongs to you.’ He sounds infuriatingly pleased with himself.
She presses the bell at number 42, Epworth Road, and is greeted by a smiling pensioner in gardening overalls. He leads her down a flowery hallway that smells of too many magnolia air fresheners, and out into the welcome cool of the garden.
‘Yours, I believe?’ He points, still smiling, to a brick-built barbecue. It has a piece of netting thrown over it, the kind people use to keep pesky birds off their raspberry canes.
Rachel glances back at him before crouching to look. The blue moon and the zebra longwing are wobbling across a heap of what looks like rotten crab apples, soft and yellow.
‘You beaut,’ she says.
‘I beg your pardon?’ The old man frowns.
Rachel stands. ‘Can I use your telephone? It’s a work call,’ she adds, but he is already nodding, grinning, delighted to be of help.
*
Only one caravan at Peacehaven has remained steadfast on its hardstanding. Deep glares at it as they hobble past, he and his wife held tightly together, their arms around each other’s waists. Sara is limping. When she was flung out of the door as their caravan began to tumble, she sprained her left ankle. Deep has fared worse, cuts and bruises beginning to ache all over, and in tender places. But he will not let go of her.
They approach the locked-up shop by the park entrance. Its mean windows are intact, though coated in salt and streaks of seaweed. Its felt roof has stayed on. He looks around for a suitable tool and can find only a fire extinguisher, which has rolled out from the storage area behind the shop.
‘I don’t care,’ he says, when Sara gives him a look. ‘It’s not a day for rules.’
It takes both of them swinging the extinguisher at the lock before the door cracks open.
‘Welcome home,’ Deep says, as they fall inside.
The shop smells musty and damp. The bars of chocolate, the buckets and spades and firelighters and toilet rolls are all coated in a layer of sticky dust. The fridges are switched off, but Deep picks out two cans of Coca-Cola. He flicks the ring pulls on to the counter and hands one to Sara.
‘What do we drink to?’ she asks.
‘Luck.’
‘Bad luck?’
‘Good luck.’
They sit on the gritty floor, holding hands, and swallow the sugary fizz in gulps.
‘This won’t do,’ Sara says after a while.
‘What?’
‘For when your brother comes. He might arrive any minute. I can’t clean up this mess, all this muck.’ She runs a finger down the side of the counter, making a clear line through the dirt. ‘And those windows.’
‘Salt,’ Deep nods, with mock-wisdom.
His wife smiles, and Deep’s heart hurts, more than any other part of him.
*
Seventy-two oaks have fallen in Sydenham Wood. Sol has counted them. It is 11 a.m., by his reckoning. His stomach usually rumbles at 11 a.m.; he saves his biscuits for this time. But today he is not hungry.
He’s not seen a soul. Even the squirrels are hiding out. He sits on the bench in the clearing and listens to the wood creaking, moaning, its open wounds still prodded by the wind.
He can’t tell himself they’re only trees. It’s painful to look. It would be better to have that deep dark of the night. Everything is scarred, nothing is right. Under the bench, his foot nudges against something. A yellow apple is rolling in the dirt. There are no apple trees in this wood.
Sol picks it up, and stares at the sullen sky. ‘Pleased with yourself?’ he asks, and he hurls the apple as far as he can.
BUSHES AND BRIARS
Through bushes and through briars
I’ve lately made my way,
All for to hear the small birds sing
And the lambs to skip and play.
All for to hear the small birds sing
And the lambs to skip and play.
I overhead a female,
Her voice it rang so clear,
Long time have I been waiting for
The coming of my dear.
Long time have I been waiting for
The coming of my dear.
Sometimes I am uneasy
And troubled in my mind.
Sometimes I think I’ll go to my love
And tell to him my mind.
But if I should go to my love,
My love he would say ‘nay’.
If I show to him my boldness
He’d ne’er love me again.
If I show to him my boldness
He’d ne’er love me again.
Through bushes and through briars
I’ve lately made my way,
All for to hear the small birds sing
And the lambs to skip and play.
All for to hear the small birds sing
And the lambs to skip and to play.
Collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams
13
‘ONE MORN I MISS’D HIM ON THE CUSTOM’D HILL’
2011
Charm: There is one song I will tell to no man, but only to her in whose arms I lie and who clasps me close.
‘That’s as good as saying you want to do it yourself,’ says Richard. He is frowning at their fishbowl wine glasses as she sloshes in more Shiraz.
‘Completely different! Saying you understand why people would want to, say, skydive, isn’t the same as wanting to do it yourself. Is it?’ Kate wanders down the kitchen, towards the oak table in front of the wide-open patio doors. He’ll follow her. He loves a good debate, over the wine.
‘This is hardly the same as jumping out of a plane,’ he says, from his position by the sink. ‘Sleeping with someone else doesn’t come with a risk of death. You are death-averse, but not sex-averse.’
‘It’s upsides, downsides,’ Kate says. ‘Sleeping with someone else wouldn’t mean risking death. But it would require risk-taking, and time. Organisation, deception, seduction. You imagine: first you figure out that 4 till 5 p.m. on a Thursday is the only option, because that way you still have time to wash and dry the sheets before your partner gets back from bridge class. But bridge is only once a month. So, you work back from there. You better start the flirtation at least a fortnight before, say.’ She pauses to sip. ‘Make sure you smell good that day, have a decent dress on, and so on.’
‘Wow.’
‘What?’
‘Well I don’t have to imagine, do I? You’ve done it for me. Thought it all through.’
‘I’m making a joke, Richard.’ She tries raising her eyebrows, Charlie Chaplin-style.
‘Practicalities aren’t funny. Practicalities are the part you deal with when you’ve already made up your mind to do something.’
‘They’re part of the process of deciding whether to do something. Upsides, downsides. Like skydiving.’ She smirks, but Richard is just staring at her.
‘So you’ve been weighing it up.’ He doesn’t even sound pleased with this gambit.
‘It’s a joke, for Christ’s sake. What’s got your goat?’
‘A pre-prepared joke? You’ve thought it all through. Even the bridge class.’
‘You don’t play bridge.’
‘No, I design bridges. It’s your subconscious at work. And what is it you always say? Many a true word …’
‘I say that about other people, Richard, not myself.’
‘And you’re different from other people, are you? Above all that.’ He has stopped drinking his wine, she notes.
‘I guess my joke was just a shit one. Does that make you feel better?’
‘It might have been funnier if you hadn’t so clearly been imagining the practicalities of doing it with Tom.’
‘Tom?’ Kate laughs, loudly. ‘Your mind. Not mine.’
‘Who else would it be? Who else would be available to drag into your bed – our bed – between four and five on a Thursday, other than our own gardener?’
‘Oh my God! I never even thought of that!’ she says. This isn’t true. She has thought of that. Several times. She’s never entirely ruled it out, despite marriage, despite Richard’s evident love. Previously evident love.
But Richard is looking horrified. She changes tack. ‘It’s you seeing him as a threat, now he’s single. Not me.’
‘Why do you think that is? He’s hardly Quasimodo, is he?’
He’s actually sneering. She can’t resist. ‘Do you find him attractive too? He might be open-minded.’
‘Don’t be disgusting. He’s just an exhibitionist, flashing all that tanned flesh right where everyone can see him, coming into the house all sweaty.’
‘Same-sex attraction isn’t disgusting. And so what, if we can see him in our garden? You avert your eyes, do you, every time those Fitzgerald girls next door are sunning their pink parts out on the lawn? You draw the blind in your study and think harder about girder torques?’ She snorts. An engineering joke. She does have a sense of humour. Where Richard’s has gone is anyone’s guess.
