Coombe's Wood (6 page)

“Nice, I suppose,” Connor said. “Do you want to go over there? Mum, is that okay?”

“I guess so.”

“Thanks for the meal, Feathers. It was really cool catching rabbits with you.” Connor said cheerfully, and walked to the door.

 
“Any time, my friend.” Feathers’ voice floated out from the kitchen. “Any time.”

“Oliver, do you want to come over to mine?”

“Sure.” Oliver patted his stomach and got up from the table. “That was tasty.” He gave a wave to Feathers as he passed the kitchen, and followed Connor to the door. “You got a Play Station?”

“No.”

“X-box?”

“I haven’t got one of those, either.”

“What do you have?”

“I’ve got some books.”

“Oh.”

Connor opened the front door.

“Why’s he called Feathers?” he said to Oliver as they went out.

“Sorry about that.” Izzy got up from the table as Feathers emerged from the kitchen, and followed him into the living room. There was a sweet smoky odour she couldn’t place, and she walked around trying to find the source, and looking for something to comment on. “You like Hendrix, then?” she said, pointing at a poster.

A cocoon-like basket chair hung in the corner. The
rattan
creaked worryingly as Feathers sank into it and drew his legs up. He followed her with his eyes as she picked up a small wooden box and traced a finger along the carvings. She put it down and looked around. A
ragged
throw rug partly hid one of two sofas, and Izzy tentatively touched the fabric as she walked towards the window.

“I’m kinda stuck in the 60s.” He swung back and forth, his forehead wrinkled in thought. “You know, some Apache Indians named my grandfather. He went out to America in the 40s to research the tribe for a historical novel he was writing. Apparently it was a big honour to be named by them. They called him Geronimo, because he just wouldn’t stop fighting for the truth. He liked the name so much, he changed to it by deed poll when he got home.”

“Mmm. You like growing things?” Izzy looked out the window, to the balcony. A bushy plant filled one end. “Hey, isn’t that a
…
?”

Feathers looked past her. “Marijuana plant?” He chuckled. “I certainly hope so.”

“Hmm.” She turned around and sat on the smaller sofa. “Do you work?”

“Why wouldn’t I work?”

Izzy grabbed a fake-fur cushion and hugged it. “I’m sorry. I suppose that sounded a bit rude. Because we’re in the middle of a council estate
…
” That comment was even worse. Pretty soon, she would ask something really gauche, and then he might feel justified to retort with something equally awkward.

“I work in London.” He swung gently in the chair. “I mix oils.”

“What? Edible oils?
For
cooking and salads?”

“Scented. For aromatherapy and the like.”

“Aroma – is that why you always smell?” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean in a nasty way
…
”

“Cheers,” he laughed. “I’ll never be a proper man again.” He sat forward, the chair groaning as he moved about. “Try and guess what I was mixing yesterday.”

“Easy, lavender.”

“You’ve got a good sense of smell. My grandmother couldn’t identify a scent to save her life. Got a hockey stick in the nose when she was at school. You could break a rotten egg right beside her, and she wouldn’t know.”

“Huh.” Izzy squeezed the cushion harder and forced a smile. What a klutz, couldn’t she ask a sensible, normal question?

“You know, it’s essential in tasting food. There was this guy who had a job at a tea factory. His job was making sure the blends were mixed right.” Feathers climbed out of the basket chair and went over to a record player. “A group of scientists wanted to know what made him the best taster in the place, but found that he had an average amount of taste buds on his tongue.” He sat cross-legged and leafed through an enormous collection of LPs. “So some bright spark tested his ability to detect odours. Turns out he was off the scale.”

A small knock sounded on the front door.

“Can you get that?”

“Sure, uh, okay. I can do that
…
” Izzy found Connor on the landing.

“Oliver got bored and went home. He said I didn’t have anything interesting in my room. I told him the rest of my stuff was coming on the truck.”

“Connor, you can’t keep doing that.” She ruffled his hair, and tried to throw an arm around him.

“Can I come in?” He dodged her, almost spilling the comics he had grasped under one arm.

“Connor, listen to this.” Feathers chose a hallucinogenic pink and baby blue, swirled record sleeve, and slipped the record out like a precious jewel. He placed the disc delicately on the turntable. “See if you – or your mother – recognize the song.”

Feathers studied the fine ridges on the black disk before he lowered the needle down. The room filled with loud hissing, pops and crackles. Then the white noise swapped for a light hearted and simple melody, straight from the 60s. She recognised the tune, but shook her head as she tried to place the melodies.

Connor flopped down on one of the sofas. Izzy followed him back into the room and climbed into the basket chair. The chair wobbled uncontrollably, she gripped the sides and tried to figure out how to make it swing.

“It’s from The Lion King, Mum,” Connor said. He spotted a brown corduroy beanbag and got up, dropped the comics on the floor, and slumped there instead. After a few seconds of wiggling about, he flipped over, and kicked his feet in the air. He pulled a Beano off the top of the pile, and spread it out on the floor in front of him.

“You’re right. Is this the original? Sounds sort of
…
different,” she said, listening to the tinny tones. The song sounded plain and irritatingly uncomplicated to her modern ear. She pursed her lips and tried to find a redeeming quality. “Not sure if it’s quite my thing. I prefer layered, complex compositions.”

“That’s deep,” Feathers said, turning the volume down. “Did you just make it up?”

“I
…
” Izzy closed her eyes, suddenly sleepy. “I think I did. Never really thought that much about music
…
”

The melody whispered through the speakers now, barely audible, as she got comfy in the protesting basket chair. Her eyelids dragged – lead weights pulling her down to dreamland. She forced her eyes back open, and stared wide-eyed into the room.

“You gotta love it,” Feathers said.

He closed his eyes and nodded slowly to the beat. His long thick hair swayed around his face – like hay in a field when the wind brushes past. It mesmerised her, golden locks, fields, flowers – woods with strange intoxicating scents. The lead weights came back. She blinked languidly, surfacing out of the beginnings of a dream.

She yawned. “I think I’d better get some fresh air.”

“Have a drop more wine, first.”

Leaning on the balustrade, with three glasses of white wine dulling her senses, Izzy scanned the fields.

Night had fallen, but she could still make out the green of growing crops. She thought the one across the road might be a crop of rapeseed, for the brewery. Connor would be suffering once the little yellow flowers bloomed.

“Never take the road that cuts through the woods,” Feathers called out behind her. “It’s bad luck.”

“What?”

“You could get lost
…
.”

“And never be found again,” Connor added from the living room, with a sinister laugh. “You’d better teach me some more survival skills.”

“Big ears,” Izzy said.

She gazed past the fields, and into the shadows of the trees. Light patterns by the edge of the woods flickered.

The words, hidden under the aqua paint in Connor’s room came back to her.
Don’t go in the woods, where eyes hide between and behind the trees, waiting for you, following
.

She shivered, and straightened up, unable to turn away. “Enough of the melodrama, though, Feathers. you’re scaring Connor.”

Feathers gave Izzy directions to a second-hand furniture shop, located in an alley off Oxford Road, in Reading. She drove there on Monday, circling the area several times, until she gave up trying to find the place in the car, and parked on the main road. Eventually she noticed an old junk shop almost hidden between the back end of an Indian restaurant and the start of a long row of terraced houses that extended up the hill for half a mile. A
weather-beaten
sign above a dirty window read:
Terry’s
.

A bell jangled as she opened the door and an old man appeared from a back room. He nodded a welcome and sat down by the till, watching Izzy over his reading glasses as she nosed around. To her left, chairs leaned in drunken stacks; to the right, sofas spooned. A row of wardrobes lined one wall, back-to-back, with just enough space to peek in and view the front.

Hidden behind a tallboy, Izzy came across a beautiful rocking chair. She needed a chest of drawers, but none appealed. She could ask, in case there were more stored in the back. The man by the till, now reading an aged copy of Readers Digest would, no doubt, show her. But the chair needed to be on her balcony, pointed in the direction of the woods. She ran a finger across the wood, and pushed. It creaked back and forth. She listened, her thoughts drifting to Feathers until the old man appeared behind her.

“Will you be making a purchase today?” he asked.

Izzy bought the chair, and squeezed it in the back of her Toyota.

Somehow, she dragged it up the stairs without breaking its delicate runners, and pushed it out to its final position on the balcony.

She sat down, the chair groaning and creaking. The runners ran over the tiles, creating a sound as they passed across grout lines of an almost silent train. The ‘chug-chug-chug’ effect had a lulling effect, and Izzy sank back against the wood.

The early summer sky glowed baby blue along one edge of the horizon, deepened into ruby-purple, and turned inky-black with a dose of silver sprinkles as the night arrived. She pointed herself in the direction of the woods, choosing to watch the bats come swooping out of the trees and hear the screams of woodland animals as they tried to survive another night. So many warnings issued, she brushed them like dust from her memory. The beauty of Coombe’s Wood nurtured fascination, fear vanished, words faded.
‘Don’t go in the woods.’
She chuckled quietly. Scribbles in a child’s hand – had she ever been scared?

Izzy left the balcony and made her way to bed, only to dream of a liquid dark. The essence of the woods fed the nightmare, and a barrage of woody and earthy scents seemed to cling to the air long after she awoke.

Drawn back to the balcony in the morning, she stared out again at Coombe’s Wood and the warm velvet trees growing there, as they reached out their branches in welcome.

10
^th
July

Dear Alana,

I’m sorry it’s been such a long time, but when Isabel Santana makes a promise, she keeps it. So here I am!

I can’t tell you exactly where I am – I’m like a spy in a secret location.
J
You may think I’m being silly, but I worry he’ll rifle through your letters. It may be completely paranoid, but with his sort, you never know. I have a friend who works on the other side of ‘Town’. He’ll post this on Monday, so not even the postmark will pinpoint me. If I had a computer, this would be so much easier. But there’s never any money in this house. It’s all I can do to keep Connor in reading material Thank God there’s a library in the next village. I think he’d die from literary starvation otherwise. There’re a few old computers at the back behind the thrillers section. Once I’ve got my library card I’ll book some internet time. I’ll open a new email account – remember to look in your junk folder for the next few weeks.

I guess the most important thing is we’re both fine. Connor is settling into yet another new school, poor kid. Our first address here was all the way over on the other side of the town. When we got the flat, it turned out to be almost an hour from the shelter. Hopefully this will be the last change for him, three senior schools are enough for any kid.

But this is the news I am really excited about. I hate Income Support. You remember how at work, the boss used to make me call up when someone was sick, and make sure they weren’t skiving or something. You remember how much I hated that? Well, signing on is ten times worse. So I started a business, yup, made signs and everything, put them all over my village, and the surrounding three. I’m so excited about it!