Black Wood (17 page)

Then I remembered the night before. The scene on the kitchen table coming back to me in little stabs of light, as if I was watching under a strobe light.

His hands on me. The weight of his body.

Maybe a cold bath was the answer, after all.

I walked through to the bathroom, felt the cold air poking through the gaps in the floorboards beneath my feet. I turned on the bath taps, those old-style ones with the cross-handled tops. They squealed in protest and the water came out in a juddering grey spurt. The pipes whined like fighting tomcats. Finally the water flowed, the colour changing to a milky-white, then finally running clear. As it started to fill the bath, I wandered out into the hall to the big built-in cupboard where Gran kept the towels. I’d never bought new ones. I’d never bought new anything. The cottage was my secret. To most people it was uninhabited. Practically a ruin. If I’d had any business sense I’d have sold the land by now, but I couldn’t.

Not until I’d worked up the courage to find out who was buried out there.

As I leant into the cupboard to pull out a greying, threadbare towel, I felt a weight, like a hand. It pressed hard on my shoulder and I took a step back, dropping the towel at my feet.

A gust of wind whipped at my ankles and I felt every hair on my body stand up.

A door banged shut. I held my breath.

Froze, waiting.

Nothing.

I crept to the top of the stairs and peered down, conscious of my nakedness. I wished I’d kept the duvet wrapped around me until I’d got in the bath.

‘Hello?’ I called. ‘Who’s there?’

Nothing. The breeze that had come from nowhere had stopped. There was silence.

That’s when I realised I couldn’t even hear the sound of water running into the bath.

Someone had turned off the taps.

Turn off the taps, JoJo … you’re a wee water-waster …

I had no memory of going back through to the bathroom and turning them off, but I must’ve. Or else they had turned themselves off because they were old and creaky and the thread on the handles was gone … or …

When I finally worked up the nerve to walk back into Gran’s bedroom, I found the wardrobe doors flung open wide. Piles of clothes lay scattered across the bed.

Had I done this?

Lying at the bottom of the bed was an open shoebox.

Inside were my sketchbooks.

Each one containing the very things I’d tried to push out of my mind.

He walks over to the swing and grabs hold of the rope, bringing it to a jerky stop.

‘Oi,’ says the girl in the red skirt. ‘
We’re
playing on the swing.’

The smaller girl stays where she is. He doesn’t look at her, but he can hear the soft blubbering of her tears. He picks up the tyre, twists it, then smacks it like he’s trying to get the last out of a bottle of ketchup, and the girl plops out onto the dirty mulch floor. Her crying becomes louder and she curls into a ball, wailing.

‘I want to go home! Please!’

‘Oi,’ says the girl in the red skirt. She marches over and pokes a finger into his chest. ‘What the fuck did you do that for? You’re a big fat bully.’ She pokes him again and he grabs hold of her hand.

‘Brave, eh?’ He twists her wrist until he has her in a position that’s impossible for her to wriggle out of. ‘Let’s see how brave you really are, you wee slut.’

He’s aware that the other boy has gone to tend to the little girl who lies curled up under the tyre, which is still swinging gently above her. It has not yet come to a complete stop, and there is a faint creak as the rope pivots on the loop that holds it secure on the branch. He hears him muttering something to her. He ignores them. He’s not interested in either of them. He’s got the one he wanted.

Weirdly, she doesn’t scream. Doesn’t say a word. He drags her over by one arm towards the fallen oak. She doesn’t struggle. He wants to throw her down onto the floor, but as soon as he releases his grip, she slides away from him and sits down. She leans back and fans away dead leaves with her arms, sliding them back and forth to leave an imprint like an angel’s wings.

‘D’you want to kiss me then?’ She whispers it, gives him a little smile.

He steps back.

Fuck. This is not what he wanted. In his head, he was holding her down by the throat, pumping himself into her as she bucked and cried, tears mixing with snot smeared across her terrified face. He looks at her with disgust. Little tramp. He probably wouldn’t even have been her first.

‘Fuck off,’ he says. ‘Just fuck off.’

He kicks a pile of leaves at her and she pulls her legs together and pushes herself up with her arms until she’s sit-ting. The smirk back on her face.

‘What’s wrong?’ she says. ‘Can’t get it up?’

She jumps to her feet before he can react. She runs across to the swing and drags her friend up by the arm. ‘Come on,’ she says.

Then they’re running. Out of the woods and into the field.

He hears her laugh as it fades away in the breeze.

He looks down at the other boy, who is still crouched down next to the swing, his face a mixture of bewilderment and fear.

‘Can we go home now?’ he says.

‘No. We’re going after them.’

Claire had been working for the local paper – the
Banktoun Mail and Post
– since she’d finished university. It was a decent enough job, especially in a place like Banktoun. But on a quiet Tuesday afternoon, it wasn’t exactly exciting.

She’d studied a joint MA in English and Journalism with thoughts of working for one of the glossy fashion mags.
Marie Claire
or something. But the four years at Glasgow University had taken their toll. There were plenty of facilities, plenty of help for people like her. She’d lived in the student halls for the whole four years. That was one of the things that made her realise she was never going to cut it out in the real world. While all her mates moved into trendy West End tenements after the first year, she was left with no option but to stay where she was. You don’t see too many tenements with lifts. Maybe some of the swanky ones that’ve been converted by builders into luxury apartments.

Not the ones off the Byres Road above the kebab shops where the students lived.

Even going round to visit her friends was a chore. She had to be practically dragged up the several storeys of worn stone steps, and even though no one ever said anything, she could tell what they were thinking.

She’d overheard a couple of girls talking one day, discussing the end-of-term piss-up in someone’s flat. Someone who just happened to live on the top floor.

‘Don’t invite Claire. It’s just too much hassle.’

The girl who said it had been someone that Claire had trusted. Someone she thought was a good friend.

She withdrew after that.

She seemed to have gone full circle: when she was young, she was a mouse. Wouldn’t say boo to a goose. The gymnastics had gone some way to alleviating that, though, and for a while, she did well.

‘Come on, Claire, remember your landing. Feet together, arms raised …’ MissAlbert’s voice haunted her dreams. That clipped Morningside tone. ‘Chop chop, girls. Run along.’

Claire had hung back after the class one day to talk to her. ‘Er, Miss?’

The woman spun round, seemingly unaware that there was someone left in the gym. ‘Yes?’

‘I was wondering if I could get some extra practice sometime. My mum said maybe she could pay, and—’

‘Why yes! Of course.’ The woman’s face softened. ‘I think you might do rather well with a wee bit of help, you know, Claire. You’ll maybe need to work on your fitness a bit, though. Working with the beams and the rings can take its toll. How about you talk to Mrs McCreedie to see about some sports coaching too? Jogging maybe? Hmm? What do you think?’

Claire hesitated.
What have I done? I hate jogging! Mrs McCreedie thinks I’m a fat waste of space
 … A sudden determination came over her.
But she’s wrong
. ‘OK, if you think it’ll help …’

Miss Albert clapped her hands. ‘Excellent! I’ll talk to your mother. Is she waiting outside?’

‘Yes, um …’

‘Come on then, girl! Chop chop!’

Miss Albert was one of the first people she remembered seeing after the accident. She was sitting on a plastic chair at the side of her bed, on what was maybe only the second or third time she’d woken up ‘normally’ in the morning after a six-month extended sleep that most people didn’t expect her to wake up from.

Everyone asked her the same thing.

‘How’re you feeling, Claire? Do you remember what happened?’

It made her want to scream.

But she had no energy for that.

If there was one benefit to her six-month liquid electrolyte diet, it was getting rid of her puppy fat. She hadn’t had to jog a centimetre. Pity her chances of becoming a champion gymnast were as good as her suddenly having the ability to speak Russian.

She knew she was taking the easy route. Letting her parents buy her the house next door to her childhood home. Converting it with low kitchen units, handrails in the bath. An emergency fucking pull-cord in case she slipped. Her dad had wanted to put CCTV in, ‘just in case’. Luckily her mum had vetoed that. ‘She’s an adult, Mike,’ she’d said. ‘She doesn’t want us spying on her the whole time.’

She’d told Jake about it one day, expecting him to laugh.

‘What the fuck did he want to do that for, eh?’ His tone was hard, bitter.

Claire had backtracked immediately. ‘He was only joking. He’s just a bit overprotective, that’s all …’

‘I don’t like it.
I’m
here to look after you now, Claire. Not … him.’

She’d been shocked by his tone and immediately changed the subject. She didn’t mention her parents to him again.

He kept asking to move in full-time, but something was stopping her and she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. He
was
lovely to her.

They’d been going out properly since she was sixteen. She’d been flattered that someone could still find her attractive despite the chair.

‘But you know I love looking after you, Claire,’ he said, whenever she complained.

She was sure her mum and dad would’ve said something about him. Disapproved. But they were too politically correct to comment on his background, and they couldn’t deny he was good to their daughter.

So they just channelled their negative energy into hating Jo instead. But Jo, being Jo, clung on like a limpet, refusing to give in. Forever trying to repent for taking Claire into the woods that day.

Claire knew
why
they went into the woods. It was just what happened when they got there that was a mystery. And when she saw Jo’s scared face whenever she mentioned it, she knew it was better to keep the memories locked up.

She was browsing some fancy fonts on the Internet, trying to finalise an order of wedding invites. She needed to have them prepped for printing in the morning. The local paper survived on advertising, and its secondary business of printing brochures, business cards, flyers … all that stuff. At least designing them was interesting when there wasn’t much news copy to deal with. She was engrossed, and when the door opened she didn’t even bother to look up.

‘Hello, Claire. How’re you doing?’

‘Ah, Sergeant Gray … not seen you around for a while. What can I do for you?’

She’d had to stop herself from saying ‘business or pleasure?’ He cut a fine figure in his uniform and she’d often found herself hoping that he might see her as more than just that wee girl from the woods. She wondered what her mum and dad would think if she ended up with him rather than Jake.
Dream on, Claire
 …

He took off his hat. ‘Er … have I missed the deadline for tomorrow’s adverts?’

Claire laughed. ‘Technically, yes. By two full days …’ She smiled at him, and he smiled back, raising an eyebrow.
Don’t do that, Davie, I can’t bear it
 … ‘But seeing as it’s you … if you’ve got it ready I can fire it in right now. They don’t start printing until eight tomorrow morning.’

‘Oh, is that right? I’ll remember that next time I need to advertise my latest bike-part rejects in the Buy-and-Sell …’

‘Ha … no … I’m guessing it’s something a wee bit more urgent than that?’

She’d had Bridie Goldstone in earlier, ostensibly to check the line prices for an advert for her granddaughter’s birthday. In actuality, she was there to tell Claire about Scott chucking out Jo and apparently losing his job. Claire had nodded, pretending she hadn’t known about the break-up. She had to remind herself to ask Jo about the job thing, though. She hadn’t made any reference to that. Maybe he was skint and would have to sell his flat? That’d explain why he’d chucked Jo out without explanation. Too embarrassed to tell her the truth.

If that was true then the man was pathetic. As if Jo cared about stuff like that.

Davie coughed, alerting her to his presence. ‘Well, yes it is, actually. I suppose you’ve heard about the girls up at the Track?’

Claire nodded. ‘Of course. Sorry … I was thinking about something else.’ Bridie had told her about that too, and it
had
been a scoop. God knows where the woman gleaned her information from, but Claire was considering offering the old biddie a job. Unfortunately, half the stuff she passed on was embellished and the other half was outright lies.

Claire swung her chair round and positioned herself back behind the desk. Davie slid a piece of lined paper towards her.

‘“Emergency Self-Defence Class for Girls”,’ she read out loud, ‘“Wednesday, 7 p. m. at the Church Hall. Free.” It’s that last bit that’ll get their attention,’ Claire said. ‘Do you think enough people will see it in time for the class? The paper only comes out at four … How about I jig it round? Free Self-Defence Class … Do you really just want to say it’s for girls? There might be some boys who’d be interested too, you know …’

‘Haven’t really got the space for the whole school turning up, Claire. I think there’ll be enough interest, even at short notice. You know what people are like. Everyone’s in a panic already. Anyway, I’ll see how this one goes. Might get a few recruits for the usual class. I could do with more boys, actually. Laura’s scared most of them off.’