Reasons She Goes to the Woods (6 page)

The branch Pearl sits on is like a settee. Far below her swinging feet, through the glowing, tender leaves, she can see endless bluebells. She sniffs hugely at the flowery cloud drifting up to her. She loves the bluebells’ breath. Peering through delectable masses of foliage, she sees waves of colour so intense it must surely be purple. And here and there she can make out white crests of anemones drifting over the surface. Pearl lies back across her branch and looks up through the frilly leaves into the sky that’s there, then not there, there, then not. White clouds snag in the thin hands of the tree. Everything is dazzling; blue, white, purple, green and back to blue. Pearl can’t tell if she’s smelling the blustery sky above or the swaying flowers far below. She would like to be a fierce bird, and go on strange journeys. Her beak would be scarlet, her talons silver, her black wings never tiring. No one knows that Pearl has stepped out of her life. No one knows where she is, or is looking for her. She examines the scars on her leg, and remembers drifting through the branches like a dandelion clock. Down I spiralled, soft and light. Down and down, she tells herself. But no, there was no spiralling, she thinks, and remembers careering through the branches, the thumping and crashing, how much it hurt. And then the sight of her bone, raw and private, after it ripped through the flesh. She remembers the undergrowth; how long it took for her father to find her. She remembers how happy she was, at first, lying there. Then she shrugs, and sinuously descends into her other life again.

On the snowy way to church The Blob walks hand in hand between their parents, and Pearl sniffs freezing air until her nose burns, then blows out. She thinks the jets of nose-breath look like steam from an iron. Tell her to stop, her mother says to her father, who’s been laughing at Pearl and her funny breathing. Against the morning’s whiteness his strong black hair is brilliant. He puts his arm around Pearl’s mother and just smiles. Pearl ignores the look her mother sends her. Daddy! she calls, and falls back into a plump snow hillock. Her mother darts over. Get up at once! she shouts, grasping Pearl’s coat with mittened hands and yanking her into a standing position. What’s wrong with you? she says, and shoves her. Walking ahead, the only sounds Pearl hears are the little hum her brother is making and the crump of feet in the snow. Everything has turned to monochrome, but the sky is a dull mauve. She eventually stops listening for her father to say something to her mother. Her cheeks are being slapped with sleet, and her feet feel dead. In church it’s stifling. The smell of damp hair, floor wax and chrysanthemums make Pearl despair. With her fists she grinds her eyes, over and over again, until she sees explosions of stars and jagged bolts of blood. When she stops, the congregation is a spiky crowd of ghosts who glare at her, clutching hymn books. Their mouths open and close as if they are gnashing their teeth. Though Pearl looks and looks, her own sweet bone girl is not to be seen. She tells herself that’s to be expected; she would never come to a place like
this.

Pearl has been playing a war game with the boys involving toy cars, planes, Lego and Action Men. Under the garden hedge she’d been practising sounds like engines revving and explosions until she was really good; she is the only girl allowed in the game. Pearl doesn’t notice her cuts and bruises, or the rip in her shorts, until the game starts to wind down. The boys are impressed, she can tell. At midday, one by one, the boys are called for lunch, until only Pearl and Will are left, kneeling in the grass. They decide to go into the shed; they like pressing against each other in the dark. Today, the shed is half full of coal. It grates under the door as Will pulls it shut. The smell inside is old and oil-rich; they can taste coal dust. Will has wiry hands and Pearl feels them round her neck. She takes a pocket torch from the shelf and turns it on. A pale yellow glow lights Will’s smudged face as he takes the torch. I want to look at you now, he says solemnly. Pearl pulls her shorts down to her knees and holds up her sun-top. The torch beam waves like a wand until it shines on her flat nipples and belly. Will puts his finger into her navel, then drops down to the neat split between her legs. He rubs his finger in and out. Pearl can’t help laughing. Don’t make a noise, Will says. He kneels to kiss her bruised knee and bleeding arm. Then it’s Pearl’s turn. She unzips Will and rummages with her hand until she finds his rooty little prick. The torch rests in the coals; along its splayed beam black lumps glint and flicker. I love you, Will says. In the sparkling dark Pearl kisses his mouth.

Pearl and her brother are having a holiday with their grandmother. Her garden has winding, lavender-frilled paths and an orchard. Untended raspberry plants, weighed down with thumb-long, scarlet fruit, scrawl over beech hedges. Lettuces bolt, sending clouds of seeds adrift. Pearl loves creeping through undergrowth, curling up in the warm nests her granny’s startled cats vacate when they hear her approach. She picks the almost white roses her grandmother prefers, and nibbles tiny tomatoes. They are allowed anywhere and can eat anything they want. Nobody calls them in. No one wants them to explain what they have been doing. Long afternoons go by when sunshine turns the greenhouse air to perfume, and the beds of shaggy purple dahlias droop. It’s shaded near the pool, and Pearl and The Blob lie by the plant-spiked water, dazzled by the spangles of colour darting from the dragonflies who live between the trees and the pool’s surface. One day, their granny brings them a big, tinkling jug of ice-cold lemonade and a plate of warm sausage rolls for lunch. Pearl lies with her head in the elastic hollow between her brother’s ribs and hips. So, she says, her mouth full of crumbly pastry and delicious meat, who do you like best, Mother or Father? The dragonflies alight in unison on the tall, cerise flowers grouped about the pool. As they rise, wings whirring, and the flowers sway, her brother puts his grubby hand on Pearl’s head. I like you best, he says. Pearl smiles at the drowsy garden. And I like Mother best, Pearl says. ’Course you do, her brother answers.

Pearl isn’t afraid of God. The other kids in Junior Endeavour learn Scripture texts and practise Sword Drill with white Bibles, jumping up to answer questions. They can recite the books of the Bible backward, and always learn the verse of the week. Fee especially. The two of them walk through grassy evening air to the meeting, past the graveyard, amongst the trees where birds whistle so perfectly. Pearl dawdles until they reach the village. She’s dragging one foot in the gutter. Fee has been showing her full reward book of Bible-scene stickers. You get a prize, she says. Pearl makes a bored face. But you should care about God, my love, Fee says. Why? Pearl asks. They look at Pearl’s ruined shoe. He’s dangerous, that’s all, Fee says. They go into a side room of the chapel. Children gallop and shout. The smell of God is everywhere, and Pearl sniffs it. A boy collides with Fee, knocking her down. Pearl makes a note of who he is, but now she’s got something to do. She slips through a door into the chapel. It’s gloomy in the enormous space; silent but vibrating, as if an invisible thing with vast wings is hovering overhead. Pearl walks to the front pew. Before her a table rears up. On its tawny surface is an oversized bowl of cream roses, their faces open. Pearl takes a deep breath, cups her hands to her mouth and shouts out a terrible word. It feels as if the wings above have frozen mid-flight. Then she peers forwards. The rose stems start to quiver and, finally, one petal drops onto the burnished wood with the softest tap. Is that all? Pearl says, under her breath.

Pearl’s father tells her she has to go and stay with her cousin Mim for the night. Something is wrong with her mother again. Yes, Daddy, she says, and hugs him round the waist. But really, Pearl thinks, no one has to tell me, I know more than anyone in the world about my mother
.
I
love you, Daddy, she says, and waits to hear him say my good girl. Then he unwinds her arms and is not there. Someone drives Pearl to her cousin’s. From the back seat of the car she watches, but her father doesn’t wave goodbye. Her aunt Betty has laid a place for her at the table, even though Pearl won’t eat or speak. She keeps hold of her overnight bag and curls up behind a chair in the lounge, singing her two-note la-la, la-la, la-la song. Her aunty says, not to worry. I’m putting out a little plate of things you may like later. Her cousin Mim sits on the chair arm and plays with Pearl’s hair until it’s time to go upstairs, but Pearl refuses to meet her soft glance. They share a bed, and Pearl hugs and kisses Mim with concentration in the dark. She has rough skin behind her knees that sometimes cracks and bleeds, and Pearl likes to rub those places, but not tonight. So what else do you want to do? her cousin asks. Don’t know yet, Pearl says. She listens to Mim breathing beside her, and wonders where The Blob is. One bright star trembles through a gap in the curtains and sends a beam of crystals straight into Pearl’s head. She grips Mim between the legs, squeezing the mysterious, folded layers of skin there. Stop, she whispers furiously when Mim makes a noise. It has to be silent.

Will and Pearl are wading. As soon as the stream swells, flooding its own little beaches, drowning the tough, sparse grass on its margins, it’s the thing they do. Each breath they take is like a snatch of invisible, moist cloud. And on these wet days, in the stream, there’s always a moment when Pearl steps into an unknown pool and watches the water quiver at the rims of her wellingtons. She loves that wait, as the stream laps the thin rubber, before it tumbles down into her socks. She and Will stand and feel the water pour in. Now the air vibrates with rain, and the mint and submerged watercress shine; the marigolds glint with gems of liquid, and the stream’s surface is wobbling and busy. Their feet are cold and delicious inside their boots. Droplets stand on the woollen filaments of their jumpers. Blackbirds sing worm-songs in the oak trees as Will asks Pearl if he can be her boyfriend. He grasps her warm hands and kisses them with his smiling mouth. Pearl sees that Will’s eyes are the colour of the soaking sky, and his blond hair has darkened into curls. First things first, she says. They empty their boots and wring out their socks. Then Pearl leads him to a place she knows about, deeper in the woods. Every leaf and blade is glossy. She picks a handful of scarlet berries for him. Eat these, she says. Without a word he chews the berries to a creamy pulp and swallows them. Almost immediately he vomits. Pearl holds his forehead and rubs his bent back as he retches. Yes, Will, she says finally, for now I will be your girlfriend. Then she wipes his mouth with her
hand.

Pearl and her brother are in the hedge, watching for their father to bring them chips and fishcakes wrapped in paper. At last Pearl sees his trousers with their brown shoes coming across the lawn. Here you are, he says, squatting down with a tray full of things for them to eat. Thanks, Daddy, they call out, and rip open the warm, clammy parcels. I know, Pearl says, we could be baby eagles. And that was our father eagle bringing us dinner. It’s what father eagles do. This sounds good to The Blob, so they eat up, enjoying each hot, squashy chip as if it were a worm. These are mice, Pearl states, biting fiercely at a fishcake. What is this apple drink? her brother asks. Just apple drink, shtoopid, Pearl says. When they’ve finished they go indoors. Pearl peeps through the lounge door and sees her father sitting alone. Grabbing her brother’s arm as he’s about to run in, she whispers, stop! I’m thinking. Her father looks small somehow, and she doesn’t like it. We’ll be birds for Daddy, she tells her brother. But her brother is unsure. Watch me, she says, and glides into the room with The Blob trailing behind her. On the rug in front of her father she does a dance. Look, Daddy, she calls. I’m a greater spotted baby eagle! Their father opens his eyes. As her brother gets up onto the settee, Pearl flies and swoops, flies and calls, all over the room until she sees her father smile. Then she flutters down and curls herself at his feet. The Blob and her father laugh out loud, Pearl is so funny. I can do this any time you want, she cheeps, out of breath.

Pearl has been sent to bed early. She listens to the children in the street, and the ice-cream van’s tune, and the birds singing their evening songs to one another. She’s decided to wait till everyone’s asleep. Then she’s going to the park. She thinks about the empty swings swaying from their chilly chains. And the trees, with their black trunks and millions of gently moving leaves, and all the snaking branches full of huddled birds. She sees herself treading the wet grass, climbing the steps of the tall slide. Maybe she’ll sit in the cage at the top and look at everything. It doesn’t seem long before the house is silent. Pearl looks through her curtains. The cones of light falling from the street lamps have changed from orange to lemon. She drifts through the front door and down the path. Then she’s wandering into the park. The chestnut trees are shedding crinkled petals as she passes beneath them, and the perfume of the night plants makes her stop and breathe, over and over again. Then she sees her skeleton girl waiting on a swing, so she joins her. Even though she knows they shouldn’t, they start to go higher than Pearl has ever swung before, laughing together. At the very highest point the skeleton girl loses her grip and falls from the swing with a swift, whooshing rattle. It’s terrible, and Pearl leaps off. There on the ground is a scrabble of bones. Pearl quickly scoops them all into a carrier bag she finds lying nearby. Picking the skull up last, she holds it in both cupped hands and sobs, this is all my fault, I should be taking better care of
you.