Rottenhouse (11 page)

2

In the kitchen, Lucy was sat alone. She
was playing with her hair much like she did when she read a book of
flicked through a magazine, only this morning there was no book, no
magazine and the pictures she had been looking through last night
weren’t there anymore. Her gaze was far off. She seemed to look
through the table, through the stone floor and down into the very
core of the earth. More and more Simon was seeing a resemblance in
Lucy to her father. Through the large window Simon could see that
the sun had bleached the sky a bone white and that there wasn’t a
cloud present, an almost perfect summer’s day. Beams of light
pierced through the net curtain and lit up the kitchen and dust
motes floated about and their tails were as if fairies were dancing
a merry jig.

‘
Yer dad not
about?’

‘
Hmm?’

‘
Your dad. Is he
about?’

‘
No. He went out about
half an hour ago. Something about the garage. Said he’d be back
just before dinner.’

‘
Oh, okay.’ Simon went
over to the kettle and seeing that it was still half full he
flicked the switch turning the little orange light on and setting
the coils in motion.

‘
You alright?’ Simon
asked grabbing a cup.

‘
Yeah, fine.
Why?’

‘
Nothing, you seem a
bit spaced out that’s all. Want a cuppa?’

‘
No thanks. Dad made
so much this morning I’ll be on the toilet for most of the day.’
And then she was far off again.

‘
But you’re okay,
yeah? You’re happy to see your Dad?’

Roused again but this time more alert
than she had been before; her eyes ablaze in the glare from
outside. ‘Really happy. Happier than I thought I’d be. We talked
for hours and hours this morning. Caught up, yaknow? It’s like I
haven’t really been away, like I said yesterday, this place hasn’t
really changed since when I was a girl. I can’t wait to see some of
the friends I left behind.’

The kettle began to shake and then with
a violent click thick steam came from the hole at the top. Simon
went about making himself a cup of tea whilst he looked out of the
window and admired the scenery. He could really get used to a place
like this.

‘
You wanna go out for
a bit? I can show you some amazing spots. Days like this don’t come
too often up here.’

‘
That would be great,’
Simon said as he sipped at his tea looking out onto the world
outside, ‘Glad I brought my camera. Wasn’t going to at first. Not
much call for landscapes at the moment. The clients just want retro
looking stills or urban dystopian nonsense. But this place is
amazing. Reminds me of when I was just starting out. Maybe it’s the
freedom. No pressure, yaknow, I could take a picture of whatever I
wanted, however I wanted. Shame really.’

‘
I knew you would like
it up here. You’ve been cramped up in that studio, in that city,
for far too long.’

Simon turned and the two of them locked
eyes in their special way where they don’t have to say anything
because they know that they love each other, would do anything for
each other, and it would always be that way.

They Leak. They Bleed. They don’t stop
once they started.

Simon’s eyes narrowed and he took in a
deep breath as he remembered the painting in last night’s dream. He
turned away from Lucy and closed his eyes; blocking out the sun,
the hills, the tress and the lush green grass. Two nightmares in
the space of one day. The first one he could remember very little
of – the girl in the bathroom was the only real image he could
conjure but the thought of her made him wish that he couldn’t. The
second dream however, was a different kettle of fish. He pretty
much remembered every detail of it. With his eyes closed he
struggled to shake off the image of the stairs that led down to
that endless black nothing and the feeling on his skin as the child
grabbed hold of his foot.

Lucy’s arms were wrapped around him all
of a sudden; her head resting on his back, her breaths matching his
own. They stood together until Simon’s tea went cold and the clock
struck 12.

3

By 1-30 they had made it halfway up the
valley slope and Simon had taken enough photos to fill a factory.
Not far from the house there had been a little wooden bridge that
arched over the stream and the wooden carvings of trees and flowers
that adorned it made it a dream to photograph. Though he knew, as
well as any photographer, amateur or professional, that out of
hundreds of photos there was only a handful of real good ones and
even then that small percentage could be whittled down to nothing
once the processing work began. Simon was a strong believer in a
post-production process that steered away from aftermarket tools. A
good photo shouldn’t need that many tweaks, it shouldn’t need
colour enhancements or that dammed HDR effect which sent him loopy
every time he saw it. Maybe just a crop here, a drop in contrast or
brightness there was all that would was needed, even a flick to
black and white just to give it that extra bump, but that’s it.
Sadly though, his studio work was driven by his clients and they
seemed to love the effects that only after market programmes can
bring. Sometimes Simon thought about changing his title from
Photographer to Graphic Designer such was the nature of the work
that he now undertook.

Clambering over a low
stone wall he captured the wall as it jutted out like an old set of
teeth against the lush background of the valley floor below. His
ears pulsed with hot blood as the shot was taken – his trigger that
that shot was a keeper – and he pressed the small button on the
back of his camera to preview the shot.
Almost perfect.
Just needs a bit of
cropping to take out a piece of flyaway grass that had flown into
view but apart from that, nothing. He even thought about presenting
this to Mr Rowling as Simon realised that he had captured the house
and the stream without even noticing it whilst he was taking the
shot.

From farther up the valley, ‘That a
keeper?’

‘
Oh yes.’

‘
Can I
see?’

‘
Nope.’

Simon heard her
chuckle, a familiar chuckle, a good chuckle. It was an old joke
between them and he guessed one that was held between couples where
one of them (or both) had interests or jobs in which it relied
heavily on their artistic merits, be that photography, drawing,
writing or acting, who’s punch line remained the same
You won’t see it until I am finished with it and
nothing will change that
.

4

Once at the top of the slope, Simon
hung the camera around his neck, placed his tripod on a rock that
jutted out and was the shape of a bowl, and admired the view.

Rottenhouse was below him, the village
flowing from west to east. The house in which Lucy had grown up in
was on the outskirts and whilst more houses were jumbled together
in the centre, various buildings and farms and sheds dotted the
landscape like dice thrown in an epic game of Craps. Most of the
fields were green such was the nature of the farming here, though
there were fields of golden yellow and some of a fierce red. The
stream cut its way around the outskirts of the village and then
turned sharply as it reached the valley wall on which he stood and
turned north back into the village and off into the horizon. From
this distance, though it was hard to tell, it looked as if the
stream flowed under the Working Man’s Club at the centre of the
village. Along the stream, just after it dog legged back in on
itself, there was a small hut, maybe a home, on its own with smoke
rising from its little crooked chimney.

‘
Beautiful, isn’t
it?’

‘
Breath taking. One of
the prettiest places I have ever seen. Makes what we have back home
look like shit.’

Lucy stepped in and took hold of
Simon’s hand and squeezed it tight. She didn’t say anything at
first, there wasn’t much to say. They both knew their words
couldn’t bring any justice to the landscape that was laid out
before them.

If God did create the world, Simon
thought, then the day he made this place he must have taken a step
back, tapped himself on his God like shoulder, admired it, tweaked
it here and there just so that at every possible angle the view
would be spectacular, and then showed it off to all his
friends.

Once the view had been thoroughly taken
in Simon removed his pride and joy from his camera bag and screwed
in onto the main body of his camera.

‘
Heyup, the Big Boy is
coming out.’ Lucy said as she sat on the smooth stones and
stretched out her legs.

Simon smiled and raised his eyebrows.
He then offered it to her to hold and she did so carefully, after
all, she was the one that spent out the 8000 pounds to by the
hulking great thing. Opening up his tripod and adjusting it so that
it was level, he took back the camera and placed it carefully onto
the stand making sure to attach the extension pole to the lens so
that it didn’t flop down such was the weight of it.

Lucy knew, as well as Simon, that the
Big Boy only came out on special occasions and only when Simon was
sure that he could capture something truly special.

‘
You gonna tell me, or
keep it secret?’

Simon pointed down to the valley floor.
‘That hut down there. There is something about it that has taken me
fancy. Like that old station back in Hampshire, you remember? I did
that perspective piece where I photoed it from various angles and
heights and then merged them together. I’d like to do the same with
that hut down there. It looks so peaceful.’

Lucy craned her neck and looked down to
where Simon was now aiming his camera; looking through the
viewfinder like a sniper seeking out his next kill.

‘
That’s the old
lumberjack hut. Well it used to be. Chopper John used to live down
there. Guess he still does.’

‘
Chopper John?’ He
tried to hold back a snigger but his voice ended up full of it
instead.

‘
Yes, Chopper John,’
Lucy bit back sarcastically, ‘that’s what we called him when we
were kids and it kind of caught on with the oldens too. He’s
probably long dead by now.’

A silence fell on the couple as Simon
went about his business. Slowly his memory card filled with images
of the lumberjack hut, the stream, and surrounding areas.

We all have these occasions when we act
before thinking, talk without forethought. Situations like that
usually occur when we are distracted or in deep thought. Simon was
pretty good at putting his foot in it with actions or words that
seemed to pop out without warning. So it came as no surprise to
Simon that, as he was lost in his work and unaware of his thoughts
or his mouth, that he said, ‘So, your Dad. He’s quite the
character.’

‘
Watchyamean?’

The camera clicked a few more times and
he looked from behind the viewfinder down to where Mr Rowling
lived, his face as red as radishes. ‘How can I say this…? I guess
he’s been alone for such a long time he hasn’t really noticed.’

‘
What are you trying
to say, Si?’

‘
Look, Lucy, I don’t
mean it how it is going to sound, but he’s, well, he’s mental. Not
like dribbling in a bucket I’m the second coming of Jesus kind of
way, he’s just not all there.’

‘
And?’

Simon could feel her
eyes upon him so he kept to the viewfinder thinking that he should
have checked himself before starting the conversation. He could
also feel her
String
, it was tightening, and given enough of a pull it would snap
and he didn’t want that, especially after the day he had had
yesterday.

‘
Just that he’s got a
way of saying things, like yesterday, with how he told me that
modern cars aint as reliable as old ones, or that I couldn’t sit in
the front of the car as that was your mums, and now yours by the
by, and that I had no right to sit there. He even said that there
was no such thing as the drink driving law. He pretty much thought
I was insane to think such a thing. And he wasn’t talking about the
law not being in force up here, oh no, he was 100 percent certain
that there was no such thing as being over the limit.’

‘
Come on, Si, I don’t
think it’s that bad. He has his ways, yeah, like all of us do, but
he has been fine with me. It’s different up here, remember. But
different don’t mean their stupid.’

‘
I know, I know,’
Simon unscrewed the camera from the tripod and began changing the
lens back to his more user friendly one. He continued, ‘I get that,
I really do, and I am happy that you two seem to be getting on.
Maybe it’s just that I aint from round here and there is a tension
between us, I don’t know. But, last night, in the Club, some poor
bastard had the living shit smashed out of him and your dad was
kind of the one that made it happen.’

‘
I know.’ Lucy said
flatly.

Simon stopped his fumbling and looked
at her with a face akin to a fish in a pond.

‘
You know.’

‘
Yeah, I know, and by
the sounds of it the guy had it coming.’

Simon threw the tripod down. ‘Had it
coming. Jesus Christ, Lucy, he was beaten half to death.’

She folded her arms
across her chest,
yeah and so
what?

Simon, as he spoke put Big Boy back
into its protective wrapping and then into the bag. ‘So what did he
do then? What God awful thing did that poor guy do to your dad that
deserved him getting his bones smashed to bits?’