Stone Bruises (7 page)

‘What are you doing?’

I spin round, performing an intricate dance with my crutch and good foot to keep my balance. Mathilde’s father has materialized from behind the stable block. There’s a canvas bag slung over his shoulder, from which the bloodied leg of a rabbit protrudes. More worrying is the rifle he carries, which is pointing right at me.

‘Are you deaf? I said what are you doing?’

In the daylight he’s older than I’d thought, nearer sixty than fifty, with brown melanomas of sun and age freckling his forehead. He isn’t particularly tall, short in the legs and long in the body, but he’s still a bull of a man.

I take a second to steady myself on the crutch, trying not to look at the rifle. ‘Nothing.’

He glances at the open door behind me. ‘Why are you prowling around?’

‘I wanted a drink of water.’

‘There’s a tap in the barn.’

‘I know, but I needed some fresh air.’

‘I thought you said you wanted water?’ Against the weathered skin his pale-grey eyes look like chips of dirty ice. They go to the crutch and harden even more. ‘Where’d you get that from?’

‘I found it in the loft.’

‘And who said you could use it?’

‘No one.’

I’m not sure why I’m protecting Mathilde but it doesn’t seem right to lay the blame on her. I’m acutely aware of the rifle as her father’s chin juts aggressively.

‘So you thought you’d just help yourself? What else were you planning on stealing?’

‘I wasn’t …’ All at once I’m too exhausted to argue. The sun seems to be pressing down on me, sapping what little strength I have left. ‘Look, I didn’t think anyone would mind. I’ll put it back.’

I start to go past him back to the barn, but he’s blocking my way. He makes no attempt to move, keeping the rifle pointed at me. Until now I’d thought he was just posturing, but looking into the hard eyes I feel a sudden doubt. I’m past caring though. I stare back at him, and as the moment drags on a rhythmic creaking gradually impinges on the silence. Looking across the courtyard, I see Georges unhurriedly walking towards us, a rusted bucket swinging from one hand.

If he’s surprised to find his employer holding someone at gunpoint he doesn’t show it. ‘I’ve repaired the fence as best I can, M’sieur Arnaud. It’ll do for now but it still needs replacing.’

I might as well be invisible for all the notice he takes of me. Arnaud – I’d forgotten the name on the mailbox at the gate until now – has flushed deeper than ever.

‘All right.’

It’s a dismissal, but the old man doesn’t take the hint. ‘Will you be coming down to have a look?’

Arnaud huffs in irritation. ‘Yes, in a while.’

Georges gives a satisfied nod and goes back across the courtyard, still without reacting to my presence. I’m forced to lean on the crutch again as Arnaud regards me, jaw working as though he’s chewing his words.

But before he can spit them out a dog bursts from behind the stables. It’s a young springer spaniel, all lolling tongue and flapping ears. When it sees us it comes bounding past Arnaud and prances around me. I try not to show how much I’m shaking as I reach down to tousle its head.

‘Here!’ Arnaud’s voice cracks out. The dog dithers, torn between obedience and enjoying the attention. ‘Get here, damn you!’

Obedience wins. The spaniel slinks over, cowering and wagging its tail frantically. It would tie a white flag to it if it could, but as Arnaud raises his hand to cuff it a spasm contorts his features. He stiffens, one hand going to his back as he straightens in pain.

‘Mathilde!
Mathilde!
’ he bellows.

She hurries around the side of the house, the baby in one arm and a basket of soil-covered vegetables in the other. A flash of what could be dismay passes across her face when she sees us, then it’s wiped clean of any emotion.

‘What’s he doing out here?’ Arnaud demands. ‘I told you to keep him out of my way!’

Mathilde tries to soothe the baby, who has started crying at his grandfather’s raised voice. ‘I’m sorry, I—’

‘It’s not her fault,’ I say.

Arnaud turns back to me, his face livid. ‘I wasn’t talking to you!’

‘I only came out for some fresh air,’ I say wearily. ‘I’ll go back to the loft, OK?’

Arnaud sniffs. He looks at the baby, who is still howling, then reaches out for him.

‘Give him to me.’

His hands look huge as he takes the child from Mathilde and holds him at eye level, gently rocking him from side to side. He still has the rifle tucked under his arm.

‘Eh? What’s this, Michel? You don’t cry. Be a big boy for your grandfather.’

His voice is gruff but fond. The baby hiccups and beams toothlessly at him. Without taking his eyes from his grandson, Arnaud turns his head to speak to me over his shoulder.

‘Get out of my sight.’

I spend the rest of the day sleeping. Or rather half-sleeping: in the airless loft I drift in and out between consciousness and dreaming. At one point I rouse to find a tray of food and a fresh bucket of water has been left beside the bed. By Mathilde, I guess: even though I said I didn’t want a book there’s an old card-bound copy of
Madame Bovary
on the tray as well.

Maybe it’s by way of an apology for the run-in with her father.

The evening passes in a haze of heat and sweat. I lie in my boxers on top of the mattress, drugged by the spiced, cigar-box smell of the loft. For lack of anything else to do I make an attempt at
Madame Bovary
. But the archaic French is impenetrable, and I can’t concentrate. The words blur and the book keeps falling from my hands, until eventually I give up and put it aside. I think it’s too hot to sleep, but when I close my eyes I slide under so deeply it’s like drowning.

I wake with a cry, images of blood on a darkened street stark in my mind. For a few seconds I can’t remember where I am. The loft is in darkness, but a ghostly light spills through the open window. My hands are hot and sticky, and with the nightmare still vivid I expect to see them stained with blood. But it’s only sweat.

The moon’s light is bright enough for me to see my watch without turning on the lamp. It’s just after midnight. I reach shakily for my cigarettes. Only three left: I’ve started smoking them a half at a time. I light the burned end of one I started earlier and draw the smoke into my lungs. A weight of despair refuses to lift. When I finish the cigarette, making it last right down to the filter, there’s no question of going back to sleep.

The loft is humid and close, floodlit by the moon. A strip of light runs across the floor and hooks over the edge of the bed. I get out of bed and hop along its silver path to the window. The night has turned the landscape black and white. Beyond the shadows of the woods, the moon’s twin shines from the mirrored lake. There’s a metallic moistness to the air. I breathe it deeply, imagining submerging myself in the water, feeling its coolness lift even the weight of hair from my head.

An owl hoots. I realize I’m holding my breath and let it out. There isn’t enough air. Suddenly claustrophobic, I seize the crutch and lamp and go to the trapdoor. I’ve left it open, and it looks like a hole into nothing. In the lamp’s dull glow I lower myself down the steps.

I don’t think about what I’m doing. The barn below is dark, but once outside the full moon is so bright I no longer need the lamp. I turn it off and leave it in the entrance. The night air soothes my bare skin, scented with trees and grass. I don’t feel tired at all now, only a feverish desire to get to the lake.

I follow the track that Georges used earlier, limping past rows of vines. It’s a monochrome world, all light and shadow. I pause at the edge of the woods to catch my breath. The trees form a solid wall of black at the edge of the vine field. The air is cooler here, dampening any sound. Moonlight drips indiscriminately through the branches. I shiver, wondering what I’m doing. I know I should turn back, but the lure of the lake is too strong.

This is the furthest I’ve walked on the crutch, and my breathing is laboured as I go through the wood. I trudge with my head down, so focused on what I’m doing that I don’t notice the pale figure until it’s right in front of me.

‘Jesus!’

I stumble back. Now I see more of them, motionless shapes in the trees. My heart is thudding, but none of them move. As the shock of seeing them fades I realize why.

The wood is full of statues.

They crowd both sides of the track, stone men and women dappled by moonlight. I sag in relief, but still have to touch one to reassure myself that the lifelike limbs aren’t, after all, flesh and blood. My fingers encounter only the roughness of lichen and smooth, hard stone.

I smile, shame-faced, and as I do the wood’s quiet is shattered by a shriek. It’s high-pitched and inhuman, seeming to go on and on before it abruptly stops. I stare into the blackness, gripping the flimsy crutch. Just a fox or owl, I tell myself. But I feel the hairs on the back of my neck prickle upright. I turn and look at the statues. They haven’t moved, but now their blind scrutiny seems unnerving. Then the shriek comes again, and my nerve breaks.

All thoughts of the lake are forgotten as I lurch back up the shadowed track. My breath rasps in my ears, blood thumping as I struggle on the single crutch. Up ahead I can see the moonlit field through the trees, impossibly distant. Christ, have I really come so far? Then at last I’m out in the open, and orderly rows of vines replace the dark trees. I lumber on, panting for breath, until I reach the sanctuary of the barn once more. Gulping for air, I stop to retrieve the lamp and look back towards the wood. The track is empty, but I don’t relax until I’m in my loft again with the trapdoor shut behind me.

I collapse onto the mattress, chest heaving and legs like jelly. I’m drenched with sweat, as wet as if I’d actually been in the lake. The idea of going down there, as if I could swim with my foot bandaged up, seems ridiculous now. I don’t know what I was thinking.
Don’t you? Really?

All I want to do is sleep. But before I do I go back over to the trapdoor and slide a chest of drawers on top.

Feeling safe at last, I go to bed and sleep like the dead.

CALLUM WAS STILL
ranting when I came back from the bar.

‘Oh, come
on
! Did we see the same film? Tell me, did we? I was watching
The Last Detail
, what were you watching?’

‘All I’m saying is it’s still reinforcing character stereotypes. You’ve got the, uh, the hardened wiseguy, the rookie, the token—’

‘They’re archetypes, not stereotypes! I can’t believe you missed the entire fucking point of the—’

‘I didn’t miss anything, I just think it’s, uh, I don’t know—’

‘Exactly!’

‘Callum, why don’t you shut up and let Jez finish?’ Yasmin cuts in.

‘I would if he wasn’t talking shite!’

I put the drinks on the table. Beer for Callum, Yasmin and me, orange juice for Chloe, vodka for Jez. Chloe gives me a grin as I sit down.

Yasmin turns to me. ‘Sean, tell Callum it’s possible to object to aspects of a Jack Nicholson film without being burned at the stake for heresy.’

‘Sean agrees with me,’ Callum cuts in. Raw-boned and shaven-headed, his piercings add to the faintly pagan image he likes to cultivate. ‘Nicholson is the finest actor of his generation, bar none!’

‘He was a jobbing actor who got lucky,’ Chloe says. She darts a quick look at me to show she’s deliberately baiting Callum. As ever, he bites.

‘Bollocks! I’ve got one thing to say to you, Chloe.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
. That’s it.’ He sits back, crossing his arms as if the argument’s won.

‘That was a dream role. Any halfway decent actor could have run away with it,’ Yasmin says, rolling her eyes. Her hair is tied back tonight, and she’s wearing the loose dark clothes that Chloe once confided show she’s feeling self-conscious about her weight.

‘Oh, come on! What about
Chinatown
? Or
The Departed
?’

‘What about them?’ Chloe begins ticking off on her fingers. ‘
Witches of Eastwick. Mars Attacks. Batman
. Best actor of his generation? Sure.’

Jez furrows his brow. ‘
Batman
was OK. Not as good as
The Dark Knight
, though.’

No one takes any notice of him. He’s been drinking all night and looks even more crumpled than usual, which is saying something. Like Callum, he’s a teacher at the language school in Fulham where I’ve been working for the past few months. Yasmin, his girlfriend and Chloe’s best friend from art college, used to work there as well before she got a better-paying job at the university.

I love Friday nights. Classes finish early, and afterwards a group of us will go for a drink before heading for one of the independent cinemas that are within a few tube stops of the school. Callum is passionate about film but blows hot and cold about his favourite actors, writers, directors. Not so many weeks before it was Terrence Malick he’d raved about. Recently, though, we’d seen a screening of
Carnal Knowledge
, so for the next few weeks Jack Nicholson was going to be It.

I take a drink of beer and stroke Chloe’s thigh under the table. She squeezes my hand and smiles, then stretches and pushes back her chair.

‘I’d better be getting back.’

She bends and kisses me, her short hair momentarily touching my face, then goes over to the bar. The Domino is off the King’s Road, close to one of our regular cinemas, but the main reason we go there is because it’s where Chloe works. Dark and modern, with cool blue lights illuminating the bottles behind the black granite counter, we’d never be able to afford to come here if Chloe couldn’t get us cheap drinks. She says her manager knows, so I suppose it must be OK. Still, I sometimes wonder if he realizes how generous he’s being.

I watch her go behind the bar, laughing at something Tanja, one of the other girls, says as she begins serving.

‘Chloe’s doing all right, isn’t she?’ Yasmin says.

I turn to see that she’s watching Chloe too. ‘Sure. Why shouldn’t she be?’

Yasmin smiles, throwing the comment away with a shrug. ‘No reason. I was just thinking out loud.’