Winter Wood (24 page)

‘Mm? Oh yes. Yes . . . like a picture puzzle . . .'

There was a stick propped against the side of the fireplace, a walking stick, painted white. Midge had never noticed it before. Was it Aunt Celandine's,
and did she still use it? No, it didn't seem very likely. That must have been from before she was in a wheelchair. Midge picked up the stick, and held it out in front of her, trying to imagine what it must be like to be blind.

‘
Schnnnick!
I can remember the sound, but I don't know where I was . . .' Aunt Celandine was still talking, eyes closed. Midge wondered whether she could get from the door to the far window, with her own eyes closed, just by using the white stick, and without tripping over or banging into anything. She'd give it a go.

It was almost impossible not to cheat, that was the trouble. She couldn't help but open her eyes just a tiny bit, and that rather defeated the point of having a stick.

‘Oh, but it did feel wonderful. Thos said I looked like a boot brush . . .'

‘Did he?' said Midge, just to be polite. She went back to the door in order to start her journey again. This time she was determined not to peep until she reached the opposite window.

Amazing how unsteady and insecure walking with your eyes closed made you feel – like you were about to tumble into a pit . . . or an open fireplace. Midge hesitated at this thought. But no, she couldn't have changed direction so very drastically, and anyway, that was what the stick was for, to warn of any such hazard. She inched forward.

‘. . . like a green jigsaw. Where could I have been, though, when all this happened?' Aunt Celandine's
murmuring voice gave Midge a bit of help as to direction.

But the stick wasn't making contact with anything, and that
didn't
help. It just waved about in thin air. Aha! Here . . . yes, here, she'd found something. Midge kept her eyes tight shut and made exploratory movements with the stick.

Tap-tap . . . tap-tap-tap . . .

What on earth was it? A rustling, swishing sound accompanied the tapping of her stick. Midge became aware that the room behind her had frozen into silence. She reached out again.

Tap-tap-tap-tap . . .

‘
No . . . don't!
Please no! Don't . . . don't . . . don't . . .
don't
 . . .'

Midge jumped in alarm at the sound of Celandine's terrified voice. She spun round.

‘What? What is it?'

Aunt Celandine was crouching forward in her chair, her hands over her face, wailing and wailing.

‘No! Don't let them . . . don't let them!'

Midge couldn't even move. What had she
done
? What was happening?

‘Oh! They'll get me . . . no . . . don't let them . . .'

Midge remained motionless, locked solid, absolutely at a loss as to what was wrong or what she should do. And then the door opened, swinging back against the bookshelves, bump, and Elaine was there, hurrying across to the wheelchair, already bending over to put an arm around Aunt Celandine's tiny shoulders.

‘Miss Howard? Miss Howard! What's the matter?'

Midge managed to take a couple of steps forward, still reeling with confusion. But she stopped as Elaine's spectacles flashed up at her.

‘And what are you doing with that stick?'

‘Nothing! I don't know what's . . . I haven't
done
anything!' What was she being accused of?

‘No . . . no, course not. Sorry, love. It just looked . . . Miss Howard? Yes, that's right, it's only me. Now calm down, dear. It's all right. Everything's all right.'

‘They'll get me . . . they'll get me . . .' Aunt Celandine had taken her hands away from her face, but she was still distraught.

‘Oh no they won't. There's nobody here
to
get you – only me and Midge. And we'd never hurt you, now would we?'

‘No . . .'

‘No.' Elaine gave Midge a little nod of reassurance. Don't worry, don't worry. She kept a shielding arm about Aunt Celandine's shoulders, and continued to murmur words of comfort, as one might to a small child. ‘Sh . . . it's all right now . . . everything's all right.' Gradually Aunt Celandine became calmer, and the worst appeared to be over. Elaine looked up at Midge again. ‘Better tell me what's been going on, then. What happened exactly?'

‘Well, I was just . . . walking about.' Midge hardly liked to say that she had been pretending to be blind. ‘Wandering around . . . not doing any harm. I was over by the window. Over by . . .' She turned round. What
was
it that she had tapped with the stick?
She still didn't know. ‘Over by that . . . that big plant. The bamboo plant. Then suddenly Aunt Celandine started . . . you know. She got upset. And I'm so sorry if it was me, Aunt Celandine. Was it me? Did I do something?'

Midge went across to the wheelchair and crouched down beside it. She put her hand on top of her great-great-aunt's and squeezed it tight. ‘If I did anything to frighten you, I'm really sorry. Are you OK now?'

‘I don't suppose it
was
anything to do with you,' said Elaine. ‘She's been sort of funny all week – going on about prams and little boys in trees, and I don't know what. Poor old duck. I've had a feeling she was building up to something. Well, they can all get a bit confused, like, and it's hardly surprising at her age. She'll be OK.'

Even Elaine did it sometimes, Midge realized – talked about Aunt Celandine as if she weren't there or couldn't hear. And Elaine was really fond of her, you could tell.

‘Can you remember what it was?' said Midge. ‘That scared you so much?'

She looked up into Aunt Celandine's face and saw that the watery eyes were still troubled, still staring at something in the distance, beyond her shoulder. Her mouth was moving, but Midge couldn't hear anything.

‘Sorry – what did you say?'

Aunt Celandine leaned a little closer.

‘Is . . .
get
you . . .' she whispered.

‘What?'

Elaine straightened up, and smoothed her hands across the front of her blue tunic. ‘I think it'd be best if you went home now, love. She's probably had enough for today. But listen – try not to worry. She'll be fine now. I'll look after her.'

‘Yes. Yes, all right.'

Midge stood up, and realized that she was still holding the white stick. She gently put it back where she had found it, resting it against the corner of the fireplace. Before she left she took a last glance at the bamboo plant. It was just a normal-looking plant, and the stick was just a normal stick, but she was convinced that these things had triggered some dreadful memory for poor Aunt Celandine. She wondered what could possibly have been so terrifying about that sound – the tap-tap-tapping of the stick, and the rustling of the leaves . . .

She had to say something to her mum about it, once she was home. There was no point in pretending that everything was fine when it wasn't. But at the same time she was careful to filter the information, to bend the facts a little.

‘Yes, she got really upset. I still don't know why, because I wasn't
doing
anything much – just sort of wandering about. You know, looking around. I had pins and needles.'

‘Hm. Well listen.' Mum closed the door of the dishwasher, and leaned against it, arms folded. ‘I think perhaps you should keep away for a bit. I've never been all that comfortable about you going over there,
and if you're the cause of any kind of upset – even when it's not your fault – then you're doing more harm than good. And besides, you shouldn't have to be coping with geriatric problems at your age. Psychiatric . . . whatever.'

‘She's not just some old
nutter
, Mum. I
like
her. I
like
going to see her.'

‘Well, I'm still not sure that you should. But I think that what I might do is have a talk to that manager woman about it – Carol Reeve. Yes? Let's get a proper professional opinion on this, and take it from there. Happy with that?'

‘No, not really. Wish I hadn't said anything now.'

Midge sat up in bed, her arms about her knees, and scowled at the photograph of Aunt Celandine. Why didn't things just go right for once? It wasn't
her
fault that Aunt Celandine had been so scared. She'd only been mucking about with a stick, for goodness' sake. And now her mum was threatening to keep her away. Well she wasn't going to keep away, and there was an end to it. She sighed, as she stared at the picture, trying to let the anger drain out of her.

It was possible now to spot the likeness between the child that she'd never met, and the old lady that she had come to know. The eyes and the mouth, even the hands, were somehow recognizable. How strange it must be to grow so old, and to have seen so many changes. No mobile phones back then, on the day that photograph was taken. No televisions or computers. The girl sitting on that wicker box would never have
seen such things. Maybe she'd never even been in a car. Horses and carts – that was how they got about in those days, wasn't it?

Horses being milked . . . where could such a funny idea have come from? And barnacles in a cave. Midge thought about the caves that she'd seen in the Royal Forest, and a flash of intuition came to her. Yes, she'd bet anything that was where the runaway Celandine had stayed – amongst the Tinklers and the Troggles.

Aunt Celandine's memory
would
return, she was sure of it. But would she be strong enough to bear it? Something horribly frightening had obviously happened to that girl in the photograph. Was it just cruel to be trying to bring it all back again? It was too late to stop now, that was the trouble.

Yes, and it was too late at night to be sitting up worrying about it. Midge turned the dimmer light down, so that there was just a faint blue glow. She snuggled beneath the warm duvet and closed her eyes.

3:20. It was the first thing she saw – the illuminated face of her clock radio. Why was she even looking at it? Why was she awake? Midge pulled back the duvet a little and listened. There! A rustling sound. And again. Here in the room? Midge sat upright, nervous now.

Tap-tap . . . tap-tap-tap . . .

No, not in the room. Outside! Oh my
God
, there was something out there . . . something perched on the broad stone window ledge . . . rustling . . . tapping against the window pane!

Tap-tap-tap . . . tap-tap . . .

Aunt Celandine's urgent whisper came rushing into her head, the strange words echoing above the roaring pulse in her ears.

‘Is . . .
get
you . . .'

‘IS . . . GET YOU . . .'

Celandine chased the words round and round in her head, trying to imagine where they might have come from. But it was like chasing tadpoles in a tin bath, the things wriggling through her fingers just as she thought she had them, disappearing into the murky swirl once more.

And the harder she tried, the murkier those waters became. She should stop and think of something else – let things settle for a bit.

Celandine gazed at the soothing patterns in the fake coal fire. They were very blurry patterns, her eyesight being what it was, but patterns nevertheless – shapes and sequences that repeated themselves. The flames danced their same little dance over and over. There . . . and gone . . . and back again. There and gone . . . back again. Just like her own thoughts: too fleeting to catch for more than an instant, but always returning to tease her.

She started once more: the tiny boy in the trees, staring down at her. The piece of cake, snatched from
her fingers. The voice of the older one . . . ‘
Fin! . . . Fin!
'

‘Is . . .
get
you . . .'