Woodhill Wood (18 page)

"Yup."

"What's your plan today?"

Gurde shrugged. "Don't know."

"Your father was thinking about going for a walk up the hill. Interested?"

Gurde shrugged again.

"I've got to get some more work done for tomorrow," she went on, "but I'm sure he'd like it if you went along."

"Is Ben going to go?"

"I don't know. He's still fast asleep. Perhaps if he's up in time."

"If Ben goes I won't bother."

"Oh. Why not?"

"He's too slow."

"You're just like your father." She took a mouthful of Weetabix and swallowed it down. "You seem to spend a lot of time on the hill these days, Matty."

"Do I?"

"What do you do up there?"

"Nothing much."

"No? It's nice up there though, isn't it?"

"It's all right."

"Yes, well. I think your Dad plans to go quite soon, so you'd better change your shoes."

"These are all right."

"Go and change them, Matty."

"OK. In a minute."

Gurde went back to aimlessly turning the pages of the magazine. She stood watching for a few minutes and then went back into the kitchen.

"Coming then?" The father appeared in the doorway wearing his thick, woollen jumper and heavy walking boots.

"Now?"

"Now." He span around and blew out again. Gurde dropped the magazine to the floor. The father was already waiting, holding the back door open with his foot.

"Right, let's go."

The mother was still sitting at the end of the table finishing off her cereal in front of the newspaper. "Have you changed your shoes?" she asked as Gurde entered.

"Never mind that," the father said. "We're going now. See you later."

Gurde grabbed a coat and threw his hands into the sleeves. The mother gave him a hesitant smile as he walked past.

The frost had faded from the ground but the air was still chilly enough to spike his face as he stepped free of the warmth of the house. The father was already halfway down the drive. "Come on, or you'll get cold." As soon as the father saw Gurde quicken his pace he turned again and marched off in front, swinging his long arms in time to his stride. Gurde ran to catch him up and tried to match his pace.

"Ahh," the father sighed, drawing in a long mouthful of air and blowing it out again through puffed out cheeks. "Great. Where shall we go then? Up the Glen? Yes, up the Glen would be good, then along the top to the waterfall. What do you think? We'll be back in an hour or so, in time for lunch."

Gurde nodded. It was at least an hour just to get to the top of the Glen, then another fifteen minutes to the falls, and then only when the path was dry. Still, perhaps he would get a chance to find out if the father had noticed anything in the news. The father gave no sign that he was worried but Gurde understood that that meant nothing. Sometimes things were so hard to believe that they changed themselves into dreams that drifted in and out without warning.

The father began to hum as he walked, just too quietly for Gurde to be able to catch the melody, but it was a bouncing tune. It must have been a good night for him or it had reminded him of others that had been. Sometimes the father looked old but on that morning there was a brightness in his eyes.

They turned left at the end of the wall and started to pound up the sloping road, straight towards the brown face of the hills. After a hundred yards they passed the top of the last garden and knew that there were no other houses for ten miles. Gurde looked across towards the back of his own house sitting against the uneven field. The field ran all the way up to the fence at the base of the hill. Gurde thought how good it was to be able to be free so easily, and how easy it was for others to slip over the wall and enter the garden unseen.

He watched his shoes striking the road and caught up with the father again. Whenever they walked together the father tried to stay about half a step ahead, so that he could guide their direction.

"How are you doing then?" the father said without looking round.

"At school you mean?"

"Whatever."

"It's OK."

"You've got exams soon?"

"In a few months."

"What are you doing? Maths?"

"Yes, Maths, English, Geography, Art, Chemistry..."

"..Physics.."

"No, I dropped Physics."

"Did you? When did you do that?" the father said and glanced down.

"Last year."

"You're not doing Physics?"

"I had to drop it. I'm doing lots of other.."

"Had to drop it? Physics is important, you know."

"I had to drop something."

"You need Physics, though, don't you? You need the sciences."

"Well, yes, but..."

"I think you should do Physics."

Gurde didn't reply. The father would have forgotten about it by the time they got to the bottom of the Glen. Gurde dropped behind again to end the conversation. They walked in silence under bare trees that lined both sides of what had now become a single track road. The leaves there were long dead and lay in a rotting mass beneath their feet.

They reached the point where the road split into two separate paths, one going steeply right to cut across the face of the hill and the other going on around, following the rim of the gorge between one hill and the next. The father took two quick steps to establish his lead then moved to the right.

"We're not going up the Glen, then?" Gurde asked.

"No. Change of plan. This way."

They slipped through the gate that stopped the sheep straying down into the town and then began the climb up over the familiar short grass and dead bracken.

"We're going to the Woodhill, then?" Gurde asked.

"Looks marvelous from here, doesn't it. Look at those colours."

Gurde wished that the place where the Wizard hung was an ugly place, so that he could know he wouldn't be seen as he changed the world.

It was the season of the stranger on the Woodhill. It always had been, especially on Sundays, but the crowds of casual walkers never strayed high enough to be a problem. When Gurde saw them he stopped hammering and waited for them to pass in case the sound aroused their curiosity. They brought their dogs, or their children, or both, and wandered over the fallen yellow carpet.

Now he was walking towards the mass of coloured leaves as the child of a stranger, just like the ones he had stared down on and sneered at, pitying them as they were led by the hand, complaining at being dragged to a place that only had trees and mud. Gurde liked the idea of walking there, with his secret places so close and the father not knowing that he was within sight of them.

The father found a rock to sit on, brushed off the mud and lowered himself on to it. He gestured that Gurde should sit on the wet grass beside him.

Gurde spoke first. "Is your book definitely finished?" It was a risk reminding him about the book when there were now other plans for it. The father looked out across the valley towards the sparkling river in the distance and his mood seemed to switch. A reverence came into his eyes as he thought about his reply.

"No," he said finally, "it's not right yet."

"When will it be right?"

"One day."

"Soon?"

"Later rather than sooner. It's taken me ten years, you know."

"I know. It must be finished by now."

"Well, it's not."

"Are you going to get it published?"

"Perhaps. Yes, in the end."

"Mum said you almost had it published before."

"Did she now? Well, she thinks I should have sent it off years ago."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because it wasn't right then and it isn't right now. It's as simple as that. When the time is right, I will."

"Ten years," I sighed.

"Ten years. Nearly eleven now."

"Dad. What's it about?"

"You wouldn't understand."

Gurde followed the father's stare out over the fields that spread away, flat and empty, almost to the horizon.

"Dad?"

"Yes."

"You know about that law student that was killed in Edinburgh?"

"What's that? A law student was killed in Edinburgh?"

“Yes.”

“That’s terrible. I must give Malone a call.”

“Didn’t you study law at Edinburgh?”

“I don’t see the connection. Why do you keep asking me these daft questions?”

"Nothing. It doesn't matter."

The father sprang to his feet. "Come on, then. We'd better get moving. Don't look so miserable."

"OK," Gurde said, "we haven't got much time."

"We've got all the time we need," he replied.

They marched along the path that wound in and out of the gorse bushes. A few sheep paused to watch.

The path began to slope downwards as they approached the barbed wire fence that marked the edge of the Silver Glen. The muffled sound of the burn grew until, as the torrent came into view, its roar filled the air. They crossed the damp stile that straddled the fence and walked down the well-worn grassy path to the edge of the water.

In the bushes just a few yards away lay the entrance to the devil's mine. Gurde crossed the stepping stones, following the route the father had taken before him. Then, as if they had stepped into another world, they were on the Woodhill.

They stopped at the top of the slope to stare into the hundreds of silver trunks ahead. "Amazing place this, isn't it," the father said, "when you think of how long it must have taken to create. It was all one man, you know. One man spent his life transforming this from a bare hillside into this garden."

"I wonder what made him do it?" I asked.

"Oh, I should think he was paid by the mine owners. There used to be a big house just down there, built out of the silver money, but it burnt to the ground years ago. At least some of the money was well spent."

Gurde looked up to his left, towards where the cliff lay hidden amongst the last of the leaves, feeling the urge to climb up and check everything was as he had left it. He remembered that the father's hammer and chisel were lying beside the scaffolding pole.

The father started walking again, so Gurde followed, leaving the wintry light and entering the weave of black shadows that lay across the leaves. The path widened again, giving Gurde the chance to walk level.

"You know your work.."

"Come on, Matt. I've come here to try and forget about that for a while. Get some peace, you know - just for a change."

"Yes. But, I was wondering, do you ever.. I mean... what happens if you get it wrong?"

Gurde was surprised that the father laughed. He was about to give up hope of getting a reply when the father answered. "If people end up in front of me it's normally for a damn good reason." Gurde could tell he was trying to make it sound light-hearted. "People like me and you don't end up on the stand, do we? The Law isn't about mistakes. It's more like... It's more like a race, with winners and losers. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. If they win it's because the competition had more to go on than you did. It's as simple as that."

Gurde hesitated before going on. "But what about... the people that shouldn't have been put away..."

"Look, Matt, like I say, there are winners and losers. There might be a few who slip through the net, but not many, and the police don't bring in respectable people in the first place, do they? They would get caught for something else in the end. We're probably doing them a favour. It saves time and everyone is happy. Now, I'm not in the mood for another discussion of legal ethics right at the moment. Let's just enjoy our walk, shall we? It might well be the last good day of the year."

The path rose up to a lone clump of rhododendron bushes, and then flattened out. It was inevitable that Spike and his master would be sitting on their log. Mr Gunn always seemed to be somewhere on the hill, as if he knew when Gurde would be going and was waiting to lift his spirits.

Gurde felt apprehensive this time, knowing that he was clearly a child beside the father. Gurde wondered if the old man would treat him differently. More than anybody else, the old man knew what Gurde did on the Woodhill. He had the power to reveal too much.

The dog saw them first, turning its head to assess the threat as they neared. Mr Gunn kept his eyes fixed in the distance, leaning on his hands in his usual way, apparently unaware of the approach. Gurde thought for a minute that they were going to walk straight past him without any reaction at all but at the last minute the old man pushed his cap back off his forehead and looked up.

"You."

The father stopped in his tracks. "I beg your pardon?"

"No' you. You."