Woodhill Wood (2 page)

Each block Gurde had forced from the face had been bigger and faster than the last. Each time the roar had been greater. In this world he could have some effect; he could see the scars on the trees, he could hear the echo of their shudders, he could watch the leaves shower like rain.

Gurde knew that the Wizard's Skull was special. He was sure it would bring down whole trees. With the Skull as his supreme weapon, Gurde could change the Woodhill and make it truly his own. He would cut a scar from the cliff to the fields that would be seen for miles. Gurde imagined the feeling during that last act; the delicate parting of a piece of history from where it had hung for a thousand years. Through the fall of the Skull, he could change the world.

He began to chip faster, carving down into the crack, lost in the longing to hear that roar again. It had been weeks since he'd seen a block fall.

There were already two places along the crack line where he'd finished cutting the slots for the pole, one at either end of the Skull's grip on the hill. At these points he had already loosened the edges. The moment was close. When the Skull fell things would have to change. It would be the beginning of a new time. Everyone in the valley would talk about it.

He continued to work on the final hole at the heart of the join, slamming the smooth end of the hammer on to the buckled chisel, echoing the knell over the trees. This was the place where it would begin, and it would end, and the hole would become no more then a scratch on the new cliff: the cliff that he had made.

Gurde could not have waited for the weekend. There was no point in going to school. He could not have concentrated, not when he was so close to victory; so close to the dawning of a new age. Gurde chipped away feverishly, squinting to shield his eyes from the flying shards, aware only of the fresh lines in the rock. Blow upon blow fell on the top of the chisel until finally one whole side of the hole collapsed inwards. He scooped out the rubble and tossed it over the edge, then brushed down the sides and looked carefully at the new dimensions. It looked right. He put down the hammer and dragged the pole from its hiding place in the bushes.

All the previous levering along the line of the Skull had been done with great care. The whole slab had to fall at once. He had coaxed the edges away from the face, tugging just enough to know that they would give when the centre was free and the full weight fell upon them. This time there was no need for gentleness. This was the pull on the handle of the guillotine.

He laid the pole flat on the ground, placed one end in front of the new hole, then moved to the other end and began to walk it upright, hand over hand. It rose and then, as it reached vertical, the far end slipped into the new hole. It seemed to be secure. Gingerly, Gurde removed his hands and stepped back to look. This was a moment to burn into memory for there could be no more; this was the last of the beckoning silences. Gurde raised his right hand in a salute and stood to attention. Here it comes, he warned them. Here it comes to change you forever.

But then the pole changed its balance and tipped outwards. Gurde lunged forward to steady it but it was too late. The Wizard spat the pole out of its foundation with a scraping laugh and helped it out over the edge. A cloud of dust rose from the hole. There was a long silence. The pole hit the rocks and clanged its way down to strike against the trunks. Gurde cursed his arrogance. The Wizard had known it was close too; close but not then.

The idea of dragging the pole back across to the glen, up its steep side and then back along to the top of the cliff made every muscle ache.

Gurde cried out. He picked up a boulder and hurled it on to the back of the scarred slab. It bounced once and then disappeared into the silence that had swallowed the pole.

With the pole gone and the Wizard still stubbornly clinging to life, there was no longer any reason to stay, so Gurde allowed his instincts to guide him to where he ought to be. The hill grew steeper until each step needed both hands and feet. Ahead, the yellows and browns of the distant heather poked through the uprights and, as he climbed, the new colours widened as fast as the trees dwindled, until suddenly the trunks looked vulnerable against the expanse of the slope's brightness. A few more steps and Gurde stood on the threshold. Some law forbade the trees from growing beyond the line beneath his feet. It was the border of the realm of the wind. Ahead, the clumps of grass beat and rocked as the air whipped around groove and gulley. Gurde wanted to slip back into the safety of the trees, but instinct took him on into the blast of air that swirled across the open hill. As he walked up the slope, the sharp fingers of heather scratched at his ankles. The wind curved through his clothes and over his skin and Gurde felt the chill for the first time that day. He bowed his head and pushed on towards The Loner.

The Loner was a solitary oak that stood higher than the rest. It had suffered for its determination to survive above the line. A few leaves still hung from its lower branches but they were battered and dull. The higher branches had been blackened and burnt by some ancient blow that had twisted them as they died. Gurde slipped into the shelter of the massive trunk. It gave some protection from the wind. He rested his head against the bark and pushed the end of a grass stalk between his lips. He selected a cloud shape in the distance and watched it as it rushed towards him and over him and out of sight. He chose another and then another and watched the ebb and flow as a darkening mass began to grow along the horizon.

While he watched, he stroked the thick root at his side. The Loner should not have been there. He could feel the tree stretching out, straining and creaking in the wind, desperate to lift itself from the soil and drag its body to where it could merge with its kind.

The Loner had been made a spectacle. School had taught him that it had been planted at the highest point of the dome of the hill so that all in the valley could see it and remember. Beside it, the rotting base of its forefather still lay, encrusted with fungi. The Loner was planted on that spot to carry on the work of its predecessors but times had changed and no-one had swung from its boughs. Other forms of punishment had replaced hanging but nobody had come to cut down The Loner. It had been left to remind the people in the valley of what could return.

The Loner creaked and groaned and struggled to survive where it should never have stood. Gurde placed an ear to its body and listened. As he listened, he stared down into the valley and watched the different coloured cars hurrying along the road. He felt his heart sink as another blue and cream bus slunk out of a copse and crawled between the fields. This was not a bus full of blackened youths but the colours, and the thoughts they evoked, were the same. Gurde pushed an ear closer to its bark and placed a reassuring hand on one of its sprawling roots.

The valley was darkening. Gurde could make out a distant curtain of showers moving towards the barren fields. He could taste the change in the wind; the cool air now felt damp as it whipped around The Loner to brush his face.

The wind had dropped and the grass clumps had fallen still. Gurde ran his fingers down the root of The Loner. It felt like a limb with a skin disease, rough and broken on the outside yet warm and moving within. He tried to imagine the stroking of a smoother skin, up the shin, over the hump of the knee and then along the thickening of the thigh. He slipped a hand down and ran it slowly back once more, soothing each dip and feeling it quiver. He heard a giggling complaint and felt warm fingers stop him stroking, and Gurde was on a warm bed and the room was dark and she stroked him gently.

As he sighed, Gurde opened his eyes. All around him, glistening drops of rain were running down stems and disappearing into the heather. Gurde closed his eyes once more and pictured himself from above, sitting against the trunk with his legs spread apart. His mind began to pan back, like the end of a cheap film, and he rose above himself. Higher, and The Loner stood over him, reaching up to him with its gnarled black limbs, surrounded by the dull browns and yellows of the heather. Higher, and the trees of the Woodhill spread away below him and he was small and still and staring up into the sky. Higher, and the valley's dark squares and roads were empty and quiet, and the world was wet, and in the centre of it all was a small boy who was nearly fourteen. Soon, he told himself. Soon things would change.

Gurde sat on the edge of Matt Duff's bed picturing the scaffolding pole lying at the bottom of the cliff. Everything had seemed right, even the finger bark had been strong, and yet the Wizard still clung to life; a symbol of the resilience of the past. Gurde had tried to choose the moment to destroy it, but now he saw that as arrogance; he had to wait until the moment chose him.

He fell back against the pillows, listening to the beat from the radio, eyes closed, feeling the emptiness creep into the bedclothes beneath him. At some point, the music from the radio changed to a dull voice. It penetrated the weight in his head:

"... the Prime Minister's statement that... open the door to dialogue... Home news; and Kent police are searching for the killer of a newborn baby boy who was snatched from a cot in Bexhill Children's Hospital this afternoon. The baby was later found in a lay-by. An eyewitness reported that parts of the baby's hands had been removed. The baby boy, who has not been named, died on the way to hospital. Police have asked for anyone with..."

Gurde turned it off. Somebody stealing and cutting up babies. There was never any good news. Not even in Bexhill. Matt Duff's father had been born in Bexhill and often went on about how his own parents had left their front door unlocked, how friends could walk in to visit without knocking, how everyone trusted their neighbours to help them whenever there was a problem. The father's passion for The Law was based on this memory of trust.

At night, before going to bed, the father now went around the house locking every window and every door. The front door had two locks and a chain. Gurde decided not to tell the father about the baby being killed in Bexhill. It would depress him even more to think that the place where he was born was no longer safe even for the helpless. The father was unhappy enough.

Gurde crossed the room and unplugged the heater, forcing the fan to slow and clatter to a halt. Then he unlocked the bedroom door, swung out into the cool air of the landing, and sprinted for the stairs.

Timing the run was all important; exactly ten strides from the bedroom door to the top step.

The stained-glass windows high in the stairwell glowed in the fading light. Below the windows, the staircase was framed by the bannisters that swept along the front edge of the landing, bars on a cage guarding the long drop to the hall.

Gurde checked his stride, pushed against the top step and headed out into space.

The seven stairs of the first flight flashed beneath him before his feet hit the small square of carpet, making his knees double over. He sprang down the short flight of three steps to his right and landed perfectly in the centre of the second square.

Now for the difficult bit: the long flight of eleven steps spreading down to the hall. It still unnerved him as he leapt out towards the coloured tiles below. As he cleared the first five steps he slapped a hand onto the smooth polished wood of the banister. The wax gave excellent grip and he used it to drive his right foot on to the sixth step, brought his left foot quickly onto the step below, caught his balance for a moment, and then launched into the air for the final drop. The far wall was only a few feet from the bottom of the stairs, so it was essential that he kept control. The first time he'd tried the long flight he had fallen forward, crashed into the wall and nearly split his face open. Now it was easy.

He slapped on to the mosaic of angular red, yellow and blue tiles, adopted the classic position of a sprinter, paused for a second, and then ran down the hall, grabbed the surround of the sitting room door, swung inside, leapt into the air and landed backwards in the armchair with a thump.

"Matty?"

The only problem with the final four step descent was that it was difficult to keep it quiet.

"Matty!"

"Coming, Mum."

He walked slowly down the hall. One day he would fly the last eleven steps in a single leap. Only then would the stairs be conquered. He wished the father hadn't thrown away the old crash helmet, the one from the back of the attic, the one that he had promised to replace. The long flight remained a challenge because the father never kept his word.

"Matty!"

"Coming."

He walked back past the bottom of the stairs and pushed open the dining room door. The high, white-washed room was filled by a long, pine table with benches down each side and a chair at each end. There wasn't much room for anything else.

The windows in the kitchen were running with condensation. There were pans on every hot plate on the fitment, each with a juddering lid that hissed and spat. The mother was peering into the oven on the opposite wall. She closed the door and bustled back to the pans. Gurde knew better than to go any further in. She began lifting lids, sending columns of steam towards the cracked ceiling. She didn't look up.

"It's ready. Set the table, will you?"

He watched as she grabbed a sieve in one hand and a saucepan in the other and hurried down to the far sink to strain the pan. A huge column of steam erupted from the sink as the water and potatoes poured forth, hiding her face behind a wall of rising. From the depths of this cloud she spoke again. "Did you hear what I said?" She was temporarily blinded, feeling around on the fitment for a space to put the empty saucepan. Then, with her hands free, she snatched the glasses from her face and rubbed them briskly on her long white skirt.

Gurde retreated out of the heat before she had time to put her glasses back on and return his stare. He hurried over to the small table against the far wall of the dining room. It was the only other object that could be squeezed into the space. The woven mats, cutlery and side plates were quickly retrieved and slid into position.

The next command bellowed from the kitchen. "Matty. Go and get your father."

He wandered back into the hall and knocked on the study door. There was no reply. He pushed it open and stepped into the musky smell of worn tobacco and wood smoke.

The father was sitting in the deep chair by the fireplace. The fire was long dead, so the father was reading under the light of the tall carved lamp. As the man sat there, with a thick book split open in his lap, Gurde could understand why the juries so often agreed with his arguments. There was a determination in the way he turned the pages. Gurde knew that such an appearance of confidence was misplaced. The man needed the image and cultivated it, especially when young women were within earshot, demonstrating his control over the twists of meaning and implication.

Despite the impression that the father tried to nurture, he could not disguise the fact that he had no real presence in the room. That was what betrayed him. The room would have felt the same without him.

Roger Duff had recently started wearing a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, chosen to make him look more distinguished, but they just made him look older. Grey hairs covered where the glasses looped over his ears. As always, he was wearing a striped white shirt and a dark tie. The suit jacket was hanging on the back of the door.

He looked up and took off his glasses with a slightly embarrassed tug.

"Yes?"

"Er.. Happy birthday, Dad."

"What? Oh, yes. Thank you, Matt. Anything else?"

"Did you like the card?"

"Card? Oh, yes. Fine. Fine."

"Dinner's ready."

"Already? Damn! I'll be through in a minute."

He continued staring and, when Gurde didn't move quickly enough, he raised his eyebrows to emphasise his wish to be left alone. Gurde smiled nervously and retreated back into the fresh air of the hall.

The pine table had now acquired several dishes of steaming vegetables. The blinds on the windows had been drawn. Gurde slid into position, half-way down the bench on the far side, and waited for the others to arrive.

The mother strode in carrying a hot flan dish between the oven gloves and slid it on to the mat in front of her chair. She sniffed and flicked the strands of thick black hair from her forehead.

"Where's Ben?" she said.

"I don't know... upstairs I..."

"I thought I told you to get him!"

"No... you.."

"Never mind!" She stripped off her oven gloves and threw them on to the small table. Then she marched out into the hall and shouted her other son's name up the stairwell. She came striding back in, took a long knife from the small table and moved to the flan.

"Have you told your father?"

"Yes."

"Where is he then?"

Gurde shrugged and reached for a plate. Patricia Duff only had two moods: frantic organisation and bitter sullenness. Gurde preferred the sullenness.

She began to slice the flan. After two cuts she sighed, dropped the knife on to the table and left the room to shout up the stairs for a second time.

"Ben! Come down now!"

A small voice called back from above.

"Coming Mum."

Gurde listened to the jumps as the younger brother bounded down the stairs. One.. two.., that was the first flight, ..thump..., the three step centre section, and then a scuttling sound as he raced down the final eleven; Ben still had a long way to go.

He burst through the door and slid into his place on the opposite bench. He didn't look at his big brother: all his attention was focused on the bowls of vegetables between them. He picked a steaming carrot out of the nearest bowl, but it burnt his fingers so he dropped it on to the table and shook his hand briefly in the air. Two steps warning of the mother's reappearance was enough for him to get the rogue carrot back into the bowl.

She slumped into her chair and shook her head. Roger was obviously still too busy with his book. He always seemed to find eating with the family a great strain. They never ate in the right way or discussed the things he wanted to discuss, and yet he would always grudgingly drag himself to the table and endure the experience in the interests of fatherliness, wincing at the inane conversation, frowning at the jokes that made Mum laugh, always looking for an excuse to leave. Despite all the pain of the meal, he seemed to feel he had to be there. It was as if eating with the family was the curse of his existence, his punishment for past indiscretions.

By the time the door from the hall opened Gurde had nearly cleared his plate. They fell silent and waited while the man settled himself. The father took in the usual deep breath before plunging into his requests for things to be passed to him. These he fired off in an almost continuous stream, until his plate was full and the salt and pepper and butter had been administered. Then he picked up his knife and fork and began to arrange the food on his plate. He looked up and scanned the faces around the table.

"So...," he said.

Everyone nodded in agreement. There was a slight pause while he waited for some great gem of wisdom from his sons or his wife. When none came he bowed his head and began to shovel food into his mouth.

The mother's mood was mellowing rapidly. She stopped eating and watched him for a while until she had built enough courage to ask a question, any question. "Well love.... how's the Jenkinson case going..?"

He raised his hand to signify she had to wait for a reply and started to chew then swallow his mouthful of food. He swallowed a large lump dramatically and then met her eyes.

"What did you say?"

"I just wondered how..." she replied.

"Does it interest you then?"

Here we go again, Gurde thought. He could hear it in the tone of the father's voice, the cold flat reply warning against further conversation. The mother was either deaf to the sound, or pretended it didn't exist, because, where Gurde would have fallen silent, the mother always redoubled her efforts.

"Of course it interests me love... I was just wondering.."

"You know I shouldn't discuss my cases..."

"I don't see why."

"No. You wouldn't."

  He took another mouthful of flan and chewed vigorously.

"I mean, I was just..." she said, but there was already no going back. If he felt inclined, he could wrap her up in her own words and watch her squirm. He normally felt inclined.

"I'm not allowed to discuss my cases. I've told you that a hundred times. Why do you insist on trying to make me do it?"

"Why not? I'm not going to...."

"...shout it around the town?" He let out a short laugh and shoveled a fork full of peas between his lips.

"What was that laugh for?" she said. She could not stop herself from lighting the fuse.

"You and your big mouth," he said shaking his head slowly.

"That's not fair."

"And still she goes on." He looked up from his plate. "Can't you keep quiet for a minute while I eat? Just for once, as a birthday treat. That would be nice."

"Why do you always... ?"

He swallowed in surprise. "Me? Trying to pin another one on me? I was just eating my dinner, wasn't I lads? And what happens? Your mother starts accusing me." 

It was true that she couldn't help herself; she had to talk about something, anything, to prevent the possibility of silence, and it didn't matter how tactless or tasteless it might be. She couldn't understand the concept of a secret; it went against everything that gave her greatest pleasure. The chance to shock was supreme and all other considerations were secondary and could be explained away. It was her drug and she had long been addicted.