The Hunger Trace Page 17

  When Christopher arrived at the den, he saw two boys playing in the pools of standing water in the field across the brook. They pointed their torches at him, whispered for a moment, then continued splashing. Christopher stooped under the corrugated roof.

  Inside the den, he crouched down and retrieved the plastic folder of correspondence with Carol-Ann, which he had printed at home but liked to read in the secrecy of his favourite place. By the white light of his mobile phone, he could just about read through the plastic. I want to be a provider, he had written, in one of the later emails. You and me and Simon could be joined by a whole band of our own progeny. Christopher smiled, and sang, to the tune of the Queen song: ‘Don’t stop me now, I’m having lots of children!’ His voice echoed, and he heard laughter out in the field. He had forgotten about the two boys, who were now flashing their torches again. Christopher poked his head out of the den. ‘Erm, erm. You shouldn’t be in this field,’ Christopher shouted. ‘You need to get the eff out of, erm . . .’

  ‘It’s not your fucking land, is it?’ one of the boys said.

  ‘No, but that’s because I’ve been dispossessed,’ Christopher said.

  ‘You what?’ the other boy said. ‘Sing us another song, you big freak.’

  Christopher retreated. It was their problem if they drowned, he decided, but he knew they wouldn’t, because his father had shown him the storm drain.

  Once or twice a year, the field which bordered Bottleneck Brook would briefly flood. It was only natural, of course. Detton was in the elbow of two rivers, sliced through by their various tributaries, and the field was at the bottom of a steep hill. It was like a basin. When Christopher was a boy, he had hated the times when the field flooded. The standing water brought not only what Christopher described as ‘mortal danger’, it also brought boys such as those outside now, to his most sacred of hideouts.

  One day, on hearing his complaints, Christopher’s father had walked him into the middle of the field to see the concrete culvert pipe. The pipe emerged like a worm from the mud and lush green life, and was fitted with a metal grate, so that it looked like a mouth. ‘This bit is like a plug-hole,’ his father said. ‘When the field gets flooded, the pipe collects all the water that overflows from the brook, along with all the extra rain, and it takes it down under the railway line, under all the houses, and it flushes it out into the big river.’

  ‘Jeepers,’ Christopher said. He liked the idea of the underground tunnels, and he liked the word ‘culvert’, which sounded foxish and clever. But something played on his mind. ‘Dad? What about when, erm, erm, erm? You know when the plug gets blocked in the bath?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about that?’

  ‘Well, the pipe is prepared for a one hundred year event.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means there will only be enough water to block the drain every one hundred years.’

  ‘One hundred years?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s absolutely, erm, ages,’ Christopher said. ‘That’s millenniums.’

  His father had smiled, and rubbed his head. A hundred years did seem like a long time when you were young, Christopher thought now. But he didn’t know how long it had been since the last one hundred year event.

  It wouldn’t happen tonight, anyway. The two boys left the field, shouting insults as they went, and Christopher could hear the water draining into the pipe to be carried beneath the village.

  He went to visit Louisa before going home. It had been a while since his last attempt, and he wondered if the message about the pact of Mutual Assured Destruction had hit home. He could hear the birds as he walked up the path – their sudden and contagious shifts.

  When his knock went unanswered, Christopher looked through the window of the cottage and saw something quite unexpected. Louisa, wearing a black slip which rode the contours of her belly and buttocks, stood before the mirror in her living room, painting her eyelashes with crude flicks of the wrist. Christopher felt momentarily captivated, if only by the solid strength of her calves and the brightness of the lamplight caught in the silk at her lower back. She turned around and Christopher ducked down below the sill.

  He stayed crouching with his hands on his head for less than a minute, until the door opened. Louisa was now wearing jeans and a jacket, although Christopher could see the sheen of the slip tucked into the waistband. ‘What do you want?’ she said.

  ‘I just need some help with a particular matter,’ Christopher said, standing slowly. He took his hands off his head.

  ‘I don’t have time. Why don’t you go and ask Maggie?’

  ‘Why, erm, don’t you go and ask Maggie?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well I don’t see you over there very much any more.’

  ‘Look, Christopher, I really have got things to do.’

  ‘Oh, right. So Maggie didn’t deliver my message then.’

  Louisa opened her mouth, then paused. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Christopher smiled, pleased with his foothold in the conversation.

  ‘It shouldn’t, erm, take a moment,’ he said. ‘I just wondered if you thought women like a man to have a vehicle, at all.’

  ‘No,’ Louisa said. ‘It gives him too much independence. Listen, come back tomorrow. There’s no need for any assured destruction. Just knock on the door. It’s creepy, spying on people.’

  ‘Says you,’ Christopher said. ‘Anyway, it might be too late by tomorrow. All hope could be lost by then.’

  He began to walk away. Then it came to him – it must have been the sight of the diaphanous undergarment. ‘Erm. Anyone who says they can see through a woman is missing a lot.’

  ‘What?’ Louisa said.

  ‘Oh nothing. Just something my dad used to say.’

  Louisa closed the door.

  When Christopher arrived at the house, Maggie was running a pet-hair remover over his green jumper in the living room. He could smell the rich saltiness of bean stew from the kitchen. Again.

  ‘Hey sweetie,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’

  ‘Erm, chance would be a fine thing,’ he said.

  The surprise, it transpired, was indeed a fine thing. Maggie passed him the box set of Robin of Sherwood. Christopher had heard of it, read of it, but never seen it. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before,’ Maggie said. ‘Robin Hood and the eighties! My friend back home used to fancy the absolute nuts off Michael Praed.’

  Christopher took some beers from the kitchen, while Maggie set up the DVD. Hail and rain lashed the windows as they sat down. ‘It just adds to the pagan atmosphere,’ Christopher said.

  The DVDs were not in order, but Christopher did not mind. He could not look away from the screen. Sherwood was eerie, and reminded him of how he felt in his own woods, especially Herne, the dark, antlered figure who appeared like a vision to Robin and guided him.

  ‘Nothing is forgotten,’ Herne said, rather a lot.

  ‘I like, erm, deer,’ Christopher said. ‘I can tolerate them because they remind me of days of yore.’

  ‘Me too,’ Maggie said, encouraged. ‘We should get some for the park.’

  The fourth episode they watched was called ‘Cromm Cruac’, taking its name from a childless but otherwise idyllic village where the outlaws briefly sheltered. Will Scarlet found his wife, Elena, in Cromm Cruac, which was something of a shock, for Elena had been dead for several years. When John and Robin realised that the village was full of ghosts and devil worshippers, they decided to leave, but Will Scarlet did not want to. He wanted to stay with his wife. So he changed his name back to Scathlock and put a bit more gel in his hair.

  Christopher enjoyed the episode immensely, although it took a while to get used to Jason Connery, who seemed to have replaced Michael Praed in the title role. Maggie laughed at Connery’s LEGO haircut, and at the demon which controlled the village – a rubberised sock puppet. But Christopher noticed that she did not laug
h when Will Scarlet found his dead wife. She didn’t laugh when he danced with Elena, swinging her around at the village disco while Clannad played his theme, ‘Scarlet inside’.

  ‘She doesn’t say much,’ Christopher said of Elena, drawing a weak smile from Maggie.

  In the end, Little John told Scarlet that his wife was dead, that he was living with a demon, a creature. This riled Scarlet, who came out of the hut to fight. The hut, along with the rest of the village, burned to the ground (Marian, pulling her weight like all good living wives, had destroyed the sock puppet), and John held Scarlet while they watched the Elena incarnation screaming in the flames, her hair scorched off.

  ‘That last part was really, erm, quite unpleasant,’ Christopher said with a smile.

  Maggie sighed.

  ‘Shall we, erm, watch another episode?’

  ‘You can watch another if you like, but I don’t really feel like it tonight.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Christopher said as Maggie walked over to the window and looked out on the blackness. After a moment, she left the room.

  While Christopher watched another episode, Maggie went down to the office and turned on the computer. She stared at the shadowy forms on the deer webcam for a while. Then she picked up the phone and called the farm in Norfolk.

  ‘Sorry to ring so late,’ she said. ‘I’m calling from Drum Hill Conservation Centre, in Derbyshire. I’d like to make an enquiry about red deer.’

  ‘Drum Hill? Never heard of you,’ the man said. ‘We do trophies and that. Antlers. We can get you a nice pair of twelve-pointers for the hallway. Nice present for the husband.’

  ‘I’m enquiring about breeding stock,’ she said.

  He went quiet. When he started talking again, he asked her some general questions about hybridisation, body weight, and the price of venison. He was testing her, and she passed. Eventually, he quoted her a figure. Each nought erased another species from the park, but she was much more determined to get them now that Christopher had shown an interest. She wanted to visit the farm, make some preliminary observations, see her potential stock in action. They arranged a date in February.

  Maggie recalled seeing a man walking through the shot of the webcam one day, and wondered if she might be speaking to him. ‘What do you look like?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, hang on,’ he said slowly. ‘Is this a wind-up? One of those sexy calls? Did the boys put you up to this?’

  ‘No,’ she said, with convincing finality, and hung up.

  She could hear Christopher laughing at the TV upstairs. She thought about the village in the programme, the outlaw and his dead wife. It was silly, really, she told herself. You can never tell what’s going to get you.

  But it had been good to see Christopher so engaged. Maggie went online and searched the local cinema listings.

  TWENTY

  Louisa woke to a familiar banging on the door. Easing herself out of the bed so as not to disturb Adam, she went to the window and looked down at the swirls of Christopher’s uncombed hair. She thought about waiting for him to leave, but she knew of his pathological patience. She had told him to come back today, after all.

  She put on a large T-shirt and went downstairs, her mouth dry with silence. Christopher’s colours were blurred behind the frosted glass panels in the door. She opened it.

  ‘Oh hi, Louisa,’ he said, stiffly raising his hand.

  ‘Shh,’ Louisa said. ‘You’ll wake the birds.’

  ‘Oh right. Erm. My sworn enemy Maggie Green told me I should come around here any time I want.’

  ‘Do you always do what your sworn enemies tell you?’

  ‘Erm. What?’

  ‘Nothing. Come in and sit down.’

  He followed her into the living room without commenting on her partially dressed state. He sat on the arm of the sofa, and then stood again. ‘My nerves are sky-high. Erm. Through the roof.’ He gestured upwards.

  ‘I’m going to make some coffee,’ she said.

  ‘Oh right.’

  ‘Do you want one?’

  ‘No. I’ve already had a drink this morning. Erm, guess what it was.’

  ‘Whisky.’

  ‘Nope. It was champagne. I had a champagne and cheesecake breakfast. I like cheesecake. I was pampering myself because today I’m going to meet the woman of my dreams.’

  ‘Positive thinking. I like it,’ Louisa said. She went into the kitchen, leaving the door open.

  ‘I’m going to meet Carol-Ann,’ Christopher said.

  ‘The woman from the internet?’

  ‘She’s from Nottingham. Erm, I think she’s from the part . . .’

  Louisa was spooning out coffee, and so she didn’t understand why he had stopped speaking. It did not take her long to guess.

  ‘Louisa, what’s that noise?’ he said. ‘I think someone’s, erm, coming.’

  Adam’s footsteps fell heavy on the stairs. Louisa came back into the living room to see his ill-fitting socks, slightly swollen with the ghosts of his toes, descending into view. She and Christopher watched. ‘Oh,’ Louisa said. ‘That noise.’

  ‘Eh up,’ said Adam.

  Christopher’s eyes became so wide that Louisa feared his lenses might pop out. He looked at her, and pointed to Adam. ‘Who’s that?’ he said.

  Louisa relaxed slightly. She had worried that Christopher would recognise Adam from his visits to Maggie. Clearly, he did not. Maggie must have been more discreet than Louisa had given her credit for. ‘This is my friend Adam,’ she said. ‘Adam, this is my friend Christopher.’

  ‘Y’rate, youth,’ said Adam.

  ‘Friend who stops over?’ Christopher said, smirking.

  ‘Looks that way,’ Louisa said. ‘Coffee, Adam?’

  ‘Aye. Ta, duck.’

  Louisa went back to the kitchen, knowing she should have stayed, but not quite capable of enduring it. She heard Adam sit down and take a few deep breaths, which whistled through his pursed lips. This meant he had a hangover. She knew such details, now. She turned occasionally to see Christopher staring at Adam, biting the skin of his fingertips.

  ‘You don’t know score from last night, do you, pal?’ Adam said.

  ‘Erm. What?’ Christopher said.

  ‘Derby. Football.’

  ‘No I do not. Erm. Football is a mug’s game. I was once bullied by someone called Peter Greggs. He thought he was going to be a megastar footballer. He used to say, “One day you’ll be watching me on TV, you, erm, spaz.” Erm. I don’t like being called a spaz.’

  ‘I’ll bet. What happened to him, then?’ Adam asked.

  ‘He suffered a career-threatening injury, and now he plays for the Bridge Inn.’ Christopher looked away, as though recalling some old mystery. ‘I’m glad his career’s gone down the, erm, pan,’ he said, as Louisa came back in with the coffee.

  ‘He sounds a right knob-end,’ Adam said.

  ‘He was that, yes.’

  Louisa scowled at Adam. He smiled back.

  ‘You’ve got an accent,’ said Christopher.

  ‘Aye. ’Appen,’ said Adam.

  ‘It sounds a bit rough.’

  ‘That’d be right.’

  ‘Are you and Louisa, erm, getting down to it?’

  ‘Christopher, Jesus Christ!’ Louisa said.

  ‘It’s alright,’ Adam said.

  ‘Who says it’s alright?’ Louisa said. ‘You?’

  ‘Aye. Me and Christopher are having a good, straight-talking chat.’

  Christopher laughed. ‘Yeah, Louisa. Erm, we’re just having a man-to-man.’

  Christopher’s amusement caused him to lose his trail of thought, and he did not follow up on his original question. Louisa changed the subject before he had chance to remember. ‘So what was it you wanted to talk about, Christopher?’ she said.

  ‘Well. It’s a erm, erm, massive day for me, as you know. Absolutely crucial day. I’m meeting Carol-Ann at the Travelodge on the A52.’

  ‘You’re meeting her at the Travelodge?’ said
Louisa.

  ‘That’s the one by the flyover, in’t it?’ said Adam.

  Louisa glared at him. Christopher continued. ‘I think it’s a good idea, because that way we can book straight into a room if all goes well. Erm. Sparks could, erm, fly. Although her father is going to wait for her in the car park.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Louisa, quietly.

  ‘That’s no way for a lady to speak,’ Christopher said.

  Louisa rubbed her eyes.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Christopher. ‘The tragedy of this whole situation is that the Travelodge is thirteen miles away, and I have no way of getting there.’

  ‘I see,’ Louisa said.

  ‘Erm, erm. Hint, hint,’ Christopher said.

  ‘Well. To be honest, I’m pretty busy,’ Louisa said.

  ‘Oh right,’ Christopher said. He looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Maybe I’ll just, erm, tell the Turncoat Maggie Green that you two lovebirds have got too much, erm, erm, loving to do. She is the last resort.’

  Louisa pushed back her hair. ‘What time do you want to go?’

  ‘Three p.m. Daylight hours. Erm, erm, all the better to see you with.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll take you. If that’s what you want.’

  ‘Thanks Louisa. I knew you’d pull through, because we’re such a great team.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. No problem.’

  Christopher stood, mission accomplished, and wiped the seat of his chinos. ‘See you at one-thirty sharp, then,’ he said. He turned to Adam and waved. Adam winked.

  Christopher put a hand to his mouth, as if to whisper, but said loudly to Adam, ‘I’m going to get my rocks off.’

  ‘Good lad,’ Adam said.

  As Christopher opened the door, Louisa took his arm. ‘Christopher?’

  ‘Yep?’

  ‘If you have to go . . . take a cold shower first, and lay off the whole Red Riding Hood thing.’

  ‘Oh right.’

  ‘It’s not what the ladies are after.’

  ‘Oh right. Robin Hood, not erm, Riding Hood.’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Erm. What’s your advice?’ he said, pointing to Adam.

  ‘Don’t swear,’ Adam said.

  ‘I hate swearing.’