The Woodcutter

‘So what changed?’

‘Don’t act stupid. You know what changed. I met Imogen.’

‘You carried on meeting after that first time?’

‘Obviously. All that summer, whenever we could. She needed to keep quiet about it of course. Me too. It was easier in my case, I just went on as normal, taking off in the morning with my walking and climbing gear. She had to make excuses. She was good at that, I guess. She couldn’t manage every day, but if three days went by without her showing up, I started getting seriously frustrated.’

‘You continued having sex?’

‘Why wouldn’t we?’

‘She was under age. And the danger of pregnancy. Did you start using condoms?’

‘No, she said she’d taken care of all that. As for her age, I suppose I was under age too to start with. Anyway, it never crossed my mind. We were at it all the time. Always out of doors and in all weathers. On the fellside, in the forest.’

He smiled reminiscently.

‘There was this old rowan tree that had survived among all the conifers that had been planted commercially on the estate. We often used to meet there early morning or late evening if one of us couldn’t manage to get away for the whole day. Imo would slip out of the castle and I would go over the wall behind Birkstane, and be there in twenty minutes or so. We didn’t even have to make a special arrangement. It was like we both knew the other would be there under the tree.’

‘This was the rowan you had dug up and transplanted to your London garden?’

He said, ‘You remembered! Yes, the very same. They were harvesting the conifers in that part of the forest and it looked as if the rowan would simply be mowed down to give the big machines access. So I saved it. A romantic gesture, don’t you think?’

‘More sentimental, I’d say. Men in particular look back fondly on their adolescent encounters. Pleasure without responsibility, I can see its attraction. So you’d meet under this tree, have a quick bang, then go home?’

This was a deliberate provocation. The clue to what he’d become had to lie in this first significant sexual relationship.

He looked at her coldly.

‘It wasn’t like that. We drew each other like magnets. I felt her presence wherever I was, whatever I was doing. She was always with me. Under the rowan we were in total union, but no matter how far apart physically, she was always with me.’

She was tempted to probe how he felt now, whether he still believed that Imogen had genuinely shared that intensity of feeling. But she judged this wasn’t the right moment. Concentrate on getting the facts.

‘So when did it end?’

‘How do you know it ended?’

‘Because it had to. From what you say of Lady Kira, she wasn’t going to be fooled for ever. Also that first piece you wrote, the one about living in a fairy tale, in it you talk about the woodcutter’s son being given three impossible tasks and going away and performing them. That implies an ending – and a new beginning, of course.’

‘Did I write that? Yes, I did, didn’t I? It seems a long time ago, somehow.’

‘Three weeks,’ she said.

‘Is that all? We’ve come a long way.’

He spoke neutrally and she was tempted to probe but decided against it. The more progress you made, the more dangerous the ground became.

‘So, the end,’ she said.

‘It was in the Christmas holidays,’ he said slowly. ‘We’d both gone back to school in the autumn, her to her fancy ladies’ college in the south, me to the comp. I couldn’t wait for the term to finish.’

‘You didn’t think she might have had second thoughts about your relationship during those months apart?’

‘Never crossed my mind,’ he said wearily. ‘Not vanity, if that’s what you’re thinking. It was just a certainty, like knowing the sun would rise. But when we met in December, it was harder for us to get whole days together when the weather was bad. I mean, a teenage girl wanting to go for a solitary stroll in the summer sunshine is one thing. In a winter gale it’s much more suspicious. We met more and more often under the rowan tree. A blizzard blew up, it was practically a white-out. We sheltered among the trees till things improved a bit, then I insisted on accompanying her back through the grounds till the castle was in sight. Sir Leon had got worried and organized a little search party that included my dad. We met them on the estate drive. I’d have tried to bluff it out, say I’d run into Imogen somewhere and offered to see her home, but she didn’t bother. I think she was right. They weren’t going to believe us. I went home with Fred, she went home with Sir Leon to face her mother.’

‘What did Fred say?’

‘He asked me what I thought I was doing. I told him we were in love, that I was going to marry her as soon as I legally could. He said, “Forget the law, there’s no law ever passed that’ll let you marry that lass!” I said, “Why not? There’s nowt anyone can say that’ll make a difference.” And he laughed, more snarl than a laugh, and he said that up at the castle the difference had been made a long time back. I didn’t know what he meant, not until the next day.’

‘You saw Imogen again?’ guessed Alva.

‘Oh yes. Sir Leon brought her down to Birkstane. They left us alone together. I grabbed hold of her and began gabbling about it making no difference, we could still do what we planned, we could run away together, and so on, lots of callow adolescent stuff. She pushed me away and said, sort of puzzled, “Wolf, don’t talk silly. We never planned anything.” And she was right, I realized later. All the plans had been in my head.’

‘And was this when she set you the three impossible tasks?’ asked Alva.

‘Who’s a clever little shrink then?’ he mocked. ‘Yes, suddenly this girl every bit of whose body I knew as well as my own turned into something as cold and distant as the North Pole. She said she was sorry, it had been great fun, but she’d assumed I knew as well as she did that it would have to come to an end eventually. I managed to stutter, “Why?” And she told me. With brutal frankness.’

His face darkened at the memory, still potent after all these years.

Alva prompted, ‘What did she say?’

‘She said surely I could see how impossible it would be for her to marry someone who couldn’t speak properly, had neither manners nor education, and was likely to remain on a working man’s wage all his life.’

Jesus! thought Alva. They really do bring their princesses up differently!

‘So these were the three impossible tasks?’ she said. ‘Get elocution lessons, get educated, get rich. And you resolved you would amaze everyone by performing them?’

‘Don’t be silly. I had a short fuse, remember? I went into a right strop, told her she was a stuck-up little cow just like her mam, that I weren’t ashamed to talk the way everyone else round here talked, that a Hadda were as good as an Ulphingstone any day of the week, and that my dad said all a man needs is enough money to buy what’s necessary for him to live. She smiled and said, “Clearly you don’t put me in that category. That’s good. I’ll see you around.” And she went.’

‘She sounds very self-contained for a fourteen-year-old,’ said Alva.

‘She was fifteen by then,’ he said, as if this made a difference. ‘And I was sixteen.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I moped all over Christmas. Must have been unliveable with. Dad headed off to the Dog as often as he could. Then New Year came. Time for resolutions about changing your life, according to the guys on the telly. I started fantasizing about leaving home, having lots of adventures, striking it rich by finding a gold mine or something, then returning, all suave and sexy like one of them TV presenters, to woo Imogen. Only she wouldn’t know it was me till she’d been overcome by my manly charms. Pathetic, eh?’

‘We all have our dreams,’ said Alva, recalling her teenage fantasies of collecting a best actress Oscar.

‘Yeah. I’d like to say I set off to chase mine, but it wouldn’t be true. I just knew that, whatever I wanted, I wasn’t going to get it hanging around in Cumbria. So I set off to school one morning with everything I owned in my sports bag and all the money I could raise in my pocket. And I just kept on going. The rest as they say is history.’

‘I’d still like to hear it,’ said Alva.

‘Come on!’ he said. ‘You strike me as a conscientious little researcher. The meteoric rise of Wilfred Hadda from uncouth Cumbrian peasant to multi-millionaire master of the universe has been charted so often you must have got it by heart!’

‘Indeed,’ she said, reaching into her document case. ‘I’ve got copies of most of the articles here. There’s general agreement on events after your return. But their guesses at what you did between running away as a poor woodcutter’s son and coming back with your rough edges smoothed and enough money in the bank to launch your business career make speculation about Lord Lucan read like a Noddy story. Anyone get close?’

‘How would I know? I never read them. Which looks best to you?’

‘Well, I’m torn between the South American diamond mine and the Mexican lottery. But on the whole I’d go for the Observer writer, who reckons you probably got kidnapped by the fairies, like True Thomas in the ballad.’

That made him laugh, a rare sound, the kind of laugh that made you want to join in.

‘Yeah, go with that one,’ he said. ‘Away with the fairies, that’s about right. Did he have a good time, this Thomas fellow?’

‘It was a strange place they took him too,’ said Alva. ‘Hang on, he quotes from the ballad in his article. You’ll have to excuse my Scots accent.’

She opened the file and began to read.

‘It was mirk mirk night, there was nae stern light,

And they waded through red blude to the knee;

For a’ the blude that’s shed on earth

Rins through the springs o’ that countrie.’

When she finished he nodded vigorously and said, ‘Oh yes, that guy knows what he’s talking about. So how did Thomas make out when he got back?’

‘Well, he had a bit of a problem, Wolf,’ she said. ‘The one condition of his return was that thereafter he was never able to tell a lie.’

Their gazes locked. Then he smiled, not his attractive winning smile this time, but something a lot more knowing, almost mocking.

‘Just like me then, Elf,’ he said. ‘That old lie-detector mind of yours must have spotted long ago that you’re getting nothing but gospel truth from me!’

‘Gospel? Somehow I doubt if your runaway years had much of religion in them!’

‘You’re so wrong, Elf,’ he said with a grin. ‘I was a regular attender at chapel.’

‘Chapel?’ she said. ‘Not church? That’s interesting. None of the speculation in the papers suggested a religious dimension to your disappearance.’

‘For God’s sake,’ he said, suddenly irritated. ‘Can we get away from what those fantasists dream up? Look, Elf, I’m trying to be honest with you, but if I say there’s something I don’t want to talk about, you’ve got to accept it, OK?’

‘OK, OK,’ she said making a note. ‘Let’s cut to the chase. Age twenty-one, you’re back with a suitcase full of cash, talking like a gent, no longer sucking your peas off your knife, and able to tell a hawk from a handsaw. How did Imogen greet you?’

‘She asked me to dinner at the castle. There were two or three other guests. Sir Leon was very polite to me. Lady Kira watched me like the Ice Queen but hardly spoke. I joined in the conversation, managed to use the right cutlery and didn’t knock over any wine glasses. After dinner Imogen took me out into the garden, allegedly to cast my so-called expert eye over a new magnolia planted to replace one that hadn’t made it through the winter. Out of sight of the house she stopped and turned to face me. “Well, will I do?” I asked. “Let’s see,” she said. And stepped out of her dress with the same ease that she’d stepped out of her shorts and trainers on Pillar Rock all those years ago. When we finished, she said, “You’ll do.” Couple of months later we married.’

‘Despite all the family objections?’

‘We had a trump card by then. Imo was pregnant. With Ginny. Made no difference to Dad and Sir Leon. They still stood out against the marriage. But Lady Kira seemed to see it made sense and that was enough. She calls the shots at the castle. Always did. So poor Leon had no choice but to give his blessing, and shake the mothballs out of his morning dress to give the bride away.’

‘Poor Leon?’ she echoed. ‘You sound as if you have some sympathy for him.’

‘Why not? He’s married to the Ice Queen, isn’t he? No, fair do’s, he may not have wanted me for his son-in-law, but I always got on well with Leon. And he went out of his way to try to make things right between me and my dad. Just about managed it the first two times. Third time was beyond human help.’

‘I’m sorry…?’

Hadda said bleakly, ‘Think about it. They say things come in threes, don’t they? They certainly did for Fred. One, I disappeared for five years. Two, I came back and married Imogen against his wish and his judgment. Three, I got sent down for fraud and messing with young girls. Three times I broke his heart. The last time it didn’t mend.’

And who do you blame for that? wondered Alva. But this wasn’t the time to get aggressive, not when she’d got him talking about what had to be one of the most significant relationships in his life.

She said, ‘But the first two times, you say Leon tried to help?’

‘Oh yes. I think he recognized Dad and me were carved from the same rock. Left to our own devices, we’d probably never have spoken again! Don’t know what he said to Fred about me, but he told me that, after I vanished, often he’d go into the forest with Imogen, and they’d find Dad just sitting slumped against the old rowan, staring into space, completely out of it. Sometimes there’d be tears on his cheeks. It cracked me up, just hearing about it. So whenever I felt like telling Dad that if he wanted to be a stubborn old fool, he could just get on with it, I’d think of what Leon had told me and try to bite my tongue. Gradually things got better between us. And when Ginny was born…’

He stopped abruptly and glared at her as if defying her to question him further about his daughter.

She said, ‘So did Fred attend the wedding?’

‘Oh no,’ said Wolf, relaxing. ‘That would have been too much. I hoped right up till the ceremony started he’d show up. Then, once it started, I was scared he might!’

‘Why?’

‘That bit when the vicar asks if anyone knows of any impediment, I imagined the church door bursting open and Fred coming in with his axe and yelling, “How’s this for an impediment?” I remember, after the vicar asked the question he seemed to pause for ever. Then Johnny glanced round to the back of the church and shouted, “Speak up then” and that set everyone laughing.’

‘Johnny…?’

‘Johnny Nutbrown. He was my best man.’

‘A large step from being the nose-bleeding object of your anger,’ she said. ‘How did that come about?’

‘You mean, how come I didn’t have any old friends of my own to take on the job? Simple. I was always a loner and the few half friendships I formed at school didn’t survive my transformation, as you call it.’

‘But didn’t you make any new ones during this transformation period?’ she asked. ‘Even lowly woodcutters on a quest to perform three impossible tasks probably need a bit of human contact on the way.’

‘I don’t know, I didn’t meet any others,’ he said shortly.

Then he pushed back his chair and stood up, reaching into his blouson as he did so.

‘You’re curious about me and Johnny Nutbrown?’ he said. ‘Well, I think you’ll find all you need to know in here.’

And there it was, the next exercise book just as she’d hypothesized.

But by producing it he had once again stepped aside from talking about those missing years, so as she took the book, she felt it less as a triumph than an evasion.

Wolf

i

Let’s move on from our little diversion into childhood trauma and adolescent sexuality, shall we? Where was I before you nudged me down that fascinating side road?

Oh yes.

I’d been in a coma for the best part of nine months.

During the early stages of my so-called recovery, I’ve no idea what proportion of my time I spent out of things. All I do know is that every period of full lucidity seemed to provide the opportunity for a new piece of shit to be hurled at me.

I rapidly came to see that, far from things going away while I lay unconscious, they had got immeasurably and by now irrecoverably worse.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.