Chapter 12 #2
I stared. My daughter was, by my reckoning, playing on a dusty wooden floor with thousands of pounds’ worth of diamonds.
I’d been assuming that Isobel was some poor unfortunate, cast adrift by a social system that hadn’t been able to care for her, squatting in this wreck of a house, and it turned out that she could have bought the place several times over.
‘Why are you here?’ I blurted out. Then, ‘No, sorry. It’s none of my business, of course.
It’s just… this place.’ I waved an arm to illustrate the jumble-sale nature of the room: odd, wobbly furniture with a patina of mould-green and random piles of books, papers and rotting soft furnishings.
‘When you could be living somewhere warm and snug and having proper food and everything.’
Isobel looked at me strangely. Her eyes were small and dark under the grey fringe of hair which looked as though she’d hacked at it with a pair of secateurs from its uneven nature.
The look was disconcerting, as though she was summing me up and assessing how much to say.
Or write, rather. Eventually she picked up her pen and wrote, haltingly and pressing much harder than necessary:
There is more to life.
I raised my eyebrows and thought of our teeny tiny flat, one bed one chair and the bathroom cubicle. ‘Maybe. But being warm and well fed counts for quite a lot.’
Over in the middle of the floor, Tilly giggled. She was rolling the black stone beads across the boards. ‘Tilly!’
Isobel collected a small metal tray that sat, tarnished and unlovely, on one of the tables and got down on her hands and knees beside Tilly, showing her how to collect the diamonds up and put them all together on the tray to stop them rolling away.
Tilly got behind the game very quickly, shouting, ‘’Nother one!
’Nother one!’ each time she found a loose bead.
At last they were all assembled and I passed Tilly the cup of orange juice and the digestive biscuit that Isobel had put together.
‘Be careful, don’t spill.’
Tilly solemnly took the cup and sat down again on the floor. She seemed to be admiring her reflection in the metal tray; she kept leaning over it and staring. But she drank her juice mindfully, both hands clasped around the cup.
She’s a lovely little girl
‘She has her moments.’ I watched Tilly for a minute. ‘Do you have children, Isobel?’ It did cross my mind that, if she did, I could perhaps contact them and ask them to remove their mother.
No. No family.
Bugger. Another avenue closed. ‘But you do understand that you can’t keep living here?
’ I asked gently. ‘I know it’s hard to leave places.
But I really will help you find somewhere to go, somewhere you can take the birds too.
’ I knew this was a bit of a rash promise; I could think of several places that would probably take a single elderly lady, but a flock of birds might be a step beyond the ‘one pet’ policy.
Or could we count all of them as one unit, like a swarm of bees? ‘Somewhere you can feel safe.’
Isobel gave me the steady look again, then pointed at the window. My flesh clung closer to my bones under a chill sweat as I followed her pointing finger, beyond this dank little room and out to the trees, which were studded with black shapes, like wet washing hanging in the branches.
My birds.
There was a noise, the birds calling to one another and sounding like glass marbles rolling on a sheet of metal.
They know you’re here and they’re upset.
‘Well, I’m sorry about that,’ I said, keeping my eye on that slit of open window, just in case they all decided to rush us at once. ‘But you did invite me.’
So I did.
She was smiling now. Perhaps she could see my terror.
I hoped not. I’d adopted the expression I used when Tilly had injured herself, a kind of bland interest. Any hint of my panicking and Tilly would hurl herself into hysterics so I’d learned the blank face and mild ‘oh dear’ went down far better than immediate cries and attempts to console her.
They won’t come in.
‘They were in here the other day.’ I couldn’t help the shudder of revulsion when I remembered opening the door to all those feathers and beaks.
Well yes. But you weren’t.
Tilly had put her cup down and gone back to dropping the diamonds onto the tray one at a time, counting as she went. Her knowledge of numbers was still random, so there was a lot of ‘one, one, five.’ I really must mention it to nursery and do some counting work with her.
The child distracts you. How can you work with her around? Does she have another parent?
‘Of course she distracts me. I have to look after her – I can’t just send her out into the woods to sit in a tree until I’ve got nothing better to do,’ I said, sounding snappish.
Isobel blinked.
‘I’m sorry.’ I felt guilty immediately. My situation wasn’t her fault, after all.
‘No, no other parent. We separated some time ago and I don’t have any family support.
’ I glanced at Tilly once more. ‘It’s just me and her,’ I added, quietly.
‘And I really need the money that Ross is going to pay me for getting this place empty.’
Tilly clonked more diamonds onto the tray, which I was beginning to think might be solid silver. Only my daughter could play a counting game with heirlooms.
Beyond, in the trees, the birds all took off, squawking and cawing into a tattered cloud of black above the treetops.
He’s outside
‘What, Ross? I shouldn’t think so. It could be anything, couldn’t it?’
That’s the sound they make when they see a human in the woods, and who else would it be?
A mischievous look.
Perhaps he’s come to see you.
I felt that quick, guilty warmth again, and squashed it.
Transference, that was all it was. I had no need, no desire to go outside and see if Ross Ventriss was stalking the undergrowth and, besides, if he was out there it would be to check for signs of Isobel and her packed suitcases leaving the premises.
Tilly decided for me. She jumped away from her game and clutched at her groin. ‘Wee.’
‘Oh, Tils!’ I had put her in pull-ups today, her reliability was questionable when it came to potty training, but in the interests of getting her dry I had to react whenever she signalled she needed the toilet. ‘All right. We’ll go in the woods.’
I had no idea what Isobel’s toilet arrangements were and absolutely no desire to ask.
‘Thank you for the tea and juice, Isobel.’ I seized Tilly and Brass and hauled her onto my hip, hoping that things hadn’t already gone too far.
The pull-ups had been given to me by Tia, who kept them for emergencies, but Kiara was so much bigger that the size meant any contents would probably just trickle down Tilly’s leg. ‘I’ll see you again.’
You do that. We need a proper chat.
Leaving Isobel creakily picking up the diamonds and the tray that Tilly had been playing with, I pelted down the hallway and out into the wood.
The birds that had been gusting overhead were beginning to settle back in the branches and my arrival sent them all skywards again with conversational ‘ack-ack-ack’ noises.
Tilly managed a wee behind a sturdy oak tree, didn’t get it in her boots or down her trousers and was very proud of herself when she stood up and rearranged herself. ‘Wee, Mummy,’ she said happily.
‘Good girl, well done.’ I helped her get dressed, one eye on the sky and those swirling birds. Their cries were urgently conversational, as though they needed to tell me something and I wasn’t paying attention.
‘Oh.’ Ross stepped out from behind a small stand of holly bushes, which caught at his clothes, dragging them backwards and sideways until he looked part of the greenery. ‘You’ve finished in there. Any luck?’
Tilly put her thumb in her mouth again and stared at Ross, big-eyed and clutching at my coat, Brass held protectively against her as though he may spring to dragon life at any second and flame the interloper.
‘Hello, Tilly,’ he said, but not in the ingratiating way that people usually tried to talk to her, a ‘look how good I am with children’ way.
Ross’s approach was to treat her as though she were a dog of uncertain temperament, and his lack of attention seemed to work on her because her thumb came out and the grip on my hem relaxed.
I sighed. ‘No. And you don’t need to keep checking up on me, you know.
I’ll let you know when there’s anything going on here.
I am trying,’ I added, when his stare into the depths of the trees started to look a little accusatory.
‘She has nowhere else to go, and she’s got all those…
’ I waved a hand to indicate the irritable kak-kakking coming from above.
‘So I don’t think a bungalow in Acomb is going to cut it, unless the neighbours are really understanding. ’
Ross carried on staring into space. He’d got his hands in the pockets of an elderly jacket, the collar was up under his ear at one side and he’d clearly made an attempt at shaving that had either been interrupted or carried out by a razor with the sharpness of a paperback. ‘Oh.’
‘So, why did you come?’
My hands, still adjusting Tilly’s clothing, had got sweaty.
Had he come to see me? I mean, yes, all very flattering and I was getting that pressure in my middle that told me I found him attractive – although I needed to think about why I’d be attracted to a man who seemed to get dressed in the dark.
Or, indeed, carry out all his personal care in the dark.
And yet… here I was, trying not to blush like a teenager.
‘I wanted to show you something.’ He was rocking on his heels now, like a TV detective questioning a suspect, and he still hadn’t looked at me, although Tilly had merited a quick sideways glance.
Oh God, he wasn’t going to be one of those men, was he?
I reached for Tilly’s hand, but she pulled away from me and ran forward a few steps, bent to scoop a huge armful of the slimy dead leaves that coated the ground, and then flung them at Ross.
‘Leaves!’ she shouted, joyously as the leaves, plus a generous handful of mud that had come with them, hit him at waist level and stuck.
‘Tilly!’
But she was running now, circling around the trees with her little boots flashing glimpses of yellow in the grey air. ‘Leaves!’
I intercepted her just as her foot caught in a tree root and she bowled forward, hitting the soft and yielding ground with a cry that indicated there was glass-studded concrete under that leaf litter. I picked her up and held her close.
Ross was still standing with his lower half clad in the serendipitous patchwork of colours, a few of which were now dropping off, leaving mud marks. ‘I am so sorry,’ I said. ‘Tilly, you need to say sorry to Ross. We don’t throw things at people.’
Tilly was still wailing against my shoulder. Ross looked at me properly now. ‘Your life is very nearly as chaotic as mine, isn’t it?’ he asked, but not as a real question, more an observation.
‘You have no idea. And I’m sorry about the… stuff.’ I couldn’t even really call it leaves; Tilly had scooped most of the forest floor and there was not only mud but what looked like horse poo in there too. Ross looked as though he were camouflaged for stalking compost heaps.
‘It’s fine. Well, no, not fine exactly, but it’s all washable.’ He glanced down at himself. ‘I’m not in the market for merino wool and… and… whatever that other stuff is that’s not washable.’ His head tilted. ‘So. Shall I show you what I wanted to show you now?’
I tucked Tilly’s sobs under my chin. ‘I don’t know. She’s a bit upset.’
‘There might be some biscuits over there,’ he said vaguely.
Tilly’s head came up, nudging mine back, and a bleary voice repeated, ‘Biscuits?’
‘Mmm. If the contractors have left me any. There definitely were some, earlier this morning.’
Her head went a little higher. ‘Ice cream?’
‘Probably not, no.’
‘Wants ice cream.’
‘You might have to settle for chocolate digestives.’ Ross didn’t put on that high-pitched voice either, I noted.
That ‘talking to small children, the elderly and cute pets’ voice that David had used whenever he’d communicated with his daughter.
Small, short words delivered as though being posted into a brain that couldn’t cope with anything complicated, or at a tone only audible to bats.
I found I was actually starting to like Ross.
‘I suppose we could go, if biscuits are involved,’ I said and, in my arms, Tilly bounced.
‘It’s not far. I mean, it is, by road, but there’s a shortcut along this path… Oh bugger, it’s here somewhere, where is it? Ah. This path here.’ Ross prodded some undergrowth until it yielded.
I looked dubiously. ‘Really not far? Or not far to someone who’s not carrying an infant whose boots may well spontaneously detach?’
Under my chin Tilly muttered, ‘Bugger,’ tasting the word like a sweet of a new flavour. I decided not to react on this occasion.
‘Really not far. I’ve just come over, once I got the delivery unloaded.’ He held a strand of spiky leaves aside for me to get past. ‘For biscuits though, it’s got to be worth it, surely.’
‘Isobel gave us biscuits.’ I sounded a bit sulky as I realised that we hadn’t eaten them.
‘Then a few more can’t hurt,’ Ross said cheerfully. ‘Come on.’
And he led us on the way through the woods.