And climbed to her feet, pulling her blue cap back over her short white hair, rubbing yellow flakes from her eyes.
They walked, the woman leaning on Theo, one arm across his shoulders, each step a gasp, her weight swinging from side to side. Their only direction was the opposite of that in which the children had run, until finally the woman stopped, looked up the hill, looked down it, turned to Theo and, craning her neck a little to examine his face more particularly, said, “My name is Helen.”
Chapter 55
Sirens in the night.
Police.
People—family people—heard rumours of bums, of interlopers on the hills of…
Theo said, “How fast can you walk?”
And she replied, “Not fast enough it’s not going to be… but I know a…”
They stumbled through the settling dark, the sunset sky overhead a purple-blue pillow that stopped abruptly at golden-red sheets thrown up from the western horizon, night and day competing violently for who would triumph at the final bell.
The sound of dogs, dogs howling, and once Helen fell and Theo caught her, and once Theo slipped in mud and Helen hissed, “Come on!” and he struggled up, half-breaking into a run, down a path towards a stream, the forest whispering overhead, getting dark now, too dark, the trees hemming in all things, a prison that hid the howling dogs from sight that made the sound of the police bounce this way and that; a place where men could die and the earth would take their bones and none would ever know that it had happened here, a place where—
A voice called out from the darkness on a ridge overhead: “Helen! Lady Helen, can you hear me? Are you…?”
Helen pulled Theo behind a tree three times their width, an ancient monster of gutted wood inside which a dozen creatures played, and the light of the torch passed by, but the barking of the dogs grew nearer.
“Come,” hissed the woman. “Come.”
Theo hauled her along, following the direction of her pointing fingers, whispered commands, along a path by the stream which he could barely see, twigs catching, mud rising to his ankles, they scrambled along until the darkness was so thick that Theo could only see the half-blackness of the trees a moment before walking into them, the stream a roar, he kept on missing his step and half-sliding into it, but always Helen hissed, “Come on! Come!”
Downhill, and down a little further, and then a light ahead, a yellow glow on a porch, and he hesitated but she did not, so he staggered on, and briefly the world was lit up blue as a light swept through the trees to his left, he hadn’t even noticed the road coming close, didn’t know where north was or what land he walked in but Helen seemed confident. Stepping over the now stride-wide stream as it entered a neatly mown garden, a plastic buggy for children to play at truck driver in, parked beneath a plastic swing, a car on the gravel before the door, little latticed windows beneath a thatched roof, a ceramic sign in the shape of a swan paddling on the river by the door: WELCOME.
Light behind the windows, thin curtains drawn. A floodlight turned on automatically as Helen reached the porch. She checked over her shoulder, then rang a bell, tingalingaling, an old black button with a real bell inside, nothing digital, not round here—nothing that did not conform to the standards set down in the Cotswold Corporate Community Charter.
The door opened.
A woman, younger than Helen by some thirty years, a green woollen jumper and bright purple leggings, stood in the frame. Her hair was brilliant red, bundled into a mess around her head. Her fingernails were painted black, her eyes were bright green, and as she recognised Helen with a little gasp of in-taken breath, a child scurried out from the room behind her, saw the older woman in the door and exclaimed, “Aunty!” running forward to wrap her arms around Helen’s mud-soaked legs.
A hurried conversation in the front hall.
“They said kidnapped they said—”
“Not kidnapped. My son has done something—I need your help I need to…”
“Are you sure because you look and who the hell even is—”
“His name is Theo, Kirsty please listen to me listen to me look at me do I look insane to you do I look…”
“No, but they said, I mean I saw you and—”
“They drugged me, my son—please the police are coming they are going to knock on the door please trust me you always trusted me your mother trusted me you know that I—”
“The police but this is—”
“Kirsty. For… please.”
“I… wait upstairs.”
She led them upstairs.
A ladder into a loft.
The loft was full of ancient trunks. Memorabilia from a bygone age. A grandfather’s gramophone. Models of toy aeroplanes built by relatives whose dexterous fingers were long since turned to bone. A scythe, rusted red. A bird’s nest, fallen to the floor from the rafters, the tiny white shells cracked, their babies long since flown. The ladder folded up behind them, and Theo sat with Helen on a trunk, and they waited.
The old woman’s head drifted to one side, rested on Theo’s shoulder.
A car pulling up below.
Maybe two.
Doors slamming, soft thunks in the dark.
Doorbell, tingalingaling, cheery come-on-Christmas sounds, a merry welcome to the hearth.
Door opening.
Voices.
Concerned.
Have you
No officer no I haven’t
this man is
I’ll keep an eye out for
Lady Helen—it’s very
I know, a close family friend. I’ll absolutely… is the search.. do they think she’s…?
We don’t know ma’am but if you
Of course, officer, of course, I’ll give you a call if I see anything
be safe
you too, you too.
Door closed.
Car doors opened, closed.
Engines.
The cars drove away.
They waited.
After a while
A broom handle knocked against the trapdoor to the loft.
“Okay. You can come down now.”
They took turns to use the bathroom.
Theo went first.
In the living room beneath Helen and Kirsty talked, and he wondered what they were saying.
The shower curtain was translucent, painted with whales blowing water from their spouts, a bright red ring of crabs scuttling along the bottom, eyes boggling, claws snapping at dancing fish.
When he emerged, swathed in towel, Kirsty stood at the door with her gaze averted, a bundle of clothes in her arms. “These were my husband’s. They might fit. You can change in there.”
She nodded once and said nothing when he thanked her.
Helen had a bath.
Theo and Kirsty sat in silence in front of a black iron stove, the TV on low in the corner of the room, the child enthralled at the rare treat of a late-night movie, her mummy should have guests more often if she got to stay up late like this.
Theo stared at his hands. Kirsty stared at his face.
From upstairs, the sound of water.
In the corner, the TV.
They waited.
Finally, Kirsty stood up, shot a look towards her child, another to Theo, then left the room.
Returned a few moments later with a plate of bread, cheese, ham. Put it down on the coffee table between them.
Theo ate slowly, stomach turning.
“Mummy can I watch another can I watch another please Mummy please I want to watch another I want to…”
“One more and then it’s bed—it’s already a long way past your bedtime this is a special treat, do you understand? And I want you to be good when it’s done, I want you to be very very good tonight it’s…”