Then he’d been. Hurt so badly that the only place to go was home.
Home, he considers. It’s an odd word this little green-brown corner of the Lake District. His upbringing saw to it he never put down roots. Home was caravan parks and halting sites; a seemingly endless succession of woodland enclosures where he and mum and Serendipity cosied up inside the old American school bus that rocked with each lash of the wind. He grew up itinerant, forever on the move; both benefactor and victim of a Bohemian mother and a series of impermanent dads. For a while, school was also a Young Offenders Institute. The foster homes, care homes, and finally free. Home, now, is wherever his sister is and this moody coastal valley is where she has chosen to put down roots.
He stretches, elongating his hands. Emits a simian screech as the wounds threaten to open like flowers.
“You stupid sod,” he mutters, seething. “Stop forgetting!”
Rowan is under doctor’s orders to keep his skin covered. The wounds upon his palms have twice become infected. For a time he seemed to be more blisters than flesh: mottled strips of epidermis hanging from his palm like popped bubble-gum; pus and pain in every line and whorl. Two weeks ago he was admitted to A&E - the doctors concerned he was developing sepsis and pumping him so full of antibiotics that his blood could have healed the sick. He ran a fever that turned his skin a shade of green; steam rising from his forehead while shivering so violently that the nurses feared he would break his teeth. There was talk of an induced coma. His sister was called. Rowan spent five whole days in hospital before boredom and the absence of a bar persuaded him he would be best served by discharging himself. He didn’t get very far. The pain in his hands reached all the way up to his shoulders. He couldn’t steer his car or change gear without weeping. They found him in the car park, trying to reverse out of a parking space using his elbows. His sister had made the decision for him. He was coming to stay with her. There would be no arguments. She would give him space. She’d just had the byre done up and although it was pretty basic and the toilet was outdoors, it would be perfect for his convalescence. He could take it easy. He could write, or at the very least he could dictate into a recording device. He could walk on the fells or skim stones, however inexpertly, on the silver-grey surface of the mountain tarns. He could meet new people, drink real ales and decide what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He could get to know his niece, Serendipity. They would take care of him.
Rowan still feels as though they took advantage of a sick man.
He looks down as his feet nudge a silvery metal mug, resting against the doorstep. There’s a wildflower wilting on the sealed lid. Rowan grins. Bends down and picks it up with his right hand; his bandaged fingers and thumb looking like a sock-puppet fastening onto prey. He sips strong, black coffee, and gives a little salute to the air.
“Thanks Snowdrop,” he mutters. He glanced around, hoping his young niece may also have gone to the trouble of bringing him a bacon sandwich, three Marlboro Red and a strip of Ibuprofen. Wrinkles his nose, unimpressed with the youth of today.
He sits on the front step, a little cold, a little feverish, and still a bit drunk. The bird starts singing again. He glances back inside, through the door into the tiny space he is currently under instructions to think of as ‘home’. He’s proud of his sister for how hard she’s worked to spin straw into gold. The byre was waist deep in cow dung when she bought it. The bloke who did the renovations spent the first three days shovelling his way down to floor level. Even then he had a hellish job with the drainage and foundations. There are old mine workings honeycombing the ground beneath this part of the valley. Serendipity had to beg two more budget increases from her wife before the byre could be declared fit for human habitation. There’s a different kind of crap to wade through now: imitation welsh dressers, cut little landscapes in wonky frames; rag-rugs and wicker baskets piled with logs and pine cones. It’s homely but too twee for Rowan’s tastes. The absence of hot water or a shower doesn’t help. He doesn’t mind visiting the outhouse now and again but he’s encouraged his hosts to think again before advertising a holiday cottage that expects its occupants to wash their nether regions in the downstairs sink. Rowan is no stranger to roughing it, but he fancies that the fell walkers who flock to this part of the Lake District may expect slightly more for their 600-quid each week.
Rowan’s descent into the warm milk of self-pity is disturbed by a sudden sound at his garden gate. He looks up to see a bundle of effervescence and sunshine.
“Hiya,” comes a voice, bright as ice. “Uncle Rowan! Did you get it? Was it still hot? Is it strong enough? Uncle Rowan! Namaste!”
Rowan pulls himself up and turns his back. Alters his position so he is leaning with his forehead against the doorframe, his back to the front gate. Hears plastic soles striking stone and the shush of disturbed grass as she runs up the path.
“What are you doing?” asks Snowdrop, a giggle in her voice.
“I’m getting paid to hold this building up,” says Rowan, without turning around. “A tenner a day. The lunch breaks are a bit fraught with peril but a job’s a job. I can’t be picky.”
He enjoys her laughter. Turns back, pulling a face that suggests he has been pressing his features too hard into the brick. She laughs again. “You’re so weird,” she snorts. “Mum said you would be weird but you’re like, way out there.”
“Says you,” protests Rowan, pretending to outraged. “You’re the one dressed like a pantomime cow.”
She grins: her face naturally charming. She’s 12-years-old. She has a pale, lightly freckled appearance, red lips and the same blue eyes as her mum, Rowan’s older sister. Two spots of perfect red colour her cheeks. Her hair is a shimmering mass of black and hangs to her shoulders in a jumble of ringlets. Some of the twists in her hair are intentional – pretty curls made last night with twists of paper and elastic bands. The others are more naturally-occurring tangles; a mess of knots and snarls, twisting over and under one another like ivy. There is mud on her bare knees and up the side of her wellingtons. Her bare hands look cold. There is a bruise on her left thumbnail and the last flakes of purply nail varnish on the seashell-coloured cuticles at the end of her long, pale fingers. She smells of the outdoors; of cake baked in a steam-filled kitchen; damp clothes and chunky, old-fashioned soap. She has the air of a Disney princess who has spent a month living rough: a Snow White not above barbecuing her woodland helpers.
“You should be wearing red,” says Rowan, looking her up and down.
“Sorry?”
“And you should be skipping.”
The girl frowns, unsure. She really wants to understand. “I don’t …,”
“Red Riding Hood,” explains Rowan, shaking his head in mock disappointment. “Honestly, you’re supposed to be a writer. Now I know who picked the bloody awful name. Bilberry Bloody Byre …”
Rowan has already made his feelings clear about what he refers to as ‘the saccharine vileness’ of the cottage’s new sobriquet. It was chosen by Serendipity, his sister. Given her own moniker, Rowan believes she should understand the importance of getting a name right. Their mother has a fifty per cent success rate. Rowan suits his name. Serendipity, forever anxious, forever screwing herself into the ground with responsibilities, with her lost paperwork and sob-stories, has always struck her younger brother as more of a Carol or a Mavis. Bilberry Byre is her choice. It’s a thoroughly incongruous affectation, deliberately chosen to suggest a certain cosiness – as if the remoteness of the location and severity of the weather could be somehow camouflaged by the cunning use of alliteration and pastoral imagery.