The only way to interpret the next look that flitted over his face was as one of decision and dismissal. He seemed to conclude that I was of no interest to him and without actually saying anything he suggested that I was free to go on my way. And to be sure, it would not have taken too much wisdom and intelligence to categorize me as a harmless lunatic given the drivel I had just been spouting.
‘So,’ I said, gathering up my two sacks by the necks and taking a deep breath. ‘I shall take these away and burn them and Mrs Dudgeon need never think about them again.’
‘That is most helpful of you,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’ His voice as much as his face was weary-sounding, but he spoke well for one of his class, the local accent still there in the clipped vowels and hissed consonants but the words articulated with care. With such care, I suddenly realized, that the most obvious explanation for all of his oddness was that he was, this very minute, profoundly drunk. I remembered the bottles on his rubbish heap and how he had fallen asleep beside the corpse the night before and had not woken when Mrs Dudgeon left the cottage to wander in the woods.
‘I hope it all goes well for you tomorrow,’ I said, still disposed to be sympathetic, remembering that his brother had just died, but instead of accepting my kindness in good spirit, he reared backward and stared at me. ‘Sorry,’ I blurted. ‘I didn’t mean to suggest that it could be a happy day. I mean, I know it’s a funeral, but I hope it all goes smoothly and isn’t too much of a strain.’ This seemed to mollify him; he relaxed again and nodded and I, not wanting to try another remark after that last one had gone down so very badly, simply nodded back, turned to the woods and strode away.
This time, tramping through the trees like a fairy-tale woodcutter with my hessian sacks, I felt none of the jitters from all my earlier trips even though the sun was low enough to flash in and out between the tree trunks in a way that could easily have suggested countless figures flitting between the trees all around me, and perhaps it was because I was not peering around for spooks that I spotted something of great actual, concrete interest that I might otherwise have missed.
I was walking with my head down, beginning to feel the weight of the sacks in my shoulders, even though dried burdock seeds are not particularly solid little objects, musing on how implausible it was that a woodcutter, even a very burly one, could carry his slumbering children in sacks over his shoulder deep into the woods to leave them there, and trying to remember which fairy tale it was where a burly woodcutter did so, and thus entranced by my floating thoughts and the steady crimp, crimp of my feet on the needles beneath me – dreaming and dawdling, Nanny Palmer used to call it – I saw something flash. A step further on, the low shaft of sunlight had shifted and the object had disappeared, but I stopped, returned to what I thought must be the same spot and then rocked backwards and forwards, moving my head, until it caught the light again. I trained my eye on it and moved closer.
‘Good God above,’ I whispered under my breath as I crouched down beside it and poked it clear of the forest litter which was just beginning to cover it up for good. I had no idea what it meant or how it changed things, but I was very pleased to have found it, for it seemed to add a little measure of sense to Mrs Dudgeon’s midnight wandering. It was, of course, the pen. I picked it up by putting a gloved finger against each end, thinking of fingerprints, and dropped it into my dress pocket. Alec was going to love this.
Almost home, a few minutes later, nearing the edge of the woods at last, I did indeed catch a glimpse between the tree trunks of countless figures bearing down on me, but once again my heart and other innards took the sight in their stride because there was no mistaking these: the sun was burnishing their flaming tresses as the little Dudgeons from next door made their way home.
‘Hello there,’ I called to them, and was surprised to see some of the smaller ones clutch at each other and a couple of the medium-sized brothers falter in their steps. ‘It’s only me,’ I said. ‘You remember me.’ I thought, too late, that perhaps I should have stashed the sacks behind a tree before they saw them, but with the typical lack of interest all children show in the doings of adults they barely gave these a glance. Anyway, I reasoned to myself, the way they swarmed around the woods like so many termites, the sacks of burrs were probably safer in my hands than behind any tree within swarming distance. The children were not however, I could not help but notice as I drew near them, in a swarming mood, but stood in a clump in the middle of the path and waited for me to reach them. There were six of them today, only the oldest sister ‘wee Izzy’ and the tiny baby missing. The littlest but one tot was being borne along in a well-worn pushchair by the biggest brother.
‘On your way home from Auntie Betty’s?’ I asked them. A few of them nodded and little Lila’s lip began to tremble. I began to tell myself that it was only to be expected that they were subdued, since their uncle had died and tomorrow was his funeral, but then I remembered that the first time I had met any of the happy band had been the day of the death itself and that they had been absolutely irrepressible then.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked them. ‘You seem a bit glum.’
‘We dinnae want to go through they woods wurselves,’ said one of the middle-sized brothers.
‘Why ever not?’ I asked, amazed.
‘Cos of the demon,’ said Lila. Her big brothers hung their heads and one of them nudged her to shut her up.
‘But you’re a match for any demon,’ I assured them. ‘Weren’t you going to catch him a few days ago?’
‘We thocht he was a pretendy one,’ said Lila. ‘But now we ken he’s a real one.’
‘I dinnae want to get put doon a hole,’ whimpered one of her small brothers.
‘Now look here, Miss Lila,’ I said, bending down to talk to the child face to face, ‘and you too, boys. You must stop telling each other these horror stories. You must, really. You big boys tell the little ones there’s nothing to be afraid of. And you little ones don’t believe a word they say.’ I stopped, realizing that my advice was becoming confused.
‘We didnae tell naeb’dy nothin’, missus,’ said the oldest boy. ‘We seen ’um. In the woods, right by oor hoose. A real demon comin’ to get us. Comin’ to put us doon the holes with the ghosties.’
‘And what made you think he was real, and coming to get you?’ I said. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘Oor daddy told us,’ said another. ‘Oor daddy told us to watch out for demons and no’ to let one catch us, ever.’
‘And now we’ve tae go hame all by wurselves and it’s gettin’ dark and the hoose is empty til Mammy gets back with Auntie Chrissie.’ They looked up at me beseechingly out of six pairs of blue eyes, and I relented. I was not, however, about to traipse back to the cottage on foot for a fourth time in one day – I was beginning to wear out a trench – but I could not withstand the trembling lips and brimming eyes a moment longer.
‘Very well, then,’ I said. ‘Come and wait on the wall by the castle rise and I’ll fetch my motor car and run you all home. And your daddy’s there, by the way, so you won’t be alone once you get there.’ The second half of this was lost in a chorus of cheers and whoops and they turned on their heels and raced back the way they had come towards the park. By the time I caught up and passed them, dragging my sacks, they were sitting on top of a wall in a jostling row, threatening to tip each other off and arguing about who was going to sit in the front seat.