“Harry’s no bother. You didn’t mean to be a bother, did you, Harry?” the newcomer says, clapping the tall man on the shoulder. I peer up at them from the ground. Harry shakes his head and I see now that he is downcast, troubled; not fierce or lascivious in the slightest. “He was just trying to help you up,” the other man says, with a hint of rebuke. Harry returns to his close scrutiny of the yellow fungus.
“He just… I was just… looking for greenery. For the house,” I say, still rattled. “I thought… Well. Nothing really,” I finish. My heart slows slightly and I feel ridiculous. The stranger puts out a hand, pulls me to my feet. “Thanks,” I mutter. There’s an air rifle angled over his forearm, a dull gleam on the barrel. I kick the brambles back from around my feet and examine my stinging hands. Beads of blood are scattered there. I wipe them on the seat of my jeans and glance at my rescuer with a small, embarrassed smile. I find him watching me with an unsettling intensity, and then he smiles.
“Erica?”
“How did you… I’m sorry, do I know you?” I say.
“Don’t you recognize me?” he says. I look again-a dark mess of hair, held back at the nape of his neck, a broad chest, a slight hook in the nose, straight forehead, straight brows, mouth a straight, determined line. Black eyes that shine. And then the world tips slightly, skews; features fall into place, and something stunningly familiar coalesces.
“Dinny? Is that you?” I gasp, my ribs squeezing in on themselves.
“Nobody’s called me Dinny in a long time. It’s Nathan, these days.” His smile is not quite sure of itself: pleased, as curious as I am to meet a figure from the past, yet guarded, held back. But his eyes never leave my face. Their gaze is like a spotlight on my every move.
“I can’t believe it’s really you! How… how are you? What the hell are you doing here?” I am amazed. It never occurred to me that Dinny grew up too, that he lived another life, that he would ever come back to Barrow Storton. “You look so different!” My cheeks are burning, as if I have been caught out somehow. I can feel my pulse in my fingertips.
“But you look just the same, Erica. I saw a bit in the paper-about Lady Calcott dying. It made me think of… this place. We haven’t been back here since my dad died. But suddenly I wanted to come…”
“Oh, no… I’m so sorry to hear that. About your dad.” Dinny’s father, Mickey. Beth and I loved him. He had a huge grin, huge hands, always gave us a penny or a sweet-pulled it out from behind our ears. Mum met him, once or twice. Checking up, politely, since we spent so much time with them. And Dinny’s mum, Maureen, always called Mo. Mickey and Mo. Our code name, to be used whenever Meredith might hear, was that we were going to visit Mickey Mouse.
“It was eight years ago. He went quickly, and he didn’t see it coming. I suppose that’s the best way to go,” Dinny says calmly.
“I suppose so.”
“What got Lady Calcott in the end?” I notice his tone, a slight bitterness, and that he doesn’t commiserate with me on my loss.
“A stroke. She was ninety-nine-and must have been very disappointed.”
“What do you mean?”
“They were a long line of centenarians, the Calcott women. My great-grandmother lived to be a hundred and two. Meredith was always determined to outlive the queen. Good breeding stock, we are,” I say, and instantly regret it. Any mention of stock, of bloodlines, of breed.
There’s a vibrant silence. I have so much to say to him I can’t think where to start. He breaks off his intent gaze, looks away through the trees toward the house, and a shadow falls over his features.
“Look, I’m sorry I swore. At… Harry. He startled me, that’s all,” I say quietly.
“You don’t need to be afraid of him, he’s harmless,” Dinny assures me. We both look down at the motley figure, crouching in the leaf mould. Dinny, standing so close to me that I could touch him. Dinny, real and right here again when he was almost a myth, just minutes ago. I almost don’t believe it.
“Is he… is there something wrong with him?” I ask.
“He’s gentle and friendly and he doesn’t like to talk. If that means there’s something wrong with him, then yes.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it. Anything bad.” My voice is too high. I take a deep breath, let it out.
“And you were looking for… holly?”
“Yes-or mistletoe. Or some good ivy with berries. To decorate the house.” I smile.
“Come on, Harry. Let’s show Erica the big holly tree,” Dinny says. He pulls Harry up, gently propels him into a languid walk.
“Thanks,” I say again. My breathing is still too fast. Dinny turns ahead of me and I notice a brace of gray squirrels, tied by their tails with string, slung over his back. Their black eyes are half closed, drying out. Dark, matted patches in the fur on their sides.
“What are the squirrels for?” I ask.
“Dinner,” Dinny replies calmly. He looks around, sees the horror fleet across my face and smiles half a smile. “I guess squirrel hasn’t reached the menus of smart London restaurants yet?”
“Well, some of them, perhaps. Not the ones I eat in, though. How did you know I lived in London?” He turns again, glances at my smart boots, dark jeans, soft, voluminous wool coat. The sharp ends of my fringe.
“Wild guess,” he murmurs.
“Don’t you like London?” I ask.
“I’ve only been once,” Dinny remarks, over his shoulder. “But generally, no. I don’t like cities. I like the horizon to be more than ten meters away.”
“Well, I like having things to look at,” I shrug. Dinny doesn’t smile, but falls back to walk beside me, his silence almost companionable. I search for ways to fill it. He is not much taller than me, about the same height as Beth. I can see the tie in his hair, a dark red length of leather bootlace, snapped off, knotted tightly. His jeans are muddied at the hems; he wears a T-shirt and a loose cotton sweater. I see the wind circle his bare neck and I shiver, even though I am bundled beneath layers and he does not seem to notice the cold. We walk up a shallow rise, my steps by far the loudest. Their feet don’t seem to find as many snags as mine.
“Over there,” Dinny says, pointing. I look ahead, see a dark holly tree, twisted and old. Harry has picked up a fallen sprig of it, is pressing the prickles into the pad of his thumb and then wincing, shaking his hand, doing it again.
I set about cutting some branches-those with the spikiest leaves, the fattest sprays of berries. One springs away from me, snagging my face. A thin scratch under my eye that stings. Dinny watches me again, his expression inscrutable.
“How’s your mother? Is she here with you?” I ask. I want to hear him talk, I want to hear everything he’s done since I saw him last, I want him to be real again, to still be a friend. But I remember now-his silences. They never made me uncomfortable before. A child is unperturbed by something as harmless as a silence, oddly patient in that way.
“She’s well, thanks. She doesn’t travel with us any more. When Dad died she gave it up-she said she was getting too old for it, but I think she’d just had enough of the road. She would never have told Dad, of course. But when he died, she quit. She’s hitched to a plumber called Keith. They live in West Hatch, just over the way.”
“Oh, well. Give her my best, when you see her next.” At this he frowns slightly and I wonder if I’ve said the wrong thing. He has one of those faces that can be rendered so grim, so hawkish by the slightest scowl. At twelve it made him look studious, serious. I felt as silly as thistledown then and I feel it again now.
With my trug full of holly, we walk back through the woods to the clearing where they always camped before. A broad space at the western edge of the copse, surrounded by sheltering trees on three sides, with open fields to the west and a rutted green lane that takes you back to the road. The ground here is not well drained. It squelches as we get near. In summer it’s such a green place; long grasses with satin stems, the ground cracked hard and safe beneath. Harry drifts along behind us, his attention flitting from one thing to another.