Czytaj książkę: «The Scratch»

1

The first time I saw Jack was when Gerald brought him from the station. We thought it might be easier for Jack that way. We didn’t know what to expect, and nor did he. Jack had been seven or eight when Gerald had last seen him. Gerald appeared to have almost no memories of the meeting.

‘Jack was just a boy,’ Gerald said. ‘He was trying to make something out of Lego.’

‘But you must have some idea what he was like.’

‘Clare, I just can’t remember. OK?’ He hesitated, frowning. ‘I think it was some sort of spaceship, though. Star Wars? The Lego, I mean.’

The more I questioned him, the less certain Gerald became even of that.

When they arrived, I was standing at the landing window looking down on the top garden and the gate. Most of the house faced the other way, towards the Forest, but from the landing window you could see the lane, with more cottages beyond and the piece of waste ground where we and our neighbours parked our cars. I wasn’t exactly waiting for them but I had gone up to our room to change my skirt. We used to make the run to the station so often that I knew, almost instinctively, when they were due. On my way downstairs I paused by the window.

So yes, I suppose that in a way I was waiting. On some level I must have wanted to see Jack before he saw me.

Cannop was with me. He was sprawling on the windowsill, a favourite spot of his in the late afternoon because it caught the sun. He was lying to the left of the big blue ginger jar that stood there. The jar had a domed lid with one of those squat Chinese lions to guard the contents.

He was dozing, as usual – I read somewhere that cats spend most of their lives asleep. But when the car drew up outside, he lifted his head and stared. He liked to monitor our comings and goings.

Gerald was the first out of the car. Then the passenger door opened and Jack got out. He stood there for a moment, looking about him, while Gerald opened the tailgate of the car and took out a large grey backpack.

Jack wasn’t what I had expected – you could say in that respect he began as he continued. One of the few things I knew about him was that he had been in the army, and that had made me think he would probably be a beefy young man, perhaps with a closely shaven head and tattoos on his forearms. Instead he was thin, perhaps medium height or a little less, with dark, curly hair. When he turned towards Gerald, the sun caught the rims of the gold-rimmed glasses he wore. The glasses made him look almost scholarly. And fragile. That at least I had been expecting: the fragility. One of the other things I knew was that he hadn’t been well.

There was a thump as Cannop jumped from the sill to the floor. I glanced over my shoulder and saw him trickling down the stairs like an articulated shadow. When I turned back to the window, Gerald was opening the gate, standing back so Jack could go first.

Jack was looking up at the house. He seemed to be looking directly at the landing window. I felt foolish and even guilty, which was ridiculous. Why shouldn’t I look out of my own window?

I took a step away and followed Cannop down the stairs. I wondered if Jack had seen me and, if so, what he had seen. A glimpse of a white face. A blur behind the glass. Something and nothing.

The heart of the house was the kitchen, which was at the back. When I stood at the sink I looked down the garden, past the strip of tussocky grass we called the lawn, past the fruit trees and the old pigsty, to the irregular line of the stone wall at the end. (Neither the house nor the garden had many straight lines in it.) A copper beech grew there beside the gate into the Forest. In the corner, built into the wall, was the Hovel.

Jack stood at the window looking out at all this while I was making the tea. After the initial flurry of greetings, he hadn’t said much beyond yes or no.

‘I saw Jenny and Chris at the station,’ Gerald said, opening the cupboard door. ‘Off to Italy next week.’ He was talking more loudly than usual, as he did when he felt awkward. ‘They’ve a house just outside Florence. Didn’t your parents have a place there once, Jack? In Italy, I mean.’

He glanced over his shoulder. ‘No. Portugal.’

‘Lovely when you’re there,’ Gerald said. ‘But it can’t be easy to keep it going when you’re not. I mean, what if the pipes burst or something?’

I put the teapot on the table. Gerald took out a packet of biscuits left over from Christmas and stared at it. I pushed him out of the way and took out the biscuit tin and a plate of flapjacks.

‘And then there’s security,’ Gerald said. ‘Always a problem with second homes.’

‘Tea’s up,’ I said, as no one else seemed to have noticed.

Jack turned. For the first time he looked directly at me. ‘What’s that, Clare? The shed or whatever it is.’

‘We call it the Hovel,’ I said. ‘Or rather, the children did when they were little and the name stuck.’

‘Quaint, isn’t it?’ Gerald said, drawing out a chair. ‘It’s a squatter’s cottage, probably.’

‘Squatters? Here in the country?’

‘Oh yes. The Forest was Crown land, you see, and the boundaries have always been fluid. In the old days, they say, people had a right to put up a house on a bit of waste ground as long as they could do it between dawn and dusk.’

‘Like putting up a tent?’

‘Yes. A tent with a stone chimney. Once you had your chimney you could build the rest at your leisure. It was the chimney that counted.’

‘So no one lives there?’

‘Not for years and years. It was a complete ruin when we moved here. It’s more or less weather-tight now, and we’ve run a power line to it. Clare was going to use it as a studio, but it’s too damp and cold for that.’

‘The children and their friends used to camp there,’ I said. ‘We did have wild thoughts of turning it into a holiday home and letting it out. But we decided not to in the end.’

‘No,’ Jack said. ‘You wouldn’t want to have strangers there.’

The cat flap in the back door made its slip-slap sound. Jack glanced in the direction of the noise.

‘I didn’t know you had a cat.’

‘His name’s Cannop,’ Gerald said, still talking more loudly than usual. ‘Thinks he owns the place. Just push him out of the way if he’s sitting on your chair. He’s used to it.’

Cannop was walking towards me but he stopped when he caught sight of Jack, who it happened was sitting in the Windsor chair with the frayed velvet cushion that Cannop liked to use himself when he had any choice in the matter.

Jack touched his lips with his tongue. ‘I don’t like cats much. Sorry.’

Gerald lumbered to his feet. ‘I’ll put him out for a bit,’ he said, as if this was the most natural thing in the world. ‘Do him good, eh? Thinks he owns the place.’

He scooped up the cat, who gave a yowl of protest, and pushed him headfirst through the cat flap. Cannop’s legs scrabbled for purchase but he was no match for Gerald’s superior force. When the cat was outside, Gerald locked the cat flap.

‘Sorry,’ Jack said again. ‘It’s just one of those things. I’ve never liked them.’

‘That’s OK,’ I said, feeling that, in some obscure way, I had failed in my duty as a host. ‘We’ll keep him out of your way while you’re here.’

As I said the words I wondered how easy that would be to achieve. It depended on Cannop. Like most cats, he generally did more or less what he wanted in the long run.

When we had finished the tea, I took Jack upstairs to show him his room. It was over the kitchen, long and thin, with a sloping ceiling and two windows looking out over the Forest.

‘I’m afraid you can only stand up in part of it,’ I said. ‘It used to be our daughter’s when she was small.’

Jack propped his enormous backpack against the bed. ‘My cousin,’ he said. ‘We’ve never met, have we?’

‘I expect you’ll meet her one of these days – Annie’s at university now.’

‘And you and Gerald have a son, too?’

‘Tom. He’s living in Birmingham, working in a café.’

Jack stooped to peer out of the nearest window. ‘How big is it?’

‘What?’

‘The Forest.’

‘Over twenty-five thousand acres, they say, plus all the outlying parts.’

‘Can people go there?’

‘You can go anywhere you like, more or less. It’s publicly owned. Sometimes you can walk for miles without meeting a soul.’

‘I’d like that,’ Jack said.

He went to bed early that night. To be honest, it was a relief. He hadn’t spoken much during supper and Gerald and I had struggled to keep a conversation going.

We cleared up in the kitchen. The floorboards overhead creaked as Jack moved to and fro in his room. Afterwards we went into the sitting room and turned on the television.

‘It’s going to be hard work if he’s like this all the time,’ I said.

‘It’s not his fault.’

‘I know. But what’s he going to do all day?’

Gerald shrugged. ‘I’m sure you’ll find something to occupy him.’

‘It’s easy for you to say,’ I said. ‘But you’ll be at the office five days a week.’

‘Look, Clare, we can’t just ignore him. He hasn’t got anyone else.’

‘I know. I’m not saying we should turn him out.’

‘I’d have thought you’d quite like the company. You said the other day how empty the house felt now the kids are hardly ever here.’

Gerald had an annoying habit of turning something I had said against me in argument. I said, ‘Yes, but it also means I now have more time to concentrate on work.’

We watched the talking heads on the television for a moment or two.

‘Nothing wrong with his appetite, anyway,’ Gerald said. He stretched out his hand and wrapped it round my forearm. ‘He just needs peace and quiet. Regular meals. Not too many people. We can give him all that.’

I patted his hand, accepting the olive branch.

‘Did he say anything about what happened? On the way from the station.’

‘He didn’t say much at all. I did most of the talking.’

‘He looks all right.’

‘Yes, but he wasn’t actually wounded. Not physically. It’s post-traumatic stress disorder. Or is it syndrome?’

‘What’s he going to do with his life now he’s out of the army? Does he know?’

‘He’s considering his options. That’s what he said in the car.’

‘I know it’s selfish, but I just wish …’ I broke off.

‘Wish what?’

I looked at the brightly coloured figures on the screen in front of us. ‘I wish he could consider them somewhere else. With someone else.’