Lucas (16 page)

‘After you,' he said.

I looked at him for a moment then stepped through into the clearing. It was a sheltered glade about the size of a small front garden, hemmed in by rhododendron bushes and raggedy clumps of trees, and spread with a carpet of bright green mossy grass. The grass looked as if no one had ever walked upon it. At the edge of the clearing a freshwater stream flowed gently over a bed of pale pebbles. I moved further in, walking gently, enjoying the softness of the mossy grass beneath my bare feet. The damp moss was jewelled with tiny blue flowers and pearls of rain.

Immediately to my right a length of khaki blanket was draped between the branches of two trees, the trees about three metres apart. Coils of twine and lengths of reed were hanging on a line suspended between another two branches, and an assortment of fishing poles and sharpened sticks were propped against one of the trees.

As I stood there taking it all in, Lucas stepped around me and pulled back the blanket to reveal a cosy little shelter cut into the heart of the trees. It was roofed with plastic sheeting interlaced with branches, and walled with a mixture of mud and reeds. I stepped closer and looked inside. At the front of the shelter I could see the remains of a fire on a blackened slab of rock. There was a tree stump for sitting on, and at the back I could see a bed of ferns.

‘It's wonderful,' I said.

Lucas went in and fumbled around in a black bin liner, fishing out some dry clothes. They looked exactly the
same as the clothes he was already wearing – only drier, of course.

He smiled awkwardly at me and gestured at the den. ‘Make yourself comfortable, I'll be back in a minute.' He disappeared around the back of the shelter to get changed.

I sat down on the tree stump and gazed around the interior of the den. It was quite dark, but not gloomy, like the inside of a tent. The air smelled pleasantly of damp vegetation. I imagined Lucas sitting in here, all snug and warm, with the rain ticking on the plastic sheeting, a wood fire smouldering, the smell of the smoke drifting in the rain … and I was reminded of a book I'd read when I was a kid –
My Side of the Mountain
by Jean George. It's the story of a young boy called Sam Gribley who runs away from his New York home to live in the burnt-out trunk of a hemlock tree in the Catskill Mountains. He learns to live off the land, eating berries and roots, trapping deer and rabbits … he even tames a young falcon to help him hunt. There's a scene in the book where Sam's sitting inside his hemlock tree in the middle of the forest on a cold winter's night. It's snowing. It's quiet. He's lonely. He looks at the falcon on its perch, preening and wiping its beak, and he wonders to himself – what makes a bird a bird, and a boy a boy?

I always liked that bit.
What makes a bird a bird, and a boy a boy?

I can't remember how the story ends …

Yes, I can.

The boy's loneliness gets the better of him and he leaves the forest and goes back to live with his family in New York.

I never liked that ending.

As my eyes adjusted to the dim light of the shelter, I
began to notice more detail: a small pile of tattered books in the corner; a candle stub in an empty crab shell; bunches of dried herbs; a notebook and pen by the bed; and on the wall, a faded photograph in a small wooden frame. I got up to take a closer look. It was a picture of a pretty young woman sitting cross-legged on the floor of a sparsely furnished room. She was slim, about twenty years old, with spiky blonde hair, sad eyes, and pale red lips. She was wearing a plain white cotton dress strung with bits of ribbon and leather and beads, and blood-red Doc Marten boots. The smile on her face was remote.

I heard footsteps outside and turned away from the wall. Lucas came in with Deefer trailing along behind him. He'd changed into fresh clothes and scrubbed his hair dry. He glanced at the photo on the wall, then at me.

‘She's pretty,' I said. ‘Is she your girlfriend?'

He laughed. ‘Not exactly, no.'

He knelt down by the blackened rock at the front of the shelter and started making a fire. His hands moved quickly, gathering up kindling from a pile by the wall, then adding small sticks and logs to form a neat little wigwam on the rock. As he worked I noticed a whitened scar on the inside of his left wrist – a faint puckered line, the size and shape of a shallow smile. It looked old. It looked part of him.

‘It's my mother,' he explained, nodding at the photo on the wall. ‘That was taken about fifteen years ago.' He struck his lighter and touched the flame to the base of the fire. A wisp of smoke emerged, the kindling crackled, and pale flames began licking at the twigs. Lucas watched the flames for a while, making sure they caught, then pocketed his lighter and stood up. He looked at the photo again. His face was expressionless. I looked at the picture of the
young woman. I could see the resemblance now. The inner sadness, the remoteness, the quality of being somewhere else …

‘Where is she now?' I asked.

‘I don't know,' he replied, looking away. ‘I think she's probably dead.'

‘Don't you know?'

He shook his head. ‘I never knew her. When I was born she couldn't look after me … she had a lot of personal problems. She wasn't well.' He ran his fingers through his hair and looked at me. ‘Are you all right? I've got a jumper somewhere if you're still cold—'

‘No, I'm fine.'

I wanted to ask him more about his mother, but I didn't know where to start. Instead, I took off my hat and cape and warmed myself at the fire. It was burning nicely now. The smoke drifted upwards and disappeared through a flap in the roof, leaving behind a sweet smell of wood ash.

‘My mother's dead,' I told him, surprising myself. ‘She died when I was five.'

Lucas nodded. ‘That must have been hard.'

‘Not really. Not for me, anyway. I was too young to understand. I can't remember very much about it. I just remember her not being there … one day she was there, the next day she was gone. I suppose when you're five years old it's easier to accept the things you don't understand. You're used to it. You don't understand most things. It was incredibly hard for Dad, though … he's never really got over it. I think he still blames himself.'

‘What happened?'

I sat down. ‘They were coming back from a party in London to celebrate the publication of his first book. It was late at night and the roads were icy. Dad had been
drinking, so Mum was driving … I've never had the guts to ask if she was drunk, too, but from what I know of her, I think she probably was. She liked a drink as much as Dad.' I looked down at the floor. I could feel the sting of tears in my eyes. I'd never told anyone about this before, and I didn't know why I was telling it now. I took a deep breath and carried on. ‘There's a lonely stretch of road about three miles from the island that cuts through a forest on a hill. You probably walked past it if you came here from Moulton.'

Lucas nodded. ‘A pine forest?'

‘That's it. There's a sharp corner at the bottom of the hill … they must have been going too fast or something, or maybe they hit a patch of black ice … nobody really knows … anyway, they lost control and went off the road, flew over a bank and smashed into a brick wall. Mum died instantly.'

‘What about your dad?'

‘Well, he's never really talked about it, but my brother told me that because of the bad weather and the remoteness of the location, no one called an ambulance until about an hour after the crash. A passing motorist just happened to stop for a wee or something. He saw the wreck of the car and dialled 999. When the ambulance finally arrived Dad was still sitting in the passenger seat holding Mum's hand. His head was all cut to pieces and the blood had dried on his skin. When one of the paramedics asked if he was all right, Dad just looked at him and said, “I've killed her. God help me, I've killed her.”'

The fire crackled and a glowing ember spat from the flames. Lucas nudged it back with his foot.

He said, ‘It's always hard to lose somebody. It leaves a hole in your heart that never grows back.'

I couldn't speak for a while. Deefer was lying on the ground beside me and I busied myself stroking the heavy grey hairs on his head. They were wet and glossy, the texture of fine wire. As I preened him, his eyes gradually closed. I felt a little dozy myself.

‘Do you want something to eat?' Lucas asked after a while.

‘I can't really stay long—'

‘It won't take a minute.'

Before I could say anything else he'd fished out a couple of battered old pans and was fixing them up over the fire on a contraption of wires and sticks. A tied leather bag appeared from somewhere, a wooden spoon, the canteen of drinking water, and he was away, cooking up a meal of secret goodies. As I watched him I thought of all the questions I'd wanted to ask, but just then they didn't seem to matter. They had no relevance to anything. The only things that mattered were the simple things – heat, cold, wind, rain, food – and even they didn't seem to matter
that
much. As long as the world kept turning we'd be all right.

‘Your brother,' said Lucas, stirring his pots. ‘Is he the one with the dyed blond hair?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘How do you know? Have you met him?'

‘No, I've seen him around, that's all. I thought he looked something like you.'

‘Thanks a lot.'

‘No, I didn't mean he looked
like
you … you know what I mean.'

‘Yeah, well … just as long as you don't think I'm anything like him.'

‘Why? Don't you get on?'

‘Not at the moment, no.'

‘Why not?'

‘It's a long story.'

He adjusted something on the fire, then sat to one side and rolled a cigarette. He took his time, concentrating on the tobacco and paper, getting it shaped just right, and then he placed it in his mouth, plucked a taper from the fire, and lit it.

‘This long story,' he said, blowing out smoke. ‘It wouldn't have anything to do with that muscle man at the cliffs, would it?'

‘Muscle man?'

‘The well-bred hunk with the broad shoulders—'

‘Jamie Tait?' I said, shocked.

He grinned. ‘That sounds about right.'

‘What do you know about him?'

‘Not much. I've seen him on the beach a couple of times—'

‘When?'

‘Late at night, mostly, hanging around with the rest of them.'

‘Who?'

He shrugged. ‘The rich girlfriend, the stone-thrower and his sister, your brother, a bunch of others – bikers, young girls, hangers-on …' He looked at me. ‘It's none of my business, Cait, but they're not the nicest people in the world.'

‘I know.'

‘They've got spite in their blood, especially Tait and his girlfriend. They're sick with it.' He looked at me. ‘The blonde girl I asked you about before, the faceless one—'

‘Angel?'

He nodded, gazing deep into the fire. ‘She's looking for things she shouldn't be looking for … not with them.
They'll take her down, Cait. They'll bury her. And they'll take your brother down, too, if he's not careful.'

I looked at him. ‘What do they do on the beach at night?'

He looked back at me, tapping ash from his cigarette. ‘They ruin each other.'

It was a strange way of putting it – kind of old-fashioned, especially for a young boy – but somehow it sounded just right.

‘How do you know all this?' I asked.

He just shrugged.

‘I don't know what Dominic's playing at,' I said. ‘Hanging around with people like that … it's like he's suddenly become a different person. You're sure it was him?'

‘Cropped blond hair, brown eyes, medium height …'

I shook my head and sighed. ‘He's so
stupid.'

Lucas just shrugged again. ‘We all do stupid things now and then.'

Yeah, I thought, it must run in the family. First Lucas sees
me
with a gang of morons, and now he's having to warn me about
Dominic's
unsavoury friends. He must think we're dysfunctional or something.

Lucas put out his cigarette and smiled at me. ‘I shouldn't worry about it too much. I'm sure your brother's got enough sense to keep out of trouble. He'll probably get fed up with them sooner or later, anyway. In the meantime, I'll keep an eye on things. If anything starts getting out of hand, I'll sort it out.'

‘How?'

‘I don't know,' he smiled. ‘I'll think of something.' He got up and went over to the fire to check on the food.

I said, ‘Why are you doing this?'

‘What – cooking?'

‘No – I mean, why should you want to help my brother? What's he ever done for you?'

‘Nothing, as far as I know.'

‘So why help him?'

‘Why did you help me at the bridge when the others were throwing stones at me? What have I ever done for you?'

‘Well, nothing … but—'

‘Just a minute.' He spooned some meat from the pan, blew on it, then popped a piece in his mouth and chewed. ‘I think this is just about ready.'

I looked at him.

‘Are you hungry?' he asked.

I nodded.

He smiled. ‘OK. So let's eat.'

Over a surprisingly tasty meal of crab, boiled potatoes, stale crackers and black tea, we finally got round to discussing what happened at the raft race.

‘I was on the cliff with Dad and Deefer,' I told him. ‘We saw the whole thing. It was incredible.'

Lucas didn't say anything, just nodded slowly and concentrated on his food. There was only one plate, a battered old tin thing that Lucas had insisted on giving to me, so he was eating straight from the pan. He picked out a chunk of meat and gave it to Deefer, who took it with uncharacteristic grace.