Making Marion (5 page)

The path led right up to the village. Hatherstone consisted mostly of a main street lined with imposing red-brick houses and a handful of shops. A shabby looking pub, an old church and a village hall interrupted the row, and on the forecourt of the hall
I saw a cluster of market stalls. I rode proudly along the street, managing to smile at a bunch of holidaymakers ambling along, licking ice-creams.

I dismounted at a market stall laden down with tourist items. One corner displayed expensive woollen sweaters, trinkets and ornaments that nobody would buy unless they were on holiday. The rest of the stall was crammed with Robin Hood souvenirs. Plates, spoons, felt hats, wooden swords and teddies dressed up as Robin or Marion jostled for space alongside wimples and old-style maps of Sherwood Forest. I hovered there long enough for the stallholder to ask me three times if he could help me. Worried he would think I was waiting for an opportunity to pilfer a plastic Little John tankard, I quickly searched for something worth spending my dwindling pennies on.

“Do you have any postcards?” My voice was a creak, and I had to repeat myself before he could understand my accent. Oh yes, he had postcards. Racks of them. Merry men and evil Sheriffs, a dozen different pictures of the forest itself, Hatherstone village, even the campsite. And a selection of legendary graves. Nice.

I bought one with a red English telephone box on the front.

Wheeling back down the path, I paused by Robin Hoode's Tea Shoppe to try and picture myself relaxing at one of the plastic tables outside, sipping an iced coffee while I wrote the postcard. Sitting by myself in a café seemed as impossible right then as riding Pettigrew to the moon, ET-style. And I was about as ready to write that postcard as I was to enter into the Irish Olympic cycling team.

I did go inside to buy a bottle of water. A reluctant purchase, but I knew I wouldn't survive the return journey without it. As I stepped back out into the glare of the sun, it took me a couple of moments to realize that my bag had gone from the basket. I had taken my purse with me into the café, and as I frantically searched the street either side I could see where the thief had pulled out the remaining items from the bag, dropping them onto the pavement every few metres.

The market trader who had sold me the postcard barrelled over, while his friend chased down the road in the direction of the strewn items. As I stood there, frozen, he called the other stallholders to help gather up my keys and emergency box of tampons, along with some dirty tissues, a melted mush of old toffees and other assorted pieces of embarrassing rubbish. One trader, a middle-aged woman with a frazzled brush of deep pink hair, picked up the envelope, which had been ripped open, and the photograph, lying next to it. I clutched one of the plastic tables as the relief threatened to knock me over. It felt like an omen. The photograph should have stayed in the drawer.

My rescuers clucked and fussed, sitting me down and bringing me a cup of sweet tea with a custard doughnut. As much as I protested that I was fine, my hands were shaking as I picked up the mug. The burly man who had chased after the thief limped back, my now empty bag in his hand, but with no sign of the perpetrator.

“D'you wanna call the police?” the waitress, a younger woman called Jo, asked me.

“No. Thanks, though.”

“You're not from round here, are you?”

I shook my head.

“You that new girl working for Scarlett?”

“Yes.”

She picked up my empty mug and turned to go back inside. “See you around, then?”

I nodded, but she had gone.

The pink-haired woman handed me back the photograph, tucked inside the ripped remains of the envelope. She looked me up and down but said nothing, scraping back to her stall on heels as high as her pencilled-on eyebrows.

I had spoken nine words since the day of my daddy's funeral, nearly a year ago. Four of those were by myself, where no one could hear, so
they didn't count. Each word was a tick of a bomb, counting down to the Bad Thing that would happen. I didn't know how many ticks the bomb would have, but it would be my fault if it reached the end of the fuse. Because I did not talk, nobody wanted to sit next to me at school any more. My old friends had stopped knocking to see if I was coming out to play. At first, the grown-ups were kind. “Give her time,” they told my ma at the kitchen table and in the queue at the Post Office. My mother was happy to give me time – and space – enough to form my own universe. She did not hug me or look at me. She had not said sorry. She had not forgiven me. For a long time she pretended everything was fine, but the curse she had spoken grew between us like a thick fence of poisonous thorns. So I kept quiet, and when the doctor tried to cajole sounds out of me with sweets and books and promises of a trip to the beach, I shook my head, and shrugged my shoulders, and smiled to tell him that things were better this way.

But now Ma wouldn't get out of bed. For three days she had not left the bedroom except to go to the toilet. She hadn't eaten the sandwich I made for her, or the crisps, or the biscuits. She hadn't drunk anything. The bedroom smelled. Different to when my daddy was in it. She lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I had been eating cereal and bread with ham and salad cream, but Ma hadn't been shopping properly for weeks and now there was nearly nothing left. The phone rang four times but I daren't answer it. I wanted to tell somebody, so badly, that my mother wouldn't get up and we had no food left and we needed a new card for the electricity box. But she was lying in bed and wouldn't move and there couldn't be many ticks left. I thought she was nearly dead. I stuffed my pillow into my mouth to keep the sobs from getting out, but hot tears squeezed from my eyes, and my throat ached and ached with the pressure.

I didn't know what to do. It was four weeks until school started again. Maybe I would be dead by then too.

I wanted my daddy.

I was still trembling when I ducked back under the cover of the forest. It was late afternoon, still warm, only the heat felt oppressive now, its caress no longer comforting, but claustrophobic. The quietness was foreboding, the shadows ominous. I battled the urge to keep looking behind me, convinced I would see some creeping enemy in pursuit. Every rustle sent a jolt through my tight nerves, causing the bike to veer off to the side until I controlled myself enough to pull it back onto the track. I muttered as I rode, berating myself for picking up the breadcrumbs of my neuroses as easily as I had scattered them aside that morning.

It didn't help that I felt tired, and my backside was sorer than I could have believed. It wasn't as if I didn't have ample padding. How do professional cyclists manage days in the saddle? Do cycling shorts have special sewn-in cushions? I picked up speed, grimly aware that by the end of this journey I might indeed be suffering from
women's issues
, when a streak of brown shot out of the trees to my right and rocketed in front of me. I panicked, weaving from side to side while the brown something flashed in and out of my peripheral vision. Then a fallen log blocked the path ahead; I careened off the track and into the brush, crashing through ferns and bouncing over the uneven surface. The wood sloped sharply downwards, and I began to speed up. My feet left the pedals, and I totally lost control. Even worse, the brown blur was still running alongside me, dashing toward Pettigrew's wheels before veering away again.

I yanked on the brakes. Nothing happened. I really was in trouble now. Up ahead I could see a brook, racing toward me at a frightening rate. I was going to end up very wet if I couldn't pull this together. What would a rider on a runaway horse do in this situation?

I screwed my eyes shut, and screamed. Just at that moment, Pettigrew hit a tree stump. I flew over the handlebars and soared through the air, crashing into the stream, sending shockwaves
juddering up my outstretched arms. Well, my head and torso were in the stream. My legs landed in a pool of stagnant swamp mud.

I lay there, my body submerged, head tilted up so I could breathe. Every movement caused my legs to squelch a bit further into the sludge, and it was too much of an effort to even think about pulling myself up. Perhaps I could sleep here. It was cooler than the caravan, and nice and quiet. I closed my eyes and tried to pretend I was somewhere else for a minute.

But while I was still nowhere near finished my imaginary walk up Mount Fuji, a pair of rough hands yanked me out of the mud and plonked me on my feet.

A man, a few years older than me, stood there shaking his head in disbelief. He was carrying a small brown dog, a labrador puppy. Was it really that tiny? It had seemed a lot bigger when it was leaping up at me at a hundred miles per hour. The dog lay still in the man's arms, one leg sticking out at an awkward angle. It was whimpering softly.

Oh no. I had broken his dog.

“What was that? Are you completely insane, or just a total idiot?”

He was dressed in running clothes, hair almost black with perspiration, and his broad shoulders were heaving. From exertion or because he was really, really angry, I wasn't sure.

“Sorry.” I wiped my wet hands on my trousers. They came off sticky with mud.

“Sorry? Oh, that's all right then. I am so sick of
tourists
.” He said this with an impressive sneer. “Trampling about the forest, damaging the wildlife, dropping litter, starting fires, leaving gates open, winding up our livestock, provoking the local kids… they are so infernally
irritating
!”

I stood, wide-eyed, not sure whether to point out that I wasn't actually a tourist.

“You've probably broken her leg!” His voice cracked, and I realized he was more upset than I was. “Sorry? Of course you are. Isn't there a law about stupid city girls who don't know what they're doing, riding bikes if they can't control them?”

Woah! I don't react well to being called stupid.

“Isn't there a law about letting a dangerous animal unsupervised on a public footpath where it can attack members of the general public? I was perfectly in control of my bike until you lost control of your dog! Who do you think you are, telling me what to do in a public place?”

He pulled his head back, surprised.

“And – I'm not a tourist, not from a city and I got the top score out of my
whole school
in the cycling proficiency test!”

There was a tiny flicker at the side of his mouth. “Wow. The top mark in the whole school. You must be very proud. And this isn't a public place. This is my land. So, as the landowner, I'm asking you to leave before I have you arrested for trespassing, damage to
private
property and seriously harming my dog.”

I had run out of bluster. I felt terrible about the puppy. Hauling up Pettigrew, who had thankfully landed in soft earth and appeared undamaged, I scanned the forest, trying to get my bearings. The mud was beginning to set on my legs and backside. It was freezing cold and so was my wet top. I was exhausted. My bag had been stolen. I had cuts and bruises to complement my aching muscles and sore buttocks, and I didn't even know which direction to take to get back to the path.

A tear popped out of the corner of my eye and slipped down my cheek. The man sighed and shook his head again. He took my bag out of the basket and handed it to me. Then, gently placing the dog in Pettigrew's basket, he started wheeling the bike through the trees. I had to scurry to keep up with him, stumbling over roots and scratching myself on poking out branches. He ignored me until we reached the edge of the woods and I could see the campsite only a few hundred metres away.

Passing me Pettigrew, he scooped up the dog, who responded by licking his hand furiously. “Next time, keep to the path.” He strode off, calling over his shoulder. “And tell Scarlett I'll fix her brakes on Fire Night.”

I leaned on Pettigrew, inching my way forwards one slow, squishy step at a time, only glancing back when I heard the bark of laughter coming from the woods. That man stood, one arm braced on a trunk for support, helpless with mirth, his dog dancing around his ankles.