HIS DAD managed to get the white paint off the wall and spent even more time at the Wheatsheaf, trying to pick up clues, he claimed, but Robbie didn’t think any of them were fooled by that. Least of all Sheila, whose temper got worse and worse as the weather hotted up and summer settled in.
So he took the advice on the wall. Someone had to.
He ran.
He ran through the fields and the woods, along the lanes, by the rivers and over the hills. The hedges were packed with campion and Queen Anne’s lace bowing and dancing in the western winds, and the woods were dark and cool, the chestnut leaves big and friendly, dropping down like fat green fingers. He was beginning to learn where everything was, how the roads connected, where the rivers met, which hills neighboured each other. He went out after school and didn’t get lost so easily, and it was better to run then because the air was cooler and clearer and cleaner.
Sometimes Alice came over at the weekend. Mags loved her and so did Sheila. Robbie thought it gave Sheila’s middle-class conscience a thrill to have a black kid in the house, and it annoyed him because he didn’t want her to like his friends, but she calmed down a bit when Alice was around and started showing off how cosmopolitan she was and how she’d been to lots of different countries. She’d been a great traveller in her time, Robbie had to give her that. And he couldn’t help it, but when Sheila relaxed he did stop wanting to burn the house to the ground for a bit, and that had to be a good thing.
‘Isn’t it interesting,’ she said, one day after Alice had left, ‘how none of us really belong here? Except your dad, of course, Robbie,’ she added. So he’s just my dad now, is he? Robbie thought. Well, okay. And she’s feeling a bit excluded. Well, okay too. ‘Speaking of whom,’ she went on, ‘Robbie, can you go and fetch him? He’s refusing to pick up on his phone and I know exactly where he is.’
‘Wheatsheaf?’
‘Yes.’
‘His second home.’
‘Many a true word,’ said Sheila. ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t become his only home.’
*
As Robbie was walking past the village store Mags came out.
‘I’m going to spring Dad from the pub,’ he said. ‘You coming? And could you get your dad to bring his tractor and some chains? I’ll probably need some help.’
‘I’m not going in there,’ she replied.
‘Come on, Mags, it’s not far, haven’t seen you for a bit.’
She looked away.
‘You go,’ she said. ‘Have a nice time.’
‘Something wrong?’
‘I don’t like the people who drink there.’
‘Well, can you wait? I’ll put the fear of Sheila into him, that should do it.’
‘I haven’t got all day.’
‘Why don’t you go and sit in the churchyard? Bit shadier there.’ She was wearing wellies and her green jacket; no wonder she was unhappy in that heat, it was burning hot and had been all week. There was a thin film of perspiration on her forehead.
‘Okay, but don’t be long.’
Colecombe lay in a small valley. To Robbie, it was a place of uncertain mood, its home and shops clustering together for company along the road. It had a green in the middle and another at the far end, a long pond with a war memorial at one side, and a church called St Paul’s standing halfway up the valley side. Sometimes it was a sunny, happy place, and sometimes it seemed to be brooding and ill at ease, dwelling upon its own secrets.
Winkling his dad out of the Wheatsheaf was never going to be the easiest job in the world. The trouble was, thought Robbie, he was going native. He must have been about twenty when he left, saying he’d never return, but he had an amazing memory for who lived where, and who they were related to, and what they did for a living, and who owned what, going back decades. He liked a gossip, and people seemed to like him, well, he could be a charmer when he wanted to be. Perhaps it was helping him to make sense of what had happened to him in his life too.
Robbie stood waiting for his dad, but the banter went on and on, and he noticed a bunch of guys in the corner who kept throwing glances his way. Two of them were obviously brothers – they had the same black curly hair that straggled down to their shoulders – one had bushier eyebrows and a long nose and kind of pretty lips and a dimple. The other one, younger, was not so Johnny Depp, but Robbie could tell they both fancied themselves. They’d got leathers on that must have cost a packet.
‘All right, coming,’ said his dad. Sunny smiles all round, but not, Robbie noticed, in the direction of his new friends.
‘Who are the top boys, then?’ Robbie asked.
‘Uh?’ He’d obviously had a few.
‘The retards in the corner.’
His dad was doing up his jacket and he turned in the direction Robbie was facing, then looked as if he wished he hadn’t.
‘Let’s go,’ he said.
‘Come on, Dad,’ Robbie said outside. ‘Who are they? They didn’t like me much.’
‘Don’t go near them, mate. They’re not very pleasant.’
‘I could guess that.’
‘Heartbreakers, those two. Runs in the family.’
He shook his head and started walking home, not even noticing that Robbie wasn’t following.
*
The road up to the church was white and dusty. When Robbie got there, Mags was sitting on a bench in the shade of the big sycamores, her feet tucked under her, chin in her hand.
‘’S’up?’
She pulled a face and shrugged. ‘Mum’s being really irritating.’
Mags seemed to be permanently at war with her mum, who was always criticizing her clothes and the way she looked. She didn’t glam herself up, Mags, but her mum always tried to be ten years younger than she actually was.
‘Shall we go and look in the church?’ He liked churches; they made him feel calm, his anger and anxiety absorbed into that still echo of space. This church had a square tower rather than a spire, which his dad said made it Norman, and inside he could smell the quietness, how, for hundreds of years, people had gone there to get away from their lives.
‘Not really my thing, churches.’
‘Why not?’
She glanced over to where the church sat serene, queenly among the trees. That face again, turned-down mouth, wrinkle of the nose.
‘My aunt’s a big believer. She’s so not like Mum, she thinks Mum’s a terrible sinner. She always made me come here on Sundays, forced me to, Mum and Dad just let her. I think they thought it was good for me.’
‘When did you stop?’
‘I was about twelve. I was going to be confirmed. I suddenly didn’t want to go through with it. It’s not for me, Robbie. Not for me.’
‘Come on.’
Her eyes fixed on him, set hard.
‘You don’t get it, do you? Some things work one way, some things work another. This is not my way.’ Then she smiled unexpectedly. ‘But as it’s for you.’
Inside, Mags cast looks around her nervously, but eventually she relaxed. She knew her way around the church, that was for sure. She knew all the saints in the stained glass and their stories. She told Robbie about the colours of the cloths over the altar and what they meant. She ran her hand over the plain dark wood of the pulpit, gently as if it might be hot, then opened the door to the vestry.
In the corner of the room the priest’s robes hung on a long mirror, angled in a wooden frame. And there was Mags, illuminated by the light breaking through the window, pale and white like a ghost, but crossed with a stripe of fiery redness from the stained glass above and reflected in the mirror against the cool dark. With a surprising strange solemnity Robbie thought, this is how I shall always remember her.
‘I’m going to read,’ she said. Maybe her childhood was reclaiming her. Maybe that’s what she was afraid of.
She went to the pulpit and ran her fingers through the pages of the huge Bible, then stopped.
‘To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven …’
Her voice was light and clear.
‘A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance …’
She raised her hand, palm outwards. She looked as if she was blessing something, or pushing something away.
‘A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing …
A time to love …’
She peered up at the ceiling for a moment and twisted her head, trying to make something out.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Look, Robbie.’ She pointed.
Above them was a wooden carving. Three hares running in a circle.
‘I remember,’ said Mags. ‘In Dorset they’re called the Tinners’ Rabbits. Lots of churches have them. Only they’re not rabbits, they’re hares. Look at their ears.’
It was a kind of optical illusion, because there were only three ears in the carving, but each hare seemed to have two.
‘I wonder what it means.’
‘The Trinity,’ said Mags. ‘Father, Son and Holy Ghost. “A three-fold chord is not quickly broken.” That’s one of my aunt’s favourites. It’s like the feeding of the five thousand. There are more ears to go round than there really are.’
‘The holy hares,’ said Robbie.
‘The holy hares,’ repeated Mags.
‘They get everywhere, don’t they?’
‘They do. That’s their nature. Those beautiful creatures.’
‘Beautiful.’ He nodded. ‘Like your reading.’
She smiled.
‘I always loved those words.’
*
Jess was sitting on his bed, trying her best to annoy him and stop him doing his homework.
‘So,’ she said, hugging her knees. ‘You like Alice? Floats your boat, does she?’
‘Not the way you mean.’
She frowned. ‘Mags?’
‘Definitely no.’
‘Why do you hang out with them?’
‘Because I want to. You don’t get anything, do you?’
‘They’re losers.’
‘Whatever.’
They stared at each other. Then Jess put a big false smile on her face and batted her eyelashes at him.
‘Anyway, me and Dad were in the Wheatsheaf and there were these chumps in there who really fancied themselves and Dad said not to go near them. Know what that’s about?’
‘Might be the Strickland brothers. Tommy’s the older one, Billy’s the younger. They’re always in there. I’ve heard Luce talk about them. Really fit? Leathers?’
‘That’s them. How does Luce know about them? She doesn’t go near the place.’
‘She gets all that stuff from Mrs Allardyce.’
‘She doesn’t go near the place, either.’
‘No, but she knows everything. Nothing moves here without Mrs A knowing about it. And she and Luce are like that.’
‘Yeah, she’s always there, isn’t she? Must be how she knows Mags doesn’t have a boyfriend.’
Jess gave him a look. ‘You were so angry.’
‘Anyway, the Stricklands. What do we know about them?’
‘They’ve got a farm over there somewhere.’ She waved her arm.
‘Could you be a bit less blonde and fill in the detail, Jess?’
‘I’m not blonde. Don’t be so rude. I’m the least blonde person you know.’
‘Sorry.’
‘You want to be mates with them? I think your dad might be right about that.’
‘Just curious.’
‘It’s at the end of that lane with the funny name.’
‘That’s not much help.’
‘Dancing Lane. Brading Wood Farm, I think it’s called.’
The place Mags wouldn’t talk about, where the Land Rover was going.
‘Thanks. And Jess?’
‘Yes?’
‘You may leave my room, now, thank you. I have all this lovely homework to do.’