One morning they wake up and find that the weather has changed. Overnight, the heat that blanketed them for so long has lifted and taken itself elsewhere. In its place is a freshness that Dickie recognizes as the beginnings of autumn, which, though it is the prelude to winter, has always felt to him the time of year when the world is new. He walks with PJ through the gorgeous dying forest, a shifting mosaic of reds and golds, taking in air that seems to sparkle with some knowing magic. They make their way around the circuit, no longer needing the map, releasing greys from the traps when they find them, and Dickie feels – he, a middle-aged man! A father of two! – he feels a-daze with this forest magic, this sparkling air. Beside him, his son chatters on about exoskeletons, space anomalies, what daimon he’d like to have. The leaves fall down around them, Dickie’s veins brim full of ecstatic energy, as if he is a boy again, or a boy for the first time.
When they come back to the clearing, they find Victor lugging fresh bags of Bentonite out of the van. You’re back, Dickie says. I am, Victor says. Back a good hour now. He continues to unload the van. It is hard to read his expression but it seems that he is smiling to himself. How did you get on? Dickie says. Oh good, good, Victor says tonelessly. We’ll have her up and running before the end of the day, please God. Again the sly smile. He goes back to the van, effortlessly lifts another sack and sets it down by its brethren under a tree. Then he says, Your father was here looking for you.
The ecstasy of a moment ago instantly drains away. Here? he says. He was here?
You just missed him, Victor says. He checks his watch. Twenty minutes or so ago.
You saw him? Dickie says. You were talking to him?
Oh I did, Victor says. Again the secretive smile, as if he is amused at Dickie’s plight.
Dickie looks forlornly at the Bunker, the two stark un-netted walls, the absurd thought coming to him that if they’d finished their camouflage his father might never have found them. What did he say?
Victor makes a choking noise, a repetitive hiss accompanied by shaking shoulders. It takes Dickie a moment to realize it’s laughter. He didn’t say much, Victor says. He hisses and chokes merrily for another moment, before he elaborates. He was stamping around the site making a speech, he says, and didn’t he plant his foot in that pot of sealant there – Victor points to the tub, now sitting innocently on the tree stump – then he went and took a header into the tent. Now Victor points to the tent, which is, Dickie notices, sagging precariously.
Oh dear, Dickie says. Is he all right?
His shoes aren’t all right, Victor says, bright red with laughter. They’re suede, he says.
Oh dear, Dickie says again. I’d better call him, he says.
Is something wrong, Dad? PJ says.
No, no. He makes a weak attempt at a smile, then walks a little way out of the clearing, where he weaves about the undergrowth, holding his phone out in front of him just as he had the dowsing rods, till at last he’s lit on a signal.
His father answers on the first ring. What the hell kind of bloody game do you think you’re playing at? he says. What do you think you’re doing, dragging me down to search you out in your bloody fort or whatever it is?
Dickie starts to apologize, but his father steamrolls over him. I have limited time here, Dickie, I have limited time and you have me running around the woods after you, because you can’t even do me the courtesy of returning my calls. Is it hiding out from me you are? By Jesus, I saw more of you when I was away in Portugal than I do now I’m home!
His anger crackles out of the phone to surround Dickie like a force field. Well, you have me now, Dickie says neutrally. What can I do for you?
What can you do for me? the voice jeers back. You can get in here and explain these bloody accounts!
At that word, a chill shoots through Dickie, like the sun has gone out overhead. He starts making vague, explanatory noises. Spreadsheet, upgrade, quarterlies, data transfer, he hears himself reciting these words, sees them spiral up into the forest air like mythical birds, nonsense creatures.
Again his father cuts him off. I don’t want a whole lot of bloody talk, Dickie. I want to know why these numbers don’t add up. Now if you have any interest in digging yourself out of the hole you’re in, you’ll be at my office at nine sharp tomorrow morning, and you’ll explain to me and Big Mike and the accountant why the books are light by fifty fucking grand!
The line goes dead as Dickie is saying he’ll be there. He is alone again in the green leaves and the hush.
Tell him you gave it to a friend whose child was dying of leukaemia. Tell him you invested in a top-secret new motoring technology.
On the way back to the clearing, he sees Victor’s rifle, laid casually against the bole of an oak tree. He stops, picks it up. Victor never leaves it lying around. He never leaves it loaded. But here it is, with two cartridges in the breech. He pauses, for a long time, considering what this might mean.
Dad!
The voice comes from the clearing, urgent, imperative. Dad, come quick!
He sets down the rifle, hurries in the direction of the voice. In the clearing, he finds the boy at the well. He is hauling the pump up and down. Water, silver water bright as morning, is coursing from the spout. Dad, look! he says. He turns to Dickie with an expression of pure joy, the kind he used have on Christmas morning, when he still believed in Santa Claus.
It works? As he says it Dickie realizes that he never believed it would. Water gushes in answer from the pump. Behind, Victor looks on with an air of quiet satisfaction. It works, he says.
He ought to go back to the house tonight and prepare himself for the morning. But PJ would have to come too, and after the meeting who knows when they’ll be out here together again. So instead he spends the evening sitting on the log with his son, drinking well water from plastic mugs as violet light floods the clearing.
Though they have achieved their goal, PJ isn’t feeling retrospective. He tells Dickie the pros and cons of the different kinds of water tank, how if Victor can get the generator going they’ll be able to heat polytunnels, farm vegetables, maybe enough to run a small surplus. As he talks, Dickie thinks over his strategy. Best maybe just to deny everything. Don’t know why it’s missing. Don’t remember that withdrawal. With all that was going on, things got so confused. Play dumb, go in there and act like a thick.
Will his father believe him? No. What happens next will depend on how angry he’s feeling.
He doesn’t think there’s any way he’ll sleep but he must because he starts awake in the darkness. Unzipping the tent, he sees the first winding-sheet-grey flickers of dawn amid the gloom. He’d better leave now if he wants to be on time. He scrambles out of the tent, tugs on his clothes, sets off through the forest. It isn’t far back to the house, but in the twilight he keeps losing his way, charging into briars and brambles. It should be getting lighter but somehow it’s not. He starts to panic a little at the absurdity of the situation, looks at his watch to see how late he will be. Something dark thumps against his face – like a soft fist, or a sack of feathers fallen from the sky. Searching the undergrowth his eye is caught by a glint – two glints, two bright globes of black. Then he ducks, just in time as a streak of grey launches itself at him. He tries to swipe it away, its claws rake his hands, he hears it squeal somewhere below him, then more vengeful squeals among the briars. Head lowered, he charges away, blundering through the thicket, shielding his face, unable to see where he’s going.
He comes out in a clearing. In the centre of it is a man. He is hunched over, arms wrapped round his knees, and – no. The darkness recedes a little more, and he sees it is not a man. It is the weird tree with the witch’s-hat gouge in its side. He looks down to see if the blackness is still seeping out of it. But the gash is covered with a kind of bandage, in fact the whole tree appears to be wrapped in cloth. Has someone been out here? He spins around, sees only trees. Then looks again into the clearing.
This time there really is a man. A guard.
Well, he says. Didn’t expect to be seeing me again, did you?
Is this some kind of…? Dickie looks pointlessly left and right. Tries to speak, nothing comes out.
You thought you covered your tracks, didn’t you, the guard says. I told you I would find you. We’ve been watching you for a long time.
I can explain, Dickie gasps, thinking, How long?
You took it all, didn’t you, the guard says.
I was going to give it back!
It’s too late for that. He draws a baton from his holster, shiny and black. He shakes his head. My God, he says. Your own brother.
What? Dickie says. And he realizes: it was all part of the trap, to draw him out, going back years, they all knew—
There is a hum coming from somewhere. Do you recognize this man? The guard reaching down, lifts with his baton the shroud over what Dickie had thought was the tree. No! Dickie cries. The hum loudens – billowing up in their millions flies swarm into his face – but through the cloud, through the grey pre-dawn he sees—
Jesus, Dickie.
He is back in his own bed. Imelda is seated at his side, looking down at him. Drink, she says.
He cranes his neck with difficulty, takes a sip from the glass she offers, crashes back onto the pillow. A moment later he jolts up again, retches violently, and again.
What happened? he whispers when he is able.
This happened, she says, pointing to the bucket that sits by the bed. Puking your ring. Do you not remember?
Effortfully, he casts his mind back, to be met by brief, horrific images that explode like squibs inside his head. He sees himself bolt from the tent and into the undergrowth just as a cascade of vomit spurts out of his mouth – on the far side of the clearing, Victor, naked, ashen-faced, kneeling on the nettles, emitting gruesome, slobbering noises, like a monster devouring a corpse – while water, bright silver water, courses from the pump –
PJ, he gasps.
He’s here, she says. He’s fine.
He sinks again onto his pillow, looks up at her looking down at him. A memory comes unbidden, of his mother sat just where she is now, surveying his measles, waiting for the thermometer. That makes him think of something else – he checks his watch, sits up rapidly, attempts to swing himself out of the bed. Imelda places a hand on his chest, pushes him back. Hold on a minute there, she says. Where do you think you’re going?
I’ve to go and see my father, he says.
No, no, she says.
I’ll be late, he says. I’ve a meeting.
That was two days ago, she says.
He looks at her incredulously. Two days?
Do you not remember? she says again.
He casts his mind back again but finds only the carnage at the campsite.
Behind her, morning light pours through the split in the curtains, like the silver water spouting so joyously from the pump. The thought makes his stomach roil, he lurches towards the bucket again. I think there was a bug, he says, lifting his head. A bug in the water.
She presses her lips together, looks away.
It’ll pass soon enough, he says, then quakes as another wave of cramp roils through him.
Imelda shakes her head. I can’t take any more of this, Dickie, she says. I just can’t.
It’s over now, he says, we’re finished. The woods, I mean. The well.
She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. As it falls again he takes it, strokes it with his thumb. He is wearing clean pyjamas that she must have put on him. It was just something to keep the boy entertained, he says softly. She looks down at his hand on hers. She seems on the point of saying something, but doesn’t say it.
What does he want to talk to you about? she says.
Who? he says.
Your father.
Oh, he says.
He called when you didn’t show up, she says. He was angry.
I’ll talk to him, he says.
You will?
Yes, he says. It’ll be all right.
I just want things to be back to normal, she says. God help me, I never thought I’d say that.
I’ll talk to him, he says again.
She gets up, asks if he wants his laptop. It’s fine, he tells her. She sighs, looks about the room. I always thought we should have got a TV for this room, she says forlornly. We still can, he says. The point is there for it. We could put it on the dresser.
That dresser’s a bloody eyesore, she says.
Maybe we could look at changing those wardrobes, he says. Then you could get rid of the dresser and mount the TV on the wall.
Mmm. She pauses a moment, in the centre of the room, and they both look at the space where the new wardrobes might be.
Then dipping her head she says, Is it about Ryszard?
Is what about Ryszard?
That Maurice wants to talk to you.
Gosh, he says. I don’t know. I wouldn’t think so.
You were saying his name while you were out.
Maurice?
Ryszard.
I was?
Yes.
Dickie thinks this over. Ryszard. Huh. God, I don’t know. I was having some pretty strange dreams.
Right, she says. Will I bring you a cup of tea?
Maybe in an hour or so, he says. Thanks.
She closes the door. He lies back on the bed, gazes up at the white ceiling.
Tell him you had to pay a gang protection. Tell him you got addicted to drugs.
Tell him – tell him …
Dickie shuts his eyes.