Chapter 3 of ‘Hoodwin’
Thanks once more for all the kind, encouraging comments but most of all taking the time to read my story! The most exciting thing of all for me is that you seem to be genuinely intrigued and interested by it. I plan to post all five of the complete chapters up steadily. Here’s chapter 3 for now and I hope it continues to interest you!
Chapter 3
The dust made me sneeze. Wilting herbs strung up in the kitchen, half-gone soap in grimy dishes and curtains hanging half-shut painted an image of a house in an unpleasant denial. I itched to start sorting. The loss of the previous day grated on me.
The steam from the shower curling against the bathroom ceiling became smoke in my mind’s eye, throbbing from a bonfire at the bottom of the orchard, a great, hot fire roaring up from battered wardrobes, linen boxes, bedsteads, Mum’s dressing table…
“Come on, Stef,” Lewis’s voice floated up from downstairs. “I’m hungry.”
I sighed, climbed out of the shower and made my way down the corridor to my room. Light poured in the hall windows, the day rising grey outside. I stepped past the shut door of Dad’s room.
Lewis’s door was open. His travel bag lay on the bed and he’d balanced his keys, wallet, passport and bits of paper awkwardly on the bedside table amidst a couple of dusty old matchbox cars and a run-down alarm clock. Through the window I could see more of the allotment that spread out behind the house. An ancient greenhouse, rotting and cracked, teetered at the bottom. The end of the large brewing house shouldered up against the edge of the view. There were trees beyond and then hills and then the inevitable sea, looking like a trick of the light.
I moved to return to my own room, wondering whether Lewis would finally throw out the things he left behind, when I caught sight of the bedside table again. Lewis’s ferry ticket lay in a pile of crumpled papers and under a packet of chewing gum. I frowned at it. My fingers tightened on the towel.
“Stefan Bridgeman,” I heard Lewis’s footsteps, “will you hurry up?” I straightened and left the room just as he reached the top of the stairs. “What were you doing?”
My skin was rippling with goosebumps and my hair dripped down my neck but I stood up straight, looked at him. “Nothing. Wanted to see the view.”
He frowned and I turned and headed back to my own room, past the stairs, past more shut doors. When I got there I dressed hurriedly.
Lewis was waiting in the hall, expensive overcoat buttoned up to the top and a cashmere scarf woven tightly around his neck. “Right, shall we go?”
“What time did you get into Oldport this morning?” I kept my voice flat.
“What?” He looked at me quickly then away. “About nine. I know, early. It was a smooth crossing.” He headed to the front door.
“It’s just your ferry ticket’s stamped with yesterday’s date.”
He stopped and turned back to me. His frown was heavy. “Have you been going through my things? Thought you’d have grown out of that by now.” I just looked at him, a patter of nervousness fluttering in my stomach. His frown melted and he shrugged. “Stef, the conductor let me use the same ticket. He stamped it with yesterday’s date so he wouldn’t get into trouble when they saw it on the return journey. Satisfied?”
I dropped my gaze, grabbed my jacket. Lewis laughed, a little louder than I thought necessary. I felt a hot blush creep up my neck as I climbed into my coat. We stepped out into the pale light and I breathed the breezy winter in deep. It was fresh and lively and stripped at my skin, making me feel pleasantly raw. Fingers already stinging, I turned the key in the front door behind us. My breath silvered out and vanished. I stepped out onto the gravel and looked about.
“Ah, there you are,” Lewis said, looking above my head. I followed his gaze and saw Grendel perched above the door. His yellow eyes peered, unblinking and the end of his tail twitched. “I wondered where you’d got to.” Lewis stretched up but Grendel skipped out of reach. “He looks good.”
“I fed him last night,” I said as I rubbed my hands together, “but he must have been looking after himself before I got here.”
Grendel turned away, trotted along the guttering before jumping off into a tree and disappearing around the other side of it.
Lewis walked past his car, crouched like a black beetle against the gravel, and set off down the drive, his feet crunching.
“So we’re not going to Oldport then?” I said, skipping to catch up.
He shook his head. “Long way to go for lunch when the Witch is just at the bottom of the hill.”
A hot flush rippled up from my belly. “Can’t we go somewhere else?”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Why?”
The breeze picked up, tugged at my damp hair and made me shiver. “The Witch…” I looked at him, raised my eyebrows. He just shrugged. I let out an exasperated noise. “Eve, Lewis.”
“So?”
I frowned. “You know so. It’s not unreasonable. I’d just rather not see her.”
He chuckled. “If all that is in another lifetime like you say it is, then it shouldn’t bother you.”
I held his gaze coolly then turned and looked ahead to the road. Ignore the memories, I told myself. Let them stiffen, wilt and crumble like plants caught in the snow.
We stepped onto the tarmac of the road. Lewis moved on at a clipped pace, the white light shining in his dark hair. I ran a hand through mine, tucked the straying ends behind my ears and wished once again I’d taken the time to shave. The village crept closer. The church spire poked up against the sky at the bottom of the road. The slate roof of the Water Witch piled up on the opposite side. The square spread out beyond the pub, almost as still and silent as it was last night. The daylight showed the patchwork stone of the shops and buildings, leaning and jumbled together. A few human shapes, small and mismatched as the buildings, ambled about in big coats amongst the grocer’s, butcher’s and the Post Office. The newsagent was the only one with a new sign that I could see.
The girl, Melanie, appeared from the grocer’s, scribbling something in her notebook. The grocer came to his door to watch her walk across the square and into the Post Office.
The sign of the Witch creaked above us in a slight, salty wind. It had been repainted at some point in the last decade but I still found it hard to look at. The artist had muted his pallet, all greys and blues. The Water Witch sat on a rock, one corner of her grey mouth smiling. The yawning waters of Ercall Pool were daubed in blacks and blues behind her. The look on the witch’s (or the mermaid, depending on which legend you preferred) face was hungry, narrow and the water behind her was rippled and angry-looking.
Lewis led the way in, ducking under the low lintel. I felt my muscles and joints loosen as we were wrapped in a close, thick warmth. I blinked in the gloom, trying to figure out what I was actually looking at. The stained red carpet had been replaced by a wooden floor, some years ago by the look of the scratches of stools and feet in the varnish. What little of the walls was visible from in between crowds of framed pictures was now a dark blue. All the exposed timbers in the ceiling had been done over in black and the bar was polished pine. A large fire burned in the same big grate but the mantle was a light wood and was crowded with yet more pictures.
There was a single human shape propped against the bar. He looked back over his shoulder at us, a slow, creaking movement like an old oak in the wind. I could feel his gaze rake up and down me before he went back to his glass, turning his hunched shoulders and elbowing himself further onto the bar. There was something in his shape and movements that I recognised but could put no name to. An aging ghost from another life.
There were clanks and chatter from the kitchen and the smells of cooking hung heavy in the air but no one was serving. No Evelyn. I let go a breath I didn’t realise I’d been holding and the smell of food made me realise how hungry I was. Lewis might have brought me down here to try and remind me of some of the things I had run away from, but I stood up straight and smiled inwardly, neatly packing thoughts of Evelyn away and wandered up to the chalkboard menu, stomach grumbling. It was only after I’d decided on the steak sandwich that I realised Lewis hadn’t moved. He was staring at the walls and had gone very pale. I frowned, followed his gaze.
Every single one of the pictures was Ercall Pool, some with and some without the figure of the witch. Different sizes, shapes, styles from different times, different artists. Some looked more like the real thing than others, but all were dark, black, gaping mouths. I swallowed, feeling the blood drain from my own face.
Lewis shook himself and came to my side, eyes still wide and twitching, though he pretended to look at the menu. “What are you going to have then?” His voice had an edge he tried to hide.
“Lewis,” I kept my voice low. The man at the bar continued sitting still, part of the woodwork. “Don’t pretend.”
“I know.” He shrugged, stiffer than before. “They obviously had a refurbish for the tourists; revisited the history and all that.”
“Yes, but…the new pictures. Don’t you think it’s a bit tasteless? After what happened to Theo’s dad?”
Lewis hushed me, whiter than ever. “Quiet, Stef. People drown all over the place all the time. Doesn’t stop people owning pictures of rivers and ponds and whatever. Besides, that was over a decade ago, like you said. Now, come on, choose. I’m hungry and I want to get back. This heat’s making me dizzy.”
“I wonder what Theo would think,” I said, glancing round, aware of a coldness under my stomach.
“Come on, will you.”
We stood at the bar in silence, staring straight ahead. I was still hungry and the smell that drifted over from the lone man’s glass made me ache for an ale but I felt the walls watching me and wanted to get back out into the light. I tried to concentrate on the idea of food and the afternoon’s work but my mind wasn’t listening.
In yet another lifetime we stalked the thin woods around Ercall Pool, daring each other closer to the water. Even in the summer the peaty soil made the water still and opaque as treacle. The reflection of David Braithwaite’s cottage was always perfectly copied in the waters, down to the smoke pulsing from the chimney.
Then they weren’t games any more. Adults began gathering at the pool’s edges with dry sticks and old books. I went to a Branch Burning with Lewis and the water of Ercall danced in shapes of reflected fire. Sinclare House watched from on top of the hill but Theo never came down for the Burnings.
Theo Warren. Wild hair, an echoing laugh. The widest smile I knew. Invincible. I rubbed my eyes against the image of him stooped and drawn at his father’s funeral. At the wake, Eve stood as far away from me as she could.
I shook my head, staring into the whorls of the bar surface. Pine now, not battered redwood. Redwood was from another time. A dead time. I shook my head and straightened myself, concentrated on my rumbling stomach.
The door into the kitchen opened and smells, sounds and a person dressed in black came out, talking over her shoulder and wiping long hands on a tea towel.
“Hello there, how can I help you?” She threw the towel over her shoulder and smiled. She was thinner. Her cheekbones were almost violent angles in her face. Her hair was chopped short and symmetrical, framing her face and making it look like a mask.
“Hello, Evelyn.” It was Lewis who said that, not me. My throat was very dry. Lewis beamed at her and there was a different edge to it, an edge I felt but couldn’t bring to the surface.
Evelyn blinked. I remembered how she used to line her eyes thickly in black. They stared naked from her face now, looking even paler for the lack of paint. She started to speak, shaking her head then stared at him, recognition washing over her face. “Holy Christ. Lewis?”
“In the flesh.”
“My God,” she swore again looking at me. “And Stef.”
The cold that had been lying under my belly was now swamped with a heat that flooded up my body into my face. I pushed at it, pushed it all down. “Hello, Eve,” I managed. “Long time.”
She nodded very slightly. I’d never been able to read her eyes terribly well and the years had hardened their surface further. The tiniest of smiles tugged at the corners of her mouth and I wondered what particular memories were being pulled to the front of her mind. “What brings you here, then?” She asked it quietly but there seemed to be a whole weight of volume riding in it. Or maybe not. I couldn’t tell if it was my mind putting it there.
For once in his life, Lewis was quiet. I looked to him but he just smiled again, rather nastily and gestured for me to carry on. I coughed. “Just for lunch. We’re sorting Dad’s house.”
She nodded again, looking away. “Of course. I’m…yes. What would you like?”
Lewis ordered our food and two pints of Dad’s ale. She pulled our pints in silence and disappeared out the back without looking up.
We chose a table against the very furthest wall. I stared into the darkness of my drink, willing the food to hurry so I could get back out and away. I refused to leave now, as much as I wanted to, because I would not let Lewis be proved right. As soon as I was back outside the wind and the air would scrub away the heat of anxiety in me and I could re-bury things like Ercall Pool, Branch Burnings and Eve.
A couple more people drifted in, bringing in the fresh of outside. Evelyn appearing again to serve and I stared into the darkness of my drink. It smelt like the cellar and the brewing house. I took a sip, willing it to help. It tasted of summers and winters with wind and grass. It tasted like ten years ago. It was a lonely taste, of stinking barrels in the darkened outbuildings and of the moss from the salty standing stones and the wide, naked air of another time.
“So you haven’t seen Theo, then?”
Lewis’s question cut in through my musings as we trudged back up the hill, bellies full and my nerves and mind pleasantly fogged with ale. The fresh air was already beginning to calm me. My mind was wandering in more pleasant directions so Lewis had to repeat the question.
“Theo? You haven’t seen him? I thought that would be one of the first things you did.”
“Talk sense, Lewis. I haven’t seen Theo since Marcus’s funeral. He lives on the mainland somewhere.”
“Not any more. He moved back when he graduated university.”
“He did?” I tried to keep my voice neutral.
“Didn’t he tell you?”
I shook my head.
“Dad told me. Sinclaire House passed to him when he turned twenty-one. I saw him about a couple of times when I visited.”
I found that I’d stopped walking. “Theo’s here?” I saw Lewis nod out the corner of my eye but I was staring at the road.
“I invited him to Dad’s funeral,” he said, “but he didn’t reply.”
Chapter 2 of ‘Hoodwin’
I want to thank everyone for the time they’ve taken to read Chapter 1 and thank them even more for all the kind and encouraging comments. There is still obviously alot of work to be done (like writing the rest of the book) but have interest expressed at this early stage is most encouraging. After all, I’m writing it to be read and if people are wanting to read more that can only be a good thing!
In that vein, here is Chapter 2.
Chapter 2
Lewis came bowling in through the back door a little before ten the next morning. He brought a wash of November air with him that raised the hairs on my neck.
“You’re up, then.”
“Barely.” I blinked at him through sleep-crunched eyes. He was pink-cheeked, black hair a stylish muss from the wind and the smell of winter clung to his long, thick overcoat. “You’re early,” I said stupidly. “I thought the ferry didn’t dock until ten?”
He shrugged. “It made good time today. Bloody hell, coming back here is always so strange. Christ.” He shook his head, staring at nothing. “What a rough few months. Still we’re here now, the beginning of the end. Has that kettle just boiled? Good God, it’s frigid out there. Forget how bloody cold it gets around here.”
I ducked out of his way and he went about mixing himself a drink and I stood watching him, rubbing one eye with the heel of my hand.
“No milk? Black will do for now. So, this is all a bit strange isn’t it?” He turned around, dark eyes scanning the kitchen. Agreeing quietly, I took another gulp of my coffee, hoping it would help anchor my mind. “Strange,” Lewis repeated, leaning back and nodding around the room. “You keep imagining Dad’s going to walk in any second, don’t you?”
I winced, wrapped my fingers tighter around the mug and stared into the coffee.
“So…” He shrugged himself out of the black coat and clapped his hands together, rubbing them. “No reason not to start right away. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem getting rid of all this. Most of it’s not worth keeping. I might take some of the pictures and maybe the piano?”
I stared at him as he bustled around the kitchen, eyes lively, running fingers along the spines of cookery books and fingering pens in a jar on the windowsill. “Well, yes. If you want it.”
He flashed his straight, white grin at me. “Well you were never that keen on the piano, Stef. And I always loved the way that one sounded. I can get it shipped to the mainland somehow, I’m sure. As for the rest of the furniture…auction and bonfire will just about do it.”
I frowned at him. “Well – ”
“We have to be realistic, Stef. I can try and make you money on some of it but most is not the sort that’ll sell. It’s all too bloody old and battered. But anyway, the price we’ll get for whatever furniture’s still in one piece will be pence beside the amount you’ll get for the house itself.”
“I want some of it,” I said, rubbing my eyes, willing myself to wake up. “But the house, Lewis – ”
“Well, of course, some,” he carried on, rolling his eyes. “But we mustn’t get too sentimental. Most of this would never fit in your bedsit, anyway. Don’t worry.” He smiled at the look on my face. “I’ll help you. It’ll be easy, I promise. Like pulling off a plaster: you just need to get it done. Dad would have wanted it that way. Hey up – ”
An echoing banging of the iron doorknocker rattled down the hall.
“Well, go on,” Lewis urged, making a shooing motion. “It’s your house. For now, anyway.” He laughed and started pulling open cupboards.
“Lewis – ”
But the banging came again and Lewis was shoulders-deep in the pan cupboard, clanking about. The caller was knocking a third time by the time I got to the door. The handful of key turned in the lock stiffly. The door swung open with a groan I sympathised with and winter breathed in on me. “Yes?” My teeth were chattering and my eyes fought to focus in the sudden light.
“Hello.” The voice was bright and cheerful. “I’m sorry if this is a bad time…”
I felt myself blushing and folded my arms over my shabby pullover and felt the cold seep through my pyjamas trousers from my feet upwards.
“My name’s Melanie.” The girl held out a hand and I took it briefly. She looked like a sparrow, shining eyes, shining smile, shining hair. I curled my toes inside my patched slippers and pulled my hair out of my face with twitchy fingers. “I’m just doing some research into the island,” she continued, “the history, folklore and traditions. Could ask you some questions?”
“I’m sorry,” I babbled. “I’m not really the right person to talk to. I haven’t lived here for ten years.”
“Oh, ok,” she chirped. “But you have lived here at some point?”
“Well, yes, until I was sixteen. But, really, you’re best off trying in the village if you want to know anything like that.”
“Hoodwin?”
“That’s right. Not much further down the road.” I looked back over my shoulder. I could hear Lewis banging about in the kitchen.
“I’m on my way there. I saw your house from the road. It’s the first house for miles, coming from Oldport. Thought I’d try me luck.” Her smile was stitched back into place. “Thank you for your time, I’ll try in the village. Can I just ask your name?”
I eyed her and she smiled wider, pen poised. She wore gloves and jeans and fairly battered-looking trainers. There was a tiny logo of a mainland university stamped onto the corner of her notebook. “Stefan,” I said. “Stefan Bridgeman.”
She gave a clipped nod, made a note in her book. “Bridgeman? That’s an old name on Sinclare, isn’t it?”
I pushed at the flesh of my forehead with my fingertips. “I think so, I don’t know. I’m really not the one to talk to. Sorry…”
“If you do think of anything that might be interesting, no matter what it is…” She fished out a small card from her pocket and handed it to me. I nodded, already starting to shut the door. “Thank you.” And the door was shut. I secured it with numb fingers and scuttled back through to the kitchen. Lewis was filling bin bags. Grendel was sat on the bookshelf, calm and coiled as a shadow, watching him. There were bits and pieces of mismatched crockery gathering on one sideboard and he was sweeping crumbs out of a now empty cupboard onto the floor. “Who was that then?”
I pushed a bin bag out of my way. “Someone doing research.”
“What?” His hands worked quickly, shutting that cupboard, opening the next.
I waved my hand. “Sinclare history or something. Look, Lewis…”
“Jesus…” He paused, looking over my shoulder down the corridor. “Hope you warned him off.”
“It was a her.”
“Well, her, then.” He turned back to the cupboard, pulling out jars. “If she’s asking about Sinclare traditions she’ll have that David Braithwaite character roping her into the Branch Burning and all that.
“I thought you liked all that? You researched it enough when we were kids.”
“Which is exactly why I know it’s best to stay the hell away from it all. Look, Stef, stop gabbing and grab a bin bag. There’s tonnes to be done before the place is fit to sell and I’m only here a week.”
I shook my head frustrated. “Lewis, wait one second. About that whole selling-the-house business…”
“I’ve done a bit of research over the last few weeks.” He had his head back in a cupboard. “It’s pretty impressive. Seems mainlanders have taken to idealising island life. They’ll learn soon enough but long after we’ve got the cheque and left them to it.”
“Lewis, stop.” He stopped and frowned around the cupboard door at me. “Lewis…” I snapped his name, held up my hands, trying to figure out where to start. “Lewis,” calmer, “why do you think I asked you here?”
“Well…to help you sort out the house, like you said.”
“Yes, but…” I felt myself getting hot in the face. “When I said sort out, I meant just…you know…tidy up, make space. For me.”
“For you?” He put down an ancient tin of treacle, so old there was rusting around the rim.
“Yes, for me. For me to live. Here.”
He was looking at me, face crumpled, scratching his temple. “Let me get this straight,” he said, expression darkening. “You’re moving back?”
I nodded, slowly. I could see the thoughts flying around behind his eyes. “It was all a long time ago, Lewis.”
“Dad’s death isn’t,” he snapped. “He died here, Stef. Right here. In this room.”
“Lewis.” I frowned at him.
“It’s true. Completely alone, he was, too. The Witch collected his ale from him once a quarter and that was virtually all the company he had. A week, the doctors said. Seven days he’d been lying here, alone and forgotten. This damn place…”
“It wasn’t the village’s fault, Lewis,” I rubbed my eyes. “Dad had shut himself off from everyone by the end. Hell, he barely even spoke to either of us.”
He leant back against the counter, crossed his arms and stared at me. “It was this damn village that he shut himself off from, Stef. We were lucky enough to get out when we did, make lives somewhere else. Dad couldn’t, he’d been here too long, knew no different.”
“You don’t need to tell me what it was like.” My voice was low. “That last year here convinced me I wanted to be anywhere but here. But we were so young, Lewis. We never really gave it a chance.”
“Dad gave it too many chances, if you ask me.” He continued pointedly shoving food into the bin bag. “Didn’t do him any good in the end.”
“Lewis, that wasn’t Hoodwin that did that to him. That was living without Mum. You’d left by that point, you didn’t see. Those last few years…he just…couldn’t cope. He didn’t even want me around by the end.”
He was looking at me. Dark eyes, so certain. Everything about him was certain, his expensive clothes, his neat haircut. He’d gone to college on the mainland, like most young people from Sinclaire, but had done well, better than most. Like me, he had the passion to not return. He got his degree, job, promotion. His own house, fiancée, his own life. Even Dad had seen what he’d achieved and was proud of it. He was less enthusiastic about the root I took a few years later, but it got me away and that’s all I’d cared about. At least, it was then.
“Lewis, when you come back to Sinclare, can you honestly tell me that it doesn’t…do something to you? Forget the people, forget the Branch Burnings and May and David Braithwaite and all that. Just the place.”
His face softened slightly. “You know I can’t say no. And you’re like Mum with the art and everything. It must mean something more, this weird wildness it has. But it’s not enough to make me forget. Jesus, Stef, I still have nightmares about the things David used to tell me. Theo’s dad died here…” He went pale. “And, well…now our dad.”
I swallowed, glanced quickly around the chilly, dusty kitchen. But then I looked out the window and saw the grass, trees and the hills, all under the skin of glassy frost and not a single person or another house in sight. “I don’t care. There’s a life for me to live here.”
Lewis sighed and shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense. The further away we are from this place, the better. It’s messed up. People say things, do things. We never fit in with the mechanics of this place.”
“I don’t have to,” I poured myself another coffee with my back to him and all the time felt my mind making itself up. “It’s the land and the sea that’s me, not the people.”
“You’ll end up like Dad.”
I glared at him. That was a low shot, even for him. “Why are you so bothered anyway, Lewis? It’s not like you have to live here with me.”
“I’m just worried about you.” He patted my arm and almost managed to look sincere. “After all that happened to you the year you left school. And the practicalities of it all. How are you going to earn a living?”
“Pictures can be sent through the post, you know.” I now picked up a bin bag and started sorting through what junk was left. “And online, now Angela’s got her website running. I can visit clients if I need to, but this is where I want to be.”
I looked over at him chewing his thumbnail and staring at the floor. “I still think you’re making a big mistake.” He said it slowly and didn’t look at me as he did.
“Well,” I threw my hands up in exasperation. “If I change my mind I’ll give you a ring and you can gloat, ok?”
He stared at the floor, still chewing. His eyes were wide and strange. “Lets go out for an early lunch,” he said, one half of his mouth smiling. “We’ll get some good food down us before we start sorting the house.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re not going to change my mind, Lewis.”
“I may not try to.”
