And
Not a False Turned True.
The wind stirred leaves that made susurrations across the lake: ‘Look,
Lord, what fools these mortals be.’
Obscured by clouds, the sun had threatened, but remained buttoned up
behind grey drapes. The dense forest that curtained the lake added to the surly
demeanour of this late June day. And, despite its advanced hours, the night had
never really left the stage; the moon’s pale saucer glittering above the trees’
proscenium arches.
Cascade Way.
A track that stair-cased down the valley to the lake. It was hard on old
knees if took at a gallop, but otherwise a harmless descent and, in any case, some
thoughtful landscaper had carved, like steppes, a pathway the wound to and fro
at a gentle incline for bicycles to tackle or pedestrians out for a jog or
gentle stroll. It was not parallel or circuitous, but it was alternative.
Cascade Way.
Offering a shortcut; a substitute to the clanking land train that toured
the park every 30 minutes, carrying those who fancied cycling or walking even
less; calling at makeshift huts with ideas above their stations; names like
‘Pine Halt’ and ‘Shearwater’.
Cascade Way.
Above, two figures were clambering down from the top. From a distance,
one was wearing a grey curly haired moptop, proceeding with a very slight
grumbling stumble on some of the sharper steps; if he caught them the wrong way
he made an audible grunt.
The other, much more nimble, was whooping his way throughout. Sometimes
two to three steps at a leap, sometimes gliding along an arc of the pathway at
speed, sometimes neither, just a jump from boulder to boulder alongside the dry
streambed.
Always he is looking over his shoulder to see how far ahead he was,
always pausing to allow the old fellow to catch him until, with a scream, he
was off again like a hare, sending the rabbits all before him. “Come on,
Grandad!”
Below, oblivious to these rambling companions, two cyclists were
negotiating the alternative, tacking along the metalled path until the tight
bend, and then tacking back; forwards and backwards like threading needles in a
sampler, unmindful of whether they were leaving any patterns of significance.
Nearly everyone leaves footprints, however, and they were being watched.
Not just by the bolting, fragile deer, those pairs of wood pigeons
possessed of clattering tin pans for wings as they took flight, or the rabbits,
scuttling for any hidden holes that buried them from sight – no - something
else, which appeared to almost unmold itself from foliage.
The first cyclist was some way ahead of her partner; cowled in a
wind-cheater, her chest blazoned with some cheap product placement beloved of
outdoor thespians. Navigating the downwards incline was gentle; she had
selected an appropriate gear and glided effortlessly towards the next
switchback which was sharp angled, but could be easily taken.
The second was having it none too easy.
It was not raining, but the weather made it feel like it could be -
there was moisture which lent his dark, curly mop the appearance of a sponge,
as well as those eyebrows scowled into one. He was youthful. Was that his
mother ahead? Surely not, maybe ten years between them, and ten metres between
the bikes and ten links of the chain had fallen from his.
Slippery paths and slippery gears.
Nearly everyone slips streams and gears at some point. Worlds wheel at
different speeds. Larger cogs drive the smaller ones; they thread and thread and
they were being watched.
Instead of taking the hairpin, the woman braked, dismounted and with a
fluid kick, engaged the supporting strut of her bicycle. She then marched back
up the path. Exasperation scripted all over the lines of her face, she gazed at
her companion – husband, lover, brother, son?
For his part, he glowered. Easy enough, given that his brow had a
permanent mark from overused forehead muscles. “The chain’s come off. Again.
It’s useless. I’ve hired a duff bike.”
“No, you haven’t. There’s nothing wrong with the bike. It’s you. You’re
not using the gears properly. Because of that, the chain comes off.” She looked
as though she’d made this explanation many times; her voice fizzed and had a
twist of bitter lemon to it.
He gazed up at her larger frame; the coat she was wearing didn’t
disguise hips that were running to fat and an oversized chest. The saddle had
bit into her cheeks and left a cleft there; she was flushed and panting.
The boy seemed pleased to notice it, but any pleasure was short lived.
“You’re a useless piece of shit,” snapped the woman, “and all you’ve done, this
holiday, is moan and whine. I don’t know why we bothered to book it.”
“Fuck you, and fuck the bike,” snapped the boy. And then he did an
extraordinary thing. He hurled the bike to the ground and stalked back up the
track the way they had come. Without looking back, not once.
And the woman said nothing in reply. Left with two bikes, ten metres
apart, she looked after his retreating back, then towards where her own machine
was propped up.
Because, well, they were still being watched.
Now, the tracks were bounded on either side by a wooden fence, hewn into
shape from the plentiful pine trees. And the watcher was sitting on top of part
of this fence gyrating her legs and grinning puckishly.
She swung her legs in such a way that they made slight circles, one,
then the other and neither foot ever caught itself. It was quite pretty, the
way she moved, and it was this that caught his eye as he sloughed up the path.
So he stopped. In truth, he hadn’t been marching quite as fast as he
could, unwilling perhaps, to go as far as he could in this current direction.
The gravity still clutching him close, he supposed. Like a piece of elastic
that might either snap or pull itself back into the shape it had sprung from.
Similarly, the girl stopped her swinging and looked at him from her
vantage point. “All right?”
He’d noticed she was pretty, but the age was difficult to finger; those
eyes…drawn by a clumsy child with black wax crayons and dressed in some sort of
forest green tunic and slacks. Like Robin Hood.
Well, how should he reply? He was still somewhat in a temper, nursing
his wrath, not willing to let go of it. Like a sulky boy, sitting on terrace
steps, having watched his team defeated.
“You OK?”
Still, no matter how old you are physically, you remain trapped by the
emotional pinch points of the past – and his? Well, difficult to say, but he
wasn’t that old, anyway. “What’s it to you?”
Then regretted it. He might have said many things, and he chose to say
that. He was, at any rate, old enough to recognise a mistake. Some aren’t. He
glanced back down the path at the two bikes and his distant figure torn between
her two actions, in a similar fix to his.
Anyway, the girl laughed, lighter to the touch. “Nothing, I suppose,”
she admitted, “I saw what happened down there. It made me laugh. Probably, I
shouldn’t.”
“Shouldn’t what?”
“Laugh.”
“Well, I’m not very good on bikes, am I?”
“I don’t know.” The girl jumped down. “What’s your name?”
“Where d’you get that costume? You look like Robin Hood.”
“It’s waterproof. They sell them up the plaza by the swimming pool. Next
to the gift shop. For rainy days. Is that where you’re headed?”
“Raffan. What’s yours?”
“Good name, like that.” She grinned, and those eyes, they glittered.
“Robin.” But, she put her finger to his lips, with quite an assertion, so that
it pressed, “Not Robin Hood.” She smirked. “Quite a decision,” her voice
continued, “you should go back.”
Raffan said nothing for two or three seconds, having that finger pressed
to his lips, feeling like he should suck, bite, something. In the end, he
pushed it away but not too firmly – somewhere in between gentle and resolute.
Just enough to suggest he might, might be enjoying this flirtation, and that
there was a sort of danger. But just what sort? “Go back where?”
Robin pointed down the track. “Two roads diverged in yellow woods,” she
announced.
“Robert Frost.”
“Yeah.”
“I love Robert Frost.”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Well, she doesn’t.”
“Ah. I see your problem.”
“She likes to travel,” confessed Raffan, “when we’re older, we’re to get
a camper van and drive around and stuff.”
“How much older?”
“I’m not really sure.”
Robin shrugged. “Fancy a drink, then?”
“Why?”
She glittered. “You kind of caught my eye. You know.”
“Where?”
“We can walk across the lake to the sports complex. They’ll be doing
lunch.”
“Across the lake?”
“Sure.”
“What about her?” Raffan looked down the hill. She seemed a little
further away than previously, but it was probably a trick of the darkness
descending and dribbling into the foliage. The mizzle was making him shiver and
moisture was dripping from his nose again.
“Oh, she’ll be there when we get back, I’m quite sure.”
“Really? How can you know?”
“Wheels within wheels.”
“Bicycle wheels?”
“Sure.”
“It’s not possible. To walk across the lake.”
“It is in winter,” Robin chuckled, glittering once again.
“Yeah, well it’s not winter, is it?”
“Are you sure?”
The bar which Robin had proposed was one of those which had television
showing sport.
Tables were arranged like a school canteen, rather than a restaurant, no
concessions made to aesthetics, just pack them in and serve chicken in a
basket. One end of the hall was dominated by a large blackboard and they’d used
coloured chalk to slap up the food on offer – today’s special was chicken
supreme and boiled rice, but soup of the day was also available as well as
anything that came with chips.
The place smelt of beer, cigarettes, mashed potato, drying people, wet
dogs.
It was noisy, too. There were areas cordoned off for cheap pleasures,
such as shooting pool and machines that shoved copper coins to and fro. On the
whole, it was a cheap and cheerful din, families talking animatedly, fathers
smoking Capstan or Player’s Number 6, supping cheap lager or bitter.
Robin came back from the bar with beer and a glass of lemonade with lime
cordial, passing this to Raffan. She threw a handful of loose change on the
table, took a heavy tug at her glass, sat down and lit a cigarette that she’d
fished from her pocket.
Taking a couple of drags, Raffan noticed she was carelessly flicking ash
on the floor and he shoved the ashtray across.
“Want one?” she asked, pushing open the packet and offering.
“No, I don’t smoke. Never tried it.”
“Bloody hell. It’s time you started, Raffan. How’s your lemonade?”
“Not bad.”
With her right hand, Robin took up a soggy beer mat with a wry grin and
mimed writing upon it with the left. “Don’t smoke, don’t drink, what do you
do?”
“It’s haram. Drinking.” Raffan felt like he should launch into a long
explanation, then shrugged and stopped himself. It was his story, and he’d repeated
it many times since decamping for the UK to study. And you could never
tell what sort of reaction it would elicit. Sometimes hostility, sometimes
racism and sometimes that good natured exhortation to try, because one won’t
hurt, will it?
So he shrugged, sipped the lemonade, looked at Robin, let his mind
wander.
Outside the rain was properly streaming down now. Queues were forming at
the doors, queues of wet campers, steaming slightly as they pushed their way
under cover.
A line formed at the three partitioned telephone kiosks, coppers being
pushed in slots and he could hear snatches: “Yeah, hacking down... cats and
dogs…holed up in the bar till it stops…”
That sort of thing. And a large hairy geezer now barged to their table.
“’Scuse me mate. Got any spare change? Need to phone the lodge, to tell the
missus where I am.”
“Try the bar,” suggested Robin, “I bet they’ve got plenty of loose
change.”
“There’s a queue. You’ve got some there.” The man pointed at the table,
for a minute looking as though he might snatch it.
“Go queue like everyone else.”
“I ain’t got time to wait at the bar. Who are you, anyway? Robin Hood?”
“No. I never give to the poor,” grinned Robin. Taking the coins
deliberately, she stood up, walked across to a charity box, one of those that
was a statue of a blind boy with a dog. He stood miserably in the corner as she
put coppers into his slot, one at a time, relishing the sound of metal on empty
plaster, never taking her gaze off the man, sticking him with her steely knife.
“Oh, very amusing, very funny. What you laughing at, Abdul?” the man
growled, in the low level register of a pit-bull.
Raffan was grinning like a ruffian; could scarcely contain his applause,
but then bristled. Before he could respond, however, Robin was back.
“Like I said,” she repeated, “you’ll find plenty of chances to change at
the bar.”
The man jabbed twice with a forefinger. Once at Robin, then at Raffan.
“I’ll be back.” He stalked off, firstly in the direction of the bar, then he
stopped, reversed, and lumbered towards a table where two other men had
recently sat down. Raffan watched him lean over them, saw his lips move and his
arms gesture back towards their table.
Robin swallowed what was left of her beer. “Let’s go.”
Still smarting from the man’s slur, Raffan sat where he was. “Why?”
She pulled him up with surprising strength, given her diminutive frame.
“Do you want it to be that kind of story? Let’s go.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a choice. Choose.”
“I don’t understand.” Raffan swayed between staying and facing it or
beating a retreat. Three men were now threading their way back towards them.
None of them looked friendly. “We did nothing wrong. That man…”
“I’ll explain outside. They’re bringing down the curtain. Let’s beat it.”
The rain had eased a bit, but the light winds whipped the dregs into a
clinging froth. Raffan followed Robin’s green smock as it darted ahead of him,
past the archery centre, then the high wire forest walk until finally they were
adjacent to the lake. A makeshift jetty jutted into the water, alongside which
were tied small pleasure craft – rowing boats, catamaran hulled vehicles that
were paddled by pushing feet on pedals, long necked fake plastercast swans.
“I doubt we’ll be followed here,” grinned Robin, unhitching a swan,
leaping aboard and beckoning Raffan.
He looked unsure. “Don’t we have to pay?”
Ignoring him, Robin pulled him aboard and pushed off with her foot. Once
seated, some gentle paddling with feet was all it took to get the swan
moving. She indicated the island at the centre of the lake, but Raffan was
unused to the way the pedals operated and for a couple of minutes, the swan
wheeled in an anti-clockwise motion.
“She was right,” grunted Robin, but showing him the way. And soon the
swan was making sedate progress. Robin grinned, put her arm around him. “It’s
all about rhythms,” she winked.
Unable to contain himself, Raffan began to laugh.
“What’s the joke?”
“He called it a lodge,” snorted Raffan, “a lodge. Those run down, wooden
huts we’re given to stay in. What next?”
“There’ll be a lot of that coming. Soon your chicken in a basket will be
‘seasoned with our chef’s secret herbs and spices and smothered in lashings of
rich gravy’.
“What bollocks.”
“Most people swallow it anyway.”
By now, they’d reached the small island. Robin leapt ashore, hitched the
swan loosely to an overhanging tree and beckoned.
Raffan was not so lucky, misjudged the distance and found himself knee
deep in extremely cold, muddy water. Having sensitive skin, he yowled in shock,
floundered some more and fell forward. “Oh shit, I didn’t see that coming,”
“Full fathom five, your future lies,” tittered Robin, helping him across
the threshold, where he sat bedraggled on the bank and dripping. “Those blokes
will not be following us here. Nice and private, this is.”
“Inshallah.”
“Never. They’re lazy. Most people are, I find, unless they’re in a fiction
and pushed into agency. It’s not real life. In real life, they’ve given up, had
beer and are making threats about revenge…but it’ll all be forgotten by tea
time.”
“You love stories, don’t you?”
“Of course, I’m a writer.” She looked him up and down with either an
impatient or salacious gaze. “Come on, I’ve got plans for you.”
“Where are we going now?” whined Raffan, pulling himself up, towering
over her.
“To the interior. The heart of darkness.”
He raised a sceptical eyebrow, for, after all, The island was about the
size and shape of a small back garden. It was scarcely Coral Island, he
thought.
Scoffing, Raffan gave vent. “It’s scarcely Coral Island, is it?” he
sneered, giving voice to his inner monologue.
“A girl could quickly go off you,” replied Robin, leading the way. “Keep
a look out for cannibals, Ralph.”
As he wondered if he was following one, they hugged the shoreline,
negotiating thick brambles and those rhododendrons that seem to grow
everywhere; each thick leaf wet with rain and capable of meting out a firm slap
to the face if treated without respect.
After ten minutes of punishment, Raffan was unsurprised to find that
they were back at the swan.
“Damn,” snapped Robin, “we must’ve missed the path.”
“Missed the path?” Raffan retorted, a voice dripping in water and
sarcasm across the foliage, “maybe it’s this thick mist.”
However, Robin was irrepressible and ignored the cheap joke. She parted
reeds like curtains, and from the other side, her eyes must have looked bright,
coal coloured diamonds. “Yes, here. Follow me and watch your step.”
“Treacherous, is it? We’ll be needed machetes and something to defend
ourselves?”
“It’s not that sort of story either.”
Observed from the distance of the shore side jetty, the island was
nothing more than a green mound; doubtful if any holidaymaker thought it worthy
of a visit. From a distance, the shoreline was just a clump of overgrown
greenery and you couldn’t really call the terrain much of a hill. It was a
marker buoy for pleasure craft, rowing boats, canoes to circle, before setting
back for home.
All the more surprising, then, that the path Robin and Raffan were
following descended rather than rose. As it did so, the gorse, rhododendron and
brambles pressed in upon the two figures, become dense in pact as though
determined to prevent passage. ‘Go back,’ shrieked the call of wild birds, ‘go
back, go back, go back.’
“Stop,” complained Raffan. “I need a breather. This is ridiculous…all this.”
And he flapped his arms.
“Yes, it is odd, isn’t it? Not what you were expecting?”
“Certainly not what I was hoping for.”
“You’re a married man,” grinned Robin. “What would you take me for?”
“How do you know that? What do you know? Wait…”
But Robin was darting ahead and deeper, forever leading Raffan onwards,
navigating an impossible trek into the heart. “We must be below lake level
now,” she called back, “Ah yes, here we are. We’ve arrived.” And she motioned
him forward, tearing down some overgrown green fronded ferns.
Raffan looked. His eyes widened. “I don’t believe it. A tunnel as well?
What is all this? What have you got me into?”
Hands on her hips, lips tilted towards him in a charm of seduction,
Robin smiled darkly. “Well. Would you believe a midsummer’s daydream?” she
asked, and the allure, the temptation, the potion was just too, too strong.
Raffan entered her tunnel.
Later, holding her in his arms beneath the forest green tunic that was
serving them as a cover and listening to her quiet sleeping noises, Raffan was
leaning back in the darkness, thinking, exploring the boundaries of sleep and
wakefulness, drifting in and out of both like the swelling tide, noting the way
time jumped forwards, backwards, became fluid.
Dreams so vivid, he could grasp them with his hands and feel them slip
between his fingers, places where he could conjure thought into solidity until,
like ice, they melted.
In truth, the walk through the tunnel was short, and it opened out into
a dark, spherical cave where the only exit was the one he had just willingly
entered. Raffan, although he could not express the idea in words, felt agency.
He knew he could summon the lion and it would lie with the lamb.
Robin was in his dreams and she spoke. “I can feel your mind in mine.”
“All of this. It’s impossible.”
“Maybe you’re dreaming.”
“Yes, that must be it. I’m dreaming that I’m awake, dreaming. How far
back do today’s dreams stretch? How can we know? Are you doing this? Or is it
me?”
“I’m a writer, so are you.”
“And this? This is where you live?”
“What do you think?” Robin laughed, “Maybe I live in London and I come here for a break. It’s
entirely possible that I discovered this place one weekend last year when I was
being chased by pirates. I holed up here until they gave up chasing me. I don’t
think many people know about it, they might do, I suppose. I choose to imagine
they don’t. So they don’t. You’d think, if they knew, the pirates would’ve
concealed their treasure down here.”
“Treasure?”
“Of course. All pirates bury treasure,” Robin mouthed, into his ear,
“and this is exactly where we would find it.”
“We’d be rich. We could escape. Run away together and…travel…”
Robin placed her forefinger on his lips, pressing nakedness against him.
“Travel? Is that all you can imagine? Go from this place to another and
another? To see, touch, talk? Climb some hills, swim some rivers? The pictures
you would take? Slide shows and projectors and a yawning homespun audience?
There are better tales to tell, lover.
No footprints you could make there will settle to stir the dust of other
lives. Escape is not to travel, Raffan, because it gives birth to destination,
places - grounded and paved and concrete, from which ultimately you must travel
again.”
Raffan’s body twisted in shock and he pushed Robin’s finger away. “In
the corner,” he hissed. “The ground. It’s disturbed. They buried it there.”
“In that case, we’re rich but only if we can get it past them. It’s
perfect. Not even Captain Cutlass would think to attack a gigantic fibreglass
swan. But it will require cunning to write our way out of this. He’s the very
devil, you know.”
Raffan paused to take stock. “I’m not a writer. I work for the council.
My wife works in the same office I do. That’s how we met.”
“Love at first sight over the filing cabinets? Come back to London. I’ll introduce
you to my publisher.”
“I’m dreaming this,” whispered Raffan, “I’m dreaming this, and you’re
still asleep.”
“You might be. You are a story within a story. Two paths diverged in
yellow woods and Captain Cutlass took the one less travelled by.”
“And that has made all the difference.”
“You are travelling within my story, Raffan, and I don’t believe in
travel.”
“My wife likes to travel. Got her heart set on that camper van. There’ll
be bikes too, Lashed to the back. Wants to see the world when she retires.”
“And you?”
“I’m no good with bikes,” muttered Raffan, and a cloud crossed his face,
building into a tower as he admitted it to himself, saw it all.
“Go back to the desert. Tell your stories there, writer. Tell stories of
the hawks, the caravans and the scimitar. Wield the dhu al-faqar once again.
Dive for pearls.”
“No, I must go back, Robin. I’m no writer. I should make the best of it,
shouldn’t I? That’s what we do. That’s what all of us do. And when it’s over,
we say we want to travel. Wake me up.”
“Oberon will chastise me.”
“Lucky you.”
Robin shook her head, pulling him back towards the floor of her cave and
away from the tunnel that led towards the entrance. “No. You are not ready, my
Raffan. Not ready for Captain Cutlass and his rampaging swarm of bandoleros.
Stay. Just a while longer.”
Raffan shook his head, but he could feel the warmth of her body, her
soft skin, the scents of her love dancing upon his tongue.
“At least let’s dig for that treasure?”
“No. It's my plot. You're asleep within me. Wake up.” Seizing her hand,
and tossing her tunic across, he pulled Robin firmly towards the entrance, through the tunnel,
past the curtain of fronds and together they ascended the overgrown track.
This time, however, the foliage did not hinder them, no brambles whipped
their heels, no blackthorn pierced their skin; it was a much shorter passage
than Raffan had thought, and they slid rapidly through. He hurried, holding her
hand in his, negotiating the pathway with nimble feet. Before too long, they
stood on the shore, by the swan.
But the sight that met his eyes caused Raffan to stand stock still. “I
don’t believe it.”
Robin grinned, winked, then roared with laughter.
Across the lake from the island, a galleon was making ready to set sail.
Canvas was being hoisted and diminutive figures scuttled about the quarterdeck
and fo’c’sle. Net ladders, like spider webs, adorned the main masts, ants
ascending, descending, hoisting, lowering. Capstans, powered by wooden
crossbeams, were being pushed by gaudy costumed crewmembers and in the crow’s
nest, the glint of the spy glass and a triumphant shout. “Thar, Cap’n. Yonder
she lies.”
“Make ready, my brave bullies,” screamed a bearded, one-legged figure, “for this
time we have her trapped good and proper, man the battle stations, set the
wheel hard a-port. I’ll shred her skin with the cat, and feed her liver to the
sharks.”
Shaking his head very slightly, Raffan raised his eyebrow, then with a
smile so broad it released his spirit, kissed Robin. “I’m not having this, you
imp,” he grinned, “wake up.”
And, of course, once he’d brought the curtain down, she was gone.
Shivering in the greyness and wiping mizzle from his nose that was ever
dripping, the boy walked the few steps back to where he’d flung his bike to the
floor. It was still there, waiting to be picked up, the chain hanging limply
from its gears.
He stooped, picked it up, balanced it. Then his eyes wandered the ten
metres down the track.
The woman was still waiting, smouldering as though with one gentle
breath’s blow, she would conflagrate into a wildfire.
Cascade Way
Above, the two figures continued their journey. The small one; blonde,
tousled hair, catching raindrops on the tongue, careless as to which path he
took – sometimes, the gentle track, sometime the boulders, sometimes the steps.
He would stop - no freeze - such fluid movements from standing to squatting and
back. Calling out any points of interest, “Look, Grandad! This stone wobbles! A
wobbly stone!” And he balanced, shifting the ground beneath him with his weight
and a grin.
The grey moptopped one winced as a steep set step caught his knee, twisting
it slightly, due to it having been laid askance, or weathered, or both. “These
bloody knees wobble,” he grumbled, sitting down. He gyrated his shoulders and
shook the small rucksack he was carrying onto the floor in front of his feet.
They were about halfway down.
Ignoring the rain, Grandad fished inside and pulled out a packet of
Turkish cigarettes. Unusual, because it was still adorned with the brand, as
opposed to endless health warnings: ‘L and M – menthol slims’. Pulling one
free, he examined it thoughtfully, used his teeth to crack a small coloured dot
at the tip, lit the cigarette and inhaled. The smoke was still hissing from
between his teeth as the boy arrived like a white flurry of snowstorm.
“Hurry up, Grandad.”
“Why? What’s the time, my boy?” He fished in another pocket, checked his
mobile phone. “Plenty of time.” Laying the cigarette beside him, he rummaged
about some more and pulled out a medium sized hard bound blue notebook and a
biro, opened it, flicked through a few pages, began to scribble some notes.
Sitting beside him, the blonde lad spoke. “What are you writing? Will it
take long?”
Grandad took another drag of the cigarette and ruffled the boy’s hair,
turning it into a hug, as he always did. “Oh, just some notes. See?” And then
he read: “Although his steps were badly askance, all twisted knees beg a second
chance.”
“That’s stupid.”
“No, no, it scans. I like it. You see? Nine syllables. Four and a half
feet.”
“It’s metres, not feet, Grandad. You’re so old.”
“No, it’s meter, Davy.” Grandad shook his head, stubbed out his
cigarette and grinned. “Yes, you’re right. It’s stupid.”
“Smoking?”
“Smoking is always stupid, Davy,” he replied. Then, so quiet that it was
under the breath of the wind, added, “nice, though.”
Davy stood up and pulled the old man to his feet. “Come on, Grandad. I’m
hungry. Where’s the sport's bar?”
“Just beyond those trees, the other side of the lake.”
“Will you make it?”
“Inshallah.”
“You can take the track, if you want. I’ll wait at the bottom of the
steps.”
“You cheeky sod. I’m not that old. In any case, everyone takes that track.”
Before Davy continued his leaping and hollering, however, his gaze was
drawn by the most extraordinary sight. He watched halfway between aghast and
delighted. He nudged Grandad in the side and pointed in innocence as all young
boys do when taken by surprise. “Look, Grandad.”
“What? I can’t see anything.”
“That man just threw his bike onto the floor and swore. Very bad words,
Grandad.”
Grandad screwed up his pitiful eyes and followed Davy’s finger. “There’s
nothing there, Davy.”
“There is, Grandad. He’s left his bike. He’s walking towards us. That
woman looks very cross, Grandad.”
Grandad could see nothing. He continued to stare in that direction for a
little while after Davy had given up and took flight. There really was nothing
there. He looked downwards towards where his blonde companion stood at the
bottom of Cascade Way,
waiting. Then shivered.
He had a feeling he was being watched.
