Drawing with Light (12 page)

‘Hey, Mattie!' I call. ‘It's me.'

‘You must keep her on the lead the whole time,' the girl says. ‘And take a bag for any dog mess. You must clear it up and put it in the bins near the gate.'

Seb grins at me. ‘That'll be your job.'

The girl clips the lead on to Mattie's collar and hands it to me. ‘She's very good, this one. Sweet-natured. She doesn't pull.'

‘I know,' I say.

People with dogs straining at the leash are heading off over the field next to the home, so Seb and me go the other way. On the other side of the road we find a stile, and a footpath sign, so we head down there. Mattie doesn't want to climb the stile, so we lift her over between us. Her heart beats fast and hot against my hand.

‘She's scared, poor thing.'

‘She's too thin. She's pining for Bob.'

‘We should have brought her something to eat.'

Mattie's the kind of dog that needs to run and run. It's cruel to keep her on the end of a short lead. So, once we're well away from the road we unclip her. She trots between us. Her confidence comes back after a while and she runs ahead. She keeps coming back, though, as if to check we're still with her. We stroke her head and she nuzzles my hand with her nose.

The path goes along next to a stone wall, and then there's another stile, and we're at the edge of woodland. A sign says:
National Trust. No fires, no overnight camping
.
Please take your litter home.
The path gets muddier, and overgrown with brambles, but we keep going and after a bit it opens out and we're in a proper old wood, with thick, twisted vines hanging down from the bare-boned trees, and ivy and all sorts. The ground is marshy and damp underfoot. Mattie runs and barks and then skitters around, chasing imaginary rabbits into the undergrowth, burrowing and digging and making the piles of old leaves flurry and fly up. She disappears for a while and I start to worry.

‘Let's follow where she went,' I say.

Under the bigger trees the ground is much drier.

‘Beech and oak and hazel, mostly,' Seb says. ‘Mixed deciduous woodland.'

I pull a face. ‘Show-off.'

He grabs me and wrestles me to the ground. We stay there, lying together on the piles of damp leaves, and stare up at the patches of sky between the bare branches. In the west it's turning a pinky orange as the sun goes down.

‘If something happened to all the human beings,' Seb says, ‘in a very short time, England would be covered in trees again, like it used to be. One huge forest.'

‘You say that as if it would be good,' I say.

‘I like thinking about it,' Seb says. ‘That we're not very important, really. If we mess up the world, it will just recover. Nature will, I mean. There just won't be any people to see it.'

‘So global warming and climate change doesn't matter?'

‘Of course it matters! It will mean horrible things for millions of people. But the planet will adapt and recover. The earth will go on living.'

I think about that.

Seb rolls over and puts his face against mine. ‘You're cold,' he says.

‘Better warm me up, then.'

He holds me tight. His hair tickles my face. He traces the line of my lips with his finger.

‘You realise we've found a wood for you,' Seb says. ‘Now all we need is snow.'

‘The sky's too clear. It's not cold enough. It's probably never going to snow again in England!'

‘Can you remember it properly snowing, ever? When you were little?'

‘Once, maybe. I used to love stories where it snowed.'

‘
Narnia
.'

‘Yes. And
The Snow Queen
. Kat read that to me. It was in this book . . . one our mother left behind.'

‘Your real mother.'

‘Yes. Francesca.'

‘What happened to her?'

‘She ran away. I don't really know what happened, exactly. Just what Kat told me, when we were little. Dad used to get too upset when we asked about her. So we stopped asking questions.'

‘How old were you, when she left?'

‘I was two. Kat was four.'

‘Where is she now?'

‘No idea.'

‘She doesn't write, or phone, or anything?'

‘Nothing. Never has.'

Seb thinks about that for a while. ‘We should find her. Track her down.'

‘That's what Rachel says. Kat's dead against it. I've looked her name up before, but I didn't find anyone that might be her.'

Mattie comes snuffling up. We've almost forgotten about her. She curls up close to me and Seb, and the three of us lie there for a little longer, just resting and being close, like it's a comfort to all three of us.

I get my camera out to take some photographs. The bare bones of the tree branches against the sunset sky. Mattie curled up next to Seb: the texture of her wiry fur against Seb's woollen coat, close-up. Seb stretching his arms out, lying on a bed of leaves.

Taking photographs helps me to see things properly, and to remember them. I know we'll come back here. In the summer it will be beautiful: sheltered and private under a thick canopy of leaves. It can be our special place. If we're still together, that is, Seb and me.

I like to think we will be.

I haven't ever felt like this about anyone before.

It's getting dark. As the light goes, the temperature drops too. My hands and toes are freezing. I put the camera back in my bag.

‘Come on, then,' I say. I haul Seb up. ‘Home time, Mattie.'

We follow her to begin with, thinking she'll lead us back to the path. She does, except after a while we work out it's a different footpath and we seem to be going downhill, instead of up. We stop to get our bearings, but we can't see anything much now it's dark.

‘We're lost,' Seb says.

‘The footpath must go somewhere. Let's just follow it up the hill.'

It twists and turns and we're about to stop again and rethink when we stumble across a stretch of stone wall.

‘There was a wall like this before,' Seb says. ‘Near that stile, where we started off. Let's follow it along.'

I'm beginning to feel weary. We've walked miles. My feet are wet through even in boots. Seb holds my hand, and Mattie trots behind. Eventually we come to a cluster of stone buildings. Some sort of farm. A cobbled courtyard. A stone archway, and beyond it, a street light. But first there's a high wire fence, and a field with dark shapes in it.

‘If we can climb through,' Seb says, ‘we can cut across to the road.'

The air smells different. It takes me a while to work out what the smell is. Pine. The dark shapes in the field are trees. It's a nursery of trees: rows of them. We find a bit of fence where we can pull the wire apart enough to climb through. Mattie won't come: she starts to whine.

‘I'll pick her up,' Seb says, ‘and you hold the wires. There might be farm dogs or something. We don't want her to bark.'

We walk along the grass strips between the rows of trees. The pine smell is even stronger. The wind catches the pine needles and makes a whispering sound.

‘It's a Christmas tree farm,' Seb says. ‘Big business.'

‘I know where we are, then,' I say. ‘It's on Cassy's map. Rainbow Wood Farm. We've come round in a big circle.'

‘We could take a tree back with us.'

‘That would be stealing!'

‘Just a tiny one that no one would miss?'

‘Better to leave them alive and growing.'

‘But they'll cut them all, eventually. It's just a cash crop. Like cut flowers.'

‘Except, it takes a tree years to grow. And a tree has a soul.'
    ‘A what?'

‘A soul. I know, you think that's rubbish. Irrational nonsense. But it's what I feel. So shut up.'

Seb laughs. ‘I never said a word.'

We've reached the other side of the field, and the edge of the courtyard. ‘Imagine coming up here and decorating all the little trees, in the field, while they are growing,' I say. ‘That would be cool.'

Seb gives me that look, like I've gone totally bananas now.

‘It would be a good photograph,' I say. ‘Imagine!'

Mattie stops, nose quivering, ears forward as if she's heard something. Seb grabs my arm. ‘Shall we run for it?' he says. ‘Across the courtyard, out on to the road, before anyone sees us?'

I'm giggling too much to run fast. Seb half drags me, and Mattie starts to bark, but we're through the stone arch and on to the tarmac road before the barn door swings wide open and someone shouts out. We really run then.

The girl at the dogs' home is cross with us for being so late back with Mattie.

‘She's all cold and wet, too!' she says.

‘She loved her walk,' I say back. ‘And it's much nicer for her than being shut in a wire cage all afternoon.'

It's like I'm betraying Mattie, handing her over again to be locked up.

‘We'll take her out again,' Seb says as we cross the car park. ‘It was fun. Even getting lost was fun.'

‘What will you be doing for Christmas Day?' he asks me when we're driving home. ‘You could come to our house, if you like. Mum said. Meet the cousins and my aunties.'

‘Dad wouldn't allow me. We have to be a family all together. We're going out for the day as a treat. Cassy refuses to cook Christmas dinner in a caravan.'

‘I've got you a present,' Seb says. ‘You could come over in the evening? Just for a little while? I'll collect you.'

I smile, thinking about him, all the way down the lane and across the field to the caravan. It's changed everything for me, meeting Seb.

Dad's car isn't there, but the lights are on in the caravan.

Kat's home.

She's lolling on the sofa in front of the telly.

‘Where's Dad and Cass?'

‘Out with friends. A party or something.'

‘Are you going to be staying in?'

‘Yes. You?'

‘Yes.'

We have the best evening. We make pasta and sauce and eat it in front of rubbish telly, and we talk about Dan, and I tell her a bit about Seb.

‘Have you slept with him?' she asks.

I blush. ‘No,' I say. ‘In any case, it's none of your business.'

‘Just be careful, that's all,' Kat says. ‘You know about contraception and everything, don't you?'

‘Of course.'

‘And don't be in a hurry. It's better if you wait. Like, be sure he's the right person, really special.'

‘I know all that,' I say. ‘Why are you telling me?' I look at Kat's face. Her eyes are brimming with tears.

‘I wish I'd waited,' Kat says. ‘I wish my first time had been really special. I wish I'd waited for Dan.'

‘Oh, Kat!' I hug her.

‘He phoned today. I'm going up there on Boxing Day,' she says.

I make a sad face. ‘You've hardly been here and you're off again!'

‘That's life!' She grins. ‘You'll survive! Anyway, you've got Seb, now.'

‘What can I give him for Christmas? He just told me he's got me a present.'

‘What is it?'

‘He didn't tell me that, stupid! It's a secret.'

‘You should give him something special, not something you just go and buy. Make him something. I don't know, a cake? Sew him something?'

‘I can't sew!'

‘A photograph, then. Give him one of your lovely photos. A black and white one, in a frame.'

We look at all the photos in my scrapbook, and then start going through all the hundreds of digital ones on the computer.

Kat gets bored after a while. ‘You choose,' she says. ‘You don't need me to help. It's a good idea, though, isn't it?'

‘Yes. You are brilliant. My best, most favourite sister in the world.'

‘Your only sister,' she starts to say, only she stops, suddenly, and looks at me. ‘Oh my God.' Her hand goes to her mouth. ‘You know what I'm thinking?'

‘Yes.'

In six months' time. A new sister.

‘It might be a boy, of course,' she says.

‘Would that be better or worse?'

‘Worse. Can't you imagine? Dad, with a boy? The only son and heir. All that.'

‘He wouldn't be like that.'

‘No?'

‘Cassy wouldn't let him,' I say.

‘Anyway, I won't be around to see. I'm going to make sure of that.'

14

I'm waiting for him in the lay-by, at four in the afternoon, the earliest we can each get away from our families.

‘Hop in!' Seb says.

He puts his arm round me. I breathe in the warm smell of his hair, his skin.

‘Happy Chr—' I'm about to say, but Seb puts his finger on my lips. ‘Wait,' he says. ‘Save it for when we get there.'

‘Where?'

‘Wait and see.'

I sit with his present on my lap, all beautifully wrapped up in layers of blue coloured tissue with little gold stars between each layer, and thin gold silk ribbon tied round in a bow.

He doesn't drive us to his house, like I expected. He goes left, towards town, and then up the hill towards the dogs' home, and for a second my heart feels heavy, because I can't bear to see Mattie's sad face today. But he drives past the entrance, and parks a little bit down the road, not far from Rainbow Wood Farm.

‘Will you be warm enough?' Seb asks. ‘I brought an extra scarf in case.' He rummages around on the back seat and lugs out a bag full of stuff. ‘Stop looking. It's got to be a surprise.'

The air hits us: frost-cold. It's madness to set out on walk at this time of day, in the middle of winter. We climb over the stile and go down the same footpath we took before.

Seb stops in front of me. His breath makes smoke clouds in the frosty air. ‘Now close your eyes,' he orders me. ‘Keep them tight shut. Promise?' He takes my hand and leads me off the path. I've already guessed where we're going, but I don't say.