Reasons She Goes to the Woods (7 page)

Honey tells Pearl about the baby she used to take out. I love babies, she says, making a thumb-sized mud child and giving it to Pearl. You can do stuff with them, and they can’t tell anyone. Pearl crushes the friable brown baby between her palms. Apart from with The Blob, she hadn’t thought of that before. Honey puts lumps of mud on each of Pearl’s toes, then flattens them out to cover her nails. Pearl shapes a huge, hanging mud nose and fits it on Honey. They stare at each other in the hedge gloom. Honey’s wide smile looks odd curving out behind her rough, earth nose. We have a baby in our street, Pearl says, so they clean up and knock on the baby’s door. The baby’s mother is a friend of Pearl’s family. Keep to the paths, she says, tucking a blanket in. We promise, they say. Inside the buggy the pink baby is propped up on a frilly pillow. Pearl and Honey take turns to push. Soon they come to a stile in the hedge. I know, says Pearl, we could easily get this thing over. They manage to lift the buggy up to the top bar of the stile. I’m puffed, Honey says, and sits down. Pearl thinks she can do it alone, but suddenly everything upends. The baby flies out and lands in some nettles like a knot of washing. The trees lean in and a bird trills while they stand, transfixed. Then Pearl vaults the stile, pulls the baby up by her talcy shawls and plonks her back in the righted pushchair. The baby is quivering; about to yell, covered in scarlet nettle stings and dead leaves. Its soiled bonnet is askew. Pearl and Honey hold hands; worst of all, there is a greeny-grey lump growing above the baby’s right
eye.

Earlier, Fee turned pale and sobbed as Pearl told her she couldn’t go with the gang. It’s because of Honey, isn’t it? Fee asked. You like her best now. Pearl looked at Fee’s sweet eyes and sticky-out teeth. You won’t keep up, that’s all, she said, scrambling out of the hedge. Pearl’s impatient to be gone. She’s been kept in for two weeks, and cloud-boats are skimming along the endless sky; there are birds darting like arrows across its surface. The gang walks up through the houses until they reach a lane. This is where the mountain starts to grow. They are making for a secret way through the ferns called The Slippery Path. Eventually they stand on its steep, shaggy surface. Branched ferns tall as people tower on either side. They plunge in and battle through until they find a suitable space. Fern stalks squeak as the gang take off all their clothes. Pearl tells each one to stand up in turn. No one is allowed to move. She whacks them with a long stalk on their bottoms and bellies. She smacks Will harder than the rest. Then she tells him to wee. The sound of splashing makes them all smile. Good, Pearl tells him, her face flushed, now everybody eat. The gang swap sandwiches and drink warm squash, eating quietly. The air is humming drowsily with insects, and they find a slow-worm. Leave it alone, Pearl commands, standing up, naked but for her sandals. She swishes her stalk just above the gang’s heads, and looks at each of them in turn. Right, you lot, now it’s time for a special game, she says. It’s called Kiss, Kick, or Torture. And I will explain the rules.

Pearl only has to look at her front door to know how it will be inside. The oval window above the letterbox changes colour. Like an eye that’s sometimes vacant, sometimes terrified, sometimes blind with rage, the bluey-green glass subtly alters. It’s a language Pearl can understand. Once or twice even the brass door handle has told her things. Today, standing at the gate, she notices the colours in the window are almost bleached out. The garden path stretches for miles before her. When she eventually reaches the porch and touches the door handle, it is so cold her skin melds to it for a second. Pearl pushes the door wide and leaps in, calling for her brother. She feels the air pulsing with a sort of static. In the kitchen, she sees him standing alone. She drops her bag and goes to him. Splayed on the table are her mother’s huge black-and-silver scissors. The Blob is silent, but from his eyes tears drop steadily. What’s happened? Pearl asks, her voice businesslike. She can see soft mounds of chestnut curls all around him on the floor. His scalp shows through, pink and raw in places. Pearl starts to shake. She strokes his bristly head and sees his ear is bleeding. The neckline of his jumper is ragged and chopped at. Pearl walks to the sink and turns on the tap. Sit down now, she says to her brother. I’ll clean you up. He stiffly folds himself onto a chair, hardly blinking. I’ll say I did it, he states. Promise you won’t tell. She tries to answer, but her mouth won’t work. Quickly she locks the back door; through the window she can see her mother running towards the house. You’re next, Pearly! she’s shouting.

Pearl strides out, counting the steps it takes to get away from the house. Soon they are at the canal. This is a good idea, my love, Fee says, linking arms. They arrive at a stretch of brambles twice their height. The sun hits the bushes each afternoon, so it’s studded with hundreds of glossy black fruit. Orange butterflies rest on the topmost branches. Beneath, spears of cuckoo pint are unfurling in the shade. Inside each tender sheath Pearl can see a column of jade-green berries ripening. Don’t touch those, she says. When Fee finds a nice blackberry she calls, look at this beauty! and Pearl pulls the thorny stems down for her. The way Fee darts about is calming. Even when she scratches her arm, she still smiles her crooked smile. Let me look, Pearl says, examining the red-dotted weal on the inside of Fee’s freckled arm. As she sucks the broken skin she hears Fee’s snatched intake of breath. Pearl straightens, and, turning slowly, she sees a man on the other side of the path; she’s not sure how long he’s been there. He’s mouthing strange words at them. What do you want? Pearl asks, shielding Fee. From the mess of his grey trousers the man fishes out his erect, sore-looking penis and steps nearer, thrusting with his hips so that its wet, stretched tip bobs from side to side. Pearl watches for a few seconds, then she starts to purse her lips. Really? she thinks, raising her eyebrows. Her unimpressed gaze acts like a pinprick on a red balloon, and his penis shrivels. He covers it with his coat and shuffles away. It’s okay now, Fee, Pearl says, hugging her. I’ve made it all better.

Even though Honey’s parents have forbidden them from seeing each other, she and Pearl walk home together in the rain after school. No more babies for us, Honey says. Maybe, says Pearl, tilting her mouth to the fat drops falling from the trees. They begin to imagine a delicious meal waits for them. What will you really be eating? Honey asks. It’s stew night, Pearl says. I’d love to stuff a bowl of stew, Honey says. I doubt that, Pearl says, and thinks about the parsnips she always mistakes for potatoes, the thready meat and swede nubs she retches over. If I could just have bread and gravy, she says, I’d be a happy girl. Why don’t you, then? Honey asks, taking her hand. Pearl thinks about stew fumes in the kitchen, and her tight-lipped mother dishing out. She looks at Honey with her glossy hair and pink nails and realises she has no idea about stew, or fish and parsley sauce, or liver and onions. Want to come to mine? Honey asks. Dropping their wet things in the hall, they go to the kitchen. Honey opens a cupboard full of crisps and biscuits. Help yourself, she says. Pearl gazes and gazes at the lovely treats. No, she says. Ice-cream then? Honey offers. But Pearl is silent. I know, Honey says, waffles and syrup. Not for me, Pearl says. I’d better go. But still she stays, watching as Honey opens a tin of baked beans. They’re delish cold, she tells Pearl, offering her a spoonful. Astonished, Pearl opens her mouth, takes the beans and runs out into the rain without her coat. The beans are savoury and sweet. To Pearl they taste like food from another country.

Pearl and her brother are in the bath. He’s at the tap end. She squeezes a sponge and says that, really, she’s too old to share a bath with him. I know, he says as he busily soaps her feet. Now can I play? Pearl sighs and closes her eyes, so he starts talking to her toes. He likes to pretend they are his children. Wriggle them, he says. You have to wriggle. It’s warm in the bathroom, and her brother’s echoey whisper soothes Pearl. She imagines the damp bathroom whirling through space, past the streaking stars, little puffs of steam solidifying as they’re pulled through the window’s opening. But it feels too lonely out there, and Pearl opens her eyes. She keeps wriggling with one foot, and plants the other on her brother’s chest. He looks like a mer-boy with his sprouting tendrils of new hair and wet eyelashes. Through her foot she can feel his steady heartbeat. If you like, she says, you can lean on me. So he turns around and rests between her legs, his back against her stomach. Their brown knees break through the milky water. Shall we play being mer-people? Pearl asks, her mouth against his soapy hair. Imagine; we could swim and swim and explore the whole ocean if we liked. We could dive into caves and see all the beautiful sea-creatures stuck to the walls. What would we eat, though? her brother asks; fish is horrible. No problem, she says. We’ll feed on delicious plants. She can tell he’s thinking. Will our parents be there? he says. No, Pearl answers. Mer-children don’t have anybody, just each other. Okay then, he says, and starts to make elaborate swimming gestures.

There are some nights when Pearl lies in her bed, serious as a small effigy, while outside, creatures with gills like open wounds and wings ragged as winter cabbage leaves gather at the garden gate. There is no one to look after her; she is perfectly alone in the world. In the dark street, the lamp posts writhe with gleaming white serpents. All sorts of eyes are focused on the open window of Pearl’s room. For hours she hears halloos and snickering, her name being called by voices trying to sound friendly, nails screeching against the flimsy front door. She knows that in two bounds the stairs could be breached. In her small room Pearl’s naked, unwashed foot is hanging over the side of the bed, inches above the pongy, bone-strewn lair of a wet-skinned animal who is waking up, feeling famished, testing his jaws. And here’s Pearl’s delicious, swinging foot, dangling like a pasty at a picnic. She’s determined not to hide it; this is some sort of test, after all. She slits her eyes and sees a shape woven through the slatted headboard of her bed. It leans out and watches Pearl unkindly, dribbling on the pillow. Hot breath paws her cheeks, but she keeps her chest still, still, still. Finally the thing sighs and undulates away. Then, like a needle of silver thread piercing the neck of an old black dress, a bird shouts three radiant phrases. The stars faint, the sky blinks and Pearl stretches, throwing off the night, wanting a glass of milk and a breakfast of bacon and eggs. All the creatures rear up, appalled, and gallop away on soft, heavy hooves, or dissolve in spurts of moisture.

Like a cold white hand held up to Pearl’s face, her mother’s bedroom door remains closed. The Blob has been taken away, and strange people are in the house when she gets home from school. Usually, Pearl grabs something to eat, edging round whoever’s in the kitchen, and runs out again. No one tries to stop her, or asks where she’s going. Sometimes she hides in the airing cupboard and chews energetically. Am I invisible? she asks herself; no one seems to see her these days. Often she has no clean socks or pants to wear. Once she crept into her mother’s room. It smelt sickening. Pearl stood by the bed and looked down. Finally, her mother’s eyes opened and she whimpered, who are you? Pearl could see crusty deposits around her lips. It looked as if someone had chopped off all her creamy hair. She sank into the bed when Pearl loomed over her. You won’t hurt me, will you? she asked. Pearl felt herself growing huge, filling the small, warm room. She bent over her mother and whispered, you’ll just have to wait and see. Screams followed her as she slipped quietly out. Most evenings Pearl hovers in the gloomy lounge. One night she unravels her mother’s knitting and burns it. Another time she gathers all the stupid pieces of bric-a-brac and smashes them behind the shed, scrabbling at the dank, wormy earth to cover the sharp bits. Late in the evening her father will come down, and Pearl can rest her head on his shoulder and stroke his hands. He doesn’t seem to notice that, gradually, she is removing all traces of her mother.

Pearl walks home from school a new way, thinking about her house, how it feels like an empty, two-storey fridge. She’s thinking so hard she bumps into a girl who has been standing, arms crossed, in the middle of the path. This girl is taller than Pearl, with a red mouth and black, stringy plaits. Fight? she asks, punching Pearl’s chest. Immediately, Pearl swings her school bag with such conviction at the girl’s head that the girl falls sideways, twisting her leg. Then they struggle. Pearl has to work hard, but she finally pins the girl to the ground. Now what? Pearl asks, trying not to pant while she straightens her clothes. The girl’s leg is bleeding and one plait has been pulled into a messy bundle. Why are you hanging round here, anyway? the girl asks, scrambling to her feet. Pearl doesn’t answer. Come on home with me, the girl says. Her name is Nita. It’s fuggy inside the house, and Pearl can smell fish, burning coal and cigarette smoke. I like your house, she tells Nita. In the lounge Pearl sits alone next to a sleeping dog. A tall boy slides in through the partially open door. He’s carrying a short bamboo stick, which he swishes about. Pearl notices he has one overlarge, staring eye. Why don’t you look at me? he asks. Am I too ugly for you? Yes, Pearl answers. He tells her to stand up. Okay, she says. The boy uses his stick to lift Pearl’s skirt up. Then he jabs it into her crotch. Pearl eyes him coolly. Now what? she says. He hears Nita coming so he deftly uses the stick to rearrange Pearl’s clothes. Gotta go, Pearl says. Will you come again? Nita asks. You bet, Pearl tells
her.