Something Wicked This Way Comes Read online

  “I like it. Cooler than Sussex, though.”

  “Must be.”

  “I try to get up onto the Downs this time of year. Get high enough and you get the wind off the sea. No shade, mind.”

  “No sea breezes here.”

  “I’m not even sure where your nearest sea is.”

  “Solway Firth.”

  It meant almost nothing to me. I knew the Irish Sea was to the west and the North Sea much further to the east, but the only coast I knew well was that of the English Channel, the narrow blue-green strip that divided us from Europe. If we did make something of this place—if I did move up here—I’d have to explore a new coast too, as well as these strange hills. The thought was exciting again, away from the oppressive atmosphere of Vainguard, and I smiled. “Are there beaches? Proper ones with sand? Ours are crap—shingle and sea defences all the way along.”

  He sounded amused. “If that’s what you’re after, there are plenty. Some folks even sunbathe, though we’re hardly the Med.”

  “It’s overrated,” I said, waving the idea aside. “Can’t get a proper pint on Mykonos.”

  It had been a feeble joke, but Forster seemed to find it very amusing, his mouth twitching up and the lines around his eyes creasing. I was overcome with the urge to make him laugh properly, which also dried up all my wit in one swoop.

  I took a hasty sip of my beer, then slowed down to savour it. Opposite me, Forster did the same before letting out a long sigh, rolling his shoulders, and leaning back. It was such a perfect picture of relaxation that I couldn’t help smiling.

  He smiled back with the easiest expression I’d ever seen on his face.

  “Long week?” I ventured.

  “No more or less than usual. My back’s killing, of course, but it always is by now.”

  I must have looked confused because he squinted at me and said, “Lot of stooping, and the anvil work takes its toll.”

  “Anvil?” I echoed, my mind filling with images out of the middle ages. “What, with hot iron and hammers?”

  “Not many other ways to shape a horseshoe so it fits a hoof.” He relented as I boggled. “Most of them come prefabricated these days, and a lot of folk will settle for a cold shoeing, but a hot shoeing makes for a better fit, especially if you’ve got a horse which does a lot of eventing. I’m also a trained blacksmith. I take commissions on the side.”

  “I’m impressed,” I said and hoped my sincerity showed. “It’s one of those jobs you forget people still do, but it would have been the most important one in the village until a century ago, wouldn’t it?”

  His relaxation faded into a scowl. “What are you suggesting there?”

  I threw my hands up in dismay. “Well, I was aiming for a compliment, but I seem to have missed.”

  He relaxed again. “Only by a matter of inches, not miles.”

  “How on earth did you end up doing something this unusual for a living?”

  He shot me a long, amused look. “You sure you’re not a city boy?”

  “I’ve lived in a village for over twenty years. Apart from uni, of course. So how did you become a blacksmith? Family job?”

  He laughed. “Nope. My dad’s a businessman who shed the first tears in his adult life when Thatcher popped her clogs, and my mum writes for the Guardian.”

  “Get out,” I said.

  He clapped a hand to his heart. “Swear to God. I’d show you her columns, but I don’t want anyone round here spotting me with a copy. This is Telegraph country.”

  I still wasn’t quite convinced. “And how did the son of a businessman and a journalist end up as a country blacksmith with an accent like yours?”

  I got a wry smile this time. “The accent was my granddad’s. He was a farmer, and I spent my school holidays with him. And, well, the accent pissed my dad off, so I kept it. As for the rest—I dropped out of vet school.”

  “Really?”

  “Pissed my dad off even more,” he said with satisfaction and took another swig of his beer. “Figured out I only liked the horses, see, so why bother learning about cats and gerbils.”

  “So you took up farriery and what—started your own business?”

  “Got a starter loan from dear old Dad.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “And what did he think you were going to use the money for?”

  He took another drink and answered, with a shudder, “Polo ponies.”

  I cracked up. “You are taking the piss, man. No way.”

  He shrugged. “Believe me or not. Whatever you want. Last time I managed to con the old git into anything, though.”

  “No love lost?” I asked and thought of my own father, whom I barely remembered as more than an echo of laughter and exuberance.

  “Nope.” He offered up, with a slightly apologetic note, “I love my mum.”

  “You’re lucky,” I said and couldn’t quite keep the wistful note out of my voice.

  I got another of those long thoughtful looks, then a slow nod. “Aye. Your family sounds, uh, complicated.”

  “I’m not the only one, if I’m to believe what you’ve just told me.” I shrugged. “Contrary to recent evidence, I’m very fond of them all.” I thought of Kasia, talking me back to the real world and added fiercely, “Family is more than blood, you know.”

  “I know.” He sobered. “But blood matters.”

  I thought of my own parents, of Martyn Armstrong’s little brother Francis, dead before he reached adulthood, and of Forster’s daughter, all lost too soon. “This is a sad subject for a summer’s evening. So how was Lazy Bastard?”

  “That horse is a dream,” he said, then added darkly, “and his owner’s a bloody nightmare. Every time I see her she’s convinced he’s dying or about to go lame forever. Tell her he’s not and she gives you this look like you’re the biggest fool this side of Newcastle. Then she tells you what her last farrier said or how some woman she knew who was on Countryfile in about 1989 told her never to trust one man’s opinion on the health of a good horse.”

  I clapped my hand to my heart. “Are you doubting Countryfile? Heresy, surely?”

  “Like you’ve ever watched it.”

  I shrugged. “I hardly watch any telly unless I’m on duty with the boarders in the evening, and they just want to see Top Gear repeats.”

  “Living the high life there. So, you work for a charity and you teach? Or am I missing something?”

  “It’s a charity-run school. The original charity ran orphanages, which became children’s homes, then residential schools for troubled children. Most of them closed in the seventies. Now we mostly work with homeless kids, but we have one EBD school left and would like to open more again.”

  “EBD?”

  “Emotional and behavioural difficulties. A lot of our kids don’t have family, or their families can’t cope with them, so about two-thirds of them board at least part-time. I’m in management now, so I spend a lot of time behind a desk, but I still teach a couple of classes a day.”

  “I can’t imagine sending your kids away. My parents did it, and I still don’t see the point.”

  “A lot of our kids have families who are at breaking point. Staying at school for a few nights a week gives everyone enough breathing space that the time they do spend together can be positive.”

  He shook his head.

  I rode on over him, because this was one of those conversations I’d had a thousand times and that never ceased to annoy me. “It’s not perfect, but for a lot of kids and parents it’s an improvement on what they had before, and they can start rebuilding those relationships.”

  “I stand corrected.” He lifted his hands in mock surrender. “You’re passionate.”

  He said it as if it was something strange to him, and I wondered if grief had done that to him. People tended to either lash out or curl up around themselves and bury their feelings when terrible things happened.

  I raised my beer in an equally mocking toast. “Flattered. Some things are worth t
he passion.”

  He raised his glass and tapped it to mine. “Agreed.”

  And suddenly conversation was easy. Half a pint seemed to have relaxed him enough to be friendly, and we chatted easily. He told more stories of his difficult clients, including Lazy Bastard’s owner, and I shared some of my own stories—and like every teacher in the world, I had plenty of them.

  I was surprised when everyone else in the garden started to head inside, though it was still light. “What do they know that we don’t?”

  “Coming up to eight. Midges will be out in force soon.” He added, sounding oddly cautious, “I get food here sometimes. It’s not bad.”

  “Compared to a sandwich back at Vainguard, it sounds like heaven.”

  He frowned. “You were planning to go back there tonight? After dark?”

  “I hadn’t got as far as plans, so it’s here, back there, or drive somewhere else. Here seems like the most logical choice.”

  “Oh, well, as long as it’s logical.” He rose to his feet, looking amused. “Come on, then, before you get eaten alive.”

  We whiled away the rest of the evening over fish and chips and slow pints. Forster switched to Coke after his first, but I stuck with the local ale and let it fill me with just enough of a warm buzz that I relaxed completely. It wasn’t until we made our way out into the cooler evening that I realised how much I had enjoyed myself.

  Someone called out to Forster as we pushed outside, and he said apologetically, “Need to see a man about a horse. You okay for a moment?”

  “I’m fine.” I looked up at the dark sweep of the sky. The lack of urban light pollution made the stars blaze, and I breathed in contently. I never relaxed this much when I was out on a normal Friday. Amongst my colleagues, I was always both a senior manager and the headmaster’s kid, and for the last ten years or so, I hadn’t had time for friendships outside work, let alone serious relationships—and dates with strangers were anything but relaxing.

  This, though, had been nice. No expectations, nothing I needed to pay attention to beyond the conversation itself.

  And that was when I saw the old man. He was standing by the wall, and my first thought was that he must have come out for a smoke. My initial glance was merely curious, and I took in his lined face, his stooped shoulders, and the cap pulled down low over his brow. Then I met his gaze. He was glaring at me, his gaze so intent and hostile that I could almost feel his hatred buffeting against my skin.

  I recoiled. I was used to occasional low-level hostility, but this sort of open, potent loathing was rare. I shoved away from the wall, not to confront him, but because it felt safer that way with all the dim, lonely countryside behind me to hide in.

  As I moved, it triggered the lights on the side wall of the pub. I blinked in the glare, and the gloomy edges of the car park were suddenly too dark to see. I stood, frozen and waiting, until the light switched off again.

  But as my eyes readjusted to the dusk, I realised the old man had gone.

  Chapter Ten

  “GOING TO stargaze all night?”

  I brought my attention back, a little shaken. “Sorry.”

  Forster laughed, but it wasn’t cruel. “Hop in. I’ll drop you back at the farm.”

  “My car’s at Vainguard.”

  “And you’re in no state to drive it.” He opened the side door and waved me in. “Don’t argue.”

  “I wasn’t planning to.” I climbed in and settled comfortably into my seat, deliberately pushing aside the old man’s malice. I wasn’t going to let it spoil a nice evening. “Sorry to take you out of your way.”

  “It’s a minute more.”

  We drove back with the windows down. Forster put the radio on—some evening phone-in show which crackled every time the slopes of the fields and forests rose above the road.

  We talked idly about the horses he would treat tomorrow and the walk I was planning. Silences fell in between sentences, and neither of us rushed to fill them.

  When he left me outside the guesthouse, I tiptoed inside, trying not to wake anyone.

  I SLEPT easily, unusually so. I dreamt of these hills, though—not the old nightmares of tearing steel and fading breaths, but something vaguer and softer, of moving through and over hill and forest like a ghost, over winding tracks and desolate moors, wooded valleys and roiling burns, never touching any of it, but never escaping it either.

  I woke to darkness and the sheets tangled around my feet. I stumbled out of bed and to the open window, lifting my face instinctively to see the stars.

  And somewhere below me, I heard the muffled sound of horses again. It was too dark to see them, and I was still too close to sleep to think of reaching out for a light. So I stood, leaning against the window frame, and listened to the soft sound of riders passing in the night, the quiet fall of hooves fading away towards the bridge and the old ford.

  I almost fell asleep standing there, my cheek pressed into the edge of the window frame, and it was with an effort I dragged myself back to bed.

  If I dreamt again that night, I didn’t remember it come morning.

  BY EIGHT I was heading out of the guesthouse with a belly full of cooked breakfast and a homemade packed lunch in my backpack. I certainly wasn’t going to starve here.

  There was the faintest of breezes licking over the hills, and the sky was still a little hazy with clouds. The higher I got, the lighter my spirits felt, and I began to relax again. It was only a week into the summer holidays, after all, and I would normally still be recovering all the emotional energy I’d spent over the course of the year. Maybe taking a day like this for myself would restore me enough that I’d be able to put everything in perspective a little more.

  The trees ahead of me now were the western edge of the Kielder Forest, darker firs than the ever-shifting colours of my beechwoods at home. I amused myself for a couple of miles by planning outings for a school that might never exist: geography field trips, sponsored walks, wild camping where the kids shrieked in horror at every bug and speck of mud and yet came back with something to remember and take pride in—even if they expressed that pride by muttering about how shit it had been and how they couldn’t fucking believe they’d actually done that.

  The wooded tracks made for shady walking, and I appreciated it as the day grew warm again. I kept my water bottle in my hand and maintained an easy pace, enjoying the pine-scented air. Walking always eased something in me. There’s something about the way you settle into a stride, the swing of your hips and the flex of your knees carrying you across a strange land, that reminds you how strong you can be.

  Valerie had taught me to walk that first painful summer after she and Felix had taken me in. When even Eilbeck was too close for comfort and I couldn’t bear the sheer number of people involving themselves in my life, she had taken me out into the Sussex hills, and we’d walked for miles and miles, often in silence, sometimes talking softly about simple things. And eventually I too had talked, pouring out all the poison in me as we strolled through the green shade of the beechwoods.

  Mid-morning, I came down to a different stream. I dipped my hands in it and splashed cool water on my face before stopping in the shade. Fiona at the guesthouse had given me a printout of a recommended walk, but I’d brought the Ordnance Survey map too, and I unfolded it now to trace the next stretch of my path. Names spilled across the green wash of the forest, and I rolled them in my mind, enjoying the weight of them—Reamy Rigg, Glen Dhu (on the English side), Black Knowe (on the Scottish), Yearning Flow, and Flight Moss, all of them entwined in curving orange contour lines.

  I continued to follow the narrowing stream uphill along a clearly marked cycle trail. A few times, cyclists passed me, panting their way up a hill I could take at a more leisurely pace.

  By the time I skirted a bog and tackled the last scramble towards the end of the trees, I was more than ready for lunch and enjoying that too—there’s something oddly reassuring about simple hunger when you know you can easily satisfy
it.

  The path emerged onto a narrow trail of flints across an expanse of pink-flowering heather. I followed it up through a rise of ferns and ling as high as my shoulders, picking my way over the tiny streams that slithered down every slanting bit of ground, my breath quickening in anticipation as the slope rose to its peak before me.

  At the top, a stone trig point marked the summit of the ridge. I stopped beside it and took in the view. Before me, the fells dropped steeply to the valley below. Pine forests spread across the further slopes in loose patches, but the north-facing slope before me was a bare of anything more than heather and mossy bulges and pale splotches of marsh grass, which must hide bog. The wind swept over me, crisp and cool, and I breathed in.

  Then I lowered my gaze a little and saw something unexpected.

  Just below me a stone jutted out of the long pale grass. Another stood beyond it and a lower, broken-off one a little further round. As I looked, I saw more of them—seven in total—forming a loose ring.

  In some long-forgotten age, some equally forgotten tribe had built a stone circle here. It had almost faded back into the earth, two stones toppled and others broken off after a foot or two, but its shape was unmistakable. Civilisation, of a sort, had reached even this lonely spot.

  Then I remembered that the forest had been planted by men, first in the war, then in greater density back in the 1960s. If Martyn Armstrong and his little brother, Francis, had ever climbed up here as boys, they would have looked out on a very different view.

  As if the thought had summoned their ghosts, I heard a young boy’s voice calling my name.

  I jumped and spun round as the boy called again, “Hi, Mr Kwarteng!”

  This time the accent registered with me, and I lifted my hand to wave as one of the American kids from the guesthouse worked his bike through the heather towards me. “Hello. I didn’t expect to see anyone else up here. Did you come up the burn?”

  He dismounted, grinning at me cheerfully. “Mom dropped us off by the road. Did you walk or something?”