Blackberry Wine Part 5

'You are trespa.s.sing.' Her English was strongly accented but good. This house is not abandoned. It is private property.'

'I know. I-' This woman must be some kind of caretaker, Jay told himself. Perhaps she was paid to ensure no damage was done to the building. Her presence explained the mysterious sounds, the candles, the sleeping bag, the smell of fresh paint. The rest - the unexpected appearance of Joe, for instance - had been his imagination. He smiled at the woman in relief.

'I'm sorry I shouted at you. I didn't understand. I'm Jay Mackintosh. The agency may have mentioned me.'

She looked at him blankly. Her eyes flicked momentarily behind him, taking in the typewriter, the bottles, the luggage.

'Agency?'

'Yes. I'm the man who bought the house. Over the phone.

The day before yesterday.' He gave a short, nervous laugh.

"On an impulse. The first I've ever had. I couldn't wait for the paperwork. I wanted to see it straight away.' He laughed again, but there was no returning smile in her eyes.

'You say you bought the house?'

He nodded. 'I wanted to come over and see it. I couldn't get the keys. Somehow I managed to get stranded here. I hurt my ankle-'

'That is impossible.' Her voice was flat. 'I would have been told if there had been another buyer.'

'I don't think they were expecting me so soon. Look, it's perfectly simple really. I'm sorry if I startled you. I'm actually very glad you're looking after the building.'

The woman looked at him oddly but said nothing.

'I can see they've been doing the place up a little. I noticed the paint pots. Did you do it yourself?'

She nodded, her eyes lightless. Behind her the sky was hazy, troubled. Jay found her silence disconcerting. Clearly his story hadn't convinced her.

'Do you ... I mean, is there a lot of that kind of work hereabouts? Caretaking, I mean. Renovating old properties.'She shrugged. The gesture might mean anything. Jay had no idea what it was supposed to convey.

'Jay Mackintosh.' He smiled again. 'I'm a writer.'

That look again. Her eyes flicked over him in contempt or curiosity.

'Marise d'Api. I work the vineyard across the fields.'

'Pleased to meet you.' Either shaking hands wasn't a local custom, or her refusal was a deliberate insult.

Not a caretaker, then, Jay told himself. He should have known it at once. That arrogance in her face, that harshness, proved it. This was a woman who tended her own farm, her vines. She was as stony as her land.

'I suppose we'll be neighbours.'

Again, no answer. Her face was a blind. No way to tell whether, beneath it, lay amus.e.m.e.nt, anger or simple indifference.

She turned away. For a second her face, turning towards the moonlight, was silvered with light, and he saw that she was young - no older than twenty-eight or -nine her features sharp and elfin beneath the big hat. Then she was gone, curiously graceful in spite of her bulky over- clothes, her boots kicking a swathe through the damp weeds.

'Hey! Wait!' Too late Jay realized that this woman could help him. She would have food, hot water, antiseptic, perhaps, for his injured ankle. 'Wait a minute! Madame d'Api! Perhaps you could help me!'

108.

If she heard him she did not reply. For a moment he thought he saw her, outlined briefly against the sky. The sound in the undergrowth might have been that of her pa.s.sage, or something else altogether.

When he realized she was not coming back Jay returned to his makes.h.i.+ft bed in the corner of the room and lit a candle. The almost-empty bottle of Joe's wine was standing by the bedside, though Jay was certain he had left it on the table. He must have moved it himself, he thought, during his fugue. It was understandable. He'd had a shock. By the light of the candle he peeled away his sock to examine the damage to his ankle. It was an ugly slash, the flesh around it bruised and swelling. Bishop's leaves, the old man had said, and in spite of himself Jay smiled. Bishop's leaves - the Yorks.h.i.+re name for water betony - had been a common ingredient for Joe's protection sachets.

But for now the only available antiseptic was the wine.

Jay tilted the bottle and poured a thin stream of yellow liquid onto the gash. It stung for a minute, releasing its scent of summer and spice, and though he knew it was absurd, such was the power of that scent that Jay felt a little better.

The radio gave a sudden crackle of music and fell silent.

A breeze of other places - a scent of apples, a lullaby of pa.s.sing trains and distant machinery and the radio playing.

Funny how his mind kept going back to that song, that winter song, 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.

Jay slept, a piece of red flannel still curled tightly in his palm.

But the wine - raspberry red, blackberry blue, rosehip yellow, damson black -- stayed awake. Talking.

22.Nether Edge, Summer 1977 ;ETH HADN'T CHANGED. JAY WOULD HAVE RECOGNIZED HIM.

nstantly, even without the rifle crooked into his arm, hough in a year he seemed to have grown much taller, his ong hair tied back now in a thin pigtail. He was wearing i denim jacket, with grateful dead written across the >ack in biro, and engineer's boots. From his hiding place ibove the ca.n.a.l Jay could not tell if he was alone or not.

^s he watched, Zeth raised his rifle and took aim at omething just beyond the towpath. Some ducks which iad been sitting by the water sprayed upwards, their rangs going like clapperboards. Zeth yelled and fired gain. The ducks went crazy. Jay stayed where he was.

F Zeth wanted to shoot ducks, he thought, that was his 'usiness. He wasn't going to interfere. But as he watched e began to have his doubts. Zeth seemed to be firing not t the ca.n.a.l, but somewhere beyond. Past the trees and iwards the river, though the terrain there was far too pen for birds. Rabbits, maybe, thought Jay, though with ie noise he was making, surely any animal would have Iready fled. He narrowed his eyes against the lowering un, trying to make out what Zeth was doing. The bigger oy fired again, twice, and reloaded. Jay realized he was 110.

standing in almost exactly the same place he himself usually hid to watch . . .

The gypsies.

Zeth must have been firing at the was.h.i.+ng line strung between the nearest two caravans, for one end already trailed limply into the gra.s.s, like a bird's broken wing, flapping half-heartedly in the wind. The dog, tethered in its usual place, set up a strident barking. Jay thought he caught sight of something moving at the window of one of the caravans, a curtain pulled aside briefly and a face, pale, blurry, eyes wide in anger or dismay before the curtain was yanked back in place. There was no further movement ; from the caravans, and Zeth laughed again and began to Preload. Now Jay could hear what he was shouting.

I 'Gypp-o-oh! Gypp-o-oh?'

,x Well, Jay told himself, there was nothing he could do.

llEven Zeth wouldn't be crazy enough to actually hurt any- ;6ne. Firing at a was.h.i.+ng line, that was his style. Trying to Sfrighten people. Making a fair job of it, too, he imagined. He sthought of himself that first summer, crouching under the lock,, and felt heat creep into his face.

1:; Dammit, there was nothing he could do.

.;' The gypsies were safe enough in their caravan. They'd psyait it out until Zeth got tired or ran out of ammunition. He Pad to go home sometime. Besides, it was only an air rifle.

l^you couldn't do any real damage with an air rifle. Not ^really. Even if you hit a person.

, I mean, what was he supposed to do, anyway?

; Jay turned to go and let out a yelp of surprise. There was a 'girl crouching in the bushes not five feet behind him. He had ; been so absorbed watching Zeth that he hadn't heard her ^approach. She looked about twelve. Under a bramble of red 1 curls her face was small and blotchy, as if her freckles had kbeen stretched out of shape in an attempt to save on skin. She i Was wearing jeans and a white T-s.h.i.+rt so large that the sleeves ;' flapped around her thin arms. In one hand she was carrying a '; grubby red bandanna, which looked to be filled with stones.

The girl was on her feet as quickly and silently as an Apache. Jay barely had time to react to her presence before she sent a stone whizzing through the air with incredible speed and accuracy to strike against his kneecap with an audible, agonizing crack. He gave another yell and fell over, clutching at his knee. The girl looked at him, a second stone ready in her hand.

'Hey,' protested Jay.

'Sorry,' said the girl, without putting down the stone.

Jay rolled up the leg of his jeans to inspect the injured knee. A bruise was already rising. He glared at the girl, who returned his gaze with a flat, unrepentant look.

"You shouldn't have turned round like that,' said the girl. "You took me by surprise.'

'Took you . . . I' Jay struggled for speech.

The girl shrugged. 'I thought you was with him,' she said, jerking her small chin fiercely in the direction of the lock.

'Using our caravan and poor old Toffee as target practice.'

Jay rolled back his trouser leg.

'Him! He's no friend of mine,' he said indignantly. "He's crazy.'

'Oh. OK.'

The girl returned the stone to the bandanna. Another two rifle shots sounded, followed by Zeth's ululating war cry, 'Gypp-o-ohf The girl peered down warily through the bushes, then lifted a branch and prepared to slide underneath and down the banking.

'Hey, wait a minute.'

'What?'

The girl barely glanced back. In the shadow of the bush her eyes were golden, like an owl's.

'What are you doing?'

'What do you think?'

'But I told you already.' Jay's anger at her unprovoked attack had been replaced by alarm. 'He's crazy. You don't want to have anything to do with him. He'll get tired soon enough. He'll leave you alone when that happens.'

112.

The girl stared at him with undisguised contempt. 'Spect that's what you'd do?' she demanded.

Well . . . yes.'

She made a sound which might have been amus.e.m.e.nt or scorn, and pa.s.sed effortlessly under the branch, steadying herself with her free hand as she slid down the banking, braking with her heels when she reached the scree. Jay could see where she was heading. Fifty yards down the slope there was a cutaway, which opened out right over the lock. Red shale and loose stones smattered the banking ; where the hill had been opened. A screen of thin bushes provided cover. A tricky place to reach -- if approached fast Or carelessly you could ride the scree right off the edge onto filhe stones below - but it would provide her with a good ^place to launch her attack. If that was what she was planning. It was hard to believe that she was. Jay peered fadown the banking again and caught sight of her, much tlurther down now, barely visible in the undergrowth ex^cept for her hair. Let her do it if she wanted, he told himself.

t.i.t wasn't as if he hadn't warned her.

f''

jn" None of this really had anything to do with him.

'jy It was none of his business. & Sighing, he picked up the coalbox with its three-day load and began to scramble down the rocky path behind the girl. jft He took the other path to the ash pit, s.h.i.+elded from view finest of the way by bushes. In any case, he thought, Zeth ^wasn't looking. He was too busy shooting and yelling. Easy '; enough, then, to get across the open expanse of the ash pit ; and under the concealed lip beyond. It wasn't as good a ^Aiding place as the girl's, but it would have to do, and with 'two of them against one even Zeth might have to concede defeat. If it was two against one. Jay tried not to think about ;: any friends Zeth might have in the area, maybe just within ^shouting distance.

He put down the can of coal chunks and settled himself close to the edge of the ash pit. Zeth sounded very close now; Jay could hear his breathing and the snicking sound f his rifle as he broke it to reload. Glancing swiftly over the dge of the ash pit he could see him, too, the back of his ead and a slice of profile, his neck glaring with acne, his ag of greasy hair. Above the lock there was no sign of the iri, and he wondered, in sudden anxiety, whether she had ane. Then he saw a flicker of something red above the Jtting and a stone zipped out of the bushes, hitting Zeth a the arm. Jay knew a moment's amazement at the accu- icy of the girl's aim before Zeth swung round with a roar ? pain and surprise. Another stone hit him in the solar lexus, and as he whipped round towards the cutting Jay irew two chunks of coal at his back. One hit, the other issed, but Jay felt a hot rush of exhilaration as he ducked iwn again.

'Kill you, you f.u.c.ker!' Zeth's voice sounded both very ose and horrifyingly adult, a teenage troll in disguise.

hen the girl fired again, hitting him on the ankle, missing ice, then scoring a direct hit on the side of his head, aking a sound like a pool cue potting the ball.

'You leave us alone, then!' yelled the girl from her eyrie )ove the lock. 'b.l.o.o.d.y well leave us alone, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d!'

Now Zeth had seen her. Jay saw him move a little closer the cutting, his rifle in his hand. He could see what Zeth as doing. He would try to move under the overhang and it of sight, reload, then jump out firing. He'd be firing ind, but all the same. Jay looked over the edge of the ash t and took aim. He hit Zeth between the shoulder blades hard as he could.

'Get lost!' he shouted deliriously, firing another coal unk over the lip of the pit. 'Go pick on someone else!'

But it had been a mistake to show himself so openly. Jay w Zeth's eyes widen in recognition.

'Well, well, well.' Zeth had changed after all. He'd broad- ed out, his shoulders fulfilling the promise of his height.

* looked fully adult to Jay now, fully grown and ferocious.

' smiled and began to move closer to the ash pit, rifle 'elled. He kept under the overhang now, so that the girl 114.

could not target him. He was grinning. Jay threw another two pieces of coal, but his aim was off target and Zeth kept on coming.

'Get away!'

'Or what?' Zeth was close enough to see clearly into the ash pit now, with one eye on the overhang which s.h.i.+elded him. His grin looked like a bone sickle. He levelled his rifle with a quizzical, almost a gentle smile. 'Or what, eh? Or what?' Desperately Jay lobbed the remaining chunks of coal ' at him, but his aim was gone. They bounced off the bigger ; boy's shoulders like bullets off a tank. Jay looked into the 5; barrel of Zeth's rifle. It was only an air rifle, his mind I repeated, only an air rifle, only a poxy pellet gun. It's not as I' if it were a Colt or a Luger or anything, and anyway, he wouldn't dare shoot.

; Zeth's finger tightened on the trigger. There was a click.

At this range the gun didn't look poxy at all. It looked deadly.

Suddenly there was a sound from behind him and a flurry of small rocks slid from the cutaway, scattering down onto his head and shoulders. Zeth must have stepped ^ out of the shelter of the overhang, Jay realized, into The Girl's sights again. Funny, that leap into proper-noun Istatus. He moved back towards the edge of the pit, never taking his eyes off Zeth. His a.s.sumption that it was The ^ Girl throwing stones from her bandanna had to be wrong: . these were not isolated flung stones, but dozens -- make that hundreds - of pebbles, shards, gravel chunks, small rocks and the occasional larger one falling down the banking in a cloud of ochre dust. Something had dislodged a part of the overhang and scree was shooting off the edge in a gathering rockslide. Above the scar he could see something moving - an oversized T-s.h.i.+rt, no longer very white, topped by a carroty tangle of hair. She was on her hands and knees on the banking, rabbit-kicking at the scree for all she was worth, dislodging chunks of rock and soil and dust, which fragmented onto the stones below, pelting Zeth with earth and stones and acrid orange powder. Behind the sound of falling rubble Jay could just hear her thin, fierce voice screaming triumphantly, 'Eat s.h.i.+t, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d.''

Zeth was taken completely off-balance by the attack.

Dropping his rifle, his first instinct was to take shelter under the cutaway, but although the overhang protected him from thrown missiles it did nothing against the rock- fall, and he stumbled, choking, right into the thick of the falling scree. He swore, holding his arms protectively above his head, as chunks of rock suddenly came down on top of him. One piece the size of a housebrick caught him on the bony part of his elbow, and at that Zeth abruptly lost all interest in the fight. Coughing, choking and blinded by dust, clasping his injured arm to his stomach, he stumbled out from under the overhang. There came a triumphant war cry from above, followed by another avalanche of small rocks, but the battle was already won. Zeth flung a single murderous glance over his shoulder and fled. He ran up the side path until he reached the top, and only then did he stop to howl his defiance.

Thar f.u.c.kin dead, atha listenin?' His voice rolled off the stones at the ca.n.a.l side. 'If I ever see thee again, tha f.u.c.kin dead!'

The Girl gave a mocking yell from the trees.

Zeth fled.

116.

Lansquenet, March 1999 AWOKE TO A SPILL OF SUNs.h.i.+NE ON HIS FACE. THERE WAS A.

Binge yellowish quality to the light, something strained 1 winey, unlike dawn's clear pallor, but he was amazed an, looking at his watch, he realized he had slept more in fourteen hours. He recalled being feverish, even deluQal, that night, and he anxiously inspected his injured k for signs of infection, but none were apparent. The Idling had subsided as he slept, and though there was Ute gaudy bruising, as well as an ugly cut, on his ankle, fe seemed to be less damage than he remembered. The ig sleep must have done him good.