What We Saw

Chapter Five

The following morning, we awoke to some good news. Granddad was working on his car, putting a new coat of paint on it. Something to make it look shinier, anyway.

‘Do you boys fancy doing me a massive favour and taking Carla out for a walk?’

Adam leapt towards Carla’s lead and wrestled with her. ‘Just us? On our own?’

Granddad smiled and turned from Adam to look at me. ‘I figured you’re responsible enough to take her out on your own now.’ He turned to Adam, who grinned back at me. ‘But you make sure you let your cousin hold her first, Adam. Then you can have a turn.’

‘I, I’m not sure…’ I said.

‘Yeah, he ain’t sure, let me have her,’ Adam said.

Granddad stopped painting and turned to face me. ‘My rules or no rules. Liam, you take her, she’ll be alright if you hold tight. Then, Adam, you walk her back. I’ve got my spies on you, James Blond and his team, so don’t think of breaking my rules.’ He pointed and squinted at the two of us.

Adam put his head in his hands. ‘It’s James Bond, Granddad. Don’t talk about spying again.’

I powered down the road, dog in hand. Adam launched himself towards the hill in the road, prompting Carla to run after him. On the other end of the lead, I flew forward with her. For a moment, I felt like I was actually flying. We caught up with Adam, and Carla slowed to a walk. The sun beamed in full force, and Mr. Biggs tended to his garden. The smell of cut grass was rich in the air as butterflies flapped and glistened in the blue light of the sky.

We approached the entrance to the woods, Donald and Emily’s caravans nearby.

‘Give her to me now, cuz, stop hogging her.’ Adam grabbed hold of Carla.

‘But Granddad said—’

‘Granddad called James Bond ‘James Blond.’ So I’ll take her now, if you don’t mind.’ He pulled the lead from my hands and clutched it, puffing his chest out. ‘That’s better ain’t it, girl? Lanky holding you back?’

I looked at the entrance of the woods. At first I thought I saw a large log, but it was something else. I realised it was a grand stag. Giant antlers pierced out of its skull. It stood there almost unrealistically, like a painting.

My jaw dropped as I nudged Adam. ‘Adam, over there, look at that!’

Adam’s eyes grew. His face lit up, and his arms went limp by his side. Unfortunately for us, Carla had spotted the stag, too.

Everything happened in slow motion. Carla jerked forward, pulling her lead from Adam’s hand, and went barking into the woods. The stag vanished as she charged into the deep foliage, hot on its scent. We stood in shock.

‘Adam, you little shit,’ I said, but it was too late. He had already started sprinting towards the woods. I looked around for people, but nobody was watching.

Carla disappeared into the darkness. The distant chime of her lead rattled against the ground like an instrument.

‘Carla! Carla!’ Adam shouted. He stopped at the entrance, where I caught up with him.

‘We’ve got to go in and find her,’ he said, his pale face red and his eyes bloodshot. I was unsure.

‘But Granddad said we can’t go in the woods.’

Adam stamped the ground. ‘Jesus, Liam, she couldn’t have gone far. We’ll nip in and have a look. Grow a pair, for god’s sake.’

‘Okay, alright, but this is your mess.’

The mouth of the woods invited us in, luring us into its belly. We shouted for Carla. We threw stones, and we circled the area. But nothing worked. Carla had gone. The forest had tricked us and taken her away.

‘If you’d just kept hold of her, we wouldn’t be in this mess,’ I said.

‘Well maybe if you hadn’t made such a fuss over a f*cking big deer, we wouldn’t be in this mess, either.’ Adam shouted and paced about with his head in his hands.

‘We need to tell Donald. He knows these woods better than anyone,’ I said. ‘He’ll be able to track Carla down. He must be able to.’

I turned round to face the entrance of the woods and was surprised to see Donald approaching.

‘Is something wrong, boys? Thought I heard some commotion,’ he said.

We told him about our ordeal. About the stag. About Carla running off.

‘Funny you should mention a stag. I was just in my cabin fishing out an old photograph of a deer I’d taken some time ago. Small world, huh?’

‘Donald, we need your help,’ I said. ‘We’re in huge trouble if we don’t get Carla back.’

Donald still stared at us, his eyes like glass. He looked distant, like his body was here with us but his mind was somewhere else.

‘Donald, are you with us?’ I said.

Donald came round, again, readjusting himself to the real world. ‘I’m sorry lads, I was miles away. Just what… just with you saying about the stag. Got my imagination going, you know? I’ll keep an eye out for your dog. Just tell your grandparents the truth. They’ll understand. It’ll all be okay when Carla comes back.’

Adam groaned.

‘Donald, we really need your help right now. We need to get her back. Granddad will kill us for this,’ I said, turning my gaze towards Adam. Stupid, careless idiot.

Donald arched his neck and glanced around the woods. He seemed distant.

‘I’ll keep an eye out, boys, but I’m kinda busy at the moment. You need to tell your grandparents as soon as you get home. It won’t be nice, but they need to start searching. She’ll know their voice, or their smell, or something.’

Crestfallen, we turned away from the interior of the woods and headed back home.

*

Telling Granddad was nothing short of torture.

‘I ask you… to do… one simple thing.’ My granddad’s face reddened to traffic-light levels, flickers of spit showering us.

We both stood quietly with our hands in front of us and took what we knew we deserved.

‘I bloody told you, Granddad, she just ran off!’ Adam said. Gran sat on the sofa, looking at us both and shaking her head.

‘Well you clearly weren’t holding her tight enough, were you?’ Granddad shouted.

Adam kicked at the cabinet next to him.

‘Adam…’ I said. I didn’t want him to lose his temper again.

‘No, you shut up.’

‘Don’t speak to your cousin like that,’ Granddad said.

‘Why are you looking at me? Why is this all my fault? Just because I’m younger, it’s always me you blame.’

Granddad shook his head. ‘Oh, be quiet, Adam. It’s because you’re useless. You can’t do one simple thing—’

Adam cracked. ‘Try having your f*cking parents kill themselves, f*cking drown themselves. Just try it for one f*cking day.’

My granddad flinched. Gran covered her ears. I contemplated saying something, but I couldn’t. My cousin’s eyes were red, demonic.

‘You—you pretend that you get it. You pretend it’s something that you can all solve but none of you have any idea,’ Adam said.

‘Adam, that’s not tr—’

‘No, don’t tell me it isn’t true, Granddad. It is true. Your parents didn’t drown themselves. Neither did yours, Gran. And you, Liam, your parents might be arguing, and they might be apart, but at least you’ve still got them. So, stop pretending it’s okay. It’s all just stuck in my head, all of this mess, and I can’t get it out. I can’t f*cking get it out!’ Adam threw his head into his hands and collapsed to his knees. He rocked back and forth.

I considered going over to him and putting my hand on his back, but I wasn’t sure this was a good idea. He’d flipped. He could do anything. I wished Emily and Donald were here right now. I wish all his friends were around him.

‘I lost a frigging daughter in this, too, Adam,’ Granddad said, before storming into the bathroom. Gran squeezed her eyes together and kept her hands over her ears.

*

We went to bed early that night. Gran didn’t say another word to either of us. She made her cocoa in her flowery mug and went straight to bed. Adults seem to have a weird way of brushing children’s problems out of the door. It’s like they think they’ll heal with time and forget about it after a couple of games on the Nintendo.

It wasn’t an ignorant thing, I don’t think. Just seemed to happen a lot, especially with my own mum and dad. They sent me off to the caravan where I could run around and make up mysteries. They probably thought it was the best they could do for me, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew something was going on with them. They couldn’t hide that no matter how often they sent me away.

Adam was quiet and faced the wall with his back to me. I knew he was awake because he kept sighing and muttering.

‘Adam… I—you’re alright, aren’t you?’

Adam sighed again. Of course he wasn’t alright. What a stupid thing to say.

‘Adam, we don’t have to talk about stuff. Just so you know I’m here, okay? I know it’s tough, living with grandparents you’ve not spent much time with and stuff like that. But we’re alright really, aren’t we, cuz?’

I got out of bed to head to the kitchen to grab a drink.

‘Thanks, Liam.’

I turned around to look at Adam. He had his eyes closed now. I smiled. ‘You’re welcome, Adam.’

Granddad was still awake in the living room when I went into the kitchen. The tangerine glow of the corner lamp hung over the room. He’d decided to hand design some posters to put up, with various old photos of Carla glued to the front, to aid and speed up her retrieval. I asked him if he wanted any help, and he told me that it was something he had to do. But I could tell he was thankful.

‘You can put some up for me tomorrow,’ he said. ‘You know some of these places better than I do.’ He poured himself a glass of milk.

‘Are you, um… are you okay, Granddad?’ I whispered so that Adam could not hear from the bedroom.

Granddad lifted his glass to his lips before bringing it back down, turning his eyes away from me. ‘I will be, kid, I will be. You go to bed.’

He sat down and glued another picture of Carla to a piece of paper. He didn’t look at me again.