We heard them well enough. They set about tearing up our things and smashing furniture, some of which I had made with my own two hands.
Cathy remained as she was, poised. But I turned away, confident that they would not hear the undergrowth rustle as I turned my back on them and sat in the moss looking instead into the depths of the copse.
I do not know how long the men stayed inside destroying our things and ripping at the guts of our house but they were quiet when they had finished. A job well done. They came outside and lingered only to catch their breaths before filtering back into the two vans. One started up and accelerated immediately but paused when the driver saw he was not being followed by the other vehicle. A head was poked out the window to check on the situation but he must have been waved on by the driver of the second van because he soon tucked himself back into his cabin and started up again. As the first van sped out of sight, the driver of the second got out, walked around to the front and opened up the bonnet. There was a problem with the engine. I could smell it now: a faint dark smoke had drifted towards us in the trees and had just now reached my nostrils. Burnt oil. As he worked at the engine Cathy kept her eyes fixed upon him like a lion in the scrub watching gazelle.
I was looking out towards the house when I heard the strike at Cathy’s head. It was an unfamiliar sound and so close, simultaneously soft and chafing like a football bouncing on gravel. Then Cathy’s head was in the dirt. I looked down and saw her: I did not look up to see the man who had struck her. She coughed into the loose soil and it kicked back a cloud of umber. She was not unconscious but, a moment later, I was.
Chapter Twenty
I woke in her arms. Cathy had placed my head on her lap and she was cradling it. I felt something cold and wet on my forehead. She mopped my brow with a towel then my cheeks and lips. She had lifted a bottle of water and, seeing that my eyes had opened, she raised my head, put the bottle to my mouth and urged me to drink. The shock of the cold water made my head feel worse but I soon discovered how thirsty I had been. Feeling well enough to raise my arm, I took the bottle myself and finished it then considered that I should have perhaps left some for her.
‘I’ve already drunk,’ she said, reading my thoughts. ‘You’re fine.’
My head was far from fine. I did not need to touch it to check for blood. I could smell it on my face.
‘They got us, then,’ I said.
‘Looks like it.’
‘Where are we?’
‘They put us in a van and brought us out to a farm. Mr Price’s, I think. They locked us in a shed round the back of the house, near a big barn. I was awake the whole time. You were out cold.’
I shuffled my body into a more comfortable position.
‘There’s a load of them,’ she said. ‘Too many for Daddy. Perhaps.’
‘Is Daddy here?’ I asked.
‘Not yet.’ Cathy was still holding her hope out in front of her for all the world to see. I had swallowed mine.
I looked around. The shed would have been completely dark but for a thin row of windows just beneath the corrugated iron roof. There were shelves containing stacks of cardboard boxes, canisters and plastic bottles. Garden twine, sheets of bubble wrap, pull-ties, paraffin. That sort of thing. The floor was mucky and covered with pelts of green AstroTurf, which were mucky too. In one corner there was a table laden with nursery plants, little shoots of something or other poking out of their individual black pots.
‘Did you kill that boy, Cathy?’
She had been busy rearranging the folds and creases in her jeans and did not look across. We were sat right next to each other on the mucky floor and I could hear her halt her breath but she did not look across.
‘I don’t mind if you did,’ I continued. ‘It’s nowt to me. You’re my sister and I love you. I have believed everything you’ve ever said and I will believe everything you ever will say. And if you did it there was reason, even if that reason was just that you wanted to. It’s nowt to me. You’re my sister.’
She still did not look across. Nor did she speak. I put my hand around her shoulder.
‘There was nowt else I could do,’ said Cathy. ‘I wandt strong enough to just push him off. If I’d fought him just to put him down on the ground long enough that I could get away, he would have just got straight back up and caught me again. He was so much bigger than me. So much stronger. If I had fought by any kind of rules I would’ve lost. It’s just like Daddy’s always said. If I’d slapped him round the face or punched him he would have slapped and punched me harder. If I’d grappled with him, he would have had me. Of course he would have. That’s the way it goes. He’s a boy, growing into a man, and I’m a girl, growing into a woman. The only thing I could do was to pretend – for just a moment – that that’s not how the game is played. You woundt understand.’
‘I would. I do. Please tell me.’
‘I just. I just knew that the only way I could regain any kind of control over it all – over myself, my body, the situation – was if that control was complete. My action had to outweigh anything he might do by such a long way that he woundt even have the chance to act. Because, with the way things were set up between us, he had many chances; I had one. So I took it. It was like everything inside me came together in one moment to a single point and that point was my clasped grip around his throat. I held him like that, tightly, for minutes and minutes. Long after he was dead. I had to make sure. Like I said, I had one chance.’