here?”
“Sandy? Dunno. About five years. Why?”
“Oh, nothing. Just something I heard.”
“About Sandy?”
“No - about the waitress before her. Someone
with a daughter.”
Crash. Luke’s dart went wide, hitting the
wall with some force - the first shot I’d seen him miss. He swore angrily.
“You shouldn’t listen to gossip,” he said,
looking at me seriously, an edge creeping into his voice. “Small towns like
this are full of it.”
I was horrified, wishing the ground would open
up and swallow me whole.
If only I’d stayed tongue-tied and
pathetic; at least I’d been silent. But now I’d finally opened my mouth, I’d
ruined everything - said completely the wrong thing. Given the impression that
I was an idle gossip, tittle-tattling about other people’s affairs.
Suddenly the silence was shattered by a
blast of tinny music: my phone. It was Dad letting me know he was on his way
back to the pub to collect me for our afternoon exploration of the caves at Hell’s
Mouth .
Relief flooded through me at the sound of
his voice.
Obviously, I should have done the mature
thing: apologised to Luke; set things right. But I was a coward, and Dad’s call
gave me the ‘get-out’ I needed.
So, avoiding Luke’s eye, I quickly made my
excuses and dashed off to meet him.
12
By now, the whole sky was smudged with sooty-grey
clouds which stifled the sun so that the world seemed darker. And maybe this
was what affected my mood. Or maybe it was the humiliation I felt over what had
happened with Luke. But as Dad and I drove up and up, into the landscape of the
Devil’s Lair, it seemed to me to be a hostile place, barren and cold. A land strangled
by coarse bracken and strewn with broken rock. The hills which reared up on all
sides seemed forbidding, their summits hard and grey and uninviting. Other
landscapes had filled me with awe at their beauty and power, with a sense that
I belonged to their huge, natural world. But here I felt nothing but a strange
sense of foreboding.
And then we drove over a cattle grid and up
into the highest fells: and straight into low-lying cloud.
Dad swore and switched on his headlights.
“Maybe we should turn back,” I suggested
tentatively.
But he wasn’t listening, too busy
concentrating on the road ahead, switching on the wipers to clear the thin
drizzle which clung to the windscreen. He had no intention of turning back; he
wanted to see the caves.
He clicked the radio on, tuning in to one
of his factual shows. This one was about animal defence techniques.
And so, as the mist enclosed us in its
gossamer shroud, we listened to a voice informing us about the bombardier
beetle and how it sprays boiling toxic bodily fluids at its predators.
The topic, while fascinating to Dad,
obviously did nothing to raise my spirits. It simply increased my general
feeling of unease.
Nature certainly had a cruel side.
My mind flashed back to the story of the changeling
girl; then that poem about kittens being drowned in a bucket, the teacher
calling it a fact of nature.
I thought about my own cruel nature
recently: how I’d labelled a woman a witch; how I’d casually judged the man in
the bow tie to be a total prat; how I’d angered Luke by poking and prying into things
that were none of my business.
Sighing, I looked out at the mist, at how
it was wrapping itself so thickly around the surrounding hilltops, concealing
them from us.
<><><>
Finally we began to descend, driving down
and down, out of the clouds, until, eventually, Dad turned right into the car
park of the Hell’s Mouth Show Caves.
Walking up a short flight of covered steps,
Dad tapped on the little ticket window. When he explained who he was, he was invited
into the office to confirm the arrangements for his photography session. He
stepped in, leaving me in the cold outside, idly reading the notices stuck to
the glass, about opening times and suitable clothing.
While I was waiting, more people
“Sandy? Dunno. About five years. Why?”
“Oh, nothing. Just something I heard.”
“About Sandy?”
“No - about the waitress before her. Someone
with a daughter.”
Crash. Luke’s dart went wide, hitting the
wall with some force - the first shot I’d seen him miss. He swore angrily.
“You shouldn’t listen to gossip,” he said,
looking at me seriously, an edge creeping into his voice. “Small towns like
this are full of it.”
I was horrified, wishing the ground would open
up and swallow me whole.
If only I’d stayed tongue-tied and
pathetic; at least I’d been silent. But now I’d finally opened my mouth, I’d
ruined everything - said completely the wrong thing. Given the impression that
I was an idle gossip, tittle-tattling about other people’s affairs.
Suddenly the silence was shattered by a
blast of tinny music: my phone. It was Dad letting me know he was on his way
back to the pub to collect me for our afternoon exploration of the caves at Hell’s
Mouth .
Relief flooded through me at the sound of
his voice.
Obviously, I should have done the mature
thing: apologised to Luke; set things right. But I was a coward, and Dad’s call
gave me the ‘get-out’ I needed.
So, avoiding Luke’s eye, I quickly made my
excuses and dashed off to meet him.
12
By now, the whole sky was smudged with sooty-grey
clouds which stifled the sun so that the world seemed darker. And maybe this
was what affected my mood. Or maybe it was the humiliation I felt over what had
happened with Luke. But as Dad and I drove up and up, into the landscape of the
Devil’s Lair, it seemed to me to be a hostile place, barren and cold. A land strangled
by coarse bracken and strewn with broken rock. The hills which reared up on all
sides seemed forbidding, their summits hard and grey and uninviting. Other
landscapes had filled me with awe at their beauty and power, with a sense that
I belonged to their huge, natural world. But here I felt nothing but a strange
sense of foreboding.
And then we drove over a cattle grid and up
into the highest fells: and straight into low-lying cloud.
Dad swore and switched on his headlights.
“Maybe we should turn back,” I suggested
tentatively.
But he wasn’t listening, too busy
concentrating on the road ahead, switching on the wipers to clear the thin
drizzle which clung to the windscreen. He had no intention of turning back; he
wanted to see the caves.
He clicked the radio on, tuning in to one
of his factual shows. This one was about animal defence techniques.
And so, as the mist enclosed us in its
gossamer shroud, we listened to a voice informing us about the bombardier
beetle and how it sprays boiling toxic bodily fluids at its predators.
The topic, while fascinating to Dad,
obviously did nothing to raise my spirits. It simply increased my general
feeling of unease.
Nature certainly had a cruel side.
My mind flashed back to the story of the changeling
girl; then that poem about kittens being drowned in a bucket, the teacher
calling it a fact of nature.
I thought about my own cruel nature
recently: how I’d labelled a woman a witch; how I’d casually judged the man in
the bow tie to be a total prat; how I’d angered Luke by poking and prying into things
that were none of my business.
Sighing, I looked out at the mist, at how
it was wrapping itself so thickly around the surrounding hilltops, concealing
them from us.
<><><>
Finally we began to descend, driving down
and down, out of the clouds, until, eventually, Dad turned right into the car
park of the Hell’s Mouth Show Caves.
Walking up a short flight of covered steps,
Dad tapped on the little ticket window. When he explained who he was, he was invited
into the office to confirm the arrangements for his photography session. He
stepped in, leaving me in the cold outside, idly reading the notices stuck to
the glass, about opening times and suitable clothing.
While I was waiting, more people
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