The Silent Forest Read online

  As soon as she could, she stopped at a public telephone box to make a call.

  ‘Hi John. It’s Jo. I need you to do something for me. Tout de suite.’

  She’d never intended to take Bruno’s rants seriously.

  It was a really bad idea.

  Now, out of the blue, there was something concrete to go on.

  FOURTEEN

  Never had she felt so lightheaded and dizzy, thought Nora. The workshop’s bluish, acidic atmosphere was giving her a bad throat. Above all else, she mustn’t rub her sore eyes. Everywhere in the factory was so filthy it was easy to transfer dirt from one place to another – she could soon give herself conjunctivitis. Instead, she concentrated on scratching the hellishly red spots on the backs of her hands.

  Her job today was to sort rejects from hundreds of freshly made miniature Buddhas, boys on crocodiles, lions’ heads, shells, highwaymen’s pistols and miniature fighter planes. Nearby on her bench lay a pile of pixies with impish grins, large ears and pointed hats, but her favourite was a naked woman reclining in the curve of the moon. None of these brass stampings looked anything much yet, but soon they would all be transformed into eye-catching jewellery coated in silver and gold. First, though, she had to deburr the rough edges from each trinket in a revolving wooden barrel. The hexahedral tumbler was not unlike a greedy little ship. If she did not keep sufficient water in it, its planks would dry out, shrink and leak.

  She had just opened a sack to begin ladling cream-coloured burnishing powder into a bucket, when she saw the diminutive, dark-haired Adrian open a storeroom door marked with a skull and crossbones. Soon he was wrestling with a large blue drum of chemicals. This she had to see. It really was quite comical. Talk about King Sisyphus trying to roll a boulder up a hill! He needed to hit the drum with his hammer and screwdriver to unclip its lid, but it was obvious that a puny young man like him was not fit to move something weighing well over one hundred pounds.

  Of course she should go over there and help him, but she had her quota of work to finish. Bang, bang, bang went Adrian with his hammer. He tried again to drag the drum a few inches away from the wall to give himself more room. Honestly, he was wasting his time.

  At that moment her friend Mary gave her a shout. She, too, worked a deburring barrel just like hers, but she was having trouble emptying it. She literally hadn’t a clue.

  ‘Turn it to the top,’ said Nora, with her long hair tied up in a red scarf to keep it safe from whirring cogs. ‘Use your iron bar to loosen the clamps. Then you can pull out the plug. Now tip.’

  ‘Thanks Nora, I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

  ‘Don’t forget to put your hand inside the drum to pick out any remaining pieces that have stuck to the sides.’

  ‘Bloody gloves leak.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  Nora focused her itchy eyes on Adrian again. All efforts to lever off the retaining ring from the top of the impossibly heavy steel drum had finally paid off. Good for him. She turned back to the barrel she had just set in motion. There, she set about silencing its squeaky bearings with a flick of a stick that she dipped in a jar full of grease. She listened to the drum’s constant swishing and swashing. At each lurch of water, she let herself be transported away from the factory to a once happy childhood.

  She was listening to the rush of seawater up an Irish beach as she trod warm sands with her boyfriend. They were kissing with the break of each wave. To complete the illusion, she closed her eyes and imagined what might have been if only she hadn’t ‘sinned’… In a small town like hers there was little understanding, let alone forgiveness. You ‘got yourself’ pregnant, as if no one else was involved.

  When she opened her eyes again, Adrian was standing triumphantly beside his open drum. But he was awfully still – rigid, frozen and without sound. Disbelief filled his face. Panic was no less obvious. His body was in shock. Next, he tore at his throat in an effort to breathe.

  ‘Adrian? You okay?’

  With no clear understanding she ran to help him, only to see him make dire rasping sounds as he clutched his chest like someone drowning.

  She could in no way explain the colour of his face right now. The only other human being she had ever seen turn so blue had been a dying baby. Her own.

  It half paralysed, then galvanized her into action.

  ‘Mr Devaney!’

  The ape-like silhouette of a man loomed out of the gloom.

  ‘Get back to your bench at once.’

  ‘But something terrible is happening to Adrian.’

  The foreman, as clumsy as ever, fixed his hand upon Nora’s shoulder and glared at her with that special look he reserved for all troublemakers. His breath reeked of beer. But even he appeared frightened now.

  ‘Hurry. Run to my office. Fetch the First Aid Box.’

  ‘But he’s choking to death.’

  ‘So will you if you don’t do as I say.’

  His reaction was that of a panic-stricken but quick-thinking medic. That’s not all he did, noted Nora, as she looked back across the workshop. He already had hold of Adrian by his heels. To her horror, he was dragging the stricken youth through the workshop ready to deposit him outside on the icy ground. The yard was a great pyramid of metal drums and globular glass carboys set in straw and metal frames, a toxic minefield and dumping ground for everything that had outlived its immediate usefulness, but its air had to be fresher than inside.

  She hurried back and saw veins swell horribly on Adrian’s head and neck. His breathing became noisier. Each gasp proved a struggle to get past the cramp in his chest.

  ‘Is he dying? Should we call an ambulance?’

  Devaney shook off her imploring hand.

  ‘No ambulance, Nora. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘Pass me that bottle labelled amyl nitrite and some cotton wool.’

  She literally had no idea what was really happening. But Devaney did. As soon as she gave him the bottle from the medicine box, he transferred some of its liquid to the cotton wool. Then he held the gauze flat in his hand as he waved it under Adrian’s nose for him to inhale the vapour.

  ‘He’s going to die, isn’t he?’

  Devaney growled.

  ‘Like to think not.’

  So saying, he thrust the bottle and cotton wool into her hand.

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t touch his mouth, or else the liquid will give him a nasty rash round his nose and lips.’

  Still Adrian went bluer and bluer.

  Nora was watching him asphyxiate for lack of ‘air’.

  Meanwhile Devaney hurriedly cut the stricken man’s shirt from his chest and pulled off his trousers. He did it in such a way as not to drag his clothes anywhere near his face.

  ‘Adrian? Can you hear me? Can you tell us what happened?’

  But Adrian only rolled his eyes.

  ‘I feel sick to my stomach.’

  Nora held on to his shoulders as a fresh seizure arched his spine with severe cramp.

  ‘We should definitely call a doctor.’

  ‘Please, no doctor,’ said Adrian.

  ‘But you look very ill.’

  ‘No one must know who I really am. They’ll send me back to the army.’

  ‘The army is better than an early grave.’

  ‘From what I’ve seen, there’s little difference.’

  ‘We should get you a coat. You’ll catch cold out here.’

  ‘Have mine,’ said Devaney. ‘The important thing is that he gets as much air into his lungs as possible.’

  ‘It’s as if he’s drowning.’

  ‘That’s what cyanide poisoning does to a person.’

  ‘Cyanide?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Do we have any more amyl nitrite?’

  ‘It’s very expensive. As are doctors.’

  ‘Is that what you want, M
r Devaney…?’

  ‘Can’t be helped.’

  ‘…to see him die?’

  ‘Too much of that stuff can be dangerous.’

  She ignored her own safety and felt for a pulse in the young man’s wrist. It was racing like a train. She feared for his heart. He complained of nausea, thirst and blurred vision. She shook him hard before he fainted. She had to try to keep him awake – if he was conscious there had to be hope.

  ‘Stay with me, Adrian. What did you do in the storeroom?’

  ‘The zinc plating solution needs strengthening. Mr Devaney told me… mix cyanide and caustic soda in a bucket of water.’

  ‘You ever do this before?’

  ‘Yeah, but it was a new drum. Instead of hard eggs of cyanide which I could pick out by hand, it was full of fine, white powder.’

  ‘So what happened then?’

  ‘As soon as I dug into the drum the salts took off like snowflakes. They were so fine. They floated right up past my face. Like a blizzard. I must have inhaled something.’

  ‘You bet.’

  Devaney went off to secure the door to the storeroom.

  Nora ran after him.

  ‘Wait. What if the worst possible thing happens?’

  ‘We’ll know in two to six hours. Meanwhile, dip a cigarette in the last of the amyl nitrite and get him to suck it. Make sure you throw it away afterwards because it will be highly flammable if anyone tries to light it.’

  ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘At least he’s not dead yet.’

  ‘Why take that risk?’

  ‘You heard what he said, he doesn’t want anyone to find out that he’s an army deserter. Neither do I.’

  Nora stopped short of the door to the workshop. For a moment she watched the foreman march away and was outraged. A young man’s life hung in the balance. But what could she say? Ashamed of her cowardice, she had no excuses. Instead she sensed in her own attitude a cruel pragmatism not unlike Devaney’s. To call an ambulance was to invite unwanted questions for which she had to have some very good answers – if this factory shut down she would be back on the streets.

  In the next few hours she grew gloomier, not to say sullen. She knew in her heart that she should report her employer to a factory inspector.

  About this, however, she literally said nothing. Was this not what Adrian, as much as Devaney, wanted? Nor was the foreman all monster – in the heat of the moment, had he not given him his coat knowing that it would have to be burned afterwards?

  Thus were they all bound in absolute obedience to their real master which was silence.

  It was “St Mary’s Mother and Baby Home” once more.

  FIFTEEN

  ‘Please, granddad, tell me more about the phantom boar.’

  Sam’s request saw a smile cross the old man’s bearded lips, rendered more crooked by his jagged cheek bone. Jim Wilde had once been a freeminer digging coal beneath the Forest of Dean, when the adit’s roof had fallen in and nearly killed him.

  ‘You know your mother doesn’t approve of my silly stories.’

  ‘But you promised.’

  They were seated before a glowing fire in the parlour of Tunnel Cottage. Much as he loved to visit his grandfather, his home always filled him with a sense of eeriness and foreboding. The tiny, two-storey sandstone house with its oddly shaped roof – like a grey school cap with its peak pulled down – guarded a level crossing on the railway branch line that pierced nearby Bradley Hill. The occasional coal train rattled the ill-fitting windows as it steamed through the tunnel within sight of their front door. You could hear other echoes in the dead of night when a fox screamed or a stag bellowed near the sinister opening. To enter that subterranean passage was to visit another world; it was a way into the silent Forest and all its secrets. That’s what it felt like to him, anyway.

  ‘It’s all right, granddad, mum won’t be back for ages. She’s gone to put flowers on her friend’s grave. She says she can’t rest until she has talked to her one last time.’

  ‘Whose grave would that be, Sam?’

  ‘Sarah Smith. She crashed her car into a tree.’

  ‘Oh yes, I read about it in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago. A gruesome business. But I had no idea Freya was still in touch with her old school friend. She never said. Did your mother not attend the funeral, then?’

  ‘Dad wouldn’t allow it, but we went anyway. Sort of. Mum sent me to spy on the service while she hid in some gardens nearby – I had to tell her how many people sat in the church and how many flowers decorated the coffin.’

  He didn’t mention being chased by the one-eared woman through the graveyard – no one needed to know what he thought of the untrustworthy fire watcher who had not yet returned his book of trains.

  Jim Wilde raked coals furiously with a poker. Into his one good, grey eye there came a flash like flint on fire. He growled through gaps in his twisted, blackened teeth as he resented his age and lack of strength. A man did not crawl through the bowels of the earth for decades without acquiring a few broken bones that mended badly. Yet it was not arthritis alone that caused him to shiver.

  ‘I said there’d be trouble if Freya ever married James Boreman.’

  Sam knew enough to say nothing. Instead, his eye wandered to a nearby oil lamp that glowed on the mantelpiece. This late in the day there were no trains due, but the hand lamp’s black wick burned every night in case of trouble. Sometimes they heard the sound of faraway gunfire carry across the treetops from the direction of Lydney. Talk was that the GIs were learning how to shoot their new M1 semi-automatic rifles at a woodland target range in readiness for a fresh assault on the enemy next year.

  Suddenly Jim Wilde smiled at him again.

  ‘You want a cup of tea, or what?’

  ‘First tell me that tale of the magical boar.’

  Jim Wilde wrinkled his nostrils and sniffed loudly.

  ‘Do you know the best way to protect yourself from a wild boar?’

  ‘Yes, granddad, I do. You’ve told me ten times already. You collect human hair from a barbershop. Then you sprinkle it all over the entrance to your house and garden.’

  ‘That way the smell repels them.’

  ‘Like vampires and garlic.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘You do believe in the legend of the phantom boar, don’t you, granddad?’

  ‘Would I even tell it to you if I didn’t?’

  ‘Please, granddad.’

  ‘Are you sitting comfortably? Okay, then listen to me. Many, many years ago the queen of King Cilydd Wledig is frightened by some pigs. She goes into premature labour and dies giving birth to her son in the pigsty, but not before she names him Culhwch. As a result, the prince is raised in secret by a swineherd…’

  ‘Where did you read that?’

  ‘It’s all written down in a very old book called the ‘Red Book of Hergest’. But how can I start my story if you interrupt me?’

  ‘Did you just stop?’

  ‘Here’s the deal. With Culhwch’s mother dead, King Cilydd Wledig is free to marry another king’s widow. However, the new queen wants to marry her own daughter to Culhwch but he refuses. The new queen becomes so terribly angry that she puts a curse on him. Now Culhwch has to marry the beautiful Olwen and no one else.’

  ‘So what’s the catch?’

  ‘Olwen is the daughter of the cunning and treacherous giant named Ysbaddaden Bencawr who lives in a high, almost impregnable castle.’

  ‘But that’s what princes do, isn’t it, granddad? They rescue beautiful princesses from spooky castles?’

  ‘Culhwch doesn’t want to go there. Believe me. That’s a terrible idea.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Jim Wilde sat so still, with such an inclination to stop and listen to the Forest all around them, that Sam feared he would refuse to go on with their adventure.

  ‘Because the giant is under a curse himself, th
at’s why. He’ll die if his daughter ever marries.’

  ‘So what happens next?’

  ‘Culhwch is already hopelessly in love with Olwen but her father is very cunning – Ysbaddaden sets Culhwch a set of difficult tasks before he’ll consent to give his daughter’s hand in marriage. In particular, Culhwch must cut the giant’s hair and beard so that he can look his best when he walks his daughter down the aisle.’

  ‘Sounds easy enough.’

  ‘It’s not, though, is it? The giant’s hair is so thick and tangled that no ordinary blade or comb will cut or straighten it.’

  ‘What’s all this got to do with the phantom boar?’

  ‘I’m coming to that in a moment.’

  Sam listened to the trees scrape and scratch the roof of the house – some wild creature was rooting about in the garden quite close to the window? Then again, it was most probably a rush of the wind through the nearby tunnel; it could have been some bird or deer calling or something else.

  ‘And Culhwch? What does he do?’

  ‘He learns of a magic pair of shears, comb and razor that will do the trick, but there’s a problem: the magical items reside among the poisonous bristles on the head of the ferocious Twrch Trwyth.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That’s the name of the phantom boar. ‘Twrch’ in Welsh means ‘wild boar’. So Twrch Trwyth means ‘the boar Trwyth’. But this is no ordinary boar, it’s an Irish king whom God has changed into an animal on account of a quarrel.’

  ‘Sounds scary.’

  But even as Jim Wilde opened his mouth to reply he gave a shiver. An involuntary contraction of arms and legs took hold of him briefly – it might have been his arthritis, after all.

  ‘Twrch Trwyth does not fight alone. He’s accompanied by seven young hogs all of whom are really men under a spell. Culhwch seeks the help of his cousin, the famous King Arthur of Cornwall who immediately selects six of his finest knights. To defeat ‘the boar Trwyth’ they take with them a magic sword, a boarhound and a boar’s tusk. Meanwhile Twrch Trwyth is laying waste to a large part of Ireland. A great fight follows but the supernatural boar proves far too strong for our heroes on the battlefield; it crosses the Irish Sea and lands safely in Wales. All the way across the coast to the Amman Valley the two sides are locked in ever fiercer fighting. More men and pigs are slaughtered until, by the time they reach the River Severn, Twrch Trwyth stands alone.’