Free The Hunger Trace by Edward Hogan Page B

dens made of?’ he asked.
    ‘We’ll make you one, down by the brook, won’t we Louisa?’
    ‘I suppose. I just pulled down the old mews, so there’s a lot of wood and iron hanging around. We could use that. It’ll be like a treehouse, only on the ground,’ she said. David beamed. ‘A treehouse on the ground,’ he said, and then stopped smiling and addressed Christopher. ‘As long as you promise, no more trees,’ he said.
    ‘Erm, erm, as long as you promise a den,’ Christopher said, excited by the prospect of an infinite conversation.
    When his knees were wrapped in the gauze Louisa used to treat her hawks, they left Christopher to rest and went through to the kitchen. Louisa made tea. They stood by the sink. ‘You look well,’ Louisa said, with a hint of sadness.
    ‘I feel good,’ David said. ‘Better than I have for a long time. Since I was a kid, I suppose.’
    Louisa nodded slowly and sighed. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’m glad.’
    ‘It’s taken a long time. It was a terrible thing that happened to us. You saved me, you know. I wouldn’t have coped.’
    Louisa sniffed and looked away.
    ‘Anyway, what about you, Smedley?’ David said, lightening the tone. ‘I see precious little of you these days.’
    ‘Well, it’s not like I go anywhere. You know where I am.’
    ‘You’re in my garden,’ he said. Louisa reddened, but David became serious. ‘If there’s ever anything I can do for you,’ he said.
    They looked at each other for a moment. The kitchen lights were off, but the twilight made the place orange, threw patches of furtive heat across them both. Steam slinked up from the coiled clay mugs. Louisa’s knuckles stung.
    Christopher hobbled into the room. ‘Daddy, I want to go home, now. This house smells funny.’
    ‘Christopher, for God’s sake.’
    The moment was gone. Louisa turned away, towards the sink, the pan handles thrusting forth from water gone tepid. No plates.
    ‘Louisa, he doesn’t mean that. He’s just tired.’
    ‘So am I,’ Louisa said.
    The next day, Louisa dropped the materials for the den at their house, but left them to it. So David, with help from Christopher, built the den into the bottom of the slope, not far from the brook. They could often be seen fishing for beer cans and old shoes. Later, when Christopher was older and hoarding God knows what secrets, Louisa would see him crawling into the tin shack alone, hiding from the world.
    Christopher’s policy of speaking the brutal truth had not abated. Had he not said something similar, about the state of the house, on his most recent visit? Louisa thought of his bright gums, of her own swollen mouth, and of the unquantifiable disfigurements of the animals her birds had killed. Faces peeled off, eyes speared, every kind of cave-in. Diamond had once slashed a partridge after a fulsome stoop, and when it hit the ground it split in two, from head to tail. She thought of David in that field, all those years ago. The horror of it. Louisa could not sleep, and when she heard Maggie calling her dog on the first round of the morning, she stood from a bed on which she had only sat.
    *    *    *
    The day after visiting Louisa, Christopher sat at the computer, wrapped in a blanket, and checked his profile on the dating website. His photograph was just a picture of his bright blue eye.
    I’m a big handsome Robin looking for a Marian to Sher the Wood with. Excellent family values absolutely crucial. Interest in motorsport optional. I won’t let you down, unlike certain others.
     
    Shivering, he laughed at his pun about Sherwood Forest. They could see that he had a GSOH, he thought, even if he didn’t have GCH. There was a message in his inbox from a girl named Carol-Ann.
    So it could have been a good day, but his nemesis on campus that afternoon was Mr Stephen Cullis, tutor and supervisor, who was intent on convincing Christopher that there were no decent grounds for the existence of a real, historical Robin