Anxious to keep her under surveillance, he tried to slow down, but the car behind him tooted sharply, forcing him to accelerate, to drive briefly alongside his quarry, then on past her. Desperate to keep her in view, he drew in illegally at a bus stop. Two boys with skateboards were also making use of this space, bumping over the edge of the gutter, then bouncing back on to the pavement once more. One of them gave Roland the finger as he moved in on their territory, but Roland was too preoccupied to take any notice. He was simultaneously tilting the driver’s mirror and shrinking down in his seat as Jess came striding towards him. Then she walked past, looking neither to right nor left, and moved ahead of him once more.
A useful space appeared in the traffic flow. Roland hastily drew out into it, anxious to take advantage of any good luck the capricious city might be offering him. But as he took possession of the lucky space, grinning with relief, Jess disappeared. He could hardly believe it. One moment she had been there caught in the mirror. Then she was gone. It was as if she had never existed.
As he struggled with surprise, Roland saw, some distance ahead of him, a silver car pulling out and leaving an empty parking space. He parked, and now he saw a sign he did not remember noticing before, though he had been up and down this road so many times. Perhaps it was only there if you knew where to look for it. An enamelled arrow, made almost invisible by layers of dirt and dust, pointed into a narrow slot between two buildings, and below the arrow were the words RIVERLAW RESERVE ACCESS. Up until now he had always walked past the paved alley the arrow was indicating, vaguely thinking it must be a private entrance of some kind. Now he peered hesitantly between largely featureless concrete walls. Rubbish bags jostled one another around a few closed doors, apart from which the lane was quite empty. All the same, Jess Ferret must have turned in here. There was no other possibility. Snaking between the rubbish bags, Roland set off in pursuit.
He came out into a space that took him by surprise. Directly in front of him was a wide road, and beyond the road ran a stream, its neat, green banks planted with intermittent willows. The road on this side of the stream was obviously used for the most part by trucks and vans coming and going between the loading bays that extended from the backs of various shops. But, looking across to the other side of the stream, Roland saw a parallel road and a row of houses… old houses, but well-cared for, their hedges and gardens neat and tidy, their walls cleanly painted. At that particular moment there seemed to be nothing moving. It was like stepping on to a deserted stage set. Riverlaw, he said to himself, and began to remember.
Here it was, a small suburb tucked away behind the mall. Years ago, the residents had passionately resisted the re-zoning that had allowed the supermarket development. There had been petitions and letters to the paper declaring that the riverbank should be sacrosanct. Property values had dropped. Many people had moved away. For, no matter how pleasantly maintained the river banks, no matter how beautiful the willows might be in early spring, the pleasure of walking under them must have been reduced by the intrusive proximity of shop yards, parked vans, cartons and, almost certainly, a lot of anonymous refuse.
Roland looked around wildly. There! There! Movement! A single moving figure – a Crighton School uniform crossing a narrow footbridge which arched over the stream a little to his right. “Yes!” he hissed triumphantly. “Jess Ferret!” She hadn’t managed to shed him. He was on her trail.
This time he had her in clear sight. He did not have to worry about any cars ahead of him or those closing in impatiently from behind. There were no doorways or crowds in which she might lose herself. If she had turned she might have seen him and would no doubt have recognised him just as easily as he was able to recognise her. But she did not turn. She simply crossed the bridge, the footpath that ran along the opposite bank, and finally the road in front of her. Moving a little unwillingly, Roland slid out from the protection of the shop walls, preparing to track her at a discreet distance.
But Jess had arrived at what must be her house. She was walking past a blue letterbox up a long drive between two neat hedges, towards a tall two-storied building set back behind other houses which peered enigmatically out between them. Heading towards the footbridge himself, Roland watched her as she made for a green front door, then hesitated in front of it, fumbling in her bag. She’s looking for her keys, he thought. That means there’s no one at home yet. As he speculated, Jess found her key, unlocked the door and stepped through. The door seemed to spring shut behind her as if it were every bit as anxious as she seemed to be to keep the outside world at bay. She was gone.
Roland suddenly began to laugh silently to himself, shaking his head as he did so. “Fabuloso!” said his inner voice sarcastically, making fun not only of the world but of Roland himself. What a day! (“Not now,” his inner voice instructed him. “Think about all that later.”) So! Dreary old Jess Ferret had imagined she could just shrug him off. Well, he had been too clever for her, hadn’t he? He now knew where she lived – there, directly across the river.
In spite of the frustrations of the hunt, Roland realised he had enjoyed himself and, unexpectedly, was still enjoying himself, alone in this overlooked piece of the city. He knew that the stream must be Carlings Brook, a tributary of the main river. Under the willows below these gates, close to the river’s edge, was a picnic table which seemed somehow surreal. A notice board caught his eye. There were to be stalls and raffles there next Wednesday afternoon. There was to be a magician. Riverlaw Kindergarten was hoping to raise money for its equipment fund.
Roland crossed the strip of green to look down into the water. For all its sleek, soft flow, it was edged not only with living cress, but with sodden cartons, cigarette butts, anonymous strips of plastic and Coke cans. Flow, flow, flow, something said, breathing into him as if it were trying to dissolve into his blood and to negotiate his pumping heart. That delicate chatter began once more. Unfolding, unfolding, transform, transform, transform! (“Back away,” his inner voice warned him. “Careful! Back away!”)
So Roland backed away by thinking of his car, waiting out on the main road beside a hungry parking meter. Home, he thought. I’ll go home now. As he walked up the lane once more, he puzzled, not over the breathy chattering (which he always preferred to ignore), but over his inexplicable moment of exhilaration. Realising he was grinning with pleasure, he reined in his wide smile, but then shrugged and let it spread again. Why not grin? Why not enjoy what was happening whenever he could. An adventure! I’ll work it out later, he thought. Heading for the car, he saw to his horror that a parking warden was standing beside it, writing out a ticket.
Roland marched forward as the warden moved on, to snatch the ticket from behind the windscreen wiper, grimacing as he did so. Frowning down at the ticket he felt himself changing back from being Roland the mysterious huntsman, into Roland the man of the family who must soon make some sort of confession to his mother. And this confession would probably have to be made in front of his two younger brothers – nine-year-old Danny, and Martin who was seven, both of whom watched him perpetually, waiting for him to make the sort of mistakes which would bring him down to their own level.
For the first few months after his father had disappeared, Roland would wake in the night to hear his mother crying in the darkness of her room, across the hall from his. She would be feeding the new baby and weeping wearily, almost as if she were lamenting in her sleep. The sound of that sadness, faint though it was, had pushed its way out relentlessly from under her door and in under his.
Roland had been eight years old when Martin was born, and his father had left them. Thinking back, it somehow seemed to Roland that, as his mother had staggered out at the front door, desperately counting money for the taxi fare (and pausing, every so often, to concentrate on the sort of breathing which would urge her unborn baby out into the world), his father had been racing through the
