Saskia, Ruth and the car when there was a series of sharp splintering cracks in the woods to their left and two deer broke suddenly out of the dense line of trees, passing so close their flanks grazed Saskia and Ruth before they swerved, hooves slipping on the hot road surface, stopping Tom in his tracks, vaulting the basketball then disappearing into the woods on their right.
They were gone, leaving behind them an unsettling silence that hadn’t been there before.
Tom, shaking, hadn’t moved. ‘Shit—’
‘I never saw deer so close before,’ Ruth said, breathless. ‘I mean, I felt them—they actually touched me.’
Grace dropped her bike on the side of the road and went up to Tom. ‘You okay? Something must have scared them—in the woods.’
Vicky got out the car and walked towards them. ‘What was that?’
‘Deer,’ Grace said.
‘They passed so close, they actually touched me,’ Ruth said again.
Ignoring Ruth, Vicky said to Tom, ‘I think you’re out of petrol.’
‘Out of petrol? You just flooded the fucking engine.’ He was angry with himself for being so shaken by the deer.
‘I didn’t flood the engine—you’re out of fucking petrol.’ Vicky turned and started to walk off up the lane.
‘Where are you going?’ Tom called out after her.
‘Home.’
‘How?’
‘The bus—there’s a stop at the top of the lane on the main road.’
‘So you’re just going to leave my car in the middle of the fucking road?’
‘It’s your fucking car.’ Vicky carried on walking.
Tom didn’t say anything. He picked up the basketball and started to bounce it rhythmically on the road.
Ruth, Saskia and Grace hesitated, uncertain how the argument between brother and sister had started or how it had got to this point. Vicky had already disappeared round the bend and out of sight.
After a while, Ruth shut the boot. ‘You want help pushing it or something?’
‘No point—we won’t get it started in second without a hill. I’ll come back later with dad and pick up some petrol on the way.’
Just then the ice cream van from Martha’s Farm came up behind them, sounding its horn. The boy inside leant out of the window. ‘What happened?’
‘The engine’s flooded or something,’ Saskia said, diplomatic.
Tom carried on bouncing the ball.
The boy in the ice cream van turned to Grace. ‘They caught up with you then.’
‘Yeah.’
‘D’you want a lift?’
‘My bike.’
‘We’ll get that in the back no trouble.’
Grace hesitated and glanced at Tom, who kept his eyes on the ball and didn’t look up.
‘I’ve got room for one more,’ the boy said, pleased.
‘I don’t mind getting the bus,’ Ruth put in.
Saskia drifted slowly towards the ice cream van. ‘You sure?’
Ruth nodded as Grace turned back to Tom. ‘How are you getting home?’ she asked over the soft rhythmic beat of the ball on the road.
‘We’ll get the bus—it’s fine,’ Ruth said again, trying not to look at Tom, who didn’t comment on this.
Saskia got up into the front of the van, excited. ‘Can we put the music on?’
The boy didn’t respond—he was too busy watching Grace standing beside the van with her bike.
Tom stopped bouncing the basketball.
‘I think I’ll walk back.’ He paused, looking at Grace. ‘You feel like walking with me?’
She didn’t say anything; within seconds was standing beside him.
‘What about your bike?’ the boy said, quietly devastated, and trying not to sound frantic.
Tom turned to Grace. ‘We can lock it to the roof rack and I’ll take it home with me when I come back for the car later. You’ve got a lock for it?’
Ruth’s momentary decisiveness was gone, and its departure left her looking stranded.
‘Ruth,’ Saskia called out from the ice cream van, and the next minute, Ruth was climbing up beside her as Tom started to bounce the basketball again.
The van pulled away, the boy glancing in the rear view mirror at Grace.
Grace and Tom stood in the road and watched the van disappear, a canned version of Au Clair de la Lune starting up the moment it was out of sight.
At the sound of the music, they smiled suddenly at each other.
Feeling immediately lighter, Tom kicked the ball hard, into the forest.
‘Why did you do that?’
He shrugged, still smiling, then lifted her bike onto the roof of the car. Grace chained it to the roof rack.
After checking the doors to make sure they were locked, he jumped down into the ditch the deer had vaulted earlier.
‘You coming?’ He watched her, waiting for her to change her mind.
‘Which way are you going?’
‘Shortcut.’
She jumped down into the ditch beside him. ‘I’m wearing flip-flops.’
‘You’re not in a hurry for anything?’
She shook her head.
‘So we’ll go slow.’
She hesitated then followed him into the woods.
—autumn—
Bill Henderson woke at 5:15 just like he did every morning, including weekends,
