Deep in the Woods

Deep in the Woods
By "boojum"

I hate this place. I never thought I could actively, passionately hate
anything until I came here. The country. Everybody talks about how
peaceful it's supposed to be. Calm. Relaxing. It's not like that at
all.

Now it's beginning to sink in that I'm really on my own. I feel so
alone. Mum rang the other night to see how I was. "I've tidied your old
room, darling. You can come home any time you want."

I just said, "thanks, Mum." But she must have heard the sadness in my
voice, because then her voice got feisty and tight, the way it did that
time she stuck up for me against the school bully. "He was never good
enough for you. That's the way I've always felt. And your father agrees
with me. Finally. Sweetheart, we're both sick about that wretched man
abandoning you. It's unforgivable, what he's done."

What he's done. Oh, Mum, I thought. You don't know the half of it. I
hope you never will. I rang off as soon as I could. Told Mum I'd think
about coming home, really think about it. And I have been. But I can't
go yet. Not until...not until I'm sure it's really over.

Being alone the first day or two after...after?that was the worst. I
couldn't settle to anything. Every sound made me jump. I half expected
him to just saunter in filthy, unshaven, smelling earthy - that mixture
of leaf mould, smoke from the charcoal he'd been making and something
else I couldn't name. Probably carrying a bloodstained sack of whatever
innocent little creatures he'd managed to kill. And, as usual, looking
so pleased with himself.

"Where the hell have you been?!" I'd demand, knowing exactly what he'd
say. What he always said.

"Cleaning my traps. Come on. You know I have to clean them thoroughly.
If an animal smells death or danger on a trap, it won't come within a
mile of it."

I know he's not coming back now. I do. I know it. I keep telling myself
to put him out of my mind. I can just get on with my research on the
French Revolution. Except that I can't. I need?what do they call it?
Closure. My eyes travel over and over the same words, but nothing is
going in. All I can do was think about him. Not just the way he became
at the end. But the way he used to be.
The first time I saw him was in the Uni library. I was working at one
of the tables, scribbling notes for a paper, when this book - a big one
- fell out of the top shelf right on my head. I yelled. Everybody
turned to look and some people giggled and some started to "shoosh!" at
me.

Then, from nowhere, this absolutely gorgeous guy appeared and began to
apologise. He'd put a book back on the other side and pushed too hard.
"Sorry," he kept saying - and he didn't lower his voice in spite of the
glares and hisses. "Did I hurt you? Let me see. Let me, please." And he
was leaning over me, so close that I could inhale his scent. Very male.
Musky, but really nice. He kept stroking my head, patting me, as though
I was a dog or something. But he was so gentle. And so - how can I say
it? Just completely... irresistible. Like a roaring fire on a winter's
day. That's how he made me feel. Before and After. I just knew: a long,
cold spell in my life had ended, suddenly and at last.

That's why, for no logical reason, my eyes welled up with tears. "I'm
fine, I'm OK, I'm fine," I kept repeating, because, God help me, I
couldn't think of anything else to say. A sensible, intelligent woman
one second, and a gibbering idiot the next. They say that's how it is
when you fall in love.

Falling. Falling in. Such a strange way to describe love. But so apt.
So true.

We didn't "date". No one would describe what we did as dates. He'd
appear at my house, unexpectedly, his American pickup truck already
loaded - rucksack, tent, maps, tools, food - and announce that we were
driving to Wales, or Scotland or the Lake District for the weekend. He
never gave me time to prepare, beyond changing into old clothes and
grabbing my hiking boots. And I'd just fall in with his plans, never
questioning. "Fall in" again - you see? Blindly. Totally
trustingly.

My father used to laugh and say, "This lad obviously relies on the
element of surprise. Seems to work, too."

Was there ever a moment when I caught a whiff of danger? Could I have
read the signs better? Just once, maybe. I remember when we were about
to set off on one of our adventures, Mum took me aside."Be careful, my
girl," she whispered. "Sometimes I think your boyfriend's just a bit
too good looking. Men like that tend to be more in love with themselves
than other people. Watch your step."

Everyone was surprised when we got married. The registry office with
just my parents for witnesses; he didn't even invite his. "You've only
known him for four months! My God - you're not pregnant are you?" That
was Sheila, my best friend. Until then. I was so angry and shocked that
she'd even think that was why I was marrying him that I told her I'd
never speak to her again. And meant it.

"Well, it's what everybody's going to think!" she shouted, and then
walked out. I haven't seen her since.

His dream was self-sufficiency on his own land. So, I made his dream my
dream. We pooled our money and bought this place in the Brecon Beacons.
Thirty-two acres of woodland, a little grazing and a barely livable
cottage with three open fires and a wood burner that need constant
feeding. His wedding present to me? A long-handled axe, a log splitter
and a chain saw. I said, "You are joking, aren't you?"

"Do you want to freeze? If not, you'd better learn to use them."

"And where will you be while I'm here chopping firewood - and probably
maiming myself into the bargain?"

"Up there," he replied, tossing his handsome head toward our woodland,
"Cutting down more trees. Making charcoal. I've done a deal with
B&;Q. There's a huge demand. Barbeques. Know those briquette things?
What holds the charcoal dust together?"
I shook my head.
"Sand," he sneered. That's why the bloody things won't burn. I'm making
the real thing. Most weeks you won't see me for a couple of days at a
time."

He explained that he had to keep moving the kiln around, as he cleared
different patches of timber. Had to sleep nearby to ensure that he
stopped the burn at the right moment, before the new charcoal inside
could be consumed. "But, but...will you come home for dinner? Do you
want me to make some sandwiches?" He threw back his head and laughed."
Don't worry about me, babe. I know how to live off the land." Then he
walked away into the trees, and I was alone.

As time passed, I got to be quite good with my axe and my saw. It was
satisfying to stack new-split logs and see some tangible value for my
time. Sometimes I'd make fenceposts, debarking and lopping limbs,
sharpening the ends, pounding the stakes into the red earth and
stapling wire between to keep the blasted mountain sheep out of my
garden. Unfortunately, work on my thesis wasn't going very well; and at
night, I was terribly lonely. Whenever I was feeling low, I'd take out
my frustrations on the logs, working until I was exhausted.

But the moment my elusive man came home, everything changed. He would
make love to me forcefully and often; I would bask in the glow of his
vitality and obvious happiness, letting him prattle on about "brown
ends", the texture of smoke and the relative merits of alder versus
oak. He would eat and drink hugely, soak for hours in the bath. Then,
one morning, he would be gone, leaving me a pickup full of bagged
charcoal to deliver and a list of tools and such to buy in town. He
never asked about my thesis on Napoleonic battles and long-dead
revolutionaries or my inner struggles and emotions. He'd disappear,
leaving me with the same messy pile of unspoken thoughts and
unfulfilled ambitions; cold ashes.

Inevitably, we began to row. I wanted his company. He wanted me to be
more independent - as absorbed in my solitary studies and chores as he
was in his pursuits. I stormed and wept. But this time, my husband did
not comfort my tears. There was no tenderness. Instead of lingering as
long as he could with me, he made excuses to get away early. From then
on, I saw less and less of him. I rang my mother and old friends more
often; the phone bill was huge. I was gripped by homesickness and a
yearning to undo what I had rushed into so foolishly. The pattern of my
life seemed to be closing around me, crushing me.

Summer and autumn passed. The fine weather turned chill and our
mountains lay shrouded in dense mist and cloud. Yet even in rain swept
November, when the red sandstone mud coursed down the slopes like a
bloody flux, he stayed away. I punished myself with guilt. It was all
my fault. He couldn't be in two places. Had to support us somehow. If I
were working as hard as he was, I'd have no time to be unhappy. Poor
baby! I had a nice warm house, a larder full of goodies, a truck to get
me into town, a phone. What did he have? Some old shack way up on the
top; his rabbit snares, his charcoal burner. Not even a radio or a
duvet.

That's when it came to me: I would gather together a few little
luxuries - my Sony discman, batteries, CD's, his favourite biscuits, a
bottle of whisky - take them up the mountain. Swallow my pride and
apologise for being stupid. Make up... and make sweet love, until
everything was all right between us again.

It took me an hour and a half to climb the slope and locate the shack.
I called but got no answer. Went inside. There was a line of small
animal traps hanging along one wall, a few snares. But the traps were
all rusted shut. Cobwebbed. There was a camp bed, but its thin mattress
was rotten, rolled back from the rusty springs like a wet, grey tongue.
No one had slept there for a long time.

I didn't understand at first. Didn't want to. I left my rucksack of
presents on the floor and went out to search for the charcoal kiln.
Amid a dark palisado of trees, the winter afternoon was dying. I
trusted not to my sight then, but to my sense of smell, following the
aroma of smoke back to its source. A thin trickle emerged from the
kiln's russet metal cone; as I watched, the smoke was altering from
white to almost clear. The water in the wood was nearly burned away.
Now carbonisation would begin: the slow, intense transformation of wood
into a different substance, full of latent energy. I knew that this
change would continue through the night; my husband would not return
until morning.

I couldn't wait that long. Should I try to find my way home again? I
didn't want to spend the night in the shack - that was sure. Where was
he? What should I do?

Sometimes it's impossible to think things through logically. When there
is no easy answer, the right thing may be simply to follow our
instincts. It was the first moment that this truth became clear and
real to me. I walked, ignorant of my destination - not down, toward
home, but west toward a billhook curve of crimson sun.

The light from the window shone butter yellow. Welcoming. In the gloom,
but for that light, I might have missed the cottage, so perfectly did
its stone walls blend with woodland bark and shadow tones. I hadn't
known till then that we had such a near neighbour.

I knocked at the door. No one came, but I could hear music playing
inside. I circled the walls, following the sound. Found the bathroom
window, embossed below with a pattern of frost flowers, snowflakes.
Clear above. Clear as heat haze from the kiln, yet misted lightly with
steam from a hot bath. In which a man and woman lay, naked, heads at
opposite ends, lolling back in the half-sleep of warmth and
satisfaction. A woman, blond, with big breasts, nipples the colour of
sugar mice. And a handsome stranger. My husband. The voice on the radio
wailed, "You're nobody till somebody loves you..."

Shock can allow a person to do impossible things. Flee. Or fight to
survive. I fled. Back to the shack, where I caught my breath, collected
the rucksack and somehow - I have no memory of it - stumbled home and
fell into a deep, paralysed sleep.

But I was not in shock when I did the rest. Next day, I went up the
mountain again, and watched, with the alertness and sensory clarity of
a hunter. I found the track she and my husband followed from kiln to
cottage and back. Oh, yes. They were working together, side by side. He
never let me do that. Never asked me to come with him. That was the
final straw. That was when I knew I was capable of pure hate.

Quietly, hidden by the trees, I watched as they emptied and refilled
the charcoal kiln, then left it for the day to smoulder. I was ready.
My strong African hoe, the pick, nylon rope, poles, the net - all lay
waiting in the rotting shed.

You know, among the field fortifications of the Napoleonic soldiers,
there was a particularly nasty means of slowing down the enemy. Called
a trou-de-loup or wolf-hole, it consisted of steep, conical pits with
sharpened stakes set into the bottom - not unlike the traps used by
jungle hunters in some countries even today. When concealed by netting
thinly strewn with twigs and leaf litter, they can be remarkably
effective.

Through the remainder of the day and into the night, I dug. I was
grateful for all the wood chopping I'd done; my muscles were hard. So
was my heart. More than ordinary energy fueled my efforts. When
everything was done, I didn't feel tired - just elated. Free.

Ten days have passed now. I can't put it off any longer. I have to go
back up the mountain one more time and do what's necessary. It's always
possible the bitch had friends who might come looking for her. Better
get climbing while there's good light. I hate blood, so I won't look
down. Well, maybe just once. Just to be certain. Just to know that I
got my quarry. It will take me three or four hours of hard work to
backfill the pit and camouflage the spot. Then I'm going to burn her
cottage to the ground. Make a little charcoal of my own.

Tonight, after I get cleaned up, I'll ring Mum. Tell her the estate
agents are going to sell this dump for me. I'm coming home. She'll be
so happy. I'll move back into my old room, pick up my old life and my
friends; in a little while, it will be like nothing ever happened. I
know now that love is a trap, and every heart that falls into it
dies.

Nobody's going to catch me. Ever.

-The end-