Loofah was back across the swamp in three slurping strides. There was a gasping sigh from behind the blackthorn as he cleared the stile, landing a vengeful kick on the cross-piece on his way over. And then he was away, charging into the woods as fast as his mud-laden shoes would allow.
He swerved off the path after a few yards and dived into the undergrowth. Pumping his legs against the soft earth, he weaved through a dark maze of narrow birch trunks, snapping through bird-claw dry twigs with dead briars catching at his thighs. Soon he was panting hard, pushing himself with a mad desperation, as if the devil herself was at his heels. As he emerged from the copse, the ground began to climb as though it were deliberately trying to slow him. In response he redoubled his exertion, determined to hold his momentum despite its obstructive efforts.
He ran—and then he ran some more.
The wood opened out into larger birch and young oaks, with the occasional clump of rhododendron and hawthorn to give cover. The incline was now getting steeper with every step—he puffed like a steam engine, wrenching air into his heaving chest with red blood pumping in his skull. He stumbled on a bare root, recovered quickly, and again hurled himself against the slope, marshalling the last vestiges of his energy to win every last possible yard. At last he could run no more. Swinging behind a large rhododendron, he collapsed onto the damp earth, stretched out like a starfish, gasping for life.
Soon, after lungfuls of precious air, the red mist cleared and he was gazing up at the broken canopy, a swirling pattern of black foliage silhouetted against the bright sky. Between gasps, Loofah managed a smile; miles and miles away the elegant Frenchwoman was stepping out from behind her bush to find an empty field. His quick flare of guilt was quickly doused by a flood of relief—he was free again!
'Where are you, mon petit? Your little Nobby has come to be finding of you.'
Everything stopped, pole-axed. The voice should have come from the other side of the universe—not from the other side of his rhododendron bush.
'Come out, chérie, come out from wherever you are hiding.'
Quickly conquering his shock, Loofah rolled over carefully and peered out from under the glossy leaves. And indeed there she was, no more than twenty yards away, gliding over the forest floor in her white stilettos, oblivious to the risk of her dagger-sharp heels sinking into the soft earth (which, for some reason, they did not) and to the brambles threatening to snag her white silk stockings. For Dentressangle was still all in white, though now dressed for the Bois de Boulogne rather than the Champs Elysée, with a dazzling velvet basque laced tightly with a black ribbon so that it squeezed her bust into an upthrust of golden splendour, suspender straps that slid lovingly over creamy thighs to the tops of her stockings, tiny satin knickers struggling to cover what little modesty she could lay claim to, and—adding perhaps just a soupcon more spice than was absolutely necessary—a frilly garter around her right thigh. To complete the wanton effect, her mass of honey blond hair had been pinned up with deliberate laxity and spilled out over her lightly rouged cheeks and sculpted shoulders.
Leaves rustled behind a stand of elder, catching her attention, and in the far distance a dog barked.
'Is that you, my little Seeker?' cooed the Frenchwoman, bending down to peer under the lowest branches of the elder and displaying in all their glory the magnificent hemispheres of her buttocks.
A trickle of warm syrup dribbled down Loofah's spine. But, although in matters of an amorous nature Loofah's instinct for self-preservation had never been more than rudimentary at best, even he had the sense to recognise this particular brand of lethality. And so, thoroughly dousing himself with an imaginary bucket of cold water, he crouched lower and struggled to concentrate on his strategy for escape.
'I am thinking you are here,' said Dentressangle, addressing the elder, 'You must be coming out now, for I have quelque chose for you.' Painted fingertips brushed enticingly against the front of satin knickers. Loofah bit his lip and waited.
'Oh, you are such a naughty boy. If you will not be showing of yourself, I shall have to come and get you.'
As soon as the Frenchwoman was out of sight behind the elder, Loofah was away, leaping up the slope like a hunted deer. He moved swiftly and silently, desperate to be over the brow of the ridge before she caught sight of him. Yet even as he ran, he sensed her baleful presence behind him, and with her eyes he saw the mud-caked figure stumbling away through the trees. At any moment she would call out, at any moment she would glide after him and, chiding him for his rudeness, would wind him in her web of lust and devour him like a fly.
The slope slackened—he was nearing the top. Weaving between a clump of young oaks, he saw that in ten paces he would over the brow, out of sight and safe—.
A dog barked ahead of him. Then another, and a man shouted. Loofah stopped dead and crouched quickly beside a small hawthorn. A line of uniformed police officers was coming up the opposite slope of the ridge towards him, moving slowly and carefully, quartering the ground with their Alsatians. Three figures walked behind the line: two plainclothes detectives and the Chief Constable, her dark uniform straining over her ample form.
'Oh my God,' muttered Loofah. Still crouching, he began to back away in the direction he had come.
'I am seeing you, you méchant garcon!'
Loofah spun round. Dentressangle waved, blew him a kiss, and then started up the ridge towards him.
'There he is!' shouted a policeman on the other side of the ridge.
'After him!' screamed the Under Manger, and the whole line surged forward, dogs barking and men shouting.
'I am coming, chérie!' Dentressangle was gliding effortlessly up the slope, hands caressing undulating hips.
'Faster, you idiots!' Miss Leggett was at the centre of her thin blue line, bellowing and snorting like an enraged hippopotamus. Backing away, Loofah stumbled into an oak trunk.
'I'm trapped,' he whispered, 'There's nowhere I can go.'
'Not exactly,' commented the tree.
'What—? Where—?' stuttered Loofah, taken aback.
'What about upwards?' suggested the tree.
It took a millisecond for the thought to register and then he was in the air, hugging onto the lowest branch and swinging up his mud-caked legs. He scrambled onto the branch, then reached up for the next, getting a firm foothold against the trunk. Below him, the opposing forces swept up either side of the ridge on an unknowing collision course.
'Come down, you naughty boy,' scolded Dentressangle, 'How can I be climbing un arbre in the high heels shoe?'
'We've got him!' shouted Miss Leggett in triumph, as her forces surged forwards.
'If you will not be coming down, I shall have to—.'
The Frenchwoman stopped abruptly. And at the same moment the line of policemen halted, with even their dogs pausing mid-bark—and suddenly all was quiet. From his eyrie, Loofah looked down from one party to the other, now facing each other across a few yards of forest floor at the top of the ridge. The air crackled with hostility and though there was silence it was a silence with the latent violence of an unexploded bomb.
It was the Under Manager who spoke first, her voice cutting the quiet like a razor.
'Does the law permit soliciting in these woods, Inspector?' she asked.
'Fuckin' whore,' muttered Meadows.
The Frenchwoman crouched down, baring her teeth and hooking her fingers into red tipped talons: a cornered panther in white high-heels.
'I'm sorry to say the public morality bye-laws were repealed last year,' replied Truscott, 'by the new Parish Council.'
'Bleedin' heart friggin' pinkos,' muttered Meadows.
Dentressangle snarled and spat on the ground.
'But spitting is still a felony,' added the Inspector, with an engaging smile.
'In that case,' said Miss Leggett, with grim satisfaction, 'I think an arrest is in order.'
Truscott grinned again, signalled to his warriors, and with a sudden clamour of howling Alsatians and shouting men the line surged forward. The Frenchwoman crouched lower, sizing up the enemy. Although for a moment it looked as though she was going to stand and fight, a dozen policemen and as many dogs was clearly too powerful a foe, even for the mighty Norbert Dentressangle. And so, with a wild-cat screech of defiant rage, she turned and fled, leaping back down the hill as fast as her stilettos would carry her.
The screams and shouts that echoed through the trees became increasingly distant as the hunt was pursued deeper into the woods. Soon the loudest noise was the gentle cooing of a white dove perched on a small branch just above Loofah's head—he found this pleasantly soothing for his rattled nerves, as he crouched precariously against the trunk, wondering what to do next.
He leaned forward and peered through the foliage. A hundred yards away down the hill, a silently weeping constable knelt over the body of his German Shepherd, its throat ripped out by the fleeing Frenchwoman. Not far from this sad scene, Meadows scrabbled about on the forest floor with rubber gloves and a pair of tweezers, picking saliva spattered leaves into a plastic bag, presumably as forensic evidence of Dentressangle's crime. And posted at the very base of the tree, directly under his feet, was a familiar figure, this time dressed in the uniform of a police sergeant. Sutton looked up and grinned, the bright foliage glinting on his lenses. Loofah forced a smile and waved down, though feeling not the slightest bit cheery.
'Well, that's it,' he muttered to himself, 'They've got me.'
'Not necessarily,' said the tree.
This was the second time it had spoken and its female voice—inappropriately quiet and soft for such an arboreal giant—was strangely familiar.
'But what can I do?' Loofah said, addressing the trunk, 'The rest of the policemen will soon be back and I can't get down with Sutton there, can I?'
'Don't forget—for every problem, there is a solution.'
Loofah now realised that the voice was coming from the branch above his head and stared open-mouthed up at the dove, her immaculate white plumage like a bridal gown. He hardly dared to believe his luck.
'Is it you?' he whispered, 'It is, isn't it?'
The dove smiled and opened her dazzling wings. Loofah held up his hand and she stepped onto his finger. Then, holding the bird to his face, he instinctively closed his eyes and kissed the perfect pink beak.
The touch of the beak on his lips was electric, flooding his body with light. Even as he kissed her, the dove was wafted off his finger and he sensed her bursting out beside him a blaze of joyous brilliance. He drank in the sweet nectar of her lips, dizzy with happiness and swaying unsteadily on his branch.
After an eon the kiss ended. As she pulled her lips away, Loofah sucked in the last of her sweetness, then opened his eyes—and nearly fell off the branch, clutching at the trunk and stifling a cry.
In less than a split nanosecond, though, he realised his mistake and felt a wave of cool relief flood through his veins—for it was not actually himself he was staring at.
She had certainly done a very good job, with the same make of spectacles, identical jacket and tee-shirt, both caked with drying mud, and the same style-deprived fawn shoes dangling below the branch, also appropriately soiled. She had even managed the thinning hair, courtesy of a theatre costume skull-cap. All that gave her away, in fact, were the blissfully pretty face, made more delightful still by several carefully applied smears of mud, the litheness of her body that even his unflattering attire could not conceal, and a certain fullness about the chest, which did alter the hang of jacket somewhat.
'That's really very good…' he began, intending to compliment her on her disguise, but she quickly shushed him, holding a finger to her lips while pointing to the police sergeant at the base of tree with her other hand.
Loofah swung down from the lowest branch and dropped onto the ground beside the amazed police sergeant.
'Hello, Dave,' he said affably, 'How are you doing?'
'Um. Right. Er. Very well, um, thank you.'
'Excellent!' said Loofah with a big smile, 'I'd love to stay for a chat, but I really must be off. Places to go, people to see—you know the score.'
'Er. Right. Um—no, I mean wrong,' stammered Sutton, gradually getting a grip, 'What I mean is, er: stop. In the name of the law, that is. Clear?'
'Stop? I don't understand.'
'I'm arresting you.' Sutton pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. 'Taking you into custody, that is. Clear? Clear.'
'Arresting me?' asked Loofah, with exaggerated innocence, 'But why?'
'Number one corporate objective, that's why. Bottom line implications. Mission statement material.' Sutton grinned unattractively. 'A major achievement, bringing you in. Mucho brownie points. Significant career benefits, right? Right.'
'Oh, I see the misunderstanding now,' said Loofah.
'Misunderstanding?'
'A case of mistaken identity. It's not me you want. That's the man you're after.' Loofah pointed up the tree. The nymph waved down from far above, with a cheery smile for the marketing executive. Sutton stared up at her, with a species of bovine puzzlement swimming in his lenses—indeed, at this distance even Loofah himself couldn't tell the difference.
'Um. Oh. Right. That's…?'
Loofah nodded in affirmation. 'I know he's a bit muddy,' he said, 'but you can tell it's him: the jacket, the tee-shirt, the shoes.'
Sutton took a dog-eared photograph from his inside pocket, peered at it, then up at the nymph and back to the photograph.
'Right. Um… clear? Clear,' he mumbled, crestfallen.
'I'll be off then,' said Loofah, 'Do give my fondest to the lovely Miss L.'
As he strolled away, Loofah paused and turned back to the bemused Sutton, who was still clutching his photograph and staring up into the tree.
'Oh, and by the way, Dave, it's nice to see you've got promotion at last. They shouldn't be wasting a man of your abilities on bus driving and choirboy duties.'
As soon as the words were out he realised that he'd said too much, that he might have blown his cover. He forced a quick grin then set off at a loping walk, breaking into a run after a few paces.
'Stop!'
Loofah's guts liquefied as he stumbled to a halt—he had indeed been rumbled.
'Walk, don't run!' shouted the marketing executive with as much severity as he could muster, 'Running in these woods is strictly prohibited. New bye-laws. Clear? Clear.'
Loofah slalomed down the gentle slope, gliding over the sun-dappled ground and winding among the trees with luxurious ease. He was making good progress; the shouts and screams of the police hunt, from far away across the wood, were now barely audible. As his escape became ever more assured, a frothy euphoria bubbled over inside him. He was free, his own man—at least for now.
Bending his knees to swerve round an oak trunk, he sent an arcing spray of dry leaves into the bright air. He moved noiselessly, cutting through the waves of birdsong and insect buzzing that lapped through the trees. The woods were cool and fresh, washed by the recent rain and now bathed in brilliant sunshine. The oak bark swirled and flowed in its usual fashion, forming friendly smiles as he slipped past, and the ground undulated gently, like the mid-ocean swell, splashed with wood anemones, primroses, and celandines that basked in the dappled light, showing off their delicate loveliness.
The wooded slope ended at a scrappy hedge breached by a particularly spiteful looking stile. But as Loofah sped towards it, an oceanic swell rolled languidly up the incline and he skied into it, launching himself off the crest. Body tilted forward and arms flat against his sides, he sailed through the air with the cursing stile far below, twisting and bending in frustrated rage.
After landing perfectly on the other side, he swerved to an elegant stop on the rippling grass. Now out of the woods and bathed in sunshine, his spirit took flight as he inhaled the fresh brilliance of the scene. The field sloped gently away to its borders of hawthorn and mature oaks, beyond which were more fields that swept down into a shallow valley, then away onto the patchwork hills, distant yet touchable. A gentle breeze cooled his sun-kissed face and the sky was dazzling blue, broken only by a few high clouds, so wispy and fragile as to be hardly worthy of the name.
Except for one, that is. For, hovering over the middle of the field, was a single rain-cloud. Though tiny, it was as dark as any storm cumulo-nimbus and lowered as an ominous presence in the light blue sky, pouring down an almost solid column of grey rain. And, standing in the centre of the pluvial column under the dark shadow of the cloud, was a horse.
At the sight of the poor animal, Loofah slumped earthwards. It was as sorry a creature as he had ever seen. As the rain beat steadily down with its relentless, chill hammering, the horse's head drooped to the grass, its back sagged and its thin legs seemed about to buckle. A thousand tiny rivers ran through its sodden coat and curtains of water poured from its mane and from its sad, hanging ears.
Loofah felt something sinking inside him, a liquid sorrow pooling in the base of his heart. The horse didn't look up, but stared miserably at the ground; the water that was running down its long nose and dripping from its big soft horse lips could have been tears.
'Excuse me,' said Loofah, 'I know it's none of my business, but why don't you come out of the rain?'
The horse did not respond, not even to acknowledge his presence.
'You should, you know. It really is a lovely day out here.'
For a long moment there was still no response. Then, without looking up, the horse trudged forward about ten feet and stopped. As it moved, however, the column of rain followed, keeping exact pace with it, so that the miserable animal never left the hammering downpour. The little patch of sodden grass it had vacated now lay in the warm sun, with droplets and tiny pools of water glinting like broken glass.
'Oh I see,' said Loofah, 'I didn't realise. I am so sorry.'
'And so you ought to be,' said the rain, pattering on the horse's back.
He had half-expected the horse to speak, but to be addressed by the weather—and in such an accusatory tone to boot—was something of a surprise.
'Ought I? Why?' he asked, defensively.
Something moved behind the horse as the rain formed itself into a diaphanous shape.
'You know why.'
'No I don't,' protested Loofah, 'I didn't make the cloud, did I?'
'Didn't you?' demanded the rain, 'And I suppose you didn't make the horse either?'
Loofah winced with unexplained guilt. The shape moved through the rain, coming round the horse towards him.
'I've met you before,' said Loofah, changing the subject, 'I know I have.'
'Have you? I really don't remember. I forget so much these days.'
Loofah could see the whole shape now, bending the grey downpour like a moulded lens: the Victorian frock-coat, the high collar, the side-whiskers and the top hat.
'Yes, I definitely remember you. We met in a church graveyard. But we were never properly introduced and I'm afraid I don't know who you are.'
'Who am I? Who am I?' The shape passed out of the column of rain and into the sunshine. 'I'm nothing now, not really, not any more.'
It now shimmered against the brilliance of the grass and the distant hedgerow, wistful and sad, like an almost forgotten memory.
'But it wasn't always like that,' whispered the light, 'Once I was something, once I was something special—like you.'
'Like me?'
'Just like you.'
'You mean a visitor? From over there?' The grass rippled as the top-hatted head nodded slowly. 'Then you must be one of the old visitors, one of the ones that didn't…'
He stumbled to a halt, aware that he was being tactless. His ethereal companion, though, did not seem to notice. Indeed, after a little further probing of a more diplomatic nature from Loofah, it soon embarked on a flood of reminiscence.
'It was so different when I was young,' whispered the breeze, 'It wasn't like two places then, more like two rooms in the same house, two glorious wonderful rooms.'
Loofah was now walking slowly across the rippling field, away from the wretched horse that so strangely stung his conscience. The shape kept pace beside him, a mirage shimmering across the grass and the hedges and the distant trees.
'And for us it was best of all. We were the elite, you see, the chosen ones. We had the power, the special power, we could go from one place to the other. Just like that. Any time we wanted. Think of that: any time we wanted. Can you do that, you new ones? Of course you can't.'
Loofah gritted his teeth against the sourness of its rising resentment.
'Travellers, that's what we were then, proper travellers, not like you new lot,' boasted the cool breeze, 'We counted for something, you mark my words. We were special then, really special. You think you're special now, but we were the kings of the world then—both of them.'
They seemed to be heading towards the corner of the field and a wooden gate underneath the branches of a swaying ash.
'And what's more we were a team then,' it went on, shimmering with an agitated desperation, 'All for one and one for all—cooperation. It was best that way for everybody, you see. By working together we could keep things under control, manage the situation for the common good. You don't have that now, you young ones, do you? It's every man for himself now, isn't it? Dog eat dog. Oh no, everything's different now, not like—.'
'So what happened?' interrupted Loofah, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice, 'Where's this team of yours now?'
The shimmering stalled and the shape suddenly slumped down. Loofah felt the stab of its sadness like a knife thrust and instantly regretted his harshness.
'It didn't last, did it?' sighed the breeze, 'It never does, I think.'
It quivered with grief, almost disappearing into the brilliance. Then suddenly the sadness hardened.
'Some of them spoilt it all, that's what happened. They wanted more, you see, they couldn't be happy with what they had.'
'Greed,' quoted Loofah, 'destroys all.'
'I was never greedy, not me,' hissed the bright grass, 'I just wanted what was mine, my due. A share commensurate with my seniority and no more than that.'
'Of course. I didn't mean to insinuate—.'
'But when the other vermin started at each other, I had to look after myself, didn't I? You'd have done the same, anybody would.' It shuddered violently, then seemed to collapse in on itself. 'It broke down, it all fell apart. The spirit of cooperation that had done us all so well for so long just seemed to… disappear—I don't know why, but it did. Soon everybody was against everybody else—friend against friend, neighbour against neighbour—nothing but conflict and fighting, no more team.' It hesitated, and Loofah felt its pain, a thudding ache in his guts. 'And then… and then… ah, it should never have happened, we should have stopped him. We should have realised what he was going to do—but no. We were too wrapped up in our quarrelling, you see, we didn't have an inkling of what he was up to until it was too late.'
'You mean Mr Stobart?' asked Loofah.
The mirage shivered and convulsed against the bright foliage.
'The treacherous toad was one of us, but he managed to keep out of the fighting, you see. He waited until we were all distracted, at each other's throats—then he saw his chance and took it.'
'But what exactly did he—?'
'Split—division—rupture.' The sunlight managed to splutter through the strangle-grip of its torment, 'The Great Schism—that's what he did. Where before there was one, now there were two.'
'I don't quite understand. How could Mr Stobart possibly—?'
'We have always been outsiders here, we from over there, you know that. And there was always an element of danger for us here, a certain—how shall I put it?—instability of being. Of course that never bothered us, not in the old days, in fact it was all part of the game. We were young then, you see, and the danger meant nothing to us. But after the fighting began…'
It moaned like the high wind in distant trees, shimmering with renewed distress.
'With the rest of us preoccupied, he found a way of using the instability, a fault line in our existence here, and then—. Cloven asunder, we were—the one became the two who are one, what was once whole was now two halves of a whole. And, as I think you know already, the two who are one can no longer move from here to there—which of course was why he did what he did. And so we were no more the travellers, no more the special ones. Just useless homeless exiles trapped over here, with him having everything that was once ours, every last tiny scintilla of everything: a fat toad, bloated with its own greed.'
'What about all the other visitors? What happened to them?'
'Cursed we are, we from over there, the ones who are two, the divided damned. Cursed! Do you understand? We cannot live with ourselves, we cannot live without ourselves. And how can a man live, despising himself? Damned! Damned! Damned!'
The crescendo of inarticulate convulsing shimmered down to a wretched calm. The light shivered with electric agitation and when it spoke again it was like a bitter gust that cut the flesh.
'We could have won it all back, you know, even after the Schism—we could have squashed the fat toad in its own slime. I know you don't believe me, I know you think I'm just a useless piece of nothing, but it's true. We could have—we could have—.'
It quivered into silence, strangled by its own sad rage.
'But?'
The breeze sighed from far away. They were nearly at the edge of the field. Loofah now noticed a red brick house peering over the hedge beside the gate, clustered about with a gaggle of low roofs.
'We were betrayed—betrayed—,' sighed the bright air, only just audible.
'Betrayed? Who by?'
The fading mirage shimmered against the distant trees, hardly visible against the undulations of the foliage. It did not reply.
'Tell me—please.'
'Tell you what, moi zun?' said a voice from behind, startling Loofah with its unexpectedness.
The speaker was leaning on the gate, chewing idly on a piece of straw. Dressed in a green boiler suit and black wellingtons, his big contented face had been beaten by the sun to a dark terracotta and the vast bare forearms that rested on the top of the gate could have tied knots in tractor axles.
Loofah turned back to his ghostly companion. But the distant trees shimmered and the grass rippled and flowed in the sunlight, undisturbed by any optical anomaly. At the far edge the sad horse still languished under its private downpour, but otherwise the field was empty.
The man at the gate waited patiently for Loofah's reply, the end of his straw bouncing up and down like a conductor's baton to the steady rhythm of his chewing. Rather belatedly, Loofah slotted a polite smile into place.
'Tell me this, if you wouldn't mind' he said, then pointed at the buildings behind the hedge, 'Is that the farm?'
The man turned slowly, following the direction of Loofah's outstretched finger. After examining the view for what seemed like a good twenty minutes, he turned back.
'So you be 'ere, be you?' he drawled, 'Come on then, moi zun, let's be 'aavin' you. She be in uz barn—with vit'n'ry.'