Silent Playgrounds. Danuta Reah

Same Author

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       1

      It was dark now, the blackness pressing close, concealing the high roof spaces, the far corners, the heavy, shrouded shapes. Water ran behind the shuttered window, drip … drip … dripdripdrip … drip. The only light came from the glowing coals. Under the grate, the ashes whispered down onto the hearth. The warmth of the fire was fading, but even at its height, it hadn’t pushed the shadows back far. The flagstones of the floor were damp; the timbers were rotting and crumbling. The metal of the grate was rusty. But the metal in front of him was bright, its edge catching the firelight, imprisoning it in the brightness of the steel, turning it a deep glowing red. The voices in his head:

       When?

       Soon, Ashley, soon.

       How soon?

       Now.

      TAKE CARE IF WALKING ALONE BY ALLOTMENTS

      The words were written in red felt-tip on a piece of lined A4. The paper was attached to the bottom of the notice at the entrance to the park, DOGS MUST BE ON A LEAD. The writing was unformed, the hand, perhaps, of a child. The paper gleamed white in the sun. It had rained in the night, but the paper wasn’t wet or smeared. The rain had stopped about five in the morning. At six, on that particular day, the contractors took their cleaning truck through the park, emptied the bins, collected the litter and the broken glass. A newspaper girl saw the paper as she cut through the park on the way to the next block of houses on her round. She stopped to read it, shrugged, then went on her way.

      It was still there when Suzanne passed shortly after ten. She had set herself the task of jogging through the two parks that formed a finger of green into the city, close to the street of red-brick terraces where she lived. There and back, it was probably about two miles, and yesterday she had almost managed it without a break. Today she would do it, and then look to extending her run further through the woods. She reviewed her plan for the day as she ran. Friday. A lot to do. It was her weekend to have Michael, and she liked to have those weekends carefully planned, filled with places to go and people to spend time with.

      The notice caught her eye, and she stopped to read it.

      Strange. What had happened to make someone put up a warning notice? She looked along the main path which ran on past the smooth grass and the carefully planted flower beds, narrowing and darkening as it disappeared into the shadows under the trees. About a year ago, a woman had been attacked in these woods. She looked round her. The park was deserted at this time in the morning, but the bright sun of early summer, the flowers and the fresh green of the new leaves made the woods look gentle and benign. Why the allotments? They were on the other side of the river.

      She shouldn’t have stopped. She was feeling tired now and she was cooling down. She could have gone on for ages if she hadn’t stopped. Her eyes went back to the piece of paper, and she felt a touch of unease at the thought of the lonely path through the woods, so busy at the weekends when families followed the route to the old dam, so deserted during the week when the children were at school and their parents at work. Stop it!

      She set off again at a brisk walk, watching the shadows as she passed out of the sun and under the trees. There was no wind, and the path was dappled and still. The park seemed empty. The early dog walkers had gone, and the late dog walkers weren’t out yet.

      The path forked. She could cross the river here and walk on the other side where the track was narrow and muddy. The Porter Brook ran through woods and parks now, but its banks used to house the small mills and workshops that harnessed the strength of the river to power the trip-hammers and grinding wheels of the nascent steel industry. You could still see the remains of the old works – places where the river was diverted with goits and weirs, the old dams that were abandoned, silted up or turned into playgrounds. At weekends or on holidays, people walked by the dams and fed the water-birds that inhabited them now, or sailed model boats or fished.

      Suzanne paused for a moment, then followed the path across the bridge to the narrow track that ran by the allotments. She picked her way round puddles formed where the mud had been churned up by the passage of mountain bikes. The path was still in the shadow of the trees, but the allotments were in full sun. She looked across at them. Some were carefully tended, neat rows of green, raked, weeded, staked; but most were neglected or abandoned, bushes and brambles and wild raspberries growing among and through old sheds and allotment huts. It was quiet. An elderly couple in jerseys and wellies were working on a patch near the stream, but the other allotments were empty. She could see a thin curl of smoke from a chimney protruding from the roof of a hut. She wondered if she should ask the couple about the notice. Take care …

      She frowned, then realized that her walk had slowed almost to a standstill. She speeded up her pace, and headed determinedly along the path. She began to alter her step to a jog again. Jog six, walk six, jog six, walk six. It was peaceful in the park, away from the demands of work and home. She could let her mind roam in a loose, unfocused way, watching the patterns of light on the path, the way the water swirled and eddied round rocks and banks. It was like the library, almost. A place where she could just be, with no thoughts ahead, and no thoughts behind.

      She got some of her best ideas in the library and the park. Suzanne’s life – now – was focused on her research into young offenders, young men who had a bleak and persistent history of crime, waste and violence. Young men like her brother, Adam. She had put together a proposal that gave substance to her intuition that many of these young men had problems with language, with communication. She wanted to see if she could quantify what she had previously only observed. Months of work in the library poring over journals, phone calls and discussions with other researchers and people who worked with young offenders had paid off and she had been accepted to start a research MSc. She had managed to get a small grant, and was now attached to a young offenders’ programme, the Alpha Project. If she could prove herself – and she could – she would get more funding and be able to go on to complete a PhD.

      She was at Shepherd Wheel now, one of the old workshops that had been restored in wealthier, more optimistic times. There used to be regular working days here, when the water was released from the dam to power the wheel and the wheel turned the gears and belts that worked the grinding stones. But the cuts had put paid to that piece of heritage frivolity, and now the building was closed, locked and shuttered, the water-wheel decaying. She slowed again and, on an impulse, walked along the path past the workshop and up the steps, through the gate that led to the yard behind the mill.

      The wheel lurked low down in a narrow pit. She could see the bucket boards that caught the water and turned it – empty now. She leaned over the wall and peered down into the darkness that housed the wheel. The sluice that held back the water was above her, and below her was damp stone and moss. An opaque reflection gleamed back at her. She waved, and her reflection waved back. A smell of stagnant water drifted up. She shivered. It had the darkness of a place that never got the sun.

      She turned back to the path, following it along the side of the dam. Just a few weeks ago, it had been like a lake almost, with fish and water-birds. Now with the dryness of the summer, it was a stream running through channels of thick mud. Suzanne looked at the prints where birds had walked, already filling with water and fading. Closer to the bank, the mud had been disturbed, the green moss that covered it churned up, as though someone had been digging there. The stone walls of the dam were crevassed and cracked with years of neglect. She walked on, coming out at the end of the park where the woods proper started. She almost crossed the road in a mood of defiance, but the sense of work to be done, work undone, made her pause and turn back. She quickened her pace into a jog again. The run back was all downhill. She could manage that.

      As she passed Shepherd Wheel for the second time, she saw a man slip out from behind the building, from the courtyard that housed the wheel where she’d been herself a