Some Kind of Fairy Tale Read online

  The bluebells made such a pool that the earth had become like water, and all the trees and bushes seemed to have grown out of the water. And the sky above seemed to have fallen down on to the earth floor; and I didn’t know if the sky was earth or the earth was water. I had been turned upside down. I had to hold the rock with my fingernails to stop me from falling into the sky of the earth or the water of the sky. But I couldn’t hold on, and I know I went soaring.

  I was wearing a ring that Richie had bought me the day after we first had sex together. My first time. It had been at this very place and at that moment in my life I felt that I wanted Richie to hold me forever. Now I wasn’t so certain. I took off his ring and let it go, and it fell, fell through the blue sky onto the emerald-and-amber cushion of moss and lichen that sat so soft on the table of ancient rock.

  I felt unburdened. Lighter. I sat back with my head against the moss. The twittering of the birds died down and it seemed like all of the woods became silent. I might have fallen asleep. But even if I did, I woke up with a start when I heard someone coming through the woods toward me.

  It was a man on a pretty white horse making his achingly slow way along the bridle path. Strung on either side of the horse was a large straw pannier, each side looking loaded. I thought the man was talking to himself, or to the horse, but anyway, he had the laziest seat in the saddle you ever saw, and this horse was hardly moving. The man had a crop and he was twitching it at the horse, but not so the creature would feel it. He’d allowed the reins to fall slack at the horse’s withers and I almost thought he was riding this white horse in his sleep.

  I decided to keep quiet and lay with my head back on the mossy stone so that he wouldn’t see me and he would pass by, but then as he drew near I saw that his eye was fixed on me. He twitched at the horse and turned it off the bridle path and toward me, crushing bluebells under the hooves of the horse.

  And they were large hooves. The horse was an elegant creature but its sturdy legs were more like those of a shire, with huge hairy fetlocks. It moved slowly toward me, nodding as it came. Then it stopped right before me. The man sat up a little, smiling down, an amused look in his eye.

  I should have been a little afraid, but I wasn’t.

  I said, “That’s the whitest horse I’ve ever seen.”

  “It is,” he said. “It’s the whitest horse you’ve ever seen; and it’s the whitest horse you will ever see.” He had an unusual accent. I don’t know what it was, though I liked the sound of it well enough. “And that’s why he’s mine.”

  He sat there for an uncomfortable moment or two as we eyed each other. “What’s its name?” I said, just to break the silence.

  “Tssk,” he went, and he smirked at me like I was a bit simple. “You don’t give a horse a name. They don’t like to have names.”

  “I’ve never heard that,” I said, defiant.

  “I expect you haven’t heard a lot of things, you being a slip of a young girl.”

  He was very quick with his answers, but he softened them with a smile on his moist red lips. He wasn’t so old himself. Maybe about thirty, so I thought. Too old for me, but not so old.

  Then he said, “That looks like a very comfortable pillow you’ve found for yourself there. A very comfortable pillow.” And he swung down from his horse.

  He dropped the reins of his white horse and I thought he was going to come toward me but he stepped away from me, to the far end of the mossy rock. “Would you mind if I shared your pillow? Only over here, which is safe, and not too close, because I know what you young girls are like.”

  He certainly wasn’t close enough for me to be worried, so I said, “It’s a free country.”

  “It is and it isn’t,” he said, and he slumped down and laid his head back on the stone and I do believe he immediately went to sleep.

  Or maybe he was just pretending, but anyway, his eyes were closed and his breathing changed, and I could see the rise and fall of his chest. It was a hot afternoon, and his horse, untethered, plodded away to go and stand under a tree. I waited awhile, thinking the man would speak to me at any moment, but he didn’t. He lay there amid the bluebells, his eyes closed and his mouth very slightly open.

  I sat up and got a good look at him. At first I wondered if he was a gypsy. But he didn’t have the manner of a gypsy, and they are not so often seen alone. Then I took him for some kind of hippie, one of those crusty guys who get stuck in the fashion of their youth. His hair was down to his collar, a mass of dark curls behind which I saw the glint of a single gold earring, but you and Richie wore your hair longer than that. He wore a white shirt without a collar, and a black waistcoat, and then baggy black trousers gathered at the knee and stuffed into his riding boots.

  In repose he looked a little younger than I at first took him. He needed a shave, I thought. But he was handsome and he had luscious lips, and they twitched slightly as I watched him; and I watched him maybe for half an hour.

  He woke—or pretended to wake—with a start. He sat up too quickly. First he looked for his horse, which nodded from the shade beneath the tree. Then he spun round and looked at me, and after that all about him, as if he couldn’t make out how he’d ended up where he was. Then just as suddenly he relaxed.

  He lay down again, but this time propping up his head with a hand and smiling at me. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You must think me awfully rude. I don’t know what took me off there.”

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “I just felt the sleep come over me. And I couldn’t do anything. It’s like this is an enchanted place.”

  “Oh, it is,” I said. “It is enchanted.”

  He looked a little worried, though I still think he was pretending. “Really? Is it?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said. I do like it when you can get the better of a man. “I know this place.”

  “I think you do,” he said. “I think you do.”

  His horse moved away. “Aren’t you worried?” I said.

  “The horse? No, she won’t go far from me. She’s my best friend in the world.”

  “Your best friend is a horse? That must be because you don’t get along with people.”

  He laughed, and when he laughed the skin at the corners of his eyes wrinkled, and I thought he was older, after all. “You’re a girl with a bit o’ trunk, aren’t you? You’re right. I don’t get along famously with others. I’d rather my own company, you know?”

  “I’m the same,” I said.

  Now he squinted at me. “If I come and sit beside you, you won’t jump on me, will you?”

  He had this way with him that made me laugh. “No, I won’t jump on you.”

  He crawled through the bluebells on his hands and knees and then sat next to me, his back against the mossy rock. His bottom was maybe three or four inches away from mine. I could smell him. He had an odor; fresh, but manly. He folded his hands behind his head and looked up at the blue sky. The birds were twittering in the trees. I know what you’re thinking, that I was risking it, there in the woods and all. But I felt quite safe with him.

  He had such a gentle air.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Anno 1670, not far from Cirencester, was an apparition; being demanded whether a good spirit or a bad? returned no answer, but disappeared with a curious perfume and a most melodious twang. Mr W. Lilly believes it was a fairy.

  JOHN AUBREY

  Back at The Old Forge while Peter walked with Tara in the Outwoods, Zoe paced the living room with her mobile phone surgically attached to her ear. She was talking to her boyfriend, Michael, a fifteen-year-old white rapper with heartbreaking acne, a taste for designer labels, and a history of self-harm. Amber tried to eavesdrop on her sister while watching a DVD her mother had already described as unsuitable while Josie had stolen a bottle of Zoe’s nail polish and was painting both her toes and the carpet. Genevieve was trying and failing to tidy around them when she heard the chimes of the doorbell.

  She wondered who the hell was callin
g on New Year’s Day. “Can someone get that?” she shouted, already on her way to answer the door, since she knew none of the children would.

  On her way through the hall she collected a pair of sneakers, a pullover, a T-shirt, a child’s pair of pajamas, and a wet stick one of the dogs had brought in from the garden. She had these things bundled in her arms when she opened the door. Hovering on the threshold was a tall, thin man with severely cropped hair and round wire-frame spectacles. He had a slight stoop. “Is Peter in?” His voice was very deep.

  “He’s gone for a walk up at the Outwoods.”

  “I’m Richie.”

  “Yes, you are, aren’t you? You coming in?”

  She dropped the shoes in a tea chest by the door and led him through to the kitchen. There she dumped the clothes on the counter. She told Richie to have a seat at the table, opened the back door and slung the stick outside, closing the door quickly before one of the attentive dogs could dash out and bring it back in again. Then she pushed a curl out of her eye before filling the electric kettle.

  She folded her arms, leaning a hip against the roll of the kitchen counter as she waited by the kettle for it to boil. With her eyes fixed on him, Richie sat down and shuffled uncomfortably under her gaze.

  “It’s all a bit strange,” she said at last. “Tara turns up after twenty years—”

  “Nearly twenty-one,” Richie suggested.

  “And now here you are.”

  A slap hit the wall from the outside. Richie flinched. “Hell was that?”

  “It’s our feral son, Jack. Peter bought him an air rifle against my wishes, and he’s mounting a twenty-four-hour rat patrol. He doesn’t live indoors anymore.”

  “When me and Pete was kids we spent hours lying on the garage roof, waiting to shoot rats.”

  “Some things don’t change.”

  “A lot of things do.”

  “Tea all right? I have got fresh coffee somewhere but I’d have to dig for it.”

  “Tea is good.”

  Richie watched her as she flicked teabags into a pair of chipped mugs and poured boiling water from the kettle. When she was done making the tea she placed the mugs on the table and sat across from him. She offered a hand to shake. “Pleased to meet you, Richie.”

  He shook hands without a word.

  “You’re a luthier, aren’t you?”

  “Fancy word for stringing guitars.”

  “Nice work, though.”

  “Was. Don’t anymore.”

  Genevieve noticed the tremble in his hands as he raised the cup to his lips. “Why not?”

  “Ain’t got the patience no more.”

  “He’ll be sorry he’s missed you. Had you said you were coming?”

  “No. Just spur-o’-the-moment thing. Thought I’d drop round. Always been curious, like. Knew this place from when we were kids. Knew the old farrier. Fairy-tale figure; old white-haired boy with great big mutton-chop sideburns. Saw you from a distance once or twice. Knew he had a lovely family and all that. Lovely wife, lovely kids, all that. Felt pleased for him.”

  “It’s just ridiculous that you haven’t spoken in all this time. He said you were best of friends when you were kids.”

  “Best mates we were. Best mates.”

  “Well, I don’t understand it.”

  “You weren’t there when it happened.”

  “I don’t even know what happened exactly. Pete doesn’t talk about it.”

  The door opened and Zoe came in, still talking on her phone. She seemed not to notice Richie. She pressed the mouthpiece into her collarbone. “Can I go out tonight?”

  “Where to?” said Genevieve.

  She lifted the phone again. “Where is it?” She listened and said, “The White Horse.”

  “Drug den, it is,” Richie said.

  Zoe flickered a glance at Richie and then looked back at Genevieve.

  “You’ll have to ask your dad.”

  “Should be all right,” Zoe said into the phone and went out of the kitchen.

  “Right scruffy hole, The White Horse,” Richie said. “Used to play gigs there. Wipe your feet as you come out type of place.”

  “I’ll see what her dad says.”

  “Wouldn’t let my daughter go there.”

  “Have you got a daughter?”

  Richie sighed. “I have got one. But I’m not allowed to see her.”

  “What happened?”

  “Long story.”

  “You know what, Richie?” Genevieve said. “Round here, everyone’s story is long, but no one’s telling it.”

  He snorted and reached for his pack of cigarettes in his breast pocket. Then he had second thoughts and left them where they were. “I had a daughter with the wrong woman, let’s just say. She were a witch, there’s no other word for it. Now she won’t let me see my daughter, and it’s a wound every day I don’t see her.”

  “How old is your daughter?”

  “Nearly nine.”

  “That’s hard for you.”

  “Her life has been stolen away from me.”

  Richie told Genevieve some of the details of the case. How he hadn’t seen his daughter since she was five years old. He talked about his experiences with the courts and how they were stacked in favor of mothers. He was bitter. But he found himself talking at length to Genevieve, as many had before. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,” he said more than once.

  Then Amber came in and said, “Tell Josie!”

  “Tell Josie what?” said Genevieve.

  “She’s being a pain!”

  Genevieve went to sort out the uproar and discovered the nail polish spilled across the carpet, and Richie took advantage of her absence to go outside and spark up a cigarette. He remembered the lad on the workshop roof, so he took out his white hankie and waved it. “Don’t shoot! For chrissakes.”

  Richie stood in the yard, puffing on his cigarette and looking up at Jack. “Howdoo,” he said.

  Jack nodded and then looked back down the sights of his air rifle.

  “They ain’t gonna come and play while I’m standing here, are they?” Richie said. “Who are you, then?”

  “Jack.”

  “What caliber is it?”

  “One-point-seven-seven.”

  “You wanna ask your dad to get you a two-two. That’ll punch a rat’s brains out.”

  “Are you Richie?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Thought so.”

  “Your dad mentioned me, has he?”

  “Yeh. Sometimes.”

  Richie smoked his cigarette while Jack lay stretched on the roof, peering down the sights of his air rifle as if the enemy might appear at any moment.

  Richie finished his ciggie and went back inside. Genevieve hadn’t reappeared, so he found his own way into the living room, where she and Zoe were on their hands and knees trying to scrape nail polish out of the carpet while Josie wailed and Amber, arms folded, sulked on the sofa. His eyes fell upon a guitar in the corner of the room.

  “Who plays that?” he asked, above Josie’s din.

  “Zoe is learning,” Genevieve said.

  Richie picked up the guitar, weighed it in his hands, and strummed it. He presented it to Zoe. “Give it a go then, my love.”

  Zoe looked at Genevieve. “I can only play three chords,” she said, and not to Richie but to her mother.

  “Then play three chords,” he said. “Come on, give it a go.”

  “I’m not in the mood,” Zoe said.

  “I am, though,” he said, and he held out the guitar for her. Zoe looked up and caught something in his eye that made her a little afraid to say no again. Reluctantly, she took the guitar from his hands, sat down, and started to strum. The television set was still running a DVD, so Richie turned it off. Amber made a gasp of pretended outrage. “Give it a go, mi’duck.”

  Zoe played her three chords, varying the strum pattern, trying to smuggle a little enthusiasm into her playing. Richie listened atten
tively, and the younger girls watched him listening. When Zoe stopped, Richie held out a hand to relieve her of the instrument. “Give it here.”

  He sat down on the sofa next to Amber and he played the guitar, expertly, very fast. Throughout his playing he looked full-on at Zoe. Her cheeks flamed as he gazed at her. She looked away; she looked at her smiling mother; she looked back at Richie.

  He stopped playing suddenly.

  “Wow,” said Genevieve.

  He stood up and handed the guitar back to Zoe. He suddenly seemed in a desperate hurry to leave. “I’ll come back later when he’s in.”

  Genevieve raised her eyebrows at his sudden haste. Then she got off her knees to follow him, for he was already moving toward the door.

  “I’ll tell him you called round.”

  “Right. Thanks for the tea.”

  “Come back anytime.” She opened the door for him. “Before you go, Richie.”

  “Yes.”

  “You should know it’s been hurting him. All these years of not speaking. He’s never told me what happened between you, or what was said. But whatever it was, he’s been hurting. Whatever it was.”

  “Right,” said Richie. Then he set off down the path. “Right.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  In the spring of 1895 seamstress Bridget Boland Cleary was living with her husband Michael Cleary and her father Patrick Boland in a small cottage in Ballyvadlea, Tipperary, Ireland. They’d been married about eight years, but were childless; Bridget was twenty-six, and Michael was thirty-five. Bridget, a good-looking woman, owned her own Singer sewing machine and was said to have an eye for the fashions of the day.

  Michael Cleary claimed his wife Bridget had been taken away by the fairies, and that they had left a changeling in her place. On the fifteenth of March, Michael Cleary, having spent three days in various rituals intended to force the changeling to leave and bring his wife back, set fire to her.