Summerhouse Land , livre ebook

Mathew & Son Limited - Roderick Gordon

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189 pages

English

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Time is running out for fourteen year-old Sam. He suffers from a rare inherited condition that caused terrible disfigurement to his great-grandfather and although it skipped the next two generations, it's come back with a vengeance in him. Sam's parents try to ensure he leads as normal a life as possible, but a normal life is difficult when your flesh and bones mutiny and bubble up into horrific growths, and pressure on your brain causes searing migraines. Then the very worst happens, but all is not lost for Sam.

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Publié par	Mathew & Son Limited
Date de parution	08 août 2017
Nombre de lectures	2
EAN13	9781912317134
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0300€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Text © Roderick Gordon 2016
www.summerhouseland.com
www.roderickgordon.com
Cover illustration © Stanley Donwood 2016
First published in Great Britain in 2016
by Mathew & Son Limited
www.mathewandson.com
Email: rod@mathewandson.com
Roderick Gordon has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998, to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Designed and typeset by Ned Hoste of 2H Printed and bound in Great Britain
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data available
ISBN 978-1-9123171-3-4
Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past.
From Burnt Norton, Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot
Contents
Part One : BEFORE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Part Two : THE VALLEY
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Part Three : RETURN
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Eleven
Afterword
Bibliography and Inspiration
Part One
BEFORE
Chapter One
Y ou walk, in no particular hurry, taking in the streets as you go. Evening is approaching and, under the last light of the sun, commuters drag ever-lengthening shadows behind them.
You turn a corner to find yourself in Harley Street, which you stroll along, glancing up at the windows of the consultants and medical specialists. The slow-moving flow of cars is constantly brought to a halt as black cabs pull up outside the Georgian terraces. The sick and the elderly alight from them and pay the drivers, seemingly oblivious to the car horns fretting behind in the queue.
As these people are helped to their appointments, you notice that there are many large cars in the bays along the street, condensation dripping from their exhausts as chauffeurs keep their engines ticking over. But even the bright chrome and highly polished bodies of these expensive vehicles can do nothing to dispel the winter gloom. And there’s a hush over the place, as if the street is holding its breath with respect for the unwell, many of whom are only postponing the inevitable.
There’s sadness and futility here. You begin to quicken your pace.
Then you glimpse something, a sliver of normality, and you grasp it with your eyes.
A boy and his parents are walking from the opposite direction. The boy is young, perhaps not yet in his teens. His school uniform is grey, as grey as the sky at that moment, but you notice the triple bands of pink around the neck of his pullover and the similarly coloured stripes on his tie. These bright points of colour are unexpected, like a cluster of tiny flowers in a slush of traffic-stained ice.
The boy is being borne along by his mother and father as they support him under the arms. At any moment you half expect them to hoist him up – ‘One, two, whoop!’ – accompanied by delighted laughter as he meets the pavement again.
But then you notice his parents are both staring straight ahead, their expressions far from joyful. This isn’t an outing to treat their son to a toy from Hamleys or see a show at the theatre. This is something different, serious.
And as they come closer, the man speaks to his wife, indicating one of the buildings. They head towards it.
The boy, whose face has been lowered until now, raises it. He catches you looking at him and turns in your direction.
You try not to gasp.
You see that his head is misshapen. His mouse-brown hair is raised and uneven on the right-hand side. Because there is something large under it. And on his forehead there is a protuberance, a skin-covered egg. You also notice the corner of his mouth is hitched up, as though it’s badly swollen.
This isn’t the result of some incident in the playground. There’s no sign of broken skin or scarring. Something malignant is growing inside him.
And although his body is slight and frail, you realise that he’s older than you first thought. Possibly even as old as fifteen, although it’s difficult to tell.
As he hangs back from his parents, his eyes are still on yours. Eyes that can tell precisely what’s going through your mind. Eyes that know only too well that his disfigurement has made you uncomfortable. Shocked you.
And he’s right.
You feel a wash of guilt and of embarrassment. More than anything, you want to avert your gaze, look away, down, anywhere, but that would be an admission.
So you don’t.
And, for what feels like several lifetimes, yours and the boy’s eyes remain locked together.
There’s a glimmer of a smile on his face.
You see beyond his deformities. He’s only a child. The injustice makes your throat tighten.
‘Sam,’ the mother prompts in a soft voice, she and her husband intent only on the doorway at the top of the steps. You know his name now. Sam’s eyes are finally parted from yours as he’s led up into the building with its freshly painted door. You know you will never see him again. But you can’t help but stare unfocusedly at the illuminated windows of the consulting rooms.
You wonder what his life must be like, and how one so young could possibly deal with it.
‘Sam,’ you repeat to yourself, moving quickly down the street, no longer taking any notice of your surroundings.
Chapter Two
I t is 1646. A girl sits by the gnarled trunk of an ancient elm. Her hands are stained with mud and her clothes ragged, and there is no expression on her face as she works. Her fingers are moving with astonishing dexterity as she weaves together a combination of twigs and dried grass, occasionally adding reeds from a sheath on the ground beside her.
The woods in which she lives are a damp, forlorn place. The almost unceasing rains since the beginning of summer have taken their toll, and rather than the palette of verdant greens one might expect for that time of year, the tree canopies and the undergrowth appear grey and washed out.
The girl’s fingers abruptly cease their movement and she rises to her feet with the fruit of her labours held before her. Shaped like a bowl, it is an object of exquisite artistry, the exterior depicting a sky of cumuliform clouds shot through with the sun’s rays. She has created these by carefully weaving in blades of dried sedge grass that do seem to give off a golden radiance when they catch the pale light of the real sun overhead.
She twists around to face the tree trunk behind her and, for a moment, considers it. Then the girl appears to decide what she is going to do next. Placing the item she has made on her head for safekeeping like a diminutive rice hat, she begins to climb the elm, taking time to choose her hand and footholds, until she is almost fifty feet above the ground. She stops as she reaches the crook between two branches in which there is a lopsided bird’s nest. Pummelled by the high winds and heavy rains, it resembles little more than a bundle of old twigs that have somehow become wedged between the branches. And she’s not sure what she’s going to find as she peers over the brim and discovers that there are still three small eggs inside.
Adjusting her position so she can use both hands, she cups them around the nest and ever so gently lifts it aside, balancing it on a thick bough beside her. From her head she takes the object that she has woven and, flipping it over, she substitutes it for the old nest in the crook. She pulls some lengths of vine tucked under her belt and binds the new nest securely in place. When she’s satisfied that no amount of wind or rain will be able to unseat it, she gently picks out the eggs from the old nest and places them in their new home. Normally the scent of a human on the eggs might have driven the parents away, but Damaris has been living in the woods for so long that she smells like them. There is almost no trace of her own species still left to trouble the animals.
Then, with a last look at the eggs, she shimmies down the tree and begins towards the old woodman’s hut where she sometimes sleeps. As she goes, Damaris is in her own world, devoid of any contact whatsoever with other people. And she is completely unaware of the impending danger several miles away.
***
‘Where is she? Where is the miller’s girl?’ Hopkins demands, still astride his mount. He has ridden it hard, and sweat streams from its flanks.
The town elder clears his throat nervously, but neither he nor the priest offers a response. The way they are holding themselves is supplicatory, respectful, but they are both edging slowly away from the rider as they try to avoid his scrutiny.
‘Are you deaf? I said where is she?’
Although Hopkins hasn’t taken the trouble to formally introduce himself, there’s no doubt in their minds as to who he is. A lieutenant from his company turned up in town several weeks previously to notify them of the day and even the hour of Hopkins’ arrival.
This lieutenant, a large and burly man, had lodged at the inn to give himself enough time to conduct his investigations. He seemed to have most success during the morning of market day when he collared unsuspecting people and frightened them half to death with threats of torture unless they cooperated with him. Although, with his farm-labourer’s manners and burly demeanour, he didn’t look the type who could read, the lieutenant constantly referred to an old leather-bound book as he asked his questions. These ranged from the mundane, concerning the size of their cows’ udders or how many crows roosted on their land, to the fantastical; non