Read Online Another part of the wood by Beryl Bainbridge - Free Book Online Page A

who saw the smoke. There was a line, black and waving, widening as he watched, rising into the
blue sky.
    ‘Great God,’ he shouted, running like hell, passing the hut and the curious Joseph standing in the doorway. ‘The bloody wood’s
on fire.’ He jumped like a wrestler on all fours into the bracken on the slope. ‘It’s them damn women of yours,’ he told the
man at the door, voice shrill, pulling out handfuls of grass and nettles in a frantic attempt to locate the water pipe buried
in the ground.
    ‘A fire,’ Joseph said calmly, a tea towel draped over his arm. ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Dropping their bloody fags all over my woods.’ Willie was too far gone to notice the use of the possessive. He was sitting
in the undergrowth now with the pipe between his short legs. ‘Come on up, you bastard,’ he moaned, wrenching the tap further
to the right, spit dribbling down his stubbled chin, his mind shifting from one thought to another, each idea more overlaid
than the last, till all he had in his brain was a pattern of leaves, miraculously veined, each one ablaze behind his eyes.
    ‘No good mucking about with water,’ observed Joseph. ‘I divine Mr George will be in control.’ He went at a trot along the
path, away from the struggling Willie, and disappeared down the slope.
    A little above the stream, the scent of the fire reached him. He forsook the path and plunged down into the ravine, leaping
and sliding, adopting a sideways position with arms wildly waving to balance himself. Boots crushing the black ivy that ran
like main arteries across the curve of the hillside, he lost his tea towel to a low bush and slithering now on the bare rocks
of the lower slopes missed his footing entirely. Guillotining a foxglove with the upwards kick of his boot, he rolled clear
to the bottom of the incline, coming to a halt finally with his head against the wet clay at the edge of the river, his boots
in the thin trickle of water, his fists full of pebbles.
    On the opposite bank, a hundred yards up the hillside, Balfour and George were beating the undergrowth with sycamore branches.
    Further along the stream, at the bridge, Roland and Kidney heard the stampeding firefighters come down on either side, but
saw no one. Roland was busy with his boat, and the reclining
Kidney was laid flat on the wooden planks of the bridge, his head stuck out over the edge and his hands folded under his chin,
watching the water go over the river bed and the red boat getting nowhere.
    Dotty, who had been in the barn when the raised voices had disturbed her, found Willie sitting in the grass.
    ‘What’s up, Willie?’ she asked, looking down at him, puzzled. His eyes, full of surprise, were fixed on the apex of a bush.
    She moved into the bracken and squatted down on her haunches the better to observe him, staring at the freckles thick across
the bridge of his lumpy nose. She thought maybe he was drunk. He sat so stiffly, clutching that iron thing sticking up out
of the ground. He didn’t smell of drink, only of grass and smoke and he looked more baffled than stupefied.
    ‘Willie,’ she said, almost afraid, and put her hand on his two clasped ones, stroking the speckled skin upwards to the wrist,
fingering his pulse though she didn’t know what it might signify, and wishing he would look at her. She tried to remove his
hands from around the pipe, and as she struggled he suddenly released his grip and collapsed on his back into the bushes.
His cap fell off and he lay there staring up at the sky in that surprised way.
    ‘Willie,’ she said again, not very loudly, and stood up and didn’t know what to do for the best. Then she ran away down the
slope towards the stream, shouting, ‘George, George,’ feeling excited and fearful and important all at the same time.
    George told Joseph he’d better bring the Jaguar round to the field road in case Willie needed moving urgently.
    Perhaps it’s a stroke,’ Balfour suggested. ‘It c-could be