The Scratch. Andrew Taylor

       2

      That was the problem. Jack had no one except us.

      Gerald had been his mother’s brother. She had married an engineer whose work took him to the Middle East and Central Asia. Jack had either lived with them or boarded at an international school in Geneva. Sue and Gerald were perfectly friendly as siblings go but she was about six years older than he was and they had never been close. She hadn’t even come to our wedding.

      We exchanged cards and presents on Christmases and birthdays. There were occasional phone calls, though these had dwindled in frequency over the years. Gerald had stayed with them once, quite early on in our marriage, when he had been in Dubai for work. That’s when he had met Jack for the first and only time and seen him playing with Lego.

      Sue was long dead, killed in a car crash at a busy intersection in Ankara when Jack was away at school. His father had died of cancer last year.

      Jack had phoned us out of the blue last week. He had been invalided out of the army, he said, though he was perfectly OK now, really, just a bit jittery sometimes. All he needed was a bit of peace and quiet and time to sort himself out.

      So naturally Gerald asked him to stay. Gerald was a decent man. The Forest was full of peace and quiet, or so people think.

      On his first morning, Jack slept late. Gerald left for work at about seven thirty, as usual. He was a designer for a company that had a laboratory and offices just outside Monmouth. They made components for electronic instruments. He explained to me precisely what he did on several occasions but I never really understood it.

      His departure left me in limbo. Usually at this time of the day I would leave the washing-up and, still in my dressing gown, shuffle into the studio with a cup of coffee and Radio Four. Cannop would often come with me and doze on the sagging, paint-stained sofa.

      But I couldn’t just abandon Jack to his own devices, not on his first morning. So I got dressed, too, and made myself look respectable. I pottered about downstairs. I had fed Cannop and put him outside before Gerald left. The cat was now sitting on the kitchen windowsill, looking in. I felt irritated on his behalf as well as my own.

      The irritation evaporated when Jack came downstairs just before nine. His hair was unbrushed and he hadn’t shaved. He looked so young and defenceless that it was hard to be angry with him. I poured him coffee and we sat at the kitchen table.

      ‘How did you sleep?’ I asked.

      ‘Off and on. You know how it is.’

      ‘Strange bed? New place?’

      ‘Yeah. That’s it.’ He glanced over to the window, at Cannop, and looked away. ‘I’ll go for a run after this,’ he said, cradling the coffee mug with his hands. ‘Clear my head. What’s the best way into the Forest?’

      ‘We’ve got our own gate. It’s just beside the Hovel. Do you want a map?’

      ‘No thanks – I’d rather find my own way. But I can go anywhere, right? I’m not going to be trespassing?’

      ‘No. It’s our Forest as much as anyone else’s.’

      ‘What about you? I don’t want to stop you doing anything.’ He looked awkward, as people often do when they mention my occupation. ‘Your … your art.’

      ‘I’ll just carry on,’ I said. ‘I’ll be in the studio – it’s at the far end of the house – beyond the sitting room. Come and find me when you get back. Or help yourself if you need anything.’

      I went into the studio and became immersed in what I was doing. Every now and then I would surface – once because I glimpsed Jack jogging up the garden path on his way back; and again because Cannop yowled so piteously at the studio window that I had to let him in.

      It was nearly lunchtime when I emerged, driven not only by a desire for food but by the niggling sense that I really ought to be a proper hostess for half an hour. Jack was already in the kitchen. He’d found the map of the Forest on the dresser and spread it on the table before him.

      He looked up. ‘I saw a boar.’ His face was transfigured, as though he had just seen the Virgin Mary. ‘It just stared at me and then lumbered away. It was like something out of the Middle Ages. Or Game of Thrones.’

      ‘We’ve got a lot of them.’ I took out a container of soup I had made at the weekend and poured it into a saucepan. ‘Some people say too many. Still, the tourists love them. And some of the locals.’

      He said, ‘There must be lots of wildlife.’

      There was something in his voice that made me glance at him. ‘Deer, of course,’ I said. ‘Foxes, rabbits, grey squirrels, badgers, weasels and rats and God knows what else. And then there are the birds.’

      ‘I guess you never know what you might find, what might be hiding out there.’

      ‘No.’ I turned up the heat and began to slice the bread. ‘Sometimes you see white stags. There’s probably a colony of unicorns somewhere.’

      It wasn’t much of a joke, but he laughed. That was the first time I had seen him laugh. It made him look younger.

      We had the soup, followed by cheese and fruit. Jack ate well; there was never anything wrong with his appetite.

      Afterwards, he leaned back in his chair and cleared his throat. ‘Clare?’ he said. ‘I was wondering. You know I didn’t sleep brilliantly?’

      ‘Yes. Is there anything we can do to make you more comfortable?’

      He shook his head. ‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘You know.’

      I smiled. ‘I don’t, actually.’

      ‘After everything, I kind of got uncomfortable about being in houses. Sleeping, I mean.’

      I didn’t know him well enough to try to cajole a confidence from him. ‘So what would you like to do?’

      ‘Would you mind if I slept outside?’

      I stared at him. ‘But, Jack – you’ll freeze. We still get a ground frost sometimes.’

      ‘I’ve got a good sleeping bag. Anyway, I was wondering if you’d let me sleep in the Hovel.’

      ‘Doesn’t that count as a house, too?’

      ‘Not really.’ He glanced out of the window, where Cannop was looking in at us. ‘It’s got a temporary feel to it, hasn’t it? Like a shed or a tent. A tent with a stone chimney – that’s what Gerald called it. A place for squatters.’

      ‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t sleep there. If you’re sure you want to.’

      ‘Great.’ Jack was almost cheerful. ‘I looked in the windows this morning. And there’s a sort of loft, too, isn’t there, up the stone steps at the side? I’d be fine.’

      I didn’t say anything. But he read what was in my mind.

      ‘It’s