The man makes a rolling motion with his hands. I lower the window just a fraction and keep my finger on the button. The smell of pine and unwashed clothes hits me.
‘Can I help you?’
‘I was going to ask you the same,’ he calls, in a thick West Country accent. ‘Have you broken down? You shouldn’t pull up here. It ain’t safe to be on this road all alone, like.’ He has a missing front tooth.
Thunder rolls overhead, a low beastly growl that adds to my unease.
‘I was …’ I hesitate. Perhaps it’s best he doesn’t know I’m a journalist yet. ‘I’m just on my way to Stafferbury.’
‘Are you lost?’
‘No. I pulled over to do … something.’ I’m aware I sound vague.
‘Right.’ He frowns, his suspicious gaze sweeping over my modern Audi Q5 before landing back on me. His eyes are very dark, almost black. ‘Well, Stafferbury is just another two miles or so down this road. You can’t miss it.’
‘That’s great, thanks.’
I quickly close my window to discourage any more questions, my hands trembling as I slide the gearstick into drive. I pull away from the grass verge so quickly the tyres screech. From my rear-view mirror I see him standing there, his dog sitting at his feet, staring after my retreating car.
I’m feeling a little less rattled as I arrive in Stafferbury. The town is just how I imagined it would be. Just like the black-and-white photographs I’ve pored over before driving more than two hundred miles to get here from Manchester. It’s hardly changed since the late 1890s and, of course, the standing stones are even older. I notice them first. They are in the adjourning boggy-looking field to my right, set five metres apart in a semicircle, large and ugly, like a set of uneven teeth. They don’t seem to be in any particular formation, not like Stonehenge. Even from here I can see that a film of green algae has formed over them, like plaque.
A family in brightly coloured raincoats, the kids in funky wellies with a small dog in tow, clamber over the stile into the field where the stones are. I wonder what Finn would think of it here. As an image of my floppy-haired ten-year-old son swims in my mind I feel a pang of longing so strong it’s painful. Since the separation from his dad I’m used to being away from him – I have no choice now that we share custody. But I hate it. It feels like part of me is missing.
The high street is set in a horseshoe shape with a war memorial separating the two roads, and in addition to the one I’ve just driven down there is another heading away from the town, snaking between two medieval-looking buildings with an ominous-sounding pub, The Raven, on the corner. Its sign – a big black bird with sinister beady eyes set against a grey sky – gives me the creeps. From my satnav, that road leads to the back-streets and countryside beyond.
I’m staying in the forest in a cabin that looked beautiful and modern on the website. I’d wanted to see the high street before heading to my accommodation so had deliberately missed the turning from the Devil’s Corridor, and now I go back on myself. I continue through the town, which has been dressed up for Christmas, taking in the little boutiques selling mystical ornaments, jewellery and incense, a café in one of the Tudor buildings called Bea’s Tearoom, a few clothes shops sporting tie-dye T-shirts and fringed skirts, and a place called Madame Tovey’s – she professes （according to the large sign outside, complete with a tarot card illustration） to be able to tell your fortune. It’s a cute town, small and quaint, with its Tudor buildings, cobbled streets and Christmas lights twinkling at leaded windows. I can see why tourists are attracted to it, but there is an air of the rundown about it. It’s like Avebury’s poor relation. Maybe it’s more bustling in the summer, I think charitably. It is a cold November Monday, after all, with only a few people about.
As if on cue the rain comes, fast and furious, drumming loudly on my roof. I notice a young couple dart into a nearby shop, holding hands and giggling, and I experience a tug of envy. Gavin and I were like that once. I drive around the war memorial, the stones now on my left, as I head out of the high street and onto the sinister-sounding Devil’s Corridor once more. There is a dirt track that forks off, no more than half a mile from the field of standing stones, which will take me further into the forest. As I turn down it, I wonder if it’s a little too remote. Perhaps I should have booked a B-and-B in the town.
After a few hundred yards I come to a purpose-built holiday cabin similar to the type you get at Center Parcs, surrounded by beech, pine and fir trees. I slow down to get a better look at the name on the front door. Fern. I’m staying in Bluebell, though I’ve no idea where that is. In the distance I think there are two or three more, but it’s hard to see clearly with the rain battering my car and the phalanx of trees as deep as the eye can see. When I spoke to Jay Knapton, the owner, on the phone to make the booking, he’d explained that the complex wasn’t fully built yet and that only half a dozen cabins were dotted through the forest at the moment. He had sounded impressed when I told him the reason I was visiting.
I drive on, my tyres sluicing through the wet mud. I hope the first cabin, Fern, is occupied, although it certainly looked empty. I don’t like to think about being alone in the forest. I slow down as I approach the second cabin trying to catch the name on the grey front door. Bluebell. Relieved, I pull up on the driveway. It’s only matting and turf underfoot, and as I step from the car my heel sinks into it. What was I thinking wearing heeled boots to come to a forest? Thank goodness I have my wellies in the car. I stand for a moment, looking up at the cabin, ignoring the rain seeping through my wool coat and soaking my hair. I’m besieged by the memories of our family holiday to Center Parcs last Christmas. Finn had been so excited – the house among the trees, he’d called it. My heart twists when I realize there may never be another family holiday with all three of us, or a Christmas Day spent all together. From now on, it will be Finn with either me or his dad – and in time Gavin’s new partner. Because, of course, there’s going to be a new girlfriend, if there isn’t already. Why else would Gavin announce, late one night four months ago, that he needed ‘space’ from our fifteen-year marriage? And our nineteen-year relationship? Why else would he move into a studio flat near his office?
This is not the life I’d envisaged. This is not the future I want.
And I’m still bitter about it. I’m furious that the life I’d had, the life I’d loved, has been ripped away from me. That our little family unit has been broken up. This is not what I wanted for our son. For me. Sometimes I want to hurt Gavin so badly – to punish him, to stop him seeing our son – that it eats away at me. But I know that’s selfish and unfair on Finn. I know that. I do. And I’d never do it. Yet this anger … I take a deep breath. Get it together, Jenna, I tell myself. I won’t think about all that now. I won’t wallow. I’m here to do a job. This is a career-changing opportunity for me and I can’t let my emotional turmoil over Gavin mess it up.
I turn back towards my car, plipping open the boot to retrieve my large holdall. It weighs a tonne and I curse myself for packing too much stuff. It used to infuriate Gavin, who only ever needed the bare minimum. I like to pack for every eventuality and can’t go anywhere without my heated tongs. There is a small porch, which I shelter under while I release the key from the coded safe on the wall as per the rental instructions. The hallway is warm and welcoming, with a coat rack, a padded bench and pull-out wicker boxes for shoes. I hang up my wet coat and perch on the bench to take off my boots.