The Universe Versus Alex Woods (13 page)

‘Don’t shoot!’ I yelped, raising both my hands above my head. ‘I’m an epileptic!’ I added. I don’t know why I added this second part. It may have been some delirious attempt at explanation; it may have been an appeal for leniency.

The single-cylinder gun barrel remained poised.

I felt ice crystallizing in my bowel. My eyes were watering, blurring out the details so that I could only see the dim outlines of my impending doom. Then a bright orange circle suddenly flared against the background darkness. I expected a bang and a bullet, the powdery smell of fireworks. Instead there was a faint crackle and a smell like very strong parsley. I thought another fit was coming.

‘So,’ my executioner asked, ‘you wanna tell me what in the name of Jesus F. Christ you’re doing in my shed?’

I wasn’t surprised to discover that he spoke with a slow American drawl. In the fever dream my mind was spinning – which owed as much to Hollywood as it did to blind panic – it seemed reasonable enough that I was to be murdered by a cowboy. And there certainly wasn’t time to clear up the mystery of Jesus’s middle initial.

‘Well?’ the voice prompted. ‘What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?’

‘Resting!’ I squeaked. ‘I was just resting!’

This provoked a short, sharp snort, like the warning bark of an angry dog. ‘Well, I guess trashin’ someone’s glasshouse must really take it out of you, huh?’

I didn’t say anything. My brain is not to be relied on in a crisis.

‘So, you done restin’ now, kid? You ready to step outside so we can talk, or shall I come back later?’

I weighed my options, and decided that I’d rather die on my feet in the sunlight than curled up in the dark. But then, when I tried to rise, my legs buckled beneath me. I gave up and buried my head in my arms.

‘If you’re going to kill me,’ I pleaded, ‘I’d prefer it if you made it quick.’

‘What the hell’re you talkin’ about, kid?’ The cowboy took another drag on his parsley cigarette. ‘What’s the story here? You funny in the head or something?’

I nodded vigorously.

‘Come on – on your feet!’

The cowboy stepped back into the sunlight to clear the doorway for my exit, and at the same moment, he lowered his gun – which resolved itself into what it had been all along. Three feet of lightweight aluminium. Grey plastic handle. A crutch.

The ice melted. Sensation rushed back to my limbs, and with a breath that brought relief to every cell of my body, I rose and stumbled out into the light, reborn and ready to face whatever punishment awaited me.

Fear distorts the world. Fear sees demons where only shadows dwell. This was the lesson I’d eventually learn.

My captor was not the dark menace imagination had made of him. He leaned heavily on his crutch, walking with a pronounced limp in his right leg. He was thin and wiry. His face was pale and drawn and grizzled with silvery stubble. He had some sparse patches of hair at his temples, but little left on top. He was old. The only things about him that retained the kind of brisk authority I’d projected into the darkness were his eyes, which were a sharp, flinty grey, and his voice, which was hard and cutting.

‘You’re not gonna bolt on me, are you, kid?’ he asked.

I shook my head.

‘You promise?’

I nodded, still tongue-tied.

He pointed at me with his crutch. ‘You got anything that doesn’t belong to you in there?’

I gawked blankly.

‘The bag, kid. What’s in the bag?’

I dropped my eyes. I was still holding my mother’s bag. I was clutching it protectively to my chest. My tongue untied itself. ‘Cat biscuits!’ I blurted. ‘Cat biscuits and a magazine and half a bunch of grapes. It’s all mine. You can check. I’m not a thief!’

‘Just a vandal, huh?’

The old man looked at me very keenly, and then shook his head and dropped his cigarette to the ground. He crushed it out with his left foot.

‘Y’know, I’ve seen some pretty dumb crimes in my time, but this is possibly the dumbest. I know that an appetite for destruction and intellect don’t always walk hand in hand, but by any standard, this here’s pretty goddamn mystifying.’ He gestured again with his crutch, first at the greenhouse, then at the shed. ‘I’m probably wastin’ my time askin’, but I don’t suppose you’ve got an explanation for all this?’

‘It wasn’t me,’ I explained.

‘I see. Who was it, then?’

‘Some other kids.’

‘Which other kids?’

I gulped. ‘Just some other kids, that’s all. They were chasing me.’

‘Right. And where are they now?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I guess they just vanished, huh?’

‘I think they must have gone back through the hedge.’

We both looked in the direction of the hedge. It was an impenetrable grey-green wall.

‘Your friends must be regular Houdinis,’ the old man said.

‘They’re not my friends!’ I replied.

He looked at me for a very long time, then shook his head again.

‘You got a name, kid?’

‘Alex,’ I said, very quietly.

‘Just Alex?’

‘It’s short for Alexander,’ I elaborated.

My captor clicked his tongue and scowled. ‘Who’s your father, kid?’

‘I don’t have a father.’

‘Gotcha: immaculately conceived!’

Fortunately, I knew what this remark meant. It was very sarcastic. It meant that I was like Jesus – not the result of sexual intercourse, which, in the Bible, was a terrible sin.

‘That’s not what I meant,’ I said. ‘I had a father but my mother’s not exactly sure who he was. I was conceived in the normal way. Somewhere near Stonehenge,’ I added.

‘Your mother sounds like a hoot.’

‘She’s celibate now,’ I said.

‘Okay. This is all fascinating stuff, but let’s cut the crap. Tell me who your mother is, kid. I want her name. Her
full
name.’

‘Rowena Woods,’ I said.

This prompted a lot of blinking, followed by another short, bark-like laugh. ‘God al-fuckin’-mighty! You’re
that
kid?’

I should point out that, aside from the expletive, this was not an uncommon reaction when a stranger found out who I was.

The old man had tilted his head and I could see that he was peering very closely at the white line across my right temple, where my hair still refused to grow.

I waited patiently.

The old man exhaled and shook his head again.

‘Where’s your mom right now?’ he asked. ‘Is she home?’

‘She’s at work,’ I said.

‘Okay. Tell me what time she gets home.’

I looked at the shattered glass littering the ground and bit my lip.

I should explain something at this point.

There were two things that I couldn’t tell my mother about that Saturday. And unfortunately, these were the two things – the only two things – that could have saved my story from falling into senseless pieces.

First, I couldn’t tell her the names of my pursuers. This would have been suicidal. I was certain that my silence – along with the sustained possibility that I could, at some point, if pushed, break this silence – was the only thing that could guarantee my safety over the coming weeks. Having got away with criminal damage, my trio of tormentors, I thought, would not be eager to press their luck. For now, and, hopefully, for many more months, they’d have to find someone else to traumatize.

Second, I couldn’t mention my seizure. As things stood, I was already in grave danger of losing all my hard-won freedoms. If my mother even
half
suspected that my epilepsy was returning to its former severity, I’d be straight back into the shackles of full-time, round-the-clock supervision. I’d lose my Saturdays. I’d lose my Sundays. I’d lose my post-school afternoons. I doubted that I could persuade her that this was a one-off – that, despite evidence to the contrary, I was coping perfectly well on my stringent regime of drugs and meditation.

So my defence was in tatters from the outset. All that remained were the indisputable facts: trespass, a broken greenhouse and so little remorse – or such blithe stupidity – that I hadn’t even bothered to flee the scene of the crime.

My mother was distraught.

‘Lex, how
could
you?’ she said.

‘I’ve told you: I didn’t!’

‘I did not raise you to be the kind of boy who takes pleasure in acts of wanton destruction. I raised you to have principles! I raised you to be kind and polite and loving! And truthful!’

‘I
do
have principles!’

‘Your actions say otherwise.’

‘But they weren’t my actions!’

‘Yes. So you’ve said. And I’d love to believe that, Lex – I truly would. But you give me no reason to believe it.’

‘That’s because you’re not listening to me!’

‘Tell me who your accomplices were.
Then
I might start to listen.’

‘They weren’t my accomplices. I’m not responsible for what they did.’

‘If you continue to protect them, that makes you an accomplice! It makes you as guilty as they are.’

I scowled at the ground and tried to think of a way to dispute the logic of this argument.

‘Tell me who they were,’ my mother repeated.

‘I’ve told you. It was just some kids from the village.’

‘Names, Lex. I want names.’

‘Their names aren’t important. The important thing is that they were to blame, not me.’

‘Lex, this is really quite simple. If you don’t tell me which of your friends did this, then all the blame will rest with you.’

‘They’re not my friends! Which part of the story did you not understand?’

‘Don’t you get smart with me! Just tell me who they are.’

‘Why don’t you ask the cards?’ I said sullenly.

My mother stayed silent and looked at me for a very long time. I couldn’t stand the way she was looking at me. She didn’t look angry any more. She just looked hurt.

I lowered my eyes. Somehow, after a five-minute argument with my mother, I no longer felt so innocent. I felt like an
accomplice
.

‘Let me tell you something, Lex,’ my mother said eventually. ‘And I’m not sure right now whether or not it will mean anything to you – but I want you to listen. And I want you to think about it very carefully before you decide to say anything else.

‘Isaac Peterson is not a well man. He’s old and he’s frail. And he’s also all alone in the world. Can you imagine what that might feel like?’

I knew exactly what my mother was up to here: sending me on a guilt trip. Mr Peterson wasn’t
that
frail. His limp just made him incredibly slow on his feet, not infirm. And as for his age – well, he
was
almost twice as old as my mother, but he wasn’t nearly as old as Mr Stapleton, for example, who was approximately one hundred. The only indisputable fact in my mother’s assessment was that he was all alone in the world, and it was this that made my supposed trashing of his greenhouse so appalling.

In case you don’t happen to live in a small village, I should tell you the following information: in a small village, everyone knows at least three things about everyone else. It doesn’t matter how reclusive you try to be. The three things that everyone in the village knew about Mr Peterson were as follows:

1) He’d had one of his legs torn to ribbons in the Vietnam War, which was a war fought between America, North Vietnam and South Vietnamese guerrillas in the 1960s and 1970s.

2) His wife, Rebecca Peterson, an Englishwoman, had died three years earlier after a protracted battle with pancreatic cancer.

3) Because of facts 1) and 2) he was not of sound mind.

When my mother told me the first two facts – the third I had to infer – my last thoughts of self-preservation crumbled to dust. Because of Mr Peterson’s unfortunate situation, there was no chance of my escaping with just a slap on the wrist. Someone had to hang for the wanton destruction of his greenhouse, and that someone, evidently, was me.

All that was left to be resolved were the precise terms of my penance.

Mr Peterson’s house was a good house for a recluse. It was tucked away down a narrow, winding lane – at least two hundred yards back from the main road – and had a long private drive flanked by fifty-year-old poplars, which stood like sentinels guarding the only entrance and exit. Inside the main compound, there were more trees and hedgerows that had been allowed to grow several feet above head-height, and next to the front door there was a large bay window that revealed nothing more than a few inches of gloomy window sill. The curtains were closed. They had been closed yesterday too. They didn’t look like they were ever opened. Streaks of dirt and dust were visible in the dark folds of the fabric. I wrinkled my nose. My mother gave me a little prod in the small of my back.

‘Ouch!’ I protested.

‘Don’t drag your feet, Lex.’

‘I wasn’t!’

‘Putting this off isn’t going to make it any easier.’

‘But what if he doesn’t want to be disturbed?’

‘Don’t be a coward.’

‘I’m just saying that maybe we should ring first.’

‘We don’t need to ring. You’re doing this
now
.’

A few more steps and we were at the gabled porch.

‘Go on,’ my mother prompted. ‘This is
your
responsibility.’

I tapped on the door, with all the power of a farting flea.

A breathless moment passed.

My mother looked at me, rolled her eyes and knocked again on my behalf – thunderously.

There was an immediate outbreak of noisy barking from inside. I jumped about a foot in the air.

‘Lex, stay calm! It’s just a dog!’

This did little to reassure me. I felt uncomfortable with dogs. We’d always been a cat family. Luckily, it would turn out that Mr Peterson’s dog was even more of a coward than I was. He only ever barked when he was woken unexpectedly from a deep sleep, and this was a bark of abject panic – instinctual and frantic and completely devoid of aggression. But I didn’t know this at the time. I didn’t realize that the ten seconds of barking would inevitably be followed by a hasty retreat to the back of the closest sofa. I assumed that this was the Hound of the Baskervilles, baying for my blood.

A light came on, visible through a narrow pane of frosted glass above the door. I felt my mother’s hands clamp down on my shoulders. My moral fibre was still very much in question.