Crook Woods

It had been twenty-four years since she’d last seen it, but the place looked exactly the same, apart from the plaque declaring what she remembered as ‘Woolwicke’ was now ‘Little Beam’. The white painted double garage with its navy blue painted roller shutter doors. The neighbour’s lamppost she used to be able to see peeping over the hedge when playing in the garden, making believe Mr Tumnas was waiting for her under it, even in midsummer. The conservatory she could see from between the bars of the wrought iron front gate. The shadow inside the conservatory that could well have been her mother waiting anxiously for her eight-year-old self to be delivered home from school by the child’s father. A shadow which suddenly moved.

Joanne gasped, took a couple of steps backwards and pretended to be busy looking at the map on her phone, which she hadn’t needed for the last mile and a half. Nothing had changed about the country lane she’d been walking down either – the same twists and turns where parents had taught her to walk facing oncoming traffic (tractors seem so slow until as a pedestrian you nearly barge headfirst into one coming round a turn), the same corner of the field where the farmer’s horse would sometimes be standing, hopeful of an apple. The same elm tree she used to play in, pretending hedgehogs, mice and birds queueing up to move into the miniature treehouses she built for them. That elm tree had been as far as she was allowed from the house – where mother could still keep an eye on her from the kitchen window.

Joanne turned to the path that led past more fields to Crook Woods. The name had thrilled her when she and her parents had moved to the area. Although she was scared when her dad first suggested (“to give your mum a break”) they take a walk to see them. He had to gently explain that the woods weren’t full of thieves. Crook could mean the stick belonging to a shepherd, or the crook of your elbow, he suggested, tickling Joanne in hers. She’d squealed. He’d laughed. Mother tutted. Mother didn’t like sudden loud noises. Ironic seeing as she could be (and often was) the loudest of the three, after a few glasses of red. The glasses she hadn’t smashed when screaming at her husband, unable to let some past grievance go. Joanne had never got to the bottom of the mystery, but was pretty sure it was because her dad had an ex-wife, and as would become startling apparent over the coming years, mother had to come first.

Joanne shifted her weight from one foot to the other, hearing the crunch of small pebbles kicked up onto the grass by passing tractors and reminding her of how her cat, Barley, had used to shuffle his bottom after padding gently across those pebbles two and a half decades ago, then diving for some poor creature he’d spotted scurrying in the hedge. That was before the rules changed and he was only allowed out on a lead around the garden. He’d come back early one morning after having spent the night in the field with the sheep, his miaow having evolved to a bleat, which to mother’s ears may as well have been effing and blinding.

Readjusting her rucksack straps, Joanne began trudging up towards the woods. She turned her phone off. She owed it to him not to be distracted. She’d been burying herself in the lives of others for too long, be they real or fictional.

As she walked, she kept glancing at her feet. Remembering how she used to walk at a fast pace to match daddy’s long strides in the ruts formed by vehicles, while he walked on the wider grassy middle. She felt her bag bouncing softly off her back and thought of how she and her dad would fish the first of the sandwiches mother had wrapped up for their journey. An abundance which suggested mother was thinking (perhaps hoping) they were walking to the next county. They’d eat ham sandwiches, cut into small squares, to lighten the load. Plus it was a small act of rebellion at the strict mealtimes that punctuated their lives.

The woods were growing larger now. She picked up the pace, but still went carefully. No-one around to scoop her up if she tripped. She thought of the time she fell and called out “Daddy!” – a big deal as she’d just recently started calling him ‘Dad’. The children at her new school made fun of her for talking about her ‘Daddy’. So she tried to change.

“Ever the people pleaser,” 33-year-old Joanne muttered darkly.

She listened to the call of some bird and kicked herself for not paying enough attention when her father had described what breed of bird made what cry. The woods became a smudge. She forced herself to think of other things – reminding herself to take cash out later for the B&B that only accepted that form of payment, to look up train times for the return journey, and whether she fancied a bath or a shower later.

After thinking and blinking, finally the woods stood in sharp focus again. She inhaled deeply as she drew up to them, as if standing in a shuttle doorway before stepping off into deep space without an oxygen tank.

Joanne walked into the darkness.

As she tried to remember the way to their tree, she could hear her younger self beseeching her to slow down, to look around. She smiled as she recalled how she used to like to stop and investigate every little thing while her dad had walked on ahead, calling out intermittently for her to keep up. For Joanne this was a day of exploration outside her yellow painted bedroom walls. For him, it was a chance to exercise to counteract the consumption of “your father’s bedtime snacks" as her mother had dubbed them. Whiskey and bowls of salted peanuts.

“More like ‘coping mechanisms’,” Joanne said to a wooden post at the stile she’d paused at. No big hairy hand to help her over it.

A flash of red caught her eye. Joanne hunkered down to inspect it, wincing as her knees popped. She picked up a twig to wipe a leaf off the object. Shotgun cartridge. From clay pigeon shooting, came dad’s explanation in the back of her head, followed by “best not tell your mum you found this. She’d have kittens.” That imagery never failed to make Joanne giggle and she could feel the mirth bubbling up in her again. She briefly considered strangling it, but then just let it take over. There was calamity in the trees above as a flock of birds flew off in fright at the eruption, making Joanne laugh even harder.

She stood up unsteadily, wiped her eyes, carried on. She was lost but didn’t care. She knew from many solo expeditions if you just keep walking for long enough, you’ll get somewhere.

She played with the cartridge, admiring how the occasional streak of sunlight that filtered through the canopy ignited the gold at one end. She would look up later whether it could be recycled. Waste being more of a pressing issue to her now than it was to the little girl who left dozens blooming in the woods in the mid-1990s.

She continued letting her feet take her where they wanted. A pity it wasn’t bluebell season. Seeing carpets of the merrily bobbing trumpet shaped petals always filled her with delight. She tried to forget how mother had berated them for bringing back a posy, adamant they were a ‘protected’ species and asking why they wanted her to get in trouble with the police.

Interrupting her chain of thoughts was the tree, standing with boughs open in welcome, exactly how she remembered. Joanne stood still for a moment, afraid if she blinked it might disappear. When it didn’t, she walked slowly towards it, shrugging off her backpack. She unrolled and laid her blanket down between the knotted roots (“the witches they buried alive instead of burned” he’d suggested in a mock horror B movie narrator’s voice, one distant October).

All their walks, whatever direction, had brought them circling round to this tree. Joanne had been certain this would be the case even now.

Joanne sat for a while there, resting her legs, while the showreel of memories did the opposite. She let them play.

“It’s time, dad,” she said eventually, rising to her feet. She took the box out of the bag.

Even though she had difficulty finding the right words, the right opportunities, to tell him when he was still alive how much having at least one parent who enjoyed her company meant to her, she knew he had known already. As she watched his ashes swirl and dissipate, specks blending into the network of roots, others clouds floating up to settle into the leaves and branches, a peace seemed to hug her heart and confirm that truth. He had known, and she was loved, and that was all that mattered.