Look Around
Clare fielder
If it had not been for Barry Matlock, he would have been wearing his glasses. He would’ve got a good look at them then. There again, if it had not been for Barry Matlock, he never would have learnt what he learnt. What he learnt was there were people living in the woods. Not ordinary people like you or me or Barry Matlock, but people so small they must be magic. He knew lots of words for people like that, but they were all from fairy tales about the past. He wasn’t living in the past. He was living now, so he just called them people.
Normally he walked home from school up Fletcher Street, so he could look in at the model shop and make a note of new stock. However, on Monday lunch break Barry Matlock had broken his glasses, and Fletcher Street also meant walking past the bus shelter where Barry Matlock and his limpets hung around after school, flicking gravel at passing cars and snatching hats off the heads of any kids stupid enough to wear hats, and tossing the hats between them while the owner ran helplessly back and forth like a pin ball stuck in the corner of the machine. He didn’t want to walk past Barry Matlock, so instead he walked home through the woods.
Without his glasses, the woods looked like someone had painted a picture, then their little sister had scrubbed at the wet paint and ruined it to be spiteful. To him, the woods were a blur of yellow, evergreen, and murky brown. The occasional burst of red signified berries. It was the end of winter, and he was walking home in the light again, but there were still patches of frost where the sun hadn’t got through. He squinted and the path was clear enough – a more solid white smeared across the ground. As long as he stuck to it, he wouldn’t have to see to find his way. He took slow, deliberate steps, the earth frozen hard enough to fight back against his weight. The trill and whistle of birds danced ahead of him, like trumpets announcing the entrance of a messenger. He took deep breaths and felt the cold, clean air fill him up. Woods were nice, he thought. Now and then he squinted again, trying to bring the trees into focus, but it was no use. They were hallucinations of themselves. Dream trees. There were things he couldn’t see at all: unnatural holes torn in the shrubbery where plants had been twisted apart at the stalks and carried off, discarded bottle caps trodden into the mud, secret paths tramped through the bracken. Only there if you knew to look for them. He bent down and picked up a frost-edged leaf. He held it right in front of his face, where he could see the crackles across its surface like rivers on a map, then slowly moved it away. It was like turning the focus dial on a pair of binoculars. The leaf was unmade before him. He was holding it, but it was no longer a leaf, it was barely even a shape.
Out of the corner of his eye there was a flash of movement. Robin, he thought. But no, this wasn’t flight, it was running. Squirrel? Mouse? Again no. It was blue. He tried to follow the colour – so unnatural in the woods at this time of year - stumbling along the path, then veering off it, stamping through bracken and low brambles. They plucked at his trousers like tiny hands. The blue whatever-it-was was fast, and he quickly lost it. One moment he could just pick it out against blackberry leaves, the next it was nowhere. He slowed, and trudged to the spot where he had last seen it. He crouched down in front of the tangled blackberry bush. Brown shrivelled leaves hung down like bats. The whole thing was shrunken for winter, except for one miraculous berry that clung on. It was dark purple and plump. The first sign that magic must be stirring nearby. When he leaned his face right up close, the evidence was plain. A small, perfect bite had been taken from the berry, a tiny boot print was stamped into the frost that grabbed the bark of the stalk beneath it, and a fine blue thread was snagged on a thorn. He sat back on his heels. There were people living in the woods.
Hello, he whispered. Hello.
He listened. The birds had gone quiet. A twig snapped and in the distance there was a sound like sweeping.
I’m Loth, he said. He said he wasn’t there to do any harm, but if they would be so kind as to come out he would be very happy to meet them.
I believe in you, he said.
The sweeping was getting louder, and now it was punctuated by thwacks and voices that sounded not quite human. No words, just vowels. They sounded close.
I won’t hurt you, he said, a tremor in his voice. But the sound got louder, more rhythmic and mechanical, and the cries got more wild, and he imagined a swarm of tiny men rising up from the leaf litter, driving miniscule machines of war. His breath caught in his throat and he got to his feet and ran through the blur of the world.
At home, the old gas cooker made noises like someone was trapped inside, knocking on the wrong side of the metal door. He’d made Josie a miniature version of it out of balsa wood to go in her dolls’ house. He could hear the pop and sizzle of sausages cooking and couldn’t get out of his head the idea that they were flesh. A warmth seeped from the cooker to the corner of the kitchen where he sat, hunched over his Submarine Spitfire. His fingers fumbled over the carapace, unable to match up with what his eyes were telling them. Decals were sliding in and out of focus, like coins at the bottom of a fountain that turn out to be deeper than you think. He didn’t want to mess up the Spitfire so he sat back.
It didn’t occur to him to tell anyone. He hadn’t been wearing his glasses. He had no credibility. He needed more proof than a bitten berry. He thought back to the terrible sounds he’d heard in the woods. Now he was away from them, he felt small and stupid. They were just sounds. The oven knocked and he jumped out of his skin.
If it hadn’t been for Barry Matlock. He wouldn’t have been jostled in the corridor on the way out of assembly. He wouldn’t have heard the clack and skitter of his glasses falling to the floor and being kicked about by shuffling feet. He wouldn’t have been down on his knees, searching, fingers stepped on, and feeling like a crab lost in a kelp forest what with all the long grey legs waving about around him. He wouldn’t have heard the crunch, then the cackle, as Barry (with his looming face, always scratched and wind-burnt) brought his big monster foot down and stamped. Loth felt his stomach crumple like a piece of scrap paper. The worst had happened.
It was unavoidable that his mum found out about his glasses. She knew as soon as she came in and saw him at his modelling table with his face so close to his work there was a dot of paint no. 29, Dark Earth, on the end of his nose. He didn’t mention Barry Matlock. Instead, he made it sound like an accident in PE. A poorly aimed football. She said that he’d have to pay toward new ones with the pocket money he’d been hoarding in an old gherkin jar under his bed. He was saving up for a large-scale Lancaster Bomber. This would set him back months.
He lay curled on his side in bed and stared at the sepia wash of an old photograph taped to the wall, inches from his face. It wasn’t an original photo; he’d found it on the internet and printed it out. He knew it so well that his brain filled in the information his eyes were struggling to grasp. It was of an old bi-plane, but for once the plane wasn’t what he was interested in. He was interested in the two people standing on the wings, one at either end, holding tennis rackets. There was a small net strung up between them and everything. If you looked closely, you could see the blur of fields far below them.
He hoped it wasn’t a fake. His dad had told him once about two little girls who had taken fake photographs of fairies using illustrations they’d cut out of a book. Everyone had believed them and then the girls got in trouble when the world found out they were lying. He hoped this photograph wasn’t like that. He imagined not only the thrill of flight, but the giddiness of playing in the air, the tennis ball bouncing off the wings, inaudible over the wind whipping his clothes about.
Barry Matlock broke his glasses on Monday. On Tuesday, Loth returned to the woods. He had a headache like a fissure from staring at the whiteboard all day. He’d had to ask to sit at the front in every lesson to even stand a chance of seeing, and he’d ended the day with inky constellations covering the back of his shirt from Barry’s lot flicking their fancy fountain pens. More pocket money gone, he suspected. He’d be in arrears before the end of term.
The sun was stronger. The colours of the woods had melted back to brown, like the dappled coat of a deer draped over the bushes and trees. He followed the path, then cut across the curled bracken to where he thought was the right place, the site of the footprint. The blackberry bush was in the centre of a rough circle of trees – circles were also a sign of magic, he knew. He looked for more signs.
The thing about glasses, is that they keep your focus on the centre of things. The centre being the clear bit right in front of your face. They train you to stop seeing the peripheries, the shadow around the edge of things. The edge of things is where the people live.
He saw a glint down to the left of his feet and bent down, searching it out with his hands. An old ring pull. Still, he was undeterred. He walked towards a tree that felt good, and reached into the dark centre of a hollow. He thought if he were a person living in the woods, this would be a fine hangar. He unzipped his rucksack and carefully pulled out the model Spitfire. It fit into the hole perfectly. He positioned it so that the nose faced out towards the wood, and imagined a ground crew swarming around it.
Now, he addressed the woods, This is for you. I made it. Do you know what planes are? You probably do. Well, you can have this one if you like. I don’t know what kind of powers you have, like magic or energy or fuel or anything, but I bet you can fly it somehow. Anyway, I’m giving it to you to prove I’m a friend, and that I trust you. You can come out, it’s safe, but if you don’t trust me yet that’s alright too. I bet you don’t’ trust people much, and that’s smart but the thing is I’m not like most people because most people don’t like me. If I could have some sort of sign that you’re there and you understand, that would be good. Okay then. Oh, and if you can’t fly the plane that’s alright too, I can help with that. Just, yeah, let me know.
He was out of breath by the end of his speech. There was no eruption of tiny cheers or, as far as he could tell, an emergence of small faces peeking out at him. He supposed he might just be unable to see them. Perhaps they were camouflaged to blend in with the twigs and leaves – the flash of blue yesterday, which he suspected had been a winter coat, might have been an anomaly, on account of the frost.
He slumped down at the base of the tree. He stuffed his hands into his armpits. He waited.
He waited, and no one came, but that did not mean that nothing happened. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, and felt relief at the break from seeing and not seeing. His headache throbbed. Yes, he thought, I know you’re there, just be quieter about it. The headache didn’t listen. His face stung in the dry cold, but there were sequins of golden warmth too, where the last of the sun had snuck through. A high breeze set the tops of the trees swaying and he could hear it move through the woods like a wave receding on shingle. He felt himself expanding outwards from where he sat, with each breath the circle of his hearing grew to encompass more sounds: the distant cars on Fletcher Street, wood knocking against itself, the wings of birds. Sounds he couldn’t identify the source of. Hushing, snickering, sweep sweep thwack. A hiss. The untranscribable sound of a guttural shout of pain. His eyes flew open.
When his glasses broke, he’d felt afraid. Later, he had been angry and sad and ashamed, but in the moment after Barry Matlock’s foot came down all he knew was fear, for the armour that lived between him and the world had been taken away. His glasses kept him safe, but when he’d had them, he’d never heard a blackbird land. He’d been so busy looking where he was going, or at his models, or at his own feet, that he’d never glimpsed the people in the woods.
He walked home, leaving the Spitfire behind in the hollow of the tree. Just out of sight, there must be roads and byways, market squares and dance halls. Just below the ground perhaps, or in the treetops or behind hidden doors in the trunks themselves. Like boxes in an advent calendar. It made him feel protected, to know things others didn’t, even if he only knew them halfway.
Barry Matlock watched the boy he’d chosen as his enemy. It was good to have enemies. It showed you where you were in the order of things and gave you a place to put all the unwanted feelings that built up over the course of a day. His Mum said that everything had a rightful place. Loth was the place where Barry Matlock put his restlessness and his tiredness and his grief. (His mum had meant that cups went in the bottom shelf of the top left cupboard, whereas jugs went on the top shelf, but no matter. Lessons could come from anywhere).
He crouched in the bushes, watching Loth’s back. It was puzzling, the way Loth didn’t hide or cry or kick piles of leaves like most boys he knew after a bad day. Instead, he stood and talked to a tree awhile, then he sat and napped.
Finally, and most worryingly of all, Loth began to sweep through the bushes with his hands, dragging out dead tangles of bramble. He couldn’t be preparing, thought Barry Matlock. Loth had never been invited to the woods, not even to watch. The little pimple didn’t have the nerve.
Barry Matlock touched his own face gingerly. It was still swollen from the last time, but that couldn’t be helped. He felt the prickle deep in his own palms when he watched Loth pull up a clump of nettles by their bristled stalks. He’d seen enough. Loth was in for it now.
The thing about glasses was that they tricked you into believing there were clear boundaries between one object and the next, clear distinctions between this person and that. You believed that you could see the truth. The real danger of glasses was being able to believe that if you couldn’t see something, then it couldn’t possibly be there at all.
Loth had asked for a sign and he got one. The plane was not as he’d left it. No longer pristine, it bore the marks of flight. There were fine scratches on the wingtips, as if it had flown close to brambles. The paintwork was scuffed on the way into the cockpit. At home this would have filled him with fury, but in the woods he soared with the relief of being right.
You flew, he said. Thank you, I knew you would.
I told you he talked to trees.
Barry Matlock, not alone, strode into the clearing. A ring of boys stepped out of the bracken. Faces Loth couldn’t make out, but must have known.
I know what you’re planning, said Barry Matlock. Well, let’s have it then.
Loth looked around, dazzled, unsure how to speak up or even what he was speaking up against. All he could do was hold out the Spitfire in his hands.
It’s just a model, he said.
These are our woods, said Barry Matlock.
They’re not just yours. Loth spoke a little louder, counting on there being people just out of sight who might be on his side. There are people, they live here. The woods are theirs too.
He heard a few nervous laughs. Barry Matlock advanced, slowly solidifying until he was close enough for Loth to see the cluster of white bumps around his right eye. Stinging nettle stings.
I’ve seen you, Barry Matlock said. There’s no one in the woods but us. I’ve seen what you’re doing, and you’ve seen us haven’t you? You want to take part? Fine, let’s do it.
You broke my glasses, said Loth, but it came out small, and no one understood that he meant, of course he hadn’t seen Barry Matlock because he barely saw anything. Instead, they said things like, see out for revenge, and thinks he can fight back does he. He felt hands on him, turning him round, patting him down. He was ten steps behind himself. His jumper was pulled off over his head, the hairs on his arms stood up in the cold. Barry Matlock was down to his vest and was holding what looked like chaos. Loth only understood what it was when a brown-haired body bend down to the bundle of weeds he’d left the day before, when he’d tried to clear a runway, and thrust it into Loth’s own hands.
What? he said, but it was too late for questions or even fear – it was too late for anything because the boys had retreated back to form a ring and in the ring there was only him and Barry Matlock, who was raising his bundle of nettles and brambles and thorny branches and was bringing it, with a sweep and a thwack, down across Loth’s shoulders. The pain made colours burst in front of him. Barry Matlock was already raising his arms again. Loth saw scratches and the nettle stings on his face. He saw a tiny bite taken out of a blackberry. He raised his own bundle and struck back. There was a cheer from the faceless boys.
Barry Matlock beat his enemy with branches. Both boys’ arms were red from the cold and their breaths made a fog between them. When the brambles caught him, Barry Matlock laughed and the fog thickened. He could hear his blood moving.
Loth’s face was damp. He didn’t want to be here. He closed his eyes and thought of machines of war. Even as he aimed his thorns at the sound of Barry Matlock he wanted to lie down and surrender. He wanted to burrow under the earth and live amongst the tiny people. He wanted a home in the roots of a tree and a blue duffel coat to keep him warm on frosty mornings. He needed help. He needed a squadron.
I’m here, he said, panting. I’m here, come save me.
There was the whip of stems splicing the air and coming down and down onto his back. He tried to breathe. He tried to expand outwards. Birds. Frost. Helicopter seeds falling like rain and spinning to the ground. And they spun and spun and then transformed and they were roaring in his ears and he could see them. Propellors.
